540: Saved By The Corps. From A Path of Destruction, to Success. With Ben Ingram.

0:00 [UNKNOWN]: This is Jockel podcast number five, 40 with echo Charles and me. [UNKNOWN]: Jockel willing. [UNKNOWN]: Good evening. [UNKNOWN]: I come. [UNKNOWN]: Good evening. [UNKNOWN]: You may have heard me offer advice, especially for people getting out of the military, because it can be a rough transition.

0:16 [UNKNOWN]: And one of the core pieces of advice that I give to people that are getting out of the military is to find a new mission. [UNKNOWN]: find a new mission that's a really good move because in the military when you're in the military you have a mission you have a purpose you have a goal and every day you wake up and you're applying yourself and the people around you are applying themselves to accomplishing this mission and then one day you get out and it's gone.

0:41 [UNKNOWN]: It's gone. [UNKNOWN]: Poof. [UNKNOWN]: And that lack of a mission has caused quite a few veterans over the years to go down a bad path. [UNKNOWN]: And it's not good at all. [UNKNOWN]: So you have to find a new mission. [UNKNOWN]: Now that right there. [UNKNOWN]: is often easier said than done right.

1:05 [UNKNOWN]: Oh, just go find a new mission like it's just going to pop up. [UNKNOWN]: It can be challenging to do that. [UNKNOWN]: Well, Marine Corps vet Ben Ingraham recognized the same thing that veterans need a new mission. [UNKNOWN]: And he has one for them, which is awesome to be able to give a veteran a new mission is an outstanding thing to be able to do.

1:30 [UNKNOWN]: We're going [UNKNOWN]: the military and the Marine Corps specifically got Ben on track when he was heading down a bad path and it's interesting because we actually grew up in the same town. [UNKNOWN]: I was thinking I went to high school with his sister, Heidi, but it wasn't just high school.

1:48 [UNKNOWN]: I went through like every single grade, you know, she was my age and I went through first second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, 11th and 12th grade with his sister, Heidi. [UNKNOWN]: small rural town in in America and when you're in small town in America you have lots of opportunities and some of the opportunities that you're presented with are very good and some of the opportunities that you've presented with are not very good and depending on which of those opportunities you take growing up can be rough send you down a bad path and Ben had some rough times growing up [UNKNOWN]: It made some bad choices along the way, but thankfully, praise God he joined the Marine Corps.

2:41 [UNKNOWN]: And now he's paying it back by helping veterans with a career after the military. [UNKNOWN]: So Ben, we'll get into all of it. [UNKNOWN]: Thanks for coming my man. [UNKNOWN]: Good to see you. [UNKNOWN]: Hey, thank you so much for having me. [UNKNOWN]: I can't tell you how much I appreciate being here and praise to God.

2:59 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it's funny because I think you came to the master a few years ago and you came up and you said you're probably not going to remember But you went to school with my sister and I was like, oh, who do you go hide the anger am I going if you're like as if I wasn't going to remember hide the anger Very cool and you know, there was we we graduated.

3:19 [UNKNOWN]: I think we had a class graduating class in my high school of like 80 or 85 people [UNKNOWN]: So, and like I said, spent 12 years with all these kids, so it wasn't like a wasn't going to remember Heidi Ingraham. [UNKNOWN]: And she was always kind of a front runner, you know, she was awesome.

3:39 [UNKNOWN]: She was a great athlete. [UNKNOWN]: She held records for a long time that the high school [UNKNOWN]: And she was academically like she did good. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, she was on a good path and that's why would you start to tell me That your path wasn't quite as Wasn't quite as productive as a child.

3:54 [UNKNOWN]: Oh, it's like okay, but I can see like I said You know, you're in a small town. [UNKNOWN]: There's all kinds of different opportunities that present themselves and depends which ones you take So let's get into it. [UNKNOWN]: Let's talk about it You're growing up what were your mom and dad doing?

4:09 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so early on, Dad was a welder. [UNKNOWN]: He worked for a company called Treadwell as a welder building oxygen generators for nuclear submarines. [UNKNOWN]: And mom was a Marine Corps veteran. [UNKNOWN]: I didn't know a lot about it, and I still don't know a lot about his service. [UNKNOWN]: But yeah, he served in Vietnam from through 68 to 69.

4:31 [UNKNOWN]: And he was motor T. So he drove a fuel truck in Vietnam. [UNKNOWN]: I think I did denang. [UNKNOWN]: Mom was working our homestead mostly, you know, as a small kid, five-year-old, six-year-old, you know, I remember always out there in the fields, you know, in the, in the, in our hundred acre freaking, there's only five acres, but it felt like a hundred acres when you were five years old, but out in that garden that was endless, you know, work in the strawberry patches or something.

4:58 [UNKNOWN]: yeah so that was the early days and then how to go from there so you think you had hideie was was how much older is hideie than you like a year and a half a year yeah she's a year older guys are tight shot group huh yeah she hideie was a year older um and then Chris was two years younger than me [UNKNOWN]: And, you know, Heidi and I ran hard for a few years, and Chris kind of tagged along.

5:21 [UNKNOWN]: He got drugged a little bit of my mischief, but it kind of came to an end when Dad left and when I was about 10 years old, so, you know, Mom had to go to work. [UNKNOWN]: She worked at a, ended up working at an eyelet factory down in Thomas and Connecticut during the day. [UNKNOWN]: At night, she worked at a liquor store, and then on the weekend, she was, she was at the [UNKNOWN]: We were last key kids early on, you know, there's three of us there, you know, just trying to make our way and get ourselves off to school and that kind of stuff and she was able to hang on to the house though.

5:55 [UNKNOWN]: You guys were able to stay there. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, my mom is, you know, God bless her. [UNKNOWN]: She's awesome. [UNKNOWN]: She did, she threw everything, you know, she had at it. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, when I think back, I love my mom for doing that, you know, sometimes I think, you know, she didn't really need to do all that, but she did, you know, held on to the house, the farm, tried to, you know, keep the whole family together, best she could.

6:17 [UNKNOWN]: But she struggled to do it, and she did the best she could, but there was no supervision for it, so, you know, shit went south for some of us really quick. [UNKNOWN]: So what did that look like, man? [UNKNOWN]: Man, dad was an alcoholic and towards the end, before he left, a lot of dishes breaking downstairs, a lot of, it was painful and I just remember being afraid of them all the time.

6:49 [UNKNOWN]: And, you know, a little bit of abuse inside the house, you know, probably more so for mom than anybody else. [UNKNOWN]: And then after that left it kind of started coming from the outside. [UNKNOWN]: We became really easy targets being really poor, you know, living in a small town. [UNKNOWN]: So we got, we got hit pretty hard, you know, both inside and outside the house.

7:09 [UNKNOWN]: And, you know, for Heidi, you know, she just doubled down. [UNKNOWN]: You know, when sports and swimming and all in with academics, but for me, I just went to a dark hole. [UNKNOWN]: You know, and I would say by the time I was 11 years old, I was, you know, sneaking liquor out of the cabinet and, you know, probably by 12, 13, rating the neighbors, medicine cabinets and things like that.

7:32 [UNKNOWN]: So just, [UNKNOWN]: into a dark hole for me. [UNKNOWN]: I'd like to say I remember what Chris was doing. [UNKNOWN]: Probably following me around a little bit, but a lot of chaos, a lot of, you know, a lot of ugliness there at the house for a while. [UNKNOWN]: And you end up hanging out with a lot of hideeas friends too, because these were my friends as well.

7:49 [UNKNOWN]: You know, these like the whole [UNKNOWN]: the whole crew guys we're talking about before you go to court these were all guys that I grew up with all great dudes you know but just hard work and you know kind of standard American young kids they had getting after it yeah yeah it was almost sandlot you know ask we we would you know like plan hockey was a big deal for us we didn't have a lot of sports I played a little soccer when when I was young like you know eight nine years old [UNKNOWN]: Later on after dad left.

8:21 [UNKNOWN]: No sports. [UNKNOWN]: I wasn't good at any sports. [UNKNOWN]: I couldn't throw a ball. [UNKNOWN]: I couldn't hit a target. [UNKNOWN]: I, you know, just never played sports didn't have somebody there to show me. [UNKNOWN]: None of us did, but But I loved hockey, you know, from the minute I could put a set of skates on, I freaking loved skates.

8:36 [UNKNOWN]: So I could not wait for winter to come. [UNKNOWN]: And I mean, it was like the daily, you know, I'd be waiting there at the end of the driveway to see, you know, skip Mona or the Gooch, Peepis, you know, the crew come walking down Newton Hill with their skates and sticks, Hodgepodge looking, you know, maybe a wailer's jersey or a Bruins jersey and pair gloves or something and sticks and we'd get down in the whole town would play hockey.

8:58 [UNKNOWN]: You know, if you were... [UNKNOWN]: From 12 to 90, if you could skate and hold a stick, you were playing hockey. [UNKNOWN]: Our goalies would wear softball equipment, you know, catchers, mits and, you know, shin guards and everybody else was just, you know, broken teeth and, you know, busted eyes.

9:15 [UNKNOWN]: But I'm Billy Gill would come down and make our one by one and chicken wire goals. [UNKNOWN]: We're all volunteer firemen. [UNKNOWN]: We'd get the truck to come over and, you know, put a new top coat on the ice, you know, once in a while. [UNKNOWN]: everybody be down there playing playing hockey and I loved it man that was like I actually thought I saw that movie called Youngblood you guys ever see Youngblood as a hockey look it up it's a good movie so Youngblood you know you guys you know he's hoping to get picked up by some you know whatever Canadian you know team and I just imagine somehow somebody's gonna notice some kid out northfield and I'm gonna go play pro hockey somewhere

9:55 [UNKNOWN]: Never happened, but we used to play hockey rate at the end of the Austin family boat launch. [UNKNOWN]: And so we dragged down this giant log and you know, build a bonfire, you know, sometimes the moms would come down, make hot dogs and you know, marshmallows and shit and the whole town would be down there.

10:14 [UNKNOWN]: There'd be 30 guys on the ice, rotate now. [UNKNOWN]: One day I'm with the crew with Skip and Boner and Peepis and the Gooch and we show up to play hockey and there's a pro team or what it looks like a pro team warming up in our on our ice in our goals and we're like standing around like what are we going to do like we want to play like who are these guys you know what's up finally one of them comes skate and over and he's like hey come on out hey we heard about you guys we're the Hartford stingers and we're here to play yeah dang dude [UNKNOWN]: best day of my life.

10:45 [UNKNOWN]: We got our asses kicked. [UNKNOWN]: I took a puck in the mouth food. [UNKNOWN]: I had a piece of something stuff through my lip to try to keep the bleeding down, but we must have played for 10 hours. [UNKNOWN]: Got our asses kicked. [UNKNOWN]: It was probably 30 and then nothing by the time we were gone.

10:58 [UNKNOWN]: But I swear we played the Stanley Cup that day. [UNKNOWN]: It was awesome. [UNKNOWN]: But that was Northfield. [UNKNOWN]: So then [UNKNOWN]: That all sounds like, maybe you could scrap together, you know, finishing up school and everything like that. [UNKNOWN]: But it didn't really go like that, right?

11:15 [UNKNOWN]: No, it didn't, like I said, I, you know, I spiral downhill pretty quick, school just, it didn't, it didn't work out for me. [UNKNOWN]: I would say eighth grade is probably the last grade I would show up for, but I didn't really show up, you know, I kind of did what I wanted there. [UNKNOWN]: I was more of a menace, they were pushing me off into the [UNKNOWN]: out of the classroom and, you know, away from society.

11:42 [UNKNOWN]: And that was pretty much it. [UNKNOWN]: I think I started ninth grade at Oliver Wilkitt Tech, but mostly in the front door out the back, I'd jump in a car with a buddy or walk the train tracks home and just, you know, do my own thing. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, true when officers would call and I'd just be like, come get me, by the way, there's two pit bulls, so be careful, you know, nobody ever came.

12:05 [UNKNOWN]: So that was it, that was pretty much it, you know. [UNKNOWN]: So then what's the path to get in the Marine Corps? [UNKNOWN]: So what did you do? [UNKNOWN]: I mean, how'd you make money? [UNKNOWN]: What were you doing? [UNKNOWN]: I went to work. [UNKNOWN]: My first job, Heidi, shows up in her little chefette.

12:17 [UNKNOWN]: By the way, she got taken out of the house when I was like, maybe 13, I think, our dad came and got her and she went to live with him. [UNKNOWN]: But, uh, [UNKNOWN]: They were still about a half hour, 40 minutes away, and she shows up one day, I think I was about 13, and she's like, hey, getting the car.

12:36 [UNKNOWN]: Our dishwasher just quit. [UNKNOWN]: You're the new dishwasher. [UNKNOWN]: And I was like, sure. [UNKNOWN]: All right, well, I didn't have many else going on, jumping the car, and now I'm the Beany's restaurant, dishwasher there, and Torrenton. [UNKNOWN]: So, you know, that was my first job, and I hated being poor.

12:51 [UNKNOWN]: Like, you know, being poor sucked. [UNKNOWN]: Like, I mean, when I say poor, dude, like, [UNKNOWN]: we had that house like you didn't want to go to mom forgive me but we didn't even have a door on the bathroom like there was a curtain hanging and you could see your feet when you were sitting on the shitter like and it was only like three feet from the kitchen nobody wanted to come to our house you know what I mean pretty fucking poor so so yeah so I you know once I started making some money on my [UNKNOWN]: like, oh fuck, this is for me, you know, like I got to get to work.

13:17 [UNKNOWN]: So that turned into construction jobs. [UNKNOWN]: I did roofing, I hauled shingles up ladders. [UNKNOWN]: I was like 15 years old, you know, skinny little fucker trying to get up a ladder to the fourth story and, you know, water barrier, torrentine, hauling shingles and pulling concrete, you know, just all sorts of jobs.

13:35 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so, you know, just trying to try to get by and what about your, you know, mischievous activity, did you get more and more, you know, tempted by crime as you, as you get older? [UNKNOWN]: Not, you know, I was never tempted by crime. [UNKNOWN]: Like I, I didn't like it. [UNKNOWN]: Like I had this conscience, you know, but, [UNKNOWN]: you start hanging out with the wrong people and you sort of get sucked in, right?

14:02 [UNKNOWN]: You know, let's back up a little bit. [UNKNOWN]: By the time I was, I wanna say, 14, I'd been in and out of two institutions and in a youth detention camp in the middle of nowhere. [UNKNOWN]: In fact, I hadn't seen my dad in a few years. [UNKNOWN]: He came to pick me up one day and I thought, oh, I'm gonna go live with dad.

14:24 [UNKNOWN]: You know, like my sister, you know, he's going to come save me and he drove me straight to this fucking prison in the middle of nowhere You know, I get stripped, de-loused, hosed, thrown in an orange jumpsuit and, you know, in my foreman, tent with the other four dudes there, you know, so was that like a state-run thing or was it a private thing?

14:47 [UNKNOWN]: I don't even know, I didn't even know this one was common, you know, and, and [UNKNOWN]: I mean, yeah, this was kind of like the beginning of like me being completely autonomous because I'm in there and I'm like three days in and I'm like, you know, you're in your own jumpsuit, you got your little pennies on and shit.

15:04 [UNKNOWN]: I don't even really remember what the curriculum was in there. [UNKNOWN]: I don't even know what the hell we were doing. [UNKNOWN]: I couldn't tell you. [UNKNOWN]: I don't remember. [UNKNOWN]: But I remember meeting Dale Renaldi. [UNKNOWN]: The guy like targeted me right away. [UNKNOWN]: I don't know if it was because of my size or what he was a couple years old or I was probably 14 13 14 he might have been 15 16 and He he says he's like hey look dude.

15:24 [UNKNOWN]: We're gonna escape and all I get think of is I got to get out of here Because we're gonna escape. [UNKNOWN]: Here's the plan. [UNKNOWN]: He's like you've got to be good [UNKNOWN]: For a whole month like if you can keep your shit together, they're going to take us to the movies and I got a plan Yeah, and it was simple.

15:35 [UNKNOWN]: We were just going to go into the head. [UNKNOWN]: We're going to pretend to piss Security guards. [UNKNOWN]: We're going to go with us in a minute. [UNKNOWN]: They piss because it's a long trip to Torrenton from wherever the hell we were We were going to just bolt [UNKNOWN]: And I mean, that was it.

15:46 [UNKNOWN]: That was a plan. [UNKNOWN]: It was a simple jockel. [UNKNOWN]: It was a really simple plan. [UNKNOWN]: Beyond that, no clue. [UNKNOWN]: So sure enough, I mean, it worked like, it was like clockwork. [UNKNOWN]: Dude, we go in, guard one guard. [UNKNOWN]: He starts pissing, Dale like, boom, and I'm right behind him out the door.

16:01 [UNKNOWN]: He already knew where the side exit was. [UNKNOWN]: He'd scoped at the month before, out the side exit, over a six foot concrete wall across the freeway down into some backyards and under some tarps in a lawnmower shed and somebody's backyard for two hours [UNKNOWN]: Hit out and you know that that turned into a hole.

16:19 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, there's a we can go down a rabbit hole. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, did you make it or not? [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, we made it. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so we we we we we we we we snuck out of there once it got dark Found some change. [UNKNOWN]: I called I called the girl I knew to come pick us up and she did and [UNKNOWN]: That was an early ride.

16:36 [UNKNOWN]: I'd already been into some shit, but I'll tell you this one. [UNKNOWN]: So some, I think I'm 14, and we're hiding in the back of this car. [UNKNOWN]: And Dale, this guy is a junkie, like heroin addict, junkie. [UNKNOWN]: Like you could see his tracks on his arms and [UNKNOWN]: I mean, I hadn't gone there yet.

16:53 [UNKNOWN]: Like this was kind of new territory, a couple years old. [UNKNOWN]: There's a little experience in the dark shit. [UNKNOWN]: And so, him and the girl that was driving, they were kind of connected on this. [UNKNOWN]: And so, first thing we do is he talks her into drive and she's got money and we go rate to Hartford and we're out in front of these projects.

17:10 [UNKNOWN]: And I'm sitting in the back of the car, like shit, he's going to be going to buy some each, like, wow, like, what's this going to be like? [UNKNOWN]: Like, I'm like, all this shit going through my head. [UNKNOWN]: We're sitting out there in the middle of the daylight. [UNKNOWN]: and I'm running from the cops like I'm about to get picked up this guy's buying drugs like this is not going to go well for me and finally after what seems like a year it was probably just half an hour but it felt like an eternity comes skipping across the grass the brown dead yard in front of the projects and he stops and he picks up a can off the ground [UNKNOWN]: And he starts working it in half as he's walking to the car and I'm watching him and I want the fuck is he doing he tears it in half and just before he gets in the car he scoop some sewer water out of the drain into the bottom of the can and hops in and slaps a bag of heroin over the driver's shoulder and she grabs it and starts snorting it and I'm just sitting there watching like

18:03 [UNKNOWN]: lot the fuck. [UNKNOWN]: So he takes his heroin and he pours it in the can with the sewer water, pulls a lighter out of his pocket and starts cooking it. [UNKNOWN]: And I'm watching, I'm watching it this brown sewer shit turning to little bubbles and straps off his arm with a rubber band pulls a needle out of his pocket, plugs a piece of cotton out of the back seat out of a hole from [UNKNOWN]: and then sticks that needle into that shit and pulls that sewer water into that needle and I'm watching this whole thing like what the fuck?

18:38 [UNKNOWN]: Like this is how you fucking do heroin, fuck. [UNKNOWN]: And he just sits back, shoves that into his arm, slowly pulls some blood into there first and I could see the red sort of swirling like a candy cane with the brown just all I could think of is shit water and then honk right into his veins.

18:59 [UNKNOWN]: And he's sunk back into the freaking, pulls the needle out, drops it on the floor, pops his little rubber band and slumps down into the seat. [UNKNOWN]: By the way, he's dropped the bag of heroin next to me for me too, and I never even fucking touched it. [UNKNOWN]: I'm like, that ain't for me.

19:15 [UNKNOWN]: I mean, it was the grossest thing I'd ever seen. [UNKNOWN]: So where this ends up is, well, he's all fucked up. [UNKNOWN]: She's all fucked up. [UNKNOWN]: I don't know how we make it back to Torrenton. [UNKNOWN]: We drop him off somewhere, and I get dumped out on 202, and I'm hitchhiking home.

19:30 [UNKNOWN]: And so I don't know, I don't have a plan. [UNKNOWN]: I don't know where I'm going. [UNKNOWN]: I'm figuring the cops are probably going to pick me up. [UNKNOWN]: And so as I'm coming down 254, back towards home, Northfield, I get picked up by Todd's mom. [UNKNOWN]: You know, and she screams at me.

19:47 [UNKNOWN]: She opens up the door. [UNKNOWN]: She's like, everybody's fucking looking for you. [UNKNOWN]: The cops get in the car, right, commands me. [UNKNOWN]: And I, I follow orders, right? [UNKNOWN]: It's a mom telling you to get in the car. [UNKNOWN]: I jump in the car and she takes me home. [UNKNOWN]: She's like, you can live in the back room.

20:02 [UNKNOWN]: I'll tell your mom, you're here, you're safe. [UNKNOWN]: And that was kind of, you know, like, you know, now I'm out of the house, like I've left home. [UNKNOWN]: My dad obviously doesn't want me, you know, the one time he comes to get me dumps me off in the woods. [UNKNOWN]: Bucket, I'm on my own, you know, and from there it's, you know, living in people's backyards, living cars under a bridge, making money however I can, selling whatever I can, you know, doing, doing whatever I can to survive, and that turns into even worship, you know, hanging out with even worse people, you know, when you're not in school at 15, 16 years old, 17 years old, like, [UNKNOWN]: You're hanging out with some pretty shady fucking people, you know?

20:42 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, because they're just looking to freaking take advantage of you and you're a little kid and they're not doing it. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, why are you hanging out with a 16-year-old if you're not in high school? [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: You got issues. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, dude, I was doing this construction job.

20:59 [UNKNOWN]: And these guys were complete assholes drinking on the job like talking shit all the time. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, these guys had like warehouses full of fireworks, they'd take me over to like all their illegal shit, you know, like they're doing construction work up front, but all this shady side stuff.

21:12 [UNKNOWN]: And I had no idea, just somebody said, hey, I know this guy needs a handyman, you know, Ben, you need a job, and whoop, I'm there. [UNKNOWN]: Next thing I know, they're trying to talk me to killing their wives, right? [UNKNOWN]: Like, and at first I thought it was a joke, but then it felt like it was like serious talk.

21:26 [UNKNOWN]: And then one day, I get invited by one of them or, you know, they pick me up, drop me off. [UNKNOWN]: Some sort of at their mercy, end up back at one of their houses. [UNKNOWN]: And the guy strips naked, starts swimming in the pool and he starts chasing me around his house, trying to rip my clothes off me.

21:41 [UNKNOWN]: His wife comes home just in time to see us see this dude fucking chasing me around his pool. [UNKNOWN]: And I'm just like, I'm not going to say their names, but I'm like, take fucking take me home. [UNKNOWN]: Get me the fuck outta here. [UNKNOWN]: Like, God, never went back to that job. [UNKNOWN]: But that's the kind of people you run into when you're, [UNKNOWN]: 15 and out there in the world trying to survive just you know everybody's taken advantage you know just one one One after another.

22:05 [UNKNOWN]: That was a freaking nightmare. [UNKNOWN]: What what wasn't there some kind of shooting that went down? [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so ultimately Yeah, so we're [UNKNOWN]: We're in Waterbury, me and the dude, I'm not gonna say his name, and we wouldn't be friends. [UNKNOWN]: We're not friends today, and we'd never be friends.

22:23 [UNKNOWN]: Then if I was the man I am, then that I am today, does that make sense? [UNKNOWN]: It's like, okay, all right, so we're coming back from Waterbury by and beer. [UNKNOWN]: You can always get beer and water berry when you're under age and we're cruising down Torrenton Road. [UNKNOWN]: It's called Torrenton Waterberry Road, whatever.

22:40 [UNKNOWN]: It's a back road between Torrenton and or I'm sorry between Waterberry and Thomiston. [UNKNOWN]: And, you know, you take that road because you can stay off the freeway, you know, stay out of stay out of sight, whatever. [UNKNOWN]: And it's dark. [UNKNOWN]: There's no lights, nothing. [UNKNOWN]: It's, you know, there's a bunch of old factories out there and shit.

22:57 [UNKNOWN]: And we're just, we're just cruising, cruising back and, uh, we, um, you know, on a nowhere, set of headlights come and I mean, it's coming fast from behind and I feel like it's coming, this car's going to crash right into us. [UNKNOWN]: I brace against the, you know, the dash, like this car is going to freak and hit us.

23:23 [UNKNOWN]: And it doesn't, instead it yanks out alongside and does a pit maneuver on us, like, you know, as if to drive us off the road, or to drive us off the road. [UNKNOWN]: And we just happen to be right at an open parking lot with a giant entrance that the driver will call him Rick, no, that's a make, make, make believe name.

23:45 [UNKNOWN]: Um, dives into that driveway, you know, full speed we're doing, we're doing like 50 mile an hour into the parking lot. [UNKNOWN]: And, uh, you know, the car's rate door to door with us. [UNKNOWN]: And he slams on the brakes, they slam on their brakes and kind of pit maneuver 180 to where we're now almost nose to nose.

24:02 [UNKNOWN]: I'm freaking the fuck out. [UNKNOWN]: Like, what the fuck? [UNKNOWN]: I think I'm, I think I'm 18 probably just before my 19th birthday. [UNKNOWN]: I think I'm still 18. [UNKNOWN]: Um, [UNKNOWN]: And all I could think of is the fucking car still run and throw it in reverse, throw it in reverse, throw it in reverse.

24:20 [UNKNOWN]: And these two dudes get out and they're like 30 old men in a like beards and fucking grown men. [UNKNOWN]: And now I'm shit in my pants and I'm just like fucking go back up, back up, back up. [UNKNOWN]: and Rick gets out, pulls a bat from behind the seat that he'd been carrying around, and just starts fucking swinging like a madman at the passenger, and screaming, come help me.

24:47 [UNKNOWN]: Help me, Ben. [UNKNOWN]: And the driver is be lining for me in the car, and I'm sitting there feeling like a fucking, I mean, I'm getting, I mean, this is a split second, but I'm vulnerable as hell, you know, there's nothing I can fucking do. [UNKNOWN]: So I reach in the glove box, and I grab the beretta that I know he keeps there, and by the way, Rick has two years in the army, and he's out, this is post army, and I know he's got a beretta, and there's I grab the beretta.

25:12 [UNKNOWN]: I'd jump out the passenger side and as this dude's closing down on me I start fucking screaming get in your car get in your car fucking leave You know Backing up on retreating and he's coming at me now. [UNKNOWN]: He sees the gun and he says I'm gonna take your gun and kill you with it [UNKNOWN]: And dude like I can still feel it like my heart fucking sank and I'm just like fuck And by the way, I don't have any skills like I've shot a couple of guns, but this is Just way beyond anything I've ever fucking you know been involved with and I'm back and up now and [UNKNOWN]: I raise the gun to his body and he just keeps coming.

25:52 [UNKNOWN]: We're answers. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, he's like 10 feet away and he gets to about five feet away. [UNKNOWN]: Like almost to where he can fucking grab me. [UNKNOWN]: But I can start smelling the liquor like these guys are drunk. [UNKNOWN]: They're fucked up like, you know, so my part of me is thinking, okay, we're straight.

26:05 [UNKNOWN]: Like I might have an advantage here, but now I'm backing up fast. [UNKNOWN]: I'm on full retreat. [UNKNOWN]: And he's closing and, you know, threatening me. [UNKNOWN]: And so I pop him a couple of times in the body. [UNKNOWN]: And he flinches. [UNKNOWN]: I can see him take the hits. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, I don't know, I didn't even fucking aim.

26:21 [UNKNOWN]: I just bum bum bum bum, you know, shot fired. [UNKNOWN]: And he kind of flinches and then he's like, I'm super man. [UNKNOWN]: I'm gonna fucking kill you with that gun. [UNKNOWN]: And so I bring it up to his head. [UNKNOWN]: And I squeeze nothing happens. [UNKNOWN]: No click, fucking nothing.

26:42 [UNKNOWN]: And so I fucking panic, and I'm like, I don't know how to clear it, like I'm trying to clear it. [UNKNOWN]: Now I'm trying to back up fast, and as this is happening, the other two, Rick and the passenger have worked their way back to us, and while I'm trying to clear this thing, the dude that I'm fighting, or that I just shot, turns and jumps on, Rick's back, folding his arms and containing the bat, [UNKNOWN]: And I'm worried now it's going to be two on one and they're going to get this bat.

27:10 [UNKNOWN]: So I shove the gun in my pocket and I start fist fighting the passenger. [UNKNOWN]: And I'm trying to work them away from the bat and Rick. [UNKNOWN]: While they're, he's trying to hit the stuttle over his shoulders with the bat. [UNKNOWN]: I'm fist fighting. [UNKNOWN]: I take a couple of hits.

27:25 [UNKNOWN]: I hit this guy three or four times. [UNKNOWN]: Like, we're just going at it. [UNKNOWN]: And I'm trying to keep track of where Rick is at and next thing I notice is they're down on the ground and I'm just fucking paranoid he's going to get this fucking bat And I can see Rick's head is turning purple like he's got him in a choke he's got one arm down the bats pinned like it's not looking good so [UNKNOWN]: I just start swinging like a madman at the passenger.

27:51 [UNKNOWN]: I clock him a couple of times and he's backed up a bit for me So I go running back to where Rick is on the ground and he rolls this bat to my feet And I pick it up and I step back and I tell the dude on the ground on my fucking let him go get out of here before the cops show up like Let's fucking get out of here And the guys like nope give me the bat [UNKNOWN]: And I didn't even hesitate dude.

28:14 [UNKNOWN]: I fucking backhanded him so hard across the forehead. [UNKNOWN]: The last thing I remember seeing is a big soft ball size hole fucking open up. [UNKNOWN]: And honestly, I don't remember shit until driving away. [UNKNOWN]: I'm in the passenger seat. [UNKNOWN]: Believe it or not, I'm looking back.

28:30 [UNKNOWN]: And I can see them scraping themselves up off the ground, trying to get back to their car. [UNKNOWN]: And then we drive off and where do I go? [UNKNOWN]: Heidi and I get there and she's waiting for me at the door. [UNKNOWN]: She's like nope They want to see you down at the police station. [UNKNOWN]: Get the fuck down there and so we went and turned ourselves in And it looked like a bloodbath the fucking police station was Narlie they booked us Printed me pictured me up threw me in the cell and I thought fuck this is it like this is out starts.

29:02 [UNKNOWN]: This is my I'm now an adult I'm fucked [UNKNOWN]: And yeah, so believe it or not, a couple hours later, they let us go and said, hey, you'll get your, you'll get a court date, well, you know. [UNKNOWN]: And so we, I don't know, I felt like a year. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, dude, I don't even know what I did.

29:22 [UNKNOWN]: I think I just sat in a chair waiting for a year, a fucking year, but it was probably like three weeks. [UNKNOWN]: In that time, my mom got me a lawyer. [UNKNOWN]: And my mom always comes through, she fucking got the family to come together, scrape up some money, got me a really good attorney, and then we got our court date, and we show up for court, and I'm like, I'm already thinking, like, I guess I'm a criminal, like this is the beginning of, [UNKNOWN]: You know, life I don't want, but apparently this is, you know, this is what's meant to you have to figure out who these guys just drunk idiots or who, um, no, no, yeah, we'll get to that one too.

29:59 [UNKNOWN]: So, so we're, um, we're in court. [UNKNOWN]: And it's the first time I've seen these dudes since this happened. [UNKNOWN]: So I'm, dude, I'm kind of freaking out like these guys are going to see my face, they're going to know my name, like, like, I mean, I wasn't even really, I was more worried about them and, you know, whose friends or whatever, you know, like, I didn't know what to expect, dude, I'm [UNKNOWN]: And so we showed up at court and, you know, the first thing that happens is the judge, she reads the charges against me.

30:31 [UNKNOWN]: And no, I'm sorry. [UNKNOWN]: She reads the charges against the dude I'm with, Rick. [UNKNOWN]: And it was like two. [UNKNOWN]: It was like a salt with a deadly weapon and a salt and battery. [UNKNOWN]: And like, okay, that's not too bad. [UNKNOWN]: And then they read my charges, it's five.

30:45 [UNKNOWN]: And I don't remember them all exactly, but it was assault, assault and battery, assault with a deadly weapon, assault with a firearm and attempted homicide. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, big, my fucking knees buckled, and I'm just like, [UNKNOWN]: fuck me like I am going to jail and then obviously our lawyers were countering with our our own you know charges and so they start reading the charges off for these two gentlemen that attacked us by the way you know the aggressors the fucking bad guys in this thing but all I could think of is I've shot somebody [UNKNOWN]: Right, like the whole rest of that story is keeping me all I'm having nightmares about is the part where I point a gun at a human and fucking pull the trigger, right, like I'm going to jail.

31:32 [UNKNOWN]: And so they start, they read off the charges and they're minor, you know, compared to us. [UNKNOWN]: And then the judge starts talking about the background and she's like, all right, so, you know, Ben has no priors. [UNKNOWN]: She's never been arrested as an adult, you know, and a bunch of shit is a kid, but she didn't bring it up.

31:57 [UNKNOWN]: And then, you know, Rick stuff, veteran army vet, blah, blah, blah, no priors, and then these guys. [UNKNOWN]: armed robbery, assault, assault with deadly weapons. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, dude, I could go on. [UNKNOWN]: This, this speech went on forever. [UNKNOWN]: And I'm like, holy shit, like, what did we just narrowly escape, right?

32:17 [UNKNOWN]: In my head on, like, these are bad dudes, but then I'm thinking, alright, well, I guess I got the first five of their list coming to me, and I'll like, this is how it starts. [UNKNOWN]: You know, am I going to be working with these guys later in life? [UNKNOWN]: I don't fucking know, right?

32:29 [UNKNOWN]: But after that, the judge says, hey, you know, she calls both the lawyers, actually I had two lawyers there, calls everybody up to the bench, and they're up there for about two or three minutes. [UNKNOWN]: The lawyers come back, I'm standing there and he's shaking tremble in the whole time, you know, like, this is not good.

32:46 [UNKNOWN]: And the judge says, she says, [UNKNOWN]: This was self-defense. [UNKNOWN]: Thanks for what I cried, just thinking about it, because when she said that word, I was like, what your case is dismissed, we're going to know this. [UNKNOWN]: I didn't even know what that word meant. [UNKNOWN]: I didn't care all I heard was case dismissed.

33:15 [UNKNOWN]: I didn't want to say word, I didn't say word, and she said to me, she said, you better go join the military or something, because if I see you here again, it's going to go a little different for you. [UNKNOWN]: I don't know what she said to anybody else all I heard was what she said to me and you were all ears and I couldn't get out of there fast enough like just where's the exit?

33:35 [UNKNOWN]: Let me get out of here. [UNKNOWN]: I'm cleared. [UNKNOWN]: I'm fucking out of here and so so we got we left [UNKNOWN]: you know again a lot of stuff is kind of fuzzy you know with the excitement I think but yeah so we left kind of celebrated outside a little bit never saw Rick again that was the last day ever saw him you know and i'm happy for that made some really bad decisions that wasn't the only bad shit i got in with him and i'm not going to blame him for the start but we could have definitely avoided that [UNKNOWN]: And you would think that I would have just got my shit together.

34:05 [UNKNOWN]: But I actually kind of looked at that as, oh, I'm gonna get it at a jail free card. [UNKNOWN]: And I kind of went back to doing some pretty horrible shit. [UNKNOWN]: I was a limo driver at the time. [UNKNOWN]: I was working on it down in Manhattan. [UNKNOWN]: So I was making money and still making bad decisions for about the next six months.

34:22 [UNKNOWN]: And then Todd. [UNKNOWN]: comes home from bootcamp. [UNKNOWN]: His brother-in-law, his sister, Michelle, Mary, Pete Bazzarini, Bazz, who was the first Marine I ever saw on a set of dress blues. [UNKNOWN]: When I saw him, dude, I was like, fuck, what is that? [UNKNOWN]: You know? [UNKNOWN]: I mean, he came home for their wedding.

34:42 [UNKNOWN]: I think it was their wedding and he put dude. [UNKNOWN]: He was standing there in the kitchen with those dress blues and I do it. [UNKNOWN]: It was just for me. [UNKNOWN]: So I signed me up. [UNKNOWN]: Well, I never thought that. [UNKNOWN]: I never thought about college and never thought about the Marines.

34:55 [UNKNOWN]: I never even thought about military. [UNKNOWN]: I'm like, that shit was not in the cards for me. [UNKNOWN]: I never even thought about it, dude. [UNKNOWN]: I was like, where am I just getting my next sandwich from? [UNKNOWN]: But I saw him and I knew what it was. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, it just commanded respect, but he was home on recruiting duty and he told me immediately, I mean, he probably just saw it easy target.

35:15 [UNKNOWN]: Let me go get this shit, drag him over the Marine Corps, get my little recruiting duty award. [UNKNOWN]: But Todd and I were friends, we go way back, we got really tight and tough times for both of us. [UNKNOWN]: you know just our relationship just grew um tighter and tighter um you know he took off to the core uh which was just freaking badass um you know he too when he came home and his blues I was just like what the fuck you know um totally put me in my place like you know jack um so uh you know he you know he tied was you know he always looking out for me too he called me when my dad died it wasn't long after uh he joined the core that I lost my dad [UNKNOWN]: And, you know, one of the few to reach out, and then when he came home on recruiting duty, you know, he provided that opportunity for me, you know, that man changed my life, changed my trajectory.

36:13 [UNKNOWN]: So, you know, really a true brother, a true friend. [UNKNOWN]: And so he's like, yeah, I can get you him. [UNKNOWN]: Come see Staff Sergeant here. [UNKNOWN]: So we go down to the recruiting office and in my head, I'm like, this is not going to go the way he thinks. [UNKNOWN]: And sure enough, staff sergeant hair, she's like yep, the Marine Corps will take like a certain percentage of guys every year.

36:31 [UNKNOWN]: This is your golden ticket. [UNKNOWN]: This is your lucky fucking day. [UNKNOWN]: We'll get your waivers. [UNKNOWN]: We'll get your waivers I'd tattoo at the time. [UNKNOWN]: So that she's like, we'll get your waiver for your tattoo. [UNKNOWN]: We'll get your waiver for, you know, your record for all this shit.

36:43 [UNKNOWN]: And we got to get you a GED and we started straight off with the GED past it. [UNKNOWN]: As soon as I passed it, like you needed a 50, I got like a 51. [UNKNOWN]: past the GED and so she sets me up for the Asfab. [UNKNOWN]: I did great on the Asfab on the technical shit like mechanical. [UNKNOWN]: I've always been really technical and mechanical.

37:04 [UNKNOWN]: excuse me. [UNKNOWN]: Um, so would have been great to pick a cool technical job, but she's like, no, because you're the one person or you got to go in open contract. [UNKNOWN]: You're going to be a machine gunner. [UNKNOWN]: And I was like, well, I fuck whatever. [UNKNOWN]: Like, I, I, I thought that's what everybody was in the Marines anyway.

37:21 [UNKNOWN]: So I had no, I didn't know any different. [UNKNOWN]: It didn't matter to me. [UNKNOWN]: You know the part where you passed was all I cared about and so now it was off the maps and I got through the medical and then I entered the delayed entry program I did pull-ups and push-ups for the first time in my life for like I don't know um three weeks and maybe a little bit longer and then before you know it I'm on a 737 headed to Paris Island leaving Bradley International Airport just going fucking holy shit.

37:47 [UNKNOWN]: I escaped like [UNKNOWN]: Dude, I was beside myself. [UNKNOWN]: What year was it? [UNKNOWN]: 1992. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: I just turned 20. [UNKNOWN]: It was July. [UNKNOWN]: I checked in. [UNKNOWN]: I started July 15. [UNKNOWN]: So it was probably like July 12th of 1992. [UNKNOWN]: I got on that airplane.

38:04 [UNKNOWN]: And you get to boot camp. [UNKNOWN]: Did they prep you for boot camp? [UNKNOWN]: Did you feel like you were ready for it? [UNKNOWN]: I saw full metal jacket and did I already been through so much shit like for me like when I got there following orders like doing you know I mean did I was embarrassed on that airplane there were guys balling crying and I'm just looking at him like did suck it up you fucking pussy [UNKNOWN]: But looking back, like a lot of these guys just left home for the first time, you know, they never did anything.

38:33 [UNKNOWN]: I'd been living on the streets since I was, you know, 13, 14 years old, so, you know, just whatever for me, it was three knots and a caught dude. [UNKNOWN]: Just go, right? [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, I, and to be honest, I didn't know what to expect. [UNKNOWN]: I'd seen full metal jacket, but I mean, that's only like one little piece of it.

38:51 [UNKNOWN]: I had no idea what 12 and a half weeks was going to look like. [UNKNOWN]: And it was pretty fucking gnarly. [UNKNOWN]: It was it was bootcamp was it was freaking awesome. [UNKNOWN]: Did you did you feel like that You know you get broken down and you get rebuilt how much did you love the Marine Corps when you were getting done with a bootcamp?

39:09 [UNKNOWN]: Dude I Fucking loved the Marine Corps like the minute I got there [UNKNOWN]: Um, just like I never I didn't I didn't feel like I had a family as a kid like I saw like the history and and the just the discipline like it's what I needed You know what I mean like I bucked the system as a kid like you know, I've avoided it at all But then all of it all of a sudden you know here I am I'm like, you know, you're kind of forced into it and you're like Well fuck I'm I'm making all these games like you realize oh this is how you do it as I get ahead in life, you know [UNKNOWN]: Um, but I had an awesome bootcamp experience, dude.

39:47 [UNKNOWN]: It was, I got there and, you know, the receiving part of it, you know, footprint, shave your head, get your uniforms, I kind of, whatever. [UNKNOWN]: Um, we got dropped to the receiving platoon, which is where, you know, there's like 15 of us there, and then they, you know, they start building up, you know, you got about 70 guys, and then you get dropped to your platoon, and there's, there's in bootcamp, at least in Paris Island, you've got a company, we were hotel company, and then there's [UNKNOWN]: There are six platoons that 20 series in the 30 series.

40:15 [UNKNOWN]: We were the 20 series. [UNKNOWN]: I was platoon 298 Marine number 25. [UNKNOWN]: And we were on the third deck, but in the receiving platoon because I was the tallest, they made me the guide. [UNKNOWN]: And the guide stands in front, carries the guide on, and you're the leader of the platoon.

40:32 [UNKNOWN]: I didn't know what it meant. [UNKNOWN]: I just, at that point, I'm going to walk the platoon that we have to chow and walk them back and we're going to all just sit here to a lot of thumbs on our foot lockers. [UNKNOWN]: But when we got to, when we got dropped to our platoon, three or four days later, as we're getting all of our trash dumped out on the ground in front of us, 50 D.E.E.

40:52 [UNKNOWN]: is running around screaming, and hollering at us, you know, creating all the chaos, senior drone instructor staff sergeant, weetzel, belts out, guide, where's my guide? [UNKNOWN]: And I, you know, for a minute, I'm like, is that me? [UNKNOWN]: I'm like, fuck, that's me. [UNKNOWN]: So, dude, I jump out there, and I'm, you know, right up on the quarter deck.

41:10 [UNKNOWN]: And then he calls for the squad leaders and then we all get pitted right there by ourselves. [UNKNOWN]: We're up there doing fucking PT, you know, just getting bent hard in front of the whole platoon and I'm like this kind of sucks, you know, like this is the part where they said don't volunteer for anything, right?

41:26 [UNKNOWN]: So but he made me guide immediately so I'm guide day one receiving I'm guide day one I'm getting punished day and night like everybody's fucking up. [UNKNOWN]: I had to stand fireguard firewatch for 24 like well 12 hours all from taps to revelry and and I'm like this so I left my boots untied thinking I'm gonna get fired.

41:48 [UNKNOWN]: I got fired and it sucked worse not being the guide. [UNKNOWN]: I was like I [UNKNOWN]: Ooh, like this really sucks. [UNKNOWN]: So that night, I had already developed a relationship with my squad leaders, two of them were on the airplane with me down to Peris Island. [UNKNOWN]: So I saw full-metal jacket.

42:10 [UNKNOWN]: I'm like, all right, we're gonna go meet the guide tonight and we tied them down under his sheets and I whispered in his ear in the morning, don't touch the fucking guide on and so when we formed up I just ran up there and grabbed the guide on and senior drill instructor looked at me like what the fuck but he didn't say anything and dude I was the guide again just like that and I was the guide all the way through boot camp until two weeks before graduation when I got fucking medical dropped.

42:41 [UNKNOWN]: They got medical dropped two weeks before graduation. [UNKNOWN]: For what? [UNKNOWN]: Dude. [UNKNOWN]: So, I did not run. [UNKNOWN]: There's a lot of things I did not do. [UNKNOWN]: My body fucking ate, right? [UNKNOWN]: And I'm, we're out in the field. [UNKNOWN]: And... [UNKNOWN]: We're doing the combat, it's our combat training, right here, crawling underneath barbed wire, you get 50 cows going off overhead, like dummy rounds, blowing up and shit, fucking fun.

43:10 [UNKNOWN]: I could do it, I'm having a good time, like your stabbing, dummy's with your bay and ass and shit, like fucking fun. [UNKNOWN]: I dive over this barrier, and I crush my left knee into this fucking barrier, so hard to do it, I'm like there's no way my kneecap is left. [UNKNOWN]: It's fucking left my body.

43:28 [UNKNOWN]: It's there, but dude, I can't hardly fucking walk, but I'm like, I'm sucking it up like I got to get through this I got two weeks to go, but come that following Sunday when we normally go to church I asked to go to medical and like I'll just tell him I got shin splints like everybody fucking says and get me some adville Right little something so I go to medical shin splints.

43:49 [UNKNOWN]: I need some adville and as I'm sitting there fucking Docs like Anna But let's actually x-ray this thing [UNKNOWN]: And I'm like, well, no, no, let me go back to my platoon. [UNKNOWN]: I'm good to go. [UNKNOWN]: I don't need shit. [UNKNOWN]: No dude, there was no going back. [UNKNOWN]: So there they are dragging me into X-ray and they tell me I have a stress fracture in my shin.

44:07 [UNKNOWN]: And I'm like, I'm good. [UNKNOWN]: I can walk on it, like, I'm good. [UNKNOWN]: No. [UNKNOWN]: You're dropped. [UNKNOWN]: You're going to the medical pitoon. [UNKNOWN]: And wait, dropped is a rollback or dropped. [UNKNOWN]: It's like you're out of the rolling court. [UNKNOWN]: No, rollback.

44:19 [UNKNOWN]: I'm getting rolled back. [UNKNOWN]: I'm getting dropped out of my pitoon. [UNKNOWN]: I'm going to go to MRP medical recovery pitoon. [UNKNOWN]: And when I'm good to go, I'll come back with another pitoon. [UNKNOWN]: And I just remember standing up there in my, I've got my fucking crutches in this leg brace, and I'm up there on the third deck, watching my platoon with Matt Goddard.

44:37 [UNKNOWN]: My number one squad leader now is guide, march off, and they do a, what do they call it, fade to the wind maneuver, which, [UNKNOWN]: You're in perfect kitchen marine core formation. [UNKNOWN]: By the way, these guys are like 12 weeks in, so you can drill They can Mars. [UNKNOWN]: They look fucking awesome.

44:51 [UNKNOWN]: And I've never seen this actually. [UNKNOWN]: I've always just been a part of it I'm up there watching and they do this fade to the wind where they poof they go off into like a million different directions And then suck back together in a perfect formation dude. [UNKNOWN]: I started like a fucking baby.

45:05 [UNKNOWN]: I was like [UNKNOWN]: What in my senior grabs me throws me in the pick up and dumps me off at MRP medical Patoon you know I'm like so stupid like you just how could why couldn't you just suck this up for two weeks and so I'm sitting there dude like [UNKNOWN]: Like three days, maybe five. [UNKNOWN]: I couldn't tell you how many days went by, honestly.

45:26 [UNKNOWN]: Maybe it was a day, but it felt more like three. [UNKNOWN]: You know, just, I wouldn't use the crutches, like I'm a blitternet, like I don't need to be here. [UNKNOWN]: And let's say three days, I'm sitting on my footlocker, reading my knowledge, like, [UNKNOWN]: In my mind, I'm still competing for a company on her man, right?

45:47 [UNKNOWN]: Like, that's what's coming. [UNKNOWN]: And so I'm studying my book and knowledge, you know, doing, I'm going forward. [UNKNOWN]: Like, I'm graduating in my mind. [UNKNOWN]: And I hear senior drone instructor, staff Sergeant Wetzel's high-pitch Irish voice. [UNKNOWN]: Guide! [UNKNOWN]: Where's my guide?

46:04 [UNKNOWN]: Dude, I couldn't get up quick enough. [UNKNOWN]: I fucking ran out of there, met him at the door, jumped in the pickup, and he drove me straight out into the field, and I rejoin the platoon. [UNKNOWN]: Matt Goddard comes running up to me with my guide on, hands me my guide on, and I'm on. [UNKNOWN]: Like he's like drunk like duty, you know, I'm on light duty for the next week and a half now And we're literally roll like they're done in the field We're marching back to the barracks to roll into photos uniforms, you know, get your blues ready Final drill is about all we have left which I kind of dreaded because you're really kind of drilling your heels and then that was kind of painful But

46:41 [UNKNOWN]: We sucked it drill, so it's not like we were giving up a trophy or something by me limping around up front, you know what I mean? [UNKNOWN]: So we were good at everything else, our platoon won all the fighting awards, everything. [UNKNOWN]: We kicked everybody's ass, we were a physical platoon, but looking good and marching, we're going to get to the fight, but we're probably going to look a little, you know, rag tag I don't know what you're doing there.

47:03 [UNKNOWN]: Um, but, uh, yeah, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up, I ended up [UNKNOWN]: 600 guys behind me like 300 yards away and then we're right there getting our medals and looking at mom It was a proud day dude.

47:29 [UNKNOWN]: It was it was it was pretty awesome freaking out So yeah the Marine Corps does it right you know, so we're talking to Carrie the other day and he was just talking about He he doing the Marine Corps. [UNKNOWN]: He was also like on a [UNKNOWN]: He was not on a great trajectory in life, you know, he had gotten bummed a couple times.

47:44 [UNKNOWN]: He got a DUI or two like he was It was not going well, so he finally threw a cruders like no, you're signing up now. [UNKNOWN]: I'm getting you out of here now And he said he got there and he was just like this is what this is what the way things are supposed to be [UNKNOWN]: Like this is the way things are supposed to be I'm supposed to be doing this right here Yeah, so when you get there dude when you're in you're all in like when the Marine Corps gets its hooks in you Like it's it just it becomes a party you man.

48:13 [UNKNOWN]: I like [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, the Marine Corps does it outstanding. [UNKNOWN]: I went to my buddy's son's graduation last year, man. [UNKNOWN]: It's just, you're like, yep, this is just outstanding. [UNKNOWN]: So would you end up with for an MLS? [UNKNOWN]: Oh, yeah, so out the door or on the way in the door, just before I got to boot camp, I can't, I don't remember.

48:34 [UNKNOWN]: Anyway, at some point, staff Sergeant Hair had reached out to tell me she had gotten me an MLS as an aviation [UNKNOWN]: Right, I didn't know what that meant but aviation so I'm gonna go I'm gonna go into aviation whatever like again It didn't matter to me. [UNKNOWN]: I didn't okay in fact That's what Todd did he was he was aviation ordinance F-18s out of um out of out of K-bay Sure, so um cool all hang out with Todd, you know, I'll get to see him you know awesome, right?

49:04 [UNKNOWN]: It didn't really work out that way. [UNKNOWN]: I was gonna say that's Cheers to the love that happened. [UNKNOWN]: There's a lot of things I didn't know about the Marine Corps bro and they were like unfolding themselves [UNKNOWN]: You know, the book was opening up. [UNKNOWN]: I was literally I had no read ahead.

49:17 [UNKNOWN]: So so you get done with bootcamp. [UNKNOWN]: Did you go to do you go to the that infantry thing. [UNKNOWN]: The fourth week thing. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so I'm free with the call it now. [UNKNOWN]: And I don't know what it's called now, but it's like four weeks of infantry. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, every Marine is a rifleman.

49:31 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, awesome, too fucking awesome dude. [UNKNOWN]: So yeah, I went, went straight to MCT in North Carolina, here at Camp Geiger, which it's still there. [UNKNOWN]: It still exists. [UNKNOWN]: I actually got to visit it just a few years back when I was working for the Navy, but we'll talk about that later.

49:48 [UNKNOWN]: Go to Camp Geiger, and again, I'm picked for freaking platoon guide. [UNKNOWN]: So I'm a guide again down there in Camp Geiger, but it's it's a little different now. [UNKNOWN]: You're like a platoon lead. [UNKNOWN]: But nonetheless, we're down there, camp guy, it was awesome. [UNKNOWN]: You know, first time I'm ever fired a mod do's 50-cal machine gun.

50:05 [UNKNOWN]: Fucking nothing like it dude. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, I fell in love with that thing. [UNKNOWN]: I'm like, how do I get on this? [UNKNOWN]: I want to be part of this. [UNKNOWN]: What do they call it? [UNKNOWN]: A crew, this crew served weapon. [UNKNOWN]: You know, and then I had to carry the receiver.

50:17 [UNKNOWN]: And I was like, oh man, maybe. [UNKNOWN]: Maybe the M16 would have been better. [UNKNOWN]: I'm pumping around this freaking. [UNKNOWN]: It's like a 55 pound square block of steel on your shoulder. [UNKNOWN]: You know, and I was a skinny fucker. [UNKNOWN]: Like I didn't work out. [UNKNOWN]: I didn't like I was I should have been in the air wing.

50:33 [UNKNOWN]: Like I didn't look like actually it's funny. [UNKNOWN]: A lot of grunchy look at them and they are skinny twigs when they get there. [UNKNOWN]: But they get developed. [UNKNOWN]: Um, so yeah, we got to fire that 50 and then the Mark 19 grenade launcher, awesome throw some grenades around, you know, learn how to do your combat.

50:50 [UNKNOWN]: Um, I remember, you know, you finish up with like a full blown like mock up combat scenario and, you know, we're out there in the woods. [UNKNOWN]: It's rain and it's like November freezing as cold and, you know, there's some trenches and foxholes that are already dug, you know, but you got to dig in a little more.

51:07 [UNKNOWN]: I should remember standing there like, [UNKNOWN]: the flares are going off the guns are going like this is the last night you know we've won everything up to this point and i'm just standing there like i graduate tomorrow like i literally pull out a cigarette and i'm standing there smoking it's pouring rain i'm up to my knees and my in my freaking fox hole and water you know flares everything and i'm i'm like man that was kind of glorious and i was like i'm gonna hear this freaking gunny behind you air gavodal [UNKNOWN]: It's smoking lamp ain't late and I'm like I'm slowly putting my cigarette down.

51:37 [UNKNOWN]: You better drop that thing I drop my cigarette get down in that hole and just as I go to get down in my fox hole. [UNKNOWN]: I look and the gun He's actually behind the dude next to me and chewing him out and so there he is down doing push-ups It is fucking whole of him kind of like [UNKNOWN]: Man, I got off the hook, but anyway, MCT is over, we graduate, we're done, a lot of fun, got to shoot some cool weapons, got to introduction to what being a grunt would be like, and I actually liked it.

52:02 [UNKNOWN]: I love to camp as a kid, I'd like to be an outside. [UNKNOWN]: I was, part of me was disappointed that that wasn't the path I was going. [UNKNOWN]: So from there, I went on to Memphis, Millington, to aviation ordnance school, and that's where most of the aviation schools are. [UNKNOWN]: and how's that you down there, you it's basically like learning a trade.

52:23 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, he basically, yeah, you learn your trade. [UNKNOWN]: And I had I'd gone home in between, you know, for some Thanksgiving Christmas, whatever, but, you know, home life wasn't great. [UNKNOWN]: So I went back, I went down to Memphis, Millington, a little early. [UNKNOWN]: I'm a, I'm in there, you know, running the floor machine, the polishers with the rest of the guys that showed up a little early for school.

52:44 [UNKNOWN]: And, you know, getting ready for aviation ordinance, and one day, this gunny comes in. [UNKNOWN]: He's like, hey, everybody fall in, you know, it's like maybe 10 of us were short on aircraft mechanics. [UNKNOWN]: You're all aircraft mechanics now. [UNKNOWN]: You start tomorrow. [UNKNOWN]: And I was like, fuck, all right.

53:00 [UNKNOWN]: That sounds way cooler than aviation ordinance. [UNKNOWN]: And so the next day, bro, I fall into, you know, my little patron, and we show up at basic helicopter. [UNKNOWN]: And I'm going to be a helicopter mechanic. [UNKNOWN]: You know, you're just, you know, I actually learned that we have something other than Huey's in Cobra's, because at MCT, that's all you see as the Cobra's up there doing your close air support, Huey's doing their thing, but I realized, oh, we have a CH53, which is a monster of a helicopter.

53:28 [UNKNOWN]: I'm like, oh, I wouldn't mind being on that. [UNKNOWN]: And then this flying banana look and thing called the CH-46, affectionately called the frog. [UNKNOWN]: I learned that later. [UNKNOWN]: And then hairier jump jets, I'm like, holy crap. [UNKNOWN]: I want to be on hairier, it's like those are fucking cool.

53:42 [UNKNOWN]: But honestly, I just, I want to be on the cobra, right? [UNKNOWN]: You got side-winder missiles, big ol' 30 millimeter gun off the nose, like, put me on the cobra's. [UNKNOWN]: And it had two seats, so like, there's a possibility of flying in the thing, I don't know, right? [UNKNOWN]: Now I get picked for the age 46.

53:58 [UNKNOWN]: I'm going to be on the flying banana. [UNKNOWN]: So I don't know this at the time, and I learned quickly because the same gunning while I'm in the age 46 class, he shows up and he's like, where's all my swimmers? [UNKNOWN]: And I kind of thought we were going to play water polo. [UNKNOWN]: I don't know why I thought that but I thought okay well if we get to play again See's Kobe guys.

54:17 [UNKNOWN]: We're going to fuck them up. [UNKNOWN]: They got the cool helicopter, but we're going to walk their asses But it turned out to be a swimcwall and I had to do this trading water with a little brick over my head and swim a bunch of lamps Well, I grew up with a pond on my little farm so I guess when like a fish good luck trying to drown me [UNKNOWN]: And I passed, and so next year I know I'm on my way to Florida, Pensacola, for Air Crew School.

54:40 [UNKNOWN]: I've got to be a crew chief. [UNKNOWN]: I've got to now I'm going to, and had I got cobras this never would have been an option. [UNKNOWN]: But now I'm going to fly in the back of the helicopter, and so I did another, I don't know, six eight weeks down in Pensacola, it was like, [UNKNOWN]: I don't know, 30 Navy guys and four Marines, totally outnumbered down there.

54:58 [UNKNOWN]: Bluverse is red, every day was a competition. [UNKNOWN]: Does an air crew, does that like trump your aircraft mechanic or you do both jobs? [UNKNOWN]: You do both. [UNKNOWN]: you know, you go through all the basic maintenance. [UNKNOWN]: You're you're a line mechanic first. [UNKNOWN]: Actually I take that back.

55:14 [UNKNOWN]: You're a crew chief. [UNKNOWN]: Now first your MLS actually changes from 61-12 to 61-72. [UNKNOWN]: So you're a crew chief. [UNKNOWN]: But you [UNKNOWN]: you do, you actually do more work, right? [UNKNOWN]: I mean, mechanics will say now, we're a bunch of, you know, fucking glorified pilots, but you do line work, you do maintenance, you know, later on, you'll actually test the aircraft, you'll then use specialized equipment to do post inspection, engine and flight setup to get the aircraft to flight smooth and put them back into the in operation.

55:51 [UNKNOWN]: So, [UNKNOWN]: It's pretty awesome. [UNKNOWN]: It's actually I got to tell you dude if you can't be a if you can't be a grunt You know a boot slugger Then you want to be a pilot and if you can't be a pilot you want to be a koochie Like it's a great job And so then where do you end up getting stationed when you get done?

56:14 [UNKNOWN]: So I put in for California, Hawaii, and Japan, I think. [UNKNOWN]: I was, you know, I tried to hitchhike here. [UNKNOWN]: I've always wanted to go to California. [UNKNOWN]: I think it was probably from the old Led Zeppelin going to California song. [UNKNOWN]: I love Led Zeppelin. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so I was destined to get here.

56:31 [UNKNOWN]: And I had a roommate and later, good, good friend, Frank Stolfi, who introduced me to my future wife, Michelle. [UNKNOWN]: And so she was here. [UNKNOWN]: I knew she was here in California and turns out I ended up staying with Frank when I got here to California and he did in fact introduce me to my future wife Michelle and we're still married today.

56:51 [UNKNOWN]: There needs some odd years. [UNKNOWN]: Let's go Frank. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Thank you Frank. [UNKNOWN]: So where did you get stationed? [UNKNOWN]: uh... ended up stationed at uh... it was MCAS testing uh... the large blimp hangers right there in Santa Ana um... about three or four miles from Newport Beach so really freaking awesome location that's pretty cool [UNKNOWN]: And what year is it?

57:13 [UNKNOWN]: 1993, I got there and I think February of 93, to NAMTredets, HMT 301, it was the last crew chief school, the last class behind us, they shut it down, 301 went away, the Osprey was coming, so the Marine Corps was making the transition. [UNKNOWN]: We are I am in the photo of the last of the Wind Walkers.

57:37 [UNKNOWN]: That's what we were called Wind Walkers out of Tuston, California and when we finished and graduated and got our wings pinned on they shut it down. [UNKNOWN]: They shut it all down. [UNKNOWN]: That was it Day and the last that was 1994 1993 [UNKNOWN]: But there were still forty-six years more ever, there is because there was and they still are flying, even for the State Department today, because while the Osprey had big problems and it actually didn't deliver for another ten years.

58:05 [UNKNOWN]: So they had to turn things around, they started building Koocheeves out of North Carolina off the chair of Out of Cherry Point. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, because the forty-six is like the war course. [UNKNOWN]: They actually, it is on the Navy for sure. [UNKNOWN]: Oh yeah, did that thing, that helicopter is so awesome.

58:22 [UNKNOWN]: I have no regrets. [UNKNOWN]: I would not go back unless I could be a pilot and fly a cobra. [UNKNOWN]: I'll be a 46 crew chief all day long. [UNKNOWN]: It was rat. [UNKNOWN]: You know, you could go places a 53 camp because of size and all the vert rep hauling all the ass and trash like if there was work, if there was, if you were going to have a mission, the 46th is where going.

58:40 [UNKNOWN]: Oh yeah, you know, there we're going. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, the 46th is no joke. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Watching, I remember watching my first vert rep at at at C on a ship and I was like, God dang dude, like this is insane. [UNKNOWN]: It's crazy. [UNKNOWN]: Just watching those he loves to jump back and forth.

58:55 [UNKNOWN]: There's freaking pipes going between the two ships. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: It's crazy evolution. [UNKNOWN]: Most of that craziness, that was the Navy, right? [UNKNOWN]: And they're in their D models, right? [UNKNOWN]: And those guys, they just lived on the ship. [UNKNOWN]: So they whip those things around like nothing.

59:10 [UNKNOWN]: You know, we did a lot of vert rep, but it didn't look as cool as the Navy on the vert rep. [UNKNOWN]: But they didn't haul the grunts around like we did. [UNKNOWN]: Roger, they didn't do some of the missions that we had. [UNKNOWN]: So yeah. [UNKNOWN]: And so then how do you like being, when do you go in your first deployment?

59:27 [UNKNOWN]: Oh, that's funny dude. [UNKNOWN]: I didn't know we went on ships. [UNKNOWN]: I had no idea that was coming until I got to my squadron. [UNKNOWN]: And somebody was like, yeah, we're going to we're going to deploy in like nine months and I'm like, okay, where are we going? [UNKNOWN]: Like the USS Essex, I'm like, a fucking boat, like, what?

59:43 [UNKNOWN]: We have airplanes, we have helicopters, and we have boats. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I had no clue. [UNKNOWN]: So it was 94 October of 94 when we were going to deploy. [UNKNOWN]: So I want to say I got to my squadron around, I don't know, I must have been June, July. [UNKNOWN]: So we had about a year of work ups and whatnot.

1:00:03 [UNKNOWN]: I had to go through the squadron syllabus to get my wings. [UNKNOWN]: Actually, I already got my wings. [UNKNOWN]: They pinned those on it after Nam Trudets. [UNKNOWN]: How's that pinning ceremony all good to go? [UNKNOWN]: Dude, guys were fucking passing out. [UNKNOWN]: Like, I thought they were going to do it bare chest, but I realized they had us put our white, scivvy t-shirts on because you can see the blood better, but dude, anybody that had a set of wings showed up that day.

1:00:30 [UNKNOWN]: I didn't know there were so many crew chiefs in the Marine Corps. [UNKNOWN]: I got like, [UNKNOWN]: Forty freaking sets up pin holes in my chest Pluck him out finding new spot out of it Frank. [UNKNOWN]: I love Frank the death, but Frank did not like blood And I just remember like after the second stop he was he was on his like leaned over hands on his knees I was holding his neck [UNKNOWN]: And, you know, a couple of guys came and got them and brought them outside.

1:00:56 [UNKNOWN]: You know, he just didn't like the side of blood. [UNKNOWN]: And so, I just imagine he's outside, like escaping this. [UNKNOWN]: And I kind of felt bad, like, ah, dude, like, this is a random passage. [UNKNOWN]: You got, you know, Frank Smith's an outhouse fucking bomb. [UNKNOWN]: Dude, I go outside because I was on the, at the front of the line.

1:01:11 [UNKNOWN]: So I'm done, plug, you know, I got my, my wings hanging in my chest and I go outside to show Frank and high five, whatever. [UNKNOWN]: They're frankly, and on the fucking picnic table. [UNKNOWN]: They pinned him. [UNKNOWN]: Everybody came out there and pounded. [UNKNOWN]: Those fucking things in his chest laying out his back dude.

1:01:27 [UNKNOWN]: It was awesome. [UNKNOWN]: It was fucking awesome, legit. [UNKNOWN]: Now, um, Pete, Bass. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, yeah, dude. [UNKNOWN]: So how about that strike is so he gets killed in a heal crash. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, he's he's I'm literally a guy, you know, just refresh us under a relationship with him.

1:01:48 [UNKNOWN]: Okay. [UNKNOWN]: He's the guy when you talk earlier. [UNKNOWN]: He's like the first guy you ever saw in Marine Corps dressed blues. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: And coincidentally, he gets killed. [UNKNOWN]: Yes, and and I knew like the family loved him. [UNKNOWN]: Like Pete was like he was untouchable in the family life.

1:02:06 [UNKNOWN]: So he was taught sisters husband husband. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and they were tight. [UNKNOWN]: Like everybody was tight. [UNKNOWN]: And I was like the adopted kid, you know, like I'm in the I live in the back room. [UNKNOWN]: Like [UNKNOWN]: You know, but we were tight. [UNKNOWN]: They were tight.

1:02:18 [UNKNOWN]: They were they were super tight. [UNKNOWN]: Everybody loved Pete Pete was You know Pete was one of Todd's heroes, you know, everybody talked about Pete, you know, just He was untouchable and he's in the Marine Corps and he's doing great. [UNKNOWN]: He's a kuchif He's got the same job that I ended up with except he's on the Huey and So probably maybe two months after training and at at Tuston I get a call from Todd [UNKNOWN]: the peak I killed and you know I was just like fuck what like you know training accident out at 29 p.m. and I was just like you know fuck you know and then the call start coming in and all the questions like you know could it be mechanical could it be that I didn't know like I didn't know shit about helicopters dude like you know I'm just moving from one station to a next at that point you know in fact

1:03:10 [UNKNOWN]: I just I started getting excited about my job like holy shit like and then I'm like whoa wait a minute we could die you know just a training like not even on a deployment and I don't like fuck so yeah so we buried Pete went down for the ceremony you know part of the you know we're there everybody's there graveside you know and and it was just yeah it was pretty surreal you know he had a young son I think Christopher was [UNKNOWN]: Not even a year.

1:03:38 [UNKNOWN]: I don't even think it was a year, you know, and Michelle, I just, you know, I was so are broken for her, you know, and then, you know, all the questions. [UNKNOWN]: So, yeah, it, it, it, it, it hard, and I don't know how this happened, but I ended up with this Conner's belt, like later on, bads, you know, written inside of it, and I don't remember who gave it to me or how I ended up with it, but I still have it to this day.

1:03:58 [UNKNOWN]: But, um, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that was kind of eye-opening, you know, like, what, you know, holy shit we can die doing this. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, you know, you know, but you expect, you don't expect to happen in training, you know, and, and again, I didn't have a lot of experience or knowledge of what it is that I'd gotten into or signed up for, so it was just kind of unfolding itself in front of us.

1:04:22 [UNKNOWN]: And then with that, you're going on deployment, it's October 1994, you know, who you were lived on that deployment? [UNKNOWN]: No, me. [UNKNOWN]: What? [UNKNOWN]: No shit. [UNKNOWN]: It was on the Arctic prior. [UNKNOWN]: Okay. [UNKNOWN]: So we were over there. [UNKNOWN]: Actually, I'm trying to think if we were on the same deployment or not.

1:04:43 [UNKNOWN]: I was on the USS Essex. [UNKNOWN]: We had the Garibaldi with us from Italy. [UNKNOWN]: We had the Bello Wood showed up later for support with USS Ogden. [UNKNOWN]: And we were the constellation was our battle, our carrier in our battle group. [UNKNOWN]: So I deployed, how long did you stay on deployment for?

1:05:03 [UNKNOWN]: We were out for six months. [UNKNOWN]: We, yeah, we left October. [UNKNOWN]: I got married two weeks before we left. [UNKNOWN]: So Michelle was broken, proper. [UNKNOWN]: We stayed. [UNKNOWN]: We were out for six months. [UNKNOWN]: We went straight to, well, [UNKNOWN]: We went straight to Hong Kong, party, the shit out of Hong Kong, Singapore, hit Singapore for a week, and then dropped into Kuwait, and we were up out of Aliyasalim, and then there was a small outpost, like, with the airfield north, and I don't remember the name of it, but we lived out of containers for, like, I don't know, a month.

1:05:39 [UNKNOWN]: I'm trying to remember if I was coming home at that time, because I met my wife at that time, but we were on deployment, um, yeah. [UNKNOWN]: I think you either relieve me or we're on the same deployment. [UNKNOWN]: Well, did you guys, did you steal a bus and Singapore? [UNKNOWN]: Because we obviously still have a bus that was not me.

1:05:57 [UNKNOWN]: So, yeah, we know about that. [UNKNOWN]: Yes, yes, that was my deployment. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, okay, so that's what we weren't on the same deployment. [UNKNOWN]: By the way, that was all we needed to hear. [UNKNOWN]: And then it was on, did we tore up every talent we went to? [UNKNOWN]: We're like stealing buses.

1:06:08 [UNKNOWN]: It's cool. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that was on the agenda. [UNKNOWN]: That was like such a disaster, you know? [UNKNOWN]: This is why alcohol. [UNKNOWN]: You know, I don't know if it's a hundred percent or ninety nine point nine percent of the bad decisions that seals make. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, involve alcohol But that one's a classic like yeah, he did he I forget the whole story, but it was like a moped chase and then finally end up on a bus and decided he's going to steal the bus to get away [UNKNOWN]: type scenario not good yeah workout good dude we decided that since the Navy was doing it we started stealing Rick Shaws ended up in a patty wagon with with my really good friend Jason Rob that we were going to get kind they were going to send us to get kind dude we draw they drove us around in this tiny little I mean it's like

1:06:54 [UNKNOWN]: three foot it's smaller than the box at seal it's your training and you're just shoved in the in the in the back of this thing for I don't know four hours my legs were going numb and then they dumped the soft in the middle of the jungle and said no You walk back to the ship we thought tigers were gonna eat us [UNKNOWN]: That's not a problem.

1:07:11 [UNKNOWN]: We have program. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah getting cained by the way There's a book I read about a guy that got cained he was a I think he was a British guy But he ended up in the French Foreign Legion maybe anyways he was like oh you're gonna cain me because he did some stupid thing on Liberty Right and so they go you're gonna cain me he goes no big deal like you know What's some little Asian guy gonna you know trying hurt me and he said he walks it like the place where they're gonna cain He sees the guy and it's like a shy [UNKNOWN]: Like the biggest like Mongolian Samoen look and just like 300 pound dude who's getting warmed up Like he's getting warmed up and then they you know about the shit an echo tross then they take they like strap you over like a Over like almost like a like a bench, but like a taller bench like a

1:08:01 [UNKNOWN]: Gymnastics, you know that's like a horse horse. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, yeah, like strapping on that thing You're not going anywhere and then it was something like seven lashings each one Causes open laceration down your ass. [UNKNOWN]: He had to fly home face down on a medical evacuation Yeah, it's no joke.

1:08:20 [UNKNOWN]: So you're lucky you didn't get king. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, yeah, we had we had no I We had no idea lucky we did look into cany later on and realize how lucky we got [UNKNOWN]: Super belligerent you know, we just but thank those Navy seals because they started it, man We we had doubt doing not good not good At so what else what else on that deployment?

1:08:44 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so we, yeah, we did work out of Quake, Aliasalim, we were up there on the border. [UNKNOWN]: Iraqis were building up again, so we got to dump some troops out there, do a lot of a lot of night ops, a lot of NVG stuff, you know, really, I mean, I was in during the dry era, so not a lot going on.

1:09:03 [UNKNOWN]: So we, yeah, we left, we left Quake on our way. [UNKNOWN]: Let's see, I think it was, yeah, we were supposed to, it was Christmas, we were going to go down to the UAE for Christmas Day. [UNKNOWN]: And so, Christmas Eve, I remember we get woke up like, rental art, you know, two AM, everybody down to the Reddy Room, and, you know, they're briefing us like, it's on.

1:09:24 [UNKNOWN]: We're going to go take down a, you know, a ship breaking sanctions out Iraq, whatever, and it's like, oh yeah, right on, this is, you know, this is the shit, this is what we're trying to for. [UNKNOWN]: And honestly, we thought it was a drill. [UNKNOWN]: We're like, you know, most of us were pretty natural out like, this is kind of bullshit, like we're training on Christmas Eve.

1:09:44 [UNKNOWN]: We're supposed to be in Kuwait or in UAE in the morning, you know. [UNKNOWN]: So it became kind of surreal as I walk out onto the... [UNKNOWN]: flight deck. [UNKNOWN]: I'm heading out to prep my helicopter helicopter. [UNKNOWN]: And we had to check out our weapons which we don't normally do.

1:10:02 [UNKNOWN]: And then we bring Rocky Torres, our armor, like halfway to my helicopter. [UNKNOWN]: And I'm looking at the cobra and their crank in the rounds and the nose could see that 30 mic mic going in the sun. [UNKNOWN]: It's not up, but you can see that like that. [UNKNOWN]: silhouette of the Cobra with the warm like red glow in the background and just the nose of that thing in the gun and the kick kick kick you can hear the rounds going in you're just like the hair start standing up on your neck and there's Rocky he's got the receiver for the 50 and you know guys are hauling ammo and their throwing shit up on the ramp and [UNKNOWN]: I look at the ammo and I'm like fuck, that's not 1950, whatever, Korean, that's API, like that's real bullets and I look over at Rocky and he kind of looks at me and He's kind of swallow like whole shit man, like it's on

1:10:55 [UNKNOWN]: Um, but it, it turned out to be sort of like Jake Jillon Hall in, you know, jarhead, you know, get all spooled up to go take a ship down and I don't remember we, we dumped like three seal teams, um, you know, on the boat, they take the boat over, uh, I end up hanging out in Starbird D watching the whole thing unfold, don't even get to dump my guys on the deck.

1:11:19 [UNKNOWN]: I think, you know, dudes were like running around like ants and then disappeared, the seals had the boat wrapped up in about 30 seconds and they're steaming along behind us down to the UAE and, you know, whatever they handed over. [UNKNOWN]: So that was it. [UNKNOWN]: But walking up on that flight deck, I'll never forget those, you know, just those first, like, I don't know, 20 minutes, you know, just holy shit, like, you know, you do need to get to lock and load, your weapon is so it's definitely [UNKNOWN]: Uh, it definitely, in the 90s, lock and load your weapon was like, oh, dude, like, it's on and it was, uh, it was so gratifying every time I got to lock and load my weapon in the 90s, you know, it's so crazy that, you know, by the time, you know, the war started, it was just like, that was just a That's just how we, that was just a way, that's the way it was, you know, it's just a totally different story.

1:12:10 [UNKNOWN]: Uh, and then, do you guys lose a guy a couple of a couple of guys in that deployment too of aviation wise? [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it wasn't long after, I want to say it was maybe January, actually during, so we did eyes over Mogadishu, I think it was December January. [UNKNOWN]: We didn't go in country there, we were offshore, but in the carriers and the cobras, gunships were doing escort and [UNKNOWN]: overwatch or whatever.

1:12:39 [UNKNOWN]: And so we won, you know, moonless night, we lose, we lose a hair, we lose a cat and a McKay, off the bow of the ship, about a mile out. [UNKNOWN]: And we spend the next, I don't know, I felt like a week, just calm in the ocean, looking for traces, you know, nothing. [UNKNOWN]: Not a sign, not an oil spill, not a flare, not a sea dye marker.

1:13:05 [UNKNOWN]: I mean, you know, I think we can assume as he just submarined in, you know, and never to be seen again. [UNKNOWN]: Really, you know, hit home. [UNKNOWN]: I, you know, I didn't know Captain McKay personally, but, you know, you see him. [UNKNOWN]: They're pre-flight and I was always hanging out with the Harry or guys.

1:13:24 [UNKNOWN]: I fucking loved Harry or they pulled a wing off one. [UNKNOWN]: And, you know, so you're just, [UNKNOWN]: you're all part of the community. [UNKNOWN]: It's tight. [UNKNOWN]: Everybody's doing their briefs together and the ready rooms together. [UNKNOWN]: So you know all these guys. [UNKNOWN]: And yeah, that sucked.

1:13:37 [UNKNOWN]: You know, that's just sucked, you know, thinking about the letter home, you know, somebody's not getting their dad back. [UNKNOWN]: that really fucking sucked. [UNKNOWN]: And then not long after that we lost another Marine. [UNKNOWN]: We had a helicopter crash and it was laid off the side of the ship.

1:14:00 [UNKNOWN]: I was in the Ford slash maybe second helo in prep in my helicopter doing my upon the rotor head servicing doing my checks and spot one maybe spot two had a Huey going up and there was a guy you know I knew all the crew I mean we were tight with the Huey guys we're all in the line together so we're all tight but they were taking up a [UNKNOWN]: I want to say this guy was a hydraulicsman.

1:14:30 [UNKNOWN]: His name was Justin Harris. [UNKNOWN]: He's a good dude. [UNKNOWN]: You know, a lot of guys knew him like him. [UNKNOWN]: He wasn't in my shop, so we weren't bros. [UNKNOWN]: But I knew Justin, I knew who he was, I knew in that day. [UNKNOWN]: Super excited to go fly because he hadn't been up.

1:14:44 [UNKNOWN]: He had to go do some quals or something. [UNKNOWN]: We needed as many guys trained and ready for us to go into a Somalia later that month. [UNKNOWN]: So they were getting ready. [UNKNOWN]: We're off the coast. [UNKNOWN]: They were going to do a training hop. [UNKNOWN]: And I remember, you know, I'm looking at the guys, you know, there's three in the back, two crew chiefs and heres is in there.

1:15:11 [UNKNOWN]: And they're, you know, they're looking out the right side doors open, getting ready to come up into a hover. [UNKNOWN]: I'm giving them the Shaka, you know, fuck yeah, like, get some. [UNKNOWN]: And. [UNKNOWN]: And they slide left, and they do this maneuver that looks like something out of Vietnam, you know, and I start laughing and I'm like, oh, fuck, they're giving hairs a ride for his life.

1:15:32 [UNKNOWN]: And then I realize you can't do that off the side of the ship, like they're fucking crashing. [UNKNOWN]: so I jump off my rotor head straight down to the door down to the ground and I run to the side of the ship. [UNKNOWN]: Just in time to see the helicopter roll on its side. [UNKNOWN]: It's in the shadow of the boat so I can see clearly like straight down in the water and I can see a couple of helmets pop up and I'm counting them, you know, and I see the rotor tail rotor kind of disappear.

1:16:02 [UNKNOWN]: and I get only a C4 guys, I mean there's 77 feet down there right there and I'm kind of running along the side of the boat looking at them and I'm the only guy standing out there like there was a yellow shirt flag at them off nobody's on the line yet and I'm just like fuck like I just remember thinking where the fuck is everybody like there's a helicopter in the water.

1:16:24 [UNKNOWN]: And so, I scoop back to my helicopter to grab my raft, but they didn't raft. [UNKNOWN]: So I grabbed the raft and I come running back to the side of the fucking boat and by now they're at the fan tail. [UNKNOWN]: Like, you know, one am I going to do? [UNKNOWN]: So, so I dropped the raft and I'm like, fuck.

1:16:40 [UNKNOWN]: So now, you know, there's crowd forming. [UNKNOWN]: I can, you know, I see that the SAR helicopters, you know. [UNKNOWN]: It was probably already airborne, but now they're over the scene. [UNKNOWN]: I run back and I grab, I actually was one of the guys that didn't follow orders and I bought a nice minuto with a 300 zoom and all that shit.

1:16:58 [UNKNOWN]: So I go grab my camera and my zoom, so because I want to look and see what the fuck's going on. [UNKNOWN]: So I get the zoom and I'm sprinting to the back of the boat and I see the rib boat. [UNKNOWN]: Take off towards these guys. [UNKNOWN]: You can see the C-Dye Marker now the smokes going and I get my zoom going and I can I can see you know It's clear as these cans on our on our desk.

1:17:14 [UNKNOWN]: I can count four helmets and guys are over my shoulder like hey, how many you know You know, can you see anything and I already knew we lost somebody and so I'm just like nah, you know [UNKNOWN]: I can't see anything. [UNKNOWN]: And I wasn't going to take any pictures. [UNKNOWN]: I didn't take any pictures of that shit.

1:17:28 [UNKNOWN]: So I just waited, you know, and I could see him getting the boat and I just watched the whole thing. [UNKNOWN]: Monitored him come in and, you know, remember to guys stay in the, in the, they came back and, you know, they're up to the flight line and, and they're all sobbing wet, taking their gear off and in the flight deck triage and, and, and Harris was gone.

1:18:01 [UNKNOWN]: I don't know why the hit's so hard, but it does. [UNKNOWN]: You know, I didn't know him that well. [UNKNOWN]: But I could imagine. [UNKNOWN]: And I kept telling myself, like, it's only 70-70 feet, while, like, why didn't you jump in there now? [UNKNOWN]: Why isn't there a diver artist already in the water like all this shit going through my head like you know, how can we have all this equipment.

1:18:29 [UNKNOWN]: How can we do something so fucking dangerous and not have Anticipated and have safety measures in place like that fucking boat should already been in the water like [UNKNOWN]: I mean, obviously, that's ridiculous. [UNKNOWN]: We can't do that, right? [UNKNOWN]: But that's what went through my head.

1:18:46 [UNKNOWN]: And years later, well, it always kind of haunted me, watching that, like, I cared so much guilt dude, because I was fucking high five in these guys, and laughing as they were crashing. [UNKNOWN]: And I think I was ashamed, like, I just cared a lot of guilt because I think it was ashamed, like how I reacted, that I couldn't do more.

1:19:15 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I think that's one of the toughest things I think guys deal with is when they look back situations that they were in and they feel like there's things that they should have done or shouldn't have done [UNKNOWN]: And they didn't perform the way they wanted to. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: And there, you know, people's expectations of themselves are so high.

1:19:40 [UNKNOWN]: Pire then can be expected. [UNKNOWN]: You know, like the expectation that you're having right now. [UNKNOWN]: as if there was anything in the world that would have benefited by you jumping in the water. [UNKNOWN]: Like, that is zero benefit. [UNKNOWN]: In fact, it would have made things worse that would have been made like it.

1:19:56 [UNKNOWN]: But in your mind, in our minds, you know, we tell ourselves, well, I could have done better. [UNKNOWN]: I should have done better. [UNKNOWN]: And that's the kind of thing that that haunts people, because they feel like, oh, I should have been better in that moment than I was. [UNKNOWN]: And instead of recognizing, [UNKNOWN]: most of the time, most situations, guys are doing the best they could at that moment, and like they did what they were supposed to do, what they were trying to do.

1:20:21 [UNKNOWN]: Like, I'll tell you why you didn't jump in the water, because you don't freaking jump in the water off of a navy ship. [UNKNOWN]: You don't do that, right? [UNKNOWN]: It doesn't happen. [UNKNOWN]: And so you were doing exactly what you're trying to do, but there's something where we feel like we could have done more, we should have done more, we wanted to do more.

1:20:36 [UNKNOWN]: And, you know, I've had, I've told many guys over the years that the only acceptable result in our head is we don't come home alive. [UNKNOWN]: You're like, that's the only, you know, we, we, in our own minds, we think, you know what? [UNKNOWN]: I, I, I, I, I didn't do enough because I came home and that's not the right attitude.

1:20:58 [UNKNOWN]: You know, it's not, it's not the correct answer. [UNKNOWN]: I'm just telling you what we feel like. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, if I'm here and someone else isn't, that means I didn't do enough and that eats people up. [UNKNOWN]: You know, because it's a, it's a feeling that we have of, you know, we let down our brothers, we let down our friends, we let down ourselves in that moment.

1:21:15 [UNKNOWN]: But, [UNKNOWN]: You did exactly what you're trying to do exactly what you're supposed to do and that's the way it is and it is You know, that's why that's why guys struggle so much because they look back and go Man, I think I should have behaved better You did what you're supposed to do and most guys do and hey occasionally when you don't do what you?

1:21:36 [UNKNOWN]: Maybe you made a mistake [UNKNOWN]: you know you go oh well what what I was doing with that the time cool I made a mistake that's what I'm a human being I'm not a perfect person you know like okay that that is like ownership of hey I didn't I wasn't perfect I didn't do everything perfect then that's okay you know like that's you were there you know and this is another thing I get with guys [UNKNOWN]: They feel guilty because they didn't go to combat.

1:22:05 [UNKNOWN]: I'm like, man, you put your line. [UNKNOWN]: You put your, you signed your name on the dotted line, like everybody else did. [UNKNOWN]: And that's a commitment. [UNKNOWN]: That's the biggest commitment that you can make. [UNKNOWN]: And by the way, you know, in the 90s, you know, I did three ship board deployments in the 90s.

1:22:18 [UNKNOWN]: People die on all those deployments. [UNKNOWN]: Like, and people die in training. [UNKNOWN]: You know, like, you've got examples. [UNKNOWN]: You've already talked three examples there. [UNKNOWN]: One guy died in training, two guys died on deployment. [UNKNOWN]: There's no work going on. [UNKNOWN]: This is just what happens.

1:22:29 [UNKNOWN]: This is a job. [UNKNOWN]: You signed that dotted line. [UNKNOWN]: And this is what this is what you're going to do and you're going to do a day and day out and you're not going to ask you questions about, you know, is it the right day to do this, could we die today? [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, you're damn right.

1:22:41 [UNKNOWN]: You can die today. [UNKNOWN]: You can die tomorrow. [UNKNOWN]: We don't know, but you know, we do know we're getting our gear on. [UNKNOWN]: We're going. [UNKNOWN]: So that's [UNKNOWN]: That's what I've found talking to a lot of guys over the years, is that feeling of, I feel like I should have done more, and of course we're all going to feel that way, but the reality of, hey, you did what you were trained to do, and or you did the best you could do in that situation, is all right, bro, it's all right.

1:23:11 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. [UNKNOWN]: Well, that turned into, you know, overtraining for the rest of my life, you know, just asked my kids, that's the neighbor's call over. [UNKNOWN]: Go, hey, what's going on over here, can a clock at night? [UNKNOWN]: I see flashlights and some sort of laddering out of front of your house, you know?

1:23:26 [UNKNOWN]: I'm in some drills. [UNKNOWN]: What a drill, bro. [UNKNOWN]: You never know. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, yeah. [UNKNOWN]: So you get back from that deployment, what point do you decide you're going to get out? [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, we get back from that deployment, and which, by the way, we spent another two-and-a-half months in Somalia, and we did the United Shield lower there.

1:23:53 [UNKNOWN]: And I heard a podcast with Jason Gardner. [UNKNOWN]: And I wonder if we were on the same deployment because there was some combat there that sounds very similar to what we, you know, what we experienced, that I think Jason was a part of. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I'm glad. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, he was one of the seals that was a snail sniper in Somalia.

1:24:15 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I listen to that story carefully because I'm like, man, that sounds like I think that's my battle group. [UNKNOWN]: I heard something like year with that was though. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I think it was 94. [UNKNOWN]: It might have been hit on my debate. [UNKNOWN]: I'll ask him. [UNKNOWN]: Ask him because I'd love to know because I heard that.

1:24:28 [UNKNOWN]: I heard him on that and I'm like, fuck, I think he was on. [UNKNOWN]: I think they were the seals out there raising hell. [UNKNOWN]: We did a lot of SAR. [UNKNOWN]: We did 20 missions and into Somalia from like February through April. [UNKNOWN]: And what were you guys doing mostly mostly Ascent Trash?

1:24:43 [UNKNOWN]: No, you know, we were evacuating. [UNKNOWN]: Okay. [UNKNOWN]: We did a few ops with, there was some Pakistani forces still in there. [UNKNOWN]: We had the Italians in there. [UNKNOWN]: Our infantry were holding security at the end. [UNKNOWN]: So you got to lock him out a bunch every day. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, for three months, you know.

1:25:00 [UNKNOWN]: But it felt like, you know, [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I mean, I got to see tracers and multiple colors, you know, it was it was fucking it was pretty cool at the time Yeah, you guys see you guys really leave dust cuz we were doing gator squares off of Somalia for months Okay, and but they but we didn't do anything [UNKNOWN]: we were the last op so we relieved everybody so when we left there was nothing there like it was that was united shield we pulled everybody out then we packed up our grunts they left all those connex boxes and not that whole perimeter you know piled in I was one of the last forty sixes to leave Somalia and then it was done we left there and headed straight for australia australia

1:25:42 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, three days, four days maybe, dude, we had, we had cut loose, we had to wear our charleys, the first night, you know, your shiny little shoes, all your ribbons and shit, dude, we came back from the free mental prison, the fucking stage diving all night, dude, my shit was, I didn't have anything left of me.

1:25:59 [UNKNOWN]: The free mental prison, what's up? [UNKNOWN]: I don't know, it was like a bar, you know, entertainment, venue, dude, we were so drunk, I couldn't even tell you. [UNKNOWN]: But it was like, yeah, it was where everything was happening, as we're stage diving and, you know, we're fighting and all your shit was getting tore off, like trying to get back on the boat, all tore up like that, you know, it was, it was a good time.

1:26:20 [UNKNOWN]: We had to get time, three days of drinking and party and then back home, you know, back to Pearl and then back home and, you know, when I got home, [UNKNOWN]: You know, the squadrons get sort of dismantled, right, you've done your deal, the other squadrons are building up, so everybody kind of scatters, and I was asked to go to, we call it shit canning, but, you know, I was a test crew chief, I had some specialty skills, and HMM-166, the CLX, were struggling to test aircraft up, and they had one stuck down, and [UNKNOWN]: You may Arizona, so I might have been else central.

1:26:57 [UNKNOWN]: I can't remember it was a fucking hot hell whole or whatever. [UNKNOWN]: So I got asked to go to 166 when I got back and then that was the next duty station. [UNKNOWN]: No, you just went down there to work on it. [UNKNOWN]: I went down there to test the birds up, get them back home. [UNKNOWN]: That was funny story.

1:27:14 [UNKNOWN]: So we [UNKNOWN]: So to test these aircraft, we have special accelerometers and test equipment we hook up targets to the blades. [UNKNOWN]: You do what's called the track imbalance. [UNKNOWN]: Each one of the targets has a reflective line on it that's at a different angle. [UNKNOWN]: And typically you make up with your strobe light.

1:27:31 [UNKNOWN]: You can make an X out of it. [UNKNOWN]: Get them to track flat. [UNKNOWN]: Put your vibe, you know, machine on there, make sure the plane's not going to shake itself apart. [UNKNOWN]: usually it takes about four or five runs to get, you know, get a helicopter tested up and flying smooth so we can put it back into service and this one was a mess and I get down there and I just pick up where the last guy left off and I'm sure somebody, well maybe somebody will hear this, I can laugh at it.

1:27:52 [UNKNOWN]: So I, I just, I'm going to be the hero, I'm good at what I do, I got a lot of confidence, I just come back off the planet like dude, I'm a fucking badass and I'm going to have this up and three runs. [UNKNOWN]: We get there. [UNKNOWN]: And by the time we got to the third run, when we came up into a hover, I can't see straight.

1:28:05 [UNKNOWN]: It's vibrating so bad. [UNKNOWN]: I don't even know how this thing didn't come apart. [UNKNOWN]: Right? [UNKNOWN]: So we come back down, we put it down and we taxi back and the pilots are like, they're shaking their heads and I'm like, just give me a minute. [UNKNOWN]: And so I go up and I I recheck all the test equipment.

1:28:19 [UNKNOWN]: I'm like I got to start over And so I go in that check and they fucking the guy ahead of me hooked the accelerometer for the front up to the back and the back one to the front So everything you're supposed to do up front. [UNKNOWN]: I'm doing it to the back. [UNKNOWN]: It's all ass backwards and just making the shit Where so I get this thing up and like two more runs and we fly at home And I'm the fucking hero right.

1:28:37 [UNKNOWN]: I didn't tell anybody this story. [UNKNOWN]: I'm just like that five runs got it. [UNKNOWN]: You know, we're good [UNKNOWN]: And so I spent the next like three months with 166 and they asked me to go do mountain warfare training with them. [UNKNOWN]: And so I was like, all right, I've never been up to Bridgeport.

1:28:51 [UNKNOWN]: I heard there's good vision and you know, sounds badass. [UNKNOWN]: Let's go. [UNKNOWN]: So we go to Bridgeport and Bridgeport was cool, but it's high altitude training and for a helicopter that can be a challenge. [UNKNOWN]: And we [UNKNOWN]: You know, we had some fun, but it started heating up and you know how in California you can have, you know, the middle of the winter you can get these sienna in this warm air come through and all of a sudden, you know, it's January, it should be, you know, negative 20 of there at 12,000 feet, but it's, you know, 60 degrees, fucking warm day.

1:29:26 [UNKNOWN]: No snow is melting, grunts are in their t-shirts, you know, and we're coming in to pick up guys at like 12,000 feet. [UNKNOWN]: and i got a rookie crew that i don't know that well to be honest you know and uh were coming in hot and i'm calm for wave off and he's like i can't like we're coming in like we're landing and did we slam into all this gear you know hit fucking hard um it's called a hard landing but it felt like a crash to me and the crew chief is standing in the back [UNKNOWN]: and I get fucking thrown into my Crucian, you know, inverted backwards, so fucking hard I can't walk.

1:30:01 [UNKNOWN]: And so I come out of that, you know, we, you know, aircrafts okay, you know, everybody's fine. [UNKNOWN]: Just me, I'm fucking beat up. [UNKNOWN]: And so we come back from that mountain warfare training and I'm like, [UNKNOWN]: I'm fucking done like with 166, like I'm like limping around. [UNKNOWN]: I've been to medical twice, you know, I'm, you know, Adville, go back home rest.

1:30:22 [UNKNOWN]: I got put on light duty now and so now I'm not flying. [UNKNOWN]: I'm on light duty, I'm limping around, going back to my squadron and, you know, I'm just, [UNKNOWN]: not feeling good and you know the it's time to talk to the career planner they closed my MLS. [UNKNOWN]: I told you earlier that we were the last class for the 46th is we're going to go to the Ospreys.

1:30:45 [UNKNOWN]: So no re-enlistment for me as a 6172. [UNKNOWN]: The bonus went away. [UNKNOWN]: The guys like literally a month before me got a $20,000 bonus. [UNKNOWN]: There's no bonus for me and You know, there's no job and I'm like I got the best job in the Marine Corps like there's there's no way I'm going to whatever avionics or Whatever geek job they had from like fuck that and so I tell them I'm like send me send me to the fucking grunts like send me to Penalton I'll go carry a fucking machine gun [UNKNOWN]: And career planners like, no, we got too much money invested in you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah

1:31:44 [UNKNOWN]: Call for power and save my own ass with I thought I was going to quit like You know like kougar slap my wings down on the table. [UNKNOWN]: I'm out like, you know and turns turns turns a shit around I mean like hey, I'm wearing corn he's guys like like you know you're you're you're you're Rejected what we need and so you leave they're all proud like you know with a whole you know note outlook new outlook and You know here I am you know four years later and cord of need me anymore, so I'm like fucking I'm getting out You know and so I started looking for a way to get out [UNKNOWN]: And then how long will it take you to get out?

1:32:16 [UNKNOWN]: Um, it wasn't long, I mean, I was probably two months away from needing to read unless I thought I was going to read unless I actually thought I was going to get extended to be a, um, uh, you know, to go do a second deployment could be because it's, it's, it's kind of mandatory. [UNKNOWN]: You have to do two deployments.

1:32:31 [UNKNOWN]: Everybody, everybody knows that, but I'm a, I'm a one pump jump dude. [UNKNOWN]: Like I got away with just doing one deployment. [UNKNOWN]: And so I thought for sure they would extend me with 161 and I do another, you know, I do another six months, uh, [UNKNOWN]: there was no I'm like that I'll get out and so I'd like two months to go and I had a friend on the outside world that owned a tractor trailer and he said he'd teach me how to drive so thought it was going to be a truck driver now you were but this one he became friends with Josh before he this is before you got out [UNKNOWN]: This is actually, yeah, right at the same time.

1:33:03 [UNKNOWN]: So when I got back from 166, I show up to 161. [UNKNOWN]: My parent squadron, and at this time, I'm driving the 68 roadrunner that, [UNKNOWN]: Yeah it was supposed to be a car I was supposed to drive to see my wife on the weekends because I was born a motorcycle to go visit my girlfriend later wife and bought this car and ended up yanking everything out you know big block I'll have said in a motorhead and I'm blib blib blib blib up into the parking lot and I got the only mobile park you wish you still had that thing I wish that's a whole yeah I wish [UNKNOWN]: So I come rolling in my roadrunner, and in my parking spot is a 1971 Kuda, 340 Kuda, mine's all primed, this thing's all painted nice, like it was nice.

1:33:54 [UNKNOWN]: And I'm like, who the fuck is this in my parking spot? [UNKNOWN]: So I blip, blip, blip, pull up next to it and I'm checking it out, I'm shoving my head inside the driver seat, and all of a sudden this fucking like Honda Civic, we alarm goes off. [UNKNOWN]: Like, [UNKNOWN]: On a, on a 71 CUDA, I'm like, what the fuck is this, you know, and I'm like laughing and the lights are flashing and I'm just thinking what a geek and this skinny little Mexican comes around the corner and he's like, hey dude, if you want to go for a ride, just ask and that was Josh and I'm like, all right dude, let's go, you know, is fuck we jumping that thing and it was on.

1:34:29 [UNKNOWN]: That was a, I think it was a 346 pack he had in that thing and that. [UNKNOWN]: We were just, you know, just hammering around. [UNKNOWN]: We just, you know, we hit it off, like, you know, two peas in a pot, man, our mopars, you know, he's a mechanic. [UNKNOWN]: He was a 6112, I'm a 6172, we're on the flat line together.

1:34:46 [UNKNOWN]: But I only got two months left. [UNKNOWN]: But we were, you know, dude, we hit it off, guys, right? [UNKNOWN]: That was, that was day one to a long friendship, right there. [UNKNOWN]: And now you get out, this truck driver job, how's that work out? [UNKNOWN]: That was fun. [UNKNOWN]: I would test your craft all day, sunrise to sunset, and then at 9 o'clock at night, I'd jam up to Reed's house.

1:35:10 [UNKNOWN]: We'd drive out to Ontario, pick up his truck, grab a camart trailer, drop it in Blife, go north about a half hour pick up a loaded dog, food drop it in San Diego, and then he'd drop me back off at the base for about half hour worth of sleep before I'd show up at the flight line again. [UNKNOWN]: But I was determined, like I'm going to drive a truck and do you drive in a tractor trailer?

1:35:28 [UNKNOWN]: Fucking badass. [UNKNOWN]: It was one of the coolest things I ever learned how to do. [UNKNOWN]: But Reed got sick when I had about two weeks to go before I got out. [UNKNOWN]: And I was still like two weeks away from getting a license. [UNKNOWN]: It was kind of timed up to getting my light, my full-blown license testing.

1:35:47 [UNKNOWN]: I still needed a little bit of drive time and some practice before I tested, but he got sick. [UNKNOWN]: And so, you know, we delayed, we delayed, and all of a sudden I'm getting out and I don't have a job. [UNKNOWN]: So I met the In-laws house, my father-in-law worked for Arrowhead Water at the time, and he's like, well, you're not sleeping on the couch, you know, married my daughter.

1:36:06 [UNKNOWN]: You've got to provide, you know, and I'm like, all right, well, you know, I'll figure it out. [UNKNOWN]: Those are facts. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I'm like, hey, that's the way it is. [UNKNOWN]: We'll figure it out. [UNKNOWN]: And so he says, well, if you can't find something, call this guy and he hands me a business card and it's a food brokerage called Bromar Southern California and they reped the Arrowhead products.

1:36:26 [UNKNOWN]: I can't hire you. [UNKNOWN]: That's an epitizum, but these guys will, they'll love to have you. [UNKNOWN]: And so I get out and I interview with Jack Tarr, and they hire me on the spot, and they have a United States Marine on their payroll now. [UNKNOWN]: So they're going to capitalize on that, and they decide to start a new territory selling premium water in South Central East LA in Compton.

1:36:52 [UNKNOWN]: And so they send me to luckies. [UNKNOWN]: and a rouse in a store that does not want premium 250 a gallon water on the shelf and when I show up there is no arrowhead it's all in the back with like 20 years of dust on it and my job is to now convince somebody that this is the water table and half of it belongs to me and you got to let me put your product on the shelf so you know how that went and [UNKNOWN]: So I spent the next nine months, you know, battling that shit and going, you know, what I got to do something different.

1:37:23 [UNKNOWN]: This sucks. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, I made it fun, dude. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, I sold like 2,000 freaking cases into a store and put a jet ski, you know, in the front of this grocery store. [UNKNOWN]: And like, I mean, I made it work. [UNKNOWN]: I'm not going to say I'm live with some of the tools I used to get that product in, but we made it work, but it sucked, did it sucked.

1:37:47 [UNKNOWN]: So I'm driving home from work one day just thinking, what was this A&P shit that David Bill, one of my mentors in the Marine Corps had mentioned? [UNKNOWN]: Because he said, you better get this, you know, to everybody, but [UNKNOWN]: I didn't know what the hell it was, you know, I mean, I knew it was a license, but I didn't know anything about it or how to get it.

1:38:04 [UNKNOWN]: And so I just peel off into the Long Beach FISDO FAA office on my way home from LA one day. [UNKNOWN]: And I just, you know, asking the questions, hey, how do I get an AP? [UNKNOWN]: I'm a Koo-Chief, I was in the Marine Corps mechanic, and they're... [UNKNOWN]: They lay it all out for me. [UNKNOWN]: They're like, well, you got to go back to your command.

1:38:22 [UNKNOWN]: You're going to have to get this recommendation letter. [UNKNOWN]: You know, it gets your DD-2-14, gather up all your training records, bring all this stuff in and let us have a look at it. [UNKNOWN]: So I went and over the next, you know, month, you know, I still was close with my command.

1:38:36 [UNKNOWN]: I was still hanging out with all my bros. Like, I'd still go to my squadron dude. [UNKNOWN]: Like, I mean, there was a point when I thought I was going to get back in. [UNKNOWN]: Like, this sucks so bad out here. [UNKNOWN]: Like, sign me back up. [UNKNOWN]: So, I gather up everything I need and I show up at the FAA and I walk them through it.

1:38:52 [UNKNOWN]: They're like, okay, here's your 86-10-Duke, signing off for Airframe, signing off for Power Plant. [UNKNOWN]: Here's a phone number for a school that can prep you for a couple of weeks, go do this prep class. [UNKNOWN]: and take your written exams, there's three of them. [UNKNOWN]: General, a airframe and a power plant, you have like 1200 questions to study for 100 of them that are going to be on your test for three tests passed and then you move on to a oral and practical where you, you know, somebody that's already and expert in the industry and designated by the FAA.

1:39:27 [UNKNOWN]: They, they interrogate you and make you physically do work on, you know, magnetos, engines, you know, whatever and then they decide whether or not you can actually get a license and and I passed and they signed me off and hand me my temporary certificate and now I'm an A and P aircraft mechanic.

1:39:44 [UNKNOWN]: Now, what would a civilian path to get to there have looked like that just mean somebody went to like a school? [UNKNOWN]: What school do you got to get it like, embryo, riddle, aeronautical? [UNKNOWN]: Do they teach aircraft mechanics or no? [UNKNOWN]: Yes, or they do. [UNKNOWN]: Embrе Riddle does.

1:40:00 [UNKNOWN]: There's a lot of colleges that do. [UNKNOWN]: There's a lot of vocational schools and even more so popping up now. [UNKNOWN]: At the time, and even now, there's two paths to getting an A and P license, an actual sort of key A and P stand for airframe and power plant. [UNKNOWN]: God, they're two individual ratings.

1:40:17 [UNKNOWN]: There's an airframe rating, and then there's a power plant rating. [UNKNOWN]: They're individual. [UNKNOWN]: But really, I'm not going to say useless, but together when you have both ratings, that's the golden ticket. [UNKNOWN]: That's what you want. [UNKNOWN]: The airframe is the easier one to get most, most guys can get an airframe at least.

1:40:33 [UNKNOWN]: Getting the power plant add-on is a little more difficult, yeah, it's a specialty. [UNKNOWN]: So, could be a little more challenging, unless you went to school. [UNKNOWN]: So, there's two paths. [UNKNOWN]: The common path is to go to school, to an Emory Riddle. [UNKNOWN]: A lot of universities have, [UNKNOWN]: schools have, I'm sorry, have airframe and power plant and pilot training, so the university of [UNKNOWN]: I can't remember all of them.

1:41:01 [UNKNOWN]: But anyway, a lot of major universities have this training. [UNKNOWN]: So in the federal regulation, there's two paths. [UNKNOWN]: One is, I think, under part 147, and that's your formal accredited school. [UNKNOWN]: It's a two-year program. [UNKNOWN]: You go to school. [UNKNOWN]: At the end of your training, you get a certificate that says you can take your testing and test out and get your license.

1:41:22 [UNKNOWN]: So you've basically gone a school for two years. [UNKNOWN]: And then the other path that's less common is an OJT path that falls under part 65. [UNKNOWN]: So if you've worked in the industry for more than 18 months in airframe, 18 months in power plant, or collectively 30 months, you rate the same opportunity and you can get this form called an 8610-2 signed off to test for your airframe and power plant.

1:41:45 [UNKNOWN]: And so how that applies to us in the military, [UNKNOWN]: most of us that are mechanics, you know, we meet that 30 months. [UNKNOWN]: And it doesn't, the regulation doesn't actually specifically say what you have to do, you just have to be eligible and have worked in the airframe field, which would be like, you know, sheet metal work or line mechanic, you know, where you're daily servicing and testing, returning aircraft to service.

1:42:09 [UNKNOWN]: and then power plant where you're actually working in like a shop where the motor would go to once you removed it from the aircraft and tear it down, build it up, things like that or in my case you're a crew chief where you do the line service every day but because of our job and our specialty we actually work on the engines.

1:42:28 [UNKNOWN]: So we tune them, we trim them and for me I'd actually gone to the power plant shop because I was interested and I'd [UNKNOWN]: done some tear down and build up with the guys on the GE motor. [UNKNOWN]: So, you know, some of these MOSs, they kind of straddle both the airframe and the power plant.

1:42:44 [UNKNOWN]: So, if you have the time in service, then you rate the sign off on the 8610-2 under part 65. [UNKNOWN]: Less common path, but, you know, very available. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, very valuable for basically anybody on the AV, or many people on the aviation side in the military. [UNKNOWN]: Yes, Navy Air Force Marine Corps Army, because Army Hand Coast Guard, yeah, so I have there included.

1:43:09 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and, you know, there's actually some specific tools that the FAA has to address all of those MLSs and all of those technicians. [UNKNOWN]: now you're your employee you get a job on well what happens I got to go find a job so so i immediately start reaching out to these contract companies in fact the test facility had the name of this company i think it was called like STS services or something and so um i just call them it's the first company i call them that they they're like oh yeah you've got four years experience held you know aviation license good to go [UNKNOWN]: I think they hired me at like, I don't know, 18 bucks an hour plus per DM, my first job, Dothenab, Alabama.

1:43:49 [UNKNOWN]: I got to go all the way to Pemco World Air services and pack up my S10, you know, with, you know, my wife's already used to me deploying just another deployment, and, uh, jam across country to Pemco, I arrived the following Monday, and I started as a mechanic. [UNKNOWN]: How long do you stay there?

1:44:05 [UNKNOWN]: I stay there for like a month contract in the contract three months. [UNKNOWN]: Actually, I think the contract was like six months, but at the three month mark, a spot opened up in Santa Barbara at Santa Barbara Aerospace. [UNKNOWN]: So I transferred to Santa Barbara home on the weekends. [UNKNOWN]: And then from there, I can start shopping around local for a job.

1:44:24 [UNKNOWN]: And I eventually find a job at Martin Aviation at John Wayne Airport. [UNKNOWN]: And that's where I really cut my teeth as I'm again. [UNKNOWN]: And how long are you there for? [UNKNOWN]: I'm at Martin Aviation, dude, I'm bustin' my ass. [UNKNOWN]: Again, my nickname is Golden Boy for a reason because just shit falls in my lap.

1:44:42 [UNKNOWN]: So I get there, I'm the new guy, right? [UNKNOWN]: There's already 12 employees and I get picked to work on jets. [UNKNOWN]: It's a piston shop, it's a Class 4 repair station. [UNKNOWN]: We work on everything from, [UNKNOWN]: Piston engine, little Sessna's, to Turbo Prop, Pilates PC-12, to the general William Line that owned the place at the time, it was a 731 jet star that had four turbo engines on it, and later that turned into a golf stream.

1:45:09 [UNKNOWN]: So John Walker was like the jet guy, he was known as Johnny Jet, and I get paired up with John. [UNKNOWN]: And I think what happened is John just saw I was busted my ass and he's like, okay, I need somebody that I'll just bust their ass day and night. [UNKNOWN]: And so I end up on Jets with John and, you know, before you know it, General's turning his jet star into a golf stream G3 and somebody has to go to school.

1:45:33 [UNKNOWN]: I get picked to go to school. [UNKNOWN]: I go to golf stream manufacturer training. [UNKNOWN]: It's like a three and a half week, $20,000 school and all of a sudden now I'm a factory golf stream mechanic with an AMP license and I mean, I got guys walking around on the shop going, who the fuck is this guy?

1:45:50 [UNKNOWN]: Just busted my asking and and and I actually showed up with four years of experience a lot of guys think that Because we come from the military that we got some you know that we don't have that experience it's all the same All right, and airplanes and airplanes. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, you know when you're working out on a boat in the middle of no [UNKNOWN]: They have no idea.

1:46:07 [UNKNOWN]: I remember when we were going to put our, I'll fast forward for a minute, but to give you some sort of boat examples and how, you know, dangerous and tight-quartered and just the shit we did on an aircraft carrier. [UNKNOWN]: We used to stuff all those helicopters all except for like forward down into the hangar bay.

1:46:25 [UNKNOWN]: We went through a hurricane with that USSX. [UNKNOWN]: waves are coming over the bow noon like 77 feet out of the water you're out there on chain watch like with a rope tied to your ass and then sooner or later you can't even go out like the the captain won't even let anybody go on the deck because the waves are potentially going to wash the helicopters off the deck right.

1:46:45 [UNKNOWN]: And but we would put that shit like two inches apart down inside that hanger bay and you're chained down. [UNKNOWN]: You got like eight chains on each corner like they're not going anywhere. [UNKNOWN]: They're strapped at the deck, but that shit is inches apart. [UNKNOWN]: And so fast forward to like last year we're trying to fit a global 7500, which is about the largest business jet you can buy.

1:47:05 [UNKNOWN]: uh... it's got a hundred and i don't know hundred and twelve foot wingsman on it and uh... twenty six foot tail and our fisk fixed base of operations fBO say nope you can't you know our policy is no seventy five hundreds won't fit on the ramp pump fit in the hangar i walk out of the ramp on like nope it'll fit here and it'll fit in the hangar [UNKNOWN]: Dude, we had to get lasers out and then finally the like, now you got to actually bring one here.

1:47:25 [UNKNOWN]: We get bombardy to bring it out and we stuff that thing in the hangar. [UNKNOWN]: So we know what we're doing. [UNKNOWN]: You know, yeah, they need like three feet of clearance. [UNKNOWN]: We need like three inches. [UNKNOWN]: All right, back up. [UNKNOWN]: Sorry, what were we? [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so now you're doing this job.

1:47:40 [UNKNOWN]: You're kind of kicking ass you're showing up early. [UNKNOWN]: You're staying late. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, you get the qualifications. [UNKNOWN]: Did you start your own cleaning business at some point here? [UNKNOWN]: Alright, a little bit later, so, you know, I cut my teeth, I get to a jam along at Martin Aviation, after I go to factory school, I felt obligated to give them a couple of more years, you know, they paid for my school, a lot of guys kind of ditch and run after they get a school like that because you become very marketable.

1:48:05 [UNKNOWN]: It was probably 2000. [UNKNOWN]: 9-11 happened while I was at Martin, so I want to say it was O2. [UNKNOWN]: I jump ship and I decide to start my own company. [UNKNOWN]: I meet a pilot has a couple airplanes, not our clients at Martin. [UNKNOWN]: I've got morals, I wasn't going to steal any clientele, I've drummed up some work on the side and I resigned and started total aircraft management where we managed just a couple [UNKNOWN]: You know, no sooner do I show up in my new hangar, the neighbor start coming over.

1:48:40 [UNKNOWN]: Everybody's asked me to help and then a G4 moves in across the, hey, you got any Gulf Dream experience? [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, before you know it, I got like 10 airplanes on managing, like doing light maintenance, helping them get in and out of the maintenance facilities, you know, just, [UNKNOWN]: You know, it's taken off, right?

1:48:55 [UNKNOWN]: I got all these customer showing up and then it gets kind of dry on me, you know, all of the sudden, you know, it's fast as it came, easy come, easy go, right? [UNKNOWN]: It goes away. [UNKNOWN]: And so I got a bunch of guys, contractors, a couple employees, and I'm like, well, you know, let's just start cleaning airplanes, figuring out how to make some money, and you clean one or two, and all of a sudden, you know, the word gets out, you're cleaning airplanes, and next thing you know, you're out there wiping, you know, wiping everything down on the field.

1:49:18 [UNKNOWN]: And it was pretty, pretty lucrative. [UNKNOWN]: It was pretty awesome. [UNKNOWN]: Margins were good, low overhead, you're not paying rent anywhere, just bodies, you know, out there wiping planes down. [UNKNOWN]: So yeah, that was my first experience with... [UNKNOWN]: In how near planes. [UNKNOWN]: What happened with that?

1:49:33 [UNKNOWN]: Well, you know, it was my first time in business and cleaning airplanes. [UNKNOWN]: And you know, you get tied up with the wrong guy or the wrong client and they can sink you really quick. [UNKNOWN]: So, [UNKNOWN]: I didn't have that wisdom to steer away from those bottom feeders and got tied up with a couple of customers that tied up some money and things like that.

1:49:49 [UNKNOWN]: And it just went south. [UNKNOWN]: It was just, you know, I was Owen Money, I was, you know, chasing a paycheck, trying to get guys paid. [UNKNOWN]: I could not stand the thought of not making payroll. [UNKNOWN]: It was just, it was going south fast. [UNKNOWN]: did the the the market crash have anything to do with that plus it's like a little bit thousand seven or something I did it had had something to do with that they started park and airplanes um i actually did a couple of repose uh we we jumped in a couple of jets and and repode them for banks it was kind of fun i flew right seat for a couple of those [UNKNOWN]: It was cool, but yeah, it kind of dried up and, you know, I had, I still had a lot of guys, a lot of buddies that were deploying, you know, I was watching the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, you know, from the couch, I hated that.

1:50:35 [UNKNOWN]: I did at one point early on, try to get back in the Marine Corps. [UNKNOWN]: We talked a little bit earlier about some of that. [UNKNOWN]: I had some damage coming out that really prevented me from going back in, which my wife was very grateful for. [UNKNOWN]: But it just didn't feel good.

1:50:51 [UNKNOWN]: I hated watching. [UNKNOWN]: And so when things were drying up with the cleaning company and maintenance wasn't going well, I had run into an opportunity to get on board with Navy, [UNKNOWN]: Um, again, it was like one of those golden boy opportunities, you know, it was like the neighbor like, hey, it's photo and I'm thinking, okay, photo, you know camera like echo, you like this, you know.

1:51:16 [UNKNOWN]: Again, nice, what's a photo? [UNKNOWN]: Photography, you know, it was like the photo branch needed a guy at Point Magu. [UNKNOWN]: to like maintain the aircraft had nothing to do with their planes photos like cameras like what echo does like it was you know the photo department so that's the job you want to do it doing photography and what well I thought it was [UNKNOWN]: And so I get on the phone with this guy Steve Tak that ran the program and it turns out it was airborne photography.

1:51:44 [UNKNOWN]: And so I'm like, all right, I'm down. [UNKNOWN]: This will be cool. [UNKNOWN]: And you know, we talked about it a little bit and you know, I don't get the full picture until I get there. [UNKNOWN]: It's airborne photography running a $1.5 million telescope out the side of a p3 Orion looking at missiles exoattvosphere.

1:52:04 [UNKNOWN]: freaking awesome like I get there and I was like what like I'm going to get paid to do this now so it was it was easy it was easy to jump I had to come blunt on board as a as a contractor and I was kind of doing the math I'm like okay I can I can live at this salary for a little while support my family for a little while but I got to make G.S.

1:52:21 [UNKNOWN]: like I got to get on with the department of defense [UNKNOWN]: And we needed medical and, you know, I was actually physically really degrading, you know, that's a whole story by itself. [UNKNOWN]: I was being led down a path by my doctors and what not to deal with a back injury and a couple other injuries that I had that.

1:52:39 [UNKNOWN]: Really had me limited to just writing a bike at the time, you know, no more weight lifting nothing I was just writing this bicycle and and I love writing a bike, but it just it wasn't doing it for me, and I just I had a lot of physical problems at the time [UNKNOWN]: And so I get on with the Navy Department of Defense and in about a year and a half I pick up G.S.

1:53:03 [UNKNOWN]: They opened up a spot for me and now I'm full-time G.S. [UNKNOWN]: 11. [UNKNOWN]: I think I got in there as a G.S. [UNKNOWN]: 11 step five or something like that. [UNKNOWN]: And I did. [UNKNOWN]: We are, we're doing work for Missile Defense Agency for Air Force. [UNKNOWN]: The Air Force had, they had determined, you know, mathematically they were due for a disaster on one of their launches.

1:53:30 [UNKNOWN]: So our asset was contracted for like the next, I don't know, five years or something like that, to image all of the launches out of Vandenberg Air Force Base. [UNKNOWN]: So you're talking Delta 5, whatever, anything they were launching out of Vandenberg, we were on it. [UNKNOWN]: to put this in perspective, our telescopes, we could resolve 12 inches at 30 miles.

1:53:53 [UNKNOWN]: We could see the moons, we could see the moons of Jupiter. [UNKNOWN]: Right, so I've seen the spot, you know, through our telescope. [UNKNOWN]: We had two, the Ford One was visible. [UNKNOWN]: It was near infrared through Viz or Viz through near IR, mine was near IR through long wave. [UNKNOWN]: And I ran that one on the back.

1:54:12 [UNKNOWN]: Um, and so, yeah, we were just, we were doing all those missile launches, which were freaking awesome, watching the staging, the plumes, the, I mean, it was, there's nothing like it. [UNKNOWN]: And we're, we're calibrated, we're spatially, specially, thermally calibrated. [UNKNOWN]: Like I could tell you the temperature of the exhaust coming out of the ass of that thing.

1:54:30 [UNKNOWN]: It was, it was cool. [UNKNOWN]: Um, and how long did you do that for? [UNKNOWN]: I did that for a total of eight years. [UNKNOWN]: Two is a contractor. [UNKNOWN]: Six is a DOD employee because I got a 10 year award. [UNKNOWN]: They applied my military time to my service. [UNKNOWN]: So I got a 10 year government service award.

1:54:50 [UNKNOWN]: And in that time, I got to work for NASA. [UNKNOWN]: We got contracted to be part of the NASA Hytherm hypersonic thermal dynamic infrared measurement team. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, I was just along for the ride, dude, my boss, Steve Tech. [UNKNOWN]: who was fucking awesome. [UNKNOWN]: He was the grandson of Argy Smith, the fucking greatest aviation artist in Douglas engineer ever known.

1:55:19 [UNKNOWN]: His artwork was on and maybe still be on display at this Smithsonian to look him up one day. [UNKNOWN]: Fucking awesome. [UNKNOWN]: Well Steve was his grandson. [UNKNOWN]: And he was an artist. [UNKNOWN]: He went to USC, graduated with a degree in film and what not, you know, he was that kid that was out back trying to film, you know, film in like Star Wars shit and blowing stuff up in the backyard as a kid.

1:55:41 [UNKNOWN]: But he was so dialed in, like he was so invested. [UNKNOWN]: He had developed the new near infrared system that I was operating with an engineer, a physicist from Raytheon Photon out of San Diego. [UNKNOWN]: They had developed this whole system in the back, and he had worked with NASA who had reached out to him because of the capabilities we had out of this P3.

1:56:06 [UNKNOWN]: to add their NASA sensor to our visible system. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, they had this special calibrated, it's probably some office options. [UNKNOWN]: But anyway, they had this special sensor that they wanted to test to see if we could image the space shuttle in flight on reentry. [UNKNOWN]: And they wanted us to grab it at Mach 18.

1:56:26 [UNKNOWN]: right so here we here we go we went and calibrated our sensor we had our did our little black body thing and we went down to we were stationed out of Corpus Christi with the border patrol guys they ran P3s also so they supported our airplanes down there. [UNKNOWN]: And we're going to, we build the test support point, Steven, I would, you know, we build the whole plan.

1:56:47 [UNKNOWN]: The Navy, their job is to fly the mission and they're waiting for us to give them the plan, then they'll figure out how to get the plan down there. [UNKNOWN]: And prep, and we basically, we get our trajectories. [UNKNOWN]: We have our little spreadsheets and whatnot. [UNKNOWN]: And we figure out, you know, our standoff distances, the capability, the turning of the aircraft, and timing, and all that just to get us, because you got to be in the right place, pointed in the right direction, looking through a straw, you know, for a needle in a haystack.

1:57:09 [UNKNOWN]: And I'm like, how are we going to find the space shuttle? [UNKNOWN]: It's so tiny, like, how the fuck are we going to find this thing? [UNKNOWN]: And by the way, it's all manual. [UNKNOWN]: There is, we have a computer, but it's like 1979, DOSBASE, with a one-hurt refresh rate. [UNKNOWN]: So even if it pointed in the right direction, a second later, it's going to move your telescope, bounce it off, whatever target.

1:57:28 [UNKNOWN]: It was pointing out a second ago. [UNKNOWN]: Um, so we get on offer corpus Christi and we get all dialed in, it's a middle of the night like mid-night and, uh, perfectly clear night though. [UNKNOWN]: So weather's good. [UNKNOWN]: Uh, we got our test point and we have three opportunities to catch the shuttle.

1:57:45 [UNKNOWN]: There's three nodes that it can come in on. [UNKNOWN]: I don't know if you guys know this, but the shuttle, it actually decides the computer on board determines. [UNKNOWN]: when and how the shuttle will return. [UNKNOWN]: It's not done by astronauts. [UNKNOWN]: It's not done from the ground.

1:57:58 [UNKNOWN]: It's done on board the shuttle from an onboard computer that determines which one of these three nodes and there's three opportunities to return per day. [UNKNOWN]: So nine nodes that it could come in on. [UNKNOWN]: And the computer on the ground, it only collects the same data that the aircraft does and tries to determine what the airplane is going to do, what the shuttle is going to do.

1:58:21 [UNKNOWN]: It's always been correct, right? [UNKNOWN]: But anyway, just for peace and information there. [UNKNOWN]: Our aircraft is only capable of covering two nodes because of the distance between it's 1,000 miles between them. [UNKNOWN]: So we park ourselves in between the two nodes that are most probable and we'll jump to the one where when we know it's coming in, we'll get on that node and get in position.

1:58:41 [UNKNOWN]: And you know, all this is going on. [UNKNOWN]: I've never done this before. [UNKNOWN]: I'm like the new guy and pitch black down there. [UNKNOWN]: We're over the UK tan peninsula. [UNKNOWN]: And I'm just thinking, and how am I going to find this thing? [UNKNOWN]: Like, you know, I'm going to get fired if I don't collect, like all this stuff, I know I'm not getting fired, but like a lot of pressure to collect this data.

1:58:56 [UNKNOWN]: And dude, when the shuttle comes up over the horizon, by the way, it doesn't come from out of space. [UNKNOWN]: It rises like the sun from the horizon. [UNKNOWN]: I realize how all these UFO fucking sightings and what not come in, because we don't see him in the US. [UNKNOWN]: But if you're down over South America or Mexico, you see something on reentry for the special that it's the most amazing thing you ever saw.

1:59:19 [UNKNOWN]: This ball of light comes rising up over the horizon and comes screaming in at temperatures and streaking shit across the sky unimaginable. [UNKNOWN]: We've never seen in the United States because it doesn't enter over the US. [UNKNOWN]: It enters over South America and you can't miss it. [UNKNOWN]: I didn't need a computer to point.

1:59:37 [UNKNOWN]: It was glowing in my scope, so bright, like right there, all I had to do is move over to it, and a micro-second I was on it. [UNKNOWN]: And you could see everything. [UNKNOWN]: The winward surface, the tail flap, the tail, and I mean, it's ripping like we caught it at like Mach 22. [UNKNOWN]: And at closest point at Mach 18, we roll underneath this thing and just collect all that heat shield data.

2:00:00 [UNKNOWN]: And I could see it all the way all the way to landing in the cape and then two and a half hours later We chased it in and you know, we landed at the cape a couple hours later and deliver our data But dude so I mean so fucking amazing to be part of that and Experience that you know, just that's the kind of work we got to do with the Navy So then what made you decide to leave?

2:00:22 [UNKNOWN]: I had, I needed to become, I needed to pick up GST-12, and to pick up GST-12, our operation was tiny, there was only two guys in it, only two guys doing this, and there was no upward mobility. [UNKNOWN]: So I had to move into another job, and there was a UAV opportunity available to me. [UNKNOWN]: Being at a bunch of technicians, or I'm sorry, a bunch of aircraft in this R&D department that they couldn't get off the ground.

2:00:49 [UNKNOWN]: And so I went and acquired and sure enough they were happy to have me over there. [UNKNOWN]: I was an aircraft mechanic, so you know, help these guys get these aircraft up and running and they could carry on with their R&D work, and so I jumped ship, you know, and at first it was awesome. [UNKNOWN]: I got, I got the whole fleet up and running me, and that's still a GS job.

2:01:09 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, GS, I went from 11 to 12, all GS, so I picked up my 12, [UNKNOWN]: And now I'm working on, you know, Pioneer, we had predators, Pioneers, we had Gen 1 predators, we had Pioneers, X-Dron, all retired UAVs, you know, they sent them down to the R&D department. [UNKNOWN]: And this R&D department was developing an electrical can bus system, a standardized electrical system, an autopilot, and a standardized ground station, and the idea was that one ground station could operate all UAVs across.

2:01:40 [UNKNOWN]: All branch is a service right if this became the standard for instance you're forward deployed You need a predator or you know, maybe even some smaller you need an extraon You want to do some surveillance or whatever you need an extraon Marines have one and you know Maybe a couple miles back all you really need to do is bring it to a handoff point and as soon as you guys can make contact with it You could take over that UAV but the difference is your ground station doesn't talk to our UAV so we were trying to solve that problem and Once we got the aircraft running well, what then we needed a [UNKNOWN]: We needed a plane captain to run them on the ground while I decided to ride a syllabus and make myself a plane captain.

2:02:16 [UNKNOWN]: So next thing I'm doing, I'm running them and then we needed a pilot. [UNKNOWN]: So you know all of a sudden we got an R&D department building simulators and I wrote a pilot syllabus and I flew for about 50 hours in the sim made myself a pilot. [UNKNOWN]: Um, but I got assigned to a couple of programs with guys that were, um, higher outraking me and, um, you know, I was relegated to just building hangers and picking up rocks in the impact zone for the landing, you know, in the landing impact zone.

2:02:44 [UNKNOWN]: So, I'm the only pilot, I'm the only mechanic, I'm the only guy that's, you know, that's trained in the simulated fly these things and I'm picking up rocks. [UNKNOWN]: And, you know, I was kind of pissed, but I was like, yeah, fuck it, whatever, you know, it's my job, you know, you made, but they, you know, they started doing really stupid shit, like these are non aviation guys, you know, that need to be working off checklist that are accidentally stepping on the launch button and sending a 14-foot javlin at 700 PSI out into the impact zone that I'm standing in.

2:03:16 [UNKNOWN]: This is two less than two years after we shot our own ship, a DDG with a test missile on on-range, you know, doing workouts and luckily we didn't kill anybody, but they came and relieved everybody. [UNKNOWN]: The whole the entire base got, you know, all the upper command was fired, the captain was fired, like it was ugly and all I just imagine is hey we're going to be that next freaking story.

2:03:42 [UNKNOWN]: And I give this guy, I'm like, and I say his name, you know, kind of I read him the right act, I'm like, you know, this is bullshit, you know. [UNKNOWN]: And [UNKNOWN]: He actually reads me the right act back, you know, like, so I'm like, okay, I see how this is going to go. [UNKNOWN]: And then it, it all makes sense.

2:03:59 [UNKNOWN]: Like, I'd actually seen a lot of things over the previous year that I was going to question, but didn't because I'm the new guy, but then I'm like, oh, man, these guys don't know what they're doing at all. [UNKNOWN]: They're like, they're playing with shit that's going to hurt somebody. [UNKNOWN]: So I end up getting set on another app.

2:04:14 [UNKNOWN]: I'm like, all right, I'll suck it up. [UNKNOWN]: I'll be careful. [UNKNOWN]: But what happens do they launch this thing again? [UNKNOWN]: while I'm in the impacts on, and this time my boss is there, his boss too, and when they brush it under the carpet, I'm like, you know, now this needs to this needs to go up the chain, and I told my boss I wrote him a letter, and he was unresponsive.

2:04:34 [UNKNOWN]: I got stuck on a hazmat program, sitting at my desk, and so has I'm sitting there writing a hazmat program going, man, this sucks, [UNKNOWN]: I'd rather be in a low-paid GS-11 than doing this, and so that's when I started looking for an exit plan from the Navy, and actually that's where I learn about Jaco podcast and your book.

2:05:00 [UNKNOWN]: So yeah, where'd you hear about the podcast and you hear about from Todd Mayawatt? [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, about a year before, maybe six months before this Todd were rolling around in Connecticut and he's like, oh, hey, you know, Jaco's got a new podcast. [UNKNOWN]: I heard it and we, so we throw one in.

2:05:15 [UNKNOWN]: It was early, dude. [UNKNOWN]: Like, your mic sucked, you know, you're talking about, it was like some, you know, you were, you were reading, I was sure remember what it was. [UNKNOWN]: I don't remember, but it was a, it was a World War One, I think book that you were reading from. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

2:05:29 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I mean it was awesome like I'm listening to I'm like, oh, this is fucking cool. [UNKNOWN]: Todd's not so impressed, you know, so we were back to Led Zeppelin or Bon Jovi or whatever, but I made a mental note like, okay, I'm going to go back and check that out. [UNKNOWN]: So, that's for back to I'm at my department of defense position, I'm writing this, I'm writing this hazmat program and I'm disgruntled, I'm pissed, I get word back that, you know, nothing's going to be done about this dude that's running a program that I should actually be running.

2:06:07 [UNKNOWN]: And I walk up into our cafeteria area that has a library and I pull a book, a random book off their shelf and it's called Napoleon's Maximus. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, I've heard of Napoleon, but I don't even know what a maxim is. [UNKNOWN]: So I started reading them like, oh, this is like a law rule.

2:06:26 [UNKNOWN]: And this particular rule happened to say, if you don't believe in your orders, you need to resign. [UNKNOWN]: I mean, it's said something different in different language, I'm not a scholar, but anyway, it's probably if you execute orders that you don't believe in or that you don't think a right, you are culpable.

2:06:44 [UNKNOWN]: That's that. [UNKNOWN]: Okay. [UNKNOWN]: So as I'm covered that, we covered those maximums and that's one I go back to a lot, because that's essentially, you know, leadership, you know, if I order you to do something, [UNKNOWN]: And you, you don't think it's the right thing to do and you still execute it.

2:06:58 [UNKNOWN]: You're culpable. [UNKNOWN]: And that's how I felt that. [UNKNOWN]: Because we were going to hurt somebody. [UNKNOWN]: We had guys flying, equipment, we had guys in charge of operations that we're going to lead to somebody getting hurt. [UNKNOWN]: And I already knew it was probably going to be me.

2:07:13 [UNKNOWN]: right twice I've got this we're talking you know the javelin that launch it's a it's a rod that weighs about I don't know 75 pounds that carries the UAV from the launcher it separates at about 50 feet and the UAV goes off to fly but this giant javelin flies like a hundred yards [UNKNOWN]: If that hit you, it will cut you in half, like it will, it's a massive spear that comes out of this torpedo hole at 700 PSI.

2:07:40 [UNKNOWN]: And so anyway, I'm, you know, I'm realizing that somebody's going to get hurt. [UNKNOWN]: I don't want to be a part of, you know, what happened a year and a half earlier or responsible for any of that. [UNKNOWN]: So it hit home, and I left work, and I'm my way home. [UNKNOWN]: some random reason I throw in Jocco podcast and I'm fast forwarding like I'm just trying to get a sense of you know what this is all about you know it was like a it was a longer podcast it was like maybe four hours and so I'm just like skipping through skipping through and I stop on this spot [UNKNOWN]: And you're talking about Colonel Hackworth and how he was at odds with the Marine Corps and he left you retired and he quit and you're like, you know, you, you, you, you recite that maximum.

2:08:33 [UNKNOWN]: I'm like, holy shit. [UNKNOWN]: That's a sign. [UNKNOWN]: Like, I just, I just randomly pull that book off the shelf. [UNKNOWN]: Like, I got to, I got to listen to this, right? [UNKNOWN]: But you got to remember once you quit you no longer have a say like you're done and and so that's like ringing through my head I'm like man, I'm a GS-12 Like do I really want to quit this, but you know, it's the right thing to do Maybe I could find another job whatever [UNKNOWN]: So it's only 12 miles home so I don't have time to listen to the old you know, but I'm gonna back up I want to listen to this whole thing because hackworth is a marine.

2:09:10 [UNKNOWN]: I'm like, this has got army. [UNKNOWN]: Oh, he's army. [UNKNOWN]: Okay, my bad But I want to I want to listen to this so anyway, but I get home and before I get to the house my cell phone rings [UNKNOWN]: And it's this guy and he's like, hey, this is Mark Foster from Martin Aviation. [UNKNOWN]: I don't know who Mark is.

2:09:28 [UNKNOWN]: And I'm like, okay, yeah, what's going on? [UNKNOWN]: He's like, well, we had a vote today and it was determined that you were the best candidate to come back to Martin Aviation as the VP of Maintenance. [UNKNOWN]: Dude, I'm like three. [UNKNOWN]: That's it, you know, I'm done. [UNKNOWN]: I went in on Monday and I resigned.

2:09:49 [UNKNOWN]: I left my position at the Navy, and I actually I went in on Monday, and I interviewed. [UNKNOWN]: I went and met Mark, and you know, by the time I got down to Martin Aviation, which when I was there, it was, you know, it was owned by General Lyon, who I loved. [UNKNOWN]: He was a major general.

2:10:04 [UNKNOWN]: Air Force. [UNKNOWN]: He ran the guard. [UNKNOWN]: His job was to take B-25s, Mitchell's across to the theater. [UNKNOWN]: He transported. [UNKNOWN]: He probably did a few other things. [UNKNOWN]: I think he did some tours in Korea. [UNKNOWN]: I don't remember his entire history, but I think he was a...

2:10:23 [UNKNOWN]: Major General, I believe, anyway, there was talk about buying property or extending the Martin Aviation property and building an air museum and I was always excited about that. [UNKNOWN]: When I got back from my interview in tour, the museum was there and it had seven operational world worth two aircraft.

2:10:40 [UNKNOWN]: airworthy, flyable, and Martin Aviation I'd been overhauled, so the little potunk shop that I had left was now a full-blown aircraft shop with like 40 or 50 plattice PC-12s in their service center, a few jets, and it was cool. [UNKNOWN]: I couldn't sign up quick enough just to get into that freaking museum, right?

2:11:02 [UNKNOWN]: So I resigned, you know, I go back to the Navy and I resigned and it was no problem I resigned and I couldn't, you know, like this was turned the page and yeah and so with the [UNKNOWN]: It was funny because as I was resigning, you know, it's kind of like checking out of a squadron, you got to turn a bunch of gear in, you got to get a bunch of signatures and things like that.

2:11:25 [UNKNOWN]: And I remember, I remember somebody in admin who I knew she was like, [UNKNOWN]: You're like, why are you leaving your GST-12? [UNKNOWN]: Like, you got the golden ticket. [UNKNOWN]: And when I heard that, I'm like, now, I don't need a golden ticket, you know? [UNKNOWN]: Save that for somebody else, I'm outta here.

2:11:44 [UNKNOWN]: And yeah, that was it, turn the page. [UNKNOWN]: So next up, Martin Aviation, you're the director maintenance. [UNKNOWN]: You guys got the largest private golf stream fleet in the world. [UNKNOWN]: Is that right? [UNKNOWN]: That was trans-exact. [UNKNOWN]: That was the next stage. [UNKNOWN]: So I go to Martin.

2:12:00 [UNKNOWN]: Oh, that's true. [UNKNOWN]: By the way. [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so you look you'll appreciate this So I go to Martin Aviation. [UNKNOWN]: It doesn't work out so well. [UNKNOWN]: I'm I'm trying out my new jacco skills I've got my my combat my my laws of combat and I'm trying to apply everything there I'm reading the book now You know, I'm fully invested in making myself the best leader I can and I try out all my skills at Martin Aviation and just fuck it all up [UNKNOWN]: like it was it was not pretty.

2:12:24 [UNKNOWN]: And so I'm looking for a way out. [UNKNOWN]: And I get a call for, you know, from an operator out of VNI's, hey, we got this huge fleet up here, you know, once you come up and me DMM for us, it was a charter operation. [UNKNOWN]: Martin Aviation was a repair station, you know, similar bit very different.

2:12:39 [UNKNOWN]: And so I jump shit by I hired somebody that could take over my role as VP of maintenance for Martin Aviation, better fit. [UNKNOWN]: You know, better for them and better for me. [UNKNOWN]: So I moved to Transexec and I take over for the outgoing DOM and I take on seven golf streams. [UNKNOWN]: It's it is known as the largest privately owned golf stream fleet And I knew I was going to be drinking from the fire.

2:13:00 [UNKNOWN]: I was I'm like if I can't make it here. [UNKNOWN]: I'm not, you know I'm not supposed to be in this industry and I last three and a half years I could have gone further, but I was just it was a lot of work and [UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it got a little old grind in day and night seven days a week, but again, a lot of opportunity to lead to apply my new skills.

2:13:22 [UNKNOWN]: Really turn the shop around. [UNKNOWN]: I built the 12-man team there. [UNKNOWN]: We did a lot of heavy maintenance, big like 72-month inspections, which entail, you know, pulling all your flight control surfaces off, did a lot of engine changes, aren't ours on big, you know, 100-foot wingspan.

2:13:39 [UNKNOWN]: 80 million dollar jets. [UNKNOWN]: So it was cool. [UNKNOWN]: It was incredible. [UNKNOWN]: We had a lot of help, a lot of team, a lot of support, but it's what you do in New York there. [UNKNOWN]: I got, let's see, I went to Clay Lacy for a little while. [UNKNOWN]: I had a friend that had an awesome position for me to jump into and sadly it only lasted about six months before they moved the operation to Florida.

2:14:03 [UNKNOWN]: My family wasn't willing to go there, so it was time to look for another role. [UNKNOWN]: I helped them move, we got them all set up in a hanger, and I told them, you know, right up front, like I'm not moving to Florida, we'll get you squared away, find some help. [UNKNOWN]: Got them settled, and then I got on with a company called Solaris Aviation, and that's a way to work for now.