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

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Speaker 1: You're listening to soft Rep Radio Special Operations, military news

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Speaker 1: on straight talk with the guys in the community. Hey,

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Speaker 1: what's going on. Welcome to soft Rep Radio. This is

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Speaker 1: rad I am your host today and I have a

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Speaker 1: very special guest and we're gonna have a very cool conversation.

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Speaker 1: Ricardo Perez U s Army sniper, been to Afghanistan, author

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Speaker 1: writing a book, has something to talk about with that,

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Speaker 1: and I want to welcome you to soft Rep Radio.

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Speaker 1: Welcome Ricardo, Welcome. Tell us a litt bit about yourself.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for having me rad a little bit about my stuff. Well,

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Speaker 1: like you said, I was served as a sniper and

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Speaker 1: a striker brigade in the US Army from two thousand

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Speaker 1: six to two thousand ten. And yeah, you know, just

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Speaker 1: did my four and a half years you know contract,

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Speaker 1: my required time, got out and really just started my

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Speaker 1: academic journey to where I'm at today as a research

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Speaker 1: scientist at the University of Washington Virology, where I work

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Speaker 1: on the end team and the n GS just stands

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Speaker 1: for next generation sequencing, So I work on the team

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Speaker 1: that helps sequence COVID for the variants here in Washington State.

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Speaker 1: We do a large portion of that work. And uh yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean we you know, get samples from all over,

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Speaker 1: study samples from different companies like Viser Johnson and Johnson,

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Speaker 1: and you know, we just work hard with all kind

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Speaker 1: of not just COVID. You know, there's a bunch of

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Speaker 1: different viruses that Pete. There's a big HPV project going on,

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Speaker 1: and Avian flu or the Avian birth flus going on

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Speaker 1: here in Utah currently. Wow. Yeah you know, so yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's going on. They're saying if you have, you know,

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Speaker 1: chickens in your backyard, because there are people around here

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Speaker 1: who do to be cautious of where you're going to

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Speaker 1: get it, like if you're going to a park and

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Speaker 1: there's ducks. But yeah, I mean, but I'm just blown away,

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Speaker 1: first of all, Okay, because not only are you on

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Speaker 1: the front lines as a sniper, you're on the front

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Speaker 1: lines sniping COVID. You're trying to like, yeah, you just

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Speaker 1: pretty strange realizations being at the tip of this beer

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Speaker 1: on kind of different arrows, you know. But right, I mean,

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Speaker 1: you're just so that's that seems very selfless. Now let

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Speaker 1: me ask you something, did your recruiter, tell you the

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Speaker 1: truth about joining the military. Did you get your bonus?

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Speaker 1: I joined in two thousand and six, so this was

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Speaker 1: still with a time when recruiters had quotas they had

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Speaker 1: to meet. I think the Army dropped that in two

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Speaker 1: thousand and nine maybe, so yeah, yeah, because there was

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Speaker 1: a lot of they're still fighting side because of that stuff.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, no, I'm well, you know a lot of

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Speaker 1: guys I served with the recruiters, you know, one of

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Speaker 1: them just finished recruiting duty and retired from it. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's it's definitely some crazy and craziness that they got

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Speaker 1: to deal with. And I couldn't imagine before when you

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Speaker 1: actually had like quotas you had to meet, like you

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Speaker 1: had to like, hey get us, get us bodies. Now,

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Speaker 1: let me ask you regarding you know, going through sniper training,

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Speaker 1: you have to be airborne? Right? No, I don't think

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Speaker 1: you have to be. I don't think so you might

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Speaker 1: have to be though, because or you did you go

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Speaker 1: through that? Yeah? I did airborne school as well, right

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Speaker 1: after basic training. Ah, so you went did you go

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Speaker 1: eleven Bravo Infantry? Is that the course that you selected? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: I did. Uh, it's eleven X raying. You know, you

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Speaker 1: end up eleven or eleven Charlie and basic training and

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Speaker 1: eleven Charlie or the Mortarman. Oh cool cool. And so

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Speaker 1: so yeah, I signed up eleven X, ended up eleven Bravo.

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Speaker 1: And mostly because I signed up with Ranger in my

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Speaker 1: contract because I wanted to go to Ranger school. You know,

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Speaker 1: it's just trying to be super who it, right, I

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Speaker 1: wanted to sign up in airborne school, Ranger school and

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Speaker 1: and then you know, eventually try out for Special Forces

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Speaker 1: and um. And so when I signed up for a

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Speaker 1: Ranger in my contract, I'm thinking Rangers school. But then

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Speaker 1: after Airborne school, they're like, okay, you guys with Rangers,

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Speaker 1: now you are going to what do they call it

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Speaker 1: at the time, ripped the Ranger inductions and so I

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Speaker 1: was like, wait, wait a minute, wait, Ranger Battalion. No,

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Speaker 1: I want to go to Ranger school. And so yeah,

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Speaker 1: I ended up voluntarily withdrawing from that because you know,

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Speaker 1: for me, I joined the military to get away from

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Speaker 1: where I grew up. And two of the three Ranger

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Speaker 1: battalions are in the South there in Georgia, so you know,

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Speaker 1: I like, yeah, yeah, I was like man with a

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Speaker 1: two thirds chance of ending up in Georgia. Like, you know,

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Speaker 1: I grew up in Texas, so I'm like, I'm trying

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Speaker 1: to get away from the South experience something new. Right,

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Speaker 1: So when did that U. S Army sniper get called

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Speaker 1: to Afghanistan? Now that you've gone through your eighteen, your

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Speaker 1: eighteen xtray that screen array, but eleven X ray candidacy

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Speaker 1: and then you get select, You're loving Bravo and off

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Speaker 1: you go to RIP. You're like, I'm out of RIP.

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Speaker 1: Now I'm a sniper. You go through that? Right? Did

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Speaker 1: you you stand on each other's shoulders to raise your flag?

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Speaker 1: Did you guys do that? Is that a thing? What

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Speaker 1: do you mean? Like that's when you become a sniper? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean we use each other for a lot of stuff.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, all kind of shooting positions where you're literally,

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Speaker 1: you know, not to butt with the guys. But when

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Speaker 1: you graduate, don't you guys make like a special flag

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Speaker 1: for your class? Yeah, like wait and you hang out. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And it just so happened that my graduating class because

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Speaker 1: normally they just do the normal E type silhouettes you

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Speaker 1: know that you shoot at at the range. But we

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Speaker 1: had crazy Rangers when I went to sniper school, who graduated?

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Speaker 1: So they went to the mall and they bought a

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Speaker 1: Miley Cyrus cardboard cutout of Miley Cyrus or Hannah Montana.

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Hannah Montana. Sure maybe this was two thousand

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Speaker 1: and eight, that's when Hannah Montana was doing it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: these rangers went to the mall and bought a cardboard

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Speaker 1: cut I mean they drew on her. We put our

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Speaker 1: tabs on her, and we made a real pritty for

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Speaker 1: for that class. But that's awesome. That's awesome. If you

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Speaker 1: watch there's a documentary that the i think the Discovery

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Speaker 1: Channel did that same year where they went to U S.

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Speaker 1: Army Sniper School and in one of the clips, man,

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Speaker 1: you can see Hannah Montana. They're hanging in the in

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Speaker 1: the bay and I'm like, whoa, It's like documented for life. Now,

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Speaker 1: this is so awesome. Forever immortalized, immortalized. How cool is that? Now? Now? Okay,

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Speaker 1: now that we got the antics and the fund Shenanigans

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Speaker 1: of you graduating sniper school, you get the call man

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Speaker 1: like where are you at? And off you go? And

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Speaker 1: then then what tell me the call? Yeah? Well, I

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Speaker 1: mean you know, I was already at my unit. I

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Speaker 1: got stationed at Fort Lewis. Whenever I you know, left Rip,

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Speaker 1: the Big Army scooped me up, you know, because that's

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Speaker 1: all Special Operations Command stuff. So Big Army gave me

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Speaker 1: orders to end up in one of their regular infantry units,

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Speaker 1: and they put me at Fort Louis, Washington. It was

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Speaker 1: a brand new unit. When I first showed up there,

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Speaker 1: we had no vehicles, no weapons, no buildings. It was nothing,

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Speaker 1: and so just people. And I was one of the

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Speaker 1: first privates in the unit, and so I literally helped,

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Speaker 1: you know, from the ground up. Eventually we did get

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Speaker 1: stuff to train with, and I started out as a

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Speaker 1: two forty machine gunner, and um, you know, it was

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Speaker 1: kind of poopy about it at first, because like, man,

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Speaker 1: I grew up shooting rifles, and I grew up on

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Speaker 1: a hundred and a ranch in Texas, so I've been

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Speaker 1: shooting my whole life rifles, and so I man, I

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Speaker 1: was like, man, I want to be on a rifle,

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Speaker 1: you know, And they put me on the machine gun.

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Speaker 1: And I was mad about it at first, but then

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Speaker 1: of course you take that beautiful machine to arrange and

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Speaker 1: let it loose and you get over anything real quick,

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Speaker 1: you know. And so yeah, you know, I was on

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Speaker 1: the weapons squad of third Platoon in the first Battalion,

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Speaker 1: seventeenth Infantry Regiment. That was our battalion UM in fifth Brigade,

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Speaker 1: and yeah, I was started. I was a two forty

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Speaker 1: gunner and because it was a brand new unit, one

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Speaker 1: morning day after morning formation, they asked, they got us

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Speaker 1: off together and said, hey, guys, we're having sniper tryouts

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Speaker 1: because we have sniper spots to fill. So who wants

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Speaker 1: to try out to be a sniper? And you know, yeah, right,

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Speaker 1: And I was kind of surprised, you know, I was

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Speaker 1: expecting more hands to go up, and there really weren't

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Speaker 1: a lot of guys that raised their hand, and I

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Speaker 1: was like kind of blown away by it, you know.

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Speaker 1: And I actually hesitantly raised in my hand because I

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Speaker 1: was a machine gun and I was like, well, y'all

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Speaker 1: even let me like you've been training me to shoot

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Speaker 1: a machine gun this whole time, you know. Yeah, so

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Speaker 1: um so yeah, and that's how you know I ended up.

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Speaker 1: It was a sixty five hour tryout over three days.

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Speaker 1: I got selected along with two other guys, one of

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Speaker 1: them had served at Ranger Battalion and they were both

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Speaker 1: Ranger TAB combat experienced guys. So I really fell into

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Speaker 1: a great spot to have great young leaders are experienced,

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Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, yeah, and so yeah, I learned a

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Speaker 1: lot from those guys. And and yeah, just in two

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Speaker 1: thousand we're actually um training to go to Iraq and

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Speaker 1: then you know, we're doing on the mount training on

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Speaker 1: the urban ops. Saw the you know, the battle drills,

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Speaker 1: kicking indoors, and and then when Obama wanted more troops

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Speaker 1: in Afghanistan, they changed everything. You know, we went from

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Speaker 1: Iraq to Afghanistan, and so like we spent a lot

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Speaker 1: of time and effort training a certain way and then

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Speaker 1: they kind of you know, have to switch it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: right before they deployed to switch it. You know, yeah

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Speaker 1: not urban, not very urban, I mean yeah, just like

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Speaker 1: adobe huts and like you know Mazri Sharif. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: so yeah, just just two thousand nine. You know, early

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Speaker 1: on I made the sniper team, and then right away,

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Speaker 1: you know, I went through pre sniper where I learned

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Speaker 1: how to be a sniper, and then a couple of

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Speaker 1: months later went to actual Army Sniper school in two

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Speaker 1: thousand and eight, and then yes, stayed on the sniper

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Speaker 1: team all the way to two thousand nine, and there

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Speaker 1: was a lot of nonsense that kind of fell out

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Speaker 1: with me, and I only deployed for about five months,

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Speaker 1: four or five months. I actually didn't even know I

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Speaker 1: was deployed until the day I left, because I was hurt.

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Speaker 1: And so, yeah, was a big mess I get. I

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Speaker 1: got my m R I results the day before deployment,

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Speaker 1: and so yeah, it was, you know, kind of crazy,

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Speaker 1: and so yeah, unfortunately because I was hurt, and I

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Speaker 1: ultimately learned that ORTHO never cleared me to deploy, so

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Speaker 1: I should have never deployed to begin with. But that's

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Speaker 1: another whole story. And uh yeah, yeah, so two thousand nine, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: two thousand nine served there as much as I could

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Speaker 1: in the best capacity that I could with kind of

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Speaker 1: one hand tied behind my back. And yeah. And then

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Speaker 1: two thousand ten, I got out and I was actually

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Speaker 1: going through the med board process, so I could have

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Speaker 1: medically retired and um, but they told me, like, and

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Speaker 1: that's that's the medical evaluation board right, ME stands for medical.

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Speaker 1: So usually a military service member will go through the

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Speaker 1: med board to be evaluated with a rating right to

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Speaker 1: go to the v A et ceteraly pay, you know,

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Speaker 1: some helpful retirement kind of stuff. Yeah. Well, because of

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Speaker 1: my injuries. Even before deployment, I was on temporary profiles

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Speaker 1: for months, you know, because like X rays, m R

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Speaker 1: I is this that know, misdiagnosis after misdiagnosis, and so

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Speaker 1: I was on temporary profiles forever. Deployed, came back and

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Speaker 1: was on temporary profiles for like another three months, and

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Speaker 1: then I was like, hey, I've been on temporary profiles

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Speaker 1: for like almost a year. Here, am I going to

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Speaker 1: be on a permanent profile at any point? You know?

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Speaker 1: Like yeah, and then if you get a permanent profile,

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Speaker 1: that's kind of kicks off the whole exiting the service. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I wanted. I wanted to do it, but unfortunately whenever,

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Speaker 1: you know, I went to a few of the briefs,

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Speaker 1: like maybe four or five of them, and the last

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Speaker 1: one I did, they were like, hey, because this is

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Speaker 1: a new process that the Army and the v A

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Speaker 1: were implementing, because whenever you got done, you were gonna

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Speaker 1: leave with your military and your v A rating at

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Speaker 1: the same time. And uh, and so it was a

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Speaker 1: new process. And they said because it's a new process.

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Speaker 1: You are going to be here for two years going

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Speaker 1: through this. Oh And I said, oh, hell no, there's

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Speaker 1: no amount of money in the world worth being in

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Speaker 1: the toxic trying to get in here. You're trying to

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Speaker 1: get in here on you and head, they're trying to

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Speaker 1: get it. I voluntarily withdrew from that too, and they

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Speaker 1: were like, are you sure you want to do this?

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Speaker 1: They had me signed like all kinds of crazy paperwork,

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Speaker 1: and I've actually had veterans tell me you can't voluntarily

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Speaker 1: withdraw from that. I was like, yes, you can, and

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Speaker 1: here's the paperwork to prove that you can. And you

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Speaker 1: did it. Yeah. Now, in between all that, you did

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Speaker 1: go over to Afghanistan, right, you did. And you have

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Speaker 1: a book that you've put together over the course of time,

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Speaker 1: you know, And that means that you're trying to, like,

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Speaker 1: you know, put something out there. Why don't you tell

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Speaker 1: me a little bit about what's going on, what it

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Speaker 1: is that you you know, some of that leadership that

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Speaker 1: you talked about where you said your handles type behind

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Speaker 1: your back. What do you mean by that? Well, the

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Speaker 1: best example I can give of that is when we

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Speaker 1: were first you know, part of going to you know,

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Speaker 1: deploying to Afghanistan. As we're spending time at hander Heart

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Speaker 1: Airfield Calf. You know, we're out at Calf to um

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Speaker 1: prep our vehicles and our equipment, make sure everything zero

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Speaker 1: before we go to the job. The Ford Operating Base,

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Speaker 1: and so CALF is like a huge you know, it's

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Speaker 1: a NATO base. With that there are like subways and

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Speaker 1: pizza huts and there's you know, like it's it's basically

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Speaker 1: a small city, you know, in the middle of nowhere.

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Speaker 1: And so yeah, and then while while we were there

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Speaker 1: at CALF, my first sergeant he took my M fourteen

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Speaker 1: away from me because he said the sniper team had

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Speaker 1: too much firepower. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, So he said

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Speaker 1: we had too much fire power. He took my M

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Speaker 1: fourteen and he gave it to, you know, one of

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Speaker 1: the line guys, and he said train him up for

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Speaker 1: I don't know. I trained him for like three days,

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Speaker 1: and I was just like, I was so mad at that.

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Speaker 1: I was like, Wow, why are you taking my tool

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Speaker 1: away from me? You know, yeah, so you used the

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Speaker 1: M fourteen. How that was the truck? Did you get

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Speaker 1: to choose that? Is that what you were wanting? Or no,

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Speaker 1: I mean I liked it. It's it was then fourteen

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Speaker 1: e b R. It was also did have full auto

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Speaker 1: capability with switch or did it just semi only? I

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Speaker 1: would just stand mine. Oh wow? And E b R

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Speaker 1: is like a skeleton stock style receiver with a slither

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Speaker 1: stock and silver and black and it has the same

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Speaker 1: seven point six to caliber round that's inside like the

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Speaker 1: M fourteen from Vietnam that you might be listening to

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Speaker 1: and hearing us talk about this on software. I just

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Speaker 1: want to kind of explain the M fourteen rifle. And

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Speaker 1: you can also probably see it more famously in Black

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Speaker 1: Lockdown when the snipers are going in to look for

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Speaker 1: Mike Durant in that movie, they have the M fourteen.

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Speaker 1: So just to give it a reference. But yeah, so

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Speaker 1: cool rifles, very Vietnam of you, you know. And other

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Speaker 1: than that, I'm a bolt action baby. That Remington seven hundred.

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Speaker 1: I grew up shooting that, you know. And it's funny

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Speaker 1: because my dad, you know, I grew up shooting that,

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Speaker 1: you know, since I was you know, that rifle will

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Speaker 1: probably outweighed me, you know, right, just a young man,

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Speaker 1: and so my dad would always tell me, you a son,

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Speaker 1: this is a sniper rifle, you know, blah blah blah.

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Speaker 1: And I would always think like that, No way, like

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Speaker 1: you're full of happy, you don't know what you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And and then the first thing they had you when

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Speaker 1: I make the sniper team is the gun I've been

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Speaker 1: shooting my whole life, the M twenty four Remingtons seven hundred.

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Speaker 1: And I'm just like, oh man, Dad was right, And

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Speaker 1: so yeah. The difference between those two guns, though, I

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Speaker 1: think is like the M twenty four year version is

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Speaker 1: like a fluted barrel. And yeah, a little more refined

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Speaker 1: for the Millspec version than the seven hundreds. More civilian, right,

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Speaker 1: That's what I'm thinking. But are I mean, I don't

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Speaker 1: know what, because whenever I was getting out, the Army

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Speaker 1: was revamping a lot of their sniper systems to what

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Speaker 1: was it. I don't think it was thirty odds six

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Speaker 1: because most of them are three oh eight. You know

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Speaker 1: your seven six, No, there's three hundred wind mag. They're

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Speaker 1: bumping it up to three wind mag to get that

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Speaker 1: extra you know, five yards out of out of the engagement.

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Speaker 1: And so so yeah, I mean, I don't know what

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Speaker 1: they used now, But back then, there's no fluid. I mean,

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Speaker 1: our Barrett had a fluted barrel, and I think are

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Speaker 1: We had got a new sniper weapons system, the M

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Speaker 1: one ten Staffs, so that was basically a modified M sixteen,

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Speaker 1: had a suppressor you could throw on it, and uh yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was a pretty pretty sexy thing that our sniper tea. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: my our sniper team leader used that. So that was his.

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Speaker 1: Mine was the Barrett fifty cow and that M fourteen,

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Speaker 1: and then our third guy had the M twenty four

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Speaker 1: bowlt action and so yeah, I mean and whenever he

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Speaker 1: took my M fourteen, you know, because they always want

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Speaker 1: you to carry your weapon with you when you're on

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Speaker 1: calf right, you have to always you know, have your

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Speaker 1: weapon and you know whatever. So when he took that,

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Speaker 1: I carried that Barrett with me everywhere, and I got

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Speaker 1: so many looks from people like why the hell is

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Speaker 1: this guy carrying around this monster and they take away

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Speaker 1: my M fourteen. Yeah, my f you you know, that

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Speaker 1: was my f you because I knew they were gonna life.

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Speaker 1: I knew I was gonna get weird looks. But hey,

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Speaker 1: you took you know, you took my my my weapon,

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Speaker 1: and this is all I have now you know, what's

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Speaker 1: a sniper to do? Yeah, so they're like nores carry

335
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Speaker 1: your m or okay, okay, well this is this identifies

336
00:17:04,520 --> 00:17:11,520
Speaker 1: asn't have four my fifty cow? How about that? Huh? Crazy?

337
00:17:11,600 --> 00:17:14,160
Speaker 1: So so you go out and did you get much

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Speaker 1: you know, time on in the scope and doing that

339
00:17:17,960 --> 00:17:21,600
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Are you assent to the commanders with

340
00:17:21,680 --> 00:17:25,720
Speaker 1: like info you know versus firepower? Yeah, I mean that

341
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Speaker 1: was going to be the plan. So when we finally,

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Speaker 1: you know, moved out to the FOB and we're starting

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Speaker 1: to operate new patrols go out on mission and all

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Speaker 1: the cool guy stuff, our commander he there's actually at

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Speaker 1: sniper school. They have a commander's course where they army

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Speaker 1: tries to send their you know, infantry officers or captains

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Speaker 1: are probably even young lieutenants to learn how to employ

348
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Speaker 1: snipers because it's one thing to have a sniper team,

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Speaker 1: it's another thing to employ them properly. And so our commander,

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Speaker 1: he was a smart guy and recognized that he had

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Speaker 1: no idea what to do with this. So he told

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Speaker 1: my team leader, Hey, y'all do y'all you know, you

353
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Speaker 1: you guys, do what y'all need to do to get

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Speaker 1: the mission done and get me my information. And so

355
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Speaker 1: we were really excited about that, right, like holy smokes,

356
00:18:08,680 --> 00:18:10,400
Speaker 1: we kind of, you know, do what we gotta do.

357
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Speaker 1: And then I think it was maybe a week and

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Speaker 1: a half later he, uh, their vehicle got hit and

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Speaker 1: he lost his life. My commander did and along with

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Speaker 1: other guys in the vehicle. There was only one guy

361
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Speaker 1: to survive that explosion. But yeah, and so after that happened,

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Speaker 1: it was back to the first sergeant who took my

363
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Speaker 1: M fourteen away from me to being in charge, and

364
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Speaker 1: so yeah, it was a big ridiculous mess after that.

365
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Speaker 1: And then the leash was put back on you and

366
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Speaker 1: a muzzle and uh, probably in a cage you know

367
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Speaker 1: where the other guy was like here, run, run and

368
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Speaker 1: do your here's freedom, go run and enjoy the you knows.

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Speaker 1: I regret with all that because we ended up getting

370
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Speaker 1: kicked off the sniper team by him for no reason really,

371
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Speaker 1: And so whenever he did that, I was like, you

372
00:18:55,000 --> 00:18:58,040
Speaker 1: know what, I bought years of work, blood and sweat, blood,

373
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Speaker 1: sweat and tears to be on that sniper team and

374
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Speaker 1: now you're gonna kick me off for no reason, Like

375
00:19:02,080 --> 00:19:04,680
Speaker 1: this is dumb and so um, we had a big

376
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Speaker 1: falling out because I went and tried out for Special

377
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Speaker 1: Forces right before the deployment, and so, you know, our

378
00:19:11,320 --> 00:19:14,120
Speaker 1: unit really didn't like the guys who went and try

379
00:19:14,160 --> 00:19:16,879
Speaker 1: to better their careers or you know, do whatever they

380
00:19:16,880 --> 00:19:19,719
Speaker 1: were gonna do the s F T Yeah. Yeah, so

381
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Speaker 1: whenever you you know, if you didn't make it and

382
00:19:21,480 --> 00:19:23,200
Speaker 1: you came back, you were gonna catch somehow. And then

383
00:19:23,240 --> 00:19:25,600
Speaker 1: for us it was even worse because they thought we

384
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Speaker 1: were doing it to try to get out of NTC,

385
00:19:27,560 --> 00:19:31,080
Speaker 1: which is a month long pre deployment training in California,

386
00:19:31,240 --> 00:19:33,040
Speaker 1: and we're like, no, that's stupid, Like who gives a

387
00:19:33,040 --> 00:19:35,920
Speaker 1: ship about NTC, Like, we're doing it now before NTC

388
00:19:36,119 --> 00:19:38,359
Speaker 1: because we've been working out hard, getting in shape, getting

389
00:19:38,400 --> 00:19:40,440
Speaker 1: ready to go, and if we go to NTC, we're

390
00:19:40,440 --> 00:19:42,199
Speaker 1: gonna sit on our thumbs for a month. So we

391
00:19:42,240 --> 00:19:44,400
Speaker 1: want to go do it now. And if we mess

392
00:19:44,520 --> 00:19:48,959
Speaker 1: NTC as a happenstance, well in hey. But so your

393
00:19:48,960 --> 00:19:51,159
Speaker 1: window of opportunity was right there for the time to

394
00:19:51,200 --> 00:19:53,240
Speaker 1: try to go after it. Yeah. Yeah, so we did,

395
00:19:53,520 --> 00:19:56,600
Speaker 1: and only one or I'm sorry two of the four

396
00:19:56,760 --> 00:19:58,920
Speaker 1: from the battalion that went. Two out of the four

397
00:19:58,960 --> 00:20:01,639
Speaker 1: of us got selected, and you know, only one of

398
00:20:01,680 --> 00:20:04,359
Speaker 1: them made it to the earning, that green beret. The

399
00:20:04,359 --> 00:20:07,399
Speaker 1: other one unfortunately didn't make it to the you know,

400
00:20:07,560 --> 00:20:10,760
Speaker 1: through the pipeline to tap Yeah. Yeah, well there's a

401
00:20:10,800 --> 00:20:18,200
Speaker 1: song you know, and mental test. Yeah. Whenever we came back,

402
00:20:18,240 --> 00:20:20,880
Speaker 1: they put us on every detail, you know, getting ready

403
00:20:20,880 --> 00:20:23,080
Speaker 1: to go to NTC. We had to do everything or

404
00:20:23,119 --> 00:20:26,040
Speaker 1: help with everything, and then um, so yeah, that was

405
00:20:26,280 --> 00:20:30,080
Speaker 1: leaves out of the rocks. Yeah, that was a big

406
00:20:30,119 --> 00:20:33,720
Speaker 1: reason why he didn't like me, you know, my first

407
00:20:33,760 --> 00:20:35,440
Speaker 1: sergeant or just kind of had it out for me,

408
00:20:35,480 --> 00:20:36,840
Speaker 1: I guess you could say, because he had really no

409
00:20:36,880 --> 00:20:39,560
Speaker 1: reason to not like me. He just blew some sh

410
00:20:39,600 --> 00:20:42,000
Speaker 1: it up in his mind, you know, and kind of

411
00:20:42,000 --> 00:20:44,479
Speaker 1: made things more ridiculous. Well, you know, sometimes guys in

412
00:20:44,480 --> 00:20:47,040
Speaker 1: that position might have a tendency to have wanted to

413
00:20:47,040 --> 00:20:49,440
Speaker 1: do the same thing you're going for and maybe even

414
00:20:49,440 --> 00:20:52,160
Speaker 1: tried without you ever knowing it and maybe didn't get there,

415
00:20:52,440 --> 00:20:54,600
Speaker 1: similar to stories like what you say, and then when

416
00:20:54,600 --> 00:20:57,480
Speaker 1: you come back, it's more thanked against the guy that tried,

417
00:20:57,560 --> 00:21:00,879
Speaker 1: because he had his own you know, teams to deal with,

418
00:21:01,440 --> 00:21:03,680
Speaker 1: you know, and that's not anybody else's fault with that

419
00:21:03,760 --> 00:21:06,520
Speaker 1: dude's own, you know, it's just well that that's cool

420
00:21:06,520 --> 00:21:08,880
Speaker 1: that you made it. Like we we mentioned we talked

421
00:21:08,880 --> 00:21:11,080
Speaker 1: a little bit. You can run. That's a good thing.

422
00:21:11,080 --> 00:21:13,359
Speaker 1: You were running like six minute miles, bro. You were

423
00:21:13,440 --> 00:21:16,880
Speaker 1: in the peak of your condition training as a as

424
00:21:16,920 --> 00:21:19,960
Speaker 1: an Olympic athlete even you know, like at that point

425
00:21:20,040 --> 00:21:25,439
Speaker 1: you are just you know, at peak peak levels. So

426
00:21:25,480 --> 00:21:28,879
Speaker 1: now today you've got a book coming out, and that

427
00:21:28,920 --> 00:21:30,640
Speaker 1: goes into what what do you want to talk about

428
00:21:30,640 --> 00:21:34,399
Speaker 1: all that? Well, most of it is about my military service,

429
00:21:34,440 --> 00:21:36,600
Speaker 1: because I wrote a lot while I was deployed. I

430
00:21:37,000 --> 00:21:39,159
Speaker 1: mean I spent a lot of time just writing what

431
00:21:39,280 --> 00:21:41,480
Speaker 1: I felt and what I thought and what was happening,

432
00:21:42,119 --> 00:21:44,600
Speaker 1: and just documenting everything I could. If I was out

433
00:21:44,640 --> 00:21:47,480
Speaker 1: on mission, i'd have my little green book to write in.

434
00:21:48,080 --> 00:21:50,040
Speaker 1: And if I was back at the five, I was

435
00:21:50,080 --> 00:21:52,000
Speaker 1: on my laptop because I can type way faster than

436
00:21:52,000 --> 00:21:53,880
Speaker 1: I can write. So I was going crazy on my laptop,

437
00:21:53,960 --> 00:21:57,560
Speaker 1: just going going at it. And so in we lost

438
00:21:57,560 --> 00:21:59,720
Speaker 1: one of the guys we served with at the age

439
00:21:59,760 --> 00:22:02,280
Speaker 1: of me nine to a rare form of cancer. And

440
00:22:02,359 --> 00:22:04,600
Speaker 1: so I'm like, you know, and it really spurred me

441
00:22:04,680 --> 00:22:06,600
Speaker 1: to go back through and get all that stuff that

442
00:22:06,640 --> 00:22:09,159
Speaker 1: I wrote. And it was a kind of a double combination.

443
00:22:09,640 --> 00:22:13,320
Speaker 1: Earlier in that year, in the Seattle Times had invited

444
00:22:13,440 --> 00:22:16,639
Speaker 1: invited me to share a story of high school teachers

445
00:22:16,640 --> 00:22:18,840
Speaker 1: saving me from being a high school dropout because I

446
00:22:18,840 --> 00:22:21,560
Speaker 1: almost didn't graduate high school. You know, I've raised myself

447
00:22:21,600 --> 00:22:24,680
Speaker 1: from a young age. And so I shared this story

448
00:22:24,680 --> 00:22:26,720
Speaker 1: with the Seattle Times and they end up liking it,

449
00:22:26,760 --> 00:22:29,639
Speaker 1: invited me to do a talk you know, for their uh.

450
00:22:30,160 --> 00:22:32,879
Speaker 1: It was called Ignite Education Lab. It was an annual

451
00:22:32,920 --> 00:22:35,320
Speaker 1: event they used to do before the pandemic and just

452
00:22:35,359 --> 00:22:38,520
Speaker 1: where people would come talk about how education impacted their life.

453
00:22:38,880 --> 00:22:41,000
Speaker 1: And so I had the opportunity to do that with

454
00:22:41,040 --> 00:22:43,439
Speaker 1: some remarkable people. And I'm like, dang, you know, like

455
00:22:43,800 --> 00:22:46,119
Speaker 1: this is just one crazy story from grade school. I

456
00:22:46,160 --> 00:22:48,040
Speaker 1: have a whole bunch of crazy stories from grade school.

457
00:22:48,080 --> 00:22:50,359
Speaker 1: You know, most kids who raised themselves to do so.

458
00:22:50,400 --> 00:22:52,520
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, because I always wanted, like I said,

459
00:22:52,560 --> 00:22:55,960
Speaker 1: I always wanted to write about the military experience. But

460
00:22:56,080 --> 00:22:59,680
Speaker 1: then I thought it's so crazy, like how everything played

461
00:22:59,720 --> 00:23:01,960
Speaker 1: out for me and the unit in itself. Because the

462
00:23:02,000 --> 00:23:05,800
Speaker 1: same month the unit came back from Afghanistan in June July,

463
00:23:06,960 --> 00:23:09,840
Speaker 1: the army deactivated that brand new unit they had just

464
00:23:09,880 --> 00:23:13,520
Speaker 1: stood up four years ago. They deactivated that unit that

465
00:23:13,600 --> 00:23:16,800
Speaker 1: same month we got back from Afghanistan. And so with

466
00:23:16,880 --> 00:23:20,280
Speaker 1: all that happening, I figured, if I can just write

467
00:23:20,280 --> 00:23:23,560
Speaker 1: about my craziness growing up and how I ended up

468
00:23:23,560 --> 00:23:26,159
Speaker 1: in that military unit, if I can convince one or

469
00:23:26,160 --> 00:23:29,600
Speaker 1: two per ten readers that all this stuff is real

470
00:23:29,680 --> 00:23:32,000
Speaker 1: and true, just by sharing a little bit of my

471
00:23:32,000 --> 00:23:34,560
Speaker 1: grade school stuff, because I feel like, you know, if

472
00:23:34,600 --> 00:23:36,720
Speaker 1: it was just a book about the military and meet,

473
00:23:37,160 --> 00:23:39,480
Speaker 1: you know, bitching about X Y Z or you know,

474
00:23:39,480 --> 00:23:41,000
Speaker 1: I saw all the bitch fest. Of course I talked

475
00:23:41,000 --> 00:23:43,600
Speaker 1: about my journey and becoming a sniper and and you

476
00:23:43,600 --> 00:23:46,520
Speaker 1: know everything and so um. And my intention with writing

477
00:23:46,560 --> 00:23:50,000
Speaker 1: it was not to you know, make anybody look bad

478
00:23:50,119 --> 00:23:52,440
Speaker 1: or crap on the unit, just tell the story how

479
00:23:52,480 --> 00:23:55,520
Speaker 1: it happened. And so yeah, So like I figured that

480
00:23:56,000 --> 00:23:59,800
Speaker 1: the beginning of the book, the first is my great

481
00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:03,800
Speaker 1: school growing up, you know, just talking about everything that

482
00:24:03,840 --> 00:24:07,159
Speaker 1: I remember from my earliest memories to barely graduating high school.

483
00:24:08,240 --> 00:24:09,920
Speaker 1: And then of course, you know a little bit of

484
00:24:10,200 --> 00:24:14,280
Speaker 1: afterward experiencing how bad life is for most teenagers and

485
00:24:14,720 --> 00:24:17,920
Speaker 1: ultimately deciding to join the military. And then the middle

486
00:24:17,960 --> 00:24:21,080
Speaker 1: fifty percent of the book is my military experience from

487
00:24:21,119 --> 00:24:23,879
Speaker 1: you know, enlisting and shipping out to basic and you

488
00:24:23,880 --> 00:24:27,760
Speaker 1: know the craziness basic training is, to airborne school through everything,

489
00:24:27,800 --> 00:24:31,840
Speaker 1: and then you know, ultimately getting back from Afghanistan. So

490
00:24:31,880 --> 00:24:35,520
Speaker 1: that's the middle, and the last is my academic journey

491
00:24:35,560 --> 00:24:38,879
Speaker 1: that actually started on terminal leave. I was already going

492
00:24:38,920 --> 00:24:41,280
Speaker 1: to school before I actually got officially got out of

493
00:24:41,320 --> 00:24:45,720
Speaker 1: the military, so that my academic journey follows me all

494
00:24:45,760 --> 00:24:48,600
Speaker 1: the way to University of Washington as a graduate student.

495
00:24:48,640 --> 00:24:51,240
Speaker 1: I got my master's degree there, and I also got

496
00:24:51,240 --> 00:24:54,760
Speaker 1: my bachelor's degree at Texas A and M University Kingsville,

497
00:24:55,560 --> 00:24:58,399
Speaker 1: and so yeah, I graduated in with my degrees in

498
00:24:58,480 --> 00:25:01,960
Speaker 1: chemical engineering and chemistry. I got two bachelor's degrees, and

499
00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:06,480
Speaker 1: then in I graduated with my master's and entrepreneurship from

500
00:25:06,560 --> 00:25:11,119
Speaker 1: Foster Business School. Well, congratulations on all those things. I'm

501
00:25:11,160 --> 00:25:14,120
Speaker 1: gonna clap for you. That is a very big success. Yeah,

502
00:25:14,520 --> 00:25:20,360
Speaker 1: lots of study groups, lots of lots of school. Yeah,

503
00:25:20,400 --> 00:25:22,720
Speaker 1: you're welcome. A way to put your m so I'll

504
00:25:22,720 --> 00:25:27,280
Speaker 1: be mine too, you know, to grow. That's really awesome. Yeah, yeah,

505
00:25:27,320 --> 00:25:29,480
Speaker 1: I'm definitely a lifelong learner. I just got into a

506
00:25:29,520 --> 00:25:32,960
Speaker 1: PhD program. I'm gonna be uh starting in the fall.

507
00:25:33,240 --> 00:25:35,159
Speaker 1: I'm going to be a student at the University of

508
00:25:35,200 --> 00:25:39,159
Speaker 1: Texas Rio Grand Valley getting my PhD and human genetics.

509
00:25:39,320 --> 00:25:42,320
Speaker 1: So I'm really excited to go and start working on

510
00:25:42,400 --> 00:25:45,639
Speaker 1: my actual career path, you know, because yeah, so you

511
00:25:45,640 --> 00:25:48,960
Speaker 1: know everything before whoa whoall me probing life and trying

512
00:25:49,000 --> 00:25:51,520
Speaker 1: to figure out where I'm gonna fall into. But that's

513
00:25:51,600 --> 00:25:53,960
Speaker 1: very cool, very cool, because it's gonna be like Shaquille

514
00:25:54,000 --> 00:25:56,240
Speaker 1: O'Neil is a doctor and then you'll be a doctor.

515
00:25:56,359 --> 00:26:02,400
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, so yeah, you know what, It's just hard work,

516
00:26:02,440 --> 00:26:05,280
Speaker 1: that's all I'm saying. You know, my folks is a

517
00:26:05,320 --> 00:26:07,800
Speaker 1: Shawn Spoon, Senator in chief of software dot Com. Just

518
00:26:07,800 --> 00:26:09,920
Speaker 1: here to say thank you for listening to the SOFTWAP

519
00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:13,040
Speaker 1: radio podcast. We sure appreciate you giving us your time,

520
00:26:13,359 --> 00:26:15,240
Speaker 1: and here's a special offer for you if you're a

521
00:26:15,240 --> 00:26:19,120
Speaker 1: new member off your annual membership to softwarep just click

522
00:26:19,200 --> 00:26:20,879
Speaker 1: the link at the bottom of the page that brought

523
00:26:20,880 --> 00:26:23,400
Speaker 1: you to us today and from all of us here

524
00:26:23,400 --> 00:26:27,240
Speaker 1: at soft rep. Thank you for listening. And so now

525
00:26:27,280 --> 00:26:32,439
Speaker 1: you're working in virology in Washington, which really, in the

526
00:26:32,440 --> 00:26:35,880
Speaker 1: beginning of the pandemic was just like a ground zero

527
00:26:36,080 --> 00:26:38,600
Speaker 1: for what was going on in the country in the beginning.

528
00:26:38,600 --> 00:26:41,200
Speaker 1: I remember I was playing Xbox with friends and they're

529
00:26:41,280 --> 00:26:43,520
Speaker 1: we're all shut down around the world, and they're like,

530
00:26:43,520 --> 00:26:47,760
Speaker 1: we're in Seattle. Don't come to Seattle, you know, And

531
00:26:47,760 --> 00:26:49,720
Speaker 1: I was like that, you were just in Utah like

532
00:26:49,800 --> 00:26:53,800
Speaker 1: three days ago. Yeah, that's so crazy. How's that? How's

533
00:26:53,800 --> 00:26:56,560
Speaker 1: that been going? What? The county that I live in

534
00:26:56,680 --> 00:26:59,560
Speaker 1: actually had the first COVID case in the countries home

535
00:26:59,600 --> 00:27:02,520
Speaker 1: as count only here in Washington State had the first

536
00:27:02,560 --> 00:27:06,080
Speaker 1: positive COVID you know case, And so yeah, you know,

537
00:27:06,160 --> 00:27:09,560
Speaker 1: I I started here, actually started as a temp worker.

538
00:27:09,600 --> 00:27:11,280
Speaker 1: I did a lot of temp jobs for you to

539
00:27:11,600 --> 00:27:14,080
Speaker 1: finally end up in a lab, because it was pretty

540
00:27:14,119 --> 00:27:15,840
Speaker 1: hard for me to you know, I had a lot

541
00:27:15,880 --> 00:27:18,720
Speaker 1: of lab experience. I did a lot of lab research

542
00:27:18,760 --> 00:27:22,160
Speaker 1: work as an undergraduate, and so you know, my mind,

543
00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:23,560
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, you know, it's gonna be easy for me

544
00:27:23,600 --> 00:27:25,520
Speaker 1: to get a job x y Z. Well it was

545
00:27:25,640 --> 00:27:27,360
Speaker 1: not as easy as I was expecting like a lot

546
00:27:27,359 --> 00:27:30,680
Speaker 1: of people, you know, kind of graduate college and regardless

547
00:27:30,680 --> 00:27:32,600
Speaker 1: of what the degree is, it's it's a grind to

548
00:27:32,640 --> 00:27:35,480
Speaker 1: get you know, get your footing in. And so yeah,

549
00:27:35,520 --> 00:27:37,040
Speaker 1: I did a lot of temp jobs. I was like

550
00:27:37,040 --> 00:27:39,840
Speaker 1: doing janitorial work a lot of times, just sweeping floors

551
00:27:39,920 --> 00:27:42,840
Speaker 1: and you know, doing whatever I could because I figured, like, man,

552
00:27:42,880 --> 00:27:44,840
Speaker 1: i'm gonna network, I'm gonna meet people, I'm gonna get

553
00:27:44,840 --> 00:27:46,640
Speaker 1: my foot you know, even if I'm sweeping the floor

554
00:27:46,680 --> 00:27:49,800
Speaker 1: of a lab, you know, I'll let them know like hey.

555
00:27:50,320 --> 00:27:52,080
Speaker 1: And so yeah, it took a lot of temp jobs.

556
00:27:52,080 --> 00:27:54,119
Speaker 1: And I started as a temp worker here on a

557
00:27:54,119 --> 00:27:58,119
Speaker 1: project called the Waves Project. And what that was was

558
00:27:58,560 --> 00:28:01,000
Speaker 1: I was like the logistics guy of the project where

559
00:28:01,040 --> 00:28:07,000
Speaker 1: I was helping ship ppe like gowns, swabs, gloves, all

560
00:28:07,080 --> 00:28:10,160
Speaker 1: kinds of stuff for nurses all across Washington State because

561
00:28:10,560 --> 00:28:13,160
Speaker 1: you dub nurses were going to go to people's house

562
00:28:13,160 --> 00:28:16,199
Speaker 1: and swab them for the virus in their house. And

563
00:28:16,280 --> 00:28:18,760
Speaker 1: so it was kind of this really cool project. And

564
00:28:19,600 --> 00:28:22,280
Speaker 1: before that, I was doing another temp job as a

565
00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:25,560
Speaker 1: freshman application processor, working remote from home, just going through

566
00:28:26,280 --> 00:28:29,480
Speaker 1: Every year, there's like forty thousand students that apply to

567
00:28:29,560 --> 00:28:32,359
Speaker 1: be freshman at you dub. So they hired temp workers

568
00:28:32,359 --> 00:28:35,920
Speaker 1: to go through that mountain of work. And so yeah,

569
00:28:35,960 --> 00:28:37,520
Speaker 1: I did that for three months and it was a

570
00:28:37,560 --> 00:28:40,240
Speaker 1: soul sucking experience being on the computer eight hours a

571
00:28:40,280 --> 00:28:43,560
Speaker 1: day every day. But you know, thanks the opportunity and

572
00:28:43,560 --> 00:28:46,200
Speaker 1: the remote remote work and help you know, float the

573
00:28:46,240 --> 00:28:48,719
Speaker 1: family while the world was kind of under in chaos

574
00:28:49,280 --> 00:28:52,840
Speaker 1: and and so yeah. So after that project ended, that

575
00:28:52,880 --> 00:28:54,960
Speaker 1: temp job, I fell into this other temp job and

576
00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:56,960
Speaker 1: they came to me. They were like, hey, Ricardo, you

577
00:28:57,520 --> 00:29:01,320
Speaker 1: have these degrees and these unique skills. We think you'd

578
00:29:01,360 --> 00:29:03,840
Speaker 1: be a good fit to do this temp job. Would

579
00:29:03,840 --> 00:29:05,960
Speaker 1: you like it? And I'm like, hell yeah, more more

580
00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:09,200
Speaker 1: temp work, you know, more work. And so sure enough,

581
00:29:09,280 --> 00:29:12,680
Speaker 1: while I was here at you know, University of Washington

582
00:29:12,840 --> 00:29:16,080
Speaker 1: Laboratory Medicine working on the project, I networked, I talked

583
00:29:16,080 --> 00:29:19,360
Speaker 1: to people, and they eventually said, hey, you know, think

584
00:29:19,360 --> 00:29:22,520
Speaker 1: about looking at full time positions here. And thankfully there

585
00:29:22,600 --> 00:29:25,560
Speaker 1: was some research scientist positions that I qualified for. And

586
00:29:25,600 --> 00:29:27,680
Speaker 1: I was like, hey, look I qualified for these jobs

587
00:29:27,720 --> 00:29:29,520
Speaker 1: and and so yeah, it's kind of how I fell

588
00:29:29,560 --> 00:29:33,760
Speaker 1: into it. That's great. Now you're scientist, you know, I mean,

589
00:29:33,840 --> 00:29:38,360
Speaker 1: like you know, scientists sniper. Well yeahthing was I felt

590
00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:42,400
Speaker 1: like you're just you gotta lose your your your noodle. Yeah, yeah,

591
00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:45,080
Speaker 1: no doubt. And another funny thing on how I fell

592
00:29:45,120 --> 00:29:48,320
Speaker 1: into this NGS team, this Next Generation Sequencing team, was

593
00:29:48,760 --> 00:29:51,600
Speaker 1: I had just worked here for maybe two weeks. The

594
00:29:51,680 --> 00:29:54,400
Speaker 1: first week they had me make maps for them. I was,

595
00:29:54,480 --> 00:29:56,960
Speaker 1: I've done so much for this place, like a carpenter

596
00:29:57,080 --> 00:30:00,160
Speaker 1: cartographer like, so I was making maps of the or

597
00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:04,480
Speaker 1: layouts for like certain things we do to test for contamination.

598
00:30:05,240 --> 00:30:07,520
Speaker 1: And so after I got done with those maps, I

599
00:30:07,560 --> 00:30:10,960
Speaker 1: actually started like shadowing scientists to start learning how the

600
00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:14,280
Speaker 1: lab operated. And so one of the scientists on the

601
00:30:14,400 --> 00:30:16,840
Speaker 1: NNGS team he was going to be gone on vacation

602
00:30:16,920 --> 00:30:19,200
Speaker 1: for a week. So they were like, hey, you shadow

603
00:30:19,320 --> 00:30:21,800
Speaker 1: this guy for a week, learn him what he's gonna do,

604
00:30:22,400 --> 00:30:24,920
Speaker 1: and because next week he's gone and we're gonna need

605
00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:27,280
Speaker 1: you to fill in for him while he's gone. And

606
00:30:27,360 --> 00:30:31,040
Speaker 1: so yeah, so this MNGS scientists left for a vacation

607
00:30:31,120 --> 00:30:32,840
Speaker 1: for a week after training me for a week, and

608
00:30:32,880 --> 00:30:34,840
Speaker 1: I did a good enough job for them they want

609
00:30:34,840 --> 00:30:36,960
Speaker 1: to keep me there. And it's been a lot of

610
00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:40,640
Speaker 1: imposter syndrome, and yeah, a lot of imposter syndrome and

611
00:30:42,040 --> 00:30:43,440
Speaker 1: waiting for them that you can tell you make it

612
00:30:43,560 --> 00:30:52,560
Speaker 1: Duran Duran brow. They write songs about it now very cool,

613
00:30:52,600 --> 00:30:57,120
Speaker 1: bro very vile. I mean, like COVID very today's conversations

614
00:30:57,160 --> 00:31:00,160
Speaker 1: out there. And you know, I'm vaccinated. I went got

615
00:31:00,200 --> 00:31:02,920
Speaker 1: the Johnston and Johnson and I got boosted back in December.

616
00:31:03,240 --> 00:31:08,480
Speaker 1: I still contracted it in January, but it was asymptomatic.

617
00:31:08,560 --> 00:31:10,920
Speaker 1: So I just really separated from my wife for eight days.

618
00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:13,760
Speaker 1: I don't know why. Just mentally it just started getting

619
00:31:13,760 --> 00:31:15,760
Speaker 1: in my head. I was like, where's the illness? When

620
00:31:15,760 --> 00:31:19,240
Speaker 1: am I going to get the Yeah, you know, the illness,

621
00:31:19,280 --> 00:31:22,560
Speaker 1: and so the mental thing, and others may agree is

622
00:31:23,040 --> 00:31:26,200
Speaker 1: is almost just as much as the sickness was. I

623
00:31:26,240 --> 00:31:33,760
Speaker 1: was just laying there, like, where when am I getting start? Really,

624
00:31:33,880 --> 00:31:36,040
Speaker 1: you know, And I wasn't a deep I wasn't a

625
00:31:36,080 --> 00:31:39,120
Speaker 1: deep depression after I graduated and I couldn't get a job,

626
00:31:39,520 --> 00:31:41,200
Speaker 1: and you know, because I spent five years in the

627
00:31:41,240 --> 00:31:44,720
Speaker 1: military busting my ass and then five years in college

628
00:31:45,320 --> 00:31:49,160
Speaker 1: busting my ass. So I thought in my mind, I'm like, yo,

629
00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:52,840
Speaker 1: I'm just busting my ass for a decade and now

630
00:31:53,000 --> 00:31:56,200
Speaker 1: I just want a good job nine to five, provide

631
00:31:56,200 --> 00:31:58,280
Speaker 1: for my family right off into the sunset, you know,

632
00:31:58,400 --> 00:32:00,240
Speaker 1: like that's all I wanted, you know, just like good

633
00:32:00,280 --> 00:32:04,080
Speaker 1: job to provide and um and when that, when I

634
00:32:04,080 --> 00:32:06,680
Speaker 1: couldn't make that happen, man, I got super depressed. And

635
00:32:06,720 --> 00:32:09,160
Speaker 1: for me, it was like worse than my depression in

636
00:32:09,160 --> 00:32:10,840
Speaker 1: the military, because now I had kids that I was

637
00:32:10,920 --> 00:32:13,360
Speaker 1: kind of direft dragging through the mud with me, and

638
00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:17,719
Speaker 1: so yeah, I got, you know, really really depressed. And

639
00:32:17,720 --> 00:32:22,240
Speaker 1: and really what took me change things around was my

640
00:32:22,320 --> 00:32:24,920
Speaker 1: mindset was a big part of it. But my daughter,

641
00:32:25,040 --> 00:32:28,240
Speaker 1: she ended up really sick with pneumonia, like almost hospitalized

642
00:32:28,280 --> 00:32:31,400
Speaker 1: from it, and that broke me, you know, because I

643
00:32:31,480 --> 00:32:35,520
Speaker 1: was already like being so negative, you know, dark cloud

644
00:32:35,560 --> 00:32:39,000
Speaker 1: following me around everywhere, yelling all the time, just the

645
00:32:39,560 --> 00:32:42,720
Speaker 1: horrible human being, you know, And then my daughter got sick,

646
00:32:42,960 --> 00:32:45,960
Speaker 1: and I thought to myself, you know, chilling in the

647
00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:49,760
Speaker 1: garage doing my thing, and I was thinking to myself,

648
00:32:49,800 --> 00:32:52,080
Speaker 1: like I just need to pretend to be happy. I

649
00:32:52,120 --> 00:32:55,440
Speaker 1: just need to fake it until she gets better, because

650
00:32:55,560 --> 00:33:00,280
Speaker 1: me being depressing asshole is not helping her. In any

651
00:33:00,320 --> 00:33:05,120
Speaker 1: you know, and so and so. Yeah, it just it

652
00:33:05,240 --> 00:33:07,000
Speaker 1: was so weird though, because I'm sitting in my garage

653
00:33:07,040 --> 00:33:08,680
Speaker 1: thinking these thoughts like Okay, I just need to fake

654
00:33:08,720 --> 00:33:11,000
Speaker 1: it till she gets better. You know. It was no

655
00:33:11,240 --> 00:33:13,000
Speaker 1: like fake it till you make it, no long term

656
00:33:13,080 --> 00:33:16,240
Speaker 1: scheme or plans, and so yeah, I could just feel

657
00:33:16,280 --> 00:33:17,600
Speaker 1: the world around me. I'm just hanging out of my

658
00:33:17,600 --> 00:33:20,400
Speaker 1: garage and it feels like the world around me is

659
00:33:20,400 --> 00:33:23,480
Speaker 1: like morphine. It was so weird. And so about a

660
00:33:23,520 --> 00:33:25,280
Speaker 1: week later, I think it was maybe even a few

661
00:33:25,320 --> 00:33:27,719
Speaker 1: days later, less than a week probably, the Seattle Times

662
00:33:27,760 --> 00:33:30,840
Speaker 1: emailed me with that opportunity, and I kind of took

663
00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:33,240
Speaker 1: it as a hint from the universe, as like this

664
00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:36,600
Speaker 1: is going to be the start of a better trajectory

665
00:33:36,600 --> 00:33:39,440
Speaker 1: in my life, because I had applied to do that

666
00:33:39,480 --> 00:33:43,280
Speaker 1: Talk of the Year before, you know, in um in December,

667
00:33:44,400 --> 00:33:48,280
Speaker 1: late December, I saw the ad on Facebook. They said, hey,

668
00:33:48,280 --> 00:33:50,720
Speaker 1: call us tell your story of education. Blah blah blah.

669
00:33:50,760 --> 00:33:52,680
Speaker 1: So I call it. I left my story and I

670
00:33:52,720 --> 00:33:54,360
Speaker 1: never heard back from them, so I thought, oh, they

671
00:33:54,360 --> 00:33:56,120
Speaker 1: didn't like it. You know, it is what it is.

672
00:33:56,160 --> 00:33:58,760
Speaker 1: So I went on with my life and so yeah,

673
00:33:58,760 --> 00:34:01,440
Speaker 1: it's so weird to sit down, have those positive thoughts

674
00:34:01,480 --> 00:34:03,840
Speaker 1: and do that, and then the Seattle Times reach out

675
00:34:03,880 --> 00:34:05,760
Speaker 1: and be like, yo, we still have your story and

676
00:34:05,800 --> 00:34:07,760
Speaker 1: it's a great story. Do you want to give it?

677
00:34:07,800 --> 00:34:09,840
Speaker 1: So I was like, wow, how weird? Like you know,

678
00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:12,640
Speaker 1: So at that point, I had five weeks to get

679
00:34:12,640 --> 00:34:15,360
Speaker 1: ready to give this public speaking gig that the Seattle

680
00:34:15,360 --> 00:34:18,719
Speaker 1: Times is putting on. And you know, I've never been

681
00:34:18,719 --> 00:34:20,400
Speaker 1: a public speaker at all, you know, I mean I

682
00:34:20,480 --> 00:34:21,879
Speaker 1: kind of do it now a little bit. I visit

683
00:34:21,920 --> 00:34:24,160
Speaker 1: schools and you know, I talked to the kids where

684
00:34:24,200 --> 00:34:27,239
Speaker 1: I grew up and share my experience with them in

685
00:34:27,400 --> 00:34:29,960
Speaker 1: terms of my scientists now or my sniper back then.

686
00:34:30,320 --> 00:34:33,360
Speaker 1: And so yeah, you know, I just gave that talk,

687
00:34:33,400 --> 00:34:35,800
Speaker 1: and you know, it kind of helped pull me for

688
00:34:35,880 --> 00:34:38,759
Speaker 1: my depression because at that point I had something to

689
00:34:38,840 --> 00:34:40,800
Speaker 1: work on and something to do and something to focus

690
00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:45,080
Speaker 1: my efforts in my mind. And so but after the

691
00:34:45,200 --> 00:34:47,319
Speaker 1: talk was getting ready to end, I was like, man,

692
00:34:47,760 --> 00:34:50,040
Speaker 1: I gotta do something because I can't just go home

693
00:34:50,080 --> 00:34:51,759
Speaker 1: to back to being depressed. I know, there was no

694
00:34:51,840 --> 00:34:55,000
Speaker 1: magical email that was gonna come anymore. There wasn't, you know,

695
00:34:55,040 --> 00:34:56,600
Speaker 1: there was nothing, so I was like, man, I gotta

696
00:34:56,640 --> 00:34:58,640
Speaker 1: do something. So what I ended up doing was a

697
00:34:58,680 --> 00:35:02,719
Speaker 1: mechanic work. Basically throughout the week I would do research

698
00:35:02,920 --> 00:35:05,440
Speaker 1: on YouTube. I come a YouTube mechanic, you know. I

699
00:35:05,440 --> 00:35:08,160
Speaker 1: would just do research on YouTube. How you change this out,

700
00:35:08,160 --> 00:35:11,239
Speaker 1: how you swapped that out? And so. And on the

701
00:35:11,239 --> 00:35:13,759
Speaker 1: weekend when my wife wasn't at work, she could watch

702
00:35:13,800 --> 00:35:15,360
Speaker 1: the kids and I can go be a mechanic on

703
00:35:15,400 --> 00:35:17,920
Speaker 1: the weekend. Or sometimes that stuff would bother me so much.

704
00:35:17,960 --> 00:35:20,440
Speaker 1: I would go at you know, at ten o'clock midnight

705
00:35:20,760 --> 00:35:23,160
Speaker 1: into the garage and start messing with it because you know,

706
00:35:23,239 --> 00:35:26,239
Speaker 1: I don't you know, I like to get stuff done right.

707
00:35:26,239 --> 00:35:29,840
Speaker 1: It's on your mind. You're just a tinker. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

708
00:35:29,880 --> 00:35:33,080
Speaker 1: and so yeah, I just started working on my vehicle.

709
00:35:33,160 --> 00:35:38,400
Speaker 1: I completely redid the breaks, emissions, the steering, you know,

710
00:35:38,440 --> 00:35:40,960
Speaker 1: from the tyrod ins to the control arms too. Man.

711
00:35:41,000 --> 00:35:43,000
Speaker 1: I did a lot a lot of work over a

712
00:35:43,040 --> 00:35:46,319
Speaker 1: few months, and eventually I did all the mechanic work

713
00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:48,400
Speaker 1: that I could, and I'm like, damn, now I gotta

714
00:35:48,400 --> 00:35:50,360
Speaker 1: find something else to do. So I picked up sewing

715
00:35:51,200 --> 00:35:54,640
Speaker 1: because my wife, she's four ft eleven, like a hundred

716
00:35:54,680 --> 00:35:56,840
Speaker 1: and ten pounds soaking wet. She's very small and petite,

717
00:35:56,840 --> 00:35:59,600
Speaker 1: so a lot of her clothes needs alterations. And so

718
00:35:59,640 --> 00:36:01,160
Speaker 1: I was like, you know what, go pick up a

719
00:36:01,200 --> 00:36:05,359
Speaker 1: forty dollar sewing machine off Craigslist or something and get

720
00:36:05,360 --> 00:36:10,560
Speaker 1: myself busy again. So yeah, I kept myself business. Steal craigslist. Bro,

721
00:36:14,160 --> 00:36:17,080
Speaker 1: Yeah it is. It was a good deal, they are. Yeah,

722
00:36:17,120 --> 00:36:19,120
Speaker 1: I got a place over here in Utah. It's like

723
00:36:19,160 --> 00:36:22,560
Speaker 1: eight grand. Like dang, dude, I've seen some sewing machines

724
00:36:22,600 --> 00:36:25,560
Speaker 1: that were just super expensive that like look like what

725
00:36:25,600 --> 00:36:27,399
Speaker 1: my mom used to use like a singer. But they're

726
00:36:27,440 --> 00:36:32,040
Speaker 1: just you know, crazy computer led screens and stuff. So

727
00:36:33,840 --> 00:36:36,560
Speaker 1: oh yeah, they get crazy with them for sure. And

728
00:36:36,680 --> 00:36:38,759
Speaker 1: uh but also with that craigs, you know, with all

729
00:36:38,800 --> 00:36:41,719
Speaker 1: that mechanic work I did, I bought a ninety tool

730
00:36:41,760 --> 00:36:44,400
Speaker 1: lot off Craigslist because I'm like, man, I need tools

731
00:36:44,400 --> 00:36:45,799
Speaker 1: to do all this work. Let me look for a

732
00:36:45,800 --> 00:36:48,080
Speaker 1: tool lot, you know. So I ended up falling into

733
00:36:48,120 --> 00:36:50,080
Speaker 1: the right spot. Man, I got so many tools for

734
00:36:50,160 --> 00:36:52,680
Speaker 1: ninety bucks, and I basically did you know, I did

735
00:36:52,719 --> 00:36:54,920
Speaker 1: buy tools here and there to kind of supplement what

736
00:36:55,000 --> 00:36:58,080
Speaker 1: I needed to do the jobs. But man, talk about

737
00:36:58,120 --> 00:37:02,040
Speaker 1: you know, for maybe at most two dollars. I did everything,

738
00:37:02,200 --> 00:37:05,080
Speaker 1: you know I did, so you made a minimal investment,

739
00:37:05,120 --> 00:37:07,400
Speaker 1: found good deals. But you took that skill set and

740
00:37:07,440 --> 00:37:09,080
Speaker 1: it was able to turn it over for you a

741
00:37:09,120 --> 00:37:14,200
Speaker 1: few times. I'm sure right, yes, yeah, yeah, so and

742
00:37:14,280 --> 00:37:17,719
Speaker 1: so there's the change. The radiator out last year and

743
00:37:17,920 --> 00:37:20,840
Speaker 1: still do the work when it needs it. Right now,

744
00:37:21,000 --> 00:37:22,799
Speaker 1: when you're in the Army, did you have a call

745
00:37:22,840 --> 00:37:25,200
Speaker 1: sign as a sniper? Was there something specific that they

746
00:37:25,200 --> 00:37:32,000
Speaker 1: called you, like harvester or or call sign in Afghanistan headhunter.

747
00:37:32,600 --> 00:37:34,759
Speaker 1: That's intense, bro, I wonder why they called you that.

748
00:37:36,480 --> 00:37:38,759
Speaker 1: Was a team leader, you know the team leaders, the

749
00:37:38,800 --> 00:37:41,880
Speaker 1: one you know, the sergeants who have the and actually

750
00:37:42,000 --> 00:37:45,400
Speaker 1: my army sniper team leader was an ex Marine sniper

751
00:37:45,440 --> 00:37:49,080
Speaker 1: as well. He actually left the Marines to join the

752
00:37:49,160 --> 00:37:52,080
Speaker 1: Army and try to do special Forces and so um

753
00:37:52,520 --> 00:37:54,960
Speaker 1: and it was really you know, I you know, I

754
00:37:55,200 --> 00:37:57,279
Speaker 1: hurt for him because he left the Marine Corps that

755
00:37:57,320 --> 00:38:00,360
Speaker 1: he loved so much to do special forces and the

756
00:38:00,480 --> 00:38:02,640
Speaker 1: Army ended up not letting him go try out for

757
00:38:02,640 --> 00:38:04,960
Speaker 1: special Forces even though he was an infantryman because he

758
00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:08,320
Speaker 1: had really bad scoliosis. And they're like, oh, we're sorry,

759
00:38:08,440 --> 00:38:10,920
Speaker 1: you can't, you know, do your special force because your

760
00:38:10,920 --> 00:38:14,280
Speaker 1: scoliosis is so bad. But like, man, he's an infantryman already.

761
00:38:14,280 --> 00:38:18,680
Speaker 1: Like he's already, you know, and he speaks three languages, right,

762
00:38:18,680 --> 00:38:20,920
Speaker 1: come on, guy, give him a chance. It's like hello.

763
00:38:21,960 --> 00:38:24,479
Speaker 1: But sometimes you have to question why the guy got

764
00:38:24,560 --> 00:38:26,279
Speaker 1: the gig and you didn't, and why you do what

765
00:38:26,320 --> 00:38:29,080
Speaker 1: you It's like I just gotta look at whatever divine

766
00:38:29,120 --> 00:38:32,600
Speaker 1: intervention is out there. Okay, that's it's it's it's the

767
00:38:32,640 --> 00:38:35,720
Speaker 1: path that you've been put on. Right. Sometimes, like I've

768
00:38:35,760 --> 00:38:37,880
Speaker 1: said to people, when I got my injury, people are like,

769
00:38:37,960 --> 00:38:40,160
Speaker 1: what direction to the military give you? I said, it

770
00:38:40,160 --> 00:38:42,480
Speaker 1: really gave me a U turn and said go back

771
00:38:42,560 --> 00:38:44,920
Speaker 1: and figure something else out. Is what it did for

772
00:38:44,960 --> 00:38:47,520
Speaker 1: me in a in about a six month period. So

773
00:38:47,960 --> 00:38:49,799
Speaker 1: what took you a few years to get I got

774
00:38:49,800 --> 00:38:53,200
Speaker 1: in six months. So it's like, you know, to each

775
00:38:53,239 --> 00:38:57,000
Speaker 1: their own, and you know we are and I try

776
00:38:57,080 --> 00:38:59,200
Speaker 1: to Now now what I want to do is not

777
00:38:59,280 --> 00:39:01,360
Speaker 1: go ahead, Oh I I didn't need enough to know

778
00:39:01,520 --> 00:39:03,720
Speaker 1: your buddies and you try to help and uh probably

779
00:39:03,719 --> 00:39:08,000
Speaker 1: get rated in VA benefits and stuff. Yeah, yeah, you know,

780
00:39:08,040 --> 00:39:09,680
Speaker 1: I just have a lot of friends, you know, from

781
00:39:09,680 --> 00:39:12,279
Speaker 1: that deployment. It was a rough deployment. Obviously, a lot

782
00:39:12,320 --> 00:39:16,240
Speaker 1: of guys you know, lost their lives and lost their limbs. Um.

783
00:39:16,280 --> 00:39:18,080
Speaker 1: So I have a lot of guys that I still

784
00:39:18,239 --> 00:39:20,920
Speaker 1: talk to and love that they're still kind of trying

785
00:39:20,960 --> 00:39:22,680
Speaker 1: to find that you turn, you know, trying to trying

786
00:39:22,719 --> 00:39:24,600
Speaker 1: to make their way back. And you know, I let

787
00:39:24,600 --> 00:39:27,040
Speaker 1: everybody know, man serve with you or not, you know,

788
00:39:27,080 --> 00:39:29,640
Speaker 1: I'm always here to to vent two or to be ears,

789
00:39:29,800 --> 00:39:33,600
Speaker 1: you know, whatever you need because you know, he mostly

790
00:39:33,640 --> 00:39:35,480
Speaker 1: events to me. But I'm so glad, you know, the

791
00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:37,239
Speaker 1: ten percent of the time he's there for me. When

792
00:39:37,280 --> 00:39:40,239
Speaker 1: I went back to him, it's it's beautiful, you know.

793
00:39:40,360 --> 00:39:43,319
Speaker 1: So I don't you know, you know, we we need

794
00:39:43,320 --> 00:39:46,360
Speaker 1: to support each other the most weecause life now. Listen,

795
00:39:46,360 --> 00:39:49,759
Speaker 1: I ask people on my social media like questions in

796
00:39:49,800 --> 00:39:52,560
Speaker 1: advance of my shows and episodes. Right, it's kind of

797
00:39:52,600 --> 00:39:54,640
Speaker 1: a fun segment and they throw stuff out there and

798
00:39:54,680 --> 00:39:57,239
Speaker 1: I'm gonna ask you what I said. What would you

799
00:39:57,280 --> 00:40:00,320
Speaker 1: ask a U s Army sniper? I should have said

800
00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:04,480
Speaker 1: a scientist to however, I just said, so you can

801
00:40:04,520 --> 00:40:08,000
Speaker 1: imagine where people go with these questions. Now somebody, Okay,

802
00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:10,800
Speaker 1: so let's say A Jax is his name? He says, Okay,

803
00:40:10,800 --> 00:40:13,200
Speaker 1: here's this quite that's the question, he says. Do you

804
00:40:13,280 --> 00:40:15,440
Speaker 1: think Trump would have done a better job with the

805
00:40:15,480 --> 00:40:18,440
Speaker 1: troop withdrawal that just went down? Do you think that

806
00:40:18,520 --> 00:40:21,319
Speaker 1: the past president would have done anything different than what

807
00:40:21,400 --> 00:40:26,719
Speaker 1: was already transpiring with the current president. I mean, that's

808
00:40:26,719 --> 00:40:29,120
Speaker 1: a hard question to answer, you know, that's a very

809
00:40:29,440 --> 00:40:31,600
Speaker 1: um When I was I was also a Texas State

810
00:40:31,640 --> 00:40:34,759
Speaker 1: handgun instructor as part of my undergrad like to help,

811
00:40:34,880 --> 00:40:36,960
Speaker 1: you know, my own small business, to provide for my

812
00:40:36,960 --> 00:40:40,400
Speaker 1: family get by. And whenever Texas State, you know, whenever

813
00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:44,480
Speaker 1: the state troopers in the dps UM Department of Public

814
00:40:44,480 --> 00:40:47,200
Speaker 1: Safety trains you to be a handgun instructor, they tell

815
00:40:47,239 --> 00:40:49,520
Speaker 1: you we will not answer your what if questions because

816
00:40:49,560 --> 00:40:52,200
Speaker 1: a lot of times they're just so circumstantial that it's

817
00:40:52,200 --> 00:40:55,720
Speaker 1: hard to really give a solid answer. But I would

818
00:40:55,760 --> 00:41:02,279
Speaker 1: hope that Trump would have been more open to a

819
00:41:03,120 --> 00:41:06,960
Speaker 1: you know, listening more to his to the people who know,

820
00:41:07,160 --> 00:41:09,839
Speaker 1: you know, like there's a lot of people who spent

821
00:41:09,960 --> 00:41:13,160
Speaker 1: time there, They've spent a lot of their life there,

822
00:41:13,360 --> 00:41:16,359
Speaker 1: you know, and and those are that should have been

823
00:41:16,360 --> 00:41:19,120
Speaker 1: the people that should have been kind of what's the

824
00:41:19,120 --> 00:41:23,359
Speaker 1: word I'm looking for, collaborated with? Yeah, collaborated with or

825
00:41:23,400 --> 00:41:26,640
Speaker 1: you know, asked, you know, just looking for from these

826
00:41:26,640 --> 00:41:29,719
Speaker 1: people and what they thought, you know, because you know,

827
00:41:29,760 --> 00:41:32,040
Speaker 1: it was a very messy withdraw and you know, it

828
00:41:32,120 --> 00:41:34,680
Speaker 1: was gonna be messy no matter how we left. But

829
00:41:34,719 --> 00:41:37,280
Speaker 1: I think the speed at which we left was kind

830
00:41:37,320 --> 00:41:40,160
Speaker 1: of the cause of the big you know, there was

831
00:41:40,239 --> 00:41:43,759
Speaker 1: no need for human beings to be throwing themselves at

832
00:41:43,840 --> 00:41:46,400
Speaker 1: airplanes and getting caught up in landing gear. You know,

833
00:41:47,400 --> 00:41:49,960
Speaker 1: they're worried handing their babies up to the Marines trying

834
00:41:50,000 --> 00:41:53,560
Speaker 1: to get them out another Saigon style situation. Yeah, yeah,

835
00:41:53,680 --> 00:41:56,560
Speaker 1: so it definitely could have been better, and it was

836
00:41:56,560 --> 00:41:59,520
Speaker 1: gonna be messy no matter what. But you know, like

837
00:41:59,560 --> 00:42:03,839
Speaker 1: I said to yeah, so one of it. Okay, let's well,

838
00:42:03,880 --> 00:42:06,040
Speaker 1: thank you a Jax for the question. Let's move on

839
00:42:06,080 --> 00:42:08,920
Speaker 1: to Emily. So Emily says she wants to know what

840
00:42:09,080 --> 00:42:11,440
Speaker 1: is one thing that you that's being a sniper? What

841
00:42:11,640 --> 00:42:15,160
Speaker 1: have you learned about life? Well, I've learned a lot

842
00:42:15,200 --> 00:42:17,920
Speaker 1: about myself, you know, because I made a childhood dream

843
00:42:18,000 --> 00:42:19,759
Speaker 1: come true. You know, growing up, I wanted to be

844
00:42:19,840 --> 00:42:23,280
Speaker 1: an astronaut, a fighter pilot, and a sniper and so,

845
00:42:23,680 --> 00:42:25,640
Speaker 1: you know, I worked really hard and I had a

846
00:42:25,640 --> 00:42:28,000
Speaker 1: lot of naysayers in the process, saying like, oh, they

847
00:42:28,040 --> 00:42:30,320
Speaker 1: want people with combat experience, or they want X or

848
00:42:30,360 --> 00:42:33,640
Speaker 1: they want wired and I just tuned them out. I said,

849
00:42:33,640 --> 00:42:35,239
Speaker 1: I don't care what you think. This is something I've

850
00:42:35,239 --> 00:42:37,360
Speaker 1: wanted my whole life, and now I have an opportunity

851
00:42:37,400 --> 00:42:39,799
Speaker 1: to make it happen. You know. So I would be

852
00:42:39,800 --> 00:42:42,080
Speaker 1: there doing push ups on my own and my buddies

853
00:42:42,120 --> 00:42:43,320
Speaker 1: would be like, what are you doing. I'd be like

854
00:42:43,320 --> 00:42:48,120
Speaker 1: getting ready for the sniper trial. Yeah, you know. And

855
00:42:48,160 --> 00:42:50,840
Speaker 1: when I made that childhood dream come true, I realized, like, wow,

856
00:42:51,239 --> 00:42:53,359
Speaker 1: if I made this dream come true, I can make

857
00:42:53,800 --> 00:42:57,560
Speaker 1: you know, anything else comes true. Card and dedicate myself.

858
00:42:57,600 --> 00:42:59,719
Speaker 1: You know, very good. Thank you Emily for that question.

859
00:42:59,800 --> 00:43:05,480
Speaker 1: Let's okay, j Charles. He says, what is your favorite

860
00:43:05,520 --> 00:43:11,040
Speaker 1: optic rifle combo? And uh, you know what is that? Yeah,

861
00:43:11,120 --> 00:43:14,560
Speaker 1: that's uh the Louip holds. I have used some of

862
00:43:14,600 --> 00:43:17,799
Speaker 1: the vortex scopes, so vortex scopes are really nice too.

863
00:43:18,200 --> 00:43:20,640
Speaker 1: But of course most of you know the contract military

864
00:43:20,640 --> 00:43:24,000
Speaker 1: contracts with Louipolds. So yeah, I mean, it's nice to

865
00:43:24,000 --> 00:43:26,200
Speaker 1: have a variable scope. So on our Barrett you had,

866
00:43:26,280 --> 00:43:27,920
Speaker 1: we had had the scope that you could zoom in

867
00:43:27,920 --> 00:43:31,200
Speaker 1: and out, and our Remington's seven it was a ten

868
00:43:31,280 --> 00:43:35,160
Speaker 1: power fixed So so I'd have to say, a variable

869
00:43:35,200 --> 00:43:39,200
Speaker 1: powered scope with a Remington's seven hundred bolt action rifle

870
00:43:39,280 --> 00:43:41,480
Speaker 1: with whatever caliber. I just love bolt actions, you know.

871
00:43:41,480 --> 00:43:46,400
Speaker 1: Obviously more juice gets me out further. But but a Louipolo,

872
00:43:46,480 --> 00:43:50,239
Speaker 1: a vortex multi variable with mil dots. I prefer mill

873
00:43:50,280 --> 00:43:54,279
Speaker 1: dots rather than the tick marks because I'm well sniper train,

874
00:43:54,400 --> 00:43:59,040
Speaker 1: I guess you know. That's great, that's awesome. Well, thank you,

875
00:44:00,160 --> 00:44:03,279
Speaker 1: and uh, let's see here, Peter, he says, I know

876
00:44:03,360 --> 00:44:07,400
Speaker 1: what not to ask him? How many kills? Is that

877
00:44:07,480 --> 00:44:10,719
Speaker 1: a thing? Is that as that notched in your scoreboard?

878
00:44:10,719 --> 00:44:14,440
Speaker 1: Do you not talk about that? No, it's zero for me.

879
00:44:14,640 --> 00:44:16,239
Speaker 1: You know, like I said, I was already kind of

880
00:44:16,280 --> 00:44:19,440
Speaker 1: handicapped from the get go, and while I was there,

881
00:44:19,520 --> 00:44:22,080
Speaker 1: in the capacity that I was there, it was very

882
00:44:22,200 --> 00:44:25,000
Speaker 1: rare to get into a firefight, and so most of

883
00:44:25,000 --> 00:44:26,520
Speaker 1: the time we were just going up patrol and getting

884
00:44:26,520 --> 00:44:28,319
Speaker 1: blown up, you know, and you kind of had to

885
00:44:28,360 --> 00:44:30,200
Speaker 1: be in the right place at the right time. Like

886
00:44:30,440 --> 00:44:33,560
Speaker 1: people were getting into firefights throughout the week, but they

887
00:44:33,560 --> 00:44:37,480
Speaker 1: were very few and far between. And then UM, after

888
00:44:37,560 --> 00:44:41,480
Speaker 1: I left Afghanistan pretty much coincided with them re leaving

889
00:44:41,600 --> 00:44:43,680
Speaker 1: us from the Arkon Dog River Valley, which is we're

890
00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:46,960
Speaker 1: southern Afghanistan where we were taking all our casualties and

891
00:44:47,160 --> 00:44:49,680
Speaker 1: you know the K I A, w I A and

892
00:44:49,920 --> 00:44:54,360
Speaker 1: UM killed an action, w I A Wounded an action, Correct,

893
00:44:54,400 --> 00:44:58,080
Speaker 1: that's what you're referencing there. Yeah. Yeah, so after we

894
00:44:58,120 --> 00:45:00,600
Speaker 1: took you know, we lost In the first two weeks

895
00:45:00,600 --> 00:45:02,759
Speaker 1: after we were at the FOB, I think it was

896
00:45:02,800 --> 00:45:05,640
Speaker 1: like nine guys had already lost their lives. So over

897
00:45:05,719 --> 00:45:08,160
Speaker 1: those first two or three months of us being there,

898
00:45:08,200 --> 00:45:10,960
Speaker 1: it was just NonStop. So yeah, like I said, I

899
00:45:11,120 --> 00:45:13,000
Speaker 1: and then whenever we got relieved from that area, they

900
00:45:13,000 --> 00:45:15,480
Speaker 1: got into firefights more often. But when they got relieved

901
00:45:15,480 --> 00:45:17,840
Speaker 1: of that area, I was already gone off the sniper

902
00:45:17,840 --> 00:45:22,480
Speaker 1: team and dealing with headache, so so I unfortunately I

903
00:45:22,520 --> 00:45:26,000
Speaker 1: get the fire one firefight that I was in, the

904
00:45:26,080 --> 00:45:28,480
Speaker 1: one firefight that I was in, UM, it was one

905
00:45:28,520 --> 00:45:30,880
Speaker 1: of the longest firefights of the deployment. I just learned.

906
00:45:30,920 --> 00:45:32,680
Speaker 1: So there's kind of like a small feather in my

907
00:45:32,760 --> 00:45:35,399
Speaker 1: cap for the little bit of experience that I did

908
00:45:35,400 --> 00:45:40,960
Speaker 1: get to experience. But yeah, not for me. I'm Jesus,

909
00:45:42,120 --> 00:45:46,839
Speaker 1: that's what. Thank you for being open and honest, you know. Yeah,

910
00:45:46,840 --> 00:45:49,359
Speaker 1: And there's no shape. I love it and I'm just like, wow,

911
00:45:49,400 --> 00:45:52,759
Speaker 1: you're no. I just wanted to comment one more thing.

912
00:45:53,800 --> 00:45:59,880
Speaker 1: I read the book Kobin to Force operators were hunting

913
00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:03,439
Speaker 1: and book again right after, and not one of them

914
00:46:03,440 --> 00:46:06,000
Speaker 1: shot around during the whole time they were hunting Ben Lauden.

915
00:46:06,320 --> 00:46:08,399
Speaker 1: So it's just like, dang man, these are Delta Force

916
00:46:08,480 --> 00:46:11,360
Speaker 1: operators hunting Ben Ladden and not even these guys fired

917
00:46:11,360 --> 00:46:14,279
Speaker 1: around the entire time they were there because they had

918
00:46:14,320 --> 00:46:17,120
Speaker 1: special forces and local fighters doing it for him, you know.

919
00:46:17,880 --> 00:46:21,200
Speaker 1: But yeah, I was like, that's a beautiful insight, you know, like, wow,

920
00:46:21,200 --> 00:46:24,000
Speaker 1: I would have never guessed. Right right now, I've actually

921
00:46:24,160 --> 00:46:27,719
Speaker 1: I've actually interviewed one of those guys. Wow, No, you're

922
00:46:27,719 --> 00:46:30,600
Speaker 1: in a good could You're in good company. I interviewed Travis,

923
00:46:30,600 --> 00:46:33,439
Speaker 1: who's a Delta guy. Yeah, and he was cave to cave.

924
00:46:33,520 --> 00:46:36,359
Speaker 1: They were like teapot was still cooking. Cigarette butts were

925
00:46:36,360 --> 00:46:39,560
Speaker 1: still smoking, and then he had gotten into Pakistan and

926
00:46:39,600 --> 00:46:43,320
Speaker 1: they couldn't. They halted at Pakistan's line, you know, and

927
00:46:43,320 --> 00:46:45,600
Speaker 1: they couldn't. This is what he had explained to me

928
00:46:45,680 --> 00:46:47,360
Speaker 1: when we were being interviewed, and I just like, wow,

929
00:46:47,400 --> 00:46:52,400
Speaker 1: you know that's crazy. Now, Peter another Peter says, how

930
00:46:52,440 --> 00:46:55,600
Speaker 1: do you deal with and cope with your actions done

931
00:46:55,640 --> 00:46:59,840
Speaker 1: in the warfare? So you know, you've been trained up

932
00:46:59,880 --> 00:47:03,160
Speaker 1: to go do this, You go out and you're mentally

933
00:47:03,200 --> 00:47:06,080
Speaker 1: prepared to do what is being asked of you by

934
00:47:06,120 --> 00:47:08,600
Speaker 1: your country. Eve then then you do those deeds and

935
00:47:08,600 --> 00:47:10,560
Speaker 1: you get into firefights and then you come home. Now

936
00:47:10,600 --> 00:47:12,640
Speaker 1: what how are you How are you handling that? Are

937
00:47:12,680 --> 00:47:14,920
Speaker 1: you go into groups? Do you just keep it internalized?

938
00:47:15,360 --> 00:47:18,560
Speaker 1: When I got back, man, I went to intensive outpatient

939
00:47:18,640 --> 00:47:22,080
Speaker 1: Therapy I o P, which is like I think it

940
00:47:22,160 --> 00:47:25,239
Speaker 1: was three weeks long where I went every day, and

941
00:47:25,360 --> 00:47:28,920
Speaker 1: you know, it's like group talking with other vets and

942
00:47:29,000 --> 00:47:31,520
Speaker 1: just hearing the whole gamut of stories and and just

943
00:47:31,600 --> 00:47:33,799
Speaker 1: kind of sharing and trying to grow and heal from

944
00:47:33,960 --> 00:47:36,520
Speaker 1: the things we experience and do. And like I said,

945
00:47:36,520 --> 00:47:39,160
Speaker 1: you know, I've I never took a life, but it's

946
00:47:39,160 --> 00:47:41,480
Speaker 1: not to say that I didn't see others doing it

947
00:47:41,640 --> 00:47:46,359
Speaker 1: or death and destruction around me, you know, And so yeah,

948
00:47:46,520 --> 00:47:49,120
Speaker 1: you know, it's a rough place to be. And the

949
00:47:49,160 --> 00:47:51,440
Speaker 1: way I always looked at it, the way I kept

950
00:47:51,560 --> 00:47:56,799
Speaker 1: my focus was I would only worry about the things

951
00:47:56,800 --> 00:47:58,680
Speaker 1: I can control. Because there's a lot of guys that

952
00:47:58,719 --> 00:48:00,680
Speaker 1: I talked to, they would was talking, you know, they

953
00:48:00,719 --> 00:48:03,080
Speaker 1: tell me about how they'd worry about stepping on the landline, which,

954
00:48:03,120 --> 00:48:06,359
Speaker 1: of course you're gonna worry about that stuff. But for me,

955
00:48:06,520 --> 00:48:07,920
Speaker 1: you know, those are the things I pushed out of

956
00:48:07,960 --> 00:48:09,520
Speaker 1: my mind, like I'm not going to even you know,

957
00:48:09,600 --> 00:48:11,239
Speaker 1: those are things I can't help. Why am I going

958
00:48:11,280 --> 00:48:13,920
Speaker 1: to worry about things that I can't help? And so

959
00:48:13,960 --> 00:48:17,439
Speaker 1: it's really just about on what you can control and

960
00:48:17,560 --> 00:48:20,440
Speaker 1: just hoping for the best and going out there and

961
00:48:20,440 --> 00:48:22,480
Speaker 1: and just operating because there's a mission that needs to

962
00:48:22,480 --> 00:48:26,040
Speaker 1: be done, and so yeah, you just focus on what

963
00:48:26,080 --> 00:48:29,399
Speaker 1: you And for me, I have less anxiety going out

964
00:48:29,440 --> 00:48:32,400
Speaker 1: on mission because I felt confident in my training and

965
00:48:32,440 --> 00:48:35,120
Speaker 1: what I could do, and I'd have more anxiety coming

966
00:48:35,160 --> 00:48:37,200
Speaker 1: back from mission knowing that I was gonna deal with

967
00:48:37,239 --> 00:48:40,359
Speaker 1: these people that are have it out for me, you know,

968
00:48:40,520 --> 00:48:42,880
Speaker 1: like they're in charge of me. They control my life,

969
00:48:43,120 --> 00:48:45,160
Speaker 1: and they have me under their thumb right now. So

970
00:48:45,480 --> 00:48:48,000
Speaker 1: it's not very fun. Sometimes you're like, well, I'll just

971
00:48:48,040 --> 00:48:51,760
Speaker 1: hang out here with this rock in this cliff area.

972
00:48:52,080 --> 00:48:54,799
Speaker 1: I'll just here. You know, the rocks got my back.

973
00:48:56,520 --> 00:48:59,480
Speaker 1: The lizard is my friend. I have fresh air. It's nice.

974
00:48:59,560 --> 00:49:05,520
Speaker 1: There's not isn't possibly around? I bet yeah. Men the shepherd,

975
00:49:07,800 --> 00:49:10,560
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I mean there's enough sheeps and wolves out

976
00:49:10,600 --> 00:49:12,400
Speaker 1: there to battle each other. I like to say, be

977
00:49:12,440 --> 00:49:18,719
Speaker 1: a shepherd, you know, be the one that helps you know. Yeah. Now, look,

978
00:49:18,800 --> 00:49:20,880
Speaker 1: I just want to say you've been a wonderful, wonderful

979
00:49:20,920 --> 00:49:23,759
Speaker 1: guest on software today, and I just want to say,

980
00:49:23,800 --> 00:49:25,440
Speaker 1: is there any website or anything that you want to

981
00:49:25,480 --> 00:49:27,880
Speaker 1: plug to, like, you know, put it out there so

982
00:49:27,920 --> 00:49:29,680
Speaker 1: we can put it in the description. Is there anything

983
00:49:29,680 --> 00:49:31,959
Speaker 1: you want to just let us know about that's coming

984
00:49:32,040 --> 00:49:35,440
Speaker 1: up or anything. Yeah, my book is out on Amazon

985
00:49:35,520 --> 00:49:37,799
Speaker 1: now if you just go to Amazon type of Born

986
00:49:37,880 --> 00:49:40,440
Speaker 1: to Fail book, here's a I have it right here too,

987
00:49:40,440 --> 00:49:43,239
Speaker 1: if you'd like to. I know that the radio is

988
00:49:43,280 --> 00:49:47,960
Speaker 1: born to fail. See it? Yeah, born to fail? Oh yes, Perez,

989
00:49:48,040 --> 00:49:50,560
Speaker 1: born to fail. He's got a sniper on the front

990
00:49:50,560 --> 00:49:56,239
Speaker 1: with a suppressed rifle. Yeah yeah, oh yeah, I look

991
00:49:56,280 --> 00:49:58,839
Speaker 1: at Oh for those of you watching, you can see

992
00:49:59,120 --> 00:50:01,319
Speaker 1: he's got the book out the cover of him and

993
00:50:01,680 --> 00:50:04,120
Speaker 1: his fifty cow that he was talking about and that

994
00:50:04,280 --> 00:50:07,160
Speaker 1: star patch. Oh I know what that is. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

995
00:50:07,200 --> 00:50:11,600
Speaker 1: that's awesome. Yeah uh yeah, Second Infantry Division and so

996
00:50:11,719 --> 00:50:14,399
Speaker 1: um so, yeah, that's my book, and all the money

997
00:50:14,520 --> 00:50:16,799
Speaker 1: goes back to working on the audio book. The audio

998
00:50:16,840 --> 00:50:19,719
Speaker 1: book is gonna be crazy because I recorded conversations with

999
00:50:19,760 --> 00:50:22,080
Speaker 1: a lot of the higher ups because they were all

1000
00:50:22,160 --> 00:50:24,239
Speaker 1: lying about stuff and I didn't want to get in

1001
00:50:24,320 --> 00:50:28,840
Speaker 1: trouble for the rain about So I had hours of

1002
00:50:28,920 --> 00:50:31,879
Speaker 1: conversations that I'm gonna put on the audio book. So, man,

1003
00:50:31,920 --> 00:50:34,520
Speaker 1: that's gonna be an immersive audio book. I'm super excited

1004
00:50:34,560 --> 00:50:38,759
Speaker 1: about getting that done. And wow, so there's gonna be

1005
00:50:38,800 --> 00:50:43,640
Speaker 1: some worms can of worms open in that scenario? Yeah, yeah,

1006
00:50:43,719 --> 00:50:46,000
Speaker 1: no doubt about that. And so we're also working on

1007
00:50:46,000 --> 00:50:48,680
Speaker 1: the documentary. So all this money from my book sales,

1008
00:50:48,719 --> 00:50:51,520
Speaker 1: I'm not pocketing any of it. It all goes back

1009
00:50:51,560 --> 00:50:53,880
Speaker 1: towards these other projects and lifting the voices up from

1010
00:50:53,920 --> 00:50:56,400
Speaker 1: the men and uh. I also followed up patent, and

1011
00:50:56,440 --> 00:50:58,160
Speaker 1: that's where I hope to get my money in my

1012
00:50:58,160 --> 00:51:01,120
Speaker 1: pocket is from my patent, So my books sales, it's

1013
00:51:01,120 --> 00:51:03,400
Speaker 1: all going back always from now on to the end

1014
00:51:03,440 --> 00:51:06,080
Speaker 1: of time. It's gonna go back to helping the guys

1015
00:51:06,120 --> 00:51:09,319
Speaker 1: that I served with in their families. So supportives as

1016
00:51:09,360 --> 00:51:11,719
Speaker 1: much as you can. And on my website, Ricardo P.

1017
00:51:11,920 --> 00:51:14,920
Speaker 1: Perez dot com, you can go and learn more about me.

1018
00:51:15,120 --> 00:51:17,520
Speaker 1: You can sign up for my newsletter. And every month

1019
00:51:17,560 --> 00:51:19,879
Speaker 1: I sent out a newsletter just letting people know what's

1020
00:51:19,880 --> 00:51:22,480
Speaker 1: going on with my small business stuff and what's kind

1021
00:51:22,480 --> 00:51:26,080
Speaker 1: of going on in my life. And uh, every four months,

1022
00:51:26,120 --> 00:51:29,399
Speaker 1: I would be sharing the expense and revenue reports with

1023
00:51:29,480 --> 00:51:32,719
Speaker 1: my subscribers for the book, so that way people know

1024
00:51:32,760 --> 00:51:34,959
Speaker 1: where their money went and you know how much money

1025
00:51:35,040 --> 00:51:37,040
Speaker 1: is coming in and what the stuff costs going out.

1026
00:51:37,160 --> 00:51:40,000
Speaker 1: So it's all gonna be as transparent as possible. So

1027
00:51:40,040 --> 00:51:41,520
Speaker 1: if you'd like to know how your money and this

1028
00:51:41,560 --> 00:51:44,399
Speaker 1: money is getting used, sign up on my website. That's

1029
00:51:44,400 --> 00:51:47,160
Speaker 1: so awesome, Ulricardo, you're a joy to talk to you.

1030
00:51:47,640 --> 00:51:51,640
Speaker 1: Thanks for teaching me about education and keeping your mind

1031
00:51:51,719 --> 00:52:00,000
Speaker 1: fresh by going to read a book that he had nothing. Yeah, nothing, nothing.

1032
00:52:00,000 --> 00:52:02,000
Speaker 1: It will ever go away with the smell of gunpowder.

1033
00:52:02,040 --> 00:52:05,560
Speaker 1: We'll always like that skull for some reason, so you know, yeah,

1034
00:52:05,600 --> 00:52:11,239
Speaker 1: no doubt. Thank you Ford, thank you for the kind words,

1035
00:52:11,280 --> 00:52:14,160
Speaker 1: and I don't mean to step on you, so you know, dude,

1036
00:52:14,280 --> 00:52:19,799
Speaker 1: it's awesome. I'm just grateful to be here same, so

1037
00:52:19,920 --> 00:52:22,399
Speaker 1: thank you, Ricardo, and with that, thank you for listening

1038
00:52:22,440 --> 00:52:26,239
Speaker 1: to SOFTWAREP Radio's episode with Ricardo Perez United States Army

1039
00:52:26,239 --> 00:52:39,279
Speaker 1: Sniper Scientists and we'll catch you later. Peace. You've been

1040
00:52:39,400 --> 00:52:41,320
Speaker 1: listening to self red Radio