Walk me through the day that you ended up getting blown up and shot.
Speaker B:
The Taliban hate getting wet.
Speaker B:
They don't go through canals.
Speaker B:
And we had this one little area that we weren't taking it every day.
Speaker B:
We were taking enough for it to become kind of like a. Oh, this is where they get sloppy.
Speaker B:
I caught a round, caught three rounds.
Speaker A:
You caught three rounds?
Speaker B:
Caught one in the back plate, two in the front striker in this grape row.
Speaker B:
They prepped it perfect.
Speaker B:
Put a pressure plate in.
Speaker B:
I remember the two kill cans that clack.
Speaker B:
I just couldn't breathe for a second, and I felt like I got kind of pushed, kind of turning and falling a little bit, caught, not stop throwing up.
Speaker B:
I bruised my left lung, bruised my stomach.
Speaker B:
My brain swelled.
Speaker B:
For them to be like, are we cutting his head open or not?
Speaker A:
Wait, dude, this is a.
Speaker A:
This is a.
Speaker A:
A different.
Speaker A:
This is going to be a little bit of a different podcast for a couple of different reasons.
Speaker A:
Well, first off, Brandon, welcome to the show.
Speaker B:
Thank you for having me.
Speaker A:
I'm excited to finally have you.
Speaker A:
We met up a while back at some networking event at some and a half years ago.
Speaker A:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
It's been a minute.
Speaker B:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
And I got talking to you.
Speaker A:
We got introduced and like, dude, you gotta talk to this vet.
Speaker A:
He's been through some crazy, but he's doing some even crazier stuff now.
Speaker A:
Helping with connecting nerves in the mind and PTSD and helping prevent suicide was this big thing.
Speaker A:
And I'm like, okay.
Speaker A:
Like, I love.
Speaker A:
And that sparked.
Speaker A:
That sparked in me was, okay, cool, there's a veteran.
Speaker A:
There's a veteran making a difference or trying to.
Speaker B:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
And so sometimes pass.
Speaker A:
I've watched, you've watched, and you've now grown this company, Neurova Labs.
Speaker A:
Neurova Labs, which I.
Speaker A:
We just talked about.
Speaker A:
I was gonna screw it up every time.
Speaker A:
Where you're using these VR sets to.
Speaker A:
To now help people.
Speaker A:
And this isn't just for veterans, which is incredible.
Speaker A:
But I feel the ptsd, tbi, brain injuries, it really falls on military and.
Speaker A:
And then I would say underneath, maybe athletes.
Speaker A:
But we forget about the law enforcement, the first responders, the parents that have gone through trauma, men, women, children, everybody go through some pretty human.
Speaker A:
Okay.
Speaker B:
We forget people.
Speaker B:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
And so we're.
Speaker A:
We're humans, and we all go through the same.
Speaker A:
Even though one's in war, one might be in traffic, one might be a burglary.
Speaker A:
Whatever it may be, there's all kinds of ways that either tweak little things in our mind.
Speaker A:
And this is something that you got really passionate about because obviously you were.
Speaker A:
You're a US Military service member.
Speaker A:
You served in the army.
Speaker A:
You were blown up and shot in Afghanistan.
Speaker A:
You're a purple heart recipient.
Speaker A:
You came back, you were watching a ton of your boys, which we all have, start taking their lives.
Speaker A:
And it's one of the most frustrating things on this planet, especially when there's guys that you're looking up to, dudes that you thought were the strongest mentally.
Speaker A:
And then all of a sudden you get this news and it rocks you.
Speaker A:
And so you wanted to make a difference.
Speaker A:
You started getting into this.
Speaker A:
You're also a cancer survivor.
Speaker B:
Thank God.
Speaker A:
Thank God.
Speaker A:
Big time on that.
Speaker A:
So we have a lot to cover today, but this is going to be a really cool one because I feel this is.
Speaker A:
Well, you can obviously are gonna be able to build more on this.
Speaker A:
This is changing veterans, because there's this disconnect between.
Speaker A:
There's so much of the mind we have no idea about.
Speaker A:
And we're obviously there's.
Speaker A:
With new technology, with this incredible VR set that I'm sitting here staring at that it's helping guys in so many different ways.
Speaker A:
And obviously you're kind of spearheading this and, and writing this new wave of how to connect new nerve connections and then how the.
Speaker A:
I'm gonna let you get into the nerd side of this thing, so I don't want to butcher it anymore.
Speaker A:
So.
Speaker A:
All right, dude, let's jump into it like we do every episode.
Speaker A:
Who are you?
Speaker A:
Where are you from?
Speaker B:
My name is Brendan Borrowman.
Speaker B:
I'm from West Jordan, Utah.
Speaker B:
It's probably accurate.
Speaker A:
Okay.
Speaker B:
Title.
Speaker B:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
How was that growing up?
Speaker B:
It was awesome.
Speaker B:
I mean, I, I was a hoodlum.
Speaker B:
So for, for those of you who know me, part of why I ended up joining the army is because my life was going nowhere quick.
Speaker B:
I was, oh yeah, a dumb street hustler kid selling drugs.
Speaker B:
I, I grew a beard at 13.
Speaker A:
That's a hell of a beard, by the way.
Speaker A:
I, I got like the Joe Dirt patch.
Speaker A:
So I respect.
Speaker B:
This is a two day beard.
Speaker B:
Just kidding.
Speaker B:
No, So I, I started growing facial hair at 13.
Speaker B:
At 14, I looked like I was 20.
Speaker B:
So I was like in this weird, perfect spot of like, I was so young if I did get caught that, like, nothing would happen, but looked old enough where, like on the weekends I was in clubs and, and Thursday, Friday I was selling drugs at the homecoming or whatever, you know, and no, I was a, I was a dumb hoodlum.
Speaker B:
So.
Speaker B:
Don't, don't do that, children.
Speaker B:
It's really bad.
Speaker B:
And I was going nowhere quick and I kind of got in trouble.
Speaker B:
And the guys I was selling drugs for and everything else, I needed a way out.
Speaker B:
And the, the military was kind of the, the perfect option was my grandfather during Vietnam, lied about his age and he dropped out in like the thing third grade, hitchhiked around the country, was an usher in New York in a movie theater.
Speaker B:
And then it's like picking crops.
Speaker B:
California, like just did kind of everything.
Speaker B:
And then Vietnam popped up and he's like, here's an opportunity and went to Vietnam.
Speaker B:
So you have this, you know, elementary level dropout who through his, his career in the Navy became an E1.
Speaker B:
He retired as a Master Chief no.
Speaker B:
3 With four college degrees.
Speaker B:
And you know, like, he made his life and was kind of a hero to me.
Speaker B:
So I went to him.
Speaker B:
I was like, hey, man, I, I, I need to get out of here.
Speaker B:
I'm not going to graduate high school.
Speaker B:
I haven't been all year.
Speaker B:
Like, if I stay here, I'm going to end up dead or in jail.
Speaker B:
And he took me to the Navy recruiters.
Speaker B:
And I walked in, I'm this 15 year old cocky kid that looks like he's in his 20s.
Speaker B:
And they're like, what do you want to do?
Speaker B:
I was like, I want to be a Navy seal.
Speaker B:
And they all laughed at me.
Speaker B:
The awesome thing is they all laughed at me.
Speaker B:
The walls are so thin.
Speaker B:
The army recruiter next door heard it.
Speaker A:
No.
Speaker B:
So as we were walking out, I had this army recruiter waiting, goes, hey, man, we got Navy seals.
Speaker B:
And my grandpa's like, no, get in the truck.
Speaker B:
We got his truck.
Speaker B:
He took me home.
Speaker B:
I was like, they got two hours really close.
Speaker B:
I hopped on my bike and rode all the way back.
Speaker A:
No.
Speaker B:
So it's like a, it's like a three mile from where I was living to where this recruitment.
Speaker B:
I like hustled ass back there, walked in, I was like, all right, tell me about these Navy SEALs the Army has.
Speaker B:
Because the only thing back then that you knew about for like Special Forces were Navy seals.
Speaker B:
She had like the Charlie Sheen movie.
Speaker B:
And like they were the ones doing really good marketing.
Speaker B:
I had no idea any other branch even had Special Forces.
Speaker B:
I was like, all right, tell me about these Navy SEALs.
Speaker B:
And he shows me a recruitment video for the 19 Delta Cav Scout.
Speaker B:
And I was like, dude, they're driving, driving dirt bikes and jumping out of planes and they have tanks too.
Speaker B:
Like, this is battlefield.
Speaker B:
Like, this is what I want to do.
Speaker B:
So he made me, he's like, hey, if you come to my office Monday through Friday and you pt with me, I will give you.
Speaker B:
When you're 16, I'll pay for your GED personally.
Speaker B:
You'll go get your GED, and if you get your GED, then I'll make sure you get your ASVAB.
Speaker B:
You pass your ASVAB, I'll enlist you.
Speaker A:
That's a hell of a recruiter.
Speaker B:
Awesome recruiter.
Speaker B:
And so I.
Speaker B:
That's what I did Monday through Friday for.
Speaker B:
I turned 16 like a month later.
Speaker B:
And then I spent six months in his office.
Speaker B:
Pretty much Monday through Friday.
Speaker B:
They had me do all the.
Speaker B:
The stuff they would have a private in the office do.
Speaker B:
And then I PT'd with the entire office, and I got my GED and then I got my ASVAB.
Speaker B:
And he's like, hey, there's some other options.
Speaker B:
Like, nope, I want that one.
Speaker B:
Like, I want 19 Delta.
Speaker B:
And he's like, no, hey, dude.
Speaker B:
Like, there's some great.
Speaker B:
You got a 132 on your GT, like, there's some good jobs.
Speaker B:
I was like, nope, I want to jump out of planes and ride dirt bikes and shoot tanks.
Speaker B:
Like, that's the one.
Speaker B:
He's like, all right.
Speaker B:
So I enlisted.
Speaker B:
So I. I got in right at 17.
Speaker B:
I got emancipated.
Speaker B:
So he.
Speaker B:
What year was this?
Speaker B:
It's:
Speaker A:
Okay.
Speaker B:
So he.
Speaker B:
He did, like a gangster move.
Speaker B:
He came with me to my dad's house, who I wasn't living with, and we sat at the kitchen table.
Speaker B:
He goes, hey, here's the paperwork for his emancipation.
Speaker B:
You can sign it now or we can go outside and come back in and sign it after.
Speaker B:
My dad was like, I'll sign it.
Speaker A:
Your recruiter.
Speaker B:
My recruiter was a gangster.
Speaker B:
So he helped me get emancipated.
Speaker B:
So I got emancipated.
Speaker B:
My dad's like, good luck.
Speaker B:
Don't come back.
Speaker B:
And then I went to O, and then at osit.
Speaker B:
So one station unit trading.
Speaker A:
Okay.
Speaker B:
So instead of going to like a boot camp than an AIT for.
Speaker B:
For cav and infantry and a couple other MOS's, they throw it all together.
Speaker B:
So it's 18 and a half weeks of hell because you don't get, like a college experience like most a schools get, you know, like, it's just boot camp the whole time.
Speaker A:
Okay.
Speaker B:
And then during that phase, I was like, writing my dad letters, stuff.
Speaker B:
He showed up for my graduation.
Speaker B:
It was.
Speaker B:
It was a cool moment for us.
Speaker A:
Were you tight with your dad growing up?
Speaker B:
No.
Speaker B:
So, no, my mom left when I was 7.
Speaker B:
And then my dad, you know, battled his own demons from growing up on a farm and everything else.
Speaker B:
And we just.
Speaker B:
I don't know what it was, man.
Speaker B:
We didn't.
Speaker B:
We didn't.
Speaker A:
It was a different generation then, for sure.
Speaker B:
It was a different.
Speaker B:
It was not the hearts and minds generation of today.
Speaker B:
It was more of a let's.
Speaker B:
Let's talk fists and.
Speaker A:
Yeah.
Speaker B:
You know, don't show emotion.
Speaker B:
So.
Speaker B:
Yeah, you grew up in my generation.
Speaker B:
We're the.
Speaker B:
We're the same age.
Speaker A:
The boomer generation, they were harder people.
Speaker B:
I think back then, parenting was different.
Speaker B:
There were no participations.
Speaker A:
We forget about their parents.
Speaker B:
Oh, dude.
Speaker A:
And then the trauma that our grandparents left on our parents and then trickled into us.
Speaker B:
I didn't find out.
Speaker B:
So I was an adult from, like, my aunt.
Speaker B:
So, like, the stuff that my dad had to go through.
Speaker A:
Oh, for sure.
Speaker B:
I got be so bad he's unconscious.
Speaker B:
And grandpa dug a hole in the farm with the back.
Speaker B:
I was like, if he wakes up in the morning and he can come inside.
Speaker B:
If he doesn't, we bury it.
Speaker B:
Like, I heard that as an adult, I'm like, man, my childhood wasn't that bad.
Speaker B:
I had a great childhood.
Speaker B:
Yeah, thanks, man.
Speaker A:
Yeah, thanks for the neglect.
Speaker A:
I'll take had over the years of use.
Speaker B:
So that was my kind of, like, inspiration to join military is just civilian life as a teenager didn't work for me.
Speaker A:
Yep.
Speaker B:
You know, I see a little bit of it in my.
Speaker B:
My teenage son, my 15 year old, of just being really smart and being bored.
Speaker B:
And I'm like, oh, man, it terrifies me because that was me.
Speaker B:
And I ended up into some stupid.
Speaker B:
Like, I can't imagine, you know, not having the.
Speaker B:
My presence and my.
Speaker B:
My wife's presence in his life.
Speaker B:
He would probably walk the same path.
Speaker B:
Yeah.
Speaker B:
But I'm happy for it because without that childhood, I wouldn't definitely not have survived the military or Afghanistan or two years in a hospital.
Speaker B:
Like, the mental game for that alone.
Speaker B:
Oh, like, you know it the.
Speaker B:
I think the closest explanation I've ever heard about.
Speaker B:
It's like prison almost.
Speaker B:
Right?
Speaker B:
Like, because you're in a hospital and no choices of yours.
Speaker B:
And it's the same thing.
Speaker B:
Like, we.
Speaker B:
Nate, my.
Speaker B:
My.
Speaker B:
One of my co founders and executives are here with us, and we listen to this guy talk, Kyle, who's in solitary confinement for three and a half years.
Speaker B:
He's talking about pacing the walls.
Speaker B:
I was like, man, we didn't do that.
Speaker B:
But, like, we did like wheelchair jousting.
Speaker B:
I think I was like, the funnest thing we could do is just stupid Joe stuff in the hallway.
Speaker B:
But until you start getting off the hospital and passes or weekend passes, like it pretty much prison.
Speaker A:
You're stuck in a room isolation.
Speaker A:
I mean, you're.
Speaker A:
You're pretty much stuck in the hole.
Speaker A:
Granted, you got probably a phone or tv.
Speaker A:
You get to hear nurses coming in.
Speaker A:
But it's.
Speaker A:
It's.
Speaker A:
I'm sure that gets.
Speaker A:
Especially when you.
Speaker A:
You're not even being able to be mobile.
Speaker A:
And that's what a lot of people.
Speaker A:
I don't really feel how they process people in hospitals.
Speaker B:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
And you're laying there so long.
Speaker A:
Some people are laying so long.
Speaker B:
You're.
Speaker A:
You're getting bed sores just because you haven't been moved.
Speaker A:
And that's got to be.
Speaker A:
I mean, it's your own.
Speaker A:
You're stuck in your own prison.
Speaker A:
I tell.
Speaker A:
Explain being on ship.
Speaker A:
And then when I.
Speaker A:
We took ships from San Diego to Kuwait and Iraq, there was times you'd be stuck in the birthing for a week.
Speaker A:
It was.
Speaker A:
It was like prison.
Speaker A:
That's how brutal you.
Speaker A:
We would just work out, sleep, eat, repeat.
Speaker A:
And that was.
Speaker A:
And it was just your own little trapped hell being out at sea.
Speaker B:
Yeah.
Speaker B:
That doesn't sound healthy at all.
Speaker A:
No.
Speaker A:
You'd go like two weeks without even seeing daylight.
Speaker B:
And the ocean's terrifying.
Speaker B:
I don't know how you were a Marine.
Speaker B:
Like, I couldn't do it.
Speaker B:
Navy Marines were cut out just because of that.
Speaker B:
I don't know why I want to be a Navy seal.
Speaker B:
Like, the ocean scares the hell out of me.
Speaker B:
That's how dumb I was as a teenager, dude.
Speaker A:
I've talked to some guys that were seals and gone through SEAL trading.
Speaker A:
I had a guy on, but this happened a couple times, actually happened.
Speaker A:
A buddy me, buddy of mine that was in March.
Speaker A:
Sock doing water training and having like one of my.
Speaker A:
One of the guests that came on, he got rammed by something in the middle of the night on a swim.
Speaker B:
Like, doesn't even know what it was.
Speaker A:
Hit him so hard, he thought his partner swam into him.
Speaker A:
And he like comes up and he's like, yo.
Speaker A:
And screaming for his partner.
Speaker A:
His partner's like 20ft over a little chem stick float.
Speaker A:
Next.
Speaker B:
Dude, there's a sea lion out there laughing, so.
Speaker A:
Or a shark.
Speaker B:
And then.
Speaker A:
Then there was another guy, Chris.
Speaker A:
He was on and he was talking about.
Speaker A:
They were doing an under.
Speaker A:
They were doing like a scuba dive.
Speaker A:
Swimming.
Speaker B:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
They're, you know, they Got their little light and their little map underwater.
Speaker A:
And he said all of a sudden something just by him said massive was circling him.
Speaker B:
Yeah, no, dog.
Speaker A:
That to me is where I'm out.
Speaker B:
I, I, I'll take bigfoot in the woods, bro.
Speaker A:
I'll take a lion on land.
Speaker A:
Like, at least I feel like, you know, I got some chance of I.
Speaker B:
Can circle a tree.
Speaker A:
Yeah, I like, try to move.
Speaker A:
Dude, a shark in the water in the middle of the night, that is max level 10.
Speaker A:
Pure terror for me.
Speaker B:
I'm out.
Speaker B:
Yeah.
Speaker B:
I couldn't do it.
Speaker A:
Yeah.
Speaker B:
There's no way.
Speaker B:
I would have failed for sure.
Speaker A:
100 Just that alone.
Speaker B:
Go through just ocean phase.
Speaker B:
Cool.
Speaker B:
I would have been great.
Speaker B:
Ocean.
Speaker B:
Nah, I like the Bahamas.
Speaker B:
I can see through the water, you know, it's warm.
Speaker A:
Exactly.
Speaker A:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
So you, where were we?
Speaker A:
You guys oset?
Speaker A:
Yes.
Speaker A:
Okay.
Speaker B:
So I went through osit.
Speaker B:
Graduated osit.
Speaker B:
If anybody's watched my podcast, I did with Brett Gash.
Speaker B:
That was my drill Sergeant, youngest participant Oso since Vietnam Fort Knox.
Speaker A:
Really?
Speaker B:
On the Disney compound.
Speaker B:
Yeah.
Speaker B:
So the Disney PX in that area.
Speaker B:
So I had my birthday cake in processing.
Speaker B:
Not a fun experience, I was gonna say.
Speaker A:
How was that?
Speaker B:
I thought, oh, so it was gonna be great.
Speaker B:
I showed up.
Speaker B:
Everybody's being super nice.
Speaker B:
Hey, come here, warrior.
Speaker B:
Come here, warrior.
Speaker B:
It's your birthday.
Speaker B:
Congratulations, you're a man.
Speaker B:
And then dinner came around.
Speaker B:
They brought me a little cupcake.
Speaker B:
You know, they had the cake trays.
Speaker B:
I don't know how they did in the Marine Corps, but they would tempt you.
Speaker B:
They brought it over and they had everybody sing Happy Birthday.
Speaker B:
I was like, dude, everybody lied.
Speaker B:
This place is awesome.
Speaker B:
And then right after dinner end, I learned real quick that that place sucks.
Speaker A:
Yep.
Speaker B:
So I not only did I have to throw up all the calories I ate, but they kept me in the sand pit.
Speaker B:
So I turned into a sugar cookie and I was rashed up before even began.
Speaker B:
So I went into hell phase with like already chafed thighs and armpits.
Speaker A:
Like, God, brutal.
Speaker B:
Yeah.
Speaker B:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
That was just on receiving.
Speaker B:
That was on in processing.
Speaker A:
Oh, my God.
Speaker B:
I got wrecked.
Speaker B:
And then there was a pool of like, who could get me to quit.
Speaker B:
So I like drill sergeants from other groups coming.
Speaker B:
We had Marine team.
Speaker A:
Why is it so hard on you?
Speaker B:
At 17, everybody got like a pre brief that I was coming and they were like, oh, who can get the kid to quit?
Speaker B:
No, I'm an.
Speaker B:
And I was like, oh, I'm gonna ruin all these dudes.
Speaker B:
And yeah, I mean Brett tells it way better than I do.
Speaker B:
But I was breaking drill sergeants like, oh, I'm stubborn, dude.
Speaker B:
Like, I love it.
Speaker B:
Told you.
Speaker B:
I'm like, I'm like, yeah.
Speaker B:
At the end of the day, you don't beat me as bad as my dad did.
Speaker B:
One dude was like, what the hell do I do?
Speaker B:
Like, he just stopped yelling at me and walked away like mid smoke was just like, valid.
Speaker A:
See you, you win.
Speaker A:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
This kid's mental game is on a.
Speaker B:
Different level for sure.
Speaker B:
Crazy.
Speaker B:
Like we probably shouldn't let him in.
Speaker A:
Ye to get rid of him now.
Speaker A:
That or he's going to be the greatest soldier ever created.
Speaker B:
Yeah.
Speaker B:
And I think I was pretty average.
Speaker B:
So they were all wrong.
Speaker A:
Jokes on them.
Speaker B:
Jokes on them.
Speaker A:
Little did they know.
Speaker A:
Yeah.
Speaker B:
So I, I did that and then I, I went from Knox for osa and then I went to Fort Riley, which is in Kansas, which is the armpit of America.
Speaker A:
Okay, why is that?
Speaker B:
Because there's nothing there.
Speaker B:
It's.
Speaker B:
It's Kansas.
Speaker B:
Yeah, we get tornadoes, which is cool.
Speaker B:
Really bad winter storms.
Speaker B:
So I went through, I went to 5, 4 Cav, was doing a workout fire for Iraq.
Speaker B:
My ex wife was pregnant with my first child, Brendan, and I was supposed to go on a truck deployment.
Speaker B:
So I trained for a year and a half for a truck workup.
Speaker B:
During that time we did like a couple M schools.
Speaker B:
Did they have that in the Marine Corps Mobile instructional training where they'd like bring schools to units.
Speaker B:
So like went out to go sniper qualifications.
Speaker B:
So we did a, a long range Martian course, which is our sniper orientation.
Speaker B:
So you're qualified to use like the M110 and the 50 cal.
Speaker B:
So we did a, a sniper mit and then we did like a mini air assault M, which is instead of the full air assault program, it's a condensed down version where you can pretty much repel out of a Blackhawk, get on and off Blackhawk in combat, and then shook in and out for combat.
Speaker B:
So just ingress egress for Cav.
Speaker B:
My unit goes, Iraq, I'm home, my son's born, and I get a call day one, like my son was born like six hours later.
Speaker B:
My rear D, first AR calls.
Speaker B:
Congratulations.
Speaker B:
You have seven days of maternity leave.
Speaker B:
And I'm expecting like when I'm at Iraq.
Speaker B:
He goes, hey, during this maternity leave, I need you to go to processing.
Speaker B:
You need to turn in your gear and then get your new issue.
Speaker B:
And I was like, oh, new issue?
Speaker B:
Yeah, you're gonna, you're gonna go to 4, 4 Cav you're going to Afghanistan in 14 days.
Speaker B:
I was like, oh, no, I'm not.
Speaker B:
I'm going to Iraq.
Speaker B:
He's like, no, man, you're.
Speaker B:
You're going to Afghanistan in literally two weeks.
Speaker B:
So I.
Speaker A:
What a military thing to do.
Speaker B:
Thank you, Army.
Speaker A:
This is, I would say, typical Marine Corps.
Speaker A:
I'm glad this makes me happy knowing that this happens in the Army.
Speaker A:
Yeah.
Speaker B:
Yeah.
Speaker B:
So I.
Speaker B:
The Army, I was looking at like a, hey, we're gonna have a swimming pool on the weekends to, you know, we're just driving, route clearance, Iraq deployment.
Speaker B:
Stack cash and have fun.
Speaker B:
Work out to the briefings for the unit we were ripping with.
Speaker B:
They're like, hey, they're losing a guy every other week.
Speaker B:
Everybody's gotten a purple heart.
Speaker B:
Like, it's.
Speaker B:
Where you're going is like, it's the wild west.
Speaker B:
And it ended up being the wild west.
Speaker B:
We set the most records for ticks and mortar rounds called in a firefight.
Speaker B:
So we.
Speaker B:
I went there and then my.
Speaker B:
Tell my ex wife the song.
Speaker B:
It's going to be fine.
Speaker B:
This is good.
Speaker B:
This is what I signed up for me.
Speaker B:
Awesome.
Speaker B:
Don't worry.
Speaker B:
And I think I had her convinced till the day before we left.
Speaker B:
We had like the whole unit briefing and everybody from 44 Kev probably remembers this.
Speaker B:
Like, our sergeant major got up and gave like a Hal Moore speech for the ages.
Speaker A:
Okay.
Speaker B:
Awesome speech.
Speaker B:
Colonel got up and was like, women love your men.
Speaker B:
Your men, because they're probably gonna die.
Speaker B:
And then walked off stage.
Speaker B:
And everyone was like, what the hell.
Speaker A:
Did he just say?
Speaker A:
What?
Speaker B:
What?
Speaker B:
And I'm telling.
Speaker B:
He's just joking.
Speaker B:
He's a funny guy.
Speaker B:
Like, this is it.
Speaker B:
He's joking.
Speaker B:
Relax, relax.
Speaker B:
And she's crying.
Speaker B:
A bunch of otherwise crying.
Speaker B:
I was like, this sucks.
Speaker B:
Like, that was so morale inducing.
Speaker B:
Thank you, Colonel.
Speaker A:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
What a herd.
Speaker B:
And then all the captains went up, did their things, and kind of got it back on track.
Speaker B:
But Colonel Katones a. I. I'm walking into his defamation on this podcast, but.
Speaker A:
We'll save that one for another one.
Speaker A:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
Who would do that as.
Speaker A:
Especially as a colonel?
Speaker A:
And you guys are getting ready to deploy.
Speaker B:
We're getting ready to go into, like, the meat grinder of Afghanistan at the peak.
Speaker A:
And he tells the wives this.
Speaker B:
He tells everybody.
Speaker B:
We haven't even gotten like a full brief on where we're going yet.
Speaker B:
This is like a.
Speaker B:
You know, we don't know our ao.
Speaker B:
Like, we don't know, like, what to expect.
Speaker B:
We're just being told, like, yep, you might Die.
Speaker B:
We're like, all right, this is awesome.
Speaker A:
Okay.
Speaker B:
This is what we signed up for, boys.
Speaker B:
You know, we're doing, like, the rah rah.
Speaker B:
This is amazing.
Speaker A:
That's what we do.
Speaker B:
Yeah, that's what we do.
Speaker B:
And so we.
Speaker B:
We got ready.
Speaker B:
We deployed.
Speaker B:
We did.
Speaker B:
We went through manas, like, probably everybody through Afghanistan.
Speaker B:
Our two week kind of acclimation period got cut in half.
Speaker B:
So, like, you know, you get there, you get your self defense magazine for the base.
Speaker B:
We all got one of those.
Speaker B:
And they're like, hey, we're gonna load up.
Speaker B:
We're going to Wilson.
Speaker B:
So we're like, awesome.
Speaker B:
We get on the Chinooks.
Speaker B:
Chinooks are going out.
Speaker B:
Our Chinooks touched down, and they're dudes telling you to drop your bag and then run to the Blackhawks.
Speaker B:
And we're like, what the hell's going on?
Speaker B:
So we drop our.
Speaker B:
Our rucksacks and our A bags like a.
Speaker B:
Just pile of shit.
Speaker B:
I run over getting a Blackhawks and we're in the air.
Speaker B:
I plug in and all I hear is like, all right, you guys ready?
Speaker B:
Like, you know, they're the.
Speaker B:
The compound's under attack right now.
Speaker B:
We're all looking around like, what?
Speaker B:
Like, yeah, yeah, we're gonna put you guys in on the south side.
Speaker B:
You guys are gonna walk in, and I'm looking around.
Speaker B:
Sergeant Butler's looking around.
Speaker B:
I was like, how many magazines?
Speaker B:
Everybody have one?
Speaker B:
One.
Speaker B:
And the gunners start handing us their.
Speaker A:
Mags like they're dropping you off.
Speaker B:
Yeah, we took JFM.
Speaker B:
So 101st had JFM and they.
Speaker B:
The compound was under a live attack, and we were going in for our rip.
Speaker B:
So we ran into jfm, right?
Speaker B:
Like, thank God.
Speaker B:
Or JFM is like the little compound they took over.
Speaker B:
Okay.
Speaker B:
And as we were flying in, it was being attacked.
Speaker B:
Thank God 101st those badasses put it down right as we were touching down.
Speaker B:
So we touched down, ran in not under fire, but like, as we were flying there the whole time.
Speaker B:
We're like, this sucks.
Speaker B:
Like, he wasn't kidding.
Speaker B:
We're all gonna die.
Speaker B:
This is awesome.
Speaker B:
So reality's a hundred percent reality kicking you in the.
Speaker B:
In the gut.
Speaker B:
Like, it was just like a.
Speaker B:
This sucks.
Speaker B:
Like, try to look cool.
Speaker B:
Look cool.
Speaker B:
Don't look panicked.
Speaker B:
Like, I kept playing it my head.
Speaker B:
Like, as long as you look like everything's fine, everything's gonna be fine.
Speaker B:
Like, just look fine for the Joes.
Speaker B:
Like, this is gonna be fine.
Speaker B:
We're good.
Speaker B:
And then we ran in, and I remember just like that 300 yard run the whole time.
Speaker B:
Like, dude, I.
Speaker B:
What am I doing here?
Speaker B:
Like, I could have been a cook.
Speaker B:
Why did I choose this?
Speaker B:
Like, the inner monologue the whole time just like, why the hell are we here?
Speaker B:
Then we got in and, yeah, I'll never forget the hunter first.
Speaker B:
So the week before we got there, they lost their last dude.
Speaker B:
And so, like, these guys are mourning.
Speaker B:
They just got done with firefighters and, like, rank doesn't exist to them.
Speaker B:
Like, everybody's first name basis bullshit.
Speaker B:
And we're walking in, we're like, this is not the army.
Speaker B:
I know.
Speaker B:
Like, what the hell's going there?
Speaker B:
No one's in, like, real uniforms.
Speaker B:
We're like, no.
Speaker B:
What the.
Speaker B:
Where are we?
Speaker B:
Like, this is not what a deployment is supposed to be, Right?
Speaker B:
So, like, all of us are here.
Speaker B:
Like, oh, they're so ate up.
Speaker B:
No wonder they keep losing dudes.
Speaker B:
And then the battle tempo and fatigue hits.
Speaker B:
And, like, you know, within two months, we were in the same state.
Speaker A:
Like, yeah, your operations, stale.
Speaker B:
You're just.
Speaker B:
You're just burnt.
Speaker B:
Like, fatigue.
Speaker B:
And so, like, I remember getting in there, looking around, being like, oh, these are like, these dudes are not put together.
Speaker B:
And then after they left, like, within three weeks, I was like, oh, my God, I totally get it.
Speaker B:
Like, yeah, I'm in boxers, on the wall with my rig not even velcroed up, you know, responding to contact because it just.
Speaker B:
Who cares anymore?
Speaker B:
That's where we got.
Speaker B:
And then it just became fun.
Speaker B:
And, you know, we have a.
Speaker B:
There's a handful of YouTube videos out there that I'm sure none of us are that, you know, impressed about or it makes us look good.
Speaker B:
But I don't think any of us are in a solid uniform for any of those videos.
Speaker B:
I mean, it's just.
Speaker A:
Well, people need to understand, too.
Speaker A:
You're living in remote mountains of Afghanistan.
Speaker B:
Baby wipes.
Speaker B:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
And so it's when it comes and then obviously the tempo of firefights.
Speaker A:
I mean, how often are you guys getting.
Speaker B:
Three days.
Speaker A:
Three firefights a day?
Speaker B:
Yeah, we have three ticks a day on average in.
Speaker A:
On the compound.
Speaker B:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
So is your compound down in, like a valley or something?
Speaker B:
Yes, we're, you know, where the Argonaut river kind of comes down.
Speaker A:
I was only in Kabul the whole time.
Speaker B:
All right, so the foothills come down and then it turns into this where the Argan Knob comes down.
Speaker B:
It kind of where Pakistan meets this Hajir Ramadine corridor.
Speaker B:
munitions for the Taliban in:
Speaker B:
So Soft's mission was to shut that down.
Speaker B:
We ended up shutting it down.
Speaker B:
The CAV4.4 CAV Task Force Spartan shout out to my Spartans out there with 10th Mountain and the.
Speaker B:
The joint task force we were on, we ended up completely crippling it.
Speaker B:
But really the tip of that came down and you had Alpha troop and then he had our troop just sitting right at the peak of that tip.
Speaker B:
And it was constant.
Speaker B:
It was all day, every day.
Speaker B:
And then we, we were done.
Speaker B:
We're like, you know what, let's go out and get more.
Speaker B:
So, you know, you'd get like the compound to get hit.
Speaker B:
And then we, all right, we're gonna do a foot patrol.
Speaker B:
And then we'd get back and then we'd send out another foot patrol.
Speaker B:
And then, all right, we're go to senior leader engagement.
Speaker B:
Let's go poke the bear and go out and just start hammering like we were.
Speaker B:
The entire intent was to bring the action to us so we can put them down and start learning how to react to their contact.
Speaker B:
Not at the same time realizing they were learning us.
Speaker B:
They're pretty damn smart.
Speaker A:
Oh, for sure.
Speaker B:
So, yeah, that was, that was Afghanistan.
Speaker B:
A nutshell for us was just react.
Speaker B:
It was all reactive and trying to be proactive, but it wasn't.
Speaker B:
It was like, let's walk around till they shoot at us or show presence.
Speaker A:
Isn't it crazy looking back now when they're like, well, we're gonna go find it, boys.
Speaker A:
And then we'd all be, yeah, let's go find it.
Speaker A:
And then you look back at how the.
Speaker A:
Knowing everything we know now, and you're like, bro, how stupid.
Speaker A:
How stupid for us.
Speaker A:
I mean, but then again, at the same time, it's the mindset of these young kids.
Speaker A:
And you joined the military obviously to defend your country.
Speaker A:
But I hear so many stories.
Speaker A:
I just had a buddy of mine on, he was a sniper in the Rangers.
Speaker A:
And bro, they just go into these villages, swack everything.
Speaker A:
They raise American flag right in the middle of them.
Speaker A:
Be like, come and get it.
Speaker B:
Yeah, we're here.
Speaker A:
Yeah, we're here.
Speaker A:
Come at it.
Speaker A:
And then they just like, dude, just drop mortars on people all day.
Speaker A:
They just, they just mortared everything.
Speaker B:
I think we draw.
Speaker B:
I think we had more mortars called in in like a three hour window than ever.
Speaker B:
Like, it, like it was your mortar good?
Speaker B:
Oh, we had not only our mortar team, but we had supporting overlap fires from other bases.
Speaker B:
We were calling for indirect Fire from like those artillerymen got their work in.
Speaker B:
Like we could, we, we had this giant thick foliage tree line and we call in like, you know, we had Apaches run it.
Speaker B:
We had a couple Warhawks come through and run it, but it just, it was so thick of foliage that like that's where they would be hitting us from.
Speaker B:
And so we're like, you know what, let's chop the trees.
Speaker B:
You know, we gave the coordinates and they dropped so much artillery when we got done.
Speaker B:
Like I don't think anything can grow there.
Speaker B:
It's just glass.
Speaker B:
Barren.
Speaker B:
Like barren.
Speaker B:
And then it was so funny because you'd watch them on like the Itaz, which is A, an LRA thermal kind of binocular system.
Speaker B:
Got 2 miles and has a tow rocket attached to it.
Speaker B:
Geez.
Speaker B:
We, we would watch these dudes on heat signature, kind of walk to that area.
Speaker B:
And then you'd see him look around like there are no trees.
Speaker B:
Like they would just kind of look around like.
Speaker B:
And then they would turn around and walk away and you'd be like, yeah, they thought it through.
Speaker B:
Like that's good for them.
Speaker B:
They'll live another day.
Speaker A:
What's it like dealing or being on the ground with that much artillery coming in on constantly?
Speaker B:
Hell on earth.
Speaker B:
It was like one or two is really cool.
Speaker B:
Like woo.
Speaker B:
You cheer, you take a video.
Speaker B:
The constant bombardment is like I, I now understand that the secondary concussions we were getting from overblast.
Speaker A:
Oh, he was close.
Speaker B:
Oh yeah.
Speaker B:
You're talking 200, 250 meters from the wall.
Speaker B:
Like after I left, we had an embedded reporter.
Speaker B:
Michael, you guys can look this up.
Speaker B:
Two weeks after I was medevaced out, someone messed up the coordinates and dropped a JDAM on our, on our compound.
Speaker A:
No.
Speaker B:
Yeah, like bad.
Speaker A:
So they dropped a JDAM on their own on us?
Speaker B:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
What did we do?
Speaker A:
So is your whole unit gone at this point?
Speaker B:
No.
Speaker B:
So I was, I got medevaced out.
Speaker A:
Oh yeah.
Speaker B:
And then two and a half so towards.
Speaker B:
I got medevaced out May 1st.
Speaker B:
The, the, the unit came in the end of May.
Speaker B:
Guys were going back with like serious tbi.
Speaker B:
Thank God nobody died.
Speaker B:
I don't know how God's real.
Speaker B:
They dropped, they dropped a JDAM and nobody died on their own base on us.
Speaker B:
It land.
Speaker B:
I don't know if it landed right outside the wall or if it was like in the corner of the motor pool.
Speaker A:
Don't even matter.
Speaker B:
We had.
Speaker B:
And it like guys were bad.
Speaker B:
TBI just horrific, horrific mistake.
Speaker B:
But I mean it's not that hard to make a mistake when you're talking a couple hundred yards for call for fire.
Speaker B:
Like.
Speaker A:
And people also need to realize when you're calling in a 10 digit grid 1, 1 number in a combat zone under fire.
Speaker A:
The chaos, the fog of war.
Speaker A:
That's why when with JTAC and guys, that that is their specific job.
Speaker A:
And more wizards, man, I give them so much credit.
Speaker B:
I had, I had a green marker and I would write all of my cheats on my arm before every mission and then I'd wash it off because black stays, green doesn't.
Speaker B:
So like a green Sharpie, you can actually wash that off the night before and you won't have like the leftover shadow.
Speaker B:
Like if you use a black sharpie at a staff sergeant, teach me that trick.
Speaker B:
And so like every mission it looked like we had like tribal green tattoos because we were like written grid coordinate here.
Speaker B:
Like all of our cheat sheets for nine line, whatever we needed.
Speaker B:
Yeah, you know, we, we were not in the days now where guys have like cell phones, the flip downs, they have like the sheet.
Speaker B:
Dude, you guys are.
Speaker B:
Bro, that's no skill anymore.
Speaker A:
Drones and stuff.
Speaker A:
Like, shut up.
Speaker B:
Yeah, shut up.
Speaker A:
You're not.
Speaker B:
You're not tough.
Speaker A:
You see them?
Speaker A:
They fold their little down uber all cool.
Speaker A:
Like, where are we?
Speaker B:
Yeah, dude, I'm like looking at a map with a protrude like a 3D.
Speaker A:
Shooting in Asmid direction.
Speaker A:
Like what the.
Speaker A:
Which way's north?
Speaker A:
Like nothing's working.
Speaker B:
No, hell no.
Speaker B:
It was all old school.
Speaker B:
So we had.
Speaker B:
All right, now and then like halfway through the point when somebody went on R R and came back with like a football.
Speaker A:
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:
From like high school.
Speaker B:
Okay, I'm gonna write on this from now on.
Speaker B:
And they like laminated their grid coordinates and stuff.
Speaker B:
But yeah, so that I don't know.
Speaker B:
I can't explain it other than like when I was there at 19, I was.
Speaker B:
That was the life I wanted for sure.
Speaker B:
I was living the life.
Speaker B:
Like I got to do a real scout mission.
Speaker B:
Four man ops.
Speaker B:
Like, you know, that we never would have been able to do if I went to Iraq.
Speaker B:
Like most guys, most cab guys I've met, they're like, wait, you did what?
Speaker B:
Yeah, we got to do real scout missions.
Speaker B:
Like we got to do the cool that I saw in that recruitment video.
Speaker B:
I got to do.
Speaker B:
And now as an adult, right As a grown up with children and with a child that's a year or two away from what I was there.
Speaker B:
Oh my God.
Speaker A:
Terrifying.
Speaker B:
Oh, it's not only terrifying, but it's the brainwashing that had to have gone into making me believe that that was the coolest thing on earth.
Speaker B:
Like, thank you for paying your taxes so I can have this job.
Speaker B:
Like, that was Brendan back then.
Speaker B:
And, you know, I'm not proud of it.
Speaker B:
I was a.
Speaker B:
People that I served with back then, either they love me or hate me because it's just my personality back then.
Speaker B:
Like, there's no now.
Speaker B:
Everybody I think that I interact with, they don't love me.
Speaker B:
They at least can like me or tolerate me, work with me.
Speaker B:
Back then, it was either I love you or I hate you.
Speaker B:
Like, for sure I want you dead, or I love you and I'm going to die for you.
Speaker B:
And that's what made the military so safe too, because you could hate me, but you would die for me.
Speaker B:
Civilian world, that doesn't exist.
Speaker B:
Oh, not at all.
Speaker A:
And that's.
Speaker A:
That's actually a good thing how you point that out, because on a lot of.
Speaker A:
They always ask, why is.
Speaker A:
Why is the military so tight?
Speaker A:
Like the brotherhood.
Speaker A:
The.
Speaker A:
We always hear about the brotherhood.
Speaker A:
So, dude, two of my best friends,.
Speaker B:
We hated each other.
Speaker A:
Oh, hey, you couldn't even be in this, on this, in the same row of formation without almost getting one at it.
Speaker A:
Best friends, because you're stuck in that environment, even though you want to beat that dude's ass, you'll do anything for him.
Speaker B:
Joel's gonna watch this and be like, that was me.
Speaker B:
Like, Joel and I went through OSA together.
Speaker A:
Okay.
Speaker B:
Into our first couple units.
Speaker B:
And we hated each other.
Speaker B:
We got to.
Speaker B:
In processing it rally.
Speaker B:
And I didn't have any clothes, civilian clothes.
Speaker B:
I enlisted with a uniform the recruitment office gave me.
Speaker B:
So I had nothing.
Speaker B:
And I couldn't leave base as a 17 year old without a, like, chaperone because I was still technically a child.
Speaker B:
Yeah, that's what the army called me.
Speaker B:
Go die for a country, but I can't leave on my own.
Speaker A:
Yeah, that's hilarious.
Speaker B:
And so One of the NCOs were like, hey, you have a car take him to the mall.
Speaker B:
So you get regular clothes.
Speaker B:
And we are the whole way to Manhattan, like 30 Minute Drive.
Speaker B:
I looked out the window and I'm like, my body turned.
Speaker B:
His body is turned.
Speaker B:
He's like, don't tell anybody I did this.
Speaker B:
I'm like, all right, man, don't talk to me.
Speaker B:
And then we got there and we went to the Hollister.
Speaker B:
And I was like, in the Hollister angled mirror, the light.
Speaker B:
I was looking at my six pack.
Speaker B:
I was like, damn, this mirror is awesome.
Speaker B:
At the same time he's like, dude, this mirror's awesome.
Speaker B:
We're like, like step brothers.
Speaker B:
We just become friends quick.
Speaker B:
We went from like, I will beat the hell out of you until I, like either one of us dies to best friends at a mall.
Speaker A:
Yeah.
Speaker B:
Shopping for clothes.
Speaker B:
Like, how dumb does that sound?
Speaker A:
That's how it happens.
Speaker B:
12 Year old girls like, you know, oh man, those are good times.
Speaker A:
But those are.
Speaker A:
That's.
Speaker A:
That's all it takes is that little bit of bond and be like, oh, man.
Speaker A:
All right, yeah.
Speaker A:
And then.
Speaker A:
And then he's shooting all the way home.
Speaker A:
And the next.
Speaker A:
Then it just starts from there.
Speaker A:
That's Dude, My.
Speaker A:
One of my best friends to this day.
Speaker A:
He.
Speaker A:
We didn't get along.
Speaker A:
And I was down in a.
Speaker A:
He's going to listen to this.
Speaker A:
This.
Speaker A:
I was down in a, like a, you know, like the oil change bays for like jiffy.
Speaker A:
But there.
Speaker A:
That was like that for our motor.
Speaker A:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
So our, Our.
Speaker A:
Our tanks would, you know, roll and we could drain drain plugs and everything underneath them.
Speaker A:
Anyways, I'm down inside of it and I'm talking, but I got my hands up and.
Speaker A:
But apparently my fingers were kind of flat on the concrete.
Speaker A:
And he walks up and steps.
Speaker B:
Oh, dude.
Speaker A:
And crushes my fingers.
Speaker A:
And it hurt.
Speaker A:
I couldn't even scream because he's just.
Speaker A:
And I yank my hand out.
Speaker A:
He's like, my bad, my bad.
Speaker A:
And I. Dude.
Speaker B:
And I came out of there swinging and he.
Speaker A:
He had this.
Speaker A:
He's got this like crippled leg.
Speaker A:
I don't know how he made it into the Marine Corps, but when he runs, he has the.
Speaker A:
He like pivots it out.
Speaker B:
He's got a pigeon foot, so he's.
Speaker A:
Got to throw it.
Speaker A:
And so he.
Speaker A:
As he's running away from me, he's.
Speaker A:
He's running all kind of messed up.
Speaker A:
And I start laughing my ass off because he just looks so.
Speaker B:
You guys call him Gimbal now.
Speaker A:
We call him a lot of other names, but.
Speaker A:
And then from that point, I mean, we were.
Speaker A:
I mean, he saw I was laughing and I was just like, you son of a.
Speaker A:
Like, if you didn't run.
Speaker A:
So I would 100 beat your ass because I would have caught him.
Speaker A:
I would have hunted you down over that though.
Speaker A:
But I mean, dude, all my fingers are just all peeled back.
Speaker A:
My fingernail.
Speaker A:
Like he crushed my hand and I was just dying laughing because.
Speaker A:
But that was it.
Speaker A:
But we didn't like each other before that.
Speaker B:
And.
Speaker B:
Yeah, boys, it's so Weird, man.
Speaker B:
And it's what I loved about the military is not only the bond, but like the shared trauma.
Speaker B:
Like the trauma bonded.
Speaker B:
Not only trauma bonded, but like, the people that enlisted for my job came from somewhat of a same background from my childhood trauma.
Speaker B:
We almost all military combat arms, especially in the soft community, but mainly in, like, big army combat arms.
Speaker B:
It's poverty line violence, childhood trauma.
Speaker B:
Those are the three things.
Speaker B:
Most people have all three.
Speaker B:
And to have guys that had this.
Speaker B:
They could be from any other part in the country.
Speaker B:
We have kind of the same parameters of a background.
Speaker B:
It allowed us to get along quicker.
Speaker A:
There's specific units in the military, at least I could speak on the Marine Corps that attract a specific human being.
Speaker A:
Yeah, clearly, obviously you guys did.
Speaker A:
But for us, it was the same way.
Speaker A:
I'll never forget being in the.
Speaker A:
The pits.
Speaker A:
We were doing the.
Speaker A:
The range pits, pulling targets, and there was a reserve unit next to us.
Speaker A:
We're all bullshitting.
Speaker A:
And some.
Speaker A:
Something got brought up on drug waivers.
Speaker A:
And they're like, oh, no, you can never have a drug waiver for us.
Speaker A:
And they're like, you guys have drug waivers?
Speaker A:
And I'll never forget.
Speaker A:
I yell down the pit, I'm like, yo, who's got a drug waiver?
Speaker B:
Everybody raised her.
Speaker A:
Damn near everybody.
Speaker A:
Or everybody's like, who had a waiver to get in?
Speaker A:
And almost 90% of the dude just raised their hand in the pits.
Speaker A:
And this whole entire reserve unit was looking at us like, who are you guys?
Speaker A:
Like, what did you.
Speaker A:
What do you guys do?
Speaker B:
Stay away from them.
Speaker A:
But it was just that specific job where it's just the meathead dudes had been in trouble.
Speaker A:
Drug waivers, you know, jail waivers.
Speaker A:
It was either their option, either go to jail or join the military.
Speaker A:
And they.
Speaker B:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
And they all just ended up funneling into our job and that.
Speaker A:
So it's.
Speaker A:
There's certain jobs in militaries that 100% attract a certain individual.
Speaker A:
Then.
Speaker A:
Then it's like the most Animal House craziest time of your life.
Speaker A:
Because instead, it's wild.
Speaker A:
Imagine, like, the class, like, how you separate your buddies in class in high school, and now you just have a full classroom full of those people.
Speaker B:
Same.
Speaker A:
One of the same person.
Speaker A:
Yeah, it's.
Speaker A:
It's the greatest ever.
Speaker B:
I tell people, like, if you thought your college experience was cool, try being 17 in a barracks with guys coming back from Iraq.
Speaker B:
And the highest ranking in the Barracks was an E4, and they have not been able to spend their money for a year.
Speaker B:
Wild.
Speaker B:
It turned into Van Wilder for two and a half weeks.
Speaker B:
They got a three week leave block and it was like they could make movies about it.
Speaker A:
Like, this makes me happy hearing this because I. I feel the army's never on the stories of the Marine Corps, like, but hearing this, I'm like, oh, pockets.
Speaker B:
We have our pockets.
Speaker A:
Perfect.
Speaker B:
The Cavs definitely one of those pockets.
Speaker A:
That's good to know.
Speaker B:
We got these new barracks.
Speaker B:
I had, like, two bedrooms, a shared kitchenette and a bathroom.
Speaker B:
And I get to rear D and they're, you know, my first unit.
Speaker B:
They're like, yeah, you guys are gonna set these rooms up.
Speaker B:
They're all getting back from Iraq in like three weeks, four weeks.
Speaker B:
Get the whole barrack set up.
Speaker B:
We got it all set up, like two days.
Speaker B:
And then they're like, we had nothing else for you to do, so you just.
Speaker B:
Guys can hang out.
Speaker B:
There's four of us in this giant aspiration.
Speaker B:
We're like, I wonder what it's gonna be like when they get back.
Speaker B:
You know, you're like, you know what?
Speaker B:
You know, what do you think they had over there in Iraq?
Speaker B:
And you're like, going back to the rear D and you're looking up, like, the.
Speaker B:
The tick report stuff.
Speaker B:
You're like, all right.
Speaker B:
Yeah, they.
Speaker B:
They kind of got some scuffles.
Speaker B:
Like, this is cool.
Speaker B:
And so you have this picture in your head of, like, professional soldiers coming back.
Speaker B:
And then we were there for the reception formation.
Speaker B:
And I was like, yeah, these guys.
Speaker B:
These guys are legit.
Speaker B:
This would be a good unit.
Speaker B:
And then they call the fallout and everybody goes to barracks and everybody gets checked in.
Speaker B:
Like, this is normal.
Speaker B:
And then like four and a half hours into checkout, all sudden you just hear, like, primate screaming the whole building.
Speaker B:
Like, what is going on?
Speaker B:
I go out and everybody's already hammered.
Speaker B:
They're in.
Speaker B:
Like, you can think of, like, the Village People music video for the YMCA.
Speaker B:
That is the barracks times 300 privates.
Speaker A:
Like, with money.
Speaker B:
I don't know where people got headdresses from.
Speaker B:
Like, most people are like, nothing but a road guard vest and Speedos.
Speaker B:
Like, they set up a slip and slide on the fourth floor for the whole hallway.
Speaker B:
They put plastic from Home Depot and soap.
Speaker B:
And they were like, doing slip and slide shots.
Speaker B:
Like, you'd have to slide down and, like, grab a room.
Speaker B:
If you could grab the door joint, you would have to play that room's activity.
Speaker B:
And you had to do every room.
Speaker B:
If you go to the next floor down.
Speaker B:
I don't know how people die from alcohol poisoning.
Speaker A:
Like, that's honestly a great question.
Speaker B:
17 Years old, playing beer pong with everclear.
Speaker B:
And I thought I partied before I joined the military.
Speaker B:
Like no, not no, no, dude, I've.
Speaker A:
Watched my buddy everclear was my.
Speaker A:
That was my choice.
Speaker A:
Clear springs and everclear.
Speaker A:
That was my go to that and lemonade.
Speaker A:
So I was immediately just tore up.
Speaker A:
And I'll never forget one night my buddy, he.
Speaker A:
He pours some everclear in his head.
Speaker A:
He looks because light it.
Speaker A:
And I'm like, what, this dude's a u. S. Marshal now?
Speaker A:
He travels the world like dude does.
Speaker B:
We're not gonna say his name.
Speaker B:
Used to be a thug.
Speaker A:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
I light his hand and our other buddy standing right there and he goes, you know, like the blue flame.
Speaker A:
He just goes.
Speaker A:
It's lights his whole face on fire.
Speaker A:
But that was an average Friday or Saturday night in the barracks, if not.
Speaker B:
A Wednesday, depending on the training schedule.
Speaker A:
Ours was horrible.
Speaker A:
God, it was horrible.
Speaker A:
But yeah, it was just completely out of control.
Speaker A:
And the fact that people aren't just dying of alcohol poisoning.
Speaker B:
Oh man.
Speaker A:
Blows my mind.
Speaker B:
And we wonder why our bodies are so beat in our.
Speaker B:
In our 30s and 40s.
Speaker B:
Yeah, I, I love that part of the mill.
Speaker B:
I loved everything about the people of the military, the culture.
Speaker B:
I just, I. I'm so happy that I was wounded and medically retired because I couldn't handle the admin of the military.
Speaker B:
Because you try to.
Speaker B:
It's a conflict of two.
Speaker B:
Two disciplines that don't belong together.
Speaker B:
Explain that the guy that will go out in the field, the guys that will go in Iran right now.
Speaker B:
Right.
Speaker B:
Or the like us in Afghanistan.
Speaker B:
You put four dudes alone on a mountain watching a village of Taliban.
Speaker B:
That 19 year old should not be interacting with a dude that pushes paper and comes from a good family and went to college and you know, he's all about the rules.
Speaker A:
I'm here to make a difference.
Speaker B:
Those two things should never mix for sure, right?
Speaker B:
Like it's oil and water.
Speaker B:
They both have their place in the cup.
Speaker B:
Garrison shakes that cup up.
Speaker B:
And we wonder why guys.
Speaker A:
Yeah.
Speaker B:
Get, you know, depressed or suicidal or homicidal or risk behaviors.
Speaker B:
Why are they getting DUIs and why they're driving their bike 140 miles through the gate.
Speaker B:
Like that behavior is.
Speaker B:
Because those guys are the break glass case of war.
Speaker B:
Because you need that, you know, 18 to 24 year old that mentally is ready to go over there and do the things that are demanded of the job.
Speaker B:
Those don't mix with the gentleman, you know, at the officers club who's making these dumbass rules for sure.
Speaker B:
You know, and I, I just, I, I'm saddened that we still have yet to figure that out.
Speaker B:
I thought all of our research and we still have not figured out like we got to put bumper rails up.
Speaker A:
Like I personally feel that in the military, the non combat Moss, I feel we need to start phasing military members out and turning those in the civilian jobs and the contractors in the contractors like you look at, I'll speak for on Camp Pendleton.
Speaker A:
The whole main side, they're never going to deploy unless they're attached to a battalion or a division that maybe might deploy as the, the Division CoC.
Speaker A:
But all of the clerks and admin and check in, check out the CIF supply, all that shit that they're never going to deploy.
Speaker A:
Those all need to go away.
Speaker A:
Those all need to be civilian jobs.
Speaker A:
So that way you're, you're able to be more selective of the Jews that are joining the military for at least Army, Marine Corps, you're joining the defend your country.
Speaker B:
Yeah, you're a war fighter.
Speaker A:
You're a war fighter and that's how it should be.
Speaker A:
But like these guys that'll sit here and do 20 years and they've never deployed, they sit in some admin.
Speaker A:
But now you're in charge, your first sergeant looking over a battalion of grunts and you're, these guys are out of control.
Speaker A:
No shit.
Speaker A:
You've sat your whole career behind a desk and now you just got turned a whole platoon full of pit bulls.
Speaker B:
We had the same problem with an E5 who was a truck driver who's an 88 Mike and he got his five and then came over to the Cav and wanted to pretend he knew what he was doing.
Speaker B:
It's like, dude, my, my Joe that has only been here for you know, a year and a half knows more than you do.
Speaker B:
Like for sure, don't talk for sure you're gonna get people killed.
Speaker B:
And I, I, I'm frustrated that our, our decision makers haven't picked that up yet.
Speaker B:
I talk to a lot of generals now that's a weird part of the company with Neurova is like now the tables I'm sitting at are like tables as a 19 year old I would have been petrified at.
Speaker B:
And now I'm telling generals like hey, you're up.
Speaker A:
Yeah.
Speaker B:
And the one thing I'm always talking about with their Joes, with their suicide rates is we are spending more tension and time and money than ever before.
Speaker B:
And our numbers are only increasing.
Speaker B:
And there's a disconnect not only with the physical injury, with what we're doing, but there's this giant disconnect in the leadership and their approach to Joe's because for some reason, everybody after a certain period of time forgets they used to be a joke.
Speaker A:
Why?
Speaker B:
I don't know what happens to them, but there's like this disassociation of.
Speaker B:
I was never that bad.
Speaker B:
And you see, with every generation, I feel like.
Speaker B:
Like, oh, back in my time, we did it on this podcast with the cell phones.
Speaker B:
No, back in my time, it was asmith.
Speaker B:
We all do it.
Speaker B:
But at the same time, I think most people can have an honesty of like, yeah, I used to be a dumb kid.
Speaker B:
Like, I used to have a bad past.
Speaker B:
Like, as a Christian, I like to tell people, like, I'm not proud of my past, but I'm.
Speaker B:
I'm.
Speaker B:
I'm happy that I am where I'm at.
Speaker B:
And absolutely, I'm the husband and father and follower of Jesus that I am.
Speaker A:
Absolutely.
Speaker B:
But I used to be a really bad kid.
Speaker B:
And I won't say bad person, but I was a bad kid.
Speaker B:
And most of the leadership seems to somehow separate themselves from that of, like, who they are now is who they've always been.
Speaker B:
And that disconnect makes its way to the troops.
Speaker B:
And that's why troops don't go to command when they have problems.
Speaker A:
100.
Speaker B:
They don't want to get punished.
Speaker B:
They don't want to be looked at differently.
Speaker B:
Like the.
Speaker B:
The safe space that's supposed to exist for when you're struggling doesn't truly exist.
Speaker B:
Yet.
Speaker B:
I'll say yet in the military.
Speaker B:
That's why we designed what we designed.
Speaker B:
I wanted something that privates could go do.
Speaker B:
Not during platoon time, not during training time.
Speaker B:
Something they go back to barracks and have fun with their friends and actually use, which is a video game.
Speaker A:
Yeah.
Speaker B:
Like, how are you going to reach Joe's when they're in the barracks drinking and playing Call of Duty every weekend?
Speaker B:
Every night they had off shift, they go to the BER room.
Speaker B:
That's what they're doing.
Speaker B:
So meet them where they're at.
Speaker B:
That's why we designed it the way we did.
Speaker B:
But, you know, I.
Speaker B:
Until leadership takes accountability for their disconnect and nothing will change.
Speaker A:
That's one of my biggest frustrations with the military.
Speaker A:
And that was a big reason I got out.
Speaker A:
I wanted to career it.
Speaker A:
And then obviously when my orders got changed and I was like, okay, cool.
Speaker A:
There's such.
Speaker A:
That Disconnect.
Speaker A:
I have buddies that are all retiring right now or getting ready to retire.
Speaker A:
You know, I'm at that age.
Speaker A:
And so.
Speaker A:
But I'd go and I'd talk to him.
Speaker A:
They're like, dude, you don't believe what these kids do.
Speaker A:
I'm like, act like we did it, bro.
Speaker B:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
You remember this night?
Speaker A:
Remember when we stole motorcycles?
Speaker A:
We're throwing them in dumpsters and flipping cars and catching on fire.
Speaker A:
I go, I tell.
Speaker A:
Don't forget I was there with you.
Speaker A:
One of my buddies, he's a major, and he.
Speaker A:
He hasn't forgot where he come.
Speaker A:
He came from.
Speaker A:
And.
Speaker A:
But we were talking like, bro, you remember that night we got in that fist fight and I ripped the towel rack off and beat your ass with it?
Speaker A:
And you hit me and Gunny, like, one of the NJP is.
Speaker A:
And I'm like, don't forget where you came from.
Speaker A:
And.
Speaker A:
Because a lot of people do.
Speaker A:
And so.
Speaker A:
But then I think a lot of those people in the military didn't come from.
Speaker A:
It happens in the combat moss.
Speaker A:
But a lot of the admin, they weren't absolutely Lord of the Flies, out of control with loincloths and torches.
Speaker A:
But that's.
Speaker A:
Those are the guys.
Speaker A:
Those are the ones I feel have a much harder time for getting their past.
Speaker A:
But it happens.
Speaker A:
But it's a lot of these first sergeants, gunnies, and they come to new units, and it's like, dude, you were perfect your whole career.
Speaker A:
That was one thing that I really had a hard time with was punishing Punishing my troops because, dude, we were out of control.
Speaker A:
Out of control.
Speaker A:
Belligerent, wild.
Speaker A:
Nobody can control us.
Speaker A:
And so when my guys would get tr.
Speaker A:
I'd be like, yo, like, hey, this is how you get away with it.
Speaker A:
Like, don't.
Speaker A:
Don't go in the front like this.
Speaker A:
You.
Speaker A:
You little idiots.
Speaker A:
Like, you got to figure this out.
Speaker B:
Like, yeah.
Speaker A:
And that was one of my sayings.
Speaker A:
Don't make me do my job.
Speaker A:
Don't make me be an.
Speaker A:
To my true.
Speaker A:
Like, so to my sergeants and then to their.
Speaker A:
To my troops, I'd always.
Speaker A:
You rate what you get away with.
Speaker A:
And that's where, like, that was my mindset is when I picked up staff and, you know, and got to the platoon sergeant level.
Speaker A:
I can't fry these kids for sneaking some chicks that they met at Coyote Ugly out in Oceanside into the barracks.
Speaker A:
Like, I can't punish you for that.
Speaker A:
Technically, I could.
Speaker A:
I was doing that, though, and I'm like, yo, okay, send them home.
Speaker B:
Youe were smarter.
Speaker B:
Hey, who's on staff duty today?
Speaker B:
Awesome.
Speaker B:
I'm buying you.
Speaker B:
Here's your fast food.
Speaker B:
Here's, you know, 50 bucks and look the other way.
Speaker A:
Smart.
Speaker B:
Yeah, like we, we figured it out.
Speaker B:
Hey, here's a new pack of smokes and shoe.
Speaker B:
Go out for a break real quick.
Speaker B:
Yeah.
Speaker B:
Everybody in?
Speaker A:
Yeah, shuffle them.
Speaker B:
All right.
Speaker B:
It's 4 in the morning.
Speaker B:
Get everybody out.
Speaker A:
You know, that's how it was.
Speaker A:
And I feel that's what separates the majority of the good leaders from the rest of the leadership of the military is the few that truly never forgot where they came from and to who they were and their roots and their, their career as they grew as a young trooper, whatever it was.
Speaker A:
But then being able to relate to your, the young troops now.
Speaker A:
Like, guys, listen, don't get in trouble.
Speaker A:
Don't, don't make me do my job.
Speaker A:
And we'll have the greatest time here and but you get those guys with the power trip now, they get the rank and oh, I'm a master sergeant.
Speaker A:
I'm a first sergeant.
Speaker A:
You have to listen to my authority.
Speaker A:
And it's like, dude, you've lost it at that point.
Speaker B:
Well, it's also, I think we need to have like a qualifier here for the general population watching too of like civilians is this might, what we're talking about might like you might clutch your pearls a little bit like they're doing what oh my tax laws are paying for what.
Speaker B:
And it's like for all of what we're talking about from the, the hood, Lord of the Fly stuff is the decompress from the workup and training to go do a job that you, your nightmares could not imagine when it goes the way you're prepared for.
Speaker B:
So like you're always preparing for the worst and you're hoping that your deployment goes really well and there aren't any books written about it, there are no awards given.
Speaker B:
You're, you really do hope, even when you're a gung ho kid, you're hoping that things go just fine where I'm maybe going to get an ARCOM at the end of the deployment and you know, cash in the account when I get back, you're hoping for that because when things go bad, all of that aren't like, I can't tell you how many times we'd be in an op and it just the, the horror of the environment.
Speaker B:
Right.
Speaker B:
So the, the combat fatigue, the firefight fatigue, you know, after you lose somebody, you have, we had four uniforms.
Speaker B:
People realize like you don't go to Afghanistan or Iraq with like a wardrobe.
Speaker B:
No, you with a handful of outfits.
Speaker B:
And if those outfits get tore up and dirty, you're taking foot patrol mission with your crotch blown out.
Speaker B:
If you ripped your crotch how many.
Speaker A:
Times pockets blown out.
Speaker B:
But like, if you've.
Speaker B:
If you've put your buddy on a medevac and his blood's all over your uniform and you go back and you wash it, blood stays on your uniform.
Speaker B:
And there's a lot of, like, everybody thinks of, like, these awesome firefight moments.
Speaker B:
Those are moments, the hours of boredom in between the two where your brain starts really, you're looking at your arm and you're smelling throw up, and you're just like, oh, like, dude, you remember that time we went down to K town and you just start talking about all the hoodlum things and it pulls you out.
Speaker B:
It gives you the moment to get to the next one.
Speaker B:
You know, it gives you that moment to get the next one.
Speaker B:
And so when civilians, I feel like, hear these stories, they, you know, there's that moment of like, I don't want my tax dollars paying for that, or that's not acceptable behavior.
Speaker B:
There needs to be something for us because we know what happens if there's not.
Speaker B:
And what happens.
Speaker B:
They're not.
Speaker B:
Ends up with a folded flag and a funeral.
Speaker B:
Because.
Speaker B:
Because most guys quit.
Speaker A:
Yep.
Speaker B:
And it's not a quit of they made a decision to commit suicide.
Speaker B:
Their brains quit, their brains stop working the way they're supposed to.
Speaker B:
The.
Speaker B:
The resources turn off, the auction turns off, and they die.
Speaker B:
They die by suicide.
Speaker B:
Not.
Speaker B:
They may had suicide.
Speaker B:
Like, it's.
Speaker B:
It's an injury death.
Speaker B:
And those little tiny moments of decompression.
Speaker B:
Remembering the stories and the bonding moments, I feel like gives us a little bit of grounding in space that the brain can kind of get out of survival state and kind of back into cognition.
Speaker B:
Because you're remembering moments, you're laughing.
Speaker B:
Yeah, that's so important to have.
Speaker B:
And these commanders that are stripping that away from the new Joes, it terrifies me because I. I can tell you right now on this podcast, like, if I didn't have the fun stories from my military experience, I just had my childhood experience, training experience, and then deployment, there's no way I would have not fallen into the category first.
Speaker B:
Like, I definitely would have been in those boots 100.
Speaker A:
And I feel that's.
Speaker A:
That's where we have those outlets to be able to look back.
Speaker A:
Like, bro, you remember that time we threw that motorcycle in the dumpster and it Trapped Galvan's face.
Speaker A:
And we only had to push it off of it.
Speaker A:
And we're all.
Speaker A:
Then you're all laughing.
Speaker A:
You're like, oh, this tore his face up.
Speaker A:
Those are those little outlets.
Speaker A:
But then when guys get out of the military, you don't have that outlet anymore.
Speaker A:
So then those memories start to fade, and then you're just trapped in your.
Speaker A:
Your own just hamster wheel of the shitty moments.
Speaker A:
And obviously, I want to dive into it because you.
Speaker A:
This is where I really am interested in this conversation.
Speaker A:
Because us being in the charity world for the last over a decade, it's so hard.
Speaker A:
You have these guys just submit every.
Speaker A:
Everybody's got PTSD now.
Speaker A:
Everybody's got some TBI or some problems, and it's like, okay, cool.
Speaker A:
We're out here doing it.
Speaker A:
If we have all these programs, we have all these resources, there's a.
Speaker A:
There's hundreds of thousands of charities for everything you can imagine.
Speaker A:
Why did this dude that is making millions of dollars a year, got a beautiful wife and kids, life is on a silver platform, just take his life.
Speaker A:
It's like, make that make sense.
Speaker A:
And it's a super frustrating thing.
Speaker A:
And we.
Speaker A:
We immediately.
Speaker A:
I was.
Speaker A:
I was in this stage for a while where you hear about a guy killing himself.
Speaker A:
It's like, dude, what the.
Speaker A:
Like.
Speaker A:
Like, what a selfish thing to do.
Speaker A:
What a piece of.
Speaker A:
You're just.
Speaker A:
You're not ending the hurt.
Speaker A:
You're just.
Speaker A:
You're just passing the pain.
Speaker A:
You don't end the pain.
Speaker A:
You pass it.
Speaker A:
Right?
Speaker A:
Which is.
Speaker A:
I still believe in that, especially with suicide.
Speaker A:
But then years of dealing with this and years into it, it's like, okay, there.
Speaker A:
This isn't a dude just quitting.
Speaker A:
This isn't a husband, this isn't a cop.
Speaker A:
This isn't a mom that just one day, I'm gonna.
Speaker A:
I'm gonna take my life.
Speaker A:
There's a. I truly believe a.
Speaker A:
A disconnect.
Speaker A:
There's a chemical in our brains.
Speaker A:
There's something more than just, oh, they were struggling.
Speaker A:
Well, yes, they were struggling.
Speaker A:
But then you start looking at, why did this mom with PostPartum just drown three of her kids?
Speaker A:
I hear these stories from my wife watching these movies.
Speaker A:
Nobody in their right state of mind is going to do that.
Speaker A:
She was right up to it.
Speaker A:
Something clearly is burned out, switched, disconnected in our mind.
Speaker A:
So that's why I want to dive into this.
Speaker A:
But before we do, let's touch on you getting your purple Heart the day you got hit.
Speaker A:
And then let's transition.
Speaker A:
Let's roll into what led up after the military and then the hospital.
Speaker A:
Let's go into that and then that way.
Speaker A:
Because I want to start painting the picture on this because this is such a.
Speaker A:
It's such a terrifying topic because we're losing so many damn people every single day.
Speaker A:
Not even just veterans.
Speaker A:
Just suicide is just.
Speaker A:
It's a horrible thing.
Speaker A:
And the numbers are on the incline, unfortunately, so I want to dive into that.
Speaker A:
So walk me through the day that you ended up getting blown up and shot.
Speaker B:
So let's qualify that.
Speaker B:
I.
Speaker B:
Okay, I was not penetrated.
Speaker B:
My gear worked correctly.
Speaker A:
Okay.
Speaker B:
So I caught around three rounds.
Speaker A:
You caught three rounds?
Speaker B:
Caught one in the back plate, two in the front striker.
Speaker B:
But my gear worked, so.
Speaker B:
Broken a couple broken bones.
Speaker B:
My ribs are up.
Speaker B:
But mainly the biggest injury from that was bruised organs.
Speaker B:
So I bruised my left lung, bruised my stomach, then bruised my, like, spleen area.
Speaker B:
And what did it feel like?
Speaker A:
Okay, dude.
Speaker B:
So I felt like I got pushed.
Speaker B:
So, like, I don't know how to explain it.
Speaker B:
We were.
Speaker B:
We were in this area we always kind of laughed at as, like, our relax area.
Speaker A:
Okay.
Speaker B:
So we.
Speaker B:
Where we were at, the way the Haji Ramadine was kind of set up is you have these grape rows that kind of surrounded us.
Speaker B:
Then we had these giant, like, dry houses that were like little castles.
Speaker B:
We drop JDAMs in them, and the bomb would go off, and then they would still be standing.
Speaker B:
That's where, like, the Taliban would, like, stack their RPGs and like, they would.
Speaker B:
They would prep their munitions onesie twosie for an attack on the compound.
Speaker B:
And so we would do these foot patrols where we kind of go on the outer skirts, hit all those, make sure there wasn't anything prepped.
Speaker B:
We'd hit the sides, and we had this one little area that, like, the Taliban hate getting wet.
Speaker B:
They don't go through canals, right?
Speaker B:
So we were like, hey, we're gonna walk through these canals.
Speaker B:
Like that's.
Speaker B:
That's gonna be a good idea.
Speaker B:
So we had, like a relaxed rest, kind of cool down area at the end of a mission.
Speaker B:
That's the route we were taking back.
Speaker B:
The.
Speaker B:
The problem is, is that we weren't taking it every day.
Speaker B:
We were taking enough for it to become kind of like a. Oh, this is where they get sloppy.
Speaker B:
And in that sloppy area, we were going towards it in this grape row, and they.
Speaker B:
They prepped it perfect.
Speaker B:
It's kind of in a blind spot.
Speaker B:
They put a pressure plate in, and we, as we were going into that grape road, kind of got hit with this almost Perfect setup of the way grape roads are set up.
Speaker B:
Kind of like kill funnels.
Speaker B:
They're just straight.
Speaker B:
You have a platform.
Speaker B:
It drops down and then a big wall where the grapes grow up, and then it continues.
Speaker B:
It's like a.
Speaker B:
If you look at, like an old timey washboard in a barrel, that's a grape row.
Speaker B:
You know, it's just ridges.
Speaker B:
And we'd walk down them kind of straight, and then sometimes we'd hop the wall and then take another one.
Speaker B:
We tried to be unpredictable.
Speaker B:
They realized, like, oh, they get really sloppy and they take this row.
Speaker A:
Damn.
Speaker B:
So they've been watching.
Speaker B:
So we were walking through that, and I felt like I got kind of pushed and I turned around to, like, laugh.
Speaker B:
And then I, I, I just couldn't breathe for a second.
Speaker B:
And then I remember kind of turning and falling a little bit, kind of coming up.
Speaker B:
And then I remember more moving forward, hitting a pressure plate.
Speaker B:
Like, I remember the two kill cans that clack.
Speaker B:
Like metallic noise.
Speaker B:
And then I don't really remember much after that.
Speaker B:
I've talked to a couple guys.
Speaker B:
You know, I guess I was throwing up immediately.
Speaker B:
Like, could not stop throwing up.
Speaker B:
Got on the bird.
Speaker B:
And what happened with the swelling from that is my brain swelled, and then it was kind of coming down.
Speaker B:
And so I flew low altitude from roll three to Germany.
Speaker B:
And I'd spent two weeks in Germany just for them to be like, are we cutting his head open or not?
Speaker B:
Like, what's going on with the swelling?
Speaker B:
Where's.
Speaker B:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
Oh.
Speaker B:
Then flew back to the US and then I spent two years in a wtb.
Speaker B:
The first nine months of that was in the hospital Warrior transition Battalion.
Speaker A:
Okay.
Speaker B:
So it's where, like, you have a bunch of guys wounded in combat go, and then you have, like, the, the army started using it like a get rid of their shipbags.
Speaker B:
So you have, like, guys who are like, mental health.
Speaker A:
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:
That were just guys.
Speaker B:
We're not getting along with their unit.
Speaker B:
Or there were guys there that were mental health, suicidal.
Speaker B:
But they just started packing these units full of everything from the National Guard, reservists, active duty in the regions.
Speaker B:
That's where their guys would go.
Speaker B:
So, like, in our wtb, the guys in the hospital, we were all combat up, and we did, you know, the, the first nine months were brutal.
Speaker B:
My first three months and, well, I would say 60 days in the WTB, I had, like, this contraption.
Speaker B:
I'm sure Nate will send a photo.
Speaker B:
We can put it on screen or whatever.
Speaker B:
But I had my eyes covered and like this.
Speaker B:
These ice packs in my head, trying to keep my pressure down, because I did not.
Speaker B:
They realized cutting skulls open, we're giving guys more injuries really.
Speaker B:
So, like, that.
Speaker B:
That stress relief surgery of, like, cracking the skull.
Speaker B:
Yeah, it gave it too much expansion.
Speaker B:
And so, like, that's where guys are having, like, really hard times with movement, mobility, writing, like, just.
Speaker B:
They.
Speaker B:
I got really lucky the.
Speaker B:
The phase of army medicine when they were realizing that to gave my brain enough time to come down on its own.
Speaker B:
And granted, if it was worse, they would have cut me open.
Speaker B:
But I was like, wrote a line.
Speaker B:
Really lucky in life to be able to ride that line of injury.
Speaker B:
But I had Dr. Davis and Dr. Davis out of Topeka, Kansas, he's a neurologist.
Speaker B:
And, you know, he's.
Speaker B:
He's the reason I really got interested in trying to find a physical injury to the brain for PTSD is because he would explain my brain injury to me and the emotions with it better than anybody at the time that I ever met.
Speaker B:
I'd go see a.
Speaker B:
A shrink in my army shrink appointments.
Speaker B:
Like, half the time they would forget your name and they're looking at their notes, and the other half, they're like, not even looking at you.
Speaker B:
They're typing on a computer and they go, here are your prescriptions.
Speaker B:
And so, like, going through the wtb, I got exposed to thousands of veterans in the two and a half years I was there.
Speaker B:
Guys that were getting out of the military due to medical issues or, you know, mental psychological issues.
Speaker B:
got out medically, retired in:
Speaker B:
So I did what everybody does.
Speaker B:
I. I got on with contracting.
Speaker B:
I joined an organization called icap.
Speaker B:
And during that year, going after I. I had my 20th suicide and I got the notification.
Speaker B:
And up until then, my.
Speaker A:
Of guys, you knew guys.
Speaker B:
I knew 20 dudes.
Speaker B:
20 Dudes.
Speaker B:
See, I think out of a couple thousand people, it's a small population, but it's still Jesus.
Speaker B:
Like, that's a lot.
Speaker B:
The numbers are still outrageous from wtbs.
Speaker B:
Like, they're.
Speaker B:
I don't know what the current stats are per wtb, but when we were leaving, like, we were having a suicide a month at Riley.
Speaker B:
You can look this up.
Speaker B:
The joint Chief of the DoD of, I think it was Lloyd Austin at the time, came to Fort Riley to meet with our unit and a couple other units.
Speaker B:
Like, why are your suicide rates so high here?
Speaker B:
Like, is it a command issue?
Speaker B:
Is it.
Speaker B:
t was Just like I, I remember:
Speaker B:
I think it was 20.
Speaker B:
No, it's:
Speaker B:
2012.
Speaker B:
I think we had a body collection every like four weeks out of the barracks.
Speaker B:
Like it became so routine that like no one even acknowledged it after a point.
Speaker B:
The mindset back then was like, these guys quit on us.
Speaker A:
These guys are all killing themselves in.
Speaker B:
The military, on base, and then even worse than they left.
Speaker B:
Army doesn't track deaths after service.
Speaker B:
When you're out, you get your, your paperwork.
Speaker A:
They don't care.
Speaker B:
They don't give a no.
Speaker B:
Now if you haven't signed up with the VA yet, no one tracks that.
Speaker B:
So like when our VA numbers, we're talking about like this 22 a day number, there's a report out there says it could be up to 49.
Speaker B:
Remember, not all 50 states report their suicide.
Speaker B:
Numbers of veteran population, like 26 states report.
Speaker A:
And also I think that 22 was taken off of Vietnam vets at one point.
Speaker B:
That's where they, it was like, it was like the veteran, it's their veteran population, which.
Speaker B:
The vfw.
Speaker B:
Right.
Speaker B:
Veteran foreign war started by Vietnam guys.
Speaker A:
Yeah.
Speaker B:
And World War II guys.
Speaker B:
That was their population.
Speaker B:
What they lobbied for.
Speaker B:
Those are the numbers they were tracking.
Speaker A:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
Because everybody's like 22 a day.
Speaker A:
Which, I mean that's even hard to believe.
Speaker A:
But yeah, that the number's much higher.
Speaker A:
Oh, I would damn near double.
Speaker B:
And then we took out in:
Speaker B:
So overdoses from addiction and then like risk behavior death, like driving your car 120 miles into a tree.
Speaker B:
Motorcycle suicide anymore.
Speaker B:
150 Miles an hour, that's not even counted under suicide anymore.
Speaker B:
So if you think of it just addiction, overdose deaths and risk behavior deaths, the number is out of.
Speaker B:
It's an epidemic.
Speaker B:
And I told the commandant on the Marine Corps this, like, that's why we're working with them.
Speaker B:
Like, I'm not shy about telling leadership they're failing and I'm not shy about telling these contractors that have been here for 30 plus years, spent billions of dollars and have done nothing for our community, they're wrong.
Speaker B:
Obviously.
Speaker B:
You know, I, I get angry because if I was that incompetent in my job, I would have been in Leavenworth.
Speaker B:
If I was incompetent as a squad leader and I got dudes killed because of incompetency, I'd go to jail.
Speaker B:
But.
Speaker A:
But here, our government, since it's for.
Speaker B:
Us, they're, well, that program a record and just that's acceptable losses I guess that's our tolerance.
Speaker A:
Well, the last 30 years of data shows us that we've actually have more deaths on our.
There's a, there's an Instagram page, I can't remember.
Speaker B:
It's like something graphs and they have this line graph of like deaths, Iraq, Afghanistan go up and then they have suicides that rides with it.
Speaker B:
And then combat stops and suicide keeps going.
Speaker B:
And then the graph gets so big you can't even see the war numbers anymore.
Speaker B:
And it's just when it's painted visually for you, it's just like, what are we gonna do?
Speaker B:
But I, I got really upset with the last notification because it was a guy that went out of his way to check on me all the time.
Speaker B:
Like all the time.
Speaker B:
Happiest dude I knew, we're great, everything's good.
Speaker B:
And his suicide, I wouldn't say crippled me, but it, it broke something to me that I got angry.
Speaker B:
Like whatever they're doing in the medical sphere is not working and there's no more excuses.
Speaker B:
If they're not going to fix it, I'm going to go fix it.
Speaker B:
I'm going to figure it out.
Speaker B:
And I started with the you are not alone mission.
Speaker B:
I'm sure some people remember that Facebook group.
Speaker B:
We were just a group of dudes trying to help at the time.
Speaker B:
If you remember:
Speaker B:
So we started losing guys to that.
Speaker B:
Well then guys heard about it and they're like, I'm not gonna go tell them I need help.
Speaker B:
They refuse to go even talk to somebody.
Speaker B:
We're like, let's just start a Facebook group where guys can message us, we can talk through with stuff.
Speaker B:
They're really bad.
Speaker B:
We'll get them to like suicide helpline.
Speaker B:
But like let's just have a resource if we maybe we can catch one or two.
Speaker B:
One or two turned into like a 20 to 22 hour a day job for me on Instagram messenger.
Speaker B:
Just it, it got, got so big so quick, we were kind of underwater, didn't know what to do.
Speaker B:
And we ended up handing it over to a nonprofit organization that partnered with the state of Utah and that their suicide hotline kind of took over, but it made me think, like, there's something else here.
Speaker B:
Like everybody I'm talking to, like the symptoms they're giving me, like I didn't meet anybody that was suicidal.
Speaker B:
Mars, at the same time also saying, yeah, I get headaches sometimes I'm like, what the hell's going on?
Speaker B:
Like, there's gotta be something in the brain.
Speaker B:
There's so much about electrical systems.
Speaker B:
That's where I started.
Speaker B:
Like, let's study the electrical part of the brain.
Speaker B:
I already looked at.
Speaker B:
And then I was like, ah.
Speaker B:
But through that, I found Dr. Alina Fong's paper on the NC300 of blood flow.
Speaker A:
Okay.
Speaker B:
And it was for traumatic brain injury.
Speaker B:
As a traumatic brain injury, you know, I won't say survivor is a weird term for it, but a recovered traumatic brain injury patient, it was really interesting to me and there was a lot of overlap, but I started seeing these symptoms were overlapped in just my PTSD field of like guys that we were seeing in that Facebook group.
Speaker B:
Everything else, like, oh my God, there's, there's a lot of overlap gap here.
Speaker B:
And we were starting a drug rehab non profit at the time for my, my ex business partner's son because he failed his third one.
Speaker B:
He's like, dude, take my son the mountains and give him a boot camp or beat the hell out of him.
Speaker B:
Like, fix them.
Speaker B:
I was like, that's not legal.
Speaker B:
So it was like kind of perfect time and place.
Speaker B:
And this is, you know, God works in mysterious ways.
Speaker B:
Like we had this opportunity to get a patient population and then I, we met this doctor, this group, and they, you know, I sent off an email and they were willing to sit down with us and hear our theories.
Speaker B:
30 Minutes turned like 8 hours of sessions now.
Speaker B:
Okay, you guys have patient population.
Speaker B:
We'll do your brain scans for you to prove this out.
Speaker B:
And as we were doing the brain scans, we identified this physiological injury to PTSD that is the same injury to, to tbi.
Speaker B:
So what happens is we experience trauma.
Speaker B:
Our body has oxygen as a resource.
Speaker B:
Oxygen moves through our blood cells in our brain, which allows our glucose to burn off or neurosynapsis to occur.
Speaker B:
Without oxygen, the function of thought in parts of our brain cannot occur.
Speaker B:
We have your limbic system, which is our emotional process there.
Speaker B:
And we have our cognition, our prefrontal, which is all of our executive decision making.
Speaker B:
What we identify, what we found is that when you've experienced trauma, your limbic system steals more of those oxygen resources because it's staying in fight or flight when the triggering event's over and the resources kind of go back out.
Speaker B:
Balance.
Speaker B:
It's now imbalanced.
Speaker B:
The limbic system keeps some of it.
Speaker B:
The more trauma you're exposed to or the greater the traumatic one experience was, the greater that imbalance is.
Speaker B:
At baseline.
Speaker B:
What happens is when you get triggered again, baseline should be here, and there's a gradual.
Speaker B:
Now you're imbalanced.
Speaker B:
It bottoms out.
Speaker B:
So we started realizing, like, guys that were committing suicide in the moment that triggered event.
Speaker B:
Divergent thinking lives in the prefrontal.
Speaker B:
Now, this is our theory, right?
Speaker B:
And we have a lot of data that supports a theory, but it's still considered, quote, unquote, a theory the jury's not out on yet.
Speaker B:
Divergent thinking is our ability to go.
Speaker B:
If I make this decision, how does it affect my wife?
Speaker B:
How does it affect my kids?
Speaker B:
How does it affect my employer?
Speaker B:
Everything around us.
Speaker B:
Every time you taught somebody that was.
Speaker B:
That was suicidal and they talk about their moment of like, I was contemplating it, I was thinking about my kids and my wife.
Speaker B:
That's diversion thinking.
Speaker A:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
Yeah.
Speaker B:
Well, it's kind of like that old school mentality back in World War II.
Speaker B:
And they're looking at the planes that were coming back that were shot up, and they're like, okay, well, let's reinforce all the areas that aren't hit, because obviously the planes coming back are the ones that were hit here, not here.
Speaker B:
Let's reinforce those areas.
Speaker B:
I took that same mentality that I learned when I was a scout about World War II, you know, logic and reasoning, deduction to the brain of like, okay, you survived through suicide because you were thinking about all that stuff.
Speaker B:
My buddies that killed themselves probably weren't.
Speaker B:
Why weren't they?
Speaker B:
Well, we look at the blood flow, we can see it is physically impossible for them to have been able to do it with the imbalance.
Speaker B:
So it's a physical injury.
Speaker B:
So we explain, like mental health to the date you have a broken leg and you go into the clinic, say, I need help.
Speaker B:
If you can get to the clinic.
Speaker B:
Most guys don't even walk to the clinic because their legs broken.
Speaker B:
You get there and you get in the room, they go, pick a treadmill.
Speaker B:
What color treadmill do you want to get on talk therapy?
Speaker B:
Is this color Ayahuasca?
Speaker B:
Is this color.
Speaker B:
Psilocybin's this color.
Speaker B:
You know, EMDR is this color.
Speaker B:
No matter what, you're getting on a treadmill with a broken leg.
Speaker B:
Well, the broken leg in this analogy, in our.
Speaker B:
Our expression is the blood flow the injury to the blood we, we do at Neurova.
Speaker B:
What our silver bullet is, is fixing the leg.
Speaker B:
We get the blood flow balanced again globally, not just these two centers, but a full global balance of those resources.
Speaker B:
So that way the body can get to.
Speaker B:
When you're going for resolution of trauma, you still need to go see a therapist.
Speaker B:
You still need to go pick a modality.
Speaker B:
Now you can pick a modality you resonate with, and you have the faculties cognitively to use it.
Speaker A:
So now you guys, how did you put these pieces together?
Speaker A:
How.
Speaker A:
What process is it that you guys were okay, we need to fix the broken leg, the disconnect in the brain with oxygen.
Speaker B:
So, yeah, I had a drug rehab and we were treating mental health and drug addiction, which drug addiction is the, the hardest thing to treat because it's not one thing.
Speaker B:
Right.
Speaker B:
You have so many factors into an addiction.
Speaker B:
You have identities, part of addiction.
Speaker B:
You have the, the chemical demand and signals of the body.
Speaker B:
Then you have things that are innocuous as relationships, environment, and houseless situations.
Speaker B:
You come to a rehab, you're safe there, you can get clean there, but you go home and you're back in your shitty basement apartment and with your shitty job, maybe a, a horrible relationship or bad group of friends, like, very easy to slide back in and then go back to rehab.
Speaker B:
And it's comfortable and safe.
Speaker B:
And I think that's a lot of the model is like, you feel safe here, keep coming here until you run out of money, then we kick you to the street.
Speaker A:
Yep.
Speaker B:
We were looking at that and I kept like, the, the question was, is like, everybody comes here and they know I shouldn't be doing this.
Speaker B:
Like, you look at aa.
Speaker B:
AA is created during prohibition.
Speaker B:
We were lobotomizing people then.
Speaker B:
Yeah, we don't lobotomize people anymore, but we keep aaa.
Speaker B:
Yeah, right.
Speaker B:
It was a, it's a fear based, guilt based system that's wrapped in a package of religion.
Speaker B:
Right.
Speaker B:
Or it's wrapped in a package of fear of once an addict, always an addict.
Speaker B:
That's why guys go for their 40 year chip.
Speaker B:
Right?
Speaker B:
Like you haven't had alcohol for 40 years, but you went back 40 years, got your chip, you're no longer an addict.
Speaker B:
But in their mind, that fear of, like, I'm gonna break, it's, it's a fear response.
Speaker B:
And in my mind, I thought it was.
Speaker B:
We're never gonna see at scale results if that was the model.
Speaker A:
Okay.
Speaker B:
And so we started doing these brain scans, started realizing like, oh my God, like this overlap of this injury mechanism is in everybody.
Speaker B:
What happens if we now change our program and implement a brain Pro Brain Phase 2, three weeks of modalities that are physical.
Speaker B:
So to change blood flow in the brain, you have to put the body under stress doing a complex task for a certain amount of time.
Speaker B:
They're like, what do we design this protocol to put the body under stress doing these tasks?
Speaker B:
We find the time limit to put these guys under to have the effect of the brain.
Speaker B:
And we healed this part of the brain.
Speaker B:
And then what happens with their cognition and their willpower and, you know, do they.
Speaker B:
Are they still addicts?
Speaker B:
And what we found is, you know, the moment we fix the brain in every single one of our patients, that rehab, the addiction stopped.
Speaker A:
No.
Speaker B:
And so it was going really well, but it was very expensive.
Speaker B:
I was going to say, why is it so expensive?
Speaker B:
And so I got really tired of, like, telling people they couldn't afford the program.
Speaker A:
Okay.
Speaker B:
st until I coined the term in:
Speaker B:
We.
Speaker B:
It didn't exist.
Speaker B:
No one was labeling their rehab as, oh, we have cognitive therapies for addiction.
Speaker B:
We were the first ones talking about it.
Speaker B:
And then within three months, everybody was using it.
Speaker B:
Like, we had, like, one talk at the Brain Health alliance conference, and we talked about our data, and I swear to God, every marketer in the world was like, ooh, or now we're Malibu Brain health.
Speaker B:
Like, everybody started using it.
Speaker B:
And the problem is, is without this correct pattern of the pressure for the brain, the task for the brain, the time you're not healing the brain, you can actually damage it.
Speaker A:
Oh, I can imagine.
Speaker B:
So, like, there's a lot of place out there there's making things worse, you know, and, well, especially if they're just.
Speaker A:
Trying to jump on the trend or.
Speaker B:
The, you know, the marketing trend.
Speaker B:
That's what a lot of rehab words.
Speaker A:
And, oh, wow, okay, it's cognitive.
Speaker A:
Now it's all about the brain.
Speaker A:
If we fix the brain, the rest you.
Speaker A:
Everything falls into place.
Speaker A:
But are they actually.
Speaker B:
Yeah.
Speaker A:
Are they actually fixing the brain or are they just continuing to do what they've been doing?
Speaker A:
That doesn't fix anybody.
Speaker A:
But now they slapped a cool marketing.
Speaker B:
Term onto the front of it, and that's.
Speaker B:
That's what I saw.
Speaker B:
But I, you know, I had this moment where I was.
Speaker B:
I went home, I was, like, super depressed, wasn't happy that we weren't make.
Speaker B:
I wanted to make this giant impact, and it wasn't going to happen.
Speaker B:
And my wife goes, why don't you just make it a video game?
Speaker B:
Because on the weekends I'd get back to the guys I went to Afghanistan with or I was in the army with.
Speaker B:
We would drink and we'd play video games together.
Speaker B:
And that was our release.
Speaker B:
She's like, just do something like that.
Speaker B:
And I was like, I can't do something like that.
Speaker B:
Like, the body's not under pressure on a computer.
Speaker B:
She's like, do the VR thing that you just got.
Speaker B:
I was like, oh, that might work.
Speaker B:
Because we were using a technology called Syncthink in our rehab.
Speaker B:
It was all about just eye tracking, the technology that's created by Dr. Gajardia with the DOD to do rapid diagnosis of TBI and theater.
Speaker B:
So the idea is you get blown up, right?
Speaker B:
They can put this VR headset on you with 40 cameras and you would do smooth pursuit.
Speaker B:
So you'd look in a circle and fall with your eyes.
Speaker B:
And then you do staccato relief back and forth, left and right.
Speaker B:
That was enough data through your eyes to tell the doc if you had a TBI and you'd be better backed.
Speaker A:
Okay.
Speaker B:
It's like rapid diagnosis, rapid extraction.
Speaker B:
We.
Speaker B:
We picked that technology up because we don't use it in rehab.
Speaker B:
Like, how, how could we use this to pre qualify individuals for the cognitive track?
Speaker B:
So we were already using that.
Speaker B:
And she was like, why don't you just use that thing?
Like, that's not going to do it because just a diagnostic tool.
Speaker B:
So I started thinking through it and really came to the conclusion, like, oh, we can make a game, an environment that does everything we're doing from a pressure standpoint because it's VR, you gotta move your body.
Speaker B:
And then I can create, like, tasks in there.
Speaker B:
And that task tool is kind of where we started the progression of, you know, how would this be built out, what task, in which order, for how much time of pressure would give me an outcome on the blood flow.
Speaker B:
And so I spent about nine months trying to build a protocol with games that already existed.
Speaker B:
Features are already in VR, but in, like, a very specific time control, the stopwatch.
Speaker B:
You're doing this, figuring this out.
Speaker B:
God, I don't know at this point.
Speaker A:
What education do you have at this point?
Speaker B:
My p. I got my PhD in:
Speaker B:
So I had a very good, solid, like, you know, base foundation to base.
Speaker B:
My educated guesses off of.
Speaker A:
Okay.
Speaker B:
Because I've already been treating people already doing brain scans.
Speaker B:
We already have success.
Speaker B:
Now I'm trying to put it in a new medium.
Speaker B:
So I already knew it worked in a clinic.
Speaker B:
Now I need to figure out what can I take from my knowledge of what works in a clinic.
Speaker B:
How could I apply it to the.
Speaker B:
In the virtual environment.
Speaker B:
So I created like this archaic.
Speaker B:
I think at the time it was like three and a half hour a day for five days.
Speaker B:
I think is what we did for Brian with a non profit and we went out, we.
Speaker B:
We were able to get money from meta to pay for our first brain scans in VR as this non profit.
Speaker B:
And it was probably the hardest study I've ever done in my life because it was just me and then the, the Air Force veteran in this like Airbnb.
Speaker B:
And no, I'm trying to keep this guy engaged for hours in VR.
Speaker B:
Where into the natural VR inclination for the brain.
Speaker B:
You hit cog load around an hour.
Speaker B:
I was trying to go way past that.
Speaker B:
So I'm like I gotta put the body under all this stress.
Speaker B:
And so we did it, we got done and we did the exit brain scan and I got a call from Alina, she goes, what did you do?
Speaker B:
We talk about this is one of the best brain scans we've ever done or before and after which we have online.
Speaker B:
We will have online.
Speaker B:
The before and after were better results than I ever got in clinic ever.
Speaker B:
No, I was like, holy, there's something here.
Speaker A:
This is your first time, Very first.
Speaker B:
Out of the gate, shooting in the dark.
Speaker B:
It was a resounding success.
Speaker B:
And I was like, well damn.
Speaker B:
And Brian was just on our Instagram a couple days ago talking.
Speaker B:
He shared one of my things like these guys saved my life.
