Shawn Ryan Show - #55 Prime Hall - MARSOC Raider Shares His Darkest Memories / Traumatized to Transformation | Part 1

Episode Date: April 24, 2023

Episode #55 is an unfiltered look at trauma and the long road to recovery. Prime Hall is a former Marine Raider with 12 years of service and is now a coach and consultant to some of the country's top companies and Olympic athletes. In part one of this two part series, Prime shares the burdens of his childhood that would haunt him well into his Military career. Hall puts the audience in the shoes of a young recruit with a troubled past and a growing rap sheet while also navigating the path to Special Operations. We take a detailed look at the training pipeline for Marine Raiders and how bad leadership can jeopardize careers. Hall vividly recounts his Iraq deployment and the different world he found when he was first sent to his Raider unit. This episode is a testament to how trauma changes and influences the context around your life—quietly. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://shopify.com/shawn https://hvmn.com - USE CODE "SHAWN" https://blackbuffalo.com - USE CODE "SRS" https://bubsnaturals.com - USE CODE "SHAWN" https://learshawn.com Information contained within Lear Capital’s website is for general educational purposes and is not investment, tax, or legal advice. Past performance may not be indicative of future results. Consult with your tax attorney or financial professional before making an investment decision. Prime Hall Links: Website & Coaching - https://www.primehall.com/ Instagram - https://instagram.com/prime_tiime Book Pre-Order - https://publishizer.com/obstacles-equal-opportunity/ Please leave us a review on Apple & Spotify Podcasts. Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website | Patreon | TikTok | Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Use code summer15 to get 15% off your first order at athleticbrewing.com. Near beer exclusions and conditions apply. Hey everybody, welcome back to the Sean Ryan show. This week we got another two part series with former Marine Raider and Marsock critical skills operator Prime Hall. We start with this childhood, a very traumatic childhood. I would like to make a suggestion. If you're going through child abuse, some kind of a situation at home, please watch this. There's some advice from Prime on what to do when you're going through that kind of stuff.

If you know somebody that's going through domestic abuse or child abuse, watch this. There's advice in here in Foria. Prime is a hell of a person, he's overcome a lot of trauma and this is going to help tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people. So please share this. Good news. Vigilance League gummy bears, those of you that are subscribed to the newsletter or our Patreon. You guys got first dibs. There's a couple of bags left for the general public. Head over to SeanRionShow.com, pick them up and if you're not subscribed to the newsletter, please do that. Patreon, thank you all for the support. You are who makes this

show possible. If you can't do either of those, please head over to Apple Podcast and Spotify, leave us a review with that being said. Let's get to the show. Love you all. Cheers. Prime Hall. Welcome to the show, man.

Thanks for having me, brother. Dude, it's an honor. I've been following you for a couple years now. Nick, Kephelitas, my good friend. We've been friends for a pretty long time. Told me that I should start looking into your story. And, um, the last time I've been Instagram stalking you for a couple of years now and I'm sorry. I just I'm very

particular with who I bring on here and I just I really like the way you carry yourself. I like the message you're putting out a lot of positivity around what you're doing and and I have a feeling this is going to be one of the deepest episodes I've ever done, especially talking to you last night and learning a little bit about a very smidget into your childhood. I think that's gonna help a lot of people who are coming from a broken home. And then getting into your military stuff

in your transition and some of the things you've been through, I know it's gonna be a very, very, very powerful episode, possibly the most powerful one I've ever done. And which is weird saying that, considering I don't know a whole lot about you, but I can tell there's a lot in there. And I'm just really happy you're here, man. I know I just have this overwhelming feeling that this is gonna help a lot of people.

So thanks for making it. Yeah, thanks for having me, brother. It's a real honor. I've been, it's like we were talking about last night how these things connect, but I've been watching the show, you know, for over a year now, and people around me watch it, and you've had several of my close people, and people that I respect a lot on the show, so, you know, it's an honor to sit here,

where I know a lot of these warriors have set, and, you know, people that I care a lot about, so thanks for having me, Rilla. These warriors have sat and you know people that I care a lot about and so Thanks for having me, brother my pleasure, man, but so rough childhood Grub by yourself. I remember you saying that you know 14 you were out on your own Came a marine rater special operations Now you are you started the underwater torpedo league which sounds like it's going to be a, what do you call it?

A spectator sport? Spectator sport and Olympic sport. That's amazing. Yeah. And I've kind of watched, I've been able to watch you grow that. And the fact that it kind of started as an idea, and now it's all the way to this, and that amount of time is,

I've never known anybody who developed a sport. And so that's awesome. And I learned you got a book coming out here pretty soon, so I can't wait to dive into that. And man, we just have so much to cover, so much ground to cover. Psychedelics, transition, getting better, childhood, all kinds of stuff.

So, let's start, we'll start with childhood and just go through your whole life story. This is your biography. But, everybody gets a gift. But everybody gets a gift. Almost everybody gets a gift. Before we get into the weeds. Serial. Any guesses?

Gummy's. Damn, you're the first one to guess it. Ha ha ha. Yes. Solid, bro. There're the first one to guess it. Ha ha ha. Yes. Solid bro. There it is. It's very cool. There it is.

Thank you, man. My pleasure. Enjoy him. Legal in all 50 states, some, you know, fortunate for some of this pointed in that, but. Yeah, no, dude. But, so before we get into childhood,

I wanna, I have a Patreon community, Bigeons Lead Patreon community, and we go over all kinds of stuff in there, it's an awesome community. But one thing that I do is I give them a preview of who the upcoming guests are on the show. And there are top supporters. There are why you're sitting here,

there are why I'm sitting here. There are the reason all this has come together. Really, the sole reason this has all come together because I couldn't finance this all by myself. So it's from them. So anyways, I give them an opportunity to ask the upcoming guest questions.

And there were two really good questions that I think are perfect for you. And so the first Patreon questions from Dan Wessinger and his question is, when working with different demographics, professional athletes, Olympic athletes, military members, regular folks, who has the most fortitude, who says screw this, I'm done first.

Just curious, I'll bet we would be surprised. That's a great question. And just understanding that there's outliers with every population, you know, so it's not a cookie cutter thing, but generally with what I've seen with different elite athletes is that martial artists, like UFC fighters, for example, have the most are up there with the most mental fortitude and that they're

going to push themselves beyond what their limits are to stretch themselves. And that's part of self mastery and that's evolving. That's what martial arts is about. And so, you know, like how that translates into some of the training that we do is like they're the ones that are going to show up the most, they're going to push themselves the most underwater or with the breath holder, with their training and their fight camp that they're doing with us at the pool or whatever it is that they're doing. You know, that martial artists, UFC fighters and pro MMA fighters, for example, are at the top Olympians, generally, have a drive within them that I've, from my experience, that's from a very young age that they have something in them that, basically, they have a drive to get to the top of the mountain,

you know, NBA first. And so, Olympians have a very, their drive, well, I, for what I've seen, will take them far in training and competition. And then, you know, so that's kind of the top things that come to mind. And then tactical athletes have a lot of similarities with that too, with martial arts, because it's like, you know, you're developing yourself

and you're pushing yourself beyond your limits. And that's part of self mastery too. Who are the first ones to say screw it? Who are the prima donnas? Are there do you work with any? You know, those type of ego type of things are those that type of culture really doesn't fit with us. So you typically, you know, individuals that have issues like that, they don't really stay for too long. Or if they're coming to build confidence, then we work with them to build confidence and it's like a crawl walk run. Okay. Building block approach. But if it's like an ego thing, and they're not willing to work,

or whatever, and it's a pre-Madonna thing, like with what you're saying, then like, you know, typically the sports that make the most money, if that makes sense, like that would be something that you would experience from that. But then that's not a cookie cutter thing, saying that every NFL or every, you or every type of athlete like that,

that's on that type of payroll. You know, it's gonna act like that, but they might be less motivated to hold a breath for four minutes than someone that's a USC fighter that's up and coming, that's like, you know, they're hungry. They're making 30 grand of fight, you know, or whatever. Yeah.

And they're like, they have an opportunity, you know. But it's from my experience, it's not, it's about your why too, and not, it's not, money is not a sustainable why, you know, saying. So it has to be like, you know, um, an inner and outward focus thing. Makes a lot of sense. Um, there was one other question from Patreon that I thought was really good too. And it is something we haven't discussed. It's a long question. So I'm not going to read it all, but it's from Jackson Brown.

And what he's asking is, did you ever consider a plan B before joining the military? And we get this question a lot. We get that question a lot. Should I have a backup plan? And I will probably chime in on this, but go ahead. It's like a trick question, because that's saying burn your ships at the shore.

You know, you don't wanna back up plan in certain circumstances, right? Cause then that gives you an out. Yeah. But then in contingency planning, you always wanna primary and alternate contingency, you know, emergency, if you can plan.

But with this, with going into the military, I'll answer my own first. I didn't have a plan B. My grandfather helped me get my court stuff figured out so that and made deals with the judge to get me into the Marine Corps instead of going to jail. So my thing was I needed to get all my court stuff cleaned up and I had no other options.

I was basically just, I was just getting into too much trouble and I needed to get, find some purpose and some, what do you call it? and I needed to get, find some purpose and some, like, what do you call it? Learn how to deal with authority and, like, domesticate myself a little bit, you know, like, so, but I didn't have a plan B. I was like, like, by the grace of God, I got into the Marine Corps.

After a year of like paperwork and waivers and shit, you know. Um, so, but for anybody going in to the military, like, and we'll get into it, but, like, first I recommend like, well, what options you have outside the military, why are you going into the military? Like, and then make sure that it's something in the military that they're seeking, that they're going to actually get going in. Yeah.

And then what's their why going in? And then, yeah, if you're going in and you're going to be, and you're going to go into a job like a pilot or something that feeds into another job opportunity in the civilian world or whatever, then you can start to map that out and create like an operational strategic plan. But if you're going into a soft pipeline, if you're going into buds or radar training or something, you're not like, hey, if this doesn't work out for me, then I'll go beyond work on Wall Street, or I'll go work at my family business. That's really doing well right now. And you give yourself that fallback. Then when it's a week with no sleep

and it's the weather sucks again that day and you've been awake for whatever and you're not eating and you're getting slapped at searschool or whatever it is, you're gonna be like, dude, I'm just gonna go back to the family biz, not gonna play, I'm not doing this stuff. So you have to have, you can't give yourself, in some circumstances, you can't give yourself

a backup plan. Yeah, so I'm right there with you. I think the question was in the military. I think, you know, it depends, I think it depends what your primary motivation is. You know, if your motivation is to go into the military, into special operations and become an elite operator, you know, there's only a handful of us.

You can't have a backup plan for that, you know, that you've got to be 100% focused, 100% all in. And if you're planning contingencies for your failure out of that, then exactly what you said. Then when the going gets tough, you're already going to be like, well, I can just go do this other thing, you know. And it's never going to work.

And I've never known anybody who's gone through that had spoken of a backup plan. Have you? Um, I don't know. I've made it. I've never heard a backup plan discussed. It's not something that would come up in discussion. But everybody that had a backup plan quit, you know, as far as I'm concerned.

And now with the regular military, you know, if you're doing it because you wanna give a portion of your life or you want the experience to grow up and get discipline or, you know, you just wanna serve your country for a short time, then yeah, definitely have a backup plan, because you know that's not what you're gonna do for the rest of your life,

but, and even if it isn't what you wind up doing for the rest of your life, like me, I thought I would have been a seal for my whole life. Going into it, there was nothing else I wanted to do. Then I got there and things changed. And I didn't wanna to do an entire career. But going into it, I was 100% all in. There was nothing else to do.

And so backup plans can come later because nothing's gonna last forever. But going into something that need, where you're gonna need that amount of drive, determination, discipline, backup plans just don't work. Same with own and operation, you know what I mean? If it's just you out there, you know what I mean? You can't be thinking about anything else

other than the mission, you know what I mean? You got to get home, that's the plan. And you know, you got to do what you're going to do and then get home, that's the plan. You know, there's different ways you can do it. But in the end, you're going to have to go through it, you know, 100%. But, but anyways, so it's Patreon.

But so now I want wanna get into your story. You know, like I said, I know it's gonna be very deep and I can just see it in your eyes and we'll go at your pace. And if you get uncomfortable, then that's okay. We don't have to go there, but where'd you grow up? don't have to go there, but where'd you grow up? I grew up in South Texas in a place called Corpus Christi.

And so it's an interesting part of Texas, because people think of Texas, and they think of like ranches and all that stuff. And that's all there, too. But there's also big cities like Houston and San Antonio and whatever else. And so Corpus is kind of, Corpus Christi is kind of like a small city,

big town kind of thing that's connected to North Padre Island. So there's like a bridge that you cross, and then there's an island beach town that's connected to Corpus. And so I grew up there most of my childhood, a island beach town that's connected to Corpus. And so I grew up there most of my childhood and then later on I went to military school and then after my parents divorced my mom moved down to South Padria Island area where

my grandparents and family live and I lived down there before I joined the Marine Corps. Okay. And then that's kind of where I go back home to visit my grandparents and stuff. Any brothers and sisters? Yeah, I have one younger sister that's four years younger. You guys tied? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we've like, you know, we've been separated for a lot of our life, but we have a tight relationship

now. When did you guys get separated? Really like when I went into the Marines, I didn't talk to my sister much during that period of time for about 12 years, minimal contact, and then even after that. Do you want to talk about your childhood? Yeah, sure. What'd you like to do? It's funny because my grandmother, Barbara, that passed away.

I spent a lot of time with her when I was growing up and she was a synchronized swimmer in college. So she would have me like, you know, in these little swim things when I was like two years old, you know, at the country club or at the pool, you know, like that she lived at, taking me to these little swimsuit competitions and stuff. And like had me in the pool all the time. So that was kind of like, I was never on a swim team or anything, but I was in the pool a lot. I loved that. And I went to the beach a lot, and I was in the ocean a lot.

And then my two best friends growing up were brothers and they were all into fighting and like, you know, like, a couple of way to tough man had just was out. That was before UFC and then UFC was coming out, you know, like, but like that whole thing. So we were very like when I was growing up very into like grappling and like fighting and like, you know, like warrior type activities, you know, with my friends, with my best friend and his brother that I grew up with, you know, and so I grew up, you know, with my parents and then my sister. And I think my first significant event was when I was seven years old, I was at my house. There was like a gate in the front that kind of like went up to the roof on this side. And then you could climb the gate and then walk out on this little like security brick wall.

Oh, wow. You know, that was like seven feet tall, you know, or like eight, whatever it was, you know, and so I used to climb up the gate and then I'd get onto the brick wall and walk across, you know, and it's grass, so then I just hang down and jump off or whatever. And so like, I was getting up and it's kind of a funny story about my mom, but I was climbing up the gate, you know, I'm like kind of always on my own program.

And I'm like, you know, doing my thing and I get to the top of the gate and my mom's like, oh my gosh, no, you're gonna fall. It was like a psychological trance, you know, when you're a kid and you're like, tell your kid, don't spill the milk. All they know is spill the milk. You know, it's like, you're gonna fall.

And I fell back and landed on my head. And that was my first concussion, like traumatic brain injury, for my fractured, my skull completely. So my head was mush for a year till while my skull reformed. Damn, how high was this? Like seven or eight feet tall,

but I landed directly on my head. Oh shit. Yeah. So that was like, you know, like, seven or eight feet tall, but I landed directly on my head. Oh, shit. Yeah. So that was like, I just remember that I'm trying to keep me away, taking me to the hospital, in the hospital, going through the MRI, what is this? And then had a bunch of MRIs.

But anyway, so that experience, you know, I was like, for a year, I couldn't do, like, you know, play with play or do anything like I was like reforming. My school was reforming, so I was in a sensitive kind of thing. Yeah. And then, you know, wreak fully recovered from that. I had a lot of headaches. I remember during that time period and then recovered. We moved to a new house and I was eight years old. And we lived there until my parents divorced when I was 12. They divorced when you were 12? Yeah, 12, 13.

Like right after middle school going right into high school, my mom had moved away, my sister moved away. But we lived in that house from that time period. And when we moved in there, I don't know how long afterwards, but shortly after, I had someone that was coming up to my window in my house. Because the house was structured to where my parents' room was in the back, where the backyard is, and it's all fenced in.

But then my sister and I's room was on the side of the house where there was no fence. And there was a lot of vegetation around my window. So someone could come up and hide in there and basically be there, right? Yeah. So I didn't, you know, it's kind of like a boogey man type thing at first, right?

Or it's like very scary that someone's in your window. Somebody was in your window? Yeah, it's a peep, it's called a peeping tom. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, right up on the window. Right up on the window, watching me for years, breathing on the window, like tapping that window, like psychological warfare,

because I was living it, so I started living in my staying in my closet and sleeping in there, you know, because I didn't want this guy to see me, it was very bothersome, and I told my parents, but they hadn't caught him yet yet so they didn't believe it. Are you serious?

Yes. And I mean, who did you know this person? No. How often would it happen? Like, I don't know, man. Often. Like every night, like, uh, multiple times and multiple times a week kind of thing. Yeah. Like, yeah, like this happened for a long time, you know, and, uh, well, when I was in the

closet, I would get bad, and I would knock knock on the my closet wall would back up to my parents So when I would bang on it then they would turn the lights on in the house So now all the lights come on and he would take off then we would go outside You know sometimes my dad would have his gun and we go outside with me No one's there So now it looks like I'm crazy again. Now we come back in and I'm like, I don't like, so I started to just not tell him, you know,

like I wasn't reporting it anymore. And like my aunts and uncles and my people that in my family that I'm close to, they've all told me, you know, I had conversations with me over the last few years about like, you know, what I told them when I was this age, you know, and that nobody did anything.

But they did catch him. So my mom and dad caught the guy probably when I was 12. What happened? They caught him in the window and heard a disturbance. And then my dad went outside with the gun and the guy ran out from the window

to the park near our house, hopped in his car and bounced. And my dad was like, behind him running, you know? So they told me, so it's like, at least that, at least I, you know, at that time, that's like, at least that, at least I, you know, that, at that time, I was like, okay, yeah, that validated it because I've been through a couple of years of this years, years. And like, when my friend, best friend would come over and spend the night, we would be playing like little avid games where we're like, you know, you got to,

like little avid games where we're like, you know, you got to, you got to go from the closet to the bathroom. So you got to like go under the bed or you got to go around the desk, you know, um, to and then on your stomach out the door and then you can close the door and then he can't see you. So then you're free in the hallway, you see what I'm saying? Yeah. So then it's like, but it was a very, put me, it was like a fight or flight situation for a long time. And it was, when I remember riding my bike around

and there'd be a car behind me and I don't know if that's the guy. Was it ever the guy? I don't know. I never caught it like I never had a face to face or anything or I don't know what he's you know I couldn't describe him what you know what he would look like or anything like that. Was he born a mask? No. Well, you could see him in the window. I could just see like his silhouette because he's in the black, he's dark outside and there's more light inside than there is outside. Okay.

So like all I see is breath and like, you know, whatever shadow, tight, you know. Damn. But I wasn't like, you know, whatever shadow, tight, you know. Damn. But I wasn't like, you know, I was, yeah. But anyway, so, and then like, Caller ID had came out too. So, you know, I was getting a bunch of weird calls on my house and then this stuff was going on and I was kind of, you know, I was getting a bunch of weird calls on my house, and then this stuff was going on,

and I was kind of, you know. But what happened to the guy? I mean, so when they caught him, they cut all of the vegetation around my window, and they put a security light. Okay. So that's what happened for me. And then we moved out like within a few months.

So like, I mean, I don't know what happened to him. Did he get prosecuted? I don't know his name. I don't know, you know, but that whole experience, this just, you know, I kind of buried that. Yeah. And then I went through my life, and I went through military and all that stuff,

and then it got brought up after the military, you know? Yeah. When I stumbled into these random healing things, you know, it was like, you know, damn, you really buried it. Yeah, you know. Damn, you really buried it. Yeah, people hypnotized me and fucking brought it out. You know. Yeah, that's how deep I buried it.

Wow, did you realize that when you, did you realize how deep you buried it? No, it's, no. This is survival's mechanism. Yeah, but like also, you know, that's not something you share at a cocktail party. Yeah, no kidding. So how long were you sleeping in the closet? Um, probably three or four years.

But I started to become resilient in there too, because I started to even reframe things, and things like, oh, well, this is actually not that bad, because guess what, I don't have to make my bed anymore, because my bed's always perfectly made in the center of my room, because I'm never gonna sleep in there. Damn.

And I had like, so, and I had all these shelves in my room. And all the shelves had like action figures on them and you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. With like the fight scenes and stuff. And my bed was perfectly made. And so my room was perfect. And I was like, that's fine. So now I just stay in here. And it's like, you know, and I, my parents and I had a lot of, you know, I had a lot of abuse growing up and stuff like that in different ways, but my parents and I are close now. What kind of abuse? We'll just, you know, physical abuse for one with my, you know, but, uh, but that was on top of this other thing that's going on. That's like psychological abuse.

And, um, and then I was a lot younger than most people in my grade. So growing up, I was like, you know, a small, you know. So I was like, my birthday is in August. And so, you know, I'd be 13 and everybody else is 15 in my grade kind of thing. Yeah. Because I started school early and I was a year ahead. Oh, wow. Yeah. So you're like two years, but I'm a body. Yeah. Because I started school early and I was a year ahead. Oh, wow. Yeah. So you're like two years. I'm a runny. Yeah. Especially once people hit puberty and stuff, I was like like a little kid in my grade, you know. Yeah. But then

with these situations at home and kind of, you know, in my neighborhood, like the park down the street was like a gang type thing. You know, so for me to have free passage and like kind of stuff, I had to like, you know, get jumped and, you know, do like stupid shit like that, you know, to... That's a lot to unpack here. So you were abused by sexual predators. Well, it's just a peeping Tom.

Yeah, he never touched me or never. Yeah, but just fucking in the window. Then you had physical abuse going on with your parents. Then you had to deal with peer abuse or I don't know what you call gang abuse, peer abuse. Yeah. You know, what was going on with your parents? Was it punishment or was it so I think like you know my you know my this right before they divorced too. So like things are just things are out things are just, things are out of whack.

You things are out of alignment. You know, and it was like just, you know, they're taking their frustrations out on you. Yeah, both parents. No, just my, yeah, not my mom, but my mom was there, you know, my dad. But I think it's also, you know, like, because of the, there was a sense with the peeping Tom thing,

like that created a serious problem with me and my parents. Back in Imagine. And so I think that that, like, cause a lot more problems, you know? my appearance. The average on-farm income in the United States was a loss of $1,100. 60% of US pork comes from one company wholly owned by the Chinese, and farmers are more likely to commit suicide than veterans. Folks, we got a problem.

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now is going to bring all of those kids and the adults, you know, who've never overcome it. You know, it's gonna give them a lot of hope. Do you wanna go any deeper? Yeah, um. What, uh, specifically? Let's talk about the abuse from your dad. What does that look like?

How would it start? Um... You know, like if I did something, you know, like I got in trouble doing something, you know, and then it just got taken away out of proportion. How old? I'd say like, started when I was like, eight, nine, 10, 11, like, so legit.

Yeah, so honest, like, little mistakes that every eight nine ten-year-old make that kind of stuff. Yeah you know how would you get approached? Oftentimes, it would just be, you know, kind of like, it's like dealing with someone with high blood pressure or someone that's like, you know, needs to be on some kind of meds or something. And think that was a big part of it you know because like my dad's different these days because he's on med he's on his like high blood pressure and all of his medications that level him out and regulate him but like at that time you know so if he had a bad day or if there's something I did that that sparked punishment or something, then it would go from there.

I want to ask you a question, and I hope it doesn't offend you. But I want to know, because I think a lot of people that deal with this have this issue. Why? Right now, I can tell you don't want to dive into this, and it's not because you don't want to talk about it. It's because you want to protect

the abuser Why do you want to protect the abuser? You're making excuses for things that happened and they just happened If you do tell us that's all you're doing is telling us what you experienced. You're not diamond anybody out. You're telling us how it happened from your vantage point and how you experienced it. Why don't you wanna do that? I have like a sense of, you know, people that are in my circle, you know, in my family

tree or anything that, you know, I protect, I have a sense of protection over it, but I see where you're coming from, and I appreciate that. And you know, my parents and I, we fell out. When I got out and I did some this stumbled into some of this healing stuff. And like I said, you know, and we'll get into that. But you know, I had, it opened up Panstora's box of memories.

And so I didn't want to talk to my parents anymore, you know. And we didn't talk. And we were completely separated. Like, you know, whatever, we didn't have a great relationship before that. But we're not on speaking terms at all for a couple of years. And then after I went through some of my healing stuff with the five, I reconnected with my family.

And what my mom told me, because when I reconnected with my mom, I told her that I wanted to have an accountability moment with her. And we did. And what she told me was that there were times where my dad stomped me out in front of her and that she should have called child protective services, but she didn't. And she regrets it, you know, she should have done that.

And I'm grateful that she didn't. I'm grateful that everything played out the way that it did because that's how I got here. You know, that like, had she called, would have ended up differently. Maybe I would have gone to a different fucking, into a system. You know, different from the system that I ended up in. You know, so, kind of, you know, and where I'm at now is like, I'm in full possibility that me and my parents are gonna, you know,

just continue to build our relationship and, you know, work through our stuff and not continue this cycle for our family members coming behind us, you know, learn from this shit. Let's learn and, you know, grow. You know, the only way to move past stuff like that is to this forgiveness. It's the only possible way to move past that. How did you find forgiveness? Well, I had some healing support that really helped with the surrender aspect. Because I think for my experience, I had like a broken kind of thing where it's like,

I'll never quit kind of thing. And that I'll never surrender. You know, and it's like that was that I'll never surrender. You know, and it's like that was, the I'll never quit mentality was holding me back with this like, you know, I'll never forgive these people for what they did to me kind of thing. You know, when it's like when you're doing that with anybody that you have a grievance with, you're just like taking poison, you know,

and expecting the other person to get hit. Nothing's gonna happen to them. They're gonna keep doing the same shit. You're just, you're just, you're just poisoning yourself by with the grievance. And so, but how do we know that? That's just like over time, you know, unless you're like a psychologist or something, you know.

Okay. So you moved away from your parents? You got in with your grandparents? Well, so my mom and sister moved down where my grandparents lived in South Texas, down in Mexico. And I moved in, my dad and I moved out of our house, I moved into like a condo. You stayed with your dad?

I stayed with my dad, yeah, well, because I was going into high school and all my circle of friends and everything that I grew up with were in there. So I was like, I don't know anyone down there. I'm not going to high school down there. Like, you know what I'm saying? Did I make sense?

I mean, I'm one aspect. It makes sense. And the other aspect, I would think that you want to get the hell away from the abuse situation. So you go ahead. And I did. And I tried to go live with my mom. I tried to go live with my mom for a little bit. But like, to me, having my mom, I tried to go live with my mom for a little bit, but

to me, having my friends was important to me, so I ended up back in Corpus. Because I was all the people that I really had a strong group of friends. That was what I relied on a lot. So growing up, and so I tried to be, I tried and living with my mom for a little bit, but I moved back. And so I ended up living kind of in an apartment by myself because my dad was living with this girlfriend. And so you wanted to move back with your dad because there were no rules at this time. He wasn't.

That was a track, that was part of it too. Because they're, you know, everybody else have lived with their parents and had rules. They had curfews, they weren't allowed to drink, they weren't allowed to drug. You could have parties, I get it now. Yeah. You were. And I wasn't really. Yeah. And I was like, um, but it wasn't, uh, it was oftentimes sometimes I would have friends over and stuff like that. But it was a lot of times just like, you know, being in their

room by myself. And my grandma would give me rides to school or how to have to figure out rides to school. And then I got my hardship license when I was 15. So I had a vehicle when I was 14. What's a hardship license? In Texas, you can get your license when you're a year early. Oh, driver's license.

Okay, driver's license. Yeah. So I was basically, I had my own car and everything when I was 14 and I was living in my apartment. How were you supporting yourself? I had allowance to some extent for my family, but I wasn't, you know, I was very resourceful. Did you come from money? It sounds like your parents had money. No. You're talking about a gate to your house that you fell off at seven years old. No, yeah, no, like it was all like what do you call it? Middle class. Okay. You're talking about an allowance that's enabled you to get a car and a department at age 14.

Yeah, no, not like that. Like I got like a speed up ass like Mitsubishi Montero, like dump truck car that I drove for a while till I totaled it. And then I got another truck or something. But anyway, it wasn't like that. Really, you know, I have my grandparents, my dad's parents were successful.

My grandfather was a successful attorney in Texas. And my grandparents on my mom's side are very like hardworking but successful construction people. Architect like builders, you know. So, upper metal class. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But and then growing up I also have my uncle Steve who's a successful business guy, marketing executive in San Antonio, Texas. And so, you know, I would go, he would take me to like the Cowboys game or something, and he'd be presenting on the middle of the field at halftime and stuff.

And I'd be like, whoa, you know, like, so seeing that stuff's possible, I feel like it's very important for young people, you know, to see that stuff's possible, I feel like it's very important for young people to see that stuff because like see Michael Steve do that and then seeing like his business that he had in his house and all of this cool stuff and whatever else. It's like, wow, some of my family is doing this. This is possible. Yeah, that's it. I can see how that will bring a lot of hope.

Yeah, and my grandparents would take me so every summer on vacation when I was growing up and it was always about like to become resourceful to learn about different cultures and all that stuff. And so sometimes we'd go to San Antonio and go like around like historical places. Sometimes we go to Mexico. And as I got older, they take me to different places in Mexico, but a lot of summers growing

up are good. Like Sammy, Guelda, Yende, and Mexico and stay for a week or two with my grandparents. And they had a house that they would stay at down there in the summer for a little bit. And so I loved the Mexican culture. And every year on Christmas Day my grandparents would take us into Mexico with a caravan of like suburban and trucks, like all their construction vehicles and everything loaded with clothes, food, toys, like anything that we could scrap to give to people for Christmas and we would go into the poorest neighborhoods and deliver all that stuff.

And that's awesome. And we got to a point where every year we would have to actually bribe to get across, to take this stuff even and we would still to actually bribe to get across, to take this stuff even, and we would still do it. And we would always make it work up until the security situation got to where it did and we don't do that anymore. What's the draw to Mexico for your family?

Do you have Mexican heritage? Yeah, on my grandfather's side. But, you know know like my grandfather built a lot of these Mexican colonial type buildings, and so he would go into San Miguel de Yende where he would have all these special subcontractors and artists and stuff that would build all these you know special finishes that he would put on these buildings and houses and stuff. So, you know, he's my, they were constantly going down there for, you know, construction materials and art stuff and all that type of stuff. So, you know, I've just always been going, we used to go hunting in Mexico, like duck hunting at a ranch in Mexico almost every year. I grew up going like, you know, to like, you know, all these like senior frogs and like, these types of places because when you're over when you're when you're 13 or 14 years old in

Mexico, then it's like you're 21. You know, you have full access, you can drink, you can go to any bar, you can do anything, you know. What kind of stuff are you doing? We kind of brushed over this last night at dinner on purpose because I wanted to keep it vague for today. Yeah, no. Yeah. No, so my grandparents have always been like, you know,

really good about kind good about keeping me motivated and setting me up with opportunities to go have fun and do stuff. Whenever I was young elementary school, they would take me to the amusement parks. And they would tell me stuff like, hey, figure out how to get in the front of the line, figure out how to get as many rides in as possible. You're on your own today. And so I would come up with all these things, like, hey, I'm just looking for my parents, and I get to the front of the line. And so they were kind of like training me, you know. And then they'd take me to Mexico, you know, and we'd be at like,

you know, there's like a restaurant there and Sammy Gell, called Mama Mia's, we go to dinner there, you know, and I'm like 13, 14 years old, and then they'd like, it's eight o'clock at night or whatever, nine o'clock, and they're like, all right, we're gonna head back to the hotel. You know, go ahead, hear some money. You know, just be back by one o'clock, you know, have fun. And like, then I'd be in the nightlife, you know?

And so, that was, you know, what did that lead into? That was, you know, what did that lead into? What? Like those, you know, uh, just, I mean, being young and being exposed to like, you know, I mean, you're talking 13 or so with a one o'clock curfew and, and grandparents giving you money to go party in Mexico. Yeah, I've literally have never heard that before. Yeah, dude. And I can see that. That could lead into some. Yeah, I could, that could go into some different directions.

And they never stopped, like even when I went to boot camp for Marines, I had been in a lot of trouble before I went and then I got all my stuff taken care of and I went and so they said, when you get done with boot camp, we're gonna be at your graduation and we're gonna take you to Vegas to party. Woo! My God. So they did.

They rented a town car and we drove straight to Vegas, dude. Damn. And we party. They cut me loose. Hey, we're in Vegas. It's like, it's like, we're going to bed because we got there at dinner time. We're going to have dinner and go to bed. Do your thing.

You know, we'll see you at lunch tomorrow. Wow. I've never heard of the grandparents like that. That's incredible. Yeah, there's, there, that's, you know, my grandparents have been my, my why for a long time. Merley.

Were you dealing drugs at a young age? Yeah, I mean, like, I wasn't like on a high level or anything, but on the border area, there's a lot of active drug activity. And it's definitely... So let's talk about that. What got you into dealing drugs? What kind of drugs are you dealing? I mean, I lit like, I don't know, uh, cocaine.

Cannabis, cocaine, yeah. Ecstasy. A little bit, yeah. Anything else? Uh, nah, it's pretty street drugs, any prescription stuff. Um, a little bit, and how I got into that was like, I worked in spring break in South Pudder Island, you know. And I went to military school, that's a part we didn't talk about.

We'll get there. Boarding school. We'll get there. That was a big like, because like a lot of people, a lot of kids at boarding school kind of opened up your perspective, right? But when I got out, I was at, before I went into the Marine Corps, I was working at South Padre Island Spring Break. And one of my jobs was working at Club Revolution,

which was like a rave club that opened at 2am, you know. How old were you? I was 18. Okay. Yeah. So, um, this is like, I couldn't get a job at the other clubs at that age, but I could get a job there. So during the day, I worked at the Radisson Hotel, which was like the main place that everybody

went, you know. And I did that. And at night I would work at Club Revolution and that was where I saw a lot of crazy shit and that's got introduced to all this stuff with the drugs and everything. But if you look like South Putter Islands right on the border of Mexico, so all that stuff over there. But with all that stuff, like getting into all that before I went into the military,

I'm grateful for that because I don't want to be involved with that stuff at this point in my life. Yeah. Because I've already been around that street life. How did you first get into dealing drugs at 18? Is that when you first started was 18 years old? Yeah, working at, you know, let's get into the nitty gritty. Like, how did it go?

So, you know, you basically get, you know, back then like with cannabis was about hydroponics, you know what I mean. So like you get access to like a pound of hydroponics, and then you got a digital scale, and then you're breaking off, grams to eighths to quarters to ounces to QPs, half pound, whatever it is that you're doing, with whatever it is. And then depending on how well someone teaches you, then you're basically got your business of how much you get it

for and then how much you break it off for and sell it for. I mean, with that, I guess what I'm kind of getting at is something has to spark the interest and to getting into that kind of a business, you know, so, were you just doing it and then selling it to friends or was this? No, I think it was just an operation. Yeah, I think it was just that, like, I like, you know, I was being gravitated in these environments that I was in towards, like, the hitters, you know, towards the, like, the action type people that were, like, I don't know, prominent in the city.

Yeah, the ones that like were, seem like they were, had shit figured out. I don't know. You know what I'm good. And it's like, I'm here. I work at this club and these guys have all this things that they're doing, right? Yeah.

And so talk to those guys if you wanna start start getting like, if you want to be like, yeah, then start doing what they did. Yeah, but at that time, like, to be completely clear, I was getting in so much trouble and I wasn't anywhere happy or fulfilled or like, like any of this stuff. And that's why I was being my head against the wall. And I have so much drive and everything, but if I don't have purpose, then I'm just gonna end up in trouble. You know what I'm saying? I have drive, I wanna make impact,

but if I don't have purpose, and I'm not on some kind of a path, or have a mechanism to add value to something, then like it's just going to go down. But I think also like, do we see all these movies and they glorify all this stuff right? And that's our culture. And then I live in an area that's like Scarface, machismo, like drug dealer, kind of like Swave type culture, and it's that doesn't I mean that's not realistic. Yeah, that's a pipe dream that they sell you on a movie or something

you know, and that these guys all those guys that were cool in the club, they all died or went to jail or those guys that were cool in the club, they all died or went to jail or have miserable existences in some way or hiding out from people or they got robbed. Yeah, you know what? Like in a mansion. How many people were you dealing to? What do you mean? When you were dealing drugs. How many people were you dealing to?

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This product is not intended to diagnose treat cure or prevent diseases. I mean, 10, 20, 100. Like 20? 20? Yeah. 100. Like 20. 20? Yeah. Low key.

And then I had experiences where I would live with drug dealers, but I wasn't really like the dealer, you know. So. You lived with drug dealers? Yes. How did that happen? I went to, so when I graduated college or high school, my first college that I tried was Texas Lutheran University.

And when I got to that school, my roommate was a drug dealer. And we ended up moving out of off campus and living together and he was a drug dealer from New York City. And was it pushing a lot of drugs or? He was pushing like, I would say like, he was a cocaine dealer, but he was getting like, fronted like a few ounces and flipping them over a couple of weeks or something like that. Okay.

So nothing major? No, nothing major. No, but that, some of those guys got into major stuff, you know, while I was in the military. Yeah, I can imagine. But, so I really looked out. Let's go back to military school. We'll get you in there.

Well, did that, so did I cover what you were talking about with the childhood stuff? Yeah. Cool. Yeah. So military school was a blessing for me. Because my grandparents had came to take us on a summer vacation. And they saw for the first time that I was actually living by myself in the apartment. And they're like, damn, you know, they're like, you know, totally blindsided by it. They were, their minds were blown.

And they don't have a good relationship with my dad, because they're not, they're, you know, this is your mom's parents. Yeah, good. So since the divorce, they were not, you know, so that they were just like, this is unacceptable. So when I went back, or when we went on the vacation, we were up in San Antonio and there were these kids

from Texas Military Institute. That's called TMI, that's like a military school there. And they were in uniform out at the mall that we were at. And I was like, man, I wish I could do something like that. You know, and my grandparents lived near a military school, Marine Military Academy in Texas, and in Harlington, Texas. And so they had like a light bulb and whenever we got back, before school started, they offered to take me

on a tour of the school, of military school. So I went down and I went on a tour like golf cart around this beautiful campus. Dude like, here's a gym, you're gonna have access to that, here's where you're gonna live, here's a chal hall, here's like the Iwo Jima monument, here's like all this stuff and it's just like this historical, like just powerful, you know, tour. And I'm like, yeah, of course, I mean, my grandparents are paying for me to be there.

They're gonna pay for me to be there. It's like, I don't know, 20 grand a year or something. You know, so it's like, yeah dude. I mean, most kids get sent there unwillingly against their will. Because I was almost one of those kids. Getting trouble. Yeah. It was threatened several times.

There was no part of me that wanted to go to a military school. Dude, that's awesome man. It's so fascinating. Because when I got there, it's like learning everyone's story of how they ended up there. It's really cool. A lot of people have some type of criminal thing that got them there.

And there's kids from all over the world we had, like the second richest family from Russia. Kid, that was live with me, that was a my thing. We had a lot of people from Mexico, from all parts of Mexico, you know. So, but like my first roommate, for example, he got caught driving around in a suburban, rolling the windows down, blacked out,

paintballing, spray painting or spraying people on the street with paintballs And then like went back to his house and they had got his license plates or whatever. That's how he ended up there He ran away every night until he got sent home You know, yeah, but it was like So anyway getting the military school dude was uh was awesome and getting in there was like, so anyway, getting to military school, dude, was awesome. And getting in there was like, you know, is a real environment because you're live there, there's fights, and you can't talk and expect that someone's gonna protect you or that like, you're gonna get to just walk away from that, you know, you gotta stand behind your words and, you know,

prove yourself, especially at the beginning, you know, because you're living in the environment, you know, and like, it was wild. Where did your interest for the military come? Where did it come from? Did it, like, it was just like random. I don't have any military people in my family, you know? It was just, I saw these kids in uniform and something.

So we've been going to the military school, you didn't have any interest to go into the military? No. When did that develop. When I was there for sure, because when we were there, we had a lot of like our drill instructors, we were Marines, a lot of them were Vietnam, Iraq, combat Marines that were drill instructors. They all had been drill instructors. Some of them were a couple of them were force recon. So we

would get like, you know, we had leadership class with a force recon, you know, officer and he was giving like, he would be showing like, you know, uh, obstacle course and like, you know, like field training video and like all these things so it's like you're getting indoctrinated, dude. You don't even realize it. Yeah. Like I'm watching, like, force recon. And I'm just like, this is it.

Like this is so sick, you know? But I wasn't, I wasn't thinking about the military. I was, but I was, I loved all that stuff, you know? And I love being in the environment at military school where it's like, you know, this is real. Like, if you, if you, who like, you know, if you rad on all of us, you're going to get choked out in the hallway. Like, in between, like, change over in between a study hour tonight, you're going to get choked out, you know, like, or whatever that, whatever it is, dude, but it was always something

going on too, man. Like, it's like, because we had four hours every night where we had to be behind our desk, like in study, you know, or three hours, whatever it is. And there would be people passing information, hey, someone got in between the break, one of the kids that's here for hacking, Kim, he got caught with his arm caught in the Coke machine downstairs. And he stuck down there, you know.

And so then we all go down and they're like, doing crazy shit to this kid that stuck in the thing, but it's like there's always something. Every day going on. And while I was there, I had a jeep wrangler that I had parked because my family lived close. So I had my vehicle parked at the airport parking lot that was conjoined with the military school. So if I could find a way to get out of the gate,

like, because it's a secured facility so you literally have to break out, like, it's not like Shawshank, but you gotta get out, you gotta find a way out, like, for because security's roving and there's all the things that can catch you from getting out of the initial thing. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. What about military school? What do you want me to hit on? Hey, I just want you

to tell your story, man. But, um, is that all you want to cover with that? Um, I don't really know if I covered, like, key points of military school. It's just, it was such a foundational thing because I was coming from, like, scarcity and no rules and kids need rules, you know. And so that was, like, you know, having that and then knowing that there wasn't any bullshit,

there was no peeping Tom, there's no, like, there's no one bothering me. That was a safety blanket too. Yeah. Because I'm like, dude, I'm free. So you liked all the structure that took for granted? I loved it. I loved it, yeah.

Interesting. Yeah. Well, what did you do after military school? You went to college, we covered that a little bit, became a drug dealer. What got you, what eventually got you interested in doing the Marine Corps? So I had gone back down and I was working at Spring Break and I was getting into a lot of trouble and I went to jail a few times.

And would you go to jail for? Possession and public, like, what was it like, you know, one time I was like, I had like a balancer type job. So I had a lot of IDs. And so I got caught with like falsifying government documents. Yeah, because I had an ID that wasn't mine when they searched me. Okay. And so like stuff like that with these other things. And you know, mainly I had one

possession charge of my grandfather helped me get out of. I ended up like clearing all my stuff, at least taking care of all of it, but before I joined. But dude, like, you know, I joined in 2005, you know, I probably started my paperwork in like 03 or 04 to get in. Oh, wow. But if it wasn't Iraq war, there's no way I would have gotten into it. Because now people with a D. D. Y. or like these things they can't get in. And I literally had a rap sheet, you know. And so it was really by the grace of God that I got in. And my grandfather was like, hey,

you know, I was sitting outside of my house one morning like no sleep in front of my house. And my grandfather was getting up and going to work and he walked over to me and I was like, I'm lost. You know, I don't know what I'm doing. And he was like, do you remember when you were at military school? And he was like, you did, you, you really liked that, you know, what if I took you to the Marine Recuritor and we talked to him? I was like, I don't know. I don't think that that's possible. You know, he's like, well, let's just see. So we went and I did like, I don't know man, I don't think that that's possible, you know. He's like, well let's just see.

So we went and I did like my ass vibe and got on my shit and, you know, signed up and then told them some like a little bit of stuff, but I didn't tell them anything really. And then when I went up to maps, you know, on the bus, it went up and did all my, like swore in and did all that stuff, like they ran my background and then that's when all my shit popped. So then when I came back there like,

dude, there's no way we can get you in, you know. This is just not possible. So I went back home and then maybe like a month later, I got a call from one of the recruiters. They're probably hurting for numbers. He's like, dude, I can't give you any guarantees, but if you'd be willing to work with us, I think we might be able to have a slight chance at wavering you through. So I went in and started writing these like witness statement waver things, you know. And like getting all my story, you know,

and after like, you know, I had to go out, like go through this long process, but then finally I got in, you know, after a year. And I went to maps like, dude, 15 times or some shit, like. 15 times? A lot. It's like, you're in a half in the in-maps.

So by the time I was in there so long that I had pissed some this lady, this marine lady off in San Antonio Meps to where when I finally got to boot camp in San Diego that she put a hit on me to the drill and structures out there. So they got me off when I came off the plane. They were waiting for me like before anyone else, you know what I'm saying? Are you serious? So I got to play the game before anyone else. Push ups. Yeah. What did you, what did you want to do in the Marine Corps? I don't know.

I wanted to do what they were doing in the videos in the force recon class that I was in in military school. I wanted to be in the crawling through the mud with a rifle and warfighter stuff. I didn't, but when I got in, I had to take whatever they would give me, you know, and I took artillery because that's what they gave me. And I didn't have an option because I was barely getting wavered in. So it was like, I took that job, but they told me that,

you know, nothing against artillery or any MOS in the military. I have nothing against any of them and I applaud all of them, you know, but for the for this they told me that like you're gonna be king of the battlefield artillery Da-da-da-da-da-da. And when I got to Marine Boot Camp, it's like all my friends were infantry and I was like, ah, I want to be infantry. That's what I want to be. That's what I'm Think my think my mind is wrapped around. You know, that's it. So then when I went to, so I went through boot camp. Let's hold on. Before we get into the military, let's wrap childhood up. Yeah.

And then we'll take a quick break. Cool. But you had a really rough childhood and I know we barely scratched the surface. But there are a lot of kids, a lot of kids that are going through that kind of stuff right now, there's a lot of adults that have never overcome that from when they work, kids.

And so what I want to ask you is coming from an environment like that and it started at seven and it didn't end until you went in. What advice or do you have anything enlightening to tell somebody that's in that situation right now, or that's been through that situation. Can you give them any hope? Any words of advice, any words of wisdom? Yeah, the two biggest things that come to mind is one, you're, get your support system around you, you know, like 360 degree security,

like your support system, you can do hard things. If you have your support system aligned with you, you know. So for me, that's like my circle of people, my wife, my kids, like all my close people in my life, like they helped me to move through this stuff, and they've helped me to navigate through it over the last five years since I got out. and they've helped me to navigate through it over the last five years since I got out.

And then the second thing is, you know, allowing yourself to feel whatever emotion that it is, that's coming from that, you know, and communicating about it, you know, and then as soon as you're able to, like reframe it as positively as possible that you can. So like for me, an example is like, there's been a lot of breakdowns that I've had,

you know, over the last five years about the peeping tom. And like, why did that happen to me, why me? And that's a victim thing, you know? And that's a breakdown. But then the breakthrough part of that is like, why me, and that's a victim thing, you know, and that's a breakdown. But then the breakthrough part of that is like, you know, if I really look at my life, that, that guy, that training that I got when I was in the closet and all that experience that happened, that that was like some of the most powerful training that I've gotten in my whole life.

You know, and as much as I've had times where I don't wanna drop kick that guy in the chest, you know, and put ratchet straps on him or whatever, you know? Yeah. Like I really would shake his hand or like maybe give him a pound. Maybe like dude, I don't know what type of weird stuff

you were on, but I appreciate it because that shit made me, that got me right here, you know. I don't know what type of weird stuff you were on, but I appreciate it because that should make me who I got me right here, you know, I'm able to make impact on other people or however I'm able to, you know, add value to people's lives and even my kids and anyone else that that's meaningful to me. So... So when you're talking about moving past that, because a lot of people never move past their trauma, it's like they get stuck in this circle. You know, you want to be over here,

but you're right here, and you're stuck in this circle, because you can't stop thinking about that... victimization. You're stuck in a pattern. Yeah, or a trap as you like to call it. You're stuck in a trap. And a feedback loop.

If you don't figure out how to mentally move past that, you will always be stuck in that trap and you're never gonna wind up over here. So getting your support network down, like you were saying, to move out of that trap to mentally move past that trauma, that victimization is imperative if you want to move over here. And yes, an approach versus avoid, you know, a lot of us avoid and mask. It's like, I don't want to deal with this shit or I'm just going to block this person or whatever it is.

And it's like, approach. If you approach it and lean in and just like, let's go, what is it? You know, it's like, that's, usually it's like, there's not really a boogie man there. You lean in, you deal with it, you process it. It might be like emotionally challenging to process it, process it, lean in, and then what's next? What else? What's the next hilltop for me? But any breakdown can be a breakthrough.

You know, any loss can be a win. any trauma can turn into like a powerful Learning point that you could share and help other people. I feel like you know, it's just like How are you gonna frame it? How are you gonna leverage it? You know when you're able to yeah Perfectly said let Let's take a look, Rick. Alright. I want to take a minute to tell you about Vigilance Elite Patreon.

Patron support is what makes this show possible and gives me the ability to bring these one-of-a-kind stories to the public. Go to patreon.com, slash Vigilanceance elite and support the Sean Ryan show today. All right, Brian, we're back from the break. We're getting ready to get into your military career. Awesome, brother. I wanted to go over one more thing from our conversation earlier. So with childhood, right? When my biggest takeaway from that whole experience is basically, you know, fear mindset

and versus and scarcity mindset and military mindset, security mindset, how that's all connected, right? And so those experiences put me into a fear mindset and security mindset and all these different things. They did a lot of ways set me up for success, but also at the same time hold me back in you know, in different ways. So now, like, you know, looking at fear and love and just like abundance mindset of like positivity, love, like, you know, abundance, possibility, right? But like, I have my comfort zone is like going back to this.

So it's like, how do I challenge myself to do more of this and to stop wanting to go back to this? Because as soon as I feel threatened or something like that, I am real quick to go back to this. It's like, oh well, I hope that that person tries to do this, you know, or whatever. And it's like, no, why do I keep doing that? That doesn't work.

Let's get a little more specific, like we did on the break. Yeah, like, go ahead. Give me the example that you gave on the break. So, you know, like whenever I was... When you're welcoming people to do bad things to you. Right. Because you want to act. Yeah. Yeah, that, you know, when I was in the closet and then I experienced, and then when I started to get physical abuse, that I started to

control it, you know, in my mind, and try to take control and say that, you know, I don't care if they hit me, you know, or when I would get jumped at the park or at school or anything that would happen, that I was, you know, like, after a hit or something, you can't really feel it, you know, your adrenaline goes up and whatever else, it's just whatever. You might have some lumps and like some soreness or whatever, but like goes away in a couple days, you know. So it's like just a way to control it, you know?

But then it got to the point where like, you know, so it's like just a way to control it, you know, but then it got to the point where like, you know, because I was younger significantly than most people in my grades so in high school like, you know, I Think what you're saying. I'm gonna paint this before you Because you said it really good on the break You said that you've revert back to That mindset all the time. That mindset being you're so used to abuse, you're so used to being in these situations that you try to recreate them. And then I had mentioned in my three and a half years of therapy twice a week to

get my shit together, I learned that from my therapist, the humans will always revert back to what they know, whether that's good, whether that's not good, whether that's bad, you know, you always revert back to your comfort zone, your comfort zone at that particular point in time was abuse. And you painted this picture where you said, if you're walking home through that park, you would walk with a limp to try to entice that person to come

fuck with you so that you could get into an altercation. Yes. Yeah. And you'd mention that you still revert back, you still catch yourself reverting back to that sometimes because you are so used to it. Exactly. And let you elaborate from there. Yes. So like, you know, I don't drink now. Like again, I have three years, not drinking now. So if I'm out at a bar with my friends or I'm DDing or whatever it is, I'm out in an environment where there's people that are drunk and there's people that I don't know, you know. That if you know, I catch people looking at me or trying to like, surveil me if I'm a soft target, you know,

that they might want to like try to rob me or do something to me that I'll try to make I'll want to make myself look like a soft target so that they would try to do that. That's my first thought and then I'm like, no, like be a hard target and then you don't have to deal with the problems. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like I don't know what and so it's like a it's a conflict You know, it's like you have like a

Person on each shoulder to say I voice on each shoulder, you know But at the end of the day, I don't want any conflict. I want peace. I want abundance possibility all that stuff it's just that sometimes my jump jerk reaction is that, you know. When you have a busy day ahead, try Batista Dry shampoo. It helps to support healthy hair by giving you the power to wash your hair less, reducing damage caused by washing, and saving your time to do whatever you need to do. Plus, Batista offers a wide range of products with amazing, long lasting fragrances to match any mood. Check out the new Batista Texturizing Dry Shampoo,

which adds grip and texture by removing excess oil. Refresh with the best. Buy Batista Dry Shampoo in store or online at your nearest retailer. You know, I get it. Act weak so you can teach this fucker a lesson. I get it. I totally get it. But I'm glad you brought that up. So let's move forward. Let's move into your military career.

So you're at boot camp. Shining star. You wanted to be artillery, but you want to be infantry and that's about where we left off. Yeah, you know, I've like the more I learn, I think that you know our motions drive our actions as certain things. And so I've looked at different phases and like what emotion was driving my actions at that time. And literally once I got to San Diego, I was surprised that I got in. 100% surprised. Like I felt like I got away with something. And I was in.

Yeah. And so when I got there, like I got to San Diego and I was seeing, you know, for example, the Seagulls, you know, like the Seagulls back where in South Texas look like they're little rats, you know, and they'll like take your lunch from your car if you turn around type of thing. And these ones on San Diego look like two-can Sam. Like everything is flush, nice, abundant. And when you're walking around downtown San Diego where the recruit depot is, where you have to do all the marching. And it's like that's a big like,

oh, it's so hard to do the marching. But the whole time we were marching, I was checked out and just observing all of the environment and San Diego so nice. All of the houses on the hills downtown, the weather is nicest. So, but because I had, that was only because I had the experience of Marine military academy.

So that's why when I was at Marine Boot Camp, I did Boot Camp when I was 16 there, where you actually get hit and things like, it's like there's some things that are a lot more legit at military school than what I experienced that Boot Camp was kind of like. Are you saying that the military school was what I experienced at boot camp. So I was kind of like, are you saying that military military school was tougher than boot camp? 100%. No shit. Yeah. Yeah, because, well, I mean,

physically demanding boot camp, real Marine Corps boot camp, like, because they have everything's expedited. So real Marine Corps boot camps three months. At military school, it's a month. Marine Corps boot camp, you do a three day crucible at the end that leads into you climbing the hill and becoming a Marine. At military school, you do a one night crucible. You know? But it's like the things about military school

that make it so legit and authentic is That the student run the students run the Lead the accountability and of the school inside the dorm underneath the drone instructor There so you run your own discipline So after the chain of command is the students. So you'll have a student that's been there for two years. It's like you know, got a junior leadership position and the people that have been there three years, four years that are standouts, they're the company commander. And then you have like the staff underneath them. And so the students run the discipline in some ways.

If that makes sense. And so that's why, so like, and in the Marine Corps, you're not gonna get hit, you're not like, from my experience, from a drone instructor, from anything like that, they've had that happen and they, you know, so they make examples out of that and they don't do that, you know. So from my experience, I'm like, man, they're not going to hit me and I get to be in San Diego and let's play the game.

Yeah. So it was relatively easy for you. Yes, except I did think that, because my drone instructors were like, telling me that I was in trouble, that my paperwork was not good and all this stuff. So I didn't know that I was actually gonna graduate. You know, so I was kind of like, I didn't have like any aspirations of doing anything. I was just kind of like,

just going through the motions. Day by day. Day by day getting thrashed too. So that was my first experience getting thrashed, you know, like push-ups, this, this, this, jumping jacks, do this, do this, do this, do this, like whatever they call them. Buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, and then like, okay, now when you think you're gonna be done, now you're gonna go for longer and longer and longer and longer and longer and longer, and longer and then everybody else is gonna leave,

and you're gonna be the one in trouble that's doing this for hours that you're still doing this. And so it's like, okay, cool, like that. Getting some of those experiences, all that stuff, and then I graduated. So then once I graduate, I'm like, this is real. I'm, you know, my grandparents took me to Vegas to celebrate.

And, you know, and then I came back and, I checked in to, so at the end of boot camp, once I knew I was graduating, you have a couple admin days, you know, and so I went and I was working on getting my, because they had a little information thing where they said, if you get to infantry school and you wanna switch to infantry, you can.

And like, blah, blah, blah. So I was trying to start that process then, because I wanted to get switched. So then when I got to infantry school, it's like two lines. You're going either infantry school or you're going to Marine Combat School. Marine Combat School, all the other jobs that are not infantry or recon or whatever, you know, like the war fighter combat in the OS's. And then these are non-combat in the OS's and so they go to like legit combat training like balls of the wall for 17 days because they might not get exposed to any of that

until they're on deployment. Okay. So I'm supposed to be in the infantry school line from what I thought, from what they told me I boot camp. So I'm in, and they're like, no, you're in combat training. And I'm, because you're artillery, you're not infantry. So then I go, and I'm like, in this, but I'm tough, but I want to be an infantry, they said that we could switch and I already did that.

So I end up in our, I end up in combat training, training day one. Hey, I need, and then they had a brief. If you want to go to infantry, you can, whatever, training day two, training day three, all the way like I'm about to graduate. I've been telling them since we started. Like I want to get switched. Yeah. Like you've been saying we could get switched.

Remember you like, and finally what worked is, I sat on my bed one morning, my rack, and said I refuse to train. You know, I was private. And I refused the train. What? Like, and then there's one person ran up, instructor ran up, I refused the train.

Are you sure? Yes. You know, and like straight face. And then they run off and then they run back and they're like, grab all your gear and then meet outside. Grabbed all my gear went outside. They had me turn my gear, get all my gear for infantry school and then I go and check in that's what war yes

I refused a train and that's a tool Keep that in your back pocket if you're in the Marine Corps something like that Right on you probably got a whole company of people now that's gonna refuse the train after they watch this Yeah play that well, I mean if if I understand your operational environment and play the game accordingly. Yeah. But so I refused the train. Got a work, got put in infantry school. So now I'm awaiting infantry training with all my buddies that have just been sitting around for a few weeks while I was doing this other combat training. And they're all just sitting around fighting each other.

Everyone's got a knife in their pocket and I'm like, cool, this is good. This is a good environment. This is all my buddies are here, and then we started in infantry school. So, infantry school is pretty cool. You know, like pretty standard experience. We, you know, we would go out though on the weekends. And so, I had a group of guys that were with me that we had like a,

like the same thing that we started doing, you know, weekend after weekend where we would get, you know, the bus, when we got off work on Friday to take us downtown San Diego, we stayed at a certain hotel and we had like, you know, this system and then we would take, you know, this, whatever it was, taxi to the tram, to the SDSU, for at parties and the SDSU parties.

Right? Nice. And that worked until it didn't work, you know? So, you know, one night, we were out one of the parties. I mean, we would do stuff like, we were out one of the parties and I mean we would do stuff like We would throw the kegs over the of the fence and then just take the keg back to the hotel, you know And stuff like that, but One night

Somehow we thought that because my wallet was gone and we thought that one of the frat guys had my wallet, so we locked the front door and we started doing wall searches on those guys. And we embarrassed a couple of them and we took their empty their pockets and whatever, remember like robbing them but we just took their stuff out and whatever else. And they reported us back to base.

And so Monday morning, when I showed up, they were calling me my name and my Liberty Buddy, the guy that signed out with me on Friday. And so that was my first experience of like, the Kangaroo Accord system. What is, what is, I mean, I can't see a marine two upset that you heckled some fat boys, but there's just, yeah, not for sure. But so these guys, you know, they tried to burn us, you know,

they tried to burn me. So they were saying that I was like doing things there that I wasn't doing, you know. And so, like illegal, you know, activities so anyway, like I got pulled out of training and I got put, like sat down on a bench and then they put crime scene tape around my locker, like around my bed and my locker where all my shit was and then they started like interviewing anybody that saw me that weekend, right?

Yeah. And then these guys are coming out of the interview and I'm stuck on this bench for like a full day and like they're just coming out and like people that I know, right? They're just looking at me going, I'm like, what's dude? No, they're like flipping all these guys. I'm like, what? Dude, nah. They're like flipping all these guys. Some of them know, but, you know, but anyway, what ended up happening is like,

there was nothing they were trying to burn me, and all the shit was false, and I like, you know, took a drug test and went back to training. Right on. So, um, went back to training, but that was kind of my first experience of like, the UCMJ, how that stuff, how that games, you know. So anyway, graduated If It True School

and went to 2-1, second battalion, first reigns infantry men, riflemen. And immediately like my first day in my infantry platoon, I got pulled because all they just got back from my rack. And they were all pretty tight in the platoon and they had a couple slots to snipe or platoon and they didn't want to go because they wanted to stay with each other, most of them. So they sent the new guys that just got there that met the qualification with like our

fitness test. You know what I mean? Yeah. So I went to snipers the second, like the first week I was there. So the first week you showed up to infantry school, they sent you to Marine sniper school? To Indoc, yeah.

To Indoc, no, no, no, not to sniper school. Oh, okay. To sniper platoon to the Indoc, to like start to get assessed like to the trial. Okay. Yeah, that was like, I don't know, two months. How did you feel about that? A lot of, I know a lot of Marines want to go to that school.

I was surprised again. I'll bet. At that time, I was not grounded at all. And I didn't have any goals being there. Some guys that I was at Infantry School were already getting kicked out of the Marine Corps for different shit. Like trouble. People that I was hanging out with and stuff

on the weekends. And, and, yeah, so, you know, I was surprised. And, but I saw it as an opportunity. And what worked for me is one of my buddies from infantry school got put into my platoon with me and he got the same opportunity. So it's like I had a guy that was going, that was with me. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? That helps a lot. So we were both like, we got to get this gear,

you know, like we're like a buddy system, you know. So then we got, whatever got into the end doc and then, you know, that was a good experience too because it was just learning like, you know, how to like mentally deal with running the hill all day, you know, and then doing land off. And then doing this and then doing the stock and then doing that and then doing that and then doing that. And then doing that and then being on the working party to get all the guns clean and then doing that whatever. get all the guns clean and then doing that and whatever. It's just like, and then crawl being a pig,

you know, in the sniper platoon, you're like always doing all the grunt work, you know, but they'll make you crawl from like yard-mind to yard-mind and all this different stuff. What do you mean being a pig? Like a pig gunner? Like a 60 gunner? It's a pig? No a pig gunner? Like a 60 gunner? It's a pig. No, so like in the sniper in the Marine Corps, you're a pig or you're a hog.

Okay. So a pig is professionally instructed gunman. And a hog is hunter of gunman. Interesting. I never heard that. Yeah, so a hog is someone that's completed Marine Course Niper School. Oh, good.

And so everybody else is like, you haven't earned that yet, and so you guess what? You get to earn it every day. And if you live at the barracks, you get to learn it every night, too. Got it. You know, because every time we call you out,

to come out front, come out front. And the train model that we use is right over here in the back of the barracks and all the holes, fighting holes are there and all the other stuff. So there's the hill that you run. So it's like it's not going to, it's always, you know. So anyway, it was a good experience on some fronts. But I ended up, my stepmom was killed in a car accident. And so I got a red cross message while I was in training.

And this is after I maybe been there for six months or something. So we're past the end doc. We're in the platoon and guys that are that I came in with are now like some of them are starting to get ready to go to sniper school and stuff like that. So, but anyway, I got a red cross message that my my stepmom got killed in a car accident. You know, were you close with her? I had, you know, not yet. What do you mean? Were you close with your stepmom? Yeah, but we actually had like, you know, we weren't,

we don't have the best relationship, but we had a relationship, you know? Okay. And so, anyway, I got a red cross They don't have the best relationship, but we have a relationship. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And so, anyway, I got a red cross message. My battalion was gone on a little mini-flow that they called RIMPAC where they go to hope on the ship to Hawaii and come back, right?

And so the whole unit was gone. I was really just sniper platoon and a few other people that were back. You know, so my lieutenant was like playing God back there, you know, and my Caddus thing where, you know, I was leaving and my staff sergeant that was in charge was trying to hook me up and make sure that I got to the airport and everything.

So he was like, you know, had me get my bags ready. I had my flight, had all my stuff to go home for the funeral. And then they had me come in to check out. And I saw the Staff Sergeant's face and he was like, you know, looked like he was sorry to me. It was like, hey man, report in to the lieutenant. And the lieutenant's behind his desk and say, go in and report in like, you know, marine reporting,

you know, private hall or whatever I was, private first class hall reporting is ordered. And he was like, hey, I heard about this, the news, the stuff happens. And so, but we just can't lose you from training right now. So, what I'm gonna need you to do now is go back to your room, put your uniform on, and load up on the trucks, because we got a stock.

And so, I was like, and it was like, it was like hazing, but on like a psychological level, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. And so I had to just take it, but like part of me right there, like, like died, like a flip switch when he pulled that shit to where I was like I do not care about any of this shit like sniper platoon none of you like you know so I you know I kind of like started that shifted me immediately was it that I ended up going on that stock that afternoon, and I remember I lost my veil, because I was just out of my mind. And it was kind of interesting,

because as I was getting processed, kicked out of the platoon for a behavioral drop, right? Because of my relationship with the lieutenant and everything that basically is from this whole thing. And basically, I was like, you know, telling people at the barracks, like, I don't care what my rank is, dude. dude like we're fucking Marines like It's man-to-man no one else is here. I don't have my fucking you don't have your rank on your collar like You know yeah, but that didn't work so they didn't want to play that game So it was all this fucking hazing bullshit, you know that they're all

Keepers of the badge when this guy wasn't the lieutenant's that never been a sniper school. Don't Marine Corps officers, they don't even get the opportunity to go to sniper school, do they? They're just fucking admin nerds with an ego trip, with a power trip. He wants to tell a fucking 18 year old kid he can't go see his dead step mom. What would you say to that guy right now if he was sitting right where I'm at? I just say he's a jellyfish. Or he can be piece of shit. Weak leadership.

I hope he watches this. Fucking cock sucker. I hate that kind of shit. So here's the funny thing though, dude, is that because like everything comes full circle, but like people like that, I mean, you fuck people over like that. They always fucking lose it. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm on radio watch, right? Like the least important thing

on top of the hilltop, you know, and they're all like all the sniper teams get inserted, right? And it's during, in Camp Pendleton and Southern California, there's times of the year where it's fire zone. And there's no pyro. Do not pop pyro, right? Because it's a you'll start a you'll start a full fire across you'll burn a whole range to the ground. If not more at Pendleton real quick. So there's no pyro allowed, right? So the range.

So the range safety officer officer which was the lieutenant popped Piro once the teams were inserted burn the entire range to the ground Go ahead extract another fucking incompetent fucking officer go figure we had to extract everybody immediate extract he was calling over the radio for them to try to Put the fire out with Gatorade bottles. With Gatorade bottles. And I could as I'm on the hilltop, I literally watched it spread with my finger like this. So anyway, that was cool too, because you know, we got pulled out, you know, we're supposed

to be in the field all week. Yeah. And we get pulled out the first night and our lieutenant's office. To say it gets burned. Yeah, the lieutenant's, lieutenant's he got burned dude he got relieved of his command after that good so I'll fuck him but that so after that I get started getting in trouble he's probably gonna see this I love that Hans Lutz, sir but

So But anyway that happens for a reason, you know, and that really that was a gift for me because it gave me drive And motivation that I wouldn't have had and that's what got me into Marsox What how do that how did that give you drive? Because the way I understood it the way I understood what you just said is the he not only did he Was the lieutenant on an ego trip and enjoyed Fucking you out of going to your stepmother's funeral But he also turned the entire sniper team against you with the hazing Or were you saying that it was just him hazing? He didn't turn the entire team.

There were good dudes that were playing that sick game, but there were a couple of bad ones that were snipers that were playing the game. And I had serious mono-emano problems with that. And like, especially with alcohol, right? So during the day in the Marine Corps, we all have rank on and you can say, hey, get your ass to the armory.

Get out here and clean this, sweep the floor, blah, blah, blah, when there's the higher ups that are around, right? It, blah, blah, blah, when there's the higher ups that are around, right? It's like, but when it's just us, like it's real life, there's no, there's no theater arts here. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.

I don't give a shit what your rank is. Like if you talk, like, you know what I mean? Yeah, it makes perfect sense. I lived without rank for my first almost three years in the Marine Corps, because I got in trouble. And it was a gift, a blessing, because I was on restriction the whole time, and I was walking around with no rank, and I would watch people with rank,

and I saw how it created a weakness for people, and I saw, I reframeded and I saw how having no rank is actually a strength. You see what I'm saying? How's having no rank, a strength? In certain ways it is, like, because if I'm attached to my rank, that's a weakness. And if I have to use my rank, their identity.

Yes, like, that's what's so cool about soft is that in rate or training, we take our rank off for 10 or 11 months, and you have to earn respect without your rank. And if you can't do that, you can't be there. Because people that hide behind their rank don't deserve to be there. Yeah. But there's a lot of that. Yeah. But there's a lot of that. Yeah.

And so, and even when you get out, it's like, I get out, it's like, dude, my rank doesn't matter. What rank I had in the Marine Corps matters this much? Like, who cares about that? What attachment do I have to that? And they're like, oh, well, you know, you were in for 12 years. And so you should kind of, well, you know, you were in for 12 years, and so you should kind of be like, you know, you should only talk this much.

And then this guy that's been in for 25, he should like, it's like, no dude, I don't really give a shit about any of that pecking order or any of that bureaucracy game. Everything's merit-based, performance-based. Like, that's the only thing that matters. Yeah. So what happens?

Let's go back into that. So he, Lieutenant gets kicked out because he burned the damn range. Yeah, and I'm going back to the grunts. So I just kind of go back with a smile on my face. And then, you know, go into the grunts and, like, grunts and it's pretty fun. My car in a machine got around. Getting ready, we think we're going Iraq and then end up on my first deployment.

It was like a year-long training deployment. Really? Yeah. But I got in trouble once majorly before I left where, and it was like, you know, I was upset from that disincident and I was drinking and then I was like pushing it, you know, I'm saying, where I was like kind of trying to see what happened, what would go on out and trying to see what happened, what would go on out and mixing it up. And so I was in downtown Oceanside and I was drunk. And I got in some trouble and got rolled up by the cops and then ended up like getting

slammed and going through that whole thing. And then cops took me to the front gate, at Camp Pendleton, and dropped me off. And then the duty from my unit came to get me from the front gate. And I ended up like, you know, I'm like a private and not guys with staff sergeant or whatever at the time. And I took his hat or his cover and did some shit. I wasn't listening to him and didn't stay in my room when I got back like they told me to and whatever else.

And so I ended up getting like my, you know, the little rank I had removed and put on restriction, you know, maxed out, no pay blah, blah, blah. That was my first time, no pay, blah, blah, blah. That was my first time getting that, going through that process. And so that's the kangaroo court system, the UCMJ. So you go through, and it's like,

what training or qualifications do any of these people have to be running like legal proceedings that affect people's careers? And so, but anyway, so anyway, I signed this stuff and whatever, I went through it, if I can took it, lost rank pay and all this stuff was on restriction Carrying a folder around checking in after after hours every two hours No pay, you know just working out a lot whatever bullshit and then deployed and I was on you know we We flew to Okinawa and then we're on a ship, you know and going back and forth and then coming back to Okinawa and then we're on a ship, you know, and going back and forth and then coming back to Okinawa. We went to, it's a 31st Mu, but they call it the 30 worst

because it sucks and it's a training deployment and it's the worst Mu. As Marines think, and we got extended for a full extra deployment, so they're for a year. So we're going to like South Korea and the wintertime doing fighting holes for a month miserable. Coming back, Tokonawa doing jungle training, going to Philippines doing a month in the fighting holes, training the fill Marines, back on the bus, back on the ship, back to whatever, going to Australia, a month-long patrol with Australian Army, horrifying dude. That was the hardest training that I did. That out of my whole military thing.

How good. The deployment legit, dude. Legit. Wow. And the infantry is no joke. And like, that's the thing is like, you know, because like in special operations training, you think, you know, I'm going to Hell Week

or I'm going to Field week, that's going to a prep for hell week or whatever that is. And so, it's going to be little to no sleep, you know. Did you go to patrolling ops with the infantry Marines? They're not like those guys were not sleeping, you know, they were all Iraq vets and they were in there. They would, we'd get to the patrol base in Camp Pendleton. They would have already been up for 24 hours before we started.

And then they'd stay up for days and they just like, get so into it, you know. So but anyway, so I started working out a lot on that deployment too, but I was on restriction the whole time, so what else are you gonna do? Yeah. And then when I got off restriction finally at the very end, I got in trouble like real quick. So we were at Camp Hansen in Okinawa and it's like, I don't know, really hot out there and blacked out drinking. You know, and it was like,

camp hands and fast or something like that. There was something going on. And I ended up like back in front of the barracks and I got into it with one of the staff sergeants that was in my company. That was a former drill instructor that I didn't get along with. Then always had alterations on the ship.

When we were on ship, he'd have me go, like, he had me go all the way around just like stupid shit like that. The sky always trying to, so I was blacked out and I saw him and ended up in this altercation, physical altercation that resulted in me getting fully maxed out, almost kicked out of the Marine Corps.

Damn. So I woke up the next day and people were like, do what's wrong with you, man. And I'm just like, and all this happened in front of people that I knew, you know, that could have, that I felt like, could have stopped it or whatever, you know, that's like neither here nor there, but,

but anyway, I was like really, so, but it worked out perfectly because it was like when I woke up and I was in trouble, I didn't, it was like someone else had committed the crime and I was like, I don't remember anything. I don't remember anything from like yesterday afternoon, like at all. And so, you know, because it was so similar

to what happened that first time I got maxed out, that they were looking at admins, stepping me, kicking me out, you know. And so, luckily, my staff surgeon at the time hooked me up and took me to medical and said that I had anger management problems. And I went to an anger management course. And so then it was all, then I took it the medical route.

You know? Yeah. And, but I learned from that course, it was like, don't drink if you're hungry, angry, lonely or tired. Halt, don't drink. You know, I don't drink now, like I don't drink at all. It doesn't work for me, I haven't drink for three years. I don't drink now, like I don't drink at all. It doesn't work for me. I haven't drink for three years.

I did 10 years not drinking in the military, but like don't drink if you have, if any of those things. And then because if you have trauma, and then you drink on top of that, that it's bad recipe. So I stopped drinking right then, and I basically isolated myself, and I was like, I'm not hanging out with anybody

by myself, and I'm gonna train and be sober. And so that was July 2007-ish that that happened, and I went 10 years sober until 2017. So when I started that, I was training crazy. For the last few months, I was in Okinawa, I was doing weighted vest runs for endurance and stuff like that in the heat and trying to push and see how far

because I was feeling the void of partying and drinking and stuff with extreme training. Yeah. And it's also I was noticing transformation. And I was like, I wanted to see how far I could push. And I was getting results on my stats, on my fitness scores, on all my pull ups, said double, like all this stuff. So I was like, you know, it was work. Something was working. So when I got back, I actually,

that next we did another work-up and then we went to Iraq and during that work-up, I got in contact with this trainer in San Diego. That was a mental focus coach. And that was a huge breakthrough for me. Cause, you know, this guy was from Spain and he was obsessed with mental focus. So he had all these workouts and then he would end it with this

with some type of a mental focus thing. What would that look like? What's what is a mental focus exercise? So it would be you know Like a run You know, and he would it will always be like a mind-fuck kind of thing where he would you know tell you he's not you're not gonna Know how far you're gonna run. I'm just going to put my hazards on when it's time for you to slow to jog or slow down and when it turn them off and I drive that means you run. Okay. And it's like, okay. And then

that and then going into a gym workout. So we go to like 24-hour fitness and do high reps, little weight, where it'd be like bench pressing 95 pounds, but do it 50 times. And then when you get to 50, he's gonna go 30, 30 more. And then he might just keep doing playing those games, where he's like boom, boom, boom. And so you do that. Then we go, you know, sometimes to the ocean and do a swim,

you know, and there's leopard sharks in in La Jolla. So there's a lot of weird sharks in there that look like sharks that don't aren't going to attack you. So it's not, I don't like swimming in that ocean, we would train there, and then we would go to the Kogan pool that I actually do a lot of professional athlete training now. He would take me there, and he would, like, you know, cut me, he'd say, hey, swim 1,000 meters on your stomach, swim 1,000 freestyle stroke, like do 1,000 breaststroke, 1,000 freestyle stroke, like do thousand breaststroke, thousand freestyle stroke,

and then 500 backstroke and then get out of the pool. And like, I wasn't a technical swimmer at that point, so he's like, I'm like, so how do I just do it? Figure it out. Swimming, self-correcting, anyway, just do it. Mm-hmm. You know, like, are you asking stupid questions? And so anyway, so then I do the swim and then the mental focus part would be back at the

house. You know, and it's after a long day, because this is after a day where a lot of these days I worked as an infantry man in the Marine Corps, waking up at 5 a.m. going out on a run, doing all the physical training, working all day, and then driving to La Jolla after I'm off work, and they kind of sluice. That's when I started training with this guy. Wow. So I'm dedicated. So I'm dedicated.

Yeah, so this is like midnight, you know, to Camp Hornow. And so the last, the mental focus would be like holding out a stick, like a five pound to seven pound stick, you know, for time. Like, you know, hold it out for like an hour, you know, and so when I would start to hold it out, you know, your muscles are tired, your mind starts to go like, dude, how long is this gonna last? Like I still have a drive and all these tabs start to open, you know?

Where you start to like focus on all these things that aren't gonna do help you at all with holding the stick out. And then you go through all these emotions and kind of break downs and stuff. Sometimes I would like wanna attack my trainer. You know, I would wanna hit my, like hit the stick against the wall,

like holding this out for 30, 40 minutes, you know? Like, and like, you know all this stuff. And then like every single time at the end, it would be all that stuff would go away and it would just be full focus, like laser focus, holding this thing out. And he would come up and he would be like, you're done and I'd be like, nah.

And he'd be like, you're done man. And he'd like, he'd start to like put it down and I'm like, you don't fucking tell me when I'm done dude. Like, you know, cause I was so focused, but that was like uh, that was like a ha moment for me. But it would take me so long to get into that, right? That's all day of training. And then five hours with this guy working and then holding the stick out. And it's like, dude, that's a long time. So that's why the underwater training is like the hack with that because it's

meant you it's immediate mental focus right because you go into a survival situation because you need air. No. And it's immediately like letting your panic surrendering that panic and focusing, you know. And so like that focus that it takes to get to from 15 seconds holding your breath underwater to a minute two minutes three minutes four minutes beyond That's the same focus as holding out that stick at an hour and 15 minutes. You know what I'm saying? Yeah So I love that I love that how long did you work with that? I expect huh? How long did you work with that guy for? Probably two years. You still talk? Till I went to, nah. Yeah. I haven't talked to him since I went, since I left to North

Carolina to go to, like, radar training. But for me, my motivation with all that too was, I was going to radar training. And at first, I was going to force Recon. Because when I came in, the Raiders wasn't established. I came in in 2005, and probably at the end of my first deployment they started saying, hey, there's a Marsoc thing that they're going to start doing briefs for, you know. So when I got back from my first deployment, they had set up a trailer right across from the infantry battalion, that they had a couple of Marsoct croutors. And I had a package to go to go to Recon,

to go to be a Recon Marine. Was this after your first deployment, or after your second deployment? So I was setting up the package to activate it after my second deployment, but I still had a Iraq deployment ahead of me. Okay.

That makes sense. Yeah. I'm trying to follow the timeline. So let's. Yeah. So you started doing this training with the mindset coach, the focus. 2007 coach. Did you deploy to Iraq?

Yes. Okay. Yeah. It's not skipped that. Yeah. It's not skipped that. Yeah. So I deployed in 2008 to Iraq. And so that whole year up, I was training and then I got a package. I had a package to go to recon and my company commander at the time had had like a college friend or whatever that became a radar team leader a college friend or whatever that became a Raider team leader officer. So, and he was like at the forefront, right?

So, he was like, dude, I know you're thinking about going Recon, but I really think that this is going to be the better move for you. So, I'm going to make some, pull, make some moves and get you set up to go into this thing, you know. So, he's, he got me set up and then I went to the recruiters and then this guy helped me with all my paperwork, my company commander. So basically, that was like another Mr. McGoo thing because I was like, clear focus going on Recon. I was running the pool, helping run the pool

at Camporno at the time, and the Recon, instructors and Recon training was at the pool all the time, and I loved the culture of the Recon group. And the Force Recon guys, my roommate was Force Recon and I was like always asking him like, dude, I was just like, just blown away with like how much, you know, how advanced the training was and like how much gear he had and all this different stuff that he was involved in and all of the skill sets that he had and force recon and stuff. And so I was pretty sold on that, you know. And I got to be honest, I'm surprised.

I mean, how did the hell did you even get in there? Because all the stuff that had happened to you before you were on restriction, you'd gotten in fights, you had drinking incidents, you'd been not arrested, but brought back to the base with by the police, and whether all the, you know, the thing that happened with the lieutenant, you know, which I'm sure there was documentation of, which there didn't sound like it was just, but nobody else knows that. You know, they just see what's in your file. What, I mean, how'd I bounce back? Yeah, how did you, in a short amount of time?

Yeah. Well, another thing, there's two parts. I want to make sure I hit the first part I had to do with my grandmother. And then the second part was I got meritoriously promoted for my performance. Once I was sober, I was like, I caught up with my peers. I got promoted really quickly after that.

But in the Marine Corps, they can meritoriously promote you pretty much all the way to Staff Sergeant to E6. And then E6 is when all that stuff catches back up to you. So like all my trouble that I got into, but even for my trouble I got boarded, they boarded me when I went through selection for my alcohol related incidents. Okay. They never goes away. Okay.

So like, you know, I then on all my stuff that they're tracking, you know, with all your, you know. But my grandmother, whenever I was getting out, my grandparents have always been very foundational in everything that I've done. And my grandmother was like, hey, I was telling her, I think I'm gonna get kicked out. And she was like, you can change your life. You can turn it around, you know?

But you're gonna have to believe it, you know? She like coached me through that shit. No kidding. Because nobody believed in me. Everybody turned on me. You know, in the military, when they turn on you, it's like a pack mentality. Yeah. No, because nobody believed in me. Everybody turned on me. In the military, when they turn on you, it's like a pack mentality.

You know what I'm saying? And sometimes that happens, dude. And my grandmother was like, you know, she taught me, like, believe, you gotta believe in your mind that this shit's gonna, that this stuff's gonna materialize for you, and you're gonna make it happen, and you're gonna manifest it, you're gonna create it. And so, you know, she just talked to me about stuff like that

and told me to do like vision boards and stuff like that. Do you know what that is? Yeah, I know what a vision board is. I'm simply like, you know, just taking Google images and putting them in a collage or taking images from your life or something or whatever it is that you're envisioning that you wanna see happen. And so I started doing stuff like that

that I never done before, you know? You still do that? Yeah. I'm nervous. What's on your vision board right now? Like Olympics, you know, stuff about global impact, you know, family circle. Like I care a lot about all my people that I, you know, are in my life. Yeah.

So your grandma coached you? My grandma coached me, yeah. And I still talk to my grandma almost every day, you know. That's cool, man. And you know, General McChrystal said, because I was at a speaking thing where I, when I got out, and with General McChrystal, and someone asked about all the research that they did around people that quit, special operations training,

and he was saying that they did all this research, you know, millions of dollars into this, you know, and the biggest takeaway that they had was that, the people that make it through the soft pipeline, they 100% make up their mind before they start, that they're going to make it to the end. They don't know what it's going to be like, you know, but they 100% decide. And for me, I do that, I do that, like, but it's because my grandmother. So before I would ever went into any pipeline or selection or anything, I would talk to my grandparents and I would tell my grandmother,

like, hey, I'm going into this training, you know, like where I'm not going to have, like, or like, you know, and she said, well, you know, like before sear school or hell week or something like that, like, well, you know, like before serious school or hell week or something like that, like, well, you know, you're gonna be good, right? Like, what are you worried about? What are they gonna have you do? Well, you know, you're not gonna sleep for this amount

of time, well, you know, you can do that. Like, what's that bother you? And then, you know, well, you're gonna go without food. We'll just eat, like, you know, eat double meals till you go out there. Like, then you won't even need food for a few days, you know, eat double meals till you go out there. Like then you won't even need food for a few days, you know? Like whatever, it's just, she just reinforced this stuff and then she asked me, you know, you'll never quit, right?

And I say, no, I won't. And then I make up my mind. I have that accountability with her to where, now I'm, when I'm in hell week or whatever, like, and it's shitty weather on day four, six like it doesn't matter I made up my mind and everything way before this and I have accountability with my grandmother you know what I'm saying yeah so that works for me and any I think it works for everybody that I work with and coach from my experience that they have that accountability

a system in their life that really works. And I can get them through the hardest challenges and whatever it is that they're, you know, navigating. Deployment. Deployment. What Iraq? Yeah, your first deployment. It's trip, man. Iraq is such a crazy, you know, place.

It's like you could tell it's just such a historical place, kind of biblical type thing that had been through war and that was trash everywhere. That was overwhelming, you know, and it was trash everywhere. That was overwhelming, you know. But that deployment was very interesting because we were like living out of vehicles and we're turning everything over to the Iraqis. What year was this? 2008.

The end of the era. That was happening already. Were we returning everything over to? Yeah. Yeah, so it was interesting. Like, you know So it was interesting. It was kind of a training deployment again. There were people, there were Marines that got killed.

There were none like in my platoon or anything, but there were, that was like a, well we're driving around the cities. There was an RKG-3 threat. You remember that? I don't even know what an RKG-3 is. I don't know. It's a little shape charge on a parachute, bro. Okay.

They throw over the wall and they have a spotter. Oh. And so like, they were hitting like the rear Vic with the machine gun or whatever. They find the Vic, the convoys with the soft targets and they try to hit them, you know. But there were people getting cut up with those. And so it's still real combat environment.

We got IDFs, you know, missiles like, you know, and then, oh, where's the point of origin site? Let's all rush over there. And then, oh, where's the point of origin site? Let's all rush over there. And then, oh, let's go get the Iraqi police to help out. All of the, it's like, they're all tied in. Yeah, they, so it's a waste of time. But anyway, so it wasn't like, you know, I got shot out a few times, I think,

from the Syrian border, we weren't allowed to shoot back, you know, like gunshot. Yeah. And I don't know, dude, it wasn't like, so the night and day from the Afghan deployment, you know? Yeah. So it was a little bit kind of like, it's like, dude, when I got to my infantry platoon, when I first got in that first day

before I even went to the sniper endoc, they had all gotten back from my rack and they were all giving us like horror stories. They didn't let us sleep that first night, and they were all telling us like, you know, when that grenade comes over the wall, are you gonna be able to get over? Are you gonna be able to get your buddy over?

I don't think you will. I was able to get your buddy over? I don't think you will. I was able to get over. And then they leave, go back to drinking, and then someone else comes in and tells you something. Like, you know, basically they're like, trying to, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. But so anyway, I'm like, dude, when does this shit,

like, stop playing the whole, because the whole time that this whole, and then in the Marine Corps bootcamp, dude, when does this shit, like stop playing the whole, because the whole time that this whole, and then in the Marine Corps bootcamp, dude, it's kill, kill, kill, da da da da da, they train you, you know, and then they also train you like with minimal use of force. You know, you go through McMap, like martial arts program, and they give you these warrior ethos things

minimal use of forest that are at escalation of forest like warrior mindset stuff But then there's this proven prove yourself in combat kind of check in the box. That's implied there Right, especially in like a combat in infantry So then our first deployment, dude, we were there for a year in Okinawa and these senior guys were still talking about the Iraq stuff the whole time and holding it over us. So I do, it's not our,

we didn't choose to come to Okinawa and come on all these training missions, dude. But now it's over us, now we're going back and they're gonna hold it over us again for another year Then we go die rack and now we're not racking. It's nothing like What was there, you know, so then now we get back and it's like You know and you're kind of like but it's be careful what you wish for You know, yeah, because you wish for combat and then you get in the middle of that and it's like What the fuck is this, you know, because you wish for combat and then you get in the middle of that and it's like, what the fuck is this?

You know, so, but, and the Iraq deployment, that was enough for me with the infantry to where I was so motivated at that point to never be in an infantry for another day that I was gonna make it through selection. Like I was, I was going to perform and I was like, dude, I don't even care. I'm not great at land now, or any of this other shit. I'll make it work because I know I'm not going to fucking come back. Yeah. You know,

yeah, I had like a, I had a staff sergeant, you know, and I'm like a corporal at that time, squad leader, you know, and I had a great relationship with like my lieutenant, but my staff sergeant, I didn't, you know, so when my lieutenant got promoted and got sent out, this guy started trying to put paperwork on me and burn me for things like, you know, like I took some toes straps, because I'm training for selection. I took some toes straps that were in the burn pit and I hooked them up to this thing

and I started using it to pull it back and forth and they were gonna try to like, like a stole government equipment is taking this thing out of the burn pit. And then, you know, I was working with, a lot of the vehicles were down and it's like, because I went outside of my chain of command and got the vehicles fixed,

he wanted to give me paperwork. And it was like, for taking initiative? Dude, that's the kind of like, but like burn me dude. Like I had. It shouldn't be the opposite. Shouldn't you be getting rewarded for taking initiative because I'm betting there probably aren't a whole lot of people in the infantry who take the initiative? See that's the catch 22, dude, is that it's like honor, courage and commitment.

But if you're honor and courageous and you stand up against the status quo, or the group thought, or the pack, or the conventional mindset. Are you going to better yourself out of that? Yeah. That creates a lot of jealousy and units like that. Yes. It's a bucket of crabs, which is ridiculous because he could have fucking done it too. He could have bettered himself. He could have wanted to selection, but he was too much

of a pussy to do it. So let's fuck Prime over. So he's going to put paperwork on me. And they even got it to where like, you know, just stupid shit like, you know, we're on one of our last patrols and we're wearing a patrol brief, you know. And they're like the new officer that we just got at the end of the, at the end of deployment, it's all motivated, right? It's like, dude, it's almost comical. Yeah. And Intel officer gets to be a, you know, infantry officer, super motivated, hats off to him,

but it's the last couple of weeks of deployment. We don't care. Yeah. You know, like, all that stuff. And so, he was doing a patrol brief before we go on a patrol. And, you know, was like, why aren't you taking notes to me? And it's like, well, I'm going,

we're going to the same, like, I have the same role that I've had for a year and a half on this patrol. It literally couldn't be more textbook. And also, you know, and he's like, well, what are you gonna do if shit hits the fan? And I was like, so you think that if shit hits the fan on the patrol that I would pull out my right in the rain notebook and revert to what my notes are

here in the patrol brief to make decisions. That's not what you're saying. And everybody's laughing, right? And then this guy looks like an idiot. So then we go on the patrol, and by the time we're coming back in, they're calling me to go report in to the company command for like, they're trying to get me for disrespecting

an officer kind of thing, like ruin my career, all this shit, like immediate opportunity. So that's that whole vibe and everything. And luckily, dude, I had an open door policy with my company commander. This is why that guy was an idiot too, the staff started it. Because this is the guy that's got me into Marsoc.

So he's like, dude, you're not getting any negative paperwork, period. Just keep doing your thing. And they would take me to this and then he would like, kick it, like, okay, got it, and then tell me like, dude, you're good. He was the one that helped me get in, you know. So then I just had to ride that out.

And then whenever I got back, luckily my buddy hooked me up with a job at the pool. When I got back from my rack. The horn oh pool. So, you know, everything happens for a reason, dude. Yeah, no kidding. We want to take a quick break? Sure, whatever you want.

Yeah, let's take a break. Thank you for listening to The Sean Ryan Show. If you haven't already, please take a minute, head over to iTunes and leave The Sean Ryan show review. We read every review that comes through, and we really appreciate the support. Thank you. Let's get back to the show.

Alright, Prime, we're back from the break. We're getting into train up for the Marine Rater Program. Marsoc. Awesome. Yeah, so getting to be at the pool, going right before selection, I was getting a lot of information, you know, because people are coming to the pool to train, you know, before selection and after training for ITC. So I was getting good information,

I guess, at least a little information, but I didn't really know what to expect going to selection besides what I had read about Army Special Forces selection. That's all you were going off of was the armies. Yeah, and then like whatever feedback I got from people, because what they'll tell you, you know, and I wasn't, you know, you know what I mean?

Yeah. You're trying to get information from them, but you also, it's not really cool to be like, you know, tell me like how, you know, it's like, is there anything that you can tell me or like, what would you tell me to get ready kind of thing? Yeah. You know, but it's not like, hey, what happened when you got off the bus here? You know, like that kind of thing. You know, I'm saying? Yeah. But if you're worried about that kind of stuff, you might already be working

against yourself. But anyway, where are we going to selection, right? We're going to selection. We're going to selection. Marine Special first. You're taking us with you. Yeah. Marine Special Operations Assessment Selection course was honestly the most professional course ever, dude.

Like I was so blown away, like nobody yelled at you, nobody talked to you besides if you were like, if you needed an instruction, or if you needed an instruction retold to you, but it's very neutral and they're all in a role. You know, and you get all your instructions from the whiteboard and there's no talking amongst candidates. How many people are there?

How many people were there? I don't know, maybe like 80. 80? Yeah. How long is selection? A month. Or like three weeks, ish. Now it's longer because they have a pre

Selection course So I think there's an extra six weeks because there's a prep course. Okay before you go to selection So walk us through what's walk us through selection? Well You know you got to get trained there's all these like training programs to do before you go there, a lot of that's tactical stuff, you know, but going basically there's a first phase where you have to meet all of the criteria, this is like when you're still at the in North Carolina. And you're still at Stone Bay, like at the main Marsox base. And they make sure that you can meet your 12 mile rack time, your PFT, like your physical fitness test, and your combat fitness test, and your swim, and all these things. And once all that's checked off,

they weed out anybody that didn't meet that, and then these get on the bus and they go out to selection. Okay. And so, um, so is selection the actual training course for Marsogarators, marine raiders, or is it a selection to get into training course? Okay. Yeah. If you think that you're in at that point, you're sadly mistaken.

All right. But it is so anyway, but that's how you get in. So I loved a lot of it, you know, because it was like big boy roles for the first time in the Marine Corps. Nobody's telling me anything. I just have to take my instructions from the whiteboard, and I don't have to talk to anyone. And I'm introverted, so I can do 30 days, you know, like, so like loan operator, kind of thing. And it'll be a recharge for me in some ways, you know. But some people can't handle

that kind of thing because they're real extrovert, like dependent on external communication. So that might be a challenge for some people that we know, you know. But so knock that out, go up to selection, and then that's where it's like land nav every day, point to point, drop off, you're basically in the van, you're in a van, you get put into with a group, nobody talks to each other, you drive around in circles, they drop you off. You start navigating that day. When you get to the up point that they tell you to get it back in the van, you get back in the van,

they drive you around in circles. Sometimes they take you back home, sometimes they take you into a scenario. What kind of scenario? You know, you know, what kind of scenario. You know, just like kind of like a tactical decision slash cultural problem solving, you know, we got like the sites and everybody is evaluating you, your decision making and so and so you know, you do all those games and then you go back and you, every night that

you go back, that's what's interesting about selection, that creates the urgency to perform. Because every night you go back, there's people missing from their beds, you know, and you're like, damn, dude, that's a lot. And we lost a lot from yesterday to today. Like how many, did you lose on the first day? Huh? How many people did you lose on the first day?

I don't really know, but it's just like, you know, but it's enough, you know. It's just, yeah, you start noticing like his people get caught up on the route at Landnaf. This guy lost his rifle. You gotta have your rifle on you at all times. He showed up to a checkpoint with no rifle. He quit when he got there.

Gone. Rack empty. You know, bed empty, all this stuff gone. This person like, you know, what I do, it's just, it's random. But it's like, you know, but that creates like, and you're not talking, you're not communicating a lot.

Obviously you communicate with people and you know, like you could do that without even talking, you know. But you know, it's like damn, people, this is real. People are leaving literally like we're a week away from being done or something like that and people are still leaving. You know, and so it's like, damn, we gotta

show, you know, stretch tonight. You know, we're still ready for tomorrow. So is it all land nav? No, it's a land nav and then it's team, you know, how's it broken up? It's broken up? It's broken up into, yeah, initial, like, the initial standards phase, and then you get on the bus,

you go to selection, you do land-nav phase, and then towards the end, you're doing team week, where you're in a team and you have all these like impossible, you know, challenges that you have to solve and someone's in charge. I mean, they're solvable, but they're, you know, whatever, that's critical thinking is involved and you have all these problems that you solve and you have to carry out these weights or do these different things as a team. And you have to be evaluated as a leader and as a team member. You know, so if you're someone that can lead, but then whenever you're put as a team member, you can't be in a team because you keep trying

to lead or you keep discrediting or undermining everything that the leadership is doing, it doesn't work either. You know, I'm saying know what I'm saying? So you gotta be evaluated as both, and you gotta learn how to operate it in both. So anyway, do that, and a lot of that's like heavy weight, you know, so now it's like weighing on your body a lot, because it's like you gotta, you've been carrying a pack with all this stuff, you've met your 12 mile times,

so you've had to rock a lot, and then you've been land-navving and running on your land-navs to make your points a lot. And so towards the end and then you're carrying all this weight as a team and all the team events, you're carrying a thousand pounds and this and that and all this stuff. And so, you know, there are guys that got injured

that were good guys that we helped make through the event. Does that make sense? Yeah. Makes perfect sense. So it's doable. It's all doable. And if you're, if people like you, then you're going to like, they'll work as a team to support you. And that's how it works in a real, in a team.

But so that's where I met my partner Don Tran too. It's like my partner with UTL and deep in fitness and all the stuff that I've been doing It's your business partner. Yeah We call him the Asian Rambo So you move so you get through selection, what does the end look like? You know, how many guys made it through? Dude, the end was dicey for me because Don and all these guys, my buddy camp and whoever else that was there, they got selected, you know, immediate. Like, we're all in the barracks, right?

Then they come in, the instructor. He, a list of names, move out to here, get on this bus. Boom, that's all the people that you know didn't get selected. This list of names go out to this bus. That's all my buddies. That's Don and all these guys camp,

all these guys, they got selected. All these people that didn't get your name called remain in the barracks and you're gonna be pulled out this afternoon for boarding. You know, so I got boarded. It was all for my alcohol related issues. But basically I just had to like, I was in there with all these guys that were getting boarded

and they were all for stuff that I was like, get away from me. You know, I am not like you. I do not want to be in the same, because they were all like, worried and I was like, no, I, like, you know, so I went in and got boarded and I got grilled for my stuff, but I had enough timings, sobriety at that point and proof of performance that I could answer those questions. And so I had to like, you know, and dude, I've been boarded, you know, in other things in life, you know, and that's a good experience. You know, so I got I got boarded in there and it sucked going through that because I wish obviously I would just gotten on the bus that I got selected, but like that was

another just training thing. Yeah. You know, training scenario. So got through that got selected. Did they tell you at the board that just, all right, you're good to go at the end of the board? Yes. How'd that feel?

Mission, I can't, I accomplished it, you know. Nice. Yeah, and I do that stuff. Like, a lot of my, like, my drive with that stuff is for my grandparents, you know, to make my grandparents proud. Because it's like, I don't really get a lot. Like, I don't feel a lot of, oh, like, when I connect it to me, it doesn't really matter. But when I connect it to my grandparents, it actually matters. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? I know exactly what you're saying.

None of my medals are awards or anything, meaning anything connected to me. But they make my grandparents proud. Yeah. And like, dude, that's all that matters. Like, to me, in that sense, so. But I felt accomplished going through that because I was like, damn, dude. Because if you think about it, I went from not being able to join. Like, thinking I wasn't able to join.

Getting in, going through waivers, going through almost getting kicked out of the Marine Corps, getting meritoriously promoted back up, and then now I got selected. So it was like, damn, I actually have like a shot, like I made it out from the bottom, you know, like I actually have a shot. And everything, all my training and all the mental focus stuff

and all the reps that I put in, it all paid off. You know what I'm saying? So I actually had a lot of inner confidence going and moving forward. And it was also like a self mastery thing. Like I was like facing my fears, like my fear of heights, all these different things that I have, like going forward leaning in. Like I never thought I could shoot like that.

Or do those things that scare you to think. Like, that's way out of my comfort zone I could never run and have two guns and doing that and that and that's like Yeah, dude if you train like you know and so You know When I so I've got back to after selection, right? And I worked at the pool. And we were trying to get a slot immediate to ITC,

which was individual training course, which was new at the time, but that's like our buds. Okay. Or our Q course for Army Special Forces. And so anyway, we were trying to get an immediate slot and we looked like we were and then we weren't. So some of the guys that went to the selection with us, they went right into ITC a month or two later.

And then for us, we went like 10 months later, or almost a year later, which meant that we got an extra 10 or 11 months to train at the pool, which was as a group, me, Don, and Camp, before we went to ITC together. And so that was it, you know,

because we were like working as instructors at the pool, but we were just training dude. We're training, we're doing underwater stuff, pushing our barriers, putting all the weights in the pool, doing underwater walks and all this stuff that we do now. And like, you know, running on the hills of Camp Pendleton, going to the gym, you know, just all day training, dedicated to training.

That's why it's so important to get out of the infantry thing because they'll just keep you doing like fire watch and play little working party games and stuff like that. You will never have time to train if they have, you know, that's what you were saying earlier. Because it warms their heart to know that they're holding you back from like you moving forward. So they're gonna have you doing extra bullshit, you know what I'm saying?

So you gotta get out. So I found it out and I got assigned to the pool. So now the infantry couldn't touch me. That was step one, you know. But the pool is a temporary job in the marine core. It's only for people transitioning from one job to another, getting out, and you have to have a swim qualification in order to get in there.

And then if you go to water survival instructor course, then you have like a locked in job there. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So I went there to McQuis, water instructor, water survival instructor course. And that's where I really learned a lot about the technical aspects of swimming and how to coach and train, you know. And then whenever I got, it's a three week course, dude.

So you retain what you retain. But when I came back to the pool and now I'm running swim qualifications with large groups and stuff, now that like, and that was kind of like, I had to, that was outside of my comfort zone at first and I had to break into that. But like, dude, doing that, that's what taught me how to train because I would have people that are non-swimmers that I would have to get through the call. You know what I'm saying? So I wouldn't want to burn them

and just have them check out as unqualified. I want to try to get them through. That's what everybody, you want to hook them up. Marine to Marine. It's like you don't want to, at the end of the day that you burned a bunch of Marines. Never, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, we were talking about this last night. Yeah.

You got those instructors who have a chip on their shoulder. They have an ego and unfortunately, there are a lot of people that could have made great Marines or great Raiders or great Seals or great Green Berets. And because they're on an ego trip, a lot of guys don't make it, you know, through that pipeline. What that being said, you know what I mean, I'm not, the course needs to be hard. There needs to be, you need to pay your way into a unit like that. But with some of the stuff that we were talking about last night, like some of the kind of nonsense type hazing or, you know, the personality conflicts.

There's so many people that would have made a phenomenal operator that never got the opportunity because some chick at the bar thought that guy was cute instead of that guy. That guy holds a grudge and he has the keys to where you wanna go and throws them in the trash. And it wastes, it's unfortunate. Not only did you fuck that individual over, you fuck the entire country over because that guy would have made a phenomenal operator

and you're a cheesed dick and you couldn't let your fucking ego go to let that guy through. And there's a lot of that shit that happens, all throughout the military, you know? Yeah, unfortunately. But. And then.

But you're the guy that helps everybody succeed because everybody's got to get the swim call call no matter what, you know? And so rather than see the same guy come through five or six times because he can't swim, you know, you so rather than see the same guy come through five or six times because he can't swim. You know, you're the guy that takes him aside and shows him, hey man, maybe if you do this, you know, you might hit the time. Yeah, and it's uh, and there's safety aspects involved too because it's like there's a 30 foot high tower,

and so they have to jump off the high tower in certain qualifications. And if there's a caret of heights, you might have to throw them off like launch them so that they don't grab the rail and then fall and hit their head or something. And so there's safety aspects of it too, but like it's a very looking back at. I never would have ever seen this while I was in, but looking back now, it was an invaluable experience to work, to have so many reps working with people with their fear of water or heights. Yeah. And like being able to coach or get those reps.

So I started to get really obsessed with, um, so during the pool, there was a couple aha things, right? That happened. One was seeing that when you could take someone's focus off of themselves and you could put it on something else like the torpedo, you know, or like whatever it is. That's why I take the torpedo and taught so many people to swim for the first time.

Just getting them to trust you, get in the water, see the torpedo, can you just pass this with me a few times and then swim towards me and then move across the pool and then they just swim for the first time. But like instructors that are not comfortable going down to 15 feet and then you now you have something and they're going down to get the torpedo, they can go down to 15 feet. If you ask them just to go down and touch it, they can't. So you see what I'm saying? That's an aha moment. So like when you put your focus on something, you can unlock a lot of results

and get it off of yourself and your own fears and anxiety and all that shit. You're interesting. There was another aha moment. Aha. Aha. Aha. What was that?

No, there was another aha moment when was playing this game underwater football that we called where we would use a torpedo underwater with two teams or we would use a weight or we would use a dive brick and the goal is to score is to touch the other wall but it's underwater so you have to pass the dive brick or the weight or the torpedo ball about and get it to the other side. And so that I saw a lot of like people really get into that and that unlocks a lot of performance and confidence playing that game, especially with the torpedo, because then it's very dynamic and it's fast paced and it can go almost

halfway across the pool in like two seconds. Okay. So then that really keeps your attention because the things moving like a fish. You know, so then like, and they make them bright colors and stuff like that like the arzarkamo, you know, that are bright colored. But it's like to keep your attention. So the underwater football game, that was like my favorite thing, you know. And so we would play that at the Hornopoul as instructors. If we had three on three or four on four, we were playing and we were waiting until we had three on three or four on four of like the good players, then we were going to battles,

right? Having these fun games. And everybody was getting massively better with their water confidence with each game. Everybody, like full confidence. And so it was like, why doesn't this exist? Kind of like that's initial part, right? Like this is awesome. Then when we went to training, you know, because like a lot of, you know, I don't know, this is awesome. Yeah. Then when we went to training, you know,

because like, a lot of, you know, I don't know if this is like this for everybody, but for me, like, I was, you know, relatively fast and in really top shape in the infantry. With all the training I was doing, my endurance was like, on a completely different level than anyone else, you know, like we would come back from the gym or come back from the hikes. We do these hikes on Friday where you start at like three or four a.m. and you go hike the big mountains

at Camp Pendleton and all these people fall out and you help them up the mountain. And then everybody helps them out. And then we get to the top and then we go down. And by the end of it, people just go and crash, you know, and like rehydrate and whatever. And, you know, I was,

with the mental focus stuff, like I would literally just get my pack down and go to the gym, you know. And I would love to know that everybody else went to sleep. Yeah. And I'm just, it's not really getting value of being at the gym at that point, but it was just like, you, and I'm just, it's not really getting value of being at the gym at that point, but it's just like,

you know what I'm saying? Yeah. So where were we? Well, let's move into, we got it. You want to work at the pool, worked on your swimming, taught a lot of people.

Now you're going into ITC. Going into ITC and, dude, I'm so slow, man. I'm the slowest runner, you know. So I find that out real quick, that I'm at the back of the pack with running. And, you know, and that's what's different from being at the infantry unit,

like I'm fast, I'm, everything's easy. And now I'm like at the back. So everything's hard, you know what I'm fast, I'm, everything's easy. And now I'm like at the back, so everything's hard. You know what I'm saying? I'm challenged to keep up with runs. And we're gonna run every day, like pretty much for 10 months. And so when we get there, you know, we get into it.

And the first day, that's like, this is like Ad admin week. You know, this is when we drop. We started with like, you know, somewhere from like 90 to 100 candidates and our students and we dropped a lot in admin week. I don't know, remember how many, but do this first run that we took off on was like a serious reality check because it was just like You know, we're all in the classroom and then hey get outside and then we take off on this run And it's like you know instructor passes off to instructor So they're not really getting a workout, but you're getting smoked and at each station

You're doing something like bear crawls or And at each station, you're doing something like bear crawls or, you know, lunges or something and like, you know, and then you're running to the next thing, then you're doing sprints, and then you know, and they got you. And it was like, you know, North Carolina, hot, like, you know, I remember putting my head in a mud hole, like, you know, for water, just to cool off at some point. But I was like, people were quitting, and it was like chaos at the beginning, right? And I remember feeling like this sucks

because I know I'm gonna be last on the bronze and shit like that, but I'm gonna have to fucking just do that you know yeah I have to do that like if that's what I have to do like whatever and what the class proctor who was amazing guy came up and his saying to all of us was be hard be humble and always push the fight. You know, and sometimes I think about that like once a week in my life when I have shit, you know, yeah, it's a good grounding, but that guy was awesome. He was from Boston too. Nice. But

anyway, he came up and he was like, dude, on day zero, like running next to me, he was like, you're good. I was sucking, dude. He's like, you're good. And calm as fuck. And he's like, if you just keep going, you're good. You're never quit. You know, you got this.

And I was like, boom. And I was, that was it, dude. So for the rest of, that was that on top of having my buddy Don and my buddy Camp. That's how I got through ITC, you know, because I was slow, dude. If I was on officer standards, I don't think, I would have not made it, you know.

And, you know. And, you know, and a lot of that shit, like a lot of those run standards, you know, they're good standards. And, dude, you got to have standards like that in that environment. But like in operational environment, you gotta carry a lot of weight, you know what I'm saying? And so the runtimes don't matter in operational environment. And so it's like, you know, that's kinda how I look at it a little.

Cause it's like, you can eat guys that can carry weight too. So the runtimes, but anyway, I'm not making excuses. I was slow, dude, because when I came in, I weighed 180 pounds when I came into the Marine Corps. By the time I got to Marsauk, I was like 220. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.

So I was packing extra weight. It's like running with a weight vest on. Yeah. You know, it's not efficient. So is the training pipeline broken up there? It's like, what are the phases? You know, I don't know. I'm not like, I got out five years ago, just full transparency. So I'm not too up to speed on exactly,

but for mine, it was broken up into a bunch of different courses, which I'm sure is still to an extent. But so you get there and it's like, you know, admin, like weed people out and field skills phase, initial field skills and whatever and kind of like stuff that feeds into hell week kind of environment or rate or spirit is what we call it. And so, and then, seer school, you know. And then field skills, evaluation, like help, like, radar spirit.

Like a final exercise. Yeah, but there's also like, leading up to that, there's actually like, Amphib too. Okay. So you have like, all your pooled tests out and then they take you, if you're lucky, to Key West. And so like, we got to go to Key West and go train out there at the, uh, damn, dude, I don't, the name of the acronym of it, but it's the Army SF dive school area

back there in Key West, flimming key. And I was and I just got to go back there with the veteran challenge. The wounded veteran challenge, to do that dive thing. Anyway, we went to Amphib, did all that stuff. Amphib was awesome man, being in QS. That was really fun. And getting to get out of North Carolina, I did not like North being in North Carolina dude. I was like, you know, I'm from South, I'm from like beach town area in Texas and stuff and then I'm living, I like California and now I'm in, you know, North Carolina so I was like dude I like California, and now I'm in North Carolina, so I was like, dude, I gotta get back to,

I wanted to get stationed at first insob. That was what my goal was. Hold on, you're just going way ahead. Yeah, let's stick with Marsoc. No, no, that's the unit that I was trying to get into. Yeah, we're still in, but I'm at school. We're still at get into. Yeah. We're still in. But I'm at school. We're still at IDC. Yeah.

So we're at SEER. We go to Amphib. We go to Raider Spirit. How many guys are washing out? Uh, dude, we washed out all the teams down to two teams. And we were just like, you know, we graduated like maybe 12 or 13 of the original OGs. That's it. That's it.

From 100. Yeah, from 90 to 100. A little hard. Yeah, we had like, you know, bad ass guys that were like coming in from other classes that maybe got injured or had something whatever where they came recycled into our class. So we plus back up to, you know, 20 or something like that, 20 or something like that. But most of us, you know, and it was still fairly new kind of pipeline. So it wasn't, you know,

yeah, you were one of the first classes, right? Yeah, I think we were the fifth class. Okay. So it felt pretty changing. Like Guinea pigs, you know, which has its advantages too. You know, has its disadvantages and has its advantages. Yeah. So you get through ITC, where are you going after that? Going to first, M-SOP, first Marine Special Operations Batallion at the time,

and which later became First Raider Batallion. So that's like, so you go to a brand new training course, right, the ITC, because you're the fifth, you're only the fifth class to go through it, so they're still working things out there. Working some kinks out. Yeah, some major kinks. And then you show up at, I'm sorry, what was it first?

First, yeah. And that's a brand new unit as well, correct? Because if there's only been five courses of ITC. So that's interesting because like, so the unit was already stood up and it was built off of the backs of Recon and force recon guys. Okay, and so you know when we got to our unit there were guys that had gone to selection, you know that were force recon guys that went to selection and then they were raiders you know, that were force recon guys that went to selection and then they were Raiders. There were a lot of guys that were force recon that were in leadership positions that they flipped into Raiders, you know, that didn't go to

selection or anything. That were like, they were the guys that led us through combat and stuff like that. And so phenomenal. Like, you know, so there were guys that were Raiders that were transitioned from force recon into being a Raider. Do you see what I'm saying? Yeah, kind of like an hour. They were grandfather. Yeah, you're good. They were grandfathered in and from my knowledge, there was only like a handful total because then they went through this formal process of like we got an MOSOS, O372 Marines critical skills operator. And so that's Marsock, special operations.

And once we got that, then they had to assign everybody that rated it the MOS. And they're all the guys that were forced recon had been through all of these schools that got it that warranted it. They were only a handful that got it that hadn't been through any schools. You saw them saying?

Yeah. They got grandfathered in and it was like, maybe it was an accident, maybe it wasn't, but either way, that's not, you don't really, from my thing, you really don't wanna get grandfathered in to something like that, or accidentally show up on the bus, and now you're at first in SOB, you know,

and now you're deploying with the team to like, Helman, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's like, dude, you wanna go to the training that sets you up to be at that place. That makes sense. You know what I mean? Yeah. Because I saw people overseas in situations that was way out of their training scope. You know, like a medic that was supposed to be working at medical,

taking temperature, doing basic medical, like check-in type, admin type medic stuff. And they're in a mass casualty and an enemy village. Yeah. like check in type admin type medic stuff. And they're in a mass casualty and an enemy village. You know, they're trying to take your vitals with a truck or a temperature, maybe check your ears and now they're slap and turn against giving bikes, putting in any tool for your drills.

Every day. Damn. And it's like you see them do stuff that way off baseline. Yeah So what was check in like I mean it's a relatively new unit Yeah, there's not a lot of culture inside of it. I wouldn't I wouldn't think it was it wasn't really how long it had been stood up It's less coast You know the play it was like playing holders and we're, you know, like they'd been deploying to Afghanistan.

Okay. Repeatedly. So they started in, you know, 2008, 2009 trailers, you know, working out of trailers and then they built the unit. So when I got out there, it was like the nice building. Okay. You know, that we were actually like moving into,

we had facilities and like, it was, it was like checking into the NFL. Cool. In the Marine Corps and like, whoa, this is a completely different world. Like I remember, you know, one of my leaders that I ended up on a team with a couple of times, like I showed up and he was like, you know,

he pulled up in a muscle car, fully tatted out, like hands, like grease back hair, not nothing in Marine Corps regulation, you know what I'm saying? Mm-hmm. And it's just like, whoa. And he's got, you know, like a green badge coming in, like, it's like, whoa. And though I get it, that guy. And then, you know, you start, and then it's like these guys are like, you know,

the way that I looked at those senior guys at that point, it's like, these are, that's who you want to emulate, you know and looking at the guys that were the fallen guys that had the paddles in the hallway and like looking at these senior guys walking around and they didn't stop for a second, you know, some of them did and they're like, dude, like we're gonna have a team thing this weekend You knew guys need to get out there, you know, or whatever. And they would like, whatever, you know what I'm saying? But it was like, it wasn't like, hey, like they didn't even give a shit because they didn't know what ITC was. They don't care. They

have been deploying to Helm and back to back. Like our executive officer has no legs and he's deploying again with us. That was a fucking environment. You know, that's some heavy stuff to walk into. Yes. And you know, dude, one of one another thing was I had a girlfriend, right? This is leaving ITC getting to there. And you know, there's a lot of drag through ITC, having a long distance relationship, and then thought that this thing was going to materialize.

And then, before we got out, they said, hey, do not get a house, do not get anything, be ready to be a combat replacement, and, you know, check in and be ready for whatever you need to do, whatever company you get sent to. So then I told my girlfriend, one, me to move in for us to get a house, right when I got back and all this stuff and I was like, no, I can't do any of that. And it was like an ultimatum. And I was like, bye.

Out. Yeah. So then I was single the rest of my career until I met my wife, you know, at the end when I was about, you know, on my last deployment, about to get out. So getting to first, you know, everybody, all these senior guys were legends from like their last deployment, deployment before that, the deployment before that. So I was thinking this was only stood up for like a year before you got.

Yeah, but all these guys have been on force recon Iraq. Okay. Like, dude, these are all the saltiest guys that got hands selected to run the special operations, batallion from force recon. That makes sense. They kind of gutted the unit, but they, I mean, they all, you know, they had some type of selection process. Yeah. These guys were good, you know, they were badass guys that were fucking,

they were warriors and fearless like in combat, kind of, kind of people vibe. And it was like a security blanket. When I was in combat in Afghanistan, and I was with those guys, it was a security blanket. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? I do. That experience is, there's nothing that can compare to that.

Like you can have confidence and abilities, but you have confidence abilities and you have someone on your team that's been through those situations. It's had to use aircraft to survive in the moment and shit like that. That's what you need. Yeah. You know what I mean? So all those guys were,

there was only a couple of new guys on my team and that new guy experience was invaluable. Cause you're earning it every day. There was a saying at the unit, every day is a tryout at first rate of a time. Every day is a tryout, dude. I don't give a shit. It's like, but only like, we only have, we were like the only like so-and-so to graduate out of our class is like, who cares? Like, you know, not that we were saying that, but like, nobody cares about what happened yesterday, even though you just got turned out at this ITC course,

and you did shit that was harder than you ever imagined. None of us care one bit. Because you gotta fucking, today's your tryout, you know? Yeah. So like, you know, go to work, earn your spot. What is your, like, you're the new guy on the team, you have no schools. What are you doing here?

You know, what value do you bring today? Like, you know, like, it was really earned it, which was a really, I love that. You know, that's like a merit, that's what a merit based, you know, culture, warrior culture, where you take your rank off, you earn respect, you earn it. And so my officer, my team leader,

my first team leader was Derek Carrera, who was one of my mentors, and he ended up getting wounded with me. And he ended up getting out a couple of years ahead of me, but he lives in Orange County County and I see him regularly. Oh, you guys are still buddies? Still really close, yeah. And he's been a huge business advisor for me

and like helps me with all kinds of strategic stuff. And we also started the Marine Raider Challenge. Well, hold on. Organization that we did, we'll talk about later, but I'm focused. I'm focused. Yeah. But Derek brought me in when I was a new guy for a counseling. And I was like, you know, sir, I don't have any schools like, you know, and I want to roll. I want to like a job on the team.

You know, and he's like, so I'm gonna put you as an armorer. Like, you own that thing, and then we'll talk about what's next. You know what I'm saying? So I was an armorer, and like started tracking all the weapons, and like making all the rosters, and you know, trying to like see what more weapons

I could get, what other armory courses I could go to what kind of Certification of all this different stuff and then he's like, you know Then I sort of like you know when kind of lose gear and then I would find it or like you know stuff like that We're all doing a good job of tracking all their equipment So then they're like all right. We're gonna make you track all the equipment when we get tough gannison You know you're gonna manage the whole, like, inventory, right? So then, I got sent early, Taft Gannison, I go sign for gear as a new guy.

And my secondary role was gonna be Afghan local police, and I was gonna be an advisor and trainer. And so when I got there, like, before we went to Afghanistan, the team that was there, that had just moved into where we were going. It was in 2012 at the beginning,

like right as fighting season is kicking off, you know? We know that and that's a historical thing. So it's like we're going into fighting season, we're gonna be there for the whole thing. And we're, it's just kicking off. So we're starting to get reports of like, when the team's going out on patrol, what's happening and stuff like that. You know, and they were having to come back.

They're getting cut off, having to bound back to the base and stuff like that, you know what I'm saying? They get a lot of contact. Yeah, stuff that's like kind of alarming, like you're kind of thinking in the back, you're like, how are we gonna live there for seven months if these guys can't even go on patrol you know yeah and then like some of the senior guys that are kind of like you know kind of put static out there they're

like this is fucked next on the Sean Ryan show Do you want your son to go into this? No. I don't want mine to go into it either. And NCIS was there with us. What were they doing there? You know, I had all these crazy experiences with my Afghan local commander. He came up and he was like, hey, can I leave my son here? You know, whatever, and he left one of his sons.

So it was like, maybe seven years old or something. He gets in his truck and drives around the corner, hits an ID. Like, I have to go out and be in lights. All these artificial lights, with these loud noises and shit that bothers me and like, all the stuff that was driving me insane. Yeah. Got the same shit that I'm watching this, you know, that's like suicidal tendencies. Days after, weeks after, I realized how much of a negative impact I was making on my family.

For anybody that has any of that stuff, the best thing that I could say is just anchor yourself, you know, call one person. The Bullwork Podcast focuses on political analysis and reporting without partisan loyalties. Real sense of deja vu sprinkled on our PTSD. So things are going well, I guess. Every Monday through Friday, Charlie Sykes speaks with guests about the latest stories from inside Washington and around the world.

You document in a very compelling way. All of the positive things have come out of this, but it also feels like we have this massive hangover. No shouting or grandstanding. Principles over partisanship. The Bullwalk Podcast. Wherever you listen. feels like we have this massive hangover.

No shouting or grandstanding. Principles over partisanship. The Bullwalk Podcast, wherever you listen.