Speaker 1: What's up, everybody. Welcome to the Granger Smith Podcast. Thank
Speaker 1: you for watching, thank you for listening. And I'm grateful
Speaker 1: for this platform. I'm grateful for my right to sit
Speaker 1: here in front of you and tell you my opinion
Speaker 1: and have this platform. That is that is very unique
Speaker 1: to be able to tell you stories of where I
Speaker 1: came from, and stories of where I want to go,
Speaker 1: and stories from some of my buddies. This is this
Speaker 1: is a way for me to get closer to you
Speaker 1: as a listener and as a viewer, so that you
Speaker 1: could you could see a side of me that maybe
Speaker 1: you don't see just on the stage singing country music.
Speaker 1: Maybe you can get to know me a little bit better.
Speaker 1: And that's the reason for this podcast. That's the reason
Speaker 1: I've done all these episodes in the past, which started
Speaker 1: on my bus Wildflower on tour and a parking lot
Speaker 1: of some venue. We don't do that anymore. We don't
Speaker 1: tour anymore. Yet, we will be touring very soon. And
Speaker 1: I say, it seems like I've been saying this over
Speaker 1: and over, like beating a dead horse. But it's not
Speaker 1: a matter of if, it's when things will get back
Speaker 1: to normal. I reject the idea of the new normal,
Speaker 1: the new way of life, the new way that we're
Speaker 1: going to live. That's not right right now. We're living
Speaker 1: in a current reality. The state of the world is
Speaker 1: very different right now. But we will return back to normal,
Speaker 1: back to the old normal. And if you don't and
Speaker 1: if anyone tells you that we want, if anyone is
Speaker 1: telling you that we're about to enter a new normal,
Speaker 1: then you have to question their motives. You have to
Speaker 1: wonder why they want you to think that way, Because
Speaker 1: to me, this is a virus that eventually will go away.
Speaker 1: We will conquer it like all humans do. And whether
Speaker 1: we find a vaccine, whether we find herd immunity, whatever,
Speaker 1: whatever that might be, and no matter how long that takes,
Speaker 1: it will go away and then we'll get back to normal.
Speaker 1: That's my little spiel for the time being. And and
Speaker 1: I'm excited. I don't want to do a long intro
Speaker 1: today because I have a really cool guest and we
Speaker 1: got into some really good conversations. This episode is brought
Speaker 1: to you by Ye Apparel, the appair company that me
Speaker 1: and my brothers have right here in Central Texas, right
Speaker 1: here at the EEE Farm. Thank you for all the support.
Speaker 1: If you have EEE apparel, if you suport ee apparel,
Speaker 1: we are honored and it is a big responsibility for
Speaker 1: me to continue to make a quality product and to
Speaker 1: give you my best opinion is about the world, so
Speaker 1: that you could be proud to represent YEEE and you
Speaker 1: could be proud to be a member of YE nation,
Speaker 1: part of an elite, elite club that I'm very proud of.
Speaker 1: I think it's something that I never dreamed we could
Speaker 1: have something like this, something something that's much bigger than music,
Speaker 1: much bigger than any individual, and that's what EEEE is
Speaker 1: to me. Today's guest Mike Ritlin, an amazing human being.
Speaker 1: He is. He's a vet, but he has gone above
Speaker 1: and beyond. He served twelve years at the United States
Speaker 1: Navy Seals and he was part of an elite canine unit.
Speaker 1: He has a special relationship with dogs, and so you've
Speaker 1: all seen service dogs and they're always amazing. It's always
Speaker 1: amazing to see a service dog at work. Well, you
Speaker 1: can imagine if you've seen any kind of service dog,
Speaker 1: you can imagine a United States Navy Seal service dog
Speaker 1: would be an elite version of any other service dog
Speaker 1: you've ever seen, and that's exactly what Mike has handled
Speaker 1: and it's what he currently does in his post combat work,
Speaker 1: and I want you to hear all about that. Ladies
Speaker 1: and gentlemen, mister Mike Ritlin, Welcome to the Grangersmith Podcast.
Speaker 1: Did chant in d sel My Times and school long
Speaker 1: Line and by four of Pomp and Down going back
Speaker 1: Rangey Colation. I think I'll start with saying that through
Speaker 1: my travels, there's a question that comes up a lot.
Speaker 1: People say, besides Texas, is there a place that you've
Speaker 1: traveled to that you would actually want to live? So
Speaker 1: you need to think about like Colorado and there's those
Speaker 1: are a lot of beautiful places. But what I usually
Speaker 1: tell them surprise, and I'll say Iowa, really because I
Speaker 1: think about those those rolling green hills of corn and
Speaker 1: those red barns and silos. And I've told my wife,
Speaker 1: I was like, you don't understand. Iowa is unbelievable, so
Speaker 1: beautiful in its own way. It's it's the most American
Speaker 1: state scenery. Yeah, I can imagine, And that's that's where
Speaker 1: you're from. Who is and you know, one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why I feel so at home in Texas, especially
Speaker 1: in a place like this and where my kennel facility
Speaker 1: is is it's very similar to that. Yeah, And if
Speaker 1: you're driving down the road out in front of your place,
Speaker 1: or you know, the outskirts of the town I grew
Speaker 1: up in, you wouldn't know which one is which you know. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of commonality I think, between between Texas
Speaker 1: and Iowa in terms of not just terrain, but you know,
Speaker 1: from a demographic standpoint, the morals and values of people,
Speaker 1: and the way people treat each other, the way people
Speaker 1: take care of their things, and there's just there's there's
Speaker 1: kind of a feeling of being home in both places
Speaker 1: that exists. But it's neat that with the amount of
Speaker 1: traveling that you've done that you you recognize that it's
Speaker 1: pretty awesome, gossome man like justice for you. Last guest
Speaker 1: I had in here was Robert Overst. He's six eighths.
Speaker 1: He didn't break the bench. So Mike, thank you you drove.
Speaker 1: You drove up from Dallas, three hour trip to the
Speaker 1: e farm. First of all, thank you for driving up here.
Speaker 1: Thank you for your service. You have a one hell
Speaker 1: of a resume. I was thinking, is there is there
Speaker 1: such thing as a former Navy seal or once Navy seal,
Speaker 1: always Navy seal. Yeah, I mean, first off, I appreciate
Speaker 1: the sentiment, my pleasure. I appreciate you bringing me down here.
Speaker 1: To me, it doesn't really matter. Okay. You know, I
Speaker 1: think most people don't use the term ex Navy seal,
Speaker 1: but some people do. Most people say former. Okay, I
Speaker 1: don't really look at it as a once a Navy seal,
Speaker 1: always a Navy seal. I mean to me, military wide,
Speaker 1: if you're not on active duty, you're you're a former,
Speaker 1: a former action guy as it were. So you know
Speaker 1: to me that that's that's fine. I don't have a
Speaker 1: preference or or get my panties in a bunch if
Speaker 1: somebody says X or whatever. So so former Navy seal
Speaker 1: I start with that, because that is that's an elite title.
Speaker 1: No matter how you look at it, you're you're also
Speaker 1: multi time best selling author. How does it feel to
Speaker 1: hear that now? It was probably crazy? Right, that's weird.
Speaker 1: You know, if you'd have told me ten years ago
Speaker 1: that I'd have written a book let alone it it
Speaker 1: made the New York Times and then written two more
Speaker 1: that did the same thing. There's no way to believe
Speaker 1: you. You You know, it's a it's a weird title for sure.
Speaker 1: It's not something that comes up real often because I'm
Speaker 1: not an author in the traditional sense, like that's not
Speaker 1: what I do for a living, you know, So because
Speaker 1: I don't hear it or talk about it very often.
Speaker 1: When people do bring it up, it still kind of
Speaker 1: strikes me as a little odd. Sure it feels a
Speaker 1: little weird, but sure, but it's it's a it's a
Speaker 1: hell of an honor. It's a neat you know, a
Speaker 1: neat group to be a part of. And I feel
Speaker 1: very fortunate, really, I mean, you know, I kind of
Speaker 1: stumbled into into the ability to do that, and I
Speaker 1: was just kind of the right place at the right time.
Speaker 1: They've been loden Rat had happened not long before my
Speaker 1: first book came out, and when everybody found out that
Speaker 1: there was a dog on board, they kind of lost
Speaker 1: their minds and were like, you know, wait, there was
Speaker 1: a dog there, Like what was the dog? You know,
Speaker 1: Navy seals use dogs, and so, you know, I had
Speaker 1: just come back from being a trainer on the West
Speaker 1: Coast for the Seal Team canine program out out there,
Speaker 1: and it was just just kind of lined up. I
Speaker 1: was at the right place at the right time. So
Speaker 1: there's certainly you know a number of guys that have,
Speaker 1: you know, far more impressive resumes as it relates to everything,
Speaker 1: that probably have way more business writ in a book
Speaker 1: about that than I do. But but again, I just
Speaker 1: I kind of fell into the right spot. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: you led me into the next part of your intro
Speaker 1: is your unique experience in a canine unit, an elite
Speaker 1: canine unit, and that I've kind of taken a deep
Speaker 1: dive in you these past few days prepared for this podcast.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know a lot about dogs. You have
Speaker 1: a special relationship with dogs. There's a lot of people
Speaker 1: that say they're they're a dog guy. Yeah, but you
Speaker 1: you have dogs that have saved your life that you
Speaker 1: look at as more than a canine, just as is
Speaker 1: highly uh touted as a soldier a fellow man to you. Sure,
Speaker 1: I go through a lot of peanut butter, We'll put
Speaker 1: it that way. Yeah, the uh you know, I mean
Speaker 1: for me, it's uh, yeah, I grew up a dog guy.
Speaker 1: Being in Iowa. You know, if you've spent any time
Speaker 1: other than driving through there, most people know bird dogs
Speaker 1: and duck hunting is huge there, and so you know,
Speaker 1: just kind of having a healthy appreciation for labs and
Speaker 1: just bird dogs and hunting dogs generally speaking. Growing up,
Speaker 1: that that kind of you know, manifested into an interest, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, early on in the early two thousands, excuse me,
Speaker 1: where it was actually on a combat deployment to Iraq
Speaker 1: where there was a marine dog just in the vicinity
Speaker 1: that we were in. It. It wasn't even a dog
Speaker 1: that saved my life or any of my teammates' lives,
Speaker 1: but we had been in the same scenario that this
Speaker 1: marine outfit had been in, you know, countless times and
Speaker 1: never had a dog with us, and this dog indicated
Speaker 1: on an explosive cachet or booby trap rather, And for me,
Speaker 1: that was the kind of the light switch or you know,
Speaker 1: when my brain kind of clicked on of having an
Speaker 1: enormous interest and passion for working dogs. Up until that point,
Speaker 1: I'd done a fair bit of you know, breeding and
Speaker 1: hunting with dogs in a host of different capacities and
Speaker 1: had a pretty significant amount of dog knowledge from an
Speaker 1: animal husbandry standpoint, but not so much on the training side.
Speaker 1: And so that that kind of was the catalyst to dive,
Speaker 1: to dive rather really deep into the training component. And
Speaker 1: that was you know, in early O three at the
Speaker 1: start of the war, and then so from then up
Speaker 1: until you know, as I sit here now, it's it's
Speaker 1: just been something that you know, I've I've kind of
Speaker 1: lived and and uh and have never really looked back.
Speaker 1: But I was kind of thinking you might have you
Speaker 1: might bring a dog today. If it was the wintertime,
Speaker 1: I for sure would. Okay, yeah, yeah, probably maybe a
Speaker 1: bite suit too, would get you. Get you in a
Speaker 1: bite suit and do some do some of that. I'm
Speaker 1: sure your fans would love that. So you have some
Speaker 1: major injuries from bites. I do, Uh, well, I guess
Speaker 1: I shouldn't say major. I mean I've had I've had
Speaker 1: my wrist broken, and I've had uh, you know, God
Speaker 1: knows how many times where I've been bit and you know,
Speaker 1: filaid open. But in terms of you know, life altering injuries, nothing,
Speaker 1: I will say that. You know from doing bite work
Speaker 1: a lot, you know, being in the suit and where
Speaker 1: they're biting your elbows and forearms and and the you
Speaker 1: know inside your bicep and you know the nerves and
Speaker 1: tendons that that are in there that get you know,
Speaker 1: bit over and over and over over time. For sure,
Speaker 1: like my hands are numb most of the time, that
Speaker 1: they don't work that well in the morning for for
Speaker 1: a while. It's it's absolutely taken its toll physically on me.
Speaker 1: You know, there's there's no two ways about. It's just
Speaker 1: that amount of bite pressure on any appendage over and over.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's like a boxer or a football
Speaker 1: player or you know, a catcher squatting, you know, banging
Speaker 1: his knees up me. It's the same kind of thing.
Speaker 1: It just it just runs you over after a while. So,
Speaker 1: but the thing with getting bit is is an interesting
Speaker 1: thing because it's not really a natural component to life, right,
Speaker 1: is that most people, you know, most people are actually
Speaker 1: pretty physically capable of defeating a dog, but have no
Speaker 1: idea how to do it. Their mentality is such that
Speaker 1: when it's happening, they panic. It's it's very similar to
Speaker 1: people that can't swim very well and they're in the water.
Speaker 1: That that panic mentality is usually what takes place with
Speaker 1: with human beings when a dog is trying to attack them,
Speaker 1: and so you're not thinking straight, you're emotional you're panicky,
Speaker 1: there's adrenaline, and you do a lot of the wrong things,
Speaker 1: and so, you know, getting to a point where you're
Speaker 1: comfortable being bit, you know, plays a huge role in
Speaker 1: being a good, good dog trainer from the decoy side.
Speaker 1: But when you are in that frame of mind, staying
Speaker 1: calm and thinking your way through everything and getting to
Speaker 1: the point where you're minimizing damage and neutralizing the dog,
Speaker 1: and that's what you're thinking about, not how bad it
Speaker 1: hurts or the holy shit, there's a dog biting me
Speaker 1: or whatever. So obviously there's a huge difference between training
Speaker 1: and having a padded suit on where they can't you know,
Speaker 1: hurt you nearly as much versus not having that equipment
Speaker 1: on and being bit. But and your bites were not
Speaker 1: with a suit, Yeah, I mean the ones. There's been
Speaker 1: a couple with equipment on that the dog bit hard
Speaker 1: enough to where it went through the equipment and still
Speaker 1: still opened me up. That's pretty rare. Most dogs don't
Speaker 1: bite that hard. But you know, the equipment is designed
Speaker 1: to keep you from being injured, you still feel it.
Speaker 1: You still get marked and bruised up, and your skin
Speaker 1: gets pinched and broken, blood vessels and things like that,
Speaker 1: But no that like where my wrist was broken, and
Speaker 1: you know a number of other times I've been, you know,
Speaker 1: completely opened up, has been working with a dog. And
Speaker 1: it's always my fault, you know, right at the end
Speaker 1: of the day. It's it's me not reading something right
Speaker 1: or putting you know, you know, trying too much, too
Speaker 1: fast with a dog. I'm not you know, close enough
Speaker 1: with relationship wise. You know, it's usually a combination of
Speaker 1: a few of those things that leads to the dog
Speaker 1: deciding you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna take a
Speaker 1: shot at the title and then you end up getting bit.
Speaker 1: And where do you neutralize a dog? I'm sure that's
Speaker 1: a huge conversation. What what what body part do you
Speaker 1: go after to neutralize a dog? It's actually a great question.
Speaker 1: It's one that not too long ago, Tim Kennedy had
Speaker 1: a run in with a with a neighborhood dog and
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was his child or a
Speaker 1: neighborhood kid or whatever, but there was this huge kind
Speaker 1: of going back and forth on what he should have
Speaker 1: done or didn't do or whatever, and I just I
Speaker 1: offered my advice again from somebody who has been in
Speaker 1: that situation more times than most people. And it's really
Speaker 1: not too dissimilar from a human being, right, is that
Speaker 1: if you look at, say the concepts of jiu jitsu,
Speaker 1: you know what's the primary two things that are your goal.
Speaker 1: It's body control and take their air away. You know,
Speaker 1: just like a human being, a dog that gets their
Speaker 1: air cut from them can't fight you, it can't hurt you.
Speaker 1: You know, the only you know, the main difference between
Speaker 1: dogs and humans that way is that the dog's mouth
Speaker 1: is their primary and really only weapon, and it's far
Speaker 1: more devastating than most human beings anything. Right, So you know,
Speaker 1: my recommendation for anybody is if they have a collar,
Speaker 1: you're in business. If they don't, it's harder, you can
Speaker 1: still maintain the same thing. But if they have a collar,
Speaker 1: you know, don't pick a child up because no different
Speaker 1: than if a human being was trying to attack, you
Speaker 1: wouldn't pick the kid up. And now you're hamstrung. You
Speaker 1: can't defend yourself or the child as well. So you know,
Speaker 1: get the kid behind you, get in front of them,
Speaker 1: close the distance between the child and the dog, and
Speaker 1: now you're grabbing the dog. You want to get body
Speaker 1: control and the dog grab the collar and choke them unconscious.
Speaker 1: You know when people get bit and they start smacking
Speaker 1: the dog or gouge and eyes or grabbing their ears
Speaker 1: or trying to pick him up by their nuts or whatever.
Speaker 1: You know, for a tough dog that's dedicated, those things
Speaker 1: are only going to make him angrier and probably more
Speaker 1: dedicated to hurt you or whoever he's trying to attack. So,
Speaker 1: if the dog doesn't have a collar on the same
Speaker 1: thing is that I want to get body control, and
Speaker 1: by body control I put to you know, grab the
Speaker 1: dog if he doesn't have a collar, grab his skin
Speaker 1: with both hands, pull him in to you and straddle
Speaker 1: his back hips and then at that point pick him
Speaker 1: up by his tail if he has a docktail, pick
Speaker 1: him up by his back legs right at his stifles,
Speaker 1: and lift his back end up off the ground again
Speaker 1: if he doesn't have a collar. If he has the collar,
Speaker 1: choke him out. If he doesn't get control of his
Speaker 1: back end lifted up off the ground, is it that
Speaker 1: way at a minimum, he can't get back to you. Sure.
Speaker 1: The hard part with that is if the dog is
Speaker 1: dedicated and has a hard mouth and is trying to
Speaker 1: hurt you and and accomplishes that is it. Again, most
Speaker 1: people they get bit, they pan and things of that nature.
Speaker 1: So it's a lot easier said than done. You've got
Speaker 1: to keep a cool head and if you do get bit,
Speaker 1: don't let that deter you. Stay dedicated to that process
Speaker 1: and you're you're you're only going to be able to
Speaker 1: maximize your percentage chance for taking as little damage as possible.
Speaker 1: You know, that's that should always be the goal. That
Speaker 1: sequence isn't a guarantee that you're not going to get
Speaker 1: bit or injured. It's that's your best bet to to
Speaker 1: stay out of the dog's mouth as much as possible.
Speaker 1: Because what I can tell you from experience, whether it's
Speaker 1: a nasty hunting dog that you know, there's there's farm
Speaker 1: dogs around here. I'm sure that that are man eaters
Speaker 1: that would give people a run for the money, that
Speaker 1: could probably take people's lives. When you have a dog
Speaker 1: that's in that, you know, whether it's incited by prey
Speaker 1: drive or it's you know, it's just a naturally truly
Speaker 1: forwardly aggressive animal, you know that dog is pretty hard
Speaker 1: to deal with, you know, and if you don't have
Speaker 1: the ability to do that they're going to get the
Speaker 1: best of you, so it is important to keep a
Speaker 1: cool head and and and realize that, you know, the
Speaker 1: gimmicky tricks of well, I'll just you know, I'll shove
Speaker 1: my forearm into into his mouth harder, or I'll stick
Speaker 1: my hand down his throat. It's it's kind of akin
Speaker 1: to saying, you know, I'm gonna grab that that chainsaw
Speaker 1: and stop it from moving right, you know, it really is.
Speaker 1: I mean, they bite hard enough to break bone, you know.
Speaker 1: And I'll show you some some pictures of some live
Speaker 1: bites after this. We won't post for you guys, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: but you know it's it's legitimate, like life altering damage.
Speaker 1: When you have a dedicated dog that's, you know, hell
Speaker 1: bent on hurting you and gets a hold of you,
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty rough. I thought I had it bad
Speaker 1: with a mean rooster at hold will get you, you know.
Speaker 1: So that's what I was gonna ask. If you've ever
Speaker 1: seen a bad guy successfully cutralize a dog. Oh, absolutely,
Speaker 1: it does happen. I mean a gun. Yeah absolutely. I
Speaker 1: would say that it's it's rare, it's excruciatingly rare, but
Speaker 1: it does happen. You know, the dogs are are not invincible.
Speaker 1: Usually when it happens is you know, somebody who is
Speaker 1: physically very capable and is usually on something. You know,
Speaker 1: they don't feel any pain. Their their state of minor
Speaker 1: mentality is completely whacked out for most people that aren't
Speaker 1: used to being bit, you know, and can't keep that
Speaker 1: level head when they do, that's all they think about,
Speaker 1: you know, and you know, it's mind boggling. Sometimes you'll
Speaker 1: see people that you know, a guy that's you know,
Speaker 1: the size of your last guest, you know, or you know,
Speaker 1: some assemblance of that size. You know that that will
Speaker 1: hand six cops their ass, right, you know, in a
Speaker 1: fistfight that can't get control this guy, and then they
Speaker 1: pop out a little sixty pound female mal and on
Speaker 1: the guys like no, you know, and it just lays
Speaker 1: down and says, I'm not messing with the dog. So
Speaker 1: they are a very different, you know, less than lethal
Speaker 1: mechanism for maintaining you know, order and apprehension in criminal scenarios.
Speaker 1: But but you know, just like with human beings or
Speaker 1: even you know, our best special operations soldiers, you know,
Speaker 1: they there are times where where they don't win. It's
Speaker 1: rare you know, overwhelmingly they're they're far more successful. But
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, there are times where whether it's a
Speaker 1: collar or somebody just has the ability their their hands
Speaker 1: and grip strength is enough to where they grabbed them
Speaker 1: by the throat or you know, can can injure the
Speaker 1: dog enough to you know, to neutralize that. What I
Speaker 1: will say is that whether it's a home invasion scenario,
Speaker 1: a law enforcement and military or whatever, is that even
Speaker 1: in the instances where the dog is defeated one, it
Speaker 1: never happens fast. And even if the subject is you know,
Speaker 1: utilizing a firearm, what it's doing is it's still giving
Speaker 1: you an ability to to now neutralize you know, that
Speaker 1: that person as well. So yeah, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: things he's not paying attention to. You know, all of
Speaker 1: his focus, excuse me, is on the dog. So even
Speaker 1: in you know, overseas scenarios where the guy's armed and
Speaker 1: you know, dumps a bag into the dog and shoots
Speaker 1: and kills them, which again doesn't happen often, but in
Speaker 1: those instances it's still now you've got you know, four, six, eight,
Speaker 1: ten guys who now have the jump on this guy,
Speaker 1: and he's not going to last much longer than that,
Speaker 1: sure makes sense. Have you ever heard of them, say,
Speaker 1: I don't think it'd be as much domestic wise, but
Speaker 1: saying a terrorist in Islamic terrorists, do you have you
Speaker 1: seen him train for dogs? Not really, but I do
Speaker 1: know they like to target them, right for sure? They do.
Speaker 1: I mean no different than you know, say in World
Speaker 1: War Two, where they you know, had to had to
Speaker 1: redo helmets and and different rank and insignia, you know,
Speaker 1: markers and devices on their stuff to not say, hey
Speaker 1: that's that's a captain, let's take him out or whatever. Similarly, yeah,
Speaker 1: they they many times are targeted, you know, more so
Speaker 1: than than than even the human counterparts, because they know
Speaker 1: what they bring to the table. In terms of training. No,
Speaker 1: I've never seen you know, really any any effective countermeasures
Speaker 1: and and you know, honestly there there really isn't, you know,
Speaker 1: other than what they already do. I mean in terms
Speaker 1: of just fighting them the way that they fight us
Speaker 1: and whatever. You know that that's about as good as
Speaker 1: you're going to do. There's not really you know, some
Speaker 1: unique trick or tip that you know that it's going
Speaker 1: to give people the advantage over dogs. And it's why
Speaker 1: they're they're really so so useful, frankly, is that you know,
Speaker 1: if you look at the scope of mankind combating one another,
Speaker 1: you know, in an age where you know, from the
Speaker 1: Stone Age all the way up until present day, we've
Speaker 1: got you know, billions of dollars of equipment, and you know,
Speaker 1: laser guided munitions and night vision and thermal and you know,
Speaker 1: helicopters that do amazing things and and all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. You know, the one thing that's still used
Speaker 1: in combat other than human beings are dogs. You know,
Speaker 1: from from day one up until present day. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, for our own own nation's most elite special
Speaker 1: operations forces, to use dogs out in front of them
Speaker 1: tells you a lot about the efficacy of them and
Speaker 1: how well they work, because soft units don't use things
Speaker 1: that don't work, you know, and so the fact that
Speaker 1: they use dogs is as much as they do and
Speaker 1: have as much success with them as they do, I
Speaker 1: think speak volumes to their efficacy for sure. But that
Speaker 1: is uh, that is so cool man. Uh. Yeah, just
Speaker 1: the fact that, like you said, it's just a it's
Speaker 1: a it goes through history of mankind using canines in warfare. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for all different reasons, whether it's reconnaissance or sniffing out
Speaker 1: bombs or even you know, World War Two that was
Speaker 1: probably the most wide array of of practical applications of them.
Speaker 1: I mean they used them as messengers as you know,
Speaker 1: medic carriers that you know, they moving equipment around. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, guard dogs, sentry dogs, detector dogs. I mean, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: it's it's uh, I hate even even mentioning it because
Speaker 1: it's it's such a black eye on humanity I think.
Speaker 1: But a lot of Russian and German forces would would
Speaker 1: strap you know, suicide vests onto dogs and send them
Speaker 1: into opposing tanks to knock them off of of their tracks. Mean,
Speaker 1: they would train dogs to you know, to just run
Speaker 1: straight towards the tank and then they'd blow themselves up
Speaker 1: and disabled tank, which is is a horrible thing to imagine,
Speaker 1: but not surprising, but not surprising and given given the
Speaker 1: other atrocities that they committed. But but you know, it
Speaker 1: does speak volumes though to the versatility of dogs, and
Speaker 1: they've just they've been used in so many different capacities
Speaker 1: and still to this day, you know, I mean there's
Speaker 1: insulin resistance dogs and therapy dogs of every magnitude you
Speaker 1: can think of. I mean, they just there's so many,
Speaker 1: uh you know, different elements of our society that they've
Speaker 1: been plugged into that that they've made, you know, life
Speaker 1: changing differences in a very positive way. They're just, you know,
Speaker 1: man's best friend. I think as interstatement, absolutely it would
Speaker 1: be it would be really hard to go through this
Speaker 1: interview and not bring up buds. Yeah, and and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, hopefully we'll have many more interviews and you
Speaker 1: guys comment below if you want to see more. Mike,
Speaker 1: but I want to know I heard that you you know,
Speaker 1: he's this kid from Iowa. You read the magazine, Yeah,
Speaker 1: about the Navy Seals. And first of all, where were
Speaker 1: you swimming in Iowa? The first question. Yeah, just in
Speaker 1: a swimming pool, not in any big body of water.
Speaker 1: I mean there's there's a few lakes and reservoirs and stuff.
Speaker 1: There's not a ton of water in Iowa. But I
Speaker 1: grew up competitively swimming. My dad wrestled in high school
Speaker 1: with Dan Gable, and you know, I was such a
Speaker 1: powerhouse wrestling state for decades. His knees and just entire
Speaker 1: lower body was pretty shot, and so he was doing
Speaker 1: a lot of swimming at the time, while we were
Speaker 1: growing up as kind of a you know, physical fitness rehab,
Speaker 1: you know type of mechanism, and so we just all
Speaker 1: kind of gravitated towards that. And so because of my
Speaker 1: interest in the water and being competitive swimming all growing
Speaker 1: up and you know, being a part of competition sports
Speaker 1: swim clubs and things like that, I had kind of
Speaker 1: a natural inclination towards the Seal teams because they're the
Speaker 1: you know, the premiere maritime special operations unit. So you know,
Speaker 1: spending a lot of time in the swimming pool was
Speaker 1: obviously very different from combat diving and swimming and being
Speaker 1: in the ocean. My first time of actually being out
Speaker 1: in the ocean water was at Buds. You know, we'd
Speaker 1: been to you know, Cocoa Beach, Florida or whatever, and
Speaker 1: I'd been you know an ankle high water as a
Speaker 1: kid or whatever. But yeah, my first time actually being
Speaker 1: out in the ocean was was at seal training, and
Speaker 1: very different experience. There's not a black line to guide
Speaker 1: off of. There's waves hitting me in the face, there's
Speaker 1: a swell and a current that's messing you up on
Speaker 1: the swims and whatever, and so, and I'd never really
Speaker 1: swam with fins either, so you know, for me, it
Speaker 1: was it was a hell of an adjustment to to now,
Speaker 1: you know, swim and open ocean water with fins and
Speaker 1: having to guide, and it was a very different experience.
Speaker 1: It was humbling, frankly, because I was not very good
Speaker 1: at it. As good of a swimmer as I was,
Speaker 1: I was not a very effective combat sidestroke swimmer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, surprisingly, some guys showed up. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: we had guys that, you know, were Olympic Olympic caliber swimmers.
Speaker 1: I was for sure not that. I mean, I was competitive,
Speaker 1: but not at that level. And so you know, those
Speaker 1: guys showed up and it was a breeze for them.
Speaker 1: Some other guys, you know, could barely swim. But I
Speaker 1: think it's almost one of those things where if you're
Speaker 1: in really good shape and you're competitive and you've got
Speaker 1: you know, strong genetics, you're almost better suited to not
Speaker 1: have all these bad habits of not using fins, and
Speaker 1: you know you can. It's kind of like shooting, if
Speaker 1: you know, teaching somebody who's never really shot, they don't
Speaker 1: have any bad habits as a kid that they picked up,
Speaker 1: so they're they're a little bit easier interesting that way.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, it you know, back to your question.
Speaker 1: It you know, I was not exactly a breeding ground
Speaker 1: for for Navy seals. There's not many of us from there,
Speaker 1: but but you know, it just it kind of seemed
Speaker 1: like like the natural fit for me. So two part question,
Speaker 1: did you think you were ready for buds? And then
Speaker 1: are you uh, sort of to both? You know, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I was confident. I you know, I had
Speaker 1: started training for it when I was a sophomore. I
Speaker 1: originally started doing martial arts and this was before M
Speaker 1: m A existed and so it was kind of ahead
Speaker 1: of its time. It was it was a female, a
Speaker 1: female instructor that was was based off of Okinawa and karate.
Speaker 1: Shout out to to Pam Hammers, who was she was
Speaker 1: a stud. I mean she put the fear of of
Speaker 1: everything in me as a high school kid. And she was,
Speaker 1: you know, a five foot three, you know, one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty pound woman. But but you know, she ran
Speaker 1: this dojo that that was underground, Like it wasn't a commercial.
Speaker 1: It was out of out of her her basement, you know,
Speaker 1: and it was word of mouth. And she had to
Speaker 1: you know, accept you in and it was it was
Speaker 1: pretty hardcore for for its time, and we did you know,
Speaker 1: Filipino stick fighting and French foot fighting and wrestling and
Speaker 1: boxing and some jiu jitsu. It was. It was a
Speaker 1: form of that, guess was probably more like judo, but
Speaker 1: it was just a kind of a nice mix of
Speaker 1: a lot of different things, you know, the way MMA
Speaker 1: is now. And this was before you know, any of that, ever,
Speaker 1: before the UFC even was in existence. But so you know,
Speaker 1: having that as kind of the backdrop with which you know,
Speaker 1: between discipline and you know, having a strong mental capacity
Speaker 1: and you know, using a lot of kind of the
Speaker 1: traditional martial arts philosophies towards working out and training and
Speaker 1: taking things serious and being disciplined and things of that
Speaker 1: nature helped out a lot. She was really hardcore, The
Speaker 1: group was really hardcore, and so using that and then
Speaker 1: you know, still swimming a lot, and I you know,
Speaker 1: started running a lot and really preparing. So I spent
Speaker 1: you know a good portion of my high school years,
Speaker 1: you know, training constantly to go there with that as
Speaker 1: my focus. You know, so when I showed up also
Speaker 1: not really knowing what to expect I was seventeen, you know,
Speaker 1: I turned right after I turned eighteen, I went to
Speaker 1: boot camp and so I was, you know, the youngest
Speaker 1: kid in the class, and you know, it was kind
Speaker 1: of a deer in the headlights a little bit. But
Speaker 1: you know, for me showing up and then taking the
Speaker 1: test and seeing you know, out of out of you know,
Speaker 1: quite a few kids that tried, and most of them
Speaker 1: didn't even pass the screening tests, and I passed it
Speaker 1: what felt like relatively easily. Was a pretty big confidence
Speaker 1: boost too. It's not a hard test, but I think
Speaker 1: doing it in succession and the mentality or the mental
Speaker 1: pressure of like, holy shit, I'm in the Navy and
Speaker 1: I'm trying out, you know, to go to the seal training,
Speaker 1: and you know, it was a lot for young kids
Speaker 1: at that age, and so you know, most guys didn't
Speaker 1: make it. I passed it on the first time, and
Speaker 1: so then when I when I showed up, you know,
Speaker 1: it was humbling. I mean, there's no such thing as
Speaker 1: showing up in good enough shape to make it. I
Speaker 1: mean that's one of the things of seal training that,
Speaker 1: without question, I think is probably the most important thing
Speaker 1: for anybody that wants to go is to realize is
Speaker 1: the better shape you're in, Uh, you know, the less
Speaker 1: mental pressure there's gonna be and and you know, the
Speaker 1: less you're gonna have to rely on your mind to
Speaker 1: get you through a lot of training, but without a doubt.
Speaker 1: So that that's that's what I want to go deeper with. Uh,
Speaker 1: We're gonna take a quick break, reset these cameras, and
Speaker 1: then I want to dig into that go hang on.
Speaker 1: So physically you think you're ready. Mentally you think you're ready.
Speaker 1: You're you're you're swimming a lot, You're you're practicing martial arts,
Speaker 1: probably running. I'm sure you're running a lot. Get physically ready,
Speaker 1: but the mental part that's what gets everybody. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of strong guys. There's a lot of good swimmers.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of guys that could run miles and
Speaker 1: miles and miles. But there's got to be and this
Speaker 1: is a way I love talking about this on this
Speaker 1: podcast with elite people like yourself. There's got to be
Speaker 1: a switch in your brain that goes when you're your
Speaker 1: body's at the limit and there's there's all these little
Speaker 1: neurons firing off going uh, nope, now you're gonna you're
Speaker 1: gonna break, You're gonna get sick. You're too cold, you can't,
Speaker 1: this muscle is gonna tear you. You got pneumonia. There's
Speaker 1: all these little neurons fire and saying stop, stop, stop,
Speaker 1: But you have a switch. Did you realize you had
Speaker 1: the switch then? Or was it later in combat or
Speaker 1: was it was it earlier as a kid. When did
Speaker 1: you figure out, Mike has a switch that takes me
Speaker 1: to a new level past my physical capabilities. For sure,
Speaker 1: it was well after. Unquestionably, I didn't join to to
Speaker 1: not do that. I didn't join to quit. My dad
Speaker 1: and both my parents were never like overbearing in terms
Speaker 1: of their expectations, and I think that that was in
Speaker 1: a healthy way. It's part of why I didn't want
Speaker 1: to let them down. It's just because they you know,
Speaker 1: they didn't put unrealistic expectations or you know, super hard
Speaker 1: on me if if I didn't make the grade with
Speaker 1: something or whatever. But to me, it's the realization that
Speaker 1: I've come to years later, and ironically enough, it's from
Speaker 1: working with so many dogs over the years at high levels,
Speaker 1: is that it's genetic. Because I was an instructor also
Speaker 1: my last three three and a half years in the Navy,
Speaker 1: and so being a seal instructor on the other side
Speaker 1: of that curtain is an interesting component to it because
Speaker 1: you know, we've all been through the training and now
Speaker 1: when you're hanging out with the wizard behind the curtain
Speaker 1: and you see a lot of the things that you
Speaker 1: didn't realize took place, you know are both fascinating, but
Speaker 1: they're also very insightful in terms of what you learn
Speaker 1: about yourself from having been through it, and you're, like,
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, we did that, you know. I mean, like,
Speaker 1: even as an instructor, putting kids through hell week is exhausting,
Speaker 1: and you're only working an eight hour shift, you know,
Speaker 1: and these kids are doing it for six days straight.
Speaker 1: And so But in terms of the genetic component, I
Speaker 1: truly believe that both in human and dogs, there's such
Speaker 1: a high number of parallels when it comes to performance,
Speaker 1: and that one percenter type of mentality of having a
Speaker 1: basically a complete disregard for for your own life is
Speaker 1: that that that is inherently not genetically normal for any
Speaker 1: living being, right is because you know, our genetic code
Speaker 1: and makeup is such that self preservation and the ability
Speaker 1: to perpetuate our gene pool is our primary focus. Right.
Speaker 1: Survivability of a species is the number one thing that
Speaker 1: all species are are designed to employ, and so just
Speaker 1: having that mentality is genetically not conducive to the survivability
Speaker 1: of a species. So to me, it makes sense that
Speaker 1: you know, when you're looking at human beings or dogs,
Speaker 1: is that that that disregard and saying, you know what,
Speaker 1: even though i know I'm heading into somewhere where you
Speaker 1: know there's a high probability I'm going to lose my life,
Speaker 1: I'm going to fucking do it anyway. Is that that
Speaker 1: isn't normal, and it can't be normal for human beings
Speaker 1: to survive and continue to exist. And so as much
Speaker 1: as I'd love to say that you know, I'm a
Speaker 1: tough guy, I'm not. I mean to me, the guys
Speaker 1: and the dogs that make it through that training and
Speaker 1: have that that disregard for their own safety is just
Speaker 1: a genetic mutation, frankly, and I do believe it's an
Speaker 1: abnormality or a mutation in this case in a good
Speaker 1: way sort of you know, in that if you don't
Speaker 1: have that, you're not going to be able to do that,
Speaker 1: and most people don't have that, which is why most
Speaker 1: people don't make it through training with dogs. It's the
Speaker 1: same thing most dogs, you know, when you get in
Speaker 1: their mind and I pick a fight with them and
Speaker 1: I make them understand that I'm here to snatch their soul,
Speaker 1: most of them say, you know what, I'm not doing
Speaker 1: this anymore, and they pack sand and they and they quit.
Speaker 1: The ones that don't are incredibly rare. And even when
Speaker 1: you're breeding for that, I mean the luxuries I've had
Speaker 1: as a dog trainer and breeder, and you know, fancier
Speaker 1: of different working breeds as being able to selectively breed
Speaker 1: unlike human beings. And so even when you take you know,
Speaker 1: a male and a female that have that trait at
Speaker 1: a very high level, they're offspring, most of them don't
Speaker 1: have it. You know, even when you're doing it generation
Speaker 1: after generation and you're playing god and being able to
Speaker 1: pick you know, the genetic combinations properly, it's still a
Speaker 1: very elusive trade in something that's really hard to replicate.
Speaker 1: Not the answer I was expecting, very convincing, and I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure I believe you because you're very convincing, But
Speaker 1: to be a one percenter on this earth. You got
Speaker 1: to be born with it. I think that's that's your argument.
Speaker 1: What if there's someone out there that goes, how do
Speaker 1: I mentally train myself to become a one percenter? And
Speaker 1: is your answer? You can't. You got to be born
Speaker 1: with it. Yeah. I mean to me, you're you're not
Speaker 1: a very good motivational speaker to a big craft. Well yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean tough shot right, like, but that's not what
Speaker 1: you're known for anyway. No, I mean, no for sugar coating. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean to me, if motivational speakers worked, there wouldn't
Speaker 1: be of them, true, if in a million books. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean like if if Tony Robbins, you know, if
Speaker 1: one of his seminars worked, those people wouldn't ever need
Speaker 1: to come back and they would be able to go
Speaker 1: teach everybody else, you know. So yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: truly think is it like with dogs? You know there's
Speaker 1: so many parallels between humans and dogs. Is that you
Speaker 1: know most people with dog training, is that it takes
Speaker 1: that same kind of level of dedication to truly have
Speaker 1: a trained dog. I mean, yes, some people get lucky
Speaker 1: with that that unicorn that doesn't really need to be
Speaker 1: trained and just picks things up and as a dream
Speaker 1: dog and whatever. But those are outliers most people, just
Speaker 1: like with working out or getting a black belt in
Speaker 1: jiu jitsu or being a great chef, you know, is
Speaker 1: that there there are elements to that that just require
Speaker 1: a lot of repetition and dedication. And unfortunately, human beings
Speaker 1: aren't typically that dedicated. You know, if you look at
Speaker 1: the mass population, there's more lazy people than there are
Speaker 1: not uh, you know, And I would pose kind of
Speaker 1: the same question to you being in the entertainment industry.
Speaker 1: You know, there are people American idol I think teaches
Speaker 1: us a good lesson in humility that way, and that
Speaker 1: you know, there's some people that work their entire childhood
Speaker 1: and their parents get them the lessons and that you know,
Speaker 1: that's what they want to do, and they work their
Speaker 1: ass off and they get the training or whatever, and
Speaker 1: they still just absolutely suck. Yeah, you know, right. So
Speaker 1: you know, to me, it's it's the same is that
Speaker 1: because to me, people talk about motivation, and you know,
Speaker 1: motivation peters out and everybody, you know, and that's where
Speaker 1: discipline comes in, right, And and so where discipline comes
Speaker 1: in is that's you making the concerted, conscious decision to say,
Speaker 1: you know what, this sucks, I don't want to do it,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to do it anyway. To me, While
Speaker 1: you know, on the surface that may seem like a choice,
Speaker 1: I truly believe that that that the you you and
Speaker 1: having the ability to make yourself do things that suck
Speaker 1: is genetic, you know, because most people can't do it.
Speaker 1: And again, the motivational speaker thing, if if you could
Speaker 1: motivate and convince somebody to put themselves through that, there'd
Speaker 1: be way more seals, entertainers, black belts in jiu jitsu,
Speaker 1: successful entrepreneurs. Everything is that you know that that small
Speaker 1: fraction of the percentage of the population that truly says
Speaker 1: there is no plan B, there's no safety net. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do what I set out to do, Come hell
Speaker 1: or high water, You're gonna have to kill me, you
Speaker 1: know to stop me. Is that there's just not many
Speaker 1: people that truly have that when it starts to suck,
Speaker 1: I can't argue, man, you're right, and uh yeah, it's
Speaker 1: in the in the music business as well. You know
Speaker 1: a lot of people will ask where does it take
Speaker 1: and can do they have what it takes, and the
Speaker 1: true answer is I usually know off the bat you don't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and sometimes they do. Yeah, But but are you willing
Speaker 1: to do what no one else is? And that's not
Speaker 1: that's not a matter of work ethic. Really, it's not
Speaker 1: a matter if well, I'll just stay up all night
Speaker 1: and work that that doesn't wait to doing what no
Speaker 1: one else will ever do consistently. And yeah, maybe maybe
Speaker 1: you're just born with it. I cannot argue with that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean again, you know, having seen so many people,
Speaker 1: you know, give you the lip service of no. I know,
Speaker 1: you know, and again as an instructor, I saw it
Speaker 1: time and time again, you know, with an eighty five
Speaker 1: percent attrition rate. You know, you see these kids who
Speaker 1: for years have been training for something finally are given
Speaker 1: the shot. They come and in the first few days
Speaker 1: ring the bell and quit. And the first thing that
Speaker 1: they say, five minutes after they could, well, I'm coming back, motherfucker,
Speaker 1: you could still be here. How does that happen? I
Speaker 1: always wonder that, how do you do that? Yeah? It
Speaker 1: happens every class. Yeah, I mean, so it's just why
Speaker 1: do you do that? Again? I think it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a mental lack of capacity. But why
Speaker 1: do they even go through that? How have they how
Speaker 1: have they not learned that they're not capable of that
Speaker 1: before they start? Yeah, I mean, you know, that's something
Speaker 1: I can't answer. You know, I really I don't understand it.
Speaker 1: I've never understood it. I've tried, and you know, I've
Speaker 1: talked to you know a number of kids who you know,
Speaker 1: and that's not a decision that it's it's like deciding
Speaker 1: to not play baseball this year. I mean, that's a
Speaker 1: life altering decision that you are going to regret for
Speaker 1: the rest of your life, rest assured the rest of
Speaker 1: your life. Well, and you know, above and beyond that
Speaker 1: is that you know when you go from there like
Speaker 1: it's not well, let's kick you back in training and
Speaker 1: give you another shot, Like you're going to go to
Speaker 1: the fleet and chip paint for four years, you know,
Speaker 1: and and live on a on a prison ship basically,
Speaker 1: you know, being the lowest of the low. You know,
Speaker 1: you're an undesignated seaman, which you know how many jokes
Speaker 1: can multiple meetings, but yes, you go to the fleet
Speaker 1: and you're and you're basically a worker bee, you know,
Speaker 1: for several years. Most of the guys you know, and
Speaker 1: so uh, you know, that's a pretty miserable existence and
Speaker 1: they know that going in. I mean, I think that
Speaker 1: the seal teams are are a unique bunch in that,
Speaker 1: you know, unlike the Army or the Marines or Air
Speaker 1: Force or whatever, is that if you don't make it
Speaker 1: in their special operations co versus, you generally go do
Speaker 1: things that are are somewhat similar. You know, maybe you're
Speaker 1: an infantry if you didn't make it through rangers or
Speaker 1: you know, Green Breay Q Course or whatever, well then
Speaker 1: you're you know, you're in an infantry unit or an
Speaker 1: armored division unit or something like that, and you're still
Speaker 1: going into combat and doing a lot of the same things,
Speaker 1: maybe just not at the higher level. Marine same thing. Like,
Speaker 1: you know, you're going to be an infantry if if
Speaker 1: you if you don't make it in the Navy, like
Speaker 1: your life is going to be vastly different. You know,
Speaker 1: you're going to be wearing you know, hayes gray dungarees
Speaker 1: and you're out, you know, swabbing decks and cleaning issues
Speaker 1: and floating around, you know, the world miserable for several years.
Speaker 1: And so you're you know to know that, and it's
Speaker 1: not like that's a secret. I mean, they know that
Speaker 1: that is their fate if they if they quit. And
Speaker 1: I think what it always boils down to is mental pressure,
Speaker 1: you know, whether whether that's manifested through environmental environmental conditions
Speaker 1: like cold water, or stress and mental pressure from the
Speaker 1: from the staff, or the anticipation of what's next, or
Speaker 1: you know, watching the sun go down and and knowing
Speaker 1: it's it's about to get real miserable cold and you're
Speaker 1: going to be laying in the water, and you know,
Speaker 1: there's there's a million mind games that the staff plays,
Speaker 1: you know, with with the students to test them over
Speaker 1: and over and over. And it's not uncommon to see,
Speaker 1: you know, that one of the cadre, whoever's leading an
Speaker 1: exercise or an evolution, say okay, you know, pick your
Speaker 1: boats back up. We're going to run down to somewhere
Speaker 1: that's six miles away. And they start running and guys
Speaker 1: quit and then they put the boats down and turn
Speaker 1: around and come back. They weren't even going to go
Speaker 1: down there. They just made it seem like, wow, they
Speaker 1: were going to do that. And that happens all the time,
Speaker 1: whether it's you know, doing a big loop on a
Speaker 1: on a run where you pass where you were supposed
Speaker 1: to turn in and stop and yep, all right, we're
Speaker 1: going to do it again. You know, you're like Jesus,
Speaker 1: that was four miles. We've got to do that again.
Speaker 1: And they only go for two or three hundred yards
Speaker 1: and they see guys quit and in that little amount
Speaker 1: of time of knowing, Christ, we've got to go do
Speaker 1: that same four mile run again. But then they don't
Speaker 1: even do it, or you know, having guys march out
Speaker 1: into the water and then lay down in it, you know,
Speaker 1: and do surf torture and do that. You know, they
Speaker 1: go out into the water, they come back, they go out,
Speaker 1: they come back, and you'll get guys quitting on the
Speaker 1: way back out there all the time. And then that
Speaker 1: ends up the group didn't even go back out there.
Speaker 1: They just pretended to send them back out there. So
Speaker 1: you know, I mean to me, it's just it ultimately
Speaker 1: always boils down to mental toughness. And again I think,
Speaker 1: you know, we're disciplined, and mental tough toughness kind of
Speaker 1: crisscrosses is in that genetic arena of you know, it's
Speaker 1: either there or it isn't so which one can you
Speaker 1: cultivate mental toughness or discipline? I think you can. You
Speaker 1: can teach people to be disciplined to a certain point.
Speaker 1: But what I've learned again and Dogs, is that you know,
Speaker 1: genetics are are the thermometer if you will, you know,
Speaker 1: it is the bar at which you are always going
Speaker 1: to be limited by. Right. So take Muhammad Ali. You know,
Speaker 1: why do we know his name. It's not because he
Speaker 1: had a great coach and worked hard and you know,
Speaker 1: started early. It's because he had the genetics to when
Speaker 1: he applied those things allowed him to get to a
Speaker 1: level that is world class. And so I think that
Speaker 1: again and Dogs in with people, it's the exact same thing.
Speaker 1: Is that you could use entertainment or sports in any
Speaker 1: sports as another you know, kind of gateway to that
Speaker 1: is that if you have the genetics and you put
Speaker 1: the time in and have great coaches and start early,
Speaker 1: and do all of the things that that are required
Speaker 1: to get to that world class level, you'll get there.
Speaker 1: If you don't have the genetics, all of that and
Speaker 1: and every you know sports camp, you know summer camp,
Speaker 1: and you know three week spring spring break training seminar
Speaker 1: with Peyton Manning. It's not going to turn you into
Speaker 1: that if if the genetics just aren't there to support it.
Speaker 1: So so you're saying David Goggins, who I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe you know David, I actually don't, and I've never
Speaker 1: met I don't think I've ever even met him. You're
Speaker 1: saying all the squawking he does on social media about
Speaker 1: people need to get hard and tough en up, he's
Speaker 1: just speaking to nobody. Because the less well you're born
Speaker 1: with it, you're not going to be reformed by somebody
Speaker 1: like that. I would say largely, yes. Are there some
Speaker 1: people that, without a doubt, guys like JOCKO or Dave
Speaker 1: Goggins or Tony Robbins or any of the people that
Speaker 1: you know, use a lot of that you know, mentality
Speaker 1: and kind of you know, almost soapbox preach to people
Speaker 1: that way. Are they positively impacting people's lives? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: think they are, sure, And I think that there's some
Speaker 1: people that they they actually probably make a significant difference.
Speaker 1: And are they turning zeros into heroes? No? Again, if
Speaker 1: they were, there'd be a fuck ton more heroes out there,
Speaker 1: you know, But to me, it's it's kind of ignorance
Speaker 1: is bliss in a way, and that I see it
Speaker 1: in dog training. A lot a lot of people will
Speaker 1: sign up for my online online dog training. Not a
Speaker 1: lot of people, but a number of them will sign
Speaker 1: up for it and not really use it. You know,
Speaker 1: they'll sign on a couple of times to watch a
Speaker 1: few videos. You know, they do a session here or there.
Speaker 1: It makes them feel better about being a dog own.
Speaker 1: It feels good, feels good to hear Josh go tell
Speaker 1: you to Yeah, get to you know, it makes you
Speaker 1: feel good type of sure you're watching it and post it,
Speaker 1: you know, with your nine followers, and and you know,
Speaker 1: and it makes you feel like you're you're you're part
Speaker 1: of something, and it gives you purpose and and you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not knocking that to me. It's just if you're
Speaker 1: trying to get to a level of world class, whether
Speaker 1: it's special operations or super high level dog training or
Speaker 1: you know, touring. You know where you're selling out thirty thousand,
Speaker 1: you know audience venues, and you know at that level
Speaker 1: you know, or you know you own an eight or
Speaker 1: nine figure business as an entrepreneur and you've built several
Speaker 1: of them, you know, with a lot of these, like
Speaker 1: entrepreneur clinics and stuff. Is that if it was a
Speaker 1: matter of just listening to this guy and trying to
Speaker 1: apply that, then there'd be way more of them in
Speaker 1: every industry, in every walk of life. You know. So
Speaker 1: you're not trying to come up with a self growth
Speaker 1: book anytime? Well, I think I think if I do
Speaker 1: this episode, for sure just you know, canceled all the orders. Well,
Speaker 1: and it also I hate to call anybody out here,
Speaker 1: but it also just high highlights the fact that and
Speaker 1: if you're writing a personal growth book, you're you're trying
Speaker 1: to make some money. Sure, nothing wrong with that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're trying to get some clicks, make some money. But
Speaker 1: but but those guys probably know Tony Robins goes to
Speaker 1: bed every night and knows exactly what he's doing. He's
Speaker 1: saying all the right things. Sure, are people digesting it?
Speaker 1: Probably not? Sometimes, yeah, but probably not. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: you know, again, most most people are probably somewhere in
Speaker 1: the middle where that you know, maybe they pick up
Speaker 1: a couple of things that that for sure improves their
Speaker 1: life in certain ways. You know, it's not me, you know,
Speaker 1: knocking some guys, I mean to me, guys like Tony Robbins.
Speaker 1: You know, he probably positively impacts fewer people than jock O,
Speaker 1: Dave Gog and things like that. But I'm not just
Speaker 1: saying that because they're you know, brethren of mine. I
Speaker 1: think they've walked it, you know. To my knowledge, Tony
Speaker 1: Robbins's business is built off of his ability to tell
Speaker 1: you that that you know, he can teach you how
Speaker 1: to run a business, right, you know, whereas you know,
Speaker 1: these other guys have have proven over and over and over,
Speaker 1: you know, of of walking what they walk. But I
Speaker 1: still think, uh, you know that that that only goes
Speaker 1: as far as as what the person's genetic capabilities are
Speaker 1: are willing to allow them to go. It's so true, man,
Speaker 1: It's so true. So me and you similar age. I
Speaker 1: think you said high school ninety six, Yeah, I was
Speaker 1: ninety eight. And our generation, which is you know, parents
Speaker 1: in the Vietnam era, grandparents World War Two. I always
Speaker 1: think that our generation has seen the biggest demasculation for
Speaker 1: sure in our culture. And how do you see that
Speaker 1: playing out? Is there is there going to be a
Speaker 1: wave of masculinity that rises again or does this keep
Speaker 1: going till everyone is neutral? Yeah? So to me back
Speaker 1: to you know, my I think mother nature trumps everything.
Speaker 1: You know, is that you know that adage and I'll
Speaker 1: probably mess it up, but it's hard times create strong men.
Speaker 1: Strong men create you know, good times. Good times create
Speaker 1: week men. Week men create hard times, you know, And
Speaker 1: it's just this cycle that keeps going through. Is that
Speaker 1: if you look at human history at least as well
Speaker 1: as we know it how it's been recorded, which you know,
Speaker 1: who can debate it, that's just what it says. It
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that's exactly how it happened. But you know,
Speaker 1: I think we all live in an information age that's
Speaker 1: digested enough to understand that that's a pretty true representation
Speaker 1: of mankind. And so to me, there is a point
Speaker 1: in every society and every empire and every you know,
Speaker 1: cultural section of the world that that kind of goes
Speaker 1: through that cycle in some way. And so to me,
Speaker 1: you know, the d masculation that we've experienced over the
Speaker 1: last few decades has a shelf life, you know, because
Speaker 1: America as a country, I mean, you don't have to
Speaker 1: look very far even now, christ within the last few
Speaker 1: weeks that things can get gnarly pretty quick, and there's
Speaker 1: a lot of other places on the planet that you
Speaker 1: know that have truly brutal dictatorships that you know, I've
Speaker 1: gone and fought against and seeing when when it's true
Speaker 1: evil that's in power and they decide, you know what,
Speaker 1: we're going to stay in power and we're going to
Speaker 1: keep things the way they are. You know that there's
Speaker 1: a there's an element of your society that has to
Speaker 1: rise to a certain occasion. And we can only soften
Speaker 1: ourselves so much for so long before somebody is going
Speaker 1: to say, now we're going to own them, and they will,
Speaker 1: whether it's China, Russia, a combination of several other countries.
Speaker 1: Who knows that it could be a complete self destruction
Speaker 1: within our own way of life looking at the way
Speaker 1: things have been going. Uh, you know, but again, the
Speaker 1: rest of the world and human beings are opportunists, opportunistic
Speaker 1: in nature. You know, a lot of you know, other
Speaker 1: nations are very vulture like in the way that they
Speaker 1: view things and are just waiting for the right opportunity
Speaker 1: to say, you know, we're going to take everything that
Speaker 1: we want from there. And people that are so naive
Speaker 1: and head in the sand to think that that can't
Speaker 1: happen like it's happening all over the world. It always
Speaker 1: has and it always will. You know, violence and you know,
Speaker 1: physical altercation is truly the gold standard. At at some
Speaker 1: point it will come to that. It's coming to that.
Speaker 1: You see it in Seattle as an example. You know this,
Speaker 1: you know Chas and now Chop and whatever. Is that
Speaker 1: the fact that we have a society where the police
Speaker 1: is saying, yeah, we're just not going to do anything
Speaker 1: about that. I mean, that's that's kind of the start
Speaker 1: of the dominoes falling, in my opinion, and that if
Speaker 1: a society is willing to just let people take the
Speaker 1: country over that way, Like, look what's happened there, that's
Speaker 1: a microcosm of what the entire country will be if
Speaker 1: it continues to go down the road that it's been
Speaker 1: going down. Is that a group of people is going
Speaker 1: to realize we can do whatever we want, you know,
Speaker 1: and then they're going to go do whatever they want
Speaker 1: and now you're you know, all of your rights and
Speaker 1: don't say this word and stop bowling. All that ship
Speaker 1: is going to go right out the window, and you're
Speaker 1: gonna have groups of people doing exactly what they're doing
Speaker 1: in Chop, which is killing each other and running a
Speaker 1: brutal dictatorship and having you know, guns and walls and
Speaker 1: you know their own secret uh, you know police or
Speaker 1: enforcers that are running around, you know, doing what they want,
Speaker 1: and it'll turn into you know, a brutal regime type
Speaker 1: of environment if nobody decides, you know what, we can't
Speaker 1: let this go on any longer. That's that's unfortunately we're
Speaker 1: going down. So good man, so good. And you have
Speaker 1: probably had the gift. You don't look at it as
Speaker 1: a gift. You didn't then, but I'm assuming you have
Speaker 1: looked in the eyes of someone that's that told you
Speaker 1: through the eyes, I want to own you without you,
Speaker 1: without it, and most people haven't. Most people haven't seen
Speaker 1: that staring them back in the face. Absolutely, And I
Speaker 1: wonder if that would change people's opinions. Yeah, if they
Speaker 1: had that, that that gift that you've had. I think
Speaker 1: that by itself, without the context of the greater gravity
Speaker 1: or you know, heaviness of what's going on around you,
Speaker 1: I don't think would, but for sure it would, it
Speaker 1: would help, It would prove beneficial. But I think, you know,
Speaker 1: until you've seen I think the real brutal violence and
Speaker 1: anger that exists in some people towards you, irrespective of
Speaker 1: what you try to convince them otherwise, or if you're
Speaker 1: willing to negotiate or give ground, compromise, whatever is that,
Speaker 1: there are certain people that there is nothing you can
Speaker 1: do or say that's going to change their mind that
Speaker 1: they want to, you know, remove your life and existence
Speaker 1: from the planet, whether it's you as an individual, you
Speaker 1: as a as a society, as a nation, as a state,
Speaker 1: whatever you know, and until you've seen that, it's impossible
Speaker 1: to realize it. And it's also unfair and unrealistic for
Speaker 1: those that have experienced that to expect people to understand
Speaker 1: what that's like, because they're just not going to no
Speaker 1: different than you know, a child that's never been out
Speaker 1: of Iowa, you know, that spent his entire life in
Speaker 1: a in a small podunk town in Iowa, and it's
Speaker 1: like trying to expect him to understand what being street
Speaker 1: smart in Harlem is like, Like, he's just not going
Speaker 1: to know. And if he goes there, he's he's going
Speaker 1: to get he's going to get owned because he just
Speaker 1: doesn't know any better, you know, And unfortunately we've been
Speaker 1: riding off of the coattails of the greatest generation in
Speaker 1: World War Two, and they did, you know, springboarding off
Speaker 1: of the great Depression, surviving that overcoming World War Two.
Speaker 1: And then you know that that shelf life of success
Speaker 1: is starting to expire from from what I see. And
Speaker 1: you can only ride the wave of a generation who's
Speaker 1: willing to walk the walk for so long before you've
Speaker 1: got to answer that that call to and and you
Speaker 1: know there still are people that do it, but there's
Speaker 1: not enough. There's people they're willing to just lay it,
Speaker 1: lay it down. I I one a preference. I don't
Speaker 1: even want to come close to match anything you've ever done.
Speaker 1: But the tiny, tiny, minuscule story I could tell you
Speaker 1: is that, you know, one of our entertainment towards in Iraq,
Speaker 1: we were playing a concert and suddenly in the middle
Speaker 1: of the concert, there was incoming because as we heard
Speaker 1: the music cued some bad guys and as we as
Speaker 1: we got into the bunker, I thought, for the first
Speaker 1: time ever, I thought, somebody's trying to kill me because
Speaker 1: they hate me because of who I am, because of
Speaker 1: my culture, and that I dwelled on that thought. That
Speaker 1: was the weirdest feeling to know that someone hates you
Speaker 1: and they've never even met you. Yeah. Well, and to me,
Speaker 1: that that kind of I think exemplifies you know, that
Speaker 1: context that I was talking about is that it's one
Speaker 1: thing for somebody to look at you and you can tell,
Speaker 1: especially if you know all of the other information surrounding
Speaker 1: supports the fact that they're actively trying to take your life.
Speaker 1: But that that changes everybody, you know, for sure. I
Speaker 1: was very different from the first time I went overseas
Speaker 1: and faced you know, other human beings that you know,
Speaker 1: and being in a in an area where you know
Speaker 1: the majority of the population is actively trying to take
Speaker 1: your life. When you're in that environment and you know
Speaker 1: bullets are flying by your head and you're in a
Speaker 1: helicopter that almost gets shot down, and you know you're
Speaker 1: going through areas that you get ambushed and somehow make
Speaker 1: it out alive at one hundred percent, changes that the
Speaker 1: same way it did to you And to me. You
Speaker 1: don't have to be a professional soldier or a combat
Speaker 1: veteran to experience that. I mean, people experience it on
Speaker 1: the street. You know. Obviously it's it's different circumstances, but
Speaker 1: that principle is the exact same you know, once you've
Speaker 1: seen that, it it changes people for sure. We've talked
Speaker 1: another thirty minutes. Can take a quick break, be right back.
Speaker 1: Our granddads were both cooks in the navy in World
Speaker 1: War Two, no doubt. And that's and I heard you
Speaker 1: say that, and then you you also said the same thing.
Speaker 1: I thought that a cook is not what you think
Speaker 1: it was when you're on a ship and uh in
Speaker 1: World War two, because my granddad told me stories of
Speaker 1: he was in the Pacific. I believe your your granddad
Speaker 1: was on the other side and in the Mediterranean. And
Speaker 1: my granddad had told me stories of kamon causes coming
Speaker 1: in and taking out the gunner. So he's now he's in.
Speaker 1: Now he's sitting in the turret, you know. And it's
Speaker 1: it's a You're right when you said it's the greatest generation.
Speaker 1: And they did what they did because they had they
Speaker 1: had no other choice. Yeah, you know, to me, it's
Speaker 1: it's interesting. I was listening to your last guest. You
Speaker 1: guys talking about you know, not having a plan B.
Speaker 1: That's where we were as an entire society, you know
Speaker 1: at that point, is that is there there wasn't a
Speaker 1: well if we don't do this. It's no, we have
Speaker 1: to go do this or or the world will cease
Speaker 1: to exist as we know it. You know that literally
Speaker 1: you hear existential threat gets thrown around, you know, constantly
Speaker 1: nowadays and overused. But but it truly was that back then.
Speaker 1: And you know, to me, what's interesting is the entire nation,
Speaker 1: you know, banded together and everybody you know, had had
Speaker 1: that collective mentality of you know, we're all going to
Speaker 1: do what we can to the best of our ability
Speaker 1: to support you know, the mission, and the mission was
Speaker 1: to was to go defeat Japan and Germany, you know,
Speaker 1: or the access powers at least, and you know, for
Speaker 1: for them to be able to accomplish that and go
Speaker 1: over there, you know, we even though you know, combat
Speaker 1: deployments are they're tough, they're stressful in their own right.
Speaker 1: It's it's a little bit of apples to oranges to
Speaker 1: compare you know, wars in Afghanistan and interact compared to
Speaker 1: World War Two. However, you know, we at least get
Speaker 1: a rotational break, right. Granted, some guys are going for
Speaker 1: thirteen fifteen months at a stretch, but they still get
Speaker 1: to come home. I mean, some of those guys went
Speaker 1: over there for four years straight, right, you know, and
Speaker 1: there wasn't satellite phones, there wasn't internet that you know,
Speaker 1: they got a handwritten letter out you know once in
Speaker 1: a great while, or got something when they could or whatever.
Speaker 1: But you know, they basically went over there saying we'll
Speaker 1: come home when the job is done, you know. And
Speaker 1: that's hard to even wrap your mind around, but I
Speaker 1: think very similar to the mentality that you guys are
Speaker 1: talking about. Without that mentality, you're you're not going to
Speaker 1: be successful. You know if if you go over there
Speaker 1: and you know you can retreat. I mean it's the
Speaker 1: Viking adage of burn your boats, right, yeah, is that
Speaker 1: you know, when you get over there, you know us
Speaker 1: us sailing back home isn't an option. So we're going
Speaker 1: to take over your entire entire country. Is is kind
Speaker 1: of how you have to look at it that way.
Speaker 1: And you know, there was I think a certain innocence
Speaker 1: in naivete that existed between and some could argue that
Speaker 1: whether or not it's good or bad, but of kind
Speaker 1: of state run media doing maybe a little better job
Speaker 1: of protecting the country from some of the you know,
Speaker 1: the the realistic truths of combat and you know, crossing
Speaker 1: over into into Vietnam, where I think America really kind
Speaker 1: of lost its its innocence as it relates to its
Speaker 1: understanding of what war is really like. You know, again,
Speaker 1: you could argue whether it's good and bad. I think
Speaker 1: there's there's pros and cons to both. But but back
Speaker 1: then when there was there was still kind of that
Speaker 1: you know, hey, this is this is what we have
Speaker 1: to do, and everybody was behind it, and it seemed like,
Speaker 1: again neither of us were around then, but it seemed
Speaker 1: like much simpler times back then, where it's a lot
Speaker 1: easier to just unite everybody and right, you know, there's
Speaker 1: a common enemy and there wasn't all this division and
Speaker 1: infighting and and you know, now I feel like, you know,
Speaker 1: we're getting ready to repeat the Civil War almost, you know,
Speaker 1: and that there there's you know a lot of debate.
Speaker 1: And one of the questions you hear, you know, in
Speaker 1: reference to World War two is, you know, in terms
Speaker 1: of Nazism, is how did that happen? You know, most
Speaker 1: people like, how could a country have ever, you know,
Speaker 1: gotten to a point where they're willing to do that
Speaker 1: to another group of people? And I see a lot
Speaker 1: of scary and stark parallels to to what you know
Speaker 1: happened back then versus what happens now, and that you've
Speaker 1: got a significant portion of our population that that is okay,
Speaker 1: you know, with with the opposing side being brutalized and
Speaker 1: even celebrating it, you know, because they disagree with them politically,
Speaker 1: And to me, that's that's poisonous. It's dangerous, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: and you get to the point where where you you
Speaker 1: lack empathy for for people that oppose you politically, to
Speaker 1: the point where where you're okay with their rights being
Speaker 1: taken away, with them being you know, attacked on the
Speaker 1: street because they, you know, are wearing shirts or hats
Speaker 1: of of whatever their their political party is. And to me, like,
Speaker 1: that's a slippery slope if I've ever seen one, and
Speaker 1: that you know that that's not not too many steps further.
Speaker 1: And now you've got internment camps and concentration camps and
Speaker 1: and things like that. I just I worry that that
Speaker 1: we've kind of numbed ourselves to to a side of
Speaker 1: empathy that human beings should should have more than they do.
Speaker 1: It's a valid worry. My other granddad was in Europe.
Speaker 1: He was flying a B twenty four out of Italy,
Speaker 1: and so I read his flight diary, ever, read every
Speaker 1: every mission many times. And unfortunately, after he died, it
Speaker 1: was the first time I really dove into that. I
Speaker 1: never talked about it when he was around. Uh, but
Speaker 1: but those missions he was so scared, you know, if
Speaker 1: he's going into the oil fields in the Ploeesi or
Speaker 1: or or you know, hidding Munich, and he had fighters
Speaker 1: and and and U it was. It was terrible. But
Speaker 1: as scared as he was to go back up again
Speaker 1: on another mission, there wasn't a maybe I'm gonna call
Speaker 1: him sick today. There wasn't another option. And and sometimes
Speaker 1: he just did it because he had to. That was
Speaker 1: all he could do for him and his guys. And
Speaker 1: and the other thing was every once in all he
Speaker 1: would say something like miss the target really bad. Today,
Speaker 1: I feel terrible. We missed the target really bad. And
Speaker 1: I thought, I thought to myself, in those little words,
Speaker 1: what he means is probably got a lot of innocent
Speaker 1: people today. Yeah, And that's just the way it is
Speaker 1: in war. And today that wouldn't fly, for sure. You
Speaker 1: couldn't say that, you couldn't do that. There would be
Speaker 1: an investigation, and that was just the way that it
Speaker 1: was back then, because that's all there was was black
Speaker 1: and white for sure. You know, to me, the where
Speaker 1: I worry I guess about, you know, the the transgressions
Speaker 1: that have taken place or or the regression rather that
Speaker 1: that we've delved into as a society as it relates
Speaker 1: to combats is trying to regulate certain things. You know,
Speaker 1: and I've talked at length, you know a number of
Speaker 1: times about you know, kind of my view on foreign
Speaker 1: policy is really not too dissimilar than that of a
Speaker 1: street fight. Is that you know, let's say you're you're
Speaker 1: walking by a in a staffablishment and there's a brawl
Speaker 1: going on, and you decide to walk in. You going
Speaker 1: in there is going to cause problems. You not going
Speaker 1: in there is gonna is going to cause problems. You know,
Speaker 1: there's nothing that you can do or not do that
Speaker 1: isn't going to piss somebody off and help somebody else out.
Speaker 1: But the problem is is that you know, no different
Speaker 1: that if I you know, get attacked on the street,
Speaker 1: or or somebody you know, tries to break into my house,
Speaker 1: is that you know, that isn't the time for trying
Speaker 1: for me trying to be a gentleman about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, and I I look back at you know,
Speaker 1: as a civil war Lesson learned to come to Sherman,
Speaker 1: you know, of being of the mentality of and you
Speaker 1: know he went to Atlanta and basically burned the entire
Speaker 1: city down. Is that you know at that at that time,
Speaker 1: war is horrible, you know. And and when you tip
Speaker 1: for tat and cat and mouse the way that we've
Speaker 1: done in Iraq and Afghanistan, you get a lot more
Speaker 1: of your own side killed, You get a lot more
Speaker 1: of the other side killed frankly than you know, than
Speaker 1: than what you should or need to And it really
Speaker 1: needs to boil down to is that, you know, you
Speaker 1: used to diplomacy and negotiations and compromise until you know
Speaker 1: all of those options are exhausted. And once it gets
Speaker 1: to that point where war is the only option left
Speaker 1: and you have to employ, you know, your armed forces
Speaker 1: to go fight another country's armed forces, at that point
Speaker 1: you take the gloves off and you do absolutely whatever
Speaker 1: you have to to end it as fast as possible.
Speaker 1: There is there is no good way to fight a
Speaker 1: war other than to make it as brutal and as
Speaker 1: fast and just done as quick as possible. That's the
Speaker 1: only thing that's going to minimize damage as best you can. Like,
Speaker 1: it's going to suck. People are going to lose their life,
Speaker 1: and there's going to be some some innocent people lost.
Speaker 1: But when you look at Afghanistan and you've got, you know,
Speaker 1: going on twenty years of sustained combat there and and
Speaker 1: you know, countless lives on both sides and trillions of dollars,
Speaker 1: and and you look at at what really has been gained,
Speaker 1: and it's it's hard to have a very posi of
Speaker 1: answer with that. Is that, you know, you've got to
Speaker 1: just decide, I'm not going to go to war unless
Speaker 1: it's absolutely necessary. If it is necessary, we're going to
Speaker 1: go over there and we're going to absolutely fucking destroy
Speaker 1: you guys, and that's it, you know, And as soon
Speaker 1: as it's done, we're going to leave. And then you know,
Speaker 1: if you mess with us again, we're coming back over.
Speaker 1: And the same thing. Sherman was considered a hero after
Speaker 1: what he did. Yeah, matter how long you think Sherman
Speaker 1: would have lasted on Twitter these days, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: he'd be in Levenworth put making the big rocks in
Speaker 1: the Little rocks Man. What what to comes to Sherman
Speaker 1: did was so far off the grid from what anyone
Speaker 1: could possibly understand in warfare today. And like you said, though,
Speaker 1: he did what he had to do. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: because it was stalling at that point, you know. And
Speaker 1: and you know, the Civil War lasted five years as
Speaker 1: it is, hundreds of thousands of countrymen were lost on
Speaker 1: both sides. Yeah, and you know, you get to a
Speaker 1: point where it's like, you know, ripping the band aid
Speaker 1: off almost it's just you know, shit or get off
Speaker 1: the pot. Like at some point you've got to just say,
Speaker 1: you know, we're here to accomplish a mission. We're going
Speaker 1: to do whatever it takes to do that. And one
Speaker 1: of our biggest problems as a country is utilizing politicians
Speaker 1: and people that have no experience and frankly no business
Speaker 1: directing or dictating rules of engagement or how to conduct
Speaker 1: yourself as a professional war fighter to people who are
Speaker 1: professional war fighters, you know. And that's one of our
Speaker 1: biggest hamstrings and detriments to our armed forces is outsourcing
Speaker 1: that tactical control and you know, looking to Dad for
Speaker 1: can I do this type of mentality that ultimately just
Speaker 1: ends up causing way more more harm than good because
Speaker 1: those those guys have no business directing troops. They don't
Speaker 1: know what it's like to be there, and frankly they
Speaker 1: they don't really even understand the implicifications foreign policy wise.
Speaker 1: To me, it's no different than calling a plumber. And
Speaker 1: when it gets over here, I don't know shit about plumbing,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to tell him, hey, be careful with
Speaker 1: that pipe. And what I'd really rather you not use
Speaker 1: that ranch. You hired him to do a job, Let
Speaker 1: him do his job. I mean, that's what the military is.
Speaker 1: Our job is to go overseas and break shit, you know,
Speaker 1: And so don't send us over there until you need
Speaker 1: us to do that. But when you need us to
Speaker 1: do that, send us over there and let us do it.
Speaker 1: And if it if it just stays that simple, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I think far less problems would be had.
Speaker 1: I truly believe that some of life's most complex problems
Speaker 1: actually have the simplest solutions to them, and that being
Speaker 1: a classic example of it. We want to we want
Speaker 1: people to go get the termines out of our house,
Speaker 1: but not tear up any of the dry wall. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's there's a million analogies you could use
Speaker 1: it in all other walks of life that you don't
Speaker 1: do it that way. Yeah, right, Like I'm not going
Speaker 1: to argue with a brain surgeon on how he's going
Speaker 1: to take a tumor out of my head. Yep. And
Speaker 1: I don't care if he's a nice guy. I mean,
Speaker 1: while while we're on the topic of, you know, hating
Speaker 1: politicians because they don't like, you know, the way that
Speaker 1: they conduct themselves or what they say. Like, I don't
Speaker 1: give a shit. If he does a good job and
Speaker 1: he does what needs to be done, I like him.
Speaker 1: You know. If I've got I need a full knee
Speaker 1: replacement and the doctor a prick, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: switch doctors because I want to like the guy. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't care if he's good at what he does.
Speaker 1: But you know, unfortunately we have a problem with being
Speaker 1: able to separate those things at a high level nowadays.
Speaker 1: But what does the American flag mean to you? It's
Speaker 1: not a trick question, Yeah, I mean to me, it's
Speaker 1: it's opportunity. Is the first thing that comes to mind,
Speaker 1: really is that, you know, it's a combination of freedom
Speaker 1: and opportunity. Freedom is dicey though, and that when I
Speaker 1: look at our country and I think, you know, what,
Speaker 1: what does a truly free society look like? You know,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty United States of America isn't what I think of.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of things that you're not allowed to do. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: that that it frankly breaks my heart that, you know,
Speaker 1: myself and a lot of you know, countrymen of mine
Speaker 1: have given a fair bit for But I still think
Speaker 1: it's the It's the best and freest country on the planet.
Speaker 1: And I'm very proud to be an American. I'm proud
Speaker 1: to have fought for it. But it does worry me
Speaker 1: how much of our freedoms and liberties have have gone
Speaker 1: to shit, especially here recently with Corona and you know,
Speaker 1: and race protests and riots and things of that nature.
Speaker 1: But so, why is that flag starting to represent racism?
Speaker 1: Well to me, it doesn't represent it to me, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: But why is that getting that perception? So I think,
Speaker 1: you know this, give you we'll go back almost do
Speaker 1: a little history lesson here. I guess I think that
Speaker 1: I love history. I think the nineteen nineties and bear
Speaker 1: with me, it's kind of a long long tail on
Speaker 1: the kite if you will. But the nineties, I think
Speaker 1: when political correctness started to creep into our society and
Speaker 1: as it relates to children, is that you know, like
Speaker 1: with most things, the road to hell is paved with
Speaker 1: good intentions. Is that you know, abusive parents and things
Speaker 1: of that nature. The desire on a society and a
Speaker 1: government to try to mitigate those types of things turned
Speaker 1: into an over correction of of now micromanaging parents and
Speaker 1: school administration's teachers, et cetera. You know, all of the unit,
Speaker 1: the family and community unit that has the ability to
Speaker 1: impact and raise children the way that they need to
Speaker 1: be raised i e. Productively and be an asset not
Speaker 1: a liability was severely diminished. Uh. Again, the intentions were good,
Speaker 1: I think, but when you when you overcorrect to a
Speaker 1: point where now you're the intend the opposite intended consequence
Speaker 1: is taking place. Is that that's when there's a problem.
Speaker 1: Is there wasn't a happy medium approach. And so now
Speaker 1: can't spank your kids. You can't say this to them,
Speaker 1: You can't ground them, You can't take anything away from
Speaker 1: them that you know they can sue you for taking
Speaker 1: the cell phone that you pay for away from them.
Speaker 1: You know it's gotten so ridiculous. Is that now you
Speaker 1: have generations and you know people always ask, you know,
Speaker 1: what's it going to be like when these entitled generation
Speaker 1: whatever grow up? Well, now you're looking at it. Is
Speaker 1: that you've got a society where somebody's bowling me. Let
Speaker 1: me whine about it to somebody and they'll make it stop.
Speaker 1: Somebody picked on me for this, Let me let me
Speaker 1: tell on them. Somebody stole this from me. Let me
Speaker 1: just go report them. Is that, you know, we've micromanaged
Speaker 1: and helicoptered two generations of children to a point at
Speaker 1: which now they are just you know, born and bred
Speaker 1: and conditioned into a victim mentality? Right? Is that is
Speaker 1: that I don't I can't solve any problem on my own. Right,
Speaker 1: Is that I'm going to get in trouble if I
Speaker 1: punch the bully in the face, I'm going to get
Speaker 1: in trouble. If I solve my own problems, I need
Speaker 1: to go to my mom or my teacher or whatever.
Speaker 1: And so you know, to me twenty years later, is
Speaker 1: that now you've got adults who are entitled who every
Speaker 1: time that there's a problem, Is that instead of trying
Speaker 1: to work it out, is that they throw a fucking
Speaker 1: temper tantrum like you're seeing right now. Is that they
Speaker 1: just go demand that well, you know, I want this
Speaker 1: and I need that, and you need to take this down.
Speaker 1: And that offends me, you know, in all of this
Speaker 1: other stuff, because they've been taught that for the last
Speaker 1: twenty years and so you know, now we've created this
Speaker 1: environment where where that thrives. And so to me, it's
Speaker 1: not that now all of the sudden racism exists. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you look at the historical context of our country,
Speaker 1: I mean, as of nineteen sixty five, you know, at
Speaker 1: least on a large scale platform where it was accepted,
Speaker 1: it stopped. You know, Yeah, there were pockets here and
Speaker 1: there that have slowly dwindled over time. And yes, there's
Speaker 1: pockets that still exist. But guess what, there are pockets
Speaker 1: of that that exist in every society. You know. I
Speaker 1: can tell you as somebody who's been to other places,
Speaker 1: you know, and not even just saying against me, I
Speaker 1: mean seeing the way certain groups are treated in other countries,
Speaker 1: and these are their own own citizens, you know, makes
Speaker 1: any of the worst travesty you've ever seen in this
Speaker 1: country look like a fucking picnic. You know, it happens,
Speaker 1: you know, and we still have the freest, most democrat,
Speaker 1: radically balanced, middle of the road society out there. But
Speaker 1: it's unfortunately the entire world, in the entire world, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: it's not getting better. It's getting worse because of this
Speaker 1: this entitled generation that that is now uh you know,
Speaker 1: the participation trophy crew that that thinks that uh, you know,
Speaker 1: they ought to get paid just for for showing up,
Speaker 1: you know. And it's it's gonna come to bite us
Speaker 1: in the ass for sure. Again. It has a shelf life,
Speaker 1: and there will come a time much sooner than later
Speaker 1: that that the country, mother nature, the planet whatever is
Speaker 1: going to self correct in some way, shape or form,
Speaker 1: and it's gonna get back out of out of balance.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm afraid you're right, and it's it's maybe that's
Speaker 1: the wrong choice of words. I'm happy that that I
Speaker 1: believe that you're right. It's going to get worse before
Speaker 1: it gets better, I believe. And it's going to hurt
Speaker 1: to rip that band aid off, But I do think
Speaker 1: that genetics and and mother nature will correct itself, like
Speaker 1: you said, and and Mike, you you're active on social media,
Speaker 1: you have a really good podcast called mic Drop, and
Speaker 1: I've listened to a bunch of those episodes. And what
Speaker 1: you're kind of known for is you speak the truth
Speaker 1: through common sense the way that you see it, and
Speaker 1: you're not filtered by trying to win people over or
Speaker 1: win an election of some kind, or make a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of money, by the way. I hope you do.
Speaker 1: I hope you do make a whole bunch of money.
Speaker 1: But but you're not filtered by any kind of other
Speaker 1: reason besides just seeing things through common sense and and
Speaker 1: and that. So many times I just wish people could
Speaker 1: could put all their their other motives aside and just
Speaker 1: see the basics. Let's just look at things the most
Speaker 1: basic way. And uh. And I'm just so grateful man
Speaker 1: that you that you are a voice out there for
Speaker 1: people to listen to. Well, I appreciate that very much.
Speaker 1: I you know, my my intent was starting it was
Speaker 1: excuse me, essentially, that was that, you know, I'd been
Speaker 1: on a number of other podcasts where it was, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't want to talk about this, or hey,
Speaker 1: my sponsor, you know, wants us to stay away from
Speaker 1: that or whatever, and it's just like you know for me,
Speaker 1: like I don't take the approach of you know, the
Speaker 1: Howard Stern shock jock where it's you know what, what
Speaker 1: can I say that's really going to piss as many
Speaker 1: people off as possible? How can I get a rise
Speaker 1: out of this group? Or you know what can I
Speaker 1: say to get everybody to click on this and watch this?
Speaker 1: Like nothing could be further from from my intent as
Speaker 1: it relates to that. It's just while I don't go
Speaker 1: out of my way to piss anybody off, I just
Speaker 1: I'm not concerned if I do, you know, And so
Speaker 1: Ill said, yeah, So I mean it's pretty liberating that way.
Speaker 1: And again like I'm not going to just run my
Speaker 1: mouth if I don't have anything to back it up,
Speaker 1: Like I'm not just going to say, oh well, you know,
Speaker 1: throw something wild out there and not have you know,
Speaker 1: at least I've spent some time thinking about it, or
Speaker 1: I've talked to X Y and Z. You know, I've
Speaker 1: I've had some remarkable people on the show over the
Speaker 1: last couple of years. And I'm actually working on a book.
Speaker 1: It'll be you know, amusings of Mic Drop type of
Speaker 1: type of politics book where it's it's kind of taking
Speaker 1: a little bit from all the different people that I've
Speaker 1: interviewed and the subject matters of expertise that they play
Speaker 1: a role in, and kind of combining it all into
Speaker 1: a lot of what we're talking about here today and
Speaker 1: just kind of land it all out there of how
Speaker 1: this country has kind of turned into what it has
Speaker 1: and you know, what we need to identify to ultimately
Speaker 1: fix it hopefully. But so and you don't come across
Speaker 1: as an idealist, which at the same time becomes dangerous
Speaker 1: on either side being an idealist meaning I believe this
Speaker 1: no matter what, no one will ever change my mind.
Speaker 1: That's just how I was raised, and that's how I
Speaker 1: believe you're more of a This is the way I
Speaker 1: see it, and this is what I've learned in my
Speaker 1: in my life, and and this is how firmly I
Speaker 1: believe this because of essentially street smarts and it's just
Speaker 1: it's it's really helpful. I also want to say for
Speaker 1: the listeners here, what is what would you tell them
Speaker 1: is the the first place to go if they want
Speaker 1: to find out more about you? Like, what's the what's
Speaker 1: the direction to go to? Sure, so if you just
Speaker 1: go to Mike Ritland dot com, that's kind of the
Speaker 1: hub that has everything else. The shirt that I'm wearing
Speaker 1: teamdog dot Pet. Yeah, that's my online training that you know,
Speaker 1: is primarily what I'm focused on now from a dog standpoint,
Speaker 1: other than the other projects that I've been doing. So
Speaker 1: teamdog dot Pet, Mike Ritland dot com, tricos dot com.
Speaker 1: On social media, it's just at Mritland on Instagram, tricos
Speaker 1: or or Team Doog google searching either one of those last,
Speaker 1: but certainly not least. I had the distinct honor and
Speaker 1: privilege of being a part of founding the Warrior Dog
Speaker 1: Foundation back in twenty ten, where we've at this point
Speaker 1: taken in almost two hundred dogs in the last ten
Speaker 1: years of and these are all dogs, mind you, that
Speaker 1: you know, are ones that they're kind of the hannibal
Speaker 1: lecters of the dog world, you know, they're ones that
Speaker 1: we're going to be euthanized if we didn't take them.
Speaker 1: So they're a handful most of the dogs that I've
Speaker 1: been bit by outside of the equipment, and unexpectedly from
Speaker 1: my standpoint, are most of those dogs. But it's something
Speaker 1: we're very proud and passionate about, and so Warrior Doog
Speaker 1: foundation dot org as where you can check that out
Speaker 1: and hopefully help support the cause, because, like I said,
Speaker 1: we are kind of the last last ditch effort for
Speaker 1: all of the dogs. They'd all have been put to
Speaker 1: sleep if we hadn't taken them. And we take them
Speaker 1: from police departments, military units, federal law enforcement, customs board, patrol,
Speaker 1: you name it. So you know, a lot of dogs
Speaker 1: have come through and we've been able to rehome some
Speaker 1: of them, reunite some of them with their handlers, you know,
Speaker 1: or at a minimum at least give them, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of the out out to pasture, you know, type
Speaker 1: of type of environment and let them just be a
Speaker 1: dog and live out their life the way they need to. Well, brother,
Speaker 1: thank you for your mission. I'm a dog lover myself,
Speaker 1: so thank thank you for that. Thank you for your
Speaker 1: service to this country, thank you for your your brutal
Speaker 1: honesty that we all need to hear. And thank you
Speaker 1: for driving three hours now up here. Man. I appreciate it,
Speaker 1: and I hope that you guys comment below if you
Speaker 1: want to see more. Mike and I hope that we
Speaker 1: get to do this many many more times over the years.
Speaker 1: My pleasure. Thanks for having me. I'm stoked to see
Speaker 1: you start a podcast. It's allright, heck yeah, brother, Appreciate you,
Speaker 1: all right, See you guys,