Speaker 1: Welcome to the Good Stuff. I'm Jacob Shick and I'm
Speaker 1: joined by my co host and wife, Ashley Schiff.
Speaker 2: Jacob is a third generation combat Marine and I'm a
Speaker 2: gold Star granddaughter, and we work together to serve military veterans,
Speaker 2: first responders, frontline healthcare workers, and their families with mental
Speaker 2: and emotional wellness through traditional and non traditional therapy.
Speaker 3: At One Tribe Foundation, we.
Speaker 1: Believe everyone has a story to tell, not only about
Speaker 1: the peaks, but also the valleys they've been through to
Speaker 1: get them to where they are today.
Speaker 2: And each week we invite a guest to tell us
Speaker 2: their story, to share with us the lessons they've learned
Speaker 2: that shape who they are and what they're doing to
Speaker 2: pay it forward and give back.
Speaker 1: Our mission with this show is to dig deep into
Speaker 1: our guest's journey so that we can celebrate the hope
Speaker 1: and inspiration their story has to offer.
Speaker 3: We're thrilled you're joining us again.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Good Stuff.
Speaker 2: You might have heard of our guests today, John Wayne Troxall.
Speaker 2: He was the senior enlisted advisor to the Chairman of
Speaker 2: the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the senior non commissioned
Speaker 2: officer in the US Armed Forces.
Speaker 1: You retired in twenty nineteen after thirty eight years of
Speaker 1: service for our Greek country, and we have the honor
Speaker 1: of hearing him tell part of his story, the successes
Speaker 1: and hardships that accompanied a life of service.
Speaker 2: Even though this was our first time meeting him via zoom,
Speaker 2: we really enjoyed getting to know John.
Speaker 3: First.
Speaker 2: We just want to welcome you to the show. John
Speaker 2: Wayne Troxall, thank you so much for joining us here
Speaker 2: on the good Stuff. We haven't had the pleasure of
Speaker 2: meeting you in person yet.
Speaker 4: Yes, absolutely, Jack and Ashley, it's an honor to meet
Speaker 4: you all, but more of an honor that I'm allowed
Speaker 4: to come on here and share my story with you all.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and we're so excited to dig In born in
Speaker 2: Iowa and then served our great country for over thirty
Speaker 2: seven years.
Speaker 1: He's a couple of minutes. Yeah, Yeah, how do I
Speaker 1: address you? I mean, mister secretary?
Speaker 4: What do you do?
Speaker 1: Because look, I got out of the Marine Corps with
Speaker 1: well more than one page eleven. I'm just gonna guess
Speaker 1: means you and I could get along just fine.
Speaker 4: I prefer you to call me John. I try not
Speaker 4: to be lost in my museum. I was the SAAC,
Speaker 4: I was a sergeant major and everything. I'm a retired
Speaker 4: guy now and so I just try to be who
Speaker 4: I am and what I'll always be, and that's John
Speaker 4: Wayne Troxel. So John would be fine.
Speaker 3: I dig it awesome.
Speaker 2: Well, the joy of this show is getting to share
Speaker 2: amazing stories with our audience. But today Jake and I
Speaker 2: are truly part of the audience ourselves, because you know,
Speaker 2: we aren't yet familiar with you or your story. So
Speaker 2: if you would do us the honor, just start from
Speaker 2: the beginning.
Speaker 4: I grew up in a loving household, and as I
Speaker 4: got older, although it was a loving household, I was
Speaker 4: a mediocre athlete. I was a wrestler. I was a
Speaker 4: pretty good student until I started discovering girls and beer.
Speaker 4: And then I think, Jake, you know how that goes
Speaker 4: all of a sudden, can go south in a hurry.
Speaker 1: No, but I know how that never happened.
Speaker 4: I was looking for purpose and direction, and as I
Speaker 4: was going through high school, I wrestled until I was
Speaker 4: a junior, and then my senior year, I said, look,
Speaker 4: this is I'm not going to be an athlete. I
Speaker 4: know that, so let me focus on other things. And
Speaker 4: I started seeing guys in my neighborhood that were coming
Speaker 4: back from the military, recruit training and everything. And when
Speaker 4: they left, they were just like me, a guy that
Speaker 4: didn't have purpose and direction and was going through life
Speaker 4: doing the things that teenagers do, skirting the edge of
Speaker 4: the law. And when they came back, though they were
Speaker 4: sinewy muscular, their chest was out, their shoulders were back,
Speaker 4: their voice was booming. They were confident, and they didn't
Speaker 4: just walk anymore. They kind of saunters that air of
Speaker 4: confidence that they had, And I thought to myself, I
Speaker 4: don't know what they're feeding them in the military, but
Speaker 4: I want some of that.
Speaker 2: John, Were you the first one in your family to serve?
Speaker 4: We didn't have a lot of military presence, but my
Speaker 4: grandfather was in World War Two. I had two uncles,
Speaker 4: one uncle that was in the Navy and a Vietnam veteran,
Speaker 4: and I had another uncle that was a career sailor
Speaker 4: and retired as a Chief Petty officer. But they didn't
Speaker 4: have a lot of influence on what I was doing.
Speaker 4: My older brother Tom joined the Army reserves, and he
Speaker 4: was kind of one of those guys I saw that
Speaker 4: came back and were transformed. But seeing guys like him
Speaker 4: and other guys that had joined the Marine Corps, seeing
Speaker 4: them come back, that was kind of what influenced me
Speaker 4: to say, I want to do this.
Speaker 2: And how did your family react when you came in
Speaker 2: and told them that you were going to join the military.
Speaker 4: Oh, they were supportive. They knew my mom, my sister,
Speaker 4: my older brothers. They knew that living in the west
Speaker 4: end of Davenport, Iowa, which there's not a lot of
Speaker 4: opportunities there other than to get in trouble, that I
Speaker 4: was doing something that was going to better myself, but
Speaker 4: more importantly, make me a part of something bigger than myself,
Speaker 4: and then I could reach any untapped potential that I
Speaker 4: had for success in my life. I got into the Army,
Speaker 4: and as Forrest Gump would say, I was kind of
Speaker 4: like one of those round pegs. I just fit right
Speaker 4: into the Army. And as I got through my recruit training,
Speaker 4: my basic training at Advanced Individual training, and I went
Speaker 4: to my first duty station, I thought, this is what
Speaker 4: I'm going to do for my four year tour, and
Speaker 4: I'm going to get out. And less than a month
Speaker 4: after I got there, I met a girl named Sandra Jimenez.
Speaker 4: On the first of February nineteen eighty three. I'm going
Speaker 4: to he won in a club with a fake ID,
Speaker 4: and all of a sudden, I asked this girl to
Speaker 4: dance and she turned me down. The other Joe that
Speaker 4: I was with a friend of mine, who was a
Speaker 4: brand new private, I asked her like three times and
Speaker 4: she turned me down. So he went and asked her,
Speaker 4: and so she danced with him, and I was like, no,
Speaker 4: she you know. So now I mean, I'm pounding beers
Speaker 4: and whiskeys and everything, and I'm watching her dance with
Speaker 4: my buddy. And it was on an elevated dance floor,
Speaker 4: and all of a sudden, he backed up doing his
Speaker 4: move and he fell off the dance floor. So me,
Speaker 4: being the true battle buddy that I am, I raced
Speaker 4: over there, jumped on the stage, took his place, and
Speaker 4: after that, you know, the rest was history. We started
Speaker 4: dating my wife and I. We got married six months
Speaker 4: after I met her. She was pregnant soon after with
Speaker 4: our first child, and I realized in a hurry that
Speaker 4: this is what I need to do to take care
Speaker 4: of my family. It's not individual responsibility. I have a wife,
Speaker 4: and I have a son on the way, and so
Speaker 4: I said, I'm going to put my effort into being
Speaker 4: the best soldier I can be. And little did I
Speaker 4: know that from then on my career would span almost
Speaker 4: thirty eight years. And I never thought that I would
Speaker 4: reach the pinnacle of the enlisted ranks in the Department
Speaker 4: of Defense. But I just kept pushing forward, and my
Speaker 4: focus was the better soldier I am, the better leader
Speaker 4: I am, the better off the men and women in
Speaker 4: my span of control are going to be, but more importantly,
Speaker 4: the better I'm going to be able to take care
Speaker 4: of my family. So that was kind of how I
Speaker 4: got started and how I pursued my career was always
Speaker 4: striving to be better the next day than I was
Speaker 4: that day. And so if I wanted to be an
Speaker 4: airborne ranger, I went out and did it. I wanted
Speaker 4: to be a jump master, I went out and did it.
Speaker 4: I wanted to be a pathfinder, all these things. Wanted
Speaker 4: to get a college degree. I went and did it.
Speaker 4: All the things that I thought would make me a
Speaker 4: better person, better husband, a better father, but more importantly,
Speaker 4: a better soldier and a better leader. That's what I
Speaker 4: was focused on.
Speaker 1: And That's something that so many young people need to
Speaker 1: hear too, because it's not self focused, that's not self
Speaker 1: inter self gain, that's greater good all around. I want
Speaker 1: to do X, y Z to make everything and everyone better,
Speaker 1: not just myself but everyone around me. That way, we're bigger, stronger, faster,
Speaker 1: more effective. Absolutely, it's a beautiful thing. No wonder you
Speaker 1: achieved what you've achieved, but you also did it with conviction.
Speaker 1: You set a goal and nothing was going to stop you.
Speaker 2: So you've got this long list of accolades, titles that
Speaker 2: you've held, even conflicts that you've been involved in. Can
Speaker 2: you think back to early in your career, was there
Speaker 2: a tipping point that really kind of changed you or
Speaker 2: shifted your experience in the military.
Speaker 4: I had been in the Army almost five years, you know,
Speaker 4: I had just re enlisted and I got assigned to
Speaker 4: the eighty second Airborne Division and Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
Speaker 4: And when I got there, I had been in heavy
Speaker 4: mechanized units and we were a peacetime military. So we
Speaker 4: talked all the time about facing the Soviet military and
Speaker 4: the East Germans, but it was never a reality. It
Speaker 4: was like a star that you could see, but you
Speaker 4: knew you were never going to touch And I got
Speaker 4: to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and my wife and I
Speaker 4: were driving on the base just to check things out
Speaker 4: because we'd never been there before, and we saw this
Speaker 4: five ton truck with a bunch of grimy paratroopers with
Speaker 4: camouflage on their face sitting in the back of it.
Speaker 4: Obviously they had just come from a drop zone conducting
Speaker 4: a parachute jump. And Sandra even looked at these guys
Speaker 4: and said, Wow, these guys are serious. And she looks
Speaker 4: at me, Are you sure that you want to do this?
Speaker 4: And I said, absolutely, you know. But then I got
Speaker 4: into the unit and I realized all we talked about
Speaker 4: was being prepared to go to war. That's all we
Speaker 4: talked about, even though we were a peacetime military. But
Speaker 4: we're a rapid deployment force. When we go on Division
Speaker 4: Ready Force one, you got to be ready within an
Speaker 4: hour to come in alert marshall, deploy and go to
Speaker 4: combat in less than eighteen hours from notification. And so
Speaker 4: even then, being a part of a peacetime military, it
Speaker 4: refocused me and it caused me to start being the
Speaker 4: best that I could be because of the level of
Speaker 4: physical fitness that we required there, and then the level
Speaker 4: of additional skills that required, like being a jump master.
Speaker 4: And I still even in nineteen eighty eight, the Sandinista
Speaker 4: guerrillas from El Salvador invaded Honduras and we got alerted.
Speaker 4: I was in jump master school at the time, but
Speaker 4: I didn't go. But we did a jump into Honduras
Speaker 4: to show support for the Honduran forces. That was still
Speaker 4: not a combat deployment. It was Operation Golden Pheasant. But
Speaker 4: that kind of set a light off on me that hey,
Speaker 4: this could happen anytime. But even still I wasn't completely
Speaker 4: convinced that we would actually go to combat. Nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 4: I'm on Division Ready one Force, but it's the start
Speaker 4: of half day holiday schedule. So I kissed my wife
Speaker 4: and my two sons goodbye, and I said, hey, han,
Speaker 4: i'll be back at noon and we'll go Christmas shopping
Speaker 4: for the boys. And so I kissed her goodbye, and
Speaker 4: I got in to the base. And as soon as
Speaker 4: I got on the base, it was open posts then,
Speaker 4: but there was an MP all of a sudden at
Speaker 4: the ends under the base now and they were checking
Speaker 4: ID cards. They said, hey, what's going on. They said, oh,
Speaker 4: we're in hand security or whatever. So I got to
Speaker 4: my headquarters and they said, hey, glad you're here. We
Speaker 4: were just exercising the alert roster. We've been alerted. And
Speaker 4: even then me and my teammates thought, are they going
Speaker 4: to make us do an emergency deployment readiness exercise during
Speaker 4: half day schedule? What kind of bullshit is that We
Speaker 4: still weren't convinced that we were being alerted to go
Speaker 4: to combat. Because if you in Panama at that time,
Speaker 4: Manuel Noriega, the dictator that was running Panama, had lost
Speaker 4: the election, but he did not concede. As a matter
Speaker 4: of fact, his thugs ended up beating up the guy
Speaker 4: that actually won, and there was a Navy lieutenant who
Speaker 4: was killed because of the unrest down there. There was
Speaker 4: a Marine Corps family and service member that were assaulted
Speaker 4: and everything. And now all of a sudden, Americans had
Speaker 4: Fort Chairman and elsewhere were at risk, and so we
Speaker 4: got alerted. We were sent to the personnel holding area.
Speaker 4: We were trying to figure out what was going on,
Speaker 4: and there was a freezing rainstorm going on too, and
Speaker 4: we didn't have any heaters in the tents. We were in.
Speaker 4: So now not only are we clueless on what's going on,
Speaker 4: but we're pissed off because we're freezing our asses off
Speaker 4: and we still think this is some kind of exercise
Speaker 4: that we're going through and we're not getting our half
Speaker 4: day schedule. So my platoons are Dave Freeman and I
Speaker 4: finally said, screw this, let's go find out what's going on.
Speaker 4: We walked into the brigade headquarters and as we walked in,
Speaker 4: we saw officers around this table laminating maps of Panama.
Speaker 4: And we looked each other and said, I guess we
Speaker 4: know what we're doing now, And all of a sudden
Speaker 4: we not real there's our answer. And then when we
Speaker 4: got back to our tent, we were issuing ammunition, live grenades,
Speaker 4: claim wars, all of that stuff, and all of a
Speaker 4: sudden we knew this was real. We were packing all
Speaker 4: of our ammunition in our combat gear, and the chaplain
Speaker 4: walks into the tent. Hey, look, no pressure, but if
Speaker 4: anybody wants to say a prayer, come on over here.
Speaker 1: The entire tent went up with the Yeah it's funny
Speaker 1: how that works, right, Yeah, it's funny. How if you
Speaker 1: have the guys that are like nah, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to go to chapel. I'm too hungover or I'm still drunk.
Speaker 1: And then you get the call and it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, we're going. Hey yeah, I'll make it. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go. You guys send me see it. I'll be there.
Speaker 4: Well, like they say, the phrase is there's no atheist
Speaker 4: in foxholes. So that kind of changed. And so think
Speaker 4: of this. There were no cell phones back then. They
Speaker 4: cut the phone lines, so I didn't have the ability
Speaker 4: to call my wife and let her know what was
Speaker 4: going on. Oh man, And I just said, well, sooner
Speaker 4: or later, she's going to figure out that I'm not
Speaker 4: coming home and then I'm going to combat. Next thing,
Speaker 4: you know, we loaded up on those on that frozen
Speaker 4: tarmac at Pope air Force Base and we took off
Speaker 4: and we're on our way to combat, you know. And
Speaker 4: at one am we started parachuting in to Rio's airport.
Speaker 4: The Rangers were jumping on the military airfield, Document Airfield.
Speaker 4: We were jumping on the military airport. And little did
Speaker 4: I know that my wife found out I wasn't coming
Speaker 4: home by watching the news that night and seeing that
Speaker 4: American forces were conducting a combat parachute assault into Panama
Speaker 4: to toppol Noriega and to reinstate or in state the
Speaker 4: rightful government and to protect American lives and innocent Panamanians.
Speaker 4: And that's how my combat started. And for the next
Speaker 4: week we secured all of our assault objectives, we expanded
Speaker 4: our lodgment area out, and we started taking down targets.
Speaker 4: But an hour into the first patrol I went in,
Speaker 4: we lost our first American specialist in Alexandro Manrique Lozano
Speaker 4: from second Italian five or fourth Parisheet Infantry Regiment. I'm
Speaker 4: thinking to myself at that time, twenty four hours before this,
Speaker 4: this young man was thinking about going home with his
Speaker 4: family or spending time with his family over the holidays.
Speaker 4: Twenty four hours later he gave his life in defense
Speaker 4: of our country. And that told me that we've got
Speaker 4: to dig in, We've got to get through this, and
Speaker 4: we can't allow you know that we've lost an American
Speaker 4: to kind of drag us down, and so we've re
Speaker 4: We continued to focus and get after the enemy and everything,
Speaker 4: and by the Christmas Eve, we had lost four paratroopers,
Speaker 4: two on an assault on what I call Tinaheatus Hill,
Speaker 4: which was this huge hill that we were taking down
Speaker 4: the lt Grays, which were an elite force of Panamanians.
Speaker 4: But at about Christmas Eve, the fighting started dying down
Speaker 4: and I found myself pulling security around the Papal Nuncia,
Speaker 4: the religious chapel that was in the heart of the
Speaker 4: town where Noriega had holed up in trying to get
Speaker 4: religious protection from being captured by us. And so as
Speaker 4: I pulled perimeter security out there with my team on
Speaker 4: our shared and armored reconnaissance vehicle, there was a Marriott
Speaker 4: hotel across the street, and so I told my guys,
Speaker 4: I said, hey, I'm going to go check it out
Speaker 4: and see if there's any payphones in there, and we'll
Speaker 4: see if we can contact our families. So I grabbed
Speaker 4: one of my guys and we went over there, and
Speaker 4: sure as shit, there were some phones in there. So
Speaker 4: I picked up the phone and called collect to Sandra,
Speaker 4: and that was the first conversation I had with her
Speaker 4: since I had left, and it was a very emotional conversation.
Speaker 4: I mean, the hair is rising up on my arms now.
Speaker 4: It was the first time one I've had my baptism
Speaker 4: by fire ending up in two point ambushes and stuff
Speaker 4: like that. I've seen Americans killed, We've killed enemy fighters.
Speaker 4: But now I'm having a conversation with my wife and
Speaker 4: our children. And within that three minute call there was
Speaker 4: a bit of solace in peace. But then after that call,
Speaker 4: I had to go right back out into the combat zone.
Speaker 4: But that there, Ashley, was the turning point that told
Speaker 4: me that living this military life and this warrior ethos life,
Speaker 4: regardless of what service you're into, what you do, that
Speaker 4: on any given day, your life could change in a heartbeat,
Speaker 4: and all of a sudden you could find yourself against
Speaker 4: an armed enemy and combat as brutal and unforgiving as
Speaker 4: it is. Unfortunately, good men and women perish in battle,
Speaker 4: and we have to be best prepared to deal with
Speaker 4: that brutality and unforgiveness in combat. And I told myself
Speaker 4: as a leader, I'm going to make sure the men
Speaker 4: and women in my charge are going to be always ready,
Speaker 4: regardless of how long I stay in the military. That
Speaker 4: was the point that changed me to now being always
Speaker 4: wired for combat, even though we were still a peacetime military.
Speaker 4: But then seven months later, Saddam Hussein invades Iraq and
Speaker 4: I find myself back in a combat zone. But this time,
Speaker 4: I think mentally and emotionally, myself and all of the
Speaker 4: paratroopers I were with in my company, we were prepared
Speaker 4: for it because we had already experienced combat. That's what
Speaker 4: changed me into being somebody that was always going to
Speaker 4: be folkscus on being best prepared for the conditions we
Speaker 4: could face on the worst day of our life in combat.
Speaker 1: That's one of the blessings in the military. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's no better way than just to get in and
Speaker 1: do it. That's the best way to understand and prepare
Speaker 1: for the next thing, whatever that is. And that's regardless
Speaker 1: of Army, Marines, Air Force, Navy, coast Guard. That's the
Speaker 1: best way to know. When you talked about that with
Speaker 1: your wife, that's crazy to think about because we didn't
Speaker 1: have the modern conveniences that we have today to be hey, haun,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna make it, I'm gonna be gone. Don't
Speaker 1: know what I'm gonna get back. You didn't have any
Speaker 1: of that. To not be able to have that effective
Speaker 1: communication with your loved ones before you go employ what
Speaker 1: you've trained day in and day out to do. That
Speaker 1: brings in a whole different element that I've never really
Speaker 1: thought about.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and we had what we called family support groups
Speaker 4: back then, but they were I mean they were about
Speaker 4: doing bake sales and stuff like that and trying to
Speaker 4: build morale, never with the thought that we might actually
Speaker 4: go to combat. And so when I got back and
Speaker 4: I was talking to my wife, but also other military spouses,
Speaker 4: they talked about the first meeting the spouses had with
Speaker 4: the command, the rear detachment command, and they talked about, hey,
Speaker 4: your husbands were in combat. They parachuted into combat on
Speaker 4: the evening of the twentieth of December, and they will
Speaker 4: stay there and continue to fight until you know, Noriega
Speaker 4: capitulates and Panamanian forces surrender. And in one of the
Speaker 4: spouses even asked, so there's potential that they could get killed.
Speaker 4: I mean it was an innocent enough question, but as
Speaker 4: a peacetime military with peacetime families, you still hadn't put
Speaker 4: it together that, as you just described, Jake, the level
Speaker 4: of brutality, the violence of action equates to people get killed.
Speaker 4: And so this in it is enough question, and the commander,
Speaker 4: the redetachment commander, said yes, some may not come back,
Speaker 4: and I was so happy to hear from other spouses
Speaker 4: on how my wife was deemed as one of the
Speaker 4: strong ones. Now, Sandra grew up as a first generation
Speaker 4: Mexican American. Her dad was from Chihuahua, Mexico, her mom
Speaker 4: was from southern Texas. They had nineteen kids, wow, nineteen
Speaker 4: kids in twenty three years. She grew up poor, but
Speaker 4: she had to be resilient through her childhood and everything
Speaker 4: and as she grew up. So I think this kind
Speaker 4: of upbringing prepared her. And she used to say this
Speaker 4: all the time, and through my multiple combat tours, I've
Speaker 4: got three sons I have to worry about, and I
Speaker 4: can't sit around and talk gloom and doom or you know,
Speaker 4: feel sorry for myself. I've got to be here for
Speaker 4: my kids. And so that's nobody prepared her for that
Speaker 4: other than her upbringing. But that was the focus she had,
Speaker 4: and in it she knew I was in combat. She said,
Speaker 4: I can't control what's going to happen with my husband,
Speaker 4: but I can control what's going on with my kids.
Speaker 4: I can keep them focused, I can keep them energized
Speaker 4: with school. And then when they had these meetings and
Speaker 4: we started talking about or the family started talking with
Speaker 4: the rear detachment about the realities of combat. I would
Speaker 4: say she was stoic to it because of her upbringing,
Speaker 4: and it was I was so proud that when I
Speaker 4: got back when people would come and compliment me on
Speaker 4: my wife and how strong she was, and I said,
Speaker 4: that's my Sandra. That's as I call her, my little windmill.
Speaker 4: She has just always been that way through our entire
Speaker 4: thirty nine year marriage.
Speaker 1: That's awesome.
Speaker 2: Yeah, congratulations on that, And what has that done to
Speaker 2: lend to your success?
Speaker 4: As a matter of fact, I'm writing a book now
Speaker 4: and it's called Surrenderer Die, Reflections of a Combat Leader,
Speaker 4: and one of the chapters in there is going to
Speaker 4: be what I call all give our Love to Sandra.
Speaker 4: So I think when you are someone that's been in
Speaker 4: the military for decades and throughout your entire career, you've
Speaker 4: had a spouse with you, like I've had Sandra with
Speaker 4: me through this whole ride, all of a sudden, your
Speaker 4: spouse becomes synonymous with you. And so anytime somebody would
Speaker 4: reach out to say hello to me, somebody I served
Speaker 4: with in the eighties the nineties, two thousands senior officials
Speaker 4: in the Defense Department or the administration or in Congress.
Speaker 4: Every time they would say Hey, how's it going, or
Speaker 4: how's it going, John, they would always say, give our
Speaker 4: love to Sandra. And so I'm going to talk about
Speaker 4: the importance of a military spouse to the success of
Speaker 4: someone that lives in this warrior class. And if Jake,
Speaker 4: you kind of talked about this a little earlier, that
Speaker 4: if you don't have that outlet when you leave you know,
Speaker 4: whether you're training or whether you're in cock, if you
Speaker 4: don't have that outlet when you come back, known as
Speaker 4: family and especially a significant other, your wife or your
Speaker 4: husband or whatever, I mean, it's tough to deal with that.
Speaker 4: And I would have never without Sandra's support, without her direction,
Speaker 4: without her advice, I would have never reached the levels
Speaker 4: of service that I reached. I had to have that person,
Speaker 4: and she's always been that person. Now, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 4: Our marriage hasn't always been beer and skittles, Okay, I
Speaker 4: mean she's had to written really yeah, I mean she's
Speaker 4: had to rip my ass sometimes, but it was because
Speaker 4: I needed it. And then I would even tell you this.
Speaker 4: She was the one that gave me an ultimatum about
Speaker 4: a year before I was retiring that said, I need
Speaker 4: you need to go talk to somebody about all this
Speaker 4: anger you have, or I'm going to have to reconsider
Speaker 4: the direction we're going. As a married couple, think of this.
Speaker 4: We had been married well over thirty five years. She
Speaker 4: was telling me there was something wrong with me. She
Speaker 4: was telling me there was something wrong with me. When
Speaker 4: I came back from just causing desert storm, I just
Speaker 4: wasn't listening. And I thought to myself. In in the
Speaker 4: eighties and nineties, PTSD and traumatic brain injury weren't even
Speaker 4: things that were talked about. But when she told me that,
Speaker 4: I went to see a therapist just to appease her.
Speaker 4: But when I got in, when I got in there though,
Speaker 4: it felt like my therapist at the time her name
Speaker 4: was Gina, that she was ripping my skull open and
Speaker 4: reading my brain. She knew exactly what was going on
Speaker 4: with me and everything, and so she diagnosed me with PTSD.
Speaker 4: And think of this now, the stigmas associated with mental
Speaker 4: health and Jake, you'll appreciate that my two bosses at
Speaker 4: the time I was diagnosed to PTSD, the chairman was
Speaker 4: fighting Joe Dunford Marine and the second trom.
Speaker 1: I've had the privilege of shaking his hand a couple
Speaker 1: of times.
Speaker 4: Hey, and the Secretary of Defense the other you know
Speaker 4: as the SAAC, you advised both the chairman and the Sectiff.
Speaker 4: The sect deaf was a guy named Jim madd Matis
Speaker 4: arguably the two hardest combat leaders in the history of
Speaker 4: our force. And I had to lead delar Renzo Clinic
Speaker 4: in the Pentagon, and I had to walk up there
Speaker 4: and tell those two gentlemen that I was in therapy
Speaker 4: for PTSD. There was a dude I have and Ashley,
Speaker 4: I have walked a lot of miles in my life
Speaker 4: up the mountains of the Hindu Christian Afghanistan. The longest
Speaker 4: walk I ever had was leaving that clinic and going
Speaker 4: to this Chairman's office and the Secretary of Defense's office
Speaker 4: and telling them I was in therapy for PTSD. And
Speaker 4: you know what Mattis said to me. He said, Okay, good,
Speaker 4: what are you going back to Yemen to tell me
Speaker 4: what's going on with al Kaeda in the Arabian Peninsula?
Speaker 4: And then Dunford was kind of like, okay, good, pack
Speaker 4: your shit. We're going to go to Afghanistan and Iraq
Speaker 4: to visit the troops. It was a non issue to them.
Speaker 4: I had given myself this stigma, but to them it
Speaker 4: was a non issue. They were like, Okay, good, that's
Speaker 4: good for you. It's going to make you a better leader.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's and the listeners probably didn't hear it, but
Speaker 1: started laughing so hard. I started crying, like it was.
Speaker 1: Think about this. Branches are relevant, right, those are the
Speaker 1: two names, I would say, arguably, since we were attacked
Speaker 1: in two thousand and one, those are the two names
Speaker 1: you would not want, Like you would rather cut off
Speaker 1: a finger than have to go have those conversations with
Speaker 1: those two. And you had both of them. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean if that's not that you don't have to
Speaker 1: eat a piece of humble pie. You have to inhale
Speaker 1: the factory.
Speaker 4: Spot on brother, and that lesson for me. And I'm
Speaker 4: going to talk about this in my book when it
Speaker 4: comes to the Invisible Wounds of War. Told me that
Speaker 4: we have to eliminate this stigma about seeking hell. And
Speaker 4: I don't care how long you served or what you've done,
Speaker 4: your military service will always be a part of Okay,
Speaker 4: And there's some things in there that are going to
Speaker 4: be constants, and especially if you served in combat, you
Speaker 4: just don't flush that stuff under the table. I had
Speaker 4: a conversation with a staffer in Washington, DC on one
Speaker 4: of the trips. I was there right after Afghanistan, the
Speaker 4: abrupt withdrawal from Afghanistan, and I was talking to this
Speaker 4: person about how I was very critical of the strategy
Speaker 4: that we used, okay, and the undue stress and risk
Speaker 4: we put on the men and women that had to
Speaker 4: deal with getting all the US citizens and SIV people
Speaker 4: and clearing out of Cowbo Airport. And I said, anybody
Speaker 4: that knows anything about Afghanistan, you can't say in two
Speaker 4: weeks we are going to move the troops out first,
Speaker 4: and then we're going to try and get all the
Speaker 4: non combatants out and everything, and then try to get
Speaker 4: the equipment out. We kind of did that ass backwards
Speaker 4: when we should have took the equipment out.
Speaker 1: Or excuse me, you assistant, They wouldn't Yeah, we should have.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So this person who has no military experience, and
Speaker 4: as the staffer says, well, the commander in chief made
Speaker 4: a decision. You the veteran population and the serviceman need
Speaker 4: to get over. I said, no disrespect, but you have
Speaker 4: no problem saying that, Okay, you are desensitized to it
Speaker 4: because you have no skin in the game. Right, you
Speaker 4: have never faced a business end of an enemy rifle
Speaker 4: or seen a buddy on your left or right get
Speaker 4: vaporized by an improvised explosive device, and they went from
Speaker 4: some precious, beautiful human into a pile of flesh, hair
Speaker 4: and camouflage material. I said, you have no skin in
Speaker 4: the game, So it's easy for you to say that,
Speaker 4: I said, but we who have served are never going
Speaker 4: to forget when we lose men and women, and we're
Speaker 4: certainly not going to just throw away twenty years of
Speaker 4: fighting in Afghanistan and say, okay, what's next. All right,
Speaker 4: It doesn't work that way. And if we continue to
Speaker 4: say veterans got to get over this when they're dealing
Speaker 4: with the mental and emotional struggles of post combat, you know,
Speaker 4: in post traumatic stress, then we are adding to the problems.
Speaker 4: We are not trying to solve it.
Speaker 1: You know what. Just like you said, brother, this stigma
Speaker 1: is killing us at the cyclic rate, yeah, and nightly.
Speaker 1: And not just our warrior class either, not just our
Speaker 1: brothers and sisters who've done the cloth of the nation.
Speaker 1: This is a human problem around the world, and it's
Speaker 1: become evident. It's very evident since the global pandemic, since
Speaker 1: the world shutdown, and how everything in the middle and
Speaker 1: emotional wellness realm has skyrocketed. Client intakes have gone through
Speaker 1: the roof. I mean, you're getting burnout rates at the
Speaker 1: cyclic rate with therapists and psychologists because it's like the
Speaker 1: gates of open. It's a supply and demand issue now.
Speaker 1: And so the fact that you started it because of
Speaker 1: an ultimatum by Sandra, which I can't wait to meet her,
Speaker 1: because I'm just going to give her a big, huge
Speaker 1: giant hug because I get it. And I also understand
Speaker 1: how iron sharpens iron absolutely, and I also understand how
Speaker 1: when we come home, it's not just us they're affected. Rather,
Speaker 1: you know, you're like me and you spend eighteen months
Speaker 1: in the hospital and you're trying to figure out what
Speaker 1: your new normal is, which is not normal at all.
Speaker 1: We affect our entire family. You have to have a Sandra.
Speaker 1: If you don't, it doesn't work. And I know that
Speaker 1: you had soldiers that it fell by the wayside because
Speaker 1: they didn't have a Sandra. They may have had a
Speaker 1: spouse but they didn't have someone as strong and it's
Speaker 1: cemented and as rooted in their own conviction as you did.
Speaker 4: That's the huge point there is that some military spouses
Speaker 4: don't fully understand the power of their role. I'm not
Speaker 4: trying to pass judgment on any military spouse or criticize them,
Speaker 4: but every time I deployed somewhere, Sandra stayed in our house.
Speaker 4: When I went to combat in Iraq or Afghanistan. You know,
Speaker 4: she didn't go home to family. She said, I'm not
Speaker 4: going to go stay in somebody else's house. This is
Speaker 4: my house and I have to give normalcy to my children.
Speaker 4: That's just the way she was when I was a
Speaker 4: Striker Brigade Sir Major during the surge in Iraq in
Speaker 4: seven and eight, when we put five army brigades and
Speaker 4: two more Marine brigades in Iraq. You probably remember that
Speaker 4: the first eight days of combat, my commander and I
Speaker 4: had visited the morgue seven times to identify the remains
Speaker 4: of some of our guys that had been killed in action.
Speaker 4: At the same time as we are knee deep in
Speaker 4: this combat back home, every time we have somebody killed
Speaker 4: and after you official notification is out I would call
Speaker 4: her and she would go to the memorial service. We
Speaker 4: lost fifty four over that fifteen month tour and had
Speaker 4: over five hundred severely wounded. She went to every memorial service,
Speaker 4: every funeral. She went to visit the wounded along with
Speaker 4: me in San Antonio and in Walter Reid. But here
Speaker 4: the eighth day, I've been in combat eight days now
Speaker 4: and the worst nightmare of any military family's life. The
Speaker 4: two sedans that come driving down your neighborhood full of
Speaker 4: guys in their service Alpha uniform and one guy holding
Speaker 4: the Bible.
Speaker 1: At chaplain's for the listeners. That's the dress uniform.
Speaker 4: Yeah, those two sedans are the Casualtine Notification team. And
Speaker 4: they happened to pull up in front of our house,
Speaker 4: and Sandra was on the front porch reading a book,
Speaker 4: and as they got out, all of a sudden, she
Speaker 4: was starting to get paranoid. Here she went in and
Speaker 4: told the kids, they go to your rooms, all right,
Speaker 4: And she came back out and they were going next door.
Speaker 4: And then as they went in, all of a sudden,
Speaker 4: she heard the next door neighbor's wife start wailing. So
Speaker 4: my next door neighbor green Beret Sergeant Major Brad Connor
Speaker 4: had been killed in action. So now Sandra went from
Speaker 4: someone that thought it was I that got killed in
Speaker 4: action to now having to, you know, provide support and
Speaker 4: solace to our next door neighbor who just lost her husband,
Speaker 4: and to their children and everything. That's why a military
Speaker 4: spouse that is engaged and understands is so important. But
Speaker 4: there are service members out there that don't want their
Speaker 4: spouses involved. And I will tell you I had one
Speaker 4: guy in my brigade during that tour, a great sergeant
Speaker 4: first class, a great non commission aficer. He was a
Speaker 4: platoon sergeant. He didn't want his wife to worry, so
Speaker 4: he told her, oh, I don't out of the wire. Ever,
Speaker 4: even though every day he was out in the wire
Speaker 4: and he was fighting al Qaeda every day. In his
Speaker 4: last day as a platoon sergeant, when we were going
Speaker 4: to pull him out of that platoon and put him
Speaker 4: into a staff role where he wouldn't go out of
Speaker 4: the wire, his vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive
Speaker 4: device and he was killed in action. So when the
Speaker 4: casually notification team let this person know, or let his
Speaker 4: spouse know, she said, how can this happen. My husband
Speaker 4: never went out alive. We have to explain the realities
Speaker 4: of what we're doing. And if we think that we
Speaker 4: are protecting our loved ones by not sharing in the
Speaker 4: harsh realities of combat, stuff like this can happen. And
Speaker 4: think it's already bad enough that her husband was killed
Speaker 4: in action and that their father was killed in action,
Speaker 4: but it was just amplified when they were under the
Speaker 4: impression that he was just going to go over there
Speaker 4: for fifteen months, sit in a staff role and do
Speaker 4: nothing and come home in fifteen months. It even amplified
Speaker 4: the pain and the anguish. And so I think in
Speaker 4: our military couples there has to be these frank conversations
Speaker 4: at all time.
Speaker 1: You're exactly right, bro, it's so important with Ash and
Speaker 1: I and our boys. It's Honesty's the best policy, just period,
Speaker 1: and that needs to be across the board because of
Speaker 1: the simple fact, regardless of how it may make you
Speaker 1: look or not look, it's all about preparedness. Because of
Speaker 1: the fact that Sergeant first class said that to his wife.
Speaker 1: Now his widow and children have a whole different layer
Speaker 1: of healing they're going to have to go through that.
Speaker 1: Otherwise could have been mitigated just by being straight up.
Speaker 1: And that is why I think it is so important
Speaker 1: that That's why I always say there's a significant difference
Speaker 1: between communication and effective communication. Anyone can communicate effectively. Communicating
Speaker 1: is an art, but it takes honesty and vulnerability. You
Speaker 1: cannot have it without those two things. And so I'm
Speaker 1: grateful for Santa. I cannot wait to give her a
Speaker 1: hug man like because I get it. I get it,
Speaker 1: and I know the true backbone. Yeah, and I know
Speaker 1: why we're the best in the world. And there is
Speaker 1: a lot of women and some men that have never
Speaker 1: put on the cloth of this nation, but are a
Speaker 1: significant reason why we're the best in the world and
Speaker 1: we're still a free country.
Speaker 4: I think of Sandra and then her counterpart, my commander's wife,
Speaker 4: Stacy fifty four memorial services and funerals. She I mean,
Speaker 4: Sandra joined me in trips to the hospitals where here
Speaker 4: are soldiers that are bilateral amputees or burn victims over
Speaker 4: eighty percent of their body, or that are missing an
Speaker 4: eye or something like that. And that has an impact
Speaker 4: on a military spouse. And so when we talk about
Speaker 4: these resiliency programs for our service members. It has to
Speaker 4: be there for our military spouses as well.
Speaker 3: Hundred absolutely.
Speaker 1: How do you feel like therapy has impacted your life?
Speaker 4: It was the best thing that ever happened to me,
Speaker 4: all of a sudden, all the anger I had, and
Speaker 4: I didn't need. You know, there are some that require
Speaker 4: additional stuff, like service animals or medication or some I
Speaker 4: just again fit like one of these round pegs. Just
Speaker 4: talking to somebody for an hour once a week. It
Speaker 4: made me calmer. My hyper vigilance was beginning to get reduced.
Speaker 4: And I mean because and you probably had to deal
Speaker 4: with this with Jake. You know, going to the grocery
Speaker 4: store can be like a deliberate combat operation. One way. Yes,
Speaker 4: it's one way in and one way out there.
Speaker 1: And there's people there, Yeah, there's there's people there that
Speaker 1: you Yes, everything's over analyzed, everything is overthought. Everything is exhausting.
Speaker 1: You're right, Anything simple as going to a corner store
Speaker 1: is exhausting. It's like, this is not the way to live.
Speaker 1: And the fact that Sandra gave you this ultimatum. We
Speaker 1: have to protect the most important weapon will ever possess,
Speaker 1: and that's the noodle float in six inches in between
Speaker 1: our ears absolutely, because there's no prosthetic for that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the one we got. We have to be able to
Speaker 1: talk to someone who's an unbiased third party that can
Speaker 1: just help us make our souls lighter. That's it. There's
Speaker 1: no judgment there. It's not a sign of weakness. It's
Speaker 1: exactly the opposite, which I think now, especially after having
Speaker 1: done it, you would completely agree with. It is a
Speaker 1: sign of strength and courage. And it doesn't only make
Speaker 1: you a better soldier, leader, husband, father, it makes you
Speaker 1: a better human being that by default gives you the
Speaker 1: ability to help other people.
Speaker 4: Think of this. Think of our most elite special operations forces.
Speaker 4: You know, the Sealed Team six is, the Deltas, the
Speaker 4: Mars Socks and all them. They have embedded behavioral health
Speaker 4: specialists as part of their human performance teams. Why do
Speaker 4: our most elite special operation forces have those people? Because
Speaker 4: they realize that mental and emotional challenges and PTSD and
Speaker 4: things like that are significant, and even our most elite
Speaker 4: special operators are not immune to the invisible wounds of war.
Speaker 1: That's right. We always forget we have all these titles,
Speaker 1: especially in the military, as you know, just spade of spade,
Speaker 1: you got pretty up there right, You still had a
Speaker 1: ton of bosses. Yes, it's like they're never ending. The military,
Speaker 1: it's insane. The fact that you were able to get
Speaker 1: to that and be able to take that step has
Speaker 1: been a force multiplier for the greater good in everything
Speaker 1: around you. And not to say you didn't wake up
Speaker 1: and have bad days. You're human. But that's the thing
Speaker 1: that people forget, is that we're not robots. Ye're not robots.
Speaker 1: And even those brothers serve shoulder or shoulder, it's like
Speaker 1: we're we can't forget the most important God given title
Speaker 1: first human.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, I realized having you know, now I'm in a
Speaker 4: regular therapy session and life has all of a sudden
Speaker 4: turned for me. And now the anger is starting to
Speaker 4: go away, but the reflections are coming in. And I
Speaker 4: knew that I raised three sons, you know, and I
Speaker 4: was pretty strict with their upbringing. I wasn't abusive, but
Speaker 4: you know, sometimes I used harsh language and sometimes I
Speaker 4: did some things. So I knew that to get closure
Speaker 4: with what I was doing, I need to let my
Speaker 4: sons know that it was me that had the problem,
Speaker 4: it wasn't them. As I was growing up, and so
Speaker 4: I wrote a letter to all three of my sons.
Speaker 4: I was still the SEAAC at the time, and I
Speaker 4: included a book. The name of the book is Why
Speaker 4: Is Dad So Mad? A book about PTSD and military families.
Speaker 4: It is a children's book written by the author Seth
Speaker 4: Castle and illustrated by Carrisa Gonzalez Oathen Why is Dad
Speaker 4: So Mad? Oh? Wow? And I sent that to them
Speaker 4: so that they could understand or hopefully understand that what
Speaker 4: I was going through wasn't because I was a bad father.
Speaker 4: It was because I had this thing known as post
Speaker 4: traumatic stress disorder that I hadn't come to terms with,
Speaker 4: and I certainly hadn't accepted it or anything like that.
Speaker 4: That was probably one of the most emotional things I
Speaker 4: had to do, and one of the most gratifying was
Speaker 4: to write that letter to my sons and give them
Speaker 4: this book so that they could understand what PTSD is about.
Speaker 2: It's almost an additional layer of therapy that you got
Speaker 2: to go through by unleashing that and getting that off
Speaker 2: of your soul. Thinking back on your life's journey, if
Speaker 2: there was one person or organization that's made a significant
Speaker 2: impact on your life, who or what would that be?
Speaker 4: Absolutely it's the United States Military, as you just described, Ashley,
Speaker 4: the power of our nation, the United States of America
Speaker 4: where opportunity and the American dream are alive. And then
Speaker 4: the United States Military that allowed me to go from
Speaker 4: some kid that had no purpose, motivation, and direction or
Speaker 4: inspiration to all of a sudden, not only building myself
Speaker 4: as a member of this warrior class, growing my family
Speaker 4: as well, growing my potential and everything. What's culminated in
Speaker 4: me having the honor to serve as the senior enlisted
Speaker 4: guy in the Department of Defense, it has to be
Speaker 4: the United States Military. The person is obviously my wife, Sandra.
Speaker 4: I've had a lot of influential people in my life,
Speaker 4: but I could not have made this journey for almost
Speaker 4: thirty eight years were she not by my side through
Speaker 4: the good times, the bad times, in all the fun
Speaker 4: that we've had.
Speaker 2: I thought this was going to be a military episode,
Speaker 2: and it's turned into this love story, like love a
Speaker 2: country that y'all's beautiful relationship.
Speaker 1: It's awesome, hey, But like, here's the thing. Most people
Speaker 1: could get on a ship, a plane, put on a
Speaker 1: uniform and go do the things that we did. Yeah,
Speaker 1: with the right amount of training, I think most people
Speaker 1: could do, because most people will tell me like I
Speaker 1: could never do that, and I'm like, well, you don't
Speaker 1: know that.
Speaker 4: You don't know that.
Speaker 1: Very few could be the backbone, the people that hold
Speaker 1: it down at home and keep it together and keep
Speaker 1: the wills turning and keep it well oiled while maintaining
Speaker 1: their composure. Like that to me, Send me to the front. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all day, every day. I'll eat the same MRI over
Speaker 1: and over and over again. If you tell me that
Speaker 1: I have to stay at home with the kids, not
Speaker 1: knowing where my spouse is, not know send me to
Speaker 1: the front with the water gun. I'll make it work,
Speaker 1: like straight up, That's how I feel about it. That's
Speaker 1: the truth of the matter.
Speaker 4: Hey, brother, you know, we live in a world where
Speaker 4: people need safe spaces. Our safe space was wearing eighty
Speaker 4: to one hundred pounds of kit every day with a
Speaker 4: rifle with two hundred and ten rounds of ammunition, surrounded
Speaker 4: by enemy, but surrounded by our brothers and sisters that
Speaker 4: were willing to make the sacrifices up. That was easy. Yeah,
Speaker 4: what's hard is dealing with what's going on back home.
Speaker 4: That's right, I know, And I wouldn't wish that on
Speaker 4: myself for nothing. I have so much admiration for my wife,
Speaker 4: for people like Ashley and all the military spouses out there,
Speaker 4: because they are an integral part of our national security, no.
Speaker 1: Doubt about it. What do you do to recharge? What
Speaker 1: do you do to say I need to take a
Speaker 1: step back and recharge the batteries?
Speaker 4: It's uh spending with my family. I'm a pretty simple guy,
Speaker 4: you know. I love watching TV Land and stuff like that.
Speaker 4: I'm a homebody really, but my recharging is uh spending
Speaker 4: it with family. Sandra and I every quarter we try
Speaker 4: to take a mini vacation somewhere, even if it's an
Speaker 4: overnight trip to a local casino or something. Just being
Speaker 4: able to not have to worry about anything, enjoy the
Speaker 4: love of my life with a cold beverage and maybe
Speaker 4: going some karaoke and some dancing in there. That's kind
Speaker 4: of I've never forgotten that it's okay and it's not
Speaker 4: a sin to have fun. Absolutely, and so I am
Speaker 4: all about turning myself into a jackass by getting on
Speaker 4: a microphone and belting out some blank.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what, bro yeah before I ask drops
Speaker 1: the last question on you, just from our short conversation.
Speaker 1: Trust me when I tell you this. We were family
Speaker 1: long before we were family.
Speaker 4: I appreciate it. Brother.
Speaker 3: Last question, what feeds your soul.
Speaker 4: Doing for others? Seeing others succeed? What feeds me my
Speaker 4: soul is seeing someone that reached out to me for
Speaker 4: advice or that I've helped mentor and seeing them reach
Speaker 4: their untapped potential, or seeing them reach their goals, or
Speaker 4: seeing them get the things that they never thought they
Speaker 4: could do. And the biggest pain I've had is where
Speaker 4: I've loved someone so much and wanted them to reach
Speaker 4: a goal and they've failed to reach that goal. I
Speaker 4: hurt as much as they have because for some odd reason,
Speaker 4: I feel like I had something to do with that.
Speaker 4: So what feeds me is helping others attain their goals.
Speaker 2: Absolutely well, this has been soul food for us. John
Speaker 2: Wayne Truxil, thank you for everything that you've done for
Speaker 2: our country. Thank you for everything that you're continuing to
Speaker 2: do for your service, and everything that you've done since
Speaker 2: you retired out of the military after thirty almost thirty
Speaker 2: eight years. We're truly grateful and just so great to
Speaker 2: get to know you a little bit better today.
Speaker 3: And this was the good stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd tell you what, brother, your family, anything, absolutely time,
Speaker 1: anywhere say the word zero hesitation, I will jump in
Speaker 1: fake leg and all. Don't worry about that at all.
Speaker 1: That's one thing I can guarant damn to you.
Speaker 4: Well, I appreciate a brother and to shake you on, Ashley,
Speaker 4: thank you so much for allowing me this opportunity. Thank
Speaker 4: you for being family.
Speaker 3: Wow, that's awesome. What a great guy.
Speaker 2: John Wayne Truxel thirty eight years of service to our country.
Speaker 2: There will only ever be one, no kidding, what a legend.
Speaker 1: I still just can't picture walking into those two offices,
Speaker 1: to those two Marines and say, hey, I'm going to
Speaker 1: have to get back from launch a little late. That therapy, right,
Speaker 1: What an amazing list of accomplishments. That's the type of
Speaker 1: leader the military needs. He was all about his guys and.
Speaker 2: Would work so hard to become a more effective leader
Speaker 2: for himself, for his men, for his family. Just an
Speaker 2: incredible guy. What was the story he told you about
Speaker 2: about the essays?
Speaker 1: Okay, here's the thing. We're all about physical punishment because
Speaker 1: we're physical beings as warfighters. That's what we do day
Speaker 1: in and day out, don't make us exercise our brains
Speaker 1: if it doesn't have to do with clearing a room
Speaker 1: in a three D warfare environment. And he would make
Speaker 1: his guys, because you can only get a human being
Speaker 1: to fill so many sandbags. He would make him write
Speaker 1: five thousand word essays, typed up sighted and give him
Speaker 1: twenty four hour turnaround time.
Speaker 3: I don't know many college kids that could accomplish.
Speaker 1: I would rather be beaten with a cane.
Speaker 3: That's just cruel punishment.
Speaker 1: It would be less painful. No wonder they listened.
Speaker 3: Yeah, again, the type of leader he was.
Speaker 1: I would have looked at Gunny like he was high
Speaker 1: on math if he told you to do that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I would have looked at him like, wait, have
Speaker 1: you met me? Yeah, that's not ever gonna happen.
Speaker 2: Ever, so many great lessons to learn from this conversation,
Speaker 2: you know, for me personally, the one he said, always
Speaker 2: striving to be better the next day than I was
Speaker 2: that day. And clearly you know his love of his
Speaker 2: wife and his boys, and his men, you know, and
Speaker 2: women that served underneath them for decades.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's definitely got a memory that's second to none too.
Speaker 1: I mean remembering exact dates, exact people, and I mean
Speaker 1: this is no small fee. But Alejandro Alsano, yeah, first
Speaker 1: guy lost and service to our nation, and he'll never
Speaker 1: be forgotten, just like John Wayne will never forget them.
Speaker 1: We won't either. All their names need to be spoken.
Speaker 1: It's why we get to take advantage of this presiuous
Speaker 1: thing that we call freedom every single day, agreed.
Speaker 2: And for men like John Wayne Truxel, who are just
Speaker 2: the epitome of what it means to be a proud
Speaker 2: countryman to go on the cloth of our nation for
Speaker 2: so long and do it.
Speaker 3: I mean you can hear the pride just oozing from him.
Speaker 1: Unless we forget the great and the mighty and the
Speaker 1: one and only.
Speaker 3: Sandra, that's right. I can't wait to meet her either.
Speaker 1: I mean, clearly she was put on this planet with
Speaker 1: one job, that's right.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 2: If this episode touched you today, please share it and
Speaker 2: be part of making someone else's day better.
Speaker 4: Put on your.
Speaker 1: Badass caves and be great today. And remember you can't
Speaker 1: do epic stuff without epic people. Thank you for listening
Speaker 1: to the good Stuff. The Good Stuff is executive produced
Speaker 1: by Ashley Shick, Jacob Schick, Leah Pictures and q Code Media.
Speaker 1: Hosted by Ashley Shick and Jacob Shick. Produced by Nick
Speaker 1: Cassolini and Ryan Countshouse post production supervisor Will Tindi. Music
Speaker 1: editing by Will heywood Smith, edited by Mike Robinson,