Speaker 1: Welcome with the Good Stuff.
Speaker 2: I'm Jacob Schick and I'm joined by my co host
Speaker 2: and wife, Ashley Shick.
Speaker 3: Jake is a third generation combat Marine and I'm a
Speaker 3: gold Star granddaughter. We work together to serve military veterans,
Speaker 3: first responders, frontline healthcare workers, and their families with mental
Speaker 3: and emotional wellness through traditional and non traditional therapy. At
Speaker 3: One Tribe Foundation, we.
Speaker 2: Believe everyone has a story to tell, not only about
Speaker 2: the peaks, but also the valleys they've been through to
Speaker 2: get them to where they are today.
Speaker 3: Each week, we invite a guest to tell us their story,
Speaker 3: to share with us the lessons they've learned that shape
Speaker 3: who they are and what they're doing to pay it
Speaker 3: forward and give back.
Speaker 2: Our mission with this show is to dig deep into
Speaker 2: our guest's journey so that we can celebrate the hope
Speaker 2: and inspiration their story has to offer.
Speaker 3: We're thrilled you're joining us again.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Good Stuff.
Speaker 3: Today, our guest is Congressional Medal of Honor recipient Floren Groberg.
Speaker 3: This is a story about patriotism. He's here to tell
Speaker 3: us about his childhood in France, his family history in Algeria,
Speaker 3: moving to Chicago as a young kid and eventually becoming
Speaker 3: a United States citizen.
Speaker 2: His love of country led him to joining the army
Speaker 2: after nine to eleven. This episode is important to us
Speaker 2: because we want people to understand that the Medal of
Speaker 2: Honor recipients are real people. Also, he's held in high
Speaker 2: regard around the world because of that medal. But today
Speaker 2: we talk to him about who he really is. His
Speaker 2: life now, is a husband and father, the eight seconds
Speaker 2: of action that changed his life, and what was going
Speaker 2: through his mind when President Obama put that medal around
Speaker 2: his neck.
Speaker 3: We are so glad he's joining us today, and you
Speaker 3: will be too once you hear this interview. This is
Speaker 3: an intimate conversation amongst friends, and a swear word or
Speaker 3: two might be included.
Speaker 2: We both fought and bled for the right to say
Speaker 2: whatever the hell we want, so deal with it.
Speaker 3: In fact, Flora Groberg, so great to have you here
Speaker 3: on the good Stuff. We have tried many times to
Speaker 3: get you here, and you canceled twice for the two
Speaker 3: most legitimate reasons ever, a dinner at the White House
Speaker 3: and having your first child. Yeah, so welcome to the
Speaker 3: good stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean one of those is the most legitimate. It
Speaker 1: was good dinner.
Speaker 2: Good because I was gonna ask, like, is it everything
Speaker 2: that you think it would be? Like first class everything?
Speaker 2: And is the furniture comfortable? Is it like warm and inviting?
Speaker 1: So I went to the state dinner in December between
Speaker 1: obviously this current administration, Biden and please you know Macrone.
Speaker 1: I'm French background, so yeah, that's part of the reason
Speaker 1: why I was invited. And other than the dinner being
Speaker 1: two and a half hours late literally really yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we didn't start eating around until ten ten fifteen pm.
Speaker 1: The reason that happened is because Biden and macnt wanted
Speaker 1: to shake everyone and take a picture with every single
Speaker 1: guest and all the bs not and that bs but
Speaker 1: the crap that bite In takes about being old years old.
Speaker 1: I was really surprised that he stood for three plus
Speaker 1: hours in the same spot and shook everyone's hand and
Speaker 1: I took pictures. You know what I mean, You gotta
Speaker 1: admire that. I now at forty, sure as heck, I'm
Speaker 1: not doing it. I was like, all right, or we're
Speaker 1: gonna go hell a lot faster.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but going back, I was born in Friends and
Speaker 1: my mom is my aunt. So the woman that raised me.
Speaker 1: I called mom is my aunt. Her sister had me.
Speaker 1: I think she had a fun night or something and things,
Speaker 1: you know, did not work out the way she planned it.
Speaker 1: But the world was blessed with you. Shit, I got lucky, right,
Speaker 1: So my mom adopted me, and you know, for the
Speaker 1: first three years, just her and I we lived in
Speaker 1: the els Heirs of Paris. She gets so mad at
Speaker 1: me when I said ghetto. You know, we live in
Speaker 1: the ghetto. Latta is like the French newspapers said that.
Speaker 1: Literally after we see the Medal of Honor, one of
Speaker 1: the headlines was from the ghetto of Paris to the
Speaker 1: White House, right, I was like, that's what they call it,
Speaker 1: you see it? Right? It all blame me for this,
Speaker 1: But you take a you know, we did a Google
Speaker 1: Earth thing and you go to my neighborhood and you
Speaker 1: kind of look at the buildings and it's one of
Speaker 1: those buildings with like steel doors and bars on windows
Speaker 1: and stuff. You're kind of like spits the yeah, demographics
Speaker 1: right there. But I loved it. You know, it was
Speaker 1: my world. You don't know any better. When you're a kid,
Speaker 1: you know, that's what you grew up in. Luckily, she
Speaker 1: met this guy named Larry who my stepfather now my
Speaker 1: adoptive father, and he was there on business and they
Speaker 1: kind of hated it off and over in the next
Speaker 1: six seven years it dated right, and he was in
Speaker 1: my life and he was amazing, right from Gary, Indiana,
Speaker 1: you know, raising Gary lived in Chicago, And one day
Speaker 1: when I was about ten, it's seven years in he
Speaker 1: asked my mom if she was willing to want marry him,
Speaker 1: but also moved to the States, and so they had
Speaker 1: to convince me and convinced me. He's so smart. He
Speaker 1: got me Nintendo and I was playing Mike Tyes and
Speaker 1: Punch Out Best one of the best, one of the
Speaker 1: best games of all time. Yeah, And he came to
Speaker 1: my ram us playing that game and he asked, hey, flow,
Speaker 1: do you like McDonald's. You want to eat McDonald's. I
Speaker 1: said it, yeah, and he's like, also, would you like
Speaker 1: to meet Michael Jordan? Michael Jordan, you know, because I
Speaker 1: mean I wasn't even basketball player, but everyone knew Jeordan
Speaker 1: the whole world, right, Michael Jordan. And you know, this
Speaker 1: is the nineties, early nineties, that's glory, that was Glory days.
Speaker 1: This is like nineteen ninety three. Yea, like this dude
Speaker 1: is just one of his first repeat right then. Yeah,
Speaker 1: loved to met Michael Jordan's Like, wow, if we moved
Speaker 1: to the States, McDonald's the headquarters of it there, Michael
Speaker 1: Jordan lives in my city. I said, okay, it sounds good.
Speaker 1: Just like that. That was the end. He ran with
Speaker 1: it and we were gone. We were gone three weeks later, gone.
Speaker 1: So I tell people, I lost my allegiance to my country,
Speaker 1: my family, my friends, my school, my sports, everything about me,
Speaker 1: my whole identity was just sold for McDonald's and Michael Jordan.
Speaker 1: The way there's McDonald's and rents just want to bring
Speaker 1: it out there. It's really good too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's two of the biggest franchises ever, right right,
Speaker 2: And so yeah, I should go work for McDonald's and
Speaker 2: just be like, this is what a great story spoke
Speaker 2: something that, Yeah, I would like McDonald's and the Michael
Speaker 2: Jordan to take note that not just any dude, yeah,
Speaker 2: but a Medal of Honor recipient.
Speaker 1: Those aren't just handed out. It's not going to work
Speaker 1: with Michael. So President Bush put me in one of
Speaker 1: his poetry books, you know, And so I'm in there
Speaker 1: I'm in his museum. He paid me and put me
Speaker 1: in his museum. And in the book he says that
Speaker 1: he's going to figure out a way to contact Michael Jordan,
Speaker 1: and it has not happened.
Speaker 3: So you moved to Chicago at age eleven.
Speaker 1: Tell us about that. What was that like? Culture shock? Shot? Yeah,
Speaker 1: one hundred percent culture shock. Moving to Chicago in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety four was a complete culture shock, going from the
Speaker 1: city to the suburbs, not speaking the language. Did you
Speaker 1: speak any English when you move? Not really? I mean
Speaker 1: it's put It gave me a couple of courses before,
Speaker 1: but like you know, just like you take Spanish in
Speaker 1: school a little bit, and it's totally not my priority
Speaker 1: at this time. And I came here and it was
Speaker 1: just so different. Everything was bigger, wider, longer. I don't
Speaker 1: know how I'll subscribe it. I remember being in this
Speaker 1: town home that he lived in and we're there, walked
Speaker 1: outside and I couldn't see people, buses, you know, metro, nothing,
Speaker 1: It's just houses and quiet. I remember thinking like, this
Speaker 1: is creepy. I want to be in a city. But
Speaker 1: then it was also peaceful. It was new, so everything
Speaker 1: was just kind of cool. Care of like wow, like
Speaker 1: all right, let me just explore this. But one of
Speaker 1: the things that got me super fired up was when
Speaker 1: I saw one of those yellow school buses, because I'd
Speaker 1: never seen one in my life before, you know, and
Speaker 1: I've been I visited the United States a few times,
Speaker 1: you know, usually in a city and for like a
Speaker 1: week or two right with him. But now here I
Speaker 1: was and that's where I lived. I knew that, and
Speaker 1: I saw one of his buses drive by the only
Speaker 1: time I've ever seen those buses in movies with TV
Speaker 1: shows were Zan and things like that, right, you know
Speaker 1: Cosby Show and the movies that we watched. I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, this is so cool. I got super excited.
Speaker 1: Like my dad, it's just like his kid's weird, because
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't want to be one of
Speaker 1: those things. One day, like everyone's trying to avoid the bus.
Speaker 1: I wanted to get in the bus. But I just
Speaker 1: thought I was so cool and in the people.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: It was hard to communicate, but as kids, you don't
Speaker 1: need words, you just need action. Sports was an easy way.
Speaker 1: I was a really good soccer player, and I got
Speaker 1: to play with some really good soccer players around and
Speaker 1: so that I created a bond, bonding and obviously in track.
Speaker 1: But we lived in Chicago for a little bit and
Speaker 1: moved to DC. I went to the French International School,
Speaker 1: so I was still every day French shot with a
Speaker 1: lot of emphasis in English. Obviously, that got kicked out
Speaker 1: of that school in eighth grade. Hold on what happened?
Speaker 1: I had a racist teacher, you know. And so my
Speaker 1: father would help me with my English, you know, on
Speaker 1: work and I run an essay and you know, he
Speaker 1: would look at it, and but I wrote it and
Speaker 1: he would just give me advice. I'm like, well, you
Speaker 1: might want to change this tone, you might want to
Speaker 1: go through your grammar. So he would help me. But
Speaker 1: my uncle had just been killed in North Africa right
Speaker 1: before that, in Algeria fighting the GIA terrorist organization, going
Speaker 1: to Ga predecessor to Raa Kaita. And my uncle was
Speaker 1: a preacher of the Muslim faith. He was an mom
Speaker 1: and when the GIA came in with sharer law in
Speaker 1: a westernized Muslim country, he decided to that they were
Speaker 1: perverting his book and his religion and his beliefs. So
Speaker 1: he went and joined the army. He went special operations
Speaker 1: there actually got to come to the United States and
Speaker 1: be trained with some and had Bragg now liberty, and
Speaker 1: he went back and fought for years. In February of
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six, during a ceasefire to observe Ramadon of
Speaker 1: all things, his unit was ambush who was shot beheaded.
Speaker 1: This member put in a box sense to my grandfather.
Speaker 1: And my grandfather was a war hero in Algeria French
Speaker 1: andoshin prisoner war for three years and the cattle is
Speaker 1: for y'all during independence against the French. So he was
Speaker 1: really well known. So they killed his son and then
Speaker 1: obviously that to his body and then send it to
Speaker 1: him as a message. It only motivated more my uncles
Speaker 1: to join the army at that point, just like terrorism
Speaker 1: never works, it just motivates the next generation to fight
Speaker 1: against that. Yeah, so that just happened, and you're eighth grade,
Speaker 1: seventh grade, seventh grade, and my uncle had just been killed.
Speaker 1: And this guy gives me a zero in my paper
Speaker 1: and he said that cheated zero. Yeah, yeah, he said
Speaker 1: at zero instead of cheated. I said, I don't know
Speaker 1: how I cheat, but how you cheat on this? Right?
Speaker 1: And he said, all your Arabs are this is the same.
Speaker 1: So I took a remember it was like desk chairs
Speaker 1: connected to each other. Yeah. Yeah, I took one of those,
Speaker 1: lifted in and threw it at him, missed him obviously,
Speaker 1: for I was scrawny and small and all my strength
Speaker 1: in the world to picked that thing up and that
Speaker 1: threw it and went like, oh foot. But that's the thought,
Speaker 1: get you kicked out. Yeah I got kicked out. But
Speaker 1: my mom was like, that sounds great, kick my son out.
Speaker 1: But let me go out there and tell all the
Speaker 1: diplomats around that this is a racist school.
Speaker 3: Years.
Speaker 1: I put a hell of a lot of money that
Speaker 1: you know, you charge a ton of money into it.
Speaker 1: Is not to say that probably wasn't cheap. No, it
Speaker 1: wasn't cheap. And my dad moving here, he was you know.
Speaker 1: I went from being super poor and nothing to like
Speaker 1: live in a normal life and my dad investing quite
Speaker 1: a bit of money in my education because I didn't
Speaker 1: speak English, right, So anyway, I took the ESAUL test
Speaker 1: after that English is the second language, and I went
Speaker 1: to till the middle school American school, and I remember
Speaker 1: being in school and not speaking the language. So I
Speaker 1: had English. I didn't have English. I had Esaul. Today day,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to figureut how I made it to class
Speaker 1: so English that was my Esaul. So I'm there with
Speaker 1: a bunch of like people like me, Hispanic, French, Africans.
Speaker 1: You know, this is like it's actually a good number.
Speaker 1: But like history, science, math, everything else, it was in English,
Speaker 1: like with everybody that probably didn't make it a chant
Speaker 1: at all. The thing is, I think that helped really, yeah,
Speaker 1: because by the time I was in regular English freshman year,
Speaker 1: I was an Honors English sophomore year, and I was
Speaker 1: an ap English junior year. Wow. And I think being
Speaker 1: forced to learn in that element, I think that helped me.
Speaker 1: I don't know how made it through, to be honest
Speaker 1: with you, like maybe like they were nice to me
Speaker 1: or something. But the only class that I felt really
Speaker 1: comfortable in was in Spanish because I spoke Spanish too
Speaker 1: at the time, because I lived in Spain for a
Speaker 1: little bit of a period of time. So like I was like,
Speaker 1: screw all of you, I can speak this language, right,
Speaker 1: So me and the other like Hispanic duds were like,
Speaker 1: let's go. That led into going into high school sports
Speaker 1: and in college. And but when nine to eleven happened,
Speaker 1: and I think this is like a kind of to
Speaker 1: conclude this piece, this whole transition. I became naturalized as
Speaker 1: a seventeen year old, right, So my dad officially adopted me,
Speaker 1: so I became his son on paper and everything, and
Speaker 1: that made me American right away because I was a minor.
Speaker 1: And so in February two thousand and one, I became
Speaker 1: a US citizen, and I remember not truly understanding that moment,
Speaker 1: but just being happy. I'm like, one of you guys,
Speaker 1: Now I'm American officially. But when you fast forward seven
Speaker 1: months later and nine to eleven happens, and now you
Speaker 1: do the connecting dots in my own mind, which is,
Speaker 1: these individuals are the same people that killed my uncle.
Speaker 1: So I felt like terrorism was following me, and now
Speaker 1: they attacked my mom's side of the house, right, and
Speaker 1: now they're attacking my newly adopted country. So as an American,
Speaker 1: I felt that it was my responsibility to now join
Speaker 1: the military, but also felt that was very personal and
Speaker 1: so I mean, how could you not at that point? Especially,
Speaker 1: I tell people I had the easiest four years in
Speaker 1: college because I didn't really care what I was studying
Speaker 1: because I knew exactly what I was going to do
Speaker 1: after because nine eleven happened when I was in the
Speaker 1: Orient school and I wanted to quit. And he asked
Speaker 1: me one single question. He fit, what's the one thing
Speaker 1: I asked of you when I give you my name?
Speaker 1: I obviously didn't no ideways talking about so he ran.
Speaker 1: He reminded me, he said, when a Groelberg starts something,
Speaker 1: he or she finishes it because if they quit when
Speaker 1: things get tough, they will always find an excuse to
Speaker 1: quit everything else that they start. That could be a
Speaker 1: job of family, you know, relationships or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: So it's like the hard thing for you to do
Speaker 1: is get your education right now. And he said something
Speaker 1: really valuable. After that, I was like, as we go
Speaker 1: to war into this, this is not going to be
Speaker 1: a two month, three month thing. This is going to
Speaker 1: be a long thing. Because he's his background was in
Speaker 1: communications from Motorola and he traveled seven months out of
Speaker 1: the year. We didn't see him. He was always on
Speaker 1: the road because he would go to these big deals. Well,
Speaker 1: he's former army veteran Vietnam one was in a capacity
Speaker 1: of working with the agency, and we can get into
Speaker 1: that's of fun stuff. And now we have all the
Speaker 1: pictures and stuff. He golfed with ben Lan's father. He
Speaker 1: knew the King of Morocco and stuff because he was
Speaker 1: selling them radio technologies on stuff all around the Middle
Speaker 1: East and Asia and South America, and so he had
Speaker 1: all these access points he lived. I was so lucky,
Speaker 1: like he raised me and he had all these understanding
Speaker 1: of like culture and stuff. And so he told me like,
Speaker 1: this is something that's been brought for a long time,
Speaker 1: and this is not gonna end overnight, so like you're
Speaker 1: gonna you're gonna have your opportunity to play in this game.
Speaker 1: And so finished school. I said, all right. I was pissed.
Speaker 1: But of course he's completely officer in me. First of all,
Speaker 1: he's blonding green ice. So really a lot of questions
Speaker 1: growing up about that's your dad, Okay, milkman, where are
Speaker 1: you at?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's I mean, seeing is believing, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, that's it's one of those things.
Speaker 1: We both have great dads too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know what, man, you probably you know this.
Speaker 2: You didn't have a better guy to mantally prepare you
Speaker 2: for all of it. And he and clearly knew what
Speaker 2: he was talking about had way more of a freaking
Speaker 2: understanding than June role population, you know, watching the nine
Speaker 2: to five Dad.
Speaker 1: This is the stories he tells me. I won't go
Speaker 1: too deep, but I'll give you this sort of a synopsis.
Speaker 1: We were sitting at the table, him and I just
Speaker 1: chatting and I'll be like, all right, so, like, how
Speaker 1: was your trip? He'll say it was good. This time
Speaker 1: was a lot better than last time. I said, he
Speaker 1: went to Zambia. Right, I was like, oh, what happened
Speaker 1: last time? He's like, a little misunderstanding? What's a middle
Speaker 1: little misunderstanding? I go bad, like your customer, I'm thinking
Speaker 1: of deals, right, I'm thinking like you're customer, didn't like
Speaker 1: you're pricing whatever it is. And he's like, I was
Speaker 1: sticking pictures of this building. Police came buy and picked
Speaker 1: me up, me and my buddy up, threw us in
Speaker 1: jail and they called the spies and it took all
Speaker 1: our stuff and I was like, uh huh. And he's
Speaker 1: like yeah, and there's this guy, you know, just like local,
Speaker 1: chained up in the bench next to us, and they
Speaker 1: came in and beat the heck out of him, pretty
Speaker 1: much killed him. So at that point we realized, like,
Speaker 1: we really need to figure out a way to get
Speaker 1: the heck out of here. So we saw a priest
Speaker 1: and we told him, hey, I'm Larry Groberg. Go to
Speaker 1: the US and and let him know, like we're here
Speaker 1: and I can come bail us out. He's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: in about you know, twelve fourteen hours later, you know
Speaker 1: us guy came in and he kind of build us out.
Speaker 1: But ha, some really misunderstanding. I said, what do you
Speaker 1: mean what do you do for a living?
Speaker 2: Right? You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, what are you talking about? Did you
Speaker 1: got thrown in jail for being a spy for taking pictures?
Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, we're just taking pictures of a building
Speaker 1: where we're gonna put these you know, these radios and
Speaker 1: antennas and stuff. I said, something's missing, right, Well, he'll
Speaker 1: tell me another story where Africa was, like his fun stories.
Speaker 1: I think it was Zimbabwe. There was a curfew. He's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I had a long meeting kind of went past curfew.
Speaker 1: So I got my car and drove through and I
Speaker 1: saw a checkpoint. I realized, probably not a good idea
Speaker 1: to stop at checkpoints. I kind of punched through it
Speaker 1: and they shot a couple of rounds of aca at
Speaker 1: me and then they chased me. But luckily there was
Speaker 1: another guy that did the same thing. They went after
Speaker 1: him and I'm like, what are you talking about? Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's no way. Your story's don't fit. And then the
Speaker 1: case was when I was uh, and they moved to
Speaker 1: North Carolina and I went into the attic just like
Speaker 1: my boxes, and this is kind of funny. That's why
Speaker 1: I liked the idea of boxes and learning the story
Speaker 1: of your dad or grandpa. And I went into one
Speaker 1: of the boxes looking for something and I found an
Speaker 1: identification card from Moroccan Jean dal Marie right the police
Speaker 1: like National police up there, and is my dad's face
Speaker 1: with a different name on it. And I took that
Speaker 1: brought it to him. I was like, what is this.
Speaker 1: He's like, huh, yes, not d card. I was like, no,
Speaker 1: I get that, dude. Why do you have a different name?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you know they didn't like my name, so
Speaker 1: to get on basically, just give me this card. I'm like,
Speaker 1: Larry Grosberg is a pretty like easy name, dude, Like,
Speaker 1: why do you have like a pretty much French name.
Speaker 1: He's like, oh, it's just it just made it a
Speaker 1: lot easier. I said, not man. And so when I
Speaker 1: went into that world myself after the Army, I realized,
Speaker 1: like this guy was doing a little bit more than
Speaker 1: what it's to this day, he won't tell me your truth.
Speaker 1: I'll figure it out one day.
Speaker 3: You'll figure it out eventually.
Speaker 2: That's man, that's conviction, though, amazing, this whole old school dude,
Speaker 2: that's legit.
Speaker 1: You don't respect that. No, hell no, I wanted to
Speaker 1: tell he just smiled, he smirts, and that makes it worse.
Speaker 1: This is just total coincidence. And really there's our stories, right,
Speaker 1: we have top of one more. This is the best one.
Speaker 1: This is the best one. My mom to this day
Speaker 1: is incredibly still mad at him because they were going
Speaker 1: to Luxembourg. From Paris to Luxembourg for a long weekend.
Speaker 1: This is you can't make this ship up. She packed
Speaker 1: her bag, he packed his bag, and they went on
Speaker 1: the train, right, and my mom went to the bathroom
Speaker 1: on the train to Java, and she took her bag
Speaker 1: with her. Okay, it was like a pretty sizeable bat,
Speaker 1: right because she was she like freshing her up, doing
Speaker 1: her makeup again. She left the bag in the bathroom
Speaker 1: forgot about it, came back, sat down like ten minutes later.
Speaker 1: My dad's like, where's your back and she's like, oh, crap,
Speaker 1: I left in the bathroom. Luckily, she went to the
Speaker 1: bathroom and still there, picked up the bag. Right, It's
Speaker 1: like complete luck. They go through customs, right. She goes
Speaker 1: through customs, no issues. He goes through customers, no issues.
Speaker 1: They arrive at the hotel, he's like, can I see
Speaker 1: your bag for a second, and so she grabs a
Speaker 1: bag and then in there he somehow put it, put
Speaker 1: it one hundred thousand dollars in cash, and he took
Speaker 1: it out and she's like, what the fuck is this lyric?
Speaker 1: And he's like, oh, we're doing this business steal and
Speaker 1: we have to pay off this third party guy. And
Speaker 1: she's like, no, that's great. I don't care about your
Speaker 1: illegal activities or whatever the hell you're doing. Why is
Speaker 1: it in my bag? He's like, well, I can't cross
Speaker 1: customs with a one hundred thousand dollars without declaring it.
Speaker 1: And she's like, why is it in my bag?
Speaker 3: You would let me.
Speaker 1: He's like, they're going to check my bag. More likely
Speaker 1: they wouldn't check yours. She's like why didn't you tell me.
Speaker 1: It's like then you would have been nervous, and if
Speaker 1: you would have been nervous going through customs, you would
Speaker 1: have checked your bag.
Speaker 4: And I'm like, dude, bro, you are he's some illegal,
Speaker 4: real stuff like you were like, that's really all I
Speaker 4: did was from Motorola.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, yeah, so yeah, I mean that's common practice.
Speaker 3: I like, Larry, so tell us about when you did
Speaker 3: make that step to join the military.
Speaker 1: It took a couple of years sort of French government
Speaker 1: to renounce my friend Citisenship. I didn't realize you couldn't
Speaker 1: be as you know, pleasure allegiance to two different countries
Speaker 1: and you know, and get a clearance. Yeah, I didn't
Speaker 1: know about the stuff. So I went to the fresh
Speaker 1: embassy renounced my friend Cisenship. Took a little bit of
Speaker 1: time to get that paperwork back, which is probably one
Speaker 1: of the suckiest part of my life, because you really
Speaker 1: want to do something and you're incapable of doing it
Speaker 1: because of a piece of paper. Right, So I sold
Speaker 1: voice of IP lines for a sub of Cisco Systems
Speaker 1: at the time called e Core Networks and just waited
Speaker 1: my time. Right, made a good money made over only
Speaker 1: one thousand hours, as like a twenty three year old,
Speaker 1: which is like unheard of. Yeah, it was just sales, right,
Speaker 1: and I sold this huge deal right in two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight thousand, even they with the Embassy of Kowait.
Speaker 1: It was like three million dollars and I was gonna
Speaker 1: net me like seventy thousand hours of bonus. And the
Speaker 1: next day I got a call for my recruit to
Speaker 1: come in because you see my paperwork back and now
Speaker 1: the army was ready to put me through the board
Speaker 1: so I could go off security to school. And so
Speaker 1: I went to my job and Michael Berdermini at the
Speaker 1: time was the big boss, and I said, hey, I'm resigning,
Speaker 1: and he's just like, are you serious, Like you're about
Speaker 1: to get paid, dude, Like you're so good at this,
Speaker 1: Like you're about to get paid. You know, next month
Speaker 1: you're going to get like thirty five k and then
Speaker 1: four months later you get the other thirty five k.
Speaker 1: He said, that's big money and stuff. And I told
Speaker 1: him I was like, ude, I been waiting for two
Speaker 1: years for this. I care that about money. I'm twenty
Speaker 1: three four years old, Like money is not my objectives.
Speaker 1: This is what I want to do. So I quit
Speaker 1: that day and they were all shocked because like, no,
Speaker 1: one will not take their money, right, No, of course,
Speaker 1: and I started training again. You know, I was a
Speaker 1: division athlete before and running track from Maryland, and I
Speaker 1: needed to get back in to it, and so I
Speaker 1: started training and that's what I focused for the next
Speaker 1: month and a half before I went to boot of
Speaker 1: just getting like into top physical shape.
Speaker 2: So which thank guy that you were an athlete before that,
Speaker 2: because you had an advantage in how to prepare.
Speaker 1: You knew what you had to do. Yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 1: That was my full time job. I did side jobs
Speaker 1: for a little bit of cash, just to like pay bills,
Speaker 1: but I had money anyway, so you know, saved up.
Speaker 1: So I did that and I went to Benning one July.
Speaker 1: It was hot.
Speaker 2: I was about to say, so you went the best
Speaker 2: time of year to Georgia. There's no humidity and it's
Speaker 2: just it's cold. Yeah, Chili, it's tropical.
Speaker 1: It was the best decision I've ever made, making it
Speaker 1: from ad one hundred thousand hours making twenty seven thousand hours.
Speaker 1: You did it for the paycheck, obviously, I'm sient. I
Speaker 1: didn't even get paid. For the first three months, I
Speaker 1: didn't know. I did not get paid at all during
Speaker 1: basic training. There was a problem in the pay system
Speaker 1: with my name, a glitch in the system, imagine that.
Speaker 1: But you know I learned something valuable though and Basic.
Speaker 1: First of all, people hated me in Basic. I was
Speaker 1: the assistant PG and they hated me because every morning
Speaker 1: I get up a zero four hundred whenever I will
Speaker 1: wake up was obviously I didn't sleep under the covers.
Speaker 1: No one did, really, but some did. They were idiots.
Speaker 1: But I was fired up every day because every day
Speaker 1: I would get out of bed, now just be like
Speaker 1: great roll And I would tell these guys like we
Speaker 1: get you get ship ready, let's go faster and stuff.
Speaker 1: And I would hold them to the standard because I
Speaker 1: told him, every day is a theay closer to me
Speaker 1: coming to us army soldier. Yeah, and that is real shit.
Speaker 1: People are fucking dying. This is not a joke. This
Speaker 1: is that summer camp. This is what is this tell
Speaker 1: Nate two thousand and eight. Yeah, okay, I mean yeah,
Speaker 1: and you'll go through like probably one of the worst
Speaker 1: other than three or four right five in Iraq. This
Speaker 1: is like becoming like really bad specific in Afghanistan. And
Speaker 1: so when I was telling and had friends deployed, and
Speaker 1: I said, this is real shit, like every day. We
Speaker 1: need to embrace this and learn from what they're teaching us,
Speaker 1: because this is Deanna we're going to get. And people
Speaker 1: just thought I was I just ran from the crewer
Speaker 1: too much. And so things that I did in basic training,
Speaker 1: I didn't tell anyone I was going to basic training,
Speaker 1: nor my friends. One guy, Matt Sanders, dropped me off
Speaker 1: at Maps and that's you want to got innew A
Speaker 1: couple of reasons I did that is One, I didn't
Speaker 1: want letters. I wanted to focus on on the job. Second,
Speaker 1: I sure saw did not want my friends to know
Speaker 1: where was at so they would send me this dolls
Speaker 1: and stuff to get you. So that was like, you know,
Speaker 1: part of that, but I really wanted to focus. Third
Speaker 1: is I'm a track athlete and the Olympics were happened
Speaker 1: that year in that summer, I didn't want to look
Speaker 1: forward to a letter with like times and things like that.
Speaker 1: I wanted to just be one hundred percent focused on
Speaker 1: this trade. And so I did that, and believe it
Speaker 1: or not, that created some the droll instructors. I throw
Speaker 1: a walk caught on and then you know how you
Speaker 1: do mail call and it throw your mail and stuff.
Speaker 1: And I've never got.
Speaker 2: Anything in front of God and everybody, right, it's never
Speaker 2: one on one like yeah your grandma. Yeah, ever it's
Speaker 2: in front of everyone.
Speaker 1: And then one they realized, probably week six and seven,
Speaker 1: like at the end, they're like, Roberg, you never no
Speaker 1: one likes you. You fucking I think everyone here hates
Speaker 1: you because you're so mean to them. The reason why
Speaker 1: the bear with you because you win every like a
Speaker 1: physical competition here and you know that means the team wins.
Speaker 1: They don't like you here, and it shus I don't
Speaker 1: like you out of here because you never gotten a letter.
Speaker 1: And I was like yo, So guys started coming to
Speaker 1: me and at night and giving me their letters.
Speaker 3: Story.
Speaker 1: It was so funny. So actually you know what worked?
Speaker 1: Though it worked, it worked, and like you got empathy,
Speaker 1: Yeah I didn't care about empathy.
Speaker 2: Yeah I know you didn't care about that crap. But
Speaker 2: you got to read all this all the I can
Speaker 2: only imagine. So we had I can only imagine.
Speaker 1: But when I graduated and then I went to a
Speaker 1: CS and infantry school Airborne School and en Rangel School.
Speaker 1: I tell you what those fifteen sixteen months where so
Speaker 1: I'm of the hardest but best moments of my life
Speaker 1: because every day I got closer to my objective. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that you've been waiting for a lot longer than most
Speaker 1: had the way whole life home as I felt like, yeah.
Speaker 3: Let's go ahead and talk about your deployment to Afghanistan
Speaker 3: twenty twelve.
Speaker 1: So in twenty twelve, my second deployment Afghanistan, I was
Speaker 1: in charge of the security detail for at the time
Speaker 1: Colonel Mingus who is now the Chairman Joint jesus is
Speaker 1: APP Director, And the mission was simple. I selected six
Speaker 1: highly qualified individuals across the brigade to run a personal
Speaker 1: security detail for him and Cremns Homage Griffin, and we
Speaker 1: were going to protect them in Afghanistan and the eastern
Speaker 1: part of Aghanistan. We're based in nangarhar At in Jalalabad,
Speaker 1: Jabad and we had forty five different now stations across
Speaker 1: six provinces. So our stations meaning US or friendly basis
Speaker 1: that were part of his ecosystem. And so the job
Speaker 1: was simple, it was really awesome. I would coordinate his routes.
Speaker 1: I would coordinate with the receiving units his intent, his arrival,
Speaker 1: and then I would just work with the birds to
Speaker 1: get all the bursts scheduled, and then when it was
Speaker 1: going on the ground, I would protect them. So if
Speaker 1: we went out out of wire, I would always ask
Speaker 1: for twelve to fifteen soldiers at a minimum to escort us,
Speaker 1: because my team was designed to protect him and the
Speaker 1: Starry Majrix. So meeting, if we went outside of wire
Speaker 1: and we got hit, what our job was to do
Speaker 1: was to collapse on these folks, on these leaders in essence,
Speaker 1: like they really put them to their ground and shield
Speaker 1: them with our bodies and then X filled them away
Speaker 1: from the threat. And having that element of twelve or
Speaker 1: fifteen soldiers really a squad platoon that's halfway sixty, that's
Speaker 1: the security to fight the fight so we can successfully extract.
Speaker 1: And so that was it, and it was awesome. I
Speaker 1: got to see Avihanistan in ways that I never saw
Speaker 1: my first tour. I got to sit in meetings with ambassadors,
Speaker 1: with politicians, with General Meyville, all the top military officials
Speaker 1: form partners. I got to sit in a tri state
Speaker 1: boarder meetings with Pakistanis while Afghans and you know Indians, right,
Speaker 1: I bet that was interesting. Oh it was amazing, Like
Speaker 1: I got to really learn about the mission of Afghanistan
Speaker 1: from a very high level terms about leadership, and it
Speaker 1: gave me a better perspective of what the heck we're
Speaker 1: doing over there versus what I learned was a regular
Speaker 1: infantry all sering with our platoon in ALL nine and
Speaker 1: a jab wasn't particularly dangerous. We just knew that, you know,
Speaker 1: it's Afghanistan and she can go crazy at any moment.
Speaker 1: We had a couple of close calls. A v bid
Speaker 1: Finley shields a vehicle born id, so they put a
Speaker 1: bunch of explosive blew it through the gate. Got into
Speaker 1: a nice little firefight there. That was fun. I didn't
Speaker 1: do anything. I watched it, so that's a little sad,
Speaker 1: but it's still fun. Another one they put an ied
Speaker 1: right before we landed our aircraft's thank god, like local
Speaker 1: Afghan National Army guy on that base was noticed it,
Speaker 1: so then we went through video cameras identify that the
Speaker 1: other Afghan National Army guy had put it there, so
Speaker 1: you get rid of him. Had dinner at lunch at
Speaker 1: Ben Laden's house in you know, Nangahar. It was crazy,
Speaker 1: like amazing. And then off of course did the whole
Speaker 1: Perun Northern afghanist ten peace where there was no roads, nothing,
Speaker 1: get to do some advanced patrol with the State Department
Speaker 1: and CIA and some other folks to bring the ambassador
Speaker 1: up there Olsen to the you know, a meeting with
Speaker 1: the provincial governor. And lastly, I'll say this, every governor
Speaker 1: that I met, it ties back to the United States.
Speaker 1: So the guy in Perun, yeah, would find out way
Speaker 1: to get out of Perun, what a bumping in a
Speaker 1: ride with us or like you know, taking a two
Speaker 1: week journey through the woods and stuff, so he could
Speaker 1: go back to Kabul and fly out back to the
Speaker 1: United States so he can run his taxi driving service
Speaker 1: in New York. Right, come on, yeah, no, they all
Speaker 1: have They all have investments in the US. They have
Speaker 1: friends that they live here. I'm talking about, like it's
Speaker 1: such a corrupt business over there. But they're all back
Speaker 1: they have there, so live here half the fucking time, right,
Speaker 1: you know a lot of them. So it's absolutely fascinating
Speaker 1: when I learned about the ends. So I'm here in
Speaker 1: Perun and no one is near right DA's muhammed On,
Speaker 1: one of our number one high value target is like
Speaker 1: living across the freaking mound right there. And this guy,
Speaker 1: you know, his cousin for the governor comes to talk
Speaker 1: to me in English like we're talking right now, hey man?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah zoo. And I was like, oh my god, hi,
Speaker 1: who are you. He's like, oh, I live here and
Speaker 1: I go to New York. I come back, said, but
Speaker 1: do you ever come back here? What's wrong with you?
Speaker 1: He's like, oh, business, you know. Family. It's like I
Speaker 1: so blessed I had the opportunity to this tour. But
Speaker 1: on August twenty twelve, we're going to actually the sun
Speaker 1: Kuna Provincial Governor's Security meeting happened every Wednesday at ten am,
Speaker 1: and on augusta, twenty twelve, we landed at Combat Oppos Fires,
Speaker 1: which was about a thousand meters away from the Governor's compound,
Speaker 1: so it's a military base and the escort I had
Speaker 1: requested the night before was not there. So it was
Speaker 1: one of those s fat leaders from the under ind first.
Speaker 1: So at the time in twenty twelve, with these really
Speaker 1: did this program where members who were not infantry people
Speaker 1: would go through this training program and come in and train.
Speaker 1: They'd be assigned to a unit there like us. It
Speaker 1: was four five D and they'd just spend time with
Speaker 1: just y Afghans, right, National Army and stuff, and just
Speaker 1: train them just like special Forces mission, right. But they
Speaker 1: wanted to go to more conventional, grander scale. And so
Speaker 1: these folks were there and this guy was one of them,
Speaker 1: and he was in charge of that base. He didn't
Speaker 1: have an infantry background, so when asked for that escort,
Speaker 1: he was like, no, I walk the route, you know prior,
Speaker 1: and then we're clearer. I was like, dude, no, you
Speaker 1: want to walk it with me? Man like and anyway,
Speaker 1: he decided to not listen and he did that. But
Speaker 1: guess what he did. Your onder standard is very clearly.
Speaker 1: He walked it, he cleared it, and he left. He
Speaker 1: wanted to do a governor's compound. It's a hot route again,
Speaker 1: no doubt. They just stayed in the fucking house. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they just watched them. Yeah. So he took all of
Speaker 1: my soldiers, all the soldiers that requested, and he left.
Speaker 1: And so when we landed, I saw no one. My
Speaker 1: heart started beating a little bit faster. My Spidey sense
Speaker 1: started kicking up. You know, I got two brigade commanders,
Speaker 1: three battalion commanders, and Afghan generals, two gs, fifteen State
Speaker 1: Department guys with me. I got two commands, arm majors
Speaker 1: and two majors. Like you know, brigade level, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of brass. That's a lot of It's a ton
Speaker 1: of brass. I mean, you have one hundred Colonel Warrath
Speaker 1: Brigid commanded for undred, first year colonl Mingus Briget commanded
Speaker 1: for four five D. You have a bunch of battalion commanders.
Speaker 1: And the reason why they were all there with us
Speaker 1: is the night before he had an all hands leadership
Speaker 1: meeting in July, albat so well Raff wanted to go
Speaker 1: with him, but some of these battalion commanders were going
Speaker 1: to bump a ride, go to the security meeting, and
Speaker 1: then go back to their bases. So then I had
Speaker 1: six security for all that. What I immediately did is
Speaker 1: freaked out internally, right, took a deep breath. This is
Speaker 1: all happened like within four seconds, and said, what the
Speaker 1: hell do I do now? So I saw my Protucerrian,
Speaker 1: and I said, Brink, get the translator in Cdfgan martial
Speaker 1: army guys smoking cigarets by the gate. Get all tell
Speaker 1: this trans they're all coming with us. And then I
Speaker 1: sprinted towards the base and I went to the three
Speaker 1: places you go look for soldiers, right, maybe just four,
Speaker 1: but three. I went to the hooches. I went to
Speaker 1: see they were asleep. You know where they're sleeping. They're barracks. Whatever,
Speaker 1: make sure barracks. I went to the chow hall and
Speaker 1: I went to the gym. Right, the only other places
Speaker 1: to latrine, so right, the shitters. And I found two guys.
Speaker 1: One of them was a soldier, former soldier of mine,
Speaker 1: start On O'Brien, who was sleeping, told him to get
Speaker 1: the heck out, He's come with me. Put on his
Speaker 1: gear really quickly. And then the other one was a
Speaker 1: KBR type of fucking American contractor. And I was like,
Speaker 1: you have a weapon. He's like yeah. I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't know how. It was like, you're coming with
Speaker 1: us too, So toda's day. He's probably like, holy crow.
Speaker 1: I don't even know his name. Nothing about this guy, seriously, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just brought him with me, and so I had
Speaker 1: the Afghan National army guys get up front. The game
Speaker 1: plan was to put them to be up front about
Speaker 1: ten feet in front of us because I didn't trust them,
Speaker 1: but also to appear bigger. Yeah. Right. And then I
Speaker 1: changed the configuration of our diamonds so the way we work,
Speaker 1: we would do a diamond and I would put my
Speaker 1: principles inside his diamond. And I was always a rear
Speaker 1: of diamond because I wanted the responsibility, like all hell
Speaker 1: breaks loose, to grab the boss first and put them
Speaker 1: to the ground yep, and then it will take them
Speaker 1: to safety. This time, I wanted to be at the
Speaker 1: spear of it so to have better visibility. And I
Speaker 1: put my pre fc O chart twenty one year old
Speaker 1: kid behind me in my position, and I told him,
Speaker 1: if something happens, whatever direction I go, I need you
Speaker 1: to take the boss go to the opposite direction. He's
Speaker 1: like Roger that. And then we drove on went out
Speaker 1: there and you know, atmospherics were shitty and there's quiet
Speaker 1: Toyota corollas are following us. It's an interesting place because
Speaker 1: it's off the water, right off the river. We were
Speaker 1: the last point right of that base before you hit
Speaker 1: the water. It's one road, so that you have water
Speaker 1: on the left, there's nowhere else to go. So like
Speaker 1: the fact that I'm after like five minutes of walking
Speaker 1: on this eleven hundred thousand thousand meters movement, there's a
Speaker 1: car that is following us. So on radio, I was like, yo, yeah,
Speaker 1: get this guy like off our but in the diamond,
Speaker 1: I put all the officers. When he puts our Major
Speaker 1: Griffin in there too, he told me, hell no, it's
Speaker 1: like there's way too many dumb ass but leaders here.
Speaker 1: I was like, I have the most infantry experience of
Speaker 1: everybody here. I'm going to be in a rear. We're
Speaker 1: doing rear security, and I was like, this is awesome, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: this guy's warrior. So it was like that's I'm covered
Speaker 1: in my rear, so I don't have to worry about that.
Speaker 1: So I felt like I got an extra guy right there.
Speaker 1: But long story short, seven hundred meters into a movement,
Speaker 1: right before you cross the bridge and then seas across
Speaker 1: the bridge, you take these stairs, you by the Governor's
Speaker 1: comp You go a couple of hundred years in your
Speaker 1: governor's compound. They came at us for motorcycles at the
Speaker 1: entrance to the bridge. There's houses to are left right
Speaker 1: on the water, and then it was on the right
Speaker 1: side was the police academy right for the Afghan National
Speaker 1: Police Academy. What they were doing is two side bombers
Speaker 1: waited inside thus houses and they initiated their ambush by
Speaker 1: creating a diversion with motorcycles coming directly at us.
Speaker 3: Yea.
Speaker 1: Luckily, the Afghan National Army point guy did a really
Speaker 1: good job of identifying the motor cycles early on that
Speaker 1: he like starts screaming and raised his you know, rifle
Speaker 1: and started screaming darry, which literally forced a bike to fall,
Speaker 1: like those guys to fall off the bike and they
Speaker 1: started running. So he started chasing them. But I created
Speaker 1: enough of the version to a lot of the guys. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the first guy to come out, So by the time
Speaker 1: I realized that he was out, like, he was about
Speaker 1: forty feet from us. So I turned around, looked at him,
Speaker 1: couldn't see a weapon. I was kind of confused. I
Speaker 1: was like, what is this kid? Do you come from?
Speaker 1: So as he made his moving towards us, I sprang
Speaker 1: it towards him. He ought a couple of names and stuff,
Speaker 1: and when I got to him. I hit him with
Speaker 1: my rifle across the chest hard, and when I hit him,
Speaker 1: I realized like I just hit something that wasn't flush right,
Speaker 1: So I was like what, So I'd let go of
Speaker 1: my rifle. It was slunk to my kit and I
Speaker 1: grabbed him by what I realized at that point was
Speaker 1: a suicide mess. It's a really odd feeling grab man,
Speaker 1: you know, the even it's the best. So at that
Speaker 1: point I could think about was I got to get
Speaker 1: him away from everybody as quickly as possible, as far
Speaker 1: away as possible. He's about to kill my friends, and
Speaker 1: you don't think about yourself. You just said about doing
Speaker 1: your job. And I drove him and threw him, and
Speaker 1: as I threw him, I saw him Mahoney followed me
Speaker 1: into it. He received a civil store for this. He
Speaker 1: landed on his chest, he detonated, and everything went black.
Speaker 1: I just saw the demonstray come out of his hand.
Speaker 1: That's the last memory. And then everything went black, and
Speaker 1: I woke up a couple of minutes later, twenty feet
Speaker 1: away with my foot facing me. FIBIOI blood everywhere right.
Speaker 1: My producer found me and dragged me into a ditch
Speaker 1: in my medic saved my life. He applied a tournique to
Speaker 1: my leg and kept me awake and things like that.
Speaker 1: But the first thing I asked was what's the status
Speaker 1: of my own War six and World War seven? What's
Speaker 1: status to the colonel? And I saw major and they
Speaker 1: said my War six fine. You know why he's fine
Speaker 1: because my fucking PFC caes. You saw me running towards
Speaker 1: the guy the other way. Wow, exactly what you told him,
Speaker 1: and the boss had a concussions about it while we're seven.
Speaker 1: The guy I was telling you about was like I
Speaker 1: got real security. He died because when I talkled this
Speaker 1: guy and Lenna in his chest, the ball bearings, the
Speaker 1: concussion of the blast threw me and it shaved off
Speaker 1: a piece of my leg with the you know, but
Speaker 1: the majority of ball bearings went the complete other directions.
Speaker 1: Thirty feet away from the blast is where they wiped
Speaker 1: out everybody. And they wiped out command Arrew Griffin, Midjic Gray,
Speaker 1: Mister Kennedy, and Reggae ab delfalta USAD guy in a
Speaker 1: state apartment. And so when he told me that my
Speaker 1: Worse seven didn't make it, I told him to get
Speaker 1: me out of this ditch and take me to him,
Speaker 1: and they were like trying to drag me. I was like,
Speaker 1: I get one good leg, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: I can hop So I was holding on to hopping.
Speaker 1: I had my pistol in my hand this whole time, right,
Speaker 1: because when I got when I will, I couldn't find
Speaker 1: my riflece I took my pistol. I didn't know if
Speaker 1: I was getting ambush whatever. And the local popular started
Speaker 1: to congregate towards the blast right, and I saw my
Speaker 1: friends dead, you know, and my heart I kind of sunk.
Speaker 1: But what I saw next was something I'll never forget.
Speaker 1: Was a younger kid, this guy smiling a local yeah okay,
Speaker 1: and I almost shot him, yep. I mean I was
Speaker 1: about shooting the fucking head and that PFC, which I
Speaker 1: grabbed my hand and pulled it down. He's like, not
Speaker 1: worth this or not worth it. We'll get him eventually,
Speaker 1: and then they put me in a truck and that
Speaker 1: was the end of my war. I received the Medal
Speaker 1: of Honor for that action, and he's out the fifteenth
Speaker 1: for President Obama. I'll close out with this like I've
Speaker 1: never been more uncomfortable in my life. It felt more
Speaker 1: like a fraud in my life than standing on that
Speaker 1: stage received the Medal of Honor, because you feel like
Speaker 1: it's the greatest failure I've ever had. I've lost four
Speaker 1: guys under my command on my protection, that command protection,
Speaker 1: and that wasn't the only one there, Bahony was there,
Speaker 1: brink O chart sequel, borrow a Mama medic O'Brien. I
Speaker 1: lost half a butt cheek that I woke up. I
Speaker 1: still pissed at me probably this day. You know, from
Speaker 1: that blast. God knows what happened at KBR, dude, right,
Speaker 1: I'd love to know. But the reality is that you
Speaker 1: feel like you're put on this stage and highlighted and
Speaker 1: called the hero from the world literally, and nothing that
Speaker 1: you ever do in the military is about you, So
Speaker 1: it's about the team. It's never done by yourself, so
Speaker 1: it's about the team. And so I was really glad
Speaker 1: that President Obama took the time to recognize them, But
Speaker 1: most importantly I spoke so highly and recognized the will
Speaker 1: Star families, yeah, and told them to stand up. So
Speaker 1: I won. You know, that was a big part of it.
Speaker 1: But I felt like such a fraud getting it and
Speaker 1: so uncomfortable as you go on with it. You realize
Speaker 1: it's a platform do some good. It does open up
Speaker 1: a lot of doors. Of course, it does gives you
Speaker 1: you know, so it's like, what do you want to
Speaker 1: do with that? What do you want to make out
Speaker 1: of that? And to me, I've taken it to be,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of my mission to make sure that
Speaker 1: I earn it. But it doesn't mean that I make
Speaker 1: a living doing off that. Right, I want to LinkedIn Boeing,
Speaker 1: Microsoft did all different things because I don't want anyone
Speaker 1: to ever say this guy, this is what he has
Speaker 1: a house because he's a melbody recipient. Now fucking I
Speaker 1: work for him, dude. You know what, as somebody that
Speaker 1: knows you, I know a lot of people with the metal.
Speaker 1: There's a reason I'm not tight with all of them. Yeah.
Speaker 2: If you weren't what I said earlier, if you weren't
Speaker 2: a genuine, authentic human being, your ass wouldn't be in
Speaker 2: that seat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I appreciate that.
Speaker 2: I can't imagine the burden that that metal brings. And
Speaker 2: I think it's important that our listeners understand. You know,
Speaker 2: the metal doesn't define you. It's not who you are.
Speaker 2: It was a moment in time and unfortunately you've been
Speaker 2: given the burden of representing this country that you fought
Speaker 2: so hard to fight for, that took years to do
Speaker 2: because of a piece of paper, and now you have
Speaker 2: the burden of representing it the rest of your life,
Speaker 2: you know. And there's every day you wake up, say
Speaker 2: you have to do an event at the Metal Bourne
Speaker 2: Room Museum, or you gotta do something where you have
Speaker 2: to done that metal. Yeah right, it's just like every
Speaker 2: day I wake up and you know I have to
Speaker 2: put on a.
Speaker 1: Leg before I go pee.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's that daily reminder of this is just a
Speaker 2: tool for me to do something to leave this spin
Speaker 2: and ball of chaos better than I found it.
Speaker 1: It's just a tool. Yeah, that's hell. Man couldn't agree
Speaker 1: with you more. But you know, if that tool and
Speaker 1: that platform can provide me with an opportunity to help
Speaker 1: our community and save lives, because that's what we're doing now, right,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. We're losing more folks and
Speaker 1: suicide more than ever than ever, and then never that
Speaker 1: we ever lost in combat. That's the battlefield today. And
Speaker 1: so that's what this platform allows me to be more
Speaker 1: of an advocate and just get through the doors a
Speaker 1: little bit faster, and I would have ever had the
Speaker 1: opportunity to before still took, I would have been able
Speaker 1: to do stuff. But like so, that's the way I
Speaker 1: look at it. It's a burden, but it hard percent
Speaker 1: agree with you, does not define me. I'm a courier
Speaker 1: to the metal of Bounty recipient melt. No human being
Speaker 1: can be the metal of audit. That's how big and
Speaker 1: important that thing is. Yeah, it's unbelievably powerful and represents
Speaker 1: the top of our nation in terms of the meeting
Speaker 1: will beyond the metal. So I'm a courier and hell, no,
Speaker 1: eight seconds of action can that define me as a
Speaker 1: human being?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: You know? That could be a complete ship back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you know so, yeah, And we'll leave it
Speaker 1: at that. Bro, I you know how I feel about you.
Speaker 2: I don't even have to tell you, but I love you,
Speaker 2: and you make this world a better place. Your existence
Speaker 2: makes this world a better place, and I'm grateful that
Speaker 2: that day.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Selfishly, I'm super grateful you're here.
Speaker 2: I know that you're making a bigger impact, and I
Speaker 2: mean what we do now is way bigger than what
Speaker 2: we did then.
Speaker 1: Ha percent.
Speaker 2: I'm grateful to build to call your brother's a that's
Speaker 2: an honor and privilege and that has nothing to do
Speaker 2: with the medal.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean this means a lot, you know, T
Speaker 1: Coomin and Ashley, I think you guys man, he have
Speaker 1: a team doing this. Thank you for opening it up
Speaker 1: for guys like me to have a voice and share
Speaker 1: some common thoughts. And my world is my son and
Speaker 1: my wife, right everything I do is about them. And
Speaker 1: then if you ask me the second piece out that
Speaker 1: is to make sure that I get to earn it
Speaker 1: for insit our names to bigger and wider audience. And
Speaker 1: that's commissioned Griffer, Major Grahamager Kennedy and Reggae ab Delfata.
Speaker 1: Guys that were you know, really represent the medal way
Speaker 1: more than I do because they die for our country.
Speaker 1: It's an honor to be here and I'm looking forward
Speaker 1: to your next guest. This is cool shit.
Speaker 3: Man, Flauren Groeberg, Thank you so much for coming and
Speaker 3: opening up and telling us your story and giving us
Speaker 3: parental advice and all the things. This was truly the
Speaker 3: good stuff and just so great to see you and
Speaker 3: spend time with you. Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 3: If this app so touched you today, Please share it
Speaker 3: and be part of making someone's day better.
Speaker 2: Put on your bad ass kch and channel your inner
Speaker 2: flow and go be great today. And remember you can't
Speaker 2: do epic stuff without epic people. Thank you for listening
Speaker 2: to the good Stuff. The Good Stuff is executive produced
Speaker 2: by Ashley Schick, Jacob Schick, Leah Pictures and q Code Media.
Speaker 1: Hosted by Ashley Shick and Jacob Shick.
Speaker 2: Produced by Nick Cassilini and Ryan Countshouse. Post production supervisor
Speaker 2: Will Tindi. Music editing by Will Haywood Smith, edited by
Speaker 2: Mike Robinson,