Speaker 1:
Cash dude. Welcome to the show man. I'm excited for this one. We didn't get a chance to meet each other first. It was like a last minute, like hey, you want to come in and knock out an episode and you're all for it. So give me a little intro about yourself. We're just gonna dive right in because after reading your bio, it's pretty.
Speaker 2:
I'm excited for this one hey, thanks for having me here, man. I've never done one of these podcasts before, so we'll see how it goes we have a lot of newbies a lot of first podcasters.
Speaker 1:
So you're gonna. You'll be fine, man.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, hopefully I do justice to it, right? Oh, sure you will.
Speaker 1:
Well, it'll be good. So give me a little little backdrop about you.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so I was born, raised in India, grew up in a super small town in north northwest India, almost central you can see it too like close to Delhi. Okay, the capital Didn't really grow up with a whole lot of money. If you were to Google, hey, indian family and a scooter. That's kind of how I grew up, like five people on that little scooter.
Speaker 1:
So traditional of what we're seeing.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 1:
Okay, so you were living, so this is okay. I got a lot of questions already.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I grew up in a house with one bedroom, so we all, kind of like, slept in one bedroom. Okay, how many is all of us? It was five of us. It was my dad, my mom and then my sister, who's the oldest one, my brother, who's older than me, and then myself, so you're the baby.
Speaker 1:
I was the baby who always got in trouble yeah, all right, all right, usually the middle child syndrome so, no, I was the one that got forgotten about, right, because you had the first girl.
Speaker 2:
So that's my dad's favorite, obviously right.
Speaker 2:
And then my brother, so he's my mom's favorite, and then it's me then you just left, okay, and then growing up in a traditional indian family, yeah, so we were raised Hindu, like family's Hindu, right, I don't know how much you know about the religion Not a super ton but yeah, the most predominant religion in India, yep, and that's kind of how I was raised Religious growing up. But then right around eighth or ninth grade kind of just fell off and I'm like you know what? I just believe in being a good person and that's just how I'm gonna be, yeah, instead of like following any religion. So that's kind of where I was at cool.
Speaker 1:
So growing up in India, I mean, one room with everybody, that's, that's wild man, I mean. But that's pretty tradition, isn't it? Yeah?
Speaker 2:
it's very common because, most people are like, belong to a middle class or below right and and that's pretty common we didn't really have a house that we bought-bought until, like I think I was in 10th or 11th grade when Dad finally bought a house, Bought his first car, when I was in like 9th grade.
Speaker 1:
Everything's mopeds and motorcycles over there.
Speaker 2:
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:
So after growing up a little bit, you ended up obviously, obviously, coming to the states.
Speaker 2:
I did, yeah, what brought you here? So let's see, just to give a little bit of context. So growing up I was good at like school. School came easy to me up until, like you know, ninth or tenth grade where I'm like I want to go explore other things. So I I started skipping school, getting into fights.
Speaker 1:
Okay, so, as Indian parents, I have a couple of buddies, and they're strict.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, they didn't know about that.
Speaker 1:
Really so. You were good at it.
Speaker 2:
Well, until I started becoming popular in the little town that I grew up in.
Speaker 1:
For getting in trouble or what.
Speaker 2:
Oh yeah, Okay, so you started to build a name for yourself. Yeah unintentionally.
Speaker 1:
yeah, okay, so you started to build a name for yourself.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, unintentionally too. I just wanted to go have fun. What was the?
Speaker 1:
type of fun you were doing.
Speaker 2:
You know, girls skipping school, getting into fights Okay, Started smoking pretty early too, drinking a little bit Okay, Went away from all that pretty quick too. It wasn't like any problem. But I could see myself going down a bad path, um. And then my dad, like we weren't rich, but he was very well connected because the people he had helped like there have been a couple people that have gone down wrong paths and nobody would work with them and he's like I'll work with you what'd your dad? Do?
Speaker 2:
he was a civil engineer, oh okay yeah, yeah, for the, for the housing, it's like a state housing department, okay, so they will develop houses and stuff and roads sometimes Got it. So yeah. So he got to know a lot of people and then a lot of people knew him and then you know I'm using his motorcycle.
Speaker 1:
In a small town.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, Word gets back pretty quick. People are really good at like memorizing last inflate numbers. You're like, oh, that's his motorcycle, let's go find him. Okay, it's like, hey, what's your kid doing over here? He's supposed to be in school, isn't he?
Speaker 1:
Oh, yeah, so they started just diming you out.
Speaker 2:
So yeah, exactly, I would come home and you know, I'll see these suspicious eyes, I'm like what's going on. So they knew, they knew, but you knew instantly because it wasn't a normal. Look, I feel like all of us, you know, when your parents know, oh yeah, you could just oh sh*t, the gig's up. Yeah, exactly. So there was this big school in India called IIT. Think of it like MIT for America.
Speaker 2:
That's kind of how the big institute that is and you have to take an exam for them to go make it into one of the seven of their institutes. Pretty tough exam. It's a pretty tough exam, right? So my parents decided to send me to this coaching, which was actually very popular in the small town I grew up in that people will come from all over the country to this little town to study for two years and then it became four years just to take this one exam to get into this institute.
Speaker 1:
So when do you start studying for it? In high school or do you graduate high school?
Speaker 2:
study for two to four years, then go. No, you're doing it in high school.
Speaker 1:
So not only are you going to school, you're studying for this exam, for just a potential opportunity to get to apply to these tech schools. Yep, exactly.
Speaker 2:
Really yeah.
Speaker 1:
Because I feel like the Indian culture. I mean you guys are very education driven.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so you got to think about that. Right, we got a billion people, right? Not a lot of resources, resources, at least when I grew up, like sports wasn't really that big of a thing, especially in a small town where I grew up. Yeah, so intentionally, people are thinking, hey, if you don't study, you're not going to get a job. If you're not going to get a job, like, you're never going to come out of poverty, right, so there's a lot of focus on study, study, study, right so kids?
Speaker 2:
never get an opportunity to like explore sports at all, because they're just buried in the books. Yeah, how much does that?
Speaker 1:
cost School. Like obviously you're in a school to study these things. I mean you're paying, I mean so you yeah. So I don't know. I mean, is it just like a normal class you would compare it to here is like a couple hundred bucks a month, or is this like something that, like, people are capitalizing off of because everybody's trying to study People?
Speaker 2:
are definitely capitalizing on this. You can compare it to here, I would say, but it doesn't add up because, like Indian economy and Indian currency versus like here, right? So obviously it's cheaper compared to what people think here, but if you go back like people are putting away savings to send their kids to these, schools right.
Speaker 2:
Okay, that's what I'm at, yeah, so yeah, it's a huge expenditure, expenditure that's coming out of pocket on top of like sending you to schools, because schools you have to pay for as well, like there's no public schools, like you're paying for everything.
Speaker 1:
So you're paying for public school technically, yeah. And then your parents are saving for you to study for these tests yeah, the coaching classes and coaching classes and they're trying to put away for college. College, yeah, damn, yeah so you know I don't blame him for be like hey you're gonna study this right?
Speaker 2:
yeah, we're paying for it, but yeah, so I'll go to. I was supposed to go to school in the morning and then I'm supposed to go to these coaching classes in the evening and I just started skipping. I don't blame you I just like.
Speaker 1:
This is not the path I want to like.
Speaker 2:
I very quickly knew this is not what I want to do. Like I don't want to go to IIT, like this is not going to be my path. I want to do something else in life.
Speaker 1:
Is that kind of shunned upon?
Speaker 2:
in your town, so, like it's expected, oh yeah, Okay, yeah, I got a lot of eyes raised and know. When I finally took the test, I knew I wasn't going to make it. And then you know, dad is standing all over my shoulder when we're looking, you know, checking for our results and I'm like, well, this is not going to go well, yeah, yeah, and we had to like.
Speaker 1:
We didn't have a computer or internet at home, so we had to like go to like a store where they of that.
Speaker 2:
Oh yeah, I'm in public. You know my dad's going to whoop my ass right here. Oh yeah, he came very close to it too. Like you can just see he's holding it back because we're in a public place.
Speaker 1:
Yes.
Speaker 2:
My brother got it a lot, though. Oh, really, when he would not do his homework. Yeah, he got beat up, oh sh*t. It still didn love it it's just, it's just who we are.
Speaker 1:
Man, yeah, it's, it's. That's one thing I'm learning as a dad. Whatever your kids are going to choose, like that's that's what they're going to do just embrace it exactly. Embrace it to a certain extent yeah, I get it.
Speaker 2:
So you know, yeah, I had that first time ever, saw the look of disappointment in my dad's eye and I was like, all right, that's not good. Yeah, so we come back home and my mom kind of calms down, my dad's like it's all right, he'll do it again. And then my dad's like, yeah, you're going to take the exam again. I'm like no, I won't. And he's like what? And I'm like, no, I won't. Oh sh*t, okay, I'm like Dad, I'm sorry, but like this is not for me, like I need going on. I found out there was this college close to delhi that had programs from universities in america. Okay, and the way they were based is you do two years in india to save on costs because your living expense and college fees are not as much right, and they're essentially running the program from the university there so you're learning us university?
Speaker 2:
yep, the whole curriculum is coming from them.
Speaker 1:
Okay, you know saving the tuition, the living expense for two years and everything right and then you do the last year in america.
Speaker 2:
Oh, oh, and that's so. That's what brought you here. Yeah, so that was the plan. I was like dad, that's what I want to go do so what do they do with your visas?
Speaker 1:
is it considered like a work?
Speaker 2:
visa, student visa. I think it's called f1. Okay, okay, if I'm correct, that's probably pretty exciting. Huh, yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:
So what did your parents think of this Me going to the school instead of the one that they wanted?
Speaker 2:
So it was a hesitation at first. Okay, but thankfully there was another kid from the same little town of mine that was a year ahead of me doing that, so I used that. I'm like, hey, he's doing it. You year ahead of me doing that, so I used that. I'm like, hey, he's doing it. You know his parents and you know exactly why won't you let me do it? Yeah, so they kind of got I was able to convince them to to go, and then my sister helped too. Like I think she saw it too. I knew if I stayed in that town another year, like I will just go off the rail and I'm gonna do something bad, like I didn't need to be in there.
Speaker 1:
What's the drug use like there? I mean you guys. I don't like. It's fascinating to me Like we battle. I mean, obviously you've been here long enough. You see our fentanyl problems, the opiate problems and all that Like what is what's over there, sweet is big right, okay.
Speaker 2:
And then the other one is they call it sulfa. It's actually from like a plant that looks like cactus, okay, it's like a little black ball, and they will just crush it, mix it with their cigarette and smoke it, and that's it. Huh, they have never done it.
Speaker 1:
Right, well, the only reason. I ask is because I guess everything is just so abundant here, yeah, and then you talk to these other countries like we don't have any issues like this or they have a completely different problem, that they're dealing with, and I'm sure there's other things that people do.
Speaker 2:
They're just drugs are not all that prominent, got it yeah?
Speaker 1:
That's where my mind goes when you're like skipping school, getting in trouble. I mean, it seemed like it's like the common occurrence here.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it just, it was really frowned upon where I For sure, so you end up coming to the States.
Speaker 1:
Where did you go, yeah?
Speaker 2:
so do my two years there. Come here to the States, I had actually no clue where I was going to America. I hadn't even looked at the map. I was so excited to just get out Because I just wanted to do things on my own right. I'm just like get me out of here. I don't want your name, I don't want anything else. I'm going to try to build something on my own. Spread the wings man, yeah. So I move out here and in my head I'm expecting New York or California, because that's all I've seen in movies, right, Isn't?
Speaker 1:
that hilarious.
Speaker 2:
And you just think all of America looks like that right, so I land in Fargo, North Dakota. No yeah, From India to Fargo what time of year it was right about.
Speaker 1:
August. Oh, okay, so you were dealing with some humidity, yeah it started to get cold. It was a little chilly.
Speaker 2:
Was it already in August? Yeah, because Fargo is a frozen just ton, yeah, and I didn't know what was coming either. You didn't have any gear, nothing, nope, nothing. How the hell did you end up in Fargo? So there was only like four universities that had this program, okay, and I just went in and I took in computer science, just because you know I'm Indian, yeah. But funny thing was that wasn't what I actually came to NDSU with, because I ran into a couple of complications. Okay, got in a fight in college, got suspended for a whole semester there over there, okay, yeah oh sh*t, yeah, yeah it was.
Speaker 2:
It was pretty bad. What'd you get in the fight over? Uh, somebody said they were gonna beat up my buddy, so we're just like all right, man, let's go, were you stocky?
Speaker 1:
then, or or did you put all the weight on, like military time?
Speaker 2:
uh, I put on all the muscles and stuff um, before military, but like in US, because in India I was just like you know, I've never had meat.
Speaker 1:
Got it, yeah right.
Speaker 2:
I never worked out. I didn't work out until I was like 23, probably, yeah, so you get in a fight and you get suspended. Yeah, this guy was like blue by the time we got done with it. So that was pretty bad and you know, that's the kind of thing that I wanted to stay away from. You know, like why am I doing this? Right? You, as you grow up, you realize that was just stupid. Yeah for sure. Um, but yeah, we got four or five of us got suspended for a for a whole semester and then when we came back, they essentially tried to kick us out of the school.
Speaker 2:
So they said you have two options. You can either resign and, like, get out of the school, or you can take the exams now for the semester that we made you skip. It's like what? Like yeah, you can take the finals and if you've passed the finals we'll let you in. Or you can just leave now, like so they were just trying for us to leave. Like how do you, how are you supposed to pass an exam when I haven't gone through the whole semester.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. So I was like you know, I'll play your game, let's go, I'll take exams. And then there was the Java course for, like you know, coding and stuff, and I knew I wasn't going to pass that because I don't know how to code. So I went to Dean's office right before like the day before I was supposed to take that exam, and that was the only one I had left and I'm like I want to drop the course. I'm still out to drop a course.
Speaker 2:
And he goes like you can't drop the course. I'm like why not? He's like well, it's a core course. I'm like well, then, I'm going to change my major. No, kidding, really, you played their game. I was like yeah, we'll play this all day. I'll change my major. Good for you. So he's like well, what major do you want? I'm like whichever one doesn't have Java as a core subject, so you're going to let me drop it. So the day before that exam I dropped that course, changed my major and the only university that was allowing electrical engineering was NDSU. So that's where I ended up.
Speaker 2:
Oh boy, you set yourself up, didn't you? Yeah, I didn't know where I was going, what I was doing, but I was like I'm not gonna get defeated at this game that you're trying to play with me and you never thought like I should google fargo north dakota I don't think there were any better options.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, right, yeah you're committed at this point, so you show up in fargo yeah, have you ever seen the movie fargo? No, did you know there was a movie? Okay, there's a movie. Okay, you're gonna have to watch this, yeah, anyways.
Speaker 2:
So you show up in august in fargo yeah, already starting to get cold, yep, so I'm standing. Oh man, all right, I'll share this in this podcast too. So, um, people probably think, probably think this guy is like an idiot. But I'm standing at the bus stop because I'm trying to go to school to get my ID card and stuff right Day one and I'm like man, what did I do to myself? Like I should probably leave and go back.
Speaker 1:
Why were you having so much doubt, though I mean the American dream, right that you're here.
Speaker 2:
But I didn't know right. I didn't know any better. I had just spent two years outside of Delhi, so I got used to the big city feeling right, and now you're nowhere.
Speaker 1:
Man, what am I?
Speaker 2:
doing. This is not what I was promised. This is not New York City. Yeah, little did I know. I didn't want to live in New York and California anyways, you know. Hell no, but I'm like man, I'm going to leave. And then here comes this car 8 am in the morning, pulls from like this side street onto the main street. As I'm standing in the bus stop, girl comes out of the back seat and just flashes me. And I'm like America.
Speaker 1:
I guess I'm staying. No, this is your first day.
Speaker 2:
This is my first day, yeah.
Speaker 1:
That is the most American sh*t ever. Yeah, I was like she had like a rainbow or a american flag bikini on, because I know she was wearing a t-shirt she just lifted it up, came out of the window of the back seat.
Speaker 2:
I was like all right, I guess I'm staying. I love america. This was 8 am in the morning oh sh*t, good for her so I end up staying.
Speaker 1:
Look at you now, huh. Who would have thought so? Okay, so you decide to stay. And how? How was your first winter in Fargo?
Speaker 2:
It honestly wasn't too bad. I thought it was going to be bad, but I actually like colder weather and I didn't realize that up until I moved to America.
Speaker 1:
So, yeah, I actually enjoy a cold, Because where you're at in India you didn't have winters like that. I mean, obviously I know up in the mountains.
Speaker 2:
Unless I go up in the mountains. Yeah, where I grew up not really Got it.
Speaker 1:
So how long were you in North Carolina? How long were you in North Dakota?
Speaker 2:
Just about a year I finished my degree and then I moved out and moved to North Carolina.
Speaker 1:
That's a drastic change. Why North Carolina?
Speaker 2:
So I got done doing my school and then, when I first moved to America, I'm just like I want to see how much money I can make, because we didn't grow up with a lot of money. So I America, I'm just like I want to see how much money I can make, because we didn't grow up with a lot of money. Guys, I was like, hey, that's the definition of success and that's what I need to do. So I figured out, since I had a degree in electrical engineering, I started looking up jobs and all these jobs needed like security, clearance and stuff. Like I'll probably never get these jobs, so never even applied. Yeah, and somebody told me about hey, consulting is a good gig you can get into. I'm like, all right, get me started. So I started applying for a job. First one happened to be in North Carolina, so I went straight there, started working Consulting. For what? So it was management consulting. So you're essentially doing project management, business analyst type work at that time.
Speaker 1:
Got it.
Speaker 2:
You're helping Fortune 50, fortune 100 companies deliver on their programs. Some of them are IT fortune 50, fortune hand companies deliver on their programs. Like some of them are it. Some of them are just digital. And you enjoyed this. No, I was just.
Speaker 1:
I enjoyed the money okay. So how long were you here? Um so, you worked on a student visa, which was good. For how long?
Speaker 2:
yeah, so the student visa was good for um one year until I was done. Actually, no, for two years, for two years. Okay, that's when my F1 was, I think, and if I'm wrong don't buy me it's been a while. Then what happens is, since it was a STEM degree, it comes with OPT occupational practical training or something like that. Essentially, that's your work permit after the degree Got it. So you get that for a year and then you have another year and a half and then you have another year of extension on that. So I used all of that and then I applied for my H-1. Which?
Speaker 2:
is your actual US citizenship correct. No, that's the work visa and it has to be in your field of work. Got it Right. So it has to be sponsored by a company that has already exhausted resources to find a position. Find someone in the country, a citizen, to fill that position. If that cannot be filled by them, then you can go get that position.
Speaker 1:
Okay.
Speaker 2:
So that's kind of how that process works, got it, which is all fair and stuff. But I think there's like which is what I experienced firsthand too like there's a lot of taking advantage of for the candidates that goes on in there, because companies know they will hold your sponsorship and visa, so they will nickel and dime you and not pay you anything at all. Oh, so they're getting almost free labor. Well, not almost free labor, they'll pay you but like they can bill you to another company for an absurd amount of money and then give you like hey, here's your 50 40 because you have to play their game, because you're on a work visa you can't really do anything about your immigration.
Speaker 1:
They have to do it, no kidding, yeah, and this is run by like big companies, or are there's actually some?
Speaker 2:
there's. A lot of immigrants came in and became citizens and they're like, hey, we can run this on our own too, so they're also doing the same thing. No sh*t, yeah, yeah, amer, I mean, you know, if there's an opportunity, you've got to figure it out Exactly Somebody will capitalize.
Speaker 2:
But yeah, so I was just chasing money, trying to figure out how to, you know, build something. So I spent a year, year and a half, in North Carolina consulting for Pfizer Pharmaceuticals. They were acquiring they're in the business of actually acquiring other companies that come out with drugs as soon as they find out.
Speaker 2:
Some company is coming out with a drug, they'll just go buy it. They buy it, shut it down and come out with their own version. No, they just manufacture. They shut down all their R&D and all they do is manufacture Wild, isn't it Right? So they had taken over Wyatt, which was the largest kids' medicine producing company in the world. Okay, and it took them all over the world. I think that was a $72 billion deal that they did. You signed a $72 billion deal, they did. Oh, okay, and I just kind of helped manage a few sites as we closed down the R&D facilities yeah, so I ran part of their program.
Speaker 2:
No, dang and D facilities yeah, so I ran like part of their program. No, along with it. Good for you? Well, so, and but that's. You know there's layers, right, so I think it was either Accenture or Cognizant that had the main contract for that, for a piece of it, and then, since they don't have all the resources, they subcontract people out, so there's like two or three companies of layers. You know Someone will get the contract from them and then they will feed it down to somebody else Sells what's left of the contract. Each person is taking their cut. But I was fortunate enough that as I started working with the client we're the full-time employees of Pfizer, like the executives and stuff right for those locations they started trusting me more than my boss. Really, they just saw that he was more competent. I was more competent and I was like understanding better. They would literally look at me in front of him and ask me the questions like can that be done?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I was like yeah, so did he start not liking you then?
Speaker 2:
I think he used me as like hey, you know, it's working you know, I get a good word, so I get a good word, so I think he was smart, at least that way where he's just like hey, I'm not going to see that as an issue, Because at least I'm not getting a bad rep. You know, we're still getting stuff done For sure. But I use that as an opportunity to learn how the work is done, Because I knew, once this contract was over, I needed to figure out what to do next. So this one got over and I moved to.
Speaker 1:
Des Moines.
Speaker 2:
Iowa. Oh, you're all over the place. Huh yeah. How was that Not bad? I had a good time there too, yeah.
Speaker 1:
You're making the best out of anywhere huh, yeah, I'm trying.
Speaker 2:
You're just living the dream at this point.
Speaker 1:
You're like I am not in India, so I'm cool with wherever Exactly.
Speaker 2:
I just got to make money you know, that's always in my head and I'll move and I'll sacrifice what I need to sacrifice to go make money.
Speaker 2:
You know, yeah, I moved there, got the next contract and this point I got into health care insurance. I was working for a blue cross, blue shield, okay, and it was a big mandate that was came down for the government to like, hey, we need to implement this. Got there and found out the mandate got moved another 10 years or so, so we may be shutting everything down like, oh crap, really thankfully I was one of the lucky ones that got held back.
Speaker 2:
Be like we'll keep you but we gotta let the rest of these guys go. Yeah, like sounds good, no sh*t, yeah. And then at that point I'm like, okay, I understand this, I need to figure out how to cut out some of these middlemen. So that's when I went and opened my own llc like I'm gonna cut out a bunch of these middlemen good for you, dude, so dude.
Speaker 1:
So you went from being kind of a sh*thead kid in India somehow getting into it. I don't know if I was sh*thead, okay rebellious kid. Yeah, rolled over with a rebellious kid in India to ending up in Fargo, north Dakota. Yep, to now starting your LLC. Yep, good for you, man. That's pretty cool, yeah. So once you started that, then you just kind of started picking up your own contracts on your own.
Speaker 2:
No, you still go through companies because other people have bigger reach to get these bigger contracts. But what you do end up getting is you cut out a bunch of layers and you can negotiate a better rate directly with the company that has the actual contract. Right, okay, so now there's no layers between who initially got the contract and you. You're just cutting out all the hands out of the pocket. Yeah, exactly okay. Yeah, uh, worked with this company, met some great people, moved out to minneapolis area in minnesota and then just bought a house there and ran operations out of there like I will fly wherever I need to fly, because now I'm confident enough and.
Speaker 2:
I have enough experience where you know I can negotiate these things. Like, I'm not going to be living wherever the work takes me. You can pay for my flights and hotel and I'll fly wherever you want me to fly. I'll stay as many days as you want me to stay, but you're going to pay for the hotel. You're going to pay for per diem. You're going to pay for per diem, yep, you're going to pay for car service. Good for you, man. Yeah, it was a great time. And how long did you do that? For? All the way until 2017.
Speaker 2:
And then, what, you're just over it at this point, or what? So, yeah, a couple of things happened, right. So, first, like, I didn't always speak English like this either, right, so that was one of the things that I learned once I got in the country, because, you know, I had the goal of, like it's two things really too. Like, hey, I knew when I decided to stay. Like, hey, I'm going to live here, right? So the biggest thing is, like, I need to make sure I can communicate better. Like, why wouldn't you want to do it? Absolutely.
Speaker 1:
And then the second thing is, as soon as I start working with executives like hey, I need to make sure I can actually sell this stuff, so I need to make sure I'm clearing conversations right. How hard was it, or was it easy for you to pick up the dialect? Or, like I mean, you're pretty much retraining yourself.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so the the worst part was I, since I grew up in a small town in India. We don't really didn't really speak a lot of English, even though we were taught English in school. It was just a messed up version of English and the pronunciation wasn't there. You know, the accent is obviously a thing, but when I first moved to Fargo and people told me the only job I can do is to go wash dishes, I was like I'm just not going to do that.
Speaker 1:
Not that that's a bad job.
Speaker 2:
Like I can find another job. So I actually got. My first job in the US was a TA in math. Of course I'm from India, I know math Right, it's natural.
Speaker 2:
But the problem is like a lot of people won't even go and try for that because they just assume no one would give them that job. I'm like have you tried applying for it at least Right? So I applied and no one was applying. I got that job right away, away. But that helped me fix my english because I would go in and try to like good, do this lecture, and kids were like kids, they were my age, like oh, did you mean this? I'm like, yes, I didn't know, that's how you said it and I kind of fixed my pronunciation there. Okay, and then the more I talked with executives that I started working, the better I forced myself to get. So it was a a learning curve, especially forgetting those?
Speaker 2:
bad habits yeah absolutely.
Speaker 1:
I'm sure it wasn't easy, especially the accent from North.
Speaker 2:
Dakota. Oh yeah, I had a hard time understanding people because people would speak very fast and I'm not used to hearing proper English anyways, or American English With a Fargo accent it probably didn't help at all. Yeah, I'm like I catch five words, the rest of it is just gone. So I'm just like one of those you know Piecing sentences together.
Speaker 1:
Classic immigrant, just smiling, nodding head Got it got it, so you've run this business for quite a while now.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
Which is pretty cool to you. Know you're years into it.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it was great Money, which is pretty cool to you know, get used to it. Yeah, it was great. Money was great. You know it was growing rapidly. Every contract I got, the next one got better than that, the rate got better than the previous one. Yeah, every now and then you'll have a lull of like a month or so between contracts, which is fine. Like you make enough money where it doesn't even faze you that I haven't worked, you know, or not really worked. But like you haven't, you may not get a paycheck. This one didn't really matter, you know you get 30, 40, 50,000 coming in a month. So it's like no kidding.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, did you have a bunch of employees, or is?
Speaker 2:
this. You just no, I started out just with me and then there's a couple of times where I just brought another subcontractors Got it. So you're banking everything, yeah, and you know there's really no expense on that, right. You know it's like, okay, you're just putting deals together. Yeah, damn dude, that's awesome, it was a good deal. Yeah, got to travel a lot full time. You know, I was in Chicago a lot.
Speaker 1:
I was in Dallas a lot, so you're getting to check out the country, learn the language and you're making really good money. Yep, and your parents wanted you school, or in India, yeah, yeah. Were you calling back like hey, I'm like, I'm making it, I'm doing it dad, no, no.
Speaker 2:
I mean, there's been, there had been some rough times too you know, where you know when I was first started out it was like there were days where, like I went without eating food cause I didn't have money and you know, I didn't have, I didn't have, I didn't have a job or these people were taking so much money out of my pocket where I had nothing left. It's like oh, I paid my bills and that's all I had.
Speaker 1:
OK, yeah, so I mean so you went through a long time of struggling. I mean, I'm probably making it seem like it was just like one one win after another.
Speaker 2:
But there's a lot in between that. Yeah, it's like a typical course of like how things really work out. You know you don't like instantly. Nothing happens overnight, but yeah, eventually things worked out. Some people saw there was something there, so they also helped. That was great as well. But as I was doing this in about 2013, 2014, I was traveling to Dallas for work and my dad had been sick at this point in time for a while and he had GBS. What's GBS? It's like an autoimmune disease, okay, so he got it out of nowhere. So one day he came back home from work and he laid down to take a nap and then he told my mom he can't feel his legs.
Speaker 1:
Really.
Speaker 2:
So, yeah, he started getting paralyzed. And that's how that disease actually starts Just out of nowhere. Out of nowhere, yeah, super healthy. He was 55 or something, I think, and, yeah, started getting paralyzed and very quickly just moved throughout his body. So they took him to the hospital like the same day and apparently once it gets to your lungs, like you have to be in an incubator or whatever they call it. So he got put on that right away.
Speaker 2:
No, or whatever they call it so he got put on that right away and, yeah, I didn't go back. I didn't know. I mean, I just know like he got sick. I didn't know exactly what was going on and I was continuing the whole business thing right. So I was flying to dallas and I landed in dallas and my phone was blown up. I look at my phone and like something bad has happened. So I didn't leave the airport, I fly straight to Minneapolis, grab my passport, catch the next flight to India and the whole time like just don't be gone, damn dude.
Speaker 1:
I'm sorry, man, did you get a chance to say goodbye?
Speaker 2:
no, no, f*ck yeah, I'm sorry, dude, but um, that was kind of the reason, like, even though things were going on on outside at this point, I was just like you know what? I probably need to do something else with my life so that was like a deciding factor, wasn't?
Speaker 2:
what you were doing wasn't enough, yeah so a little part that I left out was when we were talking about that IIT thing. The other thing that I had also applied for was to join the Air Force in India, and for there you have to take this exam as well. It's not just like what we do here for like maps and stuff. It's not like that. It's much more difficult than if you pass it like you're in okay, and I got picked up there and I decided I don't want to do this because I don't want to be poor so is it a pretty, I mean, is it a prestigious job?
Speaker 1:
you just don't make any money. It was and I and I saw that in my dad's eyes that he really wanted me to do that so you felt you wanted to yeah, be able to give back, somehow make your dad proud by now joining the us military well, it was dad, it was also like.
Speaker 2:
So after that happened I kind of struggled for like next two years.
Speaker 2:
I mean work-wise it was great, you know, because I was getting more contracts. But I just started to sway away from like, do I want to do this work anymore? And I'm just like, no, then what is it that I want to do? So it was that whole conversation in that whole thing. And then I'm like, hey, serious, just kicking off. I'm like, hey, I've always found myself like I'm not gonna sit here and complain about stuff, like if I am truly passionate about something, I'm gonna find a way to fix something right. So to me it's like if there's bad people in world and you don't kind of align with them most people don't and you know you're capable of doing something, why don't you go do it right? Along with the conversation that I had with my dad. So I just like you know what? This is probably my time to just go do it really yeah, she walked from everything yeah, you went to the army.
Speaker 2:
I went. So I was what? 27, 28 at this time. Okay, right, so I knew I was, I wanted to go in and you know, my brother always gives me sh*t about this, like why didn't you just join the indian army? It's like, where is our reach? Like, if I want to do something at this age, like I want to go and do it where I can have the most impact, and everybody knows, like we can have the most impact if we run it right, we don't anymore. That's the other question. Yeah, you know, um, so, plus, like this is what I call home now, like I have been here.
Speaker 2:
I mean good for you yeah, so, um so yeah, it took me a couple of years to kind of just come to the realization. It helped, too, that I had just finished a contract and I was waiting to pick up another one. So I had a month to just kind of gather my thoughts and I'm like, hey, if I don't do it now, I probably will never do it. It was hard to walk away from all the money, though I'm sure once.
Speaker 2:
Once you grow up poor and like you've lived through some hard times and then you go ahead and make a lot of money, or decent amount of money. You don't want to give that. You don't want to give that up. You don't want to give that up.
Speaker 1:
No, you know it's so hard, it's everything you've dreamed about, exactly which is quite the accomplishment for you man to be able to I mean coming from a small town in India to now owning a business that you're doing 30 to 50 grand a month. I'm just saying you know, throwing that out it's probably doing very well for yourself and you're proud of yourself, but it's still not enough.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I mean, I had a souped-up Jeep, which I still do. I wasn't going to sell that thing. I had a BMW, I had a motorcycle, I had a house, I had a dog. Living the dream, I was traveling fancy vacations all the time. I had what I wanted. It wasn't the definition of success had changed. It wasn't just about the money anymore.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, you had a calling that you didn't. Yeah, Isn't it crazy how you hear these stories of guys that are like NFL players and they gave it all up and things like that, and it's hard for people to fathom. But I mean, when you have that, it just pulls at you, Right? You know it pulls and pulls and pulls and you just you knew you had to do it.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and I'm sure, like some people kind of you know, looked at me like you're dumb, you're doing this, like, oh, what do you think you're a cool guy now? But not. It's like, hey, man, at least I'm willing to give the things up. I won't give up and go do things that I actually want to do. I would rather go risk this, yeah, then sit here and be like, oh, maybe I should have done it, you know. So that was kind of my mindset. So finally just decided to put everything away and just go see if I can do it or not. So at my age I didn't want to just go in the military, right. I was like, if I'm going to do this, I need to be in special operations, like I need to bring things that I can actually bring to the table and do it right, and like I don't want and you were confident enough that you knew you would fit right in with that.
Speaker 2:
So I was not a runner and I didn't know anything about the culture, right? So that's the other thing like not only coming in as an immigrant, like, yeah, learning the culture and being part of like a spot where, like it's pretty tight, yeah, you're like, hey, I don't know what the culture is going to be like. Am I going to get accepted or not?
Speaker 1:
I don't know right, the culture, as in the sf community yeah or just military, yeah, just military.
Speaker 2:
and I said like I don't know what any of that looks like, especially me being a foreigner, because I didn't know how many foreigners are in the military at the moment, right, yep, um, not a lot, there's still a few, and I don't think anybody looks at us any differently. As long as you do your job, that's all. Anybody cares about Exactly.
Speaker 1:
Just don't get us in trouble, Don't get us hazed. You're good yeah exactly right.
Speaker 2:
So, yeah, I put everything away and at this point I was on a green card status. Okay, so I was still not a citizen, but so this was 2017. Uh, yeah, sorry, I skipped your question. Yeah, I started looking into what special operations.
Speaker 1:
I can join. Why? Why was that like? Why did you know you wanted to go that route? Just because you, if you didn't want to just be a normal?
Speaker 2:
well, I'm like, if I'm going to give all these things up that I just gave up, I'm not just going to be a normal grunt, it's just like how much impact am I going to have there? Okay, like. So I'm like I need to be in special operations if I'm going to do something better, and that's the route. So I started doing my research as to what's the quickest route to get to one of the special operations unit. Wasn't a swimmer, wasn't a runner, wasn't a rucker? Yeah, I had barely started working now, like four or five years ago. Okay, and I'm like I'm going to do this, we're going to give it hell. Yeah, we're just going to go give it a shot. So I go to all the recruiters and find out Army is the place to be. And then I looked into Green Beret Mission. I'm like, yeah, I want to be a Green Beret. You know I want that.
Speaker 1:
No kidding, yeah, that's what I. And you're like, I want to be a Green Beret. And they're looking at this kid that can probably speak some pretty broken English from India and they're like, yeah, okay, sign here.
Speaker 2:
So I went in. I was very specific. I was like, hey, I'm here for the 18X-ray contract because that's the Green Beret contract, like your shot to assessment and selection right from the street. Right, which is crazy, they allow that. All services do that now it's not just and it goes and comes and goes in waves. It has been done way before in like a long time ago.
Speaker 2:
Then it went away when they need numbers and things like numbers, right, and I honestly see it's like a great opportunity to actually get some good guys, like some of those nfl players came through the same programs. Okay, because they're capable guys. Right, they're looking for guys that are willing to learn and are quick learners and are smart.
Speaker 1:
You know, that's what's crazy about the special forces community and obviously me not being one of them. But what I've put together over the years, it doesn't matter how strong and tough it's mental. Yeah, I mean, because you see some of these guys that are graduating, you're like I would.
Speaker 1:
I would run f*cking laps and they just no yeah, they'll run laps until you quit and then they just keep. It's just, it's the, it's the never quit mindset of those guys. And I mean, you think that you need to be coming out just jacked out of your mind, which they'll end up eventually. But you see, these guys come out of some of these training schools and you, you're just like that guy's a green bird, that guy's this, and you're like God, they're tiny little things. Sometimes Even we say that.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I'm sure he made it.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, which is crazy, because you have this mind as an outsider. You're like, oh, you've got to be like this Greek god, it's all. Just. I feel like a mindset is 90% of it is 90% of it. You need to just get past that.
Speaker 2:
Oh yeah, and we can talk more about like the shape later on down here For sure.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, Definitely want to dive into that.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, because there's like things to it too, right, but yeah. So my question to him and I only asked one question like hey, can I actually get this contract? Because as of today, I'm not a citizen. I'll be my five-year mark and then it doesn't matter. He's like you don't have to worry about that, because you'll be a citizen in May. I'm like what's that supposed to mean? He's like well, as soon as you're done with basic training, you'll be a citizen. I'm like okay, may, december, regardless. Today I'm not. Yeah, can I still get this contract? He's like yeah, I'm like are you 100% sure? He's like yeah, like sounds good, man, I'm gonna shut my business down. Let's do it.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, you trusted a recruiter like that, yeah I was dumb you rolled the dice on that one yeah, because it get worse.
Speaker 1:
okay, let me hear it. So you're all excited, you shut your very successful business down to now be a green beret? Yeah, and you're trusting all of this on a recruiter? Yep, okay.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, please continue, I am super smart.
Speaker 1:
There's streets and there's books. Buddy, there's streets and books. It's a real thing, yeah. I mean all of us trust recruiters at one point.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it's like this guy is in the Army. Why would he lie to me?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, he's wearing this uniform. He looks very. He's at my house talking to my parents. He's got to be honest, right. Sleaze balls the recruiters. No, actually I don't even care if I offend anybody.
Speaker 2:
Recruiters in the military are the used car salesmen just circling lots dude 100%.
Speaker 1:
We call them sh*tty used car salesmen, if you're listening to me yeah, I'm just kidding. Kudos to the recruiters for bringing all of us into the military. We all are some dirtbags. You're going to shoot bombs and just get laid and shoot machine guns and I was like, where do I sign? And they don't tell you about the brass. You're picking up for four days cleaning the heavies, the 50s and the Mark 19s. For another week after that. None of that is in the fine print. That's not fancy. I wanted to climb volcanoes and slay lava dragons, like in the marine commercials. The dude pulls out the blues. He's like that's what I'm doing.
Speaker 2:
I mean, you guys do have really good recruiting.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
That's out of all the services, branch services like yours is the best.
Speaker 1:
I don't know how You'd think there'd just be like a box of crayons and like some coloring paper.
Speaker 2:
Be like know how? You'd think they'd just be like a box of crayons and like some coloring paper. Be like can you stay inside the lines? Nope, you went to the air force. You're too smart. Let us show you what you're going to be doing?
Speaker 1:
yeah, you get hungry. Yeah, exactly so you're a recruiter. Yeah, so how bullsh*t was he, or was he? Was he legit?
Speaker 2:
I. I just think he was too quick to answer the question without like doing his due diligence right. I think he truly believed that that's how it's going to work, or was he just trying to fill that quota? It could be it too. Yeah, that could be it too. Yeah. So, anyways, we go to maps, you know, after like a week or so, get through everything. They don't tell me anything up until I'm about to sign the contract and they go here's your 11 extra contract. I'm like no, that's not what I asked for. He's like well, because of that citizenship, we can't. I'm like but that's the conversation we had. Buddy, that's the first question I asked you for that reason.
Speaker 1:
So he let you excuse me, he let you get all the way up until signing Everything.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yep, I've already done the duck walk and everything remember that.
Speaker 1:
How degrading is that? Yeah, that's the sh*t where that. That's what starts veteran pride. Yep, is meps where you're in your whitey tights? Well, at least I was. I was still in f*cking high school I was, I was not, I was 28 in your little whitey tighties duck, walking with your hands above your head across this cold ass floor. Yep, with this creepy now that I look that dude was the biggest chom*o oh yeah.
Speaker 1:
The creepiest old nose, ear hair hanging out, doctor, and he's like poking and prodding you and you're just standing there. This is my life and I was like I'm going to be a Marine still, this is going to be great.
Speaker 1:
Like do you have all the signs in the world? Yeah, it's like this. Is there's still time to quit, isn't that's the craziest? The craziest like, at least, as me, coming like fresh out of high school, it is one of the your first experience of like okay, I'm very uncomfortable, yeah because it's weird, like it's weird, and I was there at 28, right?
Speaker 2:
So everybody else there was a high school kid.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
And I was just like what am I doing, Mm-hmm Right.
Speaker 1:
Kid children yes, doing some weird sh*t at Mets, exactly.
Speaker 2:
So yeah, so you went through all of that. Then you get the wrong contract yeah, and I'm like I'm not signing. So this guy starts making some phone calls Goes in the panic mode or what.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, gets a Green Beret recruiter on the line Like the actual Green Beret recruiter. Yeah, this guy is tabbed and he has his Green Beret. I don't know. I'm just believing what they're telling me at this point because I think part of me just had already made the decision that I'm going to do this, so I just wanted to get in at this point.
Speaker 1:
I'm just like I am too committed. This wasn't a Green Beret recruiter for the Green Berets, this was just a recruiter that was a Green Beret. Yes, Okay, so he wasn't like pushing and pulling people to the program of becoming SF the guy that he called was an actual, because we have guys too that will go do some recruiting.
Speaker 2:
Okay, that was my question, yeah so you can take that as an assignment in order to get close to home on your off-time. So I talked to this guy. He hands me the phone. He's like hey man, this is a Green Beret and you can talk to him. And he goes like hey man, when you get to basic training, if you perform, the recruiters will come down there, the liaison will and he will give you the contract. I hope this is true.
Speaker 1:
Oh, he said that I know, but I'm like is this a real thing in the army?
Speaker 2:
because this would not have happened in the marines, like oh, I know right and I'm like man, I am talking to a green beret. There's no reason this guy would ever lie to me, never lie to me little dude.
Speaker 2:
I know some of you all lie, I'm just kidding. So you signed the contract. I'm like, all right, let's do it, man. I'm like, hey, man, what's with the 11 x-ray, though? What? What does that mean? And you're like, well, it could be 11, bravo, 11 charlie. I'm like what's 11 charlie? It's like, oh, that's mortar man. I'm like I don't want to do that. It's like what are the odds that I get that? It's like, bro, it's like 5%, there's no way. There's no way in hell. You're going to get, you know, 11 Charlie.
Speaker 1:
Nobody really gets it. You're not becoming a mortarman.
Speaker 2:
I was like whatever man, let's do it, I'm definitely going to be 11. Bravo now, I guess. Oh, they saw you walking before you even got in the lot.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I go to 20th AG, which is training, which is like your first spot that you get to at Fort Benning before they assign you to where you're going to be and how you're, before you get distributed to the actual company where you're going to do your basic training. Oh, really, yeah. Or it's like it's all set like one station unit training, because you know it's infantry, so it's going to be like basic and AIT all together. Yeah, and the guy comes out. It's like if I called your roster number, you all go to the left and if I don't call you, I'll stay to the right. You know, of course my roster number doesn't get called. So you're gonna become a mortar man, I become a motor man this is such a military.
Speaker 2:
It's like this is the military, bro.
Speaker 1:
This is the military that nobody talks about. Yep, this, that's exactly how it works. They call a roster and you're like go over there. You go over there, you're getting deployed, you're not getting deployed.
Speaker 2:
That's literally how it happens.
Speaker 1:
On my second deployment if we call your name, stand over there. If we call it, we stand over there. They're like all right, if we called your name, you guys are detached today and you're attached to your new unit. You unit you're going to deploy again in six months.
Speaker 2:
That's exactly how it happens, and then you start making oh, that guy, oh I'm, I am not going there. Then I guess, because that guy sucks, you know yeah, well, can I swap the best part? You find a dude that doesn't want to go and you're, they're willing to swap with they won't let, you won't let, you do it yeah they won't let you do it.
Speaker 1:
Needs of the core, needs of the core, marine needs of the core like okay, I guess, why don't you let the deal work out? This is the most military sh*t. I love this.
Speaker 2:
So, now, you just got your soul crushed, yeah man, it's like I gave this thing up to come do this and literally nothing has worked out to this point, right, yeah, so anyways, we start basic training. And you know I inning, and you know I had a really good drill sergeant too. He looks at me. He's a big dude too, and I was.
Speaker 2:
I went into the army, I was 215 you know I'm not tall, so I was a bigger dude, right, and he's like, hey, no protein powder getting delivered, all right, I'm like why are you looking at me? He's like you know I'm looking at you. It's like you're the only one here that's gonna need it. Yeah, right, anyways. They feed me like three times a day, like everybody else, and you know all we're doing is running push-ups, sit-ups. I come out of that thing. 168. No, yeah, because were you cycling?
Speaker 2:
before you went in or no I never cycled, no, yeah, no, but not until, like, yeah, later on in my life. Yeah, but I was like, wow, it's a lot of weight, yeah, but your run time increased quite a bit, yeah. So I, we didn't even touch on that man, and so I had looked at. You know, as I started looking to go in SF, I barely had a couple months before. I'm like I'm going to get shipped out and sign everything. I looked at some of the time standards. I'm like I don't think I and those are just bare minimums, right. I'm like man, I am far off from this, really, and running is not my strong suit. Like you, give me a bunch of weight, I'll throw that around. I don't have the form for running, I don't run fast. I'm like what do I need to run? Oh, at least a 1320. And that's just the bare minimum, right. And then I end up running a 1210 at selection. Okay, because you find out later on. But yeah, yeah, you know, I'm just like you know, yeah, I know I'm not a fast runner, but when the time comes to push, come to show like I am going to give it my all 100 because I'm not going to get out of this course, anyways, we'll get to that. But yeah, you know, all we did was run.
Speaker 2:
But he asked me like how old are you? My drill sergeant, him that I was talking about? I'm like I'm 28. It's like what did you do in life? Asked me, like how old are you? My drill sergeant, him that I was talking about? I'm like I'm 28. It's like what did you do in life? I'm like I just owned the business. I just dropped it. It's like why the f*ck are you here? So I want to be a green beret. And I told him like I want to be a green beret. He's like how'd you get stuck here? I'm like this is what happened, he's like. And then I asked him like hey, true, like the recruiters come here. He's like yeah, and he just looked at me. He's like don't even worry about it, you'll be fine. Because at this point they had seen me perform enough, like I was just crushing these kids on everything.
Speaker 2:
There's literally fights going on between duals and I was like you know, I want him in my company.
Speaker 1:
You know, I older guy in my platoon.
Speaker 2:
He was the favorite.
Speaker 1:
You know, like they all loved him because he got life, I get it now. But like I was like f*ck this old guy. Yeah, I still got smoked with everyone else. Oh, for sure, for sure.
Speaker 2:
But it just like, didn't you?
Speaker 1:
I was just like willing to. It's a respect thing, yeah, it was that. It was like didn't you sure that they see that I'm here and I'm here for something? Yeah, which is the last, at least for marine corps boot camp.
Speaker 1:
That's you just want to be a fly on the wall you never want to stand out yeah, you know, and the fact that you're like I'm trying to, so I can be noticed, so I can go live my dream, oh yeah, shows you how much you want to be a green beret. Yeah, exactly, okay. So your recruiter, or now your drill instructor, drill sergeant? Yeah, he's dedicated.
Speaker 2:
He's like I'm going to help you Really, yeah, and he didn't really need to help all that much, but he was all willing to. And then he ended up going for some assignment for a month or so, okay, and his senior took over Wasn't senior by much, but his name was Drill Sergeant Oakley, by the way. Way, I never run into that guy again, but I had a huge, like huge respect for that dude because like he was just, he was just a good dude man. That's the kind of people you want to see in the military. Yeah, you know, and you know he was capable of doing stuff. He's a big guy too so there's that yeah, um.
Speaker 2:
So the other one comes in and he's like hey, man, I see you want the greenberry contract, but the ranger recruiter is going to tomorrow. And I say you just go that route. And I'm like, why do you say that? He's like well, you're definitely going to make Ranger Greenberry. Who knows if you're going to make it or not? And then your needs of the Army, at least here you're going to keep your MOS and everything. And it's only an eight-week road versus, like you know, two years plus that you may have to commit to this. And then, if you don't, then it's the needs of the Army where they can push you.
Speaker 1:
You could be a cook.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, exactly that was the biggest thing with 18X. We're like you could be a cook tomorrow. You know, if you don't make, it Is 18,.
Speaker 1:
what are you calling it 18X-Ray? Is that open contract then, technically, because that's what we call it.
Speaker 2:
Like, if you go't make it okay, yeah, if you don't make it through selection, then you go back to regular army and they will slot you. And that's why so, when I was saying, you know, that's a gambler, that's a great strategy for the military, that's why they have those contracts, because now they can open it to the world or the whole country, right, and they can fill the spots that don't get filled cecile, bait and switch is technically what they're doing you could be a green brave and as soon as you fail they're like man.
Speaker 2:
We're really low on cooks or admin yeah, but we at least gave you a shot. Right now it's up to you, so I'll give them that benefit, though, right hey if you make, you make it if not we own you. Yeah, if you don't know, you can make it. You probably shouldn't have taken that risk, like that's the risk you are willing to. I was willing to take that risk.
Speaker 1:
That's like the devil man yeah, it's like, if not, I own your soul.
Speaker 2:
But it's open, right. They tell you they're not lying to you, at least right. So that's where I can respect that part.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, but at the same time to some 18-year-old kid and read between the lines. It's like oh there's no way, you know like, yeah, son, you're going to be a green beret. Then he ends up being a cook. My son was going to be a green beret, but yeah he's a loser.
Speaker 2:
Right. So anyways, I'm like, no, I'm not going to do that. He goes like why not?
Speaker 1:
I'm like I'm not here to be a ranger.
Speaker 2:
I'm here to be a green beret. That's what I'm going to be Good for you. You're sticking to the guns. He's like at least talk to him. I'm like fine, I'll talk to him. But I'm telling you I'm not signing that contract, even if he gives to me. So I go there and I tell him my situation. He's like yeah, I can't take you. I'm like what do you mean? You can't take me? He's like well, because you're not a citizen today. I'm like I'm glad you're not taking me, because I didn't want it anyway.
Speaker 2:
So I just walked away. Next day comes a Green Beret recruiter. I tell him the same thing and he goes like why are you telling me this? I'm like, what do you mean? Like this is an issue, that's what they've been telling him Like. And he goes it's not an issue. And I knew I was in the right spot at that point, like I had made the right decision to go to the right organization, because it's just the way Green Berets think he already knew that was a non-issue, because by the time I would have come close to coming to Fort Bragg, all that stuff would have already been worked out. Yeah, and he could see that through Yep, so he didn't even bother himself with things that are not going to be an issue.
Speaker 1:
Isn't it crazy the different mindset and people. You saw the maturity in the guy already yeah, versus a ranger. Yeah, and he was just. No, we're not gonna worry about that sh*t. Yeah, like done exactly.
Speaker 2:
If he had you just looked at a couple steps ahead, he would have seen too that it's not an issue yeah, which is a huge.
Speaker 1:
It's a mindset in people. Yeah, you know, it's like okay, well, we got to worry about this or we have to wait for this. And he was just like, yeah, who gives a sh*t? Yeah, you're in, like as long as you pass, obviously, the end, doc, and everything like you're good.
Speaker 2:
Yep, yeah, so now you're excited, yeah now I'm excited, like here's my contract, you know, oh, you know there's other things that happen, but everything gets worked out. I biggest waste of three weeks of my life why, uh, airborne school is this is static line, right? So it's a I think it's a way outdated thing.
Speaker 1:
We should not do it anymore okay, so let's talk about this I watch these videos of these airborne guys and they're all proud and they're static lining and we're, we're going to carry on the tradition and then they're impaling themselves into the ground, blowing out their knees, backs. I mean all these with. We work with a lot of veterans. Half these dudes are airborne guys that blew out their knees and backs and everything. They're all f*cked from these jumps and I'm like why?
Speaker 2:
are we still doing this Right? So think about the last time operationally in a wartime we actually did it, germany and what was the? Result of that.
Speaker 1:
I mean, how many guys were just getting?
Speaker 2:
I mean, they're scattered all across, right, and what kind of technology existed back in the day? None. What kind of technology exists today. If you try to do that against the country today, you will get absolutely obliterated. Oh, 100% Right. So why are we taking this risk? When you can, just if we're going to bring the aircraft that low and try to drop people, just land the damn thing.
Speaker 1:
Okay, okay. So I've always thought, you know, this has been one of those things is like the Marine in me, you know, like I look at them, like why are we doing?
Speaker 2:
this, yeah, is there like value in, like maybe airfield seizures a little bit?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I could understand a small unit like a ranger unit, some SF unit. Okay, we got to come in. We got to land on this mountain in Afghan. We got to drop whatever, but like the fact that they're dumping like whole platoons and sh*t Now, like this is never going to happen, no, never, no, we're going to push in on foot. If we're dropping airborne in, like by plane loads, the situation is f*cked Exactly.
Speaker 1:
I feel like the situation is f*cked exactly like just because it's such an outdated thing. But at the same time, we look what's going on in ukraine and I never thought we'd be fighting trench warfare again and look at these dudes are literally, yeah, turning corner face to face with each other like I never thought that would ever come back.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, what tanks are still a thing, you know, you know I get it, I get it drones are now too so, and you know how many people are training for that. Let's, we'll talk about that too in a second maybe so sorry three weeks. Yeah, so that's the thing.
Speaker 1:
So you learn how to put your legs together and bend the knees.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it does not require three weeks to learn that how to fall, because you essentially get out of the airplane and let Jesus take the wheel. Were there any dudes that panicked, that didn't want to do it? Not that I noticed I think you're just like at this point. You're like I'm just going to go.
Speaker 1:
Are you going through with all guys that are going into SF or is this just jump school in general? No, this is just a jump school in general.
Speaker 2:
People are from regular Army, other services, got it. It's just a mixed class. It could be anybody, because I didn't go to an 18X grade class, right, I went to an 18X, right. So that's the SF contract, right? So most of the guys they try to like. At one point we had guys in the Q course, qualification course we'll talk about that in a second. But a lot of them went to the same basic training. So there was like 50 dudes coming from the. So it's like a whole platoon Already built, already built. So they probably all did airborne school together, got it. I was there with two other guys from my basic training that also raised their hand to go to sf selection that's how okay, so out of your platoon.
Speaker 1:
What do you want? 50, 60 guys in your platoon at boot camp or basic? How many raise their hand?
Speaker 2:
and go out of the whole company. Three raised their hand really yeah, that's it, yeah, and yeah, wow, okay. Because I think a lot of people are afraid of like doing it and they're Really yeah, that's it, yeah, and yeah, wow, okay, because I think a lot of people are afraid of like doing it and they're like yeah, a lot of people raise their hand for Ranger, which, you know, if I was younger, I probably would have done that route and, you know, gone in the regiment and then came out, yeah because Rangers are like the little brothers.
Speaker 1:
I feel like no offense, no offense, no offense.
Speaker 2:
I know.
Speaker 1:
I'm going to get some sh*t like that one, because these SF units are very protective, but I feel like, as an outsider, I look at you know, as you guys have tiers in the Army and you know it's like the Rangers, like everybody's a f*cking Ranger, Like we compare Rangers to a Marine grunt with cooler gear they just have way cooler gear. That's all.
Speaker 2:
Rangers, they've got cool gear.
Speaker 2:
They're actually good at their job because they get to stick to their specialty, right. So if you're a machine gunner, that's all you're running, right, kind of like you guys, right, yeah, on an ODA, like you have to do 20 different things. You're a medic, you're a comm guy, you're everything, you're doing everything, and, yeah, we'll talk about that too. So I think the guys get really good at it. You're generally younger guys, right, they get attached to the unit a lot, so they get to do their outer cordon a lot or like whatever their needs is. You know they'll employ them however they choose to. They're good guys. But, yeah, different mission set, right, for sure, way different than what we do, for sure, yeah, way different than what we do, for sure, yeah, so, yeah, so a lot of guys raised their hand for that. But, yeah, three weeks of doing that. You know you get paid $150 a month to jump whatever your currency requirements is right, oh, my God. It's like, oh, my life is worth $150 a month. We're jumping out of the airplane.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I was getting paid more for speaking language than jumping out. And I get it. You know it's proficiency and thing, but like I didn't, I knew how to speak a language. You know, I didn't really have to learn, learn it, right, but you know. Fine, you want to pay me, I'll take the pay, um, but that's like the risk reward is is what my issue is.
Speaker 2:
Like we don't look at in the military things like, hey, what's the risk associated and what's the reward, right? So we have all these airborne units that exist today and they have to jump on a regular basis and you know, most of the kids that are in those units are like, oh, it's so cool, it's like, well, you're just hurting yourself, you know, and you're one bad jump away from, like breaking a leg or you know worse things could happen for sure. And is that an applicable skill set? Right? And to say that we have to maintain proficiencies, like if we need, if we ever need to come do this like you're gonna throw people out of the plane anyways, oh, 100, you can run a one-week course, refresh everybody and go do it, which you have to do today anyways, you learn in a day to put your legs together and exactly try to absorb, yeah so has it sunk in yet.
Speaker 1:
Like holy sh*t, this might happen. What you're about to be a green beret, I mean like you're going through jump school. I mean I could. Just I'm trying to picture you as some indian kid, like you're looking back in your life. You're like standing in the door like how in the f*ck did I get here? I mean, did that ever occur?
Speaker 2:
to you. Yeah, so it was a night jump and you know I'm the first one to jump out of out of the plane and there's thunderstorm coming in so you can see the lightning in distance. And the only thing I remember at this point is when I was a kid you've seen this in movie man, people call me elodian for this all the time but we would play tag, and we would play tag by running on the roofs of the houses like we're on, really yeah okay, we're upstairs and we're jumping from roof to roof.
Speaker 1:
Okay so this is some aladdin, sh*t.
Speaker 2:
No, and you know, I went back as I had matured enough and I'm like man. We were stupid as kids. We were like two, three you know, jumping between buildings with no fear at all, and I'm like. Now I'm standing in this door, I'm like man. Why did I? What was I doing?
Speaker 1:
My life wasn't that bad before, yeah.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so it's just like you know it doesn't click in. As the older you get, you start realizing like this may not be the smartest thing I did. Yeah, a hundred percent older, you get.
Speaker 1:
you start realizing like this may not be the smartest thing I'd do, yeah 100.
Speaker 2:
That's called maturing. When you're like, yeah, I say that and then I go do dumb stuff again, you know that's part of being a man.
Speaker 1:
I got scars to prove it bro I'm with you. I'm with you, so you're about. Okay, so we're I don't even know where we're um, um.
Speaker 2:
You're like has it kicked in?
Speaker 1:
like yeah, you're going through school.
Speaker 2:
To me, all I needed was my shot, like I had no doubts that I'm not going to school. To me, all I needed was my shot, like I had no doubts that I'm not going to make it. I may be a little co*cky on that, but like I am, there is because for me there was no option.
Speaker 2:
I just gave up a life that I had just built to come do this, like I need to do this. My issue was everything else that was going around, like, oh, you won't get a contract. Now you're 11, charlie, right, um, and now I get to Fort Bragg and, like I said, I was never a runner and you know, lucky me gets to Fort Bragg in the summertime when there's no selection classes going on, which just means more time to get smoked in the student company.
Speaker 2:
So student companies. You get to Fort Bragg, liberty, I'll still call it Bragg. You're right, old school dudes do Exactly so. You get to Fort Bragg and you become part of Fort Student Company is what they call it. So essentially it's like a holding, it's a waiting.
Speaker 1:
We call them waiting platoons, yep, exactly which is where you never want to be.
Speaker 2:
Yep, until you get to your, they call it Trapposopsy.
Speaker 1:
Okay, so you're waiting for the next school to build to pick up?
Speaker 2:
Yep, exactly, and now you're at SWCC. We call it SWCC Special Warfare Training Center and School Center and School, I guess, swcc. So I'm there and yeah, we're getting smoked every day. How long were you in a waiting platoon? Oh, I spent about a couple months, maybe three months there because there was no class, because you're just and you know it depends on when you get there right.
Speaker 1:
If you're in the beginning, it's horrible because you spent Okay. So people listening the waiting platoon, or what do you call them? Swics Student company, student company yeah, are horrible places. They could be amazing depending on who's running it, but for the most part it's sh*t, because you usually get some broke dick that can't deploy. He's a sh*t bag and they put him in charge of looking over the new students as they come in.
Speaker 1:
And we call them a waiting platoon because you're literally just waiting for the next class to pick up. Yeah, and, depending on when you get there, if you're one of the, so, as a platoon builds, yeah, then they will get picked up and go to start their school. Yep, well, then you have this awkward gap where they're like the. You know, every week there's graduations happening from boot camp or basic training, and so if you're the first class to come in, there might be only like a dozen of you there, yeah, and then you have some asshole that's running it and you're getting hazed all day just because you're alive, and then you have to wait the weeks or months for there to be enough students to pick up. So if you come in at the end, usually you're there a couple weeks, maybe less, and then your class picks up and moves on. So that's an awaiting Yep, exactly.
Speaker 2:
It's horrible. You explained it pretty well. It's horrible. You explained it pretty well. It's horrible. All our guys were obviously, you know, green berets that are assigned to swick now in the schoolhouse, yeah and uh, most of them were good guys too. Like I won't say, like some of them maybe not, you know are frustrated and taking it out on the case for sure. Yeah, whatever part of cycle. But this is where it became real, like because we would go we called it going across the street, so we would do normal PT. Whatever they make us do. It'll be a slew of events like we're carrying stuff and we're running on this road. Guys will get hit by the cars on the road all the time Because we're like running like 50, 40 guys, maybe more, and we're running with tires and you know, rods and logs and rocks and stuff I was going to say rocks stuffed in your cargo pockets Rocks you know you're just doing dumps
Speaker 2:
carrying each other right and we'll do that. And then usually Thursdays and Tuesdays were the day of like we're going across the street. So essentially you go across the street into the woods and they had this little smoking area prepared where there was like a dirt really rough, like it was almost a trail turned into a track, okay, um, and you will do laps around that and there's like holes and like it was not. When you have like hundreds of guys running through that, like people are tripping over and you got to make time so you're just running over the guy that just got tripped over no, it's like it's every man for himself yeah, and they will give us some absurd time hack right, it's like you gotta never gotta come at this time and then, if not, everybody makes it through, everyone gets smoked all over mass punishment.
Speaker 2:
I love, I'm a firm believer, and it's like oh, you guys are hot, let's go to the other side. We'll cool you off so we'll bear crawl, you know, all the way across this track and up the hill with this nasty pond and we're like, we'll cool you guys off, run through this. And when you run and we say down, you're going to drop down into this nasty water, get up. And then you do some hills.
Speaker 1:
So this is why you don't want to be in a waiting platoon, because this could go on for a while.
Speaker 2:
This can go on for a while. It went on for a while, but this is where it got real for me, because I started seeing people quit Up until this point. I hadn't seen people quit and I'm like f*ck yeah, Every time somebody quit I was like, yes, this is a place where I want to be, because we're actually. This is hard and challenging now because people are quitting and you haven't even technically started yet. No, you haven't even. You're nothing right now.
Speaker 1:
And dudes are already quitting. You're just an awaiting platoon. You're literally just killing time, yep.
Speaker 2:
They will literally come out and be like all right, I need five quitters today and then it will stop.
Speaker 1:
And people would quit, people would quit.
Speaker 2:
But that's where you find out, that's where you get rid of a lot of people, so I was actually in favor of this. Yeah, okay, because it's less, because I think there's only certain things you can do during the course and I'll probably get a lot of bashing for saying this but those are controlled and there's a lot of eyes on there. You can do stuff here where you don't see a lot of eyes and you can get rid of people that should never be in our ranks.
Speaker 1:
Well, nobody's thinking of the waiting platoon. Exactly that's why they can take you, and they always have little spots in the woods that are just out of view and they can haze the sh*t out of you and they have all the little games that they can play, because they don't. They're not under the magnifying glass like the normal ranger, but green beret schools are where you have the brass. Yep, everyone's watching.
Speaker 2:
That's exactly what so you're forgotten about. Yeah, they could just have their way with you.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, now I'm sure the hammer gets dropped on them sometimes too you know, as the people start, complaining because, like you know, some people do complain wild, but like, then, that's, this is not the spot for you. You shouldn't be here, you know? Uh, to me I'm just like we need to hold standard and how best we can hold that standard, we should hold that standard, you know. So you finally pick up? So well, I don't pick up just yet.
Speaker 2:
So I spent three months doing this, right up until the day where I was ready to go get start the prep course, right, okay, and I had, I was having pain in my hip for the longest time I can't even remember if it was right or left now and I just I was still making all the time standards and I knew something was wrong. I just couldn't figure out what it was, but I didn't want to say anything to anyone because I didn't want people to know that I'm hurt and then I get pulled back. Anyways, we get done. You know, through our session for the day uh, last session, you know and the caddy looks up to me. He's like what the f*ck is wrong with you? Cause I was limping.
Speaker 2:
And f*ck is wrong with you because I was limping and I'm like, oh nothing, I just did heavy squats yesterday, I'll be good tomorrow and everybody disappears from this field and I'm left by myself and I can't move. Really, yeah, I could not move at all. Like my leg was just done, like frozen done. So I crawled to my jeep, get in there, come back and I'm like I have no option but to let him know like something's up. So I go get seen by a doctor. I didn't even. I'm like, hey, my hip hurts. Like he looks at me. Old crusty dude, everybody knows it, who's been to the program. You know he's very salty.
Speaker 1:
Uh, prior greenberry as well, he's a civilian now, pa yeah, um, but he looks at me, he's like you got a stress fracture.
Speaker 2:
I'm like no way. He's like yes, you do a stress fracture. I'm like no way. He's like, yes, you do Like go get your MRI, I'll tell you. I'm telling you, that's what it is he's?
Speaker 2:
seen it before. Oh, it's pretty common, especially for a guy like me, you know, coming in at 215, dropping all that weight, building back up, and all I'm doing is running, running, running, rucking, rucking right, just constant impact. And I don't have the best form for that, right, because I've never done that, you know, I was never a runner and I'm just like I'm gonna muscle through this whole thing. So that was, that was the plan, and it backfired. So now you have a stretch factor, stretch, yeah. So mri comes out and he goes. You were less than a millimeter away from needing a new hip, because apparently, if it goes more than halfway through your hip, you're done like you need a new hip. So he goes you're going to be on crutches now, uh. But while we're doing this, you know your back also showed up in the MRI and like what's up with that. And he goes like there's no way you're going to make it through selection, let alone the Q course, with your back. No, I was like, okay, what does that mean? He goes like we'll address that when the time comes. But here's your crutches and you're gonna be on hold. Now you're not going anywhere. So, oh, no, I'm like you guys have met, met platoons, or yeah, yeah, yeah. So they, I was gonna get kicked off to the med section because I was hurt. Now you never want to be there.
Speaker 2:
I went up to these cadre that were smoking us every day. I'm like, hey, sarge, here's what happened. Like I was pushing through it, I've been hurting for a few days. I didn't want to say anything because I want to go. Like I am not a sh*t bag that's doing this as an excuse. Like you have seen me f*cking show up and perform every single day. I don't want to be in this med platoon. Can you do something for me to make sure I at least get a chance to go to selection, like that's all I want. And he straight up he's like we're gonna keep you in our office. Really, yeah, these guys literally were like we will help you, you're gonna stay in our office, don't worry about it. And they kind of just hid me there while I recovered. How long did you recover? For it was three months on crutches, really. So you just did like their admin work and stuff for them in there, or what.
Speaker 2:
Yep, I was moving magnets. Do you guys have magnets for guys ever?
Speaker 1:
No, I don't.
Speaker 2:
So in the schoolhouse there's a big board and everybody has a magnet. You know and you, that's how you track guys like hey, it's moved from this face to this face.
Speaker 1:
Okay, okay, I would do that. Yeah, just filing paperwork and sh*t all day.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, um. But yeah, I was on crutches man and the hardest part was I lived in the second floor I would do like stairs because I didn't have elevator in that and then all the people that I knew had moved on now, right, because they got to go to selection and they knew whether they made it or not, regardless, they're moved forward. So they don't. They're not there anymore and I'm going to child hall on crutches with my tray trying to like get my food and nobody to help you.
Speaker 2:
I didn't know anyone, you know, so you're on your own. I was on my own at this point again in my life, at this point again in my life, um, but I'm like okay, everybody that gets assigned to that med section never, really comes back from that?
Speaker 2:
no, yeah, there's just no coming back, because guys fall off, don't work out and it's super hard to come back in shape, right? So I was that guy that was going to gym every single day with my crutches and I would do anything I can do without putting weight on my hip.
Speaker 1:
I would be standing on one leg doing skier. Really, yeah, good for you, cause when you go to those med platoons, those guys I mean we always call them the fat body platoons, because that's where, like you go there and guys would be there for years sometimes and they just put on a ton of weight and, like you, you just never come out of those, because you, you're hurt, you're not supposed to do anything and I'm like I can't do that.
Speaker 2:
I, as soon as I'm off crutches, I need to go to the selection so as soon as you're off crutches.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so did you have an opportunity to go to selection yeah, so I got off crutches, uh, in january, um, whatever year that was, anyways, I come back. I'm like, hey, I'm good, send me to the next prep course so I can go to selection. And then one of my cadres he was trying to help me. He's like, nah, man, you just got off crutches, you're gonna train with us and then you're gonna go to this office. I'm like, hey, man, I respect that.
Speaker 2:
And at this point, like you know, they knew I was their age. You know, yeah, and I was older and everything. And we've become like friends and like, hey, man, I respect that, but like need to go, I can't linger anymore. Like I need to find out where my fate is, like if I'm going to make it or not. Like this is like I can't sit here anymore, like I've been in limbo for a long time. And he goes like I'm just trying to help you because you're not prepped. I'm like I got three weeks of prepping there, you know, and we'll go from there. How about this? I go there and you can look at my numbers after I come back and if you don't think they're good enough, then don't send me. And he goes like all right, we got a deal.
Speaker 1:
I'm like cool send me the next one, so you go.
Speaker 2:
I go, I run my first two-mile over 15 minutes. How did that feel? I essentially failed it because you know I hadn't run in months. Right Past everything after that, you know because I'm like let's just start, let's just go, man.
Speaker 1:
No kidding, I wanted that shot, man, damn dude, you're just a little machine. Yeah, I just had no quitting in me, man, I was just not going to let someone else decide if I'm going to get to do this or not. I mean, that's one way to look at it, you know? Yeah, put it on nobody but yourself yeah so you obviously went through and made that. So then, what was the next process from from there and there's like no making or not making it just like if you pass or fail?
Speaker 1:
yeah, it's not really much, yeah, they will.
Speaker 2:
they will send back, like if they want any guys to come back through it, but generally it doesn't happen. Okay, it's like hey, you had your three weeks to learn a few things and get in shape. Now you go to selection. Cool, so you're off to selection now. Yep, so I go to the.
Speaker 1:
So you're excited. You're like, holy sh*t, this is finally happening, yep.
Speaker 2:
And the only thing I was worried about. People ask me like hey, what was the hard part? Selections aren't like. Selection is not hard. Is it challenging? Yes, yes, it's supposed to be challenging, it's not hard.
Speaker 1:
What goes on in a Green Beret selection training.
Speaker 2:
I mean, what's the process for it? So it's a three-week course. They have to go through maybe 21, 22 days, some admin days, but the first week is all about gait events. We call it the gait week, right? So essentially, they're doing your PT tests. That's the first thing you will do. There's a couple other physical fitness tests. We call it the gate week, right? So essentially, they're doing your you know PT tests, right? That's the first thing you will do. There's a couple other physical fitness tests that you will do. Then you will do some long runs, short run, you do some rocks. So two runs and two rocks, and you don't have a watch for any of this, right? So, and you don't know how far you're going, they just take you out, give you a start point and then there's just cones throughout the trails, so you don't know how fast to pace yourself, if it's a short one, you can sprint it.
Speaker 1:
If it's long, you gotta pace your exactly.
Speaker 2:
You don't know if this is a short one or the long one so you can't game it and be like oh, I'm just gonna go fast because I know this is a short one.
Speaker 1:
So a guy like you that's, is it hard to not just go pedal to the floor.
Speaker 2:
I only got one speed man when I run. I'm going to go out hard because I know regardless I'm going to slow down. Yep, I'm going to do it right at the gate. I'm just going to send it and then when I slow down, I slow down.
Speaker 1:
That's my pace. When I slow down, that's my pace. So are there a lot of guys dropping at this point or is everybody kind of on the same page?
Speaker 2:
so get we kind of like we'll get out the guys that have clearly not prepped anything at all. Right, um, the waste, there's wasting time, they're just wasting time. You know things will get you kicked out like showing up with like the wrong time or wrong stuff on you, right? So because things just get put out on a board, like there's a tv outside and you have to constantly keep checking that. So it's it's big boy rules at this point. Yeah, everything's like, hey, check, keep checking the board and the times and your uniform and equipment we put out. Just be there with all that Got it. So yeah. So the only thing I was worried about was the two runs, because I didn't know how I was gonna make it through. Are these weighted?
Speaker 1:
runs or just free? Are you just doing it all? Do you have a pack on or anything? So we have rucks right.
Speaker 2:
So you do two runs which are without the packs and then two rucks how fast is the ruck tempo?
Speaker 1:
is it like a jog or is you just walking? Oh guys, run, and for a guy.
Speaker 2:
That's why I'm asking these guys like me with short legs, I gotta run. There's no way I can just walk. It's like you will see a lot of guys like who are helping out. You're prepping guys for, like, going to selection now. They're like there's no need to run. You're tall man. You're tall, way bigger stride, exactly like for a guy like me. It just would never work. I will never make time if I didn't run on my rock. Yeah, I get it, it's like.
Speaker 1:
It's like you know when these platoons, when we would do our ruck marches you, they, they, um tallest to shortest. Yeah, you know, and sometimes I would run to the back and try to motivate and like the little end is just slinking the whole time, because all their little leg everyone's hard just running that they catch up, that it slows and so you're slinking, yeah, and so those guys in the back are pretty much sprinting our whole walk, yeah.
Speaker 2:
That's how it goes. Okay, that's how it goes, all right.
Speaker 1:
I don't feel your pain, but I've seen it, yeah. So yeah, I got the stripe.
Speaker 2:
Thanks for telling me I'm short, but yeah, so those were. The two runs were what I was most worried about. Yeah, I wasn't even worried about my two mile time because I'm like it's just two miles I'm gonna give it up that if you have, I just saw the fastest guy, I'm just like I'm gonna attach myself to his hip and I'm gonna try to stay there as best as I can.
Speaker 1:
So that's how I got that's been my strategy for a lot of times yeah, so the run happens and you know.
Speaker 2:
Obviously I don't know how far we're running or what time it is. I just knew, if you don't make it, they send you to what we call the tent city, so you don't live in the barracks anymore, you live in these outdoor tents that they have set up. Why? Because you just got dropped, right. Oh, so that's the drop platoon.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, do you get to come back or no? Is that it?
Speaker 2:
Well, they will tell you what they'll do in our processing with these guys and they will let them know whether they want to invite them back or not.
Speaker 1:
Okay so it's up to them it's up to them, right, um.
Speaker 2:
But you know what happens when you get stuck in stuff like that. You do details right. Some of the details are cleaning the sh*tters. Yep, so I told myself I'm not cleaning the sh*tters. So every time I slow down on the run I'm like bro, you can't be cleaning the sh*tters and I just started running.
Speaker 1:
Isn't that hilarious. That was my motivation.
Speaker 2:
Because I knew, once I'm past this, there's nothing else that's going to stop me in selection. I was only worried about those two runs, and so you crushed them. Well, I mean, yeah, clearly I crushed them.
Speaker 1:
You barely crushed it.
Speaker 2:
I found out at the end of my out processing. I found out how I didn't, so we'll go over that in a second. So I didn't get dropped in the gate week. So I was like cool, we're good man.
Speaker 2:
So the second week is all about land navigation. You'll do a couple of days. So you know, in the military, it's in the army. So for people that don't know everything in the military, they can't just test you on that, they have to teach you that and then they will test right. So they will give you a couple days of like hey, here's how you do land now, right, essentially, they're using that to also put more miles on your feet while you have your rock on you. You know. So it's a strategy that works out both ways. Right, got it? So after that you do two nights of land.
Speaker 1:
So land is land, nav is for everybody, listening Cause we a lot of civilian listeners land navigation, which can make or break you over the simplest sh*t.
Speaker 1:
You usually in the Marines. How we would do it They'd which can make or break you over the simplest sh*t. Usually in the Marines how we would do it. They'd have these ammo cans on, like a T-post scattered through and you have a compass and a map and once you learn the class then you just go. I mean, and you want to talk about dudes getting lost. I mean, they're shutting down bases trying to find guys because they're so far off track. So land nav is one of those things for, like, country boys is pretty simple and then for some people it is like trying to like, absolutely do physics and they cannot grasp the true north and direct and it just so that's land nav, so it can make it sounds simple sometimes, but it
Speaker 2:
it f*cks a lot of people yeah, it gets a lot of people, uh, especially like at the night time. Right, you don't have nods, you're not allowed to use lights, you can't leave stuff behind, right? Everybody's got that rubber ducky and their ruck. Is that a thing? Yeah, so if you lose that, you're? Oh, you're out, you're done. Did they just walk up and ask you for it? Well, when you got to come back, if you forgot where you left it and you didn't have time to go get it, you're done, you're done. Oh my.
Speaker 1:
God.
Speaker 2:
Could you imagine that being your reason? And the distances you're covering in these are like these are no joke that you're covering 10K, 12k. On these routes You're going from all the way one corner of the training area to all the way to the other. You're crossing some pretty deep creeks where you're like your water is up to your neck and you have your pack with you too, right, and they'll just do it, like my second day of land nav I and they call it the star course. The reason they call it the star course is they make you do one of these numbers, right.
Speaker 2:
So I started up top, went all the way down. My third point was all the way back up. Fourth point was all the way back down. I'm like, is this a joke? It's just putting more miles on my feet, for sure. Um, anyways, you have to get four points and four. Well, I don't know, I won't say you have to, but there's four or five points designed for each day. I can't remember if it's five or four and there's obviously a number they're wanting you to hit at a minimum, right. So I go out the first day and get all my points. You know, I'm pretty happy when they come back. A lot of people already got dropped or quit because you're doing this in the dark. Right there's spider webs all over the place. Where are you? Fort Bragg? Okay, so it's Camel Call. Camel Call is where we do all of our prep course and our selection, okay, of our prep cores and our selection and okay, yeah, so that happens in chemical big ass spiders.
Speaker 1:
Oh, dude, it's. Yeah, you're walking through those giant spiders, giant spider webs.
Speaker 2:
You just covered in that stuff and, uh, they do control burns all the time too. So you'll be walking through stuff. You would think that there's nothing there. And also you get poked in the eye with a little stick that's just coming out of nowhere because you didn't see any leaves on it right. And then there's logs. I legit walked through this field and I was falling every two steps I took because I would hit a log that I couldn't see and fall down, then get up again. Hit a log, couldn't see, fall down again because we didn't even have moon the first night so it was bad.
Speaker 2:
There was zero light and a lot of guys quit because in the dark things got rough. For sure you start seeing and hearing things different. In the dark, everything is different. Yeah, um. So yeah, you go get your points second day. I got super co*cky. I'm like, oh, I am good at this stuff. I'm just not gonna pull my compass out at all, you know that's ballsy.
Speaker 2:
I overshot every single one on my point. I freaked out in the first one. I overshot and I came up to my backstop. I'm like god damn, I overshot it by a lot. I'm like I should have, because I was like I should have been at my point by now. So I had to tell myself, like I don't freak out, let's just pull out the map, go on the side and see where exactly, if I can locate where I'm at. So I started doing some land association, terrain association. I'm like I am about right here. I think my point is in that direction. Let's start walking that direction. Sure enough, find it Really yeah. But then did it three more times that same day. But overshooting sucks because you just put extra mileage on that. You didn't have to, you did, and then you know it. It's if you just lost your point and you don't know where you're at.
Speaker 1:
It's super hard to backtrack now and then you're, then you're just walking in circles. Yep, so so, after land nav, what's the next course you're doing at this point?
Speaker 2:
yeah, so you finish land nav now. The last thing is you're doing team week what's team week?
Speaker 1:
what's that?
Speaker 2:
team week is, essentially, they will make you into a team. They will give you, like, anywhere from 12 to 16 guys, depending on how big the class is. Right, and essentially team week is they want you to move a certain route with a certain amount of equipment as a team, the best you can do it. I don't know how they run it, because you know I'm not a cadre there, but I would think like that's the situation that I thrive in, right? I'm like no organization. They don't tell you who's leading. I see a gap. I'm just going to immediately take the opportunity and be the leader. So I just became the leader in both of my team days. You do four days of team events, though, and I'm like all right, let's grab this, this, and here's the route we're going to take. Let's start moving. And you just beef the cadre and you start moving. The cadre is like the rep that's with you?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, he's just like a lane walker.
Speaker 1:
He's the one observing you.
Speaker 2:
He's the one grading you, but he would hardly ever say anything. Sometimes he will stop you and smoke you because you're doing something, so f*cked up or someone. Is that people are going to get stopped, Okay, and the thing is like if you make it back in a certain time, you get to eat at the chow hall. If you don't, then you get to eat your MRE. So that's your motivation, yeah, and you don't know that. You figured that out after like the first year.
Speaker 1:
So it's like, oh, okay, we should probably Are these like of scenarios where you're, you can pass, but the majority of people it's not a pass fail, it's more of a frustrating and seeing how you're working together yeah.
Speaker 2:
So it's. It's about seeing how well are you working together and how creative you are at moving this equipment, because you can build apparatuses if you want, like, okay, hey, I'm gonna build. Like, let's build this cart and we'll move stuff around, got it? Or hey, we don't have that much space, let's just grab sh*t and start moving right, what they're looking for is if the guys are pretending that they have work versus they're actually doing work, and I don't know if that's the only thing we're looking for, but it shows you who are the pretenders. You know the whole classic deal oh, I'm helping too, I'm lifting, and they just got a hand on there where it's just like hey, I'm gonna take my fair share of this and I'm actually gonna help us progress.
Speaker 1:
So it doesn't matter what you guys are actually doing. They're just evaluating the individual and how they're working as a team, because obviously in an sf unit, that's that's, I feel like that is the the core value of green berets and up even Rangers and up like it's all built off of teams.
Speaker 2:
Yeah how are you working with others right? So they're watching everything, if you can see where inefficiencies are, point that out, right, or find a solution. Are you the guy that's just going to complain, right? Or are you the guy that's just going to like constantly look for work, Got it, Because that's a big thing on team too, Like? If you just on any teams, you get down there and you're just other people are working and you're just sitting on your ass like that's not a good sign.
Speaker 1:
Yep, are there a lot of big egos in this, or is everybody pretty much on the same page at this point? Because I mean, this is a pretty alpha-driven field, you know, like, like, think about it. Like guys like you that are like I'm gonna be a green braille, I mean you're, they're all pretty like alpha dominant dudes, I would feel like, but like, is there a lot of clashing? Is everybody trying to take that leadership position or is everybody kind of just falling, falling into their role?
Speaker 2:
it's funny, man, because you say that most people actually want to follow, most people do not want to lead and people don't like conflict either. Interesting, you know, there's only a few people will step up, and if you just were the first one to step up and do something, a lot of people. It just falls in place. At least in my experience that's how I've seen.
Speaker 2:
I didn't see anybody clashing with me. It could be a different experience in different groups, right? Maybe everybody that was with me in both of those teams kind of just like, hey, man, there's also your leadership style too. Leadership doesn't mean you just have to yell at people, right, because a lot of people are like, hey, you're in charge and all you want to do is just, effortlessly or mindlessly, just start yelling at people and you're not really helping. Well, that's because all the problem.
Speaker 1:
I feel a lot of people especially that come up in the military with sh*t leaders.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I was a firm believer that yelling wasn't leading and I learned that at a very early age because I had incredible leaders, yeah, and that would sit you down and be like this is where we f*cked up, this is how we correct it, yeah, and then you get the sh*t. I would always categorize them as the sh*tbags because they would just scream at their platoons all day. And then, when I became a platoon sergeant, I addressed all of my guys as if they were men. I can guys as if they were men. Right, I can't have you. I can't have you. Stunting motorcycles yep, we can't be sneaking women like you know, even though like it was, I should have been chewing their ass.
Speaker 1:
But that's how I always talked to my guys. And it became a point where I had other sergeants corporate whatever coming from other platoons to come to me. Wasn't I was soft, I mean, dude, I would haze the f*ck out of my troops and all that sh*t. But when, when it came to my guys, like I would talk to them Right, and then I would have other guys from other units come over and be like, hey, dude, how do I handle this? I can't take this up because it's just going to get you know. There's ass-shoings that are deserved. Yep, there's a time and place for screaming.
Speaker 1:
Exactly, but there's leaders that don't know how to actually lead, because they're, I feel like I don't know if it's an insecurity thing or whatever but they just yell and you never accomplish anything. When that happens, people turn off immediately.
Speaker 2:
Exactly the two things that I've noticed in my experience is like if you, as a leader is incompetent, you're going to yell at people or you're going to throw regulation on other people's face, which most of them starts with your uniform. Isn't right, right yeah, because that's all the value you can add, because you don't know anything else about leading or the job at all. So that's a very giveaway, very dead-on giveaway from the get-go.
Speaker 1:
Exactly If you're going to talk to me about uniform like there's things that you're ignoring that you should be focusing on. If this is your biggest problem and stress right now like you shouldn't be there, Exactly, yeah, focusing on if this is your biggest problem and stress right now, like you, you shouldn't be there exactly.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. Yeah, so you finished team week. Yeah, so you finished team week. After four days of that and throughout every week, there's people that quit right. And then there's people get dropped at the end of the week or during the week because they did something wrong, lost a piece of equipment, didn't show up on time or integrity violation or something else. Right, how? Many people were you losing a week roughly so what did you start with?
Speaker 2:
We started out with 300 guys and we finished with just under 100. Yeah, and this was a class full of studs, Like the class I was in. Everybody was like we had guys that were football coaches, like straight up studs you started over 300 and ended under 100.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, wow.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, in a class that was like full of stellar performers.
Speaker 1:
What was his class? What do you mean? How long was the class? I mean this period of when you lost that many people. How long was that?
Speaker 2:
Oh, it's throughout the whole length of the course, 23 days.
Speaker 1:
So in 23 days okay.
Speaker 2:
Or you would say 21 actual working days. There's like admin stuff too. So once you're done with team week, right at this point you've had 100-some miles on your feet under a rock the whole time. Right, How's your hip feeling at this point? Didn't even faze me, Okay.
Speaker 1:
Didn't even phase me?
Speaker 2:
Okay, didn't phase me at all. What about your back that the doctor brought up? Never brought, heard anything from it again, not during selection. I've had issues afterwards, um, but, yeah, went through all of that. And then, once you're done with team week, the last thing you do is, uh, the final rock.
Speaker 2:
Okay, so you show up again at a certain time with all the equipment that they tell you, and this one again, just like anything else, you don't have your watch on you, they don't tell you how long it is, they just give you a start time and you just leave. And the way they track your time is like everyone's got a chip on their boot, okay. And then during land nav, they give you a GPS too, so they can come find you. But that's how they also know when someone busts boundaries. Like I busted boundary, but I was smart enough to come back in. Yeah, yeah, so they're tracking you.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so I got three points on my second day of land navigation and I had 30 minutes left and I was like I can get this point. So I started running and running and of course I just started screaming, running through this draws and everything getting lost. You know, drifted quite a bit and then come out on the other side, lost as hell. I'm like, oh crap, and we're out right at time where you know event is done if I'm getting caught outside the boundaries at this time like I am dropped, no sh*t. So I just figured out where I'm at, turned around and started running. You ran back in the boundaries. Oh, I ran back in the boundaries, out to the road, pretending like I never left the boundary. They were tracking you the whole time.
Speaker 2:
Oh, I'm sure they saw that, unless it just got missed, but I think it's just because I was still in and they saw me at the right spot where.
Speaker 1:
I should have been picked up. Probably. Didn't say anything, so you made it. Yeah, so after you lose all these guys throughout, land half through team building, everything else or team training. What's the next step?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so the last thing you do is this last ruck, the last ruck, the last ruck. Right, nobody knows how far it is. We're guessing it's about like 30-some miles. Is what you do?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, you're walking forever 30 miles, so you're doing this in two days, a day and a half, or is this all done like sunup?
Speaker 2:
to sundown. You start at like two or three in the morning and then you're finished like sometime during the day 30 miles, yeah, so that's a, that's a tempo.
Speaker 1:
I mean you're moving, yeah, you're moving so and they will. So you pretty much jogged like the whole 30 miles.
Speaker 2:
You don't know how far it is, you know. So they have cones set up throughout the course and you're just following the cones, right, and they will play tricks with you. They will bring you back towards Camp McCall and you'll be like, oh it's done, we're coming back towards the gate and you get close and they will turn you back around. We're coming back towards the gate and you get close and they will turn you back around. No, I have seen grown-ass men cry and sit down and be like hey man, do you know when this is going to end? I'm like f*ck dude, I know man, I'm just a candidate just like you.
Speaker 1:
I know what you know, get up. Like let's get up and keep moving.
Speaker 2:
You know, morale is broke at that point. Yeah, because your feet are hurting. You've been on your feet for like three weeks straight. You know in the prep course before that.
Speaker 1:
You've had that tick.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, we call the ruck, the tick. You have that tick on your back the whole time. The tick just stuffs to you. Yeah, team week, you had even more weight on you because you were carrying all these you know, poles and weight and stuff, everything else that you had to carry. So at this point, like you're like 150, some miles in, maybe more I don't know what the actual math is you know, between land, have and everything else. It would be interesting to find out, but people drop out on that you know the last rock people think, like you know, I've made it through all this.
Speaker 2:
I think I've made it, and then they will slow down on that last one and then either quit because they're playing f*ck-f*ck games by bringing you back in, and then sending you back out or you know, just didn't make a good time, and then the next day you know they will go look through everyone's paper.
Speaker 2:
There's also a psych test and like some other comprehensive tests, way at the beginning, and you know some people get dropped for that too. Okay, I can imagine People who don't know how to fill out forms. Yeah right, that's all I'm gonna say about that. Um, but yeah, you finish all that and then you know the next day, whenever they're done with the results, they will bring everybody out, because there are people that they're still doubtful about and the board will look at them and so you can still get voted out at that point like period out oh so, oh yeah, I forgot about the period.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, you're doing pink slips and blue slips all the time as well. What's up? Pink and blue? So pink is uh bad and blue is good. So you do period evals on each other on each other.
Speaker 1:
Do the people know who's voting against you? Is this like some temptation island sh*t where they like walk up and open the you? No, they don't. You've got voted off the island.
Speaker 2:
You're no longer in teams anymore. No, you find that out in other parts of the qualification course after selection. Be like hey, you are getting kicked out because of peer review and they might do that in out processing, but they don't tell the selection guys there, holy sh*t.
Speaker 1:
so you could be doing everything right and you get into it one dude and you get a couple pink slips and you're out it could happen.
Speaker 2:
Sometimes it depends on what the pink slips were and how many there were. Sometimes they don't really matter. Uh, sometimes cadre will see that it's like that's not true and just toss it out.
Speaker 2:
They're pretty good at telling it's a personal issue, not like an individual issue got it okay um, but the board sits down and they will look at hey, these are the guys that are in the gray, we don't know if they're going to make it or not. And here's their results and they will review them. The board, like you know, I'm sure some senior ranking people are in there and they will decide oh, we'll push these guys through versus not these guys. So once that is all said and done, that will you have your last formation. They will separate guys out. If I call your roster number, go to the right and go to the left and at selection you start Is this the guys that made?
Speaker 1:
it Because you look at the guys you're like man.
Speaker 2:
That guy's a stellar dude.
Speaker 1:
Why isn't he in?
Speaker 2:
my group? Yeah, exactly, if I'm not in that formation, I'm probably dropped. So now you're a little panic setting in. Yeah, so what were the two groups? Uh, they were just separated, the two groups, and then sent one group out to the back and then kept our group here, and uh, then they go like okay, if you guys haven't figured this out yet, you guys have all made it so that other group didn't, they didn't yeah no, and how many so in that group of you standing there, how many like less than?
Speaker 1:
100, yeah what do you what Like out?
Speaker 2:
of the class of 300. Like 50, 75,. Like what do you? What did you get? We were pretty close to 100. Like I said, we had a class full of stellar dudes.
Speaker 1:
Okay, okay, Like this class was very competitive, so you guys lost over 200 people though.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, that's crazy and, like I keep saying, this class was really good, so even that we lost that many guys on top of that, it was shocking.
Speaker 1:
So what was that so technically you're still not a Green Beret, right?
Speaker 2:
No, you just got your permit to go do the qualification course to actually become a Green Beret if you pass the qualification course. Jesus.
Speaker 1:
This is just. They assess you and they say that they think that you're good enough to actually start the training.
Speaker 2:
Become a green beret if you pass the qualification course. This is, this is just. They assess you and they say that they think that you're good enough to actually start the training so you, you, you obviously pass.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so now you're like okay, thank god, I can start the training. Yeah, what was that?
Speaker 2:
like. So the training is long. Um, it's changed since then, but you do it in several different phases. Um, one of them is just like an orientation you, you do some details and different phases. One of them is just like an orientation you do some details and stuff and you kind of learn about the job. The second one is small unit tactics. That's where we see the most iteration coming out of, but that's also our bread and butter, so, like you have to be really good at it. So think about ranger school and guys going to ranger school. It's condensed in six weeks and a lot of focus is on making sure your tactics are good because are you doing like?
Speaker 1:
what do you mean? Tactics like um?
Speaker 2:
right? No, so you're not really doing all a lot of, so we don't do anything fancy. In our qualification course. We get really good at basics, got it. Everything they're teaching is pretty basic stuff, but you're talking about everything like that.
Speaker 1:
Say what weapons, everything like that. Say what Weapons, everything like that.
Speaker 2:
So that comes in MOS section. Okay. So here, like, yeah, you know machine gun stuff but you're doing mostly you'll do a couple days of flat range, but the rest of it is all blanks. Essentially the idea is the small unit tactics essentially teaches you how to run teams, to go not teams, but like group of people to go conduct assaults and raids. What is objectives?
Speaker 1:
what is the purpose like, for what is the sole purpose of a green beret?
Speaker 2:
so though, doctrinally, how we're defined is we're the force multiplier, so we are supposed to be able to do guerrilla warfare, unconventional warfare that's our bread and butter, which essentially means we can go into a denied territory, find a group of people who are the resisting force or the fighting force, organize them, train them to then go against the actual enemy, whether that's at the state, to the people. Whatever we want to support, we can support them.
Speaker 1:
I see I've never asked anybody that question, so that's why I say when the mission is so different.
Speaker 2:
Special operations teams or special forces teams are detachments. They're supposed to be able to survive on their own right, not only survive on their own, but figure out how these people that they're training are going to survive and then employ them, whether it's in our interest or if we're helping a country and it's their interest. Whatever we're trying to support be able to support that. So that's how it all started. That's what we were doing in Vietnam, right, yeah, and that's what we tried to do in other places, like when we went in Syria. Like we've trained another force and used them to help us win that war while we called in airstrikes and did other things. Right. So it's like, instead of bringing our big army in and roll in, hey, what other force can we train and utilize to have impacts on the battlefield? So the Green?
Speaker 1:
Berets are in these countries months, if not years, prior to anything really popping off already trying to train military.
Speaker 2:
So yeah, without getting too much yeah, you have to have avenues.
Speaker 1:
So you guys are doing a lot on your own. Nobody even knows you're in countries.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, you have to have avenues, so you guys are doing a lot on your own when nobody even knows you're in countries, yeah, yeah. And there's also like stuff that guys like we have direct action missions as well, where we're doing things unilaterally right.
Speaker 1:
So, for my ignorance as a Marine, so are Rangers. What's the units that are kind of going in and snatching and grabbing? Is that Green Beret, or is that more Rangers going?
Speaker 2:
in. It depends on the target, right. So back when Afghanistan and Iraq was going on, full swings like leashes were off from everybody. Right, we're kind of forced we can find to go implement the mission, we'll go implement the mission, right. But you've got to know what kind of mission and what kind of target it is right. So if it's a hostage rescue type deal, right. Or if somebody of very high value, you'll see tier one teams come in and do it right, because some of those Intel resources, all that stuff that's required, that all belongs in their hands. Right, they have access to all of that, they have the expertise.
Speaker 1:
But that's somebody that they're trying to gather computers, paper, everything that comes along with that individual. Yep, Okay.
Speaker 2:
Yep, so, and it could be like same thing for our targets too. Like so, if we were to do a unilateral hood in our area for a target that we're going after, we'll do the same thing too. It just depends what the target is and what kind of permissions exist, because you could be fully equipped to do things, but you may not have permissions. Another unit figures out a way to get permissions because they sit on a different echelon. Right, got it. So rangers' missions is a lot different too. Usually they will get attached to the unit, or us and help us do that, or they will go in and do seizures of airfields and stuff. They're not designed to go like, hey, you're going to hit on this one house. Now have they done it? Absolutely? Because, like I said, the heat of the thing is like whatever hands you can get on, but the way the forces, the way these different specialized units are designed, they all have different missions that they're supposed to do.
Speaker 1:
So you go through actual training. Now, right, yeah, what was your MOS? Yeah, so you're. Yeah, what was your MOS? Yeah, so you get to. Because everybody thinks sorry, I don't mean to interrupt Everybody thinks when you make it to becoming a SEAL or Green Beret or Delta, that you're just some trigger puller. But there's, there's medics, there's calm guys, there's Terps. I mean, everybody has their own specialty. In a way, everybody's learning things. But and everybody just thinks like, oh, as an SF, but there could be motor T guys that are attached to SF or SEAL in their motor T. So what was moving into it? What did you have a specific thing that you were going for, or were you just happy to be there and you're going to take anything?
Speaker 2:
No, so there's four uh different military operational occupational specialty mls's that you can pick up.
Speaker 1:
Pick from coming out of the q course, right, okay um, is there more that we need to go over this q course? Like, did you go through seer school and stuff? Yeah, yeah, can we talk about seer?
Speaker 2:
school we can talk about a little bit. Yeah, it's not that big of a secret I had.
Speaker 1:
We just had another guy on that he up he was talking some serious stuff. I have a buddy of mine that I'm trying to get him on. He's top tier guy and he's got some crazy serious stories, there's different levels of serious. What did you go through?
Speaker 2:
We did. Crc is what we run, which is on the scale, which is up there.
Speaker 1:
Yes. Do they do joint manipulation at this one? No, are no. Are you lying? No, he's lying, he's lying.
Speaker 2:
I've heard some sh*t dude, they can ask questions. I don't know how much detail I can get into that, but no.
Speaker 1:
As much as you want, I don't know where the line is.
Speaker 2:
You're good, you're good All right, so let's talk about the MOSs, right? So there's five total that you can get coming out from the Q course, the five total that you can get coming out from the Q course.
Speaker 2:
The first one is called the alpha, that's the officer. You have to be an officer to come in as an officer, you don't get to pick. Okay, you'll be an officer. Then there's four on the guys level right, the enlisted guys, bravo, charlie, delta and Echo. So Bravo is the weapon sergeant. Okay, you'll say, well, everybody shoots the gun, right, these guys are proficient in, like heavy weapons. You know rockets, the big boy toys, foreign weapons, like yeah, so these guys know all of them. So when they go through their military occupational training, like they're shooting all different kinds of weapons, foreign and domestic.
Speaker 1:
Foreign and domestic small and large right. They know how to operate every single one, break every single one out, right.
Speaker 2:
Some of them gonna listen to me like, oh, I don't remember any of this, you're inflated, this. No, our guys especially the guys on my team were just stellar guys, man, they're just so good at what they do it sounds like a pretty badass job.
Speaker 1:
To learn every weapon, yeah, foreign and domestic. Get to learn how to shoot it, disassemble, assemble, yeah, so you know your sh*t.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so that's Bravo. Then there's Charlie, which I was a Charlie, and we're supposed to be engineers, right, and that includes demolition, construction, targeting. And then our staff. Since we are a detachment, every guy has a staff function, so we can run on ourselves, right. So the Braards are doing training and everything charlie's are sustainment, everything, logistics, right.
Speaker 2:
So if we're moving from country to country or training places, like hey, I'm in charge of all the equipment that's going with us, like how we're going to survive food, water and all that stuff, right, so fuel, all that kind of good stuff then we have the medic, you know, and they kind of do like the payroll and stuff is kind of like they're um, not that they're running the payroll, but like they're doing admin work and work for like hr type roles right.
Speaker 2:
But then he's also the medic of the team, right. And then you got the echo, who's like the communication sergeant right, so he knows all different kinds radios and then conventional and unconventional ways of making communications.
Speaker 1:
And that's what makes up an SF team.
Speaker 2:
So you've got those four. We have two of each on team, so that's eight guys right there. You've got a captain, that's nine and then we've got a Zulu who's a team sergeant, so essentially a guy that has been in one of these positions.
Speaker 2:
Positions or all at some point, yeah, and then gone up the chain and become so that's your platoon sergeant in a way. Yeah, team, only got 12 guys right, so and then so you're a squad, I guess. Um, then you got fox, which is our intelligence sergeant. Also has to be a green beret, also has to come from one of these four mos's, so you do your time as that and then you can go drop, go to the fox course, be an intel sergeant, come back to a team.
Speaker 1:
So the intel sergeant is the one that's going to the COC, getting all the briefs, bringing everything, all the info that you guys are collecting, bringing it back and then getting his information and bringing it back to you guys. So that's the FOX Developing target practice.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, because we'll talk about the mission and how they play in a second here too, and then play in in the second here too, and then we have a warrant officer, also enlisted, green beret, that went the warrant route and is now an assistant team.
Speaker 1:
Commander on the team. Oh, no sh*t. Okay, so you have an officer and a warrant officer.
Speaker 2:
Officer and a warrant officer. Yeah, so they're supposed to kind of like keep each other in check. Yeah, so that's how a team sf team is laid out okay, so I'm gonna ask a question.
Speaker 1:
I mean, I don't know your deployments and things like that yeah but as an a member of an sf unit, yeah, and you get a mission to go to some foreign country, is it kind of scary like can it be like you you got to go to some foreign country and there's guerrilla warfare going on and there's 12 of you going into a country and there's times where a unit can be that you're the only us individuals in these countries. I mean, is there, is there ever a time where you're like f*ck?
Speaker 2:
man, we're on our own, not in my time frame, because places I've been to I've been to Syria, jordan and then I've done a couple other things in other places. One of the other places is training and engagement, nothing fancy, but it's not like we started a guerrilla war there, right? So I wasn't in that spot, but I'm sure from the guys perspective that, like old school guys that have been out you know, they probably had that thought. Um, to better answer your question, like the way the mission sets work for us is like very broad missions, like hey, we're going and we're, our mission is to do counter ISIS. Right, that's just it, that's the biggest thing you get. And now it's up to the team to figure out the area that we own Because, like so if we talk about Syria I don't know if you've looked at the map for Syria, but like we own pretty much, or where we operate is the east of the river.
Speaker 2:
Yeah yep, right, and that's divided into four or five different section, and the spot that I was at, our team owned all of that section, right?
Speaker 1:
so so 12 of you have your own ao, which is like what a region in the country. Yeah, what are you guys operating out of when you're there are? You in land cruisers, you're in military vehicles or what do you say that?
Speaker 2:
so we had boats, we had, uh, military vehicles like the mraps and stuff, right, and then we had the land cruisers. When we first got there, the way it was set up, um, we were rolling in these big you know, uh, what do they call it? The g? Rg, rg 13s? Is that what they're calling? I can't remember. This is big, you know, beefy things, um, and the roads are just not meant to it, meant for them. Like these are heavy, fat, wide vehicles. And we had one vehicle just break the road and bury the tire in the road. No, I gotta find a picture. Yeah, but it just went straight in and that was it. Because, like we were telling for the longest time, like, hey, the threat is not justify us to roll in these big things. We're knocking off electricity wires, you know, we're causing trouble to the local population.
Speaker 1:
For the longest time like hey, the threat does not justify us to roll in these big things.
Speaker 2:
We're knocking off electricity wires. You know we're causing trouble to the local population, so instead of building, you know relationships we're breaking relationships because now we're causing problems, right? Are you guys operating out of a base, yeah, outstation, so it's called. Green Village is where I was at in Syria. How close to the border were you guys.
Speaker 2:
Border to. I mean, you're on the east side, so we were the southernmost part of the east side, okay, so we were on that Abu al-Kamal border. Okay, so we could go down. It's like four hour drive and pretty close to that. Okay, we actually were there for some stuff. I can imagine yeah, but that's when we were like draw the line in the sense like hey, we've had two vehicles go down and it just puts us in a bad spot.
Speaker 1:
So you guys aren't taking like serious engagement or anything, correct?
Speaker 2:
No, it's, it's gone way down.
Speaker 1:
Right, so what's the point of driving around?
Speaker 2:
There was just like, oh, the IED threat is. I was like, well, it just doesn't make sense. We haven't seen a single one. Okay, you know, seen a single one. Okay, you know, this just hasn't been. Like there's a report going on but there's no evidence to support the report. So, like, let's scale that back down and I would rather have something that we can maneuver in when we need to.
Speaker 2:
Then being these things get stuck all the time and then paint a target on ourselves, right, yeah, so, yeah, we configured. So I was also the long range mobility guy so we, like I took charge of all vehicles. So we then swapped out everything that we need to swap out and make those vehicles like ready for the mission. So we just come here and all that stuff comes in. Like you know, once you do long range mobility stuff, you get really good at realizing you need to know where stuff belongs in your truck and you have to standardize that, because when, when you go on these ventures start tossing things in, and when it's something breaks out now you're digging through stuff to get to things that you need, right, and that was my biggest pet peeve and like the trucks have to look a certain way. Things have to be in a certain way and you, if you're in charge of your truck, you need to know where everything is, and so you set it up.
Speaker 1:
So it was it like medkits, like everybody, it was. Everything was the same in every vehicle it's yep.
Speaker 2:
So like, I'll obviously take input from the medics, like, hey, what do we need and how do you want it? And then dedicated medical medical vehicles as well. Right, hey, where's the recovery? Stuff gonna go right. And here's how the recovery is set up in every take, because my teammate and I have changed a tire under nods in less than 10 minutes and the previous record was like about 30 minutes, like on our trail really so I was like it's because we knew where our stuff was right and it small things people don't think about, kind of add up a hundred seconds, yeah.
Speaker 2:
So and you know, I was fortunate the truck that I was in, with the two of the teammates that I rolled with we were, just had our truck laid out pretty neatly and we just knew like, because we carried in our truck, we carried a, saw a 240 gustav and charges. If we need to blow things up, um, we had a grenade launcher. Were these the handhelds?
Speaker 1:
like the yeah, yeah, what was the chambered one, the marked um, the one that you would rotate and had like the eight sealant.
Speaker 2:
We don't carry those. We're not seals.
Speaker 1:
Or you guys did little.
Speaker 2:
Individuals that would pop open. They were great. Those were so cool. I remember the first time we got little new sights for them too, and they're awesome.
Speaker 1:
First time I saw one I was like what the f*ck?
Speaker 2:
The.
Speaker 1:
M28. I'm going to have to Google that one because I had to carry that thing, that heavy piece of sh*t. Dude, it was the most I'm like.
Speaker 2:
Yeah I know what you're talking about m30, m32.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, that's probably m32 I am terrible at the military.
Speaker 2:
Like so am I.
Speaker 1:
Yeah I just I remember because it's ingrained, because I have scars on my hip from the sink bouncing on me and it just was the biggest, heaviest piece of sh*t.
Speaker 2:
That's why I had to ask.
Speaker 2:
I'm like there's no way, you guys are running that thing yeah, and then I had my sniper rifle on the back of the truck as well. What was it? So I was carrying an AMRAD. It's Mark 22. But, yeah, I carried this bag because we were driving through a lot of urban areas. You were rolling heavy, dude.
Speaker 2:
That was the biggest thing in Afghanistan too. Right, as teams came in, people didn't want to mess with the green berets because they were always like don't mess with the bearded ones, and it was, you know, the green braids that started that because you allowed to have a beard over there. I will talk about that in a second. Um, and that was that was thing was like these guys roll heavy and they don't hesitate, so if you shoot at them, they are gonna f*cking come with everything they got, and they've got a lot, you know. So that was the biggest thing in air, yeah, in drones and everything else, yeah, yeah. So teams just get you, and I think it's good, because you always got to be prepared for everything that you can get into.
Speaker 2:
So we were traveling through a lot of urban areas, so I never wanted to not have my M4 and my pistol on me, so I was just running a shorty with a Neotech. Normally I won't do it in a desert environment, but like I have a sniper rifle If I need range, that's what I'm going to go to. But the minute I get out of the truck I grab my bag, move to my position and then I can deploy my rifle. But up until then, if I need to engage anything, I've got my M4.
Speaker 1:
I mean, if you're in a vehicle, M4 is the way to go anyways, yeah it's like you're driving through urban areas. Like. I'm not what am I going to get?
Speaker 2:
into Exactly Like, what am I going to shoot? I'm trying to get into scope, right Right. So you just got to think about things like that. But yeah, so it was a huge contention, without getting into too much detail. But personal issues in leadership led to and this is not just our immediate leadership, like several levels above to like no more beards in any deployed environment.
Speaker 1:
This is across the board that came out and it's a shame.
Speaker 2:
Shame because A these guys have lived this life right and they've all had beards. They have had beards in time when they really didn't need them because things didn't exist to the level they exist now. There's active threat of collections on operators and we're willing to like, give our identities but, at the same time, want to talk on the other side of the fence, be like oh, we care about your online security and cyber security and all that and your identity, but then you're coming out here, we're in a deployed environment, in a combat zone, and you're telling us you're going to shave and put your uniform on with your name tag while we have active threat of there's collection going on with the guys. You have a price on your, on your head over there. Uh, I think that depends time to time I mean certain.
Speaker 2:
There's certain units in certain areas of course people want to know where the soft guys are. Right, because you know why won't you want to hit bigger targets? Right, uh? So if there's adversaries like uh, to me it's just like hey, we know the technology exists today and we know there's threats that we have credible info on you, you know intel on. Then why are we letting personal issues get in the way of like, hey, you're going to shave because my feelings got hurt. You know I felt disrespected, so everyone's going to shave. It's like, justify that versus what the mission is. And why are we letting our guys' identity just go on right?
Speaker 1:
That's the military law man.
Speaker 2:
That is the military and that's where it's like okay, where's the leadership in this? Right? If you can't put your personal grudges away, explain to me the reasoning behind. In a combat-deployed environment, a soft unit will not have their beards. Yeah, so we still grew them as much as we could, but then there was like and it was like just a show and tell, because you know, all the brass wanted to come out all the time. You know, you got two star, three star journalists coming down to say, well, I was in syria and I'm like, why are we here? They can't answer that question. They will just put that question back on you. It's like, well, you tell me what? Why are we here? And when we should leave? It's like, no, it's like we can leave wherever we leave now we're ready to go.
Speaker 2:
We don't have any permissions anymore, then why are we here?
Speaker 1:
That's interesting.
Speaker 2:
And the answer you will hear from everybody. It's just it's the same issue. In our government and the military right, we have people that are making decisions that shouldn't be making any decisions. We have a lot of people just nod their head because they want to please their boss, because they care about their jobs, only Worry about that next medal and getting promoted Exactly, and not what actually looks right. And maybe there's something about filling their own pockets. I don't know about that right, but you can probably see that too. But if we don't have active permissions from our own government to do anything in these areas, explain to me why we're there and you're going to justify by saying oh, our presence is countering anything. If our presence was countering anything, we won't be getting rocketed every other day. We're just sitting targets and then our hands are tied that we're not allowed to do anything that wild and then but how does that feel from you?
Speaker 1:
I mean, you've gone through to live this dream and then now you're in a foreign sh*thole country and you're not even supposed to be operating out there. You're just sitting there as a target.
Speaker 2:
It's frustrating for sure.
Speaker 2:
It's frustrating because there's a group of guys that have given up a lot in their life it's not just me, there's other guys there, right, and they're sacrificing time away from their families and stuff right, risking their lives trying to do a job, and essentially we're just playing political games. You know, people have their own personal agenda and they might come on and be like well, what do you know, you only did this much time. It's like you know, you don't have to do a whole lot of time to just have some general common sense. Exactly, we're using same failed strategies that have clearly not worked didn't work in afghanistan, not working in iraq, not working in syria but we're continuing to make same mistakes. And then you want to say like oh, what do you know? Like you, you barely did enough times. Like, well, if you're the genius, then why are we making the same mistakes over and over again?
Speaker 1:
that was one of my biggest gripes in the military was we call them the dinosaurs. Yeah, you know, you know, and it's like why are we not changing anything? Why are we still doing the same sh*t? Like when I was in Afghan working in Afghan um on contract, over there, we would take the same route the same time, leave the same gate every day, yeah. And then I bring it up and then like I'm crucified because I'm questioning the seniors and I'm like and come to find out this, the guy that was running everything was a f*cking coastie. Yeah, didn't even have any, he's never even been deployed. And I'm like you're, you're putting my life in jeopardy, like, and I'm like nobody else has noticed. And then once I said, some guys stood up and they ended up changing the routes. But like, I'm like guys, like we leave the same time, yeah, every day from the same gate and take the same path. Like what are we doing? But it was the dinosaurs and it was like this is how it has to be done and I feel like that was one of my biggest gripes of getting out of them.
Speaker 1:
The reason I got out of the military is because, like our military, like I don't know how to explain this. I don't know if you agree with me. Like in a way, especially I'm speaking on my unit in the marine corps. It was one of the biggest jokes. Like nothing ever made sense the way it was right, and I'm like, how, how do we function as a military?
Speaker 1:
And this is me as, like a young marine, I'm like none of this makes any sense. Like why are we still using ancient, outdated equipment? I'm in this turret where the sights don't even we have to try to line the sides up with a laser that we're pointing off the side of a building and I got some assholes standing down there with a, a panel with marks on it. Like I'm like this is, this is what I have to take to war. Yeah, like I get it abrams. I got everything and everything's gyroed and stabilized. We have rockets, we got really cool tech, but like there's still so much in the military, we're like what the f*ck? This is from Vietnam. Why are we headed to a new war from technology, from Vietnam? And you're telling me we landed on the moon? Get the f*ck out of here.
Speaker 2:
Well, I'll tell you why Because people that are making decisions for some of these things have no business making those decisions.
Speaker 1:
And that's it, dude. That's exactly it.
Speaker 2:
We have these vehicles that we're using now. You know they shut down the contract for the Humvees, you know, and funded this. I don't know if you looked at those 1.1s that we used. No, yeah, no. The vehicle out of the box cannot even carry a casualty. So tell me how that's a combat vehicle If it can't carry a whole lot of load either. So explain to me who approved that and why, and who got the kickback.
Speaker 2:
Explain to me who approved that and why, and who got the kickback? Well, exactly, well, there's no other reason for approving this, otherwise, right? Either you're a complete idiot or you got paid for it, right?
Speaker 1:
We sit here and complain about go ahead.
Speaker 2:
I'm sorry. Well, I was just saying like, but the problem is there's zero accountability, right? Nothing happens. Look at Afghanistan, right it was. You're telling me nobody knew that it was going to fall off as quickly as it did. Like it's common sense, right. It's all politics. We want to call ourselves cultural experts. It's like we didn't know. It's a tribe culture and the minute we stopped paying, like you're going to go to. Like who would? Who would not do that?
Speaker 2:
yeah exactly, um, but there's zero accountability. Same thing with our politicians right, they can just keep spending our money, but none of them will ever go to jail.
Speaker 1:
You know, country suffers and they keep filling their pockets our military is just another version of of everything that's going on right now in the country, but nobody ever looks at it because, well, you're, you don't. One is as an enlisted, you don't have an opinion you're, you're, it doesn't matter, so any that's what people don't understand. When you join the military, yeah, you're you. It doesn't f*cking matter, you're a number.
Speaker 1:
And so you go through this career and you're like all these things to me just never added up, never made sense. But now, looking outside in all of our military is a trickle-down factor of what's going on in Congress and with the government, right now. It's all corrupt, it's all political. I'm not saying like these battalion sergeant majors and telling her but it's the brass way above them 100, like I worked for a general general waldhauser.
Speaker 1:
he was the first marine division general and he was on when afghan was really kicking off.
Speaker 1:
I worked, I was his color sergeant, I worked, I briefed him every single morning of wounded in action, killed in action, where I had a map and I on a big poster board and I would walk in every morning with him and I would brief this guy and he wouldn't take one note and we'd walk and I would walk with him at all the way down the hallway and we'd go in this room, had this giant oval desk I mean the desk was as big as this whole entire office yeah, there's just brass around it and he would give my brief that I spent all morning writing all the grids to every single person that was hit, every ID, and he'd brief. But this guy was such a genius. But then some of the decisions that I'm seeing that are getting passed down, I'm like where is it coming from? Like we're overseas, we're in Iraq and you're chewing my ass for something that like doesn't make, like it never made sense to me and the fact that how it functions and gets by, that's what blows my mind.
Speaker 2:
Well, there's two things to that right. Um, from my experience, what I've noticed is most of the officers only have the military education right and they've been groomed throughout their career to please their boss right, because they can go ahead and try to challenge that or write otherwise. Their boss is going to change that anyways when he reports to his boss.
Speaker 2:
It's going to happen at a certain level of time. So they've been conditioned to continuously just nod their head and be like well, I just got told to do it, irrespective of where you're going maybe like not JSOC, but wherever else you go. There's not a whole lot of common sense left where people are going to— Zero, bro, zero.
Speaker 1:
Everybody with common sense gets the f*ck out of the military. That's why. What do you think I got out of this? That's why, yeah, I was sitting there like. This does not make sense.
Speaker 2:
Like I, we're doing this, and the answer is like, oh, because we got told to do so. It's like, and you don't think it's your job to like stand up for that? Say, hey, this is not right. And here's my recommendation, because we can't call ourselves influencers and like we're thinking outside the box if we just fall into the same mentality as the regular army and be like we're just gonna get do what we get told to do, yeah. So I obviously butted her heads back and forth quite a few times and I would still do what made common sense.
Speaker 2:
I wouldn't go ahead and like if it's not common sense, I'm not doing it and which is crazy.
Speaker 2:
I will take the charge for that. Whatever you want to, you know, have the consequences, I'll do that. But it doesn't matter if an enlisted guy does that right, because you'll just like do whatever you want to do you as an officer. If more of the officers did that, I think that military will change. Gone are the days when we had good officers. Now most of these officers just want to be another politician, that's it, yeah, and not all are bad like so. That's not what. I've met some really good ones throughout my career.
Speaker 2:
You know majors and battalion commanders, but they're outnumbered.
Speaker 1:
They're outnumbered with the guys that are not and girls that are not good I taught officers, uh, the heavies, the mark 19 and the 50 cal, and so I got to see these guys fresh when we talked about the waiting platoon, yeah, they hated that because they would get stuck in all these admin positions all over the base.
Speaker 1:
But anyways, when the platoon would pick up and we'd have them, I watched some of these guys and they were the coolest guys. Yeah, they're fresh out of ocs or maps what are not maps, um, whatever all the officer training schools are, and we would pick them up to start learning their mos school now. These guys would be the greatest guys, and then you'd see them in the fleet like a year or two later as some captain. See, this guy was just a piece of sh*t, asshole. You're like what the f*ck happened to you? I remember you as some boot-ass lieutenant got indoctrinated, and it does. And then that's where. And then that's where the you're working at friday, yeah, at seven o'clock at night, yeah, looking busy, because the officer, the colonel's still here, and then now the platoon sergeant doesn't want to leave because you're the, the battalion commander's here. So then the xo's hereO's here, and then it trickles down to then, all of a sudden, now me as a troop.
Speaker 1:
I'm sitting here busting rust off some f*cking piece of a gun Doing nothing because, yeah, you can't leave, either Because now it's all a political game, yeah, and they don't want to leave and they don't want to look bad, or they won't get promoted.
Speaker 2:
And now it affects the whole entire military Right Instead of just like, hey guys clock on a friday go home, yeah, and that, you know, takes good leadership to recognize that, hey, I may have work, but I have no use for these guys. Why are they here?
Speaker 1:
I used to get my ass chewed, yeah, non-stop, because I would send my guys home, especially if we didn't have a class, and when I was an instructor and other other staffs, ncos would. They would sit there all day on a friday, right. I tell my guys you know, lock up the vehicles, guns are clean. Yep, don't answer your phones, go home. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
And they'd be like, where the f*ck are your guys at? I'd be like send them home. Why? Like we didn't have anything for you? Why not, yeah? Why not Right? Why do I? I'm here? Yeah, I'm here until it closes, but I dude that has gone to war several times. This is supposed to be his break as an instructor. This is your time off? Yeah, but I'm going to make him sit here when we don't even have students till five, six, seven o'clock on a Friday night? No, absolutely not.
Speaker 2:
People don't understand that we don't have a nine to five job, right? No, when we work, we're working 20, 24 hour days. When we're deployed, you're just 24-7 on the clock, man.
Speaker 1:
There's stuff going on. You're away from home.
Speaker 2:
Training. Same thing, right? So when you are back and there's not much going on, why are you taking their time away? I think they've paid enough for the job, for what they're getting paid. They've done enough work.
Speaker 1:
I learned that lesson from one of the most incredible leaders that I ever worked for. His name was Master Gunny French. He was the most hillbilly Kentucky from Kentucky, backwoods, kentucky. He had this hardcore mustache that was never within regulations and for my job you never talk to like a master gun, like you didn't even make eye contact in our job field. Like you saw a bunch of metal you didn't even look.
Speaker 1:
So I have to go and work for this guy and he's one of the most senior grunts in the Marine Corps. He was like the O3 monitor. He ran where anybody that was a grunt, he owned their life. So I had to work directly for this guy and he sat me down and he was like listen to me, if there's time to go home, you get your guys out of my f*cking office, was his exact, because I was the g3 platoon sergeant. This time he goes if I see you with your guys here, yeah, doing nothing. He's like your ass is mine and he goes in. If they want to put in for leave and go home on vacations, they will submit it but will not be approved, right, and that way he would just tear up their lead.
Speaker 1:
So we weren't and I was like oh, perfect, like perfect, I'm already that I thought I was to have to be fighting this and so like. And that's where I learned, like it was a Friday but we had to have somebody there. I had certain somebody had to monitor something. Right, cool, there's seven of you in here draw straws or come up with a schedule. So on Fridays, when we're able to go home, you guys rotate so every seven weeks. Yeah, but that's how I built this mentality Like why are we here? The world's, not the military's not going to stop because I send my guys home, but I don't have to sit here and try to prove to these other staff and CEOs that my team's better. Like I just never gave a f*ck. I cared more about my guys than my personal image of trying to get promoted, I think, is what it comes down to and a lot of guys lose that.
Speaker 2:
People look at how much time that's getting put in as a gauge for how much work is getting done instead of looking at the output. Right, you have to look at the output. You, as a leader, have only one role. You need to remove the roadblocks and make your guys's life more efficient, as easy as possible. If you can make it more efficient for them, that's it. That's all you really need to do. You don't need to count. The morale will be up exactly.
Speaker 1:
If morale's up, your guys will do. And that's another thing that I learned early on even you could be the sh*ttiest job. Yeah, it can be a friday afternoon and you gotta go bust rust off of 50 cows, right? Yeah, don't even have f*cking rust on them, and you know you gotta sit there for five hours minimum. Yep, I would look at my guys and I and I had the most belligerent out of control team you've ever met in your life. These dudes gave zero f*cks about anything. Yeah, I got assigned to them because I was just kind of the same mentality as a staff sergeant didn't give a f*ck about much.
Speaker 1:
But when I got these guys they knew, hey, staff sergeant marshall's gonna get us out of everything we can did. Hey, it's friday, you got the platoon's gone training. You got to take over their common areas. No, I don't, I'm not doing it. f*ck, they should have done it before they left. That's what I do. Right, these are our common areas for the week. You know we were as instructors.
Speaker 1:
We had, like, you know, the ramp where all of our vehicles or whatever I'd be like, hey guys, we're gonna be gone, make sure common areas are done before we leave. That's your and they would get it done. But then when it come to me, I'm not going to force my guys to do that, right. But when I came to my team boys I tried, we got, we got to get these done so and so needs this. And they would look at me like, yeah, roger, that, no, no problem, and they would get it done so fast.
Speaker 1:
But I'd watch another team do it and their staff sergeant would get assigned the same thing and they're bullsh*t, and they'd be able there clean and they my guys are in and out. Yeah, but they knew I've done everything for them to get them out of that situation or get them out of doing some bullsh*t work yeah, sweeping the ramp, cleaning common areas, dealing with somebody else's platoon. I did everything in my power and fought for them. So when I would go to him be like, hey, sorry, guys, like there was no getting, they would get it done so much faster because it was a respect thing ever. I looked out for my guys. But then you would have other teams where they're oh, my guys will do it. Yeah, my guys will take care of it for them. They're just hating their life.
Speaker 1:
They hated them, and everything took twice as long. Yep, nothing was ever done correctly, as best as it could be the first time. Instead of just the morale, morale is one of the biggest things that they should teach in the military. That's like that only comes. I feel like that's taught through. Good leaders is to keep the morale up exactly.
Speaker 2:
you can't just, you can't just tell. So a lot of people get conditioned to the fact that, hey, I'm in the military, people are going to do stuff because I tell them to, because that's the sh*tty leader. Like, try that, try that strategy somewhere else outside the military, see how that goes, you'll get punched, yeah. So it's like if you want a better output, you tell guys, you build the morale and you find how to excite people about their job.
Speaker 1:
Well, you do it with them. As a leader, that was one of the things that I learned, like if my guys had to sweep the ramp and our ramp was massive because we had tanks everywhere. I mean you know, know, amphibious soul vehicles everywhere. So every time one turned, the rubber rolls right. So you know how it is like in a motor t lot. Pretty much I would be out there with my guys because, like that's an extra broom, yeah, it's an extra brush, it's an extra weapon being cleaned, it's something else that's going to cut time off of me being there. Yeah, so my guys always knew and like that was where it comes.
Speaker 1:
That's where the all the good leaders that I always watched. They were always in the trenches with their guys. They were never just sitting there pointing, giving directions. And I deployed with one of the absolute biggest piece of sh*t leaders I've ever I've ever met in my entire life. I actually want to have him on the podcast and call him out because he was it was that horrible person, dude, it was horrible. I I've put it out on my social before and I have. Everybody from my platoon will just be like oh, it's so, it's so, so, so like they know because this dude was one of the absolute worst human beings I've ever.
Speaker 1:
If you ask my wife, right now, if there's one person on this planet that gets, I get a free digs on it's him.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it's that.
Speaker 1:
It was that bad it was horrible man yeah, absolutely horrible, and I watched everything he did and it was just blew my mind that he was even in that position.
Speaker 2:
Wow, but how it comes down to leadership and it does, man, it's in. We don't have good leaders in the right places today. How is it in the sf unit like so? So sf teams? Sf as an organization is a very nco driven organization. Once the orders are put down from the battalion commander on what your mission set is like, the teams get to have a lot of bandwidth of what we want to do. Obviously there's going to be things that you're going to get dictated. It's like, hey, you have to do this company-level exercise, you have to do this battalion-dictated exercise, but you can do a lot. You have a lot of freedom at the team level and we were fortunate enough to have a very stellar team.
Speaker 2:
When I got to the team we had some great seniors and then when our seniors left and our new guys came in, we had f*cking great juniors come in. Like we have guys that are, you know, our senior Bravo. When I got to the team he was a Sephardic instructor and you know just a super smart guy and he taught us pretty much. You know, the whole Sephardic is our CQB course. He kind of just taught us that back-to-back several times and he was super spun up on like making good decisions. And then my senior Senior, charlie. You know 18 x-ray, so obviously we also had a team full of x-rays.
Speaker 2:
So you're looking at guys. You know how we talked about like coming talent straight from the street. Yeah, no military background and he was a stellar f*cking senior to be a Charlie. Like he knew his job, he had been to Syria, he had been to Iraq and he was a quick learner. Same thing with, you know, our senior Echo at the moment, and you know just down-to-earth guys, super talented, down-to-earth guys, super talented. So I got the chance to learn from them. And then I was fortunate enough that two of my buddies from the Q course one of them I didn't know all that well in Q course but ended up on the same team as me and one of them was Marine and this guy's like super talented. Anything he does, he's probably going to ace that.
Speaker 1:
You know, he's just that guy, one of those guys, one of those guys, right.
Speaker 2:
And then the other guy you know he's my sniper team partner as well, but he was a former Ranger, so he's a Ranger-backed guy and both of them are tactically pretty smart, like really smart. So me coming from the outside, I was just lucky that I had people who had, you know, a lot of common sense and knew how to run missions and stuff. So I just immediately just saw the opportunity to insert myself in there and learn from there. Learn, yep, yeah, and that kind of become our team's culture where we would just learn where we lack from others on the team and people would just go out and do stuff that needed to be done and no one's like holding anyone's hand or giving anyone any instructions. So that's the kind of culture we had.
Speaker 2:
Now, not gonna hate on too much on the leadership here, like we. Our first team sergeant wasn't that great, uh. So we were unfortunate to like run into something and be like, well, how does this guy even get to this level? But you know, sh*t happens, right, I don't know if things change somewhere down the road, but then he also didn't last too long on the team. And then our senior brow from that, the instructor guy that I was talking about earlier. He ended up taking up team.
Speaker 1:
Can you guys peer people?
Speaker 2:
out, not on the teams.
Speaker 2:
So, once you're in, that's it. It's not peer, but we have kicked people out. Sometimes you just dig your own grave. So I've been talking to a lot of people who, kind of like, ask questions. Now that, like, yeah, I was a Green Bear Like before I didn't really mention it to a lot of people because it was nobody's business, I was small circle, no one really knows what I was doing in life anyways. But now that, like, I'm open on, like social media and everything else too, people ask questions, like you know, and people are so focused on, like, just getting through the selection and Q course and I always be, like, that's just a starting point that defines nothing other than that, yeah, you passed the bare basics right, Cool, you know like you made it, but you're not.
Speaker 1:
There's so much more still.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, the journey doesn't even start until you get to the team, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Exactly if you can't perform on the team like, guys will eat you alive, especially in a team like ours. You get there and you can't perform like you're out. What's not performing on a team? Well, if someone else has to hold your hand, you're not proficient at your job. Like, you don't ask for much. Like can you do your job right, job right, Because we don't all.
Speaker 2:
We're not always going to be in the same spot, we're always shorthanded anyways. You never see a stacked team with all 12 guys. And even if we did the amount of work that we have on the team, if I have to grab another guy to like hey, I'm going to have to walk around with you to be able to like get this done correctly, then I'm just taking two guys away from the team when something else could be getting done. And also when we're downrange, like, we're doing split teams all the time. Most of the mission planning you'll see like, especially our team was notorious to like hey, split team, this split team. That because we were just trying to divide and do things more efficiently. That makes sense, right? So if someone has to hold your hand, how am I supposed to trust you to be performing my job? And your job in split team Makes sense, Right? Yeah, so that is the bare basics of that, right?
Speaker 1:
Because when you're talking about split team, you're literally dividing your team in half. So now he doesn't have somebody Half or even short, because we could do four.
Speaker 2:
So now it's just teams of threes or teams of fours, right?
Speaker 1:
Depending on what own, yeah, or if he's on the team with the dude, you're holding his hand. Now, technically, you're taking two slots away and you're supposed to perform your function.
Speaker 2:
So how are you doing that? Right, got it and I get it. There's some learning curve too, but like you have to show up ready to like work on the team, like you, you know, yeah. And then you have to be passionate about the job too, because it requires a lot of hours to stay good at it. And if you're going to like, not want to train, yeah, you're not going to be good at what you're doing, so you're out so with you in explosives, right?
Speaker 1:
I mean, yeah, you pretty much. How long was that class or that course?
Speaker 2:
so the mos section of q course is about three months and some change for everybody, unless you're a Delta, because medics go through almost a year of training. For our medics they're almost like they do time in hospitals and trauma care and stuff. They're really good medics.
Speaker 1:
I don't even know a really good medic would even justify medics on SF teams. They are. I've seen some sh*t bro, where I watched. They put the f*cking thing in his throat and then they had a.
Speaker 2:
They're good.
Speaker 1:
They put a trachea, I mean, but it was like he's done this a billion times, right, and where they were sticking and cutting. I was like in the field, in the field, and you're just like bro, like under nods, yeah, on a helicopter in the back of a f*cking MRAP, whatever. Yeah, medics, I would love to. I would love to sit down and talk to an SF medic, I would love to. But so when you're, you're cause we had an EOD guy, cameron on that did it. But like, is your school as in-depth as an EOD, or are you just learning how to set charges and pop smoke.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so they focus on how to diffuse stuff, right? So what we can do is the way you deal with something that you come up on that you don't want to hit right. You can do a couple different things. You can mark and bypass and report it. Someone else can take come, take care of it. That will be an EOD. You can come in and we call it blow in place BIP. Right? So good, come in, I can do that. Right, I'll just come in and if, hey, we have an ID or something like, do one deal with it. If we absolutely have to deal with it, I'll blow it in place and leave right what are you blowing?
Speaker 2:
you blowing it with Depends on what it is, but usually I carry C4, so that's what I would use. Okay, yeah, and then it's render safe. Render safe is a job that you have to be certified for, and only EODs, and even in them, like, you have to be certified. Like if this guy with this certification did render safe, then it's render safe His. If his junior, even though he knows how to do it, he's not certified, he can't bless off on it, so that's called render safe.
Speaker 1:
So with you being a charlie, yeah charlie, and your platoon, which is the team team sorry sorry, sorry, I'm brainwashed, not good. Um, so what's your main role? I mean, so, let's say, we will go out on a mission like, as far as demo wise, are you popping locks, doors, you're getting in entry, or is this just what's the point?
Speaker 2:
so it depends, right. So when you talk about breaching right, that comes down to um, you're going to assault something, right, and all our guys will be trained on how to breach. So that's the biggest part of our sf training too, like we cross train each mos. So, yeah, the breaching is just not going to be me now.
Speaker 2:
I've gone through training where there's if there's a specialized breaching, like I know what's a special, what's considered a specialized breaching well, some of the like heavy duty stuff that has layers to it, you know, uh, not everyone's breaching the concrete wall on the team because they don't really know how to get through it unless the guys are like qualified on Sephardic and other things. Right, there's hardened facility doors like nuclear facility doors and things like that.
Speaker 1:
How would you breach a? I can't f*ck you sure.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
How do I reword this?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, we may even have to cut that out a little bit, all right, yeah. And then there's like um, you can do breaching using torches and stuff, right, okay, uh, some of that is like kind of heavy duty torches, like plasma cutters and things like that. Uh, it's called. There's one thing called like broco torch. So we've done a because, like, you can't always use explosive, right, and you gotta know what you're attacking to. So when you have to kind of solve the puzzle like peeling the layers of an onion, that's when you need to know what explosives actually do. Right, it's not just about I'm just blowing a lock or a door. Now you have to like get the science behind it. So we go through a course that covers that.
Speaker 1:
Are you guys learning how to like water in like a dip can and put some decor around it and pop?
Speaker 2:
things like that, or is that junior sh*t? So people do that and they think like it's something cool, fancy or cool. There's no practical application of that like why would I throw it on a? Dip, can you know? It's just because it looks cool, okay, but there's no practical application of throwing that in a dip, can?
Speaker 1:
well, thanks for ruining that dream of mine one day yeah, now have I done it.
Speaker 2:
Yes, but there's no point of that, because you can just tape things together.
Speaker 1:
So, yeah, I mean, I guess you're right. So, with these torches, though, is this like almost like an incendiary grenade, but like on a stick in a way. You're clearly not bringing like a torching kit with you. How is this? How do you?
Speaker 2:
know. So for some of the like heavy-duty stuff, like you're actually bringing carts and stuff with you.
Speaker 1:
And like wheeling up.
Speaker 2:
Wheeling up to this, and usually this stuff is like underground that you're working in, so like you're breathing all this stuff too. So it's not fun to do and it's sketchy. You don't think of that yeah, it's sketchy as hell yeah what would make it sketchy? Like give me a scenario, just the gases, and you don't know what kind of gases actually exist down in the environment either. So you have to have certain sensors on you right, and now you're introducing more gases in the environment.
Speaker 1:
Um so that can create a chemical.
Speaker 2:
Some of these places may not have ventilations done. You know, they're just pretty rudimentary.
Speaker 1:
So, hypothetically speaking, I'm just asking you, just ask where would you be Like, not you, I'm just asking, hypothetically speaking where would you be underground trying to breach something? Give me a scenario.
Speaker 2:
You know like, look at Hamas right now. Right, they have tunnels dig out.
Speaker 2:
Now you have to go after them. Right, people are building bombs in the ground, you know, because when we started dropping bombs all over the place, people figured out we can't survive on the ground if we need to do one of the best steps, so that's why people started building underneath. So some of these are pretty hardened structures and well-developed, because they have decided to be down there for a longer time, right? Or they're using elements that cannot be exposed in the outside environment, so they are underneath the ground, right. And again, most of that has to do with security, because the bomb is only going to reach so far down.
Speaker 1:
So hypothetically speaking, if you guys were to go in is, have things been cleared and and there's already, like the the ground units have already come through. Or is this like, hey, you guys got to like find your way into this facility here, your doors three floors underground, you got to cut these locks and then get whatever info we want out. Is that kind of more of a real world scenario, hypothetically?
Speaker 2:
speaking, yeah. So that's kind of where, like a little bit of mission differentiation, right, we don't get told like, hey, go hit this target, right, okay, just like we own the area. So now we identify targets in them, we may get info or target from somewhere else now it's up to us how we're going to execute it.
Speaker 2:
So let's say we are going to go hit a house, we're going to come in, we know what's in the area for doors and stuff, so we'll be equipped with the right amount of breaching tools that we need in case we run up to a door that we need to breach.
Speaker 1:
So when you guys are, operating your AO, you're on your own, you're there to gather your own. I mean, obviously do they give you like, hey, this is what's going on. Or do you do a left seat, right seat with a unit and then they're kind of with a team before you and then they give you the lowdown and then when you guys are there, is it your job to start collecting intel, getting I mean informants in a way. And now you're building. So technically you can go months without anything if there's nothing really popping off in a unit. Or you could just happen to be in a unit where you have isis operating and they're building suicide vests and you're constantly chasing that.
Speaker 2:
So it's a yep, so you can, you know you get to your outpost of wherever you're going to be, you replace the team that was there before you, right, and then now you kind of take over from there and now you figure out you can build upon top of what they left you right and then, or you can go segue and start digging deeper of things that they may not have looked into, right. I essentially that's how you start finding and building targets, right, and that's where those you know, our intel sergeant and warren, come into picture, because those guys are trained to like do that stuff and tie things together, find targets for us. So then we can plan and see how we're going to. Obviously we need to get now we're going to go. If we're going to go do a hit, like, we have to go get that approved right.
Speaker 1:
So that was my next question. Are you guys just free for all, or does everything have to get set up?
Speaker 2:
to change. So this is where the permissions come into place. Right, so we have an overall mission set. What kind of permissions do we have? Right, so the permissions have gone down at this point to we're only doing partner force operations and we're not going to accompany the partner force anymore. So we're taking a back seat.
Speaker 1:
So meaning you're training them, but you're watching when they're conducting the missions.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, we're watching through the drone feed and stuff like that, right, how is that?
Speaker 1:
It sucks Well not being there or just watching it, or all of it.
Speaker 2:
I mean I think watching. So part of that is needed, right, because we don't want to be there forever either.
Speaker 1:
So for sure um, but you and I both know it'll never.
Speaker 2:
This is never no, we're never not. No, the only way you solve that problem is just leave right and if we have business we need to take care of, we come in and we drop the hammer and then we leave and we tell them you do it again.
Speaker 1:
It's gonna be worse doing it.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, we're gonna spend less money. We're gonna, you know, not have guys sitting out there in the middle of nowhere. Gives us time to reorganize and train for the future of the war, which is everybody. We forget that everybody owns drones. Now you can buy a drone for 200 bucks, fly it in the air. It has thermal on it, get coordinates right away, attach a little bomb to it and drop it. So everyone's got thermals, everyone's got a drone. We don't own any of it anymore. Before we owned the skies, we owned the nights. We don't own any of that. And how much of our training has changed into or evolved into fighting that threat?
Speaker 2:
I mean, I've been on so long, who even knows I can guarantee you still, if you look at our basic training in AIT, none of that has changed. Oh, 100. I agree with you on that, and you can say that units need to come up with SOPs Like no Somebody. We need to start it right from the basic right and, yes, it's units' responsibility as well to start developing new SOPs. But how many are doing that? I don't know, you know so.
Speaker 1:
It's an interesting point that I mean the battlefield, this whole ukraine, russia sh*t is. Oh, I mean it's let the world know. I mean we're watching. We're watching the battlefield live now. Yeah, there's never been a more documented war ever, I mean.
Speaker 2:
And now the next one's going to be even crazier because the funny thing is we are making fun of russia and like how bad they've got it and they're getting slayed. That's not true, do you think? Well, yeah, that's that. And then if you think we got in a war with a bigger power tomorrow, we're not going to take a whole lot of casualties, you're wrong. Like we will still win because the amount of money and assets we can throw at it. But if you think we're not going to take just the same amount of casualties or more, you're wrong.
Speaker 1:
Oh for sure, For sure. I mean they're taking out tanks with a drone. They're dropping a grenade in the freaking driver's hatch. Now, yes, Like, how scary is that? Like we were scared because nobody was in a military uniform. That was our stress. We didn't know who I mean. Now you could be sitting there eating chow inside of a bunker and in comes a freaking drone with a mortar round strapped to it. Exactly, that's so scary, man. I was talking to a buddy not too long ago about just how the battlefields change. Yeah, and I don't want to sound like a bitch or anything but like f*ck that, yeah, we're not fighting, Can you imagine?
Speaker 1:
dying from a drone. From a drone, you're defending your country and you're out there doing your thing and like a drone, and you're watching these footage of guys, just the drones flying around. These dudes just can you imagine your last moments on Earth are getting chased and harassed by a drone with a freaking mortar around and you're up to it. Like that to me, like what the f*ck? That's where I'm. Like f*ck that I'm out Exactly. Hey, if I don't know who I'm fighting. Cool, I'm in a foreign country. They're going to defend it, just like we would defend ourselves. We all sign the dotted line, but like the fact that I'm just sitting there trying to freaking take a break on the top of a roof and you get a grenade pin popped out from who knows where and you're sitting there with your buddy and a grenade lands between. How terrifying is that? Yeah, you want to talk about ptsd. Imagine those dudes. Yep, I just watched a video of a dude steps out of a bunker and shoots a drone as it flying by with a shotgun it explodes.
Speaker 2:
I'm like, and that's just one, think about when you have 20 coming at you swarm of these things.
Speaker 1:
I mean, these guys are flying hundreds at a time and making light shows. Now imagine when they have a base and they just and they can do that today. Oh 100, you don't meet our cia is building all that weapons and sh*t for it. Now we should be. If we're not, yeah, um, tell me they wouldn't use that against their own people yeah, yeah when's that coming, you know?
Speaker 2:
that's a whole other.
Speaker 1:
That's a whole other turn but you've seen some sh*t, you know some intel like intel. Tell me that sh*t's not coming, dude. When they can't weaponize the military against us. You can just drone anybody that's out after curfew. It's crazy. It's wild times, man.
Speaker 2:
It is wild.
Speaker 1:
It is wild times.
Speaker 2:
And that's why I'm like, instead of us using this time to bring our forces back home and give them the opportunity and time to train for this next threat, we're doubling down on sending guys out to places in the disguise of like our presence is changing anything. What do you mean? So the big thing in the military right now or even, of course, congress has approved all of this like we're sending guys on more deployments and more J-SES, which is like the training exercise, and we're saying well, this is how we're competing with the great power. You know the big nations right.
Speaker 2:
It's like, okay, so we're going to all these places thinking we're, you know, lessening the threat for ourselves. Somehow None of these other countries are sending people anywhere. They're just building their forces and we're still getting rocketed every day. So explain to me how you're countering anybody's presence by your existence in their AO. It just doesn't pass the common sense check of just sending our guys everywhere just because we're there, you know because we're the us military, we have the, we have it oh, we don't want russia to like come in.
Speaker 2:
And it's like, well, guess what? We just got kicked out of africa. We were there for a while and guess what? He would depict russia? We're in same places already, so nobody really cares. But this I don't know who is the you know strategist behind the strategy of like we're just going to be everywhere and that's just going to help us, like it's clearly not helping or working right. China never does that and China is our huge threat right now, so it's like they can be a threat to us without doing any of that. Then isn't it time for us to figure out a different strategy without doing?
Speaker 1:
any of that, then shouldn't, isn't it time for us to figure out a different strategy? You know, what's fascinating to me having this conversation with you is how much pride you have in being a U? S citizen, an American, and how, like you just talking about all our foreign conflicts right now, and like did, you're from India, you know you have no, this is home, man.
Speaker 2:
This has been home. That's what I love, dude, and that's.
Speaker 1:
That's what makes america so f*cking incredible to me is that I'm able to sit here from some kid that grew up in india and didn't want to go to school with his parents, and now you're a green beret and have this pride built of this country and like that's what's so frustrating. Man, I get such goosebumps thinking about like these people and these foreigners have so much sh*t to bitch about and our own college kids are sitting here protesting so much just bullsh*t every single day. And then here you are that left your country to better your life, started a business and gave it all up to defend your now country. Like dude, that's the coolest sh*t to me. Like thanks, I love this. I don't try to get emotional like and it f*cking pisses me off when you see these kids protesting bullsh*t and talking so much sh*t on this country. And like, here you are, like literally living this dream and chased everything and accomplished. I'm sure there's been struggles and battles that we talked about and things that you didn't probably want to bring up, but like brother, you let nothing stop you. You've accomplished everything. And then we sit here and we watch these people that have just that, have pushed these crazy agendas and are doing everything can to destroy this country and to. To me it's like, why? Like we have the greatest thing here, we have some of the greatest.
Speaker 1:
When I say Americans like dude, the fact that nobody would ever categorize you American like that would f*cking piss me off. Like you're here and you're defending your country and you have no American blood in you. Right, you're from India and here you are, man it Right, you're from India and here you are man. It's such an incredible story. It just blows my mind, man, and I'm honored to know you and like see how much pride you have and I'm sure your brother and sister probably look at you like this is home. You're like, f*ck you, this is home, you know, but that's how it should be. If you're coming to a country, it should be anybody that goes anywhere and that you know I'm all for immigration. People want to come in better. They're like f*cking, do it. Like this is what we have to offer, but obviously do it the right way.
Speaker 2:
That's where I'm at with it, Dude, I 100% agree with you right, and here's what I say. If you're a legal immigrant into the US and your blood doesn't boil when you see a bunch of illegal immigrants just flooding through the country like you, should be ashamed of yourself.
Speaker 1:
Okay, so not to get political and change subject off of it, but like, how does that feel, man? Dude, it's absolutely absurd.
Speaker 2:
Okay, just from a common sense, Just quick. I don't want to get deep into it because, like politics is just so f*cking dumb these days.
Speaker 1:
But as a legal immigrant that came here, how does it feel?
Speaker 2:
Let's say I wasn't an immigrant, right, it doesn't. You can try to go across a border illegally for any other country tell me what happens to you. Yeah, you're in jail. You're in jail right or dead or dead. Yeah, that's any country any country in the world.
Speaker 2:
There's a reason countries have borders right, let alone me being an immigrant coming in and doing things the right way, but essentially not getting too political. But that's just been the theme in this administration is if you do something wrong, we're going to reward you, but if you do things the right way, we're going to penalize you and you can pick immigration. You cross the border illegally. Here's your phone, here's your credit card.
Speaker 1:
Here's your hotel.
Speaker 2:
Apartment food. And here's your phone, here's your credit card, here's your hotel apartment food and, you know, here's your living stipend keep coming. Gone are the days when people came to america because you know it was a dream, that you, it was the land of the dreams. Now it's become land of freebies. You're telling me, all these people are coming in because they have a dream absolutely wrong. It's because you've advertised that we'll take care of you if you just come in. All you got to do is just make it to a southern border and we'll give you everything you need. You're not getting that mindset that was in here to like make or break their life that's kind of just.
Speaker 1:
That's got to piss you off and guess what happens when they talk about.
Speaker 2:
You know giving citizenships to the undocumented people. You know how long it takes for legal immigrants to get their citizenship.
Speaker 1:
One of my best friend's wives has been going through it forever.
Speaker 2:
Yes, especially if you're from India, right, or China or some other place Not that I care about China, but you will sit in and provide value to the country by whatever job you're doing and paying taxes and doing your thing, and you'll be in that pipeline for 15, 20 years before you get your citizenship. And here comes somebody illegal. Not only do they get their bills taken care of, don't pay taxes and be like hey, here's your citizenship. By the way, Wild times Make that make sense.
Speaker 1:
Well, thank you for everything that you're doing it and having the pride man it's, it's incredible.
Speaker 2:
thanks man, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:
So what are you doing now? Obviously, I mean I could probably talk. I I love sitting and just hearing the sf side of things. Um, where are you now, now that you got out? Why did you get out? Let's, let's do that, are we?
Speaker 2:
yeah. So I didn't want to get out, obviously, when I dropped my business to come do this like, this was the thing like, and I was just to go on to the next thing in the military and the next thing. That was my goal. And then, after my last deployment in Syria, we got there and we were getting rocketed quite a bit.
Speaker 2:
So, without getting into too much detail, I kind of started analyzing where we're getting some of these hits from, and they were coming from like the same area-ish and we had gone and driven through that area a couple days ago and I kind of like painted this picture for myself of how this checkpoint was set up and I kind of came up with a plan and we're not supposed to do any unilateral unilateral as in like missions, sf, us unit, only right but came up with an idea of like we can probably do a stay behind a off a recce element there and just watch and we'll probably find someone.
Speaker 2:
So we kind of did a pretty pretty. It was pretty neat on how we were like because, like, we have to go with our kardish counterparts everywhere, right, okay, so we had a truck or two of them as well, but we were able to like get away from them as we sent an element, with them thinking like, hey, this is the whole element, but we peeled off from the back and they didn't know. They didn't know that was the plan all along right?
Speaker 1:
and why didn't they know? Would they not allowed it to happen, or did you not?
Speaker 2:
trust them. I didn't trust them, I don't trust them. But b, if did, then things would have been different, because then they would have told the checkpoints and I don't know who the checkpoint was in connection with. Yeah, that's why I'm asking I didn't want people to know what we were trying to do. Like them to know how we were trying to do it.
Speaker 1:
Because word travels quick over there, exactly, yep.
Speaker 2:
So we peeled off, we were short man, we peeled off we. We were short man, so we only brought one truck there, pulled it in and essentially just told the checkpoint guys hey, you guys are going to get attacked tonight, so let us help you. We're here to help go cut that light and, uh, don't use your phones at all, like, put them over here. So I watched this little kurdish guy climb a light pole without any ropes, turn this light off for me. And then my sniper buddy and I we got set up on the top of this uh little checkpoint and it's a huge area we're covering 360 degree between him and I. And then we had two guys, you know, um, two of my other teammates this is after dark.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, we, yeah, we didn't want to do that in the daylight because that's when kind of the guys will come out to like do something. Um, essentially my buddy, my teammate, he tracked a guy down and then he kind of like did a huge clover leaf and came on the other side, came to my side, we tracked this guy down. We were pretty sure like this is a bad guy. Like what were your indicators? There's a curfew in the country you're not supposed to be out.
Speaker 2:
He's in the area that we get rocketed from, so it was pretty evident that he is scouting a new site to place the tube and you guys are watching them.
Speaker 1:
Oh yeah, yeah, we were on to him are you throwing it at this point, or is it just?
Speaker 2:
we're just we're just behind guns. Okay, you know, we were both on our sniper rifles and because we were short man, we tried to get our teammates to go grab this guy. But you know, he had just walked a little further away and and there was no direct ride to him and that's the day we should have brought our dog. But then you know, we were told to not bring the dog out and you know that's a whole other story. Anyways, there was just some contention there where we should have had two more GBs on ground that we didn't have. It was always frustrating to us because you know a couple of guys in leadership just not seeing straight and things, how tactics actually need to work.
Speaker 2:
Anyways, we tracked this guy down. We got a drone up in the sky. It's not armed but we can, like, track him. We saw which house it went into. Like hey, let's converge, we're going down to his place, you guys come out from there and we'll meet you there. Let's make a plan before you do anything. By the time we get there, they've already sent the Kurds in and they come out. We're like, oh, there's no one there. It's like bullsh*t. We saw the guy getting in. So you know, my teammates and I were already set up and we saw somebody crawl out from the back.
Speaker 1:
Really yeah, yeah, and then, and then. The Kurds let him out. Or was he just escaping?
Speaker 2:
I don't know the truth of the situation. I could probably guess what was happening, right? Yeah, anyways, he was crawling. We went and grabbed him because I really didn't want to kill this guy. I wanted to find out. You know the rest of the network I was going to use that. My goal was, like, let's use him to like draw out the network, like who else is involved else is here? Right, anyways, we bring him over, we hand him over to our chief. You know, while I was still building security, a couple of my other team members got him right because, because we had him on our sites, because we weren't, we were the only ones with the sniper rifle so we could see him. Um, bring him over.
Speaker 2:
You know, they're questioning him and all of a sudden there's like gunfire going on all around us, right, and so there was some tribal dispute going on, but we couldn't really tell, like, if they're coming after us or what's going on. Right, you're just hearing ak's ripping, yeah, and it's just going on all around. It's like, okay, probably a bad day to be out because we don't have anything armed overhead, right. And at this point our drone went down too, like had to come back, so we were only looking from this balloon so we can't really get all the angles. So now we have nothing overhead so we're like, all right, let's just leave, let's grab him and leave, okay. So we pack up and leave.
Speaker 2:
We come back to the base and realize our chief, let this guy go. No, obviously, needless to say, a couple of us lost our sh*t over this to our leadership. Be like what the f*ck just happened? Like we. First off, it wasn't even your mission, obviously, needless to say, a couple of us lost our sh*t over this to our leadership. We're like what the f*ck just happened? First off, it wasn't even your mission. We came up with the idea. It was extremely successful. We had the guy and you let him go. Why did you let him go? He's like well, he said he thought we were tribals trying to kill him. So that's why he was scared and running away. It's like us with our gear, we're tribals and let's say that was the case. Let's just do some common sense. Why would the tribals be after him?
Speaker 1:
Well, because there's a tribal dispute going on.
Speaker 2:
Let's just say he was afraid of that, not that the tribals look like us. Let's say that was the case. There's a gunfire going on. How hard was it to say, hey, man, let's get in the truck, we'll go back to the base, we'll sort this out there, because obviously it's not safe here. Common sense, right? Yeah, no, I think. The fact is he let him go because we're not supposed to do a unilateral mission and we actually nabbed a guy. And that is my theory. He never is my theory. He never agreed or disagreed to it. He just said like oh, I just thought he was innocent. How do I know he was innocent? A we tracked him f*cking down. B we kept his phone. They didn't know that we had the phone. So it was my team. One of my team was super smart, kept his phone, didn't tell anyone, came back, sent it back to iraq. To Within a week, phone starts ringing Go get this guy. This guy was on lists for a lot of people.
Speaker 1:
He was right there.
Speaker 2:
We had him. He was in our hands. You had him and he could have opened up a huge network for us. Right, you ever find him? No, we didn't even go looking for him because they told us like, oh, they're telling us that we need to go get this guy. I'm like you can go, I'm not going because he's not f*cking there anymore. No, yeah, it's like he's gone. He's like what dumb Americans came here, got me and then let me go and this is in Syria, this was in Syria and that was it. I was just like that. It was like whoo.
Speaker 1:
And then the same guys went on to put themselves in for Bronze Star.
Speaker 2:
So to me, now I've seen how the awards work, how your evaluation reports work it's just all a show. It really is, and they're taking advantage of the fact that we don't have a real war going on anymore. So we're doing these things where we don't want to take any risks, but people still want to get awards, so they're, you know, just writing whatever they want to write oh yeah, they have their buddy.
Speaker 2:
The officer write it for make things look like, oh, they write it themselves and then make it look like they did something fancy, when who's going to be accountable for this mistake that you just made? We had the guy. Let him go nobody, nobody. So that that is what did it for me, because it was I came up with that plan. It was super f*cking good, like our guys did super f*cking phenomenal job of like tracking this guy down and it could have been a huge success and it went down the way it went down at the end and people put themselves in for Bronze Star. Still, that is what upset me and it hates me to leave the team because, like, I f*cking love my team. The guys are f*cking phenomenal. That's a hard decision, huh, dude. Yeah, it was rough. What year was this? This was 2022. Oh, so this is fresh. Yeah, this is fresh.
Speaker 2:
So we came back and then my son and everybody got us a slot for another school. We both came back, went straight to another school, came back, something else was popping off somewhere else. It wasn't like anything. It was a good spot to be in and nobody had the wind of it that this was going on. Him and I found out about that and we were like we're jumping on this and not telling anyone. So here I am, less than a year from getting out, but I'm trying to take every opportunity I can get to do as much work and experience I can get out of this, right. Yeah, so him and I were the only two left the country again right away, and, uh, just before things happened in October in the lease, we were there really, and that was like it was a great experience for us. We I'm glad we got to do it too, and yeah, that was the last thing I did. And I came back and I'm like alright, man, it's time to talk about that, or no, I don't know entirely, so I'm just gonna keep.
Speaker 1:
It was a training thing, though, so but I don't know how open it is. Training, yeah it is, it was a training. Was there ever a mission that you guys did that stuck out in your head? That either like scared the sh*t out of you or you were like a oh f*ck moment it was.
Speaker 2:
It was, um, it wasn't all that bad, but, um, we did one more of these rec commissions in syria again.
Speaker 2:
Uh, we went to a different spot and I was sitting up on top of this water tank to kind of just look across the river, because, like, across the river is where the Iranian side is right, that's where a lot of militia comes in from and that's where all the smuggling happens from.
Speaker 2:
So we were looking for anybody like transporting weapons or something else to come in, like we didn't really care about the drugs all that much because that's not our role, and we were. I was sitting up there and I was more worried about what's in front of me, right, because I thought somebody has my back like it's clear, and then all of a sudden gunfire starts and then around length, maybe like five or maybe two or three meters away from me and I'm like that came from behind me and my back was exposed, like I was only covering my front because I'm like you know, I just want to make sure I don't get shot by someone else Because like I was in a spot where someone started firing, like that's the spot they're going to aim for, but like that's the only spot I could find where I could see stuff from.
Speaker 2:
So I had a little mud wall in front of me and I'm like, if something happens I'm just going to dive down and that's all I can really do. But you know, I was worried about what was in front of me, not what was behind me, so my back was completely exposed and as soon as that round landed, I'm like that came from behind us, like what the f*ck? Sdf, because SDF is the Kurd partners.
Speaker 1:
Okay, which is?
Speaker 2:
supposed to be back there. Yeah, I was like why they're just like all lollygagging and talking to each other and our leadership is standing there talking like hey, who's watching those streets? Back there, like I thought you had this area on lockdown. I don't think anybody knew I was there. They were just firing shots to let people know that US forces are in the area and I think that's how they were communicating back and forth across the river.
Speaker 1:
Really.
Speaker 2:
Because they didn't want to use radios all the time. Because we listen to everything and they know that. Yeah, so I think that is how they were communicating Be like, hey, someone's in the area don't do anything Because we didn't see anything happen that night. Interesting, yeah.
Speaker 1:
Interesting. We didn't see anything happen that night. Interesting yeah, interesting yeah, so you decided to get out, yeah.
Speaker 2:
So yeah, I decided which is probably a pretty rough decision, because it was man, because I didn't really want to just do my team time and get out to the other part was like if I would have stayed in unless I were to put it, pack it for another spot you know another place to go like they would have pushed me into a schoolhouse to go teach. I don't think there's anything wrong with the schoolhouse and going to teach, but there's only so much. You're going to get out of me. If I'm there, I need to be out in the field operating.
Speaker 2:
I'm not doing anything else. I'm here to fight, let me go fight. I f*cking stayed single this whole time so I can go do this. Like let me go do what I need to do. Like if you're gonna force me into schoolhouse, like I'm out, yeah, like that's just not my thing, I get you. Um, so that would have happened regardless, because I've already met my four years of team time.
Speaker 1:
So it's like it might be a pretty tough crossroad, huh, yeah.
Speaker 2:
so I'm like you know what let's? I guess it's just nothing else was getting out right now. Yeah, and you know the team, you know you just got to think about that.
Speaker 1:
So once you made that decision, yeah, I mean now you're like sh*t, I got to do something. Now you know like I got to start all over again, because I mean, obviously you plan on career in it, yeah, team. So that that didn't pan out, yeah, that didn't, that didn't go, so how'd you shift?
Speaker 2:
gears. So things went silent for a while. You know, it was the day, the day that I've got out of the team group chat. My phone didn't ring for like a whole week, like no text messages no notifications daily thing in the group chat. Yeah, I mean you're like there's always something going on, right, so like I didn't have like any communication with anyone, it's a pretty lonely feeling, isn't it?
Speaker 1:
Yeah yeah, isn't it crazy how the military, I don't want to say sets us up but they don't prepare you for the loneliness of, like the brotherhood and like I, don't miss the Marine Corps at all Like I'm just getting over the phase of hating it. Like I, I haven't built the pride back in it now.
Speaker 1:
But, like I was, I was at that point where I absolutely hate it. But, like dude, you go every day working with the craziest clowns and personalities and dudes that you just look at and you just start laughing because you know he's just such a just a clown. And you're start laughing because you know he's just such a just a clown and you're gonna make you laugh and even when you're pissed off and then all of a sudden one day it's all gone.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, and it's so hard to explain yeah, and and I don't blame the military, because I don't know if- I think they'd be preparing us for it, though you know, like that's, one of the biggest things that we've run into with our organization is is the loneliness, is the brotherhood that's what everybody misses.
Speaker 2:
You think like that's something they would try to like Right, and that's kind of like after you know, after I kind of just been through what I've just felt Like I've been alone in my life a lot, like I've been on my own since I was 16.
Speaker 2:
I've left the country. I lived in a different state every year, like I didn't know a whole lot of people, and I didn't feel like I was lonely until, like I got away from the team 100% yeah, because you're used to that and I was just like it would never happen to me, because you, I've built a career before from nothing. You know, I've lived all over the place. Like I've moved countries, I've moved states all the time, like this will never happen to me. And when I felt that I was just like, okay, I need to make sure that I can do something to help as the guys get out. So that is where I'm like I think it may not be on the military to do something about it, but I think it's our responsibility as guys getting out to make sure we stay in touch with guys.
Speaker 1:
So what are?
Speaker 2:
you doing to help that? So I'm trying to figure that out. Right, there's two things that I want to do. A, I want to given my experience in consulting before working in corporate and then doing the SF route, I never thought that I was going to have a hard time getting a job as soon as I get out, and it's been nothing but exact opposite of that. Right, and I don't know if it's because the times we live in today. You know the market is bad and you know that military experience on the resume might look a little different. Um, I I don't know what the reason is. It's not like. I'm never gonna stop trying. You know I'll find a way to get in. It's just whatever, but I don't want the guys getting out going through the same stuff.
Speaker 2:
So I want to make sure I can build something. I want to start making connections with people and executives, because there's a lot of organizations that are trying to help veterans but, like, nobody has connections with executives, everybody has connections with the HR people. Oh, yeah for sure. And it just dies there, right? Or you get a job that you are way overqualified to do because you didn't get put in touch with the right people, right, so I want to try to build relationships again. Right, so I want to try to build relationships again. I need to enter the corporate america again and then build relationships where I'm like, hey, let me introduce you to this guy, getting out soft background or non-soft background, whatever it is right, here's his specialties and I just want you guys to like, get connected and talk. Maybe there's something that can work out there, instead of sending you to an hr guy who has no clue the caliber of guy he's talking to?
Speaker 2:
Because, dude, I have worked with so many great NCOs, all enlisted guys not naming any of the officers, right, stellar, not just as their job, but super f*cking smart, can problem solve anything, get anything done, and the biggest part is with all of us super quick learners. So if the subject matter expertise is a contention, why don't you let him work under somebody for six months and see where this guy goes? But the problem is, there aren't a lot of opportunities there because everybody thinks when people are getting out of the military, especially from SOF, everybody wants to go after the officer because they think you know he's the one leading the team. It's like, no, the guys are running the team. Officer doesn't run the team, right, he's just there to sign. This is just a fact, right, he's the least experienced guy on the team.
Speaker 1:
He's there to sign for weapons gear.
Speaker 2:
He's the least experienced guy on the team, right, oh for sure. But all of a sudden you become 040506. Now you have connections so you can make phone calls, which I see the value in. But if you actually want to get stuff done, you want the enlisted guy for 100, but you know, it's just, and so that's the big thing.
Speaker 2:
I think we need to start the change, and it starts with guys like us, like going out and be like hey, you need to talk to the enlisted guys like those are the guys that actually get stuff done. They're actually smart, like gone other days that we didn't have degrees, or like experience, like guys come from all walks of life, two degrees prior working experience, athletes it's like there's a lot of experience here that is not getting utilized. So long answer to that question, short. The first part is I gotta figure out how I can make sure that there's a bridge where guys don't struggle to get employment after, because a lot of guys don't even get out and stay in the toxic spot because they don't know what they're going to do. Yeah, right, it's scary, it's.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, it is yeah scary, yeah, because you go from the military. I mean you got a guaranteed paycheck, yeah, all the health benefits your wives are taking care of, kids are taking everything. And then you make that decision and I think that's what traps a lot of guys in the military and then that's how they end up miserable old dinosaurs is because they, man, when you make that jump, it is f*cking scary man, yeah, it is. When you finally come to that agreement, like, okay, I'm done. Like when I joined the Marine Corps, marine corps, I 100 joined the career, yeah.
Speaker 1:
And then after I did my second term and where I was in my leadership, I looked at it and I was like there's no way I can do this for the rest of my life, right, and so I, you know, went to my wife now I was like I'm out. She's like what are you gonna do? I was like I'll let I swear to this day. My exact words were I will flip burgers at f*cking in and out before I stay another day in here. She's like okay, yeah, that was her answer okay and it was.
Speaker 1:
I was like, oh sh*t, you're supposed to talk me out of this you know like now I'm gonna have to do it.
Speaker 2:
No, I have to do it.
Speaker 1:
she called my bluff, I gotta get the f*ck out. And so then that's when I said but it was, was so scary man, it was scary, I mean. And then I jumped right on a contract and went to Afghan because I was scared, that's all I knew.
Speaker 2:
You know you're going to take the first thing you can get, right, things get rough and you know I'm not opposed to doing that work still because you know but yeah, so that's one piece of it Right, trying to make sure like can get something set up to have employment for the guys and then reaching out. Right, because I think it's our job to just hey, let me just text you, let me call you right Battle checks, dude, battle buddy checks, exactly, and it doesn't have to be anything fancy. You don't have to talk about feelings Like who cares, right? Sometimes guys just want to hear what's up, dude, what's going on, that's hear what's up, dude what's going on.
Speaker 1:
You know what have you been doing.
Speaker 2:
That's, that's it, man, just kind of check in. Yeah, just, I think that goes a long way. So I think the more guys kind of get in that mindset will help everybody else, you know. So I think it's our duty, even though the military may not do anything about it, you know so it is.
Speaker 1:
It is and I've, I've thought of ways and you know we're I'm going to be closing one of our adventures soon as a family, but and I want to this is one of those things like how do we get the community? But the problem with vets are, man, we're so stubborn, we're so stubborn and so just, I'll never ask for help. That's a sign of weakness and and that's what, that's what takes you down, that that dark path is not you know. And then so it's like how how do you get that that guy? That's some sf dude or some grunt that's done eight, twelve years and six deployments and all he knows is how to be a hard charger to be able to want, to be able to reach out for help. Like, how do we get those guys? They won't.
Speaker 2:
They won't right. I didn't reach out for help and I never will. That's just who we are right. Um, I could be going through the roughest time in my life. If I come out and talk to you, you would never know. Yeah, like, and we could be best friends.
Speaker 2:
You would not know. But how healthy is that? It's? It's not. And I'm saying like that's just who I am and I would never tell anyone to do what I'm doing right. I would always tell people to go reach out. But most of us are like that. We may tell people after we're over the hill. Be like, hey, I was struggling at some point in time.
Speaker 1:
That seems to be it.
Speaker 2:
I went through these times and it's like and I was there for you, I think that's why it's a I want to see like hey, um, we'll talk more about, you know, the organized chaos thing in a second here. But my number is always available to any of the soft guys, especially if you're a green beret, and to any of the lower enlisted, like you're even to e4. Like text me a message if you're getting out and you have like doubts about like how to navigate something right, or you just don't know that your mind is not at ease, just text me like I'll give, or just message me on there and I'll give you my phone number. Just call me and I'm not doing this as a non-profit or anything like this is just my time and I will talk to as many people as I can talk to. Like yeah, because, because I think sometimes all at the same time I'm going to call spade a spade on this one.
Speaker 1:
If you're not willing to help yourself, right, how are other guys going to be reach out to you exactly? Feel that you need to walk their shoes and yep, so that's so.
Speaker 2:
That's where I'm. I'm going to say my side right, I would never do it. And I'm sitting here I'm going to say I would not recommend you to go what I'm doing. There is no way to put yourself, no reason to put yourself through that, right. So take this as an opportunity to just use my account and just text me or call me, right. However, the people that I personally know, I'm not going to wait for them to reach out to me. I'm going to reach out to them. The reason I'm saying that is because there's a lot of people that I don't know. But who's reaching out to you? I'm already past that point. I'm good, you're a stubborn one. You're a stubborn one. I don't know man, I've lived my life since 16 on my own, yeah, but that's not healthy or fun.
Speaker 1:
I know it's not. It's not healthy, or fun.
Speaker 2:
It's not. It's not healthy or fun. I know it's not Say what it's not healthy or fun it's not. It's not the right way to deal with things, but I know who I am and that's who I am At this chapter, yeah yeah, you know, like dude, I've gone through your path, man, yeah, I fought the world for a long time.
Speaker 2:
I still do. Yeah, well, some things are just and I'm getting better at it. You know, I I would text my boys every now and then be like just check in, and I know there's a couple guys that always reach out every few weeks. They will just like send me a message and you know, yeah, it's, it's hard in our community, man, guys like us, they just I couldn't even it's hard in the veteran community.
Speaker 1:
I couldn't even imagine being in such a small, tight-knit unit where you know. You know all your teammates' secrets. They're darkest secrets.
Speaker 2:
Well, you just spend so much time and you go through so many things together. You know you build that bond 100%, or you can always rely on the guy next to you Like all right, man, I need this.
Speaker 1:
That's where I feel a lot of people. Just it's so hard for them to grasp. Like my daughter, not too long ago she, she saw me with one of my old buddies I haven't seen in a long time. She's like dad, you guys, I swear like that was one of your best friends and I'm like kid. Like you have no idea the, how many dark conversations, how many amazing conversations. Like I know that dude's darkest secrets. Yeah, I know his demons, yeah, and he knows mine.
Speaker 1:
And that's where, like, it's so hard for us to try to fit into, like the civilian world. Because, like you look at these and this isn't anything negative on civilians but it's like like what the f*ck have you gone through with that dude? Yeah, to have the call out to guy your best friend. Like I'm leaving here in a couple days with a couple of my best friends, like guys that I stood on the yellow footprints next to, yeah, and you know we're going to Alaska. But like I can't pick back up with some guy from I mean, I don't text a civilian for a couple weeks. I think you're mad at them.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
So it's like it's hard for us to try to find those relationships again and I feel like there's instead of the charity route, like is it like groups? Is it an app where guys can get on and communicate? Yeah, and it's a closed circuit and then you can break down into branches and units. I mean, where do we start with it? Because there's so many guys that I try to find that they're gone.
Speaker 1:
And it's like f*ck dude, I have so many great memories with this guy and at the same time, we had those bonds. Because it's not like you're sitting scrolling with somebody, you're f*cking sitting in a dark room at 3 in the morning. Just got back from a mission. You're like that was wild, like yeah, f*ck dude, I can't believe I lost a grenade. We had to go back and look for it and my mbg's fell off. You know like just that sh*t, where you know just dumb sh*t, but like that all created that bond. And do you remember that guy ran and ran that checkpoint like just the crazy sh*t. Or every morning getting up and going on a patrol, and you know like just doing dumb stuff and this creates that bond and that brotherhood, but like we miss it. Yeah, you know like that's, that's it.
Speaker 2:
The thing is, like it's hard to build that same bond with other people when you haven't done stuff with them right, and it's not like. So I have two friends that are civilian right, and they're my best friends as well, right, and it's where, like, I can rely on them as well, like if I were to call him or something like I can 100 rely on them. So it's not just like it's whatever bond you built with somebody for a certain period of time. It's hard to like when you detach and you just think like, oh, I'm gonna just find new people, especially as you get older, like that was trauma bonded together exactly.
Speaker 2:
So you're just never going to get that right. So that's why it's like the biggest way we can impact is like the guys from the same team reaching out to each other, yeah, or same communities, like, hey, we're from the fifth group, or things like that. Right, and I wish there was a better way to do it. And I'm sure there is something, I just don't know what it is. I think maybe getting more guys into some sort of competition might be something, as in how, like shooting, shooting or whatever, hey, pick a hobby, let's group guys together that have the same hobbies.
Speaker 1:
Is that what, this wild chaos? What do you call it? Organized chaos, organized chaos, which is hilarious, yeah.
Speaker 2:
So the name kind of comes from, you know, the SF lifestyle of you know, everything is chaotic. You just got to get good at organizing the chaos right, and if you can master that, then you can master anything. So the idea behind that wasn't any of this. When I was going through my phase of detaching from everything and figuring out what I'm going to do, I didn't want to go back to consulting because at this point it doesn't excite me as much you live a different tempo now.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I reopened the business, but I never really tried to make a huge sale out of that. I might still do it if I need to, just to get some, because it is lucrative and it can help fund something else. Yeah, but I'm not passionate about it. So I'm sitting there toying around with, hey, what do I do with myself? So I'm like, okay, what, what kind of things am I good at, what I can help out with? So I kind of like, like, pondered upon, like, hey, I did have several injuries and I got told several times I can't do this or that.
Speaker 2:
And I know how I worked that out by, you know, trial and error, working with like really good trainers, really good like doctors and stuff. You know Took pieces from every one to figure out what actually works for me, because, like there's no one-size-fit-for-all right and be like, oh, this is how I need to work my body to still stay as strong as I can and be able to do things I enjoy doing. Yep, so I'm like, hey, let me just try to push that and see if I can help others that are struggling with the same thing. Do that right. Others that are struggling with the same thing, do that right? Um, so like essentially helping people, like break through the barriers of like, hey, I don't have time, I'm injured, or like I don't even know where to get started because I don't have structure. Um, and a lot of that was, and I didn't really do this for like hey, this is gonna make me a millionaire, like I just didn't want to sit at home and let my mind run.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, that's where it gets dangerous because, like you're coming from this job where your mind you're like constantly stimulated yeah, you're on yeah.
Speaker 2:
So now you've stopped all that, but your mind is still racing. It still needs to keep going at 100 miles per hour and there's no downshifting for you. There's, yeah, there's nothing. So what do I do with that? Or I'll just drive myself crazy.
Speaker 2:
So you know, I am not a social media guy like I. It makes me absolutely uncomfortable every time I post something yeah, right, and some of that shows in the content too, because it's like what does this guy do? Um, it does put me out of my comfort zone, but then and I know it definitely turns a lot of people's head the other way be like oh, now you're an influencer, I don't want to talk to you, I'm like cool man, I don't really care, because I don't really care what you think of me. I'm actually trying to just experiment with a few things, and it's the constant process of learning, so for sure, I'm using that to figure out how to actually get good at online marketing right. And it's the constant process of learning, so for sure, I'm using that to figure out how to actually get good at online marketing right. And there's a product there which I think is pretty good, um, and if I can get people to like, start thinking in the right direction. I think it can help a lot of people like, especially, like you know, giving back to the community in form of like. If you go get a personalized program right, it will probably cost you 300 bucks a month or something, because that's what I was paying, right, I want to keep it cheap and I want to try and to like reach as many people as I can. Now it's not gonna be personalized programming, but again, it gives you the structure, teaches you how to actually work out with your injuries, right, and then modify it to your needs. Like, hey, I'm injured. Or like, hey, I don't have time. I'm gonna skip the last two parts today cuz I only have time for this much. Yeah, or hey, I know how my body feels when I push past this limit, so I'm gonna back down, operate in this range, right. So it's about education on the fitness side, and fitness is the only product I'll put out there, because that was easy to create at first and get me started right, got it, but then the and then the other part was like reaching out, right.
Speaker 2:
So I do want to give back a little bit to India too, and hopefully some of these people will listen to me and do the right thing, but you look at people in other worlds, right, and you were talking about protests. I would do want to touch that briefly in a second here too, too. But people look at America and we want to be like America, right, but people in other countries? What they see in America these days is all the bad stuff, for sure. So the protests started out in America and now everybody protests, right, we forget about what the real issues are and we never address them at all, and we just get behind the whole train of like hey, we're going to be like them, we're going to do what they're doing, and we're going to do exactly like that. So, yeah, we start talking stuff that just doesn't even make sense. Or, hey, you got bigger problems to to solve, right.
Speaker 2:
But where I was going with that is people in india.
Speaker 2:
Look at western society, and all they want to do is drink and party, because they think that's what we do, right, it's like they don't think about the work ethic, they don't think about the health conscious people, right, they don't think about any of the good stuff, the hardworking people, you know, self-starters. They want to tack on all the bad stuff. So if I can help them understand, like, hey, there's other parts to life too, because you will see a lot of excuses from those people. They're like, well, I don't have the resources, I don't have a gym, I don't know how to train, I don't have the money. It's like, well, you have all that when you want to drink, right, you fight your parents every day to go out so you can go drink somewhere. What's your beer tab? Or your bar tab? Every night, exactly. But if it's to like actually better yourself, you're going to make an excuse. It's because you don't want it as bad, you're happy going down the path you're going down and someone's trying to show you the way you want it.
Speaker 1:
It's easier to be complacent.
Speaker 2:
Exactly, so hopefully some of that mindset can change with that. So fitness is one component of that. The second one is the mindset and a little bit of like the tactical side too, and this is where, like you were talking about people swinging in the wrong direction and just like crying and complaining about everything, I'm hoping and this is all going to be free content for mindset, like hoping we can reach enough people where you can educate people on. Hey, we need to do better ourselves as citizens instead of constantly being a leech to the society and asking what the country is doing for us Be an asset, not a liability.
Speaker 2:
No, yeah, ask yourself what are you doing for the country before you ask what the country is doing for you. And I get it. We're all paying taxes, so there's a certain responsibility. I get that, but are you being an asset, right, or are you just being out there stopping other people from being an asset by creating a protest and crying about things? Are you raising your children to be an asset, exactly?
Speaker 2:
That is huge too, man. Right, because a lot of what we're seeing right now is people that didn't raise their kids. Right to be honest, right, they let that happen. That's scary Catching up it is, and you've just seen that, you know, because participation trophies for everyone. Like no man. You either win or you lose, and it sucks to lose, but guess what? It showed you where you're weak. Go better yourself. Right, and you can win too, right I?
Speaker 1:
think on participation medals. One of my proudest moments as a dad is my daughter won a participation medal and she was so offended oh, that's awesome that they gave it to her. She was so offended and I hung it up at the house right, grabbing it off one of my mounts and she I thought she'd have whooped my ass and it was just one of those tough tournaments. And she she lost all her fights and it just she just didn't show up that weekend.
Speaker 2:
I mean it just happens.
Speaker 1:
It happens, it's part of it, but they had like the fourth, fifth plate, like like there weren't the actual medals, but they're like these, oh my god. And but the fact of how offended she was that they gave her a medal for not placing she was more mad over that than she was losing. She's like why, like she was offended, like oh, here you go. And so I was like okay, like okay, that that made me feel good, that, like she, like I still got one, she was just like f*ck this thing.
Speaker 1:
She tried to throw it away. I dug it out of the trash and I was like nope, we're going to hang this up and you're going to remember what it felt like to earn that. You were never going to see one of these again, and she ended up becoming a world champion, but she never got one of those again. That is so awesome but I was like I was like okay, cool she, she was mad and I was like all right, that's that's what we need more kids to be like, for sure.
Speaker 2:
That's because we need more parents to raise their kids like that, right, otherwise, we're just going to keep going down this path, right, exactly. So that's where, like, the mindset side of this is right, um, but I don't want to be one of these guys that are just constantly coming out and yelling at everybody. It's like, all right, man, who gave you the right to think that you can yell at other people, like? They get tons of likes too, by the way, I'm just talking to those videos of the dudes.
Speaker 1:
Oh, just constantly going to be a man. Learn how to be a man by some guy that's a fraud.
Speaker 1:
You want to hear some crazy sh*t. You want to hear some crazy sh*t. One of these classes that these dudes are paying like $10,000, $15,000 to go and get yelled at for a weekend One of the guys that's hosting these classes. He's one of the famous ones my wife used to work for and they ended up going bankrupt. He got kicked out of the company. The dude's a total fraud and now he's hosting like these self-had-to-be-a-man clinics and came across my wife's. Like my god, like the story behind this dude is is wild and now people are like these men are taking advice from this dude uh, man, I'll take.
Speaker 2:
I'll say a couple things about that. Right, I'm not gonna blame you as an individual trying to sell something, right, whatever dude? Um, I will never do that. We were talking about sh*tty car salesman. Yeah, that's not my character, I will. I could never be a sh*tty car salesman. Yeah, that's not my character, I will. I could never be a sh*tty car salesman.
Speaker 2:
And it's not just my reputation that rides on it, it's just because I went ahead and did the thing that I just did. It's everybody else that has that beret before me or after me for sure. It's their reputation as well. So I can never be that guy. But hey, man, clearly you found some people that are willing to pay for it. You're just trying to make an income. I got it. Keep doing what now? I respect the hustle, exactly. Um, is it the right way? Probably not. Would I do it? Absolutely not, right? Let's talk about the people that are signing up for this. Right? If you think that you are going to become any better of a man by paying another person to yell at you and scream at you to become a better man, like that's just never gonna happen.
Speaker 1:
You've already shown your cards that that's how I feel, but I have a client that went through one of these, though, and he, like he, tried to get me to come to one, and I was like homie, you're a great guy and all but.
Speaker 2:
Here's my thing You're doing this because you think it's cool. That's the only reason you're doing it. If you truly want to fix yourself and do it, then you've got to put something on the line, because there's nothing on the line, you're not failing one of those things. Right, what happens the line? You're not failing one of those things right, what happens when you quit?
Speaker 1:
you just go home. My thing is and here's the thing, that the why I think a lot of these guys are complete, just frauds in a way yeah they. I mean you look at them and you get to know them. They're all. They're all in financial hardship. Their wives are leaving them. They have no relationship with their children. They're all over the place. But they're talking about how to better yourself.
Speaker 1:
Better yourself and they're going. They're human, you know. Yeah, they're going. It's like people that go to these counselors Like you think that counselor's perfect yeah, you don't think that person's ever struggled and had their demons? Yeah, so, like we put, like this he's a Green Beret, he's a Navy SEAL. I'm going to go train with Navy SEALs. Like. Those dudes are just as f*cked up as you are we all are.
Speaker 1:
You know. So I think it just comes down to it. But at the same time, I get people need some motivation, right, but as far as like me going to a class, getting yelled at for a week and then I get some sh*tty hatchet given to me with that changed anything in your life, because that was all a pretension. I got a cool story that I got to go hang out with Navy SEALs and get hazed for a weekend. That's essentially it, right.
Speaker 2:
You're paying somebody to haze you. What is the end goal there?
Speaker 1:
I feel like if I came back and I was like, hey honey, these Navy SEALs changed my life she's going to look at me like you're a to be a bitch for them and did you see some clip on the internet of me rolling around in the sand, beginning all that by some retired navy seal like I don't know man? I just don't understand how that that's. That's where I'm like I don't know how do we do it the right way?
Speaker 2:
yeah, so I'm gonna try to get to it. Hopefully I can try to help people right, but like that's why I don't like necessarily blame them, even though I think it's the wrong way to do it, I'm not going to comment on them. I'm going to more comment on people who are buying that stuff, right, it's like really yeah, I mean capitalize right exactly like I said, I don't hate the player, hate the game.
Speaker 1:
So I respect the hustle. It's just wild too yeah, it is absolutely.
Speaker 2:
And then there's the other side of it too, like people that are just coming out. You know, I've been saying that for the last couple of days here because I just like, for some reason, my feet just like all these people. They're like talking stuff and you know they're all mindset and motivation coach, um, and you're seeing, like people got a little bit of success and all of a sudden they're expert in almost everything. And I'll tell you this as someone who's had success, gave it up, had success again, gave it up and not trying to do it for the third time. It was different the first time. It was much different.
Speaker 2:
The second time and it's a whole nother story the third time interesting, right, it was never the same. So for you to think you're all of a sudden an expert from one success and you and I'm not going to shortchange you because like hey, it still takes a lot of work to do it and once you have one, you can build upon that but for most of these people to come out and a lot of them say this like, oh, you can take everything away from me and I'll be a millionaire again tomorrow. I hear that all the time.
Speaker 2:
But you haven't. It's hypothetical, right. Let's not talk about the hypotheticals, let's talk about real world, because I don't know how you will react once you didn't have stuff. Then you had it given. Like I said before, like giving it up after you've had it. It's a whole nother ball game and it f*cks with your head and I don't know. I haven't seen you so I don't know how you're going to react when you actually, if you ever have to give that up, it might break you.
Speaker 1:
It's fascinating. You say that because I'll see these clips and give me $100,000, or give me $1,000 and I'll turn it a million by the end of the year. I'll be a millionaire within six months. It's like if you could be a millionaire in six months, why aren't you helping people or?
Speaker 2:
why are you still here? Why are you still trying to sell on Instagram?
Speaker 1:
Why are you an influencer on Instagram? If you could be a millionaire within a year, why aren't you turning your millions into hundreds of millions? To me success. I've told this to Chris. The day that I disappear, people are like what the f*ck ever happened to Pam.
Speaker 2:
He got really rich, he actually made money.
Speaker 1:
I'm not going to say where, but there'll be signs. But I'm not even talking, the toys and sh*t, I'm just going to disappear with my family.
Speaker 2:
You don't need to do any of this anymore. You're sitting here trying to be like I'm worth this and hundreds of millions.
Speaker 1:
You're a f*cking influencer on Instagram. If you're crushing life that much, take your money and go work on your family, exactly, and build a relationship with your children. That's what I look at like and that's where I look at these dads and they're going and getting hazed by military guys. It's like bro, like yeah, that's yeah, it just I just my, I guess where my mind is like dude, if those guys were that successful and have figured out life that much, why are you now trying to collect all this money? And it's like dude, if you're, I don't know to teach their own. I'm not trying to trash anybody, but I just.
Speaker 1:
I look at these motivational speakers and you're worth how much You're an influencer, the richest people that I know I'm talking people that have f*ck you money.
Speaker 2:
Have you heard from Jeff Bezos coming out and doing a mindset thing Because he doesn't need to?
Speaker 1:
The richest people I know and have in my life do not talk on social media. They do not talk on social media. They do not talk, they have exactly I know some rich people on social media, but I I am talking the wealth of people. That people it's hard for them to fathom like they'll go and they'll spend a million and a half dollars on a vacation in africa right and spend 16 days there and drop a mil, yeah, on their hunting tags alone.
Speaker 1:
Yep, that's the wealth I'm talking about. That f*cking. They're not posting now. They're not bragging about their self-help clinic they just hosted and I get it. Those dudes are making great money off of it. But like the true wealth, like in these people that these guys are all talking they're about, they don't live that life, or they, they don't, they don't, yeah at least in my opinion.
Speaker 2:
Man, like well again. Like I said, there's a couple things right. Yes, you got some sort of success and you jumped on the train at the right time, so you're capitalizing. Two things happen from here. Right, we're living in a world of influencers. Right now it's going to die. Like you know, it's on the uptrend but, like anything else is going to get on the uptrend, it's going to reach a plateau.
Speaker 1:
And then you're going to see the drown 10, right, because guess what's not going away?
Speaker 2:
you're still gonna need engineers, you're still gonna need doctors, you're gonna still need firefighters, you're gonna need all of that. And guess what's gonna happen when everyone starts becoming influencers? You're probably gonna see a wage gap turn into the other side, where those guys are getting paid way, paid, paid way, more right, and then you will see all of all the millions of influencers. Unless you're able to bring in a real product or service to the market which can add value, you're replaced with AI. Now, yeah, you just don't even exist Like you, so you better start investing that money that you're making right now somewhere else. But because you're not going to continue this trend, that's just last.
Speaker 2:
It's not going to last that long. That's what I'm saying, right? The other part of this is, like, most of these guys are pre, and it's just absolutely absurd. They're preying on desperate people, which I hate I feel that's my.
Speaker 1:
My biggest problem and you nailed it is they're they're capitalizing on somebody at a very vulnerable moment yes yes, that's losing their family, or exactly feels that he's not manly enough to have this wife. And so now it's like you're capitalizing on somebody and making them pay. You mean to tell me what I just did, for the week cost $15,000. I know you've got to make money on it, but they're taking advantage of guys in very low situations.
Speaker 2:
Even the guys that are like you know we'll help you buy houses and stuff, right, they're just using crowdfunding right. That's what they're doing, how much of a big piece of pie they're getting, and how much are you getting as a desperate?
Speaker 1:
person Sign up, I get it man. I preach this all the time.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it's like you know, we had the time where we actually called a sh*tty car salesman a sh*tty car salesman and that was not a respectable term. Right and now everybody on social media is a pretty much a lot of people are sh*tty car salesmen and they're taking pride in that. I look at my marketing good on you for figuring out marketing, but there's also moral ground for, like you know if, especially for somebody who's going to teach, like, how to be a good human, and then you're out there preying on desperate people, where's your morals, you know?
Speaker 1:
yeah, there's I just there's an influencer. Right now it's going through a divorce. That's all on social. Yeah, and this guy is just last month is giving these couple retreats and speeches with him and his wife and now they're getting to. It's like, bro, you've been with her for three years and you're giving marital advice and this is your third marriage. That's what people don't understand. Look into these. Do you're giving marital advice and this is your third marriage? That's what people don't understand. Like, look into these dudes. You're paying this guy money. That's gone through multiple divorces, right. And then you see his wife on stage and she looks like a zombie. You can just read clear as day that they're not happy together. And then, sure as sh*t, now it comes out and he's still posting stuff like, bro, like you're losing everything that you have bragged to build this empire for is crumbling around you, but you can't walk away from being the influencer. Yeah, that's what blows my mind. And people are still defending this guy.
Speaker 1:
They still defend him.
Speaker 2:
And I'm like, what is there to defend?
Speaker 2:
Well, because it's a cult mentality right Once you start following somebody, you're like I'm in his cult and I will listen to everything he says. Like the other side of it is like all these other guys. They're like oh, look at the country where this is going. Like, and don't get me wrong, I agree with a lot of what they're saying, but all I hear is you sit there and complain let's figure out how we can solve the problem. Like you're trying to preach to the crowd to do something different. Like, what are you doing different today? Right, and I'll be honest, like I don't have a solution to a lot of problems in the country, but like I want to get to.
Speaker 2:
If I was starting to make some money, like I will try to figure out, hey, let's, how do we use this money to actually have an impact somewhere? Right, that's what I would be doing. I wouldn't just be out there like yelling and screaming at people and, you know, just saying like, oh, cops should do better. It's like, brother, why don't you become a cop and show us how better it's done?
Speaker 1:
you know, I mean I started a whole law enforcement program for our organization because people wanted to bitch about it and it's like well, f*ck, okay, we can't bitch about it, let's get them the training. Exactly, get them the training. Here's a solution.
Speaker 2:
If you're not from man. But here's the thing like people's convenience matter, like if I don't have to leave the house to get something to my like, I am gonna make that happen. You got a problem with amazon. Guess what? Let's build another amazon. Then you that's going to do things differently than Amazon that you think Amazon isn't doing. Right, because they also have a lot of small businesses that are selling their stuff on Amazon. Right, a lot. And then if you're going to block one corporation for some reason, then why are you on Instagram selling your product? Because they're also a corporation. On your Apple phone? Yeah, on your Apple phone.
Speaker 2:
So, it's like when you do it, it's okay, but you want to be controversial, so you're going to come out and just spit junk out there and ask people to change. We live in the world of clickbait now.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, exactly, I'm like come on man.
Speaker 2:
What are we talking about here? Let's just have some common sense, right. But I don't see you going for election, let's just figure out a way to get there, right you know, and it's a corrupt system, right? It's like I don't know how we sit here in our country and we call some other country corrupt and bureaucrat when our own government is like that. Yeah, that's been going on forever.
Speaker 1:
But yeah, well, dude, I've had a great conversation with you. I'm glad I got to sit down and get to know you. Yeah, if there's any advice for any vets that are getting out or team guys that are going to be feeling what you're going through you're still fresh, so it's going to be a while. I still feel that you're in the early stages of getting out Is there any advice that you would give them?
Speaker 2:
for anybody listening, yeah, the biggest thing is like, don't put yourself in the hole, because I did that to myself. The hole is in what? Just reach out to people. You know, take action. The worst thing you could do is make your own situation worse by shutting down yourself to everyone else, right? So it's up to you to go out and reach out to other people, and if your buddy just got out, you reach out to them. You know that's also on you as well. Um, and then if you're listening to this and you don't have anyone to talk to, dm me on organized chaos athlete on instagram and I'll give you my phone number. You can talk to me anytime. Man, like I'm never gonna do this as a non-profit, like I have my own issue with some of the non-profits but, dude, I have one and trust me, there's a lot that goes on because, like you, spend a lot of money in like operating expense.
Speaker 2:
You have to, otherwise how else?
Speaker 1:
you don't, though, yeah, done it for a decade man, we run it out of our house. That okay, I've never had a corporate office.
Speaker 2:
So that's how I would do it, and I just it's doable.
Speaker 2:
It's very tough, tough that's why I'm like I don't want to open another nonprofit and try to like spend money in operating expense. I would rather give to somebody that's already and that was kind of the goal with Organized Chaos, right, if it ever makes a decent amount of money, I want to have a good chunk of that going towards like Green River Foundation. And the second one is figure out who is doing work for like E1s to E4 or E5. Even you know in the military and like push money that way. Yeah, because even you know in the military and like push money that way. Yeah, because I mean I don't know how else. You know what you could do. You know, if money comes out of there, what else am I gonna do, paying taxes so they can spend it?
Speaker 1:
correctly exactly uh.
Speaker 2:
So, yeah, that's the biggest advice is like, hey, reach out and then know you will get over the hill right, you have all the talent you need to like do anything you want in this world. So don't let those couple of months or even a year of like a rough time like phase you, because that's you know this, because you've already done in your training you will all you can outlast the time. Just don't let the time outlast you. Time will go away, bad time will go away and things will get better. I like that you know. So all you got to do the time outlast you. Time will go away, bad time will go away and things will get better. I like that you know. All you got to do is just outlast that time.
Speaker 1:
So I feel like it's hard for it's a lot of guys because they feel it'll never end, but I mean eventually it will it will end.
Speaker 2:
just think about, look back to your training, look back to your selection as a man selection courses, right, what happened there? You were doing amile ruck. You thought it will never end.
Speaker 1:
It eventually ended and then you made it, you're such a great example for this too, because you've gone through so many hurdles and you just never stopped. You never let time beat you and you got through it. Did you accomplish so much, man?
Speaker 2:
It was pretty good for you, dude. I think the biggest thing is the time and I'm like I don't want to let someone else dictate what I do in my life. It will just never happen. So, like right now I don't know if we talked about this Like I'm in the pilot program, like learning how to fly airplanes.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, you were this morning, that's why you know.
Speaker 2:
But it's like a good thing to like say that right now, because I was living in a house outside of Nashville in a neighborhood that was like pretty spread out, so I really didn't have any contact with anyone once I like got out and then my team was obviously doing training and gone for things like so if I don't go to the gym, like I don't even speak a single word out of my mouth unless I'm like talking to my dog, really. So I needed a change. Yeah, so that's the other thing a lot of people are afraid of change. When you know you need a change, just make that happen and you will be able to figure things out later on. But at that moment, if you need a change, change whatever that is that's bothering you, because if there's something that's causing it, change that.
Speaker 2:
And it's scary, and when you know it's scary, and when it's uncomfortable, you know's time I left my house, packed everything up, put in a u-haul, I got my dog and I moved to boise. Because what made you move here? So I was. I wanted to like, hey, what did I always want to do for fun? Like I want to learn how to fly airplanes. I don't want to do it professionally. I'm like, all right, let's use the vm. I need to go do that.
Speaker 2:
But because I have mbas, like I don't need another degree. I don't like degrees anyways, you know. So I'm like, okay, but the only way GI Bill will pay for it if it's a degree program, which is, I think, a scam anyways. But I'm like sure, it just gives me something to do so I can keep my mind at ease. It brings me to a new place. You know, I got an apartment downtown, so like I'm around more people and I can just fix a lot of that myself, you know, instead of sitting there in my own lonesome and let this, this whole thing, build up on me. You know, and has it been easy? Not really, but who cares? You know, again, it will pass and things will get better. Until then, it gives me something to do, you know for sure.
Speaker 1:
Um, yeah, well, we got some chatting to do after this. I, it gives me something to do, you know For sure. Yeah, well, we've got some chatting to do after this. I've got some ideas that I want to run by you.
Speaker 1:
Okay, I've got some people you need to meet yeah absolutely Well, man, I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your story. It was an incredible story, from India to Green Beret to trying to help the community. Now I mean it's pretty fascinating and I want to thank you for everything and I want to thank you for the pride that you have in this country. We all should you know Facts, so it means a lot sitting here watching you and I can see the passion and the care that you have for everything that you've done and your boys. I know it's probably pretty hard. It's still pretty fresh looking back on them and you know, having to walk away from the units and I know, I know you've been through man, I've helped a lot and I've been through some some of those sh*t times as well. So I'm here for you.
Speaker 1:
I know there's a lot of people out there that can relate to you and they're going to be able to relate to this episode and hopefully they reach out. We'll get everything posted up for them to be able to use you as an outlet. You know you're still pretty fresh into the civilian world and there's a lot of changes and a lot of things that you've still got to figure out Right, and that's part of the adventure and once you get that mindset and you know like, hey, these are the hurdles. You know, I'm not just going to get a job because I'm a veteran and I have that title, that I feel like I should. So those are all learning and all the steps along the process of of starting a new life in a new chapter. So I'm really excited and I, I, I cannot wait to see where we can take things and how you can help the community.
Speaker 2:
So yeah, man, absolutely, and thanks for like giving me the invite to come out here and talk to you. It's been a great conversation and like just hearing about your background. It just hearing about your background, it's been awesome yeah dude, thank you again.
Speaker 1:
We'll get everything up for anybody to be able to reach out and contact you, and then I definitely got some people you need to meet here in town. Yeah man, perfect. Thanks for coming on, man.
Speaker 2:
Appreciate you.
Speaker 1:
Thank you.
