Speaker 1: Lute force. If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Software Radio, Special Operations, Military Nails and
Speaker 1: straight talk with the guys in the community.
Speaker 2: Hey, what's going on.
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Speaker 3: know it'll be great, especially when you start collecting all
Speaker 3: your books put them behind your podcast. Now we have
Speaker 3: a background. Now today I have a special guest to
Speaker 3: talk with you about. We're gonna talk about explosives, we're
Speaker 3: gonna talk about real estate investment, and we're going to
Speaker 3: talk about running a podcast and dealing with tragedy.
Speaker 2: And my guest today is.
Speaker 3: Aaron Hale of the Aaron Hale Podcast, former Explosive Ordnance
Speaker 3: disposal technician.
Speaker 2: You know Erin real quick? Was that Army Navy.
Speaker 4: I started in the Navy, switched over to the Army.
Speaker 4: I jumped ship, so to speak.
Speaker 3: And with that, I would like to welcome my awesome guest,
Speaker 3: Aaron Hale to the show. Welcome Erin.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's a pleasure. Okay.
Speaker 3: For those that don't know, Erin has a hard time
Speaker 3: visually seeing, so he hears me, he hears us. But
Speaker 3: what I see is I see his jackalope above his
Speaker 3: door or his window. What is that animal with those
Speaker 3: horns up there? Can you explain that to me real quick?
Speaker 4: That is a black buck antelope. I actually went hunting
Speaker 4: after losing my eyes sight. I don't know if you're
Speaker 4: familiar with the boot campaign, but uh, Johnny, Joey Jones
Speaker 4: and I and a few other wounded veterans went out
Speaker 4: to an exotic range and in south of Texas, south
Speaker 4: of San Antonio, and it was pretty cool. It was
Speaker 4: a former Army sniper, former EOD tech and one of
Speaker 4: the you know, the the guys on the range and
Speaker 4: we all three went out and it was a it
Speaker 4: was a team effort to get the redical on that
Speaker 4: that animal. But I actually shot the smallest animal that
Speaker 4: week of all the other uh you know, you know,
Speaker 4: wounded and from the longest distance, so.
Speaker 2: You had to aim small miss small.
Speaker 3: Like Bill Gibson talks about patriot and your vision is
Speaker 3: really gone, right, you're not able to see you're being
Speaker 3: team effort to put the radical on the target.
Speaker 4: Right, that's right. These aren't prosthetic eyes. I no longer
Speaker 4: have my originals. These there are supposed to be exact duplicates.
Speaker 4: The prostitutes that painted them apparently did a pretty good
Speaker 4: job because people common and how good look in my
Speaker 4: eyes are?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I know you are you know I'm looking
Speaker 2: right at you. I got obef It's all good.
Speaker 3: And I would say that, you know, how old were
Speaker 3: you when you decided to join the military. What was
Speaker 3: it that like just said, hey, this is for me.
Speaker 4: And not as patriotic a story as most or some.
Speaker 4: It was more of a active necessity, a pivot point
Speaker 4: and transition point in my life. I wasn't very ambitious.
Speaker 4: I grew up in kind of a you know, cushy, happy, pleasant,
Speaker 4: you know, childhood, and I didn't have a whole lot
Speaker 4: of work, ethic and ambition. And when I got to college,
Speaker 4: everybody who knew how to work hard quickly passed me by,
Speaker 4: and I pretty much found myself out of my butt
Speaker 4: really quickly, and it was a very embarrassing time. I
Speaker 4: gained a lot of weight from too many liquid calories,
Speaker 4: and I needed to find a path. I needed to
Speaker 4: grow as a person, mature, and the military offered that
Speaker 4: growth opportunity to become a better man and to get
Speaker 4: that tuition back I just wasted. So I joined the Navy.
Speaker 4: I wanted to see the world. I love to travel.
Speaker 4: I decided then that I would be I would go
Speaker 4: to culinary school because I'd love to cook. My whole
Speaker 4: family is a very creative, artistic family. My creative spark
Speaker 4: was in the kitchen. So I decided I wanted to
Speaker 4: join the Navy as a cook, knowing full well that
Speaker 4: was not a glamorous job, but at least I had
Speaker 4: to get some OJT while I was doing my four
Speaker 4: and then getting out and going to going to school.
Speaker 4: Of course, eight years later, I'm still in the Navy,
Speaker 4: and you know, of course, plans change.
Speaker 3: Cooking in the Navy, for like was there specific like,
Speaker 3: you know, the captain has to have a specific meal,
Speaker 3: and you got that for him specifically? Is it like
Speaker 3: is he eat just what's in the galley?
Speaker 2: Tell me?
Speaker 4: You know, I do make decisions based I like Colin
Speaker 4: Powell's forty seventy rule. You get it about you know,
Speaker 4: you need about forty to seventy percent of the information
Speaker 4: to make a decision. Me I was just barely on
Speaker 4: that forty percent line and just said I just waited
Speaker 4: all the different options, and I said, navies for me,
Speaker 4: I would be a Navy cook. That's good enough, let's go.
Speaker 4: Little did I know that at the time, cooks were
Speaker 4: considered in the Navy much like hotel restaurant management on
Speaker 4: the civilian side. So I got sure duty in Naples,
Speaker 4: Italy on my first duty station, and the first thing
Speaker 4: I asked was where am I going to be cooking?
Speaker 4: And I said, oh, no, no, no, you're working the barracks.
Speaker 4: In fact, because you're the new guy, you're gonna be
Speaker 4: working the night clerk job at the front desk. Literally,
Speaker 4: So you know, it was definitely not what I was expecting.
Speaker 4: But you know, I worked my way up to the
Speaker 4: maintenance manager for the b e q so I was.
Speaker 4: I was. I was escorting the Italian local National public
Speaker 4: Works guys. So all day long I was going in
Speaker 4: there and helping them change light bulbs and stuff, and
Speaker 4: I'm just pointing around going come to cityha, coming city.
Speaker 4: How do you say that? How do you say that?
Speaker 4: I was learning Italian from is roughnecks. It was pretty
Speaker 4: pretty funny when you travel around to you on your
Speaker 4: leave time to Florence or Sicily and trying to speak
Speaker 4: a Napolitan from you know, construction worker.
Speaker 2: Right who's teaching you slaying and You're just like They're
Speaker 2: like Belice.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, no, it's definitely not book Italian, and it
Speaker 4: definitely definitely learned the stuff that doesn't come in the books.
Speaker 3: First, now, how did you go from visiting Florence and
Speaker 3: putting in light bulbs to you know, now I have
Speaker 3: transition from the cook that I thought I was going
Speaker 3: to be, you know, and then now I'm an eod.
Speaker 3: You know what was this transition that happened to you?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 4: It was just first I'm joined in a time of
Speaker 4: Peace nineteen ninety nine and I spent the four years
Speaker 4: in Italy two at the Bachelor Quarters and then actually
Speaker 4: a PCs only forty five minutes away to guy to Italy,
Speaker 4: where I then got flag duty. I was cooked for
Speaker 4: the three star, the commander of the sixth Fleet, so
Speaker 4: it was actually doing that. He's cooking. Yeah, it was
Speaker 4: definitely not a hardship dirty, but it was actually cooking.
Speaker 4: And when that ship was import was pretty cool because
Speaker 4: they only wanted to eat breakfast and lunch and then
Speaker 4: it's important. They didn't want to stay any later. Now
Speaker 4: that did, I and the Admiral went and had dinner
Speaker 4: around the economy. So by two in the afternoon, I
Speaker 4: had already hung on my uniform after cleaning up lunch,
Speaker 4: and I became an Italian. I went out there and
Speaker 4: experienced in Italy and Europe and it was fantastic. But
Speaker 4: like I said, hardship duty was not. And I just
Speaker 4: then then all of a sudden, we found ourselves in
Speaker 4: two wars.
Speaker 2: That's right now eleven Iraq Afghanistan starting to kick off. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So by three h four we were doing our
Speaker 4: figure rates in our box imaginary box out in the
Speaker 4: Mediterranean as the flagship. But in everybody's everybody has a
Speaker 4: job to do in the military and everybody's job is important.
Speaker 4: I was still you know, my my job is important.
Speaker 4: But I was watching I was watching this these operations
Speaker 4: on television, and I was hearing about it, you know
Speaker 4: in the you know, the mess halls and the galleries
Speaker 4: and that kind of stuff. So I knew that in
Speaker 4: the previous four years that I gained those internal values,
Speaker 4: the hard work, ethic, the pride and a job well done.
Speaker 4: And I'd also gained that love for service to you know,
Speaker 4: the external values, you know, be a great teammate. And
Speaker 4: so I was came to that point where I was like, my, my,
Speaker 4: my talents, my abilities were being put to their their
Speaker 4: best use here in you know, cooking for the Navy.
Speaker 4: So I volunteered to deployed Afghanistan and I was of
Speaker 4: course running an ARMYTL hall this time for the hundreds
Speaker 4: of NATO troops IA troops out in Farah, Afghanistan. But
Speaker 4: that that's when I met some EOD techs. This is
Speaker 4: O six O seven and it was just EO D
Speaker 4: everything about it, the tight knit brotherhood, you know, technical
Speaker 4: aspect of it, blowing stuff up, but the fact that
Speaker 4: there were first responders on the battlefield, saving lives and
Speaker 4: I tell people that, you know, when I get my
Speaker 4: first confirmed kill with an egg roll, I started, I
Speaker 4: decided want to start saving wise instead. But but that's so,
Speaker 4: that's how it went. I was I was a cooking Afghanistan.
Speaker 4: I wanted to go and I work west through and
Speaker 4: through the Navy to go from culinary specialists to eot etech,
Speaker 4: and the quickly denied me. They just said that we
Speaker 4: don't take cooks into the EU program.
Speaker 3: Also, they've not seen under Siege, the movie with Steven
Speaker 3: Seagal where he is the cook. I mean, do they
Speaker 3: not know that he's in the galley just like throwing
Speaker 3: knives at the dartboard really good with a knife. You say, no, cook, Yeah,
Speaker 3: this is not a cook, Tommy Lee Jones, this is
Speaker 3: not a cook.
Speaker 2: Who is this guy? Bro? That's amazing.
Speaker 3: So you're so you go from cooking for three stars
Speaker 3: and admirals, and then you go to Afghanistan and now
Speaker 3: you're cooking for the army and other ISAF forces who
Speaker 3: are coming through your you know, your chow haul, and
Speaker 3: I'm sure they're grateful for every every warm, yummy morsel
Speaker 3: that they could shove in their mouth and the extra
Speaker 3: little scoopy put on. I'm sure they're grateful our listener,
Speaker 3: probably eight in your chow hall.
Speaker 2: Yo.
Speaker 4: That was That was pretty interesting too because when I
Speaker 4: got out to Farrah and I was cooking out there,
Speaker 4: there was actually a couple platoons of Italian special forces,
Speaker 4: so I got to practice the lingo I've learned in
Speaker 4: Italy out in Afghanistah.
Speaker 2: That's awesome. They probably loved.
Speaker 4: It, you know, I wasn't the problem we had. I was.
Speaker 4: It was me and another navy cook and about nine
Speaker 4: local national Afghans helping me in the kitchen. And there's
Speaker 4: an old old timer named Aga and he'd been you know,
Speaker 4: working for foreign national you know, like four and he'd
Speaker 4: actually been a nurse at one time in an Italian
Speaker 4: hospital in Harat, so he knew a little bit of Italian,
Speaker 4: but he only knew the curse words, because of course
Speaker 4: that's all anybody ever learns, right, So this old Afghan
Speaker 4: dude is like cursing in Italian as the Italian's come
Speaker 4: through and they're coming to me going can you tell
Speaker 4: him to shut up?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So yeah, that was very funny.
Speaker 5: No no, no, no, no, not those Italian words, man, No,
Speaker 5: don't say that right now, Cheech and Chong, No, not
Speaker 5: right now, you don't say that word right now.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 3: He's like, hey, no, no, no, no, bro. So you're
Speaker 3: in Afghanistan cooking. The EOD still gets denied. How did
Speaker 3: you finally get EOD to pull you in? How'd you
Speaker 3: finally get with those that crew?
Speaker 4: Well, that was it was after the deployment. I came
Speaker 4: back and I was on the station in Newport, Rhode Island,
Speaker 4: and my contract was coming up, so it was either
Speaker 4: realistic it out and the Navy. Navy already told me
Speaker 4: they were going to let me in the EOD program.
Speaker 4: Everything can be waivered what he wants to tell you,
Speaker 4: but they really didn't want me to go anywhere. My
Speaker 4: rank and rates were undermanned. I wasn't even going to
Speaker 4: get promoted. So I walked. I went over to the
Speaker 4: Armored recruiter, just handed in my my service records. I'm
Speaker 4: gonna go with YODI. They said welcome, and soon it
Speaker 4: was changing uniforms and changing jobs.
Speaker 3: So you didn't have to go through a boot camp again.
Speaker 3: When you crossed from the Navy to the Army.
Speaker 4: They had this pilot program they were doing UH for
Speaker 4: sil called the warrior transition courses like a for prior
Speaker 4: service boot camp, all of the knowledge based stuff, none
Speaker 4: of the you know dogma, you know, none of the
Speaker 4: indoctrination type thing. So what's the the digital sergeant's going
Speaker 4: to do is say drop you drop I I'll rank
Speaker 4: you but.
Speaker 2: Respectfully.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but that's that's sort of you know, like you know,
Speaker 4: basic rifle and stuff to have a thrown grenade, orienteering,
Speaker 4: you know, len lavigation, that kind of stuff. And then
Speaker 4: straight from there it was to EOD training. So it's
Speaker 4: kind of funny. Even though I didn't get that boot
Speaker 4: camp break you down and turn you into a soldier thing,
Speaker 4: it was almost like I was infiltrating as a sailor
Speaker 4: in a Navy uniformed but I got the school and
Speaker 4: I was doing Navy cadence at the Army detachment, and
Speaker 4: the first sergeant was so bad, so pissed.
Speaker 2: That's funny.
Speaker 4: The school. The school was tough. It was a high
Speaker 4: attrition rate at a lot of knowledge based stuff. There's
Speaker 4: a test every two to three days and you got
Speaker 4: to get a minimum minimum of eighty five on every
Speaker 4: single test or it's a failure. And some of the
Speaker 4: the hits some of the questions, the practicals and the
Speaker 4: rent and test their sixty point heads.
Speaker 2: Like what's a question?
Speaker 3: Can you give me like one random question that you
Speaker 3: can think of that you remember it all that it
Speaker 3: asked you.
Speaker 4: Well, it's everything is you imagine what eod's responsibility. I
Speaker 4: know there's bullets to nuclear weapons. So there are all
Speaker 4: sorts of different divisions. You start from the basics like
Speaker 4: basic circuitry and physics. What goes into the physics of
Speaker 4: fuse activation?
Speaker 3: You know, setback like why does it combust and like
Speaker 3: why does the combustion combust and what makes the combustion's
Speaker 3: combustion combustion? And like the whole thing all the way
Speaker 3: down to the basic strike the match of like the
Speaker 3: fuse right, Like you're learning it all the way.
Speaker 4: Imagine like your basic forty mike mic round right, what
Speaker 4: does yeah, what does it take to actually activate that?
Speaker 4: How many times does it have to spits? How many rotations?
Speaker 4: That's right? So it starts with physics, right, there's questions
Speaker 4: like Newton's first law and all sorts of stuff, and
Speaker 4: then it graduates up to nomenclature and or identification. Order's
Speaker 4: identification all the way up to biochemical you know, counter terrorism,
Speaker 4: weapons of mass destruction, detecting radiation, you know, getting in
Speaker 4: hasmat suits and doing decontamination setups. So it's there's.
Speaker 3: So many tests, so many questions. You're totally just such
Speaker 3: a it's constantly just keeping your mind the gym for
Speaker 3: the job.
Speaker 2: That's what they're doing. They're just like, hey, here another test.
Speaker 4: It's just so much, it's so high paced. It's so
Speaker 4: high paced that you kind of you know, you memorize
Speaker 4: what you need to memorize, you understand it well enough,
Speaker 4: and then you take the test, kind of dump the
Speaker 4: major and you get rid of for the next.
Speaker 3: One, right, and I hope to retain the red or
Speaker 3: blue wire Along the way, you're like, okay, was that
Speaker 3: the red or blue? Did you ever stare at that
Speaker 3: situation and just be like what am I going to
Speaker 3: snip here? Or is that just is that too mcguy
Speaker 3: or mcgrub for me?
Speaker 4: When would I sleep? Well, everything almost everything there is sensitive,
Speaker 4: so you can't take anything home and study so close
Speaker 4: to business then we'd actually have study hall, So go
Speaker 4: to go to school, then at the end of the
Speaker 4: day study hall and then yes, yeah, you know, did
Speaker 4: leave all the materials there and eat relaxed, work out whatever,
Speaker 4: and then you're so exhausted you just kind of pass out.
Speaker 4: And then next day start all over again.
Speaker 2: And just repeat.
Speaker 3: What was one of the hardest aspects that you didn't
Speaker 3: expect and what was one of the easier aspects that
Speaker 3: you thought would be harder when you went into EOD.
Speaker 3: For our listener, that might be thinking, well.
Speaker 4: The school specifically, I thought it was going to be
Speaker 4: a lot more physical, and I was surprised. Just to
Speaker 4: get into the school, you have to take a bomb suit,
Speaker 4: and a chem suit has a certain test and you
Speaker 4: have to be physically fit for it, and you have
Speaker 4: to stay physically fit to be in the field. However,
Speaker 4: the bomb suit test is less about the physical fitness
Speaker 4: as it is about how you can keep your head
Speaker 4: while under physical exertion. So you get in the bomb
Speaker 4: sert and you do, they smoke you, and you just
Speaker 4: they just get spent over the next forty five minutes.
Speaker 4: But during that time they're all also asking you memory questions,
Speaker 4: they are observation questions, the critical thinking skills, and that's
Speaker 4: the test. And also it's about not quitting. So the
Speaker 4: first thing they did was have me pick up it's
Speaker 4: like a one five five round and just follow them
Speaker 4: around as we went up and downstairs around the parking lot.
Speaker 4: And I couldn't put it over my shoulder. I had
Speaker 4: to carry it like this, and it would I would
Speaker 4: just start burning, my arms start burning, and then it
Speaker 4: was my arms just start melting until it's on my
Speaker 4: wrists and then I'm just holding it against my thighs
Speaker 4: and then it's just sliding and sliding down my leg
Speaker 4: until he said, do not let that hit the you know,
Speaker 4: hit the ground. And finally we get to the point
Speaker 4: where it's resting on my toes and I can't get
Speaker 4: it back up, and he says, all right, you're done.
Speaker 4: I said, no, no, I can get this thing back up. No,
Speaker 4: you're done. I can get it back up, he said,
Speaker 4: Sergeant Hail. The test was to see if you didn't quit.
Speaker 4: And you didn't, so you're fine, let's move on.
Speaker 2: In that this is a trick. You're like, this is good.
Speaker 4: But then it was then it was, you know, like
Speaker 4: I said, the real surprise was just how much information
Speaker 4: you had to learn and how quickly you had to learn.
Speaker 4: It's a very difficult school to go through. But I
Speaker 4: was surprised about the level of knowledge based versus the
Speaker 4: physical fitness stuff and.
Speaker 2: Good insight, you know.
Speaker 3: And I'm sure that it just gets it gets more
Speaker 3: and more, you know, in depth, as you fall more
Speaker 3: and more down the rabbit hole of the EOD program.
Speaker 3: You know, is it really called the demon suit, the
Speaker 3: apparatus that you put on that whole bomb suit?
Speaker 2: Do you guys? Is it called the demon suit? Or
Speaker 2: is am I just hearing that on the internet?
Speaker 4: The Demon suit?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've heard it called the Demon suit in a
Speaker 3: Robot Chicken Car tune about EOD and he's he's like, no,
Speaker 3: we wear the Demon suit.
Speaker 2: And then the guy wants to drive the robot.
Speaker 3: He's like, I did not just spend my entire career
Speaker 3: to drive this robot just to let some random guy
Speaker 3: drive my robot.
Speaker 4: I missed that episode.
Speaker 2: You're gonna have to check it out. It's like, can
Speaker 2: I drive the robot? No, you cannot drive the robot.
Speaker 3: I spent all this years at training and skill set
Speaker 3: to drive the robot. You cannot just drive the robot.
Speaker 4: That's hilarious. Oh, I've.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay.
Speaker 4: I never really liked getting into it. I mean you
Speaker 4: got a Yeah, we would have contestancy how fast my
Speaker 4: team could get me suited up. And we you know,
Speaker 4: that's one of the competitions against Team first team because
Speaker 4: it's it's definitely not a single person suit up thing.
Speaker 4: You need your team to get you in there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're getting zipped up and like strapped up and
Speaker 3: like you're getting yoke put around your neck and you're
Speaker 3: getting the helmet slapped.
Speaker 2: Down on your head and.
Speaker 3: Right you're climbing into it. Lifted it up for you.
Speaker 3: You've had Kevlard Deiper Juggernaut exactly.
Speaker 4: After months of MRI. Is you need that thing?
Speaker 2: Oh bro?
Speaker 3: Especially coming from a chef who's now got to eat
Speaker 3: mrs and live in the quote unquote demon bomb suit.
Speaker 4: That's new to me, but it's a good name.
Speaker 2: Now, let's just get to what happened.
Speaker 3: You know, how come you know you've lost your site
Speaker 3: and you know a lot of the injuries that you sustained.
Speaker 3: You know we've talked about. You have such a good
Speaker 3: smile on your face and such a great positive attitude
Speaker 3: and you decided to serve the country and even go
Speaker 3: further once you know, it really spun off at nine
Speaker 3: to eleven and you just felt the call to serve.
Speaker 2: More join the army.
Speaker 3: I know you talk a lot on your podcast, and
Speaker 3: it's the Aaron Hale Podcast and you can find it
Speaker 3: on Spotify, Apple and everywhere, and we'll have it typed
Speaker 3: out in the dissertation on the website at SOFTWAREP for
Speaker 3: my listeners. So you should go check out Aaron's you
Speaker 3: know podcast, read about how he's you know, trying to
Speaker 3: always just be in a positive light. That's what I
Speaker 3: was getting from just some of the you know things
Speaker 3: that I've caught off your webs since I've met you
Speaker 3: now or last week or so, just looking you up.
Speaker 2: Bro.
Speaker 4: Well, I'll tell you what I do attribute the unitier
Speaker 4: to credit for your different things, one being the military
Speaker 4: training all sorts of different reasons, military experience. It helps
Speaker 4: me get through post military everything from just the saying,
Speaker 4: you know, embrace the suck, to things my experiences with
Speaker 4: EUD for example, you know, each of our three man
Speaker 4: team would have this quad con or tricon full of
Speaker 4: tools for all of those scenarios I just talked about.
Speaker 4: We'd have asthmat decontamination sent you know sets power tools
Speaker 4: and robots and bombs.
Speaker 2: Finger counters probably, And then.
Speaker 4: We get on deployment and we have that gerve, the
Speaker 4: armored truck, and you can only fit so many tools,
Speaker 4: so you have to do a bit of a trayage,
Speaker 4: and you got to leave some behind. So you just
Speaker 4: figure on you just bring what you'd most likely use
Speaker 4: when you got to leave some tools behind. And then Afghanistan,
Speaker 4: most of our missions were dismounted. Yeah, there's goat trails.
Speaker 4: You can't bring a vehicle of any size on there.
Speaker 4: So it was what tools can I and should I
Speaker 4: pack on my back? And when you consider you know,
Speaker 4: standard battle rattle, water, food and all the other necessities
Speaker 4: then EU and eat tools, it gets pretty heavy. We're
Speaker 4: doing the same job that we were required to do,
Speaker 4: whether we have our quod con, our truck, our rucksack,
Speaker 4: and whatever we encounter. Who's the general Mattis said in
Speaker 4: his book called Sign Chaos. Things being hard, we're never
Speaker 4: a good excuse for mission failure. So we can't use
Speaker 4: the excuse that I didn't have the right tool. I
Speaker 4: still got to do the job. So I'm doing the
Speaker 4: same mission with a block ACA for a spool of rope.
Speaker 4: Maybe you know, a grappline hook or something, and we'll
Speaker 4: have like a man portable robot. But just now I
Speaker 4: just looked at it. I left a couple of tools behind.
Speaker 4: I still have a mission I had, I still have jobs.
Speaker 4: I'm I'm a soldier, sergeant, father, son, I have all
Speaker 4: these roles and responsibilities. So now that's part of the
Speaker 4: reason I started the Point of Impact podcast. And you know,
Speaker 4: I was the incident in particular. It was eight months
Speaker 4: into a twelve month deployment. This was for what year
Speaker 4: was this? This was two eleven, my second as an
Speaker 4: EOD tech, my third deployment in total, and first time
Speaker 4: as a team leader, so the one that actually gets
Speaker 4: in the bomb suit and the highest ranking guy on
Speaker 4: the team. So I'm the one that makes that that
Speaker 4: long walk. And I'd just gotten back from my two
Speaker 4: weeks of UR and R backstate side, and still had
Speaker 4: the luggage in the back of the truck, and my
Speaker 4: team had just picked me up from the airfield and
Speaker 4: we were heading back to our command out post and
Speaker 4: see a CHOI in the array district of the Kinderheart
Speaker 4: Prophet Province, And I asked one of the turps, We'll
Speaker 4: just see a Choy meeting. He says, I think it
Speaker 4: means cemetery. We're in the we're in the tombstone and yeah,
Speaker 4: and it kind of felt like that Afghanistan jumped into
Speaker 4: a convoy. It's a just a supply supply convoy. We
Speaker 4: weren't on mission or anything, just heading back to Rio,
Speaker 4: and they called back to us from you know, the
Speaker 4: the vehicle and said we had to have something inside
Speaker 4: of the road and wanted us to get to work
Speaker 4: on it. So I told us they know, the fluggage
Speaker 4: off the robot, and the robot out of the truck
Speaker 4: and it got the work. We found the same thing
Speaker 4: we've been finding the entire deployment. There was pressure plate,
Speaker 4: oil jug h and me and nine bold battery. So
Speaker 4: the robot took care of the pressure plate, but it
Speaker 4: couldn't get the jug out of the hard pack. I
Speaker 4: wanted to get some evidence so we could set it
Speaker 4: up and try to get left of the bang on
Speaker 4: the timeline, you know, try to get some of these
Speaker 4: people before they could put more of them down right
Speaker 4: trails hot and so you're on it. I jumped out
Speaker 4: and it was cared. It was a standard battle routtle
Speaker 4: because we'd already had the thing just dismantled. We didn't
Speaker 4: I didn't need to get into the bomb soup, and
Speaker 4: I started making my approach about twenty meters or so
Speaker 4: from it is when my foot found the secondary device. Oh,
Speaker 4: I'm not sure how the blast I don't know how
Speaker 4: it happened, but it almost completely missed my entire body
Speaker 4: except for my head, A little peppering on my leg,
Speaker 4: a piece of a splinter from the pressure plate in
Speaker 4: my hand. But the blast like punted me in the
Speaker 4: air by hitting me in the head, and I took
Speaker 4: both my eyes and cracked my skull. I was leaking
Speaker 4: spinal fluid right out my nose. A piece of the
Speaker 4: metal detector actually hit my jawlline and ran along it
Speaker 4: and stopped just a few millimeters from my carotid dottery
Speaker 4: and about enough plastic. The doctor said to make a
Speaker 4: gatorade bottle cap or you know that that was just
Speaker 4: in my neck and the lights had done out. All
Speaker 4: had been really wrong. I'd landed on my knees and elbows,
Speaker 4: but I was still awake. I don't know if I'm lucid,
Speaker 4: but I was awake, and the first and I thought
Speaker 4: that my helmet had been pushed over my face.
Speaker 2: Your face.
Speaker 4: So the first thing I was thinking was maybe a
Speaker 4: complex ambush, and that everybody in that convoy was probably
Speaker 4: looking right at me instead of anywhere else. And my
Speaker 4: team were doing what they were supposed to be doing,
Speaker 4: is clearing a safer out to me so the medics
Speaker 4: could get me out. I'm thinking, what's happening all around
Speaker 4: me and I need it either there might be other
Speaker 4: devices out here. So I did what I thought was
Speaker 4: the smartest thing at the time. Of course, what all
Speaker 4: had been wrong. I got up and I started. I
Speaker 4: first did the functions, check were the fingers and toes
Speaker 4: and knees and elbows. Everything seemed to be intact. So
Speaker 4: I just went to fix my helmet. Fund that it
Speaker 4: was gone. My ipro was gone, my helmet was gone,
Speaker 4: and I thought, oh man, this is really about my
Speaker 4: first Artisant's.
Speaker 2: Kind of killed me for losing that, Yeah, I really.
Speaker 4: But I got up and I started walking back towards
Speaker 4: my truck so my team wouldn't have to come out
Speaker 4: to me. Of Course, I had no idea where the
Speaker 4: truck was, and I don't know where I was going.
Speaker 4: They grabbed me and dragged me the rest of the way.
Speaker 4: Medics got me met evac. Top was in there with
Speaker 4: like fourteen minutes, and I was back on my way
Speaker 4: to the airfield. And I just came from and within
Speaker 4: forty eight hours I was in Bethesda.
Speaker 3: Immediately getting taken care of, entriaged, and the whole nine
Speaker 3: yards of like what are you're probably talking? Okay, you
Speaker 3: were just assessing your situation. You know, you knew what
Speaker 3: was happening, because man, I can only imagine your brain.
Speaker 3: Everything was still just going on. You were still thinking,
Speaker 3: like you said, was I lucid or was what? But
Speaker 3: when you went to touch a helmet and you just
Speaker 3: realize it's your face, and your guys probably saw that.
Speaker 2: I just first of all, war as hell, Okay, so
Speaker 2: damn just damn.
Speaker 3: So then what so then you get to Bethesdave Matyland
Speaker 3: and you're at Walter Reed and they've got to multiple
Speaker 3: surgeries on you. So you go through that rigamarou for
Speaker 3: are you still dealing with surgeries today?
Speaker 2: Are you pretty pretty much good?
Speaker 4: It took a few, but today I'm really gone through
Speaker 4: any surgeries in a while, the last ones being the
Speaker 4: cochlear implants. Maybe in the fusion a little more reconstructive stuff.
Speaker 4: But I had the blast and it really burnt my
Speaker 4: face and torn it up in a couple of places,
Speaker 4: and it actually fused my right eye because the glast
Speaker 4: came from my right to left and it completely took
Speaker 4: my right eye and actually fused the eyelids together. So
Speaker 4: it was doing this permanent like wink kind. And then
Speaker 4: a piece of frag had run across the bridge my
Speaker 4: nose and gashed the other eye, but they couldn't fix
Speaker 4: that anyways.
Speaker 3: So nothing, You don't even have any any light or
Speaker 3: anything out of that other eye.
Speaker 2: Nothing.
Speaker 4: They again, they tried to repair it, but they just
Speaker 4: it wouldn't work. So both it actually deflated like a
Speaker 4: great yeah, And so both these now prosthetics. It took
Speaker 4: a few surgeries and grass skin grafts to actually rebuild
Speaker 4: the eyelid enough to hold a prosthetic. But the real
Speaker 4: trouble spot that's just really cosmetic. The real problem was
Speaker 4: the cracks in my skull. And then they had to
Speaker 4: take parts of my septum and patch it up, and
Speaker 4: you know, they did so, and I got out. I
Speaker 4: was actually out of want to read pretty quickly, and
Speaker 4: it was it was a rough time. But after they'd
Speaker 4: patched up my face, there was really nothing for them
Speaker 4: to do. It was a tough time for me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and a lot of soldiers and sailors come home
Speaker 3: and don't put on such a recovery from things like this,
Speaker 3: you know, And so I just wonder, you know, how
Speaker 3: many folks can just you know, smile. I'm sure that
Speaker 3: you get this all the time, that you're inspiring, and
Speaker 3: I'm sure you hear it three times a day when
Speaker 3: you're out and about and anybody gets the wind of
Speaker 3: anything that you had to do, it's like you're inspiring. Okay,
Speaker 3: So we know that you know that this is your
Speaker 3: platform too. Now use that light, okay, and tell these
Speaker 3: others out there that you know it's okay, like you're
Speaker 3: I think circumstances happened. I'm so sorry that that happened.
Speaker 3: You know, you you've probably chewed on it a hundred
Speaker 3: different ways. You know, Well, if it wasn't me, it
Speaker 3: would be Bill. If it wasn't Bill, it would have
Speaker 3: been me. Or however it happened, it's happened.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: You got over the yms, I'm sure, and you've moved
Speaker 3: on and We just have a huge, you know, veteran
Speaker 3: community that listens, and you know, outside of the veterans,
Speaker 3: civilian community, and a lot of people deal with post
Speaker 3: traumatic stress, and like, you know, they think life is hard,
Speaker 3: you know, Aaron.
Speaker 4: You know that one thing. It was the brotherhood, you know,
Speaker 4: it was all of those other warriors up and down
Speaker 4: the halls. I was sitting there in my bed, just
Speaker 4: like you said, doing the whole wyms what if right,
Speaker 4: and being pissed off these cave men with their you know,
Speaker 4: low tech garbage, you know, stiff they pulled out of
Speaker 4: the trash. You know, that got one up on me,
Speaker 4: and I was pissed. But there were all these other
Speaker 4: warriors and they were fighting their own battles. And they're
Speaker 4: still fighting their own battles, Walter Reid across the country.
Speaker 4: I don't have a monopoly on pain. I don't have
Speaker 4: a monopoly on pissed off. Who am I to say
Speaker 4: that mine is the worst?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: Like, you don't understand what I'm going through because you
Speaker 4: know you haven't gone through what I'm going through. And
Speaker 4: that's in a sense true, but it's it's a cop
Speaker 4: out excuse for just wallowing. And I realized that everybody
Speaker 4: is still in the fight and I needed to get
Speaker 4: in the fight too. And like I said, I have
Speaker 4: all these responsibilities. This has to wear it. I just
Speaker 4: I just can't sit there and say I quit. My family,
Speaker 4: my team members, brothers and sisters and arms. They I
Speaker 4: am responsible to them and for them, and they have
Speaker 4: co ownership in my life. So if I ever decided,
Speaker 4: if I ever decided to quit, I'd have to do it.
Speaker 4: I never get a little the majority of vote by committee,
Speaker 4: you know, no, and I don't think I have the votes.
Speaker 4: So you're not allowed to quit. See that's the thing.
Speaker 4: There's just no quit.
Speaker 2: You can't to get going. You got to keep going.
Speaker 3: You got to get going, you know, because there are
Speaker 3: so many hats to wear, you know, whether it's the
Speaker 3: father hat, the neighbor hat. You know, your own self hat.
Speaker 3: You know, for your own self. You know, you may
Speaker 3: have just enough for yourself out there, you know, and
Speaker 3: wear that hat well, you know, and just make the
Speaker 3: best you can with yourself now, you know, like you said,
Speaker 3: like Aaron said, everybody has their own struggles. Everybody gets
Speaker 3: in and gets out of the military. They I've noticed
Speaker 3: that everybody donates themselves one hundred percent able body and
Speaker 3: healthiest as possibly can be from like sports and athletic
Speaker 3: departments and high schools.
Speaker 2: To come home to not being that, you know, and
Speaker 2: so you know.
Speaker 4: I also needed them, not just to get me out
Speaker 4: of my funk, but I need to lean on them,
Speaker 4: you know. For the example, I needed to find you,
Speaker 4: find out how they were doing this about if I
Speaker 4: was going to be blind for the rest of my life.
Speaker 4: I decided then there, I was going to be the
Speaker 4: best damn blind me I could be. But how do that?
Speaker 4: And first was what kind of attitude are these you know,
Speaker 4: these warriors displaying. But it was after Walter read I
Speaker 4: went to the blind Rehabilitation Center at the VA and Augusta, Georgia,
Speaker 4: and I started learning how to do the cane and
Speaker 4: the accessible tech and all that. But I was also
Speaker 4: as soon as I learned how to use the screen
Speaker 4: rader on the computer, I was. I was on, you know,
Speaker 4: on the Internet, searching for blind plus whatever anything ran
Speaker 4: I found a couple of names kept A few names
Speaker 4: kept popping out, like Eric weind Mare his first blind
Speaker 4: person to climb Mount Everest, and Lonnie Bedwell is actually
Speaker 4: a fellow Navy veteran. But he's the first blind person
Speaker 4: to kayak the entire Grand Canyon, and I just talked
Speaker 4: to him this week.
Speaker 2: He legit, that's legit.
Speaker 4: He's also the only first blind person to kayak the
Speaker 4: Grand Canyon and he just came down from climbing Mount Everest.
Speaker 4: So if these people can do that, I can get
Speaker 4: off my butt you I can do something. In fact,
Speaker 4: I saught these guys out. I went climbing with Eric,
Speaker 4: I went kayaking with Lonnie. I talked to this active
Speaker 4: duty blind ranger, Ivan Castro, who was working at Special
Speaker 4: Operations recruiting brands at Bragg. And this guy I get
Speaker 4: out of call with him and he talks about how
Speaker 4: he always makes it a point every every year to
Speaker 4: run the Air Force Marathon, the Army ten miler, and
Speaker 4: the Marine Corps Marathon. And I thought, oh, that sounds
Speaker 4: really patriotic and kind of cool. So I did the same.
Speaker 4: I registered for all three of those. Somehow I got
Speaker 4: talked into a couple other marathons, and within I was
Speaker 4: I was registered for four marathons, a ten miler. All
Speaker 4: was in the span of four months, and I never
Speaker 4: run anything longer than a ten k in my life.
Speaker 4: So that's kind of how I started my blind guide career.
Speaker 4: And you know, I was getting ready for the mountains
Speaker 4: and I was doing kayaking, I was going hunting, and
Speaker 4: I started speaking. They actually sent me to the eot
Speaker 4: E school I started, I was, I was instructing for
Speaker 4: a while, and I was I was making the best
Speaker 4: of it.
Speaker 2: So they could still use you.
Speaker 3: Right, Like you said, there was an active duty blind
Speaker 3: ranger who was at like probably like a process of
Speaker 3: still active duty. Right, they were still using him. They're
Speaker 3: still using your mindset to come in and teach EOD courses,
Speaker 3: right exactly.
Speaker 4: They still I couldn't do the job anymore. They don't
Speaker 4: even like, uh, you know, a color blind in EO D.
Speaker 2: Red wire, green wire, green wire, blue wire.
Speaker 4: So I could go to the schoolhouse and I could
Speaker 4: teach IDs, I could teach best practices, lessons learned on
Speaker 4: the battlefield and that kind of thing. So I did
Speaker 4: that for about a year and a half. And you know,
Speaker 4: the medboard process is a long long time. But when
Speaker 4: it came time to actually make a decision, I could
Speaker 4: have requested to do a cod or continuation of active
Speaker 4: duty service, but I didn't have anything more to prove
Speaker 4: in uniform, and I was. I actually I found found
Speaker 4: something I could I could live for out side of service.
Speaker 4: And also it was that that that pain of nostalgia
Speaker 4: being so close to the job that I could no
Speaker 4: longer do. I still love being in the community. I'm
Speaker 4: still still I lived just down the road from the schoolhouse,
Speaker 4: and I'm still active in the community. But I didn't
Speaker 4: have anything left to prove to anybody else, and especially
Speaker 4: not to myself. So I retired. I took the medical retirement.
Speaker 4: But these all these things were going on. It was
Speaker 4: about four years after the blast, and that's when a
Speaker 4: complication occurred. That crack in my skull. It apparently hadn't.
Speaker 2: Across the bridge at your nose right there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that it had been patched, but apparently not well enough,
Speaker 4: because it was still a small leak of that spinal
Speaker 4: fluid and and leak you know, a path out as
Speaker 4: path in. And I contracted back to amaningitis, and I was,
Speaker 4: I was put me right back in the hospital. It
Speaker 4: nearly killed me, but in the process the bacteria had
Speaker 4: still one what was left in my hearing that the
Speaker 4: blast hadn't taken. So I was I was going deaf
Speaker 4: in days, And when the doctor was breaking the news
Speaker 4: to me, I said, Doc, you're telling me I'm gonna
Speaker 4: be totally blind and totally deaf. Are you telling me
Speaker 4: I'm never gonna have to pretend to pay attention ever again?
Speaker 4: Silver line and everything because my mom was girlfriend at
Speaker 4: the time in the room. And I don't know, it's
Speaker 4: probably the hearing, but I didn't hear them laugh.
Speaker 3: No, they just h yeah, they're you know, at caregivers. Okay, girlfriend,
Speaker 3: mom loving you, you know, being there for you.
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 3: Is that how it was when you got home you
Speaker 3: had Was it mom home who helped you kind of
Speaker 3: like get back to yourself?
Speaker 2: Was it your mom?
Speaker 4: No? What was wrong?
Speaker 2: Like? Did you have someone home waiting for you? Was
Speaker 2: your girlfriend the same girlfriend from when you got injured
Speaker 2: or did you meet her after the injury.
Speaker 4: I was married before the injury and divorced. Divorced between
Speaker 4: the injury and the illness. The girlfriend I had known
Speaker 4: for a long time. In fact, we'd known each other
Speaker 4: since childhood. Our mothers were both childhood and friends. So
Speaker 4: we kind of struck up a conversation and we'd had
Speaker 4: just a fantastic h first, Yeah, she didn't know what
Speaker 4: she was getting empty.
Speaker 2: No, that's what I was wondering, you know.
Speaker 3: That's why I'm saying a caregiver, you know, or someone
Speaker 3: who has you know, just some sweet empathy, that's all.
Speaker 2: That's all.
Speaker 4: But she was an absolute godsend during this illness because
Speaker 4: now not only had I lost my hearing, but it
Speaker 4: also took that inner ear sense of balance, the internal gyro,
Speaker 4: my vestibular balance, so I couldn't get much treadmill. I
Speaker 4: couldn't even walk and came home in a wheelchair. I'm
Speaker 4: sitting there at my breakfast bar on the counter in
Speaker 4: my kitchen, feeling sorry for myself again. You know, It's
Speaker 4: like it was like for four years I was telling
Speaker 4: people about this strength to struggle, you know, triumph over tragedy,
Speaker 4: and it was like God had just said, well, prove it, no,
Speaker 4: put put your money where you're about this, Let's do
Speaker 4: it again. When when has this guy paid his dues?
Speaker 4: When is one enough enough for one guy?
Speaker 2: You know? Right?
Speaker 4: But you know I had my little penny party, six
Speaker 4: month pity party. But no, the truth was that after
Speaker 4: a while, just you can't Maybe it's just me, but
Speaker 4: I couldn't just hit still, and I couldn't just wallow.
Speaker 4: It's yeah, it gets boring, frankly, so I needed to
Speaker 4: get busy doing something. I did get back in my
Speaker 4: treadmill when I held on with an iron grip and
Speaker 4: I just hit the quick start button. Half a mile
Speaker 4: an hour, I was just walking, and then I would
Speaker 4: grab the trekking poles that I used to go into
Speaker 4: the mountains with just to go to the mailbox and bag.
Speaker 4: And that's how it got started. And eventually I was
Speaker 4: running a gun and now I'm training for bad Water
Speaker 4: and I'm going to run one hundred and thirty five
Speaker 4: miles across Dad Valley in about three weeks.
Speaker 3: Wow. Yeah, you did mention in an email that you
Speaker 3: have been training for bad Water and you know, like, hey,
Speaker 3: what's going on? I was like, that's awesome. So you're
Speaker 3: gonna just keep going, man, I don't see you stopping right.
Speaker 3: And how's your real estate going? I understand that you
Speaker 3: love real estate and that you dabble with, like, you know,
Speaker 3: a little wealth management.
Speaker 4: Well, you know what I do here is and this
Speaker 4: was one of the things I also got busy with
Speaker 4: this twenty fifteen, when the meningia said, And I was
Speaker 4: waiting for the cochlear implant. It took forever, forever. I
Speaker 4: had to wait for the infection to clear up and
Speaker 4: had to wait for this. And my right ear was
Speaker 4: the first implant. It didn't work because there was more
Speaker 4: damage on that side, and then the left ear. It
Speaker 4: was over six months before I could hear another human voice.
Speaker 4: So part of the thing was I started cooking, and
Speaker 4: that was my kitchen therapy. I was just started cooking
Speaker 4: for Thanksgiving, and we invited all sorts of people. We
Speaker 4: even invited some of the students from the schoolhouse and
Speaker 4: were stranded. And I just threw all of you know
Speaker 4: that into the cooking and stopped thinking about myself. And
Speaker 4: of course I started making desserts weeks in advance, and fudge,
Speaker 4: and I want some. Michaela, my girlfriend at the time,
Speaker 4: my wife. Now, she saw two things on my face.
Speaker 4: One no, two things. One was a smile on my
Speaker 4: face she hadn't seen six months. And two the fudge
Speaker 4: was piling up. She uh started sneaking it out, like
Speaker 4: I got to be a real stealthy round of blind
Speaker 4: deaf guy. But she was giving it out, just giving
Speaker 4: it away. And people start coming back and saying, can
Speaker 4: we buy some of that from you? It's capitalist, and
Speaker 4: me said, well, of course you may, of course, And
Speaker 4: all of a sudden we had a business eodfudge dot com.
Speaker 4: So we had this funge company which actually took off.
Speaker 4: I've been on the Rachel ratio. We started TikTok, grew
Speaker 4: it to like one hundred and fifty thousand followers, as
Speaker 4: I did for a time, I was doing Aaron Hale's
Speaker 4: Coco without looking on TikTok.
Speaker 2: And cooking without looking.
Speaker 4: I don't have you to see the background, my apron,
Speaker 4: my tactical, I do see ago apron. And so I was.
Speaker 4: We were. We were confectioners, chocolateers, and then we started earning,
Speaker 4: you know, we started making money out of it, and
Speaker 4: we wanted to put this money into something, an asset
Speaker 4: that would you know, so we didn't have to work
Speaker 4: cook fudge all day long. And we started buying real estate.
Speaker 4: And what we did was we'd find some some busted homes,
Speaker 4: so we need some TLC. We'd fix them up. We'd
Speaker 4: do short term rentals, and we'd refinance out of borrowed
Speaker 4: money from private passive investors. So people wanted to invest
Speaker 4: in real estate but didn't want to lift a hammer
Speaker 4: or deal with tenants. Our guests. We did, we'd do
Speaker 4: all the work. And a lot of these investors are
Speaker 4: fellow military members. And what we do is we, you know,
Speaker 4: we give them a good return, double digit returns to
Speaker 4: let us use their money to fix up these homes.
Speaker 4: We refinanced into a more conventional loan, pay them back
Speaker 4: with their interest, and then we have a cash flowing
Speaker 4: asset that we manage. It's fantastic and the great thing
Speaker 4: about it is that we we turn you know, I saw,
Speaker 4: you know, these homes that would otherwise in the neighborhood.
Speaker 4: We fixed up the neighborhood. We increase, increase property values,
Speaker 4: wet we grow our investors and bank accounts as as
Speaker 4: well as ours, right, and that's a lot of the
Speaker 4: It was one of the big reasons I started the
Speaker 4: podcast Point of Impact with Aaron Hill is because this
Speaker 4: is something. It's also something this real estate model is
Speaker 4: something everybody, anybody can do and you can be as
Speaker 4: as active or passive as you want to. Whenever anybody says,
Speaker 4: you know, investing in real estate, I know what a
Speaker 4: lot of people think of is I don't want to
Speaker 4: be a landlord.
Speaker 2: You don't.
Speaker 4: You don't have to. I'm not a landlord. I own
Speaker 4: long term and short term rentals. But I'm not a landlord.
Speaker 4: I'm an owner. I'm an investor. I don't Almost all
Speaker 4: of my involvement is right here at my desk and
Speaker 4: on my computer and on the phone. So I love it.
Speaker 4: I want to share it. I also want to share
Speaker 4: other things, my mindset, how I get through these difficult parts,
Speaker 4: how I find answers, and you know, how I say
Speaker 4: and try to stay fit and all sorts of things.
Speaker 4: How if I can live my best life so I
Speaker 4: can make the greatest impact in my world.
Speaker 3: That sounds like a good legacy that you would like to,
Speaker 3: you know, leave with the world.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's just put it that way. I let say
Speaker 2: your community, but your.
Speaker 3: Community is now worldwide because you know, it's point of
Speaker 3: impact with Aaron Hale, it's it's a rated podcast. You're
Speaker 3: out there, put it out there, so you know, first
Speaker 3: of all, congratulations on moralizing yourself that way. Long when
Speaker 3: we're gone, this conversation will be replayed. I just tell
Speaker 3: my kids play a Facebook at my funeral and you'll
Speaker 3: see all the pictures there you go, just hit play
Speaker 3: on all the social media's probably won't even run over
Speaker 3: the same image twice. So I mean, you know, you know,
Speaker 3: with that said, putting yourself out there, you know, trying
Speaker 3: to make a good wake with your boat for others
Speaker 3: to like, you know, surf on or wakeboard on. And
Speaker 3: and you're the big ship making that wake. That's what
Speaker 3: it is, right, And you're the commander of your entire organization.
Speaker 3: It's you, It's Commander Aaron Hale, you know.
Speaker 4: And it's like invictus. I love that. I want to
Speaker 4: get that tattooed on my chest backwards so I can
Speaker 4: raid it. If I had eyes in the back of
Speaker 4: your head, you could have them account in my face.
Speaker 2: You can put wherever you want. It's right, it is.
Speaker 4: It's true. You know, when we feel as though we're
Speaker 4: being controlled by outside external forces. Now, there are a
Speaker 4: lot of things we can't control, but when we give
Speaker 4: up the ability to control our emotions, emotions are decisions,
Speaker 4: then we are victims and there's there's no recovery until
Speaker 4: you can take your ownership of your own emotions and
Speaker 4: your own decisions. And from there, you know, external forces.
Speaker 4: You can influence them, but you can't control that. But
Speaker 4: you can control the direction of your life. You can
Speaker 4: control how your day goes and the kind of life
Speaker 4: you want to live, no matter what happens ahead. And
Speaker 4: that's what the most important thing is.
Speaker 2: I love that, No, I do. I love it. I
Speaker 2: love you too.
Speaker 3: I think you're great, and I think that I think
Speaker 3: it's cool that technology allows you to have a conversation
Speaker 3: with us due to what you've dealt with with the
Speaker 3: Cockler impact plant on your skull. Do you mind just
Speaker 3: turning your head to the side and like pointing to
Speaker 3: it so if anybody's watching this on the YouTube, they
Speaker 3: can see the whole system.
Speaker 2: It's right there.
Speaker 3: It goes into his ear like that, and then it's
Speaker 3: attached to his skull, so it's conducting right through your skull.
Speaker 3: It conducts through the skull, right sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's a literally those I don't I don't
Speaker 4: know what it looks like underneath, but it's under the skin,
Speaker 4: touched to the skull. It goes into there's a there's
Speaker 4: an implant. Of course. The external part is the processor
Speaker 4: which actually collects the audio like a hearing aid, but
Speaker 4: it doesn't amplify sound. There's nothing going into the ear
Speaker 4: canal because there's nothing, no one's listening. But it takes
Speaker 4: that digital signal and sends it to this tether this
Speaker 4: coil here, which is magnetized, and that goes right to
Speaker 4: my auditory nerve in the cochlear bone, and it sends
Speaker 4: that digital signal to my brain. And it's a lot
Speaker 4: like if it sounds a lot if you called your
Speaker 4: friend on and the friend is at at like a
Speaker 4: restaurant and they put their phone on speaker and put
Speaker 4: in the middle of the table. You pick up everything
Speaker 4: kind of a wall of sound. Everything kind of mixes together.
Speaker 4: It's always it's differently, nothing like the real thing, but
Speaker 4: it's way better than the alternative.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent. One hundred percent.
Speaker 3: And I'm grateful to have you on the show today,
Speaker 3: and I know I've had your time for over an
Speaker 3: hour and we got to talking a little bit before
Speaker 3: the show, and I just think that you're great, and
Speaker 3: I'd love to have you back on the show and
Speaker 3: back and forth. And you know, in my rolodex, if
Speaker 3: you knew what I don't know, if you know what
Speaker 3: a rolodex was from back in the day I keep
Speaker 3: using that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'd love to have you back on. We
Speaker 2: could talk about.
Speaker 3: More, you know, real estate things along that line, how
Speaker 3: to how to drive more wealth into somebody's pocket. You know,
Speaker 3: I think a lot of us would like to hear
Speaker 3: more about that. And I know that you're like rad
Speaker 3: fifteen minutes into the podcast and only ten minutes left,
Speaker 3: and you get into the wealth management aspect of making
Speaker 3: us rich, make the lad too, okay, perfect, So it's
Speaker 3: point of impact with Aaron Hale who we're talking to.
Speaker 3: He is the podcast. And then do you have anything
Speaker 3: else you want to put out there, Aaron that you
Speaker 3: would like my listeners and we'll write it out in
Speaker 3: the comments down below as well so they can click
Speaker 3: on something if you have anything going on.
Speaker 4: I'll be raising money for a very special organization building
Speaker 4: homes for heroes. And when I'm running this bad water
Speaker 4: one one hundred and thirty five miles across Death Valley
Speaker 4: to the Mount Whitney Portal, and I'll be doing it
Speaker 4: for an organization that builds especially adapted homes for civili
Speaker 4: severely wounded lawyers and they give them to them mortgage free.
Speaker 4: This house man, right, now is a Building Homes for
Speaker 4: Heroes home and I want to help pay it forward
Speaker 4: as well, So building Homes for Heroes dot org. And
Speaker 4: if you follow my podcast Point of Impact and I'll
Speaker 4: be sharing more about that process and you know my
Speaker 4: training and you know the fundraiser to come perfect.
Speaker 3: And I just want to say, go check out Aaron
Speaker 3: Hale's podcast, Go subscribe. That helps us as hosts and interviewers.
Speaker 3: It really does. And if you go and just hit
Speaker 3: the notifications, don't forget to comment down below, don't forget
Speaker 3: to If it wasn't.
Speaker 2: For you, there'd be no us all of those things.
Speaker 2: You know. Whatever mister Beast.
Speaker 3: Says help us do that, we also and I'm gonna
Speaker 3: shout out mister Beast just in case he hears it,
Speaker 3: because if anybody can fund you, it would be mister Beast.
Speaker 2: Mister Beast, are you listening.
Speaker 3: But nonetheless, I want to say on behalf of Soft
Speaker 3: Rep Radio, my co host here on the screen, Aaron Hale,
Speaker 3: the guy that puts me behind the microphone, Brandon Webb,
Speaker 3: who thank you so much. Go check out his books
Speaker 3: Brandon Webb, and again check out the merch store and
Speaker 3: the book club for soft reap dot com and again,
Speaker 3: thank you so much for being here Erin.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me on this question wonderful.
Speaker 2: And with that I say peace.
Speaker 1: You've been listening to Self Rep Radio