Latest / Veteran Wellness Podcast / From Mogadishu to Today: Lessons From a Delta Force Operator | Joe Vega

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From Mogadishu to Today: Lessons From a Delta Force Operator | Joe Vega · Veteran Wellness Podcast

• John Adams: And you ignoring your gunshot wounds from O Gadishu probably wasn't medically the best option. So let's let's explain that to me there. Well, you know, unfortunately we have this perception that if we get hurt and we go to the doctor up that we're gonna be branded as non deployable. So unfortunately, the guys in our community still to this day have the smallest, thinnest medical records in the military and instead of what it should be, which is we should have the the largest packets. Yeah. We need to get away from this and it's because we have this mentality that I'll be undeployable and I won't be, you know, the number one guy. See people don't realise it's we live in a in a world in the special ops where everybody's a type A and when you have type A personalities competing against each other, you're always gonna try to do whatever is possible for you to be on the top ten list. And we wanna be that guy that's gonna be s and looked at and say, Okay, we can send you know, we can send and because of that, you know, we will never say when we're we're hurt, we'll never say we we can't do something, you know. Even if I don't know how to do it, I'm gonna say Roger that and then I'll find a way. And Yeah, we're our own worst enemies. That's exactly. We have to get away from that mentality that, you know, if we're injured, we're afraid that we'll become non deployable. That's that's a big mistake. Every veteran has a story. Some stories change lives. Welcome to the Veteran Wellness Podcast with Eric Lawrence. Joe Vega. It's only been 35 years we've known each other, so we must be old. Right up, brother. Yeah. You scared the shit out of me as a young E5 in phase three out at Robin Sage when you were put on our team. And I'm like, this fucking guy's gonna kill us. You were kind of intense back then. ⁓ yes. A little. A little. A little Ranger. A little Ranger Vega there. You you were you taught so you taught more than the instructors did there when we were out patrolling and stuff. It was phenomenal. ⁓ We had a good time. And I and you know what we were lucky was ⁓ we had instructors that realized that there was knowledge out there and they let us utilize our own guys. So that that was smart. Yeah, they they they were outclassed. But different time, different era. You know, you don't you don't see that now? Yeah, I I'd I'd be scared to even look now. So let's knock out some of your background there. Puerto Rico, right? Yes. I was ⁓ actually my ⁓ my father's from Spain and my mother's from Puerto Rico, so ⁓ we they they ⁓ they actually moved to New York so we would be, you know, Americans. You were talking about the fifties. So you know they want us to be true Americans, so ⁓ back then ⁓ a lot of the Spanish families didn't give their kids Spanish names. So that's why I'm Joseph Luis Vega. My brother's James Hector, that's my father and my sister is Elizabeth after my grandmother, who's Isabel, because they wanted us again to be Americans. ⁓ so we were born in New in New York, actually. I was born in the Bronx. ⁓ lived there for ⁓ about four years and then we moved back to Spain. Then for Spain, the whole family packed up, moved to New York, everybody. ⁓ all my aunts, all my aunts, so we moved in an Italian neighborhood because they thought we were Italian. And ⁓ yeah, so I so lucky for me I speak Italian, but at ten years old I was running numbers, you know, I thought that was the life I thought that was the lifestyle. So I say I've ⁓ so I got it s we all got in a bit of trouble. So we moved that back to the island to get away. or we're told leave sit leave to your city or ⁓ you know, something's gonna happen. And ⁓ so we moved. And ⁓ actually I got my life straight, ⁓ did good in school and ⁓ Went to college for ⁓ mechanical engineering. But I got bored with it. So I decided I'm gonna join the army. ⁓ saw these things called the Rangers. They said I'd be fighting every day. I wanted to be a boxer, so I said, Okay, I'll join the Rangers. I used to box golden gloves in New York, so I thought, if they fight every day, that's great. I thought it was boxing. I didn't know it was real fighting. Combat. Yeah. So I joined the Rangers, ⁓ And ⁓ see you y you have to understand s ⁓ my dad thought I'd never amount to anything. He said, Why didn't you join why didn't you Rangers, what's that? And I told him, he said, Well, you'll never be nothing but a security guard in a junkyard. You know, you're no better than a than a junkyard dog. Incredible. He said, and that's what I tell people about the our community, the Space Lobs community. If I go to Oklahoma, you know, Texas, ⁓ mid mid America, rural America, and I say, I'm gonna pay you to live in the woods, shoot, you can eat. Kill whatever you want and eat it and you know, you're never gonna be at a desk beh you know, behind a desk. You're gonna say, Tell me where to sign up. ⁓ you get to shoot all day. Tell me where to sign up. But you go to the inner city and ⁓ and ⁓ you say, Hey, I'm gonna pay you through this, and they say, Are you crazy? You know, I just want to learn a skill. And that's what people don't understand when they say that sp you know, the guys at special ops in our community are are racist and it's ⁓ the white boys, you know, ⁓ club. And not so much now, but you still get I still get it once in a while. And I tell ⁓ listen, when I talk w when people in the inner city the kids in inner city want to join for four years, get out and have a trade. That's it. They want to be a mechanic or work with computers or admin office or electrician or, you know, ⁓ they they don't wanna shoot. What what if you go back to the the city, what good does it do that you can shoot? Yeah. Not at all. Unless you're gonna be a cop or something. And ⁓ and that's what people have to understand is the background. You know. ⁓ not lucky for us we still you know, we do get some of those kids from the inner city. And it's good because now you get a ⁓ a mix, you know. I I hate to say the word diversity because the last administration made it a bad word. But you know, it was a diversity that we did need, especially when we go to other countries. And ⁓ so we're getting a bit more, but still it's still ⁓ more of a of the the the guys from ⁓ rural America ⁓ which is not a bad thing, ⁓ but ⁓ it's hard to get the kids from the inner city to join, you know, that community. And then they'll see they'll see movies, they'll say this is great, but once they try to start going through a selection process, they z nah, this is not for me. Yeah, it gets dark at night. It gets dark at night, yeah. ⁓ so so ⁓ so I went to the Rangers, did the Rangers, ⁓ you know, was there for ⁓ six years and then ⁓ Obviously ⁓ w continue my my career in special ops, so you know, Rangers, obviously special forces. ⁓ I worked in and out with special forces group, ⁓ with seventh group quite a bit. ⁓ and then ⁓ obviously culminated with ⁓ was Delta and ⁓ spent ⁓ almost twenty years there. ⁓ most of ⁓ the ⁓ the majority of my career. So I did a thirty year career. I tell people I don't I was never in the real army. I was ⁓ no I was in a make believe army. Never one day. Just in a make believe army that ⁓ ⁓ obviously ⁓ that created a bond with the people that I work with. And ⁓ you know, when I say these are my brothers, I truly mean it. People don't understand what a band of brothers is. You know. Yeah. A lot of people say it, but they really don't understand when we say we are a band of brothers. You're my brother in arms. And what I tell what I always tell people is that in our community, as much as people talk about it, there is no racism. There is no you know We may hate we may hate each other. We harass each other accordingly. It doesn't matter. But when when you're in combat, everybody's your brother. And you got my my you know, I have your six, you got my you know. it's it's just, you know, we're there for each other and we look after each other and we care for each other and ⁓ and we don't want to lose each other. And that's what people don't understand. They don't understand that they could be a bond like that. Yeah. And it's lifelong, you know. I mean there's shit, I didn't see you for twenty years probably. And then ran into you somewhere, you know, and it does twenty years doesn't matter. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. We went together in Las Vegas and had lunch and we've been you know communicating since. Yeah. Yeah. And then and I saw your brother at a trade show one time. I'm like, hey Joe. And he turns around and goes, I'm not Joe. I'm like, Well, you look like Joe, but you're a leg, you know? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Actually he he's a he's ⁓ a five jump commando. It was good. We had a good laugh about it. I'm like, damn, Joe. Yeah, so so ⁓ he went to the Sergeant Major Academy ⁓ for the the short course. So there was a few guys from the unit that were there for that three week course in the summer. And everybody says hey Joe, hey Joe, and he wouldn't respond. So they all thought that it was that ⁓ it was me undercover. For some reason I was undercover, couldn't use our Sergeant Majors Academy. Yeah, exactly. And then when they get back, they're like, Hey Why were you so rude? I'm like, What do you mean rude? He you kept saying your name was James. I said, That was my brother. That was not me. You know, I think ⁓ that's funny. Yeah. Yeah. I bet he gets tired of that. Big big brother Joe, you know, everybody knows him. ⁓ I tell him he lives w what do you say when when you live I I can't even say the word. He you know, he gets he gets he gets confused with me so many so much that, you know, he started to believe that everything I did he did. I hope he doesn't watch this. Yeah, no kidding. Well you'll you'll lump him up. You're a brother, so yeah, big deal. But ⁓ you know, and in part of this podcast, I want us to, you know, me, you and other guys like us get the lessons we learned the hard way, the things we did probably stupidly that are causing issues with health and wellness now. You know, and maybe they can change it. You know, I know that's probably optimistic at best. But, you know, we were talking pre show here about injuries, how you recovered from ⁓ and then how they deal with them later. And you ignoring your gunshot wounds from Ogadishu probably wasn't medically the best option. So let's let's explain that to me there. ⁓ well You know, unfortunately we ⁓ we have this perception that if we get hurt and we go to the doctor, a regular doctor, you're not just the the the the team medic ⁓ or the PA, that we're gonna be ⁓ branded as non deployable. So so unfortunately the guys in our community still to this day have the smallest, thinnest medical records in the military. And I say military because obviously now we you know we get people from all from Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines. So from Department of of War. and instead of what it should be, which is we should have the the largest packets. Yeah. We need to get away from this and that's because we have this mentality that if I get hurt, I'll be unemployable and I won't be, you know, the number one guy. See, people don't realize it's we're we live in a community we live in a in a world in the special ops where everybody's a type A. And when you have type A personalities competing against each other, ⁓ You're always gonna try to do whatever is possible for you to be on top on a top ten list. So I I tell people all the time, I used to ⁓ I used to challenge, you know, guys like Latin Vickers, you like guys that are exp you know, great shooters. I would challenge them if I was back in the rear, I'd challenge them every day to ⁓ to ⁓ you know, let's go shoot to a compo to a competition. Okay, let's go shoot. Now they would beat me, you know. And ⁓ but I told ⁓ there's gonna come this one day when you're sick and you don't feel well, I'm gonna beat you. And I'll never challenge you again. I'm done. Yeah. Yeah. But I tell people it's ⁓ it's healthy competition. That's the other thing. It's healthy competition. You know, we don't get mad, we kinda joke about it and we and we just keep competing against each other because we want to be the best. But because of that, why do we want to be the best? Because we want to be selected for not only for to go on a deployment with our teams or whatever, but also people don't realize that we get deployed as singletons to different parts of the world. And we want to be that guy that's going to be looked at and say, okay, we can send, you know, we can send Joe, we can send James, we can send Eric. And and because of that, you know, we we'll never say when we're we're hurt, we'll never say we we can't do something. ⁓ you know, even if I don't know how to do it, I'm gonna say Roger that, and then I'll find a way. ⁓ Roger. So we always say we can do it. We can do it, we can do it. Now I I tell guys now, I know you're gonna say you can do it. say I can do it, but you know, I'll need A, B, C, and D and I gotta do this and that. and ⁓ and unfortunately ⁓ Banners and ⁓ you know, have ⁓ made people afraid to say they're they're hurt, you know, because ⁓ even though they care for us and they don't want to injure ourselves more, but we don't see it that way. We see it as ⁓ this this guy just you know he's got something against me or you know, he doesn't want me to go. Yeah, we're our own worst enemies on that. That's exactly. We're first of all, I'll apologize to the to the public if ⁓ again English is my second language, you know. I I think ⁓ Italian is my second and now English has become my third. I still I still go to twice a year to Rome. I teach in the Natal Defense College, ⁓ asymmetric warfare. I can't I can't I can't call it believe it or not, I can't call it asymmetric warfare because they'll say, Well, our country's not at war, so I have to call it asymmetric conflict. And ⁓ Yes. And then they'll they'll allow you to teach it to their their officers and their tomato tomato. Tomato tomato. ⁓ But ⁓ but we have to get away from that mentality that, you know, if we're injured, we're afraid that we'll become non deployable. That's ⁓ that's a big mistake. Yeah. But how do how do we correct it? How do we get the guys to think right? How do we guys do we get old people like us and once you're a cadaver, open you up and show you all the injuries? I mean, wh what is it gonna take? And that's that's why you know, when you told me you want to do this podcast, I said, you know, anything that will help the guys, I'll I'll definitely ⁓ I definitely wanna do because It's it's something that I you would think, you know, I joined the army in nineteen seventy six. You know. Yeah, I know. People go I went to kindergarten, Joe. I I know. And and I've seen the the the transition and I've seen the changes. ⁓ guys back then were mentally tough. And that's the problem. With guys from our era, we were all about being mentally tough and I can endure anything. ⁓ we may not have been the brightest, you know, the light in the black bulb in the box. ⁓ the kids now they're smart. They're very smart. Yeah. ⁓ they they know technology. ⁓ and ⁓ I always tell ⁓ don't, you know, soldiers, ⁓ especially in a soft community, we have to remember that soldiers are there to support technology. Technology is not, you know, or s technology is is there to support the soldier. The soldier's not there to support the technology. And somewhere around we're flipping. And I I know we don't wanna ⁓ unnecessarily ⁓ put our our guys in harm. ⁓ and I'll g I'll give you an example, ⁓ subtrained operations, you know, or just or just CQB. You know, we bust the door and we go in. I tell the guys right now, you know, if you have a robot, if you have cameras, if you have a drone, okay, bust your door, but why are you sending guys in? You know, I'm not gonna th exactly. So I tell ⁓ you know, we used to say shoot, move, and communicate. And ⁓ you know, we say speed, speed ⁓ and violence of action. Speed surprise and violence of action. So it was surprise, speed and violence of action. Surprise, speed and violence of action. But I tell guys, okay, what once you breach, do you really have the surprise? And if it's a and it's a subterranean operation for a tunnel, you're gonna be banging on that thing for at least you know forty minutes. Yeah. So there is no surprise. So now there is no speed because those guys are ready for you. You know, they're they're bo they're they're on the defense, we're on the offense. And especially in in a in a subtrain in in a tunnel ⁓ like the ones you are in ⁓ in Iran, ⁓ you got bunkers, you got all kinda things. So if you just take off real quick, you're gonna bump into one of those and you're dead. So I tell the guys it's not surprise, 'cause they know you're there. It's not speed, it's a deliberate movement. You know you're really cum com you're really conducting a bounty overwatch all over again, which people don't even talk about. And then ⁓ the the violence of action Once you can, but if you can do that with a robot, if I can put a charge on a robot and send it forward. And I've worked with robots for the last ten years. And we've believe me, I've I've set up fifty cows on robots and send them out on ⁓ on observation p you know ⁓ on OPs. I've sent them on ⁓ blocking positions and I've just send I send the robot out, ⁓ they fire whatever they're and then when it's get ready to go, we come back. And if I lose them, I lose them. No matter loss. But at least I don't lose the guys. ⁓ I was a big pro When we ⁓ had the dogs, I was a big proponent of always using dogs whenever we went in. ⁓ again I don't have to ⁓ if the dog is killed, I I'll I'll tell you the the in the twenty years in in Iraq and Afghanistan in ⁓ in the unit, I think they lost I don't know, about twenty something dogs. But each of those dogs saved ⁓ if not a team, a troop's life, you know. So a team you're talking about five, six guys, you know. On an SF team, same thing, you know, you would have, you know, six guys or twelve guys moving around. So that dog saved those twelve lives. And so but I don't have to write his parents a letter. You know, and I don't and I and so and now now we and ⁓ for ⁓ un for tunnel operations we'll send drones and we'll send and we'll send robots. Yeah. I'm for that big time. Because I don't know, we were in Doing some things in Afghanistan, I'm like, this is not a hostage rescue. Stop acting like this is HR. I said, this is mount, you know. So that was one of the things when we were when I was working as an advisor in ⁓ in Iraq and Afghanistan, I would tell the guys, ⁓ you're gonna come you're gonna bridge the door and come and do CQB. ⁓ right at that I said, okay. I said, How many Hassies are in there? Well, none, they're all bad guys. Then why are you 'cause that CQB is for rescuing hostages. Yeah. And if there's no hostage, then surround the place and just you know, and that's when we started ⁓ develop tactical call outs. Call outs, yeah. Yeah, call outs. And and you know we got that from an FBI guy from an HRT that we took with us on a deployment, and he said, Why in hell are you guys going in? Yeah. Well, it's sexy. It's ⁓ you know, it's it's cool. Yeah, it's cool. You get to kill people. I Yeah, but you're losing guys. And ⁓ and we did. We lost a lot of guys in that funnel of death. ⁓ I I was right in the beginning of the war, I was ⁓ called to ⁓ Israel to help up with some ⁓ operations for some tunnels that they had found. And we ⁓ we followed a tunnel into the West Bank and it was ⁓ when we got into the the warehouse, they normally get a warehouse, they start digging. So all the debris is inside, so you can't tell, you know, that they've been digging. I found this the new the draft for Sephardic for the CQB manual. No way. A draft copy. A draft copy. A draft copy, yeah. Yeah. And then once they're published, ⁓ there's a company called Paladin Press and they publish all our all our ⁓ all our manuals, every single one of our FMs And you can just buy ⁓ online. They'll sell it to anybody. But they had the draft manual. That was a big one. So that's Yeah, somebody had to let loose on that one. Somebody let loose on that one. Yep. So one of the guys that was writing it. So but ⁓ so they they know how we operate. So ⁓ twenty years of doing the same thing over and over and over and over, they they know how we operate. So we have to change the way we we conduct operations. If we wanna save our guys, not their lives but also from injuries. And ⁓ So we have to we have to use technology. But again, technology to support us, to support the soldiers. We can't let it take over. It's some generational knowledge too, because everybody's first contact or everybody's first war is the hardest one. Roger. Because everything's new, sensory overload, you you just, you know, of the fire hose of knowledge. And ⁓ and I would see guys that you know, by the time we got to our third one It's calm, cool, collective. You know, like, don't do that. That's stupid. You know, why would you even think of doing that? You know, do it this way. And it's just I love passing down info. I hate relearning a hard lesson. I think it's just moronic. So I you know, all we can do is our best, yeah. Is is put these lessons learned out. I tell people all the time that anybody in our community sees better in a combat zone than they do at home. But heartbeat. ⁓ yeah. Don't get me started. Yeah, we're we're so much more Concentrated and calm and and focused and Roger. Yeah. Like you said earlier, you know, when when the VA asks you, you know, you want to kill yourself, it's like no. I'm wanting to kill everybody else that irritates the shit out of me. Roger. You know? Yeah. Roger. Yeah, that's that's I don't know how we I mean, backing off that, it's it's just having to deal with the day to day. You know. That's my quandary. But then ⁓ you know, but then when you look at training. ⁓ again, the risk that we take during training. You ⁓ know, I'll I'll tell you put on all your kit and go run to Oaks, you know. And you're like, okay. And you know, you brutal on your body. Brutal on your body and how many people have fallen and ⁓ you know had had accidents. But again, you're not gonna run you're not gonna run to the medic. ⁓ look at a I I well, I had my buddy on ⁓ when I was in first group, he was a Fijian stud. He broke his freaking ankle on Friday on a jump. And I saw him on Tuesday getting ready to go running on PT, putting a sock on a black and blue leg. I'm like, Tom, it's we're gonna have to amputate that damn thing. And he was running on a broken ankle. Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you. I wanna tell you one that you that your audience may laugh, but I I I I went ⁓ I went a jump the day after I had a vasectomy. Yeah, that's probably not advised. ⁓ I bet that was memorable. It was not the the best thing to do. But but I was on medication. I didn't feel anything. Knucklehead. Yeah. Well let's get back to you getting shot in Mogadishu, you know, explain how you did that and then what you did for recovery. That'll be interesting for those of us. Roger, so ⁓ we ⁓ we had seen that first ⁓ aircraft go down and ⁓ we were trying to ⁓ to get to that to that location. So we were again, you know, bonding from from street to street, and ⁓ There's one thing that people need to understand. When you're when you're when you're in a urban area and you're ⁓ exposed to fire, you do not hug the walls. ⁓ bullets hit walls and they don't ricochet, you bang and go in every direction. Like it they hit it and they go they travel parallel to that wall. Yeah. So if your lineup, if your stack is against the wall and they and they shoot, people are gonna get hurt. I can tell you that because I was the first stack I was in, same thing. People were hugging the wall. I was a s I was away from it. ⁓ three of us were away. Three of three guys were against the wall. Three guys against the wall fell over when we went to cross and we're weak and then we look back and we're like, Where's the other guys? And they were they were all wounded because they had they had stayed against the wall. Hugged the wall, yeah. So, you know, some we're telling guys not to do it, not to do it, but you know, ⁓ it's the way we had trained, so guys are still doing it. I'm telling people not to do it, but there was that one incident where I did it and ⁓ I got hit and I I I knew it was a ricochet. I mean I'd seen it and it hit me on my it hit me on my knee and my knee pad. My knee pad blew off. ⁓ his button knee traveled up and inserted and inserted in my thigh. ⁓ and ⁓ so I didn't know all I knew was my knee hurt. So I looked for my knee I I looked for my knee pad, kinda put it back on and then later what we were ⁓ inside ⁓ we we went inside a building to kind of ⁓ regroup, consolidate, reorganize through Sibur Some Hammel. And ⁓ so I asked I told the doc, Hey, can you check me real quick? And he said, Hey, I think ⁓ I think you kinda cracked your kneecap and ⁓ I said, Just give me just give me an ace bandage. So I just took an ace bandage, took my kneecap, took took my knee pad off, wrapped it up and then put the put the knee pad back over. And ⁓ I and I just told him, ⁓ when we get out of here, just give me some volume and I'll I'll be okay. he t you know, ⁓ he why he checked my ri the rest of my leg and actually he took he said, You know, you got we you know, you have ⁓ you have some lead in there. I don't know if it's strapped or is the bullet or what, but he just ⁓ he said ⁓ he pulled it out just and I just said same thing. Just give me some gauze and give me some tape and I'll take care of it. And I and I kept on going. Now that was nine hours into the battle. So I little did I know I still had nine more hours to go. ⁓ when we got when we cut back to the rear, as you know, we were we went back, we reconsolidated, we or you know, we reorganized, consolidated the teams, ⁓ registrary ammunition and we went back to the choppers and that's when ⁓ General Garrison came and told us to stand down. And ⁓ no that that's a different story 'cause we were pissed off as hell. I'll bet. Yeah. So so when I went back, you know So I figured, well let we'll let the I'll let the doc check me out and he said, Hey, I think I think it's a little bit more severe than you think. And I thought, nah, don't worry about it. Just same thing. Just give me value. I'll take Motrin, eight hundred, you know, during the day. If we go out anywhere. But if we're back in the in the rear, you know, here in the in the in the ⁓ in the airfield, then I'll just I'll just take some value. I said, just guide me in the right direction. That's what I told him. Guide me in the right direction. ⁓ when we got back ⁓ back home Well, after the I I Long story short, I was in Colombia. I I ⁓ I knew my team was getting ready to go to Mogadishu. So I jumped on a plane, went to Fort Bragg, cleaned my cleaned my kit, and in four days I was in Mogadishu. After we got back, ⁓ I cleaned my kit and in four days I was back in Colombia. So again I didn't I didn't go I didn't go to the doctor, I didn't go to the hospital. So Mog that was ⁓ October third. I got ⁓ hurt. ⁓ I got back about a month after October third. And ⁓ then ⁓ was it Colombia ⁓ till ⁓ December twenty third. ⁓ had an appointment to see the doctor, but they decided that they wanted me to go back to Columbia, so I went to back to Columbia on January second and was there for another six months. See if you didn't speak Spanish so well they wouldn't have sent you down down there. Exactly. But again it was all me. And I was afraid if I told the doctors that I was hurt, ⁓ they wouldn't they wouldn't allow me to deploy. So again it was me. You know, and my medic my medic was telling me, Hey guy, you know, you may want to think this over, and I said, ⁓ not no problem. So I get back to Fort Bragg and I'm not sure, you know, we're gonna do the old course because I was good at the old course and I'm gonna prove everybody's so good. And I'm going through some of the ropes and my leg just locked up on me. And what happened was my meniscus cartilage was completely tore up and it flipped underneath and it locked my kneecap against my knee and I couldn't move. So I'm on top of a rope. And I can't move. I'm like So ⁓ so that one forced me to go to the you know to the go to the hospital. ⁓ so they they did ⁓ they did knee surgery, cut out my meniscus cartilage, so now I've got bone on bone. And ⁓ and I just said, Well, you know, I I'll get over it. ⁓ but I didn't realize is I was putting all the weight ⁓ on my other on my other leg, on my that was my left leg, so I was putting all the the my weight on my right leg. And it was affecting my gait. It was affecting the and I could tell because the way my boots were alignment? Yeah. My heels, the way they were you looked at my shoes from the back, my heels were at an angle. They weren't they weren't getting ⁓ it was it was ⁓ it was ⁓ everybody we joked about it. And ⁓ Well we didn't know any better, Joe. No. No. People do now. I mean if a guy doesn't know now, it's his fault, I think. Roger. But back then we had no idea. We had no chiropractors, physical therapist. Nothing. Nothing. Occupational n none of that. It was nothing. Nothing. ⁓ and then ⁓ so it was years and years later, you know, that I had because it was affecting my other side, I had ⁓ meniscus ⁓ same thing I had my meniscus cut on my right leg. And ⁓ before I knew it I was bone on bone on both my knees. And ⁓ it was until about I don't know, twelve years after I retired that ⁓ I was told I I needed ⁓ knee replacement. So but unfortunately, you know, the damage was done and though I even though I have more metal in my body now than than Iron Man, people don't realize, you know, yes, you can replace something, but the pain is there. You know. Yeah. We l we live with pain. And that was it that was it. Even when I was in the military, you know, my last I don't know, ⁓ ten years in the military. I was in constant pain. You know, my back I I had Botox shots on my back just to numb it, so I wouldn't feel so I wouldn't feel the pain. It was a test study. So they figured, well, what the hell? We'll bring Joe in. And yeah, they would give me shots, you know. So I guess I'll have a a a young looking back for a long time. Yeah, exactly. Did it work though? Did it take the pain out? No. Yeah, that's what I think. Yeah, it didn't work at all. And ⁓ How about your shoulders? Because shoulders are weak as hell. So my shoulders ⁓ I have a class three separation on my right shoulder that I've never fixed. And then ⁓ so ⁓ and then on this one I have a a partial tear. So Yeah. But it's my fault again because the first question I ask is, ⁓ well if I if I have shoulder surgery, how quick can I go to the gym? And they'll say, Well, you'll be out for at least three or four months. And I say, man, so forget Yeah. I mean I I understand that. But I I can I can I can gross I can gross if I move if I move the wrong way, it ⁓ it it it sticks out. So Yeah. I separated that clavicle one day on a door because you never showed her a door, right? Exactly. After a hundred doors, sometimes you do. And my medic's like, Does that hurt? I'm like, What? And he pushes it back down, I'm like, Yeah. Yeah, that hurts. He goes, Come here, dumb one, you know. Yeah. But w but we all live the last years of our career, we all live with pain. We all live with pain. But Motrons and ⁓ wild turkey. Yeah. We learnt to live with it, and then they'll say, you know, your c commander will say, Joe, you need to go to a doctor. But then when you go to a doctor, they touch you, Does this hurt? You go, No. Does this hurt? No. You know, can can you bend over? And you do your very best to bend over as much as you can, even though you're holding your breath and you know your veins are popping out on your head. Yeah. And ⁓ and the doctors know it, but they'll go, Okay, he he bent this far over and Well, Joe, and that's what screws us later when you go to get something at the VA done and they're like, Well, there's nothing in your record saying that you have your injury. And you're like you know, the thin record screws us. Roger. So I I tell I'm an advocate. I tell the guys all the time, I don't care if it's the scratch, go to the doctor, get in your records. Make sure to make sure at least ⁓ if you have a team doctor that he records everything. ⁓ because we don't, we don't, and it's a shame. It's embarrassing, it's really is a shame. And ⁓ I remember guys would go remember you'd take your two ⁓ one file with you to your next station. Yes. Guys would tear that shit out of their medical records ⁓ before they got to the new fucking unit. That was fucking super genius, you know? Yeah. Yeah. We had a guy that ⁓ same thing, he had ⁓ his We were we were on a field ⁓ and ⁓ we were ⁓ doing a a lo a long walk again, you know. And ⁓ he just he just dropped dropped that and ⁓ he had a and when when I did an autopsy he had an enlarged heart and we came we c we came to find out that he had had stuff before and and ⁓ he had ripped it out of his records 'cause he didn't want anyone to know. Well and ⁓ you know I can't fault the man for it, but if that would have been on a real mission You got a dead guy laying there that wasn't killed by enemy. Right. You got a nightmare, you know. Yeah, a nightmare. Yeah. And that's and well, and I think the same thing about my knees or the shoulders or anything, you know. If that if if my knee had ⁓ if I ⁓ locked up on me in on a real in a real mission, now I'm I'm ⁓ not only am I a casualty but ⁓ you know ⁓ I'm no good to my team. I'm a deterrent. You know, and I'm and I'm ⁓ I'm a liability to my children. Liability, yeah. But we never see ourselves as a liability. No, we can do it. We can do it. No, no. No matter how hard we are. Yeah, that's that's it's good and bad. It's a double edged sword, so it's a double edged sword. Does your elbow still give you issues? Because you're still lifting like an animal. That's kind of critical. So I've learned to live with ⁓ Volterran. That's not the VA gives They'll give me Motoron 800 and Volterran. So Whatever. Yeah. And if I'm overseas, I'll buy some ⁓ Dragon Bomb, you know, and Yes. And I smell like dragon bomb all day. Yeah. But it feels better, you know, obviously. And that's the thing, but we're basking the symptoms is all we're doing. Yeah. No, a hundred percent. But that's where some of these modalities I'm gonna try to hook you up with actually correct some of that stuff. And it's ⁓ it's off the wall. People are like, ⁓ it doesn't work. I've seen it work, you know. Right. How some of it works and it's fairly kooky, but if it works, it's not kooky, you know. Roger. So and and like when you talk about lifting, yeah, because everybody, you know, I'm ⁓ you know, I I'm I'm like everybody else, you know, I'll do the crossfit, I'll do the you know, anything that comes out new, we're gonna try it. ⁓ unfortunately, you know, we always push it to the limit. Again, that's always ⁓ we get hurt and we try to hide it and we do things to mass the pain and as you get older you realize, you know, so I've changed the whole way I work out and when people ask me about workouts again I tell ⁓ you know, these are some these are some of the things you have to look I tell we we have to have a balance of aerobic and anaerobic. Uhhuh. And ⁓ you know and like I know that when I was in the when I was in the military, I had to keep My weight, the highest weight I could gain I could have was 220 pounds. Now you figure 220 pounds, my kit without you. Yeah. My kit without a rucksack was 80 pounds. So now I'm at 300 pounds. Now I got a hundred pound rucksack, I'm at four hundred pounds. And I have to be able to jump, you know, ⁓ a fast rope, I have to be able to climb, I have to be able to carry you with your kit on. And here I am weighing four hundred pounds. And people don't understand. That's where that wear and tear. That continues to happen and happen and happened. Exactly. And it's ⁓ it's you know, how do we modify the kid? How do we learn, you know, I got up to w ⁓ one time I said I'm gonna see h how heavy I can get and still function. And I got up to two forty and ⁓ I couldn't function. I couldn't function. ⁓ I got tired quick, you know, ⁓ my knees hurt all the time. It was just too much weight for my body to carry. Yeah. But yet she returned. So ⁓ so my a my my my aerobic ⁓ part of my ⁓ my physical fitness was really completely destroyed, but I kept pushing and pushing and pushing. And then I finally got smart and said, Well, I gotta drop the weight back to two twenty. ⁓ so ⁓ Well for our height, two twenty is about perfect. Yeah, as tall as we are. Right. You know, 'cause you got some beef, but yeah, you're not overloading the the frame. Roger. So even though I got the capacity to get I know I can get up to two forty, my frame is not built for that. And I know it now. So I don't I don't try. I stay between I'd say around two twenty five now, and that's which is ⁓ but ⁓ what are you what are you eating these days? But ten percent body fat. I know, smart ass. But w how are you what are you what's your diet looking like to do that? it looks ⁓ mostly like ⁓ a lot of meat. A lot of meat. My my biggest problem is ⁓ carbs. I need to eat more carbs than I don't Yeah, me too. And ⁓ you we think it's negative two, but you have to to get the burn. Right. Yeah. That's that's a quandary there too, 'cause we've always been told otherwise. Right. So breakfast is mostly ⁓ you know, eggs and and meat, bacon or sausage and Yeah. ⁓ and then ⁓ lunch I try to have a larger lunch with the carbs because you're still active throughout the day. But then dinner is mostly ⁓ again, meat and vegetables. So ⁓ so it's ⁓ so again, it's you know, you I'm cheating my body protein, I'm doing good, but like you say, it has to be a balance. Yeah. That's the hard hard part to figure out. And everybody's metabolism as we're getting older is so much different. Some people can't do any meat, some people are doing all meat. I mean it's all over the freaking place. Right. You gotta tune yourself incredibly fine. Well the guys need to understand it's not about it's not a the word diet shouldn't exist in in our vocabulary. Yeah. It's ⁓ it's it's changing the way you eat, but it's the way you eat has to be based on not only your your ⁓ your body type and what your body can handle, but also what's what are you trying to achieve, what are you trying to accomplish. So again, I I'll ask people at a gym, you know, are you And I I saw this in the unit many times, you know, everybody was powerlifting. And I would tell Are we are we powerlifters? Are we bodybuilders? Are we athletes? What are we? And they would say, Well, we're athletes. Then why are you powerlifting? Yeah. You know? Why are you why are you doing something that is too much? Not fast twitch. Yeah. You know, so you know, in those days, you know, if if I'm if I'm ⁓ if I'm bench pressing two twenty five and you're bench pressing three hundred, well I'm gonna put 325 on there because it's again that that competition. But I gotta realize, you know, really w am I am I not only am I benefiting my body, but ⁓ am I benefiting the team? But am I benefiting, you know, will I still be able to do the things I've been able to do? And ⁓ there comes the point where you can't. Yeah, but that's where I see the modern teams are way better off than we used to be with that Thor system the groups have. I walked in there and I sat down and cried. I'm like, you have got to be fucking kidding me. At first group we had a universal weight set and a set of dumbbells for a battalion. I'm like, this is insane. You know. The the they have learned that. They have learned the nutrition. They have learned the recovery. They have learned, you know, proper proper physical fitness. The unit the unit brings a lot of coaches. well they started it, you know. And then Obviously the Rangers and the groups have done it, but their gyms, like you said, their gyms are incredible now. And it's better than the NFL. I mean, I've been in those and I'm like, this is incredible. And I took my son down to ⁓ Special Troop Battalion there when they first started. He was like sixteen and they put him through that P D test and I thought we were gonna have to call an ambulance. ⁓ no. And he was in shape. I thought he was gonna die. It was hilarious. So they're getting better about that. But when you look at the regular ⁓ general purpose forces, yeah ⁓ they don't they don't have that. So Yeah, that's true we agree with that. Roger. So that that's one of the things we have to remember. It's not just about our community, it's about the military as a whole. Yes and ⁓ and they you know, you got all these master fitness guys, but every every four years they change, you know, look at them now trying to change the PT test again, you know. Yeah. I don't even understand what they're trying to do now. I mean it's just you know throwing the ball over your back. I'm like, what in the hell are you Yeah. Are we in judo or w what's going on here? You know? Yeah, they want to get rid of ⁓ sit ups. And I said okay, so you let's do ⁓ you know, I don't know, let's do crunches. You know, but how d how do you Tall guy versus short guy? You remember that. Roger. Roger. There's little short guys, they gotta move three inches. You know, my push ups, I gotta go twice as far as they do. Exactly. Yeah, I got arms. So there's n none of it's fair. You just gotta deal with it and and and run with it. But I think it's better now than ever. ⁓ the one thing I think we really you and I know better than most is this breach and bullshit and the traumas that it causes compared to how we used to do it and how I wish they would change it today. But as you said, there we're still knuckleheads sucking up onto the charge. So the thing about the charges, ⁓ I tell people the worst things that we've done in the s in the special ops community is ⁓ the stopwatch. And people go, What? I said a stopwatch. And I said, When you have a team, you know, where we're rehearsing for for anything, a mission or or just doing a a Capex exercise or anything, and ⁓ you have either ⁓ you know, your team sergeant, your team leader or ⁓ a time where you've had the start major, you know, there with a stopwatch, trying to see who's the fastest team, who's the fastest team. And I seen a lot of accidents because of that. Me too. I mean look at Mike. Yeah, ⁓ Mike, I know we'll take shortcuts. ⁓ the thing was Mike was ⁓ he ⁓ he wanted to be able to he was the breacher, he wanted to be able to run up to the door and put that charge. And it was raining that day. But what did he do? When before he departed the helicopter, he took the D Sif off the tape of the charge. So when he goes in you have the blast from the helicopter for the propellers and it got They got glasses. Water, mud, gravel. Yeah. He goes to stick it on, it's a metal door. So he puts it out. He pushed it out of there and as it's sliding off, they're doing the countdown and it landed on his head. Yeah. And it was it was something that could e have easily been avoided if they had just But that's a stopwatch right there. But that was the stopwatch effect. And I brought that up 'cause I was part of the A I was the master breacher back then so I was part of the investigation and I told ⁓ it was it was Jody Nacy was the Sergeant Major, you know. Wow. So everybody always wanted you know, everybody admired Sergeant Major Nacy because he was he didn't say do this do this, he said do as I do. He always did everything with us. So he's on a helicopter, he's running out, he's on the lineup, he's there and buddy's got that stopwatch and ⁓ you know, so we cut corners and it ended up being, you know, ⁓ luckily it wasn't fatal. But it was amazingly. But it was still an accident that could have been avoided. And it's like I said, the O course, you know, a guy'll f fall off the ropes with all his kit. I've seen guys bend barrels before. So they you know, they get on the lineup, they can't shoot straight and then and what do we do? Instead of asking, Are you okay? we laugh. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. And we make jokes about it and are you okay? And he says, I'm okay, and we let it go. Instead of forcing that guy to To go to the medics and be be completely checked. Well, and that's where I don't think we're changing that mentality, but sooner or later if we can chip away at it. And and my biggest not injuries, but conditions post service are all breach related. Right. Because when you have a nervous system issue and you c you don't have the dexterity, you can't hear. Well, my tinnitus is screaming right now. Right. I mean it's it's I'm sure yours is just as bad. But when I did some of these scans out at these brain centers, they're like, dude, what what did you do? You know? Because our brain scans are just a wreck. And ⁓ there's only so many ways to get that frequency back into harmony. And ⁓ my big thing is to get guys to quit sucking up on that charge, you know? I mean it's just not worth it. And understand refracted waves and So we I spent ⁓ I spent two years trending ⁓ Thirty two thirty two brigades on subtrained operations for engineers. And ⁓ after after we trained all of ⁓ and we were doing breaching. And we were trying to show ⁓ that, you know, there's sometimes when you're not going to use explosive breaches underground. It may be on the external door, but everything else has to be mechanical, has to be, you know, ⁓ power tools, ⁓ and ⁓ but guys continue to want to use, you know, charges. Even though we told ⁓ you know, it's y you don't understand the overpressure. And I tell them, okay, you want to use a charge here. First of all, you don't know how this is built. And second of all, are you gonna back off you've gained this ground. You've secured this ground. Yeah. Now the army's telling you, if you're gonna put a charge here, you have to back up three hundred meters. So now you're back outside after you fought for that ground. Well so guys aren't they're not gonna give up ground they already fought for. But instead of saying instead of saying we'll we'll try something different, they'll still put a charge on there. I told General Milley, ⁓ he was the one when he was first club commander, he was he was the one controlling that. And then he well, when he was chief of the army. And ⁓ when we were done with all the with thirty two brigades, he said, Well, we're good. We're all T for trained. I said, Well, sir, it's been two years, that means that the first unit we trained, which was the hundred first, those guys have changed. That leadership is departed, those guys are all moved over. Who's left that remembers that training? And have they done rec recurrent training. It was supposed to be we train a cadre type and they would train proteins train the un the un different units in their brigade. Train a trainer. Train a trainer. Every six months. They would they would ⁓ do a a resurf reservification. And ⁓ so we we go ⁓ and did an exercise with the hundred firsts. There was only two people left I remember the training and it was a complete failure. So we go back and told General Millie, listen, ⁓ you don't understand this has to be a recurring thing where we're continuously training guys. Or another thing we said was get get ⁓ s so the idea was that every brigade was gonna have a company that was just for sub T. Now you could still rotate gu you could still rotate guys, but they would train each other. Yeah. And they would always have a group trained and would they handle the equipment, but ⁓ they they never they never gave that mission to just one company and made it the subterranean experts. So that knowledge was gone after two years. And ⁓ General Milley said, No, they're trained. We're not gonna spend any more money on it. So when we asked him why, why won't you spend any more money on it? He says, You know how hard it is? Is ⁓ I He said, Do you know how hard it is to get money from Congress to train for something that and a new threat that we've never faced in combat before? Yeah, so so we're fired. So we train so what the army's always done and the military as a whole is we've always trained for the last war. Yeah. So retarded. So all the training that we are doing now is based off of what we learn if we learn anything off of Afghanistan and Iraq, instead of saying, wait a minute, we're looking at we're looking at our you know, at Iran, we're looking at North Korea, we're looking at you know, Taiwan. Yeah, so we're looking at all tunnels. So it's all tunnels and it's all mega cities. But yet if you look at what's the doctrine for mega cities, there is none. And when you ask these when you ask the the smart generals, what is who've never fallen in a tunnel or used any of this technology, what is the what is the doctrine for fighting in a large scale combat operation in a mega city? They say bypass. One word for doctrine, bypass. Impossible. So how is imagine how many people are gonna get injured? Again. Well, look at vertical targets. I mean, I remember in Baghdad you know, we didn't have really big targets until Iraq. Tall. Right. Tall, right. Then we're doing ten floors, you're like, Holy shit, w we haven't practiced ten floors. We're smoked, you know. And we didn't have our little birds to come down from the top, you know, we're dodging going in from the bottom. How many times did we train ⁓ for, you know, a helicopter down, bring the bring the CSAR bird and You go through the motions, you get about it out. But then when it happens for real, you realize that that training was not realistic at all. No. And the injuries that we saw were nothing compared to what we rehearse or train on. Correct. You know? When you have Well you guys you have guys that are trapped in a down helicopter and you're talking about this this especially the black hawks we have now with this hardened steel and this metal and we don't have the capabilities to cut to cut the You don't the tools. Yeah. We don't have the tools. We I I don't bring an exotomic torch to combat unless it's for a particular reason. You don't carry ⁓ jaws of life with you. You don't carry jaws of life and junior and and they don't work on some of those. And the the blades, you know, even though we we developed several blades So ⁓ the things you have to do to get those guys out of there is just ridiculous. And the injuries that we saw from those from those down helicopters, same thing. It was nothing compared to what you see in in real li what we rehearse and what we train on, ⁓ doesn't compare to the injuries that you see in real life. Joe, you guys had Pro Tech helmets on. We had plastic helmets. Yes. The first first ⁓ First guy killed was ⁓ Earl Filmore. Earl Fillmore. Youngest guy to ever joined the unit and he got shot in the head. Yeah, Steve told me that and then Steve went over to the packies and and pretty much at gunpoint stole helmets. He stole some helmets. ⁓ but we d you know, but that was ⁓ that was once the Pakistanians came back and it was already nighttime and we we didn't issue too many at all. ⁓ what we did was once we got back, the believer or not, the SEALs had been starting to use the the this ⁓ the hard k you the Kevlar helmets and ⁓ so we had a bunch of them sent to us within twenty four hours we got But then what did we do? The first thing we did, we drilled into them so we could put our knobs on and now you just now they're not strong. Yeah. I mean you lost the integrity. Yeah. We just we we completely destroyed the integrity of that helmet. But we put ⁓ on and and better than nothing put in a ProTec, man. I still have the Protec. Just to stare at and go, That was just incredible. Yeah. Yes. It's ⁓ yep. I still have a few of the the helmets we wear now, I still got some plastic ones that we that we have, you know. Yeah, that's amazing. So what I mean we've we've covered all over the damn place. What what's your salient points to get through to a commander or a sergeant major or a team sergeant to try to to push on to the younger guys that hey, it'll all sort out. You don't have to be on every mission, you know, but I don't know how we get through to ⁓ you know? Yeah, I d you know it In in a in our community, the good thing is we have some good medics who r recognize, hey, things need to change. And they are they are changing and they are changing in the right way. Unfortunately, if ⁓ once we retire, a lot of us don't have access, you know, to those same medics and that same care. ⁓ sure, if I was at Fort Bragg, if I was at Tampa, if I was, you know, in Fort Benning, Georgia or Fort Lewis, sure I could go to the medics there and get treated. But I don't. I don't, you know. So I'm I'm stuck with either you know ⁓ either use tri care or or Medicaid or Medicare. See that's not another thing nobody tells you is you join the military and you say, Wow, I got you know, I could go to V I got my guys, I got the VA, I got this, I got I got I got I got medical treatment for life. Well guess what? When you turn sixty five, you're forced to go to get into Medicare system. ⁓ And then your TriCare becomes TriCare for Life. The TriCare becomes your supplement. Your B plan. So your A plan is Medicare. Your B plan is your TRICARE or your VA. Really? So so your first so you don't go straight to the VA or I mean you can, but if you live in an area way, you're going through TRICARE and you're going to see a student doctor. Well, I'm going to the VA now again because everything I did through the ⁓ through ⁓ tricare, none of those records was transcribed to the VA. So now everything that I got checked on and I try to fix, now I'm going to the VA trying to get all my records so they can be ⁓ so that they can all have the same information. I just figure, you know, hey every doctor, you know, they all have access to so if I say I I was in trike care, I was seeing this doctor, they would just automatically VA would go and get all the records and say, ⁓ yeah, this is what you got. Yeah. They don't so I'm saying I got this injury and I got this and this was ⁓ hurt you know, I w I w I hurt my back again. I've ⁓ I have a three year history of of of back problems. But when I went to the VA this time they said, Well I don't see any records and I had to get everything from the civilian doctors and take it to since I retired and take it to the VA. Yeah. it's just it's just there's a big disconnect. ⁓ Huh. So the so that's I'm not orders. I'm not disorders, you know, so I didn't run into that. So you've Yeah, so you feel like you have to start all over again and and and that and make things worse, you have to pay for your you have to pay for your Medicare. So So the thing is so now, you know, you go from VA, which was a bad system, the old one, and you say, Well, I'll do tri care, I'll use medical doc you civilian doctors but some of these civilian doctors don't understand the injuries that we go through. So unless you're unless you're referred to a specialist, which may take time, you end up not seeing anyone. And then when you go to a VA, they'll Well, I don't see this in your records. And I'm like, Well, that's funny because I've been treated for it for the last five years. Yeah. And so so that's that's the problem I've had. That's what I encountered just I'm talking about rec right now, is how you know, trying to get all my records from the VA and the civilian and Medicare combined. You know? You would think there would be an app out there that we could keep our own records in some way that we can just, hey, here here you go, download this and that's my medical records. I I had to I had to go through all my old records and I had to get paper records and scan them and send them to the VA. That's what I'm saying. There's some way somebody's gotta organize that. Because that's a a massive problem. Right. Huge audience. So you think you're getting treatment and you figure, ⁓ well, you know, and then the you know, you go to a VA and say, Hey, you know, ⁓ I'm having problems with this and this and because when you retire they're gonna do the check. They'll say, Well, I'm gonna give you ten percent for this. But I know that within a few years, you know, ⁓ it'll be this much. But they never call you back and say, Hey, how how about if we have a how about if every ten years the VA says we're gonna reevaluate you? Yeah. But unless but then the problem is they'll tell you we'll reevaluate you, but you may lose Yes. We may Yeah they may pull it. They that we may find that ⁓ like let's say ⁓ my right hand. I I mess up my right hand, that's my primary hand. But let's say, yeah, but in the last ten years you adapted with your left. So now we're gonna take away the benefits that you're getting from your right hand. Yeah. No, I have heard that. So that's you're It did that to Alex Segeti. Alex Sagetty lost his right hand, right? And and after a while they said, Well, we're taking the benefits away because you you've ⁓ you've adapted and your primary hand now is your left. And you say, What? That's not going away. But they said if you mi if you lose an eye, ⁓ that's okay. You know, then we'll but a hand you can adapt. ⁓ righty then. That's real polite. Yeah. Yeah. But those are the things. Those are the things no one tells you. You think, you know, when you join, they'll say you'll have medic medica you know, you'll have medical treatment for your for the rest of your life if you do, you know, if you retire. Okay. But they make it difficult Very, very difficult. Well, that's part of what I'm gonna try to put out is how we can use all these different foundations to get the specialist. Because I've had to do that through the years and and navigate it by myself the hard way. Yeah. I mean teams are. You know, the thing is on for like for us on a team, or let's say in a in a in a regular, you know, regular army unit, the your your platoon charge, they're the ones that are with the troops. It's not the platoon leader, it's not the team leader, it's not the officers, ⁓ it's it's the NCOs that are together and they know the condition of their troops. But those leaders need to say, you know, okay they think if they n if they tell somebody, hey, this guy needs to go to the doctor, you need to check him. Now all of a sudden I'm an arc, I narc on you and I destroyed you because I turned you in. But they so how do we change the mentality of saying for people to realize that we may be friends, but I'm not Turning, you know, I'm not betraying you, I'm trying to help you. Yeah. But Yeah, down the line you'll thank ⁓ You know. But my whole career, I mean, I was like, hey bro, you know, you you kinda messed up. Maybe you need to see a doctor. No, no, no, I'm okay. And I would say, Okay, you know, but if you know if it starts to cause you problems, you know, just make sure you let me know. Well, he's never gonna let me know. Yeah, he's never let And I just and I just and I and I just looked the other way. Well, we're the same way. Yeah, we would have just said, Okay, and then you would a I mean you still in the back of your mind you'd give ⁓ things that wouldn't aggravate it. You know, even how if you didn't fry. But how do you change that mentality? And I don't know. I think Is it getting a bunch of old guys is it getting old guys like us saying, you know, you know, yeah, look, ⁓ yeah, I walk straight every day like this. ⁓ man, look at this. My judge. Every day it's like hell. You know. But then at nighttime, I got I take a you know, I have a thirty minute shower under the hottest water I can. Yeah. I I I never had a hot tub before because I thought it was the the gayest thing ever to be in a in a thing at a tub, especially with other dudes. But now I've learned, you know, that I gotta get in the hot tub for twenty minutes if I even wanna be able to go to sleep. Yeah. So Yeah, and it Joe, I hope it it I hope it doesn't take, but I hope they listen to us because, you know, thirty five years ago I didn't think either of us would still be alive. You know what I mean? Right. It's what we got away with. Roger. And then I hope somebody and I've had some success stories on on younger guys going, Hey, that shit ain't gonna work long term, buddy. You know, this life's not a sprint. It's a marathon. And ⁓ all we can do is try, Joe. So maybe ⁓ I don't know. Maybe Doc Pete Chambers, he's got a lot of pull. Maybe ⁓ maybe I just you know, we need to get maybe we need to go see, you know, seg def Pete. Yeah, I don't care. Yeah, I mean we'll hit SOCOM Surgeon up, we'll hit Mulholland, we'll hit whoever. Mulholland. I I I try to hit Well, I know that we have to have our own subsystem. I mean, I I I have no trust in the system, but it's still our duty to try. Roger. But as soon as that doesn't work, our pace plan is to move to something else. You know, So my thing with private donations and you know specialists come in. The reason I I brought up the SEGTEF is because ⁓ He, you know, a a lot of the generals said, Well, who's he? He's never been a general. He doesn't understand this. But guess what? So so he was he was never, you know, he was the kind of commander that was still with soldiers when he got out. So he understands the soldiers. Look, he goes and does PT with the guys. He understands that community. He wasn't brainwashed into, you know, I'm up here and you guys are down here. He's still at this level. So he understands the soldiers and I've seen him to ⁓ I saw him at Coronado one time and and when he talks to the soldiers you could tell that he understands what they go through because he lived it. So my thing is, you know, I always thought and that was one of the things I I was gonna talk to ⁓ Doug Chambers about was 'cause he's got the connections is maybe maybe we need to get with him and explain to bring a bunch of old, you know, farts like us and explain, look at us, you know. We look healthy because we carry ourselves that way. Well we yeah, we it's a daily battle though. You've seen the guys that don't do anything too, Joe. Roger, Roger. They're a wreck. You know. ⁓ they don't last long. No. They don't last long. They're a wreck. And the guys are in a lot of pain, then unfortunately, we have the highest rate of suicide because they'll you know. Yeah. ⁓ so and and we see it all the time, especially during the the worst time is from Thanksgiving through New Year's. Well and they're done that. Yeah, Roger. We're constantly calling guys to make sure that they're not left alone to see if they're okay, make sure we you know people invite ⁓ over. But Something has to be done 'cause we're losing guys, you know. The pain. I sleep three hours a night. That's it. Yeah. You know? I take a bunch of gavapetin, you know, six hundred six hundred milligrams. I take four pills every night. I fall asleep for half an hour ⁓ well sometimes if I'm lucky, three ⁓ two hours and then I'm awake. Hm. That's the rest of the night. Roger. Yeah. But I'm but it's the pain. You know, we live with constant pain. So how do you convey that, you know, to Well I I hope we can explain it and and ⁓ like any of this, you know, if you get a ten percent success rate, that's that's pretty good probably. You know. ⁓ it's gonna be very small. But you you don't know who we can influence. I mean, some of the little I I wrote a ⁓ Veterans Health and Wellness reference book because I couldn't write the how to without the reference and shit it turned out to be four hundred pages. Right. You know? But if you don't know what we're talking about, how can I teach you how to do it? So my second one's coming out that is it's how to. So you can refer back to the first one you know and go, okay, now I know what I'm talking about. And then you can triage a guy, you know, at our age where you you you already had broken things, but if we can eliminate the things earlier, you know, I'm telling you, you're you're You're super breacher. I mean, I think that's the biggest thing you could do is to continue to harp proper breaching. But in contacts, one thing, but in training's a whole nother. Okay. So I still I still ⁓ I I ⁓ threw ⁓ well, how was I CTT C T S O, I WTSD, C D N I, they can't change their name. I I've done a lot of contracts with them teaching breaching, especially ⁓ underground who's ⁓ was Jose Gordon. He's ⁓ also a good very good breacher and he understands him and I both understands the injuries and ⁓ and and what what it can cause long term effects. And that's one thing that him and I are constantly talking to the soldiers about is you know, again, don't be dumb like us, you know, keep your distance, learn learn about NEW, also learn about what the body can take. You know, earplugs, you know, something as simple as an earplug. You know, how how long you know, during our era Little yellow earplugs. But who wears who wears earplugs who wears foam earplugs in combat? Nobody. No one does. You know? No. Because you have to be alert, you have to be able to hear. You have to be, you know ⁓ so so ⁓ but again when you go to the regular units, ⁓ the South Committee may all have pelters now, but the regular guys don't. Well imagine the artillery guys. I mean the concussion. of a one five five going off is just as bad as a breach. Probably worse. It makes brittle bones. I mean it it does a neurological nightmare to the body. So for those guys, you know what the army's ⁓ solution was? You don't have to be all ones on your medical profile. You could be twos. Yeah. Wow. Let's make ⁓ failure a a success. Yeah. So you can You can have injuries and ⁓ you're still good as long as you're, you know, two two twos across the board and not I'm like, Well, don't we want once? Well yeah. But they just gotta cock the cannon. They don't have to Yeah, I was gonna say they're just yeah, just pulling the cord and and rolling with it. But yeah. It's still massive ⁓ and mortarmen too. I I have no all that stuff. Recoiless. Look how many eighty fours you'd shoot in a day. And you're like, ⁓ my god, how dumb are you? You know? So remember we got rifles. We got the eight T fours. We got the A T fours. We went out the field. We were shooting ten of these things a day. Everybody's laughing and everything. And then what was it? Four years later, they say, ⁓ you can only shoot two or you know, or one. Two a day. Yeah, two or three a day. ⁓ oops. Yeah. Why didn't you tell me beforehand? They didn't know. Because we wanted to get rid of the because we wanted to get rid of the ⁓ seven millimeter recordless rifle, the big bazooka. That was it. So when I was in the Rangers we ⁓ we took the we took those recalls rifles, they call well they were they were cannons, they were bazookas. We c we took we figured first bat, we operate in the jungle. We don't operate in the in the open fields. So we were shooting flushette rounds. So we just took hack we took hacksaws and we cut ⁓ We cut ⁓ so we could so we could jump ⁓ And we made ⁓ more we made ⁓ more lethal. Lethal not only to the enemy but for us. Yes. Yeah. To you, yeah. That was Blast is closer to your face every time you crank one off. Exact exactly. But our method was I'm in the jungle, I don't have an open area, maybe a hundred meters, fifty meters is my longest shot. I'll be using shots I'll be using flushette runs. So let's cut ⁓ And then we can jump. We don't have to palletize them. Wow. Yeah, ⁓ GIs can figure out a a way around things, but we don't look at the r the the results later. That's right. I'd never heard that, but that God, that would hurt. Those things hurt when they're long. So for the younger guys, it's again, it's about I guess informing them, you know. Yeah. Talking to the old vets. And then with the old vets, is how do you consolidate all your records together so that the VA knows what's happening when you're in the Medicare system or when you're going through the Tricare system? I th I truly I believe that anything that is through tricare. automatically go in my in my medical records with the army. But they they're not. No. Yeah, that they're totally disjointed. Mm-hmm. That's that that's new info for me. So I I'll look into that more and seeing ⁓ 'cause man, nowadays with all this AI and all this bullshit, they should be able to to link all that stuff. I mean Roger. Roger. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't even I didn't even know that was an issue. I mean I I know our old paper records versus everything else, you know. I I was in the VA recently and they're like, Well, where's this record? I'm like, How the fuck do I know? You know, I mean I don't have my medical records on me, you know. I got out an eon ago. Exactly. ⁓ I'm like, Can you not see the scar? I mean, I didn't do that on my own. You know. So that's we're always gonna have that problem, but I would like us to ⁓ To harp with who you you we know a lot of people, Joe, between you and I. Holy hell. And you know, and I I hit up one of the names we said earlier on something, and he's like, Yeah, Eric, they just won't do it. I'm like, Well, does it make it right not to try? You know, I got you got three fucking stars on your shoulder. You know? Somebody will listen to you versus me. And if they don't do it, you know, you figure it out. Well, I'll I'll tell you what I'll I'll cut that ⁓ Doc Chambers, I'll contact ⁓ General Midler and I'll I'll tell them what you know what you're trying to do. And maybe we can get together and ⁓ and you know get a find between all of us we should be able to find some smart people that can come up with an answer. For sure. But but Joe, at our age, I don't know you can only work out so much, but we gotta find something to do, you know? Exactly. Exactly. I had the PT this morning extra hard because I knew I was gonna talk to you and I I didn't wanna be all deflated. You know. I I didn't I wanted to bulk up a little bit for you, you know. Make me look bad and Well you do. You look great. You're damn near seventy, you know. I know. I know. Can't even imagine it. I it's just beyond me that we made it this far. Right is that. Yeah. Well, let's kill this one and we'll we'll talk one. Okay, brother. Okay. Thanks a lot. ⁓