Jocko Podcast 326: You Can't Make a Case Sitting Behind A Desk, w/ Joe Piersante

2022-03-25T12:26:17Z

Underground Premium Content: https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe Join the conversation on Twitter/Instagram: @jockowillink @echocharles 0:00:00 - Opening. 0:004:15 - Joe Piersante, DEA. 3:24:46 - How to stay on THE PATH. 3:47:01 - Closing gratitude.

AI summary of episode

One I think my street smart's growing up in Detroit you know and being able to talk to the lingo and look the part you know and life unfortunately a lot of times when you first go in a situation especially criminals they're going to size you up they're going to say this this individual look like they know what they're doing can I trust this person you know but a lot of times these people that are working for us they're risking their life and they have to feel confident that you're going to do your best to protect them and I also learned never promise somebody something you can't deliver you know don't promise them well you know you work a couple weeks and you get a couple you know I can make all your charges go away it's not up it's not up to the agents you know you have to bring their cooperation attention to the prosecutor which then brings it to the judge and you know those decisions are made then and also treat people like a people a person you know you don't have to start you know indeed so you end up going on deployment to Afghanistan your first deployment how's that it's some intense every time we go to Afghanistan things are a little different and at the time we were doing a lot of work with the Army ODA's the Green Braise there and at this particular time we were operating in Panjoe area you know the Panjoe of Canada area is kind of the first place of Taliban where there's a lot of in search and activity but also a lot of heroin production going on there also so they broke us up into like two z's and three z's input us with different units and a good partner of mine friend of mine Travis Brooks and myself we were assigned with first special forces group over there ODA 1231 and they were stationed in Cancemins this little little base outside of Canada Airfield which is like our main bases that can't be had our airfield in Afghanistan we were living with the ODA the first group guys you know and we would bring like I said earlier our expertise investigations and we had our partner force over there which we were mentoring and we were living over there with the Green Braise and using our intel information you know from the DEA and also using the military information and we would try to pair that information find out where the bigger drug labs were where they were selling the chemicals and equipment to manufacture heroin and we would not go after is the opion farmers the Poppy farmers because a lot of times they were made to grow the opion you know the Taliban came in and they had the biggest stick at the time either you know you're growing this Poppy force or you're can killed you know so a lot of the individuals who sold and made money out of the effedrant in pseudo-fedron were middle eastern individuals so of course you know they were like you know you know get all your middle eastern informants and see if they have any terrorist activity and we had a lot DEA had a lot of middle eating you know with the drugs in the pseudo-fedron so FBI then wanted to come over started to brief in our informants you know about terror it terrorist related activities within a much of a connection there was a more than just trying to make money there was some you know there was some you know somewhere you know sending money back and things like that so that and also you know I talk about mindset you know you have to have this mindset that if you're in a fight for your life or you're with a suspect or an enemy you're fighting for your life or getting in a shootout or it could be you could be at home you could have an accident or drive a car if you're in a fight you have to survive you have to fight you have to hit claw scratch god whatever you have to do you have to think yourself I am not going to lose this fight I am not going to lose I'm going to survive I'm going to make it through that you have to have that mental attitude you know I kind of call it the warriors mindset or the winning mentality that I'm going to survive and make it through this you know there's no way I'm not going to make it through even though at first I was not unconscious my body my mind didn't give up you're going to you're going to make it through this show you know I didn't see any bright light or anything I may have saw a little fire below or something it wasn't it wasn't time so also talking to the doctors I was in really great physical shape when I got shot and the better shape you're in a lot of times the more traumatic injury you can survive and a lot of times the better your recovery is you know so they get there as for free and you know they're cooking in these houses with these little kids you know and everything is off-gassing into the you know into the air getting into the carpet and walls and everything else so we started bringing child protective services with us when we would do meth and fedamine lab warrants and they would bring the kids to the hospital and when they would test them you know high percentage of what test positive for meth and fedamine just because the staff you know was in the carpet and the atmosphere you know it just breaks my heart you know me having a daughter you know these little kids involved and then not only would they get charged with the meth lab and manufacturing they would get charged with child abuse from CPS also so you would do these investigations you're you're getting human intelligence that's telling you so you know we'll keep going that I do my motivational speaking which gives me purpose now you know we've been you know took jobs and different things we're to serve people and serve the community I can't do my job the way I have in the past but for me to get up there and talk to people and tell my story one is therapeutic for me too to talk about it and two if somebody's having a bad day a bad year or bad whatever that the sea there's always somebody that has it worse it always could be worse so you know you got to count the blessings you have and be thankful for the things that you still have you can't cry about what you don't have anymore all you can just do is move on so you know I'm gonna continue doing the motivational speaking which is good you know and when you go through there they're telling you what you're getting into you know this is what you're getting into and this unit is not for everybody and just because it may not be for you it doesn't mean that you're a bad agent that you can't do your normal job but this is what you're getting into and it's a whole that's a total volunteer unit so you get people that are going through slacking you're just getting your dick knocked into dirt and you know and if it was just you know you did you every day you did like a tier one event you'd be fine but you're also getting hazed in between you know and carrying the logs and the inflatable boats and you know doing crossfit workouts and you know you're 39 years old you're not getting much sleep but they're feeding you so you know we had several tasks in this mission you know the fine drug you know the eradicate some of the drug activity going on and also find these dishgoss so the rainders went in there before us and they got in a pretty good dust up and tick stands for troops in contact and they lost a couple of Rangers so we were going in a couple of days after and you're doing your pre-mission briefing and you know we're gonna get inserted with you know three CH47 and four CH47 helicopters and there's a high probability we're gonna lose a helicopter on infill with the dish goes and you know you're sitting in the night before you you know they think they're slick and they're gonna play both sides and do they get caught they go to prison you know some get killed you know they get found out you know we do everything we can to protect their identity and some do it for a while or some are you know trying to help their legal situation or a family member situation or just doing it for money and you know eventually move on and get on with their lives and get back into some normalcy of life you know but you know being you know having a good informant you're kind of like you know they're they're confident you know there's therapist everything else you know you're phone's gonna be ringing in middle of the night you're always going to want to talk to you you know because it's girlfriend left the left home you know you know be willing to do those things and you know on 52 years old now you can't let these young guys beat you she got to keep yourself in shape you know it was working you know work overseas you know with the special ops guys and like how old are you 41 is it okay and we didn't have a kind of tactical team that was up to speed to do this at the time years prior to that we had an operation called operations snow cap where we were in Columbia and other cocaine manufacturing destinations and hitting Coca-labs you know with you know partner forces in this and that so DEA had to start up a team so they used some of the individuals that we were working snow cap and developed this fast team this foreign deployed advisory and support team to help the military and mentor our partner force over there because we really don't have over there you know any like criminal authority so in the Afghans they were behind the time so we went over you know the military you know they got plenty of trigger pullers and of course we can pull triggers too so so you're wearing plain clothes plain clothes you got like a badge around the neck and the chain you know like TV and the pair jeans you want to look as unintimulating as possible if you want to look intimidating like what's your what's your like what's your character what character you're going into just kind of this kind of low key intimidating enough with you know you're you know federal law enforcement you know you're not playing around yes it's in it was in in Quantico Virginia inside the Quantico military base and when I went through us in the FBI shared the same academy we since have our own academy that's right next to the FBI academy but we still share the gun ranges and driving track in gym with the FBI and how long is that pipeline you know it's like um like 16 18 week academy and what are you doing is it legal is it physical is it what are you doing it's a little bit of everything um where the police academy was more paramilitary DEA was more gentleman academy you know you didn't have to line up for inspection every day I see a speck will win down your you know you're uniform and getting you know the front lean and rest position and all that jazz um but it was very intense very academically challenging very physically challenge challenging we did a lot of shooting a lot of tactical training a lot of scenarios I was very impressed with it the biggest thing was your way from your family for four months as opposed when I went to the Detroit police academy he wasn't an overnight thing you come and go and stuff that's what I would do and um their SQT was going through there at the time and um so it was a full house there how was that training it was intense you know it was you know three weeks day and night of you know getting you know kicked in the balls you know and you know this is what I was told in the seal pre-deployment workup that's usually the hardest pre-deployment block of the toughest you know those those Rangers that we would bring out their just outstanding guys because we as seals always want to have an open mind and make sure that we are understanding the tactics the techniques the procedures of other units what do they know better than us what can they teach us what can we've learned from them and that's one of the ways that we've always done that is taking individuals from other units and bringing them to our units especially to our instructor cadre so that we can learn more and try and get better and those those Rangers that work with us were just outstanding guys and I say and I feel you guys do an outstanding job of your guys as training you know like you said you know knowing that hey there's always you know there's more than one way to skin a cat but you're going to overseas fight in the war so you're using weapons and weapons systems the average DEA agent doesn't never use in their career you know you're using you know belt-fed crew surf weapons you know grenade launchers you know handheld mortars Carl Gustav rockets you know laws you know kind of crap So the training you had worked 100% you know I didn't even think you know I didn't even don't even remember looking through my sights I know I did you know you get that perceptual narrowing you know when you're in a fighter flight or a gunfight you know either eyesight increases you're hearing decreases you start so you fight motor skills so you felt all that stuff and they're partner force probably you would be around 30 you know and fast um because we were like two season three zes have a two to four fast agents and we would bring our partner force at this particular time like we could cherry pick people that were the better um fighters and um sometimes two to four we would take out and did be honest like I said we worked the best in brightest not a high percentage of them were good fighters and a lot of times they weren't in great shape so we're kind of limited what you can do how long of an infill and ex-fill you can do and how complicated a plan you could do so you know it kind of hamstringed us a little bit you know and they decide they're going to stick a nasal fair and gill airway up my nose and in training we have to insert these in any other and just sort of a nose this is like a it's basically like a you shaped tube that you cram and someone's nose that will open up the airway between your nostrils and like your lungs not all the way down your lungs but like through your head you know they're probably what do you think they are Joe like maybe five inches long total something like that and one end looks like there's a funnel on there and the other and you know in training we can put light a cane in our nose before we do it I had you know the belt you know down the feed tray cover shot you know you know the weapon cock bag but the safety on you know ready ready to go you know and they would beat up like they would pick up minorities and jump him like five on one kind of like a one percent or motorcycle gang thing and they put me in there to buy steroids from these kids so I ended up buying steroids from these kids and then later led to Sammy the bull getting to additional legal problems well where is he out right now I'm not sure we's at the moment that's crazy when you're doing these undercover ones that you're talking about are you staying under cover for a long period of time or you basically going under cover for two hours to go meet these guys buy some shit and then roll out did you ever do these guys it seems like they're going under cover for extended period of time that's called like a deep cover operation those don't happen that much anymore you know there's a lot of risk involved then there you know and you know working with the specialized special ops units if you had to work with them before and you can probably know this there's a lot of Dick measuring going out check it's like who are you what can you do if they never work with you you know you know we weren't a special option it for say you know we're the best at DEA have

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jockel Podcast number 326 with echo Charles and me, Jockel Willing. Good evening, echo.
[00:00:06] Good evening.
[00:00:07] Throughout October 30th and 31st, 2011, in furtherance of the Drug Enforcement Administration's
[00:00:16] Drug Law Enforcement Mission in Afghanistan, special agents of the DEA's Foreign Deployed Advisory Support
[00:00:24] or Fast Team, conducted counter-narcotics, counter-insurgency operations with their police partners
[00:00:31] from the Afghan National Interdiction Unit assisted by the Australian Defense Forces.
[00:00:37] The task force departed their base via four helicopters as part of a mission to execute Afghan
[00:00:43] drug warrants and to search for narcotics, cashes, and heroin production labs.
[00:00:48] The team began to search the target area and accompanying opium bizarre when they began to receive
[00:00:56] sporadic incoming enemy fire. They accomplished their assigned duties and then maneuvered
[00:01:04] to the extraction location all-wall under sporadic enemy fire. When the task force arrived at the
[00:01:10] helicopter landing zones, they continued to receive effective enemy fire. One of the four
[00:01:15] helicopters forced to make an additional orbit and subsequently land in the vicinity of special
[00:01:20] agents, pierceante, Johnson, Vanderbilt, Harris, Stewart, Fisher, Portinga, and five members
[00:01:29] from the Australian Special Forces. This helicopter landed under fire.
[00:01:36] Special agent, Pursante, laid down suppressive fire, which enabled special agents to
[00:01:41] Stewart Harris and Fisher to board the helicopter. Once inside, special agents Stewart
[00:01:46] continued applying suppressive fire. Special agents Stewart directed an Afghan door gunner to initiate
[00:01:52] suppressive fire in an attempt to cover the remaining members of the team still outside the helicopter.
[00:01:58] Special agent Pursante was approximately 10 meters from the rear of the helicopter when he was hit by
[00:02:04] enemy fire. The round penetrated his ballistic helmet, entered above his right eye and exited
[00:02:13] above his left eye and he was immediately rendered unconscious and fell to the ground.
[00:02:20] Special agent Portinga positioned himself at the rear of the helicopter and continued laying down
[00:02:26] suppressive fire as special agent Pursante was being brought back into the helicopter.
[00:02:31] He instinctively put himself in harm's way and returned fire until all personnel were on board
[00:02:38] the helicopter as the helicopter took off. Special agents Vanderbilt, Johnson, and Harris immediately
[00:02:44] rendered first aid to special agent Pursante and controlled his bleeding, maintained an open air
[00:02:49] way and stabilized him. Special agent Pursante was eventually transferred to the Veterans
[00:02:56] Affairs Medical Center in Richmond, Virginia for continued treatment and rehabilitation. The actions of
[00:03:03] all agents involved both before and following the shooting were very clearly heroic.
[00:03:15] And that right there was an excerpt from an article by the US Department of Justice
[00:03:22] who oversees the DEA and special agent Joseph Pursante survived that round to the head.
[00:03:33] He became the first ever member of the DEA to receive the secretary of defense metal for the
[00:03:40] defense of freedom and also received the federal congressional badge of bravery.
[00:03:46] But that bullet did do significant damage most significantly. It rendered special agent Pursante blind.
[00:03:59] But he has continued to drive on to grow to teach and a certain credible example of
[00:04:07] perseverance for all of us and is an honor to have him here with us tonight to share some of his
[00:04:14] experiences and lessons learned. Joe, thanks for coming on man. You're quite welcome. First I want
[00:04:22] to say it's an honor to be part of this podcast and I was very flattered that you guys asked me to
[00:04:28] be on it. Well you're the first DEA guy we've got here. So you got another first under your belt now.
[00:04:38] But you didn't start off in the DEA. Let's let's like I like to go back to the beginning.
[00:04:41] Let's figure out where you came from. How you ended up being who you are. Born in Detroit, right?
[00:04:48] Yes. Actually grew up was born and raised in the city of Detroit. My dad was a police officer there.
[00:04:55] And at the time there was residency so we had to live in a city. I'm actually third generation
[00:05:01] law enforcement officer and my family. When you say there was residency, what do you mean by that?
[00:05:07] You had to live in the city. You had to live in the city to be a police officer in the city. Yes. Or any
[00:05:10] at the time any city workers? Wow. If you're a fire fighter or you know work for the city's
[00:05:16] sanitation and things like that, you had to live in the city. So we all kind of clustered and huddled
[00:05:20] in little areas. And your dad was a cop. His whole career that was what he did. Yes. Some people
[00:05:27] tired in Detroit 1990 then went on to work at the University of Michigan. Their police department
[00:05:34] eventually became chief of police there. Did you have aspirations of being a cop as well?
[00:05:41] Yes. You know growing up I always played team sports. It was fortunate enough to
[00:05:47] play college and football to smaller school and southern Michigan. And I always like that kind of team
[00:05:52] atmosphere. And my father he worked conspiracy in our comics for years and years in Detroit police
[00:05:59] department. And I just saw that kind of team environment team atmosphere and it kind of drew me to it.
[00:06:07] Even though my father never pushed me to go into law enforcement and actually I'm when I went away
[00:06:13] to college. My major at first was sports medicine. I wanted to be an athletic trainer and then
[00:06:20] the more I thought about him like you know what I really want to do this law enforcement thing.
[00:06:25] So I talked to my dad and he's like okay you know I support you and if you're going to do
[00:06:31] the law enforcement he worked on a DEA task force and a drug task force there and he says you know
[00:06:39] I would encourage you to go federal just because the pay is a little better you get to travel the
[00:06:45] world and you get to see and do a lot of things and I've always been a kind of rough tumble person
[00:06:52] and DEA has always been known as the kind of blue collar, federal law enforcement. So he kind of
[00:06:58] tried to push me that way and he had friends that still worked there. But unfortunately when I
[00:07:04] graduated from college in December of 91 DEA was on a hiring freeze. So I went back home to the
[00:07:12] Detroit Michigan area and Detroit police was hiring so I put my application there and got hired
[00:07:19] by the Detroit police department and February of 1993. Now when you say you are a rough and tumble
[00:07:27] kid it to me it seems like when I talked to people that had police's parents they they're either like
[00:07:33] really good on the straight narrow and they kind of rebellious. Where were you at were you
[00:07:38] somewhere in the middle? You know I kind of had a rebellious street to me but luckily I had a strong
[00:07:44] father and a strong grandfather and kind of kept me on the straight in narrow and my father was pretty
[00:07:52] tough on me and but he always supported me. He always went to my athletic events. It was there all the
[00:07:59] time. You know we put a foot up my ass if I needed but also you know was very loving and supporting
[00:08:06] you know I could still call my father today hey dad I need help he's like okay I'm on the way and
[00:08:12] a little more background my dad's father and actually my mother's father they both served and
[00:08:19] we'll work too and my dad's father he actually landed an Omaha Beach on D-Day and the second way
[00:08:27] even later got a silver star pushing through Germany. When you did you have brothers and sisters I
[00:08:35] have one sister she's four years younger than me but you were kind of the only son so your dad was
[00:08:41] at every sporting event that there was. Oh yes it coached me every sport but football
[00:08:49] so but to always even at grade school he would video of my games at the old VHS video camera
[00:08:57] and we sit down and watch the games after with him and he'd like you know Joey you know they called me
[00:09:03] he had my name is Joe too and my both grandfathers were Joe so they called me Joey. Joey you did
[00:09:08] this wrong you didn't have my mom would be like leave that poor kid alone. Where you how were you
[00:09:14] in school? Where you did you feel like you had to do good in school because your dad was kind of
[00:09:19] keeping an eye on you. Yeah you know I felt you know I needed to do you know well in school
[00:09:27] school things I would say I have you know I know what you're trying to say. Yeah you know
[00:09:35] I'm a pretty athletic guy but I've always had to work working life for things you know I was taught
[00:09:41] you work hard you put the effort in and if you didn't succeed at something you go back and look at it
[00:09:48] and you kind of become kind of analyze yourself okay what did I do right what did I do wrong
[00:09:53] what can I do better I've had a good example to you know put hard work in you know and most often
[00:10:01] hopefully it's gonna pay off and I just had a good example that way and you played you played
[00:10:07] college football as well yes and you how was that how was that did you guys went a lot did you
[00:10:14] lose a lot well lessons you take away from playing college ball you know I tell you what I tell
[00:10:18] everybody sports teach us a lot of lessons in life teaches you how to win how to lose how to be a
[00:10:25] team player all those things and I learned valuable lessons from sports now in college I went to a
[00:10:34] small school and so the mission called Adrian College we were the most winningest football team in
[00:10:39] Michigan in the 80s all divisions so we did really well when I was there we won two league championships
[00:10:49] and actually went to division three college national playoffs in 1988 so it was a good you know I
[00:10:57] was able to get my education and I excelled in college in football I knew I wasn't going to be the
[00:11:06] tallest guy you know bless my mom she's only like five foot so I better be strong and fast so
[00:11:11] lesson I picked up the weights and kind of blew up as soon as I started lifting so in college I was
[00:11:20] an all league player twice I was team captain team MVP and our league we had every week they
[00:11:28] listed an offensive defensive player the week I made that defensive player the week numerous times
[00:11:34] so you know it was a good experience you know you get to get the bond with those you know the
[00:11:38] people you play with and you learn life lessons and actually in college you know you finally get to
[00:11:44] do think you know classes that you're interested in your major and I did really well in college
[00:11:48] and actually and my major I had over three point average and stuff so and you said you transfer
[00:11:54] you switched from being and want to become like an athletic trainer into what sociology criminal
[00:12:01] justice what so you made the decision having to go go be a cop or something like that after
[00:12:06] my freshman year at the time at our school we didn't have a just specific criminal justice program
[00:12:15] so it was sociology with the emphasis on criminal justice and I continued sports and medicine
[00:12:20] as my minor degree so then you get done with that the federal the DA's not hiring as you said
[00:12:28] and so now you decide you're going to go and become a Detroit cop yes is it hard to apply for
[00:12:35] how strict is it it was easy to get into did you third generation you just get like a welcome
[00:12:40] map at the front door to get in there I wouldn't say that but when I showed to recruit or you know
[00:12:44] it was like you know they didn't give me any cut me any slack at all you know you got to go take
[00:12:49] your little eye test and this and that and you know you go through the process of course it's not
[00:12:53] is intense and his details of process getting hard federally busy you have to get security
[00:13:01] clearance you know but I you know they do a good job and you know I had decent credentials
[00:13:07] and you know luckily I just didn't get in a lot of trouble or didn't get caught so I didn't have
[00:13:14] bad things on my record so you know I got in fairly easy and showed up there and went through
[00:13:20] the academy and I'm not only like kind of a muscle head guy but I'm fairly intelligent and I
[00:13:27] graduated top academically in my class and got just lamp on knowledge and plaque and stuff
[00:13:31] a little genie lamp on there you know I say there's no great shakes you know my I guess my
[00:13:41] competition there wasn't as as a greatest level as the DEA academics but it was pretty good you
[00:13:47] know you get to teach a lot of a lot of things and in Detroit I grew up there on my life so I
[00:13:53] kind of knew when I was getting into and Detroit on the police department is kind of a bat
[00:13:58] tip of my fire you get to learn how to be the real police real fast you know it's kind of
[00:14:04] sink or swim and you immediately just go right out being like a beat cop in the streets and where
[00:14:09] with they did is they took the top people out of our class and put us in this unit called
[00:14:17] tactical service section we were a citywide unit that did crowd control also if there was a
[00:14:28] bearer-fated gun person we would do outer perimeter and we would work in areas where they were
[00:14:35] having problems certain precincts or the precincts got overrun with calls and we would go
[00:14:41] in flood the area and help the precincts out so it was kind of like a QRF like a quick reaction
[00:14:50] for us kind of like that in a way you know but you know we just answered the priority one
[00:14:57] in two calls like the shots fired things like that robberies and progress we took a little
[00:15:02] those higher level calls so it was pretty crazy and Detroit's kind of weird animal like I
[00:15:09] grew up in the east side so I mostly was the east side guy and when I became a TSS we worked the
[00:15:16] whole cities you might be in a couple different areas a couple different precincts as they call it
[00:15:21] in one day so when I grew up if I got out and chased somebody and jumped a couple of fences I knew
[00:15:26] where the hell I was you know beyond the west side bail out and I was pretty fast and I could jump
[00:15:32] fences pretty good so I could usually catch a lot of people and I was in shape so I jumped a
[00:15:37] couple fences I'd be in a yard holding a suspect at gunpoint and I wouldn't know where the hell I was
[00:15:44] at I'd be like radio, tech three I'm a couple blocks east of my original location
[00:15:51] next to the burnedout garage but the problem was like every third garage is burned out so
[00:15:58] so that was the day to day so you did that right out of the academy that seems like a strange
[00:16:04] thing to take someone that's brand new and put them in that kind of situation we're going into
[00:16:09] these tough calls all the time out of the gate that's trial by fire oh yes but which was good
[00:16:15] is a lot of the better officers worked there at tactical service section so you got to be trained
[00:16:20] and learned from some of the better police officers so you know you really got to learn the job
[00:16:26] fast and from some good individuals like how many people were on the team did you guys show up
[00:16:32] in like a freaking armored trucker we well each shift we had we ran two shifts a day shift
[00:16:38] and then a power shift the power shift was seven unlike the three in the morning those are like
[00:16:42] the busiest times day shift and power shifts so we've rolled out to eight to ten cars okay
[00:16:50] two people in a car you know so we would flood an area so it was good if you needed back up you
[00:16:55] needed help you know somebody usually was there fairly fast but it was it was intense and then
[00:17:04] after at the time my dad finished up he was on the full-time swatime in Detroit and was crazy
[00:17:12] about Detroit being a big city they didn't have a full-time swatime until 1986 which to me kind of
[00:17:18] blows my mind yeah that's crazy and he was on he was one of the original members on the team and then
[00:17:24] after three years of working up a troll type unit you could apply for a special unit or bureau
[00:17:31] they call them also and I tried out for the swat team and later made the swat team in my last year
[00:17:39] and the job I was on the full-time tactical team which was you know pretty pretty intense you
[00:17:45] got to do a lot of fun stuff and you didn't have to do a lot of paperwork but usually the
[00:17:50] sergeant the team you know he did the right up after the barricade gun person or unless you got
[00:17:55] into of course a shooting you would have to do a report and so so you went right from that
[00:18:00] tactical service section into the swat team yes how many years did you did you do the the
[00:18:06] tactical service section three years and then one year on the full-time swat team and then
[00:18:11] yes you did you shoot any did you fire your shot fire your weapon at all during those three years
[00:18:16] with the tactical service and not with TSS but on the swat team and it took a while to get hired by
[00:18:24] D.E.A. you know government sometimes it's hurry up and wait and I was sitting around it didn't
[00:18:31] hear anything that I had failed something and have time went by months went by and I get a call
[00:18:37] then they're like Mr. Perceini you still interested in a job but D.E.A. I said of course I have
[00:18:42] yeah we had lost your application we found it now oh man I'm like this has every information about me you know
[00:18:49] parents siblings every neighbor I've ever had you know I've had and the the process kind of
[00:18:56] really sped up so I'm like three months out from the academy and we go to a barricaded gunman
[00:19:04] and one of the precincts and Detroit and it's an ex-military person they have kind of mental problems
[00:19:12] and they would hold the neighborhood and their family at bay of shooting at them every so often so
[00:19:20] we respond and we begin take over from the precinct began negotiating with them and
[00:19:27] they start shooting at our armor personnel carrier through the window and
[00:19:31] it's starting to ramp up and we had some officer stationed in the backyard and the person goes out
[00:19:40] and is you know exchanging shooting at them but they don't have a clear shot at the suspect
[00:19:46] and they had a car in the driveway and my team was on a break we were like four or five houses
[00:19:52] down between houses and we had one of the suburbans we had with us and we had like half our gear on
[00:20:00] and they're like do not let them get mobile we feel they're trying they're going to
[00:20:05] might try to go for the car and then sure is crap they go for the car so I jumped in the passenger
[00:20:12] side of the suburban my buddy drives it jumps in the driver seat for like half dressed
[00:20:17] we just got our MP5 submachine gun strapped around us so we pulled behind the car to try to
[00:20:23] block him in and they start to ram us and we're like oh crap and by this time it was dark and then I see a
[00:20:30] muzzle flash through the rear window and they start shooting at us so I
[00:20:38] exited the vehicle tactically and my partner did and we opened up into the car and unfortunately had to
[00:20:46] dispatch the person and I was like wait and all this time for DEA and then finally I get an
[00:20:51] shooting but thank you know thank god it was a good shooting I didn't you know there was no drama
[00:20:55] with that but I was just like just my luck you know wait all this time and then I get in this
[00:20:59] you know critical incident how often were you guys as a SWAT team doing hits you know it varied
[00:21:09] sometimes in a month we four or five times we may be a barricade a gun person sometimes we
[00:21:16] would serve like felony warrants for more dangerous individuals once in a while we go out with
[00:21:22] narcotics if they were hitting a spot which they deemed was pretty dangerous and needed a little
[00:21:28] more trained units so we'd go and do that but you know did a lot of training tactical training a
[00:21:34] lot of shooting you know and as you can attest to the more you shoot the more efficient you know it's
[00:21:39] kind of a perishable skill so you know we got to do all those type of things so it was it was a good
[00:21:44] experience and you were just sporting that 1990s MP5 yes 9mm yeah I was like oh yeah you're in a vehicle
[00:21:56] and you have an MP5 and you know in the 90s for me in the SEAL teams you know we used the MP5
[00:22:03] but we thought it was cool until we had to shoot somebody that was more than you know 50 yards away
[00:22:08] and all of a sudden you think this is not a good weapon to have no or they have a ballistic vest
[00:22:12] the place is not going to hit yeah you know in the apillar and cars will stop that 9mm too yeah yeah
[00:22:19] that's I guess we've all transitioned away from the the MP5 now but damn that's an accurate easy to shoot
[00:22:27] weapon I think that's like sometimes people ask me about home defense weapons like for like for a
[00:22:33] female maybe and I think man an MP5 is not a bad call you're in the house you're only going to shoot
[00:22:38] someone that's in the house most likely you know so I think it's and it's so easy to shoot so accurate
[00:22:44] yes we you know you know there's very very little to almost no recoil on that weapon yeah
[00:22:49] and with a suppressor on them it's nothing nothing but that's a lot of experience that you had
[00:22:57] I mean just doing hits all the time in the 90s just that kind of experience I remember from
[00:23:03] the SEAL perspective in the 90s you know we looked at SWAT team especially you know city
[00:23:08] big urban center SWAT teams you guys were doing you guys were doing war call the time so the
[00:23:13] experience that you all had and and you know we would work with LA SWAT from time to time seals would
[00:23:20] work with LA SWAT and it was we were kind of who we were kind of envious of the fact that they
[00:23:28] got to go out and do the job and and you know same thing for you up there and Detroit in the 90s
[00:23:34] you just if you're in the military in the 90s chances were you weren't doing anything real yeah no so
[00:23:40] you get in that experience is that's a lot of experience to have in the 90s from that perspective
[00:23:49] so meanwhile you get done with that you spend that this year so how long were you on SWAT team for
[00:23:55] about a year year on the SWAT team and that's and you got picked up for the DEA after three months
[00:24:00] of being at the SWAT team is that what you said no I was there a little longer but it just took
[00:24:06] I got in that fatal shooting right three months before I was ready to start my academy day to
[00:24:11] order for the academy I I got hired with DEA in June of 1997 and and this was you like the DEA
[00:24:19] because they're and I actually never heard that the DEA was the blue collar of the feds I liked that
[00:24:25] I didn't know that before that's the reputation that they have on at the time you know things
[00:24:30] that things are changing and law enforcement now and everything and but at the time we were kind
[00:24:36] of the roughnecks so to speak so you get you get to go to what is it they have the DEA academy
[00:24:44] is that what they have yes it's in it was in in Quantico Virginia inside the Quantico military base
[00:24:51] and when I went through us in the FBI shared the same academy we since have our own academy
[00:25:00] that's right next to the FBI academy but we still share the gun ranges and driving track
[00:25:08] in gym with the FBI and how long is that pipeline you know it's like um like 16 18 week
[00:25:16] academy and what are you doing is it legal is it physical is it what are you doing it's a little bit
[00:25:24] of everything um where the police academy was more paramilitary DEA was more gentleman academy
[00:25:32] you know you didn't have to line up for inspection every day I see a speck will win down
[00:25:35] your you know you're uniform and getting you know the front lean and rest position and all that jazz
[00:25:39] um but it was very intense very academically challenging very physically challenge challenging
[00:25:47] we did a lot of shooting a lot of tactical training a lot of scenarios I was very impressed
[00:25:57] with it the biggest thing was your way from your family for four months as opposed when I
[00:26:01] went to the Detroit police academy he wasn't an overnight thing you come and go and stuff but
[00:26:07] it was a very very intense academy and then when I went through the DEA you couldn't go back
[00:26:16] to where you were hired from they had this thing with our administrator who's the person who runs DEA
[00:26:23] you couldn't go back because there might be a potential for corruption and to me and my if you're
[00:26:30] going to be cropped you're going to be cropped wherever you go through this so uh we you know
[00:26:38] three quarters of the academy they put a list out and a different spots opened and you know
[00:26:43] say you got 50 individuals in your academy class and there's 50 spots and of course it's where
[00:26:49] individuals are needed and of course DEA what the drugs come up for Mexico a lot of border spots
[00:26:54] so I'm like well I don't speak Spanish so maybe I won't have to go there
[00:26:58] um a lot of spots in your Calais you know big cities like that and you get to pick your
[00:27:05] top three choices you're not guaranteed necessarily to get any one of those and you can work
[00:27:10] it out with the class you know you get to sit there beforehand and okay there's so many spots
[00:27:15] here who wants to put in for one of these spots and you can kind of work it out and you submit
[00:27:19] your top three and like I said you're not guaranteed to get them any little spots and if you
[00:27:25] speak Spanish and there's some border spots you're probably going to go to the border and
[00:27:30] hi um so what'd you put for your top three slots that you wanted? I put Phoenix Arizona
[00:27:37] number one I had never been to Phoenix but was going to have to move and I was married at the time
[00:27:42] and my wife had had the time had dual custody with her children as a two boys young boys
[00:27:49] and she's going to have to move away from them so I kind of let her pick and then I put
[00:27:53] some Fort Lauderdale in Miami I was I had being from Michigan I had a lot of family that lived
[00:28:01] vacation seasonally and Florida and the winter months but I also had a grandmother
[00:28:07] that had a place in Arizona and then my wife at the time had a grandfather that lived there so
[00:28:14] put in for Phoenix Arizona and as long as you weren't like a butt head in the sedan and you
[00:28:20] know you more or less got one of your top three spots so I was very fortunate and that so I got that
[00:28:27] selected and got Phoenix and then what did you do when you show up you're a new guy or you new guy
[00:28:34] they call you new guy what are they calling you? Oh yeah I know you know f and new guy you know all kind of stuff
[00:28:40] you know and so I find out that I'm going to show up there I'm going to the
[00:28:47] clandestine laboratory task force group we're going to be doing moth labs now from Detroit
[00:28:53] I've never seen method in fedamine one time really um but this not really an urban city drug
[00:29:01] mess kind of more of a white trash drug we're saying you know in the city you know you have heroin
[00:29:07] or they call it a city heroin and of course cocaine crack cocaine marijuana and things like that
[00:29:14] so I just leave the academy and they're like Joe you're going back to the academy of for
[00:29:17] clan labs go on my gosh yet so I got stuck in the the clan lab group for my first four years but it
[00:29:25] was kind of good because it was a local task force ran out of the the Maricopa County Sheriff's office
[00:29:32] and you got to learn the basics of necotics and the investigations how to write a search
[00:29:38] warns how to deal with informants which is kind of our bread and butter and you get to learn
[00:29:45] the job so it really taught me how to become a DEA investigator and I would say on the low end
[00:29:56] of the estimate I've been in at least 500 method in fedamine labs and we you know we were on
[00:30:02] all the protective gear in it but we really don't know what the long term exposure is to
[00:30:05] the all these costic and hazardous chemicals are I had a neighbor who's nephew got involved in
[00:30:18] meth and he told he had been to prison and he got out of prison and when I met him the nephew had
[00:30:26] gotten out of prison and I met him and was talking to him and he was yeah I was I was just got out of
[00:30:31] prison he said and he told me he said when I tried crystal meth for the first time as soon as I tried it
[00:30:39] I realized that with the only thing I ever wanted to do for the rest of my life was more crystal meth
[00:30:43] and he stole everything from his mom everything else for grandma everything from his uncle
[00:30:49] everything from all of his friends ruined every relationship in San Diego and then
[00:30:55] went to somewhere else San Bernardino and made friends there and stole from all them and then did
[00:30:59] that all across the country until he finally wound up in Texas and you know that's where he finally
[00:31:04] got rolled up and sent to prison but that that that meth thing is freaking crazy huh you know it's
[00:31:09] crazy you know you know these drugs are crazy especially these harder drugs like as you kind of said
[00:31:14] he controls their whole life you know and most of the labs are smaller we call them mom and pop
[00:31:20] labs are cooking ounces that's cute you know you know it's you know it's they make enough to get
[00:31:25] their own for free and you know and sell a little bit to their friends you know so they get there
[00:31:32] as for free and you know they're cooking in these houses with these little kids you know and everything
[00:31:38] is off-gassing into the you know into the air getting into the carpet and walls and everything else
[00:31:44] so we started bringing child protective services with us when we would do meth and fedamine
[00:31:49] lab warrants and they would bring the kids to the hospital and when they would test them you know
[00:31:56] high percentage of what test positive for meth and fedamine just because the staff you know
[00:32:01] was in the carpet and the atmosphere you know it just breaks my heart you know me having a daughter
[00:32:07] you know these little kids involved and then not only would they get charged with the meth lab
[00:32:12] and manufacturing they would get charged with child abuse from CPS also so you would do these
[00:32:19] investigations you're you're getting human intelligence that's telling you hey I get my I get my
[00:32:25] meth from this person over here then you find out where that person lives then you track them for a
[00:32:30] little while figure out you know where they're doing suspicious activity and then you do a hit on it
[00:32:35] how does that work yes that's one of the means with an informant hey you know you know
[00:32:41] informants you know summer will try to work off charge a summer just paid informants and they go
[00:32:44] around and that's what they do you know so-and-so is manufacturing meth here you know I've saw
[00:32:50] you know these class where items I saw this part of the cooking procedure I saw these chemicals
[00:32:56] you know and then you do you know some more background and then you do you know some investigations
[00:33:01] of aliens and use kind of some of our techniques that we use to you know kind of make sure and
[00:33:09] evaluate the informant and we also get information from different places as well these chemicals you know
[00:33:16] Joe blow is buying you know keeps buying you know every month so many pounds of red phosphorus so
[00:33:20] we found the eyedine crystals or the different stores when you get by the coal pills the
[00:33:26] pseudo-faggender or a faggender tablets over the counter they would kind of some stores would work with us
[00:33:32] and they would get license plates so we do a work-up and you know find out where these people live
[00:33:39] they'll start an investigation and then we got enough probable cause for a search warrant we would hit
[00:33:45] these locations you know because of the the dangers of meth labs a lot of times you don't know
[00:33:52] what the atmosphere was so you when you rated it you would have to go in with full
[00:33:57] SCBA self-contained breathing apparatus but you didn't know with the environment in oxygen level was in
[00:34:03] the houses and of course you got this big tank on your back and it's kind of cumbersome and a lot
[00:34:09] of local swathes where clan lab trained for tactics so there were little smaller tactical
[00:34:16] bottles you could use so a lot of unknowns and you know one of our investigative techniques you
[00:34:23] go through and garbage cans when they put it on the curb so a lot of these meth people
[00:34:29] to know that we would pull trash so they would save every bit of lab trash they ever had in one room
[00:34:35] so you're missing you know your missing mixing acids and bay bases together and things are off-cass
[00:34:40] and so it's not the very safe environment to say the least. What's the paid informant?
[00:34:47] um they're actually there's almost like a professional informant but it's like for money
[00:34:55] seizure and drug seizures we would pay them money so they'd go around and work and travel
[00:35:02] sometimes from city to city just to make money as an informant you know and at different times when
[00:35:08] you know budgets and we had good money and you know they got a certain percentage of a cash seizure
[00:35:15] or acid seizure you know they can make some fairly decent money and what these are just guys
[00:35:20] sort of off the street or do they apply for that job or it's really you know you have to fill
[00:35:26] a lot of package for a person that wants to be a confidential source of course you have to run
[00:35:31] their criminal history make sure they have no act of warrants and you know you have to
[00:35:37] supervise them pretty tight and you know some people get improved for work as informant some
[00:35:44] don't just because they're a criminal history and their stuff is just so bad you know so it's
[00:35:51] you know it's a catch-22 you know you can't get a choir choir person a choir boy you know
[00:35:56] to catch people but it's it's a fine line you have you have to manage it well
[00:36:02] and as you're doing this and you see you went into over 500 meth labs in how many years was that
[00:36:09] four years and four years so that's like you know up hitting a meth lab every two or three maybe four
[00:36:16] days going into those things did you feel like hey they're we're making a dent or sometimes
[00:36:23] you just feel like we're just overwhelmed and this is we could keep doing this forever
[00:36:28] it got to the point where it was bad for a while you almost felt overwhelmed but there was so many
[00:36:34] and it was so easy to get the precursor chemicals to manufacture a meth infetamine here in the
[00:36:41] United States so then we started as a whole DEA we started cracking down into the companies that
[00:36:50] made the a federal tablets or the pseudo-fedron pills which is one of the primary precursor
[00:36:56] chemicals of meth infetamine and would track where their shipping in made him harder to get and
[00:37:03] that's why you probably see like if you buy any coal medication that has pseudo-fedron you
[00:37:08] got to buy it you have to get it from behind the counter now right this people were going in just you
[00:37:12] know buy in two stealing tool two boxes and they call it like smurfing pills and they would get
[00:37:18] enough to make you know how much meth infetamine they wanted to make so that started really
[00:37:24] putting we saw that started putting a dent into it you know and course then all then
[00:37:30] originally when I was working these labs of course there was a lot of meth infetamine coming
[00:37:36] up for Mexico but it wasn't that pure so a lot of the true tweakers did not want it they wanted
[00:37:42] that real pure glass 98 99 you know percent pure meth infetamine which was homegrown made
[00:37:53] and then once the we you know cracked down the precursors in harder to get here
[00:38:00] Mexico started picking up their game and started making the real pure meth infetamine down in
[00:38:06] Mexico and sending it up through the border so that means you were dealing with the cartel the
[00:38:10] big drug cartels um yes a lot and especially when I worked in Phoenix you know course that's
[00:38:18] what is you know the Southwest is controlled by the Mexican drug cartels um do you have any you know
[00:38:27] big memorable operations or that you did that you were part of? He yes um like I said most of the
[00:38:36] labs were like mom and pop tweaker labs but I was able to do a couple of pretty big we call
[00:38:44] a Mexican national labs where they're making multiple possible pounds at one time and
[00:38:52] um the Sheriff's Office had some information that uh that's a couple guys came in they wanted
[00:38:59] to work for money and they do this big Mexican national lab west of Phoenix in an area called
[00:39:08] Westbrane Ranch you know we're like okay I went with a I went with another partner to see what they
[00:39:13] had to say you know a lot of times a lot of things can be BS and people over hype and over blow it up
[00:39:18] you know so we go out there and you know hey this is group of these Mexican nationals you know they're
[00:39:24] making you know 30, 40, 50 pounds in math that is time they're cooking out in this real
[00:39:29] rule location you know so we get a work up and start doing some investigation and identify
[00:39:38] where the people are living in the city and we have an informant just willing and knows when
[00:39:44] they're out there cooking you know so we're building up a plan and you know of course it's on
[00:39:49] the mill nowhere so there's no address of this place there's a parcel numbers you're getting like
[00:39:54] a GPS grid coordinates did this place and that's what's on the search warrant you know you know
[00:40:00] how are we gonna hit this place in a cooking or are we gonna do an air assault or what are we going
[00:40:05] to do so we finally it got up and um got close okay they said they're gonna cook this weekend
[00:40:12] and what's the time for him on all this how long does this take is it is it weeks is it days is
[00:40:18] it months it all depends it varies I think this one in particular um I think we were working on it for a
[00:40:25] couple months so the informant says I think they're gonna cook this weekend is it okay we'll get ready
[00:40:32] so you know we're preparing and getting you know as much information as we have it typed up in the
[00:40:38] search warrant and everything and we knew there was a property close to them which the guy was kind
[00:40:44] of involved and if they were gonna run from the lab location they more than likely they were
[00:40:50] gonna go high that they're that residents you know so then informant calls me okay they're going
[00:40:57] out and buying a bunch of ice so one of the processes of cooking method and you got to start adding
[00:41:02] ice to things and cool it down so we knew okay they're cooking they're almost they're getting close to
[00:41:09] done so we spent up the team we've put an affidab at what the the informant says and we get it
[00:41:16] signed by a judge and we were working with the sheriff's office at the time and it was decided
[00:41:21] we're not gonna do an air assault we're gonna convoy in there and you know this is a real
[00:41:26] location you know in your convoy you know when a desert type environment you're kicking up
[00:41:31] dust and stuff they can see you coming from five miles away how big of a team are you bringing
[00:41:34] and this is like an assault team yeah we're bringing the the the the the Maricopa County
[00:41:42] SWAT team you know it's probably 20 something individuals are lab team you know we probably got
[00:41:51] 10 individuals or so and then we're bringing chemists and has them at and everything out so it's a
[00:41:56] pretty good force big convoy big convoy lot of dust he does stuff so of course the plan was
[00:42:04] the SWAT team is gonna hit the lab location do you put a recon element out at all or just do
[00:42:10] an aerial or nothing we had an aerial prior but we didn't have time to get people light in there
[00:42:17] late in there to do it we would have liked that to happen but it just wasn't feasible with the situation
[00:42:23] so of course the SWAT team hits it hey we got a huge lab up cooking but nobody's here
[00:42:30] I like oh shit so the group I was with we go to you know we so we let me catch that so the
[00:42:39] SWAT team hits it they find the lab and there's no people there yes it's up and cooking okay so
[00:42:48] like I said earlier I said if they run they're probably gonna go to this other gentleman's house
[00:42:52] so we go to that house and we hear some noise and some scurrying in the house and
[00:43:02] we hear like a lady like calling for help so we're like damn they're in there
[00:43:10] so eggnets and circumstances we enter the house and they're all trying to hide in this back
[00:43:16] bedroom got one guys halfway up the chimney like guys lying in bed with his muddy boots and everything
[00:43:22] all like he's sleeping and laying on the couch and I'm like really guys we're gonna fall for this
[00:43:28] so we brought him back over to the lab and you know processed the lab and then I'd be in a
[00:43:34] nice ice lab they think they had like 50 pounds of methane fedemine in solution
[00:43:39] and then at later led to they end up cooperating and then hit another big lab in south
[00:43:46] Phoenix and that individual he also was running labs in Riverside California too
[00:43:55] so he was wanted you know by Riverside Sheriff in this and that we end up hitting them and
[00:44:00] getting a big lab at that time when we make entry with the SWAT team and that's
[00:44:07] this guy was living on a horse property at horses and stuff. Where was this this guy was in Phoenix
[00:44:11] as well. Yes in our area. Yeah south Phoenix actually so this guy was a legit
[00:44:17] like yeah horses and a ranch of some kind. Oh yes I was doing well. In head of ranch in
[00:44:25] Riverside too. Yeah because I kind of get the impression you know when you talk about like the
[00:44:28] mom and pop labs that a lot of people are just kind of getting away with what they can
[00:44:32] and then they eventually get busted. Yeah they're broke but occasionally you have somebody that
[00:44:36] broke as a joke and these people they're they're in it for making the money and yeah it's
[00:44:43] this guy who we hit in south Phoenix he actually taught the other people in the lab how to cook.
[00:44:52] So yeah we we go in there and he's in the back cooking and he's cooking with a 22-liter
[00:44:57] flask. It's a big triple night flask. It's a good size flask about size of a basketball little bigger.
[00:45:02] So when a swat team goes in he takes the flask and smashes on the ground. But of course
[00:45:09] you take the samples there you know he's not gonna you know we figure out what's in there and
[00:45:15] so yeah I need you know we found some you know method that name in the house and everything
[00:45:20] we're like what's this? Oh that is feed for the horses and that's not feed for the damn horses come on.
[00:45:25] What happens to these guys you go then you wrap them up immediately go to jail.
[00:45:33] Wrap them up he went to jail you know they did some search warrants on his place in Riverside
[00:45:39] in California and then we and died at him and you know put him in prison for a while.
[00:45:44] How long is a while? Like this guy his name was Tara Thomas to Harrow Sanchez I think he got like 10 years.
[00:45:50] Hmm so he's probably out by he probably listening to this right now. Yeah probably perhaps you know
[00:45:57] you know but this lab oh hell this is back and who this one?
[00:46:02] 99. So yeah foreshare yeah he's back out. You know I forgot to ask you this when you got in that
[00:46:09] shooting back when you're with the Detroit what did you have any lessons learned from that about the way it
[00:46:16] happened about what you what how your reaction was did you do something well did you do something bad
[00:46:21] did you feel like you're training work did you feel like your training didn't work like how how was that
[00:46:25] experience that yes that's a very good question with all the training we had you know the different
[00:46:32] scenarios and differentiated gun people I just reacted with my training you know I saw the
[00:46:38] muzzle fly as I knew it was gunfire and you know I just did what I had to do to neutralize you know
[00:46:45] to stop the threat. So the training you had worked 100% you know I didn't even think you know I
[00:46:52] didn't even don't even remember looking through my sights I know I did you know you get that
[00:46:58] perceptual narrowing you know when you're in a fighter flight or a gunfight you know either
[00:47:02] eyesight increases you're hearing decreases you start so you fight motor skills so you felt all that
[00:47:08] stuff yes what about the you you were the passenger and another guy was driving yes did he get hit
[00:47:14] was he okay no he was okay he he fired like four or five shots and I had my MP five on full automatic
[00:47:22] and I just fired bursts into the weapon ran dry damn going full auto huh yeah I was like hey
[00:47:30] I'm gonna end this as quick as possible you know you people get all these you know lucky shots you
[00:47:35] chase and he's you know perpetrators whatever and they're running from you and they take the gun
[00:47:40] and shoot it over their head and hit you you know dead between eyes yeah yeah what about doing all
[00:47:47] these you know doing all these hits over the years with the DA down in the Phoenix area you know
[00:47:53] you you obviously are starting to pack away some good some good you know methodologies and
[00:47:59] and thought processes as you're going to do these things like all your big takeaways as you
[00:48:04] you as you developed as of you know as a agent I always was very tactically proficient and
[00:48:15] I think one of my four days in strong points as an agent was being able to deal with people
[00:48:22] and that's what I I suggest that anybody who gets in federal law enforcement I would advise them to be a
[00:48:28] local law enforcement officer first but you get to learn the job you get to learn how to deal with
[00:48:33] people and I happen to be very good at dealing with informants and I could work in formants well
[00:48:40] what do you think was that what made you good at it? One I think my street smart's growing up in Detroit
[00:48:48] you know and being able to talk to the lingo and look the part you know and life
[00:48:54] unfortunately a lot of times when you first go in a situation especially criminals they're going to
[00:49:00] size you up they're going to say this this individual look like they know what they're doing
[00:49:06] can I trust this person you know but a lot of times these people that are working for us they're
[00:49:11] risking their life and they have to feel confident that you're going to do your best to protect them
[00:49:17] and I also learned never promise somebody something you can't deliver you know don't promise
[00:49:24] them well you know you work a couple weeks and you get a couple you know I can make all your
[00:49:28] charges go away it's not up it's not up to the agents you know you have to bring their
[00:49:33] cooperation attention to the prosecutor which then brings it to the judge and you know those decisions
[00:49:39] are made then and also treat people like a people a person you know you don't have to start you
[00:49:48] know I'll talking down to somebody you know I'm the big bad fad and you know you're just the
[00:49:53] lonely pion drug dealer you don't do that you know I start off giving everybody respect
[00:50:00] now if you want to go sideways we'll go sideways but I'm going to give you the benefit of the
[00:50:05] doubts at first you know we're in formance too you've got to be care you know they're in formance
[00:50:11] they're they're criminals you know you know that they can turn their back on you too
[00:50:17] so you've got to you know you never can trust them 100% you do your best and you know and
[00:50:24] you lay the you know lay the ground rules and everything and then you know you manage your
[00:50:29] informants you know going on from there but you know being you know having a good
[00:50:36] informant you're kind of like you know they're they're confident you know there's therapist everything
[00:50:41] else you know you're phone's gonna be ringing in middle of the night you're always going to
[00:50:45] want to talk to you you know because it's girlfriend left the left home he's you know they're doing
[00:50:49] this you know there you know you thinking about making a bad you know you need dance or
[00:50:53] little calls and a lot of people don't like to do that but if you want to do well at the job
[00:51:00] at a high level it's kind of things you have to do you gotta put the work in how many sources
[00:51:04] would you be running out of time I come in people would you be working with how many informants
[00:51:08] I'm usually I kept anywhere from three to five informants at anyone given time
[00:51:16] what what is the trajectory of their lives look like I mean do they they end up they just do that
[00:51:22] to lay eventually get caught killed do they do it until they eventually you know do something
[00:51:26] that sends them to jail do they ever get out of that life it's kind of a mixture you know some
[00:51:34] do it you know they think they're slick and they're gonna play both sides and do they get caught
[00:51:38] they go to prison you know some get killed you know they get found out you know we do everything
[00:51:44] we can to protect their identity and some do it for a while or some are you know trying to help
[00:51:49] their legal situation or a family member situation or just doing it for money and you know eventually
[00:51:56] move on and get on with their lives and get back into some normalcy of life you know and when I was
[00:52:05] a de agent and a police officer you know I didn't gauge my success on how many people I
[00:52:10] arrested and this and that I gauge my success on how many people did I help they get their life together
[00:52:18] you know just be as a person you know gets caught up in drugs or some crime activities
[00:52:23] it doesn't necessarily mean they're a bad person you know they made some bad decisions
[00:52:28] so I gauge my success mostly and hey how many people this year did I help?
[00:52:35] Yeah that's you must start to really understand the way people operate too especially dealing
[00:52:42] with all these people and you're hearing from them all the time like the insight that you get
[00:52:47] into interacting with people are they they're showing up they're most of them though
[00:52:51] they do they most of the informants have some kind of criminal background and that's how they
[00:52:55] end up in this situation most of them do yes okay so at what point or where were you when
[00:53:04] September 11th happened? I was in my house in Phoenix beginning ready to go to the gym
[00:53:11] because I never knew how long I was going to work so I always been into working out and keep my
[00:53:16] stuff fit so I'd get up and work out before work and I'm sitting there watching the news and
[00:53:21] when the first plane hit said a small plane just hit the world trade center so then of course
[00:53:27] we're all you know people who grew to the TV then the second plane hit and they're like this is not a
[00:53:33] small plane and you know of course all the chaos and everything that went on that day I ended up
[00:53:38] going to the gym and you know work you know hey you know we don't know where we're going to get hit from
[00:53:44] next you know so it's all hands on deck and you know you know you had to plane hit the Pentagon
[00:53:51] and our DEA headquarters is right across the expressway from there so people went off
[00:53:56] and that side saw the plane smashed into the Pentagon and so if things were in chaos for a minute
[00:54:02] like to say the least and did they did they they start to think about how to utilize the DEA for
[00:54:08] immediately trying to assist like the national effort did it change I'm saying I guess I'm
[00:54:15] asking did it change like you're immediate life your immediate job or was it okay well we still
[00:54:22] got to you know arrest people that are making math so you're going to continue doing that or was
[00:54:27] it some kind of change what kind of happen that's one of the change that happened pretty fast was
[00:54:32] when we when we debrief in informant there's different things you have to put in there like
[00:54:38] different blocks you know what is the drug related activity they have known right now what
[00:54:44] is the non drug related activity and then they started a terrorist related activity
[00:54:50] did you know you know any people do interrius related activities and being in the clan lab scene
[00:54:59] so a lot of the individuals who sold and made money out of the effedrant in pseudo-fedron
[00:55:08] were middle eastern individuals so of course you know they were like you know you know
[00:55:13] get all your middle eastern informants and see if they have any terrorist activity and we had a lot
[00:55:19] DEA had a lot of middle eating you know with the drugs in the pseudo-fedron so
[00:55:23] FBI then wanted to come over started to brief in our informants you know about terror
[00:55:27] it terrorist related activities within a much of a connection there was a more than just trying to make
[00:55:32] money there was some you know there was some you know somewhere you know sending money back
[00:55:38] and things like that and you know when the military first went over to Afghanistan you know we
[00:55:45] had some intel we didn't know you know all the you know Ben Laden had his trained facilities over there
[00:55:49] but when the US military went over there they shortly realized that the Taliban in those
[00:55:56] and surgeon groups were making their money for their legal territories by the sale and
[00:56:02] reduction of heroin and that's one of the first questions I get why is DEA I was DEA over in
[00:56:07] Afghanistan so and also the the military they knew they were not subject matter experts on that
[00:56:15] so that's when they reached out to the DEA hey guys gals we need help here and we didn't have a kind of
[00:56:24] tactical team that was up to speed to do this at the time years prior to that we had an operation
[00:56:33] called operations snow cap where we were in Columbia and other cocaine manufacturing destinations
[00:56:42] and hitting Coca-labs you know with you know partner forces in this and that so DEA had to start
[00:56:49] up a team so they used some of the individuals that we were working snow cap and developed this
[00:56:55] fast team this foreign deployed advisory and support team to help the military and mentor our
[00:57:05] partner force over there because we really don't have over there you know any like criminal authority
[00:57:13] so in the Afghans they were behind the time so we went over you know the military you know they
[00:57:17] got plenty of trigger pullers and of course we can pull triggers too but they went for expertise on
[00:57:23] investigations and how do we handle these how do we process these lab because in Afghanistan even though
[00:57:30] heroin production is crazy the the penalties for getting caught manufacturing drugs over
[00:57:35] there are very very severe and we can actually take somebody off the battlefield a lot longer
[00:57:42] you know for drug related things then just for say you know you you know him somebody up
[00:57:47] for tactical questioning and then they're back directly on the battlefield you know but the issue is you
[00:57:53] know we're working with US and coalition special ops teams over there but most of these labs are
[00:58:01] well behind enemy lines and that's their money you know so they're going to fight like hell to keep
[00:58:06] them so you have to be up to speed to run with these you know these special ops guys you know so
[00:58:12] at first they just had a you know put a solicitation out hey you know this is what the mission is
[00:58:20] going to be we need some volunteers you know some of the guys been that done that in the past
[00:58:24] and maybe were special ops guys but at the current time maybe they weren't in the best shape
[00:58:30] and they would get over there and we're having problems keeping up got it so that's when
[00:58:36] our fast team institute a selection process and that selection process they took various
[00:58:44] areas of selection from different special ops teams and put a selection together you know
[00:58:50] and at what point did you hear about that and at what point did you volunteer for it
[00:58:58] I knew the fast team was going on you know I started hearing rumbles and rub out it
[00:59:05] in 2005 time frame but the problem is in the field the basic agents didn't really know
[00:59:16] was going on with this fast team I had a buddy that went to the fast team he was
[00:59:23] Marine Corps officer and I was pushing on with my career and I've always no matter what I've done
[00:59:29] I've tried to go to the highest level whatever I did in life so you know I was just kind of like
[00:59:36] sitting around and like hey you know what is fast team doing were you still in Phoenix at this time
[00:59:41] yes I was so you were in Phoenix from like 1998 1998 all so 1997 and until I actually got selected
[00:59:53] on the fast team and October 2009 so you there for a while you have over 10 years experience
[01:00:04] as a DEA agent on the ground doing and was that whole 10 years was that all that time doing the
[01:00:12] math lab stuff the first four years and then I went on to a conspiracy group where we were
[01:00:18] higher level traffickers I worked on a task force with a lot of local officers when you're
[01:00:27] what's the conspiracy group all of a sudden it sounds cool we know that right you know he's
[01:00:32] exactly a lot of things are my sounds real cool you know if we have you know real cool acronyms
[01:00:37] and everything else you know you go you're going after mid level to higher level dealers
[01:00:43] and still mathematically or they're dealing everything math cocaine marijuana I'm okay
[01:00:50] heroin so you had a mixture of Phoenix is kind of a weird animal you're kind of close to the
[01:00:56] border so it's a trans shipment point so a lot of the drugs are coming in coming up from the
[01:01:02] southwest border into cities like Tucson and Phoenix in their states they're they only stay
[01:01:09] their short period of time and those drugs are picked up and sent out to the east coast you
[01:01:14] got to be like on your game to get stuff you know you might have a stash house loaded up one
[01:01:19] day and it's gone the next so you had to really be on your game you know and move fast to do these
[01:01:26] things so you know I worked in a combination of different groups and I call my buddy and I'm like hey
[01:01:33] what's how you guys doing there are you guys just doing training or you guys going out and doing
[01:01:38] missions he's also Joe you know we're you know working with some of the best units in the
[01:01:44] words this is when you're asking what your buddies about fast yes okay I got it you know
[01:01:48] what are you guys doing you know we're training working with some of the best units in the world
[01:01:52] world you know we're doing things what you would think DEA would be doing you know we're doing
[01:01:58] this high level stuff and at the time every year they would put out a solicitation for solid
[01:02:06] first to go through the fast selection and you need it to be at least a GS12 so that
[01:02:13] usually takes about three to four years to get to a GS level 12 and they wanted people who
[01:02:20] had experience of how to be a DEA agent so you and then you put in for the selection and then
[01:02:25] if you get picked you know you go through tryouts and I was 39 when I put in for selection
[01:02:32] you know as we get older we don't recover as fast as we once did some people yes
[01:02:39] if you're a pension you're you're a potential for injury sometimes increases so
[01:02:44] I knew I wouldn't quit anything I was just worried about my old body you know holding up I
[01:02:49] got a lot of miles out of you know 50,000 miles is kind of up and you know there's a lot of
[01:02:53] different swimming and different testing and different things and you know so I started training
[01:03:00] and and you're still doing your job working the conspiracy stuff this time I was on a task
[01:03:07] for a screw but what's the task force group there we were task force on the west side of the
[01:03:13] city and we worked with various west side police departments and they were all sworn in as
[01:03:24] federal task force agents so they had the full powers like a BDA agent you could you know do
[01:03:29] investigations over state lines and everything and we were hitting a lot of like big marijuana
[01:03:34] hits, meth hits, cocaine hits so I was still yes doing my full-time job and then have to
[01:03:40] get ready and train for the selection any good between on the conspiracy thing like what's the
[01:03:47] biggest people you ever rolled up when you're doing the conspiracy gig we had one case this one group
[01:03:57] and they were an African American group they were had people out of Detroit, Ed Lanta and Los Angeles
[01:04:08] and Phoenix they would get their large amounts of shipments of marijuana from the Phoenix and
[01:04:15] Tucson area now we're talking large amounts I'm talking they would buy 23,000 pounds of marijuana at a time
[01:04:25] and we had in front of Mexico yes well they buy it in Phoenix they don't the marijuana came
[01:04:33] up from Mexico you know of course you buy it in south west is a lot cheaper than you bring it
[01:04:39] out east and you can sell it from a double the price so there's a lot of money involved we have
[01:04:43] an informant you know these guys are rich and they have this huge place in this gated community
[01:04:48] and Scott's Dale and all these truckers that are driving for them and everything so it's full on
[01:04:53] you know full on enterprise you know but you you gotta be kind of suspect a little bit you know
[01:04:59] yeah this is a little far fetched you know so the informant says okay they're meeting they're
[01:05:08] gonna meet their sources supply and they're gonna do a deal and I'm gonna be at the house
[01:05:14] so like okay we set up we have a general area where we think they're in nice house is
[01:05:24] and so we got some people set up in that vicinity and they go into this residence
[01:05:30] in Phoenix and they pull a van in the garage we're like okay this looks good
[01:05:36] so the van leaves the garage and informant says okay they picked up
[01:05:41] so sure a shit they're found a van and we take it this gated community in Scott's Dale
[01:05:48] well you gotta you know get keyed in and buzzed in and everything and we
[01:05:53] sit on the house and get it identified where they're at and see people coming and going
[01:05:59] and they follow them out and sure a shit they go to a warehouse too or there's a semi truck
[01:06:04] oh like oh it's on and pop and now so we get enough for a search warrant for the house
[01:06:14] and the warehouse and hit it and get pretty good large amount of marijuana
[01:06:20] and during this time one of the we follow one of the guys and to the airport and you know
[01:06:26] work kind of short numbers we got people all over the place and I'm by myself following this guy
[01:06:31] and it's very hard to do surveillance by yourself without getting burnt you know without
[01:06:36] them seeing you and I don't know how I pulled it off but I did so what are you wearing
[01:06:43] just street clothes just street clothes you know I did some of those surveillance and counter
[01:06:48] surveillance and like dressed up and you know trying to look like a bomb in this in that man I
[01:06:54] I was horrible I was like the worst I was like the worst undercover person ever I don't know
[01:07:00] it seems like you would have a similar issue since you're pretty jacked you know you just
[01:07:06] stand out and a crowd yes you know so you just kind of you know if you were following me I'm
[01:07:11] 100% gonna know you're not gonna sneak around following me is not happening yeah I'm
[01:07:17] foot spales is very hard you know so you're you're in a vehicle you're trying to stay far back
[01:07:20] as you can and everything and some of I pulled it off and as the person got out of the
[01:07:25] let they let the person out to go into the terminal I some I got one hand a snap the photo of
[01:07:30] Amanha I pulled it off but I did not happen to be the main guy so we ended up getting the
[01:07:37] again I'm getting a picture of him and we didn't know you know who he was at the time or not
[01:07:42] and he was flying back to LA you know so we headed you know get some people in custody and then
[01:07:49] get the person identified who dropped him off and she had some prior crammer history so we knew this
[01:07:58] case was you know bigger and tied into all these states and everything so I told my partner I said
[01:08:04] hey we're gonna go visit this lady tomorrow we're gonna bluffer and we're gonna say hey you know
[01:08:15] you know we got you taking this person yada yada yada yada you know and you're
[01:08:21] helped in the furtherance of this conspiracy to their drug traffic and organization you have
[01:08:25] some criminal history in the past you know you know we're gonna potentially look at and
[01:08:29] die to you and maybe season your vehicle and my partner had the time she goes it'll never work
[01:08:34] I said watch you just trying to get her to roll just get her to roll I said watch so we
[01:08:40] not gonna door so so you're wearing plain clothes plain clothes you got like a badge around the neck
[01:08:46] and the chain you know like TV and the pair jeans you want to look as unintimulating as
[01:08:53] possible if you want to look intimidating like what's your what's your like what's your character
[01:08:58] what character you're going into just kind of this kind of low key intimidating enough with
[01:09:03] you know you're you know federal law enforcement you know you're not playing around but you know
[01:09:08] you're trying to you know you've got to build rapport with these people too you know
[01:09:13] you know to try to get some common interest and my partner at the time your partner was
[01:09:19] may say in this sandal never works she's like I don't think this will work Joe she was some
[01:09:23] a new agent and I said just watch I said watch him sometimes who works sometimes it doesn't
[01:09:29] we got like a 50 50 here would give it a try and you don't worry that you're gonna give away
[01:09:34] the fact that you're on to him you know at this point you know we had you know significant
[01:09:41] on to people in custody okay so you know you know they know we're on to them at what extent
[01:09:48] they don't know you know but I tell people too you can't make cases sitting behind your deck
[01:09:52] at that's all the time you got to get out there and shake the bush so she's kind of naysaying
[01:09:58] me and this person ended up being a topless dancer one of the gentleman clubs and Phoenix where
[01:10:08] there's a lot of the the Mexican sources go hang out there and a lot of the people from
[01:10:12] out of town come in there to find sources and this person this informant she was known to dates
[01:10:20] a lot of these out of town drug dealers and she would hook them up with the sources of supply
[01:10:27] so we go talk to her and not gonna door and you can tell by her face she's like oh shit
[01:10:35] and we just lay it out and I said this is what can happen to you this is okay I cooperate what
[01:10:40] do you want to know so we started working with her was wrong yeah he had also you know I guess
[01:10:50] she didn't get lucky sometimes and I got lucky then so we ended up using her and going back
[01:10:58] and they kept coming to town but of course they moved their operation to another spot and then
[01:11:04] we were able to investigate and look at all these other seizures that happened in different states
[01:11:10] and tie them all together to these people you know interviewing actually interviewing the truck
[01:11:16] drivers got their sources to supply you know pulled receipts from hotels and and plain things at
[01:11:23] different time when they were supposed to do these deals and were able to tie everything together
[01:11:30] and some of these people we had never caught them red handed with drugs but just what testimony
[01:11:38] by the informants putting the things together by pulling receipts we ended up hammering this group
[01:11:48] and getting them all charged and indicted when a lot of these other groups couldn't do it
[01:11:53] and I actually helped my partner get her GS13 because at DEA are kind of journeyman levels
[01:12:00] GS13 and you have to do so many things you know you have to have these complicated cases
[01:12:06] and or dinner wire tap or did some undercover so I actually helped him get her 13 and I was already
[01:12:14] on the fast team when they went and did the take down but they said just to see these people's faces
[01:12:19] like oh shit you got all the sun made oh crap and we used her to do quite a bit of other good cases too
[01:12:28] did you ever do any undercover work yes I did something what was that like
[01:12:34] how and everybody thinks it's intense everybody thinks that you need to look like a drug
[01:12:39] guy to do undercover now kind of the contrary like a DEA we're dealing with people are in
[01:12:47] to make money so a lot of these people look like business people and it's kind of as long as you talk
[01:12:52] to talk you know you're alright so undercover I've reversed chemicals and equipment to make
[01:13:00] meth under cover I bought meth and fedamine in larger amounts I bought heroin and then
[01:13:09] there's an individual which a lot of people have heard their name before they used to be a
[01:13:15] famous mob hitman Sam with the vulgar vinyl he was out in Phoenix and witness protection
[01:13:21] but still doing bad activities so they actually put me under cover he actually had this group
[01:13:28] of kids out there they were in the MMA and they were selling ecstasy in steroids and his group
[01:13:35] ago around and they would beat up like they would pick up minorities and jump him like five on one
[01:13:40] kind of like a one percent or motorcycle gang thing and they put me in there to buy steroids
[01:13:46] from these kids so I ended up buying steroids from these kids and then later led to Sammy the
[01:13:52] bull getting to additional legal problems well where is he out right now I'm not sure
[01:13:58] we's at the moment that's crazy when you're doing these undercover ones that you're talking
[01:14:05] about are you staying under cover for a long period of time or you basically going under cover for
[01:14:10] two hours to go meet these guys buy some shit and then roll out did you ever do these guys
[01:14:16] it seems like they're going under cover for extended period of time that's called like a deep
[01:14:20] cover operation those don't happen that much anymore you know there's a lot of risk involved
[01:14:25] then there you know so you know there was some like some of the pseudo cases were like I
[01:14:31] played a role for like months at a time but a lot of it was done over the phone and stuff but
[01:14:36] most of them was like you know you're meeting with the guy you know you know if you're this
[01:14:41] hour or two you know you're under cover role and then you're moving on to the next thing you know
[01:14:48] in the biggest thing when people think if you know you're undercover and a suspect are you
[01:14:54] the police you're supposed to tell them yes I am you don't have to tell them the truth
[01:14:58] oh that's not true no that's not true and when you're interviewing people you don't have to
[01:15:04] tell them the truth either you know you're interviewing a couple people and like when you're like
[01:15:08] you can't talk to that girl you told her you had all this information yes or you arrested a couple
[01:15:12] people and hey your buddies and next room this role is going to be on this guts I knew saying it's
[01:15:16] your dope and your gun isn't no no no no it's his you know and I think you need to tell the truth
[01:15:22] and that too you know you can and those circumstances you don't have to necessarily tell the truth
[01:15:27] did you do a lot of that interrogation type stuff yes and you get trained to do that did you
[01:15:34] said you did they said you through training or was it just what you learned over the years
[01:15:38] in the academy you learned the basics of it and there's different schools like the
[01:15:42] read school and everything I never went to a formal school most of that I got was on the job training
[01:15:50] you know I got what some you know agents and some local police that were good at it
[01:15:55] and just picked up and learned you know hey this seems to work this doesn't work you know so
[01:16:01] I just like I said I kind of a knack at getting people to talk and also like I said good with
[01:16:07] informants all right so after you got done with that conspiracy thing what was the next thing
[01:16:14] you had the west side task force and the west side task force that's where you're working with
[01:16:18] the regular police from Phoenix and you're all working together to try and do good do good yes
[01:16:27] you know and people don't realize that without the local law enforcement we can't do our job
[01:16:32] you know the locals they know the area they have the local connects and everything and most of the
[01:16:38] DEA groups have local law enforcement officers sworn in as task force agents in the groups
[01:16:45] you know but we can't do the do the job by herself and I kind of helped me me working at a local
[01:16:51] law enforcement agency first too I kind of had respect and street cred from a lot of the local
[01:16:58] officers and I didn't think I was as big bad hif you know federal agent and you're just just
[01:17:03] lowly pion law enforcement officers you know I I respected them and so what are you guys doing
[01:17:09] you guys going after like different levels of drug dealers or what's what makes that west side
[01:17:16] task force different than just regular DEA it was we focus on the west side okay and the west the
[01:17:23] west area suburbs and is it is it the fact that you're working with them closely in interoperability
[01:17:28] and exchanging information that gives you a better chance of catching bad guys yes and it also bolsters
[01:17:34] our numbers too and we actually in a swiss eye task force we actually worked in one of the
[01:17:42] west side police agencies off-site locations for the Glendale Police Department in Arizona
[01:17:49] so we're actually you know you're with them every day day in day out so same thing you're doing
[01:17:56] investigations but you're utilizing the local cops to help you do the investigations correct is that right
[01:18:01] yes okay so you're doing that and then I kind of pulled you back in the story a little bit
[01:18:08] but you but then you you started hearing about the fast company and what you could do what that's
[01:18:14] gonna look like but you're 39 years old you got some mileage on yes chances and so you're trying
[01:18:19] to get in shape for that how do you find out you got picked up or what was the application process like
[01:18:24] well you know he had to fill just you know fill out this questionnaire you know I've been on the job
[01:18:28] you know this many years and this is kind of the background of things I did on a job and you have to get
[01:18:34] your concurrence from your supervisor and then the concurrence from the special agent and
[01:18:42] charge whatever division you're in and you submit it and if you're qualified your name is picked
[01:18:49] to go to selection so they set a date for selection and they give you a list of you know
[01:18:56] hey these are some of the events you're gonna have to do kind of give you outline how to train for them
[01:19:03] you know you have to do our standard DAPT test which is no great shake you know you have to do the
[01:19:10] shooting pistol and lawn rifle but you get a score higher rock marches you know with weight on
[01:19:20] you you're doing a certain time a distance run you know all these different thinking and you know
[01:19:26] kind of thinking on your feet and leadership different tasks and things and you actually have to
[01:19:32] we use actually use this company that they before a lot of people in the military go to
[01:19:42] different special options they have to take this test online which is kind of like a psychological
[01:19:48] and like an IQ test and you got to answer these questions and then they can pretty much figure
[01:19:55] out if a person's gonna make it or not do how you do these things somebody needs to tell the
[01:20:00] damn seal teams about back because we sell 1180 percent attrition rate after however many years
[01:20:06] it's been 60 years or the actually no it's been for even 70 80 years of doing that training
[01:20:11] and putting people through that training we still can't figure who's gonna make it well
[01:20:15] African quit you know and we do you know say and I think we started with I think there was
[01:20:24] close to 40 of us in our selection and only 11 made it through to this selection take place
[01:20:30] chronicle the first part yes the first week it takes part in chronicle all in house it's kind of like
[01:20:37] is it a beat down oh yes it's kind of like we call like our hell week and who's running it is
[01:20:45] agents from fast and fast how long has fast been around for? Was it created after September 11?
[01:20:52] Yes after September 11 yes but you said there was a previous like unit that would snow cap
[01:20:58] yes that was prior to that so they took maybe some old snow cap people brought them back
[01:21:02] and see if they could help out something like yes how to you know get them get the unit organized
[01:21:07] in the training and logistics and you know weaponry you know but you're going to overseas fight
[01:21:12] in the war so you're using weapons and weapons systems the average DEA agent doesn't never
[01:21:17] use in their career you know you're using you know belt-fed crew surf weapons you know grenade launchers
[01:21:24] you know handheld mortars Carl Gustav rockets you know laws you know kind of crap you know so
[01:21:36] you know you're doing all this stuff so you know you they really you know invest in you and like
[01:21:42] once if you make it through training you make it through selection and you get picked up on a fast
[01:21:48] team you have to least commit doing three years because they're putting all this time in effort
[01:21:53] and training into you so what made most people quit how long was it how long was the selection
[01:22:01] process the first hell week was like a week and you had tier one events they were their past failed
[01:22:07] and if you fail one event you're gone and then we had tier two events where tier one event
[01:22:13] would be a force rock march force rock marchers and tiles here's the time yeah it's like it's right
[01:22:18] here's the time a distance run was like a five mile run our PT test shooting test
[01:22:28] things of that nature a basic swim crawl got it and then the tier two were like this you know
[01:22:36] different other events and if you failed one tier two you were put on probation and then if you failed
[01:22:42] another one you could get removed we also had peer revalues throughout too because we had learned
[01:22:51] life lessons you know some people can just fly through all the physical activity things and
[01:22:56] some people had a lot of military experience but they can't play well with others so you're
[01:23:01] living in confined spaces you know and you're just living with an asshole and we didn't have time for
[01:23:06] that so you could actually get peered out too so sort of people quitting this selection or they
[01:23:12] just not passing those standards about about half a both you know you know and when you go
[01:23:20] through there they're telling you what you're getting into you know this is what you're getting into
[01:23:26] and this unit is not for everybody and just because it may not be for you it doesn't mean that
[01:23:32] you're a bad agent that you can't do your normal job but this is what you're getting into and
[01:23:37] it's a whole that's a total volunteer unit so you get people that are going through
[01:23:42] slacking you're just getting your dick knocked into dirt and you know and if it was just you know
[01:23:47] you did you every day you did like a tier one event you'd be fine but you're also getting hazed
[01:23:52] in between you know and carrying the logs and the inflatable boats and you know doing crossfit
[01:23:59] workouts and you know you're 39 years old you're not getting much sleep but they're feeding you
[01:24:05] well it was the average age of the rest of the class I would say low 30s so you know
[01:24:14] did you have trouble with anything the water stuff I've always looked like you might be a
[01:24:22] little bit of a sinker and I learned that muscle does not float as I say that man yeah we learned
[01:24:29] that the seal things like you get these big jacked guys that are not only big and jacked also
[01:24:35] ripped and that means they don't have a lot of body fat and that doesn't lean this doesn't help either
[01:24:40] oh yeah lean this doesn't help either you know so I grew up with a swimming pool and we had a
[01:24:44] cottage on the lake in Michigan so obviously I was saying I was fairly confident in water
[01:24:50] but just in I had to learn in the pool you have to relax the more you get yourself worked out
[01:24:58] you get oxygen deprived and then you're screwed so you know for treading water for long periods
[01:25:04] of time and you know swimming and beaty use and boots and everything you have to stay calm
[01:25:13] you know we didn't quite do the 50 meter underwater swim like you got we did a 25
[01:25:17] you know and beaty use and to me you know it's like you know they kind of tell you know go deep
[01:25:23] and you know and stroke and glide and you know I'm doing all that and then when you get close to
[01:25:29] the wall it's like I'm starting to do the panic swim you know you know I'm screwing myself you know
[01:25:37] you know so yeah relax and glide that's as you're said that done in many things exactly you know
[01:25:42] and keep in your breathing controlled and everything you know so you know after I did enough to
[01:25:48] pass with the swimming so afterwards when I got selected on the fast team they have to be I had a
[01:25:54] pool over there so I'd go there a couple times a week and just go into water and just swim and get
[01:25:59] better at it so so how long was the whole selection process you know you the first week is like
[01:26:05] the hell week and then you do a training phase next and that's usually a couple months and that's
[01:26:15] usually run by a ODE Green Bra team or with us it was going to be Naval Special Warfare
[01:26:23] but the seals and I was the first group that was done by the seals and sometimes the first part
[01:26:29] goes and then you go right into your training phase and learning the first part goes
[01:26:39] how we how we can then go to people to quit yes and then you go right into your training phase but
[01:26:45] we got to have a break because we were going to use a Navy Special Warfare not more going to be
[01:26:50] ready for a couple months so we got to go home and heal up and lick your wounds a little bit you
[01:26:57] know I pretty much had a blister and every part of my foot I lost every toenail and both feet and
[01:27:02] at the time my girlfriend picked me up from the airport after the hell we can she's like
[01:27:05] what happened to you of course I was beat the shit head to go to the ER room the next day
[01:27:12] as I put was infected you know I'm trying to tell him what happened they're looking at me like
[01:27:17] I don't this doesn't sound right you volunteered for this you volunteered and just because you
[01:27:24] make it through everything say the hell week still the fast cadre they sit down and you have to
[01:27:31] be asked to go on to the second phase of training so I made it through that and got to go home
[01:27:38] just lick your wounds for a little bit and go back to working your regular group and then we
[01:27:43] reported in early spring we started selection I think February 2009 early spring of that year
[01:27:53] to a little creek Virginia to do our second phase of training so we're like okay I think we're
[01:27:59] gonna tell this is your learning phase this is supposed to be the gentleman's course now
[01:28:03] Roger Roger that so you know the seals had never had outside people there either
[01:28:09] so we show up and some of the cadre and some of the people from team 2 and 10
[01:28:15] hey we got so much old B to use for you guys and when you guys getting your badges and this
[01:28:21] and that they didn't have no clue I'm like well I have my past 12 years and you know we pretty much
[01:28:26] got a lot of high speed stuff so we're staying at the Navy in there and little creek and so we
[01:28:33] report 0-30 to first day and for formation of PT and we go straight to the ocean
[01:28:42] good times team 2 in the ocean out of the ocean you know sugar cookies home I'm like oh really
[01:28:48] I'm like I thought this was supposed to be a gentleman course and they were like we were told to
[01:28:55] treat you guys like buds I'm like who the hell told you that you know so you know you gotta
[01:29:00] got hammered and but you know they kind of you know slacked off you know for a while and you know
[01:29:07] he had different things distance runs and stuff so we spent time training there and then
[01:29:12] we bumped over to for Chaffey Arkansas to do the Land Warfare part of that and you know it was
[01:29:18] gave us it was very very good training to say the least and it was funny before we went over there
[01:29:27] and we found out the seals were gonna do our second phase and other buddy who was very confident
[01:29:33] but he was struggling to water low bed I called him and I was like do you hear who doing our
[01:29:37] second phase he goes yeah the seals like oh yeah and then you cut you ended up coming out
[01:29:45] the west coast to do some training too because you just laid around that's after I got selected
[01:29:49] on the fast team okay so when did you actually get selected October of 2009 okay and just because
[01:29:58] you make it through all the training it doesn't mean you're gonna be picked up on the fast team
[01:30:03] because as openings occur they you can get cherry pick from the list god got it so you
[01:30:11] was there anything else about the the initial training course when you were at team two
[01:30:17] you went to for Chaffey you go do training out there are you training with a task unit or they
[01:30:22] just put you through training as your own entity that one it wasn't like they were as our own
[01:30:27] entity oh really so you had you know people from trade it there and actually a senior chief
[01:30:33] um 20 gale was assigned to you know yeah yeah 20 he's he's such a beast so he's like
[01:30:45] smaller than me he shorter than me he looks like how do I describe this he don't look like
[01:30:53] he's like a super beast but he's faster than me and he could bench press more than me so he was
[01:30:57] like better than me at everything and no one would ever you know suspect that and you know he can
[01:31:03] go through the obstacle course pretty good just freaking awesome he's freaking awesome then he had a
[01:31:07] a uh master chief hitchcock to help out right on right off yeah both of those guys with things and so
[01:31:14] yeah it was um it was it was it was intense and of course we would do different events
[01:31:20] you know what the team guys and if we did a distance front of course they put their distance
[01:31:25] front stud out there oh yeah or if we did a crossfit workout they put you know they're best
[01:31:29] crossfit her out there you know you know so they kind of cherry picked you know people what
[01:31:36] you know I don't blame them you know when you shop there okay so we're doing a distance
[01:31:40] front you couldn't wear any watch no GPS and we're just gonna run and so you guys get did get it
[01:31:46] hooked up with a little bit of extra bonus program yeah and it wouldn't tell you know how long
[01:31:51] we're running for you know I've always been a bigger guy and I cut weight for that so I knew
[01:31:57] we'd do an all-than-dernstuff so I was sitting around 212 20 but we had some guys on our team
[01:32:02] to look into 160s you know I can run a couple six-minute miles but I can't run six-minute miles
[01:32:07] for 10 minutes and we had somebody's little rabbits they could do that not not me you know I
[01:32:12] blow through a crossfit workout no problem but you know so we've gone these distance running
[01:32:17] and we wouldn't you wouldn't know how long you were going for when you were done it's like
[01:32:20] you know just do your best you know okay what's the time hack here we didn't not tell you you
[01:32:26] can't have a watch on so you don't even know how fast you're going anyways yeah well that
[01:32:29] they were treating you like bud students because in buds you don't have a watch and it's a total
[01:32:33] pain in the ass because you never know what you're doing the only thing you can do it just go as hard
[01:32:36] as you can because that's the best they can do you know well in selection what I I didn't try to look
[01:32:41] too far in advance I just took each activity for it was you know in your viewing beat down and
[01:32:48] on our team day the last day of help the kind of hell week I was just like hey Joe just taking
[01:32:55] another step just worry about one more step and then we'll worry about the rest later I didn't try
[01:33:03] to overwhelm myself you know and I read some things before you know about some different selections
[01:33:09] and things and that's one of the things they said don't overwhelm yourself just worry about
[01:33:16] one thing at a time and you make it through that well you worry about the next thing then
[01:33:21] so you get done so did you do anything besides chaffy?
[01:33:28] how does that land warfare with those guys? we went to chaffy and then back to the creek and then
[01:33:35] you we culminating you know you're doing FTX's throughout and then it culminates with a final
[01:33:41] FTX where you got to hit a target over there and you go in you know what Sims and everything
[01:33:46] and they didn't have the the miles gear like we had a nylon there and you know you do a hit
[01:33:54] the group I was in we had to fast rope on top of this building at night and it could be tricking
[01:34:00] we used our DEA pilots and they hope they can hold a hover good but there was always a couple of times
[01:34:06] when guys almost were going down the rope in the ropes not over the building and you know I
[01:34:12] was always been a heavy guy if I'm full kid or I was carrying my ego I'm not stopping myself
[01:34:18] on that rope. I was made to you I'm not when I'm going I'm going that rope better be in the right
[01:34:22] spot because I'm going to be at the bottom of it in about two seconds and that's that it is funny
[01:34:25] when we were doing our fast rope training at little creek and the towers and everything you
[01:34:31] know you serve the tower at first and you do your appelling and everything it you know it
[01:34:35] just take your time sit down you know and the helicopter you know and then grab the rope and
[01:34:41] slowly spin yourself just take your time so when we go and the helicopters in first time to
[01:34:47] feel you're like go go go go go go go what happened just take your time thing you're like
[01:34:53] effort I guess we're doing it live you know so you get done with that and you said that's when
[01:34:59] you actually got selected or chosen to go to a fast what you call the fast companies that's team
[01:35:06] fast team so you actually get selected to go to a fast team and that's in the fall of 2009
[01:35:12] correct October 2009 and when you get there are you going do you know you're going on
[01:35:19] a deployment at a certain time well we knew what team you were going to we had five teams at the time
[01:35:26] uh LFO through Echo and each team is made up of one supervisor eight agents in one intel analyst so I
[01:35:35] knew a team I was going on then once we got there they would tell you okay we always had a
[01:35:43] team in Afghanistan all the time and each deployment lasted 120 days give or take some days and
[01:35:50] so you knew when you were going up so once I got there I was assigned to Delta team which was
[01:35:59] made up of some senior agents and what some of the newer individuals and we were set to go to
[01:36:08] do the the first deployment Afghanistan was going to be the spring summerter of 2010 and a lot of
[01:36:18] people don't know in Afghanistan there's a fighting season over there you know as you get
[01:36:22] bad weather there it gets winter and stuff like that so in a spring summer that's when all the
[01:36:27] fighting is going on and that's when they're harvesting the opium poppy to manufacture the heroin so
[01:36:36] that's kind of your busy time so you get settled in and you do start doing your pleat of pre-deployment
[01:36:44] work up kind of like you know with the military and then we had a group come in you may be familiar
[01:36:51] with them they're made up of X Navy special warfare guys and actually some dev group guys called
[01:37:01] um shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot the David group okay right off and they actually we actually used
[01:37:13] your guys' system and developmental groups of combat clearing okay so they actually taught us in that
[01:37:20] and then that's when we're find out before deployments you guys are going to
[01:37:26] camp Billy making a nylon California and they're doing land warfare with a west coast seal team right
[01:37:34] off right off you know you know what what when was that do you remember when that was E yes
[01:37:43] surf on tax seasoncy April May ish of 2010 yeah um as well as I was definitely still there and
[01:37:51] ask you T-Cle you weren't there when we first got there you showed up at the end yeah sure for the
[01:37:57] after you access yeah that's what I would do and um their SQT was going through there at the time
[01:38:03] and um so it was a full house there how was that training it was intense you know it was you know
[01:38:09] three weeks day and night of you know getting you know kicked in the balls you know and you know
[01:38:16] this is what I was told in the seal pre-deployment workup that's usually the hardest pre-deployment
[01:38:23] block of the toughest yeah the land warfare especially at that time was no joke you know so there was
[01:38:31] a lot of buddy carrying you know for extreme distances you know you know and you know different things
[01:38:38] but I tell you you got to learn how to do you know land warfare drills very effectively you got to
[01:38:50] get to know how to use your equipment your night vision your lasers very well you came out of
[01:38:57] their well prepared like you know knowing that something happens in combat you know but you you know
[01:39:02] you ran out there you know you're training there for worst case scenario you know and so yeah that was
[01:39:09] always my goal was that and you know the goal was as crazy as a goal this may seem like the goal was oh okay
[01:39:18] I want to make sure that these guys if they get into a gunfight it's they're going to be it's going
[01:39:24] to seem easy compared to what they've been through in training and I had countless guys come back
[01:39:29] to me and say hey this is the situation we're in here's the gunfight we got in here's the contact
[01:39:33] we got in here's the scenario we were in and they were able to handle it exquisitely because the
[01:39:40] training the land warfare training that they'd been through and the urban training that they've been
[01:39:43] to was so hard that the actual combat seemed easy now obviously can you simulate someone actually
[01:39:50] getting wounded or actually getting killed know you can't but as far as especially from a leadership
[01:39:55] perspective understanding how to manage all those elements on the battlefield and then the young
[01:40:00] shooters being thinking shooters and knowing how to execute knowing how to operate knowing how to
[01:40:04] move themselves it's just an awesome package that that you have you have this just unified team when
[01:40:10] they get done with those with those training cycle so it was nice because in Nyland you know they
[01:40:16] know they broke us up in this intermixed us with the team you know so they put a couple
[01:40:20] of you know with this you know fire team that fire team so they kind of mixed in so it was it was
[01:40:28] it was very very good training a lot of the the train and stuff there and Nyland was good
[01:40:34] visit it's very similar to Afghanistan terrain too I was get we were trying we had some some
[01:40:39] other military entities trying to get control of that training site for us and I remember I put
[01:40:45] together a brief for my leadership in the chain of command my most senior leadership in the chain of
[01:40:49] command and what I did was I took pictures of Nyland and pictures of Afghanistan of like seals
[01:40:56] patrolling in Nyland and seals patrolling in Afghanistan and I put together like five or six of those
[01:41:01] pictures side by side in a slide show and I said this is the terrain we're fighting in and this
[01:41:06] is the terrain we're training in we can't do any better than this right here and we need to maintain
[01:41:12] control this and so yeah it's it's it's it's very it's almost on candy how similar those two
[01:41:17] environments can look and I didn't realize when we were there he had two army Rangers you know doing
[01:41:23] an exchange program that he'll teach the land warfare there yep yep you know those those
[01:41:27] Rangers that we would bring out their just outstanding guys because we as seals always want to have
[01:41:33] an open mind and make sure that we are understanding the tactics the techniques the procedures of
[01:41:38] other units what do they know better than us what can they teach us what can we've learned from them
[01:41:42] and that's one of the ways that we've always done that is taking individuals from other units
[01:41:47] and bringing them to our units especially to our instructor cadre so that we can learn more and
[01:41:51] try and get better and those those Rangers that work with us were just outstanding guys and I say
[01:41:57] and I feel you guys do an outstanding job of your guys as training you know like you said you know
[01:42:03] knowing that hey there's always you know there's more than one way to skin a cat no
[01:42:08] and what see what other people are doing you know you you put things in your toolbox and
[01:42:12] hey I might use this again or hey I may never use that again but you have a lot of tools in that
[01:42:16] toolbox yeah indeed so you end up going on deployment to Afghanistan your first deployment how's that
[01:42:25] it's some intense every time we go to Afghanistan things are a little different and at the time
[01:42:33] we were doing a lot of work with the Army ODA's the Green Braise there and at this particular time
[01:42:42] we were operating in Panjoe area you know the Panjoe of Canada area is kind of the first place of
[01:42:51] Taliban where there's a lot of in search and activity but also a lot of heroin production going on
[01:42:57] there also so they broke us up into like two z's and three z's input us with different units
[01:43:05] and a good partner of mine friend of mine Travis Brooks and myself we were assigned with
[01:43:15] first special forces group over there ODA 1231 and they were stationed in Cancemins this
[01:43:22] little little base outside of Canada Airfield which is like our main bases that can't
[01:43:28] be had our airfield in Afghanistan we were living with the ODA the first group guys you know and we would bring
[01:43:37] like I said earlier our expertise investigations and we had our partner force over there which we were
[01:43:44] mentoring and we were living over there with the Green Braise and using our intel information
[01:43:52] you know from the DEA and also using the military information and we would try to pair
[01:43:58] that information find out where the bigger drug labs were where they were selling the chemicals
[01:44:06] and equipment to manufacture heroin and we would not go after is the opion farmers the Poppy farmers
[01:44:13] because a lot of times they were made to grow the opion you know the Taliban came in and they had
[01:44:18] the biggest stick at the time either you know you're growing this Poppy force or you're
[01:44:21] can killed you know so we knew they weren't reaping the benefits so we would try to find you know
[01:44:26] the people who were getting the money from this and it's called a narco terrorism nexus
[01:44:35] and so we would hit these bigger locations and take people off the battlefield and train
[01:44:39] to Afghans how to process and how to conduct these you know investigations and we were
[01:44:48] with the the Green Braise you had the time they were doing movements to contact
[01:44:53] which for the non you know military people and I didn't know at the time because I wasn't in
[01:44:59] the military before you know you basically go on a hot air and you pick a fight and you access
[01:45:04] us the enemy how strong they are and you stay there for a couple days and then a lot of times
[01:45:11] conventional forces are brought in and we were hitting areas where a lot of drug activity was going on
[01:45:18] and had of course in panjue at the time they had a lot of implanted iEDs yeah this is 2010 yes
[01:45:28] so iED threat is just full on at this time especially in that area you know and that's when they
[01:45:33] started switching over to like the homemade explosive the HME where the metal detectors not picking
[01:45:39] the stuff up you know we had dogs and stuff with the bomb guys and gals but sometimes they couldn't
[01:45:46] smell it and a lot of times these iEDs are hidden so well you can't see where they're at and especially
[01:45:52] at night under knots you know in every mission people were getting you know injured with iEDs you
[01:45:59] know that was you know in a straight up fight most often than not they couldn't hang with us
[01:46:06] you know so they're you know they used their weapon to iED and you know to inflater around us
[01:46:11] and you know it's like okay this is gonna be my last step i have my legs you know you're trying to
[01:46:19] do everything to try to you know mitigate it but you know you still never never know so you know we're
[01:46:25] doing these movements to contact and you know we're most often the knot hitting these labs behind
[01:46:31] enemy lab lines and that's their money they're fighting like hell to keep it you know so i think that
[01:46:38] first year i think i did if we did about 11 missions or so and it was like two times i didn't have
[01:46:46] to fire my gun and i carried a belt fed weapon at the time i showed up the fast the course
[01:46:55] the listeners can't see i'm a decent sized guy what are you walking around out at that time weightwise
[01:47:00] um two thirty-ish so they're giving you a belt fed well yes you're like you're a big guy you carry
[01:47:06] i'm saying i'm old and it's still heavy you know carry a mark 48 or mark 46 actually i'm mark 43
[01:47:13] oh damn okay you know old school m60 m4 that's crazy you know and that was made you know for you guys you
[01:47:20] know you know um we had mark 48's but i'm a left-handed rifle shooter i'm almost all jacked up
[01:47:28] i was ready left eye dominant and i shot a pistol right handed in that mark 48 you eat all the
[01:47:34] brass and link the mark 43 was a little better you i put like a broomstick handle on the front and i
[01:47:39] moved away back and i get stand stand up and i tuck my right elbow real far in and so i wouldn't
[01:47:47] catch as much Lincoln brass you know the cyclic rate of fire i'm at mark 43's not quite as fast as the
[01:47:53] 48 but as you know it's it's it's a pretty reliable it's a it's a reliable weapon you know so i
[01:48:00] carried that damn thing every remission you know it's nice to have because it does a lot of damage
[01:48:08] but as uh automatic gunner the enemy knows that so you're a target too hundred percent you know
[01:48:14] in tracers work both ways they do and luckily at night i got a hold of some of the i-r tracers
[01:48:21] okay which you can only see under naz and usually the enemy did not you know for the most part
[01:48:25] and at there they did not have night vision capabilities so yeah it was um you had to you fire
[01:48:35] and you move your position a little bit and you fire move your position a little bit and you know
[01:48:39] it's not like TV you know that you had a box of a hundred rounds on that you gun and it doesn't
[01:48:44] last for five minutes you know if you're hammering that trigger down it's goes pretty quick so you
[01:48:50] gotta learn to conserve your ammo and spread load ammo with other people too well you going out with
[01:48:55] so you're going out with an ODA team at this time yes and you also would have afghan partners with
[01:49:00] you yes so these are pretty big elements that you're going out of yes and the ODA had their um
[01:49:05] partner force too oh so wait so you guys had your own partner force yes wow like a DEA and afghan
[01:49:13] DEA yes it's the national introduction unit okay um the afghans they were more their
[01:49:19] investigators and then the green braze or ever group they had their own group too right which the
[01:49:25] um green braze like to use the afghan commandos that was kind of like their special ops unit
[01:49:32] you know but it's to be quite honest with you even like we were working with the best in brightest
[01:49:38] it was like hurting cats oh for sure yeah you know it's like okay you know what's you know you
[01:49:42] couldn't do these advance like um wedge and echelon movement I was like single file those get in line
[01:49:49] and we hope you can stay in line get in line in please stay in line and stay behind the bomb people
[01:49:54] and listen that you know don't walk on like the path this is look like people walk the most don't
[01:50:00] go over the foot bridges but that's where we're gonna place the i.e.s and within 10 minutes on the ground
[01:50:05] they're everywhere oh my oh Jesus they're gonna get me blown up you how big would these elements
[01:50:10] be so you got the odi team the commandos your guys and then the the afghan d a whatever you call them
[01:50:17] yes what are you talking like you got like 50 people yeah it depends how big the operation is you know
[01:50:24] a green braid odi team we got like 12 individuals and they're partner force probably you would
[01:50:31] be around 30 you know and fast um because we were like two season three zes have a two to four fast
[01:50:38] agents and we would bring our partner force at this particular time like we could cherry pick people
[01:50:45] that were the better um fighters and um sometimes two to four we would take out and
[01:50:52] did be honest like I said we worked the best in brightest not a high percentage of them were
[01:50:58] good fighters and a lot of times they weren't in great shape so we're kind of limited what
[01:51:04] you can do how long of an infill and ex-fill you can do and how complicated a plan you could do so
[01:51:13] you know it kind of hamstringed us a little bit you know but we went out there in got the job done
[01:51:21] you know when we were really hitting them hard you know they call it second third order effects
[01:51:26] you could see they were having trouble getting some more of the better munitions and stuff
[01:51:31] um when we were like this you know putting a smack down on them and um halfway through that
[01:51:39] first oh they had the end of that first order we had first group was leaving and then a group from
[01:51:45] third group came in ODA 3116 and they came in and we did a couple missions with them and
[01:51:54] I know you're probably familiar with this and some of the listeners you know that the Afghans
[01:52:01] they use these icon radios to talk with each other and we intercept these things you know a lot
[01:52:06] times they're just talking shit on these damn things you know we're killing them you know the
[01:52:11] marriage they're dying know we found your idea and we're blowing it up you know that's what you just
[01:52:15] heard and you know so we're getting at the end of our tour and we're gonna hit the spot
[01:52:24] um called Hazi Medott in Afghanistan and there was a little combat outpost out there
[01:52:34] which I think the hundred and first airborne was out there and they had a Taliban hospital in the
[01:52:40] area and of course they were growing a lot of marijuana and poppy seed out there and but they also had
[01:52:46] several dish goes into areas the enemy did and that's the old like Russian anti-aircraft weaponry
[01:52:52] 51 and they would harass the coalition forces their air so you know we had several tasks in this
[01:53:02] mission you know the fine drug you know the eradicate some of the drug activity going on and also find these
[01:53:08] dishgoss so the rainders went in there before us and they got in a pretty good dust up and tick
[01:53:15] stands for troops in contact and they lost a couple of Rangers so we were going in a couple of days after
[01:53:23] and you're doing your pre-mission briefing and you know we're gonna get inserted with you know
[01:53:29] three CH47 and four CH47 helicopters and there's a high probability we're gonna lose
[01:53:37] a helicopter on infill with the dish goes and you know you're sitting in the night before you
[01:53:41] oh shit I hope it's not me you're like a coffin up there you know even most time when we flew
[01:53:48] with the the green braise they used like to use the night stalkers in one sixty it and we would
[01:53:55] always infill an ex-fill with a spectrogunship overhead you know but still that's not any guarantees
[01:54:02] and so you said night before I hope it's not me you know it was not our helicopter to get shot down
[01:54:07] so we plan this up and we infill we usually like to go in at night to use the our our advantage
[01:54:17] whether technology were the night vision and later lasers because I stated earlier the enemy
[01:54:22] usually doesn't have that so we like to go in at night get a foothold the best we can and then
[01:54:29] when it's light search and then you know ex-fill the next day or depending how long the
[01:54:34] mission's gonna last you know a day or two or whatnot so we fly in and we take a little incoming
[01:54:42] fire but all four birds make it so we begin to sweep through and get a foothold and then
[01:54:52] for individuals are listening that you know it's been over there usually they'll try to hit or
[01:54:59] probe you the enemy over there after first after morning prayer and then you see they do their first hit
[01:55:07] try to feel you out so we get in a couple little skirmishes see him plan some i.e. ds and
[01:55:17] you know we're okay we're moving through and we didn't find where we were at we didn't find the
[01:55:23] discos we're gonna find some marijuana fields in this and that throughout the day they're talking
[01:55:29] you're like we need to find a good place to set up our p.k.m machine guns meaning the enemy
[01:55:36] and you know we blew up an i.d. and like I said already you know oh we are killing them you know
[01:55:41] we're you know the Americans are screaming and so you know they're you know setting up their p.k.
[01:55:47] you know so like okay you're just but you're bullshit whatever screw you so this is an august
[01:55:55] and it's high to sell and we didn't have any close airs ports at the time was they got
[01:56:03] called over to some other units that were having some contact so we had a predator overhead
[01:56:10] but the predators wings i stole over and had the land you know this is you know 115 degree you know
[01:56:16] it's 10 degrees but I you know you they're flying up higher and I don't know the specifics and stuff so
[01:56:23] you know we're in sporadic scrimmishes so we were under fire so they're like um we're not
[01:56:31] going to send air to pick you up because the l.s. is pretty you're going to be pretty hot so you're
[01:56:37] going to have to make it we're going to have to try to make it to this combat outpost over there
[01:56:42] which was probably a couple clicks away at the time so we moved out and we stopped this little
[01:56:52] like villageria and we get set up to make our final push and it was just the villagers there
[01:57:02] just had it just we had a funny sense and like a spider is something something's not right
[01:57:07] you know you know we get in there where your IDs how we do not know where they are okay so okay
[01:57:15] you're going to go on front of us and you're going to take us through you know and you get to spot
[01:57:21] I will not go any further you must kill me oh I thought you don't know where the IDs were you know
[01:57:26] so we found a couple IDs and bloom up and so where the termination is made we're going to make
[01:57:31] it to the combat outpost so at this time we're probably about clicking a half away or so
[01:57:39] so we're moving through this is daylight and we're in a single file and one of our guys see some
[01:57:47] movements in this little hot above us and he's like tells one of the green braise hey I think
[01:57:53] I saw some movement so he glasses it with his scope and doesn't see anything so we're moving out
[01:58:00] and I'm next to like a pony wall like a probably a couple foot pony wall to my right of me
[01:58:07] and I tell you one thing those old mud buildings like when you're over there there's mud uh
[01:58:12] you can explain to people and bless you over there you can't believe people still lift like this
[01:58:17] but those those things do a hell job stopping bullets and stuff so we're going through and then
[01:58:24] sure is shit they were looking for a place to step to pee camps we got caught in a near ambush
[01:58:32] so I got bullets going over my head coming to the side of me and people are caught off we got
[01:58:40] four people hit right off the bat when the ambush opened one being the ODA team sergeant and he's like
[01:58:47] I got a formal bleed and we're like oh shit so I'm rocking my 43 and I usually care about
[01:58:58] 400 rounds of ammo on me and we had spread loaded some more and so you know I'm trying to pick
[01:59:06] up like puffs a smoke or I think enemy fires coming from but I'm also trying to conserve some of
[01:59:11] my ammo too because we start getting overrun I want to have some but I always carry to pistol with me
[01:59:17] too and at least one frag grenade because if I could help I wasn't you know I'm going to fight to
[01:59:22] that I'm not I don't want to be taken alive and so I'm rocking through ammo and being the near
[01:59:29] ambush you know people are throwing hand grenades it was that close you know firing law rockets
[01:59:34] and I asked one of our Afghan counterparks who's both English and the ODA counterparts they
[01:59:44] carried the full length 240 bravos so it's the same round at the mark 43 was fire so I'm like
[01:59:55] go get me some ammo so he runs out and brings you back a little link ammo about 20 bravos like
[02:00:01] what am I gonna do with this so I just link it one of my belts so that's okay and so we're
[02:00:09] fighting and we finally get some close air support we get a f16 from the UAE but they won't fire
[02:00:17] and you know we got people hit and we got in the meta-vac coming in and I tell you those
[02:00:23] meta-vac pilots have balls of steel when they come and they started coming in RPGs were shooting
[02:00:28] up all around them they landed those birds and got our most severely wounded people out of there
[02:00:35] and you know back to you know higher care you know so we finally get some close air support
[02:00:43] to suppress it a little bit the hundred and first here's all this activity going out so they
[02:00:49] bring some of their gun trucks but they can't get too close to us so we're like okay we got a
[02:00:56] you know we're getting a little break so like okay we got to make it this combat outpost so we did
[02:01:03] our vote our version of the Mogadisha mile there where you know you're running and shooting
[02:01:09] and you're not caring about the IED's at this time we had the cross-open feel and I guess you know
[02:01:13] you're up you see me I'm down you know I guess if I step on some shit I guess I'm gonna blow up
[02:01:19] and you know they get their gun trucks out there and they start shooting in some press of fire
[02:01:24] and we ended up getting to the combat outposts and of course we look all look like soup sandwiches
[02:01:31] you know I'm done here it was like you guys were out there you go yeah
[02:01:36] I learned in a combat you know we got stationed you know set there and you know got some rest and
[02:01:42] we're gonna go to the Chahong get some food and that's when I learned most of the bases we were staying at
[02:01:46] the unlimited food and that's when I learned to combat outposts just limited rations you know you only get
[02:01:52] you know what's there little serving you know so grace of God everybody ended up surviving you know we
[02:01:59] had some some injuries but we ended up surviving so that concluded my turn and I tell you what I
[02:02:06] had a bat you know I thought it was gonna end that day because when you come close to running
[02:02:10] ammo you'd like oh shit you know what tell them what to do you know so it was it was quite
[02:02:17] inexperienced so we kind of went out with went out in a bang that first her yeah sorry yeah you
[02:02:25] definitely seemed to end that deployment with a bang when you when you got done with that deployment
[02:02:30] as you looked back at it what were some of the takeaways that you got from your experiences there
[02:02:37] like anything I've done in life okay every mission I would take it for each mission it's like okay
[02:02:43] these are the things I did right in the mission these are things I want to do the same again
[02:02:49] and these are the things I did wrong I never want to do again so each thing you know I looked at
[02:02:54] myself critically I've always been probably my own worst critic these you know I don't want to do
[02:02:59] that ever again you know and this is what I want to do and you can probably relate and some of our
[02:03:06] listeners probably the more you're in that environment you never get 100% used to it but you get
[02:03:12] calmer during it I remember my very first operation it's oh dark 30 you know with the green
[02:03:19] rays that year and lucky we didn't get any a ticks or anything is I remember landing in the middle
[02:03:25] of the night in the middle of nowhere and I guess I said I guess it's just for real now
[02:03:31] you know I'm just trying to make sure I don't lose my element and night being a night vision it's
[02:03:36] you know it's not the easiest to see you know you know and we had some pretty decent night vision
[02:03:40] it's like please please Lord let me keep up with the people in my group but not get lost out here
[02:03:45] by myself so you know and I told I was talking to my fellow some fellow agents back in Arizona when
[02:03:53] I got back and I was telling them stories you know this is what we're doing you know you're like oh
[02:03:59] you're bullshitting there's no way you did that shit I'm like oh yeah we did you know it's
[02:04:04] common you know everything kind of fell in the place where I don't know if it ever will happen again
[02:04:10] you're at war with a country that has a drug nexus you know so it's I did things as a DA agent
[02:04:17] I never thought in a million years I'd be doing and you know people would ask me would you
[02:04:22] scare it or nervous I said yeah how yeah I was you know I said but you still had a job to do you know
[02:04:30] there's nothing you know scary or feeling you're going to land you know you're giving you know
[02:04:35] five minutes two minutes and you hear the door gunners open up you know you're going into a hot
[02:04:39] LZ you know you had to unassus burning you know so I put in some fire down but I explained
[02:04:46] it to it's like at the amusement park you ride in the biggest baddest roller coaster you're
[02:04:50] scared nervous and then when you get done it's like okay when we go back again you know I guess
[02:04:56] I got I get that warp sense you know I've always been kind of an adrenaline junkie but
[02:05:02] you know it's like are you nuts I don't know if I'm nuts but you know I tend to I've always even
[02:05:10] football tend to excel when the pressure was on you know some people fold under pressure some
[02:05:18] people can handle it well luckily for me I always had a neck of being able to still function pretty
[02:05:26] effectively under stress when you got home from that deployment you said you went back to Arizona
[02:05:34] do you know back to uh quantum code okay so you got back to quantum code yes so is that where you're
[02:05:39] actually living now is in quantum code since you're with the fast team well I'm retired now but when I was
[02:05:44] on the fast team yes I was living in the quantum area I was living actually in Frederick's bird
[02:05:50] Virginia okay so you get back from that deployment no one can believe what you did you can
[02:05:55] barely believe what you did I'm just lucky to make it out there with my life you know and have
[02:05:59] two legs still you know and then what's next you get it you get to decompress you know you get
[02:06:07] to spend time with your family you know you've been going a while they send the the psychologists in
[02:06:13] and they kind of debrief you and see if you have any issues or problems and you just get to take
[02:06:20] it easy for a while and to spend time with your family and just relax and recoup a rage
[02:06:26] and how long is that decompression time you know you see a month or so nice you know and so then
[02:06:32] you know we were scheduled to do our next tour in Afghanistan it was going to be the late early
[02:06:39] winter tour of 2011 and the meantime we started operating in the western hemisphere also
[02:06:48] and we had a team out there echo team which their primary thing was to western hemisphere
[02:06:57] and they were given us language training and Spanish and everything and they were operating in
[02:07:03] Honduras real shit hole too. Rohitans real nice you know the scuba diving destination is up
[02:07:11] but the rest of the country is a disaster a lot of a lot of violence there so echo teams going there
[02:07:18] and they're doing which is called these air tracks of interest and we were working in conjunction with
[02:07:25] Joyce joint task force bravo over there out of soda cano and what we're looking for is the small
[02:07:32] like planes these sessnows and different things coming from source countries and like cocaine
[02:07:39] Peru itself like that loaded with cocaine you know multiple hundred kilos of co-gattotime
[02:07:44] and you know they would fly in and land in these remote landing strips and their so-called
[02:07:52] remote land was like a road or just like a clearing and they would come in there at night with no
[02:07:58] no night vision and no runway lights you just have like things lit up and land and you know try to
[02:08:08] safely land the plane but the drug dealers didn't really long as the the cocaine was okay
[02:08:14] then care of the plane got destroyed so we were we were sent to they need to volunteer so me and
[02:08:21] another guy from my team volunteered to go and help them out so we go and we're in soda cano we
[02:08:31] doing training with our partner force there getting up to speed and our tactics how to take down
[02:08:39] plane land and take down a plane and all that jazz and we're going to join task force bravo
[02:08:45] and right before we got there we were doing some training so another team went there they
[02:08:55] had one of these air tracks come in and they launched on it and actually got a pretty good firefight
[02:09:00] and they're actually were shooting RPGs at the you know the military aircraft the 47 is
[02:09:06] that were bringing them in and the jade don't have to be a bravo guy so like whoa whoa
[02:09:11] tight time out you know we're just supposed to drive you guys a minor transportation roll we don't
[02:09:16] really want to be in the combat here so when we got there they made a pretty good seizure and killed
[02:09:22] some you know decent amount of enemy and so we get there so they're like and like well okay we
[02:09:30] have to have so many hours of training and you know we have to practice this and that and so we're
[02:09:35] practicing and doing all that you know waiting to go and then DEA we bring some of our air airing
[02:09:41] assets there but we just have smaller vehicles a smaller aircraft like kind of like a super
[02:09:47] black hawk you can't fit a bunch of people in there and we were you know you're doing a saw you
[02:09:51] want like a CH47 or something so they're making every excuse in the world not to fly us
[02:10:00] and was this for a specific target that you're going after? um oh was it just in general they
[02:10:05] were making excuses not to fly or if a hit happen to come up in general okay because they knew
[02:10:11] that was going to be gunplay and um one of our hunter and partner forces got shot during that
[02:10:17] first operation they had to met a vac a my out and they're like if we've sent you guys down there
[02:10:24] and if somebody gets hurt we are not flying into what hot LZ to get you so there's a lot of
[02:10:31] things so we had two DEA aircraft there so we had a couple good air tracks to came up so the first one
[02:10:39] we launched just what our DEA birds and the amount of fuel then carry is not that great so you can't
[02:10:45] be up that long and it takes a while for us to get on these these these bogey birds
[02:10:54] and get tracking them um so we launched and we had um in each one of these helicopter two DEA pilots
[02:11:01] we had two fast team guys and two hunter and partner forces and these birds and each one of these birds
[02:11:09] we had a full size 240 Bravo on there in stuff but with that limited people you're not going to land
[02:11:18] in fight a force so at best we hoped to see where they land and hey if we got harassed and
[02:11:23] maybe you know you could defend yourself and put some fire down at least to say about the aircraft
[02:11:27] so we launched twice and we get on both tracks but before they landed we had to we were
[02:11:36] running uh blowing and running low and fuel so we had to get back so we're there and we're staying
[02:11:44] out at Porta Castillo near the Porta Castillo area there's a base out there that's we're launching from
[02:11:50] so they had it was a pretty big media event so they all knew we were the
[02:11:55] excuse me they all knew we were there so one of the local drug dealers he knows where
[02:12:02] coming so he leaves the country so one of his people that works on him one of his lieutenant's
[02:12:08] is there so he cocks his hair brain scheme he's going to get DEA out of there DEA's
[02:12:17] we're going to get them out of there so my boss can come back so we're staying in this hotel
[02:12:24] so we're at one of the local drug dealers says to himself I'm going to get the DEA to leave
[02:12:28] yes so the big boss may come back the big boss may not have they can come back got it
[02:12:34] so we're staying in this hotel and there's off the water there and um there's another hotel
[02:12:40] there the Christopher Columbus were a lot of the military guys are staying and they had just
[02:12:44] little air strip there so a lot of those fast guys are getting morning and do PT and we'd run
[02:12:49] in the morning so this guy scheme was they knew a kind of our schedule that they were going to
[02:12:57] when we got running the morning they're going to go and drive up and shoot a couple of us down
[02:13:03] so they're going to kill a couple de agents and dea's just going to leave and wait you got
[02:13:08] wind of this or this is just what their plan is you found out after the final we end up getting wind of
[02:13:12] it because one of the partner force guys we were working from recognized a guy
[02:13:19] in town and he said this guy in town got recruited to help kill a couple of us so key reports back
[02:13:30] he approached us to his buddy and they come to us and the two people they're going to kill in the
[02:13:36] morning is the big guy which is me and then another guy in our team Dave Klaus and the guy with
[02:13:42] the funny shorts busy as he's like colorful long goofy shorts he would wear to run and they're
[02:13:47] just going to pull up alongside of us and his machine gun is down so we get wind of this and then
[02:13:54] they get us the hell out of there back to Soda Kano and send us back to the states what about the
[02:14:02] other dea agents they were there like another week and they'd be left it was just there was
[02:14:07] it was at the end of where we're going to leave anyways and plus it's high risk low reward high
[02:14:11] risk low reward JTA problems not flying us so it was just it was this the mess we later went
[02:14:19] back there and had full support and ended doing some good with some of some other teams how
[02:14:24] did you feel when you were trying to get out of there walking from the freaking hotel to the
[02:14:28] car to the airport to get you out of there I tell you what you know we're staying in this hotel
[02:14:32] um Kasa Alamane house a German um by the water there and you know we got I got a first full
[02:14:41] room and it's a decent size room so I'm like get to them one night there so I'm like barricaded my door
[02:14:47] I got my Mark 43 setup ready to go my you know my car being ready to go I'm like okay Lord
[02:14:54] get me through this night I said if they're gonna get me they're gonna have to they're gonna have to work to get me
[02:14:59] you know so it was we were able to sleep or just stay awake all night thank you wrong the
[02:15:04] side of the car and just leave you know I had you know the belt you know down the feed tray
[02:15:11] cover shot you know you know the weapon cock bag but the safety on you know ready ready to go
[02:15:18] you know so they're gonna you know I'm gonna respond with a burst of gunfire they try to get
[02:15:22] through here you know so it was like you know you know I survived Afghanistan and then I'm gonna get
[02:15:30] um I'm gonna get hit in Honduras you know who's coming coming home like oh god Joe what are you
[02:15:37] what are you getting yourself into and you're volunteering for all this and at night in Honduras
[02:15:42] at night they would be all this you know fully automatic AK 47 gunfire and the couple who
[02:15:50] ran to hotel that just like celebratory fire or what is there fights going on I think a little bit
[02:15:56] of both and the people who were the preparators of the hotel said oh they're just killing
[02:16:01] chickens and killing old damn chickens in the middle of the night with AK's yeah be nothing left
[02:16:06] of the chicken you know so we roll back into the states and then we're doing our pre-deployment
[02:16:16] training um getting ready to go to my next turn Afghanistan so again we're in the fighting season
[02:16:27] you know time frame parameter and you know working with the specialized special ops units
[02:16:36] if you had to work with them before and you can probably know this there's a lot of Dick
[02:16:43] measuring going out check it's like who are you what can you do if they never work with you you
[02:16:50] know you know we weren't a special option it for say you know we're the best at DEA have
[02:16:56] but we could shoot moving communicate pretty good you know we could hold our own so a lot of times
[02:17:03] it took two or three missions are going out with people hey these guys are pretty good you know
[02:17:08] they're decent um so a lot of people thought that we going with these units and they would
[02:17:14] clear it and then we would come in after the fact that wasn't the case we erupt there for
[02:17:18] the front leading elements um so to get to my points we had our fast team before us that was there
[02:17:29] in Afghanistan and at the time a lot of the U.S. special ops units were doing these
[02:17:34] Phil's stability programs where they were going out and living with the people out you know
[02:17:39] in the villages and getting them to kind of see our way of thinking and views and values and
[02:17:46] you know we could talk for hours just about that but we won't get into that here today
[02:17:53] so
[02:17:57] no U.S. special ops units were available to direct action missions so the Australian
[02:18:02] Commandos stepped up hey we'll do it and they were operating they could only operate in the
[02:18:07] Helman province in Afghanistan and that's a pretty hot in Surgeon Area Surgeon Area of
[02:18:13] Activity and they have a lot of drug production goes on there and that's where we have a big
[02:18:18] base or camp levelling neck with the Marine Corps is so they were working our fast team came in
[02:18:26] and they saw we were good to go so when we got there we didn't have to go through all that
[02:18:32] rigmarole we just hit the ground running in fact the second op we did there that
[02:18:39] turned we hit the biggest heroin lab to date at that point of time in Afghanistan and it was
[02:18:46] just huge and they weren't used to us being in Helman so we weren't running into a lot of
[02:18:53] in place to IEDs because they weren't used to us being there but they were still putting up a
[02:19:01] hell of a fight you know if you're trying to take their money and oh hell no so we hit that huge
[02:19:10] lab we had how big is that lab like like is it they're producing at a time multiple hundred
[02:19:19] hundred kilos of heroin at a time and in fact when we came in they had a lot of a drying out
[02:19:27] we didn't know and you know the rotor wash of those seeds blew a lot of it away but there is
[02:19:32] a ton of chemicals and equipment left you know then we you know we can't take all the stuff with us so
[02:19:39] we we just take representative samples take photographs and destroy the rest of this stuff in place so
[02:19:45] we're you know in the process of destroying the stuff and we're running into a sporadic you know
[02:19:52] gunfire encounters we got one of our our part of force guys got shot in the lake and we
[02:19:59] had to bring them to a metavac and some a couple of the Australians got shot and we're processing
[02:20:07] this lab and I tell you the the Australian commandos there's not they're very very effective unit
[02:20:16] and very good you know I kind of put them on part so like maybe our army Rangers and they
[02:20:24] roll in pretty heavy when we roll into they will deploy snipers in their first to set up and if we're
[02:20:31] rolling heavy they'll bring a whole mortar company and everything too so we and that's where you
[02:20:40] started working with them they were being guided by the Aussies yeah we are being guided by the Australian
[02:20:45] also in the commandos okay that's who our partner force was and it's funny because like we be talking
[02:20:50] like this and you can kind of understand the Aussies and they have different slang words and stuff
[02:20:54] but under stress and under firefight you can understand what Taylor saying you're like can you
[02:21:00] ten nine that last please okay and my very best English accent this is what we want you to do
[02:21:10] so you know you know we had quite a few prisoners that they're just up and stuff and
[02:21:16] you know you're getting ready in the middle of the night you're loading them on this helicopter
[02:21:19] and they never seen helicopters up close you know so they're just looking around like
[02:21:23] I think it's like an alien spaceship and come on you come with us who are not going to execute you come on you know so
[02:21:31] we're we're ripped rolling through this tour we're just making some hell of a seizures
[02:21:40] so we're getting close we got like three weeks left to go it's getting close to Halloween
[02:21:46] and this bizarre pig bizarre and the northern helmet province pops up hot you know and these
[02:21:56] bizarre's out there like outdoor flea markets with like rolling garage doors and things and they
[02:22:01] saw everything from you know sundries and shampoo's chickens but also to include chemicals and
[02:22:09] equipment to manufacture heroin I eat the bar making material and small arms so this
[02:22:15] bizarre pops up hot and our team, the fast team that was there before us, Bravo team at hit the
[02:22:21] spazar with the Aussies and they seized a lot of items and they got in a pretty big gunfight
[02:22:29] and in fact the supervisor of the fast team Brett Hamilton who was in my selection he was
[02:22:37] Marine Corrofzer old tough crusty guy and we have the two oldest guys in our selection he's
[02:22:43] a little older than me they're fighting their way back to the helicopters and he ends up getting
[02:22:50] the forest gump wound the beach up in stung him he got shot in the buttocks hard or hard dude man he
[02:22:58] stayed the rest of the turret of they packed his wound he was still going out of since the so
[02:23:05] we knew we were going to run into some resistance but when we could hit it with the Aussies
[02:23:11] there wasn't an air-wain platform available with night vision capabilities that could fly us
[02:23:20] so we're like we really don't want to go during the day we want to use our technical advantages
[02:23:26] but we didn't have that option and we were our confidence was I think a little higher than it should have been
[02:23:39] you know they say you live by the sword you die by the sword so like we're gonna go so
[02:23:47] we're gonna use this air-wain that's training the Afghan pilots for when we left they could take
[02:23:54] over in do stuff and they were using old Russian MI 17 troop transport helicopters now it's a pretty
[02:24:01] robust helicopters not it not as big as our CH 47 but they move pretty fast and they get the door
[02:24:09] and the door gunners they got on one side of pk machine gun on the other side of gal mini gun
[02:24:15] and there's US contract pilots in there with with afghanies and there's one british guy british
[02:24:23] british ab8 or two so the night before they tell us okay um one of the helicopters you guys
[02:24:32] use in this guy gonna be all afghan crew and pilot it we're like oh we don't really want to be on
[02:24:40] that helicopter nor any of our oscis visit they decide that they're gonna get their g hot on that
[02:24:47] day and crash into a mountain don't want to be on that and they're not quite as skilled as our pilots
[02:24:54] so we're like okay we'll go but our afghan pounder for counterforce is gonna infill an
[02:25:02] ex-fill on that bird so we get a plan we're going to hit the bizarre early morning hours
[02:25:12] of october 31st 2011 just after first light and you know we want to get there when no people in the
[02:25:18] bizarre you know so we have to deal monkey around and deal with all that crap just get there
[02:25:23] we're gonna hit the spazard we're gonna hit another location after it so the plan was we arrived in
[02:25:31] three m i seven no four m i seventeen's some fast fast team members and australians are going to be in one
[02:25:40] the afghan pounder force is gonna be in another and then the australians are going to be in the other two birds
[02:25:46] and the australians are gonna land and kind of set up an outer perimeter to try to keep the
[02:25:55] enemy from maneuvering in on us but the only bad thing is it was a little bit of mountain this
[02:26:00] area so the enemy had the high ground on us and our afghan pounder force are gonna land in the
[02:26:08] helicopter they're gonna search this little village area right outside the bizarre we're gonna link up
[02:26:14] and then we're going to search the bizarre in two groups i was in charge of one of the elements made up of
[02:26:22] fast team members with some our afghan partner force and then one of our other guys was leading the other
[02:26:30] group so we land um start moving through hook up with the afghans and shortly after infill
[02:26:37] we receive start receiving sporadic incoming fire not very effective so we're moving through and
[02:26:47] we're finding poppy seed and stuff to manufacture heroin and i'm standing outside of one of the
[02:26:54] stalls and the bizarre behind this old gb dot car i hear a shot fired and i hear it hit the
[02:27:03] beat up car behind me and then i feel the back of my neck burn i'm like oh shit so i dive into the
[02:27:11] stall of the bizarre i put my hand on my back of my neck to see if any blood i don't see any blood
[02:27:16] on my glove i have whenever afghan translators look at it and he says oh it looks okay so
[02:27:23] but the bullet got so close i could feel the heat of the bullet burning the back of my neck
[02:27:27] so i kind of had my guard up after that and i'm like oh that's a close call joe so i kind of was
[02:27:34] using all my techniques and tactics i had learned throughout the years on the police department on
[02:27:40] the swat team as a DA agent as the DA fast training and prior missions so shortly after that
[02:27:48] over the little shitty loudspeaker system they have over there the insurgency to a call the arms
[02:27:54] today's your day to die we must kill the infidels we must drive them out of our land
[02:28:02] so incoming gunfire really increases so we really hear the Aussies get into it with them
[02:28:10] and you're still in the bizarre at this point we're still in a bizarre and the Aussies are on external
[02:28:14] security yes and we have the marine air wing providing close air support and we hear the the
[02:28:21] marine air wing get into it the Aussies get into it so we're finishing up what we have to do
[02:28:28] we're taking the samples taking photographs and starting to destroy all the stuff so we do that
[02:28:36] and we say okay we're like 10 mic ten minutes out and we'll be ready to move so we start calling
[02:28:43] our birds to come get us so they're inbound and we have to make our way to our x-fill locations
[02:28:50] we're only about a couple a couple hundred meters away not far but we get bogged down in the gunfire
[02:28:57] so we can't make our x-fill positions in time so we have to wave the helicopter's off
[02:29:04] so they go a distance away but keep the rotor spinning so you know at this time you know
[02:29:10] like moving in between mud huts and you know you're leapfrogging and you're like
[02:29:17] how you know I know we have to get the helicopter here because the longer we stay the more the enemy
[02:29:23] has time to amass you know and it's not going to be good but you know in combat you can't show
[02:29:32] fear to other people on your team or squad even though you're feeling like I don't know
[02:29:38] for going to get the helicopter you know so you're moving and we finally get set up in our
[02:29:43] x-fill positions afghans and they're a little spot and us in the Aussie so the four helicopters
[02:29:49] come in and we're receiving pretty heavy incoming fire two to include belt fed machine gun fire
[02:29:57] don't we don't we call any RPGs so the four helicopters come in and we got the afghan crew
[02:30:04] and pilot helicopter that one we're never going to get on in a million years and three land
[02:30:11] guess which one doesn't land the afghan crew and pilot helicopter and after worries they said
[02:30:18] because of the brownout conditions with the other copters helicopters picking up all the dust and
[02:30:23] rotor wash and all the incoming fire they didn't feel comfortable landing so instead of waiting
[02:30:31] for their bird to come guess what the afghans do pile on to the next helicopter and it's ours
[02:30:37] so they get their first we're in this open field we run out there we're like get the hell off
[02:30:44] they're not moving I don't blame them I want to go back into that hell so instead of being
[02:30:49] shot in this open damn field we're like okay just go so the three helicopters lift off
[02:30:56] and then it's us fast team members and several Aussies so we're coming to guys are left on the ground
[02:31:02] um my 10 15 of you yeah at max we had from fast we had we had Jared just in two mats
[02:31:19] brence
[02:31:21] Paul
[02:31:24] myself and a couple Aussies you're like under 10 so of course all the fires focused on us it
[02:31:32] disappoint so we take cover in a little ditch and then our helicopter short time lands about
[02:31:38] 100 meters away and this the one we're never gonna get on the crew and pilot helicopter
[02:31:43] so they land and I remember saying to myself of course you're heart racing
[02:31:48] feel like I get to get a lot of here I remember saying to myself this is gonna be a shitty run
[02:31:55] you know there's bullets is popping up everywhere so I but I knew we couldn't stay
[02:31:59] hey so one of the last memories I kind of have from that day is I get up to run
[02:32:09] I remember firing a couple shots on the run towards the direction I felt in surgeons were fire
[02:32:13] in at us from I guess I got the helicopter about mid pack and that's when I paused and was providing
[02:32:20] fire for the rest of my teammates to get honored near the helicopter and then once that happened my
[02:32:27] team leader Jarajanson said let's roll I guess and that's when I turned left to run out to the
[02:32:34] helicopter and then I got hit in the head at first he thought I fell and he's trying to
[02:32:41] rouse me and I'm not moving I'm face first in the ground and then he rolls me over and he sees
[02:32:48] the like ballistic class as I was wearing were shattered and he sees a hole in my head
[02:32:53] so they roll me over and they're thinking I'm dead which is very you know
[02:33:02] very possible situation here you can take around to the head and so they grabbed me scooped me up
[02:33:10] throw me in helicopter that's when breads and you know he's put when covered fire down
[02:33:15] Matt Stewart's trying to get the Afghan doorgunners to fire they're not even firing
[02:33:19] and helicopters getting shot up you know we're getting shot and he's like shoot shoot shoot say
[02:33:26] fire a couple rounds you know burst into the ground so he's like no shoot shoot he takes you know he
[02:33:30] grabs the gun and starts shooting a little bit so they throw me on the helicopter and you know they
[02:33:39] think I'm dead you know the helicopter is very loud and they're of course and everything so you can't
[02:33:42] hear breathing so one of my teammates Justin Vanderbilt who actually before DEA he was a medic
[02:33:52] in New Orleans and he was there during Katrina so he was kind of like one of our more highly
[02:33:58] trained kind of our version of like 18 Delta medical guy even though we all go through pretty intense
[02:34:04] tea triple sea combat care and actually live tissue training and stuff he's like he's alive he's
[02:34:13] breathing so they start getting my stuff cut out and they apply combat gauze to my head wounds
[02:34:25] which is gauze with clotting agent in there so they're getting that under control
[02:34:30] and then a lot of times with facial wounds or different that have wounds you want to try to
[02:34:34] establish a better airway and you know and you can do that by a couple different ways you can
[02:34:40] do a cry chorea cut you know under the person's throat and you insert an implementer helping
[02:34:45] breathe more or you can use a nasal fair and gill airway and they decide they're going to
[02:34:52] stick a nasal fair and gill airway up my nose and in training we have to insert these in
[02:34:58] any other and just sort of a nose this is like a it's basically like a you shaped tube that you
[02:35:06] cram and someone's nose that will open up the airway between your nostrils and like your
[02:35:12] lungs not all the way down your lungs but like through your head you know they're probably
[02:35:16] what do you think they are Joe like maybe five inches long total something like that and one end
[02:35:20] looks like there's a funnel on there and the other and you know in training we can put light
[02:35:26] a cane in our nose before we do it but it still sucks or no offense attended we're training
[02:35:35] with the seals they allow us to spit out a mistake he's up and he's not fun and when they're
[02:35:42] cramming this up my nose I come to I don't remember any of this it's probably a good thing
[02:35:48] um I'm talking making sense I recognize people's voices I'm not complaining about my head even
[02:36:00] I have a hole on each set I decide I say get it out of my eyes the pressure from the high
[02:36:08] velocity round which we think was the armoured person around from Belvedpe K machine gun
[02:36:15] traveling through my head ruptured both my eye globes into touch both redness
[02:36:20] so they poor saline solutions on my eyes of course that doesn't do jack crap
[02:36:25] and then I'm telling them I gotta move my leg
[02:36:30] so they think I'm shot in the leg too with all the gunfire that was coming at us
[02:36:35] and this particular mission I did not have my Belvedpe machine gun I had my
[02:36:39] carbine with a suppressor on it and I had been shooting quite a bit so when I got knocked on
[02:36:45] conscious I fell on the barrel of my rifle and it burned inside of my left leg real bad
[02:36:54] and actually the cry pants I was wearing it were burned you know they were burned
[02:36:58] and they you know they burned my leg pretty good so they're you know they're working on me and you
[02:37:06] know they're getting me back to the base as quick as possible and on my team
[02:37:11] made said the thing that scared them even when the bleeding stopped my head just kept
[02:37:15] swallowing up and swallowing up they knew there's nothing they could do there but luckily for me
[02:37:23] the helicopter's there when I got shot so you know I usually take the time now to
[02:37:31] talk about some of the things that I think led to my survivability is that you know even though
[02:37:40] I was severely wounded by my team providing that fast medical attention they had stalled my
[02:37:47] decompensation giving time for me to get the higher care and I know it's not invoked at times
[02:37:57] or this and that but for all instances I should be dead talking to the medical professionals over
[02:38:05] 80% of the people who get my injury do not survive and the day I became a police officer my
[02:38:14] mother gave me a saint Michael's medallion it's a patron saint the protect police officers
[02:38:18] and always carrying one on me I had one in my kit I always did the Psalm 91 prayer before I went on
[02:38:26] missions and carried a copy on me that's the prayer of soldiers going into battle for the Lord to
[02:38:32] protect you and I had one of my grandfather's dog takes a war war two on me and he was not my time to go
[02:38:43] the Lord had more for me to do I think some of that is me doing my motivational speaking now
[02:38:49] helping others deal with situations and instances and it just was not my time to go and then with all
[02:38:59] our high speed medical training that we had once my teammates found that I was alive nobody panicked
[02:39:07] unfortunately over there we had to use our medical training more than when we had a light
[02:39:11] so that and also you know I talk about mindset you know you have to have this mindset
[02:39:22] that if you're in a fight for your life or you're with a suspect or an enemy you're fighting for
[02:39:29] your life or getting in a shootout or it could be you could be at home you could have an accident or
[02:39:36] drive a car if you're in a fight you have to survive you have to fight you have to hit
[02:39:42] claw scratch god whatever you have to do you have to think yourself I am not going to lose this fight
[02:39:49] I am not going to lose I'm going to survive I'm going to make it through that you have to have that
[02:39:56] mental attitude you know I kind of call it the warriors mindset or the winning mentality
[02:40:04] that I'm going to survive and make it through this you know there's no way I'm not going to
[02:40:10] make it through even though at first I was not unconscious my body my mind didn't give up
[02:40:21] you're going to you're going to make it through this show you know I didn't see any bright light or
[02:40:25] anything I may have saw a little fire below or something it wasn't it wasn't time
[02:40:31] so also talking to the doctors I was in really great physical shape when I got shot
[02:40:42] and the better shape you're in a lot of times the more traumatic injury you can survive
[02:40:49] and a lot of times the better your recovery is you know so when I talk to groups you know
[02:40:55] especially military law enforcement groups you know I tell people you don't have to be Olympic
[02:40:59] athlete but please please please be in the best shape you can because it may save your life you
[02:41:05] never know like I said it could be a car accident in your end or you could fall over ladder at the
[02:41:09] house you know just please stay in the best shape that you can so we fly back to the base
[02:41:19] tearing count which we're staying at with the Aussies so we land at and they're field there and
[02:41:25] the ambulance comes out to meet us and they don't bring a stretcher to the bird they think
[02:41:31] they had me on the stretcher even though we have them they didn't have me on one so I
[02:41:37] hear this commotion going on so guess what the guy shot in the head does he gets off the walk off the
[02:41:44] helicopter my team I said no Joe we got you who will carry you so they carry me to the ambulance
[02:41:52] bring me to the medical facility there they do what they can for me there do you remember trying
[02:41:58] to get up and walk no I don't I don't remember talking to my teammates and the helicopter none of
[02:42:04] that all of our remembers firing a couple shots on the run because you know talking to the doctors
[02:42:10] because I guess you know when I got hit it was just lights out and it's kind of your brains
[02:42:15] mechanism for texture and I'm probably glad I don't remember any of that stuff so they brought me
[02:42:22] the medical facility there they knocked me unconscious did what they can for me there and then
[02:42:29] they make arrangements to fly me in a metavac helicopter to can to our airfield which they had
[02:42:36] a near-search and an eye surgeon standing by so I'm flown over there with one of my teammates
[02:42:43] Matt Stewart we arrived there so they of course they do an assessment on me there and it was
[02:42:51] fortunate for me that day it was Halloween so not a lot of groups were doing or units were doing
[02:42:57] missions so they didn't have many casualties in the hospital there so they first taken look at me
[02:43:05] and I guess I'm starting to be kept alive with basic life-saving procedures at this time and
[02:43:14] they don't think there's anything they can do to save me so they're just going to have me
[02:43:19] pass peacefully and then have me set home back home on an angel flight deceased but the doctor
[02:43:27] then they're certain he's pretty aggressive guy and then the the nurse it in took me there
[02:43:32] and he's looking at me he's talking to my teammates you know my teammate that I was talking
[02:43:39] after and now I got up to walk off I was trying to get whatever's in my eyes out and he sees what's
[02:43:44] shape I'm in he's convinced that if he gets in and performs surgery that they can get the
[02:43:55] bleeding in my head stopped and some of the pressure relieved in least get me home to the
[02:44:00] state so my family can see me didn't know what condition I was going to be and even though
[02:44:05] I you know I was talking in the helicopter and he had to decide whether I could survive even
[02:44:15] what he was going to do to me during surgery and he felt strongly that I had the wheel that I
[02:44:24] wasn't going to die and he told me after the fact with brain injuries and head injuries he said
[02:44:32] there was a smell that somebody gave off that he could tell if they weren't going to make it
[02:44:36] turn out and he said I did not have that smell and they had nurse there you know they're
[02:44:43] bickering back and forth whether you know he's fighting in the command whether they should use
[02:44:47] their resources to save me and I guess there's a line in the hospital there once you cross
[02:44:54] over that line surgery has to take the patient you can't push him back so the head nurse at the
[02:45:02] time which I'm still friends with I'm not going to mention her name because I don't want to
[02:45:06] get in any trouble push me over that line so surgery had to take me so they began to operate on
[02:45:16] me the neurosurgeon spend approximately four and a half hours operating on me they actually
[02:45:22] moved the whole frontal skull piece off my head my frontal all my frontal forehead is now titanium
[02:45:32] they got the bleeding stopped they got they put a valve in there to regulate my pressure
[02:45:39] and then the eye surgeon came in and he's like she's like talking to the main doctors like he's
[02:45:45] really survivable am I going to spend all this work on somebody where he's just going to be sent home
[02:45:51] in a box and that was a possibility but he says I think you know he's gonna make it show she
[02:45:58] spent approximately eight hours piecing my eyes back together with a microscope and there's work she
[02:46:07] did has given me the opportunity in the future to be able to potentially see more my left eye
[02:46:16] has some light perception and I can see some moving in my left eye and I can see them shapes so
[02:46:21] there's a bigger color contrast between light and dark so she piece of my eyes back together so
[02:46:29] the next day one of my best friends and my unit he wasn't on another part of the country trying to
[02:46:34] get some other ops together he makes it there and he flies back and roots the states with me
[02:46:40] of course they have me on this big I guess medical plane you know pretty much each patient has their own
[02:46:48] nurse and everything and we're in route back to the states and of course they're then in my family
[02:46:53] know what happened and everything and at the time I was engaged and I told my fans at the time I said
[02:47:02] don't if I can't get a hold of you you can't get a hold of me I'm out of an op when I get back in
[02:47:08] will Skype or in all text you are call you I said only worry if two people come knocking on the door
[02:47:18] so she was a nurse she worked night shift and she Afghanistan was like eight hours hours different
[02:47:24] and she here's a knock on the door that morning she had back from work and she goes to the
[02:47:30] door and she sees two gentlemen through the window she doesn't recommend and they put their badges
[02:47:34] out and she's like oh shit so she opens the door and she starts balling they're like he's not dead
[02:47:42] he's insurgery we don't know but he's alive at this point so they get all my family notified and
[02:47:49] everything and then we had to fly over to law and stole Germany and they have pretty good medical
[02:47:55] thing there with my buddy Travis and it was the pressure my head was rising they kept me there for
[02:48:00] three nights and then they flew me to Andrew's Air Force Base I was gonna say dover but you don't
[02:48:11] want to make it a dover is that means you're dead so they flew me to Andrew's and then had all my
[02:48:18] family at the hospital and all the people from D.A. and everything that the higher ups and you know
[02:48:23] some of the other people on that team's waiting to receive me so they take me be ambulance over to
[02:48:29] Walter Reed National Naval Medical Hospital and Bethesda Maryland so they when I arrived they let my family
[02:48:39] see me they plan on doing some other surgeries there but of course I'm a mess I have no frontal
[02:48:45] skull piece my head's okay didn I guess you know I'm swollen I got a tube coming out and
[02:48:51] almost every part of my body and they let my family see me and at the time
[02:48:58] my fiance was a intensive care nurse she's seen a lot of trauma a lot of bad things but I
[02:49:09] guess when she saw me of course when it's your loved ones it's different she put her hand on
[02:49:14] them out screamed ran out of the room and passed out her dad had to help her off the floor you know
[02:49:20] it's when it's somebody you love and care about it's different so they brought me in there they
[02:49:26] did some surgeries on me they reattached my retinas they cleaned up my head area more
[02:49:34] and preparation for putting my plate on my metal plate that I have now on later
[02:49:40] they don't want to put it on too quick was a chance of rejection is greater and everything so
[02:49:45] they want to wait so they do that and then they put me in an induced coma
[02:49:54] with that that profile you know want to maybe call it the Michael Jackson drug the one
[02:50:01] Michael Jackson used to sleep got on rest Michael Jackson you know got rest of soul it works
[02:50:06] very good for putting people in a coma because you can reverse them real quick but not necessarily
[02:50:11] it's not not necessarily prescribed for sleep so they had me on that and they had me
[02:50:18] intubated and everything so they had me an induced coma for about a week and then when they
[02:50:23] were getting ready to bring me out of the coma they didn't know how I was going to be even though
[02:50:29] I was talking and making sense on the helicopter and all that with the additional trauma of the
[02:50:35] surgeries they wouldn't know if I could speak at all but I remember anything what I have my same personality
[02:50:42] but they certainly surely after they learned I was the same smart ass Joe I was before
[02:50:47] you know I was looking for you as the first they asked me you know where do you live
[02:50:54] I'm like oh Detroit Michigan what do you do? I'm a police officer what's your dog's name
[02:50:59] I said Max I was my very first dog I had when I was a kid but I soon surely after I got my bearings
[02:51:05] I knew who I was at the particular time I knew was working for and everything so then started my road to
[02:51:14] recovery you know so now I'm blind I'm not an abesh you know best condition physically at this
[02:51:24] particular time because of the injuries you know so they began to start my recovery process
[02:51:33] and I was on a feeding tube for a while so they had to pull that out and they trick you
[02:51:39] they say okay we're gonna pull us out on three one two like oh you didn't wait for three I was like
[02:51:49] I'm like we say that because we want to catch you by surprise you don't want you to say three
[02:51:53] then pull and then you tighten it and it makes it worse so I had to learn how to eat solid food
[02:51:59] and I failed a couple swallows studies at first and you know of course I'm losing weights by the
[02:52:05] minute because I'm not being active and the people at the hospital those he's got a lot of muscle he's in good shape
[02:52:10] you know he's and Mike's wife said to time where I experience a you didn't see him before
[02:52:16] so we started making them feed me you know like insure in between meals and stuff to try to put some
[02:52:21] more weight on and we do things like okay today your task is okay Joe have you put your shorts on
[02:52:27] and your t-shirt and your socks you know how long is it going to take you nice it you know obviously five
[02:52:32] or ten minutes or whatever so the one time I'm sitting there with the physical therapist and my
[02:52:38] X and I'm feeling these shorts and I'm like these don't feel like my size I'm like what size are these
[02:52:48] and of course my X doesn't say anything like a church mouse she's like she knows she's
[02:52:52] tumble with size they are I'm gonna throw a hissy fit so the therapist says let me see I'll tell you
[02:53:01] she goes there medium I took those shorts I threw them across your my son I'm a big fellow I
[02:53:06] were extra large if I would have put those extra large shorts and everybody would fell straight to the floor
[02:53:11] because when I got shot I was probably 230's really lean and they would weigh me on the bed every day
[02:53:18] I was down I got down to like 160 something so those shorts would what was the time frame for that
[02:53:25] like a month two months I spent two months there not she's not not long so we got over that and then I was I was confused and then
[02:53:40] of course my I doctor he was his name was Dr. Chung there and it's very serious man
[02:53:45] someone day we're sitting in my room my father's there with me and my team made Travis and Dr. Chung
[02:53:51] walks in and Travis is like Dr. Chung I want to tell you Joe thinks he's African American
[02:54:00] I was all jacked up so I'm talking in acting like an inner city African American guy and
[02:54:06] then going everything Dr. Chung like are you serious and Travis is yes and then my dad's like well he is from Detroit
[02:54:15] so Dr. Chung about it's pretty serious but I don't he acted that way for a couple of days you know
[02:54:23] and then I got my bearings back so yeah it you know it progressed there and they did everything
[02:54:30] they can for me there and then they let me start doing like a little bit of work out stuff there and they brought
[02:54:37] me to like the little PT Jim area and they're like okay we're gonna have you do like some
[02:54:43] little dumbbell stuff and like okay tell me which way or the one 20s yeah with the way you know
[02:54:49] tell me it's good I said these are too heavy no these are too heavy these are too heavy okay these are good
[02:54:55] and then I found out after the fact actually Joe those were the pink dumbbells you were using
[02:54:59] oh no really by two pounds oh okay I'm getting it work you know yeah yeah you know so
[02:55:07] it did that and they start you know teaching you how to operate blind and I don't know for some
[02:55:15] goofy reason I thought I didn't have any skin on my head where my brain was I thought it was just like
[02:55:21] mesh so they're like Joe you need to take a shower we need to get your shower I'm like I can't get my
[02:55:28] brain wet and Max was like Joe you have skin there I'm like oh I do so you kind of lose all your
[02:55:35] dignity you gotta go in the shower with this you know this nurse or whatever they're all
[02:55:39] gowned up and all this rubber gear and you just you know standard with your birthday suit on
[02:55:44] but naked I'm like guess I'm taking the shower you know it's so how long was this you know recovery
[02:55:51] process how long did you stay with it was this still taking place at Bethesda yes that was there for
[02:55:56] two months two months when so you lost freaking whatever you went from 230 to 160 something yes
[02:56:04] and now you start rebuilding yes and and when you start rebuilding is that really starts take place
[02:56:11] when you get out of Bethesda yes was they transferred me down to the McGuire V.A. down in
[02:56:21] Richmond Virginia you know after that so it was kind of nice but we're getting close to Christmas
[02:56:27] time now ish and so on the weekends they let me go home as long as I came back Sunday night
[02:56:37] and I got to go home for the holidays and then we became started doing a lot learning there a lot
[02:56:42] more how to operate in a blind world like use the blind cane use some of the voice over stuff like
[02:56:50] on the computer and things like that and I began to let me start working out more there you know
[02:56:59] so during this time I'm like I don't know what's going to happen to me or not happen to me and
[02:57:06] how like our administrator at the time her name was Michelle Lynn a hard she was like in charge of us
[02:57:13] yes my buddy Travis what is Joa he's like Joa wants to keep working she goes will make it happen
[02:57:19] so even the I didn't meet the physical requirements to be a DA agent anymore they kept me honest
[02:57:25] a DA agent after this because they figured out the money you make a lot more retiring as a regular
[02:57:31] agent rather than taking a medical disability so they kind of hooked me up and during my stay in
[02:57:39] Walter Reed Bethesda hearing my teammates and my parents talk about they're supposed to bring
[02:57:51] all these wounded service members back home overseas tore up bad the line is a younger kids
[02:57:57] when this happened to me I was like 41 years old I lived a pretty damn good life
[02:58:02] and a lot of these kids maybe not married maybe newly married maybe just had some
[02:58:11] you know a child and you know their life is drastically changed forever so when I would have my
[02:58:17] pity party and why me woe was me you know I would say Jo it always could be worse somebody always
[02:58:27] has it worse than you you know you can't control what you don't have anymore all you can do
[02:58:36] it's working work with what you have now so in life when bad things happen we can make a couple
[02:58:46] choices we can let life pass us by or we can get out there and do as much as we can do and I made
[02:58:54] a commitment to myself that I'm going to try to do as much blind as when I could see I didn't know
[02:59:01] how that was going to look but I made that commitment and when there's a will there's a way
[02:59:11] if you want to figure out how to do stuff and make stuff happen it may not be the same way you
[02:59:16] used to do it it may take you a lot longer but if you really want to do something bad enough you can do
[02:59:25] it so I made that commitment right there right then and I tell people when I talk it's not been
[02:59:33] easy every day's a struggle for me I still wake up every day blind you know I've had a very
[02:59:39] serious severe traumatic brain injury I've had I've pretty bad PTSD because of it and I've done
[02:59:48] stuff to manage and mitigate that and you know when I talk you know with the amount of suicide
[02:59:55] from service members in this and that you know a lot of us want to play work tough and it doesn't
[03:00:00] affect us and this and that but you can't get help unless you admit you have it and ask for the help
[03:00:07] as there are things and things out there and I got the Stelik gangly and block shot which helps
[03:00:12] for PTSD you have a Stelik land in your neck when you have PTSD that land gets all screwed up
[03:00:19] and they go in and dead in the gland and it's kind of like reboots your brain and your computer
[03:00:23] and it helps you tremendously you know so there's things things out there so there's things that
[03:00:31] I've went on and done since I've been blind I've turned them skydive jumped and a buddy of mine
[03:00:41] his wife on Monterey California runs a skydiving place and before I wanted to turn them jump but
[03:00:48] I'm always kind of been over the weight limit and he says for a tandem he's like what you know
[03:00:54] what are you gonna weigh Jocelyn about 240 right now and I knew I couldn't be over two he says come up
[03:01:01] it will make it happen so he's when we weighed in his wife on the places tell me way 230
[03:01:08] so my tandem guy this jump with me takes look at me so we're gonna fall real quick you're like
[03:01:13] how far do you want to how hard do you want to jump Joe? Is it high as we can go? So I guess we
[03:01:19] jumped at 16,000 feet wow and I guess that's the highest you can go without we should go without
[03:01:25] ox you know you know any higher neck you want to be on oxygen and any higher in that you need to get
[03:01:31] FAA approval so we were the first ones that go out of the bird and I don't know if it's worse being able
[03:01:37] to see or not you know we jumped out of a king air you know the open that door and that wind's
[03:01:45] just rushing you know where the first they tell you what to do you know and we're gonna rock back
[03:01:50] on you know one two three then go and then you know put your arms back and then how to land properly
[03:01:56] and stuff but it was it was definitely a kick in the pants I'm gonna do it again probably yes
[03:02:02] with him I'm nuts and even in the hospital we're talking about my frontal brain low bangery
[03:02:08] the doctors told my parents we can never be trusted with a credit card anymore he might just
[03:02:12] be at work and take all this clothes off my mom's like wait in make good decisions to be
[03:02:17] again with so he's not gonna lose much there it affected me to an extent but didn't affect
[03:02:24] me to the extent where it could have thankfully so I also do I kind of I couldn't shoot blind
[03:02:32] with special optics so how does that work um on top of your rifle where scope would
[03:02:39] sit you have like it's like a high speed video camera that has built in Wi-Fi and it projects to
[03:02:49] a tablet or a smartphone and basically it'll show on tablet or a smartphone like a site picture
[03:02:57] of a scope and you got to you know a system gunner a gunner and they tell me left right
[03:03:03] up or down and as long as I my breathing is controlled and I don't jerk the trigger I can hit a pie
[03:03:09] plate of 300 meters every time since I've been blind I've shot five deer two bucks and three
[03:03:18] dose I got two alligators in Louisiana with a we had a glass pistol with a laser sight and I
[03:03:27] remember before watching that show swamp people and I can see I said they're nuts I said you would
[03:03:32] never catch me in a million years doing that so opportunity came up hey Joe you want to go get her
[03:03:39] hunting oh yeah sure I guess that goes back to my poor decision making and I take it there was
[03:03:45] some pucker factor going on there buddy so I'm with another guy from fast and we were with the
[03:03:50] guy we were with his brother as a de agent and he with this guy works and then the oil business out
[03:03:59] and Louisiana in northern area and he does the gator hunting so we go to our couple of our lines
[03:04:07] and if the listeners and whoever said they've ever seen how they catch them you have a big
[03:04:14] like trouble hook with chicken on it and they set them up in the gator by such a game and
[03:04:20] gets caught in this hook and then you have to go and pull the gator up and then you got a shoot him
[03:04:25] now in the show like swamp people they gank on the line to try to get the gator to go nuts for
[03:04:31] the atrics for tv now how you want to do it you want to pull them off slow so they don't fight
[03:04:37] and a gator can only stand or water for so long and yada yada yada yada so we pulled to the first
[03:04:43] couple lines and they're not touched so we pulled to the third line and he's like oh shit we got a big one
[03:04:49] he goes on the bank he's got the chicken in his mouth he's about a ten footer so we roll up in this
[03:04:57] little John boat and we get to the line and the guy started to pull him in so on my my knees
[03:05:06] I got this clock with the laser sight on it 40 caliber clock you know and I could just press the
[03:05:11] the pattern laser sight you know when we're ready and he can kind of guide me in for the shot
[03:05:15] so we're he's pulling the gator in and the gator gets under the boat he's like oh shit
[03:05:25] so he's like okay we're not going to force this he's got eventually come up
[03:05:32] so I'm thinking you got the gator snout not too far from me I'm on my knees and I'm like Joe
[03:05:38] what the hell you doing out here I'm like you're blind and at this gator snaps
[03:05:44] to bite you you can't even see the jump back and then these locals are gonna be up
[03:05:49] you know we're gonna see after the fact that's certain right ain't no blind guy in no business
[03:05:53] out there anyway even tailed that guy even to see the blind out there hunting alligator to get my arm
[03:05:58] bit off so believe me there was some pucker factor so the gator starts
[03:06:04] I like the fact that not only your little word you might lose your arm from a gator but you also
[03:06:08] don't want to look stupid and for exactly for you know it's always a key thing you got to look cool
[03:06:13] you know you can there now there's the blind guy one hour you know so the gator starts fighting
[03:06:23] a little bit and the guy is like shit he bent the hook and got off so he's like okay keep your eye
[03:06:31] on my buddies there with his pistol and he's got he takes the glock he's got a surface
[03:06:37] he can only stay down for so long so he goes look for the bubble so he goes I see bubbles
[03:06:41] he he goes he's coming up so he shoots some pow it's a head hit some again pow and the buddy
[03:06:49] I'm with he so I shoot him too he goes yeah so he shoots some so we go over to the gator
[03:06:55] and then we push him to the shore to try to get this big SOB on the boat
[03:07:01] so as we're trying to get him on the boat I hear another shot the gators already got three
[03:07:06] bullets in his head he opens his eyes again so the guy hits him in the head again hit he's done so
[03:07:12] he got this big big gator on the boat so it takes off all the rooms so we have to drop him off
[03:07:17] to try to check other lines and we went to our next line he had like a nine foot around there
[03:07:22] and he was putting up more of a fight and I got to shoot that one twice so that was kind of
[03:07:28] kind of interesting how box actually I was in Sun Valley Idaho last year
[03:07:35] during hyperbaric oxygen train retreatments because it increases stem saw activity
[03:07:42] trying to get a little more sight back and I got to downhill snow ski three times
[03:07:46] I did that when I was younger and it's kind of kind of counterintuitive a skin you want to lean forward
[03:07:53] in blind you don't want to lean forward when you're walking but you want to crack your head on things
[03:07:58] and I've actually got stitches a couple times and my eyebrows since I lost my sight but I was in a hurry
[03:08:03] so that was fun that was on my bucket list I tried slalom water skiing at our cottage up
[03:08:10] north this last year I used to ski a lot when I was young I just I popped up but I couldn't get my
[03:08:17] other foot in the rear boot I couldn't my balance was off with blind so I tried a couple times
[03:08:22] and at least I tried so I did that I ran 5k races blind and I've actually
[03:08:32] lost July I as you know I'm a little guy I became the first blind I have been me men's
[03:08:43] pro bodybuilder in history got my pro card so I did that and you know the sky's the limit you know
[03:08:53] there's different things you know you can do and you can't cry over spilled milk and you can
[03:08:59] just control what you can control and a lot of people ask me you know what are some of the hardest
[03:09:05] things getting used to being blind you I think one of the biggest thing you lose your independence
[03:09:12] I just can't get in the car and go somewhere myself or if I want to work out I just can't go by
[03:09:16] myself and so you have to rely on other people and you know I'm typical like the you know the law
[03:09:24] enforcement guy or the real type A what do I think by myself you know you can't you know if
[03:09:30] you're following behind and I'm just gonna take over you know you know you want to do it right
[03:09:35] do it yourself I have to learn how to slow it out and trust other people and which was probably
[03:09:40] good for me I had to learn to ask for help I wasn't good at that before but lucky I have a very good
[03:09:47] base of friends and teammates and family and DEA has really stepped up since I've been hurt
[03:09:56] myself or my family has never been without anything and at first being in crowds really freaked me out
[03:10:04] because being in law enforcement for as long as I have you're always taught to be aware
[03:10:10] you're surroundings I know you're not supposed to you know I'm trying to think of the
[03:10:24] word you know oh god it'll come to me but I was getting on this subject I was getting
[03:10:37] debriefed by like a psychologist situation and really we I felt that some form they're like
[03:10:44] one of the things was like you know do you feel comfortable in crowds and I said you feel comfortable
[03:10:51] in crowds and I was like well no and so you know those side card trist it's a female she looks
[03:10:58] at you see you know you she said you say you don't feel very comfortable in crowds and this was like
[03:11:03] I mean I I was back for my rack but you know whatever a little bit of time and she says you
[03:11:08] don't feel very comfortable in crowds and I said well no not really and she goes well why is that
[03:11:13] and I go well you know this terrors in America right yeah and she looked like she like whatever
[03:11:20] she started taking copious notes you know about my mental health or whatever which I was just like
[03:11:25] hey it's a reality you know it's a reality you know it's a reality you know it was always
[03:11:29] want to be aware of your surroundings okay where are my entrances where are my exit you know
[03:11:34] who looks suspicious who doesn't you know you're not trying to like stare you know type people but
[03:11:40] it's all what doesn't look right and at first being blind things sound to people
[03:11:49] were sound to closer than what they were or farther than what they were I was just real uneasy
[03:11:55] but over time I'd learn to deal with that so I'm not as jittery and stuff as I once was I just
[03:12:01] learned to you know trust the people around me and so you know that's one of the things people asked
[03:12:10] me do I have a service dog I don't I put in for one but then I got my left eye I had a chance to
[03:12:19] get an artificial corny in my left eye and they thought I could get back more vision than I did
[03:12:24] so I didn't want to take a dog from somebody who needed it more and the art of the
[03:12:28] person corny helped me seal a little better but not as much as we had hoped for so I still might
[03:12:37] get a service dog in the future they're pretty incredible what they can do. Yeah very incredible and
[03:12:45] you know people asked me do I get headaches and stuff like that and no I never had a headache thank
[03:12:49] God because people asked that question and you know they ask me you know what is you know what can
[03:12:57] you see what can you can see like I said earlier I can see shapes I can see light I can see some movement
[03:13:04] and I chart my left eye is 2400 to 2500 depending on the day anything over 2200 is the
[03:13:12] glee blind my right eye is nothing that's the side of bullet one into. I doctor shines of light I said
[03:13:18] I can think I can see a light but there's future with my left eye I have artificial cornea so
[03:13:29] there's help the thing is limiting my sight is my optic nerve and retina still very damaged
[03:13:34] but they are working on stem cell for that to regenerate that and they're still fairly confident
[03:13:41] in two to five years I could get more sight back which which would be nice and if I do that would
[03:13:50] be great but if not you know I'm still gonna keep soldier and on and do what you know and do what the hell
[03:13:57] you know I can do and they said you know you don't want to be the first for anything you want to
[03:14:01] let them work the kinks out of this this stuff first you know before we had all this mess with
[03:14:06] China you heard him doing the stem cells and everything over there and I asked my doctor so I go to the
[03:14:10] S best eye doctors that I can now to like you don't want to go over there Joe when the technology is good
[03:14:17] and it works we'll have it here too so you know just on standby to stand by for that
[03:14:25] you know so you know we'll keep going that I do my motivational speaking which gives me purpose now
[03:14:32] you know we've been you know took jobs and different things we're to serve people and serve the
[03:14:36] community I can't do my job the way I have in the past but for me to get up there and talk to
[03:14:44] people and tell my story one is therapeutic for me too to talk about it and two if somebody's
[03:14:53] having a bad day a bad year or bad whatever that the sea there's always somebody that has it
[03:15:01] worse it always could be worse so you know you got to count the blessings you have and be thankful
[03:15:08] for the things that you still have you can't cry about what you don't have anymore all you can just
[03:15:15] do is move on so you know I'm gonna continue doing the motivational speaking which is good you know
[03:15:22] and there's been groups I've talked to where I've got after action reports where people in the audience
[03:15:28] have we're gonna commit suicide and they heard me talk and they said my life's really not that bad
[03:15:36] you know I can do it you know so I tell people you know if I can do it you can do it you know I
[03:15:42] always had a strong will and I've always been very stubborn I kind of helped me survive but the
[03:15:47] stubbornness isn't always a good in relationships you know it was like it'd be a pain in the
[03:15:52] butt just asked my girlfriend you know and I do really preach the PTSD part two was
[03:16:02] losing way too many men and women for that so if you had you have it and I always knew I had it
[03:16:10] but I didn't get better until I admitted I had it but it's why I was still working I was afraid I was
[03:16:16] gonna lose my security clearance and this and that and in all actuality I would not have but you know
[03:16:24] there's things and treatments and things you can do for that like the Stelegangly and Block Shot is
[03:16:30] one a great thing for that you know finding a good fit with a therapist you know that
[03:16:37] you know can work with you so all those things important so to me I tell people
[03:16:40] it's my show to say you have it it's not my show to have it and say you don't have it you know
[03:16:48] so don't be you know a tough guy or tough gal there's help out there please you know seek that help
[03:16:55] yeah yeah I know it's for me you know one of my guys Ryan Job was also shot in the head
[03:17:03] and he also ended up losing his vision and unfortunately after that you know after one of the
[03:17:11] surgeries one of the many surgeries that he went through there was some there was some medical
[03:17:15] complications and he passed away but it's it's for me you know meeting you seeing you talking to
[03:17:25] you you know you had this you have the same kind of attitude that he had you know he he had been
[03:17:31] blind and he was doing all kinds of things he was climbing Mount Ranier he was he had shot a bull elk
[03:17:39] you know he was doing the kind of stuff that you're doing so it's it's awesome for me to see
[03:17:44] someone in your situation that has the same exact attitude that Ryan Job had just just a
[03:17:49] just a warrior badass that just was still driving on regardless oh I've one of the things
[03:17:54] if we got to another animal that I shot this past year I went to West Virginia and I shot a
[03:18:02] black bear so it was a female bear and I named it Penelope after the fact I got that stuff so that's
[03:18:12] my little Penelope what are the workouts you just do your normal workouts that you used to do for
[03:18:18] bodybuilding in the first place you and I've been doing it for so I might very first bodybuilding
[03:18:24] show was in 1993 I did the Central States of Michigan after college I was still looking to some
[03:18:29] big pet it I've always been a big guy and I'm pretty knowledgeable about nutrition and the
[03:18:34] workouts and stuff but I'm also smart enough to know there's always somebody who knows more than you
[03:18:40] so maybe I'm blind I can't see how I look I'm kind of feeling I'm getting leaner and this and that
[03:18:45] so I do have a coach so my coach I check in at least right now in the offseason every week
[03:18:55] send them pictures or videos how I'm looking and answering questions you know how is my appetite
[03:19:02] how am I feeling this way in that way you know getting blood work all the time to make sure
[03:19:08] everything is functional often the course I spent a shit ton of money on supplements and the
[03:19:14] coach kind of guy sees my okay you know we all you know you need to do maybe some work
[03:19:19] fat burning cardio you know we'll range your diet this way and also he sends me workouts too to follow
[03:19:28] you know depending on the time of year you know depending on the workout and the rep range and
[03:19:33] the amount of cardio I'm doing so it's important too you have to have a good coach you can trust
[03:19:40] too that's good but a lot of these coaches on front blow smoke up their client spots oh you look
[03:19:45] great you're going to be Mr. Olympia and this and that and it can't even win a local show you know
[03:19:50] it's like you know I've rather have somebody be honest with me you know hey Joe you know you
[03:19:55] looks like you're ready for this competition or you're not and please tell me how make the
[03:20:00] corrections I need to make or maybe we're going to have to wait on you know and do a later competition
[03:20:05] so you know we'll see what the future holds you know if I get some more sight back I would like to do
[03:20:14] you know some tactical training with people maybe some firearms training get more sight back I could be
[03:20:22] a coach for people getting ready for competitions but I couldn't just find now if I can't see
[03:20:26] all they look I can't really do a effective job you know so keep moving forward with those things
[03:20:32] and of any other opportunities pop up you know you know be willing to do those things and you know
[03:20:41] on 52 years old now you can't let these young guys beat you she got to keep yourself in shape
[03:20:47] you know it was working you know work overseas you know with the special ops guys and like how old are
[03:20:52] you 41 is it okay grandpa so I got a grandpa for you you know
[03:20:58] well hey that's awesome probably you're probably a good place to wrap up so if if people want to
[03:21:08] you know contact you for your speaking I know you're you're at joe p dot u s that's right right
[03:21:16] for your for your website yes I got a website it's got all my things speaking on there how to
[03:21:21] get a hold to me and I've spoken to all different kind of groups teams different kind of I've spoke
[03:21:26] to you know corporations I spoke to people at quickins alone so whoever wants to hear me run my mouth
[03:21:32] all talk to you awesome awesome echo you got any questions well yeah rewind a little bit
[03:21:38] back to Afghanistan uh heroin poppies and who's growing that and why how the the teller man
[03:21:46] makes the farmers grow it and the teller band is growing that because that's their money source
[03:21:53] income okay so who do they sell that to a lot of that heroin goes to Europe we get some of it
[03:22:01] over here on the United States but the great majority of it goes to the European consumers okay
[03:22:06] got it so you just like you know in Colombia and stuff like that Afghanistan is yet just another hub for
[03:22:12] another media yes and you know it's some you know a real big country that consumes out heroin is
[03:22:18] actually Russia too they have a pretty bad heroin problem there but you know it's a big money and
[03:22:23] that's you know what funds they're in search and seeing the problem is now that we're gone out of
[03:22:28] Afghanistan and how it's crazy there again they're just growing uncontrolled and like I said when we were
[03:22:36] hitting them hard we didn't eradicated but you can see it was having an effect but now it's just you
[03:22:44] know bonds I it's open now okay that must be as you look at like drugs you you spent so much time
[03:22:53] in the DA when you hear people talk about legalizing drugs what's your what's your thoughts on that
[03:23:00] and this is this my thoughts only um I have talked to numerous numerous drug addicts
[03:23:06] and the common drug that they start with is marijuana and in my opinion without a doubt
[03:23:17] it's a gateway drug and the marijuana that's out there now it's not the same marijuana they're
[03:23:23] even was 5 or 7 years ago it's so strong you know and it could lead the other things and you know
[03:23:29] we could you have a whole debate on that and every state that it's legalized um the auto
[03:23:36] accidents has really increased you know it's still illegal federally you know and and for some medical
[03:23:43] conditions you know I can see that it could be useful for but in my opinion a lot of people who use it
[03:23:51] say under the vise of medical it's just to get high you know and that's this that's this my opinion
[03:23:59] well Joe you got any closing thoughts
[03:24:01] just um everybody out there to soliciting you know like I said there's a wilderness away
[03:24:08] if you want to get something done you can get it done and just you know have that have that mindset
[03:24:14] and just keep going and if things get bad or down tomorrow's a new day make it through that day
[03:24:19] wake up the next day and give that next day hell awesome man thanks for joining us
[03:24:26] appreciate you coming on here appreciate you sharing these lessons that you've learned and and most
[03:24:32] important thank you for thank you for your incredible service and your incredible sacrifice
[03:24:37] for our nation and thanks for what you're doing today going around talking to people being here
[03:24:43] just continuing to inspire people to overcome whatever whatever adversity that they're facing
[03:24:51] it's incredible example that you set for all of us so thank you for being here and thanks for everything
[03:24:56] you do you quite welcome as my honor and privilege with that Joe pure sante has left the building
[03:25:04] echo which is it that oh so I'm used to and you mentioned this before too where
[03:25:13] very used at this point very used to you know military guys coming up their mindset their
[03:25:20] experiences stuff like that it was interesting even though it wasn't a huge deviation I don't think
[03:25:26] but it was like enough of a deviation to seem like a big change to go law enforcement you know
[03:25:34] and it particularly particularly I didn't grow up around drugs at all like I don't think I've
[03:25:40] ever even you haven't been to 500 math house no chef cook what math labs labs
[03:25:45] what yeah what he call it cook lab say labs or clan clan destiny clan destiny lab
[03:25:55] unit or something yeah oh no the answers no I have not I've never seen math before I've never
[03:26:03] seen I've seen cook before I've never seen her and before I've seen weed before weed is only one
[03:26:10] mm-hmm I'm it's I've seen a crack head with an empty crack pipe I don't think I've ever seen
[03:26:18] real crack before check well well definitely you could probably tell I was exploring the
[03:26:26] the police side of things and especially you know the the investigations side of things and
[03:26:31] I set up because that's let's face it that's all stuff that I'm not super familiar with and it's
[03:26:37] very interesting because it's all about human nature you know informants and dealers and police
[03:26:43] it's you know that's why they make all those movies about that kind of stuff because there's drama there
[03:26:47] right there's humans interacting you know in really stressful life changing environments
[03:26:53] yeah and so yeah definitely was interesting and and that's her you know he's he had a really
[03:26:59] I mean he's had a very interesting life to say the least yeah I mean you could probably write a book
[03:27:05] about that one big bus or the other big bus or the one big you know you could write a book about
[03:27:11] any of those things yeah and it would be very interesting and fascinating and you'd learn a lot
[03:27:16] so he's done that over and over and over again and then went to Afghanistan and then had a
[03:27:22] had a hit on his head in Honduras right I started thinking you know being in like being an iraq
[03:27:30] when you're out on patrol you think someone might try and kill you you think they
[03:27:33] all try to kill like you or someone near you it's not you at least I never felt that way
[03:27:42] I never felt like you know the bullets that say I always make this joke hey you know bullet say
[03:27:48] they don't you have a bullet with your name on it you have the bullet that says to whom it may
[03:27:51] concern yeah he had bullets plural with his name on it I don't really like that feeling
[03:27:58] I mean you want to talk about you think I'm paranoid right now which I am I'm paranoid about
[03:28:02] stuff right now if that was going on yeah I would be in of levels 12 alert mode no one to be
[03:28:11] getting near me it'd be pretty crazy to see I think yeah there's something very specifically
[03:28:19] sinister about a plan to kill you to kill you specifically right right yeah I don't think no I
[03:28:26] yeah no one's ever specifically said we're gonna kill Jocco other than Dean Lister made that one
[03:28:34] uh CD yeah he did kill Jocco CD but it was just a CD that was just music he wasn't actually
[03:28:40] trying to kill so it was somewhat of a conspiracy I will give him that the the Lawn
[03:28:46] Firstman part of it too which so a lot of times when you start to talk about iraq afghanistan
[03:28:52] and I understand what it does seem like okay that's a create that's a different time
[03:28:56] in a faraway place but now he's over here talking about everything Dean Lister like all this
[03:29:01] stuff and you're like man all this stuff right now is going on right now like probably pretty close
[03:29:06] to here oh well so and currently going on right now this moment yes like you know this moment
[03:29:11] there's an informant that's sitting buy in some drugs from somebody there's a bust about the
[03:29:15] happened right now something that I've literally no exposure to so to me that is like oh that's kind
[03:29:21] of crazy I did want to ask about lifting yeah but we would have been here for a while
[03:29:26] time I'd been along I thought you would at least want to compare by set workouts with them
[03:29:31] you know my man is getting his lift on well for sure which actually and I was gonna ask
[03:29:36] him to but he said he's age 52 right now and if you can look like that at 52 I mean I don't
[03:29:43] know if he's getting ready for a show or something like that but if you can look like that at
[03:29:48] 52 that's like it not only is it eye opening but like I'm letting you you know what let's just go
[03:29:54] and restate that if you can look like that at 20 or 32 or 42 it's true yeah I'd be less surprised
[03:30:02] but it does kind of set this a little bit better of a calibrated standard you know kind of gives
[03:30:07] like those of us who want to maintain muscle mass will say yeah kind of gives you some hope on now
[03:30:13] and you know he's not weak either oh for sure yeah and he didn't go into much but but I
[03:30:19] I you know read some stuff about him and some bios and stuff but he won all kinds of like
[03:30:24] you know awards for football and he's just a great athlete and just Jack and Steel so for sure
[03:30:31] for those of us that want to maintain muscle mass have you ever met someone that didn't I guess
[03:30:36] occasionally you get maybe a wrestler like a fighter or someone that's literally going down a
[03:30:42] weight class below there what they can cut you know sometimes people say oh I'm resting at 172
[03:30:50] I'm gonna go down to 162 and I'm already shredded so I'm going to lose muscle mass right
[03:30:58] occasionally that might happen I think when people get into some if they get into some
[03:31:03] endurance sports maybe like triathlon or something they might want to do some muscle mass maybe
[03:31:07] yeah and I'm taught wait what are you asking like is there if you ever known something that said oh I'm really looking to
[03:31:12] find it out how I can lose some muscle mass no negative a jett just for first formate
[03:31:18] sake yes that's essentially it but that's a rare case um just life in general they say after age
[03:31:25] whatever 30 or something like that like things like degenerate pretty quick or whatever
[03:31:31] that's weird and then muscle mass is one of those things where if you just lifted like you're
[03:31:36] gonna lose muscle mass as you get older straight up you're just gonna lose it uh my daughter was
[03:31:42] telling me my daughter's in college and she's studying but she was I was up with her and she was
[03:31:47] telling me that she was she's out there jack and steel and working out she got her little friend
[03:31:52] group and they which is cool because they're a little friend group they're all in the working out
[03:31:58] yeah it's good she turned in as she jits but she was telling me because she's studying
[03:32:03] something some kind of canyzeology some kind of physiology I keep reading what they call it now
[03:32:09] when I was younger so she studying nutrition science and what we used to call
[03:32:15] exercise physiology was a minor people would get right they don't call that anymore I
[03:32:20] figure what they call but that's what essentially canyzeology maybe that's what she I think that's
[03:32:25] but that's different than exercise physiology she's studying stuff she's studying stuff
[03:32:29] about working out okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay but she says she was saying
[03:32:34] hey when you if you don't lift you immediately start like losing muscle degenerate yeah and it's not
[03:32:43] it's not like I mean it doesn't matter like the process at the end of the day you're losing
[03:32:48] you're losing your muscle and a lot most of its functionality move it or lose it yeah and then
[03:32:54] resistance training which is lifting is the best one is the thing that induces muscle like growth
[03:33:00] and or maintenance depending on big muscle so yeah it makes sense so basically go lift please
[03:33:07] go work out you know I mean resistance rate that's another thing my daughter was saying
[03:33:12] all your bones yes your bones if you're not putting your bones under pressure yeah now that's
[03:33:19] because you could argue well you know running is good too which it is and you could say swimming
[03:33:23] good too out that's good too but you gotta put weight on your body you gotta put resistance on your
[03:33:28] body to make your bones stronger yeah yeah and that's the the point I think overall that I
[03:33:37] get from that the beginning of what you're essentially saying is all kind of exercise has its
[03:33:43] like major by the way when you compare it to no exercise all exercises have major benefits major
[03:33:50] they're all different though so good so good all right so if you're working out which you are you
[03:33:55] probably need some some fuel for you you get some jockel fuel jockel fuel dot com you can get
[03:34:02] protein you know you could get protein from a lot of places you get it from stake recommended
[03:34:08] chicken recommended sushi if you're not good Charles yes right yeah what percentage of
[03:34:13] protein do you get from sushi like 70% and the other 30% is milk I would literally
[03:34:20] say like literally probably like 50% not recently not but overall you may sushi at your house
[03:34:25] ever no you just have to get a place yeah and you know your place do you know do you know
[03:34:30] do they know your order already do you order the same thing all the time yes for your whole family
[03:34:34] everyone's getting everything like everyone's getting the same you're the case the Charles residents
[03:34:38] we need our food sign goes variable literally like you're I see your face and you're kind of making
[03:34:44] a joke but I mean kind of I'm being serious the answer is yes yeah in fact I call the place
[03:34:51] because there's a place literally walking distance from me they got to take out color ID yep
[03:34:54] I'll say they say I haven't seen it yet no it's not in the office right
[03:34:59] I'm getting cut raw yeah yeah I'll call they'll be like hi I'll go how are you that's it that's
[03:35:04] how they answer the phone yeah then I'll be like I want this I gotta say my order and she already
[03:35:07] knows boom boom boom boom yes full of how much is the cost oh it depends so some days they're
[03:35:13] closed or they closed late so if they closed it like 930 and there's another place that closed
[03:35:18] that midnight so I'll get it delivered it that made it down's way more and that was like 100 bucks
[03:35:24] per just for me okay yeah I'm about at the we're in the whole family no how about just you
[03:35:31] at the regular spot oh like 60 so okay that's a good deal given given like what I get they have
[03:35:38] good prices over there cocky sushi yeah well you probably gonna need some milk to watch that down
[03:35:43] yes sir to get this sweetness because sushi's not sweet right is it no sir it is not sweet
[03:35:49] and he gets the mochi ice cream afterwards I don't like mochi ice cream I don't like the taste like
[03:35:55] um tastes like uncooked no bread around oh what what they call that what do they call
[03:36:00] the taste like uncooked bread wrapped around a piece of ice cream who made that up right
[03:36:05] we made that up right what makes it funny is how accurate you can are it is right in a way like
[03:36:13] if you look at a certain way because it is essentially like a dough that's like dough okay
[03:36:18] uncooked but it's like the rice dough like it's it's mochi that's why you know what mochi is
[03:36:22] have you ever had mochi just mochi you know that wrapping that you're talking about it's just that
[03:36:28] but it tastes good bread and how are you can get it oh man it's the best but my family was like
[03:36:33] somehow amped about mochi and so they got me amped they got me hyped this size of a year's ago
[03:36:38] they all you know we get this dessert like we had to go somewhere to get it right so we get in the car
[03:36:43] we go we're gonna get mochi I get mine I'm like I'm the mine's cook because it does taste good
[03:36:51] right it's like dough what you said is dough is it mochi ice cream yeah there's yeah
[03:36:55] then there's there's ice cream in the middle of it but you happen to be said dough what was the
[03:36:59] point yeah that should do that why would do that you are right because it's not that sweet either
[03:37:04] so you're like oh I feel like my like no it's not so anyway all right so if you're not into mochi ice cream
[03:37:10] and you what cuz mochi ice cream is just ice cream really so that's not healthy mocha on the other hand
[03:37:14] no the way we're protein mochi mochi mochi doesn't matter like dough does taste like dry flour
[03:37:20] dough is it odd that I'm like there's a tiny tiny part of me that's kind of insulted that
[03:37:26] you don't like mochi or mochi ice cream it's like I'm like talking you never have that feeling
[03:37:31] where it's like one time okay so I'm a picky eater right I'm a picky eater I don't like a
[03:37:37] bunch of different foods I was out with my wife one time this is what she was my wife she was just
[03:37:42] a girl that I had met but I was kind of into her like a lot right but hey so I'm a your current wife
[03:37:48] correct wife yes I don't wife back then but we were going out and she wanted me to try something
[03:37:54] something I knew I didn't like I think it was yogurt but not yogurt you know I'm an American
[03:38:00] I'm an American that grew up in the 80s so so yogurt to me was a freaking dan in yogurt you
[03:38:07] know filled with sugar and blueberries like sauce on the bottom like that's the same
[03:38:13] those things are good cuz they're filled with sugar so but this was we were we were overseas
[03:38:18] and I had already made the mistake of thinking that yogurt overseas equated to a dan in
[03:38:25] sugar filled yogurt that I ate when I was 12 years old and eight nine of them because they
[03:38:30] tasted good but I realized that what other people ate yogurt it was just as weird tasting
[03:38:35] whatever with weird cucumbers and then or something not so anyways my wife who wasn't my wife
[03:38:42] yeah she's oh she's from England so she's all nice or whatever oh try this and I go oh no it's okay
[03:38:48] I don't really like that she goes now just try she's she had the same attitude that you're
[03:38:52] implying right now like she was kind of mad yeah as if you know as if you're saying oh I
[03:38:58] you don't like air but what do you mean you don't like air of course you like air she's like
[03:39:01] oh no no just try it's just it's yogurt it's good I go now I don't like this you know
[03:39:06] you know just try it and she started escalating kind of it and poached it's okay you know I take a
[03:39:12] little spoonful it's freaking disgusting I knew it was I mean it was you know so so so mochi
[03:39:20] whatever ice cream is in that bad yeah I can stomach it but I'm not gonna make an effort to eat it
[03:39:27] now moke I will make effort to eat moke is you you get that hey I will do what it takes to get some
[03:39:34] moke up in here you know I last night had a moke shake double with a ham it wasn't ham is turkey sandwich
[03:39:42] boom that's a full that's a that's a pleasurable scenario yeah you know I know it was the basic moke
[03:39:48] shake by the way what's basic just the milk it was lactose free milk okay because I had it for
[03:39:54] some other stuff as me and just regular moke that's it no no banana no nothing but you got that
[03:40:00] little Sammy on and then you put down that moke that's a quality scenario right there you go oh yeah
[03:40:07] yeah and it was like no matter if I was into the extra protein at the time and it was but even if I
[03:40:12] wasn't it's like kind of like a cool little shock like a good job of fuel calm I could get the
[03:40:20] drinks at wallaw you can get all the development shop appreciated go to origin us a dot com we got some
[03:40:26] cool stuff for sale there boots jeans t-shirts most important duties you use I train some I train some
[03:40:35] you get you to up at paragon sandals it's so cool man you go anywhere right now and there's
[03:40:45] jujitsu and the people are awesome everyone's cool it's just freaking legit great class
[03:40:50] but bunch of awesome people there so and you know you get I you know it's interesting a lot of
[03:40:58] origin geese out there lot of origin geese out there people want to buy origin geese because they know
[03:41:04] that they're made in America I saw I don't know what you call it a mini doc it it was video
[03:41:12] about like American manufacturing or it was about manufacturing and they were just it was talking
[03:41:17] about what kind of the history of it or whatever and the reasons that you know whether be China or
[03:41:22] all the foot like it's kind of like they they kind of have to do the manufacturing for all these
[03:41:27] different reasons and it depends on the product and all this stuff right but they kind of have to do it
[03:41:32] otherwise it's kind of like that was kind of the storyline but then there were there a few exceptions
[03:41:38] in there that they didn't go specific on but they were just like trying to doing this this because of
[03:41:44] this and to do it anywhere else it's like it's it's just unrealistic you know kind of a thing
[03:41:49] but then all the exceptions when I kind of like deduced all the exceptions I was like oh wait that's
[03:41:54] why origin can do all this stuff they do have to make certain sacrifices but with the sacrifices comes
[03:42:00] like more basically the detriments that that places like China or whatever they call them what are they
[03:42:04] called affordable labor affordable labor it's freaking slave labor bro yeah um it's kind of like
[03:42:12] that for example but here you get basically each laborer or whatever they have like actual quality
[03:42:20] of life oh that reflects on the end product kind of a thing so anyway you can kind of go
[03:42:26] down the line and be like oh I see but here's the thing at the end of the my point is it's like what
[03:42:30] they do is like dang that's kind of not kind of that's like that's a very unique thing that they're
[03:42:36] doing who's they or origin USA us we are unique thing that we are doing so yeah go to origin
[03:42:44] USA dot com for that we also have a store it's called echo store yeah that's the forting your
[03:42:53] jocco store dot com so you can read that's where you can get your shirts and have your merch good
[03:42:59] stuff on there too by the way it's not just like cheap you know what you call low cost
[03:43:05] uh to the you know lowest common denounator lowest bitter what is that expression it's not
[03:43:11] either whatever the expression is it's not that it's quality good stuff you want to represent
[03:43:15] represent hard and look good and feel good by the way yes you can get all kinds of good stuff
[03:43:19] from their jocco store dot com uh subscribe to the park and also check out jocconogram dot com
[03:43:26] it's very interesting what's happening right now in the world you and look yeah there's just a
[03:43:33] war going on right now and insane war right uh uh uh war the likes of which we have not seen
[03:43:39] in a long time in in Ukraine so that's happening but meanwhile you got just crazy things happening
[03:43:47] all around the world you got censorship happening got people shutting down websites shutting down
[03:43:54] people from speaking you've got control media influenced by the government influenced by
[03:44:00] big tech all and well it's it's crazy stuff happening right now jocconogram dot com if you want to
[03:44:05] help about where we have a little little bastion of our own where if we need to retreat to
[03:44:11] to rebuild will be in there jocconogram dot com if you want to support that you can check that out
[03:44:16] we will be youtube channel we have the origin USA has a youtube channel so check both those out
[03:44:24] what else we got psychological warfare hmm it's a little album the ones that you can uh you can
[03:44:29] download this album if you and if you have moments a week this it's basically joccon telling you how
[03:44:34] to get past those moments a week it's very helpful on those moments trust me you need to
[03:44:39] you don't have a lot of them you can just have one okay it's no one reduce it to zero maybe you're
[03:44:44] addicted to mochi uh folks i can't have a stock com the code of my room a brother is getting
[03:44:50] got cool stuff to hang on your wall i've written a bunch of books check them out if you want to
[03:44:54] especially take out the warrior kid books that's where you can have a huge impact you can have a
[03:44:58] huge impact on the kids life just by getting that kid those books so check that out echelon front dot
[03:45:05] com star leadership consultancy we have a event called the monster we have one in Dallas it's sold
[03:45:12] about so sorry about that but we have other ones you can check that out we have
[03:45:19] online training at extrem ownership academy extremownership dot com a bunch of information on
[03:45:26] there about being a leader and about being a human being you'll help you with everything in your
[03:45:32] life so check that out if you want to help out service members active and retired you want to help
[03:45:36] with their families gold star family check out marklies mom mom elie she's got an incredible
[03:45:40] charity organization go to america's mighty warriors dot org if you want to help out also check out
[03:45:46] heroes and horses mica think it's got a bunch of awesome stuff going on once again
[03:45:51] uh to contact jopier sauntay his his website is joe p dot u s and he's also got a linkedin
[03:46:05] account which is jopier sauntay and he's got a Facebook as well which is jopier sauntay i
[03:46:13] b b b f pro pro yep international body building federation pro so check that out as far as echo
[03:46:27] and i go we're both on twitter we're both on the ground we're both on Facebook echoes at echo
[03:46:32] Charles i'm at jockel and you know just look out because you you're you step in there you're
[03:46:38] gonna be fighting the algorithm you that's what's happening you're gonna be fighting the algorithm
[03:46:41] so be careful when you step in there thanks once again to jopier sauntay for coming on
[03:46:48] for just sending a credible example of
[03:46:53] tenacity and of perseverance and i mean just him saying him putting
[03:47:01] the perspective of becoming blind becoming wounded becoming blind and and he said yeah no you can't
[03:47:08] know you's crying over spilled milk to put those two in the same sentence and actually behave that way
[03:47:16] truly inspiring person so thank you jopier coming on and thanks to all the military personnel out there
[03:47:21] around the world that stand up and fight for freedom and liberty and i know there's some of you out
[03:47:27] out there right now that are truly standing up and fighting for freedom and liberty so thank you
[03:47:33] for holding the line and thanks to our police and law enforcement and tonight especially thanks to the
[03:47:39] DEA the drug enforcement agency men like jopier sauntay that are out there trying to protect us all
[03:47:48] from the evil of drugs and the violent crime that it produces and also thanks to firefighters
[03:47:56] paramedics for patrol EMT's dispatchers correctional officers secret service all the first responders
[03:48:06] thank you for your service here on the home front and
[03:48:16] everyone else out there well what excuses do you possibly have right if someone like jop
[03:48:25] can go through what he's gone through can suffer what he suffered can still go out there every day
[03:48:31] and get after it and you know he said something he said you can't make a case it behind a desk
[03:48:40] and that's some pretty good advice not just for law enforcement but for life
[03:48:46] what you have to do is go out there every single day and get after it
[03:48:52] until next time this is echo and jokko out