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Speaker 1: Drop with that, I mean Scotto Jack Murphy is here
Speaker 1: and it is the sixty fifth birthday as a recording
Speaker 1: this today of James Smokey West, Jim West. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: talked to Jim this morning. Uh. He's doing good. He's
Speaker 1: actually meeting with a co author he's working with producing
Speaker 1: a whole series of books. Yeah, which I you know,
Speaker 1: did say to them, I want to see some of
Speaker 1: these see the light of day. I've known Jim at
Speaker 1: this point. I mean you've known him longer than I have,
Speaker 1: but it's probably about seven years because I remember him
Speaker 1: turning sixty and we've been talking about this book. The
Speaker 1: book you helped him with is pretty much done, but
Speaker 1: we needed out I must spend like two years ago.
Speaker 1: I told him the ship or get off the pot,
Speaker 1: you know. Um. But it looks like one of these
Speaker 1: books is going to be out like this week. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So well so he for According to him, there's the
Speaker 1: memoir that you helped him out with, there's the fighting book,
Speaker 1: and now he's doing another book on like near death experiences.
Speaker 1: That's what he said on the phone to me, Um,
Speaker 1: and he's probably gonna come on next week and talk
Speaker 1: about it, but I just want to see these come
Speaker 1: out already. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, well good now, I'm
Speaker 1: glad he's coming on the podcast. Yeah. I love seeing
Speaker 1: Jim And you know, I'm sure we could have him
Speaker 1: back on when you're here, but you're gonna be away
Speaker 1: next week for a little bit, so I'm I'm figuring
Speaker 1: out what I'm gonna do for those and instead of
Speaker 1: doing best of I'll Jim in. I'll have your friend, Um,
Speaker 1: Doug Kachi jian in. Yeah that's great. Yeah. C J. Woodwroff,
Speaker 1: who's been on the show before. It was a former
Speaker 1: marine and big in the fitness world, so I figured
Speaker 1: them two together would make sense. Um. But yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1: Happy birthday to Jim West. As I was telling you
Speaker 1: this past weekend, I had to run a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of errands. It was actually my mom's sixtieth who was celebrating,
Speaker 1: so we had a big party for her. Um and
Speaker 1: I had a lot of time to just listen to things,
Speaker 1: so I watched the entire Alex Jones deposition and of
Speaker 1: the lawyer representing the Sandy Hook Families, um suing Alex Jones,
Speaker 1: which I showed you a little bit of before recorded,
Speaker 1: and this lawyer really destroys Alex Jones with his own words,
Speaker 1: between the fact that he pretty much created the conspiracy
Speaker 1: theory of Sandy Hook Families the day that it was happening,
Speaker 1: saying that it looked like a false flag and all this,
Speaker 1: and you know that I think the best part which
Speaker 1: I showed you was where he said, well, you know,
Speaker 1: he was questioning parts of it, but it wasn't in
Speaker 1: its entirety a false flag. And then there's the clip
Speaker 1: of him saying the whole thing is a hoax. Play
Speaker 1: the clip. Yeah, it's awesome. I have to find I mean,
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, you know, something like Sandy Hook isn't
Speaker 1: something that you know, you necessarily want to laugh about
Speaker 1: or that you associate with comedy. But this segment of
Speaker 1: the deposition is indeed, uh, pretty funny. Though that you
Speaker 1: were showing me a few minutes ago. I'll go back
Speaker 1: to the one we were watching, because that one had
Speaker 1: here we go, I'll be able to find the part
Speaker 1: that we were with that same mess about Sandy Hook.
Speaker 1: This is it. Yeah, this is the best I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't want to call anything best with Sandy Hook,
Speaker 1: but it's just amazing how you know he um can't
Speaker 1: I can't gather basically what he said and hold a
Speaker 1: story together. Answer your questions. Mr Jones, you're gonna tell
Speaker 1: me what stas. Here we go. I'm sorry, I don't
Speaker 1: understand by the spring of or so, let's say just
Speaker 1: a few months after the shooting. By that point, you
Speaker 1: had gone from theory to just straight up telling your
Speaker 1: audience Sandy Hook was staged and the evidence is overwhelming. Correct,
Speaker 1: what a stage? I'm just asking you what you used
Speaker 1: to were telling your audience. No, no no, I'm not answering
Speaker 1: your questions. Mr Jones, You're gonna tell me what stats
Speaker 1: means when you said it. So, what I'm asking you
Speaker 1: is a few months after the shooting, you had gone
Speaker 1: from theory to straight up telling your audience Sandy Hook
Speaker 1: was staged and the evidence was over on me. True
Speaker 1: or false? But I'm asking you to define what you
Speaker 1: mean by staying. I'm not asking. I'm not asking for
Speaker 1: a definition of stage. I don't care what stage means.
Speaker 1: I'm asking did you say it? I don't have it
Speaker 1: in front of me. But they stayed standings just overwhelming.
Speaker 1: By the end of you had personally done intensive research
Speaker 1: and you concluded it was all fake. Correct this specific
Speaker 1: areas I was talking about being fake, not in a totality.
Speaker 1: Go ahead and play that for me. But it couldn't
Speaker 1: be about a year with Sandy hook to coming gridg
Speaker 1: with the fact that the whole thing is fake. I mean,
Speaker 1: even though I couldn't believe, I knew they jumped on
Speaker 1: and used the crisis typed it up, but then I
Speaker 1: did deep research and my gosh, it just pretty much
Speaker 1: didn't happen. Yeah, So if you'd like, there is literally
Speaker 1: I think two and a half plus hours of this
Speaker 1: if you really want to drive yourself crazy. You know,
Speaker 1: I enjoyed watching because it's just the amount of stuff
Speaker 1: that he I mean, the evidences. We talked about it
Speaker 1: the other day when we did that podcast with Joe
Speaker 1: about Oklahoma City, and I mean, Alex is always one
Speaker 1: of those people Oklahoma City is an inside job or
Speaker 1: some sort of conspiracy or government bombed itself. Uh. And
Speaker 1: it's really interesting how you know, his ideas have achieved
Speaker 1: some level of like mainstreaming as far as like otherwise
Speaker 1: normal people starting to buy off on that ship. Like
Speaker 1: I know one guy who's a a former marine, and
Speaker 1: he was telling me how guys in his basic training,
Speaker 1: uh course, believe that Sandy Hook is an inside job,
Speaker 1: despite him telling him how his father, who's a preacher,
Speaker 1: put those kids in the ground like it was there
Speaker 1: for the funerals. And he's like, dude, there's guys like
Speaker 1: Marines I know who think it's an inside job. And
Speaker 1: I think part of the main streaming of in for
Speaker 1: Wards and Alex Jones is also the legitimacy of the
Speaker 1: people he's had on there. I mean, the President has
Speaker 1: been on in full wars, Rand Paul has been on
Speaker 1: in floors believe Ron Paul, Judge Napolitano has been on
Speaker 1: in foros, like a lot of credible people, and he
Speaker 1: puts up strange cats like that guy Steve Pochenek, who
Speaker 1: makes a lot of claims, claims was involved somehow with
Speaker 1: Aldo Moro, the former Italian prime minister who was killed,
Speaker 1: um you know, makes a lot of you know, odd
Speaker 1: claims about being a member of the UM you know,
Speaker 1: Association of Intelligence Professionals. But he also goes on there
Speaker 1: on Alex Jones and says that nine eleven was an
Speaker 1: inside job. It's a it's fucking crazy. Yeah, it's interesting
Speaker 1: what's going to happen with this because there is the
Speaker 1: angle of what is free speech what is actually a
Speaker 1: threat to the families. And if you watch this whole thing,
Speaker 1: the thing that I do, uh many of us, I
Speaker 1: think would agree crosses the line is where he mentions
Speaker 1: the address of a p O box of a nonprofit
Speaker 1: set up by one of the family members, and he
Speaker 1: says exactly where it's located. And as the lawyer correctly states,
Speaker 1: at that point, members of his audience could stake out
Speaker 1: where this guy gets his mail and do something. So
Speaker 1: I don't think it's going to be the subject of
Speaker 1: this particular, you know, lawsuit. But there's also some interesting
Speaker 1: questions about Alex Jones and his relationship with organizations like
Speaker 1: rt uh you know, Russian state sponsored media English language
Speaker 1: media platform that has now Yeah, they have had to
Speaker 1: register now under the Foreign Agent Registration Act. That's one
Speaker 1: thing that happened during the Trump administration. He made a
Speaker 1: bunch of those people register um because they're acting on
Speaker 1: behalf of foreign powers to propagandize the American public and
Speaker 1: the question is how involved is Alex Alex Jones and
Speaker 1: in that, um, the Russians, the Russian intelligence apparatus no
Speaker 1: doubt sees somebody like Alex as a useful patsy. I mean,
Speaker 1: that is the perfect vehicle to drive wedges in Americans
Speaker 1: society and to get us to all fight each other
Speaker 1: and hate each other and to distrust our government. I
Speaker 1: mean it's like okay to have a natural distrust of government,
Speaker 1: but you know, saying our government, you know, blew up
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City and and flew holographic airplanes into the twin
Speaker 1: towers for to conceal a controlled demolition so that they
Speaker 1: could do like this is just like ship that's damaging
Speaker 1: the public discourse and it's not true. You know, it's
Speaker 1: interesting since you mentioned it, I have you know, like
Speaker 1: many of us looked up the conspiracy theories on nine eleven.
Speaker 1: So Alex is not a guy who believes that it
Speaker 1: was holograms. Although what you're saying, there are people who
Speaker 1: really believe that, including a guy who had some position
Speaker 1: I could probably look it up, um related to economics
Speaker 1: in the Bush administration believed it was a hologram that
Speaker 1: flew into the Twin towers. I mean, there's that whole organization.
Speaker 1: Look him up just to fact check here, there's that
Speaker 1: whole organization. I think it's called Architects and Engineers for
Speaker 1: nine eleven truth. And I mean there are people who
Speaker 1: have professional backgrounds and engineering, uh who believe that it
Speaker 1: was a controlled demolition. I mean, it's I don't even
Speaker 1: know what to say. I mean, I'm not an expert
Speaker 1: on demolition, but just my experience in the military, I mean,
Speaker 1: it would take fucking dozens and dozens of people, weeks
Speaker 1: and weeks to tear through uh, you know, walls and
Speaker 1: plant charges against uh you know steel, I beams and
Speaker 1: so forth in the towers, and like what the logic
Speaker 1: just it baffles me how anyone could convince themselves that
Speaker 1: that happened. Well, just to do some fact checking here,
Speaker 1: this is who I'm talking about. Chief economists, former chief
Speaker 1: economists within the Labor Department under the Bush administration. Morgan
Speaker 1: Reynolds argued that there were no planes used in the attacks.
Speaker 1: Reynolds claimed it is physically impossible that the Boeing planes
Speaker 1: of flights eleven and one could have penetrated the steel
Speaker 1: frames of the towers. And when I click on his name.
Speaker 1: This is from Wikipedia just you know, but um, just
Speaker 1: just I'd have to go through all the sources to
Speaker 1: actually find the legitimate sources. But um, he is a
Speaker 1: member of Scholars for nine eleven Truth, the group that
Speaker 1: you're talking about. So wow, it's uh yeah, I mean otherwise,
Speaker 1: you know, saying rational people get this stuff into their head.
Speaker 1: And it's one of those things where, um, and I
Speaker 1: know I've talked about this in the past two I
Speaker 1: mean in the Middle East, conspiracy theories are huge, and
Speaker 1: people think the CIA does everything like that, Like if
Speaker 1: it rains that people think the CIA did that. It's
Speaker 1: one of those things where Okay, there's a little bit
Speaker 1: of truth that there are these like secret covert players
Speaker 1: meddling around in Middle Eastern affairs, right, but a lot
Speaker 1: of people see that five percent is true, and then
Speaker 1: they assume everything is true, right, that every weirdo conspiracy
Speaker 1: theory is true, and then it gets under the Illuminati
Speaker 1: and the Masons and the Jews and all this crazy shit.
Speaker 1: And it's the same thing here in the United States.
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, our government lies to us sometimes, but
Speaker 1: people will take that five percent and then just well
Speaker 1: that means that Sandy Hook was an inside job and
Speaker 1: nine eleven was an inside job, and all this like
Speaker 1: just zany bullshit. Uh, it's really um you know, conspiracy
Speaker 1: theorists are kind of a case study and how people
Speaker 1: have a difficult time discerning facts from fiction. Um our
Speaker 1: our brains are pattern recognition devices in some ways. And
Speaker 1: and Alex plays on that. Alex Jones plays on that,
Speaker 1: and he says, look this one thing over here, like
Speaker 1: even in that that position, we were watching references Operation Northwoods,
Speaker 1: which is a plan that a real it was a
Speaker 1: real plan that I believe was drafted by the Dullest brothers,
Speaker 1: which would have been a false flag operation. And uh,
Speaker 1: it never happened, It never got off the ground. I
Speaker 1: think JFK shut it down. Uh. But Alex will reference
Speaker 1: that plan that was never executed as somehow de facto
Speaker 1: proof that Sandy Hook or nine eleven were inside jobs.
Speaker 1: It's like, no, bro, that's not how logic works. Like
Speaker 1: we don't get to go into the past and cherry
Speaker 1: pick a proposed plan that was never executed and use
Speaker 1: that as some sort of weird uh quote unquote evidence.
Speaker 1: Not every mass shooting or terrorist strike is an inside job.
Speaker 1: It doesn't work like that. Yeah, I wonder what's going
Speaker 1: to happen, because, like I said, it does fall under
Speaker 1: the issues of free speech and even under the harassment
Speaker 1: of the families thing. For example, you have that um
Speaker 1: Westboro Baptist church that that boycott's soldiers, funerals and all
Speaker 1: friends to discussing things. But they are covered under the
Speaker 1: First Amendment to do what they do. And you could
Speaker 1: certainly say that's harassment of the families. So if they're
Speaker 1: able to do that, why is Alex not able to
Speaker 1: put his crazy theories out on the air. And and
Speaker 1: I am a free speech advocate at the same time,
Speaker 1: I don't feel it's okay for these families to be harassed.
Speaker 1: So it's, uh, it's a tough call, and we'll see
Speaker 1: what actually happens. And you know, if he loses a
Speaker 1: lot of money in this. And he's already pretty much
Speaker 1: been d platforms by just about everybody, but he's always
Speaker 1: his website, I mean for Alex, I mean, that's like
Speaker 1: that's like a selling point, right for him, because like
Speaker 1: I'm the alternative on the on the real deal, you know,
Speaker 1: come to me. But yeah, I mean he's been doing
Speaker 1: this stuff for years and years. It's interesting that Sandy
Speaker 1: Hook finally got him. And I think you're right that
Speaker 1: it's because he probably went after the families specifically UH
Speaker 1: as opposed to some of the other events. But I
Speaker 1: mean he's been any kind of incident that happens, I mean, terrorism, shooting,
Speaker 1: whatever it is, it's always an inside job. I don't
Speaker 1: think we've ever seen Alex Jones be like, Nope, this
Speaker 1: is just a crazy this is this is a crazy person,
Speaker 1: or no, the government's right, this was al Qaeda did this?
Speaker 1: All right? We have Jeff Kirkham standing by, who I
Speaker 1: am excited to talk to. But I'll get to this
Speaker 1: very quick email, UM, which is kind of more for
Speaker 1: me because is something that I mentioned. Um. This is
Speaker 1: from John sent a softwarep dot radio at softwarep dot com.
Speaker 1: Hey guys, on episode two nine three, you talked about
Speaker 1: the Deck of Cards workout. Could you explain more? Thank you?
Speaker 1: So that was when we had Seawan Lake on from
Speaker 1: Bub's Naturals, and I guess I must have mentioned it
Speaker 1: because I worked out with Brandon at his gym one
Speaker 1: day actually, like before I got hired full time, and
Speaker 1: him and Michael Colm Echo from who hosts the show
Speaker 1: on on PBS. We did this workout where you would
Speaker 1: um do the amount of push ups for the corresponding
Speaker 1: for the car the number corresponding on the card. So
Speaker 1: I looked this up and it actually is from a
Speaker 1: uh Swick and WC site. So I guess this is
Speaker 1: kind of common in the navy. Uh, but they they
Speaker 1: have a few more rules. So it's I didn't know
Speaker 1: how much you did for the like, um Jack, Queen
Speaker 1: King and what it says here is the Jack you
Speaker 1: do eleven, Queen, you do twelve? Can you do thirteen?
Speaker 1: Ace you do fourteen. Now we didn't do this. It
Speaker 1: says hearts you do normal push ups, Diamonds you do
Speaker 1: diamond push ups, clubs you do staggered push ups, Spades
Speaker 1: you do wide arm push ups. And they did the
Speaker 1: whole deck. I did not do the deck. Uh. And
Speaker 1: they're would you know, significantly older than me. However, to
Speaker 1: your body, well, to my credit, here's the thing. When
Speaker 1: I do push ups, I do real you know, standard
Speaker 1: form push ups, and for the most part, honestly, unless
Speaker 1: you're um, I'm trying to think of someone who's been
Speaker 1: you know, Dell Comstock or something, it is pretty fucking
Speaker 1: hard to do hundreds of like perfect form push ups.
Speaker 1: So when we first started this workout, I'm doing regular
Speaker 1: push ups and then you're kind of doing half as
Speaker 1: push ups at a certain point because it equals up
Speaker 1: to hundreds of push ups that you're doing at once.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that was it, and if you want to
Speaker 1: try it, it's pretty interesting doing the full deck. But personally,
Speaker 1: I would rather keep my form correct and not be
Speaker 1: prone to injury and as opposed to doing a full
Speaker 1: deck of cards with all these push ups. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the uh, that's the answer to that. With that
Speaker 1: for the first time on the podcast is a guy
Speaker 1: who has an extremely um impressive resume, aft say, an
Speaker 1: impressive background. Jeff Kirkham Army Special Forces twenty eight years
Speaker 1: of service and currently a Master sergeant, former special Agent
Speaker 1: with the d e A. And beyond that, he's the
Speaker 1: president and inventor with Rats turn a Kid, LLC and
Speaker 1: owner of Readymon LLC. Where you're a military thriller author.
Speaker 1: Your latest book is The Last Air Force One with
Speaker 1: Jason Ross, which is on shelves. Now, I know you
Speaker 1: also speak several languages. I mean, there's a lot to
Speaker 1: get into, but very impressive background and very excited to
Speaker 1: have you join us. Hey, thank thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. And and then just for the just
Speaker 1: for the record, I'm retired. I'm I'm not currently a
Speaker 1: mass surge anymore. I my spurs a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure that because I must have seen some
Speaker 1: bios that looked like you were still active duty that
Speaker 1: might not have been updated. So I wasn't sure to
Speaker 1: write if you were a veteran or active duty. No,
Speaker 1: it's no, It's okay, but yeah, no, not active. I
Speaker 1: retired a couple of years ago, and about the time
Speaker 1: we started spending up all of these all of these businesses. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was familiar with ready Man. So it's pretty cool. UM.
Speaker 1: And I mean, I guess we can get into all
Speaker 1: that um as well. But do you want to talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about, you know, going into the military.
Speaker 1: This is kind of a standard question. I asked most
Speaker 1: of our guests to kind of start at the beginning.
Speaker 1: You know, what motivated you to join the military and
Speaker 1: take the path that you did. Um. You know, that's
Speaker 1: a great question. I know, Murphy, were you were an SFU. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was in the fifth group and then Ian we're
Speaker 1: you know, I miss, I'm strictly a radio guy who
Speaker 1: gets to hang out with you guys. Well I mean, Jackal,
Speaker 1: Jackal appreciate this. So I actually I joined nineteenth group
Speaker 1: when I was seventeen years old out here in Utah,
Speaker 1: and um, like how I got started is like all
Speaker 1: I ever want to do is be in Special Forces.
Speaker 1: Like ever since the third grade, I wanted to be
Speaker 1: a Green Beret and that was you know, that was it.
Speaker 1: And then that was probably cemented in because I saw
Speaker 1: like John Wayne and the Green Berets and I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: this is this is it. And so um, I joined
Speaker 1: when I was seventeen. And then back then there was
Speaker 1: no computers, that was, and so my my recruiter worked
Speaker 1: the system. So I actually went to basic training and
Speaker 1: then jump school between my junior and senior year of
Speaker 1: high school, and then came back as a senior in
Speaker 1: high school, you know, thinking I was a big bad paratrooper,
Speaker 1: which we all know is like man, I didn't know anything,
Speaker 1: but but and then I graduated high school two weeks later, boom,
Speaker 1: I was went back to eleven Bravo school back at
Speaker 1: Benning back then it was they're called Rep. Sixty three's
Speaker 1: Now they're called eighteen X rays. And in the aftermath
Speaker 1: of Eagle Claw, right they started, they were called SF
Speaker 1: babies back in those days, weren't that. Yep, I was
Speaker 1: an SF baby. So all I ever knew was was
Speaker 1: Special Forces and so, yeah, very much so. And so
Speaker 1: I went to Infantry school and then graduated the Q
Speaker 1: course and then UM, all through the nineties, I was
Speaker 1: in first Special Forces Group, so I was a First
Speaker 1: Group guy, and then I got out and UM went
Speaker 1: back to nineteenth Group. And that's when I was a
Speaker 1: special agent with Drug Enforcement Administration. And then the war
Speaker 1: kicked off, and I was a team sergeant by that time,
Speaker 1: and UM so led a team on the invasion of Iraq.
Speaker 1: And then while I was over there, got uh you know,
Speaker 1: essentially there was a counter tourist unit that was spinning up.
Speaker 1: So they basically they said, hey, we are spending this
Speaker 1: unit up. Are you interested? So I said, yep. So
Speaker 1: I did all the interview and all that process. Came home.
Speaker 1: Uh about three months. I came home, basically left d
Speaker 1: e A, resigned from d e A, and then headed
Speaker 1: straight back over and so as in that unit for
Speaker 1: the next thirteen years. UM, where I'd met, you know,
Speaker 1: some unbelievably outstanding people like Wally that if you in
Speaker 1: his video on Black Rifle Coffee. I haven't known Wally
Speaker 1: since two thousand and three, two thousand and four, and
Speaker 1: a bunch of other days, a bunch of the Afghans
Speaker 1: that we all help each other out here in Utah
Speaker 1: now so, and then about three or four years ago
Speaker 1: we started, you know, several businesses. Um. Evan and I.
Speaker 1: Evan hey For and I were in Special Forces together
Speaker 1: and um, so we you know, that's when rady Man
Speaker 1: was spending up. RATS was already in existence, but I
Speaker 1: pulled it back. I'd license it out to a to
Speaker 1: a different company, and then pulled that back and then
Speaker 1: Black Rifle Coffee spun up about that time. And UM yeah,
Speaker 1: and as they say, the rest is history. What was
Speaker 1: that like? UM? You know, first of all, you must
Speaker 1: have seen the Special Operations community, UM go through a
Speaker 1: massive transformation from what you said you joined in eighty seven,
Speaker 1: graduated the Q course and eighty nine, going through SF
Speaker 1: in the nineties and then seeing everything develop after nine
Speaker 1: eleven must have been pretty wild. UM. I want to
Speaker 1: ask you about that. But also you know, splashing down
Speaker 1: from military life to you know, starting these entrepreneurial endeavors.
Speaker 1: That must have been another big culture shift. It definitely
Speaker 1: it was. And and yes, saw the military change like
Speaker 1: when I was at Group Um, you know for the
Speaker 1: first up until we got issued in fours in nineteen
Speaker 1: Let's see, that was n seven seven is when we
Speaker 1: finally got you know, so we had old school in
Speaker 1: sixteen eight two s and we're still wearing like the
Speaker 1: suspenders from Vietnam and you know, the only guys that
Speaker 1: could do close quarter battle where the s OT teams
Speaker 1: in the sophardic teams, and you know, of course, and
Speaker 1: then the work kicked off and I mean that that
Speaker 1: got completely blown out of the water and it was like, man,
Speaker 1: we gotta change this and so um. But yeah, and
Speaker 1: that's you know, one of the reasons why I end
Speaker 1: up going to d E A and so DA. I
Speaker 1: was on what was called the Mobile Enforcement Team and
Speaker 1: just had a blast. I was up in Seattle and
Speaker 1: at that time, believe it or not, you know, I
Speaker 1: had long I had hair down in the middle of
Speaker 1: my back and a long beard, and and I was
Speaker 1: buying heroin from bikers and from you know, Latin Kings
Speaker 1: and the Asians and buying ecstasy and crack, and it
Speaker 1: was it was a blast and kicked a lot of doors.
Speaker 1: Um we're you know, at one point, we're doing about
Speaker 1: a warrant a day there. For in some instances it
Speaker 1: was it was great. It was the s F mission
Speaker 1: essentially domestically. So I had a blast. I did. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was kind of asked all that experience doing like
Speaker 1: undercover work and human stuff, um, play into how you
Speaker 1: pursued your job in the military as the War on
Speaker 1: Terror kicked off, because there probably weren't a lot of
Speaker 1: other guys who had that kind of experience at the time. Well,
Speaker 1: and that's why, I mean, that's essentially that's why I
Speaker 1: got recruited into the CT. And it was because I
Speaker 1: had a bunch of experience kicking doors and because doing
Speaker 1: you know, at that time, medical training was very new. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, they called it combat lifesaver back then, and
Speaker 1: so I was you know, I've been through I'd be
Speaker 1: in an e M T for in fifteen years at
Speaker 1: that time. And I was never a quote, I was
Speaker 1: never a medic. I was never skill identified as a medic,
Speaker 1: but they sent me to a bunch of training and
Speaker 1: then that act on that. So yeah, so when I
Speaker 1: got recruited by the by the CT unit, then that
Speaker 1: was definitely. You know, they were like many got a
Speaker 1: ton of experience handling sources and and putting together association
Speaker 1: matrixes and it's like, hey, are you interested? And I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, so that's pretty cool. What year did
Speaker 1: you end up retiring from active duty? It was at
Speaker 1: sixteen I think, two thousand and sixteen, I think, So
Speaker 1: I was I was went back to the Guard and
Speaker 1: I actually ended up retiring out of the Guard out
Speaker 1: here at nineteenth group. So I had a very non
Speaker 1: typical um military career because I was Guard and then
Speaker 1: active and the Guard and then active and bouncing around
Speaker 1: and stuff, always you know, essentially looking for you know,
Speaker 1: looking for the mission, if I could describe it one
Speaker 1: in one term. And when you were kind of getting
Speaker 1: to that point where you were thinking about retirement, I mean,
Speaker 1: did you have a plan in place, was there an
Speaker 1: idea of what you wanted to go into or was
Speaker 1: it as many of us, you know, my I did
Speaker 1: the stereotypical thing and played video games in my mom's
Speaker 1: basement the first month after I got out of the army. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know it's funny, is um I had, I had,
Speaker 1: I had written two books on leadership for you know,
Speaker 1: for military planning for small unit leaders um at that point.
Speaker 1: They're my first two books that I had written. And then, UM,
Speaker 1: So to answer your question that I have a plan,
Speaker 1: I mean no, I was. I was kind of doing
Speaker 1: the you know, not to bash on seals, but I
Speaker 1: was kind of doing the Navy seal thing. I would
Speaker 1: figure it out on the ground, you know. And and
Speaker 1: and Evan and I basically you know, came here and
Speaker 1: even lived in my basement of my house for a
Speaker 1: little bit. You know. My wife was a was a
Speaker 1: special agent, so she, um, she was able to you know,
Speaker 1: basically help out while we were trying to get stuff
Speaker 1: up and moving and spending on it. But but you know,
Speaker 1: being an entrepreneurs is amazing, especially in today's day and age,
Speaker 1: because there's just so much opportunity and it's and it's constant.
Speaker 1: I call it the enigma of business, where you're constantly
Speaker 1: problem solving and it very very much reminds me of
Speaker 1: of working in special forces. That's got to be interesting
Speaker 1: to have that dynamic of your wife also being an agent.
Speaker 1: I mean, we've had Sam Faddison, whose former CIA and
Speaker 1: he was in that position where his wife was. Yes,
Speaker 1: they even worked together once in a while. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So my wife has a similar background and that she
Speaker 1: left that and then became a special agent out here
Speaker 1: in Utah because we had reached the point we started
Speaker 1: having kids a little bit later in life, and so
Speaker 1: it was like, well, you know, let's let's settle down
Speaker 1: here in Utah. That's cool to Albert. So she understands,
Speaker 1: you know, she knows the deal absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: she did. She did two tours in Afghanistan and I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh ship, I mean so she was
Speaker 1: on what were they the fast teams? Uh no, No,
Speaker 1: she was that. That was back when she was with
Speaker 1: the agency. So she did too. She did two tours
Speaker 1: over there. Okay, got you. And then she she left,
Speaker 1: She left that place and and came over and was
Speaker 1: a special agent afterwards after we started essentially spinning down.
Speaker 1: You know. It's one of those things where my last
Speaker 1: trip overseas it it turned out it was a it
Speaker 1: was a really rough trip, probably the most sketchy. I
Speaker 1: had had out of the you know, the thirteen years
Speaker 1: over there, and um, when I was leaving, my oldest
Speaker 1: at that time was like two years old or three
Speaker 1: years old, and he knew that I was leaving again.
Speaker 1: You know. My wife was dropping me off at the
Speaker 1: airport because I was always I mean I was gone
Speaker 1: and back gone and back gone and back and u. Um.
Speaker 1: So he's he's sitting in his carsey looking down at
Speaker 1: his feet, and I'm like, hey, Papa is leaving, you know,
Speaker 1: give me a hug and a kiss, and and he
Speaker 1: he wouldn't look at me. And as a new dad,
Speaker 1: you know, as in my forties, you know, when I
Speaker 1: had my first son, and as a new dad, when
Speaker 1: my son went and look at me when I'm getting
Speaker 1: ready to leave, it was like, man, this this isn't
Speaker 1: cool anymore. This kind of sucks. And then uh, and
Speaker 1: then I had a I had a really rough trip
Speaker 1: that that almost went you know, fatal, and it was
Speaker 1: coming back. It was like, man, you know what I've
Speaker 1: done everything I ever dreamed of doing in the military
Speaker 1: times you know, times five, you know, and so you know,
Speaker 1: I think I think I'm you know, it's one of
Speaker 1: those things where it's like I think I'm good, I
Speaker 1: think I want to try a new challenge, try something else,
Speaker 1: you know, after all those years, I mean, I think
Speaker 1: you earned the right to have a life and to
Speaker 1: have a family. Yeah. And and at that point too,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm forty nine now. At the time, I
Speaker 1: was in my mid forties. You know, I'd blown my ankle,
Speaker 1: I've broken my leg, I'd blown my knee, I've broken
Speaker 1: my back, you know, multiple herniated disks because I ripped
Speaker 1: my shoulder out on a target, and I've fallen off
Speaker 1: walls and roofs and lost mostly hearing in one of
Speaker 1: my ears, and you know, it's TV eyes. And so
Speaker 1: it was one of those things I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: I just I don't I don't get up quite as
Speaker 1: fast as I used to, and when I fall down,
Speaker 1: man it it it just keeps hurting the next day
Speaker 1: and the next day. So yeah, it was definitely one
Speaker 1: of those times I was like, yeah, I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna try something else. That's that's cool that you recognized
Speaker 1: that and you were ready to leave on your own terms. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, and it was also one of those things,
Speaker 1: you know, being a dad. It was, Man, I want
Speaker 1: to see my family and I want to you know,
Speaker 1: I want to go home at night and and I
Speaker 1: want to look at It's like, well, I want to.
Speaker 1: I want to try and retire, and I'm an inventor.
Speaker 1: I've got multiple patents, and you know, nothing is better
Speaker 1: to me. You know, spending time with my family is
Speaker 1: the best thing. The second best thing is tinkering on
Speaker 1: some new design or invention in my shop. And then
Speaker 1: third is you know, is writing and doing stuff with
Speaker 1: a ready Man. So yeah, tell us how you know
Speaker 1: ready Man and the rat and all that stuff came about? Um,
Speaker 1: what was that? All these kind of like the genesis
Speaker 1: of you messing around in your garage with things. I mean,
Speaker 1: how did that? How did all that happen? It was like,
Speaker 1: I come from a family of of kind of mechanics
Speaker 1: and tinkers, and so I guess it's kind of in
Speaker 1: my DNA. And um, so we were on a target
Speaker 1: one night, was an Afghanistan. We were on a target
Speaker 1: and you know, we're very night biased, so we're always
Speaker 1: working at night, and so essentially to kind of set
Speaker 1: the stage for you, i'd be there'd be three or
Speaker 1: four American and advisors, and we'd have one to two
Speaker 1: hundred Afghans that we would be lead, training and advising.
Speaker 1: So we're very small, very very small elements that we're
Speaker 1: running with these guys. So we'd run them through training
Speaker 1: during the day. So we'd recruit these guys out of the
Speaker 1: the mountains, run them through a condensed training cycle, and
Speaker 1: then abouts the target packets that start coming in and
Speaker 1: we'd say, okay, we go in. We'd kick into the
Speaker 1: uh the planning process, and then as soon as it
Speaker 1: started getting dark, it was like, okay, get your rifles
Speaker 1: and we'd go hit targets with these guys. So one night,
Speaker 1: we're going after a target that had some a q
Speaker 1: h vt s in it, and we got compromised and
Speaker 1: so the guy started shooting, you know, he had a
Speaker 1: a k started shooting through the through the gate, hit
Speaker 1: two of my Afghan commandos and the legs. So we
Speaker 1: jumped up there and dragged those guys out a line
Speaker 1: of fire, you know, while we're directing because the fights
Speaker 1: on you know, and um so I one point I
Speaker 1: looked down at the medics to make sure that these
Speaker 1: guys were doing okay. So it was Afghan medics working
Speaker 1: on Afghan commandos and guys that I had all trained,
Speaker 1: me and the other advisors had all trained. And UM
Speaker 1: I sat there and I vividly remember these these guys
Speaker 1: having problems with the tourniquet that we were issued at
Speaker 1: the time. You know, we were wearing gloves and we
Speaker 1: were wearing m v g's. It was dark, very high stress.
Speaker 1: You know, we're down in a ditch um and and
Speaker 1: it just you know, it's like that snapshot in time.
Speaker 1: I was like, kind of, that's interesting. And then you know,
Speaker 1: went back and got you know, finished cleaning up the target,
Speaker 1: and you know, and then later on those those same
Speaker 1: guys that were wounded, we're working on a metavact forum
Speaker 1: and you know, they were there trying to pull the
Speaker 1: skin had gotten pulled up into the went onto the
Speaker 1: uh you know, into the buckles and stuff, and so
Speaker 1: they were trying to pull the the turning kids off
Speaker 1: and they had saved their lives. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: fast forward about three months later, I had rotated back
Speaker 1: to the States and UM I'd usually come home, you know,
Speaker 1: I do about a hundred and twenty days, you undred
Speaker 1: and twenty days. I'd come home for about thirty days
Speaker 1: and then I'd go back over. So anyways, i'd come
Speaker 1: back home, and I was training some Air Force Prayer
Speaker 1: Rescue and some pj's and a very high stress course
Speaker 1: there at the end of the pipeline and a lot
Speaker 1: of simmunitions fire and and we were inducing casualties, right,
Speaker 1: And so I was standing up on the catwalk and
Speaker 1: we're like, hey, put a tourniquet on that man's leg,
Speaker 1: put a tourniquet on that guy's arm. And uh. I
Speaker 1: was sitting up on the cat while looking down at
Speaker 1: these pj's and they were having the same problems that
Speaker 1: my Afghans were having. What type of tourniquets were these?
Speaker 1: The cat tourniquet At the time, it was the one
Speaker 1: we're issued. I don't I don't like to point in
Speaker 1: fingers at anybody. There was you know, we were issued
Speaker 1: three or four at the time, and and you know,
Speaker 1: I try not to point fingers, and so and I
Speaker 1: just looked down and I saw these uh pj struggling
Speaker 1: um wearing gloves, wearing m VG's high stress in the
Speaker 1: same way, struggling the same way that my Afghans had.
Speaker 1: And so at that point it was like Man, this
Speaker 1: isn't this isn't a this isn't a training issue. This
Speaker 1: is a design issue. And so that's when I started
Speaker 1: down the path of like, man, is there anything else?
Speaker 1: I looked and couldn't find anything, and you know, and
Speaker 1: then one night I was I was watching a TV
Speaker 1: show of a of a little kid wrapping a rubber
Speaker 1: band around her finger, and the finger progressively turned blue.
Speaker 1: And so that was a that was that epiphanal moment
Speaker 1: where it was like, wait a minute, why can't I
Speaker 1: make up the width of a tourniquet with with circumferential
Speaker 1: wraps and why can't I use elastic? And so I
Speaker 1: went back and I found, you know a little while later,
Speaker 1: you know, the Internet was really slow back then still
Speaker 1: and what year was this, Jeff, This was like oh seven,
Speaker 1: six oh seven, and and so you know, there was
Speaker 1: just limited that. You know, there's a ton of information
Speaker 1: on the net now, it was limited back then and
Speaker 1: stuff was slow. And anyways, I found a paper that
Speaker 1: was written by two surgeons and from World War Two,
Speaker 1: and they advocated surgical tubing for for tourniquets, surgical tubing
Speaker 1: wrapped multiple times. And so I was like, well, Okay,
Speaker 1: there's there's some there's some evidence there. And then I
Speaker 1: found a Canadian study that the Canadians had done where
Speaker 1: they had tested a variety of tourniquets. This in the
Speaker 1: Canadian the Canadian study was pre cat and pre softe
Speaker 1: tourniquet and so those were not tested in the study.
Speaker 1: And and they and they had wrapped. They had found
Speaker 1: that surgical tube being wrapped multiple times was the best
Speaker 1: tourniquet that they had. And so it was like that
Speaker 1: moment where I was like, Okay, eureka, all I have
Speaker 1: to do is figure out a way to start the
Speaker 1: tourniquet easier, because they had complained it was hard to
Speaker 1: start the surgical tubing and it was hard to finish
Speaker 1: what's happen. I imagine it would be hard to tie
Speaker 1: off especially it was it was hard to tie off.
Speaker 1: It was you can't really do it one handed. And
Speaker 1: so um so I started working. And because I've been
Speaker 1: a scuba guy, I uh so the cleat that I
Speaker 1: used now is the you know, the metal portion is
Speaker 1: like a boat cleat. So it's a combination of a
Speaker 1: boat cleat and a red devil, so an explosive reaching
Speaker 1: use a little plastic piece. It's called the red devil,
Speaker 1: the tie into your reaching charge, and so it's kind
Speaker 1: of a it's a combination. The inspiration was those two
Speaker 1: things meshed together and then the the trucker's hitched the
Speaker 1: loop on the end that gives you the mechanical advantage
Speaker 1: you know, was a not that geez we used like
Speaker 1: all the time and the military time and time stuff
Speaker 1: down and so boom after that it was born. And
Speaker 1: so we tested it and we're doing a lot of
Speaker 1: trauma training at the time, and tested it out there
Speaker 1: and we were stopping arterial bleeds and moving the patient
Speaker 1: before other teams that even begun move, turning the windless
Speaker 1: and so that's where it's like, Okay, I really got
Speaker 1: something here. This is pretty cool. And so then so
Speaker 1: I didn't run into you know, conflicts and stuff. I
Speaker 1: licensed it out to a defense contractor and then brought
Speaker 1: that back after I, you know, stopped going overseas. So
Speaker 1: did uh, I mean, did this tourniquet start getting used
Speaker 1: in a field environment? I mean, was was this something
Speaker 1: that you were able to give to you know, Afghan
Speaker 1: commandos or whoever else to to start using. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: the so the company that the company that had licensed
Speaker 1: it from me, they don't exist anymore. But uh, it
Speaker 1: was Blackheart International and we sent you know, they sent
Speaker 1: thousands of these things overseas to the to the Iraqis
Speaker 1: because you know, back then it was you know, Iraq
Speaker 1: was going hard and heavy as well as to um
Speaker 1: to Afghanistan, to the different indig programs that were going
Speaker 1: on over there, and I imagine these things must have
Speaker 1: seen action in the field, right, Oh yeah, yeah, we
Speaker 1: we'd hear we'd hear reports. I mean, you can't. It's
Speaker 1: trying to get info back from overseas, especially when you're
Speaker 1: dealing with you know, Afghans and Iraqis. Trying to get
Speaker 1: info back was you know, it's always trial and tribulation,
Speaker 1: right and so, but we definitely here where it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: they use your turn get on a guy and and
Speaker 1: it worked and you know, the guys alive and and
Speaker 1: so we get reports like that back. But it wasn't.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until I released it domestically that you know,
Speaker 1: we started getting you know, people would actually call us
Speaker 1: and say, hey, I just use the turn to get
Speaker 1: to save my life. That's really cool that, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's got to be gratifying. How did how did that
Speaker 1: come about? And then when when black Heart their license expires,
Speaker 1: you take back control of your invention and then you
Speaker 1: started marketing it domestically. Yeah, So it was about that
Speaker 1: time I was I wasn't going overseas anymore, and that's
Speaker 1: you know, ready Man was ending up at that time,
Speaker 1: and Rats have been kind of going a little bit,
Speaker 1: you know, and that was part of the reinvention of
Speaker 1: oneself where it was learning social media. So going from
Speaker 1: a life of amanimity to you essentially getting on social
Speaker 1: media to you know, social media is such a huge
Speaker 1: marketing tool that's available and um, and so getting you know,
Speaker 1: getting on there and and it started going out to
Speaker 1: folks at that time, like Turning Kids, Turney Kids are
Speaker 1: brand new in the domestic market. I mean we're only
Speaker 1: talking you know, the last five six years. Five years,
Speaker 1: I mean five years ago, people were still saying, don't
Speaker 1: use TURNI kids. You're going to use the lamb. It's
Speaker 1: a thing of last resort. And that's kind of like
Speaker 1: what Jack had mentioned is like the tactics and the
Speaker 1: change and in special operations up to now, like back
Speaker 1: in the nineties, Um, the you know the trauma. If
Speaker 1: you came upon somebody in trauma, then the protocol was
Speaker 1: two large bore I vs. Bolus the bags, which means
Speaker 1: squeeze the bags, get as much fluid into them as possible,
Speaker 1: and then turniquet is of last resort. Now fast forward
Speaker 1: and it's like there's no fluid resuscitation that's done. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's only medication that's done. But but like lactated ringers
Speaker 1: or sobody, and none of that gets dumped into people
Speaker 1: anymore because I mean because it doesn't work. And then
Speaker 1: and then tourniquets or the first resort. So we've seen
Speaker 1: we've seen a complete reversal of what stuff had been.
Speaker 1: So that was a big change, you know, in the
Speaker 1: in the medicine at least as well as you know
Speaker 1: some of the tactics from overseas. Jack, I don't know
Speaker 1: when you got in, but you remember, like pre war,
Speaker 1: all the time we would spend learning how to do
Speaker 1: I V s. It was, you know, do an ivy
Speaker 1: then when you got good at it, do an I
Speaker 1: V in a car when it's moving when I think
Speaker 1: got good at that, and do I VS at night?
Speaker 1: And then do I VS. You know with n VGs
Speaker 1: and just a ton of time spent learning how to
Speaker 1: do I v S. But I came in in two
Speaker 1: thousand two, so the war was popping off two thousand
Speaker 1: three through RIP. So that was kind of my introduction
Speaker 1: to you know, what, what do we call it at
Speaker 1: that time, Ranger first Responder, I think RfR UM. And
Speaker 1: yet there's definitely quite a bit of focus on putting
Speaker 1: in a saline lock UM and I think they were
Speaker 1: probably coming to grips at that time with what you
Speaker 1: were describing that, you know, we're putting in a saline
Speaker 1: lock in case the veins and arteries collapse, so we
Speaker 1: can introduce UM pharmaceuticals and so on if needed. UM.
Speaker 1: But you're right that there was that this attitude about
Speaker 1: pumping the lactated ringer, as if that's going to replace
Speaker 1: blood loss, which you know, of course we all know
Speaker 1: that it doesn't. Yeah, I mean the thought was, is
Speaker 1: you know, you're you're preventing hype of The idea was
Speaker 1: we know this is wrong now, but you're preventing hype
Speaker 1: of limage shock because you're keeping the volume up in
Speaker 1: the bodies of the heart can keep pumping. And it
Speaker 1: was actually I believe it was so calm. I got
Speaker 1: to find the study that they figured it out doing
Speaker 1: tissue labs that that doing the fluid resuscitation and was
Speaker 1: was not doing anybody any favors. And to let the body,
Speaker 1: you know, let the body kind of keep do what
Speaker 1: it needs to do to survive, and that slowing down
Speaker 1: the heart rate actually isn't a bad thing, and letting
Speaker 1: the letting the wound clot up rather than just flushing
Speaker 1: it with l rs, you know. And and then I mean,
Speaker 1: I think the law enforcement community has had the same
Speaker 1: like institutional rigidity or lack of lack of wanting to
Speaker 1: accept the research. Well, yeah, and you know in law
Speaker 1: enforcement now, I mean, god bless them, they were they've
Speaker 1: been a little bit behind. But you know, now there's
Speaker 1: enough military guys have gotten out, have become cops. You know,
Speaker 1: there's great programs that are route that are advocating tourniquets now.
Speaker 1: And I saw somewhere that they think in the last
Speaker 1: you know, half decade that police have started using tourniquets,
Speaker 1: they've saved something like thirty lives just you know, because
Speaker 1: the number the number one preventable cause of death on
Speaker 1: the battlefield and in the civilian world is massive him
Speaker 1: or just bleeding to death, so preventable cause of death.
Speaker 1: And so turniquets definitely saved lives. You know, in the military,
Speaker 1: did a study tenure study, not one instance of limb
Speaker 1: loss due to a due to a tourniquet or any
Speaker 1: of that stuff. And so they're they're definitely life saving devices.
Speaker 1: And so when I get the phone calls from people,
Speaker 1: and it's like some of the most bizarre stuff you
Speaker 1: would ever think. But when I get calls or emails
Speaker 1: from people that say, hey, I just use your tourniquet
Speaker 1: to save somebody's life, or you know, I used your
Speaker 1: tourniquet to save my own life, it's unbelievably humbling. I
Speaker 1: mean it really, it's one of those moments where it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: it's all worth it. I mean, this person is alive.
Speaker 1: I just talked to a guy two days ago that
Speaker 1: he has a condition and he unexpectedly passes out. He
Speaker 1: was doing the dishes and passed out, woke up, and
Speaker 1: he was spraying blood all over the counters, and he
Speaker 1: had run a stake knife through his arm wind fell down,
Speaker 1: slice the ordery and he just so happened to have
Speaker 1: my tourniquet on him, and he threw it on and
Speaker 1: wrapped it over and so he on his you know,
Speaker 1: as his right arm was when he got stabbed and
Speaker 1: he's right handed, so wrapped it on there and he
Speaker 1: called me to thank me. It's like your turn to
Speaker 1: get saved my life. Man. I was like, now you
Speaker 1: saved your life that she's in a tool. So stuff
Speaker 1: like that is like, man, that's very cool. Well, not
Speaker 1: to poke the bear too much, but I do know
Speaker 1: that there has been some controversy around these turn of
Speaker 1: kids also, And I don't know if you want to
Speaker 1: get into that or talk about it too much, um,
Speaker 1: but I know there's you know, some drama out there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think I think any time you buck the paradigm,
Speaker 1: you know, you're you're going to have people that that
Speaker 1: are going to fight you. And and you know, and
Speaker 1: we see that in I mean, you see that in
Speaker 1: in anything, do you know what I mean? And it's
Speaker 1: I mean, they they back in the day, they fought
Speaker 1: the you know, they fought the automobile coming out because
Speaker 1: you know they were the thought was they're never going
Speaker 1: to be able to replace horses. Well, I mean, look
Speaker 1: where that all turn and so I think anytime you've
Speaker 1: got a new device, and also because mine is so
Speaker 1: different from the you know what the what the paradigm
Speaker 1: dictates the tourniquets should look like that. Um, for some folks,
Speaker 1: it's just it's like no, they don't they don't want
Speaker 1: to change, they don't want to they don't want to listen.
Speaker 1: And that's okay, and that's fine. I mean, the thing
Speaker 1: that I steadfastly tell people is, look, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of great tourniquets out on the market. Now. It's like,
Speaker 1: find one, learn how to use them all. If you're
Speaker 1: an instructor, teach them all because you never know what
Speaker 1: you're going to run into out there. But then and
Speaker 1: but then have one with you, have it in your
Speaker 1: have your medikit, and know how to use it. And
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter if it's mine, it can be. You know,
Speaker 1: there's empty number of other great tourniquets that are out there.
Speaker 1: Have one of those. Because tourniquets save lives. And so
Speaker 1: you know, we're big supporters. We support organizations that that
Speaker 1: actually don't even teach our tourniquet. And it's like, you
Speaker 1: know what my mission is to try and get the
Speaker 1: word out and help as many people as possible. So
Speaker 1: that's what I'm concerned about. But you know, God forgive
Speaker 1: me for saying this as a former eighteen bravo. But
Speaker 1: the reality too is that I mean in the in
Speaker 1: the gun world, the as I'm a Second Amendment supporter
Speaker 1: as well, and I enjoy shooting guns, but I mean
Speaker 1: in the tactical community as it were. I mean there's
Speaker 1: a lot of weird cats out there too. Uh, We're
Speaker 1: an eclectic group of people, to be polite about it,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, there are, as you I think
Speaker 1: you point out a little bit, we're setting our ways,
Speaker 1: and there are guns that come around that's say, are
Speaker 1: better than the M for a rifle, but we don't
Speaker 1: necessarily want to use them because it's not what we're
Speaker 1: used to. Yeah, And that's kind of like me as
Speaker 1: an inventor. I'm you know, I'm an inventor, and then
Speaker 1: I'm firmly in the survival you know, emergency preparedness space,
Speaker 1: which by you know, by nature means I question everything right.
Speaker 1: And then when I'm working with you know, I haven't
Speaker 1: been in the CT unit working with ended, you know,
Speaker 1: for thirteen years, and it's like me and a few
Speaker 1: other dudes. You've got to get pretty creative to try
Speaker 1: and solve some of the solutions for problems because you
Speaker 1: don't always get what you want. And so it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: how can I make this thing work for different stuff?
Speaker 1: And so and and that's where. So for me, I'm
Speaker 1: known as the A K guy over there because I
Speaker 1: carried an A K. You know, I could have carried
Speaker 1: whatever I wanted in that unit, but but I carried
Speaker 1: an A K for my entire time and use that
Speaker 1: and fell in love with it, and it just so happened.
Speaker 1: And two thousand and two I was part of the
Speaker 1: SOCOM study that was spun up to disprove the A K,
Speaker 1: but it ended up proving the A K because at
Speaker 1: that time, the SR forty seven, which was an IN
Speaker 1: four variant that would shoot then they only made a
Speaker 1: couple of those. Yeah, yeah, I'm the guy that killed
Speaker 1: that program. So yeah, well, wasn't the concept behind it?
Speaker 1: This is really interesting. It wasn't the concept behind it
Speaker 1: that we were perhaps going to be clear in cave
Speaker 1: complexes in Afghanistan and going in so deep that we
Speaker 1: may need to pick up the enemy's ammunition and use
Speaker 1: it in our weapon. It was. And and so the
Speaker 1: whole story is there had been testing that was done
Speaker 1: on the SR forty seven. I was not on the
Speaker 1: SR forty seven testing, however, I'm very good friends with
Speaker 1: the guys that were on it. And the rifle was
Speaker 1: not working. It was, I mean, barrels were falling off,
Speaker 1: it was. The rifle was just it was not working.
Speaker 1: And they so they wrote up a very scathing review
Speaker 1: on it, and so um the guys that were in
Speaker 1: charge of the program went to the colonel that was
Speaker 1: you know, basically signing the checks for research and development,
Speaker 1: said hey, we need more money to continue developing this rifle.
Speaker 1: The seven nine burns really hot, and so you've got it.
Speaker 1: It's it's one of those enigmas that folks are constantly
Speaker 1: trying to figure out. Frank Plum up in Washington State
Speaker 1: actually kind of figured it out with his with his
Speaker 1: rifle that he designed up there. It's a it's a
Speaker 1: version of it's kind of like a scar only a
Speaker 1: little bit different, and it shoots the seven nine and
Speaker 1: so it burns very hot. So what happened was they
Speaker 1: were they were going through this process trying to trying
Speaker 1: to figure this thing out. The colonel said, well, why
Speaker 1: don't we just use a case. We're talking about battlefield recovery.
Speaker 1: Why don't we just use a case and so and
Speaker 1: and and mind you, the s R forty seven was
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars a copy at that time, and so
Speaker 1: and plus all this time for T and A and
Speaker 1: all of that stuff, and so you know, he the
Speaker 1: colonel got this, got the answer of like, well, a days,
Speaker 1: they're not accurate, and they you know, they have horrible ergonomics,
Speaker 1: and you know, they get too hot. And so the
Speaker 1: colonel was said, Okay, show me the showing me the studies.
Speaker 1: Show me the studies that that say what you're saying.
Speaker 1: So these guys scoured and could not find any incerted
Speaker 1: data on the a K. And so he was like,
Speaker 1: I'm not signing one more cent over until you guys
Speaker 1: get me some data that shows that the A K
Speaker 1: isn't up to snuff and that we need to continue
Speaker 1: developing SR. So in steps Jeff and then another guy
Speaker 1: that was from range of battalion, Craig and US an
Speaker 1: E seven out of a range of battalion, and so
Speaker 1: we started shooting. It was three or four days days,
Speaker 1: I'd have to go back and look at my notes
Speaker 1: and we and the test was set up to fail.
Speaker 1: So the rifles that we got were filthy. They look
Speaker 1: like they've been pulled out of a dumpster. They were
Speaker 1: chicomft s is with folding stocks. We're testing reliability and
Speaker 1: accuracy at the same time, which anybody listening knows you
Speaker 1: would never do that. So we weren't cleaning out the
Speaker 1: lands and grooves or anything, I mean, and we were
Speaker 1: and we were also testing the feasibility of the sop
Speaker 1: mod kit on the rifle at the time too. Well
Speaker 1: there at that time there were no rails for a
Speaker 1: ks and so we were like the crane. The guys
Speaker 1: that were out there running the study from crane and
Speaker 1: kind of like spot welded some rails on their covers
Speaker 1: and stuff, and since we weren't cleaning it, we just
Speaker 1: ziped item down. So by the end of the second
Speaker 1: day and we had a c W five that was
Speaker 1: validating the test and um and at that time, I'm
Speaker 1: Jack will know this, there were like five CW five's
Speaker 1: and the entire four CW fives were brand new and
Speaker 1: they were like on the same level as a general officer,
Speaker 1: and so we had a CW five that was a
Speaker 1: Vietnam VET. It was it was validating the testing. We
Speaker 1: We were tracking where every single round that we shot
Speaker 1: where it went, and throughout the process we essentially disproved
Speaker 1: the all of the accuracy stuff. It was like, now,
Speaker 1: these these rifles are actually very accurate. You just have
Speaker 1: this deer room correctly, but these are actually very accurate.
Speaker 1: The ergonomics if you look at the rifle and its totality,
Speaker 1: it's actually very ergonomic. Um And I mean it's because
Speaker 1: and it's designed you as a bravo understand this. It's
Speaker 1: designed that you can hand that rifle to a conscript
Speaker 1: who doesn't know anything, but they could still keep up
Speaker 1: with who they thought they were going to have to
Speaker 1: fight United States military, with their experience having been they
Speaker 1: had just fought the often SS on the Eastern Front,
Speaker 1: which was the finest mechanized infantry the world had ever
Speaker 1: seen at that time, and so they were like lessons
Speaker 1: of war from the past. How do we get these
Speaker 1: peasants and make them so that they can keep up
Speaker 1: with what we expect the Americans are going to be like?
Speaker 1: And so I'm I'm actually I'm a big fan of
Speaker 1: the of the A K and um and it's just
Speaker 1: it's it's brilliance in design and and just so many,
Speaker 1: so many different myths about it that um, you know,
Speaker 1: it's always fun for I could talk for ages eight.
Speaker 1: But so that's where that that's where that came from.
Speaker 1: And consequently, because I'm known as the A K Guy,
Speaker 1: had written a blog article that was called the A
Speaker 1: R The R platform sucks for preppers and and and
Speaker 1: you would have thought that I had liked, like earned
Speaker 1: the church to the ground. You know. It's like I
Speaker 1: got so much hate mail from that, and I was like, look,
Speaker 1: you guys, I said an A our platform sucks for preppers,
Speaker 1: you know, because I was I was looking at the
Speaker 1: prepper market. But whenever I write articles, what I'm trying
Speaker 1: to do is get people to think. It's like, look,
Speaker 1: don't don't just pick up something because the military said
Speaker 1: it's good enough, or it's good enough. It's good enough
Speaker 1: for the military, so I've gone it's like, well, your civilian,
Speaker 1: it may not be good enough for you. So let's
Speaker 1: we're you know, going back into that I'm an SF
Speaker 1: guy where it's like I question everything and it's like, well,
Speaker 1: is it is it the is it the point? And
Speaker 1: but yeah, of course that was one of those things
Speaker 1: that I'll go as far as to say that Kalashnikov
Speaker 1: is my favorite rifle, probably the best rifle out there. Well,
Speaker 1: I shouldn't say it's the best. Depends on how we're
Speaker 1: going to measure that. Of course, there are better rifles
Speaker 1: out there for you know, like a special mission unit
Speaker 1: to use for counter terrorism operations and things like that.
Speaker 1: But if you can only choose one, and especially for
Speaker 1: u w unconventional warfare missions where you're not going to
Speaker 1: find you know, six point five or whatever wazoo exotic
Speaker 1: caliber of the ammunition. You're not going to find it
Speaker 1: out in the battle space for you know, battlefield recovery.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the Kalashnikov is where it's at
Speaker 1: to this day. Well, and that's I agree with you
Speaker 1: and that and that's why I mean, there's there's bullets
Speaker 1: and guns like all over. I forget how many millions
Speaker 1: of those things that have been produced. And and for
Speaker 1: me to working with indig Force, it was it was
Speaker 1: it was a confidence and equipment right, and so I
Speaker 1: had to be able to get down there when I
Speaker 1: was teaching these guys how to shoot and all that
Speaker 1: I had to be able to manipulate it better than
Speaker 1: they could. I had to be able to shoot more
Speaker 1: accurately than they could. So that because you're constantly in
Speaker 1: in Special Forces that Jack knows this, but you're constantly
Speaker 1: winning rapport and maintaining report and relationships of trust because
Speaker 1: trust is everything when you're talking to these guys and
Speaker 1: and trying to get them to do I mean, you're
Speaker 1: trying to talk to these guys and are risking their
Speaker 1: lives for you, and so rapport is like really important.
Speaker 1: And running around with a match grade Stoner rifle and
Speaker 1: being able to outshoot them, you're not you're not impressing,
Speaker 1: but but getting an a K the same one that
Speaker 1: came out of their arms room and then going out
Speaker 1: onto the going out on the range in and out
Speaker 1: shooting them. That now all of a sudden, you've you've
Speaker 1: built apport, like, Okay, I'll listen to this guy because
Speaker 1: he knows what he's talking about. Yeah, I can see though,
Speaker 1: you know, telling a bunch of gun brows that their
Speaker 1: M four sucks, that I can ruffle some feathers. I
Speaker 1: can see that it did it did and and it's
Speaker 1: like at the bottom we cited you know, three or
Speaker 1: four studies from the Marines that you know, like on
Speaker 1: the periphery agreed with what I was saying. But again
Speaker 1: it was it was like, look, if you're if you're
Speaker 1: a survivalist or you're in a survival or something and
Speaker 1: you live in you know, if you live out here
Speaker 1: in Utah, you know, five that may not be the
Speaker 1: best choice for you. You made you probably need to
Speaker 1: step it up to a seven six two by fifty
Speaker 1: one at least so you can reach out and you know,
Speaker 1: touch some stuff or you know. It was there was
Speaker 1: some great discussion that took place intermixed with all of
Speaker 1: the stuff where it sounded like I had called somebody's
Speaker 1: mom or ostitute. But I mean, but uh, but there
Speaker 1: was you know, one guy made a fantastic argument for
Speaker 1: twelve gage shotgun and just the versatility and and all
Speaker 1: of that, And that was the whole point of that
Speaker 1: of that article was, Hey, let's think, let's question, let's
Speaker 1: is it is it really the best thing for you
Speaker 1: guys to use, and if it is, why and so
Speaker 1: so so Beyond that article, you've also written quite a
Speaker 1: few fiction books. As I said in series. The latest
Speaker 1: one out now is The Last Air Force One. Uh.
Speaker 1: And your co writer on that, along with a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff is Jason Ross. How did you get into
Speaker 1: the field of writing military thrillers? So, so Jason is
Speaker 1: he's my business partner with on ready Man and he,
Speaker 1: you know, we were sitting around one night talking and
Speaker 1: I mean this was years ago, a few four years ago,
Speaker 1: three years ago, and we're sitting around talking, you know,
Speaker 1: and like all good discussions, it was over some good
Speaker 1: bourbon and m he had asked. He was like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, he'd never been in the military's never never
Speaker 1: been a law enforcement but he's very accomplished outdoorsman. And
Speaker 1: he said, hey, how do you think the world, how
Speaker 1: do you think the world could stumble? How do you
Speaker 1: think you know, we could run into problems? And so
Speaker 1: you know, of course I was like, well, I'll tell
Speaker 1: you how I think it could happen. And um, and
Speaker 1: so we started having this what if discussion and it
Speaker 1: was well, if this happened, what do you think would
Speaker 1: happened from there? And if this happened, what do you
Speaker 1: think from there? And and at some point I had
Speaker 1: I had actually started writing a fiction novel when I
Speaker 1: was um in Afghanistan, and it was it was you know,
Speaker 1: it's got monsters and stuff in it, and of course
Speaker 1: it's about a special Forces guy that all the sudden
Speaker 1: finds out that monsters are real and he becomes a
Speaker 1: bounty hunter for for monsters. Well, I had started writing
Speaker 1: that because it was, you know, essentially Catharsis. While I
Speaker 1: was I'd come back from assaults and your your spun
Speaker 1: up and um, so it's like, you know, you can't drink,
Speaker 1: you know, you can only work out so much. It
Speaker 1: was about three o'clock in the morning, so you couldn't
Speaker 1: really go run, and so it was like, how do
Speaker 1: I how do I depressurize from you know, from just
Speaker 1: coming off these assaults. And so at one point my
Speaker 1: brother had mentioned to me about a Vietnam vet that
Speaker 1: I think you were at the Jack Reaper series about
Speaker 1: this guy had been in Vietnam and he had started
Speaker 1: writing as a way to kind of off gas to
Speaker 1: pressure down. And so I was like, well, I'll try it,
Speaker 1: and I fell in love with it. I mean, because
Speaker 1: you just you just create your own world and you
Speaker 1: get lost in the I'm a very visual kind of guy.
Speaker 1: Like when I'm inventing something, I can do cat in
Speaker 1: my head and spin it around and look at it
Speaker 1: and stuff. And so when I started writing this book,
Speaker 1: it was it was like unbelievably therapeutic in that it
Speaker 1: was I could just get lost in this world of
Speaker 1: my own making and then um and then you know,
Speaker 1: I'd get tired and then I'd go to bed. So
Speaker 1: I gave that. I gave that manuscript that book hasn't
Speaker 1: been published yet and you and I gave it to
Speaker 1: my business partner, Jason, and I said, hey, read this,
Speaker 1: and he was like, man, we could We could write
Speaker 1: a novel about the end of the world, about all
Speaker 1: this stuff we've been talking about. And I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right, we should do that, and so we started
Speaker 1: hammering it out. So that's Black Autumn and Black automn
Speaker 1: is a big war gaming exercise. That's it. So it was,
Speaker 1: you know, it was the initial intel of the battlefield
Speaker 1: of what we think, what how we thought the world
Speaker 1: could stumble, what would happen here in the United States
Speaker 1: as well as you know here, and you taught how
Speaker 1: we would react to it. And it was this big
Speaker 1: war gaming exercise that we went through and we had
Speaker 1: so much fun doing it. Um we're like, well, let's
Speaker 1: let's let's get this published. We went to the publisher
Speaker 1: and they were and they said, you guys have got
Speaker 1: way too much in your book. You get to chop
Speaker 1: out about a third of it. And so we're like, okay,
Speaker 1: So we chopped out a third of the book and
Speaker 1: that became Black Autumn Travelers. That's for sale. So it's
Speaker 1: about it's about three of the characters that are trying
Speaker 1: to get back to Utah and it and it fills
Speaker 1: in some of the gaps of what we think would
Speaker 1: be happening in the rest of the United States. And
Speaker 1: then we've got so many people that we're saying, man,
Speaker 1: it would be really cool to get more idea of
Speaker 1: what's going on in the world. And so we wrote
Speaker 1: Black automn The Last Air Force One, and so that's
Speaker 1: essentially the President of the United States is an Air
Speaker 1: Force one and he's basically flying around the United States
Speaker 1: because there's nowhere safe form to land, and he's getting
Speaker 1: all these intel reports as the you know, as the
Speaker 1: country starts to to come apart at the seams, and
Speaker 1: we're actually and so those are all companion novels. Were
Speaker 1: actually in the middle of writing two more companion novels,
Speaker 1: Black Automn conkyadors Um, which is about the cartel and
Speaker 1: what we think would happen with them, as well as
Speaker 1: Black Automn Gun Slingers, where it's about an individual that
Speaker 1: helps tie a bunch of this stuff together. And then
Speaker 1: the sequel to Black autom which is White Wasteland, is
Speaker 1: actually in the editing process right now. So it's awesome,
Speaker 1: So spun it off into a whole series. Yeah, we have,
Speaker 1: and then we actually with a with a Readyman crew.
Speaker 1: We actually opened it up to some of the other
Speaker 1: folks that are you know, that are following Ready Man
Speaker 1: and it's like, hey, do you want to write about
Speaker 1: the Black Automn universe, And so we're using this you know,
Speaker 1: it's mostly Jason, but we're big on helping you know,
Speaker 1: veterans or anybody that wants to start off on entrepreneurial efforts.
Speaker 1: And it's like, if you want to write, then then
Speaker 1: we'll help you and we'll help you with the editing process,
Speaker 1: will help you the idea, and here you can write
Speaker 1: about the Black Autumn, you know, right about the Black
Speaker 1: automn universe, and that kind of gives you the foundation
Speaker 1: that you can then fill in the gaps of what
Speaker 1: you're doing for your own personal story. And so we're
Speaker 1: pushing that at right now to you know, essentially, it's
Speaker 1: helping helping out other young budding authors. We've got about
Speaker 1: four of them now that are that are veterans that
Speaker 1: are jumping in there in writing stuff. So it's it's
Speaker 1: really cool. That's awesome. Man's that's a dream come true.
Speaker 1: Really yeah. I mean it's a lot of work. Writing
Speaker 1: a book is no small you know, no small effort.
Speaker 1: And you know, and I applaud Jason, you know, he's
Speaker 1: the he's the engine behind it. That's constantly he's like, hey,
Speaker 1: you gotta you gotta write, you gotta edit, you gotta right,
Speaker 1: you gotta edit because I've got about a billion things
Speaker 1: going on, and so but but it's it is, it is.
Speaker 1: It's a blast. And and again it's just that from
Speaker 1: the from the day to day day stress of business
Speaker 1: and work and job and social media, it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna escape into the black Autumn world
Speaker 1: for a little while and then uh, you know, you
Speaker 1: come back out of it, You're like, Okay, I'm feeling
Speaker 1: I'm feeling a lot better. No, that's really cool that
Speaker 1: you have that out it, And I totally understand what
Speaker 1: you're saying, and I think, uh, it's true for It's
Speaker 1: definitely true of veterans um and people who live in
Speaker 1: that they're in that headspace of you know, war and
Speaker 1: combat all the time and trying to reconcile those things
Speaker 1: when they come home. But I'm sure it's also true
Speaker 1: for a lot of people experiencing just the day to
Speaker 1: day stress and you know, all the consternation you hear
Speaker 1: about social media and you know, twenty four hour news cycle,
Speaker 1: Like there there has to be some kind of a
Speaker 1: hobby or some kind of place where you can just
Speaker 1: kind of step aside from all of that, even if
Speaker 1: it's just for a few hours. Absolutely totally totally agree
Speaker 1: with you. And it doesn't have to be fiction. I
Speaker 1: mean fictions and an escape. But you know, I wrote
Speaker 1: the fourteenth edition for Stackpoles Combat Field Leaders Guide that
Speaker 1: was that was a lot of fun because it just
Speaker 1: really had gave this purpose of going through and studying
Speaker 1: and finding the latest and greatest with the knowledge that
Speaker 1: you know, young young n c O s and officers
Speaker 1: were going to be reading this and looking at it
Speaker 1: as a means for you know, how they were going
Speaker 1: to trade late, lead and train their soldiers. And then
Speaker 1: um and then also like my the one that I
Speaker 1: had written on the Small Unit leaders Planning Guide, which
Speaker 1: is essentially a checklist on how to do warning order,
Speaker 1: operations order and FRAGO and then the coordination checklist that
Speaker 1: goes along with that, and and you know, it was
Speaker 1: just it was I think that was actually the first
Speaker 1: one that was the first one. The Small Unit Leader's
Speaker 1: Planning Guide was the first one that I had written,
Speaker 1: and then the Combat Field Leader's Guide was the second
Speaker 1: one that I had written. But but it was definitely
Speaker 1: it was it served as Okay, I've got I've got
Speaker 1: this purpose. And I think so many veterans now I
Speaker 1: get I get a bunch of a bunch of vets
Speaker 1: and even some civilians now that they come by my
Speaker 1: office and they're like, hey, you know, I've heard that
Speaker 1: you had a lot of experience in combat and you
Speaker 1: you seem like you're really well adjusted. Can I talk
Speaker 1: to you about issues that I'm having? And so I
Speaker 1: take time, you know, probably two or three times a month,
Speaker 1: and with vets and civilians, and you know, when they
Speaker 1: come in and they were like, hey, I just want
Speaker 1: to talk to you and pick your brain and and
Speaker 1: I think it's this purpose. You know, is a veteran,
Speaker 1: it's really easy to lose purpose. And what I mean
Speaker 1: by that is we come from a culture of of
Speaker 1: constant improvement and constant mentoring, constantly being mentored and constantly
Speaker 1: mentoring somebody below us and we and it's we're always
Speaker 1: looking for improvement and limiting the waste. You know. It's
Speaker 1: this constant improvement and whether that's your PT score or
Speaker 1: correspondence courses or whatever, that is where you're you're going
Speaker 1: through and you've got this job, you know, the mission
Speaker 1: of what you've got to work for. And I think
Speaker 1: and then you get out of the military and you're
Speaker 1: like essentially in free fall, and nobody cares and nobody's
Speaker 1: nobody's gonna mention you, and nobody's gonna take the time.
Speaker 1: And you go and talk to somebody's like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: lead you know X number of people. It was worth
Speaker 1: a million dollars. And most employers you're speaking Greek to
Speaker 1: them and they're like Yeah, that's great. So how are
Speaker 1: you going to make me money? And so and so.
Speaker 1: I think writing is one of those things that just
Speaker 1: really you know, instills a sense of purpose, you know,
Speaker 1: a goal. It doesn't And I tell guys, I'm like,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter if you ever get published. I mean,
Speaker 1: we live in an amazing time now. I mean, you
Speaker 1: can go to Amazon and get published now. But but
Speaker 1: I tell guys, it's like, look, it doesn't matter if
Speaker 1: you ever get published. What matters is you're you're finding purpose,
Speaker 1: You're getting your mind out of something, and you're going
Speaker 1: for and reaching for those goals. It's a project that
Speaker 1: has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's and finishing a book is a tremendous sense
Speaker 1: of accomplishment as as well as not only a sense
Speaker 1: of accomplishment, but but it's also when you tell people
Speaker 1: that you've written book. I mean, like my I'll be
Speaker 1: the first to admit that my military planning books. If
Speaker 1: you can't sleep at night and you have insomnia, buy
Speaker 1: my book because it will put you to sleep. Okay,
Speaker 1: it is it is chloroform in print. Unless you're into
Speaker 1: that stuff. I mean, I'm I'm into that stuff. But
Speaker 1: if you're not into that stuff, I mean, you you're
Speaker 1: probably not gonna get past like page one and then
Speaker 1: you're gonna be a you're gonna fall asleep and so.
Speaker 1: But but what that does, though, is it's just that
Speaker 1: you know, it's that driving purpose. But you tell people
Speaker 1: then it's like, yeah, I've written a book, and people
Speaker 1: they're like, holy cow, you've written a book. And so
Speaker 1: now you get this, you know, you get a bit
Speaker 1: of this serotonin dump, you know, with pride, and you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I accomplished that I wrote a book, you know. And
Speaker 1: it's like your book is like your certificate of graduation
Speaker 1: from you know, from Carvard or you know, whatever that is.
Speaker 1: But it's it's tremendous for for getting your mind right
Speaker 1: at least I believe. And obviously I'm biased because I
Speaker 1: you know, I'm big into writing, but I don't know,
Speaker 1: it seems to be working for me. Yeah no, I
Speaker 1: mean I've I've written five books at this point. Uh
Speaker 1: and uh no, it's definitely helpful for me. And I
Speaker 1: mean our friend, uh Jim, last we were talking about
Speaker 1: he has his first book coming out pretty shortly. He
Speaker 1: was a seventh group warn officer. I mean, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think it's definitely helpful for a lot of guys out there.
Speaker 1: That's very cool, and you know, and it's also too
Speaker 1: is you know when I was when I was a
Speaker 1: young Special Forces guy, one of my team sergeant or
Speaker 1: excuse me, my sergeant major, was this guy by the
Speaker 1: name of Pete Bell. And Pete Bell had been a
Speaker 1: SOG guy, which was the signal. They were the guys
Speaker 1: in Vietnam, and you know, when he was running recon
Speaker 1: over and it's just a fascinating story that this guy had.
Speaker 1: You know, one of his stories is he had been
Speaker 1: six Americans, six American SF guys and six Nung mercenaries.
Speaker 1: They were they were jumping, they were parachuting into do
Speaker 1: a reconnaissance on a on a company of of North
Speaker 1: Vietnamese soldiers. They ended up landing in the middle of
Speaker 1: a battalion and so him and one other guy, he
Speaker 1: literally landed on a North Vietnamese soldiers campfire, and him
Speaker 1: and one other guy were the only guys that were
Speaker 1: ever seen or heard from again from that mission. And
Speaker 1: I told Pete at the time, you know, Sergeant Major Bell,
Speaker 1: I was like, Pete, you've got to write this stuff down.
Speaker 1: This is so important, These are lessons that have been
Speaker 1: learned in blood. You've got to pass this information on.
Speaker 1: And bless his heart. Six months later had a heart
Speaker 1: attack and was dead. And I remember thinking, what a
Speaker 1: loss of of knowledge because guy had absolutely absolutely true.
Speaker 1: I never know how much time you have and got
Speaker 1: to get it out there. Yeah, I mean, not to
Speaker 1: get on my high horse or anything. I mean, I
Speaker 1: know writing a book isn't for everybody to you, but
Speaker 1: like some of these guys, I mean, they should pass
Speaker 1: those lessons on. And uh, you know, when I was
Speaker 1: a young soldier, like I've I've talked about before. Um
Speaker 1: have you read the Dalton Furies book killed Bin Laden?
Speaker 1: I have not know? Well, I mean as a young soldier,
Speaker 1: I would not have known anything about that stuff except
Speaker 1: that that dude his name was Tom Greer, who passed
Speaker 1: away last year. I wouldn't know anything about that if
Speaker 1: he hadn't written a book about it. There's there's no
Speaker 1: other way. No nobody ever likes as a ranger, no
Speaker 1: one ever likes sits you down and like gives you
Speaker 1: a brief on like past operations, like this is what
Speaker 1: we did, right, This is what we did wrong. Um,
Speaker 1: there were some lessons learned from from Mungat issue that
Speaker 1: got passed on that were like put into the range
Speaker 1: of regiments d n A. You know, like like turn
Speaker 1: of kits for example, Uh, taking your nods out with
Speaker 1: you on every operation. But no one really sits down
Speaker 1: and tells you all of those things, like Sergeant Major
Speaker 1: Pete Bell, like, I would not know that unless you
Speaker 1: told me it. Yeah, exactly. And that's kind of the
Speaker 1: cool thing of having been in the you know, in
Speaker 1: the in the CT unit was because we we had
Speaker 1: we had fantastic continuity for the advisors that were going
Speaker 1: to those different units, and so I worked with the
Speaker 1: same guys for years and years and years and years,
Speaker 1: and so we would, you know, once in a while,
Speaker 1: we would get other you know, uh Jaysak elements are
Speaker 1: so common elements would you know come and get attached
Speaker 1: to us, and they you know, and they bring stuff
Speaker 1: up and it'd be like, yeah, we tried that, No.
Speaker 1: Six and it didn't work because of X, Y and Z,
Speaker 1: and they're like, oh wow, you know, and it's like
Speaker 1: ten when they're when we're talking. And so just having
Speaker 1: that institutional knowledge and being able to pass it on.
Speaker 1: I mean, in the end, I think really, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think in the end it saved lives. And that's
Speaker 1: the cool thing is now is soldiers now come back
Speaker 1: and they share a ton more information than I think
Speaker 1: has happened in the past. You know, the computers and
Speaker 1: everything that we have now is a tremendous resource for
Speaker 1: capturing that knowledge. And you know, I'm a big believer
Speaker 1: in soldiers now, especially you know, special operations. Soldiers are
Speaker 1: way better now than they were back. You know when
Speaker 1: I was in the you know, when I was a
Speaker 1: brand new guy in the eighties, just simply because of
Speaker 1: the sharing of information is it's almost instantaneous and so
Speaker 1: and it's phenomenal. It's amazing. So is there anything else, uh,
Speaker 1: you have coming up, Jeff, that you want to get
Speaker 1: into before we wrap it up today. You know, we're
Speaker 1: just continuing to crank on books. We're continuing to grow
Speaker 1: the ready man crowd. UM. And I'd encourage anybody that's
Speaker 1: out there, you know, get involved. Like I'm a big
Speaker 1: believer in service to the community. UM. I think probably
Speaker 1: one of the most important things that we can do
Speaker 1: for our own mental health as well as the mental
Speaker 1: health of other folks. Is is service is helping helping
Speaker 1: other people out, whatever that may be, whether that's you know,
Speaker 1: being a foster parent or doing you know, in geo
Speaker 1: type work, or you know, we help a variety of
Speaker 1: different people. And and you know, on on the on
Speaker 1: the very selfish side, on my side, I do that
Speaker 1: because it makes me feel good, and you know, and
Speaker 1: then it also you know, we're doing that because we're
Speaker 1: helping each other out. And I think it's a tremendous
Speaker 1: resource that a lot of vets that you know, maybe
Speaker 1: if they're having times hard times, figure out a way
Speaker 1: to help somebody else out, and you'll you'll find out
Speaker 1: that like through service, we can, I mean, we help ourselves.
Speaker 1: You know. I heard for years you get more out
Speaker 1: of service than than what you give. And I always
Speaker 1: thought it was kind of like some touchy feely hippie
Speaker 1: tree hugger stuff. And then and then I really started
Speaker 1: to see it when I was in Afghanistan working with
Speaker 1: my guys, you know, my commandos, and then and then
Speaker 1: since that time and business working with other entities, you know,
Speaker 1: having helped out a shlew of of um, some pretty
Speaker 1: prominent um other veteran businesses that were out there, they
Speaker 1: were having some issues, but stepping into help. I'll tell
Speaker 1: you what it's just been. It's phenomenal. It is absolutely phenomenal.
Speaker 1: And so that would that would kind of be my
Speaker 1: parting words is if you're having a hard time, then
Speaker 1: find out a way to do service or I mean,
Speaker 1: anybody that's out there can feel free to reach out
Speaker 1: to me any time too, if if I can do
Speaker 1: anything to help, that's awesome. Jeff and Uh, I'd love
Speaker 1: to have you back on sometime for like the the
Speaker 1: Mondo to our mega conversation about the Kalashnikov. I'd love to.
Speaker 1: I can. I can talk about the a K for
Speaker 1: for for hours if if I need to, I just
Speaker 1: I find the thing unbelievably intriguing, and every time I
Speaker 1: take it apart, I learned a little new nuance about
Speaker 1: it that I'm like, huh, and I never nearly noticed
Speaker 1: that before, and um it just yeah, I'm a big
Speaker 1: fan of it. Is We've probably read the same books
Speaker 1: about it too. So yeah, I'd love to do a
Speaker 1: show where we just wax poetic about the a K
Speaker 1: forty seven sometime. Love to I'm gonna I'm gonna hold
Speaker 1: you to that. Okay, all right, I'm down. People would
Speaker 1: dig that. There's a lot of gear guys in the audience,
Speaker 1: of course. Um so, as I said, the latest book
Speaker 1: is the Last Air Force one. But if you go
Speaker 1: on Amazon, there's there's several books. There's others that are
Speaker 1: up for pre order. Rats Medical dot com is the website.
Speaker 1: Ready Man dot com um for the other stuff, and
Speaker 1: then uh on Instagram, Jeff is at Praetorian pr A
Speaker 1: E T O R I A N. Underscore Innovations on
Speaker 1: Instagram Praetorian Underscore Innovations. And I think that's it, man,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm glad that we finally did this. And as
Speaker 1: I said, having a guy of your background and as
Speaker 1: Jack said, maybe a gear discussion in the near future.
Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely, I really appreciate it and anything I can
Speaker 1: do to help you guys out, I mean, just say
Speaker 1: the word great discussion with Jeff. Be sure to check
Speaker 1: out Create Club. It's a club four men by men
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Speaker 1: Dash one, Create, the pro Create and for those looking
Speaker 1: for the holy Grail of gear subscriptions, our premium crate
Speaker 1: These are all available at Create club dot us and
Speaker 1: right now we are running an extremely limited promotion of
Speaker 1: off for all software radio listeners. This is the biggest
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Speaker 1: long we can keep this promotion live, so get on
Speaker 1: it right now. That's Create Club dot Us coupon code
Speaker 1: soft rep for off any gearbox sign up today. Also,
Speaker 1: as a reminder for those listening, now is the time
Speaker 1: to sign up for the spec Ops Channel. That's our
Speaker 1: channel that offers the most exclusive shows, documentaries and interviews
Speaker 1: covering the most exciting military content today. The spec Ops
Speaker 1: channel premier show Training Sell follows former Special Operations Forces
Speaker 1: as they participate in the most advanced training in the country,
Speaker 1: everything from shooting schools, defensive driving, jungle and winter warfare, climbing,
Speaker 1: and much more. Again, you can watch this content by
Speaker 1: subscribing to the spec Ops channel at spec ops channel
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Speaker 1: our homepage is software up radio dot com where you
Speaker 1: can see the full archive shows. As you've heard me
Speaker 1: mentioned for some of those back episodes aren't up on
Speaker 1: SoundCloud or Apple podcast Casts or Spotify, so if you
Speaker 1: go to the website softwarep radio dot com, it's everything.
Speaker 1: Other than a very small handful of episodes we took down,
Speaker 1: but four hundred plus episodes all there um and as always,
Speaker 1: can keep up with us at Softwrep Radio on Twitter,
Speaker 1: on Instagram and great having Jeff on great discussion and uh,
Speaker 1: as I said earlier, very interesting background. Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have to do it again. Yep. Alright, so
Speaker 1: once again, follow us at Softwrep Radio to keep up
Speaker 1: with the latest. Happy birthday, Jim West. Have a great
Speaker 1: week everyone. You've been listening to self Rep Radio. New
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