Latest / Come Together with Ephraim Herschmann / #108: Dalton Lauer / 7 Year AirForce Career

Transcript

#108: Dalton Lauer / 7 Year AirForce Career · Come Together with Ephraim Herschmann

• 0:01
  Welcome to another episode of a come together
• 0:14
  the entire world. All right, Welcome.
• 0:16
  Here we are, dude. Welcome, man.
• 0:17
  I'm so happy you're doing this. So had you already had your
• 0:19
  cheers, but cheers again. Thank you.
• 0:21
  Cheers to you as well. I appreciate you having me man,
• 0:23
  I'm super excited. To be dude, I'm so happy.
• 0:25
  So we met a couple weeks ago, I guess one time we rolled a
• 0:30
  couple of times. The jujitsu.
• 0:31
  Yep, you said was doing one of your first classes.
• 0:34
  That was, yeah. It's only been a couple classes
• 0:37
  since I've been there. So.
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  But you've wrestled. I wrestled in high school.
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  And then in the military we have what's called combatives.
• 0:42
  Yeah. Which is just kind of a overall
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  umbrella of all the different techniques of, you know, you got
• 0:49
  wrestling, jiu jitsu, a little bit of like MMA fighting in
• 0:52
  there. Yeah, just like survival.
• 0:54
  Stuff. Yeah, totally, totally.
• 0:56
  Yeah. Because I noticed when you were
• 0:57
  rolling that you, you were awesome, like keeping your
• 1:01
  centre of gravity that you were using your legs to like, like
• 1:05
  the whole time. Like you could like, I don't
• 1:07
  know how, I don't know how to, I barely know how to submit
• 1:08
  people. And I don't think you did
• 1:10
  either. Right.
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  So like, we were sitting there just like trying to like not get
• 1:14
  submitted, but without knowing actually how to submit.
• 1:16
  No idea where you're going next from.
• 1:18
  Yeah. Dude, that's how I feel.
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  Every time I'm in there. I'm like, I maybe I can work
• 1:21
  around a little bit, hold somebody, and from there I'm
• 1:23
  like, I don't know what to do. Yeah.
• 1:25
  Or I'm getting out of something and then I get to a point where
• 1:27
  like I don't know where to go from here.
• 1:29
  Yeah, yeah, that's they don't, they haven't taught me that at
• 1:33
  least. And what they basically said was
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  we're not going to teach it to you.
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  You're going to learn it as time goes on.
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  And like it's going to become like mechanics and like you're
• 1:41
  starting on the ground and like, because most of this muscle
• 1:44
  memory anyway, you're just going to find yourself in like
• 1:47
  situations that like you'll be like, oh, right now I'm right
• 1:49
  here. I could just do this, you know,
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  and, and yeah, it happened to me yesterday.
• 1:54
  Yeah, you kind of learn what like works for you because it's
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  hard. There's so many ways to skin a
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  cat and and the way they teach it might not be the move that
• 2:02
  works for you. Yeah.
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  So you just kind of roll and learn.
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  And when you get stuck, you just have to take that and and OK,
• 2:09
  I'll learn for that specific move.
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  Totally, totally. Yeah.
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  And. What I really like about it is
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  the fact that even in those moments, I'm still getting
• 2:18
  challenged and I'm still having the opportunity to kind of
• 2:20
  overcome that and learn through that.
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  Totally, totally. And everyone there is so
• 2:24
  dedicated to helping each other learn, which is another great
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  thing. It's.
• 2:26
  A great environment, I'll be honest.
• 2:28
  Awesome. I don't know how you felt, but
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  before I walked in there, I was like, oh, it's going to be like
• 2:32
  very clicky. Like people are going to be
• 2:34
  like, you have to kind of earn your spot.
• 2:37
  Yeah. And everyone's super welcoming.
• 2:39
  Like everyone's like if you show up and put out effort, like
• 2:43
  we're going to help you. And they're not just going to go
• 2:45
  in there and kill you because they're a black belt.
• 2:47
  They're actually willing to take it easy.
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  Totally, totally, totally. Yeah.
• 2:51
  That's been great. Yeah, yeah, I agree.
• 2:53
  It's funny. I was talking to, I just did a
• 2:55
  podcast actually earlier today too.
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  And one of the things I was talking to her name was Janet
• 3:00
  about was how outside of the states, I've noticed that
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  everyone is much more willing just to like talk to like a
• 3:07
  stranger and like everyone's much more willing to just engage
• 3:09
  with people. And like, I feel like we don't
• 3:11
  have that so much here. And that's why that environment
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  is so refreshing, you know, and the Jiu Jitsu martial arts world
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  is so far rooted way, way before American culture that like it
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  almost like supersedes a lot of the, the downsides, I guess, of
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  what we would potentially have as a society.
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  You know, it focuses on leadership, it focuses on
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  education, it focuses on manners and being polite and
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  sportsmanship and then also being incredible or whatever
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  you're doing, you know, and like, I mean, you know, that the
• 3:42
  guys like Chris, I love that dude.
• 3:44
  You know, Chris is like, dude, I, I call him, I call him, what
• 3:48
  do you call it? A cobra?
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  Because he's just like, he's like a snake.
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  He just wraps around you and he'll tell you what he's got to
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  do. He's like, okay, you're about to
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  get submitted like this and like you slowly feel his arm
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  tightening. You're like.
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  No. Dude, literally man.
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  But then I was like, would you do and tell me what I could have
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  done to get out of that, right. And he'll just walk me through.
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  He'll OK, you do this to me or I'll do this again and I'll show
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  you slowly and you can tell me what you got.
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  And I was like, dude, that's the that's awesome, man.
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  I love it. I love it because you really
• 4:17
  can't judge a book by its cover. Chris does not look like the guy
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  who's going to walk in there and submit anyone, and yet he's
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  probably that guy who submit more than half class.
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  Yeah, Yeah, He's a he's a great dude.
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  It's a great, it's a great environment.
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  I have to, I, I love that. So I signed up.
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  I, I was afraid to do it. I never I was never physically
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  confrontational in any kind of way in my life really.
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  I'm a pussy and and not anymore though, right.
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  Well, I still am a little bit. I don't think that ever.
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  Like I don't think that fear ever goes away, but I think that
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  you can kind of build like around it, like, you know, like
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  you could. I mean, maybe it changes it.
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  I don't. Know what do you think?
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  I honestly, I think that maybe it could go away over time
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  because the more you stack up those wins is what builds that
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  confidence where you no longer feel.
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  Yeah, that way, yeah. And so, yeah, I mean, I, I think
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  that going in there and just repeatedly doing it, you'll
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  eventually like gain back confidence.
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  Like people are going to see it in you.
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  And it's when you get those positive affirmations back,
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  yeah, that you're going to be like, OK, maybe I got something
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  going on here. Yeah, I was talking to my friend
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  that got me to start going. He's a chiropractor there at
• 5:30
  that gym. His name's Guy and and you were
• 5:34
  talking about how you can even tell when you just like pat
• 5:37
  someone on the back or like, you know, give them like dab them up
• 5:39
  and like give them a hug. You can see how they react to
• 5:42
  someone else touching them, how comfortable they are with their
• 5:44
  body, you know, and like there's certain people that kind of like
• 5:47
  shrug away from a physical confrontation and certain people
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  that just kind of stay stoic and like centered and comfortable.
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  And you're like, oh, this is and and you notice that for sure.
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  And like, even if you're, I bet that if you went around to a jiu
• 5:59
  jitsu class that was all levels and you just shook everyone's
• 6:01
  hands or like, you know, say what's going on, you can tell
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  just from a handshake, you know, whether whether or not that
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  person's been there for a long time or like totally, dude,
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  totally. It's all body language.
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  I agree. I agree.
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  Yeah. So cool, dude, tell me, tell me
• 6:15
  a little bit about yourself. Let's let's dive into let's say.
• 6:17
  So we let's dive a little bit into who you are, man.
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  Yeah. So I think the meat and potatoes
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  exciting part of my life is my military career, right.
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  And so far, so, so far, so far. And so I'll give you a little
• 6:31
  bit of context. I was born and raised in
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  Pennsylvania. It's about South Central PA
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  little town called Hellum. It's not far from where the
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  Amish are at. Nice.
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  So I grew up there and I have two brothers who were all one
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  year apart from each other. Three, my oldest brother went to
• 6:48
  the Army, my middle brother went to the Navy, and I ended up in
• 6:50
  front of the Air Force. Nice.
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  My mom, year 1 by 1, is watching us just jump out of the nest.
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  We're leaving the state, the country.
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  I mean, we're all getting shipped around and.
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  You're the youngest. I am the youngest, Yeah, I'm the
• 7:02
  baby. Gotcha.
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  How old are your older brothers? So my oldest brother just turned
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  31 and my middle brother's turning 30 and I am right behind
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  him. Wow, yeah, yeah.
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  Crazy. You guys close growing up?
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  Growing up, we, we had a dynamic growing up where my parents,
• 7:22
  they divorced when I was two years old.
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  My, both my parents very hard workers growing up.
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  I mean, my mom was working like 3 jobs at a time at one point.
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  My dad 12 hour shifts, night night shift, getting forced all
• 7:36
  the time. He's an electrician.
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  So they were both very busy. And so yeah, we leaned on each
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  other a lot as brothers. We did a lot, but also I feel
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  like we did, we're very different in a lot of ways.
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  And so my my oldest brother's off doing his thing with his
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  friends. My middle brothers, he's more of
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  the quiet one and he's very smart.
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  And I was just the young I was observing and learning and
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  watching and following and I enjoyed hanging out with friends
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  as much as possible. But honestly, I probably
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  followed in my oldest brother's footsteps because he would be
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  getting in trouble. And not that I'm not doing those
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  things, but I was learning how to do it without getting in
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  trouble. That's the youngest child thing.
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  That's the youngest. Child.
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  Yeah, exactly. And they all say that I'm the
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  favorite, but, you know, that's just because I was the smartest
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  getting out there. Yes.
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  Totally. So growing up, it was kind of I
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  was like a wild child. I mean, I got kicked off the bus
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  in elementary school twice. Oh, yeah.
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  Just for doing dumb things, throwing a snowball at the bus
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  driver. Not, not smart.
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  That's funny, though. And then.
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  Yeah. And then growing up high school,
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  I decided that I was going to join the military.
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  And it's a unique story of how I decided to join the military
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  because I didn't have those intentions.
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  Both my brothers went off and I thought I was going to go to
• 9:00
  college. I was going to get a business
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  you. Didn't want to go with them I.
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  Didn't. Yeah.
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  And not that I didn't want to, it just wasn't really on my
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  radar at the time. He just thought, cool, they're
• 9:09
  doing it and that's it. Yeah, I thought that.
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  I mean, I thought it was great for them.
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  I I think that they were passionate about going and I
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  just had other dreams, which for me was going to college, getting
• 9:20
  a business degree. I loved sports.
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  I wanted to do something with the sports industry.
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  Sure. And then?
• 9:26
  You play or like? So in in high school, I was
• 9:32
  before high school, I thought I was going to be in the basket
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  in, in the NBA, you know, I'm like 4 foot, you know, at middle
• 9:40
  school thinking I'm going to make it to the big leagues.
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  And my dreams got cut short in 7th grade when I didn't make the
• 9:47
  high school basketball team. I would yeah.
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  In 7th grade, I was, I was so upset.
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  Or I guess it was like the the middle school basketball team.
• 9:57
  OK at that point. Yeah.
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  And my mom, she must have already known because she
• 10:02
  already had lined up for me to go to the wrestling practice
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  immediately after. Oh, nice.
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  So I guess she knew her short son was not making his NBA.
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  So when I got my dreams got cut short, we went over to the
• 10:13
  wrestling team. I said, mom, I'm not a fan of
• 10:17
  the singlets. I think it's weird.
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  I want nothing to do with it. I was upset I was even there
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  because I'm still thinking about basketball.
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  And she's like, just give it a try.
• 10:25
  The coach is really nice. Like, you have some friends that
• 10:27
  do it. And I was like, whatever.
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  I sat there, I watched them. I left.
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  She signed me up. I went back.
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  I fell in love with it. Yeah.
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  Shortly after that, I realized that I have much more talent
• 10:38
  that can be applied to to this. You know, I'm short.
• 10:41
  I'm stocky, yeah. I did much better in wrestling,
• 10:44
  so that was like my sport from 7th grade all the way through
• 10:47
  high school. You were stock younger when you
• 10:49
  were younger. I yeah, I mean, I would.
• 10:51
  I was about the same. Yeah.
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  And so I got into wrestling and then later I got into some
• 10:58
  lacrosse. Lacrosse was fun, but it wasn't
• 11:01
  like that. Yeah, I loved it.
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  I I I did it in my junior year. I wish I would have started
• 11:05
  earlier. Yeah, but it was a lot of fun.
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  I just feel like for me, I never took sports serious enough.
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  I was always more interested in hanging out with friends,
• 11:15
  finding a party to go to. Yeah, sure.
• 11:18
  Yeah. It wasn't really.
• 11:19
  I wasn't really. You were.
• 11:19
  Disciplined about it I. Wasn't disciplined in sports at
• 11:22
  all. But you're being a kid.
• 11:23
  I was being a kid. Yeah.
• 11:24
  That's a good way to look back on it because looking back, I
• 11:27
  feel like I wish I would have taken a little more serious.
• 11:29
  Yeah. But it's.
• 11:30
  It taught me a lot and it served me for that period of my life.
• 11:34
  Totally, Totally. So when I joined the military, I
• 11:37
  I enjoy the combatives because I did the wrestling.
• 11:40
  Why'd you decide to do military? Like if you're going to go to
• 11:43
  college or you're going to become a businessman.
• 11:45
  Right. So, yeah, my brothers go off and
• 11:48
  funny enough, so you have to take the ASVAB, which is a test
• 11:51
  to get into the military, similar to like that test to get
• 11:55
  into college. Sure.
• 11:56
  My brother, my middle brother who I said he's really smart.
• 11:59
  He scored like an 88, which is like almost maxed out.
• 12:03
  It's very high on ASVAB. And I thought, and I scored like
• 12:08
  a 66. I'm thinking, OK, that's great.
• 12:10
  It is what it is. And he was trying to get in the
• 12:14
  Air Force before the Navy. Well, the Air Force recruiter, I
• 12:17
  don't know if they hit their quota, how many people they
• 12:19
  enlisted, whatever. They weren't calling him back.
• 12:22
  And he's somebody who could have gotten any job in the military
• 12:26
  beat off of his ass back. They didn't call him back.
• 12:29
  Well, next thing I know, he's often that he decided to go to
• 12:33
  the Navy, got a great job there next year.
• 12:35
  What's the what's the test consist of?
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  Like the it's, it's like a very general everything.
• 12:42
  It's got like math mechanics. Oh, God, it's more of a it's
• 12:45
  more of an education test. Yeah, exactly.
• 12:47
  It's not physical, not like a. Physical.
• 12:49
  So I can tell you about a physical test I did have to do
• 12:52
  once I decided, yeah, so I'm working my job and I get a call
• 12:56
  and one day it's Air Force recruiter.
• 12:59
  And they're like, hey, we just wanted to talk to you.
• 13:01
  We saw your scores. Would you like to come in?
• 13:03
  And I'm no intentions at this point, but they kind of sparked
• 13:07
  a light inside of me. And so I'm like, let me just go
• 13:10
  hear them out, see what they have to say.
• 13:11
  Was it because they were interested in you?
• 13:13
  You think it was? Excited my very smart brother
• 13:16
  did not get a call back from the Air Force that I was like.
• 13:19
  You know. They want me.
• 13:23
  So. So I go and I, I, I hear them
• 13:26
  out and I, they sold me on the whole special operations.
• 13:30
  And that really was a pivotal moment for me because it gave me
• 13:36
  an option to like, for me, I love being active.
• 13:39
  There's a reason I wanted to get into the sports industry and
• 13:42
  that was why. And so I saw that as like, well,
• 13:46
  I'm not going to be looking at a desk job.
• 13:47
  I'm going to get to travel. I'm going to get a good salary.
• 13:51
  Like there's a lot of options. And my brothers already did it.
• 13:54
  They kind of paved that path. So that opened it up for me.
• 13:57
  What'd your parents say? My parents were pretty much on
• 14:01
  board. Are they American?
• 14:04
  Because yes, both American, yeah, both born and raised in
• 14:07
  Pennsylvania as well. A lot of my family is from there
• 14:10
  and a lot of them haven't really, nobody's really left the
• 14:14
  area too much. So a lot of my family is still
• 14:16
  there. Cool.
• 14:17
  And so it wasn't a hard decision for them to like accept for me
• 14:21
  going in the military because it's already happened with two
• 14:24
  other of my brothers. And so I was confident at that
• 14:28
  point that like this is what I wanted to do.
• 14:31
  And I I found a job I wanted to do and it was special
• 14:34
  operations, which me being a young 17 year old.
• 14:39
  Who? Realistically, was not somebody
• 14:43
  who was like an overachiever. I was AC student.
• 14:46
  I was not like a impressive athlete.
• 14:49
  I just kind of like. So what do you think made them
• 14:51
  call you? Oh, I think they just call
• 14:54
  everybody. I think it was a recruiting
• 14:55
  thing. I think the last recruiter met
• 14:58
  their quota and didn't call my brother back.
• 15:00
  That's it then. Something as simple as that.
• 15:02
  It's as simple as that, Yeah, but it changed my life, yeah.
• 15:05
  Totally. Dude, that's crazy.
• 15:06
  And really, for the best, I mean, those seven years in the
• 15:10
  military board, some of the best years of my life.
• 15:12
  I mean, I wouldn't trade them for the world.
• 15:15
  Seven years is a long time. It was how long is the minimum
• 15:19
  service that you could do. The minimum is 4 initially A4
• 15:23
  year or a six year. And so I remember when I was, I
• 15:26
  was making that decision and it's just as simple as circling
• 15:29
  four years or circling 6 years when you're there.
• 15:32
  That's it. And you're 17 years old and you
• 15:35
  don't know what's going on in four years or 6.
• 15:37
  Years like I'm fully committed to this.
• 15:39
  I think it's going to be really good for me.
• 15:41
  And I'm someone who when I make a decision, I'm all in and I'll
• 15:45
  figure it out from there. And I try and put the best foot
• 15:48
  forward. And so I was like 4 years, OK,
• 15:52
  But six years kind of locks me in.
• 15:54
  And this is truly what I think it's going to be for me.
• 15:57
  Why not force myself into that position where I can't really
• 16:00
  back out? Yeah.
• 16:02
  So I signed six years. Wow, dude.
• 16:04
  And I committed to that and I ended up doing one more year
• 16:07
  prior to getting out of the military, which made it that 7
• 16:10
  and so. But yeah, getting into it, I
• 16:14
  signed up for Special Operations Combat Controller and what's?
• 16:17
  That mean combat controller? Combat Controller, it's just one
• 16:20
  of the career fields within special operations where they
• 16:26
  deploy and basically they set up security for runways.
• 16:32
  It's it's very complicated. They do a lot, but they're,
• 16:34
  they're badass dudes. And I just saw it as like, OK,
• 16:37
  this is going to be something that is going to challenge me.
• 16:40
  And I, my mindset as a 17 year old is so different than where
• 16:44
  I'm at now. And so much of it has changed
• 16:47
  from being in the military. So I was like, OK, I'm going to
• 16:51
  do this. There's a, there's a, it's
• 16:53
  called a pass test and it's a minimum requirement you have to
• 16:57
  meet to get into that special operations.
• 16:59
  And each special operations career has different minimum
• 17:02
  requirements. So at this point I was like, I
• 17:06
  was saying somebody who wasn't, I didn't really feel like I had
• 17:09
  much identity in high school. I was always just trying to get
• 17:13
  along with everybody and do whatever.
• 17:14
  And I was flying onto the radar. As soon as I decide I'm signed
• 17:18
  up for the military, all of a sudden people are thanking me
• 17:22
  for my service and telling me I'm part of the 1% and
• 17:26
  congratulating me and proud of me.
• 17:28
  And I was just like, whoa, like I kind of like took that as my
• 17:32
  new identity. Like I was super proud of like
• 17:34
  being a part of something. And so that really encouraged me
• 17:38
  even more. And for somebody who didn't
• 17:42
  really take any time outside of sports to try and better
• 17:47
  themselves, like I would show up to practice what's mandatory and
• 17:50
  that's it. I wasn't the guy who was coming
• 17:52
  back to the weight room afterwards or going for those
• 17:54
  extended runs afterwards just to like have the edge, you know, I
• 17:58
  was just doing the bare minimum. And so same thing, they gave me
• 18:02
  the bare minimum requirements to get into this.
• 18:04
  It's like a mile and a half run. You have a underwater swim, you
• 18:10
  have pull ups, push ups, sit ups, all this stuff and I'm
• 18:12
  thinking cake, cake walk, no big deal.
• 18:14
  I'm already special operating in my mind.
• 18:17
  I was so excited and so I did that.
• 18:20
  I I was training to meet the minimum requirement and looking
• 18:24
  back that was my problem. Sure.
• 18:27
  And so I go off into the military, and for me, it was an
• 18:34
  experience like no other. You're just like, yeah, you're
• 18:37
  getting yelled at by some people.
• 18:39
  Where are you training? Where'd they send you to for
• 18:40
  training? For the Air Force, you go to
• 18:41
  Lackland Air Force Base in Texas.
• 18:43
  Nice. Cool.
• 18:44
  Yeah, everybody goes there. And that was fun.
• 18:48
  It was your first time in Texas. Was it like?
• 18:50
  I remember leaving. Philly, Pennsylvania.
• 18:52
  Right, Pennsylvania. Yeah.
• 18:53
  I mean, I guess we've been to like Orlando for like Disney
• 18:55
  World, but realistically not a ton of travelling outside the
• 18:59
  States, especially older that. So that was like my first time.
• 19:02
  It was my first time flying by myself as well because I had to
• 19:06
  fly to be there. So a lot of new experiences.
• 19:08
  So I'm walking into this with open arms, full of excitement.
• 19:13
  And you were excited. You weren't.
• 19:16
  Nervous. You're scary.
• 19:17
  I don't remember really being nervous, I just remember being
• 19:22
  excited and looking back I would be nervous if I had to do it all
• 19:26
  over again because I know what I'm getting into at that time.
• 19:29
  You didn't know. I had the luxury of not knowing
• 19:32
  what I was really getting into do.
• 19:34
  You think that's our recruit? They recruit 17 year olds
• 19:36
  instead of 22 year olds. They, from my, from my
• 19:40
  understanding, I think they get that recruiters get more for
• 19:45
  their quota of how many people they have to enlist if they put
• 19:48
  people into special operations. OK, so because it's much harder
• 19:51
  to get people into special operations, they need to get
• 19:56
  people into that pipeline and send them at least.
• 19:58
  So I was the oblivious kid who wanted to be a badass, and I
• 20:01
  joined. And from there, you know, basic
• 20:05
  training was what it was. I had a great experience.
• 20:07
  I got to meet people from all over the world, from different
• 20:10
  experiences. And all of these guys were
• 20:12
  trying to be special operations as well.
• 20:14
  And so they're all bad asses. And honestly, that's when I was
• 20:18
  like, wow, I'm, I'm much smaller than the rest of these guys.
• 20:22
  I'm much younger than the rest of these guys.
• 20:24
  But it was fun and everyone was encouraging.
• 20:27
  Then we get to, so we go through basic training.
• 20:30
  I think it was like 7 1/2 weeks from there.
• 20:33
  Then you go to your, if you're going to special operations, you
• 20:37
  you have to in process there and then you wait for the class
• 20:40
  start date. And for mine there's a 10 day
• 20:42
  selection period within that 10 days.
• 20:45
  It is brutal. What do they, what do they do?
• 20:48
  Because they're trying to figure out who's going to take who for
• 20:51
  what operations. They're trying to get you to
• 20:53
  quit the whole time. They're trying to break you.
• 20:56
  Really. They want you to go home?
• 20:57
  This. Is just the first ten days you
• 20:59
  make it through that, you now have a whole another selection
• 21:03
  process. Basically, they're waiting out
• 21:04
  people who should have never been there in that first ten
• 21:06
  days. And then from there it's a
• 21:08
  really. So what did they do though?
• 21:09
  So what was it like that was so brutal?
• 21:11
  Was it just like intensive exercise or was it
• 21:14
  psychological? Was it everything?
• 21:16
  Everything. When I tell you leading up to
• 21:21
  this I would be in my free time, I'm thinking about, well, if I
• 21:24
  can just meet these minimum requirements, I'll be good.
• 21:27
  I'm training for it. I'm doing my runs in my free
• 21:30
  time. I'm doing my push ups and
• 21:32
  flutter kicks like everything's at leisure.
• 21:34
  I think I'm training hard. You get there, maybe.
• 21:38
  I think there was a couple of days till we started.
• 21:41
  Within that couple of days you're hearing from people who
• 21:43
  have failed out, people who are on like a medical hold because
• 21:47
  they got injured and they're waiting for the next class or
• 21:49
  till they recover. And they're telling horror
• 21:51
  stories. So you're hearing from people,
• 21:52
  they're giving advice, they're giving horror stories on top of
• 21:55
  that. Like for me, I felt like I was
• 21:58
  in a frat house, so I was like, I'm soaking it all up.
• 22:02
  I'm like, I got new friends. Like this is fun.
• 22:04
  Like all of this stuff. I'm still not really thinking
• 22:07
  there's going to be any issue coming up here.
• 22:09
  Yeah, First day starts and it, I don't remember how early it was,
• 22:14
  but they start you very early. From the moment you start,
• 22:19
  everything is watched. I mean, if you're, if the
• 22:24
  instructor walks in A room, if their foot even crosses over the
• 22:28
  line and the team leader doesn't call the room to attention for
• 22:31
  them, you're on your face, you're doing push ups, whatever
• 22:34
  it's called a smoke show. They will smoke you, which means
• 22:38
  that you're getting like nose to the ground push ups, sit ups,
• 22:42
  whatever intense workout they want to put you through to make
• 22:46
  you quit. But you start with that, the
• 22:48
  pass test. So the very first thing you do
• 22:51
  is that minimum requirements. So I already put myself on the
• 22:55
  radar because when the pull up section happens, they're always
• 22:59
  it's it's it's like a comic game for these instructors just to
• 23:02
  see how they can get people to quit.
• 23:04
  They know people are going to make it and, and everything is
• 23:07
  very uniform. So when they're like, okay, step
• 23:10
  up to the bar for the pull ups, arms up.
• 23:13
  And then they tell you like jump up.
• 23:15
  Well, I'm the shortest guy going to jump up and I slip off the
• 23:17
  bar and they're already on top of me, you know, so get up on
• 23:22
  the bar. For me, that was easy.
• 23:25
  I had trained for that. I knew what to expect.
• 23:27
  I blew it out of the water in my opinion.
• 23:30
  And we started with like 22 people.
• 23:33
  By the second day we were down at 8:00.
• 23:36
  No way. So a lot of people didn't even
• 23:40
  meet that requirement. Really the minimum.
• 23:42
  Requirement minimums. Wow, some people failed out
• 23:45
  there. Were they not training for it or
• 23:46
  is pressure or? A little bit of both, I'm sure.
• 23:49
  And so this is what the selection process is for.
• 23:52
  And then so as soon as you're finished with that, they give
• 23:56
  everybody a rucksack like the big backpack and you have to put
• 23:59
  sandbags in it. You have to weigh, it has to
• 24:01
  weigh like 40 or 50 lbs around there and then you get in a
• 24:06
  formation and they're taking you out on a rock run, which is
• 24:10
  similar. It's you're not fast-paced
• 24:11
  walking. You're you're basically jogging
• 24:13
  with this 4050 lbs. And another thing I never
• 24:17
  practiced, I, I didn't see it as being an issue.
• 24:21
  However, I never knew what shin splints were until that time
• 24:24
  because when you're walking with that weight or going with that
• 24:27
  weight and they break it down so if somebody's lagging behind,
• 24:32
  they're not able to keep up, you know, they'll stop the whole
• 24:35
  group. And now everyone takes their
• 24:36
  packs off and holds them in front of you.
• 24:38
  Yeah. And you're just holding it and
• 24:39
  holding it. And they're pretty much staying
• 24:42
  there until somebody quits. Yeah.
• 24:43
  So you're just dying and trying to find a way to continue and.
• 24:47
  What do you do? You think of something else.
• 24:50
  You just, your mind goes blank. You focus on anything.
• 24:52
  What's like what's? What do people do?
• 24:55
  I could tell you what I would do now, but in the moment I had no.
• 24:59
  Nothing in your mind skills. Of resilience, I don't think I
• 25:02
  had any skills that would get me through that adversity.
• 25:05
  So it was all that excitement and everything that I had before
• 25:10
  leading into that was like so eye opening.
• 25:13
  And I remember we we one guy quit, right?
• 25:17
  And they're like, all right, he quit, get in the truck, everyone
• 25:19
  keep going. So they keep going.
• 25:21
  And I remember it was to the point where I was falling back
• 25:24
  and the rest of the people are gone.
• 25:26
  And then structure makes his way back to me all casually, and I'm
• 25:31
  thinking he's going to RIP in the middle.
• 25:34
  No, he talked to me in a very soft tone, like a very friendly.
• 25:39
  Hey, Flower, why are you here? And like repeating whatever the
• 25:46
  guys who, who are in medical hold are telling me to say, like
• 25:49
  who? Yeah, I'll never quit.
• 25:50
  Like, you know, like they're they're telling you just say
• 25:53
  whatever to get them off your back because then they'll move
• 25:56
  on to the next person and give them a hard time.
• 25:59
  But I'm alone and it's just me and the instructor.
• 26:01
  And so I'm like, I don't know what I told him.
• 26:03
  He's like, how old are you? I'm like 18, Sir.
• 26:07
  And he's like, you're 18, why are you here?
• 26:10
  Why do you want to be here? Like, shouldn't you be in
• 26:12
  college? Don't you want to start a
• 26:14
  family? Like literally they just lay out
• 26:17
  the experience and they try and make it very real for you.
• 26:20
  And they basically try it. This is the psychological
• 26:23
  warfare. They want to see who's going to
• 26:26
  quit on themselves and where you're at mentally.
• 26:29
  So at that point, I, whatever I said got him off my back and
• 26:33
  he's like, you better get up there with the rest of the
• 26:35
  crowd. I'm like, oh, yeah, sorry.
• 26:37
  You know, I start jogging. I'm already dying.
• 26:39
  And I remember I got back in the crowd and I had to really push
• 26:42
  it to get back up there. And I thought to myself, if
• 26:46
  there's a corner coming up, if we go around this corner and it
• 26:50
  continues, I'm going to quit. That's what went through my
• 26:54
  mind. We got around the corner and we
• 26:57
  stopped. Thank God.
• 26:59
  In my mind, I was like, holy crap, dude, this, this worked
• 27:04
  out. So I'm, I'm surviving another
• 27:05
  day. And it's really that whole
• 27:09
  process is like, no sleep, constant stress, constant
• 27:14
  physical exertion, exhaustion, just to, to get you to quit, to
• 27:19
  see who's really going to make it.
• 27:21
  Yeah, I made it back to my dorm that night and I remember I
• 27:25
  didn't even get my rucksack off. My uniform is covered in dirt
• 27:29
  and sweat and I sat down on the floor and I was just I really
• 27:35
  was like, Oh my God, this is it was the hardest day I've ever
• 27:40
  been through in my life. It.
• 27:41
  Was the first day. It was the first day and we had
• 27:43
  nine more. And.
• 27:45
  Half, more than half the people already quit.
• 27:47
  Yeah. And so that's already in my
• 27:49
  mind. Like, there's a way out.
• 27:50
  Yeah. And so as soon as that starts
• 27:52
  piercing through your mind in moments of weakness, it just
• 27:55
  doesn't stop. And they feed on it, the
• 27:58
  instructors. Look for it.
• 27:59
  Yeah, they know. It and they push those buttons
• 28:01
  to see who's really going to quit.
• 28:02
  Because everyone has that. Everyone has that voice in their
• 28:05
  that says it's enough. You don't really have to do this
• 28:08
  or come on. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 28:10
  You don't have to. There's a way out, yeah.
• 28:12
  The people that that that succeed.
• 28:14
  I think the difference between people who succeed and fail or
• 28:17
  like you want to do the trick that you did, which is just one
• 28:20
  more checkpoint, you know, get one more, just one more
• 28:23
  checkpoint just around the corner.
• 28:24
  And then maybe, OK, I'm not going to quit just around this
• 28:26
  corner. Maybe the next corner I'll quit.
• 28:27
  You know, I'm like, you just push that next step, then you're
• 28:30
  ahead of like then how many other people quit before that
• 28:33
  first turn? You know, after that turn,
• 28:35
  they're like, there's more I quit.
• 28:36
  You know, if you could just be that guy to hang on for one more
• 28:39
  day or one more minute, one more hour, then like you get
• 28:42
  anything, it's that's sales, that's that's business, that's
• 28:45
  that's physical, you know everything.
• 28:48
  Yeah, for sure. Are you familiar with Nick Baer?
• 28:50
  You know the name. No, dude, who is he?
• 28:52
  He's, he's the guy who's in the military, started a supplements
• 28:54
  company called BPN. But he has a phrase that's
• 28:57
  called go one more. And that's what he preaches on
• 29:00
  whether you're lifting weights, do one more rap.
• 29:02
  Yeah, doing going for a run, go one more mile, one more, just go
• 29:06
  one more. Yeah.
• 29:07
  And I think that's a great mentality thing where in that
• 29:09
  case you go one more and then from there you go one more and
• 29:13
  it's it's bite sized pieces that will get you.
• 29:16
  Totally, because undetermined period of time or undetermined
• 29:20
  goal is almost impossible to like for someone that's not
• 29:22
  mentally a rock. It's impossible to get there
• 29:26
  right like, but if you just say, if you give yourself little
• 29:29
  tangible goals that you can check off, then it gives you
• 29:33
  something to build on. But if there's no almost like,
• 29:37
  you know, you have to, you want to go for a jog, hit the one
• 29:39
  mile mark, you know, like that's pretty good.
• 29:41
  You know, I could stop now. Basically I can go, you know,
• 29:44
  like you, you have that like, OK, that that I I'm done.
• 29:46
  I did that. Like check that off the list and
• 29:48
  on the next one and like check that off the list.
• 29:51
  And like if you just keep on doing that.
• 29:52
  Yeah, totally. That's wow, dude.
• 29:55
  And. Crazy.
• 29:56
  You made it. Yeah.
• 29:57
  So I'll finish the story. But to continue on what you just
• 30:00
  said, I think it's the process of stacking those small wins
• 30:05
  over time that builds that resilient mind, which is why I
• 30:09
  say I'm in a different mindset now than I was then because I
• 30:12
  never went through those challenging times.
• 30:14
  I never was able to callus my mind and my body to where I had
• 30:18
  resilient mind. And so in that moment, I was
• 30:22
  sitting there absolutely defeated.
• 30:24
  And I think. I texted my dad or mom and I was
• 30:29
  just like, I don't know if I'm going to make it.
• 30:32
  That's what you said. Like I was, I was already like
• 30:35
  kind of quitting in my mind. And, and so I knew in this
• 30:39
  sense, I just had to show up the next day.
• 30:41
  I couldn't quit right now. And there were people who even
• 30:45
  that night went to the cadre, the office of the instructors
• 30:49
  and said, I'm not coming tomorrow.
• 30:50
  I quit. So I thought if I just show up
• 30:53
  tomorrow, I'll let business tomorrow handle itself.
• 30:56
  Yeah, Yeah. So tomorrow the next day is the
• 30:59
  pool day, which is a huge thing that gets people out because
• 31:04
  when they are trying to make you drown proof and.
• 31:06
  What your pool? They mean like being in the
• 31:08
  pool. Oh, Pool.
• 31:09
  Yeah, yeah. You're in the pool and it's, I
• 31:12
  mean, it's a different beast when you're in the water and
• 31:15
  you're panicking and you feel like you're going to drown.
• 31:19
  Yeah. So the next day we go up, it's
• 31:21
  like 3-4 in the morning. We have to we are meeting with
• 31:25
  our team. We had a good team leader who
• 31:27
  was like everybody get together at this time before actual
• 31:30
  Showtime, we're going to review our rucksacks where make sure
• 31:33
  everybody has everything and make sure we're good to go.
• 31:37
  And you show up immediately, you're already your tensity is
• 31:43
  at like 10. You get to the pool.
• 31:47
  For me, I thought the pool was going to be my strong spot.
• 31:50
  That's why I practiced a lot. I felt very comfortable.
• 31:53
  I held my breath for 4 minutes at this.
• 31:55
  Point really. Above water, so a different
• 31:58
  beast, but I I felt like I surpassed that minimum
• 32:01
  requirement where I could do my underwater swims because you
• 32:05
  have to do 25 meters underwater without coming up without coming
• 32:08
  up and how and how. Long.
• 32:09
  Does that usually take a minute or two?
• 32:12
  Good question. It's been a minute for me.
• 32:13
  Yeah. And it depends on the person and
• 32:16
  their form under the water, how far they can push themselves.
• 32:19
  Right. So I was good with that.
• 32:20
  I was good with the swimming. I I felt comfortable.
• 32:23
  What I didn't practice was these flooded mask flutter kicks,
• 32:27
  which is you're, you're on the edge of a pool.
• 32:30
  You're doing flutter kicks like the workout, except you're
• 32:34
  wearing a scuba mask that goes over your nose and it's full of
• 32:38
  water. Oh.
• 32:39
  Shit. So and I practiced it one time.
• 32:43
  So you have to breathe through your mouth.
• 32:44
  You have to be able to breathe through your mouth and and be
• 32:47
  comfortable with water getting getting into your nose.
• 32:50
  Yeah. And it was something that I
• 32:53
  that's that's what got me. That's what it was the chink in
• 32:56
  my armor where I practice it once I saw it.
• 32:59
  OK, this is going to be the least of my worries.
• 33:01
  And it was what got me. So we're doing the flutter mass
• 33:05
  flutter kicks on the edge of the pool and the instructors are
• 33:10
  walking around you're it's a count off.
• 33:13
  So it's like 1231123. Everyone yells 2, you know, but
• 33:19
  while you're doing this, if you're talking, if you're
• 33:21
  counting, you're inhaling water, you're trying to like you're
• 33:24
  already exhausted from your workouts prior.
• 33:27
  Their stress is at 10. The instructors are walking
• 33:30
  around with the hose full of ice cold water, and they're spraying
• 33:35
  you in the face or spraying you in the body.
• 33:37
  So I'm in the middle of doing this.
• 33:39
  One guy quits and he, he blows the air horn, yells poo.
• 33:44
  Yeah, I quit, goes out. We're all suffering at this
• 33:47
  point. So now quitting is already back
• 33:49
  on the radar. Yeah, there's a way out.
• 33:52
  Yeah. Now at this point, I'm chugging
• 33:55
  water for what it felt like I was.
• 33:57
  I could not figure out how to breathe through my mouth and not
• 34:01
  inhale water through my nose. So and I'm exhausted.
• 34:05
  I'm trying to count doing the workout and I'm here I'm like
• 34:09
  like choking. Finally I like I'm puking this
• 34:11
  water. I RIP the mask off the
• 34:13
  instructor I'm singled out at this point flies over get back
• 34:18
  in the like get the water back in.
• 34:20
  So I jump in the pool. I put the water back in my mask.
• 34:22
  I get back on the edge of the pool trying to do it, trying to
• 34:25
  do the flutter kicks and I'm like, I cannot breathe for the
• 34:29
  life of me I cannot breathe. So I RIP the mask off again.
• 34:32
  Every time I RIP the mask off, restart, or anybody messes up,
• 34:37
  the whole team restarts. Shit like oh you just have to
• 34:40
  get to 20 count flutter kicks, but we keep restarting at 5 or
• 34:44
  whatever and so at this. Point.
• 34:46
  That's also mentally enormously heavy, right?
• 34:49
  You're not just. Everyone else, yeah.
• 34:52
  And so this is one of the things that somebody told me
• 34:55
  afterwards, like, dude, it doesn't matter because who's
• 34:57
  going to make it through? Who's going to make it through
• 34:59
  no matter the adversity. Yeah, in my mind at the moment,
• 35:03
  I had already had quitting, you know, now in my mind.
• 35:06
  And then on top of that, on top of the suffering, I'm now doing
• 35:10
  this to the team and somebody else might not make it through
• 35:13
  because of me. So by the third time of ripping
• 35:16
  my mask off and getting the team restarted, I finally, the
• 35:21
  instructor was like, you need to like get get the water back on.
• 35:25
  And I, and I stood up. And at that point, I don't even
• 35:28
  remember. It was just like an unconscious
• 35:29
  decision. I just was, I stood up and I
• 35:31
  went over. He's like, are you quitting?
• 35:33
  I was like, yeah, He's like, bring the bring the horn or blow
• 35:37
  the air horn. So I blow it.
• 35:38
  I'm like, Hoya. I quit.
• 35:39
  And he's like, I didn't hear you.
• 35:40
  And I was like Hoya. I quit.
• 35:44
  I was screaming at my mouth with so much emotion because for me
• 35:48
  it was like, Dang, dude. Yeah, you didn't want to.
• 35:51
  It's too late. I already said it.
• 35:53
  And so it's very emotional, so upset.
• 35:55
  I want to go. You immediately go back into the
• 35:58
  locker room and I wanted to walk in there.
• 36:00
  I'm like, I want to punch a locker.
• 36:01
  I was so mad at myself. And then the same instructor who
• 36:06
  I thought was the devil like 30 minutes ago is in there talking
• 36:11
  so nice, so professionally, so soft to us again.
• 36:14
  And he's like, look, this, this is like, it's a very tough thing
• 36:18
  and he's just breaking it down. He's like, you guys can go on
• 36:21
  about your careers and you can come back and try again and just
• 36:24
  giving us more advice. And I was just, I was like, man,
• 36:28
  it's, it's over. This is, this is it.
• 36:31
  So then from there, I had to decide what I was going to do
• 36:34
  because I, I, you have the option when you're going for
• 36:37
  special operations to get out of the military after.
• 36:41
  You could have left the the military.
• 36:42
  Completely I could have separated or I could read class.
• 36:46
  And so I just, I, I decided, you know this, I, I've loved
• 36:50
  everything up until this point and I want to continue in the
• 36:54
  military. So like, what are my options?
• 36:56
  And so from there, you're part of the group of people who are
• 36:58
  like a holdover. You know the guys who are
• 37:01
  talking to you before you go into.
• 37:02
  Class and. Tell their.
• 37:04
  Advice. And now you're like, I wish you
• 37:05
  knew what I went through. Exactly.
• 37:09
  So then I got the somebody, you know there was you get a list of
• 37:14
  jobs and a lot of them are they don't need a lot of people.
• 37:18
  So it's hard to get into those jobs.
• 37:20
  It's and other jobs are more demanding.
• 37:23
  The one that stood out to me was security forces, which was
• 37:27
  you're the base police. But within that is so many
• 37:31
  opportunities to to try to go through different courses to get
• 37:35
  basically a different job within that job.
• 37:37
  Yeah. And so I was like, oh, what's a
• 37:40
  Phoenix Raven? What's a canine handler?
• 37:43
  Like the people with the dogs who are dagger?
• 37:45
  Like there's these really cool opportunities within this career
• 37:48
  field. Let me put that on my list.
• 37:51
  So I did and I got it. And that was my journey with
• 37:55
  getting into the career that really fully satisfied me where
• 37:59
  I was. I did so much within that topic.
• 38:05
  So what did you end up doing ultimately?
• 38:07
  What was? What would you do for?
• 38:13
  I had to go through from there was on the same base.
• 38:17
  So I really never left Texas for like the first several months
• 38:20
  because some people they graduate boot camp and their
• 38:23
  tech school, whatever job they're going to could be
• 38:25
  somewhere in a total different be in Hawaii.
• 38:27
  It could be in Hawaii it. Could be in North Carolina it.
• 38:29
  Could be in North Carolina. Exactly right.
• 38:31
  Mine was still in Texas which is OK.
• 38:33
  I'll. Do you like Texas?
• 38:34
  Wait. I love.
• 38:35
  Texas. You love Texas?
• 38:36
  It's a lot of fun for me coming from Pennsylvania.
• 38:38
  Yeah, dude, Texas is a cool place.
• 38:39
  Yeah, I loved it. It was, I mean, it was a new
• 38:42
  experience. Yeah.
• 38:43
  And I like getting out you. Have time to get out.
• 38:45
  You have time to like, do stuff. Yeah.
• 38:46
  So depending on where you're at in your training, once you get
• 38:51
  to like your tech school, they say you're getting into like the
• 38:53
  big well, you go to boot camp, everything's very restricted,
• 38:58
  very monitored, very watched. Then you get to tech school, you
• 39:01
  know, you're still kind of a trainee.
• 39:03
  They're still kind of tight about the thing, keep an eye on
• 39:06
  you, but they relax the standards.
• 39:07
  You're a little bit more of an adult.
• 39:09
  And then once you graduate that you go to your job, whatever
• 39:11
  base you're at, and there you're like a full blown adult again.
• 39:14
  Like, yeah, you're not in training.
• 39:17
  So. But when you're in tech school,
• 39:18
  you do you get weekends where if you have free time and somebody
• 39:22
  has a car, Yeah. And.
• 39:23
  Then where do you go? You Austin Like Dallas?
• 39:26
  We never traveled that far. We just mostly stayed in San
• 39:28
  Antonio. San Antonio, Nice.
• 39:29
  Which I like San Antonio, I like cool, right?
• 39:32
  Yeah, there's you get to go to the Alamo.
• 39:34
  Yeah, that's fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.
• 39:37
  So that was like our area and it was, it was cool.
• 39:39
  And I actually had a buddy from high school who join the
• 39:43
  military at a separate time was going in for security forces.
• 39:47
  No way. And I when I failed out I ended
• 39:49
  up in his class. No way at the same time.
• 39:52
  It's so funny, dude. It's such a crazy feeling.
• 39:54
  It's such a relief to see another familiar face, right?
• 39:56
  Yeah, and it's a. Small world, really.
• 39:59
  Totally. And so he had his group of
• 40:00
  friends and we all kind of united and and went from there.
• 40:04
  And so after tech school, I went to Hawaii.
• 40:07
  Oh, he did. Yeah, it's funny to say, Hawaii,
• 40:09
  that was my first base and I almost traded it.
• 40:12
  You don't want to go to Hawaii. Why not that I didn't want to go
• 40:15
  to Hawaii. I never been there.
• 40:17
  I come from a small town. So like I didn't really
• 40:20
  visualize what that lifestyle would look like.
• 40:23
  Oh man. And I had.
• 40:25
  I'm so happy. I'm so happy you went.
• 40:27
  I'm so happy I went. I had just started kind of
• 40:32
  talking to a girl and when I failed out of special operations
• 40:35
  or before that, somewhere around that time.
• 40:38
  And so I was thought, man, well, if this is ever going to work
• 40:40
  out, how am I going to make it work out in Hawaii?
• 40:43
  And there's a lot of people who like there's a small period of
• 40:46
  time where everyone gets their orders to their base and people
• 40:49
  are allowed to trade them. If I could, if you wanted to go
• 40:51
  to where I'm at, I wanted to go where you're at.
• 40:52
  You can mutually decide. Other than that, you can't just
• 40:55
  say, hey, I don't want to go here.
• 40:57
  You have to find a replacement. Cool.
• 40:59
  And so somebody wanted to trade me for Hawaii, and fortunately
• 41:04
  nobody had the base I wanted in Pennsylvania or near
• 41:07
  Pennsylvania or I probably would have traded it.
• 41:10
  So I decided, you know what, I'm going to go there.
• 41:13
  Dude, I'm still happy you picked Hawaii over a girl, man.
• 41:15
  Oh my God, I think. I think everybody is considering
• 41:19
  it worked out. I know dude, because when you're
• 41:21
  when you're that age, especially that age, you feel like the girl
• 41:25
  is everything in the universe to you and you're willing to
• 41:29
  compromise on certain experiences for that emotion,
• 41:33
  right? Because you're still like
• 41:34
  emotionally invested and like you just like, it just
• 41:38
  completely overwhelms you and like, you don't like, you don't
• 41:41
  know to not do that, you know, but I.
• 41:44
  Think this is going to be my whole.
• 41:45
  Life. But if you're talking to you
• 41:47
  again, you like, no dude, don't do that.
• 41:49
  First stellar when I'm back there.
• 41:52
  So you went to Hawaii, dude. So it's a long flight.
• 41:55
  Oh, such a long flight. So, I mean, my family, all of
• 41:58
  them are in PA, too. So there was another reason I
• 42:00
  was thinking about I should get closer to home.
• 42:02
  Hawaii. They're sending me so far.
• 42:04
  Yeah. But even my family was on board.
• 42:06
  They're like, you shouldn't give up that opportunity.
• 42:09
  Yeah. So I went and I had a contract
• 42:12
  for three years in Hawaii. Wow.
• 42:14
  So I got to spend three years. Three years there. 15 years old
• 42:17
  spent living in Hawaii. Man dude met which?
• 42:20
  Which island? Oahu.
• 42:22
  Oahu, yeah. So where Pearl Harbor is at,
• 42:25
  Yeah, that was the base I was at.
• 42:27
  And it gets even crazier because while I'm there, this is towards
• 42:31
  kind of the end of my time there.
• 42:33
  My brother who's in the Navy, who's on a submarine doing his
• 42:37
  thing, that they bring the submarine to Hawaii and they
• 42:41
  pull it out of the water to work on it.
• 42:43
  So he's there. Hanging out with you.
• 42:45
  For like a year or like almost a year.
• 42:47
  Yeah. Wow.
• 42:48
  His own house. And now we're there.
• 42:50
  We're living in Hawaii together. Wow.
• 42:51
  That's just so cool, dude. What's what's What's Hawaii
• 42:54
  living like? It's definitely the island life.
• 42:57
  It's funny because, well, the military brings people from all
• 43:01
  over the world, so you get so many different perspectives and
• 43:04
  ways of life. And there's people who were
• 43:06
  before I was going there, like, oh man, you're not going to like
• 43:08
  it. Like it's just a rock in the
• 43:10
  middle of the water. After three years, you're going
• 43:13
  to be tired. You can do it all and this and
• 43:16
  that and just a lot of bad attitudes.
• 43:19
  And now you go there. And I never got tired of it,
• 43:23
  even after three years. I could have lived there longer.
• 43:25
  I had more things I wanted to do.
• 43:28
  Dude, it's amazing. You wake up, you see mountains,
• 43:31
  you see the beach. It's beautiful weather.
• 43:34
  I mean, it's like a range of like 70 to 85° all year round.
• 43:39
  Like it's just, it's amazing. I met my my fiance, no way there
• 43:45
  really. We have.
• 43:46
  Is she in the military? She was.
• 43:47
  She was a native. No, no, she wasn't even.
• 43:50
  She wasn't military. She wasn't there for.
• 43:52
  No way visiting. At a mutual wedding.
• 43:54
  A mutual friend's wedding. Wow.
• 43:56
  Yeah, it's an interesting story. That's a great.
• 43:58
  Yeah, I want to hear. It I'm there.
• 44:00
  For. You know, maybe.
• 44:01
  We got married in Hawaii. Yeah, So we're all stationed out
• 44:05
  there and I have my close group of friends, and one of the
• 44:08
  friends was going to get married while they were there.
• 44:11
  So because Hawaii is so expensive, all of the groom's
• 44:15
  party was staying at his house off base and then the whole
• 44:20
  bridal party and was staying at my best friend's house on base,
• 44:25
  which was I could walk there from my dorm at the time he was
• 44:28
  married. So he had a house.
• 44:30
  I was still in the dorms and so I'm we're basically there every
• 44:35
  day. You know, we're partying.
• 44:37
  He's like the party house. And now there's a group of girls
• 44:41
  coming, so why not go over even more?
• 44:44
  Yeah, sure. And I, I'll be honest, I had
• 44:47
  already scoped out ahead of time, like our buddy was showing
• 44:51
  us some stuff and like, oh man, she's really cute.
• 44:54
  No big deal. She comes and we both have our
• 45:01
  different perspectives on the story.
• 45:04
  The first night, I never forget I was coming over there, We were
• 45:10
  having a little house party, like a welcome party kind of
• 45:12
  thing. And she didn't stay long.
• 45:14
  She flew in late. So she was like in the kitchen
• 45:17
  filling up her water bottle and I had a twisted tea in my hand
• 45:20
  and we were there partying. We got to exchange like a couple
• 45:23
  words and she went up to bed. The next day I come back and I
• 45:29
  am at this point in my life, I'm in a shell like I'm very.
• 45:35
  Reserved. Yeah, I'm reserved.
• 45:37
  I why is that? I'm not like.
• 45:39
  Are you naturally cultural? I think naturally, I think maybe
• 45:42
  growing up as a younger sibling just kind of being like a
• 45:45
  follower, like I just what's the word I'm looking for?
• 45:51
  Inclusive. Yeah, exactly.
• 45:54
  Just not antisocial, but definitely not somebody who goes
• 45:57
  out of my way to make conversations.
• 45:58
  So for me, you know, I would honestly enjoy the parties
• 46:02
  because it would make me more social.
• 46:03
  So that's kind of why I liked being in The Who Doesn't.
• 46:06
  Who doesn't love that, exactly? So the next day I come back and
• 46:10
  work. The guys had planned to go
• 46:12
  golfing on base and I never, I don't even know if I've ever
• 46:15
  been golfing, but they're like, oh, you have to wear a collared
• 46:18
  shirt. Yeah, dress code.
• 46:19
  There's a dress code. For the sport.
• 46:21
  And I'm not like prepared for this, so I throw on my best
• 46:24
  collared shirt and and shorts and I feel like a nerd.
• 46:29
  Like I'm like, man, this doesn't.
• 46:31
  I don't. Look.
• 46:32
  Comfortable, like all the girls are off, like they already left
• 46:35
  the house because they're off doing like adventure things.
• 46:38
  And I'm coming over to like get with my buddies and we're going
• 46:41
  golfing. I step in, I open the door.
• 46:43
  I'm like, hello. And I'm like yelling something.
• 46:47
  And I didn't hear my buddy. And then all of a sudden I hear
• 46:50
  a female's voice from the kitchen.
• 46:52
  Hello. And my heart sank and I'm like,
• 46:57
  I'm dressed like a nerd. I just hear yelling like crazy.
• 47:01
  And I thought to myself, they didn't see me.
• 47:04
  They don't know who it is. I could turn around and leave
• 47:06
  right now and they'll never know.
• 47:08
  I'm like, I can't, I can't do that.
• 47:11
  So I walked over. Sure enough, it's my future love
• 47:14
  of my life sitting there. Wow.
• 47:16
  What's her perspective on the story?
• 47:19
  She thinks it's funny, like I, I was definitely in like a party
• 47:22
  phase, you know, like a lot of our like when we first met, I
• 47:25
  was coming over, we were having a house party.
• 47:27
  She thought it was funny. She she didn't think I was like.
• 47:31
  Viable. She didn't think it was anything
• 47:33
  with like me, like she thought I was dressed nice.
• 47:36
  I'm like, I thought I was dressed like a dork.
• 47:38
  And so from there, she was there for about a week and a half and
• 47:42
  it was like every single day we were together for some sort of a
• 47:46
  fan, like hanging out. And she was kind of playing hard
• 47:51
  to get, or at least I couldn't tell if she was into me or not.
• 47:54
  And so we were just like hanging out, like.
• 47:56
  Dude, how difficult is that man? It's never easy.
• 47:59
  It's. So difficult, dude.
• 48:01
  It's so difficult. And you and reading the reading
• 48:05
  women is impossible, dude. I mean, I think so.
• 48:07
  It sure is so hard and for for her.
• 48:10
  I always joke because I was like, I know the moment that I
• 48:12
  learned that you were into me because it was when I was
• 48:16
  issuing her a pass to get on the base and I had to take
• 48:20
  everyone's picture for like the security of getting on base.
• 48:23
  And she came up and like the counter was so tall and she's 5
• 48:29
  foot one on her license but 5 foot in real life.
• 48:32
  Sure. Her little eyes came over the
• 48:34
  counter and she was like, are you going to the party tonight
• 48:39
  at Gabe's? And I was like, she very excited
• 48:42
  to ask me this question. Yeah.
• 48:44
  And that's I was like, Oh, well, no, I'm going to be here all
• 48:46
  night because I work all, all shift and but I was like.
• 48:51
  We'll hang out. Yeah, she wanted to hang out, so
• 48:53
  that's kind. Of what?
• 48:55
  That's the best feeling in the entire world, isn't it?
• 48:57
  It really is. And so we, we went the rest of
• 48:59
  the week hanging out and then it was a couple months after that,
• 49:03
  I think from May, that was May. And then in October, we had
• 49:07
  stayed in touch afterwards, like just kind of communicating.
• 49:10
  And I was like, I'm really in for this girl.
• 49:13
  Let me see where this will go. So I traveled to, or that's what
• 49:17
  she did. She was in UCF to work on
• 49:20
  getting her master's degree. She was still getting her
• 49:22
  bachelor's at the time, but aiming to get her master's in
• 49:26
  speech language pathology. And so went out there and hit it
• 49:31
  off again and everything was what we thought.
• 49:33
  And she tell the story differently.
• 49:35
  So that's why you're in Florida. That is why I'm in Florida.
• 49:38
  Yeah, exactly. So that was maybe 3 years into
• 49:41
  my military career. And then we did it.
• 49:45
  We ended up doing about 2 1/2 years of long distance traveling
• 49:48
  back and forth. What is that like?
• 49:50
  Not easy. That sucks, right?
• 49:52
  Not easy. But we made it easy because we,
• 49:55
  it was better because she was focused on her goals and she was
• 49:59
  adamant about getting her masters.
• 50:01
  And I was in tune with my career and building that.
• 50:05
  And so fortunately, we weren't like the couple that like always
• 50:09
  had to be at each other's hip. And if we weren't, we were like
• 50:13
  panicking or, you know, we were Facetiming every night.
• 50:16
  We, I would help, we'd call split the tickets to get her to
• 50:21
  Hawaii or I'd fly to Florida at that point.
• 50:27
  But again, you get another wish list towards.
• 50:29
  So each time you're coming up on the end of your time at a base
• 50:32
  and you need to travel to another one, you have a wish
• 50:34
  list and you hope that they've review it.
• 50:37
  They say they do review it, but realistically everyone knows
• 50:40
  they just send you wherever they need.
• 50:42
  To OK. So I I was coming up on the end
• 50:45
  of my time and I'm like, Oh my God, this is getting serious.
• 50:47
  And I didn't change my wish list and all I have on my wish list
• 50:50
  is South Korea. With South Korea there.
• 50:54
  Because there's a little trick in the Air Force, in the
• 50:59
  military, I guess, where if you go to specific bases, it's like
• 51:03
  a one year tour. And from there you get a base of
• 51:06
  preference. So you're almost much, much more
• 51:09
  likely to go to where you want to go.
• 51:11
  If you go to that year. South Korea if you go to Turkey.
• 51:15
  Just trying to think warehouse by.
• 51:16
  Place that people don't usually want to go, yeah.
• 51:18
  Exactly. It's like short tour.
• 51:19
  Turkey would include. Your family.
• 51:21
  So it's like, yeah, people don't necessarily want to.
• 51:23
  However, Korea is one of the places everybody wants to go
• 51:27
  there because it's just like Party Central.
• 51:31
  Oh, is it there for one year? Most people, they're like, oh,
• 51:33
  you went to Korea. Did you make rank or did you
• 51:36
  lose rank? Most people, it's like, really,
• 51:40
  you're toeing the line of losing rank because you could skip a
• 51:42
  stone from Osan Air Force Base and hit the first club,
• 51:47
  restaurant, bar. Like it's like the entertainment
• 51:50
  district right in front of you. Wow.
• 51:52
  So yeah, what's that? If you disciplined.
• 51:55
  You do. You do so for me, I found out,
• 51:58
  oh, I need to change my list because I don't want to go to
• 52:01
  Korea. I want to yeah, I've changed it
• 52:03
  up first, but this time it's much more serious.
• 52:06
  And I was like, let me I know where what I want to do with my
• 52:10
  career and I can do it at these specific bases.
• 52:13
  And so I put those bases and I'm out on a mission and I'm over in
• 52:18
  I think Philippines or Thailand at this point and the.
• 52:21
  Guy being in these places for the first time.
• 52:23
  It's super. It's it's it's eye opening it I
• 52:28
  mean, if you. It's surreal, it almost feels.
• 52:30
  Real to some extent, yeah. Like the more you do it, the
• 52:34
  more like it, it feels like less surreal and and sure like this
• 52:38
  is like an experience. The the and it depends who you
• 52:42
  go with, because some people, they want to hit the first bar
• 52:46
  in a new town. And then there's people who are
• 52:47
  like, man, we're in a new place, why don't we go hit historic
• 52:51
  landmarks? We like actually explore the
• 52:53
  area. So I will say one of my biggest
• 52:56
  regrets was not voicing that. Like I wanted to go do more of
• 52:59
  those landmarks and I would go out and drink with people and
• 53:03
  we'd enjoy the local area that way.
• 53:05
  But that's a really good way to get to know a place, too.
• 53:07
  Like, I like that. Like when I travel remember.
• 53:09
  Next day, but. If you remember the next day,
• 53:11
  sure, but I think that it's I think like I went to I went to
• 53:15
  New Orleans and one of the first things I did was ask a bunch of
• 53:18
  local people and local breweries or local rump distilleries, like
• 53:22
  where do where do like where do people that live here go?
• 53:24
  And I went to hang out there and it was like, it was such a
• 53:27
  cooler way to get to know the place than going to the tourist
• 53:30
  spots. You know, I mean, like you don't
• 53:31
  get to new Orlando by going to Disney World, you know, I mean
• 53:33
  exactly. You do a little bit, but you
• 53:35
  know there's a lot more to it that like the locals actually
• 53:38
  live in. Yeah, Anywhere I go, I try and
• 53:40
  ask the locals like, hey, like, what do you recommend?
• 53:42
  And a lot of them are like, oh, go to this restaurant.
• 53:44
  Go to this restaurant. I'm like, no, no, no, I don't
• 53:46
  want to go to another restaurant.
• 53:47
  Tell me like, where are the spots that like, I can sightsee?
• 53:51
  Where can I get a lay of the land?
• 53:53
  And like, like, I'm going to remember this more than just the
• 53:56
  inside of a restaurant. Yeah, sure.
• 53:57
  And I want good food. You know, I want to try the
• 53:59
  local food, but I also want to kind of experience that where
• 54:03
  I'm at. And I don't think.
• 54:05
  Is Thailand awesome? Thailand was.
• 54:11
  I got my first suit there, so yeah.
• 54:13
  Everything dirt cheap there, right?
• 54:15
  Everything is very cheap, I mean, but it comes with there's
• 54:19
  very not the best areas. I can remember the smell that I
• 54:23
  would smell walking down the streets in some areas.
• 54:26
  Even though the military will put you in a very nice hotel, at
• 54:29
  least the Air Force, you know, they always joke on the Air
• 54:30
  Force. We get put in hotels while other
• 54:32
  people are like in a tent. Oh yeah, is that a thing?
• 54:35
  Between the branches, it's like the running joke.
• 54:37
  So yeah, we're in like a nice hotel.
• 54:39
  I can see the beach and the water, but they're it's still
• 54:44
  not like the nicest and but everything's cheap and so you it
• 54:49
  is what you make of it. Whatever your interests are like
• 54:52
  you go have fun. I enjoyed every experience
• 54:55
  travelling and doing and. You were in a relationship the
• 54:57
  whole time. So I'm in a relationship, yeah.
• 54:59
  And while I'm there in Thailand, which is the guy I'm bunking
• 55:03
  with is he's like in charge of finding out where people are
• 55:08
  going next. And he's like, oh, I just got
• 55:10
  the list. Like he's got the inside.
• 55:14
  He's like, I'll tell you where you're going.
• 55:16
  Let's and he's like all excited and I'm kind of nervous because
• 55:19
  I took Korea off my list to like I'm like last minute kind of
• 55:23
  thing. I revamped my list.
• 55:24
  He's like, all right, oh man, you're so lucky you're going to
• 55:29
  Korea, dude. I.
• 55:34
  Was like how do I explain this now to my girlfriend?
• 55:36
  Like, now I have to go to Korea for one year and you can't you
• 55:41
  get 1 one time where you can trap, like, leave, go on your
• 55:46
  vacation from there. Yeah.
• 55:47
  So I had to try and space it out to where I would still get to,
• 55:51
  like, see her. So I thought, this is the end of
• 55:55
  my relationship. She's going to call it off as
• 55:57
  soon as I tell her we're going to Korea.
• 55:59
  And I told her, and she was like, well, we'll make it work.
• 56:02
  That she said. She's like, we'll make it work.
• 56:04
  And I was like, all right. Then if you're on, what was
• 56:07
  your? What was your?
• 56:07
  What was your response? Would you, would you feel?
• 56:12
  Would you think? Would you said that?
• 56:13
  I was just so grateful, yeah, I was super grateful that she we
• 56:18
  didn't really have to work through that.
• 56:20
  It was just like, okay, that's where the military was going to
• 56:23
  go actually. Getting to like actually hang
• 56:27
  out with her and spend time with her on a consistent basis
• 56:29
  because like it's a totally different, like it's totally
• 56:31
  different relationship, right? Like one relationship is like a
• 56:33
  long distance relationship where you're on the phone and you're
• 56:36
  texting and you're calling and you're Facetiming.
• 56:38
  There's another experience where like you're in each other's
• 56:40
  space, you know, like for days or weeks or months on end.
• 56:45
  And like, that's a totally different aspect to like being
• 56:47
  with someone, you know, is that was that different?
• 56:49
  It was a learning curve for us when we moved in together.
• 56:52
  Because of that. Because we've had such and it's
• 56:55
  like one of those things where we had to, we had to learn each
• 56:59
  other's habits and what we like, liked as we live together.
• 57:03
  I think most relationships go through that and when you when
• 57:06
  you move in together for the first time.
• 57:09
  But for us, we had already had like a 3 1/2 year relationship
• 57:13
  before we moved in together, or I forget how long it was.
• 57:18
  Time flies. But yeah.
• 57:21
  So she said we were going to go on, we were going to do our
• 57:25
  thing. And then it was South Korea.
• 57:27
  I went to South Korea. South Korea was a very unique
• 57:31
  experience because I was part of, instead of doing security on
• 57:35
  base, I was part of a small team that pulled security off base.
• 57:40
  So because that entertainment district gets just wild and
• 57:43
  people lose rank, like the military just Wilds out.
• 57:47
  We have the army come down from their base on weekends and it
• 57:50
  gets so tense. You can feel like the tension in
• 57:53
  the air. Tense between who?
• 57:54
  Between. Like they want to get, they get
• 57:56
  drunk, people want to. Fight always with locals or with
• 57:59
  each other. Mostly with each other.
• 58:02
  It's pretty bad to get in fights with locals because that's like
• 58:05
  an international incident way to happen.
• 58:07
  Yeah. And so we're there to make sure
• 58:09
  that doesn't happen because the military.
• 58:11
  So you guys are like policing themselves?
• 58:14
  We're like, we're like policing the military off base.
• 58:17
  And so like, you can't have an open container walking around
• 58:20
  with the bottle. So like, you got to stop that.
• 58:22
  And fights break out at clubs all the time.
• 58:25
  We're like breaking out fights. Legit fights.
• 58:28
  Oh yeah, Oh yeah, it was one of the IT was.
• 58:30
  It was honestly one of my favorite jobs because it wasn't
• 58:34
  all the time. We're constantly you'd be in a
• 58:37
  club and you would just military members love to wild out.
• 58:44
  They work hard and they party harder.
• 58:46
  So we'd be standing outside of a club and next thing you know, we
• 58:51
  see this, this, this argument starting and we're like, it's
• 58:53
  about to happen and boom, one guy gets sucked and then all the
• 58:56
  friends come in. Then you have 18 people and
• 58:59
  we're like calling for backup and trying to pull people off
• 59:02
  each other. But you're and you're all
• 59:03
  Americans. And it was.
• 59:04
  We're all Americans, yeah. And and we're just trying to
• 59:07
  like. There's no sense of like karate
• 59:09
  when you're in South Korea and you see another American that
• 59:11
  you're like, yo, what's up? As opposed to like, yo, what are
• 59:13
  you up to? You know, like, I mean in that
• 59:17
  area specifically it was like all military people and then the
• 59:21
  local so like it. Was in a little like military
• 59:23
  city. Kind of kind of they're very
• 59:25
  heavy on the military there. And so, yeah, it was a lot of
• 59:29
  action. And then even to that year go by
• 59:32
  quickly, very quickly actually. Like nowadays I feel like my
• 59:38
  life sometimes goes by faster than there because just like
• 59:41
  every day I was like doing so much and within that one year
• 59:46
  there was like more opportunities and different
• 59:48
  things and, and a lot of things keeping me busy, a lot of new
• 59:52
  things that I got to do as well. One of the craziest experience
• 59:56
  that I had in Korea was working that job.
• 1:00:00
  And we have basically our area of operation outside where we
• 1:00:06
  kind of stay within and manage. And there's the maybe 12 of us.
• 1:00:11
  We're split into teams of 2. So we kind of split off and like
• 1:00:14
  monitor different sections and you work night shift.
• 1:00:17
  And then at the end, let's say 12 O clock, one O clock.
• 1:00:22
  I can't remember when we finished.
• 1:00:23
  We all kind of meet up by the gate and we're getting, we do
• 1:00:27
  our last final sweeps. We come back easy night.
• 1:00:30
  Well, one night we get a call from somebody and they're like,
• 1:00:33
  hey, there's somebody who's suicidal there.
• 1:00:37
  We have them, we have their first Sergeant, like who's in
• 1:00:40
  charge on the phone right now. And he's he's talking about
• 1:00:45
  killing himself like he does. And we've gotten these calls
• 1:00:48
  often. A lot of people don't want to be
• 1:00:49
  in Korea. They they lose their mind or in
• 1:00:52
  our minds and a lot of the team's mind being complacent.
• 1:00:55
  They were like, it's just another drunk person spouting
• 1:00:57
  off how they feel. They are.
• 1:00:59
  Well, I said, you know what, let me, I talked to my partner.
• 1:01:02
  I was like, since we're all grouped up here ready to go home
• 1:01:05
  for the night, how about you and I, since we don't have a
• 1:01:07
  confirmed location, we're going to be out here until this gets
• 1:01:09
  solved anyway. Let's work down to the other
• 1:01:13
  side of our operation, area of operation and just kind of stand
• 1:01:16
  post there so we cover more ground quicker in case they do
• 1:01:18
  give us location. As I'm walking down, I just
• 1:01:23
  happen to look up and, oh, fourteen stories.
• 1:01:26
  Don't tell me. I see a silhouette just up in
• 1:01:29
  the sky just wave like this, like standing there on the edge
• 1:01:32
  of the building. And I was like, I look at my
• 1:01:37
  buddy, like, dude, we got to get up there.
• 1:01:39
  At this point, we'd call it in. We're running, we're we don't
• 1:01:42
  have the codes to get into this hotel building to get up to the
• 1:01:45
  top. By this time, like 10 other cops
• 1:01:48
  show up with us. One guy has the codes.
• 1:01:50
  We get up and we're like all game planning.
• 1:01:53
  What do we even do? This guy's on the edge of the
• 1:01:55
  building wants to kill himself. None of us are negotiators in
• 1:02:00
  this instance. Like we don't know how to talk
• 1:02:03
  somebody off a ledge. We're not trained for this.
• 1:02:06
  So we're like, do we just try and grab the guy quick?
• 1:02:08
  Do we sneak up and grab him? Do we try and talk to him?
• 1:02:11
  We're really figuring this out on the fly in the elevator going
• 1:02:14
  up and we get out, we get on the top floor.
• 1:02:18
  We like got out below and walked up some floors to be real quiet.
• 1:02:21
  And we're going out and there's some bushes between US and this
• 1:02:24
  guy on the on the railing. And we we're walking up and a
• 1:02:29
  Bush catches my leg and makes a noise.
• 1:02:32
  This guy turns around, sees us. He's still on the phone with his
• 1:02:35
  first Sergeant. And he's like, oh, now the
• 1:02:38
  effing cops are here. Like what?
• 1:02:41
  You know, he's flustered. He climbs over this railing and
• 1:02:44
  goes further out, like literally on the edge.
• 1:02:48
  And at this point, we're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on, Hold
• 1:02:51
  on. Like, let's talk about this.
• 1:02:52
  Yeah, you're not in trouble. Yeah, We don't want like, we're
• 1:02:55
  not here. We're like, if you want us to
• 1:02:56
  back up, whatever. Like at this point, it's all off
• 1:02:58
  the off the cuff George, trying to figure this out.
• 1:03:00
  Yeah. And I had a buddy who was very
• 1:03:04
  good at handling this situation, was talking to him and we kind
• 1:03:08
  of like took the lead. And as we're talking, we're just
• 1:03:10
  slowly getting a little bit closer.
• 1:03:12
  The guy, I just remember he was smoking cigarettes and then he,
• 1:03:17
  he was kind of like relating with us a little bit.
• 1:03:19
  And we're like, all right, this guy, we got him to sit down on
• 1:03:22
  the ledge. He's having a conversation with
• 1:03:24
  us. We're trying to get him back,
• 1:03:26
  not really biting on it, smokes his last cigarette.
• 1:03:30
  And I just, I remember the guy, he just started looking off the
• 1:03:34
  edge and he stopped talking to us and he's just kind of leaning
• 1:03:37
  at this point. He's just kind of rocking.
• 1:03:39
  And at this point he's just like, we're just like, it's
• 1:03:41
  happening. He's about to do it and we had
• 1:03:45
  sent some guys down below because it was like a terrace
• 1:03:48
  where like there was a floor drop below.
• 1:03:51
  And so the people out on the terrace got on each other's
• 1:03:53
  backs and they're coming up from behind the guide to where, as we
• 1:03:56
  have his attention to the left, we can see the hands come up
• 1:04:00
  around the guy's hips. So they catch.
• 1:04:01
  Him to grab him and pull him backwards and they were going to
• 1:04:05
  pull him where he drops the floor, but we have people to
• 1:04:07
  catch him. Yeah, well, the guy talking to
• 1:04:09
  him glanced down for a second to like give him like the heads up
• 1:04:12
  and he caught on to that and goes to jump this point, the
• 1:04:16
  guy's barely got his belt. I'm on the edge.
• 1:04:21
  I leap over at this point grab the guy.
• 1:04:24
  I I ended up falling off backwards.
• 1:04:28
  The ledge, the ledge backwards. It's 14, four stories on one
• 1:04:31
  side and I'm looking at it. I'm looking down and I'm holding
• 1:04:35
  on to this guy and like through the struggle, I fall off.
• 1:04:38
  I hit the floor behind us. Adrenaline's pumping.
• 1:04:42
  I get, I'm, I get right back up. I run up the stairs, back over
• 1:04:47
  the edge and, and grab this guy. He's still trying to like get
• 1:04:50
  off the edge. And I remember holding on to one
• 1:04:53
  point and feeling my nails like starting to separate.
• 1:04:57
  They were just like, it was, it was like I'm losing my nails or
• 1:05:01
  this guy's going off. At this point, somebody had tied
• 1:05:05
  together a rope and lassoed it up and I was able to like throw
• 1:05:10
  it over this guy's like neck. Oh my.
• 1:05:14
  And they ripped him back and so they were with the rope able to,
• 1:05:17
  we basically got him held in there.
• 1:05:19
  They pulled him back and they caught him down below.
• 1:05:23
  Do you know what happened to? Him in the end, I don't know.
• 1:05:27
  They would have for sure. Was he?
• 1:05:28
  Crying was he? Oh, yeah, I mean, he was, he was
• 1:05:31
  very distraught. He was just kind of like in his
• 1:05:33
  own space at that point. We actually got caught shit from
• 1:05:37
  the Fire Rescue who was like, you guys should have never went
• 1:05:41
  on that edge. It's a safety thing.
• 1:05:42
  He could have taken you with him.
• 1:05:44
  Yeah. We were just acting off.
• 1:05:45
  Yeah. Yeah, totally, totally.
• 1:05:47
  You know what to expect. So holy that was.
• 1:05:50
  Dude. A wild experience I'll never
• 1:05:52
  forget. You saved his life man, that's
• 1:05:56
  crazy. It was, yeah.
• 1:05:59
  Was there, that was there that actually I have to pee real
• 1:06:02
  quickly, then we'll continue one second.
• 1:06:04
  The other way you probably, yeah.
• 1:06:05
  I would. I mean, that would have been.
• 1:06:07
  I would think about it a lot. Yeah.
• 1:06:09
  I, I don't know, I feel like in the moment we just, we did what
• 1:06:14
  we felt was right and we're very happy that we were able to save
• 1:06:19
  the guy in that situation. And I, I hope the best for him.
• 1:06:21
  I hope, you know, I hope they got him out of Korea and he
• 1:06:25
  turned his life around and is in a much better state now.
• 1:06:29
  I don't really know. And it was just back to business
• 1:06:33
  after that. And I have, I have some crazy,
• 1:06:37
  there's so many crazy stories about Korea in terms of like
• 1:06:40
  massive fights. We broke up people we had to
• 1:06:43
  kind of haul back to base on a stretcher because they were
• 1:06:48
  completely covered in their own feces, drunk in a bathroom,
• 1:06:50
  underage drinking. I mean, and imagine getting a
• 1:06:54
  person like that out of a club that's filled with people who
• 1:06:57
  want to fight and it's shoulder to shoulder and this guy's
• 1:07:01
  covered in, you know. So you're fighting a lot of
• 1:07:03
  people that want to fight him. They want to fight in general.
• 1:07:05
  In general, there were so many people that would just get drunk
• 1:07:08
  and want to fight out there, do whatever dumb stuff.
• 1:07:10
  So for us, it felt like an episode of Cops.
• 1:07:12
  Yeah, it was exhilarating, you know, where you just, you got to
• 1:07:15
  do your own thing. And most people didn't really
• 1:07:19
  do, I don't know, like people didn't mess with us.
• 1:07:21
  We just kind of like made sure everything was.
• 1:07:24
  Following. Would you, would you get to?
• 1:07:25
  Would you pick now that you had their preference?
• 1:07:29
  After Korea, Where'd you after all that?
• 1:07:31
  Yeah, Where'd you end up deciding?
• 1:07:33
  So I think I had a list of like 5 bases, maybe 10 bases.
• 1:07:38
  Would you speak to people about the bases before you got there?
• 1:07:41
  You ask around, you ask people their opinion if they've been
• 1:07:43
  there, what they think. It's also very dependent on like
• 1:07:47
  what jobs you can get there. So I was really chasing after
• 1:07:52
  ever since I failed out of special operations, I was really
• 1:07:55
  chasing after Phoenix Raven, The Phoenix Raven Schoolhouse, which
• 1:07:59
  is basically you go through a selection processes that as
• 1:08:04
  well. And if you make it through that,
• 1:08:07
  then you get a tab. And what they do is anywhere
• 1:08:11
  that our aircraft goes into like an austere environment where
• 1:08:15
  there's like not adequate security, we're there to secure
• 1:08:20
  the airfield, the aircraft, the airfield.
• 1:08:22
  You're like mobile security. Exactly.
• 1:08:24
  We're we're like the mobile plane security.
• 1:08:26
  And so the best way I can give an example of that is the
• 1:08:30
  Afghanistan evacuation from 2021 where they mandated every flight
• 1:08:36
  that went in there had to have a team of Ravens with it.
• 1:08:40
  So that's another story I can get into.
• 1:08:42
  That was the end of my deployment when that oh really?
• 1:08:45
  And I was a part of that. You were part of that.
• 1:08:47
  Oh yeah, everyday. I mean, it was that was chaos in
• 1:08:50
  itself like that was. A shit show.
• 1:08:53
  Yeah, that was absolutely a. Shit show.
• 1:08:57
  I mean, just to say it in the nicest terms, I think that would
• 1:09:00
  be the really the best way to put it.
• 1:09:02
  How so? For my personal experience, I
• 1:09:07
  was, I was stationed to deployed to Qatar for six months was my
• 1:09:12
  rotation and there was about 12 of us there.
• 1:09:18
  My six months was at an end and we there was talks about the
• 1:09:23
  whole Afghanistan evacuation, like people were going to the
• 1:09:26
  withdrawal. It was called the draw down.
• 1:09:29
  Do people in the army hear about these things before everyone
• 1:09:31
  else hears about it? They hear about it at the same
• 1:09:33
  time as everyone else. Generally we hear about it
• 1:09:35
  before, like we're already planning for a lot of and, and
• 1:09:39
  well, the talks about it was that we were going to withdraw
• 1:09:45
  our troops, we're going to start to draw down the civilians, were
• 1:09:48
  going to get their own flights out, yadda yadda.
• 1:09:50
  I don't know the specifics behind it, but all of a sudden
• 1:09:54
  it was like one, one second, OK, yeah, it's going to happen, but
• 1:09:58
  it's not going to affect any of us.
• 1:10:00
  Like they're probably just going to like, handle it flying out on
• 1:10:02
  civilian aircraft. They're going to catch a
• 1:10:04
  Southwest flight home, no big deal.
• 1:10:06
  Then I'm a couple days past when I was supposed to leave already
• 1:10:11
  to go home and I'm like, hey, you know, where's my rotation
• 1:10:15
  at? Like I'm ready to go.
• 1:10:16
  Like I've already my family's waiting on me.
• 1:10:19
  I. Got a girlfriend, man.
• 1:10:21
  One morning they call they, they, I get added to a group
• 1:10:24
  chat with a couple other guys and there was only me and one
• 1:10:27
  other guy who had been there for six months and they were like,
• 1:10:29
  your flights on this day at the end of the week, start getting
• 1:10:34
  your stuff ready to ready to go home.
• 1:10:36
  I'm like, absolutely heck yeah, call my family.
• 1:10:39
  We're excited. We're getting, we're making
• 1:10:41
  plans already for when I'm home that same day, that evening,
• 1:10:47
  they call me back out of my room and they're like, hey, the
• 1:10:52
  evacuations happening and it's happening right now.
• 1:10:56
  Grab your 72 hour bag, which is just your bag for 72 hours worth
• 1:11:00
  of supplies that's always ready and get on the first flight like
• 1:11:04
  it's happening now. Oh shit.
• 1:11:05
  And I'm like, So what does that mean about me leaving?
• 1:11:09
  And they're like you're extended indefinitely.
• 1:11:12
  That's what they said. We don't know when you're
• 1:11:14
  leaving. So that's the news I got.
• 1:11:17
  And so at that point, I'm like, OK, as I'm grabbing my bag and
• 1:11:20
  getting my stuff ready, I'm now telling my family I'm I don't
• 1:11:24
  know when I'm coming home and that this you're.
• 1:11:26
  Freaking out. I feel like for me, no, you just
• 1:11:34
  I was, I felt like I was upset. I was very distraught about the
• 1:11:39
  fact that like, OK, now I'm staying with my family even
• 1:11:42
  more. If it wasn't for the fact that
• 1:11:44
  like, like I was already supposed to be gone, I would
• 1:11:47
  have been all on board, ready to serve and do what I was trained
• 1:11:50
  to do. And so I had to let that go and
• 1:11:53
  and realize I'm not leaving. This is what I'm here for.
• 1:11:57
  And I have to finish up. You know, I got to finish the
• 1:12:00
  job and this is now the job. So yeah, get on the first
• 1:12:04
  flight. At this point, there's twelve of
• 1:12:05
  us. A week later, there's 120 of us
• 1:12:09
  or 100, you know, Plus they pulled Ravens that weren't even
• 1:12:13
  like actively flying. They pulled everybody out of the
• 1:12:17
  woodworks to come support this. The tempo when we had 120 people
• 1:12:22
  was like the same exact tempo in the beginning.
• 1:12:26
  So the 12 of us that were mandated me on every flight were
• 1:12:30
  just being worked, like grinding.
• 1:12:33
  Like, I remember I got on flight 3 hours on Kabul airport.
• 1:12:38
  At that point, everybody's just like trying to figure out what's
• 1:12:42
  going on. We're landing.
• 1:12:43
  I'm up in the cockpit. I see groups of people who
• 1:12:47
  aren't supposed to be in this area.
• 1:12:48
  Like they're getting like, like held in an area because they
• 1:12:50
  rushed the airfield. We're getting Intel briefs
• 1:12:54
  before. So they're talking about like
• 1:12:56
  how ISIS wants to come blow it, blow up the gates, like work.
• 1:13:01
  We had a pact with the Taliban, who are the 2?
• 1:13:06
  Two basically have a ceasefire. The same people were fighting
• 1:13:09
  the day before. We're now we got the inner
• 1:13:12
  perimeter secure. You guys are like securing the
• 1:13:15
  outer perimeter basically. It was a very weird situation.
• 1:13:19
  It does with the Taliban. Yeah.
• 1:13:21
  So you're working with the Taliban?
• 1:13:23
  I don't know if not you but say that it was just like a.
• 1:13:27
  Coordination. They were basically, yeah, they
• 1:13:29
  weren't going to kill us and we weren't going to kill them.
• 1:13:31
  And that was the agreement. And because ISIS.
• 1:13:35
  Was a mutual. Well, no, but ISIS wanted to
• 1:13:38
  come foil that plan where it was just going to be this nice, neat
• 1:13:41
  withdrawal. Everybody who wants to leave
• 1:13:44
  Afghanistan comes here and and it's OK, the Taliban's going to
• 1:13:47
  take over. That didn't quite happen next.
• 1:13:50
  You know, the Taliban's killing people right outside in front of
• 1:13:53
  our. The desperation of like humanity
• 1:13:59
  in that minute was in that moment was just like something
• 1:14:03
  you'll I'll never get over. There were people who were like
• 1:14:06
  throwing their babies over the wall who are landing in like sea
• 1:14:10
  wire because they didn't the other side they they wanted to
• 1:14:14
  get. I mean, you can look at the
• 1:14:15
  videos and just see the hordes of people outside trying to get
• 1:14:20
  in Taliban stirring up trouble. They'll kill people, they'll
• 1:14:24
  shoot into the crowd, whatever. And our guys are just like
• 1:14:27
  trying to A not get killed themselves and B, get people
• 1:14:31
  through security without letting everybody like rush through.
• 1:14:34
  And, you know, they're they're people who are trying to just
• 1:14:37
  live so they don't middle. East is a different universe.
• 1:14:40
  Yeah. And they're doing whatever they
• 1:14:42
  tend to survive. So they were really trying to,
• 1:14:45
  like, push through. At one point, they flooded the
• 1:14:47
  perimeter. They rushed the airfield.
• 1:14:49
  That's where you see the video of our plane taking off off and
• 1:14:51
  people were hanging on it. There was an explosion at the
• 1:14:56
  gate that happened like gunfire out the perimeter.
• 1:14:58
  It was a very chaotic, tense situation.
• 1:15:03
  But that's what I was there for. And and to answer your question,
• 1:15:09
  in that moment, I felt worried for my family mostly as if, you
• 1:15:14
  know, if something happened to me, like for them.
• 1:15:16
  But personally, I felt like all my training LED up to this
• 1:15:20
  moment. And it was something that
• 1:15:22
  getting in the military, I remember asking God like, use me
• 1:15:27
  in my time in service for good. Like if like I don't want to
• 1:15:30
  just like train and do this and that and not get to serve my
• 1:15:33
  country or have to serve a higher purpose.
• 1:15:35
  And so in that moment when I did feel a lot of stress where I did
• 1:15:38
  feel like this, like, why am I here kind of thing.
• 1:15:43
  That's what I had to remind myself was like, OK, this is
• 1:15:45
  what I asked and this is what I'm here to do.
• 1:15:48
  He's spiritual. I.
• 1:15:50
  Yeah, you were then I would say. I'm very spiritual.
• 1:15:54
  I would say I'm very spiritual. Yeah.
• 1:15:57
  So those first three days were a mess because I would get you get
• 1:16:01
  on a flight, you're you're exhausted.
• 1:16:03
  You didn't sleep. You barely ate.
• 1:16:05
  You don't have enough water. We're bringing in more people
• 1:16:08
  than a plane can carry. And so there's like no room to,
• 1:16:11
  like, sleep. You're up in a cockpit, like the
• 1:16:13
  crew is up in a cockpit too many for us to be up there.
• 1:16:17
  So you're not sleeping there either.
• 1:16:18
  And then we're getting off. We're in like tension level 10
• 1:16:23
  and Poland security and then also once we get all the
• 1:16:27
  refugees on the plane, I'm the guy who's guarding the cockpit
• 1:16:30
  to make sure that nobody tries to overthrow the plane as well.
• 1:16:34
  So again, I'm still on my job. Nothing happened there but but.
• 1:16:38
  It does happen. Oh, well, yeah, it definitely
• 1:16:41
  could happen. I mean, so for me it was like I,
• 1:16:45
  I never, there was no breaks, you know, And then so I got back
• 1:16:49
  and I went through customs because at the time it was
• 1:16:53
  still, you're supposed to go through customs until things got
• 1:16:55
  so bad and backed up that finally they were like, security
• 1:16:59
  skipped customs because they're, they're moving and gunning the
• 1:17:03
  whole time, you know, So I went through this whole long process.
• 1:17:07
  I had to check my weapon back in.
• 1:17:08
  I had to go through the customs, get a bus back to my dorm.
• 1:17:13
  It just felt like like more than 24 hours of being up.
• 1:17:17
  I got back to my bed. I kicked my boots off.
• 1:17:19
  The best feeling in the world, lay down.
• 1:17:24
  Somebody comes in, taps me on the boot or on the foot.
• 1:17:26
  They're like, hey, you got to go.
• 1:17:28
  You're on the next mission. And I'm like.
• 1:17:31
  How long has it been? Not even, I don't even think I
• 1:17:33
  was laying there for 10 minutes. Wow.
• 1:17:35
  And then I got back in. I went back on the next mission,
• 1:17:39
  did that three times in a row. The next time I didn't make it
• 1:17:42
  back to my room at which is actually nice.
• 1:17:43
  Like at least just put me on the next.
• 1:17:45
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Catching the whole long process.
• 1:17:49
  And then yeah. So for like 3 days it was like
• 1:17:52
  barely eating, barely sleeping. I had a water bottle with like
• 1:17:56
  maybe I had 1/4 of water in it and I had a caffeine, you know,
• 1:18:00
  death wish coffee. Yeah.
• 1:18:02
  It's like a three, 400 milligrams, like a packet of
• 1:18:05
  caffeine. And I would put it in that and
• 1:18:07
  just shake it up. And that's what kept me alive,
• 1:18:09
  basically. Yeah.
• 1:18:10
  Security. And so it was very, it was, it
• 1:18:13
  was very rough. It was very chaotic.
• 1:18:15
  But I didn't have time to think about the politics of it.
• 1:18:18
  I didn't have time to think. About how to get.
• 1:18:19
  Done. Yeah, you're just there and and
• 1:18:21
  I'm pulling security and I had to just make sure that the
• 1:18:24
  mission happened, which also led me to like one of the lowest
• 1:18:29
  points of my life right after that where I really felt like a
• 1:18:32
  tool watch for the military because this is I would have
• 1:18:36
  gotten back from that deployment and I would have had one month
• 1:18:39
  until the date of separation from the military.
• 1:18:42
  And I'm like, that's not, I really want to set myself up for
• 1:18:45
  getting out. And so I extended for one more
• 1:18:48
  year. So that's why I ended up doing
• 1:18:49
  the seven years. And that's you thought to get
• 1:18:51
  to. That wall so the end of the the
• 1:18:54
  end of the withdrawal right we got everyone out of Afghanistan
• 1:18:57
  and now we've we've been taking them to Germany to Spain to
• 1:19:01
  Qatar to Kuwait wherever we whoever will take these people
• 1:19:05
  and from there that's like phase one just get them out of
• 1:19:08
  Afghanistan. Well, Phase 2 is start really
• 1:19:11
  processing these people and get them to where we want them to
• 1:19:13
  end up. And I'm, I talked to my mass
• 1:19:16
  Sergeant. I'm like, hey, like this is this
• 1:19:18
  is it, right. Like I'm the hundreds of planes
• 1:19:22
  we brought out to support this and the hundreds of people who
• 1:19:24
  are now flying back literally the next day.
• 1:19:27
  I'm on those planes, right? Absolutely.
• 1:19:29
  Yeah, you're you're on those planes.
• 1:19:30
  You're going back tomorrow. I go to sleep, I wake up to my
• 1:19:35
  roommate was like, hey, you're on the next mission.
• 1:19:39
  And I'm like, there's no way. How like they told me no and
• 1:19:44
  they ended up sending me to Spain.
• 1:19:46
  Acted like we never had the conversation while I'm in Spain.
• 1:19:50
  They're like, there's a plane there, it's coming right back.
• 1:19:53
  So within tonight you're going to be back here again.
• 1:19:56
  OK, no worries. I'm not going to complain.
• 1:19:57
  It is what it is. Get this pain the plane's broke
• 1:20:01
  of. Course it does.
• 1:20:03
  The plane's broke, so now there's not have to sleep there
• 1:20:06
  while they're like come back the next day, we're going to check
• 1:20:09
  the plane. Parts should be here and it'll
• 1:20:11
  be fixed for like 3 days, three or four days.
• 1:20:15
  It's the military, man. It's the government, man.
• 1:20:17
  They do shit slow. So as I'm stuck there, everybody
• 1:20:22
  else is, including my own team member, is getting on flights,
• 1:20:26
  going home. Oh.
• 1:20:27
  Man. So that was like the point where
• 1:20:29
  I really like broke down for the first time and was like, dude,
• 1:20:33
  this sucks. Like this really is like painful
• 1:20:36
  to like be in a situation and you want to talk about
• 1:20:39
  spirituality? A friend of mine who really got
• 1:20:41
  me into my faith in my own faith journey, just like called me at
• 1:20:47
  that moment. And we had this for like a a
• 1:20:49
  long time, like really. And calls me while I'm like
• 1:20:54
  broken down in tears in a hotel and just like speaks life back
• 1:20:59
  into me and was just there for me like in that moment.
• 1:21:02
  And I was and that's what I was like, OK, like this is what I
• 1:21:05
  was meant. I was meant to be here.
• 1:21:06
  Like I asked God for this and he gave it to me.
• 1:21:09
  And so yeah, that was towards the end of my career.
• 1:21:13
  I ended up getting, I ended up getting an award for that with
• 1:21:17
  the nice Distinguished Flying Cross, which was very honored to
• 1:21:21
  get that. That's awesome, dude.
• 1:21:22
  It actually delivered at my doorstep.
• 1:21:24
  Like he deserved it, man. The year after I got out of the
• 1:21:26
  military. He deserved it man, for sure.
• 1:21:28
  I appreciate it. That was crazy.
• 1:21:30
  Yeah, it was, it was chaotic. It was so eye opening, but it
• 1:21:34
  was, it was very humbling as well.
• 1:21:37
  And I'm just happy I I could be there and play my part.
• 1:21:40
  Yeah. Yeah, we're going to have to do
• 1:21:42
  a follow up episode, dude, because this is like Part 1 with
• 1:21:46
  like a story and now we could do like another hour and a half of
• 1:21:50
  just like everything from there, dude, because.
• 1:21:52
  There's so now that I'm out of the military and.
• 1:21:54
  Like, yeah, OK, we'll have to have to roll Part 2, man.
• 1:21:58
  Dude, fucking phenomenal. Dude.
• 1:22:00
  I'm so happy that I hit you up for this, man.
• 1:22:02
  I'm so happy you all did that jujitsu class because that was
• 1:22:04
  we're going to make this happen again.
• 1:22:06
  Are you are you going to come train again soon?
• 1:22:10
  Dude I would love to that. 'D be a time.
• 1:22:13
  Thursdays and Fridays have mostly been when I'm like doing
• 1:22:15
  the training, but it's one of those things like I love being
• 1:22:18
  there because I love being around other savages and being
• 1:22:21
  able to push myself, but I just haven't dedicated enough time.
• 1:22:26
  To make it happen, dude, make it happen.
• 1:22:27
  Thank you so much for doing this, dude.
• 1:22:28
  We'll be in touch. Thanks everyone.