Jocko Podcast 351: SEALS, Spec Ops, and Psychedelics w/ Marcus & Amber Capone

2022-09-15T18:00:33Z

Underground Premium Content: https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe Join the conversation on Twitter/Instagram: @jockowillink @echocharles The story and life lessons from US Navy SEAL, Marcus Capone. Fighting TBI, PTSD, and Demons with Psychedelic medicine. How to stay on THE PATH: JOCKO UNDERGROUND Exclusive Episodes: https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe Jocko Store Apparel: https://www.jockostore.com Jocko Fuel: https://jockofuel.com Origin Jeans and Clothes: https://originmaine.com/durable-goods/ Echelon Front: https://www.echelonfront.com

AI summary of episode

but like I said, 10 times, I think I said it 48 times, but knowing a lot of guys that have gone through this kind of thing and just talking to Marcus, man, you know, when he's like, I said to him on the podcast, I'm like, dude, it's hard to even imagine him getting like mad or, you know, throwing a coffee cup through a window or what, you know, like this guy, he's, he's chill. There's like a weird, I don't know if that's the wrong word, but when you're living your life and everything's like you're saying you got goals, you got things that you want to do and you got a long term vision and you got kids and when people die that you know that are your friends and then there's this like, there's this thing of like, well, they're gone and the world is still going. Like, you know, black hawks come in, ropes go out, you know, fast rope, you know, charge on the gate, like boom, everybody, you know, like it was like a real op. Is it like a beautiful, like beautiful home, overlooking the water, everything, perfect food, uh, staff, seem like a hospital or does it seem like a does not seem like a does not seem like a, but it is set up with hospital equipment. And then I feel like it's in my face and then like just start like, like, like raking me like raking my high. Like, what if he did take it and it like made you, because you know how like some people they're so driven, but because of like something that's kind of off in their mind, I feel like that's kind of you in real life. I just had a good CQC block and like I was saying, you know, like, like was one of the, I was the top like pistol shooter and with the right, that's where I was like struggling with the rifle. Yeah, like there's something probably significantly like off with you, but it's sort of like just by happenstance like works for you, you know, some people are like that. And like they had this thing that you didn't, you know, like I had a platoon commander who was an awesome guy and he had been in Grenada and was like, you know, he had, he had slayed the dragon and we were all just looking at him like, yeah, he was the coolest guy ever. I just like, I just want to know how to like just like pound, pound, pound or, you know, gouge your eye out or just like stick you in the gut with a knife and just get the fuck out of here. And again, I didn't like have, I had no mentors, you know, um, you know, as you know, a lot of the, you know, the officers that go on either go to the academy or they have, you know, congressmen, like they just, they have a better network. Um, but it took me a while and I tell people, I was like, no, I actually had to like really focus and practice and like stay late or, you know, go out to the range in the evening when guys were like hanging it up because I just, there was just something not right about not being proficient at it. But again, I don't want people who are listening to get the wrong idea that, that this is a one and done or it's like a magic pill because, you know, everybody would be rushing to do it and think like, again, you know, all my answers, you know, be solved and just this, you know, this bottle right here, it takes a lot of work. So it's really just like a lack of just like, like if you just like slumped your shoulders down and just like not gave a fuck anymore, that's really the... Like, like when you shoot, like you show up and you're like, Oh, Marcus 57 out of 60, like what? I mean, I think that was like a lot of the blood and gore or like, you know, you'd go to try to pull the trigger and like the magazine would fall out or like the barrel would melt. Cause it's like, I guess it like rewires your, the way I always saw it was like all year, the way you regard it, the way you create meaning or whatever it has to do with like all your past experiences mixed with how you're, you know, you're genetics or whatever. But what we're seeing is, um, some of the stuff that I was experiencing, you know, as I was transitioning out of the teams and like the years of like, you know, if you want to call it co-morbidity of other things, like, oh, he's a little depressed and maybe he's got some TBI's And you know, it's even, it's not just him saying it's like religion is like all the religions are like life is suffering and the Buddha is like, oh, it's suffering Like I take every supplement that I can find that says this reduces inflammation or this helps you, you know, think clearly or, you know, whatever it is like new tropics, like I'll try anything now that says, Hey, this is going to make your brain younger. So when I see things like that, and then you have like a real conservative, like, you know, Rick Perry just like on board. Like, come on, like, that's just, you're going to, you're going to get more people like me that are like, fuck this. Mission was going after different like, like different cells, different Taliban cells that were, but like larger, it was almost like a little bit different. And I started researching this and suddenly I was like, I remember going to the garage and calling my best friend and I was like, I feel like I've just read about a terminal diagnosis like this shit is scary. He his whole face was like, um, like you couldn't, it wasn't bad, bad, like, but it was like, if you took a picture, you almost unrecognizable because the, I guess the frag going that fast was so fast. And like everything else I've had, I have days of like, I don't want to call it joy, but just, you know, up like some uplifting days, but the majority of days were down and you know, including weeks on end. I was very uncomfortable and I was raised, you know, super conservative and I feel like, you know, I was in the survival mode and suddenly like this piece had come and in the car on the way there, I had this moment where I was like, I can't go. I, I body slammed a student in front of the flagpole and like one of the, one of the instructor staff grabbed me and he was like, Hey man, so you, like you're going to get a lot of trouble if you don't fucking like tone it down. Like there's no chance that something is going to work because we've tried all the stuff that we're supposed to like guys that, you know, other team guys have gone to have gotten better or not gotten better, but something that I thought was crazy that I read about seemed like it was crazy. And I remember going back and telling Admiral, I was like, hey, I was like, if you want good people to like stay in, you guys got to figure out this OCS thing after guys are going over to see us to war for 10 or 15 years. So we go out myself, the fullback who was my roommate who's just a stud, you know, like 600, 400 pound guy, like a squat bench, you know, that type of dude and can run like a four, five, 40. But I, you know, I committed just because like I sometimes maybe like you, I feel like a, you know, guinea pig. They have like a, you know, they have their standard list of like SOP, you know, like what's, how's your home life? Uh, you know, you guys are talking about like, you know, Fred the shaman from Wisconsin or whatever, you know, whatever this, like just going into random places and doing it or at a Slayer concert. So what if you took psychedelics and then like now you're like, you kind of you're kind of like more lazy or like you don't work as hard anymore. The people that were getting out like after, you know, soon as a platoon wouldn't go to, um, you know, Iraq or Afghanistan, like guys were getting, you know, you saw it out here. Like, yeah, just like, oh, hey, we go, what's your, like every day was like that. Cause I remember in the nineties, like if a guy did a mission, like singular, like one mission, it was like, Hey, do this guy's combat experience. And then I got into like some other stuff in high school, like trying to think like kind of Lollapalooza, ESC, music, Pro Jam, you know, everything that was coming out of Seattle. It was just like, it was just like this relief that I never had before and all this like pent up frustration that Amber's talking about that just like went away. Like, oh, we, we spun it like twice, like twice a week or like, no, no, the whole phase. Why aren't I like, why don't I like hitting you, put my knee on your chest, like get up and go to my sidearm or pull out something and stick you with it or just like push you and get away. And like, so every time I saw this guy, I was like, I was in awe, you know, and of course, then when I got the team, they're like, oh, that shit. Like I was not mentally like focused or determined or like driven or like any of it. And sometimes you enter in this funk, you know, and I was still working out and like doing everything, but it's just a fun, you just have a funky day the next day, like you're dragging and sometimes it would go all the way into your mind where I would have these real low level mundane feelings of what kind of what he was talking about where it's like, why bother? All his arms and legs were like covered in like, he looked horrible, but he was like super excited to see us because he was, you know, he thought he was going to get his head cut off for it. I like people, I don't know why people get the impression that I would like be, uh, yelling and screaming, but I'd never like for my kids played sports. So like one other team guy that we had known at the time who'd done this and his situation was like, you know, more of a crisis situation where ours was like very deliberate and we had been, we'd known about it and talked about it on and off for a year, but it seemed crazy. Like to me, that's a check engine light in the car of like just about every team guy you know, like when they see other team guys, they're stoked. And like I said, from what, from initially what I thought was, you know, I'll, I'll use the term crazy to, it started to make sense that again, these were intended for medical use and, you know, it was stigmatized because we all know it as just crazy, crazy drugs that people around the sixties and seventies, you know, ran around concerts doing, losing their minds. And then once the storm is over, like, you know, you think about like any natural disaster we lived in on the East coast, hurricanes, like preparing and surviving the hurricane isn't the hard part. So like this, the sort of time where I was reconnecting with just a greater wisdom of how to handle the situation, I was overcome with compassion for him and like seeing him for his struggles and for them seeming to be out of his control where before I always thought like you're, you know, you could figure it out. And I remember them like having this like hatred and just, you know, like we're about to go to war guys. Like I was like trying to cover up my face thinking like, okay, if I just get wounded, you know, it'll be okay, but just not my face or my head. And so I was like on a mat at like seven, you know, in most of those places you didn't get to wrestle like junior high or maybe even high school. and he used to be so like regimented and like, you know, everything had a place and everything was organized and he was just kind of like this disorganized functioning, but chaotic guy now. And do you actually notice it or is it like the proverbial like boiling of a frog where it's just like the frog doesn't know that the water is getting hot until it's all Even, I mean, from my perspective, I had been in the SEAL teams for like 10 years at this point and, you know, you thought like everyone was, I was paranoid that, you know, I wasn't going to get any. I showed up and you know, you have all the Marines and yelling and shit and you have like a rack like this and they're like, fuck is this guy? and I was just, I don't know, I was in a different gear and they're like opponents sit down like a higher gear, like doing better. Still don't know how they didn't recognize us full on engagement, like full on gun run, not just like, oh, there might be a position of more, like we were, we were engaging a small group that was engaging us. Like, did he give you any impression of like, Hey, you know, the military's dumb or you shouldn't join it or whatever, anything like that? I mean, I left NICO with, you know, with, you know, some, you know, the FMRI is showing like, oh, you have these dead and partially brain that, you know, aren't working. When you're, when you're abusing it like that, not when you're like using it for like replacement therapy, you know, where they're trying to keep your levels at around. But like actually something really can happen, but you approach it with respect and you take care and you make sure you, you tape them correctly and you know, you, you know, you don't pull the, you know, drop this, you know, drop the grenade, throw the spoon or whatever. And you know, it was like that thing going on, you know, and I thought it was funny, but I do tell this story, um, because I trained every morning I went in, we had, um, you know, Kuchy had his guys every day. And then the third thing that happened, which was like the true rock bottom, the culmination of my son feeling these things, me feeling these things, was when our daughter was riding with Marcus and he had gotten into some like road construction and sort of like got lost or got off track Like, you know, you'd heard of like a death or two, a training accident or, you know, someone died overseas, but until that helicopter went down, I sort of thought team guys were invincible. It really threw me in the best ways and also in the worst ways because then you start to doubt it and second guess, like it's too good to be true and like you're sliding your walls down and you're like, oh, don't do that because this isn't going to last. But a lot of these places, as soon as you leave, like it's kind of like they forget you, you know, so they collect your money, which are some of these are astronomical, you know, K 30 K two weeks a month, whatever it is, and then you leave and they forget about you. Like they do a bunch of stuff that are really, in my opinion, for people who could like barely walk and talk, you know, or have, you know, autism and all these other things. But I mean, what you're talking about, Amber, like the fact that you feel that as like a mom and a wife, even you felt like I'm glad he's going to get to do his job. But I hear you now because like we live in Coronado and I love it because I get to see my bros, like guys that are contractors, they come in like, Hey, what's going on? So I at that point just said, you know, fuck my career, because I was still like trying to figure out like to get into corporate America and, you know, whatever.

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jocko Podcast number 351 with me, Jocko Willink.
[00:00:07] Master Sergeant Andrew Christian Marcosana
[00:00:10] was born in Phoenix, Arizona on October 22nd, 1986.
[00:00:14] He graduated from San Luis Obispo High School in 2004,
[00:00:19] joined the Army in 2005 as an infantryman.
[00:00:24] Master Sergeant Marcosana's first assignment
[00:00:27] was in Fort Bragg, North Carolina
[00:00:29] where he served in the second of the 508th,
[00:00:33] the 82nd Airborne Division.
[00:00:36] Rows through the ranks from riflemen to squad leader
[00:00:39] while at Fort Bragg, he deployed to Afghanistan in 2007
[00:00:43] and 2009.
[00:00:46] In 2011, he was assigned a Hunter Army Airfield in Georgia
[00:00:51] in 2013.
[00:00:52] Master Sergeant Marcosana was deployed again
[00:00:55] to Afghanistan.
[00:00:55] In 2013, he attended Special Forces Assessment
[00:01:00] and selection at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
[00:01:03] And he was selected to attend the Q-Course there.
[00:01:06] He graduated in 2015 as a Special Forces Weapon Sergeant,
[00:01:12] assigned to Second Battalion,
[00:01:13] seventh Special Forces Group.
[00:01:18] Master Sergeant Marcosana deployed again to Afghanistan
[00:01:21] as a Senior Weapon Sergeant on ODA 7223.
[00:01:27] And in 2016, to Columbia.
[00:01:33] Master Sergeant Marcosana's schools
[00:01:36] included basic airborne course,
[00:01:38] modern Army combatives level one and two,
[00:01:41] Ranger Indoctrination Program,
[00:01:43] small unit Ranger Tactics course, Warrior Leaders course,
[00:01:48] Basic Non-Commissioned Officer course,
[00:01:50] Advanced Leaders course, Ranger course, Sear,
[00:01:54] Free Fall Parachute course,
[00:01:56] and the Special Forces Weapons Sergeant Qualifications course.
[00:02:03] Master Sergeant Marcosana's awards
[00:02:06] include the Silver Star, the Army Commendation Medal,
[00:02:08] the Army Achievement Medal, Valorant's Unit Award,
[00:02:11] Army Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal,
[00:02:14] Afghan Campaign Medal, Combat Infantryman's Badge,
[00:02:19] Ranger Tab, Special Forces Tab, Parachute Badge,
[00:02:25] Military Free Fall, Parachute Dispatch.
[00:02:31] Master Sergeant Marcosana had a wife
[00:02:34] and three children, Riley, Andrew, and Madeline.
[00:02:40] And his friends that served with him alongside him
[00:02:44] called him the real Captain America.
[00:02:51] And in early July, 2020,
[00:02:53] he sent some of those friends a message.
[00:02:58] He said, text me.
[00:03:00] I told you before, my door's open.
[00:03:02] My phone is at hand.
[00:03:04] We did things that people make movies about
[00:03:06] and in some cases, writers and producers
[00:03:09] wouldn't even try to write our story.
[00:03:14] But the Rucksack is heavy.
[00:03:16] And when it gets heavy, we help each other.
[00:03:20] But you have to reach out.
[00:03:23] Don't let the valley win.
[00:03:31] So that's Andrew Marcosano.
[00:03:34] The kind of guy that we all look up to.
[00:03:44] Kind of guy that's looking out for us.
[00:03:46] Kind of guy that we see as strong and unflappable.
[00:03:52] Kind of guy that's helping others
[00:03:55] and of course couldn't possibly need any help himself.
[00:03:59] But a few days after sending that message
[00:04:02] to his friends and comrades on July 6th, 2020,
[00:04:07] Andy Marcosano killed himself.
[00:04:18] Which is a nightmare.
[00:04:22] And it's only one of thousands of these cases.
[00:04:31] And we've talked about some of them on this podcast.
[00:04:33] We talked to Sarah Wilkinson about her husband Chad,
[00:04:39] who committed suicide after multiple combat deployments
[00:04:42] with the SEAL teams.
[00:04:43] We talked with Mike Hayes.
[00:04:44] We talked to Mike Hayes.
[00:04:46] We talked to Mike Hayes.
[00:04:48] We talked to Mike Hayes.
[00:04:50] We talked to Mike Hayes about a friend of ours
[00:04:53] named Joe Price, another SEAL.
[00:04:57] This one who killed himself in the middle of a deployment.
[00:05:06] And the list goes on and on in every branch.
[00:05:08] And it's not a new problem.
[00:05:10] On this podcast, we discussed Charles White, Wittlesley.
[00:05:15] Medal of Honor recipient, World War I,
[00:05:20] who killed himself after returning home.
[00:05:27] We discussed the awful suicide of Lewis Puller Jr.,
[00:05:31] son of Chesty Puller,
[00:05:35] who was wounded in Vietnam and fought off the darkness
[00:05:39] for 25 years before finally losing his battle with the demons.
[00:05:53] But there are people that overcome.
[00:05:58] There are people that find a way to push through
[00:06:02] and push on and begin to truly live again.
[00:06:09] And there are many ways to get there.
[00:06:12] And tonight, it's an honor to have Amber and Marcus Capone
[00:06:19] with us, two people who have found a path.
[00:06:25] A path out of the darkness, a path toward the light,
[00:06:28] and they're doing their best to show them
[00:06:30] a path toward the light, and they're doing their best
[00:06:32] to share it with as many people as they can.
[00:06:35] Marcus was a seal.
[00:06:37] For 13 years, completed multiple deployments overseas,
[00:06:44] and his wife, Amber, also here, who stuck with him
[00:06:51] through all that and much more.
[00:06:53] And from everything I can tell,
[00:06:56] she eventually saved him from himself.
[00:07:00] Amber, Marcus, thanks for coming on.
[00:07:06] I know it's a heavy topic, and I know you are
[00:07:08] in the trenches every day dealing with this
[00:07:10] and trying to help people out.
[00:07:12] So thanks for coming on here to share your story
[00:07:16] and hopefully guide some other people in the right direction.
[00:07:20] I guess we just start at the beginning.
[00:07:23] I guess start with Marcus, your childhood,
[00:07:28] where'd you grow up, what was that all about?
[00:07:31] Well first, thanks for that introduction.
[00:07:33] That was, wow.
[00:07:35] Just, wow.
[00:07:37] Yeah, one of my most, you know,
[00:07:41] every single Marine knows who Chesty Puller is.
[00:07:45] Probably the most iconic Marine of all time,
[00:07:48] if not, he's definitely in the top two or three.
[00:07:51] And yet no one knows about his son.
[00:07:54] Or, I shouldn't say no one, very few people know about his son.
[00:07:57] And it's, I think it's one of the most tragic stories in history
[00:08:03] about what happened to his son.
[00:08:05] And Lewis Puller Jr. coming out of Vietnam,
[00:08:09] so severely wounded, but I mean, he kind of got it together
[00:08:14] eventually and wrote a Pulitzer Prize winning book,
[00:08:17] which is an incredible book.
[00:08:18] And it just kind of fell apart at the end.
[00:08:22] And we should, that should be, you know,
[00:08:26] people should know at least as much about him
[00:08:28] as they do about his dad.
[00:08:30] Because if that's not a warning, then I don't know what is.
[00:08:34] Yeah, Jaco, I think that's a good point.
[00:08:38] And that story in particular is that, you know,
[00:08:41] I'm good right now and guys are good,
[00:08:43] but it took him, you know, 25 years.
[00:08:46] You know, he wrote Pulitzer Prize book,
[00:08:49] seemed like he was okay,
[00:08:51] but I feel we've all come to this point
[00:08:54] and even, you know, you go do this treatment
[00:08:57] that we're going to talk about.
[00:08:59] It doesn't mean you're healed forever.
[00:09:01] You don't go to the gym or go downstairs to work out
[00:09:03] and think you're going to be a black belt for a day
[00:09:05] or you're trying every day, right?
[00:09:07] And so I think in this healing process,
[00:09:09] it's, you know, I don't want to call us damaged,
[00:09:12] but we came to a point where we needed some help
[00:09:14] to climb out of some darkness.
[00:09:16] And so I have to work on it every day,
[00:09:18] literally every day, probably forever.
[00:09:21] And so I, you know, you mentioning that story,
[00:09:24] I think it's important for people to hear like,
[00:09:26] this is not a one and done, there's not a panacea.
[00:09:29] You know, this is forever, right?
[00:09:31] And this is forever.
[00:09:32] And so we got to work on ourselves every day forever.
[00:09:35] Otherwise, you know, we don't want to end up,
[00:09:38] you know, underground too early.
[00:09:41] Yeah.
[00:09:45] So let's talk about how you got here,
[00:09:47] how you got here sitting here today.
[00:09:49] Where'd you grow up?
[00:09:50] Yeah.
[00:09:51] So I was born in Queens, New York.
[00:09:54] I moved to the island when I was at Long Island,
[00:09:57] when I was three.
[00:09:58] And, you know, I thought I was just like a typical Long Island kid.
[00:10:05] I played everything, you know, my dad and my grandfather
[00:10:09] both played college sports, basketball, baseball, football.
[00:10:14] So I literally, I think I had a ball in my hand at, you know,
[00:10:18] two or three years old.
[00:10:19] I was on skis at three.
[00:10:21] I was in the water at four.
[00:10:24] We had one of the top wrestling programs in New York.
[00:10:28] And so I was like on a mat at like seven, you know,
[00:10:30] in most of those places you didn't get to wrestle
[00:10:32] like junior high or maybe even high school.
[00:10:34] And so, you know, I was lucky.
[00:10:37] And I grew up in a beach town in Long Beach, New York.
[00:10:40] And so, you know, I was always in the water, always on the beach.
[00:10:43] I was a lifeguard at 16.
[00:10:46] Yeah, I mean, I thought life was good.
[00:10:48] And, you know, I know that sounds like a pretty freaking good life.
[00:10:51] No, I mean, it was good.
[00:10:52] At least I thought it was good.
[00:10:54] Both your, both your, your, your dad and your granddad were athletes.
[00:10:59] When you said like, yeah, they were athletes.
[00:11:01] My, my grandfather was an all state basketball player.
[00:11:05] And he was a white dude too from New York, which is, you know, play basketball.
[00:11:09] And I mean, I'll brag.
[00:11:11] I think New York's got some of the best basketball in the world.
[00:11:14] So, you know, we, we played, played in tough leagues.
[00:11:17] And then my dad was more football and baseball.
[00:11:21] So he, he started as a freshman in high school,
[00:11:25] which was huge in the Catholic high school league.
[00:11:27] So I went to all boys Catholic high school where he went Holy Cross and fleshing.
[00:11:31] There's a shout out.
[00:11:33] And, yeah, so I just, I'm caught out for that all boys scenario.
[00:11:37] Yeah.
[00:11:38] Well, maybe it's why I'm here today.
[00:11:40] Who knows?
[00:11:42] Hey, what about like grades and stuff?
[00:11:44] Were you doing good in school?
[00:11:45] I was, I was good in school.
[00:11:46] I was really good up until high school and I slipped a little bit.
[00:11:51] So I was like a straight,
[00:11:52] Were you still in an all boys school in high school?
[00:11:54] Yeah.
[00:11:55] High school was all boys.
[00:11:56] So I went to public grammar and middle school in Long Island.
[00:11:59] And then I went to all boys Catholic high school in back in New York.
[00:12:03] So I took the train for an hour every day.
[00:12:05] The football coach at the time would pick me up in Valley Stream.
[00:12:10] So what year is this?
[00:12:11] So this is 90,
[00:12:13] Like what year do you graduate from?
[00:12:14] 94.
[00:12:15] Okay.
[00:12:16] Yeah.
[00:12:17] And so, yeah, I would, I would take the train at like 5.50 in the morning.
[00:12:21] He'd pick me up at 6.30 the coach and then he'd drive me in the rest of the way.
[00:12:26] So that was just normal back then.
[00:12:29] You know, some people don't understand it now,
[00:12:32] but the Catholic high school league in everything was good.
[00:12:37] And I didn't, I grew up in a town that didn't have a great public high school.
[00:12:41] And again, I was, you know, I was all about sports.
[00:12:45] So wherever they had the best sports, I was, I was going, I was going.
[00:12:49] What'd your dad do for a living?
[00:12:51] Um, you know, he, he kind of just a bit of a hustler really never,
[00:12:58] um, never finished college.
[00:13:00] Men's a smart though.
[00:13:02] Super smart.
[00:13:03] You know, it was really into the market and, but just never applied himself.
[00:13:06] Um, he, uh, he wind up, I think the last 20 years, he was a bridge operator.
[00:13:14] So he literally open and close a drawbridge in the county and, you know,
[00:13:19] he worked for the county and had benefits.
[00:13:22] The funny thing is whenever my, I think my uncle Shane asked me,
[00:13:27] what does Marcus's dad do?
[00:13:29] And I asked you or asked him or something and he goes,
[00:13:32] tell him I work for the union.
[00:13:34] Just leave it at that.
[00:13:35] Yeah.
[00:13:36] For the union.
[00:13:37] Well, he used to tell people he was a bridge engineer.
[00:13:41] It sounded better than telling him that he was, uh, opening and closing a drawbridge.
[00:13:45] And, um, and then on the side, he moonlighted.
[00:13:49] He, um, he drove for people.
[00:13:51] So he would drive for, um, elected officials.
[00:13:56] Yeah.
[00:13:57] But, um, who I'm, I'm drawing a blank from New York.
[00:14:01] Some like governor.
[00:14:02] Yeah.
[00:14:03] Yeah.
[00:14:04] You know, just a few like kind of local.
[00:14:06] So he had like a link, he had like a town Lincoln town car and he was getting out.
[00:14:09] Literally had a square Lincoln town car that was handed down to me.
[00:14:13] Yeah.
[00:14:14] And he was like, Hey, sucked gas.
[00:14:16] It was awesome.
[00:14:17] I love that thing.
[00:14:19] Hey, what about your mom?
[00:14:20] Lincoln town car.
[00:14:21] Was she around?
[00:14:22] You hit it right on the head.
[00:14:23] Yeah.
[00:14:24] Yeah.
[00:14:25] Mom worked for a dentist for over 30 years.
[00:14:26] So she was, uh, she was at the front answering the phone, you know, paying the bills, greeting
[00:14:31] everyone.
[00:14:32] So I had free, free dental growing up, which is nice.
[00:14:35] Right.
[00:14:36] And what about brothers and sisters?
[00:14:37] None.
[00:14:38] You're only child.
[00:14:39] I was only child.
[00:14:40] I had a, I have a half sister I've never met.
[00:14:42] Um, and well, I can't remember.
[00:14:47] Well, I mean, I, I mean, I've never, I can't, I don't remember that.
[00:14:51] So it was like lesson one when I think they separated us.
[00:14:54] But, uh, you know, then that was just me.
[00:14:56] So spoiled, spoiled only child.
[00:14:58] And the focus was just on sports.
[00:15:00] It was all on sports and, you know, in academics, my dad was, he was an academic and, you know,
[00:15:06] I would literally get like backhanded if I came home with like, you know, a B.
[00:15:11] That's the part of his childhood.
[00:15:13] Yeah.
[00:15:14] It's the part that, you know, that may not have been very, very hard dad.
[00:15:17] Yeah.
[00:15:18] Dad was hard, right?
[00:15:19] So, um,
[00:15:20] What do you think was driving that in your dad?
[00:15:21] Cause it sounds like he's kind of laid back in a way or is he just pouring all of his
[00:15:24] dreams into you?
[00:15:25] I think that I think you hit it.
[00:15:27] I think you hit that on that.
[00:15:28] Yeah.
[00:15:29] My parents went to Woodstock.
[00:15:30] I mean, they were like, they were like hippies, sort of hippies, you know, mom used to protest
[00:15:33] the war.
[00:15:34] Um, but yeah, he had like a real mean side and his grant, his dad, my grandfather was
[00:15:40] a cleaner.
[00:15:41] Um, I think he told me what before noon, he'd already, he would already drank like two
[00:15:46] quarts of beer, you know, quarts back in the day.
[00:15:49] Um, and then he owned, they owned, uh, like his family owned a bunch of the, um, I guess
[00:15:54] a medallion like a cabs in New York.
[00:15:56] Oh yeah.
[00:15:57] You know, components from New York, right?
[00:15:59] Um, and so I don't know how he was treated as a kid.
[00:16:02] Well, I'll tell you how he was sent away to boarding school.
[00:16:06] All boys.
[00:16:07] This is your dad.
[00:16:08] This is my dad in the Bronx at four years old.
[00:16:13] So I mean, if you and I think back at four kind of love we had from our parents, his
[00:16:18] sent him away, uh, to Catholic boarding school in the Bronx.
[00:16:23] And I could just imagine what went on there from, you know, some of the, some of the individuals
[00:16:30] that, you know, we're hearing about now all these stories these days.
[00:16:33] So maybe he had some shit, uh, that he was, he was getting out on me, um, possibly.
[00:16:39] But he, but it sounds like he just wanted you to be successful in a big way.
[00:16:44] It was all about me.
[00:16:45] Yeah.
[00:16:46] He like, they hung up their life to, he was at every practice literally, um, you know,
[00:16:52] right there, cheering, watching.
[00:16:54] Did he yell at the ref?
[00:16:56] Yelling.
[00:16:57] No, that was my mom.
[00:16:58] Okay.
[00:16:59] So no, he would, he would backhand me if, if something just didn't seem right.
[00:17:03] And she would get thrown out of the little league world series because she was screaming
[00:17:08] at the freaking umpire about a call and they actually did get thrown out.
[00:17:12] Like she had to leave the stadium in the little league.
[00:17:15] I say hell yeah.
[00:17:16] I like people, I don't know why people get the impression that I would like be, uh, yelling
[00:17:21] and screaming, but I'd never like for my kids played sports.
[00:17:24] I would just, I wouldn't say anything.
[00:17:26] I wouldn't even coach them.
[00:17:27] I wouldn't even, but well, maybe occasionally.
[00:17:29] But most of the time I would just sit there and watch because it's hard to coach your
[00:17:32] own kids, man.
[00:17:33] They don't, they don't really want to listen to you.
[00:17:36] So no, no, no matter how much you know, you're just telling me the story downstairs.
[00:17:40] Yeah.
[00:17:41] Yeah.
[00:17:42] Yeah.
[00:17:43] I was telling him, my son was doing Jiu-Jitsu.
[00:17:45] I've been doing Jiu-Jitsu at this point.
[00:17:46] I've been doing Jiu-Jitsu for like 25 years and my son, I'm watching him roll and he's
[00:17:50] got an arm lock on somebody and I say, Hey, you know, you need to get your hips a little
[00:17:54] further underneath that elbow.
[00:17:55] And he looks at me and he goes, No, you don't.
[00:17:57] Okay, fair enough.
[00:17:59] Oh, bastard.
[00:18:00] I'm not going to listen to anything.
[00:18:03] But so you, your grades are good.
[00:18:06] Yeah.
[00:18:07] You sound like a freaking good model kid.
[00:18:09] I was a good kid, but I think that was the problem too.
[00:18:11] I was like, I was, I was, I was too nice.
[00:18:14] I'm still a little too nice.
[00:18:16] But yeah, so I got, you know, I was skinny too.
[00:18:19] So I was skinny, nice kid that also got put ahead, not held back like, like we do in Texas.
[00:18:26] We hold back our kids.
[00:18:27] We hold back in Texas.
[00:18:28] The kids like 17 years old, grown as fresh.
[00:18:30] Absolutely.
[00:18:31] Well, I mean, I mean, you have to, our son graduated with someone who was turning 20.
[00:18:34] Yeah.
[00:18:35] I mean, you have to, you know, you have to pass for 3000 yards, you know, they call
[00:18:39] the Texas gray shirt.
[00:18:41] No, instead I got put ahead early for whatever reason.
[00:18:45] And so I was with older kids, skinny, nice kid.
[00:18:50] And yeah, I got, I definitely got abused.
[00:18:54] Just picked on, picked on constantly.
[00:18:56] What kind of music?
[00:18:57] I think some people call that right of passage.
[00:18:58] I think there's a little bit of both.
[00:19:00] But it wasn't fun.
[00:19:02] What kind of music did you like?
[00:19:05] Growing up in New York, like Queens, everything, rap, like Beastie Boys, right from Brooklyn.
[00:19:17] Guns and Roses.
[00:19:19] So just you kind of normal music for late 80s, early 90s, get some.
[00:19:26] Yeah.
[00:19:27] And then I got into like some other stuff in high school, like trying to think like kind
[00:19:33] of Lollapalooza, ESC, music, Pro Jam, you know, everything that was coming out of Seattle.
[00:19:39] So all that stuff was good.
[00:19:41] Cause that stuff made it mainstream in the early 90s.
[00:19:44] So you could, you could pick up on it.
[00:19:45] Yeah.
[00:19:46] Even in a big, big, big, big, school.
[00:19:48] All boys school.
[00:19:49] Boys Catholic High School and Queens.
[00:19:53] And was all this geared towards you going to college to play sports?
[00:19:55] Yes.
[00:19:56] It actually was.
[00:19:57] That's all we talked about.
[00:19:58] I mean, that's all I knew.
[00:19:59] Were you going to camps?
[00:20:00] I was going to camps every summer from the, I can't even remember, Jack, that's how I
[00:20:07] fought back.
[00:20:08] I was either in a basketball camp or a football camp at Fordham or a baseball camp, junior
[00:20:17] lifeguards, like just all that shit.
[00:20:19] Yeah.
[00:20:20] And what, what did you, what sport did you like the best?
[00:20:22] I liked football.
[00:20:23] And is that, is that the one you were best at as well?
[00:20:26] That's the one I was best at.
[00:20:27] I played in college for her dad.
[00:20:29] We'll get into that later.
[00:20:30] But yeah, I got full scholarship to play.
[00:20:33] Definitely beat your body up, of course, but I just, I don't know, it was one of those
[00:20:36] things I liked.
[00:20:38] I was a quarterback from, I think like seven years old.
[00:20:43] And you know, I think it was up to me.
[00:20:46] I'd probably be surfing and I tried because we, because we did live in a beach town and
[00:20:50] my dad was like not having it at all.
[00:20:53] So I would try to surf and then immediately like we'd go right into, you know, some kind
[00:20:58] of camp or, you know, baseball double headers in Brooklyn, you know, at 90 degrees in the
[00:21:04] middle of summer type shit.
[00:21:07] Check.
[00:21:08] All right.
[00:21:09] Amber, your turn.
[00:21:10] Well, I entered the picture at the football juncture where my dad recruited him, but prior
[00:21:16] to that, you must have been doing something prior to that.
[00:21:19] What were you doing?
[00:21:20] Yeah.
[00:21:21] Prior to that, I grew up in a really small town in Southern Illinois.
[00:21:23] So everyone, when I say I'm from Illinois, I think Chicago, but I've actually only been
[00:21:27] to Chicago one time in my life.
[00:21:30] I grew up on a retired dairy farm in a very rural part of Illinois.
[00:21:36] Retired dairy farm, meaning there's no more cows there.
[00:21:38] Yeah.
[00:21:39] It's not, there's, there was, all the barns were still there.
[00:21:42] The milk house was there.
[00:21:43] The farm house was there.
[00:21:45] All the land was there.
[00:21:46] Was it your family's that retired it?
[00:21:49] Yes.
[00:21:50] Great grandfather, great, great and great grandfathers were the milk men of my county.
[00:21:57] And then they shut it down at some point.
[00:22:00] Yeah.
[00:22:01] So they had, I don't even know how many, you know, hundreds of cows.
[00:22:03] My grandfather worked the farm whenever he was in high school.
[00:22:07] And then at some point shortly thereafter, he was like their farmhand and he ended up
[00:22:12] going to college and getting married to my grandmother.
[00:22:15] And I think at some point they retired it after that.
[00:22:18] And did your dad have to work on the dairy farm at all or was it already done?
[00:22:21] That was my mom's dad.
[00:22:23] My dad's dad owned an excavating business.
[00:22:26] Oh, God.
[00:22:27] And yes, my dad and his brothers worked the tractors.
[00:22:30] So I come from a very hardworking family.
[00:22:32] Yeah, dairy farmers, that's a hard life, man.
[00:22:36] Yeah.
[00:22:37] It's a hard life.
[00:22:38] But like a really good wholesome life.
[00:22:40] And I just grew up in a really wholesome family and a really wholesome town.
[00:22:45] And my dad being a football coach just really always drove me, loved me, but drove me.
[00:22:54] And like he, the one thing he taught me was don't you ever quit anything.
[00:23:00] Don't ever quit.
[00:23:01] And so, you know, it didn't matter how uncomfortable things got in my mind.
[00:23:06] I'm like, I'm not quitting.
[00:23:07] I don't have a quit in me.
[00:23:09] Did you play sports?
[00:23:10] I was a cheerleader.
[00:23:11] Right.
[00:23:12] I would have been more athletic had my dad been in my life, my parents.
[00:23:18] He was in my life, but not in like a dad way.
[00:23:21] You know, he was, my parents were divorced.
[00:23:23] So I saw him spring break, a couple of months during the summer, over Christmas.
[00:23:29] But you know, day to day I was raised by my mom.
[00:23:32] And how long did you cheerleading for?
[00:23:35] From the time I was in seventh grade to senior in high school.
[00:23:41] Damn.
[00:23:42] So you were out there.
[00:23:43] Yeah.
[00:23:44] I remember I was working and my middle daughter, she did gymnastics and then she, that's like
[00:23:50] a little, there's a little, there's a little off ramp or a little on ramp to cheerleading.
[00:23:54] Right.
[00:23:55] And so she was doing gymnastics.
[00:23:57] Then she got on that little ramp and, you know, it's kind of like, dang it.
[00:24:01] You know, like it just doesn't seem like it's the thing that you want your daughter to do,
[00:24:06] at least for me, right.
[00:24:08] And then two things happened.
[00:24:10] One of them was this woman CEO that I worked with, who's an awesome woman.
[00:24:15] I told her, I was like, yeah, you know, my daughter's doing cheerleading.
[00:24:18] She's going to do cheerleading.
[00:24:20] And this woman's like, I did cheerleading and it was awesome.
[00:24:23] And I was like, really?
[00:24:24] She goes, yeah, you're out there.
[00:24:25] You're standing in front of people.
[00:24:26] You're projecting your voice.
[00:24:27] And I was like, okay, fair enough.
[00:24:28] And my daughter only did it for a couple of years.
[00:24:31] Then she's, then she got more committed to wrestling.
[00:24:34] Yes.
[00:24:35] Which was awesome.
[00:24:39] And another thing that happened was one of my buddies was also had a daughter who was
[00:24:45] also doing cheerleading.
[00:24:49] And he's like, he's kind of making fun of me.
[00:24:52] He goes, oh, you're letting your daughter do cheerleading.
[00:24:54] My daughter's doing cheerleading, but he's going to make fun of me because I guess I don't
[00:24:57] seem like the cheerleading type of dad.
[00:24:59] And he goes, oh, you're letting your daughter do cheerleading.
[00:25:02] And I go, yeah, you know, I figure I either let her do cheerleading or she comes home
[00:25:06] with a tattoo on her face when she's like 18.
[00:25:08] Right?
[00:25:09] Cause that's what happens.
[00:25:10] You like pressure your kids or you like steer them or you prevent them from doing something.
[00:25:14] They're going to rebel hard against you and then up on the wrong path.
[00:25:16] So anyways, she did cheerleading for a little bit.
[00:25:19] All good.
[00:25:20] And did you do good in school?
[00:25:22] Oh yeah.
[00:25:23] I was pretty much a straight A student.
[00:25:26] Did you, what did you want to do when you grew up?
[00:25:28] Did you, did you want to go to college?
[00:25:29] Like what was the deal?
[00:25:30] So my parents were both raised in this really small town.
[00:25:34] They were in the same class together and had this sort of crush on each other since they
[00:25:39] were in third grade all the way through, you know, junior high school, high school prom,
[00:25:44] king and queen, captain of the football team, captain of the cheerleading team.
[00:25:48] Like, you know, they, everything was my two, two sides of the family in this one little
[00:25:54] town, but my dad had these big aspirations to be a football coach.
[00:25:58] And so he actually got a full ride to University of Illinois and that's where he ended up going
[00:26:07] for his first coaching, you know, his first coaching gig.
[00:26:11] And from that point on, when he got out of that little town, he always said to me, you
[00:26:17] get out of here as soon as you can.
[00:26:19] Dang.
[00:26:20] Cause he knew that, you know, there wasn't the opportunity for me there that I would
[00:26:25] need to have, you know, that he wanted me to have in life.
[00:26:29] I don't think he thought Marcus would be my ticket out of there, but, you know, he helped
[00:26:35] facilitate that.
[00:26:36] All right.
[00:26:37] So let's get to that.
[00:26:38] So you ended up getting recruited to go play football.
[00:26:40] I did at Southern Illinois.
[00:26:42] And your dad was the head coach there?
[00:26:45] Yeah.
[00:26:46] So at that point he'd been from U of I, he went to Miami of Ohio and then got the head
[00:26:52] football coaching job at Southern Illinois University and that was about 10 minutes from
[00:26:56] this little town that I grew up in.
[00:26:58] So he was 34 years old and he was the head coach of, you know, our hometown team.
[00:27:04] Yeah.
[00:27:05] Big school of 25,000 students.
[00:27:06] It was division one.
[00:27:07] Yeah.
[00:27:08] Now it's, it's, the enrollment's really gone down significantly, like a lot of schools,
[00:27:13] but it was, it was, you know, it was a large school back then.
[00:27:16] And you roll in, you get recruited D one.
[00:27:18] Yeah.
[00:27:19] And so I got hurt in high school.
[00:27:23] So I wound up not playing my senior year.
[00:27:25] What was the injury?
[00:27:26] I tore a couple of ligaments in my wrist, my throwing wrist, tried to play through it
[00:27:31] for a couple of years and they never actually know whatever knew it was torn.
[00:27:34] I just kept having this, like I'd land on it wrong and, you know, have this like screaming
[00:27:40] pain.
[00:27:41] Finally got an MRI and they're like, yeah, you're, you have several torn ligaments.
[00:27:45] Like that's why you're in pain.
[00:27:47] So I said, we can do surgery now.
[00:27:51] You'll miss football season, but you'll be back for baseball season or you can play
[00:27:55] football season and then have surgery after, but you'd miss baseball season.
[00:28:00] And so just chatting with, you know, dad, I was excelling more in baseball and we decided,
[00:28:08] you know what, let's hang up football, have the surgery and we'll get you ready for baseball
[00:28:13] season.
[00:28:14] And you said what year was this?
[00:28:15] What was it?
[00:28:16] What school year was it?
[00:28:18] Like this was your junior year?
[00:28:19] This was my like summer.
[00:28:22] Yeah.
[00:28:23] Summer going into senior year.
[00:28:25] Got it.
[00:28:26] And so we decided to go ahead with the surgery and they went in and they did like an orthoscope
[00:28:32] and they found like the ligaments torn and then they just went ahead and sewed them back.
[00:28:36] And I remember it was a long recovery.
[00:28:39] It was like, it's almost six months.
[00:28:43] And this is, this is so my dad.
[00:28:44] So I get done, get the surgery, go through, you know, however long I was in a cast, get
[00:28:51] the cast off, literally came home from getting the cast off after being in it for like four
[00:28:56] months.
[00:28:57] It was, it was long.
[00:28:58] It was weird.
[00:28:59] And he, he literally put to grab two minutes and pulled me onto the beach and he was like,
[00:29:07] throw the ball.
[00:29:08] I'm not, I'm not making this shit up.
[00:29:10] First off, like, can you imagine the size, like difference?
[00:29:13] It was like, my wrist is like this big.
[00:29:15] I haven't done anything.
[00:29:17] I pick up the ball and this is no shit.
[00:29:19] I throw it.
[00:29:21] Was it a baseball or football?
[00:29:23] It was a baseball.
[00:29:24] Cause I was trying to, I was trying to get ready for baseball.
[00:29:25] I literally threw it like a foot in front of me.
[00:29:28] I didn't even know, and I didn't even know what to say.
[00:29:29] Like, dad, I can't, like I'm in a lot of pain.
[00:29:32] Did he get mad?
[00:29:33] He like, yeah.
[00:29:34] Oh my gosh.
[00:29:35] It was so fucking weird.
[00:29:39] Yeah, it got mad at me, like it was my fault that I couldn't throw this baseball after
[00:29:43] I just got out of it.
[00:29:45] Anyway, so, so I played baseball.
[00:29:47] Um, didn't have a great season.
[00:29:49] Just played in, in, in, um, my younger football coach, Tom Frawley, I considered kind of like
[00:30:00] my second dad and quarterback coach.
[00:30:01] And he just said, Hey man, you're so talented.
[00:30:04] He's like, I think you should play football in junior college.
[00:30:06] Like you're, you know, I, you know, I think you have something you should do that.
[00:30:10] And I said, yeah, you know, I kind of threw it around.
[00:30:12] I went, okay, I'll, you know, I'll take your advice.
[00:30:15] And I started throwing him in the summer and I wound up enrolling in, uh, at NASA community
[00:30:19] college in New York and NASA every year had like top 10 football.
[00:30:24] Um, they always sent, uh, literally anywhere between 15 and 20 guys to division one and,
[00:30:29] and big division ones like Ohio State and Miami and things like that.
[00:30:32] And so I was going to a real place to play.
[00:30:35] And when I showed up, man, I was, uh, I was skinny.
[00:30:40] I was 17 going into my freshman year of college.
[00:30:43] Damn, you were young.
[00:30:44] Yeah, it was, yeah, it was, it was, bro, your dad for all this push and should have held
[00:30:49] your ass back like two years, dude.
[00:30:51] Two.
[00:30:52] You're right.
[00:30:53] You're so right.
[00:30:55] So I, you know, I show up again, six, four, 180.
[00:31:00] And, um, I mean, these, this is like a division one junior college.
[00:31:03] These guys are massive from like Brooklyn and the Bronx and these guys are like straight
[00:31:08] up meat eaters.
[00:31:10] And, um, I'm like, man, I don't even know if I belong here.
[00:31:14] So I hung in as a, as a freshman, you get red shirted.
[00:31:17] Um, I went to practice every day.
[00:31:19] I worked hard and I turned 18 that December of my freshman year and like in February,
[00:31:26] I went from six, four, 180 to like six, four, 225.
[00:31:30] Yeah.
[00:31:31] I was on the program.
[00:31:32] I was getting jacked, getting jacked.
[00:31:35] And, uh, yeah, it was good.
[00:31:36] I was actually, you know, I felt like a, felt like a human after that.
[00:31:40] Well, and I didn't know you then, but from what I gather, all that pent up frustration
[00:31:47] from the bullies of your childhood, you started taking it out with your increased size.
[00:31:51] Yeah.
[00:31:52] We've talked about this.
[00:31:53] So yeah.
[00:31:54] So, so with the increased weight and size, um, yes, Amber is correct.
[00:31:57] Um, I did.
[00:31:58] I started getting into a lot of fights, Jaco.
[00:31:59] Really?
[00:32:00] I look stupid, like dumb.
[00:32:01] I was like, all the time, a lot.
[00:32:04] And it was like, and this is when you're at this community college.
[00:32:07] Yeah.
[00:32:08] It just fed me, I think because of the years of maybe, you know, dad and then like being
[00:32:12] skinny, constantly getting harassed.
[00:32:15] Um, I finally put on some weight and, uh, I would just snap every time we went out.
[00:32:20] It didn't matter where any bar, um, I was getting in a fight.
[00:32:24] Yeah.
[00:32:25] Guaranteed.
[00:32:26] I was like, I was that guy.
[00:32:27] You drinking now at this age?
[00:32:28] Yes.
[00:32:29] Yep.
[00:32:30] That doesn't subdue fighting.
[00:32:33] He doesn't help at all.
[00:32:34] He doesn't help.
[00:32:35] Um, yeah.
[00:32:36] I think growing up on Long Island, I actually remember the first time we drank because it
[00:32:40] was all my high school buddies freshman year, I believe it was Memorial Day.
[00:32:43] Like, Hey, Memorial Day, we're all going to get together.
[00:32:45] We're going to go get a couple cases.
[00:32:47] We're going to go down to the beach.
[00:32:48] We're going to drink some beer.
[00:32:50] And I remember saying, how can like, how can you put something in your body and it makes
[00:32:54] you act weird?
[00:32:55] Like I don't, I don't get it.
[00:32:56] Like I honestly did not get it.
[00:32:58] And we were having this argument.
[00:32:59] Like, I don't get it.
[00:33:00] Like I could drink 10 of these.
[00:33:01] Like I'm going to be fine.
[00:33:03] Um, and I think I remember at some point of that night, like humping the pole.
[00:33:08] Um, literally.
[00:33:09] And so, uh, yeah, don't, don't drink.
[00:33:14] So you're like 12 or 13 or something.
[00:33:18] Literally 13.
[00:33:19] I think it was 14 at that.
[00:33:20] Yeah.
[00:33:21] Because it was the second part of my freshman year.
[00:33:22] So did you keep drinking through this?
[00:33:26] Was it a thing or not really?
[00:33:27] Yeah.
[00:33:28] Yeah.
[00:33:29] I drank, um, I drank on the weekends when we went out.
[00:33:32] So never during the week, Amber still makes fun of me that I was in bed.
[00:33:36] He had a bedtime, 9pm until he left the house.
[00:33:42] Through senior year of high school, like not even during senior year.
[00:33:46] Was this a mandated by the old man?
[00:33:48] This is mandated by mom.
[00:33:49] Okay.
[00:33:50] Like, but at that point though, I didn't think for myself at all.
[00:33:53] I was just like, Oh, it's 830.
[00:33:55] I need to get ready and go to bed.
[00:33:57] You know, the light was on and my mom screaming down like, Mark is shut the light off, go
[00:34:01] to bed.
[00:34:02] You got to get up in the morning and catch the train.
[00:34:05] You know, um, meanwhile Amber's out at my house in college till like three in the morning.
[00:34:10] But we'll talk, we'll get into that after.
[00:34:12] Um, yeah.
[00:34:14] So, uh, where were we at?
[00:34:16] Are you, are you thinking through high school?
[00:34:18] Are you thinking about the military at all?
[00:34:20] No, not at all.
[00:34:21] I mean, I didn't, I didn't think much, Jacko.
[00:34:23] I'm just starting to come into thinking the last couple of years.
[00:34:25] And you're just solely focused on athletics.
[00:34:28] That's it.
[00:34:29] That's what you're going to do.
[00:34:30] Um, but, uh, yeah, I didn't think the only thing, the only connection I had to the military,
[00:34:35] my grandfather had a purple heart.
[00:34:37] It was in the house.
[00:34:39] I didn't know this between a purple heart and a purple rose.
[00:34:43] And, um, he mentioned it was from a mortar attack fighting the, uh, I think fighting
[00:34:49] in Northern Africa against the Italians.
[00:34:51] Um, and, but he was another guy who evidently gotten a lot of fights because I guess the
[00:34:58] military was a lot different from World War II or they would pull like your rank away.
[00:35:02] Like when you weren't on the battlefield, you know, if you got in trouble like he did.
[00:35:06] And then when he came back, I don't know, some weird story that I listened to, it was probably
[00:35:10] completely wrong coming from my dad.
[00:35:13] Um, so that's the only like real.
[00:35:15] Well, and your dad was in the army.
[00:35:17] Well, he was by, I think on, uh, I don't know if he got, where your dad, the hippie was,
[00:35:23] your dad, the hippie was in the army.
[00:35:25] Yeah.
[00:35:26] He was an MP.
[00:35:27] He's a dog handler.
[00:35:28] That's all I heard about growing up is his ferocious dog that bit everybody.
[00:35:32] So I'm like, so you're a shitty dog.
[00:35:35] Cause we had a few of those guys too, right?
[00:35:38] Like, did he give you any impression of like, Hey, you know, the military's dumb or you
[00:35:42] shouldn't join it or whatever, anything like that?
[00:35:44] Absolutely.
[00:35:45] Yeah.
[00:35:46] And I don't think he ever talked about it negatively.
[00:35:48] Just, just, just wasn't there.
[00:35:49] Yeah.
[00:35:50] It just wasn't there.
[00:35:51] Got it.
[00:35:52] And I wasn't with a crew of like, um, you know, first responder families, like police
[00:35:56] and fire.
[00:35:57] So I just didn't have that, you know, it was more like artists and, and, uh, but nothing
[00:36:02] negative, nothing ever negative, but really no, um, I was never, uh, it just wasn't a
[00:36:08] part of my life.
[00:36:09] I was raised a patriot.
[00:36:10] Yeah.
[00:36:11] Marcus was not.
[00:36:12] Yeah.
[00:36:13] So I was the one who, I was the one who got the better that I framed that I wrote in third
[00:36:16] grade on veterans day.
[00:36:18] And it was, it's so funny to read it back, but even as a nine year old, I'm like, yeah,
[00:36:23] that's who I am.
[00:36:24] Were your parents military or was your dad military or granddad or anything?
[00:36:27] No, my great grandmother had five brothers in World War II and two or three of them were
[00:36:33] killed.
[00:36:34] One of them was a POW.
[00:36:35] And so, you know, I just, it was just instilled in me that we love America and we honor our
[00:36:44] military.
[00:36:45] Um, but I didn't ever think I wanted to be married to someone in the military.
[00:36:50] That's a whole different ball game.
[00:36:51] Right.
[00:36:52] I was also, you know, my hometown was so small and, um, it wasn't, you know, a very, uh, there
[00:36:59] wasn't a lot of money in the area that I grew up.
[00:37:01] And so people that joined the military in my hometown couldn't afford college.
[00:37:05] It was just a way to pay for college.
[00:37:07] So like I had this great appreciation, but I also, I was completely dumb to like what
[00:37:11] the military service actually was.
[00:37:13] All right.
[00:37:14] So let's get into this.
[00:37:15] How the coach's daughter, I mean, how does this go about?
[00:37:19] This can't be, you were thinking much, right?
[00:37:24] Marcus, I mean, this is the good.
[00:37:26] This is like taboo.
[00:37:27] Is there anything more taboo than, oh, that's the coach's daughter.
[00:37:29] Cool.
[00:37:30] Yeah.
[00:37:31] That's where I'm going to go.
[00:37:32] Yeah.
[00:37:33] That's exactly it.
[00:37:34] I went to Southern Illinois, um, in, I don't know, was it 96 Amber?
[00:37:41] Yeah.
[00:37:42] And, uh, I'm just trying to think how I get into, how, how are you and I, so okay.
[00:37:49] When I was first looking at the, um, like the media guide for the football teams before
[00:37:54] I even went to Southern Illinois, I was still in New York.
[00:37:57] Um, I saw that coach Watson had had, you know, obviously had a family in there and had a
[00:38:01] daughter.
[00:38:02] Again, never even, I was like, Oh wow, that's interesting.
[00:38:06] You know, that, that's, came across my mind.
[00:38:09] Um, but that was it.
[00:38:10] Like let's put that away now for like two more years.
[00:38:14] And I show up at school and I think about a year and a half in is I met you at Cuckoo's.
[00:38:23] No, at a golf tournament, but I didn't even see you there.
[00:38:27] You didn't see me.
[00:38:28] I saw you at the golf tournament.
[00:38:29] Yeah.
[00:38:30] You looked really angry and pissed off that you were there.
[00:38:32] Yeah.
[00:38:33] Well, so we had, we did a, um, I guess, uh, a volunteer for the, some golf tournament
[00:38:38] and I remember seeing Amber there like at the table and she was angry and I remember a guy
[00:38:43] saying like that's coach Watson's daughter.
[00:38:45] You know, everyone was like, okay, stay away from, are you just trying to keep people at
[00:38:48] bay just scowling at everyone or what was up with that?
[00:38:51] I don't know.
[00:38:52] I think I was probably, I don't know.
[00:38:56] I think I was probably traumatized by having to be there.
[00:39:01] Um, so, so that's the first time.
[00:39:04] Are you, are Marcus at this point, are you like a full on like just straight beard, swill
[00:39:09] and jock?
[00:39:10] Yes.
[00:39:11] What are we dealing with?
[00:39:12] 100%.
[00:39:13] But a nice, but I was a nice job.
[00:39:14] I don't know if that makes any sense.
[00:39:16] But you're fighting a lot.
[00:39:17] I'm fighting a lot.
[00:39:18] Still fighting a lot when you get to college.
[00:39:20] Oh yeah.
[00:39:21] Oh gosh.
[00:39:22] Yeah.
[00:39:23] Um, I mean, we'll go into, I mean, I was suspended from Amber's dad my whole sophomore year after
[00:39:29] I just got named the starting quarterback over four seniors.
[00:39:35] So your dad was great in recruiting me, but not in the choice of personality.
[00:39:41] So that night I go out, go to fraternity party.
[00:39:45] This is the night you get named as a starting quarterback.
[00:39:47] So you're freaking stoked.
[00:39:50] And I'd been hearing about him and you know, like the whole area had been hearing about
[00:39:55] him because you get like this big good looking guy from New York and it's who's named Marcus
[00:40:00] Capone.
[00:40:02] And so I'm like hearing this buzz.
[00:40:05] But did you meet him yet when he gets named as a starting quarterback?
[00:40:07] No, no.
[00:40:08] And apparently we'd been at that golf tournament, but I didn't know who he was.
[00:40:12] And got it.
[00:40:13] So, all right.
[00:40:14] So now you get named.
[00:40:15] So we go out myself, the fullback who was my roommate who's just a stud, you know, like
[00:40:20] 600, 400 pound guy, like a squat bench, you know, that type of dude and can run like a
[00:40:24] four, five, 40.
[00:40:26] And we go to this fraternity party, which is really off limits.
[00:40:32] Football athletes and fraternities really didn't mix.
[00:40:35] Most of the fraternities.
[00:40:36] Like officially, like you're not allowed to go to them or just?
[00:40:38] No, it's more, you just don't because a lot of those guys were high school athletes that
[00:40:43] couldn't play in college.
[00:40:45] And so there was a little bit of like, you know, bad blood.
[00:40:48] We went because a lot of the female trainers that you go and get your, you know, put your
[00:40:53] eyes and, you know, your elbow and eyes or get hooked up to stem or whatever.
[00:40:58] They were all sorority.
[00:41:00] So they invited us.
[00:41:01] So three of us went.
[00:41:02] And right from this get go, you can tell, like just it's in the air.
[00:41:06] You know exactly what I'm talking about.
[00:41:09] You could feel the energy in there was just not going our direction.
[00:41:14] And one thing led to another.
[00:41:15] And the next thing you know, there's literally a whole fraternity house on top of us in the
[00:41:20] middle of the yard.
[00:41:21] There were so many of them.
[00:41:23] I think it was lucky.
[00:41:24] I think it was what saved us because there were so many that they couldn't like get to
[00:41:27] us and like punch and kick and everything else.
[00:41:29] But I do remember like being on the ground and going, man, they can't even get to us.
[00:41:33] There's so many of them.
[00:41:35] I remember this hand.
[00:41:36] I could feel this hand like coming up like my arm and then my shoulder and then my neck.
[00:41:42] And then I feel like it's in my face and then like just start like, like, like raking me
[00:41:46] like raking my high.
[00:41:47] I'm like, this guy's trying to pull my and I couldn't do anything about it.
[00:41:51] So for somehow, this is the best.
[00:41:53] So somehow the fullback, my roommate crawls out underneath all of them and charges the
[00:41:59] wooden fence and both literally hits it and knocks the whole fence down the yard.
[00:42:05] So you can tell how well these fences were made in a college, you know, collegiate house,
[00:42:12] pieces of crap.
[00:42:13] So the fence goes down, which enables us to get out.
[00:42:16] Fix now we're out of the yard.
[00:42:17] So I'm standing in the street like my eye is completely red like they now they like it's
[00:42:23] it's it's good and scratched.
[00:42:26] I'm missing a sandal.
[00:42:28] My shirts rift.
[00:42:31] You know, I'm standing in the street cursing and we cool down a little bit and we go walking
[00:42:37] back to the the dorms, go to bed because that was a fun night getting getting jumped
[00:42:43] by a fraternity house, the pikes.
[00:42:46] I shouldn't even gave him that.
[00:42:48] Gave him that shout out.
[00:42:50] You guys are just jealous.
[00:42:55] And we we come across the street.
[00:42:59] We crossed the strip where all the bars and clubs are at and out on the street.
[00:43:07] This club is emptying and it's the all the guys in the football team are coming out and
[00:43:13] they're like Marcus what's going on with what what the fuck happened to you.
[00:43:18] I'm like, oh man, you know, the the the pikes they jumped us and these guys are everyone's
[00:43:23] drunk and that was it.
[00:43:26] So they decided they're going to go back to the fraternity house.
[00:43:30] So like 30 dudes go back to the fraternity house.
[00:43:34] I follow behind them.
[00:43:36] And when I get there, it's complete mayhem.
[00:43:40] There's people getting bricks busted over their face.
[00:43:42] I watched a person in the NFL pick up a grill and throw it on somebody.
[00:43:51] So it was it was that type of shit going on.
[00:43:53] And I was like, wow.
[00:43:56] So police you could hear police sirens coming and like everybody splits and you know, kind
[00:44:03] of the rest is history.
[00:44:04] I get brought in because I was the only white guy at the at the fight.
[00:44:09] They couldn't identify anybody there.
[00:44:12] And they wanted me to give up all the names of the guys over there.
[00:44:16] And I was like, no chance.
[00:44:18] I don't even know who's there actually.
[00:44:19] So because I would not give up any names, your dad Amber suspended me for the whole
[00:44:25] season.
[00:44:28] Because they couldn't identify anybody.
[00:44:30] And so I wind up being suspended for pretty much that was and that was it.
[00:44:34] Kind of crushed your dad's a hard ass.
[00:44:37] I think it was pressured.
[00:44:39] No, my dad is very principled.
[00:44:42] And on the same hand, my dad, you know, was trying to turn this program around and his
[00:44:48] entire team would have been out.
[00:44:51] So Marcus took the punishment for the whole team.
[00:44:55] And I know he felt bad about that.
[00:44:58] But I also know that he respected Marcus not giving up anyone's names.
[00:45:02] And it coincidentally saved his ass too, I'm sure.
[00:45:06] But I remember that fight because I had worked really hard all summer to save money for a
[00:45:12] car and we were going to go buy the car.
[00:45:15] And I had, I had picked the car out.
[00:45:18] We were supposed to go in Saturday.
[00:45:20] We being you and your dad?
[00:45:22] No really just me.
[00:45:23] Oh, OK.
[00:45:24] Just to go back, like it wasn't it was a local fight, but evidently some of the guys
[00:45:29] of the fraternity houses, dads were in kind of higher positions in Chicago.
[00:45:33] It made national news because eight guys got sent to the hospital.
[00:45:37] So yeah, it was like a it's not good.
[00:45:39] That's a legit scrap.
[00:45:40] And I had a few drinks, as you can imagine.
[00:45:43] It was legit scrap for sure.
[00:45:45] So I had picked out this car.
[00:45:47] I'd been working so hard for it.
[00:45:48] My dad had been so busy and we were going to go on Saturday morning at 10 a.m. something
[00:45:53] and I call my dad and I'm like, dad, are you ready?
[00:45:56] And he goes like, no honey, my quarterback caused the biggest fight last night.
[00:46:01] You have no idea the shit storm I'm dealing with.
[00:46:03] And so I'm like, screw your quarterback.
[00:46:05] I hate him.
[00:46:06] I don't even know him.
[00:46:07] He's all I wanted was I've waited so long to get this car.
[00:46:10] So anyway, that was also the beginning of my independence of being like, you know what?
[00:46:14] I'll go negotiate this deal.
[00:46:15] And that's exactly what I did.
[00:46:17] So that was sort of how I came to know like who Marcus even was because it was all over
[00:46:23] the news.
[00:46:24] And then I saw his picture in the paper and I was immediately like, oh, damn.
[00:46:30] This is the guy.
[00:46:31] He's so hot.
[00:46:33] And like fast forward, probably a year.
[00:46:38] My best friend had drank too much at a bowling alley slash nightclub and I had to go pick
[00:46:44] her up and I was not happy about that either.
[00:46:46] And so when I walked in, I went to the back door and the bouncer opened the door so I
[00:46:53] could get in together and Marcus was like, from me to him right now.
[00:46:58] He's right there and I was like immediately taken so aback.
[00:47:03] And I just said, oh, you're the troublemaker.
[00:47:06] And we sparked this conversation.
[00:47:09] I, oh, I was so smitten, but I didn't, I don't think I let on like I was.
[00:47:13] And I saw you there every week for like four weeks.
[00:47:16] I went back every week and then he wasn't there one week.
[00:47:21] And his friend who is the bouncer there took my number and gave it to Marcus and he called
[00:47:26] me that night and we hung out for the first time on July 4th of 1997 and we've been thick
[00:47:34] since.
[00:47:37] The end.
[00:47:39] So suspended.
[00:47:41] Was that your sophomore year?
[00:47:42] That's my sophomore year.
[00:47:43] You get suspended.
[00:47:44] Yeah.
[00:47:45] Are you allowed to practice?
[00:47:46] Like what are you doing?
[00:47:47] Yes.
[00:47:48] So I had, yeah, I just work in your ass off.
[00:47:49] Yeah, I work my ass off.
[00:47:50] I practiced every day.
[00:47:52] I went into treatment room, you know, three days, three times a day, still went to study
[00:47:57] hall, which we had to do every evening.
[00:47:59] And then I broke down every film.
[00:48:00] So I'd have to watch hours and hours of every play from every angle of every upcoming game.
[00:48:07] And then I would write, you know, take notes and like all defensive, um, coverages.
[00:48:12] And so like I learned, you know, I learned, um, but it was miserable because I couldn't
[00:48:17] play on.
[00:48:18] What did you think of my dad?
[00:48:19] I don't think I've ever asked you this.
[00:48:20] What was your relationship with my dad like?
[00:48:23] It was, it was good.
[00:48:24] No, we, I mean, we always had a good relationship.
[00:48:26] I mean, I was angry because I didn't get to, you know, I didn't get to play.
[00:48:29] Like,
[00:48:30] How did he treat you then?
[00:48:31] He treated me well.
[00:48:32] Yeah.
[00:48:33] I mean, I was cut up film from every day.
[00:48:35] It seems like like, like there's a little bit of mutual respect.
[00:48:38] Like he respect, kind of respect the fact that you didn't rat anybody out.
[00:48:41] He actually said, they said that too.
[00:48:42] They all said that because they were like, kind of saved the season because if you, if
[00:48:46] any of those, you know, they were all, they were all, you know, they're all the stars,
[00:48:50] right?
[00:48:51] So, um, and these were good guys.
[00:48:53] Um, so they weren't, yeah, they weren't angry.
[00:48:56] They were just like, you're an idiot.
[00:48:58] You got, one, you got caught too.
[00:49:01] What are you doing at the pike house?
[00:49:02] You know, that's right.
[00:49:04] So there was one time when we were dating, but we hadn't been dating for too long that
[00:49:09] Marcus came home from practice and said, your dad knows.
[00:49:13] And I was like, Oh, what do you mean?
[00:49:16] My dad knows.
[00:49:17] Yeah.
[00:49:18] That's after he left and went to Northwest.
[00:49:19] Yeah.
[00:49:20] So we were never dating when my dad was there.
[00:49:22] Got it.
[00:49:23] That year that Marcus was breaking down film and whatnot.
[00:49:27] At the end of that year, my dad took a job at Northwestern.
[00:49:30] And so a new coach had come in and I met you when, when coach Q had taken over the team.
[00:49:36] Yeah.
[00:49:37] And your dad already left.
[00:49:38] So, but he did find out and he called and he was not happy with her.
[00:49:42] Yeah.
[00:49:43] I was 17.
[00:49:44] Oh, she's the high school.
[00:49:45] She's in my senior year of high school.
[00:49:46] Oh, damn.
[00:49:47] And how old are you at this point?
[00:49:49] 20.
[00:49:50] Oh yeah.
[00:49:51] That's not a happy dad.
[00:49:52] I got three daughters, man.
[00:49:53] Yeah.
[00:49:54] You wouldn't be happy.
[00:49:55] I have a sophomore, San Diego State.
[00:49:57] I get it.
[00:49:58] Yeah.
[00:49:59] She has pepper spray and taser on that all the time.
[00:50:05] I had to call him because I didn't, you know, I respect my dad a lot and I wanted to call
[00:50:13] him and sort of like head this off.
[00:50:16] And one of Marcus's coaches who was still friends with him said like, hey, coach Watson
[00:50:21] knows that you're dating his daughter.
[00:50:24] So I called him and he was like, well, honey, I'm going to tell you this.
[00:50:32] He said, Marcus is one of the few players that I can say that I truly love.
[00:50:36] Like I love that kid.
[00:50:37] He's like, but he's a womanizer and he will break your heart.
[00:50:42] And if he breaks your heart, you tell him, I will break his neck.
[00:50:45] Oh, there you go.
[00:50:47] Right on.
[00:50:48] Pops coming in hot.
[00:50:50] He had a, yeah, he had a, he had a temper.
[00:50:52] Yeah.
[00:50:53] He had a real temper on the field.
[00:50:54] He had a temper.
[00:50:55] No, he actually had a temper everywhere.
[00:50:58] He's an amazing human being.
[00:51:01] So, so your dad leaves from coaching that job the next year.
[00:51:06] Now it's your junior year in college.
[00:51:07] Are you starting as a quarterback?
[00:51:08] No.
[00:51:09] I'm a really good quarterback from Missouri who actually split time at University of Missouri
[00:51:14] with one of the guys who was up for the Heisman.
[00:51:17] So you know, really after the fight, I feel like everything just went downhill after that.
[00:51:21] So we still on the team.
[00:51:23] I was still on the team.
[00:51:24] I was still under, you know, still in scholarship.
[00:51:26] So I, this, this guy came in and, you know, we're actually really close to, to this date.
[00:51:33] Kent Scornia, he's very successful in, in Missouri and St. Louis.
[00:51:37] And actually he's a donor to Vets and he was always my roommate on the road.
[00:51:42] But he, yeah, he came in, he was like a true quarterback from the Midwest.
[00:51:47] Like this guy could sling the ball all over the place.
[00:51:49] And I played quarterback more as a linebacker, you know, and that was our difference.
[00:51:54] So I would, you know, I would put my head down and, you know, he would, he would throw
[00:51:58] the ball, you know, and slide and things like that.
[00:52:01] And finally they moved me over to tight end my senior year just because I wasn't going
[00:52:07] to get on the field with him.
[00:52:09] But we, we actually split time, first couple of games of the season.
[00:52:14] And I did well, but he wound up like kind of taking command and control and, and, and
[00:52:19] he was like a true leader, true quarterback.
[00:52:20] I was a bit of a knucklehead and wanted to get in fights and run linebackers over, you
[00:52:25] know, and yeah.
[00:52:27] So, that's what, was there a point in your life when you thought you were going to play
[00:52:31] in the NFL?
[00:52:34] I mean, from when I was, you know, five, Jaco, that's what I wanted.
[00:52:38] That's what I wanted to do.
[00:52:39] I should have rephrased that.
[00:52:40] You know, there had to be a point in your life when you were going to play in the NFL.
[00:52:43] When did that dream go out?
[00:52:45] Like when did that flame extinguish?
[00:52:48] That flame extinguished my, it was my, before my senior year.
[00:52:56] So I popped for, I popped for testosterone.
[00:52:59] This is your senior year of college?
[00:53:01] Yeah.
[00:53:02] Yeah.
[00:53:03] Going into the senior year.
[00:53:04] So Marcus, you're moving over to tight end.
[00:53:05] You're going to start at tight end, put on some weight.
[00:53:06] Roger that.
[00:53:07] So I went and found some testosterone, sipping eight and got, got bulky and faster.
[00:53:13] And I remember we were doing off season workouts and the quarterback who, who we were about
[00:53:19] the same speed, I put on 20 pounds and then I started beating him in the, in, in sprints.
[00:53:24] He was like, dude, what the fuck?
[00:53:26] He's like, how can you gain weight and be faster than me all of a sudden?
[00:53:30] So the NCAA came in actually three weeks early and a few of us popped positive for,
[00:53:37] for performance enhancing drugs.
[00:53:41] So that's like, I had a, I had a new guy that was a bicycle rider and he said that when
[00:53:49] you're on, or maybe I just heard this on a, I don't know where I heard this.
[00:53:52] I think I'm just going to know.
[00:53:53] Who said like, he's a bike rider.
[00:53:55] And he said, when someone's on, on juice, it's like they're on a Harley.
[00:53:59] Like you literally just can't hang with them.
[00:54:01] They're just that much better.
[00:54:03] So did you feel like, I mean, it sounds like, dude, you put on 20 pounds and you got faster.
[00:54:08] Oh, I mean, I could, I could dunk a basketball just from a straight vertical leap.
[00:54:12] You know, yeah, it's, it's pretty, pretty, pretty potent stuff.
[00:54:17] When you're, when you're abusing it like that, not when you're like using it for like
[00:54:20] replacement therapy, you know, where they're trying to keep your levels at around.
[00:54:23] Seven or 800.
[00:54:24] We're talking about, you know, 2400, 2000, you know, your blood, your blood levels are
[00:54:29] through the roof.
[00:54:30] And, but you do, you feel like.
[00:54:32] Who's your guide during this?
[00:54:34] Guide?
[00:54:35] Yeah.
[00:54:36] Just bro science.
[00:54:37] This is straight up.
[00:54:38] Bro science, no Google.
[00:54:41] This is what three of my buddies said.
[00:54:43] Oh yeah, that guy was in the Marine Corps.
[00:54:45] This guy, you know, took steroids in high school.
[00:54:49] And yeah, we think it's okay.
[00:54:50] You'll be fine.
[00:54:51] So you pop positive.
[00:54:54] I didn't know the NCA was tested back then.
[00:54:56] Yeah.
[00:54:57] I guess I'm just the idiot.
[00:54:58] Yeah, they tested everybody.
[00:55:00] Well, I shouldn't say they tested everybody was random, but.
[00:55:04] And so then are you done?
[00:55:05] Or is that the end of your.
[00:55:06] That's it.
[00:55:07] And I'm done.
[00:55:08] So you said that's the moment when you realized the NFL wasn't happening.
[00:55:12] NFL wasn't happening.
[00:55:15] And you finish.
[00:55:16] How'd your dad feel about that before we go?
[00:55:18] What do you think?
[00:55:19] No, it wasn't your dad.
[00:55:21] No, your dad already left.
[00:55:23] The head coach called.
[00:55:25] They weren't happy.
[00:55:26] But everything, they were always like, ah, it's not Marcus' fault.
[00:55:30] It must have been something else.
[00:55:32] Yeah, my parents.
[00:55:33] Oh, your parents were like, they shifted blame.
[00:55:36] They covered for you a little bit.
[00:55:38] But your dad must have been realizing that the dream was over.
[00:55:41] Probably his dream.
[00:55:42] The NFL dream.
[00:55:43] Yeah, his dream.
[00:55:44] His NFL dream.
[00:55:45] Which by the way, I had like a one in like a trillion chance of making it to the NFL.
[00:55:49] For sure.
[00:55:50] For sure.
[00:55:51] But you got to, I mean, it seems like anybody in pursuing any athletic pursuit that hard
[00:55:57] is going to think, well, I'm going to be able to make it.
[00:55:59] And then at some point you go, it ain't happening.
[00:56:03] You want to go as hard and far as you can.
[00:56:05] Right?
[00:56:06] I mean, that's, that's all you know.
[00:56:07] Literally, it's all you know.
[00:56:08] I mean, I remember getting in the teams and telling guys and buds like, dude, I never
[00:56:11] turned a wrench.
[00:56:12] Like all I did, all my dad had me do is play ball.
[00:56:15] Like I literally, you know, so I learned a lot.
[00:56:18] And I just, you know, that's why I thought just the teams are so good.
[00:56:21] Cause I just learned a lot of like man shit outside of, you know, playing ball, which
[00:56:24] I look at now.
[00:56:25] I don't even, I don't remember the last time I watched the sporting event, right?
[00:56:28] Yeah.
[00:56:29] You know, I kind of frown upon some of the stuff that's going on.
[00:56:31] It's gross, but yeah.
[00:56:34] So is this when you started thinking about going in the teams?
[00:56:38] Into the teams.
[00:56:42] What was the trigger there?
[00:56:43] You're going to love this.
[00:56:45] This is right up your alley, Jaco.
[00:56:47] So my roommate, of course, dad was a seal in Vietnam.
[00:56:53] I don't think he was.
[00:56:56] He may have been a Marine.
[00:56:57] Wait, what roommate?
[00:56:59] Jason.
[00:57:00] Jason O'Neill.
[00:57:01] Oh.
[00:57:02] Yeah.
[00:57:03] When he lived in the apartment, remember?
[00:57:05] Yeah.
[00:57:06] I didn't know he was part of the story.
[00:57:07] I think he's part of the story.
[00:57:08] I'm just thinking, you know, you said I'm going to love this story.
[00:57:10] So I figured like one of your brother, your one of your friends dad was.
[00:57:14] You're going to love it, but then you're going to scratch your head too and be like,
[00:57:17] all right, we're going to go with this, Marcus.
[00:57:19] So we're sitting in the apartment one night.
[00:57:23] And this guy actually started as a freshman, wind up when we graduated.
[00:57:27] I went in the Navy, he went in the Marine Corps, flew F-18s, you know, did the whole
[00:57:32] thing, top gun and all that good stuff.
[00:57:35] And then of course the Marine Corps, what they do to their guys who go to flight school,
[00:57:40] YF-18s and go to top gun, you would expect them to continue flying.
[00:57:44] They handed him an M16 and put him on the ground in Afghanistan, you know, with all
[00:57:52] that training, I guess as a fact.
[00:57:53] Yeah, that's what the Marine Corps does.
[00:57:55] Yeah.
[00:57:56] That's one of the best things that they do is because those guys can talk to aircraft
[00:57:59] better than anybody else.
[00:58:00] And 100% and he did, but he did complain because he said, man, you know, they spent all this
[00:58:05] money on training me how to fly.
[00:58:06] And he's like, I was really good at it.
[00:58:08] And then I'm on the fucking ground in Afghanistan dodging mortars, you know, which he never,
[00:58:13] ever signed up to do.
[00:58:16] So it was just interesting to hear from his perspective, like they don't like it, you
[00:58:19] know, they want to fly and now they're stuck calling in cast.
[00:58:23] One of my really good friends was the same thing, Marine Corps, F-18, top gun instructor,
[00:58:30] top gun senior instructor.
[00:58:31] And he was a fac on the ground.
[00:58:33] He was Anglico team leader in Ramadi with us just getting after it.
[00:58:38] And it's funny because he taught like all the stuff he did in the Marine Corps, he taught
[00:58:43] like he talks about what he did for this one six month deployment to Ramadi because a lot
[00:58:49] different than what it was as I constantly tell him being in an air conditioned cockpit,
[00:58:54] you know, 20,000 feet up in the air.
[00:58:56] That's right.
[00:58:57] Yeah.
[00:58:58] You're right.
[00:58:59] I mean, those guys, can you imagine what kind of perspective they get on the ground and
[00:59:02] then go back up there and go, wait a minute, like I know what it was like down there.
[00:59:05] That's the Marine Corps.
[00:59:07] And I've read some great stories about like the Korean war, those Marine Corps pilots
[00:59:11] that would go and deploy, they're like the Marines, everyone loved them because they
[00:59:15] can just talk to those pilots the way they need to be talked to.
[00:59:17] So I mean, and look, we have the JTACs.
[00:59:20] There's JTACs are awesome too.
[00:59:23] But in the Marine Corps, just with the way they do it and it's pretty freaking cool.
[00:59:27] So this guy is your roommate.
[00:59:29] So my roommate.
[00:59:30] We come home, we throw on the TV and on comes this movie and looking at it and you know,
[00:59:39] it's got people run around and I think you're talking about Sean.
[00:59:43] No, I'm not.
[00:59:44] Okay.
[00:59:45] No, you are incorrect.
[00:59:47] One.
[00:59:48] Amherst incorrect two times out of a hundred.
[00:59:51] I always 98% right.
[00:59:53] I just don't ever remember you living with him.
[00:59:55] Yeah.
[00:59:56] We lived together remember for like six months.
[00:59:57] I don't remember that.
[00:59:58] Okay.
[00:59:59] Sorry.
[01:00:00] I love you.
[01:00:01] It's all good.
[01:00:02] I love you.
[01:00:03] And and they so here G.I. Jane.
[01:00:07] So G.I. Jane comes on.
[01:00:08] I'm just going to get to the point.
[01:00:11] All right.
[01:00:12] G.I. Jane comes on TV and I'm like, what is this?
[01:00:16] And they start talking about, you know, these units and this and that.
[01:00:20] And I have when you were talking about exposure to the military, I hadn't I had none.
[01:00:24] So if I had exposure, I could have maybe called this out right away.
[01:00:28] This was it.
[01:00:29] This was my military.
[01:00:30] I'm like, I want to do that.
[01:00:32] Like this looks hard.
[01:00:34] They said these are the best of the best, right?
[01:00:36] Because they talk about it in there.
[01:00:38] Not not Demi Moore, but the rest of it.
[01:00:41] So that's what actually just told me that there's a unit out there that's special and
[01:00:48] supposed to be the toughest training in the world.
[01:00:51] And that's that's what piqued my at least my initial interest to start to look into it
[01:00:56] and go, let me just look into what this is.
[01:00:58] And so, you know, then I read the first book because back then it was there was nothing
[01:01:03] online about the teams.
[01:01:06] So I just I read I literally read every book from Vietnam.
[01:01:10] I mean, everything all and the more I read, the more I got like focused and the more hungry
[01:01:18] and and and, you know, and then nothing else mattered.
[01:01:21] Do you start training at this point?
[01:01:23] I did.
[01:01:24] I did.
[01:01:26] You also met someone who is at SIU and he was a seal, right?
[01:01:32] Yeah.
[01:01:33] Oh, God, I forgot his name from.
[01:01:35] Yeah, from.
[01:01:36] He died in a car accident.
[01:01:37] Yeah, team four.
[01:01:38] I remember.
[01:01:39] I know you're talking about.
[01:01:40] Yeah, I thought he was like.
[01:01:41] Will Buschell.
[01:01:42] Will Buschell.
[01:01:43] There you go.
[01:01:44] Will Buschell.
[01:01:45] And so imagine you're in college, you know how it is.
[01:01:46] You want to be a team guy or in high school and then you go, you find out that there's
[01:01:51] a guy that was a team guy.
[01:01:53] So he, of course, he, you know, he slipped people's throats behind enemy lines.
[01:01:57] And like, so every time I saw this guy, I was like, I was in awe, you know, and of course,
[01:02:02] then when I got the team, they're like, oh, that shit.
[01:02:04] No, I'm joking.
[01:02:05] I'm totally kidding.
[01:02:06] He actually had a decent reputation.
[01:02:08] But yeah, I looked up to this kid and I was just, you know, I was just hungry after that.
[01:02:14] Jaco, it was nothing mattered.
[01:02:17] I called my parents.
[01:02:18] I told them what I wanted to do and they thought I was crazy.
[01:02:22] Remember that I was crazy.
[01:02:24] But as you know, once you get on that path, nothing else matters.
[01:02:29] And it's nothing but focus and discipline and like, that's it.
[01:02:33] What did you do?
[01:02:34] Were you dropping weight?
[01:02:36] Were you because I stopped lifting?
[01:02:38] Got it.
[01:02:39] That's what I did.
[01:02:40] So all I knew was like sport lifting, you know, heavy weights.
[01:02:44] I completely stopped lifting and all I did was body weight workouts.
[01:02:48] So the typical like Stu Smith, I think I had maybe the book, you know, push ups, pull
[01:02:51] ups, sit ups, dips.
[01:02:54] Nobody taught me how to do any of these, by the way.
[01:02:55] Nobody taught me how to even like jog to like, I didn't know anything.
[01:02:59] Like I never jogged, like just went out and ran like six miles.
[01:03:02] Everything was like 40 yard sprints, you know, or maybe hundreds.
[01:03:06] But that was it.
[01:03:07] And so I thought I was like jogging at a good pace until I ran with Sean Toll, who was in
[01:03:12] the army for a long time.
[01:03:14] I went for a run with him and were you jogging slower or I was jogging slower.
[01:03:19] I was like, oh, this is good.
[01:03:21] I'm like, I'm working out.
[01:03:22] This is jogging.
[01:03:23] This is this is jogging.
[01:03:24] And he crushed me.
[01:03:26] Like I couldn't even, I could barely keep up with him.
[01:03:28] And he's like, I'm not even running at a hard pace.
[01:03:30] I went, holy shit, this is like, so he kind of brought me up to another level that I just
[01:03:34] didn't know about.
[01:03:35] So then I started, you know, jogging faster.
[01:03:38] And so this is what you're doing your senior year.
[01:03:41] This is my senior year.
[01:03:42] This is my senior year of college.
[01:03:43] Senior, senior year of college.
[01:03:45] And it was like this summer before your senior year that you decided to do this.
[01:03:49] He came to me and said he wanted to be a seal.
[01:03:52] And of course there was no 9-11.
[01:03:54] I didn't know what a seal was.
[01:03:55] I really didn't know the difference between the army and the Navy.
[01:03:58] Although I was, I know I was patriotic, but then I also thought that maybe the military
[01:04:02] wasn't for me based on what I knew about kids from my hometown that went in it.
[01:04:06] And so I thought, you know, it's just a great jumping off point because Marcus was so captivating
[01:04:12] and so cute and such kind of a check in the box for me to be like, I dated the SIU quarterback.
[01:04:18] I don't expect that we'll stay together.
[01:04:20] You know, I thought maybe we'd date for the summer or whatever.
[01:04:24] And we'd been together at that point for two and a half years.
[01:04:27] And I met him at 17.
[01:04:28] So you know, in my mind, like no other guy had ever existed because he was everything
[01:04:33] to me.
[01:04:34] But at the same time, I knew that I was young and I was, you know, very independent.
[01:04:39] And I was raised an only child.
[01:04:41] I have two half brothers who I love like, like brothers.
[01:04:45] And I consider them brothers, but I was raised an only child.
[01:04:48] And so I wanted to be independent.
[01:04:49] I wanted to be, I wanted to graduate and, and move to maybe Chicago or St. Louis.
[01:04:56] I at some point even thought like, maybe I'll move to LA or New York.
[01:04:59] I just wanted to be.
[01:05:01] And when he told me he wanted to go into the military, I thought this is, this is perfect
[01:05:05] because they've kind of been thinking this and we're young and probably not going to
[01:05:09] stay together and get married.
[01:05:10] So by jumping off point, you mean jump off the freaking Marcus train and go your own
[01:05:15] way.
[01:05:16] Yeah.
[01:05:17] But in a healthy way.
[01:05:18] And I talked about it and he's like, you know, these are my goals and this is my vision.
[01:05:21] And I'm like, well, I'm, you know, I'm a couple of years behind June school and I wanted to
[01:05:25] rush a sorority.
[01:05:26] I wanted to be young and be not being this committed relationship.
[01:05:32] And so we, we had super amicably decided to break up.
[01:05:35] So you break up and this is how, when did you talk to a recruiter?
[01:05:40] So that's, that's what I was going to talk about next.
[01:05:42] So I did, I just went on the strip, same place where I ran into the guys coming out of the
[01:05:46] club.
[01:05:47] And there was recruiting, there was a Marine Corps Navy recruiting station there.
[01:05:51] And I went to talk to the Navy recruiter and he was a, he was a diver, combat diver.
[01:05:57] And he was really cool, like really cool.
[01:05:59] And he just said, Hey, he's like, you're, you're at the, you're at school here, right?
[01:06:02] And I said, yeah.
[01:06:03] He said, well, you know, you, you can be an officer.
[01:06:06] And I was like, what's that?
[01:06:07] I literally said, what's that?
[01:06:09] Fucking knucklehead, right?
[01:06:11] Um, he's like, well, you know, you go to college, you get your degree and you know, you could
[01:06:16] become an officer in the military.
[01:06:18] Most people that are enlisted, you know, don't go to college and they enlist and kind of
[01:06:22] explain this.
[01:06:23] Oh, okay.
[01:06:24] Well, that, that sounds cool.
[01:06:25] Like let's do that.
[01:06:26] And so he handed me off to St. Louis, which was running, I guess, um, they, I think they
[01:06:33] managed the individual officer recruitment.
[01:06:37] And again, I didn't like have, I had no mentors, you know, um, you know, as you know, a lot
[01:06:42] of the, you know, the officers that go on either go to the academy or they have, you
[01:06:46] know, congressmen, like they just, they have a better network.
[01:06:48] I just didn't know anybody.
[01:06:50] And so I was training on my own.
[01:06:53] And then the day I had to, uh, he drove the, the, the officer recruiter drove down from
[01:06:59] St. Louis and met me at the university to take my like PRT, CLPRT test.
[01:07:05] I borrowed a pair of, I've been training in sneakers.
[01:07:10] I borrowed a pair of boots because I didn't have any.
[01:07:11] She had to wear boots.
[01:07:13] Um, I'm a size 14.
[01:07:15] I, the only size that was available to me, I think it was like 11 and a half or 12.
[01:07:20] So I, I literally squeezed my feet into these size 12s about the second lap in, I completely
[01:07:29] like both my legs cramped up, uh, finished the run.
[01:07:35] Um, do start doing pushups and I'm doing, uh, what do they call them, uh, grasshopper pushups.
[01:07:41] Oh, like, like little half pushups.
[01:07:43] Yeah.
[01:07:44] Like your elbows are in instead of like out here.
[01:07:45] And he's like, stop.
[01:07:46] I went, what?
[01:07:47] He goes, you're, those aren't, those aren't pushups.
[01:07:49] Those are, we call those grasshopper pushups.
[01:07:51] I was like, well, it's the only ones that I know, you know, so I'm going to keep going.
[01:07:54] Cause I know you, you can't because they don't count.
[01:07:56] You have to move your arms here.
[01:07:58] So the whole test was a complete failure.
[01:07:59] Like I fucked that thing up completely.
[01:08:02] And um, you know, I found out, of course, I didn't get picked up for, for spec war, but
[01:08:07] I got picked up for every other officer program.
[01:08:09] So you come in, go to Nuke, you go to whatever.
[01:08:12] So, um, you can't, can't go to buds and you can transfer after two years.
[01:08:19] And I went, yeah, but you know, the reason, you know, just the only time I actually thought
[01:08:25] a little bit and the only reason I'm going in the military is, is to be a team guy.
[01:08:29] And, and so I just told him like, no, I, you know, I want to go to buds and he said, well,
[01:08:35] you can just go back to the, you know, the recruiter and you can enlist.
[01:08:39] I said, great.
[01:08:40] Can you give me a ride?
[01:08:41] Yeah, give me a ride.
[01:08:42] We shook hands.
[01:08:43] I took my, you know, my little packet that I already started building my record and went
[01:08:48] back to the recruiter.
[01:08:50] And I think I enlisted right there like son, you know, neps.
[01:08:53] I think it was, uh, yeah, or early, I think it was no, or, uh, depths, depths, depths,
[01:08:59] delayed entry.
[01:09:00] Yes.
[01:09:01] That was it.
[01:09:02] And then meps is where it actually happens.
[01:09:03] Yeah, exactly.
[01:09:04] Yeah, you're right.
[01:09:05] So you, in the, how long was it like when you enlisted, how many, how long does it have
[01:09:08] to wait before you could leave?
[01:09:10] It was quick.
[01:09:12] And we'll get, yeah, we can get in that story.
[01:09:13] But from when I talked to the recruiter, I think it was about six months.
[01:09:17] So I was, you know, I'd show up every month and they'd have like little gatherings or
[01:09:20] whatever, but I was still training, um, starting to get a little bit indoctrinated into the,
[01:09:26] into the military.
[01:09:27] So were you guys, were you guys split up when you actually signed the papers?
[01:09:31] No.
[01:09:32] Uh, we were actually living together.
[01:09:34] Oh, dang.
[01:09:35] And I don't remember that.
[01:09:36] No, I'm just kidding.
[01:09:37] And yeah, you were just training and getting ready.
[01:09:41] And we knew that, you know, the end was coming, but we were still together.
[01:09:46] Okay.
[01:09:47] And then you signed the papers and now you got your date.
[01:09:49] Hey, you're going to leave on this date.
[01:09:51] I'm going to leave.
[01:09:52] I'm going to leave on this date, uh, which was June 15th, 2000.
[01:10:01] And I don't know, when did you tell me?
[01:10:04] You were also finishing, he had his last semester in school, which ended in December
[01:10:09] and then you did your internship.
[01:10:10] Well, then I did my internship.
[01:10:11] I did my internship for four weeks, no, four months at the Breaker's Resort in Palm Beach,
[01:10:15] Florida.
[01:10:16] What is it?
[01:10:17] It was an terrible internship.
[01:10:18] It was like resort management.
[01:10:19] Like I basically got paid to be a, uh, a cabana boy and like get tips.
[01:10:24] I mean, literally.
[01:10:25] And then two weeks run the children's like kid program.
[01:10:28] It was crazy.
[01:10:29] And that's what you did from December until, until April.
[01:10:34] April.
[01:10:35] Yeah.
[01:10:36] So April came back, graduated, didn't walk.
[01:10:38] I didn't really care about like walking across the stage to me that wasn't.
[01:10:40] We're missing a huge chunk of that.
[01:10:43] Don't go too far into the story.
[01:10:45] Oh, where do you want me to stop?
[01:10:46] Because, well, in May, 2000.
[01:10:48] Okay, good.
[01:10:51] So in the summertime, July, August, school starting is when we decided, this will be
[01:10:58] our last semester together.
[01:10:59] I knew he was going to leave at the end of the semester.
[01:11:01] I also had an aunt who was dying of breast cancer and so, and I was working full time.
[01:11:05] I had 18 credit hours.
[01:11:07] I was working 30 hours a week.
[01:11:08] My aunt was dying.
[01:11:09] And so, um, for a couple of months I was thinking like, I'm not sure I feel quite right, but
[01:11:17] I just kept delaying what I would soon realize was the inevitable, which was taking a pregnancy
[01:11:23] test.
[01:11:24] Oh.
[01:11:25] And I finally took this test in October, um, and I had been pregnant since August.
[01:11:34] So I was about 12 weeks pregnant with our son when I found out and he was set to leave
[01:11:41] in two months in December.
[01:11:44] Set to leave for the Navy.
[01:11:45] For his internship.
[01:11:46] For all for the internship.
[01:11:47] Followed by the Navy.
[01:11:48] Okay.
[01:11:49] Okay, so got it.
[01:11:50] Now I'm tracking.
[01:11:51] Hey, I'm still trying to track the story.
[01:11:53] So it's a long time ago.
[01:11:55] So, so, was there a whirlwind and what did you do?
[01:11:58] I mean, so freaked out completely freaked out and Marcus was so supportive.
[01:12:04] Initially he's like, he's like, this is going to be fine.
[01:12:08] Like we're going to be parents.
[01:12:09] It's going to be fine.
[01:12:10] And here he is like all this, these dreams and plans and I was the one freaking out.
[01:12:15] And then he told his parents and they freaked out.
[01:12:18] And when they freaked out, he freaked out.
[01:12:20] When he freaked out, I really freaked out.
[01:12:21] There's a lot of freaking out.
[01:12:23] There's a lot of freaking out.
[01:12:25] Freaking out, shit, it rolls downhill.
[01:12:27] Obviously.
[01:12:28] Well, I just thought like my life is over.
[01:12:29] It's absolutely, I was so excited about this new beginning and it's over.
[01:12:35] And I now see that is the beginning.
[01:12:39] That's the beginning of everything.
[01:12:42] Thank God.
[01:12:43] Wow.
[01:12:45] So you find out in October, then in December you're going to be a cabana boy in Florida.
[01:12:50] That's right.
[01:12:51] Cabana boy.
[01:12:52] And you're expecting dad.
[01:12:53] Right.
[01:12:54] At the same time.
[01:12:55] Right.
[01:12:56] At 20, 22 years old.
[01:12:59] And you're already know you're going to join the Navy.
[01:13:02] Yes.
[01:13:03] 23.
[01:13:04] 23.
[01:13:05] And then what's the call then?
[01:13:07] So the call is I go do my internship because.
[01:13:11] You got to do to graduate or whatever.
[01:13:13] You got to do to graduate.
[01:13:14] Amber stays back.
[01:13:15] Did you, did you, did you go to school in the spring?
[01:13:18] Oh yeah.
[01:13:19] You did.
[01:13:20] Okay.
[01:13:21] So Amber's pregnant.
[01:13:22] She's pregnant in Palm Beach, Florida.
[01:13:27] Working as a cabana boy and snorkeling in the evenings on the, on the, on the.
[01:13:32] And training.
[01:13:33] You ran to.
[01:13:34] I mean, I trained my ass off down there.
[01:13:35] No, I did.
[01:13:36] But you're working 17 jobs or whatever with 18 credit hours.
[01:13:38] You're just like.
[01:13:39] I think I took 15 then in the spring.
[01:13:41] But yeah, I was working full time and going to school.
[01:13:45] I was nine months pregnant and taking finals.
[01:13:47] It was.
[01:13:48] Amber worked forever.
[01:13:49] Like from the day I met her, she was always working.
[01:13:52] Like nonstop and it hasn't stopped.
[01:13:55] So the reason we're still here.
[01:13:57] Um, yeah, she worked her ass off.
[01:13:59] She really did.
[01:14:00] She's a grinder.
[01:14:01] And then how did this whole scenario impact your decision to go in the Navy?
[01:14:06] It, I mean, it really didn't.
[01:14:09] Like I was, this is what I want to do.
[01:14:11] I, you know, at 23, I, I, I didn't, I didn't even think about what it was like to start
[01:14:19] a family.
[01:14:21] But then again, what were we supposed to do?
[01:14:22] I was supposed to graduate and then get a job, you know, like, well, here's your job.
[01:14:27] Yeah.
[01:14:28] I mean, here's, here's your job.
[01:14:29] How are you making, you know, how are you making money?
[01:14:31] Again, you know, my dad handed me a ball when I was three.
[01:14:34] Um, I don't know.
[01:14:36] I was scared to death.
[01:14:37] Honestly, I remember saying, I'm supposed to put on a shirt and tie now and go step
[01:14:41] off in the private sector and get a job, you know, doing what and making what to support,
[01:14:46] support the family.
[01:14:47] Like I was scared to death too.
[01:14:48] Then once I started really thinking about it.
[01:14:50] But the Navy seemed like the viable option to have a family.
[01:14:54] The Navy seemed at that time comfortable, you know,
[01:14:59] Yeah.
[01:15:00] It's like paycheck healthcare, paycheck healthcare.
[01:15:01] Yeah.
[01:15:02] And I think that's some of the, probably advice I got from individuals.
[01:15:04] I don't remember.
[01:15:05] I mean, I think maybe I talked to a few, just say, Hey, you'll, you know, she'll be taken
[01:15:08] care of, you'll be taken care of, you make a few hundred dollars more if you're married.
[01:15:14] Whoa.
[01:15:15] Um, and at that time when you don't have any, uh, money.
[01:15:19] And I don't think anybody, I mean, my parents are definitely not supporting us.
[01:15:22] And I mean, Amber's family of course would have, but we, I don't think we were thinking
[01:15:27] about that.
[01:15:28] No.
[01:15:29] So you end up getting married prior to leaving?
[01:15:31] Yeah.
[01:15:32] Well, we spent most of my pregnancy apart and not just because he was in Florida.
[01:15:38] It's because, you know, we had this whole like existential crisis where we didn't know
[01:15:44] how to make this new curve ball fit and there was, there were several months when I thought,
[01:15:51] I'm just going to raise this baby.
[01:15:53] You know, I, I absolutely thought about ending the pregnancy and I couldn't, there was no
[01:15:59] way I could.
[01:16:00] And I thought, I don't care what this means.
[01:16:03] I don't care how hard this is.
[01:16:04] I'm just going to figure it out.
[01:16:07] And, um, you know, even if that meant doing it by myself and Marcus was in the, um, kids
[01:16:15] area, like he had alluded to earlier, and we had picked our son's name before he left.
[01:16:26] And at the time no one was naming their kid, Caden.
[01:16:28] You know, it was like he wanted to name him Caden's.
[01:16:32] I think we saw in a baby name book and he's like, Oh, it's like the quarterback calling
[01:16:36] Caden's.
[01:16:37] He's like, but it sounds like a girl's name.
[01:16:39] So let's shorten it.
[01:16:41] And there was this little baby that came in when he was at the breakers named Caden.
[01:16:46] And we'd never heard that name before.
[01:16:48] And so he called me that night and he was like, I can't do this anymore.
[01:16:52] Let's figure this out.
[01:16:54] And so that's what we did.
[01:16:56] And we named him Caden.
[01:16:58] We named him Caden of battle, of war.
[01:17:01] That's the, that was the ready for battle.
[01:17:03] Ready for battle.
[01:17:04] That's the, that was the meaning.
[01:17:05] That was a cool name.
[01:17:07] Jack.
[01:17:08] Why not?
[01:17:09] I mean, I tried to call him like Nico.
[01:17:10] Oh, Nico Vito and major were his three names of choice, but I wasn't going for that.
[01:17:15] So yeah, we, we, Caden was born in May of 2000.
[01:17:19] Marcus came back, proposed.
[01:17:23] We got married in June of 2000.
[01:17:26] And then six days later he, he left for boot camp.
[01:17:32] Typical story.
[01:17:33] Just like most Americans, right?
[01:17:35] And did you stay like at home in Illinois?
[01:17:39] I did.
[01:17:40] When he left for boot camp and everything?
[01:17:41] Cause there's no point in doing anything else.
[01:17:42] Yeah.
[01:17:43] I couldn't, you know, move the Navy wasn't going to move me, but of course, and then
[01:17:46] he had to go to a school and C school.
[01:17:48] It's be a sonar tech.
[01:17:50] And so when he was finished with C school and he was getting ready for Bud's in dock,
[01:17:55] I was able to move out.
[01:17:56] Caden was nine months old at the time.
[01:17:58] So I was 21.
[01:17:59] I'd never been away from my little, you know, tiny town in Southern Illinois and we moved
[01:18:04] to the towers in Coronado.
[01:18:06] And so he would walk to work, like, you know, walk to Bud's every morning.
[01:18:12] We had no money.
[01:18:13] No, we were raking in the money at 1,082 per paycheck.
[01:18:17] And our rent was 1,000.
[01:18:18] I was going to say, what was the rent?
[01:18:19] A thousand.
[01:18:20] So we got a little bit of help from mom and dad.
[01:18:22] A little bit.
[01:18:23] Not really.
[01:18:24] Not really.
[01:18:25] Not really.
[01:18:26] You're right.
[01:18:27] We just racked up a lot of credit card bills.
[01:18:31] And now you're rolling into Bud's.
[01:18:33] Rolling into Bud's.
[01:18:34] How are you?
[01:18:35] How's your preparation?
[01:18:36] Are you good?
[01:18:37] I'm good.
[01:18:38] Yeah, really good.
[01:18:39] And you joined in May, June, July.
[01:18:42] So when September 11th, when is that?
[01:18:45] What's your career?
[01:18:46] Where are you at?
[01:18:47] Yeah.
[01:18:48] We should.
[01:18:49] We should.
[01:18:50] We should.
[01:18:51] We should.
[01:18:52] Were you in A school?
[01:18:53] No.
[01:18:54] We'll get into it.
[01:18:55] No, I was in third phase.
[01:18:56] Oh, damn.
[01:18:57] What's your first phase?
[01:18:58] First phase was good.
[01:19:00] So I showed up 175.
[01:19:04] Started.
[01:19:05] Wait, 175 pounds?
[01:19:06] No, no, no.
[01:19:07] I'm sorry.
[01:19:08] The number of students.
[01:19:10] People in the class.
[01:19:11] Got it.
[01:19:12] So I show up and I look around and there's a lot.
[01:19:17] I mean, that's a lot of people.
[01:19:18] 175 is a lot.
[01:19:19] Yeah.
[01:19:20] And all I keep hearing is one in four are going to make it, like 25%.
[01:19:25] And honestly, the first thing I thought of was, how can I be one of these one in four?
[01:19:29] There's so many people here.
[01:19:31] And again, I don't even consider myself, I'm not a big guy compared to the guys I played
[01:19:36] ball with in college.
[01:19:38] But everybody else there was like, oh, Marcus is a big guy.
[01:19:40] Oh, yeah, for sure.
[01:19:41] How tall are you?
[01:19:42] 6'4".
[01:19:43] And how much did you weigh when you started BUDS?
[01:19:44] Like two and a quarter, two and a quarter, 225.
[01:19:46] That's a big dude going through BUDS.
[01:19:48] Yeah.
[01:19:49] And I was just FYI.
[01:19:50] I was like, just turned 19 and I was 174 pounds when I got there.
[01:19:55] I was like a little kid.
[01:19:56] It was so awesome.
[01:19:57] We had guys, like you probably like, you had guys in BUDS that gained weight during BUDS.
[01:20:01] I did.
[01:20:02] I gained 10 pounds.
[01:20:03] I gained 10 pounds.
[01:20:04] But like, if you, you, you were what, 23, 24?
[01:20:07] That's 23.
[01:20:08] Yeah.
[01:20:09] So you're like a man.
[01:20:10] I was a man-ish.
[01:20:11] Well, I was not really.
[01:20:12] Well, I was like.
[01:20:13] Physically, physically, you were pretty close.
[01:20:14] I think you were 24 when you started BUDS.
[01:20:15] That'd be questionable to the instructors if we were men, right?
[01:20:17] What's that?
[01:20:18] I think you were 24 when you started BUDS.
[01:20:19] I was like, who's counting?
[01:20:21] I don't know.
[01:20:22] All of us run together.
[01:20:23] So you're in pretty good shape.
[01:20:24] You're in good shape.
[01:20:25] I'm in good shape, but this is, this is where I'm getting at.
[01:20:29] So I look around and see these guys and all of a sudden, you know, we start doing the
[01:20:31] in-doc and everybody is just in phenomenal shape.
[01:20:35] They can do pull-ups forever.
[01:20:37] They can run forever.
[01:20:39] You know, I'm still a little heavy.
[01:20:40] So for me, pull-ups, I can do them, but I can't do, like, I was watching guys do like
[01:20:44] 20, 30, 40, 50 at one time or run our class.
[01:20:51] I swear we had at least 10 individuals, you know, Mike Murphy, Nelson Sanchez.
[01:20:56] These guys were running sub 24-minute, four-mile timer.
[01:21:02] Murph and Sanchez would always be like, that's insane.
[01:21:07] It was insane.
[01:21:08] Right?
[01:21:09] And I was, you know, I never, so this was cool about the runs.
[01:21:12] I never, I was in the Goon Squad literally one day, one time.
[01:21:18] Never failed four-mile time run.
[01:21:20] I never got Gooned except the one time.
[01:21:23] So like for me, the running, I did it and I, you know, I got ahead of the Goon Squad,
[01:21:28] but it was miserable, you know.
[01:21:30] What class were you in?
[01:21:32] 236.
[01:21:33] 236.
[01:21:34] Check.
[01:21:35] Yeah.
[01:21:36] And so, so third phase, Jaco.
[01:21:37] So we're in third phase.
[01:21:38] We'll go back to first phase.
[01:21:39] Yeah.
[01:21:40] I was in good shape, but again, I look around and see 175 guys and I was nervous.
[01:21:45] And then after I started seeing guys work out and then guys doing, literally doing splits,
[01:21:49] I'm like, am I in the right place?
[01:21:51] Like these guys are, these are just some freaks here, you know, like Olympic swimmers
[01:21:55] and all these, these, these crazy individuals.
[01:21:58] And then as you know, class starts in the loudest, it is wild.
[01:22:03] It's wild.
[01:22:04] In the loudest screamers, all of a sudden you're like, hey, we're so-and-so.
[01:22:06] He, you know, he talked a lot of shit.
[01:22:07] You can't even comprehend it.
[01:22:10] Like we were talking before we started recording.
[01:22:14] It's like you and I have survivors by us, meaning every friend I have 100% made it through
[01:22:20] buds.
[01:22:21] So as far as I know, the freaking pass rate for buds is 100%.
[01:22:24] So you know, like, oh, everyone made it.
[01:22:25] Everyone, everyone I know made it.
[01:22:27] But yeah, the wild thing is the people that like you said, like Olympic swimmers and Olympic
[01:22:32] this and D won this and D won track guys and D won football players and everything.
[01:22:37] And they all just quit.
[01:22:38] It's insane.
[01:22:39] Yeah.
[01:22:40] They all go away pretty quickly.
[01:22:42] Was there anything in Hell Week that like tripped you up or were you just like, hell
[01:22:46] yeah.
[01:22:47] No, the other reason I say hell yeah for me is because I, I like sucked at everything
[01:22:53] while it sucked.
[01:22:54] I was, I was okay at everything, but I had to put out really hard to pass runs.
[01:22:58] I had to put out really hard to pass the Oakhurst.
[01:23:00] I had to put out really hard to pass the swims.
[01:23:02] And look, everyone's put now, but I had to put, put out really hard to pass the evolutions.
[01:23:06] But in Hell Week, it wasn't, it's not pass fail.
[01:23:09] It's just keep going.
[01:23:11] Which there's anything I'm okay at.
[01:23:13] It's like, oh, I can keep going.
[01:23:15] I will, I will keep going.
[01:23:17] And so for me, Hell Week was almost like a break because you just had to keep going,
[01:23:21] which I was good at everything else.
[01:23:23] Like I did.
[01:23:24] I failed.
[01:23:25] I failed a four mile time.
[01:23:27] I, I paced myself.
[01:23:29] I was an idiot.
[01:23:30] Yeah.
[01:23:31] I mean, I wasn't fast enough to pace.
[01:23:32] I just needed to sprint.
[01:23:33] I failed a swim and again, like a bunch of people failed to swim and I was one of them.
[01:23:37] So that sucked.
[01:23:38] I don't know if I failed in an obstacle course.
[01:23:41] I probably did, but like, so I was kind of middle of the pack, but it was cause I was
[01:23:46] putting out hard.
[01:23:47] So for me, Hell Week was like, cool.
[01:23:49] And a bunch of people quit.
[01:23:51] A bunch of people quit.
[01:23:52] And I was like, damn, are you dumb?
[01:23:55] Like yeah.
[01:23:56] And a lot of those individuals were up front.
[01:23:58] Oh yeah.
[01:23:59] It's insane.
[01:24:00] Yeah.
[01:24:01] We had some pipe hitters.
[01:24:02] Some like legit good, I shouldn't say pipe hitters cause they're not, they're good athletes.
[01:24:05] Right.
[01:24:06] They're good athletes.
[01:24:08] And yeah, it doesn't really matter, man.
[01:24:10] Get tired, wet and cold.
[01:24:11] We had, I mean, we had a bunch of Rangers and Marines in our class.
[01:24:14] We had some Egyptian officers in the class and it was, it was diverse.
[01:24:21] But you know, I, I did have trouble on the runs, but like you, I put out.
[01:24:25] So I had to really put out hard to stay up and pass the runs.
[01:24:31] I couldn't, I couldn't like keep it back a year.
[01:24:34] You know, I had a, I had to really put out, but no, I, everything I did was, um, I did,
[01:24:40] I did okay.
[01:24:41] I remember one time they pulled me out of the log PT because everybody was literally
[01:24:47] just, it was falling on their head and I was just, I don't know, I was in a different gear
[01:24:52] and they're like opponents sit down like a higher gear, like doing better.
[01:24:54] Yeah.
[01:24:55] Yeah.
[01:24:56] I just felt, I felt, I felt good, you know, with the log and they made me sit down one
[01:25:01] time.
[01:25:02] They're like, you know, just sit down because you're, you're, you're doing all right.
[01:25:07] Um, it was one time at how we, I think it was, what was it called, elephant?
[01:25:12] Elephant cage?
[01:25:13] Elephant runs.
[01:25:14] Oh, elephant runs.
[01:25:15] Yeah.
[01:25:16] When you're like holding.
[01:25:17] Yeah.
[01:25:18] So there was, there was one day I was super dehydrated and I remember this and, uh, like
[01:25:20] I thought I was going to die and I kept trying to like pull back.
[01:25:23] So like guys would run and I would, I was literally trying to like pull it back because I couldn't,
[01:25:28] I couldn't keep up.
[01:25:30] And you know, I was getting yelled at.
[01:25:31] I'm like, guys, I don't know what's going on.
[01:25:33] Like I, I can't, I can't do anything right now.
[01:25:36] And I barely made it through that evolution.
[01:25:38] I remember it.
[01:25:39] It was, it was miserable.
[01:25:40] I remember it to this day because you know how it is.
[01:25:43] You just, everybody hits a point, right?
[01:25:44] And I hit that point where I could not, I felt like I couldn't go any further.
[01:25:48] And the only thing that kept me going was like probably the guys behind me, like kicking
[01:25:51] me in the ass.
[01:25:52] Like, Hey dude, like keep going.
[01:25:55] Um, and then there was a, there was a rock hump when we used to do, uh, you know, like
[01:25:59] you used to do the, of course, throw in a pack, whatever it was, three miles.
[01:26:04] There was a time there also that I felt like I was about to like pass out.
[01:26:09] Something was wrong.
[01:26:10] And I remember one of the guys in the class and I remember, never forget this, Ben Souters,
[01:26:14] who you know, a lot of guys made fun of because he grew up in the Midwest and he was a Bible
[01:26:18] beater and he never cursed and he never drank and never did anything.
[01:26:22] He comes running up past me.
[01:26:24] He's like, Hey man, what's, what's wrong with you?
[01:26:25] I said, I don't know.
[01:26:26] I was like, I'm, I'm about to die.
[01:26:29] He's like, I'm going to stay with you and I'm going to, is that cool?
[01:26:32] I'm like, yeah, absolutely.
[01:26:34] He ran with me the whole way until we finished.
[01:26:36] And this was because you were dehydrated or something?
[01:26:38] Yeah, probably just like dehydrated or whatever.
[01:26:40] So those are like the two times I just remember at Bud's where it was like, you're about to,
[01:26:45] you're going to die, you know?
[01:26:47] But other than that, how about dive phase?
[01:26:49] How are you in the pool?
[01:26:51] Cause you surfed.
[01:26:52] I like, yeah, I like the water.
[01:26:53] I think I had some trouble with, um, pool comp with pool comp.
[01:26:58] Like everybody else does.
[01:26:59] Um, my, I think if I remember, I'm exhalation, not almost fricking drowned because I'm like,
[01:27:05] Hey, there's water going in my, my tube here and it's not supposed to be, you know?
[01:27:11] So you come up and like, I'm trying to explain myself to the instructor staff and they just
[01:27:17] jumped all over me.
[01:27:18] I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, just listen, just hear me out one time.
[01:27:22] I was talking pool comp with Andy stumped the other day up at Jiu-Jitsu camp because
[01:27:26] he was an instructor.
[01:27:27] He was a third phase instructor and you know how that, that, that, he's just like so hilarious.
[01:27:36] And but he's telling me from like his instructor point of view of what he would do and what
[01:27:40] he would see and how he would do it.
[01:27:43] And like he's laughing hysterically.
[01:27:45] Like, and I go, how many people did you, I go, were you like the hard instructor?
[01:27:49] He's like, Oh yeah, I go, how many people did you pass?
[01:27:51] Oh no.
[01:27:52] I said, I said, were you like the hard instructor?
[01:27:54] And he goes, I passed three people three years or four people three years past his pool comp.
[01:28:00] Everyone else failed.
[01:28:01] And he said the guys that passed, he said, I respected him because you know, he put them
[01:28:06] through hell.
[01:28:08] Yeah.
[01:28:09] Andy, we did Andy's podcast and Andy put me through jump training on East Coast.
[01:28:15] And he was, you know, and he knows this.
[01:28:17] He was, he was such a dick to all of us, except if you're in his like his circle, you know,
[01:28:22] but it was cool to see him up in Montana.
[01:28:25] And yeah, it was great.
[01:28:27] Just what he's got going on now.
[01:28:28] And he was awesome.
[01:28:29] He's one of the best, you know, obviously one of the most talented jumpers that I could
[01:28:34] get to.
[01:28:35] And one of the most talented wiseasses.
[01:28:37] Like just so good.
[01:28:39] But yeah, you got to have him debrief you on his experience as a, he was a freaking dive
[01:28:44] instructor, a second phase instructor for like a couple years.
[01:28:48] So he was telling me about how like he'd watched the kids hands and when their hands would
[01:28:53] go into this like involuntary claw like motion and he goes, yeah, that's when I knew I'd
[01:28:58] had him.
[01:28:59] It's like, good God, I cannot imagine him having more fun torturing people, but I guess
[01:29:06] he's doing it.
[01:29:07] And then you're in.
[01:29:08] So then you get to third phase, third phase and third phase I couldn't, couldn't wait
[01:29:14] for I think like most, most guys.
[01:29:16] And yeah, third phase is great.
[01:29:19] The only problems I had there out on the island, we, we made a really shitty hide site for
[01:29:27] like, you know, your, your day that you're supposed to take hours to do it.
[01:29:30] It was, it was so pathetic.
[01:29:32] Jaco that one of the instructors came out, I don't want to say his name, but he lost
[01:29:40] his shit.
[01:29:41] He lost his shit so bad that I think if a, if a, some type of brass was there, they might
[01:29:46] have thrown him in jail.
[01:29:49] He flipped out on us.
[01:29:50] He took one of the students like just threw him every rich direction.
[01:29:54] I think put his boot in the guy's chest and like kicked him a mile, you know, it was one
[01:29:57] of those things.
[01:29:58] We were scared to death and then we worked on that hide for another four hours and chose
[01:30:02] tight.
[01:30:03] But so, but because of that, we had to sleep on the beach.
[01:30:05] It was a camp stupid.
[01:30:06] So I got to sleep at camp stupid, which you really don't sleep because I was getting,
[01:30:12] I was trying to sleep on the ice with those ice plants and ice plants had nothing, but
[01:30:16] some kind of nasty bug that was just biting us all night.
[01:30:20] So we didn't get any sleep.
[01:30:22] Some kind of sand fleece scenario.
[01:30:24] It was bad.
[01:30:25] So, yeah.
[01:30:26] So that was my, my third phase experience and, uh, well also the towers came down.
[01:30:31] Well, then the towers came down.
[01:30:32] So we're up at, um, we're training out East, you know, in the desert and, um, structure
[01:30:39] comes out from the house there and says, Hey, uh, US is being attacked.
[01:30:45] Uh, World Trade Center just got hit by, by an airplane.
[01:30:48] And we all looked at each other and we're like, man, can these fucking guys just leave
[01:30:53] us alone?
[01:30:54] Like we're in third phase.
[01:30:55] We're, this is a conversation.
[01:30:57] We're about to graduate and they're still messing with us.
[01:30:59] Like what did we do wrong?
[01:31:00] Like we, we had a shitty second phase.
[01:31:02] I should, I shouldn't talk about that.
[01:31:04] Um, we had a really shitty second phase, but, um,
[01:31:08] Well, just, I actually did me and, and I'm going to, I'm going to name him, uh, me and,
[01:31:14] me and Jeff boss.
[01:31:15] So he and I are, are swim budding into the bathroom and we go running out and our, our,
[01:31:21] uh, our proctor was a guy by the name of, uh, you know, Favaro money, uh, super laid
[01:31:27] back Sdv guy.
[01:31:29] Like probably the, actually we were told the only instructor that you can't piss off.
[01:31:33] Like it's impossible to piss him off.
[01:31:37] We somehow figured out how to do that because we were running to the bathroom.
[01:31:42] We didn't see him and he called us evidently like three times and we didn't answer and
[01:31:49] he fucking flipped his lid because of that.
[01:31:52] And because the cadre was like, yeah, he doesn't ever flip out.
[01:31:55] Like we've seen him for like 15 years.
[01:31:58] They made us spin the wheel of misfortune every day for this was the first day of second
[01:32:04] phase.
[01:32:05] And every day just you and your swim buddy, no, the whole class, which is even better.
[01:32:09] Right.
[01:32:10] So we got really, we got, we made a lot of friends after that.
[01:32:14] So the wheel of misfortune, I've talked to classes like before and after us.
[01:32:17] Like, oh, we, we spun it like twice, like twice a week or like, no, no, the whole phase.
[01:32:23] I'm like, we spun it every single day.
[01:32:27] We got back from our dive.
[01:32:28] So we'd get back from our dive.
[01:32:29] Didn't matter.
[01:32:30] One o'clock midnight.
[01:32:31] It didn't matter.
[01:32:32] Put all your stuff away.
[01:32:34] Get back in the grinder.
[01:32:35] Spin, you know, spin the wheel of misfortune.
[01:32:37] Oh, 200 eight counts go.
[01:32:39] So we did that every day for second phase, which I was told like never happens.
[01:32:44] And it was just like a miserable second phase because we had to do, you know, more PT for
[01:32:49] like an extra hour or whatever.
[01:32:50] So it sucked.
[01:32:51] Third phase, we're still being harassed.
[01:32:54] We thought it was a joke.
[01:32:55] They march us in.
[01:32:56] We watch it on TV for 30 seconds.
[01:32:59] We marched back out to the grinder and we just didn't have any idea what was about to
[01:33:04] happen.
[01:33:05] The cadre, their demeanor was completely different.
[01:33:10] I'm getting chills, you know, talking about it.
[01:33:12] But you can tell like they knew what was about to happen.
[01:33:16] And I remember them like having this like hatred and just, you know, like we're about
[01:33:22] to go to war guys.
[01:33:23] And we're just like, no, we're out here.
[01:33:25] We're in buds.
[01:33:26] We're on the beach.
[01:33:27] We're working out.
[01:33:29] And the demeanor from the class, which is all we want to do is get through buds.
[01:33:32] This sucks.
[01:33:33] From their demeanor, which was like, we're going to war.
[01:33:37] Like this is what's happening.
[01:33:38] And it was totally different.
[01:33:40] And from that day forward, from the last part of third phase, like they were serious.
[01:33:44] It wasn't more of this like joking crew of cadre.
[01:33:48] Like they were like, this was real.
[01:33:53] This was not the shit, you know, that, in all honesty, that some people signed up for.
[01:33:59] I mean, there was, right after that, there was a few guys from SQT.
[01:34:03] And one, in one in particular, I remember quit in SQT.
[01:34:05] It was like, I didn't sign up to go to war, you know, with the college and whatever.
[01:34:09] So I think some people, this was like, obviously a big reality check for us.
[01:34:13] I don't think we knew any different because we were just trying to get through buds.
[01:34:17] So damn.
[01:34:18] So Amber, this whole time your new husband is coming home freaking with the shit beat
[01:34:25] out of him.
[01:34:26] And he's working crazy hours and all this.
[01:34:29] Like what's your, what's your impression of this whole scenario before September 11th?
[01:34:35] I really jockeau thought we just have to get to the end of buds.
[01:34:39] I literally thought after the six months of training, things are going to really even
[01:34:42] out.
[01:34:43] I mean, even minus nine, 11, that, you know, nothing could have been further from the truth.
[01:34:49] But in my mind, that was like at least something that was an end goal.
[01:34:52] And so all of the late nights and ice baths and I don't, I just need to stay on the couch
[01:34:59] all weekend.
[01:35:00] Like that to me was going to come to an end and life was going to be normal again.
[01:35:04] It's also some of the sweetest times because he was so spent and I look back at photos
[01:35:11] of our one year old climbing all over him and he's got both knees, you know, wrapped
[01:35:16] with ice and he's trying to be a dad.
[01:35:19] And, you know, we've got pictures at the zoo and I can see how beat down he was being
[01:35:25] a bud student and trying to be a dad.
[01:35:27] He came home one night on our anniversary and it was like, you know, midnight, like he'd
[01:35:32] missed the anniversary and he had geraniums picked from our apartment complex.
[01:35:37] And it was the sweetest thing.
[01:35:38] Like he was still trying so hard to be sort of this dual role.
[01:35:44] And after nine, 11, like it's like cadre.
[01:35:47] I mean, he completely changed.
[01:35:49] And what about, did you realize what an impact September 11th was going to have from the
[01:35:57] perspective of when I was going in the SEAL teams and it was 1990, 1991.
[01:36:03] I thought I was going to Vietnam.
[01:36:05] I thought I was going to Vietnam.
[01:36:06] Like I thought, hey, there's SEALs just sneaking around the world, just killing people.
[01:36:10] And that's what I was going to be doing.
[01:36:12] So I just thought that's the way the SEAL teams was.
[01:36:14] That's what you did.
[01:36:15] Then I got to the SEAL teams and it wasn't like that in the 90s.
[01:36:19] It was not like that at all.
[01:36:21] So did you have the impression like, hey, he's going to war anyways?
[01:36:24] Or were you like, oh, once this is, once he gets done with the SEAL training, we're going
[01:36:28] to be, you know, able to just kind of live normal lives.
[01:36:31] But now this September 11th happens.
[01:36:35] I didn't know what had happened because I went from being an independent sophomore to
[01:36:42] a pregnant college student to a wife and a mom.
[01:36:46] And now 9-11 happens.
[01:36:48] And my birthday is on September 12th today.
[01:36:54] And thank you.
[01:36:56] My mom had come to visit in 2001.
[01:36:59] Yeah, 2000, 9-11.
[01:37:03] Oh my gosh.
[01:37:05] It's 21 years.
[01:37:06] Okay.
[01:37:07] Yeah.
[01:37:08] Sorry.
[01:37:09] 01.
[01:37:10] Yes.
[01:37:11] Anyway, my mom had come to visit and I remember telling her like, I think he's at war.
[01:37:18] Like, I think he's gone.
[01:37:19] He was on the island.
[01:37:20] I had no idea.
[01:37:21] I'm like, I think he's probably going to leave like today.
[01:37:24] And we also, it was just a crazy time.
[01:37:28] I had no idea how much it would.
[01:37:32] Yeah, I think anybody's dead.
[01:37:33] Yeah.
[01:37:34] Even, I mean, from my perspective, I had been in the SEAL teams for like 10 years at this
[01:37:38] point and, you know, you thought like everyone was, I was paranoid that, you know, I wasn't
[01:37:45] going to get any.
[01:37:46] I wasn't going to miss it.
[01:37:47] It was going to be over.
[01:37:48] Like everyone was feeling like that.
[01:37:51] And because it seemed like it would last for, you know what, six months, maybe, maybe.
[01:37:56] I wouldn't even, I was about to say maybe a year, but I don't think anyone thought,
[01:37:59] oh, this is going to go on for a full year.
[01:38:02] Like we would do some strikes.
[01:38:04] We would do some hits, take out some targets.
[01:38:06] And then that would be that.
[01:38:08] I would love to hear someone tell me that they knew it was going to last 20 freaking years.
[01:38:13] I would, I would be very suspect.
[01:38:16] Now I did have some officer, senior officer friends of me that said, when I was like,
[01:38:21] hey, get me back to a team, please now.
[01:38:23] They were like, hey, this is going to go on a while.
[01:38:26] I'll give them credit for, for thinking that and for telling me that.
[01:38:29] But almost everybody was like, oh, we need to get over now.
[01:38:35] If you don't get it now, it'll be another, you know, because the first goal for you,
[01:38:38] but you kind of based some stuff off the first goal for, which was 72 hours.
[01:38:42] Yeah.
[01:38:43] It was 72 hours.
[01:38:45] And then you could say, oh, this is going to end in Ukraine, right?
[01:38:49] Right away, everyone said, oh, this is going to end.
[01:38:51] It's going to be a month.
[01:38:52] Yeah.
[01:38:53] And now it's like, wait a minute.
[01:38:54] Yeah.
[01:38:55] Oh, wait a minute.
[01:38:56] It's a it's it's a lot different.
[01:38:57] Yeah.
[01:38:58] So I think that everybody in the community, no one, no one that I talked to was like,
[01:39:03] oh, this is going to last two decades.
[01:39:05] That wasn't even a thought.
[01:39:11] Did you go to SQT on the West Coast?
[01:39:13] Yes.
[01:39:14] So you did like the group SQT.
[01:39:16] That was like, I think I was the first, I think it was the second class where they didn't
[01:39:20] do the STT anymore.
[01:39:22] Everyone did SQT.
[01:39:23] You didn't get your, well, actually you got your, you got your Trident when you graduated
[01:39:27] SQT.
[01:39:28] Oh, so that was that was your class?
[01:39:29] That was the class, I think before us.
[01:39:31] I think it was like, it was, was it like, yeah, like Goggins and Brent.
[01:39:39] I know it was relatively new.
[01:39:42] And I remember to jog out thinking like, I'm so happy that he's going to get to do something
[01:39:49] with all this training because, you know, sales during times of peace versus, you know,
[01:39:57] 9-11 on, I'm sure it's a very different way of living and deploying and being.
[01:40:04] And I just thought like, I know it's been a, you know, it's been peaceful times for a
[01:40:08] while and good for him.
[01:40:10] I'm glad that he gets to actually utilize this training.
[01:40:15] And I also remember thinking, seals are so incredible.
[01:40:18] They, nothing, you know, they don't die.
[01:40:20] I guess you, you know, you hadn't heard.
[01:40:22] And I was, my thinking back then was so naive, but I never was afraid like he can't do this
[01:40:29] anymore or I was actually very, I was afraid, but I wasn't thinking that I needed to intervene.
[01:40:36] I was very supportive of, you know, of him deploying.
[01:40:41] Yeah.
[01:40:43] That's so crazy because you're young.
[01:40:46] We're all, I mean, I think I saw us in the Navy for 13 years before I shot my weapon
[01:40:51] at the enemy.
[01:40:52] So 13 years that you're talking about like this peace time.
[01:40:55] And I actually, it was awesome.
[01:40:57] Like I had a great time.
[01:40:58] Like we worked hard, we trained hard, we were hanging out with our friends.
[01:41:03] We were trying to be ready for combat, which was the big thing that we didn't know and
[01:41:06] didn't understand.
[01:41:07] So you're kind of preparing for something that you don't really, that you really don't
[01:41:10] understand.
[01:41:11] But I really loved the job of being a seal, even if the job is just going out and going
[01:41:16] into the desert and doing desert warfare training.
[01:41:18] I love that job.
[01:41:19] It's an awesome job.
[01:41:21] But I mean, what you're talking about, Amber, like the fact that you feel that as like a
[01:41:26] mom and a wife, even you felt like I'm glad he's going to get to do his job.
[01:41:31] Imagine what the dudes are like.
[01:41:32] The dudes are like, oh, you know, it was, it was.
[01:41:36] I mean, we used to, I hate saying this because it sounds so freaking horrible, but we used
[01:41:41] to like pray for war, like just want to go to war so bad.
[01:41:44] We just, that's what we wanted to do.
[01:41:47] And yeah, it's, we got, we got what we asked for.
[01:41:53] We got what we asked for.
[01:41:55] I was going to ask you about SQT.
[01:41:58] So you go through SQT.
[01:42:01] And now that must have been, those dudes must have been like fully full on like we're going
[01:42:06] to war.
[01:42:07] You guys are all going to war.
[01:42:08] Yeah, absolutely.
[01:42:09] It was, it was weird too.
[01:42:10] It was like a transition.
[01:42:11] So they're ringing guys in that had just gone overseas and done something and like after
[01:42:17] actions.
[01:42:18] And so like all of a sudden the shift started changing from like H gear to stuff that actually,
[01:42:23] you know, fits you and works.
[01:42:24] And we also had, I think 11, 11 guys in the SQT class that came back that had gotten out
[01:42:34] right after 9 11.
[01:42:35] They came back in.
[01:42:36] So we had all these guys that were team guys before went out in the private sector.
[01:42:40] Like, oh, 9 11.
[01:42:41] That's your point, Amber.
[01:42:42] Like, can you imagine you're a dude, you're in the team for four years or six years, you
[01:42:45] get out of the teams, you're going out, you're doing whatever you're doing outside the war
[01:42:49] kicks off.
[01:42:50] You're like, I'm going back in.
[01:42:51] I'm throwing everything I have away all built up, whatever I'm going back in.
[01:42:53] Because that's what dudes wanted to do.
[01:42:56] Exactly.
[01:42:57] So you get your tried at the end of SQT.
[01:43:00] What team did you go to?
[01:43:02] I went to 10.
[01:43:03] They just commissioned 10 and seven.
[01:43:05] So half the class went to seven or STV one and then half of us went to 10.
[01:43:12] Did you keep your try date when you got there?
[01:43:14] Because I know I heard some good stories like some teams were taking your try date and painting
[01:43:19] it blue.
[01:43:20] So it was inert.
[01:43:21] Two and four?
[01:43:22] Two and four?
[01:43:23] Yeah.
[01:43:24] Like you showed up, you didn't have it.
[01:43:25] You got it ripped off.
[01:43:26] I think as soon as you came across the quarter deck, they just ripped it off.
[01:43:28] I want to say somebody at STV was telling me they took their Tridents and put them into
[01:43:31] a bird cage.
[01:43:32] That's what they did on the East Coast.
[01:43:33] So they put them in bird cages.
[01:43:35] You can look at it, but you can't have it.
[01:43:38] And of course the guys who struggled, they had to keep their Tridents in the bird cage
[01:43:45] a lot longer than guys that were squared away.
[01:43:49] But we did get beat into our chest from the instructor staff at SQT while all the families
[01:43:56] were there and stuff.
[01:43:57] So that was, at least we felt like it was something there, but maybe not so much compared
[01:44:03] to how it used to be.
[01:44:04] Compared to how it used to be.
[01:44:05] Yeah, it was cool.
[01:44:06] I checked into the team and we went through something called SEAL tactical training at
[01:44:10] the team and they did a board with the senior people in each department.
[01:44:18] But man, the training that the guys get now, the training that you got, this centralized
[01:44:23] training with all the experience, all consolidated, it's awesome.
[01:44:28] There's no doubt.
[01:44:29] I think they're coming out of, I don't know if they're, they might be coming out of Buds
[01:44:33] now, not just SQT.
[01:44:34] I think Buds with like four weeks of CQC training.
[01:44:39] Compared to you wouldn't even see it until you're at a team six months down the road
[01:44:42] that you went to Shaw's for two weeks.
[01:44:44] Yeah, and the thing is, like when you were talking about guys coming back from like combat
[01:44:49] deployments and getting in there, and that's cool, right?
[01:44:51] That's awesome.
[01:44:52] But imagine like it turned into, hey, these guys were in sustained combat operations for
[01:45:00] years.
[01:45:01] Cause I remember in the nineties, like if a guy did a mission, like singular, like one
[01:45:07] mission, it was like, Hey, do this guy's combat experience.
[01:45:10] And like they had this thing that you didn't, you know, like I had a platoon commander who
[01:45:16] was an awesome guy and he had been in Grenada and was like, you know, he had, he had slayed
[01:45:22] the dragon and we were all just looking at him like, yeah, he was the coolest guy ever.
[01:45:26] We had first phase instructor was on the train up in Bosnia.
[01:45:29] Oh, you know, yeah.
[01:45:31] I was like, there was a gunshot like, like five miles away.
[01:45:35] Yeah.
[01:45:36] And then he was like shooting an animal and like that was contact left.
[01:45:40] You're getting debriefed on it.
[01:45:42] Not judging anyone that was there.
[01:45:44] Just passing, passing gouge.
[01:45:47] You did what you were, what the country asked you to do.
[01:45:49] So you get into a, you get, you show up at the team now, you go right into a platoon.
[01:45:53] Is that the right phone now?
[01:45:54] Right into a platoon.
[01:45:55] Yeah.
[01:45:56] What's your job?
[01:45:57] Did you just get handed a 60 or what?
[01:45:58] How did you guess?
[01:45:59] You didn't think I'd be like the comms guy or, I got handed a 60 just cause I couldn't
[01:46:04] wait as I give me to please, um, I couldn't wait to be a 60 on it actually.
[01:46:08] Did you get a mark 48 or did you get a 60?
[01:46:10] I guess 60 sweet.
[01:46:11] Yeah.
[01:46:12] By the way, Marcus had never shot a weapon before, before going.
[01:46:17] No, we didn't.
[01:46:18] I didn't.
[01:46:19] Yeah.
[01:46:20] I mean, I was like said, I grew up.
[01:46:21] Yeah.
[01:46:22] I grew up playing, playing ball.
[01:46:23] Well, the cool thing is no bad habits.
[01:46:25] Good hand eye coordination because you were an athlete.
[01:46:27] Like that's all points to you probably being a pretty good shot and everything.
[01:46:30] I was, I was a better pistol shot.
[01:46:31] I picked that up quickly, immediately rifle took me a while to get proficient at it.
[01:46:37] And even when I went over to, to a depth group, you know, I never struggled with it, but like
[01:46:42] the pistol, I was, I was a really good pistol shot and quick and faster than everybody.
[01:46:48] But the rifle, like I was like middle of the road.
[01:46:51] I had, I struggled with it actually early on.
[01:46:53] Um, I remember out at Shaw's the, uh, with the guys out there, Ross and just coming over
[01:46:59] and saying, Hey, you know, just, you know, don't, don't put your magazine on the car.
[01:47:03] And like, this is a bunch of things that like, he's like, I can work on.
[01:47:06] But soon as he worked like with me, you know, I went from being pretty like not good to,
[01:47:12] to, to excelling.
[01:47:13] Um, but it took me a while and I tell people, I was like, no, I actually had to like really
[01:47:17] focus and practice and like stay late or, you know, go out to the range in the evening
[01:47:21] when guys were like hanging it up because I just, there was just something not right
[01:47:25] about not being proficient at it.
[01:47:28] Right.
[01:47:29] Like I want to actually be good.
[01:47:31] Uh, I don't want to just hang it up and, and, and walk away.
[01:47:33] So I got, I got decent at shooting a, a, a, um, you know, a rifle.
[01:47:40] What year was it when you checked into team 10?
[01:47:43] 2002, like April.
[01:47:46] And do you, do you know where you're going on deployment?
[01:47:48] No, nothing.
[01:47:49] We didn't know anything yet.
[01:47:50] They were, oh, cause the world was still just chaos.
[01:47:51] Yeah.
[01:47:52] It was chaos and new team, like they were just going through, you know, growing pains, I
[01:47:56] think.
[01:47:57] And so we didn't know anything.
[01:47:58] And my, my first deployment actually went over to Germany and just got your UCOM on.
[01:48:03] We got our UCOM on.
[01:48:05] Um, yeah.
[01:48:07] And that was, that was whatever.
[01:48:09] Right.
[01:48:10] Just train more training.
[01:48:11] Yeah.
[01:48:12] And the frustration level is everyone just going nuts.
[01:48:13] Like, oh, it's insane.
[01:48:15] The people that were getting out like after, you know, soon as a platoon wouldn't go to,
[01:48:21] um, you know, Iraq or Afghanistan, like guys were getting, you know, you saw it out here.
[01:48:25] Guys were getting out immediately, you know, they were jumping into Blackwater and all
[01:48:29] these other places.
[01:48:30] Um, I saw a lot of it.
[01:48:31] And the guys get out to one, one platoon because they weren't, you know, cause you'd
[01:48:34] hear about like these Rangers and SF and like all these guys are going down range.
[01:48:38] And you know, you're like, what, I'm fucking going to Germany to do what?
[01:48:41] Like, yeah, just went to Bud's and SQT and it did a two year workup.
[01:48:46] And what is this for?
[01:48:47] You told me I'm like, good, you know, maybe that was garbage.
[01:48:50] Yeah.
[01:48:51] And plus you had that feeling that this whole thing's going to be over like really quick.
[01:48:54] And I bet if I don't get it now, if I don't get out and go work for a contractor, my
[01:48:57] ancestors are just horrible.
[01:48:59] Well, how are you, how are you liking the team life?
[01:49:02] Amber?
[01:49:03] You know, I didn't mind it.
[01:49:06] I realized really early on that there was a pretty clear distinction in the wives that,
[01:49:12] you know, it was probably best to keep one foot in, but don't try to, you know, jump in
[01:49:17] full throttle and don't stay completely away.
[01:49:20] I saw that there were women that were very angry and resentful towards their husbands.
[01:49:28] And I felt like there were women that were really supportive and I always wanted to be
[01:49:32] supportive.
[01:49:34] I also felt like, you know, it, it was not something that I wanted to necessarily make
[01:49:40] my life about, but I wanted to support Marcus enough that I knew what was going on within
[01:49:45] the community.
[01:49:46] And so it was good.
[01:49:47] And you know, we had two kids at that point.
[01:49:49] I had, yeah, I got pregnant with our daughter when Marcus was in, was December of 2001, right
[01:49:56] after 9-11.
[01:49:58] So we had two kids when he checked into his first platoon and he was pretty much gone
[01:50:03] all the time.
[01:50:04] Yeah.
[01:50:05] So, no, no, no, no, we had, no, I was at, I was at lead climber when you were like nine.
[01:50:12] I was overdue.
[01:50:13] You got home on my due date and then I ended up being five days overdue.
[01:50:16] But, um, yeah, he was at lead climber and I'm like, can you tell them that you're having
[01:50:20] a baby and he's like, no, no, I can't.
[01:50:24] She's literally ready to burst and I'm like five hours away.
[01:50:29] It's just like, it's such a, you know, the way, it's the way, it's the way.
[01:50:32] I'm like, if you're deployed, that's one thing, but you're in West Virginia.
[01:50:35] I'm in Virginia.
[01:50:37] He had, you know, no cell phone.
[01:50:39] There was one cell phone.
[01:50:40] No, a pay phone.
[01:50:41] You walk to and he would call and be like, have you had the baby yet?
[01:50:45] So he got home on my due date, but I ended up being a little overdue and, um, yeah, I
[01:50:48] was just gone all the time.
[01:50:50] It was really actually hard.
[01:50:52] I was an only child.
[01:50:53] So there was part of me that really, you know, I was raised an only child.
[01:50:56] So it was part of me that did love that independence and didn't need him around, but it did get
[01:51:00] lonely.
[01:51:01] And I was now with two little kids away and I was meeting wives, but it was, you know,
[01:51:06] there's, there's just, there was a lot of like, I don't know what schools have your,
[01:51:10] has your husband been to, what's your husband's rank?
[01:51:13] I don't ever, I've never played that sort of like living through, getting validity through
[01:51:18] your husband's career.
[01:51:20] Marcus was always like, you know, my reputation means a lot to me.
[01:51:24] And so don't ever do anything that would embarrass me in the community.
[01:51:28] Like don't risk my reputation.
[01:51:29] I really respected that.
[01:51:31] Yeah.
[01:51:32] Yeah.
[01:51:33] Um, my wife was due with our first kid and my exo, who's a prior on this, the guy who's
[01:51:39] an awesome guy.
[01:51:40] This is at SEAL team too.
[01:51:42] He's like, so when's your baby due?
[01:51:43] And I was like, Oh, you know, like September or something.
[01:51:46] And he's like, Oh, when are you supposed to go on deployment?
[01:51:50] I'm like, uh, August something.
[01:51:52] He's like, he's like, you're not going.
[01:51:54] I was like, yeah, sir.
[01:51:55] No, I'm going on deployment.
[01:51:56] And he's like, yeah, you're not.
[01:51:57] And I was like, sir, I'm definitely going on deployment.
[01:51:59] Like I'm not, I'm, I'm definitely going.
[01:52:01] He's like, you are definitely not going.
[01:52:03] And so he literally said, Hey, you can go on deployment as soon as she has that baby.
[01:52:06] And that's what I did.
[01:52:07] And I missed about a week and a half of deployment.
[01:52:09] He had the baby and I left the next day, which was probably, I mean, at least I was there.
[01:52:17] But the attitude from me was just like, no, it's like first baby, whatever.
[01:52:21] Like I got him going on deployment.
[01:52:23] That's just, that's just the way it is.
[01:52:27] I mean, so like for you to be like, no, you know, I'm not coming home.
[01:52:31] I'm at, I'm at a school right now and I'm not coming home.
[01:52:34] That's the way it is.
[01:52:35] Like it's just the, the normal thing.
[01:52:37] And then I remember I, I told my wife, God bless her.
[01:52:44] She called me at work and I don't, I don't, I forget what was going on, but she called
[01:52:51] me at work and my chief was like, Hey, John, call your wife's on the phone.
[01:52:57] And I remember I pick up the phone and I go, what?
[01:53:00] And you could tell she was like so apologetic because it's this, I put, probably put the
[01:53:05] same freaking psycho pressure on my wife that, that Marcus put on you.
[01:53:09] Like, don't, you know, don't mess.
[01:53:12] Don't embarrass you.
[01:53:14] And so I was like, what?
[01:53:16] And she's like, you know, and I go, okay.
[01:53:18] And that was it.
[01:53:19] Like hung up, like a total jerk.
[01:53:21] I'm a total savage.
[01:53:23] So I'm sorry darling about that.
[01:53:26] But what I'm saying is like, that's just the normal thing.
[01:53:29] Like you, you just, you're in the team.
[01:53:31] You all about the team.
[01:53:32] Everything's the teams.
[01:53:34] And it sucks to be married to those dudes, I think in a lot of way.
[01:53:38] It does.
[01:53:39] But there was also the shared sort of like aggression, if you will, for lack of a better
[01:53:44] term that I understood that he needed to be so focused.
[01:53:48] And I was just pissed after the, the attacks of 9 11.
[01:53:52] And I just thought like, yeah, get over there and like do whatever you do.
[01:53:56] But, oh yeah.
[01:53:57] Yeah.
[01:53:58] Go do it.
[01:53:59] Just I don't want to know about it, but go do it.
[01:54:00] Like I knew that the teams always came first and I accepted that because I knew that it
[01:54:04] was a short period of our lives and it needed to be done.
[01:54:12] So your first deployment, you go to, go to Germany.
[01:54:15] You're sitting over there.
[01:54:16] So why the hell are we doing this?
[01:54:18] You get back and you roll into another platoon.
[01:54:21] What's, are you going to be a 60 gunner again?
[01:54:23] What's up?
[01:54:24] Absolutely.
[01:54:25] I asked for it.
[01:54:26] But I think at that time, then we were, I was carrying a mark, I was carrying a 48.
[01:54:31] Got that mark 48.
[01:54:32] Nice.
[01:54:33] 46 too.
[01:54:34] Yeah.
[01:54:35] So that was good.
[01:54:36] We, you know, that was my, my task unit was, was redling.
[01:54:40] So, you know, we, you know, we worked up together.
[01:54:45] We flipped the coin, you know, in the previous platoon basically got to go to Afghanistan
[01:54:52] first.
[01:54:53] We go to Germany first.
[01:54:54] Oh, so when we were ripping out like halfway through to get guys more exposure.
[01:54:59] Yep.
[01:55:00] So literally over a coin toss and so those guys went down range and we went to, you know,
[01:55:05] we went to Germany and then, you know, the rest is kind of history.
[01:55:10] And once the Hilo went down, we actually deployed a week later because, you know, they were
[01:55:14] a wreck.
[01:55:15] They were a wreck.
[01:55:16] I mean, half the, half the two was gone and the other guys were, you know, not good.
[01:55:21] How do you, how do you guys get word?
[01:55:23] What are you guys doing?
[01:55:24] It was terrible how we got word.
[01:55:26] We actually got word from, from them.
[01:55:29] So here we are.
[01:55:30] We're forward deployed in Germany, actually a unit.
[01:55:34] And we got to find out from our spouses that there's guys in full military dress showing
[01:55:45] up at people's doors.
[01:55:46] Like that's how we found out.
[01:55:48] So it was, that was a rough couple of days.
[01:55:51] It went on though.
[01:55:52] And the communication wasn't a whole lot better back in Virginia Beach because they
[01:55:56] were still searching for Marcus LaTrell.
[01:55:58] And you know, that went on for like what almost a week.
[01:56:02] And you know, no one knew if their husband was on the helicopter or not.
[01:56:07] And the ones that survived weren't allowed to call home.
[01:56:10] And so it was literally pins and needles and they weren't hearing much more.
[01:56:15] But then when the Knox started coming, they were finding out.
[01:56:20] Yeah, I remember being on the phone with you and you like screaming crying because like
[01:56:25] somebody was like somebody showed up to the door.
[01:56:28] Like they were all, you know, when we were together and stuff.
[01:56:30] So it was, that was like a just a shitty, you know, just a shitty time, I think for
[01:56:34] everybody in the community.
[01:56:35] As you know, didn't really, didn't experience a loss like that.
[01:56:40] So it was really difficult how people were handling it.
[01:56:44] When those guys got back to Germany, I think they flew in a psych to like meet with everybody
[01:56:49] for 30 minutes.
[01:56:50] First guy went in there and didn't come out for almost three hours.
[01:56:54] So they were, they were trying, they were going to, they gave each guy 30 minutes to
[01:56:56] talk to psych.
[01:56:57] And the first guy went in and come out for three hours.
[01:56:59] So it was just one of those things that I don't think anybody even knew how to prepare
[01:57:03] or what to do.
[01:57:04] And so it was just a bit, you know, it was a bit rough for a while.
[01:57:07] But again, once we got like over that week, got our heads back straight, we were like,
[01:57:14] get us over there yesterday.
[01:57:15] Like, why are we still sitting here?
[01:57:17] But we did.
[01:57:18] And within a week, we were in country and we were already, we were doing our first mission
[01:57:21] like within the first couple of days.
[01:57:22] So.
[01:57:23] And then what were you guys doing?
[01:57:24] What was like your mission set?
[01:57:25] Mission was going after different like, like different cells, different Taliban cells that
[01:57:30] were, but like larger, it was almost like a little bit different.
[01:57:35] Wasn't like CT missions, even though we did like a CT op, right?
[01:57:38] Like initially the first stop was like a no shit, like it's probably the coolest op ever.
[01:57:43] Like, you know, black hawks come in, ropes go out, you know, fast rope, you know, charge
[01:57:48] on the gate, like boom, everybody, you know, like it was like a real op.
[01:57:52] And then because that was done at night, it got shut down and the whole country then got
[01:57:58] shut down because you're not allowed to go after bad guys at night because that's not
[01:58:02] nice.
[01:58:05] So that's what we were dealing with in, in, you know, in Afghanistan at the time.
[01:58:09] So then we started just, you know, going out to in the daytime chasing different, different
[01:58:17] groups like in valleys and we were working with the Kansafs or the Canadians who were
[01:58:21] like men compared to us.
[01:58:23] They were like, they look like Vikings, but they wore way too much gear.
[01:58:27] And we had to tell them to like, like, dude, you're going out in the mountain for three
[01:58:30] days and you got six, nine mil mags on your body.
[01:58:33] Do you think you're going to use six, nine mil mags?
[01:58:35] I really hope you don't need to use six, nine mil mags.
[01:58:38] So, you know, shit like that.
[01:58:39] But, but so that's what we were doing.
[01:58:42] And what's your job in the platoon?
[01:58:45] I was a Air Ops lead breacher.
[01:58:48] And so I, you know, in a fire team later.
[01:58:53] And yeah, it got, we had a good, like I would say good, good deployment.
[01:58:59] It was a really spicy deployment.
[01:59:01] I mean, we had like multiple engagements.
[01:59:06] We had our chief got, we got lit up by a army Apache, which was wild because like that
[01:59:15] was not supposed to, obviously it wasn't supposed to happen.
[01:59:17] It was a big deal because it was, it was daytime.
[01:59:22] Still don't know how they didn't recognize us full on engagement, like full on gun run,
[01:59:28] not just like, oh, there might be a position of more, like we were, we were engaging a
[01:59:33] small group that was engaging us.
[01:59:36] And we were, it was like five of us and maybe three of them.
[01:59:40] And we were starting to bound forward, like from cover to cover.
[01:59:44] And you know, I actually, I was a patrolman with a, with a saw.
[01:59:48] So it was a little bit lighter.
[01:59:49] And I just remember just like, just fucking going off on that thing.
[01:59:53] It was awesome.
[01:59:55] And then I remember hearing this deep, like deep, deep sound of just like, doot, doot,
[02:00:04] doot, doot, doot.
[02:00:05] I'm like, what the fuck is that?
[02:00:06] And literally in the middle of this little valley, and it was, it was not wide, I turn
[02:00:11] around and this army, this Apache is in a full on like front till gun run.
[02:00:20] And I literally thought it was a movie.
[02:00:22] Like you saw like the dirt and the, you know, whatever there was a 20 millimeter maybe.
[02:00:28] It was just coming straight at me.
[02:00:30] And I'm like, you know, all this happened so fast.
[02:00:32] I'm like, are you fucking kidding me?
[02:00:34] Like we're getting engaged by our own guys.
[02:00:37] And so it's come, it's tearing ass.
[02:00:40] We all dive out of the way.
[02:00:41] I remember diving behind rocks and watching my chief do a full on like dive, like into
[02:00:47] rocks, like did not give a fuck.
[02:00:50] And the thing comes tearing through.
[02:00:53] You can't see anything because dust everywhere.
[02:00:55] He wound up getting hit in the face.
[02:00:56] Well, the way they were working gun runs then is that dash one would come in and do 20 millimeter
[02:01:03] guns, you know what dash two is coming in with next, right?
[02:01:07] 2.5 rockets.
[02:01:09] And so I just get this rock and I just huddle up and I'm like, this is fucking it.
[02:01:14] Like I may live, but like I'm going to get fucked up.
[02:01:17] I'm going to get fracked here because like we've been calling in gun runs all day long
[02:01:21] into caves and like we get, we get engaged.
[02:01:24] We pull back, calling some guns, move forward.
[02:01:27] That's what kind of mission it was through the mountains there.
[02:01:30] And so I was just waiting.
[02:01:31] I was like huddled up and like, oh, this is it.
[02:01:32] We're going to get, I'm going to get sprayed.
[02:01:34] Hopefully it's not bad.
[02:01:35] Like I was like trying to cover up my face thinking like, okay, if I just get wounded,
[02:01:39] you know, it'll be okay, but just not my face or my head.
[02:01:43] And the second one just comes tearing through and doesn't fire anything.
[02:01:46] But I could see them.
[02:01:47] I could literally see them and they were so low.
[02:01:50] So somebody who, who didn't have their head up their ass was able to move over to fires
[02:01:55] and call it off.
[02:01:57] Somebody cleared them hot.
[02:01:58] I still don't know to this day and we still talk about it because like it was a fuck up.
[02:02:03] You know, it was a bad fuck up.
[02:02:04] How bad was your chief wounded?
[02:02:06] He his whole face was like, um, like you couldn't, it wasn't bad, bad, like, but it was like,
[02:02:12] if you took a picture, you almost unrecognizable because the, I guess the frag going that fast
[02:02:17] was so fast.
[02:02:18] It just kind of blew his face up and he was like, like spit in blood a little bit, but
[02:02:23] he honestly was fine.
[02:02:25] Yeah.
[02:02:26] Yeah.
[02:02:27] Like let's be real.
[02:02:28] Yeah.
[02:02:29] Yeah.
[02:02:30] Yeah.
[02:02:31] Yeah.
[02:02:32] Yeah.
[02:02:33] Oh, 100%.
[02:02:34] Like, you know, looking back, you're like, but, um, yeah, that was a big deal.
[02:02:35] I just remember, I think when we got back and again, I was a E, but I think E five at
[02:02:37] the time, maybe six, you know, so I was, I was tucked away, but I think the leadership
[02:02:41] got in the ass of, of that unit, you know, over it, um, over at C. just so it was like,
[02:02:48] what, what happened there?
[02:02:49] You know, who caught first of who, who cleared them hot?
[02:02:53] You know, we were on the offensive.
[02:02:54] It was just a, it was a total mess.
[02:02:56] When I was a young radio man, I was standing out in the desert in Fallon, Nevada, trying
[02:03:00] to call in for an extract from a helicopter to helicopters.
[02:03:04] And I'm sitting there and I'm looking, they're, they're like, maybe a couple hundred feet
[02:03:09] at altitude and I, I'm just standing there making columns of them.
[02:03:13] Like, Hey, you know, we're ready for extract and they couldn't see me.
[02:03:16] And I was like, this is crazy.
[02:03:17] I started like waving my arms.
[02:03:19] They still can't see me.
[02:03:20] And finally, uh, you know, I'm like, I'm getting a bearing and I'm like, Hey, I'm right over
[02:03:24] here to your Southwest and they just can't see me.
[02:03:26] And finally I like pop or whatever, pop of smoke and I mark you identifying, blah, blah,
[02:03:30] blah.
[02:03:31] But it showed me that when you're in the air, like things just look so totally different
[02:03:37] and, uh, they can't see shit and they're moving freaking 150 miles an hour.
[02:03:44] And they get told like, you're cleared hot.
[02:03:46] Guess what?
[02:03:47] They're going to freaking shoot, man.
[02:03:48] Um, cause a lot of times they're saving your ass.
[02:03:50] They're saving someone's ass too.
[02:03:52] Yeah.
[02:03:53] And you know, there's like, I mean, you know, all the blue and blue that was happening just
[02:03:56] everywhere.
[02:03:57] And again, it's not, you know, of course it's not nefarious.
[02:03:59] It just, it happens just like that.
[02:04:01] Yeah.
[02:04:02] Um, but we had, uh, as I'm sure, you know, you did, uh, we were in day, you know, day
[02:04:07] panels and I popped out immediately and they were like, are you fucking kidding me guys?
[02:04:12] Like we can't see a day panel that's cut up out of your shoulder.
[02:04:15] So like the lesson learned that day forward was like, no, no, you got to carry a full
[02:04:18] day panel and like busted out.
[02:04:21] And you know, because that's the only thing that you said, that's the only thing we can
[02:04:24] see.
[02:04:25] There's no way we can see that little thing on your shoulder.
[02:04:27] You know, so, uh, incredible lessons learned.
[02:04:32] Um, and, and so that, that deployment wraps up.
[02:04:36] Um, but I mean, you lost freaking so many guys from your task.
[02:04:42] Good guys.
[02:04:43] Yeah.
[02:04:44] Couple of buds mates and yeah, it was wild.
[02:04:46] I mean, matter of fact, right before we deployed right after the healer, well, not right after
[02:04:51] the healer went down, but they flew, Marcus flew back to Germany and they were like, Hey,
[02:04:57] you and so and so get up to, uh, I forgot it was Ramstein, like go meet him.
[02:05:03] Like he's fucked right now.
[02:05:05] So we, we, we got in a car went up there, met him like once he, I think they, they'd
[02:05:10] cleaned him up once he got out of like the, you know, the, um, the ER or whatever, but
[02:05:16] he was covered in, he was nasty looking.
[02:05:18] I used like, it looked like he, his, the, all the, the wounds he had were just like,
[02:05:24] just healing.
[02:05:25] So like his face was covered in shit.
[02:05:27] All his arms and legs were like covered in like, he looked horrible, but he was like
[02:05:32] super excited to see us because he was, you know, he thought he was going to get his head
[02:05:37] cut off for it.
[02:05:38] I was, uh, I was the admiral's aid and I was just about done with that job.
[02:05:44] So I'd come back from Iraq and I, I became the admiral's aid.
[02:05:46] And so when that was happening, I was tracking what was happening and I remember they're
[02:05:54] like, like they're telling the admiral, Hey, it seems like there's a guy that's alive.
[02:06:02] And I was, like I said, I was a radio man.
[02:06:04] So I was like, bro, they're like, they have, they have his radio.
[02:06:08] Like this is in my, I didn't say this verbally, but I was thinking to myself, man, they have
[02:06:12] his radio and they've turned his radio on and they turned on the transponder or whatever.
[02:06:16] You know, how is a guy alive right now?
[02:06:18] It didn't make any sense.
[02:06:20] And then by the next day it was like, no, they have actually have comms.
[02:06:23] And I remember thinking, this is a freaking miracle.
[02:06:26] Um, how this, if this guy's alive for real.
[02:06:30] And the weird thing was I, I had met the Latrell boys at a West coast reunion.
[02:06:39] And I just saw them, but I remember because they were big giant monster guys and they're
[02:06:44] twins, right?
[02:06:45] Which is, they just stand out corn fed Texas, Texas.
[02:06:48] And I remember like seeing them and being like, damn, that's freaking legit.
[02:06:52] You got your twin brother and you're both in the deep.
[02:06:55] It's like, how cool is that?
[02:06:56] And then sure enough, as I put the piece together, it's like, Oh shit, it's that guy.
[02:06:59] It's one of those two guys.
[02:07:01] Uh, and man, that was horrible, horrible scenario.
[02:07:08] Um, I remember thinking at that time, A, this is definitely going to be made into a film
[02:07:14] because the story was just unbelievable.
[02:07:17] And B, oh shit, like bad things can happen to team guys.
[02:07:21] Like, you know, you'd heard of like a death or two, a training accident or, you know,
[02:07:25] someone died overseas, but until that helicopter went down, I sort of thought team guys were
[02:07:30] invincible.
[02:07:32] And for the first time, I remember thinking like, Oh shit.
[02:07:36] Um, this might not end well.
[02:07:40] And you know, you see someone of your girlfriends suddenly become widows and got real, really
[02:07:46] quick.
[02:07:47] So what'd you do when you got home from that deployment?
[02:07:51] We had a huge party.
[02:07:53] We had a big party, invited everybody, including the CEO.
[02:07:57] And I think, um, to this day, we still talk about that.
[02:08:00] Amber bought me a Keggerator.
[02:08:01] She was kind of celebrating us coming back.
[02:08:03] And you know, a few people were not happy at that because of that, you know, because
[02:08:07] of the healer coming down and guys didn't come home.
[02:08:09] And I think those were all our like brothers and friends and sisters.
[02:08:14] And, uh, we, you know, Amber's thought was, Hey, I just want to celebrate like that guys
[02:08:19] came back, you know, and so we threw a party and she bought me a Keggerator.
[02:08:23] I think from Costco.
[02:08:25] And that was really cool because I had just all of a sudden I gained like a hundred friends
[02:08:27] overnight.
[02:08:28] Like guys would just stop by and be like, Hey, I'm just grabbing a beer.
[02:08:31] How do you Keggerator?
[02:08:33] Um, but I think that night Amber had the CEO's stop.
[02:08:37] Don't even say it.
[02:08:38] No, it's great.
[02:08:39] She had the, she had the CEO's wife doing a Keggerator, but I had her like legs up
[02:08:43] in the air.
[02:08:44] She got thrown into that and in her defense.
[02:08:46] It was great, but it's still a good story.
[02:08:49] I think it was E five at the time.
[02:08:50] She's great.
[02:08:51] And he's great.
[02:08:52] They're amazing.
[02:08:53] Uh, what about career?
[02:08:55] What do you, what are you doing now?
[02:08:56] What's your next move from there?
[02:08:58] Yeah.
[02:08:59] So, uh, come back for my second deployment.
[02:09:01] Uh, I'd already screened for after my first and they just said, Hey, uh, we're not taking
[02:09:07] anybody after one platoon.
[02:09:10] So good, you know, you're good.
[02:09:11] Go, go do one deployment and come back and you'll be in that next class.
[02:09:15] I was in 06 and, and you're rolling to that selection.
[02:09:19] How was that?
[02:09:20] It was good.
[02:09:21] Um, again, just full focus.
[02:09:23] Um, you know, I, you know, to my surprise guys didn't practice, but like, I just wanted
[02:09:29] to be there.
[02:09:30] Like I wanted to be just, you know, when I found out about that place, I was like, yeah,
[02:09:34] that's exactly what I want to do.
[02:09:35] So I trained and worked hard and, um, yeah, I just had a good CQC block and like I was
[02:09:42] saying, you know, like, like was one of the, I was the top like pistol shooter and with
[02:09:47] the right, that's where I was like struggling with the rifle.
[02:09:49] And I went from like, they post your scores every day, your time, there's no hiding.
[02:09:53] Like, like when you shoot, like you show up and you're like, Oh, Marcus 57 out of 60,
[02:09:57] like what?
[02:09:58] And it was like, Oh, look at shit bag.
[02:10:00] Like, if you don't move up, you're out of here.
[02:10:03] Right.
[02:10:04] And so, um, I wasn't like in the pistol, pistol was at the top, but the rifle, the initial
[02:10:08] week I was really close to the bottom.
[02:10:10] And I'm like, dude, this is not like, I can't, that's so weird.
[02:10:14] I can't, it was weird.
[02:10:15] And then it's good at pistol and not good at rifles.
[02:10:18] Just weird.
[02:10:19] And was there something that didn't click in your head and then some, something finally
[02:10:22] made a click?
[02:10:23] Jaco, I'm still trying to figure out what's fucking in my head.
[02:10:28] I don't know.
[02:10:29] I, I, man, I wish I could, I could say, but I managed to crawl my way back into the top
[02:10:35] 10 just by like sheer, you know, have to as you would respect that.
[02:10:42] Like I just had to get, I had to get good and I got, I got a lot better.
[02:10:47] So, but no, I, I did really well.
[02:10:50] Um, I finished that and kind of finished green team and, and, you know, they kind of do a
[02:10:55] ranking and, um, you know, you're not supposed to know, but I was, I guess I was chosen first.
[02:10:59] Um, and I went over to squadron, hung out with our, got to work for our bro that I talked
[02:11:05] about earlier.
[02:11:06] I don't know if you care if we say his name on here or what, but I say, don't say his name.
[02:11:10] Okay.
[02:11:11] Yeah.
[02:11:12] Um, but yeah, it was, uh, everything, everything that I thought.
[02:11:17] Uh, probably actually more and, and a lot of stuff that I didn't expect, um, for sure.
[02:11:23] And probably Amber will tell you, like life just got weird or after that.
[02:11:29] So now you start knocking out deployments.
[02:11:31] Um, what's the cycle that you run every year?
[02:11:34] So we were deploying every year.
[02:11:35] Sometimes twice now, but at the time it was six on and then three, six on.
[02:11:41] It was three.
[02:11:42] Yeah.
[02:11:43] Three month deployment, six, six back.
[02:11:45] Yeah.
[02:11:46] Three training, three on standby, three gone, three training.
[02:11:51] And then on standby, you know, flyways.
[02:11:53] Um, and, um, it was good again, but I was away way more than even, um, and even at the
[02:12:02] teams where your deployments to, um, all side, um, you know, Bagram, um, so both Iraq and
[02:12:12] Afghanistan, both OEF, OF, yep.
[02:12:14] And you're bouncing back and what, what's your, um, what's your job?
[02:12:18] Uh, I was also preacher there.
[02:12:21] Um, yeah.
[02:12:22] I mean, that's, that's exactly, that's all I did.
[02:12:25] Um, I loved it.
[02:12:27] And I was, um, I did a lot of the combatives.
[02:12:29] So it was that split at the time where it was like sport fighters and combatives and
[02:12:35] combative guys hate sport fighters and sport fighters think combative guys are gay.
[02:12:38] And you know, it was like that thing going on, you know, and I thought it was funny,
[02:12:43] but I do tell this story, um, because I trained every morning I went in, we had, um, you know,
[02:12:49] Kuchy had his guys every day.
[02:12:51] And so I'd go in for two hours and train.
[02:12:52] I never trained at, at, at a gym just because we have to work.
[02:12:57] I went home.
[02:12:58] Um, but I did train every day.
[02:13:00] And there was one day I was, um, I had a guy in a full mount and I was trying to figure
[02:13:04] out a way to, to put a, like a, like a collar, like some kind of choke with it.
[02:13:08] You know, and I was trying to grab his collar and then it like stopped.
[02:13:12] And I looked at him and I'm like, what the fuck are we doing?
[02:13:14] Why am I trying to choke you?
[02:13:15] Why aren't I like, why don't I like hitting you, put my knee on your chest, like get up
[02:13:20] and go to my sidearm or pull out something and stick you with it or just like push you
[02:13:23] and get away.
[02:13:24] And from there I was like, you know, I'm not doing any more sport fighting.
[02:13:27] I just like, I just want to know how to like just like pound, pound, pound or, you know,
[02:13:32] gouge your eye out or just like stick you in the gut with a knife and just get the fuck
[02:13:36] out of here.
[02:13:37] And, and then like I started more of moving into the camp of like the combative side of
[02:13:42] the house.
[02:13:43] And then of course you had people saying, well, no, if you're a better sport fighter
[02:13:45] that a transition is like the skydivers.
[02:13:47] Like if you skydive slick forever, no, I could, any of those guys could strap on a heavy
[02:13:53] rock and you know, so it was just anyway, it was back and forth and I digress with,
[02:13:59] where are we going on that one?
[02:14:03] I loved all of it.
[02:14:04] How about that?
[02:14:05] It was, you know, I, um, but so okay.
[02:14:06] But you asked me what I was doing.
[02:14:08] I was a breacher and I did, you know, I did a lot of commons stuff.
[02:14:10] And I climbed and, and Amber, what's, what's life like for you now?
[02:14:15] Now he's gone even more.
[02:14:17] I was way more settled.
[02:14:19] So that's actually when I met, around that time is when I met Sarah Wilkinson.
[02:14:23] And our life was very centered around the command and, you know, other command members,
[02:14:30] command families, we all sort of, you know, worked out together, hung out together, weekends
[02:14:35] together, um, with the kids, sports and pool parties and birthdays.
[02:14:40] And, you know, it was, it was, um, very tight knit.
[02:14:45] And one of the, one of the things that I remember so much about when Sarah was talking through,
[02:14:52] you know, her experience with Chad was like, it left such an impression on me.
[02:14:59] She's just talking about like this personality change that she saw from him over time.
[02:15:09] And you know, it, were you seeing that kind of thing from Marcus at this point?
[02:15:15] Were you seeing, was he getting withdrawn?
[02:15:17] Was he, you know, short fused?
[02:15:20] Was he, it's, you know, it sounded like what, what Chad was doing was more like the withdrawn
[02:15:24] thing.
[02:15:25] And you know, she was like, look, he wasn't like the most talkative guy in the world.
[02:15:27] But all of a sudden like she noticed that he was different.
[02:15:32] Yeah.
[02:15:33] And then before you can go, like, and so I worked with Chad, he was one of my recce
[02:15:36] guys and I never, like he was smiling, happy, joking.
[02:15:41] And again, this is right when he, he showed up there.
[02:15:44] Yeah.
[02:15:45] It's 2008.
[02:15:46] So he was still like just back from being out in the private sector for a number of years.
[02:15:52] So like he was, I feel like he was still like giddy and just, Hey, life is, life is chill.
[02:15:58] It's good.
[02:15:59] It's, you know, nothing's really taking me down.
[02:16:01] At least that's how I remember him.
[02:16:03] If, you know, we go back to the examples that I already gave of Marcus with, you know, our
[02:16:07] son crawling all over him and showing up with the picked geraniums.
[02:16:11] Like he was still very much into being a husband and a dad.
[02:16:15] And even in his first and second platoons, you know, with Maggie's birth, he was there
[02:16:22] where work came first, but he was there.
[02:16:25] What we transitioned into was living completely separate lives.
[02:16:31] And so he would come home and he would say things like, Hey, where are your cups?
[02:16:36] You know, in his own home that he was paying for.
[02:16:40] And we would get everything looking perfect because he would be home for five days, which
[02:16:45] you know, it was pretty typical between trips.
[02:16:49] Living more than that was a pretty long time, but he had, we had become distant and I had
[02:16:57] become, you know, way more rooted in my friends and my life and my kids.
[02:17:01] And it was okay that we live separate lives because the ladies that I was around and their
[02:17:08] children were living that same life.
[02:17:10] And so there was this shared respect and sacrifice that no one else understood, but the people
[02:17:17] in your inner circle knew without having to even talk about.
[02:17:21] And so as he was becoming more and more distant, I guess you just sort of chalk it up to that's
[02:17:30] how things are now.
[02:17:32] And do you actually notice it or is it like the proverbial like boiling of a frog where
[02:17:39] it's just like the frog doesn't know that the water is getting hot until it's all of
[02:17:43] a sudden it's dead.
[02:17:44] It's too slow.
[02:17:45] Is it like that kind of thing where?
[02:17:47] I think so.
[02:17:48] You're just going through it and it's like, oh, yeah, he's going on another trip and oh,
[02:17:50] it's another trip and he's back, but he's, you know, going to sleep or I don't want to
[02:17:55] bother him that type of thing over time.
[02:17:57] Yeah, like we could play nice for those five day spans where the house looked perfect and
[02:18:02] the kids behaved perfect and he was as present as he could be.
[02:18:08] But it became a lot more comfortable to live separately.
[02:18:14] And you know, it was all in the name of the United States of America.
[02:18:19] It was all for the greater good.
[02:18:20] And it felt like when he would come home, he would certainly be more checked out.
[02:18:26] Like he couldn't wait to leave again.
[02:18:28] Like I could sense that and family time felt like forced time, especially at the command.
[02:18:35] So it was getting really hard.
[02:18:38] He was getting certainly pulling away more drinking more.
[02:18:42] He felt like a stranger.
[02:18:46] How much are you drinking at this point?
[02:18:51] Normal amounts.
[02:18:52] By team standards.
[02:18:55] By our standards, by the Bros standards.
[02:18:58] Yeah, I think we just, man, we just went around a rabbit hole.
[02:19:05] I mean, we, I think I was just drinking a lot of bourbon often.
[02:19:13] But I never really knew that because I wasn't with him that much.
[02:19:16] Yeah, but even when I came home, like it was.
[02:19:19] I didn't know like what his drinking habits were because we were really never together.
[02:19:24] I mean, the last couple of years that you were deploying, he was gone for almost 300
[02:19:30] days a year.
[02:19:31] Like, you know.
[02:19:32] But I think it's pretty toxic.
[02:19:33] I mean, we're all, everyone's doing the same thing.
[02:19:35] Everyone's drinking hard.
[02:19:37] Everyone's, I think, going through the same things.
[02:19:39] Some are affected probably more than others.
[02:19:41] And I didn't say anything wrong.
[02:19:45] You didn't say anything wrong.
[02:19:46] I mean.
[02:19:47] At what point did you, at what point did you start to see something wrong?
[02:19:50] 2008.
[02:19:51] Yeah, I think 2008.
[02:19:52] Josh.
[02:19:53] Yeah, Josh, one of my close best friends from Bud's and then through the teams passed
[02:19:59] on a op.
[02:20:01] And that was just unexpected.
[02:20:04] And that was like a River and Stream crossing, right?
[02:20:07] Yeah.
[02:20:08] And it was just, it was tough because I was, I was supposed to do that River and Stream
[02:20:12] crossing.
[02:20:15] And we, when, when he got swept down the river, we, I think we looked for him for almost,
[02:20:23] it's like 10 to 12 hours.
[02:20:27] And then he washed up 50 clicks down.
[02:20:29] And then he got a cone hour, which was like a class four rabbit.
[02:20:33] It was, it was nasty.
[02:20:34] It was gnarly.
[02:20:35] So just, you know, seeing him kind of get, get pulled out of the water is like really,
[02:20:41] it's not, not good.
[02:20:45] Not good.
[02:20:46] And myself and another individual took his body back to his, his family in North Carolina.
[02:20:54] And we stayed there a week.
[02:20:56] And then we were there is when Jason Dusty got killed like a couple of days later on
[02:21:02] an op to direct fire.
[02:21:05] Both of them got shot.
[02:21:08] And of course we were supposed to be on that op.
[02:21:10] And it was just, you know, it was just, you know, you went through it, Jaco.
[02:21:14] And it was just one of those times that was, it was, you know, I tried to look at it as
[02:21:20] like, though, this is what it's supposed to be.
[02:21:22] Like this is just the way it happens.
[02:21:24] I became numb after a while.
[02:21:26] You know, even when extortion went down, I remember talking to Scott Moore, I'm a more
[02:21:31] about it.
[02:21:32] I was like, Admiral, I'm fucking numb to this.
[02:21:34] Like this doesn't affect me anymore.
[02:21:35] Like I don't just, I don't get it.
[02:21:37] Like, why is this still happening?
[02:21:39] And it was just, it was just the conversation we were having, I think, through these years,
[02:21:43] we're just getting just odd.
[02:21:47] And I think I remember seeing this, the psych for the first time in, in 08 at the command,
[02:21:51] just like asking him, like, what's, what's going on?
[02:21:55] Can you, you know, help me out a little bit or whatever?
[02:21:58] And that was like the first time I ever actually went and spoke to somebody, but we didn't
[02:22:03] talk about it.
[02:22:04] Like nobody talked about it, maybe.
[02:22:06] But he also has, we have his medical record and I was just looking through it and it says,
[02:22:11] like, you know, decided not to talk to the command psych for fear of not being able to
[02:22:16] deploy, which is the, you need to hear all the time.
[02:22:20] I don't, I don't remember, I don't remember that.
[02:22:23] Yeah.
[02:22:24] So I was certainly noticing that he, it just, it seemed like he was just like a renegade
[02:22:27] to me.
[02:22:28] He did not care.
[02:22:29] He did not care.
[02:22:30] And those deployments were so insane.
[02:22:32] It's like, someone was dying every deployment.
[02:22:34] And so it felt like Russia and roulette.
[02:22:37] And I just, between Josh in 2008 and then there were, you know, other deaths that weren't
[02:22:44] so close to us.
[02:22:45] And Adam Brown dying in 2010, who were very, very close with Adam and his family and our
[02:22:51] kids best friends at the time.
[02:22:54] I was just like, this is nuts.
[02:22:56] We can't do this anymore.
[02:22:58] Yeah.
[02:22:59] And so it got, got to a point where I just felt like I had to do something different.
[02:23:02] I wasn't like fully, fully checked in.
[02:23:05] And again, talking to the admiral, he's like, you should go to OCS.
[02:23:09] He's like, you should be an officer.
[02:23:10] I'm like, I just, I need a break right now.
[02:23:13] Bad.
[02:23:14] He's like, now I just go to OCS.
[02:23:15] You're going to be a good officer.
[02:23:17] And so I went to OCS for like two days.
[02:23:21] Oh yeah.
[02:23:23] Yeah.
[02:23:24] Didn't you have to put like a package?
[02:23:25] Oh yeah.
[02:23:26] I did fucking all this shit.
[02:23:27] I did.
[02:23:28] You kind of.
[02:23:29] He even passed up being promoted to chief so someone else could have it because he thought
[02:23:33] he was going to.
[02:23:34] I did.
[02:23:35] I went in and, I went in and talked to the, yeah, the CMC at the time said, don't make
[02:23:39] me a chief.
[02:23:40] I said, make so-and-so a chief because I'm, you know, I'm going to go to OCS.
[02:23:44] Like, why would you make me a chief and I'm like, you're going to take it away from somebody.
[02:23:47] So they didn't, they made him chief and I went to OCS.
[02:23:52] So you knew what you were getting into with this?
[02:23:55] No.
[02:23:56] Obviously I did.
[02:23:57] Because.
[02:23:58] No, I didn't.
[02:23:59] I didn't.
[02:24:00] Honestly, like I didn't.
[02:24:01] I was not, I wasn't thinking clearly.
[02:24:03] Let me ask you this.
[02:24:04] When you went and talked to the psychologist.
[02:24:07] Yeah.
[02:24:08] What do you say, what do they say?
[02:24:11] They have like a, you know, they have their standard list of like SOP, you know, like
[02:24:17] what's, how's your home life?
[02:24:18] You know, how is your family?
[02:24:20] You're like, oh, my wife is great.
[02:24:22] My kids are great.
[02:24:23] It's fine.
[02:24:24] Like, are you drinking?
[02:24:25] Yeah.
[02:24:26] Yeah.
[02:24:27] A little bit.
[02:24:28] But you know, normally what, you know, what the guys are doing, nothing, you know, like
[02:24:30] it's, it's very vanilla, right?
[02:24:33] It's very templated.
[02:24:34] And I think, you know, obviously we'll talk about the route that I went eventually when
[02:24:38] I separated, but I think that's the problem is like, you go to school and they try to
[02:24:46] solve a problem in this box that they're taught, but everybody's different.
[02:24:49] Like you're different than me and I'm different from her.
[02:24:53] Like they can't use a standardized template to, I think.
[02:24:57] It's also like a check in the box.
[02:24:58] Like, you know, it's actually called the 30 minute checkup from the neck up.
[02:25:03] Right.
[02:25:04] Oh, is it?
[02:25:05] Oh, wait.
[02:25:06] Is this like a, like they say, Hey, did you get ordered to go do this?
[02:25:08] This is a start part of the standard operating procedure.
[02:25:10] Okay.
[02:25:11] You're back from three deployments.
[02:25:12] You got to go check in with the site.
[02:25:13] Is that what I don't think you give the answers, you know, that you think we'll probably get
[02:25:18] them off your back.
[02:25:19] Yeah.
[02:25:20] Let me, let me figure out what I have to say.
[02:25:21] Yeah.
[02:25:22] So they're not life is fine.
[02:25:23] Kids are great.
[02:25:24] I'm ready to deploy.
[02:25:25] Yeah.
[02:25:26] I'm good.
[02:25:27] And so is that what you did?
[02:25:28] And you go in there because you said you were a little, you were starting to feel it
[02:25:30] a little bit.
[02:25:31] Did you expose that at all when you talked to this, this doctor or not really?
[02:25:35] I don't think so, I don't even remember.
[02:25:38] I'm not sure.
[02:25:39] I just remember him telling me, Marcus, you guys aren't crazy.
[02:25:43] He's like, but your wives, he's like, they're freaking nuts.
[02:25:45] Well, it is crazy.
[02:25:46] I mean, like I literally, like of all the conversations, that's what I remember.
[02:25:50] He's like, Marcus, I don't think you guys are crazy.
[02:25:51] He's like, but I do think your wives are crazy.
[02:25:54] I'm like, whatever you say, I'm on board.
[02:25:57] So that's kind of crazy that you went in there.
[02:25:59] You're feeling like something's not right, but you still get like an up check to go to
[02:26:04] OCS, by the way.
[02:26:05] It was, the reason I went to OCS is because I believed in, in the Admiral.
[02:26:12] I believe in my skipper.
[02:26:13] Like that's the only thing I got.
[02:26:14] I don't want to let him down at all.
[02:26:16] And he's all fired up.
[02:26:17] So fired up.
[02:26:18] He's all fired up.
[02:26:19] He's like, hell yeah.
[02:26:20] So he's fired up.
[02:26:21] I love him.
[02:26:22] Yeah, for sure.
[02:26:23] And so he tells you, no, you're going to be a great officer who sends you OCS and you're
[02:26:25] like, Roger.
[02:26:26] I'm like, Roger that it made sense on paper.
[02:26:28] For sure.
[02:26:29] But I remember, but I remember telling my close friends like, like, no.
[02:26:34] Like my very close friends was like, like, I can't, I can't do this right now.
[02:26:39] Like I can't, I'm not good.
[02:26:40] He's like, no, bro, you got to go.
[02:26:42] Like you're going to regret this.
[02:26:43] I'm like, no, you don't understand.
[02:26:44] Like I can't, like I'm not good.
[02:26:46] He's like, Marcus, you got to get on that plane.
[02:26:47] What did you mean by not good?
[02:26:49] Like I was just not, I was not into it anymore.
[02:26:52] Like I was not mentally like focused or determined or like driven or like any of it.
[02:27:02] Like I just didn't, didn't want to be there.
[02:27:05] Were you seeing this amber?
[02:27:07] I was, but I was also in a complete tailspin because we just needed to, we needed to change
[02:27:12] the scenery.
[02:27:13] I just needed like a calm in the storm to, to reassess.
[02:27:16] You can like survive in like a tornado, for example, it's much easier to survive than
[02:27:21] it is to like survey the damage.
[02:27:23] I was in complete survival mode.
[02:27:25] And so it seemed like, okay, well, this is something that could get me to the other side
[02:27:30] to survey the damage.
[02:27:31] That's a good metaphor.
[02:27:32] So you're like in the storm shelter, you, there's just mayhem going, you're okay in
[02:27:36] the shelter, but you know, at some point you got to get out of this thing and you got to
[02:27:39] get somewhere safe.
[02:27:40] Yeah.
[02:27:41] Yeah.
[02:27:42] And then once the storm is over, like, you know, you think about like any natural disaster
[02:27:45] we lived in on the East coast, hurricanes, like preparing and surviving the hurricane
[02:27:51] isn't the hard part.
[02:27:52] The hard part is cleaning up all the mess on the other side.
[02:27:56] And so I knew we needed to get to a place where we could start cleaning up the mess,
[02:27:59] but you just, you're in such survival mode that you don't even know what that looks like.
[02:28:03] And so for me, OCS sort of like checked that box.
[02:28:06] It was a different change of scenery.
[02:28:09] And in my mind, Marcus always needed a goal.
[02:28:13] His goal was to get a scholarship to become a seal, to get to the command.
[02:28:16] This was just the natural next goal.
[02:28:19] I didn't know that he was so depleted mentally that he didn't have the willpower to care
[02:28:26] about the goal.
[02:28:27] And it was the first time that I had ever seen him not care about a goal.
[02:28:32] That's what I was going to ask you, because you're describing a mess, right?
[02:28:35] But at the same time, you're both also kind of like, you know, the kids are doing good.
[02:28:39] You're doing good.
[02:28:40] We're doing everything.
[02:28:41] No, we're doing everything.
[02:28:42] So was there some like under the reason I'm asking you this question or this line of
[02:28:46] questioning is because if someone is a wife and they're looking at their husband, what
[02:28:52] are they looking for?
[02:28:53] And how do they go?
[02:28:54] Oh, you know what?
[02:28:55] I see.
[02:28:56] I know what this is.
[02:28:57] I understand what's happening.
[02:28:58] There's a loss of motivation.
[02:29:00] Did you see behaviors?
[02:29:02] Was there anything that you said this is not, Marcus is not in a good spot right now?
[02:29:08] Yeah.
[02:29:09] Yeah.
[02:29:10] I mean, there were certain, I just felt like he was reckless.
[02:29:12] I felt like he was a complete renegade.
[02:29:16] He just didn't care.
[02:29:17] And so for me, OCS was a way to dial it back in, give him some direction and focus because
[02:29:23] like, I mean, he didn't cut his hair for nine months.
[02:29:26] He was drinking and then like the RSO the next day, like drinking until four AM, then
[02:29:32] the RSO at eight.
[02:29:33] Like it, to me, it was just sort of like very atypical behavior for him.
[02:29:42] Maybe not necessarily of the teams, but he was so laser focused that the sudden sort
[02:29:47] of renegade attitude was definitely alarming at the same time.
[02:29:51] I never saw him.
[02:29:52] That was probably 10 times worse than I knew OCS today.
[02:29:57] OCS is because I went to OCS and I can't imagine.
[02:30:03] You'd come back from deployment like literally a week or two prior.
[02:30:07] I fucking hate it.
[02:30:08] I showed up and you know, you have all the Marines and yelling and shit and you have
[02:30:13] like a rack like this and they're like, fuck is this guy?
[02:30:17] And I honestly, I'm out of less than a day and a half.
[02:30:19] I remember sitting, first off, I was getting migraines.
[02:30:22] They gave me, they got me ibuprofen six hours after I was fucking hurting.
[02:30:29] And then I remember sitting on the floor, my back was killing me.
[02:30:31] I had all types of like shit going on, my L4 and L5.
[02:30:38] And I'm like trying to read the, was it 11 general orders of the century?
[02:30:42] Like I'm trying to memorize them.
[02:30:46] And I remember taking the book and throwing it across the room and I'm like, hey, who's
[02:30:50] in charge here?
[02:30:51] Like a very nice way.
[02:30:52] Oh, the sentence says like, can I speak to him please?
[02:30:55] Yeah, sure.
[02:30:57] I was like, hey, sir, here's the deal.
[02:30:59] I was like, I just got back from my six combat deployment.
[02:31:01] I was like, I got back a week and a half ago.
[02:31:03] I'm like, and I'm in curse.
[02:31:05] I was like, why are, if I have to go to OCS, like, why are you guys sending me with people
[02:31:10] who like never been here before?
[02:31:12] Like, I don't want to be around any of these people.
[02:31:15] Like, honestly, I was like, I just want to go back to my unit.
[02:31:18] He's like, you know, we usually keep guys here for 12 weeks.
[02:31:21] He's like, you can go tomorrow.
[02:31:22] I'm like, thank you.
[02:31:23] And I did that.
[02:31:24] Dude, that's insane.
[02:31:26] Oh, it was, I was like, what am I doing?
[02:31:28] I'm like, I'm learning how to fold my underwear again.
[02:31:31] Are you kidding me?
[02:31:32] And I remember going back and telling Admiral, I was like, hey, I was like, if you want good
[02:31:36] people to like stay in, you guys got to figure out this OCS thing after guys are going over
[02:31:41] to see us to war for 10 or 15 years.
[02:31:43] Like, come on, like, that's just, you're going to, you're going to get more people like me
[02:31:47] that are like, fuck this.
[02:31:48] Or they hear about what OCS is.
[02:31:51] And instead of going through the whole process of sending their packet in, they're just going
[02:31:54] to hear about it and go, there's no chance.
[02:31:56] Because that's what I've told, I talked to a bunch of people when I got back, they're
[02:31:59] like, oh yeah, you didn't know that?
[02:32:01] They're like, that's why I didn't go.
[02:32:02] I was like, how can you go deal with that for another 12 weeks after all the other shit?
[02:32:07] They're like, so I didn't, they go, but there's this work around.
[02:32:10] And if you, if you become a, it's like, if you go on reserve, you go to like a fork and
[02:32:16] knife school for like four weeks, you get pinned and then you go back on active duty.
[02:32:21] Like they decided to tell me that.
[02:32:22] They figured something out.
[02:32:23] Yeah, they figured something out.
[02:32:24] But he honestly, like he knew, intuitively you knew, you shouldn't have gone.
[02:32:29] That was no chance.
[02:32:30] He called from the airport.
[02:32:31] He called me and he called his best friend.
[02:32:34] And I think I said, like, you've got to listen to your gut.
[02:32:38] And he just ended up pushing through and getting on the plane and going.
[02:32:42] But the day I showed up and like, what am I, I'm not, what am I doing?
[02:32:45] Yeah, that's this is fucking the last place I want to be camp welcome.
[02:32:49] Like so ridiculous.
[02:32:51] Yeah, it was good.
[02:32:52] So they sent you right back to the command.
[02:32:54] Yeah.
[02:32:55] And they usually keep people out process.
[02:32:56] They keep people holding stuff like 12, 12 or 13 weeks at OCS.
[02:33:01] And yeah, they let me go like the next day.
[02:33:03] And what did the, what did like the commands look like the detailer say?
[02:33:07] They were just like, what, you know, what is that's bizarre, dude, like get a bill.
[02:33:12] It's hard to get a bill to OCS.
[02:33:14] I know.
[02:33:15] I did have to apologize to Admiral.
[02:33:16] He's like, Hey, I'm like, I know.
[02:33:18] I was like, I know.
[02:33:22] But he was, I also think he was on the, the committee that that selected you.
[02:33:28] Yeah.
[02:33:29] Well, I'm sure he had a lot of pull whatever his position was.
[02:33:32] Yeah, for sure.
[02:33:33] But in hindsight, it's like, who ever thought that that was a good idea?
[02:33:37] But anyway, but yeah, so I went back and they were like, Hey, what do you need to do?
[02:33:41] I said, I just, you know, there's someone out there right now going, see, OCS is so
[02:33:45] hard.
[02:33:46] So much hard.
[02:33:47] It's got to quit.
[02:33:48] Yeah.
[02:33:49] I quit.
[02:33:50] Yeah.
[02:33:51] So I just told him, I said, Hey, I need, I just need a break.
[02:33:56] It's where, wherever that is.
[02:33:58] I said, I was thinking maybe, maybe go out to the West Coast and just forget about stuff.
[02:34:01] And I'm like, yeah, that's fine.
[02:34:02] Go do it.
[02:34:03] So that's what we did.
[02:34:04] And I just went out to, yeah, went to the center and wanted to teach tactics and they
[02:34:10] threw me in first phase, which is like the worst place they could have put me.
[02:34:14] And it was not good.
[02:34:17] Like I was, and as you know, all the guys are are awesome.
[02:34:21] Like good dudes, all of them been overseas, hard, hard nose dudes, like great workers.
[02:34:30] I didn't want to be around anybody.
[02:34:31] I was like, I don't want to make friends with anybody.
[02:34:33] They probably thought I was like standoffish because like I didn't want to hang out with
[02:34:36] anybody.
[02:34:37] It was just, it was just not a good time.
[02:34:40] I, I body slammed a student in front of the flagpole and like one of the, one of the instructor
[02:34:46] staff grabbed me and he was like, Hey man, so you, like you're going to get a lot of
[02:34:51] trouble if you don't fucking like tone it down.
[02:34:53] Like, I don't know what's going on.
[02:34:55] And so there was just a lot of little things like that that were starting to happen.
[02:34:59] And I just didn't care.
[02:35:00] I was like, you know, fuck everybody, you know, at the time.
[02:35:05] One of my guys, JP to know who's been on this podcast a few times and he was, he was in
[02:35:11] my task unit.
[02:35:12] It was in Ramadi, came back, went to another platoon and then they got from shoulder surgery
[02:35:17] and got pulled out and they sent him to buds.
[02:35:18] And it was like one month deep.
[02:35:20] They called me over at trade at the leg.
[02:35:22] You got to come get your boy.
[02:35:23] It was the same thing.
[02:35:25] He was just not in a good headspace to be putting students through, you know, first
[02:35:32] phase because you just wasn't in the right spot, you know, like had to get him out of
[02:35:36] there and get some frigate.
[02:35:39] He was a loose cannon.
[02:35:45] You're working for, how long are you in first phase for?
[02:35:48] First phase for a year.
[02:35:49] And then finally they kicked me over to the SQT.
[02:35:51] No, no, no, you're sitting here saying like, I don't want to be around anybody.
[02:35:55] I didn't want to make friends with anybody.
[02:35:56] What do you see in Amber?
[02:35:57] Like, what does this look like to you?
[02:35:59] We were talking home with him and we had been a part for the, the bigger part of every year
[02:36:07] leading into this.
[02:36:08] And so it was very, very, very difficult.
[02:36:11] I know.
[02:36:12] I was trying to be optimistic.
[02:36:14] We were super settled in Virginia Beach and so I'm like, Oh, a new beginning.
[02:36:17] I bought cruisers for everyone.
[02:36:19] I thought we would come out to California and suddenly be this happy family.
[02:36:23] And when we got here, everything just completely hit the fan because I didn't have my community
[02:36:29] anymore.
[02:36:30] I mean, started every single morning at Sarah Wilkinson's gym, CrossFit Odyssey at the time.
[02:36:34] It's core group of girls and my kids had their friends.
[02:36:39] We had an amazing neighborhood, a great house and suddenly we're in California.
[02:36:44] We don't know anyone and now Marcus is home and the kids, you know, like our son in particular
[02:36:51] had this sort of idea of who Marcus was in his mind.
[02:36:54] He was sort of like this myth of a dad and, you know, he really didn't know him.
[02:37:01] And I think that whenever we, the dad that he got delivered back was nothing like the
[02:37:07] dad that he had created in his mind at the time.
[02:37:10] And so he started acting out like everything was going bad.
[02:37:14] And I don't know.
[02:37:17] I just...
[02:37:18] It's hard for me to like picture this right now because you seem like a super chill dude,
[02:37:22] like all nice and mellow.
[02:37:25] And like, so what, like, what does this look like at home?
[02:37:28] He had become a monster.
[02:37:29] Well, first of all, he was completely disconnected to us.
[02:37:32] It felt like he didn't want to be anywhere really.
[02:37:35] I mean, I didn't feel like he wanted to be anyplace else.
[02:37:38] I felt like he wanted to be nowhere.
[02:37:39] Like he didn't have a purpose, a belonging of...
[02:37:43] He didn't give a damn about anything.
[02:37:47] He was definitely drinking a lot, a lot more than I had realized or he started drinking
[02:37:53] more than, you know, I was comfortable with.
[02:37:55] And there were certainly times that I was...
[02:38:01] I just thought there's no good way out of this.
[02:38:06] Leaving him is not going to necessarily solve anything.
[02:38:09] Staying with him, I don't know how much worse this can get.
[02:38:13] Yeah.
[02:38:14] But just to go back, Jaco.
[02:38:16] I was still like, I was still functioning.
[02:38:18] Like I was still, you know, engaging with the guys.
[02:38:21] I mean, I had, you know, I had bros and stuff, but I was...
[02:38:25] I didn't want to...
[02:38:27] It wasn't fun for me anymore.
[02:38:29] I didn't want to be one of the guys and, you know, it was just not...
[02:38:34] It just wasn't the same.
[02:38:35] It was just different.
[02:38:38] You know, and thank God I got kicked over to SQT.
[02:38:41] So I ran CQC for about a year and a half and a great staff.
[02:38:44] I mean, those guys, you know, I joke because we had a great self.
[02:38:48] I feel like those guys did everything.
[02:38:49] I'm like, I didn't even need to be there.
[02:38:51] Like literally the LPO from...
[02:38:53] I mean, they just...
[02:38:54] They ran the show.
[02:38:55] And so thank goodness I was just kind of in the background just...
[02:38:58] I think I started school online at USD.
[02:39:01] I did a graduate program there.
[02:39:05] So we would, you know, work the students in SQT and then at night we'd put them to bed
[02:39:08] and then I would stay up and, you know, do work and stuff.
[02:39:11] And so, you know, it wasn't like a complete mess.
[02:39:17] You know, I think everything was like...
[02:39:19] I was functioning.
[02:39:20] It wasn't...
[02:39:21] You know, I don't want to sit here and say like, you know, he was like stuck in the corner
[02:39:26] of his house, sucking on his thumb every day.
[02:39:28] No, no, no, you're still functioning.
[02:39:30] Still going to work, but like you just didn't care.
[02:39:32] Like you didn't...
[02:39:33] I was just checking out everything.
[02:39:34] Marcus doesn't do well without a goal and, you know, something to work towards.
[02:39:38] And so...
[02:39:39] I mean, most of us don't.
[02:39:41] So going back to get his master's degree while he was at SQT was definitely like a check
[02:39:46] in the box.
[02:39:47] And then I think at some point...
[02:39:50] Oh, well, then the bin lawn raid happened, which...
[02:39:54] Well, it kind of lost my mind on that one, just not being there.
[02:39:57] Like you, like put me in the...
[02:40:00] Put me in coach.
[02:40:01] There was like this big sort of like resurgence of let's get back to Virginia Beach and...
[02:40:07] So I did.
[02:40:08] I called up the CMC.
[02:40:09] I was like, hey, I want to come back.
[02:40:10] He's like, done, come back.
[02:40:11] And then I just kind of faded quickly.
[02:40:14] Well, no, it was replaced.
[02:40:15] I mean, that was our plan was to go back and then extortion happened and, you know, so
[02:40:21] many more of our friends died.
[02:40:24] And then it was like, what are we going to go back to, to that same game of Russian roulette?
[02:40:29] You know, we just didn't know each other anymore.
[02:40:32] And it was very uncomfortable to be in the house.
[02:40:35] He was learning how to be around the kids.
[02:40:37] The kids were very uncomfortable.
[02:40:39] Like how does dad fit back into this dynamic?
[02:40:42] And so we thought like at the time, we know dysfunction, we know deployments, we know
[02:40:47] not being together.
[02:40:50] We don't know how to be a normal family.
[02:40:51] I don't know what families do on the weekends.
[02:40:54] I don't know how a family spends a Friday night, but I know how to be a single mom.
[02:40:59] And so rushing back into that dysfunction was the safest thing at the time, which was replaced
[02:41:06] by a big fat reality slap of, oh, extortion just happened.
[02:41:14] We're going to go back to the Russian roulette.
[02:41:15] Do we really want to do that?
[02:41:17] And so that's at that point, he decided, let me just get out of the military altogether.
[02:41:22] No, you missed a whole bunch.
[02:41:24] Oh, my turn.
[02:41:25] You missed, you missed something.
[02:41:27] What?
[02:41:28] Um, that's when I went to speak to OIC from SQT.
[02:41:31] And I was like, Hey, I'm like, I'm not, you know, something not right.
[02:41:36] Like I'm not doing well.
[02:41:37] And he's like, why don't you go speak to the, I don't know, it was a West Coast dive medical
[02:41:40] officer, whatever they call.
[02:41:43] So I went over there and it was a psych and just started telling him about what's going
[02:41:48] on.
[02:41:49] And he said, Marcus, um, he said, first off, you're not, you're definitely not the only
[02:41:54] one that's come in here.
[02:41:55] He's like, matter of fact, he goes, I can't even count the number of guys that have come
[02:41:59] in here now over the last couple months.
[02:42:01] Um, and they have literally given me the same exact story.
[02:42:05] And he goes, I don't know what it is, but he's like, you guys are all experiencing the
[02:42:09] same exact thing.
[02:42:10] And he said, so this is what I'm going to do.
[02:42:13] And I think he's, I think I got prescribed a, you know, a, uh, an SSRI, uh, or SNRI first
[02:42:19] time.
[02:42:20] And I guess that was supposed to stabilize mood.
[02:42:24] And then I got sent to NICO and I came back with like four more medications from the NICO,
[02:42:28] you know, the NICO clinic out in, which I thought was actually a pretty good place,
[02:42:32] but they do a lot of, they do a lot of checking and giving you drugs and they don't do a whole
[02:42:38] lot of, in my opinion, healing.
[02:42:41] When you go and you tell this doctor, something's not right.
[02:42:46] How do you describe something's not right?
[02:42:49] Like what does that sound like?
[02:42:50] Again, I'm looking at this from a perspective of, yeah, how do you help?
[02:42:54] Yeah.
[02:42:55] A first responder, a firefighter, a police officer or somebody in the military that's
[02:42:58] that, what do you track in that they should be paying attention to?
[02:43:03] I think the, one of the biggest is lack of motivation or like lack of purpose.
[02:43:07] You feel like nothing matters anymore at all.
[02:43:12] Like what am I doing this for?
[02:43:14] Like I don't even care.
[02:43:15] And you're like, well, what do you care about?
[02:43:17] Well, I used to like to surf or work out.
[02:43:19] I could give a shit about surfing or working out, or I used to like to go, you know, do
[02:43:24] X, Y and Z.
[02:43:26] I don't even.
[02:43:27] I'm like, here, we'll give you two weeks to do that.
[02:43:29] No, how about I just sit at my house and watch TV and drink bourbon?
[02:43:34] Because I don't have to think about anything and I can numb myself.
[02:43:37] And so I would say to the people out there listening, you're going to start to see that
[02:43:42] you're becoming less motivated to do things of things that you really enjoyed in the past.
[02:43:49] And that's, I think, one of the biggest signs.
[02:43:52] That right there is a telltale sign.
[02:43:54] The stuff you really enjoyed doing when it comes to like a screeching halt, like go talk
[02:43:58] to somebody for sure.
[02:44:01] And I don't know if that's now depression kicking in, or now if you want to call it
[02:44:05] like PTSD or anxiety, or like, you know, now we're getting into the science of it.
[02:44:09] And I don't know also, like, is this a chemical thing?
[02:44:13] Because right now that study that just came out said, it's not a chemical thing.
[02:44:19] So now it's like, OK, well, what's going on in your life that you can't get out of bed
[02:44:23] in the morning?
[02:44:24] Like, you don't want to go to work.
[02:44:25] You don't want to answer your text messages.
[02:44:27] So it's really just like a lack of just like, like if you just like slumped your shoulders
[02:44:31] down and just like not gave a fuck anymore, that's really the...
[02:44:36] There was also a lot of anger, irritability.
[02:44:39] I think those are all things that are part of it.
[02:44:41] So like you become this person that doesn't want to do anything and then you do snap or
[02:44:47] you throw mugs through the window or you choke out the bartender at the country club, you
[02:44:53] know, and stupid shit that...
[02:44:55] All these things have happened by the way.
[02:44:58] That you probably shouldn't be doing.
[02:45:00] There's like a weird, I don't know if that's the wrong word, but when you're living your
[02:45:10] life and everything's like you're saying you got goals, you got things that you want to
[02:45:16] do and you got a long term vision and you got kids and when people die that you know
[02:45:27] that are your friends and then there's this like, there's this thing of like, well, they're
[02:45:39] gone and the world is still going.
[02:45:45] And what is any of this shit mean of, oh, my friend was this awesome guy and now he's
[02:45:55] dead and where I'm still going to morning muster, what is...
[02:46:04] What are we doing here?
[02:46:06] I think that sort of thing, you know, because you start getting like an existential thought
[02:46:13] of this life is the most important thing, but now, oh, you lost a bunch of friends and
[02:46:18] we're still here and we're going on, but we're going to end up where they are and this is
[02:46:22] the way things are going.
[02:46:23] It's like, seems like that could lead to...
[02:46:26] Well, I might as well just watch TV.
[02:46:30] I might as well just sit here and drink bourbon.
[02:46:32] I might as well just do nothing because this is where we're heading.
[02:46:37] This is where we're all heading.
[02:46:39] I don't know, again, this is just like I'm thinking out loud as I'm hearing you describe
[02:46:47] where your headspace was and especially when you're sort of get detached and you get put
[02:46:55] into a different environment where you don't have the same friends and you don't have the
[02:46:59] same like crew of families that you're with.
[02:47:02] And, you know, one thing I can say about losing guys in combat was like, you lose guys in
[02:47:07] combat and you're with all your friends and then you're going to go do more stuff in combat
[02:47:11] and you don't really...
[02:47:13] That feeling of what are we doing here?
[02:47:15] Actually the opposite happens.
[02:47:17] You now know why you're here.
[02:47:18] Like we're going to go and we're going to make things happen.
[02:47:21] We're going to go do our best.
[02:47:22] We're going to stand tall.
[02:47:23] Like you're going to go do all those things so it's sort of the opposite.
[02:47:26] You get juiced up.
[02:47:27] Yeah.
[02:47:28] No, I think you get fired up.
[02:47:29] Like you want to go do that 100% in the environment you're talking about without a doubt.
[02:47:34] I mean, like I said, after that, he went down, like we couldn't even...
[02:47:38] We were screaming, why are we still sitting here?
[02:47:40] Why in the helicopter land right next to us put us on there and send us over there to
[02:47:48] go get redemption?
[02:47:50] And then when you don't have that outlet anymore and then you're looking around and you're
[02:47:55] saying like, well, why am I even going to get out of bed this morning?
[02:48:00] Yeah.
[02:48:01] I think what you're describing, someone told me once and I kind of laugh at it, but it
[02:48:06] makes sense.
[02:48:07] He's like, Marcus, I'm not sure.
[02:48:08] He's like, he's like, definitely, definitely dudes have this PTSD, but he's like, I think
[02:48:12] they have what they call LSD, lack of...
[02:48:16] LSD.
[02:48:17] Yeah, lack of stress disorder.
[02:48:20] He's like, I feel like we have to be in chaos.
[02:48:22] And once that chaos stops is when our shit like unravels.
[02:48:26] And I said, I get that.
[02:48:28] And I said, I feel that they're definitely that's part of it, but there's got to be part
[02:48:33] of something else.
[02:48:34] Like why is everyone and not everyone, but why are there so many experiencing the same
[02:48:38] exact thing?
[02:48:39] You know, I don't never tell you that.
[02:48:41] And I'll still to this day sometimes fight it that, you know, like you, I loved going
[02:48:47] overseas.
[02:48:48] I loved going to war.
[02:48:49] I think that stuff is great.
[02:48:50] And I think it makes you grow.
[02:48:53] Like it makes you better.
[02:48:57] You know, maybe it was some stuff that happened younger, then maybe some wartime stuff, then
[02:49:02] maybe some transition stuff, like you said, like where I wasn't around some people, and
[02:49:06] then maybe some of the family stuff that wasn't working.
[02:49:09] And then maybe the concoction of all these fucking medications that they put me on and
[02:49:13] say, you're going to get better if you take this.
[02:49:14] And I'm going to believe you because you're a doctor.
[02:49:16] You're telling me this is going to be good.
[02:49:19] You know, then you get out and then you're in the private sector, then you don't have
[02:49:21] any of that at all.
[02:49:25] So maybe just all that together is a recipe for it's a perfect storm.
[02:49:29] We found ourselves right in the middle of a perfect storm.
[02:49:32] I have never taken any like drugs or anything.
[02:49:37] Don't.
[02:49:38] Yeah.
[02:49:39] Like so, so even when I hear that and I, but I've, I've, you know, there's been a bunch
[02:49:44] of data and information about them, what they're like and what they do.
[02:49:49] And, you know, people, you get on all these, what are they called psychosomatic drugs?
[02:49:54] Is that what they are?
[02:49:55] They're, I mean, there's a, yeah, there's a bunch of them.
[02:49:58] Some are supposed to like help you release some serotonin.
[02:50:01] So you're like happier and others are supposed to like stabilize your mood, you know, but
[02:50:06] then the problem is once you start taking those, then I don't know, all of a sudden you're
[02:50:10] feeling a little tired or you can't focus.
[02:50:12] So now they give you some provigil, a new vigil so you can focus.
[02:50:15] But now those medicines are causing migraines.
[02:50:17] And I'm like, yeah, I can't sleep now.
[02:50:20] So like, oh, here you ever heard of Ambien?
[02:50:21] And I'm like, yeah, it was on him for six years while I was deploying, but no, you need
[02:50:26] this or maybe we won't give you Ambien.
[02:50:27] We'll give you the other one that's not as like, it's just a, as a constant cycle.
[02:50:33] He did, he was on no prescriptions until the year that he was getting out of the Navy.
[02:50:37] And like between that time and, you know, a couple of years after, he had 10 prescriptions.
[02:50:44] He's on zero today.
[02:50:45] And Amber, I got prescribed my first at, at NICO.
[02:50:49] I know that's the year.
[02:50:50] No, no, from the, from the, from the site.
[02:50:51] And then from NICO, they prescribed me four medications because I was just looking at my
[02:50:55] medical record.
[02:50:56] It's crazy.
[02:50:57] It's crazy.
[02:50:58] And then once we went into all this, I think it was on seven and we get on average, you
[02:51:01] know, what we're doing on the nonprofit.
[02:51:03] The average is seven to eight medications at one time.
[02:51:07] We have people coming to us.
[02:51:08] These are team guys over 20 medications that they're on.
[02:51:11] Not that they're like, Hey, I want to be on this, that they're being prescribed.
[02:51:14] Say, here you're a fucked up.
[02:51:16] Like you should take these.
[02:51:17] Like who prescribed somebody over 20 medications?
[02:51:20] That's like, he seems completely insane.
[02:51:21] Insane to me.
[02:51:22] It's insane.
[02:51:23] And you know, no, look, I have friends that are psychologists and they've explained to
[02:51:28] me that there's like certain things.
[02:51:29] Like there's certain times that certain people need certain things and like it really helps
[02:51:32] them.
[02:51:34] But um, damn, like seven prescriptions for some stuff that makes you stay awake and
[02:51:40] focused and then give you something else that's going to make you sleep.
[02:51:44] I'm not a rocket scientist or a psychologist, my damn self, but that doesn't seem like a
[02:51:48] great thing.
[02:51:49] Yeah.
[02:51:50] Probably.
[02:51:51] It's the go to.
[02:51:52] It's the number one tool in the toolbox, at least if you are being treated by military
[02:51:56] medicine or the VA, if you can't write a prescription for it or talk to a therapist about it, they
[02:52:03] got nothing for you.
[02:52:04] I think the best research I came out recently is that they said, uh, if you get your heart
[02:52:08] rate up, go for a run, go on the mat.
[02:52:12] The actual research is showing that that's better than this.
[02:52:15] These antidepressants that they've been getting us for 35 years.
[02:52:18] And that's why I think now these antidepressants are like, there's a lot of bad shit coming
[02:52:21] out about them.
[02:52:22] Like there's no, like every press you read about them now is, is not good.
[02:52:26] So I think they're slowly going away.
[02:52:28] Yeah.
[02:52:29] Well, I never stopped working out and never stopped training Jiu-Jitsu.
[02:52:34] Like maybe that's, maybe that's it, dude.
[02:52:36] I don't know.
[02:52:37] Probably the best thing, at least I understand you can do, but I still think not for everybody,
[02:52:42] right?
[02:52:43] So I still think there's certain individuals that probably need something.
[02:52:46] Yeah.
[02:52:47] And you know, when they just came out and said, Hey, going for a run, getting your heart
[02:52:51] rate up is better than these, like we should, we should take, we should take that on board.
[02:52:56] Cause like most of America is sitting in front of the computer for 12 hours a day.
[02:52:59] They're wondering why, you know, they're angry or they're depressed, you know, just a little
[02:53:04] bit of, uh, you know, heart rate, heart rate increase activity.
[02:53:09] You help that out.
[02:53:10] And you throw booze into the mix, right?
[02:53:12] Cause like how good is that for you?
[02:53:15] It got seven meds, nine meds, 12 meds, and you're drinking like, and not working out
[02:53:21] as much.
[02:53:24] So you, you decide that you're going to get out.
[02:53:29] And how many years did you have?
[02:53:30] And at this point, 12, 12, and you decide, all right, I'm going to go do something else.
[02:53:35] I'm like, I just want to run away at that point.
[02:53:37] I literally just wanted to run.
[02:53:40] Yeah.
[02:53:43] And what do you think in Amber?
[02:53:45] Well, I should have learned from OCS that big dramatic changes are probably not the
[02:53:51] best, but at the time I thought, I don't want to go back to the Russian roulette.
[02:53:58] And I know Marcus needs a goal and he probably feels like, you know, leaving the command
[02:54:03] and becoming an instructor is going, you know, not necessarily going in a goal oriented direction.
[02:54:09] So maybe having a career is the next best goal he just graduated.
[02:54:13] He had, he got his master's degree and I went with it.
[02:54:20] Dude, only a freaking team guy could be going like on all these drugs and drinking and still
[02:54:23] get their master's degree.
[02:54:25] That's so retarded.
[02:54:27] It's like, that's so ridiculous.
[02:54:28] I saw people, I was the best when I wasn't thinking.
[02:54:31] Like if I could just go, if you could just wind me up and go, I'm fine.
[02:54:34] But as soon as I stopped for half a second is when the chicken's tumbling down.
[02:54:39] So little did I know that I was actually like stepping into like the, you know, perfect,
[02:54:47] perfect storm.
[02:54:48] We were living in a pretty bad one, but the perfect storm was childhood trauma, war trauma,
[02:54:55] head trauma, transition trauma, family trauma, loss of purpose, loss of paycheck, loss of
[02:55:01] community, loss of identity.
[02:55:05] And he wanted to get so far away from the military and the teams that he went into
[02:55:11] banking.
[02:55:12] What was, what was pushing you away from the freaking teams?
[02:55:16] I, no idea.
[02:55:19] No clue.
[02:55:20] If I had to guess.
[02:55:21] Anger, just anger, like anger at, and probably wasn't the teams.
[02:55:23] It was just anger of like everything.
[02:55:26] Because you know what it's like when you like see one of your team guy friends that you
[02:55:31] haven't seen in a while and you're just super stoked.
[02:55:34] Like I remember I got back from my last balloon was we're going to trade at dude.
[02:55:37] I worked at trade at, you know, so there's different team guys come every day was like
[02:55:40] a reunion every day.
[02:55:41] Like, yeah, just like, oh, hey, we go, what's your, like every day was like that.
[02:55:46] I mean, my freaking kids will say to me, my oldest daughter right now, she'll say to me,
[02:55:51] like, why don't you just go back in?
[02:55:53] I'm always like, well, I can't really go back in.
[02:55:56] I'm like an old guy now.
[02:55:58] Why don't you just go back in?
[02:56:00] So what was that just not there anymore?
[02:56:03] Were you feeling like, you know, you see your friends and you're like, I don't.
[02:56:07] Yeah, I don't care.
[02:56:08] I don't care.
[02:56:09] Yeah, it was just, you know, Jacque was just like a.
[02:56:14] I don't know how to describe it was completely numb inside.
[02:56:18] He feels like that now.
[02:56:19] That's what I'm saying.
[02:56:20] It was a period of time when the healer went down.
[02:56:22] Like I had this weird conversation with the Admiral was just like, I'm numb.
[02:56:26] This is not even affecting me anymore.
[02:56:28] Like I don't get it.
[02:56:29] He's like, yeah, but this hurts.
[02:56:30] I'm like, yeah, it hurts, but I'm, I just don't, it's not even registering.
[02:56:35] It's just.
[02:56:36] So this is, this is when we see like there's something like to me now, like, okay, there's
[02:56:40] something, there's something wrong.
[02:56:42] There's something going on in here.
[02:56:43] Like for a team guy to, to not like be kind of stoked to see their friends.
[02:56:51] Like I just remember my whole life.
[02:56:53] I would go to work and just be stoked.
[02:56:55] Like there's never a day where I was like, I'm bummed out to go to work today.
[02:56:58] Every day was just awesome and fun and going to see my friends and we're going to hang
[02:57:04] out and we're going to shoot some shit.
[02:57:05] And like, thank God I always had that feeling, you know, I always had that feeling.
[02:57:11] So this is what tells me like, again, going back to Chad and hearing Sarah describe this
[02:57:17] change in his personality, you know, and that's where I, the only thing that I could imagine
[02:57:26] that could cause.
[02:57:27] Like, like it has to be something else that's causing you to get in this mode of, you know,
[02:57:34] oh, there's freaking four guys that I haven't seen in five years and I went to Bud's with
[02:57:40] them or I was at a platoon with them or whatever.
[02:57:42] I think you would, someone would have been like that though.
[02:57:44] Yeah, but I also used to want to run high too.
[02:57:46] Remember that?
[02:57:47] Like I never wanted to go back to Virginia Beach.
[02:57:49] Oh, well, that's true.
[02:57:50] I didn't want to see anybody.
[02:57:52] But also like, you know, he sort of had, he was at this pinnacle of what he wanted for
[02:58:00] his career and the teams.
[02:58:02] And so to leave that and go to a new place was hard, you know, it would be like transferring
[02:58:08] coasts for anybody when you're making all new friends or being out here.
[02:58:13] The vibe, I mean, obviously we love it here.
[02:58:16] We're here now.
[02:58:18] But the vibe here versus the East Coast was very different and that people are a lot more
[02:58:22] spread out here.
[02:58:23] So we were by ourselves in a neighborhood far away from other military families.
[02:58:29] And we just didn't feel like people really got it.
[02:58:33] And so I think that he got to this place of being so numb and not really caring after
[02:58:40] the transition.
[02:58:41] But it was very hard to go back to Virginia Beach.
[02:58:44] But I hear you now because like we live in Coronado and I love it because I get to see
[02:58:48] my bros, like guys that are contractors, they come in like, Hey, what's going on?
[02:58:52] You know, so it's good.
[02:58:54] Now it's, but now it's different.
[02:58:55] I mean, I'd say different places.
[02:58:56] I guess the thing that I'm trying to say is like you can, it's like the freaking check
[02:59:01] engine light in a car.
[02:59:02] Like to me, that's a check engine light in the car of like just about every team guy
[02:59:09] you know, like when they see other team guys, they're stoked.
[02:59:13] I remember one of my buddies was stationed up in, up in Germany in North Germany with
[02:59:20] the Comsformers.
[02:59:21] He was up there.
[02:59:23] He was up there for three years.
[02:59:25] And I went up to see him one time when I was in Germany and like he was, cause he'd been
[02:59:31] to not, he'd be these were round kick ass, bad ass Comsformer guys, which is awesome.
[02:59:35] And they're great.
[02:59:36] They're studs.
[02:59:38] And but man, when he saw me, it was like he was, he couldn't stop smiling.
[02:59:42] Bro, I was like, bro, you're so happy.
[02:59:44] He goes, bro, it's so good.
[02:59:45] He goes, it's so good to see you and it's so good to speak English.
[02:59:48] He's speaking German.
[02:59:51] So for me to like sit here and think about that, I'm thinking there must be like some,
[02:59:57] there's something wrong with the engine.
[02:59:59] Like there's a check, that's a check engine light.
[03:00:02] The real check engine light is coming on.
[03:00:06] And, and, and then you tell me all these other things like that list, you just rattled off
[03:00:11] of all these things that are going on Amber.
[03:00:13] You're like, Oh, loss of this, loss of that, change of this, change of this, you know.
[03:00:18] Yeah, you can't outrun it.
[03:00:21] Whenever you're processed out and you're a civilian, it all comes crashing down for
[03:00:28] so many.
[03:00:29] And we were one of, one of those cases where we couldn't outrun it anymore.
[03:00:35] And yeah, I mean, if you're good, you're good.
[03:00:37] So, you know, you, I think if you get out and everything is tracking and there's no
[03:00:42] check engine light and you maybe go through some transition, whatever, but you're fine.
[03:00:49] But if you're not, you know, I like that.
[03:00:51] I like that analogy.
[03:00:52] I may use that.
[03:00:53] And we'll steal that from you.
[03:00:54] You can.
[03:00:55] Yeah, of course.
[03:00:56] You can all, Sarah describes Chad as like a light going out.
[03:01:00] And I certainly would have described Marcus the same, like the light in him completely
[03:01:05] went out and, um, but over time, you just start to like sort of like justify it or rationalize
[03:01:14] it in your head.
[03:01:15] Like, well, like, I mean, I guess that's how things are now.
[03:01:18] And they're kind of all like that.
[03:01:20] And, you know, just, you just rationalize it and you try to handle it.
[03:01:26] But like the level of suffering that you guys can endure is so great.
[03:01:33] It's terrifying.
[03:01:34] So this is how you get a dude that's like going through all this and getting his master's
[03:01:37] degree.
[03:01:38] Like that's such a good example of I'll just suck it up.
[03:01:42] Like I'll just suck it up and just do this stupid assignment.
[03:01:45] You know, you're a grown ass man.
[03:01:47] You're getting told by someone to write a paper and you're like, cool, give me the freaking
[03:01:50] computer with rock and roll.
[03:01:52] Yeah.
[03:01:53] Yeah.
[03:01:54] So, um, so you decided you're going to get out.
[03:01:57] What kind of plan do you have?
[03:01:58] Like where are you going to get money from?
[03:02:00] Did you already get a job?
[03:02:01] Did you get a job lined up?
[03:02:02] No, no, I got, I mean, I was, yes.
[03:02:04] So I was lucky enough.
[03:02:05] I had, um, I had a mentor and, you know, and the mentor connected me to some folks.
[03:02:10] And so I did like a New York City tour, met a lot of different people that met a lot of
[03:02:15] people in banking and some other stuff.
[03:02:17] And then got introduced to a lot of West Coast folks and just kind of went out there and
[03:02:22] figured out what's next.
[03:02:24] So I, you know, I consider myself lucky there, um, that I got to, I got to meet a lot of
[03:02:29] people and kind of figure out what I wanted to do.
[03:02:32] So I had a choice, really had a choice.
[03:02:33] And so you got, you actually got a job lined up before you got out, which is freaking amazing
[03:02:39] because sometimes guys don't realize that they get a paycheck every two weeks and that
[03:02:43] when you get out, that paycheck stops.
[03:02:46] And you know, like it's, it's a rough transition for a lot of dudes.
[03:02:50] It could be very rough.
[03:02:51] And so yeah, I was, yeah, I was lucky in that regard, um, you know, looking for something
[03:02:57] else to do.
[03:02:58] And I mean, I wasn't thinking any other way.
[03:03:00] Again, like the way I'm thinking is I'm getting out to go do something, not to, I guess, figure
[03:03:06] it out.
[03:03:07] So.
[03:03:08] And so what was the first gig?
[03:03:09] You were a banker.
[03:03:10] What was it?
[03:03:11] It was a private banker, um, which is really like a fancy way of saying financial advisor.
[03:03:17] And I had some people tell me, don't, don't do it unless you have a lot of rich friends.
[03:03:23] Literally, I got told that by several people.
[03:03:26] Like, really?
[03:03:27] Is that how this works out here?
[03:03:29] Um, but no, I got, I got lucky.
[03:03:30] I worked for a really good team up in LA and, um, yeah, I did that for like a year.
[03:03:35] Did you guys move to LA?
[03:03:36] Yeah.
[03:03:37] Yeah, that was terrible.
[03:03:38] That's why I moved to Texas like within a year after moving there.
[03:03:42] Were you still working at the bank when you moved to Texas?
[03:03:45] No, no, I got hired somewhere else.
[03:03:47] Um, again, through, through my mentor.
[03:03:48] Um, doing the same kind of thing.
[03:03:50] No, doing different stuff like operations now, just kind of more like leadership operations,
[03:03:55] uh, business development.
[03:03:57] And how's your head space at this point?
[03:03:58] Um, I mean, I feel like it, it didn't really, I was like really excited to get out and do
[03:04:08] something different, but I'm not sure.
[03:04:09] He was in a holding pattern at that time.
[03:04:11] I think that there was enough, you had enough tasks to get done and another.
[03:04:16] Yeah, yeah, I was also, and I had something that like I was, there was like excitement.
[03:04:19] Yeah.
[03:04:20] Yeah.
[03:04:21] And I didn't mind LA, but I certainly, you know, we were so disconnected.
[03:04:28] And, um, it was, it was a challenge.
[03:04:31] Like our relationship was a challenge.
[03:04:33] His relationship with the kids was a challenge.
[03:04:36] He drinking was still an issue.
[03:04:38] I was, I was still in the, I was still in the meds, obviously.
[03:04:41] So I was on the meds for seven years straight.
[03:04:42] And by the way, you, you were incorrect.
[03:04:45] I got prescribed while I was still on active duty.
[03:04:48] So from active duty till 2017, November 11th is when I was on.
[03:04:53] So I just meant that like right before you got out of the military is you went your whole
[03:05:01] career, not on meds.
[03:05:03] Like even when he would get injured, he'd be like, I'm not taking that.
[03:05:06] And then, you know, finally relented in like his last year of service.
[03:05:09] And then from that point forward, he was prescribed more and more and more.
[03:05:15] But you know, things were really still deteriorating at home.
[03:05:18] And I remember thinking I can't be stuck in California, like as a single mom.
[03:05:24] My dad had just taken a job at the University of Texas, his offensive coordinator there.
[03:05:30] And Marcus was working in North Carolina commuting.
[03:05:32] And so at one point he came home and he's like, why are paying California taxes?
[03:05:38] I don't even work in the state.
[03:05:41] And we decided to move to Texas.
[03:05:43] And I just thought this is going to be a great place for me to raise the kids and just feel
[03:05:48] better about the kids being raised in a place like Texas.
[03:05:52] And I can probably afford it more than California because I thought we were done.
[03:05:56] I didn't want to be done, but I just thought this is, this is not working.
[03:06:01] So from your perspective, as you're saying, raise the kids, you think that you're going
[03:06:04] to be raising alone because it's that bad.
[03:06:06] Well, it was just, you know, my dreams of my feeling of support for his job in the early
[03:06:16] days sort of turned to like indifference and feeling like resentment that the teams always
[03:06:23] came first.
[03:06:25] I never gave him an ultimatum or anything like that, but it was this sort of like pride
[03:06:31] was replaced with pain.
[03:06:34] And from there, I just kept thinking, well, maybe if we try this, I'll get the feeling
[03:06:38] back.
[03:06:39] Maybe if we try that, I'll get the feeling back.
[03:06:40] Maybe moving will help my family.
[03:06:42] Maybe getting out will help my family.
[03:06:43] And nothing was helping.
[03:06:45] It was actually just deteriorating.
[03:06:47] And so I was basically losing hope that I would ever get the feeling back of like caring.
[03:06:52] I did care, but I just knew that this isn't the way I wanted it.
[03:06:56] This isn't a marriage I want to have.
[03:06:58] And so it felt inevitable.
[03:07:01] I thought at that point we would just divorce.
[03:07:03] I wasn't afraid like anything bad would happen to him.
[03:07:06] I just felt like this isn't workable.
[03:07:10] And what are you feeling, Marcus?
[03:07:12] At this point, you're moved.
[03:07:13] You moved to Texas.
[03:07:15] Is this where you're choking out country club people?
[03:07:17] Yeah.
[03:07:18] Yeah, Texas, it just got worse from there.
[03:07:22] Nothing definitely got better.
[03:07:25] It got worse.
[03:07:27] I hated it there.
[03:07:28] I needed the water.
[03:07:29] I needed the mountains.
[03:07:30] It was flat.
[03:07:31] It was hot.
[03:07:32] I didn't like the people, the town we lived.
[03:07:36] I got along with a few people, but again, nobody got it.
[03:07:40] I felt like it was in that space of nobody gets me.
[03:07:43] And I've been in a war and I can't have a real conversation with anybody because the
[03:07:50] only thing they care about is money.
[03:07:55] I was just going through all of that.
[03:07:57] And again, it wasn't like we were struggling in terms of financially or any of that.
[03:08:02] Honestly, I could have made a million dollars a year.
[03:08:06] Nothing would have changed.
[03:08:07] It was just bad.
[03:08:11] It was just was not, I don't know.
[03:08:14] Again, I think I had less friends when we moved to Texas than I.
[03:08:19] We joke about it, but I don't want to be too angry here over the radio.
[03:08:25] Anybody's listening in?
[03:08:27] Definitely a challenging time.
[03:08:30] And that's when the wheels really came off for us.
[03:08:32] I think that part of what has grounded Marcus has been his ability to get in the water and
[03:08:38] travel.
[03:08:39] And so, you know, in the Navy, you're always stationed near water and in the teams, you're
[03:08:44] doing a lot of traveling.
[03:08:45] And so when we were in Texas, he was basically stuck at home and it was 110 degrees outside
[03:08:51] with no water.
[03:08:53] And he tried to take up golf.
[03:08:55] He's just got to have, you know, that outlet.
[03:08:57] And in taking up golf, he started hanging out with a crew at the country club that were
[03:09:01] very, very, very heavy drinkers.
[03:09:03] And he started to drink.
[03:09:05] Yeah, kind of fell back into the, I think I was drinking hard anyway.
[03:09:10] I don't think it paid.
[03:09:11] You were, but it certainly escalated to a point that, you know, I basically had to like sit
[03:09:16] them down at one point and be like, listen, don't call my husband anymore, because this
[03:09:20] is becoming a problem.
[03:09:23] And it just, our son at that point was...
[03:09:28] Yeah, then he started spiraling a little bit.
[03:09:30] I think just because of what was going on at the house.
[03:09:32] And so then, you know, we're dealing with him not being, you know, just like your typical
[03:09:38] kid that can go to school and get good grades and come home and...
[03:09:42] He's not doing that.
[03:09:43] He's not doing that, you know.
[03:09:45] And so a mix of a little bit of everything.
[03:09:49] I think as it was at that time when, you know, Amber again started just like seeing more
[03:09:55] changes.
[03:09:56] And so she started getting me into brain clinics.
[03:09:59] Yeah.
[03:10:00] And it was actually...
[03:10:01] So, you had 2000...
[03:10:02] There was a former teammate of Marcus's who took his life as well, like one of the first
[03:10:07] Sealed Suicides.
[03:10:09] And his wife actually did a two-part series and the Virginia pilot over Memorial Day.
[03:10:16] And that was in 2016, I believe.
[03:10:20] And I read this article about him and she described him as the light going out.
[03:10:25] And she described all these struggles that he was having.
[03:10:28] And I was like, hold on, this is what we're going through.
[03:10:31] No one's talking about this, though.
[03:10:34] And it was the first time that someone had like had the courage to say that they were
[03:10:38] struggling and had so much respect for that.
[03:10:40] And I was also scared to show this.
[03:10:42] And so what the article basically ended by saying was that there was a pattern of scarring
[03:10:48] found in his brain linked to blast exposure.
[03:10:52] And there was also some mention of CTE.
[03:10:55] And I started researching this and suddenly I was like, I remember going to the garage
[03:11:00] and calling my best friend and I was like, I feel like I've just read about a terminal
[03:11:03] diagnosis like this shit is scary.
[03:11:07] I started really digging into the effects of blasts and repeated head trauma.
[03:11:14] And like his 15 years playing football and 13 years as a breacher.
[03:11:18] And I was like, I don't know that this is purely psychological.
[03:11:22] I don't know that medication is going to help this.
[03:11:24] I know talk therapy is not helping it.
[03:11:27] And if anything, I feel like it could get worse over time and time is of the essence.
[03:11:32] So that's when I really did this heart pivot and I saw him through new eyes.
[03:11:37] And I was suddenly overcome with compassion for him because even though he had become
[03:11:42] a monster, I remembered, I chose to remember who I met and who he was before this deterioration.
[03:11:51] And so I held on to the hope that I could get that person back, but I knew that it was
[03:11:55] going to be really, really, really tough and it might not happen.
[03:11:58] I started like I was most comfortable with Western medicine.
[03:12:02] And even though he was being a really good soldier and like doing, taking all the medication
[03:12:06] that he was prescribed, I was like, I'm not sure that medication is what's, you know,
[03:12:11] fixable here.
[03:12:15] His only diagnosis really was he had his TBI documented all throughout his medical record,
[03:12:19] but it was primarily like PTSD, PTSD.
[03:12:22] And in my mind, I'm like, gosh, I don't know about that because he loved to deploy and
[03:12:27] he would probably still be deploying if, you know, shit didn't go so far south.
[03:12:34] I don't think that this is wrapped up in anything he did overseas.
[03:12:39] What did make more sense was the TBI piece.
[03:12:41] And so I started getting into brain clinics and I got him into like five total and he
[03:12:46] was willing, but you know, it was weeks away from home.
[03:12:49] It was a lot of diagnostics.
[03:12:52] There really wasn't a lot of hope or follow up on the other side.
[03:12:56] And he was becoming more and more and more angry and frustrated.
[03:13:01] And he was really hopeful that I could help.
[03:13:04] And my hope was diminishing month after month of more failed things.
[03:13:12] What do you do at a brain clinic?
[03:13:14] Oh, gosh.
[03:13:15] I mean, they're all different.
[03:13:16] You take, you do a ton of batteries.
[03:13:20] You do a lot of cognitive testing.
[03:13:21] You know, they put you in machines.
[03:13:23] They spin you upside down.
[03:13:24] Like they do a bunch of stuff that are really, in my opinion, for people who could like barely
[03:13:28] walk and talk, you know, or have, you know, autism and all these other things.
[03:13:32] And so for me, I was there just, I felt like passing time.
[03:13:35] I'm like, none of this stuff helps.
[03:13:38] Like, what am I doing here?
[03:13:40] And really, oh, and you do like a lot of balancing.
[03:13:44] I mean, it's for people again, this is my opinion, but it's for people that I consider
[03:13:49] really fucked up, right, that are not like could barely talk.
[03:13:54] Do you at this point think you're fucked up?
[03:13:58] I was just looking for answers.
[03:13:59] I was like, just please, just somebody tell me like something.
[03:14:02] Okay.
[03:14:03] So you think there's questions of what the hell's wrong with 100%.
[03:14:07] Yeah.
[03:14:08] I mean, I left NICO with, you know, with, you know, some, you know, the FMRI is showing
[03:14:12] like, oh, you have these dead and partially brain that, you know, aren't working.
[03:14:17] But and those are just TBIs.
[03:14:18] Those are like TBIs, mild TBIs, mild TBIs.
[03:14:21] He looked at me one time, Choco, like he was trying to get out the door and he used to
[03:14:25] be so like regimented and like, you know, everything had a place and everything was
[03:14:29] organized and he was just kind of like this disorganized functioning, but chaotic guy now.
[03:14:38] And so he's trying to get out of the door for a flight and he was profusely sweating
[03:14:43] and his eyes were gigantic and he looked at me and he was just like sheer terror.
[03:14:48] Like something is wrong with my brain.
[03:14:51] I don't know what's wrong with me.
[03:14:53] Something is not right with my brain.
[03:14:55] And so all throughout his medical record, it's like cognition issues, memory issues,
[03:15:02] balance issues.
[03:15:04] And I'm thinking he's the most capable human I know there's something that's out of his
[03:15:09] control and I don't know.
[03:15:13] Like doctors aren't helping.
[03:15:16] When you when they when they look at these TBIs, these black areas in your brain, what
[03:15:20] do they do about it?
[03:15:21] Do they do anything?
[03:15:22] Are they?
[03:15:23] No, what's the?
[03:15:24] No, because I think it's again, I think it's personalized because I know some individuals
[03:15:29] that had no scarring that were struggling bad and then I know individuals that had a lot
[03:15:35] of scarring and they were fine.
[03:15:37] Maybe they weren't fine or maybe they were saying they were fine and they weren't doing
[03:15:40] well.
[03:15:41] But you know, my my my recollection and the conversations I have, people's people are
[03:15:47] all over the map.
[03:15:49] So individuals with no scarring to, you know, 45 lesions on their brain are acting different.
[03:15:56] And it didn't mean that the ones with higher scarring were acting worse than the ones that
[03:16:01] were, you know, maybe had none.
[03:16:04] So like, I'm not a I'm not a neuroscience or neuroscientist.
[03:16:08] Like I can't tell you why.
[03:16:09] But I think like everything else is just personalized.
[03:16:13] So there's no protocol for like, Oh, memory loss.
[03:16:15] Here's what you need to do or yes, no, there absolutely is.
[03:16:19] There's there's like exercises and yes.
[03:16:21] Yeah, there's there's things you can do.
[03:16:23] There's supplements you can take.
[03:16:25] You know, I do all of it.
[03:16:27] Like I take every supplement that I can find that says this reduces inflammation or this
[03:16:33] helps you, you know, think clearly or, you know, whatever it is like new tropics, like
[03:16:37] I'll try anything now that says, Hey, this is going to make your brain younger.
[03:16:40] That's going to make you, you know, think more clearly.
[03:16:42] Yeah.
[03:16:43] I mean, I think, I think there's still a lot of research around there about, you know,
[03:16:47] what, what we can take.
[03:16:49] But again, I go back to diet and exercise for all matters.
[03:16:55] We needed a nuclear option.
[03:16:56] It all matters.
[03:16:57] Yeah, you're right.
[03:16:58] But it all matters.
[03:16:59] It's not one thing.
[03:17:00] And so how many of these brain clinic things did you go through?
[03:17:02] I would do five.
[03:17:03] And, you know, and honestly, I went to some really good ones from like, like world renowned.
[03:17:08] And I thought they do really good stuff.
[03:17:10] But a lot of these places, as soon as you leave, like it's kind of like they forget you,
[03:17:15] you know, so they collect your money, which are some of these are astronomical, you know,
[03:17:20] K 30 K two weeks a month, whatever it is, and then you leave and they forget about you.
[03:17:26] And that's that was the part that I, you know, I struggle with is that if individuals want
[03:17:30] to get better or these places want to get people better than they need to, there needs
[03:17:35] to be some type of continuum of care, like they just need to check in on an individual
[03:17:39] 30 days, 90 days or whatever it is.
[03:17:41] And, you know, we'll get probably, you know, more into it and what we're doing now.
[03:17:45] But like Amber was saying, I was getting frustrated because I maybe get a diagnosis, but not
[03:17:49] a, not a like, here's exactly what you do as a protocol, go home and do this every day.
[03:17:56] It was just they're all very similar.
[03:17:58] Great for diagnostics.
[03:18:00] Great for diagnostics.
[03:18:01] But what do you do with those diagnostics?
[03:18:03] Yeah, well, they don't make any money either by doing anything else than you showing up
[03:18:08] paying your bill and then telling you to come back so you can pay another bill.
[03:18:13] So what was when was and where was rock bottom and what did it look like?
[03:18:22] Amber, what is, what was it like for you where you are just, it's, can't get any worse than
[03:18:27] this right now?
[03:18:30] Do you mind if I, there's three stories that come to mind and I don't think I've shared
[03:18:36] them publicly.
[03:18:39] The first one was our son called me and said, are you home?
[03:18:45] And I said, no, why?
[03:18:46] He goes, I need to borrow a shirt from dad.
[03:18:50] But when I went to your room, your bedroom doors closed, your bathroom doors closed,
[03:18:53] I'm standing at your closet, but the closet doors closed and I'm afraid if I open it,
[03:18:57] I'm going to find dad hanging.
[03:18:59] And it was like a traumatic conversation, but it was also the normal in our house.
[03:19:06] And I just, you know, that was the first real like, oh, this isn't normal.
[03:19:13] How old is your son at this point?
[03:19:15] 15.
[03:19:16] And, and what is it that he's picking up on?
[03:19:20] It just felt palpable that dad didn't have a purpose anymore.
[03:19:30] And it, it, catastrophe felt imminent.
[03:19:37] And I didn't know what that looked like.
[03:19:38] I didn't know if that meant drinking and driving and wrapping his trucker on a pole.
[03:19:43] I didn't know if that meant taking his life.
[03:19:49] I don't know.
[03:19:50] I just felt like it's coming.
[03:19:52] And then one night he came home and I, you know, 11 o'clock, he's not home, 12 o'clock,
[03:20:02] he's not home, one, two.
[03:20:05] And I heard him come home and I was just, I was like, I need to put the dresser in front
[03:20:09] of the door.
[03:20:10] And I, and then I ran out the back door and I thought, this is not normal.
[03:20:16] This is, he never, he's never, ever, ever been physically aggressive with me, not once.
[03:20:26] But it was tending in the direction that I didn't feel safe because I knew he'd been
[03:20:30] drinking and that particular night, neither one of our kids were home.
[03:20:35] They were both having sleepovers and I just got unnerved and maybe I overreacted.
[03:20:40] But, you know, when you're sitting in a parking lot at 2am, you're just like, this can't,
[03:20:46] this is, is not sustainable.
[03:20:50] And then the third thing that happened, which was like the true rock bottom, the culmination
[03:20:54] of my son feeling these things, me feeling these things, was when our daughter was riding
[03:21:02] with Marcus and he had gotten into some like road construction and sort of like got lost
[03:21:09] or got off track and they were coming to pick me up from an event.
[03:21:13] I was out with my friends.
[03:21:15] And by the time they got to me, he was so frustrated.
[03:21:17] And of course, I didn't know had he been drinking, I didn't, I just see my car coming down the
[03:21:23] street and out comes our daughter and she comes like spilling towards me and she, and
[03:21:28] he tears off down the street and she said, he's, he's crazy mom.
[03:21:33] We can't get in the car with him.
[03:21:34] He'll kill us.
[03:21:36] And she looked at me and she said, how much longer do we have to do this?
[03:21:43] And I said, not one more day.
[03:21:47] And the next day I got on the phone with his best friend who died, Josh, with his family
[03:21:54] who had a foundation.
[03:21:57] And I said, we need help.
[03:22:01] I think if he goes to California and he does this sort of like trifecta brain treatment
[03:22:06] that I can at least have like a minute to figure out next steps.
[03:22:13] I, it was my last hope.
[03:22:16] And so they arranged for the funding.
[03:22:17] I arranged for him to leave what was supposed to be six weeks turned into like three months.
[03:22:23] And during that three months, I came to visit him twice.
[03:22:26] And the first time I came to visit, things were pretty good for a week or so.
[03:22:30] But like on the last day of the trip, everything fell apart.
[03:22:34] And so I went home really defeated and frustrated.
[03:22:37] And in my mind, I was like, I don't think I can do this anymore.
[03:22:42] And we got him out of the house and there's been so much peace in my house since he's
[03:22:48] been away.
[03:22:49] I was doing, I went out and do TMS like the transcrane o-magnetic.
[03:22:55] There was a, and not to knock that because that's incredibly beneficial, but it wasn't
[03:23:00] what we needed at the time.
[03:23:01] It wasn't enough.
[03:23:04] Would I sign him up to do it again?
[03:23:06] Like for an extra bonus to where he's at now, like totally.
[03:23:12] But it wasn't what we needed at the time.
[03:23:14] So I came home thinking, okay, this is it.
[03:23:17] I got to start making plans.
[03:23:18] And I did.
[03:23:19] I started making plans, but I wasn't like totally ready to pull the trigger because I just,
[03:23:22] I never wanted to leave him.
[03:23:24] But I definitely felt like I was in a position where I had to choose him or our kids.
[03:23:30] And so he extended his stay, got more time at the centers.
[03:23:36] And I thought, oh my God, visit him one more time.
[03:23:39] So around this time for all my birthday, I came out to visit him and we were in his truck
[03:23:44] and I said something so benign and he started just like tearing down the five.
[03:23:50] And I thought, if I survive this truck ride, I'm done.
[03:23:55] And I didn't even tell him that I was leaving.
[03:23:57] The next day I got up and I packed my bag and I left for the airport and I came home
[03:24:03] and my mom was there with the kids and I called my dad and I basically told my parents that
[03:24:11] I'm quitting.
[03:24:12] It was the first time that I'd really quit anything.
[03:24:16] And my dad was like, you know, this is not a disappointment to me.
[03:24:22] You are the, you are the most important thing right now and you feel that this is the right
[03:24:28] thing to do.
[03:24:29] Then I support you and whatever you need.
[03:24:33] And I said, I think he's going to be dead in two to five years and I hate that, but
[03:24:40] I'm going to try to start forgiving myself now because I feel like the inevitable is
[03:24:44] going to happen.
[03:24:47] We are the only stabilizing force that he has in his life and when that's gone, I don't
[03:24:53] know.
[03:24:55] And so I was really working on forgiving myself and also like during the, the year or so leading
[03:25:02] into where we were at that point, I had been on my own really in depth journey of like
[03:25:08] healing and getting back into my faith and like tapping into a higher power to help sustain
[03:25:17] me.
[03:25:18] And so there was this massive storm all around me, but I had become the eye of the storm.
[03:25:24] And so things had never been so out of control, but I had never been so in control.
[03:25:30] And so I was thinking clearly, I was making like really strategic decisions, but at the
[03:25:37] same time I was listening to my intuition, which was like, you need to know that you've
[03:25:43] tried everything because one, this is going to stay with your kids.
[03:25:49] And you know, if the worst does happen, they're going to be, they're going to have to deal
[03:25:52] with it for the rest of their lives.
[03:25:54] And two, am I going to be able to know and say that I've tried everything?
[03:26:01] So he was running out of funding in October.
[03:26:05] And at that point, our finances had become a mess and he called home and said, I'm running
[03:26:11] out of funding, like, can I come home?
[03:26:14] And I basically said, you can come home, but as soon as you get here, I want to, I want
[03:26:21] to talk.
[03:26:24] And so he came home and I sat him down and I basically took a completely different approach
[03:26:30] because up until that point, I mean, I definitely developed compassion for him and I had tried
[03:26:34] really hard for, you know, this like 18 months that he was going to all these brain clinics.
[03:26:38] But before that it was like guilt, shame, condemnation, you know, all of the things
[03:26:44] that I was feeling, I was basically projecting onto him and I was creating what I was trying
[03:26:47] to avoid.
[03:26:49] So the more I would guilt him and shame him, the more bad behavior would come from it.
[03:26:53] So the more guilt and shame I would throw on, it was just this toxic cycle.
[03:26:58] So like this, the sort of time where I was reconnecting with just a greater wisdom of
[03:27:06] how to handle the situation, I was overcome with compassion for him and like seeing him
[03:27:13] for his struggles and for them seeming to be out of his control where before I always
[03:27:18] thought like you're, you know, you could figure it out.
[03:27:23] And so I just approached him in a completely new way and I said, if you fight with me,
[03:27:28] I will fight for you every day of the rest of your life, but you have to fight with me.
[03:27:33] You know, I love you.
[03:27:35] I will never leave your side.
[03:27:38] We've got to do this together.
[03:27:40] And he totally, it totally softened him and he was like, what do you want to do?
[03:27:47] And I said, there's one treatment that you haven't tried.
[03:27:52] One of our dear and trusted friends, a couple had had gone down this path.
[03:28:00] So like one other team guy that we had known at the time who'd done this and his situation
[03:28:05] was like, you know, more of a crisis situation where ours was like very deliberate and we
[03:28:10] had been, we'd known about it and talked about it on and off for a year, but it seemed crazy.
[03:28:17] So I re-approached him about it and I said, you know, to go to Mexico and to try this.
[03:28:23] And he was like, I mean, I'll try it.
[03:28:27] Like don't get hopes up.
[03:28:30] I remember saying that to him.
[03:28:31] Like there's no chance that something is going to work because we've tried all the stuff
[03:28:36] that we're supposed to like guys that, you know, other team guys have gone to have gotten
[03:28:41] better or not gotten better, but something that I thought was crazy that I read about
[03:28:46] seemed like it was crazy.
[03:28:48] I didn't think that trying something new was going to even slowly or slightly help.
[03:28:54] But I, you know, I committed just because like I sometimes maybe like you, I feel like
[03:28:59] a, you know, guinea pig.
[03:29:02] I'll try anything if you tell me like it works or it makes me, you know, bigger, faster,
[03:29:05] stronger, smarter.
[03:29:07] So you know, I did some research and it started to make sense that, you know, initially when
[03:29:12] we're talking about psychedelic medicines, you know, they were intended and are intended
[03:29:16] for medical use, not for, you know, recreational parties, you know, anything could be abused
[03:29:20] for recreational parties.
[03:29:22] And so the more I read, the more research I read, I said, that's kind of makes sense.
[03:29:27] I'll, you know, basically I'll give it a go.
[03:29:31] When what was rock bottom for you?
[03:29:34] Like when, when Amber's going through all this, like from the outside looking at you,
[03:29:40] just a little, seeming like there's just no hope.
[03:29:44] What was rock bottom for you?
[03:29:45] No hope, like no hope, no passion, no drive, anger, frustration, sadness, you know, depression,
[03:29:54] all of it.
[03:29:55] Like it just was like, again, going back to what we talked about earlier, didn't want
[03:30:00] to do the things I enjoyed doing.
[03:30:02] Didn't want to hang out with anybody.
[03:30:04] Didn't want to have a conversation.
[03:30:05] Didn't want to make do small talk.
[03:30:08] Just.
[03:30:09] All the above, just done.
[03:30:11] Yeah, just done.
[03:30:14] And like everything else I've had, I have days of like, I don't want to call it joy,
[03:30:21] but just, you know, up like some uplifting days, but the majority of days were down and
[03:30:27] you know, including weeks on end.
[03:30:29] Some days I didn't want to get out of bed.
[03:30:30] Like I said, I just shut my phone off where now, you know, we joke about it.
[03:30:35] As long as you're trending upwards, you're going to have like you said, like, you know,
[03:30:39] yours is different.
[03:30:40] You're, you know, you're getting upset over a situation.
[03:30:42] You know, that's completely normal.
[03:30:45] I'll still have some down days, but they'll only last like an hour or before they would
[03:30:50] last for literally days.
[03:30:52] And you know, I think that just takes time over, you know, what we've been working on
[03:30:56] over the last couple of years.
[03:30:58] But yeah, I was just, I was just checked out of everything.
[03:31:02] Medically, you know, mentally, physically, emotionally.
[03:31:07] There was no, there was nothing in sight.
[03:31:10] It was just like flat, clear, you know, not clear, but flat and, and really nothing looked
[03:31:17] forward to.
[03:31:21] Just real quick, how the hell were you guys paying for like everything?
[03:31:25] Like just life?
[03:31:26] Like you weren't working for months on end.
[03:31:28] How?
[03:31:29] Well, it was a struggle.
[03:31:31] It was a real struggle.
[03:31:34] Remaxed out a lot of credit cards.
[03:31:35] Marcus has, he's medically retired soon.
[03:31:38] Yeah, we did.
[03:31:39] Oh, okay.
[03:31:40] Yeah.
[03:31:41] So I, but I was like, got it, which was not.
[03:31:42] Yeah, it's not.
[03:31:43] I mean, but at least it's like groceries, right?
[03:31:44] I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it was.
[03:31:47] And we had money, no, we had, you know, we had saved money just from, you know, from
[03:31:50] the teams and stuff over the years.
[03:31:52] I'm trying to think, were you working at the time or no?
[03:31:56] Well, Caden had also gotten our Senate was dealing with some chronic health issues.
[03:32:00] And so I was actually pulled away from, from.
[03:32:04] So we were paying out of pocket for a lot of these medical expenses because most of
[03:32:07] the stuff, a lot of stuff wasn't covered under insurance and you're probably dealing with
[03:32:10] it with some of the stuff you're doing.
[03:32:12] But yeah, you know, luckily we had a lot of these foundations are, you know, are there
[03:32:18] for like these reasons.
[03:32:20] So, all right.
[03:32:21] So we get the deal where we're like, well, this is our last shot, last shot at the one
[03:32:28] treatment that you haven't tried yet, which is psychedelic.
[03:32:32] What is it, drugs, psychedelic plants?
[03:32:34] What do you call it?
[03:32:35] We'll call it, we'll call it a psychedelic assisted therapy, psychedelic assisted therapy.
[03:32:40] So the drugs are psychedelics.
[03:32:42] You know, psych, psychedelic mind manifesting, psychedelic, that's the meaning of it.
[03:32:48] Psychedelic drugs are the, you know, the class.
[03:32:52] The way this is going this medical route, they, they're including therapy in it because
[03:32:57] what they're showing with the research is that if they, they take the drug and then
[03:33:01] they bring in the therapy with it, the results are like through the roof because the psychedelic
[03:33:07] really opens your mind up for change.
[03:33:09] Basically gives you new, like think of it as if it's snowing and you have like fresh
[03:33:14] powder and tracks haven't been on the, on the powder yet.
[03:33:18] That's what psychedelics do.
[03:33:19] It basically gives you like this new blanket of snow to build your own new tracks and you
[03:33:24] could, you can still build those bad.
[03:33:26] So you can still build in bad habits.
[03:33:28] But the idea is if you have that coach or that therapist or that support, you can build
[03:33:33] new tracks, like good tracks, good habits.
[03:33:36] And that's, that's the idea of psychedelic assisted therapy.
[03:33:39] At the time we had no idea what we were signing up for.
[03:33:42] I don't even know what we're talking about right now when, when I heard about this.
[03:33:45] But there's a team guy who his wife was like, Hey, you need to do this.
[03:33:49] Yeah.
[03:33:50] Yeah.
[03:33:51] And I mean, that is the essence of our community is I just take care of one another.
[03:33:53] And so they'd been there for us in the past and we knew about their struggles.
[03:33:58] They knew about our struggles, but, um, you know, thankfully she felt compelled to reach
[03:34:04] out to me and then I talked to him and then he talked to Marcus and because we trusted
[03:34:08] and respected them so much, I felt comfortable.
[03:34:12] I didn't do an ounce of research.
[03:34:15] I did nothing.
[03:34:16] I, I just convinced him to go trusted them, got him on the plane.
[03:34:21] And I literally looked at the steering wheel of my car like this is it.
[03:34:25] I did, I did the research.
[03:34:27] And like I said, from what, from initially what I thought was, you know, I'll, I'll use
[03:34:32] the term crazy to, it started to make sense that again, these were intended for medical
[03:34:39] use and, you know, it was stigmatized because we all know it as just crazy, crazy drugs
[03:34:45] that people around the sixties and seventies, you know, ran around concerts doing, losing
[03:34:49] their minds.
[03:34:50] And they're intended for, for, for mental health and behavioral health use and now substance
[03:34:56] abuse and, you know, host of other things.
[03:34:58] So, so the more I read, the more it made sense.
[03:35:00] Um, and I figured, okay, I'm going to give this a shot.
[03:35:04] So you get on a plane.
[03:35:06] You just said you go, well, you drop them off at the airport.
[03:35:09] Yeah.
[03:35:10] And I'm like, this is it.
[03:35:11] This is like putting everything on the table.
[03:35:13] And if it doesn't work, I'm going to have to come back to the drawing board.
[03:35:16] If it does work, the best I can hope for is that it buys me some time to find something
[03:35:21] that's a little bit more comfortable.
[03:35:23] I didn't think it was like a magic bullet, but I definitely thought that if anything,
[03:35:27] it was buying me some time.
[03:35:29] Um, and then I went to see him the next day.
[03:35:33] So I'm talking about that whenever, but, well, yeah, let's get, so you get on a plane and
[03:35:38] where do you fly through Marcus?
[03:35:40] Coming to San Diego and then sweet.
[03:35:42] Yeah.
[03:35:43] And then, uh, caravan down to a clinic in Mexico.
[03:35:48] I've been operating for a long time.
[03:35:50] The good reputation.
[03:35:52] Um, we'll keep those separated for now because, uh, one, just kind of, you know, security
[03:35:57] reasons guys going down, we like to try to keep the two separated.
[03:36:01] Wait, what are we keeping separated?
[03:36:03] Just us, what we're doing with the nonprofit and then the, you know, the retreats that
[03:36:07] a lot of the people are going to for these, uh, to do these medicines.
[03:36:11] So we just don't like to connect.
[03:36:13] It's the two.
[03:36:14] I don't understand.
[03:36:15] That's okay.
[03:36:16] That's good.
[03:36:17] We'll just, we'll talk about it as we go.
[03:36:19] So, uh, when you say keep these things separated, just mean like different clinics or something
[03:36:24] like disclosing the retreat location or name or anything.
[03:36:27] Okay.
[03:36:28] Okay.
[03:36:29] Got it.
[03:36:30] Yeah.
[03:36:31] For sure.
[03:36:32] No problem.
[03:36:33] Got that.
[03:36:34] Okay.
[03:36:35] Check.
[03:36:36] Check in Roger.
[03:36:37] Sorry.
[03:36:38] My communication skills were terrible there.
[03:36:39] So I apologize.
[03:36:40] No, it's all good.
[03:36:41] So you go to this clinic.
[03:36:42] You're going to do it too?
[03:36:43] No, the one who is escorting you, you just bro it out.
[03:36:48] He's growing out and make sure I'm good.
[03:36:49] Uh, I don't know what to expect.
[03:36:51] What is the place like?
[03:36:52] Is this like, no, awesome.
[03:36:54] Is it like a beautiful, like beautiful home, overlooking the water, everything, perfect
[03:36:59] food, uh, staff, seem like a hospital or does it seem like a does not seem like a does
[03:37:04] not seem like a, but it is set up with hospital equipment.
[03:37:07] Yeah.
[03:37:08] And it's set up with like full medical, you know, you're on a EKG or a heart rate monitor.
[03:37:12] You're doing your analysis to make sure there's nothing in your system.
[03:37:16] You're doing blood work to make sure you're not lying.
[03:37:19] Um, there's like, there's a whole protocol and the more stringent you are on the screening,
[03:37:25] the better the outcome.
[03:37:26] Uh, individuals that have trouble with psychedelic medicine again is the screening.
[03:37:33] So if the screen is not done correctly, there can be issues.
[03:37:37] You screen properly is almost little to no issues.
[03:37:40] And so the more that this whole industry moves forward, um, it's just got to be done correctly.
[03:37:45] And so this place again, has been running for a long time, had been doing it the right
[03:37:50] way, not an underground shaman that is getting drugs from God knows where and saying here,
[03:37:57] do this, it's good for you.
[03:37:58] Getting drugs from Fred.
[03:38:00] Yeah.
[03:38:01] Right.
[03:38:02] And who's making it in his bathtub.
[03:38:03] Exactly.
[03:38:04] Uh, who was a chemist in high school.
[03:38:06] How long are you there for like, okay, so, so you show up?
[03:38:09] Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a three to five day event.
[03:38:13] Summer, summer shorter, summer longer.
[03:38:17] Um, you do this, you know, you do a full, like I was saying, a full intake, a full medical
[03:38:22] screening.
[03:38:23] Uh, you talk to a psychedelic coach who's a therapist first.
[03:38:27] So like a psychologist or like a licensed therapist who's trained in psychedelic medicine,
[03:38:32] they prepare you for the experience.
[03:38:34] And again, uh, the better outcomes are the ones who prepare the most.
[03:38:39] So if you can, uh, what, what that individual does at licensed professional is going to
[03:38:45] talk to you about what your experience may be like or what you're going through and what
[03:38:49] you may experience.
[03:38:50] And the idea is to prepare your, they call it set and setting your mindset, get your
[03:38:56] mindset in the right place to go into these treatments.
[03:38:58] So sometimes you hear about these bad trips, sometimes bad trips are just that an individual's
[03:39:06] mindset was not in a good place.
[03:39:08] They were at a Slayer concert.
[03:39:09] They were at a Slayer concert or yes, for sure.
[03:39:13] Or they watched like a nasty movie that they started thinking about during their experience
[03:39:18] that just turned it sideways.
[03:39:20] But here's the other thing about bad experiences, what we're learning.
[03:39:23] Some of those bad experiences actually many or most of them, especially with team guys
[03:39:28] and other veterans, they're, they're good experiences.
[03:39:32] Those bad experiences, they have to go through to get out the other side.
[03:39:36] So the bad experiences are some of the shit that they may experience as a kid.
[03:39:41] Maybe there's some sexual assaults that went on as a child.
[03:39:45] Maybe, uh, you know, maybe they did watch their friend get popped in the head and die
[03:39:49] right in front of them and they experienced that on their, you know, on their journey.
[03:39:54] So all types of that.
[03:39:55] So those are bad trips, but those bad trips are actually like showing, showing them working
[03:40:01] through stuff.
[03:40:02] But, you know, people may take years doing it through quote unquote talk therapy or
[03:40:06] psychotherapy.
[03:40:08] You can do that in a few days done properly.
[03:40:11] Again, not at a Slayer concert with Joe the shaman.
[03:40:17] So what's the, so you screen your screen, you do, um, you do some integration, uh, excuse
[03:40:23] me, some preparation.
[03:40:24] Again, this is from the therapist coach.
[03:40:27] Um, once that's done, um, you're, you're given the medicine and just like you would
[03:40:35] take ibuprofen or Tylenol or Xedrin or probably a few others that I don't know for headache,
[03:40:42] psychedelic drugs are the same way.
[03:40:43] So there's, you know, Ibogaine and there's a psilocybin and there's MDMA and there's,
[03:40:50] um, what am I missing?
[03:40:53] I was good at you hearing about, um, so there's all these psychedelic drugs that slightly
[03:40:59] do they're similar, but they do something slightly different, but they're all relatively
[03:41:04] trying to solve the same problem.
[03:41:06] And so, um, the, the drug that I experienced was called Ibogaine.
[03:41:10] And, um, again, to me, you could have told me I was eating fruit loops.
[03:41:16] Um, I'm like, okay, fruit loops.
[03:41:19] That's that I had no idea.
[03:41:21] Is it a pill?
[03:41:22] It's a, yeah, it's a pill.
[03:41:23] It's just like powdered pill.
[03:41:24] It's in, it's in pill form.
[03:41:26] You take it, uh, dependent upon your body weight.
[03:41:29] Um, and, but again, it's personalized.
[03:41:32] So I metabolize shit faster than you might.
[03:41:34] So what works for me, if I take, I don't know, I'm making this number 800 milligrams, you
[03:41:40] may need, you know, 1.2 grams.
[03:41:42] And just because I maybe metabolize it faster or slower.
[03:41:46] So it's, it's science, but there's also a little bit of subjectivity to the amount that
[03:41:51] individuals need.
[03:41:52] I'm having a flashback of when you were talking about when you were drinking for the first
[03:41:55] time, you're like, I don't understand how this is going to make me like think any different.
[03:41:58] Oh, this is exactly the thing.
[03:42:00] This is probably even worse because I mean, we're talking about a, we're talking about
[03:42:05] going on a journey here.
[03:42:06] The world's most powerful psychedelics.
[03:42:07] And so that's what I was getting at is Ibogaine is considered, uh, one of the world's most
[03:42:12] powerful psychedelics.
[03:42:13] That's why we call it the nuclear option.
[03:42:15] Not everybody needs to do this.
[03:42:16] No, no way near or not even close to everybody needs to do this.
[03:42:20] But what we're seeing is, um, some of the stuff that I was experiencing, you know, as
[03:42:26] I was transitioning out of the teams and like the years of like, you know, if you want to
[03:42:29] call it co-morbidity of other things, like, oh, he's a little depressed and maybe he's
[03:42:34] got some TBI's and maybe he's going on, you know, going through some shit with transition
[03:42:39] and you know, Ibogaine's good.
[03:42:42] But for an individual that maybe just going through a little bit of depression, maybe
[03:42:46] can't get themselves out of, you know, out of a hole, maybe Ibogaine is not the right
[03:42:51] thing for it because it is, it is a really rough journey.
[03:42:54] And I'm sure like you said, you've talked to some friends.
[03:42:57] Um, it's not fun.
[03:42:58] Like it's not, it's not joy at all.
[03:43:00] And anybody who takes that for recreational use, like I want to talk to them.
[03:43:04] And actually they need to go talk to a psych because there's something definitely wrong
[03:43:08] with that individual.
[03:43:10] So you take it.
[03:43:12] Yeah.
[03:43:13] You take, so you take this medicine.
[03:43:14] I'm going to call it a medicine.
[03:43:15] You know, I don't think technically we can call it yet, but we're calling it medicines
[03:43:18] because they are medicines.
[03:43:20] And then, you know, you lie down in bed, you put, um, like noise canceling headphones
[03:43:25] on, uh, you put eye shades on and, you know, within an hour, you start kind of going into
[03:43:33] this experience and for everybody, it's different.
[03:43:37] Um, but you basically go on a, you know, six to eight to 12 or even longer hour, uh, journey
[03:43:48] and for everybody else again, because it's your mind or my mind, uh, and our minds are
[03:43:53] different.
[03:43:54] What I'm going to experience is going to be different from what you experienced or from
[03:43:57] what, you know, you experience and it's working on a few different things.
[03:44:01] The one is the story and that's like the psychological piece, the trauma piece where, um, if there
[03:44:08] are real things that really fucked you up in the past, whatever it is.
[03:44:13] So a lot of the addiction, right, is coming, finding out from things that happen in individuals
[03:44:19] lives, not just because they like to drink or they like to do heroin or whatever.
[03:44:24] They're doing it because something fucked them up so bad that they turn to that, whatever
[03:44:29] it is.
[03:44:30] They don't need to discuss what, whatever that is, um, the psychedelic does a really
[03:44:36] good job and they say it's a jokester too, because it will show you that and it'll fuck
[03:44:42] with you too.
[03:44:43] Um, but the thing is what you just said, sometimes the only way, um, the only way, the only way
[03:44:54] to heal is through and the only way to conquer something is through.
[03:45:01] Like you have to face it and we know that and you can't, you can't bury stuff or if
[03:45:05] you have an issue with a, with a team guy that you work with, if you just keep burying
[03:45:10] or put stuff on, off on the side, it's going to blow up one day.
[03:45:14] But if you can take that person and say, Hey, let's, let's settle our differences.
[03:45:17] What's going on here?
[03:45:18] Like you don't like me.
[03:45:19] I don't like you.
[03:45:20] Why?
[03:45:21] We have to work together.
[03:45:22] If you don't have that conversation, it's, it's going to be messed up forever.
[03:45:26] So that, that's what the psychedelic does to the mind.
[03:45:28] It shows you the problem that you're dealing with and you face it in this 12 hour journey
[03:45:34] and it could suck.
[03:45:35] And for me, it, it was really tough.
[03:45:37] I mean, it was, it was 12 hours of like gore and blood and just crap.
[03:45:45] But when I was done, it literally felt like I just took a thousand pounds out of a backpack.
[03:45:51] It was just like, it was just like this relief that I never had before and all this like
[03:45:57] pent up frustration that Amber's talking about that just like went away.
[03:46:03] And for everybody else, it's different.
[03:46:05] And so what talk therapy or psychotherapy can take five or 10 or 15 years.
[03:46:11] I mean, I still have friends up in LA that are still seeing a psychologist for 20 years.
[03:46:15] And I'm like, dude, I can help you out probably in a week.
[03:46:19] Like you've been paying this person.
[03:46:20] It's obviously not helping.
[03:46:24] You know, it can, it can do that in a much faster timeframe.
[03:46:29] And like Amber said, it's not a panacea.
[03:46:30] It's not a magic bullet.
[03:46:33] Sometimes you need to go down twice.
[03:46:35] Sometimes maybe to do it three times.
[03:46:37] Maybe you need to do it once a year.
[03:46:40] Everybody's different.
[03:46:41] But again, I don't want people who are listening to get the wrong idea that, that this is a
[03:46:47] one and done or it's like a magic pill because, you know, everybody would be rushing to do
[03:46:52] it and think like, again, you know, all my answers, you know, be solved and just this,
[03:46:56] you know, this bottle right here, it takes a lot of work.
[03:46:59] The experience itself is going to suck.
[03:47:02] It's going to be miserable.
[03:47:03] You're going to cry.
[03:47:04] You're going to throw up.
[03:47:05] Like you're going to like nobody wants to face their rapist.
[03:47:08] You know what I mean?
[03:47:09] So if they were, they were raped as a young child and that's what's affecting you for
[03:47:15] the right, like you're going to face that individual during, and that's, that's pretty
[03:47:18] traumatic for an individual.
[03:47:20] Right.
[03:47:21] If they're growing up and their uncle was molesting them for years upon years, you know, upon
[03:47:26] years, if that's still affecting them in their life, they're going to face that in their
[03:47:29] journey and that's tough.
[03:47:30] But you know what?
[03:47:31] You need to face that to move on.
[03:47:33] And that's what these medicines do.
[03:47:35] They also work on the brain.
[03:47:36] So they promote neurogenesis, which meaning it's like, you know, brain growth and they,
[03:47:40] they're turning on parts of the brain that may have not been working before.
[03:47:43] And I think that's what we're seeing in the success for a lot of these guys is if they
[03:47:47] do have mild TBIs and they're, they have these scarring that we're talking about and maybe
[03:47:52] parts of their brain, we're not allowing them the function well, it is allowing them the
[03:47:56] function well now.
[03:47:57] So there's a host of things and I don't want to get into science because I'm way above
[03:48:01] my pay grade in Chaco, but you know, this experience was, was radical.
[03:48:06] It was, you know, did a 180 for me.
[03:48:09] It was life changing and life saving.
[03:48:11] Amber actually came in the day after and I walked down the hallway and I, we just, first
[03:48:18] of all, I freaked out because it hit me when I was in the car headed there.
[03:48:25] I was very uncomfortable and I was raised, you know, super conservative and I feel like,
[03:48:31] you know, I was in the survival mode and suddenly like this piece had come and in the car on
[03:48:39] the way there, I had this moment where I was like, I can't go.
[03:48:42] I don't know what we've just done.
[03:48:44] I think what we've done is bad.
[03:48:47] And I'm too scared to face it.
[03:48:50] And my girlfriend was like, you have to go.
[03:48:54] He's asking for you.
[03:48:55] And we told him you're coming.
[03:48:56] So you have to go.
[03:48:57] And I walked in there so uptight and scared of, oh, it was the most nerve wracking feeling
[03:49:04] and I heard him walking down the hall and I was just like, oh my gosh, please, please
[03:49:11] let this have worked.
[03:49:13] And he came around the hall and immediately I could just see that he was back.
[03:49:19] It was like, it was literally like being reunited with the person that I met, which is a complete
[03:49:30] and utter, excuse me, language mindfuck.
[03:49:34] It really threw me in the best ways and also in the worst ways because then you start to
[03:49:41] doubt it and second guess, like it's too good to be true and like you're sliding your walls
[03:49:45] down and you're like, oh, don't do that because this isn't going to last.
[03:49:50] So a lot of spouses have experienced that and that mild freak out was certainly replaced
[03:49:56] with this feeling of complete relief.
[03:49:58] And then how do we maintain this?
[03:50:02] Yeah, so the first thing I did, I said, Amra, this is exactly, I mean, the first thing out
[03:50:06] of my mouth was like, this is exactly what the guys need.
[03:50:08] I say, we keep getting phone calls of friends that are struggling like I was.
[03:50:14] I'm like, dude, I can't take care of you because I can't even fucking take care of myself right
[03:50:17] now.
[03:50:19] So when I experienced this, like that's the first thing I said.
[03:50:22] I was like, we got to figure out a way to get our friends here and do the same thing.
[03:50:26] We have to figure out how to raise money because someone paid for me $4,000 or whatever it
[03:50:31] was.
[03:50:32] And so I said, well, how do we get our buddies and families that are struggling to do the
[03:50:37] same thing?
[03:50:38] He said, I don't know.
[03:50:39] We said, well, we got to go raise money.
[03:50:42] We'll start a nonprofit.
[03:50:43] Again, had no idea what we were talking about.
[03:50:46] We'll start a nonprofit.
[03:50:48] We'll go raise money and then we'll fund our friends so they could get the same healing
[03:50:52] that I feel like I'm experiencing right now.
[03:50:54] We thought maybe a handful.
[03:50:55] Yeah, we didn't know.
[03:50:57] We didn't know.
[03:50:58] Honestly, we didn't know.
[03:50:59] And that's what we did.
[03:51:02] Well then we were contacted by Elizabeth and she said, I want to give to a veteran organization.
[03:51:10] He actually had his treatment on Veterans Day.
[03:51:13] So it was really special.
[03:51:14] And then end of year giving, right after that in December, made this lady contact Marcus
[03:51:20] and say, I need a recommendation for a veterans organization to give to.
[03:51:24] And he goes, we can't give you a tax write off, but if you pay this clinic, I could get
[03:51:33] five of my friends down there for a treatment that could save their life.
[03:51:37] And she was totally on board.
[03:51:39] And that's what really launched what has become vets.
[03:51:44] But we don't want to talk about it.
[03:51:46] We don't want to talk about it because it's so stigmatized and so taboo to say you're
[03:51:51] struggling.
[03:51:52] Maybe some of our internal friends knew primarily because the wives were talking, not because
[03:51:56] the guys were talking.
[03:51:58] And so my thing was, I don't want to jinx it.
[03:52:01] I don't want to, I don't know if it'll work for everyone.
[03:52:04] I don't know if it'll continue working for us.
[03:52:06] I don't want to talk about it until 12 months have gone by and we've raised money and provided
[03:52:12] this opportunity for 12 other guys to go down there.
[03:52:17] And at that point, maybe we'll talk about it.
[03:52:21] This one's not one for PR and stepping out of the shadows.
[03:52:26] So this was a big deal, but I thought, well, we're just going to buy ourselves a year here
[03:52:30] and get some really good data and come out with a little bit of foundation beneath us.
[03:52:37] And his treatment was on Veterans Day.
[03:52:40] So November 11th would have been the one year mark.
[03:52:43] Chad Wilkinson took his life on October 28th.
[03:52:47] And we were sitting in his funeral just days before the one year anniversary of Marcus,
[03:52:53] or right around the same time.
[03:52:56] And we had been to the Little Creek Chapel so many times for more funerals.
[03:53:02] And this felt so different.
[03:53:04] And I was seeing all the same guys that would deploy with Marcus and be at all these other
[03:53:08] funerals.
[03:53:09] And they had more medals and they had more gray hair and they had more wrinkles and they
[03:53:14] were getting older and becoming like you could see in their faces that they were struggling.
[03:53:23] And this is the first suicide funeral I'd been to.
[03:53:26] And I started shaking.
[03:53:27] I had this tremble release response at Chad's funeral where I was jackhammering and shaking.
[03:53:35] The whole bench was shaking.
[03:53:36] People were looking down like, what is going on down there?
[03:53:39] And I was just overcome with this conviction of like, if we don't talk, if we don't step
[03:53:44] out and get out of our comfort zone, more guys are going to die by suicide.
[03:53:51] And we're going to just do whatever it takes to prevent that because this community and
[03:53:56] this chapel can't take that.
[03:53:58] So we're not going to let that happen.
[03:54:02] And so we started basically just stopped hiding kind of what we were doing and started speaking
[03:54:08] about it a little bit because we thought, well, if we start speaking about it, you know,
[03:54:13] and of course we talked to Sarah, we just said, hey, we're just going to start talking
[03:54:20] about this a little bit so people know.
[03:54:22] So in the unlikely event that an individual is getting to the point where Chad got to,
[03:54:27] they might pause and go, oh, you know what?
[03:54:30] There's something I haven't tried.
[03:54:32] Or there's this thing that I heard is working for some individuals after, because mostly
[03:54:37] a lot, I mean, most of these individuals are on the same path.
[03:54:40] Like they go to NICO, they go to these brain clinics, they're on a bunch of these mood
[03:54:44] stabilizers.
[03:54:46] And then they're like, okay, well, well now what?
[03:54:49] So I at that point just said, you know, fuck my career, because I was still like trying
[03:54:54] to figure out like to get into corporate America and, you know, whatever.
[03:54:59] I just said, I think this is more important.
[03:55:04] And if someone is not going to hire me or doesn't want to work with me because we're
[03:55:10] talking about psychedelic medicines, then like shame on them.
[03:55:14] Like I don't need, I don't want to work with that individual.
[03:55:16] Like open your mind a little bit.
[03:55:17] We found something that works.
[03:55:19] And that's the story here.
[03:55:20] The story is not Marcus and Amber running around doing psychedelic drugs or running
[03:55:24] a cult, which we were told by the way initially we were running a cult, which is kind of funny.
[03:55:30] But no, we're trying to heal people.
[03:55:32] That's all.
[03:55:33] We found something that worked.
[03:55:34] And that's what happened.
[03:55:36] And so that was it.
[03:55:37] We just started speaking about it.
[03:55:39] We started doing, you know, interview here, interview there, maybe a small podcast, you
[03:55:44] know, and, you know, one thing leads to another.
[03:55:47] People get interested.
[03:55:49] People with money want to donate.
[03:55:51] And you also know how the community is.
[03:55:54] Like what I love most about the community is just this like unwavering commitment to
[03:55:59] caring for one another.
[03:56:00] And for every person that comes through our program, because the efficacy rates are so
[03:56:06] high.
[03:56:07] They refer back three to five of their buddies.
[03:56:10] And so it creates a need that we simply, you know, are having really hard time meeting.
[03:56:17] But to date, we've provided funding for over 600 other operators, not all CLs.
[03:56:23] I mean, we serve all branches of special operations, but, you know, it's really taken on a life
[03:56:29] of its own.
[03:56:30] And it absolutely started at Chad Wilkinson's funeral.
[03:56:34] And this just goal of ending veteran suicide.
[03:56:40] Did you, your original, like when you first came out and started talking about it, that
[03:56:45] was after Chad's funeral?
[03:56:46] Yeah.
[03:56:47] Oh, that at Chad's funeral is whenever I was so convicted of like everything we do, I'm
[03:56:56] keeping Chad Wilkinson and Sarah and the kids right here because the fallout from suicide,
[03:57:06] like to survive all these combat deployments and then lose your loved one to suicide.
[03:57:13] Like, oh, I can't even fathom.
[03:57:16] Like I was just super convicted.
[03:57:20] How long did it take to start getting traction?
[03:57:24] Almost immediately.
[03:57:27] Almost immediately.
[03:57:28] We had gotten traction, mega traction in terms of the need.
[03:57:32] But what didn't necessarily match that was the donor dollars.
[03:57:37] It was very stigmatized.
[03:57:38] I mean, we're talking about four years ago at this point.
[03:57:43] It was still very stigmatized and unknown.
[03:57:46] Like there's a lot of, there's a lack of education around psychedelic therapies and then there's
[03:57:50] misinformation around psychedelics.
[03:57:52] And so to combat those two stigmas and to also try to combat the stigma of saying you
[03:57:56] need help, it's been like, you know, pretty dicey.
[03:58:00] Yeah.
[03:58:01] That's a war on all fronts right there.
[03:58:03] Yeah.
[03:58:04] Yeah.
[03:58:05] Well, then you go into the real fun war of like military leadership and policymakers
[03:58:11] and big pharma and VA and, you know.
[03:58:15] But it seems like it's getting really good traction right now.
[03:58:19] Is it, isn't it?
[03:58:21] Yeah.
[03:58:22] Yeah.
[03:58:23] Because veterans are driving it and the veterans driving it at the tip tip of the spear is
[03:58:27] the seal community and the broader special operations community.
[03:58:30] And like, I don't know if I needed to get something done, I'd call you guys.
[03:58:36] So the charity is called, well, you got on your t-shirt there, right?
[03:58:41] It's VETS solutions.
[03:58:42] Yeah.
[03:58:43] Right.
[03:58:44] VETS, veterans exploring treatment solutions.
[03:58:46] And it's vet solutions.org.
[03:58:49] If people want to go and check that out and can they donate from there and all that.
[03:58:54] And so what's the plan there on that side of things?
[03:58:57] Just continue to grow, continue to accept donations, continue to get more people treatment.
[03:59:02] Jocko, we get upwards of 10 qualified applications a day needing funding.
[03:59:08] A day.
[03:59:09] And it is so overwhelming.
[03:59:12] Like I actually dread it when we have to go through applications.
[03:59:15] We do it on Mondays and we have a certain number of grants or funds allocated.
[03:59:24] And choosing who gets those funds when everyone is so deserving.
[03:59:28] It's like...
[03:59:29] So we actually, I mean, we actually have to, you know, we had an algorithm built in to
[03:59:33] like rack and stack who's done the most combat deployments.
[03:59:37] Like what are they going through?
[03:59:38] So it actually, you know, it ranks the individuals, you know, or if there's like an immediate
[03:59:42] crisis, they immediately get put to the top and they get a phone call immediately.
[03:59:45] And so there's a whole, you know, there's a whole system to it because again, of those
[03:59:49] 10, if we're talking about only being able to support 175 to 200 a year, there's a, you
[03:59:57] know, there's most of those people are not getting funding.
[04:00:00] There are thousands, tens of thousands that could use it or need it or are trying to access
[04:00:10] it.
[04:00:11] And so if they're, or schedule one substances in the United States, they have to travel
[04:00:15] abroad.
[04:00:16] So, you know, one of our, I would say most effective talking points when we're talking
[04:00:20] to policy makers and leader leaders is that, you know, our nation's veterans are leaving
[04:00:28] the country they fought for for access to meaningful care.
[04:00:31] And this is so far superior to anything else that's currently available, at least from
[04:00:36] my perspective, what I'm seeing is there's healing happening in four key areas of veteran
[04:00:41] suffering.
[04:00:42] And so when we were in such a bad way, if you would have given me immediate relief in
[04:00:46] one of the four areas, it would have been an absolute blessing.
[04:00:50] The fact that it provides immediate relief for most people in all four categories is
[04:00:54] unheard of.
[04:00:56] So the first category is psychological trauma.
[04:00:59] So anything that's affecting someone, you know, even on a subconscious level, whether
[04:01:03] it's childhood trauma, repressed trauma that, you know, they don't even remember war trauma,
[04:01:13] whatever the source of trauma is, it deals with that.
[04:01:15] And like Marcus said, it shows you the trauma and then you're able to work through it, confront
[04:01:19] it, deal with it, put it away, be done with it.
[04:01:23] There's an anti-addictive benefit, which is really ironic because these drugs are scheduled
[04:01:28] as being addictive and like a high potential for abuse.
[04:01:32] They're actually being used to treat addiction, but because they're so challenging to even
[04:01:38] research in the United States, that data is largely missing.
[04:01:41] So Marcus and, you know, so many other guys that are going down there might not have a
[04:01:46] full blown addiction, but they have substance use disorder.
[04:01:51] And so for Marcus, it was alcohol.
[04:01:53] Some guys go down there because they're hooked on opioids.
[04:01:57] However the addiction is, it like resets, it scrubs and resets those receptors and the
[04:02:06] addiction, you know, no longer has that brand.
[04:02:12] There's a physiological benefit as it pertains to TBI.
[04:02:16] At VETS, we primarily write grants for Ibogaine and 5MEO DMT protocol.
[04:02:22] That's two of the six psychedelics that we can provide funding for.
[04:02:26] Most guys are going down there to do Ibogaine and 5MEO.
[04:02:30] We're just wrapping up a study with Stanford.
[04:02:33] The preliminary data is not released yet, but I think that it will show significant improvements
[04:02:38] in cognitive functioning, neurological functioning.
[04:02:40] It creates this really incredible neuroplasticity in the brain.
[04:02:44] The brain's ability to change itself, create new neural pathways, neuronal connections.
[04:02:50] You know, whatever it's doing in the brain as it relates to TBI is pretty remarkable.
[04:02:54] In our Stanford study, I think we'll prove that.
[04:02:57] The fourth thing is a spiritual connection or reconnection.
[04:03:03] And I think that that's what science will never be able to fully explain.
[04:03:07] That when someone feels as though they're put on this earth by a higher power and we're
[04:03:15] all connected and like, you know, we're all humans and we're alive and the grass is alive
[04:03:21] and the flowers are alive and the animals are alive and you see that you're part of
[04:03:24] this really incredible, huge ecosystem of purpose and perfection.
[04:03:30] You feel as though you have a place to belong again and you feel this God connection that
[04:03:39] I think is the answer to a lot of society's issues right now.
[04:03:45] So psychological, anti-addictive, physiological and spiritual.
[04:03:51] When you check all four of those boxes, you go home like, I feel pretty good.
[04:03:56] Now on the back end of this, there's a lot of things that are really important.
[04:04:01] So we're screening another one of our screening categories is like, how committed are you
[04:04:06] to this?
[04:04:07] Because we've got guys come into us that say, I don't know anything about this, my buddy
[04:04:10] said to do it.
[04:04:11] And then we've got guys that say, I've been researching this for a year and I've changed
[04:04:16] my diet and I'm really committed to working with a coach.
[04:04:20] Those of the guys are going to have the best chance for success.
[04:04:22] The spouse support is another huge factor in overall trajectory and success.
[04:04:28] So you know, it's every, the psychedelic just provides this massive reset.
[04:04:35] And then when you get someone like from fetal position to one knee, like they can stand
[04:04:41] up and take it from there, especially guys like you guys.
[04:04:45] So guys are leading these weeks with this checklist of now what?
[04:04:51] Cause now I feel great again.
[04:04:52] And so for Marcus and for hundreds of others at this point, you're feeling good and you're
[04:04:58] feeling like, you know, suddenly you've got a thousand pounds lifted off of you.
[04:05:01] You're sleeping better when you're sleeping better, you're getting up early and getting
[04:05:04] up early, you can work out now and you work out, you want to take supplements and you
[04:05:07] take supplements, you might as well eat, right?
[04:05:09] And it just becomes the sort of like self-propelling biohacking snowball effect in the very best
[04:05:19] ways.
[04:05:20] And those are the guys that are going, you know, through these remarkable changes.
[04:05:24] But for anyone that would think like, oh, you're just going to Mexico to do drugs.
[04:05:28] Uh-uh.
[04:05:29] No, no, no.
[04:05:30] People that are going down there are leaning into the hardest work of their lives and actually
[04:05:36] having to come face to face with things that they might have been running from for decades.
[04:05:44] She's being conservative about the Stanford study too, but it's the results are remarkable,
[04:05:51] like so remarkable that I think there's going to be a lot of eyes on it once they release
[04:05:56] it to the public Wednesday.
[04:05:58] No, no, no.
[04:05:59] No, no, no, no.
[04:06:00] It won't be published for quite some time.
[04:06:02] It won't be published, but we're going up there Wednesday just to, they're going to
[04:06:06] talk about the results officially, but not just from the reduction of symptoms, like
[04:06:11] what we were talking about earlier, but also the FMRIs that are coming out before and after
[04:06:18] are like astounding.
[04:06:19] It'll be groundbreaking.
[04:06:20] It won't just be groundbreaking for veterans.
[04:06:23] It'll be groundbreaking for contact sport athletes, for first responders.
[04:06:29] They're Alzheimer's patients, for Parkinson's patients.
[04:06:32] The changes in the brain on the physiological level, I hypothesize that there's not been
[04:06:40] anything like it to date.
[04:06:43] Marcus, when you, I'm dragging you back real quick.
[04:06:50] But give me an example of what you see, you said bloody gory.
[04:06:59] Number one, do you know that it's psychedelic?
[04:07:06] Or does it feel like it's a real thing?
[04:07:09] And like, give me just an example, just any example, just so people kind of can connect
[04:07:16] all these positive things to like what you see when you're on this journey.
[04:07:24] Yes.
[04:07:25] There you go.
[04:07:26] I tried hard not to use the word trip.
[04:07:28] I'm sure that's actually, we're trying not to call this thing trip.
[04:07:30] I picked that up.
[04:07:31] So it's funny.
[04:07:32] It's funny you say that because, you know, obviously we're around the whole kind of medical
[04:07:36] psychedelic community now and you hear all these things or how they correct people because,
[04:07:41] you know, a politician doesn't want to hear like drug.
[04:07:44] There's one here psychedelic, they immediately think of wood stock or, you know, right?
[04:07:48] So you know, we've been doing the same thing.
[04:07:50] Like we say this, we don't say that, you know, it all means the same thing.
[04:07:53] So I appreciate that.
[04:07:55] I'll make a very simple one and one that's not bloody or gory.
[04:08:01] My one of my close friends, his experience is he, he was sitting down and each individual
[04:08:11] from extortion was like dressed in white and would sit down and put their hand on his shoulder
[04:08:20] and say, Hey man, it's okay.
[04:08:22] Like I'm good.
[04:08:23] Like you can let me go now.
[04:08:25] But he had the conversation with that person and he would look at him and go, Yeah, okay.
[04:08:30] And then that guy would go and then another guy from extortion would sit down dressed
[04:08:35] in white and say, Hey man, I'm good.
[04:08:38] Like I'm good.
[04:08:39] I'm in a good place and then that person would go and each person that he was like, obviously
[04:08:45] having whatever this person was dealing with had to do with all the buddies he just lost
[04:08:52] on that Hilo.
[04:08:54] And once that was gone, again, he just dealt with whatever that was his trauma.
[04:09:01] It may have been locked back into subconscious as Amber mentioned, but that's what he was
[04:09:05] dealing with in life.
[04:09:08] And once he faced them and talked to them and they talked to him and they told him it
[04:09:12] was okay.
[04:09:14] He's okay.
[04:09:15] Like he's not bad anymore.
[04:09:16] Like he let he let that shit go.
[04:09:19] And I, you know, we hear these stories like over and over and over again and it's, you
[04:09:25] know, it's, it's they're all different, but they're all the same.
[04:09:28] And I think that's what's, you know, pretty remarkable about it.
[04:09:32] I've developed some of my own theories, whether they're true or not.
[04:09:36] I don't know every has theories as we're science hasn't proven my theories, but my theory is
[04:09:41] that whatever the trauma response is, it goes back to the origination of the trauma.
[04:09:48] And some people channel that trauma in ways that society deems unhealthy versus healthier.
[04:09:56] I feel like what I've seen in the special operations community is that is something in
[04:10:00] the early childhood has like enabled this sort of like dialing down of suffering.
[04:10:06] Like, like you just, the community is able to maintain such suffering.
[04:10:12] And so a lot of guys I've felt are going way back to childhood and dealing with like sort
[04:10:18] of repressed things.
[04:10:19] And I don't know, Marcus, if you want to tell any of her stories, like about your actual
[04:10:24] experience of going back to actual memories and childhood, but then also to your question
[04:10:28] jocco on why the blood in the gore, I also feel like when you're in the face of evil,
[04:10:35] they'll sort of can stick to you.
[04:10:38] And Marcus had to get through some really dark, very demonic, you know, heaviness to
[04:10:50] come out on the other side.
[04:10:52] And he's been back to do Ibogaine's sins.
[04:10:55] He's like basically does this annual protocol reset.
[04:10:57] Or like every year and a half.
[04:10:59] Yeah.
[04:11:00] And so if he started in the basement of his soul, every year he gets a floor higher.
[04:11:07] And the last time he did Ibogaine, which would be their fourth time, he described it as blissful.
[04:11:14] So yeah, so it wasn't, it wasn't painful.
[04:11:16] It wasn't tough.
[04:11:18] It wasn't angry.
[04:11:19] And I didn't feel like I was like, you know, fighting demons.
[04:11:22] You hear a lot of guys, I mean, they talk about literally like fighting demons.
[04:11:24] There's none of that.
[04:11:25] It was just kind of like peaceful and surreal and not tough.
[04:11:32] And what it told me is like, I'm good.
[04:11:35] Like I think I've scrubbed whatever I needed to scrub.
[04:11:39] You scrubbed the darkness.
[04:11:40] Yeah.
[04:11:41] You know, you kind of just got rid of any of the garbage that I think was, you know,
[04:11:46] affecting me.
[04:11:47] And so, I mean, I'm like, I'm light now.
[04:11:50] Like I don't have nightmares anymore.
[04:11:52] I mean, I think that was like a lot of the blood and gore or like, you know, you'd go
[04:11:56] to try to pull the trigger and like the magazine would fall out or like the barrel would melt.
[04:12:01] Like just all the dumb stuff.
[04:12:04] Like I don't have, I don't have those visions anymore.
[04:12:10] It is and some of it is funny.
[04:12:11] I mean, if you hear some of the stories, you're like, man, that's fucking hilarious.
[04:12:14] Right?
[04:12:15] Especially like team guys talking about their funny stories.
[04:12:17] I'm laughing because like everyone has that dream.
[04:12:19] They do.
[04:12:20] Like you're out of bullets.
[04:12:21] 100%.
[04:12:22] Like somebody 100 times and they're just like, look at you.
[04:12:24] Yeah.
[04:12:25] I'm sure you get more pissed off.
[04:12:26] You're like, wait a minute.
[04:12:27] I'm really good at fighting.
[04:12:29] Why can't I knock you out in my dream?
[04:12:31] Yeah, exactly.
[04:12:33] So we are trying to get this to as many veterans as we can.
[04:12:39] That's what you guys are working on right now.
[04:12:41] And you were telling me earlier, you're also looking to take this in a direction private
[04:12:48] as well.
[04:12:49] Yes.
[04:12:50] Like as a privately owned company.
[04:12:51] Yeah.
[04:12:52] So, as Amber was alluding to earlier, the amount of applications we get a day, those are just
[04:12:57] from veterans.
[04:12:58] The amount of individuals that reach out via Instagram or Facebook or really LinkedIn
[04:13:06] and LinkedIn is like a professional network.
[04:13:08] So a lot of corporate, a lot of CEOs and entrepreneurs just asking, hey, how do I do this?
[04:13:15] I heard you talk on so and so.
[04:13:17] Where do I go to find these treatments?
[04:13:20] And you introduced me to a coach or a therapist.
[04:13:23] And so the more that I saw over the last two years, I just said, Amber, when we started
[04:13:28] this, we said, hey, we want to help our teammates first, team guys, but we want to help all
[04:13:34] the special operations.
[04:13:35] And then we want to help all the veterans.
[04:13:37] And then we want to help athletes, like NFL players, at 99% of the brains they found autopsied
[04:13:46] from the individuals that have took their own life or all had CTE.
[04:13:52] We want to help those individuals.
[04:13:53] We said, you know what?
[04:13:55] We want to help anyone that is going through the same thing.
[04:13:58] And again, it's not everyone.
[04:14:00] It's just everyone that is struggling the same way.
[04:14:03] And that was kind of like my vision a long time ago is, I want to start with veterans
[04:14:07] and help our brothers and sisters, but I want to help everybody.
[04:14:12] And it took the interest of some VC that started donating to Vets and just said, hey, I really
[04:14:19] love what you're doing.
[04:14:20] Like I think this is needed.
[04:14:21] You know, I understand personalized medicine.
[04:14:25] How do we take this and introduce it to the broader population and reach more people?
[04:14:28] And I said, well, let's work on that.
[04:14:30] So I've been working on that for a year and we're actually launching this week.
[04:14:34] And the company's called Tara, T-A-R-A, Tara Mind.
[04:14:38] The website will be TaraMind.com.
[04:14:43] Right now we'll have a, we basically have a landing and info page for people to go to
[04:14:49] and just put in some information and they'll start getting some, you know, some newsletters
[04:14:54] and some info.
[04:14:56] But launching at the end of this year or it'll be, you know, the first couple of weeks of
[04:15:02] January, we're launching a care navigation and directory and basically a platform for
[04:15:14] psychedelic retreats, clinics, providers, coaches, basically a marketplace to connect
[04:15:23] all these individuals.
[04:15:24] And so the individuals that are reaching out to us on a regular basis and saying, hey,
[04:15:29] where do I go?
[04:15:30] What do I do?
[04:15:31] We're building that platform for them.
[04:15:32] And, you know, we're going to provide educational content.
[04:15:35] We're going to vet everything and have, you know, high standards and protocols that, you
[04:15:41] know, that these providers in the U.S. that are doing this right now, it's going to be
[04:15:47] ketamine, ketamine assisted psychotherapy because that's the only thing that's legal.
[04:15:52] So we're just, you know, the vision really is to build the largest platform in the world
[04:15:56] to connect all, you know, all the stakeholders.
[04:15:59] And eventually we will be collecting data on all these individuals and we will be going
[04:16:05] to insurers and making sure at the end of the day that they pay for these because right
[04:16:09] now not everybody can pay $6,000 to go outside the U.S. and do it.
[04:16:14] Right now it's like the top 1% can do it.
[04:16:16] Or if you're a nonprofit, you know, and you raise money for this, you know, then an individual
[04:16:21] can go.
[04:16:22] But again, we're supporting 200 people a year.
[04:16:25] How do you support 20 million?
[04:16:27] Insurance is going to have to pay for that.
[04:16:28] So the idea with TARA Mind is we collect, we connect all the stakeholders in psychedelic
[04:16:35] medicine and then eventually we go to insurers and show them the data and say, hey, this
[04:16:39] is working.
[04:16:40] You need to offer this up now as a benefit and pay for these individuals and subsidize
[04:16:44] these treatments.
[04:16:45] So.
[04:16:46] TARA Mind.
[04:16:47] TARA Mind, doc.
[04:16:48] TARA Mind.
[04:16:49] TARA is one of the highest, the most, I guess you want to call it, important deities in
[04:17:03] Buddhist and Hindu traditions and it's a goddess of, you know, of empathy and bringing people
[04:17:10] to the light and those in suffering to bring them to deliverance.
[04:17:14] So it's kind of a, kind of a, I thought a cool name, especially where it kind of, we
[04:17:21] came from and where we're going and what it's doing to people.
[04:17:24] So.
[04:17:25] And the URL was available.
[04:17:27] And the URL was available for I think $12 actually.
[04:17:30] Well, it sounds like like we're kind of up to date then, right?
[04:17:36] This thing is launching in a couple of days.
[04:17:38] We talked about vet solutions, vet solutions.org.
[04:17:43] You're on social media.
[04:17:45] You're on, you're at Marcus, you're at Marcus Capone.
[04:17:50] Then you guys have, am I right?
[04:17:52] Marcus underscore Amber underscore Capone.
[04:17:54] TARA Yeah.
[04:17:55] What's the deal with that?
[04:17:56] TARA I started that Instagram page.
[04:17:57] Oh, listen, we both like low the social media.
[04:18:01] So we're really not on it that much, but we definitely have help with our social media
[04:18:05] accounts because we want to make sure that we're providing information to others that
[04:18:10] are interested.
[04:18:11] Psychedelic therapies are poised to be the next major breakthrough in mental health care.
[04:18:16] So SSRIs were the last major breakthrough in mental health care 35 years ago.
[04:18:21] Yeah.
[04:18:22] And they're really, you know, for some they work, but you know, there is that warning
[04:18:28] label on the side of SSRI prescriptions that says this may trigger like an uptake, up increase
[04:18:36] in suicidal ideations.
[04:18:37] Well, why are we fighting better in suicide with anything linked to suicide?
[04:18:41] Like that's so asinine to me.
[04:18:42] So as veterans continue to drive this forward in the United States, I certainly feel like
[04:18:49] psychedelics are poised to come on on the scene a lot faster than maybe some had initially
[04:18:54] anticipated.
[04:18:55] Yeah.
[04:18:56] Especially with some of the conservative, you know, lawmakers that are coming out now,
[04:18:59] you know, Dan, you know, French Rose put a, you know, put through an amendment to provide
[04:19:04] funding not for veterans, but actually, and this was I think a complete surprise for everybody
[04:19:10] for active duty.
[04:19:11] So he thinks active duty should have access to this if they need it.
[04:19:15] And of course, you know, Governor Rick Perry, who's been in our corner from day one, you
[04:19:19] know, he helped us pass the bill in Texas.
[04:19:22] And he's just been a strong component or proponent of what we're doing.
[04:19:26] Again, because it's a tool that works, you know, that's all he cares about.
[04:19:29] That's it's really good to see the open mind of people realizing that this thing.
[04:19:34] And that's the same thing.
[04:19:35] I've seen, you know, I've had some good friends had Dakota Meyer come on here and like he actually
[04:19:40] he, I think, I think I talked about this on the podcast, but you know, he asked me like,
[04:19:46] Hey, do you think I should do something?
[04:19:47] Dude, I have no idea.
[04:19:49] So I called like Joe Rogan and Tim Ferriss.
[04:19:52] And I was like, Hey, you know, like, what do you guys think?
[04:19:54] They're like, I like this.
[04:19:56] They actually know they both were like, were thoughtful about it.
[04:20:01] And Joe had had Dakota on the podcast and he was like, he was like, Yeah, I think I
[04:20:09] like, I think it would be good for him.
[04:20:10] And I was like, cool.
[04:20:11] And I said, Hey, man, I'm in no position to recommend the stuff.
[04:20:14] But here's what I got from my friends that know more about the stuff.
[04:20:17] And you know, Tim Ferriss is really involved in, you know, the Johns Hopkins stuff that's
[04:20:22] going on.
[04:20:23] So I feel like at least I, you know, I'm never a person that claims to know anything.
[04:20:28] I don't know.
[04:20:29] I mean, I don't ever want to do that.
[04:20:32] But I talked to people that, you know, gave the best recommendation from their perspective,
[04:20:36] which, and, and he went down there and he did it and he said it was awesome, man.
[04:20:40] And it really helped them out a lot.
[04:20:42] And, and I mean, that guy's been through the freaking ringer, you know, just been through
[04:20:47] the ringer as, you know, losing his freaking team.
[04:20:50] And, man, and he came back in a much better spot.
[04:20:54] So when I see things like that, and then you have like a real conservative, like, you know,
[04:21:00] Rick Perry just like on board.
[04:21:04] That's just really cool to see.
[04:21:05] And Dan's obviously, you know, he's got friends that have done it.
[04:21:09] And for, you know, he's, he's taking it forward.
[04:21:12] So, yeah, I think it's true leadership.
[04:21:14] You know, that's what I say.
[04:21:15] Because again, I don't think I'm sure the state were exactly like I was like, this doesn't
[04:21:20] sound right.
[04:21:21] This is crazy.
[04:21:22] And then you do some research, you talk, really, you talk to friends and then you have like
[04:21:26] loved ones that you see have gotten better.
[04:21:30] It's the only decision to make.
[04:21:31] But again, to do it the right way.
[04:21:32] And I'm glad that you talk to people like Tim, you know, and Joe Rogan.
[04:21:36] And I'm glad they didn't just say, oh, yeah, go ahead and do it.
[04:21:38] Like they were like, well, let's, you know, and we've seen that with some of the retreats.
[04:21:42] Because again, we, we write grants for individuals seeking out these treatments.
[04:21:47] So we talked to a lot of vetted retreats and some, some have actually questioned like,
[04:21:52] well, wait a minute, it's a combat veteran.
[04:21:56] We're not, we're not so sure that we want to take that person because, you know, they
[04:21:59] got PTSD and we're not sure if they're going to flip out.
[04:22:02] And so, you know, we're, we're dealing with individuals are like, you know, worse to the
[04:22:07] worst in terms of, in terms of like trauma and, and some other things.
[04:22:12] And a lot of these other places are just used to dealing with some people are coming in
[04:22:14] with, I got some depression or, I mean, I have a little anxiety I want to deal with.
[04:22:18] So this should be definitely looked at and approached carefully.
[04:22:26] I got asked a question the other day about basically the guy was like, Hey, you know,
[04:22:30] I'm hanging out with these friends and they're drinking a lot and I'm not really drinking
[04:22:35] and they're smoking pot and you know, I'm not really smoking pot or when I do, I kind
[04:22:38] of like waste the weekend or waste the night.
[04:22:40] Like, what do you think?
[04:22:43] You know, how can I drink less and, you know, is it cool to drink sometimes and blah, blah,
[04:22:46] blah, blah, right?
[04:22:47] And I started kind of answering the question and I was, I just sort of said, I have seen
[04:22:53] enough people's lives ruined from drugs and alcohol that I actually at this juncture in
[04:23:00] my life, I can't even say like, Hey, dude, it's okay, you know, have a, I just can't
[04:23:04] do it.
[04:23:05] I can't do it anymore.
[04:23:06] I just, I've seen too many people's lives destroyed from drugs and alcohol.
[04:23:10] And so when, when I talk about this stuff, it's coming from someone that like is as far,
[04:23:16] I don't think I could be anymore.
[04:23:17] Well, I guess I could be a little bit more.
[04:23:19] I just think that drugs and alcohol are so bad for you and I've seen them ruin so many
[04:23:23] people's lives.
[04:23:24] I've seen them ruin freaking tea.
[04:23:25] How many team guys have you seen just like trash their lives with just alcohol?
[04:23:31] Can't count.
[04:23:32] It's, it's, it's ridiculous.
[04:23:33] And so I can't get behind it at all.
[04:23:36] And, and yet at the same time, I've had plenty of friends that have gone, they've done this.
[04:23:43] And what I like about what you guys are talking about, it's a hardcore screening.
[04:23:48] It's not like, Oh, you feel a little bad.
[04:23:50] Okay, let's just jump right into this.
[04:23:52] It's like, Hey, let's try some other protocols along the way and make sure that this is what
[04:23:58] you really need.
[04:23:59] And then I don't know if I want to use the term last resort, because I don't know if
[04:24:02] you consider it, guys consider it a last resort.
[04:24:04] But to me, it's like, Okay, I've tried this, I've tried that, I've tried something else.
[04:24:08] It's been too much time and I'm at a rock bottom and I need help.
[04:24:14] And this seems like, Okay, I need to get in there.
[04:24:17] Um, yeah, because, because from my perspective of seeing drugs and alcohol ruin so many people's
[04:24:22] lives that I just, I just can't get behind it.
[04:24:25] But you know, here you have something that people aren't getting like addicted to it.
[04:24:30] It's not, you know, it's not like the seven or whatever you said, nine freaking prescription
[04:24:35] prescription drugs.
[04:24:36] Hearing addictions.
[04:24:37] Yeah.
[04:24:38] Um, so appreciate, appreciate that side of it and not just throwing this at people just
[04:24:45] like, you know, no one should be thrown into situations like this.
[04:24:49] Um, you got to go through the proper screening and, and then go in the proper facility.
[04:24:53] Uh, you know, you guys are talking about like, you know, Fred the shaman from Wisconsin
[04:24:59] or whatever, you know, whatever this, like just going into random places and doing it
[04:25:03] or at a Slayer concert.
[04:25:04] It's not what we're talking about at all.
[04:25:06] Um, and like I said, it seems to have helped.
[04:25:10] I know it's helped.
[04:25:11] I know it's helped.
[04:25:12] I mean, obviously I'm sitting here in front of you and it helped you get back from the
[04:25:16] brink and I've got plenty of other friends have done the same thing.
[04:25:18] So, um, awesome to see this kind of progress.
[04:25:23] Probably a good place to wrap it up.
[04:25:24] Amber, you got anything else?
[04:25:25] No, I would just say, um, thank you for having us.
[04:25:29] Thank you for having an open mind.
[04:25:30] I know it's, you know, it's very nerve-wracking to public.
[04:25:34] I'm scared of it.
[04:25:35] By the way, I'm sorry for, I'm scared.
[04:25:37] Like I, I don't want to do anything to my brain.
[04:25:39] I don't want to like, I'm scared of it.
[04:25:41] I'm scared of, uh, maybe it's like that weird like control thing where I don't want to,
[04:25:46] but like I'm scared.
[04:25:48] What I'm scared of is like, I don't want to mess anything up.
[04:25:50] I don't want to, I don't want to like, I feel, I feel like of a better word, bro.
[04:25:53] I feel fine.
[04:25:54] You know, so I feel fine.
[04:25:55] So I'm always like, oh man, I don't want to do that because it makes me scared, uh,
[04:26:00] to mess something up.
[04:26:02] But that's cause I feel pretty, I feel pretty good right now.
[04:26:05] So I think that, um, my fear of it is a healthy fear and, uh, but I think that's good though.
[04:26:13] Like I think when you approach, you know, anything with that could be risky, like you
[04:26:19] should approach it with some fear or respect.
[04:26:22] I guess you want to say, yeah, you know, I mean, it's like the first time when we were
[04:26:25] playing with, you know, demo and some other stuff or you're like, ah, you know, I've been
[04:26:29] throwing a hundred grenades, you know, or a thousand grenades, like nothing can happen.
[04:26:32] But like actually something really can happen, but you approach it with respect and you take
[04:26:36] care and you make sure you, you tape them correctly and you know, you, you know, you
[04:26:40] don't pull the, you know, drop this, you know, drop the grenade, throw the spoon or whatever.
[04:26:45] Um, you know, same, same thing with these medicines, you know, approach them with care,
[04:26:49] only do if me, if you need to, if you feel fine and you're good, like, why?
[04:26:54] Um, I've never done a psychedelic.
[04:26:58] No, I haven't either.
[04:26:59] No.
[04:27:00] And I don't feel called to do it.
[04:27:01] You know, whatever you know, you know, you know, and, um, I will say that I've seen it.
[04:27:07] I've seen these medicines change the lives, like not just help, but literally change the
[04:27:14] lives, be them, be of the difference between life and death for countless operators.
[04:27:20] And, um, for a lot of spouses as well, and there's a lot of trauma to heal.
[04:27:24] I used to catch more, because looking out the window with like this thousand yard stare,
[04:27:28] and I would say, like, please help me understand what's going on in your head.
[04:27:31] What are you thinking about right now?
[04:27:33] And he would say, how much better off you would be without me here?
[04:27:36] How much easier your, your life would be in the kids lives would be without me here.
[04:27:40] And so I feel like anytime you walk up to that line, you have to have an open mind of
[04:27:45] like whatever works.
[04:27:48] I have totally changed the way I think about what I have been told is a drug versus a drug.
[04:27:58] This is a plant.
[04:27:59] Like my faith is so important to me.
[04:28:01] And I feel like God has given us everything that we need on earth.
[04:28:04] A lot of these medicines, most of them originate from plants.
[04:28:08] So I had to really like check myself.
[04:28:11] And I have thought that something made by man in a laboratory that's prescribed by a
[04:28:15] doctor in a lab coat is what is the cure.
[04:28:21] And a plant is a drug.
[04:28:23] And I've almost like flip flopped that.
[04:28:26] And I feel like so many of these answers are found in nature and found within us.
[04:28:30] And so I've just seen replicated time after time again, you give someone this opportunity
[04:28:34] with something that's God given and totally unadultered.
[04:28:40] And you create this reset and connection and like, Oh, they're good.
[04:28:45] They're good as opposed to like putting a bandaid after bandaid after bandaid.
[04:28:49] The US government is big farmers, number one customer.
[04:28:52] And so, you know, getting people off of that cycle, this carousel of pharmaceuticals is
[04:29:00] just unintended byproduct of what we're doing.
[04:29:03] But man, we are seeing guys and gals really start to live again.
[04:29:08] Oh, yeah.
[04:29:09] I didn't mention that, Jaco.
[04:29:10] So I was on those, all those anti depressants and whatever through November 11, 2017, when
[04:29:16] I went down for treatment.
[04:29:18] I haven't touched a prescription since not anything.
[04:29:23] So it's pretty remarkable.
[04:29:26] And again, my story is like one of hundreds.
[04:29:28] I'm not, you know, I'm not the only one, which is nice.
[04:29:31] Good to get rid of all those nasties.
[04:29:34] The only other thing that I want to add really quickly is another unintended byproduct of
[04:29:40] our work is that we've seen this incredible reunification.
[04:29:46] Just this is a topic that everyone can generally agree upon as veteran health care.
[04:29:51] And so we're seeing both sides of the aisle like actually come together, actually want
[04:29:54] to work together, actually like one another again.
[04:29:59] And so I hope that that ripple out effect continues across our nation.
[04:30:05] I feel like we need healing now more than ever.
[04:30:09] And it's pretty surreal what's happening.
[04:30:12] It's an honor.
[04:30:14] Marcus, any closing thoughts?
[04:30:16] No, just, you know, first off, thank you for having us on here.
[04:30:23] I know this was a different topic for you.
[04:30:28] And again, trust me, this was nothing I ever intended out to even think about getting involved
[04:30:34] in.
[04:30:35] But I just, I see the power in it.
[04:30:39] You know, and to approach these medicines carefully, they're not to be used at the Slayer
[04:30:48] concert.
[04:30:49] I think the way we're going about it is the right way.
[04:30:51] I think the way that these are going to be introduced to the public is going to be done
[04:30:58] correctly.
[04:30:59] I think it's going to be a really medically driven industry.
[04:31:03] At least first, you know, if it goes other routes, you know, it's not what we're here,
[04:31:07] what we're talking about.
[04:31:08] And so I, you know, I want to just tell people that if they're interested, you know, and
[04:31:15] they're searching, make sure they do their research, make sure to find vetted providers
[04:31:20] that have been doing this for a long time that know what they're doing.
[04:31:24] Make sure they have a coach, a therapist that understands how these medicines work.
[04:31:31] And again, you know, it's why we built vets.
[04:31:33] It's why I'm building TARM Mind.
[04:31:36] Again, it's to provide access and affordability for people.
[04:31:39] And so last thing, you know, I'll say is that there's hope.
[04:31:45] So if you're, you know, if you're out there and you're thinking that there's nothing
[04:31:49] ahead of you, there's no purpose, you know, why are you here?
[04:31:53] I promise that that is a, that's a temporary thought.
[04:31:58] And 100%, you can climb out of that.
[04:32:00] And once you do, you'll see how cool life can be and to get back to your old self or
[04:32:05] maybe invent a new better, better person.
[04:32:08] We are living our best life.
[04:32:10] We really are.
[04:32:11] And it is such an incredible blessing.
[04:32:13] I just have to pinch myself every day that this is actually happening.
[04:32:20] Marcus always says I have to get in the final word, which is there's some accuracy to that.
[04:32:25] Less word, less word.
[04:32:26] When something else that I just thought of when you said that is that, you know, part
[04:32:30] of what we're doing to reverse these stigmas, especially around asking for help is adopting
[04:32:39] more of a mindset that really, really true strength is vulnerability.
[04:32:45] I think that our society would say the opposite, but it takes a lot of courage to be vulnerable.
[04:32:52] And we're seeing that day in and day out of that.
[04:32:55] Yeah.
[04:32:56] If someone, I'm going to get the last word in there.
[04:32:58] Someone thinks we like coming up here and talking about like all this shit that's gone
[04:33:02] on and think we enjoy this spotlight is fucking crazy because we don't at all, but we definitely
[04:33:11] feel it's necessary.
[04:33:12] So like now I don't even think it's about us.
[04:33:14] I think it's just like this needs to be done.
[04:33:17] Well, I mean, thank you.
[04:33:20] Thank you for both of you stepping into the spotlight.
[04:33:23] And I know it's a bright spotlight and I know it's a burning spotlight in many cases.
[04:33:29] You know, when you talk about being at Chad's funeral and just knowing that you had to do
[04:33:35] something and you had at least an answer for a lot of people.
[04:33:42] So thank you so much for joining us.
[04:33:47] Thanks for your service.
[04:33:49] And yeah, Marcus, thanks for your service and the teams and for signing the dotted line
[04:33:54] and risking life in limb.
[04:33:56] And you know, Amber, I don't get the chance.
[04:33:58] My wife has always said like she's my wife has zero percent chance of coming on this
[04:34:02] podcast.
[04:34:03] She doesn't like to talk to anybody.
[04:34:05] But for you, for all the wives, for all the spouses that, you know, you didn't put your
[04:34:12] name on that line, but you put your name on that dotted line and what the wives and spouses
[04:34:18] and families and your kids, what they go through is so harsh.
[04:34:26] And yet you you're there and you supported and you continue to support and now you're
[04:34:31] supporting all the families out there and all the veterans.
[04:34:34] So thanks for what you have done in the past.
[04:34:38] Thanks for what you're continuing to do as you help veterans get out of the darkness
[04:34:46] and move toward light and life.
[04:34:53] Thanks for what you're doing.
[04:34:54] Thank you.
[04:34:55] Thanks, Chaco.
[04:34:56] It's been awesome.
[04:34:57] Thank you.
[04:34:58] With that, Marcus and Amber have left the building.
[04:35:03] So pretty dynamic story of change and a journey that they've been through for sure.
[04:35:15] Would you you were sitting in the corner, you were so you were off camera on that one.
[04:35:19] Echo Charles.
[04:35:20] What do you think?
[04:35:21] Good evening, Echo, by the way.
[04:35:22] Good evening.
[04:35:23] Very interesting.
[04:35:24] It was funny.
[04:35:25] Even from the beginning, I was relating a lot because like both our birthday, he's one
[04:35:28] year older than me.
[04:35:30] Both our birthdays in December.
[04:35:31] So we entered college later or we were late, you know, and entered college, played football.
[04:35:39] And even and how's this as far as the was it you know him.
[04:35:43] He was saying about alcohol, right?
[04:35:47] Like, oh, how's this going to affect me?
[04:35:48] Like how can it, you know, you thought that way too.
[04:35:51] Yeah, with alcohol.
[04:35:52] I was like, I'd always asked my friends like, because I didn't start drinking till I was
[04:35:55] like, 2021.
[04:35:56] And so I would always ask like, hey, like, can you tell that you're drunk or can you
[04:36:01] tell that you're buzzing or are you just buzzing then afterwards you remember, oh, I was buzzing
[04:36:05] or, you know, can you tell?
[04:36:06] Like, what does it feel like kind of a thing?
[04:36:08] I remember relating very deeply with that small, tiny part.
[04:36:14] Also you're the one who said Andy Stumpf might be one of the bigger wiseasses.
[04:36:20] He's I'll go in or I could say he's the biggest.
[04:36:22] Oh, that was one of the most.
[04:36:23] That was one of the most.
[04:36:24] He's the number one biggest wise out.
[04:36:27] Yes, fully.
[04:36:29] What up?
[04:36:31] You were talking about you think your mind is more of a serious one.
[04:36:35] So you know, you're you were saying your mind is like, you feel okay.
[04:36:38] So like, you're kind of, would you say scared to take psychedelics?
[04:36:41] What if it jams you up?
[04:36:43] Right?
[04:36:44] Like, what if he did take it and it like made you, because you know how like some people
[04:36:48] they're so driven, but because of like something that's kind of off in their mind, I feel like
[04:36:52] that's kind of you in real life.
[04:36:54] Yeah, like there's something probably significantly like off with you, but it's sort of like just
[04:37:00] by happenstance like works for you, you know, some people are like that.
[04:37:05] So what if you took psychedelics and then like now you're like, you kind of you're kind
[04:37:09] of like more lazy or like you don't work as hard anymore.
[04:37:12] I don't like that idea.
[04:37:14] So I've even had people say like, oh, you know, you should, hey man, you know, you should
[04:37:17] smoke pot.
[04:37:19] And I'd be like, well, why be like, oh, because it kind of take your edge off.
[04:37:22] And I was like, why would I want to take my edge off?
[04:37:25] I want to sharpen it.
[04:37:27] I want to be.
[04:37:29] You're going to start sending like, like Christmas cards now and giving gifts.
[04:37:34] Like, you know, like you need to do all that kind of stuff.
[04:37:35] That's what I think.
[04:37:36] I think you're going to be like, man, I've been, I've neglected the emotional elements
[04:37:41] of friendships of my life for so long.
[04:37:44] You're going to get the Christmas card.
[04:37:46] I sent you.
[04:37:47] Yeah, that's what I think would happen to you.
[04:37:49] That's what I think.
[04:37:50] Or you're going to like start really valuing your rest days.
[04:37:53] You know, you're going to start scheduling like two solid rest days.
[04:37:57] You're going to start exercising moderation in a bunch of things because it's better
[04:38:01] for you like all this stuff.
[04:38:02] It's going to change fundamentally.
[04:38:03] I wouldn't count on anything that you're saying, but to the serious point of what you're
[04:38:07] saying, like it does.
[04:38:11] That kind of makes the like even just where our joking is like a legitimate concern.
[04:38:16] I wouldn't want that.
[04:38:18] I wouldn't want to be like quote more mellow.
[04:38:24] And the other thing is you got to remember is we, you know, we do.
[04:38:27] I mean, it's not like I'm walking around freaking, you know, like I go home, play guitar or
[04:38:33] whatever, watch the sunset.
[04:38:34] It's not, you know what I mean?
[04:38:35] Like that's normal stuff.
[04:38:36] Yeah.
[04:38:37] Fully.
[04:38:38] What was it?
[04:38:39] You watched Robocop too.
[04:38:41] Not sure.
[04:38:42] So Robocop too.
[04:38:43] He's so, you know, Robocop, he's kind of like you.
[04:38:45] He's hardcore.
[04:38:46] It just goes hard.
[04:38:47] Drop your weapons or there will be trouble.
[04:38:50] Yes.
[04:38:51] Exactly.
[04:38:52] So in part two, they're like, Hey, the Robocops for, you know, he does this, whatever he does.
[04:38:57] And then they're like, Hey, he's getting like giving us a bad image.
[04:39:01] I think like some other company came in or something like that.
[04:39:04] And she was like, Hey, let's make them like more appealing, you know, more and more friendly
[04:39:08] to the public and stuff.
[04:39:09] And they write all these directives and like it jams him up.
[04:39:12] That's gonna be you, bro.
[04:39:13] Because they're right.
[04:39:14] But in theory, they're right.
[04:39:16] You know, how did it cause problems?
[04:39:18] Like he wouldn't solve crimes anymore.
[04:39:20] He'd start saying poems and stuff and like some dumb stuff that doesn't really match
[04:39:25] his thing.
[04:39:26] You know, it was like that.
[04:39:27] You got to watch it to kind of see.
[04:39:28] But anyway, that'd be you.
[04:39:29] So yes, I am not down with messing with what I've got going on right now.
[04:39:37] And so, but like I said, 10 times, I think I said it 48 times, but knowing a lot of guys
[04:39:43] that have gone through this kind of thing and just talking to Marcus, man, you know,
[04:39:47] when he's like, I said to him on the podcast, I'm like, dude, it's hard to even imagine
[04:39:52] him getting like mad or, you know, throwing a coffee cup through a window or what, you
[04:39:57] know, like this guy, he's, he's chill.
[04:40:00] He's mellow.
[04:40:01] He's and yet he's still doing great stuff.
[04:40:02] He's not like he's not getting after it.
[04:40:04] He's still in good shape.
[04:40:05] You know, he's still, he's got businesses going to him.
[04:40:07] He's 100% on, on, on track on a bunch of different levels.
[04:40:11] So, you know, and this, this stuff really helped him out.
[04:40:14] So I'm down.
[04:40:16] I'm down for, if it helps people out for sure.
[04:40:20] I do think it should be like a last resort scenario.
[04:40:22] Look, not so close to the edge that the edge is a threat, but you know, try some other
[04:40:27] things out, make sure you, you know, make sure your diet's clean.
[04:40:30] Make sure you're not drinking every night and expecting things to be good in life.
[04:40:34] If you're drinking every night, you can't expect things to be good in life.
[04:40:37] Yeah.
[04:40:38] I'm not saying you're going to have a bad life, but there's a chance you are.
[04:40:41] So clean up the diet, get off the alcohol.
[04:40:45] I can't give any advice about the, all the, all the prescription drugs, but you know,
[04:40:52] maybe talk to your doctor about how you could get off.
[04:40:54] So I don't know, man.
[04:40:56] He was sitting downstairs and he made a really good point where, um, cause some people, they
[04:41:02] like, you know how you say, and I get it cause it can seem like this, but some people are
[04:41:07] most people with a problem with drinking.
[04:41:09] They can't just stop drinking.
[04:41:11] Like there's just, I'm not saying they can't.
[04:41:13] I'm just saying there's a lot more to it than just, oh yeah, just stop drinking.
[04:41:15] You know?
[04:41:16] So for sure.
[04:41:17] So he was like, we're downstairs talking right after, right after.
[04:41:21] So he, he said, you can't tell someone who's in the basement.
[04:41:25] He can't tell him, Hey, go on, just go exercise.
[04:41:28] Oh, just go on the mat.
[04:41:29] You know what?
[04:41:30] That's kind of hard to do even for a normal person.
[04:41:33] So you can't tell someone who's in the basement just to, just to do that.
[04:41:36] Cause that's hard.
[04:41:37] He's like, let's get them out of the basement first.
[04:41:40] So he's safe.
[04:41:41] They're out of the basement.
[04:41:42] Then we can start introducing them to the mats, to more exercise, to all the, this other
[04:41:47] stuff that's going to take more work by the way.
[04:41:50] So you love Jiu Jitsu.
[04:41:51] I'm sure working out has been a part of your life for a very long time.
[04:41:54] So it's second nature.
[04:41:55] You know, but for a lot of people, especially if they're not into working out, you're saying
[04:42:00] you want them to work out for an hour a day.
[04:42:04] Pretty much every day.
[04:42:06] Like that, you know, working out freaking hard.
[04:42:08] Yeah.
[04:42:09] Well, the other key component of what you're saying is, I mean, if you remember, I, I like
[04:42:14] tried to nail down Marcus a bunch of times about like, what did you feel?
[04:42:18] And what he felt was not like not doing anything, like not motivated to do things.
[04:42:25] So that, what you're talking about, the, the basement, like getting someone to like, I
[04:42:32] think, oh, get him to work out.
[04:42:34] What does that mean?
[04:42:35] What does that mean?
[04:42:36] She just get up and you work out.
[04:42:37] Like to me, it's this normal thing.
[04:42:38] But for a lot of people, that might be a big step.
[04:42:40] Now, listen, it could be a smaller step if you put your mind to it, you know, it's going
[04:42:43] to help you and maybe you get the rewards for it.
[04:42:45] You commit to doing it for a certain amount of time.
[04:42:47] It's like the, we were just talking to a kid in the locker room.
[04:42:49] He goes, I just submitted someone for the first time in three years.
[04:42:52] He's been training for three years.
[04:42:54] Got his first submission, bro.
[04:42:56] So remember that was one of the, one of the things I said when someone said, Hey, I really
[04:43:01] don't like you.
[04:43:02] Did you do how long should I train for?
[04:43:03] And I was like, train until you submit to, train until you submit to someone.
[04:43:08] Same thing with like working out, like workout until like there should be some thing that
[04:43:14] you have to do.
[04:43:15] Like, can you do a pull up?
[04:43:16] If you can't do a pull up or workout until you can do a pull up.
[04:43:19] If you can't, you know, run a mile in less than seven minutes, workout until you can
[04:43:28] run a mile in less than seven minutes.
[04:43:29] So I'm just saying, I don't, those aren't the correct answers, but I'm saying something
[04:43:32] along those lines because there's no, if you're not feeling the short term reward, because
[04:43:38] let's face it, you and me, we get a short term reward from working out just cause we
[04:43:43] kind of know how it's going to feel later and we know the longterm health benefits.
[04:43:47] So even a single workout feels good to me because I know the longterm benefits and I
[04:43:54] know the, I know even the short term benefits.
[04:43:57] So it feels good.
[04:43:59] But if it doesn't feel good to someone and you don't know about the longterm rewards,
[04:44:02] you don't see that strategic thing.
[04:44:04] It just wasn't fun.
[04:44:05] Yeah.
[04:44:06] Just another thing they're going to avoid.
[04:44:07] Yeah.
[04:44:08] Just wasn't fun.
[04:44:09] So yeah.
[04:44:10] He said, he said, he mentioned something to brew briefly, but there's so much to it
[04:44:14] where he said, I forget exactly the full context, but he said, get your heart rate up and it's
[04:44:19] like better than most medicine.
[04:44:20] Yeah.
[04:44:21] He said something along those lines.
[04:44:22] I'm like, man, that's true.
[04:44:23] And I used to tell you about this.
[04:44:25] Like remember when I was like kind of down for drinking every day or whatever?
[04:44:29] It was like years ago.
[04:44:31] And sometimes you enter in this funk, you know, and I was still working out and like
[04:44:36] doing everything, but it's just a fun, you just have a funky day the next day, like
[04:44:39] you're dragging and sometimes it would go all the way into your mind where I would have
[04:44:43] these real low level mundane feelings of what kind of what he was talking about where it's
[04:44:48] like, why bother?
[04:44:49] Like, why do I even care about this?
[04:44:51] What?
[04:44:52] Jiu-Jitsu?
[04:44:53] Like who cares?
[04:44:54] Like what?
[04:44:55] That's the path that I went down during that conversation of like when death, when you're
[04:45:00] confronted with death and then the world moves on and you're like, well, we're all going
[04:45:09] to end up in the same spot anyway.
[04:45:10] So really kind of what's the point, right?
[04:45:13] And I think that's the place where you could lose like lose the motivation to do really
[04:45:20] anything because I'm thinking, dude, we're all going to end up in the grave anyways.
[04:45:25] So whatever.
[04:45:27] And that's a horrible place to be because you forget about all the things, all the beautiful
[04:45:31] things that are in life.
[04:45:32] I was listening to Jordan Peterson the other day.
[04:45:35] You know, Jordan Peterson goes off on the like, you know, life is suffering and it's
[04:45:41] going to be a nightmare and it's a misery and like, which I get.
[04:45:46] And you know, it's even, it's not just him saying it's like religion is like all the
[04:45:49] religions are like life is suffering and the Buddha is like, oh, it's suffering and I
[04:45:55] get it.
[04:45:56] I get it.
[04:45:58] But man, there's a lot of things in life that are really kind of fun and cool.
[04:46:03] And look, you're going to have, I think the point of Jordan Peterson is you look, you're
[04:46:11] going to have suffering, right?
[04:46:13] You're going to have suffering.
[04:46:14] That's what's going to happen at some point, right?
[04:46:16] People are going to get sick.
[04:46:17] People are going to die.
[04:46:18] Things are going to go right.
[04:46:19] You're going to get fired.
[04:46:20] You're going to, your business is going to fail.
[04:46:21] Like all those things are going to happen, right?
[04:46:22] So, but to just blanket say because of that life is I'm going to, I'm not just going to
[04:46:30] go into Jordan and Peter and I'm going against a Buddha who they say life is suffering.
[04:46:35] I'm going to say, you know what?
[04:46:36] There's suffering in life, but life is not suffering.
[04:46:38] There's a lot of cool stuff that happens.
[04:46:40] There's a lot of funny stuff that happens.
[04:46:42] You make friends.
[04:46:43] You say some funny stuff.
[04:46:44] Y'all laugh.
[04:46:45] You've been sitting around laughing so hard that it's just, you can't even, it like hurts
[04:46:49] your stomach.
[04:46:50] Have you ever had that happen?
[04:46:51] Yes, sir.
[04:46:52] It's real.
[04:46:53] Come on, man.
[04:46:54] Is that suffering now?
[04:46:55] No.
[04:46:56] No, it's not.
[04:46:57] So let's not take it to the extreme of life is suffering.
[04:46:59] There's suffering in life and I get that and we're 100% agreement on that.
[04:47:03] Who was it?
[04:47:04] I think Hemingway said, I think Hemingway said, if two people love each other, there
[04:47:13] can be no happy ending, which is true, right?
[04:47:19] You know what I'm saying?
[04:47:20] I mean, because someone's going to die.
[04:47:21] Someone's going to die.
[04:47:22] And at some point that other person's going to be sitting there crying because they lost
[04:47:25] that person.
[04:47:26] Yeah.
[04:47:27] But that being said, live a happy life.
[04:47:29] You take care of each other, whatever.
[04:47:31] You have family.
[04:47:33] You have grandchildren.
[04:47:36] Hey, maybe that is a little bit of a happy ending.
[04:47:40] You know what I'm saying?
[04:47:41] Yeah.
[04:47:42] So I don't know.
[04:47:43] I think we're leaning a little bit far into suffering right now.
[04:47:45] And look, I get it.
[04:47:47] I get it, man.
[04:47:51] Your heart is going to get broken.
[04:47:53] And I'm not just talking about, oh, I'm in a relationship.
[04:47:56] I'm talking your friends die.
[04:47:57] Your heart's going to be broken.
[04:47:59] It's going to hurt.
[04:48:02] But that's not everything.
[04:48:05] So and I think, you know, from what, from what Marcus is saying, you know, some of that
[04:48:11] visibility of the good stuff comes by dealing with that other stuff.
[04:48:19] And that's another thing for me.
[04:48:23] And I talk about this in discipline, freedom, field manual a little bit.
[04:48:26] But I think, you know, I've lost friends and I've talked about it.
[04:48:34] And straight up giving eulogies for my guys.
[04:48:40] Like immediately as soon as they die, you're basically like writing about what you thought
[04:48:46] about them and how you felt about them and what they meant to you and how awesome they
[04:48:49] were.
[04:48:50] Like that is so therapeutic.
[04:48:52] Even though I was doing it as my duty, it also I recognize that it was a therapeutic thing.
[04:48:57] I recognize later in life that, oh, like how did I get through that?
[04:49:00] Oh, yeah, I wrote about them.
[04:49:01] And when you write about them, you detach from it.
[04:49:03] When you detach from it, you get to read and you get to think and you get to think through
[04:49:06] it and you get to process.
[04:49:07] And all those things happen by writing about, you know, your friend, your hero, this person,
[04:49:13] this individual that made this sacrifice.
[04:49:15] And it's a way of processing this stuff that I think, you know, the term that Marcus used
[04:49:22] was, you know, you got to, the only way to get, to get over this stuff is to go through
[04:49:28] it.
[04:49:29] Right.
[04:49:30] And that's sort of like you do when you write a eulogy or you write a letter to someone that's
[04:49:33] passed or you talk to their parents about them, you talk to their, their siblings about
[04:49:39] them.
[04:49:40] And that is so, such a good way to help move through the pain that you're going to feel.
[04:49:47] And you're going to feel pain.
[04:49:48] You're going to suffer, but life is not suffering.
[04:49:53] There's much more to it and a lot of it's good.
[04:49:57] So yeah, I heard that everyone that I know that went through psychedelic journey, all
[04:50:04] the way, even like some people, some people I do, isn't the official one.
[04:50:07] It just takes some mushrooms, but they do it with intention.
[04:50:11] It's all worked for them.
[04:50:12] Like I know people who quit drinking.
[04:50:15] It's weird, but the, the two people I know who quit drinking was real surprising too,
[04:50:20] but slowly by slowly like it came back and then they started drinking again, not just
[04:50:25] all of a sudden they didn't just be like, okay, that was fine.
[04:50:26] And now I'm drinking again.
[04:50:27] It would be like, you know, six months later, they'll be like, I'll just have one.
[04:50:32] And then it just slowly creeps back in, which actually went in line with what he was saying,
[04:50:36] or it's like, Hey, it's not just a magic pill one time.
[04:50:38] It's kind of like, it's kind of like a, it's like a therapy almost kind of a thing.
[04:50:42] Cause it's like, I guess it like rewires your, the way I always saw it was like all year,
[04:50:47] the way you regard it, the way you create meaning or whatever it has to do with like
[04:50:50] all your past experiences mixed with how you're, you know, you're genetics or whatever.
[04:50:54] So all your past experiences, ups down trauma, no trauma is like everything kind of creates
[04:50:59] little meanings with every little interaction.
[04:51:03] So if those meanings that you created in your head are all jammed up, or even if they're,
[04:51:08] I don't know, maybe they're, everyone's going to have different meanings for different things.
[04:51:11] So what it does is it goes back to those original like meanings that you're making and it just
[04:51:17] jumbles them all up and kind of, so you can kind of detach from the way they were formed.
[04:51:23] So it kind of like, oh, so you can make your, and he made a good analogy with the snow.
[04:51:27] So it's like, you can make your own tracks, be careful though.
[04:51:29] But yeah, the tracks you make could be wrong.
[04:51:31] Oh yeah, because, and because some people, they'll just take it recreationally and they'll
[04:51:35] be like, oh yeah, it was just a trip and it opened my eyes, but they don't really get
[04:51:38] any intended like positive outcome.
[04:51:39] They just, oh, I just want to, as my little brother's wife said, some people just want
[04:51:44] to take mushrooms to fry.
[04:51:46] And they'll recommend this.
[04:51:49] No, no, one time Jade was getting all deep in the, you know, one night and he's like,
[04:51:55] yeah, you know, he's taking mushrooms and do all this stuff.
[04:51:57] And she's like, why you got to try to be all intellectual about it?
[04:51:59] Why can't you just admit some people just take mushrooms to fry?
[04:52:03] But yeah, that's a different thing.
[04:52:08] I'm saying, yeah.
[04:52:09] All right.
[04:52:10] Well, if you want to support this podcast, get some jocofuel, get some jocofuel.
[04:52:18] Pink mist.
[04:52:19] Have you had pink mist yet?
[04:52:20] I have.
[04:52:21] How do you like it?
[04:52:22] It's good.
[04:52:23] Pink lemony.
[04:52:24] But it's not your thing.
[04:52:25] It's not your jam.
[04:52:26] It's my jam.
[04:52:27] Just like oranges, my jam.
[04:52:28] So it's like good.
[04:52:29] I guess I taste it.
[04:52:30] Pink lemonade.
[04:52:31] Oh yeah, good.
[04:52:32] But we already knew that kind of a thing.
[04:52:33] It's not like mango or I'm like, oh, this is freaking mango.
[04:52:36] Let's see.
[04:52:37] Look, if you go, you have a fruit bowl and you might be different, but this is just me.
[04:52:41] I got a grapefruit.
[04:52:44] I got orange.
[04:52:45] Yep.
[04:52:46] And I got a mango.
[04:52:47] You're going mango, huh?
[04:52:48] I will eat the orange and I'll be like, cool.
[04:52:50] I'll have a grapefruit or pink lemonade or whatever, or lemon, whatever.
[04:52:53] Good.
[04:52:54] Fine.
[04:52:55] But bro, come on.
[04:52:56] A mango.
[04:52:57] Mangoes just taste better to me.
[04:52:58] Okay.
[04:52:59] Mango juice.
[04:53:00] All right.
[04:53:01] So we got some drinks, discipline go.
[04:53:02] We can get mango.
[04:53:03] I'll tell you what, the new tactical tea, which is like iced tea, lemonade.
[04:53:09] A lot of people, and you know what I mean by a lot of people, a lot of people are saying
[04:53:13] that that might be the one.
[04:53:15] You also got the new Dax avage, which is ridiculous.
[04:53:18] So basically everybody.
[04:53:19] So like, okay, so a wise man named Kate Knuts once said, he's all, everybody's showing up.
[04:53:26] So in your case, everyone.
[04:53:27] He's like, you, me, everybody.
[04:53:30] Everybody.
[04:53:31] Jockofuel.com.
[04:53:32] Go get some of that stuff.
[04:53:35] Get some more.
[04:53:36] We got the ready to drink more, which is, I'm telling you what, I got problems with ready
[04:53:40] to drink more because I'm drinking it way, it's way too easy.
[04:53:43] Too easy.
[04:53:44] It's too easy.
[04:53:45] Like boom.
[04:53:46] But you know what's nice?
[04:53:47] It's just like a little 30 gram protein hitter, which is an unbelievably convenient and
[04:53:52] joyous thing in life.
[04:53:54] It's just to be like, you know what, and it tastes freaking good.
[04:53:58] Pete's son Keegan, cause I don't like vanilla.
[04:54:00] You know, I don't like vanilla.
[04:54:01] Right.
[04:54:02] It's not my jam.
[04:54:03] It's real vanilla.
[04:54:06] But so I was drinking banana.
[04:54:07] I was drinking chocolate and that camp Pete's son Keegan.
[04:54:11] He's like, it tastes like melted vanilla ice cream.
[04:54:14] And I kind of didn't believe him cause let's face it, even people that don't like vanilla,
[04:54:19] melted vanilla ice cream is hella good.
[04:54:21] Right.
[04:54:22] You know what I'm saying.
[04:54:23] You're right.
[04:54:24] It's 100% accurate.
[04:54:25] You're correct.
[04:54:26] 100% accurate.
[04:54:27] So I said to myself, there's no way this tastes like melted vanilla ice cream cause then
[04:54:31] it would be hella good.
[04:54:33] And sure enough, I cracked it open.
[04:54:36] It tastes like melted vanilla ice cream.
[04:54:38] It's legitimate.
[04:54:39] Yes.
[04:54:40] It is a legitimate, tasty treat.
[04:54:43] So that's the ready to drink.
[04:54:45] Check that out.
[04:54:46] DracoFuel.com.
[04:54:47] You can get it at Wawa.
[04:54:48] You can get this stuff at the vitamin shop.
[04:54:50] Vitamin shop's got pink mist in it right now.
[04:54:52] Yeah.
[04:54:53] There you go.
[04:54:54] DracoFuel.com.
[04:54:55] Get some of that.
[04:54:56] Also originUSA.com if you need jeans.
[04:54:58] Look, American made stuff.
[04:55:00] This is the big thing.
[04:55:01] All right.
[04:55:02] Cause there's people all over the world that are enslaving children to make you a pair
[04:55:09] of pants.
[04:55:11] And you should not support that.
[04:55:13] You should support America.
[04:55:15] Which means you should support originUSA.com.
[04:55:17] Get jeans.
[04:55:19] Get boots.
[04:55:20] Get hunting gear.
[04:55:22] Get the hunt lines out.
[04:55:25] Get what else do you need to get?
[04:55:26] The new washes of the Delta 68 is out.
[04:55:29] I'm getting the two year.
[04:55:30] I'm going to get the two year.
[04:55:31] I'm going to get the two year wash.
[04:55:32] Yeah, that's the middle one.
[04:55:33] The middle one.
[04:55:34] I'm getting them all.
[04:55:35] You're getting them all.
[04:55:36] I freaking like them all.
[04:55:37] The thing is about the light one is if it's sun out, that's going to be a lot cooler.
[04:55:42] You know what I'm saying?
[04:55:43] Cause it's sun dark or whatever.
[04:55:44] Yeah, it is more summer vibes-ish.
[04:55:46] Yeah.
[04:55:47] That's a different look.
[04:55:48] But I'm early.
[04:55:49] OriginUSA.com.
[04:55:50] Don't forget about geese as well.
[04:55:52] Cause once you put on an origin gear, you literally will not wear another gear again.
[04:55:57] Yeah, I literally, literally donated all my other geese.
[04:56:01] Yeah.
[04:56:02] Like just the other day.
[04:56:03] Actually two weeks ago.
[04:56:04] Yeah, for real.
[04:56:05] They have no purpose in life.
[04:56:06] No purpose.
[04:56:07] Those old geese, we apologize to the receivers of these geese, but at least if they can
[04:56:12] get them started, then they can become a world champion and get a good gear.
[04:56:17] OriginUSA.com.
[04:56:18] Get some of that.
[04:56:19] It's true.
[04:56:20] Also, Jockelstore.
[04:56:21] I talked about it already, but a fish, I'm announcing it.
[04:56:25] Send out email to everybody.
[04:56:27] The standard issue, discipline equals freedom.
[04:56:30] So it's the kind where if you don't have the standard issue, are you even really represented?
[04:56:37] I know the answer is probably yes.
[04:56:39] That's a big pressure scenario.
[04:56:40] I know.
[04:56:41] I know.
[04:56:42] I know.
[04:56:43] The answer is probably yes.
[04:56:44] You sure you want to do it like that?
[04:56:45] No.
[04:56:46] I'm not sure I want to do it like that.
[04:56:47] But-
[04:56:48] What if a dude is just getting after in seven different fronts and you not got a standard
[04:56:51] issue, you're like, hey, you're not really represented?
[04:56:52] I know.
[04:56:53] Do I even have to?
[04:56:54] You're right.
[04:56:55] You're right.
[04:56:56] And look, hey, look, I'm still hypothesizing.
[04:56:57] For judgmental people, you might not be representing.
[04:57:03] Or just check it out.
[04:57:04] I think that statement actually might piss some people off.
[04:57:05] I kind of got a little bit pissed when you just said it.
[04:57:08] Yeah.
[04:57:09] That's why I was like, it's kind of like, you know, it's a working, it's a working,
[04:57:11] what do you call it, slogan?
[04:57:12] Yeah.
[04:57:13] Okay.
[04:57:14] So less pressure.
[04:57:15] Either way, it's out.
[04:57:16] It's good.
[04:57:17] It's cool.
[04:57:18] People have it.
[04:57:19] It's good depending on your, your proclivity to support various units.
[04:57:25] Yes.
[04:57:26] Good way to put it.
[04:57:28] There's a lot of good other cool stuff on there.
[04:57:31] Also the short locker, new shirt every month, creative designs for like-
[04:57:35] What was this for the last design was a toxic productivity?
[04:57:40] Toxic productivity.
[04:57:41] Oh, you got me on a surfboard with like a computer in one hand, book in another hand,
[04:57:47] papers flying everywhere.
[04:57:49] Discipline goes everywhere.
[04:57:50] Discipline goes everywhere.
[04:57:51] Discipline goes everywhere.
[04:57:52] All right.
[04:57:53] So, yep.
[04:57:54] You can get the short locker at jockelstore.com.
[04:57:56] Go to, if you want to subscribe to this podcast, do it, leave a review.
[04:58:00] So Echo, if you want to leave that little review about Echo where you're like, maybe
[04:58:03] he should just be quiet.
[04:58:05] Yeah.
[04:58:06] If you want to say that Echo's best podcast ever was today when he wasn't on it, then
[04:58:11] you can leave that review on there.
[04:58:13] We'll be happy about it.
[04:58:14] Jockelunderground.com.
[04:58:15] Go and support.
[04:58:16] Look, we don't own this platform that you're listening to this on unless you're on the
[04:58:20] underground.
[04:58:21] If you're on the underground, guess what?
[04:58:22] We will be there no matter what.
[04:58:25] We're not going to get kicked off our own platform, right?
[04:58:27] We made our own playground.
[04:58:28] Remember that?
[04:58:29] You know, you get kicked out of some club, make our own club.
[04:58:32] We get kicked out of some jiu-jitsu schools.
[04:58:34] Made our own jiu-jitsu school.
[04:58:36] Might get kicked off a platform.
[04:58:37] We got our own platform.
[04:58:38] Jockelunderground.com.
[04:58:39] If you want to support that, go there.
[04:58:40] Sign up, register.
[04:58:42] YouTube channel.
[04:58:43] Check that out.
[04:58:44] Psychological warfare.
[04:58:46] You know, Flipside Canvas.
[04:58:47] Talked about Dakota Meyer today.
[04:58:48] That's his company to hang cool stuff on your wall.
[04:58:50] Bunch of books.
[04:58:51] You know what they are.
[04:58:52] Only Cry for the Living by Holly McKay.
[04:58:54] Check that book out.
[04:58:56] Final Spin and a bunch of other books I've written.
[04:58:59] Eshalon Front Leadership Consultancy.
[04:59:01] We solve problems through leadership.
[04:59:04] We also have an online training academy, extremownership.com.
[04:59:08] You can't just go to the gym one time and be in shape.
[04:59:11] You can't just pick up a guitar and take one lesson and know how to play guitar.
[04:59:14] You got to get in the game.
[04:59:17] If you want to get better at leadership, which will make you better at life, go to extremownership.com.
[04:59:25] If you want to support Marcus and Amber and their charity, Vet Solutions, go to vetsolutions.org.
[04:59:34] They are helping as many people as they can.
[04:59:38] They need to help more.
[04:59:40] Go and check that out.
[04:59:41] Support if you can.
[04:59:42] If you want to help service members active and retired, their families, Gold Star families,
[04:59:47] check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee.
[04:59:51] She's got a charity organization.
[04:59:54] She also helps Vets.
[04:59:55] She puts them through a bunch of protocols.
[05:00:00] One of the primary protocols is the hyperbaric chamber, like 30 and 45 day protocols where
[05:00:07] you're on clean food.
[05:00:09] You're getting hormone treatment if you need it.
[05:00:11] You're getting vitamin treatment if you need it.
[05:00:14] Everything is paid for.
[05:00:16] That's what she's doing to help out.
[05:00:18] One of the many things she does, but that's one of the things that she does.
[05:00:21] If you want to help that or you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to americasamightywarriors.org.
[05:00:27] Another little trip that people can take.
[05:00:29] Another little journey.
[05:00:30] I guess we're not using the word trip.
[05:00:32] Another journey that people can take.
[05:00:33] You can take a journey in a hyperbaric chamber.
[05:00:35] You can also take a journey in the wilderness.
[05:00:37] Those on horses.org, Micah Fink up there taking people in the wilderness where they're going
[05:00:43] to find and confront themselves as well.
[05:00:46] If you want to follow Marcus Nambur and you want to follow Vets, they are at Marcus, at
[05:00:51] Marcus Capone, at Marcus underscore amber underscore Capone and also at veteran solutions.
[05:01:01] For us on Twitter, on the gram, on Facebook, at Ecosatica Charles.
[05:01:06] I'm at Jocker-Willink, of course.
[05:01:09] Be wary, be very wary of the algorithm.
[05:01:14] Once again, thanks to Marcus Nambur for everything that you have done for the country, for the
[05:01:18] teams and what you're doing now for the veteran community.
[05:01:22] A special thanks today to all the families.
[05:01:27] All the families out there, the husbands and the wives, the sons and the daughters, the
[05:01:30] mothers, the fathers, the brothers and sisters.
[05:01:34] Thanks to all you families that support our service men and women around the world.
[05:01:39] And thank you for waiting and worrying and supporting them through all those sleepless
[05:01:46] nights.
[05:01:47] Your families make a huge sacrifice for our nation and we thank you for that.
[05:01:54] And the same goes to the families of our police and law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics,
[05:01:59] EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, all first responders,
[05:02:04] your families support what you provide as families to our first responders, allows them
[05:02:13] to do their job so that we can live in safety.
[05:02:17] And everyone else out there, look, life is hard and there is suffering and it can get
[05:02:27] dark and sometimes it might seem like there's no way out and it might seem that you're alone.
[05:02:34] But you're not alone.
[05:02:36] And there is a way out and there is light and there is life out there and it is good.
[05:02:46] But you got to hang in there.
[05:02:48] You got to never give up and you got to remember that you are never out of the fight.
[05:02:58] So keep on fighting.
[05:03:01] And until next time, Zeko and Jocko out.