← Jocko Podcast
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- [00:00]
A
This is the Jocko podcast number 542 with Echo, Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo.
- [00:05]
B
Good evening.
- [00:07]
A
On the morning of Thursday, June 8, 2023, just a few miles from the location of the massacre, the Burma army attacked several villages, looking to root out and kill any of the villagers who would dare defend themselves from the Burma Army's tyranny. Mortars rained down on unsuspecting civilians, killing some and wounding others as the Burma army assaulted the undefended villages. However, on this day, things went differently. Reacting quickly to the mortar barrage, the civilians knew what to do. They stopped the major bleeding of the wounded using makeshift tourniquets made from bandages and clothes in the village, tightening them with sticks and other items until the patients were stabilized enough for immediate evacuation. Relying on a series of strategically placed handheld radios, the fleeing villagers communicated with other nearby VI and coordinated for a safe place to run. And they took their wounded with them. At the outset of the battle, local village defenders moved into place to slow the enemy advance and buy enough time for the families to escape. Some of these young, brave men were killed and wounded. The defenders used cat tourniquets to stop the bleeding of the wounded and tactical field litters to quickly evacuate the patients when the defenders could no longer hold the line. When the battle subsided, the villagers who fled were provided rice and medicine that had been stockpiled in secure locations around the jungle. The critically wounded were taken to the bank of a large lake where a medical boat was waiting with medics, extra supplies, and advanced life support. And that right there is a little section of an article from the online magazine called Coffee or Die. And the article was written by Ephraim Matos. And although the article paints a pretty gruesome picture, just a few months prior, there was another devastating attack that had taken place. Only in that attack, the villagers were not prepared, they were not ready, they were defenseless. And 17 people, including a handful of children, were not able to escape, and they were captured by Burma army soldiers. They were tortured, they were violated, they were murdered, and their bodies were set on fire. And the difference between these two situations, one ending in a massacre and the other ending in people actually escaping, was was training and preparation and supplies provided by an amazing charitable organization called Stronghold Rescue and Relief. And this is an organization that was founded by Ephraim Maddos, who is a former SEAL that fought in Afghanistan. He also fought as a civilian in Missoul in 2017, where he was shot by ISIS during the rescue of a young girl who was hiding in a pile of corpses and in front of ISIS hq. But that wasn't enough for Ephraim. He had more to give, and he founded Stronghold Rescue and Relief and has been working all over the globe, with a particular focus in the violent war in Burma, training the locals and giving them the ability to fight and survive. And he's joined us before podcast 398, and it's an honor to have him back with us again tonight to share some of his experiences from the front lines and the incredible work that he, his people, and his organization do. Ephraim, welcome back. Good to see you.
- [04:00]
C
Thanks for having me on. Appreciate it.
- [04:02]
A
And do we need to talk about your name change?
- [04:05]
C
Sure, why not? Let's get into that.
- [04:07]
A
I feel bad. So you have a new podcast, and your podcast is called Overwatch with Ephraim Maddows. And I was listening to it, and in the beginning of it, you introduce yourself as Ephraim Maddows. And as soon as I heard that, I felt bad, because on the last time you were on this podcast, three years ago, I called you Ephraim the whole time, and you responded perfectly well, and it seemed like normal. And then when you got here today, I said, hey, man, did I mess up your pronunciation of your name last time? And you said, I kind of didn't. So what went down?
- [04:42]
C
So. So. So basically, what happened? So I. Growing up, I was called Ephraim. My parents called me Ephraim. But then when I joined the military, literally, like the day I was leaving for boot camp, I just sort of in my head, I just said, well, you know, I'm just gonna start saying my name is Ephraim because it's gonna be easier for people to pronounce. And that was. That was the entire amount of thought that I had put into that. And so for the past decade and a half, since I went to a boot camp in, you know, 2010, anytime. But anytime somebody asked me my name, I said, well, that's Ephraim. But then about a year, year and a half ago, I was just sitting there, and, you know, I'm married now. I have a. I have a daughter. And I was just thinking about. I was like, why did I. Why did I change my name? I was like, my father named me Ephraim. My mother named me Ephraim. Why am I saying Ephraim? I just had never really thought about it. And so I. I just was. I was thinking. I was like, well, you know, if I keep. If I just double down on Ephraim, that's what people know me as. Like, that's what Jocko calls me. That's what everybody calls me. I'm like an idiot if I. If I go back. But I was like, no. I was like, no. My father named me Ephraim. My mother named me Ephraim. So I'm going to go back to Ephraim. And, you know. So, yeah, it's the first person to,
- [05:45]
A
like, call you out on this publicly.
- [05:47]
C
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
- [05:48]
A
So what did you do with, like, your friends that had been calling you Ephraim for the past six years or whatever?
- [05:52]
C
Well, most of them call me just Matos or some. Some people still call me Ephraim, and it's still totally fine. I don't. I don't correct people on that. I don't. I don't really care. It's not. It's not that big of a deal. Usually. Just let it slide.
- [06:03]
A
The only. So my nickname has been Jocko since my parents gave me that nickname before I was born. And so everyone called me Jocko. My. My family called me Jocko. My friends call me Jocko. My f. My immediate, now family calls me Jocko. The only time I didn't go by, it caught. I got a letter. This is how it got to the teams, because I got a letter in buds and they handed us letters and. And it said Jocko on it. One of the instructors was like, jocko. What the hell is that? And so that's. That's how it kind of got back into the teams or into the teams, because otherwise I didn't really bring it up. But when I went to college for three years, there was, you know, they have a. Whatever, a roster sheet. What do you call that? A roster sheet, Like a class list. There's some real particular name for it, isn't there? Attendance.
- [06:49]
B
Attendance.
- [06:50]
A
Attendance sheet. And on there it's John Willink. Right. And so that's the only place where the teachers and the students call. Called me John because I didn't. I didn't say, well, actually, it's really, you know, actually my nickname is John. Like, it didn't. It didn't ever feel it was a professional. I guess if I go into a bank or something, of course, you know, they're like, oh, John. So I felt the same way about college. Like, this is a transactional relationship. These people don't really know me, so they're. They're. John is cool, whatever. And that's kind of. That's kind of how it's been.
- [07:24]
C
Yeah, that works for me pretty Much. For anybody. Anybody that just calls me the letter anything with the letter E. I'm like, okay, I know you're. I know. I know you're talking about me. E, big E, easy. I was like, okay. Because most people, they don't even try to pronounce it. They just go, here, go. E, whatever. And I'm like, all right.
- [07:37]
A
What does your wife call you?
- [07:39]
C
Ephraim. Yeah.
- [07:40]
A
What did she call you five years ago?
- [07:43]
C
Well, I didn't know her five years ago, but years ago. Three years ago, I think. I think I was saying Ephraim still at the time.
- [07:48]
A
So she's made the transition.
- [07:50]
C
Yeah, yeah. She's. She's totally. She's totally fine with it. She thinks it's funny, so she's. Yeah.
- [07:55]
A
Cool. Right on. All right. Well, you've been. You've been done a lot, and anybody that wants to hear your story, which is an amazing story, and including how you grew up. Very, very fascinating kind of way to join the military, growing up in a pretty sheltered environment, and then you just go straight into the SEAL teams. Pretty awesome. But go listen to 398.
- [08:17]
C
You know, you did.
- [08:18]
A
You did your time in Afghanistan in SEAL platoon, another, I think, a PAYCOM deployment, and then eventually end up over in Iraq as a volunteer, trying to help people. And then from there, you eventually get this stronghold rescue and relief going. And like I said in the beginning, a lot of this centered on Burma, although you guys have worked in Ukraine, like, a bunch of places.
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C
Yeah.
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A
Besides Burma. But Burma certainly the focus. So before we get into stronghold, let's. Let's get a little bit of background on Burma, because it's one of those things where it's, you know, a lot of. There's a lot of people that probably couldn't find it on a map, but there's been so much history there. And before we hit record today, I was talking about my childhood and how I remembered as a child the Burma being this brutal battle that was fought in the jungles. And, you know, when I'd be out with my buddies in the woods if things got really gnarly while we were having BB gun wards, wars, you know, if I really had to break it down, I'd be like, yo, boys, we're in Burma. Because World War II is brutal. Imperial Chinese. It was the monsoon season, the jungle, the whole nine yards. But a lot of stuff has happened there. Let's. Let's get a little bit of history. I mean, starting with the fact that the Brits ruled burma from the 1800s. Up until 1948 with some excursions by the Japanese Imperial army in there. What else, what else we need to know about Burma?
- [09:43]
C
Well, I think the most important thing is to kind of just basically start from World War II up to where we are now. So the important thing, like you said before the, the, the British had controlled the country. And then after World War II, what I always say is that World War II basically never ended for Burma. Like the war has basically just continued on the generations of guys that I, that I go and work with in the jungle. Their fathers fought, their grandfathers fought, their great grandfathers fought. It's, it's never ended. So, so when the, when the British were there, it was called Burma. And then after, after 1948, the British leave. But there's, there was an important thing that happened during World War II. And so during World War II, the Japanese, they, they invaded Burma specifically because they actually wanted to cut off China, which is very important to modern day geopolitics, by the way. But so the Burma army attacked or, sorry, the Japanese attacked Burma and their, their whole, their whole purpose was to cut off the, the British and allies from resupplying China because Japan was trying to take over China at the time. And so during, during the war there was this, like you said, brutal, brutal fighting in the jungle. But the very interesting thing about what happened in Burma was so the ethnic Burmese, they originally sided with Japan against the British, so they were fighting alongside the Japanese. So the Japanese show up and the, and, and the Burmese are like, oh, thank God, thank God the Japanese are here to, to rid us of these, of these, of these foul British people. But the, many of the ethnic minority tribes, in particular the Karen tribe that I work with, they loved the British, the Karen loved the British because the British would protect them from all the, all of these ethnic conflicts. The British wouldn't allow the Burmese to come in and attack and, you know, try to take over their land and stuff. So the Karen loved the British and fought with the British the whole time. So, so the Burmese, they side with the Japanese and they work with the Japanese not only to fight the British, but, but also to fight against their, these ethnic minority tribes in some of the hills and some of the valleys that I, that I, that I still work in today. And so then, so the, so the Japanese make it all the way to India and there's these, there's these big battles and then eventually the, the Japanese are defeated. But the logistics lines are impossible to keep going through the, through, through Burma, through the Jungle. And so then the, so then the Allies start to win the war and start to push the Japanese back. And it's this brutal march with way more Japanese soldiers were killed just trying to march back to Thailand at the time called Siam than were actually killed by the British. They were just all. They all just died in the jungle from starvation and disease and all this. But so as that's happening, the Burmese suddenly decide that they now like the British. And so they actually switched sides during the war and started fighting with the British and started to help expel the, the Japanese. And so, so then during the war, they were eventually able to push the Japanese out. And then, you know, war ends around 1945, and then around 1948, just a few years later, the British, obviously, they've taken heavy, heavy casualties across the entire, across their entire sort of empire. And so they're pulling back from all these different places. And one of the places they pulled back from was Burma. And so when they pull back, they have all this weaponry, they have all this stuff and they, they leave it there. And now the Karen had some weapons. The other ethnic tribes also had weapons, but Burmese who lived in the middle of the country, they sort of live in the, the coastal lowlands and the sort of bread basket, the rice fields in the middle of the country, they got a large amount of these weapons as well. And so basically from 1948, the Burmese then just immediately started doing what they were doing before the British showed up, you know, 150, 200 years earlier. They just started immediately trying to subjugate all the ethnic minority populations, including, and specifically the Karen. Now also before we go on, there's multiple other tribes. There's the Rohingya, there's the Kachin, there's the Sean, there's the Wa, there's these other major tribes. But just for just for ease of explanation, I work with the Karen tribe specifically. But. So I don't, but I don't want to make it sound like there's, like the Burma army isn't attacking these other people, because they definitely are.
- [13:46]
A
So then is the Karen tribe the most prominent tribe?
- [13:49]
C
I think the largest tribe, I think is actually the, the Kachin. I think they're the largest, but they're. The Karen are arguably one of the most prominent because they also are on the border with Thailand and they've been. Yeah, they're, they're one of the stronger tribes for sure. And so then during, so then during World War II or so after World War II, this fighting then continues on and, and long Story short, over the last 75, 80 years, the Burma army has just become stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger. And the government of Burma now is the military. The military just says, we're, we're in charge. You know, they call it a junta. We are now in charge. It's like again, imagine the U.S. army, whoever's the, you know, top general of the U.S. army, says, I'm the president now and the army's in charge. And that's what's been going on for the last 75 years. Now what the Burmese want, but the Burma army wants, is they want to subjugate and control all of these ethnic minority populations that are around all the, that are basically around the, the rim of the, of the country and all the borderland. Um, but it's very difficult to do because the borderlands are, a lot of them are very mountainous. Particularly in the Karen area, it's very mountainous. So if you go into the mountains, so mountain warfare is hard. Jungle warfare is hard. Mountain, jungle warfare is even harder, especially if you're the attacker and you're not, you're not used to living there. You're some guy from the city in the lowlands and you're trying to go up in the, in the Karen hills. It's like you're, you're going to get smoked. So, but, but the Burma army for years has been trying to build roads into these areas. And, and that's, that's in short, kind of what's going on now. But there's an important inflection point that happened in 2021. So during, during the last sort of decade and a half, the Burma army has been sort of making these kind of fake overtures, putting in civilian rule and some democracy, but it's totally fake democracy. For example, under their constitution, the military was given automatically, no matter what, at least one third of all the seats in the, in their parliament or whatever they call it. And then typically what would happen is basically another third of the people who were elected, quote, unquote, would be just guys who used to be. They were a Burma army officer yesterday and now they just got elected today. And so basically the Burma army had total control of the government. And then maybe a third of the seats were actual, you know, legit, were legitimately elected people. But then in 2021, the, the Burma army basically just said, we're no longer, we're no longer gonna, you know, play this charade anymore and we're just going to take over and we're. No, we're going to get rid of any of these semblances of democracy. Now, when they did that, as far as governance, nothing really changed. But what did change was now the ethnic Burmese, who were the ethnic Burmese, the younger generation who were excited about this idea of democracy. And they're not, they're not this sort of warring tribe. You know, they're, they're not, they're not fans of the Burma army because the Burma army became corrupt and started to oppress their own people and that kind of thing. So then in 2021, when this coup happened, now the ethnic Burmese young people fled to the hills and started joining all the resistance groups. And so now they have the, the People's Defense Force, the PDF, which is this large ethnic Burmese army that is now fighting against the Burma army, whereas that did not exist four years ago. So now it is full on total war. The Burma army is almost like an occupying army in their own country. So they're almost like a foreign army that's occupying their own country, whereas before they were the dominant power. And the, the war, unfortunately, over the last year or two has shifted. The rebels, when I say rebels throughout this, the rebels are the good guys, think Star wars rebels. So they're fighting, fighting against the empire. But the, the rebels have been unfortunately losing a lot of ground because now Russia and China, China are heavily backing up the Burma army. And so, so just so we understand the, the geopolitical situation on the ground there as well. So both, if you look, if you look at a map of sort of the greater Eurasian continent and you look at Russia, let's start with Russia. So Russia, they have, they have multiple ports, but all their ports are really far north. So they can get to the Baltic Sea, Black Sea, but most of their ports and most of their access to the ocean is very far north. And it's only accessible during parts of the year because the rest of the year it's frozen over. And China is in a fairly similar situation where they only have their east coast and they're pretty high up. And so if China wants to do any kind of shipping or expand their naval power, whatever, they have to go past Japan, they have to go past the Philippines. If they want to get over to India, they want to go through the rest of the world. They have to go through the Straits of Malacca, which is, you know, know Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia right there, which are, you know, nominally allies of the United States. And so you basically have a Strait of Hormuz type situation in the Strait of Malacca down there in Southeast Asia. So what are what are Russia and China supposed to do if they want to have access to the rest of the world and not be sort of beholden to the entire world with these naval choke points? Well, you go through Burma because Burma is the one place where both Russia and China can get, can get access to the ocean and that's what they're doing. So if you go to Burma down in the south, you look at a map. So down in the south, China has these special economic zones and Russia is setting up a special economic zone as well where they're building these deep water ports and they're bringing in large amounts of weapons, they're bringing in fighter jets, they're bringing in massive amounts of firepower to back up the Burma army. And the Russians now are even, they're in the process of, they're in the planning phase right now and have already announced their intention to build a nuclear power plant there. In, in Burma. Yeah, and it's. So that's, which is obviously not a, not, not a great, not a great look, but basically. So Russia and China are heavily involved in supplying weapons to the Burma army. And so the situation is very dire because now all these new drones and with the advent of, and with the advent of drone warfare and obviously, you know, Russian fighter jets and all kinds of, you know, Chinese weapons and stuff, the, the Burma army is now using that to just pummel the rebels anywhere that they can find him. So the war has greatly shifted over just the last couple of years as well.
- [20:02]
A
Now last time you were on was 2023 and you ended up going to Harvard and getting a degree from, from where? The Harvard.
- [20:12]
C
Harvard Kennedy School. Hks.
- [20:13]
A
Yeah. And so what did you study?
- [20:15]
C
I got, I got a master's in public administration. So I focused on decision science, policy, that kind of thing.
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A
How was it going to there through your lens of life? That had to be kind of crazy.
- [20:29]
C
Yeah, no, it was, it was very crazy. So, so the funny thing is I actually got my acceptance letter to Harvard when I was in Burma. So I'm sitting in, I'm sitting in Burma and I got an email and I was like, hey, you've been accepted to this program. And I thought, oh, this is great. And actually maybe six months earlier, I'd been sitting in a, in a jungle or, sorry, in a, in a, in a village that is now controlled by the Burma army. And I had sat there and used Starlink to, to put in my application to Harvard. So I was sitting there on my phone writing out my, you know, application essays with a Bunch of, you know, guerrilla fighters. I'm the only white dude there, you know, within, within 50, 60 miles.
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A
Let's face it, bro, you must add a sick essay.
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C
Yeah, it was like right now in the desperate jungle. Yeah.
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A
Surrounded by there that. That's freaking as unique as it gets.
- [21:13]
C
Yeah. So. So I, you know, wrote my essays, had submitted that and then. And then a few months later, yeah, I got the. In Burma and you know, I was like, oh, I got the acceptance letter. This is really cool. Now the only reason I was able to apply to the program, the only reason I was willing to do the program was because it was a 12 month intensive program. So you have to go to Harvard, you have to move to Boston, you got to go to school in Cambridge in person. But it was a one year program, so it was 12 months. And so you did a summer term and then you had to do two semesters at more than full time. So it was 12 months straight. But you now and it's, it was designed specifically for people who are mid career. It's called a mid career mpa.
- [21:47]
A
What other unique people were in there with you?
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C
Oh, all kinds of. All kinds of people from all over the world. Different high up people in different from, from different countries. There were some, there's actually a bunch of guys who were active, active military who were sort of getting master's degree, so officers who were there working on master's programs as well. Guys who were going to be stationed at the Pentagon and, and that kind of thing after. Right. So their next, their next duty station was going to be the Pentagon. So they were also going through this program as well. So yeah, lots of very interesting people, people who are going to like run to be, you know, Prime Minister of, of some country in, you know, Africa and so very, very, very interesting, Very, very interesting classmates. Lots of, lots of Chinese people who were clearly, you know, clearly loyal to the. Clearly loyal to the Chinese Communist Party, we shall say. So that was, that was an interesting experience to kind of interact with those people. But yeah, so I did, I did the program and so it was actually really good because it forced me to do two things. So with Strongholds, my full time job is running Stronghold, but my, so I just got married and my, my wife is pregnant. And so it was a. We needed to, I needed some stability in my life and I also needed to learn how to kind of let go and let, let the other operators, let the people let the employees at Stronghold go and go and work in the field without me there. And they're totally able to do it. They're totally competent, like, really incredible people. But I needed. I needed to let go as a leader, just like, hey, let you go do that. So this forced me to do that. I was home for the birth of my daughter and in school and stuff. But. But then during. During the Christmas break, which was like six weeks, it was very. It was pretty long time. I would actually. I still went to Burma on a mission, so I went to Burma, So that was that. And we can talk about that later. But basically I get back from that mission and, you know, people are like, oh, how. How was your. How was your Christmas break and everything? And I, I just. I didn't want to talk to anybody about it.
- [23:43]
A
I just know what Aspen.
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C
It was. Yeah, it was wonderful. Yeah. And I. I'd literally been just sleeping in a hole, getting, you know, hit with airstrikes, strikes and, you know, getting mortared, living in the jungle, like, you know, stabbing scorpions as I'm trying to jump into a trenches, like, airstrikes are coming in. And, you know, obviously we had some guys, some of the local guys were killed in some of the missions out there. And so, yeah, so then I get back from that and it's just walk back into class at Harvard and everything's just totally. Everything's, you know, totally normal. So it was a. It was a huge culture shock. Kind of. Kind of interesting to. To see that. And it was also Harvard during. During an election year. The Harvard Kennedy School of Government during an election year. So that was very. And, you know, obviously I was there when the, you know, attempted assassination on Trump when he was, you know, nicked in the ear, and then also obviously the election and stuff as well. So it was just. It was just very interesting to sort of just be a fly on the wall. I wish I had engaged a little more with everybody, but I quite frankly sat back and was just a little bit more quiet and just didn't engage a bunch of. I was also dealing with a lot of. I don't. I don't know what it was. Shell shock or something. So we. I'd had a. I'd had a. Between. Between submitting my application to Harvard and getting accepted to Harvard. During that time, I was in a battle and we'd been hit with airstrikes, and I'd showed you. I showed you some of the videos before we started recording here. But when that happened, I was like, oh, I'm totally fine. I felt totally fine. But I think. I think it did something to my nerves and So I found when I was at school, when I was at Harvard, I would just raise my hand to answer a question or whatever in class. And I'm not. I'm not shy. I'm not particularly outgoing, but I'm not shy. Like, I'm not. I don't get nervous speaking in front of people, but anytime there was any kind of. If my, if my adrenaline was coming up a little bit or any. Just a little bit of nerves, social nerves or anything, I. My hands would start to shake. I would get all clammy, um, not noticeable for other people to see, but I could. I could feel it. My. My voice would shake. And so I knew. I knew something was. I knew something was up with me. And so that time at, at. At school was a good time as well to just sort of let my. I. I had some sort of underlying stress level going on that I didn't understand, and that was able to kind of come down a little bit during that time.
- [25:57]
A
Now, were the, Were the airstrikes. And again, you showed the video. It's horrific to. It's horrific to watch because, like, I've been mortared before, which is, you know, one thing, but the airstrikes is kind of next level. You know, when you're on the ground, you can hear the aircraft coming in. And of course, you know, I've seen airstrikes from the, from the perspective of we're dropping bombs and they're going to hit someone else. It's a lot different, clearly, from that video when, you know, as an American, that. That's just not supposed to be like that. Especially, you know, for our experiences in the G wat there is no. We know we have total mastery over the air. We do whatever we want up there. So for you to be on the receiving end of that. When did that, when did that start happening?
- [26:44]
C
The. The airstrikes and such? Yeah, well, I mean, the airstrike's been going on for forever, but I guess I can kind of just get into that specific story and, and dive into the details on that. So, So I was on the. I was a podcast. It was. Whatever that was July 2023. And so then a few months later, I was in. I was in Burma now. So now the, The. The rebels. So the Koran. I was again with the Karen. And one of the things that they were trying to do was try to take back territory that had been taken by the Burma army. And so there was this. There was this town, and I'm going to leave out some of the little identifying details Just for OPSEC reasons because these places are still under, under, you know, under threat and still, you know, there's still a lot of fighting in these areas. But so there was this town and the, the Karen wanted to liberate the town. Now in order to understand why they need to liberate the town, we got to talk a little bit about what the Burma army does when they go into these places. So you alluded to it right at the beginning, but the Burma army basically this, this, this particular town, they had been occupying it. So they weren't trying to like ethnically cleanse people in the town as a fairly, fairly large town, but it was a very important river crossing. So there's a large bridge there to cross a strategic river. And so the Burma army have been occupying it for the longest time, but they still commit these atrocities against the local people because they're sort of this domineering occupying power. One of the things that they will do is they will take the civilians and they'll have the civilian population, they'll take Caren people and they'll make them walk in front of Burma army patrols as the Burma army patrols out to these different villages. And so if, if there's landmines, if there's booby traps, if there's claymores, if the rebels are wanting to ambush the Burma army, it's like, well, you can't do it because there's civilians intermixed with, with the Burma army soldiers. And so that's, so basically they'll use people as human shields. Obviously there's, you know, going to be sexual assault, there's going to be, you know, beatings, there's going to be all that kind of stuff that's going to go on, you know, forced disappearances, murdering people, things of that nature. And so that's a, that's, that's kind of what's going on in these towns. So anyway, so the Karen want to go and take, take back this town. And so they assembled around 500 men to go take back this town. And now keep in mind the Karen, their entire life for the last 75 years has been guerrilla warfare. So they're used to working in groups of maximum, 20, 30, 40, I mean maximum. And they're used to hit and run tactics and, and they're used to fighting in the jungle. So they are excellent at ambush, excellent at reconnaissance, excellent at sort of all the unconventional warfare stuff, sort of Vietnam style war, like Viet Cong style fighting. But they don't know anything about urban combat. They've most of these guys have never fought in a town where the, where the buildings have concrete walls. They, they just don't know that just, that's just not their, not their culture. So, so essentially what happened was the, the, the Karen, they went to take this town and they, they crossed over this river by night, knocked out a couple of enemy bridges, and then that same night as they knocked out these enemy bridges, which is where the reinforcements would come from, then the main assault of several hundred men then attacked the town from one side of the river and, you know, this massive urban battle ensues. Now during this, I was with a team of a total of three of us. So myself and two other Stronghold guys, and our mission was to provide emergency medical care for them. And then myself, I was basically acting as an advisor to the commander. So if there was any sort of tactical stuff we needed to talk about, I was there as a sounding board for him as well to, you know, to. Because he's obviously dealing with this highly complex situation. And okay, how do you, how do you get your logistics? How do you move hundreds of men? How do you make sure they've got ammo? How do you make sure they've got food? How do we have a, do we have any vac plan to get our patients out of here? How we, how are we going to move them the several miles through open ground with all these rice fields to get them to, back to the mountains where they can, you know, be safe and that kind of thing? How are we going to set up communication? So this is a whole new level. And so one of the things we do at Stronghold, 99% of what we do is emergency medical care. But if we're in these situations where there's a tactical situation where we're trying to liberate people, it's like, yeah, we're absolutely going to help you if we're able to in those situations. So we go into the town, I'm part of a three man, three man team. We go in there, we're embedded directly with the locals and the, the C2 element, the command and control element, the, the, the commander of the, of the forces we move into the town, which in hindsight was not a good move. We should have, we should have stayed back a little further and just sort of coordinated comms. But we also needed to provide that emergency medical care because, you know, a lot of stuff, obviously a lot of wounded in an urban battle. So the, the battle starts with, we get in there now the Burma army, these guys are professional. This is not this is not, you're not dealing with some army that isn't motivated, that isn't well trained, that is poorly supplied, that has no experience. That's not what you're up against. You're up against a military machine that has, that is decades and decades old and it is part of their culture. I, I, I hesitate to call them sort of, I hesitate to call them Spartan because that's too much of a compliment for them. But it's sort of like that. They are raised, a lot of these Burmese guys are raised and with the understanding that they are going to be a part of the military. If you're ethnic Burmese, it's like you are going to be an officer in the Burma army and you are going to help take back, you know, you're going to help take back your country from these, you know, inferior, these inferior ethnic tribes. And many of the Burma army soldiers, many of the Burma army officers in particular actually go to Russia to learn how to fight from the Russians. So they go to their military academies, they go academies, they go to their flight schools and they're supplied by, you know, Chinese and Russian fighter jets. And so they learn all this stuff. And they have artillery, they have, they have mortars. And the Burma army actually makes their own weapons. They literally pull raw material and they go, they have their own factories, they make their own bullets, they make all of their own stuff. And so they are highly, highly self sufficient, which is one of the reasons why sanctions and stuff doesn't quite work with them because they're highly self sufficient. But my point is the, the Burma army troops that are defending this strategic town, these are not, these are not chumps.
- [33:01]
A
These are not, they're legit, legit soldiers.
- [33:03]
C
They're legit.
- [33:04]
A
So, and how many, what do you think, what do you estimate the Burma army forces are in the town?
- [33:10]
C
Probably 75 to 100.
- [33:12]
A
Okay, so we have 500 on our rebel force.
- [33:16]
C
Yes, but we have them, we have, our rebel forces is spread out a little bit. So the main element is, I'll say a few hundred, we'll talk after about specific numbers. But yeah, the main, the main element is a few hundred guys that go in. So it's not a, it's not a huge numerical advantage. It's enough, but, but not quite going
- [33:34]
A
into an urban environment where they're in the defensive position, you're supposed to have ten to one, by the way. Like that's the doctrinal number going into an urban environment. So this is rough.
- [33:44]
C
We're well short of 10 to 1, let's put it that way. So we get in there and the, the Burma army, they, they were ready. They were ready because the rebels had attacked this town before and so they were ready. They knew exactly what their defensive strategy was going to be and they sort of hedgehogged, fell back to defensive positions and they, they fought ferociously because they know that, you know, if the Burma, if, if the, you know, the Karen guys get in there, it's like, yeah, like, you know, you're gonna go be a prisoner of war best case scenario, you know, somewhere for the next, you know, like when are you ever gonna go home? You know, it's like you're done or obviously you die fighting, that kind of thing. So they prefer to die fighting. And so we get into the town and now the Burma army several miles away, they also have howitzers set up in these positions. And we knew the howitzers were there ahead of time, we just didn't know specifically what types they were. Whatever. Anyways, the Burma army starts firing artillery into the town and it's fairly accurate. So it's. So we go into the town and we're, we are under a, almost 24 hour artillery barrage. There's a few hours in the middle of the night where they would stop the artillery, but every, every couple of minutes you would have one, one. You know, I, I think I've been like 105s. I'm not really sure what, what size they were, but artillery is coming in and you can hear it coming. So you're just, you know, you just, you hear it coming, you just lay down flat, hopefully it doesn't hit you and that's it. And then you, and then it goes off. Boom. Wait for the shrapnel to fall and then you kind of get up and keep doing what you're doing. So, and we're in this for several days, we're in this for three or four days. And we're in the, in the town and my team and I, we were, our little headquarters slash medical aid station was a, was a Buddhist temple. And so we're in this large kind of Buddhist temple area and we're treating the wounded as they're coming through. Now also while this is happening, civilians are fleeing the city, but they're not fleeing en masse like you would see in, you know, Iraq, for example. I don't know what it is, but culturally I just think they didn't quite understand what was happening or what was going to happen. And so in their minds they're Thinking, well I'm just going to stay here in my home, lock the door, everything's going to be fine, you know, the rebels are going to leave or the rebels are going to win and like I'm good, you know, so, but so not enough of them left quite frankly. And so we were getting civilian casualties and there were. So for example, the Burma army's firing artillery into the town, but then they're also bringing in airstrikes. Now keep in mind just a 15 or 20 minute flight away from this battlefield is a Burma army air base where they have Chinese built fighter jets, you know, with, with Burma army pilots. And so they are just, they're just, you know, putting a little bit of gas in the tank, load up some bombs, go, go. Hit targets, you know, that are being called out by the Burma army soldiers and then go back and refuel and just do it again, do it again all day. Basically from more from, from sun up till sundown, they're coming in and just constantly doing sorties and they're dropping 500 pound bombs, sometimes multiple 250 pound bombs and then they're also strafing. So they drop a bomb, come back around and strafe, drop a bomb, come back around and strafe and they're doing heavy sorties plus artillery. So that's, that's, that's the world I'm living in. And so the reason I mentioned the civilians, so some of the civilians are leaving and, and there was one particular case where there was a man, he, him and his wife. He was a relatively more of a poor guy and he lived close to the river and artillery came in. I don't know, he probably, somebody probably saw him, the Burma army probably saw him and thought there was like rebels in his hut or something like that. So they called in an artillery strike on his, on his house. And he's got, he was a guy who's maybe 45, he's got three young kids and the artillery round comes in, lands and basically blows off the top of his wife's head. And her head was completely sort of like watermelon by, by this artillery right in front of all the kids. And so he, he grabbed her body, dragged her down to the river and just kind of pushed her body into the river. And then he walked out and, and you know, he, as he was walking out of the town he, you know, came over and showed us and explained to us what had just happened to his wife. And I have a, you know, a video of that conversation that I was, I was having with him, but so civilians are, civilians are coming out. So we're several days into this and the, the, the rebels, they're not used to this urban fighting. And so one of the things that we would do, like, if we were urban fighting is you kick in the door of any house and you use it as a firing position. You get the civilians out of there, but you use it as a firing position. You get up high, you're kicking in the windows, you're kicking in the doors, and you, you move house to house. They wouldn't, didn't want to do this because they didn't want to sort of be disrespectful. They didn't want to be, they didn't want to damage the local civilian population. They felt bad about that idea. And so they're basically just fighting in the streets and they're, they're in some of the houses that they can reach a little bit more easily, but they're not doing, you know, they, they're not fighting a proper urban battle anyway. So they get exhausted. They're trying to rotate their troops back, back and forth. So they're, but they're, they're not able to really rest. And, and they're, they're very, they're very stressed out, obviously, because of the constant artillery and the constant airstrike. So everybody's, you're not sleeping, you're, you know, things are, things are rough. And so I think it was the third or fourth day. They said, okay, we're going to, we're going to hold. Everybody's going to hold positions. We're calling for reinforcement. So there's more rebels are going to come. And keep in mind, during this time, the Burma army is also sending reinforcements. And so the troops on the other side of the river are holding off these airstrikes as the Burma army is trying to gather their forces to come liberate, you know, quote, unquote, liberate the town. And there are guys that are, that are stuck inside the, stuck inside the town. And so on this particular day, I just, so my team and I, we all just so happened to get sick. We, we realized, we, we realized it afterwards that we were getting sick. But so that day I was like, man, like, I feel really, I feel really bad. This is not good. So it's on, on our end, it was relatively quiet. There's still artillery occasionally coming in. Still an occasional gun run, which at the time I think I was recording, I think there was 30 or 40 impacts just within the first sort of 12 or 13 hours of the day of daylight of bombs going off from artillery or airstrikes. And I was keeping, I was keeping track of it, but on our end, we're not advancing. And so the Burma army is sitting quiet. They're not going to come out of hiding. They've, they're conserving ammo and just waiting for their troops to come. And so it's a relatively safe environment for us. Like, we're not going to get attacked. No one's going to come through your window and start throwing grenades at you, that kind of thing. And so we're sitting there and so I laid down in this, in this Buddhist temple, and the other two guys on my team, they lay down as well. We have no patience to, you know, to, to take care of. And the one and only time I took my boots off, I took my boots off and laid down. And so we're laying there, it's relatively quiet, Nothing's going on. Well, we're sitting there and what we don't realize is that one of the civilians who left the town ratted on us. They saw they were loyal to the Burma army because there's ethnic Burmese who like the Burma army and then there's people who are Karen, who, who don't. Who, you know, who don't like. So in these mixed communities, it's very dangerous. You don't know who's who, who's loyal to who. Anyway, so somebody had spotted us. They'd spotted the white guys in the building and they had contacted the Burma army. And I don't know if, I don't know what day they had contacted them. But anyway, they got word up there and they said there's white guys in that building. And they had, I think that through Facebook or something, they had. We, we found, we, we saw something later. Basically they had contacted the Burma army through social media and said, hey, there's white dudes in this building over here. And of course, at the time, we don't know this. And so what the Burma army did was they. So the, the entire time that they had been doing these, these, these gun runs on the, on the town that we're in, they would always come north to south. And so we would always hear them coming. So anytime a plane would take off from the base, you know, obviously there's an early warning network. The Burma army knows that. So we know, okay, there's aircraft taking off, they're going to be here in about 8 minutes or 10 minutes or whatever it was. And so we were kind of Mentally prepared for that. And we could. And we could hear them coming because they come from the north. Well, what the Burma army did was they cut all the cell phone towers, so there was no communication. Of course, we didn't pick up on this until after, but there was no. No, all the cell phone towers went down because the Burma army controls them. So they cut all the cell phone towers, and they took three aircraft, and they flew from west to east, and we're on the east side of the river, so they. So they came at us from an angle that we would not hear them coming. And there was no early warning except for, you know, radios and things like that, but it was just way too late. So I'm laying down on the ground, and the. The. The Burma army, they use this tactic where their. Their first bomb, they typically drop it short of the target. So their. Their idea is they drop the bomb just outside of a building. If they're. If they're targeting a building, they drop it just outside the building. And then the idea is the frag. The directional frag wounds everybody in the building, like, forces them to sort of freeze in place. And then the next aircraft comes in and drops on the building. So the idea is you want people to run to the building or you want people to be wounded? And so they're state. They're stuck. And then you. And then you come in, and then you hit the building. And so they use this tactic on us. So we all just so happen to be laying down. So I'm laying there and just trying to rest. And then no warning, no sound, no nothing. The roof of the building I'm in is blown off right on top of us, and the windows are obviously just blown in. Just huge frag. Huge, you know, huge explosion. And I look over at the guy next to me, Adam, and we just. We. We both just kind of look at each other, and for a second, we're thinking, like, okay, was that just, like, artillery? Did the artillery get close? But we're like, no, because keep in mind, this all happens over the space of, like, 2 milliseconds. So we're thinking, okay, was this artillery? We're like, no, because we hear the artillery when it's coming, and then we hear the jet fly right over us. And. And so we're like, get out, get out, get out. So we run out, and I'm barefoot, and there's no time, because we know that second. We know that second plane's coming in, and so I run out. I'm barefoot. I leave all my Stuff behind the other guys. One of the guys had flip flops on, the other guy had his shoes on, thank God. But we, we run out, we jump in these trenches. We're maybe a hundred feet away from the building and we hear the next aircraft coming in. And I pull out my phone and I'm just, I'm huddled in the, in the, in the, in this trench and I just pop my head, I just pop my phone right above my head because I'm just going to record, basically record my death or record whatever's, whatever's about to happen. Nothing I can do. And that second jet comes in, boom. Hits a direct hit on the building, completely destroys the building again. We're within, you know, they drop a 500 pound bomb. We're within, you know, 100ft of it. And so we're in the trenches and we don't know how many aircraft there are and we don't know how quickly the next gun run is going to be. So we just hold tight for a second. And because sometimes they would bring, sometimes the Burma army would attack in volleys of two, so they'd bring in a flight of two aircraft and sometimes they would bring in a volley or a flight of three aircraft. In this particular time, they brought in three aircraft dedicated to this one specific target, which we had never seen them do before.
- [44:48]
A
Because the white people in there.
- [44:50]
C
Because the white people are in there. Yeah. So not, not big fans of the, of the white people. But so, so we're in the trench. So the first, so the first bomb has gone off now the second bomb has gone off because they just bombed us when we're in the trenches. And so we've got about 90 seconds maybe, maybe two minutes before the next bomb comes in. We don't know that we have that much time. So we're hunkering in place and one of our guys, Adam, he's, he's, you know, like you want to talk about a guy under pressure, you see, you see someone's true character. So he, I get up and I'm checking on my guys. I'm like, hey, is anybody hit? Is anybody hit? And I see Adam and he's on top of a wounded soldier and in a trench and he's shielding him with his body and he's treating his wounds. He was, the soldier was lightly wounded, but he had shrapnel through some of his, through his shoulder and stuff. And Adam is, you know, he's wearing his Stronghold shirt and there's, there's an image that we have of it, because I was still just filming with my phone and I thought, like that, like that is what Stronghold is. That is, that is what we are about right there. Got a guy with a Stronghold shirt covering, covering a patient's covering a patient with your own body as bombs are falling. You can't make that up. You can't stage it. It's just, you see someone's true character in that moment. And we're literally in the trenches with these guys. And so then I hear the aircraft, I hear the next aircraft coming immediately jump in the trench. And I start, I start yelling, you know, good. Which means airplanes coming, airplanes coming. And the next, the next aircraft comes in and drops another bomb right on that same building. So they'd already hit the building two times before that, but then they hit it a third time because there was, this was like a big, you know, they wanted to make sure that they killed whatever was in that building and there was no chance of survival. So they expended a lot of, a lot of ammunition on that. And then we knew now they were going to follow up with gun runs. So they still have three aircraft and they still have machine guns on these. These are Chinese built aircraft. And so we just X fill on foot. We're like, go, go, go, go, go. Let's just get out of here. We need to, we need to put some space between us. And you're barefoot and I'm barefoot and there's shrapnel and stuff everywhere. So we, we get up and we start running and you know, I'm showing the guys, all right, we're gonna go out this way, we're gonna go out this way. And as we're going, the, the Burma army had placed, they placed these bamboo sticks in the ground. They sharpened these bamboo sticks and they push them in the ground because they don't want the rebels crawling in through the exact routes that we would use to kind of go through alleys and stuff. So they don't want, you know, they don't want, they don't want the rebels to come through these areas. And so. And they also put down broken glass because it makes noise, you know, it cuts people's feet if you're barefoot, that kind of thing. And so as we're, as we're running to kind of go through this culvert, this drainage ditch which is, which has a bunch of these bamboo spikes and glass. I look over and there's a pig five or six feet away from this and it's been blown in half. And so the shrapnel was. Was more than had. Had been flying everywhere. So we're extremely close to, like, we're in the kill box, and obviously a pig is pretty close to the ground, and so there's shrapnel flying from these airstrikes that was, you know, that was low enough to, you know, again, kill this pig. Very close. Just one of those sort of odd memories you have. So we start crawling through this, and we got to get. We got to get under this culvert and get out of there. And Adam was in front of me, and so he was kind of pointing out. He's like, hey, Glass. Glass. Gl. I was luckily able to make it out of there with. Without a scratch and sort of tiptoeing through all this stuff as everybody's screaming at me, like, go faster. So we get out of there, and sure enough, the three jets come back, and they start then doing machine gun runs from different angles, just leveling the whole area, just. Just spraying the whole area. At this point now, we're maybe 150, 200 yards away. So we're. We're pretty safe as. As. As it goes in war. So we, you know, we're able to, you know, move out of that. Out of that position. And. And then we found out later on. So then. So then basically, the. All the cell phone towers suddenly came back on as soon as the air. As soon as the airstrike was done, all the. All the cell phone towers started working, and then the Burma army started doing all their gun runs north to south again.
- [48:55]
A
And this was during your Christmas break?
- [48:58]
C
No, no, this was. This was not. No, that. We'll get to that story later. This was. This was actually ironic after you left
- [49:04]
A
after the last podcast.
- [49:05]
C
After the last podcast. This was actually. This was just a few days after Christmas, actually. So I was. This last year, I finally had my first Christmas at home with my wife because I missed the first three, you know, two. Three Christmases that we had. So. Yeah.
- [49:19]
A
So did the rebels get the village back? Get the town back?
- [49:22]
C
So. So the rebels held the village, held. That held the town for about two months now, and then they ultimately lost it. Now the. There was just no way to hold. There was several tactical blunders that were made during that, which we can talk about offline, because I don't want to give away ttps or, like, basically let the bad guys know because they'll certainly listen to this. I don't. I don't want them to know why they won.
- [49:43]
A
Right.
- [49:43]
C
But there were several tactical errors that were made but the Burma army. So this is, this is crazy and also entirely true. So one of the days were, is before, before we got bombed out of the city. So after I got bombed out of the city, we, my team, all of our gear was destroyed and so I had no clothes, I had no shoes, nothing was, Everything was leveled in that building. So there was a. Our guys were able to go in the rubble and find a few things for me. My backpack with my passport and stuff in it. So that was good. So we got that, we got that out of the rubble. And so I was, I moved back to a village where I could still advise and help a little bit, but our guys had lost everything other than their passport. So anyway, so I'm there sort of alone at that point. I'm sick. I'm literally crapping my pants because with the day, you know, that we got bombed out of this village, it was this or this town was the same day that we all, we all got sick. So, but anyway, so, but before that happened, so before the bombings had happened, I think it was like maybe day two or three, I was hearing this, I was hearing this noise coming from the Burma army side of the river. Now we have guys over there, we have our own troops on that side. But I'm hearing this like, like, it sounds like, you know, like a beat coming from. I'm like, what is that? And so then our guys radioed over, our guys from the other side of the river. They radio over and they say, basically they told us the Burma army was driving down the road to come attack the, the rebels who were defending the other side of the river. And they were coming down this road and they had these giant trucks with huge speakers on them, Mad Max style, and they're blasting some sort of like war death metal music. And all of the soldiers, or many of the soldiers at least were on, were on meth. So the Burma, that's a totally normal tactic for the Burma army. So they'll give their guys meth when they want to hype them up for a particular fight. And so you have these meth addled troops, you know, high, and then they're, you know, shooting their guns in the air, just, you know, raging on this music.
- [51:44]
B
And.
- [51:44]
C
And then they were assaulting our guys positions, you know, doing a ground assault to try to clear out our guys while, while there's airstrikes, also coordinated airstrikes before the ground assault comes in. And so needless to say, that's not something you're going to defeat with you know, a handful of guys and some, you know, rusty M16s that, that barely work. So, so anyway, so like, that's, that's sort of like the level of commitment that the Burma army had to get this, to get this town back. And so, but, but our guys held it for two straight months. They held it for two months, which was a massive victory, actually, because that prevented the Burma army from resupplying a bunch of different bases deeper in the hills. And so the Burma army actually had to surrender or not surrender, but they had to abandon five of their bases that were at the, at the, at the most extreme edge of their territory and had to pull them back to this main base because they couldn't, they couldn't resupply them because these guys had held this ground for two straight months. They held it for long enough, and so they're able to pull these guys back. So basically, we liberated five enemy camps which would have cost many, many lives and an inordinate amount of, you know, you know, firepower that these, that the rebels just, quite frankly, just don't have enough of. So it was, it was a, it was still a strategic victory, even if it was not ultimately a tactical victory in that, in that moment. But, yeah, it was quite the, quite the ordeal.
- [53:06]
A
Now you, Another video that you showed before we hit record today was the, a village that you're doing like a reconnaissance mission of, through thermal. And it kind of presents how the, how the Burmese army operates when they take one of these small villages. What they do?
- [53:24]
C
Yeah, so, yeah, the video I showed you, it was, I, I, that was a few months before this, this operation in this town. But the, so basically the Burma army, like I said, they, they use people as, as human shields, whether it's to go through an era that they think might be mined or also they'll use the civilians and force them to basically carry military supplies for them just as either forced labor or to go through a dangerous area. So, for example, they might tell the local guys sort of at gunpoint, and again, they've got your family back here to say, hey, take your motorcycle and, and take this bag of supplies and go drive it over to this other Burma army base. And if you don't make it, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna kill your family. And so those guys, they don't wanna help the Burma army, but they're forced to. And so they're driving through these areas and they're like, wait, I don't know what to do. Like, please let me, you Know if the rebels captured them, they're like, please let me deliver these supplies or they're gonna hurt my family, that kind of thing. So there's, it's, it's a horrible, it's a horrible situation for the civilians caught in the middle, which again, is everything that stronghold is about. It's about helping those people. And so there was, there was one particular day where we were down in, that we were down and working in this area in Burma, sort of in a flat, in the flat area. So we're not up in the jungle, up in the jungle mountains, we're down in the flat rice fields. And it was actually during the deployment in Time that you read, that you read right at the beginning of the episode where we had been working in this area for a few months and had, and so the, the locals were able to respond properly when an attack happened. So this was during that preparation time. And so one of the, and there's all these different villages spread out over like hundreds of square miles of just rice fields. And so it is not abnormal for the Burma army, like for a Burma army patrol of 20 guys to, or 50 guys to walk into a village and sort of say, hey, we're going to post up here tonight because we've got somewhere we've got to be. And either as a patrol or just as a, to sort of relieve other Burma army positions later on. And so while we were out there, there was a, there was a particular village that had gone dark, it had gone silent and we knew the Burma army was moving around and the rebel, the rebels knew this and they, they were looking, they, they were kind of looking at the situation and going, we think the Burma army is in that village because we can't reach anybody there. And so the, the rebels aren't able to go in and just sort of smoke the Burma army in, in those kind of cases. It just doesn't, just doesn't work like that because you don't know exactly where they're at in these, in these villages and they're highly complicated and you don't have any kind of night capability. But the, the rebels do have, in some cases they have some thermal and some night vision stuff. It's like civilian grade stuff that they get on the, you know, open market. It's nothing, it's nothing military grade or very fancy. But the, the, the locals were like, oh, we don't know if the Burma army is in that town. And I said, well, let's go do a reconnaissance mission. Let's go, let's go get eyes on the situation. And so I led a thing as a five man team as myself, my interpreter, and then three other sort of some of their like reconnaissance guys. And we, we moved over maybe a thousand yards, could have been a mile. I don't remember exactly how big this open area was, but it was a large open area of just rice fields. And so we moved at night and got to within, we crawl in there and we get to within a hundred yards of the, of this village. And we're using, we're all, we all have these thermal scopes that they have. And so then I pull up, I pull up the thermal scope and the thermal scope allows you to record what it is that you're looking at. And so I start recording the edge of the village and what I see. And there are these orange blobs of. It's people. There's, there's these orange blobs of people laying at the edge of the village. And I'm like, what is that about? There's also a dog in the, in the video and he's, he's kind of, you know, looking at us and he, he knows something, this dog knows something's up, but he, he never, he never gave away our position, which was nice. So we go in there and we can see that there's, we can see that there's villagers, we can see there's these people, people laying on the ground. And so we're like, all right, cool. So we, we pull back because we got eyes on the situation. And then the rebels explained to me, they said, oh yeah, that the Burma army's in that village. And I said, well, how do you know that? And they said, well, because those guys laying on the ground said those are, those are villagers. So what the Burma army does is they'll go into a village and they'll go to someone's house and they'll say, hey, congratulations. Tonight I'm sleeping in your house under the same roof as your wife and your kids. And you are going to go sleep at the edge of the village and you need to sound the alarm if any rebels are going to come in here and try to get us out. And you better sound the alarm because again, I'm sleeping 10ft away from where your wife and your kids are in your hut. And so the people that we saw sleeping at the edge of the village were men who were forced to go sleep there while the Burma army is sleeping in their homes. And then the Burma army was there for a couple days and then, and then Moved on. And as shocking and as crazy as that is for us to understand, and obviously I witnessed it firsthand and saw it. It's kind of a normal Tuesday, just a normal Tuesday in Burma for a lot of these people in these areas where we work. And again, that's why. That's why the work that we do at Stronghold is so vitally important, because there's nobody else there helping. Obviously, it's a very difficult place to operate. But you have these people that are caught in the middle of these wars, and what can you do to help them? How can you. How can you help them? And that's our mission, is to. To try to help them as much as we can.
- [59:04]
A
Yeah, yeah. And speaking that, you had a story about a girl that was wounded in an airstrike, and I thought it was a good example of, like, how the Stronghold team can help.
- [59:14]
C
Yeah. So the way that we operate is. So I'll take one step back and kind of explain our mission, sort of our bigger picture mission in Burma. So right now, like I said, 99% of what we do is going to be emergency medical evacuations. Now we're up there on the front lines getting mortared and shot at with the locals. But the vast majority of the work that we do is that. That medical capability. So currently in Burma, we. We provide. Stronghold provides the only ambulances, the only ambulances for an area inside of Burma that is larger than the state of Delaware. And to put that in context, that is 1 million football fields. So we have the only ambulances for this war zone that, that's, that's that big. And we have, we currently have eight ambulances and an ambulance boat to serve all these people. And people are stepping on landmines is particularly in sort of the, the, the edges of the areas where we work. So the more extreme edges know people are stepping on landmines, people are getting shot all the time. And now with the drone wars, the drones coming in now, villages are getting bombed all the time. Airstrikes are hidden, hitting villages. And there's. There's no strategic reason and there's no. And, and the Burma army knows there's no strategic reason to hit these places. Basically, the Burma army's mentality is if you're, if you're not with us, we basically can just kill you. Sort of like an ISIS mentality where, like, ISIS would kill, you know, Muslim Iraqi civilians who are running away from ISIS controlled area. They would just start gunning these people down and shooting them, shooting kids in the back of the head and stuff. Because their thought process is, well, you're, you're abandoning us, you're now apostate. We can kill you. The Burma army feels the same way. It's like, well, you're an ethnic minority group. That is not, that will not bend to our will, therefore we can just bomb your village. And they will do it. They will intentionally target weddings, they'll intentionally target, you know, funerals, things of that nature, just to inflict mass casualties. They'll intentionally bomb churches as well, and things of that nature. So this is very normal. So even in the areas where we're working, where there's not like fighting, where people are throwing grenades and shooting rifles at each other, these airstrikes still happen. So the way, the way that we operate and we run our ambulances, I have a very small team. And what we do is when we go in, we train the locals entirely on their own. So it's local leadership, it's local medics, it's local drivers, it's local managers, and we teach them everything. The logistics. Here's how you get your supplies. Stronghold. We provide the money for all this, right? We, we provide the truck, we provide the, all the logistics, support all that kind of stuff, but they run it. And we provide all the, all the supplies and stuff that they need to run these, to run these ambulances. And we, and we transport hundreds of people every, I think last year transported 600 people. 40, 40% plus were active, like war injuries from gunshots and things like that. And so again, this is all run maybe 30 plus whatever the given day is, or more than 30 locals who are, who are running, who are running all these ambulances. So the reason I say that is because we run, we run everything that we do based on a concept called charity with dignity. We talked about this last time on the podcast too. By, with and through the locals, you need to build up their capability. And the way that we measure success, the way that Stronghold measures success, is what the locals are able to do when we are not there. That is how we measure success. And so now, with that being said, we're working in a very volatile area and it's extremely difficult to move through these areas. So you think, well, okay, the state of Delaware, that's pretty small. You can just, you can drive, you can drive across that pretty quick. Well, when you're in the jungle and the maximum speed that you can do is 10 miles an hour over extremely rough terrain, you know, all of our ambulances are in souped up hiluxes with winches and bumpers and lift kits and everything in order to be able to move these people. And so the. The. The only way that it works, though, is we have to do relays. There's not. There's not a. There isn't a medical facility in every village. It doesn't work like that. And there's only one or two places where they can actually do legit surgeries, where they have either Western volunteer doctors or local people from Burma who work in these different clinics sort of deep in the jungle. And so we have to get. We have to get these patients to these. To these clinics. Well, the problem is, is when you're dealing with traumatic injuries from gunshots, lots. We deal with lots of amputations every single week. We're moving an amputee every single week, usually multiple times. And when that's happening, people are losing a lot of blood. And obviously there's. I am not a. For the record, I am not a medic. I used to be EMT qualified, but I'm not like a combat medic. The guys who work for us are. But basically what we realized very quickly was we kept on losing all these patients because we just needed to do blood transfusions. We're like, we just need to give people blood. That's the only way that we can stabilize them. Because, you know, you have so many steps on a landmine. There's no golden hour for them, right? You don't. You're not seeing. You're not seeing a doctor within an hour, if you're lucky. If you're lucky, and we're there, you might be seeing a doctor in 12 to 16 hours. And so you've got to go through the jungle in the back of this truck, up and down jungle mountains with half your leg hanging off. And so people are dying all the time. Like, we just had a young girl. A few. A few weeks ago, she was hit by an airstrike. I believe it was a drone. Triple amputee, both legs and an arm. And she. She unfortunately passed away. She was maybe 10 or 12 years old. But that's like a normal. That's a normal day in Burma, in. In the areas where we work. And so. So what we did was one of our. One of our guys on. On our team, Adam, the same guy who's in the trench, you know, shielding the patient with his body, we sent him to a school to basically learn some more advanced kind of combat trauma techniques. And he learned about blood transfusions. And so he came back from this school and he Goes, hey, I think I can set up blood transfusions in the middle of the jungle. And in my mind I'm thinking, no way, dude. I was like, I was like, give it a shot. Like, how much, how much is it going to cost? What kind of equipment do you need? And he had gone through and done all the research and figured out, okay, here's, here's how we can do this. And I thought I said, okay, like, I'll, I'll approve funding for one set. Go, you know, go. Let's see if we can get this thing up and running. And lo and behold, he got it up and running. And so we are now and he, and he trained the locals on how to do this in the middle of the jungle. So you're, you're like, it's, it's, it's so difficult to explain if you haven't been in those environments, but man, like, we're pulling blood from one person, from a donor who's just sitting there, and then you're putting it into another person in the middle of the jungle in an active war zone. And it's just the level of care that we're now able to give in these situations is just astronomically higher. And so a lot more people are, are surviving these injuries. And it's all, it's all thanks to Adam figuring out how to do this. And then now we have a bunch of different places where people can get blood. So now that 12 hour journey, you can get topped up on blood two, three times in some cases. Sometimes it's just a one stop. You can get topped up on blood. Um, but now there's a much higher level capability there. Now I, I say all that because we had this event just recently. This was just a few months ago after we had established the ability to do this, this blood transfusion. We wanted, we wanted now all of our medics and all of our ambulance teams to have a, have an understanding of how to do this. And some of the medics are advanced enough to do it, some of the medics are not advanced enough to do it. But we wanted everybody to be trained on it and how, on how to assist on these, on these operations. And so Adam, he was, he was in there and we brought in all of our ambulance teams and he showed everybody, gave him a full training for several days on how to do blood transfusions. And these guys are doing blood transfusions on themselves where they, they basically take their own blood out and then they put their own blood back in. And, and you're just doing this in a hut in the middle of the jungle. And it just, it's just incredible that we're, you know, able to do this stuff. And so they finished the training and again, everything we do is about charity with dignity. It's about you need to stand on your own when things happen. So they finished this training and literally the next day it was within 24 hours. They finished this training. All of our medics are in, in one location at this clinic in the middle of the jungle, which again is just, you know, wood, wood huts. And this jet flies over and boom. Hits a village, you know, the next on the other side of the, on the other side of the mountain. And so our guys immediately respond. They kind of know the general area of the village. So they just start going. And then they're on radios kind of coordinating and they, they go in and it's just our, just our Karen guys are just our Karen guys go on this ambulance call because we didn't know if they were going to be patients or not. And our guys didn't know. And we sent a, one of our, one of our camera guy, he's a former ranger who works for us full time doing video editing and that kind of thing. Garrett. And so Garrett goes along just to observe, get some footage of what the guys are doing. So they get to this village, keep in mind they've just finished blood transfusion training. And they get there and there's two wounded people. One of them is a 14 year old girl and she was, you know, got traumatic injury from the, from this bomb going off in her, in her village. Zero warning, you know, middle of nowhere. And so our guys, they realized they,
- [68:38]
A
and the strike is just like one strike, just one drop bomb and just,
- [68:41]
C
just a bomb, just a bomb for no reason, no, no warning, no reason, no rhyme or reason. There's no troops there. Just, they just show up and they, and they intentionally do the attacks. Now they're doing them very quick. So they kind of pop up over the mountain, immediately release their ordinance and then, you know, jump out of the way. So used to be that they would kind of circle, look for a target and then bomb it. Now they just pop up, hit their target and go. So there's zero warning. So a 14 year old girl in the jungle just living her life, hanging out. And then all of a sudden the next second she's laying there and you know, and she's heavily wounded. And so our guys, our Korean guys have realized, oh, we need to do a, we might do a blood transfusion on her because it's going to be a couple hours till we can get her back to the hospital. And so, sure enough, our guys right then and there, and it's. It's the. It's the perfect sort of image of again, what, what Stronghold does. It's. We have a Karen guy, he's in his, you know, Stronghold uniform, He's giving his own blood to help his own people, and we aren't doing it. He. He's the one doing it. It's the local Corinne team doing it. And. And we have, you know, luckily our camera guy was there, and so he filmed this whole thing. As they. As they give this girl blood, they were able to stabilize her, they get her back to the hospital. And we talked to the doctors, and the doctor said, yeah, if there was no blood, she. There's no way she would have survived the. The hour or two to. To get here. She would. She would have died. And so this is the day after the training happens. And so that's just a perfect example of blood transfusion in the middle of the jungle. Um, that's the kind of. The kind of stuff that we're. That we're doing over at. At Stronghold now. And it's. It's really incredible. Um, yeah, yeah, no, that's awesome.
- [70:10]
A
That's awesome and amazing to get that training done and then have somebody utilize that to save someone's life the next day and have it be all Corinne staff.
- [70:22]
C
Yep.
- [70:22]
A
Across the board. Now, I know we mentioned World War II. I mentioned it. And there was a story about a World War II village, too. What was that all about?
- [70:31]
C
So, so when the. So remember, the. The Karen were very loyal to the British during World War II. And now when. When the. When the Japanese invaded Burma, they came from Thailand at the time called Siam. They crossed the. The river, and they then, you know, started moving from east to west across the country, and they had to go through the Karen Hills. The first place the Japanese had to fight was the Karen Hills, the place where we work today. The, like, the exact villages and roads and rivers, the same spot. Well, when the Japanese, they advanced really quick, and it was, you know, during, you know, at a time when you can't just evac all of your people. So there was a British officer. There were several. There were several British officers who stayed in the Karen Hills to sort of work with the people. And the British drop some, like, radios to them so they could, you know, radio back occasionally. And so there was one guy, Major Seagram, a British. A British officer and he stayed with the Karen people. And during his time there, the. He was. He was training the locals and making sure that he was coordinating, you know, supplies getting brought in and things of that nature. And he's basically. His whole thing was like, I'm going to stay here until the British show up again. And so I'm going to make sure that we have, you know, our forces are ready for when the British finally come back in a couple of years. And so he's out there completely by himself. One or two other times he was able to kind of link up with another one or two British guys in the area, but that was very seldom. So he's on his own out there. Committed, Committed, Fully committed.
- [71:58]
A
Committed to the cause.
- [71:59]
C
Yeah. And so. So during this time now, keep in mind, the. The Japanese are going through the area and the. And they're working with the. The Burmese to again attack the. The local population. Well, word gets that there's British officers in the mountains. And so the Japanese were like, okay, because they're hearing radio signals. The Japanese know that, you know, air supply drops occasionally happen in the middle of the night. There's British here somewhere. And so they start going to the locals and they start. Basically, they demand that the locals. They demand that the Karen. They say, tell us where the. Tell us where the British are. And the Karen won't do it. They're totally loyal. They say, no, we're not gonna. We're not gonna do that. Another element to add to the loyalty aspect. So many of the Karen in this particular area, most of the Koran, I would say, are actually Baptist, because hundreds of years ago, a missionary named Adoniram Judson went to Burma. And the. The Karen have this. They have this legend that goes back thousands of years. And it's this legend that they passed down. It says one day a man. One day a man with white skin is going to come to you with a golden book and he's going to tell you the truth. And so, Adam, I'm Judson. Several hundred years ago, he's in Burma and he's working with the Burmese. And the Burmese aren't interested in him at all. He didn't get any converts. And then one day a Karen man comes out and out of the jungle and he meets Adoniram Judson. And he says, he said, oh, I know. I know who you are. You're the white man with the golden book. And so then Adoniram Judson goes into the Karen hills with the Bible. And many, many of the Karen convert to Christianity. And so now there's so. So there's like this deep. There's this deep connection that they have with. So that, you know, with. With the. The Western world, with what they call Galawa white people. Just anybody that's not from. From. From. From Burma. And so Seagram, Major Seagram, he's. He's deeply religious. The locals are deeply religious. The local pastors are. Are protecting him and as well. And so when the Japanese come to the Karen and they say, hey, tell us where the white man is. Most of them don't know exactly where he is because the Karen are trying to keep it hidden. But they know, they have a general idea of where he is. They refuse to tell him. And so the Japanese start killing. Karen people say, tell us where the. Tell us where the white man is. And so Karen people are dying, being executed by the Japanese for refusing to give up where this British officer was. That's how committed he was to them. And they were to him. And they. So he was a younger guy, I believe, in his early 30s. But the Korin, if they greatly. Greatly respect you, even if you're young, they'll call you Grandfather, just as a sign of respect. And so his nickname was Long Legs because he was a really tall British officer. And so they called him Grandfather. Long Legs was his name. So the Japanese and the Burmese are killing these Karen people. Well, eventually it gets to Seagram that the Karen people are being killed and they're dying to protect him. And so he says, hey, guys, I can't have any more. Any more of you died. I'll just go turn myself into the Japanese. So he. He leaves the hills now. Now he was hidden in this specific area. Now, there's a cool. A cool little anecdote that happened on my first or second trip into Burma. So I'm in this. I'm in this mountain, hill area. And my. My. I didn't know much about Seagram at the time. I hadn't really looked him up much, but they told me. My interpreter told me. He said, this is the area where they kept the. Where they kept the Galawa during the war. And I said, the gala. The white man, they're like, yeah, this is where they kept the. The white man. They kept him on this mountain in this hidden area here. And one of the generals, one of the Karen generals, his mother was one of the people who helped hide him. And so he's. They're like, yeah, he's from this area. And so the Karen are very, like, under. Understated. So I'M trying to pull more information out of him. And he's like, oh, I don't know. I don't know more than that. He's like, I just know this is where the white man was. And I'm like, this is so cool. I want to know more about this. He didn't have much more information, but so he tells me that, keep in mind this is a few years ago. And then there's a villager comes out of the jungle because he heard that there was a white man in, you know, with the. With the Karen. And he comes down and he's looking at me funny. He's kind of doing his third world squat, just kind of staring at me and smiling. And my interpreter is kind of talking to him a little bit and kind of giggling. And he looks over at me. My interpreter looks over me. He says, he's like, yeah, that guy right there, he's. He's never. He's never seen a white man before. And. And so he's. This guy's only ever heard of white people and only heard it, seen pictures of them, but he's never seen. He's never seen a white person. That's why this guy's like, squatting. They're kind of like staring at me with this big grin on his face. And so he. And he. And he had. And so I asked my interpreter something about. It's like, well, it's like, is the only white people he. I was confirming. I said, am I the only white person he's ever seen? And the villager said something along the lines of. He's like, yeah, I've heard about white people. And I've heard. It's like. And I know that we used to protect white people here. He said some. Something along those lines, but you're the first one I've ever seen. So that was double confirmation that we're in the right spot. So they kind of know. Within the. Within the tribe, anyway. So seam. During the war, the Japanese are killing the Karen. And so then he turns himself in and he goes down to this village down in one of the valleys, and there's a relatively larger village. He goes down there and he turns himself into the Japanese. And the Japanese. So he'd been up there. Major Seagram had been up there for one or two years at this point. So his uniform is in tatters. He doesn't have any western clothes. He doesn't have any more military uniform. And so he's wearing sort of like local garbage. And so the Japanese go, ah, you're in civilian clothes, you're a spy, we can kill you. And so the Japanese, he turned himself in and the Japanese basically just sentenced him to death. So he turns himself in, in this village, this Karen village, and then they take him over to another town, like a larger town, and then they execute him as a spy and, and kill him there. Now the Karen, you know, never forgot about, never forgot about him. And so they greatly and deeply respect this, this man who, who died for them. So that way, you know, people would stop, you know, the way the Japanese would stop killing them. And again, there's a very strong allegory there with Jesus. Jesus dying. Dying for your sins and dying so you can go to heaven.
- [78:18]
A
And big props to the Gullawa of, of the region.
- [78:21]
C
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So. So a couple months ago or no, not even a couple months ago, maybe a month ago, one of my guys, he's in, he's in Burma and this village where Major Seam turned himself in, we go through that village all the time. I've been through that village a hundred times, easily. And so our guys are at this clinic that's relatively near where that village is, and they're at their. I think our guys were just doing some training or something and all of a sudden they hear three or four fighter jets, like a, like a full like squadron of fighter jets come over the mountains low and fast, real low, real fast. And then boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. They just start bombing the crap out of someplace that's, you know, a couple mountains over, a couple hills over. And, and then these slower bomber planes called Y12s. These are Chinese built planes, they're basically cargo planes, but they push packages of 120 millimeter mortars out the back of the plane. And so they use it as sort of a strategic bomber, like World War II style bomber. And so they'll drop.
- [79:29]
A
So the 120 millimeter mortars just land on impact and blow up.
- [79:31]
C
Just land on impact. Blow up.
- [79:33]
A
Yeah. So they're like bombs.
- [79:34]
C
Yeah, just, just dropping bombs. Like, just dumb bombs. Yeah. And so then those planes show up and start circling that village and then dropping bombs around, around where this village was. So our guys get in their vehicles and they're the. Again the, again. Just the amazing thing about, about Stronghold, our guys are the first ones on scene. So they get there and this village is completely decimated. Half of it is gone. Many people were killed. And luckily, luckily there weren't that many people in the village at the time. I think people were kind of out working or something. But many people are killed, many are wounded, houses are destroyed. Our guys got there right around dusk, and I have video footage of this as well. And so they get on site and it's just a lake of. Of fire, and the entire village is destroyed. And there's just folks, you know, dead, laying in random places and people who are wounded and people who had their legs amputated from the explosions. And our guys go in and, you know, evacuate. Evacuate all the wounded and that kind of stuff. But the village that was destroyed is the same village where SEM surrendered himself to the Japanese to give his life for the. For the Karen people. And so we always call it Seagram's Village when we go through. But that's just another example of the Burma army just coming in and completely annihilating a place. No reason, no rhyme or reason for it. There's no military stockpiles there. There's no rebels there. But you're not loyal to us. You're not going to bow the knee to us. We're just going to wipe your village off the map. No warning.
- [81:04]
A
So they rebuild the village. Or is it just gone?
- [81:06]
C
They're going to re. They'll certainly rebuild. Most likely many. Obviously many people are unfortunately dead, but they will. It's at a strategic. Well, not a strategic. But it's at a. It's in a valley, so it's a. It's. It's close to water. So they will rebuild the village. And most of these people live in. In bamboo huts, so they can kind of have it up and running again within a couple weeks.
- [81:26]
A
So when you were at Harvard, when you did the Christmas break trip, what. What went down with that? Because that sounded like it was a pretty horrific scenario, too.
- [81:36]
C
So. Yeah, so I, We. We finished class and I think I turned in my. My. I did my. Yeah, I did. I did my final, like, exam for one of my. For one of my classes. Again, this is just the first semester, so I, I know I still had to come back and, you know, submit my exam, whatever. I think the next day my wife dropped me off at the airport, and she's heavily pregnant at this point. And.
- [82:02]
A
So how are you getting away with this?
- [82:05]
C
Well, she's. Well, she's.
- [82:06]
A
She's ridiculous.
- [82:08]
C
Well, she's Corinne, so she's. She's correct.
- [82:11]
A
There you go. I stand corrected. Checkmate.
- [82:13]
C
Yeah. And, you know, it's. Don't get me wrong, it's. It's still a struggle, but so I, I go out there, I get out to Burma and I go in and the, the, the, the rebels, their plan at the time is to go in and basically liberate and basically knock the Burma army out from this particular outpost. Now we're deep in the mountains now, so now we're no longer in the flat lands. We're sort of deep in the Karen. In the Karen Hills. And there's this mountain. Not a mountain, it's just sort of a large, Very, very large hill. And there's a Burma army outpost. So basically what the Burma army does is when they go into the Karen hills, they set up these outposts on, like, the most prominent hilltops, but they then use those positions and they fire mortars. They're big on mortars, and they fire these mortars into the villages. And so I'm there and it's, you know, Christmas time. So, for example, as the, as the rebels are kind of getting prepared to go and launch this assault to take this hilltop, not fortress, but this hilltop, enemy camp, Burma army camp. The Burma army, just one or two camps over, is fire was on Christmas Day, was firing mortars into. Into Christian villages. And I got photos, like on Christmas Day or was the next morning of multiple little girls who had been killed by these mortars. So these mortars had just gone in. These little kids are celebrating Christmas and then they're just blown up in front of their families. And this is all this, this, this same, same road very close to the area where, you know, that did the reconnaissance, the thermal reconnaissance mission. So I get out there to. I get out there and we're, you know, the, the rebels are planning on taking this town or not. Not this town, but this, this hilltop outpost which has been controlled by the enemy for 50 years. They've never, they've never had a friendly boot stand up there in 50 years. And now they're. They're gonna, they're gonna try and take it. And so I'm helping coordinate the medical evacuation plan, just making sure, you know, everything's set for them to be able to liberate this area. And I'm at this time, my team had been in Burma for like, the previous couple of months. So I was like, hey, you guys go home for Christmas. I'll go in solo. So I'm operating solo out there. And so the, the. The rebels then sort of launch the attack. And they're using drones. So the, the rebels are using drones and they're. And they're dropping these bombs on the Burma army base. And the Burma army has jammers and things. So there's this Interesting whole other topic and conversation about drone warfare in the jungle, which is a very, very. Another talk about another weird thing that Americans are not used to experiencing, you know, being on the receiving end of that kind of thing. So the rebels are, are bombing the, the hilltop fortress and then eventually they launch a ground assault to go and, to go and take it. And it takes several days of, of fighting to really, to really take the, to really take it because they had to do several different, like sort of fakes and attempts and it's not just a clean Hollywood style charge and take the, take the enemy camp. It's, it's a lot more strategic and you're kind of battling.
- [85:17]
A
How many enemy fighters were up there on that hill?
- [85:19]
C
You think 30 or 40, maybe 60. Yeah, Chuck and our guys had a couple, couple hundred. And so, and so as that's, as that's going on, eventually our guys push, push the Burma army out. The Burma army leaves, our guys take the hilltop and when they, when they take the hill, the Burma army has like placed landmines all around this, all around this, all around this place. And so in the days, keep, keep in mind I, I, you know, I developed very close relationships with a lot of these, A lot of these guys, they're like, they're like brothers to me. And you know, obvious obviously how it is. It's like there's a, there's a deeper tie than, just, than a familial bond when you're in battle with, with these guys. And again, I'm not a direct combatant in this situation, but I am on the receiving end at this point of like mortar fire and, you know, airstrikes and stuff coming in. And so as the, as the rebels are trying to take this town, so
- [86:14]
A
what do they call you? They have a nickname for you?
- [86:17]
C
Yeah.
- [86:18]
A
Can you say it or is it classified? I probably better not.
- [86:23]
C
Well, it's not, it's not a classified thing. Well, yeah, but you don't, I'd rather, I'd rather just not say. I'll, I'll tell you off, I'll tell you offline. Yeah, but so, so I'm there, you know, working with them. And so as the, you know, the Burma army knows that this camp's about to get, you know, attacked and so they're dropping, you know, they're bringing in fighter jets and stuff and dropping in the jungle and, you know, looking for us. And so, but, so before this attack had happened, I had slept in a, in a abandoned village maybe a couple of miles away from this Burma army outpost. So I had slept in this village and abandoned village and the hut that I was sleeping in, I had been one. One day I was sitting sort of in the doorway of it as some civilians on motorcycles came by and they were driving toward the Burma army territory. So. And they saw me and I saw them kind of. And I understand enough of the language. They're like, blah, blah, blah. And so they're kind of pointing, they're like, oh, there's a white guy in that, in that, that hut over there. You know, so I'm just. I don't think anything of it. Well, once the attack starts, once our guys start the bombing campaign, it's the middle of the night. We, we have now moved to an entirely different location. A. I'm laying in my tent. It's 11 o' clock at night, you know, pitch black in the middle of the jungle. And I don't hear it because I was, I was asleep at the time and I had, was sleeping with earplugs in. And I'm waking up, I'm woken up by this huge explosion. Just boom, goes off. And keep on, keep in mind, I'm in the middle of jungle. I'm like, what the heck? So I pop out my earplugs and I hear, you know, a jet flying over. And then, and then you hear it just sort of circling, you know, and it was very, very close, very close to where we were. And the next morning we realized, so we had moved out of that village, but the, the jet had come in middle of night, popped up over to the hilltop and put one bomb right outside the one building in the village that I had been sleeping in. And so I don't know for sure that they were targeting me, but somebody, somebody said something somewhere because they only dropped the one bomb and then they dropped another bomb somewhere else.
- [88:28]
A
Yeah.
- [88:28]
C
Yeah.
- [88:29]
A
So, so how did the battle turn out?
- [88:33]
C
So for the hilltop, so our guys take the hilltop after so days, they take the hilltop, but it's because the Burma army sort of fell back. So the Burma army falls back into the woods or falls back into the jungle. And, and I learned later, like months later that actually the Burma army had, had done a gun run, had, had dropped bombs trying to hit the rebels. And it actually hit some of their own Burma army guys. So they had their own sort of blue on blue or red on red, whatever you want to call it. So they bombed some of their own guys, which is, which is nice. So our guys take the, take the, take the hilltop and we're Very excited about this. This is wonderful. Like, this is, this is a big deal, but we know the Burma army is realistically going to take it back.
- [89:10]
B
Back.
- [89:10]
C
We can't hold it. That's not the, it's just not going to happen. But anyway, so our guys are in there. We've got about 30 or 40 guys in the camp and they're cutting down all the trees in the camp and trying to pull out all the Burma army guns and weapons and stuff like that that they can, that they can get from this hilltop fortress so they can use it against the Burma army later and to get. And again, there's landmines everywhere to get into this camp. So. But our guys had sort of cleared a footpath that's maybe a foot wide to get into the, into the camp. And so I believe at the time we had 40 guys in the camp. So we have 40 guys in the camp. And one of the, one of the guys I'd become good friends with, not, I wouldn't say good friends with, but, you know, friendly with one of the guys. He, he was. So there's 40 guys leaving the camp. So they steal a bunch of supplies. Our guys can't hold the camp. You're gonna get bombed. So they're walking out. So 40 guys, so 39 guys walk down this single, you know, single lane path. And this other guy that I developed, you know, some friendship with, he was the 40th guy and he's walking out on the same little path. He steps on a landmine, 39 other guys stepped over it. He was the last guy out of this camp steps on a landmine. Now it's a kind of landmine that just sort of blows off half of your foot. So it's not going to kill you. You're going to be fine. So it blows off half of his foot. But he panicked and he, I, I was told later that he had made some different comments before. He basically said, I never want to live as a cripple. I don't want to, you know, whatever. So he flipped around his rifle, put it on fire and shot himself in the head right there on top of this, on top of this mountain. And the other guys are four or five feet away from him. Obviously they dove recover when the explosion went off and they, you know, they're trying to reach him. They're like, they were screaming, no, no, no, no, no, no. And then boom, he, he killed himself. And so they, they pulled his body off the, off the top of the hill. And he was early 20s, like maybe 22. His wife, two kids. And so you want to talk about the generational impact of these wars, his father was like a platoon commander or squad commander or something as part of this force as well. And so his father was in a different spot. He wasn't. His father wasn't on the hill, but, yeah, his father was. Was there as well and had to, you know, come take his body. And. And, yeah, so the.
- [91:34]
B
The.
- [91:34]
C
Just the reality of the. The horrors of war and what these people, you know, go through is. Is. Yeah, it's. It's very difficult. So I went through that. So I'm.
- [91:43]
A
I'm in Christmas break.
- [91:45]
C
This is my Christmas break. Yeah. And then the Burma army comes back and takes the. Takes the hill, takes. And then our guys take it a second time. So it changes hands two or three times while I'm there. We had a couple of other guys get killed, but ultimately it was still a strategic and tactical victory. We knew we weren't gonna be able to hold the hill, so that was never the objective, but it was basically letting the enemy know, like, hey, we can. We can. We can punch you guys in the face, too. And it was a big symbolic victory, knocking out these mortars which are being used to murder people and subjugate the. The people. Now the Burma army still now controls that place again, but, you know, they now know that they're no longer vulnerable. And so it was a. That was important. One really bizarre thing that I still don't fully understand. So the Korin, a lot of them are Buddhist, and a lot of them are also animist, and so. Animist. The best way I'd like to describe that is to sort of, like, think about maybe, like, Native American sort of style of spirituality. Like the rocks and the trees and the rivers have, you know, have a. Have a spirit, that kind of thing. Think about, you know, Pocahontas, that. That sort of religion. But I think because of that, they have this. They have this interesting custom where if somebody commits suicide, they punish the weapon that was used to commit suicide because they believe that there's, you know, it's just culturally just believe like, hey, this thing needs to be punished as sort of a cool cultural remnant. And so the weapon, this rifle that the soldier had used to commit suicide, you know, they unload it and they go put it in, like, a hut in a prison, and they tie it tied up, and I think they were hitting it with sticks and. And. And some stuff like that. And granted, they're. It's. It sounds really Hocus pocus and like really superstitious. Like they're like, they're complete bumbling morons. That's not it at all. They're, these are very intelligent people, but this was just their custom and they, they, yeah, they, they basically imprisoned this rifle for a short time for, for what it had done to, to kill this guy and punished it. And then, you know, now it's back in circulation. Somebody, somebody else is using it. So I guess the point of that little anecdote is it's a whole different world over there. There's a, there's an entirely different world, entirely different way of thinking out there. And so there that was, and that was, yeah, so that was, that was the world I was in. Um, and then, so the way that, that ended. Um, so the Burma army eventually kind of takes back the, the camp. We go back and forth a few times. It's still, it's still a victory. It's still a really good thing. Um, so I'm so, I, I, I, I now need to head back, I need to go back to the United States to, to go back to school. So I've got maybe an hour, hour and a half left there and I'm going to, I'm going to leave in a short amount of time before, kind of before the sun goes down and I'm going to start driving back through the jungle to start my long journey home back to the United States. And I'm sitting there and all of a sudden we hear this, we hear a plane, A plane pops up overhead and it's just one plane and it's, it's again, it's one of these Y12 bombers where they just drop payloads of four or five, 120 millimeter mortars at a time. And it starts circling the camp, the Burma army camp. But it's, it's circular path actually took it right over us. So it was right over, I'm literally, I can stare up and I can look directly at this, at this bomber. I can look at the bottom of it and it's flying right over us now. It's just one bomber. I've been through a million times worse. This is not that big of a deal. It should not be that big of a deal. And so I go and I, we get in the trench, I'm in the trench, in the trench with my interpreter. And I'm sitting there and I'm just going. I was sitting there and mentally I was very calm. I was like, okay, but this isn't, this is not that Big of a deal. The chances of the dropping bombs where we are very, very low chance. But I start getting that, that shaking my hands and my feet are shaking. And this thought was just going through my head the whole time and it was just, I just want to meet my daughter. I just want to meet my daughter. I just want to meet my daughter. And it was this intrusive thought that was just poking through in my brain because my wife was going to give birth in just a couple of months. She was maybe six months, eight months pregnant at this, six or seven months pregnant at this point. And so I'm sitting in a trench on the other side of the world with this Karen guy. I'm just, you know, and my hands are shaking a little bit and all I can think about is I just want to meet my daughter. And as long as I can meet my daughter, I'll be happy to die, but I need to, I need to meet my daughter first. And, and that was, that was again, not a, not a particularly dangerous situation. The, the, the bomber drops all of its bombs nowhere even close to us, but it did multiple sorties over, right over our head. And each time, I just want to meet my daughter. I just want to meet my daughter. And so then the plane goes away and I then hop in the car, so hopping, you know, off our off road vehicles and I just start, you know, start my, my drive back. But yeah, that really, that really stuck with me and I just, I thought, man, like, what is like my, my, my heart and my head are like now in an entirely different place. And so I, you know, I drive, you know, I drive out of there and you know, eventually I get home and, you know, greet my, you know, pregnant wife and I miss Christmas and, and all that stuff. And then I just walk back into school at, at Harvard and you know, and then, yeah, and then people go, well, how was your, how was your, how was your Christmas vacation? What'd you do? You know, all that kind of stuff. So, and I just, I, I, I, There was like a, there was one or two other guys there that were former, you know, SF and stuff. And so I kind of told them a little bit about where I'd been and what I've been doing, but not all the details and stuff because I was just like, you know, it's like it just, I don't know, I just didn't want to talk about it. Um, and so, yeah, that was, that was definitely, definitely an interesting experience kind of walking back into the classroom and then everybody's, you Know, talking about whatever. Whatever matters to them at. At the time, and. Yeah. So just kind of an interesting mental. Mental roller coaster to go from one extreme to the other and back and. Yeah. And then a few months later, my daughter was born, and. Yeah, I love her to death.
- [97:55]
A
Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah, I. I had the little bit of the feeling of, you know, coming back from combat of a little bit of, hey, all this other stuff. It doesn't really matter. It's not that enough. Like, this doesn't really matter. This. Were you gonna teach me about something? You're gonna do something? Like, I remember I had to do, like, evaluations and fit reps and stuff, and you're. I really had to, like, like, actively consciously focus and be like, all right, this is my job. I have to do this. And I would break it into a smaller. Like, when I went to college, I was a grown man that was already a SEAL and stuff, and I'd gone to college, and I would sit down without a second thought and do academic schoolwork for eight hours. I would just get. Just go. And I. And even up until that deployment, you know, anytime we had to do fit reps or we had to write evals, or I could just. I could just kind of lock in. But when I came home from my last deployment, it was like. It was. I had to really kind of actively, consciously go, all right, dude, like, you got to do this right now. This is your job. This is important. I had to tell myself that. And that probably lasted for about six months, and I kind of got back to normal. But it seems like rolling from. From, you know, sitting in a trench waiting to have mortars dropped on your head from an aircraft above you, and then the next thing you know, like, okay, tonight's assignment is, you know, I want you to read this article about whatever thing. Did you find that a little bit difficult?
- [99:23]
C
Yeah, to an extent, a little bit. But honestly, I mean, I. For the last, you know, five, six, seven, eight years, I've been going back and forth from sort of civilian world to, you know, these. These war zones and back and forth, you know, a bunch.
- [99:37]
A
You figured it out.
- [99:38]
C
I have not figured it out. No, that's not true. I've. I've learned how to suppress it, and that's why I'm sitting there in class, you know, but before the. Before this little deployment I had done, I'm sitting there in class and my hands are shaking just to answer, just. Just to. Just to say something simple in a class of 25 people. And you Know, nobody there is, you know, super, super impressive that I need to be like, you know, nervous around it, nothing like that. So there was, there was definitely a, you know, a lot of stuff kind of pushed down. And then also too, I think there's this sort of certain level of emotion and part of my brain and my heart that I didn't even know existed until I had a daughter. I just didn't even know it was there. And you know, one, one example was this, this past summer I was, you know, how at home in Milwaukee and a couple of my young cousins had, had come over. They're like 14, 15 years old. And then they had a, another one of my cousin's sons was there, and he's also 14 or 15. And so these, these three, these three young men are there at the house. And my aunt said, she said, hey, can you, can you show them the video? And so there's a, you know, video of me getting shot by ISIS on, on this rescue mission in Iraq as a civilian. And so I was like, yeah, no problem. I'll, I'll use this as an instructional time because I don't, I don't really talk about that unless I'm, you know, doing fundraising or something. I don't, I don't talk about it. But so I said, yeah, this is a great learning opportunity for the, for the young men here. And so I, I sit, I sit the boys down in the living room. I, you know, have the video kind of ready to go on the tv and I explained to them what was going on and sort of the context. And then I, and then I show them the video and they're, they're watching this and he's like 14 year old boys, you know, are just, they don't, they don't really know what to say. They're just like, what the heck, you know, what are we watching here? Because keep in mind in that video, there's, you know, I'm getting shot, there's dead bodies everywhere. And I started explaining to the boys that there's, about how the ISIS had massacred these people. And I, and I was telling them about some of the different, some of the different people that I could see in the bodies. Little young girls with their heads blown off. And then there was one particular, when we talked about this last time, but there was one particular casualty that stuck with me. It was an Iraqi husband and wife and their dead baby was laying between them. And just based on the pattern of, you know, how the, where they were laying and stuff, it was very Obvious. The father was carrying the baby. He'd been shot in the back by isis, and he'd fallen forward in the rubble, dropped his baby. And the baby's head had been bashed open by falling into the rubble. And the mother was also shot and died right next to them as part of the. The, you know, this massacre that I. That I'd seen. And so I don't remember if I told the boys that, but it was vividly in my head. But there was this moment where that wasn't. That wasn't some other kid's baby. That was my baby, because my baby is now that same old, you know, whatever. Just a few months old. Four, four, five months old. And so I told the boys the story and then I just. It emotion hit me and I went to the bathroom and I just started weeping. I just started weeping uncontrollably. And my wife is like, what's wrong? What's wrong? I'm like, I'm like, like, I don't know. Like, I don't know what's wrong with me. And I'm just sitting there weeping in the bathroom. And then, you know, I got. Got control of myself and I was like, okay, okay. You know, so there's like a lot of. A lot of deep stuff there I just didn't even know was there. But, you know, having. Having a daughter now, but, you know, the. It's. It's all come to. To all come full circle because the reason I started Stronghold was because a firefight in Afghanistan were, you know, almost had to kill two little girls. And, you know, and then I go to Iraq and I wounded while rescuing a little girl. And then I have my own little girl now. And so this I. I don't know, just sort of this. And now, now I feel that protective instinct is now to protect my daughter and to keep her from all the evils of this world that I. That I know are out there.
- [103:31]
A
Did the. How long did the shaking hands last?
- [103:35]
C
It lasted pretty much for the. For the most part. So. So what I did was so lasted most of the school year. I got back from, um, Burma. Obviously that. That did not help the shaking. Um, and so what I got back, basically what I started doing was mentally I felt fine. Mentally I felt fine. I wasn't having like, crazy nightmares you get. You have a few when you first come back as you're. As you're decompressing. But I was like, that was normal, totally fine. So what I started doing was just for a couple of months. I basically just started every morning I would just wake up and I would just take a freezing cold shower and just force myself to not like wince or, you know, not allow myself to shudder. And so that's what I just, that's what I did literally just to get sort of control of my nervous system just to force my mind to just stop the shaking. And, and that, and that helped. And so then, since then, it's, it's pretty much gone away. I just needed to kind of get control of my body and my nervous system or whatever were just not linked up with my mind. So I just did that for, I don't know, maybe two months or so. And that, that really helped with the, the shaking. Anytime, you know, my adrenaline would go up because again, mentally I felt fine. It was just my body was not reacting how my mind was reacting.
- [104:41]
A
It's interesting, you're kind of like a person because the last time you were on, you kind of told the story of you had gotten to a pretty dark place, you were addicted to food, you weighed 325 pounds, your life was just not going well. And you, you went to a hotel in Florida, rented a room, and you like parsed your life mentally to try and figure out what was wrong and how you're going to fix it. Y. And you made those decisions like, okay, this is what's wrong. Here's my problems and here, here's what I'm going to do to fix it. And then you fixed it. It's very interesting that you have this capability to assess yourself, root cause the problem and then figure out what you can do to solve that problem.
- [105:28]
C
Yeah, I, I just, I guess I probably spent a lot of time, I'm, I'm very introspective. Um, I believe Aristotle said the unexamined life is not worth living. And that's one of my favorite quotes. And it's just I'm constantly trying to examine myself and just where am I at mentally, where am I at emotionally? Why am I doing what am I. Why am I doing what I'm doing? Why, you know, why am I here, why am I there, why am I doing this kind of work? And then also just trying to analyze in anything that I'm doing, like, how can I be more effective at this, how can I be better at this? And by no means am I a perfect person in any way. But, um, it just, I, I just think it's kind of maybe just comes naturally me to try to just try to, you know, figure out, figure out what's up. And sometimes it works and the other. But the, the danger of that mindset is sometimes you can't figure out the problem. And so you're just spinning and you're just like, why can't I figure this out? Why can't I figure this out? What is wrong with me?
- [106:15]
A
And did you get any advice on the, on the shaking? Did you read anything? Because the last, you know, the last one, you talked about reading Russell Brand's book, and he had a book about addiction, and you figured out that you were addicted to food, so you read his book. And these are probably protocols I'm going to follow. Did you have anything similar here with, you know, getting over this, this shaking of the hands?
- [106:34]
C
No, because I, No, I just sat and thought about it a bunch because I thought my mind is fine, but my body is not. Is not fine. So I was like, there's. There's a split between my mind and my body. And that was. Seemed pretty obvious to me. I. Because that none of the shaking had happened before. We'd been hit with these bombs in, in, in. In Burma. And so, and again, during the Burma bombings, we weren't like, we, we had, you know, there was like a structure kind of between us and where these bombs were hitting. So it's not like I had tbi. It's not like I was concussed. There was nothing like that at all. It was just purely my nerves. And so I thought, okay, what can I do to calm my nerves? I'm like, well, go back to buds. You just got to sit there and just, just be calm. Just be calm. You're very cold. You're very tired. You're, you know, you're pissed off. You know, you got a long, you know, Monday night of hell week kind of thing. You got a long way to go, dude. So you just, you just mind over matter. And so I just realized that there was a, there was a separation between my mind and my body. And I was like, okay, I just need to sort of force my body. I need to do something that's going to be very uncomfortable that I don't want to do. And so I just did that ritually every morning for, yeah, like I said, like two months. And then that, that helped massively.
- [107:37]
A
What's the current status and the trajectory in, in Burma right now?
- [107:43]
C
So right now the, the Burma army is starting to gain ground. And the reason for that, like I alluded to earlier, is, is both that Russia and China are heavily backing the Burma army. So there was a period from 2021 until maybe 2024, mid-2025, where the, the Chinese in particular, because they share a border with Burma, with the Kachin tribe up in the north. But the, the Chinese specifically were kind of playing both sides. They were going to see who was going to win because at the time back in 2023, 2024, it looked like the rebels might win and it looked like the Burma army might fall. And so the, and the Chinese actually gave a bunch of drones and weapons to some of the rebel groups to, to help them. Ultimately, the rebel groups never united. There's cultural differences, there's language differences. It's very difficult to unite in the jungle like that. But then also some of the tribes, so, so the Korean tribe are very, very, very, very good people. There's, you know, splinters groups within them that there's criminal elements like you'd have in any tribe. But some of the tribes are heavily involved in the drug trade, in weapons trades, things like that. And so it's very hard to unite sort of the pro democracy, you know, Baptist, you know, peaceful Buddhists with, you know, the, the people that are trying to traffic crystal method to Southeast Asia, some of those tribes. And so the Burma army is able to also use that against, you know, against the tribes that kind of pit them against each other. So basically, because the tribes did not unite, the Burma army is just sort of reasserting control, is what it appears to be at the moment. And China and like I said, Russia are backing them heavily up with, with weapons and, and that kind of thing.
- [109:21]
A
And that drone, the drones in the jungle, what's. Did you have drones coming after you while you were there?
- [109:26]
C
I have in the past. Yeah. So I'll. So the first time I ever had a drone come after me, this was a couple years ago. I was, it was at night and I was in a, just in a village, sleeping in a hut. And I hear this. I hear this, you know, the, the, this, the, yeah, the motorcycle, the motor or the, the lawnmower sound is like. It was a little bit more deeper. It was like a, it was a bit, it was a big one. And I hear it fly. It's very slow, low and slow, middle of the night, right above us. So it either has night vision or has thermal because this is being controlled by somebody remotely. So it probably had thermal on it. And so it flies right over us. And I just immediately start sweating because I'm like, I can't get up and run out of this hut because they're going to see me. So you just have to sit there. And hopefully everyone else stays in their huts, and hopefully they bomb someone else's hut and don't bomb my hut. And so I'm laying there, laying there still, as if it matters, but I'm under like a, you know, a straw roof. And so the drone comes right over. I feel buzz right over. And then it drops a salvo, I want to say, of 15 or 20 bombs. This was like a large one that dropped like a smaller amount of. A smaller. A larger amount, but smaller projectiles. And they dropped maybe 150, 200 yards from where I was at. And I knew the building that they were targeting because there was like a concrete building that wasn't in the jungle. I was like, oh, I know exactly what they're bombing. And so, sure enough, these, these bombs are going off, and then we hear a second drone. And so the Burma army had launched at least two drones. And then I was hearing reports of up to three or four, who knows? But they were also bombing some of the villages in that were close to where we were. So there was multiple places had been bombed that night. And I don't. Again, I don't know if it was the same drone, but it was at least two or three. And so my interpreter, he comes. He comes running up to me and we're like, dude, we got it. We got to go hide in the jungle because they're going to come back around, they're going to start bombing all these huts that we're in. So grab my ak, throw my gear on. I got my bolt bag, you know, my water and, you know, water and passport in it. And we just. Just run into the jungle and we can hear this drone just. And we don't know if it's right above us. We know it, we know it's on thermal. It was a. It was at a very dry part of the year. And so a lot of the leaves on the trees aren't there. So it's not like thick, green jungle to hide under. It's like many of the. It's almost like fall time where many of the leaves are gone. And so we're hiding under these trees. We're like literally sort of hugging trees as this drone is trying to fly over, because we're just trying to stay under the branches so the thermal doesn't pick us up. And it starts boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Dropping. Dropping bombs in this, you know, in this local area. And so that was. That was not a. That was not a pleasant experience, to put it, to put it mildly. So that was yeah. So we've been hunted by, by drones in, in, in that case. And so I, So, you know, you talk about gwat, you know, global war on terror. We're used to when our drones or our aircraft show up, we have what we call squirters. Guys who run, they squirt, they get off target, they start running off target.
- [112:20]
A
That's you.
- [112:21]
C
I was that guy. I was that guy just grabbing my rifle and just sprinting into the jungle. Just get away from the path of this aircraft. And there's nothing, and I mean literally nothing you can do to stop it.
- [112:31]
A
Horrifying.
- [112:32]
C
No, it's the worst. It was, it's the absolute worst. It's, it's being in combat when you are at least equal with your enemy is, is one thing, right? That's, that's already terrifying enough where you're relatively equal with your enemy. You know, when you're dominating your enemy, it's kind of fun, right? You're out there, you're like, you're out there with, you know, your SEAL platoon and you're like, yeah, we're going to go smoke these dudes. Daylight, I don't care. Like, we're going to, we're going to crush these dudes. We're going to call them the AC130 and A10s and we're going to own this. But then you, but then I was in situations in Iraq where we were sort of even with isis. So they're entrenched, they're, they're dug in, but they don't have air power, but they've got rockets and mortars and, you know, and we're sort of equal. And that was terrifying enough. And then now you go to Burman, it's like, no, now you're the dude with an AK running through the jungle as bombs are going off everywhere.
- [113:19]
A
Yeah. And fast movers overhead and there's fast movers and thermal on drones.
- [113:26]
C
So you want. So the first time I ever felt like my hands completely shaking in, in Burma. So after that. So after this bombing had happened, I was back there a month or two later.
- [113:36]
A
And after the drone bombing.
- [113:38]
C
No. So this is after the, the jet bombing.
- [113:40]
A
The jet bombing, yeah.
- [113:41]
C
So I was out there kind of visiting, visiting some of the troops. This was during that two month period where they still controlled the town. And so this was the first time I, I experienced the shaking. So I was just up there kind of visiting those guys, seeing what was going on, seeing if we could get them any medical supplies, whatever. And so I hop on the back of a motorcycle. Um, and there's a. You know, I've got my own motorbike driver, so he's. He's driving me. And so we're driving across these rice fields, totally open. There's, you know, there's like, maybe a tree or two in the. You know, over the. Over, like, the next, like, two or three square miles. So there's just. There's just nothing. And we got to go a mile to get to this village where there's, you know, trees and stuff. So we're driving along, and maybe 200 yards in front of us on this. Just one road going, cutting through the rice fields is a. Is a tractor that's pulling a trailer with, like, maybe 20 people on the back of it. Just villagers kind of going wherever it is that they're going. And I look at the. I'm watching them, and all sudden I see all of the people in the tractor just jump up and scatter, and they just start running. And I see them pointing, and I'm like, what are they pointing at? So I turn and I look. I'm not even kidding. 100 yards away from me, maybe 100ft in the air, is a Russian Hind helicopter paralleling me, because I didn't hear it, because. Because we're, you know, all the wind in my ears, and this attack helicopter is paralleling me. I look up and I can see the pilots. I can see the pilots, luckily. And so keep in mind, I've got an AK on my back. I'm with, like, three or four other guys who have, like, rifles. It's super obvious that we're, you know, part of the, you know, resistance. And this Attack helicopter is 100 yards away from us. Luckily, it was staring. It was clearly. The pilots were staring and probably laughing like, oh, that's so funny. Look at all the villagers, you know, running away. So the villagers are all running away from this attack helicopter as it comes in. And so the. The guy in the bike, he. He slams the brakes. We jump off, because we're getting ready just to scatter as well. And I. And so I'm staring at this helicopter like this, you know, it's like a dragon. Dragon in the sky that can kill
- [115:43]
A
you just for a reference. Echo. This is the. The famous helicopter from, like, Rambo.
- [115:47]
B
Yeah, that's what I. Okay, cool.
- [115:49]
A
Yeah, Just making sure you, you know, connect that.
- [115:51]
B
Oh, I'm with it.
- [115:52]
C
Yeah.
- [115:52]
A
Horrific.
- [115:52]
C
No, it's hor. It's horrifying. And so you're just sitting there all that has to happen is the pilot just has to look. All he has to do is look 45 degrees to his right, and he's going to see me standing there and me and like, six other guys. And we would have to run, like I said, a mile across open territory just to get to a tree to hide in. We're dead. Like, we're dead meat. And he just never looks over at us, and he just keeps, you know, flying along, you know, 150ft in the air, whatever. How really low, really? I could have chucked a rock and hit him super low. And he was. I don't know where he was going, doing whatever he was doing, but yeah, so that was. So anyway, my point is, I was standing there on the road, and that was the first time I felt these shakes. And I was like, oh, okay, this is a. This is a new experience. But, yeah, just these really. Just close calls. Just nothing you can do. And so I guess that the thing that makes it so terrifying is there's nothing you can do about it. Again, it's different if you can fight. Like, okay, if we gotta fight, you know, like, if you and me get into a fistfight, I know you're gonna win, but I'd Like, I. But it's like, okay, like, I'm gonna, like, put up a fight and I'm gonna be less afraid than if I'm just standing there. And I just know somebody's gonna come up and stab me, you know, I mean, and I can't defend myself or someone's gonna shoot me. It's so much worse if you don't even have a chance to fight back.
- [117:02]
A
So, yeah, it's. I've had some discussions with some guys about, like, what's. What's more horrific, the drone that's coming after you or you're the next step that you take. You know, the IED environment of, you know, and I think it was. Is bad in Ramadi, bad in Iraq, Afghanistan. Like, it got horrific for guys. I didn't. I didn't fight in Afghanistan, but guys, I don't know if it was like this when you were there, but it got to the point where it was like, the immediate action drills were like, don't move. You know, so, hey, if we start getting shot at or something blows up, no one move because there's so many IEDs. So is that worse where you're like, well, this next step could be my last? Or is it worse to say, oh, this thing is hunting me down and finding me at my beginning thought was. I thought it was like, well, it's scarier if you don't kind of like what you just said. Like, you don't know what's going to happen. You take your next step, you could get blown up. But as I think about it more and as. As I see more of, like the Ukrainian activities going on, I'm starting to think, yeah, that seems like the most horrific thing is to have these drones coming that are just. There's like, nothing you can do about it.
- [118:12]
C
So I would definitely say the drones are worse. And the reason for that is not because they're, you know, less deadly or more deadly or whatever than an id. Obviously, you don't want to step on an id. The difference is the drone is hunting you. They're looking for you. They're called loitering. Munitions is sort of the technical term for it. So it's just sitting there, it's just watching. It's just watching. And once it finds you, you know, you can jump into a trench, but it's just going to hit you from the top. You run into a building, it'll just follow you into the building. And so it's sort of. It's sort of like being you. You are the prey. It's kind of like. It's kind of like the movie Predator, right? Where, you know, like, what's more scary, you know, there's room that you shouldn't go into because you know you'll get hurt or this thing is actively hunting you and there's nowhere safe. And that's the. So that in my personal experience, for at least me, definitely worse. Being hunted by a drone that's on thermals at night looking for you. It's got a ton of munitions. There's just nothing you can do. And, and, and I've been in, you know, a lot of different situations where there's, you know, you know, landmines and things of that nature. The only thing I could think of that was kind of nearly as freaky was, you know, clearing an ISIS tunnel because you're just kind of worried about getting buried alive. But even that, too, is different. It's just, just, just the fact of being hunted and there's nothing you can do about it is. Is a whole other level of just horrifying.
- [119:29]
A
Yeah. Especially now. Like, the thing about an IED is a lot of times the IED was not. Was just victim activated. Meaning, like, it's just going to go off. It seems like that's a little something that you can have a better chance against than Another human that's trying to kill you. You, you know, like on the end of that drone is a guy that's looking for you, going up, got one. And you're just in a video game and he's just gonna roll that thing in.
- [119:56]
C
Yeah, exactly. He's just sitting there having a cup of coffee, watching you on thermal. So, yeah, good luck. Good luck, you know, good luck running away. Yeah, definitely.
- [120:04]
A
So it would seem that, that it's almost impossible or it will be almost impossible for the Burmese army and the Burmese junta to get complete control over the Corinne.
- [120:20]
B
Right.
- [120:20]
A
Like, I mean, it's just, it's just insurgency, like a continual long term insurgency. Is there any, Is that what you see for the kind of indefinite future is just continued insurgency?
- [120:31]
C
There will be continued insurgency and the Burma army is not going to be able to control the hill regions. So the re. The only reason the Karen even exist as a people is because of those hills. That's the only reason. Because they are, they are, the berm army is so much stronger than them. So they have a terrain and sort of home field advantage. When the berm army has to go in there, you go, you know, you go into the jungle. It's, it's, it's a whole different animal out there. And that place is heavily landmined as well by the, by the, by the locals because it's only their only defenses. They're like, okay, well there's three trails in here. We know which one is landmined, we know which one isn't. We know which ones are landmined and we even know which ones aren't. The Burma army doesn't know that. So that's the only way that like the Karen can even defend themselves in a lot of cases. And so I don't see a situation where it ever, where it would ever be truly tenable for the Burma army to control the control hills. They'll go in and set up these hilltop fortresses, these fobs, and they can sort of, again, sort of, you know, fire mortars into people's villages and stuff. But as far as actually being able to govern and control the area, it's not going to happen.
- [121:32]
A
And where did the, where do the rebels get their supply chain from?
- [121:36]
C
So they're, they're obviously taking stuff off of dead Burma army soldiers. And then it's Southeast Asia. So there's a, there's a black market of all kinds of, all kinds of crazy stuff out there. Yeah. So it's funny, you walk through the jungle and you know, you're Hanging out with these guys and you'll see like a Burma army rifle. You'll see like an M16 with like a serial number, you know, that's, you know, from many, many. Yeah. It's actually funny that some of the guys were doing like target practice with their, with their M16s and they were shooting a 25 yard target just to zero their weapons. And at 25 yards the bullets, the 5, 5, 6 round was hitting the target sideways, spinning. It was totally spinning. Just at 25 yards the barrels were that shot out. What's even crazier is there are still M1 carbines. Not the Garands, but the M1 carbine from World War II. Standard. Standard. Our guy, our guys are still walking around carrying those. And I have a picture of one. I saw this guy carrying it. I just kind of, you know, check checking it out. And it was made in 1943. And he's, that's his, that's his way to defend his village. Is this M1 carbine from World War II.
- [122:35]
A
Freaking damn good weapon.
- [122:37]
C
Yeah, yeah. And it works great. It works great. Yeah. So that there's literally stuff there from, from the British and Americans being, being there. Yeah.
- [122:45]
A
So where do you see stronghold heading?
- [122:47]
C
So, so right now one of the things that we're doing is so like I said earlier, we have the only ambulances for an area inside of Burma that's, you know, larger than the state of Delaware. A million football fields. So one of the, we're, we're constantly trying to figure out how to improve that and to save more lives as much as possible. The, the, the blood transfusions was a big part of that capability because now we can extend the amount of time that we have to get a patient to where they need to go. But now we just recently, just over the last couple of months have launched a, a new initiative where we're seeing, sending out mobile medics. So we're local people who are already trained in, they already have medical, medical training at different levels. There's like all the way up to like the PA level and there's sort of like community health workers and things like that who can administer shots and sort of assess people and there's people who know how to deliver babies and things of that nature. So what we're doing is we're strategically hiring some of these different folks because they have this training. But when you're a subsistence level, where you're in a subsistence level economy, there's no job for you. Like, so you might know how to deliver babies or you might know how to, you might be a physician's assistant level of training because maybe you went to school somewhere but you have no medicine so you're totally useless. And so, and also too, your family has no money. So what does that mean? Well, it means you're going to go work in the rice fields, you're going to go try to hunt, to bring some home, bring home some meat for your family. You're going to just try to get, you know, rice. And so what we're doing now is we are finding, because there's plenty people who have this medical training or people who are like medics with like the resistance, sort of like combat medics. And what we're doing is we're bringing in medical supplies and motorbikes and basically putting them in sort of in places where there's, where it's harder to reach. And then they're going around and actively going to villages and doing medical clinics. And so they're finding, they're finding all these people who would have passed away from infections, easily treatable things and who either would have needed a ride on one of our ambulances or worst case scenario would have just passed away in the middle of the night because, you know, they got infected. It's like, you know, a 12 year old kid, you know, getting sepsis or something from, from an infection on his foot because he stepped on, on something, you know, in the jungle and there's no way to really properly cleaned it off. So anything from that to, you know, people just needing basic, you know, malaria medication or people needing, you know, people, people die in the jungle from a fever. Right? Like we have, we have, you know, basic stuff to help break a fever. They got nothing out there. And so what we're doing is, yeah, we're, that, that's our, that's our latest initiative and we're sending out a bunch of these mobile medics and incorporating them into our, our ambulance service as well. And so just over the last couple of months we've had, I don't, I should have looked at the most recent numbers. I'm going to say easily 300 patient interactions in just the last one or two months from these, these new mobile medics that we just launched over the last three, four months ago.
- [125:43]
A
So Charlie Mike, with the Stronghold continuing to make that work. And then another thing you've got going on now is you've got a YouTube channel, slash podcast. Do you have a, is it a podcast as well as just a YouTube channel?
- [125:54]
C
So right now I'm just putting it on the, on the, on the channel, but I'm going to be putting it out on, on Spotify and all that stuff and taking it one step at a time.
- [126:00]
A
Yeah. And you know, in a world where there's definitely a lot of podcasts in the world and a lot of YouTube channels right now and yours is called the Overwatch with Ephraim Matos and. Well, first of all, first of all, I've been listening to it and it's freaking great. It's great because you're clearly a thinker. You're not hyper emotional, but you're not like completely detached from your emotions, but you have them in check. You've been all over the world. You've seen war up close and personal. Not just from our perspective as an American, not just from the superpower, but from the other end as well as we just talked about. And so it gives a really, you give really great takes on what's, what's going on. I know that the time that you spent at Harvard, I don't know what you learned there, but maybe that plays into it as well. You have a really good level headed assessment of what's going on. It's, I wouldn't say they're like reaction videos to hey, what happened to the news today? I need to put the word out what happened today. But it's a little bit more strategic view of what's going on in various parts of the world. It's just great. So awesome. What made you decide to start that?
- [127:07]
C
So when I, when I was, when I was at Harvard, I, you know, was trying to have conversations with different people from, from around the world and obviously Americans as, as well and we would talk about different geopolitical issues. So obviously over the last couple of years there's been a lot of interest in, you know, the Ukraine, Russia war, the Afghanistan withdrawal, Israel's war on Hamas and Hezbollah. Obviously right now we're dealing with the Iran situation. And so there's all these different geopolitical events that are, that we as a society are having conversations about. But I realize we don't quite have as a society sort of the sort of mental framework for, for how to engage with this. Americans are, we, we tend to be sort of more isolated. We don't, you know, we're neighbored by Canada and Mexico. So we don't really think in terms of, you know, sort of global geopolitics. And so what I started observing was even people who I might agree with politically, they would just have these really bizarre takes on, you know, what was going on in Israel or what was going on in the Middle east or what was going on with, you know, the, like our border war or, you know, narco terrorist groups or whatever. And I realized, like, well, people just don't quite understand how war works and we don't really understand how geopolitics works. And, and the counter example to that is, you know, in America, everybody already has an opinion on what they, you know, think about, let's say, abortion or voting rights or, you know, any sort of domestic politics. Gun control. Exactly. We have the nomenclature and the ability to sort of have those conversations. But what's happening right now is the United States is, and Americans in particular are sort of waking up to the, to the realization that, oh, China's a threat, Russia's a threat. The middle, like, what happens in the Middle east does affect us. Yeah, we do have narco terrorists trying to get in here. Wait a minute. We just went and took, you know, Delta Force just went and nabbed, you know, Nicolas Maduro. Like, what the hell is that about? Like, is that legal? Like, how does that even work? So there's, there's all these questions about how the world works. And so I, I thought, like, well, this is something that I can, I can contribute to. And so I started a. While I was at Harvard, I just started a newsletter called the Overwatch that's at the Overwatch Co as the website. And the idea is just to help explain geopolitics to Americans. And. But then recently, over the last couple of months, I've been experimenting with basically making it into more of a video. And so right now what I'm doing is once a week I'm sort of putting together a 25, 30 minute podcast and just explaining, hey, here's six or seven major geopolitical events that are happening around the world and here's kind of how you need to be thinking about them because people don't really understand what's going on in Burma, for example, because I always get the question like, oh, like, where is Burma? Like, what's going on there? And I don't get upset at all that people don't know where it is. I'm not, my mindset is not, well, how dare you not know? Like, like, you know, you're living over here. I don't, I don't, I don't care. Or I do care, but it's like, I'm not, I'm not judging people for not knowing. So what I want to do is I want to Help. I'm, I'm helping to try to solve that problem. I'm explaining different little conflicts and things that are happening in Africa, down in South America. And I'm intentionally the reason it's called the overwatch. Right. Sort of a, a, you know, a nod to my time as a, as a sniper. Right. You provide overwatch and your job is to look at, survey the entire battlefield and pass good information back to your commander so we can make a good decision. And so what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to give a good overview of what's going on in the world strategically. So you as the American voter or just you as the American citizen can sort of understand what's going on. So your first time, you know, hearing about, you know, this past week, you know, we took out a, you know, an ISIS commander in Nigeria using airstrikes and it was like a joint coalition. And again, immediately you hear, you hear people saying, like, why do we have troops on the ground in Nigeria? And you know, and all this stuff. And so people just immediately don't really have the nomenclature or the, the ability to kind of discuss it intelligently or they're totally shocked and surprised by it. So the purpose of the overwatch is just, just for regular Americans, here's what's going on in the world, here's why it strategically matters to the United States. And I try to come at it from a level headed point of view. I am politically conservative and I am very pro America, pro Western civilization. But I'm not trying to beat over your head what to think. I'm going to tell you what I think about something, but I'm going to try to teach you how to think about these things. Let's talk about the geopolitical ramifications of whatever's going on. So for example, we just talked about Burma. Like, okay, well why are Russia and China giving weapons to like some Burma army in the middle of Southeast Asia? Why does Russia care? Well, again, you look at a map and you suddenly realize, well, that gives them access to the ocean. They don't have to go through the Strait of Malacca, they don't have to. Like that gives them a huge advantage in the world and they're thinking 10 years ahead, whereas Americans, we're only thinking to the next midterm election. And so I just, basically the purpose of the overwatch and the podcast is just so people can understand what's going on, stay up to date. I'm not trying to get into, you know, grievance culture. I'M not trying to be overly sensational about it.
- [131:47]
A
Make up the term grievance culture.
- [131:49]
C
No, I did. I did not. I did not come up with that.
- [131:51]
A
I kind of like that one.
- [131:52]
C
Yeah, but that's, yeah, that's, that's what it is. It's. There's this grievance culture. Everybody's, you know, playing victim or they're, you know, blaming everybody else for their problems, and I'm just not, I'm just not interested in being involved in that.
- [132:02]
A
Yeah, one of the. I was telling you before we hit record today, but about the podcast that Echo and I did, it was called what's Going On. And, and one of the things that I pointed out was the, the fact of when you start looking at the forces that come into decision making and how many there are, and I, I think I brought this up on the podcast, but the, the amount of forces that are in play when you have to decide where you and your wife are going to dinner, right? You and your wife are going to go to dinner. Like, there are forces at play there. Hey, what, you know, have we been to this place before? She liked it, I didn't like it, or I liked it and she didn't like it. What's our financial constraints right now? What's our time constraints? How long is this going to take? What about the time three years ago when I took my wife to a restaurant and she didn't like it, and then we had a, you know, a bad experience. And the whole, like, you got all these things to try and weigh and try and figure out, like, where you're going to go to dinner, and that's just you and your wife going to dinner. So now we start talking about some major thing happening in the world, some major world event going on. Iran, Venezuela, Nigeria, like you, you name the place, Sudan, like, you name the place, and all of a sudden people just chime in as if they have calculated all those variables, you know, all these variables that, that they, they probably can't even name 3% of the variables that are in play when you talk about these types of things. And so to think like, oh, well, that's bad because of this one reason. Well, there's a whole lot more everyone needs to know. And I, like, that's what I, that's what I took away from your channel, your YouTube channel is you're giving some very good nuance. And, and by the way, anybody that thinks they can sit there and predict how things are going to go is an idiot, you know, if you think you're just gonna go, if we do that, this is gonna happen. You have no idea what's gonna happen. You don't know about, you don't know about the mate. The morale of the maintenance crew that's working on the Iranian drones. Like, how do you know that? Like, and that's gonna play, that plays a real role. That's a real thing. So if you don't know that, well, how are you making predictions about what's going to happen? It's very, very difficult. And so to think, you know what, I'm just gonna listen more and not try and pass judgment on what's gonna happen, but instead I'm gonna listen and try and assess what's happening rather than pass judgment on what's happening. And it seems to me that's sort of what your, your take is like, hey, here's an assessment. Not so much a judgment, but hey, here's what's happened. It could, could go a bunch of different ways. And, and I definitely like that. I also think it's interesting for you to be, what'd you say? Semi conservative guy and pro American, and yet you've spent like, literally years of your life in trenches in Burma trying to defend, defend this native population from oppression.
- [135:01]
C
Yeah, absolutely. One, one, Craig. I would say I'm actually very, very politically conservative. Definitely not. Definitely not semi conservative, very conservative. But yeah, I don't, I don't see a big difference between. So here's the thing. I, and I think we as human beings need to be loyal to certain principles and certain ideals, and you need to be loyal to, loyal to humanity as, as much as. As you realistically can right now. Your, your loyalty needs to go to, you know, for, for me, my loyalty goes to God, family, country, and then other people's countries. But so what, what, what I'm doing when I, when I'm overseas is I don't see, you know. Okay, so I think the best way to explain this so, you know the, the event in Iraq where, you know, I got shot rescuing a little Muslim Iraqi girl who is a child of ISIS fighters. You know, why would I go risk my life to do that? I'm a white, conservative, Christian male. Like, why would you know? It's like, it doesn't make sense in the modern mind why I would be willing to do that. It's like, well, because she's human and because it's the right thing to do. And so because, because, because it's the right thing to do. That's what I'm going to do. So for me, I have no, there's, there's no cognitive dissonance in my head to go and serve other people and help other people to whom much is given, much will be required. I got to grow up in America. I got incredible training as a seal. I was able to fight for my country. And now I've noticed that there's other people in other places that could use my help, could use our, my background because. Could use someone to stick up for them and say something for them. And so that's, that's, that's what I'm doing. So I have no cognitive dissonance on that. I think it, I think it makes natural sense based on my values and then specifically around the, the, the, the geopolitics stuff, you know, Yeah, I see all this, I see all this, you know, infighting and everybody having super strong opinions. One of the things. So I'd already been writing the newsletter, but I was in the process of kind of setting up the, the video concept and as well, because keep in mind, I'm still working full time running Stronghold, but I was, it was during this I, the whole Iran things going on. And I saw this influencer, fitness influencer woman, a nice person. I'm sure she, I'm sure she's a wonderful person, but I saw this fitness influencer lady and I'm like, why is she popping up on my feed? And so she's got this video about the straight of Hormuz and she's got this 35 minute video explaining the straight of Hormuz. And I thought, I got to click on this. So I click on it. And again, she's just reading off of a teleprompter that somebody else had gone to ChatGPT and it explained, you know, whatever, what the straight of horror moves and why, you know, strategically important. And I mean, it had to have had a million views, a million and a half views. And I got, I got a little frustrated with that because I just thought, nice person, totally get it. This is what's trending. She's gonna make a video about it, whatever. But I just thought, okay, we as Americans deserve better than to be getting our geopolitical analysis from somebody who's never fought in a war, has never served in the military, doesn't. Is not educated on these things, doesn't read books about these things. Two weeks ago, had never even heard of the Strait of Hormuz, let alone the Strait of Malacca, let alone, you know, like, what are all these different places? And so I just thought okay. Anyway, that just kind of helped sort of add fuel to my fire that I'm like, you know what? I gotta, I gotta start, you know, speaking up about this kind of thing. And, and really my goal. I'm sort of an educator at heart. I really enjoy teaching people things. I really enjoy philosophy. I love, you know, trying to figure out what, where I'm wrong about something. I'm very comfortable admitting if I'm wrong about something. And so for me, this, you know, talking about geopolitics and what's going on, this is going to become more and more important to America and to Americans. We, we can already see that geopolitical events overseas are shaping our domestic politics. You know, whether it's like Israel versus, you know, the Palestinians or, you know, Russia versus Ukraine. I mean, you have people now that are saying stuff about Russia where they're going, well, you know, at least, at least the Russians are trying to, you know, you know, follow like Christian values or something or other. And like the Ukrainians, they're all a bunch of heathens and, you know, or Zelensky and stuff. And you're just going, guys, like, what are you talking about? Like, Putin is out there just like, you know, murdering and massacring people. And like his troops are like mass raping people. And it's like he's not, he's any, any, any sort of semblance of Christianity that that guy has. It's literally just a tapestry. It's just a covering. So that way the local, you know, Russian Orthodox will follow him or something like that. That's, that's all that's going on there. It's not real. And so you need to think about incentives. You need to think about one things I was, you know, studying at Harvard was decision science and so just kind of looking at incentives. And psychology is mostly just, mostly just psychology type stuff. And you know, you look at, okay, like, why do people do what they do? And you need to. One of the biggest things is just incentives. And we're thinking in terms of, you know, again, being at the school there. The whole thing is you're, you're, you're, you're thinking about grand strategy, you're thinking about policy, you're thinking about foreign policy. And so again, this is just something that most Americans don't really spend a lot of time thinking about. You think about actually during the Biden Trump election, the one where, I believe, I believe is the one where Biden. Yeah, yeah, it was the one where Biden won because he only did one election against Trump. But they skipped the second debate. And the second debate is typically centered around foreign policy. The first debate is usually domestic policy. The second one is, you know, foreign policy. And then they refuse to even have a conversation, you know, for whatever reason. They're blaming each other for whatever. But my point is, is there was no outcry. There was. Nobody was. No American was going, I want to know Biden versus Trump's, you know, concept of foreign policy. Um, we didn't. The conversation didn't even happen, and nobody was even upset by it. But it really matters because it matters to our borders, it matters to our trade policy, it matters to our security. It matters where we send our troops. It matters, you know, it matters as, as China expands, as Russia tries to expand. We're looking at Iran right now, you know, having a vice grip on this vital waterway directly affecting you at home. So there's that. But at infinitum going on in the world, and then, now and then, don't even get me started on, like, the mineral wars and drugs and all that kind of stuff and then human trafficking. So anyway, so there's. There's so much there to kind of look at and just sort of generally be aware of, and that's, that's my purpose with the Overwatch is to basically just try to help people kind of understand a little bit without being all overly hysterical, but while still taking a clear stance like, I'm pro Western civilization. I'm not going to say here and pretend like we have some sort of moral equivalence with the Chinese Communist. We don't. We're better. Screw those guys. And we need to win. We need to beat them on the global stage. And that's, that's, that's what I'm focused on talking about.
- [141:31]
A
Yeah, it's better to be a, a friendly bully in the world. You know what I mean? Like, hey, you should be a friend. Hey, if you're the, the biggest, strongest bully, but you're cool to everyone, that's life is good. You know, if you're out in the schoolyard and the one bully is you, and you let everyone play hopscotch and you let everyone use the jungle gym, cool. But the minute you, you know, get overtaken by another bully who decides, no, only I get to play Scott hopscotch, or only these people can use the jungle gym, now we have a problem. And by the way, there's nothing you can do anymore because you're weak. And so you need to be the benevolent bully in the world. That's my political stance when it comes to that. And also, you know, from a neighbor perspective, you know, you. You look, what your neighbor's doing is their business, but at a certain point, if you let your neighbor. Your neighbor can get to a point where it's going to impact what's going on in your street. You know, you can't sleep at night because they're having big parties or whatever the case, their yard is, you know, a fire hazard. So if that starts to happen, you got to go, hey, listen, I don't really want to interfere with my neighbors, but my neighbor's behavior impacts the way I live my life. And we need to come to some kind of an agreement where it works. Now, another, another. Just to. Just to bring up one more thing that I thought was a really interesting take you, you on. On one of your podcasts, you were talking about the. The woman that basically defected to Iran, and she went from being like an Arabic or a Farsi linguist of some kind. In the. In the Navy, right? In the Navy or Air Force?
- [143:02]
B
Air Force.
- [143:02]
A
In the Air Force. She joins the Air Force, she becomes a linguist. She was he Farsi.
- [143:07]
C
Yeah, Farsi.
- [143:08]
A
Learns Farsi, converts to Islam, and eventually becomes a spy. What, what road does it, what, what does the algorithm look like that causes that to happen to her? Your assessment?
- [143:25]
C
Yeah, absolutely. So give a little. I'll just add a little bit more context to a little bit more flavor. So this is a. Her name is Monica Wit. And right now, to be clear, for legal reasons, she's suspected by the FBI of, you know, allegedly spying for the Iranians. But she's white, grew up in a relatively Christian home, joined the Air Force, became a counterintelligence specialist, ironically. And so then during one of her diplomas to Iraq, she started to read the Quran so she could understand, you know, so the, the culture. She was trained in Farsi at the Defense Language Institute here and here in the United States, it's where we send our military folks to learn foreign languages. And then after she got out of the military, she got a private sector job. I'm not really sure what she did, but during that job, she went to two different conferences in Iran, which is. Which are basically just put on. Basically just propaganda conferences put on by the Iranian government. And when she was there, she actually converted to Islam on Iranian state tv. So there's a video of it out there somewhere, I'm sure, of her actually converting to Islam. And then while she was there, she was then sort of recruited by the Iranians to spy for to spy for them. And so she came back to the United States and you know, started gathering information. And I, I don't, again, I don't know what her job was, but she had a top level clearance job somewhere in the private sector having to do with intelligence. And then the Iranians, they, they arrange for her to be able to go back to Iran. So she moves back to Iran, they get her set with a computer and all this kind of stuff and then she's giving the, she started giving the Iranians all this intelligence on her co workers and you know, the bases that she worked on and all the different private projects that she has access to and this top secret clearance and, and all that stuff. So, you know, and so right now the FBI's offering $200,000 for any information that leads to her arrest or, or whatever. So, and again, this is all alleged. So you know, she has a right to a fair trial and all that. But the, the, the way that, the way that this stuff happens is people become disillusioned with their own life. Obviously. I don't know the specific instances, you know, what, whatever might have happened to her in life. I don't know. I'm not going to try to make a psychological evaluation of somebody I've never met. But what I will say is if you are not living your life by principle and if you are not explaining to people why America is the better force in the world, if you're not, if you are not giving people the, the understanding of, of why that is and like why freedom is better than these other tyrannical ways of life, you will become easily susceptible. Because we take these things for granted as Americans. We take, we take the idea of, you know, private property, we take that for granted like we don't even understand. No, no, no. You go overseas, there is no private property. You know, the, the, the, the tribal leader, he'll just take whatever belongs to you because it belongs to him and there's nothing you can do about it. And we don't even understand that concept. And so what happens is people like Iran or Russia or China or just any nefarious actor because we also have freedom of speech. You can reach the American people and you can tell them anything that you want to. And if you are not grounded in your beliefs, if you do not understand why America is exceptional and we are exceptional, if you don't understand why America is exceptional and why we have set things up the way we set them up, you become very susceptible to somebody coming along and going, well, is that really? Is that really the way it should be? Well, what about the inequality? Well, what about this? Well, what about that? And you've never, you've never thought of these ideas before. And so then you go like, oh my goodness, my entire society has, has lied to me. And I remember that one time that somebody did something mean to me. So now also your heart turns against the very thing that, you know, your heart should have been, you know, engaged with. And so then that's how people become susceptible to being recruited by, you know, by these foreign adversaries. And then also, we also need to talk about that a little bit too. You look at, you look at modern warfare. We're talking about drones, we're talking about, you know, coming up against, you know, airstrikes and stuff. The intel battlefield now the sort of counter intel, sort of propaganda war is now in everybody's pocket. It is in your pocket. Think about just this Iran war going on right now. So Iran turns off the Internet, right, for multiple reasons. But they then start pumping out all of these propaganda videos on social media and they're doing it, making Lego videos. They're doing all these things to try and change the minds of Americans and it's working. We saw Hamas do that. So Hamas goes in and kills a bunch of Israelis, commits, you know, per capita an attack that's 40 times worse than 9, 11. And then all of a sudden they play the victim and they're pretending like, oh my goodness, why are the Israelis coming in here to get their hostages back? How dare they do that? You know, and then so, but all of that information is being pumped into the brains of anybody who's willing to pick up a phone and look at it. Meanwhile, we don't have the ability to get them the same information, right? So like, you're not able to tell the Iranian people like, hey, you know, life's better over here because, because the information control, if you look at China, China specifically with TikTok, the Chinese, the ch. The Tick Tock algorithm in America is entirely different than the TikTok algorithm in China. So in China, Tick tock, you're not going to be getting dumb, dumb dancing videos and anti America, anti Western civilization propaganda. No, you're going to be getting, you know, you're going to be getting entirely different stuff. You know, the, the teenagers there in, in China, you're going to be getting pro China stuff. You're going to be getting pro China history. You're going to be getting things that are less brain draining for you and they're intentional about that, because information does matter. So my point is, if you go back to World War II, think about this, think about how World War II might have changed if Hitler, every single night, in perfect English was able to talk to the entire American population. Anybody who wants to tune in can listen to Hitler, give a speech anytime he wants to. And he's going to try to change the hearts and minds of Americans and try to get them to like, you really need to come over here. What? You know, you just, just stay over there. You know, whatever, whatever his mindset would be, it'd be an entirely different world. But that's the world we live in now. Putin and anybody who works for him can put any kind of information on your phone anytime they want to. And same thing with China, same thing with Iran. And so you as an American, you know, you now are part of the propaganda machine. It's no longer this foreign intel op, it's now in your social media. And you people need to be aware of that. And again, that's another reason why the overwatch is important, because it's like, all right, let's just take, let's take a step back, let's take a level headed look at what's going on geopolitically, what are the incentives, what's actually going on here, why does this matter to America? And being able to just explain that in a calm, intelligent manner, I think is so important right now.
- [149:48]
A
Yeah, I couldn't agree more, man. Great assessment. And yeah, the thing's great, I guess. How's the, how's your physical health, bro?
- [150:01]
C
Been pretty good, Very good, yeah, could be better.
- [150:03]
A
Because that was a crazy story last time you were on, you were talking about weighing 325 pounds and just what you did to get your, get your health back in line. All good? We good?
- [150:12]
C
Yeah, mostly good with the issue I'm dealing now with dealing with some low back pain, but I'm dealing with that. But yeah, other than that, no, it's been good, it's been good. And I'll tell you what too, you know, you know, we talked, you know, about mental health last time I was on a lot more. And you know, I'll tell you what, like having, you know, being, being married and having, having a child, granted, luckily I'd got myself sorted before getting married. Right. So obviously don't use marriage and children as a crutch to fix yourself. But what I find is not work. It's not going to work. But what I found is that, you know, the responsibility of taking care of My wife, taking care of my daughter and another kid on the way. That responsibility, if anything that brings. That brings us higher level of. Of happiness, of contentment. You wake up in the morning, you know exactly what you're supposed to be doing. I got to take care of my wife, got to take care of my kids, got to take care of Stronghold. Gonna, you know, do something for Overwatch today as well, you know, and then. And that's. And that's your purpose. And I think. I think a lot of. I think a lot of veterans in particular, obviously, we're dealing with the veteran suicide crisis, and a lot of. A lot of issues there. I think a lot of it. Because when you look at a lot of the guys who are. Who are committing suicide, they're. It's. They. They're not committing suicide because they were in combat. A lot of them that are committing suicide were never really in combat. They were never. It's not like PTSD from what they saw in the trenches. That's not. That's not what's going on. It's this despair. It's this lack of purpose. And I think that when you're in the military, especially as a young man, just experiencing myself, you know, joined when I was enlisted, when I was 17, went to boot camp, when I was 18, went right into the SEAL teams. The sense of purpose and meaning that you have and the sense of belonging, even if. Even if you're not the most popular guy in your platoon, it's like, you know what your role is. Like, hey, I'm the comms guy. Hey, I'm the. I'm the machine gunner. Hey, I'm the whatever, right? And you have a purpose, and you have a. You. And you have a. And you have a meaning, and you have an identity that you've earned. And when you get out of the military, it's like you lose that. You completely lose that. You lose this brotherhood. You lose that purpose. And so now you're going to go, all right, I'm going to. Looks like I'm going to go become an IT Specialist, you know, doing whatever. Maybe I'll do some investing. And. And. And there's this despair. Because you peaked when you were 25, at least you feel like you did. You feel like you peaked. You're like, man, I was. I was in, you know, Afghanistan, and I'm 25. I'm, like, smoking bad guys, calling airstrikes. I've got responsibility. Like, I'm a man. You know, I'm like, doing. I'm contributing to the world. And then you get out and all of a sudden you're like, okay, what am I doing now? And this TPS reports. Yeah, TPS reports. Exactly. Yeah, you're doing TPS reports and. Yeah, so I think there's a big sort of pandemic of despair that I think that is happening. And guys just don't fully realize that. And so my point with that is just for me, the added stress of being a husband and a father is. It's like a good stress. It's a eustress. Instead of a distress, it's a eustress. It's a stress that forces you to be better and forces to be more locked on. You can't just have a bad day and not do anything or whatever. Let yourself go. You just can't do that. You have to stay more locked in. So I. Yeah, so it's. Long story short. Yeah, things are good. I could not, could not be happier. Life is. Life is wonderful. Yeah. Very grateful.
- [153:30]
A
Right on. Does that get us up to speed? We're good for now.
- [153:33]
C
That's it. Yeah.
- [153:35]
A
Where can people find you? So you got on the interwebs, it's stronghold rescue.org you have TheOverWatch co. And then on YouTube you've got the Overwatch with Ephraim Mattos.
- [153:51]
C
Yeah, people can just type my name in. Ephraim Mattos.
- [153:53]
A
You know, I tried that and it's actually doesn't come up for a while.
- [153:56]
C
Oh, okay.
- [153:57]
A
So you'll get like 50 videos from Andy Stumpf and me and like a bunch of other people. Yeah, but as far as your actual show, I think you have to put in the Overwatch with Ephraim Maddos to get it to. Okay, populate in there. Yeah, I tried it. Yeah, but it's great. It's great. I'm a subscriber, I'm on the newsletter and so it's great. So check that out. And then on Instagram and Twitter X, you're at Ephraim Mattos. That's correct. Is that word, Is that what we're dealing with here?
- [154:25]
C
Yeah, absolutely.
- [154:25]
A
For people to find you.
- [154:26]
C
Yeah, absolutely too. And then just a quick word too, about Stronghold. So again, the way that we operate is we. We work off of a micro donor approach. So again, we're non profit. Everything that we do, everything, all the stories I told, everything, everything that I was talking about, the ambulances, and again, I've only. We obviously we only have time to talk about a fraction of what's going on, but all of that, all the medicine, all the ambulances, all the stuff, the operators that are going in the field. By the way, we do train our people. Sorry. We do pay our people. We do allow, you know, our people that, like, make an actual living and going and doing this professionally because the people we served deserve that. So the way that it all functions is 80 or 90 of the money that we bring in comes in just from monthly micro donors. So just so people are interested, they can sign up at this@ StrongholdRescue.org and, you know, we ask if you want to pitch in, maybe pitch in a dollar a day, 20 bucks a month, something like that. And if you do, we'll send you a Stronghold T shirt. It's the same kind of T shirt that our guys wear in the field. And on the back, we have our. Our motto, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. And if you want to help be a part of that, we would greatly appreciate it. And people can check that out@ StrongholdRescue.org
- [155:28]
A
StrongholdRescue.org that's what this is all about. Echo, any questions?
- [155:32]
B
Yeah, this is just for my own curiosity. So how long?
- [155:35]
A
Oh, here we go.
- [155:37]
C
He's pulling up the mic. I'm like, all right, here we go. It goes 45 more minutes.
- [155:40]
B
How long at a time do you go over there?
- [155:43]
C
So I've done trips that were anywhere from four months. I've been also as short as maybe two, three weeks.
- [155:49]
B
So as far as acclimation, you know, like, how's the mosquitoes over there?
- [155:52]
C
Mosquitoes are actually very, very manageable. There's not a ton of mosquitoes. It's actually a very, very beautiful place. So the Karen Hills, they call it Kathule, which the. The direct translation. There's no, like, direct English translation, but it means basically, like, the. Like the peaceful land of the evergreen land. It's like the beautiful emerald Greenland. It's a beautiful, beautiful place. There's a beautiful climate.
- [156:11]
B
Because you know how, like, I don't know if you ever watch what's that show? Naked and Afraid. You've heard of that?
- [156:16]
C
I've seen clips of it. I've never. I've never, never.
- [156:18]
B
Because, you know, when they go into these beautiful jungles and stuff, and they're like, you know, oh, yeah, all good. But then they get eaten by bugs.
- [156:23]
A
Yeah.
- [156:24]
B
You know, like everything in there is trying to kill. Kill you, you know, in one way or another. So it's not like that.
- [156:28]
C
Well, there. Well, it's not like that with the bugs. There are snakes and stuff. So 1. I'll tell a couple quick snake stories. So I was in. We're. We're in a reconnaissance mission. We were within 100 yards of a Burma army outpost, and this Burma army was firing into this village. And so one of the local guys, he was a local sniper, and so he had this. He had a rifle. And so I was. We were taking turns watching this particular outpost, waiting for the Burma army to pop their heads out and fire on the villagers. And so I'm in this position, literally just 100 yards from the enemy, but I'm firing across a river. The Burma army has no idea that we're there. And so there's all these rockets and RPGs and stuff being fired back and forth by the Burma army. And so what happens is the snakes, whenever there's a battle that pops off in the jungle, they get spooked, and they're sort. They get sort of disoriented, and they just start going everywhere. They freak out. And so we're laying there, edge of this village, 100 yards with the Burma army. If you stand up, they can see you hiding. We're hiding in these bushes. And I was with a couple commandos, a couple of the Karen commandos. And one of the guys, he, like, pops up on his knee. He goes like, ah. He's like. Makes this, like, totally girly noise. And then one of the other commandos pulls out this giant knife and just starts slapping at the ground. And basically during this firefight, a snake rolled right up into our position. And then actually the Harvard Christmas deployment, I was. Airstrikes coming in. We hear the, you know, here, the. The aircraft is, you know, is. Is. Is coming around, and I got to jump into my trench. And so as I go to jump into my trench, I see a scorpion right on the edge of the trench. And so I pull. I have a K bar. It was actually my. My SKT graduation. K bar.
- [158:02]
A
Yeah.
- [158:02]
C
And got your first kill with that thing. So I slap. Well, I slap at it, try to. I try to stab it, and I'm like, I need to get into this trench. And I go to slap at it. I miss the scorpion, and then it falls right into my trench, where I got to jump into. So I'm sprawled over the trench as this aircraft is coming in, and I'm stabbing at the ground. Eventually, I kill the thing, and then I jump in. As, you know, as. As this gun run comes in. It wasn't a close gun run, but you never know until the. Until the last second anyway.
- [158:26]
A
That's crazy. I was just at. We did a battlefield review of Chancellorsville and Fredericksburg, and one of the. I was doing a bunch of reading before I went out there, but one of the. One of the things I was reading about is when Jackson is making his flanking maneuver on the Union troops, and the Union troops had no idea that, you know, he had to walk, like, 14 miles. He did it in a very. A very clandestine way. So they had no idea. And there's a Yankee guy, a Union guy that wrote like. They're sitting there, and all of a sudden from the wood line comes all these, like, squirrels and rabbits and deer. They. They, like, come out and he's like, oh, that's. And it took him, you know, whatever, three seconds to go. Oh, that's weird. Why are all these things. Oh, you know, because it was. There was whatever 30,000. 30,000 men were online coming their way and just drove all those animals out. And the guy sees them all break out in the field and goes, oh, that's weird. I wonder what the. Oh. And sure enough, there it was. Yeah.
- [159:24]
C
That's incredible.
- [159:25]
A
That's kind of weird with the snakes getting disoriented and just going anywhere.
- [159:28]
C
Yeah. Yeah. Other times I've been in trenches and the snakes are coming right at you, and you're like, start slapping the ground and throwing stuff at him. You're like, get away. Get away from me, man. Yeah, not the. Not the deal.
- [159:37]
B
Yeah, You. You know, you hear about all the experiences and stuff, and then for someone who's. Has never been there, you don't. All these little details that are significant in my opinion, like, bet you. Because you have this. These huge, crazy, risky m. Missions, but on top of it, you got the wildlife and everything else.
- [159:54]
C
Yeah.
- [159:55]
B
But that's way secondary compared to what you're doing. So a of. Lot. Lot of us, we don't even. We don't understand the full picture. You see what I'm saying?
- [160:01]
C
Yeah, absolutely.
- [160:03]
B
Even your minim. Most minimal conflict scenario, which is like, stuff that you're not even mentioning, the snakes and stuff, is like one of our real kind of spooky days back here. You know what I'm saying?
- [160:14]
C
You want to hear something else that's freaky, too? So there's these tree leeches in Burma. So, you know, you get in the water and there's leeches, and they'll latch on to you and suck your blood. There's tree leeches, and they'll. They'll sense the. They'll sense you walking, and then they'll sort of drop from the. Drop from the trees to try to drop on you. So they're not. They're. They're pretty small. It's. It's a little freaky. Um, I've only seen them a few times, but, yeah, there's been a few times. Or like, crossing rivers. You get out and there's. Yeah, you. You look down, you got. You're pulling leeches off. And I've got, like, videos, too, of, like, leeches sort of like inching along my hand, and I'm just kind of looking at it. Yeah, it's. It's. Yeah, definitely interesting.
- [160:48]
A
That reminds me of. Of the first time I saw Jurassic Park. I saw it in the theater, but I was on my first deployment in the teams, and I had. I'd done like a. A trip to Pan. Oh, no, I ain't gonna pan. I'd done a trip to Thailand. I'd done it. Done some time in the jungle in Guam. And, like, I knew how just everything that you're saying echo. Like, I knew 100, like, mosquitoes, snakes, hot freaking coral under your nose, neck. Just. Just totally the.
- [161:17]
C
Like.
- [161:17]
A
Like a tough environment. And then in Jurassic park, they, like, they're walking for a while and then there's like, hey, we're gonna sleep here. And they're just like, all lay down on the ground. On the ground. I'm gonna get some sleep. And I'm like, this is being. The J is freaking harsh, man.
- [161:31]
C
Yeah, the. The J is. Is extremely harsh. Yeah, it's not a. Not a fun place to be hanging out if you're not. If you're not properly equipped. Yeah, it's. It's. It's. It's horrible.
- [161:39]
A
And I used to that term because when I first got to SEAL Team 1, there was. We used to have the Australian SAS exchange guy there. And so he would talk about when you're going out in the J, mate.
- [161:53]
C
Oh, that's great.
- [161:54]
A
So that's why I call it. Still call it the J. And then in Guam, on my first deployment, there was a bar and it was called the Jungle. So you can guess what we all called that.
- [162:03]
C
Called a fidget. That's so funny. So I did. I did two platoons at Team One, and my second platoon was Tom. We were based out of Guam and just doing, you know, for, you know, training foreign forces out there. But yeah, we started calling it the J, too. We just started calling it. And I don't think anybody heard. Had heard that anywhere else. Like, we just started calling it that. So it's just. It's just real quick, everybody's like, it's the J dude. Until you. Until you've been in there, you don't know.
- [162:29]
A
Don't want none of that. Apparently, Echo don't want none of the J.
- [162:32]
C
Totally fair.
- [162:34]
B
My dad was in Jurassic park, by the way. Yeah. You know, background actor seems.
- [162:40]
A
Dang.
- [162:40]
B
It's one of the first guys.
- [162:41]
A
Did they film that in Hawaii? Oh, okay. He's one of the first guys on screen.
- [162:46]
B
Well, you know, like, kind of a big deal.
- [162:48]
A
Why are we just learning about this right now?
- [162:49]
B
Yeah, I might have mentioned it in that first opening scene when they're like, he's explaining to him they're trying to walk over the rocks and stuff, and you have all the native kind of workers there.
- [162:57]
A
Is he one of those native workers?
- [162:58]
B
He's one of them. Walks by. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [163:01]
C
Oh, man. That's pretty cool.
- [163:02]
A
That's pretty cool. He's still cashing those checks, too, I bet. No.
- [163:06]
B
I don't know. Maybe he was there. Actually, my dad was in pretty much all the movies shot on Kwai. Pretty much.
- [163:12]
A
Name like three other ones.
- [163:14]
B
Outbreak. That's another one. Okay, keep getting Jurassic park. And then there's one more. I forget.
- [163:19]
A
Okay.
- [163:21]
B
Oh, this one was the. The other one was. It wasn't on Kawaii, was on Oahu. It was like old school movie before I was born, I think.
- [163:27]
A
But he got in there.
- [163:28]
B
He's in there. Yeah. He was like a cab driver or something like that.
- [163:31]
A
Any lines?
- [163:32]
B
I don't think he had any lines, but still looking good, looking good, representing and looking good. Big Ten.
- [163:37]
C
That's great.
- [163:38]
A
Any other questions? Echo. Charles.
- [163:40]
B
That's it. Good to see you again.
- [163:41]
A
Good to see you. Right on. Ephraim, any closing thoughts?
- [163:45]
C
No, that's all. People can check us out at Stronghold Rescue, and thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it.
- [163:48]
A
Right on. Awesome to see you again, man. Thanks for coming back. I know it's always a gut check for you have to travel out here, but thanks for what you're doing. Thanks for your service to the Navy, to the nation, to the teams, and thanks. What you continue to do today, and I think you're going to do a lot, obviously, continued work with Stronghold, but then the Overwatch, I think, is going to help open people's minds, get them to calm down, get them to listen, get them to learn so that we have a better world. Thanks for what you're doing, bro.
- [164:13]
C
Excellent. Thank you.
- [164:16]
A
And with that, Ephraim Meadows has left the building. He's clearly got a lot of stuff going on. Clearly made a lot of good things happen in his world. So awesome to see him. Awesome for him to come by. You know, we, we touched last time on that, that little situation he got in when he was up to 2, 325 pounds, man. Got us goddess. Went to a, went to a hotel and looked at the ocean for a month. Started working out, figured out what his problem was. Food addiction. The whole nine yards. Got to get after it. Yeah. But you got to be careful.
- [164:54]
B
Yeah.
- [164:55]
A
And you know what he said on that thing was he can't. He's like a, if you're an alcohol, like a, like a legit alcoholic, you can't drink anymore. Yeah. If you're a legit heroin addict, you can't be like, you know what? The, the third Thursday of every month, I like to shoot up. You know what I'm saying? You can't do it.
- [165:13]
B
I know.
- [165:13]
A
Just the tweakers, they're not like, hey, you know what Saturdays are good for? Meth.
- [165:18]
C
No.
- [165:19]
A
Because it gets me fired up for Saturday. No, you can't do that.
- [165:21]
C
It's different.
- [165:22]
A
And so he straight up was like, no, I can't. He can't have the sweets. Can't have them. Or he'll just be like full fiend activity. Now what we can do is we can eat stuff that's good for us. Yep, I got some good stuff for you at Jocko Fuel. Check out jockey fuel.com. we got protein, we got energy drinks. We got this right here, this hydration which tastes so good, it's kind of a sweet. I, I worry if someone's addicted to it, they could get addicted to it, but it'd be healthy, so they'd be good to go. No, no. Red 40 or whatever that is. Red, red five. Red 40 dye. Red dye, red dye 40 and yellow five I think is the two major ones. We don't use either one of them.
- [166:01]
B
This one's clear.
- [166:02]
A
Clear.
- [166:02]
B
Cuz it's clean.
- [166:03]
A
We got the best protein powders. We got all kinds. We got the best stuff. So check out jockofuel.com and by the way, you can also just go to your local retailer, wherever you buy your groceries, wherever you buy whatever. We. There's a decent chance there's Jocko Fuel in there. So go get some. Also Origin USA.com. we don't want to support Chinese communism. It is very oppositional to what we believe. We believe in freedom, they don't. We believe in liberty, they don't we believe in individual prosperity? They don't. They believe the state. So when you go and buy something that's made in China, you're supporting slavery, lack of freedom, oppression, that's what you're supporting. So don't do that. Buy American made. And that's why you go to originusa.com and you get a pair of jeans, boots, hoodie, sweatshirt, ghee, rash, guard training gear, hunt gear. You can get it all there and it all is guaranteed to be 100 communist free. OriginUSA.com go get some.
- [167:18]
B
Also, don't forget about Jocko store. A little bit of hyper on Jock's store right now. Sugar Coated lies. The shirt. Okay. People seem to like that shirt, so we released it to the wild. Like I've been mentioning this for the past few weeks. So you know the people on the email list, they got dibs. We sold out, unfortunately. But I did another rush order. So you know, we're still available, we're still rolling with it. But you do have to kind of hurry up because they sell out like super fast anyway. Yeah, that's a good one. Sugar Coated lies.
- [167:46]
A
Do you want, do you want to defend your use of AI in your promotional video?
- [167:51]
B
No, no, no, no. I mean, no, I don't, I don't. Okay. Depends on what you mean by defend.
- [167:56]
A
For get everyone up to speed. Echo Charles made a video. In the video, he utilized some level of AI.
- [168:04]
B
Yeah.
- [168:04]
A
To make a creature eating a donut.
- [168:07]
B
Yeah.
- [168:08]
A
Accurate. And there was commentary on your video, some commentary that said, well, a lot of it said, cool go, great shirt, blah, blah, blah. But some of it said, why are you using AI? Why aren't you paying an artist? Why aren't you? Why are you destroying the world? Echo Charles.
- [168:26]
B
Yeah. Oh yeah.
- [168:28]
A
So I want to give you a chance to defend yourself.
- [168:30]
B
Sure.
- [168:31]
A
And your use of A.I.
- [168:33]
B
first off, I, I would have to clarify and I kind of tried to cuz it did hit me after a little while I'm like, wait a second, is it.
- [168:40]
A
You got triggered? Are people trigger?
- [168:43]
B
No, no, no. You did follow me.
- [168:44]
A
No, no, no, you didn't get triggered at all.
- [168:46]
B
No, no, no.
- [168:47]
A
Okay, cool.
- [168:47]
B
Well, I'm the artist. Okay. Yeah.
- [168:49]
A
I'm like, no, the computer is the artist. Well, I got you.
- [168:55]
B
No, but put it this way, I think they, they were actually getting mad at you, I think because it's like, hey, you Jocko, you used AI for your thing. Why couldn't you pay an artist? They didn't realize that, like, oh, I'm the person who Makes all the shirts and stuff. So technically, hey, I'm the artist, apparently.
- [169:10]
A
And you got paid.
- [169:11]
B
I go, we got paid for that one. Yes, we got. I got paid for my work, my labor, my art, right now. We made a video voluntarily. I made a video and I used. For the B roll of the video, I used AI to make a guy chomping a gross donut. Make it extra gross and slimy. Disgusting. It was. It was a good way to do it, I thought sent it. Yes. So people got jarred, we'll say, by the AI Usually. Usually going to be a creative type, which I understand, but that wasn't the whole thing. That kind of made a question mark come in my head. Mine was like, hey, are they mad cuz the video was made with AI or do they think that AI made the shirt? Cuz that'd be way different. See what I'm saying? So I didn't know because someone was like, oh, Jock was using AI sellout. I was like, bro, that was just a video, fun video about a shirt that we're selling. Like we're not, you know? So I think, oh man, they think it's the shirt. So I kind of went in there, I was like, shoot. Because that's.
- [170:04]
A
Once you clarified it, did it get cleaned up or no. Did people. Did people say, oh, okay, well. Or people still was mad at you?
- [170:11]
B
I just found one of the comments
- [170:12]
A
and you know, you finally got some haters out there, bro. Yeah, life's been too easy for you. No, no, I finally got some haters.
- [170:18]
B
Yeah.
- [170:18]
A
Oh, no, you wait. Now that I think about it, you've always had your haters.
- [170:21]
B
Yeah. And that's.
- [170:22]
A
You've always had your haters. People that didn't want to hear Echo's opinion on anything.
- [170:26]
B
Amen. It's fair. That's fair. The. I don't even think it's haters. I think it's an accurate look. If someone's watching Jocko podcast and they hear me chiming in and they don't like that part of it, that's a. That's accurate. That's accuracy from the field. You see what I'm saying? That's like a feedback. Hey man, let's face. Sometimes I agree with it. So I'm not mad at that. I'm not mad at factual feedback. You know, it's not like they were like they really loved it, but just for some weird reason, you know, it doesn't work like that. You see, I'm saying these are real. This is real feedback. So I From the. So I asked somebody, like one of the people, I said, oh, shoot. Do you think the video is. Are you mad about the video being AI or the fact that in the video, whatever, being there, or the. Do you think the shirt was made with AI? And then he said, oh, I think it's the video everyone's mad at. And I was like, oh, all right. Well, hey, man, fair. Fair enough. You know, I think the. The jarring nature of the AI Ness. Maybe that's what's called AI Slot one. It's like brother's AI just for the sake of AI So if it lands like that, it's like, okay, cool. Noted, man. Doesn't change the fact the shirt was still dope. I. I like the video.
- [171:31]
A
I thought it was cool as hell. I was surprised when. When the comments were very hateful towards Echo Charles.
- [171:38]
B
It was more against the AI, But I. Yeah, yeah, that's true, actually.
- [171:44]
A
You're right. Do people even know that you do any of that?
- [171:46]
B
I think a lot of times they don't. Yeah. So I don't know. To me, it's accurate. It's like, what do you call a data point? You know?
- [171:53]
A
Yeah. And by the way, don't you have to design what that guy looks like and stuff?
- [171:57]
B
Yeah, it's actually. It's actually really hard to do. You know how people are like, oh, it's just a computer.
- [172:02]
A
It is.
- [172:03]
B
It is true. That part is true. But, you know, it's kind of hard. It's like cgi, you know? You know, it's like the CGI character. It's like, you know how hard it is to make a CGI character. Like, good.
- [172:14]
C
It's.
- [172:14]
B
It's kind of hard. But that part literally doesn't matter. Like, let's say a shirt or, like, the shirt you're wearing. Are you like, oh, my gosh, the guy who designed that shirt spot spent 12 years on the day. Like, no one really cares that much most of the time. See, I'm saying. So that's not the point. The point is, if someone's gonna put out a successful video, me put out a successful video, and it's unsuccessful. I can't blame other people and be mad at whatever. It's my fault. You see what I'm saying? For doing the unsuccessful Or. Or for failing to succeed.
- [172:41]
A
Look at her over here taking ownership. Good job.
- [172:44]
B
Look, I would love to take credit for that, but it's like I said, if you. If you're flying an airplane and you have a freaking bumpy landing and People are like, hey, I love your airplane, but it was a bumpy landing. What are you going to say? No, it wasn't a bumpy landing. You know how hard I worked on that landing. It's like the fact is it was a bumpy landing. That's the fact. Everyone thought it was bumpy. Just because you didn't think it was bumpy doesn't change the fact that it was bumpy. According to all the people you serve.
- [173:09]
C
See what I'm saying?
- [173:10]
A
Got it, man.
- [173:11]
B
Got to take this feedback. Anyway, Sugar Coated lies is still available despite or in spite. I don't know, whichever. The video having some AI in it. Jocko's real. You were real in the video.
- [173:23]
A
Yeah.
- [173:23]
B
By the way. So congratulations on that, being a real person.
- [173:28]
A
Jack.
- [173:28]
B
Yes. Also, what that came from was the shirt locker. It was the March 2024. So I made the design way before I was even using it ever. March 20th, 24th edition of the Shirt Locker Shirt. One of the shirt Locker shirts, which is a subscription scenario. You get a new design every month. Sometimes they're bangers, apparently, but they're outside of the box pretty much every time anyway. People think they're interesting. It's a subscription. New design every month on Jocastore.com Also, Independence Day is coming up. We're going to have a this year's Independence Day shirt. If you want to get a jump on that, put your email in on the website, on the front page, on the bottom. Put your email in there.
- [174:12]
A
I need to confirm that design.
- [174:13]
B
Okay.
- [174:14]
A
I haven't confirmed the design yet.
- [174:15]
B
Okay, I'll show it to you after this. I already submitted it, but that was
- [174:17]
A
today, so we can recall if.
- [174:19]
B
No, no, it's good. You like? Well, yeah. Yeah.
- [174:21]
A
You're not the judge.
- [174:22]
B
Okay. I've been the judge literally for 11 years. But okay.
- [174:26]
A
Yeah. All of a sudden you've thrown some things out there that have been. Not that I should have judged.
- [174:31]
B
Yeah, you might be right. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.
- [174:33]
A
All right, well, check that out. Also, we got some books. Put your legs on by Rob Jones, Dave Burke. Need to lead. Check those out. Leadership books. Books I've written as well. And then of course, the warrior kid books. Check those out. Primalbeef.com if you need some steak, go get some of that. Or Colorado craft beef dot com. You can check that out. Ashland front. We have a leadership conference instructional in San Diego July 8th through the 10th. It is two days where you will learn the skill of leadership that you will be able to Apply in every aspect of your life. So if you want to go, go to echelonfront.com and check out events. Also we have an online training academy@extreme ownership.com extreme ownership.com and there's where we teach the skills of leadership through the interwebs. And if you want to help service members actively retired, you want to help their families, you want help cold 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, involved, go to America's mighty warriors.org and then of course, check out heroes and horses.org and Jimmy Mays organization Beyond the Brotherhood. Check out warriors in need bringing people into the aviation civilian sector. And then finally, as you heard about today, Stronghold Rescue.org to connect with Ephraim and Stronghold Rescue and Relief on the interwebs, go to strongholdrescue.org check out his podcast/YouTube channel, the Overwatch with Ephraim Mattos. And he's on YouTube, the Overwatch with Ephraim Mattos. And on Twitter and Instagram, he's at Ephraim Mattos. If you want to connect with us, go to jocko.com and they're on social media. I'm at Jocko Willink Echoes at Echo. Charles, just be careful because you're getting force fed a giant propaganda sandwich that you don't even know what it's doing to your health. But it's not good for you. So be careful. Once again, thanks to Ephraim for coming by. Thanks for your service to the country and your continued service to protect innocent communities in war zones. And of course, thanks to all of our military around the world right now in harm's way, protecting freedom and our way of life. Also thanks to police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, board, border patrol, secret service, as well as all other first responders. Thank you for protecting our way of life here on the home front and everyone else out there. Two things. First of all, be, be grateful for what you have. Because as bad as you got it right now, and let's face it, gets pretty rough out here, gets pretty rough out here. But if you look at your situation, you compare it with other people in the world without basic food, without basic shelter, without health needs, not to mention, not to mention being under the threat of real violence like random bombs from the sky or drones or mortars or artillery just randomly hitting you. That's, that's a pretty rough way to live. So be grateful if you're in a slightly better environment to that. And the second thing is, what can you do to help out? How can you support what. What might be a tiny little thing for you? Like, 20 bucks a month to stronghold rescue.org might be a little tiny thing to you, but that is likely massive to someone that is in need. So if you can help out. And that's all I've got for tonight and until next time, this is Echo and Jocko out.