Speaker 1: M blute force. If it doesn't work, you're just not
Speaker 1: using enough. You're listening to Software Radio Special Operations, military
Speaker 1: news and straight talk with the guys in the community.
Speaker 1: Good afternoon, and welcome to Software Radio. I'm Software Editor
Speaker 1: in Chief Sean Spens. I'm filling in for Steve Balustrade today,
Speaker 1: who is recovering from minor surgery, so he's gonna be
Speaker 1: just fine. Don't worry about him today. Our guest is
Speaker 1: Taylor Gregen and Taylor is a former aviation rescue swort
Speaker 1: and he's made a documentary called Hell or High Water,
Speaker 1: which is about his post military service journey from PSD
Speaker 1: to recovering and healing. It's um It's a really fascinating story,
Speaker 1: much like Homer's Homer's epic poem The Odyssey about the
Speaker 1: the King of Ithaca. He was the h he was
Speaker 1: Disseus was the King of Ithaca, and he made a
Speaker 1: journey that took I think about a year coming back
Speaker 1: from the Siege of Troy. And the journey that Eric
Speaker 1: and his um sorry Taylor and his shipmates made took
Speaker 1: him from Pensacola, Florida, all the way to Cape Horn
Speaker 1: on the southern tip of South America, one of the
Speaker 1: most treacherous places for mariners in the entire world. It's
Speaker 1: the reason they built the Panama can Now. It was
Speaker 1: because so many people and ships were lost trying to
Speaker 1: sail Cape Horn. I'm particularly happy to be doing this
Speaker 1: interview today with Taylor because I was an aviation rescue
Speaker 1: where cremin myself. So to to meet another one, to
Speaker 1: talk to another one, it's such a rare thing. There's
Speaker 1: so few of us, uh in the Navy. You almost
Speaker 1: never see another one. So Taylor, welcome to Software Predio.
Speaker 1: We're very happy to have you. Thanks man. Yeah, it's cool,
Speaker 1: it's cool. Indeed, it is rare. Right, we're like unicorns.
Speaker 1: It's like you get another one, you go. You are
Speaker 1: sour Slember, no kidding, And I guess I think we
Speaker 1: talked when we were talking before. I've only ever met
Speaker 1: one other guy in like twenty five years that was
Speaker 1: a rescue swimmer like like you and I were. It
Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, and kind of funny thing. Uh.
Speaker 1: I asked him. He was with an HSC squadron like
Speaker 1: you were, which is a C control squadron for those
Speaker 1: of your uninitiated to see control squadrons are the almost
Speaker 1: a dedicated combat social missus squadrons in the Navy, and
Speaker 1: that it's differentiated from the H cell squadrons, which tend
Speaker 1: to do more any summery warfare off of frigates and destroyers.
Speaker 1: And what I told him, I was an NHS cell guy.
Speaker 1: He goes, oh, you must have got good grades in
Speaker 1: a school. It was just kind of true because if
Speaker 1: you were like, didn't get good grades in a still,
Speaker 1: you ended up with the H three squadron, you know,
Speaker 1: the the HS squadross and stuff. So you have to
Speaker 1: you have to pick your orders based on their class standing.
Speaker 1: And if you don't know this, are publisher Brandon Webb,
Speaker 1: who is a Navy seal. He started as a as
Speaker 1: a a via sue rescue swimmer as well, and he
Speaker 1: was an HS quadreds. He was on the Kiddie Hawk
Speaker 1: and he was on the Able Lincoln and then went
Speaker 1: over to the Navy Seals. Used to be that the
Speaker 1: number one rating for guys to transition over the seal
Speaker 1: teage was searching rescue guys. They always were looking for
Speaker 1: some other thing. So let's talk a bit about your background.
Speaker 1: You grew up in you grew up in East Texas,
Speaker 1: Galveston Bay Area, moved around a little bit. Tell us
Speaker 1: a little bit about that you were you were born?
Speaker 1: Why how old are you now? Yeah, twenty nine and
Speaker 1: what are you Okay? So my grandparents had a place
Speaker 1: in Galison, we'd go stay with him. My dad he
Speaker 1: lived in Dickinson. What's where I live now? And then
Speaker 1: we'd lived we lived in in Huntsville, and then a
Speaker 1: little town called Malacough out in East Texas. And then
Speaker 1: uh family had some landed in sant Angelo. We got
Speaker 1: to and now all my most all of my family
Speaker 1: lives out in Santonio. Um, and that's where I led
Speaker 1: whenever I got out of the Navy, it was in
Speaker 1: San Antonio before I went to Sacola. I've been out
Speaker 1: that way, beautiful town San Antonio. Spent a little time
Speaker 1: on a ranch out in Bandera, which is you know,
Speaker 1: out even further west of View and that part of
Speaker 1: the home country just gorgeous there. Yeah. You decide you
Speaker 1: want to be a decide you want to be a swimmer.
Speaker 1: You wanted to join a swim team. The documentary talks
Speaker 1: a little bit about that. You Uh, you walked down
Speaker 1: your full of pisto vinegar, I'm gonna just take this
Speaker 1: pool and had got a got a rid awake, and
Speaker 1: you tell us about that. Yeah, I shut up to
Speaker 1: the swim tryout sous when we lived in College Station,
Speaker 1: Um and showed up to their high school swim team
Speaker 1: tryouts wearing swim trunks. You know, that's how that's out
Speaker 1: of place. I was so that day that coached the
Speaker 1: coach cut me, Um. You know, it's like, you're just
Speaker 1: not good enough, man. But he told me I got
Speaker 1: some of the club team, and that's what I ended
Speaker 1: up doing. It's been a semester swimming with all the
Speaker 1: eight year olds there until I could hold myself above
Speaker 1: the water enough to finish practice. And yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: real discipline. It beat you up morning morning practices twice
Speaker 1: a day before school. After school. You spend something like
Speaker 1: four or five hours in the water. It's funny because
Speaker 1: I swim too. I was in a youth swimmer in Miami.
Speaker 1: Grown up. And then you didn't just like get on
Speaker 1: the team. You like you were the team captain. You
Speaker 1: were all American. You broke county records and all this stuff,
Speaker 1: and I mean you were sort of like a comfrom
Speaker 1: behind kid. Yeah, I had a good had a good team.
Speaker 1: It was one of those things. She had a lot
Speaker 1: of good people around you, and we definitely did. Our
Speaker 1: team was pretty awesome and I'll kind of push each other.
Speaker 1: So give a shout out here to your high school
Speaker 1: and I and you're in your high school from too.
Speaker 1: I'm sure they're probably still talking about you now. So
Speaker 1: what was the name about of high school? It was
Speaker 1: an Enmity. This is a and M Consolidated high School
Speaker 1: and College Station of Texas. And uh yeah, coach he's
Speaker 1: he's in the film and I think he says pretty
Speaker 1: cool stuff about that time together. Yeah, he's a good dude.
Speaker 1: He's awesome. Still friends today. So you graduated from high
Speaker 1: school at what year and two thousand and ten and
Speaker 1: then joined the Navy right after that? You go it
Speaker 1: was delayed your programs? You have to wait or did
Speaker 1: you go ready? I was in debt the debt program
Speaker 1: for I think four months. Yeah, it's because that A
Speaker 1: w saw our community is so small. If there's almost
Speaker 1: always a wait to get in, they have to like
Speaker 1: put you in the pipeline. But there's a lot of attrition.
Speaker 1: The Navy recruiting commercials always show a guy jumping out
Speaker 1: of the helicopter in the water, But the fact is
Speaker 1: the attrition rate is murderous and pipeline for training it's
Speaker 1: like a team most to two years of training before
Speaker 1: you're actually reach an operational squadron, and they might lose
Speaker 1: eighty and nine percent of the people who sign up
Speaker 1: because there's just so many places where you get dropped.
Speaker 1: It's medical that water goes up your nose and you
Speaker 1: can't help it, or you freak out in the altitude chamber,
Speaker 1: or you'll lose your mind and the heal or dunker
Speaker 1: or academics. You can't you can't cut the academics. So
Speaker 1: to spend two years just going from step to step,
Speaker 1: just trying to stay in the program, and and they
Speaker 1: don't want you. They're make it very clear that they
Speaker 1: don't want you go leave. It need you, So you
Speaker 1: have to. You have to beg to stay, you have
Speaker 1: to earn it. Every day. They act like you're leaving
Speaker 1: is no big deal. The Navy is not going to
Speaker 1: go out of business because you flipped out of Star school.
Speaker 1: So so you probably remember the graduating class you you
Speaker 1: went to start school with was probably the third to
Speaker 1: half of the guys that that ended up that starting.
Speaker 1: So my original classes started with you started with thirty
Speaker 1: three people, and we graduated with three of those four total,
Speaker 1: including me um that started together. And then we had
Speaker 1: a couple of guys that like had fractures for failed
Speaker 1: rolled back in our class and graduated with us. But
Speaker 1: we had as four of us from our original class.
Speaker 1: But it all the way through. You know, it's funny
Speaker 1: even going back because I went through in the it
Speaker 1: was August at three. I went through Source School at
Speaker 1: it just won Jacksonville and they run it now out
Speaker 1: of Pensacola. But injuries were very common. A lot of
Speaker 1: guys went out went out with with broken bad joints, elbows, wrists, knees,
Speaker 1: fresh leaves. There's a lot of especially knees. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think I think they roll you out now for like
Speaker 1: shin splints, right, Yeah, see, I ran I ran through
Speaker 1: shin splints. The whole time we did. That was like
Speaker 1: not a thing. Since this was not a thing, they
Speaker 1: were like just get over, you know, get some ass
Speaker 1: for you know, They're just like you gotta deal with it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I did a lot of the the boot camp and every
Speaker 1: time I did any like, you do a lot of
Speaker 1: running in Source School, least do a lot of right
Speaker 1: in Sour School. It's a different program um than say
Speaker 1: Navy Seals. You don't tend to build guys up really big.
Speaker 1: Source school really about endurance. It's about having a body
Speaker 1: that can go and go and go and go and go,
Speaker 1: not not being able with three hundred pounds. It's it's
Speaker 1: more about being able to live a hundred pounds three
Speaker 1: hundred times. So they really they told us, don't w
Speaker 1: waights run swim? Uh being an endurance athlete and when
Speaker 1: you get out you're in phenomenal shape. I mean, you're
Speaker 1: just like miracle things busting a mile and under six
Speaker 1: right without even really breaking a sweat, do a mile
Speaker 1: swim and it's a mild inconvenient. You like go back
Speaker 1: to work the rest of your day and you know,
Speaker 1: finish out your day at the squider. And so I
Speaker 1: kind of take it for granted. What you what you do.
Speaker 1: So you go to aircrew air go to boot camp
Speaker 1: in Great Lakes? Right, do you get the summertimes? You
Speaker 1: get a winner? Did you get a winner? Call for that? Dude?
Speaker 1: Know I was there in Chicago in the winter, and uh,
Speaker 1: they got hit by this. They called it a ten
Speaker 1: near the ten near snowstorm And we're out shoveling snow
Speaker 1: until in the morning, and it was piling up over
Speaker 1: us before we get shovel it all out. And I
Speaker 1: was like, that was the moment when I realized I
Speaker 1: don't ever want to live in the north. They still did.
Speaker 1: They still do the fire drills at three in the
Speaker 1: morning and make you run outside in the cold or
Speaker 1: just a blanket on call out all eight games, standing
Speaker 1: there shivering and your skimpies and the cold. They used
Speaker 1: to do that. We didn't have to do that now,
Speaker 1: thank yeah, no we didn't, Thank god. It's like, the
Speaker 1: worst point of boot game was the fire drills at
Speaker 1: three in the morning and the cold weather, standing there
Speaker 1: in your skimpies with a blanket while they call off
Speaker 1: all the names. I'm like, I hope we don't have
Speaker 1: a lot of long names in the unit, you know,
Speaker 1: because if one guy missed it, missed a call, they
Speaker 1: start over from the beginning again. So if one guy
Speaker 1: didn't didn't answer up, they start from the very beginning.
Speaker 1: But all right, so then on a bus, um on
Speaker 1: a bus probably or plane they fly down Tipetzykoa for
Speaker 1: flow down the Pensacola and then UM went through beautiful Base.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the best best challenge in eighty used to
Speaker 1: be still is a way Yeah, Pensilo. They still do, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they still do. So hair Crewman candidate school is all
Speaker 1: about the environmental stuff to make you and your crewman.
Speaker 1: It's altitude um chamber training, it's parachute many training, it's
Speaker 1: injection seat training, Halo dunker deep Yeah, Halo dunker deep
Speaker 1: water environment and surviva training. You do a mile swims
Speaker 1: all dressed out in your flight here and everything. Steel
Speaker 1: chilled boots, those were those are murdered. And you spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time in Pensacola Bay. Uh, they used
Speaker 1: to spent a lot of time in Pensacola Bay and
Speaker 1: you took up sailing there while you were up where
Speaker 1: you are. You two went to your San Diego that's how. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so Acre school and then you go to a rest
Speaker 1: of Stummer school and then UM and then you go
Speaker 1: to your A school and that's all in Pensacola. And
Speaker 1: once you finish your A school, you go to San
Speaker 1: Diego and that's when you learned to be at rest.
Speaker 1: You swimmer in a helicopter. So you spent about a
Speaker 1: year then in Pensacola if you put it all together, yeah,
Speaker 1: all over the year, and then just under your year
Speaker 1: in San Diego to finish the training and then the replacement. Yeah,
Speaker 1: earn your wings, right, could your gold wings? Getting eight
Speaker 1: tops qualified? Uh? That changed like just before I got
Speaker 1: out there. She used to get your wings. Now now
Speaker 1: it's you get your wings when you get out to
Speaker 1: your squadron and you go through their utility crewmen um syllabus. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I didn't get my wings until after my first deployment.
Speaker 1: He used to take a well did you get there?
Speaker 1: And you think, okay, here I am. I'm at the spot,
Speaker 1: and then you're like, no, Now you gotta earn your wings.
Speaker 1: You gotta qualify as a plane captain. You gotta do it.
Speaker 1: Your back to being a nobody again. So you're always
Speaker 1: starting from zero or a place you go, which I
Speaker 1: think it's fair because I didn't know anything when I
Speaker 1: first got out to my squadron. I don't know. There's
Speaker 1: no way I should have one wings. Said now, did
Speaker 1: you have funny the Hilo Duncker? Yeah, Helo Duncker is
Speaker 1: a blast man. Uh, I'll just kind of sit back
Speaker 1: and let people knock each other out and they're kicking
Speaker 1: and get out. It's always kind of funny. So the
Speaker 1: Helo Dunker is a big appliance that seats six to
Speaker 1: eight people. Was configured like a helicopter and it's basically
Speaker 1: sitting above a pool and they strap you in full
Speaker 1: flight gear, four point restraints and they drop it in
Speaker 1: the water and they rotated upside down and they sink
Speaker 1: it and then you have to basically under your harness
Speaker 1: and anything in either exit out the window or exited
Speaker 1: mass out the door. Um. We used to say you
Speaker 1: could really tell the sea dogs in the heel of doctors.
Speaker 1: The guys who are comfortable in the water, they were fine.
Speaker 1: But but the guys who were kind of new to it,
Speaker 1: you could see the wide eyed stairs. There was a
Speaker 1: terror in their eyes. And strap me in a chair
Speaker 1: and drown me. Okay, okay, they have divers. They're there
Speaker 1: to kind of, you know, keep you safe. But some
Speaker 1: guys balked not doing it. The freak. Then you have
Speaker 1: to do it blindfolded, three times, you have to do it.
Speaker 1: Were blacked out. Speed O goggles. So I'm glad they
Speaker 1: still do that training because it saves your life. It
Speaker 1: really does. That saves your life. So, um, you've got
Speaker 1: some airtime, you go out to your sandego, arrive at
Speaker 1: the squadron and they're gonna deploy to land bases and
Speaker 1: to um amphibious landing vessels and stuff like them. Um.
Speaker 1: So when I was in San Diego, that was just
Speaker 1: when I was at the rack Agency three. And once
Speaker 1: I finished that, I was deployed to Agency twenty five
Speaker 1: and that's in Guam. And once I got there, from there,
Speaker 1: I deployed to the ships it and uh and then
Speaker 1: we do Station SAR there in Guam. Bam is a
Speaker 1: very nice place. It's a beautiful island. Used to be
Speaker 1: used to repetition for being kind of sharky in the water,
Speaker 1: and you still have that. Yeah, oh yeah. Um, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of sharks in blom So we'd fly over
Speaker 1: the beach all the time and you just see sharks
Speaker 1: swimming right in between people regularly. I mean every since.
Speaker 1: There was never a day where you don't see sharks
Speaker 1: swimming in the tween people. I have no idea. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you have a different sense of the ocean. After being
Speaker 1: a riskuer requipment for a while watching the sharks swimming
Speaker 1: that close to batas Yo there have a different view
Speaker 1: about going to the beach and going out into the
Speaker 1: water much more than waist high. You're like out there,
Speaker 1: there are sharks every day San Diego to we'd fly
Speaker 1: over Imperial Beast down there. Just see sharks your time.
Speaker 1: They got seals in the water. They got seals, like
Speaker 1: in San Diego, not in not in Guam. No, So
Speaker 1: that means you have great whites that they have seals.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of great whites in San Diego for sure.
Speaker 1: That's cold water too, man, he goes the Pacific's cold everywhere.
Speaker 1: So the air rescue responsibilities you guys would you guys
Speaker 1: were primary search and rescue UM responders in Guam. Was
Speaker 1: the Coast Guard there as well? Yeah, so there was
Speaker 1: a Coastguard base where they didn't have a helicopter assets.
Speaker 1: So our main duty when we were in Guam was
Speaker 1: search and rescue. So we'd work with we'd work with
Speaker 1: the Coast Guard, and we'd work with bomb fire rescue
Speaker 1: and we we just stand sorry stand star rotations go
Speaker 1: as a detachment. How many birds that they send out
Speaker 1: to two three in Guam and non tin helicopters out
Speaker 1: there in Guam went out. There's a squadron that okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was stationed. Yeah, I was there for a little
Speaker 1: over four years. And then from Lawn we'd get if
Speaker 1: we weren't on deployment, and just in Walmar, main duty
Speaker 1: was Star star duty and training for deployment, and so
Speaker 1: when we got deployed, we'd go out with three two
Speaker 1: or three helicopters, depend on what ship we were on.
Speaker 1: My first deployment was on the bottom of shard about
Speaker 1: fire in San Diego. Yeah, yeah, Yeah, she's like she's
Speaker 1: a total right off. Now they're they're gonna she is,
Speaker 1: she's down, she's down here in Texas stuff, and they're
Speaker 1: they're taking her apart um down around the border. There's
Speaker 1: a report out about that. There was a whole just
Speaker 1: a mess of failures that go all the way up
Speaker 1: to the front office right down to like the E two,
Speaker 1: E three guys that were making the ship. It was
Speaker 1: just a disaster. But well, I mean, you could get
Speaker 1: a piece of her now if you want. You could
Speaker 1: go over there and say, hey, like I sailed on
Speaker 1: this ship. I'd like the chunk of it. You know,
Speaker 1: I did try. I I contacted the contra actor that
Speaker 1: has running taking apart down there, and he said, we've
Speaker 1: got a lot of these requests and we can't. We
Speaker 1: just can't let people come in and see your kids.
Speaker 1: And all right. He did say that they're gonna melt
Speaker 1: down a bunch of the steal and make challenge coins.
Speaker 1: So okay, okay, okay, that's pretty cool. So did you
Speaker 1: say you spent four years in Guam? That's really something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's not bad duty actually Quam. I mean that's not bad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not bad. For like six months and then you're
Speaker 1: on an island that's twenty miles long for four years.
Speaker 1: Did you get back stateside? Very often you'll be six
Speaker 1: months or so come out. You just didn't, uh plane
Speaker 1: tickets for like twenty three hundred bucks eighteen hundred bucks
Speaker 1: to get back. And there's there's a lot more money
Speaker 1: than I could afford. What about space A little space
Speaker 1: A I could never rely on space out there, man,
Speaker 1: I just I mean, the Guam just doesn't have resources
Speaker 1: you do back in the States, so it's really hard
Speaker 1: to get back. And eight hundreds of big is a
Speaker 1: big amount of money, that's all. That's a big job.
Speaker 1: How many rescues did you end up doing? Igua? In
Speaker 1: the documentary we talk about, Um, it's a different kind
Speaker 1: of rescue than than the normal. If he has your
Speaker 1: riscue for a profile, what should be to cover a
Speaker 1: pilot who's ejected Our search numbers going over overboard. Um,
Speaker 1: you're doing rescues of civilians, which would be boats and
Speaker 1: probably some suicide attemps. Sometimes some people just sw have
Speaker 1: to see sometimes I want to end it all. Uma
Speaker 1: was it was? It pretty busy out there. It's a
Speaker 1: riscue it from Yeah, it's extremely busy. Um we'd get yeah,
Speaker 1: tween sixt eight calls rescues a year, and the meta
Speaker 1: metavacs we'd have at least one a week at least
Speaker 1: Because um, the other islands in the Mariana Silence, they
Speaker 1: don't have any kind of medical facilities. Mcaham was the
Speaker 1: only major hospital area, So if somebody got seriously hurt
Speaker 1: on like c I paid, we'd have to fly out
Speaker 1: to the road and we'd have to fly out there
Speaker 1: and pick him up and stabilize them on the way
Speaker 1: to the hospital. Back in Guam. That was a lot
Speaker 1: of that was a lot of calls. I had a
Speaker 1: lot of matavacs out there, and then I had had
Speaker 1: six good rescues in Guam and the three of them
Speaker 1: were two of them were hikers who fell off a
Speaker 1: cliff and Guam, and I have a I'd have a
Speaker 1: couple more, That's what I was thinking about. I have
Speaker 1: a couple more calls like that. But people wouldn't get
Speaker 1: in the helicopter. So so like the family would call
Speaker 1: and they were lost for a day, we go out
Speaker 1: there and find them, and then they wouldn't want to
Speaker 1: get rescued. Yea, yeah, So what are you do in
Speaker 1: a situation like that? Yeah, I didn't know how. I
Speaker 1: didn't know how it worked at all. Um try and
Speaker 1: tell them, like do you're clearly gonna die? Um? Died
Speaker 1: rated having any food in a couple of days now,
Speaker 1: even sweating like squams and it's a tropical jungle, you know, No,
Speaker 1: I can't. I can't go back. So you call the
Speaker 1: pilots specking the HeLa and we're like, hey, this guy's
Speaker 1: not coming in, Like well, we can't force them. So
Speaker 1: they just picked me back up on the on the
Speaker 1: wire I mean the SMT the M A couple of
Speaker 1: models come a couple of water bottles and say, yeah,
Speaker 1: we would we left them. I actually left one guy
Speaker 1: with our camel back. I'd haven't gotten that back, he
Speaker 1: still has it. Um. Yeah, But the other two I
Speaker 1: had on land they fell off hiking on mount land
Speaker 1: land out there. Those are pretty those are pretty common
Speaker 1: land rescues people with hike and fall off a cliff
Speaker 1: and break their legs or something. We might to go
Speaker 1: get them. That's importing. That's a pretty gnarly injury too. Yeah. Especially, Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of pain and blood and lots of things
Speaker 1: can happen, and they've really bashed themselves up. Shock. Um,
Speaker 1: did you lose anybody? No? I did have two recovery
Speaker 1: missions though, where they were already then by the time
Speaker 1: I got there. Um, but that you know, what I'm
Speaker 1: saying is we're not we're not corners. We can't we
Speaker 1: can't pronounce people dead. So um, you have to try
Speaker 1: and do everything you can until you get the hospital.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's that's tough. You go out there hoping
Speaker 1: to rescue someone, then you get out there you find
Speaker 1: them gone. That's that's a that's a heartbreaking there was. Indeed,
Speaker 1: how did when did you get out? Oh? The other thing, Wait,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go back to this. You know, in fact,
Speaker 1: the life of being a risk here of proving is
Speaker 1: we lose people in operational accidents. That Roosevelt just lost
Speaker 1: a full almost a full crew of guys one one
Speaker 1: crewmen survival, other five of ground. Um that in such
Speaker 1: a small community, when you lose people, you end up
Speaker 1: knowing them or somebody knew them. Um while you were
Speaker 1: in did that happen much? We had a bunch of
Speaker 1: crashes while I was in, like eleven mishaps in like
Speaker 1: four years. Um did you did you have those kinds
Speaker 1: of experiences as well? Yeah? Um, the big one with
Speaker 1: the Marines that crashed off of Hawaii, that that kind
Speaker 1: of hit us all when of rows out there? Um.
Speaker 1: And then I mean recently the one that just crashed
Speaker 1: off of San Diego. Well eight that went down we
Speaker 1: all knew them. Um. Yeah every time, Like you said,
Speaker 1: it's super small community. Every time, every time something like
Speaker 1: that happens, you definitely know someone or went through training
Speaker 1: with them at some point, and it's easy to see
Speaker 1: yourself in that in that same spot, like you always
Speaker 1: feel like you've rolled the dice. Every time you go
Speaker 1: open the aircraft. You think, I didn't come up sneake
Speaker 1: eyes today, but you could come up sneak eys in
Speaker 1: the afternoon. You're always eating wait your turn. You know
Speaker 1: you're waiting in turn. That's the best way to screen.
Speaker 1: It really is a roll of dice. Dude. Just like
Speaker 1: you said, every time you see like that happened, you
Speaker 1: have been in that scenario before where that could have
Speaker 1: happened to you, and you're like, thank God, Like it's
Speaker 1: just pure luck that that we didn't crash um over
Speaker 1: and over again. I think that's the fire concept. We
Speaker 1: had a fire in the aircraft one time and come
Speaker 1: back at night and we had an electrical fire in
Speaker 1: the panel and lost the lights interior, and that was
Speaker 1: a When you smell things burning in an aircraft, that's
Speaker 1: a very disconcerting thing and you just have to sit
Speaker 1: there right. You get the fire extinguisher out and you're
Speaker 1: waiting for the lames to blow and things to shut down,
Speaker 1: and we're hundred miles from the ship and we're like, God,
Speaker 1: I was like getting into my gear. I was like
Speaker 1: I was getting into my gear. Told the pilots of
Speaker 1: somebody to get my wes. You dont case, you have
Speaker 1: to go the water, and I'll have the rafts and
Speaker 1: I'll try and get you guys out and we'll get
Speaker 1: our strokes and our radios up, and you know, the
Speaker 1: ship will be a couple of hours, but they'll get
Speaker 1: to us, and you know, just just relax and refine service.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put on my I'm gonna put on my
Speaker 1: WI gear anyway, So started opening up the doors so
Speaker 1: you can get out. Yeah, doing all that, doing all that,
Speaker 1: all that dish preparation, we're doing, you know, digital any
Speaker 1: checklist and everything, and and then the ship turned the
Speaker 1: lights on for us and we're like to thank God,
Speaker 1: we're gonna get back on deck. And the thing about
Speaker 1: crashes are the usually very simple things are not like
Speaker 1: things you could predict. They end up being these small
Speaker 1: takes a month to figure out what it was, and
Speaker 1: when they do, you go, that's what brought down the helicopter. Jeez,
Speaker 1: you know, Tom, it doesn't end up being a big thing,
Speaker 1: ends up being something relatively minor. And you think it
Speaker 1: took this whole aircraft there so um and you do
Speaker 1: you feel it every every major incident is a result
Speaker 1: of Swiss cheese effect, where its four small things coming
Speaker 1: in line to cause the problem. It's not one major thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you just sit there and the aircraft and have
Speaker 1: to like wait for it to happen or not happen.
Speaker 1: But it's always there in your head. You always feel
Speaker 1: great when you get back on the deck. You are
Speaker 1: that you're feeling when the rotors turned down. All you
Speaker 1: hear is just the whine of the headphones. It's like
Speaker 1: dead silent. You have to take kind of a minute
Speaker 1: to just because you're have that whole thing of noise
Speaker 1: and vibration and all of that, and it's like dead
Speaker 1: quiet except just for a little feedback in the in
Speaker 1: the headphones of your helmet. There's I still remember that feeling.
Speaker 1: It's like it's always like thirty seconds or so. We
Speaker 1: just kind of sit there and yeah, we did it.
Speaker 1: We're not dead today. Good job, sir, you didn't kill
Speaker 1: us all. That's a concept that had a hard time
Speaker 1: explaining when I got back. It's like flying a helicopter.
Speaker 1: Strate everytime you fly, and it's and you always think
Speaker 1: you're gonna die. And it's different because it's not like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna die right now. It's like you have a
Speaker 1: solid forty minutes to an hour thinking about how you're
Speaker 1: gonna die. That sucks with you. I don't know, imagine
Speaker 1: just spending for an hour straight on th I'm gonna die.
Speaker 1: I have a long time to think about that. That
Speaker 1: that'll bess ship. Yeah, it's like getting a death sentence
Speaker 1: and a reprieve every day. Right, the governor calls and
Speaker 1: tells you you don't have to you know, like an
Speaker 1: electric cute too. But you're right because all the losses
Speaker 1: tend to be at takeoffs and landings. It's once you're
Speaker 1: in the air, usually you're okay. It's the landings and
Speaker 1: the takeoffs where it all seems to go bad, and
Speaker 1: and it goes bad very quickly. Um. I used to
Speaker 1: just tell myself, please just tell let me get knocked out,
Speaker 1: please let me be conscious. I can get out if
Speaker 1: i'm if I'm awake, I can get out. And um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, you're right, because you bad weather on the ship,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be taking off and you're like, okay, I
Speaker 1: gotta be sweating mess and the landing's gonna takeoff, is
Speaker 1: gonna be okay, are we minimals on the weather? We
Speaker 1: okay on the weather in the wind, and you know,
Speaker 1: we'll be our eyes. You're gonna be sleep, you know,
Speaker 1: and then you're coming back bad weather, safe thing at night,
Speaker 1: dexk pitching and you're sweating that for forty minutes. How's
Speaker 1: the landing gonna be? We're gonna be all right, We're
Speaker 1: gonna do it. Yeah, it's a it's a big relief
Speaker 1: when you finally get on the deck and you're like
Speaker 1: and then it's like, I'm on the flight schedule again
Speaker 1: for the morning. Try yeah, try and go and get
Speaker 1: four hours of sleep after that and then go flying it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's like sticking your head in the mouth of the
Speaker 1: line and like, okay, see you tomorrow. Right now we'll
Speaker 1: be doing this all over again. Well I'm just getting
Speaker 1: over surviving the last one and we gotta go right
Speaker 1: back down. It is it's a it's a it's a
Speaker 1: you becoming near to certain risks, and after you get out,
Speaker 1: you and engage in risky behaviors because I think a
Speaker 1: lot of times we have a hard time identifying real
Speaker 1: risk and um motorcycles, you know, drinking more alcohol than
Speaker 1: we should driving our cars too fast, getting into some
Speaker 1: like extreme sports and stuff. I mean, we're we're looking.
Speaker 1: We find a certain sense of meaning and in living
Speaker 1: in that develope of danger and it's almost like you
Speaker 1: get hooked on. It takes a while to get over it.
Speaker 1: It does. It takes a while, and it took a
Speaker 1: while for you. When you get out. You left the
Speaker 1: you left the Navy. You decided not to relist. So yeah,
Speaker 1: tell me what tell me what shape you're thinking on that? Uh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: one one and done for me. Um, there's a couple
Speaker 1: of couple. Two of the biggest factors that made the
Speaker 1: decision for me was one my back was shot, dude. Um,
Speaker 1: my back was done by the time I got out.
Speaker 1: So two of those rescues I had were pretty big
Speaker 1: tomorrow guys and carrying them in a litter sint over
Speaker 1: in the back of a helicopter, and that just did
Speaker 1: I felt that as soon as I picked them up
Speaker 1: as my backs now, So customer, I don't know if
Speaker 1: we can do that with this audience, but um, you
Speaker 1: could come back. Yeah, my back was screwed. Um, it hurt,
Speaker 1: It still hurts today. Um. And I was like, I
Speaker 1: can't do another two or flying and these things, and
Speaker 1: then two was um well am was well? Was? It
Speaker 1: was not fun? Man? I think I was out there
Speaker 1: with a lot of good guys. A lot of the
Speaker 1: swimmers were good, but our command was terrible. We had
Speaker 1: a really terrible command. I guess for context. One time
Speaker 1: I put in for leave, it was denied eleven times,
Speaker 1: and then we got to go and leave. I still
Speaker 1: have all those eleven denials. Um, just because they would
Speaker 1: say we didn't have the meaning. We were undermanned out there,
Speaker 1: so you didn't get to take leave out there, man.
Speaker 1: And that's yeah. I've talked to that when we do
Speaker 1: these screenings. I brought that up. People like, no, you
Speaker 1: you're you're supposed to require to let people take leaving. Like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what to tell you, dude, When you're
Speaker 1: that far away from the sea wall, when you're at
Speaker 1: you're have a CEO that can just run with it
Speaker 1: ever he wants. You're not taking leave if he needs
Speaker 1: you there, you're not leaving. And I took leave twice
Speaker 1: a whole time I was out there, and that's not
Speaker 1: for not putting it in. So I was I was
Speaker 1: pretty burnt out. It's burnt out that command and from
Speaker 1: my body didn't even give you a leave on the base.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't even give you a cheo week break on
Speaker 1: the base. You couldn't just like check into a hotel
Speaker 1: and and take two weeks to send yourself on the
Speaker 1: beach in Spearfish. They wouldn't. They wouldn't grant leave. That's amazing,
Speaker 1: that's amazing. That's absolutely incredible. It could be just because
Speaker 1: you're the up tempo of war. So they're like, hey,
Speaker 1: we got to see control squadrons and Afghanistan doing stuff
Speaker 1: and we gotta put out just as hard. And but
Speaker 1: also I think about cuts to the Navy because the
Speaker 1: personnel cuts to equipment. Um, they're shorter people. They're shorter people.
Speaker 1: That sucks, man, because from what I can tell of you,
Speaker 1: I think you're a great guy and the name shouldn't
Speaker 1: have done some more things to keep you around. They
Speaker 1: do burn guys out, so that's what Yeah, that's what
Speaker 1: we're trying to fix now, is make sure you guys
Speaker 1: don't get burned out and we keep assets in the military. Now,
Speaker 1: there was there a sense of things to where you
Speaker 1: kind of said yourself, Okay, I proved to myself what
Speaker 1: I wanted to prove to myself by coming year. Maybe
Speaker 1: not in that respect. I mean I saw what it
Speaker 1: was about, and I felt like I did my time.
Speaker 1: There's more along lines like I didn't. I feel like
Speaker 1: I didn't need to I didn't need to do anything else.
Speaker 1: You'll tell me earlier that you learned. You learned to
Speaker 1: sail in San Diego by taking boats out on the
Speaker 1: recreation side of the base. There's a couple of bucks
Speaker 1: in an hour after to go out and sail boat sailing,
Speaker 1: help sailing, help you. And did you do a little
Speaker 1: that in Guam too? Was it? For sure? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: learned to sail in San Diego the MWR program. You
Speaker 1: can rent boats super cheap and they teach you to sail,
Speaker 1: and you can do that with the buddies on the weekends.
Speaker 1: And then when I got to Guam, i'd still do that.
Speaker 1: And then those two times I took leave um I
Speaker 1: went to Thailand and then Australia, and I'd sail as
Speaker 1: much as I could when I was out there. And
Speaker 1: then when we were stationed in Japan. So before we
Speaker 1: go into ployments, we live in Japan. We were station
Speaker 1: in Uikuni at the Wrine Air stationed down there. I'd
Speaker 1: sail out of there a lout a bit, which is beautiful. Man.
Speaker 1: I didn't know Japan had such beautiful islands out there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're gorgeous. Um, they've had a lot of time to
Speaker 1: rebuild them since since the work. Um. When you got
Speaker 1: out of the navy, what year was that seen? Similar
Speaker 1: to L sixteen so and that would have put you gosh,
Speaker 1: you were twenty two, twenty three years old. Then right,
Speaker 1: you come back to Texas, back to the home country. Yep,
Speaker 1: back to the motherland. Um. Yeah, and then um, about
Speaker 1: to two months out, Um, I started noticing my body
Speaker 1: was was was weird man. Um. So when I was
Speaker 1: in I never had any of these issues. Um. And
Speaker 1: I always felt like I could keep my mind and
Speaker 1: my body compartmentalized. I mean you full, you'd have that
Speaker 1: saying all the time and compart compartmentalize everything going on
Speaker 1: around you, what you did the day before so you
Speaker 1: can focus on your flight. And then I think and
Speaker 1: I got out, it finally all kind of caught up
Speaker 1: to me, and that hit me in about the two
Speaker 1: month mark. Um, I would be sitting around not doing
Speaker 1: anything at all, and nobody would be around me. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be in a store with a house or driving
Speaker 1: or something. And for no reason at all, adrenaline and
Speaker 1: just started running through my body. And and I didn't
Speaker 1: I didn't know why. Um. That happened a couple of
Speaker 1: times and I was like, this is this is problem.
Speaker 1: So this never used to happen to me. Um, some
Speaker 1: your your body is still on your flight schedule. Yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: since takeoffs and landings and like giving the adrenaline of
Speaker 1: the racing heartbeat, we're about to take off. So yeah,
Speaker 1: so there we actually did a lot of Stephen did um.
Speaker 1: Stephen the guy I did the trip with Hillar I
Speaker 1: sees um. His whole academic career was based on combat
Speaker 1: veterans returning back to the States, what the bodies go through.
Speaker 1: So he had his PhD in that. Yeah, and and
Speaker 1: um all the research he did, and it really shows
Speaker 1: that when your body operates on that level level for
Speaker 1: years on and always thinking you're in and die, right,
Speaker 1: and that a bunch of journaling run through your body,
Speaker 1: it doesn't just turn off. So when you go live
Speaker 1: a slower pace, your body is still used to operating
Speaker 1: at that tempersso will still release journaling for no reason
Speaker 1: at all, because that's what it used to do to
Speaker 1: keep you alive. Uh, I had no idea, and that's
Speaker 1: scart to ship out of me. And and then with
Speaker 1: that and you know, then you're getting mad paste off
Speaker 1: all time and you had had a real problem come
Speaker 1: back Veneran. Suicide in this country is a major issue,
Speaker 1: um upwards, with twenty two veterans a day commit suicide
Speaker 1: every every day in this country, and are an awful
Speaker 1: lot of organizations that are working to try and mitigate
Speaker 1: and reduce that reduced that risk of suicide among former citiers,
Speaker 1: and that wasn't any different for you. Tell at one
Speaker 1: point you had a very very bad day and you
Speaker 1: put a gun to your head and you pulled the trigger. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I got there. Um, I'm not proud of it. And
Speaker 1: it's still especially when these screenings and relive the most
Speaker 1: embarrassing norment of your life over and over again. It sucks.
Speaker 1: But um, when I got there, when I got that
Speaker 1: low dude, I'm just I broke down in tears because
Speaker 1: I didn't want like John and Cal and had my buddies.
Speaker 1: I was overseas with the field that alone like they didn't.
Speaker 1: There was no other way to live through this. Yeh yes,
Speaker 1: So that's so that's how Hell I See started, and
Speaker 1: that's why we set off for Cape Horn to kind
Speaker 1: of document what was going on with my body and
Speaker 1: when I was so they could see that they were alone,
Speaker 1: and a minor miracle um when you pulled that trigger,
Speaker 1: there was some sort of misfire and malfunction. The primer
Speaker 1: did not actually that charge, and it did not put
Speaker 1: a bullet into your head, and you had a moment
Speaker 1: to pause and think about what you were going to
Speaker 1: do going forward after this sort of second chance was
Speaker 1: given to you by divine providence or by pure, pure
Speaker 1: happenstance and luck, because I assume you know how to
Speaker 1: take care of a weapon. It should have gone off right,
Speaker 1: it should something should have happened. So something saved you,
Speaker 1: and you decided, Okay, if I'm not going to die,
Speaker 1: I better get on with living. And you decided to
Speaker 1: buy a sailboat. You bought a put twenty grand into
Speaker 1: a used sailboat and decided you were in sail around
Speaker 1: Cape Horn in it, which is like suicide by another means.
Speaker 1: As I've watched the original part of the digres, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: he's just gonna kill itself a different way trying to
Speaker 1: do this. What what was it about Cape Horn that
Speaker 1: excited your imagination and made you say, this is the
Speaker 1: quest I have to I have to fulfill. I've got
Speaker 1: to go to the forest and of South America between
Speaker 1: between the Devil and Deep Blue Sea or so to
Speaker 1: find my find my life again. Tell me about that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: to bring it back a few steps. I didn't. I
Speaker 1: still after the round didn't go off, I didn't. I
Speaker 1: didn't give a shit about living. I don't care about
Speaker 1: being in this world more. That didn't change. So it
Speaker 1: wasn't It wasn't like a I need to start living
Speaker 1: now kind of thing. And I wasn't happy. I wasn't
Speaker 1: happy that I didn't go off. It really wasn't genuinely,
Speaker 1: and but I I I wanted to make sure that
Speaker 1: that the guys didn't go through that. That was the
Speaker 1: only thing that I came away from that with was
Speaker 1: I wanted to make sure nobody else ended up like
Speaker 1: that and felt that way because you feel pretty funck alone. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: um Stevens actually one that who kept me alive? Man.
Speaker 1: I credit that to him for sure, because I call
Speaker 1: him and talk about his research and um, everything he's
Speaker 1: seen with the comment bets, he's he's interviewed coming back
Speaker 1: and he's like, dude, everything you're saying, he's exactly what
Speaker 1: every single person of every need and said, what's happening
Speaker 1: in your body where your mind's at. It's like, what
Speaker 1: the what the hell dude, how come we don't know this?
Speaker 1: You know? How come this isn't common knowledge that this
Speaker 1: is what it's going to be like when you get out.
Speaker 1: And so that's when the conversation started, was like, well,
Speaker 1: let's use this and reach every guy getting out of military,
Speaker 1: and um, that's what we kind of decided was the
Speaker 1: only way to do that this day and age is
Speaker 1: through through media, through film. Um, So we decided to
Speaker 1: do something in this world that we could film and
Speaker 1: talk about PTSD and how to fix your body on
Speaker 1: a physiological level. And we're like, well, if we're gonna
Speaker 1: film something, it's got to be pretty badass and people
Speaker 1: are gonna have to want to watch it if they're
Speaker 1: gonna pay atention. And so we're like, well, you see,
Speaker 1: they're gonna be Mount Everest or Cape Horn and they're like,
Speaker 1: well amount Everest. You know, you pay some money to
Speaker 1: carry your stuff at the top of the mountain and
Speaker 1: you take a month off and go do it. I
Speaker 1: think it's gonna be Cape Horn. So we decided on
Speaker 1: Cape Horn. And yeah, then that's when I got the
Speaker 1: boat and picture up, cinematography, start filming. Yeah, the cinematography
Speaker 1: is beautiful. Some of the footage you captured the wave
Speaker 1: actually was just I mean my head was rocket. I
Speaker 1: felt myself like, you know, leaning into the leaning into
Speaker 1: the into the c state there. Uh. Your footage in
Speaker 1: Patagonia was beautiful. I was like, it looks like Norway,
Speaker 1: you know, like the glaciers in the fields. It was like,
Speaker 1: look sudden Norway. It was. It was absolutely gorgeous. But
Speaker 1: you had on this journey. It took you. It was
Speaker 1: over a year, wasn't it. Yeah, just almost two years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I left in two nineteen and this was the
Speaker 1: biggest boat you would ever sailed. But yeah, I guess
Speaker 1: that's fair, say yeah, yeah, So those of you, those
Speaker 1: of you are listening, you have what amounts to a
Speaker 1: novice sailor taking a fiberglass bottom boat, and normally you
Speaker 1: would want it to meet up steal rocks and wave
Speaker 1: action that batter a boat like that to two pieces.
Speaker 1: And he sailed at and he sailed at six thousand miles.
Speaker 1: He said about the about the milet six under just
Speaker 1: under ten thousand miles through probably what is the most
Speaker 1: treacherous passage of water in the entire world. And I
Speaker 1: gotta tell you it's an amazing fee. I wonder if
Speaker 1: you still understand just what an incredible thing it was
Speaker 1: that you guys actually pulled off, because I watched the documentaries, like,
Speaker 1: I don't think they understand what they just did. They
Speaker 1: just sailed thousand miles on a rich cracker around around
Speaker 1: Cape Born and lived. It's absolutely amazing. I kept thinking
Speaker 1: watching in the documentary, folks is UM, Hello High Seas,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna arrange for screening some of our members
Speaker 1: for you guys to watch this UM and I've been
Speaker 1: working with your people on this. We're gonna range for
Speaker 1: a screening. Tails also got a veterans organization or he
Speaker 1: is wanted to take veterans coming back out of the
Speaker 1: militarian and help them in their transition back to civilian
Speaker 1: life by adventure therapy UM by sailing. And also I
Speaker 1: think there's a sense of crew that that you miss
Speaker 1: when you get out of the military, very close relationships
Speaker 1: among the guys we serve with, and when when you're
Speaker 1: cut off from him, you're cut off him. It's like
Speaker 1: when you step off, you step outside the veil again,
Speaker 1: you're a civilian. They're still in and there's a divide
Speaker 1: there and it's a it's a weird feeling. Um. So
Speaker 1: having that sort of crew of guys of who are
Speaker 1: veterans to reassociate with and and rebuild yourself around your
Speaker 1: tribes and speak, I think it's a very important part
Speaker 1: of that veterans transition. So I can see what you're
Speaker 1: doing is is going to be very helpful to guys.
Speaker 1: So we'll be looking to raising modest sum of money
Speaker 1: to help his help this organization. You also have a
Speaker 1: lot of tequila out um that you guys are doing,
Speaker 1: which I'm surprised it isn't wrong giving your sailors. It
Speaker 1: really should be. It should be rung. Yeah, tell us
Speaker 1: the name of the tequila where people can get it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's called Cape Porn Tequila. And uh, it's not on
Speaker 1: the shelf yet, So my bottles are stuck in that
Speaker 1: traffic jm Off, California. Uh, look at December tenth is
Speaker 1: our day is supposed to be November one, but we
Speaker 1: got pushed back a month before. We get bottles here
Speaker 1: um and you're usually the proceeds of that to fund
Speaker 1: the proof. Oh yeah, man, Yeah, that was one of
Speaker 1: the biggest things on our expedition was let's keep it
Speaker 1: at going. So we had a lot of we had
Speaker 1: a couple of sponsors that we were out there kind
Speaker 1: of left the high dry and we were in a
Speaker 1: bad spot. So when we were down around Cape Horn,
Speaker 1: you know, another one of those moments you know when
Speaker 1: you're flying you think you're gonna die. We were on
Speaker 1: a boat and we're all we're pretty sure we're gonna die,
Speaker 1: and we're like, well, if we may get back live,
Speaker 1: what are you canna do? And ron was was to
Speaker 1: keep these going and start a company to do that.
Speaker 1: And so that's the Cape Porn Tequila and funds are
Speaker 1: veteran expeditions. Once we get him on the shelves, you
Speaker 1: guys have really you've got to watch this document because
Speaker 1: I'm a sailor myself. I began sailing in middle school
Speaker 1: in Miami and coconut growth and crewede on a boat
Speaker 1: that sailed in the in the Bbahama Islands for oh gosh,
Speaker 1: I just three different summers I spent out there and
Speaker 1: there were some moments of your journey there where I thought,
Speaker 1: I know, they're not going to die, but they really
Speaker 1: should die because they're doing something that is like super dangerous.
Speaker 1: You know, the jib boom break for you had to
Speaker 1: ascend the mask to the Poston's chair in a high
Speaker 1: sea state, adding about a hundred eighty pounds the top
Speaker 1: weight to the top of your mask. While you were
Speaker 1: securing that jim boo. When I was like, okay, this
Speaker 1: is dangerous, you got thrown. You guys got thrown overboard
Speaker 1: at one point where where the nose died into a wave.
Speaker 1: You you and your the other stars from you guys
Speaker 1: were out. There's two stars froms you know in that movie.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, it's like I've seen
Speaker 1: and you guys got washed off the boat at one
Speaker 1: point I think you were trying to secure the jib
Speaker 1: or something with Joe Mainzel try put down front a storm,
Speaker 1: and you guys pulled yourself back in. You had a
Speaker 1: harrowing experience with pirates in the middle of the night
Speaker 1: where a a storm basically rolled over you, the clouds
Speaker 1: covered the moon, and I mean there's some like great
Speaker 1: stuff in this that you had. This incredible I mean,
Speaker 1: the only thing that didn't happen, you didn't get run
Speaker 1: over by a tanker. It was like, I was like,
Speaker 1: we had a couple of those close calls. You had
Speaker 1: the Homebolt Kurt track seven miles out into the Pacific
Speaker 1: off of Chile E and I was like, that's a
Speaker 1: long way to be in that boat because what was that?
Speaker 1: What was the boat? And in the video, dude, it
Speaker 1: just looks like a bathtub on those ways. I mean,
Speaker 1: it is such a spec The drone foot that you
Speaker 1: guys had was great, um, because I was like, this
Speaker 1: gut to be drowning foots a drone the Flying Mother.
Speaker 1: You guys run out of food, you run out of water, Um,
Speaker 1: you gotta you had a You did a go fund
Speaker 1: me when you were basically stranded, and gosh, you raised
Speaker 1: your goal in like a week. People through the money.
Speaker 1: People were at you there to help you get you know,
Speaker 1: to keep your going. It was really there was really
Speaker 1: an incredible outpouring of support from the people watching you
Speaker 1: on the journey. A lot of active duty guys contributed
Speaker 1: to that, and then a lot of our community in
Speaker 1: Santonio and UM College Station and UM and well met
Speaker 1: well Med's this healthcare group. They they're one of our
Speaker 1: big sponsors as well. That's that was one of the
Speaker 1: coolest moments of the triple seeing everybody kind of come
Speaker 1: together and realized that this needed to be done. You
Speaker 1: need to be talked about. You have a pt you
Speaker 1: have a PTSD diagnosis. I'm assuming with the v A.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming you probably also have some disability because of
Speaker 1: your back also with the v A. Do you want
Speaker 1: to talk about a little bit about dealing with the
Speaker 1: VA and how that experience has been, any anything you
Speaker 1: can tell people about listens learning about things that they did.
Speaker 1: I don't know have anything good to say about the
Speaker 1: VA if you're looking for that. That was part of
Speaker 1: the problem. Man. Whenever I got to Pensacola, M and
Speaker 1: I started going through all this and I had a problem.
Speaker 1: I went to the v A and I checked in
Speaker 1: and I saw a psychiatrist and UM diagnosed me and said, well,
Speaker 1: the next time we can get you in is in
Speaker 1: four or six months, and I was like, I've told
Speaker 1: her in that moment, I was like, what the hell
Speaker 1: am I gonna do myself in four six months? For real? Well,
Speaker 1: what's gonna happen? You know? Um? So I left, Dude,
Speaker 1: I got out of there, and VA is not gonna help,
Speaker 1: you know, we gotta do this ourselves. And and kind
Speaker 1: of not related, but that's kind of what I think.
Speaker 1: When you see all these nonprofits popping up to stop
Speaker 1: energy side PTSD, it's not because they want to do
Speaker 1: it's because there's a need, because guys who killed themselves
Speaker 1: and nothing's being done because there's a six month weight
Speaker 1: at the VA to get help. Uh. I think that
Speaker 1: says it in itself. How how much the VA is lacking.
Speaker 1: And I don't think it's the people that worked there.
Speaker 1: People that I worked that I worked with are awesome,
Speaker 1: are great. It's overwhelmed, man. They got there's nineteen million
Speaker 1: veterans in the States. How many of the A stations
Speaker 1: are there. It's ridiculous solutions around the country and they
Speaker 1: don't seem to be able to see anybody, which is like,
Speaker 1: how what are they doing? Still? I have that in Houston, Dude.
Speaker 1: It's one of the big ones. I went to Houston,
Speaker 1: like for my back. For instance, I went to I
Speaker 1: know where just bitching. Now. I don't hate doing this,
Speaker 1: but I think guys they get out. So I went
Speaker 1: to get a m r A Um, I think the
Speaker 1: Baky down downtown Houston, and they said, okay, you can
Speaker 1: come up with three months while I have opening for you. Okay,
Speaker 1: So so I don't. I don't want to go already, right,
Speaker 1: Samantha UM just telling me. She's like, you need to go,
Speaker 1: and you go get it. Um, yeah, sorry, And you
Speaker 1: know she's she doesn't want to pushing me to go
Speaker 1: to v A. I don't want to work with the
Speaker 1: v A because it's always been a negative experience. So like, okay, fine,
Speaker 1: all right, I'll go get a set up. I'll go
Speaker 1: go through the process. They're like, okay, three months, got
Speaker 1: you That day comes, dude, well there was the day
Speaker 1: before I was supposed to go. I get a letter
Speaker 1: and mail it says my employments canceled for no reason.
Speaker 1: He just says, applotment's canceled. I've been waited for three months.
Speaker 1: Go to say, um, there was no explanation or anything.
Speaker 1: So I haven't I haven't tried again since then. Um,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a mess. So that's why I'm pretty adamant.
Speaker 1: I'm doing this ourselves and taking care of guys ourselves,
Speaker 1: and then it needs to be done because there's a
Speaker 1: lot of guys like that that just getting pushed under
Speaker 1: and not get any help. There's a suddinly the things
Speaker 1: that veterans are the guys who should be doing that,
Speaker 1: because yeah, because we have an insight into this, that's
Speaker 1: that's very different than the especially when you've experienced I
Speaker 1: gotta make a confession. And we talked about this a
Speaker 1: bit before the break, but when I was in the military,
Speaker 1: PTSD existed and we did not um acknowledge it for
Speaker 1: what it was, and it was downplayed. You were living
Speaker 1: in a culture in which you just couldn't say no
Speaker 1: to things. You didn't show any fear, you didn't balk
Speaker 1: at anything, You charged straight ahead and whatever the challenge was,
Speaker 1: you went after it. And if somebody, if somebody got
Speaker 1: a little um a wobble, as we used to say, um,
Speaker 1: we looked at that as being well, the guy just
Speaker 1: can't hack. And that's that's still a problem today. And
Speaker 1: it's not about weakness it's about. And then I told
Speaker 1: you I I had nightmares for a couple of months
Speaker 1: after I got it was a recurring nightmare of the
Speaker 1: aircraft crashing in the water and I couldn't get out
Speaker 1: and I would wake up. I never knew that to
Speaker 1: be what I thought it was. I mean, I never
Speaker 1: knew what it was. I just knew I'd had these
Speaker 1: nightmares and I didn't shuffle them and drink a little
Speaker 1: harder about your motorcycle a little faster, and I hope
Speaker 1: it doesn't come back. And then it did. Subsided And
Speaker 1: about twenty years later, somebody sent me a video very
Speaker 1: very hard landing of a helicopter in bad weather and
Speaker 1: I had a full blown, cold, sweat, heart racing, short
Speaker 1: dis breath. Thought I was having a heart attack and
Speaker 1: didn't know what it us, and then realized what it was.
Speaker 1: I was having a flashback to that experience. My body
Speaker 1: was reacting to the video as if I was going
Speaker 1: through the experience again, and it was very disorienting for
Speaker 1: about two minutes while I thought what is happening? And
Speaker 1: the way I got through is I kept watching the
Speaker 1: video over and over and over to sort of like
Speaker 1: make it go away, and I would each time the
Speaker 1: symptoms would get lower and lower and lower to where
Speaker 1: I can watch it now without this lump in my
Speaker 1: chest and this fear, because you do you feel it.
Speaker 1: I could feel myself in that aircraft trying to make
Speaker 1: that landing and thinking you're gonna die. This is not
Speaker 1: going to go well, and they're filming it, so you're
Speaker 1: gonna die and it's going to be a movie. Um.
Speaker 1: And now I have a different appreciation for for PTSD.
Speaker 1: But there is a culture. It's not just in It's
Speaker 1: not just in civil society where people don't say a
Speaker 1: lot of times in the military, we don't understand it either.
Speaker 1: We see it right in front of us, and and
Speaker 1: we don't They don't react properly to it. We don't
Speaker 1: get these guys help and treatment. Um. I want to
Speaker 1: go into something else here, because you know, standing on
Speaker 1: the outside as a spectator in your life public life,
Speaker 1: now you have a very public life. The movie Hell
Speaker 1: of High Water is brutally honest. I mean, you're not
Speaker 1: holding anything back. It's very very personal and even intimate.
Speaker 1: I feel like I know you, even though I don't, um,
Speaker 1: but I do know what it's like. To be you
Speaker 1: in the context being a rescued and getting out of
Speaker 1: the Navy is a journey from military serrespect to surveillan life.
Speaker 1: And as I watched that movie in the aftermath of
Speaker 1: what happened, I see you like going from I'm going
Speaker 1: to drink this bottle of tequil and shoot myself to
Speaker 1: I've sailed the Horn of Africa. I have a successful
Speaker 1: foundation to help other metrics. I'm married, I have a
Speaker 1: two year old daughter. Dude, you you've you've made the journey.
Speaker 1: You're you're back. Do you feel that way? Do you
Speaker 1: feel like you're back? I want to live in this
Speaker 1: world again. I'm for sure. I still have my days.
Speaker 1: That's that's uh, that's I don't think that's gonna go away.
Speaker 1: But I know that this world's worth living in again.
Speaker 1: And I learned that on the trip. And that's why
Speaker 1: I started the Sailing Foundation because I want other guys
Speaker 1: to see that. But when you live in those storms
Speaker 1: and then you see sunrise come out, or you go
Speaker 1: hike some glacier that nobody's ever seen before in their life,
Speaker 1: makes you want to live, makes you want to be
Speaker 1: a part of this world again. I found that out
Speaker 1: there so well. Now you get that. Now you get
Speaker 1: that two year old man right, and to her, you
Speaker 1: are the world. You know, you are the world. Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: I gotta say I know. I gotta say that. So
Speaker 1: much of the coverage of post traumatic stress disorder and
Speaker 1: veterans issues is about the guys who die, and but
Speaker 1: I think there needs to be more emphasis placed on
Speaker 1: the guys who live, the guys who walk up to
Speaker 1: the edge of that cliff and decide not to step
Speaker 1: off of it, turn their lives around and get on
Speaker 1: with living and make the best of their lives. And
Speaker 1: I think given the challenges and struggles that that you've
Speaker 1: dealt with, I wish I could shake your hand and
Speaker 1: give your best, because you've you're doing it. Man. You
Speaker 1: step back away and you're you're on the right, you're
Speaker 1: back on course again. Rights that you're out of that
Speaker 1: duld room, and you've got a purpose and meaning, you've
Speaker 1: got wind in your sales again, and you've got a
Speaker 1: sense of direction and purpose back in your life. And
Speaker 1: so many guys don't get that. And you see him,
Speaker 1: you know, sitting in their garage just drinking beer and
Speaker 1: not living, and you're out there getting after it, and
Speaker 1: you know from from one sword or another man, I'm
Speaker 1: just like, you're doing a good thing. You're doing great
Speaker 1: and I'm proud of I'm proud of what you've been
Speaker 1: able to do, what you've been able to accomplish. And
Speaker 1: I think there's more there for you. I think there's
Speaker 1: more coming from you. Um we I'll get you a
Speaker 1: link to high Mountain Heroes. We did a documentary on
Speaker 1: quick Guys in the Alps, very similar to the same
Speaker 1: kind of experiences for the same reasons you know about
Speaker 1: reconnecting to living again through through nature. So uh, I
Speaker 1: don't want to keep it too long. I know your
Speaker 1: daughter is napping, she's gonna pop any minute, and started
Speaker 1: saving off. I just want to say what a pleasure
Speaker 1: that has been to um to talk with you today.
Speaker 1: And I hope our hope, our readers come away with
Speaker 1: a better understanding of who you are. And it's just
Speaker 1: really had to PTSD and how to come back from
Speaker 1: that and how to rearrange your life find that redirected
Speaker 1: purpose towards living. Don't be one of those twenty two.
Speaker 1: Be one of the tens of thousands like Taylor who's
Speaker 1: who's back on course. Again and sailing into a nice
Speaker 1: into a nice southerly tack. I want us to stay
Speaker 1: in touch. I want us to say in touch. And
Speaker 1: you have an open vitation from me as editor in
Speaker 1: chief if you want to write anything for us, we'd
Speaker 1: be we'd be happy to publish it all right on man,
Speaker 1: Yeah Houston, right, yeah, I will. I have your email
Speaker 1: on your your cell phone. UM, I've got your stuff.
Speaker 1: I'll make sure you get a free UM hook up
Speaker 1: with software UM as well so that you can you
Speaker 1: can be Yeah, and when that tequila arrives, let us
Speaker 1: know how we can you know, get a boller too
Speaker 1: it if I get one for me, I want you
Speaker 1: once you to sign it for me. Definitely it'll be
Speaker 1: it'll be a trophy edition from us, definitely. So ladies
Speaker 1: and gentlemen, we're going to complete the broadcast today. This
Speaker 1: is Software Radio. I am your stand in host, Shaun
Speaker 1: Spoon's editors in chief of Software and on behalf of
Speaker 1: all of us here. We just want to thank Taylor
Speaker 1: again for coming his fine movie, UM Hell of high
Speaker 1: Water available. I'm sorry, Hell of high Seas come. Hell
Speaker 1: of high Water is the phrase you know, never high sees.
Speaker 1: There's a website. Hella, I see dot com. It's a
Speaker 1: beautiful movie. You really have to see this. Um and
Speaker 1: what's this? What's this very personal journey of a veteran
Speaker 1: coming out of a military service and reconnecting back with
Speaker 1: his life and his humanity, which is the other thing
Speaker 1: I think you you really found out there too, is
Speaker 1: your sense of company. So congratulations on your fine film
Speaker 1: and your progress here coming out of the services, you
Speaker 1: transition back to civilian life, your beautiful family, and uh,
Speaker 1: I can't wait till we get a chance to talk again.
Speaker 1: You're welcome here anytime, Me too. Man, this is a great,
Speaker 1: great chat. Thank you for having me. It's really cool.
Speaker 1: Thank you use them listening to self reply M