← The Team House
The Team House
24th STS Operator | Chad McCoy (throwback episode)
02:38:32
original airdate 11/4/22 Chad McCoy served in the Air Force for over 22 years, 18 of which with the 24th STS. (24th Special Tactics Squadron). Chad has been on 17 deployments the majority of which with JSOC and earned the rank of Chief Master...
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- [00:01]
Chad McCoy
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Chad McCoy
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- [01:03]
Chad McCoy
Special operations,
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David Park
Covert ops, Espionage. The Team House with your hosts Jack
- [01:16]
Chad McCoy
Murphy and David Park.
- [01:24]
Jack Murphy
Hey everyone. Welcome to episode 173 of the Team House. I'm Jack Murphy here with Dave Park. Our guest tonight on the show is Chad McCoy. Chad spent his entire career really in air force Special Operations with 24th Special Tactics Squadron, served as a PJ pararescueman. And we're really excited and happy to have you here in our studio tonight, man, flying out here. We really appreciate it.
- [01:49]
Chad McCoy
Yeah, thanks. I didn't get stabbed today, so I'm healthy and happy.
- [01:53]
David Park
So it's the rocks out here that'll get you.
- [01:55]
Chad McCoy
Yeah,
- [01:57]
David Park
yeah.
- [01:59]
Jack Murphy
So I mean, where to begin? I mean, we kind of like shot the shit a little bit before we started the show. And I mean, your biography and career I suspect is too extensive to even fit in one interview. But we'll try to hit some of the highlights. Some of the highlights, yeah, and hit some of the things you'd really like to get into. I'd really like to hear first off, you know, sort of what your path was, you know, growing up as a kid and what like sort of took you towards the Air Force.
- [02:30]
Chad McCoy
What was your origin story that made
- [02:32]
David Park
you the superhero you are today?
- [02:33]
Chad McCoy
You know, so you talk to a lot of kids of our generation, right? And we grew up playing the woods, you know, sticks as guns, wearing camouflage, going to arm knees surface stores and buying, what are we, you know, canteens. A waste. That was the, the, the culture, that was what we were enamored by. I was exactly the same way, you know, my brother and I were in the woods, you know, making forts and throwing pine cone grenades, you know, and so you're Also enamored by movies, you know, and so, you know, the movies that were kind of formative for me were, you know, the same as everyone else you look at. Like, I want to be Rambo, right? And. And probably a lot of Navy SEALs became Navy SEALs because of the movie. You know, it was awesome. And so we kind of had a culture there for a while that was kind of glamorizing the military experience and specifically the special operations experience. And so all I wanted in my life was to wear a ball, you know, balaclava, have an MP5 and a flight suit.
- [03:40]
Jack Murphy
The all I want repel through skylights.
- [03:41]
Chad McCoy
That's all I want in life. And, you know, once I got the balaclav, it wasn't very comfortable and MP5 wasn't very, you know, effective.
- [03:50]
David Park
The NOX is hot as hell.
- [03:52]
Chad McCoy
Yeah, yeah, but. But, you know, that was what I was aspiring to be as a young man. And, you know, I had a normal, you know, semi normal childhood, but as I, as I grew up, I knew I wanted to join the military. And. And I was probably, you know, 17 years old. I was in Hawaii. I was a surfer. I was, you know, you know, some punk kid in Hawaii, skateboarder, surfer. And I was enamored by special operations. This is before the war, right? This is before 9, 11. So I had no context what war was. I didn't know how real it could be. I just knew it was kind of sexy, right? And so. And pararescue was one of the few jobs in the military that was always kind of employed, right. You know, regardless of. Of war or not. They were rescuing people outside of mountains, they were jumping in the middle of the ocean. They were badasses to begin with. And, you know, icing on the cake was maybe if war kicks off, I can go do that stuff too. But. But it was. This is late 90s, right? And so, you know, that was kind of leading up into me going to the military. So not to get ahead of it, but, you know, that was kind of the genesis of it was I wanted to do something exciting and cool. And recruiters that are listening to this is the things I was enamored by was guys putting their kid out there and showing me scuba, tanks and guns and motorcycles. That's the life I want. And you can get it a number of different ways. You can go be a ranger and do all the same things. You can go be a seal, you be a Green Beret. You know, no one has really cornered the market on, on the coolness. They all have it. It's just, you know, how accessible is it? And. And pararescue was the quickest way. Just to be candid with you, it was the quickest way to get all those things right off the bat. Yeah. And it sounds cheap, it sounds like cheating, but, you know, it was truly. I can go to scuba school. I can go to, you know, I went to Key west, you know, Special Forces combat dive school. And as an 18 year old, you don't get that in the army, right? You're a senior guy, you've cut your teeth, you proved yourself and you actually want to do that crap. And I knew I could get those things off the bat. Went to Free Fall School as a, you know, 18. I turned 19 at free fall school. And so that's not normal. Maybe it's normal today, you know, it's more accessible today. But back in the day it wasn't. And so that was the path I chose.
- [06:18]
David Park
Yeah, that was one of the big things, especially pre G. What is that? CCT and pararescue, they had that pipeline. It was stacked, it was lined up and it was the envy schools. It was the envy of every other special operation.
- [06:32]
Jack Murphy
It was still contentious, you know, when I went through around 2008 or 2009. Because, yeah, you guys have a pipeline right in there. I mean, to have an entire Special Forces team, MFF team qualifies. Pretty difficult to do. It's not easy to get those slots. But yeah, I can definitely see why it's appealing to.
- [06:51]
Chad McCoy
No, so I felt that. I felt that as a young guy going through scuba school with zero badges on my chest, right? I was. Maybe I was an E2 and my. I was dive team number two in scuba school. It's a big deal, right? In one and two and three. And you know, the guy that I was, my. My partner was a crusty, like, you know, Special Forces E7. And I'm enamored by this guy, right? I'm like, he's. He's legit. I am nothing. I'm a punk. That was in high school last year. And here I am going to Special Forces Scuba school and I don't deserve to be there. And they reminded us that every day, you know, Air Force pukes, you know, and Air Force got a bad rap because, you know, we'd go in there and we smoke these things. But it was because our selection was good. And so you have like, really talented guys at the top of the food chain going through these courses and they crushed them, you know, and. But we were a bunch of pricks. You know, we were young guys. We were, you know, arrogant and. But yeah, for sure. We probably deserved everything we get. You know, we had.
- [07:52]
David Park
So you were basically seals, but with the ability to back it up.
- [07:56]
Chad McCoy
No, no, man, That's a joke. It's a joke. I went through. I went through the 18 delta course, the true 18 delta course at Saucam with a bunch of seals and a bunch of 18 deltas, and it was a bunch of PJs back when we were going through there. And, you know, you had the seals around the periphery and they're like, you know, screw these guys and the 18 deltas. Like, screw all these guys. And here's the Air Force guys going, we just want to get through this, man. We want the next step. Like, this is just a thing for us, you know, but.
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Jack Murphy
So what year did you go through selection?
- [08:27]
Chad McCoy
So. 1998. Back when it was hard.
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Martha (Kohler Ambassador)
I did.
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Chad McCoy
Last hard course.
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David Park
Last hardcore.
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Chad McCoy
Last hardcore. You know, I was thinking about the other day, we say that about stuff and we. I think we kind of believe it, right? Because I kind of believe that it was harder back then. I don't know if that's true or not. You know, we'll kind of go through the progression of my career, but, like, I ended up running selection training at the unit, and the guys we were bringing on were better than us. They were. Was it harder? Maybe not. But were they better? Yes, because we were better at selection. We're better at selecting the right people. And so it's kind of funny to look back and think, like, back in the day, it was like, who was the hardest and you could just get through hard things. But does that make the best operator? No, it doesn't. It makes a guy that's really good at carrying heavy things. Right. And here I was trying to blend in with those. Those hardcore guys, you know, and, you know, fake it till I make it. But. But yeah. So a lot of growth through the process.
- [09:27]
David Park
So for the people who don't know anything about Air Force special operations, can you sort of give us the lay? And it's changed over time, too, I guess. But can you give us the layout of what it was when you were there and what it's become now?
- [09:40]
Chad McCoy
I'll give you a better history lesson. I'll try to, you know, someone will fact check me on it, but, you know, so PJs grew out of kind of necessity in Korea. Jumping in, jumping in docks behind enemy lines and moving people out. Kind of like the hard Way, right? And so there were, you know, I guess kind of a crude way to put it, just guys with big balls that would jump out of airplanes and do hard stuff and so willing to risk their lives for others. And so that was kind of the genesis of this. And so Vietnam kind of was the galvanizing kind of environment for PJs, and they just did hard stuff all the time, man. Like, you guys are in a tick, you know, a bunch of SF dudes or conventional, you know, army guys, they were going to. The guys are going to go to the hoist under fire and try to take out their casualties. And, you know, Vietnam's, you know, was a good, you know, kind of litmus test for, you know, being a spec ops guy. You know, the seals, Green Berets, they all cut their teeth there, right? And so here PJs were. They were one offs. You know, there are these guys that just were kind of, you know, kind of the rebels of the Air Force for sure, but their job morphed into protecting air crew. And so it became this kind of safety net for. For aviators. So I'm an F15 pilot. I'm flying. And here's a really good example is, you know, the Gulf War, you punch out a PG is coming to get you, right? And, you know, he's going to come with an armada, not only helicopters, A10s flying with him. And so it's. It's a legit package, come with them. So PJs morphed over the years, and then the G. What happened? And then it was a chance for the PJs to say, hey, man, like, what do we want to be when we grow up? Because this is. No kidding, the test. And so not to get to have the, the conversation.
- [11:31]
Jack Murphy
Oh, it's great.
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David Park
Yeah, we're, We're. Did I read somewhere that a lot of the, the PJs, the pararescuemen in Vietnam, were they former. Did they draw on the. The smoke jumpers? And is that. Or am I just making that up?
- [11:46]
Chad McCoy
I never heard that before.
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Jack Murphy
I think that the CIA drew on some of those guys for some of their ops in, like, Laos during the Vietnam conflict.
- [11:54]
Chad McCoy
But I think a lot of them kind of just floated back and forth. There was a lot of that going on. Like, hey, man, you can do weird stuff. Okay, let's go do weird stuff.
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David Park
Yeah, Yeah. A lot of, like, sheep dipping back then.
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Chad McCoy
Yeah.
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Jack Murphy
And the. But the larger picture of Air Force special operations also includes there's jtacs, there's ccts. Can you tell folks out there a little bit about how that works?
- [12:15]
Chad McCoy
Everyone knows I got a lot of love for the CCTs. And so at the 24th Sts, you have CCTs and PJs. The Air Force is terrible at branding, so we have a lot of acronyms. You have also attack piece, right? And so as Rangers, you guys know tactics. Conventional forces get TAC Ps, but there's also soft TAC Ps. And so we have those. They're great. They're excellent. They're excellent JTAGs. But CCTs were initially designed to do kind of austere ATC. So air traffic control basically stand up a remote site and bring air aircraft in like.
- [12:47]
Jack Murphy
Like out of their rucksack on a remote airfield somewhere.
- [12:49]
Chad McCoy
Well, you look at Desert One, right? They were the guys bringing in those aircraft. And that was kind of the genesis of it. But then it became, okay. There's a necessity to have these guys call close air support. And can they do it really well at a high level? Absolutely, they can. And so they kind of repurposed them. And so over the past 20 years, they repurposed them to be excellent JTACs. And they're just badass dudes that could get the job done. They could bring in your infill X fill, but also call cas, manage isr, and so kind of jack of all trades as well. And then you got PJs, who traditionally come from the rescue side. So you have rescue in the Air Force, and their job is to rescue pilots. That's it. And so they do it. And they're the best at it. You know, they come in helicopters, they jump out of airplanes. They do the NASA mission. I mean, they do the rescues off McKinley. I mean, they're everything, right? But then within SOF, you take those PJs and you say, how do we purpose these guys to support ground forces more effectively? And so in the early days, Desert One's a good example. When you start building up JSOC, they realized that, hey, man, we can use PJs and be these kind of these. This enabling force that protects our guys and provides confidence to ground force commanders to say, man, like, if anything happens, you guys are going to do it. And a good example is Black Hawk Down. You know, we had PJs there that went down. And guys, I had the. Man, it's hard to put this into words, but, like, when I was a young man, I looked at these magazines and I saw guys like Tim Wilkinson And Scotty fails. And I was enamored by them. And then I got to meet them in person and, and, and then become have a relationship with them. That's so cool. Which was amazing to me. And it probably wasn't amazing to them because I'm a nobody, right? But like, for me it was a big deal. And so. But those were the guys that put themselves in harm's way. They're kind of the lesser known portion of Blackhawk down in the story of, you know, Gothic Serpent. But they, you know, they risked their lives to save others and cut those guys out of those helicopters. And so, you know, then the, the assault force understood, holy crap, these guys are really good at this. We can use them on the maritime missions, we can use them on these assault forces. And so they became kind of a necessity, you know, over time, you know,
- [15:11]
Jack Murphy
and correct me if I'm wrong anytime I say something dumb here, but 24th sts is the unit that encompasses some of these different personnel and capabilities. Unlike, you know, maybe some of the other soft units does this. Do they act as like the force provider and they, they shoot off These attachments to SEALs, Rangers, or are there missions they do?
- [15:32]
Chad McCoy
Yeah. Yes and no. So they do both. Right. So in the early days of Iraq and Afghanistan, we were basically running combat search and rescue for the task force. And so like, I was the team leader for those, you know, those, those task forces. And my job was to protect a certain region of Iraq. And so, you know, when you had halfs going all night, you know, a lot of heat, a lot of helos flying back in the day, and the 1/60 was very, very busy, they were getting it on more than anybody. And my job was to protect those guys. Not only the air crew, but everyone else is on those, you know, those, you know, infill and exfil, you know, birds. And so that was a primary mission of our unit. And then on top of that, we would basically dole PJs and controllers out to the army and Navy. And that's where it gets kind of exciting, right? Because everyone wants to be part of that. You touch that magic and there's a lot of magic there, right? And so, you know, PJs, controllers, you know, it sounds like pejorative, but they were commodities for a while. And so, and that's not a bad thing to me because you're on the best missions and you're with the best operators. And so my job is to be the best PJ with them and protect them and save their lives and. And think ahead of problems as they happen. And so. And the combat controller is running. I mean, he's the busiest guy on the target. Yeah. You know, I mean, he's got multiple radios going, multiple aircraft. Maybe he's calling cast. Maybe he's calling, you know, a black HLC to bring, you know, casualties out. And the PJ has a cool job because if no one gets hurt, you got a pretty sweet gig, man, because you're running gun with the best of them. And then when someone gets hurt, yeah, you refocus, man, and that's your primary task. And so, yeah, it's a different gig, man.
- [17:17]
David Park
So with the Air Force, we'll talk about pararescue, because I don't know about cct, but it has sort of that SEAL structure. Right. There's the white side. Pararescue. Who before G. What were. Were the busiest special operations folks were. They're doing mountain rescue in Alaska. Yeah, they're doing the mountain rescue. They're doing incredibly heroic stuff out at sea. Like, they had a real job all the time. Even the guard bums.
- [17:46]
Chad McCoy
Yeah, the perfect storm. Yeah. Long island, you know, guys. The guys in Alaska are, are the biggest badass PJs, right? Because they're guys that are going to jump through a remote DZ and rescue somebody and like, overland for three days and, you know, probably kill bears with their bare hands. I don't know.
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Commercial Announcer
A couple.
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Jack Murphy
A couple of them, I think just last year did a freefall jump in Alaska to go rescue some. A dude that was stranded out there jumped right out into the snow drifts.
- [18:09]
Chad McCoy
They do a lot? Yeah, they do a lot. And the guys here in Long island do a lot of jump missions out to sea. You know, a lot of the, you know, merchant vessels that call for help, these guys will hang. They literally risk their lives for others. And so when I joined, that's what I joined to do. And I was hoping that the. The combat side of it would come eventually. And, you know, so I was first stationed. I think you guys want to talk about selection a little bit. But I was first stationed in Las Vegas and we went out to Northern Watch, which is you had Northern Watch and Southern Watch and basically was a bracket around Iraq for no Fly Zone. And so our job, Northern Watch in Turkey, was to protect those fighters that were forcing that. And so in my mind, I was in combat, right. I'm in full kit. I got all these magazines. I had so many magazines, I probably had 500 rounds on me. I don't Know, man, but I'm kidding. But you know, I was, I thought I was John Rambo and I was going to go save anyone who needed me. Right, but the fact is that you're just a safety net. And you know, we hadn't really started yet. And so, you know, it's kind of a, interesting kind of transition to what the GWA became because I didn't have any experience, you know what I mean? I wasn't nobody. And so. Yeah, it's interesting, man.
- [19:31]
David Park
So with. So. And I don't, I don't mean any sort of disparagement when I call everybody not in the 24 like the vanilla side or you know, like vanilla PJs, but what is their wartime mission as opposed to the 24th?
- [19:48]
Chad McCoy
Yeah, so they've got a great mission, man. So they're, you know, they have dedicated assets. So you have HH 60s, HHB and the Air Force variant of rescue, right? You have dedicated C130s, HC130s. You have basically these task forces deploy to become stand up turnkey rescue and recovery. And so, you know, for the past 20 years, they've been everywhere, you know, they've been co located with us. And so my job would be to protect task force assets. Theirs would be to protect everybody, right? And so if it didn't fall under our purview, they would be the ones that take care of it. And so it's not necessarily like, I'm better than you, it's a different mission. And so, you know, you know, we use the term, you know, Whiteside from, for kind of conventional SOF, where SOF's not conventional, but that's the term we use. But they did a lot of great things and especially in Afghanistan, did a lot of rescues, a lot of notoriety with special Forces teams that they came in and saved. But when you talk about kind of the tip of the spear, when you kind of neck it down to mission, it becomes a little bit more exclusive, right? And so it's a smaller club of people and you know, that's by design. You know, there's a different selection process, which I'm sure we'll talk about different training and also different understanding of assets available. And that's usually the differentiator between Whiteside and Tier one, right? It's assets, you know, operators, you know, you can teach a guy to shoot really well and do all these things, but what assets do you have available to you? And so when you have dedicated cast and every, every target, when you have AC130 over every single night, right? Which people don't have. And. And I'm used to that. I'm like, we don't have AC1 3. How are we going to go out, right? How do we do this? Because you know what happens if we get a tick, right? You know, and convent, you know, Whiteside guys are like, yeah, man, we'll just fight through it. And you know, Tier one guy's like, well, we gotta just drop it and we'll move on. Right? But yeah, that's, that's.
- [21:53]
David Park
Everybody back off and call them the strike.
- [21:55]
Chad McCoy
Exactly.
- [21:57]
David Park
So tell us about, like, did you. Did anybody warn you what selection was going to be? Did you work up? Did you train for it? And what did you think when you got there?
- [22:08]
Chad McCoy
Yeah, so it's. It's kind of funny. I'm my own worst enemy. Everybody knows me knows that. And when 911 happened, I was in the. I was in Okinawa. I was actually with a good buddy of mine. We had a. We're having a typhoon party. It's what you do in Okinawa when you have typhoons. And my buddy Nick MacAskill was a good friend of mine. He was like an E5 at the time and I was a E4. His family was on the mainland and he invited me over. We're gonna have a typhoon party. And so we're drinking these things called white dogs. It's like Korean yogurt and like soju and we're tearing it up, man, just the two of us, you know, no purpose. Just, just. That's what you do, right? And we watched the World Trade center happen.
- [22:50]
Jack Murphy
Wow.
- [22:50]
Chad McCoy
And together. And we're sitting on the couch watching, and I'm like. And I'm trying to rationalize it. I'm like, I must be beacons in the, you know, towers. And I'm like trying to make sense of it. And then you start seeing more and more like, holy crap. And then he starts getting all these phone calls. And I didn't. So I was at a rescue squadron and he was at a special tactics squadron in Okinawa. And I'm like, you're getting calls? I'm making calls like, you guys don't want me. And here I was this, you know, I thought I was this pipe hitting guy. And when 911 happened, I assumed I'd be a part of whatever the response was. And I was in the Pacific and I wasn't. And we started doing OEF Philippines, which was a thing. Okay. And we had a 47 out there that crashed.
- [23:38]
Jack Murphy
Yes, I remember. It was a 160th bird that went down.
- [23:41]
Chad McCoy
I had, you know, a couple friends on there, Juan Riddell and Bill McDaniel. Bill McDaniel was a teammate of mine in Vegas. And it was a big moment for us, right, because it was. I was a young guy, never dealt with tragedy, right. And I was like, holy shit, these guys are dead. And then they said, hey, we need you guys to go to the Philippines. I'm like, I'm in and I'm going to war, you know, again, probably, you know, 600 mags, I don't know, whatever I had on me. And we go out there and we think we're going to war. And it was this kind of like, posture. It was like, okay, there's things going on here, but we don't know what you guys can do. How do you contribute to that? And so it was really frustrating for me as a young guy because I started reading Stars and Stripes when 911 happened. And I started reading about these SF guys. They're going with like, you know, shooting 40 millimeter of the mountains and getting these ticks and pulling back. And I'm like, that's what I signed up to do. And I'm in the Pacific. And so I did a, you know, I was stuck out there. I was stuck. I was PCs out there. I had a, you know, another. Had a commitment for another year and I was miserable and ended up getting an ulcer. Like, I ended up getting an ulcer as a, you know, 20, 20 year old or 20, whatever, whatever it was,
- [24:54]
David Park
did you think you were gonna miss it?
- [24:56]
Chad McCoy
I was just. I just want to be a part of it.
- [24:58]
David Park
Yeah.
- [24:58]
Chad McCoy
And I was like, this is the war. This is, I mean, and war is romantic, you know, to a young guy who was playing war in the woods. I wanted to test my metal. I want to see what I was worth. And so there was only one way to get there. Right. I could roll the dice and PCs and hopefully go to a unit that was deploying where I could get out and go contract to Blackwater. Right. Because Blackwater was a thing back then.
- [25:24]
David Park
Yeah.
- [25:24]
Chad McCoy
Or I could go to the 24th Sts, which I knew was going to deploy. You knew you're going to war if you went there. The problem was I was a nobody. I had no experience. I was a young guy. I had nothing to give them. And traditionally the 24th Sts was taken like, you know, guys in their 30s, they were the best of the best. And here I was, I was, you know, barely 21. I was like 22, I think at the time. And so I put in a package and they're at war already and I put in this package and I was up in Alaska actually I was doing some rescue stuff with Alaska guys a month. It was great. And I flew from Alaska to Fort Bragg to do selection by myself as a nobody. And you know, you, you like do a PT test and actually a funny story PT test. So I'm, I'm super nervous. Like I'm an like I got no shot at coming up here. They're not going to pick me. And so I wake up at 3 in the morning, got a PTS, I think at 5, wake up at 3, I'm stretching, like doing random stretches before HP was a thing. I'm like, like touching my toes and I'm like, I need to take some multivitamins because that'll make me run faster, right? Drinking some Gatorade, I'm doing everything wrong. And I Show up at 5 and this multivitamin, my stomach is just churning. I have no food in my stomach and I know better now, but you have to do this three mile run and it's like, show what you got. And so the chief that was there was this runner, he was like a marathon guy. He's like, do you mind if I run with you? What am I going to say? No? So of course. So he's running with me and I'm running, he's talking to me the whole time. I'm like, I'm trying to run a six minute mile, which is hard for me, and he's talking to me and my stomach's turning and I gotta vomit, but I'm not gonna stop. So I keep running up and start vomiting on myself and I'm puking on myself and he keeps talking to me, I'm like talking to him, puking and I puke three times on this run. And I run, I get a good time and he's just like, this kid's crazy, right? And so I go to the other events, do all this other stuff and, and then I go through this board and the board is just gets you in the door to go to the further kind of next selection. And they used to call murder boards back in the day and they were not friendly. It was everybody, it was all, everybody's in uniform, I'm in uniform and they just trash you, they rip you apart. And again I'm a nobody, right? I'm a 20, 20 something kid who's never done anything in my life. And I come in there and they're like, first of all, we never seen anybody vomit on themselves on this run the whole time. That's kind of weird. Like, I get it, kid. Like, you want to be here. I'm like, yeah, I do. And. And I told him. I was very honest with him, and I said, listen, guys. And I wasn't. There's no ego attached to it. There's no bravado.
- [27:57]
David Park
And it's the Air Force, so you can say, guys.
- [28:00]
Chad McCoy
No, you can't. No. So, yeah, I'm smoking a cigar. So I said to him, I said, you know, if you guys don't take me, I'm probably gonna get out of the military, because I'm getting out. Yeah, My service commitment was up in, like, eight months. I was like, I'm getting out of the military and I'll go fight somehow. I'll figure it out. And they knew I was serious. And I said, I just want to be busy. I just want to fight. I want to go to war. And they selected me. And so I came, you know, So I ended up going back to Okinawa, and we had it. So I had to do one more deployment. I went to Korea. It was a short deployment, like 35 days, 45 days. And this is what I was telling you about, the U2 crash. Yeah. And so I'm out there. I wasn't an alert. We didn't fly alert for the U2s because they're like, high, high stuff. Like, very low probability, getting shot down. And so we're not alert for him. And it's like, I forget what time it was in the morning. It was like, seven, eight. Maybe I'm hungover, maybe I'm not. I don't know. Don't hold me to it. And they knock on my door like, chad, hey, you two just punched. You gotta go rescue this guy.
- [29:03]
Jack Murphy
Oh, man.
- [29:03]
Chad McCoy
And I'm like, oh, yeah, cool. Yeah, let's go. And so we went out there and. And the U2. It's a funny story, because I actually met the pilot recently. He lives in my town. Oh, really? Yeah. Awesome story. But he basically limped his U2 across the border, ejected in a spacesuit.
- [29:23]
Jack Murphy
So he took ada fire or something?
- [29:25]
Chad McCoy
No, no, it was. He had a malfunction, okay. One of the engines, and he punches. He played it cool. And I talked to him in person about it just recently. He's like, yeah, you know, I knew I had to get it over. It was on fire, like, whatever, you know, real, real cool pilot. The old school Air Force pilot. Like the kind of guys from, like, World War II, right? And he limps it over, crashes plane to a gas station. There's fire. I mean, it's a mess. He's in a spacesuit, breaks his back. We go down to him, this mud field. Litter him out or put him in, stokes litter, raise him out, you know, rest, rescue him, you know, and then I stay behind and, like, I'm gonna go, like, secure this crash site. I don't know what the hell I'm doing. No one taught me how to do this stuff. And I end up finding this black box. This recorder is a giant real recorder that there's two Koreans are pulling out of this apartment complex. And I got a gun on me, right? And I'm like. And Chad now knows I could have, like, locked these dudes up and like, zip tied them and, like, probably took them away because they're probably North Korean.
- [30:23]
Jack Murphy
Like classified piece of gear, right?
- [30:25]
David Park
Exactly.
- [30:25]
Chad McCoy
There was a van waiting for it out front. Yeah.
- [30:27]
David Park
Holy shit.
- [30:28]
Chad McCoy
And so I didn't know how the gravity of this at the time. I'm like a 20 something kid, you know, I'm like, I'm surprised that the
- [30:33]
David Park
Air Force didn't send, like, forced, like
- [30:35]
Chad McCoy
the ravens or they sent some cops eventually. But yeah, so we, we. We do this. And then, you know, I'm like, high five myself. Like, that was kind of cool.
- [30:48]
Jack Murphy
Wait, wait, wait. So did you get the box?
- [30:50]
Chad McCoy
Yeah. Yeah.
- [30:50]
David Park
Okay.
- [30:52]
Chad McCoy
Get it.
- [30:52]
David Park
Did you negotiate? Did you draw down on them?
- [30:54]
Chad McCoy
What happened? I'm like, I'm an American. You're not. This is our. And you know, they probably all both knew karate. Probably could have kicked my ass and zip tied me, but thank God they didn't. So if you're watching, thank you for, like, beating me up. But yeah, so we recovered everything, you know, he comes out fine. It was a big deal, you know. Yeah. But I was thinking about the war. All I wanted to be was in Afghanistan. And did you get a.
- [31:21]
David Park
Did you get a recognition for that? Did you get a medal for securing the black box from Korean.
- [31:26]
Chad McCoy
Wow. Well, there's more to that. It's just kind of my career, but it's fine. It's not about awards. Right. But so it, it just. It kind of stabs you a little bit. Yeah.
- [31:38]
Jack Murphy
We see you go back to 24th Sts and be like, I did something, guys.
- [31:41]
David Park
Yeah, I did a good thing.
- [31:42]
Chad McCoy
Yeah. So, you know, you fast forward a few months and I fly out to Fort Bragg and the unit's gone. There's no one there. It's a ghost town. And it's a really eerie feeling, like, thinking about now. It was crazy to see it was no one there. There were some admin folks there, but everyone was forward and they said, hey, we don't have enough people to man this Cesar position in Afghanistan with the Navy supporting, you know, specific squadron. Will you deploy in a week? I'm like, hell, yes. Like, that's all I want to do. And. And I had no training, so you're supposed to go through training, right? You have a year of training. You gotta get there. They're like, we're gonna. We want you to go now. I'm like, yeah, man. I'm in. Like, I have no gear. I have nothing. You know, they're like, we got you. So I go to the armory, and they got this little shorty M4. And I'd never seen one. Now it's normal, right? Everyone's like, hey, whatever, it's 10 inch. I never seen one for. I was like, that's the coolest thing ever. Yeah. And they had painted it for me. I'm like, dude, I am big rich. Like, I am. I am varsity.
- [32:40]
David Park
I am now Rambo.
- [32:41]
Chad McCoy
Yeah. I can't any. I can kill anything. Like, I am the man. Like, this is tier one right now, right? Right? And we go to the range, we sight in, and I'm like, dude, this is everything. It's a culmination of everything I wanted in my life.
- [32:53]
David Park
Was it suppressed? Did you have a suppressor?
- [32:55]
Chad McCoy
Oh, yeah. I never seen a suppressor. How does this thing go on? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I get that, you know, uniforms had all kitted out for me, and I'm like, dude, this is insane. You felt like a professional athlete coming to a team. And here's your uniform, right? And so all brand new kit, which is not cool in retrospect. It's not cool to have brand new kit down range. But I was that guy, all price tags on and everything, trying to, Trying
- [33:17]
David Park
to not get it dirty.
- [33:18]
Chad McCoy
It's like the hat with, like, the sticker in the front. Yeah. So, you know, so I go down range to Afghanistan and I do nothing. I mean, I, I, we, We support these ops. I was a part of the task force. I was learning. I didn't do anything sexy. I didn't do anything hard. But I was exposed to kind of a new world. And I was, I was really impressed by the guys I was with. They're extreme professionals. They're very capable. And I was a nobody. And it was very humbling, right? It was like, holy. You know, I Thought I was the man before and now I know I'm not and I know I need to grow to this. And so, you know, that was a pretty formative experience for me. And so I come back home from that deployment and I start green team. Right. So green team is our selection.
- [34:03]
David Park
So before we go into green team, because that was the training that you should have done, right? The training selection that you should have done if you hadn't deployed immediately. Pararescue already has, just off the get go. Is it about a two year?
- [34:16]
Chad McCoy
Yeah.
- [34:17]
Jack Murphy
Yes, I was about to say the same.
- [34:19]
Chad McCoy
I guess I kind of glossed over that, didn't I?
- [34:20]
David Park
Yeah, so. No, that's okay. So when you go to pararescue, it really is maybe outside of like an 18 delta.
- [34:27]
Jack Murphy
Well, I, I mean, do you guys have the longest pipeline? You might, I don't know.
- [34:32]
Chad McCoy
I'm not into competition with other tiers.
- [34:34]
Jack Murphy
I get it. But like you said, you're getting so
- [34:36]
David Park
many things, you're getting so many schools that, that are all front loaded. So you do two year, two years of training just to get on the job.
- [34:44]
Chad McCoy
Yes. And you don't know anything when you graduate. Two years. That's the sad thing is that. And even now you go through all this training and you're not capable to go deploy. You have top up training, get to your unit. And so, you know, there's a, there's a breakdown there. But the pipeline basically is all these employment schools and basically foundational schools to put it all together at PJ school to make you a pj. Right. And so but before that you go to selection and I guess I kind of super glossed over this. It's pretty important. So our selection used to be, it's not the same now. It's completely different.
- [35:21]
David Park
And we're talking about just selection to get into Pararescue.
- [35:25]
Chad McCoy
So used to be PJs and controllers together would go through selection together. And so you go through basic training and if you were a guy who had, you know, basically done a pass test, which is like a physical assessment to go, hey, you want to go here? Okay. You met the basic criteria to go there. You start with a lot of guys. So we started, I mean just for easy math, let's say 100 people, maybe it was like 90, I don't know, whatever. So 100 people out of basic training come there and they're all eager to be PJs because it's sexy. Right? You see this guy, he's got blouse, boots.
- [35:56]
Jack Murphy
Cool.
- [35:56]
Chad McCoy
Beret he's jacked. He's probably taking a ton of roids. And he's briefing you guys. You're like, I want to be that guy. And here I am, scrawny, like 145 pounds, going, yeah, that's me, man. So I came in the Air Force to be that guy. I had already made up my mind, so I had already done the passes before I came in, in Hawaii, in Honolulu. I did it with a prior controller. I was committed. And so the stakes are high, right, because you come in and a lot of guys don't make it. Most of them don't make it. And so you come to be a pj, you're probably going to be, you know, whatever, a load master or a cop or something. My motivation was to not be that. My motivation was to be what I wanted to be. And so I came in to do that. I finished basic training, which got.
- [36:40]
David Park
Which Air Force basic training everybody knows gets you ready for.
- [36:43]
Chad McCoy
Yeah, it's the hardest. Basic training. No. I learned how to fold shirts and do and make my bed really well, which has not paid off in my later life. I don't make my bed. No. Air Force basically. Train is a joke. I mean, no offense, but it is. You know, and it was. You know, you atrophy through the process. You're doing the slow runs. I should have been doing, you know, hard stuff.
- [37:06]
David Park
Right.
- [37:07]
Chad McCoy
And they changed it now. So now they break guys out and they actually know. Build them up to go pre selection.
- [37:12]
David Park
Okay, so they have, like, cohorts for selection.
- [37:14]
Chad McCoy
Yeah, they fix it.
- [37:15]
David Park
Okay.
- [37:15]
Chad McCoy
Back in the day, it was like, hey, man, you better be ready from go. And so you go to the selection there at San Antonio, and it's a lot of running, swimming, and beating your ass in the pool. Okay? A lot of calisthenics and that's it. Not a lot of weightlifting. It wasn't a lot of any of that. Really scary instructors. They were a pain in the ass. Um, you know, there's a funny story about one of them. I'll tell you later. But. But yeah, so I'm enamored by these guys. I'm scared of them. I was a young kid. I didn't never done anything hard in my life. You know, I was a kid from Hawaii. I was a surfer. I was good in the water. I was comfortable being, you know, uncomfortable in the water. That was my saving grace. I wasn't super fast. You think being that skinny you'd be fast? I wasn't fast. I wasn't strong. But I would go through every day knowing that I had to get to the end of the day. And I wasn't thinking about the end of the week or end of the month. I was thinking about the end of the day. And that was the only thing that saved me through the process was that I took it very incrementally. And so I'm like, I'm going to get through this run and then I know I'm going to go to a water confidence session. I'm going to get through that and I'll get to the end and I'll get to eat dinner and I'll go to sleep and I'll do it again. And it got me through the whole process and I was unassuming. If you had a lineup of guys, you would never have picked me to get through it. You're there's no way. Because the guys are big, buff guys. They all quit. They all quit. And they quit from runs, they quit from swims, they quit from water confidence.
- [38:38]
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- [40:00]
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- [40:55]
Chad McCoy
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- [40:57]
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- [41:00]
Chad McCoy
And the water is a great equalizer, right? The Navy knows that. The seals know this is that when you get the water and you're uncomfortable and you can't breathe, you're going to quit, right? Unless you can reprogram your brain to say, man, listen, I got this. And so one of the things we do is buddy breathing. Buddy reading is really hard. You pass a snorkel back between your body and you have an instructor who beats the crap out of you the whole time. And the guy you're with can screw you because if he's a spaz and he wants to breathe in, you're not getting a breath. Yeah. And then when he gives back the breath, they cover your snorkel. You're not getting a breath either. And so you gotta like mentally prepare for not breathing. And so I was pretty comfortable. I was like, man, you know, if you surf the north shore of Hawaii, that's worse than any water concession you ever have in the military. You know, like getting held down at sunset is a big deal. And when you get held down for two waves, you are gonna die, right? If you survive it, man, life is, life is good. Yeah. So I came straight from, you know, surfing big waves, going to indoc and like they would do drown proofing, which sounds really dangerous. But like I would like, I'd pretend like it was a dolphin. I'd make noises and go down and take a little piss on the bottom, come back up, breathe. It was comfortable. I was like, this is like meditation. It was early, right? Before mindfulness was a thing, right? It's like an immersion tank. Yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah. So yeah. So you know, you do that. You do, you know, incrementally gets harder and harder every week you do a six mile run at the end, a ton of push ups, ton of pull ups, all that crap. And then you graduate. And so once you graduate that you're in the pipeline and so then you do that two years you're describing. And so, you know, usually, usually start off at scuba school. You go to. We used to go back, you know, go to Key West. We have our own scuba school now. We go to Key west with all the SF guys. And we would crush it because we were so comfortable in the water. Like, you couldn't beat us, man. You couldn't, you couldn't crush us. And these open water swims were easy. We, we'd crush everything, man. The runs, you know, runs were hard for me because I wasn't that good of a runner, but we were studs, you know. And you go from that, you get a scuba bubble, which means nothing to anybody except guys have been to scuba school and you go to airborne school. And people are like, what is that? It looks like a little astronaut.
- [43:12]
Jack Murphy
Are you a welder?
- [43:13]
Chad McCoy
Yeah. Well, it looked like an astronaut. Then you get your airborne wings.
- [43:17]
David Park
Door gunner on the spot. Space shuttle.
- [43:18]
Chad McCoy
Exactly. Some stupid stuff like that. And. But yeah, you go to all these schools, right? So it's, you know, just really basic schools. You know, basic airborne free fall survival. The hard one for PJs was going through the 18 Delta course. So going through sock em, that's hard for anybody. Yeah, dude. We had a lot of guys that, you know, wanted to be PJs end up not staying with it. They're like, screw this, can't do it.
- [43:43]
David Park
Now at that time, were you guys, were you guys doing the full 18 delta or were you just doing the
- [43:47]
Chad McCoy
sock import part of it now? We just did the sock em, you know, the 18 Delta portion, the backside maybe would have been more of a gentleman's course on the backside, you know, more long term care, stuff like that. But they didn't like us there.
- [44:04]
David Park
Yeah.
- [44:04]
Chad McCoy
And the SF guys that were there, all crusty dudes and they did not want us there. And so they made our lives. Hell yeah, they'd fail us on stupid stuff. I mean I still. It's like memory now. It's like BSI seems safe is what used to say is like body service isolation. If you didn't say all these things, they would fail you. And it wasn't a part of your ability to treat somebody. It was all about your ability to recite things. And even anatomy physiology was like super stressful because it was like, how can you memorize these things right now? I didn't understand medicine when I left there. I was clueless. Like if you were shot in front of me after the soccer, I'm like, BSIC and safe. You're like, what do you keep saying that for? I'm like, I got my gloves on and you know, pharmacology was foreign to me and, and it never made sense to me until someone explained it to me in a way that I could understand it. And the process is so much better now, man. Like. And so everything's improved after the war. Everything improved.
- [44:58]
David Park
So for our viewers and listeners, the entire 18 delta, which is the special forces medic course, has the trauma portion, which is the sockm. And you come out of there basically with skills equal to or exceeding a paramedic.
- [45:11]
Jack Murphy
Right.
- [45:11]
David Park
Or that's the idea. And then for 18 Deltas, there's, there's the long term care because it's based also around like being in a village, isolated, treating villages.
- [45:22]
Jack Murphy
I recall they, they learn stuff about like animal husbandry. They learn things about like, what if there's a viral outbreak, right.
- [45:29]
David Park
How do we sterilize the.
- [45:30]
Jack Murphy
Well, yeah, that kind of stuff.
- [45:32]
Chad McCoy
Yeah. They're excellent medics. Yeah. And I have a lot of love for eight and Deltas. They're awesome medics. They understand pharmacology, they understand wound care. They're great. They're. I mean, they're, I think they're better than a lot of nurses, you know, and so I was not that. Okay, so just full transparency. It was not. I was good enough to get by. I passed the course first try and I was like, thank God, get me out of this place. And truly it was. And so, you know, I go through all these courses and then I get to PJ school and they put it all together, climbing and some high angle rescue stuff. Stuff. But it's real, it's real basic, you know, because it's hard to make someone an expert at high angle rescue in a few months, right? It takes years, right? Because that, I mean, that alone is especially skill, right? But to be a good medic, to be a good parachutist, to, you know, to be able to do, you know, we do rams, jumps, which is basically folding a Zodiac up and pushing on the back of a plane, getting the ground, you know, get to the ocean, pop it, you know, a scuba cylinder, inflate it, you know, all these things. And you're supposed to get all of them, right. You're not good at any of them, right? You're, you're, you know, you're competent, but you're not an expert. And so medicine is make or break. All these other things are like, they're all make or break, right? Because they're all dangerous, right? But medicine is what you're.
- [46:50]
David Park
It's your bread and butter.
- [46:51]
Chad McCoy
It's what you're asked to do, right? And if you don't rocket at it like, someone's gonna die in your arms. And so when you go to the 24th, they know you need a top off and so they start, you know, kind of finessing those, those technical or tactical skills of medicine and make you a really good medic.
- [47:08]
Jack Murphy
So, yeah, tell us then about, about was it Green Platoon? And I mean, you've had all this. You're already dragging around draeger systems and MC6 parachutes and all this other crap that you've been trained on. What is this additional training, you know, tacking on that.
- [47:26]
Chad McCoy
Yeah. So Green team is really cool. So again, so I ran green team later on in my career and it was a way better process than what I went through. What I went through was a bunch of courses. It was like really high end courses, right? The best of the best. I mean, millions of dollars of training. But there wasn't, there was never an FMP to like all put it together, right? And so it was like, hey, I want. They send me to Swift Water rescue courses in like West Virginia and I would become an expert. Swift Water Rescue. But what does that mean?
- [47:54]
David Park
Right?
- [47:55]
Chad McCoy
And, you know, they send me to these mountain rescue courses and I would do all this high end, like, you know, very complicated technical rescue. What does it mean? You know, or jump trip. Yeah, you're. You're getting very proficient at jumping. But how do you put it all together tactically? And so it's crazy to think my Green team vice, the Green team today, those guys that graduate Green team today are freaking studs, like they are. And I can say it's not about me, it's about them. They are studs because they get the training. So what I went through is, you know, I go through advanced free fall. You know, we learn how to jump, you know, all kinds of equipment. I don't actually know. Maybe we were jumping nods at the time, which is a big deal to jump Nods. Yeah. People weren't doing free fall.
- [48:40]
David Park
Right.
- [48:41]
Chad McCoy
I'm trying to think we, you know, really crazy dive trip where we do three weeks of, you know, just getting back into draggers and doing, you know, line dives, which suck, you know, and FMP is doing cqb, which CQB for every other service is very, like, foundational for us. It wasn't. And so I'd never done CQB when I came up there. You know, I was a good shot, but I didn't. CQB is very difficult. It's a different game. Right. Like, it's a different way of thinking and processing information very quickly. And so you're learning all this stuff within a year, and so you pop out of there and you're a Tier one operator now, right? Well, not really, because I'd never been to combat, right. So I've been to combat, you know, quotations, but I never, you know. Fired my weapon.
- [49:27]
David Park
With your finger?
- [49:28]
Chad McCoy
Yeah, man. And so when I pop it on the backside, they send me to a Tier one unit, and here I am with the best of the best, and I'm a nobody.
- [49:38]
David Park
Now, what year is this that you get to the 24th when you finish your green team?
- [49:42]
Chad McCoy
I finished in 2003.
- [49:44]
David Park
So to be fair, at that point in time, very few people had, like. Because obviously it started in 2001. So people had combat experience. Yeah, some guys did, but combat experience was not something that was like.
- [49:59]
Chad McCoy
Nobody had combat experience with the Panama.
- [50:03]
David Park
Yeah, you'd see, like, grenade raiders or dudes with Panama scroll. And, you know, you'd be like, oh, badass.
- [50:09]
Chad McCoy
Yeah. Yeah.
- [50:09]
David Park
He's seen legend.
- [50:11]
Chad McCoy
Yeah. But so the guys that did the initial push into Iraq, you know, I've been these ticks, and I was on green team with them. They're telling me stories. I'm like, dude, that's insane. And I'm enamored by it.
- [50:21]
David Park
Yeah.
- [50:22]
Chad McCoy
I'm like, dude, how would I, you know, how would I handle this? And the irony is, is that, you know, everyone thinks that training prepares you for combat. You know, to a certain extent, it does. But there is a. There's a next step, and it's under fire when the stakes are really high, and that's when things get. Get real. Right? So my first big op, I was with the Navy, and full compromise gunfight. And I'm like, oh, man, we're. Are we fighting? We're fighting now.
- [50:55]
David Park
Is somebody shooting?
- [50:56]
Chad McCoy
We're shooting.
- [50:56]
David Park
Yeah.
- [50:57]
Chad McCoy
I can shoot back.
- [50:57]
David Park
Right?
- [50:58]
Chad McCoy
And you're looking at other people, and they're shooting. I'm like, oh, I can shoot. It gets on.
- [51:01]
David Park
Yeah.
- [51:02]
Chad McCoy
And, you know, people think it's. You're like, oh, I've got all this training. Like, it doesn't matter unless you're with guys have been there, done that, and watch what they do. There's some guys that are just naturally. They're that. Right. We call them Wayne Groves. Right. They just want to get it on. But for the most. Most of us. It's like, it's a process. And you're like, okay, this is normal. Okay. This is how you react to this. Okay, this is when you escalate force. And it's not as intuitive as you think. And so thank God I was with the best of the best, right? They were the best of the best. And there were guys that had been on two rotations before of combat. They've been there, done that. And here I was a new guy going, enamored. I'm like, holy shit. Like, yeah, I want to hang with you guys. Yeah.
- [51:46]
David Park
I think a good way to frame that, at least for me, is like, you have a lifetime of cultural conditioning of not killing people that you know that are in front of you. And so when it first goes down, you, yeah, you might react, but there's also potentially that thought process at, am I really going to kill this human, this person in front of?
- [52:08]
Chad McCoy
Am I allowed to.
- [52:09]
David Park
Yeah, right. Am I making the right. Am I making the right decision?
- [52:13]
Chad McCoy
Yeah, it sounds silly, but yeah, it's true, man. Like, and the guys that don't have that, that limitation in their psyche, other guys are liabilities too, you know, like, if a guy just is weapons free from the start, you're like, dude, what's going on your brain? Right, right, right. You know, it should be a measured approach. And my job is to save lives, right? And so, you know, it's also, you know, to take lives in that respect. But also it's my job is to save lives. And so there's a humanitarian aspect to my. My role. And, you know, you have to be both, yeah, you do.
- [52:47]
Jack Murphy
Steely eyed killer, but also guy who can hold someone's hand while they're, yeah, you know, maybe dying.
- [52:52]
Chad McCoy
And I take that very seriously, man. And so, you know, later on in my career when I would get into other operations that were not necessarily PJ focused, I never took it for granted. Like, I was like, man, humanity is important and it's important in combat. And the guys that I saw that could balance that very effectively were guys I respected. And, you know, Kenley, it is kind of easy to be a killer man. Like, to be that guy. To have to be measured in your approach is a very mature reaction. And they're the guys that respect the most. And I saw it, I saw it live. And I'm like, holy crap, you didn't do that. Because this. And so you start processing information. And so when I would talk to young guys that were like, you know, we said whiteside, and you're like, well, what's the difference? I'm like, there's a difference because I am seeing things that are very high level where people are making very good decisions and bad decisions. But I'm learning from it. And now I'm competent and capable to make decisions on my own. And so, you know, I said this before to some other folks is that, you know, being the first person to shoot is something I never wanted to do because you never know if you're right or wrong. But as I got more mature, I'm like, okay, I know this is right. This is the right thing to do because we are compromised and that guy is a problem. I'm going to shoot that guy. And. But that is not, that is not a, an intuitive thing. It's something that's learned. And so, you know, the high level soft forces, you know, army and Navy, the guys that are very senior, they're, they're wired that way, they understand it and they're the guys that I want to be next to because they're going to make very good decisions. They're not going to make erratic decisions, aren't make emotional decisions. They're going to make very deliberate decisions. And that's a very high level skill. And that's what separates Whiteside from Tier one.
- [54:42]
David Park
It's interesting because both in, because both the fields that you were in, combat and medicine, both of those fields. I think the easy route is to dehumanize the person in front of you.
- [54:57]
Chad McCoy
Yeah.
- [54:58]
David Park
To compartmentalize and to become jaded about it. Right. That's the easy route that, to be like you mentioned mindfulness earlier, to remain mindful in those situations to whether you're in a medical situation and don't just shut it off because here's another human being who's suffering. And it's easier to just, you know,
- [55:17]
Jack Murphy
to live in a black and white world.
- [55:18]
David Park
Right. And just, you know, shut off the emotion to it. And same with combat, it's easier just to shut off the emotion to it as you know, then to. I'm, I'm in front of a human being who's suffering. I'm in front of a human being who's trying to kill me. So I'm going to kill them first without, without necessarily taking away their humanity
- [55:35]
Chad McCoy
or just here's, here's an example of humanity. I was at a, like a really remote outstation in Afghanistan. Really remote. I mean, we ran out of food and water. That kind of remote.
- [55:46]
David Park
Right.
- [55:47]
Chad McCoy
You guys have probably been there before and we had a couple prisoners you know, we call them, you know, pucks. We had them off target. And they were in our makeshift prison, and we would basically, you know, we'd wake up and it was like, okay, it's my turn to watch the prisoners, so I go in there and I feed them and I treat him humanely. We're not. We're not on target, right? There's no violence here. There's no emotion. You're. You're in captivity. I'm taking care of you. I'm not gonna. I'm gonna treat you humanely. You wanna go to the bathroom? I'll take you to the bathroom. Yeah.
- [56:16]
Jack Murphy
It's business.
- [56:16]
Chad McCoy
It's not personal. If you want to. You wanna get crazy, like, we can deal with that. But, like, at the end of the day, like, if you're respectful, I'm respectful.
- [56:24]
David Park
Right.
- [56:24]
Chad McCoy
And we had this guy, was there for two days, and I remember he was, like, really appreciative that I would give him food. I wasn't giving him, you know, benefits. I was, like, feeding him. I was doing what I should do.
- [56:35]
David Park
Right.
- [56:35]
Chad McCoy
He's a human being. And turned out he was just a legit farmer. Yeah. And me and the. The master chief took him down to the gate. We gave a bunch of money. You know, he blew his door off.
- [56:45]
David Park
He pulled your beard?
- [56:47]
Chad McCoy
No, he cried. Did he? And he thanked us. And he got on his knees and.
- [56:51]
Jack Murphy
Wow.
- [56:52]
Chad McCoy
And I'm like, man, you know, this could have turned out totally differently if I treated him, you know, like, if I had been a prick. Because there's group thing that goes along in the military.
- [57:00]
David Park
Right?
- [57:01]
Chad McCoy
And. But I knew better. I was like, man, this is a human being. And even if he is a terrorist, like, he's gonna face his punishment, right? There's no punishment I'm gonna put on him now.
- [57:10]
David Park
Right.
- [57:11]
Chad McCoy
My job is to be ethical with him. Right. And to watch that reaction when it turned out he. It was a mistaken identity. Like, thank God, you know, like, thank God that, you know, we treated him well.
- [57:21]
David Park
Right.
- [57:22]
Chad McCoy
And, you know, there's a lot of mistakes that happened in the early days of Iraq. I mean, we saw Abu Ghraib and all those things that were. For guys that have been around for a while, that's the same disgusting. Right? You know, Right. Those were nobodies. Right. They did that crap.
- [57:34]
David Park
Right, Right. And they. And they weren't even. Like, they can't even stand behind enhanced interrogation. They were just around guards.
- [57:43]
Chad McCoy
Yeah.
- [57:44]
David Park
Yeah.
- [57:44]
Chad McCoy
And it was terrible because look at the repercussions from that. Things that we, we face on the battlefield because of that. And so, you know, humanity exists, you know, despite combat and, and you know, as I got older and as I retired, you know, as I got more senior, I was like, you start to understand life in a different way. But when you're young and again, group thing is really important because that's what happens. You think that's what you should be doing, the behaviors you should be doing. If you're with a group of people that behaves that way, you're going to behave that way, right? Because you want to fit in. It's a, you know, it's animal behaviors. Right. And so, you know, for my saving grace was I was a mature guys that had been around for a long time and that were, you know, I saw bad things in my career but like, for the most part, very professional guys. And you know, it helped me become the professional that I became and helped me lead effectively later on in my career.
- [58:45]
David Park
So how did you maintain or how did pararescue maintain, especially the 24th? The other skills that like you, like you mentioned before, you guys had a plethora of skills that you had to the high angle rescue, the, the swimming, the scuba, that, all that stuff. Were you able to maintain that or did it all. It became a combat unit at that point?
- [59:08]
Chad McCoy
Well, it's kind of like the Navy. I mean, you know, the Navy kind of of blew off diving for a long time, right? They were just, they were fighting in the desert, right. And so, you know, PJs. It's funny because PJs are. We have so many skills that we do. And so a lot of guys gravitate to a skill, right? And so you have. Guys are really good at climbing and they're awesome climbers. I hate climbing, personally. I hate it. It's scary to me. I hate being 100ft off the ground and being off one, you know, freaking piece of pro and looking down like this is going to, not only am I going to die, but I'm, I'm going to fall along the way. I'm going to be aware though. Yeah. And, but I like jumping, right. So there's skydivers that really like jumping and there's guys that really like medicine guy, really like shooting. And so you gravitate to a certain kind of discipline. You have to be good at all of them kind of, but you're going to be good at one really well. Right, right. And so, you know, we have the guy, hey, you're the jump guy, right? You're the Guy that loves jumping tan, you know, bundles. You're the guy that loves medicine, Right. And so you're the guy who knows all the knots.
- [60:09]
David Park
Yeah, yeah.
- [60:10]
Chad McCoy
And so PJs, it's. It's really hard for PJs to. You can't be good at everything. There's not enough time in the day. And also there's people that have propensity to certain things. And so, you know, for me, I really. I really appreciated medicine because I knew how important it was. I didn't like it, but I knew how important it was, so I had to be good at it. Right. Love jumping, Right. So I was big Scott ever. A couple thousand jobs, tandem masters, you know, affi, all those things. I also love shooting. Right. But, you know, how do you put all those things in to become a good operator? And so what does the. The customer need you to be? If we're commodities, you know, what does the Navy ask me to be? They're asking me to be really good at medicine. They're asking me really good at rescue and not be a liability on everything else. Right. And so to not be a liability, you have to be good at those other things too.
- [61:00]
David Park
So were teams put together with that sort of aspect that, hey, this guy, like, he's got a high rent, high angle.
- [61:06]
Chad McCoy
This guy's good. In the early days, we were so. We were so busy. We had Afghanistan, Iraq. I did back to back deployments. I would go from Iraq to Afghanistan.
- [61:14]
David Park
Wow.
- [61:15]
Chad McCoy
We were so busy. It was just like, hey, man, can you go?
- [61:18]
David Park
Yes.
- [61:19]
Chad McCoy
And you fake it till you make it right? And you show up and you're like, holy crap. And so I remember I went to an outstation one time. This is like my sixth, seventh deployment. I don't know. And this OGA guy had a. Had a cyst in his armpit. This is like day two. I'm in this outstation, real remote outstation. I'm like. He's like, hey, man. Hey, Chad, will you cut this out of my armpit? I'm like, you want me to cut it out of your armpit? He's like, yeah. I'm like, how hard can that be? Like, like, I understand. I gotta do minor surgery.
- [61:51]
David Park
There are no nerves or anything that bad.
- [61:54]
Chad McCoy
I used to carry all these books with me. All these books. And I looked at the book, I'm like, I could do that. Just do deep sutures. Okay, yeah, ligator thing. I got it. And so I put him down this table. I put Chuck. Chuck, which is like a. Basically a Drape, you know, I cut it out his armpit and clean it off real good. Iodine. Clean it. And he's got a big old dip in. It's like spitting in the cup, you know. He was ex Ranger too, by the way, of course. And so he's like, yeah, man, do your thing. So I, you know, I numb it up real good and I slice it open. Just pus comes everywhere, everywhere. It's just like, so much. It's like an ice cream cone, like.
- [62:30]
David Park
And, yeah, you're supposed to remove the sack, right?
- [62:33]
Chad McCoy
Well, I did, but I'm like. I'm like, clean everything. Breeding it. I'm like, like, maybe I shouldn't be doing this is above my pay grade. Right, right. I'm like, I got it. And so, you know, I clean it real well. I sew them up. Great stitches. Great. My saving grace, I did good sutures. And I'm like, hey, dude, you have to keep this clean. And we had. We didn't have great showers there. And so hygiene was an issue. I'm like, dude, you're going to. If you get infected, I'm screwed, because I probably shouldn't be doing this. And, you know, he's like, yeah, yeah, that's good. I catch him up the next day playing basketball, sweating. What are you doing, man? Like, this is on me, you know, this is my credibility. And so. But yeah, that's just how it was, man. And in the early days, it was a free for all. In the early days, it was wild. You could do whatever you wanted. It became more regimented, more disciplined later through the war. But in the early days, anything went. That's just the way.
- [63:29]
David Park
Did you feel like a champ, though? Like. Like taking out a sis. You'd never done that?
- [63:34]
Chad McCoy
No, I felt very nervous.
- [63:37]
David Park
Did you ever get an opportunity to do it again? Like, you're like, I got.
- [63:40]
Chad McCoy
Oh, I did a lot of stuff later, but I. I was very confident. Like, you know, I feel like. I feel like I could take out your pen, right? How hard could it be? Right? I got a book.
- [63:53]
Jack Murphy
Yeah, I love that. Self confidence.
- [63:55]
Chad McCoy
Yeah.
- [63:56]
Jack Murphy
So as time goes on, you're going. You did 17 combat rotations, serving in the squadron from age 22 to 41. Ended up the senior enlisted guy and super impressive career. I'd like to talk about some of the. Some of the activities and things we were involved in during that time. One of the things you had mentioned, a C130 crash in Baghdad.
- [64:18]
Chad McCoy
Yeah. So, like I said we would do back in the day, we had to do Cesar. And then also the assault rotations with the army and Navy. And so I would go from one to the other. And so I was in. I was in Balad, which was kind of like our hub. We had the hilos. And daytime, I get a call that a British C130 got shot down north of Baghdad. And the. The 160th guys, like, we're not flying daytime over Baghdad. Like, not happening. And I'm like, well, I need a ride. Like, someone needs to take care of this. It's bad. And, you know, they asked me to do it. I took responsibility for it. It's mine now. It's my project. And I'm trying to find a ride. I can't get. I can't get to where I'm going. And so there was some British, they were called super pumas, I believe. And so we jumped on those and they had M60s in the door. Daytime flight. And we flew down. This is when Baghdad was kind of gnarly, you know. And so we dropped on the ground, had my Ranger, we call them SSTs or Star Security Teams. They're basically my security perimeter. And I had my team, my PJ team, and I had a combat controller. And so we get down there, I'm the team leader. I had long hair at the time, long beard. I was wearing real tree camis, which was cool because back in the day it was cool to look different. And so I wanted to be as different as I could look. And so I was doing that. So stupid to think about now, right? But I get on the ground and this wreckage is, like, strewn for as far as you can see and on fire. There's fire in this wreck river and this ditch. It's a mess. And so I'm like, okay, guys, here's what we're doing. And my half my Rangers were talking about radios. Half my Rangers had radios, half them didn't. I'm like, okay, so I need radios in every bp. So we're going to split. I got heavy weapon here because that's where the, you know, most of the. The city is. And we're going to do this, okay? It don't matter. We don't have security. We're going to do this. We didn't have Cass, so the controller is trying to get on call Cast.
- [66:14]
Jack Murphy
You guys were the first on the ground?
- [66:15]
Chad McCoy
Yeah, first man. And we. In my mind, I knew the city was gonna start waking up to what was going on and, you know, potentially opportunists, like terrorists, because this is back when there's, like, a lot of different terrorist cells, they're gonna come and, like, and they're trying to punch at us, you know, and so we. We get on the ground and my team was, you know, I had a great team of guys. My controller, he's got Falcon view up. Back in the day, we have Falcon. Oh, yeah. You know, he's center plot. And we had no security. And they're. They're bringing back bodies, right? And so. But it's not bodies. Like, you think, you know, it's not bodies, it's pieces. And be super respectful to kind of, you know, because these are all British. There's some SAS folks and some, you know, some British, you know, aviators, and we're bringing back these bodies. And I told the team, I said, listen, we're gonna start putting bodies together based on, like, okay, right hand, left hand is a body. You've got, you know, if you have a torso, it's a body. And so we'll get accountability eventually. And I want you guys to get the weapons, all those things, and we'll get this done. We'll get out of here. And it turned into a huge event, and it was. It was massive. And so. Excuse me. So guys are bringing back stuff, and you were talking about compartmentalizing information. I did very well. It didn't. It didn't mean anything to me. I was very professional. It was very processed. Like, here's what we have to do. We're going to do it. And so we're about six, seven hours into this. The guys are doing great. My rangers are holding their positions. No one's pushed on us yet. And they bring a. Another super puma down. Maybe it was a lynx. I forget which bird. It was with some SAS guys, some tutu guys. And they're like, you know, hey, Mike, what do you want us. And I'm like, hey, we have some vulnerable positions over here, some apartments or some buildings. I was like, if you guys could go do some soft knocks, it'd be great. And they're like, yeah, absolutely. And they're guys, right? They're like, yeah, we're in. And so, you know, it didn't. They didn't ask any questions. Like, we got it. And so they went out there in the city and they started doing their things. They all spoke Arabic. They were doing their thing. And, you know, sun goes down. You know, my guys hadn't eaten, you know, in a day. And I. I knew there was bodies in the ditch. So there was like a basic, you know, in Iraq, there was all these like irrigation ditches and it was on fire. It was diesel burning or jpa, whatever. And I'm like, you guys got to get your dry suits on. It was winter time in Iraq. I was like, you got to go in the ditch and, and dig for bodies. So I was like, put a line on them, you know, put a rope on them and go down there and do it. And so, you know, we had all our gear and so guy puts his dream dry suit on, you know, young pj, PJ goes on top to tether him, you know, fire pulling bodies and weapons out on the pitch and sun goes down, we're alone, you know. And at the same time there was an accident in Mosul where a teammate of mine was in a pander with the army and a Ranger Striker hit.
- [69:17]
Jack Murphy
That was right before I got there.
- [69:19]
Chad McCoy
They collided and my buddy Chad Giesige was in there and his head got rocked pretty hard and he really needed to get his head drilled to relieve the pressure. And you know, Chad is still, you know, he's quadriplegic still to this day. The accident, but it happened right when we're in the field. And so everyone kind of turned their attention to supporting that expo and they forgot about us in the field. So we're just north of Baghdad, we're doing our thing and it was the right call. I mean they needed more help than we did. We were self sufficient for the most part. It could have gone really bad for us, but it didn't. But I was like, why is there no comms? You know? But the entire task force kind of went to lean on Mozul. And so, you know, here I was on the ground, the Brits had a kit bag delivered. And I'm like, oh, thank God. What is this? And we pull up and it's these flasks of, of tea. And I'm like, like, cool, man. Like I might. You want some tea? I'm like, yes, I'm drinking tea. It's like creamer in it. It's a delicious tea. And I'm like, it's not my thing, but yeah, let's, let's do some tea. So we drink some tea and this is where it gets funny. So we, we, we survived that night. And we're still, you know, we're still cleaning this crash site. It's a mess. So day two goes in and this Marines come out, Lavs come out to me and I'm the team leader. I'm running the crash site. It's my crash site. And this Marine major shows up, and again, I look like I, you know, I'm like a hobo, right? You know, which is what you want to look in soft back in the day. It's like you want to look as weird as you can look. And I look pretty weird. And he comes up to me, he's like, you're in charge. I'm like, yeah, like, here's where I want you guys from a Falcon view. Push your, you know, your. Your vehicles out there, heavy weapons and basically telling him where to go. And so he. He listens. He puts his folks out there. So about 10 hours into the next day, we're still working. He starts to figure out that I'm an enlisted guy because the way people, the Rangers are talking to me, hey, bro. And he loses his mind. Marine Corps major is a big deal, right?
- [71:20]
David Park
Yeah.
- [71:20]
Chad McCoy
And they don't take orders from enlisted guys. And he finds I'm enlisted, and he goes ballistic on me. And I stand my ground, of course. You know, know, I'm like, listen, this is my crash site. Like, you're in support of me. I was like, if you want to fight over rank, you can do that, but here's what I need you to do. And, you know, it was hard for him to process. And I'm like, listen, man, like, I'm being respectful to you. I'm not. I'm not being a.
- [71:44]
David Park
Right.
- [71:45]
Chad McCoy
I was like, I need you to help me, and here's what I need you to do. And it was. It was like it was an inflection point for the operation. Like, it was like the mood changed, right? It was like, do we want to help you guys at that point? And we end up spending three days out there on the ground. We ended up, you know, coming back and it was a, you know, it was one of those ops. It was like, it was really strange. We came back and we didn't support the task force. Task force stood down offs because we're out there, we couldn't support them. And, you know, I. You talk about compartmentalizing things, and I shared this with somebody else recently is that I did a really good job compressing or compartmentalizing my, you know, whatever I was seeing. I just did a great job of packaging it really well. You know, I taped it up and put in the corner, right. It didn't exist. Right. It did not exist in my life. Right. Didn't exist in my mind. Nothing. And so we came back to the bee huts. We were refitting. We just needed some sleep. We had to Go. Basically support the task force in six hours. So we're getting, like, five hours of sleep, and the chaplain and the psych doc came to my beehive. And this is before you could talk to chaplain. You're like, knock on the door. I'm like, what? And they're like, do you guys need to talk to us? Why would we need to talk to you? That was my reaction, right? And I was the team leader, and I should have been more cognizant of. My guys maybe were suffering. My guys maybe were dealing with stuff that I wasn't, because I was. I was maybe the problem, right? I was the guy that could just figure this stuff out in a negative way. And I said, no, I turned them away. And. Because I said, if I'm good, they're good. And years later, I reached out to one of the guys was on that mission with me, and I said, I apologize to him. I said, I'm sorry, man. I messed up as a leader. That wasn't how leaders behave. I should have been cognizant of where you were at in your life, and I didn't. And, you know, it's one of my regrets as a leader. I learned from it. But I. I also. I continue to compartmentalize things through my career. And so you say, you know, 17 combat deployments, there's a lot of compartmentalization, right? And when you get really good at it, it becomes your process. It becomes natural to you, and it's not healthy. So it's healthy for the unit because you're still on the line, right?
- [74:00]
Jack Murphy
Keeps you on the line doing your job, right?
- [74:02]
Chad McCoy
The day. The day you get your. Your.
- [74:04]
David Park
Yeah, don't slow down.
- [74:06]
Chad McCoy
You leave the military, you're like, oh, wow, that happened. What's all this? What are these boxes?
- [74:10]
David Park
Yeah, there's.
- [74:11]
Chad McCoy
There. Oh, wow. Yeah.
- [74:13]
David Park
I need a U haul for all this. Yeah.
- [74:16]
Chad McCoy
And. But yeah, so that. That was the. The C130, you know, thing in Iraq. It was. I think I was 2005. But life just got crazier from there, man.
- [74:27]
Jack Murphy
There was another operation where you guys, you know, another element you were with may or may not have crossed into another place. We may not mention, you said a pretty big firefight where you guys went and took. Took on some bad guys in a hostile area. I was wondering if you could, you know, tell us what you. What you can tell us about that.
- [74:48]
Chad McCoy
Yeah. So, you know, I. So I've been in a few, like, on a few missions. Like, I wasn't like, the guy, you know, I wasn't, like, the cool guy yet, and I didn't feel like it yet. That was the first one. I was like, holy crap. This is insane. And we got compromised. We were at orp. We're setting up ladders and compromised dogs barking, gunfire from every compound, and it was like it was on. And like I said, being around competent people, they all push forward. And I pushed forward because they were doing it, not because I was the man, not because I had, you know, big balls. I was like, we're going forward, going forward, and we push up there. And, you know, it was the first time I'd been in a big firefight. It was the first time I fired my weapon at another human being. But then we had a bunch of casualties. And they're like, pj. And I'm like, oh, crap. I'm like, not only is this target chaos now, we got people shot, right? And so I go over there under fire, and I'm like, oh, crap. So, you know, guys are shot, two guys shot, and the target's supposed to be secure. Guy comes out of the door, starts shooting from one of the compounds supposed to be already cleared. I'm like, holy crap. This is insane, right? So I'm pulling guys across, compound under fire. It's insanity. It's chaos. Other compounds are just stuff blown up all around us. We have no clue what's going on. And we're in a hostile kind of region. And the city is waking up, right? And we had one asset overhead. And they were working it, man, and the CCT was working it. And he's a stud. He actually lives close to me in my neighborhood now. He's a stud. And he managed that chaos very well. But I started getting more casualties. I had a guy come up to me. He's like, hey, I'm shot in the head. I'm like, huh? I'm like, where? And so I pull off his helmet, and the round struck the front of his head, bounced, stuck in the back of his helmet. And I'm like, holy crap. I'm like, I check his helmet. His. His skull is not broken. I'm like, dude, keep clearing, man. Yeah, we were so, so thin. It was like, keep clearing. He ended up spraying his ankle. And he was complaining about spraying ankle mornings. Another guy shot the legs, and it's just chaos. And so, you know, it probably was only maybe an hour and a half, maybe two hours of kind of conflict, but it felt like all night.
- [77:08]
David Park
Yeah.
- [77:08]
Chad McCoy
And we end up pulling this guy out. I had a. I went super light because we ended up pumping, like, eight hours to this target. So I was, like, super light. And this is back when none of the seals would carry any gear for me, right? They wouldn't care a Skedco. They wouldn't carry nothing. I mean, they. They wouldn't even carry blowout kits on their own kit. It was like, hey, Chad, you got it, right? I'm like, not for everybody. And it got better. Three years, right? It got better, but we were so lean and mean that it was like we were pulling him out on a pole of slitter. If you've ever carried someone a pole slitter, it's pretty difficult. You talk about CrossFit workouts. That's the workout of the day. And we humped him down to this. This road. The city was waking up. They're coming in, like, hunchback Notre Dame kind of style. And the 47 almost crashed on top of us because they were so hyped up. And I could have touched the bottom of the 47 when they landed. And so, you know, I'm covered in blood. My uniform is covered in blood. And we get back and, you know, it's. When you get back from debriefs, from big ops like that, it's. It's kind of like, you know, everyone's kind of chipping away at how many people they killed. And if you do a number, you're like, that's like 4,000 people. That wasn't that many people there, but, you know, and then here I was, you know, dealing with, like, you know, what could I have done better? And I could have done a lot of things better, and I have a lot of remorse from that operation for the things that I didn't do well, and I learned from it. And so I committed myself to being way better than I was on that op, and I became obsessive about it. Honestly, as an operator, what were the
- [78:44]
David Park
things that you became obsessive about?
- [78:46]
Chad McCoy
Medicine? I wasn't super good at it. You know, I wasn't good at pharmacology. I wasn't good at pain management. Wasn't good. All the basics. And so I committed myself to being great at it, and I think I became that. But that was like, a really formative experience for me. And then you only get a couple, you know, in your career, and, you know, some guys have had a lot, and I'm sure you guys have talked a lot of studs that have had a lot of crazy experiences. But for me, that was one that I could have proved myself on, and I Failed. And it was, you know, failure to me. I'm hypercritical. I'm like, okay, I could have done this, this, and this, but I committed myself to never making mistakes again. And, you know, maybe one day, walking the street in New York, maybe I'll
- [79:32]
Jack Murphy
get the chance there's another operation you were involved in. I mean, I'll. You'd say whatever you'd like to or not talk about on this one, but the, the Captain Phillips rescue.
- [79:44]
Chad McCoy
Yeah. So there was a few, few Air Force guys in the op. You know, We, I was with a small team of guys that jumped in early. We. I was a jump master. Jumped in a bunch of, you know, a mixed bag of nuts, you know, into the water. And our job was to basically turn the lifeboat around before it hit Somalia, because if it hit Somalia, they would be gone, right? And we knew that the squadron was going to blow out and they're going to do the no kidney hostage rescue. We were just going to, like, run, going to fix it, right? If they get the hinterland, they're gone, right? And what happens with hostages in Somalia is they basically hold them for a year, they go black and they pop on the net, make their demands, but it's really hard to find them. And so we, we had very little guidance. And, you know, we, we went down. I was in an apartment complex. Can't tell you what country, but like, hey, guys, we want you guys to go, like, all right. We got parachutes. No, we found some parachutes in ISU 90 that were expired by a couple years. And I'm like, parachutes don't, like, they don't turn into, like, you know, they don't turn to, like, toxic waste every two years, right? Like, they're probably fine. And this is when Kohler, the global
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Chad McCoy
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- [83:15]
Chad McCoy
Pretty important. Let's just jump them. And so when you talk about ORM and the military as a non starter, I'm like screw it man. I'm the jump master. I don't know if I'm allowed to make that decision, but we're going to do it. We jumped. It was all fine. We got there, you know, and we were part of the solution. And so the squadron sent a really small contingent of folks to where we were already and then it resolved itself the way it did. I can promise you it didn't go the way the movie went or, or the TV said it did. It was, it was much more kind of low key operator stuff. You know, there were some heroics that happened that night. There's some guys that did some pretty awesome stuff. But in the day it was, it was, you know, kind of pot shots from very, very close distance, you know, pulling him out. And then what people don't realize is that when we pulled him out, I flew back to the main aircraft with him and Discovery Channel basically blurred my face and said I was a Navy seal, which is the highest praise I've ever gotten in my career. To be called A Navy seal. My wife saw it. She's like, that's you walking. But when we did that, we came back, the pirates attacked another ship. This never made the news is that they attacked another ship in retaliation. And they just so happened to drop off their car cargo. So they're sitting very high in the water, and they couldn't get on the ship. And so they called us and like, hey, can. There was like six of us, like, can you guys come help us? Like, mayday. And so the. The destroyer, like, can you guys go? And so the. The regular squadron was going back and, like, high fiving each other, like, you know, you know, cocktails, whatever. We were on the ship and. And Phillips was with us. So he's with us on the smaller ship. And we're like, yeah, we'll go. And so we went and basically did hook and climb on the ship.
- [85:09]
David Park
Did you take Phillips with you or no?
- [85:11]
SpinQuest Advertiser
No.
- [85:11]
Chad McCoy
Okay. He's chilling on the captain's mask. I was like, yeah. So we went out to this ship and we thought there was pirates on it because there's RPGs that went low order on the side of it. I mean, it was bad. It was like, holy crap, this is legit. And maybe it was a little bit of hubris. We're like, yeah, we got it. And so me and one other seal, we cleared the front of the supertanker, which is like Conex boxes, like multiple football fields. They're insanely big. I didn't know how big these things were. And we're clearing this. The two of us pin off Conex boxes, just one after the other, thinking, we're gonna tick. No body armor, catcher's mask. Nods and no. We had four 16s. We didn't have MP7s. We had four 16s. And the rest of the team went to go to the superstructure, which they thought everyone was locked down in. And so we're assuming we're getting in a gunfight and there's no one on the ship. And it was the eeriest thing.
- [86:00]
Jack Murphy
And so it was just out there floating.
- [86:02]
Chad McCoy
No, they. They attacked this thing. They couldn't hook onto it because it's so high. And we didn't know this. And so the crew had locked themselves in the superstructure, thinking they're under duress, and they called mayday. And so, you know, here we are to save the day, and there's no one there, you know, so we have to. We have to ride back with this ship for like, two days. And they're like merchant marines on this thing. Yeah. And I don't know if you guys know what these people are. They're like, full on like criminals, man. They're like.
- [86:29]
David Park
They're like the old foreign legion.
- [86:30]
Chad McCoy
They're making shanks. Yeah. And I'm sleeping in this bed. I'm more scared of them than Somali pirates. And I'm like, these guys are gonna kill me and they're gonna eat me. No, it was. It was an interesting, like, dynamic, but there was so much more to the story. Eventually it'll come out. I'm assuming somebody will talk about it. But yeah, it was. It was cool. It was cool to be there. I didn't know it was a big deal. It was during Easter. And so, you know, I would call from the fantail of the ship on my. My iridium phone. I had an iridium phone because I'm a bougie guy, Right.
- [87:01]
David Park
So iridium too good for a Thoriah.
- [87:04]
Chad McCoy
Yeah. Yeah. And so my wife's like. She's like, what's going on out there? Like, nothing. What do you hear? She's like, it's a big deal back in the States. Yeah. So, yeah.
- [87:15]
David Park
Oh, the THR was the radio, right?
- [87:17]
Chad McCoy
Oh, yeah, the radio. Different network. Yeah, But I had both. Yeah.
- [87:20]
David Park
Yeah.
- [87:21]
Chad McCoy
That's how, you know, you really made it when you have a threon.
- [87:23]
David Park
So when you guys were on this, like, two day pleasure cruise did. What was the command? Was there anybody going, where are you guys?
- [87:32]
Chad McCoy
No, because I think they were so. People give special operations, like, a lot of credibility, but, like, they're hyper focused on getting the assault force back home. And so we were kind of like, you know, extra, you know, what was
- [87:45]
David Park
the port of call? Where did you guys get off?
- [87:46]
Chad McCoy
I can't tell you.
- [87:47]
David Park
Okay.
- [87:48]
Chad McCoy
Yeah. But when we came back, I'll tell you that the team and I, I'm gonna.
- [87:53]
David Park
I'm gonna pretend it's Bali. And you guys.
- [87:54]
Chad McCoy
I wish. Well, it'd be the wrong part of the world, but I don't care. In this.
- [87:59]
David Park
In this?
- [87:59]
Chad McCoy
Yeah, yeah. No, that part of the world's not very nice. But we went back there, had some cocktails, and it was funny because it was like nothing happened. It was like it was just another thing. And so we went back, had some drinks. Actually, we went, partied that night and had a good time. And it's just funny to think how things appear in the news, how sensationalized they are. But to us, it was like, yeah, it was cool, man. We went and did the thing. We wouldn't do another thing. You know.
- [88:27]
David Park
Yeah.
- [88:28]
Chad McCoy
And so you're constantly looking for the next thing to kind of fill your bucket.
- [88:32]
Jack Murphy
And
- [88:35]
David Park
the next thing has to be cooler then.
- [88:37]
Chad McCoy
Has to be cooler.
- [88:38]
David Park
Right.
- [88:38]
Chad McCoy
Has to be more sensational, more violent or whatever you want it to be.
- [88:41]
David Park
Right. So what was the next thing for you then
- [88:50]
Chad McCoy
on that rotation? You know, not a lot. It was a lot of prep. And so my job was to kind of. This is before you can imagine what part of the world it was. It was before things were built up. We were building things up. We were building partner forces and those things doing really like the, the grunt work of it, you know, kind of the non sexy stuff. Living in safe houses, true safe houses where, you know, you're eating, you're truly eating what you got, local food, you can't go outside because you have to be. If you see a white guy there, it's a big deal. So people say they're living in a safe house. You're like, dude, when you're living in a safe house, you don't walk outside. Right. So a lot of that grunt work on that, on that deployment, you said
- [89:38]
Jack Murphy
you also spent about seven years doing some of the. More like clandestine operations.
- [89:44]
Chad McCoy
Yeah, so I was doing that when the Kent Phillips thing happened. You know, we would do low vis ops. OPE is a term that gets thrown around. It's operational prep in the environment, or opb, prep for the battlefield, or afo, which is advanced force operations. Just sexy ways of saying, you know, you're doing things that aren't necessarily tied to, you know, big constructs of military. And you can do op, opb, anywhere. Right. You could do it in Indonesia, you could do it in East Africa, you can do it in Europe. But there's not a lot of people do it. There's people say they do it because they go into country and they're like, hey, I have a passport and I'm wearing a suit. That's not ope. When you're actually doing tasks and saying, hey, I'm going to fix this problem for you, those are the problem sets that are more difficult and it takes a more refined kind of team. And so it takes guys that are smarter. It takes guys that are able to work on their own. And so I did that for a while.
- [90:44]
Jack Murphy
And OPE can envelop a number of different things from intelligence gathering to, to identifying landing zones to all these sorts of things.
- [90:52]
Chad McCoy
Yeah, it's not one thing. I mean, I think that traditionally, you know, it's been in one vein of like, I'm Gonna, you know, do caches in Eastern Europe. Okay, that's traditional, right? But yeah, that's an element. But what I, what my experience was is that when you have really talented guys, you can do anything, right? And say, hey, Chad, can you guys go do X? Yes. The answer is yes. And if I'm a pj, can I go to an LZ server? Yes, I can. You know, if you're a really, you know, high end competent, you know, because there's different types of seals, right? The seals that we're with are very high functioning guys are like, can solve problems. Can you go do X? Yes, we can. Can you work with this partner for us? Can you build this safe house? Yes. And so it's not sexy stuff all the time, but a lot of times it devolves into very dangerous activities. And especially if you're in environments that are very nascent and there's no footprint.
- [91:49]
David Park
Semi permissive to non permissive.
- [91:51]
Jack Murphy
Non permissive.
- [91:51]
Chad McCoy
Yeah, yeah. So, you know, truly non permissive. And not a lot of military, even soft guys have experienced this, right? Where you're like, oh, I was in Afghanistan. I was in a remote, like, okay, that's cool. What about when you're in a complete.
- [92:07]
Jack Murphy
Behind enemy lines, when you're.
- [92:08]
Chad McCoy
Yeah, when you're in a country that you're not at war with, right. And they want to kill you, and when they do, no one's coming to get you. When you're a tick, there's no QRF and there's no CAS back, Right. And so my job would always be to figure it out. Like, Chad, well, if this happens, what do you do? I'm like. And so I would work commercial assets trying to get, you know, international SOS to go in and like pull us out of remote regions. And it became a thinking man's game, which was really good for me because I was intellectually stimulated, right. And I was like, holy crap, this is fun.
- [92:37]
David Park
So let's talk a little bit about OPE and OPB real quick. We're talking about operational preparation of the environment and operational preparation of the battlefield. Sometimes we'll talk about like advanced afo, advanced force operations. And really it's, it's the guys who are going in where we might have interest, but we're not sure if we have interest.
- [92:56]
Jack Murphy
And we might be at war there one day.
- [92:58]
David Park
One day. And really setting up the plumbing, setting up the environment.
- [93:03]
Chad McCoy
Yeah. You know who the rock stars are? It's not the operators, it's the sigging guys, it's the tech Guys, guys that can look at infrastructure and logistics. Those are the rock stars. And you know, despite how cool we think we are, without them, we wouldn't do those jobs. And so, you know, a lot of OPE and AFO is, you know, SIG and EW related. And so, you know, you being able to contribute to that mission set is important. And so if you're a knuckle dragger, like, we don't need you, like we don't need another gun. We need guys that can do the gun work but also do the, you know, the tech stuff. And so a lot of operators became kind of dual purpose where they had a, a basic understanding, I'm not going to over inflate my, you know, worth, but a basic understanding of how SIGINT works, how networks work, and then how to get after those things and how to employ tactics and techniques to set conditions for other folks to come in and be successful. So you look at the theater right now for Europe and even paycom, there's a lot of prep work that has to go on to make those theaters successful.
- [94:10]
David Park
Now there are army special mission units that, that's sort of their bailiwick, their bread and butter. But of course, everybody does everything. Now how. How did seals like get into that?
- [94:28]
Chad McCoy
That's definitely not the one tiers.
- [94:31]
Jack Murphy
Right.
- [94:31]
David Park
I mean, and everybody did.
- [94:32]
Chad McCoy
So you had intelligence collection units that are really good at it, but basically within jsoc, like if you read the book, team of teams, that was the early days of Iraq, very, you know, very basic construction. It grew very fast. And everyone wanted the mission. So everyone built capabilities.
- [94:48]
David Park
Right.
- [94:49]
Chad McCoy
And so everyone had the same capabilities.
- [94:50]
David Park
Right.
- [94:51]
Chad McCoy
And so when you had the army and Navy, they had all the same, like sigint, you know, ew, like they had everything right. They were all, you know, it wasn't joint anymore. It was like, this is a behemoth, you know, task force that can do everything right. And this one was too. And so, you know, it became kind of a dog fight for me mission, you know, and so everyone could do it. And so those very bespoke capabilities you're talking about, they were important and they would definitely be involved. It was very high level. Otherwise they're like, we got it right. And so it was a really interesting dynamic to watch develop over the years. Like I said, I came in 2002 to selection in 2003 and then watched the whole transformation of the command and it became a monster.
- [95:37]
David Park
Right.
- [95:38]
Chad McCoy
You know.
- [95:38]
David Park
Right. And, and for you, I mean, because it's interesting that you Were there because the seals do have their corpsman.
- [95:47]
Chad McCoy
No, so. Well, they. They do and they don't. So. Okay, if you're a SEAL and you go through green team, you're an assaulter.
- [95:54]
David Park
I see.
- [95:54]
Chad McCoy
You're not a corpsman.
- [95:55]
David Park
I see. Interesting.
- [95:56]
Chad McCoy
Okay. Yeah. I didn't know that you don't carry a med rug. You know, there's some guys that were still interested in medicine and it would help, but they're not carrying a med rock. They're carrying, you know, door charges. They're carrying, you know, MP7 speeds. They're carrying thermo.
- [96:09]
David Park
Because the M4s are too heavier.
- [96:10]
Chad McCoy
Yeah, they are. No, they are. And so it basically relieves them from having to do that job. Yeah, they're assaulters. Yeah. With the army, you have 18 Deltas and they are 18 Deltas. And they are the primary medic for that. That squadron and PJs will help them, but the PJs are to rescue and recovery.
- [96:26]
David Park
Right.
- [96:26]
Chad McCoy
And so that's the differentiation. And so.
- [96:29]
David Park
And for you, you know, sort of focusing on this mission for a few years, were you afforded training opportunities to, to go learn skills, train up with
- [96:41]
Jack Murphy
these teams before you Deploy?
- [96:42]
Chad McCoy
Yeah, oh, 100%. So you're basically attached that team. I mean, you know, you live with them, you train with them, do work ups with them. And then to get specialized training, you have to be very specific in what you want to do do, because you only have a finite amount of time, right? And so if you're a guy who needs a top off on medicine like you, you get two weeks, what are you gonna do with it?
- [97:02]
David Park
Right?
- [97:02]
Chad McCoy
And so you're gonna spend a ton of money and get the best medical training you can get. And that's the differentiator too, between White, Whiteside and tier one, is that like, if I want to go to the, the best burn center in the world, like I can go there and top off on, on burn. Burn injuries, right? And, and that's the thing when you talk about going into remote medicine and some of the safe house stuff is that you have to specialize then because I would have to do pharmacology stuff in these safe houses where wasn't expected to be on the, on the assault side, right? I don't care. Like, just do, just do good, you know, pain management, that's all we care about, right. If I'm living in a safe house and guy gets sick, I gotta take care of him, right. And so I would have to top off on those skills. And so guys like 18 Deltas, it's very intuitive to them. They would know how to do it. But here I was a guy that could integrate with the assault mission, go back and forth to the AFO mission. But then I just need to top off on the medicine right here, and I can get, I can get there fast.
- [98:00]
David Park
Right.
- [98:02]
Chad McCoy
And so I think that's the biggest. One of the best attributes of PJs within that world is that they're very quick to react to needs. And so, you know, if you look at, like a tech company, the successful tech companies are ones that can react to the needs of the customers very quickly and build a, build a thing. PJs within tier one units are that. And they can say, oh, you want me to be a ropes expert? Gotcha. Let me go to Montana real quick. Or, you know, get topped off and I'll become a, you know, you know, a lead climber, you know, AMGA certified. And it's, it's like that.
- [98:37]
David Park
And with medicine, you guys have access to some of the best hospitals in the United States.
- [98:42]
Chad McCoy
Yeah, all the best trauma hospitals in the United States are very good with working with the military.
- [98:46]
David Park
Yeah.
- [98:47]
Chad McCoy
And, you know, there's a lot of folks that work habitually with them. When you work at, you know, big cities, like, there's, you know, the shock traumas and, you know, any big city has a lot of violent. You know, I think New Orleans is one of them, New York's one of them, where you have a lot of stabbings and shootings, you're getting reps.
- [99:06]
David Park
Right.
- [99:06]
Chad McCoy
And, you know, you know, and I dote on the Rangers a lot, but the Ranger medics, their medics became the best in the tears. I feel like they had so much trauma, whether it be internal, you know, to the regiment, also host nation, they were doing so much stuff, and their PAs and doctors were training them nonstop. So when they come off the missions, when everyone else is playing video games, they were doing classes. Yeah. And that's why they became so good at what they did. And so when I, I. You had to do refreshers every two years, you know, to keep your currencies up. And every two years I would go through Soft Miss, which was at Fort Bragg. And I could have gone to, like, you know, the, the Gucci ones, like, and gone skiing and, like, done some medicine, get refreshed. Right. But I, I knew it was so important that it had to go with the best guys. They were doing, no kidding, military medicine. So I did every single time, every single refresher I did at Softmas, every single one of them. I never went to New Hampshire and went skiing. I never did in my whole career. And guys are like, dude, why don't you want. I'm like, I want to, but I have to have to be good at this. And what I realized was when I go to Ranger medics, these guys would teach me a ton. And then they started becoming instructors at Softness. And I was so impressed by these guys because they were so switched on and they'd seen so much and they were able to instruct very well. I was very impressed by the Ranger medics, man. And so I championed us getting back into that program because we kind of got pushed out of it and we got pushed back in. But I have a ton of respect for them, man.
- [100:48]
David Park
And they never asked you Biscuit. Bis.
- [100:50]
Chad McCoy
What was it? Bissim? Bismuth.
- [100:53]
David Park
The. The acronym that you used. Basic system or the systems.
- [100:58]
Chad McCoy
Oh, bsi. Yeah. No, no, no.
- [101:00]
David Park
Never hammered you on that.
- [101:01]
Chad McCoy
No, man. I mean, these guys were like, you know, doing, you know, buddy transfusions. They've done them in the field and they were doing high end, like, you know, just very creative medicine. And they were so good at what they did. And I. I knew that if you want to be a good combat medicine, you have to talk to the best combat medics, guys who've seen it. And so like I said in that first mission that I messed up, like, that was my chance. And so if these guys were getting chances every night, man, they are going to be the best very fast. And so when you're working with very high end, soft guys, they're not getting shot all the time. You know what I mean? You shouldn't be getting shot all the time. Right. So the Rangers were getting shot a lot. You know, no offense, but they were getting shot a lot because they're going in some dangerous missions. And the Rangers took over Afghanistan and they were Basically a Tier 1 force in Afghanistan and they were killing it, man. Yeah, they were doing so many ops and they were kicking ass because everyone else is so focused on everything else in the world. They're like, we got this. And so they got a lot of reps. And so that's why I am. That's why I love what they did and I respect the hell out of them.
- [102:05]
Jack Murphy
So you also mentioned there are some OTB ops that you were on.
- [102:12]
Chad McCoy
So in everyone's career, you want to do an otb, right? So you want to over the beach up. It sounds cool. I went to a theater and There was a team back in the States that were training for a mission, and I was already in theater. I was doing my thing. I was drinking cocktails and going parties. And they're like, well, there's a PGA controller in theater. Like, yeah, like, okay, well, we could just use them, right? And so these guys came out. It was like. I forget five or six guys, and they're like, hey, you guys go to this otb? Like, how hard is it to swim into the beach, right? It's not rocket science. And so we did one. One shakeout swim. They'd done, like, weeks of workup. We had done zero. Me and the controller. Like, how hard is this gonna be? It's like. It's a swim. And so we. We go into a destroyer. We go into a rib. No hx. I forget HX or Ribs. But then we go to Zods, and the Zods kick us off, and we swim in, and we swim in to the hinterland in this remote region. We walk in, and I'm not on a night schedule, so I was really tired. And they were doing something. There was an activity. There's, like, a terrorist camp right next to us, and it's like a recce. We were doing something. I can't tell you what we're doing. We're doing something, and I'm, like, bored out of my mind. It was the most boring. I mean, there was, like a hundred guys sleeping, like, down a ridgeline. You could see them, and, like, we couldn't do anything about them. But we. We do. We do our thing, whatever we're doing, and then we pull out to patrol out. And so I'm in the back of the formation, and. And if there's any Navy guys watching this, they'll know. Navy guys are not really good at, like, you know, patrolling. Like, the basic fundamentals of, like, you know, line formations or passing signals back and forth. They just kind of wing it, right? So they're patrolling. Everyone's got their heads down, all on MP7s. And I'm walking in the back. I'm a second man. There's rear security. And these guys go over this ridge line, and there's this. There's like, this animal pen. So in. In this region, they have, like, these. They build these walls with sticks to keep the lions out. And they have one entrance, and so they know when the lines come in or whatever. And so. And these guys rustle because these birds kick up and they come out. And I see him on nods. I'm like, holy crap. So I put My laser on them, and I stop, and I. I'm like, no. No one's gonna look at this. I'm like, I'm doing this thing. And no one stops. They could keep going. I'm like, okay, so it's me and him, and we're about to get a tick. And so my laser's on them. These guys get up. They got weapons, and I'm like, oh, my gosh, of course this is gonna happen right now. And the guy behind me sees it, puts his laser on it. So two of us, and we stop, we're holding. These guys know something's going on outside. And, you know, like, people in movies, you're like, oh, it's, you know, two or three guys. It's easy to clean up. Like, no, it could be very nasty, right? And so. But our entire, like, force has gone over the beach to get their fins on to go swim back out. And we're standing there. I'm like, okay. And so we just stop and we wait. We're there for five minutes, which is an eternity on an op. Those guys never came back. They didn't even notice we're even there. And so these guys finally chill out. They turn back around with their weapons and go back down. And you can see the little. They have a little candle in there. And we. We patrol. Back up, go back to the beach. I'm like, dude, what the hell?
- [105:52]
David Park
Are they gone?
- [105:53]
Chad McCoy
No, they're still there. Like, where you guys at? Yeah, dude, there was two, you know. Yeah. And we swim back out and. But there's so much, like, comedy within operations within soft that we just get lucky so much, you know, and we swim back out, and it was funny. When we swim back out to the destroyer, they had a. They had a dip tank on the back of the. The fantail. We're, like, dipping our weapons in fresh water and all our gear. And all these Navy folks, like, you know, conventional Navy folks on the back. And this chicks in the back, she's like, I know y' all out there killing black folks. And we're like, huh? Like, we didn't kill anybody. She's, like, going off on us. And one of the master chiefs there just rips her a new one. And I'm like, do people really say that kind of stuff? Like, we come off and off like it's crazy. No one has no. No idea what we're doing. Yeah. And to make that comment, it's like, dude, like, no, we're actually really civilized people. We're doing some very gentlemanly Stuff in the inner lens. Yeah.
- [106:53]
Jack Murphy
I mean, she's in the same military you are.
- [106:56]
Chad McCoy
Oh, well, that's the other thing is the military is like, there's, there's this cognitive dissonance of what the military is like. The military is designed to fight and kill.
- [107:06]
David Park
Right.
- [107:07]
Chad McCoy
That's what it is. Right. It's not there to win hearts and minds. It's not there to be show a force. It's there to kill. And if you don't process that information and come to terms with it, you're not a part of the solution. And so I think a lot of military folks, because within the past 20 years, there's only a handful of people that went to combat. Right. A lot of people deployed. Right. Within the people deployed, there's only a handful of people actually went outside the wire and fought.
- [107:33]
David Park
Right.
- [107:34]
Chad McCoy
And but to the civilian, they look at it like, oh, you're in the military. Thank you for your service. You're like, oh, you went to Afghanistan. No, you were. You're in Bagram, and you're a logistics person, and you never left the wire, like, and you had, you know, you had coffee every day, a good chow hall. And there were certain people that went and fought. And it's a very small group of people, and that's hard for people to understand. Like, it's a small group, man. Yeah.
- [108:00]
Jack Murphy
And now is, you know, you're going on all these, you know, clandestine operations, you've done, you know, more conventional operations, rescue operations. Like, you're becoming pretty, like, salty senior guy in the unit at this point,
- [108:11]
Chad McCoy
and then you accidentally make rank. Right, right, right.
- [108:13]
David Park
And the Air Force, I mean, I know it used to be. But the Air Force used to be very hard. It was probably the hardest service to make rank in.
- [108:19]
Chad McCoy
It is. And so if you've seen the movie, like, pure luck, like, I dumb luck, fall into things. And So I made E8, and I was like, oh, my gosh. And the Air Force is a big deal. You're like, oh, your career's over. And I was like, if I can just hide as an E8, maybe they'll still deploy me. I can just hang out here for a while. And so I, you know, I, I, I deployed a couple times an eight, which is a big deal in the Air Force. And then finally they're like, hey, dude,
- [108:43]
David Park
because you're supposed to be managing people,
- [108:45]
Chad McCoy
you're supposed to be going to ops, right? You got to go to ops, man. You gotta pay your penance. And I'm like, I want to go to ops. And so I, I went out and did a thing as an ea and it was like a big deal. They're like, you. You can't be doing that stuff anymore. I'm like, this is all I want to do in my life, right? This is what I, what I'm designed to do. This is what I trained to do. This is what I want to do. And they threw me in ops. And this is funny. I mean, it's not combat related. It's not sexy. But I went to ops and I'm like, you know, it's like super bad or what's the movie when it's like fml. It's like, this is my life now. And so I did that for six months. And they're like, hey, green team selection opened up, then we need a senior guy to go there. Do you want to go do that? I'm like, yes, yes, absolutely. Give me out of ops. And so I went there and that was really formative for me as a leader. I learned how to lead in a different way. I had been leading the past, leading the way I saw other people lead, and I thought that was the right way to do it, and it was not authentic for me. And so I got a chance to kind of reset for myself and say, listen, I'm not a hard ass. I'm not. I want to be, but I'm not. I'm never going to be. I'm a nice guy. You know, I can connect with people, and so that's what I need to do. And so when I ran selection training, I got to kind of cut my teeth doing that. And then from selection training, I went to 24th Sts and became the chief there as the senior, you know, enlisted.
- [110:12]
David Park
So this is kind of putting you on the spot and take your time in answering this, but if you had to pick like a fictional or a real character.
- [110:24]
Chad McCoy
Chuck Norris, there you go. Okay.
- [110:26]
David Park
No, but based on how you thought you were supposed to lead.
- [110:29]
Chad McCoy
Yeah.
- [110:30]
David Park
And then how you actually became a leader.
- [110:33]
Chad McCoy
Well, you see hard asses and, you know, in tv and. And I grew up with hard asses. Right. As leaders. And I was. And candidly, they were. They were great, man. I was like, those guys are bad, you know, bigger than life. And. And in the Ranger battalion, you guys know if you're a, you know, senior guy in the range battalion, you're a hard ass. Right. But what I realized was that my superpower was, you know, connecting with folks and being empathetic and having high EQ with folks. And so I Could still be just as effective and not have to be that guy. But it took me a while to figure it out because I was immature, you know. And so as I became more mature and became more self aware and comfortable in my own skin, I realized that I could lead a different way. And, you know, is that a kinder, gentler, you know, military maybe? I mean, you know, I still have a temper. I can still get mad.
- [111:25]
Jack Murphy
I think you put your, your thumb on it pretty well that the, the screaming and the yelling, like that's a lot of like trying to throw up a smokescreen to compensate for an inability of leadership.
- [111:34]
David Park
I think there. But there's also a time for that maybe like when molding people. But you're also, also. But even Ranger battalion changed dramatically from like the time I got there when I was there, which was pre g. What and when, as. From what I understand, as, you know, through the gwat. As it became more professionalized that, you know, people started treating leaders, started treating it was a professional organization. You know, it was very capable. When I was there, I remember the
- [112:03]
Chad McCoy
stories of Ranger Battalion where they like throw throw fire extrusions, you guys, you guys walking back and forth and they throw extinguishers. I mean, I heard these stories from.
- [112:10]
David Park
Those were just Ranger games.
- [112:12]
Chad McCoy
Yeah, yeah. But you understand, you understand that dynamic. It's like, you know, it's doggy dog.
- [112:18]
David Park
Right?
- [112:18]
Chad McCoy
And you know, if you're a, if you're the tier one operator, you're supposed to be a little bit mature. Right?
- [112:24]
David Park
Right.
- [112:25]
Chad McCoy
And so here I was leading these guys that were very capable and they're all extremely competent. They were all, you know, competition, combat hardened guys.
- [112:32]
David Park
Right.
- [112:32]
Chad McCoy
They didn't need me to be. Right. Like, I, I had my reps. Right. But candidly, it didn't matter. My job was to support them where they're at.
- [112:40]
David Park
Right.
- [112:41]
Chad McCoy
And be a good leader for them.
- [112:42]
David Park
Right.
- [112:42]
Chad McCoy
And be the leader that I never received. And so, you know, it's easy to say that I will. I can be very honest with you and tell you that I did the best I could to be that guy. And I think I did a decent job of doing it. But it was, it was an inflection point for me personally and it was a big growth, you know, moment for me.
- [113:04]
David Park
I just to clarify a point, when you talked about going to ops, that sounds really sexy, but for people who don't know ops is like operational planning, it's the worst. It's not sexy.
- [113:14]
Chad McCoy
Yeah. Doing sit wraps and like, and sending gear to guys overseas like, it's terrible. Yeah. I mean, someone's got to do it. You know, it's an important job. But I just felt like. I felt like I was the pony in the, you know, the paddock that was like, dancing around, kicking, and I wasn't ready to go into the stable. I was like, I want to keep dancing. And probably the best analog I could think of. Right. You know, but for me personally, I just wasn't ready to hang it up. But in the Air Force, when you get to that point, you get senior, you're done. And in the army especially, you know, within the tier one unit, you can be an E9 and run a gun right until the day you retire.
- [113:56]
David Park
Right.
- [113:57]
Chad McCoy
And I think that's awesome. In the Navy, you can do it to a certain extent, but they're not. Not the same as the army because there's a lot of E9s in the army. In the Air Force, there's not a lot of E9s. And so if you're an E9, it's like, holy crap, we need you to go here and we need you to manage this, you know, this, this program or this unit. And. And it's not sexy. It's grunt work. We need guys to do it. We need good guys to do it. And so I, you know, when I. I wasn't one of those guys, was really excited about going the 24th to be the chief. I never aspired to be that. A lot of guys did. I never did. But when they asked me to do, I was like, yeah, I'll do it for them. And. And my wife knows this. She was like. I was like, I don't know how I can do all this stuff, right? And I was like, I want to be a good leader for them. And so I really tried, I tried really hard to be what I should have been in that unit. But it was not prestigious for me. There was no, like, it wasn't like beating my chest. It was like, I made it. I was like, oh, crap at this job and it's gonna be hard and I have to deal with all these people issues and all these guys are in harm's way. And we were non stop deployed and we never stopped deploying our unit. Just like a lot of these units were deployed since 911 into perpetuity. And so until just recently, they stopped deploying, right? So, you know, Afghanistan, Iraq, drawdown, Syria, they're home. And that's when the real problems come in, right? That's when guys are like, now you're getting duis now you're getting the guys with, you know, domestic issues. I didn't have those issues. Yeah. I just had a bunch of pipe hitters are doing great things and they were very mature and they were capable. I had the best, you know, I had the best situation.
- [115:36]
David Park
So what year did you take over, like the green team?
- [115:41]
Chad McCoy
Was it maybe 2017?
- [115:44]
David Park
So. And you went in 2003. 2002. 2003, yeah. Oh, not, not to green. Yeah. Green team, right?
- [115:52]
Chad McCoy
Yeah.
- [115:52]
David Park
2000.
- [115:53]
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- [117:45]
Chad McCoy
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- [118:16]
David Park
How had, by the time you got there, how had it changed over those 14 years?
- [118:21]
Chad McCoy
So much so here's the biggest thing that changed how we selected folks. And so if you guys came to us in the unit you put your package in, you know, we're like, okay, you had a DUI here. It was five years ago. Have you learned from it? Okay, keep your nose clean. Okay, okay, maybe we'll talk to you. Okay. You get through the front door just from your package, you know, interview, you come to selection. And then we do this process where we, we really get to know the person, the individual, their psyche. We understand how they make decisions. We put them in situations, ethical dilemmas. We do all these things that really break down the individual and how they think, which is way more important than how much you lift. Right. Do we still want you to be a stud? Absolutely. You got to, right? You gotta, you gotta do the long ruck, right? You gotta run fast, you gotta carry heavy things.
- [119:07]
David Park
You gotta keep up with the seals, you gotta keep up with the rangers.
- [119:10]
Chad McCoy
That's an expectation. Yep. But here's what we're asking you to do. We're asking you to have a very clear ethical compass. We're asking you to make good decisions under stress. We're asking you to have a high EQ and iq. We're looking at those things, okay? We're not taking dummies. We have very smart guys within the special, the Air Force special operations side. They're very competent dudes. And we test them and we test them amongst their peers. And so one of the questions is, funny, like I was thinking about, you know, talking to you guys about this is that, you know, one of the questions is, would you want to be in a car with this guy for, I think it was like eight hour car ride? And that's a good question, right? Do I want to ride in a car with you for eight hours? What does that mean? Does it mean I like you? Does it mean I can get along with you? Can you blend into a team room? Can you deal with other folks? Can you do that and also keep your moral compass? Because that's another ethical dilemma that exists, going with other tiers. And so our guys have done a really good job of staying above the fray and I'm really proud of them.
- [120:16]
David Park
Wasn't that a question that Beckwith had was do I want to paddle upstream with this guy?
- [120:21]
Chad McCoy
Could have been.
- [120:22]
David Park
Yeah, yeah. When we talk to Dan Colson. Yeah.
- [120:25]
Jack Murphy
Beckwith, that's a whole other story.
- [120:28]
David Park
Yeah, but, but that's, but that's important, right? In the sense of, outside of this person being a high performer. Like, if it's just, if it's just he and I out there for three
- [120:43]
Chad McCoy
days, I don't care how fast you run. I don't, I don't care how much weight you can lift. I want you to be able to carry your own weight, but I also want you to make good decisions under stress. And so that's not very. It's a hard thing to tease out. And so we, we would have psychologists in there non stop with us looking at our bias. Right. Because I have bias. And so if I'm hiring somebody, I want some probably to look like me.
- [121:06]
David Park
Right.
- [121:06]
Chad McCoy
I mean, and you probably do the same thing. You're like, yeah, man, he's a, you know, he's a puss. Like, he's not like me. And so you're gonna basically dismiss that guy. Or if you're an extrovert, he's an introvert. You're like, he can't be like me. Yeah. And what we realized was, is that, you know, when we talk about diversity in the military and people roll their eyes at it because it's been, it's been miscategorized. It's diversity of thought. And we want people that think differently and can solve problems differently. Differently than me, because it makes me stronger. Right. And so if we can do that as an organization, you can be successful. And all of the units are kind of changing their selection models to tease these things out. You know, back in the, you know, 80s and 90s, it was like, how fast can you run? How good can you shoot? We need more than that now and we need guys that can operate on their own. And so I think the soft operators of today are far superior than of my generation. And I think that's fair to say because I am that. You know, I think we were pretty good and we were pretty damn hardy because we did a lot of combat. But were we prepared? I don't think we were. I wasn't prepared. We prepared these guys because we looked at all the gaps in our lives and our careers and we said, we're going to fill those in with training and we're fill those in with experience. And so, you know, when guys get selected to be green, to be instructors, they're guys that are combat hardened dudes that can come in there and sit down with you guys, listen, dude, this is why you're messing up, and this is what you need to change. If you're a combat controller, here's what you need to think about when you run a stack, and here's why you have to think about it this way. If you're a pj, this is why you can't do medicine this way. This is why you're gonna get someone killed. And we finally, finally have the experience to sit there and say that very emphatically and with a position of authority which we didn't have in the 90s. So when I went through soccer. Soccer, sock him. It was a bunch of guys never been to combat, right? They're telling me about how to treat a casualty. They never treated a casualty.
- [123:06]
David Park
Right?
- [123:06]
Chad McCoy
Now when I go through softness with a Ranger medic, and he's saying, hey, Chad, you're messing this up, I'm like, holy crap, this guy knows he's talking about.
- [123:13]
David Park
Right, Right.
- [123:13]
Chad McCoy
I'm gonna listen to him.
- [123:14]
David Park
Right?
- [123:15]
Chad McCoy
And so I think that's a pretty important distinction. But here. Here's the but is that we're losing it, and we're losing it today because all senior guys are getting out and leaving because. Because they're pissed off. Right? And you're gonna have an atrophied experience, and the next fight is gonna be way harder than the G. Wat, right? It's gonna be 10 times harder than what we did in Afghanistan. Iraq. When you're talking about great power competition, guys fight with nods and lasers and aircraft overhead. Dude, you have to be the best. And, you know, technology will tip the scale to a certain extent. We still have to be a very competent operator that knows how to make good decisions, decisions under stress.
- [123:53]
David Park
Is there any way, in your opinion, to not lose it because we lost it after World War II?
- [124:00]
Chad McCoy
It's already. It's already being lost. And so, you know, every service will tell you that. I talked to SEAL a lot of time to say the same thing, and we're losing it, and we're pushing people out because we want people to comply. Right? I know we're not getting political in this, but there is. There's an element of, like, hey, you need to play ball, or you need to leave. And so a lot of people are leaving. They don't want to play ball. Like, it's incongruent with their values. And so you have this, you know, in. In industry, they call it what, the great resignation. People just, you know. Yeah. Or people silently quitting. You have that in soft, too. People are leaving. And so who stays behind, you know, who stays in the senior positions? It's the people that, you know, really want to be senior guys to beat their chest. And not all of them. That's. That's not an absolute sure. But it's the people who enjoy or
- [124:52]
David Park
who don't mind the political, the political game that. That happens at that senior level.
- [124:56]
Chad McCoy
I never wanted to be an E9.
- [124:57]
David Park
Yeah.
- [124:57]
Chad McCoy
When I got it, I was like, oh, crap, I make a little bit more money. Not a lot, but I gotta be a good E9. And. But if your motivation is to, you know, have more stripes or medals and all those things, you're the wrong guy. And so how do you, how do you suss that out? That's a, That's a hard question to answer. I don't have the answer.
- [125:16]
Jack Murphy
You got questions for Chad?
- [125:18]
David Park
Yeah, we do. And just out of curiosity, before we get to the questions, like, you had this real sort of breadth of experience, because taking somebody that's a shooter and a medic and then all the ancillary skills, but also putting them into more of an intel oriented like the, you know, like the OPE and opb, which requires tradecraft and is more of a thinking man's game as opposed as. It's very fluid in a lot of ways. Can you select people that. Or do you try to select people that encompass all that, or do you recognize that some people are going to
- [125:57]
Chad McCoy
be good at certain things for the, for that mission? Yes.
- [126:00]
David Park
I mean, I mean, like in green team.
- [126:02]
Chad McCoy
Well, yeah, we have, we've. We've found guys are like, holy crap, that's the guy for this job. Yeah. Okay. And we've pulled guys straight from green team. They've never done the assault side. They went straight to the other side because they're just that they're super, you know, cerebral, you know, super talented. But, you know, maybe they went to a school and got an engineering degree and they might be too smart for the job they're about to go do.
- [126:26]
David Park
Right.
- [126:27]
Chad McCoy
And we're like, yeah, guy, listen, I get it. You want to go run a gun, you probably need to go do this.
- [126:31]
David Park
Right.
- [126:32]
Chad McCoy
And so that exists. Yeah.
- [126:34]
Jack Murphy
That's cool that they're recognizing that so early on.
- [126:36]
David Park
Yeah.
- [126:37]
Jack Murphy
Because, yeah, I mean, as you alluded to, I mean, when I left the military in 2010, the guys who had engineering degrees, who had, I mean, everyone was, they were all getting out, you know, guys who had opportunities to get a full ride to med school, guys who had putting in flight packets, I mean, all kinds of stuff happening.
- [126:56]
Chad McCoy
So innovation is a big topic, is brought up in the military all the time. And the folks that are like innovators and the folks that think that way usually get out after their first enlistment because they're so frustrated.
- [127:05]
David Park
Right.
- [127:06]
Chad McCoy
And, and that's the folks that we need to stay in for two enlistments to change the world. Right. So it just, it's the weird dichotomy of the military.
- [127:15]
David Park
And it's interesting too because the military resists innovation so hard.
- [127:20]
Chad McCoy
Well, they don't like failure, they like innovation because it sells. But failure is incongruent with what, you know, the model of success. And so. Right. You have to accept failure to have innovation. You can't have one without the other. Yeah, you can't have, oh, we're going to innovate, but we always have to be successful. Like you never get the zero fail.
- [127:39]
David Park
Right.
- [127:40]
Chad McCoy
Or risk aversion. And so I understand that now on the outside, now that I'm in industry that, you know, all the successful tech companies are taking a lot of risk and failing and they're going to find success because they're failing so much.
- [127:53]
David Park
Right, right.
- [127:54]
Chad McCoy
They're learning from it.
- [127:54]
David Park
Right.
- [127:56]
Chad McCoy
Yeah.
- [127:56]
David Park
They'll start out with a product and find out that it doesn't do what they thought it was going to do, but it appeals to a different market that they never even imagined. Yeah, it's very interesting. Okay, let's get to these questions here. Anthony, thank you very much. What has been your experiences working with Soft Tac P? What's your take on the restructuring for Tac P moving forward? Strike teams, recon teams, and if you can, also lead off with tonics, what Tac P is.
- [128:27]
Chad McCoy
So TACP is terminal air control party and they're basically the old school guys used to call, you know, naval gunfire and also, you know, basically serve, you know, the mission that CCTs do. Tech P's did for a long time. Right. I love Tech P's. I love Tech P's. You know, some of my favorite JTACs are Tech Peas. We had a lot of tech peas at the unit. We started bringing them on and they were super, super capable guys. They were studs. So, you know, the AFSOC's going through a kind of a, a reshuffle. They're trying to figure out their mission. I think all SOF is, is, but specifically afsoc. And I think a lot of the legacy missions that were, we know, are going away. And so who will survive this kind of change? I don't know, that's beyond, you know, above my, my pay grade. I don't have a pay grade, but pfc.
- [129:17]
David Park
So are you saying that Tac P, that they're potentially like on the cutting board?
- [129:24]
Chad McCoy
No, I'm not saying that. But I will say that the GWAT model of like, you know, calling Cass is probably going to go away for the great power competition because it's not going to be guys in the trenches on satcom calling in strikes. It's going to be technology empowering missions deeper in targets and illuminating them and then making decisions with semi autonomy and autonomy. And so if soft doesn't embrace that, they're going to lose the next fight. That's, I mean, that's just the reality. Like autonomy is a thing and you know, China is doing it very well, the US is doing it and the, the military is trying to embrace it. But autonomy is scary.
- [130:06]
Jack Murphy
Yeah. It's the opposite of what we've experienced where, you know, the golden hour is going to be a thing of the past in a lot of ways. You're going to have to maintain a casualty out in the field. You're not. There's going to be contested airspace, comms are going to be unreliable.
- [130:19]
Chad McCoy
Yeah. GPS denied. I mean, talking about, you know, fighting, you know, near peer. We say it all the time. What does that mean? That means the guy you're fighting has the same tech that you do.
- [130:28]
David Park
Right.
- [130:29]
Chad McCoy
We fought cavemen and got our asses kicked.
- [130:31]
David Park
Right.
- [130:31]
Chad McCoy
Half the time. Right. And so we need to, we always have to have a competitive advantage. We go into fighting and so we. Our competitive advantage in the past has been aircraft. It has been. Yeah. And every service will tell you that it has tipped the scale every single year. Know, engagement has been aircraft. Right. When things get too bad, guess what? We're calling the Air Force and they're going to slam this, this compound.
- [130:51]
David Park
Right.
- [130:52]
Chad McCoy
Well, if we can't do that because those guys are in air to air fight, how do you push through?
- [130:57]
David Park
Right.
- [130:57]
Chad McCoy
And, and that's a really. I don't know how to answer that.
- [131:01]
David Park
And particularly if we're looking at China because not only do they have close to the technology, they have all the technology we have because, because their industrial espionage is so great.
- [131:11]
Jack Murphy
They still.
- [131:15]
David Park
Jackson, thank you very much. What do you make of AFSOC trying to become a more unilateral force? Are you optimistic or hesitant on the transition and why?
- [131:27]
Chad McCoy
It depends. I mean, it depends who's in charge. It depends on what they want to do with it. And so what we shouldn't do is become a better mousetrap, you know, so AFSOC should basically play off their strengths. You know, we are very capable and technical forces that can, you know, kind of multiply the battlefield. And so if they, you know, if they focus on those strengths and they flip that into the next fight, they can be very successful as a unilateral force if they try to be a better assault force. I mean, cool, man.
- [131:59]
David Park
Like, and this sort of goes back to the question about, like the seals out there doing, you know, the FO work, the, you know, the opera prep, is that every mission was sexy. Yeah, right. And. And everybody wants the money. So when it was. When it was the war on drugs, everybody got into counter narcotics. When it was the G wat, everybody became a strike force. And then everybody started moving into the intel, the tradecraft. You know, everybody developed. Even though there are units specified for that, everybody became the master of all. And is this sort of what they're talking about with afsoc, that there are people who think that, okay, well, shooting cqb, shooting, like, we can do that too, we can have our own teams that do this, or is it going a different direction?
- [132:47]
Chad McCoy
So I personally don't think that we're going into that kind of conflict. I don't think that's the thing. And I think the Navy is. Been a pretty good, you know, kind of, I guess, weather vane for where they're going. They're going away from some of those traditional missions. And so is sf. You know, the SF teams are going back to, you know, fit and going back to their core skills.
- [133:09]
David Park
Right.
- [133:10]
Chad McCoy
The things that are the differentiators that they're really good at. And you know, for a long time it was direct action was sexy like you just described. And everyone did direct action because that was kind of the. The bar to pass to be, you know, the guy.
- [133:23]
David Park
The cool guy.
- [133:24]
Chad McCoy
Yeah, right. And so now that we're transitioning, you know, SF is saying, holy crap, we need to go back to our core skills. And they are. The Navy is going back to diving, going back to the maritime missions.
- [133:34]
Jack Murphy
I've heard they have one of the NSW has one of the, probably the best drone program in, in special ops now.
- [133:42]
David Park
Like Cedar, like water drones or air drones?
- [133:44]
Chad McCoy
Both. Both, yeah. I mean, well, I mean, tech is empowering those things. And there's a lot of autonomous, you know, underwater vehicles that are doing great things. Tech is a differentiator. And so whoever can adopt early tech is going to be successful, in my opinion. And it's not just because the position I'm in now, which hopefully we talk.
- [134:02]
David Park
Yeah, we will. We absolutely will.
- [134:04]
Chad McCoy
But I think that, you know, for afsoc, they have to find their way, as I find, what's unique to them. You know, what. What aircraft do they have that are very unique that they can employ? They're getting rid of a lot of assets right now in NASA. They're getting rid of a lot of CB22s, AC130s. And so, you know, some of it's a forcing function to get to the next fight, you know, so. I don't know. I mean, that's probably a better question to ask seniors. AFSOC.
- [134:33]
David Park
I hate to see the AC130 go away. Just makes me sad.
- [134:36]
Chad McCoy
NA10s too.
- [134:37]
David Park
N8.
- [134:39]
Chad McCoy
I mean, a lot of love for the A10s. If you're. If you're a. If you're a ground force, you know how good the A10s are and how important they are. Yeah.
- [134:48]
David Park
Jackson, thanks again. As for tier one, how would you characterize the difference between the army and the Navy side? Did you have a preference with working with one?
- [134:58]
Chad McCoy
I think they're both amazing. Right. You know, they're different. They're super. You know, in the early days, the Navy was really good at making things happen, and the army was very, very process driven. I think the army adopted a lot of the Navy's kind of nuances, and they became just as. Just as adaptive. I got to be honest, in the later years, it was really hard to differentiate the two. They had specific capabilities. They did really well.
- [135:27]
David Park
Yeah.
- [135:27]
Chad McCoy
If it was a maritime mission, obviously the Navy, but the army, dude, they are. I mean, that unit at Fort Bragg, they can do any mission on their son. Yeah. And they could probably do the maritime mission too, if they wanted to, but no, there's no favorite.
- [135:44]
David Park
So you're saying that if the Navy learned basic patrolling, that they would.
- [135:49]
Chad McCoy
I'm not saying that they would be right. They could work up to. If they cared about it. It was just its priorities. Right. Um, but you. But a lot of the army guys. So the. The guys from that unit were either former Rangers or. Or staff. So they had a very fundamental, like, infantry. Infantry background. They're all Rangers, and so they understood that it was very intuitive to them.
- [136:10]
David Park
Right.
- [136:11]
Chad McCoy
Navy's not, man. It's like. Navy's like, huck it. They're. They're like, the football players are gonna throw Hail Mary. Yeah. Where, you know, the Army's like, okay, we can get a first down by doing this right? Navy's like, nah, we're going for a touchdown.
- [136:21]
David Park
Yeah.
- [136:21]
Chad McCoy
You know,
- [136:24]
David Park
Ian, thank you very much. Oh, Dave, now is your chance to ask the only to, to ask about the only basic training you didn't go through. What questions do you have about it? I, I, I don't have any questions.
- [136:40]
Chad McCoy
I'm really good at that.
- [136:41]
David Park
Yeah.
- [136:41]
Chad McCoy
Did you guys use exercise bikes in the Air Force? Yeah, in the Air Force, basically. No. I wish they had them. Been great.
- [136:49]
David Park
That that was the only thing I missed, and apparently I didn't miss it.
- [136:51]
Chad McCoy
So exercise bikes now.
- [136:54]
David Park
Defend you. Defend you. CQB so somebody with the fair Baron Sykes. Kelly McCann, Carl Sastari Heritage. Thank you very much for the donation. Brendan G. Great guest, great stories. Best wishes to you all. Be thanks. Brendan Graham. Thank you very much. Thanks for the great conversation. Thoughts on SWT now, Special Reconnaissance and what role they play.
- [137:21]
Chad McCoy
Yeah, so this was you formerly, like the weather career field we had, which
- [137:27]
Jack Murphy
is, you know, the combat weather guys.
- [137:30]
Chad McCoy
Yeah. So they, they rebranded them as Special Reconnaissance, which I think is really.
- [137:35]
David Park
That sounds sexier.
- [137:36]
Chad McCoy
It sounds better. Way better. The mission initially was like all over the map. It's like we're going to do all these things. You have to be specialized at a couple things. Right. You have to be good at a couple things. And so it has unlimited potential to be a really great career field. And, you know, we need it now because reconnaissance is more important now than ever, and especially if you can overlay technology into reconnaissance. And so I, I think it's, you know, potentially it's a great pathway. Obviously, I'm biased because I'm a PJ, so, you know, I want more PJs.
- [138:12]
David Park
Let me just check.
- [138:12]
Chad McCoy
Was that a diplomatic answer?
- [138:14]
Jack Murphy
Yes.
- [138:14]
David Park
It was great. Isaac. The Air Force is said to have the best tech. So does is Spec Ops have more advanced tech than other units?
- [138:26]
Chad McCoy
The Spec Ops or Air Force?
- [138:28]
David Park
The, the Air Force Special Operations
- [138:32]
Chad McCoy
man? No, I don't think they do. I think the Navy has been really early adopters of technology. The army is really keen on uas and so they're really ahead on that. And the Air Force again, is going through this kind of like the teenage years of who am I? And they're looking in the mirror like, what do I want to be? Do I need this or do you need this? And so the Navy knows, hey, I need these technology empower our maritime platform. So they're going to do it. And the Army's the same way. If you look at some of the, the drone racing Stuff they're doing, the army is taking advantage of that big time and they're bringing industry in. Navy's doing the same thing. The Air Force is kind of like, you know, you have, you have airplanes, right? So here's the dichotomy. With the Air Force. When you look at the army and Special Forces, it's all about special forces, right? With AFSOC it's not, it's about aircraft and they have really small cutout which is special warfare, which is, you know,
- [139:27]
Jack Murphy
Air Force is all about like strategic bombers and fighter jets.
- [139:31]
Chad McCoy
But within AFSOC it's, it's, it's CV22s and like doing infill expo. But then you have these guys over here, they're like, hey, we want to change the world. And they're like, got it guys. But the money goes over here, right? And so NSW is paying to seals and they have these maritime programs that have a lot of money, but it's to empower the seals, right? And so apps like is the only one that's like, well we do all this for the other services and then we have this small component of folks that do really special stuff, but we also want to help these people. And so it will never reach their potential because they're always looking outwards instead of going how do we empower this?
- [140:06]
David Park
Right?
- [140:07]
Chad McCoy
And so the first question, how do you do it unilateral? Well, you have to stop being a service provider, right, and start saying what do we want to do? And if you don't want to do anything, that's fine too. But if you do, you have to do an all stop and say, listen, these CB22s exist for these guys and whatever their mission sets, going to dictate. And, and that's a, it's going to take having some special tactics guys in senior positions, which we do. The A3 of ASOC right now is a former combat controller. It's a combat controller general and that's a big deal for us. You know, it's never happened before, so,
- [140:44]
David Park
and so that, I mean that makes total sense because you guys have been force multipliers, you've been adjuncts in a way to the other, you know, to the other services and without that identity of where we're the tip of the spear, right? Not we're part of the tip of the spear.
- [141:03]
Chad McCoy
Yeah. I mean it's going to be, they're gonna have to decide what they want to be who they are. It's not my decision tell you my experiences and my experience was empowering those other tiers. Right. You know, do I think that I was capable to do other things? Absolutely. But it wasn't my job.
- [141:18]
David Park
If you could wave a magic wand and make STS what you wanted it to be.
- [141:25]
Chad McCoy
Ooh, I don't know. Yeah, that's a tough one. That's a tough thing to answer right now because, you know, I have, again, bias is included here and my experience and so, and, and that's fair.
- [141:39]
David Park
I mean, I'm asking you, with your bias and your experience, it's.
- [141:42]
Chad McCoy
It's a numbers game, right?
- [141:42]
David Park
Yeah.
- [141:43]
Chad McCoy
And so Special Forces, I was doing the numbers. I think it's like 8,000.
- [141:47]
David Park
It's a lot. Yeah.
- [141:48]
Chad McCoy
You know, I mean, you look at the 82nd has less folks and they're, you know, specialized in the Ranger battalion. So the, the question I always had was, what makes you special? And, you know, I asked folks, I asked this when I was going through the. What is it called? Josephse, which is the Joint Special Operations Senior listed thing, and I said, what. What makes Special Operations special? Is it numbers? Is it technology? Is it mission? And no one could really answer the question because when Special Operations or sof, has a lot of people and then within, you know, the Green Beret community, there's, there's thousands of them and not all of them are like, you know, doing everything right. There's like, guys are specialists in this and this within nsw, it's a little bit smaller, but still thousands of them. In our career folders, you know, there's maybe hundreds. And so does that make you special? I don't know. I don't know if it does. It's just a numbers game. It sounds cooler, but how do you get to that point? I don't think you do it without numbers. And so if you have a great green beer community, you want to go and do X mission, you can reorient all those people to go do that with the training and money. That's a tough question.
- [143:02]
Jack Murphy
So let's hear about your transition. You finally, after running and gunning and suffering through administration and then getting to be, you know, senior enlisted in the squadron. I mean, you kind of had the career, you know, from a career. Yeah, I mean, you had the career. You went from 21 to 41 or 22 to 41 from the.
- [143:21]
David Park
And you did it all. I mean, you did it all.
- [143:24]
Chad McCoy
You did. I did a lot.
- [143:25]
David Park
Yeah.
- [143:25]
Chad McCoy
Do it all.
- [143:26]
Jack Murphy
You want to do more. You talked about, you know, the compartmentalization driving on and all of this. And then you finally Hit that moment of retirement. I mean, what was that like for you, transitioning?
- [143:35]
Chad McCoy
It sucked. I. I took a job. I was a director of an innovation institute for a year, and I learned about hiring and firing, learned about dealing with, you know, people that weren't like me. It was a transition, and I was super depressed. You know, we talked about before we started this is that purpose is really important, and you have it inherently when you're in the military, you don't have it when you get out, and it's a reality, so just brace yourself for that. And I did that job for a year. What I did do was I got a call and there was an opportunity to go help some orphans from Ukraine to Poland. Oh, wow. And I was like, I'm in. And so I went to my boss and I was like, hey, man. I was like, I need to take some unpaid leave. I'm gonna go do this. And they were good enough to say, yeah, okay. I think they knew I was probably gonna quit if they didn't let me do it. But I thought I was gonna fill my bucket, you know, in my bucket and. And give me a sense of purpose. And I went out there and did it, and it didn't feel anything. And I came back home and I ended up resigning after a month. I was like, I can't do this anymore. And I told my wife, I was like, I just need to maybe go fishing every day and just be retired. And I was retired for six hours. A buddy of mine from a big company called me. He's like, chad. He goes, you need to talk to these guys from California. And I'm like, okay. I was on my back porch. I think I was probably drinking a bourbon, and I talked to these guys, and they're like, hey, man, you know, just bros from, you know, California. And, like, we're going to build a low cost cruise missile. I'm like, okay. Like, didn't expect that. I was like, all right, so what. What does that mean? How do you do low cost? They told me, you know, their design was like, modular, like, LEGO set for, like, cruise missile added manufacturer. And I'm like, I'm in. And so I joined this team, and it was three of us. And it was the closest thing I felt. You know, this is called team house. It was the closest thing I felt to being back into a team post military, because it was guys that I identify with, that I get along with and that we're oriented towards a purpose with. And, you know, we started this company, Firestorm Labs, and we've been doing it for, you know, six, seven months now, building a modular uas. And it's the closest thing I found to getting to what, you know, we've been describing this whole time. And I needed it, man. You know, because we talk about purpose, you know, purpose is really hard to find on the backside. And so the guys that get out, you know, I think this is a good opportunity to talk about is that it's not the same and you will be isolated, you're on your own. It's, it's never going to be cool again and you have to mourn that career. And so once you move on from it, you can like grow and, and be better. But for me, you know, join the team that I'm on now with Firestorm, which is the company. It's been awesome. And so I've taken a lot of other jobs. I've got a lot, you know, you know, companies that I work with. One is Lifeline Rescue Tools, which is basically, it's a thing about glass break, you know, times thousand, what cuts through laminated glass, you know, first responder stuff. I'm like, that's great. I can get behind that. Product development, let's do it. The other one's, Foxtrot 3 is a company we started with a bunch of operators. Faith, family, freedom. And so that's basically family values. Getting back to making that cool again in America. And so things I can wrap my brain around and orient and really push hard is all I need. And so because you're not part of a team anymore, when you get out, no one cares. You're on your own. You guys know that. I mean. Yeah, you've forgotten very quickly.
- [147:29]
Jack Murphy
So I've tried to describe to people, you know, that you could be the Sergeant Major of Delta Force, you total badass dude. You get out, you retire. Walking around the streets out here. It's not that people don't like you, that they're anti military or something. But you say, I was a command sergeant Major of this JSOC unit, they're going to look at you. What is jsoc? What is Command Sergeant Major?
- [147:53]
Chad McCoy
And it's not that the experiences aren't meaningful. They certainly are. And they're meaningful in your brotherhood. Right. And so if we sit around, we drink bourbon together, we can have shared experiences and we have kind of common bona feed is right.
- [148:06]
David Park
Yeah.
- [148:07]
Chad McCoy
But you have to get over it and you have to mourn it and move past it big time. Yeah. And if you don't, you're not gonna Be successful next life, you're stuck in that rut. But if you say, listen, I had a great run, it was a cool experience, I did some cool stuff, and now moving on. And, you know, I do these conversations because I think they're cathartic, I think they're healthy, but at the end of the day, like, that's my old life, man.
- [148:31]
Jack Murphy
Exactly.
- [148:32]
Chad McCoy
Has nothing to do with me now.
- [148:33]
David Park
And that moving on, though, also, like, like you mentioned with the startup, there's also the issue of finding purpose. Like, if you try to move on and you're just doing some menial job somewhere, that doesn't fill you with that same purpose. And, you know, we talk about post traumatic stress.
- [148:54]
Chad McCoy
Yeah.
- [148:55]
David Park
And then we talk about this idea of, of transitioning, which is this nebulous. Okay. I. I was doing something meaningful. I had people to my left and right that I trusted with my life even if I couldn't stand them. And now I'm out in this world where there really is no meaning. So.
- [149:17]
Chad McCoy
So here's the best way I can define it for folks that are preparing to transition or perhaps have transitioned, is that I felt like life was black and white. It was kind of a gray, and there was no color to it, and there was no excitement. And it was a really heavy thing to deal with because you're like, holy crap, man. Like, life is boring. Yeah. And, you know, some people are like, oh, you should get back into skydiving or something. Like, well, sort of go buy a fast car and go test myself.
- [149:45]
David Park
Right. That's chasing the dragon.
- [149:47]
Chad McCoy
Right, Right. And that's dangerous behavior. So I struggled with it for the past year. I was like, man, how do I get back to normal? And what I realized was talking to some really smart people and people I trust, is that it will never be that normal. It's different. And so once you embrace that.
- [150:06]
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Chad McCoy
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- [152:28]
Chad McCoy
And you accept it. And you say that, hey, listen, that was a part of my life. It's exciting, it was fun, there's cool stories we can talk about. It will never be that again. And you have to mourn that process.
- [152:40]
David Park
Yeah.
- [152:40]
Chad McCoy
And so that's what I'm going through right now. And. And it's difficult, man. And like, some guys are better at it than I am. Some guys are more mature than I am and can find success. Maybe it's financially they want it, maybe it's, you know, purpose in a, in a career. But for me, I, I found the best kind of segue is I have a small team of people that I trust. We're oriented around a task and a purpose, and I can make it successful because I know how to do that.
- [153:10]
David Park
Right.
- [153:11]
Chad McCoy
And so I think that's the most important aspect to me. It's healthy for me. But I will tell you, going back to the compartmentalization is that guys like us have been very good at doing that and we can walk down the street and no one will notice Any difference? The fact is, is that we're. We're keeping these things wrapped and we're doing it at our own detriment. Right. And so until we let those things go and process them, they'll continue to be kind of the milsin around our neck. And so I've been using conversations like this as. As the catharsis of letting them go. Like, I mean, I'm gonna tell you guys some cool stories. Cool, man. Like, I'm not gonna tell you any classified stuff, but let's let it out.
- [153:53]
David Park
Right.
- [153:53]
Chad McCoy
And you know, failures and successes, they're here, man. Right. But this next life is mine is what I make it. Right.
- [154:00]
David Park
I. I absolutely agree with you. And we've had, you know, I feel like I've been first off, I'll say that, like, I feel like Jack is one of those people that has dealt really well with that transition.
- [154:14]
Chad McCoy
I mean, like, he's very well adjusted. He's wearing a sweater now. Yeah, yeah. He's automatic.
- [154:19]
David Park
He's Ottoman. I mean, he has a. He has a saltwater tank he's building.
- [154:23]
Jack Murphy
Premature.
- [154:23]
David Park
Like he knows who he is.
- [154:25]
Chad McCoy
Yeah.
- [154:25]
David Park
You know, but, you know, through the
- [154:28]
Jack Murphy
interview, I. I've also been out for 12 years, I should say.
- [154:31]
Chad McCoy
Probably helps. So.
- [154:32]
Jack Murphy
Yeah, there was, there's is. I appreciate you saying that. I would also point out, though, like, I had that period of adjustment as well that was like, quite difficult to. Even though I. I wasn't as. In as long as you were, I didn't operate on the same level that you did. But just being in the military, eight years as a young man and coming out, there's definitely a period of time where I had to figure things out.
- [154:54]
David Park
Well, it was eight years, but it was, it was intense. It was, it was your. It was the formative year.
- [154:59]
Chad McCoy
Yeah. Hard years of coming.
- [155:01]
Jack Murphy
Exactly.
- [155:01]
David Park
Yeah.
- [155:02]
Chad McCoy
Yeah.
- [155:03]
David Park
And, you know, and we've had a number of people on the show that have. Have talked about whether it's post traumatic stress or whether it's just the adaptation of life after the military. Because one of the things that a wartime military does for you, like you said, is it gives you purpose. Like, combat is pure. Right. There's.
- [155:24]
Chad McCoy
You're not worrying about taxes.
- [155:26]
David Park
It's fun.
- [155:26]
Chad McCoy
It.
- [155:27]
David Park
It is what you dreamt of when you were. When you were a kid.
- [155:31]
Chad McCoy
Pine cone grenades. Yes. It turns into real grenades. Yeah. And it is satisfying.
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- [155:37]
David Park
You don't have to argue over who shot who first.
- [155:40]
Chad McCoy
Right.
- [155:42]
David Park
But it's a very pure endeavor. And then to move into a world that's very ambiguous, where you know the answers.
- [155:52]
Chad McCoy
So I'd be remiss not to say this is. And we talked about this before we started, is that I have a really deep respect for conventional forces. Right. And here's what I'll say, is that soft gets all the fanfare. We also get a lot of the support. Yeah. So, you know, when I. I tore both ACLs and I got all this great care, had great physical therapists and people surrounding me, helping me, you know, when you're a conventional troop and you're doing hard yards in Baghdad or even Afghanistan, like, there's not a whole hell of a lot there for those guys. And so I would tell the guys that are listening, because there's probably guys that are. Is that I have a deep respect for those dudes. And. And their service is no less than mine. We are. We are prima donnas and soft. And so, you know, getting on black helicopters with the best pilots in the world. Right. Not good pilots. The best pilots in the world that take us the X and put one wheel down and you jump off on a rooftop and you go slam a target and you get out in 30 minutes and you're hitting.
- [157:00]
David Park
When, you know, everybody's asleep, you know,
- [157:01]
Chad McCoy
you come back and do. Yeah, you come back and drinking beers and playing Xbox. Right, Right.
- [157:05]
David Park
Right.
- [157:06]
Chad McCoy
That's what people don't get, is that you're. You're spoiled. Right. And so. And do you want to do another op? Hell, yeah. You want to do an OP Because. Because you're going to have every resource available. Those kids. Those kids, men and women, did it with no resources. And I think there's a lot to be said about that. And I think it gets lost in the kind of the. The nostalgia and the romance of SOF in that, you know, soft isn't any better than those guys or gals.
- [157:34]
David Park
Like you say, SOF is sexy. And you. And they have the budget, they get the training. But we've had, like, Louis Fernandez, Raymond Patton, like, we've had people on that. And we want more conventional.
- [157:47]
Chad McCoy
Know, we're.
- [157:48]
David Park
We want more conventional soldiers and. And Marines on because they were living it every day. Their deployments were longer with not a
- [157:57]
Chad McCoy
lot of care on the backside.
- [157:58]
David Park
Right, right. They didn't have the support. They. They couldn't. They didn't have, you know, an AC130.
- [158:06]
Chad McCoy
No.
- [158:07]
David Park
You know, hovering above and.
- [158:08]
Chad McCoy
Which is a pacifier for operators.
- [158:10]
David Park
Right.
- [158:10]
Chad McCoy
It is, absolutely.
- [158:12]
David Park
You know, when you hear that lawnmower, the great lawnmower. In the sky. Like, the bad guys hear that too.
- [158:18]
Chad McCoy
Yeah, man. I think it's. It's. It's pretty important to recognize and. And if you don't, maybe you're. You're tone deaf. But, you know, I think SOFT guys in general realize that, you know, we've been spoiled for a long time and. And for a good reason. Like, we've had a really hard missions. We've done most of the combat. Like, soft has done almost all the combat in the, you know, past 20 years. Actually, that's not true. Towards the end. End years, yeah, for sure. But, you know, I. I don't take it for granted that those kids were, you know, walking the streets and basically completely vulnerable when I was sitting in a safe, you know, mss, you know, drinking beers and when I wasn't supposed to any general order.
- [158:59]
David Park
Yeah, but you weren't doing anything that any, like, major and above wasn't doing.
- [159:04]
Chad McCoy
Whatever I can say now. Yeah, exactly.
- [159:06]
Jack Murphy
That's factual information.
- [159:07]
Chad McCoy
Yeah.
- [159:08]
David Park
We have just. I think I need to get back to the video. We have a couple more questions real quick that just popped up. So I just want to go over real quick while I'm pulling this up. We know about launch firestorm.com, right? That's. That's Firestorm Labs. There's also Firestorm Labs that does games. That's not them. And then you said Foxtrot 3.
- [159:36]
Chad McCoy
Yeah. And then what was the other Lifeline Rescue tool?
- [159:40]
David Park
Lifeline Rescue.
- [159:41]
Chad McCoy
Yeah.
- [159:42]
David Park
So they're all down in the link. And then we had one question that was. Or when we had, like, two more. Graham. More important, knowing plans for retirement. Thank you for the donation. And we got that. And then Jerry. Oh, we have two more. Jerry. What would you choose, Warthog or AC130 over your head?
- [160:12]
Chad McCoy
For what mission? I mean. Yeah, it depends. I mean, here's a story I'll tell you about AC or AC 130s and A10s. So we were. We're doing an op, and we patrolled into this, like, wheat field field, and we're completely surrounded by compounds, and it was bad. We knew it was about to pop off. We knew it was about to pop off. Like it was coming. It just went. And our AC130 got pulled for an HVI for the other task force. They're like, hey, we got HVI. We need the AC130. They pull our AC130. And we're like, holy crap. So we had a, you know, we had a MQ9, and we're like, we're screwed. And we're about to get in a tick. We knew it. I mean, it was coming any second and it popped off and we. We were pinned down. We were fighting our way out of there. The main assault force was way back behind us. We were a recce team and we were just getting our. We were like, holy crap, we're gonna die. And the controller was back with the main assault force and knew we were in a tick and we're calling back. Like, holy. We're like, this is bad. And he got on call A10s. These guys came in literally, I'm not exaggerating. 100ft off the ground. Two ship, 100ft off the ground. And they strafed this compound. It was the most amazing thing I've ever seen in my life. Yeah, I was like, I was on nods. I had to pull nozzle because there's so much fire. Like, after they came in, two came in. I'm like, why don't we use these every night? I'm like, this is amazing. Yeah. Like, just have these loitering overhead. They destroyed everything. There was nothing left. I'll be honest. There was nothing left. I'm like, who is AC130? What is that? Is that thing we like. And eight 10s, man. There's a time and place for them, but those guys. Here's what I'll tell you. A10 pilots are the closest thing to operators that you will ever find in the aviation community. They are, man. They. There are guys that will like, want the I'll drink you and gals.
- [162:12]
Jack Murphy
We.
- [162:12]
David Park
We had kc.
- [162:13]
Chad McCoy
Yeah, that's right. They'll out drink you. And they will. They will put that thing in the dirt to help you. They.
- [162:20]
David Park
They're amazing. And like, I love a 10, but it's. And they do fly low. Like, they, they. They're at risk too. But those A10s, it's. Yeah. Yep.
- [162:32]
Chad McCoy
We. We have a PG or a guy went through basic training with became a PJ. PJ. And then he became an A10 pilot. So. PJ.
- [162:39]
David Park
Oh, wow.
- [162:40]
Chad McCoy
You guys should have him on the podcast.
- [162:41]
Jack Murphy
We'd love to.
- [162:42]
Chad McCoy
Jason Atticker.
- [162:43]
Jack Murphy
Yeah, we're. We're definitely down for.
- [162:44]
Chad McCoy
But he is the best of both worlds, man, because he understands the ground component and then he's, you know, big balls on the A10 side. And.
- [162:52]
David Park
And this also speaks to combat controllers. JTACS Tech PS that when, when those dudes are on, like, the world can be exploding around you.
- [163:05]
Chad McCoy
Yeah.
- [163:06]
David Park
And they're just on their radio controlling their Stacks, like doing oblivious is what
- [163:11]
Chad McCoy
you want to say. Yeah.
- [163:13]
David Park
Like, they're just.
- [163:14]
Chad McCoy
They're oblivious to the world around.
- [163:15]
David Park
They are just doing.
- [163:16]
Chad McCoy
That's why they get so many silver stars, because they're standing there under gunfights and they don't hear the round snapping around them because they have two, you know, two peltors on.
- [163:25]
David Park
Yeah. And.
- [163:26]
Chad McCoy
And I would be like, somebody kill these people, please. Please.
- [163:29]
David Park
And they're just like, yeah.
- [163:31]
Chad McCoy
And.
- [163:32]
David Park
And calling the train, everyone taking cover.
- [163:34]
Chad McCoy
And they're like, up there, like. Yeah. Yep. Yeah.
- [163:36]
David Park
So amazing people. Andrew, thank you very much.
- [163:39]
Chad McCoy
And.
- [163:41]
David Park
And that's it for the question, fellas.
- [163:43]
Jack Murphy
On Tuesday, we're going to have Andrew Milburn back in the studio. We're going to need to buy another bottle of scotch for that one or two. He's coming. He's coming back from Ukraine where he's been, you know, his organization, the Mozart Group, has been doing a lot of work. And then on Friday, we're going to have Daryl Blocker on the show, who's a career CIA, amazing career, super interesting guy. I'm excited to have him on the show. So that'll be this coming Friday. Andrew will be on Tuesday.
- [164:14]
Chad McCoy
Excellent.
- [164:16]
David Park
And so we told where people can find you. Just one quick thing for veterans out there or anybody who might, like, be going through this, but particularly veterans, what's the step for them if they're feeling. If they're starting to isolate, if they're feeling bored, disaffected, done.
- [164:38]
Chad McCoy
That's a loaded question, man. I mean, it's not. It's. It's different for everyone. Specific. Yeah. So the VA sucks. That's versa. And you guys will learn that very quickly. So you have to find your network. I think asking for help is important. People say they're going to help you. There's only a few that will. And so you got to find those folks. And I think that, you know, letting the. Letting the stuff out is important, personally. And. Yeah, I don't know, man. There's a lot of people that want to help you. It's just, you got to ask. And so I have a Rolex of folks that I contact all the time because I know that potentially, I know. I think that they need it and I hope that they'll reach out to me when I do it. But, you know, there's a network there, so it's different for every community. There's been a lot of suicides. We haven't had a lot of suicides within our group, thank God. Um, but the community the community writ large has. And so there's a lot of different factors. Some of it's financial, some of it's personal, some of it's, you know, tbi, some of it's ptsd. There's a ton of cool treatments out there. Some of the Navy guys I was talking to have been really, you know, keyed up on hyperbaric oxygen therapy, which is hbot. Same A lot of lives kind of reconnecting some of the connective tissue in the brain and really mending. That's interesting. Yeah, really mending some of the damage that's been done. And then the other one, which is a bit controversial, but, like, you know, there's vets organizations doing that psychedelic stuff is having a lot of good effects. I've talked to some folks that I know and trust that have done it, and it's saved their lives. And so I respect the process. I've, you know, I've never done it personally, but, you know, I think that's important to kind of suss out whatever is good for you.
- [166:39]
Jack Murphy
It is working for quite a few people. I mean, we've had a few on the show in the past that the Fed.
- [166:44]
David Park
Yes, Sam.
- [166:45]
Jack Murphy
Yeah, I've spoken to quite a few people.
- [166:47]
Chad McCoy
Yeah.
- [166:48]
David Park
Yeah.
- [166:49]
Chad McCoy
Well, I don't know if I'm ready to do the ayahuasca.
- [166:51]
Jack Murphy
You know, you might get there. There's also the DMT thing that people do down south of the border. And it's, I mean, not to scare the squares. I mean, it's like, monitored by doctors. It's a very professional.
- [167:02]
Chad McCoy
It's a legit process.
- [167:03]
David Park
I mean, they're doing mushrooms or doing mdma. They're like. There are a lot of different.
- [167:07]
Chad McCoy
There is.
- [167:08]
David Park
Yeah.
- [167:09]
Chad McCoy
And, you know, the VA will hand you a lot of pills.
- [167:12]
David Park
Yeah.
- [167:12]
Chad McCoy
And they'll do it very, you know, very easily and very quickly. And there's other solutions, I guess, would be my. My bottom line is that, you know, do your research, figure it out. Yeah.
- [167:21]
David Park
Be nice with the va were like the DARPA of military medicine.
- [167:25]
Chad McCoy
Right.
- [167:25]
David Park
If they were out there on the cutting edge.
- [167:27]
Chad McCoy
Certain. They are not the DARPAs. No, they.
- [167:29]
David Park
They are the most conservative medical.
- [167:31]
Chad McCoy
They are the Jiffy Lube of. Yeah, right, right.
- [167:35]
Jack Murphy
Even DARPA isn't darpa.
- [167:37]
Chad McCoy
Yeah.
- [167:38]
Jack Murphy
Well, Chad, I really appreciate you coming out here, man, and joining us and smoking some cigars and drinking some whiskey and telling us a little bit about
- [167:46]
Chad McCoy
your, you know, your story. Yeah.
- [167:48]
Jack Murphy
And we'll.
- [167:48]
Chad McCoy
You went through.
- [167:48]
Jack Murphy
I mean, it's been like, really inform.
- [167:51]
Martha (Kohler Ambassador)
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- [169:12]
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Chad McCoy
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- [170:13]
Jack Murphy
Formative and interesting. And you know, I hope people get
- [170:15]
Chad McCoy
something out of it. Right on. Yeah, I appreciate you having me so.
- [170:19]
Jack Murphy
Absolutely.
- [170:20]
Chad McCoy
I hope.
- [170:21]
Martha (Kohler Ambassador)
When Kohler, the global design leader in luxurious kitchen and bath products, came to me and said, martha, we need an ambassador for our timeless, elegant, durable cast iron products, I said, I'm in now. Let me see the factory. Weeks later, I was suited up in coveralls and work boots. Walking through their Kohler Wisconsin Cast Iron foundry, I stood next to the molten iron furnace, saw the hand applying enamel and and touch the gorgeous finished products waiting to be sent out into the world. Since 1883, Kohler cast iron products have been forged and finished by the incredible craftspeople right in Kohler, Wisconsin. I'll tell you, I gained a newfound respect and appreciation for Kohler's cast iron craftsmanship. So now I'm lending my discerning staff of approval to my most beloved Kohler cast iron products for their durability, beauty and timelessness. Shop my Kohler Cast Iron favorites curated on Kohler.com bring the warmth, character and enduring style of these timeless products into your kitchens and bathrooms. As the Kohler Cast Iron Ambassador, I say long live Cast Iron.
- [171:42]
Commercial Announcer
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Chad McCoy
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- [172:43]
Jack Murphy
You'll hit us up next time you come through the city for sure.
- [172:45]
Chad McCoy
Yeah.
- [172:46]
Jack Murphy
All right guys, we will see you Tuesday and then Friday, so take care.
- [172:51]
Martha (Kohler Ambassador)
When Kohler, the global design leader in luxurious kitchen and bath products came to me and said, Martha, we need an ambassador for our timeless, elegant, durable test iron products. I said, I'm in. Now let me see the factory. Weeks later I was suited up in coveralls and work boots walking through their Kohler Wisconsin cast iron foundry. I stood next to the molten iron furnace, saw the hand applying enamel and touched the gorgeous finished products waiting to be sent out into the world. Since 1883, Kohler cast iron products have been forged and finished by the incredible craftspeople right in Kohler, Wisconsin. I'll tell you, I I gained a newfound respect and appreciation for Kohler's cast iron craftsmanship. So now I am lending my discerning staff of approval to my most beloved Kohler cast iron products for their durability, beauty and timelessness. Shop my Kohler Cast Iron favorites curated on Kohler.com bring the warmth, character and enduring style of these timeless products into your kitchens and bathrooms. As the Kohler Cast Iron Ambassador, I say, long live Cast Iron.
- [174:12]
Commercial Announcer
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway this spring. Sweeten your day one sweet treat at a time. Now through May 26th. Whether you're shopping for gifts for friends and family or just want to pick me up for yourself, get great deals on your favorite sweet treats. Shop in store or online and save on items like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Trident Sugar Free Gum, Albanese, Gummy Bears, Kinder Wafer Eggs or Snickers Bars. Get these deals before they're gone. Offer ends May 26. Restrictions applied. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.
- [174:43]
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Chad McCoy
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- [175:12]
Jack Murphy
We want.
- [175:20]
Martha (Kohler Ambassador)
When Kohler, the global design leader in luxurious kitchen and bath products, came to me and said, martha, we need an ambassador for our timeless, elegant, durable cast iron products. I said, I'm in now. Let me see the factory. Weeks later, I was suited up in coveralls and work boots, walking through their Kohler, Wisconsin cast iron foundry. I stood next to the molten iron furnace and saw the hand applying enamel and touched the gorgeous finished products waiting to be sent out into the world. Since 1883, Kohler cast iron products have been forged and finished by the incredible craftspeople right in Kohler, Wisconsin. I'll tell you, I gained a newfound respect and appreciation for Kohler's cast iron craftsmanship. So now I am lending my discerning staff of approval to my most beloved Kohler cast iron products for their durability, beauty and timelessness. Shop my Kohler Cast Iron favorites curated on Kohler.com bring the warmth, character and enduring style of these timeless products into your kitchens and bathrooms. As the Kohler Cast Iron Ambassador, I say long live Cast Iron.
- [176:42]
Commercial Announcer
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway this spring. Sweeten your day one sweet treat at a time. Now through May 26th. Whether you're shopping for gifts for friends and family or just want to pick me up for yourself, get great deals on your favorite sweet treats. Shop in store or online and save on items like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Trident Sugar Free Gum, Albanese, Gummy Bears, Kinder Wafer Eggs or Snickers bars. Get these deals before they're gone. Offer ends May 26. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.
- [177:12]
SpinQuest Advertiser
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Chad McCoy
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- [177:39]
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- [177:51]
Martha (Kohler Ambassador)
When Kohler, the global design leader in luxurious kitchen and bath products, came to me and said, martha, we need an ambassador for our timeless, elegant, durable cast iron products. I said, I'm in now. Let me see the factory. Weeks later, I was suited up in coveralls and work boots, walking through their Kohler Wisconsin cast iron foundry. I stood next to the molten iron furnace, saw the hand applying enamel and touched the gorgeous finished products waiting to be sent out into the world. Since 1883, Kohler cast iron products have been forged and finished by the incredible craftspeople right in Kohler, Wisconsin. I'll tell you, I gained a newfound respect and appreciation for Kohler's cast iron craftsmanship. So now I'm lending my discerning stamp of approval to my most beloved Kohler Cast Iron products for their durability, beauty and timelessness. Shop my Kohler Cast Iron Favorites, curated on Kohler.com bring the warmth, character and enduring style of these timeless products into your kitchens and bathrooms. As the Kohler Cast Iron Ambassador, I say, long live Cast Iron.
- [179:13]
Commercial Announcer
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest. For Albertsons and Safeway, spring is a time to give yourself a refresh, so spend time on self rejuvenation. Shop in store and online for great savings on all your favorite personal personal care Items. Now through May 26th. Earn four times points when you shop participating items like Pantene Shampoo, Crest Toothpaste, Tampax Radiant Native Shampoo and Secret Gel Deodorant. Then redeem points for discounts on future purchases of groceries or fuel. Offer ends May 26. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.
- [179:44]
SpinQuest Advertiser
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Chad McCoy
play social casino void where prohibited.
- [180:11]
Commercial Announcer
Visit spinquest.com for more detail.
- [180:21]
Martha (Kohler Ambassador)
When Kohler, the global design leader in luxurious kitchen and bath products, came to me and said, martha, we need an ambassador for our timeless, elegant, durable cast iron products. I said, I'm in now. Let me see the factory. Weeks later, I was suited up in coveralls and work boots, walking through their Kohler, Wisconsin Cast iron foundry. I stood next to the molten iron furnace, saw the hand applying enamel and touched the gorgeous finished products waiting to be sent out into the world. Since 1883, Kohler cast iron products have been forged and finished by the incredible craftspeople right in Kohler, Wisconsin. I'll tell you, I I gained a newfound respect and appreciation for Kohler's cast iron craftsmanship. So now I am lending my discerning staff of approval to my most beloved Kohler cast iron products for their durability, beauty and timelessness. Shop my Kohler Cast Iron favorites curated on Kohler.com bring the warmth, character and enduring style of these timeless products into your kitchens and bathrooms. As the Kohler Cast Iron Ambassador, I say, long live Cast Iron.
- [181:42]
Commercial Announcer
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest. For Albertsons and Safeway. Spring is a time to give yourself a refresh, so spend time on Self Rejuvenation. Shop in store and online for great savings on all your favorite personal care Items. Now through May 26, earn four times points when you shop participating items like Pantene Shampoo, Crest Toothpaste, Tampax Radiant Native Shampoo and Secret Gel Deodorant. Then redeem points for discounts on future purchases of groceries or fuel. Offer ends May 26. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.
- [182:14]
SpinQuest Advertiser
Whether it's slots or live dealers, spinquest.com has the fun and action you're looking for with Spin Quest exclusives Blackjack, roulette, Baccarat and even live dice with craps and bubble craps. The games never stop stop so you don't have to. And right now, new users get $30 coin packs for just 10 bucks. Play now@Spinquest.com SpinQuest is a free to
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Chad McCoy
play social casino void where prohibited.
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Commercial Announcer
Visit spinquest.com for more details.
- [182:51]
Martha (Kohler Ambassador)
When Kohler, the global design leader in luxurious kitchen and bath products, came to me and said, martha, we need an ambassador for our timeless, elegant, durable cast iron products, I said, I'm in now. Let me see the factory. Weeks later, I was suited up in coveralls and work boots, walking through their Kohler, Wisconsin cast iron foundry. I stood next to the molten iron furnace, saw the hand applying enamel and touched the gorgeous finished products waiting to be sent out into the world. Since 1883, Kohler cast iron products have been forged and finished by the incredible craftspeople right in Kohler, Wisconsin. I'll tell you, I gained a newfound respect and appreciation for Kohler's cast iron craftsmanship. So now I'm lending my discerning staff of approval to my most beloved Kohler cast iron products for their durability, beauty and timelessness. Shop my Kohler Cast Iron favorites curated on Kohler.com bring the warmth, character and enduring style of these timeless products into your kitchens and bathrooms. As the Kohler Cast Iron Ambassador, I say long live Cast Iron.
- [184:12]
Commercial Announcer
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons Unsafeway. Spring is a time to give yourself a refresh, so spend time on Self Rejuvenation. Shop in store and online for great savings on all your favorite personal personal care Items. Now through May 26th. Earn 4 times points when you shop participating items like Pantene Shampoo, Crest Toothpaste, Tampax Radiant Native Shampoo and Secret Gel Deodorant. Then redeem points for discounts on future purchases of groceries or fuel. Offer ends May 26th. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.
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SpinQuest Advertiser
I'm here with Spinquest where you can play and win from the comfort of your own home with hundreds of slot games and all of the table games you love with real cash prizes. Right now, $30 coin packs are on sale for $10. For new users, it's all@spinquest.com that's S-P
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Chad McCoy
I N Q U-T.com SpinQuest is a
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Commercial Announcer
free to play social casino void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more.
- [185:24]
Martha (Kohler Ambassador)
When Kohler, the global design leader in luxurious kitchen and bath products, came to me and said, martha, we need an ambassador for our timeless, elegant, durable cast iron products. I said, I'm in. Now let me see the factory. Weeks later, I was suited up in coveralls and work boots walking through their Kohler, Wisconsin cast iron foundry. I stood next to the molten iron furnace, saw the hand applying enamel and touched the gorgeous finished products waiting to be sent out into the world. Since 1883, Kohler cast iron products have been forged and finished by the incredible craftspeople right in Kohler, Wisconsin. I'll tell you, I gained a newfound respect and appreciation for Kohler's cast iron craftsmanship. So now I'm lending my discerning stamp of approval to my most beloved Kohler cast iron products for their durability, beauty and timelessness. Shop my Kohler Cast Iron favorites curated on Kohler.com bring the warmth, character and enduring style of these timeless products into your kitchens and bathrooms. As the Kohler Cast Iron Ambassador, I say, long live cast Iron.
- [186:45]
Commercial Announcer
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway this spring. Sweeten your day one sweet treat at a time. Now through May 26th. Whether you're shopping for gifts for friends and family or just want to pick me up for yourself, get great deals deals on your favorite sweet treats. Shop in store or online and save on items like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Trident Sugar Free Gum, Albanese, Gummy Bears, Kinder Wafer Eggs or Snickers bars. Get these deals before they're gone off friends May 26. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.
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Chad McCoy
What's up baby? It's Bretzky and I'm here to tell you that spinquest.com is giving out free Sweets coins. All you got to do is purchase a $10 coin pack and guess what? They're going to give you the coins from a $30 coin pack that lets you play all your favorite games like Blackjack, Wanted Dead or Wild. And we're talking real cash prizes, baby. Spin Quest.com Spin Quest is a free to play social casino void where prohibited.
- [187:43]
Commercial Announcer
Visit spinquest.com for more details.
- [187:53]
Martha (Kohler Ambassador)
When Kohler, the global design leader in luxurious kitchen and bath products, came to me and said, martha, we need an ambassador for our timeless, elegant, durable cast iron products, I said, I'm in. Now let me see the factory. Weeks later, I was suited up in coveralls and work boots. Walking through their Kohler, Wisconsin cast iron foundry. I stood next to the molten iron furnace, saw the hand applying enamel and touched the gorgeous finished products waiting to be sent out into the world. Since 1883, Kohler cast iron products have been forged and finished by the incredible craftspeople right in Kohler, Wisconsin. I'll tell you, I gained a newfound respect and appreciation for Kohler's cast iron craftsmanship. So now I'm lending my discerning staff of approval to my most beloved Kohler cast iron products for their durability, beauty and timelessness. Shop my Kohler Cast Iron favorites curated on Kohler.com bring the warmth, character and enduring style of these timeless products into your kitchens and bathrooms. As the Kohler Cast Iron Ambassador, I say, long live Cast Iron.
- [189:14]
Commercial Announcer
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway this spring. Sweeten your day one sweet treat at a time. Now through May 26th. Whether you're shopping for gifts for friends and family or just want to pick me up for yourself, get great deals on your favorite sweet treats. Shop in store or online and save on items like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Trident Sugar Free Gum, Albanese, Gummy Bears, Bears, Kinder Wafer Eggs or Snickers bars. Get these deals before they're gone. Offer ends May 26. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.
- [189:45]
SpinQuest Advertiser
Whether it's slots or live dealers, spinquest.com has the fun and action you're looking for with Spin Quest exclusives Blackjack, Roulette, Baccarat and even live dice with craps and bubble craps. The game's never stop so you don't have to, and right now, new users get 30 coin packs for just 10 bucks. Play now@Spinquest.com SpinQuest is a free to
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Chad McCoy
play social casino void where prohibited.
- [190:12]
Commercial Announcer
Visit spinquest.com for more details.
- [190:24]
Martha (Kohler Ambassador)
When Kohler, the global design leader in luxurious kitchen and bath products, came to me and said, martha, we need an ambassador for our timeless, elegant, durable cast iron products. I said, I'm in now. Let me see the factory. Weeks later, I was suited up in coveralls and work boots, walking through their Kohler, Wisconsin cast iron foundry. I stood next to the molten iron furnace, saw the hand applying enamel and touched the gorgeous finished products waiting to be sent out into the world. Since 1883, Kohler cast iron products have been forged and finished by the incredible craftspeople right in Kohler, Wisconsin. I'll tell you, I gained a newfound respect and appreciation for Kohler's cast iron craftsmanship. So now I'm lending my discerning stamp of approval to my most beloved Kohler Cast Iron products for their durability, beauty and timelessness. Shop my Kohler Cast Iron favorites curated on Kohler.com bring the warmth, character and enduring style of these timeless products into your kitchens and bathrooms. As the Kohler Cast Iron Ambassador, I say long live Cast Iron.
- [191:46]
Commercial Announcer
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway this spring. Sweeten your day one sweet treat at a time now through May 26th. Whether you're shopping for gifts for friends and family or just want to pick me up for yourself, get great deals on your favorite sweet treats. Shop in store or online and save on items like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Trident Sugar Free Gum, Albanese, Gummy Bears, Kinder Wafer Eggs or Snickers Bars. Get these deals before they're gone. Offer ends May 26th. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.
- [192:16]
Chad McCoy
What's up baby? It's Bretzky and I'm here to tell you that spinquest.com is giving out free sweeps coins. All you got to do is purchase a ten dollar coin pack and guess what? They're gonna give you the coins from a thirty dollar coin pack that lets you play all your favorite games like Blackjack, Wanted, Dead or Wild. And we're talking real cash prizes, baby. Spin Quest.com Spin Quest is a free to play social casino void where prohibited.
- [192:43]
Commercial Announcer
Visit spinquest.com for more details.
- [192:48]
SpinQuest Advertiser
Whether it's slots or live dealers, spinquest.com has the fun and action you're looking for with Spinquest exclusives blackjack, roulette, Baccarat and even live dice with craps and bubble craps. The games never stop so you don't have to and right now, new new users get $30 coin packs for just 10 bucks. Play now@Spinquest.com SpinQuest is a free to
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Chad McCoy
play social casino void where prohibited.
- [193:15]
Commercial Announcer
Visit spinquest.com for more details.
- [193:18]
Chad McCoy
Having MG can make cooking difficult, but over the years I've found some really helpful tools and tips that I'm excited to share. Hi, I'm Alicia. I think cooking should always be fun, creative and of course delicious. These Black Beans burgers are hearty, full of flavor and MG friendly. You're gonna love them. Check out Alicia's Black Bean Burger Cooking Video and other recipes full of tips and tricks for managing common MG symptoms while cooking only at mg-united.com ready.
- [193:47]
Commercial Announcer
Let's cook. Get fresh foods Fresh savings at your local Safeway and Albertsons this week at
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Chad McCoy
Safeway and Albertsons Signature select boneless skinless chicken breasts.
- [193:57]
Commercial Announcer
Value packs are buy one get one free equal or lesser value Member price and red, yellow or orange bell peppers are $0.97 each. Member price with digital coupon plus medium avocados are $0.79 each. Limit 8 Member Price Fresh and delicious savings for every meal. Hurry in. These deals won't last. Visit safewayoralbertsons.com for more deals and ways to save.