Jocko Podcast 199 w/ Kirstie Ennis: Pain Makes You Better

2019-10-16T18:36:28Z

Join the conversation on Twitter/Instagram: @jockowillink @kirstie_ennis @echocharles 0:00:00 – Opening 0:03:44 – Kirstie Ennis 1:52:09 – Final thoughts and take-aways. 1:56:43 – Support: How to stay on THE PATH. JOCKO STORE Apparel: https://www.jockostore.com/collections/men All Supplements: https://originmaine.com/nutrition/jocko-fuel/ Origin Jeans and Clothes: https://originmaine.com/durable-goods/ Origin Gis: https://originmaine.com/bjj-mma-fit/ Onnit Stuff: http://www.onnit.com/jocko 2:21:48 – Closing Gratitude.

AI summary of episode

I mean, I'm not a parent, so I don't, I don't totally get that, you know, that side of things, but I mean, my dad, again, one of the things, I mean, I'll get into the nitty-goody of it because I'm transparent, but so on, June 23, 2012, like, if you're going to kill yourself, you're not going to, you're not going to tell anybody. So he has all these tattoos kind of like you except his are like notes, you know, like, like, yourself. And when I don't have that happening, that's that's like, when I don't have that happening, I, it's like, when I don't notice any improvement, I, I start feeling like, oh, no, like I can see, I'm on the wrong path right now. I mean, I don't know any, like, I can't remember what it's like anymore to like snowboard with two legs or a busted up leg. But first, well, you know, like throughout the story, you know, there's little pockets of maybe like, oh wait, well, you know, small detail. You know, certain areas, you know, Lashcarga, you know, I'm Lisa Kloan, all of that, like sure those areas, like for lack of better terms. Like you have at least this, like, I mean, I, the same, I mean, I surf and like I live by the beach. Like, we're going to go in and we're going to try and do whether it was bone crafting or neuro decompression or whatever, what it was like, we don't even know we're going to find any more. I mean when you look at those pictures when you see and Hillary step has changed I think in 2015 it changed from like this big kind of a like a 10 meter like 12 meter something rock. But no, I mean, the moment, like, three days into the actual, like, base camp track, I saw Everest for the first time and I just knew, like, that's it. But it was one of those things where it was, I mean, in a sick way, like, just like I was addicted to school, I sort of get addicted to that suffering, because like you suffer in your miserable, for days on end. And I'm thinking, wow, like, it, you grow up so much between the ages of 16, 17 and like, even 22 and then 22, 25, like, you don't know a lot when you're 17 years old. It seems like, you know, like when you say, okay, it depends on how you react to like all these things. As these things are happening, because the reason I kind of have to say that is because then you like do other things at the same time, like getting stunt women and getting crashed and blown up and stuff like that. No, like, well, I think what worried me was, like I said, the fact that everybody was looking at it and being like, we're not going to do anything about it. but yeah, like you know how you say it, or you've talked about this before, where if you're handed everything, yeah, you know, like you won't go case important. But that's like, I just wanted to show people that it was okay, you know, like, you don't have to be the cookie cutter, you know, definition of what beautiful is. And to me, that's not what Mal and Irina is, you know, like, in my opinion, like that totally discredits, but what all it should be, um, you know, I'm glad that I was out there with me and my thoughts and literally two other people. Um, and so I mean, even after we made it back down to base camp, I mean, coming down like through camp 3 and 2, like, I was so at peace with everything because I'm watching these zoos of people come up. So, you know, this really is, it's just about paying it forward and helping, you know, get the adaptive community into the outdoors and hopefully encouraging, you know, other people regardless of whatever you're adversity that you're facing, you know, to go outside and, you know, and find what really sets your heart on fire. And I don't want to say the cheesy, like, you know, beauty comes from within, but I like, I wanted to show people that it was, I mean, it was beautiful to be strong. Is there still, is that because you've been hiking in the mountains so much you've been doing so much that you're feeling like you're conditioning is good or is it like, is it like when you fight in MMA or you run a triathlon where when you get done you okay at a recover a little bit? I mean, I growing up, I would like for for a long time, some of my family was like, oh, God, she's going to be a social worker. Yeah, I mean, it is, but like for me especially, I mean, for any mountaineer, it's like building box. And so, I mean, it was just, I don't know, like a weird hunger from more that I wasn't really like finding any worlds. Like, just like normally, like as a as a door gunner, you're the eyes and the ears for the pilot. It's like your reaction is like you chose to go for like these huge reactions. Um, and so like, moving forward, I just decided that I was going to own my differences, that I was going to like be proud of the scars that I wore because they told my stories. I mean, I'm not like, when I think of any of the things that I've done at this point, it's like, you don't want to be celebrated. I mean, and I had a, I have, I had like a little, this weird caviar, like carbon fiber contraption that basically took all of the weight off of my lower limb and put it all into my knee at the time. But on the other, I think the other side is that to like, even right now when I do eventually finish this doctor, like I'm terrified of what I'm going to do with that time. I mean, I'd be wrong, like, when I got back down to base camp, but definitely, I was like, do you have any to do another attempt? I mean, as if I couldn't get any lower, you know, him saying that I was like, you know what? I mean, even though your days are varied between, you know, what your maintenance schedule or what your flight schedule looks like, it's, I mean, it's pretty freaking straightforward. But as far as like the physical aspect of it, you know, I just reminded myself like I'm getting to play for 13 weeks. It's like naked, you know, like that kind. Also, I thought, you know, that we mentioned like how you'd have, um, like challenges with your memory. Like just going to the bathroom, like hey, why am I here kind of think? But then I mean this time, like I just looked down at Rob and was like, no, I was at total peace with this situation. In my mind, this is big, but not as big as like whatever, but yeah, things that as I guess, and like it made me realize that I was impacting a lot more people.

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jocopodcast number 199 with echo Charles and me, Jocob Willing. Good evening, I go good evening.
[00:00:11] I have not been on this earth long, but I've been through more than most wood in the lifetime.
[00:00:20] I served six years in the United States Marine Corps as a helicopter door gunner and airframes mechanic.
[00:00:26] On my last deployment to Afghanistan, I was involved in a helicopter crash.
[00:00:35] June 23, 2012 was the defining moment in my life.
[00:00:43] I suffered a traumatic brain injury, severe facial trauma,
[00:00:48] a left leg above the knee, amputation, damaged my cervical spine, and damaged my upper arms.
[00:01:01] I remember screaming with tears rolling down my face when they said they were taking my leg above the knee.
[00:01:08] I thought it was all over. That all of my dreams returned in the nightmares.
[00:01:21] I have it on repeat in my head, a scream encompassing terror, pain, and fear of what my life might become.
[00:01:40] Those are the words and thoughts of a wounded warrior, a Marine Corps sergeant, a third generation
[00:01:58] Marine, whose mother and father were both Marines. In this case, this particular
[00:02:08] Marine was able to take that fear, that fear of a new life of a different life,
[00:02:15] of what life might become with those devastating injuries suffered, and turn that new life into one of
[00:02:27] overcoming struggle, a life of facing new challenges and a life of leading the way
[00:02:35] and showing the path for anyone that faces challenges and struggles in any walk of life.
[00:02:49] As this Marine proves, you are never out of the fight, and it is an honor to have this Marine
[00:02:55] with us on the podcast tonight. I'm a Marine by the name of Kirstie, Anis Kirstie. Welcome to the podcast.
[00:03:06] Thank you, you're having me. I dug a little deep on your blogs and Facebook to assemble some
[00:03:14] things, because I like to read what people write, because I think that's the best pathway to figure
[00:03:19] out what they're thinking at that time. You got some pretty incredible statements on there.
[00:03:26] I was able to go through them and assemble them. Let's start off talking about where you came from,
[00:03:35] because I think that's always a good place to start. One thing that you're writing,
[00:03:39] I found this, which I thought was just, I just had to bring this up.
[00:03:45] I'm that guy, somebody is going to go through all your social media stuff.
[00:03:49] That's me. So here we go. This is what you said about your childhood. I was a jerk as a child.
[00:03:54] My mom and dad would just love to tell you stories about me dismantling my window alarm
[00:03:59] to sneak out, disconnecting phone lines, so my principal wouldn't call home, or maybe even bringing
[00:04:04] stink bombs into school. So there's, we're getting an indication, kind of a view into what you were
[00:04:09] like as a kid. Where was it? Where did all this take place? Oh, man. Also, with both my parents
[00:04:15] being in the Marine Corps, we bounced all over the place. But after my mom and my dad got out,
[00:04:19] we went back to the Panhandle of Florida. I spent most of my middle school and high school years there,
[00:04:26] and I was just an absolute terrorist. I mean, I gave my parents a run for their money.
[00:04:31] I mean, I look back now and I actually feel really, really bad about it. I'm terrified of kids
[00:04:36] of my own because I know payback is going to be a pitch. But yeah, I mean, I was just always
[00:04:41] way too smart for my own good. My school was a joke. Athletics were never really hard. I didn't,
[00:04:46] it wasn't challenged. So yeah, I was just always up to, to know good. Nothing like malicious.
[00:04:52] But yeah, how is a little misgivier? The most malicious thing was stink bombs in school.
[00:04:57] Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. We don't know what the statute of limitations is, so we're not going to go
[00:05:02] there. Yes. Exactly. What, um, you mentioned athletics a little bit, what sports did you play?
[00:05:08] So growing up, I did a bunch of team sports. I mean, everything from softball to volleyball
[00:05:12] and everything in between, actually like a lot of the individual extreme sports that I'm doing now,
[00:05:17] never even did a music hit. Everything was obviously very southern and team-related.
[00:05:23] So were you good at, were you good athlete? I liked the thing, so. Yeah. I mean, but again,
[00:05:29] I never really was challenged. It was just, I was okay with, you know, being good, but not really
[00:05:33] having to try that hard at it. So. And that was your high school career. I mean, you played sports.
[00:05:38] At what point did you go from the, the stink unit bomber into saying you're going to join the
[00:05:46] Marine Corps? Yeah. Well, so I actually was doing with my high school curriculum at the time I was 15.
[00:05:51] So I started doing college classes at the time, Pensacola Junior College. And yeah, I got my
[00:05:57] two degree and again, were you just hyper motivated to get done with high school or? Yeah. And just bored.
[00:06:04] I was really bored and I mean, I'm sure you're familiar with Pensacola. There's, like,
[00:06:07] especially the surrounding towns. There's just not a lot there. So, yeah, just wanted to be done with it
[00:06:12] and get the heck out and never look back. And then you enlisted, how old were you when you enlisted?
[00:06:18] 17. Did your parents had to sign the paperwork? How did your parents
[00:06:23] two Marines feel about you going in the Marine Corps? So my mom was like, good,
[00:06:28] good, right, it signed immediately. I wanted nothing more to do with me. I was out. My dad was pretty
[00:06:33] pissed though. He really wanted me to finish that last two years of college before I went
[00:06:38] up to the Marine Corps. And so he came home. He was, he was working on the pipeline at the time.
[00:06:42] Came home like a bad out of hell. And it was like, you know, argued with me the whole nine.
[00:06:46] And I just lied to my teeth and told him that I would do a dust job to give him a sign. I was like,
[00:06:50] look dude, you can sign the papers now or you can wait eight months. I'm going to sign him many ways
[00:06:54] myself. So he finally buckled. He trusted me, which that was a bad idea when I was 17.
[00:07:01] It's so strange when you look back. And I got, I got a son right now that's 16. And I'm thinking, wow,
[00:07:08] like, it, you grow up so much between the ages of 16, 17 and like, even 22 and then 22, 25,
[00:07:17] like, you don't know a lot when you're 17 years old. That's the bottom line. So I don't.
[00:07:22] But you, I mean, I will say this. Both your parents been Marines. One thing that's kind of cool is
[00:07:29] they at least knew what was going to happen. I mean, if you, if your parents didn't have any
[00:07:33] experience, they probably would have completely freaked out. But you at least know what the Marine
[00:07:38] Corps is. You know that it's, you know that it does what it does and it does it well. You know,
[00:07:43] the Marine Corps puts kids from every background, every walk of life, onto the path of being a
[00:07:52] Marine, which is a square-to-way thing to be in my opinion. Absolutely. How much of a shocker was
[00:07:58] it when you, how much longer was it until you went to boot camp? I went a few short months after that.
[00:08:04] Originally, I was going to try and hold out and it actually weight a little bit before my 18th birthday.
[00:08:09] But again, I got that little two-degree from Pensacola Junior College and had a little bit of
[00:08:14] free time started to get in trouble again. So it was just time to leave. How much of a shock was it
[00:08:23] for you checking into boot camp? You know, it's funny. I'll tell a quick story about my family or my
[00:08:29] parents because it's my hands down favorite story. But mom dad got married at 18,
[00:08:33] lived on a bar beach in Florida. Dad joins the Marine Corps right afterwards. Eight years later,
[00:08:39] I'm already born. We're living on 29 poms in California and my mom comes home and tells my dad,
[00:08:45] you know, I think these female Marines are pretty badass. Dad looks at moms as I'll never be married
[00:08:50] to a female Marine. Mom looks at him, turns around leaves, gets an age waiver and joins the Marine
[00:08:55] Corps. So like my earliest memory is actually, you know, my mom walking across the parade deck.
[00:09:02] Like so how old is your mom when she elucidated the Marine Corps? She would have been 26,
[00:09:06] 27. Yeah, that's the Marine Corps doesn't take people out of that old. That's like an ancient
[00:09:11] dinosaur in the Marine Corps to go to the home boot camp. Yeah, in boot camp they all called her mom.
[00:09:17] How long did your dad end up doing the Marine Corps? I'm using for nine years.
[00:09:21] And then what about your mom? She just did four. Part of it was a spite thing I think and then
[00:09:27] part of it, you know, she wanted to do it. I think she would live in regret if she didn't do it.
[00:09:31] Especially if her husband told her now. So that's the last five he did not. You knew where that
[00:09:38] was going. So so you check into the boot camp? Was it was it a shock to your sister? Did you
[00:09:45] be with your mom and dad both of these Marine Corps? Had they kind of
[00:09:49] given you a heads up, did you understand what you were getting into? And how much did it still shock you?
[00:09:54] Yeah, well I so I kid you not like I idolized my parents. You know, I just loved the fact that
[00:09:59] they got up every morning, put the uniform on and did something bigger than themselves.
[00:10:02] So I mean my favorite movie, I mean I got off the bus and watched documentaries on Marine Corps
[00:10:07] boot camp. You know, my Barbies were dressed and dressed blues. My favorite t-shirt was my mom's
[00:10:12] US Marine kind of thing. So I was very well educated and versed on what boot camp would consist of.
[00:10:17] And of course I heard all the stories from everybody. But I loved boot camp. I made it way harder
[00:10:22] on myself than I hated too, because I was again 17 years old and just a little shit. I you know,
[00:10:27] they'd say yell and I whispered just being just going to pain. But as far as like the physical
[00:10:33] aspect of it, you know, I just reminded myself like I'm getting to play for 13 weeks. Like
[00:10:38] where else do you get paid to run and throw grenades and you know, do the obstacle course?
[00:10:44] The was there anything you had trouble with in Marine Corps boot camp?
[00:10:49] I honestly I just had a head and issue just like I said breaking down my attitude.
[00:10:53] My attitude was you know, I wanted to say why do everything. And so that was when I say the
[00:10:58] hard part. Again, it was just yeah, keeping my head in the right place.
[00:11:04] And then how did you end up becoming like what was the process for you picking your MOS?
[00:11:12] Well, I wanted again, wanted something to challenge myself. You know, I didn't want to do
[00:11:16] supplier admin and I wanted to deploy. When I actually walked out of my class that I was in when I was 17,
[00:11:22] I very vividly remember looking around this chemistry lab and being like, he won't do it.
[00:11:27] She can't do it. There's no way in hell, he'll you know, he'll deploy or any of that. And
[00:11:31] obviously very terrible and judgmental of me. But I mean, that was the catalyst. I mean, that inspired
[00:11:35] me to walk out of that Kim Lab and go to the recruiter's office. What year was this? 2008.
[00:11:40] Oh, so you fall on new that you were going to go to unemployment to our acting Afghanistan.
[00:11:45] If you got a some kind of a job that would put you in the field in some way. Exactly.
[00:11:50] Yeah. And I wanted that. I mean, I growing up, I would like for for a long time, some of my family
[00:11:54] was like, oh, God, she's going to be a social worker. Because I just always loved like,
[00:11:58] I was the bully that beat up the bully. You know, I love protecting the kids that, you know,
[00:12:02] couldn't or wouldn't protect themselves. So yeah, when I went to the recruiter's office,
[00:12:06] I was like, you just got to give me something where I feel like I'm living that higher purpose.
[00:12:10] Or I know exactly without a doubt, you know, what my role in the grand scheme is.
[00:12:15] So yeah, and I went into the recruiter's office. I was like,
[00:12:17] from you, whatever you got. And then of course, the Azva, I had the scores to do whatever. And
[00:12:22] I knew nothing about aviation, but that's, that's what I went for.
[00:12:27] To become a, to become an airframe mechanic. That was the first step. See,
[00:12:31] and where is it? Isn't that school in Pensacola? It is.
[00:12:34] I'm looking to imagine how much trouble I got in again.
[00:12:41] When were you, do you remember September 11th?
[00:12:43] Yeah, I was in fifth grade, Mrs. Todd's class at WH Road in Milton, Florida.
[00:12:50] How much understanding did you have in what was happening?
[00:12:52] Were you parents selling the Marine Corps at the time?
[00:12:54] No, but my dad was actually working on the outskirts of New York City.
[00:13:00] And so I remember my mom picking me up. I mean,
[00:13:04] honestly, she was just petrified. She thought she was going to get,
[00:13:08] you know, stop lost. She thought she was going to get called back and she didn't know what to do.
[00:13:11] My dad's working in New York and you know, we're down in Florida. And I just remember laying
[00:13:15] on the carpet in front of a TV that wasn't even on a stand under this big blue jean,
[00:13:20] blanket, and just sitting there and crying and waiting to hear from my dad and figure out what's
[00:13:24] going on. So yeah, I mean, obviously very emotional. And then as you, I mean, going back a little
[00:13:32] bit, but when you're doing the Marine Corps, your parents absolutely know that in the Marine Corps,
[00:13:37] after September 11th, if you were in the Marine Corps, there was a really good chance you were
[00:13:42] going to Iraq or Afghanistan. And when what year was it you enlisted 2008? Yeah.
[00:13:51] So you go to Airframes School, how long is that school last? It's only a few months really,
[00:13:55] but it was hard to get classed up into it. But I was in the A school for like four months down there
[00:14:01] and then C-school over a new river for a couple of months. New river, what, where's that? It's
[00:14:07] right outside of the Lysun. Okay. And this is, you know, just for people that don't,
[00:14:13] for people that don't know too much about the military, I mean, the military is a massive
[00:14:18] organization that basically encompasses all of everything that happens in the world. So yes,
[00:14:25] you see Marines flying helicopters, but there's a Marine that knows how to work on that
[00:14:30] helicopter, there's a Marine that knows how to fix that helicopters and Marine that knows how to
[00:14:32] fuel that helicopters, Marines that know how to work on the electronics and there, and then there's
[00:14:37] people that know how to land it. There's, there's people that do everything and then there's people that
[00:14:42] supply the people that are doing all those things with the gear that they need and there's
[00:14:47] Marines that are in charge of edge can so there's this whole world inside of the military inside
[00:14:53] the Marine Corps. So, and you have to have it all in order in order to go forward and fight wars.
[00:14:59] There has to be all these different logistical support elements and equipment elements. I mean,
[00:15:07] it's just, it's just this massive machine and the army has the same thing and the navy obviously
[00:15:10] has the same thing with ships and planes and everything else. So, but what's cool is when you join
[00:15:15] the service as they used to say when I was a kid, do they still say that? Oh,
[00:15:20] I'll just go and join the service. I always felt like I was in a World War II and somebody asked me,
[00:15:25] hey, how's it being, how's it run in the service going? So, when you join the service,
[00:15:32] when you join the service, they give you some kind of a job and some kind of an education. So,
[00:15:36] that's what you were doing learning how to work on on the on the 53, right? That's your,
[00:15:41] is it specific to the 53? Yeah. So, you're learning specifically how to work on a specific aircraft
[00:15:47] that is used by the Marine Corps called the, what is the MH53? What's the Marine Corps version
[00:15:54] called? The CH 53. Big, awesome bird, powerful, massive bird helicopter that can hold
[00:16:03] 40 Marines. I'm gonna say. I'd have memorized all that stuff. So, my memories get in shady speaking
[00:16:11] of senior citizen over here. So, then where do you get stationed when you get done with these schools?
[00:16:17] My first situation was Miramar, actually. Oh, okay. Okay, really a good plane. Yeah.
[00:16:23] A little bit better than 29 pounds. A little bit better. So, and then what's your day-to-day life
[00:16:29] when you are, are you attached to a squadron? Is that what's going on? Yeah, so my first unit was
[00:16:34] having marine helicopter squadron 465. And to be totally honest, the Airframe shop didn't really
[00:16:41] want me there right off the bat. You know, throwing a female into a shop of all dudes, you're adding
[00:16:46] a pretty interesting dynamic. So, it was really a matter of, I had to prove myself, how to wear a
[00:16:52] chip on my shoulder and keep my head down. Again, gotten to my fair share of trouble as an 18-year-old
[00:16:57] in San Diego. I worked my way out of that, does to be compared. When I first got in the Navy and
[00:17:04] got to San Diego, there was a rule. The drinking age was 21 in California, but the drinking age on
[00:17:12] base was 18. So, like, yeah, you could do as kids that just had never drank before, just wrecking
[00:17:19] themselves. There was such a disaster. At some point, luckily, they changed it. So, you're in there,
[00:17:24] you're the first female you said that that was with this group. Yeah, and very, very long time,
[00:17:29] I've ever been. And then, I mean, that's when you're a new guy checking in. Anyways, it's going to be
[00:17:36] you're going to get, you're going to get, I guess, hazed is the politically incorrect work, right?
[00:17:41] We're not, because you're not allowed to haze, but you're going to get, is Razz okay? Is that the same thing?
[00:17:45] You're going to get Razz, you're going to get hassled, but when you're checking in somewhere,
[00:17:49] when you check in, are you guys already looking, are you already seeing a deployment ahead of you?
[00:17:54] So, when you check in on the, okay, we're going on deployment at this time? Right when I got there, I actually
[00:17:59] consider myself to have been getting lucky, because they were just leaving for a mu. So, I lucked out and
[00:18:03] missed the mu, and got to stick around, stick back, and actually learn my job, and become,
[00:18:09] become proficient in that, and then when the next cycle came around half of us went on a mu,
[00:18:13] then half of us went to Afghanistan, and I was lucky enough to go to Afghanistan. And then what was that
[00:18:18] deployment, when you were heading on that deployment, were you, what was your, what were your nerves,
[00:18:23] like, were you just like a typical 18 year old marine that's just fired up to go and get
[00:18:28] after it? Oh, I was super excited, honestly. Yeah, I mean, I was just ready to go. I mean,
[00:18:35] I think my bags were packed weeks in advance, but, and I don't even think the nerves kicked in about
[00:18:39] any of it up until you're starting to land, and you're doing your laps, that's when I got nervous.
[00:18:46] So, how did you, how did you guys get there? How did you guys deploy there?
[00:18:50] So, we came in on a segment 30. Okay, and the bird, the year helicopters were already there,
[00:18:55] yep. And so you were replacing basically replacing the group. Yep, exactly. And so you show up on the ground,
[00:19:02] and what was the day-to-day? What was your mission there? What were you doing?
[00:19:06] A day-to-day life. My first and second deployments were very different. The first one was, you know,
[00:19:12] super like maintenance, maintenance, and all the time. I mean, it was everything. I was usually
[00:19:18] night shift, but yeah, I mean, it was everything from doing the hydraulics to riveting,
[00:19:22] welding, composite repair, you know, battle damage assessments, stuff like that. You know,
[00:19:27] they trusted me enough to go out and do those jobs by myself, but not really enough to,
[00:19:32] to come outside of the wire or do anything like that. What was the optimal like, how often were
[00:19:36] the birds flying? Were they flying like every single day, all day? Every single day. I mean,
[00:19:42] oftentimes we'd send out seven or eight flights. And again, you know, birds don't fly out
[00:19:47] their single ship, so we need to have 14 aircraft down and have an adult do turn around some daily
[00:19:52] inspections to get them out the next day or even five, six hours later. And Marine Corps usually
[00:19:57] deploys for six months, was it a typical kind of six month deployment? Yep, seven.
[00:20:02] Seven month deployment, because there's a little bit on the beginning a little bit on the end.
[00:20:06] Were you, what was, were you getting sleep?
[00:20:10] Yeah, I mean, I mean, I had, I had, it was weird. I mean, I bet I know means,
[00:20:16] we're doing any of the things that you guys were doing. And I very much so loved the fact that
[00:20:21] my job was directly supporting the guys in the ground. I had such pride in that and I knew that
[00:20:25] if I didn't do my job, then again, like, you guys weren't going to be able to do your job.
[00:20:29] So I had a huge pride in that, but I did. I mean, I loved everything about being out there.
[00:20:35] You know, I love the, in my mind, simplicity of it, you know, you don't worry about how
[00:20:39] your hair is going to look. You don't worry about what you're going to wear, what you're going to
[00:20:41] eat. You know, you just worry about keeping birds up, stay in a lie, keeping your guys alive,
[00:20:45] and coming home safe. So to me, it was a very routine. I mean, even though your days are varied
[00:20:50] between, you know, what your maintenance schedule or what your flight schedule looks like,
[00:20:54] it's, I mean, it's pretty freaking straightforward. Yeah. And, and that's one of the things that I
[00:20:59] love always loved about deployment was you all have done nothing else in the world matters,
[00:21:03] except for this thing that you're doing. You're doing your job, whatever that job may be,
[00:21:07] whether it's fixed in a helicopter or going out on patrol, that's what your life is. And
[00:21:13] like you said, there, there are lives to stick. I mean, with your job, you know, everyone's relying
[00:21:19] on those helicopters. Everyone's relying on those helicopters to do what they need to do to provide
[00:21:24] extract insert helicopter, casualty evacuation. I mean, it's absolutely critical in every single
[00:21:31] person that it plays a role in making sure that those things do what they're supposed to do. It's like,
[00:21:36] yeah, it's absolutely critical. And that becomes your whole life. That becomes your whole focus. And it's,
[00:21:41] it feels good in my opinion when you have that much focus and clarity in your life.
[00:21:49] Yeah. No, I mean, I loved it. I mean, that's why I had three months between deployments,
[00:21:53] four months between deployments. So you come home from that first deployment and what gave you
[00:21:58] because normally the Marine court takes what 12 months to 18 months between deployments for
[00:22:03] whatever unit, somehow you end up going switching to another unit, what happened here?
[00:22:08] Yeah. So towards the end of, well, towards the second half of that first deployment in May of
[00:22:14] about 2011, my former gunnerry sergeant, Richard, when he said, hey, you know, I want you to come
[00:22:18] back to Afghanistan with my unit. What do you think? Initially, I was like, get bent and do. There's
[00:22:23] no way I'm coming back here. Like, I need a break. But sure enough, got home August 2011. You know,
[00:22:29] what I'm leaving with family and then in June, or excuse me, in September 2011 was down in K-bay.
[00:22:36] I won't complain about that with heavy marine helicopter scrogen 362. And then we were right back
[00:22:42] in Afghanistan. Yeah. Jen, end of January 2012. And then what did that deployment look like?
[00:22:48] That's when I actually was able to step up and, you know, could be proud of those
[00:22:53] combat action wings. And that's when I was actually, you know, a 50-calber machine gunner, aerial
[00:22:57] door gunner. And again, you know, I'm still trying to rentures and maintaining the aircraft that I'm
[00:23:01] playing on. But to me, I was in my opinion, I was feeling a much bigger purpose. You know, again,
[00:23:08] the things that you were just rattling off, whether it's, you know, sitting there on trapstand
[00:23:12] by waiting for a metavacter get called in or an insertion or extraction. You know, you're just,
[00:23:18] in my opinion, it was just way more high speed, low drag. So you're still doing your maintenance job.
[00:23:23] Yeah. And then your, your other job is when they launch some of the times they would need a
[00:23:32] door gunner and they put you on the 50-cal. Yeah. Well, I mean, so it's a routine thing. So it
[00:23:36] probably every other day. And once every three days I'd be flying. Okay. Yeah. So it was just like
[00:23:40] here, your schedule for flights these days. Yeah. And, and then what kind of missions were you
[00:23:45] guys supporting? It could be a broad spectrum of things. Yeah. I mean, some days it would be just your
[00:23:50] generic like, resupplies or your drop-in-off mail, other times, you know, you're doing everything
[00:23:55] from drug grades to yeah, I mean, my favorites were the insertions and extractions for sure.
[00:24:01] And did you already knew how to shoot a 50-cal, but did they fan you up further once you
[00:24:07] started doing it from the heel? Oh yeah. I mean, I loved it. They got you dialed in. Yeah, because
[00:24:11] the 50-cal is such a beautiful piece of machinery. Well, it was funny too. Well, man,
[00:24:17] when I first decided that I wanted to pick at my wings, like that was even more of a battle than
[00:24:23] you know, even just being a maintainer. Like nobody wants to see a 5-3-blond lady, you know,
[00:24:28] drag in their knuckles and turn and rents as long as I had the dudes. And then now she steps up
[00:24:32] and says she wants to do speed reloads with 85 pound cans and they start looking at you a little
[00:24:35] funny. So again, proving myself all over again, but I mean, I loved it. Like even when you go pick
[00:24:42] up, you know, the boys from one seven or two five are something they'd just be looking at you.
[00:24:45] So funny with a little blonde ponytail hanging out the back of the flight helmet. I mean, I just
[00:24:50] yeah, I loved it. And then what? So every third day you're going out the other days you're working
[00:24:56] and the missions that you're supporting are everything. Everything. I mean, we would work with
[00:25:02] the Marines, we'd work with the Australians, we'd work with the Brits. I mean, the Georgians would work
[00:25:06] with everybody. How hot was the AOs that you were working in? Like, what was the threat level? How did
[00:25:12] you feel? Did you feel? Were you ever at a point where like, oh yeah, we know we're going out,
[00:25:17] we're no we're going to get contacted or was it the enemy was pretty tame in the areas you were going
[00:25:23] into? It was going to hit and mess. I would go back and forth. I mean, you mentioned the 53 earlier.
[00:25:28] I mean, we're a huge bumblebee. We're a huge target as it is. You know, certain areas, you know,
[00:25:33] Lashcarga, you know, I'm Lisa Kloan, all of that, like sure those areas, like for lack of better
[00:25:39] terms. Yeah, I mean, you'd you'd pucker, like I mean, it's very real. I mean, other times, you know,
[00:25:43] going on a Dwyer, not so bad. And then the the did you start feeling any any like stress or were
[00:25:53] you like just in the zone? Well, it's weird. Like, I never really thought about getting hurt.
[00:26:00] Ever. I mean, I don't know if maybe it was a young mentality, but I mean, every day when I'd go pick
[00:26:05] up my bloodshit and you know, grab the gear and run out of the bird, it was, I mean, crashing or
[00:26:10] getting shut down or any of those things like never even crossed my mind. It was just,
[00:26:14] I'm going to go out there and do my job. And quite frankly, I mean, flying over, you know,
[00:26:19] anywhere, saying in or any of those areas, the greens on like Afghanistan is beautiful. Like,
[00:26:24] if you're not getting shot at, you're not terrified. Like, I mean, I loved it. I mean, it's
[00:26:29] just a stunning country. And then even just like the interaction that you get with some of the people,
[00:26:33] I mean, it's pretty special. Sometimes. So then you never expected, you never thought about it.
[00:26:43] You never thought about it. You never thought about getting blown out of the sky. You never thought
[00:26:45] about it any of this stuff. And then all of a sudden, let's talk about June 23rd, 2012. So
[00:26:51] what's the mission where you're going out on? So we were actually doing a resupply and then we were
[00:26:56] dropping off three space available army medics. And then we were going out bound to do an extraction
[00:27:01] of Marines. So a little bit of everything. I mean, that's pretty common. You just bundle it all together
[00:27:05] and try to meet the schedules that everybody needs. But I mean, honestly, it should have been fairly
[00:27:10] routine. So we were making our way to now Zad. And there's a little bit of stuff going on. Like,
[00:27:16] we were getting spotlighted. So it's common out in Afghanistan where basically they try to
[00:27:20] bloom out the hull of the copper, so the pads can't see anyways. But they would basically signal
[00:27:24] to the next stations all the way out to wherever we were going. So they could figure out where we were
[00:27:27] landing. We were in route to now Zad and unfortunately never made it to who now Zad. We were supposed
[00:27:34] to be dropping off those three army medics and everything from ammo to mail and everything in between.
[00:27:40] And yeah, the last things that I remember was a pilot or my excuse me, my tail gunner calling
[00:27:46] for power. For the pilots to level the nose of the aircraft up are off. And pilot came over
[00:27:53] comms and said he wasn't getting the desired outputs. And the next thing, you know, we came
[00:27:57] nose up and then rolled left and being on the left gun night vision goggles down. It was weird.
[00:28:04] I just counted. Like, just like normally, like as a as a door gunner, you're the eyes and the
[00:28:08] ears for the pilot. So when you're landing, especially a big piece of machinery like that,
[00:28:12] it's 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 means on deck. And that's all I did. And then we hit the ground.
[00:28:19] You know, there's a lot more embellished stories out there. But yeah, not that bad.
[00:28:22] You remember all that stuff? Yeah. That's what I remember. There's a lot that I was knocked out.
[00:28:30] The assumption is the barrel of my 50 cow, which obviously sticks way up the side of the helicopter,
[00:28:34] hit the ground before I did and came up in through my face. So it has some pretty,
[00:28:39] pretty severe damage to my face and then my right front a lube. But yeah, I'm going to listen
[00:28:43] in out. Did you ever piece together with the pilots like what happened?
[00:28:46] I think I made in my opinion, you just choked. I mean, there was pressure. I mean, it was,
[00:28:54] you know, brown-out circumstances. We were being spotted. There was smaller stuff going on around
[00:28:59] us. Nothing that was a real threat to us by any means. But, you know, actually, my last memory of
[00:29:06] being an afghanist and on camp bastions, it'll make shit possible. I once had his name, but
[00:29:12] was the pilot sitting by my bedside and just sitting there and crying. And then I found out later
[00:29:18] that he actually deal with. So, and there's a lot of guilt there. I mean, I've forgiven the situation
[00:29:24] for sure. But yeah. So, the hero crashes and you're knocked out. What's your first memory
[00:29:33] of after being knocked out? So everybody, like my pilots were screaming for my tail gunner,
[00:29:39] and who, I mean, I just idolized this dude. And they couldn't find him. They couldn't get a reaction
[00:29:46] from him at first. So, I started screaming. Like, I'm hearing all this going on. And it's not real.
[00:29:50] I wasn't in pain. I wasn't in shock. I wasn't crying. It was just like, holy shit. Find my tail
[00:29:55] gunner. And I don't know the details of what exactly happened or how exactly it happened.
[00:30:01] But he ended up going at the back and hitting the river rocks before we actually hit the ground.
[00:30:05] I don't know if he was coming off of his gunner's belt to get to one of the three available seats
[00:30:09] on the other side of the aircraft or what he was doing. But he went up the back. And so I just
[00:30:14] started screaming to get a reaction, likely over time. They got a reaction from him. And like,
[00:30:20] all of it was just pure freaking chaos. But I remember like rolling my tongue around my mouth.
[00:30:25] Because I couldn't breathe out of my nose. And then we're no teeth. Everything was shattered.
[00:30:28] There's just like a big hole. And then it was just gurgling. Because I couldn't breathe out of my mouth.
[00:30:34] And one of the army medics actually crawled all over all of these trials that we had and got
[00:30:39] in my face. And I remember reading his patch. And he was just doing my face trying to keep me
[00:30:45] basically out of shock. And then they called in. It says, when my favorite story is so I hope second
[00:30:50] I'm Italian fifth moon is listening. But they called two five out of Nazad to come out and provide
[00:30:56] security. And obviously, you know, help with stripping everything down. And when they called it in,
[00:31:02] um, whoever said it, you know, said, you know, the female gunner that on impact. Because it couldn't
[00:31:08] get a response for me. Long search for it. They come out, you know, put me in the other craft or
[00:31:13] lead aircraft along with my tail gunner. And there's the crew and get us out of there and back to
[00:31:18] camp bastion. Well, long search for it all fast for a little bit. Um, second time fifth marines
[00:31:24] ended up shooting these pistol rounds underwater when they, when that's done, they blew
[00:31:28] them out into flowers. And they got them back to me in this little wooden case and said for
[00:31:32] what, um, flowers that I don't ever die just like you. Um, but yeah, I mean, every single one of
[00:31:37] those dudes now to this day, like they laughed early, we didn't think it was true. I really bullshit.
[00:31:41] There's not a female on that aircraft. So, it was the, whenever I think of a helicopter crashing,
[00:31:49] I think of it exploding and being on fire. So, how did it not? Was it, what did it survive kind of
[00:31:57] intact? No. Okay. So, it was just, you know, so I actually have a little bit of, um, I, there was a
[00:32:07] g-boss out right outside and now is that. So, I have actually seen what happened when we hit the ground.
[00:32:12] So, when we hit the ground, the transition, the transition came off and of course, like the
[00:32:16] tailpile and everything just went flying. Um, the rotors and all of that. Um, but I mean, it wasn't
[00:32:22] salvageable. I mean, they just took the guns and a couple of other things off of it and then they just
[00:32:27] blow it up. And you were the worst injury, worst casualty on the heel, right? Yes. And that's
[00:32:34] probably because, like you said, you were the door gunner on the, on the left side and on the left side.
[00:32:39] And to be totally honest, probably just because of my size. I mean, my 50 cow on a gal 21
[00:32:43] mill, you know, sits up. Damn, no, my chest on me. So, you've got some pictures on your,
[00:32:49] I think it's your Facebook of your face and it's freaking crazy. I was like, holy, I mean, it is,
[00:32:57] it's like fully exposed. Like, your, your, your, your, your, your, her bad, yeah, bad. And um,
[00:33:06] so, so what then once your next memory, once your next memory, did they put you in a induced
[00:33:09] coma? What they do with you? No, they didn't give me any medicine. Oh, piss me off. I saw
[00:33:15] so much pain. Does I woke back up, um, in round two camp, bastion. And this dude, calm stock. He was
[00:33:23] the, the new left door gunner on the other aircraft. He bent on next to me. And he just basically told me
[00:33:30] he's like, don't close your fucking eyes because you're not going to open him again. And um,
[00:33:34] my tail gunner, my old gunner, he's sergeant. It was actually laying next to me because we were just
[00:33:39] laying on the floorboard of the aircraft. And he kept throwing his arm over my face to keep from
[00:33:43] getting hydraulic and fluid and stuff. All in my open wounds and whatnot. And so I'm laying there
[00:33:48] and I'm trying not to cry. I'm panicking that like I'm going to die of that same little sister
[00:33:52] because I have no idea what's going on. Like I was numb. I knew I was hurt, but I didn't really,
[00:33:57] I was weird. I couldn't feel anything. And then I just kept staring at this blue cabin over
[00:34:01] headlight and thinking I wasn't going to die of that same little sister. What about your leg? Did
[00:34:05] you, did you, what do you aware that your leg was jacked up? I was well aware that I was jacked up
[00:34:10] because that was, I mean, I wasn't paying like that's the only thing that actually hurt.
[00:34:14] For whatever reason, like I could feel that in nothing else. Yeah, that was just, that was pretty brutal.
[00:34:22] But yeah, then they got me back to camp bastion. And I remember thinking like,
[00:34:28] that's fucking fine. Like they're just going to sew me back up. And I'm going to go right back to this.
[00:34:31] Like out were almost on our way out. We're going to, you know, go home and August. It's totally fine.
[00:34:35] And then my gunnery sergeant, the one who asked me to go on that deployment. My sergeant
[00:34:40] major at the time walked in and they were looking at me and they're both crying and just staring at me.
[00:34:46] I'm like, oh shit. This is, this is not good. And I think that's when I realized like I was going home.
[00:34:54] And yeah, I mean, I was devastated. I think that was the hardest part of any of it was just having to leave
[00:35:00] everybody behind. I mean, even once I left camp bastion, you know, they said me to candle hard,
[00:35:04] Germany, D.C. and then I made it back to San Diego. And I had been, I had just been combat
[00:35:10] meritoriously promoted to sergeant. And then... When you're getting the whole evacuation to Germany,
[00:35:18] are people meeting with you? Are you starting to get a glimpse or are feeling for what's going on?
[00:35:23] Yes, and no. I mean, I knew what was going on. I didn't quite understand obviously the whole process.
[00:35:32] But I was pissed off and I wasn't really letting anyone help or explain to me anything.
[00:35:38] Actually, it didn't really help the situation. Sorry, Mom. But when I was in, it would have
[00:35:43] been Germany or candle hard. They finally let me call home because of course my CEO gets a
[00:35:48] hold of my parents and my dad answers the phone well. Eventually I can call home. But I can't talk
[00:35:53] because there's no genre or anything. So I'm trying to tell my mom like I'm coming home and my mom
[00:36:00] starts laughing at me and she's like, you know, baby girl, I can understand you must be on some
[00:36:03] really good drugs and I get pissed. I do mom and I hang up the phone on her. And then I don't talk
[00:36:09] to anybody. Like I'm not mad. And then, you know, they're loading me up, like, and pissed off
[00:36:14] at my mom. I'm anger that I'm even my dudes. Like, I'm just, I'm just a shitshow. And then they
[00:36:20] load me up to actually, they don't have me and do. They don't have me sedated or anything. They
[00:36:25] load me up in Germany to send me to DC. Why don't they have you induced? Is it because you had
[00:36:29] brain trauma or something? Yeah. So they wouldn't give me anything for pain right off the bat,
[00:36:33] especially because of the head trauma. But yeah. So then from Germany, somebody that was just in a
[00:36:40] helicopter crash, they don't put them to sleep for a flight from Germany to DC. And so then I'm on this
[00:36:45] thing. Like, they have me strapped down to a gurney. There's a bunch of other dudes with like,
[00:36:48] they'll legs blown off. People sitting on the sides of the aircraft, like just staring at me as I'm
[00:36:52] losing my mind. My lungs are sticking together. So it can't breathe. I mean, it was, it was a terrible
[00:36:59] terrible journey back. Let's put it that way. But I think once I made it to DC and they, you know,
[00:37:04] they're carrying us all off on the stretchers and stuff like that. And, you know, there's American
[00:37:08] flags and supporters and people out there, you know, telling you that it's going to be okay. I
[00:37:12] think in that moment, like, I realized that I was going to be okay. But it still didn't quite.
[00:37:19] I think I was scared of what was going happen. You know, basically that I wouldn't be able to stay in.
[00:37:25] That was the fear. That was the fear. The fear that you couldn't, you wouldn't be able to stay in
[00:37:29] the Marine Corps. How long had you been in for at this point? Four years.
[00:37:33] Just made sergeant. Yep. Were your parents waiting for you when you got to DC?
[00:37:40] No, they're waiting for me in San Diego. So it was hard for them to decide, you know, of course,
[00:37:45] both Marines being our both parents being Marines. It's not a ton of money floating around my family.
[00:37:50] So they, you know, we need to do a wait to figure out if I was going to be a poly trauma in DC,
[00:37:55] our poly trauma in San Diego. So as soon as we got word that I was going to go to San Diego,
[00:38:00] that's when they like sold everything in the house. You know, we loaded up in the car and
[00:38:03] are they loaded up in the car and they made it out of San Diego. Did they actually sell their house?
[00:38:07] No, they did everything in it, literally everything in it. And we're, they down and forward to
[00:38:13] still. Yeah. So they sold everything that they had to float up. How long were you in DC for?
[00:38:17] Not too long. I mean, I maybe a handful of days, four, five days. And then straight to Balbo.
[00:38:24] And what do you think in at this point in terms of the level of your injuries? Have you seen
[00:38:28] yourself in a mirror yet? Because if I would have seen the picture that you posted,
[00:38:32] that would have hit me pretty damn hard. Well, so that's actually why they took those pictures.
[00:38:37] So it was actually really cute when when I got what was in San Cue.
[00:38:40] I don't know what's cute about this. You had a hole in your face. No.
[00:38:45] So when they wheeled me in, again, this little makeshift hospital tent. There was actually a
[00:38:51] British plastic surgeon that was volunteering or time. This little suy, she was old, like an old
[00:38:56] lady. And she looked at everybody in there and was like, no one touch her. I'm so in her back up.
[00:39:01] So it was, you know, as far as my face goes. And so she took those pictures. And when I finally
[00:39:07] came to after she sewed my face up initially, she was like, I don't want you to freak out when you
[00:39:12] see this. Like, this is what we started with. And so that's where those pictures actually came from.
[00:39:18] No, that's their savage. Yeah. But so you saw those pretty quickly. Yeah. But then you got to see
[00:39:25] she did a damn good job. Yeah. I mean, it's like a miracle. She was a miracle or something.
[00:39:29] Lady. I'm just so thankful. A corpsman didn't touch me. My team was being a human eye.
[00:39:34] You had to had a E3 corpsman. Yeah, that would have been better. That would have not been good.
[00:39:39] No offense to E3 corpsman. They're doing their best. But, you know, obviously,
[00:39:43] a some experienced plastic surgeon is going to do a better job. Yeah. I was out of rough.
[00:39:48] So, so that's good. How about your leg? When are you feeling in your leg?
[00:39:52] So, my leg, I knew was a bad deal from the get go. So, they had no body would touch it. No one
[00:39:58] overseas, he would even was willing to mess with that. What had happened to it? So, when we hit
[00:40:04] the ground, there's a bone in the middle of your foot called a tailist. It snapped and shot everything
[00:40:10] up. So, damn, it's just the heel and up through like my tip to have been everything.
[00:40:15] Something, I don't know what it was. I mean, obviously, they have steel to a boot. So, we fly in and
[00:40:19] all of that. But, yeah, something was underneath it with enough force that it broke everything
[00:40:24] upward and pushed everything up. And, what does it look like on the outside? Is it like a compound
[00:40:32] fractures at all internal damage? No, I mean, it was all internal damage. I mean,
[00:40:37] everything. I mean, there was no, from my leg, there was no blood. Did it seem, because it
[00:40:42] seems to me that that would, like if I had that happen, like, oh, it hurts a lot, but it's all
[00:40:46] there. There's no blood. I'm going to be good. That would be my opinion, because I'm kind of,
[00:40:52] I always think I'm going to survive everything. Yeah, no, I hear it. No, like, well, I think what
[00:40:57] worried me was, like I said, the fact that everybody was looking at it and being like,
[00:41:02] we're not going to do anything about it. And nobody did anything about it for like a week,
[00:41:05] ten days. And then, finally, someone came in and said, well, this is what your deal is,
[00:41:10] because of the damage that has been caused. You've disrupted all of the blood flow to those bones.
[00:41:15] So those bones are going to have a vast enough process, and they're all going to die. And I opted
[00:41:20] for the doctors to not cut it off right away. I told them, like, look, let's fix my spine.
[00:41:25] Let's fix my face. Let's fix my fucking brain. And then, making a worry about my leg. And
[00:41:31] so let's go through that order. The face, they sew you up, did a great job with that.
[00:41:38] Your brain. So you got knocked out. You got, I mean, you got,
[00:41:42] wailed on. Your head got wailed on in this accident. What do you got? You get headaches?
[00:41:47] Is your memory? What, what would the symptoms that you noticed out of the gate?
[00:41:53] The biggest thing, right? I mean, currently, the biggest thing is still my memory. Like, I mean,
[00:41:56] I have solid chunks of it. And I like made a really conscious effort and thank God for,
[00:42:00] again, my mom, my sister and my dad for really working with me for that stuff. But for a while,
[00:42:07] I mean, it was, I mean, everything. The biggest thing was being able to control my mood. I had a
[00:42:11] real issue with mood stabilization. There was just like a constant anxiety no matter what. And then
[00:42:16] I couldn't sleep. So of course, all of those things together on top of like word recognition
[00:42:21] and word retrieval and being able to communicate effectively with doctors or your parents or friends,
[00:42:25] like what you need. That was the hardest part. And then like, I don't know if you've ever been
[00:42:30] down to Valbo, but I mean, they had this whole building for their patients to live. And so I lived in,
[00:42:36] I mean, it was just like a little bedroom. Like a little tiny condo thing. But I could go into the
[00:42:41] bathroom and just not know what the hell was going on. Like I had to be reminded that if I'm in the
[00:42:45] bathroom, I'm taking a shower, but she might take the washing my hands. So like I had to have a very
[00:42:52] specific routine to be able to like get all pistons firing.
[00:42:58] Is that, did you, did you notice progress over time? Oh yeah. So you could you see the progress?
[00:43:05] I guess is what I'm asking. Or were you just like, what is this not getting any better?
[00:43:09] The first year, I really, really struggled because you get frustrated. You compare yourself to
[00:43:15] how you were, whether that's physically, mentally or emotionally. It's just, if it's not one thing,
[00:43:21] it's another. So I was the first year was really, really difficult, but once I made it over that hump,
[00:43:27] I mean, I'm pretty broad to say that it's been like, and I've tried like hell. I've given this
[00:43:31] everything that I have that has been like on a constant upswing at this point. I mean, I still
[00:43:37] would have speech therapy to this day, but I mean, that helps with everything from cognitive to,
[00:43:42] again, just the verbal stuff too. But I mean, it's, it's work. How about the cervical spine? What,
[00:43:50] like, what was the, what you feeling numbness in your body parts or anything like that? Like, I had,
[00:43:54] I had neck surgery because I hurt my spine. And like I had woke up one day and I, in the middle
[00:44:00] night, I couldn't move my right arm. Like, it would not move, which isn't really scary thing. And,
[00:44:04] you know, eventually it all came back, but what, what was your cervical spine injury? Did you break
[00:44:09] vertebrae? So there was herelin fractures in my C2C3 and C4. And then just from the, so like,
[00:44:16] being in the air craft, there are these, I mean, there are tethers. I mean, they go around your ribcage
[00:44:21] and tether you to the floor board, so you don't go flying anywhere, or should it hollow copper crash or something
[00:44:25] happened. And so when we hit the ground, it was like the hollow cup, it went one way and I went the other.
[00:44:30] And so it kind of just like, I guess, be severe, whip last. Beggah, whip last. Yeah. And so then my,
[00:44:38] C2C3 and C4 did what's called stepping. So they were basically, say exact, one was out of place.
[00:44:44] So that was for that way. Did, but it didn't, did it affect your spinal cord at all? No. No.
[00:44:51] I, I like to gain a millimetres right there too. And I, that was scary. Let me just put it that way. And I mean,
[00:44:58] I, I didn't know what to do in that moment either because now you're playing with, again,
[00:45:03] no offense to millimetres. And I'm super thankful that I am where I am today. But now you're looking at this
[00:45:07] situation where it's like, is it that bad to fix it? You know, do you let them go on and do surgery or
[00:45:12] do you let it heal on its own? Do you live your life in a cease-bying for the next year or two? And so yeah,
[00:45:18] I mean, that's just a huge gamble with all of it. So what called did you make? I lived in a cease-bying
[00:45:23] for a long time. So you lived in a dang, that big thing that you wear around your neck? So yeah, you're not
[00:45:28] turning it and you're not moving your shoulders around your neck. You're doing nothing. Yeah.
[00:45:35] And then, you know, obviously, damage to the arms, the head drum will also like mess up the back side of my
[00:45:40] right eye. Of course, you're your drum. You're going to get blown out and all that good stuff and how
[00:45:44] look up your crash. But the hardest part for me, I know, I think all two of them people look at me.
[00:45:48] Like, oh, God, she's missing her left leg that has to be terrible. But the reality is if I didn't
[00:45:53] keep my head in my heart in the right place, then nothing else was going to get better. So fixing,
[00:45:58] fixing my brain and fixing what I had going on emotionally. That was the hard part.
[00:46:04] So you're in the hospital for like, how long are you in the hospital for? Two years.
[00:46:10] Two years from 2012 to 2014. When you're when you're going through one of the things that you
[00:46:20] talk about is you're going through your anniversary, is it called an anniversary? You're a live day,
[00:46:28] a year after. And you got to a point where you're like, I don't know if I can do this.
[00:46:34] Yeah. So I think my doctors and my leadership, if you will, I had a lot of people come into my
[00:46:45] hospital room and sit there and tell me, I wanted to go to the drill field so bad, so freaking bad.
[00:46:51] So I had all of these people coming. I even had the CG of MCRD come over and say,
[00:46:58] you're going to be the first drill instructor that's an MPT and you're going to go right back
[00:47:01] into the fight and this, that and the other and on one hand, I used that to really push myself
[00:47:06] physically to get better, but on the other hand, I think it messed that misled me quite a bit.
[00:47:11] So when I got word after my second med board that I was unfit for duty,
[00:47:17] two to the injuries, I lost it. That's when I knew that I had one more shot at staying in the
[00:47:23] Marine Corps and it wasn't going to ever be to fly again. I was going to be the desk job that I
[00:47:28] really didn't want from the get-go and even still, I mean that wasn't even promised. So I don't know.
[00:47:34] I deal with injuries in specific the main leg that's not getting better. Obviously,
[00:47:39] still processing a ton of stuff and then finding out that this, the one thing that I really
[00:47:43] loved at that point in time, my purpose, was now getting pulled out from underneath my feet.
[00:47:50] Yeah, I mean, I guess you, you have to hit rock bottom, you know, to be able to rebuild everything
[00:47:56] and I truly did. You got a couple of things in here that that you wrote about just like your,
[00:48:06] your mom, your dad. He said, my dad's been one of my best friends and biggest friends since day one.
[00:48:11] He's given me tough love after injury, but also motivated me in ways to continue creating and chasing
[00:48:17] dreams. I'm alive and well. Thanks to my family. I appreciate you being as stubborn as I am, Dad.
[00:48:23] You, you, you, uh, talk about your mom. He said, my mom used to look at me sitting in my wheelchair
[00:48:29] and say, do it your damn self. That right there has got to be for a parent and I got four
[00:48:38] kids, but the temptation for parents always is to try and just take give your kids everything that
[00:48:44] you can to help them. And that, I've said many times, actually, hurts your kid and here's an example,
[00:48:50] not of a child, but of hit of your mom talking to a 20, whatever three-year-old woman
[00:48:57] and saying, you got to do this yourself. That has to leave a mark. Yeah, I am. I mean, I'm not a
[00:49:04] parent, so I don't, I don't totally get that, you know, that side of things, but I mean, my dad,
[00:49:11] again, one of the things, I mean, I'll get into the nitty-goody of it because I'm transparent,
[00:49:17] but so on, June 23, 2012, like, if you're going to kill yourself, you're not going to,
[00:49:22] you're not going to tell anybody. You're just going to go off and do it. And so I went down to
[00:49:28] the Blife River and had some friends with me because we're going to celebrate and all this stuff.
[00:49:32] And then I decided that I'm over it, like, I don't want to be doing it anymore. Do what I need to do,
[00:49:38] and I'm going to walk myself out into the Blife River and drive myself disappear and no one's
[00:49:44] going to have to deal with me or my problems. I'm not going to be a burden anymore.
[00:49:50] Long search for it. I'm lucky that I woke up the next day. It's surrounded by people that did save
[00:49:55] me and my dad came to me and crying. My dad doesn't cry. My dad's this big tattoo dude. That's
[00:50:05] some of my scary sometimes. And he said, you've got to be shit in me. You know, the enemy couldn't kill
[00:50:09] you. You made it home. Now you're going to do it for him. And that's the moment I realized that I was
[00:50:14] being selfish. Some moment that I realized that I had a lot more to live for and that I had a lot to be
[00:50:18] grateful for. So then I decided that I was going to turn my life around. But I mean, I don't know
[00:50:27] what that's like for my dad. Especially like he's always been hard on me. He's always been the
[00:50:33] one to really set those standards for me. I mean, pun intended like he's the reason that I hold,
[00:50:38] you know, he holds my foot to the fire for me. And even to this day, like he doesn't do interviews.
[00:50:43] You know, I'm constantly like doing media stuff here and there. But, you know, one day he was asked,
[00:50:49] you know, are you proud of your daughter? And he's like, well, yeah, I'm proud of her. But the moment
[00:50:53] she stops paying it forward, she deserves it. I'll take it away. And I have lived my life like that.
[00:50:58] You know, those little one liners, it's sometimes look at my dad and I'm like, oh, like, thanks.
[00:51:03] But you know, like I hang on to those. And I mean, he really is. He's the one that holds me accountable
[00:51:08] like through and through through all of it. And then my mom, God love her.
[00:51:11] Toffers lady, I know. Because again, even like raising me. But then for her to like, I mean, I could see it.
[00:51:18] Even those moments when she's telling me to do it myself, like there's tears in her eyes. Like she
[00:51:21] wants to do it for me. But she knows the moment that she steps in and, and, you know,
[00:51:25] cuddles the situation. I'm not going to be independent. You know, I'm not going to move past these
[00:51:29] injuries and live a healthy, happy life. So I mean, I can't imagine the internal, like, turmoil that
[00:51:35] you go through and I'm going to start the battle. And for you to go through this, like, actual 180 degree
[00:51:43] transition from, I don't want to live anymore to, I want to live the best life I possibly can.
[00:51:53] Well, how long did that transition take? This is like a couple days that you went,
[00:51:57] got there. When your dad said those words to you, you just said, you know what? I'm wrong.
[00:52:04] And I need to get on the right path. That's it. He said, I mean, I think I think in that moment, I
[00:52:11] throw whatever reason. I mean, I'll never understand it. But for whatever reason, at that time,
[00:52:17] God spared me twice. And I'm not even a religious person. But God spared me twice. So obviously,
[00:52:21] there's a reason that I'm still here. Somebody is something cut me here. And then the dude that I,
[00:52:28] you know, was just back to the admire the most coming to me and saying that, like, I mean,
[00:52:32] that just destroyed me. I mean, as if I couldn't get any lower, you know, him saying that I was like,
[00:52:37] you know what? You decide. Like, I can't control the Holocaust or crash. I can't control what
[00:52:43] this crazy vicious world threw out me. I can't control that. But what I can't control is how I'm
[00:52:48] going to respond. And it is. I mean, I, I wholeheartedly believe as a choice.
[00:52:55] When you were not to dwell in the subject too long, but, you know, the lot of people that listen to
[00:53:02] this podcast are people that served and people that end up in some rough spots. When you were
[00:53:09] descending into that place mentally, how long did that take? I mean, is it something that you woke
[00:53:15] up one day and said, I'm sick of this or is it was like just the grind that beat you down over time.
[00:53:20] We said, look, this is just not worth it right now. I was the grind. I mean, it's not, I mean,
[00:53:26] it's not an instant thing. I mean, again, don't get me wrong. I'm not the person that walked
[00:53:30] trying to talk to about it. Like, you know, I wasn't screaming for attention. I was just going to
[00:53:32] go and do it. But I mean, it was just one of those things where it felt like nothing was ever getting
[00:53:38] better. You know, it was just digging this whole digging this grave, you know, deeper and deeper.
[00:53:43] You know, I asked you about the progress of your injury. That was like actually a really personal
[00:53:50] question for me because I'm the type of person. If I notice 0.001% improvement is something, I'm like,
[00:53:59] oh, there you go. See? I'm not right. This is going to get better. And when I don't have that happening,
[00:54:05] that's that's like, when I don't have that happening, I, it's like, when I don't notice any
[00:54:10] improvement, I, I start feeling like, oh, no, like I can see, I'm on the wrong path right now. This is
[00:54:14] not going to get better. It's kind of like how I felt with with my neck, my neck, I've jacked up all
[00:54:19] of this and I can't move my arm all sudden. You know, it's going to get better. It's going to get better.
[00:54:22] It's not getting better. And yeah, that's the grind thing of like, hey, this is getting worse.
[00:54:32] And it's not going to get better. And for me, like, now when I look at like, I never recovered
[00:54:37] the strength that I have in my, in my right tricep and my right pack. Like, I got some of it back,
[00:54:42] but not all of it. And it's okay. At some point, I just was like, okay, cool. That's the way it is.
[00:54:47] And I think that happens to people where you have to, you have to look at the situation and say,
[00:54:53] well, it's what you just said, listen, I can't control that. I can't control what happened.
[00:54:56] I can't control what happened. I can't control what happened. This helicopter crash.
[00:54:58] What happened happened? What are we going to do now? And I got that. I was actually getting some
[00:55:04] social media responses about it. Just someone is talking about, so I mean, my buddy,
[00:55:11] life, who is on the seal teams with, we wrote a book called Extreme Ownership and it's like,
[00:55:14] you take ownership of everything in your world. Right? And there's people that will say,
[00:55:20] oh, if you get cancer, how you're going to take ownership of that, how is that? Because, yeah,
[00:55:24] when something goes wrong, it's my fault. That's, that's the way I look at things. Right?
[00:55:26] When something goes wrong, it's my fault. That's the way I look at everything. If something's
[00:55:30] not going the way it should be, it's my fault. So how do you take ownership if you get cancer?
[00:55:38] Like how do you take ownership of that? And the answer is, you don't take ownership
[00:55:42] for getting cancer. That's not, that's not, but you take ownership for how you're going to react to it.
[00:55:48] You take ownership for your response. You can't take ownership. Look, the hellow crashed.
[00:55:53] What, for whatever reason, it could be a million different things that that he'll crash to. He'll
[00:55:57] crash. You, okay, what do you do? You can't take ownership of that crash. What you take ownership
[00:56:03] of is your response to that, your response to your injuries. And that's to me is the most powerful
[00:56:08] thing that a person has because that gives you some level of control over circumstances that are
[00:56:14] truly beyond your control. Yep. I mean, I've said it from pretty much since June 23rd,
[00:56:21] to 2013, you know, the right actions follow the right perspectives. I mean, I could sit here
[00:56:25] and I could bitch about everything that I've lost. I could bitch about, you know, lost memory,
[00:56:31] a lost leg, a lost military career, a lost years of my life, you know, to the hospital and to
[00:56:34] recovery, where I can look at what I've gained. How does not happen? I wouldn't be sitting here with you.
[00:56:39] I wouldn't be doing the things that I'm doing. I wouldn't be living this very different purpose
[00:56:43] on a totally different platform than I was before. So I can take it with a grain of salt.
[00:56:48] Look at it as a blessing and a curse, one that I, my curse that I wouldn't wish on.
[00:56:51] Anyone, my own were said to me, and then, you know, I can just keep going about my day.
[00:56:57] It's just, it's that. At what point? So, so now, your two years in the hospital. So,
[00:57:03] 2014, you get out of the hospital and you start living. Is that when you get medically retired?
[00:57:09] Yeah. May 2014. May 2014, you get out. And what are you doing? You get out? What's your,
[00:57:16] what are you, what are you moving to? Are you living in San Diego at this time? Yeah.
[00:57:21] Living in OB. Oh yeah.
[00:57:26] No, so there is two, so I mean, I got it growing up again, that academic thing and that, that athletic thing.
[00:57:34] I didn't struggle with it. And now I find myself in this position, getting out of the ring
[00:57:38] core. I'm like, I'm not the same person that I knew physically and I'm definitely not the
[00:57:42] same person I knew mentally. But I really wanted to finish my first masters. And while I was still
[00:57:48] in, the doctors looked at me and they were like, there's no way that we're going to prove you
[00:57:51] for tuition assistance or any of that. Like, you're going to fail your classes. There's no way.
[00:57:54] Are you serious? Yeah. Well, so I went to my speech therapist and said, hey, can you download
[00:57:58] this program, read and write gold onto my computer? I'm going to figure this out. Like, I'm going
[00:58:02] to finish this last year. My masters ended up getting that masters in psychology with a sea average.
[00:58:08] So barely. But I was like determined to prove those doctors wrong. And every single one of
[00:58:14] them kept telling me, if you don't use it, you're going to lose it. Like, you have to continue
[00:58:17] training and rewiring your brain. So then I just, I didn't stop. I just kept going to school
[00:58:22] like the moment that I got out, I was just kept going. And obviously, I used this post in 11G.
[00:58:26] I built on the integrated back in up scholarship. So I did school like,
[00:58:31] wholeheartedly. So this is 2014. You get out of the hospital. You're like diving into
[00:58:35] school hardcore. You keep talking about going to speech therapy. And I've been listening
[00:58:40] really intently trying to figure out why you need speech therapy. And I found nothing so far.
[00:58:46] Super articulate, you know, nailing every word, pronouncing, pronouncing everything.
[00:58:51] Awesome. So what was like your lowest point for speech? Was it because the damage had been done to your
[00:58:58] jaw? Was it your brain damage? Or was it just both? And how bad was it? Was it a point where, you know,
[00:59:06] you weren't able to carry on a conversation? Yeah. So in the very beginning. Because that's
[00:59:10] face it right now. You're doing a damn good job. Thank you. No, so in the very beginning, it really
[00:59:15] was. It was getting my brain to fire to be able to express myself to again, to retrieve the
[00:59:20] words that I was actually looking for. Now it's more of like nerve and all of that, the trauma,
[00:59:26] like the physical trauma. Now it's like, I was trying not to point it out. But like, ours and
[00:59:30] S's, I'll try to avoid that. But yeah, you just said both of them perfectly. The sound.
[00:59:38] You make, but yeah, like actually when I was trying to say rewiring, just now, there's a lot of effort
[00:59:44] into that. But yeah. But so like the head trauma that was, that was one thing that I really
[00:59:50] focused on. And then around that time, I actually started competing in snowboarding.
[00:59:54] So you got your bad leg. Bad brain. You got your bad leg, bad brain. Good band, by the way.
[01:00:02] And you and you, or society's cool, like, like, we're going to start snowboarding.
[01:00:07] You're going to get your food from Florida. Yes. Yes. Okay. Where did that come from?
[01:00:13] Yeah. No, so there's an organization that came into my hospital room when I was actually
[01:00:18] still living at the hospital. I'm in still active duty. And they came in. They just said,
[01:00:23] how do you feel about learning a winter sport? And this was in the end of 2013. And I was just
[01:00:27] like, you know, anything. Just give me out of the hospital. Well, again, me being me. My doctors
[01:00:33] cleared me to Sitsky. But then when I showed up in Breck and I had Colorado, no one asked me
[01:00:37] for a medical clearance or anything. And I'm like, well, shit. So nobody looks cool.
[01:00:41] I'm going to try that one instead. And I ended up picking it up really quickly. And I loved it.
[01:00:47] And you know, it's just one of those things that reminds you of your independence and resiliency.
[01:00:50] And, you know, no one can do it for you. So I just kept with it. And what was it like on your bad leg?
[01:00:56] I mean, it was painful. I mean, and I had a, I have, I had like a little, this weird
[01:01:01] caviar, like carbon fiber contraption that basically took all of the weight off of my
[01:01:06] lower limb and put it all into my knee at the time. So I mean, I had a little bit of help. But I mean,
[01:01:11] it was, I mean, it was painful, but it was worth it. I mean, I mean, I wasn't stopping. I mean,
[01:01:15] I was still dealing with surgeries. I mean, gosh, I was having a surgery once every age of 12 weeks.
[01:01:23] And then having the recovery. And so I mean, I was sneak away from Balboa and go to Big Bear.
[01:01:27] And go see you have issues.
[01:01:29] The deal were most of the surgeries on your leg or were they on everything?
[01:01:35] Yeah, yeah, my leg. So between between my leg and my face, that's where the majority of them
[01:01:40] came from, but 44 now. They told you out of the gate that a bunch of your bones were going to die
[01:01:47] in your leg. And they were right. And, and at some point, like, um, you're, you're, are they
[01:01:58] giving you the protection like, hey, this isn't, this isn't going to last. Yep. I mean,
[01:02:02] toward the end of my efforts, if you will, um, I mean, they were coming in. They're like,
[01:02:07] this is a Christopher Columbus surgery at this point. Like, we're going to go in and we're going to
[01:02:10] try and do whether it was bone crafting or neuro decompression or whatever, what it was like,
[01:02:15] we don't even know we're going to find any more. Um, and finally I came to terms with it. And so
[01:02:19] do you know what you can have it? Um, was that before or after you did the walk in England? So my walk
[01:02:25] was my son to my leg. Okay. That was so, so you decided, I got this bad leg. I got brain damage.
[01:02:32] I got everything else going on, but I'm going to go walk a thousand miles. Yes.
[01:02:36] In the United Kingdom. How, how that come about? Um, and so actually there was a couple of
[01:02:45] older marines that was that were was working for an organization called Bob Wooder Foundation.
[01:02:49] And they heard about this event called Walking With The Glunded that, you know, they've done
[01:02:53] everything from the North Pole and the South Pole. And it was kind of just like this pilot idea.
[01:02:57] Um, and they were just looking for people stupid enough to walk a thousand miles and share enough
[01:03:01] one of them smee. Um, but knows that they came up and they were just like, hey, we're thinking
[01:03:06] about sponsoring this event. That's going to raise money for American and British soldiers that
[01:03:10] are dealing with specifically right injuries had trauma in, you know, invisible injuries of all
[01:03:16] sorts. And in the moment I was just like, you know what, the legs come in off anyways. I don't care
[01:03:20] if I trash it. Um, so let's do this thousand miles and then literally seven days after I got home,
[01:03:27] they got my leg off. The thousand miles that you walk, you were with at some point you were with
[01:03:32] Prince Harry. Yep. And he's a legit dude. He is a legit dude. I will give him that. I won't give
[01:03:39] many other couples. I mean, he, he, well, he's at least legit that he, you know, he, he served. I mean,
[01:03:45] he, he fought NAFTA and I stand on the feet. Was he in Iraq? I don't, I don't understand. But yeah,
[01:03:50] and there's some pretty cool stuff of him. There's a cool, there's a cool little video
[01:03:54] someone's interviewing him and then like the alarm sound to me runs off to go get some. Yep. And so
[01:03:59] that was cool. And you had some, some interaction with him? Yeah. Um, so my personal spin on that
[01:04:05] thousand miles. Like, of course, I was over there to raise awareness and fundraise. But I made 25
[01:04:10] memorial dog tags for Marine's who either never came home or they killed themselves and we got back home.
[01:04:15] And I carried each one for 40 miles to the poem and left them all across England's Gotland and
[01:04:19] Wales with the intention that a stranger would find them in honor of our fallen. You know, we, we
[01:04:24] we should blood together. We deserve to heal or, you know, men wounds together if you want. And he
[01:04:30] actually helped me lay a few of my dog tags. And then I left the final one with him at Buckingham
[01:04:37] Palace and then on what's their better and stay, he carried it to the Senate our for me. So again,
[01:04:42] he really has a great dude. His, his hearts in the right place for sure. And that was one of your
[01:04:47] friends TJ's at that the final dog tags. So actually that's pretty sad story actually. So there
[01:04:54] were two gentlemen that were in the hospital with me. They were blown up 10 days before I got hurt.
[01:05:00] So they were with one seven. And of course, you know, me being the 33 unit, we were doing constantly
[01:05:05] doing stuff with those guys, you know, insertions and extractions and stuff. And the two gentlemen
[01:05:10] that were with one seven, you know, we went through all of our coveries together and TJ was actually
[01:05:15] one of, um, was the guy that passed away when they lost their legs. Um, so I didn't, I never knew him.
[01:05:22] He was never really a friend. It was more so for them. And this, yeah, has, has wife.
[01:05:32] So then you get done with that walking a thousand miles and you come back to San Diego and
[01:05:40] pre-planned, you get back in your leg. Okay. This, this, my, my foot is gonna die and let's move forward.
[01:05:51] Let's get rid of it. There's a, um, like a video like mini documentary about you. It's done by
[01:06:02] my, my calls, my calls, and which is, um, some kind of a magazine. It's a weird fit for me, but yeah.
[01:06:08] Anyway, as I watch this video and man, um, there's, there's a video of you and you're walking
[01:06:15] on the beach and your barefoot walking on the beach. You're walking on ocean beach by the way.
[01:06:22] And there's the pier in the background and you're like saying, yeah, you know, I'm walking on the beach
[01:06:27] because I'm not going to be able to do this anymore. I'm not going to be able to feel the sand
[01:06:30] on my, on my foot anymore. That has gotta be the, the hardest decision that you've had to make it.
[01:06:41] I mean, for a person, right? Like you have at least this, like, I mean, I, the same, I mean,
[01:06:48] I surf and like I live by the beach. I love the ocean and walking barefoot on the sand is like
[01:06:55] totally a thing that is real. Like it's the best thing. And I'm sitting there thinking you'd
[01:07:02] been living in OB at the time and crazy that you're sitting there saying, yep, I'm going to,
[01:07:09] I'm going to walk on the sand for the last time right now. This is it. This is the last time I
[01:07:13] get to feel the sand between my toes. So the last time I get to wait around in this water.
[01:07:18] Yep. I was one of those things where it's like, the equality life. I was living a life that
[01:07:28] I, you know, I wasn't happy with as far as like living a life of constant recovery,
[01:07:32] pain, a lot of drugs. I mean, I'd be lying. If I told you, I was like,
[01:07:38] sober when I did the thousand mile walk. There was a lot of medication falls in that.
[01:07:41] But, you know, like, I just wanted those things. I was ready to close that chapter and just move
[01:07:46] forward. You know, there's, there's a lot of things that I wanted to do with my life or that I am doing.
[01:07:50] And still want to do with my life. And the thing is also important to note is they were going to,
[01:07:57] they're going to take your foot, your shin, leave your tib, fib, which I can't fully express this,
[01:08:05] but I do know from friends that have had above the knee and below the knee amputation. The
[01:08:11] difference between above the knee amputation and below the knee amputation is absolutely massive.
[01:08:18] The amount of articulation that you have in your knee is just it is incredible compared to
[01:08:24] when you lose your knee. Yeah. I mean, I'll never bitch about being an amputee. I'm thankful that
[01:08:31] I'm alive. But I would do anything to get my knee back. Well, the initial surgery, they do what they said
[01:08:42] they're going to do. They, whatever, made way up your calf or somewhere they leave, they leave enough knee.
[01:08:48] And this was right around, was this right around Thanksgiving? Yep. So right around Thanksgiving,
[01:08:53] you get this initial surgery. And for you, it's going to be liberating because you're not
[01:08:59] going to have to worry about this pain. You can get the feet that will work better than your foot.
[01:09:04] That's what it boils down to. I guess that's when I was talking about like all this stuff about
[01:09:06] the sand and getting all crazy with that. The bottom line is you were thinking, hey, that's great
[01:09:13] feeling, but I'm actually able to be better off with the different varieties of prosthetic feet and
[01:09:25] ankles and all the stuff that they can give you. I mean, there's many people that have deployed
[01:09:30] after they've gotten a below the knee surgery. I don't know how many people have above,
[01:09:35] but I'm sure there has been some, but it's a lot different. It's a lot different.
[01:09:41] So you get that surgery and it was, I guess it was a bad surgery. There was an infection.
[01:09:50] Is what happens? Yeah. I mean, again, one could see for another one, but yeah, that was definitely
[01:09:55] some malpractice on that one. But yeah, instead of using staples, they used stitches and I
[01:10:01] ever put a looped back on. There was a number of things. I was trying away from the emergency room
[01:10:05] three times. I'm going to tell them that it was fine. And then finally, you know, I mean, it was bad.
[01:10:11] I mean, it was really, really bad. And they finally, there was actually a doctor from scripts.
[01:10:19] That was like filling in for one of the doctors out in the ER at Pau Boa. And she saw my leg and
[01:10:23] she was like, oh, hell, no. Like, take every, but like, don't even put her in x-rays. Like,
[01:10:27] take everybody out of the OR. Like, I'm going in with her. And then it up, cutting out
[01:10:32] the room half of my knee. They left my patella. And then they went back in and they said that that
[01:10:37] was enough. And they took her on patella and made it in a bubb-n-e. So they
[01:10:41] gave a team cut my, my favorite. There's a note from you. December 20th, 2015, that I am awake
[01:10:56] and out of surgery for today. I lost a lot of muscle due to infection. Unless I have a Christmas
[01:11:01] miracle, they'll be taking my knee tomorrow. These are the times it's easy to give up.
[01:11:06] December 23rd, 2015 update. The infection almost killed me. It was eating the muscles in my leg.
[01:11:18] They saved my life plain and simple. I am an above the knee amputee, but I am healthier now. Still fighting
[01:11:26] the infection in more surgery. 10 a.m. which could make me a hip dysardic.
[01:11:32] Which could be worse, but nothing I can't beat. They're, they are trying their best.
[01:11:41] Said they've never seen anything so bad as to what was going on in my leg. I know I can beat this.
[01:11:46] I just hope they don't have to go too high on this limb.
[01:11:50] Menelian emotionally, this is the hardest thing I've ever dealt with.
[01:11:55] I am terrified.
[01:11:57] When they came in and said that they might take my hip, I didn't want them to wake me back up.
[01:12:08] They do not bring me out of that surgery room. Keep me asleep. You take, I mean,
[01:12:16] God love and could also anybody that's sitting in a bucket and has to live their life as a
[01:12:20] hip dysardic. That news was awful. I didn't think I was going to have the courage to keep going.
[01:12:33] I didn't want to keep going at that point.
[01:12:37] In the beginning of that, when you were reading and I was sitting, God, I was full shit.
[01:12:40] I'm just telling everybody that it's going to be okay.
[01:12:42] I'm glad that I at least finished that with I'm terrified because it's honest. It's true.
[01:12:51] December 24th, 2015. This is the next day. Christmas Eve. I am alive. I'm happy.
[01:13:02] I don't know anything about good news about my leg and it looks great. Being in above the
[01:13:05] knee amputee will be challenging at first and all I can say is bring it on. On another note, I am
[01:13:12] very sick and will be for quite some time. They found three bacterial infections, including Mersea.
[01:13:20] They also found blood caught in my arm. They put a pick line in. This is a light threatening
[01:13:25] matter, so I'll need to lay low for a while. Please keep praying. I got this. We got this.
[01:13:43] Craziness.
[01:13:47] Yep. Your parents were living here at this time? No. So you were who you with?
[01:13:52] I was living with my boyfriend at the time. My mom was living with us. She was around.
[01:14:02] It was the craziest thing. We all knew my life was just rotting. That's just what it was doing.
[01:14:11] My mom would go with me. You are. We would get turned away. My boyfriend at the time had gone
[01:14:16] back to Florida to drive with my little sister out because it was coming up on the holidays and stuff.
[01:14:22] When he was in Florida with her, you need to get your family here because we don't know if
[01:14:30] you're going to pull through this one. My dad's flying in from being on the pipeline. They're
[01:14:35] rushing driving across the country through the night to get back. It was bad.
[01:14:50] You eventually recovered from this. Good Lord. How long has it take to fight off these triple
[01:14:59] bacteria infections and whatnot? I ended up getting out of the hospital. It would have been very late
[01:15:06] January, early February. I was there for at least another month, five six weeks. During that five
[01:15:12] six weeks, is that when you started doing rehab to get fitted for a prosthetic, did that happen that
[01:15:17] fast? So they actually sort of fitting me when my staples came out. So yeah, so would have been
[01:15:25] probably the week before I got out of the hospital. Then I hit the ground run with that.
[01:15:29] Which is no big surprise at this point. I don't want my leg and I want to get the freak out of here.
[01:15:34] So. Then what happens then? So now what was that rehab process? You're trying to learn to walk
[01:15:40] again and all this stuff? Yeah. So your supposed to go to physical therapy and go to gate training
[01:15:45] and sit through six weeks, birth of training on this like, learning how to walk. They let
[01:15:52] me go after two weeks. So I took my leg on after two weeks and just like, I mean, this is,
[01:15:58] this is it. And I'm going to actually have these videos of my mom watching me for walk for the first
[01:16:03] time and of course it was very emotional and whatnot, but it was like it didn't skip a beat.
[01:16:08] He gave me two weeks and I was going to figure it out. And then where'd you go when you got
[01:16:13] release from the hospital? Did you stay in San Diego? Yeah, I stayed in San Diego for quite some time.
[01:16:16] Then I ended up going up to Temecula for a little while and then bouncing back and forth,
[01:16:23] got back on my snowboard and so I was spending the winters in Colorado and going back
[01:16:28] your in California. What is it like snowboarding? No. Oh, it is weird. No, it's, I don't know.
[01:16:35] I mean, I don't know any, like, I can't remember what it's like anymore to like snowboard with
[01:16:39] two legs or a busted up leg. I don't know. I mean, it's again, like I just got back on a board
[01:16:46] and just rode. I mean, of course I wiped down. I hurt quite a bit. But yeah, I've got some, you know,
[01:16:54] again, just didn't skip a beat. And at this point, like, okay, so that cosmopolitan video was made
[01:17:02] around this time, right? So you're starting to get some kind of notoriety. Is that the right word?
[01:17:08] Wait, is notoriety bad? No, I don't know. I don't know. You seem like the type of person that
[01:17:13] wouldn't want to be called famous, but you're starting to get some some recognition. Right?
[01:17:18] People are starting to sort of hear what you've gone through and start to be interested in the story.
[01:17:24] Right? So this is all happening to at this time, which is weird. It was very, very weird.
[01:17:30] I mean, I'm not like, when I think of any of the things that I've done at this point,
[01:17:33] it's like, you don't want to be celebrated. You don't want the attention for doing what you
[01:17:36] want to do and living your life. How you want to live it. Like, I wasn't doing anything
[01:17:40] miraculous. I'm just like, I want to live. I want to move forward with my life. I want to be here
[01:17:43] for my family. And then even now, it's, I just like helping people. I'm like, you know, I mean,
[01:17:49] so yeah. So you get the cosmopolitan thing. You're, you go and you, you go and do a job as a
[01:17:57] stunt woman in a movie. What's that all about? I just, Philan Voids, you know,
[01:18:04] adrenaline seeking, I guess, trying to fill that. What is Jesus' stunt woman?
[01:18:07] Um, so everything from Gaurc crashes to explosions, to pyro. Did anyone notify you that
[01:18:13] this makes you are your head? There was a couple times. But yeah, no, you're like, I'll
[01:18:20] crank up the speech therapy and just do more stunts. That's it. Yeah. All my guns on.
[01:18:26] Heck, what did you, uh, what you were in a movie with Mark Wahlberg? Is that right? Yeah.
[01:18:32] That's the biggest one. It's a Patriots day. And what do you do in that movie? Get the one up.
[01:18:36] You're like, I got experience at this. Yeah. Check this out. Yeah. Like, get blown up. Get
[01:18:41] carried around on stretchers. Luzilim, followed by wheelchair at one's at one point.
[01:18:46] Bunch of different scenes. Yeah. Um, okay. So, so you got that going on. You got the, the
[01:18:52] people magazine body image hero, which is what, what does that mean? Well, when I was
[01:19:00] in this whole process, I mean, even from the get go with the face, like the interest in my face,
[01:19:04] um, you know, I didn't, and the doctor saw me all the stuff about my leg. I didn't really
[01:19:09] care if I was going to be able to get up and run again, or any of that, like, as a young woman, you know,
[01:19:13] all I cared about was who's looking at me differently? Can I wear heels? Can I wear a dress? Is anybody
[01:19:17] going to find me attractive enough to have a family one day? Like, really worried about the self-esteem
[01:19:22] stuff. Um, and so like, moving forward, I just decided that I was going to own my differences,
[01:19:28] that I was going to like be proud of the scars that I wore because they told my stories. They think,
[01:19:32] I mean, in my opinion, they make me look pretty tough too, but um, but no, like, I wanted to show
[01:19:37] people that it was okay to me. It's street cred. Exactly. Yeah. But that's like, I just wanted
[01:19:44] to show people that it was okay, you know, like, you don't have to be the cookie cutter, you know,
[01:19:48] definition of what beautiful is. And I don't want to say the cheesy, like, you know, beauty comes
[01:19:53] from within, but I like, I wanted to show people that it was, I mean, it was beautiful to be strong.
[01:19:57] It was, you know, it was beautiful to have drive and have well and to, to not fail. I mean,
[01:20:02] to give it a all. And so that that's, that's what the people magazine, things of what they
[01:20:09] interview you and take a bunch of pictures of you and all that. And now, again, I'm just, I'm just
[01:20:15] kind of have to trace the fact that people are starting to follow you and and recognize that you're
[01:20:21] a, um, that you have a very interesting story and inspiring story. Yeah. As these things are happening,
[01:20:27] because the reason I kind of have to say that is because then you like do other things at the same
[01:20:33] time, like getting stunt women and getting crashed and blown up and stuff like that. And at some
[01:20:38] point, you got your master's degree in business administration, right? And this is still just
[01:20:42] approved to people that you can still mentally go. Yes. And yes. But on the other, I think the other
[01:20:50] side is that to like, even right now when I do eventually finish this doctor, like I'm terrified
[01:20:56] of what I'm going to do with that time. I'm like, oh my god, I love structure. I'm so, you
[01:21:00] mumbled filling the void. The other is like a couple minutes ago, you're like, I'm filling the
[01:21:04] void. So what you're saying is you have to be busy. You have to have something to focus on,
[01:21:10] something to do exactly. Okay. That starts to explain some things. Yes. Because at some point,
[01:21:16] you decided that you were going to put another thing on your list of things to get done,
[01:21:21] and it's climb the seven summits. Right. So the highest peak on either the seven continents.
[01:21:30] It was one of the things that hasn't been done by a female above the knee amputee, I can't speak
[01:21:35] for the men. But yeah, I decided that I needed something. You know, I lost the 2016 snowboarding season
[01:21:41] due to the last revision surgery to my amputated side. And so I was like, well, I can't do any
[01:21:47] high impact sport. So what else can I do in the mountains? And you might want to check with
[01:21:54] you, you're like, this is the thing mountain here, not a high impact sport. Okay. We went up
[01:22:00] the set up a little coaching situation here. Because I'm not sure. So check it out. So the idea,
[01:22:07] you get the idea, you must just say, okay, what kind of do that's super, super hard? Yeah.
[01:22:12] You start with Kilimanjaro, is that the first one? Yep. And how that go?
[01:22:17] It was amazing. Actually, it was insane. Because we were up and down in four and a half days,
[01:22:21] which Kilimanjaro stands 19,000, 241 feet. So for me to make my way up and make it my way back down,
[01:22:28] that quickly was without a control. But it was one of those things where it was, I mean,
[01:22:35] in a sick way, like, just like I was addicted to school, I sort of get addicted to that suffering,
[01:22:40] because like you suffer in your miserable, for days on end. But then once you make it to your goal,
[01:22:44] it's that much sweeter. And so, I mean, it was just, I don't know, like a weird hunger from more
[01:22:50] that I wasn't really like finding any worlds. And then, I mean, I mean, we ended up raising like
[01:22:55] $150,000 for clean water for the East Tanzanians with that climb. So now it's like, I have the personal
[01:23:02] side of things. And then I have this other purpose that I was already, you know, felt like I was missing
[01:23:06] by not having any Marine Corps. And then from there, that's when I everything took. So which one came
[01:23:10] next? Carstens. And carstens. I was looking at that one. This is in Indonesia. How tall is it?
[01:23:18] Just over 16,000 feet. And it looked to me like the getting there was half the battle. Yeah. So,
[01:23:25] honestly, I mean, carstens is an interesting mountain, because it's notorious for being the most
[01:23:29] hostile and technical invertant, really versatile. But I mean, it's a 72 mile trek into the base of
[01:23:36] this rock face. So yeah, it's just, I mean, it's honestly low impact. Right back, it's a low impact scenario.
[01:23:42] It's 72 miles. Yeah. But I mean, even just getting out there. And I mean, the people that you
[01:23:49] encounter, the Donnie and the Money tribes, like, I mean, that was just an experience in itself.
[01:23:53] I mean, the local indigenous tribes came through and like ransacked and destroyed all over
[01:23:59] camps and stole our passports while we're like, up, 15,000 feet watching them. Did they teach you
[01:24:04] them? Yeah, that's very awesome stuff. You got to leave me a little couple of people back.
[01:24:09] That's a curdy on that stuff. Yeah. So it's 72 mile hike in. Yeah. Now, some of my friends that are
[01:24:16] amputees, it's not like your your prosthetic just is this clean, easy fit and it's all good to go.
[01:24:25] That thing, that thing gets all kinds of issues. I was thinking about, I sweat a lot. If I was
[01:24:31] wearing the prosthetic, you have, they would have to put drain holes on the bottom of it. Do they have
[01:24:36] drain holes? Nope. But they see them. I would feel that thing up with sweat.
[01:24:41] But we'll go back. I'll send you a link later to my Everest, like mini documentary and I'm
[01:24:45] going to tank top when everybody else is in like these big, poppy summits. It's I run so hot and
[01:24:50] I'll let I miss you my leg and so I fill your paint on that. So you're doing these lawn. You do
[01:24:55] that and you make it to the to the top of car stands, right? Yeah. You launch at some point,
[01:25:02] I guess you wanted to put your business administrative degree to work. So you launched a T-shirt
[01:25:07] company called Headcase. What inspired that? It will. So I'm an avid hunter. I believe in
[01:25:16] the things that I consume. They need to die at my hands. I don't like eating things that are
[01:25:21] bred to die. So it was really involved in the outward industry as far as mountain hunting and
[01:25:26] the likes of that nature. And if you walked into my house now, it is full of taxidermy specifically
[01:25:31] schools. And so there you have it. So a lot of it was joining forces with my buddy Nevada who
[01:25:37] carved schools for living now and using his artwork and in schools, you know, the head case and
[01:25:42] the outdoors. When you, at what point did you, did you grow up as a hunter? I mean, we did little
[01:25:48] stuff, you know, white tail and hogs and stuff like that growing up, but none of the stuff that I'm
[01:25:53] doing now. And when did that start? In this whole freaking crazy scenario you've got on folding.
[01:26:00] You know, I, so we were talking about like loss and gain earlier. And again, my biggest
[01:26:05] perspective, like biggest gain has been my perspective on life. And so I started to appreciate,
[01:26:09] started to appreciate just the cycle. And so that's when I really started to look into,
[01:26:15] okay, well, what's going on in the outdoors? What am I actually putting into my body, A,
[01:26:18] and then also just, you know, conservation efforts. And, and then, yeah, I'm being able to
[01:26:24] provide for my family, like in the most natural way possible. And yeah, I mean, hunting is not about death.
[01:26:31] It's about living. What, what, you, when did you go on your first hunt?
[01:26:35] Oh, man, growing up? No, no, like you're, you're more recent hunting career.
[01:26:41] Probably, 2013. Okay. So you got right right into it. 2014 somewhere there, yeah.
[01:26:46] And by the way, anyone doesn't know hunting is not easy. And you, I mean, involves,
[01:26:54] it involves, that's why when you're talking about 72 mile hike in, I mean, hunting takes a lot of,
[01:27:00] look, I just went on a hunt. And I think we were averaging, like, I think we average, like 10, 10,
[01:27:07] or 12 miles a day. It's like, eight to 12 miles a day. You know, you're putting out up and down,
[01:27:12] hills and it's, it's hard work. And I'm doing, I'm out there doing it with two legs,
[01:27:17] by the way. So, okay. So, you start your t-shirt thing. And then you go for your first little,
[01:27:25] kind of, uh, little, what would you call it? Little recon, a little recon of Everest,
[01:27:31] to base camp. Yes. That was just, let's get a look at this thing. Let's see what's up.
[01:27:37] Yeah, I mean, how inspiring was that? We like, oh, exactly like that actually.
[01:27:43] Right. I could imagine that would be, if you have that in your mind and you get there in your
[01:27:47] thaw bottom, you're like, let's do this. Yes. And I was losing it. I mean, obviously, just very
[01:27:53] emotional together. But, you know, there's several, like, there's Hoot and Holleron and several
[01:27:58] of bombs and tears and, you know, everything. But no, I mean, the moment, like, three days into the
[01:28:03] actual, like, base camp track, I saw Everest for the first time and I just knew, like,
[01:28:08] that's it. I'm going to do it. And so, so that was just getting, getting a feel for it,
[01:28:14] yeah. Getting to know people, getting to kind of see how the system would run, who'd you go,
[01:28:18] like, what brought, how'd you get on that trip? Um, so actually, you're not like walking down
[01:28:22] to the, the travel, what are those people called? Travel agent. Travel agent. Travel agent.
[01:28:27] Yeah, book me to base camp one way. So, actually, this check by the name of a haily web that I met
[01:28:33] on my thousand mile walk. Um, she's, she was the local mountain guide over there and she hit me
[01:28:38] up out of nowhere. I'm just like, hey, I'm going to, you know, guide a base camp track to Everest.
[01:28:43] You want to come and I'm like, well, actually, yes. Because I needed to decide if I'm going to
[01:28:47] climb from the north side or the south side, you know, down the road. And so, yeah, I mean,
[01:28:52] I went down there in absolutely fell in love with Nepal and the people and just their way of life
[01:28:56] in their culture. Okay. So, you get done with that. At some point, you open a hair salon? Yes.
[01:29:02] I hear an ocean side for a little ways up in a ocean side. Right on, is that so old there?
[01:29:07] Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's during really well. Um, well, so, so a little backstory to all of these
[01:29:11] random little things that I'm doing. Yeah, because you are doing some random stuff at this point.
[01:29:14] And I want me to look, it can be a really fresh man here. No, so when I woke up in the hospital in
[01:29:19] 2015, I looked around the room and told myself that whoever was in that hospital room with me,
[01:29:24] that they would never work for anybody else over again. That, like, if they were willing to
[01:29:27] sacrifice their time, you know, their personal lives remain to make sure that I was okay. That,
[01:29:32] you know, I was going to help them live out their dreams, they help keep me alive. So,
[01:29:37] my best friend Christine is actually my business partner in that. So, she's the head
[01:29:42] haunched down there. I'm just the CFO slash investor. So, if we're, if we're an O side, that's it.
[01:29:48] And we need a haircut. Where do we go? Chapter one here and body lab. Chapter one here and body.
[01:29:54] Do you give high entice there? No, they won't do it. Dang it. What about all the
[01:29:58] you see earlier you said like, was it three five you said I hope three five is listening to this?
[01:30:02] Two five. You said I hope two five and in my mind two five is listening to this. Once there are so many
[01:30:08] Marines listening to this right now that if you don't get a pair of clippers at at at the place up an
[01:30:15] O side, you know, let's make it happen. Okay, so you get that going on and then February,
[01:30:23] you start you go back to climbing. So, November was you went to Everspace Camp Trek.
[01:30:29] You do the hair salon thing February, you go to, I could go to a go to a taxi. You go to
[01:30:36] Ecuador for a colto taxi. And this is a summit attempt. Right. But you didn't make it.
[01:30:44] Nope. Well, yeah, turn around at like 18,500. And what is it? How much further did you have to go?
[01:30:51] Oh, another 1500 vertical? What was it? Just altitude and moving slow. My climbing partner had a headache.
[01:31:02] We were about to hit this like really long traverse section and like with my prosthetic if the
[01:31:07] high side is on my left side or my prosthetic side, I cannot move well. So with her being light,
[01:31:13] had I had having a headache and me already being a little unsighty in the feed just was,
[01:31:17] didn't make sense. Yeah, to make a smart call. Yep. And you kind of talked about that in some of
[01:31:21] your blogs just about like making a good decision, which the mountains are littered with bodies of people
[01:31:28] that get summit fever and they're going to go for it and they don't make it. Exactly. And that's
[01:31:34] one of those things where it's like if someone's climbing with me and something happened,
[01:31:37] like I wouldn't be able to live with myself. So yeah, I mean the mountains are not going anywhere.
[01:31:42] And if that one does, it's going to be another one. So. So you get done with that one.
[01:31:47] Some lessons learned and then you go to, you then you go to try Denali. Yeah, Denali is a mean,
[01:31:53] main mountain. Yeah, so go out to Denali and spend literally a month, the whole entire month of
[01:32:01] June 2018 on Denali and we made it up to 14,000 feet, we're pinned for 17 days. Now going up,
[01:32:09] now going down. We were scalping food and fuel from people as they were like making their way
[01:32:13] down. We were trying to be stubborn and right out this terrible terrible. I mean, what would really be
[01:32:17] a 717 days and like you would sleep for 90 minutes and you get out of your tent for 90 minutes
[01:32:23] and dig your tent out. I think I could sleep. That's like you can do for 17 days. 17 days.
[01:32:30] Do you, do you, do you, does your body a try so bad in 17 days? Like I think about like,
[01:32:37] I work out all the time, but occasionally, okay, so here's an example. We just had an event called
[01:32:42] the mustard in Denvercala, Rodo. If I would have known you, you would have been there for
[01:32:48] another one of what have been awesome. So like during that week, it's kind of hard to do my normal
[01:32:52] workout routine. It's a little bit lighter than normal. And then from that, I came home for one day.
[01:32:57] I got one workout and then I went hunting in Utah and I didn't work out there other than
[01:33:02] humping up and out. But I can imagine if all you're doing is sitting in a tent and then getting
[01:33:06] out every 90 minutes and digging out. And then if you think at the end of that, you're going to have
[01:33:10] to go and walk up that freaking mountain. Yeah, that seems like a, yeah, I mean, I mean, yeah,
[01:33:18] I mean, your body just attributes anyways. But of course, being an altitude, like you're just
[01:33:22] withering away as it is. And up there, limited food, limited supplies. Like you're not going to
[01:33:27] sit there and just be shoveling all sorts of stuff in your face. So, but it was hard. And then out there
[01:33:31] in Denon, like you can't just go for a hike or any of that. Like there are so many crevasses
[01:33:36] that everything that you have to do, you have to have your technical gear be on a rope.
[01:33:40] So, I mean, you were literally confined to your tent and to very, very small, like little
[01:33:44] living space. What was the avalanche threat? Well, luckily, we were far enough for many slabs.
[01:33:50] I mean, we're really just kind of hanging out there. At that point, you're just worried about
[01:33:53] being very alive because you slept too long. Okay, knowing, I don't know you well, but at least
[01:33:57] sitting through this podcast and realizing that you need to be doing something at all times.
[01:34:01] What, what the hell was your mindset after day 12? I was terrible. I honestly,
[01:34:07] any claim, like the hardest part of my tent time, like I could not sit still. And so yeah,
[01:34:12] I mean, you bring anything with you, bring a book to you, whatever. Yes, and no. So, on Denon,
[01:34:17] it's illegal to have any sharpness or any help because it's part of the National Park Service. So,
[01:34:21] I mean, you have to drag a 50 pounds lead and carry a 50 pounds lead. So, you're interested.
[01:34:26] I hear that. So, yeah, I mean, we both neglect at one point. That.
[01:34:33] Okay, so then you get eventually you get weathered off that climb.
[01:34:36] Yeah, well, so we had a very short weather window. We ended up making it up to again,
[01:34:40] 18,200, 300. Same climbing partner that I was actually on Kodapaxi with. I was moving a little
[01:34:48] bit slow. This section called the Autobahn. And, you know, the weather was rolling on quick.
[01:34:53] She wasn't feeling too hot. Just, you know, just wasn't going to happen then. So, I made the
[01:34:58] cold to turn around and come down. So, you, so now the next thing that you're looking at is the
[01:35:04] opportunity to do Everest again. That's where you were up. So, you come down from Denali and now
[01:35:09] it's now it's Everest, go time. Yes, and now so I did Elbrist, the highest point in Europe over in
[01:35:14] Russia. Okay. So, I did Denali in June 2018 or it's time to get in June 2018. Elbrist,
[01:35:20] the highest point in Europe in September 2018. And then I went down to South America and Argentina.
[01:35:26] January 2019, crushed that one. So, then I decided I was ready for Everest.
[01:35:32] Okay. Now, you decide you're ready for Everest. Is there still, is that because you've been
[01:35:38] hiking in the mountains so much you've been doing so much that you're feeling like you're conditioning
[01:35:40] is good or is it like, is it like when you fight in MMA or you run a triathlon where when you get
[01:35:47] done you okay at a recover a little bit? Yeah, I mean, it is, but like for me especially, I mean,
[01:35:52] for any mountaineer, it's like building box. Like, each of these mountains, A Humbles you, but then
[01:35:57] teaches you something different. So, whether you know, you know, Kilimanjaro for example was my
[01:36:02] first full exposure to endurance. So to speak, you know, especially the altitude,
[01:36:06] Cursed ends with super technical. So that's a totally different skill set. Denali, winter,
[01:36:10] camping, glacier, travel, Elbrist, patients for myself and people, hacking, Kaguah,
[01:36:15] it's the highest mountain outside of the hill. Kind of rushed over that one pretty quick.
[01:36:18] Yeah, what Elbrist? No, patients for people. People? Oh, yeah.
[01:36:22] Yeah, that's yeah. Working on this home. And then yeah, Ack and Kaguah is known as the mountain of
[01:36:29] death. It's the highest mountain outside of the Himalayas and down in Argentina and that one really taught
[01:36:35] me just how my body is going to react to that kind of altitude to big mountains. Then how did it react?
[01:36:41] Totally fine. It's weird. So I run super hot, because of losing the leg. And then I don't
[01:36:49] right now, knock on wood. I don't really suffer from any like altitude side effects. I can
[01:36:53] don't have the headaches. I don't have a hard time breathing. So once I confirmed that, I was like,
[01:36:58] all right, let's go. The only issue that really ever kind of comes up is my residual limb
[01:37:04] swells inside of the carbon fiber socket. So that can be kind of risky.
[01:37:10] And that can be risky because you won't be able to get it off. Got cut off circulation.
[01:37:15] Okay, so you cut off circulation. And then you then you have a real problem. Yes.
[01:37:21] Okay, well, did you have to do any more prep? So when you when you're not looking at Everest,
[01:37:27] you're doing your feeling like you're in pretty good shape for it physically.
[01:37:32] And then it's okay, let's get all my gear together, which now you know pretty well,
[01:37:36] because you've done these other climbs. Your feeling like your gear list is pretty straightforward.
[01:37:40] Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about Everest. So you get to, you get there, you get to
[01:37:48] base camp. What's that like? How freaking pumped are you at this point? I was jazzed. I mean,
[01:37:54] more than it was crazy too, just because I mean, obviously, you know, I've been out there already.
[01:37:59] So I mean, all of these memories are coming back up. And I mean, you're just in total all
[01:38:04] walking out in the Himalayas. Like, you do not matter. Nothing about you matters out there. So
[01:38:09] like, I mean, it's a it's a world when you when you're first cruising in to Everest Base Camp
[01:38:14] and just into the Kumbu region of Nepal. But like making it into base camp, it was interesting
[01:38:19] because there were so many people like waiting for me there. Like so many people either they saw me
[01:38:24] on the base camp track. They've been watching my career, whatever. Like they were just so stoked
[01:38:28] to have me there. And that just meant so much to me because it was like, you know what,
[01:38:32] I knew this was big. In my mind, this is big, but not as big as like whatever,
[01:38:37] but yeah, things that as I guess, and like it made me realize that I was impacting a lot more
[01:38:41] people. And then of course there was like the nasaer and from, you know, from time to time that
[01:38:46] tell me, oh, you're not going to make it above camp 2 as in above the NPPTA. And of course,
[01:38:50] that just feels my fire. But no, I mean, base camp special place, just because it's like this
[01:38:56] huge, obviously, tent city, but there are people from all over the world with the same
[01:39:01] coin goal of getting to the highest point in the world. How long how many days were you at base camp
[01:39:07] for? Um, geez. So what have been in two or three weeks? So it's like two or three weeks at base camp.
[01:39:15] And then, do you do those little excursions where you go up for a little bit and come back down?
[01:39:19] Yeah. Yeah. Well, so there's the kumbu ice fall, which is realistically probably the most
[01:39:26] dangerous part of Everest, at least as far as climbing goes. And it's just because the ground's
[01:39:31] constantly shifting. Obviously, I mean, the name tells you all like ice falls, there's avalanches.
[01:39:37] It's just crazy. And so we would go up there and we'd like test my prosthetics and the ladders.
[01:39:41] We'd, you know, obviously go across, you know, move along the fixed lines. We'd went up to camp 1 and
[01:39:47] we, you know, came all the way back down. And after doing that, I actually made the decision that I
[01:39:54] wasn't going to come below camp 1 again. So climb high and slip low a couple of times and then finally
[01:40:04] my team left me at camp 1 and everybody else went back down. And I see it, I see it at camp 1 for
[01:40:09] above 20,000 feet for almost four weeks. And your decision to do that was just to get better
[01:40:16] acclimated or to avoid the kumbu ice fall or you just, because I can't move fast through that stuff.
[01:40:20] And then not, yeah, I just, I knew that going up and down through that, like that's just another
[01:40:25] variable and more risk. I know for a fact that I can withstand 20,000 feet. So it was really just kind of,
[01:40:32] you know, weighing the pros and cons of both. And in my opinion, like again, if something happened to me,
[01:40:37] when I'm sitting in the middle of this valley at 20,000 feet, then it's just me. I mean, I was out there by myself
[01:40:42] in a tent. And there's no one. But if I was in the kumbu and there's my team and then another 20
[01:40:49] people who are also like doing the same thing and in something happens and I don't know, that's just a huge
[01:40:55] cross-to-bear. So I'd rather be solo and something happened than go back to the kumbu.
[01:41:00] How many people are on your team? So we had two locals. My buddy's Robin Chris and then a couple of
[01:41:07] archie's me two Americans, Robin Chris, then two locals. That's the team right there. Who are Robin
[01:41:13] Chris? So Chris is actually, I do that's climbed with me a few times. He'd actually did Albrist
[01:41:18] in Akhenko with me and then Rob, and he's a stud. He was my cinematographer for Ferdinalli. And then
[01:41:26] I decided that he's just, I mean, he's a mountain goat. So I was like, you know, I want you to be a part
[01:41:31] of my team, obviously, because you can handle things when it hits the fan. But also, like, you're
[01:41:36] going to film this far. So at what point, so you get to camp two, you spend four weeks or no,
[01:41:44] it's a camp one you spent four weeks at. I just spent four weeks above 20,000 feet. Okay,
[01:41:49] got it. And then at what point is the decision point? Like, okay, it's our go time.
[01:41:54] So it would have been, we get word, I mean, it's all a weather game out there. So we get word that
[01:42:01] there's a really nice weather window. And it's long, there's not a cloud in the sky, the wind's
[01:42:05] perfect. And then we get word that about 250 of the 330 climbers are going to be trying for
[01:42:13] that same weather window. And I just went back and I thought about things. And my biggest fear
[01:42:20] on what I'm climbing isn't dying. You know, my biggest fear is getting frostbite and losing more of
[01:42:27] my, you know, already very short limb. So I sat there and I reflected and said, you know what,
[01:42:33] I can't get stuck in that line. A, because like what happens if my client partners run out of oxygen,
[01:42:38] there are no options, there's no going up or down. Like, I run the risk of losing, you know,
[01:42:42] somebody that I care deeply about. Obviously, there's the risk of frostbite. I run warm. I have
[01:42:48] an elevated heart rate because of my injuries. So I'm using more oxygen. Like, there was just
[01:42:53] too much. There was too much to like deal with other people. And not only that, but what happens if
[01:42:57] I get stuck behind somebody too. In my world, like, if you're on my team and we're climbing
[01:43:02] together, like, you go at my pace. And some days I haul ass. Some days I'm moving a little bit slower
[01:43:06] because of my leg. So me and the team decided that we were going to do is called threading the
[01:43:12] needle and go for a much shorter weather window. And we didn't even know if the ropes are going
[01:43:19] to be fixed to the top. Right. So this is prior to this big window. You guys said, well, there's a
[01:43:23] shorter window that's going to last however many days and we're going to go for it then. Yep.
[01:43:27] We decided that we're going to go. We were one of the first teams did push. So. And then, and then
[01:43:37] so you go up from camp two to camp three and then you stay camp three. How long do you say
[01:43:41] there for? Just tonight. And then camp three to camp four another night. Yep. And then you sleep for
[01:43:46] like three hours. I can't for and then you push the summit. So it goes camp four camp five. You just
[01:43:53] there's no camp five. There's no camp six. So you went from straight from camp four
[01:44:01] to and you guys made it to Hillary step. Yep. So so we made it as a so sound. We made it to
[01:44:09] 200 meters away from the summit. Okay. I should be really freaking proud actually. Like I should
[01:44:16] say that a little more enthusiastically. But yeah, no, I mean we made it to the south summit. So I'm
[01:44:22] obviously super proud of that. But yeah, it was a little disheartening to see it. I could throw a rock
[01:44:27] at it. And that's um yeah, I mean when you look at those pictures when you see and Hillary step
[01:44:33] has changed I think in 2015 it changed from like this big kind of a like a 10 meter like 12 meter
[01:44:42] something rock. And now it's like a little bit. It looks like something happened to it. Yeah.
[01:44:47] Earth greater something. And so but that's where you guys made it to. And once again, you faced with
[01:44:54] this tough decision to make of like, do we press and go? And it's a huge risk. I had a friend
[01:45:01] that tried to climb Everest and he was a total stud. And he was like, I mean a total stud. And
[01:45:10] he was like, yeah, you know, every step is a freaking nightmare. Like it is so hard. It's like you
[01:45:19] can't describe how hard it is. Because people think, hey, you were 200 meters. Come on. Yeah,
[01:45:26] you got right. Yeah. No, I mean when it was bizarre too. So actually like at the moment when we were
[01:45:32] going to turn around or we did turn around, I was above everybody by I don't know 20 yards maybe.
[01:45:41] And so the local Sherpa actually made his way up to me at the anchor and said,
[01:45:46] they're out of oxygen. You and I can keep going up to the summit.
[01:45:50] Um, you know, are we can turn around? And so I'm like, I'm looking at them.
[01:45:57] Our entire like summit push was rough. I mean, it was in just total insanity. And I just remember
[01:46:03] looking at them and both of the thing having this look of just exhaustion and just fear.
[01:46:09] I'm like, no, I'm not doing this. Okay. There's that doesn't mean that much to me, you know.
[01:46:13] Would they have sat there and waited for you to come back because they don't have a sharper
[01:46:16] or they just turn around and go. They would just turn around and go, but that's even, I mean, that's even more
[01:46:20] dangerous too. Yeah. Because then I have no oxygen. I have, you don't even know how it gets out.
[01:46:23] It's like, versus yeah. I guess is a bad situation. And so I'm not only that, but like, why would I only go up with one
[01:46:29] shirt, but that I don't really even know. You know, so it's like, I was just in the end. And it was so
[01:46:34] strange too. I think I think about the summertime because if you would have seen my reaction to turn around on
[01:46:38] Denali, I was pissed. Like I practically shoved this camera back in Rob's face. I'm like,
[01:46:43] angry that, you know, that it's all fallen apart. And then that's after 17 days is sitting
[01:46:48] very rare. I'm starving. But then I mean this time, like I just looked down at Rob and was like,
[01:46:56] no, I was at total peace with this situation. I mean, took you wrong. I could have loved to
[01:47:01] sum it, but I just, and I also wouldn't have felt right. Like, I mean, I have been through so much
[01:47:05] with those two dudes for two months at this point, on Everest. Like, yeah, later. Yes, yeah, I'm not
[01:47:10] like a summit now. I mean, I just couldn't do it. Um, yeah. Then, and coming down is not it. It's not like
[01:47:18] once you turn around. Okay. Now we're good. Oh, no. Once you turn around, it's still a nightmare. That's where
[01:47:25] everyone dies is on the way down because they, they, like you said earlier, they get summit fever and they
[01:47:29] exhaust everything that they have to get up to the top. And they just lay down and go to sleep on the
[01:47:33] on the way down. They're done. Um, and it was, I mean, especially for me, like with the prosthetic,
[01:47:38] they're going up. I have a technique. I mean, it just tons of right leg lunges and tricep dips
[01:47:43] and, I mean, it's intense, but on the way down, there's no technique. It's just forward and
[01:47:48] meant to them. Like, the best thing that I can do for myself is know how to fall down. Um,
[01:47:53] so yeah, I mean, because you fall a lot when you're coming down. I mean, I better know how to fall.
[01:47:58] This is a little bit of a day's off when you're coming down.
[01:48:02] That leaves a better not a catch myself. Do you, do you change legs for coming down? No, I don't.
[01:48:07] And is that because it's impractical? Is that because it doesn't make any difference?
[01:48:11] There's a making a difference. No. Yeah. I mean, so they actually, the only thing out there right now
[01:48:15] for people like me are the, for us to be able to climb the way that I'm climbing is the feet that
[01:48:21] I make, I make them myself. So there's not many options to change of anyways.
[01:48:29] Okay. And you get down your at peace with a decision. How long did the weather hold for?
[01:48:34] Oh, quite some time actually for days. Okay. I mean, which was of course, I mean, that's
[01:48:41] sad for me because I'm sitting here watching these people go up, but I mean, your bodies are so
[01:48:45] trash after being at, you know, 26, 27, 28,000 feet for so long. Like, and if you're out of oxygen,
[01:48:51] you're out of oxygen, like, at that point, you're pretty much tapped. Um, and so I mean, even after
[01:48:57] we made it back down to base camp, I mean, coming down like through camp 3 and 2, like, I was
[01:49:03] so at peace with everything because I'm watching these zoos of people come up. Yeah. I mean,
[01:49:08] hundreds of people, and in that moment I was like, you know what, you did the right thing. You're not
[01:49:12] one of the ants. You're not one of the minions. Like, you were savior smart. I mean,
[01:49:15] I'd be wrong, like, when I got back down to base camp, but definitely, I was like, do you have
[01:49:19] any to do another attempt? Like, what's up? But I mean, just the weather wasn't going to hold
[01:49:23] that anyways. So yeah, the, he image is coming back from the Everest this year of the lines of
[01:49:30] people has been crazy to say. Yeah. Literally, the entire like ridge to the summit is one way
[01:49:38] traffic jam. Yeah. And to me, that's not what Mal and Irina is, you know, like, in my opinion,
[01:49:42] like that totally discredits, but what all it should be, um, you know, I'm glad that I was out there
[01:49:49] with me and my thoughts and literally two other people. Okay, four kind of a trip up. But yeah,
[01:49:55] you write, you, you covered all this in a really good detail on your, on your blog, which is,
[01:50:00] which is cool. Uh, you get done. You come back, you acclimate. At what point did you go back and
[01:50:08] and go to Cordo Poxy again? I was month. So you just did. Yeah. And this time?
[01:50:16] Yeah, it was successful. Successful. Yeah. I'm crushing you. You got up there. And
[01:50:22] now you're here. What, what did you come to San Diego for? Because we've been trying to do this podcast for
[01:50:26] a while. No. And finally, and I was, I, I looked at your social media. Because I, I didn't know
[01:50:31] why you were coming out here. And then I put two and two together with your social media. Really,
[01:50:35] it's why you're coming out here. Yeah. I'm a way you're here for. I'm actually only in San Diego.
[01:50:41] Very briefly. I am headed down to Mexico to race the North 500. Explain with it in the
[01:50:47] North 500 days. It is pretty extreme off road race. And we're actually at me and a sweet friend of mine are actually
[01:50:55] racing and a rebuilt flyer vehicle. I'm a military vehicle. It's like a light strike vehicle.
[01:51:02] Right. I was pretty sweet. But for the miles, what kind of support do you get on that?
[01:51:06] I'm very none. So it's a, we have a pick crew, which is really one deed in a field truck that
[01:51:12] can kind of chase us down. But if you break down, I mean, you're going to be stuck there for hours.
[01:51:16] So. So you better hope your machine's running good. Yes, correct. And that's the next
[01:51:23] damn adventure on your list is that. Yeah. How long is it take to get that done?
[01:51:29] I only do it. I mean, you race them. And it's a consistent thing. So you'll, you're race today.
[01:51:33] I'll be back in San Diego on Sunday back in Colorado, Sunday night to hustle and work my tail off.
[01:51:40] And yeah. What are you working your tail off when you get back? Everything from speaking
[01:51:44] gigs to the real estate team that I do with my mom. I'm opening a CrossFit gym up here in
[01:51:49] Vista, um, dabbling with a bunch. But I'm going to work my work until Thanksgiving that I'm
[01:51:55] going to take some time off. Yeah. So those are the things that you've got on on on on the
[01:51:59] schedule right now, opening a gym real estate ski season is going to start. Yes. And I can't wait.
[01:52:06] So you'll be up there. Where do you usually snowboard out? All over like throwing
[01:52:11] for Gbelly. So it has been snowmass. Yep. And you live up in that area as well, right? Yes.
[01:52:16] Very lucky. Check. I mean, so we're kind of up to date right now. I wanted to cover one more
[01:52:24] little chunk of writing before we actually close it out. Could you get some really cool writing?
[01:52:32] Thank you. So here we go. I had joined the Marine Corps to serve people.
[01:52:35] Then in a mere 23 years old, I was looking to repurpose myself. Now at 27 years old,
[01:52:40] I'm still serving people just in a different capacity. Nothing about my injuries has been easy.
[01:52:46] But what I'm thankful for, regardless of the pain and grief are the people and experiences
[01:52:52] that have come my way. Four years ago, I was petrified of what my life may become.
[01:52:58] Now I couldn't be more proud. I fought for it. I worked for it harder than you can ever dream of.
[01:53:04] But I didn't get here alone. Family friends, believers, everyone who is there from the start. Thank you.
[01:53:14] Appreciate all of your days. Even when you're writing in the rain. In the beginning of my recovery,
[01:53:20] I struggled a lot and it made me a biter and sometimes mean person. How disabled do I have to make
[01:53:29] myself feel before I give up? How much easier would this be had I done it on two legs?
[01:53:38] My heart hurt in a way that then I couldn't even tell when I was hurting the people around me.
[01:53:45] Family included. Not that it's an excuse, but no that if I caused you any pain,
[01:53:52] I'm sorry. I'm not perfect. No one like claim to be. Realistically none of us ever will be.
[01:54:02] It's all about the progress over perfection and taking steps in the right direction.
[01:54:08] The last couple of years, I've been working on me as a whole. I've been focusing on the person.
[01:54:14] I want to be and recognizing a lot about the person I was. I've tried to surround myself with people
[01:54:19] who wish the best for others and build them up. Not break them down. I've stepped away from the
[01:54:26] toxic people that had a negative hold on me. If someone has wronged you, forgive them. Unshackle
[01:54:36] yourself from that pain. I started living my life for others, not for myself and life is so much
[01:54:45] sweeter that way. The truth is I'm doing more now than I ever did on two legs. I've been surrounded
[01:54:54] by people who keep me inspired and keep me looking onward and upward. Now I can't stop.
[01:55:05] I have suffered loss. That's no secret. But look at all I've gained. How the low points
[01:55:12] had the low points in my life not happened. I would not have had the amazing friendships or
[01:55:17] experiences I do. I'm thankful for the highs and the lows. Life has a funny way of putting us
[01:55:29] exactly where we are meant to be. Well, Curse the I think that it seems that you have been to put exactly
[01:55:41] where you are supposed to be on this path, living this amazing life and inspiring so many other
[01:55:50] people. Where can people find you? Yeah, I mean everyone can follow along on of course social media,
[01:55:57] Facebook and Instagram, just my name, Curse the Ns. But if you're interested in any of these blogs
[01:56:02] or the writing, they're all up on my foundation's website. So, Curse the Ns Foundation.org.
[01:56:06] Are you sure it's not Curse the Ns Foundation.com?
[01:56:10] It's both. Okay. Just checking. So, you know, one of us. Awesome. Awesome. So, you are really cool stuff
[01:56:19] that you post on that. The detailed description of your climbing are really, really cool.
[01:56:25] Is that documentary posted that you were talking about? No, yeah. Okay. So, we'll be waiting for that.
[01:56:30] Let me know. So, I can repost it. No, awesome. Just awesome to talk to you. I know that we,
[01:56:38] we try and stay on the path around here. You know, the path, the righteous path. Yes, sir.
[01:56:44] Yeah, Coach, I'll speak another righteous path. Yeah. Curse the leading from the front. What can we do
[01:56:49] ourselves to kind of move down the path? You know, Rob is speaking. Plany can. Plany stuff.
[01:56:55] Um, but first, there it is. But first, well, you know, like throughout the story,
[01:57:03] you know, there's little pockets of maybe like, oh wait, well, you know, small detail. So,
[01:57:07] you said the pilot was D.O.R. What does D.O.R mean? Drop on request. Oh, thank.
[01:57:12] Meaning I don't want to do this anymore. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Also, I thought, you know,
[01:57:19] that we mentioned like how you'd have, um, like challenges with your memory. Like just going to the
[01:57:24] bathroom, like hey, why am I here kind of think? Yep. You've watched the movie Momental?
[01:57:27] Oh, my goodness. No, but you were the second person at the time of that in two days. Yeah,
[01:57:31] I should definitely watch that movie. It's very cool. Yeah. So, it's the guy, you know what it's about
[01:57:35] the end. It's about this guy. Lannard. He doesn't like to be called Lannian. Anyway, he has short-term
[01:57:42] memory loss, right? So he can't make new memories. He has long-term and so he can do like
[01:57:48] habitual stuff. You know, stuff that I guess he uses a different part of your brain. So like habitual
[01:57:52] stuff, driving a car like that kind of stuff you can do. And he has his long-term memory, like he knows
[01:57:56] about his wife and his who he is and stuff. But he can't, he basically he goes to the bathroom,
[01:58:01] like why am I here? Yeah. So he has all these tattoos kind of like you except his are like notes,
[01:58:08] you know, like, like, yourself. Yeah, but they're everywhere, you know. And then he takes these polaroids
[01:58:13] of the people. So it's like, oh, yeah, I know you, you know, and then it's really good and it
[01:58:17] goes backwards. The movie goes backwards. So you don't it's like you follow along with them.
[01:58:22] You know. So it's like, oh, how did he get there? And you don't know, you know, he'll just wake up
[01:58:26] in the room with an empty bottle. I'll be like, I don't know. It's like naked, you know, like that kind.
[01:58:32] And you're like, oh, I didn't that have you, you know, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.
[01:58:35] That's what you remind me of the whole bathroom thing. But as far as the path goes,
[01:58:42] we're doing you to do what it starts. You ever try your energy to do to surprise me because isn't
[01:58:50] it interesting? You snowboard. I don't know how to snowboard. And these may or may not apply to you
[01:58:57] because you're different. I think, but I don't know how to snowboard. I probably couldn't climb
[01:59:04] I can barely climb my driveway. You're talking about everything, all these things. I don't have
[01:59:09] a hair salon. You don't say. Yeah. Many reasons. And I have two legs, you know, and I don't know.
[01:59:17] It seems like, you know, like when you say, okay, it depends on how you react to like all these things.
[01:59:23] It's like your reaction is like you chose to go for like these huge reactions.
[01:59:28] It's not like this weird, impossible thing, you know. It's like, if you have everything kind of
[01:59:34] in front of you, you're less likely to have that big reaction. You mean if everything is
[01:59:40] almost easy for you to achieve, you'd have a less of a probability of trying to make it happen. Yeah.
[01:59:45] And then as a certain, I guess with you, you were kind of always like that, right?
[01:59:51] Yeah. Yeah. You're like, okay, I'm going to make things happen in this.
[01:59:56] Maybe extra ordinary way. You know, good or bad, or, you know, mischievous or whatever,
[02:00:03] like you can, you kind of started with that. So I guess in the big picture kind of makes sense.
[02:00:08] You know, but then from the outside, you kind of look in, but yeah, like you know how you say it,
[02:00:11] or you've talked about this before, where if you're handed everything, yeah, you know, like you won't go
[02:00:19] case important. What are the chances that you would be attempting to summon Everest if you
[02:00:25] got out of the Marine Corps after six years? And you know what I mean? Like it's just, you have these challenges
[02:00:32] and because it's like because they're hard and even harder than normal, that you want to do
[02:00:38] them even more. Yes, no exactly. That's kind of what you're saying. Yeah. Well, I think too, like,
[02:00:43] I'm like an obnoxious thinking competitive person, but not necessarily with other people.
[02:00:48] And it's just, I look at what I did yesterday and I say, okay, well, what can I do a little bit more?
[02:00:52] Whether that's something physical or mental or whatever? But then also like, honestly, I mean,
[02:00:57] I'm not the fastest person out there. I struggle my way up. I'm not perfect out in the mountains
[02:01:01] or anything that I'm doing. But I really do. I hope that there's somebody out there watching
[02:01:05] me and they said to health cursey, I can do it better than her. And then I hope that they try.
[02:01:10] I mean, that's what it's about. You know, like, I want some to see it. Do it.
[02:01:14] Kind of goes to show. Also, you talk better than me too, by the way. So there's that.
[02:01:21] Yeah, multiple brain damage, fear, the. Nothing happened to my jaw. Yeah.
[02:01:27] And then you talk way better than me. So like I said, it goes to show anyway. You did too.
[02:01:31] Oh, you've done due to the two. So are you currently doing due to two? No, I was training for a little bit
[02:01:36] of the night. And then I really fell in love with MMA and then just boxing. Yeah, yeah.
[02:01:41] Yeah, yeah. We're good with all the above, actually. Yeah. We just like, we just like that you
[02:01:45] scrap. Yes. Fighting in general is good. Well, I mean, I think when I started training as when I
[02:01:51] realized, like, I'm an anger little person. And it's good to get it out. I like it.
[02:01:56] And then you elbow. I'm just saying. Yeah.
[02:01:58] And then you. That's good. Well, these are all elements of the path included on the path. So
[02:02:04] as far as jujitsu goes, if you do geek, you need a geek. If you do geek. Yeah.
[02:02:08] Which you show hand in hand. I think you should, you can do one or the other. I guess, but
[02:02:13] ideally geek, no geek both. Well, what are you trying to get to is we have a company. We make
[02:02:19] jujitsu geese. We make rash guards. We make t-shirts. Sure. And we make them all in America, which is
[02:02:26] awesome from the dirt to the shirt, from the dirt to the shirt, from the cotton to the from the seed to the
[02:02:32] bee. All made. And we're actually making jeans to make it. Yeah. American. Yeah. American.
[02:02:39] Yeah. Don't dare to. Yeah. Jocca doesn't like fashion or fashion. Don't think you're right. The
[02:02:46] both. I think I'm a fashion or a fashion. I wasn't a aesthetic. Uh, like that's why you
[02:02:52] know about cosmopolitan. So cosmopolitan. It's like the if you think magazines, what do you think
[02:02:59] people time. Do you think that's more polished? You're too magazine. And you just
[02:03:03] make it. Yeah. But. Cosmopolitan magazines anymore. No, that's why they're out there making videos.
[02:03:09] Cosmopolitan. They're out there making videos because they know no one's reading a magazine. It's
[02:03:14] for you. You know what? I will tell you. I used to be a sucker for. I'm talking maybe
[02:03:19] even even up to eight years ago. If I was in the airport, I'd like walk through this shop and see
[02:03:27] like a magazine. Right? I don't know if it was a gun magazine. I don't know if it was a car magazine.
[02:03:32] I don't know if it was a outdoor magazine. But like one of those magazines, I'd say, oh, you know,
[02:03:37] I got a flight. Hey, I'll read this magazine eight years ago. I may have bought. I would, there was
[02:03:44] a 70% chance that I'd see a magazine. It looked kind of cool. And I'd get the magazine. Right now,
[02:03:50] there is a zero percent chance of getting a paper magazine. Yeah. Zero percent. Yeah. That's, I mean,
[02:03:56] I guess one, what do you call it? The people who like they learn they yearning for the past,
[02:04:00] what is it? What is it? What is it? Kind of person. A person that yearns for the past.
[02:04:03] Anyway, there's a word for that kind of person anyway. So it may be that part of me,
[02:04:07] maybe still likes. Get you to that speech. See, see, get things working. I'm so
[02:04:12] over to my word recollection. See, I can't, you understand what I'm saying. Anyway,
[02:04:18] people who are nostalgic like that, they like the physical magazine. I'm one of those people. Yeah.
[02:04:22] But here's the thing, which, I mean, I'm, you probably realize this, you have your phone. So like,
[02:04:26] yeah, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, I'm a person. You can read,
[02:04:30] you know, all the stuff that you read or whatever, you're that is what I'm saying. You don't need
[02:04:34] the physical magazine anymore. And then you got to lug around a physical magazine. You're done with
[02:04:38] what I'm saying. That's why I'm saying no one's reading the magazine anymore. Even me. And I
[02:04:42] used to buy them. Yeah, but that's why. That's why. But that's something. But that doesn't
[02:04:46] explain. Do you get magazines? No. I think the back cookbooks. But that's not a magazine. No.
[02:04:52] Oh, there's a cook. We call a week all a cookbook magazine. I'm a cook magazine. Oh, yeah,
[02:04:58] I like the magazine. Yeah, like, we don't know. It's a black-to-cooking. You like to cook? I do. Yes.
[02:05:03] Uh, you're as lit up right there. I love to go. You love to eat. Yes. Both. Yes. I love to eat.
[02:05:14] It's not that I don't love to cook or even really like to do it. I just maybe not that great at it.
[02:05:20] You like to do that. I can do it. I can make a good salad. Yeah. Funny. I can make a good steak. So
[02:05:27] anyways, origin USA origin main.com. If you want any of this stuff, we also have supplements.
[02:05:34] You've been drinking some chocolate, chocolate, white tea over there. Yeah, what you're verdict.
[02:05:38] I'm a fan. I think it's great. You got a big smile on your face. Yeah.
[02:05:41] More than you had earlier. I think it. I think it not only gives you an 8,000 pound
[02:05:44] deadlift. It will make you smile on you. Well, in a way, it kind of is misleading because when you
[02:05:49] look at the can, there's no like, high-biscuits or pomegranate, like fruity,
[02:05:54] tartare and so the magic image. Yeah. That's right. I'm not going to joke.
[02:05:58] It's tactical. It looks kind of tactically, seems ain't like it. But then when you drink it certified
[02:06:04] organic, goiny and very light, very refreshing, seems same. So it's like a thing. So like when you
[02:06:08] drink it, you're pleasantly surprised. I think on a subconscious level. Yeah, so we've got to
[02:06:13] bunch of different things and one thing I do have to say is we got, so I make this a little drink.
[02:06:19] It's called discipline and there's a powder form. And we just came out with a powder form.
[02:06:23] that's called jockel. Do you like do you like Arnold Palmer's? I do. Okay, so I'm I like I love them.
[02:06:30] I said I made that right there. It's called jockel Palmer. That's hilarious. Yeah, well, I
[02:06:34] ran a lot. We did away with it for with it for, but yeah, so anyways, it tastes so good. It tastes like
[02:06:42] the best Arnold Palmer that you get from, you know, the restaurant Arnold Palmer's when they do a good job.
[02:06:48] Oh, good job. Okay, you go. Oh, you say Arnold Palmer and they just they just do a good job. And you're like, yes
[02:06:55] This is kind of what it's like. So anyways, that's available and a bunch of other supplements.
[02:07:00] Mulk, joint warfare,
[02:07:02] krill krill, super, super, krill, oil. Yeah, that's for your kids.
[02:07:07] Mulk, for your kid. For your kid. For when your kids need something good to eat.
[02:07:12] And instead of giving them level nine cheetos. Yeah. No, don't get them that. So yeah, you can get that.
[02:07:21] Yeah, all in origin, main.com. It should be and.org apparently because actually that's smart
[02:07:28] when you do the dot org and the dot com. So, and you know, when you go and go daddy and they tell you,
[02:07:33] hey, you want to buy the dot org, the dot net, the dot, uh, dot TV dot whatever dot biz, you know, all this stuff or
[02:07:39] whatever, you say yes, if you have a good name, you say yes to all of those. That's a good strategy.
[02:07:43] Yes. See, way ahead of the camera. Like it. She's not for there. Just get them. And then the last
[02:07:48] origin, main.com. That's the go to as we can get this good stuff. Yeah. Also, we have a store. It's called
[02:07:56] Jocco store. See, you're probably going to kind of figure out real together. Yeah. You know, it's
[02:08:02] an end. So, Jocco Palmer is not a genius name. I know. It's a name as a result of lack of
[02:08:10] genius. Okay. You're like, Arnold Palmer. There's genius. There's a good boy. There's genius in
[02:08:15] some. Let me some credit. Actually, that is true. Nonetheless, so if Joc once an online store was
[02:08:21] going to go bottom line is I'm so unoriginal that I just, starting with this podcast, I just said,
[02:08:26] we'll just call it Jocco podcast and now it's like sort of just everything. Yeah. Hey, we need
[02:08:31] a online store. What do we call it? We don't do it that way. No, no, no. Because now you look back,
[02:08:36] if, if like four years ago, someone would say, okay, you're going to name all your stuff.
[02:08:43] Jocco. I would've been like, no, that's, that's dumb. Yeah. But it didn't happen like that.
[02:08:47] It happened like a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, next thing you know, you got Jocco
[02:08:51] publishing. What? How did that even happen? The thing is a big picture, long game. It does make sense.
[02:08:58] Yeah. No, no. Actually smart. I think you, the genius in simplicity, I think,
[02:09:02] disapplies here. So nonetheless, JoccoStore.com is where you can get your shirts and
[02:09:07] rash guards tank to all these stuff while you're representing on the path, disciplining equals freedom.
[02:09:12] There's, I haven't really talked about this too much, but a guy, okay, so we got a t-shirt
[02:09:17] that says discipline equals freedom in it. I don't want to say it's iconic, but there's only one
[02:09:23] place in the world that you can get this t-shirt. This dude just got arrested in somewhere in his mugshot
[02:09:30] is him. He's wearing a discipline equals freedom t-shirt. And he's sporting this thing.
[02:09:35] Yeah. And what he did was apparently there was some kind of altercation and he beat up two people
[02:09:40] and then dropped them off somewhere. Like out there, how? Yeah. Because what I think there were like
[02:09:44] rugby players or something like, here's the thing. So when he, when I saw that article, you sent me that article.
[02:09:49] He wasn't as much as it was his court appeared. Yeah. So he wears the destroyer actively went
[02:09:55] to court. It wasn't like he got rolled up and then he just, he even courted. This is what he decided
[02:10:00] to wear to court. He's representing on the path. On the path. What serious? Because a lot of people
[02:10:04] were like, oh, he's not on the path. Obviously he's getting arrested and rolled up. You were kind of like,
[02:10:08] no, no, no, read a little bit more. I said, hey, we all represent the path in our own way. And this
[02:10:14] guy is no different. So basically as far as the article goes, what I got from it was, okay,
[02:10:20] him and his other friends who he probably found annoying at the time, they were drinking.
[02:10:28] Some argument ensued in the car. He beat them both up. Real bad.
[02:10:33] Okay. I don't know if it was in the car before that. That's where it gets a little bit of like
[02:10:37] if you're friends, you can't beat them up real bad. Wait, wait, wait, what is real bad if you
[02:10:41] insist? Well, they said they will, okay. And then the guys who got beat up, they were saying,
[02:10:46] oh, I'm like, what are you threatening injuries or maybe they're lawyer or somebody was saying, oh,
[02:10:50] my gosh, I'm critical. And then the medical professionals, they were like,
[02:10:56] whatever they got beat up. They caught a beat down from the discipline he calls freedom guy. That's what
[02:11:01] happened. Okay. Acting annoying and dropped. That's what I'm then he dropped him off at their house.
[02:11:05] Okay. At this point, I will not issue and approved or disapproved. I'm remaining neutral
[02:11:10] at this time until further evidence comes forth and I can make a decision whether these actions were
[02:11:16] approved or disapproved. Yeah. Agreed. But like I say, we all represent about in our own way.
[02:11:24] Unless he got that shirt, whether this means anything or not to us, even though it does,
[02:11:30] he got it from jockelstore.com. So he can get and it's not just kind of crazy. There's other ones.
[02:11:36] Is this beat? Because a little while ago in UFC, there was a guy wearing the shirt and like a bunch of people.
[02:11:42] So now we're sort of this is headline news. Yeah, your means to it. Well, my brother text
[02:11:46] me is like, hey, your your mainstream now. You know, listen to this. Speaking of tangents. So
[02:11:53] my uncles were both used car salesmen and there was a crime that happened in the town where
[02:12:03] one of my uncles was a used car salesman and at the crime scene, it was close to his used car
[02:12:08] locked and in the picture that they took of the crime scene in the background, you could see the
[02:12:15] sign for his, you know, VIX used cars. You could see in the background in the sign on the front page
[02:12:22] and my uncle, because my uncles are hilarious. They cut it out. They sent it to my mom and he
[02:12:28] would, you might uncle cut out the picture sent it to my mom and said, I told you I would make it
[02:12:33] big time. And he might even want to come from here. So there you go. So we kind of, you know,
[02:12:40] it's not nothing. We made that. Oh, it's not nothing. Yes. Yeah, we made the news. We're in criminal justice.
[02:12:47] You know, that's where ever you go. It's just, it's just all happening. All right, real quick.
[02:12:51] Subscribe to the podcast if you don't subscribe to this podcast. Echo doesn't think you subscribe to it
[02:12:55] at this point. It proves echo wrong by subscribing to it. Don't forget about the warrior kid podcast.
[02:13:02] That's for your, it's for your children. And if you're a parent, it's very, very useful. Don't tell
[02:13:08] anyone, don't tell your kids that you want to keep your kids thinking that this is like a little bit
[02:13:14] unrelated to your thought process. Yeah, because that way, they don't do the little rebel thing,
[02:13:19] like some people who sit in that this table right now, which is actually all of us. Yeah, so
[02:13:24] check that out. Don't forget about the warrior kid soap, Irish Oaks Ranch.com, young Aiden,
[02:13:29] making soap from goat milk, all natural, so that everyone in the world can stay clean.
[02:13:38] Stay clean. We also have a YouTube channel. You want to see. Speaking of staying clean. Hold on.
[02:13:45] Can I say something? Of course. Before we, we're, we're waiting for you downstairs and the front
[02:13:53] desk roll at the gym. So the studio is at the gym for those of you. No, no, that's got to
[02:13:56] Victor, a gym called Victory MMA in San Diego, California. The studio is in the gym. We were downstairs.
[02:14:03] We were waiting for her courtesy to show up. And the front desk roll goes, hey,
[02:14:08] Jockel, I got a phone call someone wants to know where to train. Do you get to in this city?
[02:14:12] In some city. Then I'm not going to say in case the point, however, you know,
[02:14:15] privacy act or whatever. So, he's a front desk roll. Because says, what should I tell him? And I said,
[02:14:22] whoa, here, give me the phone. And I like pulled up and I go, hey, man, what's going on?
[02:14:28] And he's like, Jockel, I was like, hey, bro, what's happening? I hear you're looking at
[02:14:32] training your Jitsu in your city. And I pulled out Google Maps. I was like, hey, there's a cool place
[02:14:36] here. There's a bunch of good places. Yeah, you're good to go. And he's like, he's like, hey, man,
[02:14:39] he goes, I was on Crystal Mf for seven years. He goes, I started listening to your podcast. I'm
[02:14:47] clean. My family's back in order. My job is back in order. Please keep doing what you're doing.
[02:14:54] I'm starting to train Jitsu. And I was like, bro, see you, I'll keep doing what I'm doing. You stay
[02:15:01] on the path and stay clean. So right on to you out there, you know who you are. Now I'm not saying
[02:15:09] if you call victory MMA in fitness, that I'm going to answer because I'm not. I was probably the first time
[02:15:13] I've talked on the phone here in a year. Yeah. So also, that's not to be confused with you using
[02:15:20] trooper soap or Jockel soap. I'm going to rehabilitate your drugs. It will not help your
[02:15:26] crystal method and fed me to have it. It might, but that's not the thing. Yeah, yeah, that's the thing.
[02:15:30] You can't claim it, but there's little triggers that you could have that could make you want to stay
[02:15:33] clean. Maybe that soap, goat soap, it's bottom of them. You could be super stoked with that.
[02:15:39] Psychological Warfare, you can get that from iTunes, Google Play. If you need that little
[02:15:45] couple words, maybe get you on the path and don't forget that we have a YouTube channel.
[02:15:50] Yeah, if you want to know now, you can see. If you want to know, I was going to say or I was saying
[02:15:55] if you want to see what Christy looks like. Hey, before before you check and see what Christy looks like.
[02:16:00] Now, first you should go and see where's that picture posted of you with your freaking face.
[02:16:07] It's on Instagram and Facebook. Ripped open. Yeah, I'm going to fit my face through the
[02:16:12] lower right side of my face. You can see tea is that teeth you can see in there. You can see like white
[02:16:16] stuff. It's too little teeth. Like my jaw was shattered and just unhinged so it's just
[02:16:20] kind of like hanging there. Is it the kind of picture on Instagram and the kind where it's like
[02:16:25] blurred out with the eyeball with the cross over it where you got to click properly. You know,
[02:16:29] I would guess it is. I don't think so. I don't think so. I bet if you repost it, if you repost it,
[02:16:35] you'll be like they'll they'll tell what's that called blurred out. Like a sensor for approval.
[02:16:40] Something. Yeah. Dang. Do it. Well, yeah. Then now you can see what you currently
[02:16:45] looks like in black and white by the way, but you're just saying you know, in black and white. It's available on the YouTube channel.
[02:16:52] When people meet me, they go, oh, you're in color. That's what I think they say and you know,
[02:16:57] let's say, say to me, you're shorter than I thought you would do. I get it all the time,
[02:17:02] do you? I'm 5. 11 and they're like, oh, you're not as tall. Well, I shouldn't say everyone says that to me,
[02:17:09] but like I would say 10% of people. See, you know, 5% of people say, say, you're not shorter than I
[02:17:14] thought you were going to be. And I say, oh, cool. They said it about you too. I will. That's that's
[02:17:18] interesting because you know what people tell me? You're way bigger than me. That's for obvious reasons.
[02:17:28] FlipsideGamis.com to code a mire to code was just on Joe Rogan. By the way, pretty, pretty awesome to hear
[02:17:33] that. And we have a little company of his called FlipsideGamis.com selling artwork. If you want to do
[02:17:42] something like some saying of yours, if you want to put it out there to the world, we'll talk to the
[02:17:48] code and we'll make it happen. And by the way, I told the code, you know who to code is, right? I told the
[02:17:52] code out of that. I was talking to you today and he told me to tell you, oh, he said, tell her, she's a,
[02:17:58] he said, man, he said, tell her she's a badass. I'll let her know, man, let her know. So your
[02:18:04] code of mire, badass of all badass says you are a badass. So check out FlipsideGamis.com if you want to get
[02:18:11] that out. I'll rent a bit, wrote a bunch of books. The latest book coming out January 2020 is called
[02:18:16] Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual. It is available for preorder at this time.
[02:18:21] If you want to get the first edition, if you don't care and you just want to roll up to me in a year
[02:18:28] with the third edition and have me belittle you and make fun of you for not showing any commitment
[02:18:36] to the cause, cool, do that. Wait, if you want to get in the game big time and you want to have the
[02:18:44] the Trump card of books. Sir, leadership strategy tactics field manual. So you get that way
[02:18:51] to work at one, two and three. Available now teaching young kids what, what not just young kids,
[02:19:02] you know what, everyone should know. So get those books, Mikey and the dragons for the little kids,
[02:19:08] the little or kids. A lot of people think it's the best children's book ever written. That's the
[02:19:13] feedback that I'm getting. Quite a bit. So you may want to judge for yourself, Mikey and the dragons.
[02:19:20] I tend to agree with them. Yep, for the little kids. Discipline goes freedom field manual. We got
[02:19:26] extreme ownership. We got dichotomy leadership. All those books about how to lead and win in your life
[02:19:34] and leading the team that you work with. We got echelon front, which is my leadership consultancy.
[02:19:40] We saw problems through leadership. Go to echelon front dot com for details. EF online, get the same
[02:19:45] training interactive online. EF online dot com. We got the master coming up in Sydney, Australia.
[02:19:52] By the way, have you been, Australia? I have. Did you love Australia? I love it. Where were you
[02:19:58] in Australia? I went to Brisee, too. I was, it was so awesome. I loved it. It was so awesome.
[02:20:08] And so we're doing a big event down there and definitely looking forward to it's in Sydney. It's
[02:20:14] December, fourth and fifth. Here's the thing. Some people think, oh, it's not going to sell out.
[02:20:18] If you're thinking that, you're not correct. You're not correct because every event that we've
[02:20:23] done has sold out. Some people have said, well, are you going to go to Brisbane? Are you going to go to
[02:20:27] Perth? The answer is no. We are not a rock band on tour. We're not hitting every city in Australia.
[02:20:34] We're not, we're not hitting every city in America. We're doing, we do one or two. This is probably,
[02:20:39] we probably won't go back to Australia for five years. That's one of my guess is right now. We
[02:20:47] probably won't go back to Australia for five years because we'll do Europe, then we'll do Asia.
[02:20:52] So, like you see what I'm saying. So if you're, if you're in Australia or you're New Zealand
[02:20:57] or you're somewhere in that area of the world and you want to come to a monster, come to the one
[02:21:03] that is taking place December, fourth and fifth. We also have a year of Overwatch for
[02:21:10] veterans that are looking to be placed into companies that need leadership. Go to EF
[02:21:17] Overwatch.com and on top of all that, if you just feel like you haven't gotten enough right now,
[02:21:26] you haven't gotten enough of me. If you hadn't gotten enough of Echo, you haven't gotten enough of
[02:21:31] Kirstie yet. Cool. This conversation will continue on the social media into webs on Twitter,
[02:21:38] on Instagram and on that. Kirstie is first of all Kirstie NSfoundation.org and.com.
[02:21:52] Kirstie Instagram, Kirstie underscore NS Twitter, Kirstie NS and it's KIRST. IE and then NS
[02:22:03] KIRST. And Echo is Atacle Charles and I am at Jockel Willink. Echo, do you have anything else?
[02:22:11] No, sir. No, ma'am. Good to see you. Good to meet you.
[02:22:14] Like, why does things for having me? Kirstie, any closing thoughts for you?
[02:22:20] Yeah. I mean, I just want people to realize that me climbing all of these big,
[02:22:24] you know, ridiculous mountains all over the world. It's more than it just being about me.
[02:22:28] You know, I'm doing it for the people that need to hope, you know, somebody that needs inspiration
[02:22:32] or even just the non-believers really waiting for me to prove them wrong. And even more,
[02:22:37] so like I'm doing this with heart and passion and purpose. And you know, even for example,
[02:22:41] like when I was out and Everest, I mean, in my organization helped establish the first ever wheelchair
[02:22:48] program over in Nepal for 25 APT orphans. You know, when we were just down on Ecuador, we actually had
[02:22:53] seven amputees standing on top of Kota Paxi. So, you know, this really is, it's just about
[02:22:58] paying it forward and helping, you know, get the adaptive community into the outdoors and hopefully
[02:23:03] encouraging, you know, other people regardless of whatever you're adversity that you're facing,
[02:23:08] you know, to go outside and, you know, and find what really sets your heart on fire.
[02:23:12] It's been a legit honor to sit down with you to meet with you. And I definitely,
[02:23:18] absolutely thank you for coming on the show. I know it's a scary time commitment.
[02:23:23] Especially when I tell you it's got my beef, you know, we've done podcasts that are four or five
[02:23:28] hours long, but so it's awesome. And it's awesome for me to have the opportunity to share your
[02:23:33] story and it's honored to be able to do that. So thank you for coming on. More important than that,
[02:23:39] thank you for your service and your sacrifice and the Marine Corps. On top of that, thank you for
[02:23:46] your continued service today with what you're doing with your foundation. And on top of that,
[02:23:51] but what you do every day to show the rest of us the path and set an example for for everybody.
[02:24:02] So thank you for all that and the rest of the service members out there.
[02:24:06] Worldwide, currently serving or who have served.
[02:24:12] Thank you for your service and your sacrifice and thanks for keeping us free and here at home to our
[02:24:17] police law enforcement firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers,
[02:24:23] board of patrol, secret service. All the first responders that there are,
[02:24:28] thank you for keeping us safe on the home front and to everyone else out there.
[02:24:38] We all suffer losses. We all are going to have highs and lows in our
[02:24:47] lives. We can all be petrified of what the future may hold and we can all have set backs and doubts
[02:24:56] and pain. That's what's going to happen in life. But if you can look at someone like
[02:25:07] Christy and you can follow her lead and you fight for it and you work for it and you work through it.
[02:25:16] Those losses and those setbacks and that pain will make you better.
[02:25:25] So as Christy said, appreciate the days.
[02:25:29] Every day, then get on the path and stay on the path by getting out there and getting after it.
[02:25:39] And until next time, this is Christy and us and echo and jocco out.