← Jocko Podcast
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- [00:00]
A
This is Jocko, podcast number 506 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo.
- [00:05]
B
Good evening.
- [00:06]
A
Now listen, I need to step out of the moment and put a little perspective to the situation. I spent my youth first as a reconnaissance Marine and then as a Special Forces soldier. I ended up my military life as an assaulter and sniper for 3rd Special Forces Group Commanders in Extremis Force, which, while it no longer exists at the time, could arguably be described as the most vicious murderous bastards on the planet. Sure, a handful of other units could vie for that title back then, but few. And while I was not their king, I did prove I could run with the pack. I've felt bones break in my hands. I've killed other humans in a significant quantity and basically led a life of violence few other humans can fathom. Never had I felt anything like this. Not even close. And that right there is an excerpt from a book called Barbarian Spirit, which is written by a guy named Clay Martin, who, as you heard, served both as a Marine Corps Scout, sniper, reconnaissance Marine before transferring to the army, where he was a member of the Special Forces and his deployments were during periods of fierce fighting. He also served as an instructor, teaching both Special Operations Target interdiction, which is their fancy way of saying sniper course. And he also taught advanced urban combat before he was medically retired. After retirement, he became a prolific writer, and I don't throw that phrase out easily. Prolific writer. You got to get after it if you want me to call you a prolific writer. But he certainly has. And in that voyage, he's uncovered a path that he's used to overcome some demons, and now he's helping others by guiding them down that same path. And it's an honor to have him with us here tonight to share some of his experiences and lessons learned. Clay, thanks for joining us, man.
- [02:02]
C
Hey, Jocko, thanks for having me, brother. I really appreciate it. And yeah, the honor is mutual, you know, not because you're a famous podcaster and shit like that, because you're an old school SEAL and you've done some. Some stuff which I respect.
- [02:14]
A
I've had the real old school seals I've been on here. It's weird too, because the SEAL teams have not been around for that long. When I got to Seal Team 1 in 1991, I went to the 30 year. So in at like January of 1992, I went to the 30 year anniversary of Seal Team 1. It was when it was born, it was 1962, and I was the youngest, you know, how in the Marine Corps they do the youngest and the oldest cupcake. So we did that thing.
- [02:45]
C
Yeah.
- [02:45]
A
And it was the youngest, which was me, and the oldest, which was a guy named Double Link, who is an old Vietnam UDT guy. And we did the cake cutting. But then fast forward. I don't know what it was. It was a few years ago I went to the 60th anniversary of SEAL Team 1, and it's just wild that the history is so short and you have guys there that you knew that were at Seal Team 1 originally, and they're still kicking it around. So I. I can't say I'm an old school sequel. Still a new guy in.
- [03:19]
C
In relative terms for his gy guys. Fair. Yeah.
- [03:22]
A
Check, check. So, dude, you got a lot of stuff. We got a lot of stuff to talk about today. Had a really good time reading. Reading your various books. Concrete Jungle. What's this one? Prairie Fire. And then we've got the Wrath of Wendigo. Am I saying that right? Wendigo.
- [03:40]
C
You can pronounce it one or two. It's a Native American word, so it can be Wendigo or it can be Wendigo. I'm not native enough to say which ones.
- [03:46]
A
Right on. I think Wendigo. I think that's the way I naturally say it, so I might just stick with that one. So we'll get in all that stuff. Let's get a little bit of background on you, though, where you came from. It's funny, before we hit record, we were talking about where guys come from, right. And how they grew up and what kind of guys you end up with. It always brings me back to, you know, I had this conversation with a buddy of mine who is a emergency room doctor in Baltimore. And this was in a time, I think they were getting 17 puncture wounds on average a day from stabbings and shootings in Baltimore because Baltimore was crazy. And he said that if a family. So you get all kinds of collateral damage. You know, you get people that they're not a gang member, but they're just like. Little Sally was sitting on the front doorstep and she took a freaking round to the head, you know, and she dies, and she's 12 years old. And that happens a lot. And he. He said that basically you have. If you have a family that has. If the family's tight, this traumatic incident can actually bring them together, make them even tighter. But if there's little fractures in that family, this traumatic incident. Incident can blow up the family and just cause total destruction. And I Didn't make the connection at the time. But as I. I see guys now, you know, we. When guys join the military, it's like when you go to war, if you got some little fractures in there, well, it can make you more appreciative of life. It can make you better. But if in certain situations you got some little fractures, some things can get blown up. So let's talk about where you are, where you came from.
- [05:22]
C
Sure. Absolutely. Awesome. And I'm going to tell some things on your show today that I've never said before. And it's not even just because I was trying to bury them. It actually comes full circle with what I'm doing now with psilocybin and these other things for these other veterans. A lot of this actually, I didn't remember until like two months ago. Actually, when I. Back in July when I agreed to come on the show, a lot of these things started unlocking. I've actually done probably three sessions of plant medicines in the meantime. And it's been extraordinarily weird, but I come from a little place in Texas, little tiny town, little oil patch in the panhandle of Texas, and dirt poor. We were there when the oil boom ended. So everybody's broke, especially my family was in oil and gas. My dad was a driller on a drilling rig for a while. Grandfather drove trucks in the oil field. So, you know, while everybody else is coming up in the country, our economy is smashed. So we're, you know, poor guys living in a trailer out of the middle of nowhere. I'm a little guy anyway. I wouldn't get any size until I'm like, 20. I go to high school at 4 foot 11 and 95 pounds.
- [06:30]
A
Damn.
- [06:31]
C
Yeah, it's wild. People kind of can't believe this stuff later in life, but. Yeah, I'm not a big dude anyway, so things are pretty rough. It's a rough area too, in its own way. It's not like we're in downtown Chicago or New York or something like that. But, I mean, crazy stuff is happening. And while I'm not gonna apologize for what happens, it does give me, especially now, some perspective on why my dad was the way he was. I can remember, like, crazy stuff when I'm like, before I can go to school, being like five or six years old, you know, he's taking me to work with him on this drilling rig, which OSHA would, like, fly a black helicopter out, ready to, like, shut you. They would, you know, they'd go get the president of Exxon for letting this happen. But it's you know, 1985, so this is what's going on. And my dad is, he's not like really like a tough guy. He's not like a criminal or anything like that, but he's a smart guy. That's why he's the driller. That makes him like the squad leader for this drilling rig. And his crew roughnecks back then, they're also not like upstanding citizens, you know what I mean? Like they're in this for the money and it's a dangerous job. So people die and get hurt all the time. So there's a certain guy that kind of does that. He's got like, you know, Hell's Angels and you know, Mexican banditos on his crew. I can remember like going to jail to get like some of his roughnecks for work release and then we got to take him back before we go home. And I have also no idea why he's taking me out to work with him on this. This is like insanity that at the time seems fine. Now as a 45 year old man I'm like, that in itself is off the chain anyway. So anyway this, this goes on. Now you can no longer drill. They're not getting for oil in Texas anymore because it's not worth the money. Economy crashes, we're broke, we're extra broke. Now he's got to do some job that he hates now, you know, driving a truck. And things are never like really good at home if we're being like, you know, totally honest. My dad's a little bit of a psychopath anyway. He's got some violence baked in. CPS by this point has been to our house probably four or five times already. You go to school and have bruises. Eventually things are gonna come to a head and it's just not a great environment. I've got two sisters. One's three years older than me, one's three years younger. They're in the middle of this shit too. So this goes on for a while. And you also like, as a guy in that kind of environment, you learn very quickly how to lie to cps because CPS is not going to actually do shit. They're going to come to your house, they're going to say some shit, they're not going to do anything and you're going to catch it a lot worse when they're gone. So this is going on till about man when the Gulf war starts in 1991.
- [09:06]
A
The first Gulf War was 1991. Yeah.
- [09:09]
C
Okay, so this is where things really fall apart. My dad's had like a midlife crisis, all right, he's an emotional. I don't know what the hell's wrong with him, but he's, he's coming apart. And the Gulf War starts. He thinks like the apocalypse is upon us, right? War in the Middle East. Like, you know, this is it. This is the end times. So now he wants to start going to church. All of a sudden, like out of nowhere. We've never had to do any of this in our lives before. Now we're doing this. And when we get to this church, we go back to his mom's church, which is Jehovah's Witnesses, which is a culty, crazy thing, especially in the Midwest. And the other thing about cults is they tend to attract not people that are awesome at life, all right? They do. They tend to attract like derelicts and fuck ups and weak people. That's just how it is. So we start going to this church, welcome back with open arms or bullshit. A lot of these people have a lot of mental problems and they're trying to solve this by going to a shrink. But we're in the middle of nowhere. So the nearest shrink is like Dallas, which is like a nine hour drive. So they see, they're like, okay, you're a mess too. Come on, jump in the van. They're going down to see the shrink. It's like this one shrink that's seen like 15 people against sequence psychology is also not great. In the early 90s. We're still in some development stuff. Anyway, they start prescribing him SSRIs. They're just trying stuff out. And he's going to go see them once every month or every two months to like, hey, these meds aren't working or whatever. Anyway, he tried lithium, Prozac, all that stuff. Anyway, it started making things a lot worse. All right? He is now like gone from being, you know, overly violent, abusive to an absolute fucking crazy person. And he's really coming unglued. And this is the, this is the core memory, actually, that ends up being what gets me to join the fucking military. Before this, you know, I kind of wanted to, you know, I don't know. I've watched action movies in the 80s and I kind of wanted to be a Marine for a minute. But mostly I meant like polish my boots and walk in a parade. I didn't even know what the fuck Marines and anybody else really did. Who else want to be a stockbroker or some other be rich, You Know some bullshit. Anyway, so I don't remember exactly how this goes. I do. CPS comes to the house. I'm like 13, 12 or 13, I don't know what the fuck happened. But next thing I know, I'm in bed like 3 o' clock in the morning. Dad comes and rips me out of bed, throws me on the couch between my two sisters. He is absolutely losing his. People think they've seen a psychotic rage before and they haven't. They. They've seen somebody get angry, all right? They've seen somebody have a little bit of Roy rage and throw a dumbbell or some crazy. But he is absolutely off the rails. And what occurs to me is he's actually spinning himself up. He's going to kill us in himself. He's freaking out. Bashing his own head into the mantle above the fireplace, just, you know, really, really losing it.
- [12:25]
A
And you're 13 years old.
- [12:26]
C
Thirteen.
- [12:26]
A
And so you're watching him and. And so is he. This escalates this. Or does it come out of nowhere?
- [12:32]
C
This is out of nowhere. This is just like this is that will happen too?
- [12:35]
A
And is it yelling and screaming too?
- [12:36]
C
Yes. Lapis around, freaking out, blaming you for stuff. Yeah, this is. Yeah, you're gonna get his, you know, you're gonna get you. Get you taken away from me. And you know, this is all your fault and all this. And I remember actually there's a very heavy lamp next to me. And there's not some fucking heroes ending to the story either. This is just how it is. And as I think he's gonna fucking kill us. All right? I realized that I have this weapon, all right? Now I've got to make a fucking judgment call as a 12 or 13 year old kid. Do I wait until his back turned and try to fucking X him out? I'm gonna lose this fight too. I weigh 95 pounds, he weighs 250. I'm gonna die if this fucking doesn't work. And I end up not having. Because I don't know, the situation diffuses and he goes outside and gets his truck and fucking hauls ass. But that's the moment that I. I realize, like you're on your own, you know? You know you're gonna. If you're gonna fucking survive in this world, you got to learn how to fucking fight and fight like son of a bitch. And so that becomes my goal. I look like, who's the fucking toughest gang around? You know, Fucking I don't know, we got some Mexican mafia dudes, we got some fucking Other bullshit like nope, those guys are all extra bitches. Us soft guys are like the toughest, most murderous bastards that they are. I've seen all the fucking movies. Really? That's what it is. Like I have to go learn the fucking murder magic from these fucking mythical heroes because that's the only way that I'm going to be okay. I'm be able to take care of my sisters and my mom.
- [14:08]
A
Now you got to continue through high school.
- [14:10]
C
Yep.
- [14:11]
A
What's high school like for you? So now did you get the. Did you actually make the the. Because I remember when I was a little kid, I wanted to be some kind of commando.
- [14:18]
C
Yeah.
- [14:19]
A
And then at one point I realized, oh you. That's a real job.
- [14:22]
C
You could do that. Yeah. Yeah.
- [14:23]
A
And they're giving me money.
- [14:24]
C
Yeah.
- [14:24]
A
To do that job. Here's what I got to do.
- [14:27]
C
Yeah.
- [14:27]
A
So you realize that you're 13 years old in high school or something?
- [14:30]
C
Yeah, it's kind of. It is actually like a weirder path for me than that I didn't really know about. I didn't really understand like what it meant though or that they would pay you. Actually when I went to the Marine Corps, I thought you didn't. I thought it was what volunteer meant. Like you just give them four years or you. I thought this shit was free. That's not really the point though. The most important thing that happens here and this will actually come up later in the civil cybin discussion too. I also realized this is the first time that like my, my fucking rage has like come back and I realized that someone's gotten me fucking killed. And so I in that moment like shut down my emotions and they will stay shut down for like fucking 25 years. Because I realized that what's actually going to happen if I really come back with it, I'm going to get me and or my sisters fucking dead. So put my head down, I'm a little tiny still go to high school, do learn some cool stuff there end up in a weird way in the. The football off season program. I'm a cross country guy because I'm little and skinny and that's the only sport you can do if you suck at sports. I'm no longer big enough to even pretend to play basketball. Plus I got cross country team has girls on it. Like this is awesome. It's amazing. So you know, start running cross country, which is cool also because this will be a thing that very much benefits me. Later in the off season. We'll have to wait for track and field Season to pick up where I'm a mile and two mile guy. I get in with the, the football guys because that's the only offseason that we have in this little school, all right? And football guys are fucking scary at this point because it's Texas, you know, got 300 pound linebackers and shit and I'm this big. But we weirdly also, for such like a poor and shitty place, we have an absolutely fantastic strength and conditioning program. We'll end up with one that like many, many, many years later I, I will know and I'll go to the gym with who the fuck is he? Who's a famous quarterback from New England, you know, Tom Brady. Tom Brady. I'll end up not with Tom Brady, but Tom Brady's backup at college.
- [16:31]
A
Got it.
- [16:32]
C
All right. It's now my strength conditioning coach. And we ended up, this is like five years ago and we end up like talking about shit and turns out that I had a way better strength and conditioning program in high school than he did, you know. Anyway, our shit's awesome. So what I realized now, I'm also the third skinniest guy there. So I'm with the other guys that weigh under 100 pounds and we're like the bitch into the gym. We're way down there and nobody even pays attention to us. I will also never forget this. I've never seen a weight in my life. So I have a 95 pound bench press. It's like the bar and a couple of tens and a five or some shit. But what I realize is that if you work hard at this though, like, and it's pain, like, guess what? I can take some pain. But if you work hard at this, like you will get bigger and you'll get stronger very quickly. And as is a lot of times, typical too. I'm with the guys that had no fucking work ethic. So I'm having to like push them and get the fuck out of my way. We're working today and I very rapidly started getting, you know, somewhat bigger and fucking coming up the chain. And it's, it's honestly, it's like one of the most rewarding things I've ever seen. Like if you just put effort into this, like you can progress. It's. It's amazing.
- [17:36]
A
Especially when you're 13, 14, right?
- [17:38]
C
Oh yeah. Made out of HGH.
- [17:44]
A
So anything else happening in high school? Like you're so you're into weightlifting, you're running cross country, running track. Are you staying out of trouble? Are you passing school?
- [17:52]
C
Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, I'm doing great at this. Weirdly. Like, I think my dad sees the threat coming too. So, like, he won't let me go lift weights during the summer. He won't let me stay up for school and lift weights. We're in this kind of fucking back and forth battle. Yeah. So I'm doing everything I can to get bigger and shit. Mostly though, I'm doing whatever the fuck I can do to get out of home as fast as possible. So I end up graduating High School 16. I managed to skip a grade and do some other shit. And I do that. And I also. My sister has graduated a year before me. She's gone to an engineering school in New Mexico. Same thing. I score really well on the ACTS and sats and shit. So I get a, like a mostly a full ride scholarship to this, like, top 10 engineering school. And there we go.
- [18:37]
A
Damn. Okay, that's pretty good focus coming from this freaking chaotic shithole you were rolling out of.
- [18:44]
C
It was rough, especially, you know, did you see something?
- [18:47]
A
Was there some example that you saw? I mean, did your older sister. You saw like, okay, I see what she's doing. I can do that. Was it somebody at school, a coach.
- [18:53]
C
Or something like that? Oh, yeah, no, actually it was. So on the cross country team, there's other guy. I don't want to say his name because he might actually still be an active duty. I don't know. But he's like a senior. I'm a freshman. But he is like the biggest, scariest motherfucker I've ever seen. He's fucking jacked and yoked and fucking fast and dude as fucking hard as nails. And it's not like he's gonna talk to me a lot. Cause I'm like, fucking 13, 14. But his career path is he wants to go be a seal. And that also makes me like, start being like, what the fuck is a seal? Like, put, you know, caulking on the wall, like, what the fuck is this? But anyway, no, he's badass. He wants to do this. I'm like, well, maybe this is. Maybe this something I could do too. And weirdly, like, he goes, he graduates and he makes it. I don't even know if I ever saw him again. But I do. Friends of friends. And he came back after buzz, whatever, and he like, he done it. It's like, holy shit. Like this. This could be done. It's actually weird. When I started thinking about this guy, I just listened to a podcast not too long ago about the seal that then became a Ford Legionnaire and shit. He was from San Diego. And he goes off in this whole thing about he's from San Diego, he played football and he's done all these years never seen anybody from San Diego make it through bus. All the wrestlers and everybody has fucking tried. Somehow our little town of 4,000 people has made him. There's another guy that graduates a year after him that also becomes a Seal. And then a year after that you end up with me, who ends up being a recumbent Green Beret.
- [20:12]
A
Oh yeah. Something in the water.
- [20:13]
C
Something in the water. Such a tough and terrible place that you'll do anything to get out of it. I don't know.
- [20:21]
A
So now are you, are you like 17 when you go to college then?
- [20:24]
C
Yeah, so I, I turned 17 a couple months after I, I, I graduated from high school. Go to college at 17. It's, it's an adjustment as we've also, this whole time, like, my dad's like crazy. Control, measure stuff has been like, it's been nuts. Like when we join the church, he makes us call all of our friends from school and tell them like, we're not friends anymore. Cause they're not part of the cult and we're the only kids in this town to go to this fucking crazy ass church. That's not a fun conversation to have. Like 11 of your friends are like, what, motherfucker? And you know, it takes a couple years and then we can kind of be friends at school again, but you can't go do anything. The drugs are also fucking him up in this crazy way of like now he has to keep all this so we don't get to like really socialize with the other kids from church for the next day on over. When we go to church, we got to come home and, you know, I don't know, clean the barn or some dumb. So I'm also going to college with like absolutely no social skills, certainly no girl skills, and just a fucking mess. But now I'm basically free for the most part.
- [21:28]
A
Are you living at the college? Like you're out?
- [21:31]
C
Yeah, and it's, it's in. The next state over is in New Mexico.
- [21:33]
A
Oh, damn. Okay, so you're, you're free and clear.
- [21:36]
C
Kind of. Still weird shit will happen. Like, I've been there about a month and I wake up one Saturday morning and my parents are pounding on my door because I'm still a minor and like, hey, we can fucking inspect your barracks room. Basically I'm like, holy shit. Holy shit. So, yeah, it's crazy it's absolutely bananas. But when I get to college, I have no intention of graduating from college. I'm like, this is. I'm gonna use this money that I'm gonna have to pay back eventually because I'm gonna lose my scholarship and I'm gonna get really strong and I'm going to go do some version of commando guy stuff. I don't know which one it is. I'm talking to all the recruiters and do all the research, and that's what I'm going to do. So that is, that is actually what I end up doing. But there's actually a weird thing that happens in there. By the end of the first semester, like, I'm obviously failing class. I barely show up. Like, I show up to the gym. I actually got two buddies that are with me. We have the really old build up to BUDS packet that you get from the Navy recruiter.
- [22:28]
A
Okay.
- [22:29]
C
Yeah, we do. We're doing that. It's awesome right off, you know, just these two guys just want to do a workout, but, you know, they're my body. So we do all this shit going to judo and kickboxing class, which is awesome that we happen to have those at this college, which is amazing. That's also awesome. If you have no idea how to fight and you came from somewhere that, like, nobody else really knows how to fight, they'd be, they'll kick your ass because, you know, they had five minutes of boxing class or something. All of a sudden I'm in this environment where it's like, I don't even have to give you money. Let me get this right. I don't even have to give you money. All right. You will teach me how to hurt people. My hands. Awesome. And then you will teach me how to kick and hit people. Yeah. All you got to do is, you know, take some pain. I'm basically like conditioning my shins all day with a. With a fucking stick. After I learned how to do this instead of going to engineering school. It is just fucking ridiculous. Anyway, I'm failing, so I'm going to lose my scholarship and I'm going to get kicked out of college. And I'm also realizing, like, this is just a lot of money that I'm going to have to pay back. So, like, midway through my second semester, I finally call a lawyer.
- [23:31]
A
A lawyer?
- [23:32]
C
Yeah. Well, this is the fact that I need to know. I'm like, hey, I am a Texas resident. I'm 17. I've graduated from high school. What is my legal status? And he's like, well, in the state of Texas, you are an emancipated adult, so you can't buy a pack of smokes, you can't buy beer. But you are also, in the eyes of law, like, no longer a minor, and nobody can tell you what the fuck to do. So I'm like, awesome, sweet. I'm gonna drop out of college now just to save money. I'm gonna go live with my uncle in Wyoming, who's a. He's an Air Force dude, and he also has. No. None of this crazy shit is going on. I've been like, tell him over the phone. He's like, what? So this incident happens. Now I own shit, too? So I. I'm gonna call my parents, all right? I'll be like, hey, check it out, motherfucker. Like, I'm no longer a minor. I'm going to the fucking Marine Corps when I turn 18 and you fuck off. And that's what's happening. So I do that, and I don't know, I go for a fucking walk in the desert after that. Well, apparently they called my older sister, who's also in my same college. And we're a small college, too. It's not like we're going to University of Pittsburgh. She's like, you know, two buildings over in her fucking dorm room. And I don't know, whatever kind of guilt trip they lay on her, she tries to kill herself. Jesus. Yeah, Slice her wrist with some glass. All right? Fortunately, her roommate finds her, fixes this problem. All right? But this is. This is obviously not good. So I am like, oh, you know, now I'm kind of leave my sister out here flapping, too. Like, I don't know what the to do. I finally end up. I call my grandmother, my mom's mom, and I just lay all this fucking shit on her. I'm like, hey, I know we haven't talked in, like, you know, fucking five years, but here's what the fuck has been going on. All this crazy shit. My sister's trying to kill herself. I don't know what the fuck to do. And I think I also called my parents at that point, like, hey, motherfucker. Like, leave her out of this. So this whole thing comes unfucking clued. My grandmother is driving down from Oklahoma with, like, one of my uncles is muscle. My parents actually have moved to Seattle now while I'm in college from Texas. So my mom's, like, flying in from Seattle, too. And then there's this whole fucking crazy fucking family family drama that happens, like, right there. On the campus of college. Yeah, it's crazy. It's absolutely nuts. I end up leaving. I go live with my uncle, you know, he kind of helps me out with, you know, get my together to go to the military. And then the day I turned 18, I joined the Marine Corps.
- [25:56]
A
What about your sister? What happened to your sister?
- [25:58]
C
My older sister, she was fine basically. She, she hadn't cut herself bad enough for like really herself up. It was more, I'm not gonna say it was like a cry for help suicide, but thank God she didn't manage to like actually. Yep, so she's fine. I, I've kind of laid the scanning down. A grandma has to like, hey, don't ever with my sister again. So they just kind of started leaving her alone. And that's just kind of the way it goes. They're more concerned now about me going to the military because I'm also going to get excommunicated from the church for doing this. That's how this works. And I don't care. These people.
- [26:33]
A
Had you been to church since you've been at.
- [26:36]
C
No, no.
- [26:39]
A
So now it' just on them like you. They're trying to, they're trying to maintain you inside the church and when they lose you, they're going to kind of pay for it some way.
- [26:48]
C
In some way. Yeah. Well, it's going to be embarrassing. It's going to be, you know, fucking terribly embarrassing. It's also going to be super embarrassing. It's not like, you know, it would actually be better for them if I like, you know, turned gay, was in a fucking gay parade out here at fucking San Diego instead of going to join the fucking killing machine, which is like the gravest of sins. So yeah. So basically they end up do leaving my. I'm now the super problem child. I've got all the fucking heat coming down. They also can't come and get me.
- [27:12]
A
So that's freaking crazy to think like a lot of parents, I mean, I would say almost all parents, if their sons join the Marine Corps, they're like, oh hell yeah. Oh yeah, be awesome kids off the payroll. He's got a freaking squared away job. Like he's got health insurance for the rest of his life. We're good to go. But your parents are freaking.
- [27:29]
C
Oh yeah, they, they are, they are upset. If I, at any point during this, if I, if I talk to them, you can't do this. Like, well, you can do it. Yeah. So it is wild. And this will also be true through like especially my first, you know, four Year three, four years of military service where I'm doing some wild. Nobody's proud of that. You know, I got nobody to tell.
- [27:53]
A
When you're saying you're doing wild, what do you mean you're doing wild?
- [27:56]
C
Okay, so I go into the.
- [27:58]
A
What year is it?
- [27:59]
C
That's 1998. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I actually end up here at MCRDC San Diego in October. 98.
- [28:05]
A
Hell yeah.
- [28:06]
C
Yeah. So I go to boot camp. Boot camp is actually fucking easy as fuck. Like, I am loving it. Like, I'm there about three days before I realize that, like, the drilling trucks are like, well, fuck with you at night. This is the safest I've ever felt. Like, I'm having a great time. Like, and they'll yell at you, but as long as you, like, follow these rules and shit, like, everybody's cool, you know? Yeah, it's fucking wild.
- [28:28]
A
That clean slate that you get when you join the military. Here. Here's the things you got to do. If you do these things, you're gonna be fine.
- [28:34]
C
That's right.
- [28:35]
A
And that's it. And we got you.
- [28:36]
C
Yeah. And hey, if you up here's like a little. You don't even get, like, your, you know, your head. This is like a little punishment. Teach you not to up. Get back in here.
- [28:43]
A
Like, okay, this is great.
- [28:44]
C
This is fantastic.
- [28:45]
A
So you're loving it from day one.
- [28:46]
C
Oh, yeah. Love it.
- [28:48]
A
And. And so you get done with boot camp and then what kind of. Did you sign some kind of contract?
- [28:53]
C
Yeah.
- [28:53]
A
What was your contract for?
- [28:55]
C
Industry. Straight up? Hell yeah. Straight up. Hell yeah.
- [28:59]
A
Yeah, get done with boot camp. Did you go through soi out here? Do you go?
- [29:03]
C
Yes. Yeah.
- [29:04]
A
Okay.
- [29:04]
C
So I went to soi out here. Actually went to my. This. This is funny too. This is one of, like, three things I ended up failing in my military career. And it's. It's mostly for a certain thing of I'm really strong when I go boot camping. I'm running, doing. I've never carried a ruck, though, in my life. And that is a. That's actually one of the harder things, I think, for your body to adjust to. So my shins are fucking broke off.
- [29:26]
A
That's weird too, because you are a runner. Yeah, there is a. There's a difference, man. There's a huge difference.
- [29:30]
C
Huge difference. Yeah. And, yeah, so my shins are a little up. They're not too up. But there's a recon screening in between boot camp and soi if you want to go. So, you know, I go to that One, you know, do the swim. All the. But yeah, the ruck run. It's a five mile ruck run as part of the indoc back in the. I think a 40 pounder. I mean, it breaks me off. It's. It's ugly. It's funny.
- [29:52]
A
So did you fail it?
- [29:53]
C
Oh, yeah. I failed the first one. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's funny the. The medic who's like, I'll actually end up meeting him many, many, many years later again. He's over in the Army Special mission units now, but he is running beside me, talking to one of his friends, like, having a real time while I'm, like, just dying. Like. Like, you know, like. And that's actually kind of embarrassing too, is what happens. So go to infantry school. I'm like, I gotta get a lot fucking tougher before, I mean, one of these dudes and, you know, that's cool. Yeah, that's what you do. Go to Infury school. No big deal. We're part of a weird program back then that they're trying to get guys away from where they're from. So my whole infantry class, they pick up a flight of Lejeune, and the guys that just graduated on the east coast, they pick up a flight of Pendleton.
- [30:35]
A
That's a Marine Corps activity, right?
- [30:37]
C
Oh, yeah, it's Marine Corps. Like, we didn't want to be easy on you. Here you go.
- [30:40]
A
That's like, the Russians did that back in the day. They would take.
- [30:42]
C
Right.
- [30:43]
A
You would not be with people that were from your hometown. They wanted. No, like, unity with that force. They wanted unity with the Soviet Union.
- [30:51]
C
Yes.
- [30:52]
A
So that's what the Marine Corps was to. Straight up, you're out of here. Huh? So then where you get stationed?
- [31:01]
C
Lejeune? Yeah. 2, 8. Yep. 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines. America's Battalion?
- [31:05]
A
Hell, yeah.
- [31:05]
C
Hell, yeah.
- [31:06]
A
And then you do a workup getting ready for deployment.
- [31:09]
C
We, as soon as we get there, they're actually, hey, we're going straight to Panama in, like, two months. That. That was when they were shutting Panama down.
- [31:16]
A
Okay.
- [31:16]
C
It's 1999 now. We're gonna be one of the last guys to rotate in there. And it's pretty cool because we're only going as, like, a company element. And all we're doing is, like, you know, garden Air Force and Navy's fucking weapons depots and ship, because they're pulling everything back that's important. So, you know, we don't have a whole crazy bunch of responsibility. But it's fun. It's awesome. I've never Seen the jungle before now. Made it with like a gun. Like this is, you know, this is cool. Hell yeah.
- [31:39]
A
Good of watching those non movies. You think you're a nom 100 said.
- [31:44]
C
And we're on this air force base too, which is obviously awesome. Like swimming like a mile a day because they have a badass pool. I mean it's great. Oh, also you can drink in Panama.
- [31:54]
A
Yeah.
- [31:54]
C
Regardless of age. So yeah, I turn, I'm 18 when we start. I turned 19 down there. But you can just buy booze at the PX because of the country we're having. So it's great.
- [32:02]
A
And they're just. Yeah, the freaking 19 year old grunts fantasy.
- [32:06]
C
Hell yeah. Exactly. Right. But there's a couple others. Of course you kind of. Especially if you're always going to kind of gravitate towards the dudes that are like you. So I end up gravitate towards a couple dudes are also hard asses and like hey, we could, you know, fucking drink a million beers or we could drink a couple of beers and also get really hard and fucking do a bunch of gym shit and go to the, you know, recon screen. We get home and that's so that's kind of what we do. We work out the whole time, get all, you know, fucking yoked up, come back. One of the guys goes to a state platoon, goes to their doc, ends up in Stapletoon. I go to the recon screen, pass that one. We and get some recon battalion eventually.
- [32:40]
A
And so when you get done passing the recon screening then do you go to the recon school in Coronado?
- [32:46]
C
No. What do you do? You don't go straight there. What you do the screening is just like you're good enough that we'll spend a little bit time looking to see if you're good enough. It's like a day long. It's kind of tough but it's not anything fun crazy for me. Then you actually get orders to the battalion at Lejeune. Alright. And you show up and you're in a different status than everybody else. In fact the first thing you get is a rope that goes around your body. It's tied in this fucking certain way. And that rope means that anybody there can fuck with you at any time they want regardless of their rank and regardless of your rank. And that, that's, that's what's gonna happen. I'm gonna put you through this and see if you're good enough to go to either ARS over at Little Creek or be our basically BRC over here at Coronado.
- [33:31]
A
And then how long do you spend there before you go to one of those schools?
- [33:35]
C
Well, this is where things turn a little bit weird, too. So at this time, like, Recon Battalion is. Is hurting for bodies like they're. They cannot fill the fed. There's only. There's supposed to be a battalion. We've got three platoons on the east coast.
- [33:47]
A
Damn.
- [33:47]
C
Yeah. And that's for. That's for Recon Battalion. The Force Recon guys are attached to us. And I think they've got like, two or three platoons too. It's so slim. The guys are basically in a cycle of mew workup. Mew six months off mew workup. So they're really trying to have to get more 0321s into the battalion. So this is one of those things that I'm glad it happened the way it happened, because it was different, but it also is gonna kind of fuck us. It's like, do you have an asterisk next to your mos? So they decide like, hey, we can't get enough fucking school slots. We're gonna run a BRC right here at Lejeune in house. All right? So they. They do. And the guys that end up doing it, like, they don't want to do it either. Because now we're with tradition. We're doing, like. We're really coloring outside the lines, so they are extra brutal on us because they want this program to fail. All right? They. They do not want this happen. But also, orders are orders, so you gotta. You gotta do your. Yeah, they. They. They us up. They. We end up. We. Actually, the whole battalion has to go to Greece in the middle of this too. So now we're in a foreign country doing a thing where they fucking want to fuck with you. And, yeah, they fucking break our asses off. The big thing at BRC areas is called patrol week. And it's. It's like the rough equivalent, like hell week, right? It's different. It's not exactly the same thing. It was like, oh, you get fucked up and have these stupid missions and no food, no sleep, all shit. They give us a double one. They give us 10 days instead of five. Yeah, it's. It's fucking crazy. And it does to a degree. I don't even remember how many of us graduated. I want to say to 40, it was like six or nine. It was not many. Like, they us up.
- [35:30]
A
There's. You know, I'm for the boys as much as the next guy, but, man, when you give when you let the boys loose like that.
- [35:37]
C
Oh, dude, it's not good. It is not good. It's funny actually, actually where I end up. That's the first time I ever meet captain. As in back too. Okay for a minute. He ends up in charge of like the. The ripple tunes and Dude's a monster and you know, he's legend and he'll come out and like fight the whole RIP class at once. Yeah. Great guy. And you know, I also think partially that they put him in charge of this for a little bit because they had to give it the air of legitimacy. Like if you're gonna do some and like, you know, we're gonna give tridents out in Thailand this week instead of in Coronado. Like. Like, you really gotta have your shit correct. All right. Maybe Captain Zimbabwe adds enough weight to this to make it count. Whatever. Anyway, so we graduate. They send almost all of us to. To one new platoon now. We got four platoons on the east coast. We just made a new one with some other guys. This. This also makes the transition to recon battalion, like really shitty. As like the dudes that weren't there and like, didn't see what the happened. You know, they're. They're blowing up the hallway like, hey you. You didn't ran up the Loch Ness monster where thing is a little creek. And we're like, hey you. Like, we did some crazy. I'll fight you right now. We've just done this, you know, three or four however long it's. It's ugly as. And then they also flip around us from there, like, hey, we decided to cast. We're gonna send you a little creek. We're like, oh, God damn it. You know, this is gonna like, we'll do it if you have to, but it's. It's painful. But I end up not doing that. They're like, hey it. You know €321s. But this was kind of the thing that will like, kind of plague somebody like if somebody wants to talk for like the rest of our career recon.
- [37:10]
A
Yeah.
- [37:11]
C
It. Yours doesn't count.
- [37:12]
A
Yeah.
- [37:17]
C
Oh.
- [37:19]
A
So. And so now you're done.
- [37:21]
C
Y.
- [37:21]
A
So now you're. Oh, 3:21.
- [37:23]
C
Now I'm cool.
- [37:23]
A
And. And we go to. You go on deployment, do a workup.
- [37:28]
C
So. So we go to school phase first. That's where you're going to get like your specialized that you need. You know something because we don't have it built in like. Like, like buds does. We don't have dive school built in and we don't have airborne pipeline, but every platoon is supposed to have a dive team and a jump team and a, you know, fucking rucksack team. So, so, so we got to get six dudes dive qualified down at Panama City. We got to get six dudes airborne qualified. And then there's also some like other little bullshit. We've got to have a couple snipers and we got to have, you know, whatever else. So basically they, they get the, the dream sheet of who wants to do what. I actually did really well at our, our course. I didn't, I wasn't like the fucking honor graduate, but I got a little fucking, you know, most hua dude fucking award. They're like, Lance Colber, Martin, you are stupid, but goddamn you are hard. You know, whatever.
- [38:14]
A
Stupid but tough. We'll take those guys too.
- [38:17]
C
Guys are good to go, right? Exactly. So anyway, we get to all pick and because I did awesome there, I pick what I want, which is when you scout sniper school actually asked for Ranger school and we're discussing sniper school, but they're like, there's no way you can do this. Two things back to back. So you're going to go to airborne school and Pathfinder and if you pass that, you go to scout sniper school. Nice.
- [38:35]
A
Yeah, that the. So you went the. How long is that Marine Corps Scout sniper school that you went through?
- [38:41]
C
Oh man. I was, I was actually trying to remember this a couple days ago. I want to say it's 13 weeks back then. I mean it's, it's ugly and, and long.
- [38:48]
A
Yeah, that was kind of the, like our, our SEAL snipers. Yeah, that was sort of the basis of where when they started putting that school together, a lot of our early guys and they went to like all kinds of different schools put together, but they're definitely. And we would send guys to that school straight up. So that's a very respected school.
- [39:06]
C
Yeah, very much so.
- [39:07]
A
Did you like. Is there. What's the attrition rate in that school?
- [39:10]
C
Oh, fuck. It is, it is fucking high. This is something that I'll have to like try to explain to like my army teammates many years later after I've done sodic because I didn't get re qualified over there. The difference between, you know, Green Berets and their special. Their sniper school and I'm guessing it's probably this way for seals and their sniper school is in the Marine Corps. Sniper school is not just like a follow on skill where we teach you how to do shit because we have sniper platoons also. So It's a fucking brutal reality gut check. Like, we're gonna fuck with you and make sure you're a tough guy and do all kinds of, like, dumb shit and just to see if you're good enough to. Not just if you can shoot and be a sniper, but if, like, you're hard because it is a gatekeeping thing for their community, and so you get to skip those parts. You're like, well, you know, I got my decoder. Like, oh, yeah. Coming at week four. No, no, you're getting up too. So it's very high. I want to say it's over 50%. There's. There's actually pictures of classes where nobody graduated. It's like the instructor standing there with.
- [40:11]
A
Right on. And you're. Did you. Did you, like, have that urge to be a sniper when you were a kid?
- [40:17]
C
No.
- [40:18]
A
What made you think it was cool?
- [40:19]
C
This has kind of been the. Before I've gone in, like, I've read, you know, like, all the Carlos Hathcock books and all this other shit too. And I've also looked at it as, like, the two most badass tough guy things you can be in the Marine Corps is a recon dude and a sniper. So you can manage, do both of those. Like, you. You're good to go, which would have been a lot easier if I could fucking shoot.
- [40:36]
A
Are you a shitty shout natural?
- [40:37]
C
I'm fucking terrible. I'm fucking awful. I think I'm good because, you know, I don't know, I've spent some time in my fucking 22 at the range and, you know, shooting stuff. I walk out of boot camp with the. The pizza box of shame, which in the. The three grades of Marine marksmanship, there's an expert, which is, you know, awesome. There's sharpshooter, and then there's the barely pass, which is the pizza box square. Everybody can see it from a mile away. Like you. Yeah. Turns out I actually fucking suck with a rifle. Oh, fuck. So this is also a problem because this is getting in the way of the other half of the dream, right? Yeah. So, like, oh, shit. And actually, to get into our Marine Scout sniper school as a Marine, you have to qualify consecutively two years or two times expert. All right, so gonna be a little bit of a problem. So good recon. Remembering what I do, I cheat my ass off. I go to the rifle range of our boys and the way that we used to do things like, okay, you gonna. You and me see each other. Okay, you go down to. You go down to the pits. I Can take your pencil, mark me. Don't set the record or no crazy, but I need. I need a 225 or whatever the paddle. And so we do. We've managed to do this somehow in like six months. And that last time the fucking guys come in like, dude, those last five shots, I'm not sure they hit the fucking earth. So I've not exactly set myself up for fucking success. Right? But I do go to go to sniper school. I don't even. I think I've shot a fucking rifle with a scope on it like one time before. This, this is. This is not good. And I end up passing the shooting phase of Marine Scouts sniper school by my last bullet. Damn. Yeah, like fucking for real. Like, in the world of honesty, I wish somebody would go pull the fucking records. I could theoretically actually be the worst shooting Marine Scout sniper that's ever lived. But it turns out I'm awesome at the other stuff, though, like stalking and, you know, fucking field grabs, all this. I shoot the, you know, shoot with the blanks, you know, little stock like we've all seen in the, you know, Clue presentation movie. I shoot the NCO IC of Marine Scout Sniper School, who's a legend. And like, the baddest dude in the world is spotting people from 10 meters and get away with it. So get a little legit. Get a little respect from that one. Like, you know, you can't shoot for, but you can get close enough to stab him. So you good enough.
- [42:59]
A
So where are you when September 11th goes down?
- [43:01]
C
Oh, fuck.
- [43:03]
A
Because we had to be getting closest.
- [43:04]
C
To getting real close to it. Yeah. So this is actually in a lot of ways for pre war shit. This is like the dream come true. I'm a fucking. Oh, 321 with a fucking Hogstooth by my 21st birthday, which is fucking awesome. So we actually go out to 29 palms. That's our first thing we do as a platoon, you know, do US Desert bullshit. I am sitting in the PX at Lejeune getting a haircut so we can have like our first formation after this 29 palm when maybe the second plane hits the first one kind of. I don't even know if most people acknowledge, you know, it's an accident. We're sitting there with the barber chairman. The second happens like, oh, so, you know, off we go, finish our haircuts.
- [43:45]
A
Get back to battalion, and you're 21 at that time.
- [43:47]
C
I'm 21? Yep.
- [43:49]
A
Do you have any idea, like, are.
- [43:51]
C
You like, oh, we're going to war? Oh, yeah, dude, we were. We are stoked. Like, we're mad. We're mad as. All right. Happened also, we're like, we were going, dude, this is World War iii, Vietnam all rolled into one. Like, we're going.
- [44:02]
A
And so I was like. I guess it was. I was 30, I guess, at the time, so I'm 30 years old, maybe 31, but I've been in the military for a long time. Yeah. So I was like, where you were thinking, like, oh, It's World War 3, right?
- [44:16]
C
Yeah.
- [44:16]
A
I'm like, dude, just going to, like, there's going to be a couple strike missions. There's going to be a couple DAs. Like, yeah, we're going to drop a bunch of bombs.
- [44:23]
C
Yeah.
- [44:24]
A
Because what was the last thing we did? Some, you know, like, we dropped bombs in Kosovo and shit like that. You know, like, big air campaign, but no boots on the ground.
- [44:30]
C
Yep.
- [44:31]
A
Which, honestly, I'm looking at now. Like, a pretty cool thing. You know, everyone's talking about this. That what we just did in Iran.
- [44:37]
C
Yeah.
- [44:38]
A
People like, you know, well, what is that? I'm like, that's actually a pretty legit way to run a war.
- [44:43]
C
Fucking brilliant, actually.
- [44:44]
A
36 hours, like, we all come home.
- [44:46]
C
Right.
- [44:47]
A
Bad guys are having problems now.
- [44:49]
C
Yeah.
- [44:49]
A
Okay, well, that sounds like a good deal to me.
- [44:51]
C
Yeah.
- [44:51]
A
So that. That 90s war is actually a pretty cool thing. I support the 90s war mentality.
- [44:56]
C
I guess I should rephrase my position. I don't think that we're gonna, like, you know, be building liberty ships and throw a fuck. But I do think, like, it's like the Johnny Commando guys, they're like, we're gonna fuck everybody up. We're gonna be doing this for next 20 years, just fucking stabbing people in their sleep. All kinds of awesome shit. But that is not what's gonna happen for us either, right then.
- [45:12]
A
Mm. How long is it? Do you go to Afghanistan?
- [45:16]
C
No. No, no, no. So this is actually, like, it's worth the time to tell. It's a very important story, I think, especially for, like, your podcast and talk about leadership, the stuff that you cover all the time. I'm about to see, like, some kind of crazy shit that I will never see again. So this happens, you know, we. We don't go anywhere. Crazy shit's happening. They got like, you know, little grunts, like, digging fight positions outside the company headquarters and putting machine gun. Yeah. Nobody knows what the fuck is. There's, like, guys defending Oslo beach and shit. We're like, what the fuck? But none of this Happens. So a little bit of time goes by and we as Marines kind of, like, started getting back into, like, normal flow. There's probably, by this point, like, a little bit of shit happening in Afghanistan. Delta's over there and some range, some fuck. Shit. We're like, holy fuck, this is happening. We're going. And what's our job going to be? What. What the fuck are we about to go do? And a little bit more time. So we're probably mid October, it's been, like, a month. And we. We're confused, basically. And we end up doing this exercise out at the beach. The whole battalion, and we're doing an amphib exercise. You know, boats and, you know, SCUBA tanks and. And now we're really kind of like, what the. You know, it's Afghanistan. Like, what are we doing? We think maybe we've got some other going on. Maybe we're building up to, you know, go hit North Korea, whatever. So word comes down that his name is, I can't remember, Sergeant Major Duke or Dukes, but it doesn't matter. We got this dude that, for us is kind of like. Like the bullfrog. All right? He's like, the oldest guy that's a Recon Marine. He's actually a weird story because he was a Green Beret Nom.
- [46:58]
A
Damn.
- [46:59]
C
Yeah. And he might. He might have even been, like, battlefield commission. And then, you know, some crazy happened, and he became a Marine instead.
- [47:05]
A
Hey, whether it's true or not, the legend lives. Battlefield commissioned at Nom.
- [47:11]
C
But I definitely know he wasn't. Like, he came and spoke at our ball the year before this. So, like, I know who he is. And, like, he's got, like, all kinds of medals and, you know, Silver Star, you know, crazy. He's out now. He's retired long before I show up, but he's still kind of like our guy. And he's. He's. So he shows up on the beach, he's like, hey, guys, check it out. It's like, my new job right now is like, I'm special advisor to Commandant about, you know, fucking recon Force, recon bullshit. Like, okay. And he's like, all right, I gotta talk to you guys. I gotta tell you what's up. It's like, what's up now is I told the commandant that. That you guys are not ready. You hear, like, a pin drop on that beach, like, what? He's like, yeah, you know, everyone's SoCal's gonna go do some crazy. And, you know, I just don't, you know, really have the faith and you, you guys, your fucking shits together. And so I advised him of that and you know, that's what's up. We're like, this is where he makes his mistake, though. He's like, hey, look, it was hard to take, all right? I don't know. We're also just like, what the else are we gonna do? Like Snyder's little assaulter dudes over here, you know, he's like, so, you know, hey, I know it's probably kind of hard to take, but he's like, I'm staying at the base hotel. I'm in room like, yo, 105 royal. He wants to come talk to me about, you know, why I think this and you know what my, you know, come come and see me. Like, okay, so he, you know, off back to the back to base. I don't even know what the hell he's doing something on Legend that day. So we finish our lamp of shit now we go plan our little fake charges on the bridge, whatever bullshit again. We grabbed a couple of fucking hard ass dudes. Like this motherfucker was running the jungle of Nam at 19. He's going to tell me like, we ain't ready. Like, I want to know why. So it's like midnight, we go to the px, get a case of beer, fucking trope this room, bang on the door. He answers the door in his tidy whities like, hey, Sergeant Major Dukes, I'm. Whoever this, whoever this, whoever you said anytime he place rock, case of beer, we want to know why we're not ready. He's like, you know, guys, it's kind of late. Maybe come back some other time. And that is the moment that my faith in the Marine Corps shattered. We get back in the car and go back to our barracks and we're like, what just happened?
- [49:30]
A
Insane.
- [49:30]
C
Yeah, it's crazy.
- [49:33]
A
But you still got to go on deployment.
- [49:34]
C
Oh, yeah, I still got, you know, I still got like two years left. My contract. Like, yeah, we're doing this. So a bunch of us at that point. Now the war in Afghanistan is accelerating. There's stuff going on, there's other guys going over and you know, honest to God, we all start looking at where am I going to go next? Because it's not going to be here. You know, what are the seals doing? What are Green Berets doing? What are Rangers doing? You know, what, what, what's the, what's the checklist of, you know, how do I, how do I cross services? So, yeah, so this sucks.
- [50:02]
A
You know what's crazy is I was in Baghdad when the guys got hung from the bridge in Fallujah.
- [50:08]
C
Yeah.
- [50:08]
A
And I was this SEAL platoon commander at the time. And I was like, dude, we will go get him right now. And I told my task you commander who was a freaking aggressive, great dude. He runs up to the C.J. so like, hey, I got guys that are loading their vehicles right now. Like, we can be there in 30 minutes. And they're like, no, stand down.
- [50:26]
C
And the Marines winning.
- [50:28]
A
Okay. And I was like talking to my assistant platoon commander. I'm like, hey, dude, I'm. I'm going to the Marine Corps. Like, I'm done with this. This is bullshit. Like, I'm going to the Marine Corps and like, I'm going to figure it out. And he's like, I'm in.
- [50:40]
C
You know.
- [50:41]
A
And so luckily some things happened where he, he ended up going and working with the Marines for like a couple weeks.
- [50:48]
C
Yeah.
- [50:49]
A
And. And that was at the end of deployment. So I went home and he stayed and worked with Marines for like a week or two.
- [50:55]
C
Yeah.
- [50:56]
A
And he came back and I was like, dude, how's the Marine Corps? And he goes, we don't want to be in a Marine Corps. And I was like. I go, that. He goes. He goes, it's not, it's. And look, I do love the Marine Corps, but. Yeah, it's not. Not. Well, I'm glad I ended up where I ended up.
- [51:14]
C
I think I want to make something very clear about my position. A lot of these stories again, like, I've. I've never told, especially one like this. I've never told them this kind of detail. I didn't want to demoralize, like, you know, young Marines, shit, when the fucking war is going on. Like, I don't think they're fucking awesome Johnny Commando badass motherfuckers, because they are.
- [51:28]
A
They are.
- [51:29]
C
They fucking are. And this was just not going to be fucking helpful. And there's a lot of awesome shit that the Marine Corps does for me in this one little microcosm though. Like, I've just gotten, you know, smacked in the fucking mouth and I'm not happy about it.
- [51:41]
A
Oh, yeah. I mean, I got asked by Dave Portnoy. Dave Portnoy, he's like, we're at the, at the Naval Academy. Navy Army, Navy football game. And he's like, if you had to pick one branch, go to war. And like, as he's finishing, it's like, Marine Corps.
- [51:53]
C
Yeah, man.
- [51:55]
A
When you work with the Marine Corps, like the Marine Corps, they Are good. They're at a high level across the board, and they can make so much stuff happen. And freaking Marines are just reliable. Like, they will get the shit done.
- [52:05]
C
Oh, yeah.
- [52:06]
A
So God bless Marine Corps.
- [52:09]
C
God bless. Yeah.
- [52:09]
A
All right, now. Now. But you still, like I said, you.
- [52:12]
C
Got to go into. Oh, you got to go fucking deployment. Yeah, yeah. So we do a fucking. Oh, finish up our school shit. This is actually where I break my back. So my first jump out of airborne school, you know, I end up going to airborne school because I gotta be on the jump team. Sheer two vertebrae in the. In the fucking back on a jump when we're supposed to be doing mu train up. We weren't even supposed to be in this fucking jump. We're trying to get our gold wings before we get out of the Marine Corps. We at least have something. I. I am up.
- [52:39]
A
Like just a static line jump?
- [52:40]
C
Yeah, just static. It's out of one of the, you know, the beach Aussies. Like, army dudes don't know. You dudes are the Navy dude. When you jump over the ocean and you're headed for, like, the breeze can come up, like, crazy winds come, and that's what happens. We jump out of this 46 winds jump to, you know, some ridiculous speed, and we are just.
- [52:55]
A
Boom.
- [52:56]
C
Yeah. A couple dudes get up. I get fucked up the most, though. But now we're in a weird spot. Like, oh, fuck. Like, I can't. We can't go tell the mew that I just, you know, got, like, hurt. Hurt during. So we're trying to cover this up is kind of what it is. You know, my medics, like, coming in my room. Help me out. We don't go to the hospital because, you know. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. We'll wait and see. All right, take this out. Take this a little bit. By the time I finally do have to go to hospital, so six or eight weeks later, I get a bone scan. They're like, we can see two vertebrae were broken. We can't tell you when, like, you can still walk and you still use all your fingers. So this could have happened when you're 16. It could have happened last week or six weeks ago. I'm like, okay. And I'm like, so we're still in the workout, and finally my. My platoon sergeant comes to me because I'm. They're kind of like, hiding me in the back, too, while they're doing some Reggie. And he's like, hey, look, man, he's. He's a legend. He's. Dude's awesome. His name is Derek Simmons. He's actually got like six combat action ribbons by, you know, 2001, because he's been like everything you can be in from like 1983 to now. Yeah, he's famous for doing pull ups against Arnold Schwarzenegger with twin 80s on his back when they're still at the beach and winning. Damn, he's a monster. Check it out, dude. It's like I broke my back one time too, and guess what? That hurt like a son of a. He's like, you got two choices right now, though. You can either put your runner shoes on and, and show me in the next two weeks that you're tough enough to still be here, or you can get med boarded and your military career is over. And I'm like, oh, I picked the running shoes. Let's go. All right. And it hurts, you know, but, you know, three or four months later, we're on the mew. I'm the mountains of Kosovo with fucking Reiki rock. So, you know, we go on the mew now it's like 2002. We think maybe like this is going to be like, are mew is going to do like, you know, strike packages now we're going to, you know, fucking do some Johnny Commando shit. I don't know. But we're still going on the mew. Hope springs eternal. At that point. You're like, well, at least we have like bullets and we're in kind of. We're not in America or at least somewhere that some shit could pop off. But mostly nothing. Dallas, you know, we fucking dick around on the mew. It ends up becoming like the longest mew of all time, if I'm not mistaken. It's like nine, ten months. And yeah, so eventually we're. Oh, we all get stop loss too. Like, they had to extend the mew, so we had to stop loss us.
- [55:10]
A
And we're like, fuck, were you in the Med? Where were you?
- [55:13]
C
We were in the Med and then we kept going through the Sue. We went through the Suez like fucking six, seven times. So we'll go down to the Red Sea and we'll go over Djibouti and we. Then we're around the Persian Gulf and then we'll go. They just really can't decide what the to do with us.
- [55:26]
A
So you're going freaking crazy.
- [55:27]
C
Oh, yeah, we're losing our. We are losing our. And then we also can see like Fox News on the ship. Like they're doing the. The buildup for Iraq and Like, every show. First mar. Div here and lar and like, for months. I don't even. It was a long time. A long time. Yeah. And we're like, you know, we're like. And then you're also trapped in this decision cycle. Like, let's say the mute gets home. Can I immediately reenlist for First Force recon and land in Kuwait two weeks later? Like, I don't know. Or is this the time to cross services?
- [55:58]
A
This is grunt math right here, bro.
- [56:00]
C
This is grunt math.
- [56:01]
A
Like, how do I get to war, bro?
- [56:03]
C
Right? Are they. Are we really going to Iraq or is this. And I'm gonna re. Enlist in the Marine Corps and get. For another four years. Like, ah, son of a bitch. But we end up getting extended and we're out there. Oh, and this is. This is the fucking. This is the brutal part of this. So same gunny that was our gunny that had, you know, six combat action ribbons. Like, every thing. He's like, we go on the mew. He's like, hey, check it out, guys. I need to tell you some. Some terrible that may happen. He's like, when we went to Desert Storm, he's like, I went, that's number four right here. He's like, there was a mew that sat on the coast of Iraq and never stepped foot on land. And those motherfuckers were not happy. And that could be us. I'm like, so we are in the. We are in the fucking middle of the Persian Gulf doing Gator squares when. When OIF kicks off, and we're like, oh, my God. Like, it's not quite that I can go up to the flight deck with binos and see the war taking place, but, you know, it feels.
- [57:02]
A
Might as well.
- [57:02]
C
Yeah, might as well. We go so fucking crazy, actually. That is, like, they turn around, they're like, okay, I'm just headed home. There's like four or five of us are, like, down in the well deck having, like, a deep plotting session.
- [57:12]
A
Like, we're going to ua.
- [57:13]
C
Yeah, we're taking a zone off the side of the ship. Like, we can calculate the gas. We got a gps. We know where the we are. And there's actually a pretty proud tradition anyway in the Marine Corps of, like, dudes going UA to go to war. Like, some of the more famous dudes are, like, written books, like, stowed away on a plane to go to Korea, you know, like, they're in Pearl Harbor Garden some. Next thing you know that the chosen and the tradition has always been too. Like, if you manage to. Do you manage to get there? Yeah.
- [57:36]
A
You're kind of cleared.
- [57:37]
C
Yeah. They're like, okay, it. Yeah, we'll deal with this after the war. And then you know, then they don't. They're like, all right, high five. That was actually awesome. He has a badass. So you know, we're trying to figure this out and like are we really going to do this? Because this, if we get caught in this process too, like we're going to get. You're going to. They're going to. They're gonna pound us and probably never go to another branch of service either. But before we can make a decision, I don't know, I don't remember exactly what day we went, but Nazaria had started happening. All right. And, and Nazarea is a be right. Like dudes are getting up down there like, like crazy shit's happening. The advance kind of stops and I guess and they come back over the one MC and they're like this. The reserves got called in. That's us. Yay. So off we go now. We're. We're headed to the war.
- [58:27]
A
Hell yeah.
- [58:28]
C
Finally.
- [58:29]
A
And where'd you guys land? Where'd they put you?
- [58:32]
C
First thing we end up in Kuwait doing some bullshit. They can't really figure what the fuck to do with this because a MEW is actually a very under strength thing too. You know like four tanks and like five artillery pieces and you know, not enough trucks, definitely not enough helicopters. So mostly now we're still like fucking. Because they can't decide what the fuck to do with this. We change commands like six times one day. Like task force hero one maf. No fucking go with these army terawagon. Like what are you going to do? We end up military leadership especially of one is chaos, bro. They, they got like no one knew anything. Yards full of trucks they're just like repairing and like they don't even give a. If you sign for anywhere. Like you need a Humvee, take a Humvee, you know if one's fixed. So yeah, it mostly ends up being like total though. So we end up up by Al G. Guarding this crossroads with like us like company of grunts and a couple tanks and, and I don't know, the fucking other infantry guys go somewhere else and the other guys go somewhere else. And this is, this is like, this is like leadership. Fucking real shit that happened. Number two because this, this one, this one took a long time to sort out. This is like the, the final death blow of any, any thought of still Being in the fucking Marine Corps. So our. Our legendary platoon sergeant has also gone home. Not because we were going to war, but because like a week or two before this kicked off, like he has some fucking family shit like his mom's dying or some bullshit. So I can't. I can't be mad at him really. We needed him. But fucking also be seventh tour like he. Somebody else needs him too. So now instead of a gunny, we've got like an E5 who's not exactly a strong dude anyway as like our acting platoon sergeant, right? And there's a difference between like a gunny standing up to a captain. Be like, hey, no, that ain't gonna fucking happen. And, you know, six year sergeant standing up to fucking captain. It can be a very. It's a very different dynamic. So I'm definitely gonna say this part of that, say his name. But we're there for a while and we're doing, you know, basically just some. We're like, we're doing like night patrols for the grunts out in the. But, you know, nothing. Not what the we're supposed to be doing. Nobody's letting us have a rage because you were named SPF too. We got all these CB skills. And so finally, like, we can like, force a confrontation as you can, in a way, with like the captain, our captain. Like, dude, what are we doing? I will never forget this. All right, now he's pissed at us. He actually pulls a little cap Martin off his armor and throws him in the dirt. And he's like, I don't agree with this war and this is stupid, and I'm not getting any of you killed for, you know, some dumbass objective that doesn't matter. And we're like, you got. You got to be me. This is another thing that, like, I've never said out loud just because so many other fucking marine officers are awesome. You know, fucking Shantosh is doing his bullshit, right? Course fucking 3rd lar is down at the fucking Carballa Gap doing fucking all kinds of fucking awesome shit. This is the first time that I'm like, I'm seeing fucking cowardice out of our officer corps. What I think is cowardice. Maybe in retrospect he's got a little bit of a moral point, but at the time, it feels like fucking cowardice. It feels like he is a fucking coward and he's now using that to shield us from anything that we can do.
- [61:35]
A
Yeah. And the thing. The thing that really hurts about that is like, oh, if we. So we're not going to do this, but someone else is going to go to it.
- [61:41]
C
Oh, yeah, you're exactly right. Yeah. 100.
- [61:43]
A
Like, you can not agree with the war, but I don't. There's other Marines that are going to have to go do this that we're not doing right now.
- [61:48]
C
Exactly right.
- [61:48]
A
That's not.
- [61:49]
C
No, that should.
- [61:50]
A
Don't work.
- [61:50]
C
No, that's fucking bullshit.
- [61:51]
A
That's. That's. It don't work right there.
- [61:53]
C
No, no. It's fucking awful. And this. This feels like a fucking huge, like, personal stain on our honor too, you know, when it's all said and done. And it's also one of those things you look back on, like, you know, should I. Should I take that another level? Should I have gone and found, like, I don't know who the mute command or some. But really, you know, at the time, the calculus is probably right too. Like, it's Marine Corps. They're not probably gonna believe a sergeant over a captain. And that's a hell of a accusation to make if you can't back it up. You got no proof. But it does. It hurts. I mean, it hurts fucking bad.
- [62:30]
A
Did you guys do anything good? Did you guys, you know, did you have some good experiences at least over there?
- [62:36]
C
Kind of just like.
- [62:38]
A
Like, you always felt like you were a little bit on the outside of where was happening.
- [62:42]
C
Yeah, we go. We go on some breathing and being dry holes. Fucking bullshit. It basically ends up being like, basically really, like, I come back with all the bullets I left with. Like, we don't even have combat action ribbons. And we shouldn't because we didn't earn them. Yeah, it's. It's incredibly shitty. And we're there the shortest amount of time of any unit anyway. Like, I mean, we spent like six, seven weeks in Iraq maybe. Yeah, we were literally the first guys. That actually makes it worse because we're the first guys home to Lejeune. Oh, so they got the band, like, all the Johnny War Hero coming. We're like.
- [63:15]
A
You're like, shame.
- [63:16]
C
Like, God damn it. Like, yeah.
- [63:20]
A
Did you. Was that the moment you made up your mind you were gonna leave the Marine Corps?
- [63:24]
C
I'd already made up my mind, but that fucking solidified it. I mean, this was so. This was so bad. This is real shit, man. Like the. The 30 day flight or drive home on the fucking USS NASA. I'm like, I was gonna go in the fucking world. I could eat my 1911. Like, this is so fucking humiliating. Like, this is so fucking bad. Yeah, it's. It's Fucking brutal. It's a hard thing to describe. Like how, how much something like that happening. It would even be different like if, like if, you know, I was a, like, oh, you know, if I can't fight, well, maybe you'll sell insurance or some. When somebody else is like dishonored you by their, like that is real hard to take. Basically it keeps me going is like, I will redeem this at any price anywhere, Legion. Like somebody's getting dealt with.
- [64:08]
A
Yeah, there's something about, it's, it's, it's really hard to explain but man, there's something about young men want to go to war.
- [64:16]
C
Yeah.
- [64:16]
A
And it's like wanting to breathe.
- [64:19]
C
Yeah.
- [64:19]
A
You know, it's like one dude like I need oxygen. And when you're seeing that from the outside, looking at it, it's like guys will do anything. Like you, like you pointed out, guys would go UA and freaking break rules to go and fight. You know, that's what people are doing.
- [64:34]
C
This is something I don't think people understand about like the, the, like the real, real warrior cast. And this will be put to me by, by SF1 officer many years later and he was right. He's like, there's two kind of guys that end up sf. There's guys that came here for the, you know, the hat, the tab and groupies. They want to go, you know, tell girls they're cool guy commando chasing. And those are the guys that if I told them right now, either the Hawaiian Tropic girls over there and I got a bag full of coke or we can go on a patrol in these shitty swamp and it's gonna rain and be cold and piss and there's like a fucking 4% chance we're making contact with the enemy. Those guys are the, the guys that would pick that it's not even guaranteed. But there's a chance. Young guys, the, the warrior guys, they really don't want, they want to fight when they want to, which is a lot.
- [65:18]
A
So you, you're driving home and. Or you're, you're sailing home.
- [65:23]
C
NASA. Yeah, yeah.
- [65:25]
A
And you get home and how's the transition? Is it hard to do?
- [65:28]
C
Oh, it's fucking lightning fast. So for those of us that were stop loss Marine Corps is like, you got two weeks, you're fucking out of here. Like fucking get all your shit done. Turned out one of the dudes in, in our platoon, his brother had been a recon Marine also, but he's a recruiter in the West Virginia National Guard. Like a fucking sergeant major recruiter at this point. And there's a National Guard Reserve battalion up there. So yeah, we make the fucking link up. You know, he walks us right in and we go straight to the, the SF Guard unit.
- [65:55]
A
There's that SFR Guardian is like the best for dudes.
- [65:59]
C
It is awesome. It's amazing. It's. It's funny because I'll end up talking with some other buddies that are like Reserve seals after this. And I can see strength the way you guys do it where you have to be active duty first and then you can be reserve SEAL because we got the National Guard SF is inverse. Like you can be a nobody. Freaking crazy nuts. The thing that makes it really weird then is you can end up with some guys that are kind of questionable, but you also like some of the most badass awesome you've ever met. Because they know how to do from their real job too. Yeah. So it is, it's great. There's their strength.
- [66:30]
A
I think it's cool. I mean they go through the program, they go through the school.
- [66:32]
C
Yeah.
- [66:32]
A
Like it's. Yeah. There's no such thing in the SEAL team, so you have to be an active duty seal, which probably puts you at like around eight years.
- [66:38]
C
Yeah.
- [66:39]
A
And then if you get out, you can be in the reserve SEAL team. So. Q course.
- [66:44]
C
Yeah, you're.
- [66:45]
A
You're freaking ready for that?
- [66:46]
C
Oh, yeah, dude, I've been jack and steel and running a treadmill for nine months. Mad as. So yeah, I got, I got a 500 pound bench press. Like, yeah, we're ready for this.
- [67:01]
A
Did you have to go to. Did you have to go to any kind of like army, like welcome to the army?
- [67:06]
C
No, no, no, no.
- [67:07]
A
Or is it just like someone teach you how to put your uniform on and that's that we're good. Like now you're in the army.
- [67:12]
C
How do you bring that up? It's. It's really cool. Like, the only good thing about going to Marine boot camps, they cast for everybody's. So they, they won't make you go back. So. No. Like, I'm literally a sergeant with. They give me a uniform and, you know, go to sleep. The first time I put my army uniform on is like, I don't know, four or five months later I'm going to my staff sergeant board. I have no idea how to put. I don't even know what the fucking stripes mean. And I show up to my promotion board. My little airborne flash on upside down. God damn it. But it's also an sf. They don't care. They're like, fucking. Who are you? Oh, you've done this shit. Like, all right, fuck it. Yeah.
- [67:47]
A
Any. Any challenges or anything at going through the Q course?
- [67:50]
C
No. And this is. This is kind of cheating the system, too, in the. In this regard, because guys have asked me later, like, what was. What was tougher, what was her. It's really kind of not fair to. To talk about how tough your second time. You succeeded at it, your special operations thing is, because you already know a lot of the games, all right? You already have mental toughness. You already know a lot of shit can be done. It does make it significant.
- [68:13]
A
Oh, yeah, sure.
- [68:14]
C
Yeah. So it's fucking. It's fucking child's play. It's funny because also, all this other bullshit that has happened with the recon community, they. They have now shattered the recon. Like, 70% of recon marines left. Everybody, like, fuck this. We're out of here. There's like, 10 recon marines.
- [68:29]
A
This was at that time?
- [68:31]
C
Yes. Oh, like, as soon as Iraq was over, these guys. Yeah. Anybody that got fucked, anybody that they thought, like, the grass is greener somewhere else is fucking gone. It is a lot. It is a huge percentage. There's, like, you know, 10, 15 recon marines in my SF selection class. Damn. Like, dudes, I haven't seen years. Like, you know, fucking saw this guy back in, like, you know, 1999 at the PX or some. Like, what are you doing here? How about you?
- [68:54]
A
We're in the army now.
- [68:58]
C
I'll end up on ODA later with three or four Recon Marines on it.
- [69:01]
A
Damn.
- [69:02]
C
Yeah, it's crazy. So, yeah, you know, Q course is. Is honestly, you know, again, I've done most of. It's long, but it's no big deal.
- [69:09]
A
Yep. And then you get to a National Guard. You go to the National Guard SF unit. Do you go on deployment?
- [69:13]
C
Oh, yeah. Straight to it, actually. We. Me and my guys, we got to skip graduation, and we got a little ceremonial dinner, whatever, because our battalion was deploying, and we were like, hey, can we. Can we skip this and go fight? And they're like, all right, hell, yeah. See, I go straight to. Back to Iraq, 2006 with the. With the National Guard SF.
- [69:29]
A
Where were you?
- [69:30]
C
I spent a little bit of time. We were attached to 10th group, so. Spent a little bit of time in Baghdad on a 10th group team, and then I went down to Diwania. That was my house.
- [69:37]
A
So what year. What months Was this in? 2006?
- [69:42]
C
It was early in the year. January. February.
- [69:44]
A
January, February.
- [69:45]
C
Somewhere in somewhere.
- [69:46]
A
So was Colonel Tovo in charge of Tampa?
- [69:48]
C
Oh, yeah, yeah, he was.
- [69:49]
A
Hell yeah, he was great.
- [69:50]
C
Yeah, to was awesome because he was, was.
- [69:52]
A
He was. You know, I ended up working for him in 2006 as well. And he was freaking. He was great. Yeah, he ended up like. I think he ended up three star general or something.
- [69:59]
C
Oh, yeah. Oh, this was 2006. Yeah. I was there with you. Where the you were at? I was down south in dia, which is right next to.
- [70:06]
A
It's south of Baghdad.
- [70:07]
C
Right south of Baghdad. And it's kind of between Alter to the east and Karbala to the west.
- [70:13]
A
Okay.
- [70:13]
C
Was it car? Yeah. Karbal.
- [70:15]
A
So you show up there and what are you guys doing?
- [70:18]
C
Oh, man. Fuck. So I'll end up getting sent to a, like a long hair team. Like a, like a six man split team, you know. So I show up, they're like, hey, this is what you're doing. You gotta get attached to these 10th group guys for a minute so they can tell you what to do. Because they're like, grow your hair out, grow a beard. Dye them both black. Don't ever put a uniform again the whole time you're in this fucking country. Where's your civvies at? I'm like, I didn't bring any. Like, the first time we brought like, you know, Finn's and UDT vests to Iraq, which we didn't need this time I brought like all kinds of, you know, armor shit. They're like, we don't need any of that because you're going to have to do this other, you know, fucking bullshit. Like fuck. Okay. So that's what we end up doing. They. I train up with them for a little bit and then I go down to my team, it says, down in southern Iraq. And what we're. Let me be careful how I phrase this just because this is. Yeah, I forget who I'm talking to. We're doing open, open. We're going to end up doing a lot of, like, running around in, you know, Adidas tracksuits and shit. And this is also kind of a cultural thing with, with 10th group. Every group's got their own strengths and shit, but ten's group really doesn't like their intel guy nerds getting mixed up and like some fucking street fights and shakes and people know who you are. So we're gonna, we're gonna chafe at the, at the bit for, for 10's group for a while too on this. But yeah, good deployment. Pretty decent. You know, it's not like the fucking coolest deployment in the world. I do learn how to do some awesome shit. All this intel stuff, which you hate when you're a young guy, you just wanna fucking breach the door and fucking have a 60. You do need to know how to do this other shit too. It's not as fun, but it's like necessary life skills and building all these target packets and doing, honestly, some pretty weird shit. We're out there in fucking taxi cabs with fucking Hodge flash on and shit. But it's not the coolest, but it's all right. While we're down there, though, southern Iraq is. It's not. It's not like, as bad as, like, bag. It's not like Romani. But it is starting to pick up in violence. Especially at that point they're funneling dudes through. Like, the Iranian are coming over here to like, you know, teach them how to lob mortars at somebody and. And like, like, basically fight some incompetent nerds because it's us on, like, a NATO base and they'll send them north after they trained up to fight in the battles of Baghdad. And so. So she does heating up a little bit. And kind of in a weird way, I actually hope Tobo's listen to this. We're gonna have to fight, like, Tinker's bullshit too, because again, they. They want things very regiment. Their culturally tense group is also like the Berlin Brigade still, like. And they're doing cloak and dagger shit against kgb. That's. That's what actually gets that rocks off, which is fine, man. You know, it's awesome. But we. We can't get any help, all right? We're starting to catch more and more fucking heat and more and more, you know, bombs on the base and shit, or you know, interact. And so we kind of have to, you know, bad news bears it a little bit in that. In that SF strength way. So we go over the. The Iraqi army units next to us and we build us a little mic force. Totally off the books. All right. Build McKill House at a. You know, they call this the. The boxes full of sand.
- [73:12]
A
Oh, hescos.
- [73:14]
C
Yeah. Build McKill has a Heskos. So now we've got what we're actually supposed to be doing, which is intel nerd stuff. And, you know, we got a little Iraqi reckless assault. Oh, we have those. But over here we got an assault section. We gotta wait for sure. And just weird keeps happening. Like, we keep randomly stumbling into, like, guys that are important. Like. Like, we got a call one Time. We're like, hey, yeah, we just happened to be out on this presence patrol, and this guy, you know, like, I don't know, two o' clock some. It's like he's, you know, Sarcali. But some. Some guy that somebody wants came through, and so we snagged him. So can you, like, come get him? They're like, yeah, that. That's a rant. That's. It's very lucky that you guys were there, wasn't it?
- [73:51]
A
Serendipity.
- [73:52]
C
Yeah, serendipity. And we started doing some stuff like that, but it's not. It's like a great tour. You know, we mix that. We get some flights and how long.
- [74:00]
A
Are you there for?
- [74:01]
C
I want to say nine months. I feel like it's a pretty long eight, nine months. It was pretty. It was pretty good. I want to say. Went into, like, September. It was pretty. It was pretty long deployment for. For. For, like, an essay?
- [74:09]
A
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. No, you. We were there, though. You were there almost the entire time I was there. I stayed. I left October 21st, but I got there, like, April. Like, April.
- [74:19]
C
April 1st or something like that.
- [74:20]
A
So you were there the whole time?
- [74:21]
C
Yeah. Oh, and you remember 2006, man, there was some. There was some stuff starting to really pop off. It was when the Golden. Golden Mosque got blown up right before that.
- [74:28]
A
I didn't know. I wasn't tracking what was going on.
- [74:30]
C
In the rest of the country.
- [74:31]
A
I was, like, in Ramadi because my first deployment was. We were. We were in Baghdad, and we traveled all over the place. We hit targets everywhere. But my second deployment, I never left Baghdad. I'm sorry. I never left Ramada. Like, I think I flew one time to Balad to, like, a meeting, right. Like, very early in deployment. And then I never left again.
- [74:49]
C
Yeah.
- [74:49]
A
So I didn't know what that was going on. It was just, like, scraps.
- [74:54]
C
Yeah.
- [74:55]
A
Okay, so you come home from that, and this is when you switched over to active duty?
- [74:58]
C
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So actually, this is kind of a. This is kind of a weird thing. This actually plays apart later, too. So we're having to. We're having to, like, basically make up down there. And our. Our mike force finally tells us they want to go get this, like, really bad dude, and we wanted to get this really bad dude, too, but we got to, like, again, do some crafty boy shit to do it well, so. Because that. We end up falling like Iraqi intelligence and went out in broad daylight with, like, us and, like, Tony Haji's trying to get this real bad dude that turns out knew we were coming because Iraqi intelligence is not awesome at keeping secrets. Fucking huge ass gunfight. All right? We are getting the shit kicked out of us. There are a lot of these dudes fucking there waiting for us and the only thing we've been able to like cobble together for help is the, the NATO base. It's like that and it's all like the Eastern, it's not even like anybody. It's not like the Dutch are there. It's like all the Eastern Europeans that like only want to hang out and so we're supposed to have like a fucking Hind gun ship in support, which is insane. If you watch. Yeah, yeah. Also if you grew up in like action movies, you're like, this is the most crazy shit that's ever happened. But unlike what a Hind gunship should do, like it comes fucking flying in to help us and it takes a of couple AK 47 runs, turn around and go home. We're like, yeah, it's terrible. So it doesn't happen that we fight. It's fucking crazy. But a couple days, maybe a couple weeks later, we're trying to do a rip with fifth group and there's only three of us left down there. Then our might force goes out to, to do something else. We don't have any help now because we don't even have a way to support them. And they get fucking overrun and captured and all the ones that didn't die in the fight and get executed in front of the local J. Shalomani mosque. Yeah, it's fucking hard to tell. Take, that's hard to take. There's some other goes along that story, but it's not important.
- [76:39]
A
So you guys weren't, you had no one with them when they went out to do a hit.
- [76:42]
C
They, they were like, hey, we got, we're going to do this. We're like, there is three of us left. Like we can't like, we literally cannot leave this firebase. And as they go doing it, we, we actually do and I believe the firebase go try to help them. We gotta like cobble together like a coalition. We got like some Navy EOD guys and whoever else we can find is, they're, they're calling us now on their cell phones. Like hell we're getting our asses kicked. We get the rest of the little eighth Iraqi, but we can't get there. We don't get there in time. Like it's, it's trying to like put together a qrf like way too fucking Late and it just doesn't work. That's brutal. That's hard to do.
- [77:12]
A
That's like. That's like as you're leaving.
- [77:14]
C
Yeah, that's like. Like three days before we're going to play home. Yeah.
- [77:18]
A
That's not a good.
- [77:19]
C
No, it's not a good way to end deployment. No, it's fucking. It's. It's rough. It's one of like that kind of maybe uniquely weird ways that like enlisted Green Berets at least kind of do feel like the same burden of command guys that, you know, American officers do because it's not quite the same thing. But still, those are my guys and you know, like I trained them and like I was proud of them and held their hand and all sort of. And then, you know, kind of let him get executed. And that's. That doesn't feel very good either.
- [77:43]
A
Yeah, that's fucking terrible.
- [77:44]
C
Sucks.
- [77:49]
A
So now you get home.
- [77:50]
C
Yep. Get home. I've actually. I took some pretty good rattles on that one too. I got knocked out by rocket like a couple days before the happened. We're in this crazy fight with all kinds of explosions and my head is. Is a little. It's. We don't really know about TBI as much then either. I'm actually up and I just don't know it. But anyway, it. I'm going to act, so I'm not. I'm sure I'm not gonna tell them. I come back. Like, remember all the. I don't know if you guys had the same ones. It's the questions when you get back from deployment, on the sheet they're like, did you fire your personal weapon? You see any dead bodies? You get hit in the head? You know, what are like, you know, yes, no. Yes, whatever. You know, whatever. Like, justifies my cib but also like, no, I don't want to see a shrink. I don't want to see a neurologist. Like, I want to go back. Back to active duty. Yeah, that's what I've seen now too. Like, third group is there and fifth group is. Fifth group ends up coming. And these dudes are awesome. I'm like, yeah, dude, I want to go to like an active. I want to go to one of these two active duty groups because these are. Are getting it done. And so that's it. When you're in the National Guard and you've been deployed like that, you can just basically get your battalion commander sign a thing at the end. Like, I want to go to active. And you know, he'll sign off on you.
- [78:58]
A
Boom, you're done. That's freaking epic.
- [78:59]
C
Yeah.
- [79:00]
A
And so that's where you end up going to third group.
- [79:02]
C
Yeah. So I got to go through what we call it the Ascension program. Ascension or Ascension, some bullshit like that. Basically still the. The active army that will not let you back as an 18 series guy until you go back to Swick. Like, all right, they got to do. You got to do like a. This is make sure that, like, you're not like a total chucklehead. Because you gotta remember we got guys that, like, at their tab in like, 1985, that God bless them, like, they're showing back up. Like, I've been, you know, selling cars for 30 years, but I'm getting on. Here we go. And that's fine for like a National Guard. You can't have that dude, like, you know, the Junior Bravo on a team at third group. Like, you. You can't. There's a different. Different kind of mentality. So maybe you got to go back swig, do like a PT test, do a bunch of other bullshit. Do ruck test. You got to go see shrink again, make sure you're not fucking crazy, and then they'll let you back. So it takes a little while. It takes four or five months. But yeah, I end up going to.
- [79:53]
A
A third group and then right into a team. And it's like, workup cycle. We're getting ready to go.
- [79:57]
C
Yeah, no, it ends up actually being really. Again, just weird coincidence in terms of events. What's. Now my ex wife works the Special Warfare center for us at Bragg. And so. So I end up knowing a bunch of, like, support dudes and that are at their group and as well as you, I know teammates from our team, guys from, like, being in the Q course. But through my wife and like, her, like, I know a bunch of support guys and too. So I go with my orders to check in a third group. And this dude that I know is sitting at like, the S1 clerk. He's like, hey, man. The next, like, 6:18 echoes that check in here. Going to Sigdet, which is like, it's this comms thing where, like, you're gonna stay here and monitor radio traffic for. I'm like, oh. So I go home because I've got like, 30 days to actually check in. I'm like, oh, all right. Gotta make sure there's a Q course graduation between now and then. But, you know, another little twist of fate happens where I've just bought a new house in Fayetteville. The neighbor across the street is, is a Catman third group and he's the fucking sif. So I don't know, I bump into more lawn, like, hey, dude, I gotta figure something out. And he's like, hey, you know, we're. We're actually hurting down at the SIF for bodies. And there's kind of this like weird, like if we say we want, you can kind of. It can, you know, kind of override some other at group level. So, yeah, so that's what I do. He gets me an interview and I go down and I interview with the stiff guys. It's totally cool. And yeah, they'll take me basically because I've got. They need to bring the snipers. I'm a marine sniper already. I've got an aptitude for it. But they're like, okay, check it out. This is like being a new guy all over again. They're like, you have to pass to be in the sniper section. You're gonna have to pass Sephardic and Sodic. And you failure one of those, you're fucking out of the unit. Because that's how it works down there. So, yeah, so, you know, back into the fucking grinder a little bit.
- [81:47]
A
And so did you go to those two skills immediately?
- [81:49]
C
Almost immediately, yeah. Yeah, I go to. I get very lucky with that too. Do a little bit of a train up at Cephalic, which is like our, you know, group level CQB course. Learn how to shoot pistol a little bit better. And for Sephardic back then, there's a shoot in test. All right. So when you show up, like day one, there's like a pistol test.
- [82:08]
A
Are you sweating every shooting test because you suck at shooting.
- [82:12]
C
No, actually a piece of magic happened here. Now that is, that has made me an awesome shooter. It's a twist of fate thing. Do you ever hear the name Todd Hudnett?
- [82:20]
A
No.
- [82:21]
C
Okay. He was this guy, He's a, he's a civilian. He's never been in the military in his life, but basically started winning all these like precision rifle contests back around, like, I don't know, like 2004, 2005. And people like, where the did this guy? He's just like showed up and just kicked everybody's ass. And the military knows, like, you know, like Delta's already had a contract with another shit. And we. So the, like the minute I walk into the Sith and get my, you know, locker, like we're going to this hotnet guy's and I'm. I'm actually sweating even Having to go to a sniper team because like, I know I suck with a sniper. Like, God damn it. Like, why couldn't like I wanted to go to the assault because like, I can at least hit with hammer, man. I can run around fast. Like, I can, you know, carry heavy. Like I. I'm not good at this though. I'm not gonna tell my team this because like, I'm either gonna be in the sift or the sick dad. Like, you know, I will drag anchor chain around my neck for the next 10 years where I'll do that. So we go to the hotnet, dude. And I'm also thinking like, this a civilian. Like, what the does he know about a sniper rifle? Goddamn, look at a hogs dude, man. I'm 8541 Joe. Like they couldn't teach me either. But what the did this guy know? But it turns out he's got. He does have like the magic. He is like one of those like once in a generation guys that is going to like dynamically change the way every everything does with a sniper. Not just us either. Marine, Seal, every. He's gonna advance precision rifle shooting like 50 years in like three years. The big thing that changes things for me is he's like, hey man, is it. He kind of talks like a dumbass cowboy from Texas. Like most people have ever taught you shoot a precision rifle, you get really relaxed and you gotta breathe like, relax and you know, pretend you don't know when the trigger is gonna go off. And I will actually figure out the psychological for this reason for this many years later. It doesn't work for a lot of people as like, all right, poor kids. Again, we're playing the don't flinch game. I can raise my hand and if you flinch, I get to hit you twice. But if you don't flinch, how many times did you not flinch?
- [84:20]
A
I don't know.
- [84:21]
C
Like zero. All right, because there's a million reflex. Like, you know, if I act like I'm gonna hit you.
- [84:26]
A
Check, check.
- [84:27]
C
It's the same thing with a rifle, all right? It doesn't matter how much you will yourself not to have recoil. Like at some like tiny subconscious level, like your body is still gonna make a twitch. You can override that by doing this. So he basically shows us in like the first five minutes where he's course, like if you push into ground with your toes and like flex your leg muscles and lay into your fucking rifle. He calls it loading the bipod, you'll be able to shoot like a totally different way and this, absolutely. This is like a magic trick that in like five seconds has made me infinitely better. Not just maybe infinitely better. Like, as soon as we start shooting it, like, I'm kicking everybody's ass. Like. Like I'm concerned that I'm gonna get fired. I'm like, the third day of this, but instead I'm actually kicking the out of all these experienced snipers. And they're like, God damn, you Marine boys can shoot. And I'm like, ain't right.
- [85:15]
A
That's freaking epic.
- [85:16]
C
I'm not gonna tell them for, like, years later, you know, I actually sucked. But, you know, I'm not terrible with a pistol or a carbine though. I'm not great, but I'm not terrible. But yeah, there's a shoot in thing. So, yeah, I get to go to Sephardic. Managed past that. Like, a week later, they just started having a shoot in for Sodic too. So there's another shooting test my team's running. Like, hey, man, you can either go fucking HALO school or if you can go past this fucking shooting and you basically steal somebody's slot because they can't, you can get Sodic right now too. I'm like, fucking take that one.
- [85:44]
A
Damn.
- [85:44]
C
Yeah, so I did. It's funny, something like the instructors, because these, these things both happen at the same compound on Bragg. It's called range 37. When I walk, so I'm parking there for like the 20th week in a row, walk past one of the Sephardic instructors, and he's like, hold on, what are you doing? I'm a sort of thing.
- [85:59]
B
He's like.
- [86:01]
C
If you get Sephardic and Sodic, which is like two of the most prestigious schools in SF in the same segment, period. Like, I don't know, I'm gonna key your car or something. Like, like, like, no new day.
- [86:11]
A
Not everyone go through the. The CQC school.
- [86:14]
C
Not that one. No.
- [86:16]
A
Okay.
- [86:17]
C
That one is a very specific course that you must go through to be in a sith.
- [86:22]
A
Got it.
- [86:23]
C
And it's got a high acid triangulation rate too. It's like a, you know, probably 50, 60 attrition rate too. And it's like, you get that one. Like. You are ominous Dominus. Like, awesome. CQB check.
- [86:35]
A
All right, so now you're in the team. You're in the Sift team. In the Sift company, I guess.
- [86:39]
C
Yeah. Yep.
- [86:40]
A
And when are you guys racked to go on deployment?
- [86:44]
C
Our advent is already there by the time I graduate. Soda, bro.
- [86:49]
A
Nicely done.
- [86:50]
C
Wild. And like, two or three of my teammates are in sodic with me because they're getting called up to their older hands. They came from the assault side to the sniper side. So, yeah, we're like, like, I want to say it was like a week after we graduate. We're with the main body. Fucking boom, boom, right back to it.
- [87:06]
A
And where'd you go that time?
- [87:07]
C
We went to Baghdad. So we got the ictf, though. Oh, yeah. So we're doing. So this is like, a total change in combat for me. This. This shit's gonna get crazy. My teammates don't even really know me either because, like, I haven't met mostly, like, the two guys I'm sitting with and, like, walking around like, who the is this guy who gave him a gun? But, you know, for being, like, totally honest, like, I've been like, the badass where I was before, right? We didn't do anything less than recon. But, yeah, fucking, I'm the tough guy. Like, I'm the aggressive dude. The guy they gotta fucking pull by the fucking leash. Same thing on, like, my 19th group team. I end up with, like, one other dude there that's like, fucking totally badass. Awesome dude. But for the most part, like, I am the aggressive fighting that the team starts gotta, like, grab by the collar, like, stop. It's too far. These dudes are fucking animals. I don't. We hadn't even, like, really done our changeover with whoever we were replacing, which I think was the first group sif. We're still on. We're still like, living like, the fucking transient barracks. And. But our commands like, hey, fuck it, let's get this fucking done.
- [88:13]
A
Is this now, 07?
- [88:14]
C
Yes, 07. This is like July or August of oh, seven. Yeah. We still haven't done, you know, full fucking riptoe. And, like, we're fucking doing missions like we're doing crazy fucking shit. And first night we go out with these guys, nobody has, like, serviced from this kind of task force. Has serviced a target in Karbala in, like, I don't know, like, three or four months. Our commander has to be a awesome dude. It's like, oh, really? So they think we can around Carballa. Let's get him. And so they send the boys down there, and it is. It is insane. It's. At this point, this night is going to be, like, right up there with like, the craziest fucking combat shit I've ever seen. It is fucking bananas. We got two troops of ICTF running all over the fucking place. Our XO has Decided to go with us.
- [88:57]
A
What was it? What was the target? Was it the multiple buildings? Was it one building? Was it one dude? Was it multiple dudes?
- [89:02]
C
Man, I don't even remember. I. I want to say it was, like, one dude, but it was, like, obvious that, like, he was gonna have some. Some dudes with him because he was. He was, you know, important. He wasn't like, you know, again, he wasn't like, the fucking master, but he's gonna be important. He's gonna have some bodyguards and shit. And. Yeah, I don't remember exactly what it was, but it had to have been at least two buildings. They sent, like, a fucking lot of us or.
- [89:27]
A
So you guys are rolling out? Oddly enough, in 06, my original deployment, yeah. I was supposed to go to Baghdad and take over ictf.
- [89:35]
C
Oh, no shit.
- [89:35]
A
Yeah, I went on pre deployment, site survey, PDSs, what we call in the Navy. Went there, Rolled out with the ictf.
- [89:44]
C
Yeah.
- [89:44]
A
Like, hit targets.
- [89:45]
C
Yeah.
- [89:45]
A
Saw them in action. Yeah, yeah, they were, you know, so it was. It was very. I was very familiar with what was going on. And then we come back to America, and then, like, a couple weeks before we went on deployment, they're like, yeah, you're not going to work with the sdf. You're going to Ramadi.
- [89:57]
C
We're like, awesome, awesome.
- [89:58]
A
So, yeah, the ictf.
- [90:00]
C
Yeah.
- [90:00]
A
You know, for people who don't know, it's the Iraqi Counterterrorist Force, but they were, like, the most highly trained Iraqi soldiers, the most highly vetted Iraqi soldiers, and they had American, like, weapons, guns, the whole nine yards. So it's. It's the best group of Iraqis that you can have.
- [90:16]
C
Oh, they're fucking amazing, really. Like, in a lot of ways, for like the, you know, for, like, us. For, like, Green Berets, like, you know, train up a foreign force. They're probably like the success of the entire gwad. Like, they are fucking badass. And I'm also very lucky because I didn't have to build it. Like, I just got to show up and run it. I came on the tail end when these guys are doing all this fucking hard work. And imagine making Iraqis good at fucking secret. Like, good. Like, it's crazy. But I get to show up, right, for the glory moments. Like, awesome. Anyway, so. So yeah, they are badass, though. And so we go to Karbala.
- [90:47]
A
It is you guys are doing. I'm vehicle mounted, I'm sure.
- [90:50]
C
No, we flew in.
- [90:51]
A
You flew in?
- [90:52]
C
Yeah, we flew in that one.
- [90:52]
A
Damn, dude. Well, yeah, I never Did a helicopter mission in my life.
- [90:56]
C
No. What?
- [90:57]
A
Isn't that lame?
- [90:57]
C
No way, dude. Really?
- [90:59]
A
All vehicles. That's actually. I don't think it's safe. I think it's awesome.
- [91:01]
C
You do whatever you do. Yeah.
- [91:03]
A
Freaking. All vehicles all the time. Get some.
- [91:05]
C
Oh, dude, you can carry so much shit. So much guns, so much cool shit. I much prefer it. That's like, one of those things that, like, doing a helicopter raid is awesome. Like, the first time you do it, and then. Then after you're done, you're like, okay, let's just drive everywhere. No, Please.
- [91:17]
A
Just. Weird. It's weird how you know, like, because I also. I never went to Afghanistan. I never flew, like, all. Everywhere over there. A lot of guys did. All right, so you guys fly down.
- [91:26]
C
Yep.
- [91:26]
A
To Karbala. Yep.
- [91:27]
C
Fly down. EXO goes with us.
- [91:29]
A
Did you land on the X? Like, land on the target or offset by, like, a little bit or.
- [91:33]
C
No. So me and the snipers land in the soccer field behind. We actually land. Land on a soccer field right behind it. Rest of dudes, rope in for the assault side. There's. Yeah, there's a shitload of. Hell, there's a shitload of dudes. This is also, like, the biggest element I've ever fought with. So I'm. I'm kind of confused, actually. I'm used to, like, six guys. Like, there's like, six ODA or three ODAs and, like, a hundred. Fucking. It's crazy.
- [91:56]
A
Hell, yeah.
- [91:56]
C
Fucking absolutely awesome. And Kent Solheimer is our xo. He actually goes with us this night because he. He's just gotten tasked to be the xo, which he knows means he's going to, like, being the jock and his dude, and he's like. Like, one more fucking night of glory. Which is awesome because Ken's, like, a badass dude. He's teaching at West Point now. But yeah, he. He gets shot through both fucking femurs, like, pretty early. He's out in the fucking street, like, just straight gunning people down. And, like, fucking. Somebody jumps out, blast him through both legs and wants through the back, like, under the plates. He's fucked up. Yeah. This LC is hot as a motherfucker. They bring in a fucking space, just dropping one, it's. It's chaos. And they can't even get the helicopters back in to get us because, like, it's. It's too. This is actually how you know something is really hot in the army if. If, like, an SF captain and officer is, like, really fucked up and might fucking die because he is fucked up. And they still won't bring a helicopter in. Like, the risk is too high. So we got a fight out of Karbala.
- [92:54]
A
Medics, I wish you had vehicles now.
- [92:56]
C
Yeah, you're fucking right. No shit. No shit. Medics didn't do some awesome. One of them gets Silver Star because he runs out and fucking grabs him and fucking patches both legs up. I mean, fucking awesome shit. They actually had to bring our own. Our commando Q revin to get us another lz like, somewhere, I don't know, five over here. And, you know, get on all this crazy. And, like, we get back from this and, like, everybody else is like, okay, well, fuck, we gotta find a new xo. They're just like, this is normal shit for them and I'm the fucking new guy. Like, this is actually the first time in my life, like, I realized, like, these guys are, like, playing on, like, a fucking another level and I'm gonna have to fucking run to keep up. And I'm comfortable with that. That sounds awesome, but these dudes are bad as fuck. And. No, it was great. It was fantastic.
- [93:42]
A
So what's your op tempo? Like.
- [93:45]
C
So, so high that it's actually. It's actually, like, hard to believe. And sometimes, like, I look back on them and I actually want them like this. Was it really this crazy? And even, like, sometimes, like, other SF guys that were in that kind of task force are like, ain't no fucking way. You kind of kind of talk like the boys from, like, 07, from, like, Sips or Delta. It's like three, four targets a night. It's oftentimes like, seven days a week. Sometimes it'll be like, go chase some shit, like, all fucking night long. And we're like, out of charges. Fucking out of shotgun. We do a thing called a block party, which. Where you hit every house on a block at once. If somebody keeps slipping the fucking net, we're gonna get crazy sometimes doing fucking daylight hits. I mean, it is incredibly intense. It's a level of intensity that, I mean, it really is, like, hard to believe. I look back on, like, how in the did we do this, like, every night? It's not like there's not occasional, you know, breaks. I mean, there was actually a brown out for, like, three or four. The whole country shut down. I mean, my teammate, Alex Shabarrow, like, played all the way through Halo 3 that night or those days, like, there's some.
- [94:53]
A
Is that the jiu jitsu guy? Al. Yeah, I know him. Yeah.
- [94:56]
C
Oh, shit.
- [94:56]
A
He's, like, traveling around the world right now.
- [94:58]
C
Yeah.
- [94:58]
A
He's in We Defy.
- [95:00]
C
Yeah.
- [95:00]
A
Which is a really cool organization.
- [95:02]
C
He's over like, Vietnam, right.
- [95:03]
A
He's supposed to come on the podcast. He's like, I'm here for three days. I'm like, cool. I'm not. But, you know, we just. We just like, missed each other a bunch of times.
- [95:09]
C
When you get Alan on. Yeah, he actually, to be my teammate. He hasn't been to like a sporting or anything yet, but he shows up as like a attachment to the Sith. And I see this big, scary looking. You can tell a lot about a dude, like how he's gonna do in, like, gunfights. He big and yoked. He's like, yeah, you know, I'm Ninja Fighter 2. I, you know, black belt and jujitsu. Like, oh, fuck, come here. Let's go talk to Teamster. And so he ends up being attached to our team as like one of our machine gunners, which is awesome. Dude, that's a fucking great job to be like, hey, sorry you can't go in the house, but here's your.50 cal. Like, oh, well. Oh, shit. Well, that's heartbreaking. Yeah, stay out here and fucking anyway. Yeah, no, it's great. And you should talk to Alan. He's a great dude.
- [95:48]
A
So. So your op tempo, what's the. What's the. Are you guys taking a lot of casualties? Are you like, lost your captain or. Captain got wounded?
- [95:56]
C
Well, it's our xo. He's not even my captain. Yeah, he just joined us attachment that night and, you know, got shot up for his troubles. Yeah, we. We are getting. We're getting chewed up because this is also. This is 07, man. The fight is. Is real. There's IDs everywhere. There's crazy. And that's like one of those times too when, like, I don't think anybody thought Iraq was. It was just. It was insane. I don't know what anybody at the unit actually ever figured this out, but I sat down and calculated it. One night we had like a 1/3 casualty rate, which is crazy for a troop. We had dudes wounded like two and three times. There's this one dude, his name Ray. I'll say his last name. Awesome guy. He was a fencer in college. He gets three legitimate Purple Hearts in the course of like four weeks. Like, and just keeps going because he's a badass. But finally on the third one, they're like, the commander is like, you know what? Just. I know you don't want to, but I'm Making you go home like, you're gonna escort these guys that got wounded yesterday at the same time to Germany. So nobody steals your. But you got multiple guys have, like, two from, you know, across the trip. Yeah, we. I mean, we were up. We were. We were bleeding.
- [97:07]
A
And you lose ICTF guys as well.
- [97:10]
C
Yeah, they're getting. They're getting hurt. They're getting fucking chewed up. It's so fucking bad. At the end that they did, they had to fly our phallic committee, which is our. Our. Our little in group door kicking school, because you had to be safari qualified to go in the house. But they end up having to fly them over to backfill us because there were not enough of us to just keep going. I mean, at the end of this trip, like, we'll have, like, three jobs instead of one. My senior will be like, you know, lead nav, lead sniper, and also, you know, in charge of, like, putting diesel in the Humvees. Like, what? But, yeah, it's pretty crazy.
- [97:44]
A
Were you. Did you serve as both a sniper and as an assistant assaulter?
- [97:47]
C
Yeah, that's how we.
- [97:48]
A
Depending on the night.
- [97:49]
C
Yeah, that's how we do it for our. For ourselves. Anyway. Usually you're supposed to be an assaulter first and then go to the sniper so you can do both jobs. And what we end up doing most of the time is we're hitting so many targets that, like, yeah, we'll be the assault guys for this, for the smallest target over here. And then after we're done, we'll send. We'll act more like designate marksman and snipers. We'll go protect the roof while the assault guys do all the SSE and.
- [98:14]
A
Kind of. Kind of like living the dream.
- [98:16]
C
Oh, dude, it is. It's actually. It's absolutely awesome. It's so amazing. So this is kind of something that my. My senior or the Bravo, that's my. My senior sniper has pioneered. He's like, hey, we get these Eberly stock bags right from the company over in Idaho. We stick our SR25s in those and we carry these little guns now. We got both. We had to carry a little more weight, but we can assault and fucking snipe and do both these things at the same time. And we are gonna fucking get some shit done. And we do. It's awesome. We're killing so many people that, like, sometimes the assault is totally. So we started calling them up like we call our buddy, like, hey, man. Okay, come here. All right, here you go. Shoot some of this SR25 now get behind the scope and see how far you can see. Like, you guys can see like 600 yards with these things or, you know, it's. It's still like some 2007, but, yeah. So, yeah, we're having a great time. It is. It is absolutely fantastic.
- [99:08]
A
And how long is this deployment?
- [99:09]
C
It's a short one. It's like four months at that point. Three or four. Yeah, I think it was four months since we're doing short tours at this point. Yeah, I know. I fucking shred my shoulder on this one, too. Same thing. Like, I didn't go home because, you know, fucking boys were fucking hurting. Probably ended up doing a lot more damage, this fucking thing, just because I stayed in the. In the fucking fight. So I'm fucked up when we get home. Got to go and get this fucking hospital, get this worked on.
- [99:36]
A
Did you need surgery?
- [99:37]
C
Yeah, check. Yeah. So they put it back together the first time. It pretty much takes me out of the 2008 fight. Something wrong, so I got to cut on it again the next year. Fucking kind of work through that. The docs end up telling me. I can't remember if they told me this then or then when I retired, but they're like, hey, man, you got a limited number of times in your life you can let your hands over your head so, you know, use them well.
- [100:03]
A
Like, damn.
- [100:03]
C
Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. But yeah, that was. That was. That was the tour.
- [100:10]
A
So did you get to do another deployment after that, or were you too banged up?
- [100:13]
C
No, it wasn't even. I was too banged up either because, like, you know, at this point, I'm gonna. I'm keep going as long as I can, like, whatever doctor said, but I can't go on the 2008 trip. And then the boys come back, we get a new. New commander, and he's. He's kind of a. We're being honest. He doesn't want to really deploy, so he starts trying to get us into some other to, like, go to. I don't. Pakistan and train the Pakistani counterterrorism guys or some. But what the hell's happening? Oh, yeah. So I'm like this. I'm going to a SMU selection. Somehow train up enough to get to go to that. It didn't work out for me. Yeah, we get back, get on a awesome team, probably the most stacked team I've ever been on, and we end up going. We're in. We're Blackwater doing a train up to do some, and we go to a bar because the chief's Going away. That's our warrant officer. Not a chief like yours, but our warrant officer is. He's finally getting promoted off the fucking team. He's been there forever. He's an awesome guy. So we go out drinking and one night. And in that way that, you know, sometimes just bad happens. We got a really young dude with us. He's like 25, 26x ray, but awesome guy. He fought was 07, but he looks pretty. He's. He's, you know, fucking looks like he's somebody you could kick out of. He's met that biker, decided they're gonna fucking jump him. And. Well, there was a whole split team there, and we kicked the out of these guys. A lot of these dudes are in the hospital. Like, it's. It's not great. The thing that we fail at is we do not e well enough, you know, happens. Get picked up at the county line by the cops and the big white van, and next thing I know, we're in jail. Shit's not just not going great. Security clearance is suspended. Yeah. Commands like throwing a book at us. They're not happy. Actually kind of shitty. Nobody ever even asks what happens. They're just like, you guys, this is what's going on. Can't even be in the SIPs building anymore. She don't have clearance. So handing all of our. And get sent to the schoolhouse to teach.
- [102:20]
A
Damn.
- [102:21]
C
Yeah, it sucked.
- [102:22]
A
How bad did you guys up those dudes?
- [102:27]
C
Pretty good.
- [102:27]
A
Hospitalized.
- [102:28]
C
Yeah, someone went to hospital. Yeah, there was. There was some bad. But what nobody ever asked is, you know, why. Well, there was 20 of them, all right. The six of us. I threw them. Joe, my guy, you're gonna have to fight savage like you're outnumbered like that. Especially dudes that are falling on cranking. Like, you're gonna have to come with it. And you know, also for being totally honest, by that point in the war, like, if. Like, if some fist fighting happens like, you, you're probably gonna start going a little further with it than you should have. But yeah, we did them up pretty bad. But, oh, well happens.
- [102:59]
A
And like, no one was like, hey, dude, all right, look like, here's your rehab program. Let's get you to the schoolhouse for a little while. We'll get you straightened out. We'll get your security.
- [103:10]
C
They're coming at us with ucmj. We're also under, like, you know, felony assault indictment by the civilian world. These launch civil suit. They thought we were Blackwater guys, so they launched a civil suit too. So they're Gonna get some contract money out of us. And then we're. We. They also give us a go Mars, which is a general officer's memorandum of record, which is basically like a. It's a thing that they can do that's not technically ucmj, but it goes in your book that says like, you know, hey, Clay's a. We'll never promote him. And even when you hire, you can't fight that one like, that one just sticks no matter what. God damn, dude. We're fortunate we don't get our tabs revoked. End up spending like year and a half the schoolhouse teaching. Finally beat all the civilian charges and shit. Because again, these motherfuckers started it. And that's, you know, you know, you're not going to go to jail for that. But yeah, I mean, damage. Security forces restored, but, you know, damage is done by then.
- [104:04]
A
And when you say damage is done, what do you mean? Like, bro, like I was a leader, a leader in the teams, right? And like you have guys that get in fights sometimes.
- [104:15]
C
Yeah.
- [104:15]
A
And it sucks. And you have to keep them out of it. But like, okay, they're going to pay their dues. Maybe they get busted down, maybe they get, you know, sent to the schoolhouse or whatever. And then you go, okay, cool, you're done. You understand you can't do that shit anymore, right? That was a big mistake that you made. You know that you're not going to do it again.
- [104:29]
C
Cool.
- [104:30]
A
Come back over here. We're going to put you back to work. We got shit we got to do.
- [104:32]
C
Yeah.
- [104:33]
A
You get none of that?
- [104:34]
C
No. Well, because some other shit happens eventually there too. So a couple of guys recover from this that were not at school with me because now they can go back to teams, but they won't let me leave the CQB course because they had to find somebody fucking replace me. I basically need another guy that has this CQB qualification to be able to teach this sub CQB qualification. So it's my fucking turn to go back to a team. But I keep getting fucked out of that because I don't know, some fucking enlisted bullshit. They won't find a fucking guy. The fucking one that really fucking hurt me here was teams are now coming through. Because when you're teaching cephalog, it's entire ODAs that show up. And like every other class or something, some ODA team sergeant is like, hey man, I'll trade what's as nuts for you. Like, you're awesome at this shit. You want to go? Like, hell yeah. Let's go. I'm supposed to go to my guy that I do from the set for. He was a warrant officer, Mike Duskins team. Mike is like a fucking legend of sf. This dude is fucking awesome. He's fucking like six foot. He's so goddamn big that he can't go to Halo school. Like, he, like, the square shoot cannot support him. He's like fucking six foot seven. Like 320 of like, twisted steel. One time, like, the newer jets came out to Sephardic or some to. To like, you know, see a mod demo and they saw Mike and we're like, you play any ball? And you're like, you guys, I'm gonna kill some Afghans. Anyway, I'm supposed to go to Mike's team. Like, the whole handshake deal gets made and like at the last minute, like, the, the. I don't know, some asshole in the sergeant major mafia, like, pulls a rug and I don't get to go. And Mike gets killed in Afghanistan just like fucking month into the fucking trip. And I'm like, fuck. And right before this, I guess right around the same time, maybe it was right before. I think it was right before I've gone in now. I'm also fucked up, like, physically. Like, my shit's a fucking mess. Next fucking slip disc, all that shit. I'm having to go in once in a while to get fucking pain meds. Not from like the group doctors, but from like the army doctors, because that's where like the, you know, narcotics and fucking oxygen shit is. So I go in there one day and this was fucking 2012. This is right when Obama was kind of doing that. You remember that purge? I don't know if it happened to David. I know it happened in the Army, Marine Corps. There was like a purge of dudes on the medical side they had at Bragg. They had like, guys like, going through medical records of everybody trying to find people to disqualify them, to get. To get rid of them. So I'm going to get my. They're like, holy, you should have been out like a long time ago. You're getting med boarded. I'm like, you say, like, I'll fight that. A couple weeks later, that's when Mike gets killed. And they're pushing this med board and I'm fine. Like, you know what it. You know, if this is it, you know, that's it. I'm done.
- [107:23]
A
How long was it from med board, you're done till you're out of the Army.
- [107:27]
C
Oh, like nine months. It Was fast. Yeah, it was real fast.
- [107:30]
A
And what are you doing in the meantime? You.
- [107:33]
C
Yeah.
- [107:33]
A
Keep teaching at the school?
- [107:34]
C
Yeah, I'm still teaching at school. I can't. I can't even really put armor on anymore. So I'll teach like the marksmanship phase, but somebody else has to go in the house with me. Yeah. Do that until the process finishes and then.
- [107:48]
A
How were you once you retired? How'd that work out for you?
- [107:52]
C
Me? Dude, holy shit. I was a fucking disaster. All right. Among like the many things that go wrong when you get medically retired. Like one, you weren't like financially setting yourself up for this. You got another five years. So I got like a fucking, you know, brand new F150 with all the leather seats and fucking whatever bullshit fucking thousand dollar truck payment. I haven't like, you know, really prepared for an outside thing. So I don't know what the fuck I'm going to do either. And yeah, I don't know how to deal with like, money and like business. I. I have actually no idea what the I'm supposed to do when I grow up.
- [108:28]
A
All this grown up dude.
- [108:30]
C
Right, right. Gave me like bullets and you know, you can, you know, have an omelet at the chow hole if you want. Like. Okay. Like I can live with that. So. Yeah, it kind of, kind of just comes apart actually. And you also, like, if you're. This is something that I've heard now from a lot of the dudes, like, medically retired. Like when you've done a job for your entire life that involves like your body and like being tough and performance. You see this actually from like NFL guys and like that too, when they get like up and they can't play anymore. When somebody tells you that like, well, your shit's broken and you can't do this, like it's. It like you up on like a different level. You're like, that was my identity and like, what am I now? And I don't know. So. Yeah. So where are you living?
- [109:18]
A
You live in an apartment? You're married at the time? I got any kids?
- [109:22]
C
No. Okay. Thank God.
- [109:24]
A
So you're married, you're living in an apartment somewhere?
- [109:26]
C
No, I got a house.
- [109:26]
A
Okay.
- [109:27]
C
House in Fayetteville. Because it's funny, my. My ex wife was also a captain. All right, so we were making good money. Like I got like a nice house, like, nice shit. I'm fucking E7 with like freaking officers. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Right? And plus you got all the special duty payment, like demo pay, Halo, all this. So yes. Now I'm out and I have absolutely no. I had no idea what the to do with myself. Ex wife is like absolutely freaking out. Like, you're had to go get a job at UPS or some. Like, you can't just sit home and turn to a alcoholic. And I also freak out a little bit on that one. Like I'm also. I've lost this idea. Like I was writing a skids the helicopter to go kill people two years ago. Now. I don't know. I'm not going to. I'm not loading boxes on the plane of ups. So I start going a little bit crazy. Like, okay, what am I qualified to do? Be arms dealer, like a legit one. But you know, I got, you know, I got buddies in the business. Like, all right, you know, whatever, whatever this is, you know, do some little, you know, contractor stuff. But mostly what I do is fall apart because this is also. I can see with retrospect, being in the army and being commando, Johnny is the only glue that has kept all of my terrible childhood like in one piece. Okay? So now I am absolutely losing my also. I don't know if it was like this for you when you got out, but for me it was, it was also. It was like hitting puberty again. Like in this, in this context of like, you know, emotions and that you can't handle. See, I never expected to live to 30. That was, that was. There were people dying and like was crazy back in the first war. All of a sudden, like, you know, you're gonna live through this like probably potentially a long time. Like survivors guild. Like, why did these guys die and I didn't. What the am I. And also like the, the like the real hormonal like just starts coming out of the woodwork. I am like coming apart. I'm. I'm a crazy person all day long, every day.
- [111:40]
A
So what does that, what does that mean? Like, are you drinking all day?
- [111:44]
C
No, not drinking. Well, I'm.
- [111:45]
A
You angry? You pissed off? Are you smashing?
- [111:48]
C
No, no, I'm drinking a bottle of booze every night. Night. But not, not all day. Mostly what it is, this is where it becomes like this, right? It mostly becomes like a, like a, like a sexual thing. We're being totally honest. Like I. It's like I'm being 15 again. Except now I got grown man muscles and a grown man paycheck. And I actually ended up having this conversation ex wife because I'm like, I'm going out to Florida all the time to do like arms dealership. I'm also shooting competitively at this time in the company that I was doing it for. I was doing this while I was teaching CQB 2 know keep your skills up is based out of Florida. And I tell my wife, I'm like, hey, look, I don't know if you've ever been to Florida too, because it's, it's a weird place down there. I'm like, they're grown ass women throwing themselves at me all day long because if they're over 35, they can't get a date in Florida. Because that's how weird that place is. It really is. It's true. Hey, everybody's beautiful and made from, you know, Miami plastic surgeons like the, the Cougars down there, like rolling packs. You're like, holy fuck. Like, this shit's crazy. So that, that becomes the expression for me. I got five, six, girlfriend. Like, I'm, I'm doing all kinds of fucking terrible shit, which. And I don't even try to hide it very well. So of course that marriage goes up in fucking smoke. I'm divorced. I don't give a fuck. Like, I, I do this all in like a really shitty way too. Like, it's, it's. Nothing is good. I'm also like, in a weird way, like, like suicidal. Like, not like, you know, I'm going to fucking spark my head up, but kind of you'll have those thoughts. Or I'll have those thoughts like, oh, fuck, man, that was it, you know, I played my quarters in the fucking machine. Like, what am I going to do now? I'm going to sell Kraft Macaroni and cheese. I'm going to fuck about any of this shit. Maybe this is just where I end it. I'll see it another way that I see with a lot of guys later is there'll be a legend of SF, like not too long before this, that OD's on heroin. Six months after he retires. I, I'll see this not heroin, but this similar type of thing happened. Me. We're like, I'll just do crazy because I, I kind of want to die, but not enough to like off myself, but, you know, drink a fifth of Jack Daniels and go drive a goddamn car around the mountains as fast as I can, like, trying to break the record, knowing it's, it's intentionally doing, like, it, whatever. So, yeah, I spend this couple years just, I mean, a mess.
- [114:06]
A
What pulls you out of it?
- [114:11]
C
Finally, through like a weird twist of fate, I go, I go, TJF contract in Okinawa, which gives me a good Chunk of money in my pocket for a little bit. And I end up for a gun company going to fucking Idaho. And I met who is now my wife life there, all right, and she's awesome, but she's also putting up like absolutely none of my like, like, like none of it. You know, she's gangster as. And like, as I am interacting with her in this, this way, I'm like, oh, this is the one. Like this, this is it. Like I gotta go home, clean up all this other though because I got all kinds of messes at home. Like, you know, five, six girlfriends. Every stale is all this terrible.
- [115:00]
A
Were you living in, in Fayetteville still?
- [115:04]
C
I'm north there in Stanford. I'm like, I got like a room at like a flop house with like a buddy that owns a ammo company.
- [115:10]
A
Disaster.
- [115:11]
C
Yeah, yeah. When I've left my house, I left with like all my guns and ammo and like, you know, two pairs of underwear and a T shirt. You know, my is maybe she'll eventually, like, why couldn't she come out like a mattress on the floor, Like a tough box with a lamp on it? Yeah, she's like, what the but yeah, a total mess. So now I, I, I have something now that I have to unfuck my life for. As I. She ain't gonna put up no either. Like, like, you're gonna have to come correct if you want to play with me. Like, okay, that's what I do. I go home, clean up all my messes, exit all these, you know, silly bitches, throw my in the truck and drive to Idaho.
- [115:52]
A
God's country.
- [115:53]
C
God's country.
- [115:54]
A
And what'd you do once you got up there? Like, what were you doing for work?
- [115:57]
C
Nothing. I still had a pile of money from this contract, so, you know, I can kind of relax for a minute. And this is maybe also the first time I, I like take a breather. Like maybe we should plan something.
- [116:09]
A
Turns out I'm gonna be around a little while, a little longer than I thought I was gonna be around for. Right, you started to develop in this FOB of this Ford operating base a little bit.
- [116:18]
C
Right, Exactly. Fucking right.
- [116:21]
A
And then, so what's next?
- [116:23]
C
Oh, so, so you move to Idaho.
- [116:26]
A
You're up there. What are you doing? Take a little time off.
- [116:29]
C
Take a little time off very, very quickly. She's pregnant with my son, so. Yeah. And I've also stepped into in a lot of ways, like a clusterfuck of a different sort because she has three daughters that are teenagers.
- [116:46]
A
Joe check.
- [116:47]
C
I have like, zero seconds as a fucking parent. So this fucking shit is at. Well, actually she comes. She comes to North Carolina to drive back with me with my, you know, like one pickup load of shit that I own. And while we're gone, the youngest one, the fucking 15 year old, like, runs away from home and just like, doing all kinds of crazy criminal. So. Because, you know, grandma was watching it because terrible. So like, we're like three days away. Car's like, you got to drive faster because this just happened. And like, yeah, we got to deal with this. Like, okay, so Carrie is also. We're getting to know each other at this point, and she's not ever had any, like, really great relationships. She's been with, like, a lot of dudes that are like, you know, useless or, you know, they got. They got no skin in the game. They're not really, like, in it to win it. You know, nobody's like, ever really, like, stepped over before. Well, that's one thing I'm good at. Here we go. So we get back, like, basically develop this network across Boise through all, like, the criminal underground. I'm like, hunting for these kids and running people around all night and doing this crazy and get the kid back. And she ends up having to go to fucking juvie, though, because, like, some. Some bad crime has been committed in the meantime. Yeah. Carrie's pregnant and, you know, we get married and now we're just kind of relaxed for a minute and, like, figure out, like, what the do you want to do when you grow up?
- [118:14]
A
Well, the good. I always tell when you guys ask me, like, who. What do you do when you get out? What do you. What do you got to watch out for? How do you avoid, like, going down the spiral? And I'm always like, you got to find a new mission. You got to find a new mission. You got to find new mission.
- [118:24]
C
You are absolutely correct.
- [118:24]
A
And it's like, here you were doing all this crazy dumb, but then you meet this girl and it's like, oh, now I got a mission. Like, now I got a new mission. Like, I'm. I'm going to take care of this girl. I'm going to step up, be a man, and get after her.
- [118:35]
C
100% true. 100%.
- [118:36]
A
And there you go. Yeah, including doing some freaking underground networking, Greater Idaho to freaking recover. So then, when did the writing start?
- [118:48]
C
Okay, so as this is. So now I'm also like, I can't do, like, contractorship. I'm like, I'm not gonna raise, like, my son. And plus, you know, We've got teenage daughter. We gotta still take care of him. Like, I gotta find something else to do that is for money. And, you know, probably I didn't even actually. I'm getting a retirement check, but I want more money or a little bit more. So. It's funny, I actually do end up stacking boxes at FedEx. Fucking loading the boxes on the fucking plane for a minute. But I get a job because of my competitive shooting background. So stuff with this, like, basically online magazine about guns called Guns America Digest. And, you know, they'll pay me to review guns. And I've. I've tried to get a real job in Boise, and I've tried to, you know, I've worked for FedEx. I've done all this, and none of this shit's working really. So I'm like, okay, it. I'll do this writing thing. I'll see if I make good at it. And it turns out that, yeah, I can write really fast at least and write pretty well. I can sure take pictures and I can shoot a gun. So this works out. I do that for a while. It starts getting really old too, though. I don't know about, like, how you are with guns, but I'm with guns, like, as a tool. I gotta give a what gun it is. Like, okay, carry Glock for the next hundred years. Like, oh, you can't have a Glock anymore. Well, what do we have here? Some other bullshit. Like, I don't. I don't care about guns as long as I have one. Like, that's my tool. Like, it's fine. So I'm not, like, into this gun either. You know, I'm covering like 15 ars a year. And in this magazine, like, God damn it. Like, they all have magpul furniture in the black. Like, I don't give a. So one day I sit down, I'm like, how many words did I write last month about, you know, stupid guns? It's. It's a lot. It's like 40, 000 or something. Like, how long is a novel? I don't know. 50,000? Like, light bulb. Like, well, it. I'm at least gonna try this other thing. I'm gonna try to write books and see if I can. And maybe that will be, you know, a little more creative and expressive than writing about guns.
- [120:47]
A
So you start hammering.
- [120:49]
C
Oh, yeah.
- [120:49]
A
What was your methodology for writing?
- [120:52]
C
So this is a funny thing. A lot of the other, like, gun reporters and, like, these are trying to write a book, so. Well, this is the kind of that we'll talk about. We go to like a conference or we go to. We all go to Smith and Wesson. Dollar See the new gun. Well, when it's over. When I talk about the gun, we're talking about writing to each other. Like, what kind of typewriter do you have, man? Badass, dude. What would you jock? Are you a Microsoft Word guy? Are you a fucking Apache? Open source. Like, you know some crazy. So one of them turns me on to, man, I hate to give this guy any critics. He's such a weirdo now. But he is an awesome writer. Stephen King's On Writing, which is a great book for learning how to write. And it could actually really be boiled down to, like, fucking three things. Use the least amount of words possible. I don't write a fucking full description of a bunch of bullshit. And the method is sit the fuck down at the typewriter and write.
- [121:36]
A
Yeah, that's the method.
- [121:37]
C
That's it. That's how it works. So I take this to fucking heart, and it turns out that it works really well for me.
- [121:43]
A
So you wrote a couple. Was it two novels you wrote out of the gate?
- [121:46]
C
Yeah, wrote two novels out of the gate. Fuck, I can't remember their names right. Give me a second. My brain's fucking partially switched off. Lesson of the war God. Sort of. Sort of calf.
- [121:56]
A
Yeah.
- [121:57]
C
So when you write your first novel, you learn a lot. Writing your first novel. I wrote the first one from, like, a first person perspective, and I wrote it in, like, a very limited setting. Like it was kind of stuck in a way. Like, you had to be right here. And when it was over, I'm like, fuck, that was hard. Because, you know, we can't. We can't have this segue where we went to Paris or, you know, there's only one character, so there's not a lot of dialogue. But it turned out that writing books actually was really fucking easy. That first one I wrote in 30 days, and I wrote it at night after my wife went to bed between, like, 10, 4 in the morning. It's funny. Like, she. A couple times, like, she would wake up in the middle, I'd come down and like, jack will be the last time. Like, what the fuck are you doing? She's like, I can't see you for watching porn in the basement. Like, God damn it. Like, no, look at this fucking outline. This is beautiful.
- [122:40]
A
Look at my craft.
- [122:41]
C
Right, Right. But I mean, I can see why she's like, that's the craziest shit I've ever heard. You can't just Stay up all night and write novels, but you can. So, yeah, hammer that one out. Like I said, it takes like, like a month and self publish it and you know, had like moderate success. It was good.
- [122:58]
A
When you say moderate success, what do you mean?
- [123:00]
C
I mean, you know, it's not like I was gonna be on the New York Times bestseller lister and. But it made money.
- [123:04]
A
Yeah.
- [123:05]
C
Like I sold enough copies that like, you know, I get it. I get a check for some money from Amazon. I'm like, yeah, hell yeah, dog.
- [123:10]
A
I got this.
- [123:11]
C
Yeah. I'm like, hey, this is awesome. The nice thing about books too is residual. That's for life, you know. Yeah.
- [123:18]
A
So and then from those novels you get into kind of like a little bit more talking about. Well, I guess the thing. I was going to say survival, but yeah. And I was like, well, was it really survival? But then I looked at the name.
- [123:29]
C
Of the book is like survival, Urban Survival.
- [123:32]
A
And. And you get into these books which are like, like a little bit more. I guess they're not. They're. Well, they're definitely non fiction because they're talking about like. Yeah, well, one's guidebook for surviving a Civil War, the other one's guide to Urban survival. And what was your thought behind these things? This is now 2020 when you're writing these things.
- [123:51]
C
2019. 2019, 2019 and 2020. Yeah. So as you decide that you're a writer for a living, you're trying to discover what's your method. So like I said, we're the first one. First. Okay. I'm like, okay. There was shit about that that I didn't like. So next one, next one, I'm gonna write a bunch of characters in a bunch of fucking different places. It turns out that's really easy too because I base all the characters on my ex teammates. Like, I'll change their names, but you know, that way all I gotta do is think about like, hey, what the fuck would Jocko do here? It's also funny when you're a real boy and you're writing like a commando Johnny Novel, you actually have to nerf your friends because all of them are actually like, know how to do all the shit. If they're 20 years, they fucking blow up everything. You gotta be like, oh. And then we had to go get Bill that could, you know, actually put the deck, you know, Shut the. Yeah. Anyway, so I write that one at that point too. I get enough success, I get a literary agent. Like so, you know, I got a contract and he's trying to Shop around like the. The big boy companies. And this is where you learn how the book business works. And the way the book business works is terrible.
- [124:51]
A
Yeah, the publishing world is very short. Well, you're lucky. You're lucky you're living. And we're living in a time where you don't need those people if you don't want them.
- [124:59]
C
No, you don't.
- [124:59]
A
You can go ahead and just publish stuff yourself. They're not getting any of your money. You'll get it all.
- [125:03]
C
You'll get it all.
- [125:04]
A
Amazon's going to get their cut.
- [125:05]
C
Yeah, exactly. But hey, that cut is a lot less. Amazon is a way better deal for. I'll end up meeting some cool people later, like, like Tucker Max, who's, you know, hugely successful author. And he'd be like, yeah, unless somebody offers you like a half a million dollar advance, like you tell the traditional public companies, go fuck themselves. Like, this is the way it's done. So anyway, so I've got an agent now, so he's got control of the books. All right. But I'm still having to do the. The gun bullshit because this isn't making enough money. All right? But I end up writing a series of like, really successful articles about urban survival. I don't even know why I got in this kick of urban survival, but, you know, I did used to teach it as you taught advanced urban combat. So I just like go down the rabbit hole and they're like, what would I do? Like if like she got real fucking, like fucking zombies real, you know, whatever. You know, Mad Max World. And there's biker gangs with Uzis, you know, whatever. And I write this series of articles and it is. It like breaks out of like gun World and like, it's very popular. People are like, holy. And the company's like, can you keep writing this? Because like, people eating the up. And I'm like, oh, like, this is the key. All right, we'll try non fiction then. Like, I'll write also. I moved to Oregon at this point. Okay. Oregon is a weird fucking place when you're not in like Portland, you're like, outside of Oregon. You know, it's in Portland.
- [126:24]
A
A weird place too, probably.
- [126:25]
C
I've never. I've never said foot. I don't know.
- [126:27]
A
But the rest, where they had the freaking. The. What was the autonic. All the autonomic zone. What was it?
- [126:36]
C
We would know the Chaz was in Seattle.
- [126:38]
A
Oh.
- [126:38]
C
Which is just as weird. Yeah. But Portland might as well be the fucking jazz. It's. It's It's a whole different fucking up. But Oregon, the state is weird in it, like, a different way. All right, so Oregon's home, or Portland's home of, like, antifa and all this. Like, this is the spiritual home of it. But there's a re. There's kind of a reason, because when you get into rural Oregon, you will see shit go the other way. Oregon is the only place I've ever seen where, like, dudes are, like, flying, like, swastikas from their trucks. Like. Like, stickers, too. Like, they're going to work this way. And there's. The antifa guys are like. It's like. It's like, kind of war in the streets in, like, a way that, like, kind of makes Crips and Bloods look like fucking nothing. I'm like, holy fuck. And these are like, holy. Like, no wonder. Fucking Portland, so fucked up. Like. Like, I've been to, like, Alabama, Mississippi. I've never seen any shit like this my fucking life.
- [127:27]
A
Oh, shit.
- [127:28]
C
Yeah. So I kind of look at this. Like, this is. There's a potential here of conflict that is, like, sectarian as Iraq was. Like, if this ever, like, really, these are going to kill each other to, like, there's no reconciling this, right? So that's what starts me in the Rabbit. I started thinking about, like, hey, what the fuck would I do if, like, this kind of shit, like, kicked off? And I don't want to be on either side. I want to protect my. Over here and let these guys kill each other. So that's where I started with the. With this book and kind of twist of fate, I. I finish it or I get it, it's all the way finished. Get my agent to, like, start shopping it around, because now I've got an agent. I had to play this way, all right? He has control, all right? He says, where it gets published and somebody's got to buy it from a publishing company. And so this is like. Oh, so it's like December of like, 2019. Nobody wants a survival book, all right? All the public, like, no, that's stupid. Like, nobody wants your.
- [128:25]
A
There's no conceivable way that any of this could ever happen.
- [128:29]
C
There's absolutely no market for this.
- [128:30]
A
Yeah.
- [128:31]
C
So I think there's going to be.
- [128:34]
A
Some kind of a global pandemic that shuts the entire country down. What are you talking about here?
- [128:39]
C
So I've got it, and it's, like, 80% finished, and I'm not even working on it anymore because I'm like, I'm disappointed that it hasn't sold. And I can't self publish it either at this point because I got this agent. Yeah. So twist of fucking fate, my contract with that agent comes up like June 1st of 2020. So like the pandemic has like already been going on and that's when the riots start. That's when the summer of love kicks off. Right. Fucking there's the George Floyd shit and everybody's going fucking bananas. And like the fucking hour at midnight when my contract ends with that agent, I'm like on Amazon, self published, like print. In fact, the first one doesn't even have like a real code. It's got like white sheet with, you know, Microsoft Word writing of this and throw it on social media and it takes off. All right. It sells like incredibly well. I get. Yeah, I'm. I'm making like a good amount of money, which is important because my house burned down in January of 2020.
- [129:39]
A
From what? Just random house fire. Was it a forest fire or some.
- [129:43]
C
No, random house fire. We're out of town. We're over Oregon. We were having some problems with this house. Like I was doing the dude that sold to me because they like concealed some structural. That wasn't right. I don't know. It's a small mountain town. It's in Idaho City, Idaho. It's just way outside of Boise, town of like 400 people. Next thing I know, I go to town, my house burns down. And then they say that they're not gonna pay from the lawsuit. It's amazing. So this is all bad living a. We're living down a rental house in Boise with like, you know, whatever we had in our backs. This is gonna end up being a pain in the ass too because there's. There's some sketchy with this fire. And basically I. I have. The only thing that is even ever going to be remotely is safe is I'm double insured. All right? That's because I have TBIs. So I'm paying USA, who's been like my guys for, you know, 20 years house insurance and my wife is paying amig, which has been her insurance company for like 20 years. The way it works when you're double insured, there's. You don't get paid twice. All right? You each come is responsible for half. Amig will eventually like three years later pay out their half. USA's ratchet bastards. They'll never pay. All right? So yeah, so it's June 1, 2020, we're broke, we got nothing. But I had a Computer. Like, no, I didn't even have a computer cloud backup. I had sent a copy of this to one of my buddies, like, an email to, like, you know, read over like, hey, is this any good? And I remember that. And I called him, like, dude, please tell me you clutch. You still got this manuscript. And he's like, yep, here you go. Wham. Finish it up. It sells incredibly well. That's actually the thing that saves us because, I don't know, I mean, like, 100 grand off his book or some in like, six months. Because it's the time too.
- [131:30]
A
Like, yeah, perfect timing.
- [131:31]
C
Yeah, Covid is perfect. Bananas. So while that's going on real quick, flip it over and write the other one. Right. Prairie Fire, which is kind of the. The second half of it, because it's about how to do in, like, an urban environment or a rural environment. And yeah, there you go.
- [131:47]
A
You got a pretty cool section in here. In Concrete Jungle, you go like this old martial arts thing, which, of course, I freaking queued into.
- [131:53]
C
Hell yeah.
- [131:54]
A
It's chapter six, Ninja Fighting 101, Nunchucks and Throwing Stars. But it's great, you know, you kind of break down a bunch of different. A bunch of different martial arts. What's good, what's bad? Muay Thai boxing, of course, judo, Brazilian jiu jitsu. And then you get into the bad. What else you got there? Oh, you got wrestling, obviously.
- [132:14]
C
Oh, yeah.
- [132:16]
A
MMA and shoot fighting. And then you go into the bad.
- [132:18]
C
It's.
- [132:19]
A
Yeah, good stuff. And, you know, that's one chapter, but there's a bunch of chapters in about all kinds of different things. That's good to know.
- [132:25]
C
Yeah, it is, man. And it's, you know, it's something that, like, I haven't learned until a lot later in life to learn one. Knowing how to fight with your hands is important for one. All right, That's. That's number one. But the other thing is, like, we can do shit in the military where we can, like, build aggression. And with, like, guns, we have unlimited ammo and we can do fucking crazy shit. For a normal dude, though, like, the best way to build, like, some, like, warrior spirit and. And all this other shit is. Is fighting. It's great for soldiers and shit too, but it's. I think it's more important actually for civilian people, not even that they should ever fucking fight without a weapon, but when you're comfortable with a grown ass man that can whip your ass, whipping your ass. All right, or, you know, has been your new jiu jitsu and like, some Big or even small, dude that really knows what the he's doing, it's just gonna hold you on the floor, which is very uncomfortable. Getting through that discomfort is actually more valuable than knowing how to do an army bar. Being able to, like, survive, or knowing that you can take a hit or knowing that, you know, I didn't just die because somebody pressed their sweaty chest on my mouth for an hour.
- [133:26]
A
That's one of the biggest self defense things I want to talk about. Jiu Jitsu is like, if you're a female.
- [133:31]
C
Yeah.
- [133:31]
A
And you've never had someone just grab and grind on you.
- [133:35]
C
Oh. Like, yeah.
- [133:36]
A
You're not, you're not even gonna get. Psychologically, you're not gonna get through that if it's happening to you the first time in a traumatic incident.
- [133:43]
C
Right.
- [133:43]
A
Whereas, like, if you do Jiu jitsu, someone grabs you and you're just like, oh, this is what I do every single day. Like, you don't have to. There's no psychological, like, chaos going on in your head. You're just like, oh, this is what, this is what we're doing. You know, no factor.
- [133:55]
C
Yeah.
- [133:56]
A
And the other thing, we were talking about this a little bit before we went, before we hit record today, but like, and I kind of picked this up reading Barbarian Spirit. But I've been talking for years, like, hey, man, there's like, just things that you are supposed to be doing, right? As a, as a person.
- [134:14]
C
Right.
- [134:15]
A
Whether you're a man or a woman, there's certain things you're supposed to be doing. And, and we already talked about this today. Like, there's something I said, oh, you know, young men want to go to war. It's like, that's not. And I'm not saying every single one. But I'll tell you what, most of them, like, most of the kids I knew growing up, and, and that's like in your blood. It's in your blood to want to do that. And so why in God's name, like, after I trained Jiu jitsu for six months, let's say I can pretty much beat anybody, you know, on the street. If I get into an encounter, why the hell would I keep doing it for 30 years? I'll tell you why. Because, like, there is something in my blood that makes me want to do that. There's some part of my nature that wants to fight other people.
- [134:58]
C
Yeah.
- [134:58]
A
And you can't legally go out and fight other people all the time. I'll tell you what, you can go on the mat every single day and you can go hard and you're going to get beat a bunch and you're going to beat people and it's in your blood.
- [135:07]
C
Yeah.
- [135:08]
A
And it's good to get that out of your system. Like, good to let that thing, like, put water on that thing and let it grow.
- [135:14]
C
Yeah.
- [135:14]
A
And if you don't. I don't know where that go. I don't know what happens to that. I don't know what happens to that. To that urge.
- [135:21]
C
Right.
- [135:22]
A
If you don't gratify it.
- [135:24]
C
Yeah.
- [135:25]
A
What happens to it? I don't know, but I don't think it's good.
- [135:27]
C
No. I think it dies.
- [135:28]
A
I think you try and suppress it or something or. Yeah, I don't know what happens to it, but I don't think it's good.
- [135:33]
C
Yeah. No, I agree.
- [135:34]
A
So listening to your blood a little bit, listening to your human instincts of what you want to do, and I mean, you know, I get. A lot of times people ask me, like, you know, I'm thinking about going to the military, but I'm also thinking about going to college. And it's like, cool, you can go to college at any time in your life, but you're 18 years old. Like, that military thing is going to tick off pretty quick. And I've had zero people. I better. There's no people that I can think of off the top of my head that say, I was in the military. I regret that I was in the military.
- [136:06]
C
No.
- [136:06]
A
And I'm talking about guys that have lost both legs. Both legs, both arms. Like, look at Travis Mills. Like, what a beast. He's not. He doesn't break down and say, hey, you know, I really wish I wouldn't have joined. No. He's like, I'm. I'd do it again.
- [136:18]
C
Yeah.
- [136:19]
A
So that's. There's something.
- [136:20]
C
Yep.
- [136:21]
A
Going on in your. In your DNA.
- [136:24]
C
Right.
- [136:24]
A
That. That wants to do this kind of.
- [136:27]
C
Right.
- [136:27]
A
So do this kind of shit.
- [136:30]
C
No, yeah, no, absolutely, man. I stand by it, too. Is like, like the value in Jiu Jitsu or. Or MMA or any other bullshit is. Is still not even really the fighting part of it. Like, you should know that. It's awesome. Realistically, you should fight with weapons anytime you can, but you're not always gonna be able to 1. The other thing is, it's. It's not. As I said, it's really not about the fighting. It's about, like, for. For dudes that are older, they've never done this when they're young. All right. Do you have the courage to like go in the fucking jujitsu and get the absolute shit kicked out of you by some fucking 20 year old, all right. He's gonna embarrass the fuck out of you. It's gonna suck. All right. It's gonna suck for quite a while too. All right? It's me like fucking six months where you can beat up the other. You're gonna hope a new guy shows up in six months. You can rough him up a little bit, but that's, that's good for you.
- [137:13]
A
Humbling, man.
- [137:14]
C
It's humbling. It shows courage. It's humbling. All right. It also gives you something to work towards. It really like drags in your workout. You want to come up and. Yeah, it's just, it's all around great. I. I really can't think of a lot else that's gonna help. Like a guy that's older, that is. He kind of lived like a made life, like. Because you do it, it does. It takes some fucking cowboy up for that shit. Yeah, yeah. It's funny, dude. I'm a 20 year white belt, like, because I will not go back for three or four years and I'll go back for. You know, I've never been great at consistency, but I did go to the Gracie Academies the first time in tacoma in like 1998. Anyway, got the beat at me by some little tiny. I wish you knew he was some little tiny with a black belt. He's like 65, kick deep. I was a judo guy, so I was like roughing up some of the other in this little dude. Like, hey, man, let me show you some beat the. He wasn't even breathing hard. It was funny. Anyway, I will continue. I'll go back sometimes in that, you know, now even it takes a little bit of courage. Step in again because like, God damn, I'm old and out of shape and I'm still 20 year old. I'll get roughed up by some blue bells. I don't give a. It's good to just show that you'll show up to yourself sometimes. And I do need, I do need to catch myself on some consistency because my boys need to start doing this. Oh, yeah. So for sure. I'm kind of at a turn to.
- [138:29]
A
The boys right now.
- [138:30]
C
One of them turned nine yesterday.
- [138:32]
A
Oh, yeah?
- [138:32]
C
Yeah. And the other one's fucking 700%. But I'm definitely at a point of like unfucking my own life right now. So, you know, we'll get to that shit.
- [138:38]
A
Yeah, yeah. So you get done with those Books. And then. Then there's this book which I mentioned earlier on. It's called the Wrath of Wendigo. And I was like, wait, because this is a spoiler alert type of thing, because it's a. It's a novel, so. But I want to talk about a little bit. It's like the scene is. I guess it's dystopian in a way, maybe, but there's an insurgency in America against, like, the evil elite, elected and unelected bureaucrats and oligarchs that now run America. This is like a alternate history type.
- [139:18]
C
Thing that could never happen. So it's a good thing. It's fiction. Yeah.
- [139:22]
A
And then there's this insurgency that happened. Happens, and there's a breakaway part of the country, which is Cascadia, which. Actually, Cascadia is a real term.
- [139:32]
C
It's a real term for the Pacific Northwest.
- [139:34]
A
Yeah, the Pacific Northwest. And there's these people up there living in Cassadia. And the. The novel centers around this guy, Eric Hansen, and he's like a general of the insurgency. And. And he's captured. And that's the way the story unfolds, is that he gets captured and he gets interrogated, and he kind of tells the history of the insurgency. And while it's a novel, it's also like an instruction manual on how to conduct said insurgency, you know, going through.
- [140:06]
C
I never saw that part of it myself.
- [140:09]
A
So, like, the decentralized wolf lodges and, like, how to fight with sabotage and hit and run and terrain exploitation and asymmetric warfare, it's like, goes over all those things. And also the. The Wendigo, which is actually a. Like a Native American mythical creature. Mythical creature. And the basic. Tell me if I got this right. The concept is this guy, ton T O n N, he's the leader. He's like the original founder of the insurgency. And at one point, he does, like, the sweat lodge type scenario, and he sees the Wendigo and. And freaking, like, enslaves him. Kind of takes his.
- [140:50]
C
Yes.
- [140:51]
A
Takes his nightmarish personality and says, we're gonna use this because we have to.
- [140:59]
C
I'm bending you to my will.
- [141:01]
A
Yes.
- [141:01]
C
Yes.
- [141:04]
A
Be the reason the forest is haunted. It's one of those things in there. So that's. So that. That's what happens. And the book, again, I realized when I was thinking about what I was going to say about it is, like, there's a story arc that you have to read the book.
- [141:18]
C
Yeah.
- [141:18]
A
And as I was reading the book, I was like, oh, damn, what's going to happen because, you know, you want to know what's going to happen. You want to see how it unfolds. So great read. There's an audiobook version of it too. And actually I listened to the audiobook. I didn't read this book. I listened to the audiobook a lot of times. With novels, I'll just listen to them.
- [141:34]
C
I totally get. Me too.
- [141:37]
A
So there's that. So that comes out. How did that land in the world, man?
- [141:44]
C
This is, this is, this is. We're gonna have to go down a little bit of a fucking woo path if you wish. Because it's. This is really what happens. And this is kind of where we get into some like, like some fucking crazy shit for being just real with each other. So I should mention that especially because of early church shit. Like the whole time I fight the war, I'm a fucking atheist. Like, fuck every fuck all, you know, God didn't come help me from my childhood. I'm mad about shit. All right.
- [142:08]
A
This is when you're grow. This is like, this is your, your attitude towards religion when in the army you're growing up.
- [142:14]
C
Yes. Yep, yep, yep. I'm fighting these fucking Arabs with their, you know, I'm not a believer in any kind of fruitcake shit. I'm, I'm very much like a biological evolved guy. Like, we get one shot at this. I guess I'm spending my fucking run around the desert like an idiot. But you know, this is it. When we die, we die. We're dust. All this shit. Nothing I see over there or nothing I see. Not even the birth of my children makes me believe anything else. Not even fucking close. But some weird shit starts coming down the pike. I'm gonna say, man, about like 2017, 2018, and it's not even in here. It's just like I'm watching the shit that's happening to Trump when his first presidency. There starts to be like, shit that I can't explain because again, like, you don't know how much of this, like, crazy is like Pizzagate and all that. But when you start looking and you start seeing, like, hey, these guys really are collecting all these like, weird paintings. And like there starts to be this like, recurring theme and it just kind of starts coming in. Like, I, I don't know. I still don't know whether the at this point, like, I don't know if the devil is real. Like, I don't know if any of these evil spirits or real good spirits and other bullshit, but I do know that these fucking assholes believe in them, all right? And because of that, you're like, hey, learn some mythology. You know, figure out what. What do their signs and symbols mean? What does it take? You know, what's gonna take to flip our people around and, like, you know, fuck these dudes up if it comes to it. But I'm still not, like, you know, I'm a fucking mercenary for the good guys at this point. Like, you know what? I'm still not going to church, but I will fuck these guys up just because they're evil if it comes to it. Every fucking calm down with the fucking FBI right now. Oh, gotta go. Anyway, so I'm not like a believer believer at this point at all. Windigo actually comes to me in a complete novel, like, all at one time. And it's mostly, like, sitting outside my fucking house in the. In the woods, up in the fucking mountains, having a little. Couple of dope beverages. But I don't smoke weed. I don't do any drugs. I'm doing this other shit. But it is cycling in my head, and it just. It wants me to write it, and I don't want to. And it's eventually some, like, kind of weird starts happening to me when I'm like, no, you. I won't. I won't write this book. Because the other thing about it is I know the story front to back in here already. And it sounds too crazy. Like, it sounds like some. That, like, the Secret Service is gonna give me a talk or two about, right? There's some. There's some nutbar that goes on in there. And basically, what finally triggers it to, you're gonna. I will do this. I'll fucking bend the knee. I'll write a goddamn book one day. I say, I'm not going to. I say it out loud. I'm like, I am not writing this book. And so I start building a deck for my wife, all right? And next thing I know, like, I never hold a drill like this. Like, you know, normally a drill here, I'm holding it like this as I'm in the middle of this process, all right? And my oldest son at this point is not like an affectionate child, all right? He's. He's kind of like one of those ages where he's like, you know, he doesn't want to be touched or hugged or kissed or anything, but he runs across the yard to give me a hug, which is completely out of character for him at this. At this point, while I'm holding this drill like this with the bit pointed out. And before I can do something, it stabs him in the face. All right, almost. It gets him right here by the. It almost gets his eye. I'm like, holy. I take him to hospital. Got very lucky. It was just, it didn't like go through, it hurt him, but you know, there's still a little scar there, but it didn't like, you know, I'm like, holy. Also at this point, like I'm learning of like mythology and I think it's weird that it was almost his eyeball. It was a. It was the one eyed fucking king. I'm like, oh shit. So I'm like, I already feel some like woo woo fucking shit going on there. I'm like, okay, kids go to bed. Like I go up to my toolbox and I grab a flashlight with an LED bulb. But it's like a surefire too. It's not like some Chinese. And I turn that flashlight on and the bulb pops, which is basically never happens. LED lights, like you could run them for like a million hours. And like now I'm getting, I'm getting like a little bit scared actually. So I pick up a different one and I pick it up, actually take the batteries out, put in this one, turn that one on, the bowl pops. I put all that shit, all that batteries, all that box away and I go get a third one and I hit the button and it pops too. I'm like, okay, like it. All right, you know what? I will write your book. I'll do what you want. And so I do, I write this book and it flows out of me and like it does. This is the only book I've ever written that it doesn't feel like I wrote it. It feels like I channeled it. And that's. I don't know, it's also the best book I've ever written. That guy's awesome. Who the spirit guy is. That guy's. That guy's legit. But that's how this one comes about.
- [146:59]
A
And then we get into this, this latest book which is called by Barbarian. Barbarian Spirit. And I guess, I guess. Let me just start with. This is from the barbarianspirit.com website. The demon of suicide is running rampant in our society, increasing by up to 52% in certain age groups since the year 2000. It is the second leading cause of death in veterans under 45 with 140,000 veteran suicides since 2001. You read that correctly. Double the war dead from Vietnam or over one third of World War II killed in action. Suicide is a crafty way of decreasing our numbers and strength before the final day while demoralizing those that remain. This is not an analogy. One of the few cases of demonic exorcism in the Bible itself shows what demons cast out of a man, allowed to possess a herd of pigs, immediately forces the swine to drown themselves. All right, so. And we're going to get to the Barbarian Spirit website in this religion and whatnot, but I want to get just. We kind of touched on some of this stuff here, but I want to kind of set the, set the scene for you. This is reading from the book by Barbarian Spirit, you say? I was very torn on the decision to try a psychedelic. I did hours of research. I looked for anomalies like sudden death. I basically looked for any excuse I could find not to use this drug. Even after I finally settled on magic mushrooms and procured a stash, they sat in my basement for over a year. The fear was real. I should also point out here, after I got them, I asked my experts a gaggle of questions. I interrogated one of them for hours, secretly looking for a flaw and a reason not to. I listen to people on YouTube that are very anti mushroom for reasons like it opens a door to the demonic or mushrooms thrive on death. They are a thing of death and they are not your friend. Eventually I decided it was time. Not necessarily even for the spiritual reasons, I was still a bit skeptical about that. But I had some problems. Nothing else seemed to touch the brain. Therapy I got before did help with the fog I had felt on and off for years. I did feel like I gained back 20 IQ IQ points and my focus was better, but I still had bouts of depression. I still had trouble finding any kind of motivation, and I still didn't feel right. By the summer of 2023, I was ready to try anything, finally concluding that any possible risk outweighed continuing to feel less than whole. It was time to cowboy up. So even though you kind of squared your away somewhat now, you gotta, you know, you got your wife, you got kids. Was your second son in on scene?
- [149:43]
C
Yes. Yeah, because he's, he's only two years younger than the big one.
- [149:45]
A
Okay, so you had two boys, but you're still like, yeah, so some shit's not right.
- [149:49]
C
So basically I'm like doing this on. Sure. Willpower and discipline now. All right? I'm, I'm, you know, going, I'm doing stuff to get us money. All right? I'm trying to, you know, be a good example for my kids and like, work out. So I can live long enough to fucking, you know, fucking raise them, but I'm. I'm still a mess. Like, I've got the brain fog, all right? I've got no motivation for the drive for the gym when I do go, like, I never get any gains because it turns out that when I finally go to do this other bullshit, I've got testosterone at, like, a count of, like, 173. Yeah, this is a beautiful operator. A lot of dudes are really fucked up in the endocrine system from either the war or whatever. So I'm basically just like tooth and claw, just barely living, not very well, but, you know, enough time to, like, play. I know I'm fucked up, though. Like, I know that, like, I've got to do something to get some energy back, get some drive and, you know, all this shit. And that is around the time that I first started hearing about psychedelics as a therapy, which I thought sounded like total bullshit anyway. It sounds like some hippie fucking peace and love. Like, oh, yeah, you just, you know, fucking see these fairies and, you know, I'm like, no, man, there's ain't no fucking way that works. But I finally. I get. That's exactly what I get desperate enough. Like, you know, I'll try some fucking crazy shit. The brain thing that I had before was called transcranial magnetic stimulation. And this. This is the thing they're doing for veterans now, and they basically shock your brain with magnets and shit. It did help a little bit, but it didn't help enough. Like, I'm like, you know, I don't even need to feel like I'm 25. I need to feel like I'm 35 something, though, so I can get through this. And it ended up that I had a bunch of clients from this book that basically pulled me out of retirement of teaching pizzle and shit. They were bitcoin dudes, so they're already kind of free thinking fucking those kind of dudes. And they were big into psychedelics because they were big in programming and a bunch of other weird jobs where you wouldn't think psychedelics are the thing. But so they're always talking about this shit, and they're like, no, look, man, some of them had even donated more money to some of the other veteran organizations that use these as. As therapeutics down in Mexico for. For guys. And they're like, it's not like they ever tried to push him on me, but if I ask them, they're like, oh, yeah, man, that'll totally help. Your ass. Like, it'll be magic. I'm like, but I'm a Nancy Reagan kid too, man. Like, dude, I have a dare T shirt probably still from, you know. Like, I grew up in this and especially stuff you hear about psychedelics because in the after school specials in 1987, it's all bad. Like, yeah, you'll cut your fucking face off with a razor blade because there's spiders in it and shit. Melt your brain and you'll be like a retard down by the fucking railroad tracks. So I am scared of it. And it's also true, you're probably scared of it too, a little bit. Because if you don't know how it works. My biggest thought and my guys that were interested never reconcile this point because they don't really understand. But this has come up a lot of times with other veterans when I, I talk to him. I'm also like a mass murderer, man. Like, like I, I can do and have done like some killing and if I put a hallucinogenic on board and I think that we're, you know, back at Fallujah or some, this could get real squirrely. All right? And like. Right. Like, ain't nobody stopping me either for like a long time. You know what I mean? Like, am I gonna wake up in the bushes with an empty plate carrier? Like, that's gonna be bad, right? So it is, It's. It's scary. It's scary for a lot of reasons. There's also a very real fear amongst like, you know, our, our kind of dudes. Like, what if this takes my edge off, right? Yeah. I'm this guy and I can do all this terrible crazy to protect my babies right now if I need to, like, I've, you know, kill this county with a ax if I have to. What if this makes me like a little. This is one of the funniest. I, I have a, A dude I know that's a 5th group battalion commander that, that, that got into space and this was his biggest concern. He's a monster. He's like. That's what he said. What if you turn me into, you know, fairy? Like, like I wake up tomorrow and like, I'm a pacifist. Like, that would suck, dude. These are, these are things that like, we're scared.
- [153:48]
A
No, I've, I've. People would try and get me. Cuz I've never like, done any drugs and I've got like. I mean, I live in Southern California, right? I live in Ocean beach in Southern California. There's a Lot of drugs. There's a lot of people. There's like, normal. Normal people like, that have every job you can imagine. And they smoke dope all day long. Oh, no. And I mean, I've literally had the conversation with people like, dude, you'll just, like, take your edge off a little bit. And I've been like, that is the.
- [154:10]
C
Last thing I want. I like, this get away from me. Right, right, right.
- [154:14]
A
So that's a real fear, like you said.
- [154:16]
C
Oh, yeah. Hell, yeah.
- [154:17]
A
And I have that. Like, I have the fear of. Of, well, like, us. Like, I feel good, you know, like, and my life is great, you know, I'm like. Like, I don't want to. I don't want to, like, mess up the system. The thing I told Echo told you before we started is, like, I'm driving around the highway at 80 miles an hour. There's no traffic. I'm listening to some good music. I'm not gonna pull that car over and just disassemble the engine and put it back together. Like, that seems like a high risk to me, but. But that's me, you know? And I do know a lot of people that have made some serious progress.
- [154:51]
C
Yeah.
- [154:51]
A
Throughout the. These. Through these. Whatever they're called, substances journeys, these.
- [154:57]
C
Yes.
- [154:58]
A
Yeah. So you make the decision that you're gonna do it.
- [155:02]
C
Yep. Yeah. And like I said, it's. I. I'm not believing anybody's hippie either about, you know, spiritual journey. Like, I'm of the opinion, like, this is probably all. You probably see some. Of course, loose and genic. You're gonna see some crazy. But that's your subconscious, you know, making up whatever. And. But if it will help. All right, if it will help with, like, the. The brain fog and if. If it will actually do the other shit they're supposed to do for the energy system, like, fine, I'll go on a movie. I don't care if it's a scary movie. I don't care if I got a, you know, Freddy Krueger for 15 hours. I don't give a fuck. All right? I. I want. Or I'm going to try this for the. The health reason. All right? And it also sounds crazy for me that, like, we're gonna do some drugs for our health. Like, what button. This is what I'm gonna do. So. So. And also, I don't want to tell my wife that I'm doing this because I'm kind of still in a. Like, a mess, too. Kind of like some, like. Like, paranoid, not really petty kind of like, some paranoia, I guess is the right word, kind of some, like, isolation and, like, you know, I don't trust a bunch of people. And anyway, I don't want to tell her that I'm doing this because she has a. She has a negative opinion of the. These kinds of things from her youth, you know? Hope her dad's not watching this. Whatever it. Well, we're gonna tell this story. My wife has done, like, a fair amount of these things. Frying, which is a word I just learned from my ec. Like, recreationally, like, when she's very young. All right? So. And people that do this, like, for fun, it's a totally different thing than people that do this, I will come to find out for. For these, like. Like, spiritual or health reasons or something like that. So, anyway, waiting my wife to go to bed, which is almost never happens. She goes first. All right? I'm scared of shitloads of these mushrooms, so I'm doing all this, like, wordster school, like, rubbing them on the inside of my arm, like, four hours before. Make sure I get rash, like. Like the day. You know, a couple hours, I take, like, a little bite and, like, swish around my mouth and spit it out to see if it's poison, you know, I'm gonna die. And I Also, because of the hallucinogenic effect, potentially, I don't want to be, like, in the house with my wife and kids, because I also don't know what the fuck's gonna happen. I'm gonna start throwing dishes across the living room. Am I gonna get fucking crazy? So I'm gonna lock myself in the garage, which is a detached garage. I got a little fucking nest of lawn furniture, fucking cushions and shit. And I get my stuff out. All right, here we go. And I actually divide it in half, too. Cause I'm like. If you're looking for this for, like, the. The health thing, you're supposed to get to, like, a certain point, which is, like, between 4 and 5 grams, where you can actually reboot your brain is what they call. There's a. There's actually another word for. They call it the. I don't remember, right?
- [157:42]
B
Like the hero dose or something.
- [157:43]
C
It's the heroic dose. But there's a certain piece in your brain that's, like, hitting the reset. There's a. There's a big word for it. I think it's in the book somewhere. But it's. This is what you. You have to get above this certain. Certain threshold to get that to work. So I'm like. But I'm gonna take half of this first. Just, like, see how it does for me, you know, make sure that, like, I don't completely come unglued. So. So I take, like, my two grams or two and a half grams. And it's also a weird thing because, like, psilocybin mushrooms, it takes a long time to kick in. It can take like an hour. It can take up to two hours, but it usually takes, like, an hour. So. Yeah. So I take my stuff and hang out for a little bit, and then I start kind of feeling kind of good. I'm like, okay, this is all right. Lay down my little nest of. Nest of. And I. I wish I had a picture of this yet. Yeah. You know, it's lawn chairs and, like, a poncho liner or some. One of my sandbag kettlebells for a pillow. So it starts kicking in, and I start seeing what I think I'm gonna. What I think I'm see, because I never thought of this as, like, a spiritual journey in the slightest. All right? I start seeing some, you know, random, you know, crazy, like a train with wings flying through the. You know, just dumb. And this goes on for a little bit. And sometimes it's like mushrooms now are, like, talking to me, which also can be just, like, some totally subconscious, you know, like, of course mushrooms are talking to you. Like, oh, nice. Course, there. And it's like, okay, you know, you like. It's like, we're boys, right? Like, are we cool? I'm like, yeah, yeah, this is fun. They're like, okay, wait, so the mushrooms.
- [159:17]
A
Are talking to you, like, inside your own head?
- [159:19]
C
Inside your own head.
- [159:20]
A
Got it.
- [159:20]
C
Yes.
- [159:21]
B
Is it, like, words, or is it just like. Like, you just understand it?
- [159:30]
C
I feel like it is words, maybe. And maybe that's just the way, like, I see it, because a lot of you can see different things from. From these things. I feel like it is words, but I am. It's not like I'm verbally hearing with the way it is just all in here anyway. They're, you know, they're like, hey, you know, like, are we cool? And also, like, I have no idea how to do this shit either. Like, I don't know if you're supposed to have, like, a fucking ritual or fucking. So I've kind of made some shit like. Like I was telling you before we were on the show, like, I've never been into Viking shit in my fucking life. Like, I thought Vikings were, like, undisciplined fucking retards. And, you know, if I'M gonna do something militarily. Like, I want to be like a legionnaire or like a fucking samurai or somebody that, you know, actually gets their haircut and shines their boots, not some, you know, fucking drunken idiot ship. But so anyway, so, like. But from this, I've learned a little bit, like, shit. So, like, I've drawn, like, a warding circle of rooms on this. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. Like, I feel like you gotta have a ritual. You can't just eat some mushrooms. That's fucking retarded. So I. Searching. Shit. I take the. It's like, are we friends? Like, we cool? And I was like, okay. It's like, well, if you want to really do this, like, you're gonna have to, like, take the rest. I'm like, okay, that's fine. We eat the rest of these. We'll eat the other half. And it's like. And you have to, you know, leave your warding circle, too. You have to go, like, fucking lay down in bed and be comfy. I'm like, oh, shit. Like, I don't know who the fuck I'm talking to now, but it seems like the guy that tells you to put your gun down is probably not your friend. Like, maybe you want to think about that one. But whatever. I feel like you. I feel like I'm going to trust this. I also feel like if I didn't need to trust this, well, fucking kick this guy's ass and then come back to the fucking warning circle. Be like, well, that's fucking stupid. So eat the rest of them. All right now. Shit's, like, coming on. Because it doesn't take another hour for that second half to kick in. Like, we're escalating. So I go upstairs to my guest room and fucking hop in bed. At this point, I don't need clothes anymore. This is just kind of how mushroom make you feel. And we're streaking. Streaking.
- [161:29]
A
Sorry, I didn't mean to ruin your spiritual journey with a Will Ferrell joke.
- [161:33]
C
Right? And getting bad. And I. I have, like, the craziest, deepest spiritual experience that I've ever had, man. Actually, how much did you with that? It's kind of part of the story. Was kind of not important, too. It's, you know, it's in the fucking book.
- [161:56]
A
Yeah. I mean, some. Some highlights of it. There's like, this golden city that you go into. You end up facing these evil kind of mnemonic things that you're killing with the sword, and you actually use the Word. Smashing.
- [162:08]
C
Smashing, yes. And then.
- [162:12]
A
Then we get to this bear and this wolf thing.
- [162:14]
C
Yeah.
- [162:14]
A
Which I think you should probably talk about.
- [162:15]
C
Okay. No. Okay, so this is fucking super important. So. Yeah. So when I lay down, all right, I start feeling like I start seeing shit. All right? I start seeing shit, like, hyper fucking clear, which is actually kind of. This does not happen, everybody. With psilocybin, even with that kind of dose, a lot of people will never get through, like, seeing funny colors and, like, the psychedelic patterns. That's what I will, over time, come to call the veil. All right? You can take a lot of these kinds of drugs and never get through that veil. A lot of people want recreationalists a lot of times. If you're serious, though, and you're, like, on a journey and, like, you have taken this with purpose and focus and you're trying to go somewhere, you will pass through that veil. And what's on the other side of that veil? Well, it varies for everyone, but for me, it's. It's crystal clear. I'm in this fucking city and I. Now I'm like, immediately getting. Now I'm talking to somebody and this really is worth. They're like, fucking. All right, hey, check it out. Here's your sword. And like. Oh, fuck. I didn't know I had a sword, but I guess I do. And there's all these. There's supposed to be all these statues, big statues of, like, monsters and fucking. I know what they are, too, because I've researched a lot of shit. But, like, there's a Moloch and ball and all that shit, and I'm just, like, running on fucking. I see these things. I want to hit them. Like, I'm smashing them. It's not like cutting either, because they're like a clay or a stone statues. I'm fucking smashing them with this thing. And I'm getting pissed off because there's no fucking blood. Like, I want to kill somebody too. Like, I'm. I'm feeling this like. Or these bad guys. Like, there would be some bad here. I don't want to represent. I don't want a paper target on the range. Like, I want Bin Laden or whatever. So. So this goes off a little bit, and I, you know, I guess that was some kind of testing. And it's like, okay. And I. This would be another thing that's consistently weird for me with. With psilocybin. It usually gives me three trips instead of one. It's like a play in three acts. So I'll go into the. What I call the spirit realm, which is where we pass through the veil. We see all crazy bullshit. I'll wake up and want to go outside and, like, take a piss, drink some water, have like a 30 minute break, you know, and you're still. There's still happening. You're not seeing things anymore. This is more like. This is more like a reflection time. And then when that 30 minutes is over, to be like, okay, time for, you know, part two, and I'll go back in, lay down and see the second act where. But I don't know any of this shit at the time. So I come to and, like, I'm back in my, you know, guest room with, you know, pillows with doilies on them and, you know, lace curtains. Like, there's no terrible shit. And I don't even. I think I look at my. I'm carrying my phone over the clock and it's only been like, you know, hour and a half, two hours. I'm like, oh, fuck, man. I always heard that these mushroom things took like eight hours. Like this. Yeah, this is over. Like, vision still, like a little distorted, but like, it's no different than really, like being really drunk or something. Like, okay, all right, I guess I'll go outside, you know, I don't know, I want to see some night air and take a piss or something so I can go downstairs still naked, high enough that that's not a big deal. I live in town too, so I've got neighbors on four sides and shit. And something is like, compelling me to. To go out and not have clothes on. And there's also still like a little part of me that's rational. It's like, man, this is fucking, like, no, dude, I don't get like arrested for, you know, indecent exposure or some bullshit fucking two o'. Clock. My wife is not gonna be happy. That happens. Walk out of the house, walk under the shadow of my fucking tree. And another kind of, like, weird coincidence thing that has happened is I wanted to do this the night before, but my wife stayed up late and I was tired, so I went to bed early this night. Like, she never goes to bed early at all. She went to bed like 9 o'. Clock. So I got fucking all the night in the world. It's also, what the fuck is it? It's the fucking super blue moon that won't happen again for like fucking 25 years. And it's fucking reaching its apex, which, when this first happened, like, you know, fuck it, whatever, it's a fucking full moon. I give Fuck. Now I'm gonna know why. Oh. As I walk out under the shadow of the fucking tree. All right, I step into the fucking moonlight. And this is still, like, really difficult to, like, fucking put into words because it's so fucking crazy. But as, like, my body passes in that fucking moonlight, I feel like something fucking, like, awakened me, and it is like a fucking animal. And I know exactly what the fuck it is. And it's the fucking wolf spirit. And I am, like, freaking out a little bit. I'm also, at this point, I at least have enough, like, Judeo Christian fucking background to be like, am I possessed? Like, am I being possessed like, right at this fucking moment? And kind of actually. So I am like, holy. And I take a couple more steps in the moonlight. And I'm also freaking out because I've never been this high in my life. My. If when my eyes are closed, I can feel, like, my body turning into this werewolf. But when I open my eyes, like, force my real eyes open, I can see that my hand is still my hands. I don't have any claws. I don't have a snout and teeth. But if I. If I blink, close a little bit, I'm back to that thing. So it's like both things are happening at once. Rational mind is like, oh, holy fuck. Like, this is fucking crazy as fuck. I know where all the werewolf fucking legend of the world come from right now. And I feel this, like, ungodly, like, fucking power coming with this. And that's what I mean when I say in the book, like, look, I've done some fucking crazy shit, all right? I've assaulted on fucking Adderall because, like, we've been up so many days, they gave us some fucking go pills. And that's pretty fucking intense and pretty fucking crazy, right? Nothing has ever been like this that I've ever fucking felt in my life. It is just like, fucking raw fury. And it feels actually fucking amazing and wonderful, too. Like. Like, it feels like, you know, if fucking Chuck Liddell and fucking Randy Couture in their fucking prime walk through the Bad Gate right now, I would fucking beat them to death. Like, I whip their fucking ass. All right? You know, it's that kind of, like, primal fucking rage. And I kind of fight it, actually, for a little bit. Cause I'm like, oh, fuck, man. I don't need to be possessed by the. This is where I go, you know, fucking rip the neighbor's throats out with my teeth. Like, this is not good. And finally, well, fuck it. This is what's happening and I let it fucking like take over. Like, it is fucking so amazing. It's fucking so fucking good. And now I'm like literally like on all fours fucking feeling like some kind of fucking monster, like howling at the moon, fucking growling. And this goes on for a little bit and I fucking kind of come back to. But I'm. It's still like half and half like me in this wolf shit. And I'm actually standing. Like, I can tell from my rational I'm standing like a fucking weird, but I'm standing like a werewolf in a fucking movie. Was still just my natural. But it feels like I have all this other shit too. And you know, so I am kind of freaking out still a little bit. But I'm also like, this is. This is pretty fucking cool. Like, you know, I like being this guy actually. This is awesome. And I still don't really know what the fuck has happened, but I, you know, I kind of do. So it's like, you know, the mushrooms talking again is like, you know, okay, like time to go back inside. Like, okay, well, as long as I'm in control this, I'm not going to see my kids like this motherfucker. And it's like, it's fine. Just go like, okay, so I'm like walking back through my house and like, I don't know, again feels like just some like really weird, like fucking primal. Like I'll see shadows in my kitchen, fucking growl at em and shit like a total fruitcake. And it's. It's. It's not even something I control. It's just like. It is like a dog. It's like, you know, instinctive. I'm like, oh, fuck. All right, so go back upstairs, go to bed, lay down. Like, okay, fucking sleep. And so I go tumble back into the. The spirit realm real fast. And it's like the voice is like, okay, you know, this is, this is what you think it is. This is the, you know, of north spirit. This is the, you know, the wolf spirit that's been around forever and like, you want to keep this. Like, you know, there's price. This is also where it's like a Judeo Christian guy or any kind of you, like, like hold up. Like, like, we do not sell our souls. We do not make deals over here. And I tell them that, they're like, no, no, no, that's fine. It's. It's just pain. Like, you know, you gotta take enough pain to prove you can bond with this thing. I don't. Pain, that's Easy. That's a simple currency to take. So it's like, all right, well, you said. You said, go for it. Here we go. And it feels like like hundreds of years pass. I'm just getting up. It's like there's other. Tell me. At the same time, I was like, you gotta feel every death of every other fucking wolf spirit that's ever fucking died. We're not actually immortal. Like, we'll fucking die. So I tumble through like thousands and thousands of years getting, you know, fucking stabbed and shot and arms ripped off. I see all these other, especially from Europe, things that I've never seen before too. Like, I had no idea there were Roman formations with wolf heads. There were. Especially in the early days of Republic. At one point, standard bearers also wore wolf skins instead of bears or lions. The Celt had some. I see a bunch of crazy that I'll, like, decipher later. It's like, oh, there were other legends around these things. So this goes on. It hurts too. It. It feels like real of like these injuries. And also like your muscles are like very tensing. This can be called also a psychosomatic response. This is one of the things you actually want from dudes when they have a bunch of traumas with the. With the. With the drugs. Because this is actually somehow your body releases that it's doing these things. You can throw up, you can shit, you can cry, or you can do weird fucking muscle. And all of those things are like psychosomatic release. All those things are actually helping you heal and get rid of this garbage. So this goes on for a long time. I'm fucking tired as fuck. It's over. Finally I get killed for the fucking lane of head cut off or some shit. It's like, okay, I'm panting, I'm in bed, sweating, like, up tired. All this shit. And it's like, okay, you're done. Except for one thing. I'm like, okay. It's like, you know, the bear is gonna challenge for his fucking right for you being its cult. I'm like, oh, fuck.
- [172:13]
A
The right for what?
- [172:14]
C
The right to be in its cult.
- [172:16]
A
Got it.
- [172:16]
C
So I look over and here comes a giant bear. You know, to be perfectly honest to. I didn't know enough about Norse to even really know that there was a wolf cult. The. The Ulfhednar instead of the berserkers. And the wolf being of the old head, nor the bear being of the berserker cult. So this big ass bear coming over. I'm like, oh. Like, I'm Fucking tired. I do not want to fight a goddamn bear right now. And I don't have to, because the wolfer takes it, takes over and just fucking grabs this thing and rips this top jaw off of its body and throws it in the floor. I'm like, what, the spirits or the. The voice? Like, okay, don't worry. Beer's not really dead. Just, you know, you're. You're. You're on Team Wolf. But you can, you know, call in the bear too, if you need to. Like, okay, let's make total sense, man. It's great. All right. Perfectly logical. And, yeah, it was. It was incredibly weird experience.
- [173:10]
A
Now, what's the next day feel like? Or like, whatever, three days later or whatever?
- [173:13]
C
Like, oh, so this is kind of like the end of, like, the, you know, tripping journey. Journeying balls. Tripping balls down there. Journeying balls. Fucking experience. I go downstairs. Like, I'm really awake now. I'm coming off or out of this, and I'm, like, hungry. I want some fucking, like, steak and fucking red meat. I feel great. I feel fucking more amazing I've ever felt in my fucking life. It just feels fucking wonderful. And I'm also, like, nobody has ever fucking told me about having a first trip like this. I'm a little bit fucking freaking out. I'm waiting on, like, a Christian enough hour of, like, you know, 7am to come so that I can call one of my guys to has experience with this and be like, yo, dude, what is this? Is this how it goes? This what happens, everybody? It's not. But, yeah, no, it's. It's great. It's. It's amazing. I feel like. I don't know, it feels like one. My brain did reboot. I feel like a new person after this. Even, like, you know, three, four days later when it's all the way over, I feel like I have, like, leveled up as a human being and I've gotten rid of all this garbage and all this. That used to bother me.
- [174:12]
A
There's some. Something in that first journey that you went on where you say you learned three words, but you don't write them in the book. Like, what's that all about? Is it, like, foreign words or something like that?
- [174:23]
C
Yes, it is. So one of the other things that it's kind of fucking about while I'm on this fucking first journey is it knows that I'm a skeptical type of person. Even, like, the. The shit that I said I didn't know about, like, the Roman formations and the. The Celts, like, When this is all going to be over, I could reasonably go and be like, you know what? Maybe I learned that when I was 12 years old in the fucking picture book. Maybe I learned this other fucking thing. It knows I'm going to rationalize my journey, knows I'm going to try to find a logical solution so that I can write off the spiritual aspects of this. So when it's leaving, the fucking Big Al gives me these three words. And so I go to try to. Once I'm done, I try to go Google them. They don't have any fucking answers. They don't mean anything. So the one I. I have a buddy, that's what. His wife is from Norway. And I actually know what language. These words. I know they're Old Norse or something like Old Norse or Germanic or. Or older manic or Icelandic. There's something from this region. This is the same, like, mythology that it's shown me as this is going on. And it's. It's kind of been telling me too, like, this is, you know, this is Odin speaking, kind of. So I call my buddy whose wife's from Norway. I'm like, hey, man, I need to know what this word means. I know what it means, but I want to know what it means. He's like, okay, let me ask my wife. And he's like. She's like, well, that means absolutely. It's a nonsense word that means nothing. But it, like, kind of piqued her curiosity. So she called her mom, all right? Picked her curiosity. She didn't know either. So they called Grandma back in Norway, and Grandma knew exactly what the. It meant. Because Norway. Norwegian is a language that has changed a lot, even in, like, the last 40 to 50 years, all right? And it's not even as close to Old Norse, but the old people, the. Their language is a little bit closer, all right? And that is exactly what it means. It means fucking wolf shirt. And it's like, grandma wants to know how the fuck you know it, because almost nobody else on the fucking planet knows this word. And so that's. That freaks me out, dude. Now I'm like, all right. There's, like. There's like, no denying that that word came from somewhere else. That was not me.
- [176:28]
A
All right, you gotta read a little section of the book right now. As a professional soldier, I would have found the image of a Berserker laughable, mostly because in common understanding, it fits so easily into the box of. Then I'll just get really mad and go into a rage. See red or some Other amateur bullshit. A common bit of wisdom from people that think they can street fight which will get you hurt or killed in real real fast the tactics go if you face a anyone with skills. They're a very complex relationship between aggression and expertise. Tiny bit of history, but important. The western ideal of soldiers has been disciplined, cold, rational automatons for a very very long time. Even back to ancient Sparta, that was what they wanted. Spartans put anger and fear in the same box and train their soldiers to never show either. And they were kind of right, but kind of wrong. Anger can be used to mask fear and one doesn't know how long that facade will hold up. I believe the Spartans therefore just tried to excise both. Odd as it may sound, they didn't really give much of a shit about personal martial ability either. All they really wanted was a soldier that could stand in the phalanx and coldly but steadily grind forward forever. I'm not disputing prowess or that it worked or personal Spartan bravery, merely pointing out what they thought of as an ideal. Romans were mass produced Spartans, so pretty much the same concept. And I think we can say the same for pike squares and all the phalanx style warfare afterward after the same applied when guns became king. It was far more important than anything else that your soldiers stand in formation and do the right steps. Iron discipline, which does mean the negation of emotions, all of them. This is the western goal which armies have strived for for the last hundred years, arguably for the last thousand years. Kill who we tell you to kill, but only when we say so, stop as soon as we say stop and in between times act like an automaton on parade. SOCOM is perhaps the greatest example of this. They select and build for for this from day one. In those types of places there will be no praise, there will be no rousing speeches from leadership. There will only be a target and an expected outcome. You will never hear that you did a good job, not no matter how difficult the task might have been. You only hear about it if you up and you won't hear that more than a few times before you are gone. More than anyone else, SOCOM would be happy happy if they had robots. If they could make capable men, put them on ice between jobs, they would do so now. The irony here is that its recruitment practices often draw the most naturally aggressive men. To start with, it spends an awful lot of money tamping that instinct down and very rarely rewards it. It might praise that aggression on rare occasion throw out a few medals to the boys, but by and large, it seeks to leash it. I've seen that mask slip a few times, but largely it holds. There is a term you should familiarize yourself with if you haven't Industrial psychology. This is the science of extracting the maximum amount of valence for the minimum amount of input from the worker. It has a military parallel in use for a long time now and building on what has was already known in ages prior. The problem with this approach is that it blunts your emotions on every level. Between the cold discipline and inputs which is hidden behind a guise of professionalism and burying friends hand over fist, you end up with all your emotions locked up in a little box, which has a very negative effect on your other normal human relationships. It makes them extremely difficult. For about two years prior to this vision, I had been doing work to unlock my emotions for the sake of my children and my relationship with my wife. And along that path I started to wonder if we had gone gotten it wrong, would we, as special operation ninjas have been more effective if we add more emotional investment? Sure, we did some good work, but if we had been able to tap into fury a little bit more, would we have been even better? So when you act later in the book, I wanted to make sure I made this point. You talk about like, you realize like, that is something it would be good to tap into sometimes, but you have to balance it out, obviously. It actually reminded me of a story. My buddy Stoner, who was one of my platoon commanders and he like, we're doing immediate action trails out in the desert. He's a, he's, he did one deployment as a SEAL at this point, now he's with me and he's a platoon commander. And like, he's not being aggressive like in this training. Like, you gotta, you know, you, you're out in the desert, you want some people to do some, you gotta make them do some right? You know, hey, we need two guys like, you gotta, you gotta. And I'm like, bro, you need to like be aggressive. And he's like, what do you mean? I'm like, you gotta, you gotta like find a little bit of that rage to make happen. And he's like, really? And I go, yeah. And he did, you know, he's like, okay, cool. Yeah, like if you got two guys in a fire team that aren't like responding, you need to go make sure they freaking respond. You need to make it happen. So that kind of reminded me of that, you know, you got, he was told for many years, like, hey, no emotions, no emotions, no Emotions. And I was like, no, bro, you need to let those things out sometimes, right?
- [181:44]
C
Yeah.
- [181:46]
A
So there. There's where we're at. So that's your first experience with this?
- [181:51]
C
Yes.
- [181:51]
A
Then you do. Your second one is like, would this be considered, like, a bad trip, man?
- [181:58]
C
I'll tell you.
- [182:01]
A
From the book. You. You described it. I landed in a new place, one of pure horror. It was a catacomb of the broken bones, skulls and fire as far as the eye could see.
- [182:08]
C
It was real bad. It was real bad. I will tell you straight up from the. From like the. The. The hippies and like the therapists and the fucking people that are like, into this shit for like. Like in a. Even the guys who do this is like a therapeutic for a different way. Some of them that I know that have, like, random, like, you have always had bad trips. Everything that happens to you is a bad trip. I don't see it that way at all. And actually most of, like, the, like, the fucking, like the badass dudes that I take on these journeys the same way. Anything that we say to, like, somebody out there is a badge for us. It doesn't really feel that way, though. But it'd be the same if we get in a fucking gunfight in the parking lot, away to lunch. Like, we're still going to buy tacos. Yeah, if we had, like, some.
- [182:43]
A
Tell some good stories.
- [182:44]
C
Exactly. Can I borrow Mag? You know, I'm empty. If somebody that's never been any kind of shit is with us, like, they're going to be freaked the fuck out. All right. They're not having a good day. So. But yes, the second one, probably even for me, could be described as a bad trip. And this is. This is something that I now especially see with retrospect is happening to me. I'm having probably a very unique experience with psilocybin because it's all building towards something. I don't know what the fuck that's going to be until, like, way, way, way later. But I wouldn't even say that it's necessarily testing me. It's conditioning me that these are the kind of things that can happen because eventually it's going to.
- [183:20]
A
What was the time length between the first one and the second one? It's like a couple of months or something like that.
- [183:24]
C
No, not even that long. Probably by a month. This is one thing that's true from the first one, too. I have so much fudgeing respect for this thing after I do it. Like, this is. This is fucking amazing. Like, I will Never do this again, though. Until, like, I feel like the omens asked me to because. Because I respect it. Like, I'm appreciative as well as. Like, I know this shit is fucking powerful as fuck if it wants to take me to a real scary place is where we're going. So it's about a month later and it starts calling back to me. And one of the other things that is weird about me is I will end up doing, like, a lot of these things in, like, a relatively short period. And that's not right, usually for a lot of people. A lot of people will go, like, six months between a journey because that's what they. That's what they need or that's what it tells them to do. Some people will do this, like, once a year. All right. It'll take years to get through all the. But hey, you know, you do kind of what it. It wants you to do. If you're really listening, for me, it's like a month. So I'm like, hey, cool, awesome. Let's do this again.
- [184:22]
A
So you're slain demons in this one?
- [184:24]
C
Yeah.
- [184:25]
A
And demon interrogations.
- [184:26]
C
Like, you're. Yeah. Okay. This one is fucking completely insane. When you're gonna go in the second time, you don't know what the. Like, I'm like, is this. If I do this again, will it be an exact repeat of the first time? Will it be the same world, but it's a continuous. Like, I have no fucking idea. So what happens is he calls me, I eat the stuff, and I go into, like, a totally different place. And, you know, I'm not. It's not like I'm in chapter two, and, like, I'm still the fucking wolf guy or any bullshit like that. And so I'm confused. Like, where the fuck am I? Exactly?
- [184:56]
A
Totally different book.
- [184:57]
C
Totally different book. Got it. And. And that's what it starts out as. Like, I. I get attacked by all these fucking demony things. And I had actually gone in here to ask a very specific question. Now I'm getting fucking jumped, and I'm actually a little bit scared because, like, I don't know. This is my second time. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing in here. So I'm getting my fucking ass kicked. I fucking summon a shield and a fucking spear, but I'm taking, like, damage. Like, these things are fucking hurting me. Like, fucking hitting me through this shield. In the. In that world, it's hard enough that, like, I feel it in the real world. Like, it feels like fucking Impacts, I'm like, it'll bounce me in and out of the fucking realm. And it's like getting hit by like, a dude knows how to hit you. I'm like, so I'm doing all this fucking shit. I'm like basically running from these things because I'm getting. There's a lot of getting the fucking ass kicked off me and something happens and the fucking wolf guy just like fucking jumps in and takes over. And it. It was actually an ambush. All right, I needed to know this. The thing that I wanted to know could only come from in the spirit realm term something that's on the other side. It's not going to show up if there's like a fucking badass with all of his friends, you know, waiting with fucking guns. So basically it let me use myself and like my, my human aura as bait. And then when the thing showed up, they had the fucking answer. It force fed in the fucking QRF and showed me how to handle these things. And it was, it was, you know, it's like, okay, I took over. Grab this thing. Like, all right, well, here's how you interrogate things in the spirit realm. Fucking fuck this dude up, you know, and showed me what I would. What I needed to know.
- [186:30]
A
Cool. Kind of takeaway. Here you say the sacrifice of old was effective, but the new way was a method of extracting more soul over a longer time. Screens, particularly phones, cost you your life, your life force, time. They are form of sacrificing small bits of your life to the dark gods. You even bow your head in supplication to them as you willfully carve away grains of your soul to whatever gave us this technology multiplied by billions. That is stronger magic than cutting the hearts out of a few hundred per day. And those soul grains feed the dust storm that will eventually destroy us. This is the Greece of Ragnarok, Armageddon and Kali Yuga. Combined with other mechanisms, this is how they gain power to destroy our civilizations. Your phone is a demon.
- [187:27]
C
It is. It's fucking wild shit, right?
- [187:30]
A
It's wild shit.
- [187:31]
C
But think about this. This is. This is a theory. I do believe that the technology, for the most part. And man, a lot of these dudes, like, came up with like touch screens from doing psychedelics. All right? They learned how to do that on the other side. I watch. Look at like Steve Jobs or Tim Cook or a lot of these other inventors, where they got their shit from, where they got the idea from, that made them, you know, the bazillion fucking dollars a Lot of it came from these drugs. Right? So you don't necessarily know where the fuck you're going to land when you take these things. All right? And whoever is guiding you also has an influence on that. And there's. There's shit that goes on over there that none of us will ever, like, really, truly fully understand, but this is what it tells me, like, directly. And you got to think about. It is weird, is it not? The way that we bow our heads to our phones.
- [188:19]
A
Disturbing.
- [188:20]
C
It is very disturbing. It's. It's some weird shit.
- [188:27]
A
Third experience seems like a little bit more of a minor experience. This was like, a little Q and A going on with the wolf. You joined the wolf spirit, and you figure out that if you need the fury, you can summon it, but you still get to drive. It's like, yes, that's where you feel in that third one.
- [188:45]
C
This is kind of where it went with this. It's like, okay, you know, look, I had to jump in and take over last time because, you know, you're still a new guy in the spirit realm. And, yeah, we were getting up, so. Which is totally cool. It was. It was a conversation. Like, if you're, you know, senior assaulter jumped in and helped you, but you were the new. You know, you got. You're not a dick. You helped me. Thanks, bro. So it tells me. It's like, okay, you know, I had to do this as one time, but, you know, you're in charge, all right? You're not being, like, possessed and fucking taken over by this other shit. Yeah. You can call on this, though, when you need it, and it's fucking weird. I don't. I don't know if I put this in the book or not, but this is real shit. Like. Like when I'm in, like, danger now in, like, the real world, like, if, you know, a fucking hobo hops out of the fucking thing and fucking comes at me with a fucking ice pick, this comes online. It's. It's. It's fucking weird as shit. But it's all this. I don't know if it actually works. I don't know if I can actually pick up heavier or hit harder or not, but it feels like it. It feels like this fucking shit has. Has come on board, and it's. It's pretty fucking weird, but it's cool. I got it. Like, I like it. Like, I. Scared of shit when there's a wolf demon driving the ship. Like, okay, but you're good. Yeah, you're totally good. Yeah.
- [189:55]
A
Fourth experience this is like a. Again, there's like a. A Q A going on. Do you seek knowledge or do you seek the truth? You respond, I seek the truth. And then there's like. You get this term animal magic.
- [190:09]
C
Yes.
- [190:10]
A
What's the animal magic all about?
- [190:12]
C
The animal magic is. It's telling me where we. We gained this. This power of the bear or the wolf or whoever our spirit guide is. And it goes into this fucking long story about some incredible length of time ago, 100,000 years or some shit. We as men have to go to war against the fucking wolves because they're eating our fucking kids and we're trying to domesticate animals and they're fucking our shit up, or they're eating all the game in the fucking forest. And we had to go fucking fight them because it's survival to finish at this point. And we gotta. So we're doing a fucking wipe them out so we get the upper hand because we have, you know, figured how to use spears and fucking clubs and shit, all right? And we fucking these guys up and we get to a point where we can decisively win. We could exterminate them, but instead we're like, you know what, man? Like, you guys are fucking hard, though. You guys are pretty cool. Respect. Respect. Yeah. Like, you guys got some shit going on that, like, we could use. Like, you smell like a motherfucker and, you know, fricking fur is awesome in the fucking snow. So we'll make a deal if you'll. If you'll fucking make the deal with us. Like. Like, you be, you know, like our dudes. You. You'd be like our fucking dogs. And, you know, you'd be on fucking security and bark when you hear fucking crazy shit. We'll let you sleep by the fire, we'll get you some fucking raw meat, and we won't go to fucking war again. And that's. So that was. That was just our deal. What happened to us immediately after that with our shamans and shit, when we went into the fucking spirit realm, the wolves gave us fucking something back. They gave us this, like, animal fury that we can fucking call on if we can figure out how to fucking tie it to us. And that also makes us way better warriors, in a sense. It makes us able to do some crazy if we need to.
- [191:51]
A
There's some good highlight. I had to tag some highlights. I'm not. Hey, obviously, I'm not reading the whole book. Get the book. But some of the good stuff that I. I just wanted to hit some highlights. Quote, we've Learned to pass our knowledge across the bridge of blood. And again, I was kind of, this is something that cute in me. I was like, oh, this, this stuff that I think is very instinctual for us. It's like, where does that come from? Oh yeah, that's where. That's what you refer to as the bridge of blood. What we learn now is easier for our following progeny to grasp. So things that you know how to do that seem easy to you. It's like, oh, where's that come from? Oh yeah, it comes from, you know, your ancestors. Yeah, kings and leaders are also fine. Are also necessary at times. But the warrior caste should never be fully loyal to them. Protect the woman and child. That's just like the underlying. What'd you call the prime directive?
- [192:46]
C
Is the prime directive. That's the only thing he ever said to me as a, as the fucking hard and fast rule. That's the one that is not flexible. That is, that is the only fucking rule that there is. And really when you think about that and you think about it long enough, that does cover everything that covers your entire fucking society.
- [193:01]
A
Protect women and child.
- [193:02]
C
You don't let there be a fucking. Only fans fucking server and fucking bullshit, all right? Because that's not protecting women and children. All right? You don't let fucking criminals run loose in your society because that's not protecting your women and children. You don't cheat on your wife and you know, go a bunch of 20 year olds we rub back from a fucking raid. Because that is not protecting the fucking family unit that when you get down to it, that is the only thing that you need to know.
- [193:26]
A
Another one. The will matters most. Of course I had to throw that in there. You get this one. And again you make this, this link between modern times and these spiritual journeys you take. This one says, quote, I saw a gamer's chair for what it is. It is designed like a throne, as mockery. A false throne for a false king. Video games are to adventure what porn is to sex. A cheap substitute designed to keep you from pursuing real experiences. The gamer's throne lets them feel like he's growing in power while he weakens his body and services to the synthetic ordeal. An entity watches cackling from the other side of the screen.
- [194:07]
C
Some dark in it. That one was, that was a piece of this vision that actually it. That really made me like stop. I was like, holy. Because like all these, all these other things, like something taken in moderation is never bad. Like 2007, play Halo my boys on X Whatever, we're relaxing. But when it becomes like your life and it is especially these specially designed like thousand dollar gamer chairs on this silly. This has become an acceptable.
- [194:36]
A
So you don't have to get up.
- [194:37]
C
You don't have to get up. It's. It's perfectly aligned your body to stay there all day. It is, it's insane. And this is, this is some the of that is weakening and crushing our society. What percentage of men can't even like go in the military right now because their bodies won't take like day one of basic training. It's a lot. It's, it's crazy numbers. Like 60, 70%. Yeah.
- [194:57]
A
And that goes again what I was talking about earlier. Like if that's where you end up. You're suppressing what you know.
- [195:04]
C
Yeah.
- [195:04]
A
What your blood and your, your DNA want you to do. You do a good breakdown of Thor Tier and Loki in there. Which was, you know, always fun for me to read you get you now your final experience. I, you know, your, your final like big experience that you talk about in the book is like, it makes you sick. It makes you purge.
- [195:22]
C
Yes.
- [195:23]
A
And you get to a point where like. Okay, you're not learning anything else from correct. Doing it again. So it's like you were. Okay, we. I got what I needed.
- [195:31]
C
Yeah.
- [195:34]
A
So that's what the book is about. And that book turned into. Now is the word church. Is that the right term?
- [195:43]
C
It's the legal term that we're going to use the United States. We call it a faith based. It's a church.
- [195:50]
A
What would you say? Faith based what?
- [195:52]
C
Faith based organization. But church is fine. Legally we are incorporated as a church. I mean that's the word that we had to use in a legal US System too. So church is good.
- [196:00]
A
And you are a priest at the church. The church is the path of the barbarian spirit. And you can go to barbarianspirit.com so what's the goal of this faith based organization that you've got?
- [196:18]
C
So this was all the shit that I had to do to write the book. And that was what happened with the last one where I got sick. It was like, okay, you're done learning. Now write this book and put this out. And that was like year ago, maybe a year and some change. So I didn't really know what the fuck I was supposed to do next. Especially after I wrote the book. Like I put it out there. It's not like it changed the world or anything. And I'm kind of in, in this limbo place of like what what am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to be doing? I'm supposed to be telling people about this experience, all right? But there's a limit to how much I can do with that, you know? Like, I fucking run on the street. Like, read my book. Like, sound like every other fucking idiot with a book. So I walked down a bunch of pals, you know, I don't know, talk about it on some podcasts. And it doesn't get, like, a whole lot of traction, though. So I'm still also in. In my time, when it calls me, I'm still going on these. These journeys, all right? And I'm learning, like, more, but nothing happens. It's, like, crazy. Again, I learned how to use another sacrament that we use at the church, mdma, which is, you know, ecstasy in the party scene, but it actually has an incredible use in this. This other world as well. There's whole, like, therapy systems are built around mdma. It does a different thing than psilocybin does. So I keep doing this stuff for a while, and finally I have another vision that's, like, pretty crazy on the. The psilocybin. It's like. And this is actually where it names me priest. It. Like, the time where it's like, okay, you. You are the priest. That's gonna be your role. And I'm like, okay, well, fucking neat. We don't have a congregation or fucking church, so what the. Am I the priest? Don't. But it shows me the secondary vision, and it's. It's. I go in and it's like, okay, you know, I'm big badass in the spirit world now because I've done this bunch. I've lifted a bunch of spirit weights, right? Beefy? And the all Father is like, all right, you see that guy, bro? Yeah. Like, that's the demon of suicide. Like, and he's your brothers up, like, you know, you go get him. I'm like, okay, let me cut this guy's head off real quick. I go to fuck this dude up, and it turns out, fucking. I get close to him, this fucking minotaur jumps out. Giant fucking minotaur, all right? And I can't fight him. He kicks my fucking ass. Like, fuck. So go all through these fucking. It's a long fucking story processes and fucking trying to. I keep resurrecting and trying different tactics, and finally I gotta do is fucking spawn ten more of me. So now I'm like the fucking Spartan guy in the back. And like, okay, you take the fucking net and go around and do this fucking jocko. You got this fucking, you know, spear and shield. You shoot some arrows at him. And we this dude up and wake up from this. I go outside that was going to explain to me what the just happened. It's like, you have to found a church, all right? And you have to do it in this way, because this is the way that you can do it legally in the United States. That Minotaur is actually not a bad guy. He's the dea, all right? He is supposed to protect. He was spawned by goodness to protect people from, like, fentanyl and hair crazy. But the fucking bad elements also convinced him to prevent us from having MDMA and mushrooms and LSD and ayahuasca and ibogaine and these things that are very useful, all right? So basically, he's protecting the demon of suicide while the demon of suicide runs around and fucks your brothers up, makes them fucking kill themselves. You have to find a way to fucking beat this guy, all right? And the way that you're going to do that is this church, because putting yourself. If I say that I'm a therapist and I run a therapy program, well, that is illegal in the United States. With these substances, however, there is a very incredibly fucking narrow window of protected religious activity where I can do this. I can use these sacraments and I can perform these fucking rituals for our. Our soft brothers, all right? I can bring them into my fucking place totally fucking legally, everything's cool. Walk them into the spirit realm, because I can actually go into their dreams, which is one of the weird things that I can do, all right? And I can help them exercise this demon of suicide, this demon of depression and all this, and make them better.
- [200:19]
A
And that's the mission.
- [200:20]
C
That is the mission.
- [200:21]
A
What is it? What is the logistically, what does that look like? So you. I know on the website, you talk a little bit about what you're trying to do. You got to raise money so that you can build and what do you got? Some land in the Ozarks. Is that right?
- [200:32]
C
Yeah. So original plan, we bought some land in the Ozarks. Original plan is to put it there is. There's a bunch of like, weird shit that goes along with especially, like, using this substance, like a ritual method. Being away from electricity is a huge one, all right? I've done this both, like, in the fucking woods and I've done this, like, in my fucking house. Even being away from electrical fields at all, like, kind of enhances the fucking process. The ritual stuff is important because especially, like, fucking Soft dudes like us, right? Where'd you do all your, like, really hard shit at? Like in the fucking ocean or in the fucking woods with it? No technology, no night vision. You know what it is with a fucking rubber duck. Because when you're tired, ass loses it. It's no big deal. We have a connection to nature that like, almost nobody else in the fucking world does. The more that we can get our guys into a natural environment, no electricity kind of feeling. Also, this goes back to, like the blood bridge too. The further we can take this back as as far as fuel goes into, like how it would have been thousand years ago. Tents instead of buildings, fire instead of, you know, electrical lights. All this kind of helps, right? Because a lot of dudes, it takes a lot for them to, like, suspend disbelief. And what I need them to do is suspend disbelief just long enough that we can get across this threshold because then they're going to be good. They're going to be able to handle all this. So we're in the building process right now. And it's not cheap, but it's definitely not the most expensive thing in the world either. Basically, we need the capacity to build a fucking tent, yurt thingy that we can use for the temple. A lot of times these things are better done or you're going to be able to go deeper if you go by yourself. So it's kind of a catch 22, your first experience at least, first few hours of it. You want to have a guide there. All right. Also, you know, legitimately they should be. I was. I was fuck scared the first time too. Just going in there by yourself is. Is kind of scary. All right? But if I can, you know, walk you in there, show you that everything's fine, like, oh, hey, look, man, you can fuck these dudes up here, fucking spawn a fucking weapon, whatever you need to do. A lot of guys, then they want to be able to go to their own private space, all right, where they can really fucking let go. And if they got to do some fucking crazy. What I'm doing is probably, you know, fucking cry or shit out the door or some fucking crazy shit that's just going to help them get to where they need to be faster. It also needs to be close enough, though, that as the guy supervising, I could still walk by and, like, look in and be like, make sure everything's cool. Choking on your own vomit. Now you're good. Okay, so. So that's where we're at right now. We're trying to build this. We're also trying to get, you know, some money in the bank for it. One thing I know about, like, myself, like, when I was a real fucking mess, when they did the. The brain magnet shit for me, a charity did that, all right? And I had to take a couple of steps before I was even willing to ask the charity if I could go. And if it had been like, three grand that I had to come up with out of my. My own pocket, I wouldn't have done it. Not because I didn't feel like, you know, not because it's even high price, but because, like, when you're that banged up, like, you're not gonna spend money on making yourself feel better. That's what you feel like. Oh, robbing my kids to help me with some and brain stuff. So we want it for, you know, the boys to be completely free. I be completely like, hey, you know, you call. Show us that you're one of the boys, and you're up, like, here's a plane ticket. Bring your ass out here, and we'll square you away.
- [203:49]
A
That's what the goal is. And you want to be able to get, what, 20 veterans a month?
- [203:55]
C
Yeah. Ideal for me is 20. I can only really handle, like, 10 at a time by myself. There comes a point where you just can't, you know, even 10's like, it's on the upside of it. And as far as, like, how many times a month, like, I can go on a journey twice is really about it, that it's going to be, you know, like, good without, you know, sort of start to pay a price for it.
- [204:18]
A
So that's the plan?
- [204:19]
C
That's the plan.
- [204:20]
A
Does that get us up to speed? What else?
- [204:22]
C
Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So we. We may actually frago the plan to Arkansas. We're looking really hard at moving back to Idaho because that's where our grandchildren live and all this other shit. So we may end up putting it up there instead, but we'll figure it out. We're only a couple months into this, so we had to figure out that's even logistically possible. The other thing I really like about moving it up there is if we do this in Arkansas or the Ozarks, there has to be air conditioning, all right, Because I need people to be comfortable when they're doing this stuff. So six months out of the year, you're gonna have to have some fucking air. If you move it somewhere into the north, where, you know, the environment's a little bit more fucking forgiving, all right, you can do this all Summer long with nothing. And in the winters you can have fire, which actually is more it. It helps you with that fucking primitive feel. So it's good.
- [205:18]
A
Right on. So people want to find you. It's barbarianspirit.com. you're on Twitter. X at Way of theirs.
- [205:28]
C
Way off the res.
- [205:30]
A
Way off the res. Dude, I've been. I've been saying that thing right wrong for a long. I was just way off theirs. I was like, what does he mean by like?
- [205:36]
C
Oh, my first company was called off the res in reference to the old counterterrorism term off the reservation.
- [205:41]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [205:42]
C
So when they nuked that account, I came back as way off the rest.
- [205:44]
A
Way off the res. There you go. And Instagram you're at Clay Martin. Actual echo. Charles.
- [205:52]
B
Yes, sir.
- [205:52]
A
You got any questions?
- [205:53]
B
Oh, yeah, if we can rewind.
- [205:54]
A
Are you sure?
- [205:55]
B
Are you at liberty to say how you found your stepdaughter that time? Looking for. Yeah, like how. I don't get like, how'd you.
- [206:02]
C
Oh, man, this is the thing that, that people like really like misconceptualize about, like, you know, soft dudes and greenberry. Like, like we're badass, cuz like, we have guns. We'll come through your front door.
- [206:13]
B
Yeah, like. You ever watch a Rambo Last Blood?
- [206:15]
C
Yeah.
- [206:16]
B
You ever watch that? That's what I envy. You ever watch that joke? That's what I envision, visioned.
- [206:21]
C
I don't know if I saw the last blood, but I've seen like the first four.
- [206:23]
B
Yeah, that was. Wait, I think the one that came out.
- [206:27]
A
The one that just came out. The last.
- [206:29]
B
The last blood, bro.
- [206:30]
A
He's like got a 50 cal in a house and he's like mowing people down.
- [206:34]
B
Is it in the house? No. He goes and finds his America. He goes down to Mexico to find his kidnapped daughter.
- [206:41]
C
Okay.
- [206:41]
B
Or not daughter. I think it's like the niece or something.
- [206:43]
C
Okay. This is actually what makes us dangerous. It's not that, you know, we come to your house with pistol or machine gun. It's not that we can shoot you from a really rifle. Is that we will.
- [206:53]
B
I feel like that's. That is.
- [206:55]
C
That's pretty dangerous.
- [206:55]
B
Very much.
- [206:56]
C
What One of the many things, like, the more dangerous that we can do though is we can show up with very little limited resources and. And make friends with people and talk to people and get people to ally with us because we understand them and we fucking hypothetically figured out what makes them tick. And next thing you know, we've got like a Little network or a little army of all kinds of that are helping us. All right? So even if it's a. I've lived in Boise for zero minutes when I needed to do this, and next thing you know, I got a network through the trailer parks and all kinds of other criminal. I bought for like a 12 pack or a, you know, box of smokes or some. And, yeah, by the end of, you know, two weeks, like, I got a whole rat line and intelligence network.
- [207:35]
B
So where was she at?
- [207:36]
C
Some. She was running between multiple different places, but, you know, eventually got the, you know, hit a couple dry holes and found the right target.
- [207:43]
A
Right, right.
- [207:43]
C
It's like back in the day, right?
- [207:45]
B
There you go. And then was she. When you found her, was she like, oh, okay, I'll go home with you, or was she, like, resistant? Like, what was the whole.
- [207:51]
C
No, I mean, I didn't handle the action pieces of this myself either, because this is America when I showed up and, you know, observer went call cops.
- [207:59]
B
Oh, right.
- [208:00]
C
Yeah. So the cops arrested fucking everybody. They rested. These shitbag parents were actually harboring like, you know, fucking 10, 15 runaways. Yeah. Like, all kinds of crazy shit going on. Maybe not some less good shit that somebody should have fucking died of or whatever when her shit went down. But. Yeah, so, yeah, it was pretty. Pretty. It was pretty bananas, though. Yeah. It's funny, actually, of all the people that ever asked me locally, like her family, like, how'd this happen? The only guy that asked the right questions was her nephew that's a lawyer. He's like, all the action, Johnny. He's like, I want to know how the you figured this out when you don't know anybody. Mystique, Magic. Right on.
- [208:40]
B
So we got her. She's back. She's back.
- [208:42]
C
No, she's good.
- [208:43]
A
Right on. What else, Coach?
- [208:45]
B
That's it. Yeah, that's it. Good to meet you, sir.
- [208:48]
C
Good to meet you, too, brother.
- [208:49]
A
Clay, any. Any final thoughts, brother?
- [208:52]
C
Man, this is the big thing, I think, for. For the veteran community and especially, like, the war fighters, like the. The fucking Grons, like the fucking eod, the guys that got, you know, blown up and got fucking hurt and shit like that. It doesn't fucking matter if you come do it with me, as long as you with somebody fucking competent. Don't be afraid of these substances, these fucking sacraments as something that will help you. They are fucking amazing. You don't have to take my fucking word for it. You can look up the science and the white papers behind it where it's like 75, 80% of people, psilocybin, especially, turns suicidal thought off like a light switch. It one shots it. You can read a fantastic book by somebody else called A Dose of Hope, which is all about how MDMA is used on a therapeutic and how it helped him. And he went through some fucking crazy shit and this basically totally squared his life away. So, yeah, so look at it as an option. Don't go to like a house party or ask some weirdo chucklehead that does this for fun because they don't understand it's a completely different thing. And for that matter, even if you use these substances as a young guy to, like, party or something like that, it is a completely different experience when you use it either ritually or as a therapeutic. So don't just discount it because you've done it before when you were, you know, 16 and home alone.
- [210:10]
A
Jack. Well, man, thanks for coming out. Appreciate it. Thanks for. Thanks for sharing your lessons learned. Obviously. Thanks for your service in the Marine Corps and in the army, and thanks for taking the fight to the enemy aggressively when you got the chance. And thanks for what you're doing today to continue to help our, our brothers through what they're going through, man. Appreciate it.
- [210:33]
C
Thank you, brother. Thanks again for having me. This has been absolutely fantastic. And, yeah, I can't wait to see where this goes.
- [210:38]
A
Right on, bro. Thank you. And with that, Clay Martin has left the building. Clearly. Talking about getting your mind right, getting your body right, getting your spirit right. We can focus on the body. We know that one's pretty straightforward.
- [210:56]
B
Yes.
- [210:56]
A
You know, what are we doing? Working out, etc. You might want to check out jockofuel.com you might want to get some. Some strawberry milk. Yeah, I know you do the strawberry milk, but you add what, a banana?
- [211:10]
B
Banana.
- [211:10]
A
What's the deal with that?
- [211:11]
B
Here's. Well, because recently I revisited the. Usually I have the RTD's. It's part of. It's on rotation. Banana, chocolate. That's the normal. But I have. I had some strawberries, so I've decided to revisit that strawberry. You add the banana. It enhances the strawberry flavor. It does. I put half a banana, by the way, but, oh, yeah, roll that back in. Revisit that one.
- [211:34]
A
So there you go. Get yourself some milk so you can be strong physically and healthier and all that. Chocolatefuel.com you can also. Hey, also Hyv. You ever heard of Hyvee Hyv? Yeah, it's another place you can get it. Walmart.
- [211:47]
C
Wawa.
- [211:47]
A
You Guys know the deal.
- [211:48]
B
Where is Hyvee?
- [211:49]
A
Like middle of the country.
- [211:51]
C
Okay.
- [211:51]
B
Yeah.
- [211:52]
C
Yeah.
- [211:52]
A
Hell yeah. So there you go. Check out jockeyfuel.com also originusa.com. you know, t shirts, they seem like no big deal, but they kind of are a big deal because let's face it, we're wearing T shirts a lot.
- [212:04]
B
We are.
- [212:04]
A
Check out the core T. Just standard. You can get graphics on them, but you can also just get a T shirt.
- [212:10]
C
Yeah.
- [212:11]
A
And just wear it.
- [212:12]
B
Yeah.
- [212:12]
A
Fully made in American 100.
- [212:14]
C
Yep.
- [212:15]
B
The thing that one of the very small handful of important elements of a T shirt is the fit.
- [212:23]
A
Well, that's a huge piece.
- [212:24]
C
Yeah.
- [212:25]
B
Even people were not like over indexing on aesthetics and fashion or whatever. I don't think they realize how important the fit is. You know, people, they'll have the, their, their favorite T shirt. It'll be like 30 years old sometimes.
- [212:39]
A
Oh, I've got some of those.
- [212:40]
C
Yeah.
- [212:40]
A
But it's not favorite years old.
- [212:42]
B
Yeah, yeah. But I'm just saying, for example, you know, in principle, and it's because of the fit. No matter how old, no matter how outdated the design is, no matter how much it's kind of falling apart, see how those things become secondary. If it fits right. That's one of the strong elements of the core T shirt I've noticed.
- [213:00]
A
The core T shirt from Origin usa. Now it's a fit. Good. It was made in America.
- [213:04]
B
Yes, Sir.
- [213:05]
A
No. Nope. 100 communist free. 100 slavery free. Origin USA.com. check it out. It's true.
- [213:14]
B
Also, we representing on the path. You know, we got shirts on there too, by the way. Also very much focused on fit. In fact, I had many people tell me these are the best fitting shirts ever. Miha guy we both know and love. You know, smart guy, sometimes don't use.
- [213:32]
A
The L word around me.
- [213:35]
B
Some of us know him. Some of us know and love him. Anyway, smart guy, he mentioned to me he had one of the old school back to the book shirts. He said it was my favorite shirt because of the fit. It's not like Back to the book is some groundbreaking message I need to wear on my back.
- [213:51]
A
Let's face it, it's kind of cool, though.
- [213:52]
B
It's cool. It's cool. But let's face that's not the front running element is what I'm saying. It's the fit. Anyway, he got it through. He got it thrown away on accident. Unfortunate incident, but nonetheless a whole nother story. Nonetheless. Jocko store. So you can get. Discipline equals freedom.
- [214:07]
C
Good.
- [214:07]
B
Stand by to get some. Get after. These are all shirts. The way we represent. On the path. That's. That's how you can do it. Indexing hardcore. On the fit. Also on Jocko store. I'm not. I'll get to the shirt lock. One sec. On Jocko store. New shirt.
- [214:22]
C
Good.
- [214:23]
B
Third edition.
- [214:23]
A
That's not a new shirt. We've always had a good shirt.
- [214:26]
B
Yes, we have. And then we had another one, a new one. Now we got a new.
- [214:30]
A
New.
- [214:31]
B
See what I'm saying? Yeah. 3.0. It's only been like four years since the last one. Yeah, but anyway, it's a good one. Check it out. We just released it yesterday. So, people, if you're on the email list, you would have known this. See, I'm saying. So if you want to know about new shirts, sign up for the email list. Super simple.
- [214:46]
A
What if we hate spam?
- [214:47]
C
Amen.
- [214:48]
B
No factor, because I don't spam at all. It's all relevant stuff. 100. Okay. I mentioned the shirt locker. Shirt locker is a new design every month. Subscription scenario. New design is out as of three days ago. The first of every month, new design switches over. I'll give you. Actually, I think I already told you what it was. No, I give you a hint. There's runes involved.
- [215:11]
A
I like that. Speaking of runes, Dave Burke has a new book coming out.
- [215:15]
C
Good deal.
- [215:16]
A
The book is called the need to Lead. Pre order it now. Get the first edition. And speaking of runes, Clay Martin has a few books. Barbarian Spirit, Wrath of the Wendigo. And he was saying it the other way. He was saying it. Wendigo. Like when to go now? I have an answer to that question. When to go? Freaking now. Wrath of the Wendigo. Concrete Jungle. And then Prairie Fire. Of course we have Echelon Front. We have a leadership consultancy. And we saw promise through leadership. If you want to come to one of our events, make sure you make sure you go online and check it out so we can. You can actually go. Because these events sell out. We have the muster coming up in December, so it's in Orlando, I believe.
- [216:02]
B
Yeah. Yeah.
- [216:03]
A
So come and check it out. Echelonfront.com also extreme ownership, our online training academy. You can learn to lead through an online academy. And you can learn skills that you need, we all need. We don't always have them. We're not born with them. You need to learn them. Check out extreme ownership.com for that. And if you want to help service members, active and retired, you want to help their families, Gold star families. Check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee, she's got an amazing charity organization. If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org also check out HeroesAndHorses.org and Jimmy Mae's organization Beyond the Brotherhood.org check those out. If you want to connect with us for clay, go to barbarianspirit.com and then Twitter X way off the res, not way of theirs, which is what I thought it was. Way off the res, Way off the the and then res R E s and then on Instagram, he's Clay Martin actual for us. You can check out jocko.com you can check out on social media. I'm at Jocko Willink. Echoes Charles Just be careful, don't submit and bow your head to the demons that are in your phone we do not recognize Recommend that it'll wreck your life steal your soul. Once again, thanks, Clay Martin, for joining us. Thanks for sharing your lessons learned and most important, thanks for what you did overseas to prosecute our nation's enemies. Thanks for what you're doing right now to try and help our veterans. Thanks to all our uniformed personnel around the world right now with a solemn salute to our brothers in the special forces. It was an honor to serve with you all. Also thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, as well as all other first responders. Thank you for your service, keeping us safe on the home front and everyone else out there. Here's a little something to keep in mind from Clay's book, the Barbarian Spirit. We mentioned it for a second. The quote is, anything that wants you to put down your weapon is not your friend. Now, that doesn't only apply to actual weapons. I'm here to tell you, it applies to everything that's out there that's trying to make you weaker, trying to make you dumber, trying to make you less capable, try and make you less healthy. These things are your enemy. That phone, that junk food, those temptations, those are not your friends. Those are your enemies. Do not surrender to them ever. That's all I've got for tonight. Until next time, the Zeko and Jocko out.