Shawn Ryan Show - #55 Prime Hall - MARSOC Raider Survives The Unthinkable / Horrific Combat Experience | Part 2
Episode Date: May 1, 2023In part two of this episode, we get heavy into Prime's deployments. We learn about the unique bond US Operators have with their Afghan partners and how those bonds bend and break when the sum of all f...ears becomes a reality–an insider attack. This attack claimed multiple lives and would influence procedure and policy for the remainder of the war. Prime shares in detail his experience transitioning from intense combat rotations into civilian life and the grueling realities of PTSD. His life was hanging by a thread until alternative treatments changed his world and set him on the path to training Olympians and launching Underwater Torpedo League into a globally acclaimed sport. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: HVMN - USE CODE "SHAWN" MudWtr - USE CODE "SHAWNMUD" BetterHelp Zip Recruiter 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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Welcome back, I want to kick this one off and say thank you to all the patrons out there that are supporting the show and I apologize. I haven't done that in a while on here.
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Previously on the Sean Ryan show.
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 the window,
like, psychological warfare.
My mom and dad caught the guy probably when I was 12.
My stepmom was killed in a car accident.
And so I got a red cross message while I was like, you know, in training.
My lieutenant was like playing God back there.
And he was like, hey, you know, I heard about this stuff.
The news, you know, stuff happens.
And so, um, but, uh, 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.
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 met?
What does that say? Is it jellyfish?
Fucking piece of shit.
Weak leadership.
I hope he watches this.
And my grandmother was like, hey, I was told
and I think I'm going to get kicked out.
And she was like, you can change your life.
But you're going to have to believe it.
You know?
She like coached me through that shit. I just wanted to be able to do it. I just wanted to be able to do it. I just wanted to be able to do it.
I just wanted to be able to do it.
I just wanted to be able to do it.
I just wanted to be able to do it.
I just wanted to be able to do it.
I just wanted to be able to do it.
I just wanted to be able to do it.
I just wanted to be able to do it.
I just wanted to be able to do it.
I just wanted to be able to do it.
I just wanted to be able to do it. I just wanted to be able to do it. go on patrol, kind of put static out there, they're like, this is fucked.
I got sent early to Afghanistan to go sign for gear as a new guy. And my secondary role
was going to be Afghan local police. And I was going to be Afghan local police and I was going to be a
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 seasons 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 that'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 having, 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 going to live there for seven months if these guys can't even go on patrol?
You know?
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.
Like, you know what I mean?
Like they're like creating chaos.
It's like, but it's like they've seen signals, right?
You know what you're about?
You know this is shit's gonna be serious shit.
So that's pretty much it.
So I got to go over a little bit
like a week and a half in advance or whatever it was.
And get into the village with the team that was about to rip out.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah, I know exactly what you're saying.
So they're leaving and I got to kind of sit with all of them as much as I could and get
their information of what they learned about the last deployment, you know, and then try to absorb and learn the operational environment
as quickly as possible and stay on watch, on security,
as much as I could sit in the operation center as much as I could
as they would allow me and then sit in the meetings with the Afghans,
with the Terps as much as I could to understand
the relationship dynamics in between the team
and the police and the security force and the locals.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
And so that was a very good start to be able to see all that,
see what I wasn't working.
This is in Hellman province. Yeah. Yeah. Well, how long was it
before the team joined you? Maybe a week or something, you know,
so how hot was it? How were you heavy down there? It was like not
yet, you know, but it was starting, you know, I know there's a
couple of attacks like on the base where, well, so the first night I was there, they had a patrol
and one of the Afghan local police not stepped on an ID and lost both of his legs
within a couple hours of me getting there. Oh, shit. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.
So I was like, holy shit, and I was living in the interpreter, like living space.
And I was just thinking like, damn dude.
Like I got all my guns loaded.
And I don't really know what's going on here.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, because I'm not, this isn't my team.
And they're giving me information,
but I'm not really in the fold.
And I'm a new guy too to kind of thing. So,
but anyway, it's so like, you know, base got attacked and I just kind of
was like, I everybody's like finding positions and shooting, finding battle positions and stuff.
So I kind of went up to my guy that was I was transitioning with that was running the afghan local police and
You know
I quickly saw that like you know you take a couple shots. You need to move fast and
Refosition yourself, you know
Because if you're just sitting there pop pop pop you're gonna, you know, snap.
You know, so yeah, you gotta understand
your operational environment really quick, you know,
and that was kind of like, whoa, this is not like,
Iraq was for me, and some people had crazy Iraq experiences.
I was just there in 2008, it wasn't like that, you know.
And so this was a lot of like, you know, all of it
kind of the one fire like R our PG ease, all of it, you know, what year is this?
2012. This is a 2012. So this is the peak of insider attacks in Afghanistan. Yeah, I think we got hit down there around that time.
Yeah.
Yeah, it was a hornet's nest.
And that was at the time where things were happening here in the US, like they burned
the Quran, they had the video of the Prophet Muhammad and stuff like that, the cartoon.
Yeah.
And none of that helped us out there with our cause. No kidding. It really made the
second and third order effects of that were very dangerous. So I want to pay in a picture, you know,
a little bit about what was going on down there. So home and province, I believe at this time,
was the most dangerous province in Afghanistan around that time period. Benghazi had just happened.
There was a big bombing in coast at a CIA base.
We're a handful of my friends were killed.
And it was in the Marine Corps was really
massing up some numbers in helmet Province because it was supposed to be the biggest,
biggest offensive force in the global war on terror since Fallujah, which Fallujah obviously
was massive. Also, at this time, Obama had chopped our legs out from under us with his rules of engagement.
New rules of engagement came out.
Marine Corps is getting ready to take.
Helm and Province, biggest offensive force ever since Fallujah and Obama comes out with
an R.O.E. that says, if you're shot at in the enemy drops their weapon,
you are not allowed to shoot back
or you will be prosecuted.
And that demoralized,
that demoralized a lot of pretty much everybody
who was down there.
And so that's the picture.
Worst place to go and have a stand president of of the United States hammers us with new R.O.E.'s
and it makes everybody wonder what the fuck we're doing there to begin with.
Why are you sending us down here if you don't want us to take care of the problem?
Yeah, so from the end user being in the village at that time and what with what was going on with our leadership
and the politics and what these things that people in America were doing that was causing more
friction for us over there and all this it felt like every it felt like we were screwed.
Everything was against us and that's like the worst case with the government is when it turns against you and you're in the military. Yeah.
And it's like, um, luckily we had savvy people on our team, you know, because we had to ask for permission
to drop bombs and stuff like that when we needed to, to survive. And they had put the ROEs against it.
You know, I forgot about that. They did that in 2012, 2012 that there are no more bombs
to be dropped in the villages or however that they signed
it off between Obama and Karzai.
But then Karzai was the president of Afghanistan
at the time for those that don't know.
Yeah.
And we got to a point to where, you know,
there was even a point where cars I had, had like turned
on all Americans, and then we had to do like an operational pause.
And this is like during that boiling point of like,
that was a year of Benghazi and all the insider attacks.
Everything was crazy boiling point at that point.
So, you know, it really, you know,
that was a very enlightening experience
on a lot of fronts being over there living
because, you know, I kind of wanted to be on the
Commando mission, really sounded cool to be able to fly in
and, you know, do these commando missions and stuff like that.
But in living in the village, in an enemy village for seven
months, where you're like, in a little supply hub,
fortified with sandbags, or you're at the team space,
that's like a compound that we took over and reinforced.
You're not on base, you know, flying to do these missions and coming back where you can work out at the gym. There's like a little pool there, you know, all a very impactful experience. Because of the insider
threat and the threat, we had to revalidate anybody that worked with us every 30 days. So
that was a good process for me. And just like, I'm fascinated with human performance
and human intelligence and people.
And what makes them do certain things.
So I was always, I enjoyed doing those monthly interviews
with all the people that worked for me.
You're worked with me from the Afghan.
But my biggest thing when I got over there was I started working with the Afghan
local police, and that was my main thing.
So I ran about like 60 of the Afghan local police with my interpreters, you know, and
so I did a lot of training and then, you know, they were in combat every day.
So some of them would get killed and we had to do training classes every week to keep
everybody, have enough people to support each other, have the checkpoints and stuff.
Because it was like live at that point.
Sometimes, dude, that was a hard part.
It's like, you know, I did these training classes.
Sometimes there would be, you know, guys that came in that did a training class, and they're from this other part of Afghanistan or this other tribe or whatever.
And they brought like five guys with them from their village, and they all went through the Afghan local police training.
You know, they all got graduated at certs,
picture, now they've got guns, you know, now they're at a checkpoint,
and now they're on patrols, and then they get killed in a couple days, bro.
Damn.
That was like really challenging, you know.
That's like, dude, we're literally like we have no white space.
We're in an enemy village.
If you put your hand over the wall for like a minute or two in the daylight, you're going
to get shot.
Like no question asked.
They're going to start shooting at you.
You know, I used to take serial numbers off the vehicles.
And I have to do it all at night because like if I pop my head up, taking serial numbers off the vehicles. And I have to do it all at night because if I pop my head up,
taking serial numbers off of the machine gun on the vehicle
are like these little silly serial numbers
that are on all the little mechanical things.
Dude, I get my ass shot off.
Yeah.
There were times where I would jump in the canal.
There's a canal right in front
and get lit up and have to
like, down back into the little gate, you know. But dude, all of us that were over there, that were
over there for that seven-month thing was the craziest experience of my life, like that seven months
alone. Was it like, when I think of that's the that's the only one that I
think about really yeah yeah dude like ever let's get into it let's do it yeah so uh you know
and then I think it's important for anyone listening to to understand that there's this
like comparison trap, you know, where we all compare each other and there's like this
imposter syndrome thing where it's like, oh, you know, because I only had four deployments, you know, or whatever it was.
But it's like people had 20 deployments.
But I never went to sniper school, but this guy went to sniper school and he had two more deployments to me and all this stuff.
Or people tell me, well, I never did anything like you.
It's like, no, dude, nah, come on.
But like, no, no, no, no, no, whatever that you did is like meaningful.
You know, and so like there's been, I've felt resistance, like, you know,
knowing that I was going to come on here because I feel personally,
there's all these guys that have so much more experience than me.
Why am I here?
But it's like, we all feel that everybody has their own version of that, that like questioning your doubt or whatever that is.
So, um, but going into Afghanistan, dude, like, you know, the biggest thing was like, I just, I didn't want to, I guess, fear of failure and fear of death, fear of like killing someone,
fear of one of my teammates getting killed, you know,
and worst case for something that was my fault, you know.
And so like, I don't know, dude, like,
did you fear death?
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, dude, I always prayed real quick,
but just like, I always had a spiritual health
connection going on with God or what,
what's like a daily routine for you on this deployment?
You know, wake up.
Sometimes we do missions at night, you know, and that we would have like a ambush patrol
in the morning or something, you know, and then you get back
you know, and then you get back around 9 a.m. or something like that and then you either rest if you were up all night or you, you know, you're on watch every day once or twice a
day. You're in the ops center on security watch tracking everything, you know, the whole battle space as much as possible with whoever's in there with you.
And then doing a lot of like Afghan local police training or whatever we're doing, like we had checkpoints that we had to
like build and stuff like that.
What kind of missions were you guys doing at night? For us, our mission there was village stability operations.
You know what I'm saying?
To really do that and support development and governance and all that,
there has to be locals.
There's no locals, dude. It's just enemy do it's just enemy. It's just fighting. It's an enemy village, dude. It's all black
Compounds, you know what I'm saying? I do but the audience does and so I'm asking you to describe what were you guys doing at night?
What were we doing? Yeah, we were doing
ambush patrols because we basically had people coming up way too close.
What's an ambush patrol?
Where we go out and set up an ambush and wait for people to try to come.
So start moving back and forth enemy that are going to come into our space or whatever and so it's a lot of it works off of like positions and the Taliban and whoever
it is is very smart and understanding like where our camera is at our base or wherever our
thing is and then where they need to be on the other side of that so that we can't see what they're doing.
You know, so we would have to go a couple tree lines over in the green zone of
Helmand and kind of camp out and wait for the activity, for the party to start
in the morning whenever everyone woke up and started turning on their
motorcycles and passing weapons and ammunition
and all the stuff that they do and calling each other and all this stuff.
Did you guys ambush a lot of bad guys?
Uh, definitely some.
What was the first one like?
What?
The first engagement.
First ambush. the first one like what the first engagement first ambush the first ambush was
you know basically waiting out with I think it was me and our team leader and a
dog handler and then a bunch of Afghans and an interpreter, the local police and interpreter.
And you know, there was enemy that was in the other train line.
That was like moving around and then started to engage us and then we engaged them and
then we popped smoke and went back to base.
Round one.
Haha.
How many times were you guys doing that?
What's that?
How many times were you guys doing?
That was like at the very beginning.
That was like one of our first like ambush patrols.
But you know, we would,
You know, we would...
It's like, dude, the Taliban is pretty crafty. So, like, you're fighting them every day,
but they're hiding from you the whole time.
Yeah.
So, it's like, you know, it's like real modern warfare, you know.
And so, once you throw in like drones and stuff like that, then it's,
gets a little, then you can start to, you know, move around, you get access to things and
all that stuff. But like,
were you guys killing a lot of bad guys? Did you disrupt a lot of supply chains?
Yeah, so I don't know, you know, it's what, from my experience, we had, like our, we had
a mortar team that was with us, an Army mortar team, and we had serious experience, combat experience, JTAC, operator on our team, and operators.
So, a lot of those, you know, it's hard to say how many people got killed, but like, it
would be a lot in one day, and they would replenish them. But maybe tomorrow, when there's a hundred
more that respond, that they send from Pakistan or whatever that, they might be the C team
for the D team. So they might be just shooting up in the air and you could sit here and eat your
dinner before you even deal with the problem.
Oh man, you know what was that? They were that.
But then the next day you have the A team and it's like they got us locked in with like
grenades, dude, like, you know, UGLs, you know, I'm talking about. Yeah. Or like, whatever it is,
they got us locked in or they're, this is the A team, you know.
Whatever it is, they got us locked in or this is the A team. You know, there were time where we closed the site down.
And so one of our cameras came, comes down.
This is at the end of the deployment.
And like, they all moved in on us.
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So we got like hammer dude. Shit. That was a and NCIS was there with us.
What were they doing there? They were there interrogating us trying to burn us because
because like when we had moved or like whatever like during the thing, our our
medic had lost morphine, right? Which had probably gotten stolen from one of our
terps. Yeah. Or like, you know, they were. So they sent in and
CIS into the hottest province of the year to do a to do an investigation for
a lost thing of morphine. Yes, do. Interesting.
And I'm wondering when this episode is going to make it
on their show.
No.
No, but so yeah, dude, this is like Street Justice
because they all interrogated like our medic
and our team members and all this stuff.
And this is at the end of deployment, dude.
Like, we've lost, like our, you know,
we got people we got seriously wounded
and there's been people getting killed
at our little spot there.
Marso guys seriously wounded?
The Operation Goat Rope, right,
which is something that stands out to me
that I is a good memory for me of a mission that we had.
And there were a lot of our Afghans
that had been getting killed on this road
that the Taliban was coming,
sneaking in between these compounds
and putting these bombs in the same part
and they were just running over them
and driving over them and like mass casualties
and stuff like that from this one thing.
And then we wanted to take care of that problem
so we wanted to occupy a building, you know,
that was in the green zone so that we could eliminate
this problem, have security in that area
where they were sneaking in.
And so we had no support.
This was at the beginning of the deployment.
So I had worked out a devised a plan with my Afghan local police commander.
That my team leader let me do.
Let me run.
So basically, there's a goat herder that brings his goats in front of my little compound
every night to take back to their goat pin.
So I wanted to use all these goats as a counter-IED tool
to funnel them down the road to have them.
That's genius.
Function the IEDs.
Did you do it?
Yeah. How'd you do it?
We did it.
So we had the goats.
We had some of our Afghans locals that worked with us that basically were like, you know,
had experience with the goats, you know, commands and stuff.
So they're like, whiffing them and telling them where to go and corralling them.
But we had a goat.
We had that our engineers build a goat pin.
So we took all these goats and promised the goat her that we panned, you know, and he was
like, no problem. You know, and he was like no problem
You know how many goats are we talking here like a hundred and
Maxed out. See guys already in a small space, but we had a little Hesco goat pin you get on the outside maxed out with go you find a goat herder
What did you did you roll right in my lap though because the sky is literally coming right back and forth? You know, it's like what else are you gonna do? Did you roll right? If all right in my lap though, because the sky's literally coming right back and forth,
you know, I was like, what else are you gonna do?
Yeah.
So, we took the goats, he allowed us to pay him,
promised paying later when we get funds, which we did.
But in the morning when we took off on the mission,
the goats led the route down the road and
Functioned all the IDs minus one there was one that still got function later in the day
With the goats on the way back that we all made it over on the way there. That's what's crazy about IDs
Is that there's legacy IDs? There's older ones. There's newer ones. There's ones that are more sensitive
There's ones that you might be able to step on
and not function, but that the next guy might function it.
You know, and then there's ones that have been there
for like, do we have times where we had been on an area
and we had done an operation where we had vehicles there,
we slept out on the ground, like we had cleared it
50 different ways, and then one day
we were driving back out a legacy function.
Damn. In that same place we were all laying and living and walking everywhere and like, dude, so after that, like, dude, I don't know what's what here. Every step I take needs to be
intentional. There are so many times I almost stepped on something that was like disturbed earth
or there's sign of I, there's ID's everywhere.
Like, we found our function so many IDs
and I had so many of my Afghan local police guys
that I was like in meetings with, like this,
and then they would take off,
and then they would be back, medevac't,
within an hour, and like, it's like their soul is gone.
You know, we're doing medical stuff on them,
but they're not there anymore.
Damn.
ID, over and over and over and over.
You know, it's like, so the thing was like, dude,
we'll sacrifice these ghosts to save human lives all day.
You know?
So the ghosts did work.
They found or functioned all those ones on the road
And then we fed them into the compound that we were gonna occupy. They did all the same thing in there
Like you know what I'm saying? Yeah more goats that could fit in there and they all found or functioned all of them
Some of them went off and then the ones that didn't go off you could see where everything was at
You just you know whatever deal with it, but
where everything was out, you just, you know, whatever deal with it.
But anyway, so.
So how many goats, how many IEDs, so hold on.
There was a lot of those goats didn't survive.
They were, they went down for the cause.
Really?
Yeah.
So you took 100 and something goats
and just marched them on this exact route
that you guys were gonna drive.
Yeah.
And the goats would basically take the hit.
Yeah.
And then you would keep the goats
going into the target that you were gonna hit
or the house you were gonna occupy or whatever it was
and just let them run around and out.
For this one time, this wasn't a recurring thing.
This was a one time thing that we did that worked.
It's genius.
I've never heard that.
That was your idea?
Yeah.
That's pretty bad, I guess.
And then we got him back.
Yeah, I left that off of my college applications
for business school.
You know?
But I nodded.
So that was cool.
I really liked working with the Afghans have a completely
different culture and values and all that stuff is different.
But it was interesting and a lot of it was related to growing up
on the border of Mexico and you know, and being like
a green go and dealing with like rough customers, you know, and then being over there in the
village, and it's like, hey dude, here I am again, like same thing. It's just like being on
the job site down the border, like being in that environment.
And so every experience, you know,
can like feed into the next.
But then, you know,
a big, like my biggest thing that,
you know, replace over and over and over
and over is the insider attack, you know. And that, you know, replays over and over and over and over is the insider
attack, you know?
And like, I know that's a big part of your story.
Yeah.
And, you know, everything happens for a reason.
And like, being in an insider attack, it's not like a heroic thing, you know?
You're in a, you're, you you know. You're in it.
You got attacked.
You were in the open.
You got attacked.
You got hit with, you know, I got hit with rock and propelled grenades, you know.
And I didn't, I wasn't tracking that.
That guy that was up there in the tower was instead of being focused out like he normally
is that he turned all the weapons in on us in this
little ass compound that's like the size of like a small parking lot, you know, like
a wall green.
And so, you know, three days before that, so this is August 13th, 2012. So three days before that,
three raiders had from a team close to us
that was in my company and our command
had gotten killed in an insider attack.
Shhh.
Three days before, dude.
And they were all close to us.
And we were on a mission when we heard the Medevac call
and we had to cancel the, like we weren't going to stay out there
overnight after hearing that that there were three those three guys got killed and there was one wounded
like uh you know that was like and then we guys went back for the funeral from that and so like
that's all happening there was a couple other raiders that got and killed, I think, in Canterhart,
and within that week.
And so there's a lot going on.
And then on three days later, on August 13th,
and we had just gotten a new.
So I lived in a little kind of like supply hub base you know and the
main team lived at a different base I was like a click away like a kilometer you
know through the green zone that's also filled with IED so it might take you a
little longer to get there but it's it's there right and so for us we're right
next to the village so that's what we were doing a lot of the village engagement and like logistics and whatever else. So, uh, but just knowing that at this little
thing, there's only three operators. There's an army infantry squad and there's the army and there's
the Afghan Special Forces team and the Terps. That's all we had.
And so this other spot has like Army squad
and the whole team and all the reinforcements
and all the stuff.
So there's only three guys over here.
Yeah.
Shit.
Yeah, and there was a lot of,
there was a lot of our team was gone at that point
because like we would do logistical runs sometimes
to camp Leatherneck, you know, to get ammo, supplies,
whatever it is, come back.
So we had guys that were gone.
So we were like down.
So anyway, I get woken up in the morning
and you know, I'm training every week I'm doing training
classes and then I filled up my how many guys I could have on my payroll so then I had
made a deal with the Army SF team that basically you guys have more availability on your roster. If we train this other guy to set up a checkpoint in his village,
can we put those 20 guys under your guys? When? Yes, solid.
You know, does that make sense? Yeah. So we did that. We made that deal. We trained these guys,
these Afghan guys, and then they didn't want to work for the SF guys because they trained with me or
were they trained with us. So their culture, they're like, no,
you're our leader, you trained us. It's like, whoa, no, that wasn't
our agreement, you know, like you're supposed to be with these
guys. So there was this whole fallout with this guy that was
supposed to work as an Afghan local police commander
that wouldn't work for the Army SF guys.
So I told him, I was basically telling him like, dude,
when he would come to the gate to talk to me,
and I would go out there, I'd be like, go away.
Like, dude, because he refused to do,
we trained him and did everything.
We had all the weapons, we had everything set up,
and he's getting beat up by the Taliban and his village. Like, he's getting all these things are happening. It's like, dude, now's the time, like, you know, and I, and so
he, so I got woken up this morning with this guy that's been coming, causing all these problems. Like, saying he's
going to do this stuff, never fulfill anything. So I get woken up at 7 a.m. I go out to the gate, you know, and
on my dude go away, you know, it's always a story like, you know, whatever I would my interpreter.
This is during Ramadan and it's during, it's hot dude, it's like 130, like 100 plus degrees all day long
like 100 plus degrees all day long. And we just got a new Afghan special forces team.
So that's like the background of it, you know, a week ago.
So we just started training with these guys.
And from the looks of it,
we were calling them the force recon Afghan SF team
because they all had really long beards
and they were like fighters.
Where we got into some serious like situations with our last Afghan SF team and they did
not look like fighters, but when it came down to it, they performed.
But those guys that we had that relationship with, that we went through those missions
with and survived, they were gone now, we had these new guys.
And all I had was just the experience of them training
with me and the Afghan local police
because they were like kind of the advisors
helping to train them in a way.
And it was a great experience so far with these guys.
But little did I know that one of them was like
had it out with whatever, with everyone. With them, had it out with, you know, with whatever, with everyone,
with them, with us, with the whole thing, and like, you know, decided to vote that morning and
went up to the tower. You know, we have these three little security towers, and we get attacked
almost every day from the village. So like the towers are, you know, attacking like target reference points and it bat enemy positions
in the village, right? That are attacking us every day. Pretty much. So you would, it's hard to think
psychologically. It was hard to think because that was like our security bubble, dude. You know,
that like that little bubble was security. if you it's not safe to walk
outside in the daytime it's not safe to expose yourself but inside that little
thing especially if you're behind the wall like you're not gonna get hit you
know and that you're safe in there there's nothing inside that's gonna get you
so that's one thing that kind of is part of it where it's like psychologically
when I was sitting there because when I came back in I went to that we had a little kitchen that was right next
to where the interpreters lived and I got like a bull cereal and I sat down.
I'm sitting at a picnic table like wearing board shorts, you know, a tank top with like
a glock on my board shorts on a holster. And my sunglasses are on top of my head.
And I'm sitting at a picnic table and I get rocked unconscious. Boom.
And next thing you know, I'm on the ground back here that's right by the interpreters living space.
And I was like doing this weird thing where I was holding my eyes open and it was blacked out and I was thinking that because I had this little
polaris that I would cruise around, it was short spaces because it's like, but I was,
you know, and the polaris was right next to the picnic table.
So for some reason, my first thought was that the Polaris exploded on me, you know,
that it detonated, like an IED or something. And I was on the ground and I was holding my eyes open
and I was very much panicked because I was blacked out and I thought I was blind in a disparity, you know.
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What, it's a weird series of events that happen, you know?
Because once I could see, I'm still on the ground,
but then I start seeing like the Afghan Special Forces,
you know, team chief, that's like the guy that's in charge
with the officer, the team chief is like the leader
from my experience so far.
I see him drop a bag of RPGs and run away, you know.
Then I see another guy run out and run out of the of our compound in the
daytime.
That's like unheard of, one of the afghan esf guys in an enemy village, you know, like,
so that was all like kind of like, whoa.
And then I got, um, and this guy had been shooting RPGs, you know, so the first RPG hit close
to me, right?
There's Shrapnel in every part of this table.
Everything was had Shrapnel.
There's RPG fins everywhere.
Like he ended up letting loose like 12 of these things
in a small area.
So all of our stuff was destroyed.
All of our tech equipment, our camera systems,
all that shit's destroyed. And like it's like, whoa, everything's smoking. Like, and we're
getting, and I thought we were locked in with mortars, dude. So I thought like we're
under attack, and it was the A team. And I thought they had us like directly
locked in with mortars. And they're just dropping on us, you know, and I got into
the interpreter, who's a, are the interpreter living space,
and they're all holding hands like this.
And they're like, and I'm real tight with the interpreters,
you know, and they're like, big problem, big problem.
And they're all holding hands together,
I'm like, damn dude, I gotta, like this is gonna do,
this is gonna do nobody any good to be in here.
You know what I mean, I gotta get out, I gotta make moves.
So I got to the operations center,
which is just a little bunker covered with sandbags.
And when I got in there, he's right on top.
That was where the shooter was, dude.
He's right in the security tower on top.
So he starts hitting the operations center
direct top down with RPGs. There's three of four of us inside of there. We're all rocked. Every time that that thing hit,
there was one guy that was down under the desk, and there was three of us that were standing up.
We were rocked every single time. And it was insane. And it was a crazy thing
because there's enemy everywhere, dude.
There's enemy in the village everywhere.
There's aircraft on station
that's spawning enemy everywhere.
And there's guys that ran out of the compound
and it was like, what's going on?
What's happening?
And then one of the army guys came over
and said, one of the army infantry guy said and said, one of the army infantry guys said,
hey, one of the, one of the turps is up here
and said that one of the Afghan special forces guys
has gone crazy in the tower and needs to get killed.
We're like, whoa, at least we know what's going on.
You know what I mean?
At least so up to this point, you didn't realize
this was an active shooter.
No clue, dude. We didn't realize this was an active shooter. No clue, dude.
We didn't know this was coming from inside at all.
How much time is passed, do you think?
I know, I know you probably have no, like, you know, I'm like, definitely fight like I'd say five minutes, maybe.
I mean, but he dude, like, there's a lot happening, a lot of reloads and like,
a lot of RPGs and like a a lot of crazy things that are materializing
in that five minutes. There's a lot of damage and stuff being done. So what ended up happening
is we, with the guys that were there that were, you know,
senior to me, that were Raiders that were in the
luckily in the operation center,
like helped clear out the compound,
because we didn't know what was clear
and what wasn't at that point.
Now that we have an active shooter,
who else is an active shooter?
You don't know, so you have to clear everything
like it's not safe, you know what I'm saying?
So we clear out, we get up to this side
and then when we got to the back,
all the Afghan Special Forces guys,
these like all the OG guys that I've been
that are like been so impressive to train with,
with the long beards and everything,
they're all handing their rifles like we're done.
Like you guys take, you guys help,
because three of their team members were dead on the ground.
This guy was killing him, shooting active shooter,
killed their captain, you know?
Like, because throughout this thing, people are like thinking,
they had a couple of their guys thinking we were getting attacked
from outside the village, so they initiated the battle drill
and they were running up to the tower and the guy was like,
you come up anymore, I'm gonna shoot you and domed them.
Boom. So now there's a guy shot in the head on the side of the stairs going up to the tower.
Then now the captain tried to get up on their living space to shoot his own guy once he realized what
was going on. And as soon as he popped his head up, this guy domed him. So their captain got shot,
killed, fell off, he's dead on the ground. And then another guy, same thing, so like, so that's why they were all,
because their guys are got killed.
And they were like more, they were, you know, so they actually were the ones,
you know, to help like we worked with them and got the situation done, but dude.
Hold on, how'd you get it done?
That guy's up there in a semi enclosed position shooting like over 10 RPGs. He's done himself.
He smoked it like that. That's that whole post was on fire, dude. Like he was like dying inside.
He there's no way that guy wasn't dying.. The backblast of each of those RPGs,
it's almost like doing it in a closed room.
They were beliced, it was a ballistic post
that got shot every day.
That was bulletproof that didn't have,
like it wasn't like clear backblast area.
Oh, okay.
So he was shooting these rockets,
he was shooting it from an enclosed room. Yes. Yes. Not even a really a room. No, it's a it's a enclosed post
Okay, yeah, I was thinking it was one of those towers where it was yeah, it was open. No, so it's like dude
You could have shot a paintball gun at that guy at the end and he probably would have died
You know like that's nothing to you nothing to... But he offed himself by shooting
all those rockets in that enclosed position, dude. He was on fire. We called it Ghostpost
after that. But yeah, so that insider attack thing.
I didn't, it was like right after it happened cause I passed, or I filled my,
made my exams afterwards,
so I got flown out for concussions
cause I had a loss of consciousness and whatever else,
but a lot of people got TBI's on that
with all those RPGs and stuff. A lot of people got TBI's on that with all those RPGs and stuff. A lot of people got rocked.
So there was a lot of our team members that got, you know, flown out.
But a couple of my team members took me over and like, immediately afterwards and shown
me the situation and like, shown me like the forensics kind of on it.
Like, dude, look where you're sitting.
Look at this.
Look at like my tray, like my cereal, like, look at all this stuff.
There's shrapnel in every single thing, dude, like, you know, like took a picture and like,
like it was definitely something.
But then after that, I was like, you know, got Medevac, and then,
I mean, like I said, dude, we had our executive officer and our company was back, lost both of his legs
on the previous deployment, and was back on that deployment,
double amputee above the knee.
And so, when you, we get, you know, a medevac for a traumatic, for a concussion,
you know, and it's like, dude, I gotta get back like, I'm good, you know, and I gotta get back
to, and so. Two boys. Yeah, so everybody that got sent, we all got back, like within two days or something, back to the thing,
but do those, like those RPGs, that, like,
concussion was severe, severe, for sure.
And I still, like, I've had a lot of, like,
you know, I've recalled that memory of, like, that initial thing,
that boom, you know, so many times, dude.
Like, did any Raiders get fucked up in that?
You know, like, fucked up with concussions
and probably their ears blown out
or if we know, fucking memories of, of like all the shit, you know.
Because there are a lot of insider attacks, you know. So then it kind of gets into, you know.
But there's a psychological part of it. It's what I'm trying to get and communicate to you
of being of your safe space being interrupted
and your safe security bubble of what you like know
and depend on for your fucking life, you know?
To be your safe space, that that like compromised, you know,
is what kind of like has kept me up at night, you know.
Yeah.
And I know it's kept some of my other teammates up too, you know.
Is that safe space shit?
And so, you know, again, like, I look at it like Mr. McGoo, like, dude, I was there at the table.
I got blown off, and then I just made it into this, and then crawled over here, and then made it into here,
in between all these RPG blasts. I didn't even know that that was it. I thought it was something else.
Yeah. So, that was it that I thought it was something else. Yeah, so
And that was your those your those your first deployment. That was my first
Legit. Yeah, that was my first Marsauct deployment. Yeah
Damn
What was the light going back
Coming back to the States. No, no, no, no, you said you got met a back. What was it like going back to the same spot?
Damn dude.
I mean,
it's definitely a wake up call.
What was cool was that like all of my Afghan, like local police,
like my commander and all the people that I worked with, they were all like,
because the Afghan Special Forces guys did it. So these guys were like, dude, they were so mad
that another that they had done that, you know, and so they're like, no one's ever gonna, you know,
and that's a big reason why I feel like I never got hit
with an insider with my Afghan local police
is because the commander had made the pilgrimage to Mecca,
right, and that was my guy that I worked with.
So he had like a religious status with everybody
that they didn't wanna,
do you assume I'm saying that they didn't want to.
Do you assume I'm saying that they didn't want to cross?
And because he blessed me off that saved me
from some attacks I feel like.
Now, getting, so, I had to just be,
I was just like, be as cautious, like be as diligent as possible, you know I had to just be I was just like be as cautious like be as
diligent as possible you know what I'm saying being out there and not doing
stupid stuff not taking extra steps you know not like trying to force going on
missions you know like all this kind of stuff like thinking smarter and and then
like how to set the next team up for success so they don't have to come back to this place
You know, so like that kind of stuff, but um
It was crazy because at the end deployment, you know, I had all these crazy experiences with my afghan local commander
And like there was one day where we were doing some local police training
And 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. And he gets in his truck and drives around the corner,
hits an ID, boom, blasts him, like launches him, double amputee launched and like,
double amputee launched and like so I had to get him like so he got on a flight and got air lifted out and all that stuff but once he got into like a like a
regular hospital like in Kandahar and stuff like the Taliban was green
lighting him and coming after him and stuff like that.
You know, so I was like, uh, when I was leaving, I was talking to him on all my on cell phones
and stuff like that. And I'm like, dude, um, you know, a month before I'm leaving, I'm like,
hey, you know, I got a, I'm going to have like, be, uh, you know, getting ready soon, whatever,
you know, like, whatever. I can't tell him like any information of what I'm, you know, getting ready soon, whatever, you know, like, whatever.
I can't tell him like any information of what I'm, you know,
but just kind of like, hey, I might not be here forever, you know,
and so he came and visited me before I flew out and was like,
we're all wrapped, like his legs were still all bandaged and wrapped.
And they drove them in a car and all that shit.
So that was cool that I got to see him because we had a lot of conversations.
He was like a warlord out there.
He owned all the poppy fields in this area and all these different stuff. And so it's interesting when you get to work, you know,
work with people from different backgrounds like that.
Yeah.
So some of those guys have some pretty fucking amazing stories.
You know, especially those old timers like that,
you know, rising up against a Taliban
before we ever came along.
And there's been some, I've talked to some good ones too,
that man, there's some fucking waters over there.
Yeah, you know.
Oh yeah.
And their family was killed by a Taliban
and their family was killed when they got on and on.
They're just fighting and resilient and like,
you know, whatever, but again,
it's just a different culture, different values.
Like, you know what I mean?
Growing up in Texas, like I know that there's people in Texas
if you just told them like what the things
that happen over there, you know, and stuff.
What?
Well, it's like, hey dude, this isn't Texas, homie.
You're an Afghanistan dog, right?
You're in a, yeah, they're all doing heroin.
Their life is literally on the line every day.
They live in a heroin field full of poppy
and it's 130 degrees and they live moment to moment.
And you want us to create a program
where we start drug testing them and, you know, enrolling
them into, like, it's like, no.
Like, dental program, you know.
But, dude, there are some like amazing, kind of wild characters out there.
And I got to bring a dog back home from Afghanistan, which was really cool.
Yeah, my commander gave me an Afghan kuchi dog, like a mountain dog.
Like the fighting dogs? Special. No, yes, yeah, but these are like, I mean, I know you didn't
fight them. Yeah, but yes, I mean, these dogs are legit. Yeah, they're big. Yeah, yeah, and so
This was a female and some of the males are like
You know, and they cut the tail and they do different things that make them like but they're like
You know warlord dogs kind of thing, but dude, they're really special dogs and
I get they gave it to me as a gift when I was over there,
like my first month in Afghanistan,
and this little puppy would sleep with me on my cot,
and would wait for me when I get back for missions and stuff.
And so I ended up, dude, that was like a saving grace.
I got that thing.
He was with me for a few months of deployment,
and then I kind of got him on
a pat, like got him with, you know, rat chained out with like, hey, this guy's going to
can to hard and then they can drop him off here and then he went to quarantine and then
flew him out. And it was an organization called the Puppy Rescue Mission. That was like
rescuing dogs. Oh, that's cool. For military.
You still have them?
What?
It just passed away this year, bro.
What was his name?
It was a girl.
Her name was Nari.
Nari?
Because the canal was the Nari Sriraj.
Oh, that's cool, man.
Yeah.
So her name was Nari.
And then they renamed her Talley for Taliban
because she was like all like a, you know, like a, if a,
if a plane would come over, you know, because there was an airport in the town that the dog would like,
you know, hit the ground. So if I got, yeah. But, uh, but dude, it's really cool because the dogs can't
survive over there. They're gonna hit an IED. They're gonna like whatever
dude. It's hard to live out there, you know. So that was cool. That was a win.
But overall like I remember leaving, you know, when I left Afghanistan and I
didn't have it. I don't remember having any emotion when I was over there as
far as crying or doing anything like that. But when I left and I was on the Hilo out with a couple of my teammates, I broke. Really?
Yeah. Because it was just a lot, dude. Yeah. Sounds like it.
And like there's, you know, when shit hits the fan, there's
always like, you know, there's other people there, like a
generator mechanic or, you know, other people that aren't fit to be in that environment that you have to like look out for and make sure that you
Yeah, protect them, you know, or whatever else, but
Anyway, it's a lot
you know, and, dude, super valuable, you know, and haunting and invaluable, dude,
like full yin and yang, you know, light side, dark side of it all, you know, like, full breakdown, full breakthrough.
It's like a dilemma with soft too, because it's like,
operator syndrome, you know, and the study that they did.
But it's like, that's what my experience was, like, I got to a point
where I burned all my, I wasn't able to have any relationships
with even my closest like my grandmother, you know?
Like I was in just like,
but it's a dilemma with soft,
and it's like, you know,
because I mentor kids going in
and work with kids going into soft branches.
And at first it's like, why do you wanna go in?
And it's like, no, that's not a good reason.
You know, why would anyone want to go in?
What would not be what's the reason that you've said
that's not a good reason?
Like, a really good one.
That's like surface superficial.
That's a great example.
Like, well, I don't want to have a regular job.
Or I want a cool job.
It's like, I don't care what job you want.
That's not a reason.
Why do you want to do this?
This is like the hardest thing that I've ever experienced.
That like literally like, I got friends killing themselves
from doing this job.
They made it back from Afghanistan, but they never really,
they didn't survive the experience.
So how am I going to turn around and tell you it's a great idea to go?
At the same time, like, some of the biggest learnings
and some of those most meaningful things that I
are in my life are from that thing.
Yeah. All my relationships that I earn in my life are from that thing. Yeah.
All my relationships that I have from that stuff,
like my friends that got shot with me on that,
that were on my team, I see them,
like one of them is one of my close,
like they're both my close friends,
and I see them both, like one of them I see multiple times
a week, and he works with me,
and the other one I see, at least monthly.
You know what I'm saying?
But we're all like, that's what keeps us resilient is that we're connected.
You know?
Yeah.
But it's a dilemma with soft, because it's like, dude, you can go and you can get this
experience and these skills and go to these courses and go to get in these positions to really like stretch your human potential
you know
Way outside of what you thought was capable, right?
But then it's a dilemma because
there's something missing
that
people are breaking down and they're not able to
that people are breaking down and they're not able to,
it's like the things that are that make you so good at your job overseas, that breaks you
if you come home with that, if you're hyper vigilant,
if you're stressed response is always on,
it's like all that, but dude, if that's not on
when you're in a high threat environment,
that's like, you're not gonna survive that either.
Yeah.
So it's like, you know, and then not having the tools
because a lot of like, and it's really no fault
of any of the guys that were like,
like in charge or whatever for me,
because they're falling in on the culture
that they fell in on, that they fell in on.
And a lot of that, and from the marine side,
I don't know what you experienced,
but it's like suffering silence is a thing.
Suffering silence, like, dude, what do you want me to do?
Pat, you on the ass, like go do your job.
Yeah.
Every day's a trial, dude, like, why are you complaining?
What do you have headaches?
Join the club what else
get out of my office yeah um but like suffering silence culture doesn't work anymore you know
and like I've gotten to have relationships with the world war two guys and one World War II Raider in particular that I have been really close with and it's
the same thing, dude. They have the same thing. They've been suffering in silence and then
now they're trying to come out and talk about it more in their 90s, you know, and communicate
it. But like, dude, what can we do now to promote a positive thing for guys too.
If you have a problem, it's okay to ask for help.
Cause there's a stigma in the veteran culture
and the military community period of like,
oh, if I ask for help, I'm gonna get extra pages
in my medical jacket and then I'm gonna be looked at
as a liability or people are gonna judge me.
I'm gonna be looked at as weak. Yeah. I going to judge me, I'm going to be looked at as weak. Yeah.
I mean, man, I wasn't expecting to go into this conversation, but I mean, there's a
lot of things that have to change, you know, there's that.
There's, in one aspect, you cannot fault the units for kind of the upbringing, you know, of what it takes to be an operator
at that level. You know, there has to be the competition, there has to be the suffering
sought, all that shit has to happen, I think. You know, where they're failing is the transition out, you know, and the overuse, the overuse,
chronic stress, the overuse of soft units, you know, especially the, especially the tier
one units, you know, I mean those guys are going, I don't know what you were doing, I never did this, but
some of these guys are going on two missions a night.
You know, they're hitting a target,
they're getting intel from that target,
and then they're rolling it right into another target,
and they're doing it night after night after night after night
for 20 fucking deployments.
You know?
No.
And there's all these other units out there that could be doing something, but they, it's
send these guys, send these guys, send these guys, send these guys, send these, I mean, Afghanistan
was a soft war.
You know, a lot of Iraq was a soft war after Fallujah.
And do you got something? What's interesting about Afghan anirak is that, like...
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Whether we should be there or whatever, but wherever we put forces, that's where the
sic act.
You know, that's where the activity is going to be.
If you put a base here, that's where it's going to start getting attacked and all that.
So it's like, I don't know, dude, like the...
We did all this work.
You know, and, well, before we get into that,
you know what I mean?
We're talking about this issue.
You know, and you're talking about men torn kids
and I mean, it's just, do you want your son
to go into this?
No.
I don't want mine to go into it either. You know, would you stop your son to go into this? No. I don't want mine to go into it either.
You know, would you stop your son from going into this?
To an extent, but if it was like something that was, he was called to do.
I wouldn't, you know, I would, at a certain point, I would have to, I would support him.
But, you know, like, I don't really,
it's hard for me to recommend to people that they should do it, you know.
For me, I come from a little different perspective because, like, I was kind of going to jail,
and then I got into the military.
Yeah.
From my military school experience.
Even the military's one thing. Sof is different. Sof is different.
It's just different. Yeah. You know, and I think it was, there's a lot of glorification,
you know, that happens. There's a lot of war glory that gets passed down and that and
Do you know what I'm saying a war is glorified and yeah, it
Shouldn't be yeah, I don't think it should be yeah, I mean there's
Acts that should be glorified that have happened over there, but you know ever since the age of social media and they see
You know cool guy picks, and they
don't see the flip side of this. And that's what this, you know, that's one thing that
this show brings is it shows the other side of the coin, you know, it's like, look, yeah,
there is a lot of cool shit that happens. And you do a lot of shit that you're never
going to be able to do anywhere else. And then all that cool shit that you did is gonna fuck you up for the rest of your life.
And that's what they, that's what they miss.
Yeah.
You know, and every time you say that it falls on deaf ears until something like
this conversation comes out like what we're getting ready to get into with your transition.
You know, all of our friends have shot themselves.
All of our friends have committed suicide. All, you know, whether it's pills, whether it's the trigger, whether it's...
I mean, shit, I tried to kill myself with my fucking garage, you know?
Right in the car running. And not that I don't want to
make this about me at all, but just about everybody I know had has had one or
more suicide attempts. I mean that flag right behind you at my best friend
fucking died of a heroin overdose. You know, I mean
of a heroine overdose. Damn, bro.
You know, I mean, nobody really, for a long period of time, nobody really painted that
picture of what the other side of this, what it looks like coming out of it.
Yeah.
You know, and now it's here.
You know, the World War II, guys, didn't, the Vietnam guys, you know, I mean, it just
wasn't talked about, you know, what it was like
coming out of this.
Everybody knew, I think, especially with the Vietnam generation, that it fucked those
people up, it fucked those guys up in the head.
But nobody did anything, you know, and now this generation, I mean, we just got out of
a 20-year war, you know?
20 fucking years. It's the only time in American history where somebody could have gone in
into combat and
retired in combat. Yeah, the entire fucking 20-year career.
I look at those those wars ended.
Yeah, I know.
You think we should have been there?
Uh,
like,
dude, my biggest thing from like Iraq now,
Afghan, when we left,
um, it's like all the work that we did, you know,
and like all the lives that were sacrificed and all the stuff to like get these strategic
checkpoints and these pit places and do these things and all the IDs that we had to find
or function to get that thing.
And then soon as the day that we leave the village, all that stuff is collapse.
Yeah.
For seven months of work, dude.
So it's like, how sustainable is that?
But, to be clear, when I'm, when I was over there,
I wasn't like, I didn't, I wasn't carrying an American flag
or something like that.
I was literally just like there,
like from with my team to make it through this thing
and get back home, you know?
And like, it doesn't seem like the government's always
on your side.
They weren't on our side.
I mean, we talked about, we talked about the ROEs in 2012 and Helm and Province.
They wanted to take the whole province,
but we weren't allowed to shoot people that were fucking shooting at us
if they happened to drop their weapon.
What the fuck is that?
That's a country that's behind you.
That's not a fucking country that's behind you.
Yeah.
Guys that have been on the show like Eddie Gallagher, the entire fucking US, all of them, all the media,
everybody hung that dude out to dry. For killing a bad guy that he didn't even fucking kill.
He did not even fucking kill him. You know, in the Marine that
did kill him who confessed in court, he even confessed, I'm the one that fucking killed
that dude. And they still tried to hammer his ass, you know, not just not just the Navy
that half the fucking US population was on board for to get this dude life in prison.
The black water guys, they're pardons right there behind you.
You know, all signed by him.
You know, the Marseille 7, the task force, fire and disguise.
Yeah, those guys, you know, nobody's, it's all, we've become like a country where we
just fucking eat our own.
They don't even know, people don't even know
what the fuck was happening over there. They don't know anything about it, but if ABC
news or CNN or MSNBC or Fox or any of these fucking media companies say anything bad, you
know that a service member has done. Everybody just jumps on board immediately,
fuck that guy, throw him in prison,
give him the death penalty,
fuck these baby killers.
Who the fuck is gonna go fight for this place?
With that kind of shit going on.
Well, they're recruiting it down.
Yeah, they can't even get anybody
to join the fucking military anymore.
I wonder why.
You know?
Yeah.
Culture, it's strategy for bread.
These fucking people in this country
are so fucking self-entitled and tied to their meaningless
bullshit that it's just, it's ruining the entire fucking
country, dude.
Nobody wants to join the military.
Nobody wants to be a fucking cop.
Nobody wants to do, nobody wants to join the military. Nobody wants to be a fucking cop. Nobody wants to do.
Nobody wants to protect this place.
Because the protected just fuck over everybody
that actually gives a shit about where we live.
That's rough, dude.
Let's take a break.
I gotta change my attitude.
Alright.
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We just wrapped up. Man, I don't even...
I don't even know what tangent we left on on our butt. But that's over.
So, anyways, we talked about your first deployment.
We talked about the inside attack, the active shooter.
And you did some more Marsoct deployments. We talked about the inside attack, the active shooter,
and you did some more Marsoct deployments. I know you don't really want to revisit all that stuff
and you're wanting to get into transition.
So you're medically retired from the Marine Corps.
Do you want to talk about that?
Yeah, so I was temporarily medically retired
and then they took it away after two years and basically,
but you know, long story short, I was at the one of the seer courses and I was in a cage,
you know, in the captivity thing and my back throughout, my back was throwing out,
it was having back issues, you know, where I couldn't walk.
Once, you know, it would like pop and then I couldn't
walk for a few days and then I would like slowly come back you know yeah and
but I didn't know that there was something wrong permanently or whatever so
because I hadn't gotten MRI yet so when I was at the searcourse you know and
you're in the cage and I threw my back down I can't walk and I was like kind of
it was in they thought I was in scenario
because I was asking for medical help and a stool and all this stuff.
But it was like, no, I can't walk, you know, so then luckily that was at the end
of that. So I was able to finish, but then I got MRI, you know, and then I have
a L5S1 that's blown out, you know, my bottom
disc that's blown out on the nerves and that's what's creating all of the problems, right?
Yeah.
So once I got that MRI, then that opened up a can of worms like, hey, he needs a beyond
limited duty for six weeks, get another MRI, and do a head to toe assessment.
Right?
Yeah.
So then once they did that, then they started getting into like, oh well, he's got like,
you know, traumatic brain injury, a lot of concussions.
There's something going on on this side with his eye eye and then there's a problem with his inner ear
And he's not equalizing and he can't pass his diet physical anymore
and so like
traumatic brain injury
Getting like medically separated, you know, yeah, that started from a back MRI.
And so anyway, and I was like,
I was getting ready to go on another deployment
and I was, that wasn't like a combat deployment,
but getting ready to go and the medical officer called me
and it was like,
hey, you know, because I was trying to get my pain meds and different stuff that they were giving me to go on deployment,
get it signed off that I could take it with the medic.
And he's like, hey, I know you're trying to work whatever it is, but I want to let you know that you're trying to hold on right now.
And I'm ripping you off. Like, you're not deploying.
right now, and I'm ripping you off. Like, you're not deploying, and you're not,
when you walk out of this office, basically,
you need to start planning your life
as to what you're doing next.
Cause you don't work, you're not gonna be an operator
anymore, you know.
Holy shit.
You're done.
Just like that, huh?
Yeah.
Which was good though,
cause he was like, you know,
that whole thing of like, you're holding on, and I'm ripping you off, you're fucking done. Like, you know because he was like, you know, that whole thing of like you're holding on and I'm ripping you off
You're fucking done like you know, he was like and he was like, but the reason why is because if I deploy you
And you come back they're gonna look at you as like you're fit for duty and
Like none of your injuries are real, you know, and so I don't want to do that to your your family
so I'm gonna make sure that you like get
evaluated and get medically separated. Like, you know, go
through the proper thing. If you can get healed and come back
whatever, but like you're not doing this job here anymore.
Damn, you know? And so like, it's kind of like an identity
thing, because like you're all wrapped up and like oh
I'm an operator and I am on this team and I add this value and like I do these functions on the team and
Then that's taking away like that, you know
And it's like and then you're not responsible like you don't have the same
And it's like, and then you're not responsible. Like you don't have the same,
because in the team dude,
you gotta be ready to move at a moment's notice
to do whatever's needed to do.
And then now when you're out of the team
and you're on a medical hold,
you don't have to do any of that.
So then it's like, you know,
those guys are looked at like, you know what I mean?
Me, oh yeah.
And so it was like damn
But it was a blessing in disguise because everything is you know, but
So I start going the medical
Separation thing is miserable horrible like you know three appointments a day
They're all just like and what was wrong with you? And what was that? And then did anyone document that?
And it's like, yes. And it's like, this is miserable. And this is my existence.
And what am I going to do when I get out? And this is miserable, you know?
And it's like part of it is being institutionalized in the military,
where you're so dependent on your paycheck every two weeks.
And then now you're getting out and you're like, oh my gosh,
how am I going to survive without the government giving me that thing?
And it's like, oh, well, here's your disability, right?
And here's your temporary retirement.
So here's your retirement thing.
And we're just going to send you to appointments whenever we send you and you have to be at everyone you can't miss those.
So make sure you go to those and then here's all your VA appointments. It's so like literally dude. If I went I don't go to any of those. But if I were to go to those, that would alone be a full-time job that I wouldn't have a capacity to make.
Yeah, they did that to me too.
They make it, they make it your job.
Yeah, they will come up with all these appointments
for you to go to and they make it,
it's like they make that your job.
Your job is to go to bullshit medical appointments
to doctors who don't even give
a fuck about you. Yeah, you know, that's that's that's your new job for for what three
grand a month. Yeah, and that's your that's your prize as you get out. Yeah. And then
you can get hooked onto that whole trap. But so that's the thing, right?
So the whole medical board and all that stuff
it really like to crush my confidence, dude.
Really bad, you know, because I'm like,
going all these TBI things and they're like,
I'm miserable, you know,
and I'm like having trouble, like I'm like, you know,
doing extra movement where I'm like, I drive here
and then I forget something and I've gotta go back
or like I can't find my keys or like,
I can't find my phone or, you know,
stupid shit like that and it's like,
and then I'll let that, like that starts taking over kind of thing, right?
Because they're telling me in these appointments
that I'm never gonna be able to keep track of my keys.
So I have to need, I'm gonna need all these
other training things.
And I'm gonna have to like do all these like,
basically dummy proof things, and like, whatever else.
But it's like all this programming, right?
That I'm not gonna be able to do do it that I'm basically like you know yeah
It's like the opposite of empowering someone to do something. It's like hey
Not only am I not going to teach you to fish, but you're not really going to be able to fish
You're not really capable of
fishing anymore, you know, over and over and over. And that's just like, dude, I really
didn't have any confidence when I got out, you know, at all. I remember I like, I was
so bad that I had to hire a lady that, because when I got into business school at USC, one of my MBA, one of my teammates that was in my group
was like, he had hired an organizer, right?
And I had like all this clutter of stuff
that I needed to get rid of from the military
and just old stuff, whatever.
But I didn't have the confidence to make decisions
to get rid of stuff.
You know what I'm saying?
Like I was at that level,
this is after as I like getting out.
You know what I mean?
Does that make sense?
Not exactly.
So like it's just very,
like my confidence was so low
that I didn't have the decision-making,
ability and confidence to be like,
all that gear, I don't need out.
No shit.
I was like, I don't know if I should keep it or not.
You weren't capable of basic, like,
just like, rudimentary decision making.
I was like frozen in my like,
confidence and stuff.
And so, the only reason why I got into business school
was because I got an invite, an email invite,
to go to an information session that was like right around my house.
And when I went there, I was like, there's no way that they would accept me.
And when I was there, they told me that they would let me get in, like, you know, that
I would get in, and that they could wave my application process for that year.
You know, so I knew I could get in because of that experience. So what I've learned at that thing.
So that gave me more confidence to even apply because I wasn't ready to do it
that year.
I couldn't take the deal that they offered.
So I'd actually apply and I got in the next year because I was still in the Marine
Corps, dude.
So it would have been too much for me to try to do business
school while I'm doing medical, whatever, you know?
But that was a, it worked out perfectly
cause I literally got out of the Marine Corps in like July of 2017
and I started business school in August.
What was home life like?
Were you married yet?
Yes.
How was that going? Awesome,
dude. So it was going good. Well, that's like my been my saving grace this whole time. It's like
my wife and my kids. Man, that's, that's amazing. I've never heard that yet. No, I take that back.
Yet, no, I take that back. I take that back.
One time on this show, Gallagher's wife.
Yeah, but yeah, dude, my wife and kids are the number one.
But you like, there was no like button heads.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll get into that.
That's what I got out.
That's why I'm in.
Okay, there's been a lot of wives
who've saved their husbands' ass on this show.
I meant like the budding heads,
like usually the transition,
the marriage is either done
or it's about this close to fulfilling.
Yeah, we have some really tough times.
Okay.
Yeah.
But like, that's what makes us stronger, you know.
That strengthened our relationship,
but she helped me to get through those times.
But so as I'm getting out,
I go right into business school.
But as I was getting out also,
there was a so calm, there was a lady that worked at our unit that was basically
plugged into Socom Care programs.
And so one of my former teammates was like having some serious problems living on the
street and some serious stuff.
So she offered to send both of us to this event, right? That's a, was a healing,
it was like a rapid response therapy is what it's called, but it was an event that was the Brian
Bill foundation. That's from extortion, you know, that his dad Scott Bill started that thing. And so
extortion, you know, that his dad Scottville started that thing and so amazing organization. But so I got invited to go to this thing with my teammate, you know,
as I'm getting out and I fly out to Florida and he didn't show up. And so now I'm
at this thing. I'm like, I showed up because I was supporting him. Like, I'm not doing the therapy.
And they're like, no, like, you're here for the weekend.
You might as well do it. We have all these, like, amazing therapists and support and stuff here.
So I got a really good therapist from Chicago, like a very street guy that I connected with that did rapid response therapy with me and
So we did two days and the first day he went in and basically hypnotized me and then went in and was
Going in and finding like bad data files and problems things that were bothering me and like bring them to the surface and
Like dealing with them kind of thing.
You know does that make sense? Yeah, I know what you're talking about. I'm not
On that on that method. Yeah, I just went right to work with this guy
In not yeah, when I when he put me in the state, I was just like boom
Boom boom boom boom boom like trying to do as much work as possible with them to like
Clear shit. Do you remember it? No, not really. I remember some of the like, you know
vaguely like the room I was in and stuff like that about it. How do they hypnotize you?
They have different techniques, you know where they ask you questions and they have you, you know
Do this movement or what whatever it is that kind of puts you in that trance. But they build a trust with you first, you know, which is what worked with me because I have
trust issues. Yeah. So, I mean, that's going to be, I mean, I would be a little uneasy walking into an office knowing that I'm going to get hypnotized.
Yeah, and you just got like, so if you can understand the context as dude, this guy is the guy's dad that's putting this all on.
He's a Gold Star family member. His son died in extortion, you know.
And so you're there and he's literally in tears talking to you,
telling you why he's doing that program.
And like how he wants to like create healing
and opportunities for everybody to go back to their life
and stuff.
And it's like, it's kind of hard in that environment
to be like, I'm not gonna do this.
Like, I don't trust you.
Well, I don't mean, I know where you're coming from. I just want to give you like the
vibe. When I was out there, dude, I was like, man, I have a special thing like a thing
with Goldstar family members. Like, dude, if you lost your kid or your husband or something
like that, like that's a very serious thing, you know. And for them to start
an organization, and then now they're healing, bringing us out and doing this work. I don't
know, man, I'm very resistant to everything just like you with that, you know. And I was
told, I don't know what this is. And I'm resistant to all the therapy stuff too. But I got the right guy, you know, that was working with me. So day one was all
military stuff. And then day two, he was like, dude, you did so much work yesterday. Like,
what do you want to work on today? I was like, I don't know, like, I don't know why, but childhood,
you know, and then that opened up the Pandora's box, you know,
because I didn't, I buried all that stuff.
Yeah.
So, then I got access to all of it and then it allowed me to start healing from it, one,
because that's just like a cancer, dude.
So, what is it like then? So you're hypnotized and then what happens?
You're hypnotized and then they start organizing things and working through files with you
like of different timelines or traumas that you experienced
from there, you know, and find the root of the thing
that really was like, you know, whatever it is,
and then try to address it.
Where they're like, you know, their techniques
are like to try to close out that data file, you know,
and they want to cancel it.
But like, for my experience,
it wasn't like a one-stop shop.
It opened up Pandora's box when I came home.
And then I was like, you know,
I'm navigating through my life
and starting business school and all this stuff.
And then my son's like, you know, seven years old.
And I started having the flashbacks of whenever I was at age,
some of the shit that was going on with me.
And then I started thinking like,
if this happened to my kids, you know, for one week,
or if I caught a peeping Tom, dude, at my house
or something like that,
I'm not saying that I would like, you know, even do physical violence to that person,
but there would be something that would happen, that would be like a life-changing
turning point for that person. And there would'd be there's no possible scenario that I can imagine that
that would be going on for three to four years with my kids, you know what I'm
saying? Without being like prosecuted, dude. So like, so I started going down that
rabbit hole of like, well, why me? Why did I have this fucked up childhood, you know, done it and then like, why did I survive?
Why did I survive the shrapnel, the fuck, the insider attack? Why did I survive this time
with the bullets? Why did I survive this? Why did I survive this car wreck? Why did I survive,
even fracturing my skull and making it through that?
Like it's just like going down the rabbit hole if I
It's all victim mindset
and
So it started to play like that
So this hope you were did it
This actually is what one of the things
that opened me up that brought in
gave me direct access to these memories.
So where do you go?
I mean, where do you go from there?
Did you go back to the same therapist?
No.
No, so that's like a remote thing.
So then they flow back and we flow back here and I stayed connected with them
and I you know did some calls with them and whatever. I'm still connected with them. But basically after that, you know, I did
I started to experience like, you know, because when I got to LZONE like 15 meds,
you know, 10 plus meds getting out of like,
10 meds to antidepressants to, you know,
migraine to whatever different nerve brain,
whatever, lots.
And when I would take even like half of it, you know, I would just be a zombie
dude. And my wife was like, it's like, you know, when you're in like a military brief
or something, and people passing out and you're like, what do you wake up? What are you doing?
It's like, I felt like that was me, you know, like I was like a zombie and my wife was like like in the morning
Like 80 and or something like I'm sitting on the couch. I took all my meds at seven or something and I'm sitting on the couch at like eight like
You know like dude, I'm gonna go get her man. Yeah, I'm driven. I have I'm always working on I have a bunch of projects like stuff that's going on.
Why would I be sitting there on the couch at 30 with with my wife asking me what's wrong with you?
It's because I'm on 15 meds that they put me on getting out. So first I had to get off of all that shit. Yeah. All meds. And they didn't want me to get off, you know.
And like, the, they don't wait.
So you just have to make up your mind
and stand with that.
But obviously if you need to be on a medication or whatever,
you need to be on it.
And I'm not saying that.
But for my situation, all of it, I need to be on it. And I'm not saying that, but for my situation,
all of it, I needed to get off,
including Adderall.
When I was in school, I was taking Adderall
for a focus and stuff.
Horrible, bro.
All of that stuff was, I feel like working backwards,
and creating like, it's like, if my stress response is already way too
blown, why am I taking Adderall? Nah dude, that's horrible. That's a horrible
combination, you know, and then I'm hypervigilant. Anyway, so getting off of meds,
and then when I got to business school,
I was like, I had 10 years sober of not drinking,
but then being in groups, you know,
being in this big group at business school,
every other week, you're in the classroom with everybody, and was like I felt like I couldn't do it like I needed to and
everybody was drinking and stuff so I was like that's it I'm just gonna have to
start drinking again you know and so I use that as like a mask because I have
social anxiety disorder you know yeah and so I was drinking throughout my MBA program, but I was depressed. So it was like
counterproductive. And then I stopped taking on my antidepressants, so then I was like,
there's no masking any of your depression when when you're in that kind of state.
So, you know, Baz, I was getting out,
like things were, this was happening in the background
because all these things were happening
that were gaining momentum.
You know, like, my partner, Donna and I started these companies.
Right?
That was like, everybody's like, what are you doing?
And we were explaining it, and they didn't really understand.
But then it was like, started to catch on.
And then it was proven like things were actually
like happening that we were saying.
And it was like, all right, cool.
And then, so underwater torpedo league,
we were having actual games,
and we had pools in Southern California,
and then we were doing training.
And so my first year out of the military,
I did like a six week NFL training package, you know,
in 2018.
And that was like a learning experience because I've been training a lot of military
type. Yeah. And whoever else I've trained with the pull work, but training this NFL, this group offseason, like it was a whole different thing.
And then that just like opened everything up after that. So I was like, you know, for six weeks,
we were at this pool in San Diego with these like 10 NFL dudes
putting them through pull training
while they were in their offseason, right?
And they were hyped.
So like while they were training, we season, right? And they were hyped. So like while they were training,
we were playing the underwater sport,
underwater torpedo, and we were training them,
and they were learning to swim some of them
that were like pro bowlers that couldn't swim.
You know what I'm saying?
So then they were all like getting all this water confidence
and they were hyped and they were playing this game
and all this stuff.
And we were creating a lot of buzz at that pool.
And it was like, then David Marsh,
who's a Olympic swim coach, that runs a program
called Team Elite with a bunch of Olympic swimmers came.
It was like, hey, I want to get involved
with what you're doing.
This is just, we just, this is like one,
the week that the NFL program ended,
then we started like connecting with David Marsh.
Got to start training some of the Olympic swimmers
that were training for Tokyo.
And then to work with Coach Marsh,
and learn and stuff like that,
and got exposed to that.
Now it's like soft NFL, the Olympic swimmers.
UFC fighters started to come and
Bellator fighters started to train with us weekly.
And so then now we're training with them and working with
them through their fight camps.
So it's like, dude, there's some exciting things that
were happening.
Yeah.
Exciting at that time.
Wow.
But in the back ground.
All that's happening at the same time. Yes. And it's a very crazy, But in the background, all that's happening at the same time.
Yes, it is a very crazy
because in the background,
like I would be driving
from place to place
and be crying.
Like tears are just coming down.
And I would have these like,
you know,
I was severely depressed,
you know, and I was just like
masking it. And like putting on a front,
like a tough guy front, you know, like I'm tough, but I wasn't. I was not doing well. You know what I mean?
Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. And so that works until it doesn't work.
And so that works until it doesn't work.
And so my second year of business school, I did, things were actually happening.
We were in a business incubator program,
San Diego Sports Innovators,
which is like a shark tank thing.
So I was like doing all these presentations
and like getting all this feedback
and you know, it looked like everything's moving in a positive direction with everything. And then training was like
my main thing that I was passionate about. Training all these athletes that had like
fights coming up, competitions, all that stuff. So I was like keeping myself busy all
the time. But when I wasn't busy dude, I would start to get super sad and depressed
and start to, it's like idle mind is a devil's workshop.
You know, start to like have these,
well, why did my thing work out like that?
Why did I survive?
Yeah.
All the survivors' guilt and like, imposter shit.
And then like, you know,
well, I only had this many deployments,
and why am I fucking happy PTSD?
Like, there's guys that have 20 deployments.
Why am I fucking feeling sorry for myself?
You know, I like all this shit, dude.
Self-induced bullshit traps.
And so, you know,
traps and so
You know
one of my classmates who I didn't talk to before this, but he was a seal
Business school and he was like dude you got serious problems man like I
Got I'm gonna connect you with somebody who I think might be able to help you, you know, because I was like, I was like just
while at that point, you know, I really didn't care.
And it showed.
And so, I got connected with Marcus, dude, Capone.
And so that's another connection here, you know, and that ended up in me getting
saved. It's like, this guy, Marquez, started connecting me with healing opportunities that
I was not taking, you know, connecting me with a guy. It's one of my good friends now,
Miles. And Miles started connecting me with healing opportunities and I wasn't
taking any of them because I didn't want to go network. I don't want to be in any
group environment and all this stuff you know and so just kind of weird how life
works out because like as I was in this breakdown, I was at UCLA Medical being evaluated for mental health
and they were about to put me into like a four-week
inpatient program, you know.
And while I was up there being seen at UCLA,
I would be walking around the worst neighborhoods
at night in LA.
Hoping for some shit that happens.
Yeah.
Been there.
So, just like weird, dude, like why, man.
But I, uh, do you know why now you were doing that?
The best thing is just like that I can explain
Trying to explain it is just like
It's real life in the street in the middle of the night in the hood
You know there's no fake shit. Yeah, it's real 100%
Like there's no theater arts There's no fake shit. Yeah. It's real, 100%. Like, there's no theater, arts, there's no performances. It's like, real deal.
You can be a hard target or a soft target or you can be whatever it is, but like, the
real hook, like, you know, and so some, for some reason I wanted to like be walking around
and doing that, but, you know,
I saw, I was going through all of this stuff
and like, you know, I think we talked about,
doing, like, having a never quit attitude.
You have to have a never quit built into you
to go through certain things,
but then at a certain point,
you have to understand how to surrender to
and how to forgive people
and how to fucking, how to let shit go
and how to surrender things.
And so I didn't understand that quitting and surrendering
are not the same thing, you know?
Yeah.
And like I didn't know how to surrender anything.
And I was holding all my resentment, all my stuff,
and all my grievances, and all my problems,
and all that stuff.
And it was just eating me alive.
And I ended up watching the Aviichi documentary.
What that is?
I don't. So Aviichi is like a famous DJ documentary. That is. I don't.
So Vici is like a famous DJ artist
that killed himself.
And there's a...
Did he kill himself?
Yeah.
I didn't know that.
Yeah.
But there's a documentary out about his,
I mean, his documentary that he killed himself,
I wasn't there.
So, but there's a documentary about his life and stuff. And so it's
called the V.C. stories. But V.C. is one of my favorite artists. Now I was watching this documentary.
It's like, you know, dude, he's like the most popular DJ in the world at the time. And whatever
else. And he's like going on tour after tour after tour after tour and he gets tired of it and he's like telling all of this business people like
I don't want to do this anymore. I'm like tired of all these shows. I hate shows.
I don't want to do it anymore. And whatever it was that he was saying during that
whole thing, I was like holy shit. Like that's how I feel about every day. You know
every day is like a production for me.
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.
And I was like, dude, I don't wanna do this anymore.
Like I'm, and I was like, damn, like I realized
that I'm, you know, got the same shit that, I realized that, you know,
got the same shit that I'm watching this, you know,
that's like suicidal tendencies.
You know?
Yeah.
So, for anybody that has any of that stuff,
the best thing that I could say is just anchor yourself, you know, call one person, like
connect with one person, you know, and communicate.
And so I was doing some things at the time that like were anchoring, you know, like I had my daughter
So like stuffed animal in my car, you know, and I had like
Things that I was doing every week. I got rid of all my guns like all that stuff, you know
You're really hanging on by the thread. Yeah, and
And so they've been sending me these healing things and I was, I'm not going to any of that shit, dude.
I don't care about meeting another soft person
or famous actor or whatever the fuck's gonna be there, you know?
And so they sent me some private ones, you know?
And this is five Emil, DMT.
And I've been listening to podcasts
that they sent me with Mike Tyson talking about.
He did that.
And when I was a kid, Mike Tyson was a heavyweight champ and then he went to prison, you know.
And then now he's back and he's back in pop culture and he's back fighting now, you
know, and all this stuff.
But he did the toe journey.
I've known, like, I've known about my ties in my whole life.
So now I'm listening to him doing this five-amil DMT
and him saying that it changed his life
and all this stuff.
I'm like, wow, maybe I have a chance.
This has to be powerful enough to do something.
So I got one set up for like a couple of weeks from then, you know, a
private, but things were going so bad at the time that my wife had came home. I
was like, that week, and was like, you need to do something now. Like it's gone. Like,
because I was just being, I was not, and you know, I was checked out, dude.
So she was like, you gotta find a solution for this weekend. You can't wait till next weekend.
We can't like, you know, so I hit up.
So it was not bad.
It was bad, dude.
I had a bag packed and I didn't think I was going to be living in my house anymore.
I don't know what.
Damn, bro
Yeah, dude
So I
Remember I went downstairs in my house and I called the shaman
He's like
Don't worry brother,
this is gonna be the best shoot shake
that you ever imagined.
And that was the last thing.
He told me,
you give me all the info where to be that, you know,
in two days.
And so,
you know,
that next morning I drove up
to Stockton, California,
wait 10 hours, you know,
like a maniac, you know, like,
really just like dude, I was just not at a point where I was just saying out loud,
like I didn't understand about setting intentions and all that stuff before going into that ceremony
and stuff, but like, I was basically like, I can't do this anymore, you know, and that
kind of shit. And then I got to
Socton stayed the night and then drove up to the spot the next
morning, you know. And when I got there, I was like, man, I was
like very scared, so scared, dude. But I have no option
left like, but scared like like my life's ending kind of thing, you know. And, and like,
trying to find any excuse not to take this last turn to go to this spot, you know. And when I pulled up,
it's like, there was a car that pulled up and there was a little girl in the back seat that looked
at me.
That basically gave me some type of like okay signal of like you're good.
And I was like, you know, I go, I find the gate, the address gate code, go in, park my
car and I get out and the shaman comes up, you know, like a hundred pounds in
rubs and everything.
And like, hey brother, you're here. Are you gonna stay here? And whatever. I'm like, I don't know man.
I'm just doing this thing and then I
don't know.
And so he's like, okay, so he takes me to the back. I don't know what anything what any of this has to.
So they start to ceremony.
The healing.
You don't have any idea what's going,
what's about to happen?
I know, yeah, I've been listening to the call.
I know it's a transformational experience
and all this stuff, but like,
like I don't know who's who there.
I don't know that the other girl is actually a healer
that works with him and that this other girl is the only one that's there that's getting healed like me
But there's and that you know, there's four other people there three of them were healers and one of them was getting healed
You know, but I don't know any like I'm just like literally just
You know, yeah, and then
so It's like a warrior's homecoming, dude.
This is the best way to describe it.
Like, and it's not anything like, you know, people talk about,
like, oh, was it drugs or microdosing or anything like that.
Like, this is not anything that you would ever, like,
I'm talking about as a last ditch effort, you know, but like but this is nothing that you would do at a club.
This is nothing that you would do anywhere where you're out and about.
This is like a once in a lifetime type thing.
Or people that are suicidal or have serious things that they're working through, that's
the kind of stuff.
It's not like a, if you do it,
it's not something that you can do,
like regularly, that makes sense.
So anyway, it's a hard reset,
you know, just like when your computer is messed up
and your radio is messed up or whatever it is
and you press it and your phone
and you turn it all the way off, you turn it all the way on and then it works better. It de-frags and it functions. That's what I needed. You
know, I needed it, turn it off and turn it back on. The hard reset. And I thought I was suicidal,
but once I went through that process, you know, I, so I did whatever couple rounds
of five and me O DMT that day.
I haven't drank since before that.
So I have more than three years of not drinking
because of what I experienced in that ceremony, you know?
And, what did you experience? What'd you know? And uh, and uh,
what did you experience?
What'd you feel?
You don't share any of that?
Yeah, I like, I won't go into like the visions,
but I can explain some of it in that.
At first, it's like feeling like understanding
how to surrender and let go.
And that grievances don't matter in all these different things.
And all the things that were holding me back were just like,
total bullshit.
You know, like if you get pushed off a cliff right now,
does it really matter that you're mad at your sister
about this thing that happened, you know, that she said 10 years ago
when you're going on deployment? Let it go, dude. You know, like all those things, it was just like, you know, let it all go.
None of it matters, you know. And then it started to reconnect me like with my ancestors and my
family tree. And it started like showing me like to fix all these fractured relationships and stuff like that, you know, and
And then I'm like whoa, and then
That's kind of the intro, right?
The first part, which is like the handshake. Mm-hmm. Where you do a lighter one, you know, and you do in the actual
Toad Venom or you doing the synthetic
Toad Venom you're doing the synthetic I'm just curious.
Toad venom.
You're doing the toad venom.
Yeah, the legit, like, okay, I'm just curious.
No, so the thing about the individual journey,
because then you do the next journey and that's
a little bit bigger, right?
It's a bigger dose.
And so that's like what, you know, when you die, what gets released in your brain, that's
like the same kind of dose.
So then you're going through a reset process, you know, in 10 seconds.
And for me, that first one was very traumatic.
Yeah. Very traumatic.
And, you know, it was like, showed me, you know, like, put me into a death, put,
put me through a death situation and then had me feel the impact on all my people, you know.
And it had like a suicide note and some other stuff. So it was like, it hit super hard.
Wow. And it was a life review, you know. How long did that last?
I mean, dude, the experience who knows maybe maybe like time and space is really gone at that
point, about 30 minutes, and then, but it took me a couple hours to come back from that
trauma, from that dose.
So it took me like, I was like, I thought I was dead, dude.
Yeah.
I thought I was like a little kid again.
I was in this like Rose Garden.
I was like, I didn't believe that my car was outside,
you know, like all that stuff.
And I went through like a full death, you know, thing,
experience, rebirth on the back end.
But I wasn't feeling that yet.
I was feeling that I was gone, you know.
And like, I was wondering around this crazy
place I was at in like a rose garden. There's like a little swimming hole. There's like these
little mushrooms like dude, it. I was like, man, this doesn't look real man. And these guys
are a hundred pounds in robes. This doesn't look real like I felt like I was like in the afterlife or something, you know? Yeah.
It was different from, it was just a very divine experience, but...
Did you, um, start in a rut?
Did you wear a blindfold?
Or did you...
What did you do it?
Were you outside?
Yeah, I was on the woods, dude.
And I was on the ground in the woods.
With a blindfold?
No, you didn't wear a blindfold.
No, but you, you, you know, you keep your eyes closed
pretty much, because like that's part of surrendering.
It's like you close your eyes and you flow
through the experience.
Yeah.
You know, you kind of have to. And just like, you know,
like follow your heart, dude.
You know, so through it and breathe.
But what was your question, brother?
That was it.
You're the only person I know,
other than myself that did it without a blindfold.
But I opened my eyes after the death experience.
I opened my eyes and it was fucking amazing.
Yes, and for me, it's like a halftime show because it's like when you open, you think you're done
and you open your eyes, that's when the second part kicks in. It's like, whoa, you know, it's a lot
of downloads and stuff like that, but, you know, when I went into
this one, that first one, like, I had zero awareness of any of this stuff, that it exists, that it works.
Spiritual stuff, like, connecting dots of things that are happening, like, all that stuff I had no awareness. I was just moving like a direct
asthma, you know, like, yeah, I wasn't like seeing the whole picture of things. So it was
crazy night and day because when I left that, those ceremonies, dude, well, so we did one
more to finish off. And that one was like, normally you kind of lay back
and this one kind of propped me up
and was like, this is how you're gonna go into your life.
You know, like these are the next steps, kind of thing
and it was like, and I felt in like, you know,
because I wanted to share my experience at that time
with all these people, like with a million people,
you know, of like, you know, because I was thinking like,
dude, imagine all the people that killed themselves if they could have
had this or people that are in prison for the rest of their life,
dude, or someone that killed someone that was like,
if they would have had this, they wouldn't have done that, you know?
Or whatever it is, they would have had access to this,
you know, and you wish that, and those like, dude, I feel like, you know,
like, I wanna make a huge impact with mental health
with this breakthrough that I just had at this thing.
This is like when I'm still in my car.
So, if you don't mind, I wanna fast fast forward to when you got home, would your wife say
when you walked in the door? She was blown away, dude. Like immediately could tell like
as soon as she saw you. eyes colored, looking youthful, fresh,
rejuvenated, like newly sung life, you know, like,
I remember she gave me a new haircut and like,
it was like, dude, night and day, bro.
Like I was in a whole new level,
a whole new dimension and like, got a whole fresh start.
How about your kids?
Loved it, dude.
Like, you know, you don't realize it,
but when you're in that negative state,
it's a ripple effect and it affects everybody around you.
You know, so I really hate that my kids had to be, you know,
involved with that, but like, dude,
that just, it's more of a driver for me to show
up every day now and just to be the best that I can.
Yeah.
It's funny you mentioned that because that's, when I came, weeks after, I realized how much of a negative impact I was
making on my family, because I could see how me being such a judgmental person rubbed off on my wife and that was sad to see.
And a lot of other things too.
Yeah.
You know, but that was the easiest to describe right now and short period of time and yeah and to see like and to see
that knowing that you're the fucking cause of it you know.
Did you see that? Yeah but like you know with, you know, the breakdown that I had for, you know,
that period when I got out of transition, you know, that put a lot of stress on my wife,
you know.
Yeah.
And so that really, you know, I use it as motivation to just show up as best as I can.
It really just...
Because that's like my family is first.
It's the most important thing.
My guiding light of what's important to me. And so, but like dude, another thing is like,
you know, I've noticed that, you know, we kind of,
the people that you trust is who you'll show your true colors with, you know.
And like when I'm stressed, when I have like, you know,
shit going on or whatever, and I have one of my close friends that I haven't been around for a while. Sometimes I'll go off on them, you know.
Yeah.
And it's like, dude, I didn't mean to do that, but I realized why I did that is because I
trust you that I can act like that around you, you know, whatever.
Yeah, that's a good point.
But, yeah, so my wife, like, and she was the driver for me to go.
If she's like, you need to go now, you know, so when I went, I was like, I mean,
it was like a one way trip.
I didn't really have like, I was out, dude, I don't know, man, I have,
I didn't, I didn't think that it was going to like be this experience like that.
And then I was going to, I didn't see the back was going to be this experience like that and then I was going to...
I didn't see the back end part of it.
So I was just going up there, really scared, had a breakthrough experience, came back and
then that's opened up done several journeys since then. You've done
different types of journeys. What's the one? What's the most other than the 5MEO? Because that's
nothing's like 5MEO. That's a different. That's a...
If there was another one that you had a powerful experience with, what would that, which one?
What would it be?
I mean, I would say the other DMT, the Changa, the Bark,
which is a lighter form, but you could still have some pretty significant breakthroughs with it.
That's definitely probably my second. form, but you could still have some pretty significant breakthroughs with it.
That's definitely probably my second.
Can you describe that experience?
Yeah, so it's basically like, you know, you smoke it, the bark, and it's from the Akisha tree. And you have an experience probably within 10 or 15 seconds, where you'll be losing perception of time and space.
And basically letting go of control,
and basically your brain's not able to assign meaning to
everything anymore. So you're like in this vortex that I would explain it sometimes
it's patterns and shapes and whatever else, but a lot of times.
And all of this stuff is like with your,
what, depending on what your intention is going into it.
So for me, my intention has been to get health
like mentally, mental health and like lean in
and deal with any of this trauma stuff
that has been brought up.
And so I'll go in with a coach and do that specifically
to deal with this thing, to lean in and face this thing.
So you get a very specific purpose?
Yeah.
Is it you foric?
Is it like the second half of the 5MEO?
Yes.
It is.
That's exactly like it, what it is.
Yeah. It's a...
Do you feel the energy? Like you do. Yeah.
Five of them, you know? Yeah, and it's usually it's always like a different take away.
You know what I mean? Like it's like, and sometimes it's deep. Sometimes it's not.
Sometimes it's real simple, but it's like connect still a lot.
Yeah.
You know?
And it's like, like, examples like, well, I did it and I had this transformational experience,
but I had to piss.
It's like, well, why didn't I just piss before the thing?
Why don't I just like, and how, if I just did simple things like that,
how much easier would everything be?
You know what I mean?
But I make it hard,
because I'm like, oh, I'll just wait.
You know?
But that's that grunt mentality.
Just grunt it out.
It's like, oh, I carry all these boxes myself.
Yeah.
No, but what's up, brother?
I don't know if you experienced this,
but when I did five of me, oh,
and I broke through, and I opened my eyes,
like I could see the ocean, I could see the trees,
I could see the sky, and you always hear about the energy, right?
Ever the energy flows through everything.
I didn't see anything that wasn't there,
but I had this intuitive experience
where I could see the energy flowing through everything.
Yeah.
But it didn't look any different than what it looks when I'm not on 5MEO DMT.
Do you know what I'm saying?
Sort of.
I've seen it.
But it's like an intuitive, you know it's very like That's the fucking energy that everybody's talking about. Yeah, or not everybody
But you know the people that have experienced that is that the experience you get on DMT without the death experience
You should feel the energy
Sometimes okay
And sometimes. Okay. But dude, every time it's different and sometimes it's like, wow, there's a lot of visuals or sometimes it's like, you know, it's like a, it feels like a big
release where sometimes it takes you down a rabbit hole.
And it's like kind of plants a seed.
And then that's the point is every time that you do any type of work like this, it's
like do it with a professional one.
And then afterwards, integration, you know, integrating. But like, you know, if you think about it,
we live in a society with a lot of like noise and stuff,
politics, TV, Fox News, CNN, this, this, this, this, this,
and dude, that's too much already information for me.
Like, I'm on a low information diet at all times. No
TVs in my house besides like the screen that my kids can watch movies on and I
can watch a UFC fight or whatever that like that's it. Not TV programming all
that kind of stuff. Yeah. And when I'm around other family members and people that have like, you
know, fox news or whatever going all the time, it's like, not the vibe, dude.
Yeah.
No, I'm, I get it.
Um, let's move into stem cell.
That's something I've been very interested in.
I haven't done anything.
I have a lot of back problems.
Yeah.
And talking to you last night, it's like, it's cured your back. Yeah.
And so I'm really, really interested in the stem cell stuff.
Yeah. And that's another connection, dude, because as you know, I'm staying at the mansion.
There's a stem cell, guys. cell guys and a Scotty and Ed, but
so you actually went to the event the other night,
but those guys are awesome.
And so I got plugged in one of the fighters that I train
Dom Cruz a couple years ago was like, dude,
because I was throwing my back out.
And he was like, you got gotta get in with these guys.
So I got my first stem cell like two years ago.
Intervenus stem cell and then once it was all in,
then they had me face down and they gave me six injections
right in my L5S1 area of like B vitamins and O3 ozone.
Just to create a lot of information and dude, ever since that day I haven't like my back's been great.
I've been running like lifting heavy training, like doing kicks, like all kinds of stuff dude.
I mean just like that, fix it.
Like, I mean, confidence-wise,
it took me a couple of weeks to be like,
nothing's gonna happen.
Stability and like, you know, whatever.
And another thing that works
is just strengthening conditioning.
Like, doing at least one strength training a week
of like keeping everything stable.
But yeah, dude, that has been a total game changer.
And I've gotten Stimcell twice since then with them, CPI.
Mm-hmm.
And I- Where else did you get it?
Well, I tore my shoulder out
or I had a tear in my shoulder last November
and so I got another inner vanus, right?
But I got it for my, because my shoulder was jacked up.
And so, uh,
the wart.
Yeah.
Damn, that shit's crazy, dude.
Yeah.
Do you know the science behind it?
I think my shoulders are a little now, huh?
Do you know the science behind it at all?
Well, not enough to wear it like I would.
I can't explain it.
I would screw it up, but it's basically wizardry and magic.
That works.
I'm not sure that wizardry and magic.
But yeah, dude, it's all about access to information
and finding the real tools and the real things that it work.
If you're getting support in the VA and the Naval Hospital
and whatever else, if you're getting actual treatment
and things that are working for you,
hats off to you, 100%.
I have not had that experience.
So everything that I'm looking for solutions
for outside of the conventional network.
What are you getting into now?
With work, personal?
Yeah, man, you got all kinds of good shit going on.
You've got a book coming out?
Yeah, right.
When's that coming out?
Who knows, dude?
Yeah.
Hopefully B rounds complete on that thing right around
when Santa comes down the chimney. And at the end of the year or like finishing in January
kind of thing. Yeah. But we're like finishing, we're like our pre-launch for that book,
just went live. So basically over the next two months,
we'll be like getting our publisher.
We actually just had a publisher hit us up today
in this since we've been sitting here.
About nice.
But like basically getting a publisher lined up,
that's gonna be the right fit
and then pre-selling it, getting more feedback
and then finishing the book.
It's probably 75% done right now. You got a pre-selling already, getting more feedback and then finishing the book. It's probably 75% done right now.
You got a pre-selling already though, correct?
Yes, well, I do be the bottom.
Yeah.
And then, UTL.
Dude, UTL and Deepin Fitness is my main thing.
I do a lot of mentoring and coaching and stuff
on the side, but my day job is on the CEO
and co-founder of U UTL and Deep in Fitness.
So UTL is, we just finished season 11, Aquable last Sunday. So that's, you know, I don't
know if you saw any of the stuff, but like all of season 11 is on YouTube, the highlights.
So you can go to YouTube and see all that, you know,
but UT all were pushing to spectator sport.
And that's what I wanna talk about.
So you guys took a sport you and,
and Don, Don, Asian Rambo.
Asian, Asian Rambo, who you were in training.
Marsock, and we worked at the pool together.
So all that, you know, fed in.
And then we got out at the same time.
Yeah, we played this at the team when I was in,
or something similar.
Was it under one or hockey?
Yeah, it was.
They sunk the nets.
I think we used to brick.
But, but anyways, you took a sport,
or kind of a made up sport that was popular in the soft world and brought it damn close to mainstream.
Yeah, it's close, it's right about to burst.
But it's viral on social, you know, and stuff like that, but it still hasn a hit mainstream, but it's close.
But when we started, like even back when I was at Iraq,
and I was at Camp Al-Assad at the end of deployment,
and there was all these pictures of all the team guys
that played well on these water polo teams,
that were stationed at Al-Assad.
And I was looking at it and I was like
dude why aren't these underwater football teams you know and I was back in oh
nine when I was in Iraq you know or oh yeah oh eight it's like those are the
thoughts that I was having and it's and then fast forward why does this
support and then like sitting I'm remember imagining teams, you know,
and like, why isn't it?
And then when we got out, you know,
looking at all the different stuff
and then through different courses that I went to
and coaching is like, where do my passions
and interest intersect?
And then that's when it started thinking,
well, what happened to that idea about that sport, You know, and then I started looking at the landscape
of underwater sports, you know, since the 1900s
and Olympic sports and the nature of Olympic sports.
And it was like, dude, this fits with Olympic sport in nature.
And underwater sports, like the underwater hockey
and underwater rugby were started in 1940 or 1950
Right from water enthusiasts. They still haven't really like they're really built out in a lot of areas
They are and they have network and they have flow and they're like pushing towards
Olympic demonstration and whatever else, but like they haven't still haven't popped to the surface
You know what I'm saying? Yeah, whereas like
That's what so we're we got a lot of learning from that. But like our goal, you know, since we
started is to make it a spectator sport, show it that way we can get it to the Olympics and we could
blast it everywhere. Yeah, that's incredible. Because like talking about it, you don't get it,
you know, and then when we show it, it's like, okay, I get it.
But when we started, dude, it's like that pack mentality
that we're talking about, that like all those trolls
and the group thing and people would comment
on all of our stuff, like, this can't be possible,
this isn't a sport, people are gonna die,
where's the oxygen masks, like all this stuff, right?
And then like, solely all that noise over time goes away
it's like you know to where now and every season we've worked out kinks you know
because season one was like backyard wrestling you know like violent like you
know like the rules weren't set completely so every season it gets safer we
line out the rules and it gets more professional and we even add production value
with like the officiating the sport
and like how we announce the teams, you know.
Oh, that's awesome.
We have like start, you know, like the national anthem,
like all these things that like, you know, it's sweet, dude.
But the community of UTL is what makes it,
that's what makes it like worth doing. How big but the community of UTL is what makes it, that's what makes it like worth
doing.
How big is the community?
Well right now, there's six teams that are active, right?
There's six teams.
Yeah, and so they just competed in the aqua bulls, so the top team that just won, it's
the third year in a row that Irvine won the championship, but basically there's six teams and you know all of those players
are like, they're at the top of the food chain with everything that we do, right?
But then we have deep in fitness.
That's the training methodology that we started, right?
And so deep in fitness is like kind of crossfit, our version in the water, with underwater training
and all of that that we're basically spreading
across the country.
That's cool, man.
And when we started, it was like, this isn't allowed,
you know, so a lot of, there's no underwater training allowed
and like, and all these things.
And it's like, dude, we've been doing this, you know, we train
close to 10,000 people since we started.
We haven't had anybody, like, with serious injury or hospitalized or anything like that.
Like, and we've done research studies proving the benefits of this.
So now, like, we work with the Red Cross, we work with all these different agencies to
where now when we go into a pool,
it's like, do we have 70 pools on our insurance?
Damn.
Oh, damn.
You know, like, so to where we, but, but dude, it was to get pull one, two, three, four,
it took a lot more work, you know, and stuff to get those.
And now we've been doing this for five years.
When the pandemic hit, the week before it hit,
the today show came out.
And was hitting us up for like a month before that
was like, dude, get your life ready
because everything's about to blow up for you guys.
Get all your legal stuff handled
because your life's about to change.
Cornholes on TV every week.
And what you guys have is like 100 times better than that
and your story and all this stuff.
So today's show is coming out to tell our story.
And then we were gonna like start blowing everything up.
And that was a week COVID hit.
You know, oh, man.
So the story never aired? Will it air? No. No, do this is March of 2020.
Yeah, shit. I guess we definitely hit him back up three years later.
Yeah, a throwback.
The one that never was. Yeah. Um, but anyway, so we went through that, dude.
Like everything shut down on us.
You know, low, you know, really hard times.
So it's a lot of ups and downs, you know, doing that.
But like this whole time, we've had people moving,
you know, moving out from the East Coast
because they saw what
we're doing online and they literally showed up to a session and they have nowhere to live.
And then they move in with one of the people that, with like, one guy moved in on Don's
couch for a while.
And now that guy is in the cue course.
No way.
Yes.
No way.
So it's like, that shit's going on, bro. Wow. And it's like that shit's going on bro. Wow, and it's like that's a hope ship
You know like how can you shut that down just because we're running low on finances or because we're gonna have to figure this thing out
You know there's people literally moving across the country with no place to live to just to be part of this
Wow
You soon you know, You know what I mean?
That's big.
And then people at the pool are having breakthroughs.
There's people that are going from holding their breath
for 15 seconds to doing it for a minute to two minutes,
to three minutes, to four minutes,
like whatever that is and having
some serious breakthroughs around what's possible for them
in relation to what they've been
putting out. That's amazing. You know, and it's like powering that is. Yeah. And when it's like
when they come up and they do people will cry and they're like, I've been holding back, you know,
whatever like top athletes, whoever you imagine. And it's like, what else like, what else did you think you couldn't do?
What else wasn't possible?
Yeah.
Like, let's go get that shit.
So, but dude, the water is a cheat code because when you go under water, you're in a survival situation in a second.
So that's a huge training opportunity right there.
That's true.
So it's like, dude, we can go to the gym for an hour
and maybe we can get in the zone
or something mentally after we start,
but like, dude, we're gonna have to get in the zone mentally
when we go underwater fast.
By the second go, you know,
or else you're not gonna be down there.
You're not gonna be able to do shit.
Yeah.
You know, if you can't control your mind,
and so then it goes into like,
cognitive control, self mastery and all this stuff,
but the methodology and everything that we use
to keep it simple is like an acronym, and it's free.
So focus, relaxation, economy of motion,
efficient breathing. So just like we were saying earlier, focus, relaxation, economy of motion, efficient breathing.
So just like we were saying earlier, focus, mental focus, closing out all the mental tabs
and just being singularly focused on one thing.
I love how you, I love that expression, close out all the tabs.
Just like on a browser, close the tabs out.
It's a really simple way to put it into perspective.
Yeah, I mean, human performance is interesting. It's like an algorithm, but the way that I kind of make sense
for me is thinking of my mind
or my operating system in relation to like a computer or a phone.
And I'm like, oh, today I need to defrag and organize, you know, or like I need to be in low power
mode because I'm getting sick. You know, whatever it is, dude, or because I've been working way too much,
and I need to take better care of my health. But focus, right? Closing out
all those mental tabs and being singularly focused on one thing, like, and best examples
like a UFC fighter, right, as they call them, call their name out, you know, they get all
this anxiety and build up and it's like, they've been in eight week or a 12 week training
camp or whatever. And now it's like, they made all these commitments to their coaches,
to media, to all this stuff.
And now it's like, now it's real.
And it's like sometimes that, you know,
that's a lot to deal with,
especially with like sometimes the crowd
and, you know, the motions and all this stuff.
So it's like letting go of all,
if you have all these other tabs open,
that's not gonna serve you.
So just being singularly focused on one thing like having your your purpose, your why
of what you're why you're doing it and your intention and like just being clear. Boom.
And moving forward and then relaxation is energy expenditure, right?
Sure, right?
Being letting go of any extra tension or any extra energy that you're wasting,
that's not like performance enhancing
or like leading towards optimal flow.
So like, you know, you can go into that,
are you an introvert or an extrovert
or like where are the people and places and things
that you're getting your energy from?
You know, like me, I get a lot of recharge from being alone, you know.
So that's an example.
And then, economy of motion is flow versus drag, right?
So any extra movement or bad movement,
like in the pool or moving around in any sport
or in life,
pattern of life is drag.
It's like extra movement that can be eliminated to add flow.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
So how can we identify drag, eliminate drag to add more flow?
So as an athlete, physical drag with anything
that you're doing in the pool and in whatever
movement of whatever sport and then mental drag is next.
So what mental drag, what traps come into your mind when you're trying to hold your breath
for four minutes and you're a starting pitcher for the Padres, you know, what are the mental
traps that come into your mind?
What are the mental traps that come into your mind. What are the mental traps that come into your mind?
Two weeks before fight week, and your next UFC fight,
and you're holding your breath for three minutes,
and you're cutting weight.
What comes into your mind then?
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
And then emotional drag, like we're talking about,
like forgiving, like healing relationships,
and like putting yourself around people that are going
to make you socially resilient and efficient breathing. So really like being in the most
optimal breathing pattern. But with all this stuff, I've been kind of talking about it
like as it relates to life, but really like our we started from a focus of how to optimal perform with underwater training.
But it just so happens that that's like directly related to being in any stressful situation
and how to optimally perform.
And that goes with tactical athletes, elite athletes from all sports
and high performing professionals in business and everything.
Yeah, you know how many athletes are you trying in currently? Like me personally?
Yeah.
Dude, I probably work with about 40 different individuals right now.
Just like. work with about 40 different individuals right now.
Just like. So you got a full plate.
I do have a full plate.
And I keep a full plate on purpose.
And like if I have people, if I have things falling off,
I'll add more or whatever, because I
want to make as much impact as possible.
And I love coaching.
And when I'm coaching, it keeps me sharp,
because I'm learning from every single person
that I'm working with, you know, with every single thing, dude.
People that went to the Olympics that did it, that failed.
I learned from all that stuff.
They carry the lessons learned back, you know.
From every athlete, from every struggle that they have,
and like working through creating solutions with every person
Did I got to work with challenge that athletes adaptive athletes coming back from having a stroke?
Yeah, you know losing their legs
And showing some teaching someone how their new body works in the pool
Like dude that's the question that I live like that's like
Those are my favorite things how fulfilling is that that's it
Damn, that's it dude. I built there's a
There was a diver that that I worked with
scuba diver that was an executive in
San Diego that had a stroke and his left side of his body stopped working
San Diego that had a stroke and his left side of his body stopped working, you know, as a result.
And so he got back in the pool with me for the first time since he had his thing and was like
taught him. We worked, we created a way for him to have a combat side stroke on one side and a recovery stroke on the other side. Oh, wow.
And it was dope.
And so, and like my connection with people like that
and like those experiences that I've had
in the last five years, since I got out
and I've been doing the training,
out it's been, you know, I carry those with me for sure.
That's awesome, man.
That's like, I mean, to teach, I mean, that's fulfilling.
Yeah, bro.
So, and deep in fitness is like, it's interesting
because it, and UTL, it attracts the warrior class of people, you know.
So it's not just military, dude.
It's like, you know, we got a guy that's an MMA fighter
that runs the program in Vegas, deep in fitness Vegas.
And he runs it with, he's partner with the lifeguard.
And they run a badass program out there.
But we've got like, water polo players
that were like collegiate, like, national champion at UCLA.
That runs Newport pool. That like is one of the best programs.
We've got a professional surf program in San Clemente.
It's like all the best young surfers and all that stuff.
And like, in Miami, it's like Crossfitters, you know.
We have Army Rangers that run the program. In Miami, it's like Crossfitters, you know.
We have Army Rangers that run the program,
like dude, all types of soft.
And so it's awesome.
And it's like a crazy network of all people
that it's military and civilian,
but it's like a warrior class of people.
That's really cool.
That's interesting and pushing,
pushing to see what their potential is.
You know, it's dope.
That is cool.
Yeah.
Well, brother, I think that's wrapping it up.
Nice, dude.
How do you feel?
I feel fine.
I feel fine. No!
No, man, dude.
I love this show. Like I watched the show.
So it's, you know, kind of surreal.
It feels like it was like a drop in the bucket, dude.
But it's just, it's been great being out here, dude.
Things are having me out.
And this is a super special spot.
And thing that you have going man so I'm just stoked and honored to be a part of it and
you know my intent coming on here is is impact you know and I hope that anyone
that heard this like you know get something take something positive away from it
oh there's a lot of impact, man.
And I'm sure you're gonna feel it as soon as we release this.
You'll be getting emails, messages.
It'll be awesome.
But Primus is a real honor, man.
Get to know you.
I'm glad you came out, and I know we're gonna stay in touch
and best love to you, man'm glad you came out and I know we're gonna stay in touch and best of luck to you, man.
Seriously, real honor.
Yeah, you too, thanks, Prala.
Thank you.
Cheers and cheers, brother. The Bullwork Podcast focuses on political analysis and reporting without partisan loyalties.
Real sense of déjà 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
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