Jocko Podcast 353: If You Have The Wherewithal To Do Things, Then Do Things. Derrick Van Orden

2022-10-01T16:00:15Z

Underground Premium Content: https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe Join the conversation on Twitter/Instagram: @jockowillink @derrickvanorden @derrickvanorden8696 @echocharles Derrick Van Orden. Navy SEAL (ret.) 26 years of service. husband, father, and Wisconsin 3rd District Congressman candidate 2022.

AI summary of episode

Well, you know, when I kind of opened with that thing from George Washington, I'd heard that quote, read that quote a while ago and you know, you think about, you know, I just know your career and know what, you know, as an average team guy, what you've done, what you've been put through, what your family's been put through. But if it felt like a violation if vodka is kind of on the schedule which I don't recommend right it's not on my schedule at all 0% but if it's on your schedule and you want to mitigate the issues that you're going to have then it's not going to mitigate you going to jail is not going to mitigate a DUI is not going to mitigate you getting arrested is not going to mitigate you spending all your money on stupid shit not going to mitigate any of that. He's wearing a visor, like a visor like, you know, like, I don't know. I go like, if you're going to accountant, you know, would you like go watch a movie about tax season or, you know, you wouldn't. Well because I drank one and then it was like the next opportunity I had they were like Brian was like because he couldn't give him away or something like that. And you know, that's just like how I would point to like, Hey, we're going to go in over here, we're going to move over there. And even metaphorically, you know, like if you stay in the house all the time or if you don't, you know, like they say work life balance. So, and that's really the part that I was wondering, like, it's, I feel like I understand it kind of, but the way I've heard you say it, and my friend Jeremy, he mentioned this one time we're talking, he was like, yeah, a pistol is no match for a rifle. and you're going through the work up and like a down man was like a theoretical thing, a problem solving event that you're going to get and you're going to go through it. I'm like, you know, and they said it like, you know, cause apparently he's a big deal. Like that was like kind of that was kind of like a death trap kind of thing. Like I said, that's the first time that I like remember you PIDing like, oh yeah, So the fact that you're like, yeah, cool, Roger that, going to step up and try and make this happen and looks like you are going to make this thing happen. If you go to Amazon right now to go you know jockel sounds like he's going I don't know what he's talking about here. And so I went through everybody's safes in all of the teams and I took all of their documentation going back to the Vietnam War, you know, the type stuff, after action reports, and I consolidated all those things and we wrote all of the curriculum for land warfare and then special reconnaissance, taking the lessons and going back from our forefathers that gave us our, you know, fierce reputation and then worked those over and over again. So going from like 60 seals to six, but they're all like, you know what? If you want to get a feel, a better feel, if over three hours of conversation, if you don't think like you feel, feel like you know They would go down the street, team five and just be like, oh, now we can like act like humans. And that's why kind of, you know, when you mentioned the closing of the pipeline, it kind of, you know, because emotionally you think, well, this seems like a positive thing. I'm like the hardest that I would say the wealthiest people I know are some of the hardest working people I know. And then they'll put something in here like, but we're going to have flag laws and you're going to have your guns confiscated confiscated by the state, you know, which I fundamentally did that is just wrong, right? Actually, I think that the, that weapon, the, a sub machine gun, like the Heckler and Couch MP5, I think he's a great weapon for like home self-defense because it's not going to penetrate through a bunch of walls. And that's, you know, when I got done with that deployment, you know, the admiral who I knew was like, where do you want to go? And you know, they I like hearing cool stuff like presented a certain way. And I'm like, this, this is another point in my life where you can either, you know, kind of like just stay stagnant or you should do something to keep yourself rolling. Now look, if you're totally off the res and your idea is just ridiculous, well, it's very easy for me to articulate, Hey, Derek, I know you want to do this, you know, jumping parachutes out of the space shuttle, but right, it's going to be really hard for us to get the space shuttle for this operation in a short period of time. When you show me your calendar and I know you're going to a bunch of meetings with people that half of them, you know, are horrible people, half of them are awesome people. You know you know how you kind of need to know the time tables right. And it's one of those things where, you know, that's where I was kind of raised, you know, from a young kid to, you know, that's where I've got all my first experience. Now look, she could also get a shotgun, you know, maybe a smaller gate shotgun, like not a 12-gate shotgun, but like a 20-gate shotgun. But part of that was because of fact, like fact, like, you know, I was worked hard for fact. So I'm like, I'm going to go to law school and just like Bud's man, you can't just go to law school. But Echo, what was your point in saying that like it's making the comparison, but you make a good point too, because, and this was actually kind of maybe a few years after that, I remember I had a roommate too though, but my portion of the rent was like 450 bucks or something. Like, like we just got that with Bud's and he's telling him he's going to send him to the fleet. And you know, like you talk about faculty, faculty was like my. And it didn't look like, you know, this was in 2006 when we got home, it was still, you couldn't tell when it was going to stop. And like you know not a good not a sandwich or not a you know she's getting chips and then she gets an energy drink. I'm like, you know, frick, frack, frack, brr, you know, being a sealed sailor guy. And I'm like, man, so I talked to Sergey and I'm like, let's get this going again. But with a roommate or something like this, actually, you know, when, when guys are in the military here, especially they're young guys in the military, they're, they're, if they got a family, they're either having to live on house basing Probably because I'm thinking of movies, you know, how like, you know, lethal weapon. And you know, when, when, when I've, as I've gotten involved in the, in these industries, you can look back very easily in the last 40 years, 30 years really of the history of the companies in America where you can increase your profits, your short term profits by a little percentage and therefore you make this and oh, you know what, we can, we can, it's going to cost us more to get it over here. And I remember thinking about it and, you know, I'm thinking about the experiences that I had, you know, when we deployed in Tasking a Bruiser, you know, we hadn't lost any guys on the West Coast yet. So I go check in is down at the elephant cage at advanced training and I was just kind of sitting there and they're like, we got to find it E seven billet, you know, and there was not because that's a platoon chief job And then like 15,000 votes show up at, you know, 2.30 in the morning or whatever, you know, I get it. So we didn't have a traditional, you know, task unit, go out and, you know, like bruiser. It's going to cost us time, but we got plenty of time because we're big and it's going to save us, you know, 38 cents a garment. I'm like, you know, this guy, this guy, this guy, this guy, and then we need comms guys and all these other folks. Well, I know that when I look at what happens to politicians and you're going to get just, you know, your life becomes this target, right? It's not like everyone's going to get voted out tomorrow, but people are going to, oh, yeah. I tell them like, look man, you're placed here at this time, you know with these people in this circumstance by God. Now look, I don't even think it's going to, I think it's going to be a change like you're the personification of this change. They just put the road cones like they put a road cone with like team one, team five, team three, trade at Derek yet, you want to get to know, you might know Derek, do you know Van O? I have guys that tag me in social media of like plumbing installs that are super freaking dialed or they're putting an electrical subpanel and everything is squared away and they're like, yeah, check it out. And when you just take a minute and go like, yeah, you know, I'm going to go buy that cup of coffee. Yeah, like, like sure, you can shoot someone in kind of at 50 yards with a, with a pistol. That's why, because I'm like, I look at like the apartment rent right now We've lost the ability to like learn how to sew your own gear because people, I know how to use an industrial sewing machine as did everybody in the seal teams because you'd make your own stuff in the parallel. And there's only so long that the politicians can continue to get away with this bullshit before Americans, because you got to remember where the people that were like, oh, you're going to raise the tax on tea by two cents per freaking giant bundle of tea. He said something interesting where he was like, yeah, well, one of the main problems is the people who make the laws and even propose the laws, they don't know anything about that. So if something was coming up, it'd be like, oh, I'll just call Sean and ask him what's going on, you know? Like we were out at desert training and like meeting you and hanging out and running the FTX's and all that stuff, having good times. But in effect, you know, I had guys, like one of my guys, I'll give you an example of why, one of my guys, I think I had six seals with me. But at the same time, I do like kind of like what it says. oh it's theirs you know like I wasn't going to return it And look, with the old flavors, it was like, oh, you know, I got my favorite flavor. And when you think about it, you'd be like, oh, man, you know, I kind of dons on you. like oh they grabbed it back no big deal or kind of like totally neutral in my opinion. But I went there because I needed to like get my medical situation in order and it took like a year and a half. And I'm like, oh my gosh, this guy looks like Santa Claus. And he's like, I know what's going on.

Most common words

Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jocko podcast number 353 with Echo Charles and me,
[00:00:04] Jocko willing.
[00:00:05] Good evening Echo.
[00:00:05] Good evening.
[00:00:07] My brave fellows,
[00:00:11] you have done all I asked you to do
[00:00:13] and more than can be reasonably expected,
[00:00:17] but your country is at stake.
[00:00:19] Your wives, your houses, and all that you hold dear.
[00:00:24] You have worn, worn yourselves out with fatigues
[00:00:28] and hardships,
[00:00:31] but we know not how to spare you.
[00:00:35] If you will consent to stay one month longer,
[00:00:38] you will render that service to the cause of liberty
[00:00:40] and to your country,
[00:00:42] which you probably can never do
[00:00:44] under any other circumstances.
[00:00:50] And that right there was a quote from George Washington,
[00:00:55] encouraging his men to re-enlist in the army.
[00:01:00] And he made that speech on Tuesday, December 31st, 1776.
[00:01:05] This was less than a week after the successful attack
[00:01:10] at Trenton and great victory for Washington's army,
[00:01:14] the one that everybody knows about,
[00:01:15] crossing the Delaware River
[00:01:18] and able to achieve this victory.
[00:01:21] But the men had suffered greatly.
[00:01:24] Prior to that, they had lost the battle
[00:01:26] of White Plains in October,
[00:01:28] the battle at Fort Washington in November,
[00:01:31] their uniforms, when you read about
[00:01:33] what condition they were in,
[00:01:35] they were just in tatters and rags at this point.
[00:01:37] Some of them didn't have shoes,
[00:01:40] by the way, December in the Northeast.
[00:01:44] So this was the last day of the year, December 31st.
[00:01:48] And interestingly, most of the soldiers enlistments,
[00:01:53] they'd enlisted for a year or two years.
[00:01:54] And so a lot of the soldiers, their enlistments were up
[00:01:58] at the end of the year.
[00:02:00] And this was a potential disaster for the army.
[00:02:05] But through this personal appeal,
[00:02:07] Washington convinced about half the men to stay and carry on.
[00:02:12] And they were able to defeat the British at Princeton
[00:02:17] and kind of revived the morale of the Continental Army.
[00:02:23] But that just put that question into my mind
[00:02:27] is when is enough enough?
[00:02:29] And we call on our servicemen and women to do so much.
[00:02:35] And it's amazing when they decide to continue to serve.
[00:02:40] And it's an honor here to have one of those men
[00:02:43] with us tonight, retired seal,
[00:02:46] 26 years of service, husband, father, teammate,
[00:02:49] friend of mine who deployed to Iraq,
[00:02:52] deployed to Afghanistan, Africa, Asia, Europe,
[00:02:57] South America, Central America.
[00:02:59] And he's looking to continue his service now.
[00:03:03] His name is Derek Van Orden.
[00:03:05] We used to call him Van Oh.
[00:03:06] That's right.
[00:03:08] Van Oh?
[00:03:09] Van Oh.
[00:03:10] Derek?
[00:03:11] Yeah.
[00:03:11] Thanks for coming down, man.
[00:03:12] Thank you for having me.
[00:03:13] Good to see you.
[00:03:14] It's good to see you too.
[00:03:15] DVO.
[00:03:16] I don't know why.
[00:03:17] I mean, I do.
[00:03:18] Oh, because you gotta have the three letters.
[00:03:21] You know what?
[00:03:22] That's a little too close to deviant.
[00:03:24] I don't know if I like that.
[00:03:26] Well, yeah.
[00:03:27] Speaking of that, man.
[00:03:29] So I've never been to your place here.
[00:03:30] It's marvelous.
[00:03:32] And went to the head.
[00:03:34] That's the bathroom for folks who aren't in the Navy.
[00:03:37] And like 30 guys, I was talking to Echo about this.
[00:03:41] They're all looking at me like, what are you doing?
[00:03:43] I look like, you know, the hillbilly came rolling in.
[00:03:47] But it's a wonderful facility here, man.
[00:03:49] Yeah.
[00:03:50] Well, it's a mixed martial arts.
[00:03:51] So I guess your point is a mixed martial arts gym.
[00:03:53] It's literally the middle of our professional pro MMA
[00:03:58] practice is going on out in the gym.
[00:04:00] So it's the Alliance team, which trains here out of victory.
[00:04:05] With some incredible fighters, some champs in there.
[00:04:08] Dominic Cruz just saw Dom.
[00:04:09] And so, yes, they're athletes in peak physique in the prime
[00:04:14] of their athletic careers.
[00:04:16] Well, I'm certainly in my prime.
[00:04:17] You are like Doc Holiday.
[00:04:20] You are in your prime just like Doc Holiday,
[00:04:22] apparently at this point.
[00:04:24] No, awesome to see you, man.
[00:04:25] So let's start at the beginning.
[00:04:27] Let's start where you came from.
[00:04:29] Let's figure out how you got here today.
[00:04:31] And let's talk about that story.
[00:04:33] So when and where were you born?
[00:04:35] Well, to begin in the beginning, as they say,
[00:04:38] I was raised in abject rural poverty by a single mom.
[00:04:43] My dad was not honorable.
[00:04:44] No other way to describe that.
[00:04:45] He abandoned us when I was an infant.
[00:04:47] And I dropped out of high school when I was 16 years old.
[00:04:50] Hold on a second.
[00:04:51] You got really quick through a lot of years.
[00:04:52] Oh.
[00:04:53] So I was.
[00:04:54] So you were born.
[00:04:55] So where is this?
[00:04:56] I was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
[00:04:58] My father abandoned us.
[00:04:59] We had to move in with my grandmother in Laverne, Minnesota.
[00:05:02] What's Laverne, Minnesota?
[00:05:04] For some reason, I haven't heard of this metropolitan city.
[00:05:06] Well, you should have because Ken Burns did one of his
[00:05:10] documentaries called The War.
[00:05:11] OK.
[00:05:12] It featured the Palace Theater, which
[00:05:14] is on Main Street in Laverne.
[00:05:15] And we lived in the apartment above the Palace Theater
[00:05:18] once we got enough together because we
[00:05:19] had to live with my grandmother when we were that poor.
[00:05:21] So what's the population of Laverne?
[00:05:24] Gosh, I don't know now.
[00:05:25] But it's a small town.
[00:05:26] It's a small town.
[00:05:27] What was your mom doing to make ends meet?
[00:05:30] She was one of the first female sports
[00:05:34] reporters in the country.
[00:05:36] And she's always been a stats head.
[00:05:38] And she died nine years ago, eight years ago now.
[00:05:40] My mom, she's wonderful.
[00:05:41] Carol Ann Mulligan.
[00:05:42] She's like this tall, five foot nothing,
[00:05:46] and hard as woodpecker lips.
[00:05:48] She's a tough man.
[00:05:49] And then she got a job with a company called INA, which became
[00:05:55] Cigna Insurance.
[00:05:56] And that's how we wound up in Wisconsin.
[00:05:58] So I grew up in Wisconsin, southeastern Wisconsin,
[00:06:01] because my mother got promoted.
[00:06:03] Wait, so when did she leave sports reported?
[00:06:05] Oh my gosh, that would have been.
[00:06:07] That was prior to the insurance thing?
[00:06:08] I don't need the years.
[00:06:09] But so she was doing that sort of thing.
[00:06:11] Right, it was kind of on and off that sort of stuff.
[00:06:13] Right, because it was just weird to have a woman reporting
[00:06:15] sports.
[00:06:16] Now it's common.
[00:06:17] Yeah, it's normative.
[00:06:19] So she couldn't quite pull off a career in sports reporting?
[00:06:23] No, that wouldn't happen.
[00:06:24] But then she went to the insurance business?
[00:06:26] Right, she started as a secretary.
[00:06:28] And then she got promoted.
[00:06:30] She was very bright.
[00:06:32] And she wound up retiring, running the West Coast for Cigna.
[00:06:38] She ran this whole office.
[00:06:39] And it was interesting.
[00:06:40] She's sitting around hearing the story.
[00:06:43] It's fascinating, because it helped me later on in my career
[00:06:46] as a seal, that she was like, wait a minute.
[00:06:49] If we have this phone, and anyone has a phone,
[00:06:51] they can call this number.
[00:06:53] And if they have the ability to understand
[00:06:55] what's going on with this phone, they
[00:06:57] can get everybody's insurance information.
[00:06:59] So she was one of the first people to get into cybersecurity,
[00:07:04] because you had the modem.
[00:07:05] You know what I mean?
[00:07:05] It didn't matter.
[00:07:06] There was no encryption there.
[00:07:07] It was if you could have a modem, you know, that sort of stuff.
[00:07:11] So she started doing that.
[00:07:13] You guys are that.
[00:07:14] You don't know how old are you?
[00:07:15] 44.
[00:07:16] All right, you remember.
[00:07:17] You're old.
[00:07:18] You remember dial-up?
[00:07:19] Yeah.
[00:07:20] Look at that.
[00:07:21] Down for the dial-up.
[00:07:22] 100% AOL.
[00:07:23] You got mail, son.
[00:07:24] Yeah, you do.
[00:07:25] So she did that.
[00:07:27] And not having a father figure as a dad, my uncle Bob,
[00:07:34] which is her oldest brother, she's one of 10 Irish Catholics.
[00:07:37] And Bob left Worthington, which is outside of Laverne,
[00:07:43] when he was 16 years old, and joined the Navy in World War II.
[00:07:46] There's this great picture of him.
[00:07:47] He's sitting like this with his hands over the rail
[00:07:50] of an ammunition oiler right off at Iwo Jima.
[00:07:53] No shirt on.
[00:07:54] You know, just hanging, being a sailor.
[00:07:56] And it's just so fun, you know.
[00:07:58] But yeah, so Gunny went to, he's in the Navy,
[00:08:02] and then they demobilized everybody after World War II.
[00:08:06] So he goes back to Minnesota, can't find a job.
[00:08:10] And he's like, man, I need a job.
[00:08:11] This is Uncle Bob we're talking about.
[00:08:13] This is Robert Francis Mulligan.
[00:08:14] The oldest brother of your mom.
[00:08:19] Of my mom.
[00:08:19] Got it.
[00:08:20] So he was one of 10.
[00:08:22] And so he wants to go back to Minnesota.
[00:08:24] This is so fun, because we're in San Diego.
[00:08:26] And he goes to the Marine Corps.
[00:08:29] And he's like, can I join the Marines?
[00:08:31] He goes, yeah, there's some staff sergeant there.
[00:08:33] He goes, OK, here's your bus ticket to San Diego.
[00:08:36] And you'll go to the bus station, take your cab to MCRD,
[00:08:39] which is right down the road from here.
[00:08:41] And then you're there.
[00:08:43] And Bob's looking at his feet.
[00:08:45] It's museum feet.
[00:08:46] You don't want to be in a museum anymore.
[00:08:47] You can't shelf for your feet.
[00:08:48] And the staff sergeant looks at him.
[00:08:51] He goes, you don't have enough money for a cab, do you?
[00:08:53] And he's like, nope.
[00:08:53] So he gives him money for a cab.
[00:08:56] So Bob takes the bus, cab, MCRD, Marine Corps, fast forward,
[00:09:01] 20 years or whatever it is.
[00:09:03] He sees this warren officer.
[00:09:04] And in that Marine Corps, they're called gunners.
[00:09:06] And he's like, hey, man, I think I know you.
[00:09:09] And he goes, were you a recruiter in Minnesota?
[00:09:11] He goes, I'm the guy that you gave the money for the cab.
[00:09:16] And the gunner looks at him and goes,
[00:09:17] do you know how many people have to give money for a cab?
[00:09:21] So we think that things are difficult now.
[00:09:23] And we're getting, trust me, man, the economy's going
[00:09:26] right in the tank.
[00:09:26] It's bad.
[00:09:27] But the level of affluence that we have in the United States
[00:09:31] of America now is unprecedented in the history of the world.
[00:09:34] And that goes across all spectrums.
[00:09:37] I mean, that was like, you didn't have anything.
[00:09:39] So Bob does 20 years.
[00:09:42] He goes to Korea, grievously injured
[00:09:46] by Chinese communist soldiers throwing a China
[00:09:48] com grenade into his Foxhole, and then he winds up going to Laos
[00:09:55] in 1962.
[00:09:57] Retired becomes a police officer in a small village
[00:09:59] in Wisconsin called Shinigwa and retired as the chief police,
[00:10:02] the fire chief, and the village administrator.
[00:10:05] And he ends up being, you say, your father figure.
[00:10:08] Correct.
[00:10:09] What do you have for brothers and sisters?
[00:10:11] I have one brother.
[00:10:13] Older, younger?
[00:10:14] Older.
[00:10:14] OK.
[00:10:16] Now, what?
[00:10:17] You're now going to school.
[00:10:18] You used to live in above this theater in Laverne?
[00:10:21] Right, till I was in second grade.
[00:10:23] OK.
[00:10:24] And then we moved.
[00:10:24] Mom got promoted.
[00:10:25] Then we moved to Heartland, Wisconsin.
[00:10:28] Heartland?
[00:10:29] Heartland.
[00:10:30] Just straight up.
[00:10:31] Heartland, Wisconsin.
[00:10:32] Yeah, man.
[00:10:34] So we grew up there.
[00:10:35] We were still very poor.
[00:10:36] The apartments we live in now, I think, are Section 8 housing.
[00:10:41] That we lived in then are now, I believe, Section 8 housing.
[00:10:45] And now this is where you go to middle school.
[00:10:48] Is this where you go to high school and stuff?
[00:10:50] No.
[00:10:51] So mom got promoted again.
[00:10:54] And then we moved to Oregon.
[00:10:56] Oh, OK.
[00:10:57] And that's where I was in high school for a year and two weeks
[00:11:00] of my sophomore year.
[00:11:02] Were you playing sports growing up?
[00:11:04] I wrestled for my freshman year.
[00:11:07] But I never was into those types of things.
[00:11:10] I just I never was.
[00:11:13] My brother's super big in professional sports.
[00:11:15] Clearly, my mother was because she was a sports reporter.
[00:11:18] But just never did much for me.
[00:11:21] I don't want to.
[00:11:22] What were you focused on?
[00:11:23] Were you focused on academics?
[00:11:25] No, you know what?
[00:11:27] I wasn't.
[00:11:28] I mean, I read.
[00:11:29] I've always been a huge reader.
[00:11:31] From when I was a little kid, I was always reading.
[00:11:34] And I was kind of more, I don't know how to put that.
[00:11:38] I just I was into exploring the world from a different
[00:11:43] perspective because so we were so poor.
[00:11:46] I mean, like dirt poor.
[00:11:48] And I knew I could never collect material objects
[00:11:52] because of that.
[00:11:53] And so from when I was just a little kid,
[00:11:56] I started collecting relationships with people.
[00:11:58] And I had the same friends that I've had since I was 14
[00:12:01] because I understand the value of human beings.
[00:12:04] And I understand the value of the intrinsic nature
[00:12:06] if somebody's intellect vise their physical being.
[00:12:10] And they're clearly intertwined.
[00:12:13] One is part of another.
[00:12:15] But so for me, that's always been my thing.
[00:12:17] So I've always really focused on humans.
[00:12:22] And the additive value of people, the synergistic effect
[00:12:28] of getting together, that's how you create.
[00:12:31] And so I've always done that.
[00:12:33] I've done some art stuff and whatever.
[00:12:36] What's art stuff or whatever?
[00:12:38] Well, sketch, I write poetry and believe it or not.
[00:12:42] So when you're in school, are you like hanging out
[00:12:46] with the freaking poetry club?
[00:12:50] Is that what we got going on?
[00:12:51] No, I was.
[00:12:52] Wait, were you wearing all black?
[00:12:53] And like, oh my gosh.
[00:12:55] Dying in your black?
[00:12:56] Who's wearing all black here?
[00:12:59] You guys, is this camera working?
[00:13:01] So no, man.
[00:13:03] I was kind of an outsider because, again, children
[00:13:07] can be very cruel.
[00:13:09] And when I say we're poor, I mean, we were poor.
[00:13:11] So I was ostracized because of my poverty.
[00:13:16] And then when we moved to Oregon,
[00:13:17] it was a very affluent community.
[00:13:18] And I wasn't just on the other side of the tracks,
[00:13:21] I was on the other side of it.
[00:13:24] So that can be very, you can take that one or two directions.
[00:13:29] You can consciously choose your path.
[00:13:32] And you can choose to ride that into the dirt
[00:13:35] and get into this destructive cycle.
[00:13:40] And we've seen this happen over and over again,
[00:13:42] intergenerational poverty and all these things.
[00:13:43] And people feel like they have no way out.
[00:13:46] I mean, I was the, did you ever see someone walk around
[00:13:49] with their head down?
[00:13:50] Yeah.
[00:13:51] And they walk like that all the time.
[00:13:52] Somebody, I ran into them.
[00:13:54] Where did I see them?
[00:13:56] They're like, oh, so I had dropped out of high school.
[00:13:59] I was working.
[00:14:01] I've been supporting myself since I was 16.
[00:14:02] And someone's like, oh, I remember you from high school.
[00:14:05] You're the guy that always walked with your head down.
[00:14:08] And I was like, wait a minute, you're right.
[00:14:10] So I started walking with my head up.
[00:14:12] And just that simple.
[00:14:14] Wait, when was that?
[00:14:15] I would have been 17 or 18.
[00:14:17] So when you're 17 or 18, someone said, oh, you used to walk
[00:14:20] around with your head down.
[00:14:21] You're the guy.
[00:14:22] They recognized me.
[00:14:23] You're the guy that would walk around with your head down.
[00:14:25] I wasn't self-absorbed, but it was like I felt like,
[00:14:28] because we were so pouring being just the other.
[00:14:32] That I shouldn't be interacting with the world around me.
[00:14:35] So I put my head up.
[00:14:37] And I was like that one physical gesture of going,
[00:14:41] I am here.
[00:14:42] And I'm part of the equation.
[00:14:44] And then that slowly opens up your aperture.
[00:14:47] And you start looking around.
[00:14:48] And you're like, oh, what's going on here?
[00:14:49] Can I do something here?
[00:14:50] Can I do something there?
[00:14:52] The visual feedback that you get from another person
[00:14:55] actually enhances your ability to have a relationship with
[00:14:57] them, which I think is very important.
[00:14:59] That posture thing is huge. I had JP DeNel on this podcast.
[00:15:03] I work with him still.
[00:15:04] But I talked about, and this was a long time ago,
[00:15:08] I talked about the fact I was watching him.
[00:15:09] Like I'm sitting in a door well or something
[00:15:12] on a street in Ramadi.
[00:15:13] And I'm watching JP maneuver.
[00:15:16] And he's walking with his chest out, his head up.
[00:15:20] Like I'm here.
[00:15:21] Just like I'm here.
[00:15:22] I'm going to get it.
[00:15:23] And a lot of people, your instinct is to, especially
[00:15:26] in combat, is to get small.
[00:15:29] And he's like, no, chest up, head out.
[00:15:32] And that became a thing.
[00:15:33] This whole posture thing.
[00:15:34] I mean, Jordan Peterson talked about stand up straight with
[00:15:37] your shoulders back.
[00:15:38] I was like, oh, yeah, that was JP DeNel.
[00:15:39] And it sounds like you made that transition at 17 years old
[00:15:43] when someone said, dude, you're walking around
[00:15:44] with your head down.
[00:15:45] Yeah, that makes a difference.
[00:15:47] Yeah, it does.
[00:15:47] And I think that I don't think I know that people now, they
[00:15:52] can go, oh, this is a brash person.
[00:15:57] But when I sit down with them, talk to them, they understand
[00:16:00] that that's not posturing.
[00:16:02] It's posture.
[00:16:03] So then there's a difference between the two.
[00:16:05] One is something that's internalized, and the other
[00:16:08] one is a projection.
[00:16:10] So if you have posture that you've internalized that,
[00:16:14] you're posturing, you're pretending.
[00:16:15] I don't pretend about really anything.
[00:16:19] So you're going to high school.
[00:16:21] You're ostracized.
[00:16:24] And at some point, you say you decide to drop out of high
[00:16:26] school.
[00:16:27] The institution no longer had anything to offer me.
[00:16:30] That is a direct quote from Anna Walsh, I think.
[00:16:33] It's a direct quote from what?
[00:16:34] Animal house, I believe.
[00:16:35] OK.
[00:16:36] So you decide, what did your mom say about this?
[00:16:39] She was not happy.
[00:16:40] Yeah, I was going to say, there's no mom that's like, oh,
[00:16:42] cool, you're dropping out of high school.
[00:16:43] No, she was not happy at all.
[00:16:45] What was your plan?
[00:16:46] I didn't have one.
[00:16:48] Just on that phone at school anymore?
[00:16:49] I'm out.
[00:16:50] Had you already been working?
[00:16:52] Yeah, I started working, I think, when I was 14.
[00:16:55] And so what are you doing?
[00:16:57] I worked at a movie theater.
[00:16:58] Cool.
[00:16:58] And then I worked at a gas station.
[00:17:00] Roger?
[00:17:01] Yep, Chevron gas station.
[00:17:03] Pound the gas, fixin' cars.
[00:17:04] And now you must, what's your reasoning behind dropping out
[00:17:08] of school?
[00:17:09] How you coming to this conclusion as a 16-year-old?
[00:17:11] It was, I don't think the environment was oppressive.
[00:17:14] I just didn't fit.
[00:17:17] And I just didn't want to be part of that.
[00:17:20] So you tell your mom, what was it in the school year?
[00:17:23] Was it in the summertime?
[00:17:24] It was two weeks into my sophomore year.
[00:17:28] I'm out.
[00:17:29] Yeah, I did.
[00:17:30] I'm out.
[00:17:31] And then I moved out.
[00:17:33] So what'd you get for a job?
[00:17:34] I was working at the gas station.
[00:17:36] Oh, OK.
[00:17:36] So the gas station job, you move into what?
[00:17:38] An apartment or something?
[00:17:40] Yeah.
[00:17:42] That was it.
[00:17:42] I mean, so do I recommend this life path?
[00:17:49] I did that.
[00:17:49] I got an undergraduate degree at 44.
[00:17:51] I got accepted to law school at 50,
[00:17:52] and all that sort of stuff.
[00:17:53] Would I recommend this path?
[00:17:57] That's a very complicated answer, because in some ways,
[00:18:00] I would say yes.
[00:18:01] In other ways, I would not.
[00:18:02] And I was thinking about this because I
[00:18:04] knew I was going to come talk to you.
[00:18:07] If you look at what's taking place in the world right now,
[00:18:12] I think if more people had more adversity growing up,
[00:18:17] that they would be able to thrive more.
[00:18:20] I mean, I'm going to get elected to Congress next year.
[00:18:22] That's happening.
[00:18:23] Actually, this year in November, I'll take office next year.
[00:18:26] And I started from the meanest circumstances you possibly can.
[00:18:29] I mean, abject real poverty, broken home, single mom,
[00:18:32] enlisted guy in the Navy.
[00:18:34] And I'm going to be in the highest levels of power
[00:18:37] in the most powerful country in the world
[00:18:39] within a single generation.
[00:18:42] I tell people all the time, man, what's that called?
[00:18:46] It's the American dream, right?
[00:18:47] I mean, the embodiment of the American dream.
[00:18:49] I lived on five of the seven continents as a frogman.
[00:18:52] Africa, I lived in villages.
[00:18:54] In Afghanistan, I lived in cosmopolitan European cities,
[00:18:58] Iraq, in Asia, everywhere.
[00:19:00] And it's the American dream, man.
[00:19:01] It's not the Argentinian dream.
[00:19:04] It's not.
[00:19:04] It's not the English dream.
[00:19:05] It's not.
[00:19:06] It's the American dream because this is the only place
[00:19:08] my story can happen every day, like all the time.
[00:19:10] Look, it wins some serious.
[00:19:12] Yeah.
[00:19:12] Yeah.
[00:19:13] Amazing.
[00:19:13] Immigrant to the United States,
[00:19:14] she's the lieutenant governor of Virginia.
[00:19:16] So that's what I think is important about these growing up
[00:19:21] where things aren't handed to you as much.
[00:19:23] Because I fought for everything I've had,
[00:19:25] everything my entire life.
[00:19:27] And I know what that means.
[00:19:29] And then I can assign value to that.
[00:19:32] So I'm guessing you didn't quite see this trajectory
[00:19:36] when you were putting some premium gas into some guy's
[00:19:39] Chevy for $4.75 an hour.
[00:19:43] Because I worked at Wendy's.
[00:19:44] Did you really?
[00:19:45] Yeah.
[00:19:45] I worked at Wendy's.
[00:19:46] What did you do there?
[00:19:47] I was the burger cook guy, which I would
[00:19:50] make burgers.
[00:19:51] And it's interesting.
[00:19:52] You go to Wendy's, the burgers are fresh,
[00:19:54] which means when eight people walk in,
[00:19:56] they make a rough guess.
[00:19:57] Sure.
[00:19:58] And they'll go, put on 10.
[00:19:59] So you put on 10.
[00:20:00] And if two of them don't sell, they go into a bucket.
[00:20:03] And that bucket gets turned into chili.
[00:20:05] But you know.
[00:20:05] I did not know that.
[00:20:06] Yeah.
[00:20:07] So I'm working at Wendy's.
[00:20:09] And I knew I wanted to go in the military at some point.
[00:20:13] At what point did the military seem like the call?
[00:20:16] Actually, let me hear the worst day
[00:20:18] of the 17-year-old van-o working at the gas station.
[00:20:23] Not eating.
[00:20:25] Just no food.
[00:20:26] Just not eating.
[00:20:28] Not enough money.
[00:20:29] You got to make rent.
[00:20:31] And I got to pay for gas for a car.
[00:20:34] I bought a, I'd say, 1969 Toyota Corona.
[00:20:39] Corona.
[00:20:40] Corona.
[00:20:40] Not a Corona.
[00:20:41] Corona.
[00:20:42] It was built in September, 1969, same month and year
[00:20:44] that I was born.
[00:20:45] It was red with a white racing straight, man.
[00:20:46] 500 bucks.
[00:20:47] Boom.
[00:20:48] Cash on the back.
[00:20:48] On the barrel head, right?
[00:20:50] You got to pay for gas because you got to go to work.
[00:20:52] You got to make rent.
[00:20:53] And sometimes you don't have money for food.
[00:20:55] And what's tragic, Jaco, is that people are getting there,
[00:21:00] again, in America.
[00:21:01] They're having to make those decisions.
[00:21:03] And it's shocking.
[00:21:04] So yeah, not eating was, you know.
[00:21:06] I mean, right now, clearly, that's going to be a good thing,
[00:21:08] dude.
[00:21:09] I tell people, like, we're nine meals.
[00:21:11] Could use some more of that, right?
[00:21:12] We're like, we're nine meals away from Anarchy at any point,
[00:21:15] right?
[00:21:16] And I'm like, 15 to 20 meals away from Anarchy.
[00:21:19] Let's be honest.
[00:21:22] I could be a castler for a while.
[00:21:23] That may be a good thing.
[00:21:25] So sometimes you're not eating.
[00:21:27] You're 16.
[00:21:28] You're 17.
[00:21:29] You're still working at the gas station.
[00:21:30] At what point do you go?
[00:21:31] So I went out.
[00:21:32] This ain't working.
[00:21:33] Check.
[00:21:33] I went out with a buddy of mine.
[00:21:35] His name was Kurt.
[00:21:36] And you know, we're trying to baron.
[00:21:39] We're in Oregon.
[00:21:40] And I'm like, let's join the Marine Corps.
[00:21:43] And he's like, yeah, let's join the Marine Corps.
[00:21:45] So we go out and we get all tuned up.
[00:21:47] And we're like the best Marines for six hours.
[00:21:50] And I wake up and I call him.
[00:21:52] I'm like, I do not want to join the Marine Corps.
[00:21:54] He's like, I do not want to join the Marine Corps.
[00:21:56] I go, let's join the Navy.
[00:21:57] He goes, OK.
[00:21:58] I picked him up.
[00:21:59] We went to their recruiting office.
[00:22:00] What?
[00:22:01] No.
[00:22:02] That was it.
[00:22:02] That was exactly as much thought that went into it.
[00:22:04] Now remember, now Gunny was, he was a Marine.
[00:22:08] My guy that I aspired to be.
[00:22:11] What made you say like you're fired up
[00:22:13] to go to the Marine Corps six hours later?
[00:22:14] I don't think so.
[00:22:15] What was?
[00:22:17] Sobriety.
[00:22:18] That's what happened.
[00:22:21] Did you understand anything about the military?
[00:22:24] And we're just like, hey, Navy, Marine Corps, that seems cool.
[00:22:29] They got cool uniforms.
[00:22:31] They carry machine guns.
[00:22:32] Yeah, no.
[00:22:32] And you know what?
[00:22:33] It's interesting if you want to, I mean, not to over-spiritualize
[00:22:36] things or get too philosophical about stuff.
[00:22:38] Sounds like we're about to.
[00:22:39] Sure.
[00:22:40] There's been several inflection points in my life.
[00:22:43] Or it's just kind of like, throw your chips to the wind
[00:22:45] and see what happens.
[00:22:46] Because at that point, I was going nowhere.
[00:22:48] And I realized that.
[00:22:50] I guess alcoholics call it an epiphany.
[00:22:54] You have this moment.
[00:22:56] And I kind of had that moment where I realized this is just not,
[00:23:02] I don't want to live this way the rest of my life.
[00:23:05] And so there had to be a change.
[00:23:06] And how do you change like that?
[00:23:08] I'm a high school dropout.
[00:23:09] I couldn't get accepted.
[00:23:10] I didn't know any of that stuff, right?
[00:23:13] And it just really, it was an epiphany.
[00:23:16] So I joined the Navy.
[00:23:17] Did you have to get your GED?
[00:23:18] How'd that work?
[00:23:19] I guess they gave me six months to get a GED.
[00:23:21] I was offered three different programs.
[00:23:23] Seaman apprenticeship, fireman apprenticeship,
[00:23:25] and airman apprenticeship.
[00:23:27] That's it.
[00:23:27] There was no other options.
[00:23:29] So just so everyone knows what that means, that means.
[00:23:32] Menial labor.
[00:23:33] The lowest jobs, the most menial jobs
[00:23:36] that you can get in the Navy.
[00:23:37] Those three jobs in the three different broad departments
[00:23:41] in the Navy.
[00:23:41] Yeah, straight up menial labor.
[00:23:43] And so I just like, OK, I signed on.
[00:23:48] I got stationed at Naval Weapons Station Concord.
[00:23:50] Hold on.
[00:23:51] Yeah, sorry.
[00:23:52] You said it took you six months to get your GED before you
[00:23:54] could leave?
[00:23:55] They're like, so I wanted to dab the late entry program.
[00:24:00] They said once you're active duty, you have six months
[00:24:02] to get a GED.
[00:24:03] So I went to my first duty station, Naval Weapons
[00:24:05] Station Concord.
[00:24:05] What year was this?
[00:24:06] 1988.
[00:24:07] 1988?
[00:24:08] Man, they were hurting for some people then.
[00:24:10] Listen, dude, Reagan wanted the 600 ship Navy.
[00:24:13] That's right.
[00:24:13] You could like, where's Harry Kimming's trenching?
[00:24:16] So you could like wipe the blood off a knife you just
[00:24:19] stabbed somebody with.
[00:24:20] And they're like, don't do that again.
[00:24:21] And they'll let you in the Navy.
[00:24:22] But come on in.
[00:24:23] Right.
[00:24:24] But now, that's something I was alluding to earlier,
[00:24:26] is that our standards now, people have not faced this
[00:24:30] adversity.
[00:24:31] And so we're taking, we're setting all these prerequisites
[00:24:34] for guys to go to different programs, especially
[00:24:35] specialized programs.
[00:24:36] That were kind of unrealistic.
[00:24:39] But yeah, so I would drive up over the Benisha Bridge.
[00:24:42] I can't remember the name of that.
[00:24:43] Meri Island.
[00:24:44] And I would take classes.
[00:24:45] And I took my GED and got that within the six months.
[00:24:49] So you were 18 when you actually get in the Navy?
[00:24:51] I was 18.
[00:24:51] I turned 19 in boot camp.
[00:24:53] OK.
[00:24:53] So you turned 19 in boot camp.
[00:24:54] How was boot camp?
[00:24:57] You know what I mean?
[00:24:58] It was just boot camp.
[00:24:59] Was it a shock to your system where you like?
[00:25:01] No.
[00:25:01] I was not one of those guys.
[00:25:02] Were you totally happy to be there?
[00:25:05] It's three hots and a cot, man.
[00:25:07] You like food.
[00:25:09] Yeah.
[00:25:09] I mean, yeah, apparently.
[00:25:13] Everyone understands what you're saying.
[00:25:17] So yeah, I mean, it was just what you're doing.
[00:25:19] And that's kind of how I live my life.
[00:25:22] I approach it.
[00:25:23] Like, this is what we're doing.
[00:25:25] And so let's just do it.
[00:25:26] Let's crack on and let's do it the best that we can.
[00:25:29] And that really paid off in buds.
[00:25:31] I'll tell you a story, though.
[00:25:32] So in order to get to buds, right,
[00:25:35] I joined the Navy.
[00:25:36] I'm working on my.
[00:25:37] Do you know about the seals at this point?
[00:25:38] I had no idea.
[00:25:40] They wasn't like, hey, Derek, check this out.
[00:25:41] By the way, you can never do this.
[00:25:42] You're going to be working on it because you're a scrub.
[00:25:45] That's essentially what I said.
[00:25:46] So I cleaned toilets and painted.
[00:25:47] So you get done with boot camp.
[00:25:49] Where do you get stationed?
[00:25:50] Naval weapons station, Concord.
[00:25:52] Concord, California, it's closed now.
[00:25:54] There's an ammunition station.
[00:25:55] You show up there.
[00:25:56] You're an E1.
[00:25:57] Maybe an E2.
[00:25:58] No, I made E2.
[00:26:00] I can't remember.
[00:26:01] E1, E2 doesn't matter.
[00:26:01] But you're a very low ranking individual.
[00:26:03] Right.
[00:26:04] But I still had this sort of, you know,
[00:26:07] I was a smart aleck, you know, to put it mildly.
[00:26:11] You're a smart aleck at 50.
[00:26:13] How old are you?
[00:26:14] 53.
[00:26:14] You're a smart aleck at 53.
[00:26:16] When we worked together, you were a smart aleck at 40-something.
[00:26:19] So I can only imagine it was even worse when you were.
[00:26:22] Here's the difference, Jaco.
[00:26:24] I have now earned it.
[00:26:26] I've earned it.
[00:26:27] When I was a young man, I didn't.
[00:26:30] I was a brash young man.
[00:26:31] And I didn't have humility.
[00:26:33] And so I decided to go to core school
[00:26:37] because I had a friend who worked at the clinic.
[00:26:39] And I wanted to go do that.
[00:26:41] So I had to work for six months, eight months, or whatever.
[00:26:44] After hours, I struck for a rate for all your civilians
[00:26:49] that's applying for a job.
[00:26:51] Did you apply for the job as Corman?
[00:26:54] I was a, right.
[00:26:55] So I made BM3, Bosin's Mate, third class, decorating.
[00:27:01] And then I went and became a Corman.
[00:27:03] But so here was the turn.
[00:27:05] A quarter inch shackle turned my life around.
[00:27:09] And that's a shackle.
[00:27:11] I don't know how to describe that.
[00:27:12] It's a fastener.
[00:27:14] It's a fastest and not a metal thing, right?
[00:27:16] So I was standing on the fan tail of the YTB.
[00:27:20] That's Yard Tug Boat 828, Karakasa, all yard tug boats
[00:27:24] in the Navy were named after American Indian chiefs,
[00:27:27] in case you're wondering.
[00:27:28] So I'm on the fan tail, that's the back of the boat.
[00:27:31] And I get beamed in the back of the head
[00:27:33] with a quarter inch shackle.
[00:27:35] And I turn around and there's nobody there.
[00:27:39] And I'm like, if I don't change my ways,
[00:27:42] these people will kill me.
[00:27:45] And that really opened.
[00:27:48] That was a reality check.
[00:27:49] And I don't encourage changing people's behavior
[00:27:53] modification through violence, but I'm just
[00:27:55] telling you my story.
[00:27:56] And I was like, wow, I need to change my ways now.
[00:28:04] And I did.
[00:28:06] And then I got to course school.
[00:28:07] So you have to apply to go to course school?
[00:28:09] Oh, yeah, yeah.
[00:28:10] So I worked at the clinic on base after hours.
[00:28:13] And it was like six or eight months.
[00:28:15] And I had to take a series of tests.
[00:28:17] I did all these general military trainings.
[00:28:19] I did a whole bunch of correspondence courses,
[00:28:21] like the NATO handbook on surgery and all these things,
[00:28:24] which is a course for physicians.
[00:28:27] I ordered it.
[00:28:27] Used to be able to order all these books through the Navy.
[00:28:30] And I just have a knack for it.
[00:28:32] I know I seem like a goofball, but I'm actually
[00:28:36] a knack for nerding out and studying on something
[00:28:39] and passing tests.
[00:28:40] Because I had been reading since a kid.
[00:28:41] You know what I mean?
[00:28:43] It wasn't strange to me to garner knowledge
[00:28:46] from the written word.
[00:28:47] And so being able to read things, absorb information,
[00:28:51] and then take things from disparate sources,
[00:28:54] combine them together to understand the best way
[00:28:57] to do things is just something I'm just good at.
[00:28:59] It's intuitive to me.
[00:29:01] I don't have to work at that.
[00:29:02] So you apply to go to course school?
[00:29:04] Right.
[00:29:05] And then I got accepted.
[00:29:07] And I put everything I owned in the entire world
[00:29:09] on the back of my motorcycle and drove like everything.
[00:29:13] Drove from Concord, California to San Diego
[00:29:16] and checked into course school later.
[00:29:17] How long is course school?
[00:29:20] About 11 weeks, I think.
[00:29:22] I mean, that was a while ago, dude.
[00:29:24] They didn't even have course school here anymore.
[00:29:25] And you still haven't heard about the SEAL teams yet?
[00:29:27] No.
[00:29:27] So I did.
[00:29:28] So that revelation must be coming.
[00:29:29] OK.
[00:29:30] So there was three guys that joined the Navy to be SEALs.
[00:29:37] One's name is Rodney.
[00:29:38] Unfortunately, he was killed working for the CIA
[00:29:41] after he got out of the teams.
[00:29:42] He graduated.
[00:29:43] Another one's name is Andy.
[00:29:44] He did.
[00:29:45] I don't know, ex-money ears got out.
[00:29:46] And the other one's name is Jeff.
[00:29:48] And Jeff didn't make it to Buds.
[00:29:50] Anyway, they're like, hey, I'm going to be a SEAL.
[00:29:52] This is at course school?
[00:29:53] This is at course school.
[00:29:54] And they're all like, brrr.
[00:29:56] And I'm me.
[00:29:58] And I'm like, what's the SEAL stuff?
[00:30:00] They're like, well, you have guns and planes and boats
[00:30:03] and fast cars.
[00:30:05] I'm like, well, I'll go do that.
[00:30:07] And they're like, you can't just say I'll go do that.
[00:30:10] And I go, well, why not?
[00:30:11] Why can't you just say I'll go do that?
[00:30:14] So I was kind of mocked a bit.
[00:30:16] And then you had, at that point, three chances to take
[00:30:20] this screening test.
[00:30:22] Did you do the same thing?
[00:30:23] What class were you?
[00:30:24] 177.
[00:30:25] OK, so I was 184.
[00:30:26] And so remember you had three chances.
[00:30:28] Oh, no, you're eating, weren't you?
[00:30:30] Yeah, yeah.
[00:30:31] I just did it in boot camp.
[00:30:32] Oh, because they let you do that.
[00:30:34] Yeah.
[00:30:35] Yeah.
[00:30:36] I did it in boot camp, passed.
[00:30:38] Yeah, so I failed this twice.
[00:30:41] And back then, like you failed the street times, you're out.
[00:30:43] We don't want to see you again.
[00:30:44] You're dead to the world.
[00:30:45] Get out of here.
[00:30:46] This is while you were a corpsman?
[00:30:47] This is while I was in core school.
[00:30:49] I was in a corpsman.
[00:30:50] To get billet to buds.
[00:30:50] To get a billet to buds.
[00:30:51] Got it.
[00:30:52] And you failed once.
[00:30:53] What'd you fail?
[00:30:54] Swim.
[00:30:55] OK.
[00:30:55] I didn't know how to do the side stroke.
[00:30:57] I've been swimming since I was a kid.
[00:31:00] I just don't know how to do a formal stroke.
[00:31:02] So I failed this thing twice.
[00:31:04] And they started renovating the barracks, which
[00:31:06] is not the oldest, but the second oldest building in San
[00:31:10] Diego at the Naval Hospital.
[00:31:12] That was our barracks.
[00:31:13] So they move us to 32nd Street, the Navy based on there.
[00:31:17] And by now, this is a personal thing at this point,
[00:31:20] because the push-ups, sit-ups, run.
[00:31:23] I don't know if you did dips.
[00:31:24] Anyway, crush all of them.
[00:31:26] Crush all of them.
[00:31:27] Can't do the swim.
[00:31:28] So I go to the pool.
[00:31:29] There's a nine-year-old kid in the pool.
[00:31:31] And he's doing the side stroke.
[00:31:33] And I'm like, hey, dude, can you show me?
[00:31:35] Because there was no mentoring.
[00:31:37] Remember that?
[00:31:37] It was like, go do this.
[00:31:39] No mentoring.
[00:31:39] I go, hey, man, can you show me how to do that?
[00:31:42] A nine-year-old kid.
[00:31:44] He's like, yeah.
[00:31:45] Just grab an apple, pull the apple down.
[00:31:46] Get it with your hand through the apple way.
[00:31:48] Grab another apple.
[00:31:49] Oh, no, man.
[00:31:50] Look at that.
[00:31:50] This kid was good.
[00:31:52] Right.
[00:31:52] That's a side stroke.
[00:31:53] So I did it past the test.
[00:31:57] That quarter in shackle gave me the humility, which
[00:32:00] was the thing that I was missing as a young man,
[00:32:03] to be able to ask a nine-year-old kid how to do the side
[00:32:06] stroke.
[00:32:07] And then I went.
[00:32:08] So somebody hawked that thing at you, this shackle?
[00:32:10] Yeah.
[00:32:11] And they just didn't give a shit.
[00:32:13] No.
[00:32:14] Listen, man.
[00:32:15] I mean, right in the back of the head.
[00:32:19] And then so, you know, there's a type of which
[00:32:21] are actually beautiful boats.
[00:32:22] There's big wide and phantome on the back.
[00:32:24] And then there's the old one level,
[00:32:26] which is where the coxswain's flat is, the wheelhouse.
[00:32:32] Clearly, they were up there.
[00:32:35] So I've had the ability, Jaco.
[00:32:37] And I think you have also an echo.
[00:32:39] Unfortunately, I don't know you well enough.
[00:32:41] I'm hopefully well.
[00:32:42] I don't.
[00:32:42] Whatever you're going to say, I doubt he has.
[00:32:45] There's people in the world that have the ability
[00:32:48] to understand when they're taking part in history
[00:32:50] or things that are significant to the point where
[00:32:52] that you should modify your behavior.
[00:32:54] Well, that's what I think.
[00:32:55] One of the key points about this is a lot of times,
[00:32:59] when you get hit in the head with a shackle,
[00:33:02] you look at everyone else and say,
[00:33:03] I can't believe they're doing this to me.
[00:33:06] I can't believe that someone.
[00:33:07] You get mad.
[00:33:08] You get mad at the Navy.
[00:33:09] You get mad at the people on your tugboat.
[00:33:12] You get mad at everybody else.
[00:33:15] When what you actually need to do is say, well,
[00:33:17] there's only one person I can control, and that's me.
[00:33:20] I'm the one that got myself on the back of this tugboat.
[00:33:23] I'm the one that got myself around these bunch of people.
[00:33:25] I need you something to get out of here.
[00:33:26] I need to take ownership of my life and move forward.
[00:33:29] And that's a huge difference.
[00:33:31] And it's a huge difference in mentality
[00:33:33] that can be the difference between staying where you're at.
[00:33:36] I mean, you obviously did the same thing at the gas station.
[00:33:39] At some point, you're like, you know, being hungry sucks.
[00:33:42] And I could be mad at my paycheck at the gas station.
[00:33:44] I could be mad at my car for using gas.
[00:33:48] Or I could say, hey, I put myself in this situation.
[00:33:50] I need to get myself out of it.
[00:33:51] Where's the recruiter?
[00:33:53] So that's the thing that you're talking about when
[00:33:57] you explain that to me.
[00:33:58] I think, yeah, well, that's going to have,
[00:33:59] that's the difference between moving forward, moving up,
[00:34:02] improving your station and life, or staying where you're at.
[00:34:06] Yeah.
[00:34:07] And if you have the wherewithal to do things,
[00:34:12] you should do things.
[00:34:14] I mean, some things are just that simple.
[00:34:16] You can sit around and hang out, or you can continuously
[00:34:20] try to improve yourself.
[00:34:22] And so I've got friends like that.
[00:34:24] One of them I got to give a shout out to is Mike Emmer.
[00:34:26] He's a dude up in our village in Butternut.
[00:34:28] He's just always doing things.
[00:34:30] He just got into sailing with his family now.
[00:34:32] So he sails in.
[00:34:33] This is a farmer who now has this big boat, sailboat,
[00:34:37] that he runs his kids around Lake Superior
[00:34:40] because he is always, him and Liz, she's just wonderful,
[00:34:44] have always kept their eyes open.
[00:34:46] And when people have their head down,
[00:34:48] we talk about that earlier with your posture,
[00:34:50] you just don't see the world around you.
[00:34:52] And I made a conscious decision to not do that.
[00:34:57] I made a conscious decision to be part of the equation.
[00:35:01] And I think more people, they should understand that.
[00:35:06] Not to get overly political here,
[00:35:07] but I talk to people, I'm like, hey, you can go outside
[00:35:12] and you can stare at a hill.
[00:35:14] It doesn't matter how long you look at that.
[00:35:15] The Calvary's not coming over the hill.
[00:35:17] They're not coming.
[00:35:19] It's you.
[00:35:20] You are the Calvary.
[00:35:21] So when you care enough about something,
[00:35:24] you've got to understand you are the person that
[00:35:27] can affect positive change.
[00:35:28] And so I empower people.
[00:35:29] And I go talk to them.
[00:35:30] I go, look, man, we always talk about the guys
[00:35:33] jumped into San Maria Gliese or whenever the beach is in Normandy
[00:35:35] or the Marines in Quezon and Vietnam
[00:35:37] or in the Argonne Forest in World War I.
[00:35:41] We think about them as these people that at the singular point
[00:35:45] in time when their country, our country needed them,
[00:35:47] they stood up.
[00:35:49] And they bodily entered into something
[00:35:52] knowing that they may not come back alive.
[00:35:56] In the same vein, that's who the people that care
[00:36:00] about the United States are now.
[00:36:01] Now, I hope to God they never have
[00:36:02] to get involved in physical combat.
[00:36:04] We've both been there.
[00:36:05] And it's a horrible thing.
[00:36:07] And war should be horrible so people
[00:36:09] don't want to get engaged in it.
[00:36:10] But they're doing that now.
[00:36:13] And they have to show courage because courage is contagious.
[00:36:16] We've seen this.
[00:36:17] A lot of people out in the civilian world have not.
[00:36:19] And I'll give them an example that people can understand
[00:36:22] because it's kind of funny.
[00:36:23] During the lockdown, I think it's 323.10.
[00:36:29] It was this statute in the Wisconsin state law
[00:36:32] that says that the governor has the ability
[00:36:34] to exercise emergency powers.
[00:36:36] It's like a 30-day window.
[00:36:37] So I'm like, OK, check.
[00:36:38] I don't know what's going on.
[00:36:39] It's like, if your dude's in combat, you're like, go do this.
[00:36:42] It's like, well, sir, I think we should have an emergency
[00:36:45] situation.
[00:36:45] Boom.
[00:36:46] Got it.
[00:36:46] But then when that emergency ends or the legal authority ends,
[00:36:50] then it's time to challenge authority.
[00:36:51] The same person that is a law-buying citizen,
[00:36:55] that's your duty to follow the law when you're
[00:36:57] in a crisis situation.
[00:36:59] It's the same person that says, no.
[00:37:02] When that expires, that is your duty as a citizen.
[00:37:07] It's to stand up for what's right.
[00:37:08] Anyway, so this lockdown is going on.
[00:37:12] And I'm like, I'm no longer compliant.
[00:37:14] The legal authority has expired.
[00:37:16] I will not do this.
[00:37:17] I'm not.
[00:37:18] So I go to Walmart because I'm a smelly, dirty Walmart shopper.
[00:37:21] I am.
[00:37:22] And I don't have a mask on.
[00:37:23] And someone recognizes me.
[00:37:24] They have a face shield and a mask on.
[00:37:28] And the dude looks at me and he's like, what are you doing?
[00:37:31] I go, I'm not complying.
[00:37:33] And he said, well, I'm not either.
[00:37:35] And he takes his stuff out and throws it into his cart
[00:37:38] in Walmart.
[00:37:39] And courage is contagious.
[00:37:42] Wait, he didn't die immediately?
[00:37:43] No.
[00:37:44] But listen, don't get me wrong.
[00:37:47] I had COVID twice.
[00:37:49] And it was horrible.
[00:37:50] And a lot of people died from it.
[00:37:52] And if you want to wear a mask right now, wear it.
[00:37:54] I mean, 100%.
[00:37:55] If you want to wear a mask and a face shield,
[00:37:56] you want to wear gloves, you want to hand sanitize,
[00:37:59] and all that stuff, that's your ability as an American citizen
[00:38:01] to choose the way you want to live your life.
[00:38:04] And now everybody's coming around.
[00:38:05] The CDC just said that.
[00:38:07] People should be able to choose.
[00:38:08] So they should have been able to choose.
[00:38:09] Back then, I wrote an op-ed in April of 2020
[00:38:12] called Freedom of War for Fear.
[00:38:14] And it laid it out like, you got to pick.
[00:38:16] Because you can't have both.
[00:38:17] What's your book?
[00:38:19] Extreme Ownership?
[00:38:20] Well, there's a bunch of them.
[00:38:21] The Icon of Leadership?
[00:38:22] But you talk about fear and stuff, right?
[00:38:24] Oh, Like You the Dragons.
[00:38:26] The Kids Book.
[00:38:26] OK, Mindkiller, right?
[00:38:29] You can't function if you're terrified.
[00:38:31] So I think it's just a different way
[00:38:34] of thinking about how we should interact as citizens.
[00:38:38] And so you want to do that stuff, go ahead.
[00:38:40] I'm just not going to.
[00:38:41] I will not join you.
[00:38:42] But I won't mock you either, because it's your choice.
[00:38:46] All right, speaking of your choices,
[00:38:47] you choose to figure out how to swim from this nine-year-old
[00:38:50] kid.
[00:38:50] Now you pass your test.
[00:38:51] I pass my test.
[00:38:52] And you're going to Buds.
[00:38:54] I go to Buds.
[00:38:56] Did you have any clue about Buds at this point?
[00:38:59] Absolutely nothing.
[00:39:00] And again, that's why I succeeded.
[00:39:03] So I do it.
[00:39:05] 184 and graduated with 184.
[00:39:07] Neil Roberts, first guy killed in Afghanistan.
[00:39:09] We have got our.
[00:39:10] I was a team two with him, yeah.
[00:39:11] OK, so we had our arms over each other's shoulders
[00:39:13] graduating from Buds.
[00:39:15] I mean, he's a great man.
[00:39:16] They call him Thiefy.
[00:39:18] Yeah, super guy.
[00:39:19] But so I got there and I'm like, I don't know what to do here.
[00:39:22] And I show up at like, you go to A.B. Brights.
[00:39:25] Is that still there?
[00:39:26] That area cleaner?
[00:39:27] Yeah, OK.
[00:39:27] So you've got your pants that you can stand up by themselves.
[00:39:31] Because they're so starched.
[00:39:32] Like, seriously, that's not a joke.
[00:39:34] You can stand them up.
[00:39:35] And so it's like, I pay all this money
[00:39:38] to have these things done.
[00:39:40] And I go down.
[00:39:41] I'm not going to say.
[00:39:42] I don't know what his first name is.
[00:39:43] I'll just call him C. That's the first letter of his last name.
[00:39:46] I don't know what a embarrassing guy.
[00:39:48] And it's like four in the morning.
[00:39:50] I'm wearing this uniform.
[00:39:52] And I'm walking like, what is that?
[00:39:54] Pillsbury Doeboarder, anyway.
[00:39:57] Or Gingerbread Man or whatever.
[00:39:58] And this guy comes up to me and he looks me up and down.
[00:40:02] This is an instructor?
[00:40:03] No.
[00:40:03] This is a fellow student.
[00:40:05] He looks me up and down.
[00:40:06] He goes, you're not going to make it.
[00:40:09] Like whispers to me.
[00:40:11] And I'm like, well, what do I do now?
[00:40:14] I pay all this money for these uniforms.
[00:40:16] Like, do I get a refund?
[00:40:17] Or do I leave?
[00:40:20] And so I'm like, all right.
[00:40:22] Well, I guess I'm not going to make it.
[00:40:24] And so I go to class.
[00:40:26] And you know, one thing leads to another.
[00:40:28] And it's very difficult.
[00:40:29] Seal training in case you haven't read a book or anything.
[00:40:34] And then it occurred to me.
[00:40:35] I mean, I actually have a more, again, another one
[00:40:37] of these epiphanies, when I understand exactly what the deal
[00:40:40] is.
[00:40:42] We're sitting on the beach.
[00:40:44] We're PT. And we're looking in towards the compound.
[00:40:47] So the oceans that are back.
[00:40:49] And the instructor, he's looking out to sea.
[00:40:54] And we're exercising.
[00:40:56] And it starts to rain, which is bad.
[00:40:58] But you'll get through it.
[00:41:00] And then it starts to lightning and hail.
[00:41:02] It's like storm.
[00:41:03] The rare, rare accursion for San Diego.
[00:41:05] Exactly.
[00:41:06] So working on that tugboat, moving ammunition,
[00:41:10] when it's their hero.
[00:41:11] I can't remember.
[00:41:12] Oh yeah, hero condition.
[00:41:13] Hero condition.
[00:41:14] Right.
[00:41:14] That's when there's electric stuff there.
[00:41:16] You've got to stop.
[00:41:17] Things will blow up.
[00:41:18] And so I'm thinking, wow, this is bad.
[00:41:21] We're standing on the beach.
[00:41:22] The only thing we don't have is a golf club holding up there.
[00:41:25] And the instructor, he goes and halt in buds.
[00:41:29] That's not like smoking me if you got him.
[00:41:31] You're standing at rigid attention.
[00:41:32] He runs into the compound.
[00:41:33] I'm like, well, good.
[00:41:34] We're going to get us off this beach.
[00:41:36] We've got to get out of here.
[00:41:37] It's a lightning storm.
[00:41:38] And he comes running back out.
[00:41:41] And he has a dive mask on.
[00:41:44] And I'm like, oh, I get it.
[00:41:47] This is the contract.
[00:41:50] So my part of the contract was I'm
[00:41:53] going to show up here every single day
[00:41:55] and do everything I possibly can to meet your standard.
[00:41:59] My instructor is not my standard.
[00:42:01] Your standard.
[00:42:02] And his part of the contract was he's
[00:42:05] going to show up every single day and make sure
[00:42:07] that I adhere to his standard.
[00:42:10] And it was like a light bulb appeared above my head.
[00:42:12] So it's just raining so hard that he needed a dive mask.
[00:42:15] Because he couldn't see if we were performing the functions
[00:42:17] to his standard.
[00:42:18] Check.
[00:42:20] So that was it.
[00:42:22] I'm like, I get buds at this point.
[00:42:24] Well, how deep were you in the buds a couple weeks?
[00:42:26] That was PTRR.
[00:42:28] Oh, so you weren't even classed up yet.
[00:42:32] So when I started, there was guys with like sandbag.
[00:42:35] So they're like, you have to do the O-Chorus.
[00:42:39] And I'm just making up these numbers now in 10 minutes.
[00:42:41] And then they had to be 930.
[00:42:43] And you had this progression, right?
[00:42:45] So they would do it just passing on purpose.
[00:42:49] Because I knew there were better athletes in me.
[00:42:51] And I took the opposite approach.
[00:42:53] I was like, I'm going to get up every single day
[00:42:54] and try as hard as I can for everything I do.
[00:42:57] Like every single thing I do.
[00:42:59] And then I'm going to get better.
[00:43:01] I'm not going to stay the same or decrease.
[00:43:06] I will get better.
[00:43:07] And I know I can do this because there's somebody
[00:43:09] who tried it making me do it.
[00:43:12] So it's possible.
[00:43:13] And so I did that.
[00:43:15] That's how I got through the buds.
[00:43:16] And I swear, man, third phase out at the island,
[00:43:18] we're flying back.
[00:43:19] And I was certain that plane was going to crash.
[00:43:23] Because there was no way I could be graduating from Buds.
[00:43:25] You know what I mean?
[00:43:26] What was the, what do you remember about like Hell Week?
[00:43:30] Was Hell Week a challenge for you?
[00:43:32] It was, but I was a booker leader.
[00:43:33] Because I was an E4.
[00:43:34] Oh, you were an E4.
[00:43:35] I was an E4.
[00:43:36] Wheel of some heat, dude.
[00:43:37] And I've found, yeah.
[00:43:41] I have found personally that when you are in a leadership
[00:43:43] position and you have people that you need to be concerned
[00:43:46] about, then you're putting their care above your own,
[00:43:49] which I've done my whole life.
[00:43:50] So that was just something that you do.
[00:43:53] That it actually makes the time go by better.
[00:43:57] Because you're not worried about yourself.
[00:43:59] You're not focusing internally.
[00:44:01] This is hard.
[00:44:02] I'm freezing.
[00:44:02] And I'm chafed or whatever.
[00:44:04] You're looking out for your men.
[00:44:06] And you get this.
[00:44:07] But you're like, this person is having a bad time.
[00:44:11] And what can I do from my position to make this better
[00:44:16] for them so that we can accomplish the mission?
[00:44:20] And if someone couldn't make it in Buds, people are like, oh,
[00:44:24] you should help them and carry them along.
[00:44:25] I took, again, the opposite approach.
[00:44:27] If this person can't get through Buds and we're going to
[00:44:30] carry him through Buds, what are they going to be like when
[00:44:33] they get to the skill teams?
[00:44:35] So you can take that to an extreme.
[00:44:37] If somebody was having a bad day, you help them out.
[00:44:40] But if someone was consistently performing below par, I don't
[00:44:45] want them around.
[00:44:47] So for me, Hell Week was very challenging.
[00:44:52] But at the same time, I think it was easier for me than any
[00:44:54] of the guys on my boat crew.
[00:44:56] Because they were more focused on them getting through this.
[00:45:01] And I was more focused on getting us through it.
[00:45:04] I liked Hell Week because there's nothing I could fail.
[00:45:07] Like everything else.
[00:45:08] Because I wasn't good at anything.
[00:45:09] I wasn't good at running.
[00:45:11] I wasn't good at swimming.
[00:45:11] I wasn't good at the O-Course.
[00:45:12] I wasn't going to tell everybody that.
[00:45:14] I was always like, I could fail this swim.
[00:45:17] I could fail this run.
[00:45:18] I had to just put out so hard.
[00:45:20] But Hell Week was like, oh, we just got to finish?
[00:45:22] Bro, I could do that.
[00:45:23] Just not quit?
[00:45:24] That's my game.
[00:45:26] Want to play that game?
[00:45:27] That's my game.
[00:45:27] No sleep and no quitting?
[00:45:29] That's my game.
[00:45:30] If there was a pro sport, I'd be doing good at that sport.
[00:45:34] So Hell Week for me was fun.
[00:45:35] What about the water?
[00:45:36] Was the water all good for you?
[00:45:37] Pool, comp, and all that stuff?
[00:45:39] Yeah, so I failed pool comp the first time.
[00:45:42] Me too.
[00:45:43] Do you know why I failed pool comp the first time?
[00:45:45] Because I forgot the end of the brief.
[00:45:47] What was the end of the brief?
[00:45:49] Kiss the regulator and ascend.
[00:45:51] What you did just ascend?
[00:45:52] I sat there.
[00:45:54] So I did the whole everything.
[00:45:56] And I just forgot the end of the brief.
[00:45:57] Kiss the regulator and ascend.
[00:45:58] And McCarthy was my instructor.
[00:46:01] Did you see him around?
[00:46:02] Oh, yeah.
[00:46:02] Yeah, he'd, brrr, and he pulls me out of the pool.
[00:46:05] He's like, what is wrong with you?
[00:46:06] And I go, what do you mean, Secretary McCarthy?
[00:46:08] He goes, dude, if you had just kissed the regulator
[00:46:12] and ascended, you'd be fine.
[00:46:13] And I was like, oh, check, Raj.
[00:46:14] That's the end of the brief.
[00:46:17] So no, the water workers fine.
[00:46:18] I might have to struggle swims.
[00:46:20] But um.
[00:46:21] Like passing swims?
[00:46:22] You're a slow swimmer?
[00:46:24] Dude, a nine-year-old taught me how
[00:46:25] to do the side stroke like two weeks before I went to Butts.
[00:46:29] So in fact, yes, I was a slow swimmer.
[00:46:33] It was actually about three months before I went to Butts,
[00:46:35] because in that interim period from core school,
[00:46:38] to going to Butts, I worked at the Naval Hospital.
[00:46:40] And I collected dirty linen.
[00:46:43] Awesome.
[00:46:43] But I also, so the linen collection shop at Balboa
[00:46:48] and Naval Hospital, I don't know if it's still there,
[00:46:49] was down in the basement right next to the morgue.
[00:46:52] And I was like, I'm going to go to Butts training.
[00:46:54] And I should understand more about human physiology,
[00:46:58] because I'm going there.
[00:47:00] And so I would go do, it's like Wednesday morning,
[00:47:03] he's got a name Braswell.
[00:47:05] He was the autopsy instructor.
[00:47:07] So I would go do these autopsies.
[00:47:10] You know, I would stand there.
[00:47:11] I finally worked my way up to weighing organs.
[00:47:14] But just to really truly understand physiology.
[00:47:16] Because you read that in a book, and you
[00:47:18] can do a cadaver lab and that sort of stuff.
[00:47:20] But when you have something that is newly deceased,
[00:47:25] you have a much better understanding of how things truly
[00:47:27] work in your body.
[00:47:28] It was a fascinating experience, actually.
[00:47:30] That was an interesting little off-ramp.
[00:47:32] We just took into the morgue.
[00:47:34] Well, I mean, so I was a corpsman.
[00:47:37] And then I went to the 300F1 program down in San Antonio,
[00:47:40] Texas after I graduated from Butts.
[00:47:42] And then I went, finally, after two platoons at Team 4
[00:47:47] in South and Central America and then Bosnia-Hurts, Govenia,
[00:47:50] I finished the 18 Delta Course, of which
[00:47:52] I was the distinguished undergraduate of my class.
[00:47:54] In case you want to go.
[00:47:55] Boom.
[00:47:55] You know why?
[00:47:56] Because I didn't want to go.
[00:47:59] Because I was a frogman.
[00:48:00] And I want to take six months off to go work with the Army,
[00:48:03] going to school anywhere.
[00:48:04] I want to stay in a platoon.
[00:48:05] That was my thing.
[00:48:06] If you're a seal, you should be in a platoon.
[00:48:08] And if you're in a platoon, you should be at war.
[00:48:10] That's it.
[00:48:11] And God bless them.
[00:48:13] The guys who do 27 years at trade ed and mar ops instructors.
[00:48:16] Thanks.
[00:48:17] That's so known.
[00:48:18] I also have to do that.
[00:48:19] But you get the deal.
[00:48:20] The SEALS natural environment is combat.
[00:48:22] Cut, try, period.
[00:48:23] Over.
[00:48:25] But yeah, so I didn't want to go.
[00:48:27] And I'm like, Army, Special Forces guys.
[00:48:29] I have so many SF friends.
[00:48:31] They're good dudes.
[00:48:32] I'm like, how do I beat them?
[00:48:34] Academically.
[00:48:36] So they're very serious about academics.
[00:48:39] That course was really hard.
[00:48:41] That was a hard course.
[00:48:41] I didn't go through it.
[00:48:42] But I remember, you would kick guys' asses.
[00:48:44] So when I graduated, the commander
[00:48:47] had to give me their commander's excellence going.
[00:48:50] You loved that.
[00:48:50] It was just like their hand is shaking.
[00:48:52] Like, argh.
[00:48:54] So and it was just very, very interesting.
[00:48:57] And if you're going to do your job, do it the best you can.
[00:48:59] And that's just, I mean, everyone should
[00:49:01] take that approach of life.
[00:49:03] Have you ever seen this documentary called Hero Love Sushi?
[00:49:08] I have not seen it.
[00:49:09] But I know about it.
[00:49:10] It's fascinating.
[00:49:11] I started watching it, bro.
[00:49:12] And honestly, it didn't really grab me.
[00:49:14] And I don't have a bunch of time to be watching movies that
[00:49:17] aren't getting me out of the gate.
[00:49:18] And it just didn't do it.
[00:49:19] I'll get to it at some point.
[00:49:21] I think when I'm older, like maybe 65, 70,
[00:49:24] I'm going to roll into that.
[00:49:25] Because I've heard it's great.
[00:49:26] And I think I was totally focused.
[00:49:27] And he has the most popular sushi place in the world.
[00:49:31] And there's the hard to get to.
[00:49:33] And it's this little shack on the side of the road
[00:49:35] or whatever, a really small thing.
[00:49:37] And he's the best in the world.
[00:49:38] What I got out of all of that is that you
[00:49:39] have the attention span of a net.
[00:49:41] I may.
[00:49:42] I may.
[00:49:43] So this guy's talking about, you don't have
[00:49:47] to be proud of your job.
[00:49:49] But you have to be proud of your work.
[00:49:51] Interesting.
[00:49:52] That's the whole crux of that movie.
[00:49:53] That's why it's so fascinating.
[00:49:55] And you've got to get to that.
[00:49:57] So you can be doing anything.
[00:49:58] Just do it the best you can.
[00:49:59] That's 100%.
[00:50:00] And by the way, that's the way.
[00:50:01] If you don't like your job, the way out of your job
[00:50:04] is to do the job to the absolute best of your ability.
[00:50:08] The way to stay in your shitty job that you don't like
[00:50:10] is to not perform well at it.
[00:50:12] And it's not going to work out well for you
[00:50:14] to stay in that job.
[00:50:14] Or you're going to get an even worse job.
[00:50:17] So you're flying back from San Clementi Island,
[00:50:18] which means you're graduating from Buds.
[00:50:21] And you get stationed.
[00:50:22] Where do you get?
[00:50:23] Silt team four.
[00:50:24] Did you pick East Coast?
[00:50:25] I picked Silt team four.
[00:50:26] And this is why.
[00:50:28] Because Silt team four was the only Silt team
[00:50:31] I was aware of that had been in combat since the Vietnam War.
[00:50:34] And just like we just talked about, man,
[00:50:36] a Silt's natural environment is combat.
[00:50:39] So I put that as my first choice.
[00:50:42] Because I thought that was the team that
[00:50:44] has the highest probability of entering into combat.
[00:50:48] That was in Panama.
[00:50:51] That was Panama was 1989.
[00:50:54] So now it's 1991.
[00:50:57] October 23, 1992, I graduated from Buds.
[00:50:59] So it was in 93-ish or whatever.
[00:51:01] So at the time, that was it, man.
[00:51:06] And these guys.
[00:51:07] Yeah.
[00:51:08] And at the time.
[00:51:09] Our products operations and all that stuff.
[00:51:10] Yeah.
[00:51:11] At the time, the Silt teams were geographically oriented.
[00:51:14] And so that meant that different teams
[00:51:16] had different geography that they covered.
[00:51:18] And Silt team four at the time covered Central and South
[00:51:22] America.
[00:51:23] Which means every Spanish speaking person in the Silt
[00:51:26] teams went there immediately.
[00:51:28] And there was things going on down there.
[00:51:32] There was the counter drug stuff.
[00:51:34] There was revolutions going on.
[00:51:35] So that sounded like a good place for you,
[00:51:39] the way you looked at it.
[00:51:40] That's where you wanted to go.
[00:51:41] Yeah.
[00:51:41] And I tell you what.
[00:51:42] You were smart of me.
[00:51:43] You know, I wanted to go to Silt team one
[00:51:44] because I thought we were going to NAM.
[00:51:47] I was like, bro, team one, Vietnam.
[00:51:50] There's got to be stuff going on.
[00:51:52] You know, I went to Vietnam in 1998.
[00:51:54] That's awesome.
[00:51:55] On the recovery missions.
[00:51:56] During task force full time.
[00:51:57] Yeah.
[00:51:59] Yeah, man.
[00:51:59] So I went to team four.
[00:52:00] I did two platoons there.
[00:52:02] How was it when you showed up at team four?
[00:52:03] Because that's the other thing.
[00:52:04] At team four.
[00:52:05] And that was a guy had a bunch of friends that went to team four.
[00:52:08] And team four was like an awesome team at that time.
[00:52:10] Yeah.
[00:52:10] Team four was the East Coast equivalent of team five.
[00:52:16] Much more relaxed and but super, super professional.
[00:52:20] So you would do, I think, six weeks of land warfare at Pickett.
[00:52:24] And then you'd go down to Panama and you spent your first month
[00:52:27] and a half living in the jungle.
[00:52:29] I actually did that trip from team one.
[00:52:31] Did you really?
[00:52:31] Yep.
[00:52:32] We went down there and did 34 days or something out in the J.
[00:52:35] Right.
[00:52:36] So you seriously knew what you're doing.
[00:52:38] And I really appreciated that a lot.
[00:52:41] And that's why I volunteered to go to TrayDead
[00:52:45] because I was not satisfied with our land warfare training.
[00:52:48] I thought it was completely inadequate.
[00:52:51] Coming from that background at team four.
[00:52:53] So I did those two platoons.
[00:52:54] And then here's your job.
[00:52:56] Cormand and intelligence.
[00:52:57] Oh, that's right.
[00:52:58] You were a medic.
[00:52:59] Medic and intel.
[00:53:00] So I did eight platoons as a Cormand and a medic.
[00:53:04] And I mean, you don't really do that anymore
[00:53:05] once you become a chief.
[00:53:06] But it was still my specialty.
[00:53:08] My forte.
[00:53:09] And how were those deployments?
[00:53:11] They were very interesting.
[00:53:13] I mean, I got my first.
[00:53:15] So this is like 94.
[00:53:16] You're going on your first deployment?
[00:53:18] 94, 95.
[00:53:19] 94, 95 deployment.
[00:53:20] I got my first Navy achievement medal when I was in STT
[00:53:25] at the time, which was interesting.
[00:53:27] I told you, because I got my second down on my first deployment.
[00:53:30] The first one was because some guy got shot at a basketball
[00:53:33] outside of a grocery store in Virginia
[00:53:35] and went and saved his life, as you do.
[00:53:38] And then there was another terrific accident.
[00:53:42] So I was a new guy.
[00:53:43] But I'm like, I stick to my guns.
[00:53:45] And I paid the man for it several times.
[00:53:49] But I would insist on bringing my medical gear back to it.
[00:53:52] We were staying in four different condos in Salinas, Ecuador.
[00:53:57] And I would insist of packing up all of my medical gear
[00:54:00] and taking them back to my room every night after training.
[00:54:03] And like, new guy, we want to go there.
[00:54:05] I'm like, I don't care.
[00:54:07] Tune me up if you want, but I'm going to have my stuff.
[00:54:10] Like 2 o'clock in the morning, big thing.
[00:54:12] This car was driving, and they lost control
[00:54:17] and hit a cement telephone pole.
[00:54:20] They just split the car in half and shot bodies
[00:54:22] all over the street.
[00:54:24] So I was like, holy beanbags.
[00:54:27] And I had all my stuff and made the Naval base.
[00:54:32] This is written in the soul, Navy Tune Metal.
[00:54:35] And made the Navy base reopen their clinic
[00:54:39] and had all my stuff and all the guys.
[00:54:40] My god.
[00:54:41] But I miss sometimes being around SEALs
[00:54:44] because they just perform.
[00:54:45] You're like, bam.
[00:54:46] They can be sitting around doing something.
[00:54:47] They are on it.
[00:54:49] So everybody has that nascent medical training,
[00:54:52] and they all just perform.
[00:54:53] I'm like, this, this, this, God, check.
[00:54:55] We saved everybody's lives.
[00:54:58] So that was part of the reason that this deployment was so
[00:55:02] terribly interesting.
[00:55:04] And then 96 rolls around.
[00:55:08] 95, 96 rolls around.
[00:55:10] And the war was going on in Bosnia-Hurtskivina.
[00:55:15] So is this now your second platoon?
[00:55:16] This would be my, this wasn't even a platoon.
[00:55:19] I had done two platoons.
[00:55:20] And this was like kind of an augment thing.
[00:55:22] It was really great.
[00:55:23] So they're trying to figure out a way
[00:55:27] to implement the Dayton Accords that were signed in 1995
[00:55:30] after Storm 95, which is a Croatian offensive that
[00:55:33] kept the Serbs back.
[00:55:35] So they signed this Dayton Accords,
[00:55:37] and they're trying to figure out how to implement them.
[00:55:38] Prior to that, there was a program called the Joint
[00:55:41] Commission Observers, and those were tier one guys that
[00:55:43] were going in and doing JTAC stuff and whatever.
[00:55:48] And so this transitions to how are we going to maintain this
[00:55:51] presence on the ground.
[00:55:52] So they transitioned from the tier one guys to the theater
[00:55:55] soft, and SF had this mission.
[00:55:58] And they wouldn't let us do it.
[00:56:00] Were you around for, what were you doing?
[00:56:02] So what year is this?
[00:56:04] 96.
[00:56:05] 96, I was in training, because I was at SEAL Team 1.
[00:56:08] OK.
[00:56:08] So you remember the JCO stuff?
[00:56:09] Were guys going to go to Bosnia?
[00:56:11] So they come back on the grind or Team 4,
[00:56:14] which is just part of a compound.
[00:56:16] I'm on the East Coast.
[00:56:18] And they're like, OK, SF can't man this mission.
[00:56:22] We're going to let SEALs do it.
[00:56:23] So everyone was like, yeah, we're going to war.
[00:56:26] Excited, right?
[00:56:27] And they go, we're taking E7 in the bus.
[00:56:29] No, ha!
[00:56:29] And I'm like, I'm going to E5.
[00:56:32] So I'm like, come on, man.
[00:56:34] So everybody goes to the language lab, signs up.
[00:56:36] This is something that I learned.
[00:56:38] And I think I'm not sure.
[00:56:41] I hope that I'm wrong.
[00:56:42] But I see the military going back to the way it was in the 90s.
[00:56:46] Politically and all this stuff, right?
[00:56:48] I mean, I do believe we are auguring in.
[00:56:50] The Department of Defense is broken right now.
[00:56:53] So everybody goes and signs up on this legal pact.
[00:56:57] And then they call them in, rank, one, the next, next,
[00:57:01] next, next.
[00:57:02] And everyone's like, well, actually, I got to mow my lawn.
[00:57:05] Well, my daughter's in soccer.
[00:57:06] Well, they worked their way down.
[00:57:09] They get down to E5 Derek.
[00:57:11] So some of the guys that signed up weren't really wanting to go.
[00:57:15] You understand this concept when you're standing in a group
[00:57:19] and you need to be like, oh, going to war?
[00:57:21] Yeah, I'm a seal.
[00:57:22] That's great.
[00:57:22] And they get really excited about it.
[00:57:23] But then when you get them on one-on-one,
[00:57:26] they don't want to be there.
[00:57:27] You know what I mean?
[00:57:27] They join the canoe club.
[00:57:29] They want to work out and all that stuff.
[00:57:32] That transcends all spectrum.
[00:57:34] That's not unique to seals.
[00:57:35] So they get down to me.
[00:57:38] And that's freaking crazy, dude.
[00:57:39] Right.
[00:57:40] And so I go in to see my CNC.
[00:57:44] His name is Perry.
[00:57:45] It's a total redneck, awesome guy.
[00:57:48] And he goes, well, Van Orden, what you doing?
[00:57:51] I go, Mass Chief, General Patton had to petition General
[00:57:57] Pershing as a second lieutenant to be included on his
[00:58:01] expedition during the Mexican-American War.
[00:58:04] And he goes, you try to tell me.
[00:58:05] You some kind of GD General Patton?
[00:58:09] He did not abbreviate that.
[00:58:11] And I said, no, Mass Chief.
[00:58:12] But I'm telling you, my bags are packed right now.
[00:58:14] And I can leave in 10 minutes.
[00:58:15] And he's like, beat it.
[00:58:17] Now, at this point, are you married?
[00:58:20] You're married.
[00:58:21] When did you meet your wife?
[00:58:22] In San Diego, right before.
[00:58:26] Right before I went to Buds, we got married right after Buds.
[00:58:29] Got it.
[00:58:30] So I spent, I was a seal for just under 22 years.
[00:58:34] I spent 16 years away from home.
[00:58:37] So I took every single training trip.
[00:58:40] I went to every single school I could.
[00:58:41] Because again, you have to find, if you're doing
[00:58:44] something, do it.
[00:58:47] And that's a biblical principle.
[00:58:49] Be either hot or cold.
[00:58:50] If you're lukewarm, I will spit you out.
[00:58:51] That's in the Bible, man.
[00:58:53] So if you're doing something, do it.
[00:58:56] And so I got every single qualification I possibly could.
[00:58:59] So in case something came up, I would be the one selected to
[00:59:02] do it to go defend my country.
[00:59:05] I mean, I'd live my life that way, right?
[00:59:07] How fast did you have kids?
[00:59:09] Did you have kids when you got to team four?
[00:59:12] By the time we got to team four, we had two kids.
[00:59:15] Damn.
[00:59:16] Yeah.
[00:59:16] And we have four now.
[00:59:17] I have eight grandchildren.
[00:59:19] Impressive.
[00:59:19] Gosh, they're so awesome.
[00:59:21] Everything you hear about being a granddad?
[00:59:24] Not even close to how cool it is.
[00:59:26] Seriously, they're just wonderful.
[00:59:28] But yeah, so I went on that deployment.
[00:59:30] It was very interesting.
[00:59:32] I remember, so we had these different houses.
[00:59:35] I didn't live in a base.
[00:59:36] My house was Whiskey 40.
[00:59:38] So it was multinational division Southwest.
[00:59:41] I worked for a guy named John Cass, was a British colonel.
[00:59:44] Reported to a special operations command
[00:59:46] and control element, SOC-C. That was in Ponyluka.
[00:59:48] The guy named Repass.
[00:59:50] Mike Repass was a major at the time.
[00:59:52] I wound up working for him again when he was a two star in Germany.
[00:59:54] It was really cool.
[00:59:55] But we went into Sarajevo, we fly in.
[01:00:00] We went to another joint commission observer house, the SF guys.
[01:00:03] And kind of like slowly get you in.
[01:00:06] There's two seals there in my house.
[01:00:07] And we moved out to Bugano, the town where they've been.
[01:00:12] And then like seven to nine SF guys.
[01:00:14] I get up every morning.
[01:00:15] I drive out and I talk to all the military and local political
[01:00:20] figures and police figures.
[01:00:21] And the mission was to provide a ground truth about what's going on.
[01:00:26] And I had so much responsibility as an E5,
[01:00:32] like to plan these missions and go out.
[01:00:34] And I had like a pistol and a butt pack with one other seal
[01:00:38] with a pistol and a butt pack.
[01:00:39] And you're going out and talking to these people
[01:00:42] who just want to kill you.
[01:00:44] And the level of, I guess the Yiddish term would be,
[01:00:50] hutzpah.
[01:00:51] You've got to get out there.
[01:00:52] And I'll give you this example, man.
[01:00:54] So we go up to Banyaluka to the 117th VRS.
[01:00:59] That is a Serbian military unit.
[01:01:03] I wanted to go check in with these cats.
[01:01:05] And it's kind of on sort of on a little hill.
[01:01:08] But back then for SACOM, you had to have the right look angle
[01:01:12] and ask.
[01:01:12] Remember?
[01:01:13] Like you had a point at a Saturday.
[01:01:14] I was a calm guy.
[01:01:14] So yeah.
[01:01:14] OK, yeah, right.
[01:01:15] You get it.
[01:01:16] Other people don't.
[01:01:17] Where's my phone?
[01:01:18] I can talk to it.
[01:01:20] Anyone?
[01:01:20] Anywhere.
[01:01:20] Right.
[01:01:21] So back then you had to like, boom, I had to get the satellite.
[01:01:24] So I had, I do the math problem.
[01:01:26] I look at where I'm going.
[01:01:27] I realize that I'll have to point this antenna into a mountain.
[01:01:33] And I'm not getting comms.
[01:01:35] And there were no cell phones, right?
[01:01:37] So I understand that, you know, it's just me and my buddy,
[01:01:40] Meg.
[01:01:41] So we go up there.
[01:01:42] And I'm late.
[01:01:44] Or excuse me, we're on time.
[01:01:46] This guy's not there.
[01:01:46] His name was Chulich, Colonel Chulich.
[01:01:49] We walk in and there's this dude standing right there
[01:01:53] who has got rosy cheeks like mine, huge white beard,
[01:01:57] fatter belly than me.
[01:01:59] And I'm like, oh my gosh, this guy looks like Santa Claus.
[01:02:02] And I start chuckling.
[01:02:03] So this is a Serbian base.
[01:02:04] Remember, NATO had been bombing the Serbs.
[01:02:07] And they are.
[01:02:08] Yeah, well, isn't it 64 days or something?
[01:02:10] Right.
[01:02:10] They want no part of us.
[01:02:11] And so they are not happy.
[01:02:14] And they're like, what are you talking about?
[01:02:17] And my term, his name is Zoran Azuminidich.
[01:02:20] We call him Zorca because he was fat and like Zorca, like Orca.
[01:02:25] OK, got it.
[01:02:25] Right.
[01:02:26] So Zoran, they're like, he's starting to worry.
[01:02:31] And they're like, what are you laughing at?
[01:02:33] I go, all right, well, it looks like this is going down right now.
[01:02:37] And there's like 400 Serbs there.
[01:02:40] And two of us, we have 31 rounds of 9 millimeter with us.
[01:02:45] Like that's it.
[01:02:46] So I go, OK, hey, in the United States,
[01:02:48] we have a guy whose name is Santa Claus.
[01:02:49] And you look just like him.
[01:02:51] That's what we're laughing at.
[01:02:52] And they start laughing.
[01:02:53] They go, oh, they're Serbian Orthodox.
[01:02:55] They have St. Nicholas.
[01:02:55] They're like, that's what we call him too.
[01:02:58] I was like, OK.
[01:03:00] And then so we sit down at this table.
[01:03:02] Chulich, yeah, that really happened.
[01:03:04] It gets.
[01:03:05] All of a sudden, an international incident,
[01:03:06] because you were laughing at Santa's.
[01:03:08] I couldn't help it.
[01:03:09] Right, it gets more banana.
[01:03:10] So we're sitting at this huge table.
[01:03:13] And Chulich is supposed to show up at the head of the table.
[01:03:16] And whenever you use an interpreter,
[01:03:17] you put him in between you and whoever you're talking to.
[01:03:20] So they should just be a conduit for language.
[01:03:25] So he's sitting there.
[01:03:26] This guy's just late, late, late, late.
[01:03:28] We're sitting there drinking chlivovica, just plum brandy.
[01:03:32] Excellent, actually.
[01:03:33] In France, they call it O2D, water of life.
[01:03:36] Maybe it's a mirror bill, in case you're wondering.
[01:03:38] So this guy finally shows up.
[01:03:41] And my radio is in this rucksack.
[01:03:44] And this dude, he's dressed like a Russian mafia guy.
[01:03:47] This is the dude that just showed up?
[01:03:49] The colonel who should have been there three hours before.
[01:03:51] He was in Bon Jovi, goofing off.
[01:03:53] Anyway, black leather jacket, hair slicked back.
[01:03:55] And he's like, you know, Serbians are great warriors.
[01:04:00] I'm like, yeah, they are.
[01:04:02] He goes, Serbians kept Europe safe from the Ottomans
[01:04:07] for 300 years.
[01:04:08] I'm like, yeah.
[01:04:11] Serbians could kick NATO out of here anytime we want.
[01:04:14] I look at him, I go, you see that radio?
[01:04:17] Right there?
[01:04:18] You keep that up.
[01:04:19] I'm going to rain fire from the sky on you in 10 minutes.
[01:04:22] Is that clear?
[01:04:23] And Zoran, remember, I'm going to eat five, dude,
[01:04:26] talking to this Serbian colonel.
[01:04:27] So Zoran's there.
[01:04:28] He's just like, like, instant sweat.
[01:04:31] Like he just ate a ghost pepper.
[01:04:34] And he's like, I go, Zoran, you tell him exactly what I said
[01:04:39] right now, or you're out of here.
[01:04:41] And he's like, OK.
[01:04:45] You keep that up.
[01:04:46] He's going to rain fire from the sky on you in 10 minutes.
[01:04:49] And Tula just like, what I meant to say was the Serbians
[01:04:53] and NATO can have an effective working relationship
[01:04:55] to make sure that we secure peace and Bosnia.
[01:04:57] I'm like, go check.
[01:04:58] So we get down at the meeting.
[01:05:00] It went really well after that.
[01:05:01] We get back in the car and Zoran's like,
[01:05:03] Derek, you know where you're at?
[01:05:04] And I go, yeah, I'm in Kula Camp.
[01:05:06] And he goes, do you know what happened to Kula Camp?
[01:05:08] I'm like, no.
[01:05:09] So what I failed to notice is that all these buildings
[01:05:12] were freshly painted and everything was nice.
[01:05:14] They'd been destroyed.
[01:05:15] They'd been destroyed by NATO.
[01:05:17] So when I told that guy, I'll be raining fire from the sky
[01:05:20] on you in 10 minutes.
[01:05:24] He understood what that meant.
[01:05:27] That terribly interesting.
[01:05:28] That's crazy.
[01:05:29] That's when I was at E5, dude.
[01:05:31] Yeah.
[01:05:32] That's crazy the amount of responsibility you can get.
[01:05:35] Yeah.
[01:05:36] We had in the military.
[01:05:39] I was one of the guys that ran the six platoons.
[01:05:42] The mission was de-classified in 2009.
[01:05:44] So we protected the top six Iraqi officials.
[01:05:47] And during the election cycle, I
[01:05:49] had this guy named Ibrahim Al-Jafri.
[01:05:51] So I was a platoon chief this time.
[01:05:53] So this is team one?
[01:05:54] No, this would be team five.
[01:05:56] So I was at team four.
[01:05:58] And then I went to 18 Delta.
[01:06:01] I went to team one.
[01:06:02] OK, so.
[01:06:03] I'm going to pay a comp platoon there.
[01:06:04] So hold on.
[01:06:05] Slow down a little bit.
[01:06:05] So you're at team four.
[01:06:08] You get done at team four.
[01:06:09] Correct.
[01:06:10] And you get done with the Spositing Deployment,
[01:06:12] which is an awesome deployment.
[01:06:13] But back then, it's like you were.
[01:06:14] It was the only war we had.
[01:06:15] The most stoked you could possibly be at that time.
[01:06:20] And then you get forced to go to 18 Delta against your will.
[01:06:24] Right.
[01:06:24] But you go down there and kick ass.
[01:06:26] Correct.
[01:06:26] Graduate number one guy in the class.
[01:06:27] That is correct.
[01:06:29] Now what happens?
[01:06:31] OK.
[01:06:33] So I was supposed to go to Damneck.
[01:06:36] You know all you have to see, daddy's,
[01:06:37] and they lay out your whole plan for you.
[01:06:39] And the corpsman detailer is for same as Tom.
[01:06:41] He's a very good guy.
[01:06:42] I don't worries that now.
[01:06:43] So the plan was for me to finish 18 Delta.
[01:06:46] And at that point, they were only taking 8490 ones.
[01:06:49] That's the senior level.
[01:06:50] It's for your audience.
[01:06:51] So there's 8492s.
[01:06:52] That's the basic Special Forces medic.
[01:06:55] And then the full graduate of the Army Special Forces
[01:06:58] medical sergeant's corps.
[01:06:59] That time Damneck was only taking these guys.
[01:07:02] So that's why I had to go to 18 Delta.
[01:07:04] Tom sets all the set.
[01:07:06] But then I'm sitting there.
[01:07:08] Remember, this is 98, 99-ish.
[01:07:11] And I had been gone for the five and plus years I was at team
[01:07:15] four.
[01:07:16] And Sarah and I had three kids at the time.
[01:07:19] She's a San Diego native.
[01:07:21] And I really felt horrible.
[01:07:23] You know what I mean?
[01:07:24] Because I'm a husband and a dad and all this stuff.
[01:07:26] And her family's still here.
[01:07:28] They're wonderful.
[01:07:30] So I was like, you know what?
[01:07:32] I'm going to ask to get assigned to the West Coast
[01:07:35] so that I can continue to work as a frogman as I should.
[01:07:38] But she'll have more support network around me.
[01:07:40] Or around her, sorry.
[01:07:41] So we're sitting in this meeting.
[01:07:46] Tom pulls all the corps around.
[01:07:47] Where do you want to go?
[01:07:48] Where do you want to go?
[01:07:49] And he's asking them, bam, bam, bam, east coast, west coast,
[01:07:51] whatever.
[01:07:52] And he looks to me and he's like just skipping over me.
[01:07:55] And I said west coast.
[01:07:57] And he was like, what?
[01:07:59] I go, yeah, west coast, man.
[01:08:01] He's like, check.
[01:08:03] Goes around everybody.
[01:08:04] I put in five, because that was the team four.
[01:08:07] Then I put in three.
[01:08:08] Then I put in one.
[01:08:09] Now this is the person that decides where you are going.
[01:08:13] Like it is up to him.
[01:08:15] Where did I go?
[01:08:16] Team one.
[01:08:17] He was so mad at me personally.
[01:08:21] And it was a great experience there.
[01:08:23] But it was just so different.
[01:08:26] Like I got yelled at, I would say,
[01:08:29] 40 times in the first two months I was there.
[01:08:31] Because I had the wrong pair at team one.
[01:08:32] At Stalard team one.
[01:08:33] When did you get there?
[01:08:35] Gosh, he was 98, late 98.
[01:08:37] So FAC was there.
[01:08:38] And you know, the overshadings.
[01:08:39] So I left in 98.
[01:08:41] OK, so that's.
[01:08:41] So you had just, we just missed.
[01:08:43] I left.
[01:08:45] I left in the spring of 98.
[01:08:49] So if you didn't get there until.
[01:08:51] I can't remember.
[01:08:53] I deployed in 2000.
[01:08:55] So whatever that cycle would be.
[01:08:57] So yeah, I left in the spring of 98.
[01:08:59] But yeah, at that time, just we called team one, Stalard team
[01:09:04] one, because it was like strict.
[01:09:05] And it was traditional and it was uniform inspections
[01:09:08] and haircut inspections and all these kind of things
[01:09:11] were going on.
[01:09:12] And I loved it.
[01:09:14] And well, that's why you wrote a book called
[01:09:16] like Discipline Equals Freedom.
[01:09:17] And I didn't.
[01:09:19] Let's just be really clear about that.
[01:09:20] You know what I mean?
[01:09:21] Yeah.
[01:09:22] And it's one of those things where, you know, that's where I
[01:09:24] was kind of raised, you know, from a young kid to, you know,
[01:09:27] that's where I've got all my first experience.
[01:09:30] And you know, like you talk about faculty,
[01:09:32] faculty was like my.
[01:09:34] It's a legend.
[01:09:35] And like a legit friend who looked out for me and my group
[01:09:40] of friends, we were all kind of his boys.
[01:09:44] And you know, we worked, we freaking busted our ass.
[01:09:46] And that's what, you know, what happened?
[01:09:48] I remember you checking out because you were there with Chris.
[01:09:51] Yeah.
[01:09:51] Yeah.
[01:09:52] Yeah.
[01:09:53] Yeah.
[01:09:53] That's when I was.
[01:09:54] And I was I was I was sailor of the year at team one.
[01:09:57] Well, yeah, that was.
[01:09:58] But I was the only five in history.
[01:10:03] You made E5 or I was.
[01:10:05] You're a Z five.
[01:10:06] Silt and one as any five, which was crazy.
[01:10:08] But part of that was because of fact, like fact, like, you know,
[01:10:11] I was worked hard for fact.
[01:10:13] I worked right for him in training cell and stuff.
[01:10:16] But yeah, it was this very strict environment of much more
[01:10:19] militaristic than the other teams.
[01:10:22] And I went from there to team two and team two was similar.
[01:10:25] Right.
[01:10:25] That was it was.
[01:10:26] No, we call it.
[01:10:27] Yeah, it was pretty solid.
[01:10:29] They're the same.
[01:10:30] They were they were the same.
[01:10:31] Tilting one and till team two were definitely on the spectrum
[01:10:35] of way more militaristic way.
[01:10:37] So that's and you know what happened at team one, a lot of guys
[01:10:40] from team one would hate it and would go to team five.
[01:10:46] They would go down the street, team five and just be like, oh,
[01:10:48] now we can like act like humans.
[01:10:50] Right.
[01:10:50] And be chill.
[01:10:51] And so and that would be cool.
[01:10:53] That's a that's a nice transition.
[01:10:54] Your transition in the opposite direction is not a nice transition.
[01:10:57] It was like I'd had the wrong Paris.
[01:10:59] There's like a matrix.
[01:11:00] So Dean Cummings, who is he's a great dude.
[01:11:02] I mean, he was the CMC there.
[01:11:04] And it was always like fan art and you know, this hat and the socks
[01:11:08] and this shoes and whatever.
[01:11:09] I'm like, so finally I go, hey, Mastery, remember, I've done two platoons.
[01:11:13] One combat deployment to Bosnia was the I got the defense
[01:11:17] maritory service medal as the most highly decorated guy for my rotation
[01:11:21] because of some other stuff that I did there.
[01:11:23] Right.
[01:11:25] Honor graduate of my Army Special Forces Medical Stardust course.
[01:11:27] I'm not some new guy that just fell off, you know, the Bud's train.
[01:11:31] Right.
[01:11:32] I am experienced at that point.
[01:11:34] I was a journeyman seal.
[01:11:35] Yeah.
[01:11:36] You know what I mean?
[01:11:37] Not a master.
[01:11:37] I was a journeyman.
[01:11:39] And finally, I'm like, hey, Mastery, can I get like a matrix
[01:11:42] of what I can wear with what?
[01:11:44] Because I'm not doing this on purpose.
[01:11:46] I just don't know what you expect me to wear every day.
[01:11:50] So P.T. is this and then you change it.
[01:11:52] He was like fan art and I go, I'm not joking.
[01:11:55] Yeah.
[01:11:55] Then he realized I was sincere.
[01:11:57] Yeah.
[01:11:57] You know, because.
[01:11:58] Dude, the guy you're talking about, Chris, who's like one of the biggest
[01:12:01] studs in human history, but we were in Bud's together.
[01:12:05] Yeah.
[01:12:05] And then we get to team one and we're going on a run like we're new guys.
[01:12:09] Yeah.
[01:12:09] And he walks out for the run.
[01:12:10] He's wearing a visor, like a visor like, you know, like, I don't know.
[01:12:14] He still wears a visor.
[01:12:15] We used to cut those.
[01:12:16] The hat off.
[01:12:17] Yeah.
[01:12:17] So he walks out with a visor on and faculty who didn't know us at the time,
[01:12:21] we're just new guys, looks at him and he goes, if I see you wearing that again,
[01:12:26] I'm sending you to the fleet.
[01:12:28] Like, like we just got that with Bud's and he's telling him he's going to send
[01:12:33] him to the fleet.
[01:12:35] Yeah.
[01:12:35] And by the way, this guy, Chris is like this, a total stud in every way.
[01:12:40] He's one of those mutant humans.
[01:12:42] Yeah.
[01:12:42] He's a mutant human.
[01:12:43] That is incredible.
[01:12:43] And he relieved me in Iraq.
[01:12:45] Okay.
[01:12:46] I got a cool story about that.
[01:12:47] Remind me of that.
[01:12:47] Nice.
[01:12:49] So you eventually figure out what you got to do to keep your, keep forgetting
[01:12:54] your astute at the whole team one.
[01:12:55] Correct.
[01:12:56] Do a pay-com deployment and then force 21 came about.
[01:13:01] Remember that?
[01:13:02] Thankfully.
[01:13:03] Thankfully.
[01:13:03] Well, thankfully and no, there's some very distinct, I mean, like hardcore
[01:13:09] negative squalor because of force 21.
[01:13:12] The first and foremost one is it seals don't want to do stuff anymore.
[01:13:15] Yeah.
[01:13:16] I guess the thing is at that time, it was needed.
[01:13:20] It was needed and it was lucky because if we were gone from the old system into
[01:13:25] what we ended up deploying as once not 11, it would have been really much harder
[01:13:28] transition.
[01:13:29] We would have pulled it off.
[01:13:30] And when I say seals don't want to do stuff anymore, I mean, we're stone cold
[01:13:32] killers, right?
[01:13:33] That's not changed.
[01:13:34] I just mean like the day to day sort of things.
[01:13:36] We've lost that.
[01:13:39] We've lost the ability to like learn how to sew your own gear because people, I
[01:13:43] know how to use an industrial sewing machine as did everybody in the
[01:13:45] seal teams because you'd make your own stuff in the parallel.
[01:13:47] Things like that.
[01:13:48] How do you build a duck and whatnot?
[01:13:50] But so.
[01:13:52] What was your job in your platoon at team one?
[01:13:55] I was a corpsman.
[01:13:56] So, so yeah.
[01:13:57] And I was a Intel guy.
[01:13:58] That's what I did.
[01:13:59] That's your thing.
[01:13:59] That's my thing.
[01:14:01] I got it.
[01:14:01] But so force 21 comes around and again, I was I was distinctly
[01:14:08] dissatisfied with the line of warfare training that I got at team one.
[01:14:12] I it was it was not adequate because remember I came from team four where you
[01:14:18] spent that was what you did.
[01:14:20] I mean, you lived in the J and so I'm like, there's no war going on.
[01:14:24] There's nothing.
[01:14:25] I go, I'm going to and remember it was over at Brown or Turner field.
[01:14:29] What's the you know, next to the building's over in Coronado.
[01:14:33] What do we what do we talk about that field Turner field or yeah, Turner field.
[01:14:37] Yeah.
[01:14:38] Okay.
[01:14:38] So this is this is how discombobulated this wasn't it's fascinating.
[01:14:41] They just put the road cones like they put a road cone with like team one,
[01:14:44] team five, team three, trade at and you would go stand behind the road cone.
[01:14:48] That's how I got to trade it.
[01:14:50] I stood behind a road cone because that's how they figured out how to detail people.
[01:14:55] Yeah.
[01:14:56] It was kind of cool.
[01:14:57] Actually, it started cool, but it was a mess.
[01:14:59] And so I walk over to the building, the Starship, you know, I don't know if
[01:15:03] they're even there anymore, but the one that was shared by one and three and we
[01:15:07] started trade out.
[01:15:09] We had like the second floor or whatever it was.
[01:15:11] I walk in an empty room.
[01:15:12] It's me and Jeff Green.
[01:15:15] Then we're like, we're it like we're getting them trade land warfare.
[01:15:20] And so I went through everybody's safes in all of the teams and I took all of their
[01:15:27] documentation going back to the Vietnam War, you know, the type stuff, after action reports,
[01:15:33] and I consolidated all those things and we wrote all of the curriculum for land warfare
[01:15:38] and then special reconnaissance, taking the lessons and going back from our forefathers
[01:15:41] that gave us our, you know, fierce reputation and then worked those over and over again.
[01:15:47] But I get there, we start doing that and then September 11th happens and I was down.
[01:15:55] We lived in Navy housing and I'm like, what the heck?
[01:15:59] We got a phone call from a guy named Andy Dalton, retired SEAL Senior Chief, his wife,
[01:16:05] Cheryl, just beautiful people.
[01:16:07] It's wonderful.
[01:16:08] Oops, sorry.
[01:16:09] And he's that team too at the time and they're like, turn on your television.
[01:16:14] So we turn it on and we're like, what the heck is going on?
[01:16:17] And so I go, hey honey, keep the kids home from school.
[01:16:21] I do not know what's happening.
[01:16:22] I drive to the team area.
[01:16:24] We get snipers up in the building.
[01:16:26] We don't know what's happening.
[01:16:27] And I remember I went with this big VAT board, this big white board and I took a red marker
[01:16:32] and I wrote war and these big letters right there.
[01:16:36] And at that point we had desks and everything like war, like it's on.
[01:16:41] And so from that point on, I try to get out of there because we're at war, right?
[01:16:47] And a lot of people was the skipper there and every morning I go in his office just
[01:16:50] like I do parry beers.
[01:16:53] Like, okay, I'm ready to go back to the back.
[01:16:56] He's like, you're going to Afghanistan when I go to Afghanistan, Vano.
[01:16:58] And I'm like, ready to go every morning, every morning, ready to go, ready to go.
[01:17:02] And then we're going out to Nile and I think I was gone.
[01:17:04] I mean, like 290 days that year.
[01:17:07] Then finally he's like, okay, you can go leave me alone.
[01:17:11] So I weaseled my way into an L and O position for the siege of Sodov and I worked that for
[01:17:16] about a month and then I was down working for the chief of station in Kabul because
[01:17:20] I identified a problem.
[01:17:22] I looked at the entire spectrum of all of the operations that were taking place and
[01:17:27] I'm looking, we were completely, we were not employed to the capacity that we should be
[01:17:32] as seals and it's because we didn't have assets and authorities and all this stuff.
[01:17:36] So I laid this plan out and I'm like, if we tied this asset to this person who has control
[01:17:41] over this, then we can execute the mission better as seals.
[01:17:45] And I went to John, what was his name?
[01:17:49] Sileski.
[01:17:50] Colonel Sileski was the siege, siege of the commander.
[01:17:53] I said, Colonel, NAV's office not being employed to our capacity.
[01:17:56] And he's like, I know what's going on.
[01:17:58] I said, sure, if we do this, this, this, this and this and he goes, sorry, beat it.
[01:18:02] He was, he was the finest joint warfare fighter I've ever worked with.
[01:18:06] I mean, repass was another one.
[01:18:07] He's another army guy, unfortunately.
[01:18:09] I wish he could lay out this list of seal admirals.
[01:18:13] I can say that about, there's a few, but yeah, John was just, he was amazing.
[01:18:18] And he's like a down there and get it on.
[01:18:21] Fan, oh, what's up?
[01:18:22] Beat feet.
[01:18:23] So we tied together for theater soft, the first real interagency integration.
[01:18:31] Like biometrics.
[01:18:32] Remember biometrics?
[01:18:33] So everyone's like, so I was there and I was sitting around, you know, reflecting because
[01:18:40] you should reflect.
[01:18:41] And I was looking at one of those charts where it has all the people on a targeted list.
[01:18:47] And I was like, we don't know who is still around off this list.
[01:18:53] We don't know.
[01:18:55] And so I went and talked to a guy named Jax.
[01:18:57] He's still a super good friend of mine.
[01:18:58] He's the senior FBI agent in the country.
[01:19:01] And his office was right around the corner from my down in Kabul at the annex.
[01:19:06] And I'm like, Jax, how does the FBI know who people are after they're deceased?
[01:19:13] And he's like, well, you know, we do fingerprints.
[01:19:16] We do all the stuff.
[01:19:17] And I go, okay.
[01:19:19] So how do we do that here?
[01:19:20] And he's like, well, I don't know.
[01:19:22] I mean, this is a huge story.
[01:19:24] So I figured out a thing for us to be able to initially fingerprint folks.
[01:19:30] So the first time, this is why I am the force comp of the SEAL teams.
[01:19:35] So the first time that theater soft ever used biometrics in Afghanistan really in the war
[01:19:39] and terror was because I cooked up this idea with this dude who was on the Memphis SWAT
[01:19:43] team.
[01:19:45] And so we went out to this very complicated series of stuff.
[01:19:49] They see what 30 and 47s and all night and you know, big target deck and everything.
[01:19:54] And he had like the Johnny G man, you know, 1930s FBI fingerprint kit, the blue suitcase
[01:20:01] with the silver corners to fingerprint.
[01:20:05] These, you know, the enemy combatants that were no longer around.
[01:20:10] That's how all that started.
[01:20:11] That was an incredibly interesting thing, man.
[01:20:15] And then I rolled back and I went to team five where I was a potential.
[01:20:19] What year was that?
[01:20:20] What year was that?
[01:20:21] They were you in Afghanistan?
[01:20:22] 2003.
[01:20:23] I left October 13th, 2003.
[01:20:25] I remember that because it's the.
[01:20:28] That's when you left Afghanistan for my first tour.
[01:20:31] Yeah.
[01:20:32] Wait, you left for Afghanistan?
[01:20:33] No, I came back.
[01:20:35] Got it.
[01:20:36] I came back.
[01:20:37] So it took me, I was there for six or seven months.
[01:20:40] So, you know, do the math between September 11th to that point.
[01:20:44] But that's the birthday of the Navy.
[01:20:47] There you go.
[01:20:48] I was not aware of that.
[01:20:50] What?
[01:20:51] Yeah.
[01:20:52] I was like, horrible sailor.
[01:20:53] I'm horrible.
[01:20:54] I'm horrible sailor.
[01:20:55] Sorry about that.
[01:20:56] But, um, yeah, I came back and I went to team five where I was a potential.
[01:21:01] So you get to team five now it's 2003.
[01:21:04] So at this point we are full on like everyone's going to war.
[01:21:08] To win it.
[01:21:09] Iraq opened up right when I got back from Afghanistan.
[01:21:11] I can't remember when we invaded, but it was right around there.
[01:21:13] I saw it was so the plan for that was 1003 Victor.
[01:21:17] So 1003 was the baseline operational plan and then the letters on the end are how many,
[01:21:24] um, how many different right.
[01:21:26] So it got down to Victor.
[01:21:27] So 1003 Victor was the plan while I left and all the heavy lift aircraft started leaving
[01:21:31] Afghanistan when I was there.
[01:21:33] And I'm like, there's only so much heavy lift aircraft.
[01:21:36] I go, Oh my gosh, they're going to do 1003 Victor.
[01:21:40] So me coming back, I don't know exactly the periodicity when that they actually invasion
[01:21:45] kicked off, but I knew it was going to happen because of the heavy lift aircraft.
[01:21:51] So you know, I'm a platoon chief and I want to go to war with my dudes.
[01:21:56] I mean, I, there's one of these books written by Dick couch that they interviewed us when
[01:22:02] I was teaching land warfare.
[01:22:04] And in that book, I'm like, he's like, what do you want to do?
[01:22:07] Essentially, I'm like, my goal is to become a platoon chief.
[01:22:09] Like that's it.
[01:22:10] That to me, that's a pinnacle of a enlisted sales job has been opportunity.
[01:22:15] I was a troop chief later, but that was, you know, the thing.
[01:22:19] And then we wind up, they, they get this mission, this mission set protecting these
[01:22:23] Iraqi dignitaries.
[01:22:24] And I'm like, Oh man.
[01:22:28] So I mean, not that it's not important, but the war was not going well at the time.
[01:22:34] And again, I said this earlier, but that mission is declassified in 2009.
[01:22:38] So the top six Iraqi officials were protected by seal patents.
[01:22:42] Then it's kind of cool.
[01:22:45] They randomly assigned NFL football teams names.
[01:22:48] That was your, your call sign.
[01:22:51] Guess what mine was?
[01:22:52] No idea.
[01:22:53] Packers from Wisconsin.
[01:22:54] I'm like, this dude might live, man.
[01:22:56] Like, whoa.
[01:22:57] So, um, yeah, we protected a guy.
[01:23:00] He was a deputy vice president named Ibrahim al-Jafri.
[01:23:02] He was a family physician at six kids, uh, fled Saddam, lived in Iran, went up in London.
[01:23:08] And, um, it was, it was really, it was amazingly, uh, interesting to do that mission.
[01:23:17] And all the bros are out down.
[01:23:19] You guys are doing your gig, you know, and, um, I was essentially, I went to every place
[01:23:25] in that country running protection for a guy that's running a political campaign during
[01:23:31] a war where everybody wants to kill you.
[01:23:33] Yeah.
[01:23:34] I know.
[01:23:35] It was a miracle.
[01:23:36] Not just a miracle.
[01:23:37] It was a great, great, awesome work by the guys to keep all those guys safe.
[01:23:41] I mean, there was, everybody wanted all the, well, not everybody, but a big number of people
[01:23:48] wanted to kill one or any one of those people.
[01:23:53] And that leadership was kept alive for how long was that mission?
[01:23:57] Cause you said I was out doing, I wasn't doing anything at that point.
[01:24:00] I'd come back, you know, I really, you know, my timing was really, really good because
[01:24:05] I was, went up to just DA's for my first deployment, which was just awesome.
[01:24:11] As we left that mission came up.
[01:24:14] And then when I came back, it was over.
[01:24:16] So I had awesome timing as far as not having to do that mission.
[01:24:20] It lasted through, I mean, I came back after the elections.
[01:24:25] So again, the forest comp thing, remember everybody's fingers?
[01:24:28] Yeah.
[01:24:29] All right.
[01:24:30] So there's a picture of this guy who became the first democratic elected prime minister
[01:24:32] in Iraq's history.
[01:24:33] Right.
[01:24:34] And then there's a picture of him with his finger up there.
[01:24:36] I'm standing directly behind the camera that took that picture because I was responsible
[01:24:42] for his security.
[01:24:44] So back to Chris, man.
[01:24:46] So he's coming in and Bliff is there and we're rotating out, right?
[01:24:50] And two really funny things happened with him.
[01:24:52] One it's a prestige thing.
[01:24:54] So wait, so he's coming in with team seven or who's he coming in with?
[01:24:59] Your team five must have been.
[01:25:00] Yeah.
[01:25:01] I don't know who it was.
[01:25:02] It was Chief and cool and bliff was is I see, you know, and so two funny things happen.
[01:25:07] There's a cultural thing in some Arabic countries, Iraq being one where you want to be as close
[01:25:15] to the center of power as possible.
[01:25:16] I guess that's here in the United States too.
[01:25:18] But so we would run these motor kids, right?
[01:25:24] Lead limo file.
[01:25:25] And then you'd have elements ahead of you and then behind you.
[01:25:30] So if anything happened, you can skedaddle and these guys get in the gunfight.
[01:25:33] So you're protecting the principal.
[01:25:35] And I talked to these guys over and over again.
[01:25:37] I'm like, look, you're very important people.
[01:25:40] I get that.
[01:25:41] You know, you're the minister of whatever the heck, but our sole function is to make
[01:25:46] sure that echo lives.
[01:25:48] You know what I mean?
[01:25:49] We're going to help you with everyone medical, but that will not be to the detriment of making
[01:25:55] sure that echoes a lot.
[01:25:56] Check.
[01:25:57] We always try to weasel into this convoy and these guys had one of those beautiful Mercedes
[01:26:03] bands like the powder blue.
[01:26:05] You know, I'm talking to the big just awesome.
[01:26:08] And the guy's name was Adnan Phil.
[01:26:10] He was his security chief.
[01:26:12] Phil Phil is Arabic for pepper because he had a real hot temper, you know, and Chris
[01:26:18] is in the car with and we're sitting there, you know, blazing through Baghdad and looking
[01:26:25] them here.
[01:26:26] And it's interesting when you're in combat, you get to that point where you see everything.
[01:26:31] Do you know what I mean?
[01:26:32] Like things are happening over here and you have a full holistic understanding of your
[01:26:37] environment.
[01:26:38] And that's really why I think people miss being in that, you know, in combat because
[01:26:43] you are completely alive.
[01:26:45] Anyway, so I'm talking to them like, Oh my gosh, I want to suck this guy's weasel behind
[01:26:49] us in this powder blue Mercedes.
[01:26:51] It's on that Phil Phil.
[01:26:52] So I just opened up my door like this, this up armor, and I point my M4 back at them.
[01:26:59] I mean, clearly, I'm not going to shoot him.
[01:27:00] But I point my M4 at him.
[01:27:03] He's like, it goes back to the back of the line of this, you know, huge motor game.
[01:27:07] And Chris was like, what just happened?
[01:27:09] He actually used some of the expletives.
[01:27:11] And I'm like, I'm trying to tell you, these people are going to keep doing that.
[01:27:14] They're on our side.
[01:27:16] But it's very important that they understand the ground rules that are being set here.
[01:27:22] And that's going to happen over and over again.
[01:27:23] Chris, doesn't matter how hard you try, they're going to keep doing this.
[01:27:27] And then the other thing was funny, we're down at, do you remember who Tarek Aziz was?
[01:27:32] I remember that name.
[01:27:33] Saddam Hussein's foreign minister, the guy with the big sunglasses.
[01:27:36] Okay, so his house was taken over by a guy named Abdul Aziz Hakim, who was part of the
[01:27:42] Dawa party and was right by the, you exited the green zone, went over the 14th July branch
[01:27:48] and it's like right there.
[01:27:50] So that's where all these meetings are taking place.
[01:27:51] So we had to go down there.
[01:27:53] They only take the AIC, which is the agent in charge.
[01:27:55] It was the renamed OIC.
[01:27:58] They take him inside.
[01:27:59] They didn't want anybody else there.
[01:28:00] So we've got all these cars around.
[01:28:02] And I have my car and my body armor's in there, my helmets in there, my rifles in there, and
[01:28:07] I have a pistol.
[01:28:09] And we'd set up everywhere and you'd be there for hours and hours and hours.
[01:28:12] So I'd go around checking everybody.
[01:28:13] It was good to go.
[01:28:15] I'm in Chris and Bliss car.
[01:28:20] And I'm like, okay, so if we have an indirect attack, mortar, artillery, whatever, you just
[01:28:26] got to wait a minute and see if it develops into a complex attack.
[01:28:30] Meaning, so they mortar stuff and then they can use that to make everybody go to ground
[01:28:35] and then they can start infiltrating, you know, with ground troops.
[01:28:39] So I go, so if that happens and you just wait a sec and then you punch out a primary immediately
[01:28:45] so that no one can infiltrate your lines.
[01:28:46] And you got to just, you got to do it like boom, this happens.
[01:28:49] So and I open up the door, I hop out and boom, like right over there.
[01:28:54] Huge explosion.
[01:28:55] I go just like this.
[01:28:56] And I sit back in the car.
[01:28:57] Seriously, I said just like this and I sit back in the car.
[01:28:59] Wait a minute.
[01:29:00] Okay, go.
[01:29:01] And then I realized I don't have a rifle.
[01:29:03] I have my pistol.
[01:29:04] So you remember that little, the green army man, the medic running with the pistol.
[01:29:09] So I'm running in Baghdad with the pistol.
[01:29:12] I started, wait, where was your freaking weapon, bro?
[01:29:15] It was in my vehicle, which was right next to theirs, like right there.
[01:29:21] Oh, so you went over to tell them what to do.
[01:29:24] I was going in, I was briefing them about how to handle different attack scenarios.
[01:29:27] In that one time you did.
[01:29:29] The one time, you know, that happens.
[01:29:31] That's freaking awful.
[01:29:32] And so I'm like, you know, running to a perimeter with the pistol in my hand.
[01:29:36] I start chuckling because I'm like, I just look absurd at this point, but I'm a very
[01:29:40] good pistol shop, by the way.
[01:29:42] And what, what it turned out, that ain't going to cut it, bro.
[01:29:46] No, seriously.
[01:29:48] I know.
[01:29:49] Hey, listen, I think we should discuss things, words and all, you know, but what happened
[01:29:54] was the Iraqi police had had an AD with an RPG.
[01:29:59] So that was not an impact that was an outgoing, but they had that moon dust out there.
[01:30:05] You know, so you couldn't tell it looked like a mortar around coming.
[01:30:07] It didn't sound like a mortar around, but it looked like one because the impact.
[01:30:12] So that's my funny seal story.
[01:30:15] What did you learn from a leadership perspective on that deployment?
[01:30:18] That's a tough deployment from a different angle because you got guys that are pissed
[01:30:23] to be doing this job, but it's a very, it's a strategic mission to keep these guys alive.
[01:30:30] I learned, well, I didn't really learn it.
[01:30:32] It's just reinforced some things for me.
[01:30:35] The mission always comes first, no matter what.
[01:30:40] And the missions America.
[01:30:41] It's not some this woke bullshit that these military officers are coming up with now.
[01:30:45] Sorry for swearing, but that, that ain't the mission dude.
[01:30:48] The mission's America and that's got to happen every day.
[01:30:53] That's why, you know, my fat bald person, I'm running for Congress now because the mission
[01:30:57] is America and America is being failed by our leadership.
[01:31:00] Anyway, side note.
[01:31:02] So mission comes first.
[01:31:03] And then I also learned to let some things roll.
[01:31:09] And this is why.
[01:31:11] We were late.
[01:31:12] So the doctor lived in the Coticea, which was like a neighborhood right outside of checkpoint
[01:31:17] 11.
[01:31:18] So checkpoint 11 went from the green zone to route Irish where everybody's getting killed
[01:31:20] all the time.
[01:31:21] You had to drive down a mile or so, whatever.
[01:31:24] But no left into the Coticea to pick this guy up.
[01:31:27] And so we were late.
[01:31:29] I'm like, you know, frick, frack, frack, brr, you know, being a sealed sailor guy.
[01:31:33] We're living in Udey Hussein's, one of his joints.
[01:31:36] I think it was gray wolf was the father there.
[01:31:38] Anyway, so we're late and then boom, just massive, massive car bomb goes off right at
[01:31:47] checkpoint 11.
[01:31:48] Like it was so big it blew a car like 50 feet up on top of a tree.
[01:31:54] And here's what happened.
[01:31:56] They knew we were going to the Coticea and this they had this huge bomb and the traffic
[01:32:01] keeps going forward and forward and forward and forward.
[01:32:04] It finally gets to the checkpoint and they clack themselves off.
[01:32:07] We were supposed to be in that line passing and would have killed the entire platoon
[01:32:12] except for the one guy we had working on the job.
[01:32:15] So that was a real lesson.
[01:32:17] Yeah, should you strive to be on time?
[01:32:21] Sure.
[01:32:22] But you need to make sure that if things are going a little hinky, try to figure out why.
[01:32:28] I used to have, you know, my thing was my joke was, but it wasn't a joke, but it kind
[01:32:34] of was, you know, you have no go criteria.
[01:32:37] Yeah.
[01:32:38] Hey, we don't have the aircraft cover we want.
[01:32:39] That's no go or we don't have enough vehicles.
[01:32:42] And I used to joke, but I would serious.
[01:32:44] I'd be like, no, it's we have in my task, we have go, go criteria, which is we're going
[01:32:49] and we don't have aircraft.
[01:32:50] We'll call tanks.
[01:32:53] But occasionally, even with that attitude, I'd be like, well, okay, we don't have this.
[01:32:57] We don't have that.
[01:32:58] We, you know, this isn't working out.
[01:33:00] We haven't talked to these people and I'd be like the universe is conspiring against
[01:33:04] this operation and we're not going to do it.
[01:33:06] So it's just like a gut feeling where I'd like, I can, there's, I'll cover obstacle,
[01:33:11] obstacle, obstacle, obstacle, no factor, no factor, no factor, no factor, no factor.
[01:33:15] This, this is, this is, we're not doing this.
[01:33:19] Well that's a function of maturity.
[01:33:21] It really is.
[01:33:23] And sometimes you just look at things and you're like non-starter.
[01:33:26] Yeah.
[01:33:27] Yeah.
[01:33:28] And that's okay.
[01:33:30] So you get done with this deployment.
[01:33:34] In Iraq.
[01:33:35] In Iraq.
[01:33:36] And what's your next move?
[01:33:37] So that's your platoon chief deployment.
[01:33:39] You get done with that deployment.
[01:33:41] What's your next move?
[01:33:42] I came back and I'm a plank owner at what was known as the support activities.
[01:33:45] Support activities.
[01:33:47] So you're going there and the support activity basic mission is to gather intelligence.
[01:33:53] Yeah.
[01:33:54] It's like a combination of all the ints.
[01:33:56] And you know, I just had an act for that too.
[01:34:00] So I was one of the first five guys, you know, sitting around trying to figure this out.
[01:34:05] Bob Newsom was the first skipper.
[01:34:08] He's retired cap nine.
[01:34:09] Worked for the 76ers doing some stuff.
[01:34:11] No idea.
[01:34:12] Yeah.
[01:34:13] But um, yeah, that was a very, very rewarding time to build something else up from the ground
[01:34:21] because I only built or helped build, you know, this is not clearly, this is all a team
[01:34:27] effort, but help build the special connoisseurs and warfare part of trade at.
[01:34:33] And then doing that, it's like the whole team, which was, which was fascinating.
[01:34:39] And then I did some deployments from that that are not really a topic for discussion.
[01:34:42] Right.
[01:34:43] And how, but how long did you spend there?
[01:34:45] Oh my gosh.
[01:34:47] Like three years.
[01:34:48] It couldn't have been that long actually.
[01:34:50] Well I came back from Iraq and then that was, would have been 2005 or six.
[01:34:57] I think I left there in 2008 ish.
[01:35:01] It's like two or three years.
[01:35:03] I went to special operations command Europe after that.
[01:35:08] After that, but then you go to seven first.
[01:35:10] So, yeah, sorry.
[01:35:12] Cause you, cause I know that's when you and I really, that's when you and I crossed that.
[01:35:15] I think we'd met each other along the way at some point, but we, I didn't actually say
[01:35:20] one, right.
[01:35:22] Until I was at trade at, and you were at team seven.
[01:35:27] So I went from, you're right.
[01:35:28] It was sport activity team seven special operations command Europe.
[01:35:32] And then I retired out of since you'll swig.
[01:35:34] So okay.
[01:35:35] So you do, you're doing working with the ints and by what you mean by that is human intelligence,
[01:35:42] signal intelligence, all that kind of intelligence gathering.
[01:35:45] We'll say you did that for a few years.
[01:35:47] I'm not going to talk about that here.
[01:35:50] And then you go, what third, you want to see something called keep talking.
[01:35:53] Okay.
[01:35:54] Well, you're breaking stuff up.
[01:35:55] I'll show you.
[01:35:56] I want to show you one of the coolest pictures ever.
[01:35:58] Oh, okay.
[01:35:59] Because this was on my last deployment for Afghanistan.
[01:36:05] Check that one out.
[01:36:09] That's a winner.
[01:36:14] That picture is taken about three or four months after the boat scene on active valor
[01:36:18] was filmed.
[01:36:20] The boat scene on active hours filmed.
[01:36:22] So active hours, a movie with a bunch of seals in it.
[01:36:24] Right.
[01:36:25] I'm in the movie.
[01:36:26] When was that filmed?
[01:36:27] Gosh, it was.
[01:36:28] That wasn't that wasn't until later.
[01:36:31] It came out in 2012 or something, but that it took like three years to film that movie
[01:36:36] because everybody except for the officer in the film deployed to combat during the filming
[01:36:41] of that movie.
[01:36:42] What happens if someone gets killed?
[01:36:43] It's going to wreck the movie.
[01:36:44] You're like, well, thanks deeply appreciate your caring about us.
[01:36:47] You're going to have to rewrite a script that will take you eight minutes because there
[01:36:50] was no script.
[01:36:52] Yeah, that was, uh, I think it came out 2012.
[01:36:55] So they started filming that in 2009 ish because I was, that was, I was working up to go to
[01:37:00] Afghanistan when that was filmed.
[01:37:02] And that got, so here's what happened with that movie.
[01:37:05] Let's, let's talk to seal team seven first.
[01:37:06] Okay.
[01:37:07] So you, this is a team seven.
[01:37:08] Right.
[01:37:09] So yeah.
[01:37:10] So check this out.
[01:37:11] So I am a troop chief at team seven.
[01:37:13] And then the super specialized mission came along that I had done previously and I'm the
[01:37:19] only one at the team that has done this.
[01:37:21] And I'm the only one with the qualifications while there's two other guys with the same
[01:37:24] qualifications as me, but I'm the only one that has actually done this mission working
[01:37:27] for this other subset of people doing this stuff.
[01:37:30] So the skipper's like, I don't know what I'm doing.
[01:37:32] I mean, God bless him.
[01:37:34] He had no idea.
[01:37:35] He goes, you can pick anybody you want from the team and take him to go do this.
[01:37:39] So me and the guy who I won't mention is actually right next to me in that picture because he's
[01:37:43] still after duty.
[01:37:45] We went through everybody's records at team seven.
[01:37:47] I'm like, you know, this guy, this guy, this guy, this guy, and then we need comms guys
[01:37:51] and all these other folks.
[01:37:52] So we put together this little group of folks to deploy to Afghanistan to do this super
[01:37:56] specialized mission.
[01:37:57] That was at team seven.
[01:37:59] So I went from being a troop chief.
[01:38:01] We had 56 or 60 years after that was after you did your troop chief.
[01:38:06] That was my troop chief deployment.
[01:38:09] So we sent guys to Balad.
[01:38:13] Iraq was not happening.
[01:38:14] They're wearing starch uniforms and they have no magazines in their guns.
[01:38:18] The Walker and saluting people in Iraq.
[01:38:19] I don't want any part of that.
[01:38:22] And then there was a small group that went to Afghanistan to get reattached to the CG
[01:38:28] Soda for the first time since Red Wings happened.
[01:38:31] And then I took another group of guys over here.
[01:38:34] So my guys got farmed to Balad to do nothing.
[01:38:38] A small group of them that's declassified now to Yemen.
[01:38:41] And then we went to Afghanistan to do this other subset.
[01:38:45] So we didn't have a traditional, you know, task unit, go out and, you know, like bruiser.
[01:38:50] We didn't, it just wasn't available.
[01:38:52] Yeah.
[01:38:53] It just wasn't happening.
[01:38:54] No, it wasn't.
[01:38:55] So I went and did that.
[01:38:56] How'd you like being a troop chief?
[01:38:57] You know what?
[01:39:00] It was interesting, but it's not, it's not, it wasn't like his hands on.
[01:39:08] The logistics part was, you know, it was more difficult to get done.
[01:39:14] And then you're managing personalities.
[01:39:20] You know, I could, I would prefer to do this.
[01:39:23] Yeah.
[01:39:24] I mean, I guess if your, your troop gets all split up, yeah, I mean, if we had a traditional
[01:39:29] true or traditional, you know, air quotations, you know, 0506 Iraq or if we could do like
[01:39:35] 03 Afghanistan, where you are seriously getting it, that would have been much different.
[01:39:44] But in effect, you know, I had guys, like one of my guys, I'll give you an example of
[01:39:50] why, one of my guys, I think I had six seals with me.
[01:39:54] So going from like 60 seals to six, but they're all like, you know what?
[01:39:58] We were doing that, like driving around in thin skin vehicles by ourselves during the
[01:40:04] day in Afghanistan.
[01:40:07] And your QRF is not coming.
[01:40:09] So the level of stress that is applied, I mean, it's so much easier.
[01:40:15] And you know this to go with 50 dudes and lock something down and go in and just, you know,
[01:40:19] do seal stuff.
[01:40:21] And that's great.
[01:40:22] And it, you know, we get a lot of, it's very stressful.
[01:40:25] That's really stressful.
[01:40:27] When you got to plan these things in detail, intricate, and if you make one mistake, it's
[01:40:31] over.
[01:40:32] And I did that for several years.
[01:40:35] I mean, it's upper division warfare is what I call it.
[01:40:39] Upper division warfare.
[01:40:40] Yeah, it is totally.
[01:40:41] Because you have to have a holistic understanding of all the thresholds going from the Elanthi
[01:40:47] electronic warfare perspective all the way down to how do I shoot my gun?
[01:40:51] Way different than, you know, go that way.
[01:40:56] So when you build this picture, you have, you have like a global perspective, but for
[01:41:05] a local area.
[01:41:08] And you understand you have all these triggers that if they start getting pinged, you got
[01:41:12] to bail.
[01:41:13] And sometimes you intentionally trigger them.
[01:41:17] So yeah, interesting.
[01:41:20] So that was troop to troop chief thing.
[01:41:23] In a way it was not as exciting as it should have been.
[01:41:26] But again, that's the first place.
[01:41:28] Like I said, that's the first time that I like remember you PIDing like, oh yeah, that's
[01:41:32] because you know, I'd seen you around and you were an essay, whatever.
[01:41:35] But that's the first time I remember you.
[01:41:37] Like we were out at desert training and like meeting you and hanging out and running the
[01:41:44] FTX's and all that stuff, having good times.
[01:41:49] Carrying some, you were carrying some, you know, some wounded men out there, which seems
[01:41:57] to have left a mark on some people emotionally at this juncture.
[01:42:01] I was a little bit crazy when it came back.
[01:42:03] So.
[01:42:04] All right, man.
[01:42:05] Hey, listen, I got it.
[01:42:06] I'll tell you something.
[01:42:07] I remember your, your viewers understands.
[01:42:09] I remember when you came back and you went around the teams and you gave a brief that
[01:42:14] you called the pressure.
[01:42:16] Remember that?
[01:42:17] Yeah.
[01:42:18] The pressure.
[01:42:19] And at that point, because I didn't know you either.
[01:42:21] You know what I mean?
[01:42:22] You got some dude, bad haircut, probably lifts too many weights and drinks, energy drinks,
[01:42:28] you know, whatever.
[01:42:29] It's a total diamond doesn't seal.
[01:42:31] This is just to be honest.
[01:42:32] It's good to be the diamond in the rough.
[01:42:35] But you gave this brief and it was, you called it the pressure and it was, what you're doing
[01:42:40] is you're conveying.
[01:42:41] I mean, this is my perspective.
[01:42:42] Obviously you wrote it.
[01:42:45] Conveying the burden of leadership and the fact that you truly at that point got it, which
[01:42:51] is a lot of officers never get it.
[01:42:55] And I was watching you and I thought you were much younger than me at the time.
[01:42:58] I don't know.
[01:42:59] But I was like, this guy gets it.
[01:43:00] Like he understands ramifications of poor decision making and things are real.
[01:43:08] And it just doesn't affect, you know, your reputation as I'm a great operator, you know,
[01:43:14] that it affects families and that it affects the nation.
[01:43:19] And I understood that.
[01:43:20] That's when I really got a respect for you.
[01:43:21] When listening to you see that, because I could see your heart was breaking when you're discussing
[01:43:25] this and that you weren't making anything up.
[01:43:28] Being very genuine about leadership is really important and we're missing that, dude.
[01:43:32] We're missing that from the tactical, strategic and operational level throughout our country
[01:43:37] and private industry and the government, especially it's terrible.
[01:43:41] So now you guys know.
[01:43:43] Yeah, I haven't given that brief in a long time.
[01:43:49] And I remember thinking about it and, you know, I'm thinking about the experiences that
[01:43:57] I had, you know, when we deployed in Tasking a Bruiser, you know, we hadn't lost any guys
[01:44:04] on the West Coast yet.
[01:44:06] And you know, even looking into, you know, we were just talking about the work up and
[01:44:11] you're going through the work up and like a down man was like a theoretical thing, a
[01:44:17] problem solving event that you're going to get and you're going to go through it.
[01:44:20] And OK, now that person gets, you know, you're back to life at the end of that training mission.
[01:44:24] And obviously that's not the reality of the situation.
[01:44:28] Correct.
[01:44:29] And trying to make sure to convey that to the guys.
[01:44:31] And that's, you know, when I got done with that deployment, you know, the admiral who
[01:44:37] I knew was like, where do you want to go?
[01:44:40] And I 100% just said I want to go to trade at, I want to go to trade at and run training.
[01:44:45] And the reason is because first of all, all the guys in my task in it were all going to
[01:44:49] go right back into another platoon.
[01:44:52] And they were all going to go right back overseas into that meat grinder.
[01:44:55] And it didn't look like, you know, this was in 2006 when we got home, it was still, you
[01:44:58] couldn't tell when it was going to stop.
[01:45:01] It just looked like it was going to go on indefinitely.
[01:45:03] We saw some indications that looking in hindsight, you could see that, oh, that was an indication
[01:45:10] that things were going to settle down.
[01:45:11] But you couldn't positively identify them at the time coming home from deployment.
[01:45:14] I was like, no, this is going to last.
[01:45:16] We're going to have to do this in all these other cities.
[01:45:18] It's just going to continue.
[01:45:19] And everyone's going back to this meat grinder, and I want to make sure that I can convey
[01:45:23] these lessons to the guys that are going to go back over there and get in it.
[01:45:27] And that's where that came from.
[01:45:31] So you went to trade at for the same reasons I did, but six years later.
[01:45:35] Yeah.
[01:45:36] Yeah.
[01:45:37] It was to pass on those lessons and get things headed in the right direction.
[01:45:41] Increase combat survivability of SEALs.
[01:45:44] 100%.
[01:45:45] And that's why we're out at Nyland or we're out at the urban training sites.
[01:45:51] And it was like, I remember feeling I'd see a guy in an urban environment standing in
[01:45:57] the middle of the street, and I would literally have a sick to my stomach knot when I'd see
[01:46:03] a guy standing in the open.
[01:46:04] This is in training.
[01:46:05] And I'd get over to be like, go find cover because you're waiting for the guy to get
[01:46:11] shot.
[01:46:12] That's a horrible feeling.
[01:46:13] And doing the best to pass those lessons on that's, you know, that was the goal.
[01:46:18] Yeah.
[01:46:20] That should be everybody's goal.
[01:46:22] It's I when you take that and you transition into civilian life.
[01:46:30] I tell people a couple of things frequently.
[01:46:33] It is the minimum responsibility of every American citizen to pass on to their children
[01:46:36] or country where they have at a minimum the same ability to choose to have options.
[01:46:44] And we're failing at that as a society collectively.
[01:46:48] If you think about what the government did to the population during this COVID crap,
[01:46:56] you can't deny there's five elements to the First Amendment.
[01:46:59] There's freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly
[01:47:03] and freedom to seek a regress redress for grievances.
[01:47:07] All of those are smashed in the ground during COVID.
[01:47:10] So it's our responsibility to make sure that doesn't happen again.
[01:47:13] How do we do that?
[01:47:14] We take the imperative knowledge from what we went through these last two years and we
[01:47:16] apply that innacadly, meaning we don't try to read into it.
[01:47:21] We just look at it and say what it is and the government now is trying to hide everything.
[01:47:24] They're trying to do everything back.
[01:47:25] Yeah, which is one of the worst things possible.
[01:47:27] When you make a mistake, you know, you go, hey, look, I'm in a state here.
[01:47:31] And this was horrible during the whole thing because, hey, if you think that this thing
[01:47:36] spreads this way and you look up three months later and that turns out to not be true, you
[01:47:41] say, hey, listen, I made a mistake here.
[01:47:43] We thought it was this.
[01:47:44] It was that.
[01:47:45] Here's the adjustment.
[01:47:46] You know, I would send you out on operation and say, hey, you know, I want you to hit
[01:47:49] this target from the north and you go, okay, okay, boss sounds good.
[01:47:52] And you hit a couple IEDs on the way in and you go, hey, Jocko, there's IEDs here.
[01:47:56] I don't go, well, you just keep going where I told you to go.
[01:47:59] No, I say, hey, look, I made a mistake on the analysis of the scenario.
[01:48:03] Back out.
[01:48:04] Let's figure out a better way.
[01:48:05] No factor.
[01:48:06] And by the way, you're not, you don't lose respect for me.
[01:48:09] You go, oh, well, Jocko was willing to admit that he made a mistake of the analysis of this
[01:48:13] and learned from it and learned from it.
[01:48:15] And now we're going to make some adjustments and to see the egos come out where there's
[01:48:19] no admission that, hey, you know what, I actually, I made a bad assessment here.
[01:48:24] It was wrong.
[01:48:25] And here's the adjustment we need to make as far as I can tell right now.
[01:48:29] And by the way, there's a decent chance we'll be wrong again, which also is why I'm not
[01:48:32] over committing and overstating things.
[01:48:36] You know, I always have fun when I work with companies and I'll say, how often do you,
[01:48:41] you know, how often do you people think I have to admit that I'm wrong?
[01:48:44] And people think, oh, you know, because I talk about being humble and they go, oh, you admit
[01:48:48] that you're wrong all the time.
[01:48:49] And I go, no, I hardly ever have to admit that I'm wrong.
[01:48:51] And the reason I hardly ever have to admit that I'm wrong is because I hardly ever say,
[01:48:53] I'm 100% right about this thing.
[01:48:57] This is how we should do this mission or this is what this means or this is how you should
[01:49:00] interpret this.
[01:49:01] No, I say, hey, this is what it looks like from my perspective.
[01:49:05] Let's take a small step and see what we learn.
[01:49:07] So I agree with it mostly there, but it's to me, it's not, this is how I think we should
[01:49:13] do this.
[01:49:14] That's okay.
[01:49:15] When people, and this was one of the things that we had to break when we were writing
[01:49:19] all that curriculum for SR and Lane warfare, this is how this is done.
[01:49:26] When you say to somebody, this is how this is done, you're over because this is how this
[01:49:33] was done at this time in this place with this series of variables.
[01:49:38] Yeah.
[01:49:39] Well, so you actually agree with what I said, because what I said is, well, what I'm saying
[01:49:44] is, hey, this is what I think we should do right now.
[01:49:47] Not this is what we should do.
[01:49:49] Yes.
[01:49:50] This is what I think we should do right now.
[01:49:51] No, no, no, no, no, no, no, this is, this is not what, okay, there's a difference.
[01:49:55] So this is what we should do is different than this is how this is done.
[01:49:59] So this is what we should do.
[01:50:01] Means that this is the way that I think at this particular time, this should be done
[01:50:05] right because of these variables.
[01:50:07] It's open.
[01:50:08] It's open.
[01:50:09] This is how this is done is closed is wrong.
[01:50:11] Yeah.
[01:50:12] Decision making is not taking place.
[01:50:14] Yeah.
[01:50:15] So that's why I hardly ever have to admit that I'm wrong because I hardly ever say, hey,
[01:50:20] I'm 100% right about this thing right here.
[01:50:22] No, you're not going to catch me saying that.
[01:50:24] Because how often can you be accurate with that?
[01:50:26] It's very, very seldom that you're going to be in a scenario where you know something
[01:50:31] with 100% certainty.
[01:50:33] It almost never happens.
[01:50:34] And I would rather, even if I'm 99% certain, what do I gain out of imposing some directive
[01:50:42] on you?
[01:50:43] If you're working for me, what am I going to gain out of that?
[01:50:45] You got your perspective.
[01:50:46] There's a decent chance that you see something I don't see.
[01:50:49] So my mind's open.
[01:50:50] Hey, Derek, I think Mike, this might be a good way to do this op.
[01:50:53] Then you go, well, I don't agree.
[01:50:55] Okay, well, what do you think?
[01:50:57] Let's talk.
[01:50:58] And my gut, my bias is to go with what you say.
[01:51:03] That is my bias is to, you come up with a way to do something.
[01:51:07] It doesn't matter if I'm, here's the other interesting thing.
[01:51:09] It doesn't matter if we're peers or I'm your boss or you're my boss.
[01:51:13] My bias is to go with what you say.
[01:51:15] Now look, if you're totally off the res and your idea is just ridiculous, well, it's
[01:51:22] very easy for me to articulate, Hey, Derek, I know you want to do this, you know, jumping
[01:51:26] parachutes out of the space shuttle, but right, it's going to be really hard for us to get
[01:51:29] the space shuttle for this operation in a short period of time.
[01:51:33] So I thought you're wheeling heat.
[01:51:34] Exactly.
[01:51:36] It's very easy to articulate that.
[01:51:37] But if I'm having a hard time articulating why I think something should be done a certain
[01:51:43] way, then that's a big indicator that maybe it's not worth arguing.
[01:51:47] And maybe it's just easier to say, Okay, you know what, Derek, let's let's let's roll
[01:51:50] with your dice.
[01:51:51] You're incapable of articulating appropriately the methodologies that you're applying to
[01:51:56] a problem set.
[01:51:57] You have not thought them through well enough.
[01:51:58] Boom.
[01:51:59] Yeah.
[01:52:00] Someone taught a seal how to read.
[01:52:01] What's up?
[01:52:02] It's a real good indicator of that.
[01:52:07] So you roll out on this deployment, you're doing some, what'd you say, higher level?
[01:52:13] What'd you say?
[01:52:14] What was your vision warfare division warfare running around without a ton of support.
[01:52:21] Correct.
[01:52:22] If any, and you get done with that deployment won't go into the details of that one.
[01:52:29] You come back.
[01:52:30] What's your next job?
[01:52:31] Okay, I was going to go teach what I was doing because I believe you should do that.
[01:52:36] Right.
[01:52:37] Like we talked about that.
[01:52:38] But then they came, so I was a senior chief at that point and the billet, the job was
[01:52:44] for an E seven, not an E eight.
[01:52:46] And that's when they went through and they said, Hey, look, you used to be able to do
[01:52:49] one up, one down.
[01:52:50] So the billet is for an E seven and E six could go do that or a E eight.
[01:52:56] Right.
[01:52:57] You could do one up, one down.
[01:52:58] They're like, no more of this.
[01:52:59] We don't have enough guys to do this stuff.
[01:53:00] It's an E seven billet.
[01:53:01] So I'm like, Oh man.
[01:53:03] So I go check in is down at the elephant cage at advanced training and I was just kind of
[01:53:08] sitting there and they're like, we got to find it E seven billet, you know, and there
[01:53:12] was not because that's a platoon chief job and I just got done being a troop chief nerd,
[01:53:16] you know.
[01:53:17] And suddenly I go up to more calm, it's like a month into this and I feel like I'm stealing
[01:53:21] money from the government because I go to check in.
[01:53:24] We got nothing to do.
[01:53:25] And so I go up to Pugs is the guy and Pugs, right?
[01:53:33] So I'm like, Pugs, dude, I needed a job.
[01:53:37] And he's like, well, I don't know.
[01:53:38] So he pulls up the list of like all the seal billets on the planet, right?
[01:53:43] And Bosnia, I flew through Germany, Stuttgart, Booblingen, on the way there and on the way
[01:53:50] back.
[01:53:51] And I'm like, and my wife, she did like a semester in Germany in college.
[01:53:58] So I'm like, right there.
[01:54:00] I want to go there.
[01:54:01] He's like, okay.
[01:54:02] So I get a billet.
[01:54:05] I get a billet as the J three five, which is the contingency operations, NCIC at special
[01:54:09] operations command Europe.
[01:54:12] That's why I went up there.
[01:54:14] Yeah.
[01:54:15] And, you know, I have an act for this stuff.
[01:54:17] The upper division warfare stuff applies.
[01:54:18] I understand how to, you know, take very complex problem sets and distill them down into readily
[01:54:27] available and achievable solutions.
[01:54:29] Like it's just something I'm good at.
[01:54:32] And so I wrote all the contingency of the soft response to contingency operations plans
[01:54:36] for all the countries in Europe.
[01:54:38] And then we developed further.
[01:54:40] From them being executed right now, I'm sure.
[01:54:42] Yeah.
[01:54:43] The, um, convention warfare campaign plan for the Ukraine is one of them.
[01:54:47] So at that time when I left in 2012, me and this other guy named Derek, who's a retired
[01:54:54] special forces girl, we gave the Ukrainians a month.
[01:54:58] Like so we were planning for a Russian invasion of the Ukraine in 2000.
[01:55:03] That's 2009 10.
[01:55:05] Right.
[01:55:06] People think the military doesn't do stuff.
[01:55:07] We do.
[01:55:09] But we gave him a month because the authorities are different.
[01:55:12] And what do you mean you gave him a month?
[01:55:14] We thought within a month, the Russians would take over the entire country.
[01:55:17] Oh, got it.
[01:55:18] Like we gave him a month.
[01:55:19] DoD, I think it was given him about a week.
[01:55:21] But you know, intuitively, Derek had multiple combat tours as special forces officers.
[01:55:25] It's the fantastic officer.
[01:55:29] But we gave him a month because we knew it better.
[01:55:31] And then they changed the authorities and this happened so you could give him javelins
[01:55:36] and stingers also the weapons that are doing this.
[01:55:42] The crux of the plan without getting real deep into it is disaggregated small unit operations
[01:55:48] facilitated by high tech weapons.
[01:55:50] That's it.
[01:55:51] And then also you have external intelligence and all that stuff.
[01:55:55] That's just taking place.
[01:55:56] That truly was an amazing thing.
[01:56:01] It was very intellectually stimulating to do that.
[01:56:04] But you know, at that point, I broke my back and all this stuff and I can't carry a rocket
[01:56:09] anymore.
[01:56:10] And that's really why I got out of the teams is because I just couldn't do the job physically.
[01:56:14] I didn't want to breath far of myself.
[01:56:16] You know what I mean?
[01:56:17] Which Brett should have just retired.
[01:56:18] Dude, Green Bay, why'd you go to Minnesota with Brett?
[01:56:21] I'm looking right into the camera.
[01:56:22] Why did you do that?
[01:56:25] So doing that really kept me engaged in what was taking place really at that point globally.
[01:56:33] And so Benghazi went down when I was there and there was still a sock half was getting
[01:56:38] stood up special operations command Africa.
[01:56:42] And there was commanders in extremist force sharing agreement.
[01:56:45] You know, so it was I was really very deeply involved in the aftermath of Benghazi and
[01:56:54] everything the Clinton folks told you and Obama is a lie.
[01:56:59] In terms of what?
[01:57:01] That should not have happened.
[01:57:03] And as it was happening, it should have been stopped and could have been stopped.
[01:57:08] Right.
[01:57:09] So I mean, background on that.
[01:57:12] Jimmy Carter, who previously was the worst president in American history, only superseded
[01:57:18] by the current one Joe Biden.
[01:57:19] He is terrible.
[01:57:20] He just is.
[01:57:21] It's very difficult to watch.
[01:57:23] It's terrible.
[01:57:24] I mean, it's painful.
[01:57:27] So Jimmy Carter did something called chief of mission authorities.
[01:57:30] An American ambassador is real title is chief of mission.
[01:57:34] So the chief of the diplomatic mission, that's the real title.
[01:57:37] And Carter said, look, no military forces will go into a country without the approval
[01:57:43] of the chief of mission unless it's a title 10 designated country.
[01:57:48] Meaning the title 10 is the Department of Defense thing.
[01:57:50] And we're like, hey, we're going to invade Iraq.
[01:57:52] That becomes a title 10 deal.
[01:57:53] The military can move troops back and forth into that country without going through the
[01:57:58] State Department.
[01:57:59] That was not the case for Libya.
[01:58:01] I mean, it wasn't.
[01:58:04] So the State Department has so Ambassador Stevens had to approve the troops that were
[01:58:10] on their way to Benghazi had to approve them landing in the country, but he was dead.
[01:58:16] And the State Department didn't answer the phone.
[01:58:20] Tina Cade now was there along with Secretary Clinton.
[01:58:23] She's ultimately responsible.
[01:58:24] They just didn't answer the phone.
[01:58:27] And birds were spinning up and there's a role.
[01:58:33] If you look up Jackal Stone 12, I think, just Google it.
[01:58:37] Jackal Stone is a special operations forces annual European exercise.
[01:58:44] You probably did it if you're two.
[01:58:45] Did you know?
[01:58:46] Okay.
[01:58:47] But I know, but I know what the exercises.
[01:58:49] Okay.
[01:58:50] So that was taking place in split Croatia.
[01:58:51] And you know that the SIF is there and they have a full pack.
[01:58:54] None of this is classified, by the way.
[01:58:56] They have a full package.
[01:58:58] They've got shooters, they got comms, they got medical, they have resupply, you know,
[01:59:03] water, everything.
[01:59:04] That bird was going there.
[01:59:06] Because that's why it's there.
[01:59:09] In case something like that happens and the agreement between Sokhaf and Sokjir was in
[01:59:14] place because Sokhaf didn't have a SIF yet.
[01:59:16] Yeah.
[01:59:17] Yeah.
[01:59:18] Right.
[01:59:19] So but no answer the phone.
[01:59:20] So you can't land that plane.
[01:59:25] Ty Woods man, did you know Ty?
[01:59:26] Yeah.
[01:59:27] Okay.
[01:59:28] He's a total friend of mine, man.
[01:59:29] And I didn't know Glenn.
[01:59:30] He was in my class.
[01:59:31] He was in my bus class.
[01:59:32] Ty Woods?
[01:59:33] Yep.
[01:59:34] Yep.
[01:59:35] And he ended up getting rolled.
[01:59:36] But you know, he spent, you know.
[01:59:39] Right.
[01:59:40] So shameful.
[01:59:41] And that I truly, I mean, I knew it before because I'd seen it on a macro level, but
[01:59:47] I hadn't really seen on a, excuse me, on a micro level.
[01:59:52] I've seen it, but on a macro level, I hadn't seen really the hardcore ramifications of
[01:59:57] incredibly poor decision making.
[01:59:58] Other than the fact we invaded Iraq when we did.
[02:00:01] I mean, that was a big thing.
[02:00:04] But that really, really brought it home that you just can't do that.
[02:00:10] You have to be, if you're in a position of leadership, your phone is on all the time.
[02:00:15] Yeah.
[02:00:16] Well, actually superior to that is when you're in a position of leadership, you set up decentralized
[02:00:19] command where people can make decisions without having to run things all the way up
[02:00:21] to the top.
[02:00:22] Yeah.
[02:00:23] That's what you do.
[02:00:24] That's the, yeah.
[02:00:25] I mean, that's, that's how things should function.
[02:00:29] Great on that depressing note.
[02:00:31] Yeah.
[02:00:32] So, so this is what you're doing.
[02:00:33] You get a really good look strategically at the world through this tour that you do
[02:00:39] right at soccer.
[02:00:40] You're in a J35 billet doing planning and contingency planning.
[02:00:44] And that's just a great view to go from being a troop commander literally on the ground.
[02:00:50] And then even as a troop commander being for this particular deployment at a more, even
[02:00:56] more tackle level than a normal troop command, but true.
[02:00:59] Correct.
[02:01:00] But doing a strategic level mission.
[02:01:02] Yes.
[02:01:03] And then, but you're on the ground doing it.
[02:01:05] Yeah.
[02:01:06] That's the difference.
[02:01:07] And then you get to go to a situation where you're seeing the strategic planning for these
[02:01:12] things that take place in the future.
[02:01:13] So there's a really good education for you.
[02:01:15] It's tremendous.
[02:01:17] And you do how many years over there?
[02:01:19] Oh, I did three years there.
[02:01:20] And how many kids do you got at this point?
[02:01:22] Four.
[02:01:23] Do you speak German at this point?
[02:01:25] Nine.
[02:01:26] Two of them graduated from high school there though.
[02:01:29] Oh, okay.
[02:01:30] But it's in American high school.
[02:01:31] It's in American high school.
[02:01:32] Yeah.
[02:01:33] Yeah, I just, one of my buddies ran into a team guy and his kids are all speaking German
[02:01:36] because he came back from there.
[02:01:37] Oh, I probably put him in the local schools.
[02:01:39] Which you can do.
[02:01:40] Yeah.
[02:01:41] Which I was not to.
[02:01:42] Check.
[02:01:43] You get done with that.
[02:01:44] What's your next job after that?
[02:01:45] Center for sealant, swick excellence.
[02:01:47] Which is the schoolhouse?
[02:01:49] No, that is the command that writes all the advancement exams for seals.
[02:01:55] That writes the enlisted ladder.
[02:01:57] People don't understand when you join the Navy, the Navy plans out a career for you
[02:02:02] for 30 years.
[02:02:04] So even though you think you're joining on a six year enlistment or eight years or whatever
[02:02:08] it is, you know, active and reserve, the Navy has a plan for you and they palm, I don't
[02:02:12] know what that stands for, but they budget for you being in the military for 30 years.
[02:02:17] But what, at least the seal teams have done, I don't know if other communities do this,
[02:02:21] but you backwards plan on that.
[02:02:23] So by the time you're in E5, you've gone to this school, you've done this job E6,
[02:02:27] 7, 8, it goes all the way up, that's the ladder to make sure that everybody is hopefully on
[02:02:32] par with their institutional knowledge.
[02:02:36] So I did that and it was really fun writing the advancement exams because I'd call all
[02:02:40] my buddies and be like, hey, will you go down to Florida with me for a week?
[02:02:44] We'll get locked in a skiff, you know, a big safe and we'll go through the previous exams
[02:02:49] and then we'll write new questions updating the TTPs and all of the things for the seal
[02:02:53] teams then in order to get promoted, seals would have to take that.
[02:02:57] So that was awesome too.
[02:02:58] That's a way to get back to the community.
[02:03:00] But I went there because I needed to like get my medical situation in order and it took
[02:03:08] like a year and a half.
[02:03:09] Because at this point you're just a beat up old frogman.
[02:03:13] You know what I mean?
[02:03:14] That's why I'm fat right now.
[02:03:15] If I go PT right now I can't walk.
[02:03:16] I mean I've got an anti-cat placard for my car.
[02:03:19] Damn.
[02:03:20] Yeah, damn.
[02:03:21] So I mean my knees and hips and back and I got a ricochet in the face.
[02:03:25] It was in training.
[02:03:26] It counts for nothing.
[02:03:27] I didn't even get a free dental appointment because of that.
[02:03:31] So yeah, I went there to do dual purpose, get myself physically up to par, at least
[02:03:38] documented appropriately.
[02:03:41] So that when I retired, because anyone's going to retire, you know it would be less of a
[02:03:45] burden.
[02:03:46] So that's really what I did there.
[02:03:48] And again, I've had the ability and the luck and I think I'm blessed man.
[02:03:54] I mean I am.
[02:03:55] I have a deep and abiding faith in God.
[02:03:57] And I look back, you know all the way back to getting hit in the head with a shackle.
[02:04:02] How that led to all this stuff.
[02:04:04] You know?
[02:04:05] There's, I am one of the luckiest human beings that has ever existed.
[02:04:11] And I am so full of gratitude man.
[02:04:12] I mean I just, I get up and I'm just full of gratitude.
[02:04:17] And I wish that more people would understand the gifts that they've been given.
[02:04:23] And understand they're a gift.
[02:04:25] I talked to folks about the cavalry thing.
[02:04:29] Like the cavalry's not coming over the hill.
[02:04:30] I tell them like, look man, you're placed here at this time, you know with these people
[02:04:36] in this circumstance by God.
[02:04:38] Like you're put here for a reason and from my perspective what I'm doing now and the
[02:04:44] people I'm speaking to, it's to save the greatest country that has ever existed in the history
[02:04:49] of the world.
[02:04:51] Like the United States of America is an exceptional nation and I don't tolerate anybody talking
[02:04:56] crap about America.
[02:04:57] It's not going to happen.
[02:04:58] And these folks that I'm dealing with, like you were placed here by God for that to save
[02:05:05] the United States of America and that's a gift and you got to accept the gift.
[02:05:10] And oftentimes gifts, you get this.
[02:05:14] Oftentimes gifts can be perceived as a burden.
[02:05:19] You know the gift of leadership that the talk used to give the pressure.
[02:05:22] You're in that place at that time with those people in that circumstance and these things
[02:05:26] happen you're exercising the best judgment that you're capable of doing.
[02:05:29] You have the best assets in the world.
[02:05:30] You're certainly working with the finest human beings that have ever existed and contextually
[02:05:35] in warfare for sure and then around the block you know.
[02:05:39] You're there for a reason because you were given the gift to be able to exercise that
[02:05:45] mission.
[02:05:46] If you're capable of doing something and you don't act on it, you're not giving glory
[02:05:52] to God.
[02:05:54] You're giving the intellectual or physical ability to do things.
[02:05:56] If you don't do them, you're falling short.
[02:06:00] I believe that.
[02:06:02] Other people need to understand that.
[02:06:07] What was it that made you decide that you were going to retire?
[02:06:10] You're at how many years was this?
[02:06:13] That was I would say 24 I guess.
[02:06:16] That's when you made the decision?
[02:06:18] Yeah.
[02:06:19] And I retired at 26.
[02:06:20] And how many kids did you have that was four?
[02:06:22] You were up to your four at this point.
[02:06:24] Yeah.
[02:06:25] I just I knew that I couldn't do the job to the level that it deserved.
[02:06:29] Did you have a retirement plan what you're going to do when you retired?
[02:06:34] No.
[02:06:35] No man.
[02:06:36] We had bought a farm in Wisconsin probably 10 years before that.
[02:06:40] I wanted to go back to my farm.
[02:06:41] Who is taking care of the farm?
[02:06:43] My neighbors.
[02:06:44] How many acres is the farm?
[02:06:47] It was 80.
[02:06:48] And what kind of farm is it?
[02:06:49] Hey.
[02:06:50] And we raised animals and all that stuff.
[02:06:52] So I got out and I did this corporate leadership stuff with Larry for a couple of years.
[02:06:58] I didn't stop working.
[02:07:00] And I did that and then what corporate leadership where you are just helping corporations with
[02:07:05] their leadership type thing and executive coaching certain things.
[02:07:09] I mean, yeah, the stuff you do but not nearly at the same level.
[02:07:11] I mean, you've taken it beyond, you know, and it wasn't interesting to me.
[02:07:16] So I'm like, you know what, let's go back to the farm.
[02:07:19] Where were you living when you were doing that?
[02:07:21] That was we lived in Maple Grove, which is in Minnesota.
[02:07:24] Okay.
[02:07:25] So you moved to Minnesota after you retired?
[02:07:27] Or like a year because we wanted our youngest son to be able to graduate from high school.
[02:07:34] At that point, he had gone to four different high schools.
[02:07:37] So we found a nice Christian Academy.
[02:07:39] That's really why I did all that stuff so that he could have that period of time where
[02:07:44] he could actually graduate from high school in a place that and where we lived is fantastic.
[02:07:49] It was butternut Wisconsin.
[02:07:51] It's a very small place and we just wanted him to be able to round out his education in
[02:07:56] a Christian setting.
[02:07:57] And that was not available there.
[02:07:59] And then we went back to the farm and the cafe in town was called the butternut cafe.
[02:08:07] Surprisingly enough.
[02:08:09] But it failed.
[02:08:12] So the owner of the building, the person running the cafe, it didn't work well.
[02:08:16] So it closed.
[02:08:18] There's 326 people in the village.
[02:08:25] These people had they had taken care of our farm for like a decade.
[02:08:30] I went to Afghanistan, Iraq, the Horn of Africa and the station in Germany for three years.
[02:08:35] Nothing happened to that place.
[02:08:37] Not a window broken of my neighbors.
[02:08:39] Tom and Maria Schulke, they'd mow our front lawn is like an acre and they would not take
[02:08:43] money for gas.
[02:08:44] We are not your servants.
[02:08:45] We're your neighbors.
[02:08:46] I mean, that's what these that people think that Americans are like these.
[02:08:51] The image of Americans, it's not Manhattan, dude.
[02:08:55] That's it.
[02:08:56] I mean, I live in America and people bend over backwards.
[02:08:58] We have so much more in common with each other than differences and it's being exploited
[02:09:02] by these folks that are trying to do, I think, horrible things for the country.
[02:09:07] But that's really America where I live now in Perry D. Sheen.
[02:09:09] It's America, you know.
[02:09:11] So this place closes, the village takes a huge hit.
[02:09:14] And I'm like, man, so I talked to Sergey and I'm like, let's get this going again.
[02:09:19] So I bought the building from a bank, gutted it, put in new equipment.
[02:09:24] I worked in a restaurant for like a year or something before I joined the Navy.
[02:09:29] Sarah was a waitress for three months in high school.
[02:09:33] But you know, I'm a quick study.
[02:09:35] I love cooking.
[02:09:36] I've cooked around the world.
[02:09:37] You know, I did.
[02:09:38] I've made bread on five continents, dude, like made bread from flour.
[02:09:41] I haven't made bread on one.
[02:09:44] It's cathartic.
[02:09:46] So we got the cafe going again and then sold it to a local lady at my BFF.
[02:09:51] Her name's Bobby Munoz.
[02:09:53] She's awesome.
[02:09:54] And you know, that's random.
[02:09:56] So so many people talk about things.
[02:10:01] And a lot of people have money in there.
[02:10:03] They'll throw money at problems.
[02:10:04] You know, the government tries to throw money at problems, right?
[02:10:08] If you say you're going to do something, dude, and the most valuable gift you can give somebody
[02:10:13] is your time.
[02:10:16] You have a finite amount of time on this planet.
[02:10:19] Now as a Christian, I believe that, you know, something beyond this, but a lot of people
[02:10:22] don't.
[02:10:23] You only have you only have so much time.
[02:10:26] So if you really care about somebody, give me your time.
[02:10:29] Sit down with them.
[02:10:30] Give them time.
[02:10:31] So we we gave two years of our time back to that village because they're so dear to us.
[02:10:38] And you know, I walked away net neutral.
[02:10:42] But the impact of showing people demonstrating to them that you truly care about them is
[02:10:50] priceless.
[02:10:52] You know what I mean?
[02:10:54] Yeah, absolutely.
[02:10:56] You build this business back up.
[02:11:00] You sell the whole thing to your BFF, your BFF.
[02:11:05] What's your BFF's name?
[02:11:06] Bobby.
[02:11:07] Bobby, but Bobby's a female.
[02:11:08] Female.
[02:11:09] Okay.
[02:11:10] So Bobby's now running the business.
[02:11:12] She has she had Jenny run that and Bobby started Bobbers on the lake.
[02:11:20] She wanted to go buy a beer.
[02:11:22] Okay.
[02:11:23] Well, this is important to put out because people are going to want to hit these places.
[02:11:25] Yeah.
[02:11:26] Bobbers, Bobbers on the lake.
[02:11:27] It's in Butternut, Wisconsin from by Bobby.
[02:11:29] I actually want to go to both these places.
[02:11:32] And I don't even drink beer.
[02:11:33] So right.
[02:11:34] Bobby is a whirling dervish.
[02:11:38] I mean, she is on the go.
[02:11:40] I mean, you have all these different, you know, archipelago, adventure.
[02:11:43] She's got the same thing going.
[02:11:44] I mean, she's just.
[02:11:46] Okay.
[02:11:47] So you sell that business and now you move back to the farm?
[02:11:50] No, I'm living on the farm.
[02:11:52] Okay.
[02:11:53] You're living on the farm and then I'm turning 50.
[02:11:55] So this was three years ago.
[02:11:59] And I'm like, this, this is another point in my life where you can either, you know,
[02:12:04] kind of like just stay stagnant or you should do something to keep yourself rolling.
[02:12:12] Right.
[02:12:13] So I'm like, I'm going to go to law school and just like Bud's man, you can't just go
[02:12:18] to law school.
[02:12:19] Why can't I just go to law school?
[02:12:20] Right.
[02:12:21] So I studied for the LSAT for a month on the Khan Academy, which is awesome.
[02:12:25] It's free.
[02:12:26] You know, and took it and I got accepted to law school.
[02:12:30] Mitchell Hamlin in St. Paul.
[02:12:32] But during, so during this period of time, we did what we call cousin camp.
[02:12:37] So we got all the cousins.
[02:12:39] So, you know, our, my brother-in-law's and all the kids.
[02:12:42] We got 570 people.
[02:12:44] We get them all together and they were given Sarah, excuse me, hard time about how difficult
[02:12:52] it was to exit this point.
[02:12:54] We had four grandkids, I think, and we're having, yeah, we had, we were having, we had
[02:12:59] three, we're having our fourth, fifth and sixth grandkids.
[02:13:02] They're going to be born in a two month window.
[02:13:05] And so they're giving Sarah Jane a hard time about how difficult it was to visit our farm
[02:13:12] way up north.
[02:13:13] And it was like an hour and 45 minutes to the closest regional airport.
[02:13:17] And then if you're flying to there, it's an extra 200 bucks a person.
[02:13:20] You know, I'm not a wealthy guy.
[02:13:21] We live on our enlisted retirement.
[02:13:22] I can't afford that stuff.
[02:13:24] And, or you'd find a Minneapolis and it's like a four and a half hour drive.
[02:13:27] So I'm like, check, got it.
[02:13:29] I missed the kids growing up.
[02:13:30] I did, you know, I was working, deployed, training, all that stuff.
[02:13:34] So I set preconditions, two of them.
[02:13:39] Well, I love that place up there, it took us 15 years to get the house, you know, up
[02:13:43] to, it was just perfect.
[02:13:46] And I'm like, two conditions.
[02:13:49] Wait, the family wants you to move.
[02:13:51] My wife wants us to go someplace closer to an airport so that our grandkids can visit
[02:13:56] us and we can visit them more regularly.
[02:13:58] Right.
[02:13:59] And I'd missed our kids growing up because I was a frogman, natural environment combat.
[02:14:04] So I was two conditions, it has to be in Wisconsin and it has to be a hobby farm.
[02:14:11] So I get on the old internet in the kitchen, the farm, I find this place in Hager City,
[02:14:17] which I did a one hour circumference around the airport, same part got it.
[02:14:22] Right.
[02:14:23] And it had to be on what I call the right side of the river.
[02:14:25] That's politically and geographically correct.
[02:14:29] And so I find this place in Hager City, I call them, it's going on the market the next
[02:14:34] day, small hobby farm, old farmhouse, 19 acres, 13 tillable, alfalfa, not hay anymore.
[02:14:39] Like check.
[02:14:40] I drive down the next day, I look at it, I go, okay, this is it.
[02:14:44] Put in an offer by the house, move down there.
[02:14:47] Did you sell the other place?
[02:14:49] We sold it after a couple months.
[02:14:52] So it's gone.
[02:14:53] And excuse me.
[02:14:55] So interestingly enough, this is how I wound up running for Congress because Sean Duffy,
[02:15:04] who was my rep for the longest time, if you look at Wisconsin, the Ashland County is like
[02:15:10] right in the middle to the top, right?
[02:15:13] And it's right next to Lake Superior.
[02:15:15] Just past Glidden, which is the next village up from Butternut, it becomes very liberal
[02:15:20] because there's a environmentalist liberal arts college here, North, Northland's College,
[02:15:27] right?
[02:15:28] So Sean and his crew would stop in Butternut.
[02:15:31] And he's a U.S. Congressman.
[02:15:32] Now he's on Fox all the time with Rachel, Capitol stuff.
[02:15:35] Great couple, nine kids.
[02:15:37] But so they would stop in our village and I'd cook for him and his staff.
[02:15:42] So if something was coming up, it'd be like, oh, I'll just call Sean and ask him what's
[02:15:45] going on, you know?
[02:15:47] And so I moved down and that's in Pierce County, right?
[02:15:52] Which is in the third congressional district, not the seventh congressional district.
[02:15:55] I don't know any of this stuff.
[02:15:56] I never tracked politics or anything, right?
[02:15:59] So I'm like, oh, this impeachment was coming on.
[02:16:01] I did human intelligence for a very long period of time.
[02:16:05] I read the Steele dossier and I knew it was absolute junk.
[02:16:09] This is manufactured.
[02:16:11] This is not true.
[02:16:12] It was submitted by a guy who was a former British intelligence officer that was clearly
[02:16:16] colluding with Russian intelligence officers to produce this thing and it's paid for by
[02:16:21] who?
[02:16:22] No.
[02:16:23] I knew it was junk, right?
[02:16:24] So I'm like, who's my congressman?
[02:16:25] You know, because it's not Sean anymore.
[02:16:27] I'm like, whoa, hey, Ron kind, what's your stance on the impeachment of Donald Trump for
[02:16:35] the Russian collusion stuff?
[02:16:37] Didn't write me back.
[02:16:39] Nothing crickets chirping.
[02:16:40] And I'm like, what?
[02:16:43] Dude, the job title is representative.
[02:16:46] It's not your lordship.
[02:16:47] You know what I mean?
[02:16:48] This is not how a representative democracy is supposed to function and it sure didn't
[02:16:52] with Sean.
[02:16:54] So I'm getting steamed and I start looking into this cat, right?
[02:16:58] I mean, finding terrorists in Pakistan is super hard.
[02:17:02] You know what I mean?
[02:17:03] It's very difficult.
[02:17:04] It is not difficult finding out what politicians are doing.
[02:17:09] So I started looking at this guy from the perspective of doing human intelligence and
[02:17:13] finding out what this cat had been doing.
[02:17:15] He'd been in office for 20, two or 23 years at the time.
[02:17:19] Saying stuff in the district, you can find it in newspaper articles and interviews.
[02:17:24] And then I'd compare that to his actual voting record.
[02:17:27] And he was just wrong.
[02:17:29] He would say one thing, go to DC and do another thing because he was working for the behest
[02:17:34] of special interest groups, not the people he's representing, right?
[02:17:39] So the impeachment vote goes down.
[02:17:43] He is number 435 out of 435 representatives to cast his vote, made public on the floor
[02:17:49] because he had to.
[02:17:50] He told everybody in the district he wasn't going to vote for that impeachment because
[02:17:53] it was junk.
[02:17:54] I'm not doing that.
[02:17:56] Well, he did it hoping to slide it under the radar.
[02:17:59] Nope.
[02:18:00] So I sent a text message to this guy named Jim who worked for Sean.
[02:18:03] I'm like, Jim, who are you guys running against this guy?
[02:18:06] And he writes me back and he goes, you know, and I write him back and go, ha ha ha.
[02:18:11] And he didn't write me back.
[02:18:12] So when you write something and somebody writes, ha ha ha, and they don't write back, they're
[02:18:17] not joking.
[02:18:19] And I was like, oh yeah, I should be right.
[02:18:24] I fixed problems for decades.
[02:18:28] So why aren't I fixing this problem?
[02:18:30] And I decided to run for Congress.
[02:18:33] So I got a hold of the RPW, Mark Jefferson, his executive director.
[02:18:37] I did an interview with him.
[02:18:39] And he's like, well, yeah, I guess.
[02:18:42] And I formed this nascent political group.
[02:18:47] Is this 2019?
[02:18:48] This would be 2019.
[02:18:49] Yeah.
[02:18:50] So in 2019, and I formed my team.
[02:18:55] I didn't know what I was doing.
[02:18:56] Here's the metrics.
[02:18:57] People like, there are these metrics.
[02:18:59] So Ron kind had been in office for at that point, 24 years, 25 years, something like that.
[02:19:06] He had $3.1 million in the bank.
[02:19:09] He had a functioning political organization.
[02:19:12] And he had 100% name recognition, 100% kind.
[02:19:17] Right?
[02:19:18] They have those kind bars.
[02:19:19] That's not him.
[02:19:21] I had never thought about being in politics ever, my entire life.
[02:19:27] We moved to the district to be closer to the airport so we can visit our children.
[02:19:31] So the only person that knew my name was my wife.
[02:19:35] I have no money at all, zero name recognition.
[02:19:39] That's the starting point.
[02:19:41] I decided to run for office.
[02:19:43] 72 hours, I announced my candidacy.
[02:19:45] They locked down the entire planet with COVID.
[02:19:48] Boom.
[02:19:49] So I ran a nine month campaign against those odds.
[02:19:54] I came within like two and a half points of beating this guy.
[02:19:58] And he wanted to spend over $6 million against me.
[02:20:03] That's why he resigned.
[02:20:04] Because I announced my candidacy.
[02:20:07] I lost.
[02:20:08] And I tried to, this is amazing.
[02:20:12] You can say whatever you want about the 2020 election.
[02:20:14] But I did the math.
[02:20:15] I look at this.
[02:20:16] I lost by 11,000 votes.
[02:20:17] I go, I can't make up 11,000 votes.
[02:20:20] You know what I mean?
[02:20:21] Even if we found statistical anomalies and all that stuff, that's what I mean.
[02:20:24] I can't, you know, I'm not going to be able to overcome that.
[02:20:27] I try to call that cat.
[02:20:28] I go, that night, like four in the morning, calling to concede the election.
[02:20:32] Right?
[02:20:33] Because you should.
[02:20:34] He wouldn't take the phone call.
[02:20:36] Interesting.
[02:20:37] Not interesting.
[02:20:38] That's an egotistical person whose entire being is based on being a politician who liked
[02:20:44] being called to congressmen, had people open their doors for him.
[02:20:47] And I got so close to beating him, like all throughout the night I was ahead.
[02:20:52] And then like 15,000 votes show up at, you know, 2.30 in the morning or whatever, you
[02:20:55] know, I get it.
[02:20:56] Check their counting ballots that come in.
[02:20:57] I get it.
[02:21:00] He was so angry, he wouldn't take a phone call.
[02:21:04] Not someone who has no business being in leadership anywhere.
[02:21:07] Right?
[02:21:08] I've heard of sore losers.
[02:21:10] Soar winners.
[02:21:11] What?
[02:21:12] No.
[02:21:13] So, um, yeah, I decided to run again because I was talking to Sarah Jane.
[02:21:17] I mean, really that night I go, this is not going to bode well for the country, not me
[02:21:23] personally.
[02:21:24] I mean, my ego, it's over here.
[02:21:26] This is not about me.
[02:21:30] It's not.
[02:21:31] It's about our country and our grandkids.
[02:21:32] At that point we had six grandkids, you know, eight now.
[02:21:36] So I understood that.
[02:21:38] I had no idea it was going to get this bad this fast.
[02:21:43] No one could predict this.
[02:21:44] You just can't.
[02:21:46] You could not.
[02:21:47] But I decided to run again.
[02:21:49] I waited, I shepherd everything.
[02:21:50] I did some changes in my team.
[02:21:53] And then we wound up running the number one political campaign in the entire nation for
[02:21:57] 2021 from Prairie to Sheen, you know, 5,600 people.
[02:22:01] And then what, what, what makes you classify it against the number one political campaign
[02:22:04] in the whole country?
[02:22:05] So what the inside baseball stuff, because everybody understands intuitively or they
[02:22:09] just know it, um, is that in order to get a word out, you have to be able to raise enough
[02:22:14] funds to, to get the word out.
[02:22:18] You know, I don't get any money from my campaign.
[02:22:19] You can take a salary from a campaign.
[02:22:21] I don't, I just don't think that's, you should do that.
[02:22:24] But you have to buy television advertising cable, you print media, you got to pay a staff,
[02:22:29] you know, all this stuff, gasoline, whatever.
[02:22:32] So um, yeah, we, we raise more money than any Republican challenge or in the entire nation
[02:22:36] in 2021.
[02:22:37] But what drove that?
[02:22:40] Me and my team.
[02:22:42] I have an exceptionally good team.
[02:22:44] I'm so incredibly proud of my team.
[02:22:46] And you, you can perform at a high level for only a certain period of time.
[02:22:50] You know this, you got to sleep at some time.
[02:22:52] So how do you, how do you pull off sustained superior performance?
[02:22:56] You make sure that you assemble the best team you possibly can.
[02:22:58] So I have incredibly dedicated people who are all on board for the right reasons.
[02:23:02] I integrate every single one of them personally and make sure that they're in this for something
[02:23:07] beyond themselves, which is the country.
[02:23:09] That's why we're successful.
[02:23:10] Our mission is completely pure.
[02:23:12] Message is pure.
[02:23:14] And we're here for the right reasons.
[02:23:15] We want to save our country.
[02:23:17] And that's very, very rare.
[02:23:19] I think there are some fantastic people in public office and leadership right now.
[02:23:23] They're, they're fantastic.
[02:23:24] A lot of them.
[02:23:25] But other people are just kind of there.
[02:23:27] They're the dude that was the Marops instructor for 15 years, you know, a trade at.
[02:23:33] They're doing a function, but you know, why are they doing it?
[02:23:37] That's why we're successful.
[02:23:39] So what does this look like from here on out from, but what's the next, how, how many
[02:23:44] months are we away right now?
[02:23:47] We're 42 days.
[02:23:48] 42 days away.
[02:23:49] And what does the next 42 days look like?
[02:23:52] I work.
[02:23:54] I, um, meeting, meeting, meeting, meeting, meeting, meeting.
[02:23:59] This is my schedule.
[02:24:00] I've been doing this for three years, dude.
[02:24:02] Who do you meet with?
[02:24:04] I meet with a bunch of different people.
[02:24:07] My favorite meetings are with the guys in the district, the people I'm going to be representing.
[02:24:10] I mean, what is going on, man?
[02:24:13] Like how is your farm doing?
[02:24:16] What is affecting you so that you can or cannot provide for your family as well?
[02:24:21] The biggest thing we get input costs through the roof.
[02:24:23] Joe Biden canceled the Keystone pipeline.
[02:24:26] Okay.
[02:24:27] Check this out.
[02:24:28] Got any Tim Michaels is running for governor.
[02:24:30] Then he's been a friend of mine for, I don't know, three years now or something.
[02:24:34] Start.
[02:24:35] He had his dad started a company.
[02:24:36] He had a couple of hundred employees.
[02:24:37] He has like 8,000 now.
[02:24:38] He's going to win.
[02:24:40] He calls me like the day or so after Biden gets sworn in, goes Derek, I just had to lay
[02:24:45] off 700 people.
[02:24:47] And I'm like, what do you mean, Tim?
[02:24:48] He's like, we were doing the electrical substations for the Keystone pipeline and Biden just went
[02:24:54] flick, shut that off.
[02:24:57] So the cascading effects of these things, people don't understand.
[02:25:01] And I do intuitively because I wrote all these plans and did this stuff and it's something
[02:25:04] I'm good at.
[02:25:05] So here's what happens when you stop natural gas movement and production.
[02:25:09] Do you know where fertilizer comes from, Jaco?
[02:25:11] Yeah.
[02:25:12] Natural gas.
[02:25:13] That's the nitrogen that comes from, that's where it comes from.
[02:25:17] The Wisconsin's third district is one of the top five users of propane and natural gas
[02:25:21] for home heating in the country.
[02:25:23] It gets 20 degrees below zero.
[02:25:26] You're not going to put an extra sweater on it like your mom used to tell you.
[02:25:28] What about solar?
[02:25:32] So check it out.
[02:25:35] We want our grandchildren to have power, right?
[02:25:38] But we have kids now.
[02:25:39] So the Biden administration is trying to skip ahead a generation.
[02:25:42] You can't do that.
[02:25:43] The guy named Brent Ridge runs Dairyland Power, one of the biggest co-ops in my district.
[02:25:48] We have a lot of co-ops because they're rural.
[02:25:51] They did the math.
[02:25:53] So the Biden administration wants to be carbon neutral by 2030.
[02:25:57] Okay?
[02:25:58] A noble goal.
[02:25:59] You know what that takes?
[02:26:00] You have to double the amount of all of the nuke plants on the entire planet.
[02:26:06] So that is not a real goal.
[02:26:10] It's just not.
[02:26:11] So people are eating it right now because of these horrible policies.
[02:26:18] Just that simple.
[02:26:19] It's got to stop, man.
[02:26:20] Yeah.
[02:26:21] You know, people that are in business with me, and there's a lot of them.
[02:26:24] We've got a lot of different businesses.
[02:26:28] Sure.
[02:26:29] And anyone that works with me knows that when I'm looking at things and we're assessing
[02:26:33] something, I'll get to a point where I say, all right, run the numbers.
[02:26:36] Right.
[02:26:37] You know, which is, okay, well, tell me what this is going to cost.
[02:26:39] How much we're going to put it into it?
[02:26:40] What's the ROI look like?
[02:26:41] What's the risk?
[02:26:42] Well, run the numbers.
[02:26:43] Tell me what the numbers look like because that's ultimately, and then the numbers,
[02:26:47] you have to put that into the calculus of your gut feeling for sure.
[02:26:52] But you can have a really strong positive gut feeling like, hey, this sounds like a
[02:26:55] great idea.
[02:26:56] And then you run the numbers and you go, hey, it's probably not going to work, man.
[02:26:59] That's just too much.
[02:27:01] Sometimes you go, you know what?
[02:27:02] This is not a bad idea.
[02:27:03] You run the numbers and you go, hey, this actually makes sense.
[02:27:05] We can go for this.
[02:27:08] And that's why kind of, you know, when you mentioned the closing of the pipeline, it
[02:27:11] kind of, you know, because emotionally you think, well, this seems like a positive thing.
[02:27:16] You know, people can look at it and go, hey, but we don't want to have to put pipes through
[02:27:21] fields and then you run the numbers.
[02:27:24] Right.
[02:27:25] And you just run the numbers.
[02:27:27] And it's not even really that close.
[02:27:29] You know, it's the type of math that you just said, oh, we got to double the number of nuclear
[02:27:32] plants in the next three years if we're going to get there.
[02:27:35] That's what it's going to take.
[02:27:36] In the world.
[02:27:37] In the world.
[02:27:38] Right.
[02:27:39] So check this out, man.
[02:27:40] We don't do enough running of numbers.
[02:27:43] So you know, when you go to your house, let's say you're going to wash your hands and you
[02:27:48] turn the faucet on and a little train car comes with water, right?
[02:27:52] And then you pour the water out of the train car.
[02:27:55] No.
[02:27:56] How does it get into your faucet with a pipe?
[02:27:59] Because it's the most efficient way to transport fluids.
[02:28:02] Not even close.
[02:28:03] Right.
[02:28:04] And it's, and then you want to like light your gas stove.
[02:28:06] Does a little train come and then you get gas?
[02:28:08] No, that comes from a pipe too.
[02:28:10] Now trains themselves, we, I'm in Prairie DeChain.
[02:28:13] It's like train city USA, man.
[02:28:16] Transporting bulk items like coal, for instance, and some other large POL things.
[02:28:23] If you're going from point to point, you have to have a railhead, right?
[02:28:27] So there's room for both of them.
[02:28:29] That's what folks don't understand.
[02:28:31] But we have a carbon based economy.
[02:28:35] And if you shut off the fossil fuels that produce carbon, you're going to destroy the
[02:28:42] economy.
[02:28:43] That's what's happening right now.
[02:28:44] You look at the food cost, dude.
[02:28:46] Farmers have not locked in, wait, check it out.
[02:28:48] Farmers have not locked in fertilizer prices for next year.
[02:28:51] So it's going to keep going up and up and up.
[02:28:53] There's two fertilizer plants that just closed in England.
[02:28:58] There's one in Finland that went down.
[02:29:00] I think they're only going to produce 24% of the fertilizer that they did before.
[02:29:05] Russia is not going to export fertilizer anymore, probably for the future, at least
[02:29:08] five years.
[02:29:09] I mean, they hate us right now.
[02:29:11] And there's these weird tariffs that we put on Morocco where they produce some fertilizers.
[02:29:17] What can Congress do?
[02:29:19] One thing right now, put pressure on the Biden administration to make sure that they open
[02:29:24] up permitting and then get rid of the tariffs on Morocco.
[02:29:29] So looking at all of these problems, people get really worried about a lot of stuff.
[02:29:35] And the current leadership of the Republican Party, Kevin McCarthy in the House, we actually
[02:29:39] have a plan.
[02:29:41] And they've done a tremendous job of looking at all the problems and figuring out which
[02:29:46] one of these from the federal level will we have the greatest probability of having the
[02:29:51] greatest positive effect.
[02:29:53] You know, that's how you're supposed to govern.
[02:29:55] So I'm actually very excited.
[02:29:58] The polls are looking outstanding for us.
[02:30:00] When I say us, I mean my team.
[02:30:02] I know I'm the head of the team, but us, we've done this together.
[02:30:08] So I anticipate being elected in November and giving it a go, man.
[02:30:12] It's not funny.
[02:30:14] I think about that, dude.
[02:30:15] I come from the meanest circumstances.
[02:30:18] The meanest.
[02:30:19] Well, you know, when I kind of opened with that thing from George Washington, I'd heard
[02:30:24] that quote, read that quote a while ago and you know, you think about, you know, I just
[02:30:31] know your career and know what, you know, as an average team guy, what you've done,
[02:30:37] what you've been put through, what your family's been put through.
[02:30:41] And it's like, how much are you going to ask from somebody?
[02:30:43] And I look at the political arena and it makes me sick to my stomach.
[02:30:48] Like I don't, I just think that just sounds, the whole thing sounds awful.
[02:30:52] When you show me your calendar and I know you're going to a bunch of meetings with people
[02:30:55] that half of them, you know, are horrible people, half of them are awesome people.
[02:30:58] You got all this craziness going on.
[02:31:01] I would not say that.
[02:31:02] Okay.
[02:31:03] The vast majority of them are awesome.
[02:31:04] Okay.
[02:31:05] Like vast.
[02:31:06] Well, I know that when I look at what happens to politicians and you're going to get just,
[02:31:12] you know, your life becomes this target, right?
[02:31:16] And so I know that there's a ton of sacrifice that you and your family are going to make
[02:31:21] again.
[02:31:22] You bet.
[02:31:23] In order to do this.
[02:31:25] And yeah, I guess you wouldn't be setting meetings with people that despise you, but
[02:31:28] look, the press is going to absolutely about a large majority of the press will absolutely
[02:31:34] despise you and they're going to do everything to attack you.
[02:31:36] They're going to attack your family.
[02:31:37] They're going to attack your values, your home, your people, your community and everything.
[02:31:42] So the fact that you're like, yeah, cool, Roger that, going to step up and try and make
[02:31:47] this happen and looks like you are going to make this thing happen.
[02:31:50] I'm not going to go there.
[02:31:53] When you look at all the divisiveness in the country right now, one of the things that
[02:32:00] I've given an answer to a bunch is something that we already kind of discussed, which is,
[02:32:04] Hey, I look at something from my perspective and I think, well, you know, Derek has a good
[02:32:09] point there.
[02:32:10] Maybe he's right about this.
[02:32:12] Instead of me thinking, well, Derek doesn't agree with every single point that I have.
[02:32:15] So therefore he's completely wrong about everything.
[02:32:18] I actually hate him.
[02:32:21] How do we try to open people's minds up to get, Hey, you know what?
[02:32:25] I get that you see things a little bit differently and you come from a different background than
[02:32:28] me and I understand your idea.
[02:32:32] At least I know where you're trying to go and it seems like in most cases we can be at
[02:32:37] least somewhat aligned.
[02:32:39] You know, you want for food prices to come down.
[02:32:45] That seems like a universal universal.
[02:32:47] Who would say, No, we think food should be more expensive.
[02:32:51] So what we really should be talking about is if you want food prices to come down and
[02:32:57] let's say you're a conservative, you're a conservative Republican and let's say I'm
[02:33:01] a left wing Democrat and I want food prices to come down.
[02:33:06] So we're actually aligned on where we want to go on that particular subject.
[02:33:11] But it's like there can't even be agreement on that and we can have a logical discussion
[02:33:18] about, Well, okay, well, run the numbers.
[02:33:21] Show me the numbers that you're looking at and I'll show you the numbers that we're
[02:33:22] looking at and let's have a discussion about how we can actually make the food prices come
[02:33:27] down.
[02:33:28] Let's try and figure something out.
[02:33:30] How do we cross that bridge?
[02:33:32] Well, how I plan on crossing that bridge.
[02:33:35] So first and foremost, everyone needs to understand that I will work with anybody who is willing
[02:33:40] to put the interest of the country above their own.
[02:33:43] I don't care who you are, I will work with you and I've proven that over 26 years and
[02:33:47] working the most diverse environments and hostile straight up hostile environments, people
[02:33:53] trying to kill me environment.
[02:33:55] So if you're going to put the betterment of the country in your congressional district
[02:33:59] above your own personal interest, I'm on board.
[02:34:04] And this is this is what I tell people to echoes what you're saying.
[02:34:08] I said, you're going to agree with people oftentimes 90% of the time.
[02:34:14] You know, if I agree with somebody 90% of the time, that's that's a big win, right?
[02:34:19] How many people here can look themselves in the mirror and honestly say that you agree
[02:34:24] with your spouse 90% of the time?
[02:34:28] Almost nobody, right?
[02:34:29] So finding common ground, that's the term finding common ground is imperative to make
[02:34:35] sure that you can actually govern and when you do things strictly on party lines, you
[02:34:40] lose the ability to closely identify common ground.
[02:34:44] How Congress has gotten around this is they put these big omnibus bills together.
[02:34:50] So you're going to using your example, this is going to unleash American energy.
[02:34:58] Therefore the input cost for farming are going to go down.
[02:35:00] That means food costs are going to go down or this is going to decrease the price of
[02:35:04] diesel fuel, which decreases the transportation costs.
[02:35:07] You understand, right?
[02:35:08] And then they'll put something in here like, but we're going to have flag laws and you're
[02:35:13] going to have your guns confiscated confiscated by the state, you know, which I fundamentally
[02:35:17] did that is just wrong, right?
[02:35:19] And they put them in the same bill so that they can vote on it for or against it and
[02:35:25] they can justify it when they go back to their district.
[02:35:28] That's got to stop.
[02:35:30] It has to stop because in no way, shape or form do I support red flag laws.
[02:35:37] I'll give you an example.
[02:35:38] A well regulated militia being necessary for the security of a free state, the right for
[02:35:41] the people to keep their arms shall not be infringed.
[02:35:44] That's the entire text of the Second Amendment, dude.
[02:35:46] So that's out, but lowering food cost is in.
[02:35:50] So in order to hold Congress accountable, Congress has to write clean legislation so
[02:35:57] that I know exactly where Jaco and Echo sit on an issue.
[02:36:03] That's got to happen.
[02:36:04] Are we going to be able to pull it off?
[02:36:05] I don't know.
[02:36:08] But one of the things that I will do that everybody can count on is I will do me.
[02:36:15] Meaning, like the first pledge that I make to everybody is I will not buy, sell or trade
[02:36:20] individual stocks as long as I'm a sitting member of Congress.
[02:36:23] I will not do that.
[02:36:25] And people are like, well, what about this guy?
[02:36:26] What about that guy?
[02:36:27] What about that guy?
[02:36:28] I'm going to do me.
[02:36:29] I'm going to make sure that all the things I'm doing are as morally and ethically and
[02:36:34] legally correct as I possibly can as a human being when I'm in Congress.
[02:36:38] I'll start there.
[02:36:40] Encourage is contagious.
[02:36:41] We talked about that.
[02:36:43] I mean, ideally, people will see that and the people that I'm working with, they'll
[02:36:49] want to do that too.
[02:36:50] I mean, people inherently, you know, they want to do things in a way that's beneficial
[02:36:57] for other people.
[02:36:58] The American people are benevolent.
[02:36:59] We're the most generous country that has ever existed.
[02:37:03] Our populace, you know, the regular people on the street.
[02:37:07] So if you give them the opportunity to do what's right, a lot of people are going to
[02:37:11] do what's right.
[02:37:12] They just need to see somebody else do it.
[02:37:14] You know what I mean?
[02:37:17] Yeah.
[02:37:18] I think America right now, you know, you're looking at anybody looks at some bill that's
[02:37:31] coming before Congress, coming before the House, and it's whatever, 792 pages.
[02:37:37] They don't even read it.
[02:37:40] And there's not one person America that goes, that seems like a good thing.
[02:37:44] And you could go down a whole laundry list of things that every American says, this is
[02:37:49] bullshit.
[02:37:51] This is bullshit.
[02:37:52] What you just talked about, like having these multiple different.
[02:37:54] Yeah.
[02:37:55] Yeah.
[02:37:56] Omnibus bills.
[02:37:57] We got all these different categories that are being voted on in one bill.
[02:38:02] Every American, every American goes, that's bullshit.
[02:38:07] And there's only so long that the politicians can continue to get away with this bullshit
[02:38:14] before Americans, because you got to remember where the people that were like, oh, you're
[02:38:17] going to raise the tax on tea by two cents per freaking giant bundle of tea.
[02:38:26] Yeah.
[02:38:27] No, actually, we're going to fight you.
[02:38:29] At some point, Americans go, hey, this is bullshit.
[02:38:32] And we're going to get rid of you people that are doing these things that are clearly wrong.
[02:38:39] They're so clearly wrong.
[02:38:41] Everybody knows it.
[02:38:42] And eventually we say, oh, yeah, we're done.
[02:38:45] Now look, I don't even think it's going to, I think it's going to be a change like you're
[02:38:50] the personification of this change.
[02:38:52] Right?
[02:38:53] It's not like everyone's going to get voted out tomorrow, but people are going to, oh,
[02:38:56] yeah.
[02:38:57] There's a guy that just went in there and said, yeah, this is a dumb idea.
[02:38:58] Hey, you guys can't pull a wool over the Americans eyes anymore.
[02:39:02] I think over the next several years, maybe even take five, maybe even take 10 years,
[02:39:07] we're going to get rid of these things that are, for lack of a better word, bullshit.
[02:39:13] Right.
[02:39:14] So I want to be very clear.
[02:39:16] I am absolutely, I 100% disavow any type of political violence.
[02:39:22] I do not condone it.
[02:39:24] And that will be the destruction of America if we take up arms against each other.
[02:39:28] I'll have no part of that.
[02:39:30] First time once combat Bosnia-Hurkshukovia, civil war, went to Afghanistan, turned into
[02:39:34] civil war, Iraq turned into civil war, worked in the Horn of Africa, civil war.
[02:39:37] I'll have no part of that in the United States of America.
[02:39:40] So how do we prevent that from happening, which I will do anything to prevent that from
[02:39:44] happening.
[02:39:45] Political violence cannot be part of a discussion in the United States of America.
[02:39:49] It cannot.
[02:39:50] So how do we do it?
[02:39:52] We do it by what you're saying.
[02:39:56] We exercise our rights as American citizens and we get into office and we make the change
[02:40:03] from the inside.
[02:40:04] And here's what's, this is fascinating dude.
[02:40:08] Okay.
[02:40:10] Ask not what your country can do for you.
[02:40:12] Ask what you can do for your country.
[02:40:14] You want to say that?
[02:40:16] John F. Kennedy, JFK said that, right?
[02:40:19] So he said that in 62?
[02:40:22] 61, 62.
[02:40:25] So we went from that, ask not what your country can do for you.
[02:40:27] Ask what you can do for your country.
[02:40:29] We went from that to you're going to do everything I say you're going to do.
[02:40:34] You're going to lock your church.
[02:40:35] You're going to close your business.
[02:40:36] You're not going to be able to speak to each other freely.
[02:40:39] You're going to go to this store, but not that store.
[02:40:42] You're going to get a shot or you're going to get fired.
[02:40:45] You're going to do everything.
[02:40:46] You're going to give me your money, the sweat of your brow.
[02:40:50] And if you don't willingly do this, I'm going to use the full course of power of the federal
[02:40:54] government to compel you to do this.
[02:40:58] You got that?
[02:40:59] Who's that?
[02:41:00] That's AOC.
[02:41:03] So the Democrat party went from JFK to AOC in 50 some years.
[02:41:09] How?
[02:41:11] Republicans let them.
[02:41:13] Something goes wrong on a mission.
[02:41:14] Who's the first person you look at, dude?
[02:41:16] It's you.
[02:41:17] What did I do or not do that led to the failure of this mission?
[02:41:21] Hopefully you're saying what did I do or not do that led to the success of this mission,
[02:41:25] right?
[02:41:26] Never take anything for granted.
[02:41:27] So we as Republicans have let people get away with this for such an extended period of time.
[02:41:32] And we've done it by saying, oh, they have the best interests of the country at hand.
[02:41:36] They really do.
[02:41:37] They want the same thing that we do.
[02:41:39] Yeah, in some aspects you do, but in others they don't.
[02:41:42] And there's people that want to fundamentally change the system of government that has
[02:41:46] proven to be the best one on the entire planet, like ever in history.
[02:41:49] You know what I mean?
[02:41:52] We're one of the youngest countries in the world.
[02:41:53] We are the oldest standing constitution in the world.
[02:41:57] Why?
[02:41:58] Because it is an incredibly functional and beautiful document.
[02:42:01] There's people that want to throw the Constitution out.
[02:42:03] Why?
[02:42:04] Because they're not getting their way.
[02:42:07] So the beauty about our Constitution is something's wrong in it.
[02:42:12] The mechanism for changing it is written into the document itself.
[02:42:15] It's the amendment process.
[02:42:16] You know what I mean?
[02:42:18] So use it.
[02:42:19] And they're like, well, it's so hard.
[02:42:20] Yeah.
[02:42:21] It's supposed to be.
[02:42:22] Right?
[02:42:23] So are we changing stuff?
[02:42:25] Yeah.
[02:42:26] Are people waking up to how destructive the policies have the destructive effect that
[02:42:34] the policies are having?
[02:42:35] Yeah.
[02:42:36] I mean, I see people that are just beside themselves.
[02:42:38] That $10,000 college thing, they want to give $10,000 for student debt relief.
[02:42:44] Check this out, man.
[02:42:45] 75% of my district does not have a four-year degree.
[02:42:48] Only 9% of my district, 9% has a graduate degree.
[02:42:52] And I did a roundtable with some folks.
[02:42:54] And they're all blue-collar folks.
[02:42:56] This is what, 21,000 square feet?
[02:42:57] Yeah.
[02:42:58] Okay.
[02:42:59] This gym is 21,000 square feet is what he's referring to.
[02:43:01] Yeah.
[02:43:02] Sorry.
[02:43:03] The gym is 21,000 square feet.
[02:43:04] Or we do this thing at a HVAC place.
[02:43:05] It's probably 18, 20,000 square feet.
[02:43:07] Two brothers got this thing going.
[02:43:09] They don't have high school degrees and then trade school.
[02:43:12] We're in this beautiful business.
[02:43:14] All the people are just real estate agents.
[02:43:16] No one had a four-year degree.
[02:43:18] And we're like, well, what do you think about this?
[02:43:19] And I go, this is absurd, right?
[02:43:21] So I do this roundtable, I go to a place to get lunch.
[02:43:23] I'm talking to Hannah, is her name, H in the beginning, H at the end, I remember, because
[02:43:27] she said that stuck in my mind.
[02:43:30] And we started talking.
[02:43:31] She goes, yeah, this is great.
[02:43:32] You know, I graduated from college.
[02:43:33] I have all this debt.
[02:43:34] You know, I'm working here as a bartender.
[02:43:36] And her degree was in, gosh, she was like public or communications with an art major,
[02:43:43] or art minor, right?
[02:43:44] I'm like, well, you know, kind of get what you pay for there.
[02:43:47] She goes, yeah, I think it's a great idea.
[02:43:48] Okay, Hannah, hold on a second.
[02:43:50] Let's say this place is banging on a Friday night.
[02:43:52] And there's 100 people here.
[02:43:55] And you go, all right, time out.
[02:43:57] 91 of you go over there.
[02:44:00] Okay.
[02:44:01] And the other nine, you sit here.
[02:44:04] All 91 of you are going to pay for everything they eat and drink tonight.
[02:44:08] And you're going to sit there and watch them.
[02:44:09] And I go, would they be matched?
[02:44:12] She goes, yeah, that's just unfair.
[02:44:14] And I was like, okay, so 91 folks, even if they were just getting it, you know, you're
[02:44:19] talking 25 bucks a person, maybe?
[02:44:23] I mean, they can have lavish dinner, right?
[02:44:26] So this is $2,500 out of every single American taxpayers wallet to pay for somebody to have
[02:44:32] dinner on you.
[02:44:33] No, that doesn't make sense on any planet, right?
[02:44:38] And I told her that and she's like, wow, yeah, that is just unfair.
[02:44:41] I'm like, Hannah, Hannah, run the numbers.
[02:44:45] Walk the dog.
[02:44:46] That's what I call it.
[02:44:47] Walk the dog on this.
[02:44:48] You know what I mean?
[02:44:49] It doesn't make sense.
[02:44:50] So people are seeing that and there's so many reasons to be discouraged, Jaco.
[02:44:56] And you can always find one.
[02:44:57] You can always find no.
[02:44:58] No is easy.
[02:45:01] It is.
[02:45:02] It's easy to see the world.
[02:45:03] No.
[02:45:04] And it's easy to get discouraged.
[02:45:06] It's easy to get down, you know, with all the circumstances.
[02:45:10] But I'm telling you, if you wake up in the morning like I do and you just have an overwhelming
[02:45:16] sense of gratitude like we talked about, just be so gracious.
[02:45:20] Look at yourself.
[02:45:21] Look at the things, the opportunities that you have as a human being in the United States
[02:45:24] of America right now to create something, to do something worthwhile, to help somebody
[02:45:30] out.
[02:45:31] That doesn't exist in a lot of countries.
[02:45:33] And when you just take a minute and go like, yeah, you know, I'm going to go buy that cup
[02:45:36] of coffee.
[02:45:37] I do that for cops and they're like, I'm sorry, sir, I can't accept a gift.
[02:45:40] And I'm like, you're not the boss me, dude.
[02:45:42] Like I don't work for you.
[02:45:44] Police officer X.
[02:45:45] You know, I'm buying you this cup of coffee, dude.
[02:45:48] Or you help out a homeless person, like help them out, not just throw money at them because
[02:45:52] that doesn't help anybody.
[02:45:53] I mean, it doesn't.
[02:45:55] The ability to do that is unique.
[02:45:57] And we got to remember that.
[02:45:59] And you got to tell your friends.
[02:46:01] And you got to encourage your friends to tell other people because you've seen the downward
[02:46:05] spiral, you know, when things start going bad and then it's just that it's this, this
[02:46:11] negative feedback loop that people get into.
[02:46:14] We're in a negative feedback loop, but the inputs are coming from our government.
[02:46:19] And we should be in a negative feedback loop right now.
[02:46:23] So how do you get out of that?
[02:46:25] You put goodness in there.
[02:46:27] That's what we're doing.
[02:46:28] It's, I mean, some things are so basically, you know, philosophical.
[02:46:34] It was interesting teaching special reconnaissance because you have time to reflect.
[02:46:38] When do you have time to reflect?
[02:46:39] And I mean, they started with videos.
[02:46:42] Remember, like two minutes long, then they made them one minute, then they made them
[02:46:45] 30 seconds.
[02:46:46] Oh, you're just talking about social media videos.
[02:46:48] Yeah, they're what seven seconds now.
[02:46:50] So there's been a crunch of the attention span of people and it removes your ability
[02:46:56] to reflect on something.
[02:46:57] You truly don't understand something until you ponder it and teaching special reconnaissance
[02:47:01] and doing special reconnaissance missions.
[02:47:04] You have time to ponder things.
[02:47:05] Yes, you do.
[02:47:06] And sometimes pondering while you're freezing and starving, you know, but, um, and again,
[02:47:11] starting as a kid, you know, reading so much, reading takes time and reflection.
[02:47:16] And when you're, you're putting an author's voice inside of your mind because you're reading
[02:47:21] it and you're, you know, you're hearing that inside.
[02:47:25] You're not receiving this like a television image.
[02:47:29] It's you internalize it.
[02:47:31] So we're putting some good in there.
[02:47:34] Yeah.
[02:47:35] We're injecting good into the cycle.
[02:47:36] Seriously.
[02:47:37] So being there, it's, I want you to listen to people.
[02:47:39] I want you to be encouraged.
[02:47:40] You live in the best country in the world.
[02:47:42] If you're in America right now, and if you're not, move here legally, emigrate to the United
[02:47:46] States of America and we'll welcome you with open arms if you do it the right way.
[02:47:51] Check.
[02:47:52] That gets us, I think that gets us up to date.
[02:47:54] That's where we're at, right?
[02:47:56] Um, these are excellent, by the way.
[02:47:58] Oh, thank you.
[02:47:59] Yeah.
[02:48:00] Thank you.
[02:48:01] Appreciate it.
[02:48:02] I haven't had one before.
[02:48:03] I guess you have this whole line of everything, right?
[02:48:04] We got a line of a bunch of stuff, you know, we got a, we got, um, we're making supplements
[02:48:08] here.
[02:48:09] Um, we've got clothing, we got factories, we got two factories in Maine, we got maybe
[02:48:15] three factories in Maine, depending on what you're counting as a factory.
[02:48:17] And we just consolidated, we're in the process of consolidating our two factories in North
[02:48:22] Carolina to one factory in North Carolina.
[02:48:24] Well, back up.
[02:48:25] Why don't you have a factory in the third congressional district of the state of Wisconsin?
[02:48:29] We can talk about that.
[02:48:30] Let's talk about that.
[02:48:32] We can go out there and check it out.
[02:48:33] And as, as we grow, which we're growing very rapidly right now, and the reason we're growing
[02:48:37] very rapidly is because people want American made stuff.
[02:48:41] Sure.
[02:48:42] Hey dude, we've got power.
[02:48:43] We've got rail, uh, during the, um, summertime, we've got the Mississippi River to move, uh,
[02:48:49] commodities up and down.
[02:48:50] And I have the most fantastical, hardworking, uh, ethically sound badass Americans in the
[02:48:56] world.
[02:48:57] Well, that, that is, that is outstanding.
[02:48:59] And, and that's what we're looking for.
[02:49:02] Um, you know, we've, we've kind of, we're a little bit maxed out our resources or human
[02:49:06] capital up in Maine.
[02:49:08] We're still getting people that are, I mean, the beautiful thing is we've got people coming
[02:49:11] in from all over the country are moving to Maine, moving to North Carolina, knocking
[02:49:14] on the door.
[02:49:15] I want a job.
[02:49:16] I want to work here.
[02:49:17] It's, it's outstanding.
[02:49:18] Uh, and so that's been a huge part of it.
[02:49:22] Um, just growing that, but yeah, we make boots.
[02:49:25] We make jeans.
[02:49:26] We make hunt, hunt gear.
[02:49:28] So American made hunt gear.
[02:49:29] I don't think there's anyone more patriotic in the world than hunters in the, in the
[02:49:33] country than hunters.
[02:49:35] Hunters need to vote like 30% of hunters vote.
[02:49:37] Oh, really?
[02:49:38] That little, we all sit around and are, you know, griping about this and that.
[02:49:42] They don't vote.
[02:49:44] If you're a hunter, vote, register and vote.
[02:49:46] No doubt about it.
[02:49:47] You can't, no doubt about it.
[02:49:48] If you're not part of the problem for hunting rights, for gun rights, for conservation,
[02:49:52] right?
[02:49:53] Like you definitely want to be voting if you're not voting right now.
[02:49:56] But they definitely, I mean, I saw a bunch of hunters over the past, you know, September,
[02:50:00] the past hunting season for me and everyone is just so excited about being able to buy
[02:50:05] stuff that's made in America because this is, you're literally taking money out of our
[02:50:11] economy.
[02:50:12] When you buy something from overseas, you're just giving that money, not only giving it
[02:50:16] overseas, but they don't care about the environment at all in these overseas factories.
[02:50:19] They definitely don't take care of their workers.
[02:50:21] Their workers have no future.
[02:50:22] Their slave labor.
[02:50:23] It's, it's, it's horrible.
[02:50:24] We are paying the Chinese Communist Party to oppress their people and plot against the
[02:50:32] existence of the United States.
[02:50:35] That's what is happening.
[02:50:38] And that's what me and my friends are doing to push back against that is bringing manufacturing
[02:50:44] back to America.
[02:50:45] I mean, you love it.
[02:50:46] We are literally, we have, have literally brought machines that were outsourced to America
[02:50:53] from America 30 years ago.
[02:50:55] We've bought them and have brought them back to America and are putting them to use.
[02:50:59] That's what we're actually doing it right now.
[02:51:02] I mean, we got, we got great documentation of this too.
[02:51:05] So that's what we're doing.
[02:51:06] Well, I tell you what, dude, let me get elected, keep working hard and then student official
[02:51:13] visit.
[02:51:14] Yeah.
[02:51:15] Well, because I listen, I will do anything to help the people that I'm representing.
[02:51:21] Those three conditions, morally, ethically and legally correct, then we got, we have
[02:51:24] to find ways that meet those parameters with the end state of your congressional district,
[02:51:32] the state and the country are better off because of it.
[02:51:34] Yeah.
[02:51:35] And it's, it's just a little nose to the grindstone, dude.
[02:51:38] We really got to think about what's taking place and then act on it.
[02:51:42] Yeah.
[02:51:43] Well, a huge part, a huge part of what you're talking about is, you know, you've said this
[02:51:45] multiple times, you got to put your country first.
[02:51:48] And you know, when, when, when I've, as I've gotten involved in the, in these industries,
[02:51:55] you can look back very easily in the last 40 years, 30 years really of the history of
[02:51:59] the companies in America where you can increase your profits, your short term profits by a
[02:52:07] little percentage and therefore you make this and oh, you know what, we can, we can, it's
[02:52:12] going to cost us more to get it over here.
[02:52:14] It's going to cost us to transport it.
[02:52:15] It's going to cost us time, but we got plenty of time because we're big and it's going
[02:52:20] to save us, you know, 38 cents a garment.
[02:52:24] Let's do it.
[02:52:25] And that's what they did.
[02:52:26] Right.
[02:52:27] And they did that over and over again.
[02:52:28] And then they spread the lie of not, not what they, what we were up against is they
[02:52:32] said, oh, you can't, it's impossible to do this in America now.
[02:52:35] Right.
[02:52:36] It's impossible.
[02:52:37] I was like, are you kidding me?
[02:52:38] This is America.
[02:52:39] It's America.
[02:52:40] This is America.
[02:52:41] We outproduced the world.
[02:52:42] Right.
[02:52:43] And we can build anything.
[02:52:44] We can make anything.
[02:52:45] And, and look, it starts with boots and clothing and jeans and jujitsu, geese and rash guards.
[02:52:49] That's where we're starting.
[02:52:50] I don't know where we're going to finish, but that's what we're doing.
[02:52:53] So we, we have a, we have a globally integrated economy.
[02:52:58] Right.
[02:52:59] It's carbon based and, and I'm okay with that too, to an extent.
[02:53:04] What I'm not is I'm not a globalist.
[02:53:08] And I understand that we need to make sure that we're putting the interest of our people
[02:53:15] first.
[02:53:16] And the best example of this is let's say your, you know, 98 year old person with osteoporosis,
[02:53:24] whatever, and you see someone being assaulted.
[02:53:28] Can you help that person?
[02:53:30] No.
[02:53:31] I mean, you can call police, but you can't get in there.
[02:53:34] So you, you have to be strong in order to help somebody.
[02:53:39] And this administration either doesn't understand that or they don't care.
[02:53:45] So when you are, the difference between equality and equity is everyone should have the, everyone
[02:53:55] should have the ability to start with a level playing field.
[02:54:00] You know what I mean?
[02:54:02] And then you, you succeed or fail predicated on your God given gifts and your drive.
[02:54:09] Right.
[02:54:10] But if I force you to perform less so that you have equity, vice equality, it ruins everything.
[02:54:20] That's Thomas souls.
[02:54:22] Brilliant.
[02:54:23] Yeah.
[02:54:24] We've been kind of exploring bringing him out to bring him on the podcast.
[02:54:27] If you do, can I come talk about him a bunch and he's definitely had a big influence on
[02:54:33] the way that I think.
[02:54:34] Equality of opportunity, not outcome.
[02:54:36] Yeah.
[02:54:37] Just brilliant.
[02:54:38] Yeah.
[02:54:39] Yeah.
[02:54:40] So echo.
[02:54:41] Yeah.
[02:54:42] What's up, man?
[02:54:43] You have any questions?
[02:54:44] Yeah.
[02:54:45] Let's rewind a little bit.
[02:54:46] Oh, oh, oh, you're working at a gas station.
[02:54:48] Yes.
[02:54:49] Did you have any roommates at that time?
[02:54:50] No, no, I was working at dry steel Chevron.
[02:54:52] So you could work at Chevron and have your own apartment.
[02:54:56] Granted, we're starving for sure.
[02:54:58] Wait, so check this out.
[02:55:00] You guys, do you track Dennis Prager?
[02:55:03] Yeah.
[02:55:04] Okay.
[02:55:05] So Prager, you, they did, you know, those series of four minute videos, they did this
[02:55:08] one.
[02:55:09] There's, if you do three things, it doesn't matter where you start on the lower socioeconomic
[02:55:13] scale, you're going to wind up in the middle class.
[02:55:16] You graduate from high school.
[02:55:19] You do not have a child out of wedlock and you have a full time job.
[02:55:23] That could be at the gas station, that could be anywhere, right?
[02:55:27] So you do these three things, statistically, you're going to wind up in the middle class.
[02:55:32] It just takes those things.
[02:55:33] And a lot of people give guff about intergenerational wealth transfer, right?
[02:55:39] Well, we were raised dirt poor, but my mom, because she was a hard worker, when she died,
[02:55:46] she had a home and we sold the home because we didn't want to live there.
[02:55:51] And then we had to pay a bunch of taxes and then we received this, you know, a little
[02:55:55] nest egg from my mom.
[02:55:57] That's money that went from one generation to another.
[02:56:01] That is intergenerational wealth transfer.
[02:56:05] And alls it takes, I mean, that's what it is.
[02:56:07] I mean, you don't get to make up the, I know we're seals, seals make up definitions of
[02:56:10] words all the time, by the way.
[02:56:12] Okay.
[02:56:13] Yeah.
[02:56:14] They'll change your name.
[02:56:15] You know, Jason, I'll say his name.
[02:56:16] Jason, Jason Gabel.
[02:56:18] Yeah.
[02:56:19] Okay.
[02:56:20] Jason Gabel.
[02:56:21] He was in Buds and they're like, were you in Buds with him?
[02:56:24] No, I was not.
[02:56:25] He's after me.
[02:56:26] Okay.
[02:56:27] So J bell is the same, you know, Jason, he was my, he was my LPO when I was at team
[02:56:32] seven.
[02:56:33] Okay.
[02:56:34] He just finished directing an episode of seal team over in Jordan, I think.
[02:56:37] Yeah.
[02:56:38] So we're buddies.
[02:56:39] I did him.
[02:56:40] He asked me, he's like, Hey, I want you to play an airships captain in a movie.
[02:56:42] I'm directing with Nicholas Cage.
[02:56:43] And I'm like, okay, I was working at the cafe.
[02:56:45] I've never chased acting before, but he called me because they're friends.
[02:56:48] I'm like, sure, I'll do that.
[02:56:50] So J bell, he's in Buds and they're like, get over here.
[02:56:54] And like, get over here cable.
[02:56:55] And he's like, it's Cabell and he's like, don't church it up.
[02:56:59] Your name is cable.
[02:57:01] So it's literally changed your, your name.
[02:57:04] So sorry.
[02:57:05] Yeah.
[02:57:06] Gas station poor.
[02:57:07] Yeah.
[02:57:08] But you had your own apartment though.
[02:57:09] Sure.
[02:57:10] I'm just saying it seems like here and here in San Diego anyway, if I work at Chevron,
[02:57:14] I don't think I'm getting my own apartment.
[02:57:16] Then move.
[02:57:17] Can you?
[02:57:18] Can you get a different job?
[02:57:19] Well, honestly, we, there's people that here that live here that work at Chevron that live
[02:57:24] somewhere, they have apartments or something.
[02:57:26] Right.
[02:57:27] But with a roommate or something like this, actually, you know, when, when guys are in
[02:57:31] the military here, especially they're young guys in the military, they're, they're, if
[02:57:36] they got a family, they're either having to live on house basing or maybe they go out
[02:57:40] in town.
[02:57:41] And a lot of them are on, on a wick and snapping all that stuff.
[02:57:46] So you have, so when we were raising our kids, and this is a, it's a choice that you can
[02:57:51] make.
[02:57:52] So Sarah was an RN.
[02:57:54] She's an ICU nurse and I was a E four, I guess.
[02:57:57] And we had our second child and I think I made E five by then.
[02:58:02] And we just looked at it and said, Hey, look, her economic earning potential is three times
[02:58:07] what mine was.
[02:58:08] But we said, we have these kids and we chose to invest in the children.
[02:58:14] You know what I mean?
[02:58:15] We stayed at home since we had our second child and we supported ourselves off a single
[02:58:20] enlisted person's salary.
[02:58:23] And we had, what's that?
[02:58:25] It's the wick women, infant and children, you know, like coupons to get milk and all
[02:58:30] that stuff.
[02:58:31] I mean, we were poor.
[02:58:33] But relatively speaking, you know, if you, you, you projected across the globe, we're
[02:58:39] still incredibly wealthy.
[02:58:41] If you look at that in perspective, and I think when the department of the army just
[02:58:44] came on and said, Hey, instead of paying enlisted people more, put them on food stamps.
[02:58:48] That's an issue.
[02:58:49] Yeah.
[02:58:50] Well, that's a way for them to save money in the long run, right?
[02:58:52] Which is not giving them, you're not raising their base pay, which means you don't have
[02:58:56] to pay the retirement as much.
[02:58:58] But Echo, what was your point in saying that like it's making the comparison, but you make
[02:59:03] a good point too, because, and this was actually kind of maybe a few years after that, I remember
[02:59:09] I had a roommate too though, but my portion of the rent was like 450 bucks or something.
[02:59:16] And I was making like 300 bucks every two weeks.
[02:59:20] So I was making like 600 bucks.
[02:59:22] Where was this here?
[02:59:23] You know, I, you know, I, you were living large.
[02:59:26] So your point is, were you moving, moving company?
[02:59:29] No, no, no, no, moving company for my first summer job.
[02:59:31] But you made good money moving, right?
[02:59:33] I was a part time bouncer at that time.
[02:59:36] You ain't going to make a bunch of money for being a part time bouncer.
[02:59:38] No, no, no, no, no, I'm just making the comparison with like how much you can make versus what
[02:59:42] you can kind of live off of and have your own apartment or whatever.
[02:59:45] And you know what?
[02:59:46] I'm biased.
[02:59:47] That's why, because I'm like, I look at like the apartment rent right now and it's like
[02:59:51] 3,000, 3,500, 4,000, 4,300 is what I'm hearing.
[02:59:57] You're saying it's San Diego.
[02:59:58] Yeah, exactly right.
[02:59:59] San Diego and in UTC.
[03:00:00] Yeah, calm man.
[03:00:01] There's places in even in San Diego, which is super expensive.
[03:00:06] There's places that are way cheaper than that.
[03:00:08] In fact, I would actually even say most places are going to be way cheaper than that.
[03:00:13] Definitely.
[03:00:14] In all of probably California really when you think about, I mean there's certain designated
[03:00:17] cities that's like, okay, it's crazy, but everywhere else is probably a lot cheaper.
[03:00:22] But you make a good point where it's like, yeah, I worked at Chevron, but then even you
[03:00:26] saying like, oh yeah, you're starving.
[03:00:28] It's kind of like, okay, there, that's kind of the deal.
[03:00:31] No one's really starving now.
[03:00:32] You know, everyone's got their phone and they got their this.
[03:00:35] I'm thankful that people are not hungry.
[03:00:37] Yeah, yeah, yeah, fully, but that's a whole different thing though.
[03:00:40] Then as far as like what I was kind of trying to compare.
[03:00:44] But I don't think we're way off.
[03:00:45] I think, I think it's kind of similar now.
[03:00:47] I think just now we're just distracted by way more things.
[03:00:50] But you also got to look at what you're going to accept and what you're going to do about
[03:00:55] it.
[03:00:56] Because I was in Iraq, we hit this target building and we roll in there and there's
[03:01:03] a family, whatever live in there and there's a bad guy and we got the bad guy and we're
[03:01:06] now we're like looking at this place where it lives.
[03:01:08] And in the, it was basically one big room and then like two smaller sleeping rooms.
[03:01:16] But in the one big room, there was the kitchen where they made the food and then there was
[03:01:20] like a, there was like a sink to make, to do dishes.
[03:01:25] It was the kitchen.
[03:01:26] Then there was a small bench or table to prep the food and then right next to that was the
[03:01:31] shitter.
[03:01:32] It was like, it wasn't, it wasn't a toilet.
[03:01:34] It was a trough that had a little hole that you would shit right there.
[03:01:38] And these things were separated by no more than five feet.
[03:01:42] If I moved in there within 30 seconds, I'd be assessing how we're going to do this different.
[03:01:47] What change we're going to make, we're going to make this thing better.
[03:01:48] We're not going to, we're not going to shit where we eat.
[03:01:50] That's just a general rule.
[03:01:51] We're going to make change.
[03:01:52] Now this family had been living there for a long time.
[03:01:55] And I noticed that wherever we would go, there would be some guys in the platoon that would
[03:01:59] be like, oh, we're moving into this building now.
[03:02:01] Cool.
[03:02:02] Here's what I'm going to do.
[03:02:03] They would make it work.
[03:02:04] They would make it work.
[03:02:05] They would make it work.
[03:02:06] They would make it work.
[03:02:07] And they would start making stuff.
[03:02:08] They'd start building stuff.
[03:02:09] They'd get everything set up.
[03:02:10] They'd get a fan from somewhere.
[03:02:11] They'd rig that.
[03:02:12] They'd make it work.
[03:02:13] Guys would just take action to improve their situation that they're in.
[03:02:14] And some people aren't.
[03:02:15] So if you're in an apartment and you're working at Chevron and you're starving, you go, hey,
[03:02:20] you know what?
[03:02:21] This sucks.
[03:02:22] I think this sucks.
[03:02:23] I'm going to go and see what the U.S. military, if there's an opportunity for me there.
[03:02:28] That's Derek.
[03:02:29] You know, I'm working at Wendy's.
[03:02:31] Guess what?
[03:02:32] This sucks.
[03:02:33] It sucks working at Wendy's.
[03:02:35] They have these fantastic potato wedges.
[03:02:37] Oh, believe me.
[03:02:38] I'm not knocking.
[03:02:39] I can't say I didn't really dig Wendy's.
[03:02:42] But I'm looking at it going, hey, you know what?
[03:02:45] This sucks.
[03:02:46] I don't want to do this.
[03:02:47] I don't want to do this for a long time.
[03:02:48] I want to find something else.
[03:02:49] Okay.
[03:02:50] What options do they have in the U.S. military for me?
[03:02:53] You and I both kind of look towards the military, but no matter where you're at, you look around
[03:02:58] and go, hey, you know what?
[03:02:59] Where I'm at right now kind of sucks.
[03:03:01] If you're thinking that right now, then you say, okay, why does it suck?
[03:03:04] What do I need to do to improve it?
[03:03:05] How can I start building in the right direction?
[03:03:07] But you know, when we looked at how things were being manufactured, the only way to manufacture
[03:03:15] something is do it over scenes.
[03:03:16] That sucks.
[03:03:17] Right.
[03:03:18] And my business partner Pete said, that sucks.
[03:03:20] I want to make stuff in America.
[03:03:22] Had to go and find a freaking loom and pull it out of an abandoned factory and get that
[03:03:25] thing working again and find people that knew how to work it.
[03:03:27] Why?
[03:03:28] Because it sucked and we're going to do something about it.
[03:03:30] It sucks that we couldn't get boots that we wanted that were made in America.
[03:03:35] Cool.
[03:03:36] That sucks.
[03:03:37] What are we going to do about it?
[03:03:38] So if you're in a situation that sucks, don't just sit there and grovel in it.
[03:03:43] Figure out what you can do to make some adjustments and listen.
[03:03:46] Are there hard times that hit people?
[03:03:48] Yeah.
[03:03:49] You know, that's a classic extreme ownership question that I'll get.
[03:03:53] Hey, I've been hit with this disease, been hit with cancer.
[03:03:57] I mean, I remember distinctly.
[03:03:59] I got asked this question at a live event.
[03:04:03] Woman said, you know, my, my, my child was a daughter, daughter has cancer.
[03:04:07] How can I take ownership of that?
[03:04:09] What am I supposed to do?
[03:04:11] How am I supposed to take ownership of?
[03:04:12] How is that my fault?
[03:04:13] And I said, no, it's not your fault.
[03:04:14] Obviously that your child got cancer.
[03:04:18] What you take ownership of is how you respond to it.
[03:04:20] Right.
[03:04:21] So, so I see what you're saying.
[03:04:25] So here is the, the, the nexus of personal responsibility and governmental control.
[03:04:34] So the government's job is to make sure that the playing field is level.
[03:04:39] And also we've gotten to the point where we seem to have demonized labor.
[03:04:46] So we have to not take away the dignity of labor.
[03:04:50] You know what I mean?
[03:04:51] Like I have a picture on my phone.
[03:04:53] I'm handing a young guy named Joey his first paycheck of his life.
[03:04:57] You know what I mean?
[03:04:59] He'll remember that 250 bucks the rest of his life.
[03:05:02] Raleigh Bevan's handed me my first check at a movie theater.
[03:05:06] I remember that.
[03:05:07] I remember the guy's name.
[03:05:08] That was 50 years ago when I ran up.
[03:05:10] No, 50 on 53.
[03:05:12] So 35 years, 40 years, whatever it is.
[03:05:14] I don't know.
[03:05:15] Right.
[03:05:16] So I remember Raleigh Bevan's doing that.
[03:05:18] So what is taking place in the United States of America is that for some reason we've allowed
[03:05:22] these folks to convince people that if you work with your hands, you're lower and you're
[03:05:28] lesser.
[03:05:29] So even for some people, they're okay with their circumstances by working at Wendy's.
[03:05:35] And we have to understand that it's okay if that's what you're going to do.
[03:05:39] But then again, if you want something more, that's the part where you've got to look inside.
[03:05:44] And I think that's what you're articulating.
[03:05:45] If you're not happy with your circumstance and the level or the playing field is level
[03:05:50] because the government is set conditions for everybody level and you're living in a place
[03:05:55] where you don't want to be, it's up to you to facilitate that change.
[03:06:00] Yeah.
[03:06:01] Well, of course there's people.
[03:06:02] That's another leadership question I could ask.
[03:06:03] You know, I got Fred and Fred, he comes to work from nine to five, but he's not motivated
[03:06:07] to do anything else.
[03:06:08] He's perfectly fine.
[03:06:09] Just just work.
[03:06:10] And I said, oh, you've got a great person then that's satisfied with where they're at.
[03:06:15] They're doing their job every day.
[03:06:16] They're working hard.
[03:06:17] It doesn't mean turn their turn your back on them and think, well, I'm never going to
[03:06:20] pay attention to Fred again.
[03:06:21] No, it means every six months you check in with Fred and you say, hey, Fred, I know
[03:06:24] you're waiting for kids to get through middle school or you're going to a lot of their games.
[03:06:29] Now that your kid left middle school, are you thinking about maybe moving into a leadership
[03:06:33] position?
[03:06:34] No, I want to wait until they're done with high school.
[03:06:35] Hey, cool.
[03:06:36] No problem.
[03:06:37] I appreciate the work you're doing.
[03:06:38] Are you familiar with the concept of the regimental corporal?
[03:06:41] Speak to me on the regimental corporal.
[03:06:42] All right.
[03:06:43] So in the British Army, they have something that's called the regimental corporal.
[03:06:46] Like in the American military, you have to promote, promote, promote.
[03:06:49] Oh yeah.
[03:06:50] So they have people that are corporals.
[03:06:51] Yeah.
[03:06:52] For life.
[03:06:53] Right.
[03:06:54] For their career.
[03:06:55] They are the best weapons technician in the world and they really want to do that.
[03:06:59] You know what I mean?
[03:07:00] And that's, it's not the English dream, clearly, but that's where that guy wants to be.
[03:07:05] So the beauty of the United States of America, and we got to get back this because we're
[03:07:09] getting away from it, is when you work yourself into a place where you're content, it's okay
[03:07:14] to be content.
[03:07:15] I mean, it's nice to be content, not complacent.
[03:07:18] There's a difference.
[03:07:19] So when you're content with your family situation, your school and your job and all that stuff,
[03:07:24] that's awesome.
[03:07:25] That's your American dream, man.
[03:07:26] You don't, you don't have to have a mansion in Beverly Hills.
[03:07:28] We've been just fooled.
[03:07:30] I have guys that tag me in social media of like plumbing installs that are super freaking
[03:07:36] dialed or they're putting an electrical subpanel and everything is squared away and they're
[03:07:41] like, yeah, check it out.
[03:07:42] Check it out.
[03:07:43] Hell yeah.
[03:07:44] Absolutely 100%.
[03:07:45] That's a trade.
[03:07:46] That's a skill.
[03:07:47] And that's awesome.
[03:07:48] I'm super stoked when I see that stuff.
[03:07:50] And that's again, one thing I'm very lucky is that, you know, I work with my consulting
[03:07:56] company, Ashland Front, we work with companies all over the country and all over the world.
[03:08:01] And so I get to travel into wherever North Dakota and go out and check out the oil rigs
[03:08:09] that are being drilled.
[03:08:10] The drill is the guys working, what they're doing.
[03:08:13] Those freaking guys are awesome.
[03:08:14] The linemen up in Michigan, you know, hanging wires, going through Wisconsin, yeah, in
[03:08:19] Wisconsin all over.
[03:08:22] And these people are skilled.
[03:08:24] They've got a badass job.
[03:08:26] They know that their job is completely me.
[03:08:28] They literally supply power to the country.
[03:08:33] Freaking outstanding.
[03:08:34] So linemen, right?
[03:08:36] I'm going around right off the Great River Road, Highway 35 goes along the Mississippi.
[03:08:41] I'll have the largest contiguous section of the Mississippi River of any congressional
[03:08:45] district in the country.
[03:08:46] Boom.
[03:08:47] It's beautiful.
[03:08:48] See this great house on a corner.
[03:08:51] Big garage.
[03:08:52] It's like a three story place truck in the driveway.
[03:08:57] This new pontoon boat with like a 250 horsepower motor or something outboard, you know, cost
[03:09:02] more than my truck.
[03:09:04] And so I whip in there because I want to put a yard sign in this guy.
[03:09:06] I go, Hey man, do you mind me asking what you do for a living?
[03:09:10] I went to trade school for two years and he had two kids and I can't remember his wife's
[03:09:18] name for Pete six.
[03:09:20] She was a radiology technician, not a radiologist, but she, okay, she went to trade school.
[03:09:26] So you got these two people went to trade school, graduated from high school and they're
[03:09:30] balling dude.
[03:09:31] I mean, they're living their American dream.
[03:09:33] They've got their kids in school and I'm like, why is that wrong?
[03:09:38] And you, you can't fix a toilet with the degree in 13th century French poetry and you just
[03:09:45] can't.
[03:09:47] So why have we demonized the things that built this nation?
[03:09:51] You know what I mean?
[03:09:52] You, you can't, you can't pump the air conditioning in this room.
[03:09:56] If you have a degree in communications, you gotta be a metal worker.
[03:10:00] You know what I mean?
[03:10:01] You have to be a sheet metal worker to make ducting.
[03:10:03] So one of the things that I'm doing Chaco is I consider myself and I think that the
[03:10:08] federal government needs to do more cheerleading like we have to cheerlead.
[03:10:12] I did a, I got endorsed by 16 in the 19 sheriffs of my district.
[03:10:17] You know what I mean?
[03:10:19] Because they know I have their back 100%.
[03:10:21] I, I've lived in ungoverned space.
[03:10:23] I'm unwilling to do that in the United States.
[03:10:25] How do you prevent that?
[03:10:26] You support the police officers.
[03:10:28] That's what you do, right?
[03:10:29] So I'm, I'm all in with these guys all the time and I'm also all in with people that
[03:10:37] are going to trade school.
[03:10:39] So we have to have people in positions of power go, it is so awesome that you are protecting
[03:10:44] me when I say, I tell them this, okay dude.
[03:10:46] So I'm a Christian.
[03:10:48] I was never afraid of being injured or killed.
[03:10:52] It was not part of my calculation.
[03:10:55] You know what I mean?
[03:10:56] I, for me, I've read the end of the book, seen the end of the movie.
[03:10:58] I know what happens.
[03:10:59] Even I used to joke, you know, with my wife about this and it was just kind of, she's
[03:11:05] a frog.
[03:11:06] Real funny.
[03:11:07] Well, she's a frog.
[03:11:08] No, she's a frog man's wife.
[03:11:09] You know what I mean?
[03:11:10] So I was never worried about that.
[03:11:13] What I was worried about was my family.
[03:11:16] You know what I mean?
[03:11:17] I was worried about my family and the most precious gift you can have from my personal
[03:11:23] experience in a combat environment is like a two hour nap, right?
[03:11:29] You get two hours of sleep when things are squarely.
[03:11:32] Why can you get that two hour nap?
[03:11:35] Because your brothers have guns and they're looking out and they're protecting you in
[03:11:39] your sleep.
[03:11:41] That's something I cherished and I still do.
[03:11:43] Who does that for my family?
[03:11:45] Police officers.
[03:11:47] That's a gift.
[03:11:48] And when people are demonizing them, they just don't understand that.
[03:11:52] These people are literally watching your children as they sleep to make sure they're not harmed.
[03:11:57] What is more honorable than that and noble?
[03:11:59] I don't know.
[03:12:00] Yeah.
[03:12:01] Yeah.
[03:12:02] Same thing with the guys and gals that are building our country.
[03:12:04] Yeah.
[03:12:05] Same thing when you flip on that electrical switch.
[03:12:07] Honorable and it's noble and things don't work without that.
[03:12:12] So the federal government needs to cheerlead.
[03:12:15] We need to tell people you're not, you're only here because these people are working
[03:12:19] so hard.
[03:12:21] That's why you could drive your car to work.
[03:12:23] That's why you're eating.
[03:12:24] That's why you have clothes.
[03:12:26] These are things that don't take these fancy pants degrees.
[03:12:30] I don't have an issue.
[03:12:31] I mean, I went to law school.
[03:12:32] You know what I mean?
[03:12:34] I get it.
[03:12:35] Higher education is very important.
[03:12:36] Graduate degrees are important.
[03:12:37] By the way, I finished my first year of law school and did full time congress.
[03:12:41] So I'm technically not a sabbatical.
[03:12:43] Which I'm...
[03:12:44] You may or may not get back to.
[03:12:47] Well, I'm going to have a greater positive effect writing laws than I will interpreting
[03:12:51] them.
[03:12:52] And again, I got into that.
[03:12:53] I went to that for intellectual curiosity, not to be perry-mason or something like that.
[03:12:58] Anyway, so that's the next thing I'm doing.
[03:13:00] Cheerleading.
[03:13:01] Check.
[03:13:02] Was that the only question?
[03:13:03] That was the only one.
[03:13:04] That's the only one.
[03:13:05] I was trying to make a comparison.
[03:13:06] Just drawing a comparison.
[03:13:07] Dude, you got to test him a little bit.
[03:13:08] You know, he's going to be up against the big dogs, the big tough questions.
[03:13:12] That's it for right now.
[03:13:13] How about that?
[03:13:14] Okay.
[03:13:15] Right on.
[03:13:16] Okay.
[03:13:17] Um, gosh, I, uh, I, again, I want people to be encouraged.
[03:13:24] And you know, how are you encouraged is you, you sit down and you, you practice, actively
[03:13:31] practice gratitude for what you got.
[03:13:35] And you understand that you are empowered to change your circumstances.
[03:13:41] And I know that because I was raised dirt poor in a single home, high school dropout,
[03:13:48] the whole works in jerks.
[03:13:49] I'm going to Congress next year.
[03:13:50] So if I can do this, you can do it.
[03:13:54] It's the same.
[03:13:55] I told you, man, I knew I could graduate from Bud's because there is a seal with a trident
[03:13:59] on in front of me.
[03:14:01] Right?
[03:14:02] Yeah.
[03:14:03] Means it's possible.
[03:14:05] So act.
[03:14:06] Right?
[03:14:07] It is possible.
[03:14:10] So act.
[03:14:11] Awesome words to close on.
[03:14:13] Thanks for joining us, brother.
[03:14:15] Thanks for your service.
[03:14:16] Well, thank you for yours.
[03:14:17] That code's really nice to meet you, man.
[03:14:19] Likewise.
[03:14:20] I'll give you my phone number.
[03:14:21] You can call me.
[03:14:22] I think you already got it.
[03:14:23] Well, God bless you guys and your listeners.
[03:14:25] And I just wish you the best.
[03:14:27] Oh, hey, where's that thing?
[03:14:29] Oh, we got a baseball bat.
[03:14:30] Check this out.
[03:14:31] So this, this was made by the three brothers back company.
[03:14:39] This is in Wisconsin.
[03:14:42] Got ahold of these guys.
[03:14:43] A couple of played college balls.
[03:14:44] It's actually four brothers and a sister, but they decided to start making baseball bats.
[03:14:52] So this bat is, it meets all the standards to be used in major league baseball.
[03:14:59] And these dudes have bought the Seoul building and started making these things.
[03:15:01] Yeah.
[03:15:02] So what happened with bats is I did like a, okay, long story on the bats.
[03:15:07] Here's the long story on the bats when I went to Iraq, platoon commander 2003.
[03:15:14] When did you go there for the first time?
[03:15:16] 2004.
[03:15:17] I was in Afghanistan in 2003.
[03:15:19] I was in Iraq in 2005.
[03:15:20] When you were in Afghanistan in 2003 was America sending a bunch of stuff over there just like
[03:15:25] care packages and like sunscreen.
[03:15:28] Still are.
[03:15:29] Okay.
[03:15:30] So that was going on.
[03:15:31] And for whatever reason, you know, the sun screen and like M&M just all this stuff and
[03:15:36] they would send baseball gloves and baseballs and baseball bats.
[03:15:41] So for whatever reason, we had a bunch of baseball bats.
[03:15:44] So we're living in a, you know, this was 2003.
[03:15:48] The war had kind of, well, this is the fall of 2004, 2003.
[03:15:53] So the war wasn't very deep.
[03:15:54] There wasn't all this infrastructure.
[03:15:56] There wasn't like a Wendy's on the base and everything like this yet.
[03:16:00] And so we were briefing in this crappy room with, you know, like a sheet hung up on the
[03:16:05] wall and I would brief, I would go and get one of the bats from this MWR, the morale
[03:16:12] welfare and recreation bucket, which had three baseball bats in it.
[03:16:16] That somebody, some cool person from America threw them into a package and sent them to
[03:16:20] support the troops, which is beautiful.
[03:16:23] And so I would walk over there, grab a bat and that's how I'd brief.
[03:16:26] And one of my friends has a, has a video of me briefing with the bat.
[03:16:30] And you know, that's just like how I would point to like, Hey, we're going to go in
[03:16:33] over here, we're going to move over there.
[03:16:35] And so then when I was a task unit commander, it kind of continued on that we had like a
[03:16:40] briefing bat.
[03:16:42] And then we did a video the other day and I was just like talking about leadership or
[03:16:45] something.
[03:16:46] I was holding a bat and I forget what bat it was.
[03:16:48] It'll be that one in the future.
[03:16:49] Well, in the future, it'll be this one.
[03:16:50] But then now a bunch of people, now I have, I think, I think I've received five baseball
[03:16:56] bats from various people, custom baseball bats.
[03:16:59] I mean, you can see there's another one right over there.
[03:17:01] I got a few of them at home.
[03:17:03] But yeah, this one is, this one's awesome.
[03:17:05] Made in America.
[03:17:06] It says deaf core pro model deaf 434.
[03:17:11] Three brothers bat company, dude.
[03:17:13] That is in my district.
[03:17:14] And that is another example of people saying I have got a good idea.
[03:17:20] There's, I'll tell you one, I got to get out here.
[03:17:22] There's weasel concrete, concrete company.
[03:17:25] Joe just died.
[03:17:26] Gosh, it must have been 16 months ago.
[03:17:30] Joe had like six kids and they had a house and Mary's his wife.
[03:17:35] And he's like, I got an idea.
[03:17:38] I got an idea how to make concrete this certain way to make this stuff and it's going to work.
[03:17:45] Mortgage is his house again.
[03:17:47] So you want to talk about risk?
[03:17:49] Homeless Wisconsin six kids.
[03:17:52] That would happen if you failed.
[03:17:53] But he's like, I have an idea.
[03:17:56] He died a billionaire.
[03:17:58] Yeah, because he was like, I'm sick.
[03:18:02] Check on the billionaire part.
[03:18:03] Not so much to check on the diet part.
[03:18:04] But I mean, if you're going to die, you might as well do it as a billionaire.
[03:18:07] Right.
[03:18:08] Right.
[03:18:09] So the, that's one of the things where people demonize business people.
[03:18:11] I'm like the hardest that I would say the wealthiest people I know are some of the hardest
[03:18:17] working people I know.
[03:18:19] And you know, that's their thing.
[03:18:20] That's their metric.
[03:18:21] As I started off, you know, I still do this.
[03:18:25] I collect relationships with people.
[03:18:27] To me, that is my metric of success.
[03:18:29] How many people do I know at what level do I know them?
[03:18:32] How can I help them?
[03:18:33] Will they reach out to me if they need something and can I facilitate that need?
[03:18:37] That's my metric of success.
[03:18:38] It always has been.
[03:18:39] Sarah Jane, I live on my enlisted retirement.
[03:18:41] You know what I mean?
[03:18:42] Cause we don't chase nickels.
[03:18:43] I just, it's not my thing.
[03:18:45] But if, if that, if you're a businessman, you're metric or woman, you're metric of success
[03:18:51] more likely than not is financial.
[03:18:54] So therefore, if you're doing this and that's the metric of success, you should be wealthy
[03:18:59] as a business person.
[03:19:00] If you're a doctor, you should be carrying people.
[03:19:03] So I'd love that about this job because I get to meet the most fascinating people like
[03:19:10] those dudes that made that bat for you.
[03:19:13] And it was an offhand comment.
[03:19:14] You know this Jocko guy?
[03:19:17] When did you meet him and when did they get the bat to you to bring it hand carry it to
[03:19:20] me?
[03:19:21] I met him right overnight to my mother in law's house.
[03:19:24] It was, it was delivered yesterday.
[03:19:27] So I talked to the cats and they're like, Oh, you know this Jocko willing guy?
[03:19:31] I'm like, you know, and they said it like, you know, cause apparently he's a big deal.
[03:19:35] I mean, I don't know this stuff, dude.
[03:19:37] Like I didn't know he had this.
[03:19:38] I was like, you don't know he has all this stuff because I started looking into it and
[03:19:42] you wrote all these books and everything.
[03:19:43] I go like, if you're going to accountant, you know, would you like go watch a movie about
[03:19:48] tax season or, you know, you wouldn't.
[03:19:50] I'm like, so why would I be looking into Jocko?
[03:19:52] I know the dude, he's an awesome cat.
[03:19:54] You know, why would I be following him around?
[03:19:57] So I didn't, but they're like that offhand comment.
[03:20:01] I go, yeah, man, I've known him for like 30 years, I guess now over T one, right?
[03:20:05] And they're like, you are kidding me.
[03:20:08] I'm like, no.
[03:20:09] So they follow your podcast.
[03:20:10] They watch it.
[03:20:11] I think that they've taken a lot of your lessons because they're incredibly squared away dudes
[03:20:15] and families awesome.
[03:20:16] And just their name.
[03:20:17] They have, you know, too many siblings to put it on a bat.
[03:20:19] That's why it's three brothers back company.
[03:20:21] But yeah, so that was made for you and I have one.
[03:20:25] It's in my office, which I think again, cheerleading for people is what that should be a primary
[03:20:32] function of politics.
[03:20:33] I mean, clearly you must write functional policy and translate ideas into action and
[03:20:38] you do that through written word advice again, like we used to do.
[03:20:41] But the rest is just telling telling people about other people.
[03:20:46] You know what I mean?
[03:20:47] If if if I could if I could tell you about all the people that I know and what they've
[03:20:55] done, it would just be an endless conversation.
[03:21:00] And to me, that means I am the most successful person in the world because that's my metric
[03:21:04] of success.
[03:21:05] Check.
[03:21:06] Awesome, man.
[03:21:07] Well, like I said, thanks for coming down.
[03:21:10] Yeah, appreciate it.
[03:21:11] God bless you, man.
[03:21:13] Thanks for thanks for the service of your family, by the way.
[03:21:16] And what the what the military wives and spouses for the bomb go through incredible, the kids
[03:21:24] that grow up, you know, without dads around without moms around, really, really challenging.
[03:21:31] So thanks to your family as well.
[03:21:32] And I'll pass it on.
[03:21:34] I wish you fair wins, fair wins, following seas and a lot of votes.
[03:21:39] There you go.
[03:21:40] Get them.
[03:21:41] All right, bro.
[03:21:42] Thanks.
[03:21:43] Cheers.
[03:21:44] Oh, one more thing.
[03:21:45] I forgot vanordanforcogers.com.
[03:21:46] On Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram, you're at Derek D. E. R. R. I. C. K. Van Orden O. R.
[03:21:56] D. E. N. And you're up on all those different platforms.
[03:22:00] You got a YouTube channel as well.
[03:22:01] I do.
[03:22:02] So we can you can explore.
[03:22:04] You got lots of 30 second clips on there.
[03:22:06] Those are your little ad spots.
[03:22:08] I do those.
[03:22:09] I also make these little videos and just try to explain.
[03:22:12] Where do you put your little videos?
[03:22:14] They go mostly on my social media.
[03:22:16] And then we also rip them over to YouTube.
[03:22:19] So it's all out there.
[03:22:20] If you want to get a feel, a better feel, if over three hours of conversation, if you
[03:22:25] don't think like you feel, feel like you know Derek yet, you want to get to know, you might
[03:22:29] know Derek, do you know Van O?
[03:22:31] Do you know Van O?
[03:22:32] Do you know D. V. O?
[03:22:33] All right.
[03:22:34] D. V. O.
[03:22:35] All right, man.
[03:22:36] Thank you.
[03:22:37] You bet.
[03:22:38] And with that, Derek Van Orden, Van O.
[03:22:42] D. V. O.
[03:22:43] D. V. O.
[03:22:44] What's going with?
[03:22:45] Yeah.
[03:22:46] D. V. O.
[03:22:47] D. V. O. has left the building.
[03:22:50] Lot going on in the life of D. V. O.
[03:22:55] Some pretty important themes throughout the talk, the discussion.
[03:23:03] And you know what I just realized?
[03:23:06] He was in that movie.
[03:23:07] Did you know he was in that movie?
[03:23:08] He mentioned it, but then we, and I like pulled him back to talk about something else.
[03:23:11] And then he's using the movie, the movie is called Act of Valor.
[03:23:15] I did not know that.
[03:23:16] Yeah.
[03:23:17] So he was, he played a scene in that movie.
[03:23:19] He was an interrogator and came in and he, it was pretty funny.
[03:23:25] He was kind of like just him, but being super aggressive.
[03:23:32] But yeah, man, what a dedication to jump back into this stuff and get after it.
[03:23:40] But um, hey, with that, appreciate everyone listening, appreciate the support.
[03:23:48] And if you want to support.
[03:23:50] You mentioned something real quick.
[03:23:51] Okay.
[03:23:52] Thank you.
[03:23:53] I was waiting for you to chime in with something or you're just sitting there looking puzzled
[03:23:55] all the time.
[03:23:56] I wasn't looking at the movie actually.
[03:24:00] And him playing himself, not much of a stretch, not a demonstration of range.
[03:24:05] You know, similar to you, you're acting career.
[03:24:07] Yeah.
[03:24:08] Pretty much the exact same thing.
[03:24:10] But you guys did mention something in passing, seemingly insignificant, but it stuck with
[03:24:15] me.
[03:24:16] You're talking about, he talked about the incident where he left his rifle and the
[03:24:19] other car and you know, and he's just has his pistol.
[03:24:22] And you said that's not going to cut it.
[03:24:24] No.
[03:24:25] Okay.
[03:24:26] Why is that?
[03:24:27] I mean, I can kind of maybe understand, but obviously I've never been in a gunfight.
[03:24:32] So what he's talking about is the enemy puts indirect fire on you, which is mortars,
[03:24:39] maybe rockets, rockets aren't really indirect, but, but they basically are, are lobbing bombs
[03:24:44] at you.
[03:24:45] The purpose of them doing that is number one, that could, could be just a singular purpose.
[03:24:49] Hey, we're just going to try and randomly throw some bombs at people and kill whoever
[03:24:52] we can.
[03:24:53] Random mortars, maybe we kill one or two Americans, but they could also do it.
[03:24:58] So when mortars are coming, you have to get, you have to take cover.
[03:25:01] So now we get the enemy can get you to take cover.
[03:25:04] So they drop a couple of mortars while you're hiding, they commence a ground assault either
[03:25:11] with a vehicle born ID.
[03:25:13] That's what they would do in Ramadi was, it was, it was very aggressive.
[03:25:18] They would, they would hit you with indirect fire as the indirect fire is hitting.
[03:25:23] They start laying down machine gun fire as the machine gun fires coming in, then comes
[03:25:27] IDs, vehicle born IDs, and they overran several, several friendly positions in Ramadi by doing
[03:25:37] that horrible.
[03:25:40] So when you, so he gets mortared and he had told the guys like, Hey, when you get mortared,
[03:25:46] give it a second, see what's going on, let it develop and see what's developing.
[03:25:51] But then as soon as it kind of stops, boom, push out perimeter.
[03:25:54] So then if anybody attacks, you can fend them off.
[03:25:58] So he's pushing out to set perimeter and all he has is a pistol.
[03:26:05] The pistol is not a good weapon for a gunfight.
[03:26:08] So, and that's really the part that I was wondering, like, it's, I feel like I understand
[03:26:13] it kind of, but the way I've heard you say it, and my friend Jeremy, he mentioned this
[03:26:17] one time we're talking, he was like, yeah, a pistol is no match for a rifle.
[03:26:21] I'm like, okay, see how you say it's not even close, like, why is that?
[03:26:24] Cause they're a rifle, you can just aim it better.
[03:26:27] You know, the range is, the range is 10 times as much.
[03:26:31] Yeah, like, like sure, you can shoot someone in kind of at 50 yards with a, with a pistol.
[03:26:38] If you're really, really good, anyone, just about anyone can pick up a rifle and shoot
[03:26:42] someone at 50 yards, like almost anywhere.
[03:26:44] But you can also shoot someone at 500 yards.
[03:26:47] So it may even be even more that, cause, cause really might be like 12 or 15 times more accurate
[03:26:55] and ease of shooting for a rifle.
[03:26:58] And then the impact, right?
[03:27:00] You know, the impact of a rifle round is devastating.
[03:27:04] You know, it can punch through body armor, certain levels of body armor.
[03:27:08] It can grip through a car, you know, certain parts of a car.
[03:27:11] So you're just going to get better penetration with a battle rifle than you are with a pistol.
[03:27:16] And what's funny is when I got to the SEAL teams, we used to use the, the MP5, which
[03:27:23] is a nine millimeter sub machine gun.
[03:27:25] A sub machine gun is basically a machine gun that shoots pistol rounds.
[03:27:30] So there's small, small little bullets.
[03:27:34] And luckily we went away from that because it's cool for literal close quarters combat.
[03:27:42] So if you're inside of a building, then there is some potential for it.
[03:27:48] Actually, I think that the, that weapon, the, a sub machine gun, like the Heckler and
[03:27:53] Couch MP5, I think he's a great weapon for like home self-defense because it's not going
[03:28:01] to penetrate through a bunch of walls.
[03:28:03] It's really easy to shoot, like really easy to shoot.
[03:28:06] So if someone, you know, let's say you want to get your wife a self-home defense weapon.
[03:28:12] Now look, she could also get a shotgun, you know, maybe a smaller gate shotgun, like not
[03:28:18] a 12-gate shotgun, but like a 20-gate shotgun.
[03:28:21] Pretty easy to handle, kind of a point and shoot scenario.
[03:28:25] So that would be one option, but I think a good option.
[03:28:29] Another good option would be a little sub machine gun that she feels super confident
[03:28:33] shooting.
[03:28:34] Can we shoot machine gun in the California?
[03:28:35] Well, this is semi automatic.
[03:28:37] Semi automatic.
[03:28:38] I don't know what the legality is on the MP5.
[03:28:42] Well, no, you can't have a fully automatic weapon in California.
[03:28:45] No, I don't think so.
[03:28:48] Without certain like criteria, criteria, they have some, the laws, the laws in California
[03:28:54] for weapons are really kind of ridiculous because all they do is they create a law and
[03:29:00] then the gun manufacturers create things that get around the law.
[03:29:05] And it's just weird.
[03:29:07] Yeah.
[03:29:08] It's like this weird dance.
[03:29:10] It's a weird dance, yeah.
[03:29:11] Instead of just being like, hey, look, this is what you, and it doesn't make any sense.
[03:29:15] The whole, I mean, look, you hear this stuff all the time about, what is it?
[03:29:18] Like what's an assault weapon?
[03:29:21] And what was an assault weapon is this type of thing.
[03:29:23] AR-15, assault rifle 15?
[03:29:25] No.
[03:29:26] It's because of like the shape of the grip, like a pistol grip makes it an assault.
[03:29:32] A muzzle suppressor, a flash suppressor makes it an assault weapon according to this weird
[03:29:38] thing.
[03:29:39] So instead of having a pistol grip, they'll like put this weird shape thing that serves
[03:29:44] the same function as a pistol grip.
[03:29:47] But it's actually not a pistol grip at all.
[03:29:50] But it is a pistol grip.
[03:29:51] It gives you the same function.
[03:29:53] They just do all this dumb, silly things.
[03:29:55] And then the gun manufacturers make something that just overcomes that.
[03:29:59] Maybe it's a little bit awkward or whatever.
[03:30:01] Not as cool, but it's just a silly dance.
[03:30:05] It's just like you said, it's a silly dance.
[03:30:07] Yeah.
[03:30:08] And when I was browsing, one of the guys there said something real, one of the main guys
[03:30:16] there, might have been the owner.
[03:30:18] He said something interesting where he was like, yeah, well, one of the main problems
[03:30:21] is the people who make the laws and even propose the laws, they don't know anything about that.
[03:30:26] So they, it's the mere conception of the law comes out of ignorance.
[03:30:34] Yeah, it's just dumb.
[03:30:36] It's just dumb.
[03:30:37] So it's one of the things about California that's just really bizarre.
[03:30:43] It's just bizarre.
[03:30:44] They make laws that literally don't make sense.
[03:30:48] Yeah.
[03:30:49] When they land, it's like, wait, what's the issue here that is solved?
[03:30:54] And they're like, this.
[03:30:55] And we're like, well, that didn't even solve it.
[03:30:57] It actually kind of made some more issues.
[03:30:59] And they made a lot of people mad who are kind of in the know.
[03:31:02] Meanwhile, I can buy a Dead's or Eagle 50 calibers, 50 caliber round.
[03:31:08] I can shoot with one hand if I want to.
[03:31:10] That seems kind of dangerous.
[03:31:13] Could be.
[03:31:14] I mean, depending on what kind of thing you're shooting at.
[03:31:18] How dumb you are.
[03:31:20] I'm pretty dumb.
[03:31:22] But yeah, yeah, that is that's interesting.
[03:31:27] That's good.
[03:31:28] Interesting to know about the pistol versus rifle.
[03:31:30] Yeah.
[03:31:31] Yeah, I didn't realize it was that much of a difference.
[03:31:33] Huge difference.
[03:31:34] It's almost incomparable.
[03:31:36] Probably because I'm thinking of movies, you know, how like, you know, lethal weapon.
[03:31:40] Remember?
[03:31:41] Yeah, well, well apart.
[03:31:42] I don't know.
[03:31:43] He was just really good at aiming.
[03:31:44] So he would be like, at what distance?
[03:31:45] I don't know.
[03:31:46] Oh, yeah.
[03:31:47] He shoots the smiley face into the target.
[03:31:49] Yes.
[03:31:50] Yes.
[03:31:51] Yes.
[03:31:52] That's really depending on what range that would be difficult to do.
[03:31:56] I think in the movie, it was far away, like pretty far shot.
[03:32:00] Yeah, he pushed it all the way back.
[03:32:02] That was kind of the thing.
[03:32:04] Yeah.
[03:32:05] So there you go.
[03:32:06] He said a lot of cool stuff, though.
[03:32:08] And you know, they I like hearing cool stuff like presented a certain way.
[03:32:14] But at the same time, I do like kind of like what it says.
[03:32:16] And when you think about it, you'd be like, oh, man, you know, I kind of dons on you.
[03:32:21] Like certain things.
[03:32:22] And if you keep your head down, you won't see the world around you.
[03:32:25] That's a really good point.
[03:32:26] And even metaphorically, you know, like if you stay in the house all the time or if
[03:32:29] you don't, you know, like they say work life balance.
[03:32:32] I get that that that's a thing or whatever.
[03:32:34] But let's say you don't see your friends or you don't, you don't socialize or, or you
[03:32:38] don't talk to a bunch of people as much because you're focused on this or that or whatever.
[03:32:42] You you'll miss out a lot of beneficial like beneficial stuff for you and your family, your
[03:32:47] whole goals, right?
[03:32:48] You can miss out on key elements of those goals if you keep your head down in all these
[03:32:54] two ways.
[03:32:55] When I was in my first SEAL platoon, we, my, my leading petty officer, he, he had this
[03:33:00] thing like he would want to go out party, right?
[03:33:03] And he would say, always go out.
[03:33:05] Yeah.
[03:33:06] Oh, you know, we're going to always go out.
[03:33:08] And I took that because I was like, hardcore, right?
[03:33:11] And we always go out, like always go out surfing, go out.
[03:33:16] Like there's a training mission.
[03:33:17] Always go out.
[03:33:19] Oh, always go out.
[03:33:20] So yeah, always go out party.
[03:33:21] Cool.
[03:33:22] Get it.
[03:33:23] I'm, I'm, I approve of that when I was younger, you know, now I'm older.
[03:33:25] I'm not so much supported that.
[03:33:27] You know what I mean?
[03:33:29] But always go out, always go on the mission.
[03:33:31] Always step up, always volunteer, always go out, always waves, always go out.
[03:33:35] You know, snow, always go out.
[03:33:37] Yeah.
[03:33:38] Always go out.
[03:33:39] So I kind of adopted that attitude a little bit, not only strictly with going out and
[03:33:45] party, this guy, one time he was super drunk and he's, I think he had to go to the bathroom
[03:33:50] and we pulled back into the barracks and Guam and he like gets out of the car and it's
[03:33:56] dark and he goes running across the, from the parking lot to the barracks.
[03:34:01] There was, you know, maybe a hundred yards of grass and he goes running and I'm just
[03:34:08] kind of walking because I'm not in a rush.
[03:34:09] And I think he had to go to the bathroom and all of a sudden he just like disappears,
[03:34:14] and then I just hear this, ow.
[03:34:18] Yeah, he fell in the hole.
[03:34:21] There's other, he's just like, ow.
[03:34:24] Yeah.
[03:34:25] So there you go.
[03:34:28] With that, we talked about some of the stuff today.
[03:34:33] Hey, Jocko Fuel, get yourself some of these go, new improved flavors.
[03:34:38] I am apologizing for the previous flavors.
[03:34:42] Comparatively speaking, the new flavors are just amazing.
[03:34:47] And look, with the old flavors, it was like, oh, you know, I got my favorite flavor.
[03:34:50] Don't really like that one.
[03:34:51] This one's okay.
[03:34:52] Yeah.
[03:34:53] Actually don't want to drink this one over here.
[03:34:55] You know, it's kind of that thing.
[03:34:57] Now no matter what, you can go party mix.
[03:35:00] Yeah.
[03:35:01] And you're gonna like them all, right?
[03:35:02] You can grab one, grab the other.
[03:35:04] They're all freaking tasty.
[03:35:06] So if you were a little bit maybe cautious or concerned before you tried me like, now
[03:35:15] you can just get right in there.
[03:35:16] Just get right in there and get yourself some go.
[03:35:20] Some Jocko go.
[03:35:22] Fully good for you, by the way.
[03:35:24] Which is a totally different thing.
[03:35:25] I was watching the show.
[03:35:26] A Netflix show.
[03:35:27] I don't know.
[03:35:28] It wasn't my show.
[03:35:29] My wife was watching it.
[03:35:30] My wife was watching the show.
[03:35:31] You're pressing.
[03:35:32] I'm in the vicinity of my aunt.
[03:35:36] They were making this scene of this girl.
[03:35:39] She was trying to travel.
[03:35:40] She was running away from some killers or something.
[03:35:42] So she was driving up to Maine, by the way.
[03:35:45] And she stops at this convenience.
[03:35:47] She's all disheveled.
[03:35:48] She stops at this and she's a disheveled character just to begin with.
[03:35:52] Like doesn't have her shit together kind of thing.
[03:35:54] She stops at this convenience store and just gets like in the scene.
[03:35:58] I see what they were trying to portray there that she's just like doesn't make the greatest
[03:36:02] of decisions in general.
[03:36:03] So like what did she get?
[03:36:04] Like chips.
[03:36:06] And like you know not a good not a sandwich or not a you know she's getting chips and
[03:36:10] then she gets an energy drink.
[03:36:13] And it was like a recognizable brand.
[03:36:16] And I was like hmm interesting how they chose that brand to convey this message about this
[03:36:22] character in this point of the story.
[03:36:24] Interesting.
[03:36:25] And I was thinking oh you know it's a brand you recognize you're like okay cool.
[03:36:29] They oh I recognize the brand on the movie kind of a thing.
[03:36:31] I was like oh that'd be cool if there was some jockel go in there right.
[03:36:35] But it wouldn't fit the air.
[03:36:36] It would not fit the scene.
[03:36:37] Exactly right.
[03:36:38] She had to be squared away.
[03:36:39] Squared away.
[03:36:40] She had to be legit.
[03:36:41] Exactly right.
[03:36:42] I thought that was kind of interesting.
[03:36:44] Bro without opening up a can ADCC you and I just went to the ADCC championship.
[03:36:51] Which was awesome.
[03:36:52] We'll do some kind of a thing about that.
[03:36:53] Little debrief on that.
[03:36:54] That's just.
[03:36:55] In the future time.
[03:36:56] But we had the ready to drink.
[03:36:58] Moke there.
[03:36:59] How many of them did you have?
[03:37:01] I had like one.
[03:37:02] Really I had like because I was there for two.
[03:37:04] How did you only have one?
[03:37:06] Well because I drank one and then it was like the next opportunity I had they were like
[03:37:13] Brian was like because he couldn't give him away or something like that.
[03:37:17] Something happened where they couldn't give away.
[03:37:19] You got scammed.
[03:37:20] Yeah.
[03:37:21] When they were like oh here they are.
[03:37:22] I had like five a day.
[03:37:23] I was there for two days.
[03:37:25] They're freaking so tasty and so good for you.
[03:37:28] Hey and this is cool.
[03:37:29] Good news.
[03:37:30] We have been having a hard time finding the manufacturer for it.
[03:37:35] We just got cleared hot.
[03:37:37] We just built that relationship with this manufacturer.
[03:37:41] We got millions of ready to drink milk common.
[03:37:45] It's delicious.
[03:37:46] Way better than other brands which you and I just had a little taste test comparison and
[03:37:51] it's not even close.
[03:37:52] It's not even close.
[03:37:53] And this is a big brand we tried.
[03:37:54] As a matter of fact my daughter Ranna did a taste test while we were at camp.
[03:38:00] Chocolate milk.
[03:38:01] Like regular milk.
[03:38:04] From a milk carton like ready made chocolate milk but not any kind of just chocolate milk
[03:38:09] that's just made to taste good versus milk.
[03:38:13] Chocolate milk.
[03:38:14] She picked it.
[03:38:15] My daughter Ranna does not play around.
[03:38:17] She's going to tell you what's up.
[03:38:19] She's looking at school.
[03:38:20] Yeah.
[03:38:21] She's kind of like offensive right.
[03:38:23] She's kind of like going to bring it.
[03:38:25] She kind of raised her eyebrows.
[03:38:26] She's like oh damn.
[03:38:28] Yep the milk.
[03:38:29] So we got ready to drink more common worldwide.
[03:38:32] Well not worldwide really.
[03:38:34] Nationwide.
[03:38:35] You'll be able to order it.
[03:38:36] So check that out.
[03:38:37] Jockofuel.com.
[03:38:38] Go to Wawa.
[03:38:39] Go to Wawa and just clean the shelves in there.
[03:38:43] Let them know what's up.
[03:38:45] The more you buy from Wawa the more flavors they're going to bring in.
[03:38:51] The more we'll open up that supply chain.
[03:38:53] So go to Wawa clear shelves.
[03:38:56] Vitamin shop.
[03:38:57] We got pink mist at vitamin shop.
[03:39:00] Right now it's the only place I think you can get it.
[03:39:03] We had to run that first run of them.
[03:39:06] Vitamin shop's been awesome.
[03:39:07] They got everything in there.
[03:39:08] So go in there and just get some get some pink mist.
[03:39:11] It's tasty.
[03:39:12] So we're at ADCC as you mentioned and I'm not going to say who.
[03:39:17] Actually I'm going to say who.
[03:39:18] It's my wife.
[03:39:19] She was like hey this pink one is good.
[03:39:21] This would be perfect with vodka in it.
[03:39:26] She said it.
[03:39:27] You know what you're kind of right because remember back in the day Red Bull vodka or
[03:39:30] whatever right.
[03:39:31] Like that was like kind of that was kind of like a death trap kind of thing.
[03:39:35] You're not doing the right thing with a Red Bull and a vodka and then drinking them all
[03:39:39] night.
[03:39:40] That's bad.
[03:39:41] But think about it.
[03:39:43] The pink mist might balance out some of the repercussions.
[03:39:45] It's not the right thing but it's not it's less it's less wrong.
[03:39:50] They're going with Red Bull and vodka.
[03:39:53] Yeah.
[03:39:54] It's definitely less wrong than that.
[03:39:55] It kind of balances itself out a little bit.
[03:39:58] It's not balanced.
[03:39:59] It feels it feels like a balance but it's a move in the right direction.
[03:40:02] Let's face it we're not going out and drinking vodka and thinking that there's that this
[03:40:06] is going to make it okay.
[03:40:07] Yeah.
[03:40:08] Yeah.
[03:40:09] But if it felt like a violation if vodka is kind of on the schedule which I don't recommend
[03:40:13] right it's not on my schedule at all 0% but if it's on your schedule and you want to
[03:40:19] mitigate the issues that you're going to have then it's not going to mitigate you going
[03:40:24] to jail is not going to mitigate a DUI is not going to mitigate you getting arrested is not
[03:40:28] going to mitigate you spending all your money on stupid shit not going to mitigate any of
[03:40:32] that.
[03:40:33] No, probably not.
[03:40:34] It may give you a little bit of a less hangover in the morning.
[03:40:35] We'll go with that.
[03:40:38] So there you go.
[03:40:39] Joggle Fuel.com get some of that origin USA.com just got back from my hunt.
[03:40:44] It's another one we should just do a podcast about the hunt lessons just but hey we made
[03:40:50] Hunt Gear remember I had said if the Hunt Gear wasn't ready I was hunting in a loincloth
[03:40:55] that was my plan.
[03:40:57] Luckily didn't have to break it into the loincloth scenario.
[03:41:03] Everything is freaking legit and it's just so so good to go.
[03:41:08] Super stoked the team from origin the team in North Carolina the team in Maine everyone
[03:41:14] putting that stuff together is just turned out freaking legit so stoked and everyone's
[03:41:20] kind of stoked man.
[03:41:21] Everybody that I saw that hunted was like hell yeah hell yeah.
[03:41:30] Thank you for making this in the United States of America.
[03:41:32] Yeah that's legit.
[03:41:33] Did you shoot anything?
[03:41:35] Yes I shot an elk.
[03:41:36] Hell yeah.
[03:41:37] I just saw the pictures.
[03:41:38] I just wanted to see what up.
[03:41:40] There's a lot and there's a lot of people this is a very tough year for hunting.
[03:41:47] There's been a lot of rain out west so there's been a lot of grass.
[03:41:51] A lot of grass means there's a lot of eating that means the elk are fat which means apparently
[03:41:58] and talking to hunters they're like well all that fat on the elk means it's harder to
[03:42:03] kill them because they bleed less the blood doesn't flow as easily so it's been a really
[03:42:11] challenging year.
[03:42:12] There's a lot of people that didn't get elk and it's been a tough year.
[03:42:17] I was very lucky very fortunate to get one.
[03:42:22] To score.
[03:42:23] Yeah and I'm at a point now I got four elk with four arrows which is kind of I told
[03:42:29] that to Leif and Leif was like dude you are freaking lucky bastard.
[03:42:32] I'm like I'll take it man 100%.
[03:42:35] So what did you do with the elk?
[03:42:39] What do you mean?
[03:42:40] What did you do with the elk?
[03:42:41] Eating it.
[03:42:42] Oh so you bring it back.
[03:42:43] Yeah yeah yeah of course man.
[03:42:44] Oh yeah you drove huh.
[03:42:45] Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah okay okay yeah I understand.
[03:42:48] Elks for dinner bro.
[03:42:49] Yeah I understand but you know I'm just saying does everyone like if you shoot it is that
[03:42:54] the common thing 100%?
[03:42:55] Oh of course I mean it's you know it's a few hundred pounds worth of meat.
[03:42:59] Yeah but I've heard of like oh they'll give it to the who you know what I'm thinking of
[03:43:02] this actually a few stories I heard in like it was in a different country.
[03:43:07] And then they give it to like the village or something like that.
[03:43:09] Oh yeah if there's villagers that were like starving maybe.
[03:43:11] In Utah.
[03:43:12] In Utah there's no villagers starving in Utah.
[03:43:14] Yeah yeah I didn't think so.
[03:43:16] But so we got the stuff made in America.
[03:43:18] OriginUSA.com if you want to support American company that's bringing like I told Derek.
[03:43:23] Is there anything cooler than buying machines in another country and that were sold to that
[03:43:30] country and bringing them back to America?
[03:43:32] Yeah the concept is pretty cool to beat that one.
[03:43:35] One time okay remember back in the day the little it's this little.
[03:43:39] Wait when?
[03:43:40] Back.
[03:43:41] Back.
[03:43:42] It's called roller racer.
[03:43:43] Do you remember that thing?
[03:43:44] What is it?
[03:43:45] It was like okay so think of a skateboard okay think of a hard bicycle seat but a little
[03:43:50] bit bigger.
[03:43:52] Bicycle handlebars on a half of a super skinny skateboard with a pivot and then the front
[03:44:00] of the skateboard.
[03:44:02] So you sat on it with handlebars down like this and you wiggle it back and forth and
[03:44:06] it would go.
[03:44:07] I kind of remember like seeing people on that thing.
[03:44:09] Yeah it was like a little fat as seen on TV scenario this is back in maybe 90 maybe probably
[03:44:15] before that 80s 80s anyway.
[03:44:20] So one of our friends neighbors had that and they left it out on the road.
[03:44:25] They lived right up the road so technically I didn't steal it but I just wanted to use
[03:44:30] it so I grabbed it and I used it for a few days.
[03:44:32] I was going to bring it back for real I for real I know likely story.
[03:44:36] This is not sounding good.
[03:44:38] It didn't bring it back but the plan was to bring it back at some point.
[03:44:42] So I was using it and then I just left it out in my yard that's how right.
[03:44:47] Few days later it was gone and then we passed by that house every day and I saw it back
[03:44:52] at their house.
[03:44:53] I was like oh they came in kind of took it back or whatever then the guy the kid in
[03:44:59] a good way like oh they grabbed it back no big deal or kind of like totally neutral in
[03:45:04] my opinion.
[03:45:05] I was like oh it's theirs you know like I wasn't going to return it yet I still want to play
[03:45:09] with it for a little bit but hey man it is theirs so whatever and then the kid confronted
[03:45:13] me about it.
[03:45:14] He's like hey you thought you were all slick huh and I was like what do you mean he's like
[03:45:18] yeah because you ripped off the roller racer and I ripped it off back.
[03:45:21] That's what he did with the looms that's what you guys did.
[03:45:26] Same exact thing.
[03:45:27] Man that was a reach.
[03:45:28] I thought it was cool.
[03:45:29] That was a stretch.
[03:45:30] How your brain works for the first time I've kind of started to ponder.
[03:45:35] Like how you got to that story from what I just said and try to connect them.
[03:45:40] It's the exact same thing.
[03:45:41] That's what I'm saying.
[03:45:44] OriginUSA.com get American made stuff we'll leave it at that.
[03:45:47] We won't we'll try not to lure out any stories of madness from you.
[03:45:54] Also speaking of madness jocostore.
[03:45:56] Jocostore is called jocostore.
[03:45:58] So you go to jocostore.com so you can get your discipline equals freedom shirts.
[03:46:02] We got a new one out standard issue.
[03:46:06] It's nothing standard about it.
[03:46:07] It's freaking awesome.
[03:46:08] That's this is the feedback I'm getting from the field but yeah it's a good one.
[03:46:11] Also we have the shirt locker which is the subscription service.
[03:46:14] Seems like you've been getting a little wild on the shirt locker designs.
[03:46:17] Yes and we're going harder even in the next few let's say the next three months are going
[03:46:23] to be kind of like okay I see you I see what you did there.
[03:46:25] We're very excited about the new design.
[03:46:29] Check.
[03:46:30] Right on that's jocostore.com.
[03:46:33] Subscribe to the podcast.
[03:46:34] Don't forget about the jockel underground right jockelunderground.com.
[03:46:42] We don't know what's going to happen with this platform.
[03:46:44] Did Derek say anything today that could get us banned?
[03:46:47] Maybe.
[03:46:48] He mentioned Donald Trump.
[03:46:49] Oh yeah there you go.
[03:46:50] That could be a flag.
[03:46:51] He said the word Trump so yeah that could be.
[03:46:54] So in the event that we get banned because we don't control the platform that you're
[03:46:58] currently listening on unless you're on jockel underground.
[03:47:01] If you're on jockel underground we're good.
[03:47:02] We're still here.
[03:47:03] We're talking to you but if you're not you're like wait what happened.
[03:47:05] But jockel and echo just got lazy they stopped making podcasts.
[03:47:10] Hopefully that doesn't happen but if it does we'll be ready jockelunderground.com.
[03:47:13] $8.18 a month to support that and if you we make a little extra podcast for that we answer
[03:47:20] your questions if you want to get involved in that.
[03:47:22] If you can't afford it we still want you in the game.
[03:47:25] Email assistance at jockelunderground.com.
[03:47:27] We got a YouTube channel.
[03:47:29] We got psychological warfare.
[03:47:30] Dakota Myers got flipsidecanvas.com.
[03:47:34] I've written a bunch of books.
[03:47:36] Publish some books published by Holly McKay.
[03:47:39] Check that one out.
[03:47:41] And then you know the books that I've written.
[03:47:43] If you don't go to Amazon and put in jockel willing and then you'll see books that I've
[03:47:49] written and you can order some of them.
[03:47:50] You can order kids books.
[03:47:53] Before you even you know you know you got to get the oxygen mask on yourself first.
[03:47:59] If you go to Amazon right now to go you know jockel sounds like he's going I don't know
[03:48:02] what he's talking about here.
[03:48:04] Don't order the adult book.
[03:48:05] Get your kids that wore your kid books first.
[03:48:08] Get the oxygen mask on them then save yourself.
[03:48:10] So the opposite of the airplane.
[03:48:13] No it's the same in the airplane.
[03:48:14] No you're putting yourself first.
[03:48:15] Oh right yes okay opposite of the opposite of the you're right.
[03:48:18] So I could see how you could get confused.
[03:48:20] It seems like hey save the women and children first kind of a scenario but hey you can't
[03:48:24] save nobody if you're suffocating.
[03:48:26] You know what I'm saying.
[03:48:27] But if you're cognizant enough to order something from Amazon order the kids books first because
[03:48:32] you look your life is half over at this point.
[03:48:35] You know you got kids.
[03:48:37] You kind of already blown it.
[03:48:38] One foot in the grave.
[03:48:39] Right you're one foot in the grave.
[03:48:41] But your kids they got their whole life ahead.
[03:48:42] Might as well get them on the path.
[03:48:43] It's true.
[03:48:44] It's true.
[03:48:45] Let them rise up.
[03:48:47] My daughter was she she learned her time tables last year and then this year she's in literally
[03:48:53] the where the word could one mark.
[03:48:56] Same exact scenario.
[03:48:57] So but she learned her time table but she forgot a lot of them.
[03:49:00] So she's doing this other stuff.
[03:49:01] You know you know how you kind of need to know the time tables right.
[03:49:05] Same exact deal.
[03:49:06] She starts crying and all this stuff.
[03:49:08] She doesn't know her time tables.
[03:49:09] She's nine years old.
[03:49:10] She's all this stuff.
[03:49:11] I was like we read that flashcards made a boom right on the spot man on the spot.
[03:49:16] I said you read this whole book twice by the way and you're still crying about this right
[03:49:21] now.
[03:49:22] So you need these flashcards on the spot.
[03:49:23] We do we went slow as a lot of it was review shardy.
[03:49:26] But so I end up the wrinkles.
[03:49:29] Easy money back in the game back in the game.
[03:49:31] Back in the game.
[03:49:32] The annual you're your kid.
[03:49:34] Get your kids on the path.
[03:49:35] Excellent front.
[03:49:36] Have a leadership consultancy.
[03:49:38] We solve problems through leadership.
[03:49:39] Oh you heard me talk about a little bit today.
[03:49:41] We got problems in a company in an organization.
[03:49:43] The problems are leadership problems.
[03:49:45] You want us to help you solve those problems with these principal code echelonfront.com.
[03:49:51] We have some live events you can come to.
[03:49:53] They get sold out.
[03:49:54] What next one we're doing is that land and sold out.
[03:49:56] Sorry.
[03:49:57] But if you want to go go to their checkout events come to some of our live events.
[03:50:01] We have an online training academy.
[03:50:04] Where look leadership takes practice not once a year.
[03:50:09] Not once every six months.
[03:50:11] You need to get in the gym.
[03:50:12] The leadership gym.
[03:50:14] The life gym.
[03:50:17] Extreme ownership.com.
[03:50:19] Come on there.
[03:50:20] Take some courses.
[03:50:21] We're on there live a bunch.
[03:50:22] You can ask me questions.
[03:50:23] Go check that out.
[03:50:25] And if you want to support service members active and retired you want to support their
[03:50:30] families.
[03:50:32] Gold star families.
[03:50:33] Check out Mark Lee's mom.
[03:50:35] Mom Ali.
[03:50:36] She's got a charity organization.
[03:50:38] If you want to donate to that or you want to get involved.
[03:50:42] Go to americasmightywarriors.org and don't forget about Micah Fink.
[03:50:49] Taking vets out into the wilderness so they can find solutions to their problems.
[03:50:59] In the darkness they can find the light.
[03:51:03] Heroes and horses.org.
[03:51:05] And once again if you want to follow and support Derek Vano Van Orden.
[03:51:11] DVO.
[03:51:12] That's what we're going with?
[03:51:15] DVO.
[03:51:16] You want to support him.
[03:51:18] Van Orden for congress.com and then on Facebook on Twitter on Instagram.
[03:51:25] He's at Derek Van Orden.
[03:51:29] You can see the guy's got a big heart and he's trying to help.
[03:51:33] I say we go support him.
[03:51:35] And it's certainly if you're in that district in Wisconsin.
[03:51:38] He brought me cheese bro.
[03:51:40] You see that?
[03:51:41] He brought me cheese.
[03:51:42] He brought me cookies which you ate.
[03:51:44] I sampled.
[03:51:45] Yes.
[03:51:46] You ate the cookies because we're not the discipline doesn't allow cookies over on
[03:51:52] my side of the table.
[03:51:55] Cheese curd which I have not tried before.
[03:51:56] Apparently I got to cook it.
[03:51:58] No.
[03:51:59] No, no, no.
[03:52:00] He said deep frying or something.
[03:52:01] Oh you can.
[03:52:02] Yeah, yeah for sure.
[03:52:03] Cheese curd is like you know what that is technically.
[03:52:05] Well you know my wife is from the Tillmuk Cheese Factory area.
[03:52:09] So we go visit that one every year when we go.
[03:52:12] But it's one of the final processes before they do another one or two processes to make
[03:52:19] actual cheese.
[03:52:20] So it's like the base.
[03:52:21] Does it taste good?
[03:52:22] It depends how you do it.
[03:52:24] That one does because there's like our regular cheese curd.
[03:52:27] Not really.
[03:52:28] I think that's us getting fried in a pan.
[03:52:30] That's what I think.
[03:52:31] Yeah I can see that.
[03:52:32] I have never had fried.
[03:52:33] Cooked somehow.
[03:52:34] That one's solid.
[03:52:36] It just seems I don't know too because he brought it in like a bag.
[03:52:40] I don't think it's supposed to be refrigerated.
[03:52:44] I could see how.
[03:52:45] He pulled it out of the bottom of like a travel bag.
[03:52:48] DVO was not forward thinking on his transport of cheese curd for Jaco.
[03:52:54] I think you might be right.
[03:52:55] For JKO.
[03:52:56] JKO.
[03:52:57] You know what I'm saying?
[03:52:58] Yeah not sure.
[03:52:59] But we appreciate it Derek.
[03:53:00] We appreciate it.
[03:53:01] We will try it out.
[03:53:02] We will see what's up.
[03:53:03] Of course that's Derek Van Warden on all those social media.
[03:53:07] And Echo and I are on there too if you want to follow us on the Twitter, on the gram,
[03:53:11] on the Facebook.
[03:53:12] Echo is at Echo Charles.
[03:53:14] I'm at Jaco Willink.
[03:53:16] Watch out for the algorithm because it'll kind of grab you.
[03:53:20] And thanks once again to Derek for joining us.
[03:53:24] Thanks for sharing some of those lessons learned.
[03:53:27] Thanks for everything you have done for America and what you are trying to do for America
[03:53:32] right now.
[03:53:33] We are here to support and thanks to all of our military personnel that have served and
[03:53:38] are serving.
[03:53:40] Nothing more important than what you do to keep us free.
[03:53:45] And we are grateful for your service.
[03:53:47] And thanks to our police and law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers,
[03:53:53] correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, all first responders.
[03:53:56] As Derek pointed out, you're the one that protects.
[03:54:00] You're the ones that protect our kids as they sleep at night and keep us safe.
[03:54:06] And we are grateful for your service as well.
[03:54:11] And everyone else out there.
[03:54:12] And we start off with some George Washington today.
[03:54:15] Close it out with little George Washington as well.
[03:54:17] He said to be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.
[03:54:27] And that goes for life as well.
[03:54:29] And you take a guy like Derek up from nothing.
[03:54:33] And he's prepared for war his whole life.
[03:54:37] And I think he's going to be ready for whatever politics can throw at him.
[03:54:41] And for the rest of us, I think we also have to prepare for war because it's coming.
[03:54:47] And I'm not talking about outright literal war, but in some form, in some form, you will
[03:54:55] be at war for your health, for your business, for your family, for your community.
[03:55:01] War comes in many forms.
[03:55:04] So be prepared for it.
[03:55:06] And of course, the best way to do that is to go out there every day and get after it.
[03:55:14] Until next time, this is Echo and Jaco out.