Latest / Veteran Wellness Podcast / From Delta Force to Fatherhood: A Lifetime of Service, Loss & Resilience | Kit Cessna
Transcript
- John Adams: The hardest thing I've ever done in my life wasn't a ranger, a marine, a delta operator, or any of that stuff. You want to test yourself. Have a handicapped child. Yeah, I I wasn't gonna bring that up, but I'm glad you did. That will tell you what kind of man you are or aren't. The test happens every day, and some days are better than others. You want to test yourself there it is. What kind of man are you and what can you give of yourself because it ain't about you. Every veteran has a story. Some stories change lives. Welcome to the Better and Wellness Podcast with Eric Lawrence. Good morning, Kit Susna. Morning How the hell are ya? You know, all things considered, doing pretty good. Did you work out this morning? Not this morning because I did about fifty miles on a road bike yesterday and I rode all week into work, back from work. And so today? No. That's a good I'll get right on it. I leave myself a rest day here and there. Well, yesterday I I interviewed Joe Vega, so I had to do like extra PT to try to pump up, you know, and just at least be able to puff up and flare to keep up with him. He he looks like fucking Dolph Lungren, you know. Of course. Absolutely. So ⁓ we're we're gonna start into this, but let's do your background. You have like the the best background militarily ⁓ mo anybody I know actually. It's quite we'll call it diverse. You you were the first in diversity. So let's let's what got you there? Where'd you grow up and where'd you start? I grew up primarily in central Arizona. ⁓ my dad worked in the propane gas industry as a technician. That's where I got my blue collar background. he was a veteran of the Korean War, first Marine to veteran of the Korean War A lot of his family brothers, he had two brothers that served in the Second World War and the Pacific most as Marines. The Cessna family contribution to America's military quite literally goes before the French and Indian War. ⁓ I'm not gonna say how well they did, but they were always there. I wanted to be part of that. I wanted to wake up and say I had served. Marine Corps seemed to be the natural road, plus the Army recruiter wasn't in his office. So I joined the Marine Corps at seventeen. I was still in high school, was on the delayed entry program. One of the things we have to remember and and w we both know where we're going with this, is that was way before thank you for your service. Yeah. That was the aftermath of the Vietnam conflict. And while not every individual was hostile to you, there was no thank you for your service. You were taking a step that put you at the lower end of the social ladder. I didn't care. I wanted to serve. So I enlisted in the Marine Corps. ⁓ served there for six years. Pretty much had intended a career. But you know, when I got to about year five or so, I just wasn't satisfied with things. I wanted more adventure. I wanted more challenge. So I got my honorable discharge, enlisted in the US Army, went to AIT jump school and all that, ended up in the second Ranger Battalion. ⁓ Served there for three years. I knew about the unit. I knew about Delta. I didn't know a whole lot about it. But then in nineteen eighty-six, here comes the recruiters. And so I signed up and went to selection, went to OTC, ended up serving four years with C Squadron. While I was in the unit, I went to the Q course. I took advantage of a ⁓ rush. Everybody was rushing to either get a ranger tab or a special forces identifier because of promotions. That had been directed from above. So I went through the weapons course and then we met when out on OD one for ODA one forty three out there in Fort Lewis. Yep. That was my last four and a half years before I retired. Yeah, I remember the formation where they put out that there were going to be an early retirement and you broke formation and ran to group headquarters. Brother, I'd had enough by that point for several reasons, you know, and it wasn't that I was bitter or anything like that. I just that I had done what I was gonna do till that point and I knew that there were some opportunities out there in civilian life and I was gonna go ahead and take take advantage of ⁓ I was newly married and that was part of it. And ⁓ so yeah, I took that early retirement and don't regret it. Well, I remember the one time you looked at me after one of these fine inspections we had and the block and taper on the your hair on the back of your head wasn't to their happiness. And I'm just like, We're we're in the wrong fucking world here. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. This is what's important. Yeah. How important is it? And and it wasn't just that. I'm not gonna leave something because somebody didn't like my haircut. It was more of a pull from the outside than a push from within, if that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Well that was you know, that was the mid nineties. There just wasn't a lot going on, you know. You just left Sea Squadron and missed Mogadishu, so Yeah. That had to be a ball. I mean, one funeral is bad enough, try a week of ⁓ Yeah. No, I don't shut upon ⁓ anybody. Yeah. Yeah, Joe Joe blew that off off yesterday, but there's always a lot of that, you know, and ⁓ anniversaries are are just that. It was a marker event within the unit and without that Moby DC deal. Yeah. Yeah. When you made all those changes between the different health services and units, what'd it feel like starting over every time? 'cause you're the low man. There was only one time that had ever really hit me and it's probably gonna surprise you what it was. The only time I really got hit hard by that is when I went to Fort Benning to AIT. Because there was this rumor in the Marine Marine Corps full of rumors and myths and legends. And one of the things they told us in San Diego when I was in boot camp was they said, Well if you ever join another service, which kind of made you a traitor to mankind You don't have to go through their boot camp. What a load of BS. The US Army didn't care at all where you came from. So if they wanted you to go through AIT, you were going through AIT. So there I was. I was a staff sergeant selectee in the Marine Corps and you know how the Marine Corps works. You got NCOs and you got staff NCOs and I just made that jump and now I'm a spec four. What is a specialist in the US Army with a bald head, you know? walking around with all the other crews. And I I you know, it it was hard. I tell you something though, I tell you I had a realization there that has stayed with me the rest of my career. And that realization was that the United States Army has never gotten the respect that it deserves either from the other services or from the nation as a whole. Hmm. Because it has been the United States Army that has been in it since the beginning. And the beginning was before the French and Indian War. True. It's been the US Army that has carried the brunt of everything and there I mean there's no exceptions to that rule. All the way up to present day. Yeah. That's true. I had a realization about that. You know, you need to shut up, you need to push your ego down deep, and you just do things the way they want you to do and let this be the new beginning here. That was the hardest. ⁓ Ranger Battalion, I knew damn well I was gonna have to earn that one. Yeah. No, we're kidding. The unit, I thought that I could do it. That was my mindset. I think I can get through this thing. With group, ⁓ by the time I got to group, I was like, you know, I know I can handle this and I'm gonna I'm gonna enjoy it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, on on one four three, we were a mountain team. Mountain team, yes or back then there was zero money to do anything. So everything was truly SF, self financed. So they would send us rock climbing for a month or two. ⁓ yeah. And we just wouldn't come back. Well, I I got a quick funny on that. When first trip we took an OD one ODA one forty three, I think I forget which mountain we went to. And I remember that everybody was ecstatic because we had a hundred dollar op fund given to us. And I had to walk outside because the lowest op fund you drew in the unit was thirty five thousand dollars. Yeah. I walked outside and said, Boy, you ain't Kansas no more. Yeah, we had no money back then. But we had fun. Rock climbing and mountain climbing. Rock climbing and mountain climbing. Yes, sir. Yeah, I mean in the time we got ⁓ volunteered to do the Pacific Crest Trail and nobody else showed up. Remember that hike? Well, as I remember it, I sold that one to the chain of command because w they were talking about doing some sort of extreme thing like the Himalayas or Everest. ⁓ that's right. And I said, Well listen, in any one of those cases, you're looking at a minimum of a hundred click walk into the climbing area. Yeah. So let's do an exercise. Let's do a hundred K movement just to see where we're at on the ability to get to an extreme higher elevation. Yeah. It got approved and you and I ended up being the only ones that did it. Yeah. Your wife dropped us off and the the adventure began. A lot of wild turkey and motron. Yep. Yeah. That was that was actually quite fun until we ran out of wilderness. Yeah, we eventually ended up back in civilization. As I remember, we ended up sleeping behind the McDonalds in Edomville. Edenum Claw, Washington. And ⁓ while we tried to get somebody from group to come pick us up. Yeah. 'Cause but for some reason or another, hitchhiking wasn't working. We we had to hitchhike and it was really hard to do as two grown men. You know, we had grown scruffy ass guys ain't had a bath in a week, you know. We figured it out though, one hid in the woods while the other hitchhiked and then when they stopped we'd both come out. That's it, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I bet they loved that. Yeah. And your shoe blew out, so we had to go to Ian Employee anyhow. Had to get a new set of hiking boots. Yeah, your your soul blew off, but Yeah, that was a fun trip, you know. Yeah, it was. It was a fun time. It was a fun four years. Yeah, no doubt. I have a lot of good photos. I don't know if I can find them. But ⁓ yeah, what a cast of characters we had on four three. Holy hell. ⁓ quite entertaining. After you left, it kind of went downhill a little and I rolled over to four one, but ⁓ with Rich Farrell. But yeah, that was fun. But you know, I remember you were telling me you got it I don't know, a ricochet or some frag in Panama or something. Didn't you in the forearm? I suspect it was a chunk of a bullet. Yeah. I don't I could tell you whose it was, theirs or ours. I got zapped by something. They didn't consider it worth even a X ray or anything dude due to, you know, the lack of a lot of outside trauma. So it something hit me. Yeah. Well I was talking to Joe yesterday, the same thing. I think we all got frag in us. But a whole bullet, that's a different thing. I don't think it was a whole bullet. I think it was probably a piece of the jacket, is what I suspect. You know, or you know, that stuff will liquefy. The interior lid. ⁓ I know. That's what's that's what's still in my thigh. It it yeah. It was a hot plasma, I remember the feeling. I'm like, that feels weird. It's burning. ⁓ but we were up at Natick doing that high altitude caffeine study. You and I did that. That was enjoyable on top of Pike's Peak for how long? Eighteen days or some bullshit. Well, I don't remember how long the trip was, 'cause if you remember I got metavac hate, high L two point. ⁓ that's right. You did quit it. Yeah, I'll tell you that I respect that now. Yeah, I had AMS. ⁓ That bag really didn't help. I was sick as a dog. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's not nothing to mess around with. Altitude'll do you in. Yeah, I forgot you got hape there. Yeah, that was a horrible trip too. But once again, we always got volunteered for it and then the command element was a little busy or something and could never find ⁓ Yeah, yeah. That's true. Yeah. I had an experience like that in law enforcement I'll tell you about a little later in the interview. ⁓ yeah, I forgot then you know, in our in your post service you're doing quite a bit of that LE, but let's talk about injuries you got while on active duty. How you recovered if you did at all and how are they now? The good Lord looked after me on that 'cause I never got anything totally catastrophic. ⁓ I have a bad ankle that I in airborne school I did what they told me not to was just reach for the ground. And I tore it up and then I re injured it. So it talks to me. ⁓ I have a shoulder. I I was in the Ranger Battalion and I jump on Yakima. I hit the only ravine in ten square miles. I mean, you know, the only obstacle in ten square miles, why wouldn't I hit it? Mm-hmm. And I knock my shoulder out of joint. That talks to me. ⁓ you know, it's just nagging stuff. Yeah. Not anything debilitating, it's just that I get reminded of it all the time. So I to be honest with you, I have gotten fortunate on that. I never got anything that I had to really recover from. Hmm. That's true. ⁓ and then hell, talk about getting shot. You got shot later down in Baton Rouge, didn't you? I got a shot mechanics to accomplish something as a cop I never accomplished as a Marine or soldier and has to get my dumbass shot. And tell that story. That is the truth to this, you know. My hat's off to the average street cop. Because, brother, they are dancing with the Grim Reaper every day. We did it occasionally. They do it every day. Yeah, I was a hostage barricade situation. A guy got in a fight with his girlfriend. Well, let me back up a little bit. When I retired, I quickly started working for the anti terrorism assistance program down there at LSU. Okay. So I was an instructor of foreign nationals, but a lot of the instructors working with us were law enforcement. And I became friends with a guy named Greg Ferris who became the chief of police. And so he got me a reserve commission and I ended up putting eleven years with B R P D on their SWAT team, both as an operator and a trainer. I hadn't been on there about eight months and ⁓ three o'clock in the morning the pager goes off. Remember the days of pagers? ⁓ gosh, yeah. I had a pager. So the pager goes off, it comes up with the code for response and an address, and I had to motorola. I turn the rotorola radio on to the tactical channel and I hear the incident scene commander talking about if we can get kids out of there without anybody else getting shot at. All right, I need to get over there now. So I head over to the site. And I link up with all the guys and long story short, this guy, long term offender, guy named Ronnie Gornflow, had gotten into a conflict with his ex girlfriend and did a home invasion. Ended up kicking in the door, going in there, and he took the boy hostage. Now this woman had a five year old, she had an eighteen month year old, she had a fourteen year old. They ran out of the house, left all the kids there. He surrendered the two younger kids and kept the boy. I don't know whether that was truly a hostage situation or not. We stayed on that thing for a day and a half for they decided that nothing was working out. He threatened to kill the boy, he threatened open fire on us, they decided on a direct assault. You know, you talked earlier about the leadership disappeared. When we lined up for that assault, There were eight of us. Yep. That was always left. I mean the dogs left the neighborhood. The media backed off, the mayor's office backed off, all the police leadership backed off, and there was eight of us operators standing there looking at each other. I guess we're it. Yeah. Well, we ended up taking him we ended up g actually physically getting into a fight with him and he shot me through my left hand. ⁓ You know, it would take a long time to describe what actually happened there, but it ended up in a confrontation in a back bedroom with him physically holding the boy to his body with the gun under the boy's chin. We ended up fighting the guy. I took it through the left hand. It went through my left hand and bounced off my Kebler helmet. The detectives found it in the attic. ⁓ in the You still have it? Post his No, they never gave it to me because it got entered into evidence. And ⁓ now I did have my flight glove 'cause it blew my flight glove open. I did have that. I don't know what happened to that. But that was that was you know, that was it. I I had to reflect on that later. You know, you traipsed the world, you dumbass. If you wanted to get shot, all you had to do was go to Bad Roots. Yeah. Well, you you learned that at Katrina and you probably should mention how that whole thing shook out from your view, 'cause a lot of people I don't believe know the truth back there. So Katrina, as hurricanes go, you know, when you live in Louisiana, you deal with hurricanes. Texas coast, you know, Florida, all that hurricanes are a fact of life. They they're big ones, little ones, mediums. As storms go, Katrina was middle of the pack at best. It was not a destructive hurricane. It is as storms are built. What Katrina did was collapse the levees in New Orleans and that caused the catastrophe. Now, if you moved east over to Pass Christian, Mississippi and Biloxi in that area, they got hit with a big storm surge. So they had a lot of local or coastal flooding. But as far as just sheer destruction, it was the collapse of the levees that caused what happened in Katrina. So you have a flooding of The most corrupt city in the United States of America in its history, and that is New Orleans. And it touches everything. Well, when you have a system that's built on corruption, it will not stand a real event. No. It can't impossible. It's impossible. So it breaks everything breaks down. Police department, everything breaks down. The reason that the American public didn't know about it is there wasn't a whole lot of media in there. You know, it was kind of an isolated incident for a good forty eight hours. Well, we're you know, Baton Rouge seventy miles up the road. Baton Rouge Police Department SWAT, we own boats. We got enough stuff to operate because any southern city c down in that area can flood, so the police department is gonna have the ability to operate on the water. We got R B fifteens, we got the mu you know, the engines and everything, and so we head down there. Man, that was a magical mystery tour. Scariest one of the scariest things I've seen in my life is a major city without lights. Wow. That sounds small, but you get down in those skyscrapers and everything, you were literally in a cave. ⁓ just pure anarchy. Police department was the scariest part because they had taken off their uniforms, donned civilian clothes, a lot of them left. And a lot of them joined the looting. Now, if you hear stories about helicopters getting shot down and and that stuff, that's all BS. That didn't happen. But the breakdown of law and order was one hundred percent. I mean, it went to pure we were the only law and order. There were sixteen of us on the initial rundown there, and we were the only law order in S City for probably three days. We're in Wow. Yeah. And you do what you can do, you know? Got as many people out as we could, pulled some rescues, arrested a lot of people, you know, put a lot of people in flexcuffs. They ended up getting transferred to Ban Rouge. I don't know. I never got a subpoena. I never got a deposition off of it personally, so I don't know what happened to them. ⁓ yeah, that was that was a rough one right there. You know, you're driving a boat in the dark across the top of water. And suddenly you realize that there's two inches of gasoline floating on top of the water and you're running it outboard through it. Yeah. One spark. One spark and you're gonna be in the middle of hell, you know, literally. And you know, it just that was it. That was the now I'm not gonna say that another city would not have experienced the same level of destruction had it's been suddenly flooded. That was gonna be bad no matter what. It was the lack of a coherent society to begin with. Correct. Yeah, they started off in a negative. It started off way in a negative. And it didn't get any better. Yeah, but imagine there's guys with you that didn't have your background. Well, there was me and there was a guy named Steve Bailey who was also a reserve officer and he was a longtime ⁓ Force recon marine. So me and him kind of ran the show. I guess we didn't ask permission. We didn't ask whether everybody wanted to, but we just started giving orders. You know, what this parking lot right here, we're setting up an LZ for evacuation of civilians. So take this can of spray paint and make this mark on the ground. Move out. You know? ⁓ put your radios on this channel. If you get into this neighborhood, you know, let me know when you get here. We just we didn't ask permission, we just started running the operation. I know, and I've seen that multiple times with myself and other guys that ⁓ what's implied is normal to us. Right. It was you know an implied task is like no shit, of course we gotta do XYZ and and just do it and go just step back, get mad at me later. Well I did that in Afghanistan one time, somebody went to argue, I'm like, just stop. No one's in charge right now except for the bad guys. Go do this. We'll argue about it later. Exactly. I didn't get any we didn't get any pushback for it. It wasn't like everybody was doing nothing. Yeah. The leadership was intact. It was doing it's just that we were comfortable with that environment. Correct. Comfortable and chaos. Comfortable and chaos so we could think and say, okay, well what do we need to do next? Yeah. Yeah. No, that I think that's underrated and and any of the military. I mean, even if, you know, you're in conventional side, they've had to react a lot better and and mentally not vapor lock. Exactly. You know, and Kit of all the guys I know, you're probably one of the most mentally stapled guys there is, you know, so I'd hate to see what's really behind the ice. But, you know, you've always been able to keep shit mentally and emotionally organized in my view. You know, how do you How do you do that? 'Cause a lot of us have had problems with that. I have, I mean, in the past. ⁓ be real honest with you. I don't know. It's just something I've always been able to do. ⁓ now I've had my rough times. You know, I've come close to the edge one time, you know. ⁓ but my religious faith forms the basis of a lot of it now. It didn't always. Concentration on the mission. ⁓ I always had the ability And I'm trying to think of how to say this. I always had the ability, even as a young child, to kind of pull a garage door down between me and my fears. They were there. Yeah. But I was able to kind of put a wall between me and them temporarily. You know, or a bad situation. I grew up with a fairly abusive father. So I was able to kind of compartmentalize, you know, so yeah, this is bad. But I'm gonna put a wall there. So that's part of it. And also finally, later on in life, learning to place things in actual context. This is bad, but bad as compared to what? Yeah. You know, that's a big one there. So I believe me, I've had I've fought my battles, whatever it looked like from the outside. I have like everybody else, I've had moments of extreme doubt, extreme fear. ⁓ if I didn't show ⁓ I'm I'm grateful to hear that because I damn sure felt him. Yeah, no, I mean I I was always perplexed. I'm like, this fucking dude is too cool. You know, I'm like the the level of confidence when I met you back in ⁓ first group, I'm like, this this fucking dude doesn't worry about anything and if he doesn't know something, he goes and learns it. Just get a fucking book. Remember you and Pete? Pete was learning how to sail or some bullshit, and I'm like What are these people doing here? You know, I mean everybody's just so unique and no self and seek self-improvement. You know, that's massive. Well, I was curious. You know, I was always the type said, okay, well, if somebody's telling me something, let me let me see if that's true. Yes. Or how true is the version that they're feeding me? Probably the better way to say it. That that stuck on me. I was like, yeah, this that's the way to go. Because I was just ⁓ shit, I was twenty one. Coming I was an E6 coming from nineteenth group. And everybody's like all National Guard SF baby. I'm like, well, at least we can hit the drop zone in West Virginia. You know, I mean you guys are jumping into a county and you miss it. You know, we're jumping into a yard. And ⁓ yeah, I got caught a lot of grief. You know, I remember we talked about this. I remember the first time I actually saw you wasn't at ODA one four three. I was called that direction. I was Cadrius Selection and you guys were running the cheat treat I think you called it that Ridge Runner, Operation Ridge Runner. It was the E and E operation there. And I pulled the front gate of Camp Dawson with that Army Cut V pickup truck with a load of candidates in the back and I you know, I pulled up there and you pulled up beside me at a stop sign with a ⁓ five five one G with a roll bar above it and you had a guy flex cuff to the roll bar. With a with a hood on. Yeah. With a hood on. I was sixteen years old. I'd say that's pretty neat. ⁓ I was sixteen years old. That unit adopted me at sixteen. And ⁓ it was weird. I got in at seventeen. They don't have a delay entry, I found out, for SF. So they had to discharge me, wait six months, and reenlist me. So I was already discharged before I went to basic and re enlisted. But yeah, they took care of me. They they would throw me into the briar patch and just say, figure it out. You know, and it's those were old Vietnam guys. Those were old Sante Raiders and shit. So I was very fortunate, but I was very sp tainted when I got to first group. I'm like, Where's all the experience? I'm like, Where's all the old guys? You know? Didn't have it. No, not in those days. No. No, they were transitioning out. I mean Skelos was a Vietnam vet and Lupiac was over at I think one of the battalions, but it was like they were all almost out. So we had a drought of ⁓ You know, combat veterans. I mean, how long was Panama? Were you there? Three days, four days? That was a little bit longer than that. I think we were actual deployment there was probably just shy of a month from start to finish. Now ⁓ you know, it tapered off very quickly. I think they kept us well, I know why they kept us around. They kept a squadron in country because they knew if they sent us out, we wouldn't shoot everybody that moved. Yeah. In fact that General Thurman there, he directly ordered that a squadron be kept because he says if I gotta send these guys I don't know I don't want any collateral damage. Yeah. So about a month. That makes sense. Yeah, a month. But you were an assaulter for that, right? Yes. Yeah. So just a lot of real quick hits and lot of real quick hits. I mean the same thing that you heard about, well, you did it yourself over there reacting to actionable intelligence. Find an address, go in and take this guy out. They're gonna get a name or an address out of him. repeat the process and you know, obviously the big high value target was Mandy Noriega. Yeah, yeah. ⁓ but like any other guy like him, if you remove his support structure, you remove him. Yeah. Yeah, you were telling me you're doing, you know, hip pocket planning on one one threes. Yep. Target to target. Just exhaust. Army one one threes, yeah. Yeah. Not a bad way to get around an urban area. I was gonna say, yeah, that's that's optimum. I mean, we had ⁓ thin skinned Toyotas, you know. It's like, hmm, what could go wrong? Right. ⁓ Yeah, that was that was entertaining to hear those stories because back then we had no one that had any relevant ⁓ contact, you know, ⁓ Healy, he was there with what was that, seventh ID ⁓ in Panama, and then Tomasi was there with the eighty second. Eighty second, yeah. So yeah, we had that, but you know, is still very, very minimal on you know, you need length in combat to work out some SOPs, not a quick hit, you know, it really you don't you don't learn the lessons there. Well I think that was why Mogadishu happened like it happened because there were too many Quick hits prior to that and that, you know, suddenly they're in a protracted gunfight with a determined enemy. Yeah. And you know. Yeah, we just people are gonna get hit no matter what. Water issue, ⁓ V G issue, Protex. I mean, it's just like what you're you know, I and I talk to a lot of the guys since then, they're like, Yeah, we just got caught with our pants down, you know, we just running SOPs and didn't think of the the enemy has a vote. They do. Yeah, so ⁓ we didn't get into a lot of that with Joe, but I'd like to one day 'cause there's so many lessons learned, it's just timeless. ⁓ we'll always be able to rehash those lessons learned since they were such the hard way. So after you moved from Baton Rouge, you went back up to North Cacalakia and then you got to working for the city and I think you love it. Well So let me back up a little bit to put that in context. ⁓ the hardest thing I've ever done in my life wasn't a ranger, a marine, a delta operator, or any of that stuff. You want to test yourself. Have a handicapped child. Yeah, I I wasn't gonna bring that up, but I'm glad you did. Okay. Yeah. Have a handicapped child because that will tell you what kind of man you are or aren't. The test happens every day, and some days are better than others. Our son Hunter was Born severely autistic, ⁓ nonverbal. ⁓ you know, he was gonna be with us for the rest of his life. Yeah. And I said, you want to test yourself, there it is. What kind of man are you? And what can you give of yourself because it ain't about you? Well, when he got to a certain age, the services in Louisiana had stopped being good. Surprisingly, they were good. at younger age for an autistic child, but they stopped being good when he reached his teens. But North Carolina was good for an older child. Plus Stephanie's family was all from up around that Raleigh area, so we said, okay, well it's time to move. We're gonna go ahead and move back closer to family and it's gonna be better for Hunter. And that's how I got up there. But I was still working for L S U for most of that time. ⁓ true. Yeah, you're trying to fly out. You know, I'd fly out, come home, fly out, come home. ⁓ we lost him in twenty thirteen. ⁓ I continued to work on the road for a while, but there got to a point where I was tired of getting on airplanes. A couple years after Hunter passed and my wife started working for the town of Carrier in their finance department, and she gave me the idea, well, you want to get off the road, you still want to be active, why don't you try a municipality? You know, good with mechanical things. I'm good with tools and everything. I can figure out stuff. So I said, okay, and so I started working for the town of Carrier Public Works. ⁓ worked for first four years on infrastructure repair. Water mean blows out at two o'clock in the morning. I'm tell you something, it's getting fixed. You know, the water's coming back on. The critical utilities are coming back on. Mm-hmm. So I don't know which is harder going through Delta Selection. Or spending twenty five hours in a hole in a snowstorm fixing a sixteen inch water main that doesn't want to go back together. But there were similarities, you know. No kidding. ⁓ I've been there with them about eight years now. I have moved up to water quality, which is we keep the quality and pressure and everything up. I got a lot of other duties. I have enjoyed it. It's an active job. It's it's real, you know? This stuff comes on or it doesn't. End of story. It's of the proper quality or it isn't. End of story. You know, and I like that. And you cannot argue that it's not necessary. ⁓ gosh. It's foundational for everything. So yeah, I've I've doing that for eight years now and I don't know how I'm gonna do it for quite a while. I like it. There's gotta be fire support amongst elements. What do we have to do today to get you through to tomorrow? fire support today at VSSBooks.com. Yeah, well it keeps you busy and you've you've always been incredibly disciplined with your workouts. I mean I remember back in the day when we were doing that native thing, your resting heartbeat was like forty two. And we're like, get the hell out of here, but it's all that long distance biking you were doing back in the day, and you still do. I still do, not like I did then. Well, come on, of course. Yeah. I mean I don't I used to burn down a hundred miles and laugh about it. Now I'll hit fifty, fifty five or something, but yeah, it's I haven't always been that disciplined, okay? There's not a married man in existence who did not wake up one day and look in the mirror and say, Holy shit, what have I let myself get into? And I I did too, okay. So, you know, I had to I had to come back, had to get old myself and say, No, no, no, no, no, no. You gotta get back from this. That's one of the pieces of advice that I would give any man, young, old, middle aged or whatever. Here's the thing, guys. Hang on to your physical fitness at the highest level you can for several reasons. Obviously are the health benefits. As importantly are the mental benefits. Yes. The world looks different when you are in condition. The world feels different when you're in condition. You feel different. It's not going to solve your problems per se, but it'll sure put you in a better mood. Yeah. You know? It'll it'll it'll it'll give you a new perspective on things if you have that feeling that I am fit enough to do things. And you know how it is, you get that the endorphins and you know what all is happening chemically within the body. I read about something the other day. They did a study on rats. And they had one group of rats, they live they let that group of rats live a couch potato lifestyle and then they put ⁓ on a workout regimen. And they did extensive studies on the tissue and the cell structure of these rats, okay? And what they discovered was the samples from the couch potato phase to the almost marathon level phase. The cellular structure was actually different. ⁓ it has to be. Yeah. That was a different creature. Yeah. Literally, physiologically, that was a different rat. Well, now we're not rats, but we s we have a cellular structure. Yeah. And so that's what I I would tell the guys, you know, whatever you well do what you can. I wouldn't say go to the gym. I hate gyms. Get fit and stay fit. Yeah, there there's I mean you can walk, you can I mean you can walk I don't even want to hear it. There's too much you can do and and I body weight exercises alone will put your upper body strength where it needs to be. Well at our age, you know, and Joe's still lifting like the earth. I'm like, dude, you know, your shoulders are ready to fall off. You know, we we've worn those joints down to where a consistent workout beats once a week, you know, knocking it out of the park. Yeah. Because once you go to happen consistency. Yeah. Yeah yeah, it's just you roll downhill. You get lazier and lazier and lazier. ⁓ the dogs helped me. I mean, you're not with Dutch Shepherd Malamois, you ain't laying around. You know, he's standing on your head. Yeah. He's like, We're going hiking five miles. I'm like, I guess we're going hiking, you know? ⁓ huh. So I have like that. And last year we we spent a week or so up in Montana hiking and biking. I hadn't been on a bike in twenty years, and you're like, Hey, let's go up this We're gonna climb a mountain. Yeah. What was it? Like fourteen miles up? I'm like, sure. It was about a fourteen and a half mile climb at a rough route ⁓ five and a half to seven percent grade. So it took us a little over well, two hours and forty five minutes of steady climbing. Yeah, but but we jumped right past I don't know how many people, you know, in there past people on e bikes. On e bikes, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you you taught me the gravel bike. Which I do like mine now. You you are correct. They are addictive. They appreciate that. Fantastic invention. You know, the gravel bike is right up there with the bell fed weapon as far as a fantastic invention. Yeah, but with with being fit like that and it gives you the mindset going, Yeah, I haven't been on a bike in twenty years, but I can do it. That's yeah. I mean, we've we've knocked out harder things by far. You know, yeah, way. Remember them humps over in Korea? Holy hell. You talk about vertical with a hundred and ten pound, hundred and twenty pound rock. I mean it's just there's no way in hell you I couldn't get the ruck off the floor right now. But your mental capability is tied to your physical capability. Yes, it is. Yeah. Strong mind. Well, sound mind, sound body was something I remember hearing as a kid. I don't hear it much anymore, but it was something that was in the schools when I was a kid. Sound mind and sound body are the same thing. Yeah. Because it it falls to how can you help somebody if you physically can't even do it yourself. Yeah. You know, we we've had that mentality forever, but manual labor, the stuff you're doing day to day is a workout. It's okay, it I just had a discussion about this with somebody at work. They are complimentary, but they're not the same. Hmm. So running a shovel or pipe saw or digging because some of the stuff you gotta dig out by hand. Right. Or grabbing the hose of a jet truck and you know, jetting stuff out and everything, that's manual labor. There is a fitness to that. Yeah. It's not the same thing as a concentrated workout. All right. Now it will they will aid each other. Okay, they will complement each other, but they cannot replace each other. That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. But it it go ahead. It falls into functional fitness, you know. Very much. You know, like the O courses we used to do and and just you know, functional fitness versus 'cause at second battalion first group we had that universal weight set and a rack of dumbbells for a battalion. So no one went in there. We we just did push up, set up, squats, runs, sprints, hills. And I think we were in pretty damn good shape back then. If we didn't drink as much. I think we drank too much. I know I did. Yeah, I see. Yeah, we did. Yeah. I'm gonna add myself to that. But we were in damn good shape. We were phenomenally strong. Especially I take especially through the core. Yes. And ⁓ my gosh. Our feet and our core. ⁓ yeah. And and it wasn't called that then. I didn't get into the terminology until recently. What is your core? And it's not only the central muscular structure, it's the nervous system. Well, it's it's the connection of nervous system with the fascia. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That was we were we were doing that when we were rock climbing, because if you used your muscles, you're you're a sewing machine in no time. Yeah. You've got to use that fascia and that's how those really scrawny guys can blow up, you know, L cap or something because they're not using their muscles. They're the the fascia's wrapped around the muscle and that that's brilliant. But to rock climb you can't do it any other way. So we kinda didn't know we were learning it. Yeah, we didn't know what we were doing, but we were doing it. ⁓ no. It's no instruction. There was I mean I was you know, the they have that Thor system now, which kid, if you saw it, you'd sit down and cry like I did. It's better than any NFL gym for a group. I mean, there's thirty bench presses, there's thirty leg presses, there's it is just the best I've ever seen. And they have strength coaches, speed coaches, flexibility coaches, physical therapists. Remember when Tomasi broke his ankle on the jump and was gonna go run on it, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, Tom, we're gonna amputate your ankle is what we're gonna do, you moron. But you know, and and we would never tell anybody we were hurt back then. Yeah. ⁓ yeah, yeah. No way would you ever admit to anything. Yeah, and and and we brought up, you know, the our medical records were the thinnest ones. You get some leg over an E S one. You know, he's got a Bible. And we we've torn ours out and thrown ⁓ away between duty stations. Yeah. Instead of keeping ⁓ you know. Yeah. 'Cause the VA's like, we don't have a record. You're like, yeah, I shredded that. That's why, you know, super genius, you know. Well but that was the mentality. And I don't want guys doing that anymore, but I guarantee you they are. ⁓ yeah. I mean, if you think this thing's gonna be a liability to you going forward, ⁓ yeah. I guarantee you they're doing it. I get they they did it through twenty one years of war so they could still deploy. Yeah. ⁓ yeah, and you know, you're it's a little selfish. You may be a liability, but we've all seen guys that are hurt just still operating. And you know, you gotta you gotta watch ⁓ and help ⁓ But I blew my back out one time in Hong Kong, and for a week of hits, they would they would stand me up against the truck, put my kit on me like a child. Buckle it all up. We'd go do the hit, bring me back out, put me against the truck, take my stuff off, and I'd go back and lay down. Cause I'd ruptured a a disc and dislocated a rib. And I was like, How dumb are you? And the sergeant major walks by and my feet are up against the wall and I'm just crying. He goes, Does your back hurt? He goes, Get in the fucking truck, knucklehead. And then we go to the hospital. I'm like. How does that make any sense? You know, we weren't doing anything real at that time. It hurts. It was it was just the culture. You know? Yeah. It was just the culture. That's the way it was. You know, I I have a hard time explaining it to people. I have a hard time explaining it to myself. But yeah, absolute I but I understand one hundred percent. I've done it myself, guys have done it, and I get why. Yeah. It's yeah, yeah. I try not to anymore. I I really try the rehab and you know, the hot tub, the the cold plunge, the sauna. I mean I'm big into detox now you know and and a lot of the things that we never did in any order back in the day. We do PT. You might stretch a little bit and then you just go take a shower and go do SF stuff the rest of the day, which is PT. Right. And then at night we would go running and then Pound a twelve pack of beer and go to bed and start over the next day. Start over the next day, yes sir. Could you imagine our bodies if they could talk going, What the fuck are you doing? Can you give me a day off? I think they're talking to us now. Wow, touche. Yeah. I feel I feel it every morning and I'm like, ⁓ gotta loosen up. Gotta do a stretch before I do my body. That's the hardest thing I've so that you just said it right there. You sit, so I just said breakfast. With a guy I was in the unit with, sitting having breakfast, and we were there for 37 minutes. Getting up out of that booth, it was like, ⁓ my God. You know, it's that stiffness that sets in. Yeah. Yeah, you can't stop moving. No. If you do, you're done. If you're sedimentary, you're done. And and that's where I have a couple buddies that their injuries are so bad they are technically almost immobile. And it's horrible to watch. You know, 'cause I remember one of my buds, he used to knock out the twelve miler in two hours just to win a case of beer. And now his neuropathy is so bad that he can't get out of a recliner. You know. And really for almost no reason. I mean, some some of these conflicts didn't require the amount of ⁓ physical effort, you know. Everybody's doing helicopter raids and truck raids and we're not walking in like we used to. So I think we're we're overly abusive and accept it on the body. Yes. Just as tragic, I think, and I've witnessed this in my extended family more times than I want to think about. Okay, so what you just said pertained to us as soldiers. Okay, so we were a soldier. We were a special operations soldier, so that was part of our life. Yeah. We're normal. What I'm talking about now. is those who never did anything. And I've been surrounded by ⁓ as I it is it is the worst death that I have ever even contemplated. I mean literally talking about people who have sat to death. The human being is capable of sitting to death. And the end isn't it isn't short, it's drawn out months, sometimes years. It's almost like the dying by the minute. It's sickening. And and our society is full of it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it is packed with it. I mean obesity's just the obesity epidemic is a visual symptom of that. Correct. Yeah. It's we can see that. But Well, when we were young, you didn't have a a fat person. No. I mean if you had one. Very rarely. Very rarely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now it's yeah, it's it's beyond epidemic. Yeah, that that is true, but you know, how do we get through to the younger guys to not abuse their shit to get it repaired and recovered? The the one thing that's hard for a guy to realize is as soon as he's out of the stack, somebody else will get in the stack. There's time. You don't have to be in the stack on every hit. Right. Statistics are gonna get a hold of you. You know, ⁓ you know, a lot of us, you know, we breach so much. That is my biggest pet peeve is the breaching injuries thirty years later. That at the time we would see how close we get to a charge, eat it, be halfway loopy in the room, do it and restack and do it again. You know, and I'm like, wow, I just we set ourselves up for that and my my worst injuries have been TBIs, I think. Because that cascades out into emotional, physical, neural. I mean it's and then you're kind of like, well, I don't know what's wrong. And they finally are getting to real research on T BIs, but how many times have you rattled your skull? You know, we first talked about that those things a year ago, you mentioned all that, the number of charges. And I started thinking and I started to do a tabulation. So I'm gonna include flashbangs. I'm gonna include obviously door charges. I'm gonna include live claymores on a on a training range. All right, where you're being an idiot seeing how close you can get to ⁓ Mm hmm. ⁓ A T fours. A T fours. Yep. Or Laws rockets. Yep. ⁓ the few times through a fragmentation grenade, that kind of stuff. And I was stunned. Yeah. At the number. I mean it's in the hundreds. ⁓ I'd say more than that. In the more than that every jump is a concussion. Yeah. Your opening shock, your landing, your the vehicle stuff we would do, the hand to hand we would do. Those are all concussions. Yeah. Yeah. I mean the brain is in fluid. You know? I I've got images to show you what happens when it slams to the other side too hard. It kills chunks of it. And ⁓ some of the scans can show all this now. ⁓ the football players they call it C T E. But we're getting the blast through our entire body, our entire system a sack of water. Organs, yeah. And you know the compression of water under a blast and reflected waves. You know, you're not on the charge, but the charge finds you. Yeah. ⁓ I remember one time we went to the demo range, I think Conlin was there. And I'm young, man. I'm I'm peeking out around the douche, you know, to watch his charge go off and ⁓ Chunk hits me right in the chin, he goes, If you can see it, it can see you. I'm like, Yeah. I knew that. And lesson learned. Yes, sir. Lesson learned. Yeah, we were a long way away too. And ⁓ but really bad. Well, how do we I mean, what's your What what's your consistent plan with nutrition, exercise, maintenance, recovery? What works for you? ⁓ first of all is consistency, 'cause like you said, consistency. All right. So I'll hit it a minimum. So I'll say it twenty minutes in the morning before I get out and ⁓ come I'm gonna pedal to work. So I got an hour plus bike ride coming up, but I'll do twenty minutes on the pull up bar, planks, ⁓ some dumbbell work and everything. And and I switch it around 'cause you'll get bored. I switch it around, roller bar, you know, the rollout bar. ⁓ little rollout wheel and stuff like that. So I say I want twenty minutes of working on hips up in the morning and then I'm gonna go and I'm gonna ride an hour to work and I'm gonna do whatever I'm doing. Now I do not get into the physical part of work like I used to because I've moved positions. Okay. Unless I gotta go cut a fire hydrant out of the jungle or something like that. But it's not every single day that I'm running a chainsaw all day. It's just like every three or four days. And then come home. So I either do that twenty minutes in the evening Or in the morning. So I want to get twenty minutes of upper body, whatever, just about every day. I have found that to be pretty damn effective. Yeah. Because it's consistent. Pretty damn effective. Because it's consistent. And I and you know, we know we can't emphasize that enough, guys. It is consistency. That twenty minutes beats the hell out of a two hour workout once in a while. Yep. Because what your body starts to realize is, I still need these muscles. Yeah. I still need to you know I still need to be processing all the stuff through these muscles. You know, the body's pretty smart. If the body thinks you don't need it, it'll shut it down. Yeah. But if you're out there every day and you're hanging off the pull-off bar for a few sets, you're doing your push ups, you're doing your rollouts, you're doing your dumbbells, then what you're telling your body is all this stuff still has to work. So make it work. I have found that to be extremely effective. Yeah, for us we can do that, but imagine the people that never worked out when they were younger and develop the muscular and or the mind muscle connection. ⁓ yeah. I don't know how they do it later. I I don't know if some of some of them do. You you'd have to dedicate to it. Yeah, it's gonna be a rough trip. ⁓ but I have read I've I don't know if I've ever known anybody that's come back like that. I've read about folks who've done that. I've seen one or two, and I was shocked. ⁓ one one young kid that ⁓ I've known through the years. I had a talk with him like a year ago at lunch and I'm like, dude, I did this new book, you know, fire support, and it's got like the how to in order to do this stuff. He did it. He's a freaking monster a year later. I'm gonna do an interview with Within a year. How old is he? Shit, thirty five, maybe, forty. He's still so he's still under under forty. I would say now I heard about a guy who did it at sixty. ⁓ geez. Yeah, whatever. Good for him. I mean my hat's off. Yeah, but he attributes it all to the discipline of consistency. Yeah. With the meals, the timing of the meals, the fasting, the so I was like I went through the whole thing, you know, 'cause it's kinda like the a cancer treatment, you know, off off books. The things you have to do to tune the body up to let the body you know, not eat itself or not give itself more cancer, but you're eliminating things you don't need. And that with that consistency, I'm like, damn, I wish I was forty years old and had known any of this, you know, 'cause what if we'd have known this thirty five years ago? You know, the the the nutritional part, 'cause we had no idea back then. We're I was eating Taco Bell for lunch. ⁓ you know. Yeah. Well whatever. So high frucrose corn syrup is a crime against humanity. Yes, sure. Yeah. You know, it it it I mean we can talk all day about the chemistry, but it's you know, if you eat poor sugar, then you're gonna get to a point where your body says, I can't take any more. Yeah. Corn syrup circumvents that. That's why we got so many obese people, is the addition of that crap into our food system. Now I'm not gonna tell you that I never eat a cheeseburger, right? Or I never have a taco, but I almost never. You know, that's where I went to. I almost never so and I'm not gonna tell you I never have a dessert, but I almost never. Yeah. You know, what I decided when I really decided to change my diet, I went by percentages. I said, I'm gonna start out and and I had to sit and be honest with myself and say, How much of that garbage are you eating? And it was shocking. Yeah. When you track it, you you know. You track it, it's sickening. Yeah. Okay, well I'm gonna get rid of fifty percent of it right off the bat. And then I'll get rid of fifty percent of that fifty percent. And just kept doing it like that. And man, the the difference. I have a hard time describing the difference. Just the the calmness and steadiness. There's no blood sugar spikes. There's no shakes. There's no now. I'll get tired. You know, I'll get physically worn down, but it's not the same thing. Yeah, I tell you if if you could just get the Processed food out of your diet for the most part is as good as the workout. And then you add the workout to it. ⁓ yeah. Yeah, I believe that for sure. And and now with the the the apps make it so easy. You can just scan the barcode, it and puts it all in. Then you can go, Holy shit, I ate that. It's like, ⁓ my God, what what was I doing? And yeah. So I mean it's it's your own fault, you know. Well we kind of knew that it wasn't good for us because I remember it that was Well we would PT it out. Yeah, we we'd just PT it out and we did. Yeah. But it still, you know, when you cross forty, yeah, it began to began to ⁓ So for the most part, you know, they say eat around the edges of a grocery store. Yes. That is in fact true. Yes. I would say the only place So what is difficult for me, I love bread. So Pretty much you're have to make your own. You know, if you like bread, you're gonna have to make your own because I have not been able to find any good bread. Well, you start reading. Not unless you find a real niche bakery that that's their thing. Yeah. But other than that, that's also something that's not a daily eat. There's no way. ⁓ that that's more of a dessert for me. Protein, protein, protein, protein. Yeah. ⁓ well amino acids in some way. That yeah, you know, and that's where I was talking to some ⁓ you know, juice bar owner and she's like, Hey, you an elephant's made of muscles and he eats plants. I'm like, Yeah, you're right. You can get amino acids from different places. It's just at what volume you have to eat ⁓ to get enough to to build the muscle or maintain the muscle. I'm happy with maintaining. You know, I'm not in the I'm not in a bulking phase. No, me either. No. No sort of I just maintain what I got. Yeah, exactly. And I'll be more than happy with that. But ⁓ yeah, you're right. The consistencies do a little bit every day, Whole Foods. I mean, it's all no brainer. It's just having the the intestinal fortitude to do it. You know? That's where you got to so there is a version of me that is a fat, lazy, whiny, disgusting pig. And I have been locked in mortal combat with that version of me all my life. And he's sneaky. He's devious, he's manipulative, and he knows when to hit me when I'm the weakest. Yeah. And that's the guy you gotta fight. When you feel like I really don't want to do this, that's when you need to do it the most. When you feel like you really want to, that's sometimes when you can pull the throttle back a little bit. Yeah. You know. But most of the time it's just, you know what, i if I'm feeling like I you know, you know what, I can take it easy this morning. No, I'm riding in. No, that's the point. Yeah. You know, that's the whole point right there. There's where the discipline comes in. And and what are you doing it for? So I do not here's the thing, okay? If I want to boil this thing down, here's for everybody. Listen, okay, guys, blow the wax out of your ears and listen to this. I have a moral obligation to not reach the point where somebody has to wipe my butt. Yeah. I have a moral obligation to if I can help it. Yeah. Okay. There could you know, sickness or injury could come to us. But if I can help it, right. I have a moral obligation to not become a burden to other people, especially those I care about. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Due to neglect. Due due to my neglect. Laziness. Yeah. Yeah. Because I didn't want to get off my lazy ass and go do twenty minutes worth of workout or run up a set of steps or whatever that. To me, that's what keeps me gone. If you need a reason, there's a reason. My daughter is not going to have to wipe my butt. Yeah. You know. Yeah. That's Yeah. I mean, and that's I mean a part of that you gotta set in and that's the the life style, you know. ⁓ a lot of a lot of the diseases and illnesses is all lack of discipline in your lifestyle anyhow. So So what would you see the percentage are? Take a hundred people, a hundred Americans. Well, of that hundred, how many of ⁓ didn't get there by choice? They had something happen to them, disease, injury, or something. What would you say the percentage is? Let's say a thousand. So a thousand regular folks who were in that condition. How many of ⁓ put themselves there? What percentage put themselves there? And I know we're guessing. ⁓ the majority. ⁓ how you say ninety percent? Yeah, sixty, seventy. Yeah, I mean it's it it just go outside. And and look and go, what's the hardest thing this guy's done in the last decade? Yeah. Nothing. You know, I mean, and it's accepted, you know, and that's where I I did that exchange with Russia that one time. Everybody in Russia works out. There's workout stations at every apartment building, every park, everywhere. And everybody's fancy. No. ⁓ gosh, no. It's guerrilla style. But it's perfect. You're out on a walk, there's a push up bar, there's a pull up bar, and these dudes are doing gymnast shit, you know, and they're s sixty years old and you're like, okay, that's legit. But it it's cultural, you know, and our culture is just lost physical fitness and and endurance. yeah. I mean, I I'd seen that when I'm training some of the different units through the years, as it's you know, you you gotta tell ⁓ to nut up a little bit because they just It's hard, they're just really not gonna do it to the level of maybe we did it too hard. I don't know. But there's a time and a place. I'll take our version. Yeah, I me too. I mean it's but I want guys to take our version but do the smarter things sooner. If now they know nutrition, now they know fitness, now they know recovery. Now, you know, so it's a lot better. But the one thing, you know, and I don't know if we can ever get it through to ⁓ is recover. If you're hurt, you're hurt. You know, nobody wants off the team, nobody wants off the hit. Been there, done it. It didn't help me, you know. Somebody else will do it. You know, as soon as you leave one of them special units, guess what? There's somebody somebody's gonna replace you before you finish, check it out. You're damn right. Yeah. And that's the way it should be. Yeah. And it there can't be any other way than that. But you do you gotta realize that I am not irreplaceable. If I got killed, they sure replace me. ⁓ yeah. So if I get transferred, I choose to go, yeah, there's gonna be somebody, somebody screaming for my slot. You've got be okay with that. Yeah. Yeah, and and you can't be so selfish that it it ends up, you know, being bad for the Lema. Right. You know, 'cause you get out there and then you become the the casualty for no good reason. That's on you. And you know our guys, we don't forget anything, you know? The stupidest shit you did thirty years ago. Somebody will bring it up. Somebody'll bring it up the first time you've seen them in thirty years. Yeah. Remember what you Yeah. Yeah, it never goes away, buddy. That is funny. It's like, damn it, let it go. Well. So what what could we tell somebody year one? You know, Joe Snuffy. ⁓ you know, we when I saw this on your list, I had to say this is what I've this is what I pondered the most was on your list. What do I tell somebody? And let's back it up a few years before they're on a team, okay? Maybe starting by the time they're in adolescence or or getting into a teenager. First thing I tell my younger self, if I could go back and tell my younger self, you didn't commit a sin by being born a white male. Hmm. Yeah. You know? There's nothing wrong with you. Now what that was the beginning of culture saying there was. Not like it's going on today, but that was the beginning. So there's nothing wrong with you. Okay. You're fine as you are. Now you've got some things you gotta attain, all right. You do things both for your benefit and for the benefit of others. But there's gotta be both of them in there. Okay, I think one of the mistakes and I'm just gonna talk for me now. If I look back on my life and say, what mistake did I make? And it was it was that I never thought of me. Correct. Never. Ever. So much so that if somebody asked me today, if that i I was asked the question the other day, what do you truly want? What would make you happy? I can't answer that question. Nope. Service. Yeah. That's it. To be a service to others. Okay, that there's something a little wrong with that, man. ⁓ I know. You're yeah, you nailed that. I I ⁓ I I I realize that. Yeah, me too. I and and I I can't answer it to this day, probably never will be able to. So if I went back and talked to myself a younger, it's like, okay, remember that you are here too. Yes, you are of service to your nation. Yes, you're of service to others, service to a family, but you can't predict you. Now that's the theory. How do you carry that out in practice? Try. Yeah, but that does make sense because finding that out at our age is is a little staggering. Only in the last two years. Yeah. I I'm with you. I'm about there too and I'm like But that's the way we've always been. You know, I was talking to one of your other ⁓ old C Squadron buddies and he brought that up because dude, that's all we've ever done. Yeah. Is De Oppressor Liber or whatever, you know, and somebody else's problems are. Sorrow to Mira, I think is the unit without fear. Yeah. Which is which is not the way I remember. Well, it's it's a goal, you know. It's a goal. I I I I don't know, Eric. I That is the quandary I'm dealing with at sixty six years old. I don't know how to 'cause w so what would make me happy? What would make Kid Sester happy? I'd like to go back to about nineteen eighty know what I do now and live live the rest of my life knowing what I do now. Yeah. Good luck with that. Yeah, that ain't happening, you know. That ain't happening. So that's it. I I don't know. That's something I would warn the younger guys about is you got to remember that There's nothing wrong with you. You didn't commit a crime by being here. And remember to take care of yourself too. Yeah. That's about what I can offer ⁓ But Kit, you know, we've spoke about this. I think this is what we're supposed to do now. Yeah. Is to kind of force feed that back, you know, through these podcasts or through counseling or mentoring or whatever. I mean, I've been mentored I've mentored a lot of guys. I got a decent record, you know. None of ⁓ are, you know, hanging from a bridge or anything. ⁓ but you know when we see somebody that needs it, we have to go into our triage and go stop I've stopped guys on the street kit in DC. Yeah, I stopped his sergeant major one day. I'm like, dude, sit down. I go, Are you getting ready to eat one? He goes, Yeah, yeah, I am. And befriended him, got him into a bunch of account and he was a dude at the Pentagon that's supposed to take care of all that shit. Right. And I'm like, Well, yeah, you're you're Not helping anybody like this and I just saw him walking by. I'm like, stop you know. When a sergeant major can't self identify, you know, we all have to look out for each other. I have known six at least. Three from the unit, two from SF, and one was a police officer who'd done that. ⁓ yeah. In every single case I was in the I was shocked, you know, especially the police officer who was a Marine in Vietnam with the ninth Marine Regiment, you know, the walking dead. ⁓ yeah. And then he put twenty three years on Spokane PD, ended up the commander of their swap team, I had a whole special operations unit for Spokane PD. And I worked with him out there on the WMD program and Skip was one of these guys that you thought, this guy's made out of solid titanium. Yeah. You know, Skip is one funny. ⁓ my God, he was funny. You know, guy just heavy in stitches. Yeah. And then he goes home from a trip and he takes a nineteen eleven, sits in a rocking chair, sticks it up under his rib and and blows his heart out. I was like, when I heard about that, I said, You have got to be kidding me. Yeah. But there it is, man. There it is. Yeah, some t ⁓ I've had a couple that just came out of nowhere. And you're like, get the hell out of here. I mean, it makes no sense, you know. And and their names we know, you know, you and I know. ⁓ yeah. Yeah, we know some of the ones I'm talking about, we know. Yeah. ⁓ yeah. And there isn't a human being around. There isn't a man around who's never considered it. ⁓ they're a liar if they say so. Yeah. They say they never thought about it. They're they're a liar. They're a liar. That's a human condition there, buddy. That's not that's not wiping the slate clean there. No. Yeah, I I don't know, but I I mean between us, you know doing this, this can go to whoever ever sees it. We'll do more of these too. ⁓ yeah, I definitely once we get her ⁓ groove on. Yeah. And then, you know, I I'm always pushing you to do books. Yeah, I I'm working on ⁓ right now. you're brilliant, man. You gotta spread the wealth. See, I come back from a day in the Carolina sun sometimes. Last thing I want to do is tap a keyboard, but I'm I'm getting better at it. Don't be a wuss. Come on. Yeah, I know. I know. Yeah, I I am. I'm working on one right now. ⁓ this is this is the goal for the rest of my functional life, which I hope is, you know, a couple more decades. I wanna help the The guys, the men, you know, especially the ones, but not just them. Your average guy out there too. If I can do something to get help you get your life back on track, sign me up. Yeah. You know, that is rewarding enough. If I can do something to counter the cultural bullshit that is getting worse, you know, it started in my time. And it just got worse. And I would say when I hear some of the younger guys talk about what we boomers, and I'm a boomer, nineteen fifty nine. Well you guys had this, you guys could just go buy a house, you guys could just do this. ⁓ bullshit. No, we couldn't. Some of us grew up as poor as hell. I remember not having enough to eat as a kid. Buy a house, what house? There we the housing market didn't exist. Yeah. All right. Have a girlfriend as an enlisted Marine of California in nineteen seventy-eight, you were you were a eunuch, okay? Yeah. Pretty much. All right. So I don't want to hear about how good us boomers had it, because we really didn't. But I tell you what we didn't have. We did not have the concentrated hostility from the narrative of the culture around us. Yeah. And these guys under twenty or under thirty, they have dealt with that crap their whole life. I'll grant them that. You know. So if anything I can do to help negate some of that, sign me up. Yeah, well, we're doing that. I mean, and and I always say if people don't wanna listen, not my problem. No. You know. No, it's not. You you got haters, bring it. You know, go go go pound sand up your ass. I don't care. I'm beyond all that, buddy. You know, and you know, say love you. I'm I'm just not gonna entertain a fool. And you always used to say it, you know. ⁓ ⁓ what'd you used to say? ⁓ my God, it was funny. It was about, you know, suffering fools. You know, there's just no point to it. You know, simple minds are easily amused. You used to say. Yeah. Simple minds are easily amused. Don't feel you're in the entertainment business. I'm like, is that an insult or a compliment? I don't know at this time what Kent meant. And I'm too scared to ask him. Well, here's a story about that. I was with my buddy Greg Ferris, the chief place, good friend of mine, you know, good friend of mine. And we're in a supermarket in Baton Rouge, and you know how you run into those people? You get into a conversation with the idiot. You know what I mean? And you feel in it. Okay. So he gets into a conversation with a moron, and I get my stuff and I head out to the parking lot. Yeah. He catches up with me about 10 minutes later. He says, Well, thanks a lot, buddy. You abandoned me. I said, Listen to me. Listen to me very carefully. We jump out of an airplane together, I'm there. We get in a firefight together, I'm there. To the last dying breath, the last rang of magazine, I'm there. You're dumb enough to get trapped in a conversation with an idiot, you're on your own. Yeah. Yeah. I don't I just walk away. People are like, ⁓ he's rude. I'm like Yeah. I y no. You you you're not gonna take my mental capacity away with with some moronic something. No. With lack of knowledge, lack of education, lay ⁓ lack of experience. Like just and not interesting to talk to. Yeah, for sure. You know? Yeah, yeah. You get dumber, you get stupider talking to ⁓ You're like, no, I don't need to. I can do that on my own. ⁓ I've done years of mind numbing, you know, alcoholic substances to to counter that. Imagine how smart for it would be now. Right. I've been standing in vase formation forced to listen to somebody dumber than you, buddy. Yeah. ⁓ my God. Our formations kit. I wish they would have been videoed. We had some classic, funny I gotta tell this one, then then we'll we'll wrap it. But we had that new surmajor from fifth group. No one fucking liked him. Mustache, you know, prim and proper and just stodgy. Davis was his name. And ⁓ two new guys were on his roster. You know, so he has to call him into the office to brief him in the morning and it was he's reading it and he doesn't know what he read until he read it. So it says Sergeant Butts and Sergeant Dicks be in my office at zero nine. There was two new guys in the unit, Dick and Butts. We lined up in the hallway, like fifty of us with our pants around our fucking ankles at nine o'clock. We He goes, God damn it, you know, just these two, you know, well, I thought you meant everybody, Sergeant Major, you know I mean ⁓ he was furious. ⁓ he was furious. He turned red as a beat after he realized what he said because he thought S one set him up. Right. And there actually were two new guys. There you go. Yeah, you never assume. S one was funny, 'cause you know they waited and made that happen. Yeah, I yeah, they did set him up, I guarantee it. Yeah. Yeah, no one liked him. You know, I hope he sees this. I still don't like the I I just that regimented mentality in group was just I had brown boots on one day and it was dark out and we're gonna go ruck like twenty miles and I got my ass reamed. I'm like, it's dark. We're walking twenty miles, I'm not wearing jungle boots, and you're not going. Right. Yeah, that was one of the things that I knew I was getting toward the end. I was down at Fort Bragg finishing up the O and I course and we got dropped off. in a parking lot there by Swick and I got you know my stuff on I got it I got a black knit hat you know watch cap on. I f you know I wasn't even thinking about it. And next thing I know this SUV pulls up and literally smokes the tires to get stopped and this sergeant major from wherever jumps out and just starts reading me the writer. Not jump out and say hey hey you know what you need to put your PC on. Copy that no problem. Yeah. Chewing my ass like I'm some horrible human being. I think I something broke inside me right there in that park, and I said, Well, you know, you might want to start looking around for something else. This is where we're going. Yeah. Yeah, I couldn't tolerate that these days. There's no way. Yeah. There's no way. Well, let's let's wrap it up. I mean, we covered a lot of stuff. But I can see a whole bunch of other tangents we can go out on, you know, once we get on a roll. Now that we know the technology works, absolutely. Well yeah. I mean you got a great camera. I got a great camera. No, got a camp so thank you. Yeah, no. Well, I ordered one, got two, and probably my fat finger, you know, but you won. But there's no excuse we don't do this more, kit. I mean Absolutely absolutely well excuse. Give me a heads up, subject list. I you know, I'd like to have it a few days where I could think about things. Yeah. What am I gonna say? You know, some prep, but yeah, absolutely. I mean it's this is the battlefield now. Brother, this is this is the drop zone right here. Yes, sir. Yeah, it's it's it's amazing that we have this kind of ⁓ reach. Yeah. and you know oppressors beware, you know. I mean we we can put some word out, you know, and you and I know who's who in the zoo. ⁓ and when some of these guys say something, it is the gospel, actually. So people don't they you know, this country's this big, but when you know The one small pieces that, you know, were a lieutenant with you a long time ago and then become secretary of defense, you're like, hmm, duly noted. You know? And and that's weird as you get older, you know. I'm seeing all these books on a shelf. I'm like, I know that asshole. Yeah. That's I gotta read this because I know it's all a lie, you know. You know. And like, I was there. That didn't happen that way. You know, like what version of that did he No, you know, everybody's got perspective, but I I think we can distill it down into something that's, you know, semi ⁓ digestible and ⁓ somebody can actually get something out of it. If not, we tried, you know. That's it. We tried. It's gonna be up to them what they do with it. But yeah, this is my mission now. Yeah. Well, I mean we're we're fortunate to be this old and cognate that, you know, that we can understand things and the brain still works. And I think this is what we're supposed to do is, you know, SF guys were were supposed to train everybody else in what they don't know at a level they didn't know was possible. So why not do this this way? Beats jumping in at three in the morning with a rope. You know, that doesn't lower. Doesn't lower or whatever, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. No, I'm done with that. Well, let's ⁓ pop it off and ⁓ we'll start again next time. Yes, sir. You take care. Say hi to everybody that we commonly know when you when you contact them. Yes, sir. I I will be talking to you. Okay. See ya, Kit. Yes, sir.