418: Keep Your Eyes on That Target Because That's Where It's Happening. With Mark Coch "Cochiolo""

This is Jocko, podcast number 418 with Kerry Helton and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Kerry. Good evening. I was. I was raised in the SEAL teams. And I know that. At least I say that, right? And I know that I wasn't actually raised in the SEAL teams, but when I consider who I am today and what my values are and what my principles are, what my driving forces in my personality are, the vast majority of them came not from where I grew up as a kid, but came from the SEAL teams, or more specifically, from my fellow frogmen in the SEAL teams. And there's all kinds of different guys in the teams. There's the guy that worked hard or the guy that makes things happen. There's that tough guy. There's the chief that looked out for the boys, the officer that kept us out of trouble, the guy that was awesome in the field, the guy that knew how to fight, the guy that could fix any engine, the guy that asked really good questions, the serious guy, the professional guy. There's just all these different individuals in the SEAL teams, and they say that. There's that saying. I guess I don't want to say they say, but there's a saying that you are the average of the. Your five closest friends. Well, in the teams, you got a lot of friends, and all those guys leave a mark on you, especially when you're young. Right. I've had many conversations with people about the impression that gets imprinted on you in your first platoon. And a lot of times you think that that's the way the world should be, is the way it was in your first platoon. But it does continue to develop, and you continue to change and you continue to grow, but you really get. You really get formulated a lot in your early days in the SEAL teams. And everyone leaves a mark on you that you work with.

And of course, there's some guys that you don't like. There's some guys that you reject that you look at them and think, I'm not going to be like that. These are the slackers or the lazy guys or the incompetent guys, but the good guys.

You try and do what they do. And that's what I did in my career. I tried to reject the bad examples and I tried to emulate the good ones. And there were a lot of good ones along the way that made a mark. And one of them was a guy named Mark cocciolo, who spent 38, 30 years in naval special warfare, actually more than 30 years in naval Special Warfare. He served in all kinds of different SEAL commands, including the JSOC command. He rose up through the ranks, eventually retiring as a warrant officer. And even after that, he continued to work in the teams. And he had an attitude that I always remembered and I always admired when I was a new guy, A positive attitude that was just always ready to go. And it's an honor to have him here with us here tonight to share his experiences and lessons learned. Mark, Coach, thanks for joining us.

Yeah, man. Wow. That's an intro. I was. I was getting worried there when he said, there's those guys you don't like. Oh, me.

It was a setup.

And it's a dishonor to have one of those guys here tonight to tell you guys how not to act.

Yeah, there'll be plenty of that, I'm sure. Plenty of not acting good, but. Yeah, whatever.

Yeah, no, I always remember. We'll get to it. But I always. You know, you definitely left a mark on me when I was a young new guy. Because you were not a new guy at the time. I think you are four or five platoons deep, and. Four and five platoons deep. Guys can act a bunch of different ways. And the way that you acted, the way you. I was. I think I might have turned 21. Yeah. Because we were on deployment, so I was 21. But, I mean, I was, like, young and dumb and full of motivation.

And. And you were just a great, cool guy. That set a great example for me and some of the other new guys that were out there at the time. But we'll get all that. Let's start at the beginning. So where'd you grow up?

California. I did all my elementary school in a little place called Pismo Beach.

Pismo.

Yeah, Pismo Beach. Yeah. We were dirt poor, Me and my mom, dad, and four brothers and.

Damn, four brothers. What number are you?

I'm two.

Number two?

Yeah.

What did your dad do for a living?

Well, at the time, he was going to school, so was my mom, so they were both getting their teaching credentials and stuff through Cal Poly.

Oh, so you were up there? They were up there slow.

Yeah. Yeah, but we lived in Pismo Beach. You know, I don't know if you're familiar with it, but, you know, there's a restaurant called McClintock's.

Okay.

It's up off of Maddie Road. Right. You know, looking over the ocean. Million, million. Multimillion dollar view, you know, we lived in a little green farmhouse and built a bunkhouse. The rent was like 90 bucks a month. I mean, it was. We Were just. Yeah, yeah.

And so were you kind of like a free range child that was just running around doing whatever while your parents are going to school?

Yeah, big time. That was the thing. You know, we went to school, we got dropped off either by the bus or, you know, whatever, you know, landed us back home. And we were just there, you know, running around the hills and chasing cows and, you know, all that. We didn't have any money, so it's like. You didn't get to, like, learn how to ride a horse or anything like that, but, yeah, you run around, chase the horses and, you know, get chased by the bull and just. Oh, God, it's amazing. I'm still amazed that all my brothers grew up with all our fingers in sight, in both eyes, because we did some really stupid stuff.

And how long did you live there for?

Well, kindergarten through sixth grade, so about seven years.

So when you're in sixth grade, what are you, 10 years old, maybe? Actually 11, 12. So you had some legit time there?

Yeah, oh, yeah. And I mean right there at the beach, you know, of course, it was almost three miles to get to the beach, so we didn't have any money or transportation. So. I grew up watching the ocean. Never learned to surf.

No. Bummer, bummer.

Swam around in it a bunch. And, you know, we'd ride our bikes down there when we were a little bit older and we'd swim around in our Levi's or. Well, they weren't even Levi's. They were tough skins, you know. Remember those Sears Tuffskins? Yeah, Sears Tuffskins. And we would swim just wearing our pants. And when we'd get back on the bike and ride home, and you'd dry up on the way home, Wonder why you're chafed, you know?

So then where'd you move to next?

And why? Well, the folks graduated and got a job in San Jose, California.

Wait, so your parents.

They'Re going to school, but they already had four kids, Is that what I'm hearing?

Yeah. Yeah.

So was this bad planning or what's happening here?

My dad made a course correction. He found himself in this really horrible job that was driving him crazy. He's like, screw this. What was it? He was working for the California Youth Authority.

Okay.

So he was dealing with just, you know, troubled kids. And it wasn't the kids that were the issue. It was the administration, bureaucracy. Yeah. And he was like, I can't do this. I hate. You know, he'd come home and he would just be just completely pissed off. And I was too Young to remember all that. But he was like, you know what? Screw it, we're gonna go back, get our teaching credentials. And you know, they took turns, you know, working on odd job and the other one would go to school back.

And forth and so they both got their teaching credentials there at slo?

Yeah, yeah. My dad got a job actually at the high school I went to, and my mom worked at a continuation high school in Gilroy. Okay. But yeah, so we rolled up there. Oh, when was it? Like 79, 78, something like that? I don't remember. But junior high and high school was all in San Jose, east side of San Jose, which, you know, it makes like. Or back then, I don't know what it is now, but it was always made in the top 10 for murders in the United States. A lot of gang activity and crap like that. And most of the guys that lived around us were either dead or in jail.

But it kind of stayed. It kept my nose clean out of that as much as I could.

What were you doing in like high school? Were you playing sports?

Well, my folks got us into taekwondo.

Okay.

So that's what I was doing. And they also taught Arniece, which I really liked. Stick fighting, knife fighting type deal. It teaches you angles, it keeps you on your feet. You know.

It'S streetable stuff. So I kind of. And then later on I trained when we were in the Philippines with the Filipinos. And then in San Diego we found a place called Sepita Brothers and my brother and I trained there for a bit.

What are you doing at school? Are you getting good grades? Are you like a knucklehead? Are you just passing and getting it done?

I was just passing, but I really like photography. So I was one of the photographers for the school newspaper and yearbook and all that crap. And I thought, okay, I could probably, you know, do this for a living, you know, and that, you know, it was just. It was pretty easy for me. And if I like the subject, I did good in it. If I didn't, then, yeah. So I, I think I graduated. I mean, 2.3, you know, GPA.

There you go. Or had you heard about the military? Like, what was making you think about the military? Did you. Had you heard of the SEAL teams yet?

No, no. In. In 1984, there was no. Unless you knew a SEAL, you didn't know anything. But both my folks being.

High school teachers, they were big on, hey, you're going to college, you're going to college. But we can't pay it, so you have to find Your own money. And the Navy had this cool deal where they gave you money for college. And hey, photographer's mate, I can go be a Navy photographer for a while. So that's what I did.

Yeah, so I, I graduated on the 14th of June, 1984, and on the 5th morning of the 15th, I was on my way to Orlando, Florida, rolling right in. Yeah.

Did you know what to expect because you'd never been around the military.

Oh, I had no idea, dude. I walked in, there was like complete culture shock. It was exactly what they wanted to do to you. Yeah, yeah. All of a sudden you just walk in. Oh, yeah, here, Shut up. And you know, stand there, all that stuff. Yeah, it was, it was, it was eye opening, but it was also really stupid, you know, and that's honestly that, that's how I got interested in the SEAL teams. Because, you know, boot camp, I was expecting to be a challenge. It was going to be this. Oh yeah, you know, Di is going to come in and yell at me and throw shit around. No, no. The lights came on. Okay, guys, get up. I'm like, what the hell? And it was just about folding your clothes and, you know, just stupid stuff like that. I was like, dude, this is dumb. What else you got? And one of the guys was like, well, we got this UDT SEAL program. What's that? Well, you get to jump at airplanes, shoot guns and blow stuff up. It's like, dude, sign me up.

Did you find out about that in boot camp or was it after boot camp?

I found out about that in boot camp.

Okay.

But I.

So I, my mom, I was 17, so my mom had to sign for me to get into the military. And she wouldn't sign active duty orders. So I had to go reservist at first. So I spent.

Your mom was smart. It's actually a smart move. You're a 17 year old kid, you're like, yo, you don't know what you're getting into. How about we do this reserve thing? Yeah, that's actually not a bad move, mom.

Well, yeah, and it turned out probably pretty good because when my son in law was going through training, he said that half of his class, half of the 200 guys were 18 years old and none of them made it. Not a single one. Because there's just not that maturity level yet.

But Gardner, you know, Jason Gardner, he was like, of course you know Jason. But yeah, we, we heard some stat that if you're under 20 years old, it's a 5% chance of making it through. So yeah, it's like you got to have that little something, I guess, extra little bit of moto. Me and Jason Gardner, we were both like 18 or 19, so get some. Jason was actually. I think he was actually. He might have been 17, turning 18. Wow, he's pretty freaking young. So did you like do. So did you go to photographers mate school or something?

Yep, I did boot camp and photo Mate School 6 months in Florida and then came back and was a drilling reservist for about a year the whole time.

You do as a drilling reservist in the Navy?

Well, I drive up to Alameda from San Jose, take some pictures one weekend a month and work in the photo lab there and yeah, take pictures of stuff and develop film and just do stupid Navy stuff. And yeah, I was like, okay, how do I get active duty orders? And no one had ever gone active duty from that place. So they had no idea. Turned out all I had to do was just not show up and they would activated me. But I didn't want to be that a black mark. Like, oh, no, now I gotta go to a ship. I can't go be a seal. And it took, God, it took a long time. Damn near a year of just drilling back and forth, hitting my recruiter up.

And this is trying to get to go active duty.

Go trying to go active duty and get buds. So I drove, you know, I did the screening test. So I drove down to San Diego, took the test and ran back and then went home in like two days.

Were you doing anything to like train?

Well, funny you should ask. Yeah, it was like, okay, what's the. I was training for the PST because that's all I knew. So underwater recovery stroke, you know, use the school pool. Because my dad was still, you know, you know, an instructor there, so I could, you know, just practice the breaststroke. And I say, okay, you gotta run. So I ran some, gotta do some calisthenics. That's never been hard. I could do pull ups and push ups and stuff like that. But yeah, the first time I ran with boondockers on was that day. So you had back then, it was a mile in seven and a half minutes and I made that sucker in seven. 23.

Yeah.

And it was good enough to get me through the door, but okay, I'm gonna have to up that number, you know, make that better.

And then yeah, I drove back and kept training and you know, they finally figured out, you know, that you know, how to do it and activated me. And I rolled back in and I got, got to San Diego. Too early. Like three months too early from my, from the class.

So you're on active duty. You get activated and they sent you down here?

Sent me down here. They had to go through two weeks of Navetz training, you know, just. Yeah, it was for all the, all the guys who live, you know, tried to get away with not going to the reserve meetings and stuff. So yeah, that was a little anti motivational, but yeah. So they stowed me over at EOD Mobile Unit 3. And so we just did slave labor for those guys for like three months and then, you know, classed up with 141.

And how'd that go?

Well, it was buds, man. I mean.

Yeah. Had its, its highs and its lows, you know, and people always ask me, what was buds like? Well, it's the, the worst time in your life that you'll ever miss, you know.

Yeah.

Because. And it's so pure, you know, it's like, just survive this next evolution, you know, and that's how you make it through hell Week. You think, okay, you set these little goals. Like. Yeah, there was one guy, Fred Swanson, he was a chief. And I was like really, really cold, you know, right at breakout I was like, holy crap, I don't know if I can do.

Were you like 145 pounds?

I was 143 pounds. I graduated high school there. That was what was buds. I came back from my first deployment zero body fat. Oh, dude, I was so negative.

Yeah.

When it came to drown proofing and you know, they're talking, oh yeah, no, we're going to tie your hands, you know, okay. But no one's negative. You just gotta relax, you know. I'm like, okay. I believed it. I bought into it, you know, like, okay, you jumped in the pool. Okay, John, just relax and you'll float. And so I could close my eyes and I'm relaxing, relaxing, and then I feel my feet hit with some authority on the bottom of the pool. I'm like, I look up like, well, I'm gonna have to figure something else out. So while everybody else was floating, I was kicking the whole time, you know, because otherwise. Yeah.

Do they really say no one's negative?

Yeah, that's what they rumor was that.

They'Re trying to tell. That's what the instructor would say.

Oh yeah, no one's negative.

Yeah, I had a kid in my class, he was a, he was from Africa. He was like, he was an American citizen, but he lived his first, whatever, 10 years in life in Africa. Super nice guy, like a physical Stud, bro.

They.

They pushed him in the pool for drownproofing. He just went literally straight to the bottom with a lot of authority, and he didn't come up. Like, whatever position he landed in, like, they had to go get him, and he never. He never made it. Like, he was just too. He had no body fat whatsoever. And if you don't have any body fat whatsoever, you are going to be negative and you're going down.

Yeah, but, I mean, there's. There's ways to figure it out. I was comfortable in the water because I grew up around the water. So it's like, okay, I can. I knew I could figure it out, but, I mean, you got to, you know, swim the length of the pool, you know, the long way and back, you know, with your hands and feet tied. Well, that was after kicking for those 20 breaths or whatever the hell the requirement was. So it was a lot more energy that I had to put out.

And so you were saying you were freezing and some chief was going to hook you up.

Oh, yeah. So Fred Swanson, he was the SEAL motivator that was there for that class. And if any other instructor had heard me just whine a little bit, it would have been a full court press to smash me. Right. But he just kind of, here's what you want to do. Never quit during an evolution. Always tell yourself you feel like you're gonna quit, quit after the evolution. Like, okay, okay. So, yeah, I mean, you're freezing cold, and then what's the next thing you do? Oh, a race. We warm you up again. You're like, okay. And I was like, all right. And then that was it, man. Whatever it was, it could suck. It would just be the worst possible thing. I was like, I'm gonna make it through this, and then I'll see what's. See what I want to do. And you want to see the sunrise? You know, it's like, okay, there's my goal. See the sunrise or make it the next meal. I mean, getting, you know, four meals a day and still just losing weight. Yeah. But, yeah, you. So I've been in one hell week, and I've seen one hell week, you know.

You only worked one hell week.

Only worked one because I was always on the island when I was, you know, an instructor.

But watching a hell week right there, as things are going down, you're like, oh, my God, we are killing these kids. Somebody is going to die here, you know, but, yeah, there's a method to the madness.

And.

They'Re still doing it. Right. You know, you're never going to get everybody that needs to go. I mean, it doesn't take much training to motivate somebody to just survive through whatever that next evolution is.

Yeah, there is like a. There is, you know, people are gonna make it through Hell Week just talking Hell Week. Definitely. There's people that are like, oh, they made it through because they were super motivated and they want to make it happen. And they bring together the team and there's a bunch of guys that are like, part of that team that's getting brought together. There's some dudes that are literally just trying to make it through for themselves. And it is a group of people. It's not huge, but. And I actually had this conversation. I was working with the Admiral when I was the Admiral's aide, and he said something along the lines of. He's like, you know, we went down secure to Hell Week. You know, I didn't. He went down secured Hell Week. I stood there like a freaking jackass, you know, giving him whatever he needed. And. But, you know, when we're coming back, he's like, you know, the one thing is. He's like, you know, one thing. Jocko. It proves these guys are tough. And I was like a sir. Sometimes I go, sometimes it proves they figured out a way to sneak through the system. And he was kind of like, that's a good point because, you know, it's true. There's some guys that figure out a way they do just. They in the right spot. They get in the right spot on the boat, they get in the right spot on the log. They get in the right spot. They're good enough to. They sit out that one evolution. They can tell when something counts. Like, they just skate. And there's definitely a group of guys like that.

And it's easy to do now because.

There'S information out there.

Well, yeah, I was going to say that too.

With.

Look, there was very limited information when I went and I went in 1990, so 1991, I was in buds. So the amount of information for you was just like, there was nothing. Now the. These guys, they have like the class schedule, they watch the movie, they seen the videos, the documentary. So they. They kind of know what's coming. But I also. Yeah, but I also know that the instructors now, they. They have countermeasures for all this. They have fake schedules. Like, it's. They're gonna get you. They're gonna get you. The Hell week's not gonna be easy. BUDS is not gonna be easy. Anyone that thinks it's gonna be easy. Is gonna have a real hard time. Like, they're gonna figure out how to make it hard, you know, summer hell week, winter hell week. They're gonna figure out, oh, yeah, you're gonna get cold.

You're gonna be cold. It's just how. How long do you stay in the water?

Yeah.

You know.

Yeah. I mean, buds, for us, it was basically the same thing, was just, you know, first phase was a kick in the nuts, and second phase was an underwater kicking the nuts. And then third phase was, here's your gun and your bomb. Oh, and you're kicking the nuts.

When we figured it out, as I became an instructor, we wanted to make it so that we're actually training them. And that was the big focus then at me being an instructor.

What year was that?

Geez. I got to to buds as the third phase training officer in December of 2007.

Okay. So we were well into the war and everything, and we guys to be better.

Yeah, yeah, guys, you know, and. And I. Looking at myself, I was still fighting a lot of training scars because I didn't learn how to shoot in buds, you know, I. Yeah, I did okay. I, you know, got my. My two E ribbons, but, you know, I had no idea. And it wasn't until I, I, you know, got to that SOCOM unit that you're talking. Jsoc? Is that what we're calling?

Yeah.

Okay. That's. That's when I learned to shoot.

Yeah.

And I was fighting all of these really bad habits. So I figured, well, if we could get these guys early on, no bad habits, and drill them up, you know, I'd tell them, hey, look, I'm not trying to make you as good a shot as me. I'm trying to make you way better. Because I'm still fighting these training scars from years ago.

Yeah, because the. What I was talking about in the opening there, the first impressions that you get in the teams like your first platoon, it's hard to shake some of that stuff. You're like. You get. You get a mold on your brain, and you're like, all right, it's just in there, and that's what you think is right. And you got a flats. You know, you talk about the training habits of, like, your shooting position and all that stuff, but also just your mindset and the way you think if you're not careful, you can think that what you learned in your first platoon or your second platoon, you can think that that's the right way and every. And it's like, man, It's. First of all, there's many, many, many, many different ways to skin a cat. And anytime someone says, no, this is the right way, I'm all. I always get a little bit suspect. Like, man, there's a lot of right ways to do this.

Yeah.

A lot of right ways.

When they say it's the only way, it's like, no, no, no.

Okay.

I'm immediately skeptical of your. Your intentions.

Did you have any challenges in buds? Was anything, like, super hard for. Did you fail? Did you get rolled back?

No, I didn't get rolled back. I made pretty much everything every time. The one. The one thing was the. The tread. My legs cramped up and I sank. And I mean, because I was, like I said, you know, had no fat on me, and I got cold, and the cold was. Was just. It would go right through me. And, you know. You know, when that happens and you're like, now you're required to put out this extra effort. And, you know, when both your thighs just ball up on you, it's kind of hard to tread with your hands out of the water and the tanks on your back. So that I came back the next day and did it. But right then, it was like, holy. Ate a bunch of bananas. You know, get that potassium in there.

You know, that was the extent of our nutritional information at the time. Add cramps. Eat bananas.

All good.

They weren't even really telling us to drink water yet. Like, I think drinking water as, like, a performance or health thing was kind of coming in around when I was in buds. Like, some of the instructors would be like, oh, you should drink some water. Like, it wasn't. Hey, man, you really need to drink water. You know, you're gonna get dehydrated. It's not good for you. It wasn't really a thing yet.

Yeah. I can't remember ever taking a drink of water in buds in Hell Week. We had these nurses that were following us around trying to figure out what the X factor was. They did it for three classes. They measured. They watched what you ate when you went through the line and estimated how much you were drinking. And all this.

Yeah.

Doesn't mean anything.

Yeah. They found out the results of that was the guy who quits and the guy who makes it through are exactly the same. You know, the difference is, you know, neck up. You know, it's whatever your brain can. Can make your body do.

Yeah.

And they just confirmed it for us. We knew that already.

Yeah. And you were all good in the water because you grew up swimming up. So like pool comp and all that stuff. No factor.

Yeah, no, no. It was like when they did, I think I was the third guy to go. So they were still. The instructors are motivated, you know, as the day goes along. You guys, okay, we're just going to do this next guy. No, no, this was like, yeah, the guy who did me was, was very motivated.

But I remember, you know, using a breathing technique as I go, okay, calm myself. All right, here we go. And as soon as I got in the water, they were playing the, the themes song from. From Jaws, you know, Dunn.

On the underwater speaker.

On the underwater speaker, yeah. So immediately that put me at ease. I was like, okay, this is funny, right? And they're like, okay, I just swim along that line. And then they'd come and they'd hit you and they'd do this. And it just got progr. Worse. And I just. It was. You went through the process and it was like, no problem, no factor. No, no. I, you know, being comfortable underwater, I liked being underwater. I could hold my breath for a long time. So it wasn't, you know, that big a deal. And it was just like, hey, you do what they tell you.

I failed pool comp the first time. And the instructor was, he was also highly motivated. And you know him, he's a warrant officer old UDT guy. And.

So he. I'm underwater and he just, he doesn't, he doesn't like hit me and start rolling me. He just comes down and knocks my mouthpiece out. And then he goes up and he comes down and as I'm putting it back and knocks it out again. And then as I'm putting it back, he knocks it out again. And as he comes and put it. So I'm getting like a quarter of a breath each time. By the time I suck the water out of the tube and all this stuff. And this goes on for 17 minutes. And I'm not, I'm just, I just keep dealing, you know, getting the. Then he just comes down and pulls me up and he's like, you failed. You looked uncomfortable down there. And I was like, I was so bummed. And I was, you know, but what are you gonna say? You're like, cuz I came up, I feel fine. He's like, well, you didn't look fine, you looked uncomfortable. And I had literally stayed, you know, the slant of the pool, where it goes from four feet. I had only taken like one step forward. So I was right there the whole time for 17 minutes. And pool comp was only a half an Hour long, but I had 17. So pulls me up. He's like, you failed and go to the wall. And so I failed, and I ended up passing it the next time. But, you know, fast forward 20 years or something, or 17 years or 18 years. And he. Now we're at trade at together, and I'm the trade at oic. And I was like, hey, man, you remember failing me at pool comp? He goes, oh, yeah. And I go, why'd you fail? Because I was just fucking with you. I was like, bro, that's jacked up, man. This is like my whole life. And I could have, like, freaked out, gone into some downward psychological spiral. And he's like, ah, you've been fine. I was like, okay, that was the.

Real test for you, Jacob.

That was not cool. I was like, yo, what are you doing?

So you get through second phase, no factor. Third phase island.

Well, actually, you guys did the work.

Second phase, right?

Was the. Yeah, yeah. And that was. That was interesting.

The island wasn't, you know, just, okay, think tactically. And they're teaching his stuff, and you just kind of do it. But it wasn't really training. It's like. Like I said, you know, it was.

Like hell week with a gun.

Yeah. Honestly, it's what it was. I mean, hell, we did Surf Passage on the rocks out there, you know, by Bird Shit Rock, you know, with IBSS in third, it's in second phase. I'm like, what are we doing out here? And we did full. I don't know if you. They were still doing this. The. The full UDT cast in recovery and.

Obstacle loading, you know? Yeah, we're down there. And the obstacles were at, like, 23ft.

I'm like, bro, yeah.

Hey, everyone, this is not an obstacle. At 23ft, no boat's gonna hit this. We're good. They're like, oh, well, you still gotta blow that up.

Still gotta get it.

And the weird thing about buds is you never have. You're never. It's kind of like going to an MMA fight. You're never gonna be in perfect shape. So in buds, even though, like, oh, I can hold my breath for a:48, you get to buds. Now you have, like. You always have a little bit of a cold and some kind of weird lung thing and nose full of snot. So your breath is always shitty. Your breath holding is always shitty. So going down to 23ft to load an obstacle, you're getting, like, one half of a knot each time.

Oh, yeah, yeah, that's. I. I Went down on one and the surge was, was really good. It was like at 20ft plus. I get down there, I'm like wrapping my legs around the H and I'm tying this knot and I'm tying this knot. And then all of a sudden I don't have to breathe anymore. I was like, oh. And I was like, well, but that was a symptom of something, but I couldn't think of what it was right then because your brain's already like. And the knot was like, it was there, but it wasn't a good one. I was like, okay. And then some bubbles came out of my mouth and went up and I kicked off and followed the bubbles up. And the next day, I know I was laying on the, on the Zodiac. Well, no, no.

It was a long way off. I was just laying on my back and floating. And I was warm. The water was like 50 degrees. But as the oxygen came back in, it was like, oh yeah, so did the, the cold, you know. But yeah, had I been caught if it. I, I. Yeah.

You know, the bunch of guys have gone to the, some of those breath holding schools and it really helps them a lot. And there's, there's like a, there's like a knock at the door. Like the first they teach you like, oh, the first knock at the door, like, you want to breathe, you don't need to listen that one. The second one, you don't need to listen that one. The third one, pay attention because you're about to black out and, and you know when you do it, you can feel it. And they learn how to get through those things. But it's, it's definitely. Guys improve their breath hold. They'll like double their breath hold in three days by learning what the real signs are and what they can push through and what they can't push through. So it's pretty cool.

I've done a little bit of a WIM HOF method that's, you know, that increases, but you're relaxed at that point you're not like trying.

Not on a freaking Jap Scully.

Yeah, yeah. Which is so useful now. But honestly, while I was the warrant officer there, the third fade Training officer, they wanted to get rid of it out of training. I was like, dude, well, what are you going to call the school?

Basic underwater demolition. Oh yeah, that's right. And the thing about it is it's a really, it's a perfect exercise for like little microcosm what you're gonna do with the rest of your career. You're gonna Plan this thing, you're gonna do a dirt dive, and then you're gonna take this into this hostile environment and execute and it's gonna be different. And you're gonna have to figure some stuff out.

So much of the SEAL teams is learning and training to have an open mind and to figure out. And I was talking to a guy the other day that's, you know, in ult type scenario, and he was like, I don't focus on this or focus on that or focus on something else. And I was like, hey, this. The training that you're going through is to make everyone be able to look at a problem and figure out how to do something with it. And it doesn't matter if that problem's in the mountains, doesn't matter if that problem's in the desert, doesn't matter if that problem's in the jungle. If it's in, in the city where that problem is, you're going to learn how to look at that problem, apply our basic tactical principles to it and come up with a solution. And that's what you're doing. And all your guys are doing that too, so. And, you know, a good example is when seals ended up doing security for the Iraqi government. Like, none of those guys had done that specific mission before. Got tasked with mission like, okay, we're going to figure it out. And they made it happen and kept those guys alive for a long time. I was just talking about this with, with Bobby Holland. You know, we did over 100 urban sniper overwatches in Ramadi in 2006. And yeah, I was like, you remember how many we did in workup? And he goes, zero. We didn't do one, but we did. We did whatever rural sniper or sniper hides recons. And so the principles, we just took those principles. Okay, yeah, well, here's what we got to do. Here's what we got set up. We got to make sure we have good security, be in a good spot, check our, our, you know, escape routes, and we'll be good to go. And that's what we just took that and applied it to an urban environment, and you're good. So that's what it is. And that's one of the best things about the SEAL teams is you learn how to solve problems and you take the fundamental tactics that we have and you can apply them to any situation. And we started doing in training out here, we started doing key leader engagement training, right? So you're going to meet with the key leader of a village and the first platoon. We're Putting guys. So guys had started doing this overseas and now we started training guys to do it back here. And the first platoon that did it, they were kind of confused, like, well, what should we do? And basically I looked at him and said, if this was a target that you were hitting, how would you set it up? They look, oh, we'd have security over here and we put this over here. And I was like, well, sir, you're going to meet a guy. It's the same thing. Do you want to have security? Yes. Where would you put it? Same spot. Okay, great. So it's the same thing. It's just a little bit of a different posturing. When you roll into the target, instead of rolling in, guns up, ready to kill people, you're rolling in there, you know, weapons down, ready to shake some hands and meet and greet some, kiss some babies and it's all good. And if something goes south, no factor, take you half a second to turn things around. So that mentality of looking at problems and really training and what you're talking about, obstacle loading, something that we did in World War II, but it's a skill set. You're going to work together with your friend, you're going to figure out how to do it. It's hard, it can get confusing. You have to coordinate with the other people because you got to tie that whole thing together. Just a big, It's a. Basically, and I've been saying this a lot when I talk to companies right now, it's. Everything you're doing is basically a big team building exercise. That's what you're doing. Oh, we're going to work together. Because if you and I are going through land warfare together and you think you should do something, we should hit a target one way and I think we should hit another way. Now you and I start like arguing about it. Now we're getting to fight and you got your guys on your side and my guys and the platoon's falling apart and so we're testing the team to see if they can. You and I can go, you know what, Coach, your idea is better. Let's go ahead with your cool and we can figure it out. We move forward.

It identifies the egos and it identifies the, the fissures in a platoon when you put them in these situations. And it happens in a class. But that's so much of what the SEAL teams is, is can we as a team look at a problem and apply our fundamental tactics to it, come up with a solution, Go, execute. And, and that's actually if you think about it, that's actually what we're kind of good at.

Yeah.

And the reason we're kind of good at it is if you can figure out how to get off of a ship with a Zodiac boat, with four Zodiac boats, transit 14 nautical miles, drive across, or insert swimmers, have them swim across in wet gear, come across un waterproof all your gear, set up your breath. Like there's so many little problems that have to be solved by every go hit a target, capture somebody, have a life jacket for that person in a dry suit. You can swim this person out to the. Like. There's so many things you got to figure out. And, and if you can do that in the water, everything else is easy. Everything. Take, take me in a Hilo, take me in a vehicle, take me on foot patrol. That's all a joke compared to saltwater, six foot seas, sand mayhem, like, it's a disaster.

That surf zone is. I mean, you know, oh yeah, look, it's just a couple lines of or. Yeah. Now drag all this stuff through there, I mean, you know, and it never stops, you know, but that's.

That environment right there. That's what puts you in that. It's the worst place in the world to actually have to get across and do it. You know, if you can't solve it with technology, you could just solve it with, you know, planning and, you know, just guts and just go do it. And we did it enough over here. We got a lot of beach space and a lot of surf here on the strand. And man, you just learned so much going through that and okay, it's big surf, all right, so what's the best way to get through big surf? And then you figure it out and it's gonna tumble you, you're gonna be all screwed up. And then finding your guys, getting everybody back together again, I mean, not everything's like that, that cool commercial where they're like, oh yeah, there's footprints and then they're gone. You know, it's like, no, no, no. Yeah, yeah. The reality is there's one set of.

Footprints that, God, no one knows where he is.

When we started getting away from the water a little bit. So like mid war, right? You know, all of a sudden in, in ult and training, like, all of a sudden the, the Marops goes from four weeks or five weeks down to three weeks, down to two weeks down to like a week. And some people, you know, we're losing our ability to work in the water. I said, hey, we'll get it back like if the. If the war turns and we gotta get in the water again, hey, the first night that a platoon goes out and does otb, they're gonna be a disaster. And then someone's gonna be like, hey, we need to have waterproof signaling devices.

Oh, yeah.

So that's what they learned that night. Then the next, like, hey, we need to make sure we have long tow ropes in case someone gets stuck inside the surf zone. And that's like a little. Here's a little detail. You have a couple Zodiacs. You put really long tow ropes in them, like a hundred yards, and somebody can swim out a tow rope to the other boat. You can tow the other boat without having to go in the surf zone. Those are like. They'll learn that lesson. Day four, right? And all of a sudden, you fast forward, you put them through five weeks of marops. And what they'll have done is they'll have done what we just talked about, which is they'll take that problem set, they'll apply fundamental tactics, and they'll make stuff real.

They'll.

They'll get good at it again. And that's what. That's why I think, like, our breachers are so good. Our snipers are so good. Our jtax, like, our guys just get into stuff and they just keep peeling back layers until they get it to its core principles, and then they just build it out. So that's the mentality that we get. And some of that comes from loading obstacles at San Clemente island at night. That's what it is, dude. Check. So you. So now you graduate buds. And what year is it?

This would be early February. 87.

So what's going on in the world?

Well, not much. Not much at the time.

You never know. But what did happen is the Iranians started shooting Silkworm missiles at the shipping going through the strait there.

Oh, that's right. This is when the, like, they put the barges out there.

Yep.

Did you do that?

Well.

The guys who man the barges Left Unit 1 in the Philippines and went to man the barge, and that left a hole there. So I had just got into this platoon. Right.

So where'd you go? Team Five.

Team five. And we were doing our. Our workup, and it was August, so I got there in February, and in August, they deployed us.

No kidding?

No Trident.

Damn.

Yeah. Just over to Unit one to basically sit in that place and be that check mark, you know?

How old are you at this point?

20.

Damn.

Yeah.

Oh, that's right, because you came in right out of high school Then you spent a year.

Yeah, yeah, Jack, just.

But so you're still pretty young. I mean, 20 years old. Freaking outstanding.

Yeah. I had just turned 20 when we started buds, so, yeah, I was still doing that.

What was your job in the platoon? Were you a gunner?

Well, it couldn't be a point man because I was new guy.

Yeah.

So we're security. And so I. That kind of helped out with everybody. And I was like the intel guy, so I had to have the. The Blu Ray machine was up and all the pencils are sharpened and, you know, because you. I was a ph. Right. Oh, you're the intel guy. All right. Cool. Yeah.

Being the intel guy in a SEAL platoon sounds so cool when you're an intel new guy. Like, you're literally sharpening pencils. Where's the freaking maps?

And this is why I got good at other stuff because I was always helping somebody else. You know, the ordinance always needs, you know, someone to help, you know, move the guns and count the guns and, you know, whatever, prep, that kind of stuff. Air. When that happened, I'll be in there learning to pack shoots and whatever else. Building ducks. That was a big, you know, group deal anyway. But we were. I was still going through. Back in the. In those days, you went to Bud's six months long, and then you get to your platoon and you had six months carrying your little pqs book around performance qualification standards. And I was on you after a day of work, you know, going the airloft. Hey, Chief, can you sign me off here? Oh, yeah, sure, no problem. Just empty my shit cans and sweep and mop, and then we'll talk like, damn, okay. And that's how you kind of. You had to make that happen. You had to get those signatures and then you had to get your board at the end of that six months, and that's how you got your Trident. I think that was the same for you, right?

Same with me.

Yep. There was no SEAL tactical training STT stuff at the. You know, there was no sqt, nothing.

We had a team one. I went through stt.

Oh.

I showed up there and we didn't have our Tridents, but we immediately. Not immediately, but after a few months, they let a couple rounds of new guys show up and then they put us all through STT SEAL tactical training. And it was basically like a limited platoon workup, but we went and did air, we went and did land, we went and did mar up. So we did everything. They just gave us a higher level.

Gave us some actual kind of the model of what SQT is.

It is what it is.

What?

Well, SKT is awesome now, but it was a. Yes, it was early on. It was, of course, neophyte version of that.

But no, we didn't get any of that. Damn. None of that went to nine with my platoon. And, yeah, you just had to kind of figure there was no training going on. It was just, you know, you were. You figured stuff out as you went along. And I think part of that we've lost a little bit because, you know, the guys are like, you know, thoroughbred horses from, you know, boot camp all the way up. They know they're going to go to the teams and, you know, so they're given a lot of stuff back then. I mean, my idea of SEAL prep should be like, okay, here's your workout. You make it happen. No, whereas these guys are like, they're showing up in the morning, they're getting their workout. They're getting. Which is good. You'll learn how to do stuff. And, you know, maybe not injure yourself, but you're kind of missing that self starter, you know, because you had to do that if you had six months, and if you didn't get that done and you didn't get your. Your board done or you failed it, you had one more chance and then you're gone. So, I mean, yeah, so we did that, you know, in. In the Philippines.

Yeah.

So you go on deployment, you're backfilling these guys that were over in the Gulf taking care of the. The oil platforms is generally what they were doing.

Yep.

And you're. You're on your. How long was that deployment?

That was a. It was supposed to be a short one, but heard that before. Yeah, well, we got in some trouble. We went to. At the time, they thought the Philippines was going away, so they're looking for other beaches, other places. So we went to this little island called Palau. And I wasn't even in this fight, but my platoon was. I was sick as a dog and I didn't go out that night. And so they had a big run in with the locals. So I'm banned for life from the island of Palau.

Me and the rest of my platoon. But so that. That caused some issue. You know, we got home from that one, and then immediately there was a.

Target, a real world target that was supposed to have Silkworm missiles on it.

Wait, you came home from deployment?

No, no, we went home from deployment.

Go back to the PI Back to.

The PI and immediately get tasked with this target that's moving Silkworm missiles.

Damn.

Yeah, I mean that.

You know, the first Charlie Sheen movie, Navy seals, where they go and they get on the boat and that was, that was us. That was our, that was, that was what we were supposed to be doing. We were going to vbs that sucker. And so they, they flew us out there. And meanwhile the admiral who was kind of in charge of this area, he really liked the Palauans and he went to the CO at, you know, Unit One and he's like, sorry, they're on a secret mission. This admiral did not like this. Yeah, it was the wrong answer. So, yeah, he was real motivated to, to hammer us. And. Yeah, so anyway, the, the op came down to the last minute and Reagan decided he didn't want to, you know, do any, you know, high seas piracy or whatever.

So they solved it another way, not us.

How. Like, did you load helos? Did you.

Well, okay, for three nights we, you know, like, okay, if we're wake you up at 2 o' clock in the morning, if we don't wake you up at 2 o' clock in the morning, then just, you know, come up at 7 and have breakfast and we'll talk about it. And for three nights it was like that and we were doing runs and you know, just. And again, you know, CQB's in its infancy and we're just, you know, we're figuring stuff out, how to. Oh, we're going to land here. Fast rope onto this part of. We had pictures of the boat and ideas of like, what is that is a gun emplacement? And it turned out it was a.

Fire hose or something.

No, no, it was a swing set. Because on the list of people on board, apparently there were people that brought their kids, you know, as part of the. They work and bring their transport. Well, I don't know what the hell, but yeah, I was like, what the hell is that thing? Look like a damn. No, it was playground equipment.

Did you get your Trident while you were overseas then?

Yep, yep, we got a trident overseas.

And then, well, after all that came back, we went back to the PI and then they started the hammering of us over the incident in Palau. And they would send guys back.

Like, okay, the platoon's going home. And then they said, well, we're send the married guys first. So they go and they're like, no, we're going to keep you guys. So they had us, they were interrogating us every day over. I think there was some alcohol or something that we had brought with us to the island. There was Some trumped up horse crap. But anyway, so yeah, this went on and they're like, okay, go to the pool, study for your triton until 16:00'. Clock. If we haven't called you, then you're good. So from like 10 o' clock until 16 o', clock, we were at the pool studying our PQs, books, and whatever else. And then 1600 roll around, we go out in town and drink our faces off.

And they finally got bored with that. And, you know, it took a while, but we were the last two. Me, Jeff Payne, and like two other guys, and our chief, Fred Swanson, who had helped me out earlier, who was the chief of my platoon. They basically had to drag us kicking and screaming onto the bus to send us home. Because PI was. It was magical place. And so we went to XOI for that one. And as the me and Payne are in the back and we're getting read the riot act by the xo. And at the end, he's like, but I would feel that the extra time that you had to spend in the Philippines was punishment enough. And I'm looking over side, eyeing each other.

Yeah. Anyway, but that was my first platoon. And that put the hooks in. It was like it had everything. It had partying, the P.I. it had a real world mission. Even though it didn't go down, it was like, no, this is me. I'm staying.

So you rolling your next platoon?

Yeah. So we rolled back. Team five had put in a gym. They didn't have any, you know, little weight locker or whatever. But now it's full on gym. So I was like, okay, it's time. And I started lifting. And I went from £143 to £175 in about six months. Every time it's like 22, whatever. Every time I walked into that gym, I left. You know, I walked in, I could lift more than yesterday. It was like, yeah. And, you know, that's nutrition. Yeah. Okay. I drank a lot of beer and microwave burritos. I mean, that was.

Yeah, but you're 22 years old. You're freaking dick. Basically your whole body's just a big testosterone producing machine.

Yep, yep. And then, boy, jacked. I put it out, man. And it was like, yeah, just got bigger and stronger and not faster. I always kind of sucked at running, but, you know, whatever. Yeah. Then we got.

Did you step up to be in point man in your second platoon?

Second platoon point man. And it was an arg. So, okay, got to ride the ship.

What ship was it?

We spent Time on the Denver and the Duluth.

I did a whole 6 month deployment on the USS Denver.

Probably slept in the same damn compartment we did. Yeah.

Wait, was it 117 degrees? Oh, yeah, that's the one.

Yeah. Right at the water line. So splash it. You know, Bang.

All night long. Yeah, it was us. And it's funny because, like, regular Navy guys, they've got a job on that ship. We're just cargo, you know, so that's when you really learn to, like, drink your motivation juice, you know, like, oh, coffee up and then go lift or whatever. Yet otherwise you just sit in your rack going, oh, my God, you know, what the hell's going on here?

Did you hate it?

Being on the ship sucks. Yeah. Going different places. I mean, we hit, you know, Australia and Hong Kong and. And, you know, the Philippines a couple times and Japan and Korea and, you know, so there was a lot of, you know, stuff that we got to do.

Dude, my first. So my first appointment, I was with you or I saw you, we hung out. I was in Guam, right? That's my first platoon. And I was 21 years old. And it was, you know, you're basically, you know, you have this fat per diem checks and you're doing whatever you want. Like, we. And that early time in Guam, we had great relationships with the police. We had great relationships with, like, locals. It was all. It was just like, awesome. We do everything, hang out. It was great. And then my next deployment was an arc platoon and I was an E4. And it was like, E4, back on the ship by 10 o'. Clock. Like, there was almost no rules whatsoever in Guam when I was 21. So now I'm 22.

Yeah.

And they're like, you know, E4 is back on the ship by 10 o'.

Clock.

And I'm kind of like, hold on, bro, what are you talking about? I'm. I'm in the freaking speaking. And they're like.

Does that. Does that ID card say E4? Because if so, 2200. I mean, in. In Guam, we weren't even getting warmed up at 2200. The party was starting at 2200. So now they're saying, oh, you got to be back on at 2200. But I found a good way around that. I'd go out, I'd bring my running shoes and my shorts and a T shirt, go out till whenever, come back at five o' clock in the morning, go on a two mile run with that backpack on that was filled with my going out clothes, combat running back up the ship, you always went for a run because the change of shift was whatever like six. So yeah, I left at 5:30, just did an eight miler. Your breath smells a little alcoholic, you know from 2200.

Yeah, I gotta run that stuff out of my system man. I'm sweating it out.

Just freaking dummies. So. So you're on this ship, anything happen on this while you're on this freaking shipboard deployment?

Nothing. Nothing really that mentionable. I mean there was a couple little things that were everything, you know, the spin ups that happen. But yeah, nothing. So that was the first half of 1989 and we come back, our gear is cut, getting taken off the ship. I come back into, into work one morning and the executive officer calls me in, I'm like, oh, what's going on? I'm expecting you know, a problem. He's like, hey coach, can you be ready to deploy again in like six hours? And I was like, I looked at him like, well let me think.

Let me go home and get my pool queue. And then I just moved my stuff from the incoming pallet to the outgoing pallet. What had happened is guy got hurt or something? Yeah, yeah, not really hurt last night all he had to do was not get in trouble. And he gets drunk, steals a bike, has a fight with the cops in Coronado and he's in the can and he can't deploy. So I get, hey, here you go. Oh yeah, you were the intel. Oh yeah, you're first lieutenant guy now. Okay, awesome. You're doing motors like okay, yeah, I can do motors. Yep. And that's what, you know, that's how I got my second, my, my first or second two deployments were back to back. Basically. I spent 10 days of 1989 actually in the United States and went to spec ops platoon in the Philippines for that six months. Yeah, it's like woohoo.

I was at, I'd been in training cell, so now I was at team one, done three deployments and now I just got put in training cell and of course I want to go to training cell, we want to go on deployment. And the master chief of the command comes down and at quarters and he's like hey, we need two guys to go, we need two guys to go on deployment like tomorrow. And me and my running mate, we're just like hands up, like didn't even look at each other. Just we were roommates, they were just like hands up. And the freaking master chief that was in charge of trade at was like, put your hands down and then, you know, we proceeded to get our ass chewed. Like, you guys are in freaking trade air. You're not going anywhere. We were like, all right. Hey, Master Chief. They just said, you know, they just said they needed someone to go on deployment. Like, us two have our shit in cruise boxes right now.

We're ready right now. Yeah.

There's nothing better than being that kind of E dog at a team when they're like, we need volunteer. Your hand is up. Where are we going? Don't care. Send me. Well, let's go. Let's get it on.

Yeah, I didn't have anybody that had to call at home to, you know, hey, honey, is this. Nah, I was like, oh, let's go. Let's do it. That was, that was the good attitude, that.

Yeah.

I mean, the higher up state, they noticed that stuff. It's like he didn't even. He didn't know what the hell that was. He's like, I'm game. Like, all right. Note to self. If you need somebody, go to him.

Yep, that's 100% it, man. And then what do you do over there on that deployment? Was that when did the volcano go on that deployment?

No, that was the following one. This one was the. The revolution. Okay. In PI. Yeah.

So what was going on? What was that like?

So Corazon Aquino, she was the wife of the. It was. It's politics and the PI is all screwed up. But yeah, they decided they were gonna do a coup on her. And so we, we were there and we were.

Kind of locked down on the base. The guys there were guys that were training with the filmars. It wasn't our platoon, another platoon. They were over on Green beach. And when this came down, they were like, just quietly took all their guns because they didn't know what side they were going to be on.

Yeah. But then we.

Got ready. Our mission on that one was going to be if she requested extract from the palace, we had to go get her. So there you go. Back to the surf zone, Right. Figuring out, figuring this stuff out. So we're gonna have to drop a boat because there was no place to land a helicopter where the palace was. But across the river from the palace there was a ball field. So we had to figure out how to drop a duck basically in the river, get it inflated and get it over so we could ferry her and like her bodyguard over here. It was like nobody else and us. And then we're gonna combat loss em and you know, fly out. Well, no one ever done that before. You know, the Limp duck is you kick it out and it takes you 15 minutes to get. There was no time for that. So we figured out how to do it. We just honeycomb the crap out of a full, full blown duck or a full blown Z bird. Only one. You put it on a big piece of plywood and, you know, tied it all together, keep it all together. And you went out with your stuff on and your flotation. But, you know, so Brad Cooper, he was the air guy, and he came up with this. And the CEO asked him. He's like.

Can we do that? He's like, oh, yeah, we do it all the time. He's like, okay, cool. And so we do this on a dry run. And of course, I'm the, you know, I'm the first Louie guy, so I got to be the first guy in the. In the. The boat to. To get the engine started. And so I'm the sea anchor. Because as the helicopter's hovering at, you know, five knots or whatever, and they kick this thing out, the rotor wash would have just blown this empty boat away. So they. I was holding on to the bow line as they kicked it out. It's like. And I'm like, head first, boom. Into the water, climb up the line, get in, cut the lines, get the motor down. By then, the other guys have gotten close. They pull.

The pallet basically from underneath, get the thing started. It was like three minutes and we were running, and we could do that with two of them. And right after that, Brad's jumping up to going, I knew we could do it. I knew it would work.

And. Yeah, so now. Now it's actually they. They do that. They practice those now.

So anyway, so you guys are on standby.

Yep.

Did you ever get the call?

No, never got the call. We stood by, we bounced around. We were ready to go.

There was, you know, a lot of. A lot of moving parts. That was our. Part of that was. Was going to be that some other guys were going to go when there was a.

Oh, a high rise that had journalists in it, and they were going to take that down, you know, land on the roof and just clear it to, you know. But none of that ever came through the. They worked out another. Another way.

But you were spun up for a while, dude.

Yeah, it was spun up, ready to go. It was like, all right, chomping of the bit. Let's do this, let's do this.

And you come home from that one. What's next?

Yeah, another platoon, right. Dropped into.

Delta platoon at that point. And in the First. Geez, what'd we do? We did a night combat equipment jump on February 14, 1990.

Static line. Static line in the desert out here.

Where, Amigo dz.

Okay.

And.

So when I hit the ground, my left ankle snapped, and I was out of the platoon. And, I mean, I got out of the airplane. I had a lot of twists and stuff. I'm bicycling out of that, getting all that stuff going on, you know, you gotta get the comb equipment off of you. I never did get there. By the time I was getting to that, I was seeing the horizon come up. I'm like, oh, here we go. And I hit, and it snapped. Boom. Right there. So I'm laying there. I'm like. And immediately I'm like, oh, shit. They're gonna. You know, they don't know where I am. It's night, you know, so I'm. I'm yelling, hey, I'm over here. I'm down. I'm hurt, you know. And then Dano gets over. Hey, Coach. Quit screaming, you pussy. Get your ear pro out. Cause I couldn't hear myself, like, really, really loud. So the doc gets over there and he cuts my boot off. And he's like. He's poking at it. He's like, oh. And I go to lift my leg up, and my foot stayed on the ground. My leg came up. And he's like, oh. Oh, don't do that. And so as everybody who came over like, hey, what's going on? What's going on? Hey, check this out. Stop doing that. Yeah. So I had pins and plates and all that crap. So it took a little while to get better. And right as the Gulf War was kicking up, so I missed going. I just got my cast off. There was, in fact, there was a guy, I forget who it was, that couldn't go with their platoon. I was like, oh, I'm in. I'm in. And I'm like, master Chief's like, coach, you came and stand up, you know. Yeah, but we're not going to do anything right away. I'll get. I'll get better.

I'm good.

He's like, no. So he had. He put me down for that one. And. And then I got in another platoon right away, you know, and just started the workup. And that was when Pinatubo blew up.

Okay. We were on deployment for that one.

Yeah.

What was that like?

Dude, it was funny. You hear this thing, you know, the rumblings, and, oh, yeah, there could be a volcano. I was like, okay, whatever, you know, thinking it's a long way off. And it was. And the wind normally went from Subic the other way, so it was going to push all the ash away from us anyway, Right. So it's rumbling. The volcanologists are, oh, no, this is going to happen. So they move. All the Air Force guys from Clark just descended on Subic Bay and brought their cars and parked them on the ball fields and everything, and then just raided the damn px. So it was like locusts showed up. You couldn't get toothpaste or anything else. And when the mountain blew up, it was during a typhoon, so the wind changed and blew everything our way. So it was like concrete, you know, just falling down, sticking to everything. And of course, you know, the American buildings were built like bomb shelters so they could, you know, handle. We figured it was probably about 40 or 50 pounds per square foot.

Damn.

That was. Yeah, because we cleaned all that crap off the. Off the roofs with paddles. We wore them down to nubs, you know, just in case it was going to happen again. We didn't know, but town was. Was not built for that. You know, Everything, it was, like, just collapsed. Yeah, collapsed. So because this is going on, we're like, all right, well, nothing for us to do. So we went on down. As this is happening, right?

So you're drinking, like, as ashes are flowing.

Well, I mean, what else you gonna do, right?

You go drinking. Did no one say, like, hey, this is gonna be some kind of a big natural disaster? Was it kind of like, oh, there's gonna be some ash, no big deal.

It was a Ticano quake, man. There was earthquakes, There was lightning that was orange because it was igniting all the stuff that was in the air. And it was at noon. It was dark, like midnight.

And you guys were like, party time.

Yeah.

We're like, what else are you gonna do, man? Like Guam.

You have, you know, the typhoon parties, right? It's like. But here, it's like, all right, so we go out in town, and you're drinking in your favorite bar, and you hear some creaking and grinding, and you're like. You run outside and the bar collapse. The roof would just come in, and you're like, okay, well, I guess Rolling Stones is done. Let's go to Slim's, you know?

Yeah.

And we spent some time out there doing that. And, yeah, the next day, the next time the sun came up, it was hard to navigate because all your landmarks were gone. Even palm trees were just peeled down like bananas. Any palm frond that was horizontal because it was Wet. It made this stuff stick and the weight of it just tore everything down. Hundred year old trees just, you know that the branches had fallen off where people getting killed.

Nobody that I knew but like out.

In the villages were like, yes, there's stuff collapsing and.

Yeah.

Was there a humanitarian disaster that you guys had to be like help out?

Not. Well, the, the what we came up with, they came down with it for us to do was clear all the, the ash off of the buildings. So there wasn't a shovel. So we used our paddles and we just, you know, scoop that off just so that there would be less weight on there. You know, we did officers houses, we did the barracks, we did the big mission. Yep. Working all day.

Just the big mission.

Yeah. And then they figured out that hey, you know, and we had just gotten back from Australia, a good Australia trip. Right. And then. Or no, that was Australia. That was Thailand. Even better. Right. And then this happens and then they are. Okay, well we, we, we're supposed to be worldwide operational. We're not. Because you couldn't take off. You know, the, the, the dust was eating the jet engines. Okay. So what they would do is like once they got the Runway cleared off, they would basically tow your plane to the, you know, because you couldn't run it, you know, couldn't run the engine, you know, to taxi. So they would tow the airplane to the base of the Runway and then they'd wind it up and go. And that was okay, right. That wouldn't damage the engines too much. But that wasn't good enough for being this worldwide capability that we were, you know, supposed to have. So they decided to move us to Guam. And it was my platoon they got move to Guam. And that's, you know, that wasn't the Guam that you remember. That was the Guam prior to that when there was like nothing there, nothing there. There was no, no unit, no debt, no nothing. They set us up in an abandoned building and we moved all our crap in there and we just, you know, it's just basically so they could say that we had a capability. But yeah, we were, we were just out on our own.

It was. And it was just your platoon?

Just my platoon, yeah. And then there was a team, one platoon that joined us.

And.

You know, but they did like separate stuff. They were, you know, whatever, they did theirs, we did ours. But you know, we were just sitting there waiting for the, the balloon to go up, living in open bay barracks and it, yeah, it sucked.

And so the PI gets shut down. You finish that. Are you Is that when you're. When you were in Guam, you're like, hey, I wouldn't mind coming to the unit. It's coming over here. Or did that.

Did you get volunteered? There was no. There was no unit.

And there was no idea that that was gonna happen. You know, There were no idea. They've been talking about moving the unit for years, you know, so whatever. So I got back off that deployment, was like, I'm gonna take a break. I'm gonna go over the Philippines and hang out for two years and. And work the. You know, the. At the unit.

And I got the orders. And then they switched the unit to Guam. So my orders said Subic Bay, Philippines, but they didn't, you know. Yeah, I went to the. Went to Guam for two years. And that was.

What was your job?

I was the current operations petty officer. I was an E5. I was. You know, dude, that's insane. Dude. I was an E5 for seven years.

Because I was not a raid grabber. I was like, I want to, you know, show up with my gun and my bomb and let's go to work, you know? Yeah. So, I mean, we did. We set up targets for the team operate.

What'd you say? Operations.

Current operations officer. Yeah.

That is freaking awesome. I know.

Yeah. What do you do? Well, I write some stuff down and, you know, and. And again, it wasn't that hard. So I worked out all the time.

I led PT because it was more fun than just doing it on our own, because we had to. Three days a week, you're out there like, well, I'm out here. I'll do the counting and yelling and whatever.

You just do what you do. For those two years.

We set up targets for the. When the guys deployed out there, we'd set things up for them and all that. So, you know, unit stuff.

Yeah, we. I know when I deployed there, as soon as we got on the ground, they, like, gave us a target and we had to go hit. It was a training op, but they gave us the target. We had to come over the beach. We had to go up in the kill house. You probably set it up. We went in there, shot a bunch of balloons or whatever, and. Pretty cool, you know, and then that was that. We got ready for whatever exercise was next. But. Yeah, that's when I first remember running into you, and I just remember you being. You know, there's a lot of guys that would have two, three, four platoons that would kind of be.

It's one thing for a guy to be, like, an asshole to you because you're being an idiot, which is not only understandable, it's actually justified. But then there's some guys that would be assholes, because they're assholes. And, like, you were a guy that was cool, and you'd, like, teach and, like, hey, you should do this, or, hey, try this, or, hey, come over here. Just, like, give good guidance to a younger group of guys, which was me and my buddies. So I always remember that. I always remember you having a good attitude and. And you were, like, doing what? I think it's Tony. Tony Afratti says, like, just being mayor, just, like, just having good relationships with people, whether it's the cops, the bouncers, the girls you like, you just could kind of maneuver and know a lot of people, which is important thing. Building relationships, that was.

That was my actual job. You know, the current operations, I was like, okay, that's what I did at work. But, yeah, I mean, whether it was, you know, the bars in town, you know, all the. All the girls would, you know, hang out at the beach. So, yeah, you get to know their names. You get to know the bartenders, you get to know the bouncers. We worked with the cops. You know, we trained with them in the. With the kill house. So, I mean, we could do no wrong. Yeah, you drop. Drop a name. Like, everybody knew. I forget his name, but he was, like, famous on the island, and he was, like, their big SWAT guy. So I got pulled over a bunch.

Get a police escort after you get pulled over.

Yeah.

Yeah. If you build good relationships, you don't act like an idiot. Because eventually we seals wore out their welcome there pretty bad. I think they've recovered now.

But the other side of my job there, I saw was to help the teams out. I wanted to make better team guys. And I know from my experience of just being thrown into stuff and having to figure it out, that kind of sucks, you know, so that being able to pass. What. I didn't know that much at the time, but I knew enough that I could. You know, I wasn't. You know, I had, what, four platoons under my belt, so, you know, I did what I could to make anybody that would. Wanted to listen. Yeah, that much better.

Yeah. And that's. That makes an impact, you know, on a guy. Like. Like I said, me and my buddies that were kind of knuckleheads, and we all wanted to, like, be better, you know, our attitude was like, we wanted to be good seals. That's all I ever wanted is, like, I want to be a good seal so someone can show me something about shooting, or someone can show me about breaching, or someone can show me about whatever I wanted to know. Because you don't know jack. And so I always appreciated that, that attitude. And I would love to tell you that I really did a good job of that. And I will say it. I did that I was too much of an asshole if people weren't doing good. I was a little bit too much of an. When I was younger, you know, like my second platoon, my third platoon, I was not. You know, if you were jacked up, I was a real. And so. So were all of us. You know, we just had that bad attitude. But we also really wanted the guys to get better. So when there was a good guy, we would like invest. We what it is. We care. We just cared about the teams and cared about the platoon, and we wanted the platoon to be awesome. And so when a guy was doing. Guy wanted to know something, we'd freaking. We. We didn't go home. You know what I mean?

We didn't go home.

We didn't have anywhere to go. We didn't have anything. So. Oh, you want to do more runs? Cool, we'll stay here and do more runs. Oh, you wanted us to show you how to set up your gear. Cool, we'll show you how to set up your gear. But if you wanted to go home or you're. You didn't want to take the time to get your squared away, you were like an enemy.

And.

And I was mad. Me and my buddies, we were like, mad at you because we were in the freaking team. This was our family. And now all of a sudden, we got someone in the family that doesn't want to carry their weight. They're like, wow, this is a problem. And I probably went, I. Instead of, like, nowadays, I would have been better at, like, saying, hey, man, here's. Let me show you how this works. If you don't show up without your gear squared away, that tells us that you don't care about what's happening. Do you care about what's happening? Yeah, I care what's. Okay. So part of care about what's happening is make sure you got your shit squared away. I would probably be more like that now. Back then, I was a little bit more, you know, of a dick.

Yeah. Age and maturity, man. I mean, you learn how to talk to people and get the effect that you want, you know, and the effect is like, I want to make this guy better. If he's not going to listen, he's not going to listen. But you've got to give it that best chance because you come in hard and remember he's a team guy, too. And, you know, you just start button heads where if you come in a little softer and be like, hey, here's what we're seeing. And we don't like that. You know, so fix this, please. And, you know, and here's how to fix it, you know.

Yeah.

You know, you can't say, hey, don't do that. It's like, here, do this instead.

Yeah. Yeah. So I definitely had some growing up to do in that respect. I have had those guys, I mean, because of course, they all stay in the teams. They're all. And we all became friends and they, you know, I'll see him at the reunion or I'll see him wherever at a memorial service and they'll be like, I'm so glad you guys were like that. You know, they're. They're fired up now, but still could.

Have been better, you know, could have.

Could have done a better job. And I, I wish I picked up more of that from you than I did. But, you know, I also had other influences. You know, there was other guys that.

Were like, that's how.

How it's rolling. Like you. This is a family. This is, you know, in my mind, like, we're counting on. I'm counting on you to keep me, me and my friends alive. You're part of this. We're all keeping each other alive. And there's not even a war going on, by the way. This is just like me being crazy, but it's also like, what the job is.

Yeah. And, you know, the guys that put me through training, most of them were Vietnam guys. And so that was big. I was like, no, you know, you have to do this. You know.

They came from the war, you know, so it was like, you know, yeah, you're gonna be there for your buddies. And this is why everything, you know, they say, oh, yeah, it's all our SOPs are written in blood. Well, no kidding, they are. But guys tend to forget that and, you know, it becomes more personal. So it's not you just being screwed up. Like, oh, yeah, we're going to. No, you got to be ready for it, though. Yeah.

Yeah. It's a deaf. It was a definite gang mentality for us, for me and that crew of guys and, you know, all the guys, because that crew of guys, of new guys that in that platoon when I was over in Guam, when you were there, we all stayed well a Bunch of us stayed together and we were tight, and we stayed together for three straight platoons. And so, you know, and a bunch of us, we went to Buds together. So it was like, you know, seven years of 24 hours a day.

Yeah.

Doing together. So it's us against the world, you know, that's what you end up with. And if you're part of the platoon, you know, that means when we're going, we're going. That means when someone calls you at 3 o' clock in the morning, like, hey, we, we're going. People get. You got 15 minutes. Like, where are you at? Oh, you don't care about us.

Gets hostile.

Yeah. And. And better or worse. I never had that. Every time I moved, I moved. The guy I did the most deployments with was Jeff Payne. He was my first, my second, and then he was. While I was in a platoon, he was doing the SEAL support debt, you know, SSD or whatever the hell it was. So he was over there at the same time. We just weren't doing the same stuff. So I kind of was just. I never had that click to, you know, to hold on to.

Yeah, I hate to use that word click, but I use the word gang. It's kind of a click to be all if we're gonna be all. Keep it real around here.

Yeah.

I don't know, though. Do clicks beat the shit out of each other if they step out of line?

But we had a great time. And. And even, even those, you know, my second and third platoon, like, the guys that we were with were just.

We.

I still talk to them. I still see him. Like, when I see them, they're fired up, you know, So I guess it all works out in the end. But I from, like you said, a more mature scenario being a little bit. Having a better understanding of building relationships and cohesive teams. Being more positive is a better way to go.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's hard to understand that when you're 22, but that's how we roll, man.

So you're over there in Guam for a couple years, and then you screen to go out to the east coast and go through selection. You get picked up.

Yep. I did my screening and yeah, that was it. It was like, okay, cool, off you go. And I was looking for a fight, you know, I figured, okay, though. I felt. I felt gypped, honestly, because I missed the go for.

Yeah.

You know, I was like, damn it. You know, but, you know, my leg was broken long before there was any rumblings, you know.

So it wasn't my Fault, but I was still felt like I missed something. So I want to get into a fight, and the best place to get in a fight was over there. So, yeah, I threw my hat in the ring and yeah, rolled out.

Showed up. And the training officer for selection immediately hated me.

Straight up.

I'm like. And I'm not used to that. I'm not used to guys hating me. I'm like, here. I'm, you know, I. Hey, coach, whatever.

And no, your nickname Coach is very fitting. Like, like, your nickname suits you really well. Like, coach. It's Coach. You know, he's here to coach. He's here to help out. It's Coach. You know, that's what I've always thought of coach, so that's a weird. That's weird for somebody to hate you out of the gate, dude.

Yeah, and he hated me. And I know because at the end of training, he's like, coach, you know how much I hated you? I'm like, yeah, I know you didn't like me very much. Like, no, no, no, no, no. Hated you.

What was. Did he tell you why?

I was too happy? Okay, Okay. I was too positive. But, yeah, he just had this buck up his ass about me, and he tried to poison every. Everybody else in the cadre, you know, and I had to work so hard.

Dude, I mean, I hate you because you're too happy. That's the tease.

He just hated me. But, yeah, my attitude was just like. I was like a happy, go lucky. Yeah, yeah, cool, man. I'll show up. Hated it. Hated it. And so I had to win over all the cadre, whether it was like, Pat, Trey was big into Muay Thai and stuff, so I was his punching bag. I got out there and just. And I laid into him. He beat the snot out of me, but I kept coming back. And so got a thumbs up from Pat and Mark Lee. Not the one, you know, that they're both gone now. But, you know, I had to light him up with simulation because he figured I was going to be looking, you know, in the hallway, not where I was supposed to be when he came to the door. I wasn't. I was looking right where I was supposed to be, and I lit him up, thumbs up, you know, so I just had to do that for everybody and then, you know, survive, you know, six months of. Of selection. And. Yeah, so that. That was a. That was a rough time. And selection is just like buds. They put you in that same scenario. Except there's a lot of. At the time, a lot of Alcohol involved, you know, you had to be up, you know, drinking with the cadre, buying them drinks, and then being ready to do whatever we were doing, whether it was diving, skydiving, or shooting the next morning. So, you know, that was, that was the, the intent back then, I guess.

Well, luckily you at least did some preparation for that.

Oh yeah, my liver was, was in, in good training, you know. Yeah.

And then. So you're out there, you. You got. You were out there at that command when the Bosnia stuff was going down.

Yeah.

So that's pretty, that was pretty awesome at the time, right?

Yeah, that was like our best thing. The, the Pifwick operations of personnel indicted for war crimes. So we were basically kidnapping people off the street.

How, how cool was that?

It was awesome. That was really.

Give us a rundown like how to go down.

Okay. The one I talk about, he called himself the Serb Adolf and just voluntarily.

Giving yourself the name the Serb Adolf. All right, you get the down check, homie.

Yeah, dude. But he wasn't high enough of rank to have anybody helping him. He didn't have the intel. The higher ranking guys had intel and they would know when we showed up.

So we went over there to catch these guys and we did some stuff and couldn't find them. And I'm like, okay. So pulled back and then went back over, but this time they shipped us in shipping containers. So. Yeah, forklift brought in your hanging on. The trojan horse, they call it. Little straps to hang on to.

Yeah.

And they wheeled you into the big clamshell hangar, closed it up, and that's where we lived for a couple of weeks. And yeah, we ended up. We snagged that guy and had another guy that was a dry hole who obviously had enough intel to know something was going on. So they bugged out. But yeah.

That was cool. We did that for.

Were they like low vis ops where you roll out in civilian vehicles and, and stuff?

Yeah, civilian vehicles, civilian clothes, everything. You know, you have a bunch of guys, you know, the guy driving the van would look like you would. You wouldn't pick him, you know, until you open your mouth. You just look like, you know, one of the locals.

Yeah.

But the back of the van was full of ass eaters with, you know, you know, have her MP5s and full kit just ready to go.

You know, it's funny we were still using MP5s back then, isn't it?

Yep.

It's freaking crazy.

Yeah, dude. When did we get the CQBRS? That would have been.

Late 90s, early 2000s, 99, 2000. I can't remember exactly when, but yeah, we basically turned in everything except the K's and the sds.

What do you think about this recommendation? I don't know why I stumbled upon this idea, but, you know, people always say, like, what's the best weapon for home defense? What should I get for home defense? How about that MP5 for a home defense weapon?

You know, honestly, it would be good. The biggest problem with it is nobody knows that manual arms, your manual arms is M16. Yeah, M4. Okay. That's where, you know, you know where the charging handle is. It's automatic. And that was like the biggest thing. When we went to the MP5, it was because Princess Gate had happened and the SAS had them. So everybody who was anybody in the, you know, hostage rescue, you know, Realm was carrying MP5.

But would have been smarter for us to do was going with a Colt Commando and nine mil. Because all, you know, but it wasn't as cool.

Yeah, you know, but the, the MP5, if you, if you're a normal person and you're like, all right, I need a. I don't really have a weapon for my home defense and I need to get something the mp, if you're going to learn something for home defense.

Okay, how much does one of those cost though?

They cost a lot.

Yeah, like 25. Three grand. You know, for anything worthwhile. What I have for home defense, I made a 9 millimeter AR.

Okay, so you agree that having a 9 millimeter platform like submachine gun, rifle type is a good choice?

It's a good choice for most people. The recoil is low. And then, so I built a special one. CMMG makes this radio delay blowback, you know, system. So it's kind of like the roller delayed, but it's, you know, different. But it keeps everything nice and light.

Radial.

What? Radial delay radial blowback. Okay. Yeah, this thing's pretty cool. And I took an 8 inch rifled barrel and found a, an 8 inch, we'll call it a high volume linear compensator. It's basically a suppressor with no guts in it. Right. And I pinned and welded it. Right. So it's on there. So it makes 16 inches, which makes it a rifle. So it's California legal, whatever. And it also, because it directs all that blast away from you towards the guy you're throwing lead at. You can shoot this thing with that Ear Pro. It's loud, but it doesn't. It's not going to ring your bell. It's not going to give your wife tinnitus and, you know, deafen your dog or anything like that. It's, you know, but it shoots a decent round. And you know that. 8 inches. You know, the Germans, they always over engineer everything. Yeah, that. The MP5 barrel is 7.7 something inches long. Like, okay, this is 8 inches. I think that's optimized for 9 mil. We'll go with that. And then I added that other piece on the end so that to make it legal.

Is there anyone else that makes this recommendation? What do normal people make? Recommendation for a home defense weapon.

You know, you ask 10 different people, you get 10 different answers. But shotgun is what they. They come around with.

The thing with a shotgun, though, I mean, obviously you can't shoot as accurately with a shotgun as you can with the thing that I always remember, the thing that I loved about the MP5 is you could just drill nails with that thing. You could put round after round after round after round through the same freaking hole.

You can do that with, with the one I built too. And it has ar, you know, function. Right.

How's the reliability?

It's been fine.

Nice.

It's been. And I put it together myself. I mean, you know, I'm actually talking with some people to make one commercially.

Oh, now everyone's gonna want one. They're gonna hear this, they're gonna want to order it up.

Yeah.

Freaking. Yeah. Get some. But the thing. So you got nine mil, you could use a round, like a frangible round so you're not punching through your walls and hitting other family members. Yeah, yeah, there you go. Hollow points. You're gonna be shooting super accurate. There's no recoil. They're easy to shoot like it's a.

So who's gonna be defending your house? Is it a Navy seal or is it your daughter, your wife? So that's the thing about the shotgun. They're gonna take it out, they're gonna shoot it once and be like, oh, my God. And they're not gonna train with it. You have to aim a shotgun. You don't just point the damn things. Plus, you're responsible for every one of those pellets that comes out. Right. The AR platform is just so ergonomic, so easy to use. And I set mine up with a light, a red dot sight, and a sling.

This is a no brainer all day.

Yeah, yeah. So you can. I can hand that to any one of my daughters, you know, whatever. In five minutes you can have them, you know, punch in a little tiny group at 10, 20 yards for sure, Easy day. No recoil? No, no, real, you know, blast issues. My wife's, she's recoil sensitive and blast sensitive. She's sensitive, right? She's a girl. She's awesome. But you know, that was her thing, you know, she's just not good with that. So a shotgun? No, that ain't gonna happen. A lot of people talk pistol, like. Okay, well, pistol's good, but if someone's coming to invade your home, chances are they're gonna have a pistol or a sawed off shock, something small. Okay. And if I'm gonna get in a gunfight with somebody, I want to have the upper hand. And if I'm home, I'm bringing my full on gun, you know, and we have. So I've got one in that's set up that like that in 9 mil and 1 in 300 blackout. Oh yeah, and they're set up exactly the same so I can train with the 9 mil, but if I want to throw that, you know, 220 grain subsonic round at somebody in case that.

In case that home invasion goes to the street.

Guess I gotta reach out, you know.

But yeah, that's, that's just me. I'm a gun guy. So I was like, I think about something and I go and build it.

Well, yeah, the thing about a pistol for home defense. And look, if it's you and me, like all day, of course, no problem. But my wife, my daughter has to pick up a pistol. Stressful situation, it's night. Like there's mayhem going on. You, their group, at, at whatever, at 10 yards is gonna look like a shotgun blast compared to with one of those with a submachine gun. It's like they're going to dial that thing in. It's game over.

Yeah, and it's easy. It's, you know, you've got two points of contact, it's small enough that you can maneuver around. And okay, in your, your home defense scenario, you're not clearing your house, okay? You're going to collapse back on the weakest or least mobile individual's room and you're going to hold there, call the cops and you know, with the door closed, you know, you let him know, hey, I'm armed, I'm in here. And if you come through the door, you smoke them and you've given them forewarning this idea that, you know, maybe I might clear the house, but I've kind of done that a little bit. But even then, one man CQB is not optimal. Okay?

Just FYI, I'm 100%. Clearing the house. My CQC, my one man CQC is optimal.

Some people are getting dropped. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, you do you, man. I mean, but it all depends on who's home and, you know, where I'm at and, you know, what's going on. But, yeah, my recommendations for, you know, self defense shooting, because that's kind of my big focus now that I'm not working with the Navy anymore. I want to make Americans, I want to make them.

Better prepared. Yeah, okay.

I was going to get into this, but.

So for a long time, I was focused on making Navy seals better. I'm not doing that anymore. So now I've shifted my focus to the regular, potentially armed American. Okay. Now there's plenty of guys out there that want this information, and this ties into why I did the stuff with Tactical hive, you know, and I don't know if we're getting ahead of stuff, but.

Yeah, I. We do. I do videos for tactical hive. They're on YouTube. And I don't hold anything back. I don't, like, tease. And then, hey, you got to come to my, you know, course. It's like, no, I will show you everything that, that I can in that 10, 15, 20 minute, you know, spot, you know, and if you watch it, if you do it, you'll get better, you know, because maybe you don't have the money to come, you know, pay me my price to, you know, go shooting with me, but I want you to come away with something. You'll get better quicker with me. Yep. You know, because I've done it for such a long time. You know, when we built that course at at buds, I put a lot of stuff together, you know, as a team, we put these things together and you watch it happen and you see guys making mistakes and you figure out how to fix it. You know, you reverse engineer everything. And then we started training the instructors that would come in. They're only there for two years, and that's not a lot of time. So I have them ghost me and watch how I correct whatever the problem was. And then they would listen to the words that we're using, keeping everything common. And then.

In no time, they could fix about 80% of the common problems guys had. So it was a big force multiplier. And I look at that, I'm like, all right, how can I shift this over to just regular folks? And, you know, the regular marksmanship training, closing one eye, line up, you know, front side. That doesn't most people, if you want to learn to be a target shooter. Yeah, go do that. But I'm going to teach you how to point shoot first, two eyes open. Because two eyes are going to be open in that stressful situation and you're going to have to deal with, you know, using natural point of aim and you know, spend enough time on your grip so that it naturally points to where you want it to. Even without looking at the sights. Because you ain't going to be looking at sights, you're going to be looking at the target, you know, because that's where the interesting information for your lizard brain is. Right. It's like that's the danger spot. So you're going to be looking there. So instead of doing like we went in buds, we had the first week was all marksmanship training and the second was combat shooting. And so I've taken basically the first week off the board and just do wave tops of the second week and get you started there and I can make you better. We've been teaching cops. I just got back from Chicago teaching Illinois, little town called Rockford. We're post certified there now. So we can teach the cops cqb. And I think the difference between SEAL teams and cops, you know, the big difference is we train all the time. Yeah, they don't. That's not where their money is. Their money is, you know, on the, on the ground doing the job and almost no training.

Yeah. Which is terrible. I've been, I've been for the past many, many years I've been saying police should train 20% of the time. And if they did 20% of the time, you know, so it's one day a week or maybe that's two hours a day, like however you want to break it up. But they would be so much better because right now like that group that you just trained, how much training are they getting a year in cqc?

None.

There you go. How much, how much, how many rounds do they shoot in a year?

The guys are having a, you know, they get like 60 rounds paid for. I mean, so if they want, if they want to, you know, get better on their own.

So just so everyone that's not like a person that has shot weapons before, 60 rounds a year for training is not going to make you a proficient shooter in a normal situation. In like a flat range situation.

Yeah. Oh, that was just for the qualification.

So it's not training. So thinking that you're going to be, you know, have one of these, you know, we expect our police officers to be able to handle these crazy dynamics Especially right now, crazy dynamic situations where things are going on, people have all kinds of armament. They do crazy things thinking that a police officer is going to be ready for that just because they've been on the job. It just doesn't make sense. And we're really failing, not only failing our police officers, but we're failing our civilian populace as well. Because.

Oftentimes the police officer that's not well trained doesn't handle the situation right and it ends up terrible. And you can tell so clearly when a police officer is trained, they just respond infinitely better than someone that's not trained. So I'm gonna, I don't know what else to do about that. Hopefully we continue to push that message and people will say, well, they need to be on the street, right? No, well, they need to be out there. They need to be out there. So they don't have time to train. Okay, so let me ask you this. Would you rather in your neighborhood have 10 cops that haven't trained patrolling, you know, at 2 o' clock in the morning or one or midnight or whenever? Would you rather have 10 cops that have trained two hours in the last year, or would you rather have eight cops that have trained, you know, 20% of the time, anybody that has any sense at all will say, I would take the eight guys. There's no doubt about it. I would take two guys instead of, I would take two guys that are well trained over six guys that aren't well trained.

The problem is that, you know, the guy's paying for it. You know, they're in charge of the train. They're like, they have to have these guys on the street. You know, they got to fill that schedule.

But that's what I'm saying. Somebody needs to say, hey, having an untrained person on the street is not worth that savings. They just don't. They just haven't figured this out yet. And I don't know how they haven't figured it out, because when we do have these negative incidents happen with police officers, it's most of the time any common sense person with tactical training will be able to say, oh yeah, if this would have happened, they would have been able to do this and the problem would have been solved. And we watch people like, people like you and me, we watch those things and we're like, it's, it makes me sick, it makes me cringe. Because I know 20 minutes doing de escalation procedures would have solved this problem. You know, a half an hour on a Monday morning going through, hey, think through this problem. Let's walk through it a couple times. You come up in this situation, what are you going to do? Well, I'm going to run up and start yelling at him. Okay, well, let's think about that. What if he doesn't respond the way you expect him to? Well, you know, most of the time when I yell at a guy, tell him to get down, he gets down. Okay, but is that a great first move? How about we get some cover? How about we yell from behind cover? Now you got some time to react. Now you got some time for decision making. Now you've got some distance between you. So all these things that you can teach, really easy. And then you got to drill them. You got to drill them. But look what I just said. You could do that for free. That doesn't cost anything. Takes 20 minutes. Let's run through the scenario, talk through it, and then let's do it. And then you have a guy come up, come upon someone that's causing problems, and instead of running up and yelling at them, gay, get down. Because, like, they get trained to do that from working. Right? Because most of the time, when a cop yells at somebody to go, they don't want to get arrested or they don't want to get in trouble, so they obey. It's that 1% of the time, yeah, that. That the person's on drugs, they're going crazy, they don't care. They want to die, they want to kill. That person is the one we're worried about. The person that you yell at from behind a car and be like, hey, get down. And they get down.

Cool.

We're all happy when you yell from behind a car, get down. And they don't do what you want them to do.

Cool.

Now we have other decisions that we can make. We have escalations that we can do. We're in a protected position. We don't have to freak out. We have time to react. There's all kinds of things that we can do. So those basic training protocols that aren't happening right now, that's what a lot of these problems are coming from. Very seldom do I see a video of a police officer that is that something has gone south where you can you say to yourself, oh, the intent of this police officer was to have this bad situation happen. No one's like, oh, their intent was to solve the problem, and they did not have the tools and the training to get it done, which is a freaking nightmare. Nightmare. Yeah.

And I. I love training cops, okay? But honestly, as much as I Can, you know, you know, they got to pay by doing these videos for Tack Hive. I want to train everybody. I want to give everybody that, you know, that the situation awareness you're talking about is not that hard. And you can. You can train it, you know, you just, you know, distance gives you time, angles gives you a way out, and then just keeping your head up and on a swivel, you know, and if you can remember those three things, you know, the guy who's looking to grab you or, you know, treat you as a victim. That predator is not looking for a hard target. They're looking for the easy target. And if you're doing stuff, if you're looking around, you're not, you know, everybody's, you know, in their little private phone booth, you know, staring at. Just if you got to talk on the phone, bring it up in front of your face rather than looking down. If you do that, you're not going to have trouble most of the time in those transition spaces and everything else. So, I mean, you know, that kind of training. And then here's the next level, because that firearm that, you know, you're carrying, all that does is gives you an extra option. It's not. I'm armed, so I'm going to go do, you know, I'm a sheepdog and I'm going to involve myself. No, no, that's just. You have to deal with all these other, you know, like the escalation de. Escalation. Figure that out. And if somebody pulls a gun on you and they've got a gun on you, you are not. I can't out draw them. Okay? You got to figure something else out. You got to wait for your time, your opportunity, and you just.

How did you get yourself in that situation? You know what I mean? How did you get someone get close enough to you and you were lacked situational awareness that they identified you and that they were able to pull out a weapon without you being able to create distance and get yourself into a survival scenario. That's just a lack of awareness and it's a lack of training.

Yep.

So.

And. And then it's the gear as well. You know, these days when. When Covid hit, you know, you couldn't buy a gun because they were just all sold out. You know, everybody who didn't have a gun went and panic bought something. You know, there's a bunch of stories about that. It's like, oh, yeah, give me the gun show loophole. You know, how much more I got to charge for that, you know.

And studies have shown that if that guy who bought that gun came home, put it on his coffee table and stared at it and was like. And got no help from a gun guy, he's now more anti gun than he was before.

Explain that.

They're afraid of it still. It's like they bought a rattlesnake and brought it home and they, because they have no idea what it is now it's a gun and they've been told, oh no, I'm 20% more or 80% more likely to be, be, you know, killed by a gun in my house because I have one.

And so what do they sell them?

Yeah, they normally sell them or put it away or whatever. But if that other group, same guys, you know, probably voted well for stuff like this. But now they needed a gun because they knew the cops aren't going to come there to, you know, save them and their toilet paper.

If they had somebody in their life that was a gun guy that could help them out, that gets them past that first, you know, step. Okay, I bought the gun, now what? Well, no, get some ammo. Let's go to the range. Here's how to hold it. Here's. You know, those are, those guys are now way on the other side. They're on our side now. You know, we're the, the armed citizen. I mean cops can't be everywhere, but armed citizens can be, okay. We just need more of them. More guns equals less crime. If you have the right people, you know, that know how to use the gun. So my latest thing I.

Doing tack I've stuff. I got noticed by this company called Lipsey's and they do special limited edition guns and stuff. So I've been talking with them about taking out the, the roadblocks for civilian gun ownership. Okay. You can't change it from the other side of the law. But on this side, guy buys a gun, okay, now he wants to carry it, so he buys a holster. Well, now he wants to put a light on his gun. Ain't gonna fit in that holster anymore. And it just. If you're not a gun guy, it's a big pain in the ass. So what we're planning on doing, I think this is gonna happen early next year. They're gonna come out with I think Smith and Wesson first the coach edition. You know, I think there's a couple revolvers and then the would do some auto loaders. I don't know exactly for sure, but.

What comes along with that. When you buy one of these, there'll be a little Code that you can go on the interwebs and there's going to be me explaining exactly what you got in this box and how to use it, why we made the decisions on the grip and the sights and everything else. And then when you decide, you know, that you wanted, you know, after you've taken to the range and got some rounds down and some reps, now you want to carry it, well, there's going to be. Ideally there'll be a little drop down menu, you know, inside the waistband, outside the waistband, red dot light and everything will fit together. So it kind of takes that, the guesswork out of it. I mean, I got a box of freaking holsters that I don't use. Some of them I bought, some of them weren't given to me. Right. But if you're not a gun guy, you know, it's just that much more of a pain in the ass to deal with. Right. And if you can just buy it in a package and then have somebody teach you how to use it, you know, and in person is always better. But if you can go over, okay, this is how you stand, this is why. And here's where your natural point of aim is. And try these drills and you know, I think that's going to be the best way for me to, to expand this and get the. I want people, Americans to be able to defend themselves because cops can't be everywhere. And you know, don't be afraid of the equipment, you know, know how to use it. And that takes the fear out of it.

Well, now we're going to have to make a 9 millimeter colt freaking AR based freaking submachine gun for the house. House home defense. That's what's coming next.

Yeah, actually, yeah. Well, through this company, Lipsey's, they. They can work with anybody, anybody in the gun industry. So yeah, we'll be pushing something like that. And yeah, Coach branded. I mean, I had to come up with a color and a logo and all this stuff. Like, oh, really, man? Yeah, I, I never wanted this.

You know, hopefully it's just a big smiling dude.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, when Tack Hive, when it started, my buddy Dor, he was still active duty, so he came to me, he was like, hey, Coach, I got this opportunity to do this video channel stuff, but I can't be on camera. You want to help me out? I said, no, the last thing I want to be was that guy in front of the camera. He's like, oh no, it's really easy, man. Just, just you're basically teach a Class to this little, you know, Asian guy and his little Filipino guy and his brother, you know, and his videographer is going to, you know, shoot it. I'm like, who's got a video? He's got a videographer. But anyway, so we did that and did a couple of them as his journey, because he wanted to. He was a big BJJ guy, and he realized that if somebody shows up with a gun, okay, he didn't know what to do. So he wanted to find out.

BJJ is ineffective in that scenario.

Yeah, against.

Against firearms.

It's. Yeah. Has its limits. I love jiu jitsu, but it doesn't.

Work against a gun very well.

So that was it. He wanted someone to film his journey. And then, you know, so we did a couple of those. And then I. They found out I had all this gear. Because when I. When you, you know, you improve your gear, you get new stuff. I would just take the old stuff off, throw it in a bag, and it went in my garage. So I basically have, like, gear history from, you know, the late 80s through the early 2000s. And door is kind of the same guy as me. He's got everything from, you know, the late 90s, early 2000s, all the way out to, you know, he retired last year, so he's got all the. All that cool kit. And those videos get a lot of hits. Because people love gear.

Yeah, they do.

But. Yeah, so that gave me that. You know, we do training videos, we do gear reviews and firearm reviews and basically gear history. But there's a big problem with YouTube. They hate guns. So we've got, like, over 400,000 subscribers. We get fewer hits now than when we had less than 100,000. So it doesn't make any sense. So we're struggling with that at the moment, but.

Well, you probably just aren't getting into the algorithm.

Yeah, there's. There's something, man.

Do you like your. Do you do any pure gear videos? We were just talking about, like, I saw one of your videos was, like, about cold, cold weather. You know, the. The pcu. Does that get more? Because it does get in the algorithm or anything.

You know, we did. We did retro, like, training techniques, and we do it with a 45. And it got like 400,000 views in a couple of weeks. I was like, cool. So we did, like, a bunch more, and they got almost nothing, like 20, 30,000 here. And they're like, okay, that's nowhere near what this one did. So whether that's algorithm, whether it's, you know, just the fickle nature of the audience. I don't know.

It's weird. It's weird. I don't even think about that stuff because I think it's too hard to comprehend what's going down. Do you think about that stuff, Kdog?

Yeah, absolutely.

Is there. Can you make sense of it?

So there are strategies to improve how your videos perform on YouTube, for sure. A lot of that has to do with what people initially see, how that first pool of people react to it.

100.

Yeah.

Is. Is it an engaging title of the video? What's the description like, what's your thumbnail image like, look like? All these things that contribute to whether or not somebody's going to click on that thing in the first place and start watching it, then how long they watch it all that's contributes to how it factors into the algorithm and then how it's delivered to a wider audience based on the engagement it's getting. So there, there's a lot of strategic stuff, bro.

Just make cool videos. That's my recommendation.

Videos 100.

That's what we're trying to.

Information, you know, help people. Yeah.

And then, you know, then nobody looks at your backlog. It's like, you know, you like, okay, we got a thousand videos. Because I'm, I'm not an owner of the that website. I'm just a subject matter expert that's been there for four years now, from the beginning, you know, and since then, I have this whole electronic realm, you know, come up. I'm like, all right, so.

Practical Firearms Instruction. That's my website. If you want to come train with me, you go there and then what is it?

Practical.

Practical Firearms Instruction. Yep, Yep. Practical Firearms instruction dot com. Maybe she's short enough to just pfi.

Dot com be able to get that somebody already owns. Try and charge you $5 million to get pfi.com that much I do know.

Yeah. And then, yeah, I'm. I'm kind of branching out. My wife's like, no, you should do your own videos. I'm like, okay, so she just made me a YouTube channel. So PFI coach on YouTube is gonna be. That'll be me. There's no videos there. Yeah, you can look there now. There's nothing. But it's like we're just start filling stuff out.

Let me tell you, you better get something up. It's Coach C O C H, right?

Yeah, C O C H. And the reason I did that is because if, you know, you write it like a coach, you know, C O A C H, then when they write out my whole name, it's Coachiolo. It's like, no, I'm not. No, just coch. Plus I could trademark that one. Coch is trademarked to me. You know, just. It was part of this whole deal. It's like, oh, we're gonna put coach on a gun. So. Okay, better get that trademarked. And you know, and I got ideas all the time, so I'm thinking about a smartwatch band, so, you know, commando bands. I got a trademark on that one. We'll see what.

Yeah, I want one. I don't even know what it does, but, like, I'm in the game. Let's get that commando band rolling.

And that 9 mil ar plate.

Yeah.

Like, you know, I get. My algorithm will have all kinds of shooting stuff in there and. And I don't see that very often, people recommending a, like a submachine gun for home defense. And I think it's a great solution.

Effectively. It's not a submachine gun because it's just going to be semi auto. Okay. So, you know, it's not a machine gun.

So. Okay, what's the proper terminology then?

A semi automatic pistol caliber carbine is what they're. That's the new thing. So the pcc. The pcc, yeah.

Good thing for the home defense.

Yeah. I mean, basic. It's going to save your ears, you know, when it comes down to it. And now it's. We'll figure it all out. I mean, you know, people are coming in. My brother, who's on forging fire, and he made some cool knives. He's been on it three times.

Oh, really?

We're like going to do a collaboration knife. But, you know, he's. He's an artist. So he's up making swords in. In Oregon. I just got to get up there. We got the, the initial design. It's been sitting out for years. I'm like, come on, we need to do this thing right now.

I got. I've seen like advertisements for that. It's just dudes out there just hammering on metal, right. Making cool stuff.

So. Nick, my brother.

Your brother?

Yeah. He's the only one. He's the one next to me. Next down from me. Right? So he's two years younger than me, but to this day he's the. His sword is the only one that's cleaved the pig in one go. This big, you know, big nodachi, you know, armor splitting, you know, katana, you know, samurai sword. And it just hacked it, like. Cool.

Does he do the Whole process, like folding the metal over 10,000 times or whatever.

Yeah, I mean, there's this. You know, he could tell you all about it, but yeah, it's. Yeah, he heats the stuff.

What does he do for a living?

That's what he does for a living, like.

But. But you can't just be on that show for a living. You gotta.

Oh, no, no, no. Okay. So at the time, he was. He was a Steadicam operator. And when Covid came around, that killed that. So he's unemployed from that, but by then he had been, you know, the Society for Creative Anachronism. They basically a bunch of guys that dressed in armor and beat. Beat on each other with sticks in tournaments. Oh.

Oh, yeah, It's.

It's pretty cool. Live steel and everything else. But, yeah, so he.

Speaking of gardener, like, you know, out in Potrero. Have you seen that stuff?

Yeah, the Potrero War. Yeah, my brother came down for that one.

Yeah, they go out there and it's just like, dudes in freaking armor, rednecks in armor just getting after it, beating the shit out of each other.

Well, Nick didn't have a lot of money to buy the armor, so he started making his own, and then that branched off into making some swords. And now he makes just absolutely beautiful works of art, you know, and he's.

Selling them, and that's how he makes his.

Yeah, he's making his. His limiting is. Is selling, you know, belt jewelry, basically, to people because they're way too nice to fight, dude.

People are like, you know, he's out in the bar, and the girl's like, so, what are you doing? He's like, I'm a freaking sword maker.

What?

He's like, what up?

Yeah.

And she's either like, I want to marry you, or like, get away from me, you sicko.

No, he's good to go. He's married. He's got his whole business is, you know, he moved it all up there, and he's got a big shop and 16 ton press where he just, you know, he heats the stuff. And he's on Facebook. Nick Cocchiolo. Nicholas Cocchiolo. I'm not sure look him up.

But yeah, so we're. We've been talking about doing this collaboration with him, and it's just, you know, it takes some time. You know, before he moved to Oregon and everything else, you know, home defense, katana. Home defense katana kills. When was the last time Swipe run through. Yeah. How do you. On the corner. Yeah, he was run through. Gunshot wounds.

Check. Where were you on September 11th?

I was at, at. Damn. And we had the, we had a three letter agency that was there with us training and we were in the.

In the high bay and it was, we didn't know when the first plane hit, but when the second one did, they came in and said, hey guys, you gotta look at this. So we came in and we, you know, they replayed it a bunch and these guys, they packed up and headed back to Washington and they were actually on their way when the plane hit the, the Pentagon.

Damn.

Yeah, so we, we just basically sat around watching the TV in a team room going, okay, I called the wife.

Things gonna change. Yeah, we had no idea. And actually.

My particular group, we didn't go to Afghanistan first. We went to Bosnia one more time because they didn't know, they didn't know where things were going to go. So they sent us over there because there was some rumblings or whatever. So that was the first place we deployed to for a month or two and then came back from that. And we were the second group over into Afghanistan. We did our three month deployment doing high value or high value targets was basically we were focused on, on so Elvis sightings and you know, whatever.

Elvis sightings?

Yeah. Intel was west, you know, sketchy at the time.

So you're just like spinning up looking. Spinning up looking.

Yep. Ready to go flying off, hitting a place, you know, and you know, of course a bunch of dry holes, you know, because we didn't get him or didn't, you know, and they didn't have that whole hierarchy of, you know, the bad guys yet.

I was on one of those. It was actually the last, the last mission that we're doing in that three months.

They advertised a TF160. Awesome guys. But they're like, oh yeah, 20 foot rope and we'll put you right in there. Okay, cool. So I didn't have my big gloves on, my sexy shooting gloves on. And that turned into a big fiasco. They pulled up short. I was in dash three. Dash one pulls up short. Dash two damages his airplane missing him because we were like 800 yards short of the actual target. And what he thought was whatever, he stopped here. Anyway, all those guys, they did a crash landing, you know. Yes.

Dash two does a crash land two crash land. Dash one put its guys out.

Yep.

Okay. They're into a target that's 800, 800.

Meters short of the actual target. And apparently it looked similar for, I don't know exactly what the, the deal was, but I mean Murphy's law.

Yeah, it's called it in hot.

Yeah, it's nuts.

All right, so we got guys on.

The wrong target, guys in the wrong target bird. And the birds going down, guys are like, you know, undone, ready to go, rope in hand and watching the, you know, canyon walls go flitting by and they're little, you know, green toilet paper tubes. And then that pilot found the only place in a square mile that he could put down an H60. And you know, when, when the 60s rotors are turning, they're nice and flat. As they slow down, they dip a little bit. And when they dip, they start hitting boulders and just busted them all up. So they're dealing with that. We watch dash one puts out their stuff. I'm the last guy off of dash three, the last bird. And then we had a 47. The idea was they were going to come in and we're get a foothold, you know, control it, and then bring in the main force with the 47. Anyway, so I'm looking at this thing and I'm going, this does not look like the pictures, you know, And I looked down and it's 100 foot rope and there's maybe 20ft on the deck. And, you know, and last time I looked down there, the rope was going right to the center of that, of this little square on the roof. So I zip on there, you know, hot, hot, hot, I hit the ground, I throw the rope away, and as I'm reaching for my weapon, I step back. Well, I thought I was in the middle. It turns out my heels were right on the edge of the roof. So when I stepped back, I stepped back into nothing. And I know the last thing that goes through your head before you die is because that was that. I mean, and it was like, I was just really disappointed.

I was like, everyone's gonna think I'm a jackass.

Yeah. And then, you know, bing, bing, bing, things start happening and then it stops. They're like, oh, fuck, I'm not dead. You know, and apparently had I fallen off of two sides, I would have gone one story down. Where I fell off, I fell two stories, but I hit the edge of the first story on the way down and spun me around and threw my gear all over the place. That other edge, it was about at least 100ft before there was anything that would have stopped me. So there's your frogman luck, right? You know, not good enough to not get hurt, but good enough not to die. So I'm laying on my back when I hit My camelback burst. So the guys look down, and they see me laying there in a spreading pool, black liquid. And they're like, okay, coach is dead. How do we get off this thing?

So I get my crap back together. I'm. You know, there's an animal pen next to me, and whatever's in there, it's, like, you know, really pissed off. I'm like, oh, crap. This cow's gonna come out and stomp me. This made of sticks, you know, And I'm laying in front of a big, uncleared breezeway on this, you know, made of boulders and timber. I'm like, okay, I can't stay here and wait for the backboard. So I did a quick systems check, and I got my shit together and made my way over so I could look up on the roof and make comms with the. The comm guy up there and say, hey, look, I'm. I'm good. Got my, you know, nods back on, but I. I can't move. My. My leg is jacked up. My back feels like there's someone poking me. I actually looked behind me, like, ow. What? Okay, no one's poking me. And my shoulder was jacked up as well, and my face, because when I fell on the. My nods tried to poke my eyes out, but for some reason, because I want to be able to see. So I would always wear clear eye pro under my nods, which wasn't a common practice, but because I had those Oakleys on, I'm still able to see with two eyes because it would have poked them right out.

Anyway, so they finished clearing down, and pretty much everybody on target was right inside that breezeway, but luckily there were just non combatants, so we were on the wrong damn target.

So they medevacked me the next morning, and that was the last mission. So within a couple days, I was back in the. In the States, and they had to do. They cut a big meatball off of my leg, big hematoma, and then.

My shoulder didn't want to work. It would just impinge. It would come up here and just stop like, okay, what's up with that? And so they examine it says, slap tear and some other stuff going on in there. We're gonna have to operate. We just found out that we were gonna be the guys going into Iraq and the invasion. I'm like, ain't no operation.

For that. No. Ain't gonna happen. So I said, what else can we do? And what he did is he gave me. The doc gave me a shot in my arm, cortisone or some magic liquid, but immediately was like, oh, not impinged. Yeah, we are good. He's like, okay, I gave you that one so you can train. We'll give you another one right before you go out the door. But when you come back, we have to operate because you don't get two is all you get on that one. And I'm like, okay. So that allowed me to stay with the team and roll over and do our invasion stuff.

And you got there. When did you get there? Like for the war to kick off?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, we were. Okay. So everybody. All the conventional forces were down south and we were way up north in Saudi Arabia. The northern Saudi Arabia. So while everybody was rolling up, we were doing these deep penetrating missions to the WMD sites that, you know, intel said might have this, that or whatever. And we were hanging out pretty far. You know, it would have been had. Had a helo gone down. It had been days before anybody could have got to us. Not in a helicopter. And we had. We had one real close call. We all got shot up pretty good. 47s and this little town we came in, and I was in Dash one, and I think we took half a dozen rounds through the fuselage. But then Dash 2 came in that same track, and they got all. Yeah, one of the air crew got actually shot in the head. He survived, but, you know, all our guys were clean. And so we went and did the wmd. You know, we took down the outside that was.

Is mop level four.

Well, we weren't. We had the mop suits, but, you know, Dash one, where I was. We were securing the outside area. And then Dash 2 was going to roll in.

They were mopped.

They were all mopped up. And they, you know, they're, like, sitting there just watching the light show as the rounds came through the mucilage. Like, how are we not dead?

My. My bird, the. The hydraulics got hit on the. The door. And so you know how that ramp comes down and goes. Yeah, it went plang.

And everybody running off. And the guy in front of me slips and falls on his ass and, you know, scoots off. I'm like laughing at him as I slip on my ass and scoot off.

The hydraulic fluid.

Hydraulic fluid everywhere. Like, you know, scooting like a dog with worms. And then. Yeah, when went and ran.

Did the whole deal. No problems. Well, that bird couldn't come back because the hydraulic fluid, it couldn't fix it. They had to get it out of there. And then the second bird had the injured guy on it and was all shot up. And so they went back out to the desert. We had a flying spare and a QRF, two other 47s with us. So after we ran around and this is so, so deep in there, our time was limited on fuel so we had to do what we did. Turned out it was, it was a dry hole, you know, thank God. And then we piled back in, you know, and we were able to get everybody on that flying spare and you know, nut to butt on the, with the QRF, you know, because. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

And so there's this.

47S have two counter rotating props, right? And there's a drive shaft that goes between and then there's a cover that goes over that. Well, there was a big dent in that one on my bird. And if you were had it hit and gone in and mess with that drive shaft, then that's what keeps the rotors working together. And they would just ate each other when it was falling out of the sky. And it would have been a really, really long night for, well, probably somebody else. But yeah, as it was, you know, we had a bunch of little close calls like that, hitting a bunch of different targets. You know.

Tracers of big guns, anti aircraft stuff going between the rotor disc and the fuselage of the bird.

You know, bro, I've had some, I've had some Huey Vietnam pilots on here, both the Sea Wolves and then just regular army conventional like air assault guys. And man, what they did with those Hueys is did they drove things like they were bumper cars at the freaking fair. Like they're going into LZ's, fire everywhere, taking hits all over the place, just going in. They don't give a man. There was three, there was 5,000 Huey's sent to Vietnam. 3,200 of them were lost in combat.

Damn. That's.

Those guys were getting next level, man. And, and I'll tell you what's awesome. The Seawolf guys. Well, the Seawolf guys, when you talk to the SEALs, and I've had some, you know, the, the Vietnam SEALs that, that have come on here, dude, those Seawolf guys were coming like they were coming and they didn't care. And like that. We had one guy in here telling the story. They, they just stayed like, oh, we're running out of fuel, cool. They just ran out of fuel and landed in a freaking rice paddy and used ammo ammo cans to transfer fuel from another bird that they brought in into the bird. Like these guys were just freaking legit.

Man, making shit Happen.

But those birds too, I think, because they were less technologically.

Reliant, they were just more durable. You know, it's like, it's like having like a brand new freaking BMW right now versus having like a 1967 freaking.

I don't know, man, those Blackhawks are pretty resilient to. My oldest brother is a helicopter for army, and he was actually spent a year in Afghanistan doing dust off stuff. So it's like, you know, whenever there was a tick, he was on his way, you know. Yeah, he went to pretty much all of them. And I mean, he had.

A hot LZ and ground force commander saying, hey, we got guys down here. We need to get you down here. We need to get them out of here. And so he disobeyed army doctrine, didn't wait for the gunship because the gunship couldn't make it, you know, as fast as he could. He got there, he looks around and goes, okay, and there's no traces over there. I think I can get in. So he came in hot and got lit up. And as he's coming in, the, you know, the army birds have. The.

Wheel is way up on the tail. Navy birds is like halfway up because you don't have to, you know, turn them on aircraft carriers. So anyway, you can hit the ground pretty hard with that sucker because it'll, it'll save the little shock absorber. Right. So he had to come in hot. Well, when they laid out the dz, they laid it out at an angle. It was on angled turf. So when he hit that hard, it slammed his head into the, you know, the canopy, knocked him unconscious. Okay. When he came to, probably just a couple of seconds, but hey, you know, didn't know he was in Afghanistan. Didn't, you know, he was like, you know, he was kind of, you know, as the system like reboots, he was like, okay, you know, all right, we're good. But the bird didn't roll over, didn't ball up. They loaded a bunch of guys on there and flew out again with, you know, couldn't wait for the gunships at this point because they'd squirt the ground in front normally, and then you fly out. And so he flies out and got everybody back to base. But. But when he got there, everybody was dead, you know. And so they went from, you know, he was things. When you disobey army doctrine, two things will happen. They give you a medal or they prosecute you. And he would have, he would have had another air medal for that one. But because you Guys got hit on the way out and died. He knew at least one guy back there was, had jumped on to do cpr and yeah, he got hit and, and expired on the five minute flight home. So instead of prosecution, they just called it even. You know, it's like, okay, yeah, you tried, you didn't. Yeah. Had there been some success there? Apparently. And I'm probably screwing the story up a little bit, but I mean, he, it broke his neck on the, you know, so he, and then he just kind of, you know, dealt with it and yeah, he actually like last year just got it all cleaned out. They had to go in there and fuse his neck and take out, you know, the, the disc that was pressing on stuff because he was going numb and you know. But yeah, again he was taught by the, you know, Army Vietnam, you know, Gila pilots back in the day. And, and he grew up on, on Huey's. That was his first platform.

So that'd be interesting. Think you have to ask him which one is more, which one would, which one would do better going into a hot lz? I mean, I get, I'm, I, it has to be the Blackhawk. But then again too, those Hueys, man, they're little and probably like you can get in there quick and. But then again, the Blackhawf has better armor on like critical components.

Yeah, like the, the, the pilot. Yeah, the pilot. Titanium seat.

Yeah, and like the brains of the. I'm sure the brains of a Blackhawk are. And the critical components of a Blackhawk, I bet you they have better armor.

And some redundancy as well. Yeah, yeah. But anyway, that's.

I do know I was talking to, on this podcast, I was talking to a Huey pilot and he was like, yeah, you know, the thing is our birds only cost like $200,000. He's like, those Blackhawks, they must cost like a million dollars.

20 something million dollars. So that's why when one of those things goes down, people freak out. They were just great, you know, just go karts with the freaking. The Hueys. Did you. You must have been on the Jessica lynch then too, if you were there. Yeah, with that crew. Yeah, that go down.

That was. We got intel, we were working on, you know, a target, you know, we're gonna hit that night. This comes in and goes, okay, put that on. On hold. And they flew us from where we were to a forward operating base and we sat there and got intel. It was like, you know, they'd found, you know, that the.

Certain three letter agencies had contacts with, you know, Locals and they had gone in and sent them in with rigged with cameras so they could, you know, identify the last guy they sent in. Rolled up there and, you know, walked up the stairs, top of the stairs, big bust of Saddam and Gold. He turned right, went down four, four doors and there she was. We're like, all right, proof of life, man. We are going. So we got all set up and they had the ground assault force. It was going to take them like two hours to get there, you know, through barrack, you know, all that stuff. 99 Rangers and some snipers and some, some of our guys. And initially we were supposed to be on the gaff and last minute they.

Oh, well, we got an extra 60.

All right, cool. So we all got on that one and we'd just been shot up, you know, on the 47 the couple night before. So with this one, the doors are open. You're like, all right, I could shoot back now because that's the big thing about a 47. It's like you just gotta sit there and take it, you know. But now it's like, nah, okay, I got guns up, plate pressed forward. We're, we're gonna get.

Feels good anyways.

Yeah, yeah.

And yeah, as we were getting on, we were like sitting us, you know, if, if we die tonight, that's, it's worth it.

Yeah.

You know, because, you know, there's an American out there and you know, she'd been reported as fighting to the last round and none of that really came through, but, you know, whatever. She was in a car crash and it messed her up really bad. And they never claimed that they had her. You know, they, you know, she was a prisoner of war. But yeah, this cute little blonde girl that they, you know, whatever the hell Iraqis are going to do anyway. So we roll in there and as we're flying in, we had coordinated with the Marines at the, at the bridge. It was a bridge just outside of town and they were going to do a little salt there. So that was going on. We coordinated with them as like a decoy. And as we're flying in, I look over there and you just see tracers doing this, going towards each other. And we get the DCs clear.

I'm like, okay, can somebody tell them?

But that was at the bridge. I was like almost a mile away, I think. And they rolled in. The initial breach team dropped in on the little birds and they put snipers on the roof. This is a seven story hospital. And we came in, landed in the driveway, courtyard thing behind a Wall and just ran up there. And as I'm running through this, I'm like, hey, I've seen this on tv, you know, exactly the same. We get up there and turn right and clear down and there's the room she's supposed to be and she's not there. I'm like, oh crap, not a dry hole, come on. So we finished clearing that wing and you know, the end of the shitters at the end there, I busted all that out and you know, looked nothing. And so as we're. All right, clear the other way because the, the staircase came up like in the middle of the wing. So you had that one side then the other, right? So as he came back, they're bringing up this doctor who spoke English. He's like, oh Jesse, yeah, take you see Jesse, no problem, blah blah blah, you know. And so one of our guys had him by the scruff of the neck with a pistol in the back of his head. And I was left, left side point man. And there was all these big windows all the way down and I really, really, really wanted to like check my six but that wasn't my job, you know, so I'm like boom. You know, set it forward and going okay, relying on your, your number two. And we get there, door was open, threw the doctor in, just anybody wanted me shooting and they shoot him. And then we entered like normal, clear, no problems. And then she'd been like laid down on the bed and she kind of sat up and I was right at the foot of the bed. I'm like Jessica, Jessica Lynch. And she looked at me with the biggest, scaredest eyes I've ever seen on a human. And she was scared of me. And that like took me, I was like, oh shit, you know, I said her name a couple of times, she was just non responsive, just scared as hell. More guys were coming in and I hadn't shot anybody yet. So I, I left, I got back out in the hallway, figured, you know, that was my best chance of getting that fight anyway, so got the other end, ended up in the shitter again. Same shitter on the other end, right? Cleared that and that's. We got thin and so I held there and they brought the medical bird in, brought the doc up, packaged her up and flew her out and we found her in six minutes and she was flying away in 16 minutes.

Friggin awesome.

Yeah, it was good. And then when we back cleared down, cleared, the lobby was full of civilians and then the basement basically there was a big sand table down there and like what the hell is this? I'm like, well, there had been 300 Saddam Fedayeen, you know, resistant, whatever the hell, you know, bad guys that went to go fight the Marines at the bridge. Had that not happened. Yeah, it'd been a different story. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Freaking awesome. And then, so what happened after that? Me wrapped up that deployment.

Yeah, we hit a bunch of other places, you know, looking for wmd. We hit Abu Grab looking for Spiker.

You know, he was still missing at the time. So we did a lot of that kind of stuff and then came home. And when I came home, that's when I had to make some decisions because I'd been. I was banged up, I was in bad shape. You know, my shoulders were all frozen, and this one needed an operation, and I knew I was gonna have to go under the knife. And I was at 18 years, I've been, you know, and I was like, well, if I'm gonna retire at 20, I don't want to retire on the East Coast. And if you like the east coast, great. But I'm a West coast guy, so I wanted to find a job out here.

So we made the deal, and I came to work at warcom.

Say goodbye to everybody. Sold the house. You know, I've been married to my. My wife.

About six years at that point, and. Yeah, packed up everything and came out here and got a job at WARCOM testing guns and ammo and, you know, scope and stuff, you know, which is. It was good. You know, I got to be part of the SCAR program and, you know, helped develop that, which was. Which was awesome.

And, you know, just kind of.

What was your role in the scar?

I was the Naval Special Warfare Representative for the SCAR program.

How many representatives were there? Well, was there one from every special operations unit?

Yeah. Yeah. And then you had the. The Marines were just observing, and so you had the Army, Special Forces, Rangers.

Air Force. You know, they were all part of this thing because they're all part of socom, right? And. Yeah, so everybody put their. Their two cents in. And I'm actually, you know, kind of responsible that there was a SCAR heavy, because the SCAR light was supposed to replace the M4. And normally, what you do is you take the. You know, you show up with all these different guns, and they narrow them down to the best two, the closest two. And then you take that. There's money involved in there, where you test those against each other. Well, the scar, the FN model, was the only one that didn't have a buffer tube. And as you Know, water doesn't compress. So if it's full of water and we're shooting from the, the water line, the guns either going to give you one shot or it's going to blow up in your face. So I said guys, you know, rather than, you know, if we can just do this, you know, one. Because the, the program manager had heard me talk and he's like, hey, if we can narrow this down to 1, then we can move on to the next phase, which was the 7.62 version. Right. And I got agreement and we.

So basically the fact that they all had buffer tubes just eliminated every other.

Every other one had a buffer tube on it. And you know, it's like, well that's not going to work from, for it's not optimum for us. This would be better. And so they, they took that money and they put it into the next phase and then it was up and running. When they closed down the Scarlite because it didn't make enough of a, of a leap forward. But because of the 762 version was much better than the, the M14, they were like, oh, okay. So we, so the Scar.

So the Scar light doesn't exist right now.

Hey, I think you can buy one on the civilian market. But nobody. Yeah, I mean, and it, that's because.

It didn't have much enough advantages over the M4.

Yep.

That they were just like, well, we're not going to change everything for this.

It was too much to change. I mean. Yeah. The thing about the Scarlet, how'd you like it? Oh, I thought it's a great gun. I mean we did as much as we could. You know, there's only so much you can do in testing. You know, we tested the hell out of it and we identified issues and we corrected those issues. You know, so it was, it was a good platform. When it got downrange.

One of the biggest hiccups when you field something is that new equipment training. And so when the Belgians put this new space aged polymer coating on there that would last shelf life of 10 years, but you got to clean it really good before you shoot it the first time. And you know, frogmen, they looked at it went. Because it's not like Cosmolene, it's not like this big gooey stuff. I looked in and went, ah, it looks clean. And they took it out and they shot it and that stuff turns to shellac and it causes malfunctions. And that was the big thing right out of the base. This thing's a piece like scar heavy too. That was a scar heavy. Yeah, because that's the one that actually made it to our guys. Yeah, but I mean, a lot of that's been fixed. I mean, you know, the scars, it's, it's a good solid gun.

Yeah. I guess the new Sig M7 or whatever that's gonna, that's kind of gonna take its place, I guess. I don't know. I'm so far out of the, the loop at this point. We did the best we could at the time and you know, we made a less than eight pound gun that was modern.762 and, and we really didn't have that, you know, at the time. There was the SR25, the Mark 11s, but they weren't, they weren't everywhere. This is just, you know, going to be the every man's gun then.

So you do this kind of acquisitions and weapons testing and all that was a big deal. I mean that freaking scar was like. You'd hear about it every, every, it seemed like every day we'd hear about what was happening with the Scar because everyone's freaking got their, you know, I'll talk about 2 cents, man. We'd had billions of dollars if we, if we could have collected everyone's two sets. It was coming in. Yeah, down and across. And we were just doing what we.

Could with, you know, working within, you know, corporations as well as the big Navy machine, SOCOM machine, you know, getting money, testing, whatever.

What's the like efficiency level of the bureaucracy of that?

Well, you know, now having seen a little bit in the private sector, it's actually pretty good because you still have that military protocol stuff, whereas in the private sector you don't have that. So you never know. But yeah, it was frustrating to me coming from, you know, the command where you just think something up, go, hey, let's buy five of them, see what happens, you know, and you know, COTS commercial off the shelf. Just buy what's, what exists now. Maybe talk to the guy, modify a little bit and then let's take it to work and see what happens. But that's, that's not the way it's, it's done at the, the Navy level.

Yeah. Definitely not at the giant like force wide systems level because we, there's all kinds of stuff that we were able to get away with COTS for a while and then you got to get caught up. You got to get something that's going to work for everybody and it's going to, to be integrate with everybody.

So yeah, yeah, yeah. Which. Which makes sense.

It does make sense. It does.

You know, everybody's got to be able to talk to each other, get in spare parts and. Okay, yeah, that's. But that's not where I was. I was the guy at, you know, rubber meets the road. Let's go do this. You know, I explosively tested Humvee armor and that saved. Saved some guys lives. So, you know, that was, you know, it was a good place for me to be, for me to be at the time, because I was a physical wreck.

Yeah. I tell guys now, it's like, hey, you know, when you're an asset to your team, you know, stick it out, man. You know, be an asset. When you can't be an asset and you start being more of a liability, it's time to move on. And that was what really sent me from there, you know, Otherwise I'd have spent more time at the command. I just would have. But that's. That wasn't in the cards because I was. My knees were starting to. All this stuff was just starting to just show up, you know? Yeah. And it's showing up uninvited. Yeah. But right as I retired, I would skip ahead just a little bit. As I retired, I met this guy named Joe Hippensteel, ultimate human performance. And he basically showed me how to mobilize again, you know, to open all this up, you know. And I spent a year working with him, and I got. And he was paid for by the, I think the Navy SEAL foundation or somebody, you know. And I was like, no, dude, this is. This is awesome. And got everything opened up again. I could stand. Like, I'd been working with the regular PT for like 6 months and no improvement in 30 minutes of working with Joe. I was like. I walked out of there going, holy crap. I got a room in my shoulders. Different. It stretches. Okay. And he's kind of unorthodox, but, man, you feel it.

Was it like. Have you heard of active release therapy? Was it that kind of thing?

Yeah, he does. He does that words like, you know, you. You find that. That spot that's hot and you press on it. And, you know, your pain scale is, you know, one to 10, 10 being the worst and one being nothing. You go to like a six or a seven, you can press to an eight, you know, and as you press on it, you feels like you're. He's letting up, but he's not. The muscles just kind of. It'll flutter and just kind of let's go. And it's like, okay. And you know, and then just through the stretching and opening that up and getting that new blood in there, that. That changed everything for me. And then I started. I'd been doing kettlebells prior to a lot of good functional strength there, but I was still training like I was 25 and I'm just getting hurt and then, yeah, still eating like I'm 25, so I was 20 pounds overweight. And just, you know, and I thinking, okay, yeah, you know, I'm still gutting through this and did that for a long time. And then about, oh, two years ago, I found this guy called the. The knees over toes guy. Oh, yeah, Ben Patrick started doing his stuff. Oh, my God. Next level. Now it's like, all right, I can do more stuff. And then earlier this year, Virginia High Performance through the Navy SEAL foundation, those guys, I went and did their month program.

Did you do the one that's here in San Diego?

I'm a plank owner on that one.

That's awesome.

Yeah. If you haven't done it, dude, get in there.

I mean, I'm gonna let the guys that need it bad, you know, get in there. You know, I'm still doing pretty good, so. But yeah, I've heard. I've heard nothing but awesome reports.

Yeah, they open things up physically. Two workouts a day. They teach you about nutrition and then they go into cognitive stuff because, I mean, you know, we've taken some hits. Okay. When you're a breach of damn act, you take about a thousand minimum, stay safe distance. Explosive exposures per year. I was down. I was a preacher there for seven years. Okay. Now my brain scan is clean, but I still have a few symptoms. I like faces. I don't, man, I've known you for years. I'm not going to free at you. But even guys that, you know, if I've a long time, you know, so I went there for the grand opening. I'm just getting in the elevator and I see this guy. I'm like, I know you from somewhere. It's Keith Davids, okay? And he's like, yeah, coach, we're on Gold Squadron together. And I'm like, oh, yeah. And that used to really drive me nuts. And I, you know, but through working with them, you can't change that. Okay?

Keith's like, man, like, he's not a guy that's changed a lot. He looks. I went through Buzzword. He looks exactly the same as he did then.

Like so. And he's. He's Trident 01. He's, you know, like, he's kind of a big deal these days. And I was like, oh, oh, yeah, okay. Like, damn. Anyway, but so that's. That's my big symptom. Errors. I. As I. I lose that. Those faces and names, that's my biggest thing. Other than that, I'm. I'm pretty clean, you know, and it used to, like, make me, you know, get, you know, this. I should have known that, you know, I'd be pissed off at myself. But now that I understand that there I've taken a few hits and there is that, it's like, I'm lucky that it's not something that, you know, I'm, you know, raging and hitting people or going, you know, off the rails. None of that happens. And when I identify that. That coming up, I can just breathe through. It's no problem. We're all good, you know.

Yeah.

Yeah. And that's, you know, you hear like, the. The guys that were in the NFL or they. And they say, you know, they're all banged up now, and they're like, well, what'd you do again? And they're like, hell, yeah. Like, that's.

Had I known this, you know, this is now available to the guys that are still doing the job. Yeah. So, you know, I tell them, hey, use it, you know, I mean, keep being good. You know, stay in that fight for as long as you can. I would have stayed longer.

The next generation is going to be a lot more durable over the long haul because their nutrition's better, their PT is better. Like you said, man, we were doing bodybuilding or triathlon. Like, there was a bodybuilding group of guys, there was like a triathlon group of guys, and no one was doing anything that really made, like, true sense. And. And then, you know, as things moved along, you know, by the time we got around 2000. 2000, right. Right around as the war was kicking off started, people started recognizing that we could actually be smarter about this stuff, that there was better ways to work out, that there was better ways to eat. Like, we start. And now. And now I think the final piece is, like, there's better ways to train. Where, for instance, is it really necessary to take a thousand breaches a year? Probably not at minimum safe distance. You know, there's a lot of things that we could do, you know? You know, I always think about being like an RSO on Carl Gustav Day. You know, it's like, oh, hey, let's go out there. I'm taking a task unit worth of guys out there, and everyone's gonna Shoot a Carl G. And I'm. There's three of us on RSOS, so I'm gonna suck start freaking 20 of those things.

You got to eat the majority. I wonder why.

I got a little headache this evening. You know, and so being smarter about that stuff, I think these guys, their durability, their longevity is going to be. Is going to be better than ours.

Yeah. And technology and recovery, that's a big thing. As I get older, it's like, okay, I can still do a lot of stuff now, but I can do it once, and then I gotta go lay down for a bit, you know? Whereas when you're young. Yeah. Bounce right back. I was introduced to this thing called a shift wave. And you have to look it up. I don't know all the science behind it. It looks like a lawn chair with a bunch of discs in it that vibrate to a certain. They're tunable. And I sit on this thing and.

Can I tune mine to Metallica?

Well, it does a little biofeedback thing, so you could listen to Metallica if you wanted to and just. But it goes off your breathing and your. You know, it reads all that stuff. And. Yeah, I've been using it. It's kind of like an active meditation type thing. You put on the headphones and it kind of walks you through that. Breathing in, breathing out, and it, you know, you sync with the. With the vibrations and I mean, you know, they can. They can basically duplicate your brain waves in sleep. Okay. This is what the doc was telling me. It's like, oh, wow, that's. Be kind of cool. And they built it in this lawn chair so it's. You could fly it away. It's a lawn chair with a, like a little pelican case that goes with it. And I've been using the thing for about.

Five months now.

So you, like, have one in your house?

Yeah, yeah. They. But they.

They gave you one.

Gave me one. Just like, hey, man. Because. All right, I'm talking to this clinical psychiatrist and.

Tulane University, right? And anyway, he.

Shows me this thing. It's like, yeah, because I'm kind of new age. My wife, she's awesome. You know, she finds this stuff, you know, grounding. We've got a grounding sheet on the bed. I go barefoot, like, all the time. And I'm being the technology with the smartwatch and the. The aura ring and all that stuff that monitors all this stuff. And when he saw that, I was like, huh. And I've got that information that. That record. So he's like, hey, sit on this thing and, you know, just play around with it and we'll see how things go. And let me tell you, it's. It's eye opening. You. You get on this thing and it's weird. It's. You know, but it shakes you, you know, and then it'll just stop, and then you still feel like you're buzzing. You know, it's. It's really cool. And there's a bunch of different, you know, settings that you can do and. And, you know, frequencies. It's. It's badass, you know, I mean, look into it, but it's.

It's.

It's pretty cool.

What's it called?

It's called a shift wave. Shift wave?

Yeah, we're gonna check it out. Maybe I have to get in the shift wave.

Yeah. Hey, if you want to try one, come over my house, you know, take a little ride on it, you know, and. And see what's up. Shakes you, like, you know, when you're, like, skydiving, you get out and everything's like, you know, everything's going, you know, the.

The.

It feels kind of like that, but. And you can adjust how much, how many. You know, if you're, you know, tone it down. I crank that thing up all the time.

What about ice? Are you doing ice and sauna or anything like that?

I've got a far infrared sauna at the house, and that is the key. And I. My wife's talking about getting the. The core plunge. I'm like, well, before we spend a bunch of money on that one, because that's just not. The sauna is, like, uncomfortable, slowly, and. But it's warm. And, you know. Yeah, that ice plunge thing is like, all right, maybe let's try with this just the tub at first, you know, but my wife, she's a. She's a hypnotherapist, and, you know, she does guided meditations, you know.

You got crystals in your house? Oh, yeah, Just full on.

Yeah, we're getting crystals. Oh, you know, dream catchers.

Incense.

Incense and smudge pots and. Yeah, yeah, he gets her all the bad energy and, you know, she's. She's. Where did you find her? Okay, so while I was at damnac, I went to go work with the. The special boat service.

So she's a Brit.

She's Brit. You know. My wife's a Brit. No, I didn't know that.

I'd have to link them up, but. No freaking crystals in my house, bro. She can come hang it. She can come get My ice bath.

It's all good. Oh, yeah, yeah. Maybe we'll trade. You can come over some shift wave.

And our wives can drink tea.

Exactly. Yeah, I know, but yeah, she's got her own practice and she does guided meditations on YouTube. So she's guided by Corey. You know, just kids meditations and stuff like that. So she's. She's doing a lot of. A lot of good stuff. And you know, you know, the left brain, right brain stuff, you know, I'm really left brain, logical. And she's so right brain and just open to everything. And I think it makes us a good mix, you know. And that's, you know.

What was the name of her YouTube channel?

It's guided by Corey.

Guided by Corey, Yes.

C O R Y. Surname.

Name is. She's talking in asrm. Is that the right word? Asmr. You know what that is?

Yeah, that, that.

Does she have that voice?

She's British. Come on, man. I mean, she's. She's exotic. Straight away, like, oh, wow. You know.

Yeah.

And she's doing some other stuff where there's just like, it's really quiet and just makes noise. Yeah, yeah, she's just getting into that ASMR type thing, dude. Yeah, that's the thing. And then she'll just like, quietly, you know, give you a little boost, you know, like lower your shoulders, you know, all that. Yeah. And yeah, so she's got a couple of, you know, things set up like that. So she's, you know, she's always looking for that. That next thing to be able to. To bring. Yeah. I mean, bring peace and surrender. Yeah, yeah. To the soul. To anybody who want. Who needs it, you know, everybody needs it, you know. The hell.

Right on. But before you retired, you did some time, what, at Unit 3? Went out there for a bit.

Yeah. Backing up. I. I was working at work comm. And I'm working for three retired SEAL master chiefs. And they're like, you should put your warrant package in. You should put your warrant package in. I'm like, dude, if I do it, will you shut up? And so I did. And they picked me up first time.

Yeah, of course.

I'm like, okay. And that came with a one year unaccompanied.

Yeah, you're gonna pay for it.

Off to. Yeah. And. And. But I was up for orders anyway. They. I could have said, I could have declined, you know, the warrant and. And they would have sent me anyway. But anyway, I met my wife at, When I was at the command, so we did like, maybe you know, three month deployments. She'd never done a six month deployment. And now we're gone for a year. Yeah. So, yeah, people are off the ceiling and go, okay, honey, how those crystals work out over. Yeah, they probably helped out a lot for her mental state, you know, while I was gone. And of course, you know, you know this every time you leave town, that's when the car breaks and the, you know, that everything goes wrong.

Yep.

But yeah, so, yeah, she was thrown into the, straight into the fire at that point. And I went over and did my warrant officer stuff over there. I was the, the training officer and the combat systems officer and whenever they needed something done, that's the warrants job. You know, nobody knows what a warrant officer does, but we just fill in all the cracks, you know.

Yeah. And yeah, you and I were running around Warcom at the same time because I was the.

Yeah, you were the aide and I was.

So we'd high five each other in the hallway and you'd laugh at me going, you freaking dork.

How many coins you got in your pocket, dude?

Yeah, thank God it was for, for Admiral Maguire because he's just like as, you know, just a great dude. But yeah, not fun. But you'd be like, oh, I'm going back to freaking blow up again and shoot more guns. And I'd be like, cool, I'm going to write a freaking thank you note to Ambassador. So. And so go make these copies. Yeah, go make these copies. And then you closed out your career as a, as a BUDS instructor.

Yeah. Yeah. So when, when you're a team guy, the last place you want to go is BUDS because you might miss something, you know, and that was the last place I went. And I'd been overseas for a year and then made the deals like, I'm just going to go back to.

Buds for a couple of years and then go to a team. That's, you know, the deal I made with the, the, the detailer, so rollback third phase training officer. And I didn't have to do any of the admin stuff that I was supposed to because we had an admin guy, we had a retiring OSC who did everything. I was like, dude, that's the way. So that freed me up. So I would just split my time on the island with the master chief and the lieutenant and we got out there and just. I spent most of my time which kind of matched up with the.

Weapons guys. And so I had to line coaching. I didn't teach any classes, but, you know, I was still doing warrant officer stuff. So I get pulled off of the. Off the range to go deal with VIPs and whatever else. But I was learning how to teach at that point. And then when 25 rolled around, just prior to, you know, my 25 years, I had this really cool idea. Admiral had a cool idea about anchor teams, and he was gonna send me to Bangladesh for four years. I was like, you know what? Look at the time. 25 years, we're done. And he's like, are. You know. Oh, C.B. you know, was like, you sure? Because, you know, once you submit those papers, you can't take them back. I'm like, yeah, I'm good. That would. That's not me. I do everything. Then the Navy, I can't do this. I've got two daughters at home in their preteens. It was not a good time for. For that.

And he goes, okay, want a job?

So I rolled out of there and I rolled into the instructor position. And, you know, we started off and we started immediately making changes. There weren't enough seals to be BUDS instructors at the time. Okay. They want them out, you know, doing SEAL stuff. So they decided to do contract BUDS instructors. And they had. The first batch was done like a year before I retired. So Gordon Evans, I don't know if you know him, he was at Team 5 for a long time. He and I were the guys. He and Nix White were the instructors at for. For weapons. And because we were there, we were just there. The idea was like, you can be there for five years and then we'll have enough guys and we'll just backfill you and, you know, send you on your way.

Well, are you, like, wearing a blue and gold full on?

Oh, yeah, blue and gold eight point cover, Boy Scout shorts, the whole nine yards.

What'd they call what the students call you? Just instructor.

Mr. Coach.

Mr. Coach. Okay. Yeah.

And we wanted to make that difference between us because when I stepped up to a guy on the line, I didn't want him thinking, oh, crap, this guy's gonna hammer me. I want him think, oh, it's coach. He's gonna help me. All right, So I was never the heavy, you know. Now if guys kept on screwing up, I'd go, oh, hey, so what could you do right about now that would make you never want to do that ever again? Get wet. Oh, good idea. You know, go hit the dip tank, you know. But yeah, so we took this.

Up until then, if you had somebody who knew how to teach weapons, guys learned more. If you didn't and you guys were only there for two years, so you had a good shooter, you know, and that'd be great if you had somebody who wasn't that good. So you were kind of relying on how good the class could be. Right? The class was guiding the schedule and how far can we get the class? And we changed that. We're like, nope, we're gonna reverse engineer this. And on this day, you will be here. On this day, you will be here on this day, you know, and we started writing stuff down and trying stuff. It was like a big laboratory on how to shoot. And so, you know, Gordy and I, we wrote things down, we tried new stuff. If it worked, we kept it. If it didn't, then, you know, and we just modified. We started calling the Sacred Scrolls. It was basically the dailies, you know, and then that grew into, okay, here's the things you want to be looking for. So when we taught the new instructors, like, on this day, this is what they're going to be doing wrong, okay? And so be looking for it. And this is the corrections that we want to start. And every day built on itself. We would teach them the night before after dinner, then they would dry fire for 45 minutes to an hour and get some sleep. And then the next morning we go to the range and they would, you know, warm up and then do what they learned the night before. Have lunch, come back for a range in the afternoon again, more second range there. And then they come back, eat dinner, and then back in the classroom for the next thing that was gone. And we pushed that along and we built this system. Whereas, like, when we went through training, some guys could shoot and some guys couldn't. No, everybody can shoot. I can teach you to shoot as long as you listen to what I'm saying and do it. Okay? If you're going to fight me, okay. There's only so much I can do. I can't crawl into your head and control you.

I was talking to some young guys and I was basically saying, hey, there's some people. Like, you take 100 people, there's going to be a person, maybe one or two people. They're not going to be able to shoot a pistol. Well, now, very seldom will you get someone that literally, like, isn't going to be able to pass. How often would somebody not be able to, like, like, get dropped from buds for pistol? How often would that happen?

I think it probably happened in the 13 years I was there maybe eight times. Okay?

So it's pretty rare that someone gets Dropped. But probably a lot more guys would get rolled.

We would roll them. Yeah, we'd roll them and then they would come back and if they. They still couldn't do it. And we designed a remediation for them so that when they weren't on the island and initially it was like, you know, you fail pistol, you're off the island. Well, no, let's keep them around. Oh, yeah, you know, they'd shoot more. And so week one was our weapons one. And then we'd leave the island and demo would come in. They do arts and crafts with explosives for a week. And then we come back and teach them combat shooting. Well, halfway through the combat shooting was their last attempt. So they've got all those extra trigger squeezes. So most of the time they would make. And if they couldn't, then the next time they came through, they would.

So occasionally when a guy, one of those eight people. What, what, what are they doing? What does it look like to you?

Okay, if I tell a guy, hey, you're doing. It's not like, hey, don't do that. I'm like, no, I'm gonna show you physically if I'll put my hands on you and say, no, hold the gun like this, squeeze it like this. I use all these, all the techniques I could. But if you can't do that, if you're not applying what I teach you. And then, then there's the guys that are great when there's no stress, but just the stress of that stopwatch was enough to just blow their mind. And they're great when they're not under stress. Well, that's not the job you're applying for here, guys.

Not gonna be a good team guy, dude. That ain't gonna work out.

This is the least amount of stress we could possibly give you. It's a stopwatch, okay? Nobody's shooting back at you. No one's yelling at you. Just get up there and perform. And so I would tell him, look, we're looking for that guy who can compartmentalize, who can take all those noises in his head and put them aside and just get to work. You know, just do the job. Don't listen to the all, you know, because everybody's got that noise in their head. That's, you know, overthinking. And, you know, you could tell by the guy's target whether he was an overthinker or whether he was just sloppy. You know, overthinkers. When we started giving them time drills, their shot groups got better just because they didn't have enough time to overthink. Yeah. You know, and those guys were pretty easy to correct. The guys that were like, really good, you know, when there was no time limit, and then you give them the time limit and they start going, you know, nuts, you know, and everything would open up. It's like, okay, those guys are just trying to. They're racing the clock. It's like, no, no. And I give them techniques and they would work. And then you teach guys how to move and shoot and how to use cover and how to transition from your rifle to your pistol. And there's all this stuff that we're getting on buds. I mean, you know, I got. I picked up the gun off of the bench and shot it at the round target and then put it back down again. And that was the training that we got in buds. So guys are leaving buds. And initially, in the first couple years, the new guys were showing up to the team and out shooting the old guys because they didn't have any. They had fewer training scars, you know, and we had driven them to this. And, you know, we were still. Still working that. And it was still. It's still working now. They're now focused more on combat shooting earlier and they've moved the qual courses to later on in training. So that's changed up a little bit. But apparently there's having some good results as well.

Right on. So you wrapped up with that. You retired in 2010 after you got done with your bud's career. Then you rolled right into doing that contract. You did that for like freaking decade.

13 years.

13 years.

Yeah, yeah, I trained, you know, you know, guys I did platoons with, their kids came through and, you know, it was. That was rewarding. I would like, you know, maybe take a picture of them and just randomly, hey, what's. What's your dad's phone number? You know, and just send a random picture, you know, it's like, haha, taking care of your boy, you know. But yeah, it was.

We learned a lot. And I taught pretty much everybody who's an operating seal. Now. If you went through Buds in the last 13 years, you probably remembered my name because Coach YOLO is kind of hard to forget, actually. 16 years because I was warrant officer for three. So 16 years total that I was working there.

It wasn't the best job I ever had in my life, but I give it second best. Yeah.

Tough to be being an assaulter, but people how to do the job, man, that's awesome. And then. And so now, now you're done with that. And we kind of already talked about what you're doing now. But just, just so we've got. What's the website that. What's your website?

Yeah, sorry, Practical, Practical Firearms instruction dot com. And on there, you know, I do individuals, I'll do groups, whatever, you know, and it's just a matter of scheduling these days because I've gotten pretty busy, you know, I mean, I've been back to.

Tennessee and Massachusetts working with the Smith and Wesson guys, trying to get this, you know, the initial pistol offering from Lipsey's. You know, in fact, I'm going there, what, day after tomorrow.

Nice.

For their, the grand opening. They're moving a lot of their manufacturing stuff down to Tennessee from Massachusetts.

Yeah, well, there's a reason for that. Pay attention Massachusetts. Come home people.

Yeah.

Be business friendly out there. That's my recommendation. And you have an Instagram too, which is at Practical Firearms Instruction?

Yeah, I think so.

Yeah. I don't see.

I did all this stuff just kind of on the side when I had a day job and I just kind of, I didn't really look at this stuff.

But you know, now, you know, this is becoming my day job. I'm having to make that adjustment. So.

Yeah, you know, you got a lot, you got a ton of knowledge. You know, 30 years in NSW and a lot of that really focused specifically on shooting. So for you to not share that knowledge seems like it would be a bad thing to do. And for you to be able to take. Look, there's, it's a beautiful time that you can, someone like you can, can share your information with anybody that wants it. I mean, that's awesome. And, and then of course there's, like you said, there's more advanced things if people want to hire you to come out. But if they can't hire you to come out because they don't have the money or don't have the time, cool. There's the information.

So yeah, or I mean, tactical hive.com or just put in tactical hive on YouTube and something will come up. You just got to search our backlog and you know, I'll teach you how to hold a gun, how to, you know, point shoot and you know, just give you gear ideas, you know, and, and we've been thinking about this for a long time. So I've shifted this because, you know, some of the stuff I was doing was low vis. So we learned to, you know, go concealed and all that and that's, that's what people are going to be doing and what you're going to learn from me is you know, how to use it. But there's, there's a.

Priority of training here. Okay? So number one for training is be able to employ the gun. Clearing your garment and getting the gun into action and then the next thing is correcting malfunctions. Okay. I don't care about changing magazines because you're gonna pull that thing if you get a click instead of a bang. You got to be able to fix it like right now, get those reps in and then we'll start talking about other stuff, you know, so employing the gun first and you know, and then worrying about correcting malfunctions and then we'll go on to other, all the other ancillary stuff. But those are the two things. That's what's going to matter right in the moment. Right. And when we talk about gear, the gear has to work, okay? Number one, it has to be portable because you can have something that goes bang every time, but it weighs 10 pounds. Guess what? You know that, that Mark 23, it's an awesome pistol, but you are not carrying that, you know, on a daily basis. So portability is number one. Okay. Reliability is number two. Accuracy is a far third because most of the, you know, statistically most of your encounters are going to be at close range and you're going to be point shooting. You're going to be focused on that target and you're just going to point that gun out there and start squeezing. Now if you've done that with two eyes open and you understand how to aim with two eyes open, and I can teach you how to do that too. That's not hard.

That, that'll give you a good, you know.

A good starting.

Point, the foundation for sure.

Yeah, you're going to start with a combat first and if you want to branch out and do other stuff, fine. But so, you know, portability first, reliability and then worry about accuracy and you know, you know, capacity as a gun, I mean, depends, you know, you have different threat levels. So I carry a different gun depending on what my perceived threat level is, you know, anyway, from a little seven shot.22 Magnum, you know, revolver Smith and Duff, Smith and Wesson, to 38, you know, little subcompact 9 mil to, you know, up to a like a Glock 19 or a.

Oh Sig 320, you know, so yeah, and that's all depends on what your threat level, your perceived threat level is going to be. And then you learn how to deal with each one of us. You dress to the gun a little bit, you know, all these little things that come up. But because I've been thinking about these things for so long, you know, it's now, you know, and I know how to transfer that information to other people. I will give it all to you on YouTube. I want everybody who, whether you have money or not, to be able to understand this stuff. And if you already have a way that it's working for you, I'm not going to say you're wrong. Because if I give you something that's different from the way you train, then you're going to have to understand.

You're going to have to retrain.

Yeah. You're going to have to invest time.

Retrain? Yeah.

It'S a thing, man. Muscle memory. Muscles don't have memory yet, but all your nerves get myelinated every time you do something. And if you do it same.

Those neural pathways get insulated and you start moving a whole lot faster and smoother and you don't have to think about it as much. But that comes with reps and it comes. So I mean, I'll get into that with guys.

I can talk about it on YouTube. But then you got to go find it. If you want to come find me then, you know, we'll go to the range and I'll. I'll fix you. It's a pain in the ass in California because, you know, California is so ungun friendly. So I mean we travel to other states. I don't like to travel very much. I kind of like my, my wife and my kids, my grandkids.

Shockwave.

The Burning Sage.

The Shift wave. Yeah, the sage burning and all that stuff, man. It's all good.

Yeah. So that's what I'm doing now, you know, at the moment. We'll see what happens with, with how well people respond to the gun stuff and you know, the watch band thing. I think it's going to be a million dollar idea, you know, because it's not going to be very expensive, but it's going to be really cool. So commando bands, you're gonna want one.

I already want one. I'll give you a prototype. Right on. I'm ready for the commando band.

Does that get us up to speed then? We good?

Yeah, man, I think so. That's, that's up to today, man. Here we are now. And then I run into you getting gas. Yeah. Hey, dude, you're not working for the Navy anymore. You should come on my podcast. Like man, that now's the right time to do It. I suppose.

Right on. Carrie, you got any questions?

No questions. I. I just. I'm a big fan of what you're doing, removing that barrier for gun owners, especially new gun owners, getting them up to speed. That's awesome, man. And I want nothing more than a carbine or a carbine. Pistol.

Now and maybe.

What was that word?

Is that a pistol? Caliber? Carbine. Yeah, the pcc.

So that the commando band. That's like my Christmas wish list.

Hell, yeah. Right on. You got any. Any closing thoughts?

Dude, I just want to thank you for allowing me to come up here. I. I have been. You know, I'm a big fan, honestly. You know, Jocko, you're doing stuff.

That matters. You know, you're bringing information to people that, you know, maybe no one knows about. You know, you interview guys. You're good interview, and people want to come and. And share their story, and I enjoy just listening. I mean, obviously it's not. There's no, like, time limit here because, you know, you just keep going, you know, start, you know, but awesome. This has been really, really good, and I just want to thank you for that, man.

Right on, bro. Well, thanks for coming on, man. It's awesome to see you and catch up and get your experiences, get your lessons learned and. And like I said, man, thanks for setting a great example for me as a young, new guy. I definitely needed it. And, you know, thanks for your service to the Navy, to the teams, and to the country, man.

Appreciate it. Thanks for making me feel old, man.

Hey, that's not me.

Thanks for.

Roger that, man.

And with that mark, Coach Cocciolo has left the building. Good to see coach, man. Still getting after it. Still getting after it after all these years. And what's. What. I. What I was. Look, obviously awesome to hear about his experiences and. And just a great dude, but I like the fact that he went. Look, just talking about the health and wellness part of his journey at one juncture, he's sort of, like, done. You know what I mean? He's like, oh, I got to this point, this many deployments, this much time. I was done, broken. And now back in the game. All the way back in the game.

Yeah, man.

And. And that. That stretching piece. I feel that, man, because, like, the. My whole upper body, you know, feels like a clenched fist sometimes, you know, and, God, I feel that, like, cracking and stuff. You got to stay on top of that stuff.

Yeah. And. And what I like about it is it's not too late. I don't know where you are right now. I Don't know what's happening, what's happening in your world, but you might be feeling like, oh, it's too late. Oh, I can't. I can't do this anymore. I know this is. This goes back to a conversation I had with Bert Soren.

I was talking about overhead squats. I hurt my arm. Freaking Dean hurt my arm. Dean Lister, you bastard. Hurt my arm doing a showing a move. And I couldn't overhead squat for. For months, like 10 months, I could not lock out my arm. Like, I could do a pull up, but I couldn't go all the way down. So I could do everything. You know, after a little time, I could do a pull up. After a little time, I could do, you know, an overhead press, but I just couldn't lock it out. But an overhead squat, I couldn't do. So by the time it finally healed, what I had to do is I was like, okay, I'm gonna do overhead squats. I'm gonna try it. Oh, I can lock it out. Okay, that's feeling good. But my mobility was so bad that I couldn't do it with, like, any weight at all. So I said, all right, well, PVC pipe, let's. Let's go and I'll do Pete. When. When this happened, I was using the frame of the squat rack to keep my. To keep the. The PVC pipe over. Directly over my head. Like, not. And I would just started going, all right, this week I'll go, you know, 50 down. Next week I'll go 60 down, 80% down. Finally got the mobility back. Then I started adding. Then I started doing it with the bar. Then I started doing it with, you know, 25. So just slowly build it back up. And what I told Bert was, there's a moment where you think, oh, this movement is now gone. This is something that I'm not able to do anymore. Because I could have said that, like, oh, well, hell, it's really hard for me. It feels uncomfortable, it hurts maybe that I. I shouldn't do them anymore. And that's the wrong answer. You need to put your ego in check and say, okay, time to rebuild that movement. Time to get this movement back. Do not submit to time and age. Don't submit. It's a fight, but keep fighting. Do what you do got to do to get back. And what's incredible is the human being, the human body will adapt and it will make progress. This has been proven over and over again. This is just coaches. Another guy that's come out and said I was done, didn't have any mobility in my shoulders. Sore all day. Broke in here. This is hurt. And then he put protocols into place. He started doing the proper maintenance. He started cleaning up the. The food, cleaning up the workouts, doing the right things, getting the stretching done. And now he's back in the game. So that's what we're doing. That's what we're doing. And it's great to hear, coach. Great dude, and thanks to him for coming on. And by the way, one thing you can do with this def reset, right? This is a good way to get yourself back on the path. The path. And you know, you and I were talking about the path yesterday because we were talking, you know, you and I, a few other people, we were talking about the what happens in people's lives, what little turns they make, what little decisions they make, what little moves they make. And let's face it, every decision you make.

Is going to have an impact. And if you take that little decision to eat a donut versus the little decision to eat a piece of beef jerky and you start multiplying those and compounding those out, they. They change who you are. If you make a little decision that I'm going to sleep in today versus the little decision that, you know what, I'm just going to get up and push through this workout, and you multiply that over time. These are two different people. These are two different human beings. In six months, in six months, in six months, that transformation can take place. And then what else happens? What else happens? What else goes on? When you start making one bad decision, you talk about drinking. Actually, you know, we were on that hanging out and you were talking about, you know, basically, if you were drinking, things were going to go down. If you weren't drinking, things were going to get better. You're like, hey, I might not get in. I might not have a chaos night tonight. I might not take some big giant step back tonight if I have a few drinks. But in the next three times of drinking, something's going to happen and I'm going in the wrong direction. Otherwise you just put that and be like, okay, I'm not doing that anymore. Which is the decision you made. I'm not doing that anymore. And all of a sudden, now my life's not going backwards, My life's going forward. Every. The trajectory of your life changes. And that's what this is to me. It's so important to think about our lives and the trajectory of our lives, because that's what's the meaning of trajectory. It's where we're going. It's where, it's what it is. Where we're going. Is our trajectory going up or is our trajectory going down? And every little decision that you make either elevates it or it starts to bring it down. So keep that in mind. That's the, that's def reset, right? Def reset is an opportunity to say, okay, for the next 30 days, I know I'm going up, my trajectory will be going up. And that is going to put that trajectory on a pace and in a direction that if you look but six months, you look up, in a year, you're a different person. That's what we're doing.

And it comes down to that PVC pipe decision, right? Some people are more afraid of taking that step back of, of picking up that PVC pipe than they are of letting go of the overhead squat for the rest of their lives. They'd rather let that go and never do it again than have to subordinate that ego, pick up that PVC pipe and start from square one. And that's where that decision gets made. And there are PVC pipes all over.

Life, all over your life where you.

Look at that thing and you, you, you subordinate that ego, pick up that PVC pipe and start at square one again. Little step and you start to build and that's where you start to get the momentum, get that trajectory, get back on the path.

So def reset, it's. We're doing it in January, but you got to prep for it now. I just, we posted some videos, I posted a little podcast about it. Just get start to prepare for it. Workouts and fitness. Jason Khalipa is going to be guiding those things. Leadership with Echelon front. I'm going to give some, some discipline directives. And then Jocko fuel it. We're all doing it together. The deaf reset.com go check it out. And by the way, Jocko fuel. Get yourself, get yourself ready for it. Get your, get the junk food out of your house. Get the freaking Doritos out of your house. Get the chocolate chip cookies out of your house. Get mold cookies. That's what we're doing. So jockerfuel.com get your greens, get your creatine. Creatine is so good for you. It's good for your mind, it's good for your body. Get, get, get these things so that you're ready. You can kick this thing off, right? You're gonna have, you're gonna be working hard during def reset. So get yourself some joint warfare, some super co just you guys know what we're doing. Jockofuel.com go get the fuel that you need. You can get also get it at Wawa. You can get a vitamin shop, gnc, Military commissaries, aphis, Hannaford Dash stores in Maryland, Wake Fern, shoprite, H E B down in Tejas, Meyer up in the Midwest, Harris Teeter, Lifetime Fitness shields, small gyms all over the place. I know we got Victory MMA and fitness. We're here. Guess what? We sell Jocko Fuel. If you want to sell Jocko Fuel at your gym, email jfsalesjocofuel.com if you, if you're going to a gym and you want them to Jocko Fuel, give them that information so they can make it happen. So that's what we're starting off with some jocker fuel.com also origin USA.com American made clothing.

Freedom that you put on your body, Liberty that you wear. That's what we're doing at Origin usa. Anti slavery, anti communism, anti suffering, anti destruction of the earth. That's what we're doing@originusa.com you know what they do with the dye and the chemicals that they use in China when they're, when they're done processing? They dump it in the river, goes into the ocean, kills everything. They're, they're disgusting. It's disgusting. And all these big freaking liars in the fashion industry with their, with their little virtue signaling, talking about how they're for the environment. They're not, they're buying that. They're literally paying for the destruction. That's what they're doing. They're liars. They're, they're, they're scum. So don't help them by buying their.

Buy American made by OriginUSA.com that's what we're doing. Jiu Jitsu gear. Because if you're not trained Jiu Jitsu, you're missing out. You're missing out 100%. Jiu Jitsu workout gear, hunt gear, T shirts, jeans, boots. That's what we're doing. We're saving freedom.

Originusa.com we also talked a lot about the path today. And you can get your discipline equals freedom Gear representing on the path at jocko store. That's jockostore.comt shirts, rash guards, hats.

Just going with the script. You're going with the Geo, the Echo Charles with the script representing on the pack. Yeah, going with the script.

Gotta hold it down.

You're just holding, hold it down for the Hawaiian. That's what we're doing.

That's what we're doing.

If you were gonna say something that was your own, let's say, let's say you had the creative liberties. Sure. Just to get crazy, what would you be saying about jogger?

Fire one off. Right?

Fire one off. There's a test. This is a test.

So there, there's something, there's something that happens to you deep inside when you throw on anything with the X flag. This X flag that's on my left arm right here. As soon as I put on a shirt that has that X flag on it, something inside of my brain changes. My eyebrows drop a little bit, my chin lowers, my shoulders come back a little bit. I am ready to go into what I'm about to do. When I throw on any piece of clothing with the X flag on it, I don't know what it is, but that's what happens to me. And I see that with other people too. I've been in the. We've been in the airport and we've seen a death core flag, you know, a deaf flag on a shirt in the wild. And that person is ready to get after it and they come up and they say, what's up? And they talk about how they're on the path and how they're in the game. And we go and we do work and that's what I like to see.

There's EC got. Just, just got left in the dust. He's been saying the same shit for the last five years. And you rolled in. I put you on the spot a little bit. Sure. But you were ready. You know why you had that Def Core flag on? You're like, what? Oh, you want me to talk some. You want to say what's up? I'll tell you what's up.

It's the truth.

Coming in hot.

You will feel it. And if you, if you want, if you want a deaf shirt, a new def shirt every month. We've also got the Shirt Locker, that's a subscription service. And Echo Charles just going crazy on the designs. Just awesome designs and a lot of good reception from the troopers in the game too. And every event we're at now, there's, there's kind of a segmentation of, of the, the, the get after it. Just great shirts. And then you see that, that shirt locker shirt and it stands out and there's a whole group of people who are in the game on the shirt locker shirts. And we see them and we say, what's up? And we recognize them.

Check. Check it out. Jogglestore.com. check out primalbeef.com Colorado craft beef.com you need steak in your life. You need you. And I had steak last night. Matter of fact, that was some good steak. But I'll tell you what, I could tell it wasn't the best steak. It wasn't Colorado craft beef. It wasn't primal beef. It was normal steak.

Look, it's a ribeye.

I'm not turning down a ribeye. Yeah, I mean, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get into it. Get into it. But now that I regularly eat primal beef and Colorado craft beef, now that, that's just part of the whole scene, you know, the, the normal ribeyes, they don't do it anymore. Yeah, they just don't do it anymore. So check those out. Also subscribe to the podcast. Also Jocko underground.com. also YouTube channels. Check them out. We got the, the Jocko Jocko Podcast YouTube channel. We got the Jocko Fuel YouTube channel. We got the Origin USA YouTube channel. We got the Echelon Front YouTube channel. We got all kinds of YouTube for you to watch. Psychological warfare. Get that. If you don't have it, I guess if you don't have it by now, you probably, I mean, your life is probably falling apart, you know, so sorry. But if you want to get your life back together, Psychological warfare, Wherever you get MP3, it's in there. Flipside canvas.com Dakota Meyer out there making cool stuff for you to hang on your wall and keep you on the path. Books, you know, I've written a bunch of books. Get them. The new, the newest version of Leadership Strategy and Tactics mod 2 is out. There's some key information, some key updates in there. The, the extreme ownership leadership loop talk to you about how to make decisions. You and I were in a critical situation the other day and you know what the, you know what the first thing in the extreme ownership leadership loop is? What's the number one thing?

Time.

Time. So you and I were in a time critical situation and we reviewed what had happened. My entire thought process took place in less than one minute.

You can tell that if you review what I did. The, the very first thing I thought of was time. This is, I need to make a decision right now. And that's exactly what I did. All in one minute.

Right.

A whole game changing scenario was unfolding and in one minute I'd already made a decision and was executing. Right. Like that's a thing.

And we have receipts to confirm that.

Yeah, well, that's the thing. We went back and I was like, you know, we had a. We had a whole scenario that could have blown up. Right. And then we kind of were debriefing it and I was like, let me pull out the receipts on this. And sure enough, everything was done in one minute.

And that, that's, that's the benefit of running the loop.

Yep.

Habitually.

Yeah.

Getting those reps in.

Yeah.

You get quick with it.

Yep. And it was just all boom, going down and the time the immediate decision was made. And then it was like I was running the rest loop. Okay. How do we, how do we support what's happening? Right. How are we going to cover move? We simple plan right here. Like just went through it. That's what we do.

Yep.

And guess what? All worked out kind of to a hundred percent level. Kind of really worked out. So that's what we're doing. Get that leadership strategy and tactics, the new one, the mod two of that field manual. And then I got a bunch of other kids books. The kids books. Adult books. Check out the kids books. Way of the warrior kid. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. These are gonna help the kids that you know, all of them.

This is Christmas right here, by the way.

Oh yeah.

This is what you do for Christmas.

This is what you do for every kid that you know. Oh, what do you do? What do you get? What do you get for Christmas for a kid? You change their life. You change the trajectory of their life. That's what you do for Christmas. For a kid.

Warrior kid box has the flag in it, has the book in it. This is what you do for kids.

There you go. Freaking Santa carry over there putting out words.

My niece and nephew.

Hell yeah.

Got warrior kid stuff. They are warrior kids in the game now. And my brother in law, my sister and brother in law's garage hangs the warrior kid flag. They are in the game.

How old are they?

Seven. Five and seven.

How they doing? Awesome. Focused.

Focused.

Little dude.

My, my nephew has to be benched in games because he scores too much. That. That's what's happening, bro.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying, little dude. Might want to get your kids these books and your neighbor's kids because wouldn't it be nice if there's a fire at your house someday and your neighbor who's 9 years old comes over, breaks out a hose and puts out the fire before it engulfs your. Your house. Be nice, wouldn't it? That's what a warrior kid's going to do. You know what a normal kid's going to do? Keep playing video games. That's what's going to happen. Don't let's get the neighborhood watch going with the children. So there you go, Warrior kids. Also, Echelon Front we have a leadership consultancy. We solve problems through leadership. That is what we do. We work with companies, we embed into companies and we help align the leadership around the principles that we utilized in combat that we utilize inside of all these businesses that you hear us talk about and that we've helped scores of other companies get increased profitability, get increased efficiency and get improved relationships up and down and across their chain of command. This is what we do at Echelon Front. So go to echelonfront.com if you need leadership consultants inside your organization. We also have some live events. You can check those out. Also@echelonfront.com we have a train, an online training platform as well. It's@extremeownership.com this is where you can learn these principles that you can then apply to every aspect of your life. I don't care what you're doing right now. I don't care if you're a 22 year old that's hunting for a job and you're making, you know, 80 bucks a week working in the school library. You still need a plan. You need to put things together, you need to figure things out.

You can utilize these leadership principles if you're that person or if you're the CEO of a giant company with 8,000 employees.

We will teach you these principles. Extreme ownership dot com. That's what we're doing. Comply them across the board.

Yes, sir. Also, Extreme Ownership Academy, new course out. Extreme ownership for middle management. A lot of demand for that one. Questions all the time about, hey, I'm a new leader or I'm just got promoted to a middle management position, what do I do? That course is gonna tell you.

Yeah.

And I guess I should have made that a little more clear. Yeah. It doesn't matter if you're the lowest person on the totem pole that just got hired or you're out looking for a job or you're the senior person at that organization or you're anyone in between.

Go to extremeownership.com, learn the skill of leadership. Also, if you want to help service members active and retired, you want to help their families, Gold star families. Check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got a charity organization. And if you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org also, we've got HeroesAndHorses.org help Micah Fink bring our veterans up into the mountains so they can find themselves. And then Jimmy May's organization beyond the brotherhood.org and actually, coach has done some stuff for them as well. So check that out. If you want to help veterans transition to the civilian sector, we appreciate it. If you want to connect with us on the algorithms on. On the websites of the world. Well, let's remember what we've got for coach. Coaches. You can check out practical Firearms instruction dot com. You can check out Tactical Hive dot com. And also he's on the. The Grammy at practical firearms instruction. And of course, Carrie is at. Carrie Helton. Straight up.

We.

We got it handled. We did it last time.

You.

You sat in the chair. What was going on? You had an underscore in there.

I had an underscore in there. Carrie Underscore Helton. Shout out to Jack Daniel Hill. Just getting. Getting it done. No matter what it. I. What can you. What else can you throw at that kid, bro?

Let's face it. Any. If you got. Let's face it, Kerry Helton, you want to talk about the trajectory of your life when you had that underscore in there? Bro. Bro. Nothing was good. Bro. Nothing was going good. It was just like the whole world was kind of falling apart 100%. Then it's. You meet someone. Now we. We have to talk about you on the podcast. We want to talk about how to connect with you. We just need to say Carrie Helton.

Carrie Helton.

We don't need to say underscore.

Back up.

We're.

We're on the trajectory is looking on. So check out Carrie Helton. No underscore. And I'm at Jocko willing. Just watch out for the algorithm. It's gonna grab you and it's gonna try and kill you.

Am I exaggerating? I don't know. It's gonna kill your time. I promise you that. And what are you. You are your time. So. Yep, it's killing you. Watch out for it. Thanks once again to Mark Cocchiolo for joining us. Just awesome to see you. Awesome to talk to you, and awesome to share your story. And it's. It's awesome for guys like Mark to be out here and communicate and. And share his lessons. And it's a lot of guys like Mark in the shadows. You know, they're not going to be on social media. They're not doing these kinds of things, but they're out there. They're out there protecting America. And thanks to all those folks that are out there right now doing this. We don't see them. We don't see them on. On social media. We don't see them, you know, in the interwebs. We don't see them. Why? Because they're out there doing God's work. So thanks to all the folks in uniform around the world right now in harm's way to keep us free. And the same goes to our police and law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, all first responders. Thank you all for going into harm's way every day to keep us safe here at home and everyone else out there. As Coach taught countless SEALs over the.

Years.

Keep your eyes on that target, because that's where it's happening and that's how you get things done. And until next time, this is.

And.

Until next time, this is not Echo. This is Carrie and Jocko out.