#108: Dalton Lauer

0:01 Welcome to another episode of a come together the entire world. All right, Welcome. Here we are, dude. Welcome, man. I'm so happy you're doing this. So had you already had your cheers, but cheers again. Thank you. Cheers to you as well. I appreciate you having me man, I'm super excited. To be dude, I'm so happy. So we met a couple weeks ago, I guess one time we rolled a couple of times. The jujitsu. Yep, you said was doing one of your first classes. That was, yeah. It's only been a couple classes since I've been there. So. But you've wrestled. I wrestled in high school. And then in the military we have what's called combatives.

0:42 Yeah. Which is just kind of a overall umbrella of all the different techniques of, you know, you got wrestling, jiu jitsu, a little bit of like MMA fighting in there. Yeah, just like survival. Stuff. Yeah, totally, totally. Yeah. Because I noticed when you were rolling that you, you were awesome, like keeping your centre of gravity that you were using your legs to like, like the whole time. Like you could like, I don't know how, I don't know how to, I barely know how to submit people. And I don't think you did either. Right. So like, we were sitting there just like trying to like not get submitted, but without knowing actually how to submit. No idea where you're going next from. Yeah. Dude, that's how I feel. Every time I'm in there. I'm like, I maybe I can work around a little bit, hold somebody, and from there I'm like, I don't know what to do. Yeah.

1:25 Or I'm getting out of something and then I get to a point where like I don't know where to go from here. Yeah, yeah, that's they don't, they haven't taught me that at least. And what they basically said was we're not going to teach it to you. You're going to learn it as time goes on. And like it's going to become like mechanics and like you're starting on the ground and like, because most of this muscle memory anyway, you're just going to find yourself in like situations that like you'll be like, oh, right now I'm right here. I could just do this, you know, and, and yeah, it happened to me yesterday. Yeah, you kind of learn what like works for you because it's hard. There's so many ways to skin a cat and and the way they teach it might not be the move that works for you. Yeah. So you just kind of roll and learn.

2:05 And when you get stuck, you just have to take that and and OK, I'll learn for that specific move. Totally, totally. Yeah. And. What I really like about it is the fact that even in those moments, I'm still getting challenged and I'm still having the opportunity to kind of overcome that and learn through that. Totally, totally. And everyone there is so dedicated to helping each other learn, which is another great thing. It's. A great environment, I'll be honest. Awesome. I don't know how you felt, but before I walked in there, I was like, oh, it's going to be like very clicky. Like people are going to be like, you have to kind of earn your spot. Yeah. And everyone's super welcoming. Like everyone's like if you show up and put out effort, like we're going to help you. And they're not just going to go in there and kill you because they're a black belt.

2:47 They're actually willing to take it easy. Totally, totally, totally. Yeah. That's been great. Yeah, yeah, I agree. It's funny. I was talking to, I just did a podcast actually earlier today too. And one of the things I was talking to her name was Janet about was how outside of the states, I've noticed that everyone is much more willing just to like talk to like a stranger and like everyone's much more willing to just engage with people. And like, I feel like we don't have that so much here. And that's why that environment is so refreshing, you know, and the Jiu Jitsu martial arts world is so far rooted way, way before American culture that like it almost like supersedes a lot of the, the downsides, I guess, of what we would potentially have as a society.

3:31 You know, it focuses on leadership, it focuses on education, it focuses on manners and being polite and sportsmanship and then also being incredible or whatever you're doing, you know, and like, I mean, you know, that the guys like Chris, I love that dude. You know, Chris is like, dude, I, I call him, I call him, what do you call it? A cobra? Because he's just like, he's like a snake. He just wraps around you and he'll tell you what he's got to do. He's like, okay, you're about to get submitted like this and like you slowly feel his arm tightening. You're like. No. Dude, literally man. But then I was like, would you do and tell me what I could have done to get out of that, right. And he'll just walk me through. He'll OK, you do this to me or I'll do this again and I'll show you slowly and you can tell me what you got.

4:13 And I was like, dude, that's the that's awesome, man. I love it. I love it because you really can't judge a book by its cover. Chris does not look like the guy who's going to walk in there and submit anyone, and yet he's probably that guy who submit more than half class. Yeah, Yeah, He's a he's a great dude. It's a great, it's a great environment. I have to, I, I love that. So I signed up. I, I was afraid to do it. I never I was never physically confrontational in any kind of way in my life really. I'm a pussy and and not anymore though, right. Well, I still am a little bit. I don't think that ever. Like I don't think that fear ever goes away, but I think that you can kind of build like around it, like, you know, like you could. I mean, maybe it changes it.

4:55 I don't. Know what do you think? I honestly, I think that maybe it could go away over time because the more you stack up those wins is what builds that confidence where you no longer feel. Yeah, that way, yeah. And so, yeah, I mean, I, I think that going in there and just repeatedly doing it, you'll eventually like gain back confidence. Like people are going to see it in you. And it's when you get those positive affirmations back, yeah, that you're going to be like, OK, maybe I got something going on here. Yeah, I was talking to my friend that got me to start going. He's a chiropractor there at that gym. His name's Guy and and you were talking about how you can even tell when you just like pat someone on the back or like, you know, give them like dab them up and like give them a hug. You can see how they react to someone else touching them, how comfortable they are with their body, you know, and like there's certain people that kind of like shrug away from a physical confrontation and certain people that just kind of stay stoic and like centered and comfortable.

5:53 And you're like, oh, this is and and you notice that for sure. And like, even if you're, I bet that if you went around to a jiu jitsu class that was all levels and you just shook everyone's hands or like, you know, say what's going on, you can tell just from a handshake, you know, whether whether or not that person's been there for a long time or like totally, dude, totally. It's all body language. I agree. I agree. Yeah. So cool, dude, tell me, tell me a little bit about yourself. Let's let's dive into let's say. So we let's dive a little bit into who you are, man. Yeah. So I think the meat and potatoes exciting part of my life is my military career, right. And so far, so, so far, so far. And so I'll give you a little bit of context. I was born and raised in Pennsylvania. It's about South Central PA little town called Hellum. It's not far from where the Amish are at. Nice.

6:42 So I grew up there and I have two brothers who were all one year apart from each other. Three, my oldest brother went to the Army, my middle brother went to the Navy, and I ended up in front of the Air Force. Nice. My mom, year 1 by 1, is watching us just jump out of the nest. We're leaving the state, the country. I mean, we're all getting shipped around and. You're the youngest. I am the youngest, Yeah, I'm the baby. Gotcha. How old are your older brothers? So my oldest brother just turned 31 and my middle brother's turning 30 and I am right behind him. Wow, yeah, yeah. Crazy. You guys close growing up? Growing up, we, we had a dynamic growing up where my parents, they divorced when I was two years old.

7:24 My, both my parents very hard workers growing up. I mean, my mom was working like 3 jobs at a time at one point. My dad 12 hour shifts, night night shift, getting forced all the time. He's an electrician. So they were both very busy. And so yeah, we leaned on each other a lot as brothers. We did a lot, but also I feel like we did, we're very different in a lot of ways. And so my my oldest brother's off doing his thing with his friends. My middle brothers, he's more of the quiet one and he's very smart. And I was just the young I was observing and learning and watching and following and I enjoyed hanging out with friends as much as possible. But honestly, I probably followed in my oldest brother's footsteps because he would be getting in trouble. And not that I'm not doing those things, but I was learning how to do it without getting in trouble. That's the youngest child thing.

8:21 That's the youngest. Child. Yeah, exactly. And they all say that I'm the favorite, but, you know, that's just because I was the smartest getting out there. Yes. Totally. So growing up, it was kind of I was like a wild child. I mean, I got kicked off the bus in elementary school twice. Oh, yeah. Just for doing dumb things, throwing a snowball at the bus driver. Not, not smart. That's funny, though. And then. Yeah. And then growing up high school, I decided that I was going to join the military. And it's a unique story of how I decided to join the military because I didn't have those intentions. Both my brothers went off and I thought I was going to go to college. I was going to get a business you. Didn't want to go with them I.

9:03 Didn't. Yeah. And not that I didn't want to, it just wasn't really on my radar at the time. He just thought, cool, they're doing it and that's it. Yeah, I thought that. I mean, I thought it was great for them. I I think that they were passionate about going and I just had other dreams, which for me was going to college, getting a business degree. I loved sports. I wanted to do something with the sports industry. Sure. And then? You play or like? So in in high school, I was before high school, I thought I was going to be in the basket in, in the NBA, you know, I'm like 4 foot, you know, at middle school thinking I'm going to make it to the big leagues. And my dreams got cut short in 7th grade when I didn't make the high school basketball team. I would yeah.

9:50 In 7th grade, I was, I was so upset. Or I guess it was like the the middle school basketball team. OK at that point. Yeah. And my mom, she must have already known because she already had lined up for me to go to the wrestling practice immediately after. Oh, nice. So I guess she knew her short son was not making his NBA. So when I got my dreams got cut short, we went over to the wrestling team. I said, mom, I'm not a fan of the singlets. I think it's weird. I want nothing to do with it. I was upset I was even there because I'm still thinking about basketball. And she's like, just give it a try. The coach is really nice. Like, you have some friends that do it. And I was like, whatever. I sat there, I watched them. I left.

10:31 She signed me up. I went back. I fell in love with it. Yeah. Shortly after that, I realized that I have much more talent that can be applied to to this. You know, I'm short. I'm stocky, yeah. I did much better in wrestling, so that was like my sport from 7th grade all the way through high school. You were stock younger when you were younger. I yeah, I mean, I would. I was about the same. Yeah. And so I got into wrestling and then later I got into some lacrosse. Lacrosse was fun, but it wasn't like that. Yeah, I loved it. I I I did it in my junior year. I wish I would have started earlier. Yeah, but it was a lot of fun. I just feel like for me, I never took sports serious enough.

11:12 I was always more interested in hanging out with friends, finding a party to go to. Yeah, sure. Yeah. It wasn't really. I wasn't really. You were. Disciplined about it I. Wasn't disciplined in sports at all. But you're being a kid. I was being a kid. Yeah. That's a good way to look back on it because looking back, I feel like I wish I would have taken a little more serious. Yeah. But it's. It taught me a lot and it served me for that period of my life. Totally, Totally. So when I joined the military, I I enjoy the combatives because I did the wrestling. Why'd you decide to do military? Like if you're going to go to college or you're going to become a businessman. Right. So, yeah, my brothers go off and funny enough, so you have to take the ASVAB, which is a test to get into the military, similar to like that test to get into college. Sure.

11:56 My brother, my middle brother who I said he's really smart. He scored like an 88, which is like almost maxed out. It's very high on ASVAB. And I thought, and I scored like a 66. I'm thinking, OK, that's great. It is what it is. And he was trying to get in the Air Force before the Navy. Well, the Air Force recruiter, I don't know if they hit their quota, how many people they enlisted, whatever. They weren't calling him back. And he's somebody who could have gotten any job in the military beat off of his ass back. They didn't call him back. Well, next thing I know, he's often that he decided to go to the Navy, got a great job there next year. What's the what's the test consist of?

12:37 Like the it's, it's like a very general everything. It's got like math mechanics. Oh, God, it's more of a it's more of an education test. Yeah, exactly. It's not physical, not like a. Physical. So I can tell you about a physical test I did have to do once I decided, yeah, so I'm working my job and I get a call and one day it's Air Force recruiter. And they're like, hey, we just wanted to talk to you. We saw your scores. Would you like to come in? And I'm no intentions at this point, but they kind of sparked a light inside of me. And so I'm like, let me just go hear them out, see what they have to say. Was it because they were interested in you? You think it was? Excited my very smart brother did not get a call back from the Air Force that I was like.

13:19 You know. They want me. So. So I go and I, I, I hear them out and I, they sold me on the whole special operations. And that really was a pivotal moment for me because it gave me an option to like, for me, I love being active. There's a reason I wanted to get into the sports industry and that was why. And so I saw that as like, well, I'm not going to be looking at a desk job. I'm going to get to travel. I'm going to get a good salary. Like there's a lot of options. And my brothers already did it. They kind of paved that path. So that opened it up for me. What'd your parents say? My parents were pretty much on board. Are they American?

14:04 Because yes, both American, yeah, both born and raised in Pennsylvania as well. A lot of my family is from there and a lot of them haven't really, nobody's really left the area too much. So a lot of my family is still there. Cool. And so it wasn't a hard decision for them to like accept for me going in the military because it's already happened with two other of my brothers. And so I was confident at that point that like this is what I wanted to do. And I I found a job I wanted to do and it was special operations, which me being a young 17 year old. Who? Realistically, was not somebody who was like an overachiever. I was AC student.

14:46 I was not like a impressive athlete. I just kind of like. So what do you think made them call you? Oh, I think they just call everybody. I think it was a recruiting thing. I think the last recruiter met their quota and didn't call my brother back. That's it then. Something as simple as that. It's as simple as that, Yeah, but it changed my life, yeah. Totally. Dude, that's crazy. And really, for the best, I mean, those seven years in the military board, some of the best years of my life. I mean, I wouldn't trade them for the world. Seven years is a long time. It was how long is the minimum service that you could do. The minimum is 4 initially A4 year or a six year. And so I remember when I was, I was making that decision and it's just as simple as circling four years or circling 6 years when you're there.

15:32 That's it. And you're 17 years old and you don't know what's going on in four years or 6. Years like I'm fully committed to this. I think it's going to be really good for me. And I'm someone who when I make a decision, I'm all in and I'll figure it out from there. And I try and put the best foot forward. And so I was like 4 years, OK, But six years kind of locks me in. And this is truly what I think it's going to be for me. Why not force myself into that position where I can't really back out? Yeah. So I signed six years. Wow, dude. And I committed to that and I ended up doing one more year prior to getting out of the military, which made it that 7 and so. But yeah, getting into it, I signed up for Special Operations Combat Controller and what's?

16:17 That mean combat controller? Combat Controller, it's just one of the career fields within special operations where they deploy and basically they set up security for runways. It's it's very complicated. They do a lot, but they're, they're badass dudes. And I just saw it as like, OK, this is going to be something that is going to challenge me. And I, my mindset as a 17 year old is so different than where I'm at now. And so much of it has changed from being in the military. So I was like, OK, I'm going to do this. There's a, there's a, it's called a pass test and it's a minimum requirement you have to meet to get into that special operations.

16:59 And each special operations career has different minimum requirements. So at this point I was like, I was saying somebody who wasn't, I didn't really feel like I had much identity in high school. I was always just trying to get along with everybody and do whatever. And I was flying onto the radar. As soon as I decide I'm signed up for the military, all of a sudden people are thanking me for my service and telling me I'm part of the 1% and congratulating me and proud of me. And I was just like, whoa, like I kind of like took that as my new identity. Like I was super proud of like being a part of something. And so that really encouraged me even more. And for somebody who didn't really take any time outside of sports to try and better themselves, like I would show up to practice what's mandatory and that's it. I wasn't the guy who was coming back to the weight room afterwards or going for those extended runs afterwards just to like have the edge, you know, I was just doing the bare minimum. And so same thing, they gave me the bare minimum requirements to get into this.

18:04 It's like a mile and a half run. You have a underwater swim, you have pull ups, push ups, sit ups, all this stuff and I'm thinking cake, cake walk, no big deal. I'm already special operating in my mind. I was so excited and so I did that. I I was training to meet the minimum requirement and looking back that was my problem. Sure. And so I go off into the military, and for me, it was an experience like no other. You're just like, yeah, you're getting yelled at by some people. Where are you training? Where'd they send you to for training? For the Air Force, you go to Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. Nice. Cool.

18:44 Yeah, everybody goes there. And that was fun. It was your first time in Texas. Was it like? I remember leaving. Philly, Pennsylvania. Right, Pennsylvania. Yeah. I mean, I guess we've been to like Orlando for like Disney World, but realistically not a ton of travelling outside the States, especially older that. So that was like my first time. It was my first time flying by myself as well because I had to fly to be there. So a lot of new experiences. So I'm walking into this with open arms, full of excitement. And you were excited. You weren't. Nervous. You're scary. I don't remember really being nervous, I just remember being excited and looking back I would be nervous if I had to do it all over again because I know what I'm getting into at that time.

19:29 You didn't know. I had the luxury of not knowing what I was really getting into do. You think that's our recruit? They recruit 17 year olds instead of 22 year olds. They, from my, from my understanding, I think they get that recruiters get more for their quota of how many people they have to enlist if they put people into special operations. OK, so because it's much harder to get people into special operations, they need to get people into that pipeline and send them at least. So I was the oblivious kid who wanted to be a badass, and I joined. And from there, you know, basic training was what it was. I had a great experience. I got to meet people from all over the world, from different experiences. And all of these guys were trying to be special operations as well.

20:14 And so they're all bad asses. And honestly, that's when I was like, wow, I'm, I'm much smaller than the rest of these guys. I'm much younger than the rest of these guys. But it was fun and everyone was encouraging. Then we get to, so we go through basic training. I think it was like 7 1/2 weeks from there. Then you go to your, if you're going to special operations, you you have to in process there and then you wait for the class start date. And for mine there's a 10 day selection period within that 10 days. It is brutal. What do they, what do they do? Because they're trying to figure out who's going to take who for what operations. They're trying to get you to quit the whole time. They're trying to break you.

20:56 Really. They want you to go home? This. Is just the first ten days you make it through that, you now have a whole another selection process. Basically, they're waiting out people who should have never been there in that first ten days. And then from there it's a really. So what did they do though? So what was it like that was so brutal? Was it just like intensive exercise or was it psychological? Was it everything? Everything. When I tell you leading up to this I would be in my free time, I'm thinking about, well, if I can just meet these minimum requirements, I'll be good. I'm training for it. I'm doing my runs in my free time. I'm doing my push ups and flutter kicks like everything's at leisure. I think I'm training hard. You get there, maybe.

21:38 I think there was a couple of days till we started. Within that couple of days you're hearing from people who have failed out, people who are on like a medical hold because they got injured and they're waiting for the next class or till they recover. And they're telling horror stories. So you're hearing from people, they're giving advice, they're giving horror stories on top of that. Like for me, I felt like I was in a frat house, so I was like, I'm soaking it all up. I'm like, I got new friends. Like this is fun. Like all of this stuff. I'm still not really thinking there's going to be any issue coming up here. Yeah, First day starts and it, I don't remember how early it was, but they start you very early. From the moment you start, everything is watched. I mean, if you're, if the instructor walks in A room, if their foot even crosses over the line and the team leader doesn't call the room to attention for them, you're on your face, you're doing push ups, whatever it's called a smoke show. They will smoke you, which means that you're getting like nose to the ground push ups, sit ups, whatever intense workout they want to put you through to make you quit. But you start with that, the pass test. So the very first thing you do is that minimum requirements. So I already put myself on the radar because when the pull up section happens, they're always it's it's it's like a comic game for these instructors just to see how they can get people to quit.

23:04 They know people are going to make it and, and everything is very uniform. So when they're like, okay, step up to the bar for the pull ups, arms up. And then they tell you like jump up. Well, I'm the shortest guy going to jump up and I slip off the bar and they're already on top of me, you know, so get up on the bar. For me, that was easy. I had trained for that. I knew what to expect. I blew it out of the water in my opinion. And we started with like 22 people. By the second day we were down at 8:00. No way. So a lot of people didn't even meet that requirement. Really the minimum. Requirement minimums. Wow, some people failed out there. Were they not training for it or is pressure or? A little bit of both, I'm sure.

23:49 And so this is what the selection process is for. And then so as soon as you're finished with that, they give everybody a rucksack like the big backpack and you have to put sandbags in it. You have to weigh, it has to weigh like 40 or 50 lbs around there and then you get in a formation and they're taking you out on a rock run, which is similar. It's you're not fast-paced walking. You're you're basically jogging with this 4050 lbs. And another thing I never practiced, I, I didn't see it as being an issue. However, I never knew what shin splints were until that time because when you're walking with that weight or going with that weight and they break it down so if somebody's lagging behind, they're not able to keep up, you know, they'll stop the whole group. And now everyone takes their packs off and holds them in front of you.

24:38 Yeah. And you're just holding it and holding it. And they're pretty much staying there until somebody quits. Yeah. So you're just dying and trying to find a way to continue and. What do you do? You think of something else. You just, your mind goes blank. You focus on anything. What's like what's? What do people do? I could tell you what I would do now, but in the moment I had no. Nothing in your mind skills. Of resilience, I don't think I had any skills that would get me through that adversity. So it was all that excitement and everything that I had before leading into that was like so eye opening. And I remember we we one guy quit, right? And they're like, all right, he quit, get in the truck, everyone keep going. So they keep going.

25:21 And I remember it was to the point where I was falling back and the rest of the people are gone. And then structure makes his way back to me all casually, and I'm thinking he's going to RIP in the middle. No, he talked to me in a very soft tone, like a very friendly. Hey, Flower, why are you here? And like repeating whatever the guys who, who are in medical hold are telling me to say, like who? Yeah, I'll never quit. Like, you know, like they're they're telling you just say whatever to get them off your back because then they'll move on to the next person and give them a hard time. But I'm alone and it's just me and the instructor.

26:01 And so I'm like, I don't know what I told him. He's like, how old are you? I'm like 18, Sir. And he's like, you're 18, why are you here? Why do you want to be here? Like, shouldn't you be in college? Don't you want to start a family? Like literally they just lay out the experience and they try and make it very real for you. And they basically try it. This is the psychological warfare. They want to see who's going to quit on themselves and where you're at mentally. So at that point, I, whatever I said got him off my back and he's like, you better get up there with the rest of the crowd. I'm like, oh, yeah, sorry. You know, I start jogging. I'm already dying. And I remember I got back in the crowd and I had to really push it to get back up there. And I thought to myself, if there's a corner coming up, if we go around this corner and it continues, I'm going to quit. That's what went through my mind. We got around the corner and we stopped. Thank God.

26:59 In my mind, I was like, holy crap, dude, this, this worked out. So I'm, I'm surviving another day. And it's really that whole process is like, no sleep, constant stress, constant physical exertion, exhaustion, just to, to get you to quit, to see who's really going to make it. Yeah, I made it back to my dorm that night and I remember I didn't even get my rucksack off. My uniform is covered in dirt and sweat and I sat down on the floor and I was just I really was like, Oh my God, this is it was the hardest day I've ever been through in my life. It.

27:41 Was the first day. It was the first day and we had nine more. And. Half, more than half the people already quit. Yeah. And so that's already in my mind. Like, there's a way out. Yeah. And so as soon as that starts piercing through your mind in moments of weakness, it just doesn't stop. And they feed on it, the instructors. Look for it. Yeah, they know. It and they push those buttons to see who's really going to quit. Because everyone has that. Everyone has that voice in their that says it's enough. You don't really have to do this or come on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't have to. There's a way out, yeah. The people that that that succeed. I think the difference between people who succeed and fail or like you want to do the trick that you did, which is just one more checkpoint, you know, get one more, just one more checkpoint just around the corner.

28:24 And then maybe, OK, I'm not going to quit just around this corner. Maybe the next corner I'll quit. You know, I'm like, you just push that next step, then you're ahead of like then how many other people quit before that first turn? You know, after that turn, they're like, there's more I quit. You know, if you could just be that guy to hang on for one more day or one more minute, one more hour, then like you get anything, it's that's sales, that's that's business, that's that's physical, you know everything. Yeah, for sure. Are you familiar with Nick Baer? You know the name. No, dude, who is he? He's, he's the guy who's in the military, started a supplements company called BPN. But he has a phrase that's called go one more. And that's what he preaches on whether you're lifting weights, do one more rap. Yeah, doing going for a run, go one more mile, one more, just go one more. Yeah.

29:07 And I think that's a great mentality thing where in that case you go one more and then from there you go one more and it's it's bite sized pieces that will get you. Totally, because undetermined period of time or undetermined goal is almost impossible to like for someone that's not mentally a rock. It's impossible to get there right like, but if you just say, if you give yourself little tangible goals that you can check off, then it gives you something to build on. But if there's no almost like, you know, you have to, you want to go for a jog, hit the one mile mark, you know, like that's pretty good. You know, I could stop now. Basically I can go, you know, like you, you have that like, OK, that that I I'm done. I did that. Like check that off the list and on the next one and like check that off the list.

29:51 And like if you just keep on doing that. Yeah, totally. That's wow, dude. And. Crazy. You made it. Yeah. So I'll finish the story. But to continue on what you just said, I think it's the process of stacking those small wins over time that builds that resilient mind, which is why I say I'm in a different mindset now than I was then because I never went through those challenging times. I never was able to callus my mind and my body to where I had resilient mind. And so in that moment, I was sitting there absolutely defeated. And I think. I texted my dad or mom and I was just like, I don't know if I'm going to make it.

30:32 That's what you said. Like I was, I was already like kind of quitting in my mind. And, and so I knew in this sense, I just had to show up the next day. I couldn't quit right now. And there were people who even that night went to the cadre, the office of the instructors and said, I'm not coming tomorrow. I quit. So I thought if I just show up tomorrow, I'll let business tomorrow handle itself. Yeah, Yeah. So tomorrow the next day is the pool day, which is a huge thing that gets people out because when they are trying to make you drown proof and. What your pool? They mean like being in the pool. Oh, Pool. Yeah, yeah. You're in the pool and it's, I mean, it's a different beast when you're in the water and you're panicking and you feel like you're going to drown.

31:19 Yeah. So the next day we go up, it's like 3-4 in the morning. We have to we are meeting with our team. We had a good team leader who was like everybody get together at this time before actual Showtime, we're going to review our rucksacks where make sure everybody has everything and make sure we're good to go. And you show up immediately, you're already your tensity is at like 10. You get to the pool. For me, I thought the pool was going to be my strong spot. That's why I practiced a lot. I felt very comfortable. I held my breath for 4 minutes at this. Point really. Above water, so a different beast, but I I felt like I surpassed that minimum requirement where I could do my underwater swims because you have to do 25 meters underwater without coming up without coming up and how and how. Long.

32:09 Does that usually take a minute or two? Good question. It's been a minute for me. Yeah. And it depends on the person and their form under the water, how far they can push themselves. Right. So I was good with that. I was good with the swimming. I I felt comfortable. What I didn't practice was these flooded mask flutter kicks, which is you're, you're on the edge of a pool. You're doing flutter kicks like the workout, except you're wearing a scuba mask that goes over your nose and it's full of water. Oh. Shit. So and I practiced it one time. So you have to breathe through your mouth. You have to be able to breathe through your mouth and and be comfortable with water getting getting into your nose.

32:50 Yeah. And it was something that I that's that's what got me. That's what it was the chink in my armor where I practice it once I saw it. OK, this is going to be the least of my worries. And it was what got me. So we're doing the flutter mass flutter kicks on the edge of the pool and the instructors are walking around you're it's a count off. So it's like 1231123. Everyone yells 2, you know, but while you're doing this, if you're talking, if you're counting, you're inhaling water, you're trying to like you're already exhausted from your workouts prior. Their stress is at 10. The instructors are walking around with the hose full of ice cold water, and they're spraying you in the face or spraying you in the body.

33:37 So I'm in the middle of doing this. One guy quits and he, he blows the air horn, yells poo. Yeah, I quit, goes out. We're all suffering at this point. So now quitting is already back on the radar. Yeah, there's a way out. Yeah. Now at this point, I'm chugging water for what it felt like I was. I could not figure out how to breathe through my mouth and not inhale water through my nose. So and I'm exhausted. I'm trying to count doing the workout and I'm here I'm like like choking. Finally I like I'm puking this water. I RIP the mask off the instructor I'm singled out at this point flies over get back in the like get the water back in.

34:20 So I jump in the pool. I put the water back in my mask. I get back on the edge of the pool trying to do it, trying to do the flutter kicks and I'm like, I cannot breathe for the life of me I cannot breathe. So I RIP the mask off again. Every time I RIP the mask off, restart, or anybody messes up, the whole team restarts. Shit like oh you just have to get to 20 count flutter kicks, but we keep restarting at 5 or whatever and so at this. Point. That's also mentally enormously heavy, right? You're not just. Everyone else, yeah. And so this is one of the things that somebody told me afterwards, like, dude, it doesn't matter because who's going to make it through? Who's going to make it through no matter the adversity. Yeah, in my mind at the moment, I had already had quitting, you know, now in my mind.

35:06 And then on top of that, on top of the suffering, I'm now doing this to the team and somebody else might not make it through because of me. So by the third time of ripping my mask off and getting the team restarted, I finally, the instructor was like, you need to like get get the water back on. And I, and I stood up. And at that point, I don't even remember. It was just like an unconscious decision. I just was, I stood up and I went over. He's like, are you quitting? I was like, yeah, He's like, bring the bring the horn or blow the air horn. So I blow it. I'm like, Hoya. I quit. And he's like, I didn't hear you. And I was like Hoya. I quit. I was screaming at my mouth with so much emotion because for me it was like, Dang, dude. Yeah, you didn't want to.

35:51 It's too late. I already said it. And so it's very emotional, so upset. I want to go. You immediately go back into the locker room and I wanted to walk in there. I'm like, I want to punch a locker. I was so mad at myself. And then the same instructor who I thought was the devil like 30 minutes ago is in there talking so nice, so professionally, so soft to us again. And he's like, look, this, this is like, it's a very tough thing and he's just breaking it down. He's like, you guys can go on about your careers and you can come back and try again and just giving us more advice. And I was just, I was like, man, it's, it's over. This is, this is it.

36:31 So then from there, I had to decide what I was going to do because I, I, you have the option when you're going for special operations to get out of the military after. You could have left the the military. Completely I could have separated or I could read class. And so I just, I, I decided, you know this, I, I've loved everything up until this point and I want to continue in the military. So like, what are my options? And so from there, you're part of the group of people who are like a holdover. You know the guys who are talking to you before you go into. Class and. Tell their. Advice. And now you're like, I wish you knew what I went through. Exactly. So then I got the somebody, you know there was you get a list of jobs and a lot of them are they don't need a lot of people.

37:18 So it's hard to get into those jobs. It's and other jobs are more demanding. The one that stood out to me was security forces, which was you're the base police. But within that is so many opportunities to to try to go through different courses to get basically a different job within that job. Yeah. And so I was like, oh, what's a Phoenix Raven? What's a canine handler? Like the people with the dogs who are dagger? Like there's these really cool opportunities within this career field. Let me put that on my list. So I did and I got it. And that was my journey with getting into the career that really fully satisfied me where I was. I did so much within that topic.

38:05 So what did you end up doing ultimately? What was? What would you do for? I had to go through from there was on the same base. So I really never left Texas for like the first several months because some people they graduate boot camp and their tech school, whatever job they're going to could be somewhere in a total different be in Hawaii. It could be in Hawaii it. Could be in North Carolina it. Could be in North Carolina. Exactly right. Mine was still in Texas which is OK. I'll. Do you like Texas? Wait. I love. Texas. You love Texas? It's a lot of fun for me coming from Pennsylvania. Yeah, dude, Texas is a cool place. Yeah, I loved it. It was, I mean, it was a new experience. Yeah. And I like getting out you. Have time to get out. You have time to like, do stuff. Yeah.

38:46 So depending on where you're at in your training, once you get to like your tech school, they say you're getting into like the big well, you go to boot camp, everything's very restricted, very monitored, very watched. Then you get to tech school, you know, you're still kind of a trainee. They're still kind of tight about the thing, keep an eye on you, but they relax the standards. You're a little bit more of an adult. And then once you graduate that you go to your job, whatever base you're at, and there you're like a full blown adult again. Like, yeah, you're not in training. So. But when you're in tech school, you do you get weekends where if you have free time and somebody has a car, Yeah. And. Then where do you go? You Austin Like Dallas? We never traveled that far. We just mostly stayed in San Antonio. San Antonio, Nice.

39:29 Which I like San Antonio, I like cool, right? Yeah, there's you get to go to the Alamo. Yeah, that's fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. So that was like our area and it was, it was cool. And I actually had a buddy from high school who join the military at a separate time was going in for security forces. No way. And I when I failed out I ended up in his class. No way at the same time. It's so funny, dude. It's such a crazy feeling. It's such a relief to see another familiar face, right? Yeah, and it's a. Small world, really. Totally. And so he had his group of friends and we all kind of united and and went from there. And so after tech school, I went to Hawaii. Oh, he did. Yeah, it's funny to say, Hawaii, that was my first base and I almost traded it.

40:12 You don't want to go to Hawaii. Why not that I didn't want to go to Hawaii. I never been there. I come from a small town. So like I didn't really visualize what that lifestyle would look like. Oh man. And I had. I'm so happy. I'm so happy you went. I'm so happy I went. I had just started kind of talking to a girl and when I failed out of special operations or before that, somewhere around that time. And so I was thought, man, well, if this is ever going to work out, how am I going to make it work out in Hawaii? And there's a lot of people who like there's a small period of time where everyone gets their orders to their base and people are allowed to trade them. If I could, if you wanted to go to where I'm at, I wanted to go where you're at.

40:52 You can mutually decide. Other than that, you can't just say, hey, I don't want to go here. You have to find a replacement. Cool. And so somebody wanted to trade me for Hawaii, and fortunately nobody had the base I wanted in Pennsylvania or near Pennsylvania or I probably would have traded it. So I decided, you know what, I'm going to go there. Dude, I'm still happy you picked Hawaii over a girl, man. Oh my God, I think. I think everybody is considering it worked out. I know dude, because when you're when you're that age, especially that age, you feel like the girl is everything in the universe to you and you're willing to compromise on certain experiences for that emotion, right? Because you're still like emotionally invested and like you just like, it just completely overwhelms you and like, you don't like, you don't know to not do that, you know, but I.

41:44 Think this is going to be my whole. Life. But if you're talking to you again, you like, no dude, don't do that. First stellar when I'm back there. So you went to Hawaii, dude. So it's a long flight. Oh, such a long flight. So, I mean, my family, all of them are in PA, too. So there was another reason I was thinking about I should get closer to home. Hawaii. They're sending me so far. Yeah. But even my family was on board. They're like, you shouldn't give up that opportunity. Yeah. So I went and I had a contract for three years in Hawaii. Wow. So I got to spend three years. Three years there. 15 years old spent living in Hawaii. Man dude met which? Which island? Oahu. Oahu, yeah. So where Pearl Harbor is at, Yeah, that was the base I was at.

42:27 And it gets even crazier because while I'm there, this is towards kind of the end of my time there. My brother who's in the Navy, who's on a submarine doing his thing, that they bring the submarine to Hawaii and they pull it out of the water to work on it. So he's there. Hanging out with you. For like a year or like almost a year. Yeah. Wow. His own house. And now we're there. We're living in Hawaii together. Wow. That's just so cool, dude. What's what's What's Hawaii living like? It's definitely the island life. It's funny because, well, the military brings people from all over the world, so you get so many different perspectives and ways of life. And there's people who were before I was going there, like, oh man, you're not going to like it. Like it's just a rock in the middle of the water. After three years, you're going to be tired. You can do it all and this and that and just a lot of bad attitudes.

43:19 And now you go there. And I never got tired of it, even after three years. I could have lived there longer. I had more things I wanted to do. Dude, it's amazing. You wake up, you see mountains, you see the beach. It's beautiful weather. I mean, it's like a range of like 70 to 85�� all year round. Like it's just, it's amazing. I met my my fiance, no way there really. We have. Is she in the military? She was. She was a native. No, no, she wasn't even. She wasn't military. She wasn't there for. No way visiting. At a mutual wedding. A mutual friend's wedding. Wow. Yeah, it's an interesting story. That's a great. Yeah, I want to hear. It I'm there.

44:00 For. You know, maybe. We got married in Hawaii. Yeah, So we're all stationed out there and I have my close group of friends, and one of the friends was going to get married while they were there. So because Hawaii is so expensive, all of the groom's party was staying at his house off base and then the whole bridal party and was staying at my best friend's house on base, which was I could walk there from my dorm at the time he was married. So he had a house. I was still in the dorms and so I'm we're basically there every day. You know, we're partying. He's like the party house. And now there's a group of girls coming, so why not go over even more?

44:44 Yeah, sure. And I, I'll be honest, I had already scoped out ahead of time, like our buddy was showing us some stuff and like, oh man, she's really cute. No big deal. She comes and we both have our different perspectives on the story. The first night, I never forget I was coming over there, We were having a little house party, like a welcome party kind of thing. And she didn't stay long. She flew in late. So she was like in the kitchen filling up her water bottle and I had a twisted tea in my hand and we were there partying. We got to exchange like a couple words and she went up to bed. The next day I come back and I am at this point in my life, I'm in a shell like I'm very.

45:35 Reserved. Yeah, I'm reserved. I why is that? I'm not like. Are you naturally cultural? I think naturally, I think maybe growing up as a younger sibling just kind of being like a follower, like I just what's the word I'm looking for? Inclusive. Yeah, exactly. Just not antisocial, but definitely not somebody who goes out of my way to make conversations. So for me, you know, I would honestly enjoy the parties because it would make me more social. So that's kind of why I liked being in The Who Doesn't. Who doesn't love that, exactly? So the next day I come back and work. The guys had planned to go golfing on base and I never, I don't even know if I've ever been golfing, but they're like, oh, you have to wear a collared shirt. Yeah, dress code.

46:19 There's a dress code. For the sport. And I'm not like prepared for this, so I throw on my best collared shirt and and shorts and I feel like a nerd. Like I'm like, man, this doesn't. I don't. Look. Comfortable, like all the girls are off, like they already left the house because they're off doing like adventure things. And I'm coming over to like get with my buddies and we're going golfing. I step in, I open the door. I'm like, hello. And I'm like yelling something. And I didn't hear my buddy. And then all of a sudden I hear a female's voice from the kitchen. Hello. And my heart sank and I'm like, I'm dressed like a nerd. I just hear yelling like crazy.

47:01 And I thought to myself, they didn't see me. They don't know who it is. I could turn around and leave right now and they'll never know. I'm like, I can't, I can't do that. So I walked over. Sure enough, it's my future love of my life sitting there. Wow. What's her perspective on the story? She thinks it's funny, like I, I was definitely in like a party phase, you know, like a lot of our like when we first met, I was coming over, we were having a house party. She thought it was funny. She she didn't think I was like. Viable. She didn't think it was anything with like me, like she thought I was dressed nice. I'm like, I thought I was dressed like a dork. And so from there, she was there for about a week and a half and it was like every single day we were together for some sort of a fan, like hanging out. And she was kind of playing hard to get, or at least I couldn't tell if she was into me or not.

47:54 And so we were just like hanging out, like. Dude, how difficult is that man? It's never easy. It's. So difficult, dude. It's so difficult. And you and reading the reading women is impossible, dude. I mean, I think so. It sure is so hard and for for her. I always joke because I was like, I know the moment that I learned that you were into me because it was when I was issuing her a pass to get on the base and I had to take everyone's picture for like the security of getting on base. And she came up and like the counter was so tall and she's 5 foot one on her license but 5 foot in real life. Sure. Her little eyes came over the counter and she was like, are you going to the party tonight at Gabe's? And I was like, she very excited to ask me this question. Yeah.

48:44 And that's I was like, Oh, well, no, I'm going to be here all night because I work all, all shift and but I was like. We'll hang out. Yeah, she wanted to hang out, so that's kind. Of what? That's the best feeling in the entire world, isn't it? It really is. And so we, we went the rest of the week hanging out and then it was a couple months after that, I think from May, that was May. And then in October, we had stayed in touch afterwards, like just kind of communicating. And I was like, I'm really in for this girl. Let me see where this will go. So I traveled to, or that's what she did. She was in UCF to work on getting her master's degree. She was still getting her bachelor's at the time, but aiming to get her master's in speech language pathology. And so went out there and hit it off again and everything was what we thought.

49:33 And she tell the story differently. So that's why you're in Florida. That is why I'm in Florida. Yeah, exactly. So that was maybe 3 years into my military career. And then we did it. We ended up doing about 2 1/2 years of long distance traveling back and forth. What is that like? Not easy. That sucks, right? Not easy. But we made it easy because we, it was better because she was focused on her goals and she was adamant about getting her masters. And I was in tune with my career and building that. And so fortunately, we weren't like the couple that like always had to be at each other's hip. And if we weren't, we were like panicking or, you know, we were Facetiming every night.

50:16 We, I would help, we'd call split the tickets to get her to Hawaii or I'd fly to Florida at that point. But again, you get another wish list towards. So each time you're coming up on the end of your time at a base and you need to travel to another one, you have a wish list and you hope that they've review it. They say they do review it, but realistically everyone knows they just send you wherever they need. To OK. So I I was coming up on the end of my time and I'm like, Oh my God, this is getting serious. And I didn't change my wish list and all I have on my wish list is South Korea. With South Korea there. Because there's a little trick in the Air Force, in the military, I guess, where if you go to specific bases, it's like a one year tour. And from there you get a base of preference. So you're almost much, much more likely to go to where you want to go.

51:11 If you go to that year. South Korea if you go to Turkey. Just trying to think warehouse by. Place that people don't usually want to go, yeah. Exactly. It's like short tour. Turkey would include. Your family. So it's like, yeah, people don't necessarily want to. However, Korea is one of the places everybody wants to go there because it's just like Party Central. Oh, is it there for one year? Most people, they're like, oh, you went to Korea. Did you make rank or did you lose rank? Most people, it's like, really, you're toeing the line of losing rank because you could skip a stone from Osan Air Force Base and hit the first club, restaurant, bar. Like it's like the entertainment district right in front of you. Wow.

51:52 So yeah, what's that? If you disciplined. You do. You do so for me, I found out, oh, I need to change my list because I don't want to go to Korea. I want to yeah, I've changed it up first, but this time it's much more serious. And I was like, let me I know where what I want to do with my career and I can do it at these specific bases. And so I put those bases and I'm out on a mission and I'm over in I think Philippines or Thailand at this point and the. Guy being in these places for the first time. It's super. It's it's it's eye opening it I mean, if you. It's surreal, it almost feels. Real to some extent, yeah. Like the more you do it, the more like it, it feels like less surreal and and sure like this is like an experience. The the and it depends who you go with, because some people, they want to hit the first bar in a new town. And then there's people who are like, man, we're in a new place, why don't we go hit historic landmarks? We like actually explore the area. So I will say one of my biggest regrets was not voicing that. Like I wanted to go do more of those landmarks and I would go out and drink with people and we'd enjoy the local area that way.

53:05 But that's a really good way to get to know a place, too. Like, I like that. Like when I travel remember. Next day, but. If you remember the next day, sure, but I think that it's I think like I went to I went to New Orleans and one of the first things I did was ask a bunch of local people and local breweries or local rump distilleries, like where do where do like where do people that live here go? And I went to hang out there and it was like, it was such a cooler way to get to know the place than going to the tourist spots. You know, I mean, like you don't get to new Orlando by going to Disney World, you know, I mean exactly. You do a little bit, but you know there's a lot more to it that like the locals actually live in. Yeah, Anywhere I go, I try and ask the locals like, hey, like, what do you recommend? And a lot of them are like, oh, go to this restaurant. Go to this restaurant. I'm like, no, no, no, I don't want to go to another restaurant.

53:47 Tell me like, where are the spots that like, I can sightsee? Where can I get a lay of the land? And like, like, I'm going to remember this more than just the inside of a restaurant. Yeah, sure. And I want good food. You know, I want to try the local food, but I also want to kind of experience that where I'm at. And I don't think. Is Thailand awesome? Thailand was. I got my first suit there, so yeah. Everything dirt cheap there, right? Everything is very cheap, I mean, but it comes with there's very not the best areas. I can remember the smell that I would smell walking down the streets in some areas. Even though the military will put you in a very nice hotel, at least the Air Force, you know, they always joke on the Air Force. We get put in hotels while other people are like in a tent. Oh yeah, is that a thing?

54:35 Between the branches, it's like the running joke. So yeah, we're in like a nice hotel. I can see the beach and the water, but they're it's still not like the nicest and but everything's cheap and so you it is what you make of it. Whatever your interests are like you go have fun. I enjoyed every experience travelling and doing and. You were in a relationship the whole time. So I'm in a relationship, yeah. And while I'm there in Thailand, which is the guy I'm bunking with is he's like in charge of finding out where people are going next. And he's like, oh, I just got the list. Like he's got the inside. He's like, I'll tell you where you're going.

55:16 Let's and he's like all excited and I'm kind of nervous because I took Korea off my list to like I'm like last minute kind of thing. I revamped my list. He's like, all right, oh man, you're so lucky you're going to Korea, dude. I. Was like how do I explain this now to my girlfriend? Like, now I have to go to Korea for one year and you can't you get 1 one time where you can trap, like, leave, go on your vacation from there. Yeah. So I had to try and space it out to where I would still get to, like, see her. So I thought, this is the end of my relationship. She's going to call it off as soon as I tell her we're going to Korea.

55:59 And I told her, and she was like, well, we'll make it work. That she said. She's like, we'll make it work. And I was like, all right. Then if you're on, what was your? What was your? What was your response? Would you, would you feel? Would you think? Would you said that? I was just so grateful, yeah, I was super grateful that she we didn't really have to work through that. It was just like, okay, that's where the military was going to go actually. Getting to like actually hang out with her and spend time with her on a consistent basis because like it's a totally different, like it's totally different relationship, right? Like one relationship is like a long distance relationship where you're on the phone and you're texting and you're calling and you're Facetiming. There's another experience where like you're in each other's space, you know, like for days or weeks or months on end.

56:45 And like, that's a totally different aspect to like being with someone, you know, is that was that different? It was a learning curve for us when we moved in together. Because of that. Because we've had such and it's like one of those things where we had to, we had to learn each other's habits and what we like, liked as we live together. I think most relationships go through that and when you when you move in together for the first time. But for us, we had already had like a 3 1/2 year relationship before we moved in together, or I forget how long it was. Time flies. But yeah. So she said we were going to go on, we were going to do our thing. And then it was South Korea.

57:27 I went to South Korea. South Korea was a very unique experience because I was part of, instead of doing security on base, I was part of a small team that pulled security off base. So because that entertainment district gets just wild and people lose rank, like the military just Wilds out. We have the army come down from their base on weekends and it gets so tense. You can feel like the tension in the air. Tense between who? Between. Like they want to get, they get drunk, people want to. Fight always with locals or with each other. Mostly with each other. It's pretty bad to get in fights with locals because that's like an international incident way to happen. Yeah. And so we're there to make sure that doesn't happen because the military.

58:11 So you guys are like policing themselves? We're like, we're like policing the military off base. And so like, you can't have an open container walking around with the bottle. So like, you got to stop that. And fights break out at clubs all the time. We're like breaking out fights. Legit fights. Oh yeah, Oh yeah, it was one of the IT was. It was honestly one of my favorite jobs because it wasn't all the time. We're constantly you'd be in a club and you would just military members love to wild out. They work hard and they party harder. So we'd be standing outside of a club and next thing you know, we see this, this, this argument starting and we're like, it's about to happen and boom, one guy gets sucked and then all the friends come in. Then you have 18 people and we're like calling for backup and trying to pull people off each other. But you're and you're all Americans. And it was.

59:04 We're all Americans, yeah. And and we're just trying to like. There's no sense of like karate when you're in South Korea and you see another American that you're like, yo, what's up? As opposed to like, yo, what are you up to? You know, like, I mean in that area specifically it was like all military people and then the local so like it. Was in a little like military city. Kind of kind of they're very heavy on the military there. And so, yeah, it was a lot of action. And then even to that year go by quickly, very quickly actually. Like nowadays I feel like my life sometimes goes by faster than there because just like every day I was like doing so much and within that one year there was like more opportunities and different things and, and a lot of things keeping me busy, a lot of new things that I got to do as well. One of the craziest experience that I had in Korea was working that job.

1:00:00 And we have basically our area of operation outside where we kind of stay within and manage. And there's the maybe 12 of us. We're split into teams of 2. So we kind of split off and like monitor different sections and you work night shift. And then at the end, let's say 12 O clock, one O clock. I can't remember when we finished. We all kind of meet up by the gate and we're getting, we do our last final sweeps. We come back easy night. Well, one night we get a call from somebody and they're like, hey, there's somebody who's suicidal there. We have them, we have their first Sergeant, like who's in charge on the phone right now. And he's he's talking about killing himself like he does. And we've gotten these calls often. A lot of people don't want to be in Korea. They they lose their mind or in our minds and a lot of the team's mind being complacent.

1:00:55 They were like, it's just another drunk person spouting off how they feel. They are. Well, I said, you know what, let me, I talked to my partner. I was like, since we're all grouped up here ready to go home for the night, how about you and I, since we don't have a confirmed location, we're going to be out here until this gets solved anyway. Let's work down to the other side of our operation, area of operation and just kind of stand post there so we cover more ground quicker in case they do give us location. As I'm walking down, I just happen to look up and, oh, fourteen stories. Don't tell me. I see a silhouette just up in the sky just wave like this, like standing there on the edge of the building. And I was like, I look at my buddy, like, dude, we got to get up there.

1:01:39 At this point, we'd call it in. We're running, we're we don't have the codes to get into this hotel building to get up to the top. By this time, like 10 other cops show up with us. One guy has the codes. We get up and we're like all game planning. What do we even do? This guy's on the edge of the building wants to kill himself. None of us are negotiators in this instance. Like we don't know how to talk somebody off a ledge. We're not trained for this. So we're like, do we just try and grab the guy quick? Do we sneak up and grab him? Do we try and talk to him? We're really figuring this out on the fly in the elevator going up and we get out, we get on the top floor. We like got out below and walked up some floors to be real quiet.

1:02:21 And we're going out and there's some bushes between US and this guy on the on the railing. And we we're walking up and a Bush catches my leg and makes a noise. This guy turns around, sees us. He's still on the phone with his first Sergeant. And he's like, oh, now the effing cops are here. Like what? You know, he's flustered. He climbs over this railing and goes further out, like literally on the edge. And at this point, we're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on, Hold on. Like, let's talk about this. Yeah, you're not in trouble. Yeah, We don't want like, we're not here. We're like, if you want us to back up, whatever. Like at this point, it's all off the off the cuff George, trying to figure this out. Yeah. And I had a buddy who was very good at handling this situation, was talking to him and we kind of like took the lead. And as we're talking, we're just slowly getting a little bit closer.

1:03:12 The guy, I just remember he was smoking cigarettes and then he, he was kind of like relating with us a little bit. And we're like, all right, this guy, we got him to sit down on the ledge. He's having a conversation with us. We're trying to get him back, not really biting on it, smokes his last cigarette. And I just, I remember the guy, he just started looking off the edge and he stopped talking to us and he's just kind of leaning at this point. He's just kind of rocking. And at this point he's just like, we're just like, it's happening. He's about to do it and we had sent some guys down below because it was like a terrace where like there was a floor drop below. And so the people out on the terrace got on each other's backs and they're coming up from behind the guide to where, as we have his attention to the left, we can see the hands come up around the guy's hips. So they catch.

1:04:01 Him to grab him and pull him backwards and they were going to pull him where he drops the floor, but we have people to catch him. Yeah, well, the guy talking to him glanced down for a second to like give him like the heads up and he caught on to that and goes to jump this point, the guy's barely got his belt. I'm on the edge. I leap over at this point grab the guy. I I ended up falling off backwards. The ledge, the ledge backwards. It's 14, four stories on one side and I'm looking at it. I'm looking down and I'm holding on to this guy and like through the struggle, I fall off. I hit the floor behind us. Adrenaline's pumping.

1:04:42 I get, I'm, I get right back up. I run up the stairs, back over the edge and, and grab this guy. He's still trying to like get off the edge. And I remember holding on to one point and feeling my nails like starting to separate. They were just like, it was, it was like I'm losing my nails or this guy's going off. At this point, somebody had tied together a rope and lassoed it up and I was able to like throw it over this guy's like neck. Oh my. And they ripped him back and so they were with the rope able to, we basically got him held in there. They pulled him back and they caught him down below.

1:05:23 Do you know what happened to? Him in the end, I don't know. They would have for sure. Was he? Crying was he? Oh, yeah, I mean, he was, he was very distraught. He was just kind of like in his own space at that point. We actually got caught shit from the Fire Rescue who was like, you guys should have never went on that edge. It's a safety thing. He could have taken you with him. Yeah. We were just acting off. Yeah. Yeah, totally, totally. You know what to expect. So holy that was. Dude. A wild experience I'll never forget. You saved his life man, that's crazy. It was, yeah. Was there, that was there that actually I have to pee real quickly, then we'll continue one second.

1:06:04 The other way you probably, yeah. I would. I mean, that would have been. I would think about it a lot. Yeah. I, I don't know, I feel like in the moment we just, we did what we felt was right and we're very happy that we were able to save the guy in that situation. And I, I hope the best for him. I hope, you know, I hope they got him out of Korea and he turned his life around and is in a much better state now. I don't really know. And it was just back to business after that. And I have, I have some crazy, there's so many crazy stories about Korea in terms of like massive fights. We broke up people we had to kind of haul back to base on a stretcher because they were completely covered in their own feces, drunk in a bathroom, underage drinking. I mean, and imagine getting a person like that out of a club that's filled with people who want to fight and it's shoulder to shoulder and this guy's covered in, you know. So you're fighting a lot of people that want to fight him. They want to fight in general.

1:07:05 In general, there were so many people that would just get drunk and want to fight out there, do whatever dumb stuff. So for us, it felt like an episode of Cops. Yeah, it was exhilarating, you know, where you just, you got to do your own thing. And most people didn't really do, I don't know, like people didn't mess with us. We just kind of like made sure everything was. Following. Would you, would you get to? Would you pick now that you had their preference? After Korea, Where'd you after all that? Yeah, Where'd you end up deciding? So I think I had a list of like 5 bases, maybe 10 bases. Would you speak to people about the bases before you got there? You ask around, you ask people their opinion if they've been there, what they think. It's also very dependent on like what jobs you can get there. So I was really chasing after ever since I failed out of special operations, I was really chasing after Phoenix Raven, The Phoenix Raven Schoolhouse, which is basically you go through a selection processes that as well. And if you make it through that, then you get a tab. And what they do is anywhere that our aircraft goes into like an austere environment where there's like not adequate security, we're there to secure the airfield, the aircraft, the airfield.

1:08:22 You're like mobile security. Exactly. We're we're like the mobile plane security. And so the best way I can give an example of that is the Afghanistan evacuation from 2021 where they mandated every flight that went in there had to have a team of Ravens with it. So that's another story I can get into. That was the end of my deployment when that oh really? And I was a part of that. You were part of that. Oh yeah, everyday. I mean, it was that was chaos in itself like that was. A shit show. Yeah, that was absolutely a. Shit show. I mean, just to say it in the nicest terms, I think that would be the really the best way to put it.

1:09:02 How so? For my personal experience, I was, I was stationed to deployed to Qatar for six months was my rotation and there was about 12 of us there. My six months was at an end and we there was talks about the whole Afghanistan evacuation, like people were going to the withdrawal. It was called the draw down. Do people in the army hear about these things before everyone else hears about it? They hear about it at the same time as everyone else. Generally we hear about it before, like we're already planning for a lot of and, and well, the talks about it was that we were going to withdraw our troops, we're going to start to draw down the civilians, were going to get their own flights out, yadda yadda.

1:09:50 I don't know the specifics behind it, but all of a sudden it was like one, one second, OK, yeah, it's going to happen, but it's not going to affect any of us. Like they're probably just going to like, handle it flying out on civilian aircraft. They're going to catch a Southwest flight home, no big deal. Then I'm a couple days past when I was supposed to leave already to go home and I'm like, hey, you know, where's my rotation at? Like I'm ready to go. Like I've already my family's waiting on me. I. Got a girlfriend, man. One morning they call they, they, I get added to a group chat with a couple other guys and there was only me and one other guy who had been there for six months and they were like, your flights on this day at the end of the week, start getting your stuff ready to ready to go home.

1:10:36 I'm like, absolutely heck yeah, call my family. We're excited. We're getting, we're making plans already for when I'm home that same day, that evening, they call me back out of my room and they're like, hey, the evacuations happening and it's happening right now. Grab your 72 hour bag, which is just your bag for 72 hours worth of supplies that's always ready and get on the first flight like it's happening now. Oh shit. And I'm like, So what does that mean about me leaving? And they're like you're extended indefinitely. That's what they said. We don't know when you're leaving. So that's the news I got.

1:11:17 And so at that point, I'm like, OK, as I'm grabbing my bag and getting my stuff ready, I'm now telling my family I'm I don't know when I'm coming home and that this you're. Freaking out. I feel like for me, no, you just I was, I felt like I was upset. I was very distraught about the fact that like, OK, now I'm staying with my family even more. If it wasn't for the fact that like, like I was already supposed to be gone, I would have been all on board, ready to serve and do what I was trained to do. And so I had to let that go and and realize I'm not leaving. This is what I'm here for. And I have to finish up. You know, I got to finish the job and this is now the job. So yeah, get on the first flight. At this point, there's twelve of us. A week later, there's 120 of us or 100, you know, Plus they pulled Ravens that weren't even like actively flying. They pulled everybody out of the woodworks to come support this. The tempo when we had 120 people was like the same exact tempo in the beginning.

1:12:26 So the 12 of us that were mandated me on every flight were just being worked, like grinding. Like, I remember I got on flight 3 hours on Kabul airport. At that point, everybody's just like trying to figure out what's going on. We're landing. I'm up in the cockpit. I see groups of people who aren't supposed to be in this area. Like they're getting like, like held in an area because they rushed the airfield. We're getting Intel briefs before. So they're talking about like how ISIS wants to come blow it, blow up the gates, like work. We had a pact with the Taliban, who are the 2?

1:13:06 Two basically have a ceasefire. The same people were fighting the day before. We're now we got the inner perimeter secure. You guys are like securing the outer perimeter basically. It was a very weird situation. It does with the Taliban. Yeah. So you're working with the Taliban? I don't know if not you but say that it was just like a. Coordination. They were basically, yeah, they weren't going to kill us and we weren't going to kill them. And that was the agreement. And because ISIS. Was a mutual. Well, no, but ISIS wanted to come foil that plan where it was just going to be this nice, neat withdrawal. Everybody who wants to leave Afghanistan comes here and and it's OK, the Taliban's going to take over. That didn't quite happen next.

1:13:50 You know, the Taliban's killing people right outside in front of our. The desperation of like humanity in that minute was in that moment was just like something you'll I'll never get over. There were people who were like throwing their babies over the wall who are landing in like sea wire because they didn't the other side they they wanted to get. I mean, you can look at the videos and just see the hordes of people outside trying to get in Taliban stirring up trouble. They'll kill people, they'll shoot into the crowd, whatever. And our guys are just like trying to A not get killed themselves and B, get people through security without letting everybody like rush through.

1:14:34 And, you know, they're they're people who are trying to just live so they don't middle. East is a different universe. Yeah. And they're doing whatever they tend to survive. So they were really trying to, like, push through. At one point, they flooded the perimeter. They rushed the airfield. That's where you see the video of our plane taking off off and people were hanging on it. There was an explosion at the gate that happened like gunfire out the perimeter. It was a very chaotic, tense situation. But that's what I was there for. And and to answer your question, in that moment, I felt worried for my family mostly as if, you know, if something happened to me, like for them.

1:15:16 But personally, I felt like all my training LED up to this moment. And it was something that getting in the military, I remember asking God like, use me in my time in service for good. Like if like I don't want to just like train and do this and that and not get to serve my country or have to serve a higher purpose. And so in that moment when I did feel a lot of stress where I did feel like this, like, why am I here kind of thing. That's what I had to remind myself was like, OK, this is what I asked and this is what I'm here to do. He's spiritual. I. Yeah, you were then I would say. I'm very spiritual. I would say I'm very spiritual. Yeah.

1:15:57 So those first three days were a mess because I would get you get on a flight, you're you're exhausted. You didn't sleep. You barely ate. You don't have enough water. We're bringing in more people than a plane can carry. And so there's like no room to, like, sleep. You're up in a cockpit, like the crew is up in a cockpit too many for us to be up there. So you're not sleeping there either. And then we're getting off. We're in like tension level 10 and Poland security and then also once we get all the refugees on the plane, I'm the guy who's guarding the cockpit to make sure that nobody tries to overthrow the plane as well. So again, I'm still on my job. Nothing happened there but but.

1:16:38 It does happen. Oh, well, yeah, it definitely could happen. I mean, so for me it was like I, I never, there was no breaks, you know, And then so I got back and I went through customs because at the time it was still, you're supposed to go through customs until things got so bad and backed up that finally they were like, security skipped customs because they're, they're moving and gunning the whole time, you know, So I went through this whole long process. I had to check my weapon back in. I had to go through the customs, get a bus back to my dorm. It just felt like like more than 24 hours of being up. I got back to my bed. I kicked my boots off.

1:17:19 The best feeling in the world, lay down. Somebody comes in, taps me on the boot or on the foot. They're like, hey, you got to go. You're on the next mission. And I'm like. How long has it been? Not even, I don't even think I was laying there for 10 minutes. Wow. And then I got back in. I went back on the next mission, did that three times in a row. The next time I didn't make it back to my room at which is actually nice. Like at least just put me on the next. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Catching the whole long process. And then yeah. So for like 3 days it was like barely eating, barely sleeping. I had a water bottle with like maybe I had 1/4 of water in it and I had a caffeine, you know, death wish coffee. Yeah.

1:18:02 It's like a three, 400 milligrams, like a packet of caffeine. And I would put it in that and just shake it up. And that's what kept me alive, basically. Yeah. Security. And so it was very, it was, it was very rough. It was very chaotic. But I didn't have time to think about the politics of it. I didn't have time to think. About how to get. Done. Yeah, you're just there and and I'm pulling security and I had to just make sure that the mission happened, which also led me to like one of the lowest points of my life right after that where I really felt like a tool watch for the military because this is I would have gotten back from that deployment and I would have had one month until the date of separation from the military.

1:18:42 And I'm like, that's not, I really want to set myself up for getting out. And so I extended for one more year. So that's why I ended up doing the seven years. And that's you thought to get to. That wall so the end of the the end of the withdrawal right we got everyone out of Afghanistan and now we've we've been taking them to Germany to Spain to Qatar to Kuwait wherever we whoever will take these people and from there that's like phase one just get them out of Afghanistan. Well, Phase 2 is start really processing these people and get them to where we want them to end up. And I'm, I talked to my mass Sergeant. I'm like, hey, like this is this is it, right. Like I'm the hundreds of planes we brought out to support this and the hundreds of people who are now flying back literally the next day.

1:19:27 I'm on those planes, right? Absolutely. Yeah, you're you're on those planes. You're going back tomorrow. I go to sleep, I wake up to my roommate was like, hey, you're on the next mission. And I'm like, there's no way. How like they told me no and they ended up sending me to Spain. Acted like we never had the conversation while I'm in Spain. They're like, there's a plane there, it's coming right back. So within tonight you're going to be back here again. OK, no worries. I'm not going to complain. It is what it is. Get this pain the plane's broke of. Course it does. The plane's broke, so now there's not have to sleep there while they're like come back the next day, we're going to check the plane. Parts should be here and it'll be fixed for like 3 days, three or four days.

1:20:15 It's the military, man. It's the government, man. They do shit slow. So as I'm stuck there, everybody else is, including my own team member, is getting on flights, going home. Oh. Man. So that was like the point where I really like broke down for the first time and was like, dude, this sucks. Like this really is like painful to like be in a situation and you want to talk about spirituality? A friend of mine who really got me into my faith in my own faith journey, just like called me at that moment. And we had this for like a a long time, like really. And calls me while I'm like broken down in tears in a hotel and just like speaks life back into me and was just there for me like in that moment.

1:21:02 And I was and that's what I was like, OK, like this is what I was meant. I was meant to be here. Like I asked God for this and he gave it to me. And so yeah, that was towards the end of my career. I ended up getting, I ended up getting an award for that with the nice Distinguished Flying Cross, which was very honored to get that. That's awesome, dude. It actually delivered at my doorstep. Like he deserved it, man. The year after I got out of the military. He deserved it man, for sure. I appreciate it. That was crazy. Yeah, it was, it was chaotic. It was so eye opening, but it was, it was very humbling as well. And I'm just happy I I could be there and play my part. Yeah. Yeah, we're going to have to do a follow up episode, dude, because this is like Part 1 with like a story and now we could do like another hour and a half of just like everything from there, dude, because.

1:21:52 There's so now that I'm out of the military and. Like, yeah, OK, we'll have to have to roll Part 2, man. Dude, fucking phenomenal. Dude. I'm so happy that I hit you up for this, man. I'm so happy you all did that jujitsu class because that was we're going to make this happen again. Are you are you going to come train again soon? Dude I would love to that. 'D be a time. Thursdays and Fridays have mostly been when I'm like doing the training, but it's one of those things like I love being there because I love being around other savages and being able to push myself, but I just haven't dedicated enough time. To make it happen, dude, make it happen. Thank you so much for doing this, dude. We'll be in touch. Thanks everyone.