Speaker 1: I only told was able to tell my story through
Speaker 1: song because I met a guy at a bar who's
Speaker 1: doing a writer's round and he has nine number one hits.
Speaker 1: I think he wrote Alan Jackson's first number one here
Speaker 1: in the Free World. And I said, Hey, I've been
Speaker 1: trying to tell my story through song for a year
Speaker 1: and I just can't write. I can't put Luke on
Speaker 1: a pedestal he needs to be on. If I come
Speaker 1: to you in Nashville, just drive down there, will you
Speaker 1: sit with me and help me tell my story? Because
Speaker 1: there's got to be easier way to do this than
Speaker 1: me trying on my own. You obviously doing this for
Speaker 1: a living. And he said yeah to me and nobody
Speaker 1: from Chicago just like okay, And I didn't know how
Speaker 1: big of a deal.
Speaker 2: That actually was.
Speaker 1: Two months later, I come down there and we write
Speaker 1: a song and a half in like three hours. So
Speaker 1: the first hour and a half we had a song,
Speaker 1: and I'm sitting here, I've been trying this for a
Speaker 1: whole year and you took my words and put it
Speaker 1: in a song an hour and a half.
Speaker 2: This is insane.
Speaker 1: So now that experience on top of me graduating and
Speaker 1: being like I'm almost back to normal. Was like, how
Speaker 1: do I now just bring veterans to Nashville to tell
Speaker 1: their story because it absolutely saved my life.
Speaker 3: Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
Speaker 3: I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, a father, an entrepreneur,
Speaker 3: and I've been a football coach in inner city Memphis.
Speaker 3: And the last part, somehow it led to an oscar
Speaker 3: for the film about our team, it's called Undefeated. I
Speaker 3: believe our country's problems will never be solved by a
Speaker 3: bunch of fancy people in nice suits talking big words
Speaker 3: that nobody ever uses on CNN and Fox, but rather
Speaker 3: an army of normal folks, US just you and me deciding, hey,
Speaker 3: maybe I can help. That's what Richard Casper, the voice
Speaker 3: we just heard is done. Richard is a marine who
Speaker 3: served in a rock and was subject to four ied
Speaker 3: explosions and concussions and his best friend being shot and
Speaker 3: killed literally right next to him. He came home dealing
Speaker 3: with a lot physically, mentally and emotionally, and art and
Speaker 3: music helped him heal and ultimately it saved his life.
Speaker 3: Richard felt called to bring the secret weapon of healing
Speaker 3: to his fellow veterans and this year alone, his nonprofit
Speaker 3: Creative Thats will serve over eight hundred veterans and they've
Speaker 3: helped save countless lives. I cannot wait for you to
Speaker 3: meet Richard right after these brief messages from our general sponsors.
Speaker 3: Richard Casper, Welcome to Memphis.
Speaker 2: Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: Thanks for driving down. Was it raining a little bit?
Speaker 2: It wasn't too much?
Speaker 3: Yeah, but what three hour drive?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Richard Casper now from Nashville, but originally from a place
Speaker 3: called Washburn. I feel like that's like a he haw salute.
Speaker 1: It's a small I mean, it's eleven hundred people and
Speaker 1: it's a farming community and it's just we have a
Speaker 1: highway running through it. But like nobody's ever on the highway.
Speaker 1: We had one police officer and a lot of times
Speaker 1: they were off like they just have a shift, Like, hey,
Speaker 1: we'll be here on the weekends. So if you got
Speaker 1: into trouble, which we did, they have to call the
Speaker 1: State ride to come up. And you knew it was
Speaker 1: gonna be forty five minutes for anybody got there.
Speaker 3: What did your dad did?
Speaker 2: So he was a truck driver.
Speaker 1: When I was born, we lived in East Peoria area,
Speaker 1: which is obviously bigger, and then they moved out to Washburn.
Speaker 1: I don't know why, just to get away. We grew
Speaker 1: up on food stands, very poor family, where my mom
Speaker 1: was working for like a grocery store, and then finally
Speaker 1: got into Metamore Woodworking, which is owned by Hallmark. Worked
Speaker 1: there for twenty five years because she didn't have a
Speaker 1: degree or anything. My dad didn't have a degree. He
Speaker 1: was in the Navy prior, but he was just a
Speaker 1: long haul truck driver. And so we found a really
Speaker 1: really cheap spot because I have four three siblings and
Speaker 1: so there's six of us in one little house, three
Speaker 1: bedroom house with a lot of space, and so they
Speaker 1: just want to move out to the country. And I
Speaker 1: don't know how they found Washburn, because I.
Speaker 3: Know anybody Washburne, Illinois. I feel like it's like the
Speaker 3: place with one street light or one four way stop
Speaker 3: or whatever.
Speaker 1: No stop, no stoplights at all, like you legit, it's
Speaker 1: six churches, two bars.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: Well, now we just got a dollar general for that
Speaker 1: was the first one ever two years ago. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it was there was nothing. It's one square mile by one.
Speaker 1: It's one square mile one by one.
Speaker 3: So your high school must have been small.
Speaker 1: Twenty two kids in my graduating class.
Speaker 3: I was prom king they even have a football team.
Speaker 1: We had in my sophomore year we had a co
Speaker 1: op with like five other schools, which was funny story
Speaker 1: because they put us in a whole nother division that
Speaker 1: we shouldn't even have been in because it was like
Speaker 1: they took the calculation of all the schools students, but
Speaker 1: they didn't take in a calculation that it's five schools
Speaker 1: and they're getting like two people over here, two people
Speaker 1: over here. So I was every single kicker and tight
Speaker 1: end and defensive end on both the defense and offense.
Speaker 3: So uh so that's a bunch of kids you didn't
Speaker 3: go to school.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: And so in my sophomore years when we finally got football,
Speaker 1: and I was the first time, and I think since
Speaker 1: then they disbanded it too.
Speaker 3: Wow. So rule, yeah, very rule. You know in the forties,
Speaker 3: that meant church kids around the supper table, eating, a
Speaker 3: working mom or a working dad, a mom at home
Speaker 3: mending clothes, and not much money, but you know, kind
Speaker 3: of a wholesome family upbringing. Somehow in our world that
Speaker 3: has morphed to communities that have a lot of hopelessness,
Speaker 3: typically alcoholism and drug use and a lot of loss.
Speaker 3: The you know, one big manufacturing plant that everybody went
Speaker 3: to work at. Those don't really exist in a lot
Speaker 3: of places and have left a vacuum of hope and income.
Speaker 3: And I'm curious, is that Washburn?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we never had that big company come
Speaker 1: in to Washburn, but it was fifteen minute drive, thirty
Speaker 1: minute drive to Metamora. Like even my mom, she worked
Speaker 1: for Hallmark technically under that Metamora woodworking, which took every
Speaker 1: single cardholder plastics they melt down and turn it into
Speaker 1: the cardholders that you see in Walmart and everything they
Speaker 1: made and produce those. But after twenty five years of
Speaker 1: her working there, they just got rid of her job,
Speaker 1: and so then she didn't have anything, and so she
Speaker 1: had to go to a agency where now she's getting
Speaker 1: paid twelve bucks an hour to work at another factory
Speaker 1: forty five minutes away just because there's no opportunity there.
Speaker 1: So it was a very very small, very no opportunities.
Speaker 1: Nobody gets out. They just stay there and the only
Speaker 1: way to succeed is to get out.
Speaker 3: So coming up, were you surrounded by alcohol and drugs
Speaker 3: and stuff that seems to permeate our rural communities.
Speaker 1: So my dad, he's one of eleven, by the way,
Speaker 1: every one of them owned a bar, worked at a bar,
Speaker 1: drank at He was like a long haul truck driver.
Speaker 1: But then a week and she just goes to the bar.
Speaker 1: And so like we didn't see him much. There's times
Speaker 1: where I would like come out for school and his
Speaker 1: truck would be running and he'd be in the pastor
Speaker 1: seat just passed out, and I'm like going off to
Speaker 1: school and I'd see like his side mirrors broken, and
Speaker 1: I just we didn't know how he made it home,
Speaker 1: but he made it home from the bar that night.
Speaker 1: So that ran rampant. Then my three siblings, all older
Speaker 1: and me, been to prison and jailing, my sister just
Speaker 1: everything from drug there's there's a lot of that little
Speaker 1: city thing that kind of it wasn't just our surroundings.
Speaker 1: But we moved to that town and I was in kindergarten.
Speaker 1: We moved there and my brother, his name's Elvis, very
Speaker 1: long hair hair, Elvis Elvis Aaron Presley Marlowe. So he's
Speaker 1: my half brother. But yeah, they love his dad. His
Speaker 1: dad loved Elvis a lot, that's all. He was like
Speaker 1: a one legged Italian man that my mom meant hitch hiking.
Speaker 1: It was crazy, ended up having Yeah, that's a whole
Speaker 1: another story.
Speaker 2: You didn't have my mom.
Speaker 1: On one legged Yeah, Italian loved My mom was hitchhiking
Speaker 1: and I think when she met him and then but she's.
Speaker 3: One legged Italian guy. Yeah, and had a child and
Speaker 3: named him Elvis Elvis.
Speaker 1: Aaron Presley and then his last name was Marlowe, so
Speaker 1: he kept the marlow name.
Speaker 3: And that's your oldest brother.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but as you can imagine now going to a
Speaker 1: small town like Washburn, and he was I don't know
Speaker 1: what he's born in seventy eight. I don't know what
Speaker 1: grade he was at when we got their second, third, fourth, fifth,
Speaker 1: whatever it was. He was now like extremely bullied for
Speaker 1: where he was. We were the outcre We were so poor,
Speaker 1: like again, grew up food stands. We had trash all
Speaker 1: over our yard like most poor families do. Like we
Speaker 1: had all of our stuff. He had a dirt bike
Speaker 1: too that we could ride around. We had three and
Speaker 1: a half acres and we lived in town. That's how
Speaker 1: small it was. And so the community fought against him,
Speaker 1: and then he fought against them, and that led to
Speaker 1: a whole dispute with police, and then it went into
Speaker 1: the drugs and the rebellion and then all three siblings.
Speaker 1: Because my mom and dad didn't do drugs, my dad
Speaker 1: heavily drake. My mom is a saint. She cold turkey
Speaker 1: quit smoking after twenty five years or so. She cold
Speaker 1: turkey quit alcohol everything when she was starting to have kids.
Speaker 1: And she knew the smoking bothered me too because I
Speaker 1: was still small when she was smoking. She quit that
Speaker 1: and so it was awesome. And my dad never did
Speaker 1: drugs that I know of, but my siblings got heavily
Speaker 1: into drugs and just rebellion. And I still remember on
Speaker 1: my second oldest brother was on house arrest and that
Speaker 1: was back when he's still in high school. And so
Speaker 1: they have an automated system call you and be like
Speaker 1: delaware and you have to say Delaware back, and so
Speaker 1: because he'd have to go, they had to prove that
Speaker 1: he's in the house because they have an audio recording.
Speaker 1: But he'd have me do it sometimes because it worked.
Speaker 1: He tested out it, because you can do it a.
Speaker 3: Few times, you sit here and say.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he tested it first time. Just make sure because
Speaker 1: if you say it wrong or in different where if
Speaker 1: someone else gets on there, it usually catches it and
Speaker 1: it says can you repeat that? But I tried a
Speaker 1: few times and it worked. It was bad technology back then,
Speaker 1: and he'd just go out and he'd be like, hey,
Speaker 1: can you pick up this phone.
Speaker 2: But they're also dealers and stuff.
Speaker 1: So at seven years old, I was holding like a
Speaker 1: pound of marijuana like in her basement, just like, oh.
Speaker 2: This is cool.
Speaker 1: And they're trying to push me to become a dealer
Speaker 1: because they knew I didn't smoke or anything like that.
Speaker 1: So if you make more money if you do this
Speaker 1: because you don't actually use the product.
Speaker 3: How in the world did you not end up in that?
Speaker 2: That's crazy?
Speaker 1: I mean, I would say looking back, I was so
Speaker 1: aware at such a young age, like as we were
Speaker 1: growing up and I see see my siblings not graduating
Speaker 1: high school, I see my family not being successful, especially
Speaker 1: out of my dad's side. All eleven never they even
Speaker 1: joined Most of the men joined the military, came back
Speaker 1: and still never did anything with their life. And I
Speaker 1: was like, well, there's one trait that they all have
Speaker 1: is they drink alcohol or they do drugs. So I
Speaker 1: was like, I'm not ever going to drink alcohol, and
Speaker 1: to this day, I've never even taste of beer.
Speaker 2: And it was around that. It wasn't a religious reason.
Speaker 1: It was just because I was like, maybe if I
Speaker 1: don't do what they're doing, I'll be successful. And that
Speaker 1: was just a gamble I took and it seemed to
Speaker 1: pay off, you know.
Speaker 3: Kind Of an interesting side commentary is if people were
Speaker 3: seeing you, they would see the six foot three or four,
Speaker 3: probably five, who's six foot five dude who looked like
Speaker 3: it looks like you jumped off of a Norman Rockwell
Speaker 3: family portrait. You got the nice cropped hair, the little swoopover,
Speaker 3: good looking guy, big smile. But your story is not
Speaker 3: at all dissimilar from many stories, or your upbringing is
Speaker 3: not at all dissimilar from many stories we talk about
Speaker 3: coming from urban black communities. And I think the interesting
Speaker 3: narrative is it serves as a really important reminder to
Speaker 3: us that drugs and problems with it and everything else
Speaker 3: is not a racial issue. It's a socioeconomic issue. And
Speaker 3: you've said how poor you were on food stamps, and
Speaker 3: unfortunately the truth is poverty and dysfunction lead to jail
Speaker 3: and problems in people's lives, regardless of if you're white.
Speaker 3: From Washburnilla Moy which I assume is a pretty much
Speaker 3: all white area. Oh yeah, to some urban area in
Speaker 3: Chicago or Memphis.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one Sicilian family, one Mexican family, then all white.
Speaker 1: And that's where growing up too, I was like, man,
Speaker 1: it was it was all the poor people. That was
Speaker 1: kind of like getting into it and getting and then
Speaker 1: it's a back and forth too, because police can take
Speaker 1: advantage of that too, because they know you're not you
Speaker 1: don't have a big time family lawyer or something that's
Speaker 1: gonna stop you from doing stuff. Like my sister got
Speaker 1: pulled over in the middle of the town. She ended
Speaker 1: up losing her job because the cop said he thought
Speaker 1: she was speeding, But then he had the dogs come
Speaker 1: in to sniffer vehicle because they knew, you know, my
Speaker 1: family had drug issues, at least my siblings did, my
Speaker 1: older brothers, and so they came with the dog. Took
Speaker 1: like fifty minutes to get there, forty five or so
Speaker 1: it stepped and now she got fired from work because
Speaker 1: she couldn't get to work on time, all because they
Speaker 1: thought she was driving and there was many of that happening.
Speaker 1: I watched my brother get peppers rate in our house
Speaker 1: from a cop double handcuffing for no reason.
Speaker 2: It just like dis abuse.
Speaker 3: Honestly, Once again an interesting reminder and commentary on it
Speaker 3: really isn't a racial thing. It's a socioeconomic thing, including
Speaker 3: poor police work and the things that we are struggling
Speaker 3: with in our culture today. Oh yeah, and you live
Speaker 3: that as a kid, as a sober kid watching your family.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, even understanding money back then too, Like I
Speaker 1: understand my dad was. I still love it and everything,
Speaker 1: but he's trying to like buy my love. So if
Speaker 1: he was gone for a week truck driving in the bar,
Speaker 1: he'd come over and be like, here's ten bucks. But
Speaker 1: I knew we were poor, so I never wanted to
Speaker 1: take the money. And there was times too where my
Speaker 1: mom would forget to put out money for lunch at school,
Speaker 1: and I remember like being across from another kid, like
Speaker 1: imagining what would be like to have food because I
Speaker 1: was so hungry, Like I remember, how.
Speaker 3: Do you learn in that kind of environment?
Speaker 1: I mean I was, I didn't really learn. I mean
Speaker 1: I learned a lot about life through process, But talk
Speaker 1: about education, it wasn't good, Like I didn't have a
Speaker 1: respect for education either, because even I took I remember
Speaker 1: taking a college ish English class where if I just
Speaker 1: paid like fifty bucks, i'd get college credits. I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to college, Like I'm never going to
Speaker 1: do that, Like that's stupid.
Speaker 2: Why would I go to college?
Speaker 1: Like nobody around me went to college. I figured I
Speaker 1: was just going to a military for twenty years and
Speaker 1: get out. That was my only only route to it.
Speaker 1: And I started rebel a little bit too, not rebelling
Speaker 1: in a way that was anti like you know, police
Speaker 1: and everything. It was more comedy. I would do some
Speaker 1: stupid crap. That's why I was class clown and everything,
Speaker 1: and just I loved making people happy and entertaining people.
Speaker 1: But I didn't really put anything on education. And when
Speaker 1: I talk now, it's funny because I was last in
Speaker 1: my class.
Speaker 3: And now a few messages from our general sponsors. But first,
Speaker 3: I hope you'll consider becoming a Premium member of the
Speaker 3: Army at Normalfolks dot us. By becoming one for ten
Speaker 3: bucks a month or one thousand dollars a year, you
Speaker 3: can get access to cool benefits like bonus episodes a year,
Speaker 3: lee group call, and even one on one call with me. Frankly, guys,
Speaker 3: premium memberships also help us to grow this army that
Speaker 3: our country desperately needs right now. So I hope you'll
Speaker 3: think about it. We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: I'd be a good reverse motivational speaker, be like, look
Speaker 1: what you can do, be last in your class and
Speaker 1: still I know.
Speaker 2: And because I didn't put anything on education.
Speaker 1: On learning, I mean, nine to eleven also happened when
Speaker 1: I was in high school, so we had to grow
Speaker 1: up a lot faster than most people. Being like a
Speaker 1: junior in high school. When that happened, you had to
Speaker 1: start learning history and what's about to happen. But other
Speaker 1: than that, I didn't respect education and I didn't get
Speaker 1: a very good education.
Speaker 3: It's interesting, and I think, just as a side note,
Speaker 3: looking at you and hearing your story, frankly, is no
Speaker 3: different than listening to stories of many people were interviewed
Speaker 3: from a completely different area of the world, but saying
Speaker 3: the exact same things, which speaks to the work we
Speaker 3: need to do socioeconomically with poverty if we're ever gonna
Speaker 3: break the quote cycle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and honestly, it almost starts with a
Speaker 1: good breakfast. I think about that all the time, like
Speaker 1: if I would, because they talk about how just a
Speaker 1: really good healthy breakfast, we'll set your tone for the
Speaker 1: rest of your day. You can learn better, you have
Speaker 1: like better mood and everything. In most of these economic places,
Speaker 1: it's either your mom's working like two or three jobs
Speaker 1: and she's like my mom did, I think third shifts
Speaker 1: for a long time too, And so you're waking up
Speaker 1: fitting for yourself and you're just kind of like, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna cook anything or I'm gonna eat crap, and
Speaker 1: then you just go to school. And that's a part
Speaker 1: of the problem, and maybe not even exactly. And imagine
Speaker 1: if just the world has just fed a really good,
Speaker 1: healthy breakfast every morning and then they went out, because
Speaker 1: at least you still have all your issues, but you're
Speaker 1: going into it with a healthy mind and able to
Speaker 1: actually retain some of that.
Speaker 3: But that's established. So now you're graduating high school and
Speaker 3: what's that barely barely? Now they're giving you a diploma
Speaker 3: to get out of high school. And I think it
Speaker 3: was your sophomore junior. You graduate in two thousand and three,
Speaker 3: so your sophomore junior was not eleven. And that's really
Speaker 3: probably the only thing that happened for you in high
Speaker 3: school that was an awakening, I guess, is that right?
Speaker 1: So, I mean, I knew after my dad served, I
Speaker 1: knew that just to get out of the town and
Speaker 1: we didn't have money, I'm going to join the military.
Speaker 1: But I also had this deep like need to serve
Speaker 1: the military. It wasn't just because it was a way out.
Speaker 1: It was I just had this I want to serve
Speaker 1: my fellow people. I want to serve my country. So
Speaker 1: for the longest time, I just didn't know what I
Speaker 1: wanted to be in the military and didn't know what
Speaker 1: job I wanted to do, and I just kind of like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be military. But when nine to eleven hit
Speaker 1: and I started asking people and what what was happening
Speaker 1: and how do I get over there? First it all
Speaker 1: led back to Marine Corps, Infantry. Hey, their first one's in,
Speaker 1: they settle, they go it through there, the Army takes over,
Speaker 1: they come back out, and so I was like, sweet,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go Marine Corps. And when I went to
Speaker 1: the recruiter again, I was still military dumb. I thought
Speaker 1: all everyone is army, you know, they always talk about it.
Speaker 1: People say soldiers and they think it's everyone.
Speaker 3: Really it's army is a general term for the military.
Speaker 3: So people say, I'm going to the army, and that
Speaker 3: could be a force.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but then when you're in the military, it's so
Speaker 1: far different that you don't You wouldn't tell me I'm
Speaker 1: in the army, and I'd be super mad if you did.
Speaker 2: And soldiers are.
Speaker 1: Army, Marines or Marines, airmen or Air Force squids or Navy. No, yea,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of different names for different branches, and
Speaker 1: we're very much like But I didn't know who sit
Speaker 1: what jobs.
Speaker 2: I didn't know who did.
Speaker 1: What, And so when I went to the Marine Corps recruiter,
Speaker 1: they were just like, you know, for one, you're seventeen,
Speaker 1: so you have to have your parents sign this. And
Speaker 1: imagine in two thousand two trying to get your parents
Speaker 1: to sign something two thousand and one.
Speaker 3: Actually you're going the military. You're probably going to a
Speaker 3: rock Afghanis And.
Speaker 1: So my moms were like, nah, my mom and dad
Speaker 1: knew that, and they told me at first they wouldn't
Speaker 1: sign early. And so I became a good negotiator and
Speaker 1: I said, well, if you sign now, I get a
Speaker 1: whole year of training with the debt program that the
Speaker 1: Marine Corps does, And so I'll do every month I
Speaker 1: go there, we train, we run, we learn everything. If
Speaker 1: you don't sign when I'm eighteen, I'm signing now. You
Speaker 1: want me to go to the Marine Corps of War
Speaker 1: like without knowing anything. So they thought it was smarter
Speaker 1: to sign me up now so I could like get
Speaker 1: the training ahead of time, and and so I went
Speaker 1: in there and said that and they said okay, they
Speaker 1: signed signed it.
Speaker 2: And then when I was.
Speaker 1: Looking for my job, I was just based off the
Speaker 1: recruiters were like, hey, you want to be a combat engineer.
Speaker 2: I was like, what do they do?
Speaker 1: Like build stuff and blow it up. I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's do that. And then I'm sitting next to these
Speaker 1: other two kids and I'm like, what do you guys doing.
Speaker 1: They're like infantry and I'm like what's that and they're like,
Speaker 1: that's wheally kicking in the doors. I was like, no,
Speaker 1: sign me up for this. This is what I I
Speaker 1: signed up for, Like I want to go. I want
Speaker 1: to do this. I wanted like the best chance to
Speaker 1: go serve my country, and I remember we when not
Speaker 1: of them first happened, I didn't know who did it.
Speaker 1: Nobody really knew what was happening. And so I was
Speaker 1: already writing reports on Saddam husaying on how evil of
Speaker 1: a person he was. So I was like, okay, if
Speaker 1: it was Saddam, like, why can't I be the one
Speaker 1: who catches him? Like I knew I wasn't going to be,
Speaker 1: but I feel like optimism is a superpower these days,
Speaker 1: and so I just said, if I could believe that
Speaker 1: I could be the one, I'm going to be a
Speaker 1: lot more successful. And so I was like, how do
Speaker 1: how would I do that? If I wanted to be that? Okay,
Speaker 1: Marine Corps infantry be the first one overseas. So that's
Speaker 1: that's kind of how I started my journey in the
Speaker 1: Marine Corps.
Speaker 3: You're preparing to go kick indoors and collect Saddam Hussein
Speaker 3: for your country. Yeah, and then they start testing.
Speaker 1: This was something I didn't know existed. I go to
Speaker 1: boot camp and.
Speaker 3: By the way, until I read your story, I didn't
Speaker 3: know it existed. It's interesting. Yeah, I can't wait to
Speaker 3: share this with our listeners.
Speaker 1: So I, well, I was always told by other old
Speaker 1: Marines like, you don't want to be on a list
Speaker 1: in boot camp, Like just go there, keep your head
Speaker 1: down and just do it.
Speaker 3: Don't You don't want to be on a list a list.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you don't want to. You don't want the drum stection.
Speaker 2: You know your name.
Speaker 1: There's like eighty marines in there, like, don't don't volunteer first.
Speaker 1: This is like a smart It wasn't like the normal
Speaker 1: marine who's like, yeah, you should be guide, you should
Speaker 1: be squad.
Speaker 2: Leader, and they're like okay.
Speaker 1: Then you go there and you know, it's just straight
Speaker 1: punishment for being that in those roles that don't lead
Speaker 1: to anything. And he was he was like, don't be
Speaker 1: on your list, don't like sign up.
Speaker 3: For anything, your head down.
Speaker 1: Hopefully three months goes by they don't know your name,
Speaker 1: like that'd be perfect case scenario. And so within like
Speaker 1: two weeks they come out and they're like Casper, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, ah, crap, I'm on a list.
Speaker 3: And then.
Speaker 1: And it's uh and they call me a special tester.
Speaker 3: And so if you think that meant you were quote special.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, yes, because in high school I didn't
Speaker 1: treat Again, I didn't treat treat academics like there were anything.
Speaker 1: And I knew, I knew I wasn't going to college.
Speaker 1: So when this date standardized tests was put in front
Speaker 1: of me, I was just seeing how fast I can
Speaker 1: get done with it. So I was like ce cee
Speaker 1: cee cee CEECs. Just filled in the legits and I'm
Speaker 1: done and just sit there and watch everyone else work
Speaker 1: or the class gig.
Speaker 2: While the class was going.
Speaker 3: And had a guy. We had a guy in our class.
Speaker 3: He literally Chris. He literally made Christmas trees out of
Speaker 3: the bubble sheets and he also somehow figured out how
Speaker 3: to make a penis on the bubble sheet and that
Speaker 3: was the standardized test. And before he turned it in,
Speaker 3: of course there wasn't phones back then now weak, but
Speaker 3: he was like showing it to people and everybody was
Speaker 3: just down laughing in the proctress and kim me that, yeah,
Speaker 3: he worse than Christmas treated he penised it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's what I That's what I did because
Speaker 1: I didn't treat it like it was anything. And then
Speaker 1: but I did one test I treated like a test,
Speaker 1: and that was the ASVAP to get into military. And
Speaker 1: so then that's why I ended up on this certain list,
Speaker 1: a special testers list, and so there's oh, you know
Speaker 1: how many in boot camp. There's like companies and each
Speaker 1: one so each one starts, like our start date was
Speaker 1: June nine, two thousand and three, and so a week
Speaker 1: later another company would start, and a week later another
Speaker 1: company of recruits would start, and so there was like
Speaker 1: three thousand and one was a whole platoon, three thousand
Speaker 1: and two was a platoon.
Speaker 2: I was three thousand and seven. That's my platoon.
Speaker 1: So there's eighty people. I'm not going to math eighty
Speaker 1: people in each platoon. That's how many Marines are in
Speaker 1: one thing. And then they took everyone who was in
Speaker 1: boot camp at that time, and so I don't know.
Speaker 1: I always say a number, but I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's actually true. But as anywhere between probably one hundred
Speaker 1: and four hundred marines that were on that first sheet
Speaker 1: of special testers.
Speaker 3: And we just go.
Speaker 1: They just pull us out every once in a while,
Speaker 1: and there's probably like twelve from my my platoon specifically,
Speaker 1: they just pull us out. We go meet with like
Speaker 1: a bunch of people, just random people like are you
Speaker 1: an apple or you orange? Kind of people like where
Speaker 1: you fill out a questionnaire and they're like, hey, this
Speaker 1: is your kind of thing. But then asking questions like
Speaker 1: do you talk in your sleep? Do your parents ever
Speaker 1: go out of the country. It was always super weird.
Speaker 1: And so then we just go back to normal training
Speaker 1: like that never happened. And then all of a sudden
Speaker 1: we get I'd call back Rich You're Casper, like you're
Speaker 1: going to this thing again, and I'd go, and it's
Speaker 1: less and less marines each time. And I always joke
Speaker 1: when I get my big talks, I'm like, what's that
Speaker 1: happened to already killing them? Like they get taken them there,
Speaker 1: like getting rid of some of them, pulling them back
Speaker 1: like in my own a survival game.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And then ends up we do this transition from MCRD,
Speaker 1: which is the Marine Recruit Depot in San Diego, and
Speaker 1: we do four weeks at Camp Pendleton, like on the
Speaker 1: actual base for training. And I still remember we were
Speaker 1: up there. I'm like, thank you for being in the
Speaker 1: special tester thing because we're about to go up on
Speaker 1: this huge mountain and you dig in It was a
Speaker 1: whole like thing you had to do during boot camp
Speaker 1: to dig a fighting hole.
Speaker 2: They teach you how to dig a fighting hole.
Speaker 1: But it was in like that bed rock mountain and
Speaker 1: they only give you those small e tools and it's
Speaker 1: you and a buddy who are just like digging this
Speaker 1: thing out. You have to be able to sit in there.
Speaker 1: You have to have a shock, a grenade something there.
Speaker 1: It's just a horrible like nobody's looking forward to it.
Speaker 1: And on the way up and we start digging and
Speaker 1: they pulled me off the mountain. I'm like, sorry, buddy,
Speaker 1: good luck, got to go do some test, dude.
Speaker 3: I get to go answer about my favorite cap YEP.
Speaker 1: And so we go down there, and this time it
Speaker 1: was a one on one interview with a gunnery sergeant
Speaker 1: or first sergeant. And at this level, being like a recruit,
Speaker 1: you see them as like the President of United States,
Speaker 1: vice president. You're you think like, oh my gosh, I
Speaker 1: had to go in there and talk to them, like
Speaker 1: every my whole career rides on this, and you didn't
Speaker 1: know at first what you're a pitching tour. So they
Speaker 1: brought us all the room. There's only twenty of us left,
Speaker 1: roughly twenty of us left. And that's where before they
Speaker 1: tell it first, they tell us you're gonna you have
Speaker 1: to do an interview with these people. But here's what
Speaker 1: you're interviewing for. You guys are either gonna guard you're
Speaker 1: gonna guard the President of the United States, either at
Speaker 1: Camp David or Bowing Air Force Base for uh, what
Speaker 1: do they call it. It's Camp David or White House Communications.
Speaker 1: And we were just like, what, like, this is the
Speaker 1: actual job. And now they put us in. So if
Speaker 1: we weren't nervous enough to do like the whole six
Speaker 1: inches from the table, go in their salute and say,
Speaker 1: you know, good morning, good sergeant, blah blah, and they
Speaker 1: ask you a bunch of questions while you're in parade rest.
Speaker 1: It's like, we're already nervous. Now they're like, oh, and
Speaker 1: you're this this job's on the line. You don't have
Speaker 1: it yet. Here's the job. Now go talk with them
Speaker 1: and see if you get the job. And so talk
Speaker 1: about just like a crazy time.
Speaker 2: And so we go in there.
Speaker 3: I don't wrong way from Washburn.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I blacked out during the cow I don't
Speaker 1: know what I said.
Speaker 2: I don't really remember it.
Speaker 1: I just came out of it and like, I'm probably
Speaker 1: not gonna get that.
Speaker 3: We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: And then later on they said I was selected for
Speaker 1: I got. I got Yankee. They call it Yankee white,
Speaker 1: and it sounds so fake when I tell people. When
Speaker 1: I first started telling people, I was like, yeah, Yankee
Speaker 1: white security clearance, Like who made who wrote that down?
Speaker 1: Is like a good idea for security clearance. But if
Speaker 1: you google it, go to Wikipedia, it's Yankee Yankee white
Speaker 1: category one. It's like the president, Yankee white. Category two
Speaker 1: is a bunch of other people, Yankee white category three,
Speaker 1: and then top secret like those are three above.
Speaker 2: So I was Yankee white.
Speaker 1: Category two because I could hold a loaded weapon next
Speaker 1: to the President, and so I.
Speaker 3: Had to go that's clearance.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so I had to go through that problems.
Speaker 1: And so once I was selected, I was like, there's
Speaker 1: no way I'm gonna actually get it because you're not
Speaker 1: promised the spot there.
Speaker 2: You still have to do.
Speaker 1: It's anywhere from like it could be five months all
Speaker 1: the way up to like you're never going to get
Speaker 1: your clearance because they get to go back to your
Speaker 1: hometown to Washburn and start talking to people. And so
Speaker 1: I was like, oh crab, Oh well we'll see what happens.
Speaker 1: Like put in God's hands, I'll just go. So two
Speaker 1: thousand and three November, I'm going to the School of Infantry,
Speaker 1: which every Marine has to do. And so if you remember,
Speaker 1: in two thousand and three was the first push on
Speaker 1: Fallujah two. So I'm in the School of Infantry. My
Speaker 1: last name is Casper, so like the ghost, no relation
Speaker 1: c aspr. So I have Cartwright, who's right here, car,
Speaker 1: I have Cherry who's over here, Horn who's down here.
Speaker 1: Like they just do it alphabetically, and so these are
Speaker 1: like my my s y mates. Everyone has to learn infantry.
Speaker 1: If your infantry, you go to two months of this
Speaker 1: and then from there they decide where you go out to.
Speaker 1: And so we knew that we were the boot class,
Speaker 1: like the ones who were going to be in that
Speaker 1: purse first push for Fallujah, and we knew there's gonna
Speaker 1: be a lot of death, but I just didn't know
Speaker 1: how much death. But like everyone I just mentioned died
Speaker 1: because they were the first ones over there. And they
Speaker 1: always put the boots to and I say boots because
Speaker 1: it's like the new that's what we call our new
Speaker 1: new guys, new recruits as boots fresh suede. And so
Speaker 1: they're kicking in the door. So's the first one in
Speaker 1: the door, so so many ever, there'd be phone calls like, hey,
Speaker 1: Longoria just died, Hey Horn just died.
Speaker 2: Hey this, And I'm just sitting here. And I didn't
Speaker 2: know you.
Speaker 1: Could have survivor guilt without even going to war, because
Speaker 1: you know, you go over there, you come back, and
Speaker 1: then friends die and you have survivor guilt. I was
Speaker 1: having survivor guilt before I even went, because all the
Speaker 1: friends I thought, I was going on this you're going
Speaker 1: to war trajectory. And when I graduated shy, I went
Speaker 1: Camp David Route, I went to North Carolina to do
Speaker 1: security for school training while I was waiting for my clearance,
Speaker 1: and then i'd go to Washington, d C. At eighth
Speaker 1: and I had to wait for my clearance again and
Speaker 1: just stand posts until they told me I could go
Speaker 1: to Camp David or the White House. And throughout that
Speaker 1: whole eleven month process, it was like this person died,
Speaker 1: this person died. I just didn't want to didn't want
Speaker 1: to hear it anymore.
Speaker 3: You just feel like you were letting down your your guys,
Speaker 3: your comrades, oh, because they were over there kicking indoors, fighting,
Speaker 3: don sweat and bleeding and you're hanging around d C.
Speaker 3: I mean that's what the goat was about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I thought I was letting down myself too,
Speaker 1: Like didn't I make the right show? I could have
Speaker 1: probably if I've really fought not went to Camp David
Speaker 1: and had this cushy job and maybe my trajectory was
Speaker 1: to go die in war.
Speaker 3: And she felt like you were losing credibility as a
Speaker 3: marine that.
Speaker 1: Too, And because when the process came to I now
Speaker 1: am in d C and eleven months goes by after
Speaker 1: just sitting there on security forever, which has its own
Speaker 1: bunch of funny stories. When you're on post for twelve
Speaker 1: hours straight with other Marines, it's crazy.
Speaker 2: But that's a whole other podcast.
Speaker 1: When it finally came down and I chose Camp David
Speaker 1: because it's in the country, I was just like, this
Speaker 1: is awesome. I feel like it's more like you're more
Speaker 1: around the president. It's like more intimate. I went to
Speaker 1: Camp David and there was a process and we could
Speaker 1: talk about Camp David, but there's a fourteen months hit
Speaker 1: and they're like, Okay, you can stay up here now
Speaker 1: if you want the rest of your Marine Corps career.
Speaker 1: You don't have to leave, but we'll give you the option.
Speaker 1: Because we're short on marines up here, and I had
Speaker 1: to choose to leave. I just said there's no way
Speaker 1: because I had so much guilt that I should be
Speaker 1: going over there.
Speaker 3: And I found the president.
Speaker 1: Yeah there was probably was it Bush George w And
Speaker 1: so I got to meet his dad and him, and
Speaker 1: so there's a lot of They don't want you to
Speaker 1: be seen while you're up there, but during church and
Speaker 1: other services, you're in church with him. Because there's only
Speaker 1: one church there. They don't not make you, let you
Speaker 1: not go to church because of it. And so you'd
Speaker 1: interact with him every once in a while. And then
Speaker 1: on Christmas though, he'd bring up his whole family, so
Speaker 1: his dad, his brother's, every like her family, his family camp.
Speaker 3: They spent Christmas at Camp.
Speaker 1: Every Christmas because they didn't want a lot of things
Speaker 1: was they didn't want to spend all that money going
Speaker 1: other places. And then they said, well, you know, the
Speaker 1: base is already secured, we don't have to. They wanted
Speaker 1: their Secret Service to have off. They wanted to have
Speaker 1: a lot of people have off for Christmas, and they
Speaker 1: knew the base was guarded by marines, and so that if.
Speaker 3: They selfless, so a guy could go anywhere he wants to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, every single Christmas. And what he did too was
Speaker 1: took photos with every single person on base, no matter
Speaker 1: what branch you were, whether you're just someone that had
Speaker 1: to come up there every once.
Speaker 2: In a while.
Speaker 1: He'd spend the whole day him and Laura. I have
Speaker 1: like five photos with him only because at Christmas time
Speaker 1: he'd just sit there in the chow hall, small chow hal.
Speaker 1: Every single person on base would get photos with him,
Speaker 1: and they sent Christmas cards with the photos.
Speaker 2: Would you address him, mister president?
Speaker 3: Oh, I know, but you're No, you're but you're the
Speaker 3: squared away marine charged with protecting him. You had to
Speaker 3: be a little bit.
Speaker 1: Well, we were protecting the base. And so when I
Speaker 1: say Garden the President, it was actually Garden Camp David
Speaker 1: and so him when he was there.
Speaker 3: Sure a marine from Washburnollo, NOI And all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: now you're with the president on Christmas. I mean, I
Speaker 3: guess what I'm saying is what was that like?
Speaker 2: I don't know kind of it was.
Speaker 1: I tried to reflect back then on how I felt.
Speaker 1: I thought it was a really cool cool job to have,
Speaker 1: and I thought it was a cool story to tell
Speaker 1: my kids one day, but I didn't.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't hold a lot of people at a higher
Speaker 1: even now in the music industry, like the people I
Speaker 1: could just hit up and call and talk to you.
Speaker 1: I don't feel like they're above me or below me.
Speaker 1: I just feel like they're humans and that I could
Speaker 1: relate to him. So I love I love that the
Speaker 1: status that he was at, but I didn't really treat
Speaker 1: it as if like, oh my god, it's it's the president.
Speaker 1: And I've never really felt that way with anybody, and
Speaker 1: so it was just.
Speaker 3: More of like that way with Alex the producer, just yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: only Alex.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But it was just it was awesome experience and to
Speaker 1: be up there. But there was a funny time during
Speaker 1: two times. One time for Christmas, I was the bell ringer,
Speaker 1: So there's only one marine that gets to do it.
Speaker 1: You dress up in your dress blues, and that means
Speaker 1: you're guaranteed to interact with the president his family because
Speaker 1: I made my dress blues. And when he's coming into church,
Speaker 1: I get to ring the bell as a president comes
Speaker 1: in and be like, you know, Merry Christmas President.
Speaker 2: And then since his father was there too.
Speaker 1: Then it's like, you know, Mery Christmas President twice and
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna meet the whole family. They thank me
Speaker 1: and they walk in because other than that, you're supposed
Speaker 1: to be in church before the president arrives. And this
Speaker 1: is so not around Christmas. And this is back in
Speaker 1: the day too, where phones didn't have camera. A lot
Speaker 1: of Pune some phones had cameras, but you weren't even
Speaker 1: allowed as a marine to have a camera on base.
Speaker 1: Nobody was, and so nobody knows the public wasn't allowed in.
Speaker 1: No cameras were allowed in. These are like you're meeting
Speaker 1: them who they are intimately, what type of people they are.
Speaker 1: And so when we're in church and we look up
Speaker 1: and there there's Gida there with his little kid, and.
Speaker 2: He's like, look at the marine's back.
Speaker 1: There no dancing with him. What he liked when nobody's watching,
Speaker 1: was he really affable?
Speaker 2: And yeah, like he'd come in there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And there's another time where they were like, you have
Speaker 1: to and this is when I first got to Camp David.
Speaker 1: You had to be seated before he got in there.
Speaker 1: And so every marine goes up early. We set up
Speaker 1: a little bit higher in the back, and me and
Speaker 1: my buddy were running so late and we come in
Speaker 1: there and the Major of the base, who's the highest
Speaker 1: ranking person up there, and then the president were right there.
Speaker 1: We're like, we ran in, we thought we're gonna be
Speaker 1: in time, we weren't, and we're just and we just
Speaker 1: kind of froze. And then the major just like because he
Speaker 1: knew weren'tupposed to be there, he's like, come on, guys,
Speaker 1: we're like, oh, mer Christmas president or it wasn't Christmas time.
Speaker 1: He's like he if it's a president, it was like
Speaker 1: right upstairs, like.
Speaker 2: We're gonna get in trouble or something.
Speaker 1: By the way, while I was up there in there,
Speaker 1: this is this is time. I never really told anybody
Speaker 1: outside of there because it just I remember being the spot.
Speaker 1: So you know how they have they have bibles at
Speaker 1: church and you can take the Bibles with you and
Speaker 1: all that. So Camp Dave was no no doubt. They
Speaker 1: always stocked books and bibles there she could take with you.
Speaker 1: And I like, I grab mine and I open it
Speaker 1: up and it says property of William Clinton. And I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take this bible. I got that bible, but
Speaker 1: it was broke Clinton's from Camp David.
Speaker 3: But you stole I did not.
Speaker 1: I took this because it's it's a bible at church.
Speaker 1: You're allowed to take bibles at church, and it was
Speaker 1: back there. Reset It's the same as every other bible.
Speaker 1: So it was like it was made for him while
Speaker 1: he was president. Obviously, so I think George Obama, everyone
Speaker 1: has a Bible that's made for them, whether they use
Speaker 1: it or not. They most likely have their own. So,
Speaker 1: but it was the one that just had the little placard.
Speaker 1: It didn't have a signature that it legitimately just says
Speaker 1: like President Bill Clinton or so.
Speaker 3: Have you gone through every page of that? You might
Speaker 3: find Monel and whisk He's phone number scribbled in it somewhere.
Speaker 3: You never know. I'll shake out. Yeah, I want to
Speaker 3: check it out.
Speaker 2: What you get?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 1: I wanted people to know you could take bibles from church.
Speaker 3: So you're having this incredible experience at Camp David, but
Speaker 3: you also are really fighting survivors guilt and guilt about
Speaker 3: not serving. And when they ask you to stay, you say,
Speaker 3: thank you, mister President, thank you, mister major thank you
Speaker 3: United States. I'm going to serve.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It was my first sergeant who was like, just gave
Speaker 1: me that option, just like hey, by the way, we
Speaker 1: let my other buddy cow and like I think it
Speaker 1: was counting.
Speaker 3: Did you know you were leaving one of the coolest
Speaker 3: jobs in the world to go risk your life.
Speaker 1: I mean that's yeah, because this is you're living at
Speaker 1: Camp David at President's Retreat. Although it wasn't our living
Speaker 1: standards weren't joy nervous. We still had roommates in very
Speaker 1: small rooms, one shower, and like it wasn't the best
Speaker 1: of the best, but it was still a great community.
Speaker 2: But I just had to get out of there. It
Speaker 2: was that what we go back to.
Speaker 1: When you asked if I felt guilty about not serving
Speaker 1: or however you you've said that about myself. I was like,
Speaker 1: I now know I'm not going twenty years. I'm only
Speaker 1: going four years, but I need to serve.
Speaker 3: And that concludes part one of my conversations with Richard Casper,
Speaker 3: and you do not want to miss part too, that's
Speaker 3: now available to listen to. Richard was already serving, I
Speaker 3: mean he was protecting the president, but he means serving
Speaker 3: overseas in a Rock. We'll continue with that story and
Speaker 3: how he's now serving his band of brothers here at
Speaker 3: home in Part two. Together, guys, we can change his country,
Speaker 3: but it'll start with you. I'll see you in Part two.