Latest / The Warriors & Watchmen Podcast / Old Glory, Golf & Grit: Warriors & Watchmen with Chris "Sonny" Sonnabend

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Old Glory, Golf & Grit: Warriors & Watchmen with Chris "Sonny" Sonnabend · The Warriors & Watchmen Podcast

• 0:19
  Welcome to Warriors and Watchmen Podcast, hosted by the CJ3 Foundation and No
• 0:23
  Boundaries Nonprofits, presented by Raven Tech and Negative Bounce Productions.
• 0:28
  I'm your host, Eric Thomas, a.k.a. CJ3 Actual, the director and founder of the CJ3 Foundation.
• 0:35
  With me, as always, on my left, probably your right if you're looking,
• 0:39
  is CJ3 Foundation Senior Advisor for the state of Virginia, Roger Singh.
• 0:45
  And as always off camera is guy way bright our guy in the sky the ceo of negative
• 0:52
  bounce productions i mean that was really professional i don't know what to do right now.
• 0:58
  That was way too professional i like it are we done yeah,
• 1:01
  i just i like laughing at cj3 actual makes me laugh so i'm cj3 partial for state
• 1:06
  of virginia apparently no no no a guy in the sky hold on we need to go military
• 1:11
  real quick see when you're actual what does that mean That means you're the team leader.
• 1:16
  That means you're the commander. So whatever call sign you go by,
• 1:19
  if you're call sign actual, then you're the guy. When you're on,
• 1:23
  everybody shuts the f**k. You know what up?
• 1:26
  I mean, just for us non-military folk, I just laugh at it. It's just kind of
• 1:29
  funny. That's all it is. That's all it is. Well, if you bring the truth,
• 1:32
  that might make you factual.
• 1:35
  That's true. That's very factual. This is Roger factual. Yeah.
• 1:40
  So what do we got to talk about today? We had a busy weekend last weekend,
• 1:44
  right? We did. We did have a busy weekend with a golf tournament.
• 1:48
  How did it go for you? How'd you hit? So I had Guy in the Sky on our team.
• 1:53
  And I will say, so I'm not a golfer. I love to play, but I suck at it.
• 1:59
  And my goal is as long as we play my ball a couple times throughout,
• 2:04
  you know, in a scramble. It's a victory. Hey, that's a win. It's a victory.
• 2:06
  And if I have enough balls to cover what I'm doing out there, then I'm good.
• 2:11
  And we did both, and we came out zero for a score, which to me is success.
• 2:16
  So I accept that. With Reardon playing, from what I heard, considering he couldn't
• 2:20
  hit shit, that's pretty good. So Guy must have carried the team is what I'm
• 2:23
  hearing. No, no, no, no, no.
• 2:26
  He did today. I'll just say we had a number of shots that we helped each other.
• 2:32
  It actually worked out well. It was a team effort. It really was.
• 2:35
  I could so what about you guys I mean so,
• 2:39
  I let's just say I got the ball off the tee and off the ground who did you golf
• 2:42
  with so I golf with Tony Bowers from Bear Chase who was a sponsor I golf with
• 2:47
  Mike Winslow who sponsored our team from the Winslow group and I played with,
• 2:52
  Mike Griffith I almost called him Griff Hammer which is what he's in my phone who goes by Hammer,
• 2:56
  I got texted by him but with that actually I was going to say is he was he was
• 3:01
  talking about getting his company involved and doing some donations too Was
• 3:04
  that what he was texting you about?
• 3:06
  I couldn't tell because I think he'd had a few. He was probably an accurate statement.
• 3:12
  We finished seven under and mostly because Winslow is a spot on golfer,
• 3:16
  not because of anything I did. I think we used...
• 3:19
  Three or four of my shots, maybe. But that's a success. That's not bad.
• 3:22
  But I mean, for my first time out this year, getting the ball off the ground,
• 3:26
  which is what I cared about versus line driving, but it was a great tournament
• 3:30
  overall. Hold on, let me ask a real question.
• 3:31
  No shit. How are you physically the next day? Oh.
• 3:35
  Could you both? Could you move? I would say for the next three days,
• 3:39
  I was like, holy shit, I don't know what I did to my body. How about you?
• 3:43
  I need to make an appointment with our chiropractor because my neck and back
• 3:47
  are screwed up right now.
• 3:48
  But I had a good time. man it was good i will tell you i forgot how exhausting
• 3:52
  it was because we picked we got phenomenally lucky weather-wise we did right
• 3:56
  in the middle of two storms weather storms whatever and we had a beautiful day
• 4:00
  but man the sun baked me i got baked,
• 4:03
  i mean i got a tan i got i mean you're brown i mean i'm brown you're indian so i mean it's i mean,
• 4:10
  that's i'm glad you know what i am now guy consider the first time i was here
• 4:13
  you thought i was spanish you was all sorts,
• 4:16
  of Or whatever's convenient for us.
• 4:19
  Hey, I got a question for you, Guy, because this was your first time out.
• 4:23
  How was the beginning of the golf tournament? Because we tout this as the most
• 4:26
  patriotic golf tournament in Loudoun County.
• 4:28
  Oh, man. So I will tell you, the guy that read.
• 4:34
  Staff Sergeant Parsons, I would bring him to do Old Glory anywhere.
• 4:40
  Oh, dude, he's so awesome, bro.
• 4:41
  Oh, man, he's so good. Look, I went to a retirement ceremony in Tampa the following
• 4:47
  week, and they did a different version of Old Glory that, you know,
• 4:50
  somebody was reading it in the narrator.
• 4:52
  The presentation was amazing.
• 4:55
  But I was just thinking, like, man, if Staff Sergeant Parsons was reading this,
• 4:58
  holy fuck. I got to tell you, this is the first year I've seen him do it with a mic.
• 5:03
  Yeah, because usually he walks. Because normally he walks when he's doing it,
• 5:07
  and he's so, like, his voice is fucking booming. I mean, to be honest with you,
• 5:12
  like, golfing was amazing. It was fun.
• 5:14
  But that was the absolute highlight of the whole day. That's awesome.
• 5:18
  The absolute highlight. Like how he projected old glory was,
• 5:23
  and by memory, by memory, he didn't read it by memory.
• 5:28
  That was truly amazing. It gave me, it gave me goosebumps. Dude, it does.
• 5:33
  And I've heard him multiple years. Right. Every time it's phenomenal.
• 5:36
  And here's the real cool thing. So he came up to me, man. And I,
• 5:39
  I welcomed him. I love seeing that guy. He's just a ray of sunlight,
• 5:42
  whatever, you know, he came and told me, he said, Hey brother,
• 5:46
  you know, I'm getting ready to retire and go down to South Carolina. Oh shit.
• 5:49
  And I kind of, I was like, you're what? You don't get to do that.
• 5:52
  And he said, oh, don't worry.
• 5:53
  Keep me on your schedule. I'm still coming for this.
• 5:56
  So when he retires, who's reading all Gloria Hison?
• 6:00
  Don't know, man, because I wouldn't want to follow him. He's awesome.
• 6:03
  No, he's fantastic. Do you know what we ought to do for Warriors and Watchmen
• 6:07
  is we should have him as a guest. Oh, that'd be a blast.
• 6:11
  And then have him. Kind of talk about why he got in there. Why he does it.
• 6:15
  And then we actually have him do it as how he projects it because it is something,
• 6:20
  it's truly bone chilling.
• 6:23
  Well, he's active reserves right now too, right? Is that what he is?
• 6:26
  But I think he's getting ready to retire and roll down to South Carolina and just be done.
• 6:29
  He reminds me of like a playwright or something.
• 6:32
  But I will say, I appreciate the hell out of him because he said this tournament
• 6:35
  means so much to him. He doesn't want to give it up.
• 6:37
  And that, man, you're talking about the ultimate, people could have complimented
• 6:41
  us for whatever that day wouldn't have mattered. That was the ultimate compliment.
• 6:44
  And Sonny, if you heard this, because I know you like the whole reading.
• 6:49
  Well, hold on. How about we do this?
• 6:51
  Oh, yeah. Hey, we have a special guest today.
• 6:55
  Sonny Sonnabend. How are you doing, Sonny? He could have edited around it.
• 7:00
  He could have edited around it. Let's go ahead and introduce him since the guy
• 7:03
  in the sky wants to pull it early. But that's fine. Hey, Sonny, glad to have you here.
• 7:07
  So now go ahead, guy, now that we've at least officially introduced who this guy is.
• 7:10
  There's going to be a different intro for Sonny. But Sonny, if you heard this
• 7:15
  dude recite Old Glory, dude, it is phenomenal, dude. Phenomenal.
• 7:23
  Because the way he projects it, and it's by memory.
• 7:27
  It's passion. You know, he, you can clearly see he put a lot of time into making it perfect.
• 7:34
  And it is just truly amazing. It's truly amazing. Then we had,
• 7:37
  we had our former guest, 77 year old or 80 year old. I don't know what he is.
• 7:43
  Leonard McCoy, McDonald, sorry. Big Mac. McDonald, Big Mac.
• 7:47
  Who was holding the flag, which was spectacular. Bro, and he took that shit
• 7:51
  serious. Oh, I tried to get him to hand it to me twice because I think we're
• 7:55
  done. Dude was mean mugging and everything.
• 7:58
  He was not letting that thing go. And I'm standing behind him going.
• 8:01
  I got his hat in my hand, and then he takes it off for the national anthem,
• 8:05
  and then all of a sudden I'm like, I'm sure he wants it back on.
• 8:08
  And he's like, no, I'm good, I'm good. Well, because he didn't want to move. He didn't want to move.
• 8:11
  Because we had the national anthem sign. We had all that. He did not want to
• 8:14
  move. He didn't want. And bless his heart, man, because the one thing he asked,
• 8:18
  remember before, he was like, I was like, hey, will you do the honors of holding the flag?
• 8:23
  Bro, he was proud as hell. He was. And his only comment was,
• 8:26
  can Roger stand behind me?
• 8:28
  Just, he was so worried that the wind, he was so worried about the wind or anything
• 8:32
  else because, hey, the dude's getting up there.
• 8:34
  I mean, he is about 80. He's an old dude, but, man, he's awesome,
• 8:38
  and that was a proud moment for him, so that was cool.
• 8:40
  It was. It was very cool. And we, I mean, like I said, throughout the tournament,
• 8:43
  we had a few new things this year than we,
• 8:45
  had in years past, but we had the bourbon putt was amazing the bourbon putt
• 8:49
  that's grown actually that has grown tremendously and i was super pissed because
• 8:54
  i missed all three of my shots at thank you for your donations well here's the
• 8:59
  other thing here's the other thing i was thinking about with it i was
• 9:01
  like i don't i don't know if it's right for me to win anything being that i'm
• 9:03
  a part of the foundation that's a great excuse i'm missing on purpose so i missed
• 9:07
  on purpose just to give money to the foundation it's fine you could have gave
• 9:10
  it to somebody i could have tell me you don't believe this.
• 9:13
  I firmly believe this. People are going, they're aiming for the specific bottle they want.
• 9:18
  I firmly believe you close your eyes, grip it, rip it, and say,
• 9:21
  you're probably more prone to hit something than if you were aiming for it.
• 9:24
  I mean, because it's a guess. And we changed it up this year.
• 9:27
  We were playing the same course last year. It was in a different direction.
• 9:29
  This year, we decided to make it the entire fucking putting green,
• 9:32
  which was huge. It was crazy.
• 9:33
  So when we were hitting at it and they had bags over some bottles,
• 9:36
  you didn't know what you were getting.
• 9:37
  And yeah, I'm walking down there to pick up my three balls and one guy hits two in a row.
• 9:42
  I was like, son of a bitch. Well, and big thanks to Rob and Sarah Whitfield
• 9:47
  with Haven Longevity and Wellness for being our title sponsor and providing.
• 9:52
  All that booze out there for that.
• 9:54
  That was awesome. And then we also had, what we had come back was the gun.
• 9:58
  Yeah, we got the cannon. Dude, that is so. M4 launching golf balls down the
• 10:02
  hole. Get out of here, right? No, no.
• 10:04
  But here's the first part. You show up. It was amazing. You get a cigar.
• 10:07
  Then they hand you a shot of fireball or whiskey.
• 10:11
  Or whiskey, yep. You do that. Then you shoot the golf ball. And that counts as your hit. Nice.
• 10:17
  I mean, so I was. It goes like 500 meters. I was kind of pissed that I didn't
• 10:22
  get my photo taken with a gun in my hand this year. Everybody else that came
• 10:25
  through seemed to get their photo done. If only we knew one of the camera people. I mean.
• 10:30
  You better talk to your sister. Right? I asked her if she didn't show up until
• 10:34
  much later, apparently. Even Jen got a photo.
• 10:37
  My lovely fiancee got a photo with a gun in her hand. She's like,
• 10:40
  that photo can't be shown to anybody because I look stupid. I was laughing.
• 10:43
  I was like, you look fine. And, of course, mine was carrying the camera,
• 10:46
  shooting pictures, and I'm not in any of them. Yeah, you're not in any of them.
• 10:49
  It's fine. Don't you hate that?
• 10:51
  Actually, I don't. I'm probably better off that I'm not in. Take pictures of everybody else.
• 10:55
  But, no, hey, phenomenal golf tournament. Highly recommend you come out next
• 10:59
  year. We had a blast. Yeah, it was a great time. And thank you to all of our
• 11:02
  sponsors and everybody. That was a fantastic time. And just so we can talk about.
• 11:06
  Yeah, what else we got coming up, bro?
• 11:07
  We got a ton of stuff coming up. So we have Clays for a Cause coming up in Wisconsin
• 11:12
  on the 16th. Yeah, tomorrow's putting that on in Wisconsin. Our ambassador out
• 11:15
  there, which is a phenomenal event every year.
• 11:17
  And then we have a dual event coming up with the Percival and Ashburn Pub.
• 11:22
  It's their Rocky event that's benefiting the CJ3 Foundation.
• 11:26
  Explain the Rocky event, because I didn't know this either. So it's Rocky's
• 11:28
  50th year. If you guys didn't know, Rocky Balboa, if you didn't already feel
• 11:33
  old, it's Rocky's 50th anniversary of the movie being released.
• 11:37
  Which was, I guess, 1976. So now I'm really. That's when I was born. That's when I was born.
• 11:43
  Eric, you old fuck. So they're doing an event. Wait till it's going to happen to you, bro.
• 11:47
  They're doing an event for Rocky, but at the same time, it's going to benefit
• 11:50
  the CJ3 Foundation. So let me give a shout out to Tony, the owner of.
• 11:54
  Kevin. Kevin, I'm sorry. Kevin, yep.
• 11:57
  Where did that come from? I don't know. I don't know either. And I'm not even drunk.
• 12:01
  Not yet. First of all, yes. Kevin, phenomenal guy.
• 12:05
  He invited us out to Percival when he first opened Percival Pub.
• 12:09
  We got the opportunity to help him.
• 12:11
  They were highlighting some of their dishes and things like that.
• 12:14
  And he gave us space to hang out and be with them.
• 12:17
  So mad shout out. Now here we are this much time later.
• 12:21
  Seven years later almost, yeah. And he's putting on an event and allowing us to.
• 12:25
  He's doing all the work. He's barely letting us do anything.
• 12:28
  He's just like, hey, just get, he goes, you guys want tables?
• 12:31
  Like, yeah, sure. He's like, all right, just put your stuff out on tables.
• 12:33
  He goes, I was like, do you want us to bring anything for raffles?
• 12:35
  He's like, no, we'll do a 50-50 raffle. All right, bro, but I got a thing for you, though. Sure.
• 12:39
  So where are you going to be that day? With Havoc. No, no, where are you going
• 12:43
  to be? With Havoc in Percival. You're going to be in Percival.
• 12:45
  With Havoc. No, you're not.
• 12:47
  I'm going to be in Ashburn. Yes. So are we going to have a little friendly competition?
• 12:51
  We are going to have a competition. About which area collects more?
• 12:54
  And I, so, oh, oh, there it is.
• 12:56
  I like it. Come on. So I will, yes, we will have this competition.
• 13:00
  So who raises more money?
• 13:02
  I will tell, yes, I will tell you. I mean, you got Kevin, I got Havoc.
• 13:05
  Well, you got, I got Kevin, you have Havoc. I have the bigger bar, you have Havoc.
• 13:10
  I have Rob Rose, Irish. Yeah, Irish Rose, Pornhole.
• 13:13
  So, yes, we will do a competition to see who gets more money.
• 13:17
  And I just want you to remember, I have Jen on my side, too,
• 13:19
  who will actually go run the bucket around and get me money. I will not lose, bro.
• 13:24
  I will not lose. You've lost to me every time. So, hey, but do us a favor.
• 13:29
  Come out. Come see that. Come hang out with us. Support local restaurant, bar restaurants.
• 13:36
  Support the foundation. We're at two locations, so there's plenty of room.
• 13:39
  Right, and it's on the 30th of May.
• 13:42
  And you get extra credit if you go to both locations. If you go to both locations.
• 13:46
  I mean, mostly Percival, but if you want to go to Asperger, it's fine.
• 13:50
  And then after that event on the 30th, we have in the segue for Irish Rose Cornhole,
• 13:55
  we have a toss for a cause, which Irish Rose Cornhole is...
• 13:58
  Is running, and it's benefiting the CJ3 Foundation. Over in Ashburn Village.
• 14:03
  Over in Ashburn Village, right next to where the Ashburn Pub is.
• 14:05
  Yes. Yeah, so it's— Where the winning competition from previous will be.
• 14:09
  Where, I mean, we'll make up money because you'll lose to me out in post-field. Here's the deal.
• 14:13
  We're going to show up heavy. We're going to have our team out there.
• 14:15
  Havoc's going to be out there.
• 14:17
  I don't throw bags well, but I'm going to be out there and I will compete against
• 14:22
  anybody that thinks they can throw. I'm glad because I will heckle the hell out of you.
• 14:27
  So let's sign up. Let's get out there, be a part of this. This is going to be a phenomenal event.
• 14:34
  It will be. It'll be great. Well, like you and I lovingly call them bean bags
• 14:38
  because we don't throw them.
• 14:41
  But we screw up all the time. Hold on. Sonny, I got to tell you.
• 14:44
  Where are you from originally? New Jersey. All right. If somebody told you they
• 14:48
  were going to cornhole you, would you like that? Would that be a good thing?
• 14:51
  No, not at all. Where I came from, that's not either. So when this game came
• 14:54
  out and they called it cornhole, I was like, I don't know if this is for me.
• 14:58
  So, hold on. So, Sonny, when we were kids, I don't know how old you are.
• 15:02
  Him and I are the same age.
• 15:03
  Are we now the same age? I'm a young 43.
• 15:07
  I mean, I'm a young 49. So I'm not quite Eric's age. We were born in the same year. It's fine.
• 15:14
  There used to be a cartoon called Beavis and Butthead.
• 15:17
  So i am cornhole right so that when you talk about cornhole that's all i think
• 15:22
  about because it's tp for my bunghole and it's not has nothing to do with throwing
• 15:26
  a bag through a hole well it kind of is actually now you think about it but,
• 15:30
  okay let me explain to you my second problem with it so i believe it's a cheat game my second right,
• 15:37
  i i grew up playing horseshoes oh yeah and i love throwing shoes and the arm
• 15:42
  and the military we did we threw a lot of shoes there was there was probably
• 15:46
  a horseshoe pit at every base we were at.
• 15:47
  Every, you know, if you were Ford deployed, there was one build out there, right?
• 15:51
  So I pitched shoes and that makes more sense. And candidly, I think the weight
• 15:55
  of them and all that, and they're easier for me. That's what I grew up doing.
• 15:59
  So then this thing came out and I was like.
• 16:03
  What kind of new generation, whatever. But man, the thing's kicked off.
• 16:06
  A lot of people do it. I'm amazed watching some of these people.
• 16:10
  We got some people at our bar and restaurants we go to.
• 16:13
  They take it super serious. And they're hitting every time. I don't know how
• 16:16
  the hell they do it. I don't know how they do it.
• 16:17
  It ain't me. It ain't me. You know, now that you brought it up,
• 16:20
  people are probably going to
• 16:20
  hate this, but I think Cornhole might be the bitch version of horseshoes.
• 16:26
  Are you laying that out? Is that what you're saying? I'm laying that out there.
• 16:28
  Is that what you're saying? I'm going to lay that out there.
• 16:31
  And horseshoe we're kidding cornhole's great we're just kidding horseshoes are
• 16:36
  the bitch version of hanging mortars.
• 16:40
  Everybody has a father that's not legal to do in the united states but no so
• 16:46
  that that uh so that's on the 7th of june i believe that's a sunday i could
• 16:50
  be wrong but i think that's right sunday,
• 16:53
  So we'll be out there. And yes, Eric and I will be either on a team or competing
• 16:56
  against each other. So anybody wants to come out and compete against us.
• 16:59
  I'm great with that. Oh, bro. Come pick us up. We'd be glad.
• 17:02
  I may not win, but man, I'm going to make you feel bad about beating us.
• 17:05
  Oh, great. So you beat a disabled vet.
• 17:09
  You know what? So proud of you. Don't you feel good about yourself.
• 17:13
  Go spit on another veteran.
• 17:16
  Eric will walk limping off. I'll be like, shit, I got nothing to have.
• 17:19
  Come here. You're my dog now for a little while.
• 17:22
  I don't know if you guys did this by design, but it's on June 7th,
• 17:27
  and that's basically D-Day.
• 17:30
  Ooh. And I don't know if that's- Is it basically D-Day or it is D-Day? Or is it D-Day?
• 17:34
  Nope. Because I know what December 7th is. I don't know what's- Guy,
• 17:37
  amphibious invasions are very precise.
• 17:40
  Yeah, but look, they're six hours ahead, so- European time. Yeah, yeah.
• 17:47
  But what I'm saying is, I don't know if that was by design. No,
• 17:49
  I don't think it was. That gives more meaning to it for me.
• 17:52
  But we sure as hell should advertise that. I mean, we should advertise that
• 17:55
  part, but I can't imagine that Rob was thinking about that when he was probably
• 17:59
  just looking for an open date. I don't know, man. He could.
• 18:02
  I don't know. And if you give a big enough donation and put a bite suit on,
• 18:06
  we can unleash havoc while you're throwing these things and see who you beat
• 18:10
  then. That'd be awesome. That would be awesome.
• 18:12
  I would love to see it. He's always talked about havoc attacking,
• 18:14
  but he's the sweetest dog in the world to me, so I don't know.
• 18:17
  Bro, I do have a bite sleeve in the truck. No, I'm not doing it.
• 18:21
  I'm not doing it. Right up until he's not.
• 18:23
  Because you said you got a Dutch shepherd, right? I have a Dutchie,
• 18:25
  yeah. Right. So, I mean, dude, and you said nine years old? Eight now.
• 18:29
  Okay. So Havoc's eight, right?
• 18:31
  And so at the end of the day, make no mistake. Oh, I know he will.
• 18:33
  He can turn it on quick. I know he will. Now he'll sleep half a day because
• 18:36
  of it, but he'll turn it on. Yeah, yeah. He's still got it in him.
• 18:40
  Hear me out on this. I got an idea. Oh, shit. Oh, God. Are we giving away another car?
• 18:44
  Is that God? Is that God? Who's talking? It's even better. So whoever loses
• 18:50
  the Rocky tournament...
• 18:52
  Gets to get attacked by havoc. Well, I don't think that's fair because I don't
• 18:56
  think he'll ever attack Eric. Will he? Will he actually attack you?
• 18:58
  Yeah, put the bite suit on.
• 19:00
  You just can't do it very often because it'll confuse the dog.
• 19:02
  Actually, you know what I think we should do, guy? That's a great idea.
• 19:05
  I think the idea is whoever loses, Eric can pick Mike or you.
• 19:09
  I pick you or Mike. And whoever loses, Mike or you has to put on the bite suit.
• 19:15
  How do I get pulled into this shit? We all know Roger can't fit the bite suit.
• 19:19
  I'll do this. I'm a fat kid.
• 19:20
  I'm a fat kid. It's fine. I would do this for the cause. I would do this.
• 19:24
  Eric, not to derail this, but I have a question. Please derail it.
• 19:28
  Not that we haven't already, right?
• 19:30
  But with bite suits and the sleeves, is it true that they're regional?
• 19:34
  Like they put off pheromones of how fear smells like? The bite suits?
• 19:38
  Yeah. They may have some. Not all of them need them. Some of them, like this dog.
• 19:42
  God, I will say the interesting thing because of what those look like,
• 19:46
  some of it's just sight alone.
• 19:48
  So he sees some of these big puffy coats in the winter, and I've had to hold
• 19:51
  his lease a little extra tight.
• 19:53
  You'll see him shaking, right? Because he's like, I think that's a bite suit.
• 19:56
  Great Christmas triple grill around here.
• 19:58
  Or because the other side is, and thank God it's a Carhartt,
• 20:01
  but he'll see a Carhartt jacket. He's like,
• 20:04
  I think that's a bite. I think that's a. It's funny because we were out in an
• 20:08
  event in December. And now that he says this, it kind of makes sense.
• 20:11
  Havoc, A, might have been cold, even though Eric doesn't think he was.
• 20:14
  He is not cold, bro. This dog is like. I do world around the snow. Shaking.
• 20:17
  And we're like, is he cold? What's going on? He's not cold. He's just excited.
• 20:21
  I'm like, there's a lot. He wants to buy something. Now that I'm thinking about
• 20:23
  it, there was a lot of puffy jackets out there that day. He's looking, man. He's like.
• 20:28
  Who am I going to eat? You'll see me hold the leash. I'm a little extra tight. and I'm like, uh-oh.
• 20:33
  So, I mean, those are the events we have coming up. What else we have?
• 20:36
  What else has been going on, man? What about you? How's the new fiance?
• 20:39
  Yeah, she's still there. Yeah, she's still there. Which is success.
• 20:44
  Michelle's awesome, man. Mine is. Hey, she's actually, cool thing is,
• 20:48
  she's always looking for ways to incorporate into the charity.
• 20:51
  She's been building a lot of logos, building a lot of things,
• 20:54
  right, to try to assist. So appreciate the hell out of her. She's good.
• 20:57
  You know, she's got a professional camera.
• 20:59
  She's out taking photos. You know, she's doing, she does a lot of art stuff.
• 21:04
  She did your CJ3 Foundation shoes. Which is difficult to find a size 16.
• 21:10
  I mean, I can't help it. That's my parents' fault that I have a size 16.
• 21:13
  Can she help design a new clubhouse? She could, actually. And Sonny,
• 21:16
  by the way, the whole shoe size thing, look at Roger, doesn't apply.
• 21:20
  Size 16, I'm just saying. I mean, it's why he drives an F-350.
• 21:29
  It's compensation. We compensate somehow. I do wear my shoes.
• 21:33
  Hey, but here's the funny thing. So it was cool. She did those shoes for Roger.
• 21:38
  Roger got them. Next time I saw him, I was like, Roger, why are you wearing them?
• 21:41
  It's sprinkling outside. I don't want to get, I'm like, golly,
• 21:45
  you got to start wearing them. I did.
• 21:47
  I wore them to, when we awarded the dog to. You wore them here.
• 21:50
  Yeah. Yeah, I did wear them here. But the first time I wore them was when we
• 21:53
  were doing the, not the awarding, but the celebration of.
• 21:57
  The service dog. River and Rob, Rob, Rob Hood, Rob Hood from Woodbridge.
• 22:02
  I was confused. I was too many Robs. Yeah.
• 22:04
  So, no, when we did, I wore them out there and then I wore them in here and
• 22:08
  I wear them on a more regular, they're cool as shit and breaking them in and all that stuff.
• 22:12
  I just don't want to, I don't want them to crease. I don't want them to bend in the doorway.
• 22:15
  Don't smudge my pumas. My son's like that. My son will be somebody up over here.
• 22:19
  I can't do it. I don't want to, I don't want to smudge, but no,
• 22:21
  I mean, so no, my, mine is out of town this weekend for the grandbaby's birthday, first birthday.
• 22:27
  So I'm on my own this weekend. So that's kind of a scary thought.
• 22:31
  Well, Sunday I'm on my own if you want to meet for breakfast or lunch.
• 22:33
  I'm in on that. Because I'm not doing anything for Mother's Day because I don't have a mother here.
• 22:39
  You do not. You better call your mother, though. I sent her.
• 22:41
  I sent her. So in the small town.
• 22:44
  So in Albie, Iowa, where we do our mental health and wellness,
• 22:46
  there's a steakhouse called Bogies. Phenomenal partners of ours.
• 22:50
  I sent a friend over there with 100 bucks because there you can eat well under
• 22:55
  100 bucks at a steakhouse.
• 22:57
  She went and got a gift certificate, took it over to my mom and dad and said,
• 23:00
  here, this is from your son. He's thinking about y'all.
• 23:03
  And so she's got somewhere to go. I mean, send her flowers too. And is your mother?
• 23:08
  Flowers die. They do. Send her a plant. Send her a plant.
• 23:13
  Send her something on Mother's Day. You send her something. I haven't met your
• 23:16
  mother yet. Not my problem. You know what? I bet Dave Bates does. I bet.
• 23:22
  So let me bring something up. Sure. You're wearing a Red Friday shirt. Yes. Talk to me.
• 23:26
  I mean, it's remember everyone deployed a funny story. My daughter actually
• 23:30
  came to me and her, her, one of her teacher's sons just got deployed.
• 23:34
  So he is implementing red Friday at her high school. Outstanding.
• 23:37
  And asked for, uh, our bracelets and stuff like that. Cause Kelsey spoke to,
• 23:43
  spoke to him about us and what we do every Friday. And I was like,
• 23:45
  what, did you show a picture? She's like, well, yeah, dad, you posted online.
• 23:48
  I was like, okay. Creepy.
• 23:51
  It is kind of creepy, but red Friday. Remember everyone deployed.
• 23:55
  We support that movement Except Sonny Except,
• 24:00
  I'm not deployed anymore I'm back And Guy He's always deployed He's always deployed
• 24:05
  Guy's just wearing blue today So I don't know What he was thinking But He was
• 24:09
  off camera I'm colorblind,
• 24:11
  Well we support Our soldiers' deployment And we will wear this Until every soldier
• 24:14
  comes home Guy's shirt is Remember everybody on Libo.
• 24:21
  That is a good That's a good short I mean seriously We should bake that a shirt,
• 24:25
  But hey, here's the other thing.
• 24:27
  Since he's talking about our Red Friday swag, we do, if you go to cj3foundation.org,
• 24:33
  we've got a store on there. You can find your Red Friday swag,
• 24:36
  but you can also find other things. All the other things we have.
• 24:38
  Hat shirts, all that other stuff.
• 24:40
  We get asked all the time, hey, how can we support wearing our stuff,
• 24:45
  branding it, marketing it, showing people, telling people about it is phenomenal support.
• 24:50
  And we're a nonprofit. Some money is always good.
• 24:53
  That's very true. So cj3foundation.org and it's under the CJ3 shop. Yeah.
• 24:58
  All right. What else we got? What else has been going on? Anything?
• 25:01
  Are we going to go into a break? Yeah, let's do a break. All right, let's do a break.
• 25:24
  So, Sonny, we've kind of been off on different tangents. How about you tell
• 25:27
  us why you're here? Who is Sonny?
• 25:30
  Yeah, well, first off, thanks for having me, guys. Getting to learn about the
• 25:33
  foundation and all the stuff you guys do. That's awesome. Appreciate you being
• 25:36
  here. Yeah, definitely.
• 25:37
  So I'm Master Gun's Chris Sonnabin. I go by Sonny.
• 25:40
  25 years, still an active-duty Marine. Most of my time was out in Camp Lejeune.
• 25:45
  Grew up through Radio Recon and MARSOC.
• 25:47
  Spent time at Indopaycom as a J2 senior enlisted advisor. And now I'm on the,
• 25:51
  joint staff in J2. So let's flip that way back, bro.
• 25:57
  How the Marine Corps, where did that come from? Like, was that something in
• 26:00
  your family? Was that, like, where did that come from?
• 26:03
  Interesting enough, so my grandfather and my father are both Silver Star recipient
• 26:07
  Army guys. Now you're just showing off. Yeah, yeah. He said Army guys.
• 26:13
  So my name tape means shit, right?
• 26:16
  You better remember this. So my grandfather, he served under Pat in World War II.
• 26:22
  Good history. Right. Phenomenal. Yeah. He got a silver star in the Battle of the Bulge.
• 26:26
  My father was a Vietnam guy. He got a silver star on Hamburger Hill in Aishaw Valley.
• 26:31
  And so my grandmother lived across, it was, I grew up in Jersey.
• 26:35
  So like your family was all across the street, the right corner type of thing.
• 26:39
  And I would spend every Saturday with my grandmother and she had,
• 26:42
  all of her brothers were Marines in the Pacific.
• 26:46
  And she's like her, all of her sons were army, her husband was army and she
• 26:51
  used to kind of like seed it in my head she's like she's like army's awesome
• 26:54
  everybody's army so what you're saying is marines are badass,
• 26:58
  she hears you crayons at a young age so it kept going that so was it wasn't
• 27:02
  about so just so you know so i grew up around the navy i grew up in virginia
• 27:05
  beach moved from iowa then to virginia beach during my formidable years,
• 27:11
  And mine was more out of abstinence. One, I saw bell bottoms.
• 27:14
  There was no fucking way I was wearing bell bottoms.
• 27:16
  But because I grew up in a Navy town, I was like, I got to go do something different.
• 27:20
  All the movies I watched was Army and whatever, right? So that's where I went.
• 27:25
  So did you sign up to be obstinate then? No. And it definitely wasn't a uniform thing for me.
• 27:31
  Everybody always says that. I joined the Marine Corps because I saw the dress
• 27:34
  blues. First time I saw dress blues is when I got fucking issued them.
• 27:39
  Yeah. No, no, that wasn't it. Yeah. Yeah.
• 27:43
  Did you learn how to slay dragons like they show in the commercials?
• 27:46
  That was the commercial actually when I got recruited. Was it?
• 27:49
  Was it really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
• 27:53
  If Taliban are dragons, yes, I did. True that. True that. So what year was this
• 27:58
  when you went in? 01. I joined October of 01.
• 28:01
  So was it because of that? No. So I signed up the spring before,
• 28:06
  but with a bunch of friends. They were all artillery guys.
• 28:10
  Shout out to Golf 210. So your face kind of went, and I mean this legit,
• 28:13
  and I don't mean this crassly, your face kind of went, when I asked that,
• 28:17
  I take it you want people to know you signed up to sign up. It wasn't just because of 9-11. Yeah.
• 28:21
  Because I saw your face when I asked that, which I thought was kind of cool.
• 28:24
  Because in the military now, they'll have like the pre-9-11 guys that try to do that, yeah.
• 28:28
  So I made the decision before it, but all those guys that I was friends with,
• 28:32
  they went in right after high school.
• 28:35
  When you graduated, whatever that was, May or June in Ohio. I was in Ohio at the time.
• 28:39
  I wanted to party for a full summer. So I, so. For a full one,
• 28:43
  not half a one, you need a full. Yeah, so, so my plan was to go in in the fall
• 28:48
  after that. And then unfortunately a generational change happened.
• 28:52
  So hold on. I do have a problem with this guy.
• 28:56
  I'm going to call you out for a second.
• 28:59
  Second interview, very close together, where we have an OH-10. Ohio. The Ohio.
• 29:08
  What seems to be the trend here, Guy? It's called the Midwest.
• 29:13
  It's called. There are other states in the Midwest. I assure you, I'm from Iowa.
• 29:18
  Yeah, I know. That's what I'm saying. The Midwest, like it is.
• 29:22
  No, there's a heart and passion for uniform and service. That's what it is.
• 29:25
  To be fair, I grew up most of my life in New Jersey.
• 29:28
  I moved to Ohio, I think, sophomore or junior year. Okay. So maybe I joined
• 29:33
  to get the fuck out of Ohio.
• 29:34
  Maybe. He's a new bastard. I've been to Ohio. Where in Ohio?
• 29:39
  Strongsville. So it's a suburb of Cleveland. Okay. Well, that's one of our previous guests.
• 29:45
  He's one of our guys that he's in Cleveland right now. Oh, nice.
• 29:48
  So he's with Coast Guard out of Cleveland. Yeah. So he was just on last time? Two times a game.
• 29:54
  Two times a game. So that's cool. Now, do you get back there at all?
• 29:57
  Or no reason i don't so my father's there now i i got to go back and i i have
• 30:02
  actually a golf tournament with the vfw that i plan on doing there in june 26
• 30:06
  go back and golf with my dad i haven't seen him in a couple years too okay
• 30:10
  he he's interested in being on a podcast by the way who is,
• 30:14
  his father oh okay i was like he's here,
• 30:17
  guy is saying that with a little bit of humor because my dad's a vietnam guy
• 30:21
  and he wanted to do a heroes podcast with some of this stuff so i I asked my
• 30:26
  dad, I was like, hey, man, you want to go on this podcast? And he goes, not a fucking chance.
• 30:30
  That goes over like a wet fart in church. Vietnam guys, actually.
• 30:36
  We did have Mac on. He did very well. But yeah, that was, yeah,
• 30:39
  most of them don't want to relive it or talk about it or, no.
• 30:43
  And they, well, I think we all...
• 30:46
  Dude, anytime you hear the word hero, you cringe, right? Oh, yeah. Come on, bro.
• 30:49
  You shrink in your seat. You shrink in your seat. Hold on one second.
• 30:52
  What's the name of the podcast again, Eric? Shut up. Just to do a check.
• 30:55
  Warriors and Watchmen. There you go.
• 30:57
  First time we did it, he kept calling us Heroes and Watchmen.
• 31:00
  He called it like. Whatever. The Vietnam guy or Eric? No, Eric.
• 31:03
  This old guy. He's like, welcome to Heroes and Watchmen. We're like,
• 31:06
  that's not the name of the podcast. His own podcast.
• 31:10
  Who named this thing? What the hell is this about?
• 31:14
  Hey, it sounded great, though. I liked it. So, all right, man.
• 31:17
  So, bro, I mean, did you specifically go into the Marine Corps recruiting center?
• 31:23
  Did you go in just to a recruiting center?
• 31:27
  Talk me through it. So, it was Berea, Ohio, was where I joined out of.
• 31:31
  I'm going to nod my head like I know what the hell you're talking about. Yeah.
• 31:34
  It's another suburb. Oh, yeah, yeah? But so, my friend that I gave a shout out
• 31:38
  to, the Golf 210 guy, he was an artilleryman.
• 31:42
  He kind of brought me in when I got there.
• 31:44
  I was kind of a fuck up And he was like Hey man Nothing's changed I mean you
• 31:48
  just You literally just said I wanted to spend A summer partying Before.
• 31:54
  By kinda I'm still a fuck up I'm gonna drink my face off That's fantastic So
• 31:59
  he brought me To the recruiting station And the Marine Corps I don't know if
• 32:03
  they do The same in the Army They have a debt program They call it So it's like You join up,
• 32:07
  And once you sign in The recruiters and shit They PT every week You hang out with them
• 32:12
  Until you actually leave yeah so in in burrito ohio believe it or not that's
• 32:17
  a big area where a lot of force recon guys came from so all our all our recruiters
• 32:22
  for force recon which one
• 32:23
  really cool story one of them was my team chief later on in afghanistan probably
• 32:27
  15 years later interesting wow but yeah so he brought me over there we started pt and,
• 32:33
  i i saw what they were about and i was like oh this this is cool shit this is
• 32:36
  something i want to be a part of that's cool so it's cool so out of your career
• 32:40
  man if you had to pick a moment,
• 32:43
  Some of your defining moments during your career aren't always a good one.
• 32:47
  Some are bad because we learn a lot through bad. Some are good.
• 32:51
  If you had to pick the career-defining moment for you, not for anybody else,
• 32:56
  but for you, where would that be?
• 32:58
  What would it be? Condus. Talk to me.
• 33:02
  Actually, our host back there, GW, he was my team leader in condus.
• 33:06
  The guy in the sky. The guy in the sky, yeah.
• 33:09
  We had this operation. It was called Validate Coca.
• 33:12
  I think they changed it later to Green Thunder. Green Sward.
• 33:17
  Yeah. Sward or sword? Sword. May the swords be with you, Green Sword.
• 33:22
  So it was, so me, just to give a little context here, me and GW were the only
• 33:27
  two Marines attached to an ODA from 7th Group.
• 33:30
  For the listeners, that's a Special Forces team.
• 33:33
  They had, what was it, guy, three Special Forces teams online,
• 33:36
  clearing all of Condu's?
• 33:37
  Yeah, it was three. is it was two reserve and then actually one reserve and
• 33:42
  two active what year are we talking 2009 okay so uh,
• 33:47
  so guy guy we i don't want to put him out there but we had two guys on the team that,
• 33:54
  if you're a leader you didn't pull their way if you're a leader you want to
• 33:57
  put them outside the wire so a lot of it unfortunately fell on me and guy to
• 34:00
  go out there right and so we,
• 34:03
  we went on on this mission, Valley of Coca, everything went as south as it can immediately.
• 34:09
  And long story short, I got back.
• 34:13
  Thank god by the grace of god i got back but there was some defining moments
• 34:17
  in there and i think about that now as like i lead people so that's where you
• 34:21
  had your metal tested right yeah well before that i was already uh that was
• 34:25
  my third combat deployment but that was the first time,
• 34:28
  i've ever sat down in a wadi and was convinced i was gonna die yeah you know
• 34:33
  and then and then just carried on and that's that's a hard thing to come back
• 34:38
  to from too like i know ptsd and all that's a big thing, which it definitely is.
• 34:42
  And fucking all of us may have it. Right. But we probably all have some version of it.
• 34:47
  Right. But there's something to be said about when you, when you get right with
• 34:52
  your Lord and you know that you're gone and then you, and then you survive.
• 34:55
  Let me ask you this though, because just candidly have been through that moment.
• 35:00
  It's also an interesting feeling because then once you've succumbed to the idea,
• 35:05
  you're not afraid of anything.
• 35:06
  Not at all. I mean, at the end of the day, you know, we hear muscle movements
• 35:12
  and you resort back to your training. You resort back to what you know and all that stuff.
• 35:17
  I can tell you this. Dude, I was like a robot and it didn't matter.
• 35:21
  There was no feeling in it. There's no anything.
• 35:24
  And I probably, I would probably say I probably led better, fought harder,
• 35:28
  all that, because I'd already succumbed to the idea. Yeah. What say you?
• 35:32
  I agree with that. And I also think if you put a decade on it after that,
• 35:37
  you start to learn. You don't see it then because you're still the devil's spawn warrior. Yeah.
• 35:42
  But about a decade later, you start to understand empathy in human life.
• 35:46
  Yep. And you start to think differently.
• 35:49
  The problem is then you also start rewinding the tape.
• 35:53
  Yeah and that's problematic too right because then you start looking back and
• 35:57
  and you feel past empathy for things that,
• 36:00
  you can't change absolutely so interesting and you and you think often like
• 36:04
  i'm sure you have have had the same thing eric how many times have you thought
• 36:08
  man if i could go back knowing what i know now i would have done that differently
• 36:11
  or i would have acted differently or,
• 36:14
  yeah but then the other side is i'm just going to candidly say,
• 36:17
  i know where it's gotten me and i wouldn't change anything because of where
• 36:20
  it's gotten me the life lessons that everything i got i wouldn't change it for
• 36:24
  anything and and i will just say this,
• 36:27
  i couldn't do what i did now then it's a different military it's a different
• 36:34
  you know it's it's kind of like when you graduate through let's say when you deployed oif,
• 36:40
  one compared to oif nine it's a different Again,
• 36:44
  rules of engagements, there's a whole lot of differences and a whole lot of,
• 36:48
  yeah, there's things I do differently, but at the end of the day,
• 36:51
  it took learning through those.
• 36:53
  I don't think I completely foobarred anything.
• 36:56
  You know, I'm sure a lot like you, I've experienced death of buddies, I've experienced...
• 37:02
  Wouldn't change how I went through it, though. And so, I don't know.
• 37:07
  It's an interesting environment, but I don't think I'd change it.
• 37:10
  There's a saying that you brought up the, you know, OAF1.whatever.
• 37:16
  There was a saying that we used to have was, as soon as somebody would say,
• 37:18
  well, on my last deployment, I'd say, let me stop you there.
• 37:22
  Because they didn't translate. Right. Because the environment changed.
• 37:25
  Right, yeah. Because, I mean, you know this.
• 37:27
  OAF1 through 3 were kind of cowboy. That was cowboys and Indians,
• 37:30
  man. And it was, there was no ROE rules of engagement. There was just a,
• 37:34
  you just, bro, you're fighting for survival.
• 37:37
  And then the longer you get there, the more garrison environment and other things
• 37:40
  kick in. And it just. And also our enemy got better.
• 37:43
  Right. Because they were watching it. Well, and testament to that.
• 37:47
  I mean, you know, early days, what are we, swerving around trash bags and things
• 37:52
  falling off our bridges?
• 37:53
  Then they got to the point where they were so good at hiding them,
• 37:56
  you're just clenching your butt cheeks hoping you don't hit one.
• 37:58
  Yeah, fives and 25. Right.
• 38:00
  And we just speed your friends at 80 miles an hour, hit one,
• 38:04
  and it's like, oh, that's not good.
• 38:08
  So what can you tell us about where you're at now? What are you doing now?
• 38:11
  Because you're still serving, right?
• 38:13
  How did you get from that into where you are today, and what got you into what
• 38:18
  you're doing today? Not to talk about details, but just to. Okay,
• 38:21
  thanks for the question, Roger. So I was in Hawaii working in the Indo-Paycom J2.
• 38:26
  Oh, he was hurting in Hawaii. I know. Horrible assignment. That was a,
• 38:30
  that was a, that was a hardship tour.
• 38:33
  Hardship. Yeah. Yeah. But my, my boss is, he's still my boss now was brilliant.
• 38:39
  And I just kinda, we, we got a connection. I really liked serving with the guy.
• 38:43
  I had retirement and I was approved for retirement.
• 38:47
  I was just waiting my days out and then the way the general officer and flag
• 38:50
  officer ranks work he eventually got a new job and got confirmed by the senate
• 38:55
  and then asked me to come out and serve with him
• 38:57
  and i you got to say no more to me i packed a bag and here i am in dc my family's
• 39:02
  still in hawaii i just yeah and how long you been here,
• 39:05
  i i came here in january there was a process with that yeah because especially
• 39:10
  with already being on the retired list,
• 39:12
  it was hard for the marine corps to figure out how to get me here because there
• 39:16
  was no billet for me to go to,
• 39:18
  what job spacing basically is how you'd say that in the real world,
• 39:22
  and so we had to like make it up and make it happen yeah yeah so but so you're
• 39:27
  here supporting the boss that you obviously appreciate and enjoyed supporting
• 39:30
  before i love him that's awesome yeah that's awesome,
• 39:35
  You're out of the D.C. area, I assume? Yes. I work at the Pentagon. Okay.
• 39:40
  The puzzle palace. The maze. Yeah, the biggest office building in the world. Yeah, yeah.
• 39:46
  And your commute, how long to get in there? So I live right—I came here to do work.
• 39:51
  Okay, so you live next to it. I walk to work, and it's like five minutes. There you go. Yeah.
• 39:56
  And I will give this guy credit. Enlisted side, which I appreciate because I
• 40:01
  was an enlisted guy. I think we're the ones that are carrying the services.
• 40:04
  So thank you for doing that. I appreciate that.
• 40:08
  So you brought up something interesting. You were getting ready to get out.
• 40:12
  So in your mind, you had already, you'd flip that switch.
• 40:16
  And I can tell you this from my past. We've talked about this a little bit in the past.
• 40:22
  That's not an easy switch to decide on.
• 40:25
  Because I can tell, I'll just be very candid with you. That scared the shit
• 40:29
  out of me getting out of the military.
• 40:31
  I can't relate to what's going on out there. I don't know. this is all I know.
• 40:35
  It's a hard life, but it's the life I know.
• 40:40
  And there's a lot of things and camaraderie that you really don't even understand
• 40:46
  you're going to miss out on until after you get out.
• 40:48
  So first of all, how did you make the decision finally that you were getting
• 40:54
  out? And then how hard was it then to turn it back on and go,
• 40:57
  wait, I'm staying in. I'm going to stay at it. Yeah, yeah.
• 41:01
  So the billet that I was in in Indo-Paycom was a flag officer billet.
• 41:05
  It was serving as a senior enlisted for an admiral.
• 41:08
  So I knew that there's a time frame to select my replacement.
• 41:12
  And if I didn't get out at the appropriate time, it's all matching up with who's going to be there.
• 41:18
  So I wanted to make sure there was a good pool because Indo-Paycom is important to us.
• 41:22
  So I was just sitting there one day and I was like, you know,
• 41:24
  I'm just standing in the line of other cattle That should probably get through
• 41:28
  the store So I gotta go And uh,
• 41:31
  i don't know what was that some stripper was calling me.
• 41:36
  Just joking just joking i'm telling your wife yeah so i was just standing in
• 41:41
  the line of other cattle so i was like you know what i'm going to submit this
• 41:43
  and it's crazy because at the time i think i was in 23 years when i when i made that decision,
• 41:49
  and i was like oh retirement this is going to be like a huge process i'm going
• 41:53
  to have to have all these interviews it was a piece of paper that i filled out
• 41:56
  like i shot up and they're like you're approved for retirement,
• 41:59
  but like hey but tell me this isn't that weird you hit a certain level and and,
• 42:04
  i don't want to say it's a feeling of self-importance or anything like that
• 42:07
  because i don't think any of us stuck ourselves that serious,
• 42:09
  but it's kind of like wait a second really this is it yeah you want them to beg you to stay,
• 42:14
  right you're like you don't even want me to justify my decision no you're fine
• 42:19
  yeah get out beat it beat it kid yeah so i so i filled out this paper and then
• 42:23
  i got an email that was like nobody even told me that like the paper made it there.
• 42:27
  They're just like, you're approved for retirement. So if you would have retired,
• 42:30
  would you have stayed in Hawaii or would you use one last move to go?
• 42:33
  No, I would have stayed in Hawaii. I was going to use either the GI Bill or
• 42:36
  Voc Rehab to go to law school in Hawaii.
• 42:39
  Okay. Was I stinking about doing? You don't look that smart. I'm not.
• 42:44
  He likes orange crayons too. Yeah. You're a good analyst because I'm not.
• 42:51
  No. Yeah. And then, so then when I went through the process,
• 42:55
  So I submitted it that they, you know, I heard that I was approved and like,
• 42:59
  no, there was nothing else after that.
• 43:01
  Right. It was like, so I was just walking around base asking people,
• 43:05
  I was asking like, where do I go?
• 43:06
  Hey, can I say this? But think about this. You're a senior enlisted.
• 43:11
  Like if you're running into this, think about what more junior folks are going
• 43:16
  through on their way out. Like that's crazy. Eric, it keeps me up at night.
• 43:21
  Because I can tell you this, dude. So I got out in, what, 2007?
• 43:26
  And worse, even worse. So I just got back from Iraq. I'm sitting in Korea.
• 43:30
  I'm in Korea of all places.
• 43:31
  I signed the paper, and I was lucky to have a flight ready for me because they
• 43:35
  didn't give a shit, right? Once I signed that paper, you weren't the Army's problem anymore.
• 43:40
  And there was no real transition or anything to prepare me for. I got lucky.
• 43:45
  I took the easy route. I took a government job doing the exact same thing that I did while I was in.
• 43:50
  And that was kind of the slack, you know, whatever. Well, I got a question about
• 43:54
  all that. So I'm not military.
• 43:56
  So with the military people I deal with, whether it's with different cohorts
• 44:01
  that come into different programs, they always have— Wow, that was very innocuous.
• 44:09
  I mean, Hiring Our Heroes is one of the ones I've worked with before.
• 44:12
  They have all these cohorts that go through, but they are still in the military
• 44:17
  going through terminal leave until they can reach a certain date.
• 44:19
  So you're telling me during that time frame, they basically just say, you're on your own?
• 44:24
  I did nothing. Yeah. So there is like the Honor Foundation is one of them.
• 44:28
  It's mostly for soft guys that will go through it. They'll help you transition,
• 44:31
  but you have to seek that out on your own.
• 44:33
  Seriously? Yeah. Yeah. There's nobody that grabs your hand and says, hey, this is where to go.
• 44:38
  Which is sad. Just from an outside view, it makes it look like to me,
• 44:41
  they're like, you guys are on terminal leave now and you don't retire until
• 44:43
  this date. And during that time, they're helping you guys acclimate,
• 44:46
  which is crazy. If you go, if you go seek them out. Yeah. That's the thing, right? Yeah.
• 44:52
  That's just interesting. Which you don't know what you don't know.
• 44:55
  Yeah. Because we've never gotten out before. You only get out right now.
• 44:57
  Yeah, you don't know what you do.
• 45:00
  Well, like I said, I've worked with programs like TAPS in the past where I would
• 45:03
  go down to, you know, I was born and raised in this area, so I would go down
• 45:06
  to Newport News and, and.
• 45:08
  Going to the TAPS offices and help people getting out who are on their terminal
• 45:11
  leave, understanding how to write a resume or how to interview what we're looking
• 45:16
  for, how your skills correlate to the workforce.
• 45:19
  So I used to do that, and I wasn't the only one that would do it.
• 45:22
  So I'm just kind of in shock that they just say, hey, go find it.
• 45:26
  Roger, not to shoot on you, but those programs don't do it well.
• 45:28
  Oh, they don't do great. I won't say, well, you guys were both saying earlier
• 45:32
  that it was basically an officer taking you through it. They don't know what they don't know.
• 45:37
  Yeah. So what I found was it was very junior people telling you,
• 45:41
  I was like, you don't barely have a real job. So what are you going to tell me how to get a.
• 45:46
  And most of them would never went to the corporate world. Right.
• 45:48
  They did their time in the military and then they did that. They just did that. So you haven't even.
• 45:53
  Yeah. So like I listen, I don't want to shit on the whole thing. Right.
• 45:57
  There needs to be a process. You got to start somewhere. You got to.
• 46:00
  But we should be a lot farther along.
• 46:02
  We should have private sector involved in this because hey it could be used as a,
• 46:07
  phenomenal recruiting space all these other things it should be a lot farther
• 46:11
  because i can tell you i basically got my hand shook a kick in the ass and it
• 46:14
  was gone the way that i felt the way that i felt when i did that before i came here was
• 46:20
  i think at some point somebody bitched on a survey somewhere and this and the
• 46:24
  department of defense at the time now department of war,
• 46:27
  said okay we got to make sure that this happens and then they created this thing as a check in the box
• 46:32
  so like when i was sitting there i was like oh i'm your check in the box that's
• 46:36
  how i felt bro they gave the dei more attention than they did this that's absolutely
• 46:41
  that's so insane to me it really is eric at the time like i'm
• 46:44
  a senior enlisted at a combatant command that which if you're a lance corporal
• 46:49
  at a line company you should get the same treatment right so i'm not saying any of that but.
• 46:53
  But you're saying if you even saw it,
• 46:56
  like if you're experiencing it, usually, but let's just face it,
• 47:00
  the higher rank you are, the,
• 47:02
  the more attention you're going to get in the process, which is going to happen.
• 47:05
  And the more they want to put it, put on their good face and show a good front. Yeah.
• 47:09
  If he's seeing that there's no hope for that. Here's the worst part too.
• 47:14
  I got lucky enough to go into executive taps.
• 47:17
  Okay. And it was, it was, it was, it was a clown show.
• 47:21
  It was a clown show. It was like nothing about it was executive.
• 47:25
  They were teaching you how to be fitted for suits. I was like,
• 47:28
  I was like, bro, I'm in my forties. Get the fuck out of here.
• 47:31
  Can I give you your two biggest tips? Because it's the thing I see out of soldiers,
• 47:35
  Marines, anything all the time in the intelligence community.
• 47:39
  Don't wear your issued chloroform shoes with your suit.
• 47:44
  And don't still have a high and tight when you show up. Those two things cannot
• 47:48
  happen. Some people like high and tight.
• 47:51
  Luckily for me, I'm from New Jersey, so I already knew how to dress.
• 47:55
  Hey, but you know a lot of us can't. It is funny you said that because I do
• 47:58
  remember as I was coming in to help people with their resumes and all that stuff,
• 48:01
  there was somebody telling them how they should dress for interviews.
• 48:03
  And I'm like, I guess I really don't think about that. But it was.
• 48:07
  We've served with, I love our community.
• 48:12
  However, some of these people, dude, I'm just going to tell you from basic training,
• 48:16
  some of them didn't know how to brush their teeth every day.
• 48:20
  Yeah, some people do need to know how to wear a suit. So there needs to be a pitcher.
• 48:25
  That's a great point that we should probably circle back on,
• 48:27
  because we're talking about this like it's a fucked up program,
• 48:30
  but it's built the majority. To the basic level, right? The lowest level.
• 48:34
  74% of the military is designed to get out after four years.
• 48:39
  Right. Right? True. So that's who they're building it for. True.
• 48:42
  Right? So it sounds like we're shitting on it. But it needs to be levels.
• 48:46
  And something's better than nothing, and it needs to continue to build.
• 48:49
  I'll just be candid with you.
• 48:51
  I know what I got out in in 2007 and you're still in and if it's still it hasn't
• 48:57
  transitioned enough or progressed enough no,
• 49:01
  Not today's day and age, not at all. And it's like we touched on it earlier,
• 49:04
  Roger. Like if you want to, like you're like, you know, I really need to square
• 49:09
  this away and figure it out, you have to reach out to these programs. Sure. It's on you.
• 49:13
  There's no form that says, call this guy, do that. Like you just have your peers
• 49:17
  get out and all these people and they'll be like, call the Honor Foundation
• 49:20
  or call CJ, whatever you get.
• 49:23
  Sonny, I have a question for you, bro. So we ask a lot of folks this.
• 49:26
  So you got a wife and a kid, right?
• 49:28
  I do. All right. Your support network that isn't local right now.
• 49:32
  They're supporting. They're in a hard area. They're supporting network from afar.
• 49:36
  How old's your son?
• 49:38
  He's 17 now. He's a sponsored fighter in Hawaii. Okay.
• 49:42
  Let me ask you this because we've asked this a lot. So my son is an E-5 in the Army. Whoah.
• 49:46
  And Guy is very obviously adamant that he'd love for his son to serve.
• 49:52
  It was the Army, right? You want him to join the Army?
• 49:56
  What if your son said, I want to serve? So I have a great story about this.
• 50:00
  Please bring it on. So my wife is a retired E-9 Master Gunner. Okay.
• 50:05
  Good to know. Thank you. Yeah. So my son grew up around in the Marsoc community
• 50:09
  too. He grew up around warriors, right? They're all the people that he's known.
• 50:13
  And he would always say to us, like, I'm never going to join. I'm never going to join.
• 50:17
  And then one day, sorry if you ever hear this when you're older,
• 50:19
  Rocco, but he would say, mom and dad, if I got nothing else going on in life,
• 50:24
  I'll join the Marine Corps. That's what he said.
• 50:27
  Your heart goes, oh. You know what my response to him was?
• 50:31
  I said, what the fuck makes you think we'll have you boom boom i like that,
• 50:36
  so that's awesome my son my hat my son we kind of dealt with a little similar topic to that so his,
• 50:45
  i may get this wrong his junior year he tells me dad i don't want to play football
• 50:49
  this year and i have a rule right you need to be involved i don't care what
• 50:52
  it is you got to do something i'm not going to tell you what it is unless you
• 50:55
  put in a position where you have to but you're going to do something,
• 50:58
  and so but he He came to me and said, I don't wanna play football.
• 51:01
  And I'm like, kid, what are you, then what are you gonna do?
• 51:04
  And he looked at me and he said, well, because if I join the military,
• 51:08
  I don't wanna get hurt in football to where I can't join the military.
• 51:11
  Of course, then I'm like, oh my God, that's awesome.
• 51:14
  Eric may have cried that day. It's fine. I might have a little inside,
• 51:17
  but, but he, but, and then that was the same time he came to me and he said,
• 51:21
  dad, I don't think, or a year later he comes to me and he says,
• 51:24
  dad, I don't think I'm going to go to college.
• 51:26
  I think I'm going to go into the military. I said, oh, okay,
• 51:27
  cool. And he said, yeah, cause between alcohol and women and all this other
• 51:31
  stuff, I just don't think I can do school. So I'm going to go to the military. I said, oh, but.
• 51:39
  Where I kind of went was like, wait, wait, wait. I said, no,
• 51:42
  with that decision, No, I don't like that. So it's a secondary because?
• 51:47
  He's like, well, that's not what I meant. I just wanted to caveat it with,
• 51:50
  I really want to join, but also because, I was like, good. I said,
• 51:53
  if you want to join, I support you 100%.
• 51:56
  If you're joining because of those things, then I don't support it because this
• 51:59
  is not the secondary option.
• 52:01
  This is if you want to do it, not as, well, because I can't do this other thing,
• 52:05
  I'm doing it because I won't support that. So interesting.
• 52:08
  It's and also like it's a hard thing to tell your children about how serious
• 52:13
  of a decision it is and how serious the military is dude i'm gonna tell you
• 52:16
  this bro i had to experience it,
• 52:19
  it was actually like i've been i've been all over it probably a lot like you
• 52:23
  right i've been deployed all over i've been didn't think anything of it loved
• 52:26
  it we'll do it again however i'm gonna tell you this watching my son go in i'm a bitch.
• 52:33
  Bro no dude hey he went off to basic training he deployed those kind of things,
• 52:38
  I'm worried about the kid.
• 52:39
  You know, and it's not You're on the other end now. Well, it's not that I'm
• 52:42
  worried about him. I also know about some of the leadership or lack of leadership sometimes, right?
• 52:48
  And you are subjective at that rank and grade because he's an E5 now.
• 52:51
  He's starting to get there.
• 52:53
  You know, when I was deploying, I was at E7. I was, you know,
• 52:56
  you have, you can affect your own destiny and your own, you know, you have some say.
• 53:01
  I was a little concerned with him. And, bro, that was stressful watching as
• 53:04
  a dad. Even though I'm pro-military, pro-deployments, pro, all that stuff.
• 53:08
  Man, that was tough to watch as a dad. Proud of him, but tough.
• 53:12
  I bet. I mean, we've had that conversation a little bit before. Yeah.
• 53:16
  That's, I can't imagine being a father in that situation, even being in the military.
• 53:21
  Bro, the kid was in basic training, and I'd sit in the dark.
• 53:25
  Eric's trying to figure out how to get back in.
• 53:27
  I would sit in the dark, and I'm going, God, what if he's lonely there? What if he's a pussy?
• 53:36
  But I will say this. What if he's lonely? I made up for it. I also sent him
• 53:39
  gummy dicks in the mail, so he had to open them up. Dick cards? Shippinick.com.
• 53:45
  So at least, you know, I still had to fuck with him a little bit.
• 53:48
  Guy's giving me the cut it off sign. There you go.
• 53:51
  And time to take a break. Break time.
• 54:10
  Hey, Sonny. So, interesting, man. You know, one of the things we've talked about
• 54:16
  a little bit that, you know, although I got a master's degree,
• 54:20
  I kind of subscribe to the trades more than the academia side, right?
• 54:24
  Like, I can tell you I've gotten more out of the trade side.
• 54:27
  I kind of associate being enlisted as kind of the trades versus a lot has changed
• 54:34
  in the military, the dynamics of, I guess the best way to say it is officer versus enlisted.
• 54:41
  Go back to the early days, not to give you a history test or anything,
• 54:45
  but what separated officers and enlisted originally? A bachelor's degree. Oh, originally? Yeah.
• 54:52
  I mean, that's fine. Go there. Go there. A caste system. Good family.
• 54:56
  Yes, and then subsequently became a degree versus not, right? Yeah.
• 55:01
  And so I can tell you, I got out in 2007. That dynamic was drastically changing.
• 55:06
  I can only imagine it's gotten more.
• 55:09
  What's it look like now? What's kind of the landscape of the enlisted versus
• 55:12
  the officer corps? So I talk about this a lot often.
• 55:15
  So a good friend of mine is SEAC. So SEAC is Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chairman.
• 55:20
  Who is it right now? Dave Isom. Okay. Dave Isom. He was an Indo-Pay company.
• 55:25
  That's where I got there. John Troxell, he's a friend of ours and he's from
• 55:28
  Iowa, which is how he got involved with our foundation. And so he runs eTool
• 55:33
  Nation and we've got one of his signed eTools hanging in our Kindle place and
• 55:37
  all that stuff. I think he was the first SIEC.
• 55:40
  Yeah, I believe. Dave might be the fifth, maybe. So interesting.
• 55:43
  Yeah. Interesting position too, but that's cool. And Dave and I have had this
• 55:48
  conversation before of like.
• 55:51
  And he was the one that enlightened me to this. So I think it was at the time,
• 55:54
  the percentage might have changed, 82% to 84% of the military is enlisted.
• 56:01
  That sounds about right. That sounds right. Yeah. But all of the educational
• 56:04
  benefits that come from U.S. law are for officers. That's how they go to war
• 56:08
  college and all this other stuff, right?
• 56:11
  And then think about that, right? Like, man, why are we not given,
• 56:14
  if you do 20 years and you're 84%, why are we not sending these people to master's
• 56:18
  degrees and all these other things?
• 56:20
  And, you know, that have they not and forgive my ignorance on it,
• 56:25
  because I've been out for a little bit, a couple of days.
• 56:28
  Have they not changed where some of the different schools, whether it's E9 school
• 56:34
  or something like that, are worth more credited or whatever?
• 56:38
  It's accredited. But like so when officers go to war college or wherever,
• 56:42
  they get out there with a degree. Yep.
• 56:44
  So, yeah, if we go to enlisted PME, you get out with credits. Gotcha. Right.
• 56:50
  Not equivalent. Not equivalent at all. Yeah. And so, I mean,
• 56:54
  if you think about that, to like a bachelor's degree, GW and I were talking
• 56:58
  about it on the golf course today, it's the minimum go for officers.
• 57:01
  It should be a master's degree.
• 57:03
  Oh, yeah. I'd agree with that. Look at the enlisted core right now.
• 57:06
  I mean, dude, you know how many kids had master's degrees surrounding me? Yeah.
• 57:11
  And, I mean, I'm still in right now. I'm an E9, obviously. So,
• 57:15
  it doesn't, I guess it's not the same as if I was an E5 saying it.
• 57:18
  But I'm on my second master's degree with an Ivy League school, right?
• 57:24
  So then let me ask you, what separates an officer and an enlisted man then?
• 57:29
  It doesn't sound like it's education anymore. Let me ask the hard question.
• 57:33
  Is there a need for both? Yes. Why? Absolutely. Because one has legal authority,
• 57:38
  the other one has charge.
• 57:39
  An NCO has charge. Good answer. I like that.
• 57:42
  Yeah, there is. For sure there is. Because somebody has to be responsible,
• 57:47
  and somebody has to have charge. Interesting. I like that response.
• 57:51
  I hadn't heard it that way, so thank you for that.
• 57:54
  So what else about this, man? What do I know? Educate me on this.
• 57:58
  So I don't think it's completely broken other than there's money allocated for
• 58:02
  officers to go to school. And I'm not shitting on them. They're all good people
• 58:06
  and good officers. They raise their hands.
• 58:08
  I think Congress should pass laws, maybe put in an NDAA that gives master's degrees, E6 and above.
• 58:15
  If you're going to become an E7, you have to have a master's degree.
• 58:18
  Not maybe have to, that's a rough one.
• 58:20
  Which means not only, so they've always encouraged. I mean, you've had tuition
• 58:23
  assistance and all that other stuff, right? You get in, you can go for free.
• 58:28
  Here's a difference, though, Eric, on that one. Go ahead, please.
• 58:31
  When officers go to do it, it's their job. Yes, understand. When we go to do
• 58:35
  it, it's a second. Yes, 100%. Yes, I agree. Interesting.
• 58:41
  So that dynamic would have to change then for E6 and above based off what you
• 58:44
  just said. And I think you'd have to tie it into an NDAA. So the other thing
• 58:48
  is we are sending enlisted folks to officer schools.
• 58:52
  But if you get a bean counter that starts to look at it because it's based on
• 58:56
  officers sitting in those seats, when an enlisted guy sits in it or gal,
• 59:00
  it's because they're not filled.
• 59:03
  So if you're looking at congressional money, you could say, well,
• 59:06
  you're not using it. You're not using it. Take it. Yeah. Yeah.
• 59:09
  Let me throw a curveball in.
• 59:11
  So then you throw warrant officers in. Yeah.
• 59:14
  How does that fit in? I don't know well enough to speak on that, but just a little bit.
• 59:20
  So they're appointed. That's why it's a warrant. They're not commissioned by the Senate.
• 59:26
  But they get to, I think they get to commission schools. I could be wrong.
• 59:29
  Somebody would have to check that, but I think they get to commission schools. I don't know.
• 59:33
  I don't know at this point. I've been out for too long. I can't speak to Marley on it.
• 59:37
  That's interesting. Okay. Yeah. And it's like, so the point that I wanted to
• 59:41
  say with that earlier was when Dave pointed out to me the percentage of enlisted folks.
• 59:46
  And I, yeah, a great proponent of this is Admiral Paparo at IndoPaycom.
• 59:51
  He, I could be wrong in this, but I think his dad and his uncle were Marine NCOs.
• 59:56
  He constantly, if you watch his testimonies on YouTube, anytime he's a friend
• 1:00:00
  of the Haskins ask, he'll point out his senior enlisted behind him and he'll read their bio.
• 1:00:07
  And he'll say, and he'll say the NCO and petty officer is the heart and soul of what we do.
• 1:00:12
  And then, and then if you look at that percentage, I wish more would embrace
• 1:00:15
  that idea. Yeah. Well, I guess, yeah. Indo-Paycom, right? So he's a man.
• 1:00:21
  Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, And every time I see that, I kind of get tingles.
• 1:00:26
  And then I think about it, I'm like, man, before I get out, what can I do to
• 1:00:31
  help that? So they get there. Because if we're talking about in the high 80s
• 1:00:34
  percentage or low 80s percentage, that that's our military, that's our heart and soul.
• 1:00:39
  They say it's the middle of what we do. It's the heart and soul.
• 1:00:42
  Why aren't we educating? Why don't we let them get away from the job that they
• 1:00:47
  do and get an education? Well, one is because we can't afford to lose it.
• 1:00:50
  And it just shows how important they are.
• 1:00:54
  Interesting so do you get a chance as a senior enlisted member do you get a
• 1:00:58
  chance to travel around and see your other enlisted all the time awesome all
• 1:01:03
  the time yeah and then troop in the line right is that what they call it in
• 1:01:06
  the army troop in the line yeah,
• 1:01:08
  yeah it's good to see the thing is and me and guy have talked about this a lot,
• 1:01:13
  is there's a lot of negative stuff about the generation of kids now sure absolutely are the people and,
• 1:01:21
  i get out there and see that and if If anybody thinks that, fuck you.
• 1:01:25
  They are the most lethal force the world has ever seen.
• 1:01:29
  These kids. And they are dedicated to their craft. They are serious in their
• 1:01:33
  job. But I will challenge you this back, though.
• 1:01:36
  You're also only seeing 1% of society, and it's the 1% that chose to sign.
• 1:01:42
  So, Eric, I'm talking about the ones in the middle. Right.
• 1:01:46
  I don't shoot the line in Kansas. But you know this.
• 1:01:50
  But I like to put things in perspective to the listener, right?
• 1:01:53
  Right. Like, no joke, 1% of the society signs that dotted line to say,
• 1:01:57
  I'm going to put my life into, you know, swears the oath and goes forth. Our kids. Right.
• 1:02:02
  And so that takes a different breed already, right? Because there's not many.
• 1:02:07
  And then of that, it's good to hear.
• 1:02:10
  I love that word, and it's good to hear that from you, that you can ascribe that title to them.
• 1:02:18
  That makes me feel good as the guy not in anymore. I'm glad there's another
• 1:02:21
  group behind us that's willing to put steel on target.
• 1:02:24
  Well, you're the first person I've heard say that about the new generation.
• 1:02:27
  There's a lot that's said about the current generation coming up,
• 1:02:30
  and that is very good to hear because there is a lot of negativity about the
• 1:02:34
  current generation and how things are going to flow in the future.
• 1:02:38
  It's interesting to see the difference
• 1:02:40
  between our generation versus millennials versus Gen—is it Z now?
• 1:02:45
  I don't know, but it's interesting watching the new one because the new one— That is Z.
• 1:02:50
  Has come up and said, F the last one. Yeah. They're starting to act a little
• 1:02:54
  more like us, which is weird. I hope so. It's interesting. I hope so.
• 1:02:58
  I forget who it was, and it's probably a quote from somebody famous,
• 1:03:01
  but I heard somebody say this at one point. Somebody in the Bible said kids these days.
• 1:03:06
  Right? See? I think my mom said that. Yeah. Right? I was going to say,
• 1:03:11
  I think I heard that as a child. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:12
  So you just, and I think when I hear that, that's kind of adults being upset
• 1:03:18
  about their failures. Sure.
• 1:03:21
  How many years you got in, Sonny? I'm 25 right now. How long have you got?
• 1:03:25
  Are you bored yet? No, I get to hang out with dudes like you.
• 1:03:28
  There you go. No, that's awesome. No, I'm not bored. And it's like I said before,
• 1:03:33
  my current boss asked me to come here to serve.
• 1:03:35
  It's a great time to serve. Yeah. It's a very trivial world,
• 1:03:40
  and I love being a part of it.
• 1:03:41
  Good. So, we started off with, as you heard, this podcast is hosted by No Boundaries.
• 1:03:50
  It's hosted by CJ3 Foundation, both nonprofits.
• 1:03:55
  CJ3 Foundation serves veterans. We serve other wounded heroes,
• 1:03:59
  law enforcement, first responders, all that. No Boundaries, similar.
• 1:04:04
  You've got a couple of nonprofits that you associate with, follow, support.
• 1:04:10
  Go ahead and talk to us about it, brother. You know, this is an opportunity
• 1:04:13
  to kind of tout their wares and the good things they're doing as well and why
• 1:04:18
  you're hanging out with them and support them.
• 1:04:20
  Oh, perfect. Eric and Roger, thank you for giving me the platform to do this for you. Absolutely.
• 1:04:24
  So the first one that I wanted to, I actually started this one and then I handed
• 1:04:28
  it off to other people. So you're a quitter. Yeah, I am.
• 1:04:31
  I am a quitter. Eric wants to do that every day Actually Eric I just figured
• 1:04:35
  out That the younger people Were better at doing it Than I was True True.
• 1:04:40
  That's what I got I just handed it off So Radio Recon Project Is one of them
• 1:04:44
  So it's all the Radio Reconnaissance guys Guys and gals That get together And
• 1:04:47
  GW goes to those A couple times There's reunions And everything So that's a big one,
• 1:04:53
  Well hold on Before you go any further Tell us about it Yeah tell us about it
• 1:04:56
  So well Okay go ahead Let me say the second foundation Hey you run It's your show Yeah,
• 1:05:03
  i'm sorry because it'll only make sense,
• 1:05:06
  so the second one i was going to say was the recon foundation is fantastic they
• 1:05:10
  do gold star family retreats and that's my boy in hawaii pep tablada runs that
• 1:05:15
  and on the east coast is chad ramsey,
• 1:05:17
  it's all reconnaissance marines they they they get together,
• 1:05:21
  they they're they just did this gnarly ass run together and they do gold star
• 1:05:25
  family retreat is legit so they get like fallen recon marines they get their
• 1:05:29
  families together and take them out to Hawaii and do this big thing. So that's...
• 1:05:32
  Damn! Yeah, that's... Yeah, Recon Foundation is badass.
• 1:05:37
  So when we started Radio Recon Project, is where I'm backing up a little bit
• 1:05:40
  here, it was because the Radio Recon guys, they go to the foundational school,
• 1:05:45
  they become MOS'd Recon Marines, but there was not really a foundation representing them.
• 1:05:51
  But then we figured out, actually, Recon Foundation does that for them.
• 1:05:56
  It became more of a reunion type of thing and scholarships for their children
• 1:06:01
  and to where we didn't have to eat out of the purse of Recon Foundation.
• 1:06:04
  So it was a, yeah, it was another way to do it. Actually, I just kind of scoped it down a little bit.
• 1:06:09
  Yeah. Marsoc Foundation is another one. I think it became Raider Foundation.
• 1:06:13
  Now we'll be the other one.
• 1:06:15
  But so my boy on one of my teams, Trey Fagan, this guy is awesome.
• 1:06:19
  I was with him on A212, MSA A212, shout out, Dari Boom.
• 1:06:24
  But Marine Special Operations Team A212. I think his wrist just went limp when
• 1:06:28
  he did that. I don't know what that was.
• 1:06:30
  No, that was a shocker. I'm joking. I'm joking. for these battles all the time.
• 1:06:38
  So trey fagin he he's old good friend of mine and he runs a foundation now called
• 1:06:43
  barnabas barnabas foundation and it takes vets out that have,
• 1:06:47
  have problems and squares them away and you know gets all this stuff together
• 1:06:51
  anybody in issues if you're in a north carolina area call trey and he'll square
• 1:06:55
  your way it's awesome um so one of the questions i get so why do you bring on
• 1:06:59
  other charities why do you bring on other folks talking about other
• 1:07:02
  when the boundaries and CJ3, it's like, listen,
• 1:07:05
  the big thing is this isn't just about us.
• 1:07:09
  There are other good organizations. Now I will say there are a lot of organizations
• 1:07:13
  out there I don't subscribe to, and I don't support. Which ones are those,
• 1:07:16
  Eric? I'm not going to say that.
• 1:07:18
  However, we will absolutely. Sunny nose. We will absolutely come on the podcast
• 1:07:23
  and talk about other phenomenal organizations doing phenomenal things. I will just say this.
• 1:07:28
  So it was interesting. I was conventional army, but I got supported by a lot
• 1:07:32
  of special people, right? So I was a human intelligence, counterintelligence guy.
• 1:07:36
  So when I'd go out on objective, even though I was conventional, whatever.
• 1:07:40
  All my action folks weren't conventional. And so I got to know them very well.
• 1:07:44
  One thing I realized is, and this is not a hit on who you were talking about
• 1:07:47
  or who you were saying, one of the reasons why I did what I did was,
• 1:07:51
  I found there just, there wasn't some organizations taking good care of just
• 1:07:54
  conventional military, conventional, you know, I've been firefighter,
• 1:07:58
  I've been law enforcement, I've been military, I've been all those things.
• 1:08:01
  So the group we serve, they all undergo certain same, similar kind of things, right?
• 1:08:06
  You know, So similar kind of PTSD, TBI things.
• 1:08:11
  Guys go through and see a lot of stuff no matter what you do to serve.
• 1:08:14
  And so I wanted the aperture open wide enough that we could support anybody
• 1:08:19
  and everybody because, you know, we've given SEAL Team 6 guy a dog.
• 1:08:24
  We've given, we support them all.
• 1:08:26
  But I also know they've got a pretty strong support internal,
• 1:08:29
  right? Just like you just said, MARSOC, and I'm not knocking that.
• 1:08:32
  I think that's phenomenal.
• 1:08:33
  I think sometimes some of the conventional folks get left in the dust and feel like they're not.
• 1:08:38
  And so that's kind of where we came in. I'm not saying we're scooping up the
• 1:08:42
  ash and trash or nothing like that. It's just I think there's other folks that
• 1:08:46
  are underserved, and we wanted to provide a support to that.
• 1:08:48
  So I appreciate the hell out of what you guys are doing.
• 1:08:51
  I'm glad to know there's other phenomenal organizations out there.
• 1:08:54
  Obviously, I'm aware of some of those, and they're doing phenomenal things. So thank you for that.
• 1:08:59
  So what else do you want to plug while you're here? You got our attention.
• 1:09:03
  So this is your opportunity please do uh real quick before i could before we
• 1:09:06
  bounce on this one so my son negative bounce my son,
• 1:09:10
  good plug so i i just want to throw a shout out to my son he's a sponsored fighter
• 1:09:15
  under combat sports hawaii and and in hawaii right now he's kickboxing and jiu-jitsu
• 1:09:19
  he's fighting for his next title and shout out to his coaches from gracie kailua and his squad,
• 1:09:24
  out that's awesome man so,
• 1:09:27
  Is he still scared of his dad? He'll whoop my ass.
• 1:09:31
  Well, you can't let him know that. Well, Eric, to be honest,
• 1:09:34
  jiu-jitsu, I got him for about another eight months.
• 1:09:38
  Yeah? Yeah, I got him for about another eight months. But if we're going to
• 1:09:41
  strike before I take him down, he's got me.
• 1:09:44
  Yeah. Now, here's a real question. That's why I have guns.
• 1:09:47
  Do you let him know that, or do you still have to be that father that's like,
• 1:09:51
  no, I will fucking beat your ass? Well, he's going to know it whenever this age is.
• 1:09:56
  I will tell you this hey so roger's seen my son my son's a big boy he is and
• 1:10:02
  he's in the gym all the time he's a and so i remember when we started getting close and and so one,
• 1:10:08
  i no longer fight fair because he's too fucking big to do that right i'm gonna
• 1:10:11
  hurt him because i don't want him to keep coming back because that shit sucks,
• 1:10:15
  can he he might could but at this point i've told him you're fucked either way
• 1:10:19
  because it one i'm gonna beat you or if i don't you're the guy that beat up
• 1:10:23
  the fucking disabled vet.
• 1:10:24
  I'm going to call you out amongst everyone. Oh my God. You're an asshole.
• 1:10:28
  Well, the good part about psychological warfare right there,
• 1:10:31
  guys. The good part, and especially with boys and with girls,
• 1:10:33
  because girls shouldn't be controlled. Sure.
• 1:10:37
  Boys should do jujitsu because they're going to get beat up one day.
• 1:10:39
  Girls should do it so they can't be controlled by men.
• 1:10:41
  100%. But I think once you learn how to fight, you realize that you shouldn't fight.
• 1:10:46
  Because you realize how dangerous it is, and there's some other people out there
• 1:10:50
  that might know more than that. It's called discipline, right?
• 1:10:52
  Yeah, yeah. You do this to get discipline, but yeah, it's— A lot like sports,
• 1:10:55
  yeah. It should treat you, respect, discipline, and all those other things.
• 1:10:59
  You fight when you have to, not when you want to.
• 1:11:01
  Well, and Sonny, he doesn't take enough credit for Rocco, his son.
• 1:11:07
  But I can tell you— Does somebody else take credit for his son?
• 1:11:11
  No, no, no. That sounded really weird. He is his son, right?
• 1:11:15
  I mean, he, he, yes, it is. That just sounded really weird.
• 1:11:18
  No, no, no, no. What I'm saying is for, you know, Rocco being a professional
• 1:11:22
  fighter and all that, um, because I can tell you like,
• 1:11:25
  you know, Sonny and Loretta, his wife and Rocco, I think it might've been five
• 1:11:30
  years ago they visited and they were in my basement and Sonny was dropping them
• 1:11:35
  up, you know, and teaching him, teaching him jujitsu.
• 1:11:38
  We moved the couches and, you know, and Rocco wasn't a good fighter then.
• 1:11:43
  And Sonny was teaching him and making him strong.
• 1:11:47
  And it's that, you know, it's that kind of parenting that made Rocco who he is now.
• 1:11:54
  Listen, it's funny, and I won't admit this very often, but I'm going to do a
• 1:11:57
  lot on the air. It's fine. My son and I had our moment when he was in high school.
• 1:12:01
  Did you get your ass whooped? No.
• 1:12:03
  So I did play college sports. I won't say I was a golfer. It's fine.
• 1:12:09
  It was cricket. Chess was phenomenal. It was cricket.
• 1:12:12
  So I remember, he'll probably kill me for telling this story,
• 1:12:15
  but he said something to me one day and I'm pretty laid back.
• 1:12:18
  I don't get upset over much.
• 1:12:19
  He said something to me one day and I fucking threw my computer.
• 1:12:22
  I ran into the kitchen. I fucking picked him up and threw him up against the
• 1:12:25
  wall. I said, do you want the house to be like this? Because I will whoop your
• 1:12:27
  fucking ass every goddamn day.
• 1:12:29
  Only time I ever had to do it. We never had that conversation again,
• 1:12:32
  and it was done. And he learned how to box after that. Right,
• 1:12:36
  we did it. Oh, we might have done that. It's fine. No, no, no.
• 1:12:38
  I'm saying I did that with my kids. It's the same thing. Yeah,
• 1:12:41
  it's the one-time thing. I think you've got to have that one- You have to have that one moment.
• 1:12:44
  And it sounds like you were doing it, trying to teach them how to become a fighter.
• 1:12:47
  It wasn't, it wasn't, that wasn't the moment.
• 1:12:50
  I know, guy, I was joking. That was a training session.
• 1:12:53
  And Rocco was being made, like- Under the guise of a training session, yes.
• 1:12:57
  Yeah, no, it was definitely a training session. Sonny, what gym does he train
• 1:13:00
  out of? Do you know? Gracie Kailua. That's awesome. Gracie Kailua.
• 1:13:03
  Yeah, so it's— Is that the Gracie Brothers place? So the coach is tied in that
• 1:13:08
  family. Jason is a Gary. Shout out to him.
• 1:13:11
  He's a Hoyler Gracie black belt. Okay. Awesome. Yeah, he's old school Hawaii guy, jujitsu.
• 1:13:17
  So while you're saying that, I could give a shout out to the women of MMA out
• 1:13:22
  of 10th planet in san diego and that area come on board,
• 1:13:25
  and they support havoc probably more than me but they support us they've worn
• 1:13:29
  our gear and stuff so appreciate the hell out of them so that's awesome to hear
• 1:13:33
  that there's gracie brothers are,
• 1:13:35
  that's a that's no joke being trained by the gracie brothers and one more shout
• 1:13:38
  out so his mma coach is a harris sarmiento he's a gracie kailua black belt but
• 1:13:43
  he's old school hawaii he's fought nick diaz all those guys oh shit yeah
• 1:13:48
  that's my uh son's mma coach that's his squad mma he's,
• 1:13:52
  got he's got all the fighters coming out of white well so is he uh are we gonna
• 1:13:55
  be able to see him on tv soon some uh,
• 1:13:57
  my son yeah they're not filming a lot in hawaii it's hard for the boys in hawaii
• 1:14:01
  because they got to travel to get known because because not a lot of people come out to hawaii right
• 1:14:07
  but also it's like a stack thing because whenever anybody sends somebody from
• 1:14:11
  another state to come to our state they get fucked up.
• 1:14:17
  You know what i mean it's not it's not a good marketing yeah yeah but dude the
• 1:14:21
  hawaii boys don't fuck around hit squad will lay you lay these motherfuckers
• 1:14:24
  out all right hey Hey, Sonny, I got a question for you. You may or may not be
• 1:14:28
  able to answer it, but how about a challenge? What's that?
• 1:14:31
  So 10 planet gyms, multiples in California, we have one of our banners hanging up in the gym.
• 1:14:39
  What are the chances of us being able to get a CJ3 Foundation banner hanging
• 1:14:42
  out if I provided it? What are the chances of you working one back there?
• 1:14:47
  What do you think? Pretty fucking solid. Yeah?
• 1:14:50
  So challenge accepted? Yeah, yeah. All right. I appreciate that.
• 1:14:54
  No, that'd be awesome. uh we have to go out to hawaii and see it though oh yeah
• 1:14:59
  we gotta go see it eric i think your boss would like that too which part which boss.
• 1:15:06
  Your boss boss might be might be oh yeah that boss i had to think twice about
• 1:15:11
  that one it's like which boss i don't know which one he's talking about right
• 1:15:14
  now because michelle would like it too yeah she would be fine with it,
• 1:15:18
  so no that's cool man so what else you got for us bro,
• 1:15:21
  words of wisdom because i actually i'm going to say this I think it's cool as
• 1:15:25
  hell where you got to I applaud the hell out of you the enlisted side means
• 1:15:29
  the world to me that's what I grew up in that's candidly why I started this
• 1:15:33
  I wanted to get back to basics and just take care of Joe you know that's what
• 1:15:37
  I I wanted to take care of soldiers I wanted to take care of,
• 1:15:39
  People that needed assistance, because I don't feel like once they're out,
• 1:15:45
  they're kind of lost, bro. I will tell you this.
• 1:15:48
  Getting out was the toughest thing I ever had to do. It was a hard transition.
• 1:15:52
  That's why I'm still in. Right.
• 1:15:55
  There are some things that make it easy, right? There are certain jobs that
• 1:15:58
  you can get out in that don't feel too much different.
• 1:16:01
  But you lose out on the camaraderie. You lose out on so much.
• 1:16:05
  I think that's more or less why I started this foundation because,
• 1:16:09
  man, it's probably more therapeutic for me than it is for the people I'm helping
• 1:16:13
  just because this is what we do as enlisted, right? Like, people go, why do you do it?
• 1:16:18
  This is what we do. This is what we've always done. We take care of our folks.
• 1:16:23
  And so, you know, I didn't see another option. So appreciate the hell out of
• 1:16:27
  what you're doing. You're a phenomenal dude. I just got the opportunity to meet you today.
• 1:16:31
  Look forward to hanging out with you. unfortunately you got the stink of guiding
• 1:16:34
  the sky on you apologize he'll never rid that stink i i take extreme pride in that.
• 1:16:42
  It's like dub and sunny i didn't say this beginning of the show but thank you
• 1:16:46
  so much for your service absolutely,
• 1:16:49
  Let me tell you, here's one thing. One, I used to struggle with that when people
• 1:16:53
  used to tell me, thank you for your service. We were just talking about this.
• 1:16:56
  Did he tell you? Some old dude told me a response to give back,
• 1:17:00
  and I actually did, and I don't know if you ever heard it, but this old dude,
• 1:17:02
  because I struggled with that, and this dude thanked me for my service,
• 1:17:06
  and he could see it on my face. I didn't like it.
• 1:17:08
  Now, that and being called a hero, right? You hate those things.
• 1:17:11
  Well, when he said that, he's like, hey, do me a favor. I said, yeah, yes, sir.
• 1:17:15
  He said, next time somebody says that, say, thank you for being somebody we're serving for.
• 1:17:21
  Nice. And I went, shit. It's a response. You put the ball right back in their
• 1:17:24
  court. You know, it's crazy, Eric. Literally, before we walked into this podcast,
• 1:17:28
  G-Dub and I were having this conversation with a bartender.
• 1:17:31
  Yeah. One, I hate being called a hero because heroes are in Arlington Cemetery. Right, right.
• 1:17:36
  But I do have a problem with that, too, because, no, it doesn't always have
• 1:17:39
  to be. No, you don't have to die. There's tons of heroes left. Right, right, yes, yes.
• 1:17:43
  No, I got you. I got you. And, uh, so my line is because it's always a cringy
• 1:17:48
  thing. Like when somebody says, thank you for your service, what do you say?
• 1:17:50
  So I, so I always would say I, what I lied on, which is not going to happen
• 1:17:55
  anymore was I would say my pleasure.
• 1:17:57
  So I said that, I said that. Chick-fil-A. Yeah. I said that.
• 1:18:01
  So we're at the bar and the bartender goes, thank you for your service.
• 1:18:03
  And I said, it's my pleasure. And she goes, what do you fucking work for Chick-fil-A? True story.
• 1:18:08
  True story. It happened today. That's awesome. But I'm not going to lie.
• 1:18:13
  Old man floored me. And that's the line I've been using. What was the line again?
• 1:18:17
  Thank you for being somebody we're serving for. And, bro, it puts the ball right back in their court.
• 1:18:24
  And it basically challenges them to continue to be patriotic,
• 1:18:27
  continue to keep going around thinking, I like it.
• 1:18:31
  I was, not to drag this on longer, but I was talking to a group of friends at
• 1:18:36
  the retirement that guy was talking about just recently. And we were talking about...
• 1:18:41
  Wait, that that guy was talking about? Or this guy? No, G-Dub.
• 1:18:45
  I got to say G-Dub because then when you say guy.
• 1:18:49
  The guy in the sky uh so there's there's words that people will throw out like
• 1:18:54
  anything that has to do with a person like charismatic or you know yada yada yada so what's virtue,
• 1:19:01
  virtue is the disciplined approach of our highest ideals,
• 1:19:05
  The disciplined approach of our highest ideals. It means being a person worth
• 1:19:10
  remembering. It means being a person worth being in a room with.
• 1:19:14
  You know, and to be around a bunch of dudes that were retiring and kind of talk
• 1:19:18
  about that, it felt really good when we were down in Tampa.
• 1:19:21
  Well, now you just spawned, we're going to have to continue this for a little
• 1:19:25
  bit, guy in the sky, because he just spawned something in me.
• 1:19:27
  Roger, you heard this, I'm going to apologize. Guy's like, fuck me.
• 1:19:30
  It don't matter. Hey, we're running this. That's like, I want to go drink. Hold on.
• 1:19:34
  I'm drinking. So one of the things I need, dude, I want to tell you,
• 1:19:38
  and I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, but so here's, here's the thing.
• 1:19:42
  I accidentally gave a speech one time. Didn't mean to.
• 1:19:45
  He knows where I'm going already. The pee-pee speech. Yes. I call it my pee-pee speech.
• 1:19:49
  And now I give this in executive leadership. I give this around the government.
• 1:19:54
  I give it around, and it is my pee-pee speech. And I make people really uncomfortable
• 1:19:57
  because I get up and go, I'm going to tell you about my pee-pee.
• 1:20:00
  And people are looking at me going, what in the hell? Right.
• 1:20:03
  And I'll even give a little, yeah. You're looking for the people in the crowd like this.
• 1:20:09
  I no longer have one. You're driving a panel there.
• 1:20:12
  So anyway, dude, long and short, it's my story of when I got injured,
• 1:20:17
  what I went through emotionally, all this other stuff.
• 1:20:20
  But it gets into perspective and perseverance. The two P, you know,
• 1:20:24
  PP, right? Perspective and perseverance.
• 1:20:26
  And I will say, you know, with you, with the idea of you getting out with you,
• 1:20:31
  it very much applies, right? Perspective and perseverance.
• 1:20:35
  If you keep a positive perspective about what you want, where you,
• 1:20:38
  what you need to do, what you need money-wise, what you're looking for, all that other stuff.
• 1:20:43
  And then you persevere, which I'll challenge you. Most military members know
• 1:20:46
  how to do, you know, embrace the suck, move forward, whatever.
• 1:20:49
  You can do those two things, bro. There's nothing we can't tackle from the military.
• 1:20:55
  Nothing because nothing's as hard as what we went through most of that's just
• 1:20:59
  in your head so perspective and perseverance i'll challenge you keep that with you,
• 1:21:04
  When it's time to go, you've got a network, you've got a following of people.
• 1:21:11
  You've laid the groundwork, you're going to land on your feet.
• 1:21:14
  So, bravo Zulu, brother. Appreciate you.
• 1:21:17
  Good hanging up. All right. With that, thank you for joining us for this podcast.
• 1:21:23
  Another what is it called again? Warriors.