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Speaker 1: Ah beat Force. If it doesn't work, you're just not

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Speaker 1: using enough. You're listening to Software a Gradio, Special Operations,

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Speaker 1: military news and straight talk with the guys and the

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Speaker 1: community softwarep Radio, on Time on Target. Really enjoyed putting

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Speaker 1: together that best of in the last episode and by

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Speaker 1: the way up you guys are enjoying the new year.

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Speaker 1: And uh yeah, it was good. I mean I put

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Speaker 1: on there, Dan Crenshaw, Andrew, will cal Ed, Derek and

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Speaker 1: uh now trying to remember all five but finding Mike,

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Speaker 1: finding Pat McNamara, Yes, and Pat McNamara the one that

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Speaker 1: you were on with. Cool. So those were our top

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Speaker 1: five of the year, out of the top ten most

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Speaker 1: listened to. I showed five out of those, and um yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean it's getting a great response. I actually reminded me.

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Speaker 1: I emailed Dan Crenshaw, who I'm sure it's pretty busy

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Speaker 1: being sworn into Congress today, But I was like, you know,

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Speaker 1: I doubt get back to anytime soon. It'd be great

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Speaker 1: if he does, but I would love to do a

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Speaker 1: follow up now that he's in can Risk. I mean

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Speaker 1: the time we did that interview, not many people knew

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Speaker 1: the name Dan Crenshaw. Now everyone does. I would love

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Speaker 1: to get Dan Crenshaw and Acasio Cortez in the same room,

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Speaker 1: just for like five minutes, just to see what. I'm

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Speaker 1: sure they're going to be in the same room. I'm

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Speaker 1: sure they're both very nice people and they would be

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Speaker 1: nice to each other. But that would be an interesting conversation. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: at some point they probably will. I mean, Russian congressman,

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Speaker 1: they're gonna end up talking at some point. Um. But

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Speaker 1: it was actually interesting listening back to the interview, which

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Speaker 1: I haven't done because it was a year ago, and

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Speaker 1: you and him especially had a very frank discussion on

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Speaker 1: foreign policy and what he didn't give political answer like

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Speaker 1: he did take a stand, you know. During the clip

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Speaker 1: you asked him about, you know, are we just gonna

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Speaker 1: stay occupied in Iraq or Afghanistan just for the end

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Speaker 1: of time? And he was pretty blunt about it. He

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Speaker 1: was like, yeah, we've been in South Korea, we've been

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Speaker 1: in Japan. I don't see a problem with that. A

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Speaker 1: lot of politicians wouldn't give you a straightforward answer like that,

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Speaker 1: and you guys weren't completely in a line on it,

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Speaker 1: but at least he gave an actual answer. Well, I

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Speaker 1: disagreed with him on quite a few things. As I recall,

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Speaker 1: I'd have to go back and listen to that interview again. Um,

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Speaker 1: but now it was still a good interview. You know.

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Speaker 1: I appreciated him being you know, candid and forth right. UM.

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Speaker 1: Wished him luck in the and in the election. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I thought it was really cool that he was like,

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Speaker 1: you know, I want to find some other way to

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Speaker 1: continue to like serve my country, and maybe this is it.

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Speaker 1: And so you never know how that's gonna go. A

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Speaker 1: lot of veterans, you know, run for office and and

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Speaker 1: don't make it in UM, for all kinds of different reasons.

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Speaker 1: And uh, Dan was successful and for not not only

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Speaker 1: was he successful, but he also became some something of

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Speaker 1: a media media sensation, UM because of Saturday Night Live

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Speaker 1: and everything else. But and I even saw that Candice

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Speaker 1: Owens tweeted out she's like, you know, and whether you

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Speaker 1: like Canadas Owens or not, I mean she's just a

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Speaker 1: prominent voice out there and said, you know, I saw

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Speaker 1: him speak and I believe this is the future for

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Speaker 1: the Republican Party. So like that's pretty high praise. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's interesting. UM, So we Dan Crenshaw getting sworn in

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Speaker 1: Acasio Cortes and what's what's the other one that you

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Speaker 1: like the I I just know it's the Muslim woman

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Speaker 1: with the hi jab, but I actually saw this today.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of making the rounds today. Her tweet, I'll

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Speaker 1: I'll find that I remember her actual name. I know

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Speaker 1: she's in Minneapolis. Uh it is elan Omar. So Omar

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Speaker 1: and Acasio Cortez are trying to stop Nancy Pelosi from

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Speaker 1: the pay as you go scheme um funding the government

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Speaker 1: because they're like, well, if we do that, then we

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Speaker 1: won't have any money to fund our you know, extensive, massive,

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Speaker 1: labyrinthine uh sort of social programs, you know that they want,

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Speaker 1: like some kind of soft communism, So we can't do

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Speaker 1: pays our goals. So they're trying to like stymy Nancy

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Speaker 1: Pelosi on that, and uh, I think that two of

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Speaker 1: them are going to give Pelosi a freaking heart attack

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Speaker 1: the way things are going. So the tweet that's making

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Speaker 1: a rounds today is actually from November of twelve, which

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Speaker 1: she wrote, Israel is hitting the ties of the world.

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Speaker 1: May Allah awaken the people and help them see the

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Speaker 1: evil doings of Israel and hashtag Gaza, hashtag Palestine hashtag Israel. Um.

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Speaker 1: I mean to be honest, like, there's probably plenty of

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Speaker 1: people in Congress who are critical of Israel, but like

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Speaker 1: that tweet from someone who's now a congresswoman, I do

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Speaker 1: find problematic, you know, in all honesty, Like I look

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Speaker 1: at that tweet and it's like, this is this a

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Speaker 1: bin laden tweeting where's the future US congresswoman? You know? Uh?

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Speaker 1: I mean Israel has an extensive propaganda system. Um. You know,

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Speaker 1: I I think I understand, Like if I if I

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Speaker 1: was to interpret a little bit, I think I understand

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Speaker 1: which who's probably trying to say they're But then on

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Speaker 1: the other hand, do you look at that and it's like, well,

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Speaker 1: what's difference between this and you know, like George Sorow's conspiracies? Um?

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Speaker 1: But also you know, I know that they're talking or

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Speaker 1: she's referring to specific things, but think, but this is

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Speaker 1: like making the jump between all right, America has killed

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Speaker 1: on warawakee U s citizen along with his teenage son.

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Speaker 1: You could be critical of that, but that's different than

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Speaker 1: tweeting out something like the US is the great Satan

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Speaker 1: because of it, And to me, this is closer to

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Speaker 1: that second tweet and kind of like evoking God May

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Speaker 1: may Allah awakened the people, Like, what the fuck? Like

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Speaker 1: you're calling on on the man upstairs to awaken the

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Speaker 1: guess it's it's it's very messy onic. And if a

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Speaker 1: Christian evangelical was to send start tweeting things like this,

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Speaker 1: are saying things like this, who was a public official,

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Speaker 1: we'd all kind of be like, what the funk are

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Speaker 1: you doing? Man? Where are you going with this? I

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Speaker 1: could go on about this, but before we get to

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Speaker 1: our guest, Paul de Gelder, I know you had something

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Speaker 1: really critical to talk about that's really within our wheelhouse. Well,

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Speaker 1: I would bring up real quick fast. Uh that. To

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Speaker 1: my surprise, I found myself writing actually too fairly complimentary

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Speaker 1: articles towards President Trump, which I don't do very often. Um,

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Speaker 1: but right about Syria and about his visit to Iraq. Um,

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Speaker 1: And I don't want to maybe not complimenting him, but

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Speaker 1: um pumping the brakes on the criticism a little bit.

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Speaker 1: The way he was being criticized for going to Iraq

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Speaker 1: and having a yes, a stupid silly photo op um,

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Speaker 1: as all of our presidents and many of our politicians do.

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Speaker 1: I just thought the kind of like manufactured outrage around

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Speaker 1: that was just completely asinine and silly and uh. And

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Speaker 1: then the other article I wrote was about Trump's decision

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Speaker 1: to withdraw from Syria and how I think I expressed

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Speaker 1: concerns at the time that you know, we could leave

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Speaker 1: a power vacuum, we could plunge this area back into chaos.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of flushing a lot of our hard work

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Speaker 1: down the toilet. Um. What seems to have happened with

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Speaker 1: him making that announcement was it really um put a

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Speaker 1: boot in the ass of some of the players on

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Speaker 1: the ground to start hashing things out and negotiating some

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Speaker 1: of their differences. And what I'm talking about specifically is

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Speaker 1: to get the ASAD regime in the Syrian democratic forces

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Speaker 1: in North Syria to start talking to one another and

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Speaker 1: negotiate UM that northeastern area or I'm sorry, northwestern part

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Speaker 1: of Syria, UM to negotiate their re entry into the

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Speaker 1: Syrian state. UM, because otherwise, with America no longer there,

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Speaker 1: you know, the Turks are going to invade the place.

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Speaker 1: I mean, that's uh, that's a no brainer. So I

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Speaker 1: think Trump did the right thing. And calling bullshit on

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Speaker 1: his security advisors and the generals and the Pentagon and

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Speaker 1: everyone else and making this decision. You know, these wars

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Speaker 1: can't go on forever. They can't be indefinite um. And

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Speaker 1: the manufactured outrage around that was incredible just to see.

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Speaker 1: You know, Rachel add Out wrote an entire book about,

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Speaker 1: you know, the forever war in American military expansion. Um.

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Speaker 1: You know how powerful presidents have become and deploying military forces.

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Speaker 1: And then when Trump decides to withdraw the troops, she's like,

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Speaker 1: he's trying to wag the dog and manipulate the media cycle.

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Speaker 1: And this is an irresponsible decision. It's it's incredible because

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Speaker 1: there is no anti war movement in America at all anymore.

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Speaker 1: And these people who would describe themselves as anti war

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Speaker 1: progressive liberals have been pushed so far past their own

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Speaker 1: principles and their own values by President Trump. They can't

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Speaker 1: even remember what it was they used to believe. They're

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Speaker 1: simply opposed to anything this guy tries to do, even

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Speaker 1: if it happens to align with their values. And I mean,

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Speaker 1: for me, I'll take a win where I can get

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Speaker 1: a win, right, I'm pragmatic about it. And I think

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Speaker 1: no matter who you are, Um, whatever your political beliefs are,

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Speaker 1: you have to be pragmatic. Um, we we can't have

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Speaker 1: our heads in the class and just hope for utopia

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Speaker 1: to happen. You know, Isn't it still extremely early on

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Speaker 1: though to say that there won't be a power vacuum

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Speaker 1: and a similar situations. It is and and and Trump

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Speaker 1: is also um reversed course a bit and said well, okay,

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Speaker 1: we'll weave troops there another you know, two or three

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Speaker 1: months to hash things out and make sure everything is stable.

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Speaker 1: Um will he end up? I mean, this is this

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Speaker 1: is Donald Trump. He may change his mind again. So

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Speaker 1: now we're just going to stay there. I mean, you

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Speaker 1: just don't know him saying I think I would make

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Speaker 1: a great general. Who knows? Yeah. Yeah. It was one

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Speaker 1: of those typical like Donald Trump, you know, drunk and rambling.

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Speaker 1: You know, your drunk uncle at Thanksgiving even though he's

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Speaker 1: he's never touched alcohol. So I think I think he

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Speaker 1: has touched alcohol. He just stopped drinking after his brother died. Okay,

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Speaker 1: but good for good for good for him. I'm not

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Speaker 1: trying to make fun of him for um, for not

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Speaker 1: drinking or anything like that, but I mean, at least

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Speaker 1: in his adult life. The guy's never drunk. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: he just come. He's like rambling comments. I mean, if

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Speaker 1: it's it sounds like somebody who's drunk, or if they're

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Speaker 1: not drunk has like the you know, dementia or something

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Speaker 1: like like what what are you talking about? Man? But anyway, Um,

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Speaker 1: I was surprised to find myself writing a couple of articles,

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Speaker 1: uh in defense of Donald Trump. I mean, but hey,

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Speaker 1: like I said, I'll take a win where I can

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Speaker 1: take it. You know, Republicans are gonna if they manage

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Speaker 1: a couple of good things during this administration. I'll give

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Speaker 1: him a pat on the back for that. I believe

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Speaker 1: you're truly objective in that you've even tweeted out things

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Speaker 1: for ArtEZ as you said that you'll agree with. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean I think it's a Cortez Alexandria Acasto Cortez.

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Speaker 1: And I apologize if if I I said her name wrong. Um,

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Speaker 1: but yes, some of her tweets I I I get

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Speaker 1: a kick out of because she's kind of like I

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Speaker 1: think we talked about it on the last podcast, where

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Speaker 1: she sees some like corruption you know, going on in

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Speaker 1: government in d C. And she's a she's a young woman.

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Speaker 1: I think she's like twenty seven, and this is probably

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Speaker 1: her first real exposure to politics, and she's probably seeing

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Speaker 1: all this stuff like oh my god, like what the

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Speaker 1: funk is going on here? So she sends out I

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Speaker 1: think that some of these like very candid tweets sometimes

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Speaker 1: about like like she like I've pictured her just being

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Speaker 1: in kind of shock about it, and I'm just like, damn,

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Speaker 1: And I think, you know, Nancy Pelosi must be like

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Speaker 1: about to have a stroke sometimes like seeing some of

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Speaker 1: this stuff. Um, but hey, you know, I think it's

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Speaker 1: great whenever, whenever the stupidity gets exposed, I'm happy to

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Speaker 1: see that. And um, we'll see what the future holds.

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Speaker 1: So we gotta get to Paul the Gelder actually in

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Speaker 1: about five minutes, so I don't know if real quickly

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Speaker 1: we want to cover Navy Seal Edward Gallagher court marshals. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I just wanted to bring this up again, um, because

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Speaker 1: the news is coming out that it is going to

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Speaker 1: court martial. Now. Um, you know, Chief Gallagher is gonna

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Speaker 1: stand trial for murder, um other you know, other war

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Speaker 1: crimes he may have committed. I mean, there's been a

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Speaker 1: lot of allegations coming from the seals he served with. Um,

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Speaker 1: it's not just that, I mean yet it's there. It's

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Speaker 1: the murder of this kid, the alleged murder of this

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Speaker 1: kid who he supposedly stabbed to death. That was he

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Speaker 1: was the kid was a detainee, UM, and then filmed it, etcetera, etcetera. UM.

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Speaker 1: Also allegations that other seals helped cover it up. UM.

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Speaker 1: Allegations that he tried to bribe. I saw one article

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Speaker 1: they said he tried to bribe other seals to get

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Speaker 1: them to be quiet. UM. I mean the story just

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Speaker 1: kind of kind of gets worse and worse. UM. And

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Speaker 1: then I've seen the narrative being put forward by um

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Speaker 1: his family members actually that you know, the other seals

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Speaker 1: that he served with were I mean, I think some

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Speaker 1: of these words may have even been used specifically, that

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Speaker 1: you know, they were just a bunch of pussies. UM.

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Speaker 1: That you know, his teammates were weak. They didn't like

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Speaker 1: him being a strong leader and you know, pushing them

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Speaker 1: in combat things like this, and so they retaliated against

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Speaker 1: to him, and they went to n C I S

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Speaker 1: and like And I guess to this day that this

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Speaker 1: narrative is that they're still lying to n c I

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Speaker 1: S and they're lying under oath um, you know, to

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Speaker 1: UM to the courts, which would do nothing for them.

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Speaker 1: So well, it'll actually put you in fucking jail. I

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Speaker 1: mean it's perjury, no, but I mean it would do

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Speaker 1: nothing for them to you know, if they are making

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Speaker 1: testimony against this guy, like they're not getting anything right, right,

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Speaker 1: and I mean, then you know you're safe. They're lying.

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Speaker 1: The Navy has systematically covered up war crimes quite frankly, UM,

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Speaker 1: the in the seal teams, um, specifically in Seal Team six.

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Speaker 1: So this isn't like where you have a bunch of

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Speaker 1: teammates coming forward and saying, I mean it tells to me.

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Speaker 1: My impression is, uh, things must have been really really bad,

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Speaker 1: like so beyond the pale that that these guys came forward,

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Speaker 1: because this isn't something that happens every day where they

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Speaker 1: start diamond out their own um, you know, their own

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Speaker 1: n C O. So we'll see how this case pans out. UM.

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Speaker 1: I feel like his defense his attorneys are trying to

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Speaker 1: try this in the court of public opinion, UM by

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Speaker 1: saying like, yeah, it's a it's they have not said

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Speaker 1: this these words specifically, but I get the feeling they

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Speaker 1: want to make it like a Fox News court martial

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Speaker 1: and say, you know, it's it's the libs and they're

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Speaker 1: they're persecuting this heroic Navy seal. I feel like I

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Speaker 1: saw from the article there's apparently I don't know it

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Speaker 1: was that article or the older one, there were uh

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Speaker 1: two veteran charities donating to his legal defense. Yeah, there are. Um.

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Speaker 1: So I feel like that's the narrative that is being advanced.

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Speaker 1: And I don't know, maybe maybe they're trying to angle

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Speaker 1: for a presidential pardon, um, because that's the world we

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Speaker 1: live in right now, you know, you know, you get

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Speaker 1: enough traction on Twitter. I mean, it could influence presidential pardons. Um.

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Speaker 1: But anyway, we'll keep an eye on it and see,

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Speaker 1: uh see how the court martial uh pants out. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And by the way, for the listeners, Jack will cover

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Speaker 1: that in his Uh. I was gonna say news round up,

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Speaker 1: but that was b case thing. What what what do

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Speaker 1: we call what you do? I don't know. I'm just

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Speaker 1: doing like a weekly news segment and talking. You know,

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Speaker 1: it's a it's a video segment talking for a couple

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Speaker 1: of minutes about you know, news of the day, and

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Speaker 1: we'll probably talk a little bit about this today. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so if you go on the news rep dot com, um,

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Speaker 1: you should see that up around the time think this

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Speaker 1: goes up and check out that segment. We've been posting

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Speaker 1: it as well on news reps Instagram with that joining

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Speaker 1: us for the first time on the podcast. Paul de Gelder,

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Speaker 1: former Australian Army paratrooper as well as Navy clearance diver,

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Speaker 1: the author of No Time for Fear, How a Shark

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Speaker 1: Attack Survivor Beat the Odds, also host on Shark Week

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Speaker 1: one of the stars of the Australian drama series Fighting Season.

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Speaker 1: And I mean, the the big thing that's a part

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Speaker 1: of your story and that you documented in your book

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Speaker 1: is losing your right hand, part of your right arm

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Speaker 1: as well and right way in a shark attack. And

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Speaker 1: I mean the story behind this is pretty insane. It's

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Speaker 1: not something people think is going to happen when they

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Speaker 1: join the military. I mean, you have to be in

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Speaker 1: fear of your life for combat situations, but a shark attack,

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Speaker 1: I've heard you described as well like you'd be more

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Speaker 1: likely to win the lottery. Yeah, it definitely wasn't something

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Speaker 1: that I was expecting going into just a normal day

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Speaker 1: at work, UM, diving and swimming in Sydney Harbor where

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Speaker 1: we work all of the time. But in saying that, UM,

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Speaker 1: my greatest fear with sharks, and so it's almost like

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Speaker 1: I created my worst nightmare by visualizing it so much. UM.

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Speaker 1: But you know, in the job that we have, you know,

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Speaker 1: whether it's combat or whether it's dealing with explosives or whatever,

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Speaker 1: it is a dangerous realm. And you know you can't

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Speaker 1: get piste off an upset when you choose a dangerous

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Speaker 1: path and then something goes wrong. It's that's down to

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Speaker 1: the universe and destiny or whatever you want to call it.

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Speaker 1: But you know what happens next is what really matters. Well,

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Speaker 1: could you start just backtrack a little bit and tell us, UM,

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Speaker 1: since you know, we cover the military quite a bit

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Speaker 1: and we've had a couple of Australians but not too

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Speaker 1: many on probably not enough on the podcast. I just

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Speaker 1: wonder if you could tell us a little bit about

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Speaker 1: your path into joining the Australian military. UM, in your

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Speaker 1: in your military career. Yeah, who else have you had? Uh,

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Speaker 1: we had a long time ago. We had Um a

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Speaker 1: guy from sasser on Um mayor rob Maylar. Okay, yeah, um,

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Speaker 1: I feel like I've met rob Um, but I can't

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Speaker 1: remember that. I know the name very well. We have

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Speaker 1: some mutual friends. He was a sniper or something. Yeah yeah, um.

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Speaker 1: So I I think, like a lot of people, I

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Speaker 1: joined out of desperation just because I had this overwhelming

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Speaker 1: sense of adventure, but it was misdirected into other areas. Um.

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Speaker 1: You know, my dad was a cop and um we

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Speaker 1: we grew up six people in the family on a

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Speaker 1: policeman's wage and in the eighties, so not a lot

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Speaker 1: of money. Um. You know. I struggled with my dogs

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Speaker 1: any way. I struggled with getting bullied at school because

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Speaker 1: I was short and skinny and had big ears and

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Speaker 1: face full of freckles and um, and then struggling with

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Speaker 1: the whole not being able to keep up with the

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Speaker 1: Jones type scenario. You know, you don't get the cooler sneakers,

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Speaker 1: you've got secondhand bikes, your mum makes you close, um

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Speaker 1: hungry all the time and um. So when I had

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Speaker 1: hit a growth spurt around fifteen, I started doing mutai

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Speaker 1: and I started fighting ba um and that gave me

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Speaker 1: some great confidence, but that was also misdirected. And then

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Speaker 1: I had the confidence to go and start stealing things

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Speaker 1: to get the things that I wanted to keep up

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Speaker 1: with my buddies and get the nice sneakers and the clothes.

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Speaker 1: You know, we go out and shoplift, or we'd break

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Speaker 1: into cars, or we steal cars, or I wanted money.

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Speaker 1: But for some reason, I didn't feel like I wanted

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Speaker 1: to work. You know, I don't understand what goes through

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Speaker 1: your head when you're a teenager. So I started selling weed. Um,

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Speaker 1: and it just it wasn't the path that I dreamed of.

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Speaker 1: I grew up in a small city in Australia, Cold Camera,

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Speaker 1: which is the capital, and just a really boring place

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Speaker 1: back then. Um. But I did grow up watching people

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Speaker 1: like Steve Owen and David atten Bro and I read constantly.

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Speaker 1: I didn't do well in school, but I did read

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Speaker 1: a lot, and so I knew that there was this

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Speaker 1: incredible world out there, and I just had no idea

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Speaker 1: how to be a part of it. How was I

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Speaker 1: going to get out and see it all? Um? And

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Speaker 1: so one night I got jumped by twenty guys just

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Speaker 1: before my twenty one birthday. UM. And at the point

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Speaker 1: I was working behind bars in nightclubs and working as

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Speaker 1: a kitchen hand, and I was selling weed on the

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Speaker 1: side and I got jumped and just really have my

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Speaker 1: ask kicked, and I decided that I couldn't be there anymore.

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Speaker 1: I had to somehow remove myself from this environment, and

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Speaker 1: so I moved away. I drove twelve hours north to

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Speaker 1: a place called Brisbane, and I tried to start again. UM.

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Speaker 1: I was working behind a bar in the strip club

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Speaker 1: and I was making rap music. It's a whole different

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Speaker 1: change of career, UM. And it was cool, fun, you know,

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Speaker 1: it was. It was something different. It was new friends,

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Speaker 1: it was a new city. But at the end of

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Speaker 1: the day, I still I took the problem with me

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Speaker 1: because I was the problem. And so it all fell apart,

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Speaker 1: and just out of sheer desperation, I decided to join

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Speaker 1: the army. And my two younger brothers had already joined.

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Speaker 1: They were in artillery, and they they laughed at me

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Speaker 1: when I said I was, but they did say, you know,

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Speaker 1: if you're going to join, just don't join infantry. Whatever

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Speaker 1: you do, you won't make it. It's too hard. So

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Speaker 1: I joined infantry and showed them the infantry is the army.

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Speaker 1: I mean, come on, yeah, that's exactly that's how I

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Speaker 1: saw it. I never really know about any other jobs

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Speaker 1: in the Army. And I looked at the list of

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Speaker 1: jobs when I was in at the enlistment um what

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Speaker 1: do you call it? A enlistment office, and they had

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Speaker 1: this thing called UM an Assault Pioneer, and I was like,

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Speaker 1: oh my god, it sounds like a fucking stormtrooper. That's

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Speaker 1: what I want to do. That ended up in the infantry,

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Speaker 1: and that gave me a whole new lease on life.

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Speaker 1: It gave me a whole new set of values and

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Speaker 1: really a sense of pride. And I think that's what

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Speaker 1: what helps me the most, wearing that uniform representing my country,

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Speaker 1: feeling like I was was training for and doing something special. UM.

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Speaker 1: That taught me how to push past my boundaries, and

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Speaker 1: it gave me the foundation to build a great life

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Speaker 1: on the military can be a I mean, sometimes we

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Speaker 1: hear about the negative influence of the military. I'm reading

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Speaker 1: this book right now about a about arranger who ended

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Speaker 1: up committing a bank robbery in Tacoma, and and the

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Speaker 1: book is a lot about the from the author's perspective

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Speaker 1: the negative influence about the military. But I mean the

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Speaker 1: military is also a vehicle for a lot of people

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Speaker 1: to uplift themselves, pull themselves out of poverty. Um, as

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Speaker 1: you say, learned some positive values and some self confidence. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it really is what you make of it. Out of

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Speaker 1: my my whole intake, you know, there was I think

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Speaker 1: there was eight of us from my Infantry Training School

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Speaker 1: intake that went to Airborne and of those eight, after

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Speaker 1: two years, I was the only one still there. All

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Speaker 1: the rest of them had mostly gone a well. Um,

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Speaker 1: And I just I couldn't perceive how you would go

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Speaker 1: through boot camp and then Infantry Training School and then

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Speaker 1: you get to the easy part and then you bail out.

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Speaker 1: Like at the battalion, you've got you've got your weekends off,

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Speaker 1: a lot of the time, you're making more money. It's

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Speaker 1: you don't get treated like a bag of dicks like

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Speaker 1: you're doing your training. And I just I couldn't wrap

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Speaker 1: my head around why they would leave now. Um. And

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Speaker 1: like like you said, I've I've had buddies end up

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Speaker 1: in jail, people that have done robberies and start dealing

425
00:24:37,600 --> 00:24:40,840
Speaker 1: drugs and they chose the wrong path. They didn't see

426
00:24:40,880 --> 00:24:42,800
Speaker 1: the benefit in what they were doing. They didn't see

427
00:24:43,240 --> 00:24:47,439
Speaker 1: I guess the pride and the sense of achievement in

428
00:24:47,720 --> 00:24:52,000
Speaker 1: being a representative of the armed forces for your country. Yeah.

429
00:24:52,040 --> 00:24:55,200
Speaker 1: Some of the best advice I ever got before joining

430
00:24:55,240 --> 00:24:57,520
Speaker 1: the military, probably was the best advice, was that you

431
00:24:57,520 --> 00:24:59,400
Speaker 1: get out of it when you put into it. And

432
00:25:00,040 --> 00:25:02,600
Speaker 1: it's absolutely true. Yeah. And it's not to say I

433
00:25:02,680 --> 00:25:05,680
Speaker 1: was a perfect soldier by yeah, but you try every

434
00:25:05,720 --> 00:25:07,679
Speaker 1: day you wake up. I have a I have a

435
00:25:07,800 --> 00:25:12,640
Speaker 1: very poor retention of knowledge. Um, But I know that,

436
00:25:12,840 --> 00:25:15,560
Speaker 1: and so I know how to combat that. So I

437
00:25:15,720 --> 00:25:17,960
Speaker 1: just old school parent fact, you do it over and

438
00:25:17,960 --> 00:25:19,959
Speaker 1: over and over and over and over again. Um. And

439
00:25:20,000 --> 00:25:22,239
Speaker 1: so I would work at that, whereas other people just

440
00:25:22,359 --> 00:25:25,960
Speaker 1: wouldn't they just you know. I would go out and

441
00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:28,800
Speaker 1: get on the on the pits with them every weekend

442
00:25:28,840 --> 00:25:31,679
Speaker 1: and we drink ourselves silly and we do stupid things.

443
00:25:32,080 --> 00:25:33,719
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, I knew that

444
00:25:33,840 --> 00:25:36,399
Speaker 1: I had this very important job, and I would go

445
00:25:36,480 --> 00:25:38,600
Speaker 1: back to it with my mind in the game and

446
00:25:38,640 --> 00:25:41,960
Speaker 1: try really hard and have heroes, you know, just like

447
00:25:42,000 --> 00:25:45,120
Speaker 1: before I joined. And I had heroes like Steve Irwan

448
00:25:45,160 --> 00:25:48,920
Speaker 1: and David and Brown, all those guys um inside the army.

449
00:25:49,240 --> 00:25:51,640
Speaker 1: I was looking for someone else to look up to,

450
00:25:51,680 --> 00:25:55,120
Speaker 1: someone to to follow and emulate. And you start with

451
00:25:55,280 --> 00:25:58,360
Speaker 1: your you know, your section commanders, and then you when

452
00:25:58,400 --> 00:26:01,480
Speaker 1: you start to meet all people in the battalion, you

453
00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:04,000
Speaker 1: learned about the recon guys and the sniper guys, and

454
00:26:04,040 --> 00:26:07,919
Speaker 1: the heavy weapons and the guys that transfer out and

455
00:26:07,960 --> 00:26:10,879
Speaker 1: go to special operations, and you know, those were the

456
00:26:10,920 --> 00:26:14,040
Speaker 1: people that I was trying to look up to and

457
00:26:14,119 --> 00:26:18,320
Speaker 1: emulate so that I would be maybe one day in

458
00:26:18,359 --> 00:26:20,919
Speaker 1: their situation where someone would be looking up to me

459
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:24,119
Speaker 1: and I could set the good example and feel and

460
00:26:24,160 --> 00:26:26,760
Speaker 1: feel good about myself, because I think that was a

461
00:26:26,840 --> 00:26:30,399
Speaker 1: really detracting con factor of who I was before the military.

462
00:26:30,440 --> 00:26:33,440
Speaker 1: I didn't feel good about myself. Is that how you

463
00:26:33,600 --> 00:26:36,399
Speaker 1: ended up becoming a diver? That you saw that as

464
00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:39,520
Speaker 1: the next kind of career progression, the next special skill

465
00:26:39,560 --> 00:26:43,359
Speaker 1: to learn. I kind of was looking for something I

466
00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:47,720
Speaker 1: had just come back about six months previous to that

467
00:26:48,720 --> 00:26:51,800
Speaker 1: from operations with the U N in E. S Team

468
00:26:51,880 --> 00:26:54,600
Speaker 1: or as a peacekeeper. And then I got I was

469
00:26:54,640 --> 00:27:02,520
Speaker 1: away on exercise and the company commander called my CSM

470
00:27:02,520 --> 00:27:06,639
Speaker 1: my company side of major to talk to me, and

471
00:27:06,680 --> 00:27:09,640
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm just I'm just a private soldier

472
00:27:09,640 --> 00:27:11,960
Speaker 1: around exercise and my CSM comes up to me with

473
00:27:12,000 --> 00:27:14,960
Speaker 1: the phone and says, he you go, Dutchy, it's the boss.

474
00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:16,359
Speaker 1: He wants to talk to you. And I'm just thinking

475
00:27:16,480 --> 00:27:18,320
Speaker 1: what the fund did the boss want to talk to

476
00:27:18,359 --> 00:27:22,359
Speaker 1: you about? And he's like he just he simply said, hey, Dutchy,

477
00:27:22,440 --> 00:27:24,280
Speaker 1: do you want to go to the sand pit? And

478
00:27:24,320 --> 00:27:26,879
Speaker 1: I said, fucking a boss. And so I packed up

479
00:27:26,880 --> 00:27:28,360
Speaker 1: all my kids and me and a few other guys

480
00:27:28,440 --> 00:27:30,760
Speaker 1: have been selected to go over to a rap to

481
00:27:30,800 --> 00:27:33,320
Speaker 1: bolster a security detachment. And I was like I was

482
00:27:33,359 --> 00:27:35,639
Speaker 1: al in and I was like, fuck yeah, this is

483
00:27:35,640 --> 00:27:37,760
Speaker 1: the next step. And we went and got all our

484
00:27:37,880 --> 00:27:41,840
Speaker 1: desert cams and our language um cd ROMs and all

485
00:27:41,840 --> 00:27:45,080
Speaker 1: that crazy stuff to get ready and started doing briefings.

486
00:27:45,080 --> 00:27:47,680
Speaker 1: And then four days before we left, they canceled the

487
00:27:47,720 --> 00:27:50,680
Speaker 1: trip on us. The chief of the army decided he

488
00:27:50,720 --> 00:27:52,960
Speaker 1: didn't want to send anyone for less than three months

489
00:27:52,960 --> 00:27:54,720
Speaker 1: and we were going over to help for two and

490
00:27:54,720 --> 00:27:58,520
Speaker 1: a half, and so they candid on us, and my

491
00:27:58,640 --> 00:28:04,119
Speaker 1: motivation just went on the drain um and my work

492
00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:08,480
Speaker 1: ethics started to slip, and I started seeing the flaws

493
00:28:08,760 --> 00:28:13,040
Speaker 1: and the not the benefits of what I was doing.

494
00:28:13,080 --> 00:28:14,720
Speaker 1: I was looking down the barrel of just going back

495
00:28:14,720 --> 00:28:17,960
Speaker 1: to doing the same old exercises every year. You know,

496
00:28:18,040 --> 00:28:20,400
Speaker 1: I know how to do this fucking job inside out,

497
00:28:21,720 --> 00:28:25,800
Speaker 1: and I just didn't want to be one of those dissatisfied,

498
00:28:25,920 --> 00:28:29,760
Speaker 1: crusty old sergeants that that hates life and it's just

499
00:28:29,880 --> 00:28:33,400
Speaker 1: angry all the time. Now, I came into this job

500
00:28:33,480 --> 00:28:35,800
Speaker 1: loving it and enjoying it. I wanted to continue down

501
00:28:35,800 --> 00:28:39,680
Speaker 1: that path. And then we were doing Hewitt training, so

502
00:28:39,800 --> 00:28:42,840
Speaker 1: helicopter underwater escape training, because we're about to go on

503
00:28:42,920 --> 00:28:46,600
Speaker 1: exercise to New Caledonia and do a mock evacuation of

504
00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:49,040
Speaker 1: foreign nationals and so we're going to be flying over

505
00:28:49,040 --> 00:28:52,560
Speaker 1: the ocean, and so to get qualified to do that,

506
00:28:52,600 --> 00:28:55,440
Speaker 1: you have to do that Hewitt course. And one of

507
00:28:55,440 --> 00:28:57,800
Speaker 1: the guys that was a safety diver to make sure

508
00:28:57,840 --> 00:29:00,240
Speaker 1: that army guys didn't drown. It was this thing called

509
00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:03,440
Speaker 1: a clearance stover. And you know, I'd heard about these

510
00:29:03,440 --> 00:29:06,080
Speaker 1: guys that you know, they were up on the echelons

511
00:29:06,120 --> 00:29:08,520
Speaker 1: of the s A s and the commandos, and they

512
00:29:08,600 --> 00:29:11,760
Speaker 1: were the bit special you know. And I started learning

513
00:29:11,800 --> 00:29:13,720
Speaker 1: about it from talking to this safety diver and it

514
00:29:13,800 --> 00:29:18,400
Speaker 1: just sounded amazing. And so that was when I decided.

515
00:29:18,560 --> 00:29:20,600
Speaker 1: I talked to a body of mine and he's like, yeah,

516
00:29:20,640 --> 00:29:22,160
Speaker 1: I'm going to go be a clearan stuff. I'm like,

517
00:29:22,320 --> 00:29:24,000
Speaker 1: I just found out about this ship. I'm gonna come

518
00:29:24,040 --> 00:29:26,240
Speaker 1: deal it with you. And then he pulled out, and

519
00:29:26,240 --> 00:29:30,080
Speaker 1: I was like, fucking, I'm too deep. I'm going. But

520
00:29:31,040 --> 00:29:34,640
Speaker 1: I kept getting sent away on exercises over and I

521
00:29:34,760 --> 00:29:39,200
Speaker 1: just I'm an endurance athlete, like I could run forever,

522
00:29:39,280 --> 00:29:42,160
Speaker 1: I could pack much forever, I could swim forever. So

523
00:29:42,240 --> 00:29:44,880
Speaker 1: I couldn't put on any weight, and I knew that

524
00:29:44,960 --> 00:29:48,080
Speaker 1: I needed to to get strong to be able to

525
00:29:48,160 --> 00:29:50,200
Speaker 1: get past this course. You know, it's not it's not

526
00:29:50,320 --> 00:29:55,960
Speaker 1: just solely about endurance. And so I couldn't maintain any

527
00:29:56,000 --> 00:29:57,840
Speaker 1: weight because I couldn't get into the gym. I had

528
00:29:57,920 --> 00:30:00,360
Speaker 1: no time, and so I went to my boss and

529
00:30:00,400 --> 00:30:02,560
Speaker 1: I asked him if I could go down to the

530
00:30:02,600 --> 00:30:05,320
Speaker 1: regimental store, which is where you know, we have people

531
00:30:05,360 --> 00:30:08,080
Speaker 1: that are maybe injured or something. They go down there

532
00:30:08,320 --> 00:30:10,880
Speaker 1: and they sell the guys from the battalion their packs,

533
00:30:10,920 --> 00:30:13,640
Speaker 1: and there there we're being in gloves and all that

534
00:30:13,680 --> 00:30:16,680
Speaker 1: sort of extra stuff, and he wouldn't let me go

535
00:30:16,800 --> 00:30:19,160
Speaker 1: and I couldn't work out why because we really weren't

536
00:30:19,160 --> 00:30:22,640
Speaker 1: doing anything that important, and he knew that I really

537
00:30:22,680 --> 00:30:25,600
Speaker 1: really wanted this. I had six months to train, three

538
00:30:25,600 --> 00:30:28,400
Speaker 1: months to train, and he said, look, I'll let you

539
00:30:28,440 --> 00:30:31,720
Speaker 1: go on one condition. If you stay in the company

540
00:30:31,880 --> 00:30:35,720
Speaker 1: and you help us win the athletics Carnival, the cross

541
00:30:35,760 --> 00:30:38,760
Speaker 1: country Carnival, and the Suiting Cannibal, I'd let you go

542
00:30:38,840 --> 00:30:41,920
Speaker 1: to the right as I did. I agree to it,

543
00:30:41,960 --> 00:30:46,480
Speaker 1: and we won all three trophies. Not not saying that

544
00:30:46,520 --> 00:30:49,760
Speaker 1: I was like I was the defining factor by any means,

545
00:30:49,800 --> 00:30:52,280
Speaker 1: but I did play a part, and so let me

546
00:30:52,320 --> 00:30:53,960
Speaker 1: go down there. And that's when I started training my

547
00:30:54,000 --> 00:30:56,960
Speaker 1: ass off. And it was lucky I did, because I

548
00:30:57,240 --> 00:31:01,400
Speaker 1: didn't really know what I was headed for. I'd heard

549
00:31:01,480 --> 00:31:06,520
Speaker 1: rumors and it was pretty terrifying, but I hadn't know

550
00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:09,560
Speaker 1: it was way beyond what I thought it was. It

551
00:31:09,600 --> 00:31:11,959
Speaker 1: was way harder. Well, what was dive school? Like? What

552
00:31:11,960 --> 00:31:13,760
Speaker 1: did they do to you guys? I mean, the ore

553
00:31:13,840 --> 00:31:16,840
Speaker 1: ours is known. We have a couple of different dive schools.

554
00:31:17,120 --> 00:31:19,800
Speaker 1: As special Forces has one, the seals have one, and

555
00:31:19,800 --> 00:31:23,000
Speaker 1: then there's more conventional navy divers, but I mean they're

556
00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:24,880
Speaker 1: all kind of regarded as a as a big kick

557
00:31:24,920 --> 00:31:29,560
Speaker 1: in the balls. Yeah yeah, well ours is ours. It

558
00:31:29,600 --> 00:31:31,160
Speaker 1: a little different to everything that you have in the

559
00:31:31,240 --> 00:31:34,600
Speaker 1: US because we just don't have the personnel to specialize

560
00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:38,280
Speaker 1: and so we have to do everything. But the first

561
00:31:38,320 --> 00:31:40,840
Speaker 1: course is ships divers, where you learned to scuba dive

562
00:31:41,240 --> 00:31:44,280
Speaker 1: and you know, do whole searches for limpid minds and

563
00:31:44,320 --> 00:31:49,320
Speaker 1: do seabed searchers. Um. And that was pretty tough because

564
00:31:49,440 --> 00:31:53,880
Speaker 1: I was learning to be in the Navy and also

565
00:31:54,240 --> 00:31:56,480
Speaker 1: to dive, which I've never done before in my life.

566
00:31:56,800 --> 00:31:59,240
Speaker 1: And then the science is behind diving as well, and

567
00:31:59,280 --> 00:32:01,240
Speaker 1: that I think that was probably the hardest bit of

568
00:32:01,280 --> 00:32:05,600
Speaker 1: that section, retaining the knowledge of all the diving sciences. Um.

569
00:32:05,800 --> 00:32:08,760
Speaker 1: There's a people a lot like out of men of honor,

570
00:32:08,880 --> 00:32:12,080
Speaker 1: Cuba Gooding Junior is just like flunking and flunking and flunking.

571
00:32:12,960 --> 00:32:14,880
Speaker 1: And so I struggled with that, but I passed. I

572
00:32:14,920 --> 00:32:18,080
Speaker 1: got through it by the skin of my dick. And

573
00:32:19,040 --> 00:32:21,160
Speaker 1: that was when you go onto what was called seed

574
00:32:21,160 --> 00:32:23,960
Speaker 1: at at the time, clearanced diver acceptance testing, and that

575
00:32:24,040 --> 00:32:30,480
Speaker 1: was ten days of just emotional, mental and physical anguish.

576
00:32:30,880 --> 00:32:33,880
Speaker 1: You know, your days starts at two am, UM, and

577
00:32:34,080 --> 00:32:37,240
Speaker 1: that you get in there the very first day and

578
00:32:37,320 --> 00:32:41,320
Speaker 1: you do this four hour run and it's Indian file

579
00:32:41,440 --> 00:32:44,360
Speaker 1: and hill sprints and stair sprints and fireman carries and

580
00:32:44,400 --> 00:32:46,920
Speaker 1: all that good stuff for four hours and you get

581
00:32:46,960 --> 00:32:49,840
Speaker 1: back to the dive school at about seven thirty and

582
00:32:50,040 --> 00:32:52,280
Speaker 1: everyone has chased. We had about thirty six people on

583
00:32:52,800 --> 00:32:57,240
Speaker 1: selection at that first day, UM, and they say they said,

584
00:32:57,400 --> 00:32:59,200
Speaker 1: all right, you've got five minutes to stretch and then

585
00:32:59,200 --> 00:33:02,720
Speaker 1: we're doing it again. And instantly five people just handed

586
00:33:02,760 --> 00:33:05,240
Speaker 1: in there that were you have these flu o vests

587
00:33:05,480 --> 00:33:08,280
Speaker 1: neon vests, and instantly four people just handed him in.

588
00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:12,719
Speaker 1: You know, that was day one and then you literally

589
00:33:12,760 --> 00:33:15,160
Speaker 1: go and do it again for another four hours of running,

590
00:33:15,400 --> 00:33:17,720
Speaker 1: and then you know, you get a couple of hours

591
00:33:17,760 --> 00:33:20,880
Speaker 1: sleep and you're swimming across Sydney Harbor for six hours

592
00:33:20,880 --> 00:33:22,600
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night, and then you get

593
00:33:22,640 --> 00:33:24,720
Speaker 1: another couple of hours sleep and it's a half marathon.

594
00:33:24,960 --> 00:33:27,040
Speaker 1: Then it's five hours of pt on the soft sand

595
00:33:27,040 --> 00:33:28,680
Speaker 1: at the beach and it's just on and on and

596
00:33:28,680 --> 00:33:31,000
Speaker 1: on and on and nine nonstuff. So the mind games

597
00:33:31,040 --> 00:33:33,680
Speaker 1: and breath hold and pulling boats through the harbor and

598
00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:37,760
Speaker 1: canoeing and carrying canoes up mountains with three or four

599
00:33:38,720 --> 00:33:42,600
Speaker 1: forty gallon forty gallon water containers in and just pushed

600
00:33:42,600 --> 00:33:48,440
Speaker 1: me beyond anything I thought was achievable from my own body. Um.

601
00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:52,920
Speaker 1: And we ended up with seven guys. Wow. And then

602
00:33:52,960 --> 00:33:55,880
Speaker 1: once you get into the training aspects, um, because you're

603
00:33:55,880 --> 00:33:58,400
Speaker 1: saying you don't have the opportunities to you know, you know,

604
00:33:58,480 --> 00:34:01,120
Speaker 1: just specialize in one thing. So I mean, do you

605
00:34:01,160 --> 00:34:03,720
Speaker 1: do You do the underwater demolition piece, you do the

606
00:34:03,720 --> 00:34:06,560
Speaker 1: saturation diving, and you get a little bit of all

607
00:34:06,600 --> 00:34:08,799
Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, we get a bit of everything. We

608
00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:12,359
Speaker 1: don't do the saturation diving. I think that the straight

609
00:34:12,480 --> 00:34:14,279
Speaker 1: Navy is a little bit scared of that. They don't

610
00:34:14,280 --> 00:34:17,120
Speaker 1: even like us running into real time DECO to be honest,

611
00:34:17,360 --> 00:34:19,200
Speaker 1: if they don't have to. So what we do is

612
00:34:19,200 --> 00:34:23,560
Speaker 1: we do m t O so maritime tactical operations. And

613
00:34:23,680 --> 00:34:26,920
Speaker 1: think this has changed now they've gone into expeditionary forces

614
00:34:27,000 --> 00:34:30,239
Speaker 1: and the format has changed, but it's fundamentally the same job.

615
00:34:31,160 --> 00:34:34,960
Speaker 1: So it's long range reconnaissance swimming on on O two,

616
00:34:35,680 --> 00:34:40,040
Speaker 1: UM do it clearing beaches and beach heads and clearing

617
00:34:40,520 --> 00:34:44,000
Speaker 1: up to two kilometers inland for the ships to come

618
00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:47,560
Speaker 1: in and not hit mines or obstructions and all that

619
00:34:47,600 --> 00:34:50,759
Speaker 1: sort of good stuff. And then it's shallow water mind

620
00:34:50,760 --> 00:34:55,160
Speaker 1: disposal as well on the O two. Then we do

621
00:34:56,160 --> 00:34:59,840
Speaker 1: underwater Battle Damage Repair d R, and that's diving on

622
00:34:59,840 --> 00:35:02,200
Speaker 1: the helmets and the band masks, using the drills and

623
00:35:02,200 --> 00:35:05,600
Speaker 1: the chainsaws, all that underwater, the welding, the ultrathermic broker

624
00:35:05,680 --> 00:35:10,839
Speaker 1: cutting guns, all that good stuff. Then there's MCM mind countermeasures,

625
00:35:10,960 --> 00:35:12,600
Speaker 1: so we'll be diving on what you guys call the

626
00:35:12,920 --> 00:35:17,640
Speaker 1: Mark sixteen's we call will be doing a mixed gas

627
00:35:17,719 --> 00:35:19,920
Speaker 1: deep diving min magnetic to get rid of all the

628
00:35:19,960 --> 00:35:23,920
Speaker 1: minds um blowing place and render safe for it, you know,

629
00:35:24,480 --> 00:35:27,080
Speaker 1: retrieve and take back to shore and take it apart

630
00:35:27,120 --> 00:35:30,040
Speaker 1: so we can study it. Then there's also e O

631
00:35:30,160 --> 00:35:33,680
Speaker 1: D land based e O D we do that too, UM,

632
00:35:33,760 --> 00:35:35,840
Speaker 1: and then you can also go over to the CT

633
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:40,600
Speaker 1: squads and do counter terrorism with the commandos. So it's

634
00:35:40,640 --> 00:35:43,919
Speaker 1: a really multifaceted role and you have to know how

635
00:35:43,960 --> 00:35:46,000
Speaker 1: to be able to do all of it. So that

636
00:35:46,160 --> 00:35:49,960
Speaker 1: you know, maybe there's a guy missing from a tactical

637
00:35:50,000 --> 00:35:52,200
Speaker 1: operations team. You have to be able to come out

638
00:35:52,200 --> 00:35:55,800
Speaker 1: of your job doing battle damage repair and fits straight

639
00:35:55,800 --> 00:35:58,680
Speaker 1: into that role knowing exactly what you're doing that day.

640
00:35:59,200 --> 00:36:01,880
Speaker 1: And so it's it's pretty full on. The learning curve

641
00:36:02,040 --> 00:36:07,399
Speaker 1: is insane, goes for a thirty eight weeks NonStop. So

642
00:36:07,719 --> 00:36:11,360
Speaker 1: but at the same time, it's it's so fulfilling and

643
00:36:11,400 --> 00:36:13,520
Speaker 1: it's so interesting because you never know what you're going

644
00:36:13,560 --> 00:36:16,360
Speaker 1: to be doing day to day. One day, you you know,

645
00:36:16,400 --> 00:36:19,560
Speaker 1: you're jumping out of a helicopter doing an aerial my disposal.

646
00:36:19,880 --> 00:36:23,520
Speaker 1: The next day you might be, I don't know, going

647
00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:28,960
Speaker 1: to Malaysia to do a multinational um mind clearance of

648
00:36:29,000 --> 00:36:32,520
Speaker 1: a bay in a volcanic area. It's just the job

649
00:36:32,600 --> 00:36:34,920
Speaker 1: is really great. You're really good, So you got your

650
00:36:35,800 --> 00:36:37,759
Speaker 1: would I met a guy yesterday it was like, I'm

651
00:36:37,760 --> 00:36:39,879
Speaker 1: thinking of joining the Navy. What did you do? I said,

652
00:36:39,920 --> 00:36:42,080
Speaker 1: I did this job and he's like, do you like,

653
00:36:42,120 --> 00:36:43,359
Speaker 1: what do you reckon about the rest of the name?

654
00:36:43,400 --> 00:36:48,760
Speaker 1: I reckon ship, I said, not want to be anything

655
00:36:48,800 --> 00:36:50,799
Speaker 1: in the Navy except the diver. It sounds like you

656
00:36:50,880 --> 00:36:53,560
Speaker 1: got your wish you know when you left the infantry

657
00:36:53,680 --> 00:36:57,279
Speaker 1: of not doing the same training exercises over and over

658
00:36:57,320 --> 00:36:59,839
Speaker 1: and over again. And it was really good training being

659
00:36:59,840 --> 00:37:01,919
Speaker 1: in the Army and doing all that pack marching as well,

660
00:37:01,960 --> 00:37:05,560
Speaker 1: because when I went on selection course, I didn't get

661
00:37:05,560 --> 00:37:09,720
Speaker 1: a single blister, not one. I turned up to Pete

662
00:37:09,840 --> 00:37:12,759
Speaker 1: and an old beat up pair of basketball shoes, pack

663
00:37:12,840 --> 00:37:14,600
Speaker 1: march for every with everyone, and at the end of

664
00:37:14,600 --> 00:37:17,000
Speaker 1: the day that you know, one guy was taping up

665
00:37:17,040 --> 00:37:21,080
Speaker 1: his whole ball bag with strapping. Take individual toes. I

666
00:37:21,160 --> 00:37:23,040
Speaker 1: get in their room, they hated me. I get in

667
00:37:23,040 --> 00:37:24,640
Speaker 1: the room, take my boots off and go to sleep.

668
00:37:27,880 --> 00:37:30,120
Speaker 1: So then what was it like when you got to

669
00:37:30,160 --> 00:37:32,960
Speaker 1: your unit and uh, I mean did you get deployed

670
00:37:33,000 --> 00:37:36,680
Speaker 1: overseas again? Yeah? That was the thing. You remember how

671
00:37:36,719 --> 00:37:38,319
Speaker 1: I said, you know, I got a little piste off

672
00:37:38,320 --> 00:37:41,239
Speaker 1: that I didn't get deployed. I thought I was going

673
00:37:41,280 --> 00:37:44,719
Speaker 1: to the clearance divers where I get deployed operationally all

674
00:37:44,760 --> 00:37:48,520
Speaker 1: around the world diving and doing whatever. I didn't go anywhere.

675
00:37:48,960 --> 00:37:50,640
Speaker 1: My buddies from the Army went to a rack and

676
00:37:50,640 --> 00:37:54,799
Speaker 1: Afghanistan like three or four times. So it was it

677
00:37:54,840 --> 00:37:56,080
Speaker 1: was a bit of kicking the balls but at the

678
00:37:56,120 --> 00:37:58,520
Speaker 1: same time, I loved my job. I loved what we did.

679
00:37:58,600 --> 00:38:01,400
Speaker 1: We did exercise is all over the place, and you

680
00:38:01,400 --> 00:38:04,320
Speaker 1: know we did we did rim Pack, and we did Basuma, Lima,

681
00:38:04,360 --> 00:38:07,720
Speaker 1: and we go to Malaysia and Singapore and Hawaii and

682
00:38:08,200 --> 00:38:12,080
Speaker 1: really cool places, work with really amazing guys. But it's

683
00:38:12,920 --> 00:38:14,360
Speaker 1: I think it was more along the lines of the

684
00:38:14,440 --> 00:38:17,799
Speaker 1: Navy just didn't really know how to deploy us that well.

685
00:38:18,239 --> 00:38:20,640
Speaker 1: They didn't fully the big brass at the top just

686
00:38:20,680 --> 00:38:24,680
Speaker 1: didn't fully comprehend the capabilities of the clearance divers, and

687
00:38:24,760 --> 00:38:28,160
Speaker 1: so you'd have you'd have guys getting sent to a

688
00:38:28,239 --> 00:38:32,080
Speaker 1: rack in Afghanistan, but it would be one officer UM,

689
00:38:32,239 --> 00:38:35,440
Speaker 1: one Chief O p O, and one leading segment and

690
00:38:35,480 --> 00:38:37,640
Speaker 1: that that would be the e O D Detachment And

691
00:38:37,680 --> 00:38:40,560
Speaker 1: that's all they had sent and then once they came

692
00:38:40,600 --> 00:38:42,879
Speaker 1: home from six or eight months, then another three would

693
00:38:42,880 --> 00:38:45,360
Speaker 1: go over And it was so the rotation was so

694
00:38:45,440 --> 00:38:48,719
Speaker 1: slow you just couldn't get over there, and everyone wanted

695
00:38:48,760 --> 00:38:51,840
Speaker 1: to go, you just you couldn't get a trip. So

696
00:38:52,040 --> 00:38:53,839
Speaker 1: the s A s and the commandos are going back

697
00:38:53,880 --> 00:38:57,880
Speaker 1: to back to back when the when the clearance divers

698
00:38:57,960 --> 00:39:00,359
Speaker 1: go and they feel that ct roll your talk about

699
00:39:00,360 --> 00:39:03,359
Speaker 1: with the commandos, are they kind of filling that capability

700
00:39:03,480 --> 00:39:07,920
Speaker 1: that we typically associate with Navy seals. No, it's domestic,

701
00:39:08,719 --> 00:39:15,160
Speaker 1: it's domestic counter terrorism. So the Tactical Assault Group exactly. Yeah,

702
00:39:15,239 --> 00:39:18,240
Speaker 1: TAG TAG on the East Coast. So generally speaking, before

703
00:39:18,280 --> 00:39:20,600
Speaker 1: they were created, the s a s used to do

704
00:39:20,640 --> 00:39:23,839
Speaker 1: that role. They were the long range reconnaissance guys and

705
00:39:23,880 --> 00:39:28,080
Speaker 1: also the counter terrorism guys as well. Then the commandos

706
00:39:28,800 --> 00:39:33,080
Speaker 1: really started coming into play around around I think it

707
00:39:33,200 --> 00:39:37,239
Speaker 1: was because four commandos were to our two commandos were

708
00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:40,440
Speaker 1: four r fourth Battalion rules trained regiment, and that was

709
00:39:40,480 --> 00:39:43,200
Speaker 1: where we used to send our rejects when I first

710
00:39:43,200 --> 00:39:46,560
Speaker 1: got to the Airborne Battalion. And then a lot of

711
00:39:46,600 --> 00:39:49,240
Speaker 1: money started getting pumped into them and pumped into their training,

712
00:39:49,239 --> 00:39:52,319
Speaker 1: and they just became this whole other beast, and they're

713
00:39:52,360 --> 00:39:55,520
Speaker 1: like the you know, the they're more like the seals.

714
00:39:55,840 --> 00:39:59,239
Speaker 1: You know that they left grond and blow everything up

715
00:39:59,280 --> 00:40:03,279
Speaker 1: and then fly out of and so your guys would

716
00:40:03,280 --> 00:40:08,600
Speaker 1: augment them and do the underwater aspect. Yeah, exactly, because

717
00:40:08,600 --> 00:40:11,040
Speaker 1: the Army people don't like to swim, so that they

718
00:40:11,040 --> 00:40:14,360
Speaker 1: would have the gold Water Platoon where the clearance divers

719
00:40:14,360 --> 00:40:16,399
Speaker 1: would go in and swim in, so the army guys

720
00:40:16,400 --> 00:40:19,640
Speaker 1: can helicopter in. So then we got to get into

721
00:40:20,800 --> 00:40:22,440
Speaker 1: what did you know about sharks at this point in

722
00:40:22,440 --> 00:40:25,640
Speaker 1: time in your training? I mean, what was this something

723
00:40:25,719 --> 00:40:27,640
Speaker 1: that you that you were You said you had a

724
00:40:27,640 --> 00:40:31,480
Speaker 1: big fear of sharks. Yeah, man, I thought I had

725
00:40:31,600 --> 00:40:33,280
Speaker 1: no not I was just like everyone else. I didn't

726
00:40:33,320 --> 00:40:35,759
Speaker 1: really have a knowledge of the role they played in

727
00:40:35,800 --> 00:40:37,279
Speaker 1: the ocean. I just thought, if we kill them all,

728
00:40:37,280 --> 00:40:39,839
Speaker 1: then we don't have to worry about then I can

729
00:40:39,840 --> 00:40:42,439
Speaker 1: go surfing and diving. You know, we're diving in water

730
00:40:42,480 --> 00:40:44,040
Speaker 1: where you can't even see your hand in front of

731
00:40:44,080 --> 00:40:47,960
Speaker 1: your face, trying to put together six five pound bombs

732
00:40:48,360 --> 00:40:51,160
Speaker 1: and you just get bumped by these things and you

733
00:40:51,600 --> 00:40:55,040
Speaker 1: just hope and pray it's not going to buy you. Um.

734
00:40:55,160 --> 00:40:58,439
Speaker 1: So I just thought, wipe him out, welcome. It wasn't

735
00:40:58,520 --> 00:41:01,839
Speaker 1: until later after the shark attack when I, you know,

736
00:41:01,880 --> 00:41:05,520
Speaker 1: I had to really learn about him. Because the shark

737
00:41:05,560 --> 00:41:09,200
Speaker 1: attack was such a huge event in Australia. Everyone knew

738
00:41:09,239 --> 00:41:13,000
Speaker 1: about it. That every time there was another shark interaction

739
00:41:13,040 --> 00:41:15,480
Speaker 1: in Australia that the media would come to me for

740
00:41:15,520 --> 00:41:20,400
Speaker 1: a commum. Yeah, just so just out of the sheer

741
00:41:20,600 --> 00:41:25,160
Speaker 1: desire to not look like a dumbass on television, I

742
00:41:25,239 --> 00:41:27,880
Speaker 1: needed to learn about sharks. And so that's how my

743
00:41:28,000 --> 00:41:31,839
Speaker 1: knowledge started to grow. So what what happened The day

744
00:41:31,840 --> 00:41:36,240
Speaker 1: of the attack, We were doing a kind of terrorism

745
00:41:36,320 --> 00:41:40,840
Speaker 1: trial of some new equipment UMU. The R and D

746
00:41:40,960 --> 00:41:44,640
Speaker 1: Department of the Military wanted to test this unmanned video

747
00:41:44,719 --> 00:41:47,200
Speaker 1: and sonar so they could put this equipment on the

748
00:41:47,200 --> 00:41:49,200
Speaker 1: wharf anywhere they could turn it on and walk away

749
00:41:49,440 --> 00:41:53,799
Speaker 1: and it would the video would automatically track movement in

750
00:41:53,840 --> 00:41:56,640
Speaker 1: the water, and then they'd have sonar as well underneath

751
00:41:56,840 --> 00:42:00,279
Speaker 1: and that would automatically track a subsurface attacks him off.

752
00:42:00,680 --> 00:42:02,879
Speaker 1: Um So it was going to be three phases. We're

753
00:42:02,920 --> 00:42:06,080
Speaker 1: going to be doing a surface swimming scuba and then

754
00:42:06,120 --> 00:42:08,920
Speaker 1: O two to see if this equipment could get us.

755
00:42:09,520 --> 00:42:13,240
Speaker 1: We didn't get to phase two or three. We started

756
00:42:13,239 --> 00:42:15,920
Speaker 1: phase one. We had one of the new guys in

757
00:42:15,960 --> 00:42:18,560
Speaker 1: the water and then after about thirty minutes, I pulled

758
00:42:18,600 --> 00:42:20,160
Speaker 1: him out and I took over and just give him

759
00:42:20,160 --> 00:42:23,360
Speaker 1: a break. And I was swimming on the surface in

760
00:42:23,400 --> 00:42:26,759
Speaker 1: a wetsuit pair of fins, right alongside the Navy base

761
00:42:26,840 --> 00:42:30,360
Speaker 1: in Sydney Harbor. It's called Garden Island, um, so obviously

762
00:42:30,400 --> 00:42:33,600
Speaker 1: a place where we've worked thousands of times over decades.

763
00:42:34,320 --> 00:42:37,120
Speaker 1: And I'm in the water for about four or five

764
00:42:37,200 --> 00:42:40,239
Speaker 1: minutes on the surface, kicking my legs, and I look

765
00:42:40,320 --> 00:42:42,520
Speaker 1: over my shoulder to make sure that I'm still headed

766
00:42:42,600 --> 00:42:44,919
Speaker 1: towards the bow of the warship, and I just get

767
00:42:45,040 --> 00:42:49,400
Speaker 1: a massive whack in my leg um didn't really hurt,

768
00:42:49,560 --> 00:42:51,959
Speaker 1: just know it felt like someone hit me and made

769
00:42:52,080 --> 00:42:54,239
Speaker 1: like the boat ran into me or something. As I

770
00:42:54,280 --> 00:42:57,160
Speaker 1: turned around expecting to see a bit a drift water,

771
00:42:57,280 --> 00:42:59,879
Speaker 1: a boat or some ship, and there's this just mass

772
00:43:00,040 --> 00:43:04,840
Speaker 1: of sharks head staring at me. You know, your worst nightmare,

773
00:43:05,680 --> 00:43:08,200
Speaker 1: And so I didn't know what to do. It was

774
00:43:08,239 --> 00:43:12,520
Speaker 1: just like my mind couldn't perceive what I was seeing

775
00:43:12,600 --> 00:43:15,759
Speaker 1: because I've never seen it before. And so it took

776
00:43:15,760 --> 00:43:18,640
Speaker 1: a second or two and then I thought, I've got

777
00:43:18,680 --> 00:43:21,160
Speaker 1: to get this thing off me. My survival and things

778
00:43:21,200 --> 00:43:22,400
Speaker 1: kicked in and I thought, I've got a jab it

779
00:43:22,480 --> 00:43:24,760
Speaker 1: in the eyeball. That's what you hear on shark jabbitt

780
00:43:24,760 --> 00:43:27,480
Speaker 1: in the eyeball. But it had my hand in its mouth,

781
00:43:27,640 --> 00:43:30,120
Speaker 1: and so I pulled it, and I felt a bit

782
00:43:30,120 --> 00:43:32,439
Speaker 1: of pain and a bit of tearing, and I looked down.

783
00:43:32,480 --> 00:43:35,520
Speaker 1: I could see the teeth pulling the flesh away from

784
00:43:35,520 --> 00:43:38,160
Speaker 1: my arm, and so I thought, okay, left hand, and

785
00:43:38,200 --> 00:43:40,399
Speaker 1: I reached over, but I couldn't reach the eyeball because

786
00:43:40,400 --> 00:43:42,799
Speaker 1: it had me by the back of the leg and

787
00:43:42,920 --> 00:43:45,520
Speaker 1: the hand in the same bite. So I put my

788
00:43:45,560 --> 00:43:47,239
Speaker 1: hand on its nose and I tried to push it

789
00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:50,439
Speaker 1: off that way, but all that did was push the

790
00:43:50,480 --> 00:43:53,120
Speaker 1: teeth of the lower jaw deeper into my leg and

791
00:43:53,200 --> 00:43:55,239
Speaker 1: a little bit of pain off that too. But I

792
00:43:55,239 --> 00:43:57,600
Speaker 1: think at that point my adrenaline and kicked in so

793
00:43:57,719 --> 00:44:00,480
Speaker 1: much that the pain was a little numb, and so

794
00:44:00,640 --> 00:44:03,160
Speaker 1: I tried to punch it in the nose, last ditch

795
00:44:03,200 --> 00:44:04,960
Speaker 1: effort to get it off and punch it in the nose,

796
00:44:05,239 --> 00:44:07,680
Speaker 1: But as soon as my punch was coming in, it

797
00:44:07,760 --> 00:44:13,560
Speaker 1: started to shake me, and the pain was just so

798
00:44:13,760 --> 00:44:17,000
Speaker 1: immense that all the strength went out of me, and

799
00:44:17,040 --> 00:44:20,719
Speaker 1: there was just nothing I could do. Like the bullsharks

800
00:44:20,880 --> 00:44:23,560
Speaker 1: jaws work in unison when they shake their head to

801
00:44:23,760 --> 00:44:28,160
Speaker 1: sore through flesh, and so it was sawing through my

802
00:44:28,320 --> 00:44:31,800
Speaker 1: imagine like a bear trap with thirty six razor blades

803
00:44:31,840 --> 00:44:34,879
Speaker 1: either side. Instead of clamping down, clamps down and then

804
00:44:34,920 --> 00:44:39,080
Speaker 1: it just starts soaring through your flesh. And it's the

805
00:44:39,120 --> 00:44:40,879
Speaker 1: only way I can describe it. It It was like out

806
00:44:40,880 --> 00:44:45,000
Speaker 1: of one of those Saw movies. It was so unbelievably painful.

807
00:44:45,160 --> 00:44:47,680
Speaker 1: There was nothing I could do. The fight went out

808
00:44:47,680 --> 00:44:51,319
Speaker 1: of me, and I just know it lasted about eight

809
00:44:51,360 --> 00:44:54,279
Speaker 1: to ten seconds, and towards the end there, I just thought,

810
00:44:54,320 --> 00:44:57,879
Speaker 1: I'm dead. There's there's nothing I can do. This thing

811
00:44:57,960 --> 00:45:01,759
Speaker 1: is so strong, I've nothing to grab onto, i can't

812
00:45:01,800 --> 00:45:06,799
Speaker 1: fight back. I'm drowning. I'm going to die, and so

813
00:45:06,880 --> 00:45:10,600
Speaker 1: I just kind of let myself go and it calm

814
00:45:10,640 --> 00:45:16,280
Speaker 1: washed over me, and I realized that I was ready.

815
00:45:16,840 --> 00:45:19,920
Speaker 1: You know, I'd done some amazing things in my life.

816
00:45:20,000 --> 00:45:23,719
Speaker 1: I've done things that I never thought that I personally

817
00:45:23,800 --> 00:45:27,200
Speaker 1: could achieve, and I've done it, and so I thought,

818
00:45:27,200 --> 00:45:29,200
Speaker 1: you know, if I'm going to go, I'm ready to go.

819
00:45:30,280 --> 00:45:35,520
Speaker 1: And the shark sort eventually sawed through my whole leg

820
00:45:36,080 --> 00:45:39,719
Speaker 1: and my hand and removed it. And because I wasn't

821
00:45:39,719 --> 00:45:42,040
Speaker 1: attached to it anymore, my wetsuit made me point and

822
00:45:42,040 --> 00:45:45,600
Speaker 1: I popped to the surface and it's tail thrashed in

823
00:45:45,600 --> 00:45:48,080
Speaker 1: the water right in front of my face, and that

824
00:45:48,200 --> 00:45:51,319
Speaker 1: kind of brought me back to reality and realized I

825
00:45:51,360 --> 00:45:54,399
Speaker 1: wasn't dead, and I thought, my my safety boats there,

826
00:45:54,440 --> 00:45:55,759
Speaker 1: I can see it. There is I've got to get

827
00:45:55,760 --> 00:45:58,439
Speaker 1: out of here before it comes back. And it takes

828
00:45:58,440 --> 00:46:01,400
Speaker 1: another shot at me, and I start to swim, but

829
00:46:01,520 --> 00:46:03,279
Speaker 1: when I take my arm out of the water to

830
00:46:03,280 --> 00:46:07,600
Speaker 1: take a stroke, my hands totally gone. My arm ends

831
00:46:07,600 --> 00:46:11,080
Speaker 1: at the end of my wetsuit, and so my medical

832
00:46:11,120 --> 00:46:13,279
Speaker 1: training kicks in and I think I've got to keep

833
00:46:13,320 --> 00:46:16,560
Speaker 1: that wound above my heart to slow the bleeding. So

834
00:46:16,800 --> 00:46:19,160
Speaker 1: I've got my arm out of the water. I'm swimming

835
00:46:19,200 --> 00:46:21,360
Speaker 1: back to the safety boat, and for some reason, I

836
00:46:21,400 --> 00:46:24,360
Speaker 1: can't feel my leg. You know, I'm kicking with my

837
00:46:24,440 --> 00:46:27,160
Speaker 1: left leg, but I just can't feel my right leg

838
00:46:27,200 --> 00:46:29,560
Speaker 1: at all. I don't know what's going on. Um. The

839
00:46:29,640 --> 00:46:32,680
Speaker 1: guys in the safety boat had obviously seen the ruckers,

840
00:46:32,760 --> 00:46:34,839
Speaker 1: and they said all that the sharks being and they

841
00:46:34,880 --> 00:46:36,680
Speaker 1: knew what was going on, so they were coming in

842
00:46:36,680 --> 00:46:38,880
Speaker 1: to try and rescue me. They said that when they

843
00:46:38,920 --> 00:46:41,360
Speaker 1: got in close, I was actually swimming through a pool

844
00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:44,279
Speaker 1: of my own blood. That was so thick they could

845
00:46:44,280 --> 00:46:47,040
Speaker 1: taste it. When they got in close up, it was

846
00:46:47,120 --> 00:46:51,000
Speaker 1: just pouring out of my leg. I didn't even realize.

847
00:46:51,000 --> 00:46:53,120
Speaker 1: I had no idea. I'm just focused on that boat

848
00:46:53,680 --> 00:46:56,440
Speaker 1: the longest swim of my life, thinking there's no way

849
00:46:56,480 --> 00:46:58,560
Speaker 1: I'm going to get to that boat. It's too far away.

850
00:46:59,000 --> 00:47:00,680
Speaker 1: This shark is going to come back and get me,

851
00:47:00,920 --> 00:47:02,880
Speaker 1: or we know there's bull sharks in the harbor. I

852
00:47:02,960 --> 00:47:04,759
Speaker 1: figured another shark is going to come and grab you

853
00:47:04,840 --> 00:47:07,160
Speaker 1: because all the blood and I'm going to die. But

854
00:47:07,200 --> 00:47:11,040
Speaker 1: I just my wetsuits made me buoyant. I'm not sinking,

855
00:47:11,120 --> 00:47:13,359
Speaker 1: so I just keep swimming with one leg in one hand,

856
00:47:13,880 --> 00:47:17,319
Speaker 1: and eventually the boys get to me. First. They pulled

857
00:47:17,360 --> 00:47:19,640
Speaker 1: me out of the water, lay me, flatten the boat,

858
00:47:19,680 --> 00:47:22,280
Speaker 1: and I just pass out. I'm just I'm so relieved

859
00:47:22,280 --> 00:47:23,960
Speaker 1: that I'm not going to get bitten again. I just

860
00:47:24,320 --> 00:47:27,840
Speaker 1: relax and pass out, and that's when they all spring

861
00:47:27,840 --> 00:47:32,120
Speaker 1: into action. All that training kicks in. Um. One guy's

862
00:47:32,440 --> 00:47:35,279
Speaker 1: pounding me in the chest to bring me back to

863
00:47:35,800 --> 00:47:39,160
Speaker 1: consciousness because he thinks I'm going into cardiac arrest. Another

864
00:47:39,160 --> 00:47:41,719
Speaker 1: guy's putting a torn a que like a strap from

865
00:47:41,719 --> 00:47:44,400
Speaker 1: a life jacket. Around the top of my wound. The

866
00:47:44,440 --> 00:47:46,640
Speaker 1: other guy's driving the boat back to the pier, and

867
00:47:46,719 --> 00:47:49,239
Speaker 1: it's only we will ride alongside it, so it wasn't far.

868
00:47:50,080 --> 00:47:53,120
Speaker 1: But the wharf was about ten foot above the water,

869
00:47:53,520 --> 00:47:55,440
Speaker 1: so they couldn't get me up onto it. They got

870
00:47:55,440 --> 00:47:58,560
Speaker 1: me onto a pontoon that was a foot above the water,

871
00:47:58,680 --> 00:48:02,960
Speaker 1: and then all the staff ashore had to go and

872
00:48:03,080 --> 00:48:06,360
Speaker 1: assemble a whole bunch of workers that were there building

873
00:48:06,400 --> 00:48:08,160
Speaker 1: something on the navy base, and they had to go

874
00:48:08,239 --> 00:48:10,520
Speaker 1: and get all these bits of wood and build a

875
00:48:10,640 --> 00:48:14,520
Speaker 1: ramp u nine foot up to the wharf to man

876
00:48:14,560 --> 00:48:17,640
Speaker 1: handle me up there to to get to the paramedics

877
00:48:17,680 --> 00:48:20,799
Speaker 1: once they arrived. So I'm late, and I'm conscious through

878
00:48:20,880 --> 00:48:23,640
Speaker 1: all of this. You know, I've got my priorities in order.

879
00:48:23,680 --> 00:48:26,160
Speaker 1: I've asked my buddy Tomo to look after my motorbike.

880
00:48:27,120 --> 00:48:30,200
Speaker 1: I'm just like they look, also stressed out. I'm trying

881
00:48:30,200 --> 00:48:35,160
Speaker 1: to crack jokes um and I'm torn my own arm

882
00:48:35,320 --> 00:48:37,239
Speaker 1: by holding it with my left hand as tight as

883
00:48:37,239 --> 00:48:40,640
Speaker 1: I can and just focusing on watching my buddy's Tomo's face,

884
00:48:40,760 --> 00:48:42,920
Speaker 1: listening to his voice because I know if I can

885
00:48:42,960 --> 00:48:46,120
Speaker 1: see him then I'm still alive. Did you actually lose

886
00:48:46,280 --> 00:48:48,960
Speaker 1: your arm and your leg or were they later amputated?

887
00:48:49,400 --> 00:48:53,919
Speaker 1: The hand was gone the apt for him, no actual

888
00:48:54,280 --> 00:48:56,400
Speaker 1: when you when you see that your leg that you

889
00:48:56,440 --> 00:48:59,160
Speaker 1: were unaware of what had happened. Did it later need

890
00:48:59,200 --> 00:49:02,279
Speaker 1: to be amputated? Yeah, the leg needed to be amputated later.

891
00:49:02,320 --> 00:49:05,160
Speaker 1: So what the shark dude was? It removed all of

892
00:49:05,200 --> 00:49:10,640
Speaker 1: my hamstring almost surgically. Fortunately, you know, we've got the

893
00:49:10,640 --> 00:49:13,799
Speaker 1: femeral artery that runs up inside our leg and have

894
00:49:13,960 --> 00:49:18,640
Speaker 1: missed that by maybe a quarter of an inch. So

895
00:49:18,640 --> 00:49:20,719
Speaker 1: so if it had nicked that, I would have been

896
00:49:20,719 --> 00:49:22,359
Speaker 1: dead before I was even out of the water. So

897
00:49:22,760 --> 00:49:26,920
Speaker 1: I got super lucky. One of the my mates lucky

898
00:49:27,000 --> 00:49:28,520
Speaker 1: that the new guy that was in the water first,

899
00:49:28,560 --> 00:49:31,359
Speaker 1: he actually had to stick his hand inside my leg

900
00:49:31,440 --> 00:49:33,720
Speaker 1: and grab one of the arteries and pinched her clothed

901
00:49:33,760 --> 00:49:36,920
Speaker 1: until the paramedics got there. Um, so he said that's

902
00:49:36,920 --> 00:49:42,240
Speaker 1: something he never wants to do with him. But they

903
00:49:42,360 --> 00:49:45,239
Speaker 1: kept me alive. They kept the blood flow down just

904
00:49:45,320 --> 00:49:48,600
Speaker 1: out of sheer determination. I stayed awake and then the

905
00:49:48,640 --> 00:49:51,440
Speaker 1: paramedics got there, and that was kind of when the

906
00:49:51,480 --> 00:49:57,160
Speaker 1: pain kicked in and I was screaming at him for drugs,

907
00:49:57,280 --> 00:49:59,959
Speaker 1: and they dosed me up and that just it would

908
00:50:00,000 --> 00:50:02,440
Speaker 1: The pain was so incredible. The drugs just didn't do

909
00:50:02,480 --> 00:50:05,319
Speaker 1: anything for ages, and so I'm begging him for more.

910
00:50:05,400 --> 00:50:08,120
Speaker 1: Drugs were in the ambulance on the way to the hospital,

911
00:50:08,560 --> 00:50:12,040
Speaker 1: and because that, they said they couldn't give me anymore.

912
00:50:12,120 --> 00:50:15,440
Speaker 1: Because of the lack of blood, because of the my

913
00:50:15,560 --> 00:50:19,880
Speaker 1: lowered blow blood pressure, I started having respiratory issues and

914
00:50:19,920 --> 00:50:23,800
Speaker 1: I couldn't breathe. I physically didn't have the strength to

915
00:50:23,960 --> 00:50:26,719
Speaker 1: suck air into my lungs, and so the paramedics had

916
00:50:26,760 --> 00:50:29,239
Speaker 1: to coach me through that just it's almost like a

917
00:50:29,320 --> 00:50:33,600
Speaker 1: Lamar's class, like like short, shallow breathing until I felt

918
00:50:33,640 --> 00:50:35,840
Speaker 1: like I had enough strength to take one big gasp

919
00:50:36,160 --> 00:50:38,680
Speaker 1: and flood my body with oxygen. And you know, going

920
00:50:38,800 --> 00:50:41,400
Speaker 1: through that got me to the hospital and I just

921
00:50:41,440 --> 00:50:47,120
Speaker 1: went straight into emergency surgery. Thankfully. You know that the

922
00:50:47,200 --> 00:50:50,520
Speaker 1: surgeons there were incredible, the trauma surgeon, the plastic surgeon.

923
00:50:51,200 --> 00:50:54,360
Speaker 1: They but I went through three hundred leaders of blood,

924
00:50:54,840 --> 00:50:57,359
Speaker 1: three hundred and fifty liters of blood, which is three

925
00:50:57,440 --> 00:51:03,960
Speaker 1: hundred donations. That's wild, and you can have the best paramedics.

926
00:51:03,960 --> 00:51:06,960
Speaker 1: You're gonna have the best combat trained medics. You can

927
00:51:07,000 --> 00:51:10,640
Speaker 1: have the best doctors. But without that blood, without the

928
00:51:10,880 --> 00:51:14,520
Speaker 1: blood donations from the Red Cross, I would be dead. Well,

929
00:51:14,719 --> 00:51:17,040
Speaker 1: neither of us have gotten a chance. He had to

930
00:51:17,080 --> 00:51:20,040
Speaker 1: read your book, which is no time for fear. Um.

931
00:51:20,160 --> 00:51:22,440
Speaker 1: But I'm sure you describe it in there, But I'm

932
00:51:22,480 --> 00:51:26,960
Speaker 1: just wondering what the recovery process was like mentally, physically, emotionally,

933
00:51:27,000 --> 00:51:34,000
Speaker 1: all of that. Yeah, uh, you know, understandably, it wasn't

934
00:51:34,120 --> 00:51:40,080
Speaker 1: the easiest time of my life. Um. But the one

935
00:51:40,160 --> 00:51:46,880
Speaker 1: thing that kind of helped was I had goals. I

936
00:51:47,000 --> 00:51:50,520
Speaker 1: had this really crazy goal of trying to get back

937
00:51:50,520 --> 00:51:53,400
Speaker 1: to work as a clearance diver, and that was fundamentally

938
00:51:53,400 --> 00:51:57,840
Speaker 1: because I didn't have anything else. I'd flunked high school,

939
00:51:58,440 --> 00:52:01,440
Speaker 1: I didn't have any real world training. There was nothing

940
00:52:01,480 --> 00:52:05,319
Speaker 1: else really that I liked doing, and so if I

941
00:52:05,400 --> 00:52:08,960
Speaker 1: lost my career, then I would have nothing, and I

942
00:52:09,080 --> 00:52:11,759
Speaker 1: was that that made me think about the time of

943
00:52:11,760 --> 00:52:14,520
Speaker 1: my life when I got kicked out home at seventeen

944
00:52:14,560 --> 00:52:18,200
Speaker 1: and I was just not working, getting unemployment, smoking weed,

945
00:52:18,320 --> 00:52:23,120
Speaker 1: living in a fog, achieving nothing, and I had achieved

946
00:52:23,360 --> 00:52:27,040
Speaker 1: so much since that time. Living a dream life, living

947
00:52:27,080 --> 00:52:29,919
Speaker 1: at Bondai Beach, writing a big black Italian sports bike,

948
00:52:30,239 --> 00:52:32,879
Speaker 1: traveling the world with my buddies, jumping out aircraft, blown

949
00:52:32,880 --> 00:52:36,200
Speaker 1: shot up, shooting guns. I was not willing to give

950
00:52:36,280 --> 00:52:40,400
Speaker 1: that up, and so that was the driving factor for

951
00:52:40,440 --> 00:52:44,239
Speaker 1: me to just kicking a high gear as soon as

952
00:52:44,440 --> 00:52:47,360
Speaker 1: humanly possible. I hadded my leg for a week, but

953
00:52:47,480 --> 00:52:52,640
Speaker 1: because the shark removed my hamstring and my sciatic nerve,

954
00:52:53,000 --> 00:52:54,840
Speaker 1: I couldn't move it and I couldn't feel it and

955
00:52:54,880 --> 00:52:57,680
Speaker 1: I never would again, and so we ended up having

956
00:52:57,680 --> 00:53:00,080
Speaker 1: the leg removed. And what they did was they it

957
00:53:00,120 --> 00:53:03,960
Speaker 1: off my foot. And UM, I do a lot of

958
00:53:04,000 --> 00:53:09,480
Speaker 1: motivational talking and in America now that I'm based in

959
00:53:09,640 --> 00:53:13,000
Speaker 1: l A, and I show these surgery photos that I

960
00:53:13,040 --> 00:53:16,480
Speaker 1: have of this, and I've had fifty six people pass

961
00:53:16,520 --> 00:53:23,880
Speaker 1: out and you keep count of everyone. I know four men, um,

962
00:53:23,920 --> 00:53:25,840
Speaker 1: and one of them wasn't even there. I got a

963
00:53:25,880 --> 00:53:29,680
Speaker 1: message recently from a woman driving around New Zealand in

964
00:53:29,719 --> 00:53:31,799
Speaker 1: a camp with her husband and they were listening to

965
00:53:31,840 --> 00:53:34,160
Speaker 1: a podcast I did with Rich Role where I was

966
00:53:34,200 --> 00:53:37,239
Speaker 1: describing the shark attack, and all of a sudden, she said,

967
00:53:37,239 --> 00:53:39,800
Speaker 1: the campus started veering off the road and he passed

968
00:53:39,800 --> 00:53:44,239
Speaker 1: out listening to the description. So it's it's pretty full on,

969
00:53:44,360 --> 00:53:47,840
Speaker 1: you know that They cut off my foot, They sliced

970
00:53:47,920 --> 00:53:50,480
Speaker 1: up the back of my calf muscle, peeled all the

971
00:53:50,520 --> 00:53:54,320
Speaker 1: calf muscle off the bone, removed the lower leg bones,

972
00:53:55,000 --> 00:53:58,680
Speaker 1: cut the condiles the balls off the end of my fema,

973
00:53:59,000 --> 00:54:02,320
Speaker 1: and then folded all of that calff muscle into the

974
00:54:02,360 --> 00:54:07,000
Speaker 1: hamstring so that it would fill the gap. And so

975
00:54:07,640 --> 00:54:10,319
Speaker 1: that the surgery was really complicated, and I went through

976
00:54:10,360 --> 00:54:16,120
Speaker 1: some really really insane pain directly after that surgery, twenty

977
00:54:16,160 --> 00:54:19,879
Speaker 1: hours where all I wanted to do was die. I

978
00:54:19,920 --> 00:54:21,960
Speaker 1: begged my mom to find me a gun so I

979
00:54:21,960 --> 00:54:26,520
Speaker 1: could kill myself because the pain management team couldn't give

980
00:54:26,520 --> 00:54:28,400
Speaker 1: me any more trucks. I was on ketamine, I was

981
00:54:28,440 --> 00:54:31,839
Speaker 1: on morphine. They couldn't give me anymore. All I could

982
00:54:31,840 --> 00:54:34,439
Speaker 1: do was laying in my hospital bed, rolling from side

983
00:54:34,440 --> 00:54:38,480
Speaker 1: to side, bawling my eyes out, begging for death. It

984
00:54:38,560 --> 00:54:41,480
Speaker 1: was that that crazy, because I just didn't know when

985
00:54:41,560 --> 00:54:44,120
Speaker 1: it was going to stop. And that was why it wasn't.

986
00:54:44,280 --> 00:54:46,799
Speaker 1: It wasn't so much the amount of pain. It was

987
00:54:46,840 --> 00:54:51,400
Speaker 1: the fact that one hour, two hour, three seventeen hours

988
00:54:51,440 --> 00:54:54,400
Speaker 1: in and it hadn't subsided, and I just it was.

989
00:54:54,520 --> 00:54:57,560
Speaker 1: It played such a mind fun game with me. All

990
00:54:57,560 --> 00:55:00,600
Speaker 1: I wanted to do was die. But of four, after

991
00:55:00,600 --> 00:55:04,360
Speaker 1: about twenty hours it subsided. They gave me more drugs,

992
00:55:04,360 --> 00:55:08,840
Speaker 1: and and then two days after that I started training

993
00:55:09,760 --> 00:55:13,799
Speaker 1: and there wasn't really anything I could do. But I

994
00:55:13,840 --> 00:55:19,480
Speaker 1: couldn't lay there, like the laying there, the solitude when

995
00:55:19,480 --> 00:55:23,040
Speaker 1: there was no one there, the overthinking of the situation.

996
00:55:23,400 --> 00:55:25,759
Speaker 1: I knew was going to do more damage than anything else.

997
00:55:25,960 --> 00:55:28,160
Speaker 1: So I needed to feel like I was achieving something

998
00:55:28,520 --> 00:55:31,080
Speaker 1: to that goal of getting back to work, even if

999
00:55:31,120 --> 00:55:34,120
Speaker 1: it was a micro goal, you know. And I looked

1000
00:55:34,200 --> 00:55:36,000
Speaker 1: up and I couldn't go to the toilet by myself.

1001
00:55:36,040 --> 00:55:37,640
Speaker 1: I couldn't even get out of bed. My leg was

1002
00:55:37,719 --> 00:55:42,720
Speaker 1: hugely swollen, but I could hold onto this handle above

1003
00:55:42,800 --> 00:55:45,160
Speaker 1: my bed and I could pull myself up on it.

1004
00:55:45,800 --> 00:55:48,880
Speaker 1: And so two days after have my leg, my leg

1005
00:55:48,960 --> 00:55:50,799
Speaker 1: chopped off. The surgeon came in and found me doing

1006
00:55:50,800 --> 00:55:53,600
Speaker 1: these chin ups on the bar above my bed, and

1007
00:55:53,680 --> 00:55:59,680
Speaker 1: he thought it wasn't impressed at all. With an I

1008
00:55:59,800 --> 00:56:02,799
Speaker 1: V in your arm, I take it sorry, with an

1009
00:56:02,800 --> 00:56:04,920
Speaker 1: IVY still in your arm. I take it. I had

1010
00:56:04,920 --> 00:56:07,560
Speaker 1: an ivy in my arm, I had a bulb of

1011
00:56:07,680 --> 00:56:12,560
Speaker 1: ketamine stuck into my stomach and had two drainage tubes

1012
00:56:12,600 --> 00:56:15,239
Speaker 1: coming out of my leg to a little plastic sack

1013
00:56:15,360 --> 00:56:17,680
Speaker 1: that sort of sucked all the blood and fluid out

1014
00:56:17,680 --> 00:56:20,000
Speaker 1: of my leg. So I was like I was rigged up.

1015
00:56:21,520 --> 00:56:24,520
Speaker 1: But that was a goal. And my my friends, my

1016
00:56:24,560 --> 00:56:26,960
Speaker 1: buddies from working, my buddies from growing up, were amazing.

1017
00:56:27,000 --> 00:56:29,880
Speaker 1: They brought in thorough bands and we tied thorough bands

1018
00:56:29,920 --> 00:56:32,200
Speaker 1: off to all around the bed so I could work

1019
00:56:32,200 --> 00:56:34,759
Speaker 1: out and feel like I was achieving something before I

1020
00:56:34,800 --> 00:56:39,239
Speaker 1: could even stand up. Um, but tough times, you know,

1021
00:56:39,560 --> 00:56:43,000
Speaker 1: like those drugs they have it with his stomach, and

1022
00:56:43,040 --> 00:56:46,919
Speaker 1: you know, I literally ship myself in bed one day

1023
00:56:47,239 --> 00:56:51,160
Speaker 1: and that, you know, I brought everything toppling down again.

1024
00:56:51,239 --> 00:56:53,640
Speaker 1: I was. I was so embarrassed, and I was so

1025
00:56:53,719 --> 00:56:59,920
Speaker 1: ashamed coming from this guy that could physically do anything

1026
00:57:00,000 --> 00:57:02,880
Speaker 1: that was asked of me, to be in this bad

1027
00:57:03,080 --> 00:57:06,960
Speaker 1: a cripple, double amputee shooting myself. It's like one extreme

1028
00:57:07,000 --> 00:57:10,000
Speaker 1: to the other. It just it broke me for a

1029
00:57:10,080 --> 00:57:14,479
Speaker 1: whole day, and I was so scared of what life

1030
00:57:14,520 --> 00:57:16,800
Speaker 1: was going to be like. And one of my best

1031
00:57:16,840 --> 00:57:20,000
Speaker 1: friends came and we talked, and he said, look, man,

1032
00:57:20,200 --> 00:57:24,480
Speaker 1: never feel bad about feeling bad. There's nothing wrong with that.

1033
00:57:25,160 --> 00:57:28,040
Speaker 1: Feel bad. Everyone feels bad. Just don't let it ruin

1034
00:57:28,120 --> 00:57:31,080
Speaker 1: your whole day, your whole month, or your whole life,

1035
00:57:31,680 --> 00:57:35,640
Speaker 1: you know it. Just feel bad, identify why you're feeling bad,

1036
00:57:35,760 --> 00:57:37,800
Speaker 1: and then try and find a way to repair that

1037
00:57:37,960 --> 00:57:40,720
Speaker 1: or fix it or do something to make yourself feel better.

1038
00:57:40,960 --> 00:57:43,760
Speaker 1: And so that those simple words, man, you can never

1039
00:57:44,000 --> 00:57:51,000
Speaker 1: undervalue just a bit of support, just a few guiding words.

1040
00:57:51,080 --> 00:57:54,760
Speaker 1: Because he said that to me a week after I

1041
00:57:54,800 --> 00:57:57,920
Speaker 1: got attacked, and to this day, ten years later, I

1042
00:57:58,000 --> 00:58:00,560
Speaker 1: still remember it and it still plays a role in

1043
00:58:00,600 --> 00:58:03,120
Speaker 1: my life today. And I passed that message onto people

1044
00:58:03,120 --> 00:58:08,360
Speaker 1: all the time. But nine weeks in the hospital kind

1045
00:58:08,360 --> 00:58:12,280
Speaker 1: of messed with me. I lost a shipload a weight. Um,

1046
00:58:12,280 --> 00:58:14,560
Speaker 1: I was super pale because I was under the flu

1047
00:58:14,640 --> 00:58:18,760
Speaker 1: o lights the whole time. Um. But I really tried

1048
00:58:18,800 --> 00:58:24,360
Speaker 1: to focus on training my diet and nutrition, drinking lots

1049
00:58:24,360 --> 00:58:27,520
Speaker 1: of water and researching. You know. The Navy wanted me

1050
00:58:27,520 --> 00:58:29,800
Speaker 1: to talk to a counselor, but I didn't really feel

1051
00:58:29,800 --> 00:58:31,680
Speaker 1: like talking to someone. I didn't know about how I

1052
00:58:31,720 --> 00:58:33,400
Speaker 1: was feeling. You know, I've just been doing that with

1053
00:58:33,440 --> 00:58:36,600
Speaker 1: my buddies. I don't need this stranger that I don't know.

1054
00:58:36,640 --> 00:58:39,800
Speaker 1: And she came in anyway, I agreed to it, and

1055
00:58:39,880 --> 00:58:43,480
Speaker 1: she asked me a couple of questions that absolutely did

1056
00:58:43,520 --> 00:58:48,040
Speaker 1: not pertain to anything in my situation. And I realized

1057
00:58:48,120 --> 00:58:51,160
Speaker 1: that she just didn't understand how to It wasn't her fault,

1058
00:58:51,400 --> 00:58:57,320
Speaker 1: she just didn't understand how to communicate with someone at

1059
00:58:57,400 --> 00:59:00,720
Speaker 1: my level in the military, right and who has it's

1060
00:59:00,760 --> 00:59:05,280
Speaker 1: like peak physical and mental endurance and performance. Yeah, So

1061
00:59:05,320 --> 00:59:08,120
Speaker 1: I I realized that I didn't need to talk about

1062
00:59:08,160 --> 00:59:10,160
Speaker 1: it with her. If I needed to talk, I could

1063
00:59:10,160 --> 00:59:12,280
Speaker 1: talk to my buddies and I would. You know, I'm

1064
00:59:12,280 --> 00:59:14,240
Speaker 1: not the sort of guy that would hold shooting. If

1065
00:59:14,280 --> 00:59:17,040
Speaker 1: I want to complain, I'll complain. We do that a lot.

1066
00:59:17,200 --> 00:59:19,160
Speaker 1: I learned that a lot in the army was what

1067
00:59:19,240 --> 00:59:22,000
Speaker 1: was it something that was like psychologically traumatic you have

1068
00:59:22,080 --> 00:59:24,160
Speaker 1: to deal you had to deal with because I just

1069
00:59:24,240 --> 00:59:26,800
Speaker 1: think I have no experience with this, but I mean

1070
00:59:26,840 --> 00:59:28,760
Speaker 1: just I remember watching a video the other day and

1071
00:59:28,760 --> 00:59:30,960
Speaker 1: there's a guy who's diving off the coast of Maine,

1072
00:59:31,080 --> 00:59:34,760
Speaker 1: very like murky green water, and uh, all of a sudden,

1073
00:59:34,760 --> 00:59:38,600
Speaker 1: a great white shark came through the haze straight towards him.

1074
00:59:38,960 --> 00:59:42,240
Speaker 1: It passed on his right side like a foot the head.

1075
00:59:42,840 --> 00:59:44,400
Speaker 1: I don't think it hit him, but it was like

1076
00:59:44,440 --> 00:59:48,040
Speaker 1: within a foot of him, and this massive shark just

1077
00:59:48,080 --> 00:59:50,560
Speaker 1: went by him and didn't give a shit about him,

1078
00:59:50,920 --> 00:59:53,320
Speaker 1: just didn't care. But if that shark did give a ship,

1079
00:59:53,720 --> 00:59:55,920
Speaker 1: there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it.

1080
00:59:56,280 --> 00:59:58,600
Speaker 1: And that that has got I have to think, And

1081
00:59:58,760 --> 01:00:01,280
Speaker 1: I mean, I'd like to ask you, like, is that

1082
01:00:01,440 --> 01:00:03,760
Speaker 1: something that kind of fucks with you, that that like

1083
01:00:03,800 --> 01:00:06,440
Speaker 1: you're you're kind of there's this aspect of powerlessness when

1084
01:00:06,440 --> 01:00:08,640
Speaker 1: you enter the ocean and you're not necessarily at the

1085
01:00:08,680 --> 01:00:12,240
Speaker 1: type of the food chain. Um. Yeah, but it's not

1086
01:00:12,320 --> 01:00:14,800
Speaker 1: even just that you know that the ocean is a

1087
01:00:15,000 --> 01:00:19,320
Speaker 1: is a dangerous beast. Um. You know, you're diving on

1088
01:00:19,400 --> 01:00:21,960
Speaker 1: those on the mark sixteens that are literally trying to

1089
01:00:22,040 --> 01:00:24,480
Speaker 1: kill you while you're diving on mixed gas with a

1090
01:00:24,600 --> 01:00:27,800
Speaker 1: computer keeping you alive, you know, as close as you

1091
01:00:27,840 --> 01:00:31,160
Speaker 1: get to go into space. And so what what I've

1092
01:00:31,240 --> 01:00:33,680
Speaker 1: learned to do very well is trust in the process.

1093
01:00:34,920 --> 01:00:39,600
Speaker 1: I rely on my my knowledge, my past experiences, the

1094
01:00:39,640 --> 01:00:42,520
Speaker 1: things that I've learned, and so you know that the

1095
01:00:42,640 --> 01:00:47,520
Speaker 1: shark thing was never really a problem for me. I

1096
01:00:47,560 --> 01:00:53,880
Speaker 1: don't know why. Um, I just I just didn't hold

1097
01:00:53,920 --> 01:00:56,600
Speaker 1: onto it. You know. I moved on from that, and

1098
01:00:56,680 --> 01:00:59,120
Speaker 1: you know, and that that the shark stuff came later anyway,

1099
01:00:59,160 --> 01:01:02,160
Speaker 1: where I had to face that. It was more about

1100
01:01:03,560 --> 01:01:08,400
Speaker 1: trying to maintain the motivation and the self belief to

1101
01:01:08,920 --> 01:01:17,560
Speaker 1: continue this training um and physical progression, believing that I

1102
01:01:17,600 --> 01:01:22,280
Speaker 1: could get back to work. And you know, the first

1103
01:01:22,360 --> 01:01:24,160
Speaker 1: day I went back to the Navy, six months to

1104
01:01:24,160 --> 01:01:26,160
Speaker 1: the day after the shark attack, and I asked me

1105
01:01:26,240 --> 01:01:28,080
Speaker 1: if I go back to the diving teams and they

1106
01:01:28,080 --> 01:01:32,440
Speaker 1: said no, what do you mean No, They're like, you can't.

1107
01:01:32,640 --> 01:01:34,240
Speaker 1: You have to be deployable for war to go to

1108
01:01:34,280 --> 01:01:40,040
Speaker 1: the teams. Ah, well, I've just been watching, you know,

1109
01:01:40,720 --> 01:01:43,520
Speaker 1: men of honor bringing up again. But he went to

1110
01:01:43,520 --> 01:01:45,600
Speaker 1: the diving school becoming instructor, and so I'm like, well,

1111
01:01:46,080 --> 01:01:47,760
Speaker 1: how about I go and teach. I'll go to the

1112
01:01:47,800 --> 01:01:49,919
Speaker 1: diving school. And they thought about it for a while,

1113
01:01:49,920 --> 01:01:51,320
Speaker 1: and they had all these meetings and they said, look,

1114
01:01:51,360 --> 01:01:53,640
Speaker 1: you can go three half days a week, And so

1115
01:01:53,680 --> 01:01:56,640
Speaker 1: I went five full days a week and I just

1116
01:01:56,680 --> 01:02:00,760
Speaker 1: didn't leave. I couldn't make me leave. I turn up,

1117
01:02:00,840 --> 01:02:04,080
Speaker 1: I'd go into the gym, I would train harder than

1118
01:02:04,600 --> 01:02:08,240
Speaker 1: everyone else there, as hard as I possibly could, and

1119
01:02:08,240 --> 01:02:10,320
Speaker 1: then I'd go to go to work and I try,

1120
01:02:10,360 --> 01:02:13,960
Speaker 1: and you inspire the training. So I think half the

1121
01:02:13,960 --> 01:02:18,600
Speaker 1: time I scared the ship out. You know, they get

1122
01:02:18,640 --> 01:02:22,240
Speaker 1: on the boat for their first day, like think enough, Yeah,

1123
01:02:22,240 --> 01:02:24,360
Speaker 1: I'm going to be a big bad clearance diver or

1124
01:02:24,480 --> 01:02:26,440
Speaker 1: bright eyed and bushy tailed, and they get on the

1125
01:02:26,480 --> 01:02:29,520
Speaker 1: boat and there I am, half man, half mountain bike.

1126
01:02:32,120 --> 01:02:33,760
Speaker 1: I feel like they wouldn't look at me a lot

1127
01:02:33,840 --> 01:02:37,000
Speaker 1: of the time. But I used to sneak up behind

1128
01:02:37,040 --> 01:02:39,360
Speaker 1: him underwater and grab him by the leg and shake

1129
01:02:39,360 --> 01:02:43,880
Speaker 1: the ship out. So you were you were back to

1130
01:02:44,000 --> 01:02:47,640
Speaker 1: diving when you were when you were an instructor. Eventually, yeah,

1131
01:02:47,640 --> 01:02:49,320
Speaker 1: at that point they wouldn't let me use the diving

1132
01:02:49,400 --> 01:02:51,360
Speaker 1: year that that was just strictly and they didn't say

1133
01:02:51,400 --> 01:02:53,680
Speaker 1: it's all about loopholes. You know, they didn't say I

1134
01:02:53,680 --> 01:02:58,520
Speaker 1: couldn't breath. I just said I couldn't scooba. And so eventually, yeah,

1135
01:02:58,520 --> 01:03:01,840
Speaker 1: I got back. I call it requalified on O two

1136
01:03:01,920 --> 01:03:06,439
Speaker 1: diving and scuba even went on a helmet maintenance course

1137
01:03:06,480 --> 01:03:08,640
Speaker 1: and learned how to take the helmets apart and put

1138
01:03:08,640 --> 01:03:12,280
Speaker 1: them back together with one hand. UM. But at the

1139
01:03:12,320 --> 01:03:16,360
Speaker 1: same time it was killing me, you know, trying to

1140
01:03:16,480 --> 01:03:21,560
Speaker 1: keep up with everyone, trying to run the scuba diver's course,

1141
01:03:21,880 --> 01:03:26,440
Speaker 1: ships ships ships diver's course, and trying just to remain

1142
01:03:26,480 --> 01:03:29,360
Speaker 1: positive and motivated and physically fit and go through the

1143
01:03:29,400 --> 01:03:32,000
Speaker 1: training and set the examples and then work from six

1144
01:03:32,040 --> 01:03:35,560
Speaker 1: in the morning until sometimes two in the morning, you know, continuously,

1145
01:03:35,640 --> 01:03:38,280
Speaker 1: and it just I did it for for two and

1146
01:03:38,320 --> 01:03:41,360
Speaker 1: a half years, but it was just it was slowly

1147
01:03:41,360 --> 01:03:44,440
Speaker 1: sucking the life out of it. I just couldn't maintain it.

1148
01:03:44,480 --> 01:03:48,360
Speaker 1: That they reckon that um. Walking on a prosthetic leg

1149
01:03:48,560 --> 01:03:53,760
Speaker 1: expands more energy than having two legs, and so here

1150
01:03:53,800 --> 01:03:56,200
Speaker 1: I am trying to run on my blade and walk

1151
01:03:56,280 --> 01:03:59,480
Speaker 1: and train in the gym and then maintain a six

1152
01:04:00,000 --> 01:04:02,680
Speaker 1: teen hour day as well at work, and it was

1153
01:04:02,760 --> 01:04:05,439
Speaker 1: really sucking the life out of me. I just wanted

1154
01:04:05,440 --> 01:04:08,720
Speaker 1: to go back to the diving teams. And around two

1155
01:04:08,760 --> 01:04:11,000
Speaker 1: thousand and twelve I went to my boss and I

1156
01:04:11,000 --> 01:04:13,520
Speaker 1: asked him what the chances were, and he said, look, Paul,

1157
01:04:13,640 --> 01:04:18,000
Speaker 1: under the current UM command and control, you've got zero

1158
01:04:18,120 --> 01:04:20,840
Speaker 1: chance of going to the teams. And so that that

1159
01:04:20,920 --> 01:04:26,400
Speaker 1: was basically when I decided to leave and into the

1160
01:04:26,440 --> 01:04:30,080
Speaker 1: scary unknown of civilian life. And it's amazing. I was

1161
01:04:30,080 --> 01:04:32,480
Speaker 1: going to say. The irony from there is that I've

1162
01:04:32,480 --> 01:04:35,120
Speaker 1: seen this from watching your videos. You went from this

1163
01:04:35,320 --> 01:04:39,040
Speaker 1: experience to now advocating for the preservation of sharks, and

1164
01:04:39,240 --> 01:04:43,640
Speaker 1: people be blown away by that. Yeah. Well, you know, man,

1165
01:04:43,680 --> 01:04:47,880
Speaker 1: we partially become divers in the Navy and scuba divers

1166
01:04:48,000 --> 01:04:51,640
Speaker 1: and ocean swimmers and surfers because we love the ocean.

1167
01:04:52,880 --> 01:04:57,080
Speaker 1: We love the diversity of the animals. We'd love to

1168
01:04:57,080 --> 01:04:59,480
Speaker 1: see the fish and the octopus, and we love the

1169
01:04:59,600 --> 01:05:01,880
Speaker 1: feeling of being in the ocean and you know, it

1170
01:05:01,920 --> 01:05:04,840
Speaker 1: washes away stresses and stuff like that, and you can't

1171
01:05:04,920 --> 01:05:08,439
Speaker 1: have that without life in the ocean. And I never

1172
01:05:08,560 --> 01:05:12,960
Speaker 1: blamed the shark because I chose that life. It wasn't

1173
01:05:12,960 --> 01:05:15,520
Speaker 1: the shark's fault. I was flapping around on the surface

1174
01:05:15,520 --> 01:05:17,520
Speaker 1: in murky water in a black wet suit and a

1175
01:05:17,560 --> 01:05:22,680
Speaker 1: pair of black fins. I look like food. On that note, Um,

1176
01:05:22,720 --> 01:05:25,840
Speaker 1: since you became, You've become a big conservationist, you know,

1177
01:05:25,920 --> 01:05:28,480
Speaker 1: for sharks. I was wondering if you have learned anything

1178
01:05:28,480 --> 01:05:31,520
Speaker 1: about shark behavior, Like how come the shark? I mean,

1179
01:05:31,560 --> 01:05:33,800
Speaker 1: did it realize that you're not its normal prey? And

1180
01:05:33,920 --> 01:05:35,360
Speaker 1: is that why it didn't come back and try to

1181
01:05:35,360 --> 01:05:37,200
Speaker 1: take another bite out of you? I mean, what are

1182
01:05:37,240 --> 01:05:41,360
Speaker 1: the current thoughts on that? Yeah, that that's my assumption. Um,

1183
01:05:41,400 --> 01:05:44,200
Speaker 1: it was just it was early in the morning, it

1184
01:05:44,280 --> 01:05:48,160
Speaker 1: was overcast, the water's murky, so really low light levels

1185
01:05:48,200 --> 01:05:51,320
Speaker 1: of shark probably conceived very well. I was, like I said,

1186
01:05:51,320 --> 01:05:53,040
Speaker 1: a black wet suit of black fins. I looked like

1187
01:05:53,080 --> 01:05:55,560
Speaker 1: an injured seal. I wasn't moving too fast and just

1188
01:05:55,600 --> 01:05:57,800
Speaker 1: flopping around on the surface. So it came up for

1189
01:05:57,840 --> 01:06:01,120
Speaker 1: a test bite. Um, what they call an exploratory bite.

1190
01:06:01,480 --> 01:06:05,080
Speaker 1: And what what I think happened was it didn't hit

1191
01:06:05,160 --> 01:06:08,760
Speaker 1: any really solid bone. And I think if it had

1192
01:06:08,800 --> 01:06:11,720
Speaker 1: actually hit my femur one, I probably would have died

1193
01:06:11,760 --> 01:06:14,200
Speaker 1: because it would have gone through my femeral artery. But

1194
01:06:14,400 --> 01:06:17,400
Speaker 1: it would have felt that really hard thick bone and

1195
01:06:17,440 --> 01:06:19,440
Speaker 1: it probably would have let go like a lot of

1196
01:06:19,480 --> 01:06:23,160
Speaker 1: great white chips. You know, very few people get eaten

1197
01:06:23,240 --> 01:06:27,000
Speaker 1: by sharks, they get a bite and just because we're

1198
01:06:27,160 --> 01:06:31,680
Speaker 1: very delicate beings, we have all these cardiovascular system and

1199
01:06:31,760 --> 01:06:35,520
Speaker 1: you know, we bleed out, we died. But because it

1200
01:06:35,560 --> 01:06:37,400
Speaker 1: didn't hit any of those bones, it just hit this

1201
01:06:37,520 --> 01:06:40,560
Speaker 1: big chunk of flesh. It just kept going and going going,

1202
01:06:40,840 --> 01:06:43,400
Speaker 1: and then I guess that, you know, it either didn't

1203
01:06:43,440 --> 01:06:48,320
Speaker 1: like what it tasted, or it was full, or who knows,

1204
01:06:48,440 --> 01:06:51,440
Speaker 1: but or maybe it was coming back. It was coming back,

1205
01:06:51,760 --> 01:06:55,360
Speaker 1: but sharks, sharks don't. It didn't just swim in. It

1206
01:06:55,400 --> 01:06:58,040
Speaker 1: was stalking my body for a while before it got me.

1207
01:06:58,400 --> 01:07:01,960
Speaker 1: They don't just swimming and bite. They'll stalk, especially bull sharks.

1208
01:07:01,960 --> 01:07:04,640
Speaker 1: They're very inquisitive, but they're very cautious as well. And

1209
01:07:04,680 --> 01:07:06,920
Speaker 1: it would have been swimming around and around for ages.

1210
01:07:07,440 --> 01:07:10,000
Speaker 1: So maybe it was following me back to the boat,

1211
01:07:10,280 --> 01:07:13,440
Speaker 1: but it just didn't get a chance to strike again.

1212
01:07:14,800 --> 01:07:17,800
Speaker 1: So I mean, on one hand, I mean, you think

1213
01:07:17,880 --> 01:07:19,960
Speaker 1: human beings are like easy prey, why don't they eat

1214
01:07:20,040 --> 01:07:22,320
Speaker 1: us more often? But you, at least from what I've seen,

1215
01:07:22,720 --> 01:07:26,240
Speaker 1: unlike television and stuff, the sharks really don't like us. Yeah, well,

1216
01:07:26,280 --> 01:07:31,440
Speaker 1: you know, they they know what their food is. Basically,

1217
01:07:32,320 --> 01:07:37,040
Speaker 1: you know, the juvenile great whites, they generally eat squid

1218
01:07:37,080 --> 01:07:40,479
Speaker 1: and octopus and eels and rays. And then the big

1219
01:07:40,480 --> 01:07:42,800
Speaker 1: sharks as they mature they get bigger, they have to

1220
01:07:42,840 --> 01:07:45,000
Speaker 1: move on to bigger fish, and then they move on

1221
01:07:45,040 --> 01:07:47,440
Speaker 1: to mammals like seals and dolphins. And the bull sharks

1222
01:07:47,920 --> 01:07:50,480
Speaker 1: generally eat fish and eels and things like that, so

1223
01:07:50,680 --> 01:07:53,400
Speaker 1: they know what their food is. That's why they're not

1224
01:07:53,720 --> 01:07:58,520
Speaker 1: attacking us. They want to attack us, we'll be dying. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um,

1225
01:07:58,600 --> 01:08:00,480
Speaker 1: And so it was just really it was just bad luck.

1226
01:08:02,280 --> 01:08:05,360
Speaker 1: And because of this whole experience, you've you've gotten the

1227
01:08:05,440 --> 01:08:08,160
Speaker 1: chance to do work with Shark Week and I want

1228
01:08:08,160 --> 01:08:11,240
Speaker 1: I know that's something you're very passionate about. Yeah, I

1229
01:08:11,320 --> 01:08:13,480
Speaker 1: really enjoy that, you know that. And like I was

1230
01:08:13,480 --> 01:08:17,280
Speaker 1: saying earlier about my heroes Steve Owen and David Adenberg,

1231
01:08:17,360 --> 01:08:22,680
Speaker 1: Dr Szuki, all those amazing naturalists that share the wilds

1232
01:08:22,720 --> 01:08:27,360
Speaker 1: of nature with the world through through TV, I literally

1233
01:08:27,360 --> 01:08:30,200
Speaker 1: get to walk in the footsteps of my areas and

1234
01:08:30,240 --> 01:08:33,479
Speaker 1: that is that That is an amazing feeling. And not

1235
01:08:33,640 --> 01:08:37,080
Speaker 1: just that, but it's a great transfer for military life.

1236
01:08:37,880 --> 01:08:41,760
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not shooting guns all the time occasionally.

1237
01:08:41,760 --> 01:08:45,160
Speaker 1: Now I'm in America, I'm not blowing stuff up. I'm

1238
01:08:45,200 --> 01:08:48,840
Speaker 1: not you know, I'm not not always jumping out of helicopters.

1239
01:08:48,920 --> 01:08:50,720
Speaker 1: I'm just on parachute course at the moment for my

1240
01:08:50,760 --> 01:08:53,800
Speaker 1: next show, Where are you? By the way, I'm in

1241
01:08:53,920 --> 01:08:57,479
Speaker 1: l A. Yeah, so I'm just about I got a

1242
01:08:57,479 --> 01:09:00,639
Speaker 1: couple more weeks of parachuting before I go into another

1243
01:09:00,640 --> 01:09:03,400
Speaker 1: show where I got a parachute into the South Pacific

1244
01:09:03,880 --> 01:09:06,280
Speaker 1: and survive for two days and two nights while they

1245
01:09:06,400 --> 01:09:12,200
Speaker 1: chum for sharks. What. Yeah, I just I don't learn

1246
01:09:12,240 --> 01:09:15,320
Speaker 1: my lesson. I'd love to talk to the insurance company

1247
01:09:15,360 --> 01:09:18,080
Speaker 1: that blessed off, like here, here's what we're gonna do. Boys,

1248
01:09:18,680 --> 01:09:21,160
Speaker 1: have you have you ever met our friend Terry Shapherd.

1249
01:09:21,200 --> 01:09:23,920
Speaker 1: He's done stuff for Shark Week. No, I haven't, Okay,

1250
01:09:23,960 --> 01:09:28,400
Speaker 1: and he's a former yeah, well, I mean is a guy.

1251
01:09:28,400 --> 01:09:30,240
Speaker 1: I think it's been a few years since he's been on.

1252
01:09:30,280 --> 01:09:32,240
Speaker 1: But I know Terry did some stuff for Shark Week.

1253
01:09:32,360 --> 01:09:34,920
Speaker 1: So it's a job, you know, And you don't have

1254
01:09:34,920 --> 01:09:39,080
Speaker 1: the military sucking the fun out of the adventure. Working

1255
01:09:39,120 --> 01:09:42,599
Speaker 1: with a film crew is way more fun. But it's

1256
01:09:42,720 --> 01:09:46,040
Speaker 1: um it's it's become a passion as well, because as

1257
01:09:46,080 --> 01:09:49,519
Speaker 1: you learn about the plight of the oceans and the sharks,

1258
01:09:49,920 --> 01:09:54,040
Speaker 1: everything from pollution to plastic to commercial fishing to the

1259
01:09:54,120 --> 01:09:58,040
Speaker 1: shark finning trade, you know, you can't help but want

1260
01:09:58,080 --> 01:10:02,160
Speaker 1: to stand up and speak for it because which we're

1261
01:10:02,200 --> 01:10:07,440
Speaker 1: literally killing our own planet and along the chain ourselves.

1262
01:10:08,040 --> 01:10:10,880
Speaker 1: So trying to help people understand the role that the

1263
01:10:10,920 --> 01:10:14,720
Speaker 1: sharks play. You know, it's just one little piece of

1264
01:10:14,760 --> 01:10:17,880
Speaker 1: the Jenga puzzle that you don't want to be pulled

1265
01:10:17,880 --> 01:10:22,320
Speaker 1: out totally and have the whole ecosystem topple over. So

1266
01:10:22,360 --> 01:10:25,599
Speaker 1: that's a enduring problem, the over fishing of sharks or

1267
01:10:25,640 --> 01:10:28,559
Speaker 1: is it more of like environmental pollution? What are kind

1268
01:10:28,560 --> 01:10:31,680
Speaker 1: of the issues facing that part of the ecology right now? Man,

1269
01:10:31,720 --> 01:10:34,440
Speaker 1: this is a long conversation. Yeah, I know it is.

1270
01:10:34,520 --> 01:10:38,040
Speaker 1: It is animal agriculture. Um, So the farming of animals

1271
01:10:38,120 --> 01:10:41,799
Speaker 1: is one of the big things that's a problem creating

1272
01:10:41,880 --> 01:10:44,679
Speaker 1: dead zones and in the ocean, the coastal areas because

1273
01:10:44,680 --> 01:10:49,640
Speaker 1: of all the runoff of the fungicides and the pesticides

1274
01:10:49,720 --> 01:10:54,160
Speaker 1: and the all that sort of stuff, the methane gas,

1275
01:10:55,320 --> 01:11:01,439
Speaker 1: but also plastic pollution is huge. That is a massive problem. Um.

1276
01:11:01,640 --> 01:11:07,120
Speaker 1: Then there's the commercial fishing, which is wiping out the

1277
01:11:07,560 --> 01:11:11,920
Speaker 1: ocean of fish stocks, and that's through bike catch. It's

1278
01:11:12,040 --> 01:11:15,120
Speaker 1: mostly it's not even through the fishing of the targeted

1279
01:11:15,120 --> 01:11:20,200
Speaker 1: species species. It's the catch that they're getting that they

1280
01:11:20,240 --> 01:11:23,439
Speaker 1: don't want, that they're throwing back into the ocean dead,

1281
01:11:23,600 --> 01:11:27,320
Speaker 1: which a lot of that can be sharks, seals, dolphins, rays,

1282
01:11:28,600 --> 01:11:31,920
Speaker 1: you know, it's whales because if you get if you

1283
01:11:32,000 --> 01:11:34,519
Speaker 1: get a kind of tuna fish. Now, don't they still

1284
01:11:34,520 --> 01:11:36,719
Speaker 1: have that little thing on there says it's dolphins, safe

1285
01:11:36,760 --> 01:11:39,519
Speaker 1: nets and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah, there's

1286
01:11:40,320 --> 01:11:43,880
Speaker 1: with the current regulations how they are around the planet

1287
01:11:43,960 --> 01:11:47,479
Speaker 1: that there's no such thing as sustainable fishing. There really

1288
01:11:47,520 --> 01:11:53,639
Speaker 1: isn't because it's so unregulated in other areas and there's

1289
01:11:53,680 --> 01:11:58,400
Speaker 1: so much illegal fishing um that it's just been wiped out.

1290
01:11:58,479 --> 01:12:01,639
Speaker 1: And the coral reefs are being just joyed by these

1291
01:12:02,520 --> 01:12:05,639
Speaker 1: massive football field nets that are dragged along the bottom

1292
01:12:05,640 --> 01:12:08,280
Speaker 1: of the ocean, scooping up everything in their past. So

1293
01:12:08,360 --> 01:12:11,439
Speaker 1: you're killing the environment that these animals live in as well,

1294
01:12:11,640 --> 01:12:14,439
Speaker 1: not just the animals. So even if there are some

1295
01:12:14,520 --> 01:12:18,960
Speaker 1: to repopulate. They don't have a home to repopulated. Well,

1296
01:12:19,000 --> 01:12:22,200
Speaker 1: I think this transitions kind of nicely into a next

1297
01:12:22,240 --> 01:12:25,840
Speaker 1: topic I wanted to bring up here. You follow a

1298
01:12:26,080 --> 01:12:28,880
Speaker 1: strictly plant based diet, and I think people would see you,

1299
01:12:29,000 --> 01:12:33,160
Speaker 1: especially with the amputated limbs and being an athlete. Yeah,

1300
01:12:33,240 --> 01:12:36,000
Speaker 1: being an athlete would think that you are someone who

1301
01:12:36,040 --> 01:12:40,360
Speaker 1: needs to ingest animal protein and a strictly plant based

1302
01:12:40,360 --> 01:12:45,080
Speaker 1: diet is pretty tough. It's really not. That's that's the

1303
01:12:45,320 --> 01:12:48,720
Speaker 1: miss perception about it. It's really not that hard. You

1304
01:12:48,840 --> 01:12:55,640
Speaker 1: just don't eat meat or dairy. So it's just like

1305
01:12:55,720 --> 01:12:58,200
Speaker 1: you make all the meals that you generally like, you

1306
01:12:58,240 --> 01:12:59,920
Speaker 1: just don't put that stuff in it. You find sub

1307
01:13:00,000 --> 01:13:05,640
Speaker 1: elements for it. And you know, I was always a

1308
01:13:05,760 --> 01:13:09,760
Speaker 1: huge meat eater, chicken all day long because I thought

1309
01:13:09,800 --> 01:13:12,280
Speaker 1: that's what you had to do to get your muscles

1310
01:13:12,280 --> 01:13:13,880
Speaker 1: and be the bodybuilders. You know, you read all the

1311
01:13:13,920 --> 01:13:17,400
Speaker 1: magazines chicken and broccoli, lean, muscle gains UM. I did

1312
01:13:17,400 --> 01:13:20,680
Speaker 1: that for years and I still never had muscles um.

1313
01:13:21,000 --> 01:13:24,080
Speaker 1: And the funny thing after I went plant based, you know,

1314
01:13:24,320 --> 01:13:27,200
Speaker 1: I haven't had an injury, like a serious injury from

1315
01:13:27,280 --> 01:13:30,599
Speaker 1: training in three years since the day that I switched.

1316
01:13:30,800 --> 01:13:33,160
Speaker 1: And I used to get injuries all the time in

1317
01:13:33,200 --> 01:13:37,040
Speaker 1: the military, my shoulders. I had tenanitis in both my

1318
01:13:37,120 --> 01:13:39,559
Speaker 1: elbows to the point where I could I was like

1319
01:13:39,720 --> 01:13:42,080
Speaker 1: t reck some days I couldn't even lift my arms up.

1320
01:13:42,560 --> 01:13:46,360
Speaker 1: And I don't have that anymore. And I understand it.

1321
01:13:46,360 --> 01:13:50,040
Speaker 1: It's pretty confronting for a lot of people to hear

1322
01:13:50,080 --> 01:13:52,280
Speaker 1: the vegan word and the plant based word and not

1323
01:13:52,320 --> 01:13:54,559
Speaker 1: eating meat, not eating day, and they say they could

1324
01:13:54,640 --> 01:13:56,880
Speaker 1: never do it. And I thought that as well. I

1325
01:13:57,000 --> 01:13:58,840
Speaker 1: was one of those people. I just thought, you know,

1326
01:13:58,880 --> 01:14:01,519
Speaker 1: why would why vegetarian? Why would you not eat meat?

1327
01:14:02,920 --> 01:14:06,440
Speaker 1: But I don't need it and I work in conservation.

1328
01:14:06,600 --> 01:14:09,320
Speaker 1: I went and shot a documentary in Africa where I

1329
01:14:09,400 --> 01:14:13,160
Speaker 1: was embedding with the anti poaching units out there, and

1330
01:14:13,240 --> 01:14:15,519
Speaker 1: one of my buddies from the clearance diving teams was

1331
01:14:15,640 --> 01:14:19,680
Speaker 1: running that he's running the International Antipoaching Foundation in Zimbabwe

1332
01:14:20,120 --> 01:14:22,920
Speaker 1: and at dinner he had a separate meal and I

1333
01:14:22,960 --> 01:14:25,719
Speaker 1: was asking him about he said, Oh, that's I'm vegan,

1334
01:14:25,800 --> 01:14:27,720
Speaker 1: so that's okay. That's a plant based for me. There's

1335
01:14:27,760 --> 01:14:29,559
Speaker 1: no meat or daarian And I'm like, why would you

1336
01:14:29,600 --> 01:14:33,240
Speaker 1: do that? Like what what's the thought process? And he said, well,

1337
01:14:33,600 --> 01:14:36,760
Speaker 1: I work in conservation. I'm out here in Africa. I'm

1338
01:14:36,800 --> 01:14:38,880
Speaker 1: trying to protect the rhinos and the drafts and the

1339
01:14:38,920 --> 01:14:42,120
Speaker 1: elephants and all that stuff. And I was eating the animals,

1340
01:14:42,840 --> 01:14:46,160
Speaker 1: and I felt like a hypocrite, and that that was

1341
01:14:46,240 --> 01:14:50,160
Speaker 1: what got me. That was the thought process. Okay, I'm

1342
01:14:50,200 --> 01:14:52,719
Speaker 1: I'm protecting the animals. I'm trying to protect the ocean.

1343
01:14:52,720 --> 01:14:56,799
Speaker 1: I'm raising awareness about over fishing and commercial fishing in sharks,

1344
01:14:57,600 --> 01:15:01,520
Speaker 1: and yet I'm eating the animals. I grew up eating seafood.

1345
01:15:01,560 --> 01:15:04,519
Speaker 1: I love it, but I was contributing to the thing

1346
01:15:04,560 --> 01:15:08,519
Speaker 1: that I was trying to stop. If that, if you

1347
01:15:08,560 --> 01:15:11,080
Speaker 1: think about this subject, I mean, it is kind of

1348
01:15:11,400 --> 01:15:14,800
Speaker 1: nuts that all the other meat we eat, um it

1349
01:15:14,800 --> 01:15:18,280
Speaker 1: comes from farming, like domesticated cattle, you know, animals that

1350
01:15:18,280 --> 01:15:21,439
Speaker 1: are that are raised specifically for that point, Like we

1351
01:15:21,479 --> 01:15:24,519
Speaker 1: don't except for like hunters on their own volition maybe

1352
01:15:24,520 --> 01:15:27,360
Speaker 1: in some parts of America. I mean, we don't go

1353
01:15:27,400 --> 01:15:31,160
Speaker 1: and kill these animals out in the wild for food.

1354
01:15:31,520 --> 01:15:33,400
Speaker 1: But we still do that with with the ocean. We

1355
01:15:33,439 --> 01:15:35,800
Speaker 1: still do that with seafood, just going out into the

1356
01:15:35,840 --> 01:15:39,080
Speaker 1: wild and harvesting and mass all of the If it

1357
01:15:39,200 --> 01:15:42,479
Speaker 1: was just subsistence fishing like that, it wouldn't be a problem.

1358
01:15:42,479 --> 01:15:46,599
Speaker 1: The fish stocks would explode and there'd be the bucket

1359
01:15:46,600 --> 01:15:50,040
Speaker 1: loads of it. But it's not. You know, everyone wants

1360
01:15:50,080 --> 01:15:53,680
Speaker 1: their fish and their oysters and whatever, and so we

1361
01:15:53,800 --> 01:15:56,680
Speaker 1: just don't have the supplies of that to support the

1362
01:15:56,720 --> 01:16:00,599
Speaker 1: population um. And then when you go deep we're into it,

1363
01:16:01,120 --> 01:16:05,640
Speaker 1: you start learning more about how little the animal agricultural

1364
01:16:06,760 --> 01:16:10,760
Speaker 1: industry cares about you and how much more they care

1365
01:16:10,800 --> 01:16:14,240
Speaker 1: about money. And you know, you think about the food

1366
01:16:14,280 --> 01:16:19,480
Speaker 1: that those animals eating. They're getting the cheapest, most genetically

1367
01:16:19,520 --> 01:16:28,200
Speaker 1: modified fungicide and pesticide laden food, plus getting um hormones

1368
01:16:28,600 --> 01:16:31,639
Speaker 1: to make them bigger and stronger and fatter for more meat,

1369
01:16:32,080 --> 01:16:35,040
Speaker 1: and then the antibiotics they're given because of the poor

1370
01:16:35,080 --> 01:16:39,160
Speaker 1: conditions they're living in. And then we're eating that. So

1371
01:16:39,200 --> 01:16:41,439
Speaker 1: you're eating all the fungicides cycled through the animal, of

1372
01:16:41,439 --> 01:16:46,480
Speaker 1: the pesticides, the genetically modified cheapas beans and corn, the hormones,

1373
01:16:47,000 --> 01:16:49,680
Speaker 1: and then put on top of that the fear, the anxiety,

1374
01:16:49,760 --> 01:16:53,559
Speaker 1: the pain, the adrenaline before they're killed. All that just

1375
01:16:54,200 --> 01:16:56,439
Speaker 1: in my mind, some people might have a different opinion,

1376
01:16:56,479 --> 01:16:59,240
Speaker 1: and that's cool, but in my mind, that is not

1377
01:16:59,400 --> 01:17:03,080
Speaker 1: a healthy what what about? I was just wondering why

1378
01:17:03,200 --> 01:17:07,760
Speaker 1: you were recovering from your injuries. You weren't plant based then, right,

1379
01:17:08,320 --> 01:17:12,000
Speaker 1: Because I do remember you you guys probably remember when um,

1380
01:17:12,040 --> 01:17:14,960
Speaker 1: Travis Barker from lin Entity two and dj AM got

1381
01:17:14,960 --> 01:17:18,120
Speaker 1: into that plane crash. I remember Travis Barker writing that

1382
01:17:18,200 --> 01:17:20,720
Speaker 1: I believe he was a vegetarian or a vegan, but

1383
01:17:20,800 --> 01:17:23,280
Speaker 1: he said while they were doing the skin graphs on him,

1384
01:17:23,360 --> 01:17:25,799
Speaker 1: they said he had to eat meat at the time. Okay,

1385
01:17:25,960 --> 01:17:28,800
Speaker 1: I never heard anything about that. I'm just wondering if

1386
01:17:28,840 --> 01:17:30,559
Speaker 1: if at the time it would have been a problem,

1387
01:17:30,800 --> 01:17:34,040
Speaker 1: you know, in order to just with your injuries. I

1388
01:17:34,400 --> 01:17:37,920
Speaker 1: don't see why. I think there's a lot of miss

1389
01:17:38,560 --> 01:17:47,880
Speaker 1: misconception about getting your your required nutritional values without meat. Um,

1390
01:17:48,120 --> 01:17:50,559
Speaker 1: if you do it properly and you know a bit

1391
01:17:50,600 --> 01:17:54,479
Speaker 1: about nutrition, it's it's really not that hard to get

1392
01:17:54,520 --> 01:17:56,840
Speaker 1: everything you need. I've been doing it for three years,

1393
01:17:56,880 --> 01:18:02,479
Speaker 1: and you know, I'm wishing more than I've ever done before.

1394
01:18:03,479 --> 01:18:06,800
Speaker 1: I'm fit and strong and healthy, and you know, it's

1395
01:18:07,040 --> 01:18:09,280
Speaker 1: it's nice to kind of break down some of those

1396
01:18:09,880 --> 01:18:13,720
Speaker 1: misperceptions about it um and help people if they want

1397
01:18:13,720 --> 01:18:15,519
Speaker 1: to try it out, you know, give them a little

1398
01:18:15,520 --> 01:18:18,840
Speaker 1: guidance in it um. You know it's and you know what,

1399
01:18:18,920 --> 01:18:23,360
Speaker 1: I feel good in my soul. People like people will say, oh,

1400
01:18:23,439 --> 01:18:26,640
Speaker 1: you're still killing animals because all those fields that you

1401
01:18:26,640 --> 01:18:30,760
Speaker 1: know they have to farm to grow the food that

1402
01:18:30,800 --> 01:18:33,760
Speaker 1: you're eating, you're still killing animals. I'm like, it's not

1403
01:18:33,800 --> 01:18:40,280
Speaker 1: about perfection. It's about progression, all right. Um, So I

1404
01:18:40,360 --> 01:18:43,200
Speaker 1: love it. I enjoy it. There's there's no death on

1405
01:18:43,200 --> 01:18:47,240
Speaker 1: my plate um. I not taking in any of those

1406
01:18:47,320 --> 01:18:52,040
Speaker 1: chemicals or mostly organic where I can, and it makes

1407
01:18:52,040 --> 01:18:55,160
Speaker 1: me feel good and that works for me. So just

1408
01:18:55,160 --> 01:18:59,640
Speaker 1: just getting across the point that you don't have to

1409
01:18:59,760 --> 01:19:08,320
Speaker 1: say acrifice to gain, it's it's all gain. Interesting. Man.

1410
01:19:08,920 --> 01:19:10,840
Speaker 1: It's funny because I think our audience is going to

1411
01:19:10,880 --> 01:19:14,040
Speaker 1: feel you don't fit the stereotape of an especially hearing

1412
01:19:14,080 --> 01:19:15,960
Speaker 1: this whole story. So it's cool that we that we've

1413
01:19:15,960 --> 01:19:19,599
Speaker 1: covered all of that. But I feel better than I

1414
01:19:19,600 --> 01:19:24,040
Speaker 1: ever have so and that's the great That's the measuring tool.

1415
01:19:24,080 --> 01:19:26,200
Speaker 1: You know, if you do something, you do it right,

1416
01:19:26,280 --> 01:19:28,280
Speaker 1: and you feel good, then why would you not keep

1417
01:19:28,280 --> 01:19:31,080
Speaker 1: doing it. Oh, I do have one more question I

1418
01:19:31,080 --> 01:19:32,479
Speaker 1: want to ask, and this is this is going to

1419
01:19:32,560 --> 01:19:35,040
Speaker 1: come across as kind of an ignorant question, I'm sure,

1420
01:19:35,160 --> 01:19:40,080
Speaker 1: but um, are you you're back to diving now? Yeah,

1421
01:19:40,680 --> 01:19:47,280
Speaker 1: I requalified in the Navy, um through and now I

1422
01:19:47,800 --> 01:19:50,439
Speaker 1: have to dive for the Shark Weeks. So you know

1423
01:19:50,479 --> 01:19:53,920
Speaker 1: I've done. I did a dive off the coast of

1424
01:19:53,960 --> 01:19:58,240
Speaker 1: Western Australia hundred and ten feet outside of the cage

1425
01:19:58,320 --> 01:20:02,240
Speaker 1: with four male gray white shart um. I just you know,

1426
01:20:02,280 --> 01:20:04,120
Speaker 1: I just went on a trip to the Bahamas to

1427
01:20:04,880 --> 01:20:07,680
Speaker 1: dive with tiger sharks. I taught Rhonda Rolsi how to

1428
01:20:07,720 --> 01:20:10,120
Speaker 1: hand feed bull sharks at the start of this year

1429
01:20:10,160 --> 01:20:13,280
Speaker 1: for Shark Week. You know, I'm doing more diving than

1430
01:20:13,280 --> 01:20:16,200
Speaker 1: I was in the Navy, and it's way more dangerous.

1431
01:20:16,479 --> 01:20:18,719
Speaker 1: I want to ask you this kind of a strange question.

1432
01:20:18,720 --> 01:20:21,200
Speaker 1: But because of the changes your body went through and

1433
01:20:21,280 --> 01:20:23,439
Speaker 1: you know you're actually you know you you had some

1434
01:20:23,600 --> 01:20:26,760
Speaker 1: limbs amputated, has that changed the dive tables for you

1435
01:20:26,960 --> 01:20:31,400
Speaker 1: at all? I've never thought about that. Yeah, I was

1436
01:20:31,439 --> 01:20:35,519
Speaker 1: just curious about that. Well, I'm not dead, so you're okay.

1437
01:20:35,560 --> 01:20:39,200
Speaker 1: Obviously I don't I don't see why it would. Um,

1438
01:20:39,520 --> 01:20:41,720
Speaker 1: it would be no different too. You know, you don't

1439
01:20:41,760 --> 01:20:45,759
Speaker 1: change the dive tables for a um and ten kilo

1440
01:20:45,840 --> 01:20:50,439
Speaker 1: person to two kilo person, So I don't. I don't

1441
01:20:50,439 --> 01:20:52,720
Speaker 1: think so, I don't think he'd come into play. I'm

1442
01:20:52,760 --> 01:20:54,560
Speaker 1: not as agile as I used to be, which is

1443
01:20:54,560 --> 01:20:57,360
Speaker 1: a pain in the ass. Um. You know, I've got

1444
01:20:57,360 --> 01:20:59,720
Speaker 1: a diving leg, and I used my weight lifting arm

1445
01:20:59,720 --> 01:21:01,599
Speaker 1: with a big steel hook on it so I can

1446
01:21:01,640 --> 01:21:04,879
Speaker 1: grab onto things and I can fed off any overly

1447
01:21:04,960 --> 01:21:08,920
Speaker 1: friendly sharks. Um. But other than that, man, it's it's

1448
01:21:09,640 --> 01:21:12,479
Speaker 1: I love it under the water. You know, it's for me.

1449
01:21:12,520 --> 01:21:15,080
Speaker 1: It's as close as you can get to being totally

1450
01:21:15,200 --> 01:21:18,839
Speaker 1: encompassed in nature. You were saying, you about anything above surface.

1451
01:21:18,880 --> 01:21:21,439
Speaker 1: You were saying you were free swimming outside the cage

1452
01:21:21,520 --> 01:21:25,000
Speaker 1: around great white sharks. I was diving. I was on scuba.

1453
01:21:25,439 --> 01:21:31,840
Speaker 1: What's wrong? What's wrong with you? Um? You know, I'm learning,

1454
01:21:32,000 --> 01:21:36,559
Speaker 1: learning from the best. We're doing a documentary. My body

1455
01:21:36,720 --> 01:21:39,000
Speaker 1: was the cameraman. He needed to get out and document

1456
01:21:39,120 --> 01:21:41,479
Speaker 1: the markings on these sharks, and he needed me to

1457
01:21:41,520 --> 01:21:44,800
Speaker 1: watch his back, and so he taught me everything I

1458
01:21:44,880 --> 01:21:46,880
Speaker 1: knew about great whites and diving with him, and so

1459
01:21:46,960 --> 01:21:50,000
Speaker 1: I trust him implicitly. So it's not that it's not

1460
01:21:50,080 --> 01:21:54,439
Speaker 1: inherently dangerous too. I mean I would I would think

1461
01:21:54,479 --> 01:21:56,720
Speaker 1: that the sharks would just make a bee line for you.

1462
01:21:56,760 --> 01:21:58,760
Speaker 1: I mean we've all seen, you know, Shark Week, where

1463
01:21:58,760 --> 01:22:00,439
Speaker 1: the shark comes up to the diver and kege and

1464
01:22:00,479 --> 01:22:03,120
Speaker 1: it's trying to get inside you like all the ship. Yeah,

1465
01:22:03,120 --> 01:22:06,639
Speaker 1: but that's because they're baiting him. It's a different mindset

1466
01:22:06,680 --> 01:22:10,200
Speaker 1: when you've got food in the water. Forum at the

1467
01:22:10,240 --> 01:22:13,800
Speaker 1: start of this year we did another survival show where

1468
01:22:14,760 --> 01:22:17,160
Speaker 1: Shark Week blew up my boat and I was with

1469
01:22:17,280 --> 01:22:19,960
Speaker 1: a British Special Forces guy and we're off the coast

1470
01:22:20,000 --> 01:22:22,400
Speaker 1: of the Bahamas in the Atlantic and they blew up

1471
01:22:22,400 --> 01:22:26,000
Speaker 1: our boat. We had to survive drifting through the Atlantic

1472
01:22:26,040 --> 01:22:28,280
Speaker 1: Ocean for two days, two nights, no food or water,

1473
01:22:28,600 --> 01:22:30,880
Speaker 1: and we had this school of oceanic white tip sharks

1474
01:22:30,880 --> 01:22:33,720
Speaker 1: around us the whole time, about twelve of them. They

1475
01:22:33,720 --> 01:22:36,240
Speaker 1: were offending them off, but they were more curious than anything.

1476
01:22:36,640 --> 01:22:38,720
Speaker 1: And then they put the food in the water and

1477
01:22:38,920 --> 01:22:43,600
Speaker 1: their their mentality switched instantly tory mode. So it was

1478
01:22:43,640 --> 01:22:45,280
Speaker 1: the same sort of thing with the great whites. We

1479
01:22:45,320 --> 01:22:47,880
Speaker 1: didn't have any food with us. They were curious. I

1480
01:22:47,920 --> 01:22:51,200
Speaker 1: was probably forty ft away from the cage, just kneeling

1481
01:22:51,240 --> 01:22:55,040
Speaker 1: down in with this seagrass all around me. There's massive

1482
01:22:55,160 --> 01:22:57,880
Speaker 1: fourteen foot great white shark came out of the merkswing

1483
01:22:57,960 --> 01:23:01,360
Speaker 1: directly at my face, and you know, my heart did

1484
01:23:01,439 --> 01:23:04,599
Speaker 1: flood off a bit um. But I had to remember,

1485
01:23:04,760 --> 01:23:07,200
Speaker 1: I don't act like food. They won't treat you like food.

1486
01:23:07,240 --> 01:23:09,360
Speaker 1: And so I stood in my ground. I showed that

1487
01:23:09,400 --> 01:23:12,160
Speaker 1: I wasn't food. I was also a dominant force. And

1488
01:23:12,200 --> 01:23:15,320
Speaker 1: it swam directly up to me, turned a fraction and

1489
01:23:15,320 --> 01:23:17,559
Speaker 1: then just swam past me. And you say, it's big

1490
01:23:17,600 --> 01:23:20,400
Speaker 1: blue eye rotating and just looking at me and checking

1491
01:23:20,400 --> 01:23:23,080
Speaker 1: me out, and it just kept swimming past. Is incredible,

1492
01:23:23,120 --> 01:23:26,760
Speaker 1: That's unreal. Well, you know what's interesting is right next

1493
01:23:26,800 --> 01:23:29,040
Speaker 1: to me. I have this book here from Brandon Webb,

1494
01:23:29,080 --> 01:23:31,160
Speaker 1: who's the one who made the connection for us. You know,

1495
01:23:31,240 --> 01:23:35,000
Speaker 1: his Mastering Fear book, which is all about overcoming fears.

1496
01:23:35,400 --> 01:23:38,000
Speaker 1: As you said as we started the interview, your biggest

1497
01:23:38,080 --> 01:23:43,120
Speaker 1: fear was sharks, I mean, and then public speaking really okay,

1498
01:23:43,160 --> 01:23:44,679
Speaker 1: so I was gonna say what it's safe to say

1499
01:23:45,120 --> 01:23:47,719
Speaker 1: public speaker. I was just gonna say, though, it's safe

1500
01:23:47,760 --> 01:23:50,200
Speaker 1: to say with what you're doing now with Shark Week,

1501
01:23:50,280 --> 01:23:52,760
Speaker 1: you've overcome that fear, at least on some level. I'm

1502
01:23:52,760 --> 01:23:55,599
Speaker 1: sure there's still the element of fear when you're doing

1503
01:23:55,600 --> 01:23:58,320
Speaker 1: what you do at this point, do you have any

1504
01:23:58,320 --> 01:24:02,120
Speaker 1: other fears? Like? Have you master all of your fears? Well,

1505
01:24:02,200 --> 01:24:04,599
Speaker 1: there's something funny that happens to you when you come

1506
01:24:04,640 --> 01:24:09,640
Speaker 1: that close to death, confronting your worst nightmare and you survive. There,

1507
01:24:10,200 --> 01:24:13,920
Speaker 1: you realize there's nothing left to be afraid of. So

1508
01:24:14,640 --> 01:24:17,800
Speaker 1: I moved into diving with sharks and I started. My

1509
01:24:17,880 --> 01:24:21,240
Speaker 1: other greatest fear was public speaking. I was terrified. I

1510
01:24:21,360 --> 01:24:26,200
Speaker 1: quit information technology course halfway through at the six month

1511
01:24:26,240 --> 01:24:27,880
Speaker 1: mark because I had to get up and talk in

1512
01:24:27,880 --> 01:24:30,760
Speaker 1: front of the class. At nineteen years old, I was

1513
01:24:31,120 --> 01:24:34,639
Speaker 1: terrified a pubic speaking. And now I travel all across

1514
01:24:34,680 --> 01:24:40,720
Speaker 1: America doing motivational, inspirational and keynote speaking. So I don't

1515
01:24:40,800 --> 01:24:43,640
Speaker 1: see it as fear. My mind doesn't recognize it as

1516
01:24:43,720 --> 01:24:46,960
Speaker 1: fear anymore. It's it's more an excitement. It's a challenge

1517
01:24:47,000 --> 01:24:50,559
Speaker 1: to overcome instead of fear itself. Now I'm not saying,

1518
01:24:51,000 --> 01:24:54,000
Speaker 1: you know, I was catching crocodiles last year in Darwin

1519
01:24:54,080 --> 01:24:56,360
Speaker 1: for another show. I'm not saying that if I didn't

1520
01:24:56,400 --> 01:24:58,879
Speaker 1: have a crocodile running at me with his jaws gaping,

1521
01:24:58,880 --> 01:25:02,040
Speaker 1: that I would not have feet off. I most definitely

1522
01:25:02,040 --> 01:25:05,080
Speaker 1: have feed. But it's it's about mitigating that fear and

1523
01:25:05,120 --> 01:25:08,479
Speaker 1: transferring it into something like now, I see it as

1524
01:25:08,520 --> 01:25:14,160
Speaker 1: an opportunity to grow, embracing that fee, turning it into

1525
01:25:14,160 --> 01:25:16,960
Speaker 1: an adventure, turning it into a challenge, and allowing it

1526
01:25:17,000 --> 01:25:20,639
Speaker 1: to help me grow as a human being. That's powerful. Man. Well,

1527
01:25:20,800 --> 01:25:23,160
Speaker 1: the book once again is no Time for Fear. How

1528
01:25:23,160 --> 01:25:26,759
Speaker 1: a shark attack, survivor beat the odds? Uh. Paul's website

1529
01:25:26,800 --> 01:25:29,639
Speaker 1: is Paul de Gelder dot com, at Paul de Gelder

1530
01:25:29,720 --> 01:25:32,439
Speaker 1: on Twitter and at Paul de Gelder on Instagram, which

1531
01:25:32,479 --> 01:25:35,240
Speaker 1: are very active on both. And apparently your wife is

1532
01:25:35,280 --> 01:25:37,280
Speaker 1: active on both because I've seen she's like a fit

1533
01:25:37,560 --> 01:25:44,280
Speaker 1: Instagram check. So which is quite yet? Hello, we saw

1534
01:25:44,320 --> 01:25:47,640
Speaker 1: you on his Instagram, so I'm sure people are going

1535
01:25:47,680 --> 01:25:51,479
Speaker 1: to follow you and then creep your wife. It's probably

1536
01:25:51,479 --> 01:25:57,559
Speaker 1: gonna happen. Most guys I would as well. Well, this

1537
01:25:57,640 --> 01:26:00,200
Speaker 1: has been awesome, man, and even though it's it's like

1538
01:26:00,280 --> 01:26:02,240
Speaker 1: a ways off. I was going to say, we gotta

1539
01:26:02,240 --> 01:26:04,639
Speaker 1: have you back on when Shark a Week Shark Week

1540
01:26:04,680 --> 01:26:06,760
Speaker 1: comes around. I mean that's the summer. But I'm sure

1541
01:26:06,800 --> 01:26:09,599
Speaker 1: you're going to be involved in it again this year, right, Yeah,

1542
01:26:09,640 --> 01:26:12,360
Speaker 1: I'm so. Like I said, I'm doing this parachute course.

1543
01:26:12,360 --> 01:26:16,120
Speaker 1: I gotta get my A and B license to parachute

1544
01:26:16,439 --> 01:26:20,040
Speaker 1: out of a crashing plane into the South Pacific into

1545
01:26:20,040 --> 01:26:24,439
Speaker 1: the world's second largest shark sanctuary and survived for a

1546
01:26:24,479 --> 01:26:26,680
Speaker 1: couple of days and nights without food or water. So

1547
01:26:27,840 --> 01:26:30,840
Speaker 1: I'll come back after we've done and we'll have a

1548
01:26:30,920 --> 01:26:34,880
Speaker 1: chat about how insane that was. That's great and I

1549
01:26:34,920 --> 01:26:37,320
Speaker 1: definitely want to hear more about, like working with Rhonda Rousey.

1550
01:26:37,360 --> 01:26:39,320
Speaker 1: It's pretty cool. I remember last I think it was

1551
01:26:39,360 --> 01:26:41,920
Speaker 1: two years ago, maybe on Shark Weekly, did something with

1552
01:26:41,960 --> 01:26:45,760
Speaker 1: Michael Phelps. I don't know. He raised a great white

1553
01:26:45,760 --> 01:26:48,240
Speaker 1: shark without racing a great white shark. Did you get

1554
01:26:48,280 --> 01:26:51,320
Speaker 1: to meet him? It's about that. No, he was on

1555
01:26:51,320 --> 01:26:54,879
Speaker 1: a different show with some buddies of mine. But Rhonda.

1556
01:26:55,080 --> 01:26:56,719
Speaker 1: You know what, a lot of people hated on Rhonda

1557
01:26:56,760 --> 01:26:58,920
Speaker 1: and dumped on her after she got beaten and then

1558
01:26:58,960 --> 01:27:03,160
Speaker 1: beat again. She's one incredible human being. I gotta say

1559
01:27:03,240 --> 01:27:06,880
Speaker 1: she's she's so sweet, she's so intelligent. She listened to

1560
01:27:06,960 --> 01:27:11,519
Speaker 1: everything we said, UM, and she she really was a

1561
01:27:11,560 --> 01:27:13,880
Speaker 1: great person to work with. And her husband, so Travis

1562
01:27:13,880 --> 01:27:17,000
Speaker 1: Brown is a really great guy. They've become quite good friends.

1563
01:27:18,000 --> 01:27:20,280
Speaker 1: That's awesome, man. I mean, yeah, I think that's also

1564
01:27:20,400 --> 01:27:23,479
Speaker 1: part of um, you know, being a competitor. The way

1565
01:27:23,520 --> 01:27:26,400
Speaker 1: she is is that she's probably a very different person

1566
01:27:26,439 --> 01:27:29,000
Speaker 1: that you see inside the cage or during those interviews

1567
01:27:29,040 --> 01:27:32,400
Speaker 1: than in her personal life. UM. I mean I've even

1568
01:27:32,400 --> 01:27:35,080
Speaker 1: seen her attack for things that that I thought were,

1569
01:27:35,640 --> 01:27:37,640
Speaker 1: you know, just her being candid. I remember she went

1570
01:27:37,680 --> 01:27:40,080
Speaker 1: and I think it was like Ellen after that loss,

1571
01:27:40,160 --> 01:27:43,360
Speaker 1: and she said she was, you know, suicidal over it.

1572
01:27:43,479 --> 01:27:45,920
Speaker 1: And some people were saying, you know, oh, you're a

1573
01:27:46,000 --> 01:27:48,160
Speaker 1: role model to the little girls. You shouldn't be saying this.

1574
01:27:48,240 --> 01:27:51,040
Speaker 1: But I think there's nothing wrong with being candidate. You know,

1575
01:27:51,080 --> 01:27:56,000
Speaker 1: there her whole absolute vulnerability and strength, and you don't

1576
01:27:56,280 --> 01:27:59,160
Speaker 1: get onto a show like that and then lie, do you.

1577
01:27:59,240 --> 01:28:02,360
Speaker 1: She's I know her as a person that would never

1578
01:28:02,520 --> 01:28:05,960
Speaker 1: make ship up, but being in the public light, you know,

1579
01:28:06,040 --> 01:28:08,840
Speaker 1: sometimes something's come out that you wish you could take back.

1580
01:28:08,880 --> 01:28:12,280
Speaker 1: You can't always say exactly what you want when you want.

1581
01:28:12,320 --> 01:28:14,880
Speaker 1: When you're doing live TV or recorded like back to

1582
01:28:14,920 --> 01:28:17,719
Speaker 1: back to back to back, sometimes you funk up. I'm

1583
01:28:17,800 --> 01:28:19,840
Speaker 1: saying that that was a funk up. But you know,

1584
01:28:19,880 --> 01:28:23,560
Speaker 1: it's just it's not the easiest life being in the

1585
01:28:23,880 --> 01:28:26,519
Speaker 1: in the limelight all the time. And I have like

1586
01:28:26,600 --> 01:28:29,839
Speaker 1: the smallest little taste of it. I can't even imagine,

1587
01:28:29,840 --> 01:28:33,280
Speaker 1: you know, I just finished working with a huge celebrity

1588
01:28:33,600 --> 01:28:37,240
Speaker 1: in the Bahamas, teaching him how to dive with tiger

1589
01:28:37,240 --> 01:28:42,639
Speaker 1: sharks um and he can't even He literally hasn't walked

1590
01:28:42,640 --> 01:28:47,000
Speaker 1: down the streets since two thousand and one because he can't.

1591
01:28:47,040 --> 01:28:50,439
Speaker 1: He can't go to the store, he can't go out

1592
01:28:50,479 --> 01:28:52,519
Speaker 1: with his kids to the movies. You can't do anything.

1593
01:28:52,920 --> 01:28:56,400
Speaker 1: So you know, that's a very different and hard lifestyle

1594
01:28:56,479 --> 01:29:01,400
Speaker 1: to maintain. You've got to give those guys credit. Absolutely.

1595
01:29:01,520 --> 01:29:03,719
Speaker 1: Thanks for coming on, Paul. We'll definitely do this again.

1596
01:29:03,800 --> 01:29:06,080
Speaker 1: Like I said, I'll keep your emails so that during

1597
01:29:06,120 --> 01:29:08,479
Speaker 1: Shark Week we could promote that out and talk about

1598
01:29:08,520 --> 01:29:11,439
Speaker 1: what you're up to. Yeah, it sounds good, lads. Thank

1599
01:29:11,479 --> 01:29:14,200
Speaker 1: you so much for coming on the show today. This

1600
01:29:14,280 --> 01:29:18,240
Speaker 1: is a really cool interview. I can say, you've got

1601
01:29:18,520 --> 01:29:20,920
Speaker 1: my favorite author in the background. That which one, because

1602
01:29:20,960 --> 01:29:23,800
Speaker 1: we've got you got the book from Vince Flynn. Oh yeah,

1603
01:29:23,960 --> 01:29:26,400
Speaker 1: Red War. Yeah, we had the we had the author

1604
01:29:26,720 --> 01:29:29,439
Speaker 1: um who's taken up the mantel since uh, you know,

1605
01:29:30,400 --> 01:29:33,479
Speaker 1: Kyle Mills, Pile Mills. That's it. He was great, man,

1606
01:29:33,800 --> 01:29:37,240
Speaker 1: I've just finished the one before that. He's my favorite.

1607
01:29:37,240 --> 01:29:40,760
Speaker 1: I love that story. Well, I'm sure they'll be glad

1608
01:29:40,800 --> 01:29:42,519
Speaker 1: to hear it. I mean, their their team seems to

1609
01:29:42,520 --> 01:29:45,880
Speaker 1: listen to the podcast rearly. So you go listen to

1610
01:29:45,920 --> 01:29:47,800
Speaker 1: the I didn't know that book was relations Yi, I'm

1611
01:29:47,800 --> 01:29:50,960
Speaker 1: gonna go get it today. Yeah, yeah, listen back. We

1612
01:29:51,000 --> 01:29:52,880
Speaker 1: had Kyle Mills on. It was it was a great one.

1613
01:29:52,960 --> 01:29:55,960
Speaker 1: But yeah, man, appreciate it. Thanks, thanks for coming on,

1614
01:29:56,400 --> 01:29:58,160
Speaker 1: and so thanks for having me. Guys. Have a good day.

1615
01:29:58,240 --> 01:30:04,080
Speaker 1: Good luck on Shark week. Yeah, I'm backs man, take

1616
01:30:04,120 --> 01:30:08,840
Speaker 1: care man. So a lot of people listening to the podcast,

1617
01:30:08,880 --> 01:30:11,320
Speaker 1: like we got that interview. I'm sorry. We got that

1618
01:30:12,320 --> 01:30:15,240
Speaker 1: email from a listener who said he was really inspired

1619
01:30:15,280 --> 01:30:18,320
Speaker 1: by the quinn Emerson interview, Like I think this is

1620
01:30:18,320 --> 01:30:21,400
Speaker 1: a huge dose of inspiration. I mean, whatever you fear,

1621
01:30:21,640 --> 01:30:25,559
Speaker 1: whatever is bothering you. I mean this guy, it just

1622
01:30:25,600 --> 01:30:28,160
Speaker 1: sounds like he got right back into the action after

1623
01:30:28,280 --> 01:30:33,040
Speaker 1: losing two limbs. Yeah, I couldn't couldn't stop, wouldn't stop. Um.

1624
01:30:33,080 --> 01:30:36,200
Speaker 1: You know, that's one of those things where I bet it.

1625
01:30:35,800 --> 01:30:39,639
Speaker 1: It obviously kept him going and kept him sane. Um,

1626
01:30:39,720 --> 01:30:42,240
Speaker 1: you know, had a goal to shoot for. It's maybe

1627
01:30:42,360 --> 01:30:44,719
Speaker 1: for some people anyway, it's those times when life slows

1628
01:30:44,760 --> 01:30:46,200
Speaker 1: down a little bit. That's when you kind of have

1629
01:30:46,280 --> 01:30:49,120
Speaker 1: to reconcile some of the things that have happened to you.

1630
01:30:49,160 --> 01:30:52,840
Speaker 1: And it sounds like he has um. But man, that

1631
01:30:52,920 --> 01:30:55,960
Speaker 1: scares the shift out of me. Like I would any

1632
01:30:56,040 --> 01:30:59,880
Speaker 1: day rather go back to war. Like in combat, it's

1633
01:31:00,120 --> 01:31:02,800
Speaker 1: you know, you're grown men. Two soldiers show up on

1634
01:31:02,840 --> 01:31:05,519
Speaker 1: the battlefield and it's just understood. Somebody's going home in

1635
01:31:05,560 --> 01:31:08,160
Speaker 1: a body bag, right, like it is what it is.

1636
01:31:08,720 --> 01:31:12,679
Speaker 1: But to like be underwater and get attacked by a shark,

1637
01:31:12,760 --> 01:31:14,920
Speaker 1: like that's one of those things, like a great white

1638
01:31:14,920 --> 01:31:17,880
Speaker 1: sharks coming right at you or a bull shark in

1639
01:31:17,920 --> 01:31:20,760
Speaker 1: his case, like, there is not a fucking thing you

1640
01:31:20,760 --> 01:31:23,000
Speaker 1: can really do, Like if you're lucky, maybe you can

1641
01:31:23,080 --> 01:31:25,400
Speaker 1: like get an eye gouge or like grab its gills

1642
01:31:25,479 --> 01:31:27,839
Speaker 1: or something like that. But one of those big sharks,

1643
01:31:27,880 --> 01:31:31,439
Speaker 1: it's so big, like you're just fucked. That scares the

1644
01:31:31,439 --> 01:31:35,280
Speaker 1: ship out of me. I think I think it would anybody.

1645
01:31:35,320 --> 01:31:38,080
Speaker 1: But I mean it does seem like he's overcome all

1646
01:31:38,160 --> 01:31:40,559
Speaker 1: fears because of it. And I do get that. I mean,

1647
01:31:40,600 --> 01:31:43,599
Speaker 1: I've never had a near death experience, but I'm sure

1648
01:31:43,640 --> 01:31:46,320
Speaker 1: after that you say to yourself, what more can you

1649
01:31:46,360 --> 01:31:49,680
Speaker 1: do to well? I can always partially understand, you know,

1650
01:31:50,080 --> 01:31:52,400
Speaker 1: him wanting to go back to work and getting so

1651
01:31:52,439 --> 01:31:54,479
Speaker 1: involved with the sharks. It's like one of those things

1652
01:31:54,960 --> 01:31:58,559
Speaker 1: where you have to confront it and and kind of

1653
01:31:58,600 --> 01:32:00,680
Speaker 1: overcome it, or it's or it's just gonna be one

1654
01:32:00,680 --> 01:32:02,960
Speaker 1: of those things that's going to define your life. Or

1655
01:32:03,320 --> 01:32:06,599
Speaker 1: I was going to say, which I just started Carmen

1656
01:32:06,640 --> 01:32:11,519
Speaker 1: Genteel's book where he goes right back, same story. You know,

1657
01:32:11,680 --> 01:32:15,080
Speaker 1: he got he got blinded in one eye, got his

1658
01:32:15,120 --> 01:32:19,080
Speaker 1: ship together and went back to Afghanistan. Yeah, I mean, yeah,

1659
01:32:19,160 --> 01:32:22,040
Speaker 1: it's it's like something there's like two pants in front

1660
01:32:22,040 --> 01:32:24,160
Speaker 1: of you, like either you confront all of that ship

1661
01:32:25,120 --> 01:32:27,759
Speaker 1: or you just you know, sit on the couch eating

1662
01:32:27,760 --> 01:32:32,200
Speaker 1: derrito's getting fat and wallowing and self pity. Or worst

1663
01:32:32,240 --> 01:32:34,920
Speaker 1: case scenario be you know, one of these as we

1664
01:32:34,960 --> 01:32:37,000
Speaker 1: hear twenty two veterans a day, if that is the

1665
01:32:37,080 --> 01:32:42,559
Speaker 1: number addicted to opiates. Um, you know, potentially you know, yeah,

1666
01:32:42,560 --> 01:32:46,120
Speaker 1: God forbid, you know, shooting yourself. I mean it's like

1667
01:32:46,160 --> 01:32:48,840
Speaker 1: one of these. I feel like there's really like a

1668
01:32:49,040 --> 01:32:53,160
Speaker 1: hard decision that has to be made there, um, you know,

1669
01:32:53,200 --> 01:32:55,400
Speaker 1: go down one path or the other. And it is

1670
01:32:55,400 --> 01:32:58,879
Speaker 1: a decision. Even if you commit suicide. It's a bad decision,

1671
01:32:59,200 --> 01:33:01,639
Speaker 1: but that's a decision you make. And you know what

1672
01:33:01,640 --> 01:33:05,519
Speaker 1: what Carmine did, what uh what Paul did that they

1673
01:33:05,520 --> 01:33:08,600
Speaker 1: made decisions to They decided to go down towards a

1674
01:33:08,600 --> 01:33:11,400
Speaker 1: more positive path and confront some of those fears and

1675
01:33:11,439 --> 01:33:13,920
Speaker 1: push past them. And I bet he never would have thought,

1676
01:33:14,000 --> 01:33:16,880
Speaker 1: you know, like he was a navy diver, but he

1677
01:33:16,920 --> 01:33:20,719
Speaker 1: wasn't anyone ever heard of. Now he's going places, inspiring people.

1678
01:33:21,000 --> 01:33:23,280
Speaker 1: He put out a book, He's been on two television

1679
01:33:23,360 --> 01:33:27,000
Speaker 1: dual a television show and a series yearly with Shark Week.

1680
01:33:27,439 --> 01:33:29,760
Speaker 1: Like he's a name that people know. Now he's got

1681
01:33:29,760 --> 01:33:32,840
Speaker 1: a big following. I would, I'm probably, I'm sure. Like

1682
01:33:32,880 --> 01:33:34,760
Speaker 1: the last thing he's thinking is I'm gonna I'm gonna

1683
01:33:34,800 --> 01:33:36,920
Speaker 1: become like a notable figure, you know what I mean.

1684
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Speaker 1: It's just I don't know, but it is a remarkable story.

1685
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Speaker 1: So check out his website. Paula the Gelder dot com

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Speaker 1: um wrapping things up here, be sure to check out

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Speaker 1: Create Club. We have different tiers of membership depending on

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Speaker 1: Also as a reminder for those listening, for a limited time,

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Speaker 1: you can receive a fifty percent discounted membership to the

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Speaker 1: spec Ops Channel, our channel that offers the most exclusive shows,

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Speaker 1: The spec Ops channel premier show Training Cell follows former

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Speaker 1: can watch this content by subscribing to the spec Ops

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Speaker 1: channel that's at spec ops channel dot com and take

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Speaker 1: Sign up today. And the last thing I'm mentioning here

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Speaker 1: episodes is the news Rep Financial Report, which has exclusive

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Speaker 1: Defense industry stocks can be a lucrative investment if you

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Speaker 1: Our team offers unmatched defense industry familiarity and expertise, unbiased

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Speaker 1: knowledge of geopolitical trends, full access to news Reps Foreign Policy, security,

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Speaker 1: experts and analysts. Just go to the finn Rep tab

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Speaker 1: sign up. That's finn Rep on the news rep dot com.

1725
01:36:14,080 --> 01:36:17,280
Speaker 1: Uh and man, this has been a great episode. I

1726
01:36:18,240 --> 01:36:21,240
Speaker 1: learned a lot from it. I feel inspired. I will

1727
01:36:21,280 --> 01:36:24,680
Speaker 1: not become become a vegan anytime soon, but you know,

1728
01:36:24,880 --> 01:36:27,280
Speaker 1: I actually like hearing about all this stuff. I've told

1729
01:36:27,320 --> 01:36:31,439
Speaker 1: you before that, like I recently um narrated a raw

1730
01:36:31,640 --> 01:36:34,679
Speaker 1: vegan audiobook. So it's just I don't know, it's interesting

1731
01:36:34,680 --> 01:36:38,360
Speaker 1: to me hearing about different people's diets and lifestyles. Um.

1732
01:36:38,400 --> 01:36:40,320
Speaker 1: But I do agree with him. If it's something that

1733
01:36:40,400 --> 01:36:43,400
Speaker 1: works for you, I'm all for that. I'm very lazy

1734
01:36:43,400 --> 01:36:45,839
Speaker 1: affair with that. And yes, the thing that Donald Trump tweeted,

1735
01:36:46,160 --> 01:36:49,040
Speaker 1: I saw that when you retweeted from some website, right,

1736
01:36:49,080 --> 01:36:52,519
Speaker 1: do you want to describe it or it's uh like

1737
01:36:52,560 --> 01:36:57,160
Speaker 1: a campaign poster kind of deal for Elizabeth Warren And

1738
01:36:57,200 --> 01:37:02,320
Speaker 1: it says Warren and then below what it says slash yeah,

1739
01:37:02,680 --> 01:37:07,240
Speaker 1: making a reference to her native American area. Okay, that's

1740
01:37:07,280 --> 01:37:10,880
Speaker 1: fucking funny. It is. It's funny that he tweeted it out. Really,

1741
01:37:10,920 --> 01:37:14,639
Speaker 1: I mean, you're the president. But you know, I've said

1742
01:37:14,680 --> 01:37:17,200
Speaker 1: it before on my Twitter feed with her announcing, you know,

1743
01:37:17,240 --> 01:37:22,719
Speaker 1: an exploratory committee. I really feel she stands no chance.

1744
01:37:23,120 --> 01:37:27,439
Speaker 1: I don't think she's appealing to the mainstream average America.

1745
01:37:27,880 --> 01:37:30,639
Speaker 1: Now that the Democrats are dumb, they're making every mistake

1746
01:37:30,680 --> 01:37:33,120
Speaker 1: there is to make. Um, you know, they could run

1747
01:37:33,200 --> 01:37:36,120
Speaker 1: Joe Biden and maybe win, but they're they're not going

1748
01:37:36,160 --> 01:37:38,479
Speaker 1: to do it because he's an old white guy. UM,

1749
01:37:38,520 --> 01:37:42,440
Speaker 1: So they're gonna want to run somebody who's unelectable, um

1750
01:37:42,479 --> 01:37:45,240
Speaker 1: and basically hand this thing to Donald. I think I

1751
01:37:45,240 --> 01:37:48,160
Speaker 1: think that's probably what's gonna happen. Yeah, I think it's

1752
01:37:48,280 --> 01:37:51,120
Speaker 1: very likely. Of other names I'm hearing, though, I think

1753
01:37:51,160 --> 01:37:54,080
Speaker 1: someone if I'm being objective here, I think someone like

1754
01:37:54,160 --> 01:37:57,439
Speaker 1: Corey Booker would be more appealing than a wiz Warren.

1755
01:37:58,560 --> 01:38:01,479
Speaker 1: I just think it was in between her radical views,

1756
01:38:01,520 --> 01:38:04,800
Speaker 1: but also, uh, just even her speaking style and things

1757
01:38:04,840 --> 01:38:07,800
Speaker 1: like that that that people don't take into account on

1758
01:38:08,360 --> 01:38:12,559
Speaker 1: when we're talking. But people forget that that the public

1759
01:38:12,640 --> 01:38:15,320
Speaker 1: votes based on really small things sometimes just how this

1760
01:38:15,360 --> 01:38:19,160
Speaker 1: person looks, and you know, um, I don't find her

1761
01:38:19,160 --> 01:38:21,760
Speaker 1: to be electable. But I agree with you. I think

1762
01:38:21,760 --> 01:38:24,080
Speaker 1: Trump is gonna win again. I think we're gonna see

1763
01:38:25,280 --> 01:38:29,120
Speaker 1: Trump went in and now that it's like we're gearing

1764
01:38:29,200 --> 01:38:36,559
Speaker 1: up for what's gonna be probably a heated Democrat primary. Yep. Cool. Alright,

1765
01:38:36,560 --> 01:38:39,799
Speaker 1: well we're wrapping this up. You're gonna record your news segment,

1766
01:38:39,960 --> 01:38:43,679
Speaker 1: which people can check out at the news rep dot com.

1767
01:38:43,880 --> 01:38:47,200
Speaker 1: Um next episode, we have Alex Homads coming back on.

1768
01:38:47,840 --> 01:38:50,519
Speaker 1: Oh cool. Yeah, And then I'm excited for two weeks

1769
01:38:50,520 --> 01:38:53,439
Speaker 1: from now at Derek coming back on. Yeah, that's gonna

1770
01:38:53,439 --> 01:38:56,400
Speaker 1: be cool. He has his photography book coming out soon.

1771
01:38:56,960 --> 01:39:00,200
Speaker 1: Pictures he took, well, we'll talk to him about it,

1772
01:39:00,240 --> 01:39:02,559
Speaker 1: but I believe there were most are all of them

1773
01:39:02,600 --> 01:39:06,679
Speaker 1: taken in Afghanistan. And you guys heard me talk about

1774
01:39:06,800 --> 01:39:10,280
Speaker 1: on a recent episode the whole creative thing in that

1775
01:39:10,320 --> 01:39:12,559
Speaker 1: documentary Leaf of Faith. And then I saw the guy

1776
01:39:12,880 --> 01:39:15,800
Speaker 1: Peter Gidrey, who runs a veterans group and is like

1777
01:39:15,880 --> 01:39:19,200
Speaker 1: firm believer in creating for postgumatic stress. So we're gonna

1778
01:39:19,240 --> 01:39:22,400
Speaker 1: have him on him. Excited for that as well. Great

1779
01:39:22,400 --> 01:39:25,720
Speaker 1: shows coming on in And I am still trying to

1780
01:39:25,760 --> 01:39:31,920
Speaker 1: get Dennis Robin on the podcast you've been listening to

1781
01:39:32,160 --> 01:39:36,599
Speaker 1: Self rep Radio. New episodes up every Wednesday and Friday.

1782
01:39:37,400 --> 01:40:02,560
Speaker 1: Follow the show on Instagram and Twitter at self rep Radio.