Käy Vriend is a Dutch texture artist, military veteran, and founder of Icebreaker Creative Mentoring, a company that helps people get the advice and guidance needed to break into the games industry. Here we discuss Käy's military career, his work with Meta, his experience and thoughts on remote viewing, and lots more. | https://www.linkedin.com/in/kay-vriend/ | https://x.com/KayVriend | https://inthekeep.com/ | https://www.patreon.com/InTheKeepPodcast | https://www.fearzinemagazine.com/ |

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A lot of things.

You are a texture artist.

Yeah, by trade.

A soldier.

That's how I started.

And a sailor also.

No, I'm not a sailor, though, but I do work at the Navy, so if we roll all the way back to how I kind of got into making textures and materials, I think I was around 13 when Nintendo 64 became a thing.

And I saw it in a store once, Mario 64.

And I was like, what's going on?

It looked 3d, right?

So you had things looking like the actual stuff.

You had a pile of gravel, and you could see the stones and things like that.

So that kind of immediately caught my attention.

So I went out for, like, a summer job in school vacation where we call it pipers, where you basically grab potatoes from the dirt and just put them in boxes.

And that was your job, right.

You get paid by the crate.

And there was tons of crate inflation where people counted more crates than there were.

So the price per crate was going down, so you'd have to work even more.

So there was no smart assing around doing the actual labor.

And then I got my Nintendo 64, and then at some point, Turok came around Goldeneye, perfect dark.

And the games kept looking prettier.

And I was kind of drawn towards the first person perspective because you get really close to everything.

And at some point, as time went on, when I was in college, Halo got released, and my friends were kind of nitpicking on me or picking on me for using the sniper rifle to only zoom in on the grass, zoom in on the rocks, zoom in on the tree bark, look at the God rays, stuff like that.

So I really had that graphics bug installed pretty much.

And then where kind of things really came together right before they started clicking, like, I want to do something with this.

I went to Iraq when I was in the army, and.

We can do, like, a whole tangent on.

Yeah, yeah.

More than happy to.

Like we have the time.

So in Iraq, I was able to visit places that I would normally never would.

Like Uruk or ur.

I'm not sure what the pronunciation is, but these old babylonian ruins where they have this massive kind of like a stepped pyramid with the top chopped off.

Supposedly there was a temple on top.

So I really took in the environment and thought, like, man, how can you convey the experience is right, like, how this looks, how this feels, the sense of space you have when you stand on top of that thing.

You could see the air base.

You could see villages nearby.

You could see some palm trees and stuff.

And so I started taking tons of pictures and this was when there were smartphones with camera capability, but those pictures didn't hold up.

But I had this tiny, like, I think it was JVC or Sony Handycam that you had these tiny dvd's in there or cds.

I'm not sure if I remember.

I think dvd's.

And it could take pictures as well.

So the idea was if I take tons of pictures of how stuff looks here, then I might be able to do in like a mod or some 3d modeling program that I had yet to learn, maybe recreate that sense of scale, right?

So like, hey, here I was, and this is how big it was.

And these are the distances.

So once I left the army and had more time on my hands, first I was unemployed for a bit over three years.

That you were in the service?

Around three and a half years, just a bit under.

And I was stationed in Germany, in Seidorf, which is like this old dutch army base from the Cold War.

And from there we deployed to Iraq.

And at first we were going to go, I think, four months, but it ended up to be closer to six months.

Just under eye, if I remember correctly.

And.

Oh, yeah, so there.

Halo two came out one day before global release.

Like Bungie supported the troops back then and later on they still did.

I have some experience with that, which we can dive in later as well.

So I saw Halo two.

There was this place called the hotspot.

It was basically like chained tents.

So combined tents to make a building that had a video rental place.

Well, you wouldn't actually rent them, you would just sign for them.

And you get these vhs tapes so you could watch Lord of the Rings and stuff like that in your downtime.

And I saw some guys playing halo there and it blew my socks off.

I was like, man, this is going to be so cool when I get back.

Many laund parties ensued, but that coinciding, like, that awe and amazement from seeing video games as well as in this stark contrast of the harsh reality outside of tent city and having that experience of that sense of scale, that sense of significance, but not knowing why it was significant.

You stand on this massive ruin, basically, where all those clay bricks, they all were inscribed.

I have so many pictures of those bricks, brick walls with, I'm not sure if it's sanskrit or some cuneiform writing, I think.

Right, it would be cuneiform most likely in that area, but I tell you.

Yeah, I think you're right.

And it was just this very.

I'd say that entire period gave me so many strong impressions that would kind of shape me in part for the future as well.

So this is around the time that we had basically a housing crisis in America and our economy was in collapse because of mortgage rates and interest rates.

Yeah, yeah.

The bottom line, that would be why the dollar collapsed, if I understand.

Yeah.

All I knew that I am, yeah, turning 41.

But yeah, I do remember the dollar was relatively low compared to euro.

So suddenly your euro was worth more than $1.

And I think they used to have parity a while before that, or close to it.

So it became attractive for me to actually buy a legal version of something.

I, you know, downloaded the correct version to try out for a few months.

The software is no longer supported, but you could probably still download it somewhere.

It's called Genetica.

It was really ahead of its time.

You could do like all procedural, so you could do procedural texturing.

You could make environment maps, like cube maps and stuff for reflections.

You could do animations, like animated normal maps, and you can still see them around nowadays for some games, which is pretty cool.

And then I kind of, like, I tried drawing, but I could only draw Stickman.

Right.

So for some reason, nodes really clicked with me.

Maybe it's because as a kid I played with Legos a lot or with kinects.

You know, those kinects, like those rods and things you can connect to make little magnet.

They're like Lincoln logs with magnets and plastic instead of wood.

Yeah, but there weren't magnets involved, though.

But you could have like kinects.

It's k apostrophe, nexdehenhe.

It's like, so they're like pieces of plastic with like the joints or these sort of wheels with like a socket that.

Plastic.

Different shapes and colors.

Yeah.

So it's like, it's almost like a different version of Lego, but with more.

Yes, somewhat like Lego technique pieces.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so for me, like, building stuff out of individual smaller pieces kind of felt natural.

So nodes kind of clicked early on for me.

And then I kind of rolled into the indie games industry after someone asked me for a texture, like he wanted to use a specific texture.

And I was super eager to kind of get my first experience in the games industry.

So I was like, I'll make all the textures for your game.

Just put me in the credits.

Right?

Super naive, super early on, but super eager to learn and hoping to get that experience, to get that mileage, do the grinding grow, basically.

And, yeah, those were my baby steps.

I can go on up to the present or we can dive into a tangent.

We have lots of time for tangents and everything.

Like, the whole format of this whole.

By the way, this is going to be the very first episode of the new show, which I haven't even named yet.

So by the time someone hears this, it will have a name.

I'm honored.

I've committed to, like, I'm going to record like, ten or twelve episodes and then I'm just going to, like, edit it all and then I feel like the name will just come to me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, you'll say something.

I really do believe in the whole concept of the muse, by the way.

Yeah, same here.

You meant Joe.

I don't know how to.

At some point at 3d realms, the head of marketing.

Yeah, briefly.

Yeah.

So he's greek, but like, he, he literally, like, you know, he was a lieutenant in the greek army for a long time and everything.

They were great friends.

But, like, his whole philosophy on life, every, every greek man's philosophy on life is like, everything is greek.

All of the best ideas ever have come from Greece.

I'm like, sure.

But yeah, the whole concept of the muse, like, oh, yeah, it will just come to you.

If you just stay open minded and you're, like, listening.

You're like, keeping your eyes open, keeping your ears open, ideas that you need will just appear.

I feel like that only comes with age and wisdom, though.

True.

But also the muse likes to watch people shower.

I think because you get the best ideas in the shower, that's fine.

She can sit on the toilet as long as she keeps bringing me the goods.

But, yeah.

So back up a little bit.

Like, we'll get into your.

I really want to do, like, cover the whole military career and everything that stemmed from that because it's like, one of the most important things.

But for now, I want to focus a little bit on, like, the conversation that you and I had the first day we met.

So it's been a while, so you might have to freshen me up.

But it did make, like, that's.

That's kind of how we turn into, you know, brothers from another mother.

Dude, it was like love at first sight.

So, yeah, you, uh, and the guys from Mantis and.

Yeah, true.

Philippe son, Johann, was not with Mantis, but he was with 3d realms.

Yeah, Johann was in town because he was doing mapping or texture art for graven or something like that, yeah, true.

Yeah.

And in the past, I did a bit of work on Phantom Fury and Mantis games.

They were heavily involved with pretty much every game available nowadays.

I think they're doing well.

So I had just, like, just moved to Denmark.

So just to, like, really quickly paint a picture of where I was at in my life, I had just, like, how long?

Oh, in Denmark?

Almost two years.

Yeah.

But when we first met, like, how long were you there?

A couple weeks.

Oh, yeah, because you showed up right after, I think it was gamescom, something around that.

So I had.

I left America.

I went to Switzerland for one week to hang out with my uncle and his husband, who lived there in, at the time, they lived near Zurich.

And then I went from there to Cologne for Gamescom.

I met up with the entire 3d realms crew, like, so Nick Paulsmeyer, crystalline Pyle, of course, Fred Schreiber, Adonis Flokchio.

Like, all those, all the 3d realms people were there.

I met up with them at Gamescom.

I spent the week in Cologne, and then I moved from there to Albor, Denmark.

And I had been there maybe like two weeks because it was right after that that, uh, so we filmed, maybe we filmed realms deep around that time as well.

So it was within a few weeks.

I had just, I would just gotten to Denmark, and then.

So I'm brand new.

I'm working as a producer at the time.

I'm right next to Kim, who was the head of production.

And one day it's just like, oh, we have visitors.

And typically, even after this, I was always like, the guy who, you know, oh, there's visitors.

Tyler will take care of them.

Yeah, he'll take them out to all the best bars and restaurants and shit in town, and then I don't have to worry.

It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it.

I thought it was a great job, but you guys showed up, and then it was like, you know, hey, nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you.

But you and me just hit it off immediately.

I, like, sure, completely fucked off from work that day, so we just went walking, because for anyone that doesn't, why would anybody know this?

But, like, so where the slipgate ironworks slash 3d realms complex was in Denmark, right behind it is this giant park.

And Denmark is, I think, uniquely the.

Land of fantasy or something like that.

It's called.

I forget how it's said in Danish, but in English it translates to the land of imagination.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

So it's like, you know, it has like, all these different little statues.

Every.

Every part.

Bench is a statue.

Everything.

But also, like, a musical instrument.

Yeah.

There was, like, the.

There's a maze with, like, different musical instruments.

And I remember you and I recorded this, like, slow motion video of me, like.

Yeah.

Christmas songs or something on the bell.

Yeah.

Hitting the gun, like, boom, boom, boom.

It was so beautiful.

And.

And there's also, like, the jungle gym that looks like a giant dragon and with slides coming out of school's mouth and everything.

I think we took.

Later on, when you came back to visit, we took your kids there for sure.

Yeah, yeah.

They had a blast.

But it was just such a great day.

It was just like.

It was.

I immediately.

We were kids, pretty much.

We were kids, and we were out exploring and having fun like that.

Like those blissful moments of innocence.

Right.

Even though we're both.

I'm sure if you're.

If you're a veteran, but you.

You have served.

But, like, how many years did you serve in the military?

Like, the army, while I wasn't enlisted.

Conscript?

No, no.

Well, enlisting, is that, like, a voluntary service where you just sign up for a contract?

At least in America, enlisting is voluntary service.

Conscription is, like, you got pulled from the draft, which we don't do since.

Okay.

No, no.

I was enlisted then in the army for 35 years, and now almost for five years in the navy, and I quit as a reservist.

Yeah.

It's like reserve service.

It's, like, part.

It's not your whole life.

Like, your 40 hours time is not the military.

Yeah.

I think they call it weekend warriors.

So I was enlisted full time in the military for six years.

I was in the United States Air force.

Yeah, you did pretty much double the time.

I did full time.

I'll look at it that way, because we'll get into this later.

But it's different.

But I told people what the.

What the weather was going to be like.

It's not the same.

We could have used that, actually.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, so you.

You and I met at this point, and you and I.

And she had to get Johan on maybe all three of us at one point, just to.

That would be awesome.

Yeah, he'd be up for it.

One of the things that we bonded over, because, like, that, he's like, we.

You and I hung out all day at the office and around the office and everything, and then we go out that night, and we, you know, we go to a couple bars in a restaurant or whatever, you know, just hanging out.

You, me, Philip, Johan, what is the other gentleman's name?

From Mantis.

I remember there was something.

Got some s a n.

I'm not sure how to pronounce it.

You would call it san, I guess, maybe like, sand minus the d.

It's.

Like, short for Alexander, I think.

Could be, yeah.

Um, anyway, nice guy.

Everybody was super cool, but.

So you and me and Johan.

So Johan's a cop, and you're a former soldier turned.

What do you call a navy personnel?

Because in America, we say sailor like, you're a sailor.

Yeah.

But you don't sail, so you're not.

No, I don't think we have a specific term for it in the Netherlands, but you could call it sailor.

I wasn't a marine, so sailor would be like the non infantry navy peeps.

Anyway, the first night we're out, you know, we go to a place, and Johan is like, he's the oldest, you know, wise old copy.

So he sits.

He looks like an eighties hero, by the way.

He's like this eighties action hero.

Yeah, he's gorgeous.

Absolutely.

Beautiful man.

And so is his beautiful wife, too.

So he.

He, like, sits down at the table, back to the wall so he can see the entire building.

Yeah.

You are standing next to the table, surveying the entire room.

Like, who's in here?

And I walked the entire bar to find every exit.

And none of us ever discussed this.

Like, none of us even had a conversation about it.

We weren't even, like, there was no, what's the plan?

It was just everyone fell into order, and I felt so at home.

I felt like I had been out by that point.

I'd been out of the military for maybe, like, eight or nine months or something.

I was still getting used to being a civilian again, and especially being surrounded by danish people, like, oh, yeah, the.

Most civil civilians there are, I guess.

Yeah, that's the.

As civilian.

As a civilian could get as a danish civilian.

Right.

Like, and no, no qualms to the danish people or anything like that.

Oh, for sure.

Yeah.

I love them.

They live in maybe the safest, cleanest society that has ever existed that I know of.

And then, you know, but the fact that the three of us just clicked.

So, like, without even communicating, we're all basically just going right back to our duty, like, how we were trained to act in ranking order nonetheless.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's muscle memory, I suppose, and second nature.

But I.

The way I remember it is you told me that, hey, it's interesting that, you know, we're all sitting in this specific arrangement as military people do.

Do.

And I wasn't aware.

I'm not sure if I knew by then that you were in the air force, but now that you said.

I did scan the room.

Johan did scan the room as well.

And you scanned the entire location.

I just want to know where the exit points are.

Where can someone get in and out?

Which is crazy.

Why am I worried about that in Denmark?

But the three of us are all worried about it.

Yeah, well, I'm not sure if worried is the correct word, but aware of it.

But not even consciously aware of it.

Just doing it.

It's super interesting, dude.

It.

It took me until someone.

Okay, the brief story.

I'm pretty sure the statute of limitations is up about this, so I won't get in trouble for it.

But I carry my entire life, I have always carried a knife on me at all times.

Coming from Alabama, that's extremely normal.

Like, it's.

I I know that I learned a.

From my experience in Denmark that it's not, but, like, that's totally, completely acceptable, normal behavior.

And then I was at a, like, a nightclub or whatever with my friend Surin, who also worked with us at Slipgate, and he said something.

I don't know, he was just being funny or whatever, and I was like, I'll kill you, motherfucker.

And I pull.

It was a swiss knife.

It wasn't even, like, a real weapon or anything.

I was like, I'll fucking stick you right now.

And he took it from me, and he's like, you can't have this back until Monday, dude.

You'll get fucking arrested for having.

Wow.

I didn't understand.

It wasn't, like, disrespect.

It was like, I didn't understand that you just couldn't carry a pocket knife.

But it's, like, super, super illegal, and at least according to him.

And in Denmark and in a nightclub, you're not supposed to carry anything that could.

Oh, yeah, nightclub kind of makes sense.

Yeah.

But to me, coming from America, it's like, why would I ever go out without a weapon of some kind to protect myself?

That's a very different worldview.

It's a completely different way of looking at life.

And I learned so much just being around all of those people, but I felt so much more at home with you and Johan because you guys were, you know, you had a background in actually seeing how ugly the world can really be and not just, like, what I considered to be this sort of utopia that is Scandinavia at this point.

There's nothing, again, no criticism, no judgment, nothing wrong with their way of life.

I respect it, but it's like I felt like a bull in a china shop the entire time I was in.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's interesting.

I live in the Netherlands, which is, I guess, relatively comparable to Denmark in terms of culture.

And I.

Your guys are much cooler.

Much cooler.

Better food?

Well, yeah, I eat everything, so it's hard for me to gauge which is better.

But I did experience a bit of culture shock when visiting Denmark.

The people were super friendly, friendlier than what I see around me in the Netherlands.

If I go to a city of similar size, for example, super helpful people eager to do conversation or help you out if you're messing up your danish, stuff like that.

I hardly know any danish, but I can order coffee and stuff like that.

Jacobs podask.

Yeah, I know.

What was the word that you taught your daughter?

Smokey.

Smokey, yeah.

Small cookie, small cake, which means cookie.

It's so annoying linguistically.

The next interview after this one is with a linguist, so we're probably gonna.

Nice a cunning one.

I had to make that joke.

I'm sorry for that.

But, yeah, where were we?

Yeah, culture shock.

Yeah, I think if you've seen, like, third world countries or, you know, been in situations that are very demanding, like, physiologically.

Sorry, like, yeah, physiologically, where you have to exert yourself, but also, like, im mixing those terms up, but basically exerting your mind as well as your body, and then coming back to a place as idyllic as a difference is very stark.

And like how you mentioned that youre still getting used to civilian life.

I only served three and a half years, but pretty intensely, though, as an infantrist.

And then later I was in the artillery.

But it took me, like, way longer than I expected to.

Like, the inverse of demolishing yourself as a civilian and building yourself up as a soldier.

The inverse doesn't happen when you leave the surface.

You're suddenly a soldier in a civilian situation with civilian rules that you might have estranged from, if that's the right way to say it, those things are less familiar to you than military life.

And nowadays, still, sometimes I really have this strong need to do specific things in a specific way because that's the right way to do it.

Where my wife, for example, she's lovely, but she's also stubborn like I am.

And sometimes we can butt heads a bit over how things should be done.

And for her, it's silly, because there's many ways things can be done, and for me, there's the way that it should be done.

And if something is not worth doing well, it's not worth doing it at all.

And that's something that I think I'll carry the rest of my life in one way or another.

And that's, I think, one of the forces that kind of helped me roll towards the navy, I guess, which is kind of impossible, I think if you zoom out, how that happened is beyond coincidence.

So we can start talking about parallels in time and how things are spiraling, not looping back on itself, but also not staying completely parallel.

It's something in between where things seem cyclical.

My father, he was a marine for the largest part of his life.

My parents divorced when I was pretty young, but I always felt this need to join the army or join the military somehow.

It suit me well, but then at some point when I left the army, I wasn't sure what to do.

I couldn't really get my bearings in civil life.

And I thought, maybe I'll just sign up for the marines, be a gunner on a small inflatable boat, something like that.

Go to somalia, shoot some pirates.

Pretty naive back then, thinking good and bad are black and white, no shades of grey.

No idea of what drives people to piracy.

Might be despair, hunger, stuff like that.

In my mind, good, bad, that's it.

When I was in my early twenties, but then I met my girlfriend, who is now my wife and the mother of her children.

And I never showed up for the physical, so I kind of let the nature and the marines hang and joined the games industry.

But then through many, like, I'd say that winding roads, the navy started to look for someone who was ideally former military or active, has an affinity for simulations and active in the games industry and willing to coach people.

And there was a.

I guess only one person liked that in the entirety of the Netherlands at that time, which was me.

So it was kind of inevitable that even though I evaded the navy, it found me.

And it fits like a glove, pretty much.

I've won in the civilian world, won in the military world.

I'm no longer a versatist right now, but I still hang out with the same people.

Um, you know, hear the.

Like, I could talk in this super linear fashion, which suits me well.

Um, so it's.

It's funny how those things happen.

I genuinely, like, we were talking about the muse earlier, but, like, in every aspect of, like, I think it just comes to you.

Like, things just kind of happen and occur and it's up to you how you react to it, of course, but.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But in part I do think like your intent is kind of like this vector.

The stronger your intent, the stronger the fleshlight you're shining forward.

Kind of that lets you illuminate these things and navigate towards them.

I want to correct on his accent.

He said flash flashlight, not flash.

Unless sponsorships involved for this podcast, of course.

Then go for it.

I'm trying, I'm going to try to avoid, I mean, I'm not trying to throw away money, but like I really just don't see myself reading like a fleshlight or bluetooth.

I could be convinced, I guess, with enough money.

But I guess what I'm trying to say is that I want to advertise things that I actually use.

Oh yeah.

But also if you could hype up or advertise or be sponsored by things that actually promote people connecting.

I don't know, the fleshlights connect people or do they make people more isolated?

Maybe.

Now you make me think of like a double ended one, which it's kind of silly.

Like this is, this is a new tangent, but.

Let'S move on from that.

Yeah, yeah.

Anyway, so the navy, the army, you served an entire tour in Iraq.

Yeah.

This is what, a six month tour?

Something like that.

Oh, we were supposed, like, I got the choice way back when, like either go to Bosnia for half a year for more like a civilian police kind of function.

But I didn't see myself doing that since I, you know, I wasn't used working with civilians.

I was an infantryman.

Right.

So I opted for Iraq, which would have pretty much the same pay but a shorter duration.

But it turned out to be that.

You were in Iraq?

From the top of my head.

2005.

Okay, so this is after the invasions of Fallujah and.

Yeah, yeah, point.

Like the entire bath party shortly, shortly after, yeah, yeah.

Taken down just, just this morning I was listening to, oh, what was his name?

Do you ever listen to Sean Ryan's podcast?

I highly recommend it if you don't.

But he just released an episode with a gentleman named I.

Goodness, what was his name?

Joe Kent.

Joe Kent, who was in the army as a special operator, I believe if I remember correctly, this was Green Berets and then went into the CIA as an operator while his wife was also a linguist.

So they had both actually studied at the Defense Language Institute, which is where I learned how to speak Arabic with the air force.

And so it was really interesting.

Like the invasion.

Yeah.

As soon as, you know, 911 happened and then it was a couple of years and then America just was like, fully occupied Iraq for quite.

I'm going to check the date real quick.

SF irrede.

So you went to, like, you mentioned Babylon earlier, like Baghdad, or did you.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Around the country?

Or were you just.

Yeah, we went.

We went to Baghdad once.

Pretty tense, even though, like, technically it was, I think, the most of easy going place at the time, like the smaller villages.

You wouldn't want to be there ideally, but back then, while we were there, there wasn't a lot of suspicious activity or something like that.

But in an environment as crowded as that and as busy and as vertical as it was, it really demanded a lot of your attention just to be there and be aware of potential threats, stuff like that.

Whenever we could go around the city, we would pretty much.

But yeah, we toured around, went to the.

I think it was south where everything was a lot more lush.

More palm trees, some rivers, stuff like that.

The way we entered was actually pretty interesting.

or something like that.

And the doors of the plane open.

You walk down the stairs and I thought, phew, the downwash of the jet engines is pretty hot.

Like, not downwash, but the exhaust window or whatever it's called.

And then I walked another 40, 50 meters.

And I'm thinking, oh, shit, it is this hot.

It was like 40 something in the middle of the night.

And then slowly seeing the sun creep up, blinding you.

Like things like, it's interesting because you're already more tense, more on edge because it's an unfamiliar environment and you know where you're going, there's probably going to be some tense situations.

So you're on edge, but the sun's brighter, the sky's darker at night.

Everything seems more intense for some reason, the smells.

But probably also because it was like this pivotal period in my life where I went from one mental image of the world into another one which is different, but contains both.

Pretty much something about going from, I'm coming from America.

But I will also say when people picture America in their minds, they typically picture New York City, Los Angeles, the movies, tv, like these Kardashians, Miami.

Right?

I did not from that part of America.

Oh, yeah.

People forget how fucking huge America.

It's fast.

Like, before last year, I never went to to the States.

Last year I went.

I had the pleasure to go to Orlando for AJ sec.

Like this big navy simulation.

Sorry, not navy.

Military and defense simulations.

Symposium in expo.

Super interesting.

Met a lot of cool people, but also just experiencing America firsthand is so different from the preconceived notions we have over here.

Like, all people are fed and food is cheap, but food is bad, blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, those are facets you see in modern society.

And America is no stranger to that as well.

The food, some of it is questionable compared to european standards.

I'm not sure why that is.

But, like the space, the space, like you can drive for hours and still be pretty much in the same city or same municipality, wherever it's called, and like state.

Six lane roads.

Yeah, like America is bigger than Europe, but Europe, it's all different countries with different languages, vastly different cultures.

Like two, 3 hours away and there.

And it's so different.

But the vibe overall that I got was people are actually pretty much, as far as I experienced them, friendly, happy to engage in small talk.

Dutch people kind of fall in the pitfall of when someone asks them, hey, hey, how are you?

We tell them how we are instead of say, hey, how are you?

As well.

So that's this cultural difference.

So that's something that was really big for me in scandinavian culture, was it's actually rude to ask someone, how are you?

So like, oh, really?

In, in the American Southeast.

So like basically from like Texas all the way to Florida and then south of like Illinois, basically everything is kind of based on this whole culture of like extreme hospitality.

Like everyone is super friendly.

Like, you can't drive past someone on the street without waving to them.

It's rude not to be like, even if it's just like sticking your fingers up off the steering wheel just to acknowledge the other person, you see.

How are you?

Like, so for instance, I was really used to living in all bore.

And I go to the grocery store and it's like, you know, you just, you're just in and out.

Like, the cashier is not going to, they're going to ask you basically like, hey, good day, this is the price.

Would you like a bag?

Yeah, that's it.

Whole fucking conversation.

And then I was at a gas station.

It was like right after I had gotten back to America in Citronella, Alabama, which is where most of my family is from.

And I, I was walking up to the counter, I think I was buying like a twelve pack of beer or something, I don't remember what it was.

And the girl at the counter was like, oh, how are you?

And I was like, shocked.

I was like, yeah, welcome back.

I didn't know how to respond, and then I thought about it.

I was like, no, this is what I've been craving the whole time.

Like, people genuinely.

One of the things that I argued with a lot with danish people, because I would do that, I'd be like, how are you?

You know, I check in on people, I'd be like, are you okay?

Do you need anything?

And they're like, dude, just kind of like, fuck off.

Like, give me my space.

And that's fine.

That's their culture.

But I really missed that so much because they would be like, the stereotype is that Americans say, howdy, how you doing?

How are you?

And as you said earlier, the response is, how are you?

Not tell you how I am.

And.

But the thing is that the option is on the table.

Like, if you were to be like, dude, it's been fucking terrible.

I've had a horrible day.

You know, I got in a fight with my girlfriend or whatever, like, my kids acting up, anything like that.

And some.

An American from, like, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana will sit there and listen to you.

They'll hold up.

It's like a same team kind of vibe.

Yeah.

Like, the.

The line can wait.

It's like, are you okay?

And they really mean it.

And I was trying to explain that to, like, danish culture, but I'm trying to tell them, like, no, I actually give a fuck.

They're pretty cold.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, the dis.

Like, interpersonal distance, like, the social distancing.

And I'm not talking about my beer here, Corona.

But, like, in Denmark, I think people are confiscating, like, 5 meters away from each other.

And in Finland, it's like 15 or something, I read.

Not sure if that's true.

During COVID there was a whole thing in Denmark where it was like, after they got rid of the 10 meters rule of separation on buses and trains.

Shoulder on shoulder again, then they were.

Like, great, now we can go back to 20 meters.

Oh, really?

They had to get closer.

Yeah, yeah.

Like.

Like, I think especially northern european countries are more reserved where they're.

And, you know, moments like that are more reserved for people that are in their circle, so to speak.

And I found it hard to gauge, but that might be my own cultural background, to gauge if someone was, like, being a good host or showing hospitality, like, in a restaurant or something like that, as opposed to being genuinely interested.

Oh, man.

I remember when you, me, and Johan and Philippa and I zan, we all went to the Visa cafe, which is in downtown Auburn, right next to the train station.

It's a great restaurant.

One of the best restaurants in town.

Was it the irish pub or.

No, no, no.

It's.

It's close, but you're.

I'm thinking, like, literally where the train station is in all board.

It's.

Right.

Yeah.

The Kennedy arcade is what it's called.

So this is.

I had just kind of really gotten there, and, like, was learning about how restaurant culture works and all that stuff.

And it's so different from the United States because there's.

There's no tipping culture.

Every waiter is paid a living wage right out the gate, and so the service is completely different.

It's not like that.

It's bad, but it's.

In America, we're like, I expect you to go out of your way to be a great server, and I am going to reward you with a tip.

That's not the case at all in most of Europe.

Just.

Just that cultural difference was a big shock for me.

Like, just learning that, like, dude, this might be.

They don't care about me, but then you come back to the States, and it's like, you really actually.

You don't have to care about me at all.

You just want my money, and.

I don't know.

Yeah, it's like this double edged sword.

Yeah, that's interesting.

Yeah, I had a blast in Orlando visiting the bass pro and trying experience a slice of the american life.

Oh, nice.

Fast.

Yeah.

Most awesome store I've ever been in, I think.

Who the hell needs, like, 50 different kinds of duck whistles?

I'm not sure how many ducks there were, but I think at least one of the species have, like, two whistles, just in case.

That's crazy.

But, yeah, it was like, as someone only used to, like, tiny stores, this was amazing.

But also, like, the food was really good at, like, have you ever been to outback steakhouse?

Like, my colleagues listening to this, they were the australian.

I'm doing quotes here.

Australian steakhouse of America.

Yeah.

Shrimp on the Barbie, mate.

G'day.

They had this thing, like, blooming onion, and you've probably heard of it or maybe ever had it.

Delicious.

Delicious.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

And, uh, was it, like, ranch.

Ranch sauce or something like that, or.

I think it was, like, my 13th birthday or something like that.

But my parents took me out to see whatever the latest Harry Potter movie was, and to outback Steakhouse.

That was, like, my favorite restaurant, you know, like, chain restaurant when I was a kid, so.

Yeah.

Bloomin onion.

Oh, my God.

Oh, yeah, sure.

But also, like, I really.

Mustard sauce that they give you with it, like that.

Really spicy.

I thought that was like, ranch or something like that, but it was really not ranch.

I usually.

It's a.

No, it's like, it's not quite ranch.

Ranches, I've noticed a bit more yogurt y.

It's basically ranch dressing is buttermilk, mayonnaise, and what we call ranch seasoning, which is like, peppers and, you know, whatever.

And so in Europe, there are all these interpretations of ranch.

Interesting.

Which are interesting.

You and I, last time you were in Denmark, we went to that burger restaurant downtown.

Yeah.

And they were like, oh, we have ranch dressing.

And I was like, yeah, not really.

I was like, bring it out, bring it out, bring it out.

I want to.

And I.

And I told the waitress of, like, she.

Because she was like, really?

Like, oh, it's really good.

I'm like, I bet it's really great.

And I tried it.

What is it?

Like, this is very good.

Like, for french fries, whatever.

This is good.

But this doesn't taste anything like Hidden Valley ranch.

Like, what my.

Like, my younger brother, Dallas, like, won't eat anything without that on it.

It's like his, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

But it's tricky.

Like, some things you just can't replicate in the Netherlands or in Europe just because of food regulations.

Like, I got some.

Some candy from there.

Like jelly ranchers, though, those hard.

Yeah, whatever they call, like, hard candies.

And then a bunch of jelly beans.

But they didn't survive the plane ride back.

I'm a sucker for jelly beans.

I think that also started in Iraq, by the way, at the US compound, there was this.

I'm not sure what the restaurant was called, but, like, one day a week they had crab legs, and you have to break them apart pretty much with your multi tool.

Like, I was used to having a pocket knife as well as a kid, too, if only for building tree houses and stuff like that.

So I'm also used to having a multi tool on me pretty much all the time.

But, yeah, you would use that and crack open those crab legs.

And then there was this, like, the cachier or whatever it's called where you.

Where you go and pay normally, but you would just have to, you know, sign your name or something like that in your country, and then they would probably bill the government back home and enfranch.

It's cashier.

Wait, in American English, it's cashier, cashier, cashier.

But it's spelled exactly the same.

It's.

Yeah, just one of those english things.

Cashmere.

Fuzzy.

But, yeah.

But I would just stuff my pockets with jelly beans, and the person at the cashier would just look at me like, what are you doing?

But they had so much, like, boxes and boxes and boxes.

So I didn't just, you know, I didn't care.

But so many weird things there as well.

I'm not sure if I ever told you.

Like, the first week, we.

I was at the Talleel air base, and we heard rumors that there was a Burger king, and someone found it, and it was like, this massive truck where the side pop side popped open, and there was this actual burger king.

Right.

With friars and people in Burger King attire and, you know, making meals and stuff like that.

Probably by Halliburton.

Could be.

Yeah, yeah, I heard.

Like, United States is the only.

Only military power that can deploy a Burger King anywhere in the world in, like, 8 hours or something like that.

It's 100% true.

Every single American.

Unless there's one that I'm not aware of.

Right.

Every american air force base, there's, like, a guaranteed list of restaurants.

There will be a Burger King is always one of them.

Usually subway, charlie's, Philly cheesesteaks.

I don't know why.

It's not even, like, a national brand, but it's just one of those things that, like, it's always where they're with the military, you know?

Like, there's just, like, certain things.

Like, even a few months ago, I went to go visit faith when she was in Ramstein, and, yeah, I went there as well.

Right?

I'd never been there.

I thought my entire career in the military.

Like, I can't believe I've never been to Ramstown air base.

Like, and then I go there as a civilian to meet my girlfriend, and she's like, you know, I really want Alfredo.

And I'm just, like, browsing through, like, the hotels because it's the, you know, the hotel is in the base exchange, or PX, as they would call it in the army.

I'm not sure what you guys call it.

So we're there.

We're staying in the hotel.

She's like, I really want Alfredo.

And there's like, I'm like, oh, there's a fucking Romano's macaroni grill, like, 30 fucking seconds from here.

Like, we could just walk downstairs, and they have that.

And she's like, oh, that makes sense, because there's always one.

Like, exactly.

Yeah, yeah, but that's.

That is.

You're right.

If there's a Burger King somewhere, America will put it a Burger king where it needs to be.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

So I.

I was standing there, and the guy at the cashier.

Cashier in the Burger King trailer asked me, like, what do you want?

And I just was still baffled.

So I said I wasn't that hungry, so I ordered a children's meal.

So that guy started flipping out at me, oh, what are you doing?

You're in the middle of Iraq.

You can't order a children's meal.

Do you see any children here?

And I'm like, this is a Burger king.

What's more strange, it's called a mighty kid's meal.

You need a mighty kid's meal.

Mighty kids meal.

Happy.

A happy meal, right.

Is a McDonald's thing.

That's the kids version for McDonald's.

And then when I was a kid, it was a mighty kids meal at Burger King, which made me feel much stronger.

Yeah, for sure.

Spinach in there.

But, um.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, super funny cultural.

Uh, well, I'm not sure if it's cultural shock or just me being an idiot.

Probably a bit both.

Maybe more of the latter.

Um, so we.

We shaved our heads right when we got there.

Well, not shaved, but, you know.

You know.

Buzz cut.

Yeah, buzz cut.

And at some point, we were invited to go bingo with the Americans, and nobody wanted to go until they said, we have an ice cream machine.

So all of us immediately signed up.

But I didn't have any civilian clothes.

Like, in the middle of the desert, the hottest we measured was, like, 58 degrees centigrade.

I'm not sure what that is in eagles per mile.

Eagles.

What the.

Freedom.

America.

50 c to fahrenheit is 58.

158 celsius.

Yeah, yeah.

Holy.

That was in the sun, though.

But that's pretty warm, though.

Hold on.

Yeah, but, like, zero humidity for our american audience.

Yeah.

It's 136 degrees.

That's really hot.

I live.

I mean, I'm.

Right now I'm in Tucson, and it's like, 115 usually, but it's dry.

It's the desert.

Yeah, yeah.

Whereas Basra or Kuwait, that area.

That's.

That's the mediterranean, bro, that.

You might as well be in Alabama.

Yeah, we were.

We were more in the desert, though, at Talleel air base, so humidity was low in general.

Yeah, Talil is.

Hold on, I'm gonna look this up.

Keep talking.

But Asamawa.

So, yeah, so I needed to get some civilian clothes, so I got this cool.

Operation iraqi freedom basketball trunks and shirt.

Got some, actually, some Kanye west cds they had there as well.

Like, college dropout or something like that.

Imam.

Imam air base.

Imam Ali.

Tali.

Yeah.

They renamed it, but I think it's the same thing.

It's.

Yeah.

So this is like, you know, up from Basra.

It's like northwest of Basra for anyone who cares to look up.

So the Persian Gulf is between Iraq, Kuwait, and Iran.

And then you have.

You go, I think it's Asamawa or something like that.

Northwest Imam Ali Air base, formerly known, as you said, is Talil.

Talil air base.

Yeah, yeah.

Is northwest of Kuwait in the Persian Gulf.

I'm just trying to put it into perspective.

Yeah.

For anyone that's listening.

Thanks.

And so my.

My hair started growing back, and I thought, you know, might as well, if we're going in sway, clothes, you know, I want to feel like civilian as well a bit.

So I went to the PX while I was there, got some clothes, got some cds, and I went to the hair products aisle.

They have this aisle for hair products.

And I saw this jar with a grinning dude on top.

I thought, I need this.

This is good stuff.

So I went to the cachet, who was looking at me like, you're an idiot, and I'm paying with my dollars and getting back those plastic.

We call them flippos in the Netherlands, but these plastic pseudo coins where you can only exchange them.

Back at the PX, I went to our shower cabin, opened the.

Opened the jar, put my hands in.

Just didn't even look.

Just rubbed it over my head.

My entire head was black.

Turns out it was for African Americans who are graying.

You know, if their hair turns gray, they can use that hair product.

Smells nice.

You don't look as gray, but, you know, on me, with my blonde hair, it looks super ridiculous.

Like I was putting shoe polish on my head.

So luckily, I could borrow some other hair products from a colleague of mine.

And then we went to the bingo.

I won a huge painting of a donkey, which probably is still there, and got some ice cream.

But then on another day, I ran out of toothpaste.

So I went back to the pX.

When I walked in, I saw the same cashier, which is, like a recurring word for this evening, it seems.

But I went to the toothpaste aisle or dental products or whatever.

I saw something called kuki dent.

I thought, okay, nice toothpaste.

Got it.

So I went to the cashier.

She was looking at me like, you're an idiot.

She's not saying it out loud, but she was looking more intensely.

So I went back to the shower.

Cabin again.

Put that stuff on my toothbrush, put it in my mouth, and it stuck.

Apparently that stuff was for dentures, right?

If you have dentures, you put that stuff on there so you can, you know, bite an apple, stuff like that.

Your dentures remain in place.

I had a very similar experience in Denmark because I was trying to buy detergent, like a washer detergent for my clothes and all that.

They.

What I actually bought was just, like, fabric softener, but I just recognized the word.

Smells nice, though.

Laundry.

I just, like, I knew that word, and I was like, that's what I want.

I need this.

Yeah.

But what I was upset about is, like, no one stopped me.

No one was like, hey, I'm pretty sure, like, I even told, like, I walked into the fucking netto across the street from my apartment.

I told the girl, I'm probably about to make three or four trips.

Like, I just moved here.

I need a, you know, mops, groceries, all that kind of shit.

I need everything that you need to run a household.

So I'm going to make several trips back across the street.

At no point did anyone say you probably need detergent.

Nothing.

Fabric.

Yeah.

You know, so I understand what you mean.

Like, just.

Why didn't you just say so?

Like, it would kind of makes you feel silly, right?

Well, it doesn't.

It doesn't make me feel silly because, like, I wouldn't know better.

It more.

It makes me feel disappointed in people's.

I won't say inability, but, like, just.

They're on lack of engagement to just be helpful.

Like, they're.

It's like you're so afraid to hurt someone's feelings by making them feel wrong that you would rather them just fuck up and then come back.

And I'm like, just.

Just tell me.

I see what you mean.

I don't think, though, that it's.

That's how you would see it through your cultural lens.

But I think they were not aware that they were being of disservice.

Right?

No.

And it's okay.

It's not gonna hold as a resentment.

It's more like.

I'm just saying.

Nobody told you that it was glue you're about to put on your fucking teeth.

Yeah.

So bizarre.

Such a weird experience.

But it's so interesting.

Like, the idea that you can buy a tv and an xbox while you're deployed to a war zone.

Pretty much.

And it was relatively calm when we were there.

And we had.

I would say that since we were Dutch and being recognized as non us american military, the locals were a bit less, I would say that antagonistic.

So we did occasionally get stones thrown or shots fired or stuff like that, but not as much as the Americans would.

We drove different vehicles.

We had a different flag.

So their beef mainly was with the Americans.

And you were also there.

Yeah, yeah.

It's a really, like, looking back, I'm glad I went there for my world experience, and I was able to luckily do more net good than bad.

I think, like, whenever we came back from patrols or whatever and we had water lapse, we would just slow down, roll it towards the side of the road where the kids were or civilians were.

They knew we were coming.

They know we would probably have supplies left, and we would just share it.

And that was also, of course, to kind of maintain, like, a friendly attitude with them.

So they knew that if they were going to mess with us, we would not be as generous.

And we knew, like, if we share what we can, they'll probably will not be, you know, causing trouble, basically.

So that's.

That's something that navies have, that armies don't have, is this extreme formality around flying the flag on the ship.

And so, like, even if you watch Star Trek, which I'm, you know, I'm a huge fan of.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

I just finished the next generation in its entirety again, and I'm doing deep space now.

Best shows ever.

I love all of Star Trek, but, like, the next generation is the best thing ever.

But my point is, it's all based on, like, so Gene Roddenberry, who founded Star Trek, was in the air Force, but the entire idea of how Star Trek works is based on naval practice.

Yeah.

It's super popular among the Navy.

Yeah.

And so you.

There's even a us warship called the Enterprise.

Yeah, yeah.

Which was.

Which was first, though, like, the Enterprise from Star Trek, or the.

As far as I understand it, the Navy ship, the Enterprise was named after the USS Enterprise in Star Trek.

That's pretty cool.

What?

Not to get on too long of a tangent about it, but, like, the point.

The point I'm trying to make is this idea of, like, there being a really universally agreed upon diplomacy based on how you interact with another ship.

So, like, yeah, your ship and my ship meet in the middle of the ocean or space or whatever, and your captain can come on my boat with a 100% guarantee that we're not going to fucking axe that dude, because that would mean.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But we're going to have a diplomatic talk, and that's.

A lot of that is based on, like, what flag are you flying?

How do you communicate?

Et cetera.

And on land in an army situation, I can't imagine that.

I've never experienced that myself.

But it's like, you know, you say we're driving different vehicles, we have a different flag, they have different expectations of us based on the dutch flag versus the american flag.

Yeah.

And how we.

And how we were able to present ourselves.

Like, whenever we were able to, we would go without helmets on because it would show that, you know, we didn't see them as much of a risk, but also that we were, I would say, confident that they would not cause us trouble.

So you kind of get that status quo where you can.

Letting you guard on is the wrong term, but you can.

How to say that there's this spiral of violence, right?

So you want to be at the bottom, ideally, so there's no need to escalate.

And when things do escalate, you know, you want to, you know, escalate beyond what they would escalate to just to diminish their morale, for example.

But by showing that we were like we were there, we were doing our jobs, we were not interfering with them, they would not interfere with us.

Whenever we could maintain ourselves that way, things were fine.

You still get some bullshit every now and then.

You're not there for no reason, after all.

But all in all, we had a relatively peaceful period.

My main job there was mainly driver and radio guy, but we would alternate with the gunner as well.

Sometimes you would have like an 84 rpg launcher, stuff like that.

So you would rotate to keep things fresh, but sometimes you would just have super boring guard duty as well.

Like 12 hours on, 12 hours off, sitting in an airstrip with nothing landing or leaving in the middle of the night.

It's pretty cool, actually.

You could see tons of shooting stars.

One time I had these mvgs, like, night vision goggles, and I looked up and there's pretty much more stars than darkness out there, which was mind blowing.

So nowadays you have color vision, way more clarity, stuff like that.

It'll be really cool to look again with something newer.

So if at any point you get uncomfortable and you don't want to talk, we can edit out.

It's all good.

But you were injured in Iraq, no?

Yeah, I got a sunburn, but then I hardly can't.

But no, I wasn't injured.

Where did you get hurt?

I mean, like in the army?

You told me at one point, and I.

Forgive me if I have the story wrong, but that you were blown up?

No, no, no.

That was luckily not me.

Like, we were driving at Albata, which is like this.

We call it Bovidorp, like a village of bad guys, basically insurgents, people looking to cause trouble.

And when we were driving there, we did.

There were shots fired, there were rocks thrown, but we managed to just plow through.

I'm not sure if we popped smoke, but we just drove on past fast.

But a couple hours later, there was this dutch military police guy, Jeroen Savers.

Not sure what his rank would be in comparison to give his e level.

Or his o level.

NCO, non commissioned officer.

So he's e five or above, basically.

I'm not sure what I'm not.

So every military within NATO that I understand of, there's e one through e nine.

So there could be.

In the air force, it would be like airmen.

Basic airmen.

Airmen first class, senior airman, staff sergeant, which is e five.

Yeah.

I think he would be equivalent to e five, but I might be.

Might be off.

He's definitely five or above.

He's an NCO.

He's somewhere between corporal and, like, chief master sergeant.

Yeah.

And so they ran into an ambush where some.

Someone fired an rpg into the g wagon, and he didn't make it.

And there was just hours difference from us being there and that.

I never met him in person.

I still remember his name.

It made a bit of impact.

And in one way, you're happy that your squad didn't get hurt, but you're also super sad because not only did someone lose their lives, but also this sets the tone for the rest of the mission because it's hard to de escalate from there.

So that was.

Yeah, that was very bad.

Why is it that you were afraid to walk on grass then?

Yeah.

So there was.

There were some.

Some paths carved by walking on the base, and not everything was concrete, but some of those paths they found unexploded ordinance.

Like, this was a former air force base of Saddam Hussein's air force, if I'm correct, and two Gulf wars, plus Operation iraqi freedom, and not sure what the other one's called.

So there was a shitload of du everywhere.

A lot of gravel with asbestos.

It was a hostile environment, but, you know, I was really drilled and I did a couple of ammunition awareness courses as well.

You know, how to recognize ids, but also poking for mines if you have to exfiltrate from a minefield or whatever.

Like, you don't walk on grass.

Like, you never know what's what's under there.

Yeah.

And something I always remember about you is, like, when we first met you.

Like, we were walking through the park, and you're like, I don't want to.

I don't want to.

Yeah.

Weird, isn't it?

Like, it's.

It's.

It's like, almost like this reflex.

Or if you burn yourself on a stove, you'll never touch it again without knowing if it's hot or not.

And I didn't walk on id, luckily, but that awareness of it makes me uncomfortable.

I guess I'm pretty risk adverse to a degree.

There's acceptable risks with acceptable outcomes, and there's unacceptable ones.

Whichever risk you can accept because the outcome is favorable or the risk itself is low, that's your own balance.

But I guess mine is nitpicky when it comes to walking on grass.

Now we have this big grass field in the backyard, and I'm lying on there, so I got over it.

I guess I feel like it's something that doesn't get talked about enough publicly, but trauma through.

Not necessarily personal experience from witness experience.

Yeah, but also secondhand experience, like you said, not necessarily witnessed, but I know people lost legs because they went off the path.

And in missionaria, you don't go off the path unless you have to, unless there's a valid reason to.

And one other thing that, like, right when I got back from Iraq, I think I got back in, like, November that year, right after my birthday, and we went to this discotheque with friends, and they had this, like, a party popper on the ceiling.

It pops and then glitter comes out.

And there was this stage where, you know, there was.

There were these dancers, and, you know, everything a young man wants.

So the thing when, you know, it popped, and immediately I dropped to the ground, and my friends were like, hey, what's going on?

And I was like, yeah, my shoelace became untied.

But that was the first time I had that visceral reaction where something happens and immediately you take action and thinking comes later.

Right.

So to this day, still, I don't really like fireworks.

At least I don't like them if they are unannounced.

If there's a fireworks show, I'd love to see it.

All those cool sparks and whatever, but if someone throws a firecracker somewhere near me, I'm super triggered.

And it took me years to get rid of it, but whenever I would leave the house, I would have that mental checklist popped up.

Like a helmet, rifle, flak vest, gas mask.

You couldn't help it.

You just go.

So every time you go out the door, you have this.

This half a second of hesitation, even.

Just something as simple as, like, as soon as I walk out the door, my hat goes on.

As soon as I walk in the door, my hat goes off just like that.

But when it becomes more of things, it's become.

It's part of your routine.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But there's strengths in there as well.

Like, the last thing I would do in preparation for whatever was polish my shoes.

So the act of polishing my shoes boosts my confidence in whatever I'm about to do, because that is the very last thing that I can do to prepare, which means I'm prepared as much as I can be.

So whenever I was pitching for a game that I was making, like, a couple of years ago, my shoes were polished, so nothing could happen.

I had my story straight.

I was confident.

So things like that tend to go very well because you bring that energy.

But one thing that I also had to kind of unlearn was whenever there was a moment of rest, I would just fall asleep pretty much immediately.

And when I just got together with my girlfriend, now my wife, we were going to do some big groceries by car.

I think it's probably, like, 400 meters from where we lived at the time.

So a 32nd drive, we needed the car because we can stuff it full of the groceries.

And I would sit in the car and just go stand by.

I would sleep, and then whenever the car stopped, I was just awake again.

And she said at some point that she thought I was, like, narcoleptic or something.

But no.

You know, if you.

If you have downtime, you sleep because you never know when you're going to be able to catch up on rest.

Right.

It's very interesting.

I cannot relate at all.

Like, I just don't sleep, so it's a.

It's not a good thing, and it's something that I've had to work on with, like, the VA and stuff, you know, whatever.

Oh, yeah.

To get over it.

But I just don't sleep because you.

Feel like you have to stay alert all the time.

Always.

All the time.

I'm being dishonest with you as I can.

Like, I.

Yeah.

Ever feel comfortable just letting my guard down?

It's like, do you think it never happens?

Do you think that might be, like, a comfort zone thing?

Because, you know, you move around a lot, you did so many different things that you never kind of got accustomed and kind of felt your comfort zone increase to the point where you are able to relax.

Like, oh, I know this.

This is.

This is good.

I think I can close my eyes.

I think where I'm at in life right now is, like, the beginning of the healing from that.

That's great to hear.

I went, it's a good place to be in.

Not even just military related.

I mean, like, most of my life.

Yeah.

I didn't even feel comfortable sleeping in a bed with, like, with my clothes off.

Like, so, you know, people will be like, okay, it's time for bed.

And they put on their jammies and they go to bed and all that kind of.

I've never done that ever in my life.

Never.

Like, I always would be, like, fully dressed.

Even when I was in the military, I would typically sleep on the couch in my uniform so that when I woke up, I was ready to go.

And I know that's, like, really fucked up.

And, like, even my friends in the military, like, what are you doing?

But, like, I.

That's how my brain was programmed, so I was.

I was never.

And I'm still not able to just be like, I am relaxed.

It is time for you.

Yeah.

Like, so the idea of being like, switch.

I can't just be on a plane or like, oh, there's downtime now I'm gonna nod off.

I just don't sleep.

Like, total insomnia.

Yeah.

How'd you say that?

At some point it will wear off, but unrelated to sleep.

But what really gave me peace of mind was when I was working with meta, first camouflage, and then they got purchased by meta.

They.

I had a blast there, by the way.

Really great people.

And also one of the reasons I think that the best producers probably are american, just because they genuinely care about people.

Like the producer I met, I was such a champion, but I had the opportunity to talk to a coach there, and she was more of a, I'd say, therapist than a coach, even though they were coaching sessions.

But it really.

Vini at Slipgate Ironworks was like that.

Oh, nice.

Yeah, she was literally like a.

She was literally a psychologist that they hired as HR.

And I was like, perfect.

We need a child psychologist nonetheless.

I'm like, for a video game company?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

Yeah, yeah.

It's such a bizarre slice of society.

Basically a video game.

Imagine a video game studio with video game peeps embedded in the navy.

The cultural differences are sometimes really stark, but it's really cool to see how those very different kinds of people can also really enrich each other.

It's like Yin Yang kind of.

But those coaching sessions really helped me reflect back on why I was doing certain things the way I did and where did that stem from and what happened before, what led up to it and kind of zoom out and rethink and break some patterns.

Like, hey, I am doing that.

And is it conductive?

No, it isn't.

So why am I doing it?

And I was, I guess, for years, too proud to accept help, right.

Especially for things like mental issues or things like that.

Because, you know, I was a veteran, I was a tough guy.

I was whatever.

All these basically excuses to kind of enforce this image ahead of myself, which was at best incomplete and at its most realistic, like, inaccurate.

I definitely still personally struggle with that.

Like, it's very difficult for me to just trust someone with my emotions.

For sure.

Yeah, I got used to you don't do that.

You don't show someone.

I'm going to use quotation marks, weaknesses, the thing.

Like, you don't give anyone ever, any reason to, that they could exploit your emotional side of you.

And that's not.

And it's.

It's not fair to judge anyone forward, but it's like when you're saying what you're saying, dude, I hear you 100%, and I still struggle with it.

Even today.

Yeah.

And it's also kind of unfair towards yourself, from yourself.

Right.

Because how I kind of see things after all those coaching sessions is like those knee jerk things, gut reactions, negative, like images or thoughts or speak to yourself in a negative way.

It seems to me that those are tools that your subconscious is handing you.

But those tools were kind of created or trained when you were a kid.

And your subconsciousness.

I kind of see my subconscious as that little kid that is trying to help.

I'm trying to do what's best for me, but I have these outdated tools that are no longer useful, but I still keep slapping them around my ears because that's what I have.

So if you kind of managed to reformulate those thoughts, reformulate those things in, like, hey, I appreciate this is coming from a good place, but the way that it's being given to me is not the best way.

Right.

I need to think different about this.

So, one extreme example, which is not my thought, it's an anecdote.

I heard if someone hands you their baby, you feel like this is the most breakable thing in the world.

And mentally you see yourself dropping it or whatever, juggling it.

You have that image of, oh, shit.

But it's not something that is meant to be actionable.

It's like, hey, you need to be aware that this is super precious and you need to be careful.

So by having those thoughts, by having those images, you're aware that you need to focus on the well being of this baby that someone allows you to hold.

This is just one example that came to mind.

Um, I found that it was, if it's someone's baby, that's easy.

I quickly switch into child care mode very, um.

If it's.

If it's you, you know, if it's someone else who's talking to me about their.

Like, their post traumatic stress or, like, what they went through or anything at all, it's so easy for me to say to you or to them, get help.

It's so easy.

Like, do all the things.

Yeah, yeah.

But it's also the manly thing.

Like, you are.

You are solution oriented.

Supposed to be tough.

I'm supposed to be the, you know, the guy who knows how to deal with it, and I'm just going to be like.

And it's almost a catch 22 because when you get to that point, and when I was in the air force, out, by the way, I was, like, the liaison for mental health because I had been through all of it.

Like, every program that the air force offered for mental health, I had been through.

And then it was so easy for me to tell other people how easy it is to do.

And yet, the truth is, I did not seek therapy really, until my commander ordered me to.

Yeah.

Like, then there's no way around it.

Yeah, like, you must.

Yeah.

And then I'm like, I feel like such a dick because I'm the one.

I'm not practicing what I preached.

Yeah.

You know, I'm telling everybody else, like you, you know, if you need help, just get it.

If you need help, just get it.

Like, I'll take you.

I will drive you myself.

I'll fucking do anything, anything in the world to protect you or help you or whatever the fuck.

And then I always felt like.

And then once I've done that, I'm by myself.

Yeah, but you also have this blind spot in the shape of yourself.

Right.

It's.

People are often blind to their own, sometimes their needs, but, like, pitfalls, basically.

And once I embraced those coaching sessions and I sat there crying behind my computer screen, right, because of some childhood trauma being dug up just for me to kind of rub my nose in it and see if it wasn't that bad, if you look at it with your current frame of mind, and that kind of helped me release baggage, I wasn't aware I was carrying, even.

And, like, I really wanted myself to get that relief.

I wanted, you know, I felt like that child in me deserves to be relatively unburdened, especially by stuff that isn't.

I would say that current, like, you know, no need to torture yourself over stuff in the past when you can use that same energy for more constructive things like, you know, being presented and, you know, talking to people and hearing their experiences and enrich each other's lives like that.

And I felt a bit silly when, you know, I felt a bit silly about how I kind of postponed it and found myself to be, you know, I'm too cool to do therapy or whatever, so it's a silly notion.

Once I was able to see that about myself at some point, I've never.

Thought I'm too cool for therapy.

No, I'm not yet.

But the biggest complex for me was always, I know for a fact that there's someone else here who needs this time more than I do.

So it's like almost a martyr complex, like a self sacrifice thing is like, yeah.

Even though I know I need help, someone needs it more than me.

So I should not occupy government resources and time.

Yeah.

Taking that away from somebody who, like, you know, for me, it was like personal life.