535: Keeping Things Humorous Can Keep You Humble. With Kingsley A. Pinderhughes III aka KingPix Media.

Summary

Jocko Podcast #535: Keeping Things Humorous Can Keep You Humble
With Kingsley A. Pinderhughes III aka KingPix Media
April 8, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Jocko Willink and Echo Charles are joined by Kingsley A. Pinderhughes III (aka KingPix Media), a former soldier, law enforcement officer, and content creator known for his sharp, satirical takes on military and police culture. Together, they explore how humor acts as a protective mechanism against ego, complacency, and burnout, particularly within high-stress professions like the military and law enforcement. Kingsley shares his life journey—from a challenging upbringing to building a second career in social media—emphasizing the value of humility, resilience, and staying curious, all while keeping things light-hearted.

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Table of Contents

• The Power of Humor and Humility in High-Stakes Professions [00:14]
• Kingsley’s Backstory: Childhood, Family, and Early Work [04:57]
• Path to Law Enforcement: Hard Lessons and First Encounters [29:13]
• Military Service & Switching Careers [54:08]
• Law Enforcement Career: Callouts, Mistakes, and Staying Humble [72:28]
• Near-Death Encounters & The Impact of Trauma [86:13]
• Social Media Comedy: Satire, Content Creation & Controversy [129:02]
• Building KingPix Media and Collaborating with Veterans [134:05]
• Streaming, Podcasting, and Community [151:18]
• Faith, Curiosity, and Final Reflections [175:21]
• Notable Quotes

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The Power of Humor and Humility in High-Stakes Professions

[00:14 – 03:55]

• Jocko introduces the importance of humor as a core trait in elite military units like the SAS and SEAL Teams.
  • Taking yourself too seriously "leads to losing humility, then complacency—eventually, people get killed."
  • In military and police units, humor acts as "verbal combat all day, every day," keeping egos in check.
• Key Idea: Humor isn't just entertainment—it’s a survival tool that defends against self-importance and complacency.
• Jocko highlights Kingsley’s brand of satirical humor as a force for humility:
  • “You make fun of people … which is fun. Guilty as charged.” [03:31]
  • Kingsley: “I apologize.”
  • Jocko: “Oh, I don’t care ... you got to be funny. That’s the way it is.” [03:55]

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Kingsley’s Backstory: Childhood, Family, and Early Work

[04:57 – 29:13]

• Upbringing in Southern Maryland:
  • Grew up in a low-income apartment complex—experiences with crime, later moving to a townhouse.
  • Early lessons in resilience and resourcefulness.
  • Kingsley’s uncle, a disciplined Navy officer, became a major mentor, emphasizing accountability and fitness.
• School Life:
  • Struggled with introversion and ADHD diagnosis, but sports and art provided outlets.
  • Learned to leverage opportunities (e.g., using football to access the gym).
• Work Ethic:
  • Early jobs: car wash attendant (“scrubbing tires in 20-degree weather for tips”), lumber yard laborer, and later, roles in construction, IT, and security.
  • First real leadership experience at a church camp, which marked a pivotal self-confidence boost.

Memorable Moment

• On meeting his future wife at church camp:
  • “I saw the most beautiful woman … I was like, hey, that’s my next girlfriend. Just joking around, and … she’s my wife now.” [17:22]

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Path to Law Enforcement: Hard Lessons and First Encounters

[29:13 – 54:08]

• Protracted Job Search:
  • Experienced rejection and interrogation during law enforcement application process.
  • First exposure to “real” responsibility while working as a hospital security guard (including traumatic encounters with death).
• Police Academy:
  • “It was stressful because I had never done any kind of paramilitary … but I learned I was good at pull-ups.” [42:22]
  • Failed at shooting initially, but perseverance (and lunch break practice) paid off.
• Early Policing:
  • Served civil process—experienced both the mundane and the dangerous (noting eviction calls are “very dangerous”).
  • Recalls first “big time” gang arrest—learned about respect from unexpected sources:
  • “Don’t ever be afraid of guys like me … there’s a certain level of respect that you give, and a certain level you get in return.” [48:34]
• Theme of Getting Called Out:
  • Admits to a “theme” of making mistakes and being called out by suspects and colleagues alike—views these moments as important humility checks.

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Military Service & Switching Careers

[54:08 – 72:28]

• Frustration & Stalled Promotion:
  • Kingsley expresses frustration at being passed over for opportunities despite discipline and pride in appearance and work.
  • “I remember sitting in a performance eval … I’m gonna say something. I said, ‘well, honestly, I feel like I’m spinning my tires, I’m wasting my time here.’” [54:25]
• Decision to Join Army National Guard:
  • Motivated by wanting more—balanced law enforcement with Army service (intel over MP, after out-negotiating recruiters).
  • Maintained dedication and honesty during security clearance process, earning respect for integrity.
  • Lessons from his time: “Now I have someone from the outside looking in who’s telling me I have good character.” [67:04]
• Ongoing Professional Barriers:
  • Faced bureaucracy and resistance from supervisors regarding military obligations.

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Law Enforcement Career: Callouts, Mistakes, and Staying Humble

[72:28 – 86:13]

• Transition to Contracting and Back:
  • After more organizational friction and feeling “targeted,” he switches to contracting (counterintelligence/counterterrorism) and then returns to law enforcement for family stability.
• Humor as Personal Armor:
  • Dark, situational humor sometimes misunderstood by leadership and peers.
  • On humor in intense moments: “If I was the LT, I wouldn’t have let that badge hit the ground, I’d have caught it.” [74:51]
• Teaching Officer Survival:
  • Relentless exposure to real-world violence and lessons learned/handed down as a law enforcement instructor.

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Near-Death Encounters & The Impact of Trauma

[86:13 – 128:13]

• Detailed Account of Two Police Shootings:
  • Vivid, minute-by-minute recounting of a foot pursuit and shootout (including physiological effects—auditory exclusion, vision narrowing, adrenaline dumps).
  • Aftermath: struggle with unaddressed trauma, realization (with wife’s help) of PTSD, eventual embrace of mental health resources.
  • Emphasizes practical leadership: support from mentors making a tangible difference.
• Personal Lessons:
  • “Just by me talking about it instead of hiding it from her to protect her … it was detrimental to me.” [105:51]
  • Prevention of burnout came from integrating faith, family support, and humor.

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Social Media Comedy: Satire, Content Creation & Controversy

[129:02 – 151:18]

• Origins of KingPix Media:
  • Injury layoff leads to picking up a camera, learning photography and videography.
  • Early days: “I bought a camera when my first kid was born … typed in ‘how do I use my camera?’” [129:02]
  • Street photography builds confidence and technical skills.
• Satire Success:
  • TikTok and Instagram become the new workspace—parodying “tactical instructor culture.”
  • Not all take kindly to satire—has received accusations of “stolen valor” and antagonistic DMs.
  • Jocko: “I think the first time I saw your videos, the first one, I think it was about me.”
    Kingsley: “Yeah.” [150:14]
• Content Strategy:
  • “I ruffled a lot of feathers. … That was just fuel for the fire. I call it posting and roasting.” [138:28]

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Building KingPix Media and Collaborating with Veterans

[134:05 – 151:18]

• Built multiple ventures: Winds Chow (humorous military/LEO merch), KingPix Media as a creative company, CSGI “instructor” parody, etc.
• Networking with other content creators and veterans (Zach Bell, Fat Electrician, Donut Operator, etc.).
• Lean lessons from initial missteps with business partners—eventually regaining and revamping intellectual property and merch under his own brand.
• On Collaboration and Character Work:
  • “What would [my character] say if they were in the room with Jocko? … They would immediately try to one-up them.”

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Streaming, Podcasting, and Community

[151:18 – 158:09]

• Co-hosts “Black and Blue" podcast with Delta Force veteran Kyle Morgan.
• Regular streamer on Twitch and Kick, using social media to blend humor, current events, political takes, and life experience.
• Emphasizes authenticity, interaction with audience, keeping boundaries between day job and content creation.
• “I don’t ever want to get to a point where I consume more content than I create. If I do that, the scales aren’t balanced.” [147:29]

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Faith, Curiosity, and Final Reflections

[175:21 – 177:37]

• Closing Message:
  • Kingsley shares the importance of faith, urging young men to “remain curious,” listen to “that still small voice,” and learn from life’s humbling moments.
  • "When I was leaning to my own understanding, life was not going well. I thought it was. It wasn't." [177:10]
• Jocko’s thanks:
  • Recognizes Kingsley’s service—as a soldier, contractor, and law enforcement officer.
  • Ties the discussion back to the power of humor for humility and lifelong growth.

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Notable Quotes

• “If you take yourself too seriously, you’re gonna suffer. You have to stay humble, and there’s no doubt that humor helps that happen.” — Jocko [01:55]
• “I don’t take anyone very seriously. No, not at all. Not at all.” — Kingsley [04:51]
• “You have to do the reps before you can go and get exactly what you want.” — Kingsley [53:32]
• “Now I have someone from the outside looking in who’s telling me that I have good character.” — Kingsley [67:04]
• “Talking about it, instead of hiding it to protect her … it was detrimental to me. And I had no clue—I’m sitting here on a time bomb.” — Kingsley [105:49]
• “I call it posting and roasting.” — Kingsley [138:28]
• “There's always going to be someone telling some story to make themselves look way cooler than what they are, and there’s always going to be these instructors that know it all but have done not much.” — Kingsley [145:17]
• "I don’t ever want to get to a point where I consume more content than I create." — Kingsley [147:29]
• “Remain curious. … Integrity and accountability are huge, but if you have that still small voice, really hone in on that.” — Kingsley [175:50]

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Recommended Segments

• Keeping Humor in High-Stress Environments [00:14 – 03:55]
• Kingsley’s Wild Police Shooting Story [86:13 – 100:15]
• The Power of Talking About Trauma & Resilience [105:44 – 128:13]
• The Origin and Role of Satire in KingPix Media [129:02 – 138:34]
• Entrepreneurial Lessons & Collaborations [142:58 – 147:29]
• Closing Reflections on Faith and Humility [175:21 – 177:37]

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Tone & Style

The episode flows with a mix of serious, hard-won wisdom and laugh-out-loud moments, echoing the ethos discussed at the outset: You cannot be humble without the protective power of humor. Kingsley’s storytelling weaves together trauma, absurdity, and grit—anchored by a relentless drive to serve, to grow, and to uplift others, especially through laughter.

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Further Information

• Follow Kingsley:
  • Website: kingpixmedia.com
  • Social: @kingpixmedia (Instagram, X/Twitter, TikTok, Twitch)
• Podcast: Black and Blue Podcast (with Kyle Morgan)
• Find Jocko: @jockowillink, jocko.com, echelonfront.com

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Summary by Section, Quotes, and Timestamps

Suitable for anyone who wants the lessons, insight, and stories without sifting through three hours of ads, banter, or product promos.

Transcript

[A]

This is the Jocko podcast, number 535 with Echo, Charles, and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. I. I heard this story, and I can't. I. Not 100. Where. Sure where I heard it for the first time, but. But I.

[B]

It.

[A]

I. The link was to the British sas, and there was some version that it was mandatory for anyone in the SAS to have a good sense of humor. The reason being because if people take themselves too seriously, then they begin to believe their own hype. And when you start to believe your own hype, you lose your humility. And when you lose your humility, you get complacent. And when you get complacent, people get killed. So that's a long connection to your sense of humor. If you want to maintain your humility, you have to maintain your sense of humor. And you may have heard me say many times over the years that humility is the most important characteristic of a leader. And I agree with that story that humor is a good way to stay humble. And in the SEAL teams, it is a very real thing. Those digs from your platoon mate, they keep you humble, and they're meant to keep you humble. The ribbing from your platoon chief, that keeps you humble. The jibe that you get from your shooting buddy when you blow a shot keeps you humble. And that is what the teams is like every day. It's verbal combat all day, every day. And if you have a little chink in your armor, by the way, it's going to be identified, it's going to be exploited, and it's going to be funny. And if you take yourself too seriously, if you take yourself too seriously, you're gonna suffer. You have to stay humble, and there's no doubt that humor helps that happen. And joining us tonight is a guy who does a stupendous job of keeping things humorous and thereby keeping us all hope, humble. His name is Kingsley Penderhouse iii, and he is from King Pix Media. He served as a soldier, he served in law enforcement, and he has bounced back and forth between those two a number of times for reasons that I'm sure we'll get into at some point. But it is an honor to have him here tonight in black and white, with dark, ominous overhead lighting, talking in a quiet yet consequential tone, because this is a very serious podcast and is a serious honor to have King with us here tonight to share some of his experiences, some of his lessons learned, and some of his humor with us. So, King Kingsley, how do you say Your middle name? Aloysius.

[C]

Aloysius. Aloysius Kingsley. Al Kingsley.

[A]

Aloysius Pender Hughes iii. Well, thanks for joining us. It's awesome to have you here.

[C]

Thank you for having me.

[A]

I know Ekko and I, we. We. I don't know who sent who a real. But however many years ago it was, one of us sent the other one a real and said, check this funny guy out. And from then on, we, like, immediately followed you, and we're tracking what you're doing and having a good time with it because you make fun of people.

[C]

I do.

[A]

Which is fun.

[C]

Guilty as charged.

[A]

It's always cracked me up.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And you do it, you know, very. You know, obviously, your. Your. I would say your most prominent target area is all the people like me.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. So.

[C]

Which also. I apologize.

[A]

Oh, I don't care.

[C]

At the same time, it's funny. Yeah, it's funny.

[A]

You got to be funny. And that's, like. That's the way it is. Like I just said, in a SEAL platoon. In a SEAL platoon, it's all day. Every. I've told the story about my wife. When I went to college. So I was in the Navy, and I went to college while I was in the Navy. So for the first time in my adult life, I wasn't in the SEAL teams.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And so my wife, like, when I needed someone to, like, pick on and rag on, and it became my wife. And finally, after, like, two months of going to college, and I came home and she had done something, made dinner or something, and I made some snide comment about it, and she just looked at me and said, hey, I'm not a team guy. And I was like, oh. Because she was right. Like, all my little verbal sparring was just done with her, and she didn't want to spar with me.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

So that's the way it is. That's the way it is in the teams. That's the way it is with everybody in the army, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, everyone's doing this. And so you can't take yourself too seriously. And you certainly don't take.

[C]

I don't.

[A]

Anyone very seriously.

[C]

No, not at all. Not at all.

[A]

So right on. Let's get into a little bit. Let's get your background. Where'd you grow up?

[C]

So I grew up in Southern Maryland. I was born in a town called La Plata.

[A]

Dude, is Maryland big enough to have a southern area?

[C]

It kind of is.

[A]

You could just say Maryland.

[C]

It kind of. It's. It's. Historically, it's it's called Southern Maryland. And the joke is if you live in dc, Which I grew up in the DC area, but I was born in Southern Maryland. If you live in DC, Southern Maryland is 30, 40 minute drive. But. But the joke is that it's a different state altogether. Sometimes they say, oh, yeah, I had to take a flight to Southern Maryland or had to take a flight to Waldorf or La Plata, but I was born in Southern Maryland.

[A]

My family is from. Well, my mom's side of the family was all Southern Maryland, really. So I used to be able to drive from Virginia beach over the Long

[C]

Ass Bridge, over the nice bridge and

[A]

go see my family.

[C]

Did you ever pass that power plant with the two large smokestacks?

[A]

I probably did.

[C]

I worked there.

[A]

Oh, there you go.

[C]

I worked there down there in Newburgh, but I grew up in Waldorf, so I grew up in Waldorf, but I ended up moving. When I moved out, I moved up to Prince George's county, which is closer to D.C. so you're actually more accepted in D.C. if you live in PG County. But I. It was, it was great. I mean, I. I grew up in mostly as a low income apartment complex. It's just me and my brother and my mom.

[A]

Did the apartment complex have a name?

[C]

It did, but I'm not gonna say it.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

I'm not gonna say it. Actually, they changed the name.

[A]

Okay, so maybe you can say the old name.

[C]

No, no. Because you can still find. I'm not, I'm not gonna. I'll tell you guys later on. But it, it was just, it's just, you know, large apartment community, one way in, one way out, and there's a lot of crime. I learned when I got older there was a lot of crime that took place. And a lot of the stuff that I was witnessing was just that it was crime. And it wasn't until there's one day I was in. When I was in elementary school, we were going on a field trip. And so on the bus, we're driving past my neighborhood and one of the young ladies on the bus, she goes, oh, man, that neighborhood's dangerous. She says, everybody over there has guns. And I'm like. And I'm sitting there, she's like, yeah, even the kids have guns. And so I'm hearing her talk and I said, well, what neighborhood are you talking about? And she points, and she literally points right at my apartment building, the building that I was living in. And I was like, oh, my gosh, I gotta tell my mom.

[A]

I need a gun.

[C]

Yeah, I gotta tell my mom. This is dangerous. And so, sure enough, you know, it's just. It's just the nature of the neighborhood. There's guys that I grew up with, that I'm still friends with to this day, and people that I keep up with, but it was about 50, 50 on people who ended up in Department of Corrections for drugs, murder, all kind of other crazy stuff. So it's kind of a. It's kind of an interesting childhood. When I was 11, we moved across town and moved into a townhouse. I never lived in a standalone house until I bought mine. Hell, yeah. But, yeah, moved across town and ended up where I lived was. I took a bus for middle school, but then I walked for high school. But my mom still lives in that house.

[A]

Oh, right on the townhouse.

[C]

In that townhouse. Yeah, she still lives in that house.

[A]

What was your mom doing growing up?

[C]

So mom actually started out. She. She grew up in Florida. She's from Lake County, Florida, Small town called Umatilla. I found out that a lot of those towns.

[A]

Bro, you tell us about Umatilla, but you won't tell us about the apartment.

[C]

Oh, absolutely.

[A]

It's all good.

[C]

Absolutely. But a lot of those town names came from smaller offshoots of Indian tribes, so I think that's kind of where that came from. But when she went to college, she went up to Illinois.

[A]

Thankfully, she named you Kingsley instead of you Matilda.

[C]

Yeah. Can you imagine? I'd probably go buy something cool like Tilla or Yuma. I don't know. I don't know. But, yeah, we're putting Umatilla on the map. I still go back every year. My wife and kids love it down there. It's great. But she ended up going to. She was outside, just outside of Chicago for college. That's where she met my dad. And my dad was Air Force. I don't know if. I don't know if he was still in when they met. But my dad, you know, it's in the 80s, he looked like Billy Dee Williams. You know, he just had it. Dad had it back in the day. He still kind of does. But Capricorn. Yeah. So. So they meet, and I think within the first year, they end up getting pregnant with my brother. So my brother, it was kind of like, all right. You know, my mom and my dad, like, we got. We got a son on the way. This is great. This is fantastic. We're starting life together. And my brother was born, and immediately. And I hate telling this story, but I'll tell it for sake of you know, letting you know, my family makeup immediately got pregnant with me immediately. My brother and I were born 10 months apart.

[A]

Damn.

[C]

Which is wild. Think about that. 10 months apart. And I'm like, in order for that to happen, someone, one party or both have to be extremely motivated and willing to sacrifice. And it's just, it's insane to me. So they got pregnant, they got pregnant with me in January of 85 and at some point they broke up. My dad said, well, they broke up. So somehow my dad, they were never married. My dad ends up in California. And my mom's like, well, I'm going to Maryland to live with my sister. My aunt at the time, she's pretty much like, pretty much like my mom, second mom. So we go down and when I was born, I came home that her house was the house I came home to. And that house was run by my uncle, who Navy veteran. He was a 05 commander.

[A]

Oh, dang.

[C]

Okay. Is it commander?

[A]

Yep.

[C]

Yeah, he was, he was in 05 and he would, he would kill me if I said his name on this podcast. Like always been involved in, like, I, I still to this day, I don't know exactly what he did. It wasn't until I started doing some high speed stuff with the military that he was like, oh, let me show you this. So started my life growing up in that house. It was my mom, my aunt, my uncle. And I had a cousin who's seven years older than me. My cousin and my brother, we're all brothers at this point. And for the first few years when I was learning how to walk and talk, I would see my uncle and my cousin always called him Daddy. And so I started calling my uncle Daddy. To this day I still, like that's in his house that my kids call him Uncle Paw Paw. Like that is, you know, and he's the one that kind of. First he steered me towards graduating high school, then he steered me to, hey, you gotta do something after high school, whether you go into a career field, get a certification, go to school. But he was very instrumental. And I know we were talking about swimming earlier, that dude could swim. So he never said he was a seal, but he never said he wasn't. But he was really big on fitness and fitness, integrity, accountability, all of the things. And I tell you, report card day, he was going to hold me accountable because I was off doing whatever I wanted. And. Yeah, so.

[A]

Well, you know, if he was a seal, he absolutely would have told you.

[C]

That's true. I wasn't going to say that. But it's true.

[A]

And so what are you into when you're. When you're in school and stuff? Like, what do you. What's your. What are you into?

[C]

So my cousin.

[A]

What is it, the 80s?

[C]

So it's the early 90s, early 90s. So late 80s, early 90s. I started playing soccer. My cousin was a soccer player and got into soccer and then more into the 90s, got into basketball and football and just kind of did the. The same thing all the neighborhood kids were doing. We were playing football every day in the neighborhood. So then once I was able to get on a team, you know, same thing with basketball. Once I could get on a team, that's just. That's pretty much all I did. I got by. I mean, I can. I can still. I could. I could probably play basketball better than I could play football just because injuries over the years. But even like in high school, I wasn't. I wasn't a stellar athlete. I kind of just did it to stay out of trouble, to have something to do.

[A]

Did you play, did you play on the varsity team of football?

[C]

No, I never made it to varsity. Never made it to varsity.

[A]

What about for basketball?

[C]

Basketball? Never made it to varsity. I played basketball in high school. I played. So I played organized all the way up into high school. And then in high school, I used football as a means to have access to the gym. So my goal was I was always a smaller guy and even like, kind of. We gotta rewind a little bit. When I first started school, I had a very introverted personality. Like, it was to the point where, you know, I was diagnosed with adhd. They wanted to. And this is. This is the early 90s, so the Ritalin and all this other stuff. And my mom said, no, there's nothing wrong with my baby. Typical, Typical black mom. Ain't nothing wrong with my baby. And she said that. She said it exactly like that. Like that.

[A]

So.

[C]

But I. I didn't talk. And I had some other health issues, like with, with. I guess it was my bone structure to where I had to wear. It wasn't like Forrest Gump leg braces, but I had to wear these special shoes and. Or at least mama called them my special shoes, bro.

[A]

I bet your friends called them something else.

[C]

So. So growing up with that, and obviously, you know, we're low income, so it's not like. It's not like I'm showing up in Jordans. But I ended up going from not talking, I'd go a whole day. I wouldn't say a word to Anybody. But then when I saw my brother in the hallway, the jokes were on to now. You know, once we got into the apartment and then ended up moving across town, I became the class clown. And back then, I was really into art. I was really into drawing. That was, like, my favorite thing to do. But I didn't really have, like, a large circle of friends. I was still very introverted. And then. So once we moved across town and I started going to a new school, they were like, oh, he can. He can play soccer, so that means he can play basketball. He can run is what they were saying, which. Not really a runner, but got into basketball. And then once I realized that, hey, if I volunteer for the football team, I can go to the gym anytime. So I did that pretty much the entire time I was in high school, even though, like, when it came time for tryouts or when it came time, you know, to actually join the team, I'd be like, oh, no, I got. I got some. I want to focus on my academics. Well, I've just got eight months of gym time for free, and now I get to just do whatever. So it really never turned in anything.

[A]

What kind of lifting were you doing back then? I'm asking this question because Echo's sitting over there thinking, like, I don't know what kind of lifting he was doing.

[C]

It was initially. It was like sports, so they were doing Olympic lifts. But I got more into just basic bench press. I did some accessory work. I didn't know what accessory work was back then, but calves, shoulders, you know, all the things that people aren't. Aren't highlighting, but I got into that. And then I never got into, like, the calisthenics, the cardio. Never got super into that. But I just wanted to. I wanted to be able to protect myself if I had to fight. And I wanted to. I just wanted to get bigger. And so it kind of. It was the first time that I set a goal, and I was starting to achieve, like, when I start to lift more, started to achieve those goals, and I saw that, and that kind of carried over to where? Way after that, I got into bodybuilding and powerlifting.

[A]

Dang. All right.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And so what was your plan that you were gonna do? You said your uncle was kind of, like, saying, hey, dude, you need to. You need to get some kind of a track in your life. You need to find something good to do. What plan did you come up with?

[C]

So he put the fear of God in us, and he showed up to my house. It was one summer. He was in the reserve. So whenever he had duty, he would come by after. He and my cousin would come by and he'd bring food or whatever. He'd be like, all right, what are we doing today? And you're not going to sit and do nothing all day long. What are we doing? So one day he came by and he had this mechanic's manual. It was this thick. And he throws it on the table, and he just looks at me. And I was like, you want me to read that? He was like, no, you're going to read it. And I was like, okay, it sounds like he wants me to read it, so I'm going to read it. But his thing was, like. Because I showed technical ability in, like, other projects, and I would help him work on the car or the motorcycle because I showed some sort of proficiency in being able to put the pieces together, he was like, this is. This is something that might interest you. And sure enough, I got interested in it. And so he would come by and he'd say, all right, read this chapter and this chapter. And he would come by and he would quiz me. And if I didn't have the answers, boy, it was hell to pay. It was hell to pay if I didn't have the answers. But then he ended up getting me an internship at. Back then they had computer repair shops, and I got an internship at a computer repair shop. And I learned essentially not how to build, but how to repair, how to troubleshoot everything regarding computers. And he actually became an adjunct professor at one of the local schools. And so when I graduated, I applied for that school. I went to Southern Maryland for two years.

[A]

And what did you study?

[C]

General studies. I just did general because I didn't know exactly where to go from there. And I was looking at some of the specific programs they offered, and nothing really interested me. And that second year, I actually went and volunteered at a summer camp. There was a summer camp that I grew up going to in West Virginia. And I volunteered because I could get credit hours or service credit hours from going to do stuff like that. So I went and volunteered. And the second that we pulled on that campus in West Virginia, I saw the most beautiful woman I've ever seen in my life. And I looked at my brother, I was like, hey, that's my next girlfriend. Like, just joking around and, you know, fast forward. She's my wife now, but I see her, and our. The van that we were in pulls up, and they park right next to her, and she's like, you know, unloading her stuff for the Week outside of this little Saturn sedan. And we catch eyes for a second. And so I wave. This is exactly what I did. I just wave and smile. And she looks at me, she goes. And I was like, well, that ship has sailed. But you know, through the week, because it was a two week camp and

[A]

I was she like one of the other counselors or something?

[C]

Yeah, yeah. And I showed up. My goal was to do security and just, it's free meals and it's time away from home. I have no responsibility. I'm just security. Or they're like, oh no, you're a counselor. So now you're in charge of 15 high school age kids. At 20 years old, you're in charge of these 15 kids for their safety, protection. And it was, it was a religious, it was a church camp. And so you're, you're their guide. And I was like, oh my gosh, I've never been in charge of anything at this point. And for the camp, they put you on a team. So like I have my 15 guys and then there's another, another dorm or barracks room that's 15 other guys. And then so you might have like 50 people or maybe not maybe I'd say 30 to 40 people on each team. And so, uh, apparently, you know, I kind of locked in and got my team up to speed to where we won the entire camp for the week. So you do events, you do tasks, you do team building, and as you go through, you get points for it. And I just, I, I was like, you know what, Now's my time to shine. And I just, you know, I was doing like these motivational speeches and it was, it was kind of comedy, but kind of not because all of they, they just flocked to me and my team won. And so it was, it was really cool. Was my first time in a leadership experience. My first time actually like driving the train. And I just, I failed upward. And we won. And then that following week, I had to go back to work. I was working at a car wash. And so going from the high of my first leadership experience, my first true victory, and meeting this woman that I wanted to, I knew I was in love with, and going back to working at the car wash was kind of like, it's kind of like a bummer. So her and I, we had exchanged numbers and we had talked throughout the week. And then her team won the second week. So I was like, hey, that's great. I was like, we should celebrate, we should grab dinner. And she was like, absolutely. Now keep in mind, I'M coming off of my first leadership experience, my first leadership victory, my first time as a camp counselor, and now this is my first, like, real date. I don't know what to do. What do I do? Does she pay? Do I pay? Like, I'm talking to my brother. I'm like. And he's kind of in the same boat as me because, again, we grew up as Irish twins. And he's like, dude, you got to take her to Cheesecake Factory.

[A]

Damn. Going big time.

[C]

I was like, you know how expensive that is? He was like, dude. He's like, hey, just, you know, get you some overtime at the car wash, you know? He's like, if you need any help, I'll give you some gas money. And at the time, I was driving a 1992 Chevrolet Lumina with I. I say. I say extensive, but it was. It was medium body damage from a crash. It was. I bought it from my uncle that my.05 uncle he had got into. There was a DUI driver that crashed into him. And so I paid 800 bucks to get the vehicle fixed. And he said, you got. You paid to get it fixed. It's yours now. So our first date. Our first real date. I go to pick my wife up, and I'm in this trashy car, and she hops in, and we go to D.C. and we go to Cheesecake Factory. And I'm looking at the menu, and I'm like, I know what I'm going to get. Because I've been here before, I know what I'm going to get. She starts ordering crazy stuff, and I'm like. And I'm. And I'm, like, looking. And I'm looking at the. The waitress, and I'm like, maybe I'm gonna downsize my meal in order to facilitate hers. And I was like, no, no.

[A]

I was like, it's cool getting breadsticks.

[C]

I'm not hungry. But. So it was. It was a learning experience, because in my mind, I was like, gosh. I was like, how do I ask her to pay for half? And then right when I had that thought, I was like, I'm not gonna. She's not paying for this. So I was like, oh, excuse me. I need to go to the restroom. I leave the table. I go to an atm. I had to check my account to make sure I had enough money to cover it and cover the tip. And I did. And so I came back, and she was like, oh, you were gone a while. I was like. I was like, oh, I ran into a guy I knew you know, just threw out some. Some BS and came back, and that was our first date. And the following week, I got to meet her dad, so.

[A]

Dang.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

So it went quick.

[C]

Yeah, it was. It was pretty quick.

[A]

And meanwhile, you're a car wash attendant.

[C]

Yeah. So the car wash that I worked at, I was. I was. It was. It was a self car wash. So, like the one where you pull up and you wash your own car or you go through the. We had a laser wash 2000. It's cutting edge technology. Yeah, cutting edge. It was a touchless car wash. It's still. It's still around today. If you. If you get the chance, if you're ever in Southern Maryland, head over to the La Plata car wash. But. So I call it.

[A]

Tell Them the king says.

[C]

I call it extreme plumbing. Because I went from not having any knowledge of air compressors, water pumps, any kind of filters or anything, to now if one of the bays goes down, I have to get it back up within the hour, because that's money. And so I got on to, you know, replacing these high pressure pumps, these hoses. I emptied the trash, I cut the grass. I just. I just was the only attendant on duty when I was there. And it was. It was work, and I learned a lot from it, but it was one of those jobs where it was like, this is the first job. This is my first real job. And here I am, I'm given free time. I'm given free time, free reign. And so in the wintertime, it's busier because the salt on the roads. So I said, you know what? I'm gonna go buy a gallon of purple power. I'm gonna pour it into a bucket, spray some water in there, and I'm gonna scrub tires and see if I can get tips. I was out there in 20 degree weather scrubbing tires for eight hours, and I made like 200 bucks that day. And I'm like, I'm gonna do this every day. So I would get my actual car wash duties done, and I made sure it's cool with the owner. I'd go out there and scrub tires. And, you know, I've got tropical genetics, so the cold wasn't really a friend of mine, but I was scrubbing tires and making money, and that's essentially how I was able to date my wife and. And go on dates. And we got to a point where

[A]

once we got the Cheese factory.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, Cheesecake Factory. It just. And I saw that my job helped me to become. Helped me to gain value as a man. Because now I can put gas in my car, I can wash her car, I can put gas in her car and I can take her to dinner. So it really. All these responsibilities, they kind of layered up all at once. And I didn't even know it was happening. I had no clue what was happening. And of course, I'm my mom's youngest son. She didn't want, she didn't want her son because my wife is, she's a year and 10 months older than me. She didn't want her son getting snatched up by a cougar. So there was obviously this beef between my mom and my wife and that's what ultimately led to me moving out. I got, you know, got my own place. I ended up leaving the car wash and working at a lumber company. I built roof and floor trusses. And that's where, that's where I learned a majority of the Spanish that I know now, which is all cuss words. Um, but I worked there. I was at the lumber company. And it was hard work. I remember my first eight hour day, you know, I'm out there, we're, we're, you know, rolling the trusses on the table and I've got to stand them up and get them onto the roller, send them to the end. And then I got to a point where I got promoted, where I was driving a forklift. I had, I was doing these commercial trusses where you're supposed to stand them up so that you construct them flat. Then they, they roll them, they flatten all the plates, and then you have to stand them up. And I was probably 140 pounds at the time. This trust was 300 pounds. And I go to stand it up and this thing starts. Like the weight, the full weight of this trust is on me. And I'm like fighting for my life. And I was like, I have no choice but to succeed. If I don't succeed, I'm going to get hurt. And I just, I don't know, something in me, I just, I was able to push it all the way up. And then once I did it, I was like, I can do anything. I can do anything. This trust didn't stop me. I can do anything. And then shortly, I was let go from the lumber company. But, you know, things happen. Things happen.

[A]

So what was the next move after the lumber company?

[C]

So the next move, my mom, she said, she said, you need to go to the unemployment office. And I was like, for what? She was like, you're unemployed. You were let go. It was an administrative thing. You weren't let go for performance. They were doing. They were. They were. You know, they were cutting down, they were cutting back. They were trying to enhance their profit. And they were spending. It cost them more to have me because I started to get into the engineering side of it as well. Started to get into inspecting trusses and everything else, but I was never taught how to do that. So that kind of fell by the wayside. And once they saw that some of these trusses weren't being inspected, they were like, all right, we need to let go. Three people in production and two people in inspection. I was production and inspection. I was out of there. So I went to the unemployment office. And I'll never forget, the guy there was Air Force veteran. He goes, you're a young man. You're strong. Have you considered the military? And I'm like, absolutely not. I will never join the military. I was like, I got a girlfriend, dude. Like, I can't leave her. I have a girlfriend. I can't join the military. He's like, people with girlfriends join all the time. And I was like, no, not me. So I ended up finding a construction company out of Texas that had job sites throughout the nation. They happen to have one in Southern Maryland, right on the Virginia line, which was the power plant. And I got hired there as a laborer. And I learned even more Spanish. But I also learned that a lot of the guys who are speaking Spanish aren't here legally. Now, keep in mind, this is 20 years ago, and if there is a guy from, I don't know, Zacatecas, Mexico. I said it. I said it with the accent. Don't judge me. If he's from Zacatecas, Mexico, and his name is, I don't know, Luke Goldberg, he's probably not Luke Goldberg. So I was on the river. It's in the wintertime, it's cold, and we go to lunch. We had, I think, about 30 minutes for chow. And you don't even get to go inside. You just sit under an awning. And they had, like, seven microwaves. So you go warm up your lunch and you eat your lunch. Well, Customs and Border patrol. Cause this is. This was actually. No, this was right after ICE was formed. Customs and border patrol show up, and we're now down strength like 40%. So now that's even more work that I have to do. And it was. It was the roughest job that I've ever had. I saw guys. That building is 200, and I think it's 220ft tall. I saw guys fall from elevation 90 down to elevation 20. And I've seen that was the first time I ever saw a compound fracture. It's the first time I ever saw like any kind of like, like TBI related injuries. And it started to become a thing to where they, we had a stand down. And so during this stand down I was like, I'm going to take this time and start looking at other jobs because this ain't it. This hourly stuff, it's great money. But I'm working from 7 to 7 on Tuesdays and Thursdays I would go straight to my wife's house, shower, and then we'd go on a date or spend time together. So it took a lot. Like, it took a lot of time. We were working six days a week. So I ended up finding a job with a company that was doing contracting. We did inventory and we built out displays for the flooring department of Lowe's.

[A]

Check.

[C]

Yeah. So I get on with this company. I had to interview my supervisor, Tim, super, super cool guy. This is my first real interview. And I just, I just, we just talked and he was like, well, I really like you and I want to hire you, but this is the salary we're offering. He shows me the piece of paper. It is, it is a salary. It's not hourly. It is an annual salary. And I'm like, a year, I'll. Yes, I'll do that. This was less than 30 grand. Less than 30 grand a year. And I immediately jumped at the chance. And so immediately I was put in charge of eight different store locations to where I got paid mileage. So that was cool because, you know, going from Southern Maryland and D.C. area up to like, you know, Gaithersburg or, you know, the, the areas that are a little further out, I got a little, little more bang for my buck for doing that. And I did that, I did that for a little while. And then after I proposed to my wife, I took on a part time job to pay for our honeymoon. And so I got this part time job. I was doing security at Target. And it was, it was what they call a red store. It means that there's a lot of theft, there's a lot of nonsense. And that was the first time that had been involved in criminal apprehension. And it was terrifying. It was terrifying. You get, you know, you get, you know, five guys that come in off the street that are there to steal. I think they were stealing, I think it was razor, the, the interchangeable razor heads at the time.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

And like luxury fragrances. I mean, if they have Luxury fragrances at Target. But this was the first time that I'd been involved in apprehensions. And then after the apprehension, you call the sheriff's office, they show up. And I remember standing there and they sent this deputy, this female deputy. She was the same size as me. And I'm like, what is she gonna do if this guy fights back? And so that, that was. It was kind of short lived because once we got married, we had. We ended up moving to Virginia. Well, she lived in Virginia, but we moved. I moved to Virginia. And once we got married, I found another job as a construction engineering job. And I was doing soil testing, testing for like moisture and density. And then also I moved into concrete. And my only claim to fame on this job was that one of my job sites, I did commercial and residential. I worked on the Marine Corps Museum. That was the biggest construction project I've ever been a part of. So I did the soil testing. And they have a trail that goes up on the trail side, I guess the non highway side. And they came through to shoot a documentary for, you know, what they're putting in and everything else. And we had already dug the footings for the wall and they started to put in stone and we had to do a stand down. Well, anytime you do a stand down in the concrete business, you're not making any money. So I wasn't making any money. And I was like, there's got to be something better. And I slowly, I don't want to say I lost motivation for the job, but if I'm taking commercial jobs and some of these contracts on the high side are getting cut down and they're saying, hey, we haven't got this approved. So you're on this contract, but it's not been approved yet. I'm an employee that's not getting paid. And so I ended up going to a job fair. Went to a job fair in Fredericksburg, Virginia. And there was, there were police agencies there. And so I'm like, I was like, well, I'm gonna go to every booth because I need a job. And I went to every booth and sure enough, these, these two police officers from Prince William county, they sweet talked me and I was like, I'm gonna be a cop. And I went home and I told my wife and she was like, you sure? I was like, yeah. And she didn't say good. I thought she was gonna say good. She was like, I don't know. So I end up going through the application process and did all the, all the things, the fitness test, the, the Background check. And I walk in, and the last thing is, like, this interrogation. You walk into this interrogation room. Big glass. Glass pane. This is right before you do your. Or right after you do your polygraph. And the detective who facilitated, he actually. He passed away a few years ago. I still kind of kept up with him. He passed away a few years ago. He's great dude. Big jacked, former Marine Corps guy. And he walks in, and he's got a blank sheet of paper and a pencil, and he sets it on the desk. And I never forget because he set it down and then he slid it. And I was like, what is going on? He's like, listen, we know where you grew up. We know. We know people who are. Where you're from. You gave us answers. We want more information for what you've done that you're hiding from us. And at this point, this is my first polygraph interrogation, or it's an interview. This is my first time experiencing this. I'm like, geez, this is just like the movies. And so.

[A]

So this is. You had already taken the polygraph.

[C]

I had already taken the polygraph.

[A]

You gave whatever truthful answers that you.

[C]

Yeah, I had a reaction. They said, I. Well, they said, I had a reaction. I know more about polygraphs now than what I did back then. He's like, you had a reaction on this question. We want more information. So he slides the piece of paper across. He gives me his spiel. He says, I'm gonna walk out that door. He said, when I walk out there, you write it down. You don't have to tell me. Just write it down. No issue. When I come back in here, I'll take a look at it, and we'll go from there. I said, okay, I'm not hiding anything. He goes, you don't have to talk. And, like, was completely. This whole thing was a psyop. And so he slides the paper. I sat in that room for 26 minutes. I couldn't think of anything to write. I was like. I told him everything. Did I tell him this? Yeah, I told him that. Did I steal from my brother and not, you know. And so I didn't write anything. So I hear the. Hear the latch on the door. He comes in. He looks at the paper.

[B]

He goes.

[C]

He takes the paper and the pencil, and he just walks out. And then. So they send another detective in there. And, like, you're lying. Like, literally, he comes in and sits down. He's like, you're lying about something. And I said, you know what? I no longer want to be considered for this position. He goes from like. So he's looking at me across the table. He's like, you're lying. And I told him, I said, I don't want to be considered for this position. He goes, well, hold on. I said, no. I was like, no, I. I don't want to be considered for this position. Now. He thought that they were breaking me, but. And they were like, I was, I was. I was. I was broken at that point. But when I told him I didn't want to be considered for the position, I saw him break. This is the first time I've ever said something to another grown man who's in a position of power. And I guess it kind of appears as me standing up for myself. And I literally watched him break in real time. And so I was like, well, I can't go back now. I've already made my statement. So they escort me out the office, and he stops me at the parking lot. He's like, listen. He's like, you're a great candidate for this job. You're a phenomenal candidate for this job. We think that you should reapply. He's like, we have to note your, you know, you want to be removed from the consideration. He was like, but we think that you should reapply. Here's my car. Keep in contact. And I was like, sure thing. I got in my car and, like, balled it up and threw in the back seat. I'm not. I'm not gonna, you know. And so at the time, we were still going on Sundays and getting the Washington Post and coming through jobs. And my wife was like, well, why don't you try this agency? This is a little closer to home. It's, you know, it's not as fast paced. There's not a whole lot that's really going on. And I was like, it's. It's the same. Same thing. It's just closer to this. Instead of being close to D.C. it's closer to the city of Richmond. So she was like, well, I'm gonna fill out an application and send it and see what they say. So back then, there was no. I don't know, I don't think they had a typing application. You had to write it. And my handwriting. I'm an artist, okay? I'm an artist and a piano player, kind of. I still give myself that title, but I had terrible handwriting. And so she fills out the application and sends it in. In the meantime, I go to work security at the hospital. I was like, I'm unemployed, I'm newly married. I have to do something. I cannot sit still. So I walk into the hospital, I drove over there. I walk in, ask where the security office was. I go downstairs, say, listen, I need a job. I will work any shift, any hours that you have, and I can start today. And the guy sitting across from me leans back in the seat and he's looking at me and he yells, he goes, hey, Mitch. And I hear a voice from out back go, yeah. He's like, we got a good one. And Mitch peeks his head in and it's this old retired Marine Corps black guy. And he's like, can he work tonight? And he looks at me, he goes, And I said, yes. I walked out of that interview with a uniform, a little, you know, top flight security of the world badge and no training. And so I ended up coming back. I worked midnight shift while I was in the application process for the agency that I worked for. And I learned a lot. I mean, that job prepared me for quite a bit. And going through the application process, I was very nervous because I really wanted to. To get that law enforcement job. I wanted to work for that agency. And I had never. There's still certain things I had never experienced. Never experienced belligerent, drunk people, never seen death, never, never really experienced people in their last moments or people at their worst. And through my time there, I worked in ER to get an extra $50 an hour. And I saw an insane amount. I'm talking from domestic violence to gang shootings to. To where, you know, the local police department would lock the ER down if there was a shooting that had just occurred and people arrived in personal vehicles. So it was stressful. It was very stressful, very fast paced work in the er. Very stressful. But I got through it. And I was so stressed from the job and from my application that I ended up getting shingles. And I'm like. I was like, what is this going on? Like, it was, you know, it follows your nerve, your nerve endings around your rib cage. And I was like, what is it? I was like, I feel terrible, it hurts, but I can't take off work because I need money. And so I would work dispatch, and working dispatch, I learned how to communicate with the police, give them the information, give them a description. Like, even to this day, like, I had an Uber driver yesterday at the airport and I'm like. And I sent him a message, you know, give him my shirt color, like blackmail, you know, green shirt, blue jeans, brown backpack. And that's where I learned that and it's something that's carried through. But they were like, hey, we had a code gray upstairs. You need to come get them so you can put them in the freezer. I said, excuse me? They're like, yeah, we're in charge of maintaining the custody of persons once they pass away and getting them into the freezer. I'm not. I'm not touching a dead. Like, are you. Are you kidding me right now? They're like, no, you have to put them in the bag, put them on a gurney, put them in the freezer. And I'm like, all right. Okay. If this is what I have to do, this is what I'm gonna do. Well, this was an obese person. I don't know how much this person weighed, but they had these. And I'm sure you guys have seen body bags. The ones, the old school ones with, like, the little zipper. And so I go upstairs, we have to roll them into the bag. And these are like. It wasn't like the. The plastic bags. It was like a Tyvek bag. And we get down to the freezer, and I open up the freezer, and the side of the freezer door kind of puts a little gash in the bag. And I didn't even see it. And so I go to push. I was on the side, My buddy was on the end. And we go to push, and the bag rips and the arm falls out of the bag. And just. I don't know if you've ever been touched by a dead person. Listen, I've been a lot of crazy situations. I was mortified because I thought, one, this person's not dead, and they're trying to get out of the bag. Two, this person is dead, and this is the start of the apocalypse. This is the end for all of us. And then three, somebody's playing a terrible joke on me, like, there's gotta be. And so I had my little freak out and had a little panic moment. I did.

[A]

I was gonna say, it's like, such a good opportunity to mess with a new guy, right?

[C]

It is.

[A]

Hey, we got a body up there.

[C]

But check this out. The senior guys had never seen this happen before. So I looked down at the end of the gurney. They're freaked out, too, and they didn't even get touched by the dead person. So we get another bag. We double bag. I've never closed a freezer so fast in my life. Close that freezer. But I had never seen death firsthand. I had never, you know, a dead body. That's still warm. At that time, that was like, you know, I don't know what I was thinking. It was insane to me. Whereas now, once I actually did get hired by the sheriff's office, and I was responding to death scenes or gory scenes, I still don't do well with blood. In the moment, I'm fine in the moment. In a pinch, I'm. I'm fine with blood, but my adrenaline dumps. Oh, my gosh, man, they're. They're so bad now. But going back to the hospital, so I did my time there. I ended up meeting an old guy, old guy named Charles. He's an application process with another agency further north. Retired army guy, very smart guy. And he and I just clicked, and we're. We get along. He gets hired, and he's like, hey, tonight's my last night. You know, if you want to grab chow together, you know, we'll just talk. So I kind of picked his brain. And he gets hired by this agency, and he goes and works up north. I didn't see him again for years. So I get hired to work just outside of Richmond. And I did that job. I was at that agency at that time for five years. Maybe a little. Maybe a little more, but I.

[A]

How old were you when you went through, like. So you went through the police academy, I'm assuming?

[C]

I was 22.

[A]

And how was the police academy?

[C]

It was stressful because I had never done any kind of paramilitary. We had some guys that came out of the Marine Corps to join. And my first day of the academy, I was dealing with some athlete's foot issues, and I wore white socks. So here I am in my academy uniform, my dark blue shirt, my khaki pants, white socks and dress shoes. And they issued, like, the chloroframes. And I'm sitting on the front row, and I remember I'm, like, trying to cross my ankles to hide my socks. Cause those are only cotton socks that I had. Everything else was like some sort of blend, like dress socks. And the major. Yeah, he was a major at the time. He was retired army sergeant major. And he comes over to the table, and he looks at me. He looks at my socks, and he always kept a toothpick in his mouth. And he goes, so this. What we doing okay? And he walks away. And I'm like, oh, my gosh. But throughout the police academy, it was. It was very challenging and rightfully so. Police Academy in 2007, 2008. Timeframe was very different than what it is now. And at that point, I had Never shot, you know, a semi automatic pistol. I'd only shot my granddaddy's revolvers. My granddaddy used to, he was, he used to trap. That's kind of his, kind of his side business was he'd trap and he'd either get raccoon, possum or whatever he could trap and then he'd, you know, there was a market for it to sell the meat. And so he'd take us out to the traps and we'd have to shoot the raccoons. And so I had always shot this little tiny.22 that he kept in the, in the glove compartment of his El Camino. So, you know, my first time shooting, I was shooting a Sig 220 and I got this.45 in my hands and I'm not even looking at the target, I'm looking at the gun because I'm watching this little tiny explosion take place in my hands and I shot horrible. And so fitness wise, no issue. I learned that was where I learned that I could do pull ups. I learned that I was really good at pull up pull ups. But they ended up putting me in remedial shooting. I was the only one in the class that got remedial. Dang and ouch. Yeah, I didn't, but I didn't care. I didn't care because I'm not, I'm not trying to impress anybody around me. I didn't really have that sense of competition.

[A]

Or you're just hoping to get through it more.

[C]

I just want to get through it because I got bills to pay. And so I went through the entire academy with the mindset that I'm not going to make it. I kept that mindset the entire time. And my buddy Wayne, he's since retired, he's an older guy, former Marine Corps guy. He's like, look, if you're willing to give me, give up your lunch break. I'll go out there, we'll get a few boxes of ammo and we're just going to shoot. He said, no rush, no timer, no time standard. We'll just, we'll just walk through it. And it was a, it was probably about a five day span because academy was Monday through Friday. And every day instead of eating lunch, I'd go out there and I'd shoot with Wayne and he taught me how to shoot. And I got passing score on that and I was like, okay, the next option or the next obstacle after the passing score on that was the final exam. And then what they do is they do the, your, you do your final exam for the state, for Department of Criminal Justice. And then you do, like this court, this mock court thing to where you have every lesson plan from the entire academy. You get every single thing, every single document that you've done, every piece of paper they give you, and they just give you this stuff that says, hey, put it in your binder. Well, my binder was so organized, if they said, we're looking for this, I had a table of contents, I had little sticky notes. They said, we're going to give you a topic, we're going to give you a PowerPoint or something. We want you to pull up. You need to be able to refer to your. Your own documents and be able to find it. This is record keeping, big part of law enforcement. And so they had a stopwatch and then they had another binder where they had the questions. And so they go through and say, all right, pull up. I don't know. Use of force, day two. Well, I've got use of force marked. I can turn the page. I'm at day two. I didn't realize. I think you had like a minute and 30 seconds to be able to pull it up. And I could just go straight to it within the first 20 seconds. And what that translates to is if you're testifying in court and you've documented something, the trust that either the jury or the judge has in what you're finding is your accurate documentation. And so that's another thing that I carried with me. And so I made it through. I passed my exam, made it through, got my assignment, and I. I just drank from the fire hose. I just. I drank from the fire hose. There was a lot of guys that had done law enforcement, narcotics detectives in the 70s and 80s, so, like the crack epidemic. And these guys had wild stories, and they just, they taught me so much. There's one guy in particular, Dave Carroll. I know he won't mind me saying his name, actually. I don't know if he's. I don't know if he's still with us or not, but this guy had insane stories from downtown Richmond in the 70s and 80s. And I remember thinking, like, I don't know if I could ever do the things that he did. And then he looks at me and I'd say something like. He'd go, sure, you can if you have to. And I was like, wait, so this guy's a senior guy and he's got faith in me that I can actually do these things? And it just. It really kind of like I said, Each job, each person, each, you know, friend or relationship that I had, it built me up for the next.

[A]

What was it when you first got out of the academy? And you go, you said your first assignment, like, what was your first assignment? Do you just have a cop just out there?

[C]

No, no, I was in civil process. So serving like subpoena. Different business, different civil processes. I was, I was a civil process server. But if patrol needed a backup or if they need. If they were going to something.

[A]

What does a civil process server do? I don't even know what that is.

[C]

So we get. So you get like the subpoena or you get writs. So like, for civil cases, just to

[A]

bring it to someone's house and say

[C]

like, you're being served, you have to serve them. But if you were doing like summons for unlawful detainer in Virginia as an eviction, you have to facilitate an eviction. So you go, you make your notification, you post documentation, you set a date. They've got three business days. So you set the eviction and then you have to show up and make sure that no nonsense happens during the eviction. I didn't know it at the time. Evictions are very dangerous.

[A]

Yeah, I would imagine. So.

[C]

The first big thing that I had, we had there was a member of Texas Chicana brotherhood. This is the first, like, big, big time, like, actual, like, no BS gang member that we had. And they were like, hey, we have a warrant for this guy. We're going to go to this address. We need you to be there. You know, this is the time we're doing it. And I was like, terrified. I was like, man, I've. I've been doing civil process. I haven't done any of these, like, larger apprehensions, especially working with other agencies like the marshals. But they're like, we want you there, you know, to be able to be on perimeter or block traffic. And so I was like, okay, so now I'm terrified. And they're like, all right, let's go. And we move. We went to the house. I've never said this publicly, but someone crashed my police car to that young man's mailbox. I'm not going to say who. I may or may not know who, but someone was. Someone was driving my police car that I was assigned, and they crashed it into his mailbox because they were so nervous about what was about to go down. I was going to leave that alone. Not going to, actually. Well, statute of limitation. No, nevermind, we'll leave that alone. But I ended up inside the House. And I'm face to face with this guy. And this is after he's already been apprehended. He's in handcuffs. And he looks at me. He goes, new guy. I didn't even lie. Like, I used to try to lie and be like, I'm not new. But he looks at me, goes, new guy? I said, yes, sir. He goes, you're the only one that's called me sir. And I was like, it's probably because I'm new. And he just laughs. And he was like, look. He was like, you've chosen a respectable job. He said, don't ever be afraid of guys like me. He was like, because there's a certain level of respect that you give, and there's a certain level of respect that you get in return. And I'm like, still kind of scared, but I'm like, wow. This guy's like. He's, like, mentoring me right now in handcuffs, putting out words. Yeah. And so it was just really cool. And then I had another few interactions to where I was doing a prisoner transport, and I was trying to hurry and get it done. And I walk in, we call the guy out of the cell. He sits down. I'm just taking him maybe about a mile or two up the. Up the street to the jail. And I open the cell door, he comes out, and he sits in the chair. Because normally we'll. If it's older guy, we'll shackle their feet first. But he sits in the chair, and he goes, you're not taking me anywhere. I was like, excuse me? He's like, you're not taking me anywhere. I was like, dude, what are you talking about? Like, you're gonna fight me right now? He's like, no, no. He's like, I'm not. I'm not messing with you. It's an older guy. He's like, I'm not messing with you. He's like, but you're not taking me anywhere. And I said, why? He said, he looks at me. He goes, you still have your gun on. And I look down. You're supposed to stow your gun before moving inmates. He goes, you still have your gun on. And if you still have your gun on, I can only imagine what other things you, you know, don't do the right way. And he's like, I'm not going anywhere with you, so you might as well call the supervisor now. And I'm like, I'm getting called out. Now. Keep in mind, there's a cell full of inmates, and now they're all joining him like, hey, he don't know. Hey, he don't know what he doing in here. Hey, y', all, come get him. He's stupid. And it just. It really. It was one of those points where I could have just puffed my chest up, be like, I'm gonna put my gun away and you're coming with me. I was like. I was like, dang, he got me. He got me.

[A]

You got got.

[C]

I got got. So I don't know if you notice a theme of me constantly getting called out for things, that I'm rushing through things, I'm overlooking things, I'm doing things the wrong way. Constantly getting called out in a safe way, but constantly getting called out by perpetrators. Yeah, yeah, my criminals.

[A]

It's fired up when the criminals have the experience to call out policing tech.

[C]

Exactly. Hey, you doing that wrong. Hey, thanks, sir. You're going to jail. But so, you know, constantly getting called out and I would overlook things. I would overlook the little things. And, you know, I had a conversation to where if you overlook the little things, those little things can grow into big things and it can be detrimental.

[A]

Well, yeah, like if a guy grabs your gun. Yeah. We're supposed to have stone.

[C]

Absolutely. And so it was. It was kind of a rough go initially. And I was kind of. You know, I did have points where I felt sorry for myself. But, you know, growing up, I was. My dad always taught me. My dad used to. When we go visit California, my dad was like, every night you will do 10 pull ups and 100 reps of jump rope. He had an old boxer's jump rope. He'd do 100 reps. He said, you will not go to bed until it's done. And I was really good at pull ups. My brother was good at jump rope. He said, you've got 10 reps of pull ups. He's got 10 reps. He said, you can do his 10 reps and he can do your jump rope or you can switch the reps. He said, but either way, this number of reps needs to get done before we go back into the house because we're in the garage. And so. So kind of, kind of learning that, like, there's no shortcut to doing pull ups. There's no shortcut to doing jump rope. You have to do the reps before you can go and get exactly what you want or before you can move on from this task. And so kind of having that mindset, it just. It's all built on. It just perpetually built to where

[B]

I

[C]

was still at the. At the agency I was at. But I ended up joining the Army National Guard. And the reason I ended up joining was because I sat in an eval. I sat in a performance eval. And my marks were never stellar. But my 05 Navy uncle taught me that you don't put on a cold uniform. You gotta get that uniform off the iron. You gotta iron it before you put it on. For the years I was there, I never left the house without ironing my uniform first. I ironed my uniform. Every time I put it on, it was warm from the iron. And so dang, I would. Yeah, he was. He taught me a lot.

[A]

And went out to ocs. The. The drill instructor, like, Marine Corps drill instructor. Awesome guy. His name was. His name, ironically, was Gunnery Sergeant seals.

[C]

Really?

[A]

Yeah. And I remember the first time he's showing us how to iron and, bro, it was like a military operation.

[C]

That's what it became.

[A]

This guy square.

[C]

But even with that mindset and ironing and I had. I'm talking. I had creases. Everywhere I had. There were creases. I mean, like, my. My pants crease came all the way up to the belt line. No other officer was doing that. Because you're sitting in a car, you're, you know, you're wearing this duty belt. And I would still get, you know, average for my uniform eval. But then you had people who were obese who had uniforms. They had crumbs on their uniforms. They had wrinkle, wrinkly pants. They had all these things, and they're. And they're getting higher than me. And I started to see how the personality and the friendship aspect played into that, and it bothered me. And I remember sitting. I was sitting in a performance eval, and my lieutenant was sitting across the desk, and my sergeant was sitting right next to me, and my sergeant's not hit. Well, that sergeant was my fto, the one who essentially taught me how to be a cop. He's a major now. He's one of the command staff. Great dude. He's sitting there and he's kind of, like, vouching for me because my. Lt's this older black woman. She's looking at my marks, and she's like, this is not good. This is not good. And he's like, well, this is because of this. And he's kind of like arguing my case. It's like I'm standing there and he's my lawyer, and he's trying to, you know, beseech the judge's good grace. And so she was like, well, we noticed, we noticed. You know, you're kind of, you're not as enthusiastic as you once were. You know, you're not dragging your feet, your work's getting done, you're still, you're still semi motivated, but you've, you've lost motivation. And at that time I had put in for all these extra trainings, I put in to become an instructor to. I was volunteering at the academy. There was a ton of stuff I was doing. I was working around the clock, picking up extra shifts, taking people's on call rotations. Like there was a lot that I was doing. And I, I remember sitting in the chair and thinking, like, I'm not gonna let my sergeant speak for me. I was like, I'm gonna say something. I was like, well. And right when I said, well, I could, I couldn't see it, but I could feel his head snap and look at me like, please don't say anything stupid. I said, well, honestly, I feel like I'm spinning my tires, I'm wasting my time here. I'm doing all this extra stuff, spending all this time away from my wife and all this time away from home and everything that I put in, every, you know, request I put in gets denied. And there are people who show up who are doing the bare minimum. We got guys that'll get, they'll get mad, they'll get pissed off at something and then immediately call out sick the next day, like maliciously. And it's something that's a constant thing. These people are getting these positions that I'm putting in for. And here I am essentially losing sleep to come to work and I get nothing for it. And I use that, that exact phrase. I'm spinning my tires. And I heard Sarge go, well, lt, what he means is. I said, no, Sarge. I was like, what I mean is exactly what I said. And LT looks at me, she brings her glasses down, she goes, well, I guess we're done here, and sends me back to work. So now I don't know. I don't know.

[A]

So did you just have like so much pent up frustration? It was this.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And this was at like the five. You've been there for five years.

[C]

I think at this point I was at. Yeah, I was, it was, it was right around five years and I was, I was frustrated. I was frustrated because I would put in for, to be, you know, an instructor and someone else would get picked and it just, it made no sense because if, if my uniform. Let's, let's Start there. If my uniform, obviously, is something that I take pride in, if my paperwork and everything that I'm doing is something I take pride in, why is there someone who I'm outperforming that's getting exactly what I'm looking for? And I really. I did. I was upset about that. And over time, I don't want to say I became complacent, but it got to the point where I felt like I started to be targeted. I had one day walking out of the office where there was a captain that comes downstairs, and he was like, hey, come here real quick. Let me talk to you. And I go talk to him. He says, how are things? I said, things are fine. He goes, okay, cool. He said, let me see your handcuffs. I take out my handcuffs, I hand them to him. He looks at him, holds them up to the light. He's like, did you oil these? I said, no. He's like, okay. He said, let's go outside. We go outside. He says, clear your weapon. Hand me your gun. I had just done firearms, like, two days before, so I. I mean, I hadn't cleaned it to the extent that it should have been clean. He said, hand me your gun. So I clear it. I lock and show clear and hand it to him. He looks at it. He goes, you clean this? I said, I just did a quick clean after the range. He goes, hands it back to me. I go about my day. The next day, the LT calls me into the office and is like, hey, you got door duty. You're gonna. You're gonna work the door because the captain came down here and your gun was dirty and your cuffs weren't oiled. You got door duty. And I sat on that door. I think. I think six weeks I sat on the door and just greeting people as they came in, doing the. Running the. The metal detector and getting people into where they needed to be. And that whole time, I was like, I dropped the ball. Like, normally people will get door duty and be like, oh, man, that. Lt's got it out for me. But that whole time, I was like, I legitimately dropped the ball. My gun needs to be cleaned. My equipment needs to be serviced. And so people thought that I was disgruntled. I wasn't disgruntled. But I was like, I dropped the ball. And this is years. I've been doing this for years now, so I need to know. I know better. And so on the way home, I pass an army recruiting sign. It's just a little billboard on the side of the road there. Was an army one and an Air Force one side by side. And I said, oh, dad was Air Force. I'll call the Air Force. Called him, waited a week, no call back. I was like, well, maybe this is a sign. I'll call there. I'll call the army now. So I called the Army. Hello? Immediately.

[A]

Hell, yeah.

[C]

And so that was in July. That was June or July of 2010, or was it. Yeah, no, it's 2011. And I go and I take the ASVAB. And I took the ASVAB in high school, but because I was a class clown, you know, you've got your whole grade in this auditorium. I'm obviously sitting with friends. We started cracking jokes. It was a Marine Corps NCO that was there facilitating it. He's like, that whole row, get out. And I'm looking, and we're all, like, doing like this. He was like, yep, that whole row, get out. And I was like, oh, no, I want to take the asvab, because I just want to see where I land. He's like, nope, out. Keep in mind, this is during a lunch period. So I have no class scheduled. I've now been kicked out. Now I have to roam the halls. And if I'm caught roaming the halls or skipping class, straight to detention. So I was like, well, where can I go? So I go to the gym. I go to the gym. And I'm like, hey, we were just kicked out of the asvab. Can I just at least hang out in here and clear my mind? So I did that. And so I never took the asvab. So now here I am as an adult, and I'm like, man, I got to take the asvab. I haven't done math in years. And so I got one of those study guides, and I'm studying. And at the time, I didn't really have much confidence in my intelligence. And even now, like, I still. I have a little bit more now, but even now, like, I'm never the smartest guy in the room, but I'm going over the study guide. I go to take the asvab, and there were three total. It was me and two other guys. Those two guys were trying for the Marine Corps. I was trying for the Army. And so I sit there and I go through this test, and I'm like, okay, you know, when's it going to get difficult? When are the difficult questions coming along? And I finish it. And I was like, I didn't have any difficulty. It wasn't super difficult. Like, there were some that were Challenging. It wasn't super difficult. So I turn it in and go wait in the waiting area. So then the other two guys finish, and they come out. And so we're standing there while the proctor's grading the test. And so he calls us back in, calls the other. I was at the end of the line. Calls the other two guys back in. And I'm at the back of the line, and he's sitting at a. It was a typewriter, or. Yeah, I think it was a typewriter. And he goes. He's. His last name. You give him your last name, and he looks at you, and he's like, hey. He looks at the first guy. He's like, hey, better luck next time. He's like, you. He's like, if you want to be a Marine, you can. You just gotta be a little bit smarter. You gotta do a little bit better on the test. The guy had gotten, like, a 24.

[A]

Damn.

[C]

And so he hangs his head and he goes out the door. The next guy, he was like, hey, listen, better luck next time. And I'm like, oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. Like, everybody's failing. I failed. I was like, I'm too confident with this test. Everybody's failed. He goes, better luck next time. You know, Gives him whatever paperwork. The guy goes out the door. The guy got, like, the same score. So I walk up and he goes. He looks at it, and then he looks at me, and I'm like. He's about. He's about to give me the spiel. I'm about to hear it. Better luck next time. And he pulls his glasses down. It's a. It's a reoccurring theme. People pulling their glasses down. He goes, son, you can choose any job you want in the Army.

[A]

Nice.

[C]

I said, what does that mean? He said, it means you scored high enough on this test that you can choose any job you want in the Army. He's like, you need to find exactly what you want to do and make sure it's in your contract. And I was like, okay, got it. Had no clue what that meant, but got it. So I called the recruiter. I was like, hey, great news. He was like, hey, listen, you're already in law enforcement. We've got you slotted for an mp. I was like, okay, okay, let me. Let me think about that. Give me a few days to think about it. He's like, no problem. Call me back whenever. So I go home and, what are you.

[A]

You, like, 27?

[C]

I was 26.

[A]

26.

[C]

And so I go Home and I'm looking through like the brochure and it's pretty weird.

[A]

I went to a recruiter when I was 18, you know, actually I was 17. So they're just looking at you like licking their lips like, I got this fool. But for somebody at 26, they, they

[C]

thought that I just needed a job. Like, you know, I'm just going to be a pushover. And I knew what I was doing by going to the guard because I was going to keep my law enforcement certification, I was going to keep my job. And while going through training, I was going to double dip. That was the thing was that I still get paid from the sheriff's office, but also I get my army salary going through my entirety of training. So I called my brother in law and I have an older sister, but we didn't grow up together and we actually haven't spoken in years. During COVID she, we, we kind of. I don't say we butt heads, but we just had a falling out and haven't really spoken to them in a long time. But I called my brother in law, he had gone through ocs, he was in the infantry, he was down in Georgia. And I called him and I said, dude, I, I don't, I don't know what direction to go. And his exact words were, just join the infantry. Just go be a killer. And I was like, he wouldn't steer me wrong. He would not steer me wrong at all.

[A]

And this is like 20. What, what year is it?

[C]

Oh, geez. 2007. 2000.

[A]

Oh, so you like the war's on.

[C]

This was 2000. No, no, no, no. I had the idea in 2008, but it wasn't until 2011 that I actually was going through the process.

[A]

Okay, so wasn't quite as obvious at that time, like Afghanistan was over or at least. Well, no, not over, but it was winding down. No, sorry. Iraq was over in 2011.

[C]

That's right. Afghanistan.

[A]

Afghanistan was still going on.

[C]

And so he's like, yeah, just go be a killer. And so what I ended up doing was I was like, okay, I'm joining the infantry. I've already got it set out. I'm joining the infantry. He told me, he told me, he said, he said, infantry, Airborne, Ranger school. He said, just get that in your contract, you'll be fine. So I go home and I'm looking through the state like the state National Guard. There was a pamphlet and I was like, there's no bonus for infantry. There's no bonus at all. I was like, I'm doing this because I need some sort of supplement to my financial situation. If I. If I go intel, I can. I can get this bonus. It's a pretty good bonus. It was kind of scary because you do have to be smart, you know? And I didn't. Still didn't think I was that smart of a guy. But I was like, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go intel. I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go into the intel field, and I'm gonna find something specific in there, and I'm gonna do that. And the schools were. The schools for that were pretty long, but you could still get your contract squared away before you ship out. And so I called the recruiter. I was like, hey, I want to go. You know, there's an intel unit that's in Northern Virginia. I want to go intel. And he goes, oh, we don't have that available. Like, without it. He didn't even sound like he looked through, and he just said, we don't have that available. I said, oh, that sucks. He goes, so, you ready to be an mp? I said, no. Thank you for your time. I was like, you know, I appreciate it. I was like, but I'm. I'm not. I'm not gonna do this if I can't, you know, go intel. And I just hung up the phone. And within, like, two days, he called me back. He's like, hey, you still interested? I found you a spot.

[A]

A slot just opened up.

[C]

Yeah, that's. That's exactly what he did. And so I go down to Fort Lee to go through MEPs and I didn't know what a security clearance. I didn't really know what it entailed at the time. And so I go through my security interview, and I'm looking at the resume that they're going over to ask me my security questions. And my recruiter had filled in missing information. Rather than ask me or say, hey, do you have this person's information? He just filled it in, and he hands it to me. He says, hey, whatever they ask you, just agree with what's on the paper. And I'm sitting there, and I'm on the phone with the feds because they're doing the background investigation. And I was like, I'm not a liar. Like, I'm not a liar at all. And he's like, all right, you know, from this time to this time, you worked at the lumber company, and your supervisor was this. Is this correct? And I went, no. And one of the recruiters was sitting and watching me While on the phone. And he sits up in the seat and he's like. And the guy's like, wait a second. So some of this information isn't correct. And I said, a lot of it's incorrect. And he goes, who filled this out? I said, well, I got them as much information as I could find, but this final product that's in front of me, they filled out. And he's like, again. And you can hear him, like, kind of. He's been through this before. And so he's like, all right, get as much of the correct information as you can. You've already got a ship date. They're going to ship you to basic. We'll conduct your interview while you're in basic. And so I ship out to basic. And it was. It was easy. They tell you what to wear, where to go. It was. It was really easy. And I was 26 going through this. So it was. The hardest part was being away from my wife. And at that time, we'd had our first kid. And one day we were on the range, we were doing. We're doing a marksmanship, and they call my name out. And, like, anytime you hear your name called in basic, like, I'm gonna go over there and I'm gonna have. They're gonna make me stronger because I'm gonna have to do a bunch of push ups. And so they call my name. So I grab a battle buddy and I go over there. And they're like, no, no, no battle buddy needed. And I'm like, okay, so by myself, like, which is kind of against protocol, but because it was a security interview, they couldn't have anybody present. So we're standing there, and he's like, hey, we got your updated information. We just want to go over this, make sure it's right. So go over my security information. He's like, well, you know, by the time you graduate basic, congratulations, you're gonna have a clearance. And I was like, oh, that's awesome. And he goes. He's like, so, your first packet? He's like, what was the deal with that? I said, I got the recruiter as much information as I could. He either had the gaps and just decided to fill them on his own or just made it up. And I told him, I was like, you know, I didn't feel comfortable lying about that. And he was like, well, that wasn't a test, but that shows a tremendous amount of character. So now, after all these years of being built up as just, you know, do the right thing, make sure your equipment's in order. Now I have someone from the outside looking in who's telling me that I have a good, good character. And these are things that, I mean, I didn't necessarily grow up hearing, but seeing this, like, wait a second. Now I'm actually, I'm actually doing something. And then. So ship out from basic and go to ait I was. It was a few months and then come home and have to go right back to the sheriff's office. So now I'm back at the sheriff's office. And I didn't realize it, but now there's a rift because I've got, you know, once a month I have to do a Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So that means I'm missing a Friday. I'm unavailable for on call for Saturday, Sunday. So it's kind of taking my name out of the pot. So all the work and the volunteering that I was doing before, I couldn't do. And so they were like, well, we see that your orders say that you have to be, you know, at drill on the 14th. We can't afford. That'll put us down personnel. And I said, well, you know, I'm covered by law, but respectfully, these are federal orders. If I don't show up, that starts the AWOL process. I learned how long the AWOL process is, and I was like, I don't want to start it because once you get that, you know, that marker by your name, it's hard to bounce back from. And so they really gave me a hard time about it. And I'm going through, you know, I've got my clearance, I'm doing my drill weekends, I'm working, you know, at the sheriff's office. And they just, they really kind of ramped it up and they, they put the pressure on me to where I was back on door assignments. You know, there was all these things that didn't feel like it was malicious, but looking back at it, I realized I was like, this is. They don't like the fact that I now have two employers. And all the old army guys, they loved it because they're talking about their time in the army. And now that I'm in the army, I'm a full fledged soldier. And now these guys are like, okay, we're all on the same page. And these guys are, like, opening up to me about, you know, things that they've done. Some of the guys that have been through Vietnam and some of the older guys, it was just really cool to be a part of that network. Well, there was a guy and I'LL tell you his name once we're done shooting. But he was a seal. I think he was. There's some sort of reserve.

[A]

Yeah, there's reserve units.

[C]

Yeah. And so being that I'm in Virginia, we're right up from Norfolk and Damn Neck and all of that. And I would always run into him in the gym and. And he looks at me, he's like, hey, heard you joined the army. And I'm like, yeah. He was like, good. And I'm like, well, not ripping from what you said, but he said. He didn't say it like, intense how you said. It was more like, good, you know, but he's like, good. He's like, you know, I think the military is great. He said, don't think that the sheriff's office is the only career that you qualify for. A lot of people get into a sheriff's office or a local agency from a town they grew up in, and they never leave. He said, if you can travel the world, if you can do whatever you can to get the perfect job, do it. And he had caught a lot of heat because he was actually slated for a deployment shortly after that. And then once he deployed, I ended up taking a contract with an agency in Northern Virginia. And I was. I was baptized by fire. Baptized by fire. I went and doing these overseas missions and it was just.

[A]

So did you leave the sheriff completely?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

When you got that contracting job, I

[C]

went in and after my second kid was born, I submitted my paperwork, submitted my two week notice, and that same sergeant who was trying to defend me, I came in from paternity leave and I handed him my notice. And he's standing there and he reads it and he looks at me, he goes, no, no. And I was like, dude. I was like, what do you mean, no? We're past that point now. He's like, we can't afford to lose you. I was like, well, y' all don't treat me like that. And he's like, no, no. He's like. He's like, you don't listen. He's like, the people who have it out for you are about to retire. And we have.

[A]

Why do you think people, like, had it out for you?

[C]

I don't know. I don't know if it's because, like, a lot of times my humor would get me. Would rub people the wrong way, but I've never. I've never cracked a joke to disparage some. Well, I have, but not, like, not, not, like, to their face. So, like, if I crack jokes, if there's an intense situation. We had a guy who, once we switched over from analog to digital radios, he didn't test his radio. And so because he didn't test his radio, he had some issues. And so that came up while we're in roll call to the point where he's sitting next to me. He and the LT are screaming at each other. He reaches down to take his badge off. He takes his badge off and throws it at her feet. So after the badge comes off, the next thing he goes to take off is his gun belt. Now, I'm sitting next to this person who is a disgruntled employee who has just essentially quit his job and thrown his badge at a commanding officer. And now he's going to reach down for his gun belt. So I'm sitting there and I'm watching, and I go. And we had leather holsters, and I unsnap. And I'm like, I don't want to have to do this, but, hey, if there's work to be done, it's got to get done by somebody. And so I unsnap. And I was probably. I had halfway, you know, and he luckily kind of changed his trajectory. He took off his belt. Keepers took off his belt and threw his gun belt on the ground.

[A]

But you broke leather.

[C]

I did. I did. And keep in mind, I saw what was happening, and I was terrified. And so luckily, it played out. So then I look over, like, while he's walking out the door, and I look over to one of the older guys, and he's sitting, and he's got his gun just, like. Like, on his lap, just sitting here, like, ready to rock and roll. And I was like, okay. So that tells me I had the right idea. But, you know, I started cracking jokes after that. I was. And I was like, oh, man, if I was the lt, I. I wouldn't have let that badge hit the ground. I'd have caught it. And so, you know, they didn't like stuff like that.

[A]

So I think I was camping with my family, and my son and I, we're at a. At a national park campground. And my son and I, we had these awesome props to Nerf. The Nerf company. Yeah, the Nerf guns are cool, but the Nerf, they were Nerf laser guns.

[C]

Really?

[A]

They were really, really good. Like, they were very accurate. You could shoot someone at, like, probably 75 yards, maybe even 100 yards. And the weapon itself was also the receiver. So when you got shot, it was that gun that got shot. And then after. And every Time it shot, it would shake. When you got shot, it would shake. It was very realistic training. And so I was doing that all the time with my kid. I would blue. I bought so many of those guns. All his friends would come over. It was awesome. So we brought them to this camping trip. And we're running around and it's like a desert camping area. And so we're out there, you know, like nine in the morning and we're, you know, doing cover and move and maneuvering through, trying to kill each other.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And all of a sudden like a, a female like park ranger.

[C]

Oh man.

[A]

Is like, she's like, she comes out from like behind someone's camper and she's got her hand on her weapon and her weapon is like one quarter draw.

[C]

Oh my gosh.

[A]

And she's like, you know, put the weapons down. And I am just like, these are laser pistols, you know, as I'm like slowly moving. But I was like, dang, dude.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Imagine getting park ranger because you're out there with a Nerf gun.

[C]

Hey, not everybody likes to, you know, they don't like the jokes and the playing around.

[A]

It's getting wild over there. It's getting about to get a little western on that thing. Yeah. That's a scary scenario. You know, some guys like all he did. I mean that stuff happens.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, people get frustrated at work.

[C]

Yep.

[A]

And that's when the, the workplace violence goes down. Especially when these guys already has a.

[C]

He's already got, he's already got a gun. Yeah. So it, and at the time I had kind of dove into. I was a volunteer as a volunteer instructor for Officer Survival, which even now, like I, I ended up instructing that course for 10 years. That was, that was like my fa.

[A]

What was the name of the course?

[C]

Officer Survival.

[A]

Got it.

[C]

And you dive into these police videos where you see things like this and it happens so fast and it's like you really have to.

[A]

It's Officer survivor. Does that include hand to hand? Does that include combatives at all?

[C]

It's 100% survival combatives. Hand to hand. Your. Your decision making process. Everything. You know, you show up to a house and you have a frequent flyer and he, you got to go in there and he's, he's one of these guys who may be a combat vet. And you see chicken wire on the windows. He's. He's in there for the long haul. You're not shooting gas into that house. You know, so it's like these little things, these pre flight or Pre flight and or pre fight indicators, you go to arrest, you know, little Jose from next door and he's got on a cowboy hat, you know, in the Mexican community, if he takes his hat off and sets it down, he's got his hands on his hips, probably going to fight you.

[A]

It's on.

[C]

And so, you know, so teaching these things, but then also getting these recruits into fights and getting them to go hands on, because I'm telling you, it's very weird to go hands on with someone you don't know and you know that you're going hands on to hold them accountable for something they've done. And they know it too. And if they don't want to go to jail, the fight's on. And I've been in my fair share of fights and I've got injuries, but, you know, being able to teach that mindset, you might go to a house and have a conversation to where y' all get along, and then you might have to shoot this person. And I've seen it hundreds of times, if not thousands of times throughout my career. And so teaching that, I kind of expose myself to a lot of these videos. It kind of, it, it put me on high alert.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And I wasn't.

[A]

Those videos are great because you start to realize patterns and recognize things. So, yeah, I've been, I've been always down for watching, whether it's even, even bar fight videos, like any type of videos of violence, you get to learn a lot about it just by watching it. Makes you a lot more aware.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And then, you know, obviously when you train for it, that's one of the biggest things I say about training jiu jitsu for self defense for, like, females is, you know, human beings are not especially like, in America, we're not used to like, that level of contact.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

So when someone grabs a hold of you, if you're not used to that.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

You don't even get over that mental hurdle of like, what is going on right now. Whereas if you're a jiu jitsu person, like someone grabs you, that's just like another day in the office and we're gonna, okay, this is what's happening. So to. To get people not only to watch the things, but then to experience them and have them, like fight each other and fight other people is. It's just good to go.

[C]

Yeah, absolutely.

[A]

Obviously.

[C]

Well, I know that I learned quite a bit. And we had a guy, he was a frequent flyer, and we ended up having this murder trial that was going on and I was slated for security for this trial. And they had had a mistrial before, and they wanted to make sure they did everything the right way. Well, they bring over this guy, but they bring him along with a guy who's mentally unstable, an inmate who's mentally unstable. So they're in the cell together. The mentally unstable guy has an arraignment, which means he finds out if he's getting a bond or not. The murder guy is waiting for his trial. It's a jury trial. So I had the thought. I was like, if we've had a mistrial before, we should probably put them in separate cells, just so that way there's no issue. And they're like, no, they're both males. They can both stay in the male cell. And I was like, well, the female cell is empty, so we could probably put him in there. And they didn't. So, sure enough, we take the arraignment guy into court. He finds out that he's not going home. The judge denied his bond request, so now he's pissed because he knows he's not going home. And they put him back in the cell. And I remember watching him. He was doing. He was doing like this, if you're in jail. And I've learned a lot about jail over the years. Some from the other side of the fence, most of it from the other side of the fence. But he starts doing this. And the second that it registered what he was doing, he just. Just wailed on this guy. Just started, like, he. He hit him, he punched him. He hit him with a right. And then the guy fell to the ground. He grabbed his shirt, and he's just, like, wailing on him. So by the time we're able to get in the cell, this guy's been punched three or four times. He's bleeding from the mouth and the nose. He's cussing us all out. The crazy guy is like, you know, if I'm not going home, then nobody's going home. Or I don't know what his mindset was. We get him out, put him in separate cells, Ends up in a mistrial again. And I remember playing that back in my head. He walks in. When he's let back into the cell, they take the handcuffs off. He immediately stares at the guy. You know, people, we telegraph. He stares at the guy that he's going back in there with, and then once he stares at him, the guy's just kind of sitting on the end of the bench. That's when he goes. And he goes to his left side. And that's when he starts kind of loosening up and then he circles around and does his attack. And so I had a, had a foot pursuit once. It was on Thanksgiving Day a few years ago where a guy did that. He is like five people in a car. I think we had our. One of the guys had already seen the hand to hand transaction. Guy gets out of the car, long hair, had already given us a false name. He does like this and then starts, listen, if you're ever in a conversation and someone, they're looking for an escape, it could be because it's a bad conversation. It could be because they don't want to go to jail. So then he puts his hair in a ponytail. I was like, bro, you don't have to put your hair in a ponytail. None of us like you that much. I was like, you're not that cute with it, you know, cracking jokes, keeping it light. Well, then he bends down to tie his shoes. The second that he takes a knee, I said, you about to run, huh? And he ties his shoe and he stands up and he's looking at me. He's like, what are you, what are you talking about? I was like, you're about to take off running? You're going to try to run from us, huh? I kid you not. This is exactly what he does. He goes, man, I'm not about to. And he takes off and he takes that first step. And because I had seen the last direction that he looked, I kind of was like, okay, 50% chance he's gonna run to his right. So he takes that first step and I just wrap him up and we fall to the ground. And the psychological aspect, I know he's got buddies that are there with him, that they're all, they've all been detained at the time. So I start yelling, taser, Taser, Taser. And I know that they hear taser. None of them want to get tased. I obviously, I didn't even have time to grab my taser. I'm yelling taser. And he stops and lays face down on the ground. I never even drew my taser. And so by this time there were some park rangers that were across at the Dunkin Donuts of all places. They come flying over and they get out and you know, we've got assistance. And we end up finding a bunch of drugs in the car and the guy ended up getting obstruction, I think. I don't know if they hit him with eluding because he really only took one step. He didn't elude me at all. I Don't know if they hit him with the looting or not, but he was like, man, y' all are fast. I was like, brother, I was two steps ahead. And then my co worker goes, man, that was fast. I was like, dude, I knew he was gonna run. And he was like, how? And so then once I started to be able to articulate and talk about what I saw, I could share that. And, you know, I still had foot pursuits. I still had people that, you know, tried to get away from me or fight me, but, you know, I'm kind of putting that in the toolbox. But that was after my time contracting, doing counterintelligence. Counterterrorism. I call it. I call what I was doing. I call it target acquisition and elimination. It was. It was really cool. It's a lot of time away from home. It was overseas missions. I met. I met a guy, a Marine Corps guy, MARSOC guy. The first time I ever dealt with anybody from MARSOC, dude was like, 6, 5. Just a large, beautiful man. Like, flowing hair. I mean, dude, dude, look. They called him Captain America. And so I was like, that's the perfect name for him. The problem is, is that he was a major, so he hated being called captain. And so I was always one poking the bear, like, hey, Cap. And so, you know, I ruffled some feathers while on that mission. And then I got to a point where, you know, like, I said, my wife and I, we had. We had already bought the house. We bought the house in 2008, and we had two kids, and we were just slowly drifting apart. And I said, well, my. My law enforcement cert is still good. I can. I can come back from, you know, doing what I'm doing and go right back into law enforcement. And she says, would that make you happy? And I remember saying, like, I'm. I'm not working to be happy. I'm working, you know, to be able to sustain my family. And if me going overseas or me, you know, working on overseas missions means that I'm going to lose my family, I'm not going to do that. And so went right back to law enforcement in 2015, and within a year, I had my first law enforcement shooting. It was October 16, or, excuse me, October 2, 2016. And same thing I remember. I left roll call at this point. I'd gotten a little complacent. I was on the SWAT team by then, so I felt like I'm the man. I got this. I remember coming in a roll call, and one of my buddies was our sniper, and I go And I was like, you know what? I had never switched seats in roll call. Not once. Every time I go into a roll call in a new squad, I pick a seat that no one's sitting in. And that is my seat. This is the first time that I ever switched seats. And I switched seats. It was my first sergeant's last night. Cause he was going up, he got promoted to detective and we had a brand new sergeant. And so I go in there, I was like, I'm not sitting where I normally sit. I'm sitting in. This is the SWAT section back here. Like, just chip on my shoulder, you know, thinking like, I got this. And so sarge says, our first sergeant says, all right, this is my last night here. Don't y' all stir nothing up. I was like, sarge, you got nothing to worry about.

[A]

Last words.

[C]

I said that. I was like, you got nothing to worry about. So I leave roll call. Roll call ended. It was from 8 to 8:30. And I leave roll call. Go get a coffee. Same thing I always do. Go get a coffee. Check in with some of the local, you know, businesses. And probably around just before 9 o', clock, my buddy makes a stop on a car and I, they run the driver. Drivers got like 12 felony warrants. So he's like, all right, I'm gonna detain a driver. Give me, you know, give me some backup. So I go over there, I'm the, I was the first one there. And the driver, completely cool. No issues, like, yeah, no, I got warrants, blah, blah, blah. Well, these are drug related. Do you have anything in the car? He's like, no, there's nothing in the car. It's completely clean. So get him in handcuffs. My buddy Matt, he says, hey, go check. There's a passenger in the front seat of that van. Go check. Go check the passenger. He's like, we just got to detain him. If the driver wants to release the van, we can release it to him, but we have to search it. We're going through the, you know, it's narcotics protocol. So I go and I'm talking to the driver and I'm like, all right. Which, you know, you got an id. He's like, nope, no id. That's clue number one. No id.

[A]

I was like, wait, this is the driver or the passenger?

[C]

This is the passenger.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

At this time, I think Matt was interviewing the driver. And because they're at his passenger still in the vehicle. Passenger was still in the vehicle. So I'm up there, I had my old mag light. You remember those Old mag lights. I used to tuck it under my arm because I didn't like to have anything in my hands. So he's giving me name, date of birth. And then he gives me. He didn't give me a social. He gave me name, date of birth. They end up running him. He's got some history, but I had an earpiece so he couldn't hear my radio traffic. So come to find out, he lives, or he grew up just a few miles from where I live. And so I'm talking about the county. I'm like, oh, yeah, you know, the county's really grown. Blah, blah, blah. You got any kids? Just small talk to keep him talking. And he's like, yeah, I got. You know, I got a kid. I got this. And we're just. We're just talking. I was like, look, the driver's been arrested. I can't verify that you have a license. I was like, if. If you. I was like, what? I. What I need you to do is get out of the car. I was like, you don't have any warrants. Get out of the car. I'm gonna pat you down, make sure you're good to go and then you're good to bounce. I was like, can we. Can we do that? He's like, oh, yeah, no problem. Well, he had some marijuana shake on his shirt. I could identify, just. Just out of the blue. And that was never a high priority thing for me, because if it's just shake, I'm not going to charge you with possession.

[A]

That's.

[C]

That's ridiculous. So he starts wiping his shirt off because he think he. He knows I know, but I'm like, dude, I'm not worried about. I'm not worried about weed like that. That doesn't matter. I was like, if you're good, I'm just gonna pat you down. You'll get out of here. He's like, all right. So he gets out of the car. Keep in mind, we're on the passenger side, and I'm watching his body language. I'm looking at his belt line. When he gets out, he's got on gray shirt or, yeah, gray shirt and red basketball shorts. And he gets out and. But he gets out away from me. He's like, backing toward, like, backing out of the car. I was like, that was weird. But the dude was like six three, £240. He was a big guy. So maybe that's just what he does if he's got any injuries. So he walks back to the police car. Back in the day, we Were teaching cops to put hands on the hood. That was a really big thing that. That they taught in the academy. Hands on the hood put them at a position of disadvantage. Well, if someone is six, three, and then you got me, who's five, ten, and a half, you know, he's still at an advantage because that literally puts me at elbow height. So I would brace the elbow, and I would start. I would start on the. I was called it driver side. Anytime I search anybody, I'm starting on the. On their left side. I'm gonna go down the left side and go. My goal is to get from the driver's side of the passenger side, going around the back, the belt line. So driver side, no issue, nothing, and get around to passenger side. And I remember I was going across this belt line. You can feel the drawstring inside of basketball shorts. And my hands stopped. I felt immediately what I knew was a gun. In my mind, it was a revolver. I could see it. Like, once I touched it, I could see it. And so split second, I froze. Matt's watching my body language. Matt yells, gun. Right? When Matt yells gun, it triggers in my mind, oh, yeah, this is a gun. You should probably do something. So right when he said gun, keep in mind, I had my hand braced on his elbow. He draws his elbow in, and he punches me right in my temple. And I didn't know it at the time, but it echoed across the parking lot. He hit me hard. And I had taken a few hits at this time, so I kind of built up, you know, a little bit. But I think that's probably the hardest I've been hit in. Well, at that time. But in recent years, that was. That was really hard. So I remember stumbling back, and my eyes started to water, and all I saw was him take off running, and his hands were in front of him. I get on the radio. I literally. I've only ever listened to the. The transcript. I've listened to the recording maybe once or twice. I actually saw it pop up on TikTok, of all things. Like, you know, people will pull up police videos and dash cam videos. And I saw it pop up on. On TikTok one time, and it threw me off. But I said, one runner with a gun. And so I know the K9 had just pulled up on scene. And I have this weird relationship with police K9s where they don't like me and I don't really like them. So I know that if I'm moving, if I'm chasing him, the dog is gonna focus on me. So I run around the back of the car as I'm drawing my gun, and the dog goes in front of me, and the dog runs. And so now we're all chasing the K9 handler the dog and I were chasing, and he's running directly towards these town homes. Now, the week before, I'd gotten a call at these town homes where some kids had gotten in trouble for, I don't know, making noise or something. So I know there's a ton of kids in these houses. And this guy's running straight for him. And so the guy ends up. He's probably 15, 20 yards ahead of me. He ends up turning around and just boom, boom, boom, boom. And all I remember was after the first shot, it was so loud because this was like a courtyard area. There's townhomes on this side and this side. And then on the front of us, there's a small break. All of that sound just. And it was fired right at me. So then I start hearing, like, the. It's like a buzzing sound. Keep in mind, at this point, I've never. Nobody ever explained getting shot at with, like, a buzz and like a snap sound. So I'm hearing it, and I slow. Well, and I started to slow down, but then I dove, like. So I'm like, in this prone position, diving. I don't know how. Somehow the suspect ended up with a hole in his leg. It's a whole long thing, you know. It's really weird how that happened, but he ends up running into the woods. And I'm laying still, laying on the ground, and I'm like, I checked my mags. I'm good. I'm good on my mags. I'm good on ammo. I call out. I call out my buddy Matt, you good? I hear him say, he's good. So I backpedal to the car. And when I get back to the car, I see blood all over the ground. And I was like, I'm not looking down because if I am shot and I feel it or I see it, I'm going to feel it. I was like, I'd rather just feel it. So I'm doing these sweeps. So I check my, you know, my legs, check my femoral first, check my body. And while I'm doing this, I can't hear anything that's going on around me. My vision is, like, through a soda straw. It's, like, completely locked into where the last point that I saw him. And I can't hear anything. And so I'm doing this, and I grabbed my Rifle. I had this old. This Colt M4 Commando, which was my SWAT rifle. So I got that. So now I'm at the back of my car and they're calling me on the radio. I got guys showing up on scene yelling my name, and I can't. I'm not responding. And so my buddy, he says he came up the car, he's like, dude, it looked like you were beating your meat when I pulled up. He said, because you just kept doing this. And I was so focused on making sure, I wasn't sure shot. And I'm sitting there, I got my rifle kind of tucked, and I'm behind the trunk of my car, and I'm just checking. And I didn't hear a word until he touched my shoulder. And when he touched my shoulder, it was like vision opened up. It's like I was hearing for the first time. I could hear sirens, I could hear dogs barking. I could hear all this stuff going on around me. I could smell the air. Like, I could. Like this, this life changing event has just occurred. And now it's like I went from being in it to now I'm watching it. And so come to find out I wasn't shot, but the guy actually shot the canine, shot the canine, and the canine ran off. And then they recalled it, it came back and it ran through that area where my car was. And so I. I remember coming back to my car. They said, all right, are you okay? I said, yeah, I'm fine. They're like, all right, we're gonna bring in another canine. We're gonna do a canine track. We need you to track. Well, they didn't know. I didn't say what I had done. I didn't mention any of the actions I had taken. I didn't mention getting punched in the face or anything like that. I just said I was okay. So now I'm on this canine track. And while we're in the woods following this blood trail, I started to get dizzy. And I was like, dude, I can't do this. He was like, what are you. You scared? I was like, no. The guy punched me before he tried to shoot me. The canine handler goes, that was you? I said, yeah. He gets on the radio, they come down, they grab me by the arm, escort me to the ambulance, and. And they're like, you have to get checked out because you just got punched in the head. And we can't afford having you out here passing out or anything. So I get in there, they take my gun belt, and I'm sitting back there And I'll never forget. I'm just staring at the wall, trying to. Trying to put together the pieces of what had just happened. And One of the EMTs cracks a joke. I don't know what the joke was, but he made it as though this was a lighthearted situation. And I didn't say a word. I just stared at him. And my supervisor was in the ambulance with me, says, get him out of here now. And I didn't know what was going on. Of course, I'm in my own world, but they think that I'm, like, going full rage mode, and I'm about to just tear up the back of this ambulance.

[A]

Who's a comedian now?

[C]

Exactly. So this is what my leadership has been experiencing. No, but. So, yeah, it just. It was this whole thing to where I had to remain on scene. I was seen by medical. The sheriff came out and came over to me and gave me some encouragement, and I was like, where do I go from here? Do I have to. Like, this is the beginning of my shift. Do I go back to work? Do I have to go sit at the office? Are we doing my interview tonight? And so my supervisor came over, and he kind of, like, shakes my hand, give me, like, a little hug, and he's like, hey, you did the right thing. He was like, we're going to get you and some of the other guys in here, everyone that was involved with this call. We're going to send you guys home tonight. He said, when you go home, don't get on social media. Don't get on Facebook. Just go home, get a night's rest. He said, call me in the morning. We're going to have you come back at some point to do your interview. I said, okay. So I still didn't fully have my adrenaline done because this is my first.

[A]

Like, did they catch the guy?

[C]

Yeah, they end up. They end up catching him. But it was like a week later, he ended up. Yeah, he ended up. He was able to get to a phone to call his baby mama. I'll get into more of that because that also. It kind of. There was some stuff that went along with that as well. But so I go home, and I remember, I walk in the door. My wife. I was on midnight shift for, like, eight years. I walk in the door, and she sits up out of bed. She goes, oh, you scared me. You're home. I was like, yeah. I was like, you know, there was a lot of stuff that went down at the office. I didn't have the heart to tell her because I Was still processing. There's a lot of stuff that went down at the office. I was like, they sent me home. I'm gonna probably go in for day shift tomorrow. She goes, okay, can you check on the kids? And I was like, all right, I'll check on the kids. So I check on the kids, and I go sit at the end of the bed.

[A]

Well, you got to check on the kids. That's the way it goes.

[C]

Give me a minute. Jeez. I call my dad. Dad said, did you get him? Oh, man. I called my dad and told him what happened. My dad has this thing where he doesn't call me by my name. He calls me boy. He's like, boy. He said, did you get him? I said, no, he's still out there. He's like, no, did you get him? I was like, yeah, he got got. He goes, did he get you? I said, no, sir. He said, well, now all you gotta do is keep on living. And I was like, man, like, I had done these missions. I had, you know, worked on these overseas missions, and all this stuff had gone on and all this stuff that I've been through. But at the end of those, I didn't come to my house and check on my kids. I didn't come to my house and see my wife. I didn't see my family after those things. That was, you know, job's finished. Good job, guys. Attaboy. Pat on the back. You get to go home. You go home. Whereas for this was. This just happened within the last few hours, Now I'm at home, and it just. Dude, it all hit me, like, at once. I think I went three or four days with no sleep. Like, it just. The idea that that was 15 miles from my house and that could have been my last day. Like, it really. It affected me, and I didn't know that it affected me. And so the guy, like I said, he ended up getting away. And I didn't know. They brought in the marshals task force was on the case, and they found him. And when they found him, he was in a hotel room. He still had the gun. He had done this. Makeshift tourniquet. Kudos to the guy. Makeshift tourniquet around his leg. And they went in, they got him, and my buddy took a picture of the warrant, and. I was listed as a victim of attempted capital murder.

[A]

Gosh. Well, strong emphasis on attempted. Yeah, we'll take that. Right?

[C]

Yeah. Seeing my name and seeing. You know, he ended up getting. I think he got. He got a few other warrants, because at the time that case was what changed the case law for police K9s. Because at the end, back then it was just destruction of property. But seeing my name as a victim, like, you know, and the code spelled out, you know, it was, it was insane. And I went through the whole cycle of emotions all over again once I saw that. And then I went in to do my interview and you do your admin interview, then you have to do a criminal interview. So admin interview, it's for record keeping purposes. You know, you don't have to give the interview. But I didn't know this at the time. And so I do the interview. Detectives walk out, they walk back in. Well, then they read you Garrity. Essentially, when they read you Garrity, it's them reading you your rights. And I was furious. I was like, you read someone their rights before you interrogate. And they were like, you know, having these rights in mind, do you wish to speak to us? And everything else. I was like, I'll talk. I was like, I got nothing to hide. So I did that. And then the case kind of dragged on for a little bit and I got some time off. I went to SWAT school. It was a two week school and it was a great time. I mean, I learned so much. There was an old retired Navy SEAL that taught the class. He was out of Dahlgren, Dahlgren Naval Base. And just a phenomenal course, great group of guys. And I really got that camaraderie. And I was able, even though I wasn't able to work with my squad because I was still on admin leave, I got that camaraderie by being in a school. And so went through, went through all of that. And then by the time I came back to work, I had no clue that it impacted me until it was probably two or three weeks later I came back to work and I was not proactive, I wasn't motivated, I wasn't doing anything. And I had a conversation with one of the supervisors and I was like, oh, well, that's my one traffic stop for the night. And he called me out. He was like, what? He was like, you've never been a bare minimum kind of guy. What is going on? And so I was like, oh, nothing, Just, you know, just life, just, you know, busy, just stuff going on. So later in the night, when things kind of die down, because the shift kind of happens in waves when things kind of die down, he calls me and said, hey, come over to the parking lot over next to the Pizza Hut. I want to talk to you real Quick. So I go over there, and he goes, hey. Just out of the blue, he said, did they give you any mental health resources after your incident? I was like, no. He was like, did you talk to any mental health professionals or anybody you know regarding the incident? I was like, no, dude. I went home. I was on administrative leave. I went to SWAT school, and then I came back, and now I'm here. And he's like, all right. And so he reaches in his console, he writes a number on a card. He's like, listen. He's like, I think that your incident has impacted you in ways that you don't understand. I was like, what are you talking about? I'm good. I'm not hurt. He's like, no, no, no. He said, I think it's impacted you in ways that you don't understand. He said, here, give this person a call. It was the emotional assistance program or whatever we had for the office. He said, give this person a call and, you know, just have a conversation. I was like, all right. All right, Roger, Sarge, I'll do it. So I put in the console. Didn't think anything about it. And then it was probably, I don't know, maybe another week or so that I was. I was at home. It was. It was nighttime. I was a day off. So I'm up at night while my family's sleeping, and I'm sitting there at the dining room table, and I'm just racking my brain, like, what. What did he mean by that? What did he mean by it might have impacted you in ways that you didn't understand or don't understand. What. What could he possibly mean? So I grabbed that card, I went to the car and got the car, and I'm sitting there looking at it, and I was like, man, I'm not. I'm not calling these people. I'm tougher than that. And then I was like, well, you can still be tough and make the phone call. You can. You can still, you know, you can do both. And so I grabbed it, and I called, and he asked me about, you know, what I had dealt with, and I told him about the incident. And then he goes, so how's the weather where you live? Because this was like, obviously, you phone in, and it could be anybody, anywhere, any therapist anywhere. How's the weather where you live? We started talking about the weather. Then we started talking about my house. Because we moved into that house. Yeah. No, we were moving into a new house coming up, and he's asking about the weather, started talking about the house, talking about everything that was going on in life. And he goes, well, it sounds like you got a lot going on. He was like, do you ever get overwhelmed by all of it? I was like, oh, yeah, all the time. And he's like, well, maybe you should think about taking a day where you and your family don't do anything but spend time together. And, like, all these things, it's. It's. It's a benefit. You know, the Bible says, a man who finds a wife finds a good thing. It's. She's a good thing. How dare I not spend time with her and just relax or just have coffee on the porch or. So I started. I started kind of doing that, and slowly but surely, she was like, yeah, I think it affected you, but you. You know, you seem fine, but you might still dwell on it. And I was like, well, I do kind of. I was like, sometimes I have dreams about it, and, you know, no big deal. She was like, I think. I think you have ptsd. And keep in mind, at this time,

[A]

this was like the counselor on the phone.

[C]

This is my wife.

[A]

Your wife was.

[C]

My wife was a psych major. She's got a master's.

[A]

She knew what was what. Yeah.

[C]

And so this is after all of the fights, the pursuits, the. You know, the. The. The times that I had to kind of overcome my own fear. You know, I was a breacher on the SWAT team for years, and there were days I was terrified, but there's a job that had to be done. So all this stuff had kind of bottled itself up, and I never used to talk about it. That day, the day she said that, I kind of looked up some of the. You know, some of the side effects and everything else from then on. At the end of my shift, like, if. Whether I was on midnight shift, day shift, evening shift, I would call my wife, and we debriefed the entire shift. I did that every shift. I still do that now. But I would call her and be like, oh, man, you're never gonna believe what happened today. Just by me talking about it instead of like, oh, I'm hiding it from her to protect her. It was detrimental to me, and I had no clues. I'm sitting here on a time bomb. And so just by me sharing that with her, now my wife and I have longer conversations, which means we spend more time together, which means the support that I give her, she now gives me in return. And things just really, really grew from there. And it really. As much as I hated to say it at the time, it enhanced my relationship. And so then I went from there, did a bunch of really cool SWAT call outs. I'll get into some more cop stories later on. But ended up tearing my acl. It was a partial tear. I was doing a SWAT event, and I think I got injured there. And then I came home, showered, put on my uniform, and went right back to work and ended up getting into a fight in the ER parking lot. And same ER where I worked security back in the day. Get into a fight in the parking lot. And of course, you know, like, I get the guy, but he, you know, he. I was hurting, and so I left there, went back to the. Back to my zone, my patrol zone. And I went on another call with another. Another deputy, one of the guys that I had trained. And I'm limping up the driveway, and he was like, dude, he's like, you can't. You can't go up there and knock on this door. You're limping. I was like, bro, it's fine. Knocked on the door, handled the call, no issue. He was like, I'm calling the supervisor. You have to go. You have to go to the hospital. And so he calls the supervisor. Supervisor calls me. He's like, hey, you got to go to the hospital. So I go to the hospital, and this is another. A separate hospital. And the doctor there, some of the ER staff knew me because I had brought so many people in from different calls and everything else, and she checks my knee, and she's like, you tore your acl? I was like, there's no way. If I tore my acl, I wouldn't be able to walk. She was like, what's your pain level? I was like, hi. She was like, can you walk fast? No. And she just looks at me like. Kind of how like your mom looks at you if you do the wrong thing. She's like. And so. So I tore my ACL and ended up dealing with that. I said, well, if I have to get the surgery, if whatever I have to do, I'll do what it takes to come back to work. And so I opted to not get the surgery because the doctor was like, look, you can do physical therapy, but it's going to take a while. So I was like, I'm. At that time, I wasn't as anti doctor, anti Big pharma, anti big medicine as I am now, but I was like, I'm going to. I'm going to. It's. Dude, it's a conspiracy theater in my house. We're all on the same page. It's wild. But so I go through. And they kept me on light duty, which immediately cut my hours, which cut my payment. And I was trying my hardest to come back to work. And one of the higher ups ended up calling me into the office and he was like, I think you're lying about your injury. Now. I told you, I'm not a liar. I don't like being called a liar. And so we exchanged words. I left his office and immediately applied to transfer to the next agency over, where I had taught a bunch of their people in the regional academy. I had a solid network there. I had gone to academy with guys from that agency, and I applied there. And by February the following year, I was hired on at that agency. And then within five years of my first shooting, I had my second one, which it was a little different, but this agency was completely different than where I had ever worked before. Higher call volume. There's a lot more going on. You're seeing and doing a lot more. And at some point, my brother, he ended up moving up to Massachusetts. I was like, hey, you should come down and do a ride along. I was like, I've been doing this for years. You've never done a ride along. You should come do one. It's not that bad. So he comes down and he does a ride along. Sure enough, it was the busiest night outside of my shootings. It was the busiest night that I've ever had. There was. I ended up with a dui stop, which they take forever. I ended up with a homicide robbery where I was first on scene. I end up with. I had another domestic violence that turned into a robbery, foot pursuit. And by the time we did all these things, my brother looks at me and goes, I want to go home. And I was like, relax, big dog. We got chick fil a for breakfast. You're going home. But this agency, it's kind of. I learned a little bit more. I realized that I was left eye dominant. I had shot 90% or better shooting like this. And so I really stepped up my game with shooting. I came off of the SWAT team and focused more on just my patrol duties. And then I ended up getting promoted. And then I got. Well, I got into a shooting January 17th. I got promoted a few months later. Then I got demoted by the end of the year. So it was an interesting year for me.

[A]

How'd the shooting go down?

[C]

So I end up having a trainee or someone he had transferred from another agency. They have to do their fto, so I have to train him to sign off. That he knows our agency policies. This guy had been in law enforcement for 20 years, but just had a terrible attitude. They were like, you need to get this number of calls and this number of traffic stops in order for us to say, you're good. He's like, man, I was head of a traffic unit. I don't have to. Bad attitude, terrible tactics as well. So we get a call on January 17, 2021. It's on a Sunday, and it was at. Right around 11, you know, during church time. If you go to the early service at 11, you're getting. You're getting out of church. If you go to the late service, you're in church service. So we get a call, and it comes from behind a chick fil A. Like, there's a. Like a. It's like a. Like a storage. But there's like, a business center back there. And we get a call from back there, and they're like, you know, subject is saying that they heard gunshots. And one of the indicators with gunshots is that multiple people will call in. So then calls started rolling in. Well, then a call came in where someone was on the phone whispering, like someone shooting outside. When you get a call, when dispatch gets a call that someone's whispering, each call steps it up, but that whispering call steps it up even further because that says someone is trying to stay safe while there's an emergency taking place. So I look at my trainee, and we were one zone over. I said, we're going to that. I said, turn on your lights and siren. Things are about to get stupid. And that's exactly what I said, dude, my dash cam videos. I'm not bragging. My dash cam videos are hilarious. I said, turn on your lights and siren. Things are about to get stupid. I said, do you know where the chick fil a is? He said, yeah. I said, go to the shopping or the business center behind the chick fil a. That's where we're going. And so while we're going there. Lights and siren. One of my buddies was the first one on scene. It was his zone. And he gets on the radio and he says, shots fired. As he's saying shots fired. I'm hearing shots while we're pulling up on scene. And my biggest fear was that one of my guys, one of my buddies, you know, is down, and I'm gonna have to, you know, render aid and try to, you know, be able to affect the threat. And so Brian is. Is standing near the hood of a car, and he's by himself. So I Remember I looked at the trainee, I grabbed my rifle because our rifles were stowed up top and I'm in the passenger seat. I grabbed my rifle, I said, I don't know where they are. Keep your head on a swivel. That was the last words I ever said to him because he quit right at like that day. Left, left stuff in my car and everything. But I grabbed my rifle and I ran up to Brian. And while I'm there, this guy shot in the. There's a guy shot, I think it was upper chest or maybe middle. He's crawling over and he's like. He's like talking. He's like, like, get me. And so I'm like, hey, one. One male shot. I gave the description, the clothing description.

[A]

Oh, this was a civilian that was shot.

[C]

Yeah, so. So the guy that shot him, he shot him and then was going back to his car. He had a full auto rifle that was in his car. So I think he shot two people and was going to get his rifle. And so when I get up to Brian, I said, brian? I said, like, I told him. I was like, because this is. He's fairly new, great cop. He's a phenomenal cop. I said, I said, don't look at me. I was like, I'm not going to look at you. Let's keep our eyes on the threat. I said, but you need to help that guy that's down. You need to help that guy that's been shot. And he goes, okay. I said, do you have a chest seal? And I asked him if he had his blowout kit, if you have your med kit. He said, I have my med kit. I said, you need to help that guy now. I said, pull him to the side of the building, start rendering aid. I said, the calvary's coming. We're good. And so I'm looking at. There's a guy on the ground.

[A]

Have his long gun out too.

[C]

No.

[A]

So that's why yours is like, I got this.

[C]

Yeah. So there was another guy that had been shot that was just kind of like sitting on the ground. Well, that was the shooter. That was the shooter, but he had gotten shot, so he just kind of fell down. He's sitting on the ground. And so I'm sitting there and I've got my rifle. And I was like, I'm not saying a word. I'm not going to say a word. There's other deputies here, they can give commands. I am taking lethal action. I was like, he's not gonna get a shot off. I was like, I'm not getting shot at again. First of all, my wife would be pissed because I told her it wouldn't happen again, which is stupid. That's a stupid thing to say. But this one I had. I had the absolute mindset, like, this guy is not gonna shoot another person. This guy's not gonna grab that gun. If he makes a move, then I'm making mine. And I remember standing there, and then I hear, like, this heavy breathing. Well, keep in mind, there's commotion behind me because there's another guy that's like, we didn't want the police. We wanted the ambulance. And he's, like, going off, and I'm like yelling. I'm like, brian, shut him up now. And so then I hear this heavy breathing, and I see a pistol right by my head. And my first sergeant, I'm not gonna say his name. He's like, I'm here.

[A]

What do you need?

[C]

I don't know how far away he parked, but this dude was moving. And I was like, okay, if we shoot this guy, I don't want this pistol to deafen me, because I already got some hearing loss I don't want. So I said. I said. I said, go help Brian. I said, there's a shield in my trunk. Go to my car. He's like, I'm on it. Thinking that that's going to occupy him long enough for us to take action. The dude. I mean, I don't know what his adrenaline level was, but he's like, all right, I'm on it. I'm back. That's how quick it was. And he was a bigger guy. And, I mean, we always. We joke with him now about how fast he ran, but he comes back.

[A]

I said, all right, what's the distance to the shooter?

[C]

I was probably 15 yards from him. And I've got. I've got cover behind a vehicle. And, I mean, it's just the whole thing, the way it played out was that we end up getting more deputies on scene. And I didn't know it, but I heard other. I heard my buddy Jimmy giving commands. So I'm. So if you're the bad guy, I'm facing you. They had an L shape, so they ended up coming. There were two other guys that were covering down. It was my buddy Jimmy, and then my buddy Bo was on the other side. And they're rendering aid. All hell's breaking loose. Because the building that they came out of, there was a party going on. It was like a cookout or something. There's people that are watching this play out. And so it's commotion. It's pandemonium. And so I calmed myself, and I just. And in my mind, I'm like, okay, there's at least one person shot. One, you know, civilian shot, possibly two. Bad guy's been shot. I know he's got a handgun. I know he's got a rifle in the car. He can't make it to the car. So I'm just sitting there, and I'm just like. I'm not saying a word. They're giving commands, sir, don't reach for the gun. Don't reach for the gun. And I think, you know, you've heard of, like, sympathetic fire, where when somebody does something on a scene like that, you do it. So he looks. The dude turns and looks right at me, and he has this scowl on his face, and he's just, like, staring at me, like, staring through my soul. And I'm like. In my mind, I'm like. I'm just looking at him like, don't do it. Don't do it. I was like, I know. I never want to be in this situation. And I'm like, just don't. Just don't do it. Then he looks back, like, down where the gun is, because he had a. So he was wearing a holster, but there was also a gun on the ground. And he looks at the gun, and I'm like. In my mind, something told me it was like, he's. He's gonna reach. And I kind of regret, like, from that standpoint, I was still thinking two and three steps ahead. And I was like, I could have a justified shooting and still be sued if I don't shoot within the parameters of my training. What do we train for? Center mass. I'm not. Initially, I had my. I had my dot on this dude's forehead. I was like, he is not. There's no way he's killing or shooting anybody else. And in that, like, split second, I said, nope, that's a lawsuit. Shoot him in the stomach. And sure enough, he goes to reach for the gun, and I shot him. And I saw my rounds hit him. I had. So we were running. I was running P mags at the time, my duty mags, I would only stack up to about 25 rounds. I wouldn't. I wouldn't fill them all the way up. And I had a marked. But when I rotated my selector from safe to semi, I heard the click. Outside of all the commotion, I heard the click. I didn't hear my own gunshots. And then I see my rounds Hit him. I see his clothing move, and then, like, this stream of, like, dark brown. Like, dark. Like it was. It probably. Probably hit his stomach. It flows out. And I remember thinking, like. And I'm standing there, still looking down my sight, and I'm like, that's disgusting. And the guy, like, doesn't go for the gun. He goes to the tough dude, goes to start crawling away. I give him the once over. I was like, now's our time to run up on him. And so we go running up there and grabbed his hands, threw the cuffs on. I had a little fixed blade that I kept on me. I cut his pants off. We start patching them up. And I was so thankful that my buddy Jimmy was a former medic, because I'm like, you know the basic. Oh, put a seal on this. Put a seal on this. Pack this with gauze wrap. We're doing all the basics, but this was so much more elaborate than that because I didn't realize how many times a dude had been shot. And so Jimmy goes, all right, we need to roll him over. And I'm like, all right, cool. No problem. So I go to roll him over. You ever seen Jaws when they realize how big Jaws is? Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

When I rolled them over and this is on my body cam, I literally said out loud, we're gonna need a bigger boat. Nobody on scene caught the reference. Nobody knew what the heck I was talking about. But what I was saying was, like, I can't fix these exit wounds. These are too massive. And at this time, like, again, I had blood all over me, and you could start to smell. Jimmy shot him in the butthole. He called it a Texas heart shot. I. When the guy started to crawl or when the guy turned over to reach, he shot him in the butthole. It was really weird. But so by this time, I see the cavalry showing up. The. The medics are coming up. There's other deputies coming up. And the captain comes over to me, goes, who shot? I said, I did. He said, I need your guns. This is an active scene. He takes my guns. He says. He says, go over there. He gives me an escort, says, go stand by that car. You have to wait. And so I go wait, and everything cools down. They're like, all right, we're going to start the admin portion, which is completely different. My. My first shooting, I was complacent. My guard was down. This shooting, I kind of had an idea of what it was before I ever headed in that direction, so now my demeanor is just a little different. So Brian asked me. He's like, dude, what do I do? I said, well, there's going to be stuff on social media. I said, call your wife. Say a bunch of stuff went down at work. Just know squad's good. Just say it like that. I said, don't give her detail because she's going to worry all day long. Tell her the squad's good. I did the same thing. I called my wife. I said, hey, babe. I was like, what are y' all up to? And I always try to. I always throw out that question to kind of, you know, get her, let her guard down a little bit. What are y' all up to? Oh, I'm doing such and such. I was like, okay. I was like, yeah, we got a bunch of crazy stuff going on at work. I was like, we're all good, but I'm probably gonna have to work late. She was like, again? I was like, yeah. I was like, but it's no big deal. She's like, all right, well, what do you want me to make for dinner? And I was like, oh, geez, I don't know. And I'm like, sitting here, and my response on the back end of just shooting a person is way different than what it was the first time. And I attribute a lot of that to some of the. Just the mental toughness and resiliency that I built over time through talking to someone and getting it off my chest, but because I wasn't complacent. And so we talk, and so I end up going back to the office, and they put us all in the same room. And I said. I called the lt. I was like, lt. I was like, we're not supposed to be in the same room. I was like, this. This is not supposed to happen like this. Like, we can't, because we're in there talking, like. And I'm. These are my boys. So I'm like, hey, y' all good? Like, you know, and it was just really cool because we had this time to, like, interact before. They were, wait, wait, you guys have to be separate. So then they separated us, and my buddy Kevin, who went through the academy with, was my escort. So we go into a separate office. The LT comes in, like, what do y' all want? I was like, pizza. I want pepperoni, bacon, and jalapenos. And I'd also like a Dr. Pepper, please. And so I was like, I'm on it. And he goes running down the hall, and so he brings us. They end up delivering food, and they bring us food. I'm Sitting there, we're kind of reminiscing, and I'm just talking to Kevin about. Because he was an MP in the army, so we're talking about army stuff, and we're talking about, you know, some of the overseas missions, and it was just really cool. And I was like, Kev. I was like, do you think they'll mind if I take my gun belt off? I was like, it's kind of uncomfortable sitting in these seats. I was like, I know I'm going to be here for a while. He's like, yeah, you can take it off. He's like, just set it on my cubicle, which is back. It's out of. It's out of sight. So that way it's not just sitting out here. And remember, I told you about my. My humor. I've got. I've got dark humor, and it's. It's. It's situationally dependent, and I would never kind of crack this joke around an audience that I didn't know. But I take my belt off, and I go over to Kev's cubicle. So I'm out of line of sight. I was like, hey, Kev, what if I just ended it all right now? And, man, Kev came running. Kev was a wrestler. Kev in wrestling, in jiu jitsu. Kev came running around and immediately came over and, like, was, like, about to grab. I was like, oh. I was like, I'm not. He's like, dude. He was like, don't joke like that. I was like, my bad dog. Like, I'm. They used to call me Dennis the Menace. I was like, it's because I'm a menace. I was like, I apologize. So we go sit down, and I go to do my interview, and I go into the interview room, and the detective comes in, and immediately when the door closes, I have this adrenaline dump. And everything that I had done, I was like, if I had gone left instead of right, if I had gone over here, if I had gone. Because initially I didn't know the guy had a gun on him. So I was like, if I had just run in to try to grab him, and I had this adrenaline dump. And I remember standing there, and of course, I'm a little older at this time, and I don't drink energy drinks, but if I do, I get the Shakespeare, and it's like. It's like Tom Hanks and Saving Private Ryan. I get. I get the. And so I get that. And the detective's like, are you okay? I was like, yeah, this is how my body regulates itself. It's kind of a pain, but it's, it's got to run its course. I'm good, so go through my interview. And at the end of the interview, the detective goes, oh, we put together some resources for you and your wife. I'm like, this is unheard of. The last one was like, hey, good job, son, go on home. This one, they put together a whole binder, like a law enforcement and law enforcement spouse specific binder of resources. And I went home, told my wife what happened. She was like, oh, you know, again, like, she was, she kind of, kind of disappointed, but she was like, well, how do you feel about it? And I told her. I was like, I did so much better this time. I said, because of the things that I got from last time. So we go through the binder and we do like, it's got like activities and conversation things like conversation prompts that you can do. And we did that. Come to find out that the guy lived and in Virginia, they have three years to sue you. And the clock started from day one. So now I'm on administrative leave. I get a call from the sheriff and I've known that, I've known the sheriff from well before I started working there. And he used to go to, we used to go to the same gym. And he's talking, he's like, look, man, he's like, don't second guess yourself. You guys did the absolute right thing. He's like, there's not, he's like, there's no one else that I would have rather had handle that call than the group of guys that handled that call. He said you guys were professional. He said, you guys didn't waste any time. He said, further, you didn't give that guy any leeway to hurt anybody else because the guy that he shot ended up dying. Come to find out, it was, it was headed towards an active shooter. I don't think it counts as an active shooter. He shot two people. One of them died.

[A]

Sounds pretty active to me.

[C]

Yeah. But he was really reassuring and part of the, you know, still there was some out of touch leadership because I had another person in leadership that called me. I was like, oh, I've never shot anybody, but I've had my finger on the trigger several times. And I'm like, dude, I don't, I don't want to talk to you right now. It's like if someone comes to you and says, oh, I finished basic training, so we can, I can relate to you with SEAL stuff. You can't you can't. There's no correlation there. And there's. And so I really. It kind of upset me because I'm like, why. Why are we talking? And so he talked the majority of the conversation. I said, yes, sir, I'm good. We ended the conversation, which. That same person in leadership actually came to teach a breacher course to the patrol units. Here I am, SWAT team breacher. I was in an engineer battalion before that, and here I am with this experience with breaching, and he's like. He's holding up a Halligan, and he's like, so what you want to do is you look for the hinges. And then. And I'm. And I'm just sitting there, and I'm like. And he's like, of course I can teach this class because I'm. I'm in leadership. I'm a lieutenant. I can teach this class. And I'm like. So it was. It was that same guy, and. And I'm just like, you know what? I get it on. On paper, paperwork. You're. You're the guy. I was like. But as far as, like, person to person, you know, And I had. The sheriff called me, like, hey, I can't relate, but, you know, I've known you for a while, and I just need to know you're good. And so it really showed me, like, my. My leadership and just the diversity and how the different approaches and different leadership styles. But I made it through that, and then. Then got promoted, and then. I can't really talk about the demotion, but if you ever do send out a group chat or a group message, make sure that people who have common last names make sure it's the right person. That's what I'll leave it at that. Got demoted, moved to evening shift, and

[A]

must have been a real good zinger.

[C]

Yeah. And then after I got demoted, check this out. I get the highest award in the county, which was the Medal of Valor. I get the Medal of Valor. So I'm at my medal of Valor ceremony, and they had to redo my plaque because initially it said sergeant, but then they had to switch it, so. But yeah, that was my. That was a big moment for me because even though we did have to take action, I saw it as a victory, not just because of what happened, but because of how it was handled afterwards. And it just. You know, it kind of. Kind of rode that out for a little while. And I don't know, it's just. It's been a weird, weird journey that I've taken, and some Good, some bad, some ugly. Mostly. Mostly ugly. But most. A lot of good. A lot of good in there.

[A]

So then at what point did you start doing social media type stuff?

[C]

So I started. So when I tore my acl, I had bought a camera when my first kid was born. I bought it from the PX. It was like 200 bucks. It was a DSLR camera. It was my first like, non. Just like point and shoot camera. And so while I was. While I was on light duty or while I was on no duty at all, I'd stay up at night and watch videos on how to learn. I just typed in, how do I use my camera? And then that led me to, you know, these YouTubers who not only do photography, but they do video. So I started, started shooting with this camera. And I told my wife, I was like, hey, I think I want to do photography, like as an outlet. And she was like, well, that's a lot better than going and spending all your time at the gym. And I was like, I'm still gonna. Still gonna lift weights, but. So I dove into this and I started shooting and I was like, I told her, I said, I'm gonna start a photography Instagram. And through that photography Instagram, I linked up with some other veterans, some veteran street photography groups, like around when. When. Well, Covid was still kind of a thing, got into doing street photography. And this was a little bit before the shooting that I started getting into street photography. And I loved it. Cause I could just meet with a group of guys, other guys that were veterans and veterans of law enforcement.

[A]

What is street photography?

[C]

So street photography, you go out into a city, urban area, or whatever setting you want to, and you create your shot, you find a subject. So it's not necessarily you setting something on a table and saying, I'm gonna take a photo of this. It's you going out. And, you know, you shoot strangers, you shoot events. And my thing was I like to chase shadows and light.

[A]

I just did that in New York City. My street photography.

[C]

I did New York City.

[B]

Charles, you're very talented.

[A]

Props or what?

[C]

Certified.

[A]

No props, but people. And I was putting just like, what in the. The caption? I was just like putting like thoughts in, in my head about what those pictures might make someone think about.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And people were reading all. Yeah, I had literal people text me like, hey, is everything okay?

[B]

They were texting me about that. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

Like, because, you know, I. I forget what some of them were. But, you know, is this where it's supposed. You know, is if this is the end, one of them was like, yeah, yeah. If this isn't the end, what is? Because it was like a picture of, like, construction scaffolding, and it kind of like went down a path, and it was at night, and it looked kind of like, oh, this must be the end.

[C]

That's street photography.

[A]

Yeah. So I was doing straight up street photography. Didn't know it at the time.

[B]

Well, you tech in a. I mean.

[A]

And I put them in quotes. Like, I put my. The caption I put in quotes, as if to say, like, this would be. Not. This is me talking. This is like a character or whatever. Right, right.

[B]

Okay. Okay. I didn't gather that part of it, but, you know, but even.

[C]

Even your.

[B]

Your gym photographs.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, that's. I mean, it's not out. Out on the street, so you can't call it street photo, but it's the exact same.

[A]

Those are gym photography.

[C]

Yeah. Well, it's like.

[B]

Yeah, just like I said, it's like

[C]

finding compositions and have the. Have the photo tell the story.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, you'd be into that because you find, you know, like, you're the kind where you'll find it. You'll see, like, oh, I like how that perspective.

[A]

You're gonna do an assessment with me when we're done. I'll show you my Instagram. Street photography from New York City.

[C]

I'll give you a grade. I'll read it.

[A]

No people in them.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Except for. No, there was one.

[C]

It's tough to get people, though, because it's very awkward if I don't know you too. But some of the best street photographers, that's what they do, they capture people. And these photos tell stories. And so I dove into Chasing Shadows. So, like, we'd go in the evening. We go, like, right at the tail end of, like, golden hour. And you could see the buildings casting different shadows to where you could have a walkway where two people are side by side. One person's in the light, one person's in a shadow. That's a cool shot. So chasing that. But it also teaches you to learn your camera on the fly because you have to constantly adjust your aperture. You have to constantly. Like, if I didn't. I wasn't using prime lenses at the time. A prime lens only shoots at one focal length, so if you got 50 millimeters, that's all you got. If you've got 85, that's all you got. I was shooting with a 24 to 70, which I eventually switched to an 85 because 85 is just awesome because you don't have to get close to strangers. But we learned, I learned like if, if you take a picture, there's no expectation of privacy in public. So you're not outside of the law. But if someone asks you to delete it, show them you deleting the photo. And so that taught me more along the lines of searching for that composition, but being a stand up person and saying, you know, I'm, I'm not using this for nefarious reasons. I am using this because I need to learn how to use this camera. So I did that for a long time and I ended up buying a camera from a buddy of mine. Because cameras, cameras never go out of style. They just circulate, right? You got camera guys that sell their cameras to other camera guys and those camera guys and it just, it circulates. So I ended up picking up a older camera and this camera actually shot video. And so I've got this camera and I was like, you know what? I can shoot weddings. I can shoot because Covid weddings, they're smaller. There's a lot of people that I know that are getting married that are having these little 20 person weddings. I could shoot a wedding. If I can shoot street photography, I can shoot a wedding in the backyard and immediately got a wedding. I think they paid me like 1500 bucks.

[A]

Dang.

[C]

And it was a great time. I actually, I still know the family, but it was a great time. And I was like, this is, this is, I'm onto something. And then so I shot a little quick video at the reception. I was like, this video looks great. I'm a videographer now. And so now I added.

[A]

Sounds like Echo's career Pat.

[B]

Exactly.

[C]

Yeah. I added that to my website. I bought a domain at the time I added that to the website. I came up with Instagram, or I'd started my Instagram. If you scroll all the way back to the, the beginning of my Instagram, it's food and product photography. I'll never delete those photos because that's like part of my journey. And so through doing that, I made, you know, kingpix Media. It's short for Kingdom Pictures and Media. When we went to homeschool our kids, we changed. We, we named our school Kingdom Preparatory Academy. It's kind of after Seek ye first, the Kingdom of God. That's kind of where every, everything that we do, it's kind of faith based. And so that's where kingpix Media was born. Cause initially it was like everything is kingdom pictures and media. And I was like, that's too much to say. There's too many syllables. So I came up with kingpix Media, and I linked up with. I was at one of our favorite restaurants, one of our favorite local Italian restaurants. I see a guy with his camera tethered to a MacBook, and they're bringing him plates, and he's taking pictures of the food. And I was like, wait, this guy is the. He's the restaurant, like, photographer? He is. He photographs their online menu, their Instagram, he does all of their marketing. So I go over and I introduce myself and we start talking. He was like. He was like, you wanna. You wanna come by and just hang out for a shoot? I was like, yes. So I started working with him. And so I was just going and learning as much as I could. And then one day he was like, hey, do you think you could shoot some video for me? I'm trying to, you know, upscale my business. I need something, you know, video for the video portfolio. I was like, yeah. So I bring all of my stuff, I shoot this video for him. And I was like, oh, yeah, I'm definitely a videographer now. And started trying to market be like, hey, I shoot weddings, but I can also shoot video. Zero clients. I had zero clients. I wasn't shooting weddings or videos. I had nothing. And it was like, I had this. It was this genius business idea, or so I thought, and it's going nowhere. And my wife was like, well, you already bought the website. Like, you. You already, you know, are you gonna do this business or not? I was like, yes. I was like, I have to, because I opened a business account, I got the business through the state and everything else, did all the tax paperwork and everything. So I have this business. I just have to do something with it. And I was like, I have no clients. I have really no interest. Nobody's really. The website traffic was near zero, and you can advertise for free on Instagram. And so at the time, I had just gotten over onto TikTok, and I wasn't really big. I wasn't sold on TikTok, but I was like, you know what? If I'm gonna start making videos, I'm just gonna post them on TikTok. Nobody's gonna see them. It's not gonna go anywhere. And if it does go somewhere, then I got business. So, you know, it was a win win. And so I posted a video. I actually ended up. I slung a rifle and I went out into the yard and I made fun of every single instructor that I've ever worked with every single instructor that I've ever had. There was something in there. And even now, like, there's a lot

[A]

of material to choose from.

[C]

And it. Listen, so our good friend, our mutual friend, Zach Bell, veteran with a sign. He has been my biggest fan throughout the entirety of it. And he told me when we first met, he said, you've got evergreen content. And I'm like, what does that mean? He's like, there's always going to be something for you to pull from. He said, the way your jokes are, they're not, you're not talking about, you know, I told my wife, I was like, they're not all dick jokes. They're not all, you know, just rude humor. It's not all, like, ball sack, like, oh, you're near Porter John, and, and such, and such. And it's 150 degrees. And she's like, you know, your, your, your content's different. So Zach had kind of, you know, coached me along, and he was, I was like, well, what should I do? He's like, just keep doing what you're doing. And so I posted this video of me making fun of this range instructor, thinking, it's not going anywhere. I, I, I have a very solid bedtime, like my bedtime. 10 o', clock. If I'm up, it's because I'm working on something. 10 o', clock, usually I'm in bed. So I posted and I went to bed and I woke up the next day and my buddy, one of my street photography buddies, hit me up and he was like, dude, you just went viral. He was like, you need to start doing this more. You just went viral. And I looked at 4,000 views. Overnight, I had gained like 500 followers, which is not really viral. But for me, going from zero to that, it was like, I'm on to something. I'm really onto something. So what I did for the next two and a half months was I shot a video every single day. Every single day I shot a video. And I.

[A]

What year was this?

[C]

Oh, geez. 20. It was 21. No, it was 20. It's 2020.

[A]

How long? What do you think? You, we found this guy. How long ago was that?

[B]

I don't know when. I don't know if that was that first video or what.

[A]

Well, it was on Instagram. For sure.

[B]

It was on Instagram.

[C]

So Instagram was way later for me. Yeah, it was 2020. But the first actual videos that I have, there's two videos that I did during COVID that I Edited on my phone. Like, I didn't have a laptop. I didn't have. Like, it was. It was rough. And I edited them on my phone, and I found out that I could just use different editing apps. And I edited these videos. I only shared them on Facebook because Facebook is family and friends and people I went to high school with. That's it. But I shared them on Facebook, and the response was like, oh, wow, you did this? This is great. And so I got the kids incorporated in it, and we did, like, this whole Covid series. And it's very much. It's a pretty. It's pretty. It's primitive video, but it. It. The content is funny. And so when I started doing it and posting on TikTok, I was just posting every day, and it was just growing and growing and growing. And I started to see. This was at a time when military content creators posted sitting in their cars in uniform and were like, you know, I saw this in the news, but I'm a sergeant in the army, so let me tell you my take on it. And it's like. And so I saw that people placed value in people that were like, look at me. And I was like, what if I just go in there and make fun of all those people that are taking themselves too seriously? And that's what I did. And I rubbed a lot of. Listen, I ruffled a lot of feathers. A lot of feathers. And people were like, oh, Well, I have 600,000 followers, so you'll never be on my level. There's no way you could be funnier than me because I have more followers. And I just. That was just fuel for the fire. And I just started posting. I call it posting and Roasting. I started posting and roasting and making fun of these people. Next thing you know, I get invited to Shot Show. And we actually started. Some friends of mine, we started a small business called. It was called Wins Chow because that was my initial tagline.

[A]

Yeah. And what is Wind's Child gone?

[C]

Technically, yes.

[A]

How come?

[C]

So Winds Chow.

[A]

That was freaking classic, dude. Especially from the military, dude. No one gives a shit about anything. They'll be like, exactly. Hold on. Winchow.

[C]

Exactly. And that's something that applies across all branches. But also, we have another demographic that we apply to the Department of Corrections. These inmates prioritize chow, just like we do in the military. So. But yeah, so we started this. We started this. We opened up at.

[A]

Did you retire Wins Chow?

[C]

No, we have an llc. Or we had an llc, and we started doing merch through third party. And that third party ended up. It was. It started out and it was great. I wasn't really making money off of it because of what we were spending, but the business kept itself afloat. We ended up butting heads from that third party. And he tried to. He said, hey, I've got you on the hook for 80 grand. I was like, no, you don't. We don't have that much inventory. Like, there's. There's no way. And he was like, well, I'm gonna take y' all to court. So there were three of us. So one of. One of us dropped out and was like, hey, I'm, you know, I'm looking at going into doing real estate. I can't have this. Like, I'm out. So I was like, all right, cool, no problem. But with the three of us, we never made any decisions unless all three of us were on board with it. And so when the third party came on, we all we saw was the production quality and the value and everything else. And we're like, oh, yeah, let's. It's a no brainer. Let's do it. Come to find out, it wasn't a good choice. And he said that you guys have, you know, 60,000 in inventory and you have another however many thousand. I think the total was like 150 grand. He was like, you have this much in contracts. And I said, and we were on a zoom call, and I'm recording on my phone. And I told him. I was like, hey, I'm recording. I said, who approved contracts? What member of Winchow LLC approved contracts? Where do we sign up with contracts with these big cloth clothing manufacturers? He goes, well, you guys, you guys had a verbal contract. I said, who agreed in the verbal contract? Well, you guys just. You nodded your heads. I said, listen, we're not on the hook. You're on the hook. And he was like, all right, that's it. I'm taking you to court. I said, okay, show me what inventory you have in stock. He's like, all right, well, I'll have to call you back. Okay. He gets off the phone. He's like, or I talked to my partner and I was like, hey, bro, if we go to jail, we go to jail, like. And it wasn't that serious. I was like, but if he's gonna sue us, it is what it is. We're already. But we have everything that we need to prove ourselves because again, I'm documenting everything. And he never calls me back with the inventory.

[A]

Yeah, that's a bummer.

[B]

Man.

[C]

And so all of the stuff that we had in stock, he ended up. They ended up creating. So they owned our domain. They bought the domain for how I invented Combat Solutions Group Industries, which I don't know if you noticed. CSGI instructor, lead instructor. That's right. But so they bought the. They bought the domain for those. And so I'm screwed. Out of domain. What I still had was my kingpix media [e-mail] and I had the realwinschild.com because I went out and bought that as well. And so we started whatever we could. That's what we used to kind of keep things afloat. And they ended up creating an Instagram page. And it's. It said. I don't know what it was called. It was something real. Winds Chow, or who is the real Wins Chow. And they created this. This Winds Chow page. And they were just slandering us in the comments on all over Instagram and they were using our logo. And so I said, oh, wait a second, my partner owns that logo. He created it. And so I did a video and I said, you know what's interesting? I was like, it's interesting when people think you're stupid. I said, they created this Instagram page that's slandering our Instagram page on everybody else's. And they follow like a thousand people, but there's only three people that they follow. And it's all the three people that work for that third party that was trying to charge us with this money. And to this day, I have not publicly mentioned that company. Like I said, they did us dirty. They tried to rake us over the coals. I've never publicly, because that company's still around, but once I called them out, they deleted their Instagram. And then I haven't heard from them since. And of course, we ended up not having to pay that money. We still own, you know, we still own Winchild, we still own all of the logos that we came up with. We still own everything, all the intellectual property behind it. So we're actually. We're slated for revamp this year because I kind of.

[A]

Let's get it going.

[C]

Well, I took it. And so what I did was I brought it back under kingpix Media. So my entire merch line, it's on my website. But we go through the same as like Zach and Fat Electrician, we go through the same. It's the same company. So I have Punch out and go to work shirts that people just. They. Some people, they're like, we don't know about these. And I'm like, I promote them all the time. I have the CSGI instructor shirts. I came out with red hoodies for range instructors. I've done all of these different. And I'm starting to now do my own logos to where endless opportunities for. For merch. But it's just. It's been so crazy because it's like I went from 0 to 100, from not knowing how to do it and having someone else doing it, getting screwed over, to now facilitating it myself. And so whenever I. Whenever I go somewhere, I'll wear a CSGI shirt. And right now, right now, there's a handful of them that are all throughout the world. Like, there's. So I'll get a picture and it'll be someone in Dubai. Like, that happened last year. Someone was in Dubai with a CSGI shirt. There's a guy that's in Paris today with a CSGI shirt. So it's like this fake company that I've created is growing, and it's a thing, and it's exactly like what Zach said. It's evergreen content. It'll never get old because there's always going to be someone telling some story to make themselves look way cooler than what they are, and there's always going to be these instructors that know it all, but have done not much. So it's been awesome. It's been phenomenal.

[A]

When did you switch over to using Instagram?

[C]

I had started using Instagram. Well, I used it back during my bodybuilding career. I started bodybuilding in 2009, and I really got into it, and I ended up doing. I did. My first show was the Sean Ray Classic in Baltimore. I did that, and I got second for men's Novice with no coach, no trainer, barely even a tan to go on stage with, outside of the natural tan that the Lord's bestowed upon me. But I. I did that show and did really well. And then I started using Instagram for fitness. And I actually built an Instagram in the past, up to. I think it was like, at 1200 followers. So I had the idea of how to do it. I think I always had the recipe. And then I don't know if you remember the app Vine.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do, because I have kids.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And, you know, my kids at the time when vine was. Was popular. Yeah, it was popular with kids. And my kids were like, watching the vine, so I got to see it.

[C]

So vine was the first platform that I had a huge following on. I had over a million loops On Vine.

[A]

What were you doing on Vine?

[C]

It was. It was just like, stupid videos. And then somehow. This is. This is crazy. I'm a. I'm a perpetual learner. I love to learn new phrases and new languages. I loved. I just love to learn. I enjoy it. And so I started to notice that there's a heavy Indian population in Canada. This is when I first really started to notice, like, things in other countries and everything else. Well, they all speak Punjabi. And I was like, how cool would it be if I do a video introducing myself in their lane in Punjabi? So I learned how to do it. I did it. I didn't know this at the time, but their community, when they see people that want to embrace their culture, oh, they love it. So next thing you know, I'm part of what's called Punjabi vine, and I'm doing collabs with people that are in New York, Toronto, like, and it's. It's insane. It was insane. And so I learned how to tie a turban, which out. There's. There's no videos of me wearing a turban, but I was. I was almost there, but I became this. This Punjabi personality while being an intel guy, you know, and it just. It was. It was cool. So that's where it started. So I think that I've always had the recipe for it, but I'm only just now starting to see, okay, how can I do this at a pace that fits my life? Because like I told you, I don't ever want to get to a point where I consume more content than I create. If I do that, the scales aren't balanced. And so now I still. I just started creating and shooting. And I never overlapped military. Well, I never overlapped law enforcement and content creation. I was. To a point, even if I was editing videos on my phone, I would not edit if I was on the clock. I never wanted there to be any opportunity for someone to say, oh, well, you're doing this so you're not focused on your job. And I had that one time, and I completely shut it down. I was like, no, I don't do that. That's not something I do. I'm here for a job. That's my side business. That's by itself. But I've never actually, I think the big allure behind me was that I never opened up about any of my past, because who am I to say, oh, well, you should follow me because of what I've done? No, you should follow me because it's funny and it benefits You. Laughter is the best medicine. And I got a Ph.D. kind of.

[A]

Has anyone ever gotten like. Has anyone ever gotten mad at you?

[C]

Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, absolutely. People.

[A]

So have they ever, like, messaged you and said, yes, bro, you should. This is really.

[C]

They say it's stolen valor. They say it. They say, oh, that's stolen valor. Because I won't tell them, oh, I got it. And so it's like, everyone.

[A]

Have you ever made anyone mad enough that they've messaged you and said, like, hey, this is, you know, I don't want you to take. You shouldn't say. So you're trying to make fun of me in my good video or something like that. Because I think the first time I saw your. Your videos, the first one, I think I just immediately. I think it was about me.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And I immediately reposted it. Well, classic.

[C]

I did one that Eddie Gallagher shared, the first one that I did that kind of blew. Blew my stuff up. But when I met Eddie, he said that he thought that I was being serious, and so he said it wasn't until further down the road. So Eddie, super cool guy. Like, it was. It was really cool. Like, I gotcha. But people have gotten mad and have been like, well, who does this guy think he is? He's never done anything. And it's like, you're right, I've never done anything. But guess what? I'm funny. And also, you're wrong because I have done things, but not leading with what I've done. So I didn't realize how prevalent that was. People just lead off with that rather than good idea can come from anywhere. And now I'm starting to see more satire, content. And I love it. I love it because that's what I set out to do and that's what I'm doing. Hopefully I get to a point where I can start to actually turn a bigger profit and make it something that's more sustainable as a business in and of itself. But it's just. It's fun for me and it's my creative outlet.

[A]

So what are you up to now? What's. You got a podcast now too, right?

[C]

Yeah, So I actually, I actually just picked up co host for podcasts with my good buddy Kyle. I don't know if you got. If you know, Kyle Morgan are familiar with his story. Former Delta Force guy. He and I have known each other in passing over the years, and he had a host or a co host, but his co host, they, they. They parted ways amicably. They were. They're. You know, good to go. They were like, hey, you know, we're not going to, you know, it's not going to be this long, drawn out thing. And something told me, hey, I should send him a message. Be like, hey, you know, you're not that. You're only a few hours away from me. If you need somebody to fill in, I don't mind. Like, I'm, I'm flexible. I'm willing to do whatever you need. He's like, well, I'd like to have you as a guest and just see how it flows. So I go down and I was a guest and I met his whole production team and met his wife and met the kids and we, we had dinner and then I ended up staying the night. We shot. We shot on the first day. We went to the range and shot some more the second day. And he and I have just gotten super close over the, the time that I've been there. And it just, it's, it's a huge benefit because he runs the podcast and he's also got the training company. He also does speaking engagements depending on, you know, the time of the year. But he teaches mainly law enforcement, but he's got civilian courses where they're open to everybody. And he's running just an insane production down there. And I told him, I was like, look, dude, I'm just glad to be a part of this. He and I have similar, you know, faith, we have similar beliefs and kind of have a similar story. And it's just really cool to sit down and talk with him and look at the comments and see how people are relating to us. But that's called the Black and Blue podcast, and that's been phenomenal to be a part of because that lets me, that lets me be a character without having to worry about production. Even though we sit and we have those Echo Charles conversations about what aperture these cameras are shooting at, we have those conversations. But it's a production that I've kind of fallen into. And so far, like, we had a conversation. It was, it was me and Kyle and then his wife and then my wife. My wife's never been involved in any of my business ventures. And for her to be involved in this, she, she loves it. And so outside of that, I, I did start streaming. I started streaming a while back, but never really, like, I wasn't, I wasn't all in on it. Whereas now I stream every day. I stream every single day.

[A]

Do that on the Twitch.

[C]

On the Twitch. I stream on Twitch and Kick. And I've actually started Twitch Instagram channel. So I have kingpix Media as my main Instagram. Then kingpix Media TV is the streaming channel. And I've been streaming, and I. Dude, I talk about politics, social events. I talk about, you know, whatever's in the news. I don't necessarily take sides. I will call. If something's stupid, I'll call it stupid. But I get on the Internet, and for anywhere from one to three hours a night, I talk and I take these episodes and I get clips from them. And I'm trying to grow the channel now. So right now, I think the most we hit was 200 subscribers. But I'm trying to. I'm trying to shatter that goal. And slowly but surely, like, it's. It's working. Like, I'm kind of being more recognizable. Twitch there, it's hard to grow organically, so you have to use Instagram, YouTube and everything else. But I've been streaming every single day. And we just did our first, like, major giveaway. I've been talking with the guys, good folks at Safari Land, and we have. I have an announcement for a giveaway for the Incog holster. At some point, I'm going to be giving away like. Like, I don't know, like X300, the surefire pistol lights, doing shirt giveaways, hoodie giveaways. So that really kind of keeps people in. But Twitch is the best way to talk to me because I have people that I've never met that have seen my Instagram, and they might send a flurry of messages. I don't really check messages on Instagram, but if you're in my chat, that's a good way for us to have a conversation. So that's been the main line.

[A]

They're sending typed messages to you in the chat.

[C]

They can type them up. So I do have this thing where you can send, like, a speaking message, but I don't think. I don't. I got to talk to my assistant. I don't know. And he's gonna kill me for saying his name. But my buddy Snow Ox is. He was the one who's supposed to be here with me today. He. He has showed. He's given me the game. He's shown me the ins and outs, and he's never asked for a thing. He's never asked for a thing. He came and he helped me shoot Las Vegas Range Day that I went to, and he was my camera guy, and he just. He just gives so much time and effort in support of my channel. And he's been my Assistant for the last. It's almost been two years now. And it's just amazing because he knows twitch and discord. I have no clue. Discord is weird because it's like, that's where you go. And people can post memes and you have different channels. It's tough to keep up with. But he is on it. So if someone says something. We had a guy that said something that was disrespectful to me and my family. I said, no. I said, that guy said that because he's angry. Let him stick around. He was like, all right, but next strike, he said, just give me the sign. I said, people, you have two opportunities. The first time, if you're angry, if you speak out of anger and you post something that's detrimental to or disparaging to me, I get it. But the second time you do that, you're out. And he is on it. Like, he's always, like, chomping at the bit to ban people. And he's like. He's like my assistant slash nerd security. Because the people just say some crazy things on the Internet. And so it's been awesome. It really has.

[A]

Internet. Internet be getting wild. Sometimes it do. And you're back active duty with the National Guard. Is that right where you're at right now?

[C]

Yeah. So I was at a point on the law enforcement side where there was a lot that I was seeing with leadership that from my perspective, I could be wrong. I always say this from my perspective. Certain members of leadership were out of touch, and they. They were. There was a lot that was going on that I didn't agree with on the leadership side. There were things operationally that I didn't agree with. And just from looking at things from a tactical side, like, hey, this just happened. We should do this. Well, no, I'm in charge here. And like, they made it a point to say I'm in charge. So it's like, okay, I respect the

[A]

rank, but when you have to say you're in charge, it's not a good sign.

[C]

Exactly. But I ended up having this opportunity on the counter drug Task force and being with my experience in law enforcement and also doing surveillance and pattern of life and all the recon stuff that I've. That I've done over the years, I can translate that to either teach or to be a part of a team. So I got assigned. Got assigned almost two years ago. And then I had another assignment. There was an agency that was building their sniper program. They were also. They were switching over to pistol mounted Optics. And the people who were building the curriculum for this agency had no clue, like, well, what. What is a. What is the difference between, you know, getting a slide milled or buying, you know, the. The Glocks that, you know, the. The ones that already have it? And I said, oh, my gosh. Okay. So I helped build that curriculum. I got moved from that assignment to another assignment, but I've been doing pretty much counter drug task force and narcotics for the last two years.

[A]

Nice. Yeah. Freaking legit.

[C]

A lot of rides in helicopters, which I don't. I don't like.

[A]

Well, right on, man. Speaking of rides, been a wild ride for you so far?

[C]

Yeah, it has. It has been wild.

[A]

Is that. Does that get us up to speed? What. Anything else we need to hit on?

[C]

Geez, now that. I think that's. That's. That's everything. I have been working very closely with. I don't know if you've heard of, like, the Unsubscribe podcast and those guys.

[A]

I've. Oh, no, I haven't been on that. I've been on the adjacent podcast.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

With the fat electrician and Zach. Okay, what's their podcast?

[C]

Underwhelming.

[A]

I've been on the Underwhelming. He was so underwhelming that I didn't remember the name. Sorry, boys. No, yeah, they're great.

[C]

They're.

[A]

They're freaking classic. And. And I had both those guys on my podcast.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Zach's been on also as well. Solo. But. Yeah. Yeah, I know those guys. Yeah.

[C]

So I've been working with.

[A]

And Brandon Herrera, who's going to win the seat that he's running for in Texas.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

After the other guy was a dirt bag.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Which was pretty epic.

[C]

So that I've been working with those guys. So Donut operator or Cody, He. He came up to D.C. or they all were in D.C. for Army 250. And I do work with Echelon Energy Drink. Not Echelon front, but Echelon Energy. I work very closely with them because anytime I go to Nashville, I can stay at Eric's house. I'll go to the warehouse, I'll give them. I'll give them content ideas. They literally. I'm kind of in a creative director position there. So Eric had missed his flight, or something happened with the flights where the Echelon was on a suitcase that was delivered to dca, but Eric was still in Nashville. So Tyler and I. Tyler Vargas Andrews. We live within 20 minutes of each other. He's over at the house, over at the range all the time. We're on the way home, and I'm like, dude, I'm tired. Let's just go home. So we're heading home. Eric calls and says, hey, there's a suitcase at the airport. I need you to pick it up and take it back to D.C. because the unsub guys need it. And I'm like. And in my mind, all I can hear is Dionne Warwick singing that's what Friends Are For. That's. I'm literally here.

[A]

Soundtracks or whatever it is.

[C]

It is, it is. And I. I looked at. I said. I said, tyler. I was like, I'm. I'm gonna. I gotta have to buy you a meal, man. I was like, we gotta. We gotta turn around and do this. So Tyler's like, it's all good. And he's. He takes his handicap placard and puts it on the. On the windshield.

[A]

Let's roll.

[C]

And he's like, let's go. So we go to the airport. He's like, no one's gonna ask me to move. He's like. He's like, you go inside, get the suitcase. Come on out. We'll take it to D.C. so we end up taking it to D.C. of course, they're in this hotel where parking was, like, atrocious. So keep in mind, handicapped placard's still up there. So the guy sees Tyler get out, you know, missing an arm and a leg. And I said. I said. I talked to the security. He's like, hey, y' all can't park. I said, listen. I was like, this man is a war hero. We're going upstairs to see our friends for the first time in a long time, which is not a lie. It's true. I was like, you can find five minutes to let us leave this car. Here he goes. Oh, I recognize him. I was like, that's exactly who this is. You can. He's like, oh, man. Y' all good? I was, all right, cool. So we go upstairs, and of course, we were up. We end up being up there for, like, an hour or so, but it's all the unsubbed guys. And it was almost like. It was almost like someone. Someone bringing you hot chow at the end of a training evolution. They were like, oh, thank you. Thank you. And so we all get to talking. We're all in our separate conversations. Cody. They're like, dude, we have no idea what you do for a living. We have no idea. Like, we've hung out before. You've come down to Range Day. He was like, can you Please tell me. And that's where I told him. I was like, cody, I've been a cop for the last 18 years. I spent a lot of time, you know, also in the National Guard. I said, I spent little time, you know, contracting, conducting missions overseas. I was like, but mostly most. Most of my career, law enforcement and SWAT and all the cool stuff, all the. The pursuits in the shootings, like, that's. That's why I don't talk about it, because I'm. And he goes, you're the black version of me. And I was like, pretty much. I was like, I'm the old black version of you. Because his background is law enforcement. And so he was like, well, I got some projects I'm working on you can help me out with if you're interested. So we had already exchanged numbers, but he was like, call me anytime. And so we were about to leave, and he goes, wait, wait. He's got his phone. He says, hey, are you free next week? I was like, well, you know, I gotta put in leave. And he looks at me and goes, are you free next week? I was like, yep, I'm free. He says. He says, all right. He said, send Zach your. Send Zach your information. We're gonna book you a flight. He said, we just moved. He said, me and my wife, we just moved into a new house. He said, come down, spend the week with us. He says, I want to come back to streaming. Keep in mind, I'm still new to streaming. Fairly new to streaming at this point. He says, I want to get back into streaming. And Cody's got millions of followers. Like, he. He get. He does it right. He does it for full time. And so his first stream back, I was sitting right there in the office with him, and I spent. We spent a few days. And I didn't know it, but he's got a video background as well. We watched. We watched a bunch. We watched, like, Sicario, and we were critiquing the shots, and, like, what do the shots communicate outside of the dialogue? And so we're sitting. The more we talk, the more we realize we have in common. I didn't know it, but I had met his mom at a previous range day. His mom was still asking about me. So he FaceTimes his mom, and he's like, here, mom, talk to your black son. And I'm just sitting on the couch, and I'm just talking to mama, and we're just. It just. It's such a. It's such a good fit. And he. And I just get along. And these are the kind of people that they're not. They're not going to give you a fish, they're going to teach you to fish. And the kind of friends that I need are people who are going to teach me, because you can give me something I could sell out to any shill company or shill brand or whatever and make $10,000 today. But ultimately, if I play the long game and do this over time, I can get to a point where I have a full fledged career as a streamer slash content creator. Just from the people that are showing me, giving me the keys, giving me the game, the people like Zach, the people like Nick, the people like Cody, dude spent money on me, invited me out to the house, and then Zach came down, we went over to Brandon's house, and that's where, like, it just. It's this network of guys that are successful because they're good dudes and kept in touch with him. And then, you know, he was like, you should consider this with streaming. And I was like, well, I'm streaming from a MacBook. And he was like, ah, that sucks. And within the. Within the first two weeks of me getting back from his house, he was like, hey, I sent some merch to your house. It should be there today. I come home, there's a full PC that was shipped to my house. It was like, it's like this $5,000 computer. He literally sent it to my house. Computer, monitor, mouse, the whole nine yards. I have no clue what I'm looking at. Snow Ox could tell you what I'm working with because I let him remote into my computer to set it up, but that's the kind of people I work with. And then during the shutdown, this last shutdown, I'm not gonna lie, like, I have some passive income, which is good for, you know, small bills and everything else. But Cody was like, hey, I need your Venmo. I was like, what? He was like, yeah, it was a government shutdown. I need your Venmo. And he literally gave me money to make sure that I didn't miss a step. These are the kind of people that I love being surrounded by because although they're celebrities, they're famous, they still make time to support the people they love. And it just, it's. It's crazy because I went from thinking, like, man, I just got screwed over by third party. And now here I am, you know, working with someone who's supporting my. Essentially has helped me build my channel and he's asked for nothing in return. He's asked for. He's not been like, hey, I help you out, you help. No, it's like, hey, you want to come back down next month and we'll, you know, go to the batting cages or something. It's like, these are. These are friends. Which is crazy because you hear so much about, you know, don't meet your heroes. You hear so much about these people and these grifters that are. They have these big followings, but they're not good people. Whereas these are actually good people who just so happen to be really good at what they do. And I'm kind of. My goal is to follow in their footsteps and in your family footsteps. You've obviously built something over time, and it's not. It doesn't happen overnight, but you've built something over time. And everything you've done, you know, from start to now, it's built upon the next thing. And it's. That's a common theme, is build the next thing from the thing you're on now and just keep going right on.

[A]

Well, sounds like you're on the path, man.

[C]

I am.

[A]

Echo Charles.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You got any questions?

[B]

We are. Rewind back to that first video that you did. That you did. What was that about? Do you remember the first one?

[C]

The first one, I was making fun of Lucas Botkin, and I've actually met Lucas and I've talked to Lucas, and super nice guy. He was running T. Rex arms at the time. I was just making fun of him. He's got no law enforcement, no military background, but he's always talking about law enforcement and military scenarios and offering his commentary, which is, there's nothing wrong with that, but he catches a lot of heat for doing it. And he works with a lot of, you know, military guys, and he works with a lot of former special operations, and he's built a company, multimillion dollar company, from doing that. And I was like, hey, low hanging fruit. I'll just make fun of him. So I just made fun of him. Like, not maliciously, but I just made fun of him. And that's where it started. And then, of course, Tim Kennedy, I made fun of Tim, which when I met him, it was kind of awkward, but again, he was. He was nice. He didn't have, you know, a problem with it. I think the biggest hurdle was when I met you, the first thing I did was apologize, because I didn't get any feedback. I didn't get any feedback from. So when I met him, I was like, hey, just so you know, these are jokes. And these jokes are good.

[B]

So there's the one. The one. The first one I came across of yours was. I was one of those guys, too, who thought you were being serious.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Just for that one video, though, because I looked into.

[C]

Gotcha then.

[A]

You're doing your job, right?

[C]

Yeah, yeah, sold it.

[B]

It was the one where you were like, hey, I don't. Something along. I'm paraphrasing, obviously, where you're saying, you know, I don't. I don't have to tell you how much of a badass I am. You know, My, My. My resume speaks for itself.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Although you're telling everybody.

[C]

Exactly.

[B]

It's, like, so funny.

[C]

Oh, I've experienced that so many times now.

[B]

Consider. Now you're watching this video and you think he's serious. You're like, oh, my, I can't believe this guy's actually saying this. Two people on a video and he posting the video. Like, bro, this is just me, you know? So I looked into it. I was like, ah, this is good. This is really good.

[C]

I used to. I used to put a disclaimer. I used to say. I used to put like an asterisk and say, this is satire. And my wife was like, why are you doing that? I was like, because I'm getting a ton of hate comments. She goes, the hate comments are what they call engagement that promotes. And she's. She's just got a mind for it. She's like, that promotes you in the algorithm and get your videos out there. Stop doing that. So I stopped doing that. And then I started growing and I'm still. I'm still on my way. I think I just hit 95k on Instagram, but I'm on my way to 100k and even past that. So it's like the people that thought I was real and they might not see the content for a few months and come back to it and see something else and like, oh, this guy was joking. It. It's a whole new audience.

[B]

Right. And the. Even, of course, the algorithm, that's kind of the game within the game in. In a lot of ways. But if they don't think that you're. Or if they think that you're real. So you wind up with this big group of people who think that it's for real.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Then another big group of people who are more. The insiders know, but are kind of part of the. They're down for the whole shtick. You know, they're down for, like, the comedy and stuff like that. So now you have these kind of warring factions. Right. And they don't even know that they're at war, by the way.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Because they're like, oh, that guy's such a douche. And you're on their mind.

[C]

Exactly what I'm saying.

[B]

So now when your stuff comes up, they're kind of addicted to it. Because really, that's the feeling that I got. That's why I even looked into it. I was like, bro, this guy's such a douche. I want to see more douchey stuff. And I looked and it was like, it wound up being more funny.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

But it's. Because it's douchey and it's fun. You see what I'm saying?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So, like, it helps in that way as well.

[C]

Well, the crazy thing is I have five years of doing this. Five years of cringeworthy content, and it's still like, I get, I, I get videos all the time and my phone is full of notes for video ideas. And it just, it's fun.

[B]

Do you, did you ever, or did you ever think about doing like, improv acting or anything like that?

[C]

So I did theater for a short time in high school, but because my grades weren't up to par, I ended up doing a monologue. I did a monologue from, like, Streetcar Named Desire and I worked really hard on it. I did this monologue and I've actually talked to one of my buddies, is an LA actor. I've talked to him. He's like, you just got to get an agent. You'd be really good at this. And I'm like, that's not really where my heart's at. And even with, with improv, like, I, I like doing the stuff that I can do on my terms. Because if it's 2 o' clock in the morning and I have a video, I have a low light video where I can go set up lights in my yard and shoot a low light, you know, video. I can do that if, if I don't feel like shooting this week. And that's another thing I've gotten away from is the pressure. A lot of people, they're like, oh, I'm pressured because if I have to do this every day to remain relevant. No, you don't. I take days off. I still, you know, I still am very instrumental in homeschooling my kids and taking them back and forth to youth at the church and everything else. So the acting side of things, I would, I would be interested to work. I have friends that are in production. Buddy of mine just Graduated film school. He's working on smaller productions. I would be more than willing to do that, but to have that be my full time, I don't think that I would do that, you know, more than maybe three to four projects a year.

[B]

Do you enjoy that, that part of the process, being in front of the camera?

[C]

I do.

[B]

Is it because, okay, so we. I did a show with a guy called Hinata Laranja, which I kind of mentioned it earlier, where he does. His Persona is a lot different than his real Persona. He does. He doesn't overlap as much as you, but he's. He does have an acting background and stuff like that. So. But you could tell he's really into that part of it.

[C]

You know, I think I could. I haven't really done. I haven't really done anything outside of some collabs, but I'd be more than, like, when I talk to Cody, we always talk about shooting a movie. And one of the reasons that I got that camera was because eventually, if I ever decide that I am going to shoot, I did write a short film. I just wrote a synopsis and then I'd started on a script. But I'm the only character in that I play. It's. It's. I play two different characters, but it's. It's the same character. And so I wrote that probably two years ago now. And I just, I don't. I don't have the time and I haven't finished the project. I don't want to start another part of that project while that. While it's still in progress. But I think that, you know, depending on. Depending on timing and everything else, I would, if I could make a living doing that, I think that it would be difficult to make that decision, but I could probably do like, you know, smaller projects throughout the year.

[B]

You mentioned the collab thing. And one. A big part of what makes collab so fun and interesting is when you take, let's say, your character. Right. You know, Aloysius.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Freaking Pinder. How is Kingsley Aloysius Pinder Hughes III going to interact with xyz?

[C]

Oh, I got ideas.

[B]

Like, that's the. That's really what it is. So that's, that's why I meant mentioned the, the improv acting. Because. And I'm not saying, hey, you're gonna go all in on improv, but if you just have a little bit of that skill sprinkled in, it really gives rise to this interaction that can be like, super.

[C]

One of the things that I look at with collabs is obviously. Who is this character that I've built? And what would they say if they were in the room with Jocko? What would they say if they're in the room with, you know, with any of these other guys? They would immediately try to one up them. You know what I mean? They would immediately try to. To. To create. To establish some sort of, like this. This whole thing of, oh, you got to dominate the room. No, you don't. You can literally just be yourself and just be comfortable in that. But that's. That's kind of where it would come from. And then, like, I did one with Kyle where he came over and this guy's got, you know, I mean, he's got. He's. He's decorated, you know, from. From his. His time, his incident in Africa. And I'm like, hey, just so you know, I'm a combat cook, so you can go sit down. And he just goes, roger that. And that video, people seeing me interact with someone, you know, that's done what he's done, and seeing this combat cook, which is made up like, I don't know if you guys know that or not. That's not. Combat cook is not a thing. But they see him interact with me and they're like, this is great. And because now they see Kyle, who has been seen as more of a serious, intense kind of content creator, come out of his shell. Because I'm the comedian who's like, you know, comparing myself to him. And so it really. It opens him up or him up to my audience, but then it shows his audience that he's got that comedic timing and everything else, and he's a funny guy, but you turn the camera on and he's like, kind of. I don't want to say robotic, but I know he's going to watch this. He's a little robotic. He's a. He's a little robotic.

[A]

The truth comes out. Poor Kyle over there.

[C]

I'm coaching him.

[A]

Never mind your Distinguished Service Cross. You're a little robotic in front of the camera.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. Loosen up a bit, man.

[A]

Right on. Anything else?

[B]

Echo, Charles, good to hang with you.

[A]

Right on.

[B]

Right on.

[A]

King Kingsley, any closing thoughts?

[C]

I do like to leave with this. I do like to leave this as a closing thought. Initially, when people would ask me that, I'd be like, nope, nothing. Good to go. But I like to promote my faith, my belief. I've been a Christian. I grew up a Christian. Grew up in church, kind of strayed away from it. And I've had good bad and ugly in my life. And at a time where I was at my lowest, which was when I was recovering from a torn acl,

[A]

a

[C]

friend of mine reached out to me and said, hey, you should bring the family to church. I was like, I'm not going to church. I was like, I gotta get on these crutches and hobble over there. And I did it. I went to church. And that friend became my mentor. He's older guy, a little closer to retirement. And I tore my ACL in September of 2018. I was baptized in October that same year. And Kyle has this thing where he always talks about, you know, how his road to faith is similar to mine, but he advises people to remain curious. And one of the things that I like to promote is remain curious. You know, when you have that still small voice that you hear in your head and, you know it's not a suggestion or it's not something you'd come up with on your own, remain curious. And I often challenge mostly young men because I've once been a young man, but remain curious. You know, integrity and accountability are huge, but also, if you have that still small voice, if you hear something calling, you, really hone in on that. And, you know, I don't. There are a lot of people who will force it and say, you have to do this. Well, I don't think anybody has to do it. I would like for people to do it. I would like for you to do it. I would like for you to call me and say, hey, you know, I was thinking about this, and, you know, I would like to be able to have that. But you have to want that. And every. For everyone listening, they also have to want that. And I, Like I said, I grew up and I strayed from it, and I was kind of. When I was leaning to my own understanding, life was not going well. I thought it was. It wasn't. And even now, I'm not, you know, I'm not floating on a cloud. But even during the shutdown, during things that I've been blessed with, the people that I've been blessed to meet, you guys, like, it's all. It's all a part of, you know, this thing that I'm doing called life. And I always encourage people remain curious.

[A]

Yeah. Well, that's a great, great attitude to have out there for everybody and. Yeah. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for coming out. I know it's a little bit of a trip, probably a very long trip actually, from the east coast, so thanks for coming out. Thanks for sharing your Lessons learned, definitely your experience, your outlook on the world, you know, keeping us humble through humor.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Which is an important thing. And thanks for your service, you know, Absolutely. Both as a, as a, as a contractor, as a law enforcement officer and, you know, as a soldier.

[C]

Yeah. Thank you.

[A]

Much appreciated, brother.

[C]

Appreciate you more.

[A]

Right on. And with that, Kingsley Aloysius Penderhughes the Third has left the building. He has gone to take a little walk back to his hotel. The hinterlands, being outside, being aware of his surroundings, healthy. If you want to have a sharp mind for the wit, you know, then you're going to have the physical strength, stamina, awareness. So that is why, that's why we're working out. That's why we're training, that's why we're lifting, that's why we're sprinting, running, surfing. We're getting after it. And because of that, you know what we need? You'll give you one guess what we need.

[B]

Fuel.

[A]

Yes, we do need fuel. And we want to get the good fuel. The good fuel. Check out jockofuel.com or go to a store in your area, a grocery store in your area and check out jockey fuel. We have protein. We have ready to drink protein, protein powder. We have hydration, we have energy. We've got everything that you need. We have a pro line. Now. I've been taking muscle drive, which is very excellent. I don't. This is not something that it is like intended for, but when you, when you have some muscle drive, I think it's because it has all the amino acids, you kind of feel full. Right. So it's kind of nice to take that after you work out. When you don't want a big, like sometimes you get done working out, you don't want a big giant meal. At least I don't.

[C]

Sure I understand.

[A]

So it's, it's turning into my kind of like a, kind of like a 9:30 breakfast little muscle drive. So check it out. Jockofuel.com or wherever you buy stuff, food stuff, you'll be able to find some. Also training Jiu Jitsu, which we really didn't get into the topic of Jiu Jitsu very much today, which, which is weird because we talked to Jason subjects because whenever you're talking about combatives, you're talking about, you know what I mean? Like I, I usually bring. Or you talk about subduing suspects or like that's the time when I start talking about Jiu Jitsu. And I didn't. But you should be training Jiu Jitsu. Whether you're in law enforcement or not, whether you're in the military or not, no matter what you do, you should be training Jiu jitsu. Check out originusa.com because you're gonna need a jujitsu gi. You're gonna need a jujitsu rash guard. You need some good stuff to train in. But you're not always training Jiu Jitsu. That's why we also make jeans, we make hoodies, we make T shirts, we make boots, we make everything that you need. And it's all 100% made in America. That's what we're doing@origin USA.com. check it out.

[C]

It's true.

[B]

Also check out jocko store. Forget about that. Discipline equals freedom. You know, we representing while we're on this path with our good fuel, we can represent. Anyway, we got some shirts on there, some hoodies on there, some hats on there, some shorts on there. A lot of stuff on there if you want to represent. Also short locker subscription.

[A]

Wait, is that a subscription scenario?

[B]

Subscription scenario. Every month, bro. Every month. New design. It's a good one. People seem to like it. Anyway, it's all on Jocko store dot com. So yeah, click on the top where it says shirt locker. See what it's all about. Pretty cool. It's all in Jocastore.com.

[A]

can you get the black on black Discipline equals freedom shirt like you're wearing right now?

[B]

Yes, you can, Shaq.

[A]

We like that. Also a bunch of books, Put your legs on by Rob Jones, need to lead by Dave Burke. I've written a bunch of books, a bunch of leadership books and a bunch of kids books. So check those out if you want. We have an a leadership consultancy where we will help you solve the problems inside your organization through leadership. If you need help, go to echelonfront.com and check it out. We also teach the skills of leadership online. So if you want to engage in that, check out extreme ownership dot com. And we also have a little AI tool to help you. AskJoco AI. You can ask leadership questions and I will give you answers. Well, the artificial intelligence version of me will answer your questions. 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 get involved, go to America's mighty warriors.org also check out heroes and horses.org and Jimmy May's organization beyond the brotherhood.org if you want to connect with us, first with four to to connect with Kingsley check out kingpixmedia.com and then on Twitter, x Instagram, Twitch and Tiktoks. He's at kingpix Pix Media. And for us check out jocko.com and then on social media I'm at Jocko Willink echoes that echo Charles Just be careful for the algorithm. And thanks once again to Kingsley for coming on and sharing his experiences, lessons learned. And thanks for your service as a contractor, as a law enforcement officer and as a soldier. And thanks to all the military personnel out there around the world right now. There are some definitely strange and crazy times happening. So thank you for putting your lives on the line to protect us in our way of life. We are grateful for your service and your sacrifice. 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 what you do here on the home front to keep us safe. We are also grateful for your service and your sacrifice as well. And everyone else out there. Remember what the sas, at least I think it's the sas. Remember what their protocol is. Don't take self too seriously. Have a good time, keep it humble and in order to do that, keep it humorous. And that's all I've got for tonight. Until next time, this is Echo and Jocko out.