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Conversations With A Vet - Veteran LTC (Ret) Michael Payne · Military Broadcast Radio | MBR Talk

• 1:07
  Well, good evening everybody, and welcome to Conversations
• 1:10
  with a Vet. My name is Carol Lee and I'm
• 1:13
  your host tonight and I have a wonderful guest waiting in the
• 1:17
  wings. But before we get to him, a
• 1:19
  little bit about what he is doing currently.
• 1:24
  He has since written a book called Unshaken Resolve.
• 1:29
  We also have courtesy of my guests coming up, two of these
• 1:36
  that are signed by him for when we hit our thousand subscriber
• 1:41
  mark. So please be sure to share and
• 1:46
  like as well as hit the notification button so that you
• 1:50
  make sure you get notified every time there is a new guest and a
• 1:55
  new show. So thank you very much and if
• 1:58
  you would please help me to welcome Michael Payne.
• 2:04
  Well, hello, how are you doing? Hello, good evening.
• 2:09
  I'm doing great. I love the background there.
• 2:12
  That's awesome. I want to say thank you for
• 2:18
  taking the time out of your busy day to come on and have a
• 2:22
  conversation with me. And it's been great going
• 2:26
  through your book. And also thank you so much for
• 2:30
  that, for sharing and providing a couple of signed copies.
• 2:34
  Yeah, absolutely. You know, first of all, thank
• 2:39
  you very much for having me on. But I really want to say it like
• 2:42
  I wrote this book is something special to me and I'll and I'll
• 2:46
  explain as we go along. But I'm honored to give two of
• 2:51
  your lucky guests. Once you hit 1000 on there,
• 2:54
  you'll you'll be able to give them away and they'll get the
• 2:57
  share as well. So that's good.
• 2:59
  Yeah, I'm really excited about that.
• 3:02
  I want to say that, you know, we talked briefly well for a little
• 3:07
  bit last week when and so I got to know you a little bit, you
• 3:12
  got to know me. And but there's some things
• 3:15
  obviously we don't know, I don't know about you.
• 3:17
  So I like to always start off by asking, in this case, who was
• 3:22
  Michael Payne as a child? Oh great question.
• 3:28
  Actually I was a goody 2 shoes but don't tell anybody.
• 3:30
  Really. Yeah, I, I had a lot of fun as a
• 3:35
  kid when I grew up in South portion of New Jersey outside of
• 3:39
  Philadelphia. And my dad was a New Jersey
• 3:42
  State trooper and my mom worked as a nurse for a, a, a physician
• 3:50
  who had a, a small office and we do a lot of house calls.
• 3:55
  And I had a neurologically impaired brother at the time.
• 3:58
  Nobody knew what the diagnosis was and they didn't find out
• 4:03
  till 1980, this disease called Fragile X.
• 4:07
  And my brother was born in 1970. So they didn't know what that
• 4:13
  was back then. But with that, he was 11 months
• 4:17
  and fourties older than me and was my best friend.
• 4:22
  And you know, I remember as a teenager, somebody asked me
• 4:29
  what's it like growing up with a retarded brother?
• 4:31
  And I'm like, I don't know. I don't know any different.
• 4:34
  So what do you mean? What's the difference?
• 4:36
  And a friend of mine's, parent friend of mine, a friend of
• 4:42
  mine, his his dad overheard that and he didn't say anything,
• 4:48
  which was really interesting. Now I understand why, but he
• 4:53
  told my parents later that he said Michael's right.
• 4:57
  He doesn't know any different from his brother with a
• 5:02
  neurological impairment to anybody else.
• 5:05
  It's his brother period. And so, you know, my parents
• 5:11
  were were amazing parents and my brother with Fragile X lived
• 5:14
  until he was 37 years old. So, and if you know anything
• 5:19
  about the disease or want to look it up, it's, you know, most
• 5:22
  people are 21 or less, right? So we're younger.
• 5:25
  So my parents took very good care of my brother and he gave
• 5:30
  an amazing life. And you know, that's, that was
• 5:34
  the foundation of who I am, right?
• 5:36
  So as a as a 16 year old, I was in Boy Scouts and I wanted more.
• 5:44
  I didn't know what moral was, but I wanted more.
• 5:47
  And so I became a emergency medical technician in the state
• 5:50
  of New Jersey at the age of 16. I am the I am the only person in
• 5:55
  the state of New Jersey to be licensed at the age of 16.
• 5:58
  So I fought really hard to to become an EMTI mass mastered the
• 6:06
  test. I put everything I had into it
• 6:11
  because there was something about being on the front lines
• 6:17
  and and be able to affect somebody else's life that drove
• 6:21
  me. And I think that was really what
• 6:24
  my the, the care that my parents gave, right?
• 6:28
  Not only to my brother, but to me.
• 6:30
  Many family members we had. I don't remember a year that we
• 6:34
  didn't have a cousin or, and you know, one of my cousins, my
• 6:38
  dad's or my parents, nieces and nephews living with us because
• 6:44
  my parents were they were amazing people or still they
• 6:46
  store my mom's past. My dad's still alive, amazing
• 6:49
  people. And so this drive for more came
• 6:55
  out and in that I, I became an EMT and then I, I got my Eagle
• 7:07
  Scout and then I joined the Army.
• 7:09
  It was like sequentially, right? So 16 AMT, 18 Eagle Scout or I
• 7:16
  guess I got it 17. And then at age 20, I was in the
• 7:20
  military, so. Wow.
• 7:22
  Yeah. And what was it that made you
• 7:26
  decide you wanted to join the military, but more importantly,
• 7:30
  the specific branch that you chose?
• 7:33
  Yeah, so I looked around. I was 20 years old, already in
• 7:37
  college. I I was working construction and
• 7:42
  I knew I did not want to work construction.
• 7:48
  And so it let me back up a little bit and graduated high
• 7:50
  school. I looked at the Coast Guard
• 7:54
  Academy and the Naval Academy, of which I got into the Coast
• 7:58
  Guard Academy and I got a into the prep school for the Naval
• 8:02
  Academy, both of which I chose not to do it.
• 8:11
  It's really funny because I thought that's what I wanted,
• 8:15
  the time, and then that's not what I decided.
• 8:19
  So, you know, maritime service would have been a lot of fun,
• 8:25
  but there was something telling me that wasn't my path.
• 8:28
  Right. And so at age 20, I was working
• 8:33
  construction in the summer and I literally passed by a
• 8:37
  recruiter's office and turned in on the way home from work.
• 8:41
  So as I'll say, it's 3:30 in the afternoon in South Jersey with
• 8:46
  100% humidity and probably 9°, right?
• 8:49
  So I was like, this is not for me.
• 8:52
  And I pulled in the recruiter's office and we talked for a
• 8:54
  minute and I was, it was a Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, all in
• 9:00
  this one office. They each had a desk or two and.
• 9:06
  Now at least they give them individual officers, even though
• 9:09
  they're all right next to each other.
• 9:13
  So I, the Marine guy was on the phone and the Army guy was open
• 9:20
  and I already knew I didn't want to do anything else.
• 9:23
  So I never had a desire for the Air Force.
• 9:26
  And of course, I turned down the maritime service.
• 9:30
  So funny, right? I'm just talking to the guy and
• 9:34
  he's like, well, what do you want to do?
• 9:35
  And I'm like, I think I want to join.
• 9:38
  And so I signed up, did all the stuff.
• 9:42
  I was, you know, I was 18 years old.
• 9:43
  I can do whatever I wanted until I got home.
• 9:46
  And my dad says to me, he said, boy, what are you doing the rest
• 9:51
  of the summer? And I went, I'm over doing the
• 9:53
  military. And he said, I'm sorry, what
• 9:55
  what did you say? I said I'm like doing the
• 9:56
  military. And he said, Michael, come here
• 9:59
  now. Put your hand in your pocket.
• 10:02
  What did you say? I said, I'm going in the
• 10:04
  military. And he said, I told you if
• 10:07
  you're going to go in, you go, you know, after college.
• 10:10
  But he just chewed me on one side down the other.
• 10:14
  And my dad's a Navy vet, so he wasn't stopping me from going,
• 10:20
  but he wanted me to do the best I could.
• 10:22
  And so I said, Dad, I, I promise you this, you just hear me out.
• 10:28
  I'm only going on the basic training this summer.
• 10:31
  And then it's in 1991 and I'm going to go to school in the
• 10:35
  fall and then I'll graduate. It went two years.
• 10:41
  In the meantime, I'll stay in the National Guard and then when
• 10:44
  I'm done the National Guard, I'll either go active duty or,
• 10:47
  or I'll stay in the guard and figure it out.
• 10:51
  And so he's like, OK, you got a plan.
• 10:53
  Wasn't his plan, wasn't his plan for me, but it was, it was
• 10:56
  right. And I said, Dad, you know, I'll
• 10:59
  probably, if I'm going to like what I'm doing, I'm going to go
• 11:01
  active duty and I'm, I'll go in as an officer, like I already
• 11:04
  have college, I'll go through OCS and do other things.
• 11:09
  And so he was like OK, so I June 6th 1991 I reported the Fort
• 11:18
  Knox, KY for basic training. Wow, so were you doing any
• 11:23
  sports when you were in school? So high school I was a swimmer,
• 11:29
  which pretty much took up most of the year.
• 11:33
  I got a scholarship to swimming and turn that down.
• 11:36
  So there was something about the water I was not supposed to do.
• 11:41
  I'm guessing so so. I turned that down.
• 11:48
  I I love the swim still. I was a lifeguard.
• 11:53
  But no, that was it, just swimming.
• 11:57
  Just swimming. So you step onto base onto for
• 12:03
  basic training. What's going through your head?
• 12:12
  There was, it just, it seemed very surreal.
• 12:16
  If I look back on it now, getting off of the, the bus and
• 12:20
  then immediately hitting drill Sargent's was very surreal.
• 12:24
  And I, and I have a friend of mine was in college with, he was
• 12:28
  in the reserves. He's, but he's a drill Sergeant
• 12:31
  in the, in the National Guard or was a drill Sergeant in the
• 12:33
  National Guard. And so he, he kind of prepared
• 12:36
  me, but I knew, like, I knew I wasn't going to die.
• 12:40
  Right. So you can yell at me.
• 12:42
  I mean, I grew up in a, in a Sicilian household.
• 12:45
  Yelling was a normal thing at the dinner table.
• 12:48
  Oh yeah, yeah, I can imagine that.
• 12:51
  Conversations with four people, with four people on the table,
• 12:54
  Right. So, yeah.
• 12:57
  So I wasn't, that didn't bother me.
• 12:58
  But it was very surreal. Like, I don't, I don't want to
• 13:03
  say I was lost, but at the same time I was like, this is
• 13:07
  chaotic. Like, wow.
• 13:13
  So yeah, it was I I knew it was something fulfilling though.
• 13:18
  So like nothing bothered me, but it was I just remember now
• 13:21
  looking back he asked the question like that.
• 13:24
  Wow, this is so chaotic so. Right, that initial, that
• 13:30
  initial thought. And there's several people,
• 13:33
  several guests that I've had that have said they step, you
• 13:37
  know, they get off the bus and they're thinking, what did I
• 13:39
  just sign up for, right? I mean, looking back, trying to
• 13:43
  figure out how can I go home. So yeah, every and everybody's
• 13:50
  got a different story for that. So the first what the first week
• 13:54
  is receiving basically. You know, you're making me go
• 13:58
  back a long time ago. Yeah.
• 14:03
  So my, my, so we get through. We get through the reception,
• 14:12
  and there wasn't a lot of yelling there.
• 14:16
  Get through reception, get out the other end.
• 14:18
  And then the yelling started about getting on a cattle car
• 14:22
  and we're going. There were assigned barracks.
• 14:24
  And at some, I guess somewhere they told me.
• 14:26
  They handed me a card or told me, you know, first Platoon Echo
• 14:31
  First. Yeah, First Platoon Echo
• 14:34
  Company, whatever the number was.
• 14:37
  Now, I can't remember. Anyway, so I got on that cattle
• 14:43
  car and then, Oh my God, just looking back on this right now,
• 14:48
  I think it's one of the dumbest things I've ever seen, but I
• 14:50
  understand why. So.
• 14:52
  Fort Knox, KY, June 6th, 1980. Yeah, it's brutal, brutal.
• 14:59
  So we get we get assigned to what bunk I had and they tell us
• 15:06
  to change into PTS, which were the old cotton Gray PT uniform
• 15:13
  T-shirt shorts, put our green wool socks on our black boots
• 15:18
  that we just got issued pistol belt and a canteen with a
• 15:22
  canteen cup and cover on the right hip and our soft caps.
• 15:30
  And I'm like, what mixed mess. I'm like, I knew that wasn't
• 15:34
  right. You know, like that's and I'm
• 15:40
  like, this is going to be crazy. OK, here we go.
• 15:44
  And I walk outside and they told us to go stand in this parking
• 15:49
  lot. So they put us pine trees 20
• 15:54
  feet away, go stand in the shade or stand on this parking lot
• 15:59
  with blacktop minutes and wait for everybody.
• 16:02
  So of course that's what we did. So but we, I just remember
• 16:08
  looking like a bunch of goofballs.
• 16:10
  We look like the island of Misfit toys.
• 16:13
  Did you have to have one of those reflective vests?
• 16:17
  No, not back then. We did not.
• 16:20
  Yeah. I still have my safety, my head,
• 16:24
  my safety belt. I wear it every once in a while.
• 16:26
  And I tell Sandy I'm afraid of her or something.
• 16:28
  You know? I'm like, I'm afraid of you.
• 16:32
  That's great. You got to have fun.
• 16:35
  Right, that's right. So how long was your basic
• 16:38
  training for? 8 weeks.
• 16:43
  OK. And back then they obviously
• 16:47
  there were not the electronics that we have today.
• 16:50
  And so it was a lot of handwriting letters And what now
• 16:59
  you talked about your dad's opinion of initial opinion when
• 17:02
  when you told him you were going into the military.
• 17:05
  What was your mom's opinion when you told her?
• 17:08
  I you know, that's really funny. I don't.
• 17:12
  I don't remember. My mom was a very, very
• 17:16
  supportive woman. My mom was first generation
• 17:20
  American. Her parents were from Sicily.
• 17:23
  My grandfather immigrated at age 7-8 years old.
• 17:30
  OK. Came over by himself family.
• 17:35
  Some family was already in New York and some family was already
• 17:38
  in Philadelphia. So he went from Ellis Island and
• 17:43
  got down the family in Philadelphia and then grew up in
• 17:47
  Philadelphia until his while his parents and some of his younger
• 17:53
  siblings saved enough money to catch the voyage.
• 17:58
  So that was probably four or five years after my grandfather
• 18:02
  came in through Ellis Island. OK.
• 18:05
  And my mom is a real, real, really resilient woman. 1976,
• 18:12
  Christmas time, my mom was diagnosed with Hodgkin's
• 18:16
  disease. So in 1976, they radiated, I
• 18:22
  guess, 77. They radiated her entire body.
• 18:25
  Oh my. So and they said cancer will
• 18:29
  come back. So it did.
• 18:34
  It came back as breast cancer. So she got a double mastectomy
• 18:41
  and was was great for a couple of more years and then was
• 18:47
  diagnosed with a tumor in her spine which eventually took her
• 18:55
  life. So but that was 9 in 2019 she
• 19:00
  passed and I talk a little bit about that in chapter 10 of the
• 19:05
  book. But my mother was fought cancer
• 19:10
  from 1976 to 2019. And so if I have 1/4 of her
• 19:18
  resiliency, I would be a blessed man, right?
• 19:21
  That woman was stronger than woodpecker lips so.
• 19:27
  That's pretty strong. That's pretty strong.
• 19:29
  So yeah. So tell me about.
• 19:33
  Let's go back to basic training. So now I've heard stories about,
• 19:42
  oh, ice cream machines and different things where, yeah,
• 19:48
  from different, different branches.
• 19:51
  So must. Be Air Force.
• 19:53
  No, no, basically nobody told the recruits that they weren't
• 19:58
  allowed to use it. Intentionally and then they use
• 20:04
  it and then they get slayed. But so any any kind of funny
• 20:09
  stories like that for you? No, not a basic.
• 20:16
  Let me think basic training. I I loved every bit of basic
• 20:21
  training. Even when they made me run and
• 20:22
  I'd run so hard I'd throw up, right?
• 20:24
  So, but no, I loved every bit of basic training.
• 20:29
  Funny stories. I mean, yeah, I do have a funny
• 20:37
  story. So one day, I think it's maybe
• 20:40
  day 2, maybe day three. I have no idea about rank,
• 20:46
  right? I knew drill Sergeant period.
• 20:51
  And we're getting ready for PT in the morning and I'll say it's
• 20:59
  334 in the morning because then we got to get the run in before
• 21:02
  the heat category rises. So apparently this captain walks
• 21:08
  by. I don't know what a captain is
• 21:12
  at this point in my life. And all I heard was what's
• 21:16
  wrong? You don't salute.
• 21:19
  I could barely see this guy. So I salute.
• 21:22
  And then this drill started comes out and he's like just
• 21:27
  Sir, I got it just chews me out like loud and he's laughing like
• 21:32
  I he's chewing me out, but he's laughing right, because nobody
• 21:35
  can. I could barely see his face and
• 21:37
  he's inches from my face. I think his brown, his rim of
• 21:41
  his of his hat, drill sword hat was like in my forehead.
• 21:44
  So and he was it was so funny. He, he looks at me and he says
• 21:55
  after he's all done yelling at me because, hey, don't worry
• 21:58
  about that. Just the captain.
• 22:00
  And I was like, what's a captain?
• 22:02
  He's like, oh, he's an officer. Kind of explained it to me real
• 22:04
  quickly. And I was like, oh, is he
• 22:07
  anybody? He goes, Nah, he was the EXO
• 22:08
  last week and he just got promoted.
• 22:10
  He's waiting to go to school. He's not that important.
• 22:15
  Like, yeah, no, we don't care. But you know, I don't know why
• 22:19
  this girl started like me so much and but he razzed me real
• 22:22
  bad. So continuing that, you know,
• 22:24
  after like I said, it's maybe day two or three later on, he my
• 22:31
  last name Payne. Payne.
• 22:34
  So he would call me Payne and his last name was Jones and I
• 22:40
  have a little bit of a smart aleck in me.
• 22:43
  So I called him Jones. Jones.
• 22:50
  So he would call me Payne and I would call him Jones.
• 22:53
  Well, I did a lot of push ups and flutter kick runs, right.
• 23:01
  I did a lot. I probably still have imprints
• 23:05
  of my hands in somewhere in Fort Knox, KY so oh.
• 23:09
  Funny. But so Fast forward May of 94,
• 23:18
  so basic training June 91, Fast forward May 94, Lieutenant Payne
• 23:27
  and Senior Drill Sergeant Jones link up.
• 23:32
  I got to go to Fort Knox. I went to a school before
• 23:35
  reporting in my first unit. And I'm like, I'm in, you know,
• 23:41
  you were back then. You reported in your greens.
• 23:43
  And so I'm in greens. I report in and I'm like, they
• 23:46
  put, yeah, let me drive around, see where this whole basic
• 23:48
  training unit was right inside, like walk in and there's this,
• 23:53
  there's nobody around, so they must be off cycle.
• 23:56
  And I get to the drill Sergeant store and there's a drill
• 24:00
  Sergeant sitting there and there's a red line on the floor.
• 24:04
  And I came to that red line and I went to parade rest.
• 24:06
  And I look down at myself and I'm like, what are you doing,
• 24:09
  knucklehead? I'm an officer.
• 24:12
  I just walk in, right? So this drill Sergeant pops his
• 24:16
  head up and I see his name tag Jones.
• 24:19
  And then I recognized the face and he pops his head.
• 24:22
  Private, what are you doing? Pat just starts you out and I'm
• 24:24
  like, excuse me. Hey Jozar.
• 24:28
  And he looks at me and he's trying to figure out who I am
• 24:31
  right. So I just went and covered my
• 24:34
  name tag pay me And he busted out laughing.
• 24:38
  It was his I was there on his first day and I happened to get
• 24:43
  back. That was his last day as.
• 24:46
  Wow, you don't hear that a lot at all, if even.
• 24:51
  That's pretty impressive. So that was really, really fun.
• 24:56
  I will say a lot of adult alcoholic beverages were
• 25:00
  consumed that evening. I woke up to his wife asking me
• 25:04
  what did I want for breakfast? So I was on their couch and she
• 25:08
  kind of was like, it's 6:30 in the morning.
• 25:13
  I've been at them. I've been at them.
• 25:15
  Oh, wow. So tell me about Officer School.
• 25:19
  What was that like for you? So I did ROTCI, did the, ended
• 25:23
  up doing while I was in the National Guard.
• 25:27
  I did, oh boy, what's the name of that?
• 25:30
  The simultaneous membership program.
• 25:34
  And so I was able to be in the National Guard and do ROTC
• 25:37
  simultaneously. So I earned my Commission in
• 25:42
  December of 93 after so I was at simultaneously in the garden and
• 25:50
  I never switched to a cadet status.
• 25:53
  I I stayed my rank. So I was in E3 and then E4 and
• 25:58
  in November of 93 I got promoted to the rank of Sergeant and in
• 26:08
  December, December 17th, 1993, I got commissioned as a second
• 26:14
  Lieutenant. So I held the rank of Sergeant
• 26:17
  for this much, but it was, it was a goal of mine.
• 26:19
  I I wanted it so bad so. Wow.
• 26:22
  Yeah, really cool. So going through the basic
• 26:25
  training, going through everything you you went through
• 26:29
  up to that point, what was the hardest thing that you had to
• 26:32
  deal with? It was the the mental toughness
• 26:45
  to endure past what you thought your body could do.
• 26:53
  And the reason I say that I swam for years, but I didn't run like
• 27:01
  I, we would do shuttle runs, we would do sprints, but not what I
• 27:06
  called then long distance running.
• 27:12
  So they put us on a track and said, you know, run 8 laps, get
• 27:15
  2 miles in and they're going to time us.
• 27:18
  And this is just to see where we were.
• 27:20
  And as far as runners, well, I'm just bored on lap 2.
• 27:28
  I'm like, this is stupid. Why are we running in a circle?
• 27:31
  Like it was, I was, I hated every second of that.
• 27:35
  And I, I mean, I, I get done and they're like, oh, you can run.
• 27:38
  I'm like, you're going in a group and I'm like, I can't run.
• 27:41
  This is like, I swim, right? And they're like, you can run
• 27:46
  you, you're going to go in a group.
• 27:47
  And so I ran 4 miles with these guys in the morning and they
• 27:53
  were all fast. They all ran track.
• 27:55
  They, they were athletes in high school and, or most of them
• 28:00
  were. And I remember just like I
• 28:06
  wanted to die, like I felt like my chest was crushing and it was
• 28:10
  just hanging off. I hated it.
• 28:14
  And so the hardest thing for me was to get out of my own way and
• 28:19
  realize that I can do more than I will than I'm telling myself I
• 28:22
  can do so. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 28:27
  So you, you graduate, you work your way up through, through the
• 28:32
  ranks and during this time where, where are you stationed?
• 28:39
  Yeah. So my first duty station was
• 28:41
  Fort Drum, NY, So brand new second Lieutenant, I was
• 28:48
  commissioned as an engineer officer.
• 28:50
  I was engineer enlisted as well. And I'm going to the 41st
• 28:55
  Engineer Battalion, Fort Drum, NY, and you know, they're known
• 29:03
  for the large amount of lake effect snow they get.
• 29:07
  Right. So yeah.
• 29:09
  This is going to be awesome. Love it.
• 29:12
  And so I got to my first duty assignment and they made me, I
• 29:19
  was an extra officer at the time.
• 29:21
  So they put me down in the S6 shop, which is the signal while
• 29:26
  the radio, all the communications and we're going
• 29:31
  to field a new radio system called Singars.
• 29:35
  And so this is May of 94 and we're getting ready to go.
• 29:42
  It's simultaneously we're getting, it's when the US
• 29:47
  government was looking at Haiti and we were going to put Sages
• 29:53
  out of power and put Aristide back in power.
• 29:57
  And then there's some negotiations going on with with
• 30:02
  Jimmy Carter at the time. And so I'm at poor job, just a
• 30:10
  couple weeks, maybe month and a half wasn't long.
• 30:14
  And we get orders to go to Haiti and they put me on the USS
• 30:21
  America. So I'm on an old an old aircraft
• 30:26
  carrier and they're going to helicopter us off the element
• 30:32
  there into 80, right. So we're just, we're just kind
• 30:34
  of pre positioned waiting on these negotiations and President
• 30:40
  Carter made everything happen. So we went in very peacefully.
• 30:44
  And so, yeah, I was only my my first winter, first part of the
• 30:54
  winter that I was really excited for to go skiing and stuff I
• 30:58
  spent in Haiti. So so.
• 31:02
  You missed it. I kind of missed most of the
• 31:05
  winter and then yeah, Fort John was an awesome assignment.
• 31:11
  It was 6 hours from home so far enough away but close enough.
• 31:16
  I was dating my wife at the time and so we're dating and I said
• 31:27
  hey, if you want to see me for the next couple months you might
• 31:30
  want to come tonight because I leave tomorrow and she was 666
• 31:37
  hours 15 minutes away. So she rolls in at 3:00 in the
• 31:40
  morning. I'm leaving at I think we had a
• 31:43
  bee on the bus by 9 so I'm leaving by 7:30.
• 31:48
  Oh wow, yeah. So she was like, wow, OK, so you
• 31:54
  know, we get to see each other for a little bit.
• 31:56
  We stayed up talking. I knew I'd sleep on a plane, so
• 31:59
  I'd be all right. But I was like, just do me a
• 32:02
  favor and lock the door and you leave.
• 32:03
  I was like, I don't know when I'm coming back.
• 32:09
  So she ended up taking the key because she came up another time
• 32:14
  just to make sure everything was good or something.
• 32:16
  I forget what she came up here for, but but yeah, I came back
• 32:22
  from that deployment and then we I asked her to marry me.
• 32:28
  So that was fun and. Then she said yes.
• 32:33
  She did and she we just had our anniversary on June 1st and she
• 32:37
  renewed her contract again so. Yay.
• 32:41
  Congratulations to the two of. You.
• 32:43
  Yeah. So we're married 30 years this
• 32:45
  year. Oh wow, that's a that's a
• 32:48
  significant milestone. Yeah, there's a funny story I'll
• 32:52
  tell later. But so, yeah, we spent four
• 32:58
  years at Fort Drum and then we, I went to another appointment.
• 33:06
  So then we, yeah, we were married and I leave for Bosnia
• 33:14
  for 13 months. Oh wow, yeah.
• 33:17
  We were newlyweds. We were six months married.
• 33:21
  And actually it was Valentine's Day, you know, and so this was
• 33:27
  the 13th of February. I come home and I'm like, hey,
• 33:31
  so I know we got all these plans and I couldn't, you know, with
• 33:37
  OPSEC back then especially, I mean, it should be better now,
• 33:41
  but it's not. But with OBSEC, we, you know, we
• 33:43
  weren't allowed to say where we're going, anything like that.
• 33:45
  So it was like, yeah, I'm going on a fishing trip.
• 33:48
  She's like, oh, I'm like deep sea fishing.
• 33:53
  So. And I left Valentine's morning
• 33:58
  and came home 13 months later, so.
• 34:01
  Tell me about the your time in Bosnia.
• 34:03
  So was it what you had envisioned in your mind when you
• 34:09
  first get there? No, you know, great, great
• 34:13
  memory you just brought up. So no, I didn't know what to
• 34:17
  expect. I expected more war-torn things
• 34:20
  blown up and it was really beautiful countryside.
• 34:23
  I mean, it was gorgeous. I mean, there was there was
• 34:28
  parts of of the country that were damaged, you know, by, by
• 34:33
  all the infighting that was going on.
• 34:35
  But no, it was beautiful. Nothing what I expected, Right.
• 34:43
  And then, you know, didn't really learn much about the
• 34:47
  Balkans, right? I mean, I don't remember
• 34:49
  learning that in school. I mean, I know the army taught
• 34:52
  me a lot, but culturally and stuff.
• 34:54
  But yeah, my expectations were nowhere near what what reality
• 35:00
  was, which was great. By the way, right, right.
• 35:02
  Did you get an opportunity then to mingle with the civilians?
• 35:07
  I did to a degree. So, so I would meet with local
• 35:14
  as an engineer. One of the one of the platoons
• 35:16
  that was attached to us from the main National Guard was a
• 35:20
  construction platoon and they were rebuilding all the guard
• 35:23
  towers. And so the company I was in was
• 35:28
  the 6th 42nd Combat Support Equipment Company.
• 35:30
  So we had a lot of heavy equipment for roads, airfields,
• 35:36
  base camps, that type of big machinery.
• 35:40
  And so I was the company executive officer and I got to
• 35:48
  go to like Ace Hardware, whatever the local lumber yard
• 35:52
  was, right. And then of course, their
• 35:55
  culture is different. So their culture is they want to
• 35:58
  build a relationship with you and then based upon that
• 36:01
  relationship is really what you're going to pay, right?
• 36:04
  There's a range. And so, you know, a company came
• 36:08
  here like, Hey, when you get down there, just, you know,
• 36:10
  bring all the trucks. I'm like, Sir, up.
• 36:12
  I'm going to I'm going to my home V and and security.
• 36:15
  But you know, I'm like, I'm not bringing up we're not buying
• 36:17
  anything today. I'm not even bringing money with
• 36:19
  me today. And he was like, you don't
• 36:22
  understand, like we need this stuff.
• 36:23
  I'm like, Sir, it's I'm not like just trust me, I won't make this
• 36:27
  happen. And he had so many things he had
• 36:31
  he had to do with the time. And so he just let me get let me
• 36:34
  alone. I went at it.
• 36:36
  And so first day I get there and I have tea with the with the
• 36:41
  owner and we're talking and speaks perfect English and then
• 36:47
  I have my translator there and stuff.
• 36:49
  And then day 2 go in there again.
• 36:55
  We walk around, he shows me his milling operations, he shows me
• 36:58
  where he lives over here on the property, just all the things.
• 37:03
  And we had a great talk. And of course, I don't trust it.
• 37:07
  I didn't trust anybody at the time.
• 37:09
  And so, you know, half the stories I told them had 10%
• 37:13
  truth to them, right? And the other half the truth.
• 37:16
  But we're building a relationship.
• 37:19
  And day three, I've got about 6-6 big trucks with me, 5 ton
• 37:28
  trucks with me, and we're going to load it up with all this
• 37:30
  material. I'm literally going to buy half
• 37:32
  this guy's warehouse and I have a lot of my, I have a million
• 37:37
  plus on me. And we already kind of kind of
• 37:42
  negotiated the price. I kind of knew what we were
• 37:45
  going to spend. So I get ready for my convoy
• 37:50
  brief and I get called into the task force command post to get a
• 37:56
  briefing on an update briefing on women and children being used
• 38:01
  as suicide bombers. And so, you know, we delay our,
• 38:09
  our roll out, take this briefing.
• 38:13
  So we roll out and we get to the, to the lumber yard and I've
• 38:20
  got security. I, I'm grabbing my bag.
• 38:24
  I've got an M16 back then strapped to the front of me.
• 38:28
  I've got a pistol on my, on my holster, you know, on my hip and
• 38:35
  I got a security earpiece in so I can listen to what this the
• 38:38
  radiant traffic was. And my one of my gun trucks is a
• 38:44
  Sir, I got, you know, a woman and two children in tow and
• 38:48
  she's fully in her traditional garb and she has two kids
• 38:53
  totally like maybe 5:00 and 6:00, not yogurt.
• 38:59
  And the translator was saying, hey, Sir, she wants to talk to
• 39:05
  you. Well, this is the exact brief.
• 39:06
  I just got limited children, full traditional garb, larger
• 39:13
  woman to hiding all the explosives and they want to talk
• 39:17
  to an American. So this is the briefing I just
• 39:21
  received. And I had somehow tell my
• 39:27
  security that she's not a threat until she's a threat.
• 39:31
  Right. And so the translators with me
• 39:35
  and he's telling me she just wants to talk to me.
• 39:38
  And I was like, OK, tell her I'll talk to her, right?
• 39:41
  Like, so I kind of stopped. She moved forward and in my
• 39:44
  earpiece are like, Sir, we got them.
• 39:46
  We got her. Like you just tell us.
• 39:48
  And I said, do not, do not fire on her unless if I drop and hit
• 39:53
  the ground and go flat on the ground, kill her.
• 39:56
  That was my orders to them. I'm what, 96?
• 40:01
  And. 25 years old and I just gave orders to my team, right?
• 40:12
  Right. I'm a first Lieutenant.
• 40:14
  I just gave orders to my team to take a human life, right?
• 40:22
  So interacting with it, with the and I, I said all that said all
• 40:26
  that to say this interacting with the, the citizens, that was
• 40:32
  my first interaction and I continued to stand up.
• 40:38
  The ladies well could be still alive today.
• 40:45
  I, I allowed her to hug me because what she said and, and
• 40:50
  she said it in broken English in the translator, she said it in
• 40:53
  Serbian, Croatian, but she tried her really best in English as
• 41:00
  well. And what I don't remember what
• 41:04
  the translator said, but what she said in broken English stuck
• 41:07
  with me the rest of my life. And that is I just want to thank
• 41:12
  an American. This is the first time my
• 41:14
  children have ever seen peace. Oh wow.
• 41:20
  Yeah. So that'll change it, right.
• 41:21
  So my interaction with the Bosnian people was not jaded
• 41:28
  anymore. I didn't have a bias anymore.
• 41:32
  Right. And I carried that with me on
• 41:35
  every deployment since then, right?
• 41:38
  So from, I mean, afterwards, I went to Kosovo, I went to
• 41:42
  Turkey, I did 4 tours in Iraq. And I carried that lesson with
• 41:47
  me that 99.9% of those people in this world are good people.
• 41:53
  It's that .1% that screws it up for everybody.
• 41:56
  Yes. And there's no right to know
• 41:59
  right up front. I mean, initial you get a
• 42:02
  feeling maybe, but yeah, so. For me, for me, it really taught
• 42:11
  me. It really taught me that we have
• 42:17
  to always put ourselves in our best light because the initial
• 42:22
  thing people see is what they remember.
• 42:25
  Right. Did you eat any food, any local
• 42:30
  food, or was it just base food? No, the first time that I ate
• 42:40
  local was Turkey, but that was a you know, we had American bases
• 42:47
  there, but this was right before the war started in in in Iraq,
• 42:54
  in O3, the first infantry division with one brigade went
• 43:00
  into southern Turkey. They were headquartered in
• 43:06
  Marden, Turkey, which was a city conquered by Alexander the
• 43:12
  Great. So had a lot of rich history,
• 43:16
  but we were. I didn't say weeks.
• 43:21
  Yeah, I think everybody had that past privilege.
• 43:24
  Where they can go out of the economy to eat at a restaurant.
• 43:30
  But that was after we had been there a while.
• 43:32
  And I like Turkish food better in Turkey than I do in the US,
• 43:38
  that's for sure. Well, we tend to Americanize
• 43:43
  just a. Little bit, yeah, Yeah.
• 43:47
  But that. Was the only place I ate out on
• 43:51
  the economy. Out of all of those locations,
• 43:55
  was there a favorite one that you would be willing to go back
• 43:58
  to? Yeah, it's a great question,
• 44:02
  right? I don't know.
• 44:07
  But if I had to pick one, I would like to go back to Bosnia.
• 44:13
  What a beautiful country, old world farm lands, right?
• 44:20
  So I mean, there's a little bit of nostalgia that for me too.
• 44:24
  But but yeah, I think that would be the only one I'd go back to.
• 44:28
  Nice. So tell me about your
• 44:30
  deployments into Iraq. Obviously we talked about
• 44:35
  preconceived ideas. When you were going to head to
• 44:38
  Bosnia, did you have any preconceived notions about Iraq
• 44:42
  and how was it once you physically got there compared to
• 44:47
  your ideas and thoughts in your head?
• 44:52
  So I had the privilege and the honor of being General Batiste,
• 44:59
  who was the commander of the First Infantry Division, his
• 45:01
  aide de camp. So I, I served as his aide for
• 45:04
  three years. And so the division, I'm going
• 45:11
  to answer your question, the division was in, we had a
• 45:14
  brigade in Kosovo and then a brigade that just got back from
• 45:20
  Kosovo. So now we have to get those guys
• 45:24
  trained up because as this was going, you know, during this
• 45:28
  very specific time frame, I received orders for the
• 45:33
  division, for the division commander.
• 45:35
  I was the aid. So I got the orders to deploy
• 45:38
  the division to combat operations in north North
• 45:42
  Central Iraq and I was about the end of the first year gentleman,
• 45:48
  she's command. And he said to me, he said,
• 45:51
  would you do you want to stay on and be my aid?
• 45:53
  I said, so we're going to go to Super Bowl, right.
• 45:56
  Like let's go. Why train another aid?
• 45:59
  You got me trained already. Let's go.
• 46:01
  And then he laughed. He goes, I think you got me
• 46:02
  trained. I'm like SH Sir, you wear the
• 46:04
  stars, not me. And so but I had the privilege
• 46:11
  to going into Iraq in early O3 as we conducted pre deployment
• 46:18
  site surveys as the general was being briefed by the core
• 46:22
  commander and the force com commander in Kuwait and and in
• 46:26
  Iraq. And so I got to see things, hear
• 46:30
  things, feel, taste and touch before we were bringing the
• 46:35
  division in. And so to to tie this all back
• 46:43
  right where my preconserved notion of war was watching World
• 46:50
  War 2 films, going through Europe and that type of
• 46:56
  destruction in the infighting my my very first day in Iraq, my
• 47:08
  driver with our vehicles hit by an ID and my driver was killed.
• 47:13
  And I was. No, I had nothing on me.
• 47:18
  And so that that World War 2 destruction went away and what
• 47:29
  I, what I envisioned is what hell is just absolutely
• 47:38
  insaneness, loud explosions, death, destruction, chaos, but
• 47:45
  times 10 million. Right.
• 47:48
  Right. So if if what I envisioned is 1,
• 47:52
  if what I envisioned is 1, what I received is 10.
• 47:55
  But hell, like when that happened that I really thought
• 47:58
  this was hell. And, and so I, I really had to,
• 48:08
  to reach deep right and become like, OK, this is, this is what
• 48:14
  it's going to be like in and out of here for the next couple
• 48:17
  months. And then while we're here for,
• 48:20
  you know, one year deployment. Right.
• 48:23
  And so I was like, man, this is like, so for me it was like 1819
• 48:27
  months, right? Twelve, well, 1413 1/2 in combat
• 48:33
  with a division and then all the pre deployment site surveys we
• 48:37
  were down there seems like constantly right back, back and
• 48:42
  forth to Germany's. We're training and developing
• 48:44
  training scenarios and you know, all the things to get the
• 48:48
  division ready for combat operations.
• 48:53
  But I got to see it from all levels.
• 48:54
  I saw it from the four-star what guidance they gave, how they saw
• 48:58
  things, what they were doing, what the big picture of the
• 49:02
  Middle East was, not just Iraq, not just north, central Iraq.
• 49:06
  And then I saw it all the way down to that squad and team
• 49:10
  leader level, right where? There's.
• 49:12
  That young Sergeant, that team leader, that senior specialist
• 49:17
  or corporal at, I don't know, 19, maybe 20 years old that they
• 49:24
  had to make split decisions that had extreme national security
• 49:28
  behind it, right, right. So that strategic corporal on
• 49:33
  the ground all the way up to that four-star level.
• 49:37
  And so for me it was, it was like getting a PhD in
• 49:43
  leadership, right? So.
• 49:46
  Yeah, yeah, for sure. And at this point, you know, how
• 49:51
  old are you when at this stage? So that.
• 49:55
  Was fast guess. It was 2003, so I was 3233.
• 50:11
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow.
• 50:15
  And that's a lot. I mean, just to unpack, right,
• 50:19
  Your mind is trying to figure out what's happening and trying
• 50:26
  to figure out that fight or flight moment, right?
• 50:31
  And how to protect yourself mentally.
• 50:38
  Yeah, so, you know, being an EMT really help me understand being
• 50:47
  in the middle of chaos and what and how to prepare yourself
• 50:52
  mentally 'cause you had to be in control in order to hopefully
• 50:58
  save somebody's life. Right.
• 51:02
  And I tell this story in the book.
• 51:03
  In age 16 when I became an EMT, my very first call was a man
• 51:09
  that was up on his roof and it was only a single story house.
• 51:12
  So he's up on his apex roof, but the backyard also dropped off.
• 51:18
  So it was a big rolling hill and all, all we got was a man fell
• 51:25
  off the ladder. And so the ladder was on rickety
• 51:28
  ground. They he was up on the roof,
• 51:32
  slipped, literally hit the ladder on the way down and and
• 51:35
  then hit the ground and then rolled about 20 feet.
• 51:38
  So oh. Wow.
• 51:40
  Everybody was in a panic. Guys showed all of the outward
• 51:47
  signs of a spinal fracture. OK, this is before we even got
• 51:54
  like, as we're getting on the scene, I could see that and I
• 52:01
  grabbed gloves, I grabbed the backboard, I grabbed a seat
• 52:04
  collar, a Philadelphia collar. And I was, I was the
• 52:10
  probationary guy and two of the other EMTs get out and they both
• 52:18
  like eyes this big. And all I could hear was family
• 52:24
  screaming family, neighbors, whatever it was.
• 52:28
  And they're, they're trying to touch him.
• 52:32
  And I finally just tuned out all that noise and focused in on the
• 52:37
  patient. Luckily we did everything right
• 52:42
  and the way he fell was not as bad as what it could have been.
• 52:46
  And he was up walking about three months later, so.
• 52:51
  That's good news. But you know in that very first
• 52:56
  lesson is calm is contagious, right?
• 53:01
  That's true in my book as a leader.
• 53:08
  But you know, I've let me back up.
• 53:10
  I say as a leader because I believe everybody in this
• 53:12
  world's a leader, regardless of where your position in
• 53:17
  leadership is, I believe everybody in this world's a
• 53:20
  leader because a, you have to lead yourself.
• 53:22
  So by definition, you're a. Leader, right?
• 53:26
  But every parent, I mean, I just, it doesn't matter whether
• 53:29
  you hold a title or not, you, you, you are a leader in this
• 53:33
  world and we should act accordingly.
• 53:37
  But every leader has the opportunity where they're
• 53:39
  leading to either create calmness and stillness and
• 53:44
  discipline and structure, or they have the opportunity to
• 53:49
  lead chaos. And you know, getting back to
• 53:57
  your question is how are we able to how was I able to in on the
• 54:03
  midst of combat operations, remain calm, cool and collected
• 54:06
  and stay, stay together The the premise of your question.
• 54:10
  And so it's foundational, right? I didn't, I didn't learn that
• 54:16
  there. I had to build it within me.
• 54:20
  We call that resiliency. And we also have to learn how to
• 54:29
  let the steam go right, so we're not building up stress.
• 54:36
  And I never really understood how smart the military was when
• 54:42
  they said, you know, you get up in the morning, you do physical
• 54:45
  training, you then come to work, you smoke 12 packs of cigarettes
• 54:49
  and five drink 5 pots of coffee. And then you go home and you do
• 54:52
  it all again tomorrow. But in, in seriousness, the the
• 55:00
  physical fitness in the morning, what a great stress relief.
• 55:04
  It's build in, it's build into who we are.
• 55:06
  Right. The, the mental acuity, the
• 55:12
  ability to lead in chaotic situations, like I said earlier,
• 55:16
  becomes a fundamental, fundamentally incrementally
• 55:22
  stronger every time. And so, you know, I learned it
• 55:26
  in Boy Scouts. I learned it.
• 55:27
  I actually learned it with my parents upfront, right?
• 55:33
  And then I learned it in Boy Scouts.
• 55:37
  Then I learned it again being an EMT, and then I learned it again
• 55:41
  in basic training. And then I learned it again
• 55:45
  being in my first unit, right? And then and all these things
• 55:52
  created this cushion of resiliency.
• 55:57
  So when I was the AD camp, why we're in combat, you know that
• 56:04
  we lost 94 people that year, 94 great Americans that year just
• 56:09
  in just in the first infantry Division.
• 56:11
  And I'm sorry, 9292 in the first infantry division.
• 56:15
  And so, you know, you're, you're, you have to realize that
• 56:23
  you're, what you're doing is for the greater good.
• 56:26
  And you have to realize that not everybody sees it the same way
• 56:32
  you do. And I got to see that, right?
• 56:36
  The four-star commands saw things from an overarching
• 56:41
  perspective. The division commander saw it
• 56:47
  from his myopic circle on the ground.
• 56:51
  That squad leader saw it from literally his 10 feet in front
• 56:55
  of him. And so and I and I got, I got to
• 57:01
  learn that going in as on those pre deployment site surveys and
• 57:06
  see how like, you know, working with three letter agencies
• 57:09
  talking to these general officers to tell them this top
• 57:12
  secret information was mind blowing.
• 57:15
  Right, I can imagine a lot of responsibility.
• 57:21
  Yeah. And then I had to kind of
• 57:22
  remember everything that I heard in those meetings as well,
• 57:26
  because my boss didn't take notes, right?
• 57:29
  So, and so that was, it was a great learning experience and it
• 57:36
  and it literally built the cushions.
• 57:39
  Now maybe mine got some air put in there too, right?
• 57:42
  But but it was great because, you know, my first two combat
• 57:50
  deployments were out of the first Infantry division and then
• 57:54
  my second round of Fort Hood, my second two round of Fort Hood.
• 58:02
  But each time I got more and more resilient, not jaded.
• 58:05
  See, there's a difference, right?
• 58:06
  I still knew we had a mission to accomplish.
• 58:08
  I still understood the greater good.
• 58:10
  I still was able to remain positive.
• 58:12
  So I didn't get that, that negative jaded contact, right.
• 58:18
  And did I agree with everything? Absolutely not, right?
• 58:25
  No. But I had a trust that somebody
• 58:28
  saw it from a different somebody at a higher level saw in a
• 58:31
  different perspective. Right, right.
• 58:34
  Because I could easily got jaded like that's the dumbest thing
• 58:38
  I've ever seen. Why don't we take this guy,
• 58:39
  capture him, let's go. But that guy was an informant
• 58:42
  who was in giving us bigger information.
• 58:45
  So, you know, I didn't, I didn't know like, you know, I used that
• 58:49
  as an example, but, but had I not seen that bigger picture, I
• 58:53
  probably would have been a little more upset.
• 58:58
  So I had the so, but because of that, I had the responsibility.
• 59:02
  So I took it on as a responsibility to share that
• 59:05
  with my peers. Hey, look, there's there's a
• 59:07
  bigger thing out there, right? We can't just do it from our our
• 59:14
  very narrow horse blinders look. Right, right.
• 59:20
  So you were in the military for how many years total?
• 59:24
  2320. Three and a half, 23 1/2 years
• 59:29
  and you just continued to to grow and move forward.
• 59:36
  What was your best deployment and what was your worst
• 59:44
  deployment? Well, I have a best and worst
• 59:49
  for all of them. My third deployment to Iraq I
• 59:57
  was with I just got out of the the Naval War College and I got
• 1:00:02
  assigned to 13th Costco in which I didn't know what a Costco was.
• 1:00:07
  High rational logistics thing is all I knew and.
• 1:00:12
  So I get signed to this cost com and and they're deploying in a
• 1:00:15
  couple weeks after me arriving. So like here we go again.
• 1:00:18
  All right, let's go. Well, it's a big logistics units
• 1:00:22
  and they and they re designated as the 13th Expeditionary
• 1:00:27
  Support Command and it was commanded by a one star general,
• 1:00:31
  active duty, one star general. And then he had active duty
• 1:00:34
  troops and and reserve component units that fell on anything.
• 1:00:39
  So we're in Iraq and I'm an engineer.
• 1:00:45
  I'm kind of like patent. I don't know what logistics are.
• 1:00:47
  So no, I need more of them. So give me them, right.
• 1:00:50
  I need more. I need more nor wire.
• 1:00:53
  I mean more obstacle material, whatever it was, I need more.
• 1:00:58
  And so there's a retired Lieutenant Colonel named Bob
• 1:01:04
  Crouch. And so Bob and I were majors
• 1:01:06
  together and he was a senior major.
• 1:01:08
  I was a junior major and he kind of pulled me under his wing and
• 1:01:15
  kind of made me part of the team, right?
• 1:01:16
  Because all these guys knew each other.
• 1:01:18
  They've known each other since they were second lieutenants.
• 1:01:21
  And they, you know, they all swim in the same circle.
• 1:01:24
  So yeah, I was, I was the oddball out, right?
• 1:01:30
  So and we all those guys became some of my best friends and had
• 1:01:35
  some of the best times on that deployment.
• 1:01:44
  It's probably also my worst deployment.
• 1:01:50
  I was blown up, I was shot at and I wasn't with combat arms
• 1:01:57
  guys right? Like I said, these are all
• 1:01:59
  logistics guys beings. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely
• 1:02:04
  love them, but not always the they didn't always have the eye
• 1:02:09
  of the tiger, right? And there was a lot of odd
• 1:02:19
  things happening on that deployment.
• 1:02:21
  We're getting ready for the surge coming in and this is what
• 1:02:26
  it was 6/06/07 time frame. So you know, I was working 2
• 1:02:34
  jobs. That was the engineer and I was
• 1:02:38
  on a logistics strategic team with the Iraqi security forces.
• 1:02:45
  And I was burning the the the candle at both ends and probably
• 1:02:52
  in the middle, right? Like if we could catch it on
• 1:02:55
  fire. We did.
• 1:02:56
  So I was working 2022 hours a day sleeping.
• 1:03:00
  Oh wow. Hours and I was halfway through
• 1:03:06
  to the appointment and I was like burned out just done.
• 1:03:11
  And so the I went and talked to my boss about it and she was the
• 1:03:21
  deputy and she's like, OK, well, what can I do for him?
• 1:03:25
  Like, well, we, there's an engineer officer back at Fort
• 1:03:29
  Hood. She's coming off maternity
• 1:03:32
  leave. She could use a deployment.
• 1:03:35
  And I had known this young officer since she was a second
• 1:03:41
  Lieutenant and she was dating and then my company, XO, who is
• 1:03:46
  still her husband. And so I was like, well, you
• 1:03:52
  know, if we can get her down here because she's actually part
• 1:03:55
  of the 13 Sustainment command, and if we can get her down here,
• 1:03:59
  then that would really have a lot of pressure on me.
• 1:04:03
  So Chrissy comes, we're at month 13 of a 15 month deployment and
• 1:04:11
  I got it. I got injured in a mortar
• 1:04:15
  attack. Oh no.
• 1:04:18
  I didn't say anything to anybody, just shut my mouth.
• 1:04:22
  I, it was superficial. It cuts, but it was, I had, I
• 1:04:29
  thought, twisted my ankle. What I ended up doing was
• 1:04:32
  ripping, evolving on both sides of the ligaments.
• 1:04:37
  I took two of the three ligaments, evolves 2 of them on
• 1:04:40
  both sides off the bone. So wrapped up my ankle.
• 1:04:43
  I had no support and I just thought it was a twisted ankle.
• 1:04:48
  So I shut my mouth and the little scrapes probably could
• 1:04:54
  have used the stitch cut that I had from the mortar.
• 1:04:58
  I just shut my mouth on because the last thing I want to do is
• 1:05:03
  be that guy, right? Like it's just rained ankle,
• 1:05:06
  right? Like so dumb, by the way, like I
• 1:05:12
  don't recommend anybody absolutely stupid.
• 1:05:17
  But what we did. So Chrissy was in and we were,
• 1:05:20
  we were doing PT1 morning and she's like looks at me and she's
• 1:05:23
  like, Sir, what, what is wrong? And I'm like, that's when I
• 1:05:26
  twisted my ankle. She's like, Sir, that was like 6
• 1:05:28
  weeks ago. I'm like, yeah, she's like, it
• 1:05:30
  shouldn't be that color still. She's like, you got something
• 1:05:33
  going on? And I was like, I had to be all
• 1:05:35
  right. And we went for a run and I
• 1:05:39
  literally fell over, just fell over.
• 1:05:43
  Like I put all my weight on my right ankle and I literally fell
• 1:05:46
  over. So she's like, you need to get
• 1:05:51
  that looked at. And so I went in and they're
• 1:05:55
  like, oh, you need surgery, we're sending you back to Fort
• 1:05:57
  Hood. So I go back to Fort Hood and
• 1:06:00
  redeploy 2 days later. So I made it through most of the
• 1:06:04
  deployment, but I missed it by a couple weeks coming home with
• 1:06:08
  those guys. But I got the Fort Hood and I'm
• 1:06:13
  walking and of course my ankles wrapped real tight.
• 1:06:15
  I'm in boots Anyway, so and Sandy and the kids pick me up
• 1:06:19
  and I said yeah, I said I got this really bad ankle right now.
• 1:06:24
  Like we're going to go like I twisted it and it's just not
• 1:06:27
  healing right. So we have to go to the hospital
• 1:06:28
  tomorrow morning. And she's like, OK, well,
• 1:06:31
  getting undressed after dinner that night and take a shower
• 1:06:34
  and, and kids are already in bed.
• 1:06:37
  And she looks at my ankle and it's literally black.
• 1:06:41
  And she's like, what is going on?
• 1:06:43
  Like, that's just a sprain, No big deal, right?
• 1:06:46
  So go to the doctor in the morning.
• 1:06:50
  They're like, yeah, surgery tomorrow morning.
• 1:06:52
  Like we're moving you up that fast.
• 1:06:54
  We just can't get you in today. And it was like, oh, OK, cool.
• 1:06:58
  So I go into surgery and I lay near my, my foot was like this.
• 1:07:02
  And well, now my foot is up again.
• 1:07:05
  Like once they knocked me out, it literally folded up against
• 1:07:08
  my leg. And the docs look that doc looks
• 1:07:13
  at my wife, the anesthesiologist, and says, is
• 1:07:17
  he that stubborn? She's like he's Sicilian and.
• 1:07:22
  That answers that right? Everybody had a good laugh.
• 1:07:25
  Great. So yeah, sitting then nine
• 1:07:32
  months later, I was back in combat.
• 1:07:35
  So. Wow, that's persistence too.
• 1:07:39
  Yeah, there's a lot of stubbornness, persistence, lot
• 1:07:42
  of resiliency. I'm I'm I'm a Jack of all trades
• 1:07:46
  master in nothing though so. Oh goodness.
• 1:07:52
  So with all of this, what is it that makes you decide that
• 1:07:58
  you're going to retire? So it came down Sandy when I was
• 1:08:08
  a major living here. So we got here, we got the Fort
• 1:08:10
  Hood. So I have a really weird career.
• 1:08:12
  You asked me earlier, So I had Fort Drum.
• 1:08:15
  I have three different consecutive bases in Germany,
• 1:08:18
  Wall with the First Infantry Division and then Fort Hood.
• 1:08:21
  I've only been well three times in moved three times in Germany,
• 1:08:26
  but but I have very few moves in the Army, right.
• 1:08:30
  So three major home stations. So when I was a man, we got to
• 1:08:41
  Fordo. We bought our first house in I'm
• 1:08:44
  in Iraq and Sandy says to me, I don't know what you're doing
• 1:08:48
  next, but the kids and I are staying in Texas.
• 1:08:51
  We love it here. And I'm Sandy and I both grew up
• 1:08:53
  in South Jersey, so I've known her since high school.
• 1:09:00
  No, we were not high school sweethearts.
• 1:09:04
  I actually thought she was a little crazy.
• 1:09:05
  Still think she's a lot crazy, but she's my brand of crazy.
• 1:09:09
  So it's all good, but the the I said all that to remember what
• 1:09:22
  the question is. Now remind me of the question.
• 1:09:29
  What was it that made you decide that you wanted to retire?
• 1:09:32
  Yeah, to retire. So the Army, in its wisdom, kept
• 1:09:36
  me at Fort Hood. I was here for, I'm sorry, I
• 1:09:38
  think it was at Fort Hood 9 consecutive years.
• 1:09:42
  Wow. And so I'm coming.
• 1:09:45
  So I, I commanded the rear detachment of the 36 Engineer
• 1:09:48
  Brigade. I took command of this the day
• 1:09:50
  of the shooting on Fort Hood in 2930.
• 1:09:54
  Minutes into command, I had 11 wounded and three killed.
• 1:10:00
  So, you know, it could only get better.
• 1:10:05
  That was that's what I told myself.
• 1:10:07
  And so I went in. I you know, I get back from
• 1:10:11
  combat for my 4th deployment in Iraq and I get the 36 engineer
• 1:10:20
  brigade rear attachment and 30 minutes in the command I had
• 1:10:25
  three killed on home soil on a secure installation and 11
• 1:10:31
  wounded. It's terrible.
• 1:10:35
  So and, and, and regardless whether I had one or or zero
• 1:10:39
  that the, the, the taking of a human life on what what should
• 1:10:44
  be a very secure place is just heart wrenching.
• 1:10:50
  So then I commanded that for 22 months and Colonel salary count,
• 1:10:54
  you know, takes the command back and I went to be a brigade.
• 1:10:59
  XO stood up the 85th Civil Affairs Brigade on Fort Hood
• 1:11:05
  just for the G Wap mission. So did that for a year and then
• 1:11:09
  I took command of the Third Brigade Special Troops
• 1:11:13
  Battalion, and then I took command of the Third Brigade
• 1:11:17
  Engineer Battalion. And then it was coming time to
• 1:11:23
  go. They wanted to send me to Korea.
• 1:11:27
  And my daughter was a senior in high school.
• 1:11:29
  So I missed most, I missed all of my son's life.
• 1:11:32
  I missed most of my daughter's life.
• 1:11:35
  And I, I said, well, you know, then if you're going to send me
• 1:11:43
  to Korea, no, I'm going to retire.
• 1:11:47
  And he was like, Michael, you don't have enough time to
• 1:11:49
  retire. You used to owe me a year, blah,
• 1:11:51
  blah. And I was like, sure, I think
• 1:11:53
  you forget I'm prior enlisted. And he went, oh, crap.
• 1:11:59
  And I said, Sir, if you can, like, I'll go to Korea next
• 1:12:03
  year. Just I need to be here for
• 1:12:04
  senior year for her. And he's like, I can't promise
• 1:12:08
  you that. So he said call me on Monday and
• 1:12:10
  I called him on Monday and he said, Michael, I can't promise
• 1:12:12
  you that. And I was like, well then, Sir,
• 1:12:14
  I'm going to submit my packet because it was time for me to
• 1:12:21
  choose my family over my profession.
• 1:12:24
  Right, right. And, you know, I asked a mentor.
• 1:12:33
  I'm like, how do you know when it's time to retire?
• 1:12:35
  He said, you'll know. And I when I made the decision,
• 1:12:40
  I called him. He said, you submit your packet
• 1:12:43
  already. He said, yes, Sir, I did.
• 1:12:45
  He said, how did you know? And I said it was time to choose
• 1:12:49
  family over my career. And he was like, exactly.
• 1:12:55
  Wow. Yeah.
• 1:12:57
  So. Yeah, so that's what made me
• 1:12:59
  retire. 'Cause they wanted you to go to
• 1:13:03
  Korea. I don't blame you.
• 1:13:06
  So tell me about the resources that the Army provided you to
• 1:13:12
  help integrate you back into civilian life.
• 1:13:19
  So the Army at the time gave me 0 and I hate to say that, but
• 1:13:31
  General Batiste, when we when then when he brought the
• 1:13:33
  division back from Iraq, he had the family support group leaders
• 1:13:45
  and the, the brigade, they called him something M Flax, I
• 1:13:51
  forget what that stands for, but they were like the counselors
• 1:13:55
  and stuff for the families of the soldiers.
• 1:13:57
  And he brought in a whole team of psychiatrists and
• 1:14:00
  psychologists and for everybody to go through reintegration
• 1:14:07
  training. So he had learned that from
• 1:14:13
  being a brigade commander in Kosovo, from, you know, being in
• 1:14:19
  other deployments to include the Gulf War and what that was like.
• 1:14:24
  And, and his father was career military and so you know that
• 1:14:28
  reintegration into your family. And then when I was the rear
• 1:14:34
  detachment commander, I put that same philosophy and taught.
• 1:14:41
  I did a three phase for every unit that you know, for the
• 1:14:44
  spouses and children and the soldiers that did not deploy.
• 1:14:50
  And I did building resiliency training, maintaining
• 1:14:56
  resiliency. And then at the end, when their
• 1:14:59
  Soldiers were coming home, we did reintegration of your
• 1:15:02
  soldier back into the family. We, we soldiers were taught how
• 1:15:07
  to come. We, we got briefings.
• 1:15:08
  We weren't taught, but we got briefings on how to reintegrate
• 1:15:13
  with family. Hey, don't make any decisions.
• 1:15:15
  Don't beat your wife, you know, don't, don't kick the dog kind
• 1:15:18
  of stuff. And at the time, it really there
• 1:15:23
  was no context to it. But what I saw General Batiste
• 1:15:26
  do was put provide context to the soldiers about, hey, this is
• 1:15:31
  how you're going to feel. Your wife is not attacking you.
• 1:15:33
  She's she's she's loving you, right?
• 1:15:36
  Like they've already and you know that building resiliency,
• 1:15:42
  maintaining resiliency, and they welcome your soldier back home.
• 1:15:45
  I took those same lessons and reversed them for the family.
• 1:15:49
  And they said, OK, like when you get home, you know, you're this
• 1:15:54
  is what your soldiers thinking because I was that guy, right?
• 1:15:58
  I didn't understand your routines in my brain.
• 1:16:01
  It was 15 months ago. Like I just put their life on
• 1:16:07
  hold, went and did my thing, came back and then was going to
• 1:16:10
  pick it back up right where it was.
• 1:16:12
  And that's not the case. You know, I came home to US.
• 1:16:17
  One of the deployments came out of my son driving, my daughter
• 1:16:20
  getting much more in allowance than I would ever allow, and my
• 1:16:24
  daughter with a cell phone. I'm both kids with cell phones.
• 1:16:26
  And I'm like, what is going on here?
• 1:16:29
  Right. Because in 15 months, my son
• 1:16:32
  went from 14 to 16. Yeah, right.
• 1:16:37
  So, you know, just the world was different and I didn't
• 1:16:43
  understand it. So teaching that type of
• 1:16:46
  resiliency, learning it from General Batiste and then
• 1:16:50
  teaching that when I had the opportunity to lead and that,
• 1:16:56
  you know, I know the, I know the Army's doing it differently now,
• 1:17:00
  right? But in 2014 when I retired, it
• 1:17:04
  was completely different. They didn't they, they gave me a
• 1:17:08
  transition class to go to and how to write a resume.
• 1:17:12
  And I'm like. Taps.
• 1:17:14
  Yeah, Pre, yeah, taps back there.
• 1:17:16
  Yeah, yeah. And I was just like, this is
• 1:17:18
  ridiculous. Like I was bored.
• 1:17:20
  I like thought what a waste of government funds right now
• 1:17:22
  because you didn't teach me a thing.
• 1:17:27
  But you know, I know people getting out now have a much
• 1:17:30
  different experience and, you know, they get some
• 1:17:33
  reintegration training. They can they can do working
• 1:17:35
  with industry. So they want active duty kind of
• 1:17:40
  get that transitional period going, you know, just for a
• 1:17:42
  couple months. So I think we've gotten smarter
• 1:17:46
  and better at the execution, so. That's always a plus.
• 1:17:52
  Before we move on, if anybody in the chats has any questions that
• 1:17:56
  they'd like to ask, Michael, go ahead and put those out there
• 1:17:59
  now. And my question to you would be
• 1:18:05
  words of wisdom that you would have to somebody coming to you
• 1:18:09
  to say they're interested in going into the military.
• 1:18:16
  Real, real life story. My son-in-law did that to me so
• 1:18:21
  very recently. I, I firmly believe if you have
• 1:18:30
  a desire to serve in the military, there should be
• 1:18:32
  nothing that stops you, regardless of numbers.
• 1:18:37
  You know they're full right now, those types of thing.
• 1:18:39
  If you truly desire it, I, I, I think it should be 100%
• 1:18:43
  supportive, you know, what branch to go in what, what MOS
• 1:18:52
  to partake. You know, that's really all
• 1:18:56
  dependent on the personality of the person.
• 1:19:02
  But I would, you know that the US Army taught me a lot of
• 1:19:06
  things they should. They showed me things and gave
• 1:19:10
  me experiences that I will never get anywhere else.
• 1:19:15
  And then to live in Europe for just about 7 years contiguous
• 1:19:21
  was incredible. So yeah, I highly encourage it.
• 1:19:27
  If you want to go in, let's go. Nice, very nice.
• 1:19:32
  Now one question that I know my oldest Marine veteran would ask
• 1:19:38
  you is while you were deployed, did you get to work with any
• 1:19:43
  Marines? Absolutely.
• 1:19:45
  I worked with Marines in Fallujah in 2005, maybe 65, I
• 1:19:56
  think it was the early in 2005, worked with the Marines in
• 1:20:00
  Fallujah and worked with them. We fired a mine clearing.
• 1:20:08
  A Miklik mine clearing line charge over a building so the
• 1:20:14
  Marines could could stop getting fired upon.
• 1:20:18
  There was a sniper in that building.
• 1:20:19
  We couldn't kill them so we just blew up the building.
• 1:20:24
  I love my Marines. I worked with them too at the
• 1:20:27
  not just deployed but at the Naval War College.
• 1:20:31
  A lot of my classmates were Marines, so.
• 1:20:34
  OK, nice. They're the only it was us, the
• 1:20:37
  the Marines and the Army guys or anyone's in the gym in the
• 1:20:39
  morning, so. That's not surprising actually.
• 1:20:47
  So the book, your book, I'm going to bring that on and so we
• 1:20:53
  can see it on screen here. Sure.
• 1:21:00
  OK. So what prompted you to write
• 1:21:10
  this book? Oh boy.
• 1:21:14
  So there was something inside of me that I wanted to kind of
• 1:21:20
  write. And I, I, I, there's, there's a
• 1:21:27
  chapter in the book leading from the middle.
• 1:21:29
  And that has always been my like a leader can lead up, down and
• 1:21:36
  across. And so hence leading from the
• 1:21:40
  middle. And I was at a real estate
• 1:21:44
  conference Super Bowl weekend this this year.
• 1:21:51
  And a couple of guys were, we were all at lunch on Sunday
• 1:21:55
  morning before the Super Bowl. We all stayed, conference was
• 1:22:00
  over where we all stayed to watch the Super Bowl.
• 1:22:03
  And so we're at luncheon and one of the one of the MC says,
• 1:22:06
  Michael, you have an incredible story to tell.
• 1:22:09
  When he, we were just talking about military experience,
• 1:22:11
  corporate America experience. And he goes, you just need, you
• 1:22:14
  need to tell it. You need to tell your story,
• 1:22:16
  man. And I was like, he's like,
• 1:22:21
  what's your passion? I'm like, come on, man.
• 1:22:23
  You know, my passion is leadership.
• 1:22:24
  And he said, yeah, like you need to write it.
• 1:22:27
  You need to write your passion like, and you tell your stories.
• 1:22:30
  And I kind of blew them off Monday morning.
• 1:22:36
  He says the same thing to me at breakfast.
• 1:22:38
  And then I now drive back from Frisco, TX back to my house and
• 1:22:46
  a couple hours down the road. And then I have to drive to
• 1:22:49
  Georgia in the morning. And I teach 2 Bible studies a
• 1:22:52
  week. And they, they're two different,
• 1:22:56
  two different audiences. And so I'm sitting in the hot
• 1:23:01
  tub and I, I talk about hot tub revelation in the book.
• 1:23:03
  I'm sitting in the, in the hot tub and the Lord gives me some
• 1:23:06
  scriptures. And I was like, oh, that's
• 1:23:07
  great. I'm like, what am I supposed to
• 1:23:09
  do with these? And then they just kept coming
• 1:23:12
  because I knew I wasn't teaching Bible study that week because I
• 1:23:14
  was getting ready to drive to Georgia and my grandson was, was
• 1:23:17
  born and my wife's already there.
• 1:23:19
  And I got 13 scriptures immediately.
• 1:23:28
  I had to get out of the hot tub and grab a napkin and a pen and
• 1:23:31
  write them down. And I wrote them down order.
• 1:23:33
  And that's the order of the chapters of the book.
• 1:23:36
  So Tuesday, I didn't realize all that then, but on Tuesday
• 1:23:40
  morning, I'm driving and I literally opened up my laptop
• 1:23:44
  and had Microsoft Word hit dictate.
• 1:23:46
  And I start telling the story. And that's how the book got
• 1:23:50
  written. So.
• 1:23:53
  Let's see, let's move this over so everybody can see the cover.
• 1:23:58
  So this is Unshaken Resolve by Michael Alexander Payne.
• 1:24:03
  And then you can get this obviously on Amazon.
• 1:24:09
  Get on Amazon. Or you can go to
• 1:24:10
  unshakenresolve.com and order it either way.
• 1:24:15
  Excellent. Let's see if I can get out of
• 1:24:21
  this. There we go.
• 1:24:25
  OK, so this says you'll learn how to lead with clarity when
• 1:24:32
  circumstances demand you bend, but never break.
• 1:24:36
  Walk into the fire without losing your faith, your family,
• 1:24:39
  or your identity. Build strength with compassion
• 1:24:43
  without trading one for the other.
• 1:24:45
  Pass a resolve forged life down to the next generation and see
• 1:24:50
  the small things, the small hinges that open the biggest
• 1:24:53
  doors in your life and leadership.
• 1:24:55
  Yeah, it's one of my favorite chapters.
• 1:24:58
  Small hinges open big doors. Nice.
• 1:25:02
  You know, that's a, you think about it, right?
• 1:25:06
  I tell this story in the book, but my wife's an incredible
• 1:25:10
  woman and definitely way smarter than me.
• 1:25:15
  And so one of the things she did when I was deployed was she
• 1:25:17
  would have a scrapbook that the kids would write in.
• 1:25:20
  They'd mail it to me. They'd keep it for two weeks.
• 1:25:23
  I keep it for three days, mail it back because you know, the
• 1:25:26
  time and mailing going overseas in no Iraq, you know, a theatre
• 1:25:32
  of operation was just forever and a day.
• 1:25:34
  So I get an e-mail from Sandy, mail the book back.
• 1:25:39
  I'm like, just got it yesterday, right?
• 1:25:41
  Like, but those were small hinges.
• 1:25:46
  Right. Right.
• 1:25:47
  And they opened big doors with the relationships that I have
• 1:25:49
  with my kids today, so. And small can be mighty.
• 1:25:54
  Oh yeah, absolutely. I know I'm 52.
• 1:25:57
  There you go, a Midget in comparison to most.
• 1:26:06
  So I want to say thank you again for coming on, telling your
• 1:26:12
  story and giving us a glimpse into Michael Payne and also for
• 1:26:21
  sharing your story. Oh, hello, Hello.
• 1:26:28
  I do you hear the echo? No.
• 1:26:32
  No. No echo on my end.
• 1:26:34
  OK, good. It's on my end.
• 1:26:37
  So unshaken resolve again. We have a couple of autographed
• 1:26:42
  books from Michael when we hit our next milestone of 1000
• 1:26:48
  subscribers. So I'm super excited for that
• 1:26:51
  and thank you again, Michael, for sharing.
• 1:26:55
  Absolutely. No, thank you for having me on.
• 1:26:57
  It's it's a pleasure and and help me get the word out about
• 1:27:00
  this book. I will be live in person on
• 1:27:05
  September 11th, 8:00 in the morning in Gulf Shores, AL at
• 1:27:10
  Fire Station 5. The police, the Fire Chief
• 1:27:15
  Marine as well asked me to be the guest speaker this year.
• 1:27:20
  And so of course I said yes. And I'm probably going to go
• 1:27:26
  climb some stairs with those fine human beings afterwards.
• 1:27:30
  So as they do the three and they the tribute of the 72 flights
• 1:27:36
  that they made it to so. Excellent.
• 1:27:41
  So Jason says thank you for your service, Sir.
• 1:27:45
  Jason, thank you. You're most welcome.
• 1:27:46
  And I do it all again tomorrow. Well, it's been a pleasure.
• 1:27:50
  Again, thank you. And everybody, thank you for
• 1:27:53
  watching tonight. Join me again next Sunday for
• 1:27:58
  another great guest. Everybody have a wonderful rest
• 1:28:03
  of your week. Hi, I'm Beaker with Military
• 1:28:07
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• 1:28:11
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• 1:28:16
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• 1:28:19
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