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Speaker 1: M beautiful. If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough.

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Speaker 1: You're listening to Software up Radio, Special operations, military news

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Speaker 1: and straight talk with the guys in the community. Hollong

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Speaker 1: and everyone, Welcome back to Software Radio, Software Radio one

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Speaker 1: time on Target. I am your host today. Steve Balistrari

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Speaker 1: joining us is Sean's Foods SOFTWAREPS editor in chief, which

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Speaker 1: Sean and I usually have to talk on the telephone,

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Speaker 1: so today I can see him while we're talking. But

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Speaker 1: we have a very special guest with us today. Jay

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Speaker 1: Collins is running for Congress in the state of Florida.

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Speaker 1: He's a Special Forces veteran. His story is one that

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Speaker 1: our listeners will really resonate with. I mean, you talk

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Speaker 1: about some guy's careers and his is worth listening to.

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Speaker 1: He has a lot of interesting stuff to tell, and

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Speaker 1: Sean and I were gonna talk to him about as

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Speaker 1: much as we can squeeze in on his a lot

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Speaker 1: of time. So Jay, welcome to Software Radio. Thanks for

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Speaker 1: taking the time to join us today. Yes, Steve, Sean,

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Speaker 1: thanks for having me on here. I appreciate the opportunity

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Speaker 1: and I'm looking forward to the conversation and seeing where

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Speaker 1: this thing goes. It's gonna be a good time. Yes,

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Speaker 1: And I'm gonna hit you with the toughest question right

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Speaker 1: off the bat, and that is what's harder being an

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Speaker 1: SF medic on an A team or raising two young sons. Wow,

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Speaker 1: that is a great question. I'm gonna tell you that

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Speaker 1: the skills needed for both is very very similar. Actually,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's a lot like when your Bravo and

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Speaker 1: Charlie are getting in a fight over something very simplistic.

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Speaker 1: I same thing happens in the Collins household with my

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Speaker 1: six and nine year old and ut little refereeing, some

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Speaker 1: band aids and uh and things like that here as well,

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Speaker 1: a little ice taking the face out and uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's the same skill. So I'm gonna actually, uh split

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Speaker 1: the difference in here and say it's really no different.

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Speaker 1: Uh you know, it's just a continuation of what I've

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Speaker 1: been doing. I like how you say that six and

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Speaker 1: a nine year old is having. It's like having the

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Speaker 1: A team Bravo and eighteen Charlie fighting in the team room. Uh.

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Speaker 1: That brings back some pleasant memories there. Um, I wanted

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Speaker 1: to talk to you, Oh, go right ahead, I was

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Speaker 1: gonna say, and and that's how it is right, we

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Speaker 1: that you deal with things kinetically in the team room.

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Speaker 1: You get angry, you get frustrated, and then your best

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Speaker 1: friends when you're done and you sit down and life

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Speaker 1: goes on, it's kumbai ya. That's a beauty of the

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Speaker 1: team and that's beauty of brothers. Right. It was like

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Speaker 1: a happy meal where it's the same as a bottle

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Speaker 1: of bourbon between you know, out of the happy meal stage.

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Speaker 1: No more of those chotsky toys all over you. You

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Speaker 1: grew up in a farm up in Montana, is that correct?

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Speaker 1: That's right, in northeastern Montana, a little town called Scobee,

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Speaker 1: a couple of miles from Canada, on a farm. We

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Speaker 1: grew wheat barley oates. Uh. It was. It was a manner,

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Speaker 1: the great place to grow up. A community just founded

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Speaker 1: on American principles. The community came together and really gave

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Speaker 1: me the building blocks that have led me to my

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Speaker 1: career in the military, working in the nonprofit sector and

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Speaker 1: really will serve me well. I believe in this this

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Speaker 1: new adventure and running for political office and serving the

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Speaker 1: people of District fourteen. Cold. Yeah, yeah, it's for real

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Speaker 1: cold up there in the winter, you know. Minus forty

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Speaker 1: with winds. It's a special kind of chili. But there

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Speaker 1: are the God's people up there. They're hearty, fun loving people,

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Speaker 1: and I can't think of a better place to grow up.

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Speaker 1: I've always said one of the great things about Americas

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Speaker 1: that we can get people to live in our version

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Speaker 1: of Siberia voluntarily. I don't know the far far from

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Speaker 1: it if the eastern side of the state's pretty flat

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Speaker 1: and desolate, but there's some strong, strong people there. So

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Speaker 1: what what What was the driving force and getting you

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Speaker 1: to join the military. So I'll tell you. You You know,

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Speaker 1: there's a couple of things. Some of it was circumstantial

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Speaker 1: and some of it was how you're raised. Right, Um,

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Speaker 1: my grandparents adopted me. My dad and my grandfather was

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Speaker 1: a World War Two veteran, and I heard him speak,

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Speaker 1: you know, philosophically and structurally and intelligently about his time

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Speaker 1: in the military, how it formed him in the person

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Speaker 1: he was, his work, ethic of always giving back, serving

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Speaker 1: the people, the greater good, we the people, all these

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Speaker 1: common threads that I was like, yeah, Dad, and I

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Speaker 1: got it, I understand, right, But I didn't realize how

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Speaker 1: many great foundational tools he was giving me how many

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Speaker 1: rocks at the time when I was a young kid,

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Speaker 1: not using my two years and I really focused on

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Speaker 1: my one mouth, perhaps more than I should have been,

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Speaker 1: and uh, you know, it was it was just interesting

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Speaker 1: looking back all the things he gave me that really

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Speaker 1: turned me into who I was. And I'm I'm forever

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Speaker 1: grateful for my dad and my mom and our community

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Speaker 1: at large in turning me there. And then, you know,

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Speaker 1: I went to college for a couple of years, and uh,

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Speaker 1: I probably wasn't quite ready for that role in life,

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Speaker 1: and uh, you know, just it didn't fit. It didn't

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Speaker 1: feel comfortable. So I joined the military. I thought, you know,

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Speaker 1: my dad told me it was a great thing. Maybe

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Speaker 1: it'll help bring out the best in me. I told myself,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna give it a try for four years and

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Speaker 1: if I love it, I'll stick in. And I never

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Speaker 1: looked back. You know. It brought out the best parts

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Speaker 1: in my life. It led me to my wife. I

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Speaker 1: wouldn't have my children every more. From the military, I've

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Speaker 1: traveled around the world. I have friends from corner to

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Speaker 1: corner on this globe, and people that I can pick

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Speaker 1: up the phone having not spoken to for ten years,

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Speaker 1: and we can pick up a conversation like we just

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Speaker 1: talked yesterday. You know, I can't think of a better

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Speaker 1: life than the one I've lived, and I'm grateful for

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Speaker 1: every moment of it. Now, you were in jump school

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Speaker 1: when they, you know, all of this that got us

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Speaker 1: into Afghanistan all started. Uh, tell tell us our our listeners,

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Speaker 1: you know about what the mindset was at that point. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So you know nine eleven, my wife and I had

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Speaker 1: just gotten married, and uh, the Army they have the

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Speaker 1: joint Married Couples Program. Right, I was living in the

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Speaker 1: UK at the time, lalos in d C. And uh,

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Speaker 1: if you watch movies, you've seen Pirates of the Caribbean,

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Speaker 1: they have a pirate's code and everything is kind of

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Speaker 1: a ish. Well, that's the Armies joined married Couple's program.

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Speaker 1: Rather than movements both together, they decided, you know what

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Speaker 1: we'll do, let's double down and moving bowl someplace new.

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Speaker 1: So four Bragg was home, right, we kind of ordered

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Speaker 1: his head to pot Bragg. We're like, all right, we'll

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Speaker 1: see where it goes, right, rob on four Brad go

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Speaker 1: off to four Bending Georgia. Uh, you know, on September ten,

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Speaker 1: I've done my first jump. I officially tested the theory

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Speaker 1: of gravity with a parachute smashing the dirt got up

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Speaker 1: and I was getting ready to do it again. We're

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Speaker 1: flying around and you know, we get the no jump

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Speaker 1: and we just keep flying and flying and flying. Hooked

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Speaker 1: up and then they had to sit down and you're like,

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Speaker 1: all right, something's weird, right, And pretty soon they're like

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Speaker 1: unhooked everything. You know, there's a scrub and the ordinance land.

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Speaker 1: So we flew and flew and flew. We ended up

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Speaker 1: landing the plane. Sat on the plane for you know,

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Speaker 1: what seemed like an eternity because it's Georgia in the summer,

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Speaker 1: it's hot, um and they brought us out on the

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Speaker 1: on the tarmac and we sat there and we had

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Speaker 1: no idea what's going on. We started to hear rumored

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Speaker 1: a little bit and we're like, that can't be. It

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Speaker 1: doesn't sound right right, and then uh, you know, they

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Speaker 1: bust us back and I remember them wheeling out this

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Speaker 1: TV and this little tiny TV. They recorded it to

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Speaker 1: tell us what was going on. And you know, back then,

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Speaker 1: connectivity wasn't the same. Cell phones weren't what we have now.

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Speaker 1: My life wife was living in DC at the time,

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Speaker 1: so we hear about the twin towers, we hear about

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Speaker 1: the pentagone. I'm like, oh my gosh, you know, I

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Speaker 1: can't believe this happened. One to my wife, is there?

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Speaker 1: Is she okay? Eventually, you know, I got a hold

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Speaker 1: of her and you know, everything was all right. And

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Speaker 1: you know, at that moment, we knew that everything was changing.

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Speaker 1: We had gone from a nation of peace and we're

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Speaker 1: becoming a nation at war very quickly. You know, we

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Speaker 1: were young. We thought this is gonna be over, just

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Speaker 1: like the last war in a few months, maybe the year.

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Speaker 1: You know, we've got to get out that we've got

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Speaker 1: to be president. We've gotta be a part of this

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Speaker 1: and do our part. You know, I don't think any

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Speaker 1: of us at the time had any inkling that twenty

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Speaker 1: years later we would be wrapping this thing up. You know. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: the way to buy the administration let us to close Afghanistan.

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Speaker 1: But it uh it defined an entire generation of military

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Speaker 1: guys who have enlisted on day one and retired an

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Speaker 1: entire career at war. It's pretty profound. And parents who

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Speaker 1: came into Afghanistan early on and have their children go

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Speaker 1: fight in the same places that they had fought in

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Speaker 1: both Afghanistan and in Iraq. It's it's it's it's crazy

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Speaker 1: to think. Yeah, it's it is. I mean you you know,

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Speaker 1: you you see so many stories now of guys who

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Speaker 1: served in the early year or two of Afghanistan and

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Speaker 1: now their sons and daughters are over there and doing

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Speaker 1: multiple tours. It's like that twenty years is a very

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Speaker 1: very long time. And a lot of the guys that

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Speaker 1: in in girls I should say that, you know, enlisted

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Speaker 1: right after nine eleven. They're coming up on their retirement. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it's it's crazy to think about. I mean, you know, uh,

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Speaker 1: we don't normally deal in war was like that. It's

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Speaker 1: it's uh, it's very an American like as you guess

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Speaker 1: I could say. But back to your career. Then you

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Speaker 1: went to SF. You I'm sure you had quite the

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Speaker 1: experience in selection and then you became a SF medic

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Speaker 1: Um tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, so

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Speaker 1: selection was was interesting, right, It's it's a good time.

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Speaker 1: We would jokingly called in the School for Advanced Suffering

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Speaker 1: back then, but force his assessment and selection and uh

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Speaker 1: I went in the infamous ice storm class November of

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Speaker 1: two thousand two. Uh, trees were freezing and actually shut

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Speaker 1: down your school for a couple of days. Uh. It

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Speaker 1: was it was a mess, right, Like trees were freezing

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Speaker 1: and falling over. We were out doing land now, practicing

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Speaker 1: for the star, and they were like, stop, it's too cold.

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Speaker 1: I remember crossing, Uh, you know, bodies of water and

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Speaker 1: coming out in your uniform and freeze on you instantly,

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Speaker 1: Like it's crunchy, hard, and you're trying to walk land

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Speaker 1: nab at night with frozen uniform, boots are frozen solid.

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Speaker 1: You're just miserable. Uh, But in the end, you know

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Speaker 1: you have a goal. You're focused on selection and getting

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Speaker 1: through this. I don't remember the number we started with,

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Speaker 1: but seventies some got selected the frozen chosen as we

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Speaker 1: called ourselves. And Uh, there's a couple of stories from there.

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Speaker 1: I remember the day that they shut us down and

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Speaker 1: pulled us in. Uh. A guy was sitting in the

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Speaker 1: back of a truck and a tree frozen broke and

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Speaker 1: hit this guy sitting in the back of the truck,

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Speaker 1: ended up breaking his back. I mean, what are the chances? Right?

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Speaker 1: The kid persevered, went through selection again, became a soft

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Speaker 1: and s f guy. It made it through, but had

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Speaker 1: you know, long term injuries. They just kind of dogged

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Speaker 1: him throughout his career. And then in that same time frame,

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Speaker 1: I remember walking through doing the Star. You know, I'm

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Speaker 1: I'm focused on from the puppy palace to the headquarters

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Speaker 1: to my point, all across the zone. Right. You know,

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Speaker 1: I'm like, what in the world is that? You know,

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Speaker 1: you've got a mark around the rocks so it sticks

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Speaker 1: out of a little bit, right, it's bright orange or

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Speaker 1: whatever the rope guard best color is. And I'm like

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Speaker 1: a little rucksack laying on the ground by itself, so,

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Speaker 1: you know, like get him out over there and get

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Speaker 1: him on the rucksack. I'm like, wow, self, there's a

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Speaker 1: rucksack and no person attached. Bad right, And then I

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Speaker 1: find a rubber duck and then I walk and I'm

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Speaker 1: seeing footprints in the snow. And there's this guy who's,

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Speaker 1: you know, like balancing like a pinball off of trees.

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Speaker 1: He had opened up his shirt, his uniforms frozen. He's

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Speaker 1: just he's in the early stages of hypothermia, right. His

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Speaker 1: lips are turned in blue. He's out of it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So I end up having to pick him up put

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Speaker 1: him in my my sleeping bag and dragged him all

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Speaker 1: the way back to the talk. I dropped him off

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Speaker 1: and the like candidate, go to your next point, run

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Speaker 1: for that, and got moving, And uh, you know a little,

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Speaker 1: did I know that those moments, in those obstacles and

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Speaker 1: that perseverance and focusing on just your brother on your

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Speaker 1: left and right at that foundational selection level, we're we're

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Speaker 1: so key to what was going to be, you know,

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Speaker 1: the rest of my career as an eighteen Delta and

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Speaker 1: eighteen Zulu and then later on as you you get

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Speaker 1: old and put in staff jobs. You know, I remember

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Speaker 1: the very first lesson I learned was this crotchety old

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Speaker 1: guy and I swear to god, he looked like he

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Speaker 1: was sixty five. He was probably thirty. Right, Um, He's like, look,

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Speaker 1: if you don't learn anything else in selection, remember this.

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Speaker 1: You've got to leave things better than you've got it.

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Speaker 1: That one moment in time has been seared into my

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Speaker 1: brain because ultimately that's what it's about. Right, Everything we

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Speaker 1: do should be focused on making things better for those

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Speaker 1: around us, for us, for future generations. And if you're

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Speaker 1: not doing that, what are you doing? Right? And as

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Speaker 1: a medic you know, we had a little joke earlier

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Speaker 1: about the kids and the Bravo and Charlie being doc.

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Speaker 1: Being the medic is an interesting thing, right You're your part,

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Speaker 1: you know, boo boo fix or if you will, band

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Speaker 1: aids and motion and uh, you're the smart guy quote unquote,

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Speaker 1: so you're expected to think through things and reason, but

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Speaker 1: in reality you just want to break things and be

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Speaker 1: like the Charlie and you know, blow things up and

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Speaker 1: build buildings. And man, I didn't want to be a medic.

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Speaker 1: I you know, I got selected and I was like, guys,

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Speaker 1: I don't want to be a medic. Look, you're test

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Speaker 1: were great. Do you want to be an s F guy? Well,

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Speaker 1: of course it went through selection. Well then you're gonna

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Speaker 1: be a medic. This isn't a choice thing. You've been

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Speaker 1: selected to be a medic, got it? Uh? You know.

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Speaker 1: I pushed back really hard, but in the end, I

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Speaker 1: can't think of of a role in Special Forces that

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Speaker 1: would have fit me better. And I'm so thankful that

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Speaker 1: in the in the SF community and the cadre knew

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Speaker 1: enough about me as a candidate to push me where

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Speaker 1: I needed to be, even though I wasn't ready to

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Speaker 1: accept that that's where I needed to be. You know,

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Speaker 1: it gotted me down career paths and choices that that

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Speaker 1: changed my career and uh turned me into a better person.

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Speaker 1: J If I could just uh go up in here

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Speaker 1: for a second, did you say, did you say you

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Speaker 1: found that guy on the hill with his uniform open

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Speaker 1: and stuff? When you reached him, he was so he

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Speaker 1: was unbuttoned his uniforms. I'm assuming could gotten. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: think you understood what you actually did that. I think

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Speaker 1: you saved that guy's life. I mean that the at

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Speaker 1: the end of hypothermia, you can't tell the difference between

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Speaker 1: cold and heat, and they find a lot of hypothermics

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Speaker 1: naked because they take all their clothes off thinking they're

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Speaker 1: burning up. You may have gotten that guy within forty

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Speaker 1: five minutes of him having cardiac arrest and dropping dead.

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Speaker 1: I think you saved that guy's life, you know. Possibly

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Speaker 1: Uh in the end, I would like to think that

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Speaker 1: if it had been me that happened to he was

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Speaker 1: in the same thing for me. Right. That's where our

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Speaker 1: community is about, for our brotherhood about I said, a

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Speaker 1: lot of people's lives been in positions to do that,

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Speaker 1: you know, but in the end, it's not about me,

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Speaker 1: And this is something I talked about as a candidate.

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Speaker 1: It's not about me, It's about we. And that guy

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Speaker 1: was my brother. He was out there, you know, bleeding

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Speaker 1: in the same spots I was, and I knew that

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Speaker 1: what was best for him was to get him in

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Speaker 1: my you know, in my sleeping bag, put him on

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Speaker 1: my back, and walked a couple of miles back to

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Speaker 1: the talk. We did that, and uh, you know, he

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Speaker 1: ended up being fine. And you know, it was a

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Speaker 1: good story. I'm just saying that fate, God, whatever, how

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Speaker 1: every one of you would put me in that position,

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Speaker 1: because it could have been a lot worse outcome. Yeah, no,

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Speaker 1: it really was. I was, like I said, you've ever

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Speaker 1: sold the story guy's life? I think it was thirty

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Speaker 1: forty minutes of dropping dead. Great job, good job, funny

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Speaker 1: story about selection. I started working there when they first

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Speaker 1: started selection, so I'm dating myself here. Um, but you know,

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Speaker 1: when we went through the only difference was the SF guys,

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Speaker 1: because if you're gonna work at selection, you had to

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Speaker 1: go through it as a candidate, even though you were

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Speaker 1: already as of qualified, which wasn't a lot of fun.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's not a lot of fun for the candidates.

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Speaker 1: It's even less fun for the for the cadurary members

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Speaker 1: at that time who had to go through it already

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Speaker 1: tapped out. But the only difference was we didn't have

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Speaker 1: to wear the little white tags that they make the

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Speaker 1: candidates where and we didn't have to remove everything from

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Speaker 1: our uniform. So that I remember going out to the

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Speaker 1: Puppy Palace, you know, they're driving us out there in

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Speaker 1: the truck and there was three s F guys in

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Speaker 1: a truck full of you know, candidates going through. And

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Speaker 1: finally one guy goes, how come you guys already tapped

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Speaker 1: out and you're doing all of this and uh, my

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Speaker 1: friend Brian, look he has passed away now. But Brian

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Speaker 1: looked at him and said, we're not supposed to tell

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Speaker 1: you guys this, but they're gonna send up an SF

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Speaker 1: guy in the next Space Shuttle mission, and so we

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Speaker 1: we have we have to go through this and then

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Speaker 1: whoever does the best in selection, they're gonna get to

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Speaker 1: go through NASA training and then they'll decide who goes

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Speaker 1: up in the shuttle. And the truck when completely silent,

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Speaker 1: and this guy from had a thick New York accident

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Speaker 1: all the way in the front of the truck goes

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Speaker 1: get the fact outta here, yeah, you know, and it's like, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, nothing surprises and anything you see in selection,

337
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Speaker 1: but you know, uh, that's something that sucks when you're

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Speaker 1: going through it. But after it's all over, these experiences

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00:18:44,640 --> 00:18:48,680
Speaker 1: you'll never forget. So absolutely absolutely makes me. It makes

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Speaker 1: me left to think an innocuous question like that turns

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Speaker 1: into an elaborate scale story. Right, was one of those

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Speaker 1: quick wits, you know, because like I didn't know how

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Speaker 1: to answer it. I didn't want to tell him we're

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Speaker 1: gonna be instructors, you know, as soon as your classes over.

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Speaker 1: So I was just at a loss and Brian jumped

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Speaker 1: right in, you know, and he told this guy that

347
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Speaker 1: and I cracked up laughing after the fact. You know,

348
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Speaker 1: just like we talked about earlier. Right, you gotta have

349
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Speaker 1: that funny guy in the group, right, a quick pop

350
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Speaker 1: pop pop yep. And you know in our SF class

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Speaker 1: we had that, we had that guy. You know, he

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Speaker 1: kept us all. In fact, he even cracked up the

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Speaker 1: instructors at Camp McCall, which doesn't normally happen very often.

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Speaker 1: So good one anyway back back to your career. Then

355
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Speaker 1: you went to seven Special Forces Group, which is never

356
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Speaker 1: dear to my heart. So you can see the I

357
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Speaker 1: love me wall behind me. Yeah, so I tell you

358
00:19:48,520 --> 00:19:51,080
Speaker 1: a little bit about you know what was They were

359
00:19:51,080 --> 00:19:54,240
Speaker 1: already an egglin when you joined, weren't they? No, No,

360
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Speaker 1: I was a four brag. You were right there on

361
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Speaker 1: four brack, you know, in the old home and the

362
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Speaker 1: old Rick's and uh in the old the old buildings

363
00:20:02,440 --> 00:20:06,520
Speaker 1: there and uh, yeah, I got selected and uh, I

364
00:20:06,600 --> 00:20:09,960
Speaker 1: went through the Q course, became an eighteen delta, was

365
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Speaker 1: so just stoked right ready to get out there and

366
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Speaker 1: do what needed to be done. I showed up when

367
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Speaker 1: a step and Special Forces Group was down range and uh, unfortunately,

368
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Speaker 1: my very first job after in processing was to bury

369
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Speaker 1: one of my friends in the Q course. One of

370
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Speaker 1: my very very close friends have been killed in a

371
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Speaker 1: in a roadside bomb essentially in Afghanistan, and uh, you

372
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Speaker 1: know it was just heartbreaking. But that moment in time again,

373
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Speaker 1: you have these moments that just sear into you know

374
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Speaker 1: you're you're being you know, you can never walk away from,

375
00:20:49,720 --> 00:20:52,600
Speaker 1: you know, knowing that a guy that I had just

376
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Speaker 1: gone through selection with and we've done s ut and

377
00:20:55,800 --> 00:20:58,000
Speaker 1: you know all these other things, and it was just

378
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Speaker 1: a good person, an amazing human being, and someone that

379
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Speaker 1: that I hope to have a long friendship with. And

380
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Speaker 1: to this day I admire him. I think the world

381
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Speaker 1: of who he was and the man he was at

382
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Speaker 1: the time, and I'm grateful to people like him existed.

383
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Speaker 1: And you know, that moment just drove home the reality

384
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Speaker 1: of what our life was like in Special Forces, Especially

385
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Speaker 1: as a medic, you stand between your friend, your brother,

386
00:21:29,480 --> 00:21:34,280
Speaker 1: someone's husband, a father, a son living or dying, and

387
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Speaker 1: your ability to save a life can be the only

388
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Speaker 1: thing that brings that back. So there is no I've tried.

389
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Speaker 1: You can't do just your best. Nothing but your best

390
00:21:44,720 --> 00:21:47,320
Speaker 1: is acceptable, and you can't save everybody, and that's just

391
00:21:47,359 --> 00:21:52,960
Speaker 1: a fad, a sad fact of of medicine. But you

392
00:21:53,000 --> 00:21:56,159
Speaker 1: cannot be found wanting. Your skills can't wane. You have

393
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Speaker 1: to be there, you have to know how to do it,

394
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Speaker 1: and you have to do it with the dexterity and

395
00:22:00,680 --> 00:22:04,040
Speaker 1: the capability expected of a Special Forces medic. And I

396
00:22:04,160 --> 00:22:07,040
Speaker 1: knew right there that no matter what I did, I

397
00:22:07,040 --> 00:22:09,080
Speaker 1: would not be found wanting. As a medic, I would

398
00:22:09,119 --> 00:22:11,240
Speaker 1: not let my brother die, and I would do all

399
00:22:11,280 --> 00:22:13,520
Speaker 1: I could to make sure that I never had to

400
00:22:13,560 --> 00:22:16,840
Speaker 1: live that moment again. Unfortunately that's not the case. There

401
00:22:16,840 --> 00:22:20,040
Speaker 1: were many many more that died, some that I couldn't save,

402
00:22:20,480 --> 00:22:22,880
Speaker 1: and some that I wish I had been there because

403
00:22:22,880 --> 00:22:26,159
Speaker 1: they were dear friends. And again, that's just one of

404
00:22:26,160 --> 00:22:29,160
Speaker 1: those moments you know, you step in, you just realize

405
00:22:29,880 --> 00:22:33,040
Speaker 1: it's real, this is what it's about. So you and

406
00:22:33,320 --> 00:22:35,720
Speaker 1: on the verification of the family and all that stuff.

407
00:22:36,320 --> 00:22:39,760
Speaker 1: Uh so I was. I wasn't the notification team, but

408
00:22:39,800 --> 00:22:41,520
Speaker 1: I was up in Arlington. I was part of the

409
00:22:41,560 --> 00:22:45,800
Speaker 1: detail because I knew him, and uh yeah, I had

410
00:22:45,840 --> 00:22:50,920
Speaker 1: to uh very very first detail I ever did, and uh,

411
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Speaker 1: you know, life altering. But in the end, you see

412
00:22:55,000 --> 00:22:59,240
Speaker 1: the resiliency of the team, the community. People were sad,

413
00:22:59,560 --> 00:23:03,000
Speaker 1: broken hearted. You saw the family, but you saw the fire,

414
00:23:03,320 --> 00:23:07,560
Speaker 1: the drive, the determination to continue on to take care

415
00:23:07,560 --> 00:23:10,439
Speaker 1: of the mission in hand, and you knew that I'm

416
00:23:10,480 --> 00:23:13,199
Speaker 1: gonna have to work really, really hard to maintain my

417
00:23:13,280 --> 00:23:16,160
Speaker 1: place in this tribe, to be a part of this community.

418
00:23:16,240 --> 00:23:19,560
Speaker 1: And something I say all the time is I never

419
00:23:19,600 --> 00:23:23,400
Speaker 1: had to work so hard to be average. Right. There

420
00:23:23,400 --> 00:23:26,399
Speaker 1: were amazing people to your left and right. You know,

421
00:23:26,480 --> 00:23:30,840
Speaker 1: steel sharpened steel, right. Ah, there were people that were

422
00:23:30,920 --> 00:23:34,040
Speaker 1: driving you, whether they knew it or not, to be

423
00:23:34,040 --> 00:23:37,719
Speaker 1: beyond your best. You know, everyone thinks they've identified how

424
00:23:37,760 --> 00:23:40,399
Speaker 1: good they can be, but the truth is you're steeling

425
00:23:40,440 --> 00:23:42,879
Speaker 1: is so much higher and you get driven there because

426
00:23:42,880 --> 00:23:44,919
Speaker 1: of the people around you. It's easy to be a

427
00:23:44,920 --> 00:23:47,680
Speaker 1: hard charger and be resilient when you're with people who

428
00:23:47,680 --> 00:23:51,399
Speaker 1: are like minded. And being in a group of professionals

429
00:23:51,400 --> 00:23:55,960
Speaker 1: in Special Forces again, it redefined the art if possible.

430
00:23:56,040 --> 00:23:58,920
Speaker 1: It is the best way I could say it. Yeah,

431
00:23:59,200 --> 00:24:01,480
Speaker 1: that's a great, a great way of saying it. Because

432
00:24:01,720 --> 00:24:04,240
Speaker 1: somebody asked me a couple of years ago. I was

433
00:24:04,400 --> 00:24:08,120
Speaker 1: somewhere and you know, some guy, um, he had been

434
00:24:08,160 --> 00:24:10,520
Speaker 1: in the regular military, and he asked me what it

435
00:24:10,640 --> 00:24:14,720
Speaker 1: was like being in Special Forces and I told him that,

436
00:24:14,920 --> 00:24:17,840
Speaker 1: you know, and I'm sure it's the same through all

437
00:24:17,880 --> 00:24:21,080
Speaker 1: the different errors. And it was like, you take the

438
00:24:21,119 --> 00:24:24,080
Speaker 1: best guys out of every unit, you throw them together

439
00:24:24,280 --> 00:24:28,399
Speaker 1: in a caldron and it it just raises your game.

440
00:24:28,800 --> 00:24:31,959
Speaker 1: I said, it's like being a guy on the twenty

441
00:24:31,960 --> 00:24:37,600
Speaker 1: seven Yankees, because you know, the lineup is full of superstars.

442
00:24:37,840 --> 00:24:43,760
Speaker 1: You know, Um, it's just a yeah. And uh, you know,

443
00:24:44,520 --> 00:24:47,320
Speaker 1: the selection process, as we used to say, it never

444
00:24:47,359 --> 00:24:51,000
Speaker 1: stops because the higher up you get, the more you know,

445
00:24:51,080 --> 00:24:54,439
Speaker 1: we would expect out of everybody. And uh, you know,

446
00:24:55,000 --> 00:24:59,600
Speaker 1: it's just you know, it's a tough environment. You have

447
00:24:59,720 --> 00:25:02,879
Speaker 1: to you have to have a a good mindset to

448
00:25:02,960 --> 00:25:07,200
Speaker 1: be able to handle that day after day because there's

449
00:25:07,240 --> 00:25:11,680
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure on all of us. Oh really,

450
00:25:12,240 --> 00:25:14,680
Speaker 1: you never really done becoming. You know, you think you're

451
00:25:15,359 --> 00:25:20,760
Speaker 1: you think you've gotten somewhere professionally in your in your

452
00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:23,080
Speaker 1: military skills, and then you see somebody really good and

453
00:25:23,119 --> 00:25:27,280
Speaker 1: you go, oh shit, it's really get you get you

454
00:25:27,280 --> 00:25:29,000
Speaker 1: can't have an a team. And then you look at

455
00:25:29,359 --> 00:25:31,720
Speaker 1: you look at your team, sergeant, and go, wow, I

456
00:25:31,760 --> 00:25:38,560
Speaker 1: have a long way to go. You're a little older

457
00:25:38,920 --> 00:25:43,200
Speaker 1: and more defined in my capability and you know my experience.

458
00:25:43,840 --> 00:25:47,159
Speaker 1: Uh you would hear young guys or people come out

459
00:25:47,160 --> 00:25:49,560
Speaker 1: of the que corpse. Yeah, I'm tad and a Green Beret.

460
00:25:49,600 --> 00:25:52,320
Speaker 1: I made it as I look, guys, that's a piece

461
00:25:52,359 --> 00:25:55,439
Speaker 1: of cloth on a uniform. You are a Green Beret

462
00:25:55,720 --> 00:25:58,040
Speaker 1: and it's not what you did. You earn your place

463
00:25:58,040 --> 00:26:00,600
Speaker 1: in this tribe every single day by your actions, by

464
00:26:00,600 --> 00:26:03,600
Speaker 1: your choices. Don't embarrass the regiment. Remember the people that

465
00:26:03,640 --> 00:26:06,439
Speaker 1: came before you. It's in the Special Forces CREED, right,

466
00:26:07,280 --> 00:26:10,960
Speaker 1: we have a history that comes before us. Don't embarrass them,

467
00:26:11,119 --> 00:26:13,480
Speaker 1: don't embarrass the team, and don't embarrass those you have

468
00:26:13,560 --> 00:26:16,919
Speaker 1: to come. Uh, this matters. It's bigger than you, and

469
00:26:16,960 --> 00:26:20,000
Speaker 1: take care of it. Push this forward, make it better,

470
00:26:20,240 --> 00:26:22,680
Speaker 1: make it greater than itself, make it better than than

471
00:26:22,720 --> 00:26:25,800
Speaker 1: what you got it. And uh, you know that really

472
00:26:25,840 --> 00:26:31,240
Speaker 1: resonated and people grasped that pretty quickly. I think, well,

473
00:26:31,280 --> 00:26:33,439
Speaker 1: you know, and I wanted to ask you about this

474
00:26:33,560 --> 00:26:37,840
Speaker 1: because you know we had talked before offline, and you know,

475
00:26:38,080 --> 00:26:41,879
Speaker 1: you were wounded in Afghanistan and you actually did surgery

476
00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:46,359
Speaker 1: on your own arm, which is like when I heard that,

477
00:26:46,400 --> 00:26:51,040
Speaker 1: I was like, whoa, that is better. Yeah, I was like,

478
00:26:51,080 --> 00:26:52,800
Speaker 1: for a guy who didn't want to be a medic,

479
00:26:52,880 --> 00:26:56,119
Speaker 1: that's that's a feather. And you would you would you

480
00:26:56,200 --> 00:27:00,399
Speaker 1: fill in our listeners a little bit about that. Yeah.

481
00:27:00,520 --> 00:27:04,359
Speaker 1: So one, I'm gonna put it this way, loved me

482
00:27:04,440 --> 00:27:07,239
Speaker 1: some doctors. Right, I'm gonna tell a little joke here, right,

483
00:27:07,440 --> 00:27:09,120
Speaker 1: you know I got hurt a couple of times. I'm

484
00:27:09,119 --> 00:27:11,679
Speaker 1: missing one leg. I've got two arms. I did the

485
00:27:11,680 --> 00:27:13,840
Speaker 1: surgery in my arms. It was a better surgeon, right.

486
00:27:13,880 --> 00:27:18,080
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm just saying, no, man, I I just

487
00:27:19,280 --> 00:27:22,400
Speaker 1: you never know what you're capable of until you absolutely

488
00:27:22,400 --> 00:27:24,879
Speaker 1: have to do it, right, is it? Is it something

489
00:27:24,880 --> 00:27:27,720
Speaker 1: that I woke up, you know, before the mission saying, hey,

490
00:27:27,760 --> 00:27:29,840
Speaker 1: you know what, maybe I'll get shot in the arm

491
00:27:29,840 --> 00:27:32,280
Speaker 1: today at ricochet whatever. It's gonna go on my arm

492
00:27:32,359 --> 00:27:35,760
Speaker 1: and it's gonna swell up and circulation is gonna be bad,

493
00:27:35,800 --> 00:27:37,520
Speaker 1: and you know we're gonna have to, you know, drop

494
00:27:37,560 --> 00:27:39,520
Speaker 1: a scalpel in my arm while I'm the lake. That

495
00:27:39,520 --> 00:27:44,240
Speaker 1: sounds like a great time, right, Let's let's do that, right, perfect? Yeah,

496
00:27:44,320 --> 00:27:47,199
Speaker 1: Now that that's not exactly how it went, right. You

497
00:27:47,280 --> 00:27:49,159
Speaker 1: get hit, you know. I remember being on the on

498
00:27:49,200 --> 00:27:51,880
Speaker 1: the back deck when that, when that happened, I had

499
00:27:51,920 --> 00:27:54,360
Speaker 1: no idea had been hit. My heart rate was up,

500
00:27:54,400 --> 00:27:57,399
Speaker 1: the adrenaline's pump, and remember slipping in the blood on

501
00:27:57,440 --> 00:27:59,480
Speaker 1: the back of the truck thinking, oh my god, man,

502
00:27:59,800 --> 00:28:01,879
Speaker 1: did they hit my rippets? If they hit the oil? Like,

503
00:28:01,920 --> 00:28:06,000
Speaker 1: what's going on here? Right? You know? I the a battle,

504
00:28:06,200 --> 00:28:08,600
Speaker 1: you know, a gunfight doesn't just go and go and

505
00:28:08,680 --> 00:28:11,400
Speaker 1: go and stop right at ebbs and flows. There's crescendos

506
00:28:11,400 --> 00:28:14,879
Speaker 1: and de crescendos. And it slowed down and stopped. So

507
00:28:14,920 --> 00:28:17,200
Speaker 1: I'm like, all right, man, you know, pop the tray,

508
00:28:17,440 --> 00:28:19,920
Speaker 1: changed the gun. You know, check and make sure everything's good,

509
00:28:20,000 --> 00:28:22,920
Speaker 1: put more rounds in all, you know, the priorities of

510
00:28:22,960 --> 00:28:25,919
Speaker 1: work that you have to do. And then I checked, Okay,

511
00:28:25,960 --> 00:28:28,639
Speaker 1: I'm good, I thought, right, I looked down, like the

512
00:28:28,720 --> 00:28:30,520
Speaker 1: hell is this on the ground right, Like what am

513
00:28:30,520 --> 00:28:32,560
Speaker 1: I stepping in? And I was like, all right, I

514
00:28:32,600 --> 00:28:35,560
Speaker 1: don't see anything. And then I realized that as blood

515
00:28:36,400 --> 00:28:39,280
Speaker 1: there were donaldbby that was mine, right. I look back.

516
00:28:39,480 --> 00:28:41,600
Speaker 1: I hit our you know, our turret gunner. I looked

517
00:28:41,640 --> 00:28:43,400
Speaker 1: at the cab and they're all looking at me like

518
00:28:45,840 --> 00:28:49,360
Speaker 1: it was that moment when I realized, guess it's me, right.

519
00:28:49,840 --> 00:28:52,360
Speaker 1: I looked down and I lost probably a leader of blood.

520
00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:55,080
Speaker 1: In the back of the truck. I had a huge

521
00:28:55,240 --> 00:28:58,200
Speaker 1: uh you know, my arm was you know, it was dan.

522
00:28:58,360 --> 00:29:00,680
Speaker 1: There there was blood everywhere. It was about the turniquet

523
00:29:00,760 --> 00:29:06,480
Speaker 1: on and uh uh you know, tighten it up and pop,

524
00:29:06,640 --> 00:29:09,760
Speaker 1: you know, it started again. So you you rack, you load,

525
00:29:10,080 --> 00:29:14,040
Speaker 1: and you go to work. Right. Ultimately, the tourniquer doesn't matter, right.

526
00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:17,280
Speaker 1: I took my my dead arm, so to speak, got

527
00:29:17,320 --> 00:29:20,560
Speaker 1: on the tray and we just went to town. Eventually

528
00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:24,440
Speaker 1: everything kind of slowed down. We dismounted, and my junior

529
00:29:24,480 --> 00:29:26,640
Speaker 1: medic came. He went ahead and changed from a tourniquet

530
00:29:26,640 --> 00:29:29,120
Speaker 1: to a pressure dressing, and we cleared through there. And

531
00:29:29,160 --> 00:29:33,280
Speaker 1: eventually I stopped being a hard headed guy and allowed

532
00:29:33,320 --> 00:29:35,719
Speaker 1: them to pull me off once I knew everything was secure.

533
00:29:35,720 --> 00:29:37,440
Speaker 1: But I wasn't about to say I have the gunfight.

534
00:29:37,440 --> 00:29:40,200
Speaker 1: When I knew my boys, my team, my brothers needed

535
00:29:40,240 --> 00:29:42,280
Speaker 1: every gun they could because that could be a moment.

536
00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:45,520
Speaker 1: They needed somebody, and uh, we went back there and

537
00:29:45,560 --> 00:29:47,360
Speaker 1: we had a few other guys dinged up. You know,

538
00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:50,280
Speaker 1: some of our Afghans were pretty pretty rough. We don't

539
00:29:50,280 --> 00:29:52,040
Speaker 1: really didn't think much of it. You know, it was

540
00:29:52,480 --> 00:29:55,560
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't a standard gun shot. We haven't

541
00:29:55,560 --> 00:29:58,600
Speaker 1: in and out. It was an entry wound. There was blood,

542
00:29:59,040 --> 00:30:00,640
Speaker 1: U turn. It could have been on for a couple

543
00:30:00,640 --> 00:30:03,400
Speaker 1: of hours, which ultimately probably caused some of the issues

544
00:30:04,080 --> 00:30:06,800
Speaker 1: along with the pressure dressing. I mean, gun fights happened, right,

545
00:30:07,360 --> 00:30:11,200
Speaker 1: You don't choose the duration. So ultimately we started having

546
00:30:11,240 --> 00:30:15,720
Speaker 1: some issues with circulation, and uh, you know, I knew

547
00:30:15,720 --> 00:30:17,400
Speaker 1: that we were gonna have to take care of this

548
00:30:17,600 --> 00:30:19,280
Speaker 1: and there was no way in or out. We weren't

549
00:30:19,280 --> 00:30:24,080
Speaker 1: getting evacuated in the timeframe. And we knew that this

550
00:30:24,160 --> 00:30:26,000
Speaker 1: was the right thing to do. Ultimately, it was the

551
00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:28,479
Speaker 1: way to make sure that I maintained the health of

552
00:30:28,480 --> 00:30:33,880
Speaker 1: my arm. And I remember looking at the War Surgery handbook, right,

553
00:30:34,640 --> 00:30:36,520
Speaker 1: this is a green book. Did you get the War

554
00:30:36,520 --> 00:30:40,600
Speaker 1: Wound Handbook? Like turning the page and trained just how

555
00:30:40,640 --> 00:30:41,840
Speaker 1: to do some of this stuff. And we got to

556
00:30:41,880 --> 00:30:44,840
Speaker 1: the fasciotomy and it was like this kindergarten drawing arm

557
00:30:44,880 --> 00:30:48,280
Speaker 1: with a dotted line cut here. Well, that that's so

558
00:30:48,400 --> 00:30:53,960
Speaker 1: much better. Thank you. I'm just so relieved. Picture. Okay,

559
00:30:54,760 --> 00:30:56,880
Speaker 1: So we got past that. We are all right. I

560
00:30:56,880 --> 00:30:59,680
Speaker 1: know the anatomy, I know the physiology. I see now

561
00:30:59,720 --> 00:31:01,560
Speaker 1: where the outline is supposed to go. We'll figure it

562
00:31:01,560 --> 00:31:04,959
Speaker 1: out from there, right. Uh you know, we numbered at

563
00:31:04,960 --> 00:31:08,040
Speaker 1: the elbow and the shoulder, and uh, we went ahead

564
00:31:08,080 --> 00:31:09,760
Speaker 1: and do what we had to do. My junior medic,

565
00:31:10,360 --> 00:31:13,240
Speaker 1: myself and a couple of members of the team, prept

566
00:31:13,320 --> 00:31:17,920
Speaker 1: my arm for being surgerized, if you will, and prep

567
00:31:17,960 --> 00:31:21,520
Speaker 1: the other arm to help out as necessary. And uh,

568
00:31:21,800 --> 00:31:24,960
Speaker 1: I remember as we're doing this, I couldn't get my

569
00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:28,040
Speaker 1: hand to stop shaking because it's a little freaky to

570
00:31:28,080 --> 00:31:29,760
Speaker 1: sit there and be at this moment in time you're

571
00:31:29,800 --> 00:31:31,280
Speaker 1: gonna do a surgery and know that you're going to

572
00:31:31,360 --> 00:31:34,240
Speaker 1: help assist and do this surgery on your arm, and

573
00:31:34,400 --> 00:31:36,719
Speaker 1: uh we we had do a little bit of valium,

574
00:31:36,920 --> 00:31:39,640
Speaker 1: pop it down, slow the heart rate, call the nerves,

575
00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:42,680
Speaker 1: and we did. We ended up doing a new breedman

576
00:31:42,840 --> 00:31:46,640
Speaker 1: on my arm in the fire base while awake. UM

577
00:31:47,200 --> 00:31:50,520
Speaker 1: did a partial two out of three compartment fasciotomy, which,

578
00:31:50,560 --> 00:31:52,560
Speaker 1: as we learned, was not the optimal way. We should

579
00:31:52,560 --> 00:31:54,719
Speaker 1: have opened up the third compartment as well, but uh

580
00:31:55,040 --> 00:31:58,640
Speaker 1: we had about hit our limit for you know, capability.

581
00:31:58,640 --> 00:32:01,680
Speaker 1: Blood flow was good, the tone and color of the

582
00:32:01,760 --> 00:32:05,560
Speaker 1: hand look better. So we closed it up partially, put

583
00:32:05,560 --> 00:32:08,240
Speaker 1: in you know, a wick system to help pull them

584
00:32:08,240 --> 00:32:10,480
Speaker 1: back to your out, wrapped it up, and we waited

585
00:32:10,480 --> 00:32:13,360
Speaker 1: for a time to get back out. Did you have

586
00:32:13,400 --> 00:32:15,400
Speaker 1: a piece of it inside you still? Yeah, I've still

587
00:32:15,440 --> 00:32:17,680
Speaker 1: got a part of it right, you took a ricochet

588
00:32:17,760 --> 00:32:20,040
Speaker 1: off your gun. Yeah, so I hit the swing arm

589
00:32:20,320 --> 00:32:22,320
Speaker 1: is what it what it was actually, and I popped

590
00:32:22,400 --> 00:32:25,440
Speaker 1: up in my arm. You know generally when you get

591
00:32:25,480 --> 00:32:27,880
Speaker 1: on the back deck, I'm on the gun. It's in

592
00:32:27,960 --> 00:32:30,479
Speaker 1: my shoulder and you go like this. I had had

593
00:32:30,520 --> 00:32:32,480
Speaker 1: a bad habit. Sometimes I put my hand up there,

594
00:32:32,920 --> 00:32:35,000
Speaker 1: you know, on top of it, and that's actually what

595
00:32:35,160 --> 00:32:38,080
Speaker 1: kept that ricochet from going in my head. My arm

596
00:32:38,120 --> 00:32:40,680
Speaker 1: is on the way. If my arm is not there,

597
00:32:41,400 --> 00:32:44,600
Speaker 1: it pops me in my left eye. Probably you're doing

598
00:32:44,640 --> 00:32:49,000
Speaker 1: okay now with that with your left arm. Yeah, you know. Um,

599
00:32:49,360 --> 00:32:52,320
Speaker 1: it's I've got some reduction in function, like a little

600
00:32:52,360 --> 00:32:54,640
Speaker 1: bit of numbness, a little bit of weakness. But in

601
00:32:54,680 --> 00:32:59,920
Speaker 1: the end it works, you know it. Oh, it's great

602
00:33:00,160 --> 00:33:04,360
Speaker 1: for for ad hoc surgery done, you know, bunker. It's

603
00:33:04,440 --> 00:33:07,840
Speaker 1: that's pretty good. That's a successful Uh, that's a successful operation.

604
00:33:07,880 --> 00:33:09,600
Speaker 1: I saw the picture of it. Were you drinking or

605
00:33:09,680 --> 00:33:12,040
Speaker 1: rip it? Well, this was going on. It was a packastan.

606
00:33:12,080 --> 00:33:17,560
Speaker 1: We got a coke actually, yeah, maybe that when a

607
00:33:17,600 --> 00:33:20,800
Speaker 1: handshake came from us all a caffeine you know. Well,

608
00:33:20,880 --> 00:33:24,000
Speaker 1: you know, Catherine, if we'll keep you moving over there. Right,

609
00:33:25,040 --> 00:33:27,040
Speaker 1: that's absolutely right. That's a great picture of you, Like

610
00:33:27,280 --> 00:33:29,360
Speaker 1: get your arm opened up. It looks like a four

611
00:33:29,400 --> 00:33:31,760
Speaker 1: to six inch opening in your forearm and you're looking

612
00:33:31,760 --> 00:33:34,800
Speaker 1: forward when you're drinking like a cana. Sol was like, oh,

613
00:33:34,800 --> 00:33:39,160
Speaker 1: that's fun. The spectator of your own surgery. Year we

614
00:33:39,200 --> 00:33:41,400
Speaker 1: got clamped. Just hold on to the exported. I can

615
00:33:41,480 --> 00:33:43,240
Speaker 1: just see him say, hey, hold this arready for me

616
00:33:43,280 --> 00:33:47,680
Speaker 1: while I figished this up. By that point, I was

617
00:33:47,800 --> 00:33:50,719
Speaker 1: out of the part where I need to be a

618
00:33:50,800 --> 00:33:54,000
Speaker 1: real active participant, right, So we had stripped it down.

619
00:33:54,120 --> 00:33:57,600
Speaker 1: I needed to drink. It was more just honestly, I

620
00:33:57,840 --> 00:34:00,360
Speaker 1: needed it to help keep your nerves down. It was normal, see,

621
00:34:00,440 --> 00:34:04,440
Speaker 1: and it probably wasn't the best thought process, you know,

622
00:34:04,480 --> 00:34:08,000
Speaker 1: in retrospect. But again, we were doing surgery in Afghanistan

623
00:34:08,040 --> 00:34:10,520
Speaker 1: all myself. There was a lot of things that weren't normal.

624
00:34:10,760 --> 00:34:14,120
Speaker 1: So right, there's what it is. And you still had

625
00:34:14,160 --> 00:34:16,160
Speaker 1: the local. You still had to look forward to the

626
00:34:16,200 --> 00:34:18,879
Speaker 1: local and aesthetic wearing off. You still have to look

627
00:34:18,960 --> 00:34:22,040
Speaker 1: forward to that experience. A little known fact, right, the

628
00:34:22,040 --> 00:34:25,120
Speaker 1: local and aesthetic doesn't always work when there's compromised blood flow.

629
00:34:25,560 --> 00:34:29,560
Speaker 1: So as the blood flow started to work better, something

630
00:34:29,760 --> 00:34:33,279
Speaker 1: started hurting more, something started going numb. But there were

631
00:34:33,280 --> 00:34:35,040
Speaker 1: a couple of spots when we're digging in there that

632
00:34:36,120 --> 00:34:42,040
Speaker 1: they were live right, Like yeah, sticking s you know,

633
00:34:42,080 --> 00:34:45,080
Speaker 1: cutting tissue out of your arm when it's not numb.

634
00:34:45,360 --> 00:34:49,239
Speaker 1: That's a whole other thing, man. It was all right,

635
00:34:49,640 --> 00:34:53,680
Speaker 1: that's amazing. Before we get over to the political side

636
00:34:53,719 --> 00:34:57,080
Speaker 1: of things, I wanted to ask you one more question

637
00:34:57,080 --> 00:34:59,799
Speaker 1: about your military career. After you lost you like you

638
00:35:00,160 --> 00:35:03,880
Speaker 1: in that earlier you went back, you stayed on active

639
00:35:03,960 --> 00:35:07,600
Speaker 1: duty and went back to Afghanistan. You know, fill in

640
00:35:07,640 --> 00:35:10,360
Speaker 1: our listeners a little bit about this, because this pretty

641
00:35:10,360 --> 00:35:14,719
Speaker 1: amazing stuff here. Yeah, so I wish I got to

642
00:35:14,719 --> 00:35:17,120
Speaker 1: go back to Afghanistan. I got I was fully deployable.

643
00:35:17,160 --> 00:35:19,640
Speaker 1: I didn't get a chance to go because I was old.

644
00:35:19,840 --> 00:35:23,760
Speaker 1: Essentially I missed my time. I got put in a

645
00:35:23,800 --> 00:35:27,480
Speaker 1: staff job, and I beg to deploy to Afghanistan. Just

646
00:35:27,560 --> 00:35:31,399
Speaker 1: you know, a little little clarity. Um. Yeah, So one

647
00:35:31,440 --> 00:35:34,440
Speaker 1: I will tell you this. Uh, there's fantastic doctors of

648
00:35:34,480 --> 00:35:38,319
Speaker 1: Walter Reed and uh, you never really know how things

649
00:35:38,320 --> 00:35:40,040
Speaker 1: are gonna turn out. I remember laying there in the

650
00:35:40,080 --> 00:35:43,120
Speaker 1: hospital thinking, all right, you know, I don't want to

651
00:35:43,160 --> 00:35:45,200
Speaker 1: stay in. I want to be a Green Beret, but

652
00:35:45,239 --> 00:35:48,240
Speaker 1: you don't know how it's gonna be. My wife was retiring, uh,

653
00:35:48,320 --> 00:35:50,000
Speaker 1: you know, after twenty years in the military as well,

654
00:35:50,040 --> 00:35:52,279
Speaker 1: and getting up her career because again, you know, I

655
00:35:52,320 --> 00:35:54,400
Speaker 1: had a little boy. We were trying to get pregnant

656
00:35:54,440 --> 00:35:57,359
Speaker 1: with her fecking son, and she just didn't know how

657
00:35:57,360 --> 00:35:59,839
Speaker 1: it was going to turn out. And as it turns out,

658
00:35:59,840 --> 00:36:01,919
Speaker 1: the lot of people are lifted, my family up, made

659
00:36:01,920 --> 00:36:05,080
Speaker 1: a difference for us, and the amazing docks at Walter

660
00:36:05,160 --> 00:36:08,160
Speaker 1: Read put the tools in plates for me to rehab.

661
00:36:08,520 --> 00:36:10,719
Speaker 1: And then when I got back to Fort Bragg, you know,

662
00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:13,960
Speaker 1: I pushed and pushed saying, look, give me the opportunity

663
00:36:14,160 --> 00:36:16,160
Speaker 1: to remain in and if I can be found fit

664
00:36:16,200 --> 00:36:18,040
Speaker 1: for duty, because I was an eighteen and a half

665
00:36:18,120 --> 00:36:21,000
Speaker 1: years when this happened, let me stay in. Let me

666
00:36:21,080 --> 00:36:23,640
Speaker 1: do this on my terms. You know, I got told

667
00:36:23,640 --> 00:36:26,680
Speaker 1: by many people, why just medical retire, You've done enough.

668
00:36:27,880 --> 00:36:30,120
Speaker 1: But the real answer, and the simple answer is this,

669
00:36:30,200 --> 00:36:33,560
Speaker 1: It's not about me. It's always about we. If we

670
00:36:33,560 --> 00:36:36,200
Speaker 1: don't take the opportunity to show what can be done,

671
00:36:36,440 --> 00:36:38,279
Speaker 1: that you can be a Green Beret with one leg

672
00:36:38,520 --> 00:36:40,840
Speaker 1: that next person who wants to do this has to

673
00:36:40,920 --> 00:36:43,960
Speaker 1: fight that fight right, win the ground while you can

674
00:36:44,640 --> 00:36:47,480
Speaker 1: and make it easier for the next generation. And uh

675
00:36:47,600 --> 00:36:49,560
Speaker 1: we did that. I was able to serve another five

676
00:36:49,560 --> 00:36:52,000
Speaker 1: and a half years. There's green berets right now deployed

677
00:36:52,560 --> 00:36:55,960
Speaker 1: around the world missing bodied parts, and uh, you know,

678
00:36:56,120 --> 00:36:57,799
Speaker 1: I'm blessed to have been a small part of that.

679
00:36:58,200 --> 00:37:00,920
Speaker 1: And then turn the position of success the leadership above

680
00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:04,080
Speaker 1: me and by the doctors and Walter Reid and you

681
00:37:04,120 --> 00:37:07,520
Speaker 1: know my family who dedicated a lot of a lot

682
00:37:07,560 --> 00:37:10,120
Speaker 1: of love and a lot of tears to get me

683
00:37:10,160 --> 00:37:13,000
Speaker 1: to that point. Uh. It takes a tribe to raise

684
00:37:13,040 --> 00:37:15,640
Speaker 1: a child, but it takes a tried to get someone

685
00:37:15,760 --> 00:37:18,600
Speaker 1: through that kind of hurl as well. And I'll always

686
00:37:18,600 --> 00:37:22,360
Speaker 1: be grateful. How would you say, how would you characterize

687
00:37:22,400 --> 00:37:25,880
Speaker 1: the way the army um treated you in that in

688
00:37:25,920 --> 00:37:27,799
Speaker 1: that situation, we were saying, look, I want to go

689
00:37:27,840 --> 00:37:31,759
Speaker 1: back on active Were they supportive of it? Or were they? Did?

690
00:37:31,760 --> 00:37:33,480
Speaker 1: You have to fight them all the way to sort

691
00:37:33,480 --> 00:37:35,240
Speaker 1: of get back to that. There's a lot of fighting

692
00:37:35,800 --> 00:37:38,680
Speaker 1: the big Army, Like the Big Army guys, I showed

693
00:37:38,760 --> 00:37:42,440
Speaker 1: up in this medical brief, right and they're like, all right,

694
00:37:42,880 --> 00:37:45,200
Speaker 1: I want to show of hands. Who is trying to

695
00:37:45,200 --> 00:37:48,960
Speaker 1: get medically retired. I remember there was people in the room.

696
00:37:49,040 --> 00:37:51,160
Speaker 1: Forty four hands went up. They're trying to a retire.

697
00:37:51,200 --> 00:37:54,560
Speaker 1: They're like, sir, you're you're you're an amputee. Aren't you retired?

698
00:37:54,600 --> 00:37:56,720
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, I want to stand active duty.

699
00:37:57,280 --> 00:37:59,239
Speaker 1: And they asked the question, how many people want to

700
00:37:59,239 --> 00:38:03,080
Speaker 1: stay an active there's one hand. It's me. I'm looking

701
00:38:03,080 --> 00:38:07,279
Speaker 1: around like are you are you serious? Weird? Odd right,

702
00:38:07,640 --> 00:38:11,200
Speaker 1: and they're like, you're eighteen years, eighteen and a half years.

703
00:38:11,560 --> 00:38:13,560
Speaker 1: This is never gonna work. They're gonna medically retire. To you,

704
00:38:13,880 --> 00:38:15,920
Speaker 1: there's not enough time to prove that you can do this.

705
00:38:16,840 --> 00:38:20,319
Speaker 1: And you know, I just you've gotta try. You can

706
00:38:20,360 --> 00:38:22,279
Speaker 1: never lose faith, you can never lose hope. You have

707
00:38:22,400 --> 00:38:25,239
Speaker 1: to persevere. You have to drive on and uh, you

708
00:38:25,280 --> 00:38:27,040
Speaker 1: know we did. You know, we got a lot of pushback,

709
00:38:27,960 --> 00:38:30,600
Speaker 1: a lot of frustrating moments, but in the end, our

710
00:38:30,640 --> 00:38:34,040
Speaker 1: command supported me, my family supported me. And you have

711
00:38:34,160 --> 00:38:37,600
Speaker 1: to have the audacity to stand the storm and push

712
00:38:37,640 --> 00:38:40,960
Speaker 1: back against them. You know that that drive determination that

713
00:38:41,280 --> 00:38:44,359
Speaker 1: I grew up with the Northeastern Montana that I took

714
00:38:44,400 --> 00:38:47,400
Speaker 1: with me through a selection through my my military career

715
00:38:47,800 --> 00:38:51,440
Speaker 1: really paid off at that moment in time because it

716
00:38:51,560 --> 00:38:54,319
Speaker 1: was pushing back upwards a little bit. But there were

717
00:38:54,360 --> 00:38:57,320
Speaker 1: so many great people that came to the rescue, that

718
00:38:57,480 --> 00:39:00,480
Speaker 1: did what they could and made this possible. And you know,

719
00:39:00,920 --> 00:39:03,080
Speaker 1: I was blessed to serve five and a half more

720
00:39:03,120 --> 00:39:05,000
Speaker 1: years after I lost my leg, and uh, you know,

721
00:39:05,280 --> 00:39:08,200
Speaker 1: I'm grateful for all those people that support it. In well,

722
00:39:08,200 --> 00:39:11,880
Speaker 1: it's that's really great. That's really great. Even though they

723
00:39:11,880 --> 00:39:14,480
Speaker 1: had a system in place, they followed it in I'm

724
00:39:14,520 --> 00:39:19,120
Speaker 1: sure your motivation. I had an awful granting requests. This

725
00:39:19,200 --> 00:39:22,400
Speaker 1: is a guy sean. They did have a system in place,

726
00:39:22,440 --> 00:39:25,279
Speaker 1: but the MTB process at the time was being used

727
00:39:25,280 --> 00:39:28,040
Speaker 1: to remove people from the military as opposed to evaluating

728
00:39:28,080 --> 00:39:31,080
Speaker 1: those who could stay right. It was being used the

729
00:39:31,120 --> 00:39:34,920
Speaker 1: wrong way, and I wasn't having any other I was

730
00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:38,040
Speaker 1: not what you would say your model patient of compliancy.

731
00:39:38,120 --> 00:39:42,400
Speaker 1: I was like, no, it is designed by regulation to

732
00:39:42,480 --> 00:39:45,120
Speaker 1: maintain the people who can do that. If I have

733
00:39:45,200 --> 00:39:49,080
Speaker 1: to requalifying every single thing I've ever done physically, you know,

734
00:39:49,239 --> 00:39:51,040
Speaker 1: keep my place in the tribe. Then that's what I'm

735
00:39:51,040 --> 00:39:53,719
Speaker 1: gonna do. And that's what we did. Right, Whether it's

736
00:39:54,160 --> 00:39:58,759
Speaker 1: jumping rucks, you know, PT tests, whatever, it doesn't matter.

737
00:39:59,160 --> 00:40:00,839
Speaker 1: I have to prove that I can do this because

738
00:40:00,840 --> 00:40:02,160
Speaker 1: the last thing you want to be in a team

739
00:40:02,200 --> 00:40:05,520
Speaker 1: is the weak link, right, I can't racing the tribe.

740
00:40:06,200 --> 00:40:08,560
Speaker 1: Yeah I don't told you? Then told you then when

741
00:40:08,560 --> 00:40:15,160
Speaker 1: that happened, Oh gosh, uh wow, I have to do

742
00:40:15,200 --> 00:40:18,000
Speaker 1: all those things like a reclose at thirty eight missing

743
00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:20,680
Speaker 1: a leg that's amazing. Well, it was really easier because

744
00:40:20,719 --> 00:40:22,920
Speaker 1: only one leg got tired. Then you know the other

745
00:40:22,960 --> 00:40:26,640
Speaker 1: one fiber Well, but you know you weren't doing a

746
00:40:26,640 --> 00:40:28,560
Speaker 1: push up in the hospital bed. You had a period

747
00:40:28,560 --> 00:40:31,560
Speaker 1: where you're laid up. You really can't do much, you know,

748
00:40:31,719 --> 00:40:34,759
Speaker 1: So getting back into that physical conditioning must have been

749
00:40:34,800 --> 00:40:38,440
Speaker 1: funny challenge in itself, you know it was. But how

750
00:40:38,480 --> 00:40:40,359
Speaker 1: do you eat an elephant right? One bite at a time.

751
00:40:40,760 --> 00:40:44,040
Speaker 1: I remember at I was pushing hard. I was like,

752
00:40:44,400 --> 00:40:47,359
Speaker 1: you don't understand, I'm staying on. I'm gonna do this. Uh.

753
00:40:47,400 --> 00:40:50,640
Speaker 1: They were like okay, you know, they let me run early.

754
00:40:50,920 --> 00:40:54,320
Speaker 1: I did a triathle on three months after amputation, which

755
00:40:54,360 --> 00:40:57,560
Speaker 1: they were like you're there's something wrong with your head

756
00:40:58,840 --> 00:41:04,239
Speaker 1: American A marathon six months after and a year after

757
00:41:04,280 --> 00:41:07,480
Speaker 1: I did my first marathon is an amputee, just because

758
00:41:07,480 --> 00:41:11,080
Speaker 1: someone told me I shouldn't run, essentially like, Okay, I

759
00:41:11,120 --> 00:41:13,359
Speaker 1: can do this. We got it and ended up doing

760
00:41:13,400 --> 00:41:15,640
Speaker 1: five or six a year through a group called Achilles

761
00:41:15,640 --> 00:41:19,319
Speaker 1: International and their Freedom Team that uh really challenged me

762
00:41:19,360 --> 00:41:24,160
Speaker 1: to do more. Wow, that's that's incredible. You're pretty much

763
00:41:24,160 --> 00:41:26,520
Speaker 1: putting yourself in fun charge of you will recover and say, look,

764
00:41:26,560 --> 00:41:29,719
Speaker 1: you know what, No, I'm never I'm gonna run. That

765
00:41:29,800 --> 00:41:32,719
Speaker 1: must have been a challenge all in itself. Yeah, I can.

766
00:41:33,520 --> 00:41:35,600
Speaker 1: You can imagine what you felt after that was done.

767
00:41:35,640 --> 00:41:38,520
Speaker 1: A much you were written hurt one for an hour

768
00:41:38,760 --> 00:41:42,120
Speaker 1: specifically about the first marathon, the lessons I learned. You know,

769
00:41:42,200 --> 00:41:44,160
Speaker 1: there's been many. You know, I think I told you

770
00:41:44,239 --> 00:41:46,160
Speaker 1: guys a story about my first free fall jump as

771
00:41:46,160 --> 00:41:49,160
Speaker 1: an amputee and my leg popping off in free fall

772
00:41:49,239 --> 00:41:52,320
Speaker 1: and under under canopy. Uh, it's a whole other story.

773
00:41:52,400 --> 00:41:56,680
Speaker 1: There's a million and one stories of just never would

774
00:41:56,680 --> 00:41:59,239
Speaker 1: have thought of that. Most guys worried about losing their

775
00:41:59,239 --> 00:42:00,840
Speaker 1: weapon and with up you have to wait about this

776
00:42:00,880 --> 00:42:04,440
Speaker 1: little leg. Yeah, you know, but it's the same solution.

777
00:42:04,840 --> 00:42:08,960
Speaker 1: I used a fifty chord tie down on my ankle,

778
00:42:09,080 --> 00:42:10,840
Speaker 1: rounded up my pant leg, and tied it to my

779
00:42:10,920 --> 00:42:13,560
Speaker 1: rigor belt so if I lost suction, my leg wouldn't

780
00:42:13,600 --> 00:42:16,279
Speaker 1: fall off. It was landard on your leg. That's a

781
00:42:16,280 --> 00:42:19,319
Speaker 1: great dummy chord for my leg. It was perfect. That's

782
00:42:19,360 --> 00:42:28,760
Speaker 1: a great idea. Steed back to you. Yeah, I wanted

783
00:42:28,800 --> 00:42:33,080
Speaker 1: to jump right in now. You know you're retired, Uh,

784
00:42:33,239 --> 00:42:37,560
Speaker 1: you're running for Congress now, and this is uh, this

785
00:42:37,640 --> 00:42:41,000
Speaker 1: is a difficult time in our our nation right now.

786
00:42:41,080 --> 00:42:45,360
Speaker 1: We have we're pretty much split, it seems just as

787
00:42:45,440 --> 00:42:47,400
Speaker 1: much as we have been in the last hundred and

788
00:42:47,440 --> 00:42:53,200
Speaker 1: sixty years. And you know, uh, what was it that

789
00:42:53,360 --> 00:42:55,879
Speaker 1: made you decide to run for her office? Because that's

790
00:42:55,880 --> 00:42:58,640
Speaker 1: a thankless job. Or is it just because you feel

791
00:42:58,680 --> 00:43:03,279
Speaker 1: like you still this country? You know you're indebted to

792
00:43:03,440 --> 00:43:08,680
Speaker 1: deserve you know that that's actually part of it, right.

793
00:43:09,280 --> 00:43:13,439
Speaker 1: I believe in service something bigger than myself. It's where

794
00:43:13,480 --> 00:43:15,799
Speaker 1: my roots came from, when my dad taught me. It's

795
00:43:15,800 --> 00:43:18,320
Speaker 1: what the army instilled in me. It's what special forces

796
00:43:18,360 --> 00:43:22,480
Speaker 1: seared into me. But in the end. Look, Um, I've

797
00:43:22,480 --> 00:43:25,800
Speaker 1: traveled around the world. I faced our nation's worst enemies firsthand.

798
00:43:25,840 --> 00:43:27,440
Speaker 1: I've been in some places that are probably on the

799
00:43:27,480 --> 00:43:31,520
Speaker 1: camde Nast list and a few that maybe our tourist destinations, right,

800
00:43:31,840 --> 00:43:34,000
Speaker 1: And the one thing I know, behind a shadow with doubt,

801
00:43:34,320 --> 00:43:35,960
Speaker 1: is how blessed we are as a nation. There is

802
00:43:36,000 --> 00:43:38,279
Speaker 1: no place I would rather have my children grow up

803
00:43:38,560 --> 00:43:41,360
Speaker 1: than in this great nation. People may forget that, and

804
00:43:41,400 --> 00:43:43,360
Speaker 1: they may lose sight of that, but the truth and

805
00:43:43,400 --> 00:43:46,520
Speaker 1: the reality is we are a blessed nation unlike any other.

806
00:43:47,080 --> 00:43:49,799
Speaker 1: I want my children to have the same freedoms that

807
00:43:49,880 --> 00:43:52,560
Speaker 1: we had growing up. Right. There's six and nine right now,

808
00:43:52,880 --> 00:43:56,320
Speaker 1: and they deserve, at the bare minimum those same freedoms.

809
00:43:56,600 --> 00:43:59,839
Speaker 1: But in reality, as a dad, I want so much more,

810
00:44:00,400 --> 00:44:03,279
Speaker 1: you know, I want them to have all the things

811
00:44:03,320 --> 00:44:08,280
Speaker 1: we dreamed of from a freedom and rights and just opportunity.

812
00:44:08,800 --> 00:44:11,680
Speaker 1: That's fundamental to our nation and our history. You know,

813
00:44:11,760 --> 00:44:15,600
Speaker 1: at our core, our government is designed, our republic is

814
00:44:15,640 --> 00:44:18,239
Speaker 1: designed to be of the people, by the people, and

815
00:44:18,320 --> 00:44:21,840
Speaker 1: for the people. We were never built or designed to

816
00:44:21,880 --> 00:44:26,680
Speaker 1: have dynastic families in charge or career politicians hold positions

817
00:44:26,719 --> 00:44:30,680
Speaker 1: for decade after decade after decade that that's that's just

818
00:44:30,719 --> 00:44:33,880
Speaker 1: not how we were built. I remember something about seventeen

819
00:44:33,960 --> 00:44:38,680
Speaker 1: seventy six and representation, right. Uh, words have meaning. You know,

820
00:44:38,920 --> 00:44:41,359
Speaker 1: I'm never gonna be a politician. I'm my father's son,

821
00:44:41,600 --> 00:44:44,760
Speaker 1: I'm a husband, I'm a dad, I'm a retired Green Beret,

822
00:44:44,800 --> 00:44:48,919
Speaker 1: I'm a nonprofit leader and the end, you know, those

823
00:44:48,920 --> 00:44:51,600
Speaker 1: are the things that drive me. I lived by a

824
00:44:51,640 --> 00:44:54,280
Speaker 1: real simple ethos and it's something that that I learned

825
00:44:54,280 --> 00:44:57,960
Speaker 1: early on. It's deeds, not words. We don't need more

826
00:44:57,960 --> 00:45:01,040
Speaker 1: politicians who want to pontificate and list how we're going

827
00:45:01,120 --> 00:45:04,480
Speaker 1: to do things. If you're gonna represent people, you're going

828
00:45:04,520 --> 00:45:07,920
Speaker 1: to have to sit down, use both your ears, listen

829
00:45:07,960 --> 00:45:10,560
Speaker 1: to what they think, how they feel, and you're gonna

830
00:45:10,560 --> 00:45:12,719
Speaker 1: have to come together and find solutions that are good

831
00:45:12,760 --> 00:45:17,080
Speaker 1: for the Americans in general. Yeah. When I looked at

832
00:45:17,080 --> 00:45:20,800
Speaker 1: the landscape of people serving in these roles or the

833
00:45:21,320 --> 00:45:23,960
Speaker 1: folks that were available, I didn't see anyone that really

834
00:45:24,080 --> 00:45:27,080
Speaker 1: espoused the values I was raised with. And you know,

835
00:45:27,520 --> 00:45:29,760
Speaker 1: I go back to the first lesson in Special Forces,

836
00:45:30,360 --> 00:45:32,520
Speaker 1: you gotta leave things better than you've got it. I've

837
00:45:32,560 --> 00:45:36,439
Speaker 1: identified a problem I don't see a solution, and it's

838
00:45:36,480 --> 00:45:40,480
Speaker 1: wrong morally and and functionally if you see a problem

839
00:45:40,640 --> 00:45:43,239
Speaker 1: not to try to solve it. So I put my

840
00:45:43,239 --> 00:45:45,720
Speaker 1: money where my mouth was. I live by an athos

841
00:45:45,719 --> 00:45:48,279
Speaker 1: of deeds not words. I'm a person of action, just

842
00:45:48,320 --> 00:45:49,920
Speaker 1: like the rest of the people in our regiment, in

843
00:45:49,920 --> 00:45:53,120
Speaker 1: our brotherhood, and I'm gonna do something about it. So

844
00:45:53,440 --> 00:45:56,320
Speaker 1: after talking with the family, thoughts and prayers and working

845
00:45:56,320 --> 00:46:01,160
Speaker 1: through this, we entered into this and our becus is

846
00:46:01,239 --> 00:46:03,520
Speaker 1: just the same as it always has been in this

847
00:46:03,640 --> 00:46:05,800
Speaker 1: to do it the right way, to win and to

848
00:46:05,920 --> 00:46:09,239
Speaker 1: represent we the people, not me the politicians. Will never

849
00:46:09,280 --> 00:46:14,800
Speaker 1: be a politician. Jee, you're living in a district outside Tampa,

850
00:46:14,920 --> 00:46:17,839
Speaker 1: or incorporating in Tampa to a large and military population

851
00:46:18,040 --> 00:46:21,080
Speaker 1: with some common being based there at mcdillo, a force

852
00:46:21,120 --> 00:46:24,480
Speaker 1: base of are you. Are you finding a good reception

853
00:46:24,520 --> 00:46:27,680
Speaker 1: from the military community in general to your canvasy in

854
00:46:27,719 --> 00:46:31,759
Speaker 1: that area. Yeah, so the reception has been fantastic so far. Right,

855
00:46:32,480 --> 00:46:36,000
Speaker 1: all in all, it's been a blessing. We are in Tampa,

856
00:46:36,040 --> 00:46:39,000
Speaker 1: so District fourteen is essentially Hillsborough County. Right just to

857
00:46:39,160 --> 00:46:43,000
Speaker 1: you know, use General Weatherman hands on this. It's Tampa

858
00:46:43,239 --> 00:46:47,880
Speaker 1: that incorporates McDill. The outpouring of support has been amazing.

859
00:46:48,280 --> 00:46:51,040
Speaker 1: We've raised over six figures. And I don't bring that

860
00:46:51,120 --> 00:46:54,320
Speaker 1: up because I love the fact that politics are about money.

861
00:46:54,480 --> 00:46:56,520
Speaker 1: I bring it up because that's the reality of how

862
00:46:56,600 --> 00:46:58,799
Speaker 1: the process works. If you're going to be a part

863
00:46:58,840 --> 00:47:00,719
Speaker 1: of the game, you've got to raise money. And that's

864
00:47:00,719 --> 00:47:05,200
Speaker 1: not about me. We've raised money off our network are

865
00:47:05,280 --> 00:47:08,160
Speaker 1: Mike micro Neverca friends and Green Berets and people we

866
00:47:08,200 --> 00:47:11,880
Speaker 1: know the into the sixth figure market, not in a

867
00:47:11,960 --> 00:47:15,239
Speaker 1: three month quarter, but in sixty days, So in two

868
00:47:15,280 --> 00:47:18,040
Speaker 1: yairds of a quarter, we've raised six figures off of

869
00:47:18,480 --> 00:47:21,800
Speaker 1: Americans who believe that our government should be about week

870
00:47:21,840 --> 00:47:25,120
Speaker 1: the people in order to put a more perfect Union's

871
00:47:25,160 --> 00:47:27,319
Speaker 1: six figures going to be enough for a rason like that?

872
00:47:27,560 --> 00:47:31,160
Speaker 1: Or that's just the start we're gonna raise. Our goal

873
00:47:31,320 --> 00:47:34,759
Speaker 1: is between one point five and two for the life

874
00:47:34,760 --> 00:47:37,839
Speaker 1: of this campaign. Uh that that's how it's gonna go.

875
00:47:38,239 --> 00:47:40,040
Speaker 1: And in the end, this is just the start, right.

876
00:47:40,239 --> 00:47:43,640
Speaker 1: We have great support locally. We're getting support from local

877
00:47:43,880 --> 00:47:46,480
Speaker 1: business leaders as well. Now as we step into this

878
00:47:46,520 --> 00:47:50,520
Speaker 1: throughout the state of Florida, we're raising funds across the country.

879
00:47:50,560 --> 00:47:52,960
Speaker 1: I believe the number is twenty or twenty two states.

880
00:47:53,000 --> 00:47:57,640
Speaker 1: We're getting donations from support from UH. It's it's shocking

881
00:47:57,719 --> 00:48:00,680
Speaker 1: as someone who didn't know a lot about politics in

882
00:48:00,719 --> 00:48:03,759
Speaker 1: the process behind it, I know about our constitution or

883
00:48:03,800 --> 00:48:06,800
Speaker 1: government and how we're supposed to be. It's been enlightening

884
00:48:07,200 --> 00:48:11,920
Speaker 1: and it's it's inspiring to hear the commonality and the

885
00:48:11,920 --> 00:48:14,759
Speaker 1: Americans who believe like we do. The truth is, there

886
00:48:14,760 --> 00:48:18,959
Speaker 1: are more people like us across this country than folks

887
00:48:18,960 --> 00:48:23,239
Speaker 1: who don't want freedom across our nation. We really have

888
00:48:23,400 --> 00:48:25,960
Speaker 1: more in common. I believe that nine of Americans have

889
00:48:26,160 --> 00:48:28,400
Speaker 1: ninety percent of the things in common. And one of

890
00:48:28,400 --> 00:48:31,360
Speaker 1: those key tools and lessons I learned an SF because

891
00:48:31,360 --> 00:48:34,720
Speaker 1: we have to insulate, not isolate. We can draw people together.

892
00:48:35,239 --> 00:48:38,239
Speaker 1: And you know, that's how you bring this nation back

893
00:48:38,280 --> 00:48:41,160
Speaker 1: from the precipice we're on. You remind folks that were

894
00:48:41,160 --> 00:48:44,719
Speaker 1: blessed to be American citizens we are unlike anything in

895
00:48:44,800 --> 00:48:48,640
Speaker 1: the hands of history, and remind them of how great

896
00:48:48,640 --> 00:48:50,799
Speaker 1: our nation is. Let's not focus on what divides us.

897
00:48:51,000 --> 00:48:54,560
Speaker 1: Let's draw together and solve problems the American way. That's

898
00:48:54,560 --> 00:48:58,440
Speaker 1: what we're founded on. Because your military experience translated well

899
00:48:58,520 --> 00:49:02,880
Speaker 1: to the experience of all running for offers, is conducting

900
00:49:02,880 --> 00:49:07,040
Speaker 1: of military operation anything like running a political campaign. Any

901
00:49:07,120 --> 00:49:09,720
Speaker 1: similarities there, Well, I think there's a lot of structure

902
00:49:09,880 --> 00:49:11,480
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of drive and the termination that

903
00:49:11,520 --> 00:49:14,279
Speaker 1: goes into this. And uh, you know, the one thing

904
00:49:14,320 --> 00:49:16,040
Speaker 1: that's true, and we've talked about kind of on the

905
00:49:16,080 --> 00:49:19,520
Speaker 1: periphery throughout this, like as a people industry, right, if

906
00:49:19,520 --> 00:49:22,160
Speaker 1: you insulate people, you don't isolate them, You treat people

907
00:49:22,160 --> 00:49:24,920
Speaker 1: with respect, you work hard, and do the right things.

908
00:49:25,200 --> 00:49:27,440
Speaker 1: Those all all are all things and make you successful

909
00:49:27,480 --> 00:49:30,760
Speaker 1: in life, in business, in the military, and the nonprofit sector.

910
00:49:31,239 --> 00:49:33,160
Speaker 1: Why would it be different in politics? That's what the

911
00:49:33,200 --> 00:49:36,560
Speaker 1: American people expect from politicians, is that they're going to

912
00:49:36,640 --> 00:49:39,680
Speaker 1: show up when they're elected, do the right thing by

913
00:49:39,680 --> 00:49:43,040
Speaker 1: the people in their their district, and serve the will

914
00:49:43,040 --> 00:49:46,279
Speaker 1: of the people. That's the expectation. And uh, you know,

915
00:49:46,440 --> 00:49:49,680
Speaker 1: simple things save lives, right seven dass shape is something

916
00:49:49,680 --> 00:49:52,200
Speaker 1: we leaned on when I was in the military, Right,

917
00:49:52,280 --> 00:49:56,160
Speaker 1: you know, your basic military tactics and uh, while it

918
00:49:56,200 --> 00:50:00,840
Speaker 1: didn't quite work for politics, simple things make a difference. Listen,

919
00:50:01,480 --> 00:50:03,520
Speaker 1: you know, make decisions that are good for your people,

920
00:50:03,719 --> 00:50:07,680
Speaker 1: serve the United States, not yourself. Well, it seems like

921
00:50:07,760 --> 00:50:11,439
Speaker 1: fire maneuver with certain an Orican politics, you know, fix

922
00:50:11,560 --> 00:50:16,080
Speaker 1: the targeting and moving on the flags. UH. Each constituency

923
00:50:16,200 --> 00:50:20,640
Speaker 1: and different congressional districts have different sort of legislative interests.

924
00:50:20,640 --> 00:50:23,280
Speaker 1: I would assume that people in Montana have a different

925
00:50:23,280 --> 00:50:26,680
Speaker 1: set of from government than the people do in Tampa.

926
00:50:27,120 --> 00:50:30,680
Speaker 1: If you've been able to identify the things that mean

927
00:50:30,719 --> 00:50:32,680
Speaker 1: the most of the voters in your district, what would

928
00:50:32,680 --> 00:50:35,760
Speaker 1: you say the three things are it are most important

929
00:50:35,800 --> 00:50:38,279
Speaker 1: to them? And in a congressional candidate, what do they

930
00:50:38,320 --> 00:50:41,560
Speaker 1: want you to work on? So right now that there

931
00:50:41,560 --> 00:50:44,320
Speaker 1: are several things that are kind of overarching for our nation.

932
00:50:44,400 --> 00:50:47,480
Speaker 1: They are really really important, and we've been talking on

933
00:50:47,560 --> 00:50:50,000
Speaker 1: the periphery of it. The first thing is the division

934
00:50:50,000 --> 00:50:52,759
Speaker 1: in our country. You know, Steve, you mentioned it. We're

935
00:50:52,760 --> 00:50:56,160
Speaker 1: more divided now than we have them. But with the

936
00:50:56,160 --> 00:50:58,759
Speaker 1: reality is we have more in common than that which

937
00:50:58,760 --> 00:51:01,879
Speaker 1: separates us. We're being divided into groups because it makes

938
00:51:01,920 --> 00:51:05,480
Speaker 1: us weaker as a group. Right we're fighting amongst ourselves,

939
00:51:05,640 --> 00:51:09,760
Speaker 1: coming together, discussing and solving problems. We have to overcome

940
00:51:09,760 --> 00:51:12,719
Speaker 1: this division. We have to find a way to understand

941
00:51:12,719 --> 00:51:15,239
Speaker 1: that it's okay to love our nation, It's okay to

942
00:51:15,239 --> 00:51:17,279
Speaker 1: be proud to be an American, because the truth is

943
00:51:17,320 --> 00:51:19,279
Speaker 1: there is no place like it on God's green earth.

944
00:51:19,320 --> 00:51:21,680
Speaker 1: You have to change that tone, Met Tanner and let

945
00:51:21,680 --> 00:51:24,799
Speaker 1: people know that we are it is okay, don't be

946
00:51:24,800 --> 00:51:28,320
Speaker 1: ashamed to be American. Our nation stands for something unlike

947
00:51:28,320 --> 00:51:32,320
Speaker 1: anything else in the world. When people from Venezuela, Cuba, Iran,

948
00:51:32,480 --> 00:51:36,640
Speaker 1: we're upsha theoria, push and beg for peace. There is

949
00:51:36,760 --> 00:51:40,000
Speaker 1: one symbol that they that they wave, one symbol that

950
00:51:40,040 --> 00:51:42,440
Speaker 1: comes out every single time, and it's the American flag.

951
00:51:42,480 --> 00:51:45,359
Speaker 1: Our nation stands for that. And then come on each

952
00:51:45,360 --> 00:51:47,920
Speaker 1: of us to remember that. You know, freedom is never

953
00:51:47,960 --> 00:51:51,080
Speaker 1: more than one generation removed from loss right, you know,

954
00:51:51,120 --> 00:51:56,120
Speaker 1: while Reagan's paraphrasing him and we have to fight and

955
00:51:56,200 --> 00:51:58,400
Speaker 1: we have to maintain that. But we've got to overcome

956
00:51:58,440 --> 00:51:59,880
Speaker 1: this division, and the only way to do it is

957
00:51:59,880 --> 00:52:04,080
Speaker 1: to communicate, drop people together and have hard conversations. You've

958
00:52:04,120 --> 00:52:06,040
Speaker 1: got to be willing to be told something you might

959
00:52:06,040 --> 00:52:08,360
Speaker 1: not want to hear, and people have to be willing

960
00:52:08,600 --> 00:52:10,080
Speaker 1: to get over the fact that we don't have to

961
00:52:10,120 --> 00:52:12,960
Speaker 1: agree on everything. But that's what this great debate, what

962
00:52:13,080 --> 00:52:15,240
Speaker 1: our nation has founded on. We have to draw people

963
00:52:15,239 --> 00:52:17,640
Speaker 1: back to this. It's not about the red or the blue.

964
00:52:17,840 --> 00:52:20,120
Speaker 1: It is only about the red, white and blue. That's

965
00:52:21,320 --> 00:52:23,839
Speaker 1: so the first one, obviously is to try and bring

966
00:52:23,880 --> 00:52:27,080
Speaker 1: people together into common costs. Uh. I think I would

967
00:52:27,080 --> 00:52:29,960
Speaker 1: atte to do that. The government, total government, the way

968
00:52:29,960 --> 00:52:31,920
Speaker 1: it set up is designed by intend to make it

969
00:52:32,000 --> 00:52:34,560
Speaker 1: hard to get things done. Unless you have a broad

970
00:52:34,600 --> 00:52:38,560
Speaker 1: consensus among the population to getting done, then it's very easy.

971
00:52:38,640 --> 00:52:41,279
Speaker 1: So obviously I think, yeah, what what would be the

972
00:52:41,280 --> 00:52:43,600
Speaker 1: other two that you say or the other one? You've

973
00:52:43,600 --> 00:52:45,960
Speaker 1: gotta look at defense. Right across the board, we're in

974
00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:49,759
Speaker 1: pretty unparallel times. Right. Our southern border is a train wreck.

975
00:52:50,760 --> 00:52:53,360
Speaker 1: It's it's unacceptable. We are a nation of immigrants, but

976
00:52:53,400 --> 00:52:55,200
Speaker 1: were nation of laws. We have to have a wall

977
00:52:55,480 --> 00:52:58,719
Speaker 1: and you have to have gates and immigration reform. That's

978
00:52:58,760 --> 00:53:00,520
Speaker 1: good for these citizens in the United of States. That

979
00:53:00,560 --> 00:53:03,800
Speaker 1: makes sense, right. My family immigrated, my wife's family immigrated

980
00:53:03,840 --> 00:53:07,560
Speaker 1: at one point. We all got here somehow. But you

981
00:53:07,640 --> 00:53:11,960
Speaker 1: can't just let people roll in unequivocally, right, That's not

982
00:53:12,000 --> 00:53:13,880
Speaker 1: how things work. There's no nation on Earth that that

983
00:53:14,040 --> 00:53:17,000
Speaker 1: happens on Uh, it's putting people in the southern border

984
00:53:17,000 --> 00:53:21,840
Speaker 1: at risk. It's wrong from a a management of funds

985
00:53:21,880 --> 00:53:25,279
Speaker 1: perspective because we're dumping millions and billions and trillions of

986
00:53:25,320 --> 00:53:29,760
Speaker 1: dollars into that. And then uh, ultimately how that feels

987
00:53:29,800 --> 00:53:32,879
Speaker 1: the people who went through the immigration process the right way.

988
00:53:32,920 --> 00:53:35,480
Speaker 1: You're watering down all that they went through, the sacrifices

989
00:53:35,560 --> 00:53:38,200
Speaker 1: they made to be a part of our American dream.

990
00:53:38,480 --> 00:53:42,439
Speaker 1: People believing that you go to Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, where

991
00:53:42,440 --> 00:53:45,200
Speaker 1: my wife's family is from, a Lebanon all over South

992
00:53:45,239 --> 00:53:49,160
Speaker 1: America when people talk about the American dream, our press

993
00:53:49,160 --> 00:53:50,879
Speaker 1: and our media may not want to talk about it,

994
00:53:51,640 --> 00:53:55,120
Speaker 1: but people around the world, people in America surely do.

995
00:53:55,840 --> 00:53:58,040
Speaker 1: And uh, that's the other thing. You also have to

996
00:53:58,080 --> 00:54:01,399
Speaker 1: look at the complete mass we made of Afghanistan. That's

997
00:54:01,440 --> 00:54:04,719
Speaker 1: also a defense side. Right. We failed, And you know,

998
00:54:04,880 --> 00:54:07,239
Speaker 1: we talked a little bit earlier about Millie and the

999
00:54:07,280 --> 00:54:10,120
Speaker 1: statement made the Afghanistan was a strategic failure, but a

1000
00:54:10,160 --> 00:54:17,280
Speaker 1: logistic success. Look, our government failed, period point blank. Uh.

1001
00:54:17,640 --> 00:54:20,040
Speaker 1: Million is a hundred percent wrong on that it was

1002
00:54:20,080 --> 00:54:23,319
Speaker 1: a strategic failure. And that's an understatement. It was a

1003
00:54:23,360 --> 00:54:26,320
Speaker 1: freaking nightmare. What they did was a percent wrong. We

1004
00:54:26,440 --> 00:54:31,000
Speaker 1: emboldened Iran, Russia, you know, Syria, all the people around

1005
00:54:31,000 --> 00:54:33,160
Speaker 1: the globe. They really want to do harm to our nation.

1006
00:54:33,800 --> 00:54:36,560
Speaker 1: We've been emboldened and we've shown them that we'll negotiate

1007
00:54:36,600 --> 00:54:39,760
Speaker 1: with terrorists, and we put America on its heels. We've

1008
00:54:40,320 --> 00:54:44,319
Speaker 1: changed how we're reviewed by our allies internationally. Right, how

1009
00:54:44,360 --> 00:54:45,919
Speaker 1: many of our allies have come out and said, look,

1010
00:54:46,120 --> 00:54:49,600
Speaker 1: when America stepped back, we had no choice, and they're

1011
00:54:49,719 --> 00:54:53,040
Speaker 1: now stepping back from that. It's the wrong approach. And

1012
00:54:53,080 --> 00:54:55,320
Speaker 1: then let's look at the tactical side of that. Do

1013
00:54:55,440 --> 00:54:59,759
Speaker 1: we make soft operators or military guys in third world

1014
00:54:59,800 --> 00:55:02,239
Speaker 1: kind trey serving others at the you know, the tip

1015
00:55:02,280 --> 00:55:04,600
Speaker 1: of the spear or so to speak? In these countries?

1016
00:55:04,640 --> 00:55:07,480
Speaker 1: We make their jobs easier by walking away from a

1017
00:55:07,480 --> 00:55:10,000
Speaker 1: twenty year war and abandoning our allies in their time

1018
00:55:10,040 --> 00:55:13,759
Speaker 1: of needing. We've made every service member, every soft guy,

1019
00:55:13,880 --> 00:55:18,040
Speaker 1: every regular army guy, Navy, Marine Corps job more dangerous

1020
00:55:18,120 --> 00:55:20,840
Speaker 1: and put their lives at risk. Because of the optics

1021
00:55:20,840 --> 00:55:23,279
Speaker 1: of this and the fact that we didn't think through this.

1022
00:55:23,840 --> 00:55:25,719
Speaker 1: Those nations aren't going to trust us the same way

1023
00:55:25,760 --> 00:55:27,880
Speaker 1: they did before because they saw us bail on our

1024
00:55:27,920 --> 00:55:32,239
Speaker 1: Afghani allies. The truth is this, in these nations, you

1025
00:55:32,320 --> 00:55:35,480
Speaker 1: have to lead with strength and honor and you you

1026
00:55:35,560 --> 00:55:37,840
Speaker 1: don't have to have an iron fist, but you can't

1027
00:55:38,400 --> 00:55:42,319
Speaker 1: negotiate a position of weakness. Period. They respect power, they

1028
00:55:42,320 --> 00:55:44,879
Speaker 1: respect strength, and we didn't do that the right way.

1029
00:55:45,239 --> 00:55:47,280
Speaker 1: You know, I could go on for another hour straight

1030
00:55:47,560 --> 00:55:51,359
Speaker 1: about the failures in Afghanistan. So that's number two. And

1031
00:55:51,840 --> 00:55:54,160
Speaker 1: the third one, I'm gonna do one here locally, and

1032
00:55:54,200 --> 00:55:59,960
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do one that is again a national issue.

1033
00:56:00,480 --> 00:56:02,799
Speaker 1: We've got a reigning, out of control spending right while

1034
00:56:02,800 --> 00:56:06,560
Speaker 1: Afghanistan is burning down and American lives are being lost

1035
00:56:07,000 --> 00:56:10,040
Speaker 1: and people are being shipped off to Walter Reid because

1036
00:56:10,040 --> 00:56:13,000
Speaker 1: of the injuries there. What is that? You know, what

1037
00:56:13,280 --> 00:56:15,399
Speaker 1: is our government doing? They're patting themselves on the back

1038
00:56:15,480 --> 00:56:20,080
Speaker 1: for passing trillions of dollars of packages and infrastructure that

1039
00:56:20,320 --> 00:56:23,600
Speaker 1: nobody really understands or wants. Right, it doesn't solve a

1040
00:56:23,680 --> 00:56:26,440
Speaker 1: problem for the American people. We're adding trillions of dollars

1041
00:56:26,440 --> 00:56:31,719
Speaker 1: a debt onto my children's children's children, generations yet to come.

1042
00:56:31,920 --> 00:56:35,160
Speaker 1: It's unacceptable. You know, those are the things that draw

1043
00:56:35,239 --> 00:56:38,480
Speaker 1: people together. We make our family bounds our budget, We

1044
00:56:38,560 --> 00:56:41,040
Speaker 1: make our family lock our doors shut the doors, keep

1045
00:56:41,040 --> 00:56:43,960
Speaker 1: our home secure, our family safe. Right, why should it

1046
00:56:43,960 --> 00:56:46,360
Speaker 1: be different for our government? And in the end, I

1047
00:56:46,480 --> 00:56:49,800
Speaker 1: tell my son, both of my boys giving cold, that

1048
00:56:49,920 --> 00:56:52,959
Speaker 1: you have each other's back. We always have each other's back.

1049
00:56:53,440 --> 00:56:56,640
Speaker 1: So if we come together and realize that we have

1050
00:56:56,719 --> 00:56:59,520
Speaker 1: more in common, we have each other's back. We keep

1051
00:56:59,520 --> 00:57:04,000
Speaker 1: our nation to secure on the borders and internationally and

1052
00:57:04,080 --> 00:57:07,600
Speaker 1: the control out of control spending. How much better are

1053
00:57:07,600 --> 00:57:09,160
Speaker 1: we going to be on just those three things that

1054
00:57:09,160 --> 00:57:12,000
Speaker 1: are common to everyone across this country. The majority of

1055
00:57:12,000 --> 00:57:14,239
Speaker 1: people believe those same things, and they're ready to hear

1056
00:57:14,280 --> 00:57:17,360
Speaker 1: politicians who want to do something, you know, who live

1057
00:57:17,400 --> 00:57:21,400
Speaker 1: by deeds not words. You know, here locally, we've got

1058
00:57:21,400 --> 00:57:23,520
Speaker 1: to solve some of these issues on our on our

1059
00:57:23,560 --> 00:57:26,680
Speaker 1: gulf with red time and some of the water issues.

1060
00:57:27,120 --> 00:57:30,000
Speaker 1: You know, Florida is a state built on outdoor living.

1061
00:57:30,360 --> 00:57:32,800
Speaker 1: You know. Uh, we were at the beach when red

1062
00:57:32,840 --> 00:57:35,000
Speaker 1: tide was was at his at its peak, and you're

1063
00:57:35,000 --> 00:57:38,959
Speaker 1: watching these big groupers and fish wash up on there,

1064
00:57:39,080 --> 00:57:41,480
Speaker 1: and uh, in the end, man we moved to Florida

1065
00:57:42,160 --> 00:57:44,760
Speaker 1: for many reasons. It's spoke to us. This is where

1066
00:57:44,760 --> 00:57:47,280
Speaker 1: we chose to call all the places in God's green earth.

1067
00:57:47,640 --> 00:57:49,320
Speaker 1: This is what spoke to us. This is our homes,

1068
00:57:49,360 --> 00:57:50,840
Speaker 1: where our kids are gonna grow up and we're gonna

1069
00:57:50,880 --> 00:57:53,640
Speaker 1: grow old. But we're a water family. Right we go

1070
00:57:53,720 --> 00:57:55,800
Speaker 1: to the beach. I want my kids to serve. I

1071
00:57:55,840 --> 00:57:57,520
Speaker 1: want them on boats and I want them to enjoy

1072
00:57:57,560 --> 00:58:00,000
Speaker 1: the ocean and live that life. And if we don't

1073
00:58:00,440 --> 00:58:03,120
Speaker 1: find a way to keep the water healthy, how are

1074
00:58:03,120 --> 00:58:05,240
Speaker 1: they going to do that? Right? You know, I'm not

1075
00:58:05,280 --> 00:58:08,560
Speaker 1: going to say we can't maintain business and analys but

1076
00:58:08,560 --> 00:58:10,520
Speaker 1: we've gotta be smart to look at this in the short,

1077
00:58:10,640 --> 00:58:13,360
Speaker 1: mid and long term and develop a strategy that's good

1078
00:58:13,360 --> 00:58:16,440
Speaker 1: for the economics and also good for the water. It

1079
00:58:16,480 --> 00:58:18,320
Speaker 1: can be done. You just can't be lazy. You gotta

1080
00:58:18,320 --> 00:58:20,840
Speaker 1: do the hard work. And for those who are listening

1081
00:58:21,080 --> 00:58:23,920
Speaker 1: unfamiliar with what red tide is, it's a red algae

1082
00:58:24,600 --> 00:58:28,520
Speaker 1: that balloons in coastal waters or Florida and causes die

1083
00:58:28,520 --> 00:58:33,200
Speaker 1: offs of fish. It's attributable to fresh water runoff coming

1084
00:58:33,200 --> 00:58:36,320
Speaker 1: out of places like Lake with Kachobe and our rivers.

1085
00:58:36,960 --> 00:58:40,720
Speaker 1: Florida's got something like a million miles of water runoff

1086
00:58:40,760 --> 00:58:43,240
Speaker 1: canals and irrigation things like that because we get so

1087
00:58:43,320 --> 00:58:46,360
Speaker 1: much rain. So it's it's about how we control that

1088
00:58:46,440 --> 00:58:50,000
Speaker 1: runoff and how we move that water around the state

1089
00:58:50,160 --> 00:58:53,360
Speaker 1: as Florida basically as a spun sitting in a puddle

1090
00:58:53,800 --> 00:58:57,760
Speaker 1: if you if you look at it geographically. Um, going

1091
00:58:57,800 --> 00:59:02,360
Speaker 1: back to Afghanistan for a minute, you worked with Afghan

1092
00:59:02,400 --> 00:59:07,080
Speaker 1: troops very close close way you were. You were there

1093
00:59:07,160 --> 00:59:10,800
Speaker 1: during the siege at Camp and Conduct, which which the

1094
00:59:10,800 --> 00:59:13,840
Speaker 1: Afghan Army was involved in. And Steve and I've talked

1095
00:59:13,880 --> 00:59:16,160
Speaker 1: about this all the writers have. We actually wrote some

1096
00:59:16,280 --> 00:59:20,120
Speaker 1: stuff on this during the evacuation about why it was

1097
00:59:20,160 --> 00:59:23,920
Speaker 1: happening the way it was. We're marking the contrast between

1098
00:59:24,760 --> 00:59:28,800
Speaker 1: the resistance in the Panchyr Valle, which is um, you know,

1099
00:59:28,880 --> 00:59:31,320
Speaker 1: it's it's Tad Jeeks and and some others done some

1100
00:59:31,400 --> 00:59:34,440
Speaker 1: of the some of the passions versus the way the

1101
00:59:34,480 --> 00:59:39,840
Speaker 1: Afghan army pretty much, you know, collapsed on itself around

1102
00:59:39,840 --> 00:59:41,920
Speaker 1: the different districts and stuff like us. What your thoughts

1103
00:59:41,960 --> 00:59:45,120
Speaker 1: are on the different fighting qualities of Afghan troops and

1104
00:59:45,240 --> 00:59:48,840
Speaker 1: you've worked with them what was your experience with Afghans?

1105
00:59:49,360 --> 00:59:51,920
Speaker 1: So you know, there's a couple of things before you

1106
00:59:51,960 --> 00:59:55,480
Speaker 1: can step into how the Afghans fight. Right, the Afghan

1107
00:59:55,560 --> 00:59:57,000
Speaker 1: Army is not like the U. S Army. When we

1108
00:59:57,040 --> 00:59:58,720
Speaker 1: say we've got a half million, I means we got

1109
00:59:58,720 --> 01:00:01,160
Speaker 1: a half million trained in put it in in ready people. Right.

1110
01:00:01,840 --> 01:00:04,640
Speaker 1: That three d or three and thirty thousand number, that's

1111
01:00:04,680 --> 01:00:08,439
Speaker 1: not real soldiers, right, that's inflated. That's conscripts. That's people

1112
01:00:08,480 --> 01:00:10,600
Speaker 1: who have never actually been a part of them and

1113
01:00:10,640 --> 01:00:12,960
Speaker 1: are added to their roles just to look right. When

1114
01:00:12,960 --> 01:00:15,640
Speaker 1: we look at the you know, the real people who

1115
01:00:15,720 --> 01:00:20,320
Speaker 1: do hard work, it's ten eleven thousands offt SF soldiers

1116
01:00:20,400 --> 01:00:22,680
Speaker 1: in the Afghan Army who are trained by with him,

1117
01:00:22,720 --> 01:00:26,040
Speaker 1: through our green berets, through our tiered assets. They're the

1118
01:00:26,080 --> 01:00:28,520
Speaker 1: real deal. They know what they're doing. They fought with

1119
01:00:28,600 --> 01:00:31,440
Speaker 1: honor and dignity and had our backs. Uh, you know

1120
01:00:31,800 --> 01:00:35,800
Speaker 1: throughout this process they're good soldiers, they're good fighters. There

1121
01:00:35,840 --> 01:00:38,320
Speaker 1: are good people in the regular Afghan Army, people who

1122
01:00:38,360 --> 01:00:41,680
Speaker 1: get it. And Uh, in the end, I think when

1123
01:00:41,720 --> 01:00:44,240
Speaker 1: you look at this, let's just peel this back a

1124
01:00:44,320 --> 01:00:46,400
Speaker 1: little bit and look at how this thing came together.

1125
01:00:46,840 --> 01:00:50,560
Speaker 1: You know, mid April we announced we're gonna have zero

1126
01:00:50,600 --> 01:00:54,840
Speaker 1: troops by May June, we're starting to roll back. Afghanis

1127
01:00:55,760 --> 01:00:58,480
Speaker 1: are here in this, that this is coming up in

1128
01:00:58,520 --> 01:01:00,760
Speaker 1: the summer, and by September events we're gonna have no

1129
01:01:00,800 --> 01:01:03,520
Speaker 1: troops in Afghanistan. Imagine how they felt, right, our allies

1130
01:01:03,520 --> 01:01:07,120
Speaker 1: after twenty years, They're like, what, you're you're what? And

1131
01:01:07,520 --> 01:01:10,200
Speaker 1: you know General Miller, Scott Miller was on the ground

1132
01:01:10,240 --> 01:01:12,720
Speaker 1: for that, right, He's he's a he's a great man,

1133
01:01:13,000 --> 01:01:15,480
Speaker 1: a good leader who knows Afghanistan, spent a lot of

1134
01:01:15,520 --> 01:01:18,600
Speaker 1: his adult life there, and he's someone universally trusted by

1135
01:01:18,600 --> 01:01:23,640
Speaker 1: them and by Americans. He's he's exceptional. Um as this

1136
01:01:23,800 --> 01:01:26,120
Speaker 1: was going out and we're being told to shrink this

1137
01:01:26,200 --> 01:01:29,680
Speaker 1: country down, we weren't listening to the tactical people on

1138
01:01:29,720 --> 01:01:32,840
Speaker 1: the ground. We weren't hearing their words. You know, this

1139
01:01:32,960 --> 01:01:35,760
Speaker 1: was being run by the Pentagon in the States. When

1140
01:01:35,760 --> 01:01:39,480
Speaker 1: you had someone dynamic, gifted and intelligent and capable in

1141
01:01:39,520 --> 01:01:41,960
Speaker 1: General Miller, on the ground, they should have listened to

1142
01:01:42,040 --> 01:01:46,040
Speaker 1: him more because he's again, he's the real deal. So

1143
01:01:46,120 --> 01:01:48,000
Speaker 1: let's look at how we pulled this back rather than

1144
01:01:48,040 --> 01:01:51,320
Speaker 1: communicating to our Afghan allies. Al Right, guys, we're gonna

1145
01:01:51,320 --> 01:01:54,440
Speaker 1: start peeling down these bases and telling them a thought

1146
01:01:54,440 --> 01:01:56,920
Speaker 1: out structure and a plan. We just disappeared in the

1147
01:01:56,920 --> 01:01:58,800
Speaker 1: middle of the night, shut the lights off, rolled out,

1148
01:01:58,800 --> 01:02:02,360
Speaker 1: they woke up, and boom, the Americans are gone. Right.

1149
01:02:02,520 --> 01:02:05,320
Speaker 1: Imagine how that felt for our allies. Imagine how to

1150
01:02:05,400 --> 01:02:08,680
Speaker 1: folt across the country. Word travels fast in that nation,

1151
01:02:09,160 --> 01:02:13,080
Speaker 1: so they're already on their heels. This happens, and we're

1152
01:02:13,160 --> 01:02:17,760
Speaker 1: peeling back, right, and we come back into big places

1153
01:02:17,800 --> 01:02:20,440
Speaker 1: like Bogram and Cobble, and you know, in places like that,

1154
01:02:21,160 --> 01:02:24,880
Speaker 1: um as we're squeezing is in. And then word comes

1155
01:02:24,880 --> 01:02:27,040
Speaker 1: out that they're not going to maintain between five people

1156
01:02:27,040 --> 01:02:29,760
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan, right, that they're going to drop that. That

1157
01:02:29,840 --> 01:02:32,080
Speaker 1: number is pretty significant because that's what it takes to

1158
01:02:32,160 --> 01:02:35,720
Speaker 1: ruin Bogram, to have the airframe managed, to have the

1159
01:02:35,760 --> 01:02:38,000
Speaker 1: infrastructure to make that work. That's a U. S. Army

1160
01:02:38,040 --> 01:02:43,000
Speaker 1: Air Force base, right, That's not Cobble. That's a real defendable,

1161
01:02:43,440 --> 01:02:48,520
Speaker 1: hardline military air force base. We trained the Afghanis uh

1162
01:02:48,680 --> 01:02:51,000
Speaker 1: to fight like us, right, to shoot, move and communicate

1163
01:02:51,080 --> 01:02:53,720
Speaker 1: like us. But what that means they had to have intelligence,

1164
01:02:53,800 --> 01:02:57,760
Speaker 1: targeting packages and close air support. So now imagine how

1165
01:02:57,800 --> 01:02:59,720
Speaker 1: they felt when we were told we told them not

1166
01:03:00,080 --> 01:03:04,320
Speaker 1: no, no no, we're gonna close bog You're you're wait what

1167
01:03:04,640 --> 01:03:06,320
Speaker 1: you're You're not gonna give us air support? How do

1168
01:03:06,400 --> 01:03:08,320
Speaker 1: how we fight? You taught us to fight like this

1169
01:03:08,440 --> 01:03:11,400
Speaker 1: without air support. So again there's another gut punch to

1170
01:03:11,440 --> 01:03:13,800
Speaker 1: the Afghans, right, our allies of people on the ground,

1171
01:03:14,280 --> 01:03:17,120
Speaker 1: and because we left, all the other allies started peeling

1172
01:03:17,160 --> 01:03:19,640
Speaker 1: back and leaving as well. Right, so now we're rolling

1173
01:03:19,640 --> 01:03:23,280
Speaker 1: back there, we give up bog Room, which is a

1174
01:03:23,400 --> 01:03:28,400
Speaker 1: huge tactical operational strategic error, right, and we focus on Cobble.

1175
01:03:28,640 --> 01:03:31,760
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the history of things, right, what

1176
01:03:31,960 --> 01:03:33,920
Speaker 1: is one of the things ever gone well, We've been

1177
01:03:33,960 --> 01:03:36,439
Speaker 1: backed into a corner. Right, Let's look at Thermopoli, Let's

1178
01:03:36,440 --> 01:03:38,800
Speaker 1: look at the little big Horn, Let's look at the Alamo.

1179
01:03:39,040 --> 01:03:41,560
Speaker 1: It never goes well. And then we wanted to focus

1180
01:03:41,560 --> 01:03:44,360
Speaker 1: on the optics of it, right, rather than haven't looked

1181
01:03:44,360 --> 01:03:47,560
Speaker 1: like a military exercise or a military mission. They're like, no,

1182
01:03:47,560 --> 01:03:49,440
Speaker 1: no, no no, no, this is we're just getting We're getting

1183
01:03:49,440 --> 01:03:51,240
Speaker 1: people out. We didn't have much of a plan obviously

1184
01:03:51,240 --> 01:03:53,960
Speaker 1: with blanket in those folks, but uh, you know, we

1185
01:03:53,960 --> 01:03:55,920
Speaker 1: don't want to look to military, so we put more

1186
01:03:55,960 --> 01:03:58,360
Speaker 1: people at risk by not having the security parameters up

1187
01:03:58,400 --> 01:04:01,240
Speaker 1: because of optics, and we back, We went into a

1188
01:04:01,320 --> 01:04:04,240
Speaker 1: corner where everyone knew where we were in a built

1189
01:04:04,320 --> 01:04:09,600
Speaker 1: up area. We did everything wrong tactically, operationally, and strategically.

1190
01:04:10,040 --> 01:04:12,920
Speaker 1: And you wonder why the Afghans didn't fight. We did

1191
01:04:13,000 --> 01:04:16,600
Speaker 1: nothing to get them to fight. You know, you could

1192
01:04:16,600 --> 01:04:19,240
Speaker 1: go on for hours and hours about specific nuance to

1193
01:04:19,320 --> 01:04:21,960
Speaker 1: things that we failed at, but in the end it

1194
01:04:22,040 --> 01:04:24,440
Speaker 1: comes down to this. We didn't leave live by our ethos.

1195
01:04:25,040 --> 01:04:28,080
Speaker 1: Uh definitely not mine of these not words, nor do

1196
01:04:28,160 --> 01:04:31,600
Speaker 1: we live by the ethos of we don't leave people behind,

1197
01:04:31,760 --> 01:04:35,520
Speaker 1: right that's the basic fundamental concept, you know, to call

1198
01:04:35,600 --> 01:04:39,360
Speaker 1: this a logistic success for a general officer to do that,

1199
01:04:39,440 --> 01:04:43,200
Speaker 1: when we left Americans behind, when per the State Department's number,

1200
01:04:43,200 --> 01:04:45,959
Speaker 1: there's a hundred Americans left in the nation right now,

1201
01:04:46,600 --> 01:04:50,320
Speaker 1: it's it's embarrassing. It's a black guy on our nation.

1202
01:04:50,640 --> 01:04:53,120
Speaker 1: It doesn't define who we are, but we have to

1203
01:04:53,120 --> 01:04:56,360
Speaker 1: own it. Unfortunately, because of the decisions they made and

1204
01:04:56,400 --> 01:04:58,720
Speaker 1: the only way to solve that is to come together

1205
01:04:59,080 --> 01:05:01,360
Speaker 1: as we the people and let the government know that

1206
01:05:01,920 --> 01:05:05,160
Speaker 1: y'all don't work and make the decisions. You work for us.

1207
01:05:05,240 --> 01:05:08,040
Speaker 1: It is we the people that are empowered by our constitution.

1208
01:05:08,120 --> 01:05:10,320
Speaker 1: You may not like it, but we have a voice.

1209
01:05:10,480 --> 01:05:13,320
Speaker 1: You work for us, and this is not acceptable. We

1210
01:05:13,400 --> 01:05:16,480
Speaker 1: deserve better they could be. To be clear, would you

1211
01:05:16,520 --> 01:05:19,120
Speaker 1: have been an advocate for staying and keeping some sort

1212
01:05:19,120 --> 01:05:24,600
Speaker 1: of footprint in Afghanistan? So? Yeah, so honestly I would

1213
01:05:24,600 --> 01:05:26,400
Speaker 1: have right and not forever. Nobody wanted to be in

1214
01:05:26,400 --> 01:05:29,480
Speaker 1: Afghanistan longer than we had to write. Twenty years was

1215
01:05:29,560 --> 01:05:32,800
Speaker 1: a long time. You know. We talked earlier about generate

1216
01:05:32,920 --> 01:05:36,080
Speaker 1: a whole generation of military from day one to retirement

1217
01:05:36,640 --> 01:05:39,280
Speaker 1: built around the Afghan War. But how do you do

1218
01:05:39,360 --> 01:05:41,760
Speaker 1: this right? I'm gonna use an analogy. I'm a dad, right,

1219
01:05:41,880 --> 01:05:43,400
Speaker 1: six and a nine year old. I've got two boys.

1220
01:05:43,400 --> 01:05:45,200
Speaker 1: You ride bicycles because I taught them how to ride

1221
01:05:45,240 --> 01:05:47,680
Speaker 1: a bike. I'm gonna use two schools that theory. I

1222
01:05:47,680 --> 01:05:50,760
Speaker 1: could take them the highest hill or mountain in this area.

1223
01:05:50,800 --> 01:05:52,920
Speaker 1: And I live in Florida. There's nothing super high, right,

1224
01:05:52,960 --> 01:05:54,760
Speaker 1: but we'll make one up right, and I could put

1225
01:05:54,800 --> 01:05:57,080
Speaker 1: them on the bike and push them down and in

1226
01:05:57,160 --> 01:05:59,160
Speaker 1: theory they may be able to ride their bike right,

1227
01:05:59,280 --> 01:06:01,680
Speaker 1: But more than like, they're gonna crash, flip and not

1228
01:06:01,720 --> 01:06:03,960
Speaker 1: want to ride their bike. They're gonna be broken and

1229
01:06:04,000 --> 01:06:05,920
Speaker 1: bloodied and they're gonna hurt, and I don't have to

1230
01:06:05,920 --> 01:06:08,240
Speaker 1: work hard to get them back up right. That's what

1231
01:06:08,280 --> 01:06:10,480
Speaker 1: we did, is a nation to the Afghans. Rather than

1232
01:06:10,560 --> 01:06:14,120
Speaker 1: giving them training, wheels and security and you know, standing

1233
01:06:14,600 --> 01:06:16,840
Speaker 1: by their side while they're getting wobbly and up on

1234
01:06:16,840 --> 01:06:19,640
Speaker 1: their own, we just walked away and let them crash

1235
01:06:19,640 --> 01:06:22,560
Speaker 1: down the mountain side. That's what we did. We also

1236
01:06:22,640 --> 01:06:25,840
Speaker 1: did this in the summer, right, Afghanistan, you don't fight

1237
01:06:25,960 --> 01:06:28,400
Speaker 1: year round. It's the summer months when you fight. The

1238
01:06:28,440 --> 01:06:30,880
Speaker 1: summer offensive is what they call it. In the you know,

1239
01:06:30,960 --> 01:06:33,560
Speaker 1: the late fall and winter, nothing goes on there because

1240
01:06:33,560 --> 01:06:36,360
Speaker 1: everyone goes back to Pakistan or Iran or wherever they

1241
01:06:36,400 --> 01:06:39,400
Speaker 1: came from and they get their shore on, right. It's

1242
01:06:39,480 --> 01:06:41,840
Speaker 1: it's just the reality of it. Why would we leave

1243
01:06:41,880 --> 01:06:44,680
Speaker 1: in the middle of the summer offensive without communicating doing

1244
01:06:44,760 --> 01:06:47,000
Speaker 1: all the things we just talked about. How do we

1245
01:06:47,160 --> 01:06:51,760
Speaker 1: left a small package of air support and soft operators

1246
01:06:51,760 --> 01:06:54,520
Speaker 1: in the nation. None of this happens because the fact is,

1247
01:06:54,960 --> 01:06:59,040
Speaker 1: the Taliban, isis al Qaeda know exactly what those are guys.

1248
01:06:59,080 --> 01:07:01,880
Speaker 1: Those guys are about, the bearded ones, so to speak.

1249
01:07:02,320 --> 01:07:04,800
Speaker 1: They know it's a very real mission, and those guys

1250
01:07:04,800 --> 01:07:07,200
Speaker 1: are there to do what has to be done because

1251
01:07:07,200 --> 01:07:09,480
Speaker 1: they do live by ethos of leaving the one behind

1252
01:07:09,880 --> 01:07:14,040
Speaker 1: of deeds. Words that would have given our our Afghan

1253
01:07:14,040 --> 01:07:17,120
Speaker 1: allies the support they needed to continue on this. And

1254
01:07:17,160 --> 01:07:19,720
Speaker 1: then yes, eventually you have to leave. We don't want

1255
01:07:19,720 --> 01:07:21,560
Speaker 1: to be there for an eternity, but you've got to

1256
01:07:21,600 --> 01:07:24,600
Speaker 1: do this in a way that promotes stability, not instability.

1257
01:07:24,800 --> 01:07:28,880
Speaker 1: We didn't just destabilize Afghanistan. We destabilize the Middle East,

1258
01:07:29,120 --> 01:07:32,400
Speaker 1: and we've made Americans less secure at home because Afghanistan

1259
01:07:32,480 --> 01:07:35,520
Speaker 1: is already a terror of safe haven. There are two

1260
01:07:35,520 --> 01:07:39,400
Speaker 1: thousand isis k roaming around Afghanistan right now. It's not

1261
01:07:39,440 --> 01:07:42,040
Speaker 1: a matter of if. It's when people try to do

1262
01:07:42,120 --> 01:07:44,680
Speaker 1: something against America because we are a target because of

1263
01:07:44,720 --> 01:07:47,960
Speaker 1: what we talked about. Our flag stands for freedom, Our

1264
01:07:48,080 --> 01:07:51,320
Speaker 1: nation stands for the freedom that we we all espouse

1265
01:07:51,360 --> 01:07:55,240
Speaker 1: and believe in. It's a it's I've always kind of

1266
01:07:55,720 --> 01:07:57,640
Speaker 1: smile when people said, oh, you know, staying in this

1267
01:07:57,680 --> 01:08:00,120
Speaker 1: country for twenty years, for twenty years, it's on us,

1268
01:08:00,160 --> 01:08:03,520
Speaker 1: and I'm like, you've been to Germany, Japan, Italy. We've

1269
01:08:03,560 --> 01:08:06,240
Speaker 1: had bases there since World War Two. So it's not

1270
01:08:06,320 --> 01:08:09,000
Speaker 1: as if we don't stay in these countries once we've

1271
01:08:09,040 --> 01:08:12,040
Speaker 1: either liberated them or or pulled them out. We're there

1272
01:08:12,160 --> 01:08:15,400
Speaker 1: for stability, and you know, we have an Agreement of

1273
01:08:15,480 --> 01:08:19,280
Speaker 1: Forces arrangement with countries around the world, including Germany, Japan,

1274
01:08:19,760 --> 01:08:23,559
Speaker 1: and South Korea. I think where they have like thirty

1275
01:08:23,640 --> 01:08:26,320
Speaker 1: or forty thousand U S troops in South Korea that

1276
01:08:26,360 --> 01:08:28,760
Speaker 1: have been there since the fifties. It is not unprecedented

1277
01:08:28,800 --> 01:08:33,040
Speaker 1: for us to remain if it makes sense obviously, if

1278
01:08:33,040 --> 01:08:36,599
Speaker 1: it makes sense um, But it seems like the way

1279
01:08:36,640 --> 01:08:39,880
Speaker 1: the mission turned into mush and nobody was really clear

1280
01:08:39,880 --> 01:08:41,719
Speaker 1: on what the goal was or why we were there,

1281
01:08:42,640 --> 01:08:46,439
Speaker 1: undermines the the idea of remaining. I think everybody knows

1282
01:08:46,439 --> 01:08:49,040
Speaker 1: why we keep forty thousand people in Korea. I think

1283
01:08:49,080 --> 01:08:51,799
Speaker 1: everybody knows why we have an aircraft carrier permanently stationed

1284
01:08:51,800 --> 01:08:55,240
Speaker 1: in Japan. I think people know how we maintained troops

1285
01:08:55,240 --> 01:08:59,320
Speaker 1: in Germany and why we had naval facilities in our

1286
01:08:59,360 --> 01:09:02,519
Speaker 1: air forces is and a Biano and at Naples, and

1287
01:09:02,560 --> 01:09:05,439
Speaker 1: in Sicily and of Spain. You know, we we have

1288
01:09:05,560 --> 01:09:09,400
Speaker 1: facilities there that are that are cooperative with the countries

1289
01:09:09,439 --> 01:09:13,120
Speaker 1: that are whether station order to shore their security. And

1290
01:09:13,160 --> 01:09:16,599
Speaker 1: they understand that they would need us in a wider conflict,

1291
01:09:16,640 --> 01:09:19,280
Speaker 1: that our goals are align with their goals in terms

1292
01:09:19,360 --> 01:09:22,760
Speaker 1: of national security. I think we lost the threat in

1293
01:09:22,800 --> 01:09:27,160
Speaker 1: Afghanistan about why it mattered in fighting the war on terror,

1294
01:09:27,439 --> 01:09:31,519
Speaker 1: and I think important people, yeah, weren't told that. Right.

1295
01:09:31,560 --> 01:09:34,719
Speaker 1: We wanted to focus on the stuff they divided us, right, Uh,

1296
01:09:34,800 --> 01:09:37,360
Speaker 1: you know, whether it was by race, by religion, by creed,

1297
01:09:37,439 --> 01:09:40,280
Speaker 1: by politics, whatever. Right, we wanted to focus on all

1298
01:09:40,280 --> 01:09:42,360
Speaker 1: those things and tell people how horrible we are as

1299
01:09:42,360 --> 01:09:44,800
Speaker 1: a nation, right, how much we're different, how much this

1300
01:09:44,880 --> 01:09:48,760
Speaker 1: group doesn't get that group. The truth is, Look, I've

1301
01:09:48,800 --> 01:09:53,880
Speaker 1: served with every nationality, gay people, straight people, everything in between. Right,

1302
01:09:53,920 --> 01:09:56,360
Speaker 1: it didn't matter. We all bled green, right, we all bled,

1303
01:09:56,479 --> 01:09:57,840
Speaker 1: and we all did the mission the same way. I

1304
01:09:57,880 --> 01:10:01,880
Speaker 1: didn't care. Nobody cared. That's the reality of this. If

1305
01:10:01,880 --> 01:10:04,720
Speaker 1: we just remember that we are Americans, it's okay to

1306
01:10:04,800 --> 01:10:07,640
Speaker 1: love our nation it's okay to be patriotch and know

1307
01:10:07,760 --> 01:10:11,120
Speaker 1: that we have that common thread. Let's unite on that

1308
01:10:11,800 --> 01:10:14,840
Speaker 1: and solve problems. And this would have been much more

1309
01:10:14,880 --> 01:10:18,479
Speaker 1: readily apparent because we would have seen there are bad

1310
01:10:18,520 --> 01:10:21,360
Speaker 1: people in the world. There are folks, to quote a movie, right,

1311
01:10:21,400 --> 01:10:24,840
Speaker 1: they just want to watch the world burn. And uh,

1312
01:10:25,120 --> 01:10:28,320
Speaker 1: when we keep our nation united and strong, there is

1313
01:10:28,400 --> 01:10:30,559
Speaker 1: nothing in the world that can stop the American people.

1314
01:10:30,640 --> 01:10:34,439
Speaker 1: We've shown that historically, right, It's true. We've just got

1315
01:10:34,439 --> 01:10:37,280
Speaker 1: to remind people of that. There's quite a view. There's

1316
01:10:37,320 --> 01:10:40,639
Speaker 1: quite a few other veterans running for office, including quite

1317
01:10:40,640 --> 01:10:44,479
Speaker 1: a few from Special Operations Forces. Uh, very Gray would

1318
01:10:44,520 --> 01:10:47,519
Speaker 1: be one that comes to mind. Remember the name of

1319
01:10:47,560 --> 01:10:50,639
Speaker 1: the other Gentlemans that was a special forces that's roining

1320
01:10:50,640 --> 01:10:52,720
Speaker 1: for Congress. That are you in touch with any of

1321
01:10:52,720 --> 01:10:55,880
Speaker 1: those people? Are you? Is there a veteran's caucus in

1322
01:10:55,880 --> 01:11:00,400
Speaker 1: the military that there are several groups drop of together,

1323
01:11:00,920 --> 01:11:02,880
Speaker 1: And yeah, I'm in touch with a few of them,

1324
01:11:03,000 --> 01:11:06,479
Speaker 1: and uh, it's great to see. You know. One of

1325
01:11:06,520 --> 01:11:09,519
Speaker 1: my big talking points is this, you know, our generation

1326
01:11:09,560 --> 01:11:12,960
Speaker 1: of military and is should repeats itself. And you know,

1327
01:11:13,520 --> 01:11:15,519
Speaker 1: one of the things I'm asked is Are you worried

1328
01:11:16,040 --> 01:11:17,599
Speaker 1: that your children are gonna have to grow up in

1329
01:11:17,600 --> 01:11:21,960
Speaker 1: this world? Right? I'm not because in the end, I'm

1330
01:11:22,040 --> 01:11:25,479
Speaker 1: raising dragon slayers, Right, I'm raising children who are strong

1331
01:11:25,600 --> 01:11:28,479
Speaker 1: enough to push back and get through this. I'll never

1332
01:11:28,560 --> 01:11:31,800
Speaker 1: apologize for that. Do I want them to have a

1333
01:11:31,840 --> 01:11:34,240
Speaker 1: great life, Yes, But I'm also want them to be

1334
01:11:34,280 --> 01:11:36,679
Speaker 1: able to work and understand that freedom is something worth

1335
01:11:36,680 --> 01:11:40,240
Speaker 1: fighting for. Um. You know, we have to look at

1336
01:11:40,240 --> 01:11:42,200
Speaker 1: the World War two generation. Wasn't what they did in

1337
01:11:42,280 --> 01:11:45,080
Speaker 1: work that made them the greatest generation. That's what they

1338
01:11:45,080 --> 01:11:48,839
Speaker 1: did after raising America up by his bootstraps, drawing us together,

1339
01:11:48,920 --> 01:11:51,439
Speaker 1: turning this into the nation that we were, because we

1340
01:11:51,560 --> 01:11:54,639
Speaker 1: all focused on one thing, right, what's good for the country.

1341
01:11:54,760 --> 01:11:57,679
Speaker 1: We all blood the same different walks of life, united

1342
01:11:57,760 --> 01:12:01,320
Speaker 1: under the common banner of our American dream of a

1343
01:12:01,400 --> 01:12:03,759
Speaker 1: government the people, by the people, and for the people.

1344
01:12:04,400 --> 01:12:08,160
Speaker 1: That moment, that idea, that concept, story is true. We

1345
01:12:08,400 --> 01:12:10,760
Speaker 1: just have to remind people of it. And I think

1346
01:12:10,800 --> 01:12:14,200
Speaker 1: you're seeing that there are many veterans. You know, a

1347
01:12:14,240 --> 01:12:15,720
Speaker 1: few of us are here on kind of the front

1348
01:12:15,760 --> 01:12:17,400
Speaker 1: end of this. You're gonna see more and more as

1349
01:12:17,439 --> 01:12:20,200
Speaker 1: time goes on, because we know what life is about.

1350
01:12:20,439 --> 01:12:22,760
Speaker 1: We know how blessed we are as a nation, and

1351
01:12:22,880 --> 01:12:26,320
Speaker 1: this fight, no matter how hard it is, is absolutely

1352
01:12:26,400 --> 01:12:28,880
Speaker 1: the right fight. But if no one else is going

1353
01:12:28,920 --> 01:12:31,479
Speaker 1: to do the work, it's incumbent on us to solve it.

1354
01:12:31,880 --> 01:12:33,920
Speaker 1: We can all make a difference, and we all have

1355
01:12:34,000 --> 01:12:36,440
Speaker 1: to serve our community, whether it's a stepard on your neighbors,

1356
01:12:36,840 --> 01:12:39,320
Speaker 1: doing something good for your church, doing something good for

1357
01:12:39,400 --> 01:12:41,960
Speaker 1: your community, or running for Congress. The more good we

1358
01:12:42,080 --> 01:12:45,080
Speaker 1: do united to draw people together, the sooner we draw

1359
01:12:45,160 --> 01:12:47,840
Speaker 1: people together, and all these other things break down from there.

1360
01:12:48,280 --> 01:12:51,160
Speaker 1: If you know as priorities of work, it's step by

1361
01:12:51,200 --> 01:12:55,920
Speaker 1: step by step. It's not exciting, it's not fun, it's simple,

1362
01:12:56,160 --> 01:12:58,960
Speaker 1: but that's how things are done. That's how you win.

1363
01:12:59,800 --> 01:13:04,519
Speaker 1: We agree from an editorial standpoint, softwarep uh wants to

1364
01:13:04,560 --> 01:13:09,200
Speaker 1: come for veterans stilling at the political office um, and

1365
01:13:09,280 --> 01:13:11,920
Speaker 1: it's just a matter of public interests. The number of

1366
01:13:12,000 --> 01:13:16,599
Speaker 1: veterans that served in Congress and declining steadily, but where

1367
01:13:16,600 --> 01:13:19,160
Speaker 1: it's probably the lowest level what's ever been some of

1368
01:13:19,240 --> 01:13:22,120
Speaker 1: that obviously from post World War Two we had atstanding

1369
01:13:22,680 --> 01:13:25,160
Speaker 1: military like thirteen and a half million people, so was

1370
01:13:25,200 --> 01:13:27,960
Speaker 1: a huge part of our population. Plus you know, the

1371
01:13:28,040 --> 01:13:32,000
Speaker 1: military draft that ran into the Knicks administration and like

1372
01:13:32,120 --> 01:13:34,479
Speaker 1: the late sixties meant that you know, I made a

1373
01:13:34,600 --> 01:13:36,320
Speaker 1: much larger army that I think we were still at

1374
01:13:36,720 --> 01:13:39,800
Speaker 1: three and a half almost four million for almost all

1375
01:13:39,880 --> 01:13:43,439
Speaker 1: of the cold Ward's building to the late eighty nineties.

1376
01:13:44,280 --> 01:13:46,559
Speaker 1: So there's just fewer people who served in the military,

1377
01:13:46,640 --> 01:13:49,439
Speaker 1: which means fewer veterans to went for office. So we're

1378
01:13:49,560 --> 01:13:53,400
Speaker 1: very happy to to give a candidate and I'm veteran

1379
01:13:53,479 --> 01:13:55,719
Speaker 1: like you, the opportunity to speak to the people about

1380
01:13:55,760 --> 01:13:57,639
Speaker 1: what it is that you want to do in your

1381
01:13:57,760 --> 01:14:02,120
Speaker 1: canadacy and and hopefully as a as a complished thank you,

1382
01:14:02,240 --> 01:14:05,160
Speaker 1: we wish we wish you all the luck in that

1383
01:14:05,680 --> 01:14:08,160
Speaker 1: since surely we hope you'll come back and talk to

1384
01:14:08,280 --> 01:14:11,360
Speaker 1: us again soon. Um, Steve, I'll try to back over

1385
01:14:11,439 --> 01:14:14,800
Speaker 1: to you. Yeah, hey, Jay uh, I know we we

1386
01:14:14,960 --> 01:14:17,439
Speaker 1: only ask for about forty five minutes. We've taken up

1387
01:14:17,479 --> 01:14:20,360
Speaker 1: a good chunk of your day here. But yeah, we

1388
01:14:20,439 --> 01:14:23,760
Speaker 1: want to thank you for joining us today and to

1389
01:14:24,000 --> 01:14:27,400
Speaker 1: reiterate with Sean just said thanks again and the door

1390
01:14:27,479 --> 01:14:31,040
Speaker 1: is always open for your around here. Um, we'd like

1391
01:14:31,160 --> 01:14:33,600
Speaker 1: to keep in touch with you and UH wish you

1392
01:14:33,680 --> 01:14:37,439
Speaker 1: all the best. Steve Shawn guys, thank you so much.

1393
01:14:37,520 --> 01:14:41,879
Speaker 1: I I deeply appreciate the opportunity, and uh, I'm thankful

1394
01:14:41,960 --> 01:14:45,559
Speaker 1: for you empowering and giving veterans a voice because ultimately,

1395
01:14:45,840 --> 01:14:48,240
Speaker 1: if not me, then who? If not now, then win? Right?

1396
01:14:48,680 --> 01:14:50,280
Speaker 1: This is the time, This is a fight in Our

1397
01:14:50,360 --> 01:14:54,400
Speaker 1: nation needs people who believe unequivocally and selfless service. Thank

1398
01:14:54,439 --> 01:14:58,280
Speaker 1: you for empowering and making this as possible, and I

1399
01:14:58,320 --> 01:15:01,559
Speaker 1: would uh, I'd be honored and grateful to do more

1400
01:15:01,640 --> 01:15:04,080
Speaker 1: with you guys, and uh come back on whenever the

1401
01:15:04,120 --> 01:15:07,920
Speaker 1: opportunity presents itself. Thank you for that. Leanna would be ours. Jay,

1402
01:15:07,960 --> 01:15:11,920
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us. Thank you take care alright,

1403
01:15:12,000 --> 01:15:14,200
Speaker 1: and for all of us here at Software up Radio,

1404
01:15:14,360 --> 01:15:17,240
Speaker 1: we want to thank all of our listeners for always

1405
01:15:17,320 --> 01:15:21,559
Speaker 1: tuning in. Thanks to Sean who joined us today. It's

1406
01:15:21,600 --> 01:15:23,640
Speaker 1: fun to be able to do the podcast with him,

1407
01:15:23,920 --> 01:15:27,160
Speaker 1: and obviously thanks to our guest today Jake Collins. We'll

1408
01:15:27,160 --> 01:15:30,680
Speaker 1: be back with another podcast real soon, so don't turn

1409
01:15:30,760 --> 01:15:33,960
Speaker 1: that down shot the Software Repradio excuse me on time

1410
01:15:34,000 --> 01:15:53,880
Speaker 1: on target, We'll be back. They're listening to Self Repadio

1411
01:15:54,560 --> 01:15:54,920
Speaker 1: MHM