Jocko Podcast 322: Sometimes the Mission Chooses You. With Tony Cowden

2022-02-28T18:41:53Z

Underground Premium Content: https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe Join the conversation on Twitter/Instagram: @jockowillink @tony_cowden_4nc @echocharles 0:00:00 - Opening 0:03:28 - Tony Cowden 4:14:38 - How to stay on THE PATH. JOCKO UNDERGROUND Exclusive Episodes: https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe Jocko Store Apparel: https://www.jockostore.com Jocko Fuel: https://jockofuel.com Origin Jeans and Clothes: https://originmaine.com/durable-goods/ Echelon Front: https://www.echelonfront.com 4:35:03 - Closing Gratitude.

AI summary of episode

I was in Mosul, Bumbleblin, you know, because he's a student, he didn't ask until afterwards, you know, they're by graduated, let's go get, you know, a stay, can some beer and he's like, hey, uh, eight Tony, um, did you know that, that team of guys, that agency team of guys, or whatever, um, up in Mosul, that, you know, they got blown up the whole team died, I was like, hmm, I mean, 2009, and I was like, yeah, I wasn't, you know, making money off of it, just party and, you know, just doing dumb redneck stuff, you know, like hunting club roads, you know, you don't want to get on a road, you get a DWI, but we can ride around these hunting club, dirt roads, redneck stuff, you know, drink beer and, you know, and, you know, do all the dumb stuff we were doing. I'm like, whenever somebody wants to, you know, sound like, you know, understand war, they're going to quote that guy, you know, feudal Chinese battle and, you know, war theory, okay, cool, but great. Like clearly they didn't work like, you know, my dad, you know, in my head, I think every American boy's like me, you know, and others he's city kids and whatever man, yeah, Because all those drug commercials and TV is like when they when they get into the fight for it, you know, speaking really fast about all the side effects is like, and it could kill, you know, you could have crazy diarrhea and you could bleed from your nose and maybe your anus and then you might very well die from this kidney failure, you know, and people are like, okay, but ask your doctor, but your skin will be clearer after two weeks. Like things that like you could lose a leg at, oh, you know, in the medical like, whoa, you know, they have horrible, you know, in the little medics station and all those pictures. And there was still a lot of, you know, stuff out there, you know, we went after some, um, diagonal and chetions, you know, some of those, as they were, you know, because, you know, when you guys already working with a partner force, yeah, And of course, we can, you know, action targets if we need to typically, like in Syria, since we were working in such small elements that, you know, it was like, hey, got any rangers not doing anything tonight, you know? You want to try, you want to, you know, whatever, you know, I never really saw CrossFit as like becoming a sport, but I can help, but I like to compete, you know, let's get in it. And I always tell them that, you know, I'm still in 20th group, man, I teach down on our subfowse course and I'll pick on the young and it's not gonna be like, okay, whatever man, you know, that that fun, you know, shooting a shit, talking whatever you want to call it You know like you know as if you just said you know chocolate peanut butter milk like that's so good. You know, our partner forces, you know, I don't think guys always realize how tight we get with those partner forces, you know, I got some of my best friends on this planet are, you know, Muslims. Well, I could do all that when we got in the Afghanistan, you know, I knew how the little local tractor that the fellow had, you know, we needed it to move some stuff around with tunnels like, yeah, you know, I can run that. And I think maybe like you said like, with the right, we, you know, I don't think it really, like it didn't, it started out good in intention. Well, the other day charged up to me and it was like, you know, and ultimately I was like, hey, look man, you know, you say whatever you want, but you set that money out and he told me, he told me I was an ignorant wannabe. You know, that's a school that's producing, you know, pro football players, you know, DH Conley, over in Greenville, ECU, you know, big schools, man. And you know, before we know it, that was one thing my gym was so well known for, I'm so proud of it is that our women monsters and people would come to me like other gym owners and stuff like, what are you doing to motivate and turn these women into these monsters? Probably fell 15 feet, enough to, you know, basically when he hit me, you know, I kind of like feet went out and landed basically on my ass, like my feet were kind of out in front of me, little outcropping and it, that rock side just, just split my, L5, how much did you weigh at this point? And, you know, so after, you know, a couple years of that, man, I wasn't really interested, you know, it's like, what's the point? You know, man, I've been like, first time goes and every hard course they ever sent me to, you know, and like, this isn't, this isn't making sense to me. You know, he's like, yeah, you know, there's little supercubs of fly so slow that you could shoot, you know, coyotes and foxes and deal with a shotgun. But you know, we recognize that, you know, we get this little team and we really think we're the most awesome ever, you know, like they'll joke. Like, I don't know anybody except for some staunch left supporters of, I don't even know if there's any Biden supporters left, but there are the Democrats, right, who are just never going to say that they were wrong for voting for him or that he anything they've done is wrong, right? I, uh, I, uh, 2012, I was like, you know what, you know, freaking, I did these, you know, this eight years, maybe I should go back into guard. Like, that was their way of saying like, you know, we don't really know what the hell's going on either. I mean, I got like, you know, top PT and you know, it was a quickly made like the stupid platoon sergeant or whatever And you know, borderline, you know, we were misbehaving in the QCourse, you know, because it wasn't at hard, you know, especially in the MLS phase, it wasn't the very hard. yeah, I think, you know, with your background, you know, we can, we can bring in some people and that's how the whole shooting part of my business kind of started was just trying to help a buddy that needed some, you know, money because he was going through a divorce. So, you know, but I'll tell you my dad, you know, my dad wasn't like, you know, by today's parenting standards, my dad was a horrible father. and I was like, you know, and you know, there was a little click, you know, because I did the basic and AIT back to bags. You know, and purpose, you know, like we talked about that whole having something, I don't know if you get dramatic, say having something to live for, but that's ultimately what it is. You know, like, you know, it was a skydiving, you know, one never thought. And you know, who was like, you know, have any type of fratinization of clients and stuff like that? A little bit in the 60s turned into unless she was traveling to Afghanistan smoking pop music, but not like, uh, not like an anti-government hippie, just like a California young girl, you know, whatever. Now we're, you know, three years into the, into the war, four years into the war, man, I've been hitting a weight pile like everybody else, I'm probably like a buck 85 and yeah, man, it just bent me over, split my vertebrae, part of the very rate hit my spinal cord, the prognosis was you might walk with crutches one day. You know, my nearest neighbor, well, my nearest nearest neighbor is like some methods that live like, you know, half a mouth through the woods. I'm like, I'm blissfully, you know, like, you know, I'm not real crazy or angry about my diet anymore. And I'm like, all about drinking, he's like, you know, it's like, you guys really not. Well, I did play a little bit, but like, with Drew from, you know, the team and senior year, stuff like that, just, just because, yeah, man, he needed help after working. Now that I'm older that, you know, yeah, post-Positcomutatus, you know, now I look back and I'm like, should the military and the agency be allowed to advise, because it's face it, right? Let's face it, you know, a lot of upper middle class dudes and soft, you know, and you know, but and until that calling that I need to do this stuff because they're dad that's a mozzarella and they're good. so after she passed man, you know, I started being that bad kid, you know, and smoking weed, wound up doing a little blow, whatever, freaking gotten trouble, you know. Like, you've got your troopers overseas doing, you know, at least combat isch type stuff, you know, it was a good thing for the guard. Maybe maybe just, you know, chest and try the day, you know, and then a nice little light leg day, like my dead last man. And now it's like, hey bro, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, well, he's just a concerned citizen, you know, and we're lucky, you know, that could have gone so bad. You know, it was supposed to be just a little cross fit gym that, you know, guys like us, marine recomboys and Marciac dudes, because we're just south of the gym coming there, take their shirts off spit on the floor, throw up if they want to. You know, people always say, like, hey man, I know you're busy. Yeah, I was, you know, just, you know, the deal, man, just how, like everyone in software, all pretty smart news, we can get bees without really trying. You know, I'll go make some money, whatever, by a house or something, which is, you know, it was exactly what I did, but as I got better, you know, I went, became operational again. Like, you know, you guys thought whether he's wrong, you know, but that, we need some of that, man. You know, I've gotten out a couple of times with the whole campaign, like, well, just because you're a veteran doesn't mean you're, and I'm like, you're absolutely right. For he can, you know, I watched him lose a lot of weight, you know, he'd and talked to people, he kept working, you know, and he worked more, which was already done there in possible. There were small news that flying these little supercubs and peppercubs around and you know, he was talking about shooting, you know, doing aerial, you know, shooting foxes and stuff. So I joke that you know, when we're all out, you know, thinking we're cool, shooting out of a helicopter, bunch of redneck days, but you know, for a long time. Freakin' three Cs like that area study of all the equations that make up a an area whether it's, you know, population, resources, and all that sort of thing, not just like combatants, right? So now I had a drill sergeant's office key, which had all our personal bags and the right, like, so we would go in there and listen to the walkman and CDs, you know, and like, hide out and it was funny because the drill sergeant had no idea we were doing it, much less that we were leaving post. I watched my dad build this business from nothing to, you know, took us to a comfortable, I wouldn't say upper middle class, but, you know, slightly above average middle class, you know, especially for rural North Carolina, class of living is not huge. And I'm in, I got to go and be in Torbora, you know, so there was basically a lot of, because it's funny for us, like we all know how it all played out. We're sitting in a little mini van watching his house and freaking, I'm like, oh crap, I think it's like two in the morning, you know, and freaking dude walks up. You know, probably taking risks that I shouldn't have, you know, looking back, taking risks with my teams and my partner forces lives just because I was emotionally wanting some retribution, you know, they killed some of my teammates and damn near killed me and then Ben died. You know, and you're just wearing one of them silly little vests, you know, it might maybe 10 pounds enough to get you in between eight stations, which you know, are pretty considerable. Because in all the time, I, you know, those mornings when I wake up like, you know, I can probably not call some people. You know, you, you, um, hey, when you're ready, if you like, um, let's sit down and you know, maybe line out some nutrition, a diet, it's enough. Like as I got older, I was like, I don't stand a chance of being, you know, involved in this sport, but I can dance or coach and people to it. You know how hard it is to get someone to donate to your campaign, when they don't even know if you live in their district or not, you think the Democrats don't know that. And a lot of times, you know, the deal, we would use that terminology like when on the teams and stuff like regular people. And we can probably just turn this into a democracy because we like democracy and we, you know, we like it and all those people must want to be free too. We were all like, this pandemic might be something within about six weeks, we were like, hmm, and we all knew like these cloth mass, right? And that's kind of the thing where you know like, you know, drinks kombucha, all the females in my family. Like, you had used to say to you, yeah, I mean, it was like, hey, you know, call your family members. I like to be in places where it's just quiet, you know, growing up on the coast, you know, the water and then because of a dare, or someone talking smack, I went to die school, wound up on a dive team.

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jockel Podcast number 32 with echo Charles and me, Jockel willing. Good evening, echo.
[00:00:08] Find a new mission. That right there is some advice that I have given a bunch of guys, a bunch
[00:00:15] of veterans over the last decade because when you leave the military, that mission that you
[00:00:23] been on this honorable mission, all of a sudden overnight, it's gone and that's going to leave
[00:00:34] a hole. And the longer you serve, the bigger that hole is going to be. And for some of us,
[00:00:46] if the only thing you ever really want to do was serve and execute that mission, it can be
[00:00:53] a rough transition, especially after you spend 20 plus years with the opportunity to do what you
[00:01:03] always want to do to wear the cloth of the nation to take the fight to the enemy. And it's an
[00:01:10] honor to have had the opportunity to do that to work with a bunch of other people that are also
[00:01:18] dedicated to one thing in life. And that is executing the mission. So once that's gone,
[00:01:30] like I said, it can be a rough transition and you have to find a new mission. And some veterans
[00:01:36] going to business, some of them focus on their family, some of them start nonprofits,
[00:01:42] those are the positive things you can do, some serving other ways. And some just seem to keep going
[00:01:54] and keep getting after it and keep moving forward with new missions. And we're lucky enough to have
[00:02:01] people like that in our country. And I know one in particular that served in special forces
[00:02:10] Green Brey, fought in Afghanistan, Iraq served as a contractor supporting the State Department
[00:02:18] and supporting the CIA. It spent almost nine years all told in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria
[00:02:28] and in a bunch of places all over the world as well. But that wasn't enough.
[00:02:35] Needed more missions. This guy is also a businessman. CrossFit Jim, a giant CrossFit Jim,
[00:02:44] has a firearms range and a tactical training company. And he's competed in CrossFit and weight
[00:02:52] lifting an iron man and ultra running and he's coached athletes from CrossFit and strong man and
[00:02:57] triathlon. And it's up of all that in December of 2021, just a few months ago,
[00:03:07] he volunteered once again with a new mission to represent the people of North Carolina by running
[00:03:15] as an elected member of Congress. This man's name is Tony Cowden and it's an honor to have him here
[00:03:26] with us tonight to share some of his experiences and the lessons that he's learned along the way,
[00:03:32] Tony. Thanks for coming by. Thanks for having me. What's up with that bio? Take it easy, man.
[00:03:39] You know, people always say, like, hey man, I know you're busy. You know, yeah, I'm busy.
[00:03:45] I'm always busy. I don't take naps. I'm busy. You know, I got stuff to do and when I don't have
[00:03:52] things to do, I find things to do. You know, they all think like if you didn't get anything to do,
[00:03:57] clean something, I'm probably not that good at that if you ever see me my guns. It's not what I'm
[00:04:02] known for. But yeah, man, one thing after another and you hit it on that intro, how many,
[00:04:10] how many of our brothers and arms got out and that whole consumed them. They didn't find
[00:04:17] purpose. Everybody wants to know why is suicide so bad? Most veterans and across the United States
[00:04:24] in general, purpose. People with purpose don't commit suicide. You know, and when guys get out of the
[00:04:32] military, like you said, especially after filling using and abused in the 20s some years war now,
[00:04:39] where even the war itself, guys started questioning the purpose. What was the purpose? And at this
[00:04:45] point, we certainly don't know. But yeah, man, without purpose, you know, guys start drinking.
[00:04:53] It's a depressing. It's a poison. You know, they don't stop training because, you know, like me,
[00:04:59] I've always liked to train by myself. You know, I've only had one training partner in my entire life.
[00:05:04] It's my girlfriend Melissa. You know, she's the only dude I know that can keep up. No, I'm kidding.
[00:05:09] I should try to keep up with her. But I was just that guy that went into the gym by myself.
[00:05:14] It was my time. I went to run by myself and went rock by myself. I swam by myself.
[00:05:19] I thought that's safe for anything but whatever. But you know, those guys on the teams that
[00:05:24] go to the gym with their buddies, you know, they got their little click, little two and three
[00:05:28] man, team that goes to the gym. You know, when those guys come out, the surface they stop working out.
[00:05:33] You know, they lose their physical fitness. They drink. Maybe they got hurt and the VA put them on
[00:05:39] opioid, you know, the storing, you know, and they don't have purpose. And it breaks my heart.
[00:05:47] So many Americans, not just veterans, right? Because, you know, throughout the gym and everything,
[00:05:52] that grew so many civilian friends or whatever. And I don't use that term, you know, negatively.
[00:05:58] And anyway, I'm some of the best friends or regular people. Some of the best friends or
[00:06:03] regular people. Right? And a lot of times, you know, the deal, we would use that terminology
[00:06:10] like when on the teams and stuff like regular people. Like it was kind of looked out of my
[00:06:15] core of eye, not down at them. But you know, we recognize that, you know, we get this little team
[00:06:20] and we really think we're the most awesome ever, you know, like they'll joke. You know, you want to
[00:06:24] know who the best is in special forces or special operations, ask any unit. They'll tell you.
[00:06:29] All right, ask a seal. Seals are the best. I ask a danger. They're the best. You know,
[00:06:34] all with very different missions. But yeah, man, Americans in general, especially after
[00:06:39] this whole pandemic, figuring out the wild, no people are losing that purpose and we're losing
[00:06:45] that pride in our nation and, you know, now with all the containment and the mass and the mandates
[00:06:51] and stuff, and it's suicide mental health is, I mean, it's scary. You know, that's of despair.
[00:06:57] It's been a nightmare. Um, yes. Let's get into all that in a little bit,
[00:07:01] but let's start off just to get to know you a little bit. Let's start at the beginning.
[00:07:07] A little white trash red net kid from very rural North Carolina. You know, and I, that's
[00:07:14] definitely in terms of impairment. My, my dad, 80 second airborne guy. Oh, yeah, I'm already
[00:07:21] one a weekend leave from Fayetteville for brag in Wellington at my mom. Is that you're
[00:07:26] a festival weekend and that's a big thing in Wellington. That's a festival. And apparently he
[00:07:32] head over Hills and love with my mom, right? And, you know, freaking, they got married,
[00:07:37] got other, I mean, moved back to where he was from up in Indiana. She was from
[00:07:41] Palico County, North Carolina. We always use, we have to use the county as a marker,
[00:07:47] because there's no town in Palico County that anyone would even have heard of unless you
[00:07:52] actually lived or visited there often, right? So near towns like Newburn,
[00:07:56] so it's very rural. One of the biggest counties in North Carolina smallest populations.
[00:08:00] So anyway, they went up to Indiana and are you born yet at this point? Not yet.
[00:08:04] Oh, no, yeah. My older sister is about to be on her way. And he took a job with one of the
[00:08:11] companies who made parts for general motors, right? All that area up there, Indianapolis,
[00:08:15] Detroit, everything. They didn't solve general motors for so many so far. And after three or four
[00:08:21] years of being up there, he did a couple of things. He got like his pilot's license and
[00:08:26] um, which apparently, that then you didn't actually have to have. There were dudes flying
[00:08:32] airplane. They were flying airplane. They were flying airplanes while drinking liquor and stuff.
[00:08:36] The stories that they used to tell us, right? There were small news that flying these little
[00:08:39] supercubs and peppercubs around and you know, he was talking about shooting, you know,
[00:08:44] doing aerial, you know, shooting foxes and stuff. I'm like, these crazy suckers were doing
[00:08:49] aerial sniper shit with freaking hunting rifles and shotguns. You know, he's like, yeah,
[00:08:54] you know, there's little supercubs of fly so slow that you could shoot, you know, coyotes and
[00:08:58] foxes and deal with a shotgun. And I'm like, all about drinking, he's like, you know, it's like,
[00:09:03] you guys really not. So I joke that you know, when we're all out, you know, thinking we're cool,
[00:09:09] shooting out of a helicopter, bunch of redneck days, but you know, for a long time. But yeah,
[00:09:15] so you know, man, some affirmative action policies, my dad got pushed over for some promotions
[00:09:23] over those years and like he should have been a supervisory role. He was like, you know,
[00:09:27] people are getting promoted that have less time or less qualification. Got, got disgruntled with the whole
[00:09:33] manufacturing world. I would call it corporate per se manufacturing, you know, and it's like,
[00:09:39] I, well, they moved back down to Carolina where my mother was from. And he took a job with a seafood
[00:09:44] company. It's right on the Pamela co-sound. So dox, food and seafood will come off the boats there.
[00:09:51] They package process it, send it to restaurants. A few years later, he bought that company.
[00:09:56] So at this point, my older sister's born, I was born in this little timeframe there. And,
[00:10:03] you know, by like, so I was born in 76, so by 82, the business is doing good, you know, so
[00:10:09] and I'm old enough to be aware of it. And, you know, I've got to older sister in a younger sister.
[00:10:14] So when my dad needed help, guess who the laborer was, you know. So, you know, but I'll tell you
[00:10:23] my dad, you know, my dad wasn't like, you know, by today's parenting standards, my dad was a horrible
[00:10:27] father. Right? Like, he wasn't that nice to me. He wasn't the love EW, you know, hugs and kisses type.
[00:10:36] But he wasn't abusive either, right? Like, you know, I'd get a spanking if I deserved it. And I,
[00:10:40] looking back, I probably deserved everyone plus a few I didn't get. But, you know, he was, he wasn't
[00:10:46] a very good teacher. Right? He was the type of guy, like, by today's standards, like, he was just,
[00:10:51] he did it all wrong. But, you know, my older sister's a well-renowned pediatric and a chronologist.
[00:10:59] Right? Like, if you Google her name, you know, pretty amazing woman. Out of one of the most
[00:11:05] role underfunded school systems in America. My younger sister's successful social worker in
[00:11:13] Raleigh, she helps a lot of people with just amazing things. Of the three of us, she's the most
[00:11:18] left. I don't know that she would even vote for me. My older sister, she's in the moderate,
[00:11:25] my older sister's that, you know, that mother and America that was in the middle and kind of got
[00:11:32] pushed into the left over the last, you know, four or five years. But she's, she's that person
[00:11:38] I talk about. We need to win them back. You know, she's conservatives, she was raised conservative,
[00:11:42] she grew up shooting, hunting, and everything I did. But anyway, my dad was at God. It was like,
[00:11:49] hey, look, you need to do this and you need to do this and you better have this done before I get home.
[00:11:54] I feel like God, I don't know how to do that stuff, figure it out. And at the time, I thought he was just
[00:12:00] an asshole. You know, I just thought he wasn't, didn't like me. I don't know, and that's me to me,
[00:12:05] blah, blah, whatever. Actually, I probably wasn't even aware. It's just how it was. Because most of
[00:12:10] the fathers in my neighborhood were very similar. And I grew up in one of the neighborhoods like if you
[00:12:14] were caught misbehaving down the street, you might get a spanking from the neighbor. Right? Like they
[00:12:20] were all family. Well, it's church together, you know, and then you get another one when we
[00:12:26] would dad go home. But you know, looking back, and he taught me so much, he taught me to figure it out.
[00:12:31] And kind of find out that was the whole point. He didn't care if I completed it, you know,
[00:12:37] at a hundred percent, you know, awesomeness or whatever, you know, he just wanted me to try.
[00:12:42] And it's not like these days, man, and someone gives you a task like, I'll just YouTube it.
[00:12:46] You know, it's right here in here. I'll just watch a video step by step. It'll be easy, you know?
[00:12:52] And we didn't have that growing up, right? So, if you just had an extension cord and the
[00:12:58] wicked skill saw, you know, the fact that I still have all my fingers and toes, because he let me
[00:13:04] handle tools that, right? So my employees slash in terms at the range with the company.
[00:13:11] And I, they have like training programs that have to go through. They can't just pick up one of my
[00:13:16] chain solves, right? You chop your leg off with a chain saw like that circular saws, right? Like,
[00:13:21] that was like, yeah, man, just get it done welding. I learned it well because if I broke something,
[00:13:28] I better have it fixed before you got home. It looked like a big pile of tube bubble gum,
[00:13:32] but, you know, as long as it would hold the go home. Yeah. So that was kind of my childhood,
[00:13:38] man. And it was so many lessons learned. I watched my dad build this business from nothing to,
[00:13:44] you know, took us to a comfortable, I wouldn't say upper middle class, but, you know,
[00:13:49] slightly above average middle class, you know, especially for rural North Carolina,
[00:13:53] class of living is not huge. And he, at Balsam property, developed a piece of property
[00:14:01] into a subdivision on the water down there, one of the, one of the really first subdivisions
[00:14:07] in that era in Pamico County when there was a lot of resistance for change, right? People don't
[00:14:12] woo, we don't want to be Yankees coming down here, buying up our, you know, riverfront property,
[00:14:17] right? And so he got a lot of pushback. And I remember that was my probably my first exposure,
[00:14:23] you know, he would come home from a county commission and meet and, and these are all people we know,
[00:14:28] right? There's 12,500 people in Pamico County and has been for like 80 years, right? Like,
[00:14:33] the population doesn't change because it's actually a amount of people that move there or are
[00:14:37] born there, die or leave. Yeah. So yeah, man, um, it was really cool. That's when I learned to
[00:14:45] run like large machinery. At 12, 13 years old, my dad had me running a D6 bulldozer. Like what?
[00:14:53] We were putting the culverts in for the road, right? We built the roads in this place. You're laying
[00:14:57] layers and layers of gravel. So we bought a D3, a D6, excavator, a back of all this stuff.
[00:15:04] I can't even reach the pedals on these pieces of equipment. I'm out there running them.
[00:15:08] Without a lot of instruction, you know, or any instruction just go. Yeah. And I'll never forget,
[00:15:14] you know, putting a big concrete tiles into the, you know, the ditches for the road.
[00:15:20] I'm on the back house, steering these things in and he's in that ditch.
[00:15:24] They're talking thousand pound concrete tiles. If I make a mistake, I would have killed him.
[00:15:28] Oh yeah. Looking back, I would have never trusted me. I wouldn't have gotten that ditch, but he did.
[00:15:34] And I was like, wow, you know, either A and my dad was a complete cycle. Right? Um, which, you know,
[00:15:40] he's one of those guys like mission men, we will get it done. Being in the rain in the military,
[00:15:46] not a big deal. Because my dad was like, it would, there was that local little restaurant in town where
[00:15:51] everybody ate breakfast all the men, you know. And it'd be raining. And I'm like, all right, we got to go.
[00:15:56] And I'm like, oh, working in the rain today is like, I don't get to choose the weather.
[00:16:00] Now, it's his attitude, man. He was just a tough motho, and just hard hours upon hours of work,
[00:16:07] you know. And I like to say I'm a decent balance between him and my mother who was, you know,
[00:16:13] the more gentle, I mean, she was, she wanted to, a post by any means, right? Like, she didn't
[00:16:19] put up with none of my BS. I, she, I probably got more spankings from her and I ever did him, right?
[00:16:23] You know, but like, you know, little pops on the, on the ass or whatever. You got more quality from the old man,
[00:16:29] but why are you from that? You know? And some people would say that, I was, I was my mom was baby boy, right?
[00:16:35] I was the only boy. I mean, that was different. You know, my older sister, man, she's like,
[00:16:40] she's like a T-1000. She's the first version of the Terminator, dude. She is like,
[00:16:45] when people meet her, they're like, whoa, dude, I thought you were in terms. No, my older sister's a
[00:16:50] machine. I said it was probably like five or six people in this planet. I'm, I'm afraid of,
[00:16:56] she's one of them. You know what I mean? Like, there's a handful of guys. We're all, you know,
[00:17:02] pretty tough dudes, right? You know, you can hold our own and all that kind of stuff. But there's
[00:17:06] all of us have that handful of guys that you're like, you know, like, I was kind of scary.
[00:17:10] One of those guys from these my older sister. And I'm not kidding, right? Like, uh, she's just,
[00:17:16] oh, man, she is what she is in a successful because of it. But yeah, man, you know,
[00:17:22] watching my dad build those businesses, develop that piece of property, really set that foundation.
[00:17:28] And, you know, since I was involved in so much of it, because he didn't have labor. You know,
[00:17:33] he didn't have help. So I had to be there. You know, I didn't get to play sports in school,
[00:17:37] like I wanted to because he needed help. And looking back in a lot of ways, those lessons just
[00:17:42] continued to carry over whether, you know, like, heck, when we were in the Afghanistan or right before
[00:17:48] we were going in the Afghanistan, we were at the F.O.B. You need equipment moved around. Yeah,
[00:17:52] I knew how to run Fortlifts. How do you think we moved Palace around in that seafood house?
[00:17:57] Fortlifts, you know, even that big crazy machine that grabs the connexes, I went and jacked one of those
[00:18:02] from the Air Force one time. We just went and moving around the entire lot, you know, they entire
[00:18:06] all the connexes, you know. It was like, hey, go get that and bring it over here next to our tent.
[00:18:11] So we can pack out, get ready to infill. Well, I could do all that when we got in the Afghanistan,
[00:18:16] you know, I knew how the little local tractor that the fellow had, you know, we needed it to
[00:18:22] move some stuff around with tunnels like, yeah, you know, I can run that. So that foundation was
[00:18:26] huge. But more than any of the actual stuff that I did at the moment, what he taught me was that I can
[00:18:31] do anything. If you put your mind into it, it's just like selection. I don't remember selection being
[00:18:37] that difficult, you know, it was just like I had this mission and it just had to be done. I mean,
[00:18:42] I had, you know, he couldn't really afford all three of us going to college, you know.
[00:18:49] He was struggling a little bit. My mother died when I was 16. I was after that. I went
[00:18:56] I went to misbehaving. How did your mother die? Cancer. Yeah, four year about with it, man.
[00:19:02] And ultimately it wasn't really the cancer to kill, or it was a surgery.
[00:19:06] Complications from a surgery. So it's kind of heartbreaking. Like,
[00:19:10] yes, she had been fighting at or whatever. Really, you know, the struggle back then was chemo,
[00:19:15] which it still is. But, you know, you're talking in the early 90s, man, for a chemo, we're rough.
[00:19:19] And so I learned a lot from watching her deal with it, man. She, she would get up and walk and
[00:19:25] exercise and working to yard and mo the yard, you know, while having to stop and throw up from chemo.
[00:19:31] Yeah, so one of the toughest people I ever grew up with was my mother. And yeah, so after she passed
[00:19:39] man, you know, I started being that bad kid, you know, and smoking weed, wound up doing a little
[00:19:45] blow, whatever, freaking gotten trouble, you know. Where'd you get trouble with like school?
[00:19:52] Yeah, you're schooled the law. Yeah, I got arrested, man, for you can,
[00:19:56] and luckily, you know, it was all just minor dumb stuff, right? It was not like I was a, you know,
[00:20:02] dealing anything or stuff like that. I wasn't, you know, making money off of it, just party and,
[00:20:08] you know, just doing dumb redneck stuff, you know, like hunting club roads, you know,
[00:20:13] you don't want to get on a road, you get a DWI, but we can ride around these hunting club,
[00:20:16] dirt roads, redneck stuff, you know, drink beer and, you know, and, you know, do all the dumb stuff
[00:20:23] we were doing. And that was when you're still in high school? Yeah. So yeah, I'm not seeing
[00:20:27] you in high school, you know, just being bad. And, but I was still making good enough grades.
[00:20:34] Excuse me. Yeah, I was, you know, just, you know, the deal, man, just how, like everyone
[00:20:40] in software, all pretty smart news, we can get bees without really trying. And any course we go to,
[00:20:45] you know, most of us are bees students and every course, and of course, there's always that one
[00:20:50] nerd over there to get to honor that. You know, and whatever, like fun of that guy, what a nerd.
[00:20:56] Yeah, I wasn't the nerd. I was a misbehaved kid just being a jackass for me.
[00:21:01] And you didn't play any sports because you were working too hard. Well, I did play a little bit,
[00:21:05] but like, with Drew from, you know, the team and senior year, stuff like that, just,
[00:21:10] just because, yeah, man, he needed help after working. And, um, we still do after high school. Yeah,
[00:21:16] man, so, you know, also our, man, we were the smallest school system and right next door to us
[00:21:23] is like West Craven. You know, that's a school that's producing, you know, pro football players,
[00:21:28] you know, DH Conley, over in Greenville, ECU, you know, big schools, man. And we were like,
[00:21:34] they're like, we'll let Pamela go play us and they would just destroy us. You know, they had like
[00:21:40] defense and offense and in special teams. We had a football team. You didn't leave the field, man.
[00:21:46] And then it was times we went to football games, we didn't have enough dudes, you know,
[00:21:48] we were a whole play. And, you know, so after, you know, a couple years of that, man, I wasn't
[00:21:52] really interested, you know, it's like, what's the point? I mean, you know, the average student
[00:21:57] on our team, you know, we had that one 220 pound guy where you got a West Craven there and tire
[00:22:01] lineups 200 plus pounds. We would just, they would mock the floor with us. So I lost this,
[00:22:07] just to not just started working more and partying more. And yeah, man. So good enough grades to get
[00:22:12] into NC State, I look at how I'm like, I still don't know how they let me in. You know, not good enough
[00:22:19] grades to get any kind of scholarship. So, you know, after the second year, my younger sister's only
[00:22:25] year behind me, my older sister is four years ahead of me. She's entering medical school. Where
[00:22:31] she'd go to school? She went to medical school at ECU. Where'd she go to undergrad at UNC
[00:22:36] Chapel Hill? Yeah. So, you know, Dad's paying out of pocket plus he's still very much, you know,
[00:22:45] dealing with the death of my mom. And he had a really hard time, man. For he can, you know,
[00:22:50] I watched him lose a lot of weight, you know, he'd and talked to people, he kept working,
[00:22:54] you know, and he worked more, which was already done there in possible. And you know, being a young
[00:22:59] dumb punk kid, I couldn't recognize it because I'm selfish, like kids are. And I'm looking back
[00:23:05] I was like, man, I could have been a better kid, I could have been a better son to him. But I mean,
[00:23:10] we were kids, we were young and I hadn't looking back, man. I'm mom talking to the number one
[00:23:15] best lesson in my entire life. And that is everyone you know is going to die. Right? So, as we
[00:23:23] entered that war, I had already lost and I tried to use that terminology. One of the people
[00:23:29] was closest to me in my life. And so that set me up for being able to deal with how many of our
[00:23:38] brothers got killed close friends and so on and so forth. You know, our partner forces, you know,
[00:23:44] I don't think guys always realize how tight we get with those partner forces, you know, I got
[00:23:50] some of my best friends on this planet are, you know, Muslims. People don't always understand that,
[00:23:56] you know, especially in Iraq where I worked with the Kurds for years, the same tune of dudes
[00:24:01] for seven, eight years. And so anyway, her passing taught me to appreciate why you have them.
[00:24:10] And that's why I don't use that terminology, you'll lost them. I didn't lose my mother. I can go
[00:24:16] show you right now where she rests. I know exactly where she's at. So I didn't lose them.
[00:24:21] It was a gain. Right. If someone in your life is so tight with you that when they die, it breaks
[00:24:27] your heart. Right? You didn't lose anything. You gained something in life. Because if, if when we
[00:24:35] understand that everyone we know in love, they're going to die. When you start thinking like that,
[00:24:40] you start appreciating them every day. You know? So I can say, my mom told me the best lesson
[00:24:48] that I've ever had. And it set me up or success in the war. And don't get me wrong. It doesn't
[00:24:53] mean like I'm somehow callous or, you know, immune to filling sad and upset. You know, there's
[00:25:00] still those antivarsaries. There's thoughts, you know, those memories that pop back up,
[00:25:04] to make us all upset, you know, and tear up and, you know, and so on and so forth. But
[00:25:09] and then freaking without her death, I don't know that now today, I would be as healthy mentally as I am.
[00:25:16] You know, it just laid that foundation. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and I tell people at all
[00:25:22] a time and I have throughout, you know, once I realized that and I'll tell you, it really probably
[00:25:28] number one thing that really woke me up 2013 and April 2013. My best friend was getting,
[00:25:35] I had gotten in Ben Bittner. Ben was better than everyone else. He was that cocky little little
[00:25:41] girl. That guy, you know, who everything could make it up to you. He was just better than
[00:25:46] everybody else. He wasn't huge or jack, but he was strong and fast and so anyway, man, I got that
[00:25:54] phone call. I mean, Melissa hadn't been dating very long. We were driving up 540. It was kind of early
[00:25:59] on a Sunday morning. I got a phone call. So I hit this, you know, hey, bro, Ben Bittner. Okay.
[00:26:04] Dude, put off the side of row and threw up because of one dude I thought that was truly
[00:26:09] immoral, right? Just got suckered by the enemy and abated ambush, right? And if had not been,
[00:26:18] it was, I mean, that's 13, man. We're 12 years into the war. I mean, already got plenty of memorial
[00:26:23] braces, you know, but for something about when Ben died, it was like holy crap, we're not immortal.
[00:26:29] You know, I'd been injured, blown up, you know, how it is. As a young little trooper, sometimes,
[00:26:35] right, those close calls, they make you more arrogant and cocky, right? You know, you start thinking
[00:26:42] that you can get away with more and more and that's probably where I was in 13. When I got
[00:26:47] blown up in 2009, like after my recovery, I went back, meaner, more aggressive. You know,
[00:26:55] probably taking risks that I shouldn't have, you know, looking back, taking risks with my teams
[00:27:00] and my partner forces lives just because I was emotionally wanting some retribution, you know,
[00:27:07] they killed some of my teammates and damn near killed me and then Ben died. I was like holy shit.
[00:27:14] But like I said, without my mom's death, I don't know that I would have dealt with any of it very well.
[00:27:20] So yeah, man, in C state, I like to say that I was enrolled at in C state.
[00:27:25] So your participation level is low. Well, there's panic of county and there's like, you know,
[00:27:34] my graduating class is like 104 people. So let's say there was, you know, 55, 60 girls in that
[00:27:39] class, right? And then I get the NC state. There's girls everywhere. They were everywhere. I was like,
[00:27:46] holy crap, man. There's like thousands of them. And yeah, so I was distracted to say the least. And,
[00:27:56] you know, I quickly found out that classrooms where you have to be quiet and pay attention to a
[00:28:00] professor and not the best place to talk to these girls. So why would I waste my time going to those classes?
[00:28:06] And so anyway, for you can impartian, waste and money, you know, that that we didn't have.
[00:28:12] My sisters in med school, now my younger sisters, going to school, she went,
[00:28:17] it was going down at, you know, at C Wilmington. And, you know, it was clear, you know, that I was wasting
[00:28:23] money. I didn't have it. I didn't have it. So I withdrew. I joined the army. You know,
[00:28:30] was that your first time thinking about joining the army? Absolutely not. I didn't want to go to college.
[00:28:35] Right. And, you know, our generation, we have to blame our parents for everything. So my dad let me
[00:28:40] watch Rambo first blood when I was nine or ten years old. Done to be high. That was green braised.
[00:28:45] They were real badasses. You know, says it right now, movie. And, you know, so from there,
[00:28:50] when you're like, let's face it, right? Like, some guys watch, you know, something has got seals in it.
[00:28:55] And they're like, oh, yeah, or some guys will watch, you know, the recom movie with Clint Eastwood.
[00:28:59] And, you know, and you're impressed, and at a young point, when mine was Rambo first blood. And,
[00:29:03] freaking out, you know, running around above the snow line. Rats in the caves. I was like, yeah, I was already
[00:29:10] playing in the woods all the time. Anyway, I loved it. I know I had just man. So from there on out, yeah,
[00:29:14] I just went on this funny green hats, which is looking back. I'm like, damn that hat's up.
[00:29:20] It's made out of wool. It's hard. It's hell, right? Like, you want me to wear this wool hat in Fayetteville?
[00:29:25] You know, I mean, you're almost the reason to summertime the sand hills on the little Carolina.
[00:29:29] All right, like, this hat's dumb. There's no bill it then keep the sun out of your face. There's
[00:29:33] not like a boonie cat. There's no ballistic protection. Why are we even wearing this dumb hat?
[00:29:38] All right? Like, anyway, um, but yeah, that's what I wanted. And I didn't help. I met a fellow
[00:29:45] named Jason McKenzie at NC State and he was going green to gold. And he started telling me,
[00:29:52] I was here for my green. Yeah, he was a GB at the time. And he was getting his commission.
[00:29:58] And he went on to get his commission. Go back to the 18th of course, and then when I went over to the
[00:30:02] unit, freaking stud, he was a stud. Real smart dude. Still it. And um, and I was like, started talking to him.
[00:30:09] He was like, hey, look, Brown, I get it. College socks. Let me tell you about this really cool secret.
[00:30:16] It's a card that's called the National Guard Special Forces Groups. And I was like, what?
[00:30:22] How is that even possible? How can you have a reserve special operations? We'll come to find out.
[00:30:26] Most all of those have that. And uh, it is the coolest, most least known way to get in the special forces.
[00:30:34] And I'm like, what do you mean? You know, I wear the lights. I know. And he's like, yeah, man.
[00:30:38] So, basically, you go in and it's just like an active duty group. I mean, they just, you know,
[00:30:43] less bullshit. And that's really what it almost comes down to. It's like, the guard gets on orders.
[00:30:48] It's not like they're doing, you know, one week in a month, two weeks a year type of thing. You know,
[00:30:51] they're doing weeks of training at a time. If when they deploy, it's, you know, months of work up,
[00:30:57] PMT, just like the group. I have to check all the same boxes just in a lot less time.
[00:31:03] And I'm like, okay, yeah, he's like, how's it work? He's like, well, you know, he's got me all hooked
[00:31:07] up with 19th group. The guy's up in West Virginia. I had to get a waiver for my misbehaviors and a rest,
[00:31:14] right? And I remember, uh, what year is this? So this is uh, 97.
[00:31:18] And it was a hard-gitten waivers? It was it. Were you a minor when you got arrested?
[00:31:24] No, uh, yes, and uh, both. Okay. I had just turned 18. Um, um,
[00:31:32] one of the arrests. I was still senior in high school. And uh, but everything else was before that.
[00:31:39] And uh, now I'm in freaking, so I go and talk to these guys and Colonel Hoyer was the
[00:31:46] batonic commander for the second baton of 19th special forces group. And he moved on to become like the
[00:31:51] the general, the tag of West Virginia, really smart man, really smart guy. And um, not a very imposing
[00:31:59] figure, um, you know, just an average-looking guy, guy that could throw a suit on and disappear, you know,
[00:32:06] uh, not the jack tattoo guys. Of course, tattoos on the sleeves and all that weren't quite
[00:32:11] populated time. And I remember walking in and thinking, this is a special forces Colonel. I was expecting
[00:32:17] you're like John the Colonel, Colonel, Colonel, Colonel, Captain, from Rainbow, right? He's supposed
[00:32:22] to scare the shit out of me. Very on a suit, in which come to find out later. Yeah, those are the
[00:32:26] dudes that are really the scary guys. Anyway, when he was like, um, yeah, so you need a waiver.
[00:32:34] You're gonna do this anymore? I'm like, no, sir. Done with that. I was, you know, three years ago,
[00:32:39] um, good. Okay. Boom. That easy, you know. And and had he, in his assessment, for whatever reason,
[00:32:49] you know, um, because I know him to have turned down some of our cases. But man, it was that was
[00:32:54] no interview. Nothing. He just took me on a very first impression basis. And I was just a dumb kid.
[00:33:00] I didn't know. I'm like scared to death. All these GBs, you know. I'm like, you know, I'm trying to
[00:33:04] join this very exclusive club. And I don't know what to say. I don't know how to act. So nothing,
[00:33:10] I would have done it. I would have been right anyway. But yeah, you gave me the waivers. I was
[00:33:15] drew from school on a Tuesday morning. I, you know, Riley to Pamela Kirkandley to the house,
[00:33:20] is about two hours. I went home. I died once at home. I was okay. Changing to some PT's and went
[00:33:24] for a run. Sure enough, many on the road. He like hits the braces like, what the fuck? Are you doing?
[00:33:30] Why are you home? You're supposed to be in college, boy. What's wrong with you? And you're
[00:33:35] he knew at this point like, oh, something's up. Right? Like this ain't right. You know,
[00:33:39] a great, he's probably in trouble again. That was probably his first impression. I'm like,
[00:33:44] I'll run to the house. That'll meet in there. He probably would have pulled over to the side of the
[00:33:49] road and got out. And we would have had that discussion on side of the road. But my stepmother,
[00:33:54] he luckily, I'd be Lord man, luckily for my dad. He met an amazing woman after my mom died.
[00:33:59] And who became one of my very best friends. Sad story. She died a cancer too. My dad, man,
[00:34:06] God blesses all of it. So my stepmother's with him. And I remember she kind of like patented
[00:34:10] him on the shoulder and was like, let him come home and talk to us. You know, come at that
[00:34:15] wasn't a little dude either. Right? Like he's, you know, about my size. Now, right? I was always
[00:34:20] small in him until I finally started lifting some weights. I was actually way more of a runner-dead
[00:34:24] early on. I was like, about 70. You know, I could run. I had no real weight on me, you know, but he was
[00:34:31] like two, two, ten. You know, he's a strong dude, a worker guy. Yeah, he boxed about
[00:34:37] only 18th every one for the few times we did, scuff it up a little bit. Yeah, he just made
[00:34:42] one for me up. Right. I just covered up. But you know, like I said, anyway, man, freaking uh, yeah.
[00:34:50] So I go to the house and I tell him he's just shaking his head, but it's like he understood. You
[00:34:55] know, he understood. He knew, I mean, of course I'm in something new me. I'm his, he joined the
[00:35:01] 80 second hour board of the same reason I wanted to go. So yeah, man, um, a few weeks later I was
[00:35:07] in base of training back quick, huh? Yeah, yeah. It was like two and a half months from the time I
[00:35:12] signed up, I was already in base of training because back then, you know, late 90s recruitment was
[00:35:17] out of pre-low there, the administration and they'd routed the military and cut so much funding.
[00:35:22] But trying to get guys to sign up for combat arms, you know, the recruiter would be like,
[00:35:27] hey, yeah, signing my right up. Come on in here, you know. So yeah, did that? Um,
[00:35:32] that was boot camp. I was in such a good shape that it was like easy. I think I got
[00:35:37] more shape when I got. I was already getting like a 340 on the Army's PT test. Right. And a lot
[00:35:43] of it was, you know, I could max the push up and sit ups, but my runtime was like, I was
[00:35:46] around like 11 flat two miles and I'm just a little runny. Right. And, uh, and skinny, God bless
[00:35:53] one, how I look back at some of the impakers been like, wow, wow, boy, you need to eat.
[00:35:58] Did you, you never ran like competitively? No, in high school or anything? No, no, I didn't
[00:36:04] start running. I joined the ROT scene at NC State because, you know, okay, maybe I want to join
[00:36:09] them. I mean, but, you know, maybe I'll be an officer. Yeah, you know, that didn't really play out that way.
[00:36:14] But that was the first time I started doing PT and running. And I think like my first PT test
[00:36:19] had must have run like a 15 minute 2 mile, but like my second one was sub 12. Yeah, so apparently
[00:36:24] had some decent pre-disposition genetic pre-disposition the running. And the shock of boot camp was
[00:36:32] no factor because you were just stoked to be there. Right. Yeah. And, you know, at this point now,
[00:36:37] I'm 20. So I'm one of the oldest kids in basic training. And I'm even back then, I'm looking
[00:36:42] around doing, looking like these are a bunch of posts. Where are these kids come from? Right? Like
[00:36:47] clearly they didn't work like, you know, my dad, you know, in my head, I think every American boy's
[00:36:52] like me, you know, and others he's city kids and whatever man, yeah, but, but, but basically it wasn't
[00:36:58] hard. I mean, I got like, you know, top PT and you know, it was a quickly made like the stupid
[00:37:03] platoon sergeant or whatever and I was like, you know, and you know, there was a little click,
[00:37:09] you know, because I did the basic and AIT back to bags. It was like 14 weeks. So you same drill sergeant
[00:37:14] all the way through by the end. Me and these couple other boys are a little bit older, a little bit
[00:37:18] more mature, you know, we were running things. We had our own little mafia going, you know, we had
[00:37:24] when they let us clean the drill sergeant's office, we took the key, snuck off post, made a coughing,
[00:37:32] a copy of it. So now I had a drill sergeant's office key, which had all our personal bags and the
[00:37:38] right, like, so we would go in there and listen to the walkman and CDs, you know, and like,
[00:37:43] hide out and it was funny because the drill sergeant had no idea we were doing it, much less
[00:37:48] that we were leaving post. I don't know, you can't leave post in basic training, there's no
[00:37:52] self like nowadays they can make phone calls and be on the internet, none of that, you're a lockdown, right?
[00:37:58] We were sticking off post and like, because we had access to the civilian clothes.
[00:38:02] I was thinking I'll post going in by and beer and it's stashin it. In the drill sergeant's office,
[00:38:07] in the personal right, we going there at night and how is a few beers, you know, buy some liquor,
[00:38:14] no clue. So I always say like, I was already running an underground in auxiliary when I was in
[00:38:19] basic training, like, that was just, you know, where I was just. I mean, I got out of there and
[00:38:25] um, freaking immediately went to the little progression course or whatever PLDC where you had to go
[00:38:34] from, you know, to get your promotion to E4 or whatever. And it was like a couple of days before I finished
[00:38:41] that little three week course. So you already E4 after like a few months? I know, I'm still in E3.
[00:38:47] Finished because I did have a little bit of college. I was finished basic as an E3.
[00:38:51] And so now I'm in a little PLDC course. So I can't get promoted E4. And like, hey, you ready to go to
[00:38:58] selection? I'm like, I guess, huh, win. And like, in two weeks, maybe I haven't won a rock side.
[00:39:08] Right? And that's all our selection is. It's carrying a rock sack for 28 days.
[00:39:12] Right. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Because I'm like, I'm not going to say no. I'm not turning down a slot
[00:39:18] at SFAS. Looking back, I could have been like, hey, I really could stand another month of training.
[00:39:23] And it'd been like, okay, whatever, and put me in the next course. I didn't know it like that.
[00:39:27] I thought just an opportunity at selection must have been a God soon. You can't say no.
[00:39:32] So I had a whopping two weeks to train for selection.
[00:39:37] It went straight there, you know. And even then I look back and I'm like,
[00:39:40] wasn't really that hard. But it wasn't hard because quitting wasn't an option.
[00:39:44] Right. I couldn't have withdrawn from college.
[00:39:46] All the good, special forces and then fail. Right. That wouldn't have been a thing. I could not have
[00:39:54] sold that to family members, my dad, right? Myself. How many people get, how many people make it through
[00:40:02] that first selection? What is it? 28 days you said? Back then, it was 28 days. Right. It's changed a lot
[00:40:08] over the years. I think right now it's 21 days of actual course. So maybe 26 days, counting the
[00:40:15] admin and all that. So it was 28 back then exactly four weeks.
[00:40:21] Yeah, there was 250 or so dudes in my class, 52 finished and 41 were selected.
[00:40:30] And I think a lot of folks don't know that, right? You can finish that course and I get picked up.
[00:40:34] 28 day non-select. Yeah, that's got a hurt. I just got hurt. And so yeah, I got picked up.
[00:40:42] And most of those people are quitters or their performance drops are medical drops. So they hurt their knees.
[00:40:49] Yeah, you know, the number one attrition rate is voluntary withdrawals. That's probably 95% and then
[00:40:56] injury. And it's funny how seen some dudes and sure the same at Buds and everywhere else. You see those
[00:41:01] guys that like, they've got stress fractures, broken ankle, broken toes, torn, patellar tendons,
[00:41:08] and they finish. You know, I was just young and stupid man. I'm so lucky.
[00:41:16] I don't get blisters on my feet and never had. I got some of my first blisters ever last year hunting
[00:41:23] in the mountains of Idaho because I bought a pair of boots and didn't really break them in. I
[00:41:28] worn around and North Carolina working around the house and then I thought backpack going and
[00:41:32] go hiking in the mountains of Idaho. And I call it hiking. It was armed hiking because we didn't
[00:41:38] kill any. It's not really hunting. It was just armed hiking. Really well armed hiking.
[00:41:47] Good training. I guess you could talk it up on this. But yeah, I'd never even gotten a blister like,
[00:41:51] you know. So I was lucky when it comes to that because that's a big thing in our selection.
[00:41:56] It's like, just dudes feet get turned to hamburger. What do you, how you know, a rough march if you
[00:42:02] didn't got feet? I was seeing some blisters that started the toes and then like the back of the heel.
[00:42:08] Really? Like things that like you could lose a leg at, oh, you know, in the medical like, whoa,
[00:42:13] you know, they have horrible, you know, in the little medics station and all those pictures.
[00:42:17] And you think it's just some genetic thing. You just don't get blisters. I just for whatever
[00:42:21] is my feet fit jungle boots, which is weird because it's not like they're, you know, I just did.
[00:42:27] So yeah, I mean, that just worked out finished selection. It was funny because at the time
[00:42:35] Regs said to finish it was before the 18 or the SF Baby program. The 18.
[00:42:41] Thanks for that. It was before that. But the guard had the back door. It was like the 18x
[00:42:47] because I didn't go to any other unit. And so it's graduation day. I had to go to the strength
[00:42:54] and to the board a couple times because I was in E3 and they were like, you can't.
[00:42:59] You're not even supposed to be here much less finished. Like what though?
[00:43:03] We didn't know what to do with me. Again, some dudes looked at it, gave me a waiver.
[00:43:09] But it was funny because, you know, the company commander, company commander and the training
[00:43:13] SF training is not really involved in anything. He shows up, you know, he's an admin guy.
[00:43:17] I've been a most part the elicid boys run selection. So come time, you know, he's
[00:43:23] handing out, you know, his graduation, not very formal. It's out at Camp McCall.
[00:43:26] You're just all dirty and nasty and you're walking across the swill stage and he's handed out.
[00:43:30] He's like, staff sergeant, such and such. Captain, such and such. You sergeant, such and such.
[00:43:34] You know, hey, shaking hands and I get up there and he goes, private for it.
[00:43:39] He looks at the first sergeant and the whole class knows. We don't wear rank instead of there,
[00:43:43] but you know, right after four weeks, everyone knows who the cherry loot tenant is.
[00:43:48] And you know, there was some guys that are probably who were pissed that I was there as an
[00:43:52] unit three. But most of the guys were like, wow, this dude's crushing it and he's a baby,
[00:43:57] but I wasn't a child, you know, what an 18. You know, at least I ever jagging there like 24 or something.
[00:44:03] Yeah, very much so, you know, the average a senior E4 promotables, E5s and E6s made up the bulk of
[00:44:10] the class. And most of the officers were, you know, first lieutenant in captains. And so
[00:44:17] it was kind of funny because the whole class like laughing and clapping. You know, because the
[00:44:22] captain or the company commander in major was like, what the? You know, he talks to the first sergeant
[00:44:30] in the sergeant major and they're like, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm.
[00:44:33] It's like really? And I'm like standing there on this day's way. Am I getting ready to get booted?
[00:44:38] You know, as a commander, gonna go, nope, right here. And so anyway, for he can shake my hands,
[00:44:44] he goes, all right, private first class, Calden, welcome to Regimen.
[00:44:49] All right on. So man, it was kind of screwed up. I was in a racing motorcross.
[00:44:55] One week before I was supposed to report to the Q-course, broke my femur, a couple ribs, my arm.
[00:45:02] Yeah, man, at a race that I shouldn't have been racing, are you not allowed to race it?
[00:45:07] No, you wouldn't like that, you know, you know, that wasn't on the list of things you can't do.
[00:45:11] You know, like, you know, it was a skydiving, you know, one never thought.
[00:45:15] He's not going to enter out there. Like, don't go right road you.
[00:45:19] It's on the list of things that you're not supposed to do while, you know, in the Q-course,
[00:45:23] wasn't in the Q-course yet, but motorcross wasn't on the list.
[00:45:27] Until I broke my femur, they added motorcycles to the list because of me.
[00:45:32] So, I had man, I, I, I missed my Q-course day. And I was supposed to go to the Delta course.
[00:45:38] I wanted to be a medic. Oddly enough, my plan was to go be a medic and either go to PA school or medical school.
[00:45:46] I wanted to be like my Terminator sister. I was the one that, I probably want to be a doctor more than she did.
[00:45:52] And I was always in the, you know, I wanted to be like the, you know, the ER doc. I want to be the trauma guy.
[00:45:56] So, 18 Delta just made sense. Well, eight months later, I'm still limping, you know, they put a rod, my leg,
[00:46:03] and all that, you know, I got my run times back down pretty good, but man, it hurt. It just hurt.
[00:46:08] Because I just destroyed this leg, man. It was like, you know, so I drove afterwards, you know,
[00:46:13] I put my hands around my claw. It was just a bone in there and it was nasty. Basically what happened was I over-jumped a triple jump.
[00:46:22] The jump got walled up and kicked the bike forward. My buds were standing in a very,
[00:46:28] so they could see the drain plug on the bottom of the bike. The bike was pointing at the ground. I was still upright.
[00:46:34] When it hit the ground, the front tire basically trapped this leg and then
[00:46:40] catapulted me, just threw me up in the air. So when you said it's not a race, you should have been in this like two advanced
[00:46:44] of a race for another one. The exact opposite was like a local outlaw race, not an AMA Sanctuary.
[00:46:51] It was just a fun race, but there's no fun races because you still got a win.
[00:46:55] And I was battling first. And a funny thing was I was racing in the 250 class and the 125 class at that time.
[00:47:06] So I had already race those two and then there was this the unlimited class where
[00:47:10] it didn't matter, you can race anything you wanted in it. And so I was racing six motos that night,
[00:47:16] six different races that afternoon and night. It was the six motos exhausted. And at folks don't
[00:47:21] realize man, I'm in phenomenal shape at this time and motorcross is still one of the most
[00:47:27] physically demanding things I've ever done. And you know, because you just don't realize that you're
[00:47:32] strapped to a 230, 40 pound piece of equipment that has 45 horsepower. You know, with the right.
[00:47:42] You know, you're trying to control that thing. It's not like you're just relaxing on it. You're
[00:47:47] standing up. You're clenching it. You know, twinuleys all that. And anyway, yeah man. So now my career is like,
[00:47:56] okay, now what? So through it advisement, okay, look, you lost all this time. I'm going to sign
[00:48:02] you up for the Charlie course, the engineer demo course, and I'm like, all right, at this point,
[00:48:05] I just want to get in the course. And you know, I've been basically doing nothing for eight months
[00:48:09] that's ever rehab. And so, okay, cool. So did the Charlie course. It was kind of funny man in the
[00:48:16] Charlie course because I'm from North Carolina. So I know people at UNCW, which is a, you know,
[00:48:23] Wilmington is a college town with a beach problem, right? It's a state ECU party. I have friends
[00:48:31] everywhere. So I was like the tour guide on the weekend, right? Like, yeah, I know people at this school.
[00:48:35] Let's go to this party, all that kind of stuff. So we're having a good time. That's why I met that fellow
[00:48:39] Ben Bettner, our little click, and a bunch of little crazy dudes. And you know, borderline,
[00:48:47] you know, we were misbehaving in the QCourse, you know, because it wasn't at hard, you know,
[00:48:51] especially in the MLS phase, it wasn't the very hard. So we were party in and blah, blah.
[00:48:57] Yeah, I did all that stuff. Language school wasn't hard back then because no one cared about
[00:49:01] language. You really didn't have to go to language school. So I went to language school, but did
[00:49:05] not learn French. And then of course it didn't really matter because it was like eight years
[00:49:13] later before I ever went anywhere that spoke French. You know, not a lot of French speakers and I
[00:49:16] rack and Afghanistan, you know. But you have African cool stuff. I got lucky though because if I had
[00:49:25] done the medicore, I would have missed the invasion. I'd have been in language school or
[00:49:29] Sarah school during that time frame. So because I did the shorter Charlie Cours, I was already done
[00:49:34] and I wanted to team and doing some pretty cool stuff. I have to understand kicks off and I got
[00:49:40] to go to the beginning. Where were you when September 11th went down? So when I said what doing cool stuff?
[00:49:46] I wanted, he was the ASO guy, right? The source operations guy, not the door kicker guy. Even
[00:49:53] though he had done all that, he had just matured into understanding that that's the hard part, right?
[00:49:58] The finish is the easy part, right? How long does that take us to execute a target? You know,
[00:50:04] 30 to 90 seconds typically, right? We're on target. Everyone's up tied or done. We're done with the
[00:50:12] target. Now we're doing SSC. It's quick. It's that find fixed part, ASO stuff, right? It's actually
[00:50:20] difficult. It takes a brain. And he was all about that and because I was that skinny college kid,
[00:50:26] I didn't look like an SF guy. So he got me signed up on this program that 5th group, 10th
[00:50:34] group, all the active groups were participating. It was 10th group's year to run it. And it was the
[00:50:39] red cell against the end triple C, the new cook commanding control. So for the four months leading up to
[00:50:46] 9-11, I'm running around the nation, tracking and developing patterns of life of this
[00:50:55] general, it's got a suitcase attached to him. He's like number 12 in the chain of command
[00:51:02] of running our country in the time of the nuclear war with Russia. And I had no idea because it was
[00:51:07] very cellular, right? It was broken down in the little cells, which is ironic, right? Because now
[00:51:14] we're playing red against the United States, nuclear commanding control. For those six months,
[00:51:21] I didn't interact. I did not see face to face. It was all old school cold war tradecraft.
[00:51:26] Dead drives. No, no text messages. Nothing. And the only time I got text messages I was
[00:51:31] called is when I actually called the handler who was a chief out of 10th group and he was running
[00:51:38] our cell. So we were in Oklahoma, Nebraska, silos, right? And this guy would go from
[00:51:46] silo facility to silo facility with these tractor trailers that indiscripped. Three tractor
[00:51:52] trailers are so. And that could change, right? And then a security detail.
[00:51:58] That all playing clothes and stuff, right? Like you drive it on a highway, you would never notice
[00:52:02] this convoy. Of course, they didn't nut the buck convoy either. It was just these three tractor
[00:52:05] trailer trucks. And sometimes more than that, sometimes the convoy was much larger when they had
[00:52:11] other pieces of equipment that I had no idea what it was. I only cared about him.
[00:52:14] Because the ultimate goal was when we were supposed to execute, we were trying to create
[00:52:22] four second hiccup in the United States. In the United States, in the United States, reaction
[00:52:25] the rushes of time. War seconds. That was what it was. That's all supposedly rush and needed.
[00:52:33] War seconds, man. Well, come to find out man. It was a worldwide effort. I wouldn't just
[00:52:37] my four goofballs. And I knew there was some others because other teammates in my were
[00:52:40] scattered around the country. And I knew they were doing it. I had no idea where they're at.
[00:52:44] Because last time my song was a meeting in Northern Virginia where we all came together,
[00:52:48] they briefed us in a single one of the ways. And it was fun, man. I'm just a little punk-y little
[00:52:53] SF dude. Man, there were unlimited budget, freaking, just swiping a government credit card.
[00:52:58] There was days I had two different rental cars, freaking, you know, hotel. And it was an amazing
[00:53:04] thing. It was really cool because you know how to get interim T.S., which backed in a little baby E.6.
[00:53:10] I had a T.S. Clansus. So that paved the way to get my my Clansus set up and all that.
[00:53:17] Much younger than I should have probably. Or at least was standard at the time.
[00:53:24] So yeah man, on the morning of 9.11, I would crawl through this drainage little
[00:53:30] culvert. I went to Walmart, bought some leafy Gucci flies from Walmart. And I thought,
[00:53:35] if we can get a little crappy Walmart, Gillesuit, and I called for four hours to get within,
[00:53:41] taking a picture of this general. That was going to be the shot. And like I said, man, you
[00:53:47] got teams around the world, taking pictures of different types of planes and tell numbers. And
[00:53:52] oh, this plane took off and into a turkey and then it landed in Alaska, like, they flew across the
[00:53:58] North Pole. I mean, these are some crazy assets, right? Well, yeah man, so I get a text and it's
[00:54:08] like a board moved to such and such. And I'm like, I'm not compromised. I'm good. Right now,
[00:54:16] what's the text I got back? A board right now. And I'm watching his security detail change.
[00:54:23] Hmm. What's happening? And as I'm crawling out, man, freaking like the local sheriff's department,
[00:54:34] freaking starts pulling in. Do's have got shotguns, right? Local redneck do's,
[00:54:40] some Marines showed up. I guess they were like, freaking had been hovering this whole time
[00:54:46] as Marine detail that I was not even aware of. I'm likely they weren't aware of me either. So now
[00:54:51] I'm crawling quickly because it's clear something is going on, right? Because they've got
[00:54:56] mags in their guns. I'm like, what the fuck man? Get out, get my car, freaking call, hey, what's up?
[00:55:03] Yeah, meet me at this motel. It's like, you know, side of the road dirt motel, one story old school,
[00:55:08] you know, 1950s built motel. And there's like 40 rental cars in this motel parking lot. I'm like,
[00:55:15] what? Oh, it's going to come to find out it's not my four man cell. And they were reddubnet
[00:55:21] sees upon redundancies for all these cells, but every location around the world. And none of us knew
[00:55:26] about each other. And I coupled them and you like recognize them. These things have been going on for
[00:55:30] months. And I'm like, I saw you in Nebraska. I saw you males, females. And this is, that's a good point
[00:55:36] because that was the first time in life. I realized how important females are for reconnaissance
[00:55:43] surveillance, freaking like they, wow, they do have an amazing role. That changed a lot of my career,
[00:55:48] the way I saw women and how they can be an asset, right? Like me and you, right? How do we walk around?
[00:55:56] We're not building anywhere. We don't even blend in in average. US freaking, you know, city much less.
[00:56:03] Throw on some a man dress and try to walk around to a lot about that. Yeah, we're busted.
[00:56:08] Yeah. But man, these ladies, you know, they can go and do, especially when you recruit the ones
[00:56:13] that can speak Arabic and, you know, can blend in, right, which we learned that lesson. But this
[00:56:18] was my first time seeing females. I was like, holy crap. Come to find out, one of the people on
[00:56:23] my team was a female. I didn't know. I'm just dead drop in letters and knows. So anyway, as I walk
[00:56:29] into hotel and man, yeah, there's like 40 people in this little hotel. It's not, I mean, just cramped
[00:56:34] hands sitting and looking at a TV of burning towers. Yeah, man, I'm just sitting there going,
[00:56:41] okay, what the fuck? We're under attack. And at this point, you know, it's early in the morning.
[00:56:49] No one even knows. Pentegon hadn't been hit yet. And so that happened while we were sitting there.
[00:56:56] I was just like, whoa, okay. So we pack up. We actually went linked up with that asset
[00:57:04] and provided a ring of security for them and escorted. So we went from playing red cell against
[00:57:10] them to helping with their security cordon. We were unarmed. So we pulled an outer security and
[00:57:16] escorted them to a hard location. Yeah. And then got on planes and flew back to wherever we were
[00:57:22] supposed to. They were unique guys. They were guys from Damneck and bald. Everybody flew back as fast
[00:57:28] as they could. But planes were grounded. So they're sending C-17s from wherever they could and
[00:57:33] picking us up. We drove 100 miles away to Colorado Springs in a 10th group and got on flight
[00:57:38] wherever we could get them. It was always funny because, you know, like, the two one guys,
[00:57:43] you know, the the lear jets were waiting for them. We're just waiting on like whatever we could get.
[00:57:47] Like, oh, can I get on that crop? Do you get a ride back to brag? You know? But it was always
[00:57:52] remembered. That was my first impression of those guys. Like, how come they get lear jets?
[00:57:56] No, they're they're important. We're the scrubs. But yeah, man. So that's how it all got started.
[00:58:02] You know, I had a slot to go to MFF and, you know, National Guard, young SF2 to get a slot in
[00:58:11] free fall was a big deal back then. You know, because back then we didn't all SF2 and all go to
[00:58:15] free fall. And so that chief was like, well, I mean, your orders are good for another year.
[00:58:21] Your detailed and assigned to us. And what do you want to do? That's what I mean. Well, you can
[00:58:27] go to free fall or you can come with us in life. I'm with you. Let's go. A couple of weeks like
[00:58:34] your man. We're in Afghanistan. You know, young, dumb kid. What that look like? So they're like,
[00:58:40] what kind of what they do say? All right, here's what we're doing. Yeah, a lot of people
[00:58:46] figured out. Like, you had used to say to you, yeah, I mean, it was like, hey, you know, call
[00:58:51] your family members. We're going to an isolation Monday. We're doing what? What's that? What's
[00:58:58] isolation? Like, this is how, like, I only, I was fleshed out into about what that Robin says.
[00:59:01] I didn't completely understand, right? And honestly, most of the guys didn't either. It was like,
[00:59:06] no, just because I was new, none of the force had been to war either. There was still only a handful
[00:59:11] of guys in SF because only a handful of fifth group dudes got to play in the Gulf War.
[00:59:15] Yeah, handful of guys from Mogadishu, you know, no combat experience. Yeah, I was going to say,
[00:59:22] in your actual team, there might have been zero. The chief had stuff in South American 80s,
[00:59:29] you know, but all, you know, by with and through advisement stuff. But yeah, man, so I'm like,
[00:59:35] okay, well, here we go. And I'm in, I got to go and be in Torbora, you know, so there was basically
[00:59:43] a lot of, because it's funny for us, like we all know how it all played out. But I mean,
[00:59:47] there's an entire generation of Americans that were born either right at or after 911,
[00:59:53] who don't understand, right? There was two parts of Afghanistan that was the Taliban,
[00:59:57] right? The horse soldiers and everybody that came down from the north and
[01:00:01] background, you know, triple nickel, you know, all that team did all that. And then there was Torbora,
[01:00:06] pardon me. And, you know, okay, so I got lucky enough to be involved in all of that. My team settled
[01:00:14] in Jalalabad. Where'd you find, where, how'd you get in there? Yeah, he though. Yeah. So he
[01:00:20] loaded into Jalalabad and you guys get, um, we, he loaded in South of Jalalabad, North of Torbora.
[01:00:25] And then what was your, what'd you do? Um, I'll just support it. Mostly supported the J tax and
[01:00:30] CCTV guys dropping bombs. All right. And tried to mostly coordinate and keep our, you know,
[01:00:37] there was two main warlords in this region. And one was Hazard Ali. And the other was Saman.
[01:00:43] And Zaman spoke English. And then was the agency's pick to be that Nengahar warlord,
[01:00:50] that Nengahar leader. Was the man had lived in Britain for 10 or 12 years. He left Afghanistan.
[01:00:57] Hazard Ali was moves, man. He was, he was a farmer. Right. You know, a lot of folks
[01:01:04] don't realize, man. You know, Afghanistan of the 14 most opium producing countries in the world.
[01:01:10] Afghanistan was number 14 when we invaded. It's number one right now. That's a horrible result of
[01:01:18] this war. Well, Hazard Ali, who ultimately became the minister of defense, afghanistan, was a farmer.
[01:01:24] But also, a freedom fighter moves against the Taliban. The Taliban very much disallowed,
[01:01:30] opium growth. You know, they, they were all about, you know, that was a sin. So,
[01:01:37] you know, we changed that. I get into the Taliban.
[01:01:40] All right. Everybody started going opium. You know, and wow, what beautiful fields, those pink
[01:01:45] red flowers, man. They're beautiful. But, ooh, it's just death growing out of the ground.
[01:01:50] You know, so anyway, yeah, man. How long are you on the ground for? How much longer? This is where
[01:01:57] my first. This is that question is where my fairy tell of initial entry and
[01:02:02] special horses begins to end. So, fifth group wanted out as fast as they could. So,
[01:02:10] January, February, they're already like, yeah, we're going to the horn. When do you get their
[01:02:13] November? So, November, December, January and fifth group is already, the fifth group is like,
[01:02:19] they want out. They want to get to the horn of Africa, right? There's still no talk of Iraq at this point.
[01:02:24] Right? It's like, oh, horn of Africa. We're going to Somali and everybody wanted that.
[01:02:28] Oh, okay. We're going to get some and return that favor. Right? It's 10-year-old favor. We owe those
[01:02:33] Somali's. Everybody wanted to get there. Well, then the clear-of-battle plans changed and
[01:02:38] Iraq became a thing. Well, so 19th group and third group start showing up. So they're like,
[01:02:44] hey, look, we're just going to, you're going to be continuity. You're going to help this next team
[01:02:48] rip in. Right? So, I got left. I wanted to stay like another six months. And I was like, oh, no.
[01:02:57] So, that was where that ferry to. Everything happened. It really cool. Kind of went, oh shit.
[01:03:02] But it wasn't bad because I wound up being on a team with a bunch of dudes that were good friends.
[01:03:07] Mine actually got to go be an LNO for a few weeks up in Tashkint, Uzbekistan. So, as a, you know,
[01:03:15] 24, 25-year-old young little buck. My first experience in a former Soviet area. It was nice,
[01:03:22] nice four weeks apart. I was supposed to work at the embassy. I think I went to the embassy twice.
[01:03:27] I was the assistant LNO. The LNO was this former tech group dude who had retired, got called back in.
[01:03:35] And he had been working like the Miami-Dade organized crime task force. He was a, he,
[01:03:42] I'm not a says that. He had a very Ukrainian name. He was from the Ukrainian. He came to America when
[01:03:48] he was like 12. So, he spoke Russian, Ukrainian. Man, he had all kinds of stuff going on in Ukraine.
[01:03:53] Or not Ukrainian. Uzbekistan. And he was connected as the LNO out there. If you needed something
[01:03:59] out of Uzbekistan, he could get it. I mean, the second night I was up there, the dude took me to a party
[01:04:04] at the Ukrainian Uzbekistan. He's president's daughter's house, no, man. And this dude knew
[01:04:12] everybody. He was the quintessential SF guy. But he's like almost 60. He's kind of a way. He speaks
[01:04:19] Russian and he's fluent. So, like four days after I get up there, he's like, oh, yeah, I'm going to the
[01:04:27] states. So now I'm just up there, the assistant LNO. And I'm living in the Sheraton, which that's
[01:04:33] rushing for Sheraton Hotel. So, all I learned. And so, I just pored it for like four weeks.
[01:04:40] And, you know, basically my job was to take, you know, my bud, my Uzbekistan, my brother, my Uzbekistan,
[01:04:46] and go pick up people from the airport, take them to the hotel and then take them back to the airport.
[01:04:50] So, they could fly into the FOB. And, so, yeah, man, pretty cool. But, yeah, so back to Afghanistan,
[01:04:59] and then finally home. And, you know, did you do any good ops? Like, what kind of missions were you doing?
[01:05:04] Yeah, you did a lot of cool stuff. You know, of course, you know, dropping all the bombs in Torboro's
[01:05:09] school. Of course, we started. And there was still a lot of, you know, stuff out there, you know,
[01:05:15] we went after some, um, diagonal and chetions, you know, some of those, as they were, you know,
[01:05:22] because, you know, when you guys already working with a partner force, yeah, we started the
[01:05:27] initial, what became the command dose. It was called the MRF, the Merff Mobile Reaction Force,
[01:05:33] there in Jalalabon. Jalabon wasn't a base. It was just a crappy airfield. Every time we went
[01:05:37] and get a resupply, we had to clear the airfield. And, uh, clear the runway, make sure that
[01:05:41] and putting you thing on, you know, the MC130s would, you know, squeak in in the middle of the night,
[01:05:47] drop our junk off. And, um, so we started building what became Jalalabon's FOB. We built
[01:05:53] ranges out there and started training this, uh, Hossard Ali's guys. And, you know, I was
[01:05:59] sorry about Zaman and Hossard Ali. They, they're the reason freaking, uh, you be all got away.
[01:06:06] They were supposed to be helping us deal with Al Qaeda and they turned on each other, right? So
[01:06:12] Zaman, the CIA's pick, no one liked him. He had no real pull. He was nobody. He had most of these
[01:06:17] kids had never heard of him. And Ali, who's been there, you know, running a show,
[01:06:21] he's not having it. So, yeah, man, they started fighting with each other and you got, like,
[01:06:27] you know, half the teams over there with them and some of the other teams and then half of us
[01:06:31] over here with Zaman or, uh, Hossard Ali's guys and they're fighting each other. And we're like,
[01:06:36] wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. We're supposed to be killing those dudes. So, it screwed the war up
[01:06:40] for about three days as we sorted that mess out. And, yeah, man, that's when that's when he escaped.
[01:06:46] That's when he got out. How do you guys sort that out? Ultimately, the agency stepped in,
[01:06:50] they were running the show there, right? The Julietteens. And we were basically supporting them.
[01:06:56] And we had two masters, right? We had the FOB in fifth groups, Colonel Mulholen. And then, of course,
[01:07:02] we had the ground branch guys. And they were running the show in Torbore. And so, we, uh,
[01:07:12] freaking sorted that mess out. And basically, they told Zaman, like, a stand-out. And once everything was
[01:07:18] hashed out, settled back, by went to Jawabod. Zaman actually went back to the to Britain. They
[01:07:26] exiled him. That's what Hossard Ali told everybody that he exiled him. But really, they just
[01:07:30] was like, hey, man, you just need to lead your own. So it was a bad call. And it was, you know,
[01:07:34] uh, one of those convenient things he spoke English, Hossard Ali did. And,
[01:07:40] bad call, when our part on who we decided, we thought we could put in power.
[01:07:44] Um, we didn't really understand how much influence Hossard Ali really had over the post to people.
[01:07:50] Well, at least they had the humility to recognize that and say, all right, cool. We screwed this up.
[01:07:55] Let's get this guy out of here and move forward. You know, it's interesting to
[01:08:00] history repeats itself, right? Like talking about the SF guys and Vietnam.
[01:08:04] I even have those, like guys shoot each other on base between the, the, the, the, the mongs and, uh,
[01:08:11] whatever other groups like the regular view. I mean, they'd get in fights, right? And shoot each other.
[01:08:15] Yeah. Yeah. Like, well, and then they go out and mission with these guys. That's one of our
[01:08:19] biggest problems, right? We for some reason as Americans, we have this arrogance that we think everyone's
[01:08:24] like us and likes the things we like. And, well, you know, we have this amazing experiment in America,
[01:08:31] this diversity that's never been this way. And he wear else on the planet ever. So we can walk out on the
[01:08:39] street, go to McDonald's and see 20 different ethnicities, freaking people from all around the world.
[01:08:46] Right? At least their ancestors are. And in some cases, they literally just came from that.
[01:08:50] Mm-hmm. Well, in other countries, those people will fight each other, right? They're like
[01:08:55] from different villages and different tribes. And they don't like each other and never going to.
[01:08:59] We think we can impose that. Right? Like, Americans can't grasp why the shit and the Sunni
[01:09:06] absolutely hate each other and we'll fight each other. And the only time they'll come together
[01:09:11] is to fight someone else to hate more. Us or Israel. Right? Yeah, you know, Americans,
[01:09:18] and we're bad about it. You know, we really think we can imply or impose our way of doing things.
[01:09:26] And you know, the deal, man, you know, you got your kind of or whoever else at the F.O.B.
[01:09:31] We're out there living with these boys. You know, living with them. There are our team.
[01:09:35] And we're trying to explain all the dynamics of it. And you got some可能 who's never done
[01:09:39] even like Fidz or J.S. at much less run an unconventional war with a partner force.
[01:09:44] I was frustrating, you know? Because it to me is just simple.
[01:09:48] You know, it's like, hey, just be nice to all these people. Sure you can stop treating them like crap
[01:09:52] and realize that that tribe and that tribe should not ever be put in the same unit and given
[01:09:59] loaded weapons, they will shoot each other. But, man, it's us, you know, it's just how we do
[01:10:05] things and like you said it. We just repeat it time and time again. Yeah, sometimes I think it's
[01:10:12] it's conceit or whatever arrogance that we think. Well, if we tell you guys to work together,
[01:10:17] we're going to work together. And sometimes I think it's just arrogance. It just don't realize like,
[01:10:20] hey, at least these two people that you're talking to right now, they're not going to get along
[01:10:25] ever, ever, ever. Nothing you can do. Yeah. Unless for some reason, like, ever,
[01:10:31] you say, ever as well. That's what the hell goes against that. But it's so good.
[01:10:35] The person's gone. You can be an ally for the next two days. How much money are you going to
[01:10:39] get out of this? You know, if it like, and you know, that's funny. I've always tried to tell folks,
[01:10:44] there's a huge difference between allies and friends. An allies are usually pretty predictable.
[01:10:49] Because that means we have a very common goal, a common enemy, a common, we have a common
[01:10:56] ality. Whereas friends, a lot of times friends, that's a loose relationship based mostly on emotion.
[01:11:02] Right? And you, you see it all the time. Who hurts our feelings the most? Our friends.
[01:11:08] Our allies are predictable. When you go into an alliance, so like business advice, I've always given
[01:11:13] guys business advice when a lesson is out of the list, don't start a business with a friend.
[01:11:17] If you have to have a partner and you shouldn't take a partner. But if you have to have a partner,
[01:11:22] get this endeavor started. Do not do it with a friend. I haven't listened to that advice. Like,
[01:11:27] all my businesses are with all my friends. I hope you had better luck than I have.
[01:11:32] That's a good, man. It's hard. You know, when you got, especially we tend to start businesses
[01:11:38] with guys like us. And we're also hard headed and setting our ways and all that, you know, and if
[01:11:44] there's not some type of clear hierarchy in those operations agreements and that stuff that
[01:11:49] you can always go back to and be like, hey buddy, this is what the company says.
[01:11:54] Well, in my case, we didn't even have like an operations agreement. We just started it and then,
[01:11:58] you know, luckily it didn't dissolve into where we hated each other and it's like that. But,
[01:12:04] my dad always told me that he was like, you know, you know, a partner don't have one.
[01:12:07] Yeah. And then sure enough, he was right. He was smart. Yeah, man. The crew was awesome.
[01:12:16] So how, so you end up going to, so you end up spending this first like, what is it?
[01:12:20] A year and a nine months and a half, and a little bit of time, and he's back.
[01:12:24] 7.5 months and then what happens? So we're home and you're in the national guard. Are you
[01:12:32] so you're in the national guard? Yeah, but I'm on active duty. Okay. So it's no different.
[01:12:36] No, so, you know, the guard guys would mow and demobes and there would be two months on the,
[01:12:42] you know, they let's say they deployed for eight months. And that was pretty typical.
[01:12:45] It was two months of mob and in two months of demobes for a total of a year,
[01:12:52] deployment. Got it. And so it was the deployment two months on the front end, two months on the back end.
[01:12:57] That became the standard for SF, national guard. Well, mine was kind of like, well, what do I do now?
[01:13:03] Who do I belong to when I'm working for? And so I was lucky. I freaking,
[01:13:11] did some, the counter drug mission for the national guard. It's advisement to law enforcement.
[01:13:18] So I did that until, right? Yeah. And it's providing surveillance training,
[01:13:26] you know, deal with it. It's kind of, what about possible?
[01:13:30] Sculpt well, you know, we're unarmed. Most of the time, you know, sometimes you know,
[01:13:35] we're really going to go out in the middle of West Virginia and reveal these methods with 30
[01:13:39] out six rifles. Probably going to carry my personal firearm and deal with the ramifications later.
[01:13:45] And I had a couple times where methods like, we were snow,
[01:13:50] we actually didn't think he was home. He must have been sleeping it off, you know, because
[01:13:54] methods would, you know, they'd be up for days and then they'll sleep for days. And we thought this
[01:13:58] math trailer, there was no, you know, they weren't cooking or whatever. And our sitting on the
[01:14:03] size mountain that snow, we're wearing woodland camouflage, we're eating, we're messing about,
[01:14:08] we didn't build a high-side, some come up. We're not taking this seriously. And we're like 250
[01:14:14] meters from this dude's, it's like a cabin and a trailer, open his holler in West Virginia.
[01:14:21] Dude, he comes out and starts scanning with his hunt right for an scope. Dang. And we're just sitting
[01:14:28] there trying to get behind your trees. We're sticking out like sore thums and we're not wearing
[01:14:33] overwides or anything, just dumb. Because like I said, we weren't taking it seriously. You know,
[01:14:38] we just been to Afghanistan. We're a bunch of tough guys. What's this dumb red neck? We're looking
[01:14:43] at Redneck didn't see us in shoot us, right? Cause let's face it, Redneck boys, you know, they
[01:14:47] can shoot. Wouldn't have been the first time he shot something without hunting rifle. You know,
[01:14:51] I was like, oh, good God. I was running a recon course one time. This is like before the war. And I had
[01:14:58] this group up in the mountains. And they're they're like laid up in a high-side, right? And I'm
[01:15:05] a land-grade, right? So I'm out there, but I'm camied up to cause I'm all fired up. So I would like
[01:15:10] sneak around and so I'm kind of sneaking up on them to kind of observe what they're doing to make
[01:15:16] sure that they're being square away. And as I'm sitting there observing them and I'm not that far away from
[01:15:22] them, like 50 meters away, a guy, I hear like a dog, right? And I'm like, oh, these catcher can
[01:15:27] get, you know, bus, dude, this is going to be cool. I'm going to watch the whole thing. So a guy
[01:15:32] comes out, he's got two-fork and German shepherds with them. And they look badass. They look like
[01:15:37] freaking wolves. And so the guys, you know, I'm watching this whole thing play out. And you know,
[01:15:42] the guys pick up that they're coming because they, it was a square-dwayered little crew. They,
[01:15:46] they pick up a guy coming, they go like fade in. They're, they're hunkered down.
[01:15:50] Guy comes walking down this path. It wasn't even a road. It was a path.
[01:15:54] And he doesn't, he's none the wiser. And all of the sun, the dogs, bro, the dogs are like,
[01:15:59] they stop, they start growling. And all of the sun, the guy like starts scanning.
[01:16:05] Yeah. He reaches down and pulls out a 45 bro. And I'm like 50 meters away. And I go,
[01:16:14] excuse me, so the guys, I just go, excuse me, sir, you know, because I'm, we're in America. Like,
[01:16:20] you said, I just know what the hell's going on, man. I'm like, excuse me, sir, sir, you know,
[01:16:24] sir, it's okay. I said, we're in the military. We're on training operation, but
[01:16:29] it was not a good scenario to have. Yeah, there was lots of things like that. You know, especially
[01:16:34] in the urban side, good friend of mine, they called him the SF Cowboy. They used his likeness in
[01:16:42] that video game and all that. I don't know if you remember some of the first pictures that came
[01:16:45] out of Afghanistan, big dude, sleeves cut off, people here. He was my roommate. We're sitting in a
[01:16:52] little mini van watching his house and freaking, I'm like, oh crap, I think it's like two in the
[01:16:58] morning, you know, and freaking dude walks up. Oh shit, revolver pointing at us. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
[01:17:07] freaking rolls it down. Most of the time we had a law enforcement that guy with us, but in this case,
[01:17:11] it was him and I and the law enforcement dudes were in another car up the road. And now it's like,
[01:17:16] hey bro, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, well, he's just a concerned citizen, you know, and we're lucky,
[01:17:22] you know, that could have gone so bad. Can you imagine the headline? All right, like, say one of
[01:17:27] us made a mistake and put him on the dirt. You know, an American civilian? Yeah, and, you know,
[01:17:33] so since then, I've done a couple of things where I'm at advising law enforcement in the states,
[01:17:38] meaningapolis, right? A couple of you before last, right? When that home must kicked off.
[01:17:45] And it's like, hey, man, I don't care if you're far left. I don't care if you're BLM and
[01:17:52] riding, right? You're the American. I'm not squeezing the trigger on American, right? You can't.
[01:17:58] Wrong answer. Now, if you're threatening me, that's different. But just, hey, man, if you're
[01:18:03] robbing and looting a best buy, hmm, to me, that's not something I can pull the trigger on somebody
[01:18:08] for, man. This is not in my, in my book. And it's weird, you know, it's weird, like you have to remind
[01:18:14] guys, like, hey, guys, this is not an operation. We are here in advisement. Only only if you have
[01:18:20] done everything you can to get out of that situation. And it's defensive yourself with third party,
[01:18:27] man, right? Like, because of backlash, or something like that would be huge. There was those,
[01:18:33] it was that old, the border surveillance thing. Oh, yeah, you didn't shot that guy, like, like,
[01:18:39] like, 90s. I don't know if I forgot the name of the, it was, it had an operation of names. It was like,
[01:18:44] right? Yeah, they'd sent all kinds of guys down there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Marines shot that one,
[01:18:48] fella. And I was a big deal, and they shot that program down. And we were kind of like a part of
[01:18:53] that same umbrella. But yeah, we all just, you know, joking, it's not really that funny. Now that I'm
[01:19:00] older that, you know, yeah, post-Positcomutatus, you know, now I look back and I'm like, should
[01:19:07] the military and the agency be allowed to advise, because it's face it, right? Like,
[01:19:12] in Waco, there were two one advisors on the ground. You know, that's stuff. That's kind of scary,
[01:19:21] man, you know, because, you know, the rule of law says that our intelligence organizations,
[01:19:27] and our military can't operate here. Of course, the National Guard gets around it a little bit
[01:19:31] with that statement. Yeah. But it's scary, right? There's a reason Post-A-Comus exists. So that military
[01:19:37] can't turn its weapons towards our population. So looking back, like, I might, man, we are
[01:19:42] kids. We are joking, like, man, Post-A-Comutatus. Now I'm like, whoa, it's not funny anymore.
[01:19:48] Right? Like, you know, when you're, when you're young and dumb, you make jokes that are inappropriate,
[01:19:52] because you're young and dumb. And now I look back, I'm like, I don't know that we should be doing that.
[01:19:56] Right? Like, I know law enforcement needs help. But yeah, there's always shouldn't be getting it from us.
[01:20:01] There's definitely, I don't know, there's a positive and negative to it too, because obviously,
[01:20:06] if you have guys that can help law enforcement improve their, what they do,
[01:20:11] like, that's beneficial. And then there's two, two sides of that point too, because
[01:20:17] guys that are in the military have a certain mindset. Part of that mindset is, hey, man, we've
[01:20:22] been through this before. Somebody gets starts getting crazy. We're not worried about it. We're not
[01:20:25] freaking out. Like, we'll de-escalate in many cases de-escalate better than someone that hasn't
[01:20:30] been in these shitty situations before. But then not all military is created equal. So you might
[01:20:35] get someone from the same unit that goes, if somebody does that shit, you gotta freaking go.
[01:20:40] And you're like, no, actually, that's not the right answer. So there can be a positive,
[01:20:46] there can be a negative that both those situations, you could have somebody from the military
[01:20:52] perform awesome. You could also have someone from the military do something stupid. I mean,
[01:20:56] just because you're in the military doesn't mean you're, it doesn't mean you're, it all over
[01:21:02] the map. You know, all over the map. Some guys tactically, they were in the military for 20 years.
[01:21:07] They're tactical idiots. You know, I've gotten out a couple of times with the whole campaign,
[01:21:12] like, well, just because you're a veteran doesn't mean you're, and I'm like, you're absolutely
[01:21:15] right. Being a veteran doesn't mean that I was even good at being a military. Right? Like, just because
[01:21:22] you were in the service doesn't mean you're even good at whatever your God was in the service.
[01:21:27] So it definitely doesn't automatically qualify you to be a politician. In a lot of ways,
[01:21:32] I feel like my experience is completely make me unqualified to be a typical politician.
[01:21:40] Right? Like, I'm just, well, I'm kind of getting out here. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not a politician and
[01:21:44] never have been, and that's what our country needs right now. And my experience is in the military
[01:21:52] have set me up to where I could go do good things for our country and never become a politician.
[01:21:58] I don't have that in my blood. It's just not how I am. Yeah. As I look at everything that's going
[01:22:03] on the last six months after the downfall of Afghanistan, and then even looking at Afghanistan,
[01:22:08] Iraq, and then use compare all that to Vietnam. And you say yourself, like those lessons,
[01:22:14] every lesson that you can look back at Afghanistan and say, wow, you know, we learn this. We
[01:22:19] already knew this. We already knew this stuff from Vietnam. And so when it comes to people being
[01:22:26] in the government that are figuring out where we're going to war, I used to think, yeah, you know,
[01:22:31] somebody should, somebody should be in the military if they're going to serve in the government.
[01:22:36] You know, if they're going to be a politician, they should have, they should have served in the military.
[01:22:40] It'd be be helpful, right? I used to think that like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. Like, oh, yeah,
[01:22:44] okay, yeah, that makes sense. You understand what continues to serve. Yeah, continue to serve.
[01:22:47] It's like, oh, yeah, you know what it's like, but now I'm, we absolutely need military people
[01:22:54] that are, that understand these lessons to the core that aren't just thinking with the arrogance that
[01:23:01] the generation that just sent us to war. I got it. Let's fight with fight for American principles.
[01:23:06] And but, or even worse, who's going to fight? You say we, who's the we? No, no, no, not we. Yeah,
[01:23:13] all right. Yeah, those military, those military guys. Anyway, in it, in it, funny, right? You'll
[01:23:19] hear about folks who had these awesome, blessed lives. Maybe like, Tillman and a fell football player.
[01:23:28] You hear these crazy stories about these people who had these awesome jobs or maybe they
[01:23:32] came from this awesome family and they go and he and listed it. Like, it's all to make
[01:23:38] this soon because he came from an amazing family that he should have been an officer, right?
[01:23:43] Like, that prejudice is weird. So the fact that a rich, well-to-do guy in lists and goes to fight
[01:23:51] for war, that's a story. Why is that a story? That shouldn't be a story, but it is, right? And I just
[01:23:58] use Tillman because he's such a famous story and what what an amazing man, you know, for he can
[01:24:03] pro football player, you know, with life is set for this guy, quits that and listen to
[01:24:09] Ranger Regiment, right? Like, whoa, bro, you really ask him for it. Like, that's an American stuff.
[01:24:14] But my point is, who's going to war? Typically, it's just those young,
[01:24:20] what else did you have to do with your life type of guys, you know? And in the guys, like, a lot of
[01:24:24] us, right? Let's face it, you know, a lot of upper middle class dudes and soft, you know, and
[01:24:29] you know, but and until that calling that I need to do this stuff because they're dad
[01:24:34] that's a mozzarella and they're good. But, yeah, man, Congress, right, is the only part of our government,
[01:24:45] per the Constitution that came to clear war? How is it? We've been at war for 20 years.
[01:24:55] What's the point? What was the point, right? Because in, in Delilah Bond, which has been considered
[01:25:01] for 10, 12 years now, hot spot, right? But in January, February, March of 2002, I was walking around
[01:25:10] the market without a gun. I'd hop on the ATV and jump in the truck, hop in the car with one of my
[01:25:17] troopers, one of my, F-gannies, run down, wearing an F-gannie guard, the biggest threat to me in that
[01:25:25] market or anywhere in Delilah about our all of Nango Harp Province was having the people hugged me
[01:25:32] too tightly. That was the biggest threat to me. Or maybe a car accident, a coach traffic's crazy.
[01:25:37] You know, they love this, they love this. So what happened? The conventional military showed up.
[01:25:44] So all the carinals and generals can get their stars and their awards and get their promotions.
[01:25:49] Those politicians, because it's facing it, right? Once you become a certain level,
[01:25:57] whether it's enlisted or officer, right, your career becomes that thing and then looking out for
[01:26:01] your other upper senior officer, senior enlisted, we've got to get them bronze stars, we've got
[01:26:08] in part-purple hearts, our unit needs metals, our unit needs combat, because to become a general
[01:26:14] without a C-I-B in the army. In this timeframe, you've got to go get some, right?
[01:26:20] And you're going to probably need a silver star, at least a bronze star would be.
[01:26:24] So how am I going to do that? Unless I go to war. So let's take these strikers and these
[01:26:27] M2 Bradley's and destroy roads and run over innocent people. And they weren't doing it on purpose.
[01:26:33] They're just, that's the conventional military. They have tanks. And you know, I've never driven
[01:26:39] a striker before, but I've sat in a hatch and like, how can you drive this? They would outrun
[01:26:43] it over everything, you know? And they're like, well, you do run over everything, because it can.
[01:26:49] Well, you know what, man, we made those enemies. We made the enemies. Then we're now fighting
[01:26:55] the second generation. We're fighting the sons of the men we killed in Torbore. We're fighting the
[01:27:01] sons of the men we killed in the Shai-Ka and helmet and everywhere else at the beginning of that war.
[01:27:07] We created that enemy. And the same thing happened in Iraq. And you know, let's face it, right?
[01:27:12] Afghanistan was righteous. You know, I kind of needed to fall. I looking back, is it a good strategy
[01:27:19] to topple regimes that are predictable? The Taliban was very predictable. The Taliban has never
[01:27:27] met the requirement to be listed as a terrorist organization. They were a sovereign nation.
[01:27:33] And yes, they had horrible, horrible means and human rights abuses, but they were a sovereign nation.
[01:27:39] And couldophy, sovereign nation. Freaking Iraq, sovereign nation. With dictators and dictators are
[01:27:48] predictable. They care about one thing. First and foremost, their main priority is their power.
[01:27:53] So they're predictable. You know, in the interviews with Saddam, he talks about like,
[01:27:58] I thought y'all were kidding. He was like, I thought y'all were making it up that you thought I
[01:28:03] had weapons of mass destruction and I haven't had gas in years. I don't know how many of that stuff.
[01:28:08] In his interviews, you know, he's going, I really didn't think y'all were going to invade.
[01:28:14] So why did we? I had my own theories. My theory is because people say we went to war for oil.
[01:28:22] And like, have you seen the oil prices? We didn't go for war for oil. We went to war with
[01:28:28] Iraq to stop its oil production. The prices went up. Because if we pumped oil out of Iraq,
[01:28:34] you want to make all the oil companies want to make money. Right? Because that's a new source
[01:28:39] that we didn't, they didn't have rights or access to. You stop the oil.
[01:28:46] All right. Lower the supply. The man stays at or continues to increase.
[01:28:52] It's going up. So that's a little bit of my theory on that, but whatever, either way, at least,
[01:28:59] and that's only based off of what I have seen since. When we first invaded Iraq,
[01:29:03] we were like, let's go. You know, like every other world, you know, on Trooper.
[01:29:07] But really, you know, we're talking hundreds of thousands of Iraqians, thousands of Americans.
[01:29:12] And what did we get? Right? If you tell me, you know, because war was supposed to be for expansion,
[01:29:19] minerals, riches, right? Throughout human history, war has been to expand your empire.
[01:29:25] Well, we suck it being an imperial power because we go to these wars and we do nothing with the
[01:29:31] spoils. So why do we keep sending Americans? Because let's face it. Was it really for our national
[01:29:35] defense? Or was it for our national interests? Because that's two very different things.
[01:29:41] Most of my work throughout my life has been for interests. Let's about defense.
[01:29:46] Because once Al Qaeda was destroyed and eliminated and even ISIS and Al Qaeda in Iraq,
[01:29:52] where they ever really capable of attacking us here.
[01:29:57] Yeah, you know, they flew the planes into those towers and killed 3,000 plus people.
[01:30:03] But did they ever really threaten our daily lives? Did they threaten America the United States?
[01:30:10] Probably not. You know, right? Could they ever brought that war on a large scale to America?
[01:30:16] And affected the average Americans they live? No, they didn't have that capability.
[01:30:21] And I mean, clearly, right? Like, none of that's really, we haven't had any big attacks.
[01:30:27] Since 9th November, and I think they just blew their waad. They were done. I don't think they had any
[01:30:32] plan after that. It was like, oh crap. Now what? We pissed these guys off and they're coming for us.
[01:30:39] Now what? Right? They never really did anything since. So my point is, right? Like,
[01:30:45] where has Congress been? Where has our representatives and our Senate been these last 20 years?
[01:30:51] Military industrial complex continues to make big time money, big time money.
[01:30:55] When our elicit soldiers are in barracks, they're covered in mold, just nastyness, right?
[01:31:02] They're living in poverty. Whereas you can go to the General's House on any post.
[01:31:07] And it's a well-gruned lawn and it's basically a little mansion, right?
[01:31:12] So what did we get out of these wars? Well, that's arguable, right? It's very arguable.
[01:31:18] But the bottom line is, Congress has continued to set it aside. It's authority. It's duty.
[01:31:26] It's role. It's responsibility to either declare war or cut the funding.
[01:31:33] They didn't cut the funding. A lot of people got rich off these wars. And I mean, I was a contractor.
[01:31:39] Gilti, I got paid for going to war. Now did I get paid like Glock or, you know, north
[01:31:46] or up or right the on or... No, of course not. But... Well, you got a positive outlook.
[01:31:55] I believe they're not. From my perspective, because the positive outlook would be that
[01:31:59] somebody was smart enough to figure out that if they did this stuff, they'd be able to
[01:32:05] raise the price of oil and these other... To me, that's a positive outlook to think that someone
[01:32:10] was smart enough to actually craft the things that you're saying. Right.
[01:32:14] I don't know if they actually was planned or if they just didn't stumble into it.
[01:32:18] Here's why. Because I worry about they, people are at least conspiracy theories. I'm like,
[01:32:22] I have time they can't figure out where the bathroom is. That's what makes... That's what
[01:32:26] disturbs me more than anything else is that it's the arrogance combined with the
[01:32:32] being naive, the naive to think, okay, here's what's going on in Iraq. Look,
[01:32:39] we know that Saddam's not a good guy. We can probably create some kind of a good ally there.
[01:32:44] And we can probably just turn this into a democracy because we like democracy and we, you know,
[01:32:49] we like it and all those people must want to be free too. And we've got people that came from
[01:32:53] Iraq or that are in Iraq that say, hell yeah, we want to be free. So cool. Let's invade.
[01:32:59] And in their minds, it plays out, hey, it's going to be like the first Gulf War. It'll take us,
[01:33:03] you know, a couple weeks. Then we'll start to get rid of the bath party. We'll establish,
[01:33:08] we'll start building Walmart. Right. I think that that's what they thought more than anything else.
[01:33:12] Probably. And it's just an arrogant, it's just arrogance. It's well, it's not just arrogance.
[01:33:19] It's arrogance and it's ignorance to think that you can go and, you know, there's a,
[01:33:25] when it comes to the economy, right? When you start trying to dictate, when you start having
[01:33:29] a centralized economy, it's, you cannot pull it off. You can't do it. You can't pull off a centralized
[01:33:34] economy. That's why communism doesn't work. You have to let the free market kind of do its thing.
[01:33:38] So if you think, if you, if we know that you can't control an economy, which is a finite thing,
[01:33:45] and a controllable thing, and some, in some feasible way, and we can't control it. But at least you
[01:33:52] can understand what it is. But now we think we're going to take a bunch of millions of people
[01:33:56] and predict how they're going to respond and predict what the secondary tertiary effects are
[01:34:00] going to be with what they think and how they're going to behave. Like that's completely insane.
[01:34:05] To think that we, we think we are going to control the future with other people. We think we understand
[01:34:11] what they're doing. We can't. So we have to start behaving in a way that we utilize our power
[01:34:20] to make, to attempt to influence. But we can't think to ourselves that the things are going to
[01:34:25] play out. The way we think they're going to play out because they don't. They couldn't even figure
[01:34:30] out these two freaking guys in Afghanistan. One of them is from England. Hey everyone's going to
[01:34:35] listen this guy. Meanwhile, this is local here that's been running shit for years. And we think
[01:34:40] this other guy is going to fly in from England. He speaks English. He must be smart. Everyone's going to listen
[01:34:43] him. No. No. And then you just play that out over and over and over again in a bunch of different
[01:34:48] scenarios in Iraq and in Afghanistan and in Iraq. And that's what you end up with. So that's why
[01:34:54] I'm so happy that guys like you are stepping up people that understand that we don't understand.
[01:35:01] Right. People that understand that we can't control everything. People that understand that the
[01:35:05] enemy gets a vote. This civilians gets a vote. Like all those things come into play.
[01:35:09] Right. And we run around like we can figure it all out. Nothing is too close to you. It was
[01:35:13] four. No. It's always an equation with hundreds, if not thousands of variables. And at any time
[01:35:18] you change one variable to get the continued result, you're going to have to change every variable
[01:35:24] or many of them. Right. And Americans, we couple are the arrogance. Right. So what is,
[01:35:30] I always say arrogance is ignorance and cockiness combined. And in Lord knows we are a lot of
[01:35:37] ignorance. And then you've got the cockiness. And we think we really think that people want 5G or 4G
[01:35:45] or 3G or whatever it was 10 years ago. They want that. But you've got this culture that no one wants
[01:35:50] to bother to understand. Who understands the culture of the afghanies? Who understands the culture
[01:35:56] of the Azidi and Northern Iraq or the Kurds in very North Iraq or the Shia in Southeastern?
[01:36:04] Who understands this stuff? The guy on the ground. The guy on the ground. You know, we were talking
[01:36:10] about, you know, you familiar with Lieutenant Colonel Stewart Sheller and Marine Corps. He was on the
[01:36:15] podcast, yeah. He was on the podcast, right? Right. Yeah. I haven't talked to him a couple weeks.
[01:36:20] He and I went down to the border. And I told him, like, hey, bro, I got a, so he and I joke about
[01:36:27] how we met. We talked through it. We were on with Evan and J.T. with the Plight Rifle and we were
[01:36:32] talking about how we met. It's a pretty funny story. But we went down there and we talked with a
[01:36:39] border patrol agent who's a very good friend of mine and of course, off unofficial because he would get
[01:36:45] fired for even entertaining having a conversation with a congressional candidate or House of
[01:36:51] Representatives candidate. But he talked to us and he showed us some places where he'd go and look
[01:36:55] before and broke it down for us. Nothing in the media that I had heard was anything like the
[01:37:03] border really is. At least in this section in this section of Texas around Rome and Rio Grande
[01:37:09] city. And it was just nothing like I thought because we were on the ground. He, that fellow that
[01:37:16] border patrol agent, he's the guy on the ground. I just went and got some info from him. We went
[01:37:20] driving around and stuff and looked and everything he told us was exactly the way it was. And I was
[01:37:25] like, oh, we grabbed him. But the border patrols on them basically a gag order man. They talked
[01:37:30] to somebody. They did their jobs over done. So, yeah man, kind of shellernight, the funny thing
[01:37:37] is man, he, I got word that he might run for House. He went out of the Marine Corriette and
[01:37:46] and I had an outstead either. So a friend's of ours, some mutual friend, a major who had
[01:37:53] worked for Colonel, I reached out and was like, hey, he's like, hey, does that give me your numbers?
[01:38:00] He says you want to talk to me? Like, yes, sir, you know, our career paths may be about to collide.
[01:38:07] Be nice if we could just meet face to face in chat. He was like, okay, well, I'm up in Emerald
[01:38:12] I'll, you want to come up here. Yeah, House tomorrow morning. Set down. It was like, here you think
[01:38:19] about running into fourth and he was, because apparently at that time he had told two people,
[01:38:25] the fact that I knew it blew him away. He's like, whoa, he's dead. You know, luckily my team,
[01:38:31] my consulting team are very well connected and super smart guys or whatever. So anyway, we sat
[01:38:37] in chat and it was really cool conversation. I'm talking about mature adult conversation because
[01:38:42] he could have easily been like, you know, an arrogant dick and been like, whatever, I'll run
[01:38:46] guess whoever I want. But we said, hmm, we're two very similar types. Do we really need to run
[01:38:53] against each other? I live in the fourth. He doesn't. And now it's not the fourth anymore, but we can
[01:38:58] get to that. And I was just really cool conversation a little coffee shop there in Emerald Island,
[01:39:02] North Carolina, and we left it with, and I just, you know, I gained a lot of respect for the man
[01:39:06] when he was like, okay, I tell you why I'm going to think this over. I don't even know if I'm
[01:39:10] going to get out of the Marine Corps enough time to even, you know, get in the race, my wise. I'm
[01:39:14] thinking over. He's like, we're doing an announcement this day. He's like, okay, well, two days
[01:39:20] prior, I'll let you know. He's like, at least then, you'll know if we're running against each other.
[01:39:24] I'm like, Roger that. Thanks. Anyway, the Marine Corps didn't work out or whatever, and it didn't
[01:39:30] work out for him. I would like to think he'll run in 2024, you know? I know he's considering it.
[01:39:39] I'm not going to happen in two years, but yeah, man, what a good guy. And he's definitely a Marine
[01:39:44] Corps officer, right? Like, you know, you guys thought whether he's wrong, you know, but that, we
[01:39:51] need some of that, man. We need some of that. I mean, that dude threw his 17-ounce 18-year career
[01:39:57] out the window to just stand up and say something, which is funny because like, I hear and see
[01:40:04] people on the internet, like, condemn and import. And I'm like, enlist it, guys. I'm like, fellas,
[01:40:10] we have been begging, pleading, wishing, a colonel would stand up. And now you are trying to say
[01:40:17] this, this man is doing it for recognition. Like, just sit down and talk to him for two minutes,
[01:40:22] and you'll find it out, not so much. But yeah, we were in Roma taxes and we found out, we're looking,
[01:40:30] like, the people aren't coming across the border in the middle of the desert. They're coming
[01:40:34] across, like the bridge that goes across, there's the Border Patrol checkpoint at Roma.
[01:40:38] They're walking under the bridge, coming up, hitting the cul-de-sac, and every night they get picked
[01:40:42] up by the Border Patrol buses and taking a timid facility. You're not thinking across in the
[01:40:45] middle of the desert, walking right up in the town, sitting down, getting picked up every night.
[01:40:50] That's been going on for months, right? This whole shipping them around the nation,
[01:40:54] saying, that's not new. It's been going on for months. I had no idea. Those headlines had just
[01:40:59] broke the day before. I was like, oh, a crap, when did this start happening? My buddy was like,
[01:41:03] bro, we've been shipping illegal around this country for nine months, bro.
[01:41:09] He's like, the numbers are down. Yeah, he's like, yeah, it was 2000 coming across the border in this
[01:41:15] little section every night. He was, and then the cartels figured out and they all figured out, right?
[01:41:22] That the Border Patrol can only pick up about 200 and 9 now. So now only 200 and 9,
[01:41:29] come across. On the other side, on the backside of the border, they have warehouses or hotels,
[01:41:35] and it costs the stay there. But then we let 200 each night. So the cartel, the cost to come across the
[01:41:42] border, not being fair, not good coyote, not transportation. The cartels tax or fee to walk across
[01:41:51] the border to get your armband. So you can walk across the border, it's like, armband. But the cartel
[01:41:58] gives them an armband legit. On band on our side, nothing but trash. On bands. It's like going into a club.
[01:42:07] You pay, you get your armband, you're clear to go across. Well, and armbands are color-coded from
[01:42:12] which country you come from because in those warehouses that you can see from America right over there
[01:42:18] on the mic side, they're basically hotels, it's just carts and and format. Every night, you stay
[01:42:24] there's a hundred dollars to walk across that borders, nine hundred to twelve hundred dollars
[01:42:28] going where you, where you come from. Or if you don't want to spend a couple nights in that hotel warehouse,
[01:42:36] you can pay more. But that's what it costs. In Texas alone last year, 1.7 million illegal immigrants,
[01:42:44] illegal crosses of our border were detained. But just how many were detained in Texas. Just Texas.
[01:42:50] That's how many more to detained. Now how many people came along across and this whole evolution of
[01:42:55] the book, Border Patrol and Customs facilitating the integration and fairing throughout the country.
[01:43:00] It used to be, you know, counties with continued and pickup. We destroyed that business and gave it all the
[01:43:06] cartels. So 1.7 million, let's say, a thousand bucks, times a thousand dollars.
[01:43:14] And we can only guess that double that were not in detained. So let's just call it an even three
[01:43:19] mill, times a thousand dollars. That's what we gave the cartels just in Mexico.
[01:43:25] And when I say we gave it to him, we created this marketplace for them. That's what this administration
[01:43:31] did by opening the borders. They created a marketplace where the cartels now, they don't really even
[01:43:38] care about drugs. The drugs that are coming across our border now are coming across in a backpack,
[01:43:43] not truckloads. There's no more marijuana coming across in truckloads. That's very,
[01:43:47] they're not seizing marijuana anymore. It's backpacks of fentanyl and heroin.
[01:43:53] Because 30 pound backpack of fentanyl, I can damn near kill the whole East Coast.
[01:43:59] Stuff is so potent. 30, 40 pounds of black tar, unprocessed, opium, hash, bring it to the
[01:44:05] state's process in the heroin. One backpack turns into freaking half a million dollars worth of heroin.
[01:44:11] How do we combat that if we don't get serious about true border security and even beyond that,
[01:44:19] right? Because no, no, that's one of my problems with Americans, but Republicans more so
[01:44:25] that everything's a linear solution, build a wall. And then what? No one's asking and then what?
[01:44:36] So we build this wall. We're going to do it. Put guns on it. People are like, yeah. Okay. So we're
[01:44:40] going to shoot our southern neighbors who want to come to America. Okay? I don't blame them for
[01:44:45] wanting to come here, but there's a line getting the back of it. There's a line to come here.
[01:44:52] So yes, it's got to be multifaceted, right? It can't be just build a wall.
[01:44:57] That's not solving the problem. That's just a measure to slow
[01:45:02] part of the result of the problem, the illegal immigration. Why are our neighbors wanting to
[01:45:06] come here so badly? Because all our southern neighbors, their countries are crap.
[01:45:12] Had we adhered to the monorodotron and quit worried about Europe and quit worrying about them,
[01:45:18] Middle East. I mean, we spent billions in movies. What if we'd invested that in our southern
[01:45:21] neighbors instead of letting say, I don't know, one of the richest, richest wealthiest countries in the
[01:45:26] world, Venezuela, fall of communism right underneath our noses? Why? Why did we do that? Why are we not?
[01:45:34] Actually, hoping, Mexico. Oh, we want to take these hard lines and look like a bunch of tough guys.
[01:45:42] It's not solving the problem. And it kills me that that's all all these solutions, right? When you
[01:45:49] like all my opponents across the nation, if you if you talk to Republican candidates for any
[01:45:53] office from city council, probably to the next president, they're going to have one
[01:45:58] linear solution for any problem you talk to them about because what talking points. But no one's
[01:46:04] actually discussing root causes of problems. So the border security, a wall, is a measure, not a
[01:46:12] solution. It's not, it's not going to solve the problem. You're building a wall, well, there's these
[01:46:18] two bodies of water on each side of it, right? You know, the deal, there's not a single security
[01:46:25] measure put on this planet. Whatever you build, whether security protocol you build, there's
[01:46:32] just guys like us that can get around it, right? It's just like lawyers, right? Lawyers can write
[01:46:36] about to legal documents and then some other lawyers can figure out how to screw that. It's the
[01:46:40] same thing. It's not warfare. It's like, you're going to be does this. They set up these obstacles.
[01:46:46] You figure out how to get around them. Well, here's an idea. Let's address it at its root cause.
[01:46:52] And I don't know, maybe the demand to come here. Well, let's say 20 years from now. Oh my God.
[01:47:04] And that's not an American thing, right? 20 years from now? Next election cycle only.
[01:47:08] Four years old, right? Americans think in four year blocks if we're lucky. What if 20 years
[01:47:13] from now? Mexico is a thriving ally. And there's no cartels. We help them get rid of it. We give
[01:47:20] them incentives to stop teaming up with the cartels. Same goes for Panama, Costa Rica,
[01:47:27] and at Garagua, Salvador. We help them with the game problems. We hope them. And I don't mean just
[01:47:32] toss money at it. Wece money. When I say invest, right? Invest means there's a implied return on
[01:47:43] that investment. Americans, when our Congress just allocates funds, they just throw money in things.
[01:47:52] They don't actually follow up or have measures in place to ensure our return on investment.
[01:47:59] So my point here is, man, that's part of why I'm running is I'm so tired of these very
[01:48:03] literal band-aids to hemorrhaging wounds. And the wall is just one great example of that.
[01:48:12] I mean, name any other hot topic right now. Abortion, banning. The same people that say banning
[01:48:21] abortion will solve that problem. The same people that will tell you that banning guns won't
[01:48:26] get rid of guns. Where's the logic and reason here, folks? So like with abortion,
[01:48:33] yeah, man, it's horrible. I mean, even people who are pro-choice will go, yeah, it's bad.
[01:48:39] And it's very, only the craziest of the crazy are like four abortion, right? That's human beings are
[01:48:45] not for killing unborn children. Generally speaking. So why are we having abortions?
[01:48:55] Let's make a middle eagle. Okay. Cool. Let's make a middle eagle. We're done. But we're not done.
[01:49:00] Could we just have it addressed? Why are we? Why are women wanting or feeling that need
[01:49:08] to abort their unborn child? First of all, the three of us will never, ever be able to
[01:49:16] understand sympathize with a woman that is so desperate that she wants to abort her child.
[01:49:24] Right? I just, first of all, we have to say that out loud, right?
[01:49:28] Okay. So let's bring in the experts. Let's talk to some ladies. I know that sounds crazy, right?
[01:49:34] Let's go find the subject matter experts and figure out why this is happening. Well,
[01:49:40] I asked people all in time, what's the number one demographic in America having abortions?
[01:49:46] Do you guys know? Put your on the spot, right? Yeah, I was a little surprised too. 17 to 22-year-old
[01:49:52] upper-middle-class white women. Why? Well, because their fathers have told them they need to
[01:50:00] go to college because modern feminism have told them they need to go to college. They need to get
[01:50:05] careers in a child in heaven's now. Right? And this is a very summarize version of this very,
[01:50:15] very complex problem. So what if we as a community, as a government, right? It's okay for the
[01:50:24] government to do things for the community, right? Like we can, we can have some good social welfare
[01:50:30] problems, right? Things that support the wellness of our communities and our culture and our nation.
[01:50:38] So when I use welfare, I don't mean just throwing money at stuff and not expecting some type of return.
[01:50:43] So if we start saying okay, what if we create a robust and efficient adoption program?
[01:50:52] What if there's assistance for these women to carry their children to terms that have
[01:50:58] terminating them? What if? And I say what if? Because I don't know the answer, right? And that's
[01:51:03] weird for a political candidate to tell you he doesn't know for sure what he's talking about, right?
[01:51:07] But we know that, right? We come up with courses of actions and then say, okay, we're going to do
[01:51:13] this and then we try to anticipate what our adversary is going to do if we do X, they'll do Y and
[01:51:18] then this is how it, well that's how we have to war game all these things, right? So if we sit down
[01:51:24] and say okay, because here's a really bad thing about the adoption process in America today.
[01:51:31] Mimilists are not married, right? We see marriage as an agreement between Xi and I and God,
[01:51:36] not the state of North Carolina. Also, she's a very pragmatic, practical person and she wants to
[01:51:44] hold the whole thing that if she gets tired of me, she can just boot me or walk away.
[01:51:49] How long have you all been together? 10 and a half years. We're married. In my eyes, my heart,
[01:51:54] my soul, I married to that woman and she's the most precious thing on this planet to me,
[01:51:58] right? Like precious. She's the only one. That's how precious she is. So if Xi and I wanted to adopt,
[01:52:06] it could take three to five years. If me and you want to adopt, right? We could have a kid in the year
[01:52:15] or less. That's how our cultures evolve now, right? A gay couple can adopt very quickly.
[01:52:22] It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense. Or, Mimilists could go out of the country and
[01:52:28] buy a child. We could adopt from Africa or China or the space that you're buying a child when you do that.
[01:52:34] Because it costs a lot of money, but you can do it and you can do it in a matter of weeks.
[01:52:40] Typically speaking, when someone adopts out of Africa,
[01:52:44] different countries different way, right? But you go over, you visit, come back,
[01:52:48] go back for the next trip and you have your child. It's efficient. And it's a good thing, right?
[01:52:53] Like these are parents who want children who can't have them for whatever reason.
[01:52:58] And then there are these children that need parents. We have so many in America,
[01:53:03] but so why are Americans leaving America? The United States to adopt children from other countries.
[01:53:08] When we have kids right here, we have an abortion problem. Why? Because it's easier.
[01:53:15] You know, like, let's face it, right? I mean, let's say, let's say Melissa couldn't have kids.
[01:53:21] It's not why we don't have kids. We don't have kids because it's just kind of a choice. We've been
[01:53:25] busy. She's been busy with her career and I've been busy with mine. And so if we wanted to, it takes time,
[01:53:37] but we could go get a kid. It doesn't, it doesn't make any sense. So my point to all that is,
[01:53:43] whether it's the border or abortion or name it, you've got all these candidates and these politicians,
[01:53:51] right? Because right now a lot of politicians sitting already elective politicians, they're now candidates.
[01:53:55] Again, midterms are coming. They have these one lineers, these talking points.
[01:54:00] And then they go back to DC and they don't really do anything. It's so frustrating to me, man.
[01:54:06] Because let's face it, right? We're problem solvers. We're given problems every single day,
[01:54:11] whether it's how to fit that much equipment on that one truck, because that other truck is deadline.
[01:54:16] Right? Or supply won't give us another truck, because some sort major, we need that truck
[01:54:23] for his ride to the Chalhall or whatever. We solve problems with very little. And at this point,
[01:54:35] in our nation's history and future, present and future, we need those type of people.
[01:54:42] Need guys from our community and gals from the global world, terrorism, those type of veterans,
[01:54:50] who are problem solvers, who have seen the neglect and the abuse and the fraud waste and abuse.
[01:54:57] That's what these wars have been. Afghanistan highlights it. But people don't realize how many
[01:55:01] billions of dollars of equipment we left in Iraq too, that we had to destroy in Syria, because they
[01:55:07] just took it, drove it across the border and then bought us with it. But there's still billions of
[01:55:12] a billion of dollars of equipment in Iraq. Now we haven't abandoned Iraq. We abandoned Iraq too.
[01:55:20] It was just less publicized, less emotional for a lot of the servicemen and women, because of
[01:55:27] just the way I've got to stand happen. So quickly, it was really easy for the media to cover,
[01:55:32] so on and so forth. And then all the debacle in Kabul, what the airfield, that was definitely
[01:55:36] the media love, and I don't fancy you. Yeah, it was a disastrous show. I rack happened over
[01:55:44] a course of numerous years. And they're not interesting. Probably not coming up. So anyway,
[01:55:51] one thing I talk about a lot when I talk about leadership, I wrote about one of the books
[01:55:56] iterative decision making process, which means you don't know necessarily what's going to happen
[01:56:02] and you don't necessarily have all the information. So what do you do? You sit there and just
[01:56:06] do nothing? No, you go, okay, well, here's a step that I think this might have an impact
[01:56:10] a positive impact. Let me try this one step. But you try that one step. Then you get what the
[01:56:15] feedback is. If the feedback is good, you say, until you get it. Okay. Well, that was good. Let's
[01:56:20] do a little bit more in that direction. Okay, great. Oh, but it's still working. That's super.
[01:56:24] Oh, let's try a little bit more in that direction. Oh, wait a second. Now we're getting negative
[01:56:27] feedback. What we thought was going to happen isn't happening. Do we double down? No, we actually say,
[01:56:34] oh, let's make some adjustments to what our plan, what our strategy is. And that's what was as you
[01:56:39] look at Afghanistan and Iraq and Vietnam. You can see inflection points along the way where
[01:56:49] the direction we were going was not clearly giving good feedback. Now do you immediately abandon it?
[01:56:55] No, maybe press. Okay. Let's try a little more. Let's make some adjustments. Oh, wait a second.
[01:56:59] Oh, wait. It's definitely not working. Okay. So what should we do? We should try a different plan
[01:57:03] we should try a different strategy. And we shouldn't be afraid to say, you know what? We were wrong
[01:57:07] about this and we are going to back out and we are going to provide a different type of effort
[01:57:13] to try and solve this problem. So like you said, a lot of politicians, a lot of, that's just
[01:57:18] politics. People, human beings don't want to say, hey, wrong. I messed up here. I was wrong about this.
[01:57:25] Here's my adjustments. Here's what we're going to do. I'm open to ideas. COVID.
[01:57:30] Good. First, we're talking about all of us. We're like, okay. Yeah, man, I started carrying some
[01:57:37] hand sanitizer. I, you know, I put Melissa go back together for the first time. I'm not really a
[01:57:45] proper. I'm more about wealth. She has fan. I've got enough that I'll be able to make it right.
[01:57:49] I'm being brought to the home. I'm good, right? I'm mentally bad. You know, she drives back and forth
[01:57:54] to Wilmington, you know, an hour. So I was like, you know what, you know, she competes in three
[01:57:59] gun and she's doing some of the tactical games and all that kind of stuff. I mean, she can shoot,
[01:58:03] right? She goes to rank fireself and I, you know, she's got her own info and all that kind of stuff.
[01:58:07] So we actually packed it up through a little 72 hour go bag in her trunk, right? We were all like,
[01:58:12] this pandemic might be something within about six weeks, we were like, hmm, and we all knew
[01:58:18] like these cloth mass, right? Like we've all done Seaburn, right? We've all done some counter
[01:58:22] proliferation of biological nuclear. And it those, those suits and the gas mass and all these stuff,
[01:58:28] right? It's like that might stop over that might. And now you're telling me this mask is
[01:58:33] like, we all knew it was just horses. No, I got a handkerchief all I'm good. Hi. And I think maybe like you
[01:58:39] said like, with the right, we, you know, I don't think it really, like it didn't, it started out good
[01:58:44] in intention. Yeah. And like you said about Afghanistan when we got to Iraq, there was, there was
[01:58:49] Iraqis wave in American flags and welcome, Mr. And they wanted us to be there. And even,
[01:58:55] I was there in 2003, 2004, 2006, all the way that through that time, there was the local Iraqi
[01:59:01] populists wanted us there. And by the way, in 2012, 13, and when I started to flex,
[01:59:11] there was there was plenty of Iraqi government officials and people on the ground saying,
[01:59:15] please America, please come help us. Hey, we need some help over here. We weren't thinking
[01:59:19] to these guys would come back, but here they are, and we need some help. Please come help us. So we can't
[01:59:25] ignore the part of the population, that wants that, right, when you call the problem, you're kind
[01:59:30] of obligated to deal with it, right? We call that problem Iraq. I was all forward with withdrawal
[01:59:37] and the Obama administration that withdrawal. But once they decided that we're going to withdraw,
[01:59:41] there came a point when ISIS rose up that we needed to halt the withdrawal, deal with ISIS,
[01:59:45] and then pick back up with the withdrawal. But since they started the withdrawal, they couldn't
[01:59:50] say they made a mistake. Americans will never, we just don't like to say they're there. I told
[01:59:55] to my other day, I was like, I will kiss your white ass live on whatever social media platform you
[02:00:01] want to go live on. If you can find me a politician and elected official that has said,
[02:00:06] you know what? I realized now I was wrong and find me one politician who has said that.
[02:00:12] Yeah. And the crazy thing is from an ego perspective. People think if I say, hey guys,
[02:00:17] all is wrong about this, you think everyone's going to think you're a loser now. No, they actually
[02:00:20] go, yeah, well, cool. I'm glad you admitted that and we didn't know either, like you were bringing
[02:00:25] up the example of COVID. Hey, okay, it looks like a bunch of people in Italy are dying. They're showing
[02:00:30] these pictures of people dying in the hospitals. They're all overcrowded. This looks like it's going to
[02:00:33] suck. Cool. Oh, you want us to stand down for a few weeks here. Cool. We're going to flatten the
[02:00:38] curve. What does that mean? We don't want our hospitals overwhelmed. Okay, God. We need time to
[02:00:42] prepare. Sure sounds good. Okay. Now we need another two weeks. Okay, hey, hey, you know what?
[02:00:48] I'm American. I support American. I want to have people get her. Okay, cool. God. When I
[02:00:52] you want another two weeks, now you want another two months, now you want another six months,
[02:00:55] now you want another year. And then after a year, we find out that the death rates,
[02:01:01] you know, most of the people aren't dying from COVID or dying from something else and COVID accelerated.
[02:01:06] And that's fine. I get it. You know, but we now have information and data, right? That says
[02:01:14] all the measures that we did they didn't help. We've got a vaccine that really isn't, right? By,
[02:01:20] you know, they had to change the definition of vaccine. Yeah. Right? Like, could you imagine
[02:01:25] getting three polio vaccines and then getting from a polio? Yeah, that's not right. We got rid of that.
[02:01:32] That vaccine got rid of that disease, right? This vaccine supposedly makes your symptoms less.
[02:01:39] But it could kill you. Right? Like, it that's one that says this one one drug we haven't seen
[02:01:47] commercials for, right? Because all those drug commercials and TV is like when they when they get
[02:01:51] into the fight for it, you know, speaking really fast about all the side effects is like, and it could kill,
[02:01:55] you know, you could have crazy diarrhea and you could bleed from your nose and maybe your
[02:01:59] anus and then you might very well die from this kidney failure, you know, and people are like,
[02:02:04] okay, but ask your doctor, but your skin will be clearer after two weeks. Right? Could you imagine
[02:02:11] what the, you know, Johnson and Johnson vaccine got pulled, right? Why? Let's not talk about it.
[02:02:17] Let's just talk about another vaccine because of that J, J is vaccine killed some people.
[02:02:21] American people don't even know so many people don't even know that Johnson and Johnson vaccine
[02:02:25] was pulled and then it had killed people with strokes and you know, thanks to your medical
[02:02:30] terms and I know. Huh, right? Like we won't just step back and say, hey, we now have different
[02:02:37] information. We're going to adjust this plan. Yeah. And by the way, on that, you can say, hey,
[02:02:43] there are, here's the fine print on the vaccine. Here's what it can do to here the side effects you
[02:02:47] can have and make a choice, you know, as a human being, if you have some compromised immune system
[02:02:54] or you're living in some situation where this COVID according to all the statistics could be really
[02:03:00] bad for you. Maybe that vaccine is a godsend. That's awesome. Maybe a mask is great for you.
[02:03:05] Yeah. But if you're a person that's young and healthy and you feel like you could, oh, and you know,
[02:03:12] a bunch of people that I've had it and it didn't impact them at all and you say, hey,
[02:03:16] I don't think I'm going to need that vaccine. It doesn't seem like it's worth the risk. So that's
[02:03:19] my decision. So you let people make a decision about what they're going to do with their health,
[02:03:23] that seems like a much smarter move than trying to impose things on people, which I've gone
[02:03:30] off on this a bunch. When you try to impose things on human beings, we fight, especially Americans,
[02:03:35] they don't like it. We don't like it. But all human beings don't like it. All human beings don't like to
[02:03:39] have things imposed on them. And the only way you can impose things effectively is to do it through
[02:03:45] force, through violence or now we're recently finding out that you can also do it by
[02:03:49] taking their money and seizing their assets before they can even know what's happening.
[02:03:54] Which I never, I never really thought of that before. It didn't even occur to me that like what's
[02:04:00] going on in Canada right now. Oh, you're going to protest cool. We're not just going to rest.
[02:04:04] You're going to seize your assets. That to me is like when you come to my property and you say you're
[02:04:10] going to take my house the same thing. So that is a problem. And Canada, it's just so hard to watch.
[02:04:18] And you got law enforcement guys who just a few years ago or not even two years ago,
[02:04:24] they were being defunded and demonized. You know, they're in a whole blind lives matter thing.
[02:04:28] And now these same police officers are ones that are literally trampling on people. And I was like,
[02:04:37] you know, please, hot, don't let it come to that here because I have a lot of law enforcement
[02:04:42] brothers. And we all know that good men follow orders and good men that need to take care of their
[02:04:49] children will follow orders. Good men have to take care of their family and rely on that paycheck.
[02:04:54] They're going to follow orders. That is scary to me because they do that. We'll be at that point
[02:04:59] when I'm like, hey, law dogs, I love you. And I've always supported you, but we are now in two
[02:05:06] different sides. Right? Like when you use like what's happening in Canada, man, they're siding
[02:05:11] with Trado. That little turd, I usually don't, I try not to talk about presidents,
[02:05:19] elected, especially elected presidents of sovereign nations in that kind of
[02:05:24] derogatory term, but wow, you want to talk about some of that warm and knit that he's wrong
[02:05:29] and double down on every step. It's like I just won't lose. And he's got an arsenal. He's got a military.
[02:05:36] He's got a national police force man, a national police force scares the shit out of me dude. I don't
[02:05:41] like it when I see feds wearing multi cam and military stuff, right? Like it makes me uneasy.
[02:05:46] I don't like seeing local PDs wearing B to use. Right? I want to, I like some shy and shoes.
[02:05:52] Like no yellow hat, we patrol still wears a police uniform. They look like police officers,
[02:05:57] not military members. I still don't like it, man. Even I want my law dog friends to have
[02:06:02] every tool available to them to do law enforcement. But there's some things that I definitely
[02:06:08] am not good like no, not warrant, and stuff like that. They're not necessary. And we learn that.
[02:06:13] So if you be as dangerous, let's just not come out. Oh, you don't want to come out.
[02:06:19] I'll okay, cool. Just turn your power off. We'll play some loud music. Maybe send a robot in with
[02:06:24] some gas. You'll come out. You'll get tired of this, right? Yeah, the no knock warrant thing is
[02:06:29] definitely something that needs to stop. Yeah. Our law enforcement needs some help, right?
[02:06:34] Yeah. It really does. Across America, law enforcement in general needs help. The average law
[02:06:38] dog's a good American. Yeah. And even up in Canada, I don't think that that's going to
[02:06:45] continue in this direction. The direction that's going right now, I don't think it's going to continue
[02:06:49] this direction. I think it's going to, yeah, I think it's going to stop. I think the only reason
[02:06:54] that that's is what's going to happen is that the people that are pressing like Trudeau,
[02:06:58] they're actually just a bunch of places. They think they want to fight. But, you know,
[02:07:05] do they really want to fight? Once the bullet start flying and stuff, you know, and things get
[02:07:11] pressed, I think ultimately we're going to see Trudeau step down. I just looked at my
[02:07:16] watch to recognize the date. So it's the 21st of February when we're recording this right now.
[02:07:22] So be interesting. Be interesting to see how it all washes out. I hope that's what I'm going to
[02:07:27] do not want to see Canadian shooting Canadians. No more than I want to see American
[02:07:30] shoot Americans. You know, do you even like, you know, Americans are still mad about the whole
[02:07:36] riots and the black live matter stuff. And rightfully so, because it was all perpetuated and
[02:07:40] funded, you know, black lives matter. Those folks on the streets, riding, they were ponds of
[02:07:46] rich people. And that's that's sad, right? Because sometimes I feel like we've been a little bit
[02:07:51] appalled out in the war. So I can kind of relate. I'm not mad at young black or young Hispanic,
[02:08:02] or whatever group or even even young antifa, you know, white kids who are riding and breaking
[02:08:09] stuff. They're pissed. Are they going too far? Absolutely, right? We have the right to protest
[02:08:16] peacefully, but not break shit and so on and on fire. That's wrong. That's riding, not protesting.
[02:08:22] But again, root cause. That whole mess was perpetuated. It was funded. I mean, it
[02:08:28] would palates a bricks that just poof showed up and, you know, what's the root cause? It's the root
[02:08:35] cause, man. What's really going on? How do we reach out to even more so, you know, like our
[02:08:42] poor communities, poor inner city communities, which oftentimes are predominantly black, but also
[02:08:47] Latino, your poor white communities tend to be rural, right? Well, why are these things happening?
[02:08:54] What is the perpetual process that keeps these communities in their situation? Well,
[02:09:02] modern welfare system, and I don't mean the good kind of welfare, like wellness society. I'm talking
[02:09:07] about our the EBT and all these things. There's no, there's no, it doesn't help people get out of
[02:09:16] those situations and perpetuates it. It destroys the nuclear family. And it was, you know, we can
[02:09:23] go back to LBJ, you know, with the modern welfare programs. There's plenty of quotes out there
[02:09:28] that they did it on purpose. They knew what they actually planned that stuff, right? Like,
[02:09:32] I think back in the 50s and 60s, the intelligence agency in our government, they were a
[02:09:36] pretty sinister and they were thoughtful. They weren't just meandering, right? And you can go back and
[02:09:40] look at what they did and how they approached it and then it bansed on, saying Nixon, that whole bunch
[02:09:47] that were raised out of World War II in a fear of socialism and communism. You know,
[02:09:55] that FBI hovers FBI, that CIA, you know, I mean, man, it was, they were proficient. I feel like they
[02:10:03] knew what they were doing. And so they created that welfare problem. And here we are today,
[02:10:08] no one's ever really came up with any decent solutions. The only real welfare reform our nation has
[02:10:13] ever seen, actually came from Clinton. He actually proposed some things that would help the inner
[02:10:21] city become more productive in valve citizens. And then all that expired and no one's done anything
[02:10:30] since. And I think it's funny, you know, you got the Democrats who manipulate and coerce those communities
[02:10:40] for votes. And you got Republicans who were just like, it's not even worth it to talk to them,
[02:10:44] they're just going to vote Democrat. Oh my. Recruitment 101 folks, you've got young angry people,
[02:10:53] the systems not working for, let's go talk to them. Let's come up with a real welfare reform.
[02:11:00] How do you, you, proves, that's another one, right? Just cut off welfare, tell them to get jobs.
[02:11:07] That's the average white man in America's where you can answer to welfare and poor
[02:11:13] inner city problems. Just cut it off, tell them to get jobs. Yeah, okay, we're talking about
[02:11:18] decades and generations. Cultural change. We have cultures that are based around this problem.
[02:11:26] You think you can just turn off welfare and just tell them to get jobs, there's your answer. That's it.
[02:11:31] Okay, and then what? Okay, and then what? I had an awesome, I met a fellow who's running for
[02:11:40] Fayetteville's mayor. Fayetteville for Brad, you know, going on. And I never thought about it
[02:11:47] this like this and I have only had a few days to even think about it. But his proposal was this and this
[02:11:52] guy is an immigrant. He's Puerto Rican, which, you know, part of the states but not a state.
[02:12:00] So still an immigrant. Raise poor nine brothers and sisters, poor family. Anyway, he said,
[02:12:09] hey man, what is? Let's say you've got a mother, a single mother with four children.
[02:12:18] All right, and some people would say, well, she just keeps having more children to get more welfare.
[02:12:23] Okay, maybe that's true in some situations. I don't think that's true across the board.
[02:12:27] I think in a lot of cases, these mothers have more and more children.
[02:12:32] Maybe they don't have access to birth control. Maybe they're not super educated on on just on
[02:12:38] sex education in general, right? Whatever that problem is, we have this person, their reality.
[02:12:43] Right? They exist. This family of the single mother with these four children, it exists. They exist.
[02:12:50] How do we help them? How we fix them? How do we get those four children to grow up to become
[02:12:54] productive, involved, US citizens? That's the question. What his answer was this. I
[02:12:59] say she's getting $1,400 a month from all the different programs total. That's about what she's
[02:13:08] getting. 1,400. It's poverty, bro. But if she gets a job, she loses all of it. She gets a job that
[02:13:17] only pays her $1,000. Now she would be at $2,400 a month. Now she's just barely getting by still.
[02:13:25] She's still in the poverty. But the second, she takes a legal dollar or something. It's not under the table.
[02:13:31] She loses every cent of her welfare funding. How does that incentivize her or her children to
[02:13:38] go do some? So he was his plan and I was like, huh? He said, let's lower it.
[02:13:46] Let's take some welfare away. I wasn't expecting you to say that. Here's how he said he said,
[02:13:51] okay, let's knock it down. Let's cut that that $1,400 to $600. She doesn't get a job. She gets $600.
[02:13:59] She gets a job and maybe she makes $500 a week. She gets an additional $100 a week from welfare.
[02:14:08] So she makes more. She actually starts getting more. So let's say she goes from that $1,400. Now she's
[02:14:14] making $2,000 in addition to her own. She's making $2,000 a month at her job. She's going from that.
[02:14:22] $500 or whatever initial instead of the $1400. Now she's at $1,000. Well there's a certain
[02:14:29] point in which she makes enough money to actually pay for her own welfare on tax dollars.
[02:14:35] Now pays for itself. The incentive is for that lady that you don't want them to go work harder
[02:14:43] to make money and now she will actually pay for her own welfare. It's a zero-sum game for American
[02:14:48] taxpayers. And I was like, oh, we should have never had that before. Never thought about it like that before.
[02:14:55] I always thought about it like the more you make the less you get from welfare.
[02:15:00] Like if you're making $1400 welfare and now you're making $2,000, you're only going to get $7.
[02:15:04] He's like, no, no. It's copped, right? It's not like she just keeps making. Now she's making $200,000
[02:15:09] years. She goes $50,000 in welfare, right? No, it's copped. There's a point in which it all goes away.
[02:15:15] And he even said he goes, now maybe there's actually a pyramid where it goes up no
[02:15:19] certain amount and as she continues to write more, it goes down in a little bit and then it's
[02:15:23] ended but it's all based off of and he's like it would take a lot of work.
[02:15:29] Because everywhere in the nation the cost of living is different.
[02:15:32] So you'd have to build it around all of that. He's like, but it would work and it would fix the whole
[02:15:41] problem. He's like you would be addressing the animosity and the resentment that taxed
[02:15:46] paying hard work in Americans having its welfare recipients. That stigma, right? That whole
[02:15:52] just can't smell fair type. Well now the welfare recipient is paying for its own welfare
[02:15:58] for their own welfare. Not it's, right? That's the humanizing. I mean you do that. But that person is
[02:16:03] now paying for their own welfare. I was like wow. But I'm like you can't be the only person.
[02:16:09] You know, this, you know, put a reek in American that's running for mayor in a family.
[02:16:14] You mean you can tell me that only person is ever thought of this? And probably not. He's just
[02:16:18] the only person that ever told me about it. And I was like, I've just never thought of that. Right?
[02:16:22] It's never been in my entire life. Have I ever, I've never had to sit down and start thinking
[02:16:27] about viable ways to in the welfare state in America? It's not been a problem that I had to address
[02:16:34] in my military career or my small business, right? You know, not a problem. So now that I'm
[02:16:41] running for a house of representatives, it is something that I got to start looking at and I was
[02:16:45] blown away. So again, back to my point of the problems are never too close to equals four.
[02:16:52] I'll say I think that easy. No, it's never that easy. And when we, when we have that conversation
[02:16:56] we sit back and say, hey man, you know, this isn't working. We need to adjust. Just like
[02:17:01] man, if we're in route to a target, you briefed your puttune, right? I believe my, you know,
[02:17:07] troop and ISR reports back, ooh, no, there's not 15 mo foes on this target. Man, there
[02:17:15] are having some type of get together. There's 40 mall dunes on this target, you know, and trucks.
[02:17:21] And what appears to be some PKMs in those trucks, we thought it's going to be easy target on
[02:17:26] it off, right? Nice little fun Tuesday night. I saw this report in something different. Do we go,
[02:17:32] yeah, Roger that, click, and hang up. We're not talking about anyone. I'm not even going to brief
[02:17:37] my, my troopers. No, we probably come to a little tactical haul, huddle up. Unless discussed this
[02:17:43] at the key leaders are going to sit down and chat, right? Is this a salt force even able to take
[02:17:49] that target? Well, probably not. Okay, well, let's head back to the house. We made a mistake,
[02:17:54] right? Based off an information out, we didn't make a mistake. Based off an information,
[02:17:58] as it changed, let's just hit pause, you know, or maybe we request more air. If we
[02:18:06] person's going up and we don't hit the target, we let the air force do it for us, or the navy,
[02:18:10] or the Marines, or whoever's flying for us that night, you know? It's so frustrating, man,
[02:18:16] because it's like, you know, there's, there's eight SF guys running for for US House
[02:18:22] representative. There's seven seals. And like I said, 25, 30 global long terrorism, veterans.
[02:18:32] You know, somebody asked me another day, well, what sets you apart from these other candidates?
[02:18:38] We're all concerned, it is. We all pretty much agree on how to, you know, the, we all have the same
[02:18:42] stances on everything. The difference between the first difference between me and some of my
[02:18:49] opponents is spine and shoulders. Right? And I don't mean that in bad way. Like, I mean it
[02:18:55] and like, because they're good people, right? The folks I'm running against,
[02:18:59] Sands probably one of them are good people, good people who really want to go change. And if you
[02:19:05] ask them, they're going to capital Hill and they're going to save the planet. Here's reality.
[02:19:11] Reality is a freshman brand new representative in Congress has zero influence and no friends.
[02:19:17] Labius don't even knock on their office door. They got a little cubby hole in office over in that
[02:19:22] other building. There are nobody's. So they look for friends. They make friends with lobbyists and
[02:19:31] other little groups and caucuses, right? And the incumbents, the 345, 20 term representatives,
[02:19:41] they recruit them. They do them favors. Now we got clicks and this is politics and this
[02:19:47] is the grossness of it. Here's what aside from me not being willing to compromise, right?
[02:19:54] I've said straight up, four terms. If America or North Carolina have district 13,
[02:19:58] through whatever, whichever district I want to run in four terms is all I will do. Period.
[02:20:04] We need terminus. Whether or not we can get that pushed through or not if when I'm up there,
[02:20:09] different story I'm still not going to. I'm a self imposed my own term. I don't want to work
[02:20:13] in DC. One of my opponents recently told me I was a ignorant wannabe. I was like,
[02:20:24] except for the differences. I was like, you're absolutely right. I am pretty ignorant to it.
[02:20:28] Exactly the kind of bullshit you guys are doing in politics. But you're wrong about the wannabe
[02:20:35] part. I'm not a wannabe. I don't want to run for Congress, but because of people like him,
[02:20:41] American needs us to run. Well, I'm not willing to compromise. That's the biggest thing.
[02:20:48] I'm not, you know, I say this all the time. I'm not even mad at Democrats.
[02:20:54] I'm pissed off at Republicans who have compromised our rights away.
[02:20:59] They keep thinking somehow that they can negotiate or not even negotiate because I'll clarify
[02:21:05] the difference between negotiate and compromise. They keep compromising with the left and the
[02:21:09] Democrats thinking they're all going to get along and come to some time of agreement.
[02:21:13] Democrats just keep taking that shit, putting it out back, pulling it up. We got some more from them.
[02:21:19] We got some more from them. Republicans go, well, if we keep playing nice with them,
[02:21:23] maybe one day they'll be our friends. No, man, the Democrats are hellbent on creating a
[02:21:28] communist regime in this country. I mean, they don't care what you think. They don't want to be your
[02:21:34] friend. They want to get rid of you. They want to replace you. And we see this playing out in this whole
[02:21:40] politics right now. All of a sudden, you keep saying everything like what's the, what's the,
[02:21:43] what's the cure for COVID midterm elections? All of a sudden the mandate, the science says, no,
[02:21:49] bullshit. And for you know, there's no, there's no, the COVID numbers haven't changed at all. The
[02:21:55] science hasn't changed at all. Midterms are coming in Democrats know they're about to lose and the
[02:22:01] across the country through boards of elections and every different means they can. They're trying to
[02:22:05] protect their what they have left. And we see it in North Carolina with the redistricting and all this
[02:22:10] nastiness. But anyway, the number two thing that sets me in part is that group of veterans,
[02:22:18] those green braids, those seals when we show up. Let's say half of us, right? Let's say there's
[02:22:24] 30, it's just over 30, global entourage, I'm better and young, vibrant, not old gray hair, crippled old
[02:22:31] man, easy on the gray hair, bro. You're not old, you're still vibrant, you know, there's, uh,
[02:22:40] I keep looking at how I does, right? We're still young if most of the 20 year old troopers,
[02:22:45] the 20 to 30 year old troopers and the teams are on the ODAs. Don't want to fistfight.
[02:22:51] The second they know that we're not able to, you know, hold our own, then we're that old line
[02:22:58] and it gets pushed out of the right. You know, but I would say right now the average 20 to 30 year
[02:23:04] old soft trooper doesn't really want to throw down with you. One of them, right? I mean,
[02:23:08] some of them wouldn't they probably will parole us? There's we're going to be somewhere the next
[02:23:12] day no matter what. But the difference is they know we got this old knowing where either highly
[02:23:18] aggressive, violent and smart, right? Like you don't get through 20 some years of war just being
[02:23:24] lucky, you know. And I always tell them that, you know, I'm still in 20th group, man, I teach
[02:23:28] down on our subfowse course and I'll pick on the young and it's not gonna be like, okay, whatever man,
[02:23:32] you know, that that fun, you know, shooting a shit, talking whatever you want to call it and I'm like,
[02:23:36] okay, whatever man you want to fistfight? On the outside, I look like I'm ready, you know,
[02:23:43] ready to get after it. On the inside of my please look, God don't let his stay fixed by.
[02:23:47] Don't let this get fixed. I actually want to take the upper this offer because it's going to hurt so bad.
[02:23:54] But yeah, man, could you imagine 20 global war on terrorism veterans, right? 12 of them,
[02:24:03] special operations guys. Swine oath for a second time on Capitol Hill,
[02:24:10] the Democrats shaking in their boots because they know they just lost and the Republicans going,
[02:24:19] we're gonna have to ask those guys, those newbies, these freshmens,
[02:24:24] we're gonna have to really team up with these guys and work with them.
[02:24:30] That's some stuff that could change America's trajectory. And that's the difference in between me
[02:24:36] and some of my really good opponents, good people, right? I got, I got guys running a district against
[02:24:42] me, man, he's a good old boy, good old country boy, we talk after meeting, we hit it off and I was like,
[02:24:46] man, in any other time you and I met, we just be hunting fish and buddies. He's a good Carolina boy.
[02:24:53] And I told him, I was like, hey, man, tell you what, don't you just let me and my buddies go up there
[02:24:58] for a couple of years, I told you I'm out. I just is not a career for me. I'll do everything in a
[02:25:02] world to help you run after I'm done. Of course he didn't take me up on that off. He's so convincing
[02:25:09] and big me. And maybe you can, but that's the cool thing about democracy, right? I have to show the
[02:25:15] people in this district that I'm the best candidate. I can't just say I am, I have to go show them.
[02:25:21] And so anyway, man, it's so, so interesting stuff, not so much. It's like so simple, but it's not easy.
[02:25:35] So, little side track right there, you get, you get done with Afghanistan, you go do some
[02:25:43] stuff, work with law enforcement, whatnot, and then when do you end up going to Iraq? Just before
[02:25:53] the invasion. And so Iraq happens, all that goes down on up north and made more friends, more
[02:26:03] Kurd friends, more friends over at the agency, and because we were basically doing that events prep
[02:26:08] for Northern Iraq with the Kurds and everything. So you got there before the invasion and you're
[02:26:14] up with the Kurds and you're prepping for what's going on? The war's coming, right? Yeah, so, you know,
[02:26:20] a vision goes down, freaking, I was running around like Mozzle, Kirkuk, to create all that stuff.
[02:26:29] Are you with those, ODI 18? I'm actually one of the, one of the SAT teams, okay. Because I'm
[02:26:35] that young kid that doesn't like an SFGAT, right? So, really cool. Yeah, Iraq happens and then,
[02:26:46] in my next trip to Afghanistan, I got bumped off a cliff, I broke my back. How to get bumped off a cliff?
[02:26:55] One of our partners tripped, we were walking down, he was above me, he tripped,
[02:27:01] 80, 90 pound backpack, nice, you know, freaking offset and feel. How far were, how long were the
[02:27:13] cliff? Probably fell 15 feet, enough to, you know, basically when he hit me, you know, I kind of like
[02:27:21] feet went out and landed basically on my ass, like my feet were kind of out in front of me,
[02:27:25] little outcropping and it, that rock side just, just split my, L5, how much did you weigh at this point?
[02:27:35] You jacked it, because you cut it. I'm trying to put on some kick talking about spawning.
[02:27:39] Yeah, you cut it. Now we're, you know, three years into the, into the war, four years into the
[02:27:44] war, man, I've been hitting a weight pile like everybody else, I'm probably like a buck 85 and
[02:27:48] yeah, man, it just bent me over, split my vertebrae, part of the very rate hit my spinal cord,
[02:27:55] the prognosis was you might walk with crutches one day. So when you like paralyzed on site,
[02:28:02] bro, that hole, I can't feel my legs, yeah, I didn't experience that, because I could feel it
[02:28:07] and it hurt like hell. Right, if you took this dude, put it in a fire, got it nice and orange,
[02:28:13] and stuck it in the side of my spine back here, that's what it felt like all the way to my toes.
[02:28:20] It was, it was like I was on fire. Did they cast it back you? Oh yeah,
[02:28:25] spent three or four months in a brace doing a little chair thing, freaking got better,
[02:28:33] really fast. So within a year, I'm running again. Well, my ETS date came up and I had a flight pack
[02:28:39] in. What if there'd be a pilot? I thought, you know, my ground pound in days was,
[02:28:45] I had already done everything we could, right? How many more countries are we in VAT?
[02:28:49] Yeah, I thought my ground pound in days was over and these are patchy gunships keep flying in
[02:28:54] and just doing all our work. I'm like, I'm a good bear. Yeah, they got like, they could only
[02:29:00] work a few hours a day in my, man, these these one officers, they can fly for the rest of their
[02:29:05] lives, you know, because the Army has a worn-off's their program. I don't know. So I put it on
[02:29:10] packet. All I had to do was get home and go to flight school. It's going to be awesome.
[02:29:15] Well, that clearly changed. I thought my career was over. So luckily, those friends that
[02:29:19] had made it to agency, I got out and I initially took it to get medically retired or,
[02:29:26] young and dumb man, my intent. I thought I was going to go contract for a little while, get
[02:29:31] better and then I would come back in the Army and flop. Just take some time off and there's
[02:29:36] all these awesome contracting jobs out there, paying awesome. Oh, nice. These kids, you're the
[02:29:40] national guard so you could say, hey, I'm non-deployable for a while. I'm going to see you love,
[02:29:46] but you'd still be in the national guard. But I got a contract. I got a completely, you got
[02:29:50] our completely. Yep, you call them. Because at this point, the guard has figured out that they're
[02:29:55] just imaging dudes to contracting. So you got all these batangins commanders. What year,
[02:30:00] you're coming? So, O405. Oh, yeah. This is like 1500 bucks a day for contracting stuff.
[02:30:06] Shutting it down and they're like, nope, you still got to be at your drills. You still got to
[02:30:10] meet your commitments. Whereas in like, oh, 203, you had company commanders jumping in and
[02:30:15] they were like, yeah, I don't care if y'all show up or not. And if you think about it, right? Like,
[02:30:19] you've got your troopers overseas doing, you know, at least combat isch type stuff, you know,
[02:30:25] it was a good thing for the guard. You had guard guys that were getting exponentially more combat
[02:30:32] experienced through contracting than the active duty groups were doing because they were just rotating,
[02:30:37] you know? So it was a good thing for the guard, but it wasn't good for their numbers, right?
[02:30:42] They looked good. They, that guys that weren't getting their online training done, you know?
[02:30:46] Right. Like, you got to do your E.O.s your sharp strength, right? It was killing those numbers
[02:30:51] for these commanders. So they shut it down. So I was like, screw it, I'm out. I'll just come back in.
[02:30:57] You know, I'll go make some money, whatever, by a house or something, which is, you know,
[02:31:01] it was exactly what I did, but as I got better, you know, I went, became operational again.
[02:31:07] And so to doing cool stuff, way cooler than the army, ever was going to let me do.
[02:31:13] This is as a contract. Yeah. So I never went back in or I didn't go back into fly.
[02:31:18] Um, and at one point it was kind of funny because I did go back in and join 20th group,
[02:31:24] uh, like 2012, which I'm still in. How long was it? But that's a pretty big gap though.
[02:31:29] Yeah, like seven on the state years. Seven eight years. And were you contract in a whole
[02:31:33] time? Hold on. On stop. I stayed really busy with that. Of course, I started the gym. I would come home.
[02:31:38] I got lucky, man. You know, teamwork, right? It makes a dream work when I started my gym,
[02:31:43] which I opened it in January of 2008. That's when this gym opened. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool.
[02:31:51] You know, 2008 I was going nine months. I opened a gym, luckily the team that I put in place,
[02:31:58] ran it like it was their own. They did an amazing job. Amazing job. Good friend of my
[02:32:03] Darren Canclerman. He just did it. The young lady I was dating at the time, Julie. They ran the
[02:32:09] damn thing. And so I could come home and be the war hero that showed up, the run the gym,
[02:32:14] and take over for a minute, and ruin their lives. You know, they had a plan to make a good
[02:32:18] thing. Nope. I'm doing it my way. You know, like, no, hopefully I wouldn't like that. But,
[02:32:22] you know, intrinsically, that'll happen. But they just didn't awesome job with my gym.
[02:32:27] And I could, I could stay deployed. And I did. And the gym grew. So that was cool. It was kind of a
[02:32:34] parallel there. And the gym was great. You know, it was supposed to be just a little cross fit gym
[02:32:40] that, you know, guys like us, marine recomboys and Marciac dudes, because we're just south of
[02:32:45] the gym coming there, take their shirts off spit on the floor, throw up if they want to.
[02:32:50] And we'll just thrash ourselves. And then regular people started showing up. Right? Like soccer
[02:32:55] moms and stuff. And you know, I'm still at this point in my life. I'm like, hey, you, you know,
[02:33:01] you, you stop being a pus and, you know, maybe stop being so many donuts fat so. And you could
[02:33:07] tag on be a PT stud too. Well, when 33 year old, 36 year old mother of two or three that
[02:33:15] drives a suburban pulls up, you can't talk to her like that because she won't come back.
[02:33:22] And those are also the people that have the money to pay their gym for their shifts.
[02:33:25] Those colleagues kids that are studs that you want to train, they ain't got no money.
[02:33:30] You know, you got to at least pay the light bill. So I quickly figured out how to talk
[02:33:36] to regular people. You know, you can't be like, hey, Sally, maybe cut out that bottle of wine
[02:33:41] and that box of donuts every night. You might be able to do a pull-up.
[02:33:46] Yeah, she's never got a pull-up. She was looking for her. So now you had, you know, I had to,
[02:33:50] I was real adamant about not being that creepy gem owner. And you know, who was like, you know,
[02:33:56] have any type of fratinization of clients and stuff like that? I was a big deal.
[02:34:00] And I did start that gem with a partner and it quickly figured out it wasn't going to work.
[02:34:04] Not a bad separation or just like he couldn't move to women.
[02:34:07] And yeah, man, it was that gem taught me a lot about teaching,
[02:34:12] you know, just how to talk to people. You couldn't, hey, Ranger, you know,
[02:34:18] hey, Sally, come here. What's going on? You know, you, you, um, hey, when you're ready,
[02:34:22] if you like, um, let's sit down and you know, maybe line out some nutrition, a diet,
[02:34:26] it's enough. You know, nutrition, not diet, right? Those words mean something because if you say something
[02:34:30] to a lady who needs to drop 20 pounds, you know, if you say, let's talk about getting you on a diet.
[02:34:36] Oh, my God. Oh, you just, she's gone. She hates your guts. But if you're like, hey, look,
[02:34:40] let's tune this up. You know, man, your shoulders are starting to get really defined. You know,
[02:34:44] you're looking great. And that was a cool thing about CrossFit, right? Is that women's upper body
[02:34:48] started to develop? And, you know, you clearly can't be that creep and talk to her about her legs
[02:34:55] or any other, you know, lady parts or whatever. You know, you can't be, hey, Sally, you know,
[02:35:01] your, your mom's looking great. You know, that's, that's inappropriate, right? It's not professional.
[02:35:05] And so, you know, I really learned how to, to talk to people and then motivate them and
[02:35:10] bring them into the fold. And you know, before we know it, that was one thing my gym was so well
[02:35:15] known for, I'm so proud of it is that our women monsters and people would come to me like other
[02:35:22] gym owners and stuff like, what are you doing to motivate and turn these women into these monsters?
[02:35:31] Right? We sent like, I don't know, um, 18 different athletes through the CrossFit games.
[02:35:36] Out of a town of only 150,000 people, very good. And it was just, I didn't even have to recruit
[02:35:44] once it started. We had one of the original super strong females. She just showed up. She was a
[02:35:48] volleyball player, powerful, right? She could very coordinated that touch, in only lifting before
[02:35:54] you know that she was like throwing weight overhead at most of the dudes in the gym couldn't touch.
[02:35:59] And so people started hearing about her and then it grew and then her and then a handful of others
[02:36:05] and next thing you know, I've got these, I'm looking for dudes. Our thing was the team events.
[02:36:10] I love the team events. I don't know. The individuals is cool, right? And the whole different
[02:36:14] level, but the team was fun and I'm all about building a team. So our teams did really well,
[02:36:20] but there were years where, you know, a couple years where we didn't, the team didn't go to the
[02:36:25] games because the guys on my team weren't strong enough to get us on the podium at regionals.
[02:36:31] It was never the girls, man. I trained one young lady. She came in the gym of, of Fino,
[02:36:38] right? Like just this diamond in a rough fast twitch, powerful. She had been a soccer player,
[02:36:44] a swimmer at ECU. You got pleasure. Hard. She just imagined the most hard-headed
[02:36:51] Ranger young, still pump you ever dealt with. This was her, man. But like the first time she
[02:36:55] ever deadlift, she picked up over 300 pounds. I walked in with a stop stop stop. What are you doing? Who
[02:37:01] is she? Why is she picking up that kind of weight? She's clearly new. Right? Horrible for him,
[02:37:05] but just powerful. So anyway, that's a problem. She, she, she could have been an individual athlete.
[02:37:12] She had that type of genetics. She went a different route. That year, I couldn't put her on my team.
[02:37:17] She just wasn't ready yet. She couldn't work with the team. She came in a little late.
[02:37:21] She had everything going for. I was like, hey, in the interim, let's play with strongman.
[02:37:27] Right? We just started getting strongman equipment. It was getting more and more worked
[02:37:30] into the CrossFit stuff. And we kind of did a pure thing. And some of the gym members,
[02:37:34] you know, I was that guy who was, I was like the most anti- CrossFit
[02:37:37] CrossFit gym owner on the planet. I was like CrossFit was supposed to be to get you in shape.
[02:37:41] So you can go do cool stuff. You want to try a triathlon. You want to try, you want to,
[02:37:46] you know, whatever, you know, I never really saw CrossFit as like becoming a sport, but I can
[02:37:51] help, but I like to compete, you know, let's get in it. So anyway, this young lady came really
[02:37:55] long. She, as a hey, let's try strongman. So she did like a local event, crushed it. It's too,
[02:38:02] it's, and still it's super strong. Well, that event qualified her for the worlds at the Arnold's
[02:38:08] name. She weighed 165 pounds naturally. She never touched any drugs. And Stralman has not
[02:38:16] a tested sport, right? So the middle weight class and the females are them is the most competitive.
[02:38:21] And it's a 140, 180 pounds and most of the girls cut from 200. There's, you know, 511, 6 foot tall,
[02:38:28] 200 pound females. And like I said, not tested. Can we go to the Arnold Brown and Wins World,
[02:38:36] our second strongman competition wins it. She didn't cut. She walked on, walked in the competition
[02:38:41] home 65 pounds. This is what she waited the time. I mean, she's probably five dollars nine,
[02:38:47] five eight and nine, just naturally, well, not naturally. She had been an athlete in college, right?
[02:38:52] But just exploded. And you said she swam and played volleyball? Is that the one?
[02:38:55] And soccer. Okay, just aggressive too. And just like the host. She should, at the time there
[02:39:05] wasn't a good MMA presence in Womington. That's where she should have gone. That's where she
[02:39:11] should have gone. As one of the gyms, Saltre and those guys stood up in an MMA gym there and
[02:39:18] had that been stood up out of center over there. I mean, go kill with people with a little bit of
[02:39:23] training this chick would have been scary, right? She was, and she would go with her and training
[02:39:27] and play and she went to the little phase where she was doing some striking and stuff. And I was just like,
[02:39:31] God, man. Anyway, long story short with her, she kind of got involved in the wrong people and
[02:39:36] stuff and I didn't coach anymore. I'm freaking, but what an amazing Gika. And like I said,
[02:39:42] man, it was just so cool that our females were so well known when like every lady on the team is
[02:39:49] snatching 200 pounds deadlift in three plus. Like Kimberly was deadlift in 500 pounds in a
[02:39:56] buck 70 and had abs. You know what I mean? She did not look like a powerlifter. And this is just
[02:40:01] the ladies we had. They were just badass. You know Melissa went to the games. She was just the
[02:40:07] small one. She was the bodyweight one. And as CrossFit matured, now the average CrossFit females
[02:40:13] like a buck 65. And those girls are big. So Melissa, she can't compete with them. She can't move
[02:40:18] the weight that they do. But yeah, and Melissa was instrumental in helping, once Melissa realized
[02:40:26] she wasn't big enough because last time we went to the games, you know, Dawn was, you know,
[02:40:32] probably at the time 1665, a girl, man, a 150 pounds, another volleyball player. And Jordan
[02:40:42] probably 150 pounds. And every single one of them were deadlift and 400 pounds, cleaning
[02:40:47] and jerking over two. I mean, these chicks and running subsicks minute miles. Like what
[02:40:52] that? And I mean, you know, luckily that last year the boys were all big boys and studs. But
[02:40:58] Melissa was, you know, an amazing, amazing coach to those ladies. She was just once, you know,
[02:41:04] the deal, once you realize you ain't ever going to be in the ring again, right? Like you can
[02:41:08] either, you know, what is it? Those who can't do teach. And that's just really same for me,
[02:41:14] right? Like as I got older, I was like, I don't stand a chance of being, you know, involved in this
[02:41:18] sport, but I can dance or coach and people to it. But yeah, the gym was amazing, man, freaking,
[02:41:23] it was lucky that I could run it in a parallel. Once me and Melissa started dating, I started,
[02:41:28] I went to her face right into Poirre, whole lot. I'm doing my teaching stuff states, I, and
[02:41:34] I was, how would patrol for an in mind, asked me to start helping him, like teach some firearms.
[02:41:39] His father had a nice range of stuff in my gym, man. Why not? You know, he was going through a
[02:41:45] divorce and needed some money. So I was like, yeah, you know, he's like, yeah, I think, you know,
[02:41:51] with your background, you know, we can, we can bring in some people and that's how the whole
[02:41:57] shooting part of my business kind of started was just trying to help a buddy that needed some,
[02:42:01] you know, money because he was going through a divorce. And so that turned out, man, I, I just don't
[02:42:07] know how to do anything half as, right? They're going to do something I'm doing, you know.
[02:42:12] That's why I like all the physical stuff, the triathlon, the ultra marathon, so I put myself in a
[02:42:16] hospital after the big foot 200, not after because I didn't quite finish my 177, I'm pissing blood,
[02:42:23] grabbed him my leases, freaking, I was in bad bad. How many hours into it was,
[02:42:28] right? It's probably 70, some day three. Yeah, you familiar with the company,
[02:42:36] softly. Yeah, so brand, I don't know them, but I know who they are. Yeah, so brand, one of the,
[02:42:43] the founders and owners, Marciac, do a good friend of mine. He joined me at my 112 with that race.
[02:42:50] And I was already in bad shape from like a section of race. It was a lot of downhill.
[02:42:54] Well, first we don't have mountains where I live in North Carolina, so I trained up here on a
[02:42:59] stairwell. Do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to go to the gym and spend four and five hours
[02:43:03] walking on a stairwell. miserable miserable stupid, but I said a goal, you know, I'm running,
[02:43:11] at this point, this point, my life, I don't like running anymore, right? I just, I don't want
[02:43:14] to run 200 mile race. Why? To say I did. Well, yeah, man, that race, one of the sections
[02:43:21] is about 11 miles all downhill and I ran this shit out of it. And your muscles weren't used to that
[02:43:27] quads destroyed them destroyed them. At my 112, I was already pissing blood. And that's from
[02:43:33] the window. Yeah, my kidneys were hurting. I could feel it. I felt like somebody just worked on my
[02:43:39] freaking back man. And by my 150 something at that age station, that was the last time I could
[02:43:46] even keep watered down. My TBI was definitely flared up. I had a lot of damage to my brain
[02:43:52] STEM and stuff when I got blown up in 2009. And the M&I, I was in bad shape. And I wanted to
[02:44:01] sleep. He wouldn't let me sleep. Come to find out later. He was like, yeah, I was worried
[02:44:05] you were going to die because I was having a seizure. And I was laughing about it. You know,
[02:44:11] I had convinced myself, you know, you know, they're doing. I knew how we we can be. And I just took it
[02:44:17] too far at by mile 177. And I'd gone, you know, almost an entire night, 20 some miles without any
[02:44:24] food or water, no sleep. Just, you know, Brent was just trying to get me to the next aid station
[02:44:32] because it's in the mountains of Washington state around Mount St. Helms. They have no EVAC plan.
[02:44:36] There's no way. And I'm probably the biggest runner on the course, right? I'm doing these 200
[02:44:42] mile rays at like 215 pounds, you know, and I had lost weight to do it. You know, I think I
[02:44:48] usually walk around a lot about, you know, 225, 230, it's your whatever. And I cut some weight to go
[02:44:52] around this race. And how many months did you prepare for it? Like a year, you're in a half.
[02:44:58] So we trained for about a half a year for the 2007 big foot Melissa Torherman Nyskus at like
[02:45:05] mile 120. And so we stopped at mile 133. We were doing it together. And I had time, but during that last
[02:45:15] trek, I didn't want to leave her. It was cold, way colder, and it was supposed to be. So we didn't,
[02:45:20] I mean, teeth chattering. We were both hypothermic and she's busted her knee, can't move fast.
[02:45:27] And so like mile 132 or three that aid station, we got there in time. And I could have taken off
[02:45:34] with no rest or whatever and got to the next one, but I probably wouldn't have finished a race.
[02:45:39] Right? I was just now as behind. And I would have never left her on that mountain, right? Like
[02:45:45] especially hypothermia. You know, she's, she's never had hypothermia to where she was, you know,
[02:45:52] freaking disoriented or something like that. And you know, just clearly, I wouldn't have left
[02:45:59] a runner. I didn't know in her shape much less about leaving the most precious thing on this
[02:46:04] planet to me. So we got to that aid station. I'm like, you know what? Screw it honey, we started it
[02:46:09] together. Let's go get some breakfast together. You know, someone's coming up. So we drove back to Portland,
[02:46:14] had some breakfast. The next year, she decided to do it, but we made a deal that we wouldn't do it together.
[02:46:20] No preconceived notions. Her knee was still not healthy. She's like, I'll try it. I mean, that
[02:46:25] says a lot about her, man. She's like, I got this energy. I'm going to give it a whirl. She did like
[02:46:29] 77 miles in dropped, only 77. She was busted knee. She's probably worse than us. But yeah, man,
[02:46:39] at my ones, 176, 177, whatever it was, Brent was like, hey, man, I'm a runner ahead and make sure
[02:46:47] the crew's ready. No, he was running ahead to make sure the medics and the doctors were there so they
[02:46:51] could drop my ass. 200, five miles, man. You know, so had, you know, whatever it was, 29 miles
[02:46:58] or something left. And I get there and then like, yeah, here's the drop paperwork. I'm not signing
[02:47:05] that. I'm twitching, having seizures. My trick is freaking, like, not working correctly, you know,
[02:47:13] my, so some of my damage and stuff, I used to be left handed. I'm right handed now because this
[02:47:18] didn't work for a while. Like, I couldn't hold on to things. I definitely, but worse, I would have
[02:47:23] a seizure. With your holding the glot in your hand, seizes, probably a good thing. So I switched
[02:47:29] to be the right handed. All that was happening. I'm like, seizing and it's a, it's not a muscular
[02:47:35] seizure. It's a sand s-seater and it's just weird. It doesn't hurt, but when it happens, it looks
[02:47:40] weird. I was going to say, look at this point. And bro, the pictures of me, I'm gray. Right,
[02:47:47] that whole dehydrated. My body temperature was 96.40 degrees. And my heart resting high rate was
[02:47:53] like a buck 60 laying down a cot. You know, when you lay down, your heart rate should drop me,
[02:47:58] my didn't. My body's freaking out. And I'm convinced, I got, it's only 29 miles. I've got this.
[02:48:06] And luckily, luckily, one of those five people I chose around kind of scared of was helping me.
[02:48:13] And he was like, hey, Bubba, you can either get your ass in that truck. I'm a put your ass in that.
[02:48:18] Either way, you are done this race. And next time I'm here, I woke up in the hospital,
[02:48:25] important in Oregon. How long was recovery from that? That's a, that's a more fun story.
[02:48:31] Three weeks after that, on the last day to register for the Moab 240 mile or I went and got my blood
[02:48:39] work done, 88% kidney function. I'm like, all right, I'm good. And I signed up for the Moab 240.
[02:48:45] And how far away was that at the time? As far as, like how much time did you have before that?
[02:48:50] Two weeks. Oh, it was only two weeks away. Last day to register for the Moab. And here's my
[02:48:56] thought process. Oh, I got to hear this.
[02:49:02] Because they hurt. And grabbed a hurt a lot more. It hurt of raptor, right? You know,
[02:49:06] CrossFit made it famous. Everyone, you knew what raptor was. I knew, you know, but we all give
[02:49:10] ourselves micro cases of it. And then we take days off. The reason, there's no days off in a four
[02:49:15] day to an hour. So you don't get to recover. You know, he gets worse. Well, three weeks after
[02:49:22] I go in and I'm like, okay, I'm trying to figure out, do I try another year? Because this is
[02:49:26] the first thing in my life I've been after. First half ever did not finish. You know, man,
[02:49:31] I've been like, first time goes and every hard course they ever sent me to, you know, and like,
[02:49:35] this isn't, this isn't making sense to me. Volunteerly withdrawing the year before because Melissa
[02:49:40] was hurt. I was okay with that. And like, it didn't hurt my feelings. You know, it didn't feel like I had
[02:49:46] somehow compromised, you know, my soul. Your integrity is a man. Now, but now the big foot,
[02:49:51] all right, I just think I'm always trying to kill me. And I'm like, hmm, okay, there's this
[02:49:54] mo lab 240. It's all ran by the same people. I might just mo lab 240 miles. It's actually 240
[02:49:59] three miles. Just like the big foot 200 is 25. I'm like, y'all need to fix your t-shirts because
[02:50:05] that's not my check. A five mile. That's like a race in the area. So I'll give me credit. I want to
[02:50:10] cut it. So the mo lab 240 to 143 miles. In my head was, okay, do I train a whole another year?
[02:50:17] And when you train for a 200 mile, you're doing not going out at midnight and train until six
[02:50:22] in the morning just to get training under your headlamps and stuff like that. It's miserable, dude.
[02:50:26] And this point in my life, I'm not a runner anymore. And I don't enjoy training it.
[02:50:30] I shit. Since then, I think I've ran about six miles. And that was 2018, right? And it's all been like
[02:50:35] a three different on the PT test I had to take. You know? Yeah, I ran my bicycle now. I'm out and
[02:50:41] bike and stuff. But anyway, yeah, man, I'm like, okay, I can train a whole other year. Maybe I
[02:50:46] go knock out this 240 and just check this box and say I did a 200, right? It's 240. It should be good.
[02:50:52] Make up for this disaster, silliness of the big foot. Last day of registered. I was down in Alabama,
[02:50:58] teaching 20 scripts of fat cores. I drove to one of those local blood workplaces. I had my
[02:51:04] labs pool interpreted it in myself pretty much qualified for that. Because you're going to be an 18.
[02:51:10] No one for it's you're getting close. Man, I've done some nutrition counseling for people with
[02:51:14] the gym, right? I can get a crit in teenage levels or almost back in normal. Almost.
[02:51:20] Right? And like, all right, walk out the parking lot. I signed up for the 240.
[02:51:27] Clearly, I know it's not a good idea because I didn't tell anyone until a couple days before already
[02:51:32] had an 18 delta mine. It was going to, you know, crew me at the race and that just basically
[02:51:36] means drive the truck from one eight states into the next and the truck is a place to sleep.
[02:51:42] And so, yeah, man, I got into my 240. So, I always say that, you know, dumb dumb ranger Tony
[02:51:47] did pick foot where I was like, I'll sleep in hour and night and I'll just keep moving and I'll
[02:51:52] keep banking extra hours. Well, the Moab 240, I had just approached completely different.
[02:51:57] I'm gonna sleep two hours to three hours every night and I'm gonna use every second of time
[02:52:04] to make it from here to here. I was trying to bank time and go fast. Now you build up this extra
[02:52:11] ton. When you're having people remember my finished time with that Moab 240?
[02:52:17] Zero? I don't even remember what it was. All I know is I finished it and I got a picture of me
[02:52:22] walking underneath a finished line. And I did have about six hours of spare, six-day hours of
[02:52:28] spare, whatever it was. But the point here is unlike the big foot where I was trying to go so hard
[02:52:34] and not sleep, I walked every step of the way, the last except for the last 13 miles of 243 miles.
[02:52:42] I rocked it. You know, and you're just wearing one of them silly little vests, you know,
[02:52:46] it might maybe 10 pounds enough to get you in between eight stations, which you know,
[02:52:51] are pretty considerable. You're talking about an A6 and A6 and A6 and 20 25 miles.
[02:52:55] You know, like marathons. It's not like a marathon or a ZA6 and every mile.
[02:53:00] This is milling nowhere, nowhere, Moab. So yeah, man, I got crazy shit out and
[02:53:06] freaking, I was so fresh and okay that hopped into truck and said to stay in Moab,
[02:53:13] drove back to Denver. So yeah, man, freaking good experience. Don't necessarily recommend it
[02:53:20] anyone. But if you do get a wild hair and want to run at one of those races,
[02:53:26] give me a ring or a DM and I'll tell you my strategy. My strategy was rock,
[02:53:31] March, the whole way. The only reason I even ran the last 13 is, I mean, it run the whole way.
[02:53:35] As I linked up with a dude that I had met at the big foot and we checked it in.
[02:53:41] But I wouldn't say that we ran the whole 13. We just picked up the paste, did some jog and Moab law.
[02:53:46] But yeah, man, you know, I just got to get after it. You know, and purpose, you know, like
[02:53:54] we talked about that whole having something, I don't know if you get dramatic, say having something
[02:54:00] to live for, but that's ultimately what it is. And yeah, I stay busy. These days,
[02:54:06] I'm over the craziness. These days, my PT is all about just staying healthy, so I can go hunting.
[02:54:12] You know, that's it. I just, that's my only real hobby I have left. As long as I'm fit enough to throw
[02:54:18] a 60 pound backpack one and go hike around the mountains and, you know, that's where I'm out in life.
[02:54:24] I'm done. You know, Melissa's still getting to have to get it, just cross yourself in the gym.
[02:54:30] I'm in there like, I think I'll do back and buy it. Maybe maybe just, you know, chest and
[02:54:34] try the day, you know, and then a nice little light leg day, like my dead last man. So I just turned
[02:54:40] to 46 and I was like, all right, you know, for fun, let's put some weight on there.
[02:54:45] 500 for three on a deadlift. I'm like, hmm, still not old yet. You know what I mean? I'm still
[02:54:49] counting on it. But typically speaking, man, 400 on the deadlift is all I do and just do some
[02:54:54] reps. I'm not trying to hurt me anymore. Because there are a lot of the stuff that I did, man,
[02:54:59] my back hurt, my, you know, TBI hurt, always on that edge. And where did you get blown up?
[02:55:06] In the rack. Yeah, um, freaking armored sedan, I demit for a striker.
[02:55:14] Yeah, sucks. Man, I was the only one I've for in the vehicle to walk away and I didn't walk away.
[02:55:20] Yeah, um, suck, man, freaking. We just happened. We were, we were the Mark car for the Ranger
[02:55:28] Edge man. They were, they were going to action a big target for us. Where was it? No, not,
[02:55:33] right, uh, Mosul. And so we basically, we were going to identify, we were going to identify the gate
[02:55:40] that they were going to drive the strikers through just by simply pulling just past it and parking
[02:55:44] into that point by the time they got there, I would already be out of the vehicle. Last thing I
[02:55:48] remember is buckling my helmet, putting the buckle on. I just put my helmet on. And so yeah,
[02:55:54] it was, um, you know, it's a level seven being W, but it's, you know, their bulletproofs, not last
[02:56:00] proof, not definitely not EF people. EFP hit, um, right behind the rear seat. So the two boys in the
[02:56:10] back seat man, they were DNAed and, uh, driver, I guess he died, you know, eight or ten hours afterwards.
[02:56:17] The, um, a funny story man, like, you know, talk about small world stuff a few years later,
[02:56:23] I'm running one of the training courses for the NSA, for them, for their security guys,
[02:56:28] participating in that. And I was into the class, everybody got picked in this one young
[02:56:34] Ranger or whatever, you know, throughout the class we had talked about, yeah, I worked for those
[02:56:37] people. I was in Mosul, Bumbleblin, you know, because he's a student, he didn't ask until afterwards,
[02:56:43] you know, they're by graduated, let's go get, you know, a stay, can some beer and he's like,
[02:56:46] hey, uh, eight Tony, um, did you know that, that team of guys, that agency team of guys, or whatever,
[02:56:52] um, up in Mosul, that, you know, they got blown up the whole team died, I was like,
[02:57:01] hmm, I mean, 2009, and I was like, yeah, yeah, we were up there, man, we were, I was in
[02:57:08] the Ranger, I mean, we helped recover that. We were on target for that, we were going to do that.
[02:57:15] And they threw me in their structures, they thought I was dead. Because the reality is right,
[02:57:20] I mean, it blew that car across three lanes. It was a main highway one, kind of Broadway.
[02:57:27] We were in the right lane about to make a right turn into the neighborhood where the target was.
[02:57:31] And it's why I just buckled my helmet. And, uh, at EFP, blew that car all the way across three lanes,
[02:57:39] big medians, you know, the medians are there and stuff, right, across that, across three lanes and
[02:57:43] down to alleyway. Yeah, hitting other cars, right, it wasn't a small idea. And how I lived, man,
[02:57:52] I can only talk that one up to God, you know, and um, man, it hurt the blast injuries hurt.
[02:58:00] I came to in Germany and it hurt everything hurt, man. Like, I say, like, my fingernails hurt.
[02:58:08] My gut, splash gut, my lungs had a demon, my lungs. And, you know, the armored car probably,
[02:58:15] you know, clearly saved me, blah, blah, blah, but yeah, man, my whole left side was screwed up,
[02:58:19] freaking just from damage to that, and brainstorm, and all that stuff. And yeah, and that was why
[02:58:25] you were a contractor. Because you ended up going back in, right? Yeah, I am. I, uh, I,
[02:58:32] uh, 2012, I was like, you know what, you know, freaking, I did these, you know, this eight years,
[02:58:38] maybe I should go back into guard. I could help the next generation, right, you know,
[02:58:43] what's that thing about good intentions? I say that if you get out of the military and
[02:58:48] go back into military, it's like taking your car, drive it into a parking deck,
[02:58:53] putting in it reverse and then backing over the spikes and blowing your tires on one purpose.
[02:58:58] That's what going back in the military is like. And I joke, I do joke, right? So, the, uh,
[02:59:06] I'll try and keep that in mind. Because in all the time, I, you know, those mornings when I wake up like,
[02:59:10] you know, I can probably not call some people. Yeah, I'll take me back there.
[02:59:15] Right in rock and roll. No, I, um, I, I just went, and so I worked for ASD at Bands Skills Detachment,
[02:59:22] the group level ASD. So I get to teach the courses like our CQB course of Fowl.
[02:59:27] And it is worth it. But the guard is its own beast, right? There's like all the BS that you would put
[02:59:33] up with with the active duty military. And then there's the guard. It has its own personality,
[02:59:38] its own type of crap. And because it is part time thing for so many people and the few full
[02:59:44] times that they, full timers that they have, they're trying to manage, you know, on half staff,
[02:59:50] all these guys who all have problems who are all the most important people in their own lives,
[02:59:55] its Valleblah. Luckily, I have an amazing admin staff where I work and stuff and they keep
[03:00:00] us squared away. But, you know, it's still the military. It means because we're not full time,
[03:00:05] we have to jump out of our asses to do stuff, you know, the budget, blah, blah, blah. Hell,
[03:00:12] Alabama National Guard sent a bunch of people to DC after the January 16th. The federal government
[03:00:19] has still not paid Alabama back for that, right? And that's across the board. There are
[03:00:26] National Guard across our country that don't have funding to pay people. So, like some of
[03:00:31] our full time guys in October when the fiscal year rolled around last fall lost their jobs for like
[03:00:38] three weeks. It's like what? And these are people with mortgages and families and stuff,
[03:00:44] you know, is their job? I'm like, oh, no, we don't have money because you know, Joe Biden don't want
[03:00:48] to be a real-time job. So, the O.S. and his money. Right? Of course, you don't actually,
[03:00:53] who signs the budgets, the Congress. So, is it Joe Biden's fault? Or is it a representative
[03:01:02] as well? I don't know. I mean, I always go back to this, right? First page, Ranger Amba,
[03:01:08] the leader is responsible for everything it does and does not happen when a mission or a patrol.
[03:01:15] So, anyway, I got grass. But yeah, the guard man, it's good. I get interact with the young guys
[03:01:20] on the up-and-comers, share some lessons learned and it's worth it. But, you know, if I go
[03:01:30] teach, so far for four weeks, I'm back to make an army money. So, you know, you lose money,
[03:01:37] doing it. And sometimes, you ask, is it worth it? I gotta go put up with this BS and, you know,
[03:01:44] whatever. But then I remember like, hey, man, we now have a service full of all the combat.
[03:01:51] That's got, there's no combat that has left in special forces. It's for the most part, right?
[03:01:57] Same with the seals, man. I get some guys from up Virginia Beach that come down and use my long range.
[03:02:03] All young, young pups and their snipers, I'm like, I thought snipers were supposed to be like,
[03:02:07] the most experienced dudes are like, we are. Like, are you like 22?
[03:02:12] Like, 26. Like, so you mean to tell me, you were one of the most experienced dudes in your
[03:02:18] pool of 10 when you're in the 10. Now, I'm 30, yeah. Like, yeah, man, everyone within the experience
[03:02:25] left. I'm like, well, crap, it's the same in the army, same in the Marine Corps.
[03:02:31] So, I look at like this, man. I feel a little obligated to give back, you know, for whatever reason,
[03:02:36] I am still here with all my fingers and toes. I still can't shoot. I still can't teach. And,
[03:02:40] man, I get down there. I can't help but I'm not the dude on the catwalk. It's not how I teach.
[03:02:46] I put my kid on and go and do CQB with the teams. And I'm like, all right, check it out guys.
[03:02:50] And you're doing that as an act as a guard guard guy. And you, when did you go back in the guard?
[03:02:55] 2012, 2012. Did you go in any deployments once you get 2012?
[03:03:00] I have it, not with them. God, yeah, that's that doesn't take good noff.
[03:03:04] I mean, you know, if you, so I, I weighed out like this, since I've blown to ASD,
[03:03:12] we're not a deploying unit in your, I wear a training detached guard. To go do an eight month
[03:03:19] deployment with SF, the return of an investment just isn't there for me. A, it doesn't pay well enough.
[03:03:25] It's too long, whereas I can do stuff, you know, with the agency and projects and stuff like that,
[03:03:32] that are shorter. And we actually get to do so you still been contracting the whole time.
[03:03:37] Did you go to Syria? Who you with over there with your contractor?
[03:03:41] Yeah. What was that like? I mean, it's cool because like I said, where,
[03:03:51] that would be the wrong, I was going to say, oh, these are different. The RREs aren't different. We have
[03:03:55] a much more efficient training command. I don't have to ask for permission to, you know,
[03:04:02] take a potty break, whereas, you know, teams typically to move from here to here have to ask for
[03:04:09] mission. We are given a mission where allowed to go execute. We send up set reps. We don't have to ask for
[03:04:14] permission. Most of the time, you know, we always have our market. There's some two in my eyes because
[03:04:18] the time. Yeah, you know, it's not for free for all, but we get a mission and we go do it.
[03:04:22] A lot of our stuff is, you know, the ASO type stuff, the source operations, and then
[03:04:31] FO, you know, doing the reconnaissance, and especially with the layout of the ground, as far as
[03:04:37] a local population, and a lot of permissie type stuff. You told me not to do that. Here I am with an
[03:04:43] acronym, right? Freakin' three Cs like that area study of all the equations that make up a
[03:04:52] an area whether it's, you know, population, resources, and all that sort of thing, not just like
[03:04:58] combatants, right? The entire area. What's going on in this area? So we do a lot of that.
[03:05:04] And of course, we can, you know, action targets if we need to typically, like in Syria,
[03:05:09] since we were working in such small elements that, you know, it was like, hey,
[03:05:14] got any rangers not doing anything tonight, you know? You know, we got, there's an ODA around here
[03:05:20] that can come to do this, you know, where the seals that. But yeah, man, that type of work is really
[03:05:27] cool. I've done stuff in Haiti, and we've got a lot of things going on that are, I said,
[03:05:33] more, more US interest than national defense. And one definitely leads to the other, right? Like,
[03:05:41] it's important. If you talk to a lot of people, like, oh, we need to withdraw from around the world.
[03:05:46] Well, if we want to continue to be a superpower, we have to continue to influence in a positive way
[03:05:51] around the world. It's a little why Ukraine is so hard to figure out right now.
[03:05:57] Well, my take on the Ukraine is, hey, man, Europe is full of a bunch of really well-powered
[03:06:06] modern nations. It is their AO, right? Yeah, with modern noters, very modern militaries, right? We,
[03:06:14] we help with that. Russia wants Russian land back. The parts of the Ukraine, it really wants. I don't,
[03:06:24] and maybe, maybe Putin, I don't know what Putin is thinking, right? Like, maybe he wants the whole nation.
[03:06:29] But they've shown us since, you know, even, for instance, 14 when they took or they didn't take
[03:06:36] Crimea, right? Crimea allowed themselves to be annexed. There's a big difference.
[03:06:43] The Ukraine, you know, the South and East, they're native Russians, right? And that's again,
[03:06:50] Americans were too stupid to know that there is a different, structural, Russian and Ukrainians.
[03:06:56] They speak two different languages, right? And do they a lot of them speak both, of course.
[03:07:02] You know, it would be no different in, like, the border of Texas. Lots of people spoke, speak both.
[03:07:06] But there is a clear difference between Americans and Mexicans, right? And that's what's happened in here.
[03:07:11] And in Ukraine, they Russia wants it lands back. Does Russia also want to want to
[03:07:16] order port? Well, yeah, Russia's wanted to want to port for decades, a century or more now.
[03:07:22] Probably longer than that since Navy's have been Navy's. They've wanted one more.
[03:07:26] Well, okay, I get it. Are we at a point in our, so we have two things, right? Like, this
[03:07:33] president who is weak, clearly, could stand up to Russia, to all line in the sand and be the
[03:07:39] heroes and Russia doesn't get to invade. Or we can act tough. Russia invades. We look like a
[03:07:45] bunch of pusses. And now we're obligated to fight. That's the wrong answer, man. American,
[03:07:52] boys and girls don't need to go fucking die in the Ukraine. The Ukraine is one of the most corrupt
[03:07:58] nations on this planet. Now, that is partly due to Russia keeping them that way. A corrupt Ukraine can't
[03:08:06] get in the NATO. All right, NATO's not letting them in in their current state. It's just not happening.
[03:08:13] So that's part of it. It's like, oh, we want them in NATO. If we really want them in NATO,
[03:08:17] we let them join NATO three, five, ten years ago. They're not eligible.
[03:08:23] So, I mean, come on, man. We got to, you know, like, there's a difference in messing and
[03:08:30] meddling and getting ourselves into it. And you got to, you know, again, not a conspiracy theorist,
[03:08:35] but what everything is going wrong for this administration, one can't help but to,
[03:08:39] to at least entertain the idea that it's a distraction from all the other crappy mistakes.
[03:08:47] Now, all of a sudden, Biden wants to look strong. Well, there's Biden and there's Putin.
[03:08:54] And I don't think Putin is ready to step back from Biden. I think he's calling his bluff, man.
[03:09:02] And I don't think that Biden has that, hey, let's sit down and hash this out type of freaking
[03:09:06] mentality. Well, unfortunately, in that case, unfortunately, I have a hard time thinking that
[03:09:17] that Biden could carry on a logical conversation and negotiation with Putin. Like, it just doesn't
[03:09:22] seem like that's a feasible thing. I mean, he has a hard time. He has a hard time. He has a hard time
[03:09:30] putting together sentences, right? I mean, putting together legitimate sentences that are prep form.
[03:09:34] Right. That's just really, really, really disturbing, really, really horrible to see.
[03:09:39] Yeah. And you think he's going to go in with freaking KGB agent and be able to carry on a conversation
[03:09:45] and not get manipulated and take an advantage of it's very disturbing. A KGB agent that for the last
[03:09:50] 20 years has not been distracted by some wars in the Middle East. And we have been. He's been
[03:09:56] preparing and preparing for whatever he wants to do while we've been messing about in the Middle East.
[03:10:01] Yeah. And that's, you know, talking earlier about iterative decision making. Here's another bad
[03:10:07] move when you're to leadership position. Is painting yourself into a corner? You know, don't
[03:10:11] paint yourself into a corner. The world changes things change, but things to happen and you don't
[03:10:16] put yourself in a situation where you can't say, hey, well, this is the direction we're going
[03:10:20] now. It's a little bit different than where you were heading, but it's okay. Because I,
[03:10:23] all time was saying, I might go in a different direction. That's okay. And you know what?
[03:10:27] Let's say we have this amazing charismatic badass leader, which we don't, that allows us to
[03:10:34] look like we're letting Russia paint us into a quarter. And then, boom, he's got a whole
[03:10:37] number of plants. That would be cool. But that's not what's happening. That's not what happened.
[03:10:42] Right? Like, that's that old, what's the, everybody likes to quote the whole, um, you know,
[03:10:46] what's the Chinese book? Uh, Sunsir? Yeah, right? Um, always laugh. I'm like,
[03:10:51] whenever somebody wants to, you know, sound like, you know, understand war, they're going to quote
[03:10:55] that guy, you know, feudal Chinese battle and, you know, war theory, okay, cool, but
[03:11:03] great. Some of us have actually participated in war. Thanks for quoting that. But there is a good,
[03:11:08] the whole thing of, you know, the rules, appear weak when you're strong, you know, and
[03:11:12] appear strong when you're weak, right? Like, always give mis signals to your, um, to your enemy
[03:11:17] and adversaries. Yeah, that's not what we're doing. Our adversaries clearly understand that we have
[03:11:24] a very broken leader. I don't even want to say, Lee, week. Um, because I would say that probably
[03:11:31] a Biden as goofball as he has been throughout his career. You know, Biden in the 80s and 90s
[03:11:36] was definitely an intelligent person, right? Um, that guy as a president probably could have been
[03:11:45] decisive. But despite we have today, it's just an, you know, an old broken person. Um, and
[03:11:52] any of that, you know, I talk about term limits. How about a retirement age? That was probably
[03:11:59] government's point. Yeah. I mean, we have 80 plus year olds running our country and I was
[03:12:04] asked people, yeah, would you trust your 85 year old grandma to walk your dog? Right? Like, put that
[03:12:11] into perspective. What would you trust your 85 year old, your 80 year old grandparents with? And I'm
[03:12:17] sure, there are plenty of outliers, right? There are a hundred years old out there that are brilliant
[03:12:22] outliers never prove a rule. Military's retirement has a retirement age. Every industry has a
[03:12:28] retirement age. Our government 65. Why are our, our justices, why are our representatives, why
[03:12:36] are president allowed? What? I mean, it's socially acceptable to have a retirement age on these things.
[03:12:43] You know, and of course, term limits. But it scares me that we are literally at a point right now
[03:12:52] where this, this president, this administration could lead us into a world war. And we're not ready
[03:12:57] for it. I mean, I'm sure, don't give me wrong. I mean, coming, we could take for American soldiers
[03:13:02] that sailors get ready. Yeah. The military's ready for it. The military's ready technically
[03:13:06] to fight, of course. But are we ready to start losing people in Ukraine, which a lot of people
[03:13:12] couldn't even figure out where it is or map that we don't understand. We don't care about that much
[03:13:18] against Russia, who's Russia. So who's ready for that? When you say who's ready,
[03:13:23] I'd say we're ready to fight, of course. But are we ready to go and die? Well, and kill
[03:13:28] bunch of people that we don't know and civilians that are going to die as well. It's like,
[03:13:32] we may want to think through that a little bit. I'm all for helping our allies. Right? That's a
[03:13:37] good thing. We need a strong bunch of allies. But the Ukraine has known for well over a decade.
[03:13:45] Right? That Putin wanted that land back. So my question is, what has the Ukraine, what has
[03:13:51] Ukraine have been told to you? No, it's what's called it, no Ukraine. Do you know why?
[03:13:56] Because Ukraine, I guess it means frontier. And if you say the frontier, which is the Ukraine,
[03:14:04] that's the frontier of Russia. So calling it the frontier, that's that's what I had in her
[03:14:12] class from. Somebody told me like in a comment. I'm social media that it's not the Ukraine.
[03:14:16] It's just Ukraine. Sorry. I don't know that I'm not purposely trying to diminish that nation.
[03:14:24] No intent implied. Yeah, I don't know, Jack, man. It's so frustrating. It's like we have all these
[03:14:32] problems. And again, I'm not the, I'm not the guy that says, hey, we have to completely withdraw from
[03:14:37] the rest of the world. Now we have to be involved. Yeah, that's not the point. The main thing are status.
[03:14:41] But like to just go metal with the Ukraine when they've done very little to prepare themselves
[03:14:46] for this day, which they knew were was coming. They've done nothing to get their allies in Europe
[03:14:53] to help them. They've, you know, like, hey, and again, any of these situations, any of these situations
[03:15:01] around the world, just to say, oh, we're not going to get involved anymore. Anyone anymore. That's not a good move.
[03:15:05] No, that's not a good move. It's a good move to say, well, okay, what's happening? What would make sense?
[03:15:10] Let's try this approach. Let's see what happens with this approach. If this approach works,
[03:15:15] cool, we'll continue doing vesting that approach. If that approach isn't working, we'll say, you know,
[03:15:19] what? We didn't realize that there's a bunch of different, because Ukraine's got all kinds of
[03:15:23] different factions in there. Oh, we didn't realize that. We, we, we, we looked at it a little bit too
[03:15:28] broad, and we thought Ukraine was Ukraine and we was Ukraine against Russia doesn't really look like it's
[03:15:31] that anymore. We're going to stand down, right? Or we're going to back away. Or we're going to really
[03:15:36] support this group that we know is now come to the surface as being the prominent power there.
[03:15:42] Okay? Instead of saying what we're saying right now, like we don't understand what's happening
[03:15:48] fully, and we can't predict the future. So don't don't over index on things that you can't
[03:15:54] predict. Don't do that in anything. Right. Well, and also, let's influence. Clearly, we are still
[03:16:03] a superpower with tons of influence. Even if our European allies don't respect our current leader,
[03:16:11] he still brings to the table and emits a amount of tools that he can use to sway them. Hey,
[03:16:19] look, oh, hey, Britain, you guys don't want to back us up with whatever we want to do. We're
[03:16:24] going to cut such and such off. Oh, hey, Germany. All those things. But because there's Eastern
[03:16:30] Block, man, they all love us. Right? Hey, you know, there there are there are two allies now.
[03:16:35] You've got, you know, the bridge, the French and Germans who are kind of, they've been flipping
[03:16:40] their middle finger up to us quite a bit for the last seniors. Okay, guys, that's your stance.
[03:16:44] Cool. We're going to continue to be friends with Romania and Hungary and Lithuanian Estonia.
[03:16:49] Yeah, we're going to back them up because they're, they're on the line with Russia. You guys,
[03:16:55] screw you guys. Take care of yourselves for a little while, right? Just like Trump wanted to pull
[03:17:01] funding from NATO. Like you guys are going to start funding this. Right. He took a little bit
[03:17:05] hard line with our allies. Like, hey, we're going to treat you guys like adults now. We're going to
[03:17:08] cut some of your funding. You guys are going to start contributing. That's not a horrible approach.
[03:17:13] Right? Accountability. Oh, own it. Right. You guys want NATO. You like NATO. Don't you? Right. You
[03:17:18] guys like that security of having us backing you up from across the pond. Just like we did in
[03:17:25] World War II. Yeah, y'all know. So check it out. Here's some new rules we're going to play by.
[03:17:31] You know, we've been funding this thing. We're going to take a step back. We're going to let you
[03:17:34] guys take the lead for a little while and see how you do with it. Right? There's nothing wrong with that.
[03:17:39] No. And I think Trump was trying to do that. I don't know. You know, um, and you know,
[03:17:45] let's face it. Those leaders in those countries, man, they, they, they led the way. They are the
[03:17:53] Biden's ahead of Biden Europe. And America, I think we lead the way with everything. Like we led the way
[03:17:58] with this crazy group. You left this presidency and all this stuff. No, man, Europe was way ahead of us on
[03:18:04] that stuff. Their leaders, right? I have been crazy liberals for freaking, you know, five, 10 years now.
[03:18:10] They, they definitely got to jump on that force, you know, not that that's a good thing. So until we,
[03:18:16] just take a step back and say, hey, guys, deal with it. I do think, you know, clearly in this case,
[03:18:23] war with Russia, war with China, man. You're talking something that would affect the entire
[03:18:27] world and be so expensive for all parties, right? And here's the reality, doesn't war with us.
[03:18:33] It would destroy his country and have a money for it. Exactly. So, choke him out.
[03:18:38] Oh, that means cutting off that pipeline we told him they could have. Shit, that's going to
[03:18:44] mean we have to freaking admit we were wrong. Sanctions, Russia can't afford and even more so, right?
[03:18:53] Like if the rest of the world distance themselves from Russia stops and Russia's standing there with
[03:19:01] a China that's kind of their ally, but also trying to shut them out of the way at the same time.
[03:19:06] And I ran, that's your friends Putin, the rest of the world's kind of tidy up all's crap.
[03:19:14] And they go back to behaving, right? And ultimately again, root cause, why does Russia want this?
[03:19:22] Why does Russia want it? We just identify that, we can cut them off in the knees.
[03:19:28] It's just so frustrating, man. And again, you know, always step back and say, you know what,
[03:19:32] I don't know everything. I don't, I don't get to peek behind that curtain, right? Like clearly Biden or whoever's
[03:19:39] running our country, Vice President Harris, they know way more than I do. So, I'm always going to give
[03:19:46] any administration a little bit of benefit of a doubt, right? Like, you know, I always, I hate it,
[03:19:52] growing up in military where it's some key leader would be like, well, you just don't understand the
[03:19:56] big picture. And then as I got older, I realized that I don't understand the big picture.
[03:20:01] Yeah, of course, they didn't either, right? Like, that was their way of saying like,
[03:20:05] you know, we don't really know what the hell's going on either. But now in the motor, I do have
[03:20:09] an acceptance that I don't have the big picture. And I never will, right? None of us will ever know
[03:20:16] what the president of the United States knows, right? I think there's no security clearance out there
[03:20:21] to touches what that guy gets to know or that guy, presumably one day. No, so you, as us,
[03:20:28] as the guys who work for that commander, she always has to come sit back and go, okay, they know
[03:20:32] more than us. So, I always try to keep that reserve, you know, like that to keep me from creating
[03:20:40] assumptions and assertions that are realizing that my assumption and my assertions are always
[03:20:46] going to be less informed, right? Yeah, they've got massive intel, that works briefing every day,
[03:20:55] sources all over the world, like they got some information. Right. Still, I like to think
[03:21:01] to take do some good stuff with it. Me too, like, please, God, because right now, man, what we've
[03:21:07] gotten ourselves into is scary. And again, and as you guys have a China, like, you've talked about China,
[03:21:13] what if China makes a move on Taiwan now? Like, they're not sitting over there going, oh, well,
[03:21:17] if Americans leave you in Ukraine, that the withdrawal from Afghanistan is what set this stage,
[03:21:25] right? Like, I don't know anybody except for some staunch left supporters of, I don't even know
[03:21:30] if there's any Biden supporters left, but there are the Democrats, right, who are just never going to
[03:21:36] say that they were wrong for voting for him or that he anything they've done is wrong, right?
[03:21:41] This is how our system works, but the reality is, any objective synthetic thinker knows that this
[03:21:49] all started with our withdrawal from Afghanistan and the weakness that was just, you know,
[03:21:56] sent out across the world worldwide. So what was the, or was there a straw that broke the
[03:22:05] camel's back that made you say, I'm, I'm going to go and run, because I mean, let's face it, here you are,
[03:22:11] how would you say you are? Just turn 46. Just turn 46. You got businesses, you got a cool woman in
[03:22:18] your life, you got a nice place to live or whatever. Yeah. Seems like you could be going into
[03:22:26] actual literal retirement mode. Yeah, like, incentive, enjoying your life,
[03:22:31] warm mode, right? And that's where I was at, and I've been working towards it pretty hard,
[03:22:37] even living in Wilmington drove me insane, stop lights and traffic and, you know, just, I flew in
[03:22:43] yesterday. I'm happy because, you know, Melissa and I bought 62 acres about an hour outside of Wilmington,
[03:22:51] you know, it came with three dockies and chickens and fenced impasters and we turned our dog's loose.
[03:22:58] And I mean, if I want to walk around my yard naked, you know what I mean? It's that type of country,
[03:23:04] you know, it's the same way I grew up. And I think, you know, whether that's genetic or not,
[03:23:09] I've always creved it. I like to be in places where it's just quiet, you know, growing up on the
[03:23:16] coast, you know, the water and then because of a dare, or someone talking smack, I went to die
[03:23:24] school, wound up on a dive team. I wanted to be on the mountain team. I went to Afghanistan and
[03:23:28] fell in love with the mountains because before I've got to stand, I had done some training in Colorado,
[03:23:32] but not really done enough to fall in love with the mountains and the thin air and all that.
[03:23:38] Well, you went to Afghanistan, man, and I was just, man, you know, I remember looking around like
[03:23:42] in Torrebore and stuff and, you know, like, wow, this would be some amazing snowboarding,
[03:23:49] like, what are they doing here? You know, and at the time, I didn't realize that it actually was a
[03:23:55] destination back in the 60s. They're up my stepmother and her friends all went to Kabul in the late 60s,
[03:24:02] the smoke weed. Yeah, my stepmother is she was so funny of my mom, you know, a North Carolina girl,
[03:24:09] country girl, a farm girl, my grandfather was a farmer and my stepmother's from out here. Oh,
[03:24:16] yeah, she was from like, uh, oh, I should say, uh, I forgot her hometown, but um,
[03:24:24] between here in LA. And uh, so she was like, I hippie. A little bit in the 60s turned into
[03:24:29] unless she was traveling to Afghanistan smoking pop music, but not like, uh, not like an anti-government
[03:24:36] hippie, just like a California young girl, you know, whatever. So cool stories, you know, and I had no
[03:24:42] idea that was that part of Afghanistan that it was actually very Western and modern during the 60s.
[03:24:48] You know, Kabul, you look at pictures, you know, the roads are nice. It's clean, people are smiling, you know?
[03:24:55] So anyway, yeah, man, I'm just not into the city, you know, I was these days,
[03:25:00] you put me behind a tractor or a combat and I got to go six mile an hour for 10 miles. No stress.
[03:25:06] I'm not even good at whatever, you know, I don't care. Because living out there I'm rarely in a hurry.
[03:25:12] I have days that I have work to do in clients and guys to shoot with and classes, but
[03:25:16] on my days off, man, I'm my boss, you know, and don't get me wrong. I can be my own kind of a
[03:25:22] pain in my ass, but I'm flexible with my time. So no stress, you know, um, got out of the city,
[03:25:29] everything's awesome. It sucks from the list of because she drives almost an hour every day,
[03:25:33] one way to her pose. But, you know, she's, she's chill. Um, you know, she loves to listen to her podcast
[03:25:40] and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, she's a dentist, so she works four days a week.
[03:25:45] And, um, so Friday she gets to go and do whatever she wants or whatever. So, you know, before we did it,
[03:25:50] you know, it's like, hey, are you sure? Those are our prices cute, man. And I found it by accident.
[03:25:54] It just happened. We driving down that road, took a different route home one day,
[03:25:58] and, uh, solid for self-sign, put off the side road, put up Google Maps. You could kind of see the
[03:26:03] property lines. I was like, oh, call the realtor, man. We closed on it. So, yeah, you know,
[03:26:09] there are days where like my most intelligent conversation is with a couple of donkeys and some
[03:26:15] dogs. I don't even see people. You know, my nearest neighbor, well, my nearest nearest neighbor is
[03:26:22] like some methods that live like, you know, half a mouth through the woods. Um, we basically have
[03:26:26] an agreement that they, um, they set up my business and, you know, I set it up their business
[03:26:31] and their trailer doesn't burn down. Um, you know, how meth cook houses sometimes, you know,
[03:26:36] catch on fire. So we're good. You know, we're good. Every none did all wake up and like,
[03:26:40] you know, I can hear their music playing it like four in the morning or something, but other
[03:26:44] not, they don't mess with me. I don't mess with them. They're just redneck methods. And then the
[03:26:50] other neighbor man is kind of cool. She lives like 1.2 miles away and she's completely deaf.
[03:26:54] So she can't hear the range. Other not. No one lives within two miles of us, you know, so we get out
[03:26:59] there and shoot and shoot and shoot and no one cares. So it's real cool, man. Yeah. So we were playing
[03:27:07] on moving to Idaho. As the costs were going up, we're starting to look at Montana as well,
[03:27:11] because a couple years ago, Montana being really expensive, Idaho was still like, all right?
[03:27:16] And the cool thing about Idaho for me is while the rockies aren't as high there, they don't have
[03:27:20] the same elevation and say Colorado or wherever Idaho is like 60% public land.
[03:27:27] Lots of hunt and access. And I like hunting, but I like being on those mountains, man. You know,
[03:27:35] it's just quiet. Most times it's just me and Melissa. But yeah, man, we found a couple different places
[03:27:43] where we're looking at one place very seriously in Idaho City, just in the USA. And then,
[03:27:49] and then, everything in America started happening. Because man, that's where I was at.
[03:27:53] You know, my business is doing great. I mean, Melissa's a dentist. So like,
[03:27:58] where she read into pollchocks too? Yeah. And for her to do that, it's kind of a big deal.
[03:28:03] Like, you know, clearly like I said, I can pack a backpack and a duffle bag and move.
[03:28:09] You know, it's got some guns out of the safe. Let's go. She clearly, you know, I mean, she's got
[03:28:16] 18 or 19 employees. We're all females.
[03:28:19] They're always fun because they've always got something going on. You know,
[03:28:25] I don't want to call it drama because that would be dismissing it. But the dynamics in that
[03:28:30] office are always fun to listen to. You know, because I have team dynamics stuff. And then I get
[03:28:35] the list and listen about her team dynamics. And it's like, a lot of the same stuff that we would
[03:28:40] do with only with a hint of, you know, the lady stuff. You know, I don't like, wow, I don't
[03:28:47] envy her at all. Because at least like on a TV and in theory, you could always go out back and
[03:28:51] sort it out, you know, at least going there and put the gloves on and sort back shit out, right?
[03:28:56] She doesn't have that option. So yeah, man, um, we were really close to pollinator going on
[03:29:02] moving. And we had talked about it for years. Like, our first date,
[03:29:06] that we claim as our first date, right? We were when she and I met,
[03:29:11] she and her boyfriend had just broke up me in the garage and had just broke up and we were real
[03:29:15] skeptical of each other. We had known each other from the gym and kind of looked at each other
[03:29:20] like, oh, oh, oh, oh, who's that punk? Who's that punk? You know, both very strong personalities.
[03:29:25] She's her own boss, same with me and been a boss for a while now. I don't really,
[03:29:32] and that dynamic was just so interesting as we came together, we kind of kept it quiet that we were
[03:29:36] seeing each other. So our kind of our announcement to all of our friends and you how a gym can be
[03:29:42] everyone's friends from the gym and um, we did a hike across the Bob Marshall Building as out in
[03:29:49] Montana. Very, but it wasn't supposed to be a hike across. It was supposed to be a loop back to
[03:29:55] the car two days, 20 some miles. Well, that night we hit our turnaround point. We woke up in the morning
[03:30:04] and there was smoke everywhere. Largest forest fire ever in the flathead national forest and
[03:30:11] the Bob Marshall was inside the flathead. Oh, now what? So now we are running from a forest fire all
[03:30:19] way across the Bob Marshall. So it was like 70 or so miles and we didn't even have the food for it.
[03:30:25] And right now in the console of my truck or protein bars, they're not mine. They're for her.
[03:30:33] Her favorite protein bars because the last thing anyone wants is from a list that get hunger.
[03:30:37] We angry, she's a hangry woman. So Melissa is half German and half Japanese.
[03:30:46] I live with the access powers. Keeping her fed is a priority. I'm telling you, man.
[03:30:54] And it's not like a gradual dissent. It's everything's cool and now she just wants to tell your
[03:30:59] throat. And you don't know it. Yeah, and you don't even know it's coming. I'm like, I'm blissfully,
[03:31:05] you know, like, you know, I'm not real crazy or angry about my diet anymore. My thing is like,
[03:31:11] I just, you know, I started getting older, started not having abs as much. So I just quit eating
[03:31:15] breakfast as much. Simple. Some people call that intermittent fasting. I call it screw it less calories.
[03:31:22] No fancy diet names here. And no dude, she needs to eat. So we have to keep her fed. But yeah,
[03:31:29] we run out of food running across the bad Marshall. So you're one day in when the force fire hits. And how many?
[03:31:36] What's the total day? Oh, we want to do it in in in two and a half, two and three quarter
[03:31:41] days and 70 some miles. Maybe we had to go across the continent of the vise. Like you got to climb like
[03:31:46] 9,000 feet in like a mile a half. It's like zig zig zig zig. I mean, we're going up the zig zags, right?
[03:31:54] The switch bags. And I remember looking up the trouble go here to here and on the trail right there
[03:32:00] were three or four mil deer and I was looking up at their bellies like right there. But I could
[03:32:05] still almost touch them. It was like this. Anyway, I bless your heart man. On that trip across
[03:32:10] the bottom of Marshall's, she learned how to read a top of Matt. Prick in was running the GPS. She
[03:32:16] never done that stuff. Of course she doesn't. I mean, she had an ice climb, mountain climb,
[03:32:19] hike in all kinds of national forests, her and her buddy from dental school were like a
[03:32:24] ventricly young ladies out. In some cases they tell me stories I'm like, that was dumb and dangerous.
[03:32:29] You could have been one of those missing person stories. And they were like, yeah, probably.
[03:32:34] Well, anyway, just that type of person man. And we had to cost the white river and it's an
[03:32:40] august so it's snowmelt. You know? And man, I made a huge mistake, freaking. So because she's so
[03:32:47] physically fit. But now she's she's 120, maybe 125 pounds at this time. And I'm like, oh, this is
[03:32:54] a good place across this river. I mean, it's rolling. I think need deep to me. That's halfway her
[03:33:00] quads. I got across, dropped my pack and I could see she was struggling. Right? And I'm pretty sure
[03:33:07] footage. I've been in the woods, backpacks, walking steak. She's kind of walking steak. But it's
[03:33:12] got her where it started to leverage her off. And man, I got back out there and you know, the rocks
[03:33:18] under that water slick. And I'm like, get out there, man. And I put my hand on her backpack. She slipped.
[03:33:24] We went in drink. Oh, I was lucky. I got underneath her. And man, it was like that. Hold,
[03:33:30] push her up. Get me some air. Go back under. And man, I got scuffed up. My whole backside, my knees.
[03:33:39] This whole side just beat up. She's got her pack on. So she's pretty protected or whatever.
[03:33:45] And luckily, there's a curve in the river. Because a couple hundred meters on down this way is
[03:33:49] the salmon river. If we had gone in that, go through those little bit of falls. And into that river,
[03:33:53] we would have died. Right? Luckily, a little curve, man. It watched this up on the shore. We kind of
[03:33:59] crawled out, laid there. It's warm in the afternoon, but man, the water was cold. Real cold.
[03:34:04] And like cold enough to wear it. I'm bleeding and scuffed up, but I can't feel it. I don't know who
[03:34:09] I'm going to be sore. This is good. It's up. She rolls over and looks at me. She's like,
[03:34:14] you saved my life. And I was like, yeah, we're going to go with that. He's still busy.
[03:34:20] Because I'd take that river across the mountain, almost killed her. Almost killed that girl, man.
[03:34:25] And I will never, it spooks me even talking about it, right? Freaking in there. And because
[03:34:32] who would have believed afterwards that I chose that river crossing, right? They're like, oh,
[03:34:37] he did that over purpose. He drowned that girl. But no, we were new. And I was like, oh, I'm in love
[03:34:42] with this chicken stuff. And it horrified me that I had made such a stupid decision. Just stupid.
[03:34:50] But we were running from a forest fire, whatever. Freaking haste, all that. I did learn that
[03:34:55] she's not one of us. You know, it's still have to be careful. She's smaller, so on and so forth.
[03:35:01] Anyway, man, we get across there, whatever, Freaking that was like our first date coming out of
[03:35:06] the closet as far as our statement and stuff. And man, it was ever since then, every vacation
[03:35:11] we took was to the mountains. She wants to climb Everest. It clearly puts me in an interesting position
[03:35:19] because I don't give a damn about climbing Everest. But I can't just let my girl go through now.
[03:35:24] I guess I'm going to have to go up there too. Or I just suck it up and say, hey, honey, I'm
[03:35:28] a wait for you in a base camp, Freaking. Hang out with these pieheads. Freaking, I'll talk to you on
[03:35:33] the radio. Are you dead? You're going to keep going, right? Some of that thing. But now, so we
[03:35:38] start climbing the 14ers in Colorado. So we're doing that stuff, man. Just falling in
[03:35:44] the level of the mountains. Point being is we want to move the mountains. Her best friend from
[03:35:47] dental schools in Colorado, or originally, tell me I'm going to Colorado and then it got a little
[03:35:53] California on us. Lots of public hunting land there. One of two states left that you can get over
[03:35:58] the countertags for elk. No big deal. And if you leave Denver, Boulder, right? Go up anywhere.
[03:36:06] Freaking, it's still Dodge trucks with bumpers. You know, it's still diesel pickups and good
[03:36:11] over-anch boys. So I would do Colorado if she wanted. But we kind of figured on, I don't bunch
[03:36:17] of my friends with a dyto, probably bunch of your friends who have dyto, it's like the,
[03:36:22] where everybody's going. It's the last conservative holdout I guess. Well,
[03:36:27] we were that close, man. We were getting ready to pull the trigger on moving. And like I said,
[03:36:32] a big deal for her with her primes. And then everything started happening. The pandemic, the
[03:36:38] weirdness, it got to the point where I was like, wow, one year ago, if you'd asked me how long
[03:36:44] it was going to take first to get right here, how to say 20 years. But somehow, the US got put
[03:36:50] on fast forward to its progressive decline. And every nation has it. My history tells us every
[03:36:57] culture fails. And we have some very distinct parallels to the last greatest culture, right?
[03:37:03] The last greatest city state, Rome, the Roman Empire. You know, she was dead. A nation and
[03:37:14] culture found it on slavery, on the backs of slaves, right? There are many parallels. A nation
[03:37:20] who cared more about entertaining themselves than protecting their borders, right? It's some spooky
[03:37:26] parallels. And I'm like, oh, and then I'm talking to my very good friend, Alario Pantano.
[03:37:34] Alario, if you go ahead, he was the marine in Voluca that shot and killed two terrorist
[03:37:42] dirt bags. And then was charged with their murders. Lieutenant, Type, you know, he, his
[03:37:52] between, he had lost some boys to debut before. So he was an elistic guy, Scott sniper,
[03:37:56] was working on Wall Street. I'm not allowed to happen, doing great for himself and his family,
[03:38:01] smart guy, real smart dude. And not allowed to happen. And he got back in. And then in Voluca,
[03:38:10] man, you know, for killing two very clearly terrorist, right? Member Feluca, get out or fight
[03:38:17] us. Anybody that stays, you're a bad guy. And then we're bad guys. They had weapons in the
[03:38:21] trunks on and so forth. What got weird? You can look at story up, but bottom line, they charged
[03:38:26] it with murder. Two counts of it. And for how many months of his life, he was
[03:38:33] having to fin him stuff against the nation. And he's so much love. They went to war for
[03:38:38] war. Well, Alario ran for Congress in 2010 and 2012. A better bright before than in 2008,
[03:38:44] time frame when I opened my gym. So I watched and as he was running, I was still very apolitical.
[03:38:51] Was it really interested, so on and so forth? The primaries didn't work out for him. They were fighting
[03:38:58] him and another fellow who is now the incumbent, again, David Rouser. They were fighting for that area.
[03:39:03] And what they were really fighting was a 30-some-year Democrat incumbent. Well, between the two of
[03:39:10] them, they did finally outstim and but David Rouser bested Alario in a primary. He just had more
[03:39:17] pool and one, highly populated segment of that district and David came out the winner.
[03:39:26] Since then, Alario, he became the director of Veterans Affairs and stuff for North Carolina,
[03:39:31] Long story short man, just you know, his dedicated life to trying to take care of service members
[03:39:36] and just a great guy. But last Easter day, we're sitting on a tell-get in my truck out of the range
[03:39:42] and we're just chatting. He took a job at Syracuse University and was living up in Syracuse down
[03:39:48] visited and we were just chatting about things, the nation, the state of it, so on and so forth.
[03:39:54] And I was like, hey man, so I was thinking about potentially maybe duty hops off the tell-get
[03:40:05] and he's like, he can get excited. When he gets excited, he's really excited. He's like, yes,
[03:40:10] if there's ever a time, it's 2022, the nation's ready for it, the climate needs you. It's this
[03:40:15] this is, he just got, he didn't even let me finish. He knew what I was going to say and which I
[03:40:20] thought was pretty cool because I don't necessarily think I, you know, broadcast something like that,
[03:40:25] especially something so out of that bill for me that he just had a feeling. And it was funny
[03:40:30] because it's Easter day and he's like, you know what? I was like, well I'm just kicking around.
[03:40:34] I'm not sure he's like, it's Easter day and there's it's clearly God sent me here today to tell
[03:40:40] you that you must absolutely do this and I'm sitting there going. Okay, not really where I thought
[03:40:47] this was going to go but now I'm like, all right, all right, so if he feels this strongly about it
[03:40:53] and he's the first person that I've even mentioned it to, maybe this is something I should look at.
[03:40:58] And at the time I'm still like, I just want to move to Idaho. I just want to go hunting.
[03:41:02] That's what we left alone in my own business. Then I realized at the reason we were at
[03:41:09] because dudes like me have been mining our own damn business while the left has rallied protested,
[03:41:15] organized and executed a subversion campaign that the world liked the world's never seen before.
[03:41:23] A very successful subversion campaign. So fast forward a little bit so that was Easter day.
[03:41:32] Loria puts me in contact with the folks who are now my consultant team and all that. We start
[03:41:36] kind of exploring. All right, let's come up with some courses of action to see if they're viable.
[03:41:40] Let's see if this works. Well, North Carolina in the census picks up an extra an additional
[03:41:46] non-actual, an additional seat. So we had 13 now we're going to have 14.
[03:41:51] Representative, you have a house or representers.
[03:41:55] Yeah, man. So we're like, okay, let's just we're going to have to wait and see because right now
[03:41:59] I live in that same district with the incumbent David Rouser and by all means a pretty square
[03:42:05] way to. He hasn't, hasn't done anything to really upset anybody. He's not a rhino. I wouldn't say he's
[03:42:12] like the champion of all things patriotic America either but what he has then has taken care of his
[03:42:19] district, which is agriculture. I think he's probably going to become the lead on the agriculture committee.
[03:42:27] At least that's what I've heard. Well, so we decided, hey, look, if I'm going to run, I'm going to have
[03:42:35] to wait to see the new districts because challenging rousers probably a losing thing. I'm not doing
[03:42:40] America any good, challenging an opponent that can't be beat. That's not a good strategy, right?
[03:42:46] And you know, especially the guy that's doing what he's supposed to do, represent his
[03:42:50] district. That's right. I am all for challenging Republican incumbents that suck. They need to do.
[03:42:56] Right. And I've said numerous times, reelect no one, reelect no one. But the reality is there
[03:43:02] are still some good dudes up there who need some backup. They need a QRF. Right. So the new
[03:43:11] districts come out and the county I live in and a couple others to include cumboing county
[03:43:18] fed of the Fort Bragg, Hornet County is a little block. It's almost a square, right? The middle
[03:43:23] of North Carolina, mostly roll and I live in it and it's got fit. Oh, for a break. I'm like, oh,
[03:43:29] okay. Now we're making sense and no incumbent. They. All right. Like it's ready made. It's just
[03:43:36] sitting there ready for me to go woo them around for cons. So we announced man and we had already put
[03:43:43] it together. We're ready. We're just waiting on those districts and he was like, okay, this this
[03:43:47] makes sense. Right. I can do this and hopefully go do some be part of positive change. Help correct
[03:43:53] this trajectory. I joke that it's like a 308 trajectory. We're trying to make it like a, you know,
[03:43:59] a 375 in A-Boah trajectory. You know, let's let's let's flatten this curve. Not the pandemic
[03:44:06] curve. I was like flattened this trajectory curve that America has been placed on by crazy socialists.
[03:44:11] So yeah, man, that happened. We said, okay, cool. This makes sense. But you asked like this
[03:44:18] straw that broke the camel's back, man. I'm not usually a super sentimental type person or whatever,
[03:44:24] but that my father passed last summer. We held his memorial service over July the fourth week in
[03:44:31] my niece, my older sister's daughter. I guess that motor sister is a very successful
[03:44:36] pediatric pediatric and her chronologist. My niece has never known what it's like to miss a meal.
[03:44:46] She doesn't know suffering. And in a lot of ways, I'm kind of that guy's like, this next generation
[03:44:51] sucks and these boys need to learn how to change all in their car. We all get into that sometimes
[03:44:57] like, man, this next gen is just weak. But I'm looking at my niece who is this beautiful young lady
[03:45:02] lacrosse player. She's almost six foot tall, stud, pre-can a gear ahead in school, super intelligent.
[03:45:10] All right? Not only was my sister, you know, more aggressive than these, she's a brilliant mind.
[03:45:17] So her son and her daughter got some of this. Anyway, they come to the house. My niece is a
[03:45:24] plan. You know, my sister's in biotech. So she lives in Boston. So my niece is a city kid. So she's
[03:45:32] out on my, you know, property riding the four-wheeler, playing with the dogs, for you can throw them,
[03:45:37] you know, the dummies into the pond for the retriever. And I'm just looking at her.
[03:45:42] And like, she's never known when it's like to not have Wi-Fi. That level of luxury, right?
[03:45:49] Like, that's America. I mean, even the poorest people in America today have it pretty good. Like,
[03:45:53] homeless people in America, you know, have it pretty good. You know, we take care of even our
[03:46:00] poorest. But I'm looking at her. I'm just like, huh, she's never known when it's like,
[03:46:05] like, since she's been able to use a smart phone, they've had Wi-Fi on airplanes.
[03:46:11] And I was like, I don't want it. I don't want her to ever know what it's like, not to live in that type of
[03:46:16] luxury. I don't want her to live in what Western Mosul looked like in 2005, 2006. And then for the whole
[03:46:24] entire net of it, it'd be burned to the ground and crushed in the indigenous folks of
[03:46:29] none of a city to be murdered by ISIS, right? Like, I don't want her to know an America at war with
[03:46:35] itself. And if we keep on this trajectory, that is a potential course. And that scares the shutt of me.
[03:46:42] And I don't know that any of us will be alive to see that type of demise of our culture,
[03:46:46] but she might be. All right, she's 16 years old. And that was a day that I was like,
[03:46:54] all right, let's do it to lie the fourth week in last year. And it wasn't because it was July the
[03:47:00] fourth weekend. It just happened, right? This is kind of a, I guess, a cool story. And I'm not a very
[03:47:05] sentimental type person or whatever, but it was about my knees. It was the weekend that we
[03:47:10] memorialized my father's life. And I was like, okay, eight years is all due that that will put me
[03:47:19] at 55 years old. And then I'll retire. And I was hopefully, if I continue the path that I'm
[03:47:25] when I would maintain physical fitness and at 55, I'll still be fit enough to go,
[03:47:31] whatever, great thing, I'm going to chase around a mountain. But I was like, you know what,
[03:47:36] if not me, then I'm out of place where I can, like I said, I'm able to sit on the shoulder.
[03:47:43] And you know, as well as I do, right? Like overseas, I had different times in my life where I
[03:47:50] wouldn't take a married guy with kids on my team. I would take that young ranger.
[03:47:56] Because I know he wasn't distracted. I built a team there for a while that was just,
[03:48:00] hmm, there were some scary young men. They had no distractions. I have sent men home
[03:48:06] for being on the phone too often, too late, are you with their spouses? Hey, go, go home,
[03:48:11] sort it out. I'll see you in a few weeks. Or bro, hey, man, I understand if you don't want to come back,
[03:48:18] go take care of your family. But you don't get to be here running operations with us,
[03:48:23] while you got that distraction on your, on your mind. So I don't have kids, man. I can go,
[03:48:29] and go to DC and be fully vested, right? While another person like me who might be considering
[03:48:36] around that has two kids, they need to go to a ballet concert or ballet recital, a concert,
[03:48:42] or a band concert, or a soccer game, or a lacrosse game, or football game, or whatever.
[03:48:48] You'll be sitting at your desk. I can get the work. Yeah. You'll be making shit happen.
[03:48:54] The whole desk image just ruined the bro. Can we not put me behind a desk?
[03:49:02] Yeah, you know, I was joking. I was like, I want to make C-span the most watch news in that
[03:49:08] work. I like that one. I want to be tuning in to see you. What in the world has Tony?
[03:49:18] And so this is kind of cool. Right. AOC in that weird bunch that called them the squad.
[03:49:25] Right. Clearly not an infantry squad. So myself, Jake Collins is a seventh grouper who's running
[03:49:33] in Florida. He's an amputee. He's a stud man, a stud of studs. And so he's running down in Florida.
[03:49:39] He's doing really well as well. We were joking that, hey man, if they can have the squad,
[03:49:44] we'll be the JTF. The joint task force. Right. And that's the thing. We're trying really hard
[03:49:50] to take it all of America. That's a caucus. The JTF caucus, the veterans caucus. What if you want to
[03:49:56] call us? But yeah, man, that is how I made that decision. It's like, you know, hey man,
[03:50:02] there is an entire generation of Americans that needs to be taken care of, that needs to be set
[03:50:07] up for success. And I feel like it's my generation, the 40, the 60 year olds right now who have
[03:50:16] fell this last generation and allowed all this to happen because we were just hard working
[03:50:21] conservatives that minded our own damn business. And by money owned damn business, we elected these
[03:50:27] spinalous cowards that went to DC and sold us out time after time again. Coppermise our rights
[03:50:33] away, right. Everybody's hard to say and conservatives haven't conserved a damn thing. Because
[03:50:38] conservatives are good people and they think dealing with the left is a rational thing. The
[03:50:44] problem is the left are not rational people. They only want what they want and are not going to
[03:50:48] compromise. The right just keeps compromise and bit by bit by bit. Every single right that we hold
[03:50:54] dear, they let it go. Peace by peace by peace. And that's all this nation can fall. Right? There's
[03:51:01] clearly no nation on this planet is going to invade us. Right? And get anywhere. You know, the old
[03:51:07] there's a gum behind every blade of grass, right? The Japanese newspaper they weren't hitting this
[03:51:10] mainland, right? China knows they can't say it with Russia. The only way we can fall is if we
[03:51:17] allow it. And we have allowed this country to get where it's at. And when I say we, I mean us, all of
[03:51:23] us good people, it's our fault. I made a post on social a couple weeks ago, week ago when it
[03:51:28] was. And I, I titled it, you know, the biggest problem in America, question one. It's us.
[03:51:38] Right? It's us not being involved. I ask people who's your representatives. What district do you
[03:51:47] live in? Who's your county commissioners? Are you involved in a local GOP? Are you,
[03:51:52] or not, man? We're not. And in the wild, the Democrats are organized, super organized.
[03:52:01] We're not. And that's how we lose. We don't even vote the average voter in a primary.
[03:52:07] When the Republican conservative side, it's 57 years and older. Young, your conservatives are not
[03:52:15] involved. And part of that problem is, there's a lot of young people in this nation generation,
[03:52:19] they, they don't realize that posting comments and things on social media, it's not real action.
[03:52:28] Right? And I'm not even being funny about it. You used to be, you used to be kind of a joke
[03:52:31] that you know, like, okay, you think fighting on internet, it's not like a real fight.
[03:52:36] And that man, it's like they really, they have begun equating same things on internet as if it's
[03:52:44] a real thing that somehow influences, right? Because we use the term influencers, you know,
[03:52:50] I'm influenced in a damn thing. You know, even with a little bit of followers, I have an Instagram,
[03:52:55] I ask people, I beg, I say, I am pleading with you. Please go join your local GOP. How do we
[03:53:00] get involved? I mean, go join your local GOP. How do I do that? Okay, you own your phone,
[03:53:08] and I want you to put Google, or whatever, search is, and you're using these days.
[03:53:12] I want you to type in your county's name and the letters GOP or Republican Party.
[03:53:20] And you will find their website and you will find out that they have monthly meetings.
[03:53:23] And you'll go there and you'll find out that on average there's only 30 people there.
[03:53:28] No one. And they are the conservative, like, bruhs, they want to be involved.
[03:53:34] But they're the ones that will tell you, like in North Carolina, they want 15,000 volunteers
[03:53:41] to watch the polls. They sit at the polls, 15,000 people. And it's not enough. That's a very,
[03:53:49] very low number. They probably need double that because early voting, two and a half weeks.
[03:53:56] Right? Yeah, I have people watch the polls for for our shifts to shift per day.
[03:54:01] Need two people per shift. At least, right?
[03:54:05] Right? The need is there. And you know, always, I was just, this generation, if they want something,
[03:54:14] just like our generation two, if we want something and we want to get and participate in something,
[03:54:18] and it becomes our hobby man. We know everything about it because we YouTube it and we Google it.
[03:54:22] And we, and we, so all right here, everything you want to know, everything known to mankind,
[03:54:27] except for classified information and some of that is all right here. It's in the phone, right?
[03:54:33] So if you want to know how to get involved, man, it's right here. And when you go and you talk to
[03:54:38] those people, those meanings, yeah, man, they're the fanatics. They're the really passionate,
[03:54:42] conservative Republicans who really do want to change that Republican Party, the image of the
[03:54:48] old GOP, the rhinos and all that. If you go to these GOP, means, man, they're mad at the Republican
[03:54:54] party. They're the Republican Party, they're mad at the Republican Party. They want to get rid of the rhinos.
[03:55:00] There's the people who want to renovate that party because I hear people say,
[03:55:07] you know, maybe we need a third party. Okay, that's not a viable course of action.
[03:55:12] The America's not ready for it. It would take the Democrats and the Republicans
[03:55:17] getting together and deciding the third party was a good thing.
[03:55:21] Didn't we either decide to surrender to whatever power they have or not?
[03:55:24] Not going to do. Power is like a matter. It never goes away. It can be transferred.
[03:55:30] And we have transferred willingly, power, throughout our nation's history.
[03:55:36] A good example is when we gave minorities to the right of them.
[03:55:42] So we are capable of doing it. We gave women the right of them.
[03:55:47] So we have transferred power willingly, typically speaking throughout American human history,
[03:55:53] power is transferred because it's taken. It's rarely given that that's what makes America special.
[03:56:00] Is that we have given power willingly in an effort to create this amazing country.
[03:56:10] But yeah, man, freaking, you know, it's going to take us getting involved. The biggest problem
[03:56:17] on this planet is that in America today, that's going to continue to lead us down this path
[03:56:22] and not change this trajectory is us mining our own business.
[03:56:27] And I get it, man, you got a job. You got a couple kids and if you don't get involved,
[03:56:33] right? Because what happens when you go to the GOP and you're
[03:56:38] eight, ten, and fourteen year old. So you get involved. What are they going to grow up to do?
[03:56:45] It's setting the example, right? Set the example. They seed the standards. All that military
[03:56:49] leadership talk. It's not bullshit. No, you know it's not bullshit. We're an entire book about it.
[03:56:55] A couple of them, right? You know, setting the example for your children is not just making
[03:57:02] sure they're taking care of, right? We've got to get involved and if we don't, man.
[03:57:10] Like I said, our adversary, they're very involved. They're organized and they're scary.
[03:57:15] I asked people I'm like name one thing. The left has wanted in the last six years they
[03:57:22] have been gotten. One is complete reversal of the segment. Why? Because there's a bunch of people out there
[03:57:32] with guns that ain't going to let it happen. Other than that, every niche special interest they've
[03:57:39] ever wanted, they've gotten it. And now it's like they're just bored looking for shit. You know what I mean?
[03:57:43] Like the transgender is free-gid in college sports. Like, all right. We're just going to make up some
[03:57:49] stuff that actually goes against our whole feminist movement. And like it's like they're bored.
[03:57:53] Like we got everything we want. What else can we take from them? And but they're going to continue
[03:57:58] to take because whether or not most laughs truly won't communism, there are enough folks out there
[03:58:05] that do that believe that communism is the right path. Well, the rest of them will follow.
[03:58:12] Because they actually have leaders. Right? You mean you're telling Hillary Clinton is not an effective
[03:58:17] leader? I'm not saying she's a good leader. I'm saying she's an effective leader, right? Like
[03:58:22] Putin is an effective leader. He's not a good person. She's definitely not a good person. She's
[03:58:28] effective. They want things Hillary Clinton hadn't gotten that she wanted presidency. And I don't
[03:58:34] know that she's done yet. It's scary shit. What we're fighting that one out soon. I'm hopefully
[03:58:44] I got a factory down in Ashboro, North Carolina. I think it's a sixth district. Hopefully at some
[03:58:50] point when I cut down there in the next several months we can link up definitely. And hang out.
[03:58:55] You got to come check out the factory for sure. I haven't been there yet, but actually we have
[03:58:59] two factories. We're consolidating in the process of consolidating right now, but
[03:59:02] hundreds of jobs, hardworking people, funny thing. Man, that district, I think, because we've
[03:59:10] had so many changes, that is probably the district that Christian Castanelli is going to run in.
[03:59:15] He's one of those eight T.B. Lieutenant Colonel Types, seventh grouper. He now chat quite a bit.
[03:59:22] And it's going to be a real tough race for him as well. He had more counting. And now they redistrict
[03:59:28] again. And I could say that it could redistrict another time. It's going to do a course this week.
[03:59:34] It's frustrating. And it's easy to do. So you know right now which you wear your running
[03:59:40] for right now. Okay, but it could change. So yeah, was that new fourth which was Samson County
[03:59:46] Johnson County, a little bit of Wayne County, Hornet County and Cumballon County. And now it's the new
[03:59:51] new 13th. And that's Duplan County, Samson County, Johnson County, a little bit of Wayne County
[03:59:57] and Southern Wake County. And it's so weird because these new districts, they don't hold communities
[04:00:03] together. And it was like again, it was the Republicans were trying to make the dims happening.
[04:00:08] Get some stuff pushed through that would actually work. Meet all the numbers because the districts
[04:00:12] have to have equal numbers. Right. And to do that, you know, you've got to get a city in here and
[04:00:21] a part of a city over there. And it's not like it's like, okay, just pick this region. You know,
[04:00:26] it's more complex than that. So this new district again,
[04:00:32] art man. And like I said, this goes back to Republicans trying to make the Democrats happy.
[04:00:37] The Democrats suck at them again. So we have an activist, very left-laning Supreme Court in North Carolina.
[04:00:46] And so when these new districts, the Democrats challenged them. It went to Supreme Court.
[04:00:50] They booted them. They had to rewrite them. So they rebuilt them. The house did a set. And I like
[04:00:55] that map pretty good. This new one. I don't dislike it. It's just not my favorite because I
[04:00:59] lost Comberland County. I want to represent Fayetteville for a drag. It's kind of personal.
[04:01:08] So the this week, they have to go to a three panel, court, three judge panel in the court. And that's
[04:01:19] two conservatives one level. It will get the thumbs up there. Most likely, the Democrats will
[04:01:25] challenge it again. But the Shastee, like sinister part, is when they were building these maps.
[04:01:31] It was by parison in the Senate and in the house. Both parties working together. They created
[04:01:36] this map. Dems gave them a thumb up. It went to vote. Dems all voted against it.
[04:01:40] Suckers now what? Because it's divided half and half. And one Republican voted with the Democrats.
[04:01:50] That sets the precedent for it to go to the court and then toss it out. They can be like,
[04:01:54] look, y'all don't even agree on it. It's clearly by parison. This is supposed to be or it's clearly
[04:01:59] partisan. They set them up again. And it's like, you guys are bending over backwards. When you
[04:02:06] use it on a draw the line in the sand. They could draw the line in the sand and take it to the
[04:02:09] US or US Supreme Court. That's expensive. And it takes a fight. And time. That's a time. And they're
[04:02:18] worried about the time because we've already pushed our primaries back from March to May.
[04:02:22] They're probably going to get pushed back to June now. That's getting closer and closer to the general
[04:02:26] election in November. They could in theory move that. Right. That, you know, that November election
[04:02:32] day does not a hard set day. The state can choose a different day. They can push it to January.
[04:02:37] But that cuts off the whole next cycle. That pushes into the next cycle. What do you do now?
[04:02:44] And it were in such an uncharted territory. And I just don't have faith that the Republicans
[04:02:49] right now know how to deal with this fight. And the Democrats, almost like I said, it's almost
[04:02:55] like they're just trying to see what they can get away with. But they're panicking. The Democrats know
[04:03:02] right what's coming in this midterms. So these new, our new districts, they are so close to any
[04:03:10] other year. They would most of them be 50, 50 splits. They could go either way. They'll be swing
[04:03:15] districts. But because of this anticipated red wave, they set them up. It looks more like they set
[04:03:22] them up on purpose to be Republican. Very much favored Republicans. And they will certainly.
[04:03:29] But the North Carolina Constitution says it is the role duty responsibility of the general assembly
[04:03:36] to set the districts. So of course it's going to be partisan. Right? Because rarely, if ever,
[04:03:43] is your house and Senate 50 50, right? It just doesn't happen. So there's a whole constitutional
[04:03:50] battle here in state constitution. And I think people really understand how important your state
[04:03:56] constitution is. Right? Like when our government was set up, it was supposed to be all these
[04:04:01] states, these nations of the United States. And we've gotten away from that. The federal government
[04:04:08] is gotten too big. And that's one of my big things. Like, hey, let's return that federal government
[04:04:13] let's put it back in its constitutionally limited box and put the lid back on it. Because that
[04:04:19] monster has climbed out of that box and gone all over the place. And I would say like, Heck, man,
[04:04:25] if you could simply attempt, let's say we got a 70% solution on getting our federal government
[04:04:30] back to its Constitutional limitations. We would solve over half of America's problems with the federal
[04:04:38] government. Just return it to what that Constitution says. I don't know, man. I just feel like two
[04:04:43] often folks up in DC, they use the Constitution to a paper instead of reading it for exactly
[04:04:50] what it stated. It's it's hardbreak. And then, well, like you said, it's going to be a battle.
[04:04:59] It is a battle. I know you mentioned about how what to do for people to get to help out,
[04:05:06] you know, locally, where that out, how can people, I think that's probably a pretty good place to
[04:05:10] wrap up because we've been going for over four hours. But if people want to support you,
[04:05:17] we got Tony Cowdon dot com, right? And that's the main that is the campaign website.
[04:05:22] So campaign website, you're on Instagram. You just said Tony underscore,
[04:05:27] Cowdon underscore, four, a letter for or it's getting the number four. Is that a letter for?
[04:05:32] No, the number four in C and then I have two Facebook pages, my personal Tony Cowdon and
[04:05:39] the campaign Tony Cowdon. They're both me. All right. And then you've got a YouTube channel,
[04:05:48] which I saw. Yeah, I don't you much with it. I was going to say you have one video. But you know,
[04:05:53] I had it. I want to I ever know. We can only go Tony Cowdon gets after it. So I don't know. Maybe
[04:05:58] tonight you're going to post for 87 videos on you. YouTube's just never been my favorite for
[04:06:03] whatever reason. And I've had numerous YouTube channels, right? I've got the one right now. Like you
[04:06:08] say, I was got a couple videos, maybe on it. And then like, but you know, YouTube was a big thing
[04:06:11] that had to jam had lots of videos on it. And just something happened where with the whole shooting
[04:06:16] gun thing, Instagram became my main platform. And as much as I don't really like social,
[04:06:24] I don't like the whole idea of it. I mean, I'd much rather go back to just, you know, but
[04:06:28] it seemed that at least the evolution of it all. I know if it was even by design, the Instagram page
[04:06:34] was what grew and funneled me business. Whereas it was when I had the gym, Facebook,
[04:06:40] it was because Facebook so local. So now I'm having to get back after Facebook because the campaign
[04:06:45] is very local. But yeah, man, the reality is and this sucks, man, because I spent my entire life
[04:06:51] been pretty independent, I've never had to ask anybody from money. And it's weird. The reality
[04:06:57] of this whole mass and it is a mass because there needs to be campaign finance reform. The reality
[04:07:03] is if the campaign is not funded, I don't get to advertise and there's no face or there's no
[04:07:08] recognition, there's a name face recognition and I won't get the votes. And you know, strategically
[04:07:14] speaking, you know, we're addressing, you know, fundraising, talking to donors and then there are
[04:07:20] voters. And they're not always the same people. We've done really well so far the soft,
[04:07:25] bro net just like you have a meal on here. Been on a bunch of different other guys and when I
[04:07:32] launched that soft network man just started sharing it. And we raised a 132 grand and like 13 days
[04:07:40] of our Christmas. And that's what got people going, what way, who's this dude? Where's this guy
[04:07:47] coming from? And you know, there's always this, there's some contention that, oh, you're not getting
[04:07:53] your funds from the district. Well, I don't know what the district is. You know how hard it is to get
[04:07:58] someone to donate to your campaign, when they don't even know if you live in their district or not,
[04:08:03] you think the Democrats don't know that. Of course they do, right? What they're doing is creating
[04:08:08] better apathy or something or whatever. So they won't donate and they're not going to devote. It's
[04:08:15] a strategy. It's not new. It's done it before. So yeah, man, this is where, you know, that's the asking
[04:08:22] for money thing is hard. But here's the cool part. That $132,000, the number one donated amount was
[04:08:32] $50. We had $161,500 individual donors from across the nation, all 50 states, over Christmas.
[04:08:42] When people don't have extra income because they're spending on their Christmas presents,
[04:08:47] donated this campaign. That's a clear signal. It should be a clear signal to folks up in DC and everywhere
[04:08:54] else that the American public is tired of their shit. Excuse me, my language, but that's what it is.
[04:09:00] And they want normal people, and if I follow that kind of way, that's what it is. They want real
[04:09:07] people who have never sought out politics. You know, before we got on, I was checking and telling
[04:09:14] you about my opponent, who's a state house rep and they call him the alcohol of
[04:09:23] no killing politics because he sold out and those kind of taxpayers and sent tax dollars all around
[04:09:27] the nation to invest in green energy and so on and so forth. Long story short, he didn't like it.
[04:09:35] I think I might have been with Andy Stomp when I referred to him as the alcoholist.
[04:09:39] No killing politics. Well, reality is that's what they call him. He's a
[04:09:43] no killing a member of no killing a house and all of his contemporaries. They all calling that.
[04:09:48] Right? He didn't like it. Well, the other day charged up to me and it was like,
[04:09:54] you know, and ultimately I was like, hey, look man, you know, you say whatever you want,
[04:10:00] but you set that money out and he told me, he told me I was an ignorant wannabe.
[04:10:08] And I was like, like I said, I might be ignorant to how and why y'all do things.
[04:10:15] There's dirty ass politicians. I was like, but I'm not a wannabe. Like you created me.
[04:10:21] Men like you are the reason why men like me are coming for your jobs.
[04:10:29] We hired you. You suck. So now we're gonna fire you. And that's about America wants right now.
[04:10:35] All right. Let's clear America wants. And like I said, man, we get that JTF up there.
[04:10:42] So yeah, 10 bucks. Right. 100 bucks. I mean, if you got 2900, that is the max contribution.
[04:10:50] I could stand some of those because that new district's more expensive. But Southern Wake County
[04:10:56] Raleigh, that advertising is, that's way more expensive. That market, right? A TV ad in Raleigh is
[04:11:04] expensive. But that's what I need. I need funding. People ask, what can I do? 10 bucks. Right?
[04:11:12] Don't get your Starbucks coffee today. Give me five bucks. And it's weird man asking for people
[04:11:17] from money. And then I came to the conclusion, I'm not asking people to give me money. This is an
[04:11:22] investment in America's future. Because I promise people I will not become a politician.
[04:11:29] I would rather die than sell this nation as people out. And I put myself in that position before
[04:11:36] that I would have died and almost did a couple times. I feel like I have that proven try record
[04:11:41] and people are like, but there's this guy and there's this guy, he's this veteran and that
[04:11:45] veteran. They went up there and they sold us out. I'm like, I'm not those guys. I'm not those guys.
[04:11:51] What do you want? Here I am stepping up, help me get there. And if I turn out to be some
[04:11:58] Spinalist dirt bad politician, fire me. I get involved and fire me. But I promise,
[04:12:07] I'm not capable of being a dirt bad politician. It's not in my genetics. You know, it's not
[04:12:13] even close to something I could ever be. You know, corporations don't have things that I want.
[04:12:19] I'm not a gear guy, right? Corporations don't have things. I don't want a boat. I don't want a boat.
[04:12:25] I don't want, I don't desire money. I desire experiences. That's why I like hunting. And, you know,
[04:12:32] with my girlfriend, you can't sell me that. I'm not, I'm not for sale. So, yeah, man, if you got
[04:12:39] a few books, Tonycombe.com, oh, I will tell you this, man. When the cool things is, when you
[04:12:43] go to the website, when it pops up, there is a pop up that has a video and stuff. You can watch it.
[04:12:50] It's cool videos. Let me tell you how cool I am or some shit. Just move past that. I don't understand
[04:12:55] it says dirt bike price. I'm not a something from nothing type of guy. So, last year, I got this
[04:13:01] here at my house that I was going to get back in the race of motorcross. So, I went and bought a brand
[04:13:06] new KX4F50 rocking ship. I got an excavator and a, uh, and 63 acres. And I built a motorcross track in my backyard.
[04:13:19] All that my girlfriend going, what is wrong with you? And, uh, that dirt bike,
[04:13:25] spin, I got it last November. So, it's been whatever year in a few months. It still has the second
[04:13:30] take a gas in it. I have a head time to ride it. So, you're going up for auction? I donated it to the
[04:13:36] campaign. So, it's a raffle. It's a raffle. It's, you know, a $10,000 dirt bike. It's never been laid over.
[04:13:43] I was cautious getting back into riding. So, I took it easy. Boots, helmet, nice stuff. I didn't
[04:13:50] bullshit about some nice stuff. Four or five sets of riding gear, Oakley goggles, all that stuff.
[04:13:55] Even by chances at it. I'm not a something for nothing type of guy. I got an AR coming on board
[04:14:00] and a precision rifle, a custom precision rifle at my buddy who makes my precision guns freaking
[04:14:06] building for us. So, point being is right, I'm not a something for nothing type of guy. So, if you
[04:14:11] donate it, it can't pay at least you're getting a chance to win some cool stuff. So, hell yeah.
[04:14:18] All right. So, echo you got anything? No, we covered it.
[04:14:25] Awesome, man. Oh, yeah. Thanks for coming on, bro. No, thank you for having me. Thanks for sharing
[04:14:30] your experiences. Thanks for what you've done for America in the past. Yeah. And thanks for what you
[04:14:37] are about to do for America. Awesome to meet you, man. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having
[04:14:43] me. This is this how we win. Absolutely. Hell yeah. Thanks, brother. Thank you.
[04:14:49] And with that Tony Cowden has left the building head and back to North Kacklecki. And I failed
[04:14:58] to mention, I failed to make North Kacklecki. I failed to make it look I mentioned the fact that
[04:15:04] we at origin USA have a factory in Ashboro, North Carolina, which is awesome. But I failed to
[04:15:10] mention. And it just like these conversations you don't know where they're going. I failed to
[04:15:14] mention the fact that when I went through Buds and STT, seal tactical training and then got the
[04:15:23] seal team one. And then I did three deployments. And then I was in training cell with my running
[04:15:31] mate at the time, who I also he was my roommate that whole time. And he was from North Kacklecki.
[04:15:41] And he's a freaking best guy. Awesome guy. And a total stud across the board, but he's super
[04:15:49] good athlete, like a ridiculously good athlete. Like we had he played, this is the guy who played
[04:15:57] basketball in North Carolina as a kid. And then he got drafted. He was 511. He missed a foul shot.
[04:16:10] And lost like the state championship. He did that. You know. So he had he had that, but you know
[04:16:16] he was still. He was in the state championship and he's obviously a key player. And he got he got
[04:16:22] some he got drafted or whatever recruited to some D2D3 schools. Because he was such a good basketball
[04:16:28] player. And he ended up he's like, listen, I'm not going to I'm not going to be a pro obviously. So
[04:16:34] I'm going to focus on my education. So he ended up going to University of North Carolina. And while
[04:16:39] he was there, he grew 5 inches. So he graduated at 6-4. And this is a guy you know you go out
[04:16:47] and shoot basketball with them. And he would just sit there and hit 3 pointers all day. So then then
[04:16:54] we had all the grizzard who was the navy quarterback. And who's himself a stud. That's the guy
[04:17:01] who's a great friend of mine and he ended up getting murdered in Coronado, which was awful.
[04:17:06] But just a stud. Just a stud across the board. I mean he played. He broke all kinds of records at
[04:17:12] the Naval Academy. Just a beast. And those two guys got in a little throwing contest. Who could
[04:17:18] throw a football further? And my buddy from North Kaka-Laki also played football. So I'm sitting
[04:17:26] and watching because I'm not even going to participate in this competition against these two
[04:17:29] freaking studs. And so they started throwing it back and forth just backing up each time.
[04:17:37] Right. And yeah the kid from North Carolina. He threw it further. It was like 65 yards. So
[04:17:45] you know I'm talking a wing. And just a beast man. But so whenever I hear North Carolina, I always think
[04:17:52] North Kaka-Laki because that's how he had this funny look. He'd give people, you mean everybody.
[04:17:59] But when you said North Carolina, if you said North Kaka-Laki, he'd give you look like of the most
[04:18:03] affirming of it. You know like like that's everything. You know like you know as if you just said
[04:18:11] you know chocolate peanut butter milk like that's so good. You know that's what it goes things.
[04:18:17] So they get very cool to talk to Tony. And you know what's a scrap man? It's a scrap.
[04:18:26] He's got to go. He's going hard in the paint you know. He's going hard in the paint.
[04:18:33] He said something that was that was interesting and maybe I don't know. I don't follow
[04:18:39] public politics as much as maybe others do. But he did mention something that I thought. That's
[04:18:46] that's good. This is a good thing to be talking about and to be thinking about is the lack of effectiveness
[04:18:53] of a linear solution. Because man that linear solution like and that just in everyday club
[04:18:58] bra I don't know how to write a country. Everyone knows that. You know that about me. I don't know how to
[04:19:03] but I do think that it's going to be difficult to make decisions for what 300 million people or
[04:19:12] whatever. You know what's in the best interest for three. It's that's hard. I understand. But if you
[04:19:17] kind of simply down on whatever let's say I don't know for example your kids. Right?
[04:19:21] If you start implementing linear solutions with your kids so the kids, no, no, no, crying. They want
[04:19:27] a soda. So to pop. Give them the soda. That's the lead solution. Yeah, they're crying. They're
[04:19:33] unhappy obviously because they're crying and whatever. What's the linear solution exactly?
[04:19:38] They're right. Give them the soda. But that causes all kinds of other problems. A lot of them too
[04:19:42] by the way. Not just one another problem. It's like a bunch of other problems. So to imagine it be
[04:19:48] that same formula except times a million with running the country and whatever way. So it's like,
[04:19:55] yeah, to focus on that concept where it's like, okay, sure this will be a linear solution or understanding,
[04:20:00] okay, that's a solution. That's a linear solution. Understand what would happen then and he kept saying,
[04:20:05] and then what? Right? Just to be paying attention to that stuff, I think that's a good thing. They're
[04:20:10] good move. And I'm not saying no one else pays attention to that but that's not like any kind of front
[04:20:14] running concept that people are kind of pushing. You know, doesn't seem like it is. Yeah.
[04:20:19] And I don't know, but I liked it. Well, if you can lend some support to Tony, this look,
[04:20:25] you might not agree with them on every topic that there is. Maybe you see some things a little bit
[04:20:31] differently than you. But the guy's character and just the fact that he's going to go up there and
[04:20:39] live in his room and make things happen. Help him out if you can. If you want to help out yourself,
[04:20:50] a little bit too speaking of origin, USA, we have a factory in North Carolina,
[04:20:56] kind of two factories right now, which we're consolidating. We have factories up in Maine,
[04:20:59] we're build stuff in America. Look, here's something else you can do to support America.
[04:21:03] You want to help America by American, by American. You need a pair of boots,
[04:21:09] by American, because you need a pair of jeans, by American pair of jeans.
[04:21:13] But have you ever heard of Jake Tran? Okay. So maybe I maybe have he, what he does is he kind of breaks
[04:21:19] down things that have to do with like money and power and he makes these cool YouTube videos.
[04:21:24] Okay. New Jake Tran. So, one of them, one of his recent ones were fashion, like the evil fashion
[04:21:32] industry. And that's what he was talking to be talk about like how basically fashion is built by slavery,
[04:21:39] you know, their countries. Oh, for sure. So if you've not been listening to me for the past
[04:21:43] freaking years, I have and mainly just what he had here from Jake Tran.
[04:21:48] But Jake Tran, the way he breaks up, he did it better than me. I got it. I love you.
[04:21:53] You were the man. But in this one, he did a really, really good job. Well,
[04:21:58] maybe if I had someone that I worked with that could put together videos that kind of extended
[04:22:02] the things that I were saying, maybe that would have worked out better. I don't know. You know what?
[04:22:06] You make a good point. You make a good point. It's my fault for not finding someone that was
[04:22:10] more effective than me in social media and media arts. Again, great point. But the way he does it,
[04:22:17] is he does it in terms of like, like, you're the evil one and he's talking to you goes,
[04:22:22] all you have to do is just get some slaves and like he'll talk to, that's how he'll make it.
[04:22:26] It's not just easy to do that all the time. That's it. Yeah. It's kind of sarcastic, but kind of like,
[04:22:33] when he'll come and act you a little bit, yeah, he's coming at your sinister side almost. Like in
[04:22:39] certain ones, it's more heavy than others, but then he'll be like, what's the heaviest one?
[04:22:45] This one was so heavy, it made me consider actually doing it. But at the end of the day, when
[04:22:51] you stop the YouTube video, you're like, probably I'm not going to do that. You know, anyway,
[04:22:53] want about charities, like how charities can defraud the government or something like that.
[04:22:59] And we'll like, oh, he'll say, you can do this and this with no strings attached, of course,
[04:23:03] and then he'll keep talking and you're like, see what he did there. So you're going to start
[04:23:07] a charity to defraud the government. Is that what you were saying? You don't want to do it?
[04:23:12] It's not what it's about, but I'm saying what you watch the video, you're like,
[04:23:16] that's actually not a bad idea. You know, it's like that kind of thoughts, but it's the way he says it,
[04:23:21] though. I'm going to do one YouTube video away from being sinister and ripping people off.
[04:23:25] Yeah, this worked to it, but anyway, what's that one about the freaking fashion industry? You're
[04:23:32] going to be like, probably, yeah, that's it. And I get what you're saying when you're like,
[04:23:36] that's what you've been saying. That's what's up. I've been saying it,
[04:23:38] effectively enough for you to understand it, apparently. No, no, I understand it, but he like,
[04:23:43] it's about a job. Okay, I'm going to watch him. We'll get the message right. I'll get the
[04:23:48] message right. So people that we'll understand that when you buy some fashion crop that's made
[04:23:55] overseas, it was made by slaves. That's what's happening. You remember that one building in
[04:24:01] I forget where it was, but where it collapsed on all the, all the workers. So he starts off like
[04:24:05] with that and like just all these, yeah, it's crazy. And then a lot of it, it's all essentially like
[04:24:11] borderline free stuff. Like this. As far as how it was made. Yeah. So so much of it just goes to the
[04:24:17] trash so much of it. So they're just, yeah, who cares, kids? Whatever. That's why you see some of
[04:24:23] those, those, those high-fashion companies will take their surplus and just burn it,
[04:24:28] because they want to keep the supply low. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But they misread the next fall season.
[04:24:36] Or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. And so they got to burn it. So let's not support that. Let's support
[04:24:42] freedom. Yeah. Let's support America. Let's support origin USA, origin USA dot com. Also,
[04:24:51] you get yourself some jockel fuel. I mean, let's face it. You're going to have some,
[04:24:57] you know, whatever. Injuries, soreness. Soreness. Yeah. For sure. What's the between muscle
[04:25:04] soreness and like when you have a joint soreness? Well, do what do you call it when you're,
[04:25:08] if you did, let's say you did weighted dip sister day? Sure. I put that in. See, weighted dips
[04:25:13] every time I do weighted dips. I feel like a little bit of not just sorness in my triceps and chest,
[04:25:20] but I have a little bit of what is that called in my shoulders themselves? Yeah. Like joint pain.
[04:25:26] Yeah. Like a little bit, but it's minor. Right. Right. I joined agrofession. Yeah. It's like I think a
[04:25:30] lot of the times they don't come obviously from like certain nutritional elements. And
[04:25:35] could be past injuries as well. But a lot of them, it's imbalances in certain places.
[04:25:43] You know, so you kind of overstretch understretch certain things and whatever. But when you have
[04:25:49] joint agrovation, sure, you can take like during orifer. If you have muscle soreness,
[04:25:54] you can take milk. Yep. And these are nutritional elements that can improve that are going
[04:25:58] to improve these. That are going to improve these. That are those. Unfortunate scenarios.
[04:26:00] And kind of fortunate because at least you were able to do them. Exactly. You were able to get
[04:26:04] after it. And it's part of the game. So I learned early on and I was okay. So I make my daughter
[04:26:09] do little workouts. Sometimes it's punishment. Sometimes it's just what we're doing. And she's eight.
[04:26:15] So Dom's delayed onset muscle sort of is new to her. So when you're new to Dom's, you're like,
[04:26:21] I don't like this feeling. Like why would I do push-ups or why would I do a bunch of squats when
[04:26:25] my legs are going to feel like this the next day? It's like you feel like your body's kind of
[04:26:29] being destroyed or whatever. But when you really understand what Dom's is, you kind of invite it.
[04:26:34] So I understood the value of Dom's early on. I think I was like 10 or 11 years old.
[04:26:40] From reading about it or just understanding that, I want how yesterday I'm sore because I'm
[04:26:44] getting straw or, yes. So I found out I forget how I found out this is, you know, whatever,
[04:26:50] 1980, 80, whatever, however old or whatever year. But I knew that your muscles were sore because they were
[04:26:57] triggered into like growing back big or whatever. So I'm like, oh shoot. So if I do a bunch of push-ups
[04:27:04] and I'm not sore, I'm like dang, I didn't do enough push-ups. Or if I ran a bunch, like when I
[04:27:07] started, when you, you know the first two days of football practice, you get sore, like your
[04:27:11] sore, your legs are sore, your abs are sore from doing sit-ups, your next are all this stuff.
[04:27:15] But I knew that, no, that's because they're about to grow back bigger. You kind of invite it.
[04:27:20] So now as an adult I understand, hey man, that Dom's life is part of the part of the thing
[04:27:24] payment. Yeah, I can say. But you can mitigate it, you can mitigate it. Not by working out the last,
[04:27:29] so working out weaker. Oh no, no, no, no, no. But eating the correct food. Yeah, you're facilitating
[04:27:34] the whole Dom's process right there. So all that stuff, jockelfuel.com plus you can get the drinks out
[04:27:42] wall-aw-aw. Which by the way, we're kind of dominating a wall-aw. If you go out and you buy stuff from
[04:27:46] wall-aw-aw, I am personally thinking you at this time for making us dominate wall-aw. Don't let
[04:27:52] up. Clear shelves going there, get an after it. We're working with a bunch of other companies. We are,
[04:27:57] I got to put together a list of where you can buy jockelfuel. But right now, I can tell you,
[04:28:04] you can get it out wall-aw-aw, the drinks and you can get it at the vitamin shop. So, or you can
[04:28:09] get it at jockelfuel.com. Yeah, we drink kombucha. I don't like it. Me neither. And that's kind of the
[04:28:15] thing where you know like, you know, drinks kombucha, all the females in my family. Yeah,
[04:28:21] drinking that stuff like, it's method, fed of me or something. It would teach their own,
[04:28:26] not during the method, fed of me, but like it's a very big, like something that they're enjoying. You're
[04:28:30] here good thing. Yeah. Okay. No hype it up. Anyways, let me retract that. My wife and daughters
[04:28:38] like kombucha for whatever reason. Yes. I think it tastes like crap. Like crap, yes, sir. And I'm not
[04:28:44] even a guy. My father-in-law, he makes his own kombucha. Oh, yeah. So it was like, dang, okay,
[04:28:48] obviously great for you. Good enough for you. There was a dude that made kombucha with jockel
[04:28:53] white tea, by the way. Oh, okay. He was selling it. Combat kombucha. I don't know what happened to it.
[04:28:58] He went out there's making combat kombucha kombucha kombucha.
[04:29:01] That's all, that's all. That's all the deal. All right. Are you going to say it? Either way,
[04:29:05] the point of, okay, do you have any vegetables that you just like, you know, okay, they're good for
[04:29:09] you, but perhaps not going to eat that because I'm just not into it. Into the taste or whatever,
[04:29:13] just not like, um, a sparrig. Yes. You know, people like a sparrig is just ulting up nice.
[04:29:18] I, I think it tastes kind of junk. So I'm not going to be excited for a sparrig. Okay.
[04:29:23] So the good thing and this is why I think a lot of most people like this energy drink,
[04:29:29] because when you drink it and you have no guilt, you know that it's actually good for you. It's not
[04:29:33] like a sparrig. It's seem seen. Well, a sparrig is good for you, but it tastes bad. Yes.
[04:29:38] Discipline go is good for you. And it tastes good. That's bonus. Exactly right. And I think people like it.
[04:29:44] Especially the mango one. By the way, I hear great things about the mango. Check. If you want to get
[04:29:50] some stuff from this podcast and represent, you can do that too. Echo made a store. It's called
[04:29:56] Jocco's story. Yeah. 100%. Get some of that stuff. Sure locker. So there is a shirt coming out that
[04:30:03] I created mentally and then you have brought to fruition. I think it's going to be a classic.
[04:30:09] Yeah, I think it's going to be a classic. So good one. And that one is the March
[04:30:15] March shirt. Okay. And it's pretty square away. The shirt locker is the membership. Did you make the
[04:30:20] adjustments you need to make to that shirt as directed? No time. No time. No time. It didn't have time. It was
[04:30:25] already. Hey, what do you call? To ship a field. Overcome by events. Yeah. Well, that look. We're good. This
[04:30:34] spelling is good. And that shirt is legit. Yeah. Yeah. It looks good. That's the March shirt. And the whole
[04:30:40] shirt locker is square away anyway. So it's like if you order it on March 1st, second and what it's
[04:30:44] all like up to date. Yeah. Same same. Yeah. You'd be good to go. Check. Uh, so check out Jocco's story.com.
[04:30:51] Subscribe to the podcast. A Jocco underground. A Jocco underground.com. Who knows? I know we mentioned
[04:30:57] COVID during this particular podcast. That's the kind of thing that apparently gets people banned.
[04:31:04] Get some people in trouble. That's why we have Jocco underground.com. It's a $18,000,000
[04:31:10] month. It allows us to have a separate platform that we actually have control over. We can say whatever we want.
[04:31:16] We won't be censored. So if you want to help out there, you can do that. If you can't afford it,
[04:31:22] we still want you in the game, just email Jocco underground. Assistance at Jocco underground.com.
[04:31:29] Check out the YouTube channels. Check out the the Jocco podcast YouTube channel. He wants you a
[04:31:34] Tony looks like also origin USA has if you want to find out what's going on. I talk about the
[04:31:38] factories and all the stuff going on. Check out the origin USA YouTube channel. That's got a bunch
[04:31:43] of good information on it too. It's true. It's like a logical warfare. Yeah. Get that if you need a
[04:31:51] little little hitter. Yeah. And I would say motivation. It's not motivated. Basically, you want Jocco
[04:31:57] to help you pass your moment of weakness. So I've always said it. There's something to keep saying
[04:32:00] it because it's absolutely true. And if you want to code a mire to help you pass your moment of
[04:32:05] me weakness, he's making cool stuff. Flipsidecampus.com. Read a bunch of books. If you want to check
[04:32:12] them out, check them out. Just go to check out books by Jocco willing. You'll find them. Some of them
[04:32:18] are pretty popular. Some of them you might like. Might be able to learn something from them.
[04:32:23] Might be able to contact me and tell me I got something wrong. I'm standing by for adjustment.
[04:32:29] Ashlam front, leadership consultancy. We've got live events that we do. The next big one we've
[04:32:34] got is in Dallas, Texas, March 24th and 25th. So if you want to come to a live event, you can go to
[04:32:41] that. We also have the battlefield events coming up and get his bird in May 10th and 12th.
[04:32:46] And then get his bird May 13th and 14th and we're doing little big horn as well. Anyways, go
[04:32:54] for any of this stuff or you want us to come and help your company. Go to echelonfront.com
[04:32:58] and check that out. We also have an online training, an online training platform.
[04:33:05] That's an extreme, that's at extremeownership.com. If you have questions for me, you can
[04:33:11] just go there and ask me a question. I'll be on there. I'll be on there on a Zoom meeting. Remember,
[04:33:16] what Zoom is, COVID brought us Zoom. It's one of the good things about COVID. Right, COVID brought
[04:33:23] us Zoom. Now we can everyone uses Zoom now. I used to try and do Zoom meetings back in the day or
[04:33:27] Skype, right? Skype and people just weren't ready for it. Now, everything's like, oh, Zoom call.
[04:33:32] Yep, we're ready. Yeah. And people understand the benefits of it. So if you want to talk to me on a
[04:33:39] Zoom call, I will literally be right there. Go to extremeownership.com. You can take a bunch of
[04:33:45] courses we made. We make fresh courses coming out once a week, leadership, leadership,
[04:33:53] for you. Not just for like, oh, you're the CEO of a company or you're the manager of this,
[04:33:58] but if you're leading a family, if you're leading your friends, if you're leading yourself,
[04:34:02] go to extremeownership.com. Also, if you want to help service members,
[04:34:08] you can go to Mark Lee's mom. She's got an awesome charity that she put together helps
[04:34:15] out veteran so much. Go to America's Mighty Warriors.org for that. And also check out heroes and horses,
[04:34:22] which is a outstanding charity run by Mike a think up their Montana. Getting it. And if you want to
[04:34:29] support Tony Cowdon, go to like, like he said earlier, go to Tony Cowdon.com. And he's also an
[04:34:37] Instagram, which is sounds like that's his primary mode of communication with the crew. It's Tony,
[04:34:44] underscore Cowdon, underscore four. The number four. And then N.C. for North Carolina. He's also on Twitter,
[04:34:54] Tony Cowdon, NC and Facebook, YouTube, Tony Cowdon. As far as Echo and I go, we're both on Twitter.
[04:35:01] We're both on the, we're both on the Facebook. Echoes at Echo Charles. I'm at
[04:35:07] Chocolate Wink. Of course, be advised. Come to check it out real quick. Also, you get sucked in by
[04:35:12] the algorithm. Don't let that happen. That's the devil's play thing right there. The algorithm.
[04:35:18] Watch out for that one. Thanks once again for Tony, too Tony for coming on tonight.
[04:35:26] Thanks for everything that he's done. You know, we barely even you can't spend. What is it?
[04:35:31] Eight or nine years in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. The amount of stuff that he's been through that
[04:35:38] he's done, the amount of risk he's taken to serve our country. You're not going to cover it in a four-hour
[04:35:42] podcast or a 20-hour podcast or a hundred-hour podcast. But that's the kind of person that's been
[04:35:47] out there laying his life on the line for the country. Now he's stepping up again. So support him if you can.
[04:35:54] And thanks for coming, Tony. And the rest of our American military out there.
[04:36:00] And the veterans, thank you all for what you've done and continue to do to serve our great
[04:36:07] nation and to our police and law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers,
[04:36:12] correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, all first responders. Thank you for keeping
[04:36:18] us safe on the home front and to everyone else. How much can you do?
[04:36:25] I actually know the answer to that question. More. That's how much you can do. You can do more.
[04:36:34] And a guy like Tony makes that obvious. But it isn't going to knock on your door.
[04:36:44] You have to kick that door in. You have to make things happen. You have to initiate action
[04:36:51] and you do that by going out there every day and getting after it.
[04:36:57] Until next time, Zekko and Joko out.