Jocko Podcast 152 w/ Derek Herrera: Discipline, Drive, and Sacrifice. The Ethos of a Marine Raider.

2018-11-21T23:38:09Z

Join the conversation on Twitter/Instagram: @jockowillink @derekherrera @echocharles 0:00:00 - Opening 0:03:12 - The life of Derek Herrera. 1:57:22 - Final thoughts and take-aways. 2:00:06 - Support/How to stay on THE PATH. 2:21:14 - Closing gratitude.

AI summary of episode

And so, as these things arose, you know, one of the guys who is, or was, is it, employee of the organization now, and so it was a currently an active duty radar at that time, it was like, hey man, like, we're starting this nonprofit to help guys, like, if you need anything to say, say so. And so I know that, so everybody else that we were, you know, everybody else in our team now are like the 90 to 100% guys, and so, um, I'm trying to be more like that, and not even think about it, because if, if this doesn't work, got it. So it was thoroughly humbled and then as I was kind of, you know, coming to the realization of what I wanted to do with my life, what now, you know, had a mentor of mine who I really respected, who was a Marine Ranger and said, you know, Derek, like, I can help you try to get in the Marine Corps. And so on, her out province, guys are, you know, walk around with just a pistol and driving on motorbikes and, you know, drinking tea and hanging out, no helmets like, you know, not getting shot at, very, very, very different experience than, then where we were. But, but yeah, I know that's a, that's a good point, and that's, well, you heard me say it because you kind of referenced it a little bit, you know, I always tell guys that you need to find a new mission, whatever that new mission is, you've got to find a new mission. And just like Buds has right like, oh, yeah, you know, I bet back in the day, those new Marsock instructors like no one's getting through my course. And I guess, so that's part number two and what these two things reinforced to me is, you know, what, like, there's so much going on that, that I don't see that, that, because you know, I hadn't been injured like that. And then, in a moment, you know, if I can't figure out how to make this guy like me or this G-Force commander, you know, execute this mission with me, like, I'm on the bubble, right? He's going to be perfect regardless because he's such a like, like boom, high achiever dude from day one, you know, so, you know, J.P. is a loose cannon. Yeah, but, uh, I'm always, I've always been like a versatile guy, not like the, you know, execution like the 100% I'm the zero to 90% guy, not the 90% 100% of the money. And so those are the two things I think that every day, even to this day, continue to push me forward is like, you know, setting out on the mission and the vision that I want to achieve in the purpose for my life and taking advantage of every day because, you know, it's an opportunity. So when I come home, I just know that like she's been just getting run around and thrown at yelled at cried, you know, diapers like the whole thing. We have a, like, a, like, a, you know, just like you guys have the Trident. And for us, you know, we were able to, as long as we met certain criteria and, you know, able to justify it, we're able to drop cast where we needed to, you know, which was very different. This is an authorized all that kind of stuff whereas the army's like, you know, army without hey, you know, I'm in the single team's man. No, I would have guys ask me that, you know, guys, once I was back, what I was still in, because you know how am I supposed to get guys fired up to do this mission when it's all we're going to be doing is drinking tea. And I could see his face getting a little bit, you know, like, like a little bit of a little bit of strain in his face. So we kind of, it's just the way, you know, it just seems like if someone was a Marine already and then they made it through that first course and now they show up at this course, it seems like that's, that's a lot of hoops to jump through to get to there and then quit. Like, if we do a better job of selecting guys or get more guys starting or whatever else, right, like, if the output is a trained operator and we need these guys, then was there any part of that training that you thought was hard? I mean, I get that because, you know, in this whole teams, we have the same thing like, like, people will rally around and make stuff happen. so I think that one of that's a good comparison, you know, just from hearing him tell his story about, you know, what his recovery was like, and it was. And so then they just kind of, you know, put the spotlight on me and, you know, put me, put me on the bubble right because like, you fail anything and you're done. But inside, and you know, even though I was like, man, that, you know, you got to be better than that. The work up cycle, I think was probably similar to, you know, with the seal teams that done where it's, you know, you come back, you go back and immediately guys are shuck out to schools, individual training, and then come back to collective training, and then deploy. The first time it ever entered my mind when I was researching what your medical devices are and I was like, you know, how ignorant am I, you know, to be sitting here and never even thought of that. Yeah, I don't know if you ever know a guy named Jake Schick, but he was on here and he told his story, and that's like, that's what it was. Like we've put all of our, you know, this is what we raised money to do, you know, we haven't, we don't, we can't knowingly devote a minute of time to anything else until this is successful. And we had a lot of resources to do that when it was, you know, the intelligence assets that we had at our disposal, you know, as a captain in the Marine Corps had assets that were, like, more than a Mucamander. Like you said, like moving a family, helping to pay for the movement of a family, helping to redec, you know, get furniture for the new apartment. We were flew in on a helicopter into the giant dirt field, which, you know, we were bouncing CYR and, you know, setting up fire plants, catches and everything, just to get, you know, everything squared away. And he was like, yeah, well, you know, like at night, I mean, I, I take my legs off And it's one of those things, you know, there's no worse feeling for me than that feeling of like, oh, if I fail this, this is like my whole life dream done and destroyed. So you just see, so like, you know, you're going into your first sergeant and they're like, Where's your skippy shirt?

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jockel Podcast number 152.
[00:00:03] With echo Charles and me, Jockel Willink.
[00:00:06] Good evening echo.
[00:00:08] Good evening.
[00:00:12] These are men that would rather die than live with the shame that they didn't offer their last
[00:00:19] breath in service to the men to their left and to their right in battle.
[00:00:24] Each man was shaped through immense trials, personal fortitude and dedication, giving
[00:00:32] all he had to offer.
[00:00:34] At times, when only the great pride of walking in the path least traveled was there to keep
[00:00:42] him company.
[00:00:45] Through constant discipline, drive and sacrifice, they have risen to the top of their
[00:00:51] trade and embodied the ethos of the marine radar.
[00:00:56] A man who displays the very pinnacle of soldiery virtue and unwavering loyalty.
[00:01:03] A man who will never quit or surrender and who will at all times stand ready to sacrifice
[00:01:11] whatever is needed to accomplish the mission.
[00:01:17] They stand as shiny examples of what our nation intrus its freedom and respect to.
[00:01:27] Nothing is more awe-inspiring than the look on a fellow operator's face as they are surrounded
[00:01:33] by death.
[00:01:37] The casual smile of confidence as they acknowledge that things will be what they'll be.
[00:01:45] But if this is the way we die, then let's do it right and honor our legacy.
[00:01:56] When surrounded on all sides, we faced what seemed the inevitability of death, not a man
[00:02:06] before you skipped a beat in their commitment.
[00:02:11] All are nothing, death or glory.
[00:02:23] And those are some excerpts from a speech by marine radar gun resargent Brian C.
[00:02:34] Jacqueline talking about a mission that he was on.
[00:02:38] And I think in that speech he did a great job of explaining the type of man that makes up the
[00:02:46] marine radars, which is the marine core component of special operations.
[00:02:53] And tonight we are lucky enough to be sitting with one of those men.
[00:02:59] A United States Marine, a special operations radar and a true hero, Derek Herrera.
[00:03:08] Welcome, man.
[00:03:12] Thanks for coming on.
[00:03:13] Thanks for having me to be here.
[00:03:14] It's awesome to have you on here, man.
[00:03:16] I know we got hooked up through some old mutual friends and I'm glad we did and I'm glad
[00:03:21] to sit down and be able to talk to you.
[00:03:24] Here's a little bit about you and your life and everything that you've done.
[00:03:29] As usual, let's start in a little rock arc and saw.
[00:03:34] Sounds good.
[00:03:35] Where's your born, right?
[00:03:37] I was born in Litterock, Arkansas.
[00:03:39] What was the family doing in Litterock, Arkansas?
[00:03:43] My father was pilot in the Air Force.
[00:03:46] So he was stationed there and I was born there in 1984.
[00:03:51] And then how long were you guys moving around all the time?
[00:03:53] Typical military family?
[00:03:54] Yes, absolutely.
[00:03:56] So moved about every two or three years.
[00:03:59] So lived in Arkansas for about two years.
[00:04:01] moved to Illinois, I think, for a year or two and then Honduras for an overseas assignment
[00:04:08] to go see all the Honduras in the late 80s, which was pretty interesting.
[00:04:12] Do you speak Spanish then?
[00:04:14] No.
[00:04:15] I did for a while and then tried to replace it with Arabic and then Pashto.
[00:04:20] I learned that it's not one of my gifts.
[00:04:23] Let's just go away and then get a tarp.
[00:04:25] Exactly.
[00:04:26] So no one have to be tactically conversant.
[00:04:29] But no, so live there for a few years and then my dad moved to Dover, Delaware, where
[00:04:36] I was stationed at Dover Air Force Base.
[00:04:37] He was a C-130 and C-5 pilot and continued to bounce around, but at that time, elementary
[00:04:43] school, my parents had divorced.
[00:04:44] So my family still lives in Delaware today.
[00:04:48] Also the opportunity to live in Colorado and a few other places.
[00:04:51] At what age were you and you got sort of like the military bug in your head?
[00:04:57] It was always a family business.
[00:04:59] So my grandfathers were both near force for 25 years and 28 years, respectively, they were
[00:05:04] enlisted in the Air Force.
[00:05:08] And my father was an Air Force for 22 years in active duty.
[00:05:11] How did you get knocked it by the Air Force bug?
[00:05:13] It was interesting.
[00:05:14] So go through high school.
[00:05:17] I'd always never wanted to serve in the military and started to get interested in the
[00:05:22] surface academy option as well.
[00:05:24] So when I lived in Colorado, actually, I was, I moved my dad when he was stationed
[00:05:27] at the Air Force Academy.
[00:05:29] So I moved on the Air Force Academy when I was there for seven to eighth grade.
[00:05:32] And just always was drawn to that line of work.
[00:05:36] And, does that Air Force Academy is, that's a nice environment.
[00:05:41] It's a really nice environment.
[00:05:43] It's beautiful, beautiful.
[00:05:44] Yeah, yeah.
[00:05:46] And your dad was working there and that it seemed, it was not, I mean, when you say
[00:05:51] you were thinking about the military academies, were you thinking of the Air Force
[00:05:55] Academy as your primary or no.
[00:05:58] So after that experience, in ninth grade, I moved back and lived with my mom in high
[00:06:02] school in Delaware.
[00:06:04] And my senior year of high school had been playing lacrosse up at that point and had
[00:06:12] the opportunity to go and play for Navy or try to walk on at least and had decent
[00:06:16] relationship with the coaches there.
[00:06:18] And so I was a plane in Navy and Air Force.
[00:06:21] And also wanted to be a Navy SEAL actually.
[00:06:24] And so at that time, I wanted to go to Naval Academy.
[00:06:27] And so soon as I got in and got accepted there, stopped to plan other places and just
[00:06:32] decided to go there.
[00:06:33] Right on.
[00:06:34] Did you visit the Naval Academy?
[00:06:37] Do you know what was going on at the Naval Academy?
[00:06:39] I thought I was the only reason I asked that is because like, I mean, I know I was not
[00:06:45] the most squared away kid.
[00:06:46] I was kind of a rebellious kid.
[00:06:47] And even though I loved the military, I think if I would have
[00:06:51] gone to, I went to West Point when I was a little kid and that kind of got me fired up,
[00:06:55] I think my dad took me to some kind of game there.
[00:06:57] I mean, I was really young, like maybe seven or eight or something like that.
[00:07:01] But it was enough to make me go, yeah, you know, I kind of.
[00:07:04] But I think if I saw it when I was a little bit older, I don't know.
[00:07:07] I think I would have just said, like, I don't know if I can put up with all that right now.
[00:07:11] Yeah.
[00:07:12] But you did.
[00:07:14] You were like, I'm, I'm bringing it.
[00:07:16] You know, at any 17 year old young man, doesn't always have all the right motivations.
[00:07:24] And you know, you have all the reasons why you go to a place like that.
[00:07:27] And what I found after I had gone there was that those reasons change once or there.
[00:07:33] And so I entered in 2002, I should have left or September 11th.
[00:07:37] It wasn't solely out of patriotic duty and every, you know, and those sorts of things
[00:07:41] it was because, you know, I'd already got in, I'd wanted to play the cross there.
[00:07:46] I was in love with my school sweetheart from Delaware who's now still my wife of almost 13 years.
[00:07:53] And so those were the reasons why I initially decided to go to that point.
[00:07:57] How did you have in your high school sweetheart?
[00:07:59] How did that plan to go into the Naval Academy?
[00:08:01] Because you would be close by?
[00:08:02] Yeah, it was about an hour drive away on it.
[00:08:04] So she could come and see me on the weekend and kind of stuff.
[00:08:09] And so those were some of the initial reasons why I went there.
[00:08:11] In addition, all the patriotic reasons as well.
[00:08:13] But what I found when I was there and your challenge and your tested is those smaller,
[00:08:19] superficial motivators often fade away.
[00:08:21] Right?
[00:08:22] And what you left with is those reasons why I initially went here aren't going to continue
[00:08:26] to put me through the rest of this trial.
[00:08:29] Right?
[00:08:30] And so the motivation and the things that I learned from there at that point was the seniors
[00:08:36] that we had watched and we're led by who had just graduated.
[00:08:41] We're literally going forward and leading,
[00:08:44] Marines and sailors in battle.
[00:08:46] And we literally watched that on television with the invasion of Iraq and the things
[00:08:50] going on in Afghanistan and really bought into the entire leadership philosophy and wanted
[00:08:56] to be a part of that and wanted to be that and follow that example.
[00:08:59] So those were the reasons why I tried to stay and continue to move forward and become
[00:09:03] a military officer.
[00:09:05] I was, I've been like apologizing to people because there's actually been a pretty decent
[00:09:12] number of people that have joined the military because of listening to all of us and the
[00:09:17] guys that bring on here talk about their experiences and they just think that sounds
[00:09:21] pretty cool.
[00:09:22] And I always say, hey, just don't be mad at me.
[00:09:25] Like the first two weeks that you're going through boot camp or whatever, don't be mad
[00:09:28] because it's just like, it's going to be a shock to your system when you lose all that
[00:09:33] freedom that you've had.
[00:09:35] But I totally agree with you in the fact that once you get through that initial shock
[00:09:39] and you realize that there's a long-term thing going on here and you want to be a part
[00:09:43] of it, that's, yeah, that's, that's awesome.
[00:09:47] And especially for you guys that came in after September 11th because that's it, that's
[00:09:50] a, I don't know if people can appreciate that what the difference is between the pre-September
[00:09:56] 11th and post September 11th.
[00:09:58] I mean, pre-September 11th, there was almost, in fact, my first
[00:10:03] deployment to Iraq, my seal-platoon had zero combat experience, zero, zero.
[00:10:08] So no one had any combat experience at all.
[00:10:11] The most things that anyone had done at that point was doing ship boardings in the Persian
[00:10:16] Gulf, which is not combat experience.
[00:10:19] It's just a, it's just a, a fairly administrative operation.
[00:10:24] And now every single guy, every single guy in the seal teams has combat experience, every
[00:10:29] single guy.
[00:10:30] Well, I mean, boring, maybe a few outliers, but basically every single guy, you know,
[00:10:35] the Marine Corps, look at the Marine Corps right now.
[00:10:37] I mean, it's been, it's been what 17 years of fighting and the combat experience is just so
[00:10:44] incredible compared to prior to September 11th, which it was totally rare to have somebody
[00:10:52] at a seal team that was in the first Gulf War that was in one of the three pletunes that
[00:10:56] got to do something.
[00:10:57] And what they did, you know, God bless them, they were doing their duty, but it wasn't
[00:11:01] these big long sustained combat operations.
[00:11:04] Yeah, it's interesting.
[00:11:05] And I think that's something that, you know, I think about a lot today, especially when
[00:11:09] we talk about Millennials and everything else and they get a bad rap, but everybody knows
[00:11:13] what they're joining the military to do, like, and some men and women run to the
[00:11:17] sound of the gun, and some don't.
[00:11:19] And so the people at the continuous stay and like, there was no question of what you're
[00:11:22] doing if you signed up to join the Marine Corps or the seals right?
[00:11:26] Then how did that selection process, you said you wanted to possibly go in the seal teams?
[00:11:29] How did that work out that you didn't go in the seal teams?
[00:11:32] And that's got to be a tough decision to make.
[00:11:35] Yeah.
[00:11:36] And sometimes it's made for you, right?
[00:11:37] So Naval Academy is a very, very humbling experience.
[00:11:42] And so as I came out of high school, I was kind of a very talented young athlete, and
[00:11:47] you know, was able to get in.
[00:11:50] But I was also from a small town and you know, didn't have the humility and ownership
[00:11:56] needed to be a part of the teams.
[00:11:59] And that became readily apparent, you know, I was physically capable, but just wasn't mature
[00:12:03] enough, honestly.
[00:12:04] And it was, you know, didn't have that right mindset.
[00:12:07] So it was thoroughly humbled and then as I was kind of, you know, coming to the realization
[00:12:11] of what I wanted to do with my life, what now, you know, had a mentor of mine who I really
[00:12:17] respected, who was a Marine Ranger and said, you know, Derek, like, I can help you try to
[00:12:23] get in the Marine Corps.
[00:12:24] If you're still wanted to do that, and that's what you want to think you'd make it
[00:12:26] great officer.
[00:12:27] And, you know, the Marine Corps that you see at the Naval Academy is not what is the
[00:12:32] reality, right, of what the fleet does.
[00:12:34] Because I had a really bad taste from Marines there because all the Marines have
[00:12:38] our drill instructors.
[00:12:39] And it was their job to mess with you.
[00:12:41] And so I was like, man, Marines are down.
[00:12:43] I don't want to be like that.
[00:12:46] But the more I got to know the reality of what it was like in the fleet and what real
[00:12:49] Marines were doing, decided to pursue it and absolutely loved it.
[00:12:52] It was the best thing for me.
[00:12:53] And did you get, so then you go from there to from the Academy, go to the basics school?
[00:12:58] Correct.
[00:12:59] Yeah, so we go to the basics school.
[00:13:00] We go for the six months of the basics school and with every Marine officer, so every
[00:13:05] Marine officer has a ground there, everybody goes through that same process.
[00:13:10] And then during that time, there's another selection.
[00:13:12] So literally rank every choice you have from, you know, thanks, supply, logistics, finance,
[00:13:19] like one through 21, if you're a ground officer or if you're pilot, obviously you have a flight
[00:13:24] contract, you don't have to do that.
[00:13:26] But you rank it and then they do a quality spread during which you get.
[00:13:30] So in some cases, pre 9-11, like you said, it was really hard and competitive to become
[00:13:35] a free officer.
[00:13:37] And then when we were there, it was still pretty competitive until,
[00:13:42] about halfway through the course, or, excuse me, like a month out from the end of the course,
[00:13:47] because man power came down and was like, we're standing up a new infantry regiment.
[00:13:51] So boom.
[00:13:52] Yeah.
[00:13:53] And so I think I would have gotten infantry regardless, but either way, got what I wanted.
[00:13:57] It was my first choice and that's exactly what I wanted to do and before.
[00:14:01] And then where did you go from there, where'd you?
[00:14:03] So you stay in Quanico for a three month course called Infantry Officer's course?
[00:14:07] Get some.
[00:14:08] And it's amazing.
[00:14:10] Yeah.
[00:14:11] It's just training experiences there are.
[00:14:14] And so you learn web and systems, you learn, you know, all different kinds of basics,
[00:14:19] million of tactics, everything you need to be able to lead a rifle tune in, you know,
[00:14:25] infantry battalion.
[00:14:26] Yeah, I don't know if you, yeah, you said you listen to the podcast with Jim Web on it.
[00:14:31] And like his first of all, and so then you went to a battalion and then you started to work
[00:14:35] up.
[00:14:36] Yeah.
[00:14:37] Some web went from that school to Vietnam and they like brought him out in the field
[00:14:42] and dropped him off and said, there's your platoon over there.
[00:14:45] The guy you're replacing is no longer with us and you're going to go take over that
[00:14:49] battalion and he walked up on the side of a hill and said, hey, how you doing?
[00:14:52] I'm Lieutenant Web and here's what we're going to do.
[00:14:56] And then that night they got a big firefight and he called and, you know, combined arms
[00:15:00] and man.
[00:15:02] But that school must be must be an awesome school.
[00:15:04] It's pretty amazing.
[00:15:05] Yeah.
[00:15:06] And by the time we were there, we had.
[00:15:07] Really phenomenal leaders and instructors who were able to teach us because they were fresh
[00:15:12] off the battlefield in Iraq and were able to teach us exactly what we were going to do.
[00:15:16] And so for me, I went into a long workup prior to deploying but some of our guys were just
[00:15:20] like what happened to Jim Web.
[00:15:21] No kidding.
[00:15:22] They had maybe a month or meeting their platoon at their final exercise as they're stepping
[00:15:27] off to go to Iraq.
[00:15:29] And so that's no joke.
[00:15:30] There was, yeah, it was pretty interesting.
[00:15:32] So for me, you know, I ended up going to a new battalion that was standing up first battalion
[00:15:37] nine Marines, the walking dead and had about a year roughly to work on my platoon and
[00:15:45] to train before we ended up deploying to Iraq.
[00:15:48] And that was just a standard ground pounder in Fitchery, Platoon.
[00:15:52] Initially, yes.
[00:15:53] Yeah.
[00:15:54] And so we were a standard rifle platoon and then about two months before deployment.
[00:16:02] And so we were just on the needs of the situation in Romadi.
[00:16:05] We're employing to the decision was made to actually break us down into smaller training
[00:16:12] teams and advisory teams.
[00:16:13] And so my platoon of, you know, roughly 40 Marines and sailors turned into 12 mantimes,
[00:16:20] which I was in charge of one, a my platoon sergeant was in charge of another one.
[00:16:23] And so the reason they did that was because that was roughly the minimum size required to partner
[00:16:30] with effectively for these police stations.
[00:16:32] And so at that time, due to the successes of people like yourself and the other people
[00:16:40] that had fought in Romadi and turned the tide of the battle, we were consolidating and
[00:16:45] basically, you know, withdrawing a lot of the combat power.
[00:16:48] And so we took over for two different infantry battalions in another army unit with just
[00:16:53] one infantry battalion.
[00:16:54] So we had the entire air evocations for just one time.
[00:17:00] And so I had initially one police station that was partnered with, you know, as a young
[00:17:06] lieutenant in a 12-man team, we partnered with an Iraqi Colonel over 800 Iraqi police.
[00:17:13] For whereabouts were you?
[00:17:14] We were in a small neighborhood just south of Camp Romadi called Tamiim.
[00:17:17] Okay.
[00:17:18] To me.
[00:17:19] So all of Tamiim, we were managing with the police there because the police had done such a
[00:17:23] good job and taken over that, you know, we were in the back seat.
[00:17:28] Yeah, most totally.
[00:17:29] Just to give everyone a tooth, this is 2008, right?
[00:17:31] Great.
[00:17:32] So the major fighting kind of tapered off in in 07, I mean, early 07, they were pretty, it
[00:17:41] was pretty calm.
[00:17:42] I know the guys that relieved us by the time they left, it was very calm in Romadi.
[00:17:47] You know, obviously there's still always going to be a threat.
[00:17:49] But like Tamiim, when we were there, there was, there was a lot, there was really
[00:17:53] bad big, gnarly IEDs into me when we were there and it was awful.
[00:17:58] Some of those humbese would get hit and it would just be, you know, they'd lose three, four,
[00:18:04] five guys at a shot.
[00:18:05] It was horrible.
[00:18:07] But, you know, that's awesome.
[00:18:09] And that's I always trying to explain to people that, that in Romadi, we actually won.
[00:18:15] And you know, you're proof of that when you were over there and you guys were, I'm sure
[00:18:20] doing out civil affairs and, you know, that type of thing is that basically what you were
[00:18:25] doing.
[00:18:26] Yeah, we were, you know, just really just trying to turn it over to the police there.
[00:18:30] And so got to sit on, you know, the weekly sure rows and the council meetings and hang out
[00:18:35] and drink tea with the current all.
[00:18:37] And we tried to do operations with them and everything, but they locked the place down.
[00:18:42] I mean, literally by the time we were there, they had, you know, triple strain concertino
[00:18:46] wire and checkpoints all around the entire cities.
[00:18:48] They were controlling the flow of, they prevented the flow of any, you know, any material
[00:18:52] or any fighters so that then they did such a good job that honestly, I don't think anybody
[00:18:58] shot us the entire deployment.
[00:18:59] We got a few different smaller IDs here and there at one major incident with the Vicoborn
[00:19:04] ID that killed a lot of our Iraqi policemen, unfortunately.
[00:19:09] But none of our Americans were involved or gotten injured at that time.
[00:19:14] But they were very well trained fighting force and, you know, they did good work.
[00:19:20] How was it set in the expectations for your 19-year-old Marines that were, you know, on
[00:19:27] deployment with you, that were expecting to go get some.
[00:19:30] Yeah.
[00:19:31] That was interesting.
[00:19:32] So, you got to, you got to deal with the missions that you're, you're given, right?
[00:19:37] And so, the average 19-year-old Lance Corporal, 18-year-old Lance Corporal at that time,
[00:19:44] you know, signed up to join to go fight.
[00:19:47] That wasn't our mission.
[00:19:48] And so, we were very cognizant of that and over the year, the work up we were well-educated
[00:19:52] too.
[00:19:53] So, we had direct comms with the teams we were turning over with over class of any male network
[00:19:58] and those sorts of things and we were able to find out exactly what we'd be going
[00:20:01] into.
[00:20:02] And so, we were able to manage those expectations appropriately.
[00:20:04] Yeah.
[00:20:05] And because of that, we were successful, I think, our team performed well.
[00:20:10] You know, they were obviously frustrated at times.
[00:20:12] Yeah.
[00:20:13] No, I would have guys ask me that, you know, guys, once I was back, what I was still in,
[00:20:20] because you know how am I supposed to get guys fired up to do this mission when it's
[00:20:23] all we're going to be doing is drinking tea.
[00:20:26] And you know, I'd say, listen, that's still your mission.
[00:20:29] And you have to do it to the best of your ability and get the Iraq police trained up
[00:20:32] as best you can.
[00:20:34] And like, you still have to just attack it with everything you've got regardless of
[00:20:38] what that mission is.
[00:20:39] And that's, hey, man, that's what that's what the nation is calling on you to do.
[00:20:43] And that's what that is right there.
[00:20:44] And so go do it to the best of your ability.
[00:20:46] And that's, again, you know, that's why I asked you that question because believe me, you
[00:20:50] get these young kids, man, they don't want to have tea with anybody.
[00:20:53] No, there's one shoot they're saw.
[00:20:55] Yeah.
[00:20:56] And we're pretty fortunate.
[00:20:58] And we did do some interesting things as well.
[00:21:01] So, because we had access and placement within the neighborhood, to me, what's kind of a
[00:21:10] pretty tightly packed urban area and a lot of people would come and go.
[00:21:16] And so at that time, we had great intelligence networks that would able to help us identify
[00:21:22] if somebody didn't belong and we were able to work with our counterparts to try to intervene
[00:21:28] before they were able to cause any issues.
[00:21:31] And so we mounted up for a few different raids, which kept the guns motivated and things.
[00:21:39] But it's kind of a good and bad thing, right?
[00:21:42] There's no fight going on in the other guards.
[00:21:46] Good in the sense that the guys are safe and came back and were able to have a successful
[00:21:51] deployment and still do something really meaningful for the country.
[00:21:54] But not as exciting as they would have wanted because that's what the 18 year old signs
[00:22:00] up to join to go do.
[00:22:01] Yeah, volunteers to do.
[00:22:02] Yeah.
[00:22:03] I don't think too many guys walking that recruiters office thinking about police
[00:22:09] actions or anything like that.
[00:22:11] But you have to set their expectations correctly.
[00:22:14] And it sounds like you were able to do that.
[00:22:16] Now, when you came home from that deployment, you deployed again.
[00:22:21] But it was even more on the humanitarian side.
[00:22:25] So what was that like?
[00:22:26] Tell us about that one.
[00:22:27] I was tough too.
[00:22:28] So before I had actually deployed again when I came back, I had such a good experience
[00:22:32] and learned about Marsak at that time.
[00:22:35] The Marine Special Operations Command that did selection in between those two deployments.
[00:22:40] Oh, I'm just selected.
[00:22:41] And so at that time the criteria to get into Marsak was you had to do two deployments.
[00:22:46] And so had to go back and train and then deploy again.
[00:22:49] So wait.
[00:22:50] So the selection like Buds for Marsak is that what it is?
[00:22:55] Kind of.
[00:22:56] We follow more of a Greenbrake Army model.
[00:23:00] So it's modeled very, very similarly to the Special Forces Assessment Selection process.
[00:23:06] So how long is the training?
[00:23:08] It's about six weeks.
[00:23:10] And so you go there and you do the basic tasks associated with selection including
[00:23:16] you know, hiking a lot and land now of in psychological screening.
[00:23:21] So is it more of a weeding out or are they actually training you for anything?
[00:23:25] Yeah, there's no, I wouldn't say there's really much of training.
[00:23:29] It's a lot of critical thinking and problem solving and very similar to the S-Fast as far
[00:23:33] as like, you know, here's problem set, ethical problem set, physical problem set, teamwork
[00:23:38] and you're continually being evaluated.
[00:23:40] But that's just a basic evaluation to just get the shot at going to like, you know,
[00:23:46] go into our training course.
[00:23:48] And so then we have a seven month long.
[00:23:49] Okay, I got it.
[00:23:50] So this is the first thing we go through is just selection to see if you're going to be
[00:23:54] able to go through the real course.
[00:23:57] Yeah.
[00:23:58] Okay, got it.
[00:23:59] Yeah.
[00:24:00] Yeah, Buds doesn't do that.
[00:24:01] You just show up there and that's one of the reasons the interest in rates so high
[00:24:05] maybe if we had them pre- and actually I take that back.
[00:24:08] Now they do have like a pre you go to like a pre Buds and you get prepared for it and
[00:24:14] all that.
[00:24:15] But so you go to that selection and you get picked up.
[00:24:18] So you go through that thing and they pick you up.
[00:24:20] But then you haven't done two deployments.
[00:24:22] They go, no, you still gotta go into deployment again.
[00:24:24] Yeah.
[00:24:25] And that deployment ends up being a humanitarian deployment.
[00:24:27] So the most part, yeah, definitely.
[00:24:29] So we did what was called the Marine Expeditionary Unit.
[00:24:34] And so on the Marine Expeditionary Unit, there are Marines and Parked aboard Naval Vessels.
[00:24:41] And so there's a battalion, if you battalion.
[00:24:43] Yeah.
[00:24:44] I did two new armed deployments back in the day.
[00:24:49] So I was out there with all the boys getting after it.
[00:24:53] That's how I developed a bunch of, you know, I have a bunch of friends that were in the Marine
[00:24:57] Corps in recon and force recon from that time from doing our deployments.
[00:25:02] So yeah, we, we got our ship board time.
[00:25:05] We used to see if we don't go, don't really do that too much anymore.
[00:25:08] But no, no, and yeah, and I think that's a good thing.
[00:25:13] It was tough.
[00:25:14] That was pretty tough.
[00:25:15] You know, it's a talk about motivating your team to say motivated through seven
[00:25:18] months of shaking hands and drinking tea in Iraq.
[00:25:20] And now it's, hey, stay ready and just train on a ship where, yeah, you have no
[00:25:27] room.
[00:25:28] You don't have any real ability to train the gym holds six people and there's three
[00:25:31] treadmills and you can't get on the flight deck for, you know, two hours a day.
[00:25:36] What kind of ship were you on?
[00:25:37] So I was on the LPD 19.
[00:25:41] I was amazing.
[00:25:42] I was a nice, it was newer ship.
[00:25:43] So it was nice.
[00:25:44] And it was good because we were on the, it was a smaller ship.
[00:25:47] So we were on the major, you know, the big flat top with the command and so.
[00:25:52] So it was pretty good.
[00:25:53] And I had a great deployment because I was a company executive officer.
[00:25:57] And so I got to spend very little time on the ship, which is a lot of fun because I had
[00:26:01] to go and plan all the training.
[00:26:04] And so, you know, we were bouncing around doing different bilateral training missions with
[00:26:09] Israel, Jordan, Oman, training Kuwait, had some liberty time and cutter, barraine.
[00:26:18] All of the peaceful countries are really sad.
[00:26:20] So it was, it was a really good experience.
[00:26:23] But, you know, on the Marines hate it because they were stuck on the ship.
[00:26:27] They didn't have the luxury that I did to go and get off the ship and train.
[00:26:30] And so it was a, it was an interesting deployment.
[00:26:33] Yeah, those ship board deployments are very interesting.
[00:26:36] They were like, we would do the really dumb stuff.
[00:26:39] First of all, when I was on ship board deployment, there was no internet.
[00:26:43] There was nothing.
[00:26:44] So we, we was mainly, yeah.
[00:26:45] And I mean, we were just dumb.
[00:26:47] And so we would watch, we had, you know, a big box full of video tapes.
[00:26:51] You know what those are?
[00:26:52] Yeah.
[00:26:53] Because sets, because there was no, whatever, streaming Netflix.
[00:26:59] So we just had like, out of the way, probably watch 20 movies, 5,000 times each.
[00:27:05] So that era of movies, I'm very familiar with.
[00:27:09] But, but yeah, and then it was like, you know, the big joke about seals is when your
[00:27:13] on a ship is sleep eating left.
[00:27:14] That's what it stands for.
[00:27:15] It's sleep eating left because that's all there is to do.
[00:27:18] But we would, we would pt every day out on the flight deck or somewhere on the ship.
[00:27:24] And then we would try and set up where we'd go shoot, skit.
[00:27:27] We brought pallets and pallets worth of skit.
[00:27:30] So we'd go on the back, the fan tell the ship and throw skit and shoot it.
[00:27:34] Or we'd sit out there with grenade launchers and launch grenades at the trash yesterday.
[00:27:40] So we tried to make it fun, you know.
[00:27:42] But still, there's 24 hours in a day.
[00:27:46] And if there's not a lot to do on a ship, yeah.
[00:27:49] So it's very, pretty boring.
[00:27:51] And yeah, and for all the listeners too, that was the reality, pre 9-11 before the world
[00:27:58] used to belong.
[00:27:59] That was, you know, you were just, so the mission for the mute was just to be prepared
[00:28:03] in a crisis, there's crisis response force essentially.
[00:28:06] And so for us, we actually had the opportunity to do one real world mission responding to
[00:28:12] the earthquake in Haiti, which was, like you said, a humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.
[00:28:17] And so right off the bat, as we were getting underway, that had happened a couple of weeks
[00:28:23] before we were scheduled to deploy.
[00:28:24] So we got on and went down and were able to get involved and help out.
[00:28:29] And so it was flew in with the company Marines.
[00:28:32] And our company was tasked with just helping provide an established security for a forward
[00:28:37] staging base, so logistics area for some of the food and water that they were distributing.
[00:28:42] So how bad was it down there?
[00:28:45] Pretty terrible.
[00:28:46] It was really, really bad.
[00:28:50] We were flew in on a helicopter into the giant dirt field, which, you know, we were
[00:28:56] bouncing CYR and, you know, setting up fire plants, catches and everything, just to get,
[00:29:00] you know, everything squared away.
[00:29:02] But the level of poverty was pretty striking for us.
[00:29:06] I mean, we had Marine stand-up post and setting guard and everything.
[00:29:11] You know, you see, forehomeless kids between the age eight and 12, sleeping with, you know,
[00:29:17] everything they own and they're sharing one blanket outside the wire, just hanging out.
[00:29:21] You know, we see like a fist fight, a knockout, drag down fist fight between two girls
[00:29:27] that are age, whatever, 12 and 14 over a piece of wood, because firewood is like gold there
[00:29:33] because they just don't have wood.
[00:29:36] And so that was really, really eye-opening experience for us.
[00:29:41] And so what were you guys doing?
[00:29:42] Were you guys bringing water, were you bringing medical care?
[00:29:44] What were you doing?
[00:29:45] So the UN was administering all the food and water and so they basically dropped us off.
[00:29:50] And typical Marine Corps fashion, they said, you know, pack light, you'll only be in there
[00:29:55] for 24 hours before we leave you.
[00:29:57] And then as we get on the bar, they're like, okay, it might be like 48 and by the time we
[00:30:02] land, they're like, we're not sure what you're getting out.
[00:30:04] So it's going to stay in for about nine days.
[00:30:07] And you know, I had a big bar on steel, things there.
[00:30:10] But our job was just to literally make sure that overnight, they could drop off 60 shipping
[00:30:18] trailers, ISO containers of food and water and that people weren't going to.
[00:30:22] Who distributed the food and water?
[00:30:24] It was primarily the UN force there.
[00:30:26] So I think at that time it was a lot of, I think it was the primary Brazilian force.
[00:30:31] So they would come in in the morning and it was low to up and go and distribute it.
[00:30:34] And I know that was different for a lot of other places, but for us that was the mission
[00:30:38] that we had and that was the kind of the way it worked.
[00:30:41] So it was just a very short temporary stand and got back on the ships and steamed across
[00:30:46] the Atlantic.
[00:30:48] And then, and then hit all a bunch of exercises and whatnot like you said over in the Gulf.
[00:30:52] Yeah.
[00:30:53] So unfortunately, we didn't get to do the exercise we'd planned for Israel because we're
[00:31:00] in Haiti instead.
[00:31:01] So we went straight to think of as Jordan.
[00:31:04] We did an infinite moonlight, I think at that time, and we're able to do some basic patrolling
[00:31:10] with Jordan and soldiers.
[00:31:11] That was kind of cool actually because not always Jordan just an amazing country to be in.
[00:31:16] But those people that we're training with were some of the same units that were going
[00:31:21] to fight in Afghanistan.
[00:31:23] And so the Jordanians provided a good contingent of forces to go forward in Afghanistan.
[00:31:29] And so that was fun.
[00:31:30] I'm getting to work with those guys and they're training with those guys.
[00:31:33] And then we trained with Omanee soldiers and that was pretty interesting as well.
[00:31:41] The thing we learned which was really interesting was actual Omanee.
[00:31:46] There's not really small population.
[00:31:49] So they have at least the units that we were working with had some conscripts from Pakistan,
[00:31:55] essentially, Ballut just in.
[00:31:58] So the officers spoke Arabic and they were Omanee, but the rest of the Paltoon was
[00:32:03] all Ballutchi.
[00:32:04] And spoke Ballutchi.
[00:32:08] And so I was kind of interesting to see how that worked.
[00:32:10] But very capable of force at a good time.
[00:32:13] No, okay.
[00:32:14] And fight with those guys.
[00:32:15] And so yeah, modern day conscripts.
[00:32:18] Yeah, and I mean they all volunteer.
[00:32:20] I mean they, I guess technically concert might not be the right word.
[00:32:23] They all volunteered to be there.
[00:32:24] And so we talked to Europe at Tune Sergeant.
[00:32:26] He's like, hey, so it's like a wave in here.
[00:32:28] And everybody and get a better life for themselves.
[00:32:30] So he's like, hey, the deal is I've been here for 20 years.
[00:32:33] I loved him this job.
[00:32:34] And I will send money on back to my family.
[00:32:36] And if I make it to 30, they'll let me bring my family over here.
[00:32:38] So you can see his family in 20 years.
[00:32:41] But he's trying to better their life by going forward to live and fight for another
[00:32:46] country.
[00:32:47] Yeah.
[00:32:48] You can't fault him for that.
[00:32:49] Like that's a good way one orbit.
[00:32:52] All right.
[00:32:53] So you get home, you get home from that deployment.
[00:32:54] And now it's time to go to what's the long course of.
[00:32:58] Mar-Sock.
[00:32:59] What's that course called?
[00:33:00] It's called individual training course.
[00:33:02] And so it is pretty similar to other special forces training courses.
[00:33:08] So where is it?
[00:33:09] It's in Northern North Carolina or in Camp Lugion.
[00:33:12] And so we have a small portion of the base there.
[00:33:15] Now we're established a pretty sizable compound.
[00:33:19] And so I'd say by 80 to 90% of the marine special operations command is headquartered there.
[00:33:25] And then they have a small let's go to the contingent out here at Camp Penelton.
[00:33:28] And so the entire schoolhouse is there.
[00:33:31] And that's where every operator goes through training.
[00:33:33] And how long is that course?
[00:33:35] It's about 78 months.
[00:33:36] And what are you doing in that course?
[00:33:39] So that is, of course, that encompasses all of the basic fundamentals required to join
[00:33:44] a team and to be an operator.
[00:33:45] So we do the first phase is some physical training.
[00:33:51] You do some basic fire support, some medical training.
[00:33:54] You do your sear, your full spectrum sear, training there.
[00:33:58] And then you move into some basic SR and patrol and special reconnaissance and basic, you know,
[00:34:04] reconnaissance skills.
[00:34:06] Are guys this so this isn't really a selection course then?
[00:34:08] I mean, no this is a training course.
[00:34:11] But like, but it's pretty high stakes to and guys are quitting.
[00:34:14] Oh, so guys quit.
[00:34:15] Yeah, I plan to guys quit.
[00:34:16] Really.
[00:34:17] It's not easy.
[00:34:18] Yeah.
[00:34:19] So we kind of, it's just the way, you know, it just seems like if someone was
[00:34:24] a Marine already and then they made it through that first course and now they show up at this
[00:34:28] course, it seems like that's, that's a lot of hoops to jump through to get to there and
[00:34:33] then quit.
[00:34:34] That seems kind of, a little bit crazy.
[00:34:36] Yeah.
[00:34:37] Yeah, we'll get some stronger than, uh, they, uh, they push this.
[00:34:40] All right, they're trying to break this.
[00:34:41] What are they doing?
[00:34:42] What is it like the same as it like the Buds type stuff?
[00:34:45] Be called, be wet, be tired, be measurable, no sleep.
[00:34:47] It's just against all that.
[00:34:48] Yeah.
[00:34:49] For the most part.
[00:34:50] And kind of, it makes a Buds and SKT probably mixed together.
[00:34:54] And so, um, one of the things that they are able to do within Marsak is to try to take
[00:35:00] lessons learned and invest practices from all of the other services.
[00:35:04] And so whether it was, you know, the Q course or Buds or SKT or OTC or anything else,
[00:35:11] then structures kind of looked at what was going on in other courses and looked at the
[00:35:16] requirement for marine raiders coming out the backside.
[00:35:20] There's some of those guys who are graduating.
[00:35:22] We had guys deploy within a month or two later on Hot Fill's help to go to Brits.
[00:35:26] So do they, do they put you through like another like crucible type scenario?
[00:35:30] Yeah.
[00:35:31] So we kind of mix, uh, it's called Raider Spirit.
[00:35:34] And, well, that sounds real fun.
[00:35:36] Yeah.
[00:35:37] That's one of those things that could get you with a little bit of that Raider Spirit
[00:35:40] to come and get some.
[00:35:41] Yeah.
[00:35:42] Yeah.
[00:35:43] And it's, uh, a varying length dependent upon the class and the size and the performance.
[00:35:47] But at that point, you're trained in your amphib package, you're basic small boat handling,
[00:35:55] you're trained in, you know, basic reconnaissance and in those principles, all your
[00:35:59] comms and everything else.
[00:36:00] So it's basically a full foot, full mission profile for, you know, including an amphibious
[00:36:06] insert, which for us was, I think like January, get some maybe.
[00:36:11] And so, uh, and then same thing, you know, limited sleeve limited water, limited food, type
[00:36:17] thing.
[00:36:18] So pretty, uh, intense.
[00:36:19] Yeah.
[00:36:20] Yeah.
[00:36:21] Yeah.
[00:36:22] It just seems like a super, uh, little bit of the Marine Corps square away.
[00:36:25] And that's, this whole thing sounds like a square away, way to do this.
[00:36:30] Because if you look at buds, you don't even have real guns, most of buds.
[00:36:36] You don't even have rifles.
[00:36:37] You're carrying, you're literally carrying a boat paddle.
[00:36:41] They kind of make that your weapon, because you can't lose it.
[00:36:43] You can't put it down all this stuff.
[00:36:44] But it's a boat paddle.
[00:36:47] I mean, you're just, you're so, you're just so young and untrained, you know, you just
[00:36:54] have no skills.
[00:36:55] And so there's no, it's just, and they teach, you know, when you get to land more
[00:36:58] free, teach, you learn some basic time, but the diving that you learn is just so, so,
[00:37:05] just, just easy, like looking back on it's just the easiest possible things you could
[00:37:09] possibly do diving.
[00:37:12] And the same thing with the land warfare, pieces.
[00:37:14] Like they're telling you, hey, walk this far.
[00:37:16] And like they're telling you exactly where to go.
[00:37:18] It's not even, it's barely, you do land now, but it's barely land now.
[00:37:23] And it's, and it's good, because, you know, it weeds out a lot of people.
[00:37:28] But then you have to go through, like you said, SKT, which comes afterwards, and that's where
[00:37:30] you start learning.
[00:37:31] Okay, this is real land now.
[00:37:32] Okay, this is real shooting.
[00:37:33] Okay, this is, you know, actual romantries.
[00:37:36] And then you get to a seal team where you go through more training.
[00:37:39] But it seems like it, that's why I was kind of, I guess I was kind of surprised.
[00:37:41] That guys that had been through enough stuff already would get to that.
[00:37:47] And still be like, you know, I don't want to do this.
[00:37:49] That seems crazy to me.
[00:37:50] Yeah, that's a gut check.
[00:37:52] I mean, and that's one of the things that is interesting, you know, but it's does a good
[00:37:58] job of eating people out up front.
[00:38:01] And so you have a pretty high quality care, you know, as far as the, in tangibles, the
[00:38:06] ethical and character principles.
[00:38:09] And then for us, you know, it's kind of, I would say more on a sustained, sustained beat
[00:38:16] down.
[00:38:17] Yeah.
[00:38:18] Yeah, and so I mean, we started, I think we started the course with like 50 or 60 guys and
[00:38:23] 13 of the original guys finished.
[00:38:25] No, that's changed a lot since then.
[00:38:27] So we grown up a lot since then.
[00:38:29] And just like Buds has right like, oh, yeah, you know, I bet back in the day, those
[00:38:33] new Marsock instructors like no one's getting through my course.
[00:38:37] Yeah, right, flee so.
[00:38:39] But the cool thing about it, no, I see both sides of the token, but the cool thing about
[00:38:43] it now is that we want more guy.
[00:38:46] We need more guys.
[00:38:47] Yeah.
[00:38:48] We don't want to lower the standards.
[00:38:49] So why don't we just be smarter about it, right?
[00:38:51] Like, if we do a better job of selecting guys or get more guys starting or whatever else,
[00:38:55] right, like, if the output is a trained operator and we need these guys, then was there
[00:39:01] any part of that training that you thought was hard?
[00:39:03] Yeah, a lot of those are.
[00:39:05] Was there anything that you were in jeopardy on where?
[00:39:08] Actually, yeah, so the same thing, right?
[00:39:10] So how, you know, Naval Academy was humbling, being the Marine Corps, been humbling.
[00:39:14] And at that point, I was a pretty humble guy.
[00:39:17] And so I did really well throughout the majority of training.
[00:39:20] And so in the last phase, I'll feel good about yourself.
[00:39:27] I was okay, but I said, you know, so we're doing the unconventional warfare package very similar
[00:39:32] to a very similar, uh, with the Greenbraze, with their final exercise and infoying with
[00:39:38] the G-Force and everything else.
[00:39:39] And so, was doing well.
[00:39:40] And then, uh, had a bad meeting where somebody thought I came off a little bit arrogant
[00:39:45] with our G-Force commander and everything.
[00:39:47] And so then they just kind of, you know, put the spotlight on me and, you know, put
[00:39:51] me, put me on the bubble right because like, you fail anything and you're done.
[00:39:54] And so, you know, that was one of the scarier times, right?
[00:39:58] Because I committed years of my life to be able to be doing the successfully.
[00:40:02] And then, in a moment, you know, if I can't figure out how to make this guy like me or
[00:40:07] this G-Force commander, you know, execute this mission with me, like, I'm on the bubble,
[00:40:12] right?
[00:40:13] And I think, you know, some of its instructors mess around, but they're just testing you, right?
[00:40:16] Like, you know, how do you deal with failure?
[00:40:18] Right?
[00:40:19] Because if you've been successful thus far in a good number of things, uh, let's push
[00:40:24] him beyond his limits, let's break him and see what happens, right?
[00:40:26] And I don't know if that was exactly the case I didn't see behind the curtain, but I survived.
[00:40:30] I failed something called pool competency.
[00:40:34] And I failed pool competency, which is they put your dive rig on, which is an old school
[00:40:39] dive rig with, uh, with an inhalation and an exhalation tube.
[00:40:45] And it's this, this, this old thing from like the 60s or 70s or something, alcohol
[00:40:49] long.
[00:40:51] And, uh, you have to do all this stuff that they tell you to do underwater and they're,
[00:40:56] they're slapping you around and smashing you and ripping your mask off and ripping you
[00:41:00] regulator out and all this stuff and you have to stay calm and you have to go through
[00:41:03] all these procedures.
[00:41:04] And when I went through, it was a 30 minute evolution and, uh, the first time I did it,
[00:41:11] my instructor who ended up working for me in the future.
[00:41:14] He was a, well, he was a first class at the time, but he became a one-off series, a
[00:41:18] UDTV and non-guy and awesome guy.
[00:41:20] But he failed me.
[00:41:22] And, um, yeah, as so, I failed in the years later, I talked to him and I was like, hey,
[00:41:27] you remember putting me through pool competency?
[00:41:29] Yeah, I was just messing with you.
[00:41:30] And I'm like, whoa, you must ruin my life.
[00:41:32] I thought you were talking about your disability.
[00:41:34] You guys know you do fine next time.
[00:41:36] But same thing, like it was a test of, let's just see how this guy does.
[00:41:40] But what we did over the weekend, me in a couple of buddies that were, that it also failed.
[00:41:46] We went in the dip tank, which was just a square metal box that was filled with water
[00:41:53] and we pooled comp to each other.
[00:41:54] This, I don't even, I can't even believe we did this.
[00:41:56] It was probably the most unsafe thing I did.
[00:41:59] Well, one of the top unsafe things I did was we drowned each other and trashed each other,
[00:42:04] getting ready and we did it.
[00:42:05] It took each other over and over again until we were like, there's no way we were going to fail.
[00:42:09] And so that's what we did.
[00:42:10] There's four of us or something.
[00:42:11] We just spent the weekend in the, I don't even, I can't even believe they let us do that.
[00:42:15] They just gave us dive gear and so you're just going to play with a dive gear cool.
[00:42:18] We're in the dip tank, like, idiots.
[00:42:20] Different time, right?
[00:42:21] Yeah.
[00:42:22] Yeah.
[00:42:23] But it is humbling.
[00:42:24] And it's one of those things, you know, there's no worse feeling for me than that feeling
[00:42:28] of like, oh, if I fail this, this is like my whole life dream done and destroyed.
[00:42:36] So yeah, they make, they play those, they play those games with you.
[00:42:40] Yeah, I think they have to play those games with you because you're going to fail in other
[00:42:44] situations once you get to the, to the teams, you know, you want to, you do want to see
[00:42:48] how people are going to do it fair.
[00:42:50] And they would do things like that in Buds where, you know, they would, there would be
[00:42:54] seven people that would pass a swim.
[00:42:57] Everyone else is a failure and they, you know, tell us new, they, they line us all up and
[00:43:02] make every single make a hundred guys sign a chip that we were losing our failures on the
[00:43:07] swim.
[00:43:08] And if they fail, if we fail again, we're going to be dropping training.
[00:43:10] I don't think that was actually true.
[00:43:12] I don't know, but it didn't look back at the time I believe.
[00:43:15] It's time was like, oh my god.
[00:43:17] So they do a good job of that psychological warfare on you in that training.
[00:43:22] Yeah.
[00:43:23] And I was like before that, too, that, you know, another pretty intense phase.
[00:43:27] So we do the CQB initial CQB phase prior to that, too.
[00:43:31] And that one was saying that was pretty high stakes.
[00:43:34] Pretty high stress.
[00:43:35] Did you mess up?
[00:43:38] No, I was, I was okay there.
[00:43:39] Yeah, I didn't have any issues.
[00:43:40] Keep it throwny rounds.
[00:43:42] You shoot me any hostages.
[00:43:44] No, I shot a hostage one time.
[00:43:46] No, I shot a hop, just in training, but yeah, obviously just in training.
[00:43:50] But this guy, they had a target set up.
[00:43:54] You know, those, those, they look like a water-caller painting targets.
[00:43:58] So they're different characters.
[00:43:59] And you could take little, you could take the person's hand and you could paste over
[00:44:04] like a pistol or a cell phone or a badge or a whatever.
[00:44:09] So I come into this room and it's, it's kind of dusk.
[00:44:12] And this was, this was back in the day.
[00:44:13] So we didn't even use night vision.
[00:44:15] This is just like, day, you know, we're just shooting with our eyesight, a regular eyesight.
[00:44:19] And I come in and there's a guy and I look at his hands and I see like a dark pipe
[00:44:24] pointed at me and I drilled this dude, you know, to the chest, one to the hand.
[00:44:29] Yes.
[00:44:30] And we get done to the run and the instructor, he comes out and he's like, he's holding
[00:44:35] the target in his hands and he's like, he's like, hey, Jockel, look at this.
[00:44:40] And I was like, check.
[00:44:42] And he goes, what do you see?
[00:44:44] And what it was was it was allegedly, it was a rolled up newspaper that he was
[00:44:49] pointing at the, at you, you know, at me.
[00:44:54] And it looked like, of the barrel of a gun.
[00:44:58] And I, and I looked at the instructor, I was like, hey, bro, if I come into a room and
[00:45:02] someone's doing that, they're going to die.
[00:45:04] I'm sorry, man, you can't do that.
[00:45:06] Because the guy looks all jacked.
[00:45:08] He's just guy, this guy with the green shirt, I'm going to find one of these and post it.
[00:45:11] Because I'm sure you can find them.
[00:45:13] It's the guy with the green shirt, super thick neck and looks all hostile and aggressive.
[00:45:17] And he's pointing this pipe at me and I drilled them.
[00:45:21] And I got in trouble, that was mine.
[00:45:22] You know, whatever had to run a tire or something like that.
[00:45:26] But that was when I was in the team.
[00:45:28] So I was, you know, hey, horrible.
[00:45:31] Then you do, you know, even though I was like, hey, I'll do that anyways.
[00:45:33] But inside, and you know, even though I was like, man, that, you know, you got to be better
[00:45:37] than that.
[00:45:38] And that was jacked up for me to do that.
[00:45:40] And so I had to check hands more carefully and be more patient and take a not shop to make
[00:45:45] sure what I'm looking at is what I'm looking at.
[00:45:48] So yeah, failure is a good teacher and it's very humbling.
[00:45:52] And then, so do you guys have like a full-on graduation ceremony from that?
[00:45:58] Do you get a pin?
[00:45:59] Do you get that new radar pin?
[00:46:00] They do now.
[00:46:01] Yeah.
[00:46:02] And we didn't have one at the time.
[00:46:02] So we've grown up.
[00:46:05] We weren't called Raiders and we didn't have a pin.
[00:46:06] So we just got a little certificate and handshake and sent it on our way.
[00:46:10] And then you went to where?
[00:46:12] And then I was assigned to Campittleton, California.
[00:46:15] So I moved out here with my wife and joined First Marine Raider Battalion.
[00:46:19] And that was your first time being out at Pendleton.
[00:46:22] Correct.
[00:46:23] Yeah.
[00:46:24] How do you like Pendleton?
[00:46:25] I love it.
[00:46:26] It's awesome.
[00:46:27] Still live here.
[00:46:28] Didn't make it far, even though my wife's family, all her family is still in Delaware.
[00:46:31] Yeah.
[00:46:32] We love it here.
[00:46:33] Hope to never leave.
[00:46:34] It's, Pendleton is, is awesome training ground.
[00:46:38] I mean, really awesome training ground.
[00:46:41] Yes.
[00:46:42] Yeah, it's great.
[00:46:43] Great place to train.
[00:46:44] We did a lot of our training there and typical places out in the desert in Alec Forder when
[00:46:48] in a couple of places.
[00:46:50] But yeah, it's good.
[00:46:51] It's massive.
[00:46:52] I had no idea how big it was.
[00:46:53] But just huge.
[00:46:55] And then how long was that work up for?
[00:46:58] We had, so I arrived in August and I was in the, the three shop in the operation section
[00:47:04] before I went to a team for about two months.
[00:47:06] And then we deployed in May.
[00:47:09] So on nine months that I was with the team.
[00:47:12] They had done there.
[00:47:14] The work up cycle, I think was probably similar to, you know, with the seal teams that
[00:47:18] done where it's, you know, you come back, you go back and immediately guys are shuck
[00:47:21] out to schools, individual training, and then come back to collective training, and then
[00:47:25] deploy.
[00:47:26] So I got there right when I produced a trickling back in from a lot of the individual schools
[00:47:31] that they were going to.
[00:47:33] And then how big is the team that you take over?
[00:47:36] We had 20 total with attachments.
[00:47:39] And so each team is about 14 or not about exactly 14.
[00:47:44] So there's, you know, small headquarters element and then two formant elements, two
[00:47:49] corpsmen, you know, medics.
[00:47:53] And then we plused up with our interlassets and EOD and gotten country, got some dog
[00:48:01] analytics and some other stuff as well with our team.
[00:48:04] And then, and that when you say you got in country, this is, this is you to deploy
[00:48:07] to Afghanistan.
[00:48:08] Yes.
[00:48:08] Now it's 2012.
[00:48:10] Correct.
[00:48:11] Yeah, 2012.
[00:48:12] So I'd gotten out of training in 2011 and then deployed in May of 2012.
[00:48:19] And then what was that when you were going into that deployment, what was the atmosphere
[00:48:23] in Afghanistan at that time?
[00:48:27] The atmosphere was different.
[00:48:29] Depending upon the region you were in, very, very different.
[00:48:31] So where we were going was highly kinetic.
[00:48:37] And I got run around all over the place, just killer be killed and focusing a lot on security
[00:48:42] and combat operations.
[00:48:45] And so there were two mission sets that our teams would perform.
[00:48:51] Either they would be doing a program called Village stability operations, which is what
[00:48:54] we were doing or they would be assigned to a commando, Kandak, Battalion, which is more like
[00:49:00] Afghanistan's version of, you know, Ranger Regiment or anything else.
[00:49:03] And so when we deployed, we deployed with the company.
[00:49:07] So we had three marine teams.
[00:49:09] One of our teams took over a commando mission and the other two were doing Village stability
[00:49:12] operations.
[00:49:13] And then as we deployed, we took over a couple of seal units and a green bright team as
[00:49:19] well, that reported to our company headquarters as well.
[00:49:23] So specifically for our team where we went, we were in very, very primitive rural area
[00:49:29] in the middle of the helmet province, right in the green zone.
[00:49:34] So the, which green zone means something different in Afghanistan than it did in Iraq.
[00:49:38] Green zone in Iraq was an area in Baghdad actually that was, that was controlled and safe
[00:49:45] and and all good to go for Americans and there was, you know, other people living there
[00:49:52] and whatnot is brews it.
[00:49:54] This safe zone.
[00:49:55] And the green zone in Afghanistan is not that.
[00:49:58] No, no.
[00:49:59] So the green zone in Afghanistan literally is due to vegetation.
[00:50:04] And so the green zone, Afghanistan is mostly air it or desert climate and there's very
[00:50:09] little green areas or good farmland essentially.
[00:50:14] And I think it was in the 60s.
[00:50:16] I think it was the USA or another international development agency built another canal off
[00:50:21] of the Helmend River.
[00:50:23] And so in between those two waterways was good farmland because farmers there would, you know,
[00:50:29] cut out canals and everything else to grow crops.
[00:50:32] And so this was like one of the only green areas in the entire country.
[00:50:37] And so that's what they mean even the Afghanistan version of the green zone.
[00:50:41] And since the vegetation is also covered in concealment for fighters for any fighters.
[00:50:48] Yeah.
[00:50:49] And so where we were it was, it was tough because guys would use those canals to sneak
[00:50:52] up and it was very undulating or hilly terrain.
[00:50:57] I would consider it when I tried to explain it to most people too.
[00:50:59] I consider it more similar to trench warfare than just desert open warfare where you can
[00:51:07] see other people.
[00:51:09] People are very able to especially with some of the urban structures there as well.
[00:51:14] Some of them, if I was able to creep up and you know, try to get the drop on you and
[00:51:19] get close to your position.
[00:51:22] So these, so you were doing VSO, the village stability operations.
[00:51:27] And what did that, what did kind of what was your standard VSO mission look like?
[00:51:31] What was that deal?
[00:51:34] So for the VSO mission, we had three lines of effort.
[00:51:38] So the first was to establish security.
[00:51:41] And the second was to try to revive economic development.
[00:51:45] And then the third was to link political governance.
[00:51:47] So the three lines of effort, security development governance for political governance.
[00:51:53] Couldn't really focus on economic development or political governance if the villagers didn't
[00:51:56] have security.
[00:51:57] And so one of the first things that we did, and we took over a pretty capable force because
[00:52:01] people had been doing this mission a lot before us in this region, they would train and
[00:52:07] equip a small police force called the Afghan local police.
[00:52:12] And so the idea was, was if you take people in these small communities that are from there,
[00:52:19] train them, pay them to provide security that they would be more effective at providing
[00:52:22] security than any Americans would be.
[00:52:25] Which is, in most cases, very true.
[00:52:27] And so we took over the site and we had about probably 100 or more Afghans that were on
[00:52:36] our payrolls to help go and provide security for there.
[00:52:39] And so that was primarily what we focused on because we were still trying to train them,
[00:52:46] get them to a place where they could, for my security for themselves.
[00:52:49] So is this multiple, multiple villages in like an area that you're providing security for
[00:52:54] that these Afghans are providing security or is it like one big, like larger village?
[00:53:00] For us it was just one village.
[00:53:02] It wasn't even that big honestly.
[00:53:04] So we literally, as far as operational areas and things I think ours was a few kilometers
[00:53:11] max.
[00:53:12] So we were, yeah, because super focused.
[00:53:15] Where we were was essentially a minefield.
[00:53:19] We were right in the middle of this contested region, prime poppy growing area.
[00:53:25] So Taliban wanted it and then the farmers would grow poppy and that was their economic,
[00:53:30] you know, that was their payday, their paychecks.
[00:53:34] And so very complex problem to try to change.
[00:53:37] And so we sort of, do you live in the villages?
[00:53:41] Did you live there?
[00:53:43] So you took over some houses or whatever and then you set up your base of operations and
[00:53:47] you lived there.
[00:53:48] Essentially, yeah, we took basically, we were unable to really take over any houses,
[00:53:54] because all the houses that run occupied were all full of IDs.
[00:53:57] So the TTP in base of what we had done at that time was wherever we were going to set up
[00:54:03] we would bulldoze and just build structures on our own, you know, Hasco Varriers, but it was
[00:54:07] very primitive.
[00:54:08] We had no running water, just living in a dust bowl essentially.
[00:54:13] Get some towers up for security and then that was pretty much it.
[00:54:16] And there's how many of you out in this remote location.
[00:54:20] We ended up having two sites and so we had mutual supporting positions within our team and
[00:54:25] I think we had probably 60 Americans.
[00:54:30] So we had our 20 guys and then we actually had a trailer platoon of Army infantry guys out
[00:54:36] there as well.
[00:54:37] And so they would help provide security and sandpose and allow us to go out and do missions.
[00:54:41] So now you get into doing missions and what does that look like?
[00:54:45] You're going out, you have to take people, you have to move people, you have to go and
[00:54:51] meet people.
[00:54:52] Like what was the kind of standard when you say mission to execute from those little
[00:54:59] forward operating bases, what was kind of the standard mission that you would execute?
[00:55:03] Yeah, so the mission is varied, but for the most part, and I was only there for about
[00:55:09] two months.
[00:55:10] And before I got injured and came back, but the team we took over for done a really good
[00:55:16] job and they had some very challenging human dynamics within the A.O.
[00:55:23] They're going to attack multiple times a day.
[00:55:26] So when we got there, we tried to do whatever we could to proactively prevent that from
[00:55:32] happening.
[00:55:33] And so the standard practice that we would do is we'd go outside out of much patrols.
[00:55:40] We tried to find guys who were coming to kill them before they got us.
[00:55:44] So to do that is not an insignificant task, especially when you're going through a minefield.
[00:55:53] And so the TTPs that we kind of used at that time was we would go into the cover darkness,
[00:55:59] which will allow us time to slowly and methodically get to where we wanted to go, take
[00:56:05] over a compound or a building and then just stay there all day and observe and see what happened.
[00:56:11] And then that next night, usually, X-Fill, one of the cover darkness again.
[00:56:15] And the main reason to do that was because a lot of the IDs that were out and set up were
[00:56:23] in positions where there were just so many of them.
[00:56:26] And they were in positions that were advantageous and would be observed by the enemy.
[00:56:32] So if an entire compound had a few different IDs in it, and we started to realize that,
[00:56:38] hey, we can't go in these compounds or we can't go near them because if there's nobody
[00:56:42] in it, most of the time they have IDs, the enemy would then wait until we were in a position
[00:56:46] and just fire a few shots at us, trying to drive us into those positions and things.
[00:56:52] And so just in general, we just preferred operate at night because they didn't have night
[00:56:57] and the opportunity to get the ability to do that to us at night and we were able to take our time
[00:57:02] and move very slowly and methodically through the ID threat that we encountered.
[00:57:07] And so that's how we were able to try to mitigate that.
[00:57:11] And that was how we would usually connect those missions.
[00:57:15] And then how often would you actually get contact when you were out and set up in an ambush position?
[00:57:22] I think almost 100% of the time, I felt like that at least.
[00:57:27] And so we wouldn't go out every day.
[00:57:30] So we'd stagger the ID as an officer with the operational number of people that we had.
[00:57:36] We're trying to maximize the bank for our buck and to be very efficient with that.
[00:57:41] While also running other operations and trying to build the police force and other types
[00:57:45] of, you know, operative operations.
[00:57:49] And so we'd go up probably a few days.
[00:57:51] So this is a very aggressive VSO mission.
[00:57:54] Yeah.
[00:57:55] I mean, this is the most aggressive than I was thinking.
[00:57:58] The term that was thrown around by some of the guys was Smashmouth.
[00:58:02] VSO.
[00:58:04] And so if you look at the entire landscape of Africa and it's staying from the highest levels of command and everything there were, you know,
[00:58:11] green, yellow and red areas.
[00:58:13] And if you looked at that based on enemy activity or friendlyness to coalition forces,
[00:58:19] the traditional model for VSO was, hey, put them in yellow areas.
[00:58:24] You know, we're likely to be successful.
[00:58:26] We can make some progress, not in red areas, right, where people will just fight to the death.
[00:58:32] And you know, there's no chance of this happening.
[00:58:34] And so different people have different thoughts of what's green yellow and red.
[00:58:39] And so when we ended up there and that was our mission, we tried to make them all stuff it.
[00:58:45] So, but yeah, very different.
[00:58:46] And so that and we even had teams, other Marines were out in the west and her out province, which was very different than the Helman province.
[00:58:52] And so on, her out province, guys are, you know, walk around with just a pistol and driving on motorbikes and, you know, drinking tea and hanging out, no helmets like, you know, not getting shot at, very, very, very different experience than, then where we were.
[00:59:11] That was great because we're just glad different places of, you know, different portions of the country were successful with that mission set.
[00:59:18] And I think to a lot, large degree, most of the special operations students that conduct that mission were very successful.
[00:59:25] And for us, you know, it's debatable, how successful we were, but that was a very different environment.
[00:59:31] Yeah, I know there were guys that were going over to do it and they would ask me about, you know, what do you think of this?
[00:59:36] I was going to do this village, stability thing and I was like, oh, you're going to go out in the middle of, you know, Indian country with your platoon.
[00:59:44] That's going to be an awesome mission, like it's going to be great. Go get some go do a good job. I mean, that's just a, it's a cool mission.
[00:59:51] It's just to be out there on your own. I mean, how much oversight did you have out there?
[00:59:57] Not much.
[00:59:58] I mean, and that was one of the coolest things was having the freedom to go and execute. And so, you know, whether or not it was, you know,
[01:00:05] destined for success based on what the situation was, we were going to do the best we could to make it success.
[01:00:11] And we had a lot of resources to do that when it was, you know, the intelligence assets that we had at our disposal, you know, as a captain in the Marine Corps had assets that were, like, more than a Mucamander.
[01:00:24] Right.
[01:00:25] And it's something for cast and air support.
[01:00:29] Our OE was a bit restrictive for conventional forces. And for us, you know, we were able to, as long as we met certain criteria and, you know, able to justify it, we're able to drop cast where we needed to, you know, which was very different. And so we did the best we could and made the most of it.
[01:00:47] And then you're a couple months into deployment and that's when you got, that's when you got wounded.
[01:00:54] Yeah, and what happened on that? Oh, yeah. So we're starting to have some successes with the security bubble that we were establishing.
[01:01:04] And so we pushed a little bit further from our base to try to see where we thought there would be an impactivity. And so we went about, I think maybe a click and a half one foot from our base.
[01:01:15] And found ourselves in any country essentially. So we occupied a compound on the cover darkness and surely after the sun rose immediately started seeing heavy activity around us and started getting engaged from multiple directions with different weapon systems.
[01:01:34] And so shortly after that happened, there were three Marines on the rooftop of the compound that were in. We had the rest of the Marines down surrounded, protected, or should be protected by the rest of the compound walls.
[01:01:50] So most of the construction of Afghanistan is mud mud huts and despite not having running water electricity or anything, they were able to build these massive fortifications around E-tiles.
[01:02:02] And so we're going to have the walls protect you, but you can't see anything. So you also don't have situation on awareness on what's going on. So as a commander as a leader of the patrol, swap out with Brian Jacqueline, who's on the rooftop at that time to try to get awareness.
[01:02:17] So we started observing different things going on and as always up there, and we fight our head, engage us from our flank. And so myself and another Marine on the rooftop were shot.
[01:02:30] So I was able to roll off without getting shot. And so immediately bullet went into my shoulder and into my spine. So I just felt a pulsing sensation in my back and kind of slumped over saw Ricky who was the sergeant to my left. He had been shot through the neck and was faced down on the rooftop.
[01:02:50] So I took myself, pick myself up and realize nothing below my chest was working. So immediately got on the radio, call my guys told him that I've been hit and that Ricky had been hit and this sprung in action.
[01:03:01] And so took the initiative to return fire, gain fire superiority and triage us and continue to fight.
[01:03:11] So I'm so long to that last. It's a long time. I mean, you're out there in the middle of nowhere and you're in a really hostile situation. How long did it take to get assets there?
[01:03:24] That's that's pretty timely.
[01:03:27] But it was also very chaotic situation. So at that time, we had 10 Americans out on the mission. We had 10 of our Afghan partnered force with us.
[01:03:38] And so now we're down to eight Americans to our critically wounded.
[01:03:43] We had to pull guns off the line as well to treat us soarmetic immediately started treating Ricky and I.
[01:03:48] Another Marine, serge treating me as well as that leaf six Brian Jackland.
[01:03:53] It made it the god on the radio and started to try to call in for metavank and air support.
[01:04:01] At that same moment Murphy's luck kicked in as well and the sack common 10 came down and so our sack coming 10 came down. So we're now Brian was relaying through our main position.
[01:04:12] All the information that was going on and so getting pretty chaotic.
[01:04:17] And took about I think 30 minutes or so before the metavank helicopter was able to come in and get us out.
[01:04:28] And how bad was that was the other guy's name that was hit Ricky.
[01:04:35] Yeah. And so he got shot in the neck like what what was at all about.
[01:04:40] Yeah, I mean, we all thought he was dead and turns out he was very, very lucky.
[01:04:47] So missed everything important as neck, missed his windpipe, missed his spine.
[01:04:51] He was unconscious for a while and we're both off the rooftop and our medic started working on him trying to bring him back to life while we're another Marine was trying to keep me stable.
[01:05:01] And so put some click a lot and different clouding agents in his neck and all of a sudden Rick kind of woke up and made like a zombie moon.
[01:05:12] And it was like blinking and stuff. And so turned out fine.
[01:05:16] And luckily today he's, you know, he's left the service, but he's about to graduate from college. He's in the body building and you know, he's doing great.
[01:05:24] And she's awesome.
[01:05:26] And so at that time he was pretty stable.
[01:05:29] And I started taking a little bit of a turn for the worse because of both of the windup and my shoulder.
[01:05:33] It also kind of punctured one of my lungs and so to have blood pulling in my, the left side of my chest cavity.
[01:05:40] And so, guys were trying to get us out of there's new conscious.
[01:05:45] I was, yeah.
[01:05:47] Yeah, for the most part until towards towards the end where I started to fade a little bit.
[01:05:52] And then did you, did you eventually just, did you pass out, they hit you with morphine? What did what they do?
[01:05:58] I didn't get any drugs until, I don't think I got any drugs until I got it in the helicopter.
[01:06:03] And then, well, I was on the helicopter, passed out woke up in a hospital in Afghanistan.
[01:06:08] But I do remember the event and so I remember making the radio call to my teammates while I was on the rooftop.
[01:06:15] Remember getting pulled down.
[01:06:17] Remember talking to Huffie's, one of the Marines who was working on me, talking them through a needle D.
[01:06:23] As he was giving me a needle D, he was trying to tell him and talk to him and stuff.
[01:06:28] And he said, you know, he said, so, sorry, I said some interesting things while I was there too.
[01:06:35] So just to give people a little bit of a visual on that, a needle D compression is when you're, when somebody's going to take a, what, like a 14 gauge needle or something like that.
[01:06:46] And jam it in between your ribs into your lung cavity to allow some pressure out.
[01:06:53] Then you had to talk him through that.
[01:06:55] He knew what he was doing, but I was just, you know, just trying to encourage him into different things.
[01:07:00] And at that time, I was also trying to relay information to help them find the bad guys and it was fine.
[01:07:05] Who they were trying to return fire for, or against.
[01:07:09] And so, was talking them on, trying to talk them on initially.
[01:07:12] And then after that, it was just trying to talk to him to make sure, you know, and then the helicopter just sat down in your compound.
[01:07:19] No.
[01:07:20] They couldn't.
[01:07:21] So that was a big challenge.
[01:07:24] And so, what happened and what Brian Jacqueline was awarded the Navy Cross for.
[01:07:30] And a lot of other guys who all risked their lives to save ours.
[01:07:34] Did was they had to call the helicopters out into an open field, despite being under fire.
[01:07:41] And so they prep the area with as much air support as they could, called in the bird.
[01:07:45] And the bird landed.
[01:07:47] Brian blew a breach in the compound wall through smoke.
[01:07:50] And then literally what he said was, if you get hit on the way to the chopper, jump in, follow me, and let the way.
[01:07:55] And without hesitation, the other guys carried us out with the open.
[01:08:00] And I'm not a small guy.
[01:08:02] You know, I'm 200 pounds of barrel chest and freedom fighter just like most of us with a lot of kid on to.
[01:08:09] And so, those guys carrying us out there, we're in a polis litter.
[01:08:15] And so, to carry us, it takes four guys and they can't return fire.
[01:08:18] And they can't pick up their weapon and engage the enemy.
[01:08:22] So they're totally exposed.
[01:08:24] And without hesitation, right out there and doing the bullet dance,
[01:08:28] dodge and bullets trying to get us on the bird and get us out of there.
[01:08:30] And I'm alive today because of that.
[01:08:32] And so, that for me, what I tell people when I talk about this is, is one of the best days of my life.
[01:08:38] And so, you know, I was one of the worst days of my life too, because I, you know,
[01:08:42] suffered this spinal cord injury and was paralyzed from the chest down for however long.
[01:08:47] However long that may be.
[01:08:49] But, also, my best day is my life because a team that I was fortunate enough to lead,
[01:08:55] a team that I was fortunate enough to be a part of,
[01:08:57] display the highest levels of selflessness and sacrifice and courage on the battlefield.
[01:09:04] And just to put in some of that to be a part of that, you know,
[01:09:07] is something I'll never forget and something I'll be proud of for the rest of my life.
[01:09:11] So, yeah.
[01:09:13] And in case anyone missed it, the opening for this was actually,
[01:09:18] those are gunnery sergeant Jacqueline's words that he,
[01:09:23] that he gave during a speech and I thought they were just so,
[01:09:26] they were just awesome words.
[01:09:28] So, I figured I'd share them with some people.
[01:09:30] And obviously, the rest of the guys, you know,
[01:09:33] but bunch of kick-ass guys that, like you said,
[01:09:36] I mean, just incredible heroism across the board from your team.
[01:09:40] And you now, and by the way, and actually,
[01:09:46] and Jacqueline mentioned this in the speeches,
[01:09:48] well, there were some seals, like you said,
[01:09:51] I guess it was the guys that were under you there,
[01:09:53] guys from Ceil Team 3 that came in.
[01:09:55] And I actually talked to one of those guys today,
[01:09:58] because I knew, you know, because you were coming on,
[01:10:01] and I just, I talked to him with Dan Crenshaw.
[01:10:04] And I just told him, you know, I said,
[01:10:07] I'm talking to Derek today, and he's like,
[01:10:10] that's awesome.
[01:10:11] It was just cool.
[01:10:12] It was just cool to hear the praise coming from Jacqueline,
[01:10:15] and that's exactly the same thing that Dan Crenshaw said.
[01:10:18] He's like, yeah, those guys were awesome.
[01:10:20] That's just, you know, I said, I go, you were on that mission, right?
[01:10:23] He goes, oh, yeah, he goes, those guys were awesome.
[01:10:25] That's what he said.
[01:10:26] And it was cool to hear Jacqueline say in the same thing.
[01:10:29] And, you know, a lot of times, people get,
[01:10:31] I guess people get caught up in whatever
[01:10:34] is inter-service rivalry, and I actually literally have zero of that.
[01:10:38] I, especially after my deployment to Ramadi,
[01:10:41] I have zero inter-service rivalry of any kind.
[01:10:44] Like, if you're on the battlefield,
[01:10:46] and you have an American flag on your uniform,
[01:10:48] you are my brother, and it was awesome to hear that feedback
[01:10:52] from both those guys.
[01:10:54] You wake up in hospital.
[01:10:59] And you're in an African, you're in a hospital, Afghanistan.
[01:11:02] Yep, wake up in camp, bastion.
[01:11:07] Doctors there, and he's like, hey captain,
[01:11:12] you got shot, you know, paralyzed,
[01:11:15] and you may never walk again.
[01:11:16] I'm just kind of stared on the same.
[01:11:19] Yeah, I know.
[01:11:21] I kind of had this awkward stare off.
[01:11:23] I'm like, hey, anybody tell my wife it?
[01:11:27] He's like, no, he's kind of stared as I mean,
[01:11:30] and I'll go get me and goddamn phone.
[01:11:33] Okay, yeah, got it.
[01:11:35] And so, brings over the phone,
[01:11:38] and I wake my wife up, middle the night.
[01:11:40] So you were immediately, I knew that that was the case.
[01:11:44] Literally the second I got shot.
[01:11:46] Because I tried to pick myself up.
[01:11:48] It's hard to understand if you never experienced it,
[01:11:53] but if your body is numb and nothing works,
[01:11:57] then, you know, and so,
[01:11:59] Like, totally knew that that was the case and didn't know how long it would last, but I knew
[01:12:05] that that was what the issue was.
[01:12:06] And so, call my wife and woke her up, told her, you know, hey, I've been shot, paralyzed,
[01:12:14] I mean, I've never walked again and I'm coming up.
[01:12:16] And so that was pretty tough time and pretty fun, tough phone call to make, but throughout
[01:12:22] all of it, it was really happy that I was able to make that phone call.
[01:12:25] Because a lot of guys don't get to do that.
[01:12:29] And so, then moved on, got to back to Germany.
[01:12:33] It's been a couple of days there.
[01:12:34] They didn't do anything.
[01:12:36] From my condition, just kind of waited, transport back to Bethesda, where I checked in and met
[01:12:42] my wife and family and they started to do some other surgeries, removed the bullet from
[01:12:45] my spine and some other things.
[01:12:49] And so, our guys at that time too were, they stayed put in the compound and they were
[01:12:55] in thought for the rest of the day.
[01:12:58] Repelled a few different enemy assaults and then as you mentioned, the seal team that
[01:13:01] had come into to be the quick reactionary force for them came in at night and Jack
[01:13:08] ended the turnover with them.
[01:13:10] They came in to kind of reinforce the area and do some battle damage assessment.
[01:13:16] And then that's when Dan had gotten injured.
[01:13:19] And so, so the guys got now and the rest of our guys made it out of that day without
[01:13:24] any further injuries.
[01:13:27] And so, was in Bethesda and started my recovery process there with my wife on my side
[01:13:33] and moving forward.
[01:13:35] And that recovery process is, I heard you saying one of your other videos that you
[01:13:40] have out there, you're just talking about the new normal.
[01:13:43] Like, okay, this is the new normal, this is what it is and I'm going forward.
[01:13:47] Yeah.
[01:13:48] Yeah.
[01:13:49] And the doctors were pretty non-committal.
[01:13:53] So when I was there, they didn't say, you'll never walk again, they didn't say, you
[01:13:58] know, what are you can or can't do?
[01:14:01] They said, you know, hey, you have a spinal cord injury.
[01:14:03] It's very severe.
[01:14:04] It's a big deal.
[01:14:06] But if you recover function, the research shows that it might happen in the first two
[01:14:10] years, most likely.
[01:14:12] And so that was good in some ways and bad in other ways.
[01:14:15] It was good because it left me the opportunity to control my mindset and to say, hey,
[01:14:22] so what, I'm going to get up in six weeks and go around a marathon or whatever.
[01:14:28] The challenge with that though was that was a little bit.
[01:14:30] That was good for me to get through those initial stages, but it was also naive of me to
[01:14:35] not let the reality sink in.
[01:14:37] And so, you know, when that didn't happen in six weeks and I didn't walk and I wasn't
[01:14:41] gaining control or function of anything below my chest, that's when it started to get
[01:14:47] real and like, was really challenging for me to deal with.
[01:14:51] Because I didn't, you know, it was out of my control, the level of, you know, the permanence
[01:14:56] of my injury.
[01:14:58] And then what, what was there anything that helped you get through that transition of
[01:15:04] when you, all of a sudden, six weeks goes by and you, the reality starts to hit you that
[01:15:09] made you say, okay, here's what I'm going to do.
[01:15:13] Yeah, it was, it was bad for about, I think probably, first four to six months.
[01:15:20] And the reason why the, the reason why it was probably the lowest point, actually definitely
[01:15:23] the lowest point was, I was 10 to the 2012, so about two months after I got injured,
[01:15:30] I transferred to a VA facility in Tampa, Florida.
[01:15:34] Because that was a major spinal cord injury clinic.
[01:15:36] And so, the military, DOD side, doesn't have spinal cord injury recovery that have it all
[01:15:41] of the VA.
[01:15:42] So, which is me, in the VA with my wife, we really located there.
[01:15:47] On that day, actually, that was the day that three other Marines in our company, the
[01:15:52] front different team were killed in an insider attack in Sengen.
[01:15:57] And so Captain Matthew and Newcune, Gunner, Sergeant Ryan Jetsky and Staff Sergeant, Sky
[01:16:01] Mode, we're all three guys that weren't in my team, but they were friends of mine that
[01:16:05] were killed and were coming home.
[01:16:08] And so it was hard to deal with that.
[01:16:10] It was hard because I was still in the hospital.
[01:16:12] I couldn't go down into the funerals.
[01:16:14] And then it was continued to be hard after that because it just reinforced the fact that
[01:16:21] my guys were out there vulnerable, and I wasn't there to lead them.
[01:16:24] And that was my job.
[01:16:25] And I felt like I was failing them every day.
[01:16:28] And so, although my wife was there with me, throughout this recovery process, it was lonely.
[01:16:32] You know, everything you do in the military is in teams.
[01:16:34] You're always from day one who can't be up a buddy for everything.
[01:16:37] And now this was the first time in the military when I'm alone.
[01:16:41] And without any control, over that will come of what would happen to my guys.
[01:16:46] And so, that was tough.
[01:16:48] That was like definitely, definitely the toughest part of the recovery process.
[01:16:53] And so luckily, I was able to fly back to California and see them touch down in December.
[01:16:59] All the guys made it back safe and sound.
[01:17:01] And then that was really when I was able to start to put the pieces back together and go
[01:17:04] forward and move on with my life.
[01:17:05] What did that look like picking up the pieces and putting them back together?
[01:17:09] And the reason I'm asking this is just because, you know, I'm looking at where you're
[01:17:12] out right now.
[01:17:14] And if there's any buddy that could be listening, that could say, okay, let me hear what
[01:17:19] he did.
[01:17:20] So I can emulate that.
[01:17:22] Yeah.
[01:17:24] The key things, there's a couple of things that I did that I think are, very similar to
[01:17:31] some of the stuff that you've talked about before.
[01:17:33] And one is mission and purpose.
[01:17:36] And so recovering in a hospital sitting there by yourself, it wasn't the mission that
[01:17:41] I signed up for.
[01:17:42] And so as soon as I possibly could, I was back at work.
[01:17:46] And so I was back in the op section in January, you know, as a few droprations officer
[01:17:50] trying to do PowerPoints and slides and all the other stuff that officers are, are tasked
[01:17:57] to do.
[01:17:58] And it was great because nobody else wanted to do that stuff.
[01:18:00] So I was happy to take it on and do it.
[01:18:03] And so being around the team, providing something meaningful for them and having an impact
[01:18:10] was more important for my psyche than anything else.
[01:18:14] Other two things I've kind of looked at were like, very stoic philosophy, stoic mindset,
[01:18:20] and realizing that something's out of my control.
[01:18:24] But I do have control over the way I choose to react to things the way I choose to move
[01:18:28] forward to my life and that I have opportunities.
[01:18:31] The guys like Matt, Ryan and Sky don't have.
[01:18:35] And so for me to squalend with that for me not to take advantage of every day and move forward
[01:18:39] in a way that they would be proud of is a complete waste.
[01:18:42] And so that makes it really easy to stop feeling sorry for yourself and to keep pushing
[01:18:48] and to keep doing whatever you want to do.
[01:18:49] And so those are the two things I think that every day, even to this day, continue to
[01:18:53] push me forward is like, you know, setting out on the mission and the vision that I want
[01:18:59] to achieve in the purpose for my life and taking advantage of every day because, you know,
[01:19:05] it's an opportunity.
[01:19:06] I have something that every day I wake up, I can go and create or do or build or make
[01:19:10] something meaningful and to not take advantage of that is to squander an opportunity that
[01:19:17] anyone of those guys would love to have.
[01:19:19] So it makes it real simple and easy for me to do.
[01:19:22] Oh man, brother, yeah, that's awesome, man.
[01:19:29] That's awesome.
[01:19:30] That's awesome attitude.
[01:19:33] How long did you stay?
[01:19:35] How long did you keep working in the Marine Corps for?
[01:19:39] Say it for about another two years after that.
[01:19:41] So Marine Corps is pretty cool.
[01:19:43] They have some programs in place for guys that are injured in the line of duty where you
[01:19:47] can stay in.
[01:19:49] So as long as you keep getting promoted and keep contributing.
[01:19:53] And so for me, I didn't pursue those longer-term programs because I started to find some
[01:20:00] other opportunities that I was passionate about and wanted to pursue outside the military.
[01:20:05] And so I continue to work for about two years as a staff officer working with first, you
[01:20:10] know, the operation section has were transitioning and trying to assign to mission sets
[01:20:15] and supporting all those different types of operation, operational planning efforts.
[01:20:20] And I'd gone back to business school part-time to try to learn about business and to go get
[01:20:27] more education.
[01:20:30] And then I became really passionate about a new opportunity and medical technology and medical
[01:20:35] research and thought that that was where my next big impact would be.
[01:20:41] And so decided to officially retire from the military in November of 2014 and have been
[01:20:48] out since then.
[01:20:50] And what was the new opportunity and where did that lead?
[01:20:56] So the opportunity that a rose was to start a company and try to address issues and
[01:21:02] unmet needs associated with spinal cord injury.
[01:21:05] And so I learned firsthand how many challenges and how many issues there are in addition
[01:21:10] to just being in a wheelchair that a lot of people don't see.
[01:21:14] And so everything from pals, bladder management, sexual function, physical training,
[01:21:21] osteoporide, bone density, and muscle mass, there's so many different things that are
[01:21:24] challenges that are unmet needs of the people like me and the patient population of which
[01:21:30] am a part of.
[01:21:31] And so the idea and the company that we started is called spinal singularity.
[01:21:36] And that's what we're working to solve.
[01:21:37] So our first product, the first thing we're working on, which is in clinical studies now,
[01:21:40] is a smart catheter for bladder management.
[01:21:43] And so allows people to push a button and empty their bladder, which is currently much
[01:21:50] more advanced and much more useful and functional than the current method of management.
[01:21:54] And so that's what we've been working on for the past few years.
[01:21:58] Yeah.
[01:21:59] Yeah.
[01:22:00] And as I was kind of reading about the stuff that you've been working on and even on
[01:22:04] that item right there.
[01:22:07] It reminded me of when my buddy, Jody, midit, came down to be on the podcast and he's
[01:22:13] a double amputee.
[01:22:16] But you know, I would see pictures of him walking around and he would do like he did
[01:22:19] some big race up in Canada.
[01:22:20] I forget what the race was called.
[01:22:21] The amazing race.
[01:22:22] The amazing race.
[01:22:23] And he would do all this really badass stuff that I would think, hey, you know, it's all
[01:22:29] good.
[01:22:30] And when he came down here, I think I might have been the second time he came
[01:22:37] down here.
[01:22:38] It was the second time he came down here and we like hung out more because you know,
[01:22:42] he came down for a little bit more time and we were a little bit tighter.
[01:22:45] But he, well, first of all, I got him a hotel room and he called me and he said, hey,
[01:22:51] I'm not going to say it that hotel because they don't have a, you know, handicapped stuff
[01:22:55] there.
[01:22:56] And I was like, kind of, I was like, okay, yeah, man, cool, you know, whatever.
[01:22:59] But in my mind, I was kind of thinking to myself, like, why did he need that?
[01:23:04] Because I see him walking around and he's running the damn amazing race, right?
[01:23:08] And so I asked him, how's that going?
[01:23:10] You know, like later, I didn't ask him on the phone.
[01:23:12] I said, yeah, I could whatever you want.
[01:23:14] And then later I talked to him, I was like, why do you, you know, why do you need that?
[01:23:17] I wasn't trying to be a jerk.
[01:23:19] I was just honestly asking.
[01:23:21] And he was like, yeah, well, you know, like at night, I mean, I, I take my legs off and
[01:23:26] I got a crawl around and if I got to pull myself up on the toilet, I got to pull
[01:23:28] myself in the shower and like if there's not handles and stuff, you know, it sucks.
[01:23:34] And so that was like part one of this story.
[01:23:37] Part two was he wanted to walk around and say, yeah, go on, you know, see what I lived and
[01:23:43] go to the ocean and all this kind of stuff.
[01:23:44] And so we did that.
[01:23:47] And we had gone to the midway, aircraft carrier and walked around there and then we
[01:23:52] walked downtown and then we walked, we were, then we went to where I live and we were
[01:23:56] kind of like walking in the beach area.
[01:23:57] And I could see who's kind of like slowing down.
[01:24:00] And I could see his face getting a little bit, you know, like, like a little bit of a
[01:24:04] little bit of strain in his face.
[01:24:06] And he's like, hey, man, let me sit down for a minute and then he beats it down and we
[01:24:10] talk a little bit and then he'd say, okay, let's go.
[01:24:11] And then he'd say, let's let's sit down and find these, okay, man, can we just go back
[01:24:16] to your house?
[01:24:17] Like my legs are really hurting and, you know, like, yeah, guess what?
[01:24:20] You're putting all that pressure on, on their stumps and, and it wears away the skin
[01:24:25] and it's, it's, you know, it's hard and it sucks.
[01:24:31] And I guess, so that's part number two and what these two things reinforced to me is, you
[01:24:39] know, what, like, there's so much going on that, that I don't see that, that, because
[01:24:45] you know, I hadn't been injured like that.
[01:24:47] There's so many things going on that, like, oh, you know, he's doing okay.
[01:24:50] It's like, yeah, he's doing okay.
[01:24:51] He's seen him for like two hours, three hours, he's living like that 24 hours, he's got
[01:24:56] all these things to contend with that haven't even remotely crossed my mind.
[01:25:00] And so when I saw the, yeah, I mean, straight up, the first time I ever, it ever entered
[01:25:07] my mind, how you take a piss, how you would take a piss.
[01:25:12] The first time it ever entered my mind when I was researching what your medical devices are
[01:25:16] and I was like, you know, how ignorant am I, you know, to be sitting here and never even
[01:25:22] thought of that.
[01:25:23] And then that's one of all these other problems that you have to contend with on a daily
[01:25:29] basis.
[01:25:30] And it's, you know, it's a daily, it's a daily struggle.
[01:25:33] You know, something, something gym web brought up as well.
[01:25:36] He was talking about different types of courage.
[01:25:39] And he brought up something called daily courage.
[01:25:41] And he's talked about one of his friends that was wounded.
[01:25:44] And he's like, every day, it takes him 20 minutes to get out of bed.
[01:25:47] It takes him 15 minutes to get here and, you know, to the other side of his room, he's like,
[01:25:51] that's daily courage that he has to show.
[01:25:54] And I'm thinking of myself, yep.
[01:25:56] And, you know, it just makes me feel like there's so much, there's so much more that,
[01:26:01] you know, you go through on a daily basis that we and me, I completely take for granted,
[01:26:08] a completely take it for granted.
[01:26:11] And so for me to sit here and talk to you and realize how hard it is for you on a daily
[01:26:17] basis to things you have to go through.
[01:26:19] And then to hear you say, like, yeah, but I'm glad I'm here on like my brothers who
[01:26:23] didn't come home.
[01:26:25] Yeah, I don't think anyone has any excuses really.
[01:26:29] None.
[01:26:30] So, yeah.
[01:26:32] Totally agree.
[01:26:34] Yeah.
[01:26:35] And just makes you do the deal that much more creative with your mindset.
[01:26:41] Right.
[01:26:42] Like, you look at all the challenges, but you've got to also look at the opportunities,
[01:26:46] right?
[01:26:47] So, I can sprint through airports much faster than you can with that.
[01:26:51] I'm just getting into stress.
[01:26:52] Like, I've got good parking most of the time, you know.
[01:26:54] So you've just got to make up time where you can, it takes a little bit longer to get
[01:26:57] off the airplane, but kill you on the straightaways any day.
[01:27:02] And so, you know, you've just got to take the go the bad.
[01:27:06] Yeah.
[01:27:07] So, but, you know, it's, it's not so much choices.
[01:27:10] So that was the, that was the, you got your MBA.
[01:27:16] As, is that why you were still in you wouldn't you got your MBA?
[01:27:20] Or did you get out?
[01:27:21] I got out about halfway through.
[01:27:22] So, I did the part-time program at UCLA.
[01:27:25] It's an executive MBA.
[01:27:26] So it's on the weekends.
[01:27:27] Mm-hmm.
[01:27:28] Every other weekend.
[01:27:29] And so, as I was leaving the military.
[01:27:32] So, I did the first year of still full, on active duty.
[01:27:34] And then retired shortly out into the second year.
[01:27:37] Took another job, another medical device.
[01:27:39] Started up to get some experience.
[01:27:40] And then as soon as I graduated, started full-time working on spinal singularity
[01:27:44] in my company.
[01:27:45] And so, one of the experiences too that was really cool that I had as part of that retirement
[01:27:52] as I think about it now was being able to use and be involved in as a user, exoskeleton
[01:27:58] technology.
[01:27:59] And so, there's robotic exoskeleton technology that allows paraplegics to stand and walk.
[01:28:04] Mm-hmm.
[01:28:05] Um, because of a lot of generous donors in the brain-radar foundation, I was able to be
[01:28:12] to use that device and to obtain that device.
[01:28:15] Even before FDA approval.
[01:28:16] And so, I had a really, really great setup within our batonine headquarters in our office.
[01:28:24] And so, we had a physical therapist downstairs, smile,
[01:28:27] which was upstairs.
[01:28:28] It was fully accessible, which is not like most buildings in the military.
[01:28:32] And so, I was able to use this device to stay in and walk and to do therapy.
[01:28:35] And when our tired, I was able to use that device and not use my wheelchair to
[01:28:39] relieve on my own two feet, which was a goal that had set for myself.
[01:28:43] And so, that was great.
[01:28:46] But it still didn't address a lot of these other unmet needs,
[01:28:49] and then we had for the community.
[01:28:50] And so, that was what inspired me to try to move forward on my own path and start
[01:28:55] my own company and build this product to solve these issues.
[01:28:58] So, yeah, so very thankful for all the donors and the foundation to help support that.
[01:29:04] And I was also very fortunate.
[01:29:06] So, like you said, a lot of other people had gone before me.
[01:29:10] And so, one of my classmates at the Naval Academy, a guy named Matt Lambert,
[01:29:14] got to first-marine radar batonine about two years before I did because he was on the
[01:29:18] quick cycle of deployments.
[01:29:20] And in 2010, he was a bilateral and PT above the knee.
[01:29:24] As I was going through the training pipeline.
[01:29:28] And so, I went up and saw him in Bethesda in the hospital and just checked him with him
[01:29:33] over briefly as he was coming back and starting his rehab.
[01:29:37] But this is maybe a week after he got off the battlefield or less.
[01:29:41] And he says, you know, like, sort of you're going to do.
[01:29:43] He's like, I'm going back to California.
[01:29:45] He's like, no, I'm going back to Afghanistan.
[01:29:47] Okay, gotcha.
[01:29:49] I don't think like, man, how's he going to do that?
[01:29:52] And sure enough, as I graduated from training, he was my company executive officer
[01:29:58] checked me in.
[01:29:59] And then we deployed again.
[01:30:01] So when I had gotten injured and deployed, he was there as their company exo.
[01:30:05] And then after my friend and Matt had gotten killed, he went down and took over his team.
[01:30:08] As a bilateral and PT, above the knees.
[01:30:11] And so, you know, he'd come back.
[01:30:13] He had done that.
[01:30:14] He had trodden that path.
[01:30:15] And so, for me, you know, going back and recovering,
[01:30:18] our building was accessible.
[01:30:19] You know, it's a real terrible.
[01:30:21] A lot of other things.
[01:30:22] And then just that example that he said as well was really helpful and inspiring for me to follow.
[01:30:28] And so, yeah, so really, really fortunate in the rehab environment, especially because of all the assets it's so come.
[01:30:36] As and so if I'd been in the grunts, been totally totally different story for how the recovery would have gone.
[01:30:43] You know, my entire command was super supportive of me coming back and working and doing this.
[01:30:48] And whatever you need, whatever you want, you want to go to ops, like, sure, let's do it.
[01:30:52] Get it up and so.
[01:30:54] Yeah, so it's a good place to recover.
[01:30:58] When you hear about, like, when you say broadly, like, if I was a grunt, I would have gotten that kind of support.
[01:31:03] I mean, I get that because, you know, in this whole teams, we have the same thing like,
[01:31:07] like, people will rally around and make stuff happen.
[01:31:11] Is there anything, organizations that you know of that sort of support, like the front line.
[01:31:17] Soldier Marine that gets that gets catastrophicly wounded?
[01:31:22] Yeah, yeah, so there's a lot of different nonprofits out there.
[01:31:26] Sumber five fund is a big one.
[01:31:28] There's a lot of different groups that support them.
[01:31:30] And, and it's different.
[01:31:31] It's not that they don't have the assets.
[01:31:33] It's just the location of those assets.
[01:31:36] And so, an infantry battalion has a very different operational mission in leeway than special operations battalion.
[01:31:43] And so, for all of the guys that were injured in the conventional forces, when they come back, they're immediately sent to wounded warrior battalion at the hospital.
[01:31:52] And so their job is now.
[01:31:54] Show up to your appointments and do your rehab until you get separated from the military.
[01:31:58] Yeah.
[01:31:59] That's a very different way to recover with a bunch of other people who are injured or on their way out, whatever else versus, you know,
[01:32:07] and without an operational purpose, then what I was able to do, and I was very fortunate to do,
[01:32:12] where I went back to an operational role within battalion.
[01:32:15] And I was the only injured, one of the only injured guys, you know, recovering around normal people because I wanted to be like that.
[01:32:22] Yeah, I don't know if you ever know a guy named Jake Schick, but he was on here and he told his story,
[01:32:27] and that's like, that's what it was. He was there. He was just like his job was just to kind of recover,
[01:32:32] but you could see and talk into him, he would have loved to have had some kind of a higher purpose than just that.
[01:32:41] Which eventually he made, he made it from self. He made his own organization to, you know, help wounded vets and help suicide prevention with 22 kill.
[01:32:51] But yeah, so I think that one of that's a good comparison, you know, just from hearing him tell his story about, you know, what his recovery was like, and it was.
[01:33:02] It was geared towards, okay, you're going to do this until you get out of the Marine Corps.
[01:33:05] I guarantee, you know, he talked to Jake Schick for three minutes, and you're going to realize if you could have told him, hey, we want you to do this for the Marine Corps.
[01:33:13] He would have been all over it. He would have gone and done anything, you know, because he's a badass.
[01:33:18] But, but yeah, I know that's a, that's a good point, and that's, well, you heard me say it because you kind of referenced it a little bit, you know,
[01:33:26] I always tell guys that you need to find a new mission, whatever that new mission is, you've got to find a new mission.
[01:33:30] You can't be sitting around with no mission, man. You had a mission for, for, for whatever eight years, seven years, 20 years, however long it's been, you had a, you had a mission, you had to go and,
[01:33:41] if that goes away, you, you got to find a new one, and it doesn't really matter what it is. I mean, pick something good, right?
[01:33:48] I mean, your mission shouldn't be, shouldn't involve whiskey.
[01:33:51] But pick something positive and something good moving the right direction.
[01:33:55] How, how is, uh, spinal singularity doing right now? Like, what's the, what's the status?
[01:34:00] What do you really well? So, uh, it's been a good three years, um, I learned a ton, and just the fact that we're still in business today is, it's pretty amazing,
[01:34:10] because I had zero experience, right? I had no clue what I was doing, because I know experience in medical device industry, I had no network.
[01:34:16] Uh, and so the first year was a lot of, a lot of faith, a lot of ups and downs, right? Just like starting any business, but especially in the medical device industry, I learned a ton, and then it was fortunate enough to find people to bring in that, that are experienced, and then I trust, and so,
[01:34:31] um, we've raised money, we've grown investors, we've raised, you know, money from grants and non-delute of sources.
[01:34:38] Um, and we're at now, we have a small team of six employees in San Clemente, and, uh, running a large clinical study across the US right now, and so, we have sites all over, everywhere from Minnesota, New Jersey, you know, all over,
[01:34:53] until the California and Arizona, and we're, those sites are actively enrolling people interested in supporting our trial, and then how long does that trial need to last before it gets approval? So the goal is to have approval, um, internationally next year, and then hopefully by the end of the year, we can have FDA approval for the product as well.
[01:35:13] We're, uh, 100% certain that that's happening, but that's, uh, that's the goal, and hopefully we can collect the data we need as quickly as possible to accomplish that.
[01:35:20] And then do you have your next device in mind after this one goes live?
[01:35:24] Got ideas? You got it. Yeah, but, uh, I'm always, I've always been like a versatile guy, not like the, you know, execution like the 100% I'm the zero to 90% guy, not the 90%
[01:35:35] 100% of the money. Oh, guy. And so I know that, so everybody else that we were, you know, everybody else in our team now are like the 90 to 100% guys, and so, um, I'm trying to be more like that, and not even think about it, because if, if this doesn't work, got it.
[01:35:48] There is no business, right? Like we've put all of our, you know, this is what we raised money to do, you know, we haven't, we don't, we can't knowingly devote a minute of time to anything else until this is successful.
[01:36:00] So you're going to do that with that, then we can kind of go back and drawing more things, but, and once it's approved here, then it just, then it's just sailing it, selling it and getting it out there, and it's going into the, yeah, into the world.
[01:36:12] And then what about the, what about the marine radar foundation, which is another thing you're involved with? Yeah, so, um, after I was injured, I was very ignorant to the realities of the way things work and what the needs would be for me. And so, um, a lot of nonprofits out there do all kinds of great work and different things, as a marine radar in this situation without knowing anything, you know, I didn't want to talk to anybody. I was very hesitant to reach out for help to anybody.
[01:36:41] And so, as these things arose, you know, one of the guys who is, or was, is it, employee of the organization now, and so it was a currently an active duty radar at that time, it was like, hey man, like, we're starting this nonprofit to help guys, like, if you need anything to say, say so. And so it was like, all right, cool.
[01:37:00] And so they helped pay for my wife to move out to Tampa, so she could be there for my recovery helped, you know, get her car out there, so she could drive around and help transport me around to different things.
[01:37:13] They helped us raise money for the exoskeleton because it was still not covered by insurance or the VA, it was still experimental at that time.
[01:37:21] So, you know, my wife and I are eternally grateful for all the support we receive from them. And so, as soon as I got out of the military, that organization said, hey, do you want to be a board member? Do you want to help?
[01:37:33] I don't like, yes, absolutely. And so that was 2014 and so I've been on the board since then.
[01:37:39] And I think it was 2015, I took over as a board president, and so I've been trying to devote my spare time to help that organization.
[01:37:46] But the missions that we serve and ultimately what we do at the foundation is just to support on that needs of the community and their families.
[01:37:56] And so the government's really good at supporting injured veterans and they have so many different programs that help people, but every situation is unique.
[01:38:07] And so, Congress isn't going to change a law to appropriate money for you to not do something that doesn't fall into the black and white letter of the law. And that's fine.
[01:38:16] But that's where we step in and it will help people and you know, take the stress off of them and their times of need.
[01:38:23] So, have four real major areas, one is support to the marine raiders, another is family resiliency.
[01:38:29] Third one is tragedy assistance and survivor support and then the last one is a radar legacy in preservation.
[01:38:35] So, obviously the radar support and the family support are pretty broad ways to work and they can be anything from, you know, just anything on the song that will help Marines and their families.
[01:38:49] And the tragedy assistance survivor support even though, you know, we're engaged in varying levels of combat there's still guys out there putting their lives on the line every day. And that's evidence by recent training incident that we had about two years ago, less than two years ago, 2017.
[01:39:07] So, we're going to see one third crash that claimed the lives of seven marine raiders and then two years before that helicopter crash in another training mission out of the course of Florida.
[01:39:19] That took another lives another seven guys and so, being able to support their their families and family members that had survived those.
[01:39:28] So, the incident is a big part of the mission that we fulfill and then radar legacy in preservation just because they want one thing. You hit on this a little bit, but I'm just going to expand a little bit so people can kind of understand.
[01:39:42] When you talk about like Congress is going to change a law to give a family that what they need a certain time because it's too specific or whatever.
[01:39:49] And the reality is, let's say a kid needs a new bicycle and there's, you know, the dad can't go and get it because he's wounded, he's in the hospital.
[01:40:01] Like, that's the kind of things that the foundation can do go out by the bite, get a built and deliver. You know, like little things like that that really matter.
[01:40:08] And he can be bigger things too. Like you said, like moving a family, helping to pay for the movement of a family, helping to redec, you know, get furniture for the new apartment.
[01:40:16] And what it is, there's no law that takes care of those situations, but these types of organizations do that. And it does have a big deal.
[01:40:25] But it has a huge impact for those, for those families that are there and believe me when those families are in the most tough situations.
[01:40:32] These little things to be able to not have them think about it, not have them think about, hey, the cost of a flight to fly, you know, dad out to come and visit his son or whatever.
[01:40:44] And he, any of those little things they don't seem like a big deal, but they're a huge deal when families are going through these traumatic times.
[01:40:51] Yeah.
[01:40:52] So, for example, when my friend Matt was killed and his family went to go pick him up at Dover, one of the last, you know, things that his mother wanted was her whole family to fly home with him.
[01:41:06] And the guy went to a only pay for the father and mother, I think it was. And so the other two brothers and some other family friends, they wanted to all be on the same plane.
[01:41:15] One thing that she wanted to do, she didn't want anything else just said, hey, I want us all to be on the same plane going home while we're grieving with my son.
[01:41:24] Yeah, that's that's in so instead of having to deal with that and the insanity of it, you know, just tell her hey, we got your flight for you to like get on the plane, you're good.
[01:41:32] Perfect.
[01:41:33] So, it's just a small seemingly small gesture, but with a timely injection of support can have a really lifelong impact on people. And so those are some of the different experiences and I can go on and on about different ways that we've been able to help people that.
[01:41:49] Bottom line is, guys are going out doing these different things and for them to be able to go forward and to fly with a happy heart.
[01:41:57] They want another family who are taking care of on the backside and the community will support them. And so that's that's literally it is we just, you know, we're 5133 that raises money to support the community members and their time of need.
[01:42:09] And then the last one is legacy.
[01:42:11] Yeah, so which is legit because you guys, I mean, you guys kind of are saving the legacy of the original world war two raiders, right? Yes, we're trying to. And so.
[01:42:23] We explain how that, how you guys adopted the name because it's, it's awesome. It's a good history. So, so the marine raiders, the World War II marine raiders were one of the first special operations units formed.
[01:42:37] Period. And so they were formed in World War II and their mission was to conduct enemy deeper kind of since essentially prior to invasions in the Pacific. And so these guys would mount up and rubber boats.
[01:42:49] First ones to do submarine lockouts and, you know, and some of the things that they did were just insane even by today standards.
[01:42:57] And so these guys were very well trained and basically provided the lineage of who we are today. And so those that group and then other members also joined the OSS at that time, which was the precursor of the CIA.
[01:43:15] There's a lot of Marines at that unit as well. And those are the two kind of units that we draw our lineage from as the marine special operations units today.
[01:43:23] And so these guys were disbanded in the 1946 after they came back or maybe it was in 1945 after the war.
[01:43:31] And so we've been very active in connecting with these guys. They have an association that actually Colonel Kazinski is in charge of knowing the president of the marine raider association.
[01:43:44] Which is a social organization, not a non, not a 5133.
[01:43:50] And so a lot of these guys are still alive today, World War II veterans.
[01:43:56] And so we get to go and meet with them and talk with them. And hear these stories of these amazing missions they did and conducting, you know, monthlong patrols behind enemy lines, sabotaging the Japanese and different, different battles.
[01:44:12] And so these guys were very, very vocal and outspoken to different leadership within the marine corps as they're all, you know, in their 90s and passing away this day.
[01:44:22] One way to honor our legacy is to have a marine raider, you know, have a marine raider unit today.
[01:44:28] And that went over terribly with any leadership because, you don't know, there's a pretty strong culture and brainwashing done.
[01:44:41] Within the marine corps and it's from day one, there's only one title of matters. It's at your a marine here. It's a wander is your a marine.
[01:44:49] You are elite. No one is special or everyone is special and no one is special.
[01:44:53] You know, you're all replaceable, but you're all special, which is the weirdest conundrum.
[01:44:58] But all of us believe it and at the highest levels, a title of any unit, you know, the things you're special, you know, is against the entire culture.
[01:45:08] And so since formation, since the marine special operations command was officially formed in 2006 from the force reconnaissance units overnight, they became the marine special operations command.
[01:45:22] So literally changed the guide on at a ceremony and then they're officially so calm assets.
[01:45:29] There was this undercurrent this push from the lowest levels. And guys were really strongly pushing this and so the raider symbol the raider logo from what we're to is it, you know, a shield with the southern cross and a skull and a dagger in it.
[01:45:45] And so assuming the dagger's on there, we have the dagger for some of our units down just the skull and the southern cross.
[01:45:52] And so guys were were patches and patches or another thing that they're my court patches. I know, beards anything that is not instructed here in it's with the uniform policy is not tolerated.
[01:46:05] And so, you know, that's a quick way to get hammered right it's just like you're not special. What do you think you're doing? This is an authorized all that kind of stuff whereas the army's like, you know, army without hey, you know, I'm in the single team's man.
[01:46:18] So the front points for flare, right? Yeah. So you guys are not. So embarrassing expected to have like to look cool right.
[01:46:27] Within the Marine Corps, it was this consistent undercurrent pushing and pushing and pushing and so it's patches and then it became tattoos.
[01:46:35] So guys would get the raider emblem just tattooed on their chest and then not where I've skippy shirt. So you just see, so like, you know, you're going into your first sergeant and they're like,
[01:46:45] Where's your skippy shirt? Devil dog. What's give you shirt on? He's skippy.
[01:46:50] And so it wasn't official until it was about two years ago, you're an half ago.
[01:46:56] After a decade of insurgency. That's awesome.
[01:47:00] The units that we have a name and I think it's directly attributed to Alvin Rook Raven actually. So within socom, he's a really smart guy, a phenomenal commander obviously.
[01:47:10] And he gets marketing and branding and just the basic, you know, title right like you've earned the title of Marine and within the special operations community, you're in the title of seal and green bra.
[01:47:22] And so he said, hey, my one of my last things I want to do like, I want to work with the com another Marine Corps. I want you guys to get a title.
[01:47:29] Yeah, and it's right.
[01:47:31] And it's, it's not even about marketing and brainy. It's about heritage and unit pride. I mean, what, what more awesome thing than to date and keep alive that tradition from World War II of those guys in the service and sacrifice that they had.
[01:47:47] It's, it's badass man. It's awesome. It's awesome.
[01:47:50] Yeah.
[01:47:51] And as part of that too, you know, there's just like everything growing up right like we're growing up as an organization.
[01:47:56] So we're new to Socom. So we're trying to figure out how to screw because we can. So we'd have our military special occupational specialty code. So that took a while till we had.
[01:48:05] So guys, the rating is now for the whole career.
[01:48:08] Yes.
[01:48:08] Oh, that's awesome.
[01:48:09] Yeah, because initially when they started, it wasn't the case. Right. It was like, well, let's socom.
[01:48:14] Use you guys, but then we want to use you too. So every five years you're coming back to the fleet and you're going to be in an infantry company or rifle,
[01:48:21] and stuff and they were like, guys, when I first joined the Navy, I've talked about this before. When I first joined the Navy, the Marines didn't have names on their uniforms.
[01:48:30] Because they didn't need them because your name was Lance Corporal.
[01:48:34] Your name was Staff Sergeant. And that's it. It was legit. I always had a lot of respect for that. But of course now they have them.
[01:48:41] But I always thought that. But that shows you, there's like, let's slow, you know, there's a slow change in the Marine Corps.
[01:48:50] I'm sure some people would say that it's not good, but yeah, it just is. It's just the Marine Corps.
[01:48:56] Be green-wainy.
[01:48:58] Here comes again.
[01:49:00] Yeah.
[01:49:01] It's good. And so we have an M.S. Guys can stick around.
[01:49:05] We have a name. We have a badge now. We have a, like, a, like, a, you know, just like you guys have the Trident. We have a war Eagle.
[01:49:13] Yeah, something like that.
[01:49:14] I was just like a big Eagle and a giant sword. And so, well, the cool thing I did to cool that cool thing about the Marine Raiders and about the Marine special operations is if you're in the Navy,
[01:49:30] and you're in the SEAL teams, like you have nothing. There's no cross, there's almost no cross over.
[01:49:37] There's, there's almost no cross. There's one, there's 3% cross over from the US Navy to a SEAL team in terms of your skills, right?
[01:49:46] You're, you're a guy driving a ship or working a big 16 inch gun or working on a missile technology.
[01:49:53] That's what you do in the Navy. The SEAL teams, you're in and field of the machine gun. There's zero cross over. And that's horrible.
[01:50:00] And in the Marine Corps, it's like, oh, you're an infantryman that totally, I mean, every skill is applicable. And that is such an advantage to the Marine Corps.
[01:50:10] And it's such an advantage to the Raiders because you get guys that have fundamental infantry skills when they roll in.
[01:50:17] We have to teach guys infantry skills. Once we've taught them sort of fundamental special operations type, small unit tactics, then we have to teach them conventional more, more conventional movements.
[01:50:29] Just to get them up to speed because you got to know those things. If you're out working with 140 Iraqi soldiers, you can't, that's not a small unit anymore. You got to think a little bit differently.
[01:50:40] So you guys have that advantage. And that's an awesome, an awesome thing. I mean, I remember the guys used to kind of complain about it when I was friends with a bunch of forestry, congrats.
[01:50:50] They would always complain about going to be billets. Like, hey, I got to go, well, not a be billet, but they have to go back to an infantry platoon. And I would always think to myself, man, I'd go to an infantry platoon, or are you kidding me? Like, it's awesome. It's awesome.
[01:51:04] And so I think that's an advantage. So if there's any young ones out there that are thinking about your future, think about the Marine Corps, because you get that full spectrum of kind of land warfare.
[01:51:17] You get the amphibious side too, but you get that full spectrum of infantry. And that's awesome. And you don't, it's hard to get that in the sealed teams. You get it over time.
[01:51:27] But I got, I see where I got it from. I got it from working with Marines on our deployments. And I got to see what a company movement looked like. And that's where I learned it from thank God.
[01:51:37] Because by the time I was older, and then Iraq, working with the army and we're going to kind of had at least some semblance of knowledge about it.
[01:51:43] Yeah, yeah, couldn't agree more. And one of the good things about that as well for us as an organization is, we don't have street to soft, right? There's a period of time. And so, you know, like, you get to assess people.
[01:52:00] And one of the best assessments you can make for future performance is the past performance. And so if you've already got two to four years of observation in the Marine Corps, if you couldn't hack it in in a infantry platoon, then you don't really deserve a trial or make it to the special operation committee.
[01:52:12] Those lessons learned you're absolutely right. It's exactly the same stuff. So if you, you know, like for all those young motivators out there, they want to become a Marine or become a Marsak, like, first step is just become Marine.
[01:52:23] Be good, great Marine, whatever you do. You be an infantry, like, be great. Like be the best rifleman. You could be the best mortarman machine gunner or whatever else you can do.
[01:52:32] Do they take any MOS? Yes. Okay, so that's awesome. So you don't have to worry about what your MOS is. You won't get withheld.
[01:52:38] No, it's become a more and more competitive. And if you're smart, obviously, I mean, I always tell people just going infantry or kind of since humans, because, you know, if you want to be a radar and you want to go do those sorts of things, those skill sets are much more applicable.
[01:52:54] It's better to learn them early and become a master of those as opposed to a master of admin or supply or anything else. So what's MOS?
[01:53:04] Military operational specialty. Occupational specialty military. So it's like what your job is? You can be a rifleman. You can be a machine gunner. You can be a mortarman.
[01:53:14] But you can also be a mechanic. You can be an IT guy. And you can be, I mean, there's Marines that are do every job. You know, every job that you can have the same thing in the army, same thing in the Navy, you know. And so that's why
[01:53:28] it used to be in the Navy. You had to have certain ratings if you were going to go in the sealed teams. And so that was one of them. If they did the same thing like we only take guys from inventory.
[01:53:38] Last thing I'll ask you about, because I know we've been here for a while. You got two sons and how's that going?
[01:53:47] It's awesome. How will they?
[01:53:49] They're awesome. They're almost 16 months old or 16 months old.
[01:53:54] Also, you're just in the full get some stage. Yeah. My wife is awesome. So they can do a few things. So they can run. They can yell and they can throw things.
[01:54:06] So when I come home, I just know that like she's been just getting run around and thrown at yelled at cried, you know, diapers like the whole thing.
[01:54:17] And they're twins. Yeah. They're giants too. He's got a twin brother. Yeah. They're giants. They're huge. Is there like psychological things to watch out for with twins?
[01:54:27] Like what? I don't know aren't they like hyper competitive?
[01:54:30] Yeah.
[01:54:32] Let me give you one piece of advice. I don't know not a twin. He's a twin.
[01:54:38] Get your kids training to get to when they're really young because if you have a twin brother or even a brother that's close
[01:54:45] in age, you're going to be really good at judzu because you have a natural training part of YouTube.
[01:54:49] With all the time, they're the same size as you. And there are some kids out there that are just sick. And it's because they have twins.
[01:54:58] I mean, I'm not just not trying to take away from them, but it's a huge advantage if you got it to when brother. They should be grappling.
[01:55:06] Oh, a lot. I fully intend on that. So that's one thing we didn't talk about, but I love judzu.
[01:55:12] So I got involved when I was a senior in high school. It just became like a judzu.
[01:55:18] Yeah. So I did a little bit of wrestling and then I played mostly football in the cross.
[01:55:24] And one of the guys I was a lifeguard too. And so one of the guys that came to my pool.
[01:55:29] He was a correctional officer and got hooked up with some guys up in Philadelphia and started training.
[01:55:36] So it was like me and a couple of other guys training in like a church gym. And so training there. And then when I was playing like Adamy, one of the things that I did to was try to start a judzu club.
[01:55:46] I didn't even club there because it was it was just coming up right. I was like 2002, 2003, 2004. And so trained and then did a did boxing, did a little MMA.
[01:55:55] And had a couple fights. And then like when I graduated became a Marine and was married.
[01:56:00] But that was a good one. I didn't put it on hold. I got after it.
[01:56:08] You did a boxing, fighting MMA fights. I don't know that.
[01:56:11] Yeah, that's a lot. I always have guys go, well, you know what? Once I had kids, I got two kids.
[01:56:15] And then they came and give me the look for approval from me. And my answer is I got four kids.
[01:56:21] Yeah, yeah. Get some.
[01:56:23] You already trained in anymore?
[01:56:24] I'm not. No, I haven't. I trained a little bit in the Marine Corps. We did some companions and stuff. And I did all that.
[01:56:30] But just focused on trying to be a great infantry officer. And so I got that.
[01:56:34] Yeah. Yeah. I got a friend Max. Max is paralyzed.
[01:56:38] Chest down. I would say. Yeah. He trains.
[01:56:44] Yeah. He trains.
[01:56:46] Has it come down and hook up with him sometime?
[01:56:48] Yeah. His grip has gotten a lot stronger.
[01:56:51] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[01:56:54] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, Jitsu is good. And with your twin boys, it's going to be real good.
[01:57:02] Yeah, man. Look, we've been here. We've been at it for a while.
[01:57:08] And then just just awesome. Awesome to hear you and talk to you.
[01:57:14] We're, we're, can people find you? So where should they look? Twitter?
[01:57:22] Yeah. I'm on on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, the usual.
[01:57:27] Twitter. Well, that's a Derek Herrera.
[01:57:31] Well, that's in there. In there's two ours in a row in Herrera. And there's a third. So there's a total of three ours in there.
[01:57:40] And right out of the head out of the sea. But only one in your first name, right?
[01:57:44] Yeah. Just one in the first game. Each year or a array of comments.
[01:57:48] So that's a website. I've an updated the blog in a while.
[01:57:51] I've been focused on on work and just doing that. And so spinal singularity.com.
[01:57:54] I've had some other stuff we're doing, but Facebook, Instagram, all the stuff's public.
[01:57:59] I don't put anything out that's not, you know, that's not private.
[01:58:02] Really is to find me. So I try to answer all the emails and messages whenever else.
[01:58:07] If anybody sends me notes, so not hard to track me down.
[01:58:12] Awesome, man. And you and MarineRater Foundation dot org.
[01:58:17] It can people find out how to donate on there.
[01:58:20] Yeah. That'll be a few of that website at the top. There's a donate button says donate now.
[01:58:24] And they'll take you to a link. You can mail checks. You can sign up for credit card, PayPal, whatever you do.
[01:58:31] There's also some contact information too. So if you can't give financial and you want to give time.
[01:58:35] There's volunteer opportunities for different events and things.
[01:58:38] But yeah, that's great way to get involved. Awesome.
[01:58:43] You got me, y'all. And he closing thoughts.
[01:58:46] Yeah. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here and share my story with you.
[01:58:53] I'm not here doing this to seek the limelight for anything.
[01:58:56] I'm doing it to try to be a good ambassador of the guys that are continuing to go for.
[01:58:59] But there lives on the line on a daily basis who can't talk about what they do.
[01:59:03] I advocate for themselves. A lot of people to thank my wife and particular spend their
[01:59:08] Formary stuff away. The foundation, the Marine Raider Foundation and all the people
[01:59:13] associated with the organization. My team who said my life and wouldn't be here without them.
[01:59:19] And all the guys that are out there continue to lay it down on a daily basis.
[01:59:24] Awesome, man. Well, like I said, it's been an honor to sit here and talk to you
[01:59:30] and hear your story and what you've been through in your sacrifice.
[01:59:33] And be even beyond what you did in the Marine Corps or what you're still doing.
[01:59:36] Building your business and with the foundation and most important.
[01:59:43] I think is just to set this incredible example to this day of what it means to never
[01:59:50] surrender of what it means to never quit and what it means to never give up.
[01:59:56] Regardless of the challenge that you're facing, man. That's awesome.
[02:00:01] So I appreciate the example you set for me and for everyone.
[02:00:06] Thanks for coming on and sharing it a little bit.
[02:00:09] Thank you. Pleasure to all of you.
[02:00:11] Awesome.
[02:00:13] And Derek has left the building.
[02:00:17] Obviously, awesome to have him on.
[02:00:20] And hear about his story. So echo.
[02:00:27] Yes.
[02:00:28] If somebody wants to support this podcast, how can they do it?
[02:00:30] Anyways, we will. Well, actually, and I was meant to kind of add in when I interrupt.
[02:00:37] But you know what you call it? Something de-e-de compression.
[02:00:41] Needle down.
[02:00:42] Needle down.
[02:00:43] De compression.
[02:00:44] I guess I should ask him that. But is that like, can you feel that? You know, like, when it goes in,
[02:00:51] there's sticking a damn needle into your rib cage.
[02:00:55] But you know what?
[02:00:56] But you know what?
[02:00:56] Into your lungs.
[02:00:57] Yeah.
[02:00:58] Remember, do you want to see if you can feel it?
[02:01:00] I'll stick a needle through your chest.
[02:01:03] Oh, yeah.
[02:01:04] No, no, no.
[02:01:04] I remember that movie three kings when they did that Mark Wahlberg.
[02:01:08] Yes.
[02:01:09] No.
[02:01:10] They did that.
[02:01:11] I'm pretty sure.
[02:01:12] Okay.
[02:01:13] Anyway.
[02:01:14] All right. You don't want to talk about that movie.
[02:01:16] Yeah.
[02:01:17] All right.
[02:01:18] Cool.
[02:01:19] Anyway, yes. How can we support ourselves?
[02:01:22] That's the question.
[02:01:24] First way is to stand the path.
[02:01:27] Keep working out.
[02:01:28] Keep eating healthy.
[02:01:29] That's the hardest one.
[02:01:30] Mm-hmm.
[02:01:31] Me and Derek were talking on a side note.
[02:01:33] Like, eating healthy is kind of the hardest part about this whole stain on the path.
[02:01:36] Good.
[02:01:37] Good.
[02:01:37] Could be.
[02:01:38] Yeah.
[02:01:39] I think because it's like, well, then again,
[02:01:41] working out can depends on who you are.
[02:01:43] Either way, you want to stand the path.
[02:01:45] One of those elements of the path.
[02:01:47] It's required now is you just to.
[02:01:49] True.
[02:01:50] You agree, right?
[02:01:51] Yep.
[02:01:52] What?
[02:01:52] Anyway, when you do, you just see you're going to need a geek.
[02:01:54] Go to origin main.com, get whatever geek you want.
[02:01:57] Doesn't matter the color.
[02:01:58] Well, no, no, no.
[02:01:59] Check with your instructor.
[02:02:00] Check with your instructor.
[02:02:01] Get it out of my eye.
[02:02:02] Check with your personal moral compass.
[02:02:04] Yeah.
[02:02:05] If you're going to geek, that's not white.
[02:02:07] Yeah.
[02:02:08] What?
[02:02:09] So what do you mean?
[02:02:10] The tradition.
[02:02:11] Yeah.
[02:02:12] You know, Pete consciously tries to, like,
[02:02:15] you serve my personality.
[02:02:19] By, he always, he won't give me a white.
[02:02:21] He only gives me a blue geek, a black geek, whatever.
[02:02:24] He wants to try and break me out of this tradition.
[02:02:28] Yeah.
[02:02:29] Which he's successful we don't, because now I have all different colored geese.
[02:02:32] There you go.
[02:02:33] But I wouldn't say that you violate your moral situation.
[02:02:37] That's more of a style thing.
[02:02:39] Okay, which violates my.
[02:02:41] Yeah.
[02:02:42] I guess so.
[02:02:43] Yeah.
[02:02:44] A little bit.
[02:02:45] Yeah.
[02:02:45] But I guess I can claim a small victory.
[02:02:48] Because I can be like, oh, I don't care what color it is.
[02:02:50] Right.
[02:02:51] Right.
[02:02:52] Yeah.
[02:02:52] That's true.
[02:02:53] A little more of a victory back in my direction.
[02:02:54] Yeah.
[02:02:55] Because it's not like you're sitting around.
[02:02:56] Like, hey, maybe I should grab a green geek.
[02:02:58] No.
[02:02:59] Because that'd make me, like, that'd be awesome.
[02:03:01] I'm just opening the package from Pete going, oh.
[02:03:03] He's going to be a blue geek.
[02:03:04] Whatever.
[02:03:05] Still, I'm wearing it.
[02:03:06] Cool.
[02:03:07] Thanks.
[02:03:08] Oh, so yeah, get a game in whatever color you want.
[02:03:11] After you check with the instructor and your moral compass.
[02:03:14] Yeah.
[02:03:15] Like, I guess.
[02:03:17] Also, rash cards.
[02:03:19] Biggest selling geek color is, you know?
[02:03:22] Wait.
[02:03:23] Nope.
[02:03:24] Yes.
[02:03:25] Come on.
[02:03:26] We've had this color.
[02:03:27] We had that conversation with Pete.
[02:03:28] Everybody wants to be an engine.
[02:03:29] Everybody wants to be an engine when they were little.
[02:03:31] I didn't know you saying that's about the most selling.
[02:03:33] I thought that that's like everybody wants to be an engine.
[02:03:35] Yeah.
[02:03:36] The geek, the ninjas had a black geese apparently.
[02:03:39] I don't know what we just had geese.
[02:03:41] They had little special shoes with the toe.
[02:03:44] Right.
[02:03:45] Right.
[02:03:46] Oh, that's a nice cheese.
[02:03:47] Yeah.
[02:03:48] Yeah.
[02:03:48] Either way, rash cards.
[02:03:49] You got all swindrash cards.
[02:03:51] Yeah.
[02:03:52] Four no-ghee or four whatever kind of activity.
[02:03:53] You can get t-shirts there.
[02:03:55] And you can get supplements.
[02:03:57] Jocco.
[02:03:58] Yeah.
[02:03:59] Those supplements.
[02:04:00] Don't worry, fair.
[02:04:01] For your joints, crilloil, for your all around.
[02:04:03] Okay.
[02:04:04] Yeah, man.
[02:04:06] Discipline.
[02:04:07] Yeah.
[02:04:08] Get you get you in the zone, which J.P. sent me a text.
[02:04:12] And he's like, how are you still saying gave Burke is the rep?
[02:04:16] Oh, for that discipline.
[02:04:18] He's more because J.P. is more disciplined.
[02:04:21] Yeah.
[02:04:22] And he's on discipline go.
[02:04:23] Okay.
[02:04:24] Yeah.
[02:04:25] The kind of the way open the go pill.
[02:04:26] The discipline go pill.
[02:04:28] And he's all.
[02:04:29] He sent a picture of.
[02:04:31] Some like super high speed thing.
[02:04:35] He's like, this is me on discipline go.
[02:04:39] So J.P. is what he called jockeying for.
[02:04:42] He was a slim goal representative position.
[02:04:45] Yeah.
[02:04:46] And he thinks Dave Burke because Dave Burke is sort of the OG discipline player.
[02:04:50] Good deal to you.
[02:04:51] Yeah.
[02:04:52] Yeah.
[02:04:52] He is.
[02:04:53] Well, it looks face.
[02:04:54] Dave Burke.
[02:04:55] He's going to be perfect regardless because he's such a like,
[02:04:58] like boom, high achiever dude from day one, you know, so, you know,
[02:05:03] J.P. is a loose cannon.
[02:05:04] So he can be the representative.
[02:05:06] Well, he can be a loose cannon.
[02:05:07] He's not.
[02:05:08] He can be the representative discipline go because he discipline,
[02:05:11] but he go.
[02:05:12] He goes.
[02:05:13] No, the point.
[02:05:14] I think the funny thing.
[02:05:15] You don't mean loose cannon.
[02:05:16] What you mean to say, J about J.P. is J.P. is fired up.
[02:05:18] He's fired up.
[02:05:19] And what's funny is J.P. doesn't need to discipline.
[02:05:22] That's why he's not the best representative because I'm like J.P.
[02:05:25] We're going to be a more in the game.
[02:05:28] He's in the game.
[02:05:29] Yeah.
[02:05:30] So, so J.P.
[02:05:32] Well, we'll just give him a mutual supports supporting assets behind the discipline.
[02:05:40] So yeah, you can discipline.
[02:05:41] You can also get milk, mint chocolate, peanut butter chocolate, vanilla gorilla,
[02:05:46] which is supposedly named after Dave Babin.
[02:05:49] For what I understand.
[02:05:51] And a darkness.
[02:05:52] And other than the warrior kid, Mulk, Strawberry and chocolate.
[02:05:56] Try those out.
[02:05:57] Even if you're an adult, I hate to say it.
[02:05:59] But I was thinking about this.
[02:06:01] Have you ever as an adult, drank a strawberry, quick?
[02:06:04] Yes.
[02:06:05] Yes, you have.
[02:06:06] I have big time.
[02:06:08] Well, now we don't have to do that anymore.
[02:06:10] Yeah.
[02:06:11] Because now you can get something that's completely healthy.
[02:06:14] What was the one?
[02:06:15] There was like, that wasn't quick that they tried to skewer angle is healthy.
[02:06:19] Right?
[02:06:20] That was something that could be that.
[02:06:21] Some other one, some other chocolate.
[02:06:23] I never wanted that.
[02:06:24] Yeah, forget it had to bite him.
[02:06:26] And then the one.
[02:06:27] Yeah, the working Mulk that's going to be the level team.
[02:06:29] Oh, the, yeah, they might try and skew.
[02:06:31] Yeah, that's the one.
[02:06:32] Come on.
[02:06:33] Go look at the ingredients and then compare that to Mulk.
[02:06:37] Yeah.
[02:06:38] You know what that stuff has it, bunch of sugar.
[02:06:39] You know Mulk has it, Mulk.
[02:06:40] To wreck from Mulk guys.
[02:06:44] We're different.
[02:06:45] A big it.
[02:06:46] So yeah, get all that stuff from origin may not come.
[02:06:50] Yeah.
[02:06:51] Also, if you want to represent Jocco as a store, everybody.
[02:06:54] Christmas is coming up.
[02:06:55] This is what I'm doing.
[02:06:58] I'm going to activate.
[02:07:00] Hey, it's funny because I'm saying it like this is new thing.
[02:07:03] This is such an old thing.
[02:07:04] A gift card.
[02:07:07] A gift card on JoccoStore.com.
[02:07:09] So it's like, you know, like, okay, your brother or whoever.
[02:07:13] Because it is like in the game.
[02:07:16] I don't know.
[02:07:17] Whatever your cousin.
[02:07:18] Whoever.
[02:07:19] And they're in the game.
[02:07:20] They want, you know.
[02:07:22] And you say, hey, you know what?
[02:07:23] I can't pick out what I want for you from here.
[02:07:26] You just pick out what you want.
[02:07:27] Boom.
[02:07:28] There you go.
[02:07:28] Gift card.
[02:07:29] Boom.
[02:07:30] Nonetheless.
[02:07:31] You know what?
[02:07:32] I'm leaving this completely in your hands.
[02:07:33] You know why?
[02:07:34] I don't give gifts.
[02:07:35] I don't like gifts.
[02:07:36] Gift cards just aren't a thing for me.
[02:07:37] I've never given anyone a gift card ever.
[02:07:39] Yeah.
[02:07:40] And so that's going to be your deal over there on your side of the track.
[02:07:42] That's exactly what I was thinking when I was making it.
[02:07:45] So I was like, this goes against kind of JoccoStore.
[02:07:47] It's kind of JoccoStore.
[02:07:48] So you know what I'm going to do on the gift card virtual representation.
[02:07:51] I'm going to put your face right in the middle of it.
[02:07:54] Boom.
[02:07:55] So that's what I did.
[02:07:56] So there you go.
[02:07:57] You know, on it.
[02:07:58] So it's kind of like, yeah, it's a gift card, but it's kind of from Jocco.
[02:08:00] Since you don't give gifts.
[02:08:01] Boom.
[02:08:02] Now you do it.
[02:08:03] Okay.
[02:08:04] There you go.
[02:08:05] Anyway, on there there's some good shirts.
[02:08:06] You want to represent this political freedom.
[02:08:08] You know, any kind of, I should say philosophy in the path.
[02:08:12] Some good stuff on there.
[02:08:13] Some rash cards as well.
[02:08:15] And hoodies.
[02:08:16] Tank tops.
[02:08:17] I know it's winter.
[02:08:18] I dig it.
[02:08:19] But if you're in Honolulu, Pearl Harbor, wherever you can store, represent the tank top this
[02:08:25] time of year.
[02:08:26] But yeah, a lot of good stuff on there.
[02:08:28] JoccoStore.
[02:08:29] Dot com.
[02:08:30] Defkers stuff.
[02:08:31] Do the core.
[02:08:32] Also.
[02:08:33] Also subscribe to the podcast.
[02:08:37] If you haven't already on Stitcher iTunes, Google Play.
[02:08:41] And Spotify.
[02:08:45] I don't know.
[02:08:46] It's in Spotify.
[02:08:47] I barely know what it is.
[02:08:48] But I hear good things.
[02:08:49] And you know, we're on there.
[02:08:52] That's where Spotify play like mixed tapes.
[02:08:55] Is that the theory behind it?
[02:08:57] I don't know.
[02:08:58] Yeah, I don't know either.
[02:08:59] But you can get the podcast there as well.
[02:09:01] Yes, you can.
[02:09:02] Yeah.
[02:09:03] You know, you can ask Alexa for the podcast.
[02:09:05] Yeah.
[02:09:06] Okay.
[02:09:07] And don't be confused with that.
[02:09:08] I think we went over this before.
[02:09:09] Some people think that it's in Alexa.
[02:09:11] It's not Alexa.
[02:09:12] That's like saying, I have.
[02:09:14] It's not an iPhone.
[02:09:15] It's a Siri.
[02:09:16] No.
[02:09:17] Siri is the the the the girl inside.
[02:09:20] Alexa's the girl inside the device called Amazon Echo.
[02:09:24] Check.
[02:09:25] There.
[02:09:26] Anyway, yes, subscribe to the podcast.
[02:09:27] If you haven't already and leave a review.
[02:09:28] If you're in the mood.
[02:09:30] Don't forget about the Warrior Kid podcast, which I just posted a new one last week.
[02:09:35] And it got a lot of really cool feedback on that one.
[02:09:39] And.
[02:09:40] Yeah.
[02:09:41] I think once people got that one.
[02:09:43] Because I don't talk about it.
[02:09:44] I don't post very much about it.
[02:09:45] But anyways, a bunch of people.
[02:09:46] A bunch of people downloaded like all of them.
[02:09:49] Yeah.
[02:09:50] Because they're they're cool.
[02:09:51] And they're good.
[02:09:53] I believe the word is conversation starters with your children.
[02:09:58] That's what a lot of people said.
[02:09:59] Like, oh, I finally had the conversation that I needed to have with my kids about.
[02:10:06] Well, in that case, Warrior Kid podcast number 19 about making good decisions.
[02:10:12] Yeah.
[02:10:13] And making bad decisions.
[02:10:14] And now if you make some bad decisions along the way, you could ruin everything.
[02:10:18] Yeah.
[02:10:19] Yeah.
[02:10:20] Totally.
[02:10:21] And what's interesting about that one too is I have the supreme luxury of being able to listen
[02:10:26] to all these while they happen.
[02:10:28] These podcasts.
[02:10:29] But on top of that, if I have a specific question for myself, I can just ask you.
[02:10:33] Yeah.
[02:10:34] But like, even though I might already kind of know the answer.
[02:10:38] But when you deal with kids, you can't just deliver certain information the same way you
[02:10:43] would as an adult or like your friend.
[02:10:45] So I'm like, man, how do I approach this specific situation?
[02:10:48] And the way that and the way you do it in Warrior Kid is the same way like you, you kind of
[02:10:54] tell it to me or whatever.
[02:10:55] It's that alleviate so much stress when like when you need to approach your kids with this
[02:11:00] kind of stuff.
[02:11:01] Well, one thing that everyone says is this is what I try and help my kids.
[02:11:06] They don't listen to me.
[02:11:07] They don't listen to me.
[02:11:08] They don't listen to me.
[02:11:09] They don't listen to me.
[02:11:10] They listen to Uncle Jake.
[02:11:11] Let Uncle Jake tell him what's what Uncle Jake speaks the truth and they accept it from
[02:11:17] Uncle Jake oddly enough.
[02:11:20] Yes sir.
[02:11:21] Also, YouTube, if you were interested in the video version of this podcast, you're going to see what
[02:11:27] Jockel looks like.
[02:11:28] You're going to see what Derek looks like.
[02:11:29] You're going to see what I look like if that's your thing.
[02:11:32] If you haven't seen the two-minute trailer for the Mikey and the Dragons book, you can
[02:11:37] get that on YouTube.
[02:11:38] Which, by the way, is epic and I don't use that term lightly.
[02:11:42] Yeah.
[02:11:43] It's cool.
[02:11:44] Echo sent me the for approval text with that video in it and I watched it and I wrote
[02:11:51] back this is the best video I've ever seen in my entire life.
[02:11:57] All caps.
[02:11:58] Yeah.
[02:11:59] Good.
[02:12:00] And then I went read YouTube comments.
[02:12:01] If I know one of us said Echo is Jack because you're not in the video, which is
[02:12:05] supremely cool.
[02:12:07] But no, what's cool is people are saying about a two-minute video, a cartoon video about
[02:12:12] a kid's book.
[02:12:13] People are saying that they got tears in their eyes, that they got chills.
[02:12:17] It's a legit video.
[02:12:19] It's awesome.
[02:12:20] So yeah, you can get that.
[02:12:21] If you go to the YouTube channel and then while you're doing that, you can subscribe
[02:12:26] to it too to the YouTube channel.
[02:12:29] Get the big subscriptions.
[02:12:35] And then you can also get psychological warfare from iTunes, Google Play, MP3, whatever.
[02:12:42] And that's me telling you to do the right thing and making you do it.
[02:12:46] So just give it a shot.
[02:12:47] You can do it.
[02:12:48] Sure.
[02:12:49] Also, when you want to vary up your workout, you want to add kettlebells to your workout,
[02:12:53] get on it, kettlebells.
[02:12:54] Go to onit.com slash jockel.
[02:12:56] Some good stuff on there.
[02:12:57] Look out stuff.
[02:12:58] A lot of good stuff.
[02:12:59] Good information too, by the way.
[02:13:01] So go there onit.com slash jockel.
[02:13:05] Jockel white tea.
[02:13:07] Yes.
[02:13:08] Taste delicious and is very good for you.
[02:13:14] And it gives you 8,000 pound deadlift.
[02:13:16] So give that one a try.
[02:13:17] Also got some books.
[02:13:18] We got Mike in the Dragons.
[02:13:21] Okay.
[02:13:22] Update.
[02:13:23] I am printing them as fast I can.
[02:13:24] There's a bunch of printers that are printing new copies of Mike in the Dragons.
[02:13:28] Some of them have already been shipped that we going to Amazon.
[02:13:32] We are going to be cutting it close right now.
[02:13:34] Actually we should be good.
[02:13:35] People that are ordering.
[02:13:36] Well, it's going to be cutting close.
[02:13:37] Depending on when you exactly order, whether it gets to you by Christmas or not.
[02:13:42] But the faster you order, the better chance you will have of getting it before Christmas
[02:13:45] I apologize that I did not order enough books to be printed.
[02:13:50] And that is my fault.
[02:13:51] And I should have done better.
[02:13:52] And as Sarah Armstrong pointed out to me, she's like, oh yeah, well you know why you didn't
[02:13:57] order enough books because you thought, oh well Sarah will get a book and Andrew Paul will
[02:14:01] get a book and I will still get a book and then everyone posts what they got and you
[02:14:04] got 20 copies.
[02:14:06] Sarah got 10 copies.
[02:14:07] I was got 10 copies.
[02:14:08] So everyone is buying multiple copies because it's the ultimate Christmas gift for anyone
[02:14:12] between the ages of 0 and 10 or 12.
[02:14:18] Anyways, Mike in the Dragons order it as quick as you can and we will try and get it to
[02:14:23] you by Christmas.
[02:14:24] If not, hey, what's the next holiday after Christmas?
[02:14:26] New year's new year's new year's gift.
[02:14:30] New year's gift and or what's after that Easter?
[02:14:33] Well technically a Easter Valentine's Day.
[02:14:36] Oh well.
[02:14:37] Technically, he said all of it.
[02:14:39] Okay.
[02:14:40] You get Valentine's Day gift for your children, I guess.
[02:14:42] Did you do that?
[02:14:43] Yeah.
[02:14:44] And if not, you know, just get it for him.
[02:14:46] Yeah.
[02:14:47] That's a good one.
[02:14:48] That's a fun one.
[02:14:50] That you mentioned that video and the goal there was to kind of a centriede capture what
[02:14:56] it's like reading.
[02:14:57] You know how you need a book.
[02:14:58] It goes on in your head.
[02:15:00] Yeah.
[02:15:01] And so you capture what's going on in that book in your head and how you're reading it
[02:15:04] to your kitty kind of capture that in a little summary.
[02:15:06] That's what it was.
[02:15:07] I think it did because that's really how I felt when I read that book to my daughter.
[02:15:10] Yeah.
[02:15:11] It's good.
[02:15:12] Do you do voices when you read that book?
[02:15:13] Let me hear the King voice.
[02:15:14] Come on, man.
[02:15:18] Sorry.
[02:15:19] You're in my two minds.
[02:15:20] Yeah.
[02:15:21] Because it really is, but rather classify.
[02:15:22] You would at least just give us a two my son.
[02:15:25] Two my son.
[02:15:27] That was awful.
[02:15:29] I know, but I was like, it sounds way better when I read it to her.
[02:15:33] I understand that.
[02:15:34] Wow.
[02:15:35] I also and I feel like a voice actor over here did that one.
[02:15:39] You kind of are.
[02:15:40] Anyway, hey, moving on.
[02:15:42] Yeah.
[02:15:43] That's a nice, awesome book.
[02:15:44] Also, way of the warrior kid.
[02:15:47] One and two.
[02:15:49] From Wimpy to warrior kid.
[02:15:52] And then Mark's mission.
[02:15:53] That's number one number two.
[02:15:56] Also important critical books.
[02:15:59] I personally think or the one that my daughter request me to read again and again and again
[02:16:06] is part two Mark's mission.
[02:16:07] I'm just kidding.
[02:16:08] She really likes Nathan.
[02:16:10] Nathan James.
[02:16:11] He likes that idea of that irritating person.
[02:16:14] No, because that's how kids are.
[02:16:16] They always talk and you know, we call them.
[02:16:18] She meets Danny Rinehart.
[02:16:20] Danny Rinehart book three.
[02:16:22] I'm in the process right now.
[02:16:24] Ten chapters deep.
[02:16:25] Danny Rinehart shows up.
[02:16:27] So yeah, she'll like Danny Rinehart.
[02:16:30] Even though my youngest daughter, when she found out about the character Danny Rinehart
[02:16:35] and who he was.
[02:16:36] And now she goes, Danny Rinehart.
[02:16:39] Because the character he's like good at everything.
[02:16:42] That's the premise of warrior kid three.
[02:16:45] There's no bully.
[02:16:46] Right.
[02:16:47] First say, there's actually a kid that's a good kid.
[02:16:50] He's good at jujitsu.
[02:16:51] He's good at pull ups.
[02:16:52] He's good at running.
[02:16:53] He's good at everything.
[02:16:54] And he's nice.
[02:16:55] And that rubs Mark the wrong way because all of a sudden he's got some of these jealous of.
[02:17:00] It's hitting his ego.
[02:17:01] And what's that guy's name?
[02:17:02] His name is Danny Rinehart.
[02:17:04] How awesome is that?
[02:17:06] So when I told my daughter that, she was like Danny Rinehart.
[02:17:09] And she says, oh, she's just, what a Danny Rinehart do today.
[02:17:13] But well, you kind of can anticipate that you're son or daughter that you're reading it
[02:17:18] to or the person reading the, you know, if they're reading age, they're going to like
[02:17:23] Danny Rinehart.
[02:17:24] They are.
[02:17:25] But they're, I don't know.
[02:17:26] They might, they might side with Mark a little bit.
[02:17:29] Because he's in here Mark's getting annoyed because Danny just, he does this.
[02:17:33] He taps, he'll tap someone out and say like, oh, you know, I must have got lucky.
[02:17:38] He's one of those kind of guys.
[02:17:39] We're like, he beats him in a running race.
[02:17:41] And he's like, oh, yeah, you know, I was feeling pretty good today, I guess.
[02:17:44] And one of those guys, you won't take credit for anything, which is an, and since it
[02:17:49] already bothers Mark that he lost.
[02:17:50] He said, what did he say that?
[02:17:52] Right.
[02:17:53] Yeah.
[02:17:54] And plus we all been on the mission since, you know, it'd be since before Mark could even
[02:17:56] do pull ups.
[02:17:57] We've been with him the whole time.
[02:17:58] Yeah.
[02:17:59] So we're feeling his pain with him.
[02:18:00] So now this guy, Danny, he hasn't felt any pain.
[02:18:03] No.
[02:18:04] Forget that.
[02:18:05] Danny just naturally good at everything.
[02:18:06] He's screwed that guy.
[02:18:07] Yeah.
[02:18:08] And that's going to be coming out in the spring.
[02:18:10] Oh, hopefully if I finish it in time, but which I will.
[02:18:13] Oh, just when it was freedom of field manual, you can get that book to that's another
[02:18:17] book that you can get for the holiday season.
[02:18:20] Let's just say that.
[02:18:21] If it might kind of mess up like jam up someone's new year a little bit, if they try
[02:18:28] and get on the path like for Christmas.
[02:18:31] Like what pre-new year's resolution.
[02:18:32] Yeah.
[02:18:33] Yeah.
[02:18:34] Oh, maybe they maybe they use that to kick off the New Year's resolution.
[02:18:37] Like a little deaf core.
[02:18:38] Yeah.
[02:18:39] But here's the thing, though.
[02:18:40] I think you might even say it in that book.
[02:18:43] Maybe.
[02:18:44] Yeah, I've said it.
[02:18:45] No New Year's resolution today.
[02:18:47] Now, right now, yeah.
[02:18:48] Yeah.
[02:18:49] I've said that many times.
[02:18:50] And I believe it's to this moment.
[02:18:52] Yeah.
[02:18:53] So yeah, that's the, this because freedom field manual.
[02:18:55] The audio version of that is not an audible.
[02:18:57] It is on.
[02:18:58] It's an MP3 thing iTunes Amazon Music Google Play.
[02:19:02] Extreme ownership.
[02:19:03] That's the first leadership.
[02:19:04] I wrote book, I wrote with my brother, Dave Babin.
[02:19:08] We followed that up with the dichotomy of leadership, which is possibly better.
[02:19:16] Anyways, you should check it out.
[02:19:19] It will teach you how to pragmatically apply the policies put forth in extreme ownership
[02:19:26] into your world.
[02:19:31] We also have a leadership consultant company.
[02:19:34] So I'll promise the leadership.
[02:19:35] That's what we do.
[02:19:36] It's me, Dave Babin, JP, D'Nell, Dave Burke, Flynn, Cochran, Mike, Surelly, Mike,
[02:19:40] Bima.
[02:19:42] And if you want to find out about that, go to echelonfront.com.
[02:19:47] We will come out, work with your company and get your leadership aligned.
[02:19:51] Also we got the master in 2019.
[02:19:53] There's going to be one in Chicago.
[02:19:56] There's going to be one in Denver.
[02:19:58] And if you want to come to the master, they've also told out.
[02:20:02] If you want to come, try and register early, extreme ownership.com.
[02:20:05] And we have EF Overwatch, which connects spec ops, vets, and aviation combat aviation vets
[02:20:15] with companies that need leaders, tried and tested leaders.
[02:20:20] And any you Marsock raiders out there that have gotten out, hit it up at EF Overwatch.com.
[02:20:26] So we can get you connected to a job where you will be in a leadership position in the civilian
[02:20:32] sector.
[02:20:33] Again, that's EF Overwatch.com.
[02:20:36] If you want to hang with us still after this on the interwebs, first of all, Derek, like I
[02:20:43] said, he left, but Twitter, D'Rickraera, Instagram, D'Rick underscore, fae spoke, D'Rickraera,
[02:20:53] D'Rickraera.com.
[02:20:55] And also the Marine Raider Foundation, again, he talked about all the things that the Marine
[02:21:00] Raider Foundation does.
[02:21:01] And if you want to go to that, the link is marine RaiderFoundation.org.
[02:21:07] And then of course, if you want to talk with Eko and myself on Twitter, on Instagram,
[02:21:13] or on Facebook, D'Rickraera.
[02:21:17] Eko is at Eko Charles, and I am at Jocca Willink, and thanks to all our military personnel
[02:21:25] out there holding the line.
[02:21:28] We can do what we do because you are doing what you do, and we will never forget that
[02:21:35] in special thanks to the Marine Raiders for your legacy of bravery that will never be forgotten.
[02:21:45] And obviously, Derek Awerra for his sacrifice, and like I said to him the incredible
[02:21:53] example that he sets.
[02:21:57] Thanks to police and law enforcement firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, correctional officers,
[02:22:01] board of patrol, all first responders.
[02:22:04] Thank you for keeping us safe here at home, and the rest of you that are out there listening.
[02:22:14] I know things don't always go the way we want them to go.
[02:22:20] But I think just listening to Derek today, I think there's no doubt that that is the attitude
[02:22:31] you take.
[02:22:32] You don't focus on what is wrong.
[02:22:33] You focus on what is right.
[02:22:34] You don't focus on what you can't do.
[02:22:36] You focus on what you can do.
[02:22:38] You're thankful that you have these opportunities.
[02:22:43] So many didn't get.
[02:22:46] Then you take that attitude and then you go out there and get after it.
[02:22:53] Until next time, this is Echo and Jocco out.