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Speaker 3: Hey, what's going on? This is rad and you are
Speaker 3: listening or watching another episode of soft Reap Radio. I
Speaker 3: am super excited to talk to my next guest. But
Speaker 3: before I introduce you and his disclaimers, Okay, so stay tuned.
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Speaker 3: Thank you to you the listener for buying our merchant,
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Speaker 3: book club. We have the soft rep dot com Forward
Speaker 3: slash book hyphen Club. Please go check it out if
Speaker 3: you like to read. If you notice that my guest
Speaker 3: has a lot of books behind him, The book club.
Speaker 3: It's a cool place to be. All the cool kids
Speaker 3: are at the book club, So go check out soft
Speaker 3: rep dot com book club. And without further ado, I
Speaker 3: want to bring on John Daly, who comes with the disclaimer.
Speaker 3: All right, His disclaimer is that these are his opinions
Speaker 3: and his solely. He doesn't represent any higher agency other
Speaker 3: than himself and whoever he says he represents. But I
Speaker 3: want to let you know that this is just a
Speaker 3: good conversation between two dudes who are going to talk
Speaker 3: about tough, rugged bastards, which is the book that he
Speaker 3: has written with his experience from the United States Marine
Speaker 3: Corps MARSK SOCOM. Welcome to the show, John.
Speaker 1: Thanks Rand I'm super stoked to be here.
Speaker 3: We're super stoked to have you here. And I love
Speaker 3: the fact that you're stoked always. So we made sure
Speaker 3: there was a disclaimer said that you know, this is
Speaker 3: just straight up talk. But I want to ask you
Speaker 3: a question right for my viewers that may not see
Speaker 3: it and you hear it. He has a paddle on
Speaker 3: his wall that has the spade encompassed in a circle
Speaker 3: with a red circle around that spade. That lets me
Speaker 3: think Pendleton or West coast. Maybe what's going on with
Speaker 3: that paddle.
Speaker 1: That is actually the Marsak emblem, So it's not I
Speaker 1: did spend most of my time out at Pendleton, and
Speaker 1: they do have a similar the Camp Pendleton emblem, which
Speaker 1: was initially a brand that was branded on the cattle
Speaker 1: that roamed on that when it was a ranch. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that particular emblem is the Marine Corps Special Operations Command,
Speaker 1: and that's where I retired from active duty from.
Speaker 3: That's let you. I have a friend that was in
Speaker 3: the first recon out there, and I think their symbol
Speaker 3: is the spade as well. I think of that sort
Speaker 3: in a circle, So I was just thinking of that
Speaker 3: was the same, all right.
Speaker 1: Now, the Marsk emblem encompasses all three of the battalions,
Speaker 1: the raider battalions and the raider support battalions that fall
Speaker 1: underneath the component.
Speaker 3: So why would a guy like you have that or
Speaker 3: what does that or signify.
Speaker 1: So the tradition of the paddles, and I've got a
Speaker 1: few of them scattered around here, allegedly goes back to
Speaker 1: the Marine Raiders of World War Two. And I say
Speaker 1: allegedly because it's a little bit of a little bit
Speaker 1: of myth, right, But the legend has it that when
Speaker 1: it when you checked into a raider unit and then
Speaker 1: later into a reconnaissance unit, one of the first things
Speaker 1: they issued you was a paddle because we're amphibious, right,
Speaker 1: so we do a lot of small boat operations, and
Speaker 1: when it came time for you to leave the organization,
Speaker 1: the paddle would be stolen, you know, it would be
Speaker 1: kind of sanded down, cleaned up, decorated and then presented
Speaker 1: act to you when you left. We've largely found that
Speaker 1: that's that's not true, and that the tradition originated quite
Speaker 1: a bit later, you know, in the eighties actually, or
Speaker 1: the seventies maybe, but it's it's still it's it's less
Speaker 1: important the validity of the of the tradition than it
Speaker 1: is the tradition. So the idea really means that, you know,
Speaker 1: on a on a small boat team like with us
Speaker 1: with the raiders or amphibious reconnaissance or with the Seals,
Speaker 1: that you you're everything relies on the team. You can't
Speaker 1: get anywhere with one guy paddling, right, It takes a
Speaker 1: team effort. So the paddles a symbol that you served
Speaker 1: and pulled your weight on a team.
Speaker 3: With regards to small boats, we're talking like these black
Speaker 3: looking you know styles Zodiac, the F.
Speaker 1: Four seventies, the ones that you spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time paddling.
Speaker 3: So like guys get washed in the surf trying to
Speaker 3: get out of the break, Like all the recruiter enlistment
Speaker 3: promos where they're going up the wave, you just know
Speaker 3: they're going backwards after that point. That's it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's that's where small engines, you know, outboard
Speaker 1: engines come in handy. But there are there are times
Speaker 1: when when it's it's necessary for one reason or another,
Speaker 1: the engine goes out that you have to always have
Speaker 1: to be prepared to paddle, and it just really represents
Speaker 1: that everybody's got to pull their own weight.
Speaker 3: And so you're saying there is an engine available after training,
Speaker 3: so there might be an engine on that it's not
Speaker 3: just all the alley.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we do. We do use use engines when available.
Speaker 3: Yeah for sure. So if there's a young man out
Speaker 3: there who's thinking about going into the Marine Corps and
Speaker 3: he's thinking about, you know, hey this who knows where
Speaker 3: boot camp takes you? Right? Do you get pulled out
Speaker 3: of boot camp and to go into any specialty schools, Like, hey,
Speaker 3: you know, all the drill starters are standing around and
Speaker 3: watching the fastest guy and then he gets pulled over.
Speaker 3: Is that kind of how it is for you getting
Speaker 3: pulled in?
Speaker 1: Not generally you uh, before you come in, you'll talk
Speaker 1: with the recruiter and and yes you have a wish list,
Speaker 1: Hey I want to do this, this or this, and
Speaker 1: as long as you make it, you when you get
Speaker 1: to following boot camp, you'll go to the school for
Speaker 1: that specialty. Now that's the exception to that is MARSK.
Speaker 1: To become a raider, you have to actually spend a
Speaker 1: couple of years proving yourself in the Marine Corps before
Speaker 1: you get the opportunity to try out.
Speaker 3: Well that's a bad US. So you got to be
Speaker 3: already tenured and then they want to talk to you.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. Yeah, we have our own separate recruiters that
Speaker 1: you know, a marine you know sends an email to
Speaker 1: and says, hey, I'd like to opportunity to try out.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly, So then they put forth the effort. So
Speaker 3: once you get into the Marine Corps and you go
Speaker 3: through all of the in processing and what is it
Speaker 3: called MCRD marine Corps recruiting gess, yeah, the recruit.
Speaker 1: Depot, and then the Marine Combat Training and whatever your
Speaker 1: specialty is, the infantry school if you're an infantryman or
Speaker 1: you know, there's I don't know how many various occupational specialties,
Speaker 1: so many you can come from any of those that
Speaker 1: apply to come to Marstock. So we've had people that
Speaker 1: played the tuba. We've had, you know, people whose job
Speaker 1: it was to tell the weather, you know, people who
Speaker 1: you know, certainly lots of infantrymen and reconnaissance folks, but
Speaker 1: admin clerks and crew chiefs.
Speaker 3: Sometimes the tuba player just gets it. Huh.
Speaker 1: Sometimes sometimes they do. We've had some success with tuba players.
Speaker 3: I love that that is that shows that anybody has
Speaker 3: the opportunity as long as they just have the mentality.
Speaker 3: I'd imagine. Right, I'm not a raider. That's a hardcore thing,
Speaker 3: bro and your hardcore and I'm not I'm not even
Speaker 3: trying to lightly you know, say, what you did that
Speaker 3: wave going over, that's just a piece of what you've
Speaker 3: done to your body to stay in a professional athletees.
Speaker 3: You're a professional athlete. There's like just no question about it.
Speaker 3: You were paid just to work out to do a
Speaker 3: mission in a job as an athlete. Basically, in my opinion,
Speaker 3: my father was a Green Beret, so I would, you know,
Speaker 3: ride my bike while he rucksacked and he ran with
Speaker 3: his rock just like a normal day. That's normal, yeah,
Speaker 3: to me as a kid growing up. So you know,
Speaker 3: I remember we'd go up to the base here Hill,
Speaker 3: Air Force Base in Salt Lake and he'd be running
Speaker 3: up the hill and I'd be riding my bike next
Speaker 3: to him and he's just taking me out, you know,
Speaker 3: as his father's son and han his run. And someone
Speaker 3: pulled over and they're like, hey, do you guys need
Speaker 3: a ride up to the base. And he's like, no,
Speaker 3: we're good, dude, and we're going around and like another
Speaker 3: two more miles this way back to the house. We're
Speaker 3: not going to the base, which is right there. So
Speaker 3: you know, I saw the difference between the Air Force
Speaker 3: and the Army at that very moment in my life
Speaker 3: as young man.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot. And I've been retired from
Speaker 1: active duty for six two thousand and eight, so I've
Speaker 1: been I've been out of it for a while on
Speaker 1: an activeduty side, I still have the great you know
Speaker 1: fortune to work with with raiders and help train raiders.
Speaker 1: But yeah, the we share a lot in common with
Speaker 1: professional athletes kind of with the exception generally of the support,
Speaker 1: you know, people taking care of you like a professional athlete.
Speaker 1: That's that's gotten better. So with you know, physical therapist,
Speaker 1: physical trainers, on staff, nutrition as coaches.
Speaker 3: Kind of across the board.
Speaker 1: To recognize that the folks that do this job, you know,
Speaker 1: across all the branch of service, are you know, particularly
Speaker 1: special operations or you know, it takes a toll on
Speaker 1: your body. Oh yeah, I can attest to.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I bet, I bet. Are you going to
Speaker 3: the VA at all or are you using that aspect
Speaker 3: of your military benefit?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, we I'm fortunate in that being retired
Speaker 1: and living right beside Camp Lejun, I also can go
Speaker 1: on base to the medical facilities there. Sure, but but yeah,
Speaker 1: the VA provides some benefits that the military doesn't.
Speaker 3: So that is lucky. You are lucky to have a
Speaker 3: base next to you with medical facilities that you can
Speaker 3: go on. I mean, Hill Air Force Base is a
Speaker 3: huge base here in Utah. But they don't they shut
Speaker 3: down all of that medical just mandatory you know airman
Speaker 3: stuff that go into the clinic. It's now called the clinic.
Speaker 3: Used to be surgery in there, but now it's just
Speaker 3: a clinic and maybe an ambulance for on call stuff. So,
Speaker 3: you know, most folks don't have that luxury to have,
Speaker 3: Like Camp La June. How's that water? What is that?
Speaker 3: Is that real? Is that water thing?
Speaker 1: It's it's well, it's not a thing anymore. But I
Speaker 1: actually had joined the Marine Corps and I was I
Speaker 1: was here for the tail end of that for only
Speaker 1: about a month. So I signed up for the little register,
Speaker 1: you know, in case I have any issues later on.
Speaker 1: But between that and the burn pits and all the
Speaker 1: other you know things that the Marine Corps exposed me
Speaker 1: to over the years, I feel like I'm in pretty
Speaker 1: good shape at the moment.
Speaker 3: Would you retire as John if you don't mind.
Speaker 1: I was a master sergeant.
Speaker 3: A master sergeant in the Marine Corps is not a joke. No, no, no.
Speaker 3: So the next thing up is a master guns or
Speaker 3: were you a master guns? Yes?
Speaker 1: No, I was a master sergeant, so there would have
Speaker 1: been one more step. I was close to it, but
Speaker 1: I was in the position that I was in, you know,
Speaker 1: it seemed like it was time for me to move.
Speaker 3: On and take your client times about. Yes. Yeah, by
Speaker 3: moving on, I got to kind of stay.
Speaker 1: So I was able to leave active duty and almost
Speaker 1: immediately returned to Marshak to the school as a sibon.
Speaker 3: So it's it.
Speaker 1: Was a right decision for me. You know, there are
Speaker 1: certainly times when I regret, you know, not having you
Speaker 1: worn the rank of a master gun. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of the epitome of coolness in my book.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, because I mean, yeah, it would be. That
Speaker 3: would be you know, you got so high on that ladder,
Speaker 3: and then that next thing is you know, master guns.
Speaker 3: But congratulations to you getting there on your master sergeant rank.
Speaker 3: That's you know, I know, all these young marines, all
Speaker 3: these pooleys that turn into a private are just like,
Speaker 3: you know, I can't wait to be a corporal or
Speaker 3: a lance corporal, Like I can't wait. You know, it's
Speaker 3: just like the and then staff sergeant, and then it's
Speaker 3: gunnery sergeant, you know, and it's just like and you
Speaker 3: get there, and then it's the gunny sleeve rolls and
Speaker 3: then it's not the gunny sleeve rolls right exactly out
Speaker 3: when you were writing your book. That's coming out. It
Speaker 3: comes out later this summer in August or they're about
Speaker 3: really just in time for fourth quarter, really perfect timing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: It's called tough Rugged Bastards. You know you all Marines
Speaker 3: are that. That's how I see it. Why did you
Speaker 3: come up with tough rugged bastards? And tell us a
Speaker 3: little bit about the story that's going to happen in
Speaker 3: this book. So my listener is going to want to
Speaker 3: go and get.
Speaker 1: That, certainly. So a real quick history when in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty seven Special Operations Command was activated and when it
Speaker 1: was the Marine Corps was invited or to participate and
Speaker 1: send the Force Reconnaissance marines over. The Marine Corps pushed
Speaker 1: back against that, said no, we don't want to do that.
Speaker 1: So that was about right when I was coming in
Speaker 1: the Marine Corps, and it took me a while to
Speaker 1: work my way into Force recon By two thousand and one,
Speaker 1: I was a gunnery sergeant and I was a platoon
Speaker 1: sergeant for a Force recon pultoon setting in a pub
Speaker 1: in Darwin, Australia, drinking beer when because the time difference,
Speaker 1: the television switched to the towers. You know, it was
Speaker 1: like ten o'clock at night, so we were almost immediately
Speaker 1: back on the boat headed to Afghanistan. So I hit
Speaker 1: Afghanistan in November of two thousand and one. And as
Speaker 1: that was happening, the government was realizing that with this
Speaker 1: coming war there was going to be a great requirement
Speaker 1: for special operations forces. So the Army Special Forces was
Speaker 1: told to grow, grow more, the Seals were told to grow,
Speaker 1: and the Marine Corps was told, hey, you're going to
Speaker 1: participate this time around and again. In kind of true
Speaker 1: Marine Corps fashion, the Marine Corps was, you know, now,
Speaker 1: we're good. We really we kind of like to keep
Speaker 1: to ourselves. But Secretary at Defense Rumsfelds, you know it
Speaker 1: said hey, I'm not stuttering, You're gonna You're gonna do
Speaker 1: this thing. So what they eventually worked out was that
Speaker 1: we would form a test unit and it would it
Speaker 1: was called Detachment One. We would deploy underneath the seal infrastructure,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, based on the success of that deployment,
Speaker 1: the determination would be made if there would Morshock would
Speaker 1: be created or not.
Speaker 3: And I had the.
Speaker 1: Great fortune to be selected to be one of the
Speaker 1: team leaders in that unit. So there were four of
Speaker 1: us initially, you know, four team leaders. There were gunnies
Speaker 1: and masters, sergeants, and total of about about one hundred
Speaker 1: personnel total to kind of across the shooters h to
Speaker 1: intel folks, to communicators, terminal error controllers, kind of across
Speaker 1: the mix. And we were called, like I said, Detachment one.
Speaker 1: And the commander was a guy who I had worked
Speaker 1: for previously at Force Rican and he's really a legend
Speaker 1: in Force Rican, Colonel Robert J. Coates, And he was
Speaker 1: the kind of guy that I had worked for forever.
Speaker 1: But still, you know, when he called you into his office,
Speaker 1: you stood up really straight, and you were nervous, all right,
Speaker 1: just to be around him. And so he called me
Speaker 1: into his office and gave me his expectations of what
Speaker 1: he expected of his team leaders, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that stuck in my head always
Speaker 1: was said, he said, hey, I want you know, you
Speaker 1: get to pick your own team, but I want tough,
Speaker 1: rugged bastards with strong backs and hard feet. And so
Speaker 1: that uh, you know, I went out and I found,
Speaker 1: you know, a bunch of tough, rugged bastards that that
Speaker 1: wanted to be a part of it. And uh, that's
Speaker 1: that's where the name of the book came from.
Speaker 3: So Colonel Coats. Yes, I bet I feel like I
Speaker 3: should just stand up straight right now thinking about you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was, I mean a guy, as a young
Speaker 1: young recon officer, was was down in South America doing
Speaker 1: things like as as like one of the few Americans
Speaker 1: down there. You know, I just had a just a legend,
Speaker 1: and so you know, when the opportunity came, I had
Speaker 1: worked with them with the Rain Expeditionary Unit. I had
Speaker 1: had him as a commanding officer twice and then then
Speaker 1: a third time with Detachment one. So it was, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it was a phenomenal experience. So we we
Speaker 1: trained up deployed with as a task unit. So we
Speaker 1: were called tasking a Raider underneath the Navy Seal Task
Speaker 1: Group you know archestra task forces.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Do you guys all wear the same uniform? You
Speaker 3: guys all wore the same uniform as seals to look
Speaker 3: the same you guys, did they wear the same thing
Speaker 3: as you?
Speaker 1: We didn't. We didn't work with I mean immediately with them.
Speaker 1: I mean, so there were Seal teams doing their thing.
Speaker 1: We were doing our own thing, but we just reported
Speaker 1: to the Seal. But we wore we all wore the
Speaker 1: at the time, the old kind of tricolor Tricolor desert uniform.
Speaker 3: Coffee stained looking desert storm that was Moornato with the
Speaker 3: chocolate chip. But you guys had the Tricolor colors.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, it was it was cool. You know that.
Speaker 3: That set us.
Speaker 1: Apart a little bit. We really because of the requirements
Speaker 1: of this evaluation. They did not want us working with
Speaker 1: other Marine units. They wanted to kind of succeed or
Speaker 1: fail on our own. So we worked. Like I said,
Speaker 1: we reported to a Navy Seal Task Group and occasionally
Speaker 1: we would do some some things with them. We worked
Speaker 1: pretty closely with a Polish gram a U and yeah,
Speaker 1: a bunch of bad asses.
Speaker 3: So we love piano. They have a piano lore about
Speaker 3: their whole thing with their piano.
Speaker 1: The awesome and we had UH And it wound up
Speaker 1: being a really eventful deployment in two thousand and four,
Speaker 1: a lot of raids we got the opportunity to go after.
Speaker 1: We were really sent there to target sell leaders and
Speaker 1: bomb makers and financiers and higher level folks. So it
Speaker 1: was it was a blast. We got to uh protect
Speaker 1: the we were response for protecting the vice president who
Speaker 1: was a Kurd and uh not not didn't have too
Speaker 1: many fans across the board to the other sitting and
Speaker 1: that is where, yeah, nobody was really big fans of
Speaker 1: the Kurds their land. Yeah exactly.
Speaker 3: Hello, there's like twenty thirty million Kurds wandering all over
Speaker 3: what's we call Syria, Iraq and the Middle East, and
Speaker 3: they were these lines were drawn by the Ottoman Empire
Speaker 3: that just goes straight down the map and just broke
Speaker 3: up their whole Curtis.
Speaker 1: Stand Yeah, and they really separated them and kind of
Speaker 1: created this diaspora of folks that you know, and the
Speaker 1: times that we worked with him, he was a great guy.
Speaker 1: The vice president, Reis Shahwe's you know, we didn't work
Speaker 1: I mean I didn't get the opportunity that sat down
Speaker 1: and chat with them a whole lot. He was the
Speaker 1: interim vice president, so they were kind of busy, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to rebuild the country. But but that was a
Speaker 1: really neat opportunity. You know, we had a pretty robust
Speaker 1: sniper presence and so you know, I got the opportunity
Speaker 1: to lead some sniper missions in different places.
Speaker 3: So it was a.
Speaker 1: Really great deployment. We came back from that and ultimately
Speaker 1: the decision was then made to increase the size, so
Speaker 1: Marsok was activated in two thousand and six.
Speaker 3: You know, my background is a lot of war games.
Speaker 3: I do a lot of Airsoft war games here in Utah.
Speaker 3: I work with a lot of people that you know,
Speaker 3: get out or never could get in and they go
Speaker 3: and have a good time shoulder to shoulder, wear that
Speaker 3: kind of gear and play war games. In that time
Speaker 3: period Marsok was coming out, there was like a nineteen
Speaker 3: eleven pistol that was like coined to Marsok. They like
Speaker 3: get the nineteen eleven I think, and then all of
Speaker 3: a sudden, Airsoft it was like you got to have
Speaker 3: a Marsok load out. It was like you're the Kobe Bryants,
Speaker 3: You're the Michael Jordans of that day. And everybody's like, okay,
Speaker 3: I need black knee pads with tricolor and like, you know,
Speaker 3: cause it wasn't quite you know, we're still dealing with
Speaker 3: old surplus stuff. So our software mechanics, gloves from you
Speaker 3: know the local checker auto or something like that, by
Speaker 3: personal purchase stuff. Oh, like the skate knee pads for
Speaker 3: like skateboarding, right right, Like the protect helmets.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we had at different times we wore like
Speaker 1: all of those things, but we had. What was interesting
Speaker 1: was that with the pistol, particularly with some Marine Corps
Speaker 1: had held on to the nineteen eleven for you know,
Speaker 1: long after everybody had gone to the nine mil. And
Speaker 1: you know, it took like all of the pistols that
Speaker 1: the Marine Corps could put together and our armors, our
Speaker 1: match armors to kind of rebuild them and try to
Speaker 1: get them any shape. And you know, we were just
Speaker 1: convinced that, you know, you needed a man size round
Speaker 1: to stop people. So maa, we we carried you know,
Speaker 1: the the nineteen eleven. Were super proud of it. But
Speaker 1: when when Debt one started, there warn't enough to go around,
Speaker 1: and so we went to Kimber and had Kimber build
Speaker 1: a gun for us. And I've got one around somewhere.
Speaker 3: It's uh it we are doun for air softers too.
Speaker 3: I'm not even a kid. It's like, you know, oh,
Speaker 3: do you have the EMYU or the MARSK nineteen eleven
Speaker 3: and it has the spade on the grips and whatnot,
Speaker 3: and you know, I just want you know, that's it's
Speaker 3: flattering for that to happen, right.
Speaker 1: Cool, Yeah, I was. I was kind of flattered to
Speaker 1: looking up something and the Marine Special Operations re Enactment
Speaker 1: Battalion like showed up like MSORB. I was like, what
Speaker 1: the what the heck? You know, it kind of made
Speaker 1: it now and you know, now we've got people dressing
Speaker 1: up and going out and doing things, So that was
Speaker 1: that was kind of cool when I saw that. Some
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure it's grown a lot now, but
Speaker 1: this was years ago.
Speaker 3: Yeah, years ago, and it was very like, you know,
Speaker 3: underground and a lot of people might have mistook it
Speaker 3: as something other than but none of these people are
Speaker 3: trying to like get on a base in that gear.
Speaker 3: No one's trying to. They're playing like at the you
Speaker 3: know two on two where Kobe Bryant jersey. He's not
Speaker 3: going to show up to the basketball court be like,
Speaker 3: hey kid, take my jersey and shoes off. Bro, you're
Speaker 3: not me what are you doing? No, He's like no, Wow,
Speaker 3: you know today's air softer could be tomorrow's you right right,
Speaker 3: you know they're out there, they're putting their boots on
Speaker 3: the ground already. They've already got the gear. They should
Speaker 3: just now. They's got to have a mentality in the
Speaker 3: and the and if you're thinking about it, yeah, just
Speaker 3: go get it done and give it a shot and
Speaker 3: see if it's what is in your toolbox. You just
Speaker 3: don't know unless you try. That's all I can say.
Speaker 3: All right, yeah, exactly, you know, because who knows.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sure there there are a lot of very successful,
Speaker 1: you know, special operation folks across the services that have
Speaker 1: got their start. I mean I got my start running
Speaker 1: around in the woods with you know, recreation World War
Speaker 1: two or stuff own er Vietnam, you know, surplus stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, pretending like I was on a long range
Speaker 1: reconnaissance patrol, you.
Speaker 3: Know, still wearing it. Look, these are R d L
Speaker 3: Vietnam issued. You know how hard it is to find
Speaker 3: a pair of six foot five issue Vietnam kit and yeah,
Speaker 3: I can imagine that is hard. And when they showed up,
Speaker 3: I was like, and they're so comfortable nineteen sixty eight
Speaker 3: on the tag?
Speaker 1: Wow, Wow?
Speaker 3: How many farts? Could this thing? Tell me about it?
Speaker 3: You know? Yeah, I'm sure I've seen some things. One
Speaker 3: time we were in the bush. These pants saved my
Speaker 3: life I'm sure you did pants. I'm sure you did it.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh. Now, okay, so how old were you
Speaker 3: when you enlisted in the Marine Corps? I like to
Speaker 3: find that out. Yeah, I was. I was seventeen.
Speaker 1: I always just you know, graduated from high school and
Speaker 1: I had already signed up and was already ready to go.
Speaker 1: I had a date, you know. So it was about
Speaker 1: I turned eighteen in boot camp. So I had known
Speaker 1: from the time I was little that, you know, that's
Speaker 1: what I wanted to do. And so I, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of you know, grew up in the era where
Speaker 1: you know, everything was about Vietnam, you know, from all
Speaker 1: the TV shows and movies and Chuck Norris and Rambo
Speaker 1: and and everything, and none of all of that just yeah,
Speaker 1: just even the movies that were kind of meant to
Speaker 1: be uh like anti war you know or whatever. I
Speaker 1: didn't didn't that didn't click, you know, they were just
Speaker 1: they were war movies, like The Dirty Dozen, the Dirty Dozen. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: absolutely one. I mean I think Rambo was supposed to
Speaker 1: have some you know, uh.
Speaker 3: It's never over, It's never over. It's nothing's over. Yeah it.
Speaker 1: Full Metal Jacket came out actually shortly after I joined,
Speaker 1: but that was, you know, a hugely anti war movie
Speaker 1: that didn't register with us. You know, we just we
Speaker 1: thought it was the coolest thing ever.
Speaker 3: So you were you went in after that came out.
Speaker 3: So was anything like what you went through when you
Speaker 3: saw Full Metal Jackets? You say, oh, hey, he hit
Speaker 3: hit it on the head with his basic training, or
Speaker 3: did you think, ah, you know, now it's that came out.
Speaker 1: I saw that after I finished boot camp, so yeah,
Speaker 1: and it was pretty quickly after. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: within a couple of months. You know, we all were
Speaker 1: in infantry school and we went to go see it.
Speaker 1: And there are a lot of I mean a lot
Speaker 1: of similarities you know in boot camp and the some
Speaker 1: of it it seems incredibly mindless. You know, he's getting
Speaker 1: yelled at and so you know, he did a really
Speaker 1: good job with that. I thought, you know, I really
Speaker 1: kind of wish I would have seen it before I went.
Speaker 1: I think it would have prepared me a little bit.
Speaker 1: Oh really, yeah, I think so. I think I had
Speaker 1: the uh fortune. I think, you know, I quickly realized
Speaker 1: that you know, the good fortune and at boot camp
Speaker 1: was a game, right, I mean, you've got to get
Speaker 1: through it. It's serious and there's obviously stuff to learn,
Speaker 1: but uh, you know, a guy who can't be mad
Speaker 1: at you, you know, because your brand new it this
Speaker 1: thing screaming at you in your face. You know, if
Speaker 1: you you could either take that to heart or you
Speaker 1: could realize that hey man, he's he's doing his thing,
Speaker 1: trying to make me better. And so you know, I
Speaker 1: can uh, I can dig it right, So I'll uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I'll do I'll play the game, I'll uh,
Speaker 1: I'll yell loud if he wants me to yell.
Speaker 3: I'll run as fast as he wants me to to run.
Speaker 1: And then you know, when I get get through with
Speaker 1: this kind of proven you know that I'm I have
Speaker 1: what it takes, then I'll be ready to you know, learn,
Speaker 1: you know whatever it is that that these guys have
Speaker 1: to teach.
Speaker 3: Me, right, and they want to see you succeed. They're
Speaker 3: there to see you succeed. They're not there to see.
Speaker 1: Yeah they don't do it, yeah they uh, I mean
Speaker 1: it's varies, I think, you know, but as long as
Speaker 1: you're somebody that's that's putting out doing a good job, yeah,
Speaker 1: they they want you to to be successful. I'm sure
Speaker 1: there are people that they they're doing everything in their
Speaker 1: power to get to get out.
Speaker 3: But uh, and I.
Speaker 1: Never I came close, really close, but I never went
Speaker 1: back to be a drill instructor.
Speaker 3: I never. You know, it's really something I wanted to do.
Speaker 3: That's like a perfect marine right there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's there's absolutely value. And I mean
Speaker 1: you're you're making the next generation. It's it's super important.
Speaker 1: But it's just really wasn't. It wasn't for me. I'm
Speaker 1: not much of a screamer, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you'd have to, you'd have to. It's constant.
Speaker 3: But I mean, you know, the running and just the
Speaker 3: complete rigorous torture on your body. You know, to be
Speaker 3: a drill instructor has got to be just in its
Speaker 3: own just like your reek, just like going through Marsk
Speaker 3: and everything he did. You guys have to just consistently
Speaker 3: be badass. You can't catch it fault. It takes.
Speaker 1: It takes its toll, you know, but you can. All
Speaker 1: you can do is keep after it, right, you know.
Speaker 3: Keep well. You got lucky because you were able to
Speaker 3: cross into it, right. So we have a lot of
Speaker 3: veterans that I don't know, maybe there's like just like
Speaker 3: a stigma out there, like how do I transition from
Speaker 3: military civilian life? You know, I don't know if it's
Speaker 3: something that is more said than is actual. You know,
Speaker 3: I have been reached out by people through media and like, hey,
Speaker 3: how do you get into podcasting? You know, I'm interested
Speaker 3: in that, or how do I write a book? What's
Speaker 3: your take on the transition from I mean, you went
Speaker 3: into the same kind of gig, right.
Speaker 1: So I always tell and I do a lot of coaching,
Speaker 1: you know, like performance coaching, personal coaching, and talk with
Speaker 1: a lot of guys who are getting out and it's
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a pretty real thing. You know, if
Speaker 1: you've spent your life in the military now getting out
Speaker 1: at you know, you're kind of the big cock on
Speaker 1: the walk. You know, you're you know, a master and
Speaker 1: master guns or whatever your rank is, and now you're
Speaker 1: getting ready to go into an absolutely unknown world, you know,
Speaker 1: whether that's back to school, which I you know I did,
Speaker 1: is like a forty year you know, forty some year
Speaker 1: old man kind of scared to death, you know, going
Speaker 1: to school with college kids right to you know, going
Speaker 1: out into a real that we call it the real world.
Speaker 1: But you know, a job market and trying to get
Speaker 1: a job, and there's just it's it's challenging. I skipped
Speaker 1: a lot of that because I never really left. I'm
Speaker 1: starting to think about, you know, actually going into the
Speaker 1: real world one of these one of these days, I
Speaker 1: just got to figure out what I'm gonna do when
Speaker 1: I grow up, what I grow up?
Speaker 3: Yes, I love it. Uh.
Speaker 1: The The thing I think for you know, veterans to
Speaker 1: realize people that are getting out is that, I mean,
Speaker 1: you bring a lot to the table. You know, you've
Speaker 1: there's so much that you've seen and done that that
Speaker 1: will be value added, you know, any sort of organization.
Speaker 1: I but I generally tell people that's don't rush into anything,
Speaker 1: you know, don't It's a little bit different than it
Speaker 1: was on our parents' time, you know, you kind of
Speaker 1: My dad was in the Navy for a couple of
Speaker 1: years during Vietnam.
Speaker 3: Got out.
Speaker 1: You know, you work at a job until you die, basically,
Speaker 1: you know, that's that's not the way the world works anymore.
Speaker 1: I mean, people, you know, take a job, you know,
Speaker 1: until you find something else. You know, they kind of
Speaker 1: work to live, not live to work, hopefully, and I
Speaker 1: think that's a good way of looking at it. But
Speaker 1: there's absolutely a lot of opportunities and I think it's
Speaker 1: not something that veterans immediately think of, but uh, you
Speaker 1: know in writing and creative spaces, right, even if it's
Speaker 1: not something that you make your living at because I'm
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna, I don't have all this because of
Speaker 1: the book, right, It's that book's not gonna It might
Speaker 1: put a couple of meals on the table, but it's
Speaker 1: it's not going to allow me to retire. But I
Speaker 1: think there's a huge benefit and kind of veterans getting
Speaker 1: out and exploring those things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, one hundred percent, you know, and maybe taking advantage
Speaker 3: of the benefits that they have after they get out
Speaker 3: of like their VA home loan or like using you
Speaker 3: know the other benefits that are if they filed up
Speaker 3: for their GI bill in basic or whatnot, how to
Speaker 3: take it out and I forgot about it. Hey, go
Speaker 3: take advantage of your school. Just get a c Okay,
Speaker 3: it's make sure you get ces.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's changed so that you don't even have to
Speaker 1: do that. Everybody is blanketed the GI bill is really
Speaker 1: that's the best. So I did when I was in
Speaker 1: boot camp, we had to sign up, and we were
Speaker 1: you know, deducted one hundred dollars a month for a year.
Speaker 1: And along the way, the uh they you know, after
Speaker 1: post nine eleven, they did away with that, and so
Speaker 1: I was I was able to and I was not
Speaker 1: a I mean I was on the first thing smoking
Speaker 1: a book camp, right I had. I was not a student.
Speaker 1: I didn't really like Uh, I didn't like school. But
Speaker 1: you know, as I went through the Marine Corps, I
Speaker 1: realized that, you know, education is is super valuable. One
Speaker 1: thing I've always loved to read. All right, So like
Speaker 1: you guys book club, I think is a is an
Speaker 1: absolutely great thing. But you know, before I retired, I
Speaker 1: was able to finish a bachelor's degree online, all online
Speaker 1: and homeland security. So my intent was to get out
Speaker 1: and become a security consultant. That didn't didn't pan out,
Speaker 1: and but I was able to use the GI bill
Speaker 1: to I went back to college. Like I said, I
Speaker 1: got a master's in in literature or liberal arts focus
Speaker 1: in literature. And that really kind of got me, you know,
Speaker 1: got me thinking that, hey, you know, I really like writing. Uh,
Speaker 1: I should give this a whirl. So I went back
Speaker 1: got another master of fine Arts and and creative writing
Speaker 1: from the University of North Carol Carolina here in Wilmington.
Speaker 1: And that's you know, that just opened all these doors.
Speaker 1: You know, you spend time around writers, you get opportunities
Speaker 1: for write. So I'm you know, I can't talk highly
Speaker 1: enough about you know, educating yourself. You know, if you're
Speaker 1: a veteran or even if you're you know, a young,
Speaker 1: younger person that wants to join the military.
Speaker 3: I mean, the.
Speaker 1: Smarter you are, the more value added.
Speaker 3: You're going to be.
Speaker 1: So you know, you just even if it's doing nothing
Speaker 1: more than just reading books, but you know, getting getting
Speaker 1: college in.
Speaker 3: And now for.
Speaker 1: The folks that you have the GI bill, they can
Speaker 1: they have the opportunity to pass it on to their
Speaker 1: kids so their kids can go to school if they
Speaker 1: don't use it. And it's it's a pretty phenomenal benefit.
Speaker 1: I mean, while I was going you you also get
Speaker 1: a living stipend, so you get your college paid for.
Speaker 1: You get this eight hundred nine hundred bucks a month
Speaker 1: just to live on. So potentially it's I mean, it
Speaker 1: would not be challenging for somebody getting out after four
Speaker 1: years to say, hey, I'm.
Speaker 3: Not going to man I'm going to go to school benefits. Yeah,
Speaker 3: such a good benefit. It's huge, it's huge, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm so many people don't take advantage you have it nice. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's phenomenal. My eighteen year old daughters like that, I
Speaker 3: want to go to Arizona State and I'm like, but
Speaker 3: we live in Utah. Yeah, out of state. Yeah, the
Speaker 3: double surprise. Yeah, I'm like, but we live here. We
Speaker 3: got the University of Utah.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: I'm like, she's like, but Arizona State, that's got the sun.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, look, whatever you need. But again, you know,
Speaker 3: if she wanted to join like the Navy or the
Speaker 3: whatever branch she decided on, and she put in four years,
Speaker 3: her school would be you know, yeah, you know, and
Speaker 3: that's a huge deal. Yeah, it would be paid for.
Speaker 1: I I you know, I was just reading something that
Speaker 1: you know, there's the percentage, well one, the percentage of kids,
Speaker 1: you know, high school kids today that are qualified physically
Speaker 1: to join the military is like just tanking, all right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there's just not that many that could pass.
Speaker 3: He's changed, right.
Speaker 1: But then there's also like a like fifty percent of
Speaker 1: Americans like would not encourage their children to serve in
Speaker 1: the military, and I just read this morning.
Speaker 3: There's in fact, I read it on software.
Speaker 1: I think there's you know, like thirty five percent of
Speaker 1: people in the military wouldn't recommend anybody to join the military.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of you know, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of negativity about a lot of things. But I mean
Speaker 1: there's still some insanely amazing benefits you know, if you
Speaker 1: join whatever whatever branch kind of strikes your fancy, you know,
Speaker 1: and quite likely, like we said, there there are thousands
Speaker 1: of different jobs across the services. So you know, if
Speaker 1: you want to be a photographer, you know, we've got
Speaker 1: you know, learn learn how to do it. You know
Speaker 1: you want to be uh.
Speaker 3: I mean there's there's even like probably people who learn
Speaker 3: sound and engineering in the military. There's probably like you know,
Speaker 3: there's production.
Speaker 1: In the militarily, within the public affairs realm, there are
Speaker 1: people that I mean, there's you know, podcasts, you know
Speaker 1: that you know you might have the opportunity to do that.
Speaker 1: If not, you know, the you've got you know, the
Speaker 1: GI Bill to go to school for free and get
Speaker 1: get paid while you do it. So it's I still think,
Speaker 1: I mean, I was not I didn't grow up. I
Speaker 1: grew up in a relatively modest uh you know household.
Speaker 1: John Day was not going to college. They were pinning
Speaker 1: all their hopes on my brother, uh skateboarding.
Speaker 3: I think he was a skateboard or something or what. No.
Speaker 1: No, I lived up in the mountains of West Virginia,
Speaker 1: so we didn't even really have skateboards, right. Uh there
Speaker 1: was no sidewalks. We you know, mostly dirt roads and
Speaker 1: it's a little rough to it wasn't quite that that
Speaker 1: far out. But uh, now I never did get into
Speaker 1: get into skateboarding. But yeah, they just there weren't high
Speaker 1: hopes being held out for me, so they were pinning.
Speaker 1: You know, my smarter brother was I think the first
Speaker 1: and our our extended family to go to college. Guess
Speaker 1: just wasn't something that people did, right. You got out
Speaker 1: of school, you went to work, or you went to
Speaker 1: the military.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: But h and I still think it's a great I mean,
Speaker 1: it certainly served me very well.
Speaker 3: For for over twenty years.
Speaker 1: I had a blast almost not every day but most
Speaker 1: most every day. And just I mean I got to
Speaker 1: you know, I tell people like, I got to blow
Speaker 1: stuff up, I got to jump out of airplanes at
Speaker 1: you know, five miles in the.
Speaker 3: Sky at nighttime. I got to scuba dive, you know,
Speaker 3: shoot literally ride and tracked vehicles with team tracks on them,
Speaker 3: and like like you're wearing bump helmets and all sorts
Speaker 3: of gear. I love the gear. And let me ask
Speaker 3: you something about jumping out of a out of an airplane.
Speaker 3: Did you ever have like a close call on that.
Speaker 3: You ever have something where it was like this is
Speaker 3: my training kicked in and I barely pulled out the
Speaker 3: only time, I don't know how close it was.
Speaker 1: Like so with the free fall parachute, so you have
Speaker 1: the opportunity to with with your static line parachute, you
Speaker 1: have a reserve, but with a free fall parachute, you
Speaker 1: can cut away, cut away your primary parachute, then release
Speaker 1: your reserve. And we were doing a parachute. I know
Speaker 1: I never had to do that, but we were doing
Speaker 1: a jump and it's one of our it's rare that
Speaker 1: you get to jump from thirty thousand feet that's the
Speaker 1: amount of airspace that's required. The there's just a lot
Speaker 1: of complexities that go into that. But we were up
Speaker 1: in the desert. We were doing a jump nighttime, thirty
Speaker 1: thousand foot and in order to do that, you've got
Speaker 1: to have an oxygen mask on, and see you're breathing oxygen.
Speaker 1: I jumped out and you count, I think to six,
Speaker 1: all right, to just kind of let yourself get stable,
Speaker 1: and then you pull. And you know, with thirty thousand feet,
Speaker 1: it's probably like one hundred and sixty below zero with
Speaker 1: windshill and.
Speaker 3: Everything that's going on.
Speaker 1: So you've got big, big honking sued on big gloves,
Speaker 1: and with my big glove I had, when I pulled
Speaker 1: my ripcord, I also pulled the oxygen hose out, and
Speaker 1: I didn't realize it until I started getting you know,
Speaker 1: the whole world started kind of turning black, and so
Speaker 1: I realized that, hey, there's you know, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: figure it out, and there was nothing that I could do,
Speaker 1: like I'm going to pass out. But I had a
Speaker 1: parachute open, so that's.
Speaker 3: A good thing.
Speaker 1: So I come on the radio and I try to
Speaker 1: like just let everybody know because everybody has their parachutes open,
Speaker 1: and we're going this way and with from that height,
Speaker 1: we were planning to land about forty miles from where
Speaker 1: we jumped out. Wow, so we're just like screaming across
Speaker 1: the desert. I'm like, hey, guys, I'm about to pass
Speaker 1: out here. I'll figure it out. No, but that didn't
Speaker 1: come over. It was probably more of like a muffled
Speaker 1: scream or whatever. But what I tried, I tried to
Speaker 1: dump as much called dumping air, so you pull a
Speaker 1: toggle down and that makes you fall faster. But there's
Speaker 1: not enough oxygen to sustain consciousness until about twelve thousand feet.
Speaker 1: So from thirty thousand feet down to twelve thousand feet
Speaker 1: I was. I was out, and then suddenly you wake up,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of like waking up from a dream,
Speaker 1: but you realize that, hey, I'm screaming at like sixty
Speaker 1: miles an hour, you know, through the through the middle
Speaker 1: of the night sky.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And from from where I was, I was able to
Speaker 1: look back and see the lights of the airfield that
Speaker 1: we had taken off from, so I was able to
Speaker 1: turn and I just headed back to that and landed.
Speaker 3: Didn't quite make it, but landed.
Speaker 1: Luckily. They still had payphones back then, and so I
Speaker 1: had some change, so I went and threw some money
Speaker 1: in the payphone, called the base and they the first
Speaker 1: time they hung up on me. They're like, hey, we're
Speaker 1: having an emergency, and.
Speaker 3: They hung up.
Speaker 1: Second yeah, the second time, I'm like, hey, man, I'm
Speaker 1: the emergency and they're like, so.
Speaker 3: Uh, what's the code word? I'm the emergency?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess so. But they're like, all right, we'll
Speaker 1: just hang out. We'll come and get you later. So
Speaker 1: I went down walked down the street to a bar. Uh,
Speaker 1: had a beer and uh usually.
Speaker 4: Tom Cruise, did you see this last movie of his
Speaker 4: where he is trying to go like mock.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, similarly yeah, yeah, pretty similar thing to that,
Speaker 1: Get cut a cup of coffee.
Speaker 3: You're like just totally normal. I'll looking at you like.
Speaker 4: Uh, I love that You're badass, bro.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was just that was just close. Uh. I
Speaker 1: think that was the closest call that I've had.
Speaker 3: Oh that was Top Gun, the movie's Top Gun. I
Speaker 3: was like, wait, what movie is that?
Speaker 1: That?
Speaker 3: Top Tom Cruise is showing that he's yeah, the new
Speaker 3: top Gun. Yeah, and uh he walks into his full
Speaker 3: gear into the restaurant and there was a staring at him.
Speaker 3: They must have took that from you, bro. Maybe Yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't know who. Who's there to see some residual
Speaker 3: from there. Let's put it a call to CIA real
Speaker 3: quick here. Yeah, I should get some royalties or something made.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you what. Wow, Wow, you're the real version.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a little bit different. I mean, I I it
Speaker 1: was all my fault. I shouldn't have you know, pulled
Speaker 1: out your road.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that was.
Speaker 1: The mistake I made there. But it, like I said,
Speaker 1: with big gloves on, it's it's it's not impossible to do.
Speaker 1: So they've they've sent changed the way that the system
Speaker 1: is set up to make that a little more difficult.
Speaker 1: I'm not the first guy who's done it, who's popped
Speaker 1: that off, and the hopefully yeah, hopefully the last.
Speaker 3: That's the last thing you need to deal with when
Speaker 3: you're flying so high altitude low opening halo or were
Speaker 3: you high altitude high?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah yeah, high altitude high opening. So we jumped already,
Speaker 1: huh we're yeah, we were open and luckily, you know,
Speaker 1: if if I had not had a parachute open, then
Speaker 1: then that would have been a much different story. But so,
Speaker 1: I mean, I had a good parachute. It was just
Speaker 1: a matter of passing out and coming to when the
Speaker 1: air came back.
Speaker 3: Have you ever done that into the water, Like have
Speaker 3: you ever hayhoed into water? And like, uh, you know,
Speaker 3: I don't know, maybe I'm thinking Navy seals Charlie Sheen
Speaker 3: and those guys like not into a dive.
Speaker 1: We've jumped into the water, which is which is cool.
Speaker 1: The thing that's always kind of scary about that is that,
Speaker 1: you know, a parachute falls on top of you, you know,
Speaker 1: in the in the middle of the ocean, and it's
Speaker 1: just there's a whole lot of lines running from that.
Speaker 1: So that's whenever we do those, we'll do some you
Speaker 1: know practices in the swimming pool, you know, and just
Speaker 1: there's a lot of potential for, you know, for things
Speaker 1: to go go wrong.
Speaker 3: So, you know, my dad told me a story one
Speaker 3: time with guys that were like in Pensacola, Florida, I
Speaker 3: think is what he said. Somewhere in Florida, and they
Speaker 3: were doing some high altitude, low opening jumps whatnot. Maybe
Speaker 3: it was just regular shoots, but they would release over
Speaker 3: the water out of their shoot and one guy just
Speaker 3: was like one hundred feet up I'm not sure how
Speaker 3: far out, and like kind of hurt him. But you know,
Speaker 3: these guys are always trying to pop a little higher
Speaker 3: than the other to land in the water.
Speaker 1: Is that something that Yeah, So when you are jumping
Speaker 1: into the water, you start as you know, as you
Speaker 1: are stable and you're you're coming down, you know, you
Speaker 1: start preparing to get out of your parachute, so you'll
Speaker 1: take off the the chest strap and you know kind
Speaker 1: of set yourself in the into the harness and kind
Speaker 1: of you're ready to go, so that as soon as
Speaker 1: you hit the water, and it's it's very difficult to judge,
Speaker 1: you know, when you're when you're above the water. So
Speaker 1: that's that's the reason that they they don't want you
Speaker 1: popping out too early. But as soon as your feet
Speaker 1: hit the water, you're really being held on by your
Speaker 1: leg straps, so that's the last thing you pop and
Speaker 1: hopefully arch out of it, and the wind generally will
Speaker 1: carry the parachute away from you because you land into
Speaker 1: the wind. So so it's, uh, it's in a perfect world.
Speaker 1: It's it's a lot of fun. There's just always always
Speaker 1: the potential in the world. Who is seldom perfect.
Speaker 3: You know. Yeah, and then you're definitely and just yeah,
Speaker 3: you're like, oh wait, am I one hundred feet or
Speaker 3: forty five feet? Yeah, you know, it's like a little far,
Speaker 3: a little far. Yeah that was. That was in the eighties.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, things were I'm sure a little uh, I was.
Speaker 1: I was in the Marine Corps well late eighties, but
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't start doing this stuff until and
Speaker 1: then then, So I think, you know.
Speaker 3: So you already get fifty? Are you in your five o's?
Speaker 3: I am, Yeah, I'm fifty four. Fifty four.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems really old, right, I don't feel it, so.
Speaker 3: No, you don't seem it. Yeah, I don't get that
Speaker 3: from you. I'm forty six. And so I just was like,
Speaker 3: you know, you're a seventies child, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was born in sixty nine, right, sixty nine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know that Vietnam was raging.
Speaker 3: Yeah, holy cow, seventy seven here, Yeah, okay, so that
Speaker 3: makes total sense. No, I think you're great. I think
Speaker 3: you're I'm so happy that you are on the show,
Speaker 3: and I hope my listeners have been getting just awesome
Speaker 3: stories and listening to your vibe. Dude, you're a badass
Speaker 3: bro right on. I know that Tough, Rugged Bastards takes
Speaker 3: a lot more than just writing the thoughts of that
Speaker 3: book out onto page. I know there was probably things
Speaker 3: in there that were real serious that just you know,
Speaker 3: are hard to deal with, and you put it on paper.
Speaker 3: Do you have anything that you want to talk about
Speaker 3: that was just like kind of tough that you put
Speaker 3: in there.
Speaker 1: So the whole book started. The idea for it really,
Speaker 1: at least at a like a kernel of the idea
Speaker 1: started when I went back to college or went to college, right,
Speaker 1: and uh, we had to write an essay of something
Speaker 1: that happened to us, and I was it was it
Speaker 1: was luckily I got it out of the way first.
Speaker 1: But it was the first essay I wrote that really
Speaker 1: started the you know, became the seed for the book
Speaker 1: talks about Uh. I think of him as a kid,
Speaker 1: but he was he was an adult. But he was
Speaker 1: a guy that I shot in uh that Joff Iraq
Speaker 1: with a sniper rifle, and you know, looking at him,
Speaker 1: I you know, I especially you know obviously it's like
Speaker 1: Matthew McConaughey, right, the older and I keep getting older,
Speaker 1: but he stays the same age. Uh So, so I,
Speaker 1: you know, I wrote this essay called death Letter, and
Speaker 1: it was kind of it was like written to him,
Speaker 1: and that was really you know, and I wrote that
Speaker 1: the professors were like, you know, dug it. You know,
Speaker 1: They're like, man, this is really honest, and and I
Speaker 1: was like, you know what I mean, maybe there is something.
Speaker 1: Maybe I've got something to say, and I've got the
Speaker 1: ability to say it in a way that you know,
Speaker 1: people would like to listen to. So I took that,
Speaker 1: you know, I submitted it to I think I wound
Speaker 1: up submitting it to I was a one hundred percent
Speaker 1: sure when I sent it off that you know, they
Speaker 1: were going to like write me a big check and
Speaker 1: publish it and something. And first place didn't, the second place.
Speaker 1: Finally we got to like the twentieth, like two years
Speaker 1: of submitting and I finally got it, got it published.
Speaker 1: And that was the first thing like that that I'd
Speaker 1: had published. So but you know, as soon as it does,
Speaker 1: you know, you go from being down and dumps to
Speaker 1: being on cloud nine to see in your.
Speaker 3: Name and things that you wrote, you know, in pages.
Speaker 1: So that kind of sat with me, and it took
Speaker 1: a little while, and I had some fortunate just meeting
Speaker 1: people that encouraged me to write, and you know, the
Speaker 1: the fact that I was, you know, one of the
Speaker 1: guys in this very small unit was I felt like
Speaker 1: a story that should be told. So it's not it's
Speaker 1: not a history, you know so much. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: you know, called a memoir. You know, it's I mean,
Speaker 1: it's my story, my recollections. I mean, some of it,
Speaker 1: I think, uh, I mean, there's obviously a lot of
Speaker 1: an interesting time in history for anybody.
Speaker 3: There's an interesting time, and.
Speaker 1: Certainly a Marine Corps history, special operations history, but there's
Speaker 1: also just a you know, it's just from my perspective,
Speaker 1: you know, Hey, here's how I felt when this was happening.
Speaker 1: So some of it was tough to write, and you
Speaker 1: know that one in particular. But since then, you know,
Speaker 1: I've had the opportunity with with several different groups, the
Speaker 1: Lethal Mince Journal, the Dead Reckoning Collective, and these different
Speaker 1: veterans writing groups. You know, had the opportunity to work
Speaker 1: with with veterans and writing, you know, get their stories
Speaker 1: on paper. And I think it's hugely valuable. You know,
Speaker 1: if if nothing else, it never sees a light of day,
Speaker 1: if nobody ever reads it, you know, taking you kind
Speaker 1: of get it out of your head and and process
Speaker 1: it all right, And I think it's you know, I
Speaker 1: think if there's any sort of you know, whether it's
Speaker 1: a traumatic thing. I think there's absolute value in that,
Speaker 1: right and putting on paper and it processes. It doesn't
Speaker 1: have to live in your head anymore. It can live,
Speaker 1: you know, on a piece of paper that's shoved in
Speaker 1: the desk or burned or whatever. But I mean there's
Speaker 1: also just the simple fact that you know, whether they're
Speaker 1: you know, Savilians of any sort, but particularly people who
Speaker 1: were interested in the military, people who you know, especially
Speaker 1: people interested in wargames and anything like that. You know,
Speaker 1: it's just the idea that hey, I can you know,
Speaker 1: read you know what this what was going through this
Speaker 1: guy's head. And my goal was to you know, I
Speaker 1: grew up reading Vietnam books. You know, there's just tons
Speaker 1: of them, right, and then the GAT books you know
Speaker 1: that I've read a lot of them are very much
Speaker 1: just kind of, Hey, I'm going to write an action
Speaker 1: packed book and I'm gonna h you know, I call
Speaker 1: it for I'm certainly not poking, you know, throwing rocks
Speaker 1: at anybody. But a lot of them aren't necessarily you know,
Speaker 1: they don't go into the fact that, hey, I was
Speaker 1: pretty fucking scared here, you know, you know, there's some
Speaker 1: honesty that that I was hoping, you know, as a
Speaker 1: guy with a Master of Fine Arts degree in writing,
Speaker 1: that I could bring a little bit of not only
Speaker 1: some craft to it, you know, look at different ways
Speaker 1: of telling stories and and hopefully keeping people engage while
Speaker 1: also being you know, true to the you know, everything
Speaker 1: that happened, and uh, you know, honorable to the guys
Speaker 1: that served with me. So but the goal I went
Speaker 1: into it with was, you know, I want to write uh.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's plenty of books for people in the
Speaker 1: military about being in the military. You know, I want
Speaker 1: to write a book that that they'll enjoy and get
Speaker 1: a kick out of. But uh, you know that somebody
Speaker 1: who's a civilian could pick up and try to get
Speaker 1: a little bit of understanding, you know, what goes on
Speaker 1: and through in the heads and hearts and minds of
Speaker 1: especially special operations. I think it's quite often misunderstood, you know,
Speaker 1: if he people think that we're just we're all a bunch.
Speaker 3: Of uh uh. I used to read these alert linebackers, right,
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, my dad would have these like books. You know,
Speaker 3: they're just books that were written a long range of
Speaker 3: conisance patrol books and these lurks. Oh yeah, and stories
Speaker 3: of lurps in Vietnam. Right, yeah, that was my bathroom material. Bro.
Speaker 1: Those are Uh, there's one you may have. He may
Speaker 1: have had Force ricon diary.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's I had that. That one.
Speaker 1: There was two sineteen sixty nine and nineteen seventy. The
Speaker 1: guy that wrote that was the first Force Recon guy
Speaker 1: that Uh. I actually he wrote me a blurb. I
Speaker 1: just had the opportunity to like talk, you know, a
Speaker 1: couple hours on the phone with him. You know, I
Speaker 1: reached out to him kind of cold and like, hey,
Speaker 1: I was in you know, the first Force Recon and
Speaker 1: here's you know, my my book.
Speaker 3: Can I send you the manuscript? And uh?
Speaker 1: And that was that was so cool. So, you know,
Speaker 1: if nothing else, you know, I've got to meet some legends. Yes,
Speaker 1: another one that uh kind of through the book, John
Speaker 1: Striker Meyer, who is one of the Macvie song guys.
Speaker 1: He's written a bunch of books. You know, a great
Speaker 1: guy you know through the through this, you know, had
Speaker 1: the opportunity to meet him and become friends with him.
Speaker 1: So I've got like these legends you know that in
Speaker 1: some small way kind of emulating you know.
Speaker 3: What does that tell you about yourself?
Speaker 1: John?
Speaker 3: You have a legend on the left side and a
Speaker 3: legend on the right side. What are you in the
Speaker 3: middle there? I'm just a lucky son of a bitch.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right. And it's a it's an honor to
Speaker 3: talk to you, bro, And thanks for just being open
Speaker 3: with me and having just a casual conversation. We really
Speaker 3: have never met each other. This is something that I
Speaker 3: want my listeners to hear that you can still have
Speaker 3: normal conversations with people no matter where they come from
Speaker 3: on the waiver side, and at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: we all believe the same red blood. That's it. Hey,
Speaker 3: you guy, And so if you want to join the
Speaker 3: Marine Corps, I'm down for you to do that. If
Speaker 3: you want to join any of the military branches, give
Speaker 3: it a shot. I go talk to someone at a
Speaker 3: career center, ask him about the GI bill, ask them
Speaker 3: what benefits are available. Get that out of them. Ask
Speaker 3: them if they can work for you versus you work
Speaker 3: for them. At the career center, it's okay, but once
Speaker 3: you enlist, you work for them exactly. Now, with that said,
Speaker 3: I have had about an hour of time with our
Speaker 3: guest John today. It's been a pleasure to have someone
Speaker 3: from the United States Marine Corps on the show. I
Speaker 3: love the Marines. I think Chesty is my lord and
Speaker 3: savior and I have embraced him. I went out to
Speaker 3: Camp Pendleton and got to do war games at the
Speaker 3: Kilo two Mount facility. Wow, which yeah, which was legit.
Speaker 3: And it was nighttime and the fog was rolling in
Speaker 3: from ocean side and we had thermals. Oh being wargames. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: So people are hanging out of like the makeshift mosques
Speaker 3: and all the different positions, like where's the fog coming from?
Speaker 3: We're like what, you just see him through the fog?
Speaker 3: Nothing like thermals through the fog. Okay, all the night
Speaker 3: vision was useless. Oh but that thermal man. So again,
Speaker 3: I Chesty out there and I just want to say
Speaker 3: thanks again, dude, You've been really a pleasure. And to
Speaker 3: my listener. Go check out our book club. It's soft
Speaker 3: Rep dot com Forward Slash book Club. Go check out
Speaker 3: Brandon Webb's Instagram page. Hit him up and tell them
Speaker 3: that I said to say hi on his Instagram page.
Speaker 3: Also veteran and an author who's written many novels. You
Speaker 3: know he puts it on paper. And again to my listener,
Speaker 3: the number one thing I hear from my authors and
Speaker 3: other people who I've interviewed, and I've interviewed a hundred
Speaker 3: of them is put it on paper. You're not writing
Speaker 3: anything when you're thinking about it. You're writing when you
Speaker 3: start to actually put it on paper. So if you
Speaker 3: can just take your thoughts and put it out there,
Speaker 3: and that's what I'm going to say. John did in
Speaker 3: his essay class. It took him a second. He's like,
Speaker 3: how do I get an a What am I going
Speaker 3: to do to draw these guys into my essay? Well,
Speaker 3: I'm going to tell them about how I took someone
Speaker 3: out in najaff as a sniper in the Marine Corps.
Speaker 3: And they're going to sit there and say, shit, you
Speaker 3: should submit this. Yeah, and he submitted it, and he
Speaker 3: took a lot of and as an actor and someone
Speaker 3: who auditions all the time, you gotta be okay with that.
Speaker 3: You gotta have thick skin. You just got to believe
Speaker 3: in what you want to believe in. You got to
Speaker 3: be passionate about it and say you can't tell me
Speaker 3: no because I believe in it and you don't understand it.
Speaker 3: You just move on to the next I don't know
Speaker 3: if that's my coaching and if John agrees, that's cool. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but just put it on paper. There you go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I absolutely agree.
Speaker 3: Okay, well on behalf of John and Soft Breath and
Speaker 3: you the listener and the viewer. I say, all right,
Speaker 3: the rat say of peace.
Speaker 2: You've been listening to self rep Radia