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519: A Soldier’s Pain, Purpose, and the Brotherhood That Endures. Crazy Joe Claburn Pt.2
02:25:39
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- [00:00]
A
This is Jocko podcast number 519 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo.
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B
Good evening.
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A
Also still with us, Crazy Joe Claiborne. If you haven't listened to 5:16 yet, we, that's, we just, that's the, the first podcast that we did talking about Crazy Joe Claiborne, who served with us in the battle of Ramadi and was just an integral part of the operations there and just an amazing human being. So we started, we went four hours deep on that podcast. Of course, I opened it up with welcome to Ramadi speech from Crazy Joe Claiborne. We talked through that, but we were at four hours, so we called it, but we came back and now we're going to talk about, we're going to pick up that story, which is you were had orders to Ranger school to be an instructor at Ranger School. This is post, this is post one deployment to Afghanistan, the initial deployment to Iraq, Your Ramadi deployment to Iraq, a period of time spent with a pathfinder element where you trained them up. And then you get, finally get orders. You're going to go to Ranger school and be a Ranger instructor company commander. And you get a little phone call that the army needs something else from you. And what the army needs from you is they need you to swap with another guy who had a exceptional family member need and that guy needed to go to be the Ranger instructor company commander. And you, Joe Claiborne, instead of going to Fort Benning, Georgia, we're going to England to be an officer in the British Parachute Regiment. That's where we were at.
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C
Crazy, isn't it? Yeah, it really is.
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A
Were you, were you pumped to go to England? Were you still single at this point?
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C
I was still single at this point, yeah. Dating. But we had agreed that I think that was the road that was going to split. So the relationship came to an end. And I don't, I don't, to be honest with you, three deployments now within a three and a half year time period. I don't know how you make a relationship work, especially when you're trying to start a relationship and you just have to say, I'm sorry, I had to go. And unfortunately that, that's what happened. So. Yeah, so I moved over to England as a, as a single guy with, well, you know, the entire England at my fingertips.
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A
Yeah. And how's, how's it checking out? Are you living out in town? Do you have a house? You living on base? What are they doing with you?
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C
Yeah, like, talk about a weird, you know, I, I don't know that the situation could have gotten any weirder because, you know, I get told that I'm going out there and there is a guy that I'm replacing, he's a major as well, but he's coming back to the States earlier because of my delay with the, you know, Ranger Pathfinder company changeover. He, he had already been gone. So the only thing I got from him was really a four page memorandum of such and a cheat code for what to expect, you know, when you get here, how to basically function, if you will. And thank God I didn't bring a family with me because I can just imagine it would have been even more difficult. But I get my, my flight info, I check my car in which is a big old Chevy pickup truck that I put on a ship and sent over to England waiting on me when I got over there. And, and I, and I landed and I'm, I guess I was expecting someone to meet me, but I land in Heathrow and I get my bags and I'm just kind of standing there and.
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A
Like one of the largest airports in the world, possibly the largest airport in the world.
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C
So 30, 30 minutes pass by, 45 minutes pass by, an hour passes by like I literally do not see a single person in military uniform at all. The one phone number I have, I, I don't have a cell phone because I'm in a brand new country, just rings and rings and rings, nobody answers it. And come to find out, and I didn't know this at the time, but I had come into England on what the Brits call a holiday and no one was at work, no one was expecting to receive me. I show up to England, brand new country, no knowledge at all about what to do. But I do know where the base is, right?
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A
And it's 2007 by the way. So like, you know, you mentioned, you know, cell phone, but 2007, it's not like you could pull up, chat GPT and say, hey, I need a place to stay in a way to get there. No, that ain't happening. You're just looking around for a, for a damn payphone for one number that.
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C
You have, which by the way don't exist. They're just props nowadays, they're red phone booths. But I do know where I'm going. I'm going to a little town called Colchester out in Essex. It's about an hour and a half outside of London to the east. And so at least I had that. And I'm not kidding you, I walked over to a rental car place. I rented a car and I bought a map book, old style map, didn't have the GPS or anything else like that. Just bought a style map. I opened it up to the page that said Colchester and I did the old reverse planning, just like I did with an air assault. You know, this is where the objective is. This is where I'm located now. And here I am never having driven a car on the opposite side of the car, more or less on the opposite side of the street, and I am cruising down the M4 major interstate, I can't call them interstate, but a major highway that leads out to Colchester. The only thing that I had in the book was the actual at address of the guy who I was replacing. So I literally drove to that house. I get to Colchester, I pull in late in the afternoon, I park the car out front and I'm sitting there. The house is empty. He's no longer there. I don't know what I was expecting to find and I am, I have no idea what to do at this point. Well, the British officers, they live on sort of like base housing, right? So they all live together, but they're all like independent little houses. Some of them are what I would consider like duplexes. They're two houses that are attached together. Well, that's what this house was. It was attached to another house. And while I'm sitting there again, just sort of watching the, you know, seconds tick away, the neighbor gets home. At which point I introduce myself and come to find out he is one of the battalion or the brigade officers who's there. And I said basically like, hey, here I am, I'm the new American. I have no idea what to do at this point. So he, he basically says, all right man, we're going to get you situated. So he, he follow him over to the base. And the base isn't like your normal base. It's, I mean, it's slap up in the middle of a city and a lot smaller than I would have normally been used to, you know, like huge mega army bases. In the US this thing was predominantly pretty small. It only held one brigade. But the brigade headquarters was, was there with the parachute regiments that were there. And then the other units in the brigade were actually already stationed around the other the parts of the country. So you didn't have a base where like all the units were. These guys were spread all over England. They just happened to report into this particular brigade headquarters. So they take me over there and they check me into the officer's Mess. And boy, this is nice. They've got a bar that opens at 4:00 clock in the afternoon. Breakfast, lunch and dinner catered meals on nice, you know, silverware and plates and stuff like this is going to be all right. So no sooner do I get checked into my room, I'm finally, I finally have a place at least where I'm going to lay my head down. And then that's when they tell me, hey, by the way, you like, we're on holiday, we're on vacation, we're all not coming back to work for like two more days. So sit, get your adjustments with you. This is everything you need. Food, shower, everything else. And while I was there, I met really my, I would consider my best mate during my time there, a guy that I will refer to as the Bevster. And I meet the Bev Steer and he is wearing a Top Gun T shirt, right? And, and I just knew like the moment I met him he was very outgoing, very eccentric. And he basically takes me under his wing and says, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take care of you for the next couple days. At which point the beer drinking and the fraternal sort of behaviors. Behavior sort of. I mean, the officer mess is like a fraternity house in the most proper sense that you can do. I mean, we're talking like afternoon tea, which was a thing, you know, I had to learn how to drink tea. And slowly but surely everybody comes back to work. I report into my duty and one of the first things that I have to do is I have to go in and check in at the US Embassy in London. Because you actually work as a part of the attache office at the US Embassy. And the United military has these exchange officer programs all over the world. So it just so happened that. And thank God, because I don't speak another language, thank God I went to an English speaking country. But we have guys that will go to all kinds of different countries around the world and they will integrate with that unit and they will bring their knowledge and their experience of being a military very representative of the United States and really help to formulate relations and then also think through different training options that they have. So I get to the US Embassy in London and I meet my boss. Full bird Colonel is the attache in London. So kind of a big deal, right? And I get there, I check in, do the paperwork. You know, I'm on jump status again because I'm with the, you know, the British Parachute Regiment. And, and she looks at my orders and she says, yeah, I'm very surprised, but like it says here that you're. You're up for major already. And I said, yeah. She goes, how. How old are you? I said, well, I don't remember how old I was at the time at 27, 28. And she goes, I think you may be the youngest major in the United States Army. And I said, ma', am, I'm still a captain. My number has not come up yet. I have to wait till my sequence number comes up and then I'll be able to pin it on. She goes, no. She goes, you're the youngest major in the U.S. army. She said, I won't be there when your number comes up. There will be no ceremony. There will not be a cutting of the cake. There will probably be not a lot of people who pat you on the back, and you're probably going to get more respect from your counterparts being a major than you are a captain. So she said, I'm frocking you right now. You are hereby, Major Claiborne. That was months in advance to where I was supposed to be. So she was right. At that time, I was a pretty young major, still getting paid as a captain, obviously, but she was right. Going into the, the British headquarters, there was a significant difference between the way that they treated captains and the way they treated the field great officers, the field grade officers. And for that reason, I mean, we're talking hundreds of years that they, you know, you make it to field grade in the British army, it's a, it's a big jump, you know, for them. And so, so I get frocked. I'm. I'm walking around as a major. I feel like a fraud, by the way. I'm like, this does not feel. This does not feel weird. But, you know, so we let it happen. And I get integrated into the brigade headquarters. 16 Air Assault Brigade is what they're called. And underneath 16 Air Assault Brigade, you have all the parachute regimen, you have the Scottish Regiment, you have an Irish regiment, bunch of different, you know, and they actually have a Pathfinder Company. So I thought that was pretty cool. And, and so I said, you know, what exactly do you. Do you want me to do? I would have loved to have gone down to the Parachute Regiment and actually spent time with the toms, you know, what we call the Joes. I would have loved to have spent more time with the soldiers. But they said, no, your. Your knowledge and expertise on Aeroso operations, and that's what we are. We are a brigade Air Assault Unit, and we really need you to be a part of brigade staff and in order to help us sort of develop operations and, you know, give us your hindsight. It didn't stop me from getting down to the paras as much as I could and going to jump school with the, with them.
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A
What's their static line? Jump school?
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C
Yeah, yeah.
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A
Even though you'd already been to American jump school.
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C
That's right.
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A
How different was it?
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C
Pretty similar there. We basically allow anybody to go to jump school. Theirs is a lot more restricted. You have to have a reason to go to jump school. You specifically have to be in a unit and you know, and I'm going to cover this when we talk about my tour in Afghanistan. They had a lot more limitations, budget, equipment than I had ever experienced in my military career. And what I mean by that is that they only had like a couple aircraft that they could use for jump operations. So their jump school on a calendar had those aircraft that they could only specifically do airborne operations out of. If those aircraft got pulled to do anything else, then all jump school stopped until they could get the aircraft back in order for them to do it. So you didn't get just get to go to jump school. You actually had to go through basically like hell week before you even earned a slot to go to jump school. At the time that I was there in 2007, they still had not had a female complete their version of the P course is what they call it.
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A
Does that stand for parachute?
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C
And so you have to graduate that before you get your slot.
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A
So you went to P course?
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C
Oh my God, I didn't go to P course.
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A
Now you didn't do. How long is P course?
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C
I think P course is maybe a week or two, but they kick the.
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A
Shit out of it.
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C
They kick the shit out of you? Yeah. And it's, and I may have my timing wrong, so forgive me Brits, if you're listening, but I didn't have to go through it because I was already a jump master in the United States Army. So I had already gone to jump master school. I'd already had the jumps under my belt. I'm, you know, I'm drop zone safety officer. I'm, you know, I'm putting paratroopers out of the side of aircraft. So they basically looked at me and said, all right, we're just going to take you up and run you through like our sequence of events. And it was predominantly about the same, but they jump what's called an llrp, a low level llpr, Low Level Parachute release System. And that parachute can actually. You can actually jump out at 600ft. Damn. The static line and the parachute deployment bag on it is really, really short. So that means your 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 count is a lot shorter.
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A
1,000, 2,000.
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C
Yeah. It's, you know, so you're jumping out, and you're basically. You've got a parachute, so they can actually jump in a lot lower. I would say that from an American standpoint, we would never have jumped that low, and we didn't jump that low either during training jumps, but the. The possibility was there. So the parachute was a little bit different. The jumping out of the aircraft was a little bit different. I mean, much more of a opening shock, if you will, on the. On the parachute. And we. We landed in, like, people's farms. Like, there was a training area, but it was also used to, like, raise sheep, you know? Like, it was.
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A
You know, it's like you're in Band of Brothers, the small.
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C
It's a small country, you know, So I remember jumping out and literally, like, I'm. I'm floating down to the ground, and I'm. I'm seeing sheep below me, and I'm. You know, I'm trying to yell for the sheep to clear, and I land, you know, on the ground, and it is not. It is not cleared to be a drop zone. You know, you go to Fort Benning, and it's like, nice sand, you know, I mean, this is, like, literally a farm. There's divots, and I'm surprised you don't have more injuries than what you have. So I ended up, you know, going and doing their jump course, earning my British jump wings at the time, and then going up to brigade and sort of helping through that effort in that process. I check in to the closest military base there is, which is Laken Heath Air Force Base, just north. It's about an hour north of where I am. So as far as, like, Americans are concerned, the closest place for me to go to get any kind of support at all. Dentists, doctors, you know, help with pay or whatever. That's. That's an hour away at an Air Force base that houses the F15s and other strike fighters in the European theater. And so once I get checked in there, I come back down to England, and I find out that I'm eligible for a house. I no longer have to live in the officer quarters. So I'm like, cool, if I don't have to live in the fraternity house, I would rather have my own house. So I am the only Single officer living in family housing on the military base. And part of the argument from the US Standpoint was, we know he's single. We know this is specifically used for married couples. But the US army did not want to lose the house. They wanted to retain it for my replacement who could be married and have kids. So I got to move in the house. And let's just say the parties at the Claiborne Casa were epic. We had a Halloween costume that was one for the books. And, you know, I got guys jumping off the roof. I mean, the Paras are crazy, right? There's a reason why there's, you know, the old, you know, break glass in case of war. And there were even bars in downtown that said, you know, no pair is allowed. I mean, you know, they would go in and they would break stuff. And, you know, I was like, my people, right? And Colonel Clark used an analogy to describe gunfighters at one time where he said, they're outside dogs. And I was like, sir, what do you mean we're outside dogs? He was like, you guys are great outside dogs. You bring them inside, something's going to get broken, something's going to get peed on, you know, something's going to get ruined. These were outside dogs. These were my kind of people. And more than that, they were doing so much more with so much less. And that was something that I learned early on in my time with the Brits is like, if I wanted to just go and take eight Chinooks, 12 Black Hawks, and do a brigade operation, I could have had it. That would have been every aircraft the British had. That would have been all of them. And they were in Afghanistan. They were doing rotations. They were doing combat operations in the Helmand Province with other units. So, like, a lot of their combat power was actually being sent and deployed, so they didn't have a whole lot. And so part of my training regimen, my. My philosophy never changed, which was, how do we make realistic training? But now it was, how do you do that without having all of the things that you need to. To do it? So we come up with this plan of sending the Para battalions to Belize to do jungle warfare. Now, at the time, I was like, we're going to Afghanistan in, like, seven months, and we're gonna go to Belize and do jungle warfare training. Like, I have been to Afghanistan and I've never seen a jungle, but we're gonna go there and we're just gonna make it suck for the two weeks that we're there. So there I am I'm literally in country not more than two months. I'm already on a plane back to the United States, Drop off in Miami, pick up another flight, we fly into Belize and we start jungle warfare training there in the jungles of Belize, which they own. The Brits own a whole training area down in Belize where they train all their jungle guys and stuff. And so I'm there to help sort of develop the training program to insert realistic, react to contact, you know, isr, you know, looking at their training plan and trying to do the absolute best. So we're in a vehicle, and I'm traveling out to do a recon with the planning staff that's looking at several locations, and we do recon a couple locations. This would be great for this. This would be great to train this. And then on the way back from Belmont, driver hits a very large pothole, loses control of the car at about 55 miles an hour. We go careening off the side of the road down into a ditch, a goalie type style, and we flip the car five, six times. I'm surprised nobody was thrown from the car. I was in the back seat. Seatbelt, no seat belt.
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A
Yeah, you're lucky.
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C
Sitting in the back seat of the car. I was literally reading Heart of Darkness, the book, when we got in the car accident. And I had a GPS in my front left ACU pocket so that we could, you know, coordinate, you know, positions that we were going to use. So when the car went into a roll, all of the equipment that we had in the back of the car became objects that started thrown around the car. So I was getting hit in the head with, you know, cots and bottles of water, and I'm, you know, flipping. And we, I mean, we flattened this car. I mean, by the time we rolled it a couple times and, and I, I, the. The car lands sideways, so I have to climb up out of the driver's side. No, sorry, passenger side window, to get out of the window. And the car is leaning on the driver's side. And when I look down, I see the lower torso of the driver underneath the vehicle. Like, his upper half is out of the vehicle, his lower half is still in the vehicle. And I just, I remember thinking to myself, like, oh, my God, this guy is crushed. Right? But that car landed perfectly to where, like, when we flipped, it caved in his side of the car to the where when we finally got rested and he fell out of the car window, he actually had enough space where literally we could push the car one inch and we could Pull him out. So he. He literally dodged a bullet about that time. I. I have blood, like, profusely just running down my head. I've split my head open on something that was inside the car during the flip or whatever. And then, right then and there, I feel like this, like a chest compression, like, real tight. And I'm starting to have trouble breathing. And I realize, like, the gps, when I was flipping inside the car buckled four of my ribs directly underneath my left arm. So I've got a concussion. You know, I'm bleeding from the head. I've broken four ribs, and I have a compressed spine from doing the flip. Ambulance shows up, and they take me to Belmopan Hospital in Belize, right? And I'm given some sort of a narcotic to kind of ease me down and get me off a pain. And this guy walks in with dreads. He's got, like, a LeBron James jersey on. No gloves or anything else like that. The light above me, and the. Or, like, doesn't even have a cover on it. The ballast is burning out on the light, so it's making the buzzing. And. And I look and there's a freaking gecko on the wall, right? And he's literally sewing up my head with stitches as I'm sitting here, thinking to myself, like, this isn't where I plan to be after, you know, all this time. So I get some X rays, I find out about the broken ribs, the compressed spine. I clearly got a concussion, what takes me a couple days to get over. And I'm laying in the hospital, and. And I'm like, this. This can't. This can't be it. Like, I. I've gotta get up and go do something. And so I get up and just walk out of the hospital. Like, there's no one to stop you. So I just got up and walked out and walked back to the base from where the hospital was, showed up to the base, and they had already taken off to Jumbo Jungle Warfare School, so I got left behind. And so I'm waiting, you know, reading another book, and then I see the Huey come in and land over at the base. This is the resupply for the operations. So I grab my bag and I walk over my, you know, my rucksack or whatever, I throw it on the helicopter. And I was like, yeah, you guys are my ride. I'm supposed to. I'm supposed to be out there, like, two days ago. And of course they're like, yeah, yeah, come on. Like, I'm the only American, right? Like, why Would I lie? So I take this Huey ride out into the middle of the Belizean jungle. I get dropped off and, like, I'm having to sleep in, like, not cots, but, like. And with three broken ribs and a compressed spine, like, it just really sucked.
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A
It seemed like you were real anxious to get out there. Just saying, bro, for three, three or four broken ribs and a compressed spine, and you're like, hey, there's a helicopter. They could probably drop me off in the middle of the jungle.
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C
There was nobody around. Like, I was there all by myself. And I was like, this isn't. This isn't going to happen. So I basically earned a little bit of my cutting the teeth, you would say, with the British Parachute Regiment. When I finally showed up, and they had already known I was in the car accident, the driver was, you know, pretty banged up. He didn't go back out again. Passenger in the front, right, he had his seatbelt on. He was absolutely fine, and. And kept training. But I, for the next two weeks, did jungle warfare, walking around the jungles of Belize. And by the way, that place is, like, constantly trying to kill you. There's, like, some real dangerous stuff in the Belizean jungle. I just remember they're like, don't touch that, don't drink that. Don't eat that, you know? And I'm like, jesus, this is not gonna be good. I don't know how it was going to really prepare us for, you know, Afghanistan, but it was a fun, fun exercise. So the. I get back to England and the guys are hearing the story, you know, I'm. I'm left at the airport. No one was there to pick me up. I had to find my own way to Colchester. I. I get sent out on this training, and I get in a freaking car accident. And now the Brits are just basically like, man, we are so sorry. Sorry. Like, this really, really shouldn't be happening. And, oh, by the way, we're leaving for Afghanistan in three months. And I was like, cool. So, you know, deploying with them was quite interesting. I, you know, I have no American equipment, so I've got to learn how to use their SA 80. I got to learn how to use all their machine guns. I got to learn their tactics. I'm reading their manuals. I'm reading their doctrine. I'm reading, like, how they do things and really trying to not be. And this is the great. The best way that I can describe it. I was the cousin that you have in your family who got everything that they ever wanted. Like, the spoiled Cousin, where you're like, God, I gotta hang out with that guy, right? I felt like as an American soldier, I would just be like, what do you mean you don't have three helicopters? Well, we can't all be America, where you just have like, you know, helicopters falling out of the sky and you can just use or whatever. But it was at that moment that I realized, like, man, these guys really know how to do more with less. And operationally you struggle a little bit because you're having to find new ways to think about problems both detailed and conceptual, right? You're, you're having to, to do that. So we get over to Afghanistan and I find out that our AO is going to be the Helmand Province. Helmand Province in 2007. Are you ready? Is the most dangerous place in Afghanistan during the war. And Helmand province is kicking off. I mean, it is, it is go time. And what's your job at this point? I am a. I am like their air operations officer. Operations officer. I can battle track, I can create operations. I'm a liaison. And. And that's where they realized that I could probably end up doing my best work. Because as Hellman was really Kicking off, the 24th Mew Marine Expeditionary Unit got called in as reinforcement. I mean, Hellman was. I mean, the Brits were fighting their ass off. I mean, it really did remind me of Ramadi in some places. But not city to city fighting. This was like, you know, pueblo, Pueblo fighting. I mean, it was, you know, mud huts and open lane. And the IEDs, Jocko, were insanely powerful. They were packing, you know, pressure cookers full of explosive material, you know, ammonium nitrate with gasoline. And the very basic nature to which they were doing it. It was like the pressure plate was Nothing more than two saw blades spread apart by erasers with two electrodes at the end and a 9 volt battery attached to it, so that when you stepped on it, the two metal saw blades would come in contact with each other, close the circuit, close the circuit of the 9 volt battery, which would then go to the receiving end of a pressure or a pressure cooker id. And when these things went off, they would remove the entire front end of trucks. I mean, it would send trucks up into the air. And the Brits were, they were burying these things. There were no hardball roads out there. You could just dig a hole and everything looked like dirt. So again, you know, sort of manifesting some experiences that I had, I was like, oh my God, like, this is, this is more dangerous than what I actually experienced in Ramadi, and I get down to Lashkuga and the Hellman, and that's where the Brigade headquarters is, and I'm helping plan ops. I'm, you know, I'm writing several reports. They have to get me read in on TS clearances. So even though I was an American, I was privy to top secret information that technically I would have been unqualified to have, being an American citizen. So I actually had to get permission to get my hands to do good analysis, right? Like, that was the only way that I could do it as I had to get all the information. So I got read in. I got their version of a top secret security clearance and was able to write reports and do almost, like, significant activity AR briefs for the other units in the area to say, this is what we're finding out about this ttp, or this is what the enemy is doing, or this is how they're employing systems. And I was able to get that information out to the other units all around. Well, you can only do that for so long before things get boring. And I found out that there were several missions going out. And I went over to the Irish Guards and was like, can I go.
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A
Out on a patrol with you copying Seth Stone?
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C
Huh?
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A
Can I go with you guys?
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C
Can I go with you guys? Yeah, absolutely. Do you have any experience on a.50 cal gun? Yes, I do.
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A
Rock and roll.
- [34:00]
C
Yes, I do. So they put Major Joe Claiborne in the turret of one of their Land Rovers. And I am cycling through a 50 cal machine gun in the middle of the desert, running missions with these guys. Two missions, two troops in contact. The Irish decide, we're not going out with you anymore, man. Like, they literally are starting to look at me like bad luck. Because by then the. The word had gotten out that I was a Ramadi guy. And, you know, that, you know, I had received decorations for valor, and they just knew that, like, okay, this guy again, bullet magnet maybe, I don't know. But I ended up doing a couple missions with them. I get. I mean, I travel all over the Helmand province, both by helicopter, by road, and convoys. Man in a.50 cal. I get all the way up to Kajaki Dam, which is a huge project that the USAID published to get the Kajaki hydroelectric dam up and running so we could get electric to the people of Hellman. Huge project, and one that we worked on for months. Imagine trying to take a turbine for a hydroelectric dam which is not transportable by, like, helicopter. It weighs too much. You gotta get this thing by truck. And you gotta get it from Kandahar airfield into Helmand and up to Kajaki using designated roads that are specifically designed to be able to hold a truck that's carrying a hydroelectric turbine, which is thousands of pounds. So literally every single bridge that that truck had to go over, we had to send the pathfinders out and do with the engineers a bridge analysis. What happens when we get this 10 million dollar turbine on this bridge and.
- [36:00]
A
The whole bridge collapses, falls into the river?
- [36:03]
C
Or how about this? As soon as you get to Helman, there's 300 miles of road that we don't own. It's enemy territory. And this is a $10 million target on a flatbed pickup truck. So we literally had to begin operations to kind of like seize certain areas in order to secure this one piece of equipment. Hundreds and hundreds of soldiers, thousands of soldiers, all involved in an operation to do nothing more than to get a hydroelectric generator into Kajaki so that we could get them, like tons of people risking their lives just so we could get electricity for these people. And months of planning. So as soon as the Brits found out that this was going to be a joint operation, they asked for the MEW to show up. Of course, they look at me and said, you know how to speak American. Why don't you go over and basically be our liaison and tell them where we are in the planning and then take whatever you get from them and then basically come back and. And you know, the Brits are cousins separated by a common language. Right. We speak the same language, but our terms and everything are.
- [37:20]
A
My wife's a Brit.
- [37:21]
C
I didn't know that.
- [37:22]
A
Yeah, yeah, my wife's Brit. So I, I speak a little bit of it, too.
- [37:25]
C
Speaking.
- [37:26]
A
I can definitely understand it most of the time.
- [37:29]
C
Yeah, it's. It's an acquired taste, I'll give them that. But, you know, so at that point, I'm spending a lot of time on helicopters, flying to different bases, talking to the mew. And I tried to make the Brits understand, like, these are Marines. Like, I don't speak Marine. There's another alternate language, a whole nother language that I had to be involved in. And imagine the confusion as you walk in as an American soldier with. And I'm wearing British uniform. I just can't wear the British flag on my uniform. So I'm dressed like an American. I'm carrying an SA 80. I have all of the standard equipment that looks like I'm not. I'm clearly American. And the, The Marines are looking at me like, wait, what? And I go, yeah, it's an exchange program. It's pretty cool. You know, and so we do these huge operations. You know, 24 mu. 16 is getting pounded up in the north. We do a huge operation in the south. Well, I don't stick around again. I. I hear it. We're about to go toe to toe, Southern Hellman.
- [38:32]
A
The same one six that was in Ramadi that took over for three eight. I wonder.
- [38:36]
C
Yeah, I wonder, too.
- [38:38]
A
I think it actually is.
- [38:40]
C
It might have been. Yeah, yeah. 24 mute. Well, it's hard to say. And I could also be getting my numbers wrong.
- [38:47]
A
Yeah.
- [38:49]
C
But I end up going, if it.
- [38:50]
A
If it's 1 6, it's 1 6. I mean, that's the 16 Marines. It's. If it was them, it was them.
- [38:55]
C
Yeah.
- [38:55]
A
Pretty amazing.
- [38:56]
C
I mean, they got really beat up there in the north. I mean, they took a lot of casualties fighting in that area, and. And a lot of it was those damn IEDs, man. Like, they just. They were really, really good at it. But, you know, different from Ramadi, these dudes wearing pajamas and sandals, they would come out and fight, like. And you could see them. You could see them running across with AKs and RPGs. Like, there was a mystery in Ramadi about man. Like, when are we going to see him? When are we going to make contact with them? There was so many places to hide in the city and little rat holes that they could run into and escape out in the middle of the farmland. Like, you could literally see them 800 yards away. And you could just be like, man, I'm gonna just try to maybe defilate some fire over in that direction. But they were not afraid to come and fight you, which was a huge, huge difference. So I volunteered to go down and do some mission prep in the very, very southern part of Helmand, which was rather difficult for the Brits to control. And it got so dangerous that the helicopter that was supposed to come and get me back out to Lashkagar, they canceled all air. And at that point, they were basically like, we need every single person we have, like, on a gun. And so I started to go out on more missions on a 50 cal, you know, and again, the. The. The fear now of these IEDs was like. You know, the pucker factor was. Was really there because, I mean, I got to see what these things were doing into these trucks, and it was just ripping them apart. And so, again, you've got to swallow that fear, and you've Got to really put, you know, all yourself into this. Like, and it messes with you when you see a truck and it's split in half and you get the report that every single person in this truck is dead. You're, I mean, that, that's a realization that, okay, this is a, this is a little bit different. So I, let's just say I got to say, see portions of Afghanistan that I had not got to see when I was there for the initial invasion. So when I flew into Kandahar and I was like, yep, this is Kandahar Airfield. I remember when we were here and we took this place over and you know, and seeing the bullet holes still in the airport, Kandahar Airport, you know, and I'm like, yeah, those are probably some of ours. So I, you know, I, you know, fly around with them and I'm on a mission up to, I think it was garms here. And I'm in a British Ch47 and I'm, I'm sitting in the seat. This time I got my seatbelt on and learned that lesson, Learned that lesson really good. And we end up getting incoming fire from what I assume to be a large caliber machine gun. And it literally penetrates the bottom of the Ch47. And it hits a hydraulic line inside the, the helicopter. And the hydraulic line hits something that was hot because then all of a sudden now we've got a fire and I've got the crew chiefs who are actually manning guns on each side of the CH47. And I am sitting there looking up and I'm watching this fire start dart.
- [42:17]
A
And I'm like, I'm not an airman, but this does not look good.
- [42:23]
C
So I unbuckle and go over and I'm tapping the crew chief on the arm and I'm basically, you know, pointing up again. In the movies, everyone can have these perfect conversations while they're on the helicopter and, and no. Unless you're like screaming in somebody's ear and anything happen. And so I get his attention. I point. He grabs the fire extinguisher right behind him. Well, right as he's putting out the fire. A Chinook has to fly with hydraulics. It controls everything from the rotor blades to. So we're losing hydraulic pressure because of the line. And the helicopter is, for all intents purposes, it is falling out of the sky. And we are close enough to the base that we think that we can get there. So we're, we're limping the helicopter there. Hey man, put your seat belts on like this is, this is going to be, it's going to be a hard one. Now pilots call these things a hard landing. Yeah, you know, they talk about it in the, the Osama bin Laden raid. They were like, yeah, the pilot said it was a hard landing. No, it was a crash. Like that is a crash. And, and how dare they take away that moment from me. You know, like, pilots want to protect their ego by saying, well, it wasn't really a crash, it was just a hard landing. But you know, you can really control a Chinook to like almost auto rotate down. So it's, it's real easy to put it down, but when you're falling at a higher rate. We slammed into the ground pretty hard that it actually jammed the, the wheel system up into the bottom of the damn the Chinook. And so I don't care what they.
- [44:03]
A
Say, that sounds like a bit more of a crash.
- [44:05]
C
I mean, we didn't go flipping, you know, like nobody was injured except, you know, it knocked the wind out of my breath. But you know, I had been next to a couple C4 explosions on a door. You know, if you're that close to an explosion, it'll just knock the wind right out of you. And that's what it really felt like. So I'm involved with that and I get back to the, the base and the Brits of course are just looking at me like, dude, we're so sorry. Like, like these things just keep avening and I go, that's okay. So they only.
- [44:36]
A
Did anyone else get injured?
- [44:37]
C
No.
- [44:38]
A
Okay.
- [44:39]
C
No.
- [44:39]
A
Freaking good job by the pilots.
- [44:41]
C
Yeah, great, great job by the pilots. And, and you know, they had the helicopter up on pieces of wood for a while and they, they, you know, another team came in, they refitted it and the helicopter eventually flew off and they put it back in service. But this is what I'm talking about. Like the Brits were just basically like, yeah, get us some duct tape and put some, rip it in the fuel line and we'll be okay, you know, so the Brits only do six month tours and so I only had to get through six months, which was really kind of easy at this point. And you know, we do all the significant operations and no firefights. I never actually get to fire my gun during this one, which, you know, is a blessing, but it does not still remove the fear that you have going out on, on some of these missions. So.
- [45:32]
A
And by the way, just once again, props to the army because the, the Navy, we do six month deployments and occasionally they might stretch to seven or eight, sometimes even nine. But for the most part, the vast majority, 90%, 95% are six month deployments. And that's based on our rotation of our ships, because our ships go out on six month deployments. And by the way, that ties into us in with the Marines as well. So when I, you know, when I started seeing army guys that were doing 12, 11, 12, 13, 15 month deployments, it's like full credit. That's, it's, it's freaking savage what you guys do.
- [46:07]
C
Yeah. And the other thing that was really cool is they take their soldiers out of theater and they land them on the island of Crete for like a week and a half.
- [46:20]
A
Like in the middle of deployment or.
- [46:22]
C
No, on the way back, at the end of the deployment when you leave the plan, Lane lands in Crete and they open the bar and they go, boys, like, drink to your heart's content.
- [46:35]
A
What's on the island of Crete?
- [46:36]
C
Nothing.
- [46:38]
A
So it's basically like a decompression romper room for freaking grown men that are.
- [46:42]
C
Just coming back from. And their idea is like, you know, you don't want these very high strung that have been wound up for six months. You don't want these guys to literally go. And I mean, imagine I came home from several of these where you go from theater and you, you that you're in the hangar and the doors open and your family's there, but like literally a week ago you're dodging mortar rounds. Like it's a, it's a really neat decompression for them. And so I get home, I get there about September. Time frame is right at the end of September.
- [47:17]
A
And this is what, this is 2008 or 2007.
- [47:19]
C
This is still 2007. Okay, yeah, 2000. Nope. 2008. 2008. And while I'm there, I have a couple of my Brit friends that were just like, hey man, we got, we got something exciting that you may want to do with us. I go, bring it. Let's, let's go. They go, we know some German commandos down in Bavaria and they have some slots open for us to come down and training their German commando course.
- [47:49]
A
Hell yeah.
- [47:49]
C
I was like, well, what's that consist of? Well, you know, like, you know, repelling off the sides of buildings, you know, using explosives to blow windows and, you know, infill and buildings and get to use some of their machine guns and, you know, it's a, it's a German commando course.
- [48:03]
A
Yeah, there you go.
- [48:04]
C
Cool, man. So we land and so this is after Crete. Yeah. So I don't, I don't even spend two weeks in Creed. I'm like, basically like, get me home, I think. I spend 24 hours in Creed. I don't even have a beer. I just, I'm on a plane. I'm back.
- [48:18]
A
And that's because they offer you this German commando course.
- [48:20]
C
Yes. Got it. So I am like hell bent on getting back so that I can drop my kid off, refit and get down to Germany, which I do. I ended up getting my bags. I spent maybe two or three days in my house in England just kind of catching up on sleep and, you know, doing whatever. And I grab my, my kit and jump in the bus and we drive all the way down to Southern Bavaria in Germany. And the German commando guys are there. And we're talking like these are, they're all the pictures of these guys. Their faces are blurred out. Like these are guys that are real. They're doing the business, so to speak. And I'm walking around the headquarters and you're like looking at all these pictures and they are like straight up. I would assume that they're probably like their Delta Force guys. They're doing raids on airplanes, you know, very specialized targeted mission.
- [49:18]
A
Like GSG9.
- [49:20]
C
Exactly. Yeah.
- [49:21]
A
Got it.
- [49:22]
C
These guys are, you know, the real deal. So we, we link up with them. They put us through their, their fitness course and it's pretty substantial. I did not know this, but their commando course was actually designed by the German Olympic Committee. And so. Okay, like you've, I mean, it's, it's everything all into one. It's like I'm, I'm literally, you know, doing the swim test, trying to get from poolside to poolside without servicing. You know, you're doing a six mile run. You're doing.
- [49:56]
A
This is coming off of your deployment to Hellman.
- [49:59]
C
Promise. I hadn't been home a week, dude.
- [50:02]
A
Hell yeah.
- [50:03]
C
Thanks again. Thank God. I was, I was sick. Can you imagine your wife going like, no, you're, you're staying.
- [50:10]
A
Yeah, for sure.
- [50:11]
C
And you know, the shot put, javelin throw, high jump, like there's all these different things that you have to do to even be qualified to go to this course. So we're in it, we're training. I'm, I'm doing the rappelling. I'm in the, I'm. We're shooting the machine guns. We're doing the whole train up for this thing. And the last thing that we were going to do was we were going to go and do a low level Parachute descent into an objective. And we were going to prove that we could snatch a target through airborne operations. So think of it like a targeted point raid, low level jump, full combat load, and then as soon as you hit the ground, the target assault, your target assault right there. And I was like, cool. I mean, this is things that I would read about in a book that I never would have gotten a chance to do before. So fuck it, let's go. You know, so because I'm a jump master, I actually get to do the jmpi, the jump master inspections of the jumpers that are at least on my side of the aircraft. We're jumping a T10 parachute. I'm very familiar with it. I've had, you know, several jumps with it before. And I'm, I'm inspecting all the jumpers before they get on the airplane. I have somebody else inspect me, but before I put my rig on, I obviously inspect the outside portion. You have to be a parachute rigger to inspect the internal parts of the. So I only looked at my, my rig and I, you know, assumed it was okay. Once I get suited up, I have one of the German commando guys do the inspection on me. And I'm pointing that out for a very specific reason because you know where the story is going. I am the number three jumper on this plane. We jump a C160 double prop German plane and we get up at altitude and the plan was to jump at about a thousand feet. We, we wanted to hit the target pretty low level. We didn't want to be up there for very long because we were trying to prove concept which is you could do a low level parachute descent and not spend a whole lot of time up in the air. And so, you know, I'm in the aircraft and we're banking left, we're banking right. You know, the combat lights are all on, we're red lighted and we're all face camoed up. I mean it's, it's, it's, you know, full blown. Got the weapon systems all on us and your, your, your weapon isn't in a leg bag like normal paratroopers are, because you're supposed to hit the ground and be ready to engage and you don't want to be fumbling with a leg bag trying to get your out. So you have everything strapped right to you and, and you've got your rucksack with all your gear in and stuff. So the door opens and that cool Bavarian Air comes rushing through the aircraft. And I'm like, yes, like this is you Know, you just have to be there to. To recall it as well as it was. And all the commands are in German, but they're very this. They're the same as the American commands. You know, stand up, check equipment, sound off. Our equipment check, you know, one through. I don't remember what the German number was, but I was like, three, you know, three. Okay. And I slapped the guy in front of me, and. And there we are, planes banking, and all of a sudden we do a increase in altitude, and the. With it sounds like the. The pilot kills the engine and we go into glide pattern. So now aircraft is essentially silent, and we are in a fall slash glide. And the intent is we get green light, unheard, jump out at low level.
- [53:57]
A
So it's pretty freaking cool.
- [53:58]
C
It's pretty cool.
- [53:59]
A
I've never done anything like that.
- [54:00]
C
Yeah, well, I've only done it once because I jump out, you know, green light number three jumper. I exit the aircraft, I do my 4,000 count, and I go to lift my head to check canopy, gain canopy control, and realize that I cannot lift my head. I have a complete twist all the way through my risers to my parachute rig itself. Not sure if it was something internal that was wrong with the chute or when the deployment bag came out. It sometimes can go into a spin. It'll give you the cigar roll kind of feeling. A lot of times it'll only spin three, four, five times. And you can. You can get out of them. You can get out of them as long as you have the altitude to be able to get out of them. Most of these parachute malfunctions are very easy to get out of. And if you can't, you just pull your reserve and you're good because we're jumping at 3,000ft or above. When you're jumping at a thousand feet, you. You're really running out of time. And so by the time I jump out of the aircraft and I do my thousand counts, I cannot lift my head. It is completely spun. And I'm reaching behind me, and I'm trying to pull my risers apart just so I can lift my head and see what's going on with my parachute. But I do know one thing and one thing for certain. I am falling feet first. I'm not tumbling. I'm not in a free fall. There's something up there. And. But I also realize it's 11:30 at night. I have no depth perception at all. I cannot see my rate of descent based on a horizon or, you know, I see the moon off the tops of the trees. And as I'm really trying to, like, kick, and I'm trying to spread my risers, I'm trying to get out of this malfunction, I'm almost to the point where I'm like, I probably need to pull my reserve. Like, we're talking seconds. And as I look down, I see the tops of the trees coming at me at a very vacuum. And, you know, as a. If you have enough jumps, you always keep your eyes on the horizon because you can see it shift, you know, especially when you're jumping high altitude. You're 12,000ft, you can really see. And then as you start getting closer, that horizon starts getting level with you, and that's really what you can determine. So I see that coming, and I just go, fuck. And I put one hand over my reserve, and I put one hand over my face, grabbing my helmet, because I'm. I'm going right into these trees. And the secondary story is that there's a drop zone safety officer with night vision goggle who is guiding the aircraft. But we are the initial jump, and there are several passes that the plane's got to make. So we, as the initial jumpers are sort of like the test run to make sure that the wind carries us to the jump zone. The first two jumpers barely make it. Like, they. They go in, like, right on the edge of the trees, and the rest of the stick lands in the drop zone. So then they adjust, and the rest of the jumpers come in behind us with a release point that's a little bit further than ours so that they don't go. Well, since I had the parachute malfunction, I had no glide.
- [57:10]
A
No glide whatsoever.
- [57:11]
C
I was going straight down. And so, to be honest with you, I think the trees saved my life.
- [57:17]
A
Well, yeah, I would definitely say how. How much. How much cloth did the drop zone safety officer say you have? Did they see.
- [57:25]
C
They thought I was dead. He said he didn't see streamer. It wasn't flapping. It was almost like if the parachute were to be like this and you just began to spin it, what happens to each line at the corner of the parachute is it gets closer and closer and closer together. So I had a bubble. I didn't have the full. So it was sort of going down, which is why. Makes sense. My feet were always pointed it down.
- [57:52]
A
Did you not. Did you. As you were. You were that close to the trees that you didn't even have time to pull your reserve at all.
- [57:58]
C
And the one thing that I did Go through my head is because, you know, they always tell you, if you're going in the trees, just let the trees grab a hold of you. Because if you pull your reserve, there's a chance that all that comes out at your belly, that it can get wrapped around your neck. And there's always these horror stories of guys getting hungry, you know, and literally.
- [58:18]
A
I didn't know. I didn't know that.
- [58:20]
C
Suffocating themselves. Yeah. On their own lines. Because it'll just come out and pop. And because there's not enough air to fill it, it'll grab a hold of the trees, and sometimes those lines can. Can hang.
- [58:31]
A
So it was a conscious decision to not pull it.
- [58:34]
C
Yeah.
- [58:34]
B
Okay.
- [58:35]
C
And at that point, I knew. How about this? The amount of time that I was coming onto the trees was enough time to me to realize, like, that reserve wasn't going to do enough for me. That was really the thought, like, it was useless. So the reason why I put one hand over the reserve is so that it doesn't pop open and you're able to go through the trees. And then the hand over the face is to just make sure that you're. You don't gouge your eye out on a tree branch. As again, luck would have it, I landed in two. In between two Bavarian pine trees. And those branches actually acted like arms and slowed me down. So as I broke through those branches, typical rate of descent on a T10 parachute is about 22ft per second. I was probably falling well over twice that, probably about 45, 50ft per second with what I had and the rate of descent that I blasted through those trees. And a German Bavarian pine tree is very much like the pine trees of the east coast, South Carolina. They, they. There's no branches. They just go straight up and then they mushroom at the top. So basically, when you break through that initial canopy, just air. It's just air. And so as I broke through those trees, my body broke through first. Then the branches grabbed the silk and the lines and everything else, and I just heard snap, crack, pop, you know, sounding like damn Rice Krispies. Right. And then I heard a significant crack. It sounded like almost like, I don't know, Bo Jackson breaking a baseball bat over his leg. Right. It. It was a broomstick snap. And the entire air got released from me, and I was in straight free fall. I'd say about 100ft between the mushrooming of the tree to the ground and as I was falling. I mean, it. There was a noticeable difference between freefall and what I had above my neck. When I came out of the airplane, I was in freefall at this point. So whatever happened to my parachute that last 100ft wasn't working anymore. And I hit the ground so unbelievably hard that I. I landed at an angle. So my right foot hit the ground first and completely shattered my right foot. My knees and feet were bent, expecting to come in contact with the ground. And I never released my equipment, so my rucksack was still in between my legs. So the rucksack hit next and saved my knees from. And my femurs from exploding. But that rucksack jammed up into my midsection, all my bits, and it forced me backwards, which then landed me on my buttocks, which then snapped my pelvis in half. Shoved my tailbone, my coccyx, up into the middle of my intestines, broke my sacrum into seven pieces. And then I had burst fractures in my spine up to T12. Then I hit sideways. So a minute, as I'm describing it, I'm doing it in really slow motion, but this entire thing happens.
- [61:58]
A
02 seconds was all the first injuries, and now you.
- [62:01]
C
And then I hit my head. So I crumple to the side and my head hits the ground. I have a significant helmet mark from where my head hit. And it was. Jaco. It was just like the cartoons, man. And you talk to guys that get blown up by ID sometimes, and the head trauma that you get. My vision went black. Like, I went blind, and all I could see were bursts of light. It was just like the cartoons, you know, when the cartoon character gets hit and they see the stars and stuff. It was exactly that. And from that point, I do not know if I was knocked unconscious. I don't know if I hit and was still conscious. But I do know that I went blind. I could not see anything except my optic nerves firing inside my brain. I laid there for a minute, and as my vision slowly came back to being tunnel vision, I was literally looking up at the sky in between these Bavarian trees and seeing the beautiful night sky and all the stars. And I was in the most excruciatingly painful state that I've probably ever been in my life. Like, it. It just. When we talk about, like, unable to move type of pain, I was having a hard time breathing. I thought maybe I had buckled some ribs and punctured a lung. So I'm thinking through, like, what if I have a tension pneumothorax and I've gotta release the pressure on my lungs or I'm Gonna. I'm gonna bleed, and I'm gonna literally choke on my own blood and die here on the ground. So I'm looking for a knife to try to figure out how I'm, you know, you know, reaching around for my rib to figure out where I'm going to do. And then I realized, like, I. I can't feel my legs. Like, I haven't moved my legs at all in this point. And I feel a tremendous amount of pressure. And, you know, being in the grappling community, you know, when somebody bear hugs you and it's like you can't breathe in. Like, the only thing you can do is exhale. And then. Then you just realize it. Like, it just hurts. Yeah. And I, I felt that, like, right in the middle of my back. At that point. I tried to move my legs and, and, and I couldn't. I had this, like, really, like, it was almost like a burning sensation that started in my lower back and went down my legs. It was almost like I was on fire. It was. Felt like it was just burning. And I reached down, I had a chem light in the very bottom pocket of my ACUs. And I reached down and I pulled the chem light out, ripped it out of the packet. I popped it, shook it, and threw it over in the grass. And then I took my silk parachute, which, add insult to injury, literally fell on top of me on the ground. But because I thought I was going into shock, like, I covered myself up with my silk parachute to keep me warm. It was still a chilly night, you know, out there while all this is happening and they see me go into the tree line. They. They did tell me afterwards that they, they just didn't think they were gonna find me alive. So it was like, police call. They got 10ft away from one another, and they just started to walk through the wood line expecting to do. Find nothing but my. My crumpled body on the ground. Until one of the German soldiers who didn't speak English found me. And he ran back, got another guy. They came forward and they basically picked me up and put me on a poncho liner and carried me out of the woods. Dense, dense forest. And once I got to the edge of the woods, the field ambulance was there, the German commando commander, lieutenant colonel was there. Maybe it was a colonel, I can't remember. And put me on a back brace. And he's like, you know, joe, don't worry. Everything's going to be fine. We're going to take care of you. We're going to call the US Embassy, let them know what happened. We're going to take you to, like, one of the best trauma hospitals that we have down here in the south. And as they're loading me into the ambulance, he usually. He says, is there. Is there anything I can do for you? Is there anything you need? And by this time, they had hit me with the morphine, so I'm feeling pretty good. And I said, sir, I could really use a glass of scotch right now. And the doors close. I try to relax, and I get to the hospital, and the last thing I remember is them cutting my pants upwards. And the mask comes on, and I'm out. I'm in surgical ICU for two days. They've got me peeled open to try to put together all of these orthopedic problems that I have. I wake up at some point on day two for them to tell me that, like, I need to sign a release because my pelvis has been snapped in half and my sacrum is in seven pieces. And they're going to try to, like a sniper, put two bolts with washers in each side of my hip and try to drill these bones back together. And I signed the release. I got no family with me, and, you know, I'm there by myself. So they wake me up just long enough for me to be like. And then out I go again. I wake back up, and they go, well, we just took an image of it, and your left one is way too close to your spinal cord. We're afraid that if we don't relieve it now, it could probably cause. So I go back under again for another surgery. When I finally wake up, my right foot is in an external fixator. My right foot's completely shattered. I've got over 28 fractures going from my right foot all the way up through the L1 vertebrae in my back. And I am unable to feel anything below my belly button. I do everything I can to try to move and create that motion. It's not working. And I'm starting to have that realization that, oh, my God, man, like this. This could be the end of not only my military career, but I might end up in a wheelchair for the rest of my life, you know? So the German commander shows up on day three to come in and check on me. By this time, I've heard from the embassy, things are tracking for me to fly, to launch Dull and hand me over to the Americans so I can get some American treatment. It. And as the German commander comes in, he. He makes me an honorary German commando. It's my Consolation prize, I guess. So I get, I get, I get to become a German commando. I get my own German commando beret. I earned my German jump wings. And then he reaches in a bag.
- [68:56]
A
You did. You definitely earned those German jump links.
- [69:00]
C
He pulls out a bottle of whiskey and said, the last thing you said to me was that you could use a real good glass of scotch. So he pulls out a bottle of scotch and he goes, just don't drink it while you're on your meds. I was like, roger that, sir. So they load me up in a German black ops helicopter. They fly me up to Launch Duhl. And you know, imagine you're the hospital based commander, you just watched a German black ops helicopter land. The British liaisons who are also getting treated at Launchtuhl, the British soldiers, they come out to greet me, but then they take me to the American side of the hospital, which of course there's tons of questions like, who is this guy? What has he been doing? Like, what, what is going on here? So those questions came about a lot sooner than let's talk about your injury. And a full bird colonel in the hospital doesn't like a major telling him, if you have any questions you can contact the US Embassy and London, like, like, let's talk about like what's going on here. So needless to say, I, I spent like maybe 48, 72 hours in launch dual, but we have now confirmed my bladder doesn't work, my bowels don't work, my legs are in really, really bad shape. We need to get you back to the States to figure out like what we need to do for you. So they put me on a C17 at a launch duel to fly me to Edwards Air Force Base. I get loaded on this plane and there are service members coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan. A lot of these kids are clinging to life. There's guys missing arms and legs and hooked up to machines. And I'm being carried on the airplane and I'm thinking to myself, like, is this the trip that my guys took when I sent them home? You know, and I'm looking around the airplane and I'm, you know, I'm laying on my back because I can't do anything else. And there in the C17 up in the front is an American flag hanging from the top of the aircraft. And I remember just staring at it and thinking like, you know, I felt unworthy that I was on the same flight as these young 18, 19 year old kids who literally were clinging to life. I mean, I'm looking Around, I mean, and the plane is packed full of casualties. I just happened to be one of the ones there. And yeah, they, they hit me with narcotics. The nine hour flight from launch doll went pretty quickly, but still an excruciatingly painful state. Just pain all over. It's just really hard to describe the amount of discomfort that you have. And by the time I got to Walter Reed, again, it was the same thing. More tests, more scans, more X rays, and, you know, just being moved over to an X ray table was like, y' all better hit me with some Dilaudid because this is not going to go good, you know. And they attempted to pull out, out the catheter to see if I could, and I ended up like getting like 3000 cc's worth of liquid in my bladder and was still not even getting a sense that I needed to go, you know, and that's a lot. That's a lot of liquid. So of course they have to, you know, put another catheter in me to, to release that. The bowels not working. It just was really scary. It was a real scary moment. But I remember the doctors coming in at Walter Reed and they said, look, we've looked at your scans. The good news is we don't think you've actually severed your spinal cord. Your last injury in your spine is located right at L1. And at L1, your spinal cord becomes a bundle of nerves that go off into different areas. Your legs, your bladder, your bowel, all that stuff. And at the spinal cone right there where you got your last burst fracture is where all these nerve bundles are. And they said, we want you to think of it like this. You know, how you hit your elbow, you have funny bone and your whole arm just like, goes numb. We think that that's what's going on. We think that you're in something, what we call spinal shock. And we think there's actually a chance. Jocko. That's. That's all I needed to hear. I was like, you know, at one point they were like, you're probably never going to walk again. And I'm like, do you know who I am? You know, it was one of those moments. And so much so that I actually got sent to the sixth floor, which is the psych ward, because the doctors were finally crazy.
- [73:49]
A
Joe comes home.
- [73:52]
C
Yeah, I've been waiting to see you, Dr. Doc. They thought I was in denial and they, they wanted me to, like, really come to terms with the fact that I had real significant damage to my spine and orthopedically it just. It was not looking good. Walter Reed does not have a spinal cord injury center. So they gave me the option to go to one of four in the United States, I think Minneapolis. There's one here in California, Palo Alto, I think. Think there was one right there in Richmond, Virginia, an hour drive. So I was like, put me in the ambulance, drive me to Richmond. Let's figure out what's going on. And it was there at the Spinal Cord Injury center in Richmond, Virginia, that I had gotten the final diagnosis, that I had not severed my spinal cord. I had what was called cauda equina syndrome. Caudi equina is Latin for horse's tail.
- [74:42]
A
I was gonna say something about a horse there.
- [74:43]
C
Yeah. So right at the spinal cone where I described all those nerve bundles coming down, if you were to remove your spinal cord from your body and hold it up right there, your spinal cord turns into a horse's tail. Looks like just bundles of nerves all going down. And my point of injury damaged that and it shut everything down. Now, here's basically what that means for someone with this type of condition. In a car accident or a major fall, you know, people get injured like this quite a bit. But the amount of time of recovery is really dependent on, you know, several factors I would probably consider to be, like, the mental state to be one of them. Because you can reduce yourself to the thought of, okay, I'm never going to walk again. And if you're satisfied with that, then congratulations, here's your wheelchair. I was not satisfied with that. I wanted to go to rehab. I wanted to do everything I possibly could to try to, like, fight this thing off. And so basically what happens is, and people should get a little bit of an understanding about this. If you control alt delete on your computer right now, it will do a massive shut off. The thing will just shut off. And, you know, sometimes when they lock up on us, that tends to be what we do. Control alt delete. We just hold it. The computer turns off.
- [76:04]
A
Reboot. Yeah.
- [76:06]
C
When you turn it on, you get the blue screen of death, right? And the blue screen says, we're not exactly sure what happened, but some kind of catastrophic failure happened in the system. Would you like to start in safe mode? Now, I don't know anyone who likes to mess around with life and says no, but most people will click yes, I'd like to start back up in safe mode. And so what the computer does is it has the ability to turn on all kinds of programs all at once, lightning quick. But what the computer does Is it starts one program at a time to try to find out what caused this thing to shut down. The human body did the same exact thing. It literally started at my point of injury, and it slowly started to turn things on. All of a sudden, I started to feel my bladder getting full. All of a sudden, I got that burning sensation in my legs. And then all of a sudden, I became, like, hyper reactive and hypersensitive. So if you were to take your hands and rub them down my shin, it would actually feel like you were carving the flesh right off my bones. That was the interpretation because the body had experienced something so traumatic that it was really just protecting itself from doing any other damage. And so slowly as things started to come back on, it was like I was a. I was a baby giraffe that was just born, and I'm trying to. You know, Or a horse, right? I'm trying to stand up for the first time. I'm falling all over the place. Huge amount of frustration. I mean, imagine you go from everything that I've just shared with you to now I can't even put on my socks, or I got to have a nurse digitally stimulate my bottom in order to get me to have a bowel movement. Like, you are reduced to the absolute simplest of creatures when you are having to rely on somebody else to take care of you. That wasn't me. That was emotional, vulnerable moment for Joe Claiborne to say, I need help. You know, I need help to do certain things. And. And remember, I'm also dealing with PTSD from Ramadi. So I've got PTSD that I don't want to talk about. I've got, you know, I'm addicted to Ambien at this point. The only way I can sleep is, you know, to take Ambien. And I've lived my life since I was a young man jumping on a Greyhound bus all by himself and going off and do like. I wasn't the type of person to be like, I need help, and I couldn't even put on my socks. And I remember, like, tearing up and literally crying like, this is pathetic. I am just a big old piece of chewed up bubble gum right now. And, like, I'm never gonna get back in the fight. And. And how do you live with that when so much of your life was defined. Defined by what you did? So I had the epiphany. Maybe this isn't how I define my life. Maybe how I define my life is not by the things that you go through, but how you react to them. And I decided at that moment, right then and there at Ward 54 at Walter Reed, as I got sent back, I was in a room with a young kid who had been blown up and had shrapnel wounds all down his right hand side. And he was on a pain pump. And the pain pump was on an hour timer. And every hour, you could hear the pain pump click on. And every hour, I would hear this kid push the button that would inject the pain medicine into his body. And he would be out 45 minutes, 50 minutes after he pushed that pain pump, I hear him over in the corner pushing the button. And he would push that button for 15 straight minutes until the pain pump kicked on. He'd inject himself with pain meds and he'd go out. And I remember thinking to myself, like, I don't want to do this, and if I don't want to do this. And everything about my life has brought me to this point where I can say that I've overcome so much within my life and that this is just another hurdle. Well, why can't I tell other people about this? Why can't I? So there I am in my wheelchair. I would go room to room to room visiting every soldier, sailor, airman and Marine on Ward 54 at Walter Reed. And I would listen to them and I would talk to them, and I would remind them, there are people back at your unit that are expecting you to get better and get back in the fight. Now, let's do this right, because again, it was the mental state. If I was satisfied with never walking again, I would have been happily rolling around in my wheelchair today. But I wasn't. Instead, I hit three physical therapy sessions a day. I learned how to scuba dive at Walter Reed during. They have a pool session. Soldiers undertaking disabled scuba shout out those. Like I could. I couldn't even use my legs. So they put literally a scuba pack on me, sat me out of my wheelchair on the side of the pool and literally just pushed me. And I would float around the water with just my hands. But that being underwater, the silence, the weightlessness, my pain went away like that. The calmness of being underwater just was tremendous. So I used every opportunity. And as I'm walking out of a physical therapy session one day, and I had just been given like, my walking sticks and I had braces on my legs to sort of keep. Beat me up, you know, my drop foot was in. So I'm. I mean, I'm just a hot mess, but I'm refusing. I remember that when I Pushed the wheelchair away from me and said, no more. No more. But I'm coming out of physical therapy, and I turn to my left, and Gunny Gibson is standing there with his prosthetic leg, and he's looking at me, and he goes, crazy Joe. I said, gunny, I missed you, man. And we embraced right there in that moment. And, you know, it was moments like that that reminded me, like, was I really going through that much? I mean, like, compared to what other guys are going through, you know, I met a guy in my journey who had been blown up by One of those EFP IEDs, energy force projectiles that came out of Iran and killed everybody in his vehicle except for him. This young man lost both of his legs, his right arm, lost his hearing in his right ear and his right eye. He's got one hand that basically, I think, had three fingers on it. And I remember meeting him and thinking to myself, like, he's got to go to the physical therapy the same way that I do. Like, why is my struggle any more difficult than his? Like, it's really just about, like, the mentality of it, right? Like, if I can do it, then he can do it. If he can do it, then I can do it. And then all of a sudden, you, like, you form this bond with other guys in the hospital. And I was the highest ranking casualty on Ward 54. So guess what these guys ended up becoming? They were mine. I would end up going to the hospital surgeon and advocating for my old. Other soldiers. I would. My soldiers, they weren't mine. But, you know, I would say, you know, like, hey, look, his family's coming in today. Is there any chance y' all can clean his bedpan before they get here? Or any one of those things? Like, these guys ended up becoming part of my being able to recover. And then that young man that I just told you about, I met him in the hallway one day, and he said, hey, I just wanted to share something with you. I said, what's that, man? He goes, my wife's pregnant.
- [84:40]
A
Hell, yeah.
- [84:42]
C
And I'm looking at him, and he could tell that my. My mind was thinking, how did y' all do this? You know, he's missing both of his legs, his arm. And it just goes to show you the power of the human mind to be able to, you know, overcome that. But I think it was important for me to be in Walter Reed and to meet those other people and to realize that my struggle and. And the fight that I was going through was not singular. It was shared and mine Was no different than anybody else's. And how long.
- [85:17]
A
How long were you in there for?
- [85:20]
C
About seven months as an inpatient.
- [85:23]
A
And then at what point. So you. When you. When you switched over to outpatient, are you walking now with canes? At what point did you start? Because, I mean, you rolled in here today like a no factor. Like, you look completely and totally normal. If you didn't tell someone this happened to you, they wouldn't. They wouldn't have any idea.
- [85:41]
C
Yeah, I'm pretty proud of that. I do live in chronic pain. I do have things that did not come back and will not work ever again because of the damage that was done to the nerves. I've got portions of my leg that I just have no feeling in. So, you know, if you were to pinch me on my behind, I wouldn't be able to feel it. But living with that every single day. And again, I don't do any drugs. I don't take any meds. Cholesterol, that's about it, right? But I wanted to be clear, because as I was leaving the hospital, I had bottles, 60 to 90 pills each. Morphine, morphine sulfate, morphine, IR, Hydra, hydrocodone, you know, like, everything that you could. And I literally had it all lined up. And I was thinking to myself, like, no wonder guys are accidentally killing themselves on this stuff. And I just went cold turkey and said, no more. Like, I need to be able to live with this pain, just to realize how far I've come from. Like, you know, all right, look at this chart. Level 0 is happy face. Level 10 over here is like, the screaming face. Like, where do you feel like? I know that I've been on the other side of that pain chart. And when I go in and see a doctor now, I'm usually, they're like, what's your pain level? And I'm like, two, because I've been at nine, and I'm not anywhere close to that. Like, I can live with two, you know, so it was about seven months. I do have canes. I still have the braces on my legs to keep my legs locked in. Not quite force gump sort of quality leg braces, but enough that I'm, like, getting up and I'm actually moving. But with the nerve damage, the physical exertion happens quickly, so the muscles get fatigued faster. And there were a couple times where I would trip and fall because a muscle wouldn't activate. I wouldn't be able to go up and down stairs because my foot wouldn't bend. So I would have to. If I had to go upstairs, I would have to sit on my bottom and I would literally, like, go up on my butt and then slide back down on the way. The broken tailbone was never fixed. It's still up inside the middle of my gut, and that's a pain in the ass. But still, to this day, it's. It's really, really painful. It's probably, you know, one of the things that is the most painful every single day. General Chiarelli comes in to Ward 54. I'm a brand new patient in Ward 54. And before he walks in, they go, general, he's vice Chief of Staff of the Army. Oh, big, big general. I said, general, we just brought this major in. Parachute malfunction. He's probably never going to walk again. So he. He visits me right at the beginning of October. He comes back in March, and they don't tell him. He comes in my room, and I'm standing up, and I've got my canes and my braces, and he looks at me and he goes, major, what am I going to do with you? And I said, sir, I've got an idea. How about you get me the out of this hospital and send me somewhere where I can exercise my brain and exercise my body while still being useful to the army, because I'm no use to the army here anymore. A week, and I had orders back to England, returned back to my unit in Colchester, finished out my assignment. Took about two months left of my assignment, so I really got to spend hardly any time actually in England. And General Chiarelli got me orders to go to the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth to practice my. My brain power. Enrolled in the cgsc. And while I'm in the Command and General Staff College getting my education, I'm still in physical therapy, but every time they rebuild my foot, it falls back apart again. So I'm in physical therapy. And then I'm like, it's really, really painful. And I go for scans and the bones are broken again. And so basically, I get a recommendation from the army to go to KU Med, University of Kansas and get to see their top foot surgeon in the country. And bed manners were not very nice, but he got the job done. Unfortunately, the fusion in my spine, the fusion in my pelvis. I probably could have continued on active duty with some limitations, but what he was recommending was one of two things. We either have to cut your foot off and you learn how to use a prosthetic foot, and there's A chance that you could probably stay on active duty with a prosthetic leg. A lot of guys do.
- [90:54]
A
Gunny Gibson. Yeah, yeah.
- [90:56]
C
Max Ramsey.
- [90:58]
A
Yeah, there's a bunch, a bunch of.
- [90:59]
C
Guys that got to stay. However, if you want to keep your foot, I have to fuse the entire thing together. You're never going to be able to use it correctly. You'll never be able to run again because you're not going to be able to fix. And he goes, unfortunately, this is going to end your military career. So keep your foot, continue or get out or lose your foot and be able to stay on active duty. And I was like, that's really not like, seriously, those you know this, remember I told you earlier, I don't want to be told no. I want to know how we can make this happen. So I send that up the chain of command and they say, yes, there is a way. It's called a co ed, a continuation on active duty. However, comma, when your packet goes before a medical review board and the army, the review board is made up of doctors and non doctors. But they have one question to answer when you go before the board, and that is based on the soldier's current mos, can they perform their duties with the injuries that they currently have? And I got a few spine, pelvis, right foot. It was very, very quick that like, the answer was no. I was coded airborne Ranger, right? Like I've been kicking indoors for literally the last five years of my life. And. And the answer to that was an unequivocal no, do not pass go, do not collect $100, yada, yada, yada. I could have done a coad. And what a coad does is that you become needs of the army. And at that point, I could have been a finance officer. And I, like, I jocko, I, I struggled with this because I was made to be a soldier. I was made to serve. I was made to do the things that I had done up until this point. And I did not like the idea that it was coming to a crashing end for me. And that hurt in some way that, you know, because at the end of the day, you still feel like you have some fight to give. You know, the same thing I told my soldiers, you get your ass back here because people are relying on you. Yeah, the same thing I told the boys in the hospital. And now the army was saying, no, you're good. So I ended up applying for the command. The School of Advanced Military Studies, which is the Marine Corps, has one called We Sam's. I think Yours is called Sauce.
- [93:34]
A
Okay.
- [93:34]
C
Yeah. And it's a very. Like. Only 10 of majors in the army are selected to go to this course, and you become basically a certified strategic planner. So you can see where my head's at, right? Like, okay, I think I might be able to, like, go and get my certification as a strategic planner and maybe save the lives of other soldiers being a strategist. Right. I mean, we've always said, like, this is the most combat effective tool we have because nothing happens without it. And I could be that guy, you know, And I get to the end of Sam's and they come back and the army at that time, this is 2011, in 2011. And I'm. Remember, I'm injured in 08, so, you know, like, I'm. I'm still fight. It's two and a half years of me to be in, like, somewhat recovery mode. That's how long it takes me to basically walk on my own without assistance. Two and a half years. And the army had decided that they were gonna cut the force by like 40,000. And, you know, if you're G1 at the Pentagon and you go, what's the fastest way for us to cut guys out of the force? Well, anybody who's, you know, on the fat boy program, you guys are out of here. Anybody who can't pass a PT test, you guys are out of here. How about all those injured guys that want to stick around that probably aren't going to be any use to us anymore because they're combat ineffective? Let's get rid of all those guys who. And I got 73 days notice to pack my shit and get out of the army. 73 days. I got a immediate medical retirement with no consideration, which basically means that, like, that was it. There's. I didn't get to speak to a single doctor in the review board. I didn't get to plead my case. I didn't get to say, like, what I. Could you imagine if they would have just sent me to Fort Benning and I could have done nothing but teachers, young captains, tactics. I could have just stood at basic training and told war stories and just been like, guys, this is what you're getting into.
- [95:58]
A
And that would have been well worth it. And there's very few people that could have done that as well as you could have done it.
- [96:03]
C
73 days notice. I had no. I had no plans. Still single at this point, I am still single. Yeah. So I had no idea what to do. I was dating, and the girl that I was dating did not Know me in my life as Crazy Joe. As a matter of fact, by the time I got back to England, they stopped calling me Crazy Joe because I could no longer live that life. So the Brits are who renamed me Lucky Joe.
- [96:41]
A
I was about to say, there has to be some kind of luck involved here.
- [96:45]
C
Yeah. So they ended up calling me Lucky Joe. And just like the dog whisperer who had the dog Diablo, I could no longer live that life. And so I had to, I had to drop the lucky into my new vocabulary and, and finally put Crazy Joe to bed for the last time. But yeah, I moved to Texas and moved in with this girlfriend within a year. To a shock to me, we got pregnant with our first daughter, Jack. And you know, I think my first reaction was like, my boys can swim. You know, like, I was really excited because I didn't know I. So much trauma in that area that I didn't know, you know, if it was going to be a thing. And so, you know, married, I got a kid now and, you know, what do you do? You know, like what, nothing looked good on a resume. Like, how do you go to a company and like, what can you offer the company?
- [97:54]
A
Coordinate. Coordinate combined arms fire on enemy targets.
- [97:59]
C
I mean, you know, I, I talk about loss, especially 73 days notice. It's not like I thought the army was going to get rid of me. I was like, no way. They've put way too much money. I got two master degrees at this point, four tours of combat, multiple experiences at all levels of command. Like, no way, no way they're going to do it. Boy, that, that went. That was like Kaiser Sose just gone. And. Yeah, move, move to Texas. And how'd you pick Texas? Costa Rica just kind of seemed a little far outside my, my web of, you know, it just, I wanted to go someplace where I knew it was going to be warm and I could ride motorcycles year round.
- [98:43]
A
Texas works.
- [98:44]
C
And the girl that I was dating at the time was, was there. And she's the one who told me, why don't you come down here and you know, figure things out from here. And you know, I don't know, it was like 25 different applications into various companies without so much as a callback.
- [99:04]
B
Damn.
- [99:05]
C
Seven months of unemployment. I got out February 28th of 2012 as my retirement date. In the old system, you weren't allowed to submit your disability paperwork until you were officially retired. So on March 1, I walked into the VA and my medical records fit inside one of those boxes. Like it was literally like that thick And I handed it over to the technician and I said, I'm applying for my disability. It took a year for me to get anything back from the va. I've heard that it's gotten better, but literally it was. And I. The only reason I remember this is because I bought a house a year later and we were closing in May and in April, I still had not been given my disability letter, which means that I couldn't qualify for some of the loans and things that I needed because I didn't have a VA letter. Like, I was clearly retired. I had that. I had separation. I had permanent disability from the army, but I had nothing from the va. And it happened in April of the following year. That's how long it took me to get my VA disability. And needless to say, I'm a hundred percent. It's hard to convince people that you're a hundred percent when you are walking.
- [100:26]
A
Around like a normal.
- [100:27]
C
Yeah, but, you know, it's.
- [100:29]
A
What are your limitations? Can, for you physically, can you go for a run right now?
- [100:33]
C
I cannot. I mean, I can you hike? I can hike. All day long. I've been hiking the. Out of my. My areas. I can. I can walk again. Exertion tends to happen over a certain amount of time. It's gotten better as I go on. But the orthopedic pain is something that, like, if, like yesterday I walked all over. I went to visit the midway, and I. I spent four hours on the midway walking. By the time I got back to my hotel, my back was almost like in spasm mode. Like, it was just locked in from being on my feet. So I have to kind of pick and choose. But it's not like I'm not going to go do something because I know it's going to be painful. I just deal with the fact that I'm going to be in pain. Like, you know, I would tell people like, oh, yeah, I'm going to pay for this tomorrow. You know, like, it's just sick that, you know, you do that. But I can't run. I can probably jog, but the flexing of my foot, of the fusion. I don't have full mobility of the foot for me to be able to run. I can swim, which is great. Very therapeutic. I do have a pool.
- [101:39]
A
It's very nice.
- [101:40]
C
Yeah.
- [101:41]
A
And so what you sent, would you say 25 applications or 75? How many applications?
- [101:45]
C
25 applications would you end up getting for a job? Yeah. So as luck would have it, I've always said the. The Lord looks after fools. And babies. And I definitely haven't been a baby in a long time. So the good Lord has looked after me quite a bit. And after, you know, automatic generated emails saying, you know, thank you, but we're going in a different direction. I happen to stumble upon a teaching job at a local high school in San Antonio, and they happen to be looking for a history teacher. And I lied on my resume. I said I had all kinds of history experience, you know, and. And I never finished my application. I think a week passed by or whatever. And my wife at the time said, hey, what about that job that you were looking at with the teaching thing? She said, I think you'd be good with that, working with kids. I was like, well, let me take a look. So I actually logged online and found that this school had a military program, and they were looking for basically a cadre member to come in and help develop these young high school students in leadership. And I applied for the job, interviewed, and was hired in two weeks. Yeah, and I stayed there for 13 years. I took a little bit of a break in the middle, but by the time I. I left, I was. I was in charge of the entire military program. So I got promoted all the way up through, ended up taking it. And I can tell you that, you know, company command was by far one of the greatest jobs I have ever had. Most satisfying jobs I've ever had. But I got to tell you, working with kids, because, you know, I mentioned that light bulb, and you get to see that every single day, working with kids and to be influential in their lives and. And not just that, but like, to show them what leadership looks like and to put it into practice. Right? Yeah, that was important to me. And I did that for 13 years before I finally hung my hat up this year and just said, you know what? I think it's time for me to do something else. I felt like I checked all the blocks. You know, we. I took the program to the largest population of students in the. Almost the school's history. Largest number of females participating in the military program in the school's history. You know, leadership is not a boy sport, girls. I mean, you got to get out there and learn it, too. And the only way to do it, the only way to learn it is to do it. So you just. You know, I created the environment for these kids to not only learn about leadership, but to apply it in their everyday life. And what I have is I now have hundreds of students that have graduated and have moved on to be lawyers and doctors and entrepreneurs and Businessmen and they all call me to tell me that they've done something successful in their life. Because at one particular moment when I told them, you know, you're trash and you do more push ups and you know, not good enough, do it again. It's their one opportunity to come back and say, I wouldn't be who I was today if you didn't push me and make me who you were. So, you know, all roads lead, I think sometimes to like an ultimate goal and purpose. And I remember when one of my soldiers called me and he was like, sir, what are you doing now? I heard you almost died in a parachute jump. And I was like, yeah, you know, I'm, I'm teaching at a school and I'm the head softball coach. And he goes, do they know you used to kill people for a living? I said, I think, I think they might understand. But you know, it's, it's, it's, it's political and, and there's a lot of politics involved in education. There's a lot of. Let's just say that I'm a little abrasive. I think some of my style worked with some people. It might not have worked with other people, but, you know, at the end of the day, I knew that my entire goal was to make great human beings because very little of these kids were going to the military. But those who did, I got into military academies. So I've got, you know, one at West Point. I got two at the Air Force Academy. I got one at the Naval Academy right now. Like, those are kids that used me as their example for why they want to serve. And man, I can't think of a better pat on the back than that.
- [106:39]
A
Yeah, you know, I tell people all the time that's like, of everything that I've get had the opportunity to do, my life, there's definitely nothing as gratifying as a little kid that comes up to me and says, I'm a warrior kid.
- [106:52]
C
I did.
- [106:53]
A
I can do eight pull ups and I couldn't do any before. Or I'm a warrior kid. And you know, I know my times tables now or whatever the thing is. And now actually that book, the first book came out, the first warrior kid book came out like eight years ago. Yeah, so I meet, I met, I meet like cadets at West Point or the Naval Academy. Like, yeah, you know, I read this when I was 15 or 14 and it's like, yeah, it's freaking awesome.
- [107:18]
C
And they just think how old we are. That you're like, you're like, you read that win.
- [107:23]
A
When did you run into Seth overseas?
- [107:27]
C
Yeah.
- [107:27]
A
What was that. What was that scenario?
- [107:29]
C
Yeah, I was. I was in England, and it was around the holiday time before I went to Afghanistan with them. And again, being a single guy with nowhere to go, I was like, to hell with it. If we're shutting down for the holidays, I'm gonna go backpacking through Europe. And so I jumped and bought a train ticket and went to all kinds of different places, places in England with nothing more than a backpack. And. And I'm. I'm in Switzerland. And I. I went into this bar is. It's December. It's like a couple days before Christmas, you know, maybe a couple days after Christmas. I think it was in between Christmas and New Year. And I'm sitting at the bar, and I'm having a beer, watching a soccer game, and I hear the door behind me open of this little pub, and then I hear it open a second time. And I thought, well, that's weird. And I turned around and I looked, and I saw the silhouette of someone. And I was like, no way. And I get up, and I walk over the door, and I open up just in time to see the person walking away from me, and I go, stoner. And he turns and he looks and he's like, no way, dude.
- [108:30]
A
Dude, that's insane.
- [108:32]
C
And he and I linked up with one another, and we had dinner and we had beers, and we got caught up. And it was so good to see him, and it just reminded me so much of the experience. And when I found out that he died, I can't emphasize how much I looked up to him as a person and respected him, and the time that we spent together, the stories that we shared, and. And to find out that he had a parachute malfunction and that was how he ended his life. I remember when I heard it, and I couldn't wrap my head around why I lived and he didn't. Like, I just felt like he was such a better person than me, you know, he just. He lived that life. He was just a. A guy that everybody loved and, you know, probably wanted to be like when they grew up, you know, and. And I. I. I got the call and. And. And they told me. And, you know, there's a level of sh. And I mentioned in this story, like, Seth and I were so much alike in so many ways. You know, outgoing and just ambitious and, you know, like, I'm sure that he would have gone off to be another one of those guys that we were like, yeah, you remember Remember the, The general or the admiral, you know, that. That he is today? Like, he was one of those guys that, that I just, I felt really close with. And, you know, I've had hundreds of jumps from airplanes, both in the civilian world and, you know, I own three parachute rigs and, and used to when I came back from Ramadi, I was doing 12 jumps a day just for the adrenaline rush. Coming back from Ramadi. Like, I got addicted to skydiving because I wanted to create that chaos and that. That feeling of out of control, but then you could still control it. And I literally, I remember going to the drop zones. I'd go up in a plane, I'd jump, I'd land, I'd hand my rig, you know, you have the, the drop zone dogs that'll, you know, you can just pay them and they'll pack your stuff for you. And I'd grab my second shoot just as the plane was coming in. I jumped back on. I'd go back up and I just repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. I even flew to California and jumped at the very same drop zone that Seth did. And I, you know, and I just think to myself, like, we were so much alike that, you know, and this, this goes to all the soldiers that I served with. You have to say their name, you have to tell their story. And I think that that is a requirement of us who have done this work and had to say goodbye to people. It's important that you tell their stories and you say their name, because eventually no one will.
- [112:12]
A
Yeah, that's why, you know, it's funny, we, we link. We, like I said, we linked up in 2017 on LinkedIn and Seth died in 2017. And that's, you know, I've been waiting to have to. For this opportunity to talk to you because I, I know that, you know, he. He had the mutual feelings that you're saying about him is. Is the exact same things that he would say about you. But not only that, but I. I saw you too. You, you know, I saw you two freaking knuckles brothers. It was like, you know, freaking dumb and dumber. You know, it was like, you guys are the perfect. The perfect freaking combat couple to be out there making things happen. And just like, you know, you had senti and, and, you know, Seth. Seth knew that all you guys, if he called, he knew without question that you would be there for him.
- [113:00]
C
Yeah. Any in combat or out of combat. I mean, that's the bond that you create with these people. You don't have to have that bullet going over the top of your head to explain brotherhood to people. You know, there's a level of loyalty, there's a level of honor, there's a level of brotherhood that goes far beyond the wearing of the uniform, you know, and, you know, I'm so privileged now that, you know, even though I've hung my head up from teaching and I'm, you know, looking for that new opportunity that's going to challenge me even more and create that next chapter in my life. One of the things that I'm really proud of is, you know, I'm in a combat motorcycle association of veterans who are all linked together because we love riding motorcycles. But more important than that is, like, we're linked in by the common thread of service. And now our motto is like, we're vets helping veterans. And I feel like therapeutic in a way that I'm in a position that I can look at, you know, other people who have served in numerous branches of service and be able to have at least some connection with and still be able to serve even when we're not out of uniform.
- [114:23]
A
You know, how often do you guys get together in the, in the motorcycle association?
- [114:30]
C
Multiple times a month, you know, and it can be a group of five riding a lunch. It can be, you know, there's 130 of us just in San Antonio alone, you know, over 27,000 nationally. The combat Veterans Motorcycle association was there for me when the army said goodbye. And I felt like I was lost. I felt like I was lost. If it hadn't been for my wife and probably getting pregnant with my daughter, I. I honestly, I don't know what would have happened because it gave me a new purpose. Right. Like when you're, when you are mission oriented like me, it, it, you. You've got to have some purpose or you're just lost, you know, and being a father, just like being an educator, you know, I got a daughter, Julia, a son William, 13 and 11 years old, and. And they're my purpose now, you know, and. And I think that that's what saved my life. But finding the cvma, I think did it because I felt like the army turned its back on me. And what I found was a whole group of veterans that were like, hey, man, come over here with us. We got you. And, and I've been a part of them for 13 years. And it's been a real pleasure to, you know, see the organization since you retired.
- [115:50]
A
Yeah. But by the way, we were talking about this offline, but how was that? How was that retirement ceremony that the army did for you.
- [115:57]
C
My last day in the Army, I was given a folded flag in a box by a civilian secretary, my DD214. And she said, thank you for your service. And that was my last day in the Army. No retirement ceremony or anything. I did run into General Caslin a couple years later. He was the General in charge of army north, and he had also been the CG at Commander General Staff College. I didn't know him personally, but he saw me when I was working at the school a year and a half later and we started to talk. And the more I spoke, the more curious I think he got to the point where I was like, yeah, can you believe? Like that was my last day in the Army? And he looked right at me and said, that's, that's not okay. And I was like, well, I mean, sir, think about it. If they were going to do this to an O4 major, you know, decorated.
- [117:01]
A
Yeah.
- [117:02]
C
Imagine what they were doing to the 18 year old kid who was also wounded like that, you know, like you have to put yourself in that position to think like, are we treating everyone like this? And I'll tell you what, General Caslin's aide called me two days later and said he wants you at the next retirement ceremony at Fort Sam Houston. He wants you standing there and he wants to say goodbye to you appropriately. So by this time, I'm, I'm married, I have a kid, you know, and I'm like, it's a year and a half later and I'm finally being read out and I, and, and so I did get.
- [117:36]
A
You did it? That's awesome.
- [117:37]
C
But you know what it was, it was a general officer who said to himself, this isn't right and we have to make this right. And I give huge kudos to him because I think all leaders should do that. I think all leaders need to internally look and say there's way for, there's ways for us to fix this, you.
- [117:56]
A
Know, and so what are you doing now? What's the latest and greatest for Lucky Joe?
- [118:02]
C
Yeah, I mean.
- [118:07]
A
I think that besides writing your book.
- [118:09]
C
No, I don't know when I'm gonna get to this thing. My daughter really wants me to write a book.
- [118:16]
A
How old you say she was?
- [118:17]
C
She's 13. And the thing is, it's like I do a lot of speaking events just telling my story, and a lot of it is about resiliency. A lot of it is about overcoming things in your life. Not letting moments define you, but letting your actions define the moment that you went through. And so I speak to a lot of different things and, and she has heard me speak. And, you know, when she was younger, she'd be like, yeah, my dad fell out of a helicopter. And I'm like, that's not exactly how it happened. So, you know, at least now she's got somewhat of the story correct. But she's one of the ones that tells me I need to write a book. As a matter of fact, every time I go somewhere, someone tells me, you know, you really need to write this down. I, eventually I'll get to it. But yeah, you know, I went and got my real estate license and, you know, focus on, on building a business for me, something that legacy I can hand down to my kids. And so I'm dabbling in that a little bit and really looking for. And, you know, I'm at that point in my life where I don't want to go and do something just for the sake of doing, doing it. I'm wise enough now to say that I want to do something that's purposeful and I want to go into something every single day knowing that I made a difference. I'd never be good putting the who's a what's it on the whatchamacallit every single day in a. Like that. That's not me. That's not me. You know, so I, I think when the opportunity presents itself, I think, you know, I'll jump on it like a fat kid on a cupcake. But up until now, I'm probably gonna relax for the first time in my entire life. I've been hiking a lot more, exercising a little bit more.
- [120:03]
A
Kids are how old?
- [120:05]
C
Thirteen and eleven, bro. I know.
- [120:08]
A
Spend time with that, man. Yeah, that's freaking outstanding. And for you to have the opportunity to be able to do that, that's, that's, that's, that's the most focused mission you could ever want right there, man. Because those, those kids are going to grow up and they're going to be like, before you can, before you can blink your eyes, they're going to be adults.
- [120:27]
C
Oh, God. And I remember when I was, I was such a pain in the ass kid, you know? You know, and you know, I do have to give a shout out to like, all the spouses because, you know, it's not easy dealing with us. Sometimes I say us, it's, you know, veterans, those of us who have served and especially served in combat experience. And you know, my wife is a military brat. Her dad was a full bird colonel. Her Grandfather was a four star general. So yeah, she's really scraping the bottom of the barrel with me. But she understood when she met me that there were things that I was coming with and the patience that I think spouses have to go through sometimes and to understand that sometimes there are things that are not spoken about that we're dealing with. And you know, so kudos to her props and, and to all the spouses out there that really just put up with our.
- [121:26]
A
No doubt about it. No doubt about it. Well, right on. Where can does that get us up to speed? We good?
- [121:34]
C
I think so, man.
- [121:35]
A
We're good for this run because we're gonna like when you start working on this book, we're gonna talk through that a month to we're going to talk offline about the book. Where can people find you? You got Instagram at Crazy Joe Army Ranger. Dude, that is legit right there. That is the best at Crazy Joe Army Ranger. That is if it wasn't 100% true on all levels that it'd be like, wait, what the hell is that guy doing? But this is. If there's going to be one Crazy Joe Army Ranger, this is him. Him. So that's where you're at. You're also on LinkedIn at Joe Clayburn. Echo. Charles, you got any questions?
- [122:13]
B
Yeah, real quick. The, you know, the, the computer analogy, when you reboot the computer in safe mode. That was a really impressive analogy by the way. I'm very familiar with this.
- [122:22]
C
Yes, you just get frustrated. You just hit the control alt, delete just to. Yeah.
- [122:26]
B
And you know, various things go wrong and the computer does that. But when you were coming back online, how long was that process? Was that the whole process over years or was it like kind of quicker or like, you know, like what. How long did each system take or each program take to come back online?
- [122:44]
C
Yeah, I would say three months before I started to get the tingling, burning sensation in my legs. That was about where like I could try to make my brain communicate and do something with my legs. I still couldn't like curl my toes or anything. It was probably about five months after that that I was able to at least get my muscles locked in to be able to stand. So I remember going into the bathroom of my room at the hospital and I would lock my wheelchair up against the commode of the toilet and all the toilets had the safety bars behind them and I would literally pin my legs up against the commode and lock the wheelchair down. And I would just practice grabbing the poles and Standing up and sitting down and standing up and sitting down. And there was a lot of that and a lot of physical therapy. I mean, I was really taken care of by doctors and physical therapists. But the entire process from start to beginning, I think was disrupted because of the follow on surgeries. Like, okay, this didn't work. We're gonna have to take you back in. And then you start all over with physical therapy. So you're just like, like, here we go again. And then it's you. And you're constantly combating the pain medicine because every time you go into surgery and you come back, you're like, I can't live like this. Like, I gotta take something. But then being able to be strong enough to wean yourself back off to say, is it really that bad that I need to take this pill or can I deal with it? So all in all, 2008, October 8th of 2008 was my live day. Fast forward to probably April of 2010. I'm able to like finally put the cane down and walk on my own. So just short of two and a half years of full physical therapy.
- [124:44]
B
Yeah. And you're just. It just goes to show, we talk about this from time to time where, like, if you approach rehab as you would like, let's say like an athlete or a, you know, somebody really having a goal to, you know, like in combat sports, you got to make weight, Right? Let's say your weight is just way off and you're like, no, I got to make this weight. And you approach it every single day, you know, until you make that weight or whatever, it'll increase the chance. So a lot of times, like when, like if a doctor will be like, oh, there's like a 25 chance of a full recovery from this surgery. And you know, how like you, I mean, obviously. But to me, it kind of lends more evidence to this idea when, you know, when you said, oh, what'd you say? You don't know me? Or, you know, do you know who I am? Like that, that approach to it is kind of like, well, I understand that 25 of the people that, you know, might make a full recovery, but I am 100% part of that 25. You see what I'm saying? It's kind of like that kind of thing anyway.
- [125:38]
C
No, you're exactly right. And I think that, you know, again, your mental state of how you go into it I think says a lot. And, you know, and this can go all the way back to whether or not you're going to bud's training or whether or not you're trying to become a Ranger. The idea, and I said it when I was talking about Ranger school, is that it's one more step. Just get through one more day. Just. Just. Just get up. Just get up and do it. And no matter what, don't quit. You don't quit. You know, you walk. At the Seal museum, the only easy day was yesterday. Well, hell, yeah, it was, right? I mean, get up and. And just take the step and do it. And I cannot say that it was easy. It was definitely. It was definitely hard. And. And people are gonna. Listen. People are going to have my condition, and they. They're going to take years to recover. Some people are going to have my condition, and they may not be able to walk again. I'm not blinded by the fact that I am extremely lucky and extremely blessed. And I don't think that it was like, the mental state that healed me or some, you know, powerful planet alignment. I just. I got lucky. And. And I think a lot of it was just a part of that recovery of, you know, not letting that moment define you.
- [127:06]
A
Yeah. And I've known guys, you know, that suffered really bad injuries, and, you know, it's. Even though they may not have recovered to the extent that you have, but they. What they've done is the same thing as you, which is take what they can do to the absolute limit. You know, what they can do that they are at the absolute limit that they can recover to do. And that's where you're at. And that's the mindset that shines through is like, okay, this is what I got. I'm gonna do every freaking thing I can with it. And that's. That's how you win. That's how you win.
- [127:40]
C
Yeah. I remember I was getting some more scans, and the doctors were looking at me, and I remember every time I would go see a new doctor, I would say, like, so will you give me permission to jump out of a plane again? And. And they would look at me and just be like, what's wrong with you? Like, you've just been given a second opportunity at walking. And I'm just like, you know, it's. It's like, you know, you always read the story of the, you know, the young girl gets attacked by a shark and, you know, bites her leg off, but she's back on that surfboard like, a year later. And I just never got that. You know, I remember you're like, I'm gonna run a marathon. And they're like, you're never gonna run again. And now I'm many years post accident and I realize, like, that's really not gonna come true. But there is a small part of me that's just like, wanting to find one doctor who goes, yeah, you're good. You know, like, give me a 280 square foot parachute. Like, I should be able to come down on my tiptoes. And they're just like, that's really not what doing. We're, we're worried about at this point. So. So, yeah, I would absolutely love to jump again. I know it sounds crazy, but, like, I still dream about it.
- [128:56]
A
What about tandem? Would you be okay doing tandem?
- [128:59]
C
It all depends. I, I'd need to ask about that because, you know, now I've got some cervical neck.
- [129:04]
A
Yeah.
- [129:05]
C
Stuff going on, so it looks like I'm going to get cut on again. So, you know, and it's, it is the sort of realization that when a doctor says to you, like, do you want to push your grandchildren around the block when you're older or do you want to watch it happen? And you, you almost have to make those decisions, like, can I? Yes. But, you know, do you really want to risk, you know, what the end result is going to be? And at this point, I'm like, you know what? I'm doing pretty, pretty good. I'm doing pretty good. I can start my motorcycle and, and when that hurts, I'll go get a trike and I don't know. Right.
- [129:42]
A
Oh, man. Echo. Charles, any other questions?
- [129:44]
B
Great to meet you, sir.
- [129:45]
A
Joe, you got any closing thoughts?
- [129:47]
C
Yeah, listen, I, I say it all the time to people as you, as you heard my story. I hope that what comes across is one of passionate leadership, taking care of your subordinates, setting the example in everything that you do, leading with your heart. And I oftentimes, when I give my speeches, you know, people always say, well, you know, I'm not an Army Ranger. I'm not, you know, doing missions in the mob. And I go, you don't need rank to be a leader. You don't even need a uniform to be a leader. Right? Like, you can just be a leader by setting the example and doing service to others. And it really, it can start in your community by just volunteering at a local organization, can start inside your church, it can start in your own family. What you've got to do is you've got to look for opportunities outward to say, how can I make this world a better place? Because at the end of the day, you know, I could still be In a wheelchair, I could still be leading soldiers. There's any number of outcomes that it could come to. But I think that what has guided me in my life has always been about making the world just a little bit better. And I think we all have the ability to do that.
- [131:21]
A
Yes, indeed, man. Yes, indeed. Well, thanks, brother, so much for joining us here. I can't thank you enough. Like, there's no words. There's no words that I could say for what you did for me, for what you did for my guys. Every, you know, all my guys over there in Corregidor with you, you. You kept them safe on so many occasions, as safe as anyone could be in that wretched city. And, you know, you made a post on your social media there, had an image that listed the men of the first of the 506 that were lost in Iraq between 2000-2000-2005-2006. And it included, you know, speaking of saying their names, include some of the names that you talked about today. Marco Silva, Corey Dan, Greg Rogers, Randall Lamberson, Adam Fargo. Those names are on there and then included on that list by the first of the 506, Michael Mansour. And on that post, it's a picture, it's an image of, of those names on a. On a plaque of some kind somewhere. And on that you wrote. You wrote your caption, which said, quote, to my Curry brothers, gone but not forgotten. I still see your faces. I remember you, end quote. And I just want to let you know we will not forget and we will Never forget the first of 506, the brotherhood or the men that we lost. Thanks for everything. Lucky Crazy Joe, my brother.
- [132:51]
C
Gunfighter 6 out.
- [132:55]
A
And with that, Crazy Joe Claiborne has left the building. And actually, after he left the building, I went with him and we proceeded up to Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery and we paid a little visit to our brothers and started off with Mark Lee and then Mike Mansour, and finally drove over to Seth Stone's grave. And as you. As you heard me talking on the podcast, Seth and Joe were in combat a lot together and supported each other a lot. And it was pretty moving to be able to take Joe up there and visit Seth's resting place, final resting place up there on Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery. So, yeah, that's what we did. Honored to be able to take him up there. And just an honor to be able to have Joe on the podcast. And I can't express enough the amount that him and his company and the rest of the companies at the first of the 506, and the first of 506 itself, the staff, the command, everyone was just, they were just outstanding. So it's a brotherhood that will not be forgotten. And I look forward to at some point bringing on many others from the first, the 506, and as much as I can, others from the battle of Ramadi. So lot to battle through and battle back from. And it's crazy to hear Joe's story about his recovery and what he had to go through, the physical, just devastation that he went through on that parachute jump. And yet, as you heard me mention, like, you can't tell he's up, he's walking around, he's moving, I guess he, he said he can't really run. Yeah, but you wouldn't know that. He's, he's still getting after it. So make sure you, as much as you can, stay tough mentally, physically, train, work out and you know what that means. Echo Charles Yes, I do. Means you're gonna need fuel.
- [135:12]
B
That's right.
- [135:13]
A
Now, in Ramadi, we didn't have Jocko fuel. We wish we would have. We wish we would have. We didn't have it. We had all kinds of crazy, crazy energy drinks. Sure, RIP it was one of them, just the worst. Like horrible trash you can put in your body. But there is some effects that you want from that kind of thing, maybe some energy, but that energy was not good. It's not healthy. That's why we made Jocko Fuel. We get healthy energy, healthy protein, healthy hydration. Whatever you need, if you need it, go to jockofuel.com get yourself some, get yourself some protein. Get yourself some joint warfare. Get yourself some time war.
- [135:57]
C
Keep that vision crisp and cold or.
- [136:00]
A
As needed, actually heading here today. My youngest daughter was like, I need some cold war. She's like, I think I'm getting sick. Cold war post up. And by the way, I will tell you, when I go cold war, I go like full, total, full overdose. You know, it's just like so many of those things.
- [136:19]
B
Yeah.
- [136:19]
A
Because it just powers back the issues. You can feel the enemy being beaten. You can feel them getting crushed.
- [136:26]
B
I go four and four. So four in the morning, four after dinner.
- [136:29]
A
I do like probably four in the morning, four in the mid morning, four in the afternoon, four before I go.
- [136:35]
B
Full of stuff, full of salt.
- [136:36]
A
There's no going to be surviving the cold, not the cold's going down for the count. So that's what we're doing. Jockey fuel.com. get it in any store, get it online, joggofuel.com check it out. Also origin USA originusa.com and we make 100American made products. Jeans, boots, jiu jitsu, geese, rash guards, socks, belts, hoodies, hats. Just everything that you need. Head to toe, we got you covered. And it is all 100% communist free. It's made, it's built with freedom. Built with freedom. Not built with slave labor. Built with freedom. Go to origin USA.com and get yourself some clothes to wear around.
- [137:20]
B
It's true. Also, when you want to represent on the path, discipline equals freedom. We got your more apparel shirts. Got some hoodies. Almost hoodie season, by the way. I don't know if it gives me that some places. So yes, we have some hoodies on there. I got some kid stuff on there. Warrior kid. And discipline equals freedom, kids, by the way, some shorts on there for those of us who, you know, jump in the pool and beach and lakes during the falling rivers. Rivers all day or grappling or running or lifting or whatever you want to wear shorts for. We got that too. See, I'm saying freedom shorts shirt locker, which is the new shirt design every month. That's a subscription scenario. Of course. We still have that. Go to jogstore.com click on the top, you can check out the design, see what that's all about. It's good. Also, sign up for the email list if you want to be in the know. Because sometimes, bro, those things, they sell, I like. I don't know when it's gonna sell out. Like, this is.
- [138:15]
A
How fast did the polo shirt sell out?
- [138:17]
B
Same day, bro. We just restocked them. But by the time you hear this, this, it's. Yeah, yeah.
- [138:22]
A
Did you save me any? Probably not. I feel like I'm not winning. No, I feel like I am not. You know, I feel like you and I, we just don't connect when it comes to hooking me up. No, you know what I mean? I feel like I hook you up pretty good, but I feel like you don't hook me up at all. I feel like. I feel like there's a real lopsided scenario going on.
- [138:40]
B
Yeah, well, you know, look, am I gonna say that you're wrong?
- [138:44]
A
You get hooked up a lot. Actually, now I think about it like you're just like going rolling with me to wherever. I'm like, yeah, man, come along. And I asked for a one freaking.
- [138:55]
C
Shirt and it's like, no, but I.
- [138:57]
B
Gave you the shirt literally off my back the other day. See what I'm saying?
- [139:01]
A
What shirt?
- [139:01]
B
The good shirt.
- [139:02]
A
That was not the script.
- [139:04]
B
Well, in principle. It was in spirit. It was. Well, nonetheless.
- [139:08]
A
Okay, if I ain't getting one, it's going to be hard for you as a listener to get one because Echo's not taking care of his bros at all.
- [139:16]
B
You're right. But it changes from this. Literally this moment on. But. Oh, but for the restock, you would have known, because if you're signed up on the email list.
- [139:24]
A
I am signed up on the email.
- [139:25]
C
Okay, I got the email.
- [139:26]
B
Oh, you're hooked up. Yeah, don't worry, I got you. I got you. Nonetheless. Sign up for the E. Or if you put.
- [139:32]
A
You feel like the word nonetheless excuses all your previous behavior.
- [139:35]
B
Sometimes. Yeah, it feels like, yeah, yeah, I.
- [139:38]
A
Guess I need to teach that to yourself so you can be like, yeah, you know what, dad? That didn't happen. The garbage is everywhere. Garbage didn't. The kitchen's not clean. There's stuff all over the floor. Nonetheless. Because that's the way you make that word seem like it's a magic word that excuses all of your behavior.
- [139:56]
B
Yeah, look, I understand what you mean, but that's. Yeah, unless we got some polos on there. Actually, I forgot to talk about the polos.
- [140:06]
C
Really?
- [140:06]
B
They're from Huli. Yeah, well, you know, that thing is cool quality. It's actually the best polo I've ever worn. And I've worn some polos in my time. Not so much anymore. Now I do. But, you know, in this past, like, I don't know, 15 years, 20 maybe no polos.
- [140:19]
A
But did you have to wear a polo at. When you were a bouncer?
- [140:21]
B
Yes, sir, I did.
- [140:22]
A
No tie. Did you wear the fake tie or anything?
- [140:24]
B
I had you. You wear a suit on the. Well, if you work at the front door, you wear a suit on the weekends. Like dress shoes on the weekends.
- [140:31]
A
Did you feel like you wanted more traction, you know, like if the scrap went down? Yeah, I feel like I'd be super hyper over prepared for. If I was a bouncer. Yeah, I'd be like, ready for. You know, I probably have like. Like knee pads underneath in case I went to the ground. You know, whatever.
- [140:46]
B
I understand. But it wasn't. It was downtown. It was a nicer club. So of me going through a full length fight is very unlikely.
- [140:56]
A
In fact, I don't know.
- [140:58]
B
I have never gone through a full, full spectrum fight.
- [141:02]
C
It was more.
- [141:02]
B
The traction. Yeah, was good, but that's more when you work on the inside. So. Yeah, you wear boots on the inside nonetheless. Polos. Yes. These polos are better than the polos I used to wear at the Bitter End. And they're actually pretty good, by the way. Nonetheless, they're from Huli. So, you know, Lead Bob is putting in that work and getting that quality out. Now. That quality can come to you.
- [141:21]
A
Yes, indeed, Polos.
- [141:24]
B
Anyway, sign up for the email list, get updated so you can get the jump on this new stuff. I'm gonna try to have something new on there, big, small, whatever every month so you know you'll be in the know. It's all on jockostore.com There we go.
- [141:35]
A
Also books. I've written a bunch of books. You can get those books. Also Dave Burke wrote a book called need to Lead. Check that one out. I wrote a bunch of kids books. Check out the Warrior Kid books. And also for your kids, check, check out Things My Brother Used to say by Ryan Manion. Amazing book. Also, Echelon front we have a leadership well, we have a leadership consultancy and the leadership lessons that we learn on the battlefield, we teach to every type of organization about leadership. So if you need help with leadership inside your organization, go to echelonfront.com and we will help you. We will teach you the skills of leadership. And also we have an online training platform, extreme ownership.com where you can learn the skills of leadership online from the comfort and safety of your own home at whatever time makes sense to you. Go to extreme ownership.com learn the skill of leadership. And if you want to help service members active and retired, you want to help their families, want to help 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 go get involved, go to America's mighty warriors.org also check out heroes of and horses.org and finally Jimmy May's organization beyond the brotherhood.org if you are in Ramadi with us or with the 1:1 ad at any point, please go to ramadireunion20.com and if you can, if it's possible, meet us down there in Texas January 16th and 17th, 2026. We look forward to seeing you there. If you want to connect for Crazy Joe, best Instagram handle of all time at Crazy Joe Army Ranger. The only person that I think I would say yes, you deserve that Instagram call sign at Crazy Joe Army Ranger. He's on LinkedIn as well at Joe Claiborne. Also for us, check out jocko.com and I'm at Jocko Willink Echoes at Echo Charles. But just be careful on there it's freaking terrible. Thanks once again to my brother, Joe Clayburn, one of the best combat leaders I have had the honor of serving alongside. Thank you for what you did for my men, for the Brigade Combat Team, for the army and for the nation. Thank you, Joe. Also thanks to all of our armed services. With specific salute to the Incredible soldier, the first, the 506. It was an honor to fight alongside you all as you clearly upheld and furthered the proud tradition of Karai. 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 here at home and everyone else out there. That motto that I just mentioned, to the first of the 506, the word kahi, it's a Cherokee word that means stands alone, and it refers to the mountains in the training area there in Georgia where the original American paratroopers trained. And in Ramadi, at the first the 506 Battalion briefings, they would end by saying, currahi, stands alone together. Which to me meant that every individual, every squad, every platoon, every company in the battalion was ready to stand alone and give everything for the mission and for each other. But although everyone would stand alone if necessary, the fact is we were together. And together we are stronger. So be ready to stand alone if necessary. Prepare and train and push yourself but up. Support your team, support your family, support your friends. Together. Kurahi. That's all I've got for tonight. Until next time. This is Echo and Jocko out.