Speaker 1: Lute force. If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough.
Speaker 1: You're listening to soft web Radio Special Operations, Military Nails
Speaker 1: and straight talk with the guys in the community.
Speaker 2: Hey, what's going on?
Speaker 3: Welcome back to another wonderful episode of soft Rep Radio.
Speaker 3: I am the man behind the glasses rad your host,
Speaker 3: and I'm gonna do someth I'm gonna leave him off
Speaker 3: for this episode. I'm gonna give my guests some eye
Speaker 3: contact during this as best I can because he's got
Speaker 3: a really cool story. But before we get into Cyrus's story,
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Speaker 3: I dare you. Now with that said, I have former
Speaker 3: Army ranger I think first Ranger, first Battalion first first,
Speaker 3: probably first, Prices first is the best of the rangers.
Speaker 3: Hold on also Navajo Nation journalist freelancer. Okay, so he
Speaker 3: writes and goes after, you know, stories for the Navajo Nation.
Speaker 2: Cyrus Norcross, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4: Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you for having me
Speaker 4: around and listen to the podcast quite a bit. So
Speaker 4: glad to be here.
Speaker 3: It's glad.
Speaker 2: I'm glad to have you here.
Speaker 3: Really honestly, it's it's awesome now. As you know, on
Speaker 3: the podcast, I like to talk to my guests a
Speaker 3: little bit about like where you came from. So as
Speaker 3: a young man and Cyrus, you know, we touch base
Speaker 3: that you were a ranger, what led you to wanting
Speaker 3: to get into the military in the first place, and
Speaker 3: where where'd you come from? Were you are you from
Speaker 3: the reservation? Did you live in the city. Can you
Speaker 3: tell us a little bit about your backstory and how
Speaker 3: you got in the military.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I grew up in Arizona on a Navaho Nation.
Speaker 4: I grew up on and off. My family was really
Speaker 4: big into one of my family had military history, like
Speaker 4: a lot of my family served and well I've heard
Speaker 4: stories going away back before the Spanish derived like hearing
Speaker 4: stories of like one of my great great great great
Speaker 4: grandfathers killing a chief son, taking his horse and then
Speaker 4: keeping it. And then that's kind of how our name
Speaker 4: kind of got about our traditional name. I should say
Speaker 4: a gray horse basically like means like the one who
Speaker 4: killed a guy for the gray horse, or like the
Speaker 4: guy who took the gray horses kind of like that,
Speaker 4: so it goes back. Yeah, and then we Dabajo scouts.
Speaker 4: And then like one of our uncles was like the
Speaker 4: uncle's of my great great grandfather's was searching for pontra Villa,
Speaker 4: like during that time World War one had people going.
Speaker 4: Then Bold War two came, so that's where my grandpa
Speaker 4: was at and he wasn't he wasn't a coo talker,
Speaker 4: but he he was in the North African campaign. So
Speaker 4: he was out there with Third Id and like he's thought,
Speaker 4: I thought Ronald, and then he thought Italy.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah yeah. Rommel's books of like how to Fare Wars,
Speaker 3: you know, swarts costs, like I read everything, cool book,
Speaker 3: you know, and here's your grandfather, yeah kicking his ass
Speaker 3: read book yeah yeah.
Speaker 4: Like and from there, like you know, my my uncle
Speaker 4: with the Vietnam it was in Quison when that all
Speaker 4: went down. My dad was My dad was in the eighties,
Speaker 4: so it was like during the Cold War time, but
Speaker 4: he was green ray and he got to do some
Speaker 4: cool stuff and yeah, and then to me, so announce
Speaker 4: me and so I've like, you know, heard all those
Speaker 4: story is. Growing up, I was surrounded by World War
Speaker 4: Two veterans as a kid because they would kind of
Speaker 4: like you just see them as a kid because there's
Speaker 4: there's so many of them back back then when I
Speaker 4: was like eight ten years old, and just like they
Speaker 4: would just like talk to me and had no idea
Speaker 4: what they were talking about at the time. But then
Speaker 4: nine to eleven happened, so that's kind of I was like, man,
Speaker 4: I'm going to miss the war. I'm in seventh grade
Speaker 4: or eighth grade, whatever it was, and I was like
Speaker 4: and then fast forward a couple of years, I was like, oh,
Speaker 4: I'm going to be able to you know, serve and
Speaker 4: kind of keep that lineage going so right, and that's
Speaker 4: when I joined tradition.
Speaker 3: So the Army did they come knocking on your door
Speaker 3: or were you like, I want the Army? Yeah.
Speaker 4: I was actually originally to go Marines just to just
Speaker 4: to fiss my dad off. But I was talking to
Speaker 4: this recruiter because the Marines weren't there, and so the
Speaker 4: recruiter was like oh. I was like, well, my dad
Speaker 4: was SF and I want to go Green Pray and
Speaker 4: he's like, well, you're you're too young man, You're seventeen
Speaker 4: right now. And I was like, well, what can I do.
Speaker 4: He's like, you have to be twenty one to join
Speaker 4: the s F. And he's like, well, he goes, I
Speaker 4: can sign you up for an Option forty contract, which
Speaker 4: is a Ranger contract. And I was like, you know, Ranger.
Speaker 4: I was like, oh, okay, cool, yeah, I'll do that.
Speaker 4: Like and what do they do? I didn't know what
Speaker 4: really ranger was back then. And he was like, oh,
Speaker 4: you've seen black Hawk Down. I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: I've seen that. He's like, yeah, that's what That's what
Speaker 4: a Ranger is. I was like, oh, okay, yeah, cool,
Speaker 4: I'll do that. So that's how I got the Option
Speaker 4: forty contract and next thing you know, I'm taking off
Speaker 4: like a month after graduatings in high school.
Speaker 3: Thanks a lot Colonel Danny McKnight of the Rangers that
Speaker 3: was in black Hawk Down for inspiring do you see
Speaker 3: black Hawk down, you see Danny mcnikee shot in the neck.
Speaker 3: Did you see that? Do you see Matt Ever's been
Speaker 3: repelling out of a black Hawk helicopter with RPGs. That's
Speaker 3: what a Ranger does, right. Funny enough, those two guys
Speaker 3: both play airsoft, which is wargames on a large whale. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but another story, but so so Cyrus. Did you think
Speaker 3: that the Rangers was what you thought the Rangers was
Speaker 3: going to be?
Speaker 2: I mean, like when you're going.
Speaker 3: Through like indoctrination and you know, happened to sing the
Speaker 3: Ranger creed probably up to your armpits and some swallow
Speaker 3: of some whole hell.
Speaker 2: I don't know, am I assuming.
Speaker 4: You're not wrong? Well, I got to a Doctionnation program
Speaker 4: Ranger Doctionation rip, and it was essentially what I thought
Speaker 4: it would be, you know, just a lot of yelling,
Speaker 4: a lot of doing, a lot of like I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 4: now now I'm in the Army. It's kind of like
Speaker 4: what I thought. Like I not to brag, you know,
Speaker 4: but I was like, it was a varsity cross country.
Speaker 4: I was a varsity in wrestling, and I had a
Speaker 4: I was a bull writer at the time. So like
Speaker 4: I was when like when I was a kid, I
Speaker 4: started doing still writing, CAF writing, got to high school
Speaker 4: sort of bull writing, and then my dad was like, hey,
Speaker 4: you got to choose, you know, for writing or high
Speaker 4: school sports. I decided to go with high school sports.
Speaker 4: But I would still hop on every once in a while,
Speaker 4: and so I was like, wow, this is like, this
Speaker 4: is cool, like this this is what I like, Like,
Speaker 4: this is a challenge, and it was. It definitely was
Speaker 4: like making us up in the middle of the night,
Speaker 4: making us like go into formation middle of the night,
Speaker 4: like ten minutes and there's like a five story four
Speaker 4: story building, three stories I think it was, and like
Speaker 4: people are just throwing their rucksacks and all their duffel
Speaker 4: bags outside the window, trying to make formation on the blacktop,
Speaker 4: and we never made the time.
Speaker 3: Just do whatever cood to get out on time. Right,
Speaker 3: So they're like giving you this impossible timeframe of mustard, Right,
Speaker 3: that's what you're telling me, like roll call and they're
Speaker 3: thirty seconds. You're like, dude, how jumping off the building
Speaker 3: to try to be on time? Basically huh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: just slattered information?
Speaker 2: Does that count, sir? Yeah?
Speaker 4: It was an interesting. It was an interesting time period.
Speaker 4: Like they were always talking to this about the war.
Speaker 4: So one of the things I vividly remember, member was
Speaker 4: I went through the winter. So they made us crawl
Speaker 4: through some water, made us crawl through waters his cold range,
Speaker 4: and we ended up instead of like smoking us that night,
Speaker 4: which is what we're all hoping to get smoked so
Speaker 4: we can stay warm, they didn't smoke us. They made
Speaker 4: us like walk through water, and they put us in
Speaker 4: formation double alarm intervals and created a fire in front
Speaker 4: of us. I could just giant bonfire, and they started
Speaker 4: barbecuing in front of us. They started grabbing all our
Speaker 4: like clean clothes and putting it down, and got our
Speaker 4: sleeping bags, like warm sleeping bags and put them down
Speaker 4: like hey, and they just started telling us or stories
Speaker 4: like of Iraq Afghanistan at the evasion, a lot of
Speaker 4: these dudes, and like they're just like, man, you can
Speaker 4: quit right now. You can. You don't have to deal
Speaker 4: with this. You don't have to deal with being in
Speaker 4: the cold. You don't have to deal with any of
Speaker 4: this anymore. You don't do aut to be hungry. You
Speaker 4: can just go quit, be next to this warm fire
Speaker 4: and warm sleeping bag, warm clothes and a burger and
Speaker 4: they worried it were cooking burgers and people were just
Speaker 4: like quit walking off and going quitting, and it was.
Speaker 3: It's like some kind of game show but not you know,
Speaker 3: it's like yeah, yeah, mister beast is like I'll give
Speaker 3: you a thousand dollars if you give up on this
Speaker 3: million dollars. They're like you're like no, so close. He
Speaker 3: just baited your brain, you know, and so well, good
Speaker 3: job on making it through, you know, through the Ranger process.
Speaker 3: And then you got put into the Ranger regiment. Right,
Speaker 3: you went Ranger, So you didn't just get uh Jory,
Speaker 3: you got put into the regiment and that is like
Speaker 3: search and destroy.
Speaker 2: Bro.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, I went to So I went to first Battalion,
Speaker 4: went to first Battalion and went to Charlie Company. So
Speaker 4: I was there and this big, big dude just like
Speaker 4: everyone was like everyone I got there was like, yeah,
Speaker 4: the place you didn't want to go with Charlie Company.
Speaker 4: You don't want to go to Charlie Company. And I
Speaker 4: end up getting Charlie Company. I just like this tall
Speaker 4: all like six just like came out and like the dudes,
Speaker 4: the dudes had just got deployed, and he's like, are
Speaker 4: you guys, who's all this is all Cicco?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 4: Come with me? And then like like just I came
Speaker 4: with us and they was like ship like remember we're
Speaker 4: a fucking Cicco and like everyone was like this dude
Speaker 4: was tall man. But the more I like I was
Speaker 4: around this guy, this huge, huge six, I was like, man,
Speaker 4: I want to be like this guy. Like this guys,
Speaker 4: this guy's sucking like he's a he's a ranger man.
Speaker 4: Like that's what I want to be. I want to grow,
Speaker 4: Like is there any drinks that I could have to grow?
Speaker 3: I love it. I love it. Racist was coming from him.
Speaker 3: Do you remember his name? You want to say it? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I do, I do.
Speaker 4: I don't want to say his name. I know he's
Speaker 4: still like doing cool guys stuff, so and so, but
Speaker 4: he I mean people people used to call him. I
Speaker 4: think it was I don't remember what it was. They
Speaker 4: gave him a nickname. I don't remember that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, aad man.
Speaker 4: But there were like e fours who are around me
Speaker 4: and they were like they were they were like afraid
Speaker 4: of him, like they'd be smoking us and then like
Speaker 4: he'd come in like they would stop. They were like
Speaker 4: afraid of him, and like he was like smoking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like he was these guys, Yeah, tell me what's up.
Speaker 3: And they're like, he's like, why don't you smoke yourselves?
Speaker 3: For smoking them? They just wanted to say, yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: he seemed like what you just said in two sentses,
Speaker 3: it's like you bet your cecoa with me, Yeah, you
Speaker 3: don't die.
Speaker 2: He don't want He wants you. He wants you to live.
Speaker 3: He wants you to fight with him and fight along
Speaker 3: side of him, and yeah, fear him the enemy fear
Speaker 3: yeah yeah.
Speaker 4: Oh man, Like that's like, man, you pissed. Like I
Speaker 4: actually got him mad one time, and he didn't get
Speaker 4: mad at me. He just like was like disappointed and
Speaker 4: just like walked off and I felt super super bad.
Speaker 4: I was like, holy ship, I just slid him down
Speaker 4: like that's it. Damn.
Speaker 2: He's got dad vibes.
Speaker 3: He's like, yeah, damn do that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, respect of my life now that it's.
Speaker 3: Simple, you know, and again you your dad green beret,
Speaker 3: My dad green beret, you know. And they just had
Speaker 3: this look of like my dad would be like, yeah,
Speaker 3: you're a leg, but you're my leg it's like okay,
Speaker 3: you know, it's like yeah, yeah, true, you know, and
Speaker 3: did your dad your dad played a huge influence in
Speaker 3: your life then, huh, yeah he did.
Speaker 4: You know, just hearing a lot of stories and I'm
Speaker 4: sure you kind of deal with the same thing. You know.
Speaker 4: There was a lot of a lot of yeah, a
Speaker 4: lot of life, a lot of things that he didn't unpack,
Speaker 4: so he would kind of throw that on me. So
Speaker 4: I mean I kind of grew up dealing with that
Speaker 4: as well. So I kind of had this like huge
Speaker 4: so what I'm looking for burden that he wanted me
Speaker 4: to kind of carry, and I didn't want to carry
Speaker 4: any of that, so so I kind of that's one
Speaker 4: of the reason why I left actually arrange or not
Speaker 4: range of attire and left the reservation life to go
Speaker 4: and like kind of get away from me. I joined
Speaker 4: the army.
Speaker 3: Yeah, gets get away from some of it and try yourself.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: So did you so you deployed, you went.
Speaker 3: And I deployed yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: It was so majority of our deployments through three months,
Speaker 4: so ninety days. Some people got extended like four or five,
Speaker 4: five months, and I never got extended. When I was
Speaker 4: on deployment and yeah, so I went to rack Iraq
Speaker 4: was my first deployment. The other two I went to Afghanistan.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I mean it was good. We got a
Speaker 4: lot of a lot of bad guys. Iraq was climbing
Speaker 4: around all the time, like we just climbed these buildings,
Speaker 4: scaling these buildings, and I was like surprised, like we
Speaker 4: were doing that with full kit on and like watching
Speaker 4: these dudes just like jumping like they would. We would
Speaker 4: climb all the way to the top of these ladders
Speaker 4: and then like on our foot and then like jump up,
Speaker 4: grab the ledge and then pull ourselves. Yeah, and then
Speaker 4: you know, obviously the guy who did that would turn
Speaker 4: around and grab the guys on the other hand do that.
Speaker 4: Like we were like scaling three three story buildings, laying
Speaker 4: the ladders.
Speaker 3: Probably right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah all that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, we were doing all that. And like we
Speaker 4: were like laying down ladders across three story buildings and
Speaker 4: walking across it like I'm just like, old man.
Speaker 3: Get the ladder cross this roof, you know, like today
Speaker 3: across it? Would you have a need to cross it?
Speaker 3: Like there's this like fine line. Yeah, death is on
Speaker 3: the line.
Speaker 4: Maybe, yeah, yeah, I got to. I got so before
Speaker 4: all that, I actually got to do some Arabic training.
Speaker 4: So I like I asked, I was like, hey, can
Speaker 4: I do some Arabic training? And so so I got
Speaker 4: to do some Arabic training. And one of these one
Speaker 4: of these missions I was on, we were we were
Speaker 4: black side, and so it was kind of like we
Speaker 4: were on the out outer perimeter, just kind of like
Speaker 4: watching to make sure there's like no dudes running off
Speaker 4: squirting like I guess we call them squirters back then.
Speaker 4: I don't know if they're called the same thing or not.
Speaker 4: And and so we ended up we climbing over this
Speaker 4: this this wall, and like a squaliter like he hopped
Speaker 4: over it, and then like my team leader hopped over it,
Speaker 4: and then and then it was me. I went I
Speaker 4: hopped over and this wall just crumpled like as I
Speaker 4: crawled over, and I just like fell all the way down,
Speaker 4: like this whole wall just crumpled, and I just learned
Speaker 4: my squalaladter walk, what the fuck are you doing the
Speaker 4: fuck down? I'm just like grab me, you know. So
Speaker 4: I was like, oh, the walk fell apart, like and
Speaker 4: you can't you can't really say anything. I just looked
Speaker 4: at him. I was like, Roger, I really don't know
Speaker 4: what to say. Anyways, we were like yeah, anyways, we're
Speaker 4: like we're like stacked up, like just watching this building.
Speaker 4: And like literally after that, some dude comes walking out.
Speaker 4: This guy walks out, and it was like fuck. So
Speaker 4: I was like, man, that saw me, Like I feel
Speaker 4: bad now. And the dude's like walking out and he
Speaker 4: was just kind of like he was actually using the restroom.
Speaker 4: That's like actually what he was doing. He didn't hear anything.
Speaker 4: He actually was using the restroom. So he actually came out,
Speaker 4: and so we thought he was actually coming out to
Speaker 4: see like what's going on going on? You know, And
Speaker 4: so all these you see night vision, just all these
Speaker 4: lasers of green lasers on this dude, and he's just
Speaker 4: like walking toward us, walking toward us, and like the
Speaker 4: Squaladors like, yo, whe's the where's the interpreter? We need
Speaker 4: the interpreter right now? And he's not. He's not coming up,
Speaker 4: he's not he's no interpreter. Interpreter is trying to do
Speaker 4: something else. And they kept getting closer and I was like, man,
Speaker 4: I actually went this is what I took Arabic class
Speaker 4: for and without even asking my squalor, I was like,
Speaker 4: I just said. I was like, hey eth non riki,
Speaker 4: which means hey, we're Americans. And then you know, my
Speaker 4: squad was like, tell him to lift up his shirt,
Speaker 4: and I was like, hey, lift up his shirt. So
Speaker 4: he lifted up his shirt and tell him to turn around,
Speaker 4: like hey, man, stay where you're at, don't move anymore,
Speaker 4: and just lay on the ground. And and the dude
Speaker 4: was like, hey, is that you Muhammie, Like he was
Speaker 4: like asking, like he thought it was one of his
Speaker 4: buddies or something. And I was like, no, we're Americans.
Speaker 4: Was telling him that and got him to lay down. Eventually,
Speaker 4: you know, the interpreter like actually talked to him. He
Speaker 4: was like, oh, dude, the guy was going out to
Speaker 4: take a dump.
Speaker 3: So sudden predator lasers are all over him. Just like
Speaker 3: like any one of them. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 3: everybody had to keep or muzzle discipline, trigger discipline.
Speaker 2: It takes yeah, one dude, be like it'sy.
Speaker 4: Mm hmm yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Right because they just want to take a dumb.
Speaker 4: Yeah man, Like I mean like and after that, I
Speaker 4: was like, wow, this is actually like really crucial to
Speaker 4: have some sort of a training. And well, me and
Speaker 4: my other buddy who actually did a whole call out
Speaker 4: on this house as well, on top of the rooftop
Speaker 4: and I don't know it was a rooftop, it was
Speaker 4: like an apartment, and like it was an apartment in
Speaker 4: an outside apartment, so it was kind of separate from
Speaker 4: the rest of the apartments. I did a call on
Speaker 4: that family too, and there was like actually like ten
Speaker 4: people in that thing and like be between me and him.
Speaker 4: The interpreter's not there again, and interpreters like with the
Speaker 4: main the softworest we were black sites. We're on top
Speaker 4: of these buildings the same thing happening, and man, we're like,
Speaker 4: oh ship, there's fucking more people up here, just like
Speaker 4: right behind our backs. And so me and my buddy
Speaker 4: we ended up like doing a call out, separating the
Speaker 4: guys on one side, women and children on the other side,
Speaker 4: and like we're just like asking them, Hey, what's your age,
Speaker 4: what's your name and all this, And I was like, wow,
Speaker 4: mass is really like I never thought I would be.
Speaker 4: I was like, Wow, I'm doing.
Speaker 3: It, saying the right thing and you can understand them. Yeah,
Speaker 3: learning a language and saying the words doesn't mean you
Speaker 3: necessarily learn how they reply back, right, they might have.
Speaker 3: Like so you're kind of like, uh, yeah, yeah, it was.
Speaker 3: It was yeah.
Speaker 4: Me and my buddy you were actually kind of like, dude,
Speaker 4: what is this what they said? Like kind of in
Speaker 4: between me and him, like being an interpreter, like yeah,
Speaker 4: like yeah, and then like after that we're like, hey,
Speaker 4: you know, go back inside your house. Don't move around
Speaker 4: for like ten minutes, you know, YadA YadA ya, and
Speaker 4: then then we left and said pay bye.
Speaker 5: Then, my buddy, I bet you that fans like the ghosts,
Speaker 5: they came up, the American ghosts, and they spoke to
Speaker 5: us in our language, and they separated. Remember that, I
Speaker 5: bet if there's still you know, like we're talking about it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, no, it was. It was interesting. I mean,
Speaker 4: but like I mean, we did. It was a bunch
Speaker 4: of rage as well. I mean, we went inside buildings,
Speaker 4: cleared buildings, like I don't even want to like just religiously,
Speaker 4: like it was just every day and like I was told,
Speaker 4: like we did within those ninety days, we did one
Speaker 4: hundred missions, but that's not including follow on missions. So
Speaker 4: I have no idea how much because we did a
Speaker 4: lot of follow on missions, like we would hit one target,
Speaker 4: get done. Then it's like, hey, we're taking off to
Speaker 4: another ejective. We would hit that objective, get another guy's
Speaker 4: like oh hey we just got intelling this other guy
Speaker 4: and we're like boom, so like throw up back. Then.
Speaker 4: I was like that was what we were doing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you just go one to another to another, and
Speaker 3: so one lead turns to another lead turns to.
Speaker 2: Another lead and those are a mission within a mission
Speaker 2: and a mission.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so like one yeah, yeah, one one one deploy
Speaker 3: one mission is like multiples.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah yeah, I mean yeah, now just bring it up.
Speaker 4: I just I just remember just one particular, one particular
Speaker 4: individual and we there's two of them actually just two missions.
Speaker 4: Now was like actually a bunch of missions popping up now.
Speaker 4: But one mission we did it was it was there
Speaker 4: was a kid, right, there was this kid who was
Speaker 4: like twenty by the same interesting it was nineteen at
Speaker 4: a time, and he like we saw him at one
Speaker 4: of one one mission, one objective. We're like, oh, it's
Speaker 4: just a kid, you know whatever, we go hit another target,
Speaker 4: that kid's there again, We're like, whoa, this is the
Speaker 4: same kid. From that last mission, like you know, what's
Speaker 4: going on here? And then they kind of brought him
Speaker 4: in and then like I don't know, maybe like two
Speaker 4: meets go by, we're on another target and the guy's
Speaker 4: there again, and like we're like, dude, like this, somebody's
Speaker 4: up with this kid, and then they end up sucking
Speaker 4: hauling in. So that was that was interesting. You started
Speaker 4: like seeing like stuff like that, like that dude was
Speaker 4: just there all the time, interesting.
Speaker 3: Guy, Yeah, not randomly just there, you know, like yeah, yeah, wild, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: like how come that? How can we can't? The first
Speaker 3: time you're like, okay, I'm gonna slide. The second time
Speaker 3: you're like, I think that kid. The third time you
Speaker 3: were like this dude needs to get snatched or what.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean well the second time they snatched him
Speaker 4: up and then then and then he was gone so
Speaker 4: we didn't see him for a bit then and then
Speaker 4: he just shows up again. Really what the fuck?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: You know, so like a lot of those dus were
Speaker 4: like that. We went after some bigger targets like this accounting.
Speaker 4: When we went after no no like gun shots or anything.
Speaker 4: Went but like we went in there, but there were
Speaker 4: guns in there. They were just they pick them up,
Speaker 4: but they were like rolexes. There were rolexes man, like
Speaker 4: with istam usam on there like gold bars everywhere and
Speaker 4: like just mansions. I was like, holy smokes man, it's just.
Speaker 3: Like you know what I mean?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, like h he had a Sadam Usain letter,
Speaker 4: like a little square one, and I was like, that's
Speaker 4: kind of cool. So I took that.
Speaker 3: W W two.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I heard a story about a guy in World War two.
Speaker 3: He got a gold luger, went on the navy ship.
Speaker 3: He's supposed to check all that stuff in because they
Speaker 3: like have any problem with it, And when he went
Speaker 3: to go get it out of that locker, it was gone, wow, yeah,
Speaker 3: because the guy in the army was like, hey, fighters
Speaker 3: keepers right gold luger? Yeah yeah, yeah, you know, so
Speaker 3: I can only imagine having, you know, any type of drinket.
Speaker 3: I've seen some things I don't want to talk about
Speaker 3: from people who have come back, and you know, and
Speaker 3: it's interesting.
Speaker 4: I've definitely, I've definitely know a few people who brought
Speaker 4: back some stuff. I'm like, how did you do that?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Man, I'm like, am I touching what you're telling me?
Speaker 3: I'm touching. Really.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no brains in that.
Speaker 3: That's amazing.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I kept my my little trophies too, small, small things, lighter.
Speaker 4: I had a little dollar like money was a big
Speaker 4: one for me. I wanted to I wanted to collect
Speaker 4: the money, so money. I brought this chest set and
Speaker 4: I think this broke to pieces.
Speaker 3: You know, the US soccer balls all over Iraq with
Speaker 3: you know, US propaganda like hey we're here, We're here
Speaker 3: for you to be friends, you know, And I was like, oh, man,
Speaker 3: that's soccer ball. How cool of a piece of deer
Speaker 3: would that be? You know, we put it over there
Speaker 3: because they're gonna play with it, you know. And so
Speaker 3: the little leaflets that we drop all over the place
Speaker 3: because you spoke of money, you know, and so like
Speaker 3: these all.
Speaker 2: These little things I have.
Speaker 3: I have a collection of stuff at my office that's
Speaker 3: leaflets that people have gifted me from, you know, their travels.
Speaker 3: Over there. I'm looking for the soccer ball. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well one of my friends in Afghanistan I actually found
Speaker 4: a Soviet Union hat, so like, yeah, he kept it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean that's legit. Yeah, let's think about
Speaker 3: that one for a second.
Speaker 2: You know, after you got out of uh, you.
Speaker 3: Know, searching and destroying and doing the ranger stuff you
Speaker 3: got into like journalism. Is that how that kind of transitioned?
Speaker 4: And yeah, So so I ended up getting out of
Speaker 4: the army. I really I really didn't have no idea
Speaker 4: what I was going to do. So I'm like, I'm
Speaker 4: going back for an ablination and navlination is nothing. It's
Speaker 4: like nothing there.
Speaker 2: Really, it's just the same as you just kind of.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and this since one of the things, well, my
Speaker 4: friends would like talk about INTERAC in Afghanistan. I remember
Speaker 4: a conversation I had. I was like, man, I can't
Speaker 4: believe people live like this. And my response was like, dude,
Speaker 4: this is how I live like this is this is
Speaker 4: an applamation, man, Like, this is what it's like. It's
Speaker 4: not that big a deal with me. Like and I'm like,
Speaker 4: why are you kidding me? Are you telling me that
Speaker 4: there's in America there's a place that's similar to Dortaal
Speaker 4: country And he's like, yeah, that's that's a navlination for you.
Speaker 4: And so I get back and I was like, man,
Speaker 4: what am I going to do? So I actually went
Speaker 4: up to the local newspaper and I walked up and
Speaker 4: I just basically, hey, I'm an Army ranger. It was
Speaker 4: special Operations. I can learn quick. I'm a fast learner.
Speaker 4: Take give me a job. And there's like the editor
Speaker 4: looked at me. Have you ever like done photos or
Speaker 4: writing before? I was like, I've been a photographer and
Speaker 4: jumped out up an airplane. I've taken my camera with
Speaker 4: me and I've done you know that kind of stuff,
Speaker 4: rock marches and training like shots with my own camera,
Speaker 4: and like, yeah, can you do anything else? I was like,
Speaker 4: I was like, I can learn to write because it's undeployments.
Speaker 4: I was actually I had like a little diary or
Speaker 4: slash you know, journal, journal, not diary.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's actually really really honestly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yes, So so I would write, I would write
Speaker 4: in this and so that's kind of like where my
Speaker 4: writing kind of came about. So I just they said
Speaker 4: no to me, and I was like, well, I guess
Speaker 4: I'll just join the Navajo Police Force. And a big
Speaker 4: dude came out like huge. I'm not I'm not talking
Speaker 4: big like as like muscular, I mean like fat and
Speaker 4: came out and was like he looked at me, and
Speaker 4: I was like, hey, you know, I want to join.
Speaker 4: I'm a former UND ranger. It's been about two months.
Speaker 4: Like I let me do it, and I'm legit. The
Speaker 4: dude was like, oh, okay, well, just so you know,
Speaker 4: we've had Green Berets and Navy seals who cannot hack
Speaker 4: our academy. Our academy is extremely strenuous and Army rangers
Speaker 4: can't even hack it. Marines can't even hack it. So
Speaker 4: I'm just not saying that you're not going to hack it,
Speaker 4: but a lot of people can't hack our academy. And
Speaker 4: I was like, man, fuck this guy. I ain't even
Speaker 4: fucking work with this, you know, like a police force
Speaker 4: that comes out and like tells me that already. I
Speaker 4: was like, man, fuck this. So I ended up going
Speaker 4: to school for a little bit, and during school's kind
Speaker 4: of like on the road to journalism.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 4: I two of my friends, as civilians, went back to
Speaker 4: Iraq to help the Kurdish to fight Isis. So I
Speaker 4: was like, man, that's fucking bomb, that's baller, and you know,
Speaker 4: I was like, man, that's what I want to do.
Speaker 4: I want to be doing stuff like that, Like I'm
Speaker 4: a guy of adventure, Like I'm not supposed to be
Speaker 4: in school. So I took off kind of went traveling
Speaker 4: for a little bit, and I was in Alaska, and
Speaker 4: then then Stanner Rock was kicking off. My cousin invited
Speaker 4: me to go with him, so I went there. I
Speaker 4: really didn't have no expectation of what was going to happen,
Speaker 4: and it blew up into this whole, big, big, big thing.
Speaker 4: And so I get there. Yeah, like I just I
Speaker 4: met a lot of people there and like a lot
Speaker 4: of it kind of reminds me of like being on deployment,
Speaker 4: where it was like it was now on the other side,
Speaker 4: like all these people are like talking about yeah, you know,
Speaker 4: there's they have this on us, they got that on us,
Speaker 4: got the numbers on us. They're sending people in their camps,
Speaker 4: and like at the same time, out of these Vietnam
Speaker 4: veterans are like doing their fucking intelligence gathering on like
Speaker 4: the police over there, and like I was, for the
Speaker 4: most part, I stayed out of all of that. Like
Speaker 4: I was like there, like right, but I was like
Speaker 4: kind of that was for the most part staying out
Speaker 4: of it, kind of like worried about my own little camp,
Speaker 4: but what these guys are doing. And I ended up
Speaker 4: meeting a bunch of journalists there like intervertently kind of
Speaker 4: become friends with him, the same mindset. I didn't realize
Speaker 4: it at the time, and I just kind of curious,
Speaker 4: you know, and they were curious and they wanted to
Speaker 4: know about the world. I wanted to know more about
Speaker 4: the world, and so I started talking to him. One
Speaker 4: of them was a French photojournalists. He's a ward he's
Speaker 4: an award winning journalist. Now. He took me under and
Speaker 4: showed me the groups of journalism and I started like
Speaker 4: walking around and hanging out with all these people he
Speaker 4: was talking to, watching how he interacted with people, and
Speaker 4: I was like, wow, man, this is cool. This journalist
Speaker 4: is kind of a quick background. He was in Ukraine
Speaker 4: during revolution. He was hanging out with the French fid
Speaker 4: legion when the war was going on, I believe in
Speaker 4: stan and like he almost got murdered by by someone
Speaker 4: with the acts and they said the dude got killed
Speaker 4: like right in front of him. So like I was like, wow, dude,
Speaker 4: you were the Ukraine Revolution. He since he's since gone
Speaker 4: back to Ukraine during during the war and he's got
Speaker 4: he came back. Now. I keep in touch with him still,
Speaker 4: and so I learned. I got to learn a lot
Speaker 4: from him, and that's when I kind of was like,
Speaker 4: I'm going to be a journalist. Like there's there's not
Speaker 4: a lot of Native voices, there's not a lot of
Speaker 4: Native journalists out there, and iwardly want to speak on
Speaker 4: a lot of these things shoes that are going on
Speaker 4: in the reservation. So I got in into that very
Speaker 4: like first big story that I was working on. I
Speaker 4: had no idea what I was doing. It was kind
Speaker 4: of a kind of a green journalist and I was
Speaker 4: still kind of like riding off that whole ranger, you know.
Speaker 4: I still kind of had that cocky attitude and I
Speaker 4: was kind of like rolling around. So I ended up
Speaker 4: going to the Tijuana Autumn Reservation, which is near the
Speaker 4: border of Mexico and Arizona, so southern Arizona, i should say,
Speaker 4: and straight near the border. And so I heard like
Speaker 4: stories of like the cartel going into not on the
Speaker 4: reservation and knocking on doors and basically like forcing these
Speaker 4: people to be drug runners for them, and so I
Speaker 4: was like, Wow, that's really that's really interesting. So I
Speaker 4: was like talking to people about that. I was like
Speaker 4: getting contacts with the Border Patrol and when one dude
Speaker 4: I was able to finally kind of talk to him
Speaker 4: and set up a time. But before that happened, before
Speaker 4: I cut it and stopped the story, I was like,
Speaker 4: I went to this bar because I was like, I
Speaker 4: asked someone like something like I was going to school
Speaker 4: at Uba University of Arizona. I asked one of my colleagues.
Speaker 4: I was like, hey, man, what uh what is like
Speaker 4: a bar that some owning a boy a cartel or
Speaker 4: club here in Tucson, you know? And he was like
Speaker 4: I don't know, man, Like he's like, but this one
Speaker 4: place kind of seems kind of sketchy, like to really
Speaker 4: go there. So I went there. I went there and
Speaker 4: like I don't know Spanish, but I look up and
Speaker 4: I look Spanish, I look Mexican, and so I was
Speaker 4: just like yeah, so I was yeah. So I went
Speaker 4: in and like guys were like asking me for like
Speaker 4: what I want to drink? Is Spanish? I could kind
Speaker 4: of understand him from just from a loam and my
Speaker 4: friends who are in Mexican. Yeah, I was like, I
Speaker 4: was like, I'll take a yeah, take avesa like yeah,
Speaker 4: who knows. I was like okay, yeah, yeah exactly. So
Speaker 4: I was there, and I was just like mine in
Speaker 4: my own business, just drinking and drinking a beer and
Speaker 4: kind of wanted to see what this place was about.
Speaker 4: All of a sudden, I see just do just like
Speaker 4: starting something like some some sip with sh sh it
Speaker 4: was going down, and like the bouncers, they didn't like
Speaker 4: throw them out. Man, they just started beating the ship
Speaker 4: out of him. They beat this guy. I just beat
Speaker 4: the ship out of him. And like they didn't throw
Speaker 4: him out, they said they looked to the corner. They
Speaker 4: look in the corner of like some group of guys
Speaker 4: in the corner of the room, and then you just
Speaker 4: see the guy go and then they just fucking dragged
Speaker 4: him to another room in the back. And I was like,
Speaker 4: oh shit, this is this is it? Like I'm here
Speaker 4: right now. And I ended up, like I said, I'm
Speaker 4: a green journal or something. I don't know. I don't
Speaker 4: know what I was doing. I mean I could probably
Speaker 4: get a story now a more with more thought process
Speaker 4: and without an experience.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the story you're creating the story of the story. Yeah,
Speaker 3: like oh, sitting down right about me?
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly. I didn't get invited, So the story got
Speaker 4: killed because I got invited to. I invited his Mexican party.
Speaker 4: So I go for New Year. So I go there
Speaker 4: and I'm kind of doing my things. I'm just talking
Speaker 4: to people, not really trying to do a story. And
Speaker 4: like some I was like sitting went and I was like,
Speaker 4: my buddy was sitting with me. And then he walked off.
Speaker 4: And I was at this bar and this guy came
Speaker 4: up to me. Alligator boots on pants, huge buckle, silk
Speaker 4: fucking dress shirt, creasy hat.
Speaker 3: Yeah you know, it's like yeah, yeah, yeah, dude, You're
Speaker 3: like yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: He sits in front of me and then he's just
Speaker 4: he's just he's being super calm. He's like, hey, you
Speaker 4: want a beer, And I was like, he bought me
Speaker 4: a beer. I'm drinking a beer with him. And he
Speaker 4: was like talking to me for a little bit and
Speaker 4: he was like, hey, you're a journalist. I was like yeah.
Speaker 4: He goes, you're working on this story about you know,
Speaker 4: the cartel, but I was like yeah, I am, and
Speaker 4: he's like, yeah, you should stop that story. I was like, no,
Speaker 4: I have to write it, like I get it because
Speaker 4: and then he's like no, no, no, no, no, you should
Speaker 4: stop right And I was like nah, no, Like, who's
Speaker 4: this guy? I was like who are you? And he
Speaker 4: was like, oh, you know who I am? I was like, now,
Speaker 4: I've never met you before, No, you know who I am.
Speaker 4: I was like looking. I was like kind of like
Speaker 4: I was like kind of like looked him up and
Speaker 4: I was like, how to get it boots? You know,
Speaker 4: I was like silk tress shirt. And I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 4: I know who you are. And he's like yes, I'm
Speaker 4: just gonna ask you kindly stop the story. Nothing's going
Speaker 4: to happen. Just just stop. I was like, all right,
Speaker 4: stop it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So that was it.
Speaker 4: I never stopped. I never continued with that story. I mean,
Speaker 4: now it's a total different, total different ballgame.
Speaker 3: You're like, okay, you know, I get it.
Speaker 2: H You realized it was for real?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So like it was kind of one of those things
Speaker 4: where it was like I kind of saw myself as
Speaker 4: like one of those old school journalists like getting the story,
Speaker 4: you know, Like I was like, oh man, this is
Speaker 4: is not how we should be going about getting the story.
Speaker 4: Like things are things should be different. I learned a
Speaker 4: lot from that too as well.
Speaker 3: Journalism and journalists are a target you know, and uh,
Speaker 3: you know, they are uncovering things and like Koshogi, who
Speaker 3: was you know butchered at the embassy by you know
Speaker 3: who we all know did it, had it done, you know,
Speaker 3: and he was sawn up into little pieces because he
Speaker 3: was going after the stories.
Speaker 2: You know, he's so deep into these stories. They're just
Speaker 2: he wouldn't stop.
Speaker 3: So, I mean, journalism, journalism is a I don't want
Speaker 3: to say, a dying craft, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: And it needs to continue. We have to keep the
Speaker 3: freedom of press and journalism out there.
Speaker 2: It has to keep going.
Speaker 3: People have to take the torch like yourself and just
Speaker 3: you know, you're like, hey, it's a different day now, right,
Speaker 3: you'd have a different means of doing what you want
Speaker 3: to do and maybe not so involved. But that green
Speaker 3: journalist out there that you were is trying to chase
Speaker 3: that same thing, and they're going to find themselves in
Speaker 3: the same position.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, And you know, yeah, I was
Speaker 4: just very I was very very fortunate, I guess you
Speaker 4: could say. And I ended up eventually around that time period.
Speaker 4: I actual dropped out of college at that time and
Speaker 4: got a drop offer from from one of my buddies
Speaker 4: he's a combat controller. And she was like, yeah, man,
Speaker 4: I got this. I got this contract which'd be interested in.
Speaker 4: We'd be doing intelligence with the Royal Air Force with drones.
Speaker 4: I was like, yeah, sure, why not. So I did
Speaker 4: that for a good minute and basically just like helping
Speaker 4: train the prole Air Force and intelligence gathering and to
Speaker 4: establish a terish network organization and from that, and I
Speaker 4: was like the ground maneuver. So I was like the
Speaker 4: dude who would like kind of like set up the
Speaker 4: the guys and kind of display how you know, people
Speaker 4: would move around and walk around and stuff like that,
Speaker 4: how they would interact with like in a gunfight. So
Speaker 4: I was I was doing that. Eventually I got to
Speaker 4: the point where I was actually the guy like in
Speaker 4: the talk, you know, like talking to talking to the.
Speaker 2: Tactical Operation Command right a talk.
Speaker 3: T o C. Yeah yeah, yeah, so you're in like
Speaker 3: a operation command center. Yeah, mobile, but I'm not sure
Speaker 3: if this is mobile, right, and so yeah right, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm just explained to my listener what the talk is, right,
Speaker 3: because you're inside of a command and control center where
Speaker 3: everybody's making decisions and there's probably maps and things being
Speaker 3: pointed at and you're in there.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so so I kind of got to do I
Speaker 4: got to do that. And like my buddies were just
Speaker 4: like Jordan or like tac BS and Majordia of common Controllers.
Speaker 4: So I was like the only Army ranger.
Speaker 3: Area Air Force Air Force tactical party. Yeah he yeah,
Speaker 3: caught back Controllers. Yeah, clear airfield. Yeah, sure that it's
Speaker 3: clear to h you know they're.
Speaker 4: Bad, yea, they are, man, you.
Speaker 3: A shout out, bro, he just made UFC caught Back
Speaker 3: Control give a shout out.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah yeah we yea. We ended up I end
Speaker 4: up working with those guys and they basically kind of
Speaker 4: training me up in a lot of that, and I
Speaker 4: was like, well, this is cool, it's really fun. I
Speaker 4: wish I was a tach peek.
Speaker 3: Yeah. When I was going through boot, they're the only
Speaker 3: guys you saw at basic training, but they had already
Speaker 3: gone through all their you know training, and they were
Speaker 3: like in these black flight suits. No one else wears
Speaker 3: black flight suits. Everyone else is like in you know,
Speaker 3: camis or BDU's camouflage. And then there's these like six
Speaker 3: guys hanging over an edge of a railing, like smoking
Speaker 3: with baseball hats and black flight suits just big American
Speaker 3: flags on them like Delta Force like the movie. And
Speaker 3: I'm just like, yeah, bro, those guys just getna walk
Speaker 3: around and they probably have wheelbarrows to carry every pair
Speaker 3: of their balls, you know what I'm saying. It's like, okay,
Speaker 3: here we are, what do you need from us parking
Speaker 3: our wheelbarrows? Yeah?
Speaker 4: I did that, and I actually took a lot of
Speaker 4: those skills and I started apply that to journalism and
Speaker 4: that that that that up my game like one hundred percent.
Speaker 4: And man like now I'm like this full fledged journalist
Speaker 4: and like I'm now going to try some stories now,
Speaker 4: like on a whole different level. Now It's like, Okay,
Speaker 4: I'm not the one, dude. Now I'm talking to people
Speaker 4: who are in it, talking to people who like you know,
Speaker 4: are there who witness these stuff. And then I go
Speaker 4: and I talk to them and verified them. So a
Speaker 4: lot of these people, like I really like one of
Speaker 4: the one of them was a girl. She you know,
Speaker 4: she had top secret clearance. She was sick and those
Speaker 4: intelligence and so like I would like reach out to
Speaker 4: her about like specific things that are happening, and so
Speaker 4: I talked to her about stuff and and so I
Speaker 4: started to establish like you know, and veterans basically and
Speaker 4: in these like in these spaces and kind of find
Speaker 4: out what's going on like human and what's going on
Speaker 4: in the commun Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's essentially essentially that's
Speaker 4: what it was. I mean, as a journalist who there's
Speaker 4: a lot of stuff I would I started reading a
Speaker 4: lot of journalism books, a lot of these investigative journalists.
Speaker 4: How how they which go about their gathering your sources.
Speaker 4: I mean I even started reading like some spy books
Speaker 4: just just to kind of get an idea of like
Speaker 4: how they would create their their sources as well. And
Speaker 4: I was like, okay, so this is this is what
Speaker 4: you know investigative journalism. Next, you know, I'm an investigative journalist,
Speaker 4: and like I'm uncovering all these different different things that
Speaker 4: are happening on the reservation, a lot of corruption going on.
Speaker 4: And I was like, oh my gosh, this is this is.
Speaker 3: Wild and publisher that you're being that you're putting out there.
Speaker 3: Is there something that they're all abrogated or are you
Speaker 3: just kind of like freelance and it's whoever picks up
Speaker 3: your articles, you know, if it's for the res or
Speaker 3: the Navajo Reservation is you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the majority of the majority of the stories. I
Speaker 4: actually have a website. It's it's a really strange website,
Speaker 4: like you can't look it up, like you put down
Speaker 4: a sier snow Across journal part folio dot com, it's
Speaker 4: something like that. But I do have it on the
Speaker 4: LinkedIn so you can talk LinkedIn, and then I have
Speaker 4: an Instagram as well. The website's on there, so you
Speaker 4: just just right there, you can click it and you
Speaker 4: see all these stories. Like literally, I haven't published anything
Speaker 4: because I'm kind of focusing on on my other projects
Speaker 4: right now. And I was just in New York kind
Speaker 4: of won an award and from Mexico section called Military
Speaker 4: Vetters and Journalism.
Speaker 2: I told me that you just won.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, so it's Military Vetters and Journalism. I got
Speaker 4: into New York and basic the ward. The story that
Speaker 4: I did it on was about potential police brutality within
Speaker 4: the Navajo Nation and this individual ended up twenty one
Speaker 4: year old kid was drunk and the Navel police officer
Speaker 4: at the time was saying he'd started thrown up in
Speaker 4: the back of his seat, so he took him out
Speaker 4: from the back of the seat and sat him out
Speaker 4: on the back of the car, have the cough car,
Speaker 4: and he went to go to the front of vehicle
Speaker 4: to get some gloves and some kleenics to go clean
Speaker 4: the back of the seat. So when he went to
Speaker 4: go do that, he came back and the kid was
Speaker 4: gone gone. That's what That's what the press he said,
Speaker 4: That's what I was told. Yeah, he was just gone, disappeared.
Speaker 4: We went to look for him, we couldn't find them.
Speaker 3: And so my thing with.
Speaker 4: That, as I started asking questions, I was like, you're
Speaker 4: telling me that an experience officer did not hear a
Speaker 4: twenty one year old drunk kid run away. I'm like,
Speaker 4: I've been to that police station. They actually work out
Speaker 4: of a post office. I was like, you know, I've
Speaker 4: been to the police station. It's not even a police station.
Speaker 4: It's a post office. You have seven foot fences and
Speaker 4: it's a gravel so you can hear someone's running.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 4: I was like, so you're tough, yeah, yeah, he's coughed.
Speaker 4: And I was like, so you're telling me that twenty
Speaker 4: one year old drunk kid just happened to slip through
Speaker 4: and experienced police officers ears and eyes like you weren't
Speaker 4: aware of any of this, and the press release like
Speaker 4: what we said is what we said, And so I
Speaker 4: dove into the kid. They found a kid like two
Speaker 4: or three weeks later drowned in a canal with a
Speaker 4: handcuffed by his back, and so I dove into that story.
Speaker 4: Like the family has now since been like done a
Speaker 4: lawsuit and so they're they're trying to get some sort
Speaker 4: of like compensation from.
Speaker 3: That and this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and there's really nothing going on with there. It's
Speaker 4: kind of a stealmy right now. So their lawyer they're
Speaker 4: you know, it's they're kind of going back and forth
Speaker 4: right now. And so that that's the award I got
Speaker 4: it for. It was kind of highlighting that. I mean,
Speaker 4: it's not just that, Like the main thing I actually
Speaker 4: do I do now it is called missing my Indigenous people,
Speaker 4: and that one is a huge issue just and it
Speaker 4: goes back to this case that happened back in nineteen
Speaker 4: seventy eight. So it's called the Oliphant versus the Coma
Speaker 4: Stribe and this individual on it's no Native was kind
Speaker 4: of giving hecking the tribal police for whatever he was using.
Speaker 4: T kidd like hecking the Native police there, and so
Speaker 4: the Native police were like, all right, man, like your
Speaker 4: cause of an issue. So they threw him in jail
Speaker 4: and like, hey man, we're gonna we're gonna charge you
Speaker 4: for disordered the conduct and for being I forgot the
Speaker 4: word was assaulting.
Speaker 3: At last native?
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, yeah, he's no native doing this to native
Speaker 4: Native police. And so it ended up going all the
Speaker 4: way to Supreme Court. The guy was like, you guys
Speaker 4: don't have jurisdiction only so it goes all the way
Speaker 4: to the Supreme Court, and Supreme Court rules that tribal
Speaker 4: courts and tribal police have no georgisdiction or authorization to
Speaker 4: put non natives in jail, and so that Yeah, this
Speaker 4: was in nineteen seventy eight, and so that still applies
Speaker 4: to it still applies to this day. And so a
Speaker 4: lot of this, a lot of crime start of spiking
Speaker 4: up from non natives coming to the reservations, like all
Speaker 4: across the reservations and and we just I mean getting
Speaker 4: away with murder. I mean you you you hear it
Speaker 4: all across and yeah, and so this whole miss and
Speaker 4: murder started and well it started way back then, and
Speaker 4: you just hear all switts. Like, I've had a lot
Speaker 4: of ladies walking on to me and telling me someone
Speaker 4: are like like very vulnerable stories, becoming very vulnerable, telling
Speaker 4: me like how like the sisters were murdered, the brothers
Speaker 4: gone missing. Currently, this dude, one of one of the
Speaker 4: stories that a family and I'm working with just like
Speaker 4: this guy just went missing, like he went to windmill
Speaker 4: and they feel like something else had happened to him,
Speaker 4: like there was, there's, there's it's it's huge, like one
Speaker 4: of these girls getting trafficked, like a potential mansion that
Speaker 4: has holding woman inside. It's huge. And so like I'm
Speaker 4: I'm in it. I'm like again, I'm in it, but
Speaker 4: I'm I'm a lot more the full fledged I'm not
Speaker 4: like dude, you know, being being an idiot to be like.
Speaker 3: H here's my money. Can I get a girl? And
Speaker 3: you're trying to get the story and get in and
Speaker 3: like yeah yeah, now you're like, well no, I feel
Speaker 3: you dude. Oh man, Yeah yeah, it's not that you're
Speaker 3: going after though, dude, Yeah, yeah, it is.
Speaker 4: It is. It's huge. And so That's where I'm at
Speaker 4: right now. And so I'm working on a short documentary. Actually,
Speaker 4: I'm working on a couple of projects, so short documentaries
Speaker 4: about the canine search and rescue just apple whole lady
Speaker 4: actually started her own search and rescue operation, our organization
Speaker 4: and to address the lack of search and rescue from
Speaker 4: Natalination police force because they don't have one, you know,
Speaker 4: they don't have that. And so she started doing that
Speaker 4: and like now all these families just talked her. Man,
Speaker 4: they tell her all sorts of information and then like
Speaker 4: that chick, she's been shot at. Man, like she's been
Speaker 4: shot at. Like I was like, holy fuck, you were
Speaker 4: shot at? And she's like, yeah, you know, at this
Speaker 4: one area because we're searching for this person's family. I
Speaker 4: was like, holy fuck. Like know, So she's like throwing
Speaker 4: around with the pistol all the time, and so so
Speaker 4: like I go, I'll go out with searchers with her
Speaker 4: every once in a while and just kind of like
Speaker 4: see what's up. I'll usually bring my pistol to with
Speaker 4: me and.
Speaker 3: On the on the reservation, on the on the nation
Speaker 3: with a pistol, what you guys have the same everybody
Speaker 3: can tete one around or oh man.
Speaker 4: You know, it's so it's such an interesting man that's
Speaker 4: such an interesting thing because.
Speaker 3: I feel like there's like it's like, what the hell, man,
Speaker 3: it's native of bro, you're the indigenous people, okay, Like
Speaker 3: I owe you everything, you know, Like I'm so pistol
Speaker 3: now as this white dude.
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3: I just want to say that, like this whole like
Speaker 3: you can't lock someone up because they're not of the
Speaker 3: tribe or they're not from the area. It's just shitty.
Speaker 3: I don't swear on my podcast, but I'm finding it inside. Bro,
Speaker 3: Yeah this is not funny. Yeah, I mean like it is.
Speaker 4: But yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: So can you carry Like is it okay? Just to
Speaker 2: like roll on?
Speaker 4: It's it's a it's a super interesting thing. So I
Speaker 4: had one officer one time. This meth had came and
Speaker 4: like tried to break into our place and I ended
Speaker 4: up I ended up beating him. I didn't kill him
Speaker 4: or anything. Like he probably thought it was just my
Speaker 4: mom there. Little did he know I was. I was
Speaker 4: home and came out and like I just threw the
Speaker 4: dude on the ground. I threw him off the porch,
Speaker 4: I mean, and like it was just like bewilder and
Speaker 4: I just like held him down I started being the
Speaker 4: crap out of him and tied him up, called the police.
Speaker 4: Police came and legit robat him. The police officer goes,
Speaker 4: you have a gun. I was like, yeah, he goes
Speaker 4: next time to shoot him, right, And so that's one
Speaker 4: police officer. Another police officer spoke to was like, yeah,
Speaker 4: you know, you can carry, but you can't carry in public.
Speaker 4: Another police officer I spoke to was like, we're not
Speaker 4: allowed to have anything, like as citizens, we're not we're
Speaker 4: not supposed to have. So I've heard three different views
Speaker 4: and perspectives from three different officers who it's it's not
Speaker 4: like the actual law when you look at it, it
Speaker 4: says that as a native of Navajo, you can actually carry,
Speaker 4: but you can't carry open carry. So but these police
Speaker 4: officers more like one of them was like, okay, I
Speaker 4: see your pistol.
Speaker 3: You know, just just.
Speaker 4: Make sure it's not loaded, you know, while we're while
Speaker 4: we're doing these searches, and just just make sure it's
Speaker 4: not loaded one that once in the chamber, right. I said, okay. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So I mean it's it's such a strange issue and
Speaker 4: there really isn't much like yeah, here.
Speaker 3: Focused on I could walk around with one in the
Speaker 3: chamber tactically loaded with an extra one in the mag
Speaker 3: that the chamber took. Okay, another one in numb Yeah,
Speaker 3: and I can keep that and everywhere I go. It's like,
Speaker 3: you know, but yeah, what part of America does do
Speaker 3: you not fall under? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, get it man. Yeah, No, there's there's there's
Speaker 4: there's so much like red tape on the reservation. So
Speaker 4: there's I mean, it goes back to their like eighteen
Speaker 4: thirties like laws that were so basically like that law
Speaker 4: told you about the case in nineteen seventy eight that
Speaker 4: now just because it was one tribe, but since it
Speaker 4: went to Supreme Court, now you know, everyone goes off
Speaker 4: of that. They go off of it. So there's a
Speaker 4: lot of cases back then that happened in like the
Speaker 4: eighteen thirties that now are now applied to a lot
Speaker 4: of the reservations all crossed in the United States, and
Speaker 4: so the dependent nation before before bees like laws when
Speaker 4: eighteen thirties are passed, a lot of native tribes were
Speaker 4: independent nations. They were able to economically thrive, they could
Speaker 4: do what they needed to have to thrive. And these
Speaker 4: laws are passed in eighteen thirties Cherokee versus or Georgia
Speaker 4: versus Cherity Nation. And basically it was like, you know,
Speaker 4: there's gold on the Cherokee Nation and we want the gold.
Speaker 4: And the Supreme Court ruled. Supreme Court ruled that the
Speaker 4: state has no jurisdiction over tribal nations. Andrew Jackson at
Speaker 4: the time was like, Okay, that only applies to state,
Speaker 4: not federal. We're going to go and make move to Cherokee,
Speaker 4: like I want that gold. And then that trailer fears
Speaker 4: happened because they're a because they're a dependent nation. They're
Speaker 4: a dependent nation. They don't understand the concept of what
Speaker 4: gold is. They don't understand the concept of what this
Speaker 4: land can do for us. So we're going to end
Speaker 4: their interests. We're going to move them away. So that
Speaker 4: was basically what happened. That's how the cherry I mean,
Speaker 4: it's actually a lot, a lot longer and longer than that.
Speaker 4: That's just kind of a shortened version of it. And
Speaker 4: so that applied to all the other nation is like, hey,
Speaker 4: you're now all dependent nations. You're no longer independent, you're
Speaker 4: now dependent on the United States government. So it's because
Speaker 4: of that, because of that there's so much restrictions on what.
Speaker 3: Because a payment to you know, indigenous folks that have
Speaker 3: a certain amount in them and then they can get
Speaker 3: you know, approved for federal benefits, and so they're going
Speaker 3: to try to hold over. It's like, what's worth more
Speaker 3: the freedom to have the whole reservation free to be
Speaker 3: to really be independent of everything and just cut off
Speaker 3: that money or do they or were they rather?
Speaker 2: I don't know, man, you guys should have.
Speaker 3: The shouldn't even be having this conversation with you, right
Speaker 3: because like, like my wife's family was on the Mother
Speaker 3: f and Mayflower one of the trips that came here,
Speaker 3: and they were one of the like the four that
Speaker 3: didn't sign onto the Mayflowers Constitution of like they were
Speaker 3: all like this religious cult of we're going to sign
Speaker 3: a constitution on the Mayflower saying they they're like, no,
Speaker 3: we're going to break away from that and go find
Speaker 3: our own place.
Speaker 2: To live here in America.
Speaker 3: And at the end and end of the day, they
Speaker 3: landed in a Native American place, the head on the
Speaker 3: East coast, like in the New York area. They landed
Speaker 3: a little higher than New York and so they moved
Speaker 3: back a little bit along the coast, and they came
Speaker 3: back to that area between where they were at New York,
Speaker 3: and they said, hey, look, here's a whole village the
Speaker 3: no one's at because everybody had died, all of the
Speaker 3: natives have died, like the plague and whatever, and so
Speaker 3: here are these pilgrims. Just move into this that we brought,
Speaker 3: the plague, we brought all these diseases, blankets.
Speaker 2: I'm so pissed, bro. I tell my wife all the time.
Speaker 3: Man, it's like your ancestors, dude, Okay, I'm like, what
Speaker 3: the hell She's like. Remember, they are the ones that
Speaker 3: broke away from it. They broke away from it. But yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: how do how do we fix that? Okay, I can't
Speaker 3: change the past, rights, I can't change the past. I
Speaker 3: could look to the future and just be a better
Speaker 3: student of where I have my property and my land
Speaker 3: for the future. You know. That's all we can do
Speaker 3: is be better stewards and not let the past happen again.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, No, that's a that's actually a really complicated question,
Speaker 4: and it's it's it's very difficult one. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 4: difficult to answer because a lot of natives, right now,
Speaker 4: I really want to have sovereignty. They really want to
Speaker 4: be able to do what they want to do. They
Speaker 4: want to be able to have their businesses on the reservations.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of there's actually a lot of entrepreneur
Speaker 4: natives out there and they're doing amazing things. It's just
Speaker 4: they had to go off of the reservation. So they
Speaker 4: go off with the reservation to do a lot of
Speaker 4: this work that they want to do with businesses that
Speaker 4: they want to have, and so when they're on the
Speaker 4: Navajo Nation, it's a whole it's a totally different it's
Speaker 4: a totally different thing. And one of the issues that
Speaker 4: is going on right now, which is something I recently
Speaker 4: just found out. Well I reuently found no move about it,
Speaker 4: but I never knew how big of a deal it was.
Speaker 4: So this is the other documentary. I'm I won't work
Speaker 4: it on. So this is the second one, which probably
Speaker 4: won't start filming until next year sometime. And I was
Speaker 4: really looking at I was like, man, you know, why
Speaker 4: is there so much illegal burning? Why is there so
Speaker 4: much illegal dumping? And I was like why is there
Speaker 4: no waste management on the Navali Nation? Like where's the
Speaker 4: where's the waste management where are the dumb trucks at?
Speaker 4: Like why is it that the main towns which are
Speaker 4: Shin leading through the city, Crompoint and ship Rock, wind Rock,
Speaker 4: Like why are these main towns, Why are they the
Speaker 4: only ones that have the actual waste management services? But
Speaker 4: then the rest of the rest nation right then, there's
Speaker 4: no there's none all the role thereas the is nothing.
Speaker 4: So people are like they're resorted to happen to do that.
Speaker 4: That's the only thing that they can do. So I
Speaker 4: really found an interest in that. So I started digging,
Speaker 4: digging around and like looked thro their history and I
Speaker 4: was like, holy smokes. One of the reasons why the
Speaker 4: Romans in the Greek did so well is because they
Speaker 4: established the waste management system. They started to have sewage systems,
Speaker 4: they started to have public toilet It's one of the
Speaker 4: things that they required was that you're not allowed to
Speaker 4: have trash. You had to dump your trash more than
Speaker 4: a mile away. They actually started to have people who
Speaker 4: would pick up the trash, so they were a clean society.
Speaker 4: And I was like, wow, that's interesting because after the
Speaker 4: fall of the Roman Empire, there's no way managements gain
Speaker 4: like for a long time, like it's just people just
Speaker 4: sitting in the road and play being everywhere, yeah, everywhere.
Speaker 4: And then so from that, from those two I started.
Speaker 4: I was when I got that award in New York.
Speaker 4: I started thinking about New York and I seen the
Speaker 4: trash there, like the trash is there, but they would
Speaker 4: go and pick it up right away and get rid
Speaker 4: of it. And I started, I started, I'm like, why
Speaker 4: is New York such an economic hub? Like why is that?
Speaker 4: So I started looking into that, and no one actually
Speaker 4: in the early in eighteen hundreds, early nineteen hundreds, they
Speaker 4: did not. No one wanted to live in New York.
Speaker 4: Like it was a cesspool back then, like just disease everywhere,
Speaker 4: rats everywhere. I mean they're still rats everywhere, like it was.
Speaker 4: It was worse back then. It was worse. And I
Speaker 4: believe it was they do Roosevelt. I cannot. I don't
Speaker 4: want to. I don't want to, actually, I don't want to.
Speaker 4: I don't know who it was. It was someone famous, right,
Speaker 4: someone big. I think it was the Rose who started
Speaker 4: the white that could be called them the white white suits.
Speaker 4: These guys would put on white suits and they would
Speaker 4: go around and start cleaning up New York. Like that's
Speaker 4: all they were doing. And they would do that. And
Speaker 4: then once they started doing that, people started moving in
Speaker 4: because New York was getting cleaner and people are like, oh,
Speaker 4: I want to stay here now, like because New York's green.
Speaker 4: I was like wow, and then it just kept continue moving.
Speaker 4: Now in New York has a New York Sanitation with
Speaker 4: over eight thousand workers. They praised their New Yorkers or
Speaker 4: not New Yorkers. They plays New York Sanitation as actual
Speaker 4: police officers, like they actually have Like these New York
Speaker 4: Sanitation workers have police officer uniforms that's green, like they
Speaker 4: actually I thought when I saw that their border troll
Speaker 4: and I was like, wow, man, these guys are like
Speaker 4: highly respected, Like there's actually like there's a whole parade
Speaker 4: for them. They call them. I forgot what they called them.
Speaker 4: I don't know. I don't not a New Yorker, but.
Speaker 3: You I was just talked about it last night, you know,
Speaker 3: like you know, I was like, hey, custodians at high schools, you.
Speaker 2: Know, it's a it's a it's a it's a thankless job.
Speaker 3: You know, these folks that go in and we expect
Speaker 3: it to be clean when we sit down at the bathroom,
Speaker 3: you know, the worker at the bathroom that's sanitizing it.
Speaker 2: You know, it's like we take that for granted, right,
Speaker 2: we think.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's that's below me, that's below Yeah, I'll never
Speaker 3: throw trash. I don't want to be the garbage man.
Speaker 3: That's what growing up, you have to throw in the back. Now, man,
Speaker 3: there's somebody has to do it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's crucial.
Speaker 3: The should be a garbage man appreciation day.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, it's yeah, we have so many days to
Speaker 4: appreciate things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, man, sanitation.
Speaker 4: You deployed, right, you deployed.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, I'm not I'm not okay.
Speaker 4: Oh anyways, Like one of the things I thought about
Speaker 4: was like, man, could you imagine how does deployments would
Speaker 4: be if there was no waste management from the military side,
Speaker 4: like that place.
Speaker 3: Where they didn't have that implemented, like a waste management Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like it's it's huge.
Speaker 3: Yeah it is. And so that's the burn pits though, right,
Speaker 3: I mean yeah, yeah, that's where the burn pits. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and there we are. It was full circle, right, you're
Speaker 3: like burn pits on the reds, burn pits in you know,
Speaker 3: uh yeah, exactly in war you know. I remember, yeah
Speaker 3: the movie Platoon or was it Platoon? Yeah, and Charlie
Speaker 3: Sheen's like, you know, he's pulling the the ship out
Speaker 3: of the shitter with the guys and they're burning it
Speaker 3: and then lighting on fire, you know, the filling up
Speaker 3: with gasoline.
Speaker 2: They're burning the outhouse crap so.
Speaker 3: That they could put it back in, you know, and
Speaker 3: you just see these black smoke going up in the
Speaker 3: air and you're like, those are little burn pits. It's
Speaker 3: that that's awful for the troops to have to deal
Speaker 3: with and down when you know from were.
Speaker 2: You evaulved, do you recall burn pits they were?
Speaker 4: They were around, Yeah, they were. They were around like
Speaker 4: a sodom. I never had to had to do it, thankfully,
Speaker 4: but yeah, they were around there. You would see them
Speaker 4: just burn and smell it. Yeah, it was horrible.
Speaker 3: That's what they talked about. Why you yeah you know, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: station you smelt it. That's yeah.
Speaker 4: That That's actually one of the reasons why I started
Speaker 4: looking into this Spanish was I was like, man, there's
Speaker 4: actually a lot of illegal burning going on on an
Speaker 4: ablimation because there's no waste management. I was like, man,
Speaker 4: this this is a huge issue. So that kind of
Speaker 4: comes back into like, oh man, I need to make
Speaker 4: a documentary on this to kind of highlight this issue,
Speaker 4: to highlight like hey, like also you have waste Spanishment.
Speaker 4: You can build infrastructure, you can create jobs that way.
Speaker 4: It's like, oh, okay, well you guys can handle your
Speaker 4: waste management. Okay, let's let's build something now that we
Speaker 4: know you have some infrastructure, femina infrastructure, something so.
Speaker 3: That it can cerator echo friendly style like they have
Speaker 3: here in Utah by Hill Air Force Base. It's got
Speaker 3: a huge chip. Remember was built in the late eighties
Speaker 3: and it was like revolutionary. They're like the News Management
Speaker 3: burn Facility here in Layton, Utah.
Speaker 2: And you know it's where they burned the John doees.
Speaker 2: You know, if you have to, if you get where
Speaker 2: do they take you to cremate you?
Speaker 3: Up there? One of my friend works there. He's like,
Speaker 3: I found a toe. I was like, get out there
Speaker 3: and he's like yeah, he's like cleaning up theerator. What
Speaker 3: time He's like, I found it? Yeah. I was like,
Speaker 3: oh bro, but again, where do you put the dead?
Speaker 3: Where do you put uh the burn put it in
Speaker 3: an incinerator. I don't know.
Speaker 4: So there's a a little side note, a little sign
Speaker 4: note about the waste management. I was talking to this
Speaker 4: other Army ranger about it. He was he's an urban planner,
Speaker 4: and I was just we were just talking. I was
Speaker 4: talking about this whole project he was wanting to do
Speaker 4: with him, kind of get an insight on him. He's like,
Speaker 4: you're onto something, man, And he's like, did you know
Speaker 4: who owned Do you know who owned waste management from
Speaker 4: like the early nineteen hundreds to about the eighties or nineties.
Speaker 4: I was like, nah, And I kind of said some
Speaker 4: names like no, no, no, no, no, no no. He's like
Speaker 4: he's like, think, think somewhere. And I was like, man,
Speaker 4: I was, I have no idea.
Speaker 3: Mafiah yeah yeah, yeah, Well look what happened to them.
Speaker 3: So right when the towers got him, all of the
Speaker 3: metal was set to the mafia's uh scrap yard, like
Speaker 3: it was all like it's all like how come they
Speaker 3: got the contract, They had the waist, they were taking
Speaker 3: all of this, all of it over to their their dumbs,
Speaker 3: and there was like this big hub up about who
Speaker 3: was getting the contracts through the new York Mayor's office
Speaker 3: or whatever to haul all of the steal out like
Speaker 3: you said, that's who it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: So I was like, man, if the mafia is like
Speaker 4: into the waste management business, like I think I'm onto
Speaker 4: something right now. So yeah, I'm not. I'm always not
Speaker 4: doing a story on the mafia now, but like it's yeah,
Speaker 4: but you know, it's like you know why, you know,
Speaker 4: why is the mafia going to waste manager business. It's like, well,
Speaker 4: they know it's crucial. I mean there's a there's a
Speaker 4: whole list of reasons, like it's crucial for the community.
Speaker 4: There's always going to be trash, and it's the mafia,
Speaker 4: so money laundering money the laundering easily, right, Yeah, it
Speaker 4: takes all these boxes of them.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I'm like, oh wait, oh wait, we handle the trash,
Speaker 4: so dead body, We'll just send it out to our
Speaker 4: trash job, like you know.
Speaker 3: Here, and he'll bring it over.
Speaker 2: Do't worry, gets pressed up and it's gone see you later.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So I I just like realized all of that and
Speaker 4: I was like, wow, man, this is this is this
Speaker 4: is crucial. I'm onto something. So that's the other project
Speaker 4: that I'm doing So that's that's the two projects. So
Speaker 4: the ones about the The Lady Search and Rescue. This
Speaker 4: one's about the Waste Manager documentary.
Speaker 3: And then are you writing something about Standing Rock too?
Speaker 3: Are you doing a book on Standing Rock? Is that right?
Speaker 4: Or so? Yeah, so the book, I've actually restarted it. Well,
Speaker 4: I don't just restarted it. So the first time I
Speaker 4: wrote it it was when I actually started coming back,
Speaker 4: when I got it from Standing Rock, and it was
Speaker 4: still it was so like I'm sober, I'm a sober guard.
Speaker 4: Now I've been sober a couple of years and I'm
Speaker 4: getting close to five. And I ended up rereading that.
Speaker 4: I read read it and I was like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 4: this is not true too. Who I am. I'm making
Speaker 4: myself sound like a hero and in Standing Rock and
Speaker 4: I was like, that's that's not actually, that's not how
Speaker 4: I went down. I was actually transitioning from the army.
Speaker 4: I had no like direction in life, I had no
Speaker 4: idea what I was doing. And so like I'm writing
Speaker 4: about that and like how Standing Rock journalism came came
Speaker 4: through there, and I'm just writing about that, and it's
Speaker 4: really really difficult because I'm like looking at what like
Speaker 4: probably like one of the saddest moments in my life.
Speaker 4: And I'm just like writing about how I was thinking,
Speaker 4: how I was feeling, like what I was expecting, So
Speaker 4: like it dives into a lot of that perspective. It's
Speaker 4: it's like a it's about standing rock, but it's also
Speaker 4: a mod really terry transition book. So it was like
Speaker 4: the transitioning of like what do I do?
Speaker 3: So?
Speaker 2: What were you not?
Speaker 4: So?
Speaker 3: What was your what was the what was your what
Speaker 3: was your advice?
Speaker 4: So I was drinking. Drinking was the big one for me,
Speaker 4: and I just like I remember I just was I
Speaker 4: dropped out of college because all I was doing was drinking.
Speaker 4: I was by myself and no I'm going to talk
Speaker 4: to and so I just was like I remember like
Speaker 4: looking at this bottle when I was like, why am
Speaker 4: I even still drinking? Like this is this isn't helping
Speaker 4: me in any way. And I started to thinking about
Speaker 4: some I'm not sure if you're a no Social Distortion
Speaker 4: band kind of yeah, yeah, yes, Mike ness so and
Speaker 4: I remember I remember like him like telling us, I
Speaker 4: remember telling his story of like I got sober when
Speaker 4: I was like twenty eight twenty and I was like
Speaker 4: twenty nine. I was like, you know what, he gets
Speaker 4: sober at this time. I can get sober at this time.
Speaker 4: So I was like, I'm just gonna fuck. I'm like
Speaker 4: Mike nested it. You know, I'm gonna I'm gonna sober.
Speaker 4: So yeah, yeah essentially, So I just I literally grabbed
Speaker 4: this like bottle, like I had like three bottles of fuck.
Speaker 4: And because they're a cheat too, so I just dumped
Speaker 4: all of it and I was like, I'm never drinking again.
Speaker 4: And then I went to this VA like AA type
Speaker 4: meeting thing and like I met this dudent there. He
Speaker 4: was like a Korean War veteran, I believe, and like
Speaker 4: he was fifty years sober.
Speaker 2: Didn't have to be in there, like and he was
Speaker 2: fifty years I was still counting the days.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, And he was like yeah, you know, I
Speaker 4: I keep coming and here to to encourage you guys,
Speaker 4: you know, to continue to get sober. He's like I
Speaker 4: got sober years ago and my life got way better.
Speaker 4: And I was like wow, And and a lot of
Speaker 4: these Vietnam vets were there, like so that guy gave
Speaker 4: me a lot of inspiration. Just like listen to his
Speaker 4: story fifty years sober Korean War veteran, and those guys
Speaker 4: saw some ship too.
Speaker 2: Like you know and feet but you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, yeah, yeah, thought me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it takes you down to the best road. You know.
Speaker 3: I've been so wasted and I passed out in the
Speaker 3: farm field and I was just like vomiting in my
Speaker 3: own vomiting on my face. Yeah yeah, yeah, never again.
Speaker 3: Do I want that? Yeah, I did that to myself.
Speaker 3: I did that to myself.
Speaker 4: Yeah no, no, no, I I totally get like that's
Speaker 4: actually so I was a ranger, right, So if you
Speaker 4: talked a lot of my anyone who knew me back
Speaker 4: in the range, were time to tell like hey, yeah,
Speaker 4: nor across man like on Mission Stellar training Missions Stellar,
Speaker 4: like flawless. You take them back though verre excite man.
Speaker 4: All he was doing was drinking, like that's all I did.
Speaker 4: And so I mean they actually got me in trouble.
Speaker 4: So that's they're like, hey, man, like you're a good dude, uh,
Speaker 4: but we got to let you go. So I end
Speaker 4: I ended up leaving them getting kicked out. So that's
Speaker 4: when I went because of because a dream. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 4: And so I mean a lot of that kind of
Speaker 4: is in the book two times into the book of
Speaker 4: like feeling like a failure, like man, and you know,
Speaker 4: I failed. I feeled being a ranger, I failed, Like
Speaker 4: my leadership, I failed. I failed at everything. And I
Speaker 4: mean I talked to them now and it's like, man,
Speaker 4: good now, man, like, don't worry about it any much
Speaker 4: in the past. Now, like drive on. So that's basically
Speaker 4: what happened. I just drove on. And a lot of
Speaker 4: that leadership and training that they taught me back then,
Speaker 4: now it's like now it's it's me, it's it's here.
Speaker 4: I'm utilizing it. I'm going forward with it. And so
Speaker 4: it's like, you know, kind of and and and they
Speaker 4: see it, my leaders you know, they see it. You
Speaker 4: know it's kind of shoot me like a message, Amen,
Speaker 4: keep doing what you're doing. You know you're doing good.
Speaker 4: It's good to see you being who you were meant
Speaker 4: to be. Because I remember one of them took me
Speaker 4: to side and it was like north Cross, man, if
Speaker 4: you just stopped fucking drinking, you know how much fucking
Speaker 4: potentially you could do, you could do, like how much
Speaker 4: potential you have in you, Like, just stop fucking drinking. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I was nineteen twenty twenty one. I was like, whatever
Speaker 4: you know, but now though it's totally different. Man, Like
Speaker 4: I try to tell people out with whatever I can.
Speaker 4: But yeah, so that's exactly what happened. And I got sober.
Speaker 4: I dumped out everything out and heard like these Vietnam
Speaker 4: veterans like walking up to me, like, hey, man, I
Speaker 4: wish I was sober. I got sober in your age.
Speaker 4: I wish I got sober when I was twenty nine.
Speaker 4: I wish I got sobherre I was thirty. And he's like,
Speaker 4: I'm seventy years old. Now I'm only year. I'm only
Speaker 4: a year or sober. He's like throwing every dread again.
Speaker 3: Bro. I mean, going sober is not the easiest thing,
Speaker 3: right because especially if you've been doing it for so long,
Speaker 3: like that cat that's been doing it for seventy or
Speaker 3: he's seventy. I mean, now your body the addiction can
Speaker 3: actually cause you know, I'm not trying to sacar anybody
Speaker 3: who's trying to quit, but you can stroke you know
Speaker 3: from yeah, do all sorts of different elements gonna happen? Yeah,
Speaker 3: so yeah, you know at seventy, I mean he still
Speaker 3: sees it's worth it cutting out, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I just I took that route, and you know,
Speaker 4: I don't I don't really harp on anybody. Like when
Speaker 4: I when I first started being sober, I was like
Speaker 4: I'm sober. But now I'm just like yeah. Now I'm
Speaker 4: just like I'm like, yeah, man, you want to get Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm like, yeah, if you want to get sober, man, like,
Speaker 4: go go for it, like it's sober. I'm like, it's good,
Speaker 4: it's huge for your health. I'm like, you know, some
Speaker 4: people I always tell me, I was like, some people
Speaker 4: can have a beer, man. I was like, I was
Speaker 4: never that dude like if if you give me a beer,
Speaker 4: I need to have a twenty four pack like that.
Speaker 3: That was me.
Speaker 4: And I was like if you gave me a fit
Speaker 4: of you know, jack or whatever, like no, I needed
Speaker 4: all of it, like I need it more like I
Speaker 4: need a gallon to myself. You know that That was
Speaker 4: me and I wasn't that. I was never that dude
Speaker 4: who could like just like yeah, man, I'll just take
Speaker 4: you know, I'll just take one whisky in the rocks
Speaker 4: and that don't beat that and then you know, go on.
Speaker 3: Beer with just like a beer, like a beer with
Speaker 3: your dinner, you know. It's yeah, yeah, it just meds
Speaker 3: into like three or four and then yeah and then yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, I I don't, I'm not, I guess sober
Speaker 3: in that aspect. I'll still have a beer, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean? And so but I don't have any
Speaker 3: mere anything like the Logger times. Man, those dimes are
Speaker 3: way behind me. Like, I'm so glad I had the
Speaker 3: moment of clarity while I was laying in my own vomit. Uh.
Speaker 3: You know, at such a young age, it's like, I
Speaker 3: don't ever want to drink this stuff again. No, sit
Speaker 3: them in schnaps ever again never never, never, No, I
Speaker 3: don't care if there's gold in it and it looks
Speaker 3: like I should drink.
Speaker 4: The gold, don't.
Speaker 2: Or the whole bottle.
Speaker 3: I'm telling you. It just it's alcohol poisoning.
Speaker 4: It's not Yeah. Yeah, that's that's that's that's what Yeah,
Speaker 4: that's that's that's. Actually another reason why it's so hard
Speaker 4: to complete this book, bust In Rock, is because it
Speaker 4: is about me still drinking. And I'm like, right, I'm
Speaker 4: like God, I'm like why why, like why was I
Speaker 4: actually why was I doing so I'm writing about it,
Speaker 4: so like I'm putting it's it's a very vulnerable book.
Speaker 4: I'm like throwing. So it's like it's a book of
Speaker 4: like military and transition, it's a book about finding myself.
Speaker 4: And then at the same time I'm still drinking, right,
Speaker 4: and I take another two years after that book, I
Speaker 4: find it's ober. But it's like, man, I am not
Speaker 4: liking writing who I was back then, Like I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't like writing about that, you know, And so
Speaker 4: I think it's like someone told me. I was like, hey, man,
Speaker 4: that's actually that's actually more real, Like people need to
Speaker 4: hear more stories like that of like people.
Speaker 3: Keep writing and just turn your page and keep writing
Speaker 3: and then it'll be done. Yeah yeah, and then it'll
Speaker 3: be there and then everyone's going over check it out.
Speaker 3: I'm just saying, just keep writing and then turn the page. Okay,
Speaker 3: write it out, turn the page, as I tell you.
Speaker 3: I should tell myself the same thing, just do it.
Speaker 3: I'm already do an airborne stop.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, no, that's that's good. I'll take that advice.
Speaker 4: So I'll heat your advice.
Speaker 2: Thank you ForWord written by rad.
Speaker 3: You're great and I'm so glad you reached out, you know,
Speaker 3: and I know we're filming this during November, and this
Speaker 3: is going to go out probably into November, maybe into December.
Speaker 3: But you know, I just want to say thanks for
Speaker 3: being you, and to your grandfather and your grandfather and
Speaker 3: your grandfather and your grandfather and your grandfather and your
Speaker 3: grandfather and your grandfather and all of the grandmothers that
Speaker 3: dealt with all of your grandfathers. So and your own dad,
Speaker 3: no matter how rougher, you know, not rough, it was
Speaker 3: in your life, you know, for you to be here
Speaker 3: and you know, to carry the torch. And I have
Speaker 3: mad respect for you know, Indigenous and for Native. And
Speaker 3: you know, my friend yellow Horse, when you talked about
Speaker 3: gray Horse, my friend Calvin yellow Horse, shout out Calvin.
Speaker 2: He's here at Fort Duchhane.
Speaker 3: Which is a reservation here in Utah. When you say
Speaker 3: yellow when you say gray Horse, it makes me think
Speaker 3: yellow Horse because they're Lakota and Utah. His wife is
Speaker 3: Utah and he's Lakota his dad. So they married and
Speaker 3: he lives down.
Speaker 2: Here, you I think, but uh okay, yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So they met each other one in Dakota's and
Speaker 3: then down here and they got married and they had
Speaker 3: their son Calvin. But long story is a yellow horse
Speaker 3: is their last name, and gray horse means that the
Speaker 3: guy with the gray horse. Yeah, so Calvin, listen, bro,
Speaker 3: I just figured out how you got your last name.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's that's that's how we got it. Like that's
Speaker 4: our like our family name. I mean, Norcross came from
Speaker 4: one of our last name. Oh no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 4: it's not not anymore. It's nor Cross now. But the
Speaker 4: reason north Cross is around is because the Yeah, one
Speaker 4: of the recruiters in World War One, right, it was like, hey,
Speaker 4: we can't we can't take your Navajo name. And this
Speaker 4: guy are our great great great great grandfather was like, uh,
Speaker 4: he's like, well they're talking to recruiters, like how did
Speaker 4: you get here. He's like, I walked here. Well, your
Speaker 4: first name is gonna be walker. He's like, what about
Speaker 4: your last name? He said, he said, we said his
Speaker 4: last name. He's like, he's like, we can't take your
Speaker 4: last name. Like and the guy was like, you know what, man,
Speaker 4: you seem like a good dude. You walked all over
Speaker 4: here from the gallup or forty fines to Albuquerque or
Speaker 4: Albuquerque gallop, Like you walked over. That's a long ways
Speaker 4: a while. You could have my last name. Your last
Speaker 4: name is nor Across walking north Across, and then that
Speaker 4: was that That's how we got that's that's that's that's okay.
Speaker 3: Oh I love that story. I'm so glad we got
Speaker 3: that into this. Okay, So thank you for sharing. Thank you. Yeah, Cyrus, Cyrus,
Speaker 3: you're one. You're probably I think the longest interview I've
Speaker 3: had in my time doing this for soft Reap.
Speaker 2: Usually we get around around fifty minutes to.
Speaker 3: An hour, but I'd be bro we're like in it
Speaker 3: and that's really something to say about your demeanor and
Speaker 3: I just think you're a cool dude and to talk
Speaker 3: and there's so much that you just put it out
Speaker 3: there real well, and I just want to say thanks
Speaker 3: for bringing that to us. And as I wind down
Speaker 3: the show, I just wanted to let everyone know to,
Speaker 3: you know, check out your links. We're going to put
Speaker 3: them in the website. Okay, So for that website that
Speaker 3: you have where we can check out your stories, make
Speaker 3: sure that we have that. Either say it again or
Speaker 3: write it in an email so we can make sure
Speaker 3: that it's on the web page and people just click
Speaker 3: on it. Your Instagram how they can reach you, et cetera.
Speaker 4: Right, Okay, yeah, yeah, so my Instagram is Cyrus Starcross.
Speaker 4: You'll find me, just just type it down. It's actually
Speaker 4: Navajo is my one of the names. And then I
Speaker 4: do I do have Twitter and stuff. I don't use
Speaker 4: them at all or x now I mean, and yeah,
Speaker 4: I do have Facebook, so I'm pretty active on Facebook.
Speaker 4: So you can just find on their sires Starcross, right,
Speaker 4: and yeah, I got a LinkedIn as well, So I do.
Speaker 4: I do all that. I'm working on a website right
Speaker 4: now to really kind of throw a lot of my
Speaker 4: my photos, a lot of my stories on there, and
Speaker 4: to actually have my some video work that I've done,
Speaker 4: like just short videos, you know, so just to throw
Speaker 4: it in there. So that's kind of where so that
Speaker 4: the website eventually could get out, probably would be sometime
Speaker 4: next month or next year. So I'm working on a
Speaker 4: website right now, and yeah, that'll be out. But yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm Instagram on Instagram and Facebook and I'm linked Okay, cool,
Speaker 4: and I'll email you, yeah, I'll email you to the
Speaker 4: journalists link because that's it's a really weird one. If
Speaker 4: you if you type my name up, you'll see like
Speaker 4: some stuff pop up, but you won't see that website
Speaker 4: for someone reason. So I am it's a journalist portfolio website,
Speaker 4: and then when people look forward, they can't find it.
Speaker 4: So I'm just gonna I'll just like shoot that directly.
Speaker 3: Email, yeah, email that to me, and then we'll have Anton,
Speaker 3: my producer, Anton, just insert that in there so people
Speaker 3: can click on it on softwap dot com. And then also,
Speaker 3: you know, I reach out to those that interview with me,
Speaker 3: and if you ever want a little bit of a
Speaker 3: platform to do an article and write about Ranger.
Speaker 2: Time or you know, Navajo time on.
Speaker 3: Softwarep I'm sure we would take an article or two
Speaker 3: from you to help keep that going for you as
Speaker 3: well and have us to help push you into the
Speaker 3: same time you came.
Speaker 2: From, you know.
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, yeah, Well, like you said, there's not
Speaker 3: many indigenous journalists out there, you know now, so got
Speaker 3: like a Pokemon and come over here, come with you, okay.
Speaker 3: So I'm just saying I do that. You know, we
Speaker 3: do have journalism going on here and from people like
Speaker 3: yourself who have been in the know, and you don't
Speaker 3: necessarily have to write about what being you're undercover and
Speaker 3: you can talk about Hey, this is how you pack
Speaker 3: a parachute. See you later. Yeah, yeah, yeah, real simple.
Speaker 3: We'll touch base in email and on behalf of myself
Speaker 3: and Brandon Webb, who owns and runs the website softwap
Speaker 3: dot com, and Cyrus Norcross. You know, I want to
Speaker 3: say thanks for you the listener, listening, watching, sharing, commenting.
Speaker 2: You know, tell me you don't like me, tell.
Speaker 3: Me you like me. Leave it all down below, Just
Speaker 3: get involved, get active, read a book, go check out
Speaker 3: soft rep dot com, Forward, slash Book, hyphen Club and
Speaker 3: our merch store, and you know, happy Indigenous People's month,
Speaker 3: year and Millennia because you know, bro, you were here
Speaker 3: way before anybody else, and America owes you all of
Speaker 3: its gratitude. Okay, I just want you to know, and
Speaker 3: everybody that lives who's listening on the reservations you know,
Speaker 3: I'm grateful. So thank you.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah, I appreciate it. Thanks, thank you for
Speaker 4: having me.
Speaker 3: Yeah it was great.
Speaker 4: It was a great talk, great conversation. Look it all around.
Speaker 3: Not the last time I'll have you back on all right,
Speaker 3: We'll keep you just like as a regular appearing guest
Speaker 3: and I think our listener will love to, you know,
Speaker 3: hear more of your stories because you're super cool to
Speaker 3: listen to, so keep it.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Yes, But if we ever get together, man, definite handshake
Speaker 3: and a hug because I appreciate you going to stand
Speaker 3: and rock and being who you are, so thank you
Speaker 3: for that.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, all right cool.
Speaker 3: Well this is me saying enough is enough, and I
Speaker 3: got to sign off, and rad is saying peace from
Speaker 3: all of us here at Software.
Speaker 1: You've been listening to surf Red Radio