Transcript of #263 Steve Bunting – Inside the World of MARSOC Medics and Real-World Combat Medicine

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Alles past, then sound, then drive, then.

T Rock rocked, then neue T Rock. Steve Bunting, welcome to the show, man.

Yeah, thanks, brother. It's an honor to be here.

It's an honor to have you.

Yeah, man.

So we got connected, we got connected with Sharp, the company that you're involved with, through Kathryn Boyle who's on the show earlier this year. And you know, a 16C. And so she kind of told me a little bit about what you guys are doing and it's Sharp. And I, I just think this is like really important. And I mean, as you know, we talk about, you know, military careers, special operations, and in particular more than anything else. And we talk about, you know, the, we do whole life story, you know, but we talk about the effects of war trauma, all the stress that comes with a traumatic brain injury, all that, the downward spiral, what it takes to get out of it, recovery methods, addiction, infidelity, all the fucked up stuff that we go through. And, and you know, I did that because I want to show, I think it's important for people to see what that downward spiral looks like and how ugly it gets after service. And you know, the people that I bring on, they, they have all these different avenues of, you know, what got them out of that, you know, whether that's entrepreneurship or, or Therapy or psychedelics or starting a nonprofit, find a new purpose, all these different things.

And, and many of them have started different nonprofits. But what I think is really unique about Sharp is you guys are for profit. And I'll be honest, when I first learned, I was like, yeah, it's kind of like for profit. But then thinking about it, I'm like, they don't have to fucking worry about fundraising. They don't have to worry about all that shit. And so many nonprofits, especially in the military space, start off with a great mission and a great mindset, and then greed gets in the way and it goes away. And then the entire focus is how do we get bigger and raise more money.

Absolutely.

And. But you guys don't have to deal with that because you're starting off with for profit right off the bat. And. And I think that's. I think that's really cool, man. And so I didn't even talk about what you guys are doing, but you guys are. You're sending in counselors. Counselors or therapists?

Well, they're coaches. Trade. Some are providers, but we're not working under any licensing, which is kind of a unique space to be in. The coaching space.

Yeah.

Opens up more when it comes to self disclosure. I feel like we really get to show up in a. In a different way. So we're not diagnosing, not assessing. So they're coaches by trade.

So it's somebody, it's somebody to lean on and coach and about things that people that have high stress jobs, that experience a lot of trauma, firefighters, police, military first responders. And you guys are integrating in, and it's awesome. And it sounds like you guys are growing at a super rapid pace, so. Yeah. But anyways, so we're going to talk about your story and kind of how you got involved with all this. And I think this is a really unique interview because I have not talked to a MARSOC medic on this show yet. So this. You're first.

Yeah.

So this is pretty fucking cool.

Yeah. Thank you.

But everybody starts off with an introduction here. So Steve Bunting, the former Navy Chief Petty Officer, Special Operations, independent duty corpsman assigned to MARSOC during the global war on terrorism, left the Navy and then worked as a CIA contractor GRS in the world's most dangerous hotspots like coast Afghanistan. You then became a marriage and family therapist with deep expertise in addiction treatment, community mental health, neuropsychiatric research, and psychedelic assisted therapy. Now you're the head of coaching at Sharp Performance, leading a nationwide team that empowers first responders, military personnel and high risk professionals. And I also found out that you are really good buddies with my friend prime hall and saw a quote or, or something that he had written that credits you with him finding basically getting clean. So Prime's an awesome dude.

I love that guy.

So are you on deployment with him?

Yeah, we were actually in Delta Company together and I helped him during his transition out, which is really difficult for him. Getting a lot of pushback. You heard the story and it was, it was really messed up. But I had the opportunity to show up for him in a powerful way during that process. And dude, I love him so much. So it was my all. The honor was all mine.

Yeah. Yeah, man. What a. That guy's just an awesome human being.

He is, dude.

He is a. He is a one of a kind person and I just love that guy.

Yeah. Oh yeah, me too.

But couple things to get through here before we start. Everybody gets a gift. Thank you, man.

The iconic Gummy Bears Vigilance elite.

Gummy Bears. Legal in all 50 states. Made in the USA. And then we have a Patreon account. It's a community, it's a subscription service and we've turned it into quite the community and they're the reason that I get to sit here with you today. And so one of the, one of the things we do is we offer them the opportunity to ask every guest a question. So this is from Anonymous. What's the biggest gap you've seen between the military's existing mental health support and what veterans actually need post service?

Yeah, well, I think the biggest thing is going to be that PTSD easy button, man. And we've been slapping it for 30 plus years now. And it seems like it's been the go to where if there's been any significant event in your life and you're having any of this list of things and it has to be ptsd. And that's a psychology related thing. It's a psychological issue. But what I'm seeing and what I've noticed in my own journey and others experience is that there's so much more physiological stuff that's not being addressed. Right. Things like our testosterone levels like our sleep, like there's a lot of basics there that we got to get in check. And I think when we slap a psychological diagnosis on something that has a lot of physiological implications, we miss the. We missed the mark there. And I think that's a big reason why we're not seeing a lot of success solving this ptsd. Thing because there's so many physiological things that we're just not addressing at all. Something as simple as trying to get TRT from the VA when you have testosterone levels in the hundreds, right? Like 100, 200, and they don't want to address it, but they want to give you psychotropic meds for your ptsd.

There's a big issue there, man. And I think it's undeniable that that line's there. As long as we continue to ignore those things, I think we're not going to get any headway on this PTSD stuff, no matter what cool stuff we bring to the table.

Gee, so they're still not doing testosterone TRT therapy at the va. I mean, it's. It's. Every major doctor out there is talking about the loss, like declining testosterone. I don't even go to the. I still don't go to the. I even had the secretary of the VA on early this year. I still. I still don't go. But you go there.

No, I'm guilty as well. Right. I would like to say that the last time I tried was in probably 20, probably 2018. I tried, and I finally did get a prescription. But they wanted to give you one shot every three weeks. And it was just going to be an endocrine system roller coaster that I wasn't willing to participate in. So they weren't willing to manage it. They wouldn't give me a consultation to an endocrinologist, a specialist who could actually, like, build it out and knew what they were talking about, unfortunately, was like a nurse practitioner at the va. And I didn't want to risk it. Right. Trying to play that game, even if it meant that I didn't have to pay out of pocket. I was willing to work with a professional and pay out of pocket.

Man. Man. Well, let's move in. So what I'd like to do is I would like to do a life story on you just like every other military guy that comes in here. I think that's. I think that's the most important part.

I don't want to interrupt you before. I got a couple gifts for you.

Love gifts.

So, yeah, first, I want to give you a gift here from a boy, Jake Cervantes, who got out. He's a MARSOC Raider, and he started a watch company called Singing. They call it the Raider Rolex.

The Beautiful dude.

He's my element leader in Afghanistan, and he's actually local to this area.

I just met this guy. I literally just met this guy at the gun shop.

Salt of the earth. Such a good human being. The green bezel on there is only for soft operators, so you have to present certificates and things like that. So you can't just buy that. Yeah, dude, thank you.

This is awesome.

Yeah, it's a sapphire crystal, all the good stuff. Anti magnetic. I mean, a quick research of saving an instrument, you'll see. It's. He didn't. He didn't pull any stops out on that thing. It's a really nice piece. Damn.

Thank you, man. Second thing, this is awesome.

Here is a gift from your boy Beto. It's a half face.

And he was.

When he heard I was coming on here, one of Sydney. He said he wasn't sure if he had a close scout yet. So you want to make sure he hooked you up with that.

Oh, damn, dude.

Yeah, Beato's the man. Does a lot of work with the Recon foundation and things like that.

So that it's got your guys. It's got. Sharp performance, dude. Thank you.

Yes, sir.

This is awesome, too. Yeah, man.

Yeah. Sorry to interrupt you. I just didn't want to forget, dude.

Thank you.

Yes, sir.

All right, you ready?

I'm ready.

Where'd you grow up?

Yeah. So the beginning was a little bit shifty, right? It's going to show you kind of a life of chaos from the beginning. But I was actually born in Oceanside, California, Right. Born Oceanside. Had a beautiful family, right. Lots of loving grandparents and parents. My mom and dad, you know, loved me very much. But not long after I was born, probably around I was three years old, they separated, right? So they ended up separating, and my brother and I and my mom moved to Alabama. So my mom, my mom's dad had a prior marriage and she had a half sister. And her sister was from Alabama. So every summer she'd come out and visit. And I guess once my mom and my dad dissolved, she said, you know what? Maybe if I take the boys and we go to Alabama, it'll be an easier life, right? Maybe it'll be an easier way. She can kind of find her own new way. And she loaded me and my brother Mitch up. We got on a Greyhound bus with a bag of sour cream and onion chips and we rode across the United States. Yeah. To Birmingham.

Say again?

Older. Older sibling.

My brother's younger than me.

Yeah, younger. So you're the oldest?

Yes. Yep. So we moved to Alabama and I got to grow up there. Kind of cut my teeth in the south. And to be honest with you, I'm very grateful for it. Right I think I would have been better at surfing and skateboarding if I stayed in Cali. But I got to, you know, catch crawdaddies in the creek and go hunting and just do some of the good old southern stuff that I think is a little bit harder to come by in Oceanside.

Nice, nice. How do you know that you came from a loving family if you were only three?

Yeah, well, you know, I was able to reconnect with them once I joined the military. And then little things like going to my grandparents house for the first time and seeing my, my height still etched on the wall. Right. Of when I was there and visiting. They still had my same original pictures of when I was a young boy on their mantle.

Wow.

Right. And just the amount of love I felt when I reconnected with this side of the family out in California, it was just like it was undeniable. Plus there's pictures, there are pictures where I got to see. It's like everyone was happy. You know, it seemed like I was surrounded by love.

Do you know why your parents split?

Yeah, it was infidelity. You know, my dad is the bunting curse, I guess, and just, you know, couldn't, couldn't keep it to himself. You know, he's out there in the streets just trying to find his way and unfortunately, yeah, my mom wasn't going to stand for it and good for her. She's a saint and a good woman. Deserved better. She wasn't. There was just no negotiation. She wasn't going to tolerate it and raise her kids in a house like that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So how was it growing up in Alabama?

It was rough, man. It was rough. You know, I'm very grateful for everything that I went through. You know, it made me who I am. But it was very tough. You know, initially when we first got to Alabama, we went to stay with my aunt and I guess the promises that were made just weren't going to be fulfillable. You know, her and her husband weren't doing well. We showed up to a really like unstable situation and my mom realized that she was gonna have to figure it out on her own. So in the beginning we lived in like government housing. I think we finally, we got like some HUD housing, apartment complexes that had just opened up. It was decent enough and that's where we, our first place that we lived.

Do you remember this stuff?

Yeah, I do. Obviously it's like it was more of a, of a bad dream at this age. But yeah, when we were there probably, you know, three to four, age you know, I remember living in that apartment complex and some pretty crazy things happened to me while I lived there. So it made it even more memorable what happened. Yeah. So, you know, we're kind of there. We're new to the situation. I remember being pretty confused about where my dad is. I remember being very young and not understanding why we're going on such a road trip and why we would even go to a place like Alabama. You know, I remember, like, kind of missing my family and just wondering what was up. But as we got there, my mom, she didn't really have any higher education, right. She tried to be a airlines stewardess prior, and I think things just kind of washed out. So she showed up there with real. No, real skills and kind of had to do what she needed to do in the service jobs. Once she got there, she started working at Denny's and, you know, they gave her the graveyard.

Graveyard shifts. She had to kind of pull her weight being the new person. And somewhere along that case, she had met some guy, right. Her boyfriend, and had invited him into our home. And along the course of that, like, you know, we were abused in that process.

How were you abused?

Yeah, well, you know, the main situation that comes to mind was a particular night where, you know, he sexually, sexually abused me and my brother. Yeah, he had been probably doing some drugs. I remember the smell of smoke and in the apartment and, you know, I remember being very confused that night and really sad. But, yeah, he definitely. He sexually abused my brother and I.

How old were you?

Yeah, probably three, three, four years old. Yeah, probably four years old by this point. Yeah.

And you remember this? Did you remember it vividly?

Yeah. So, you know, for the majority of my childhood, it was. It was kind of like a bad dream, right? It was a little bit blurry for me. And, you know, which I learned later is like, probably it's a condition of trauma like that, disassociation and a little bit of that amnesia. But I do remember, you know, the situation. I ended up having to go to the hospital due to the injuries I sustained from that night.

Are you serious?

Yeah. Yeah. So he. After he did what he did to me and my brother, right, which included, like, putting cigarettes out on our genitalia and things like that. We. He said, are you serious? Yeah, real, real evil, man. Real evil stuff, you know. And I remember he sent me and my brother to bed, and, you know, I was happy that it was just over. So me and my brother go upstairs. When we go to bed, my mom came home from her shift and she came upstairs to check on us. You know, we're young, so she didn't want us to wet the bed. And she did kind of her routine where she woke us up to take us to the bathroom to go potty, so we didn't, you know, pee in the sheets. And I remember we went into the bathroom and she pulled my pants down. She started crying, and I was real confused, Sean. I didn't know what was going on. And she started crying, and she got very mad. She pulled my brother in there, and she looked at him, too. And she started crying again. And I didn't know what was going on, man.

So next thing I know, she goes downstairs and she. She starts assaulting this guy. Starts assaulting this guy. She tries to get the cordless phone. It's back when the cordless phones were, like, huge in the metal antenna. And she starts trying to fight with him over it. And she starts trying to fight with the phone, and she's screaming, and she tells us to go get our babysitter. We had a babysitter during the daytime. Lived up this hill. I remember being a kid, and I remember that hill being like a thousand miles long. Trying to run up it in the middle of the night, beating on the door till they wake up. And finally they woke up and called the cops. The cops came and they arrested the guy. But unfortunately, they ended up having to take me and my brother. Right. So first they took us to the hospital, right. And I went there, and I remember them checking me out. And the things I remember about that is they had to strap me to a spine board because I wouldn't let them touch me down there. So I ended up having to strap my arms down and my feet down.

And a lot of that, those memories are foggy because I just don't. I don't know. Right. It was a lot of bright lights, a lot of confusion, me crying. But I do know that once they were done doing whatever they were doing, I ended up having to go to kind of foster care for a little while, me and my brother. Holy. Yeah.

I don't know what to say to that, man.

Yeah, it's tough, man, because you hear this story a lot on this show.

I do, yeah.

I hear a lot with the people I work with, man, which is really sad. It's very, very, very common.

Fuck, man. I'm sorry, dude.

Yeah. Thank you.

How long were you in foster care?

Probably around six months. No, it wasn't six months. Yeah, I was. My mom had to petition to the state and show that She's a good mom. And there was a lot to be questioned on that one, right? It's like, you know, from the outside looking in, it's like, dude, who would leave their kids with a stranger, right? Who would put their kids in this type of position? And, you know, all I can say is that my mom's a very good woman. Right. I love her tremendously, and I think she was just doing her best. And obviously she would have never voted for any of this to happen to us, but she got put under question, I think rightfully so. And she had to show that she was, you know, fit to be a mom. And it took a little bit of time.

Do you remember foster care?

Yeah, I do. I do. I remember. And they were very nice to us. I do remember they had a nice house with some property. And it's like. I remember a little bit, man, like, kind of not feeling too satisfied to stay there. Yeah, they treated me and Mitch really well, and I was like. It was. It was actually nice, dude, because when my mom, even though she tried her best, it was really unstable, man. It's really unstable. And there it felt real stable, felt loving, felt like, you know, something that I would want. Want to have as a young boy.

What was it like going home?

I was happy, I do remember, to be back with my mom. Like, there's, you know, no matter what the situation is, I think a kid really wants. There's something. There's like so much compassion in a kid's heart and forgiveness that they're capable of, even in some of the darkest, evil things that they can experience. And I was very happy to be back with my mom. I was. But, you know, unfortunately, things didn't get better for. For a long time.

They didn't get better.

Yeah, it was just real chaotic where she just didn't have a stable job. I think she ended up becoming a cashier at a gas station. And it was just really living check to check. A lot of poverty. Just, you know, we really had no money. And then a lot of instability when it came to where we lived. We're always kind of jumping around places, trying to find the next place to live, the next place to kind of harbor up. It was just a lot of chaos in that. In that regard. Just not knowing where the next meal is going to come from, not knowing, like, you know, how long we're going to be staying somewhere. You know, you never know when mom's going to come home and tell you that we got to shove all our stuff in a trash bag. And get out of there. Which seemed to be a routine for. For a long time. Yeah.

How long, how long was that, your entire childhood?

Yeah, up until fourth grade, you know, fourth grade, we gained some stability. So from kind of kindergarten through fourth grade, I was in the inner city Birmingham area, which is kind of a rough place to kind of grow up. A lot of fighting, just a lot of violence, just a lot of instability. And then you're growing up around people that are in the very similar situations. So I was kind of exposed to a lot of that type of stuff early on. But in fourth grade, my mom's boss decided that he needed her to be stable as well, to kind of be. He wanted to make her a manager, and he ended up buying us a trailer in a trailer park. This right on the edge of Birmingham city, next to a nice town. So that kind of changed my life there by us getting to go into that trailer park. It was still a trailer park. It wasn't perfect, but we were zoned for a different school, I'd have to say. Like, that shifted everything for us.

Damn, dude.

I, I.

I just can't get over that.

Wow. Yeah.

Do you know what happened to that guy?

Yeah, he ended up going to prison. But I remember, you know, when me and my brother, we'd always ask my mom, like, hey, when, When's he getting out? Because we knew it was like something like 10 years. I think he got 10 years in prison. And there was like a little timer in our heads where we were always scared, you know, I'd always ask my mom, it's like, hey, is he gonna come hurt us when he gets out? Like, are we safe? And, you know, it's kind of slowly became the dirty secret of our family, where we just didn't talk about it too much. My mom would be like, what are you talking about? Like, why are we talking about this again? She's like, just stop. It's okay. Like, he's not going to hurt us. You're okay. But for a long time, me and my brother were scared he was going to get out of prison and come and, you know. You know. Yeah, Try to pay us back for throwing him in jail.

How's your brother doing today?

Yeah, he didn't make it. Yeah, he was a marine corps veteran, you know, and he got blown up. And one, there was two 155s buried in the ground, and he, he got blown up, but then he came back, and he actually survived that by the grace of God, but got a traumatic brain injury, ended up taking his life in 2017.

Damn.

His whole life was rough, man. He never. He never shook it from that day. I don't think his whole life he was trying to make it back. She's just. Poor kid, man. Poor kid. He's tried his hardest, and I just don't think he ever came back from that situation. She caused a lot of issues for me because I really wanted him to be strong, you know, Our relationship growing up was rough. I was abusive to him, man. I was. And I had a lot of shame about that. But deep down inside, I didn't want anybody to ever hurt him again. But he was such a sweet person, such a sweet guy. And just everything in me wanted to see a fight in him. Like, I wanted him like, dude, you gotta fight. Like, you can't. Even when we were out and just going to school, he would get jumped. People would steal his Walkman and stuff. And I'm like, mitch, you can't let them do this stuff. But he was just such a sweet human dude, such a pure human, that he just became the victim of a lot of stuff. You know, we had some abusive stepdads along the way as well, and it always seemed like they went towards him.

I don't know why. He was always the whipping boy, man. Always the whipping boy, where it's like, I would get my fair share of whippings, but he would always drew more fire, and it wasn't fair. And it was just something about his life where he suffered greatly, man.

Jeez, dude.

Yeah.

So we haven't even. I mean, we haven't even gotten into your military career or your career at CIA. And I feel uncomfortable saying this, but you're, like, the perfect guy for what you're doing.

Yeah. I'm very grateful to be here.

Geez.

Very grateful, I'll tell you that. Holy. Yeah.

So. So you find some stability in fourth grade.

Yeah.

And then more abuse. More abusive male figures in your life.

Yeah.

They all male?

All male, yeah. My mom just kind of. You know, there'd be the. The guy at the gas station that would be like kind of the new. The new guy. And I say this with all respect to my mom. I want to keep saying that I love her so much. She's such a good woman, but she was just trying to make it right. We could barely make it. And it makes sense that you would do things to try and double income. Right. And get some type of support, but these guys that should bring in were just. Just had their own stuff. They were toxic human beings. Right. And, you know, We. This one guy that she ended up marrying that was a fellow cashier was just. He was raised in a Christian boy's home, and it was, you know, spare the rod, spoil the child type mentality, and we would. We would be beat for any, you know, infraction in the house. You know, one thing I am grateful about that is it gave us deep roots in church, right? So I grew up in the south, and we were at. At church every Wednesday and Sunday, to be honest with you, that got me through a lot of stuff, just having that stability.

The church supported us a lot in giving us food and helping us get clothes. A lot of the clothes that I wore for the majority of my childhood was from either donations or the thrift store. But once this guy came into the house, we could actually shop at Walmart. So I remembered, even though he was abusive, I was like, dude, at least, like, we're kind of upgrading a little bit. And I have. I have Walmart clothes on and not used clothes. And. But it was just very abusive. Any infraction had to be, you know, disciplined. He made a paddle out of, like, a pallet. He worked at this place after he worked at Chevron. And he pulled a piece of wood off the pallet and he grinded out hand a handle in it and wrapped it in duct tape, and that's what he would hit us with. And like I said, my brother just got. He got the majority of the beatings.

My Steve.

Yeah, it was tough, man. It was tough. It was hard because I wanted to be grateful, right? But it was just still like the abuse was too much. And, you know, I just did not like this guy very much at all. Crazy thing is, is when I was in eighth grade, my brother, we were having dinner, and my stepdad was sitting in the living room, and I guess my brother had drummed on the back of his chair with some butter knives. When they were gone, I didn't know about this. My stepdad came in, he ran his hand across the back of the chair, and he was like, what is this? And my brother looked at me, and I'm like, Mitch. Like, dude. Like, I knew I wasn't going to rat on my brother and say it was him. So I knew we're about to both get it. And he just kind of gave me that look. And I gave him that look back, like, bro, come on. And I'm like, I don't know. And he asked my brother, and he's like, I don't know. He's like, stand up. Go to the Living room. We'd go in there, and he'd make us bend over and touch our toes.

And we'd have to stay there until he got the paddle and would come in and, you know, hit us with a paddle. But so I go in there that day, and I remember I leaned over. I was just kind of looking at him, waiting. But there's no way I was going to rat on him. There's no way. He was my ride or die. We'd been through so much, and we. I just ate it. I took my lashings, and he sent me back to the table. And I sat there with my ass on fire, trying to eat my Hamburger Helper or whatever we had to eat that night. And then he fired Mitch up, and he fired him up worse than me. Mitch came back and sat down, and he's crying, and I just looked at him. I was mad at him, but I wasn't going to rat on him. And right about that time, dude, I'm sitting over and I look over and my stepdad starts flopping like a fish on the floor. And me and Mitch were like, what's going on? Like, we thought he was messing with us or making fun of us or something.

And we realized that he was having a seizure. So he screamed for my mom. She was in the back room. This is a single wide trailer, right. It's not a lot of room. I ran back and got her and ended up calling 91 1. And he ends up going to the hospital when we found out he had brain cancer. So over the course of that next. Probably it was about a year and a half, we watched this guy just slowly die from brain cancer. And he ended up dying, you know, the end of my. My eighth grade year. Ninth grade year.

Do you watch that whole process?

Yeah, I watched the whole process, yeah. From the seizure to him being pretty much normal after surgery to not being able to walk and just watching him go into hospice. And he died right there in that trailer. Holy shit, dude. Yeah.

Did you have any feelings when he died? I mean, what. What is that. What is that like to see your mom's abusive partner? Was she. Was he beating on your mom, too?

No. No, I didn't.

Just you guys.

Yeah.

Did you show any love to you guys, or was it all just. Yeah, to beat you?

I think, you know, he was abandoned by his family and raised in a boy's home, and I think he struggled. He didn't have that either. And I think he would try to love on us his best way. I think him, like, providing what he could was his love. But there is no love there, man. There's no love there. I was relieved when he passed, and I hate. You know, I hate to say it, but it's the truth. I was relieved. I was tired of that chaos. I was tired of the beatings. And, yeah, I was. I was relieved.

Would you and your brother talk about this type? Oh, yeah, stuff. What would you talk about?

Yeah, we just talk about, like, we. I mean, obviously we joked around about it. Humor was our thing. Like, Mitch was hilarious, and we would. We would just talk crap about everything, right? We just talk smack, and we just. We made light of everything, even. No matter how dark it was, we. We developed a dark sense of humor really early. We found our ability to laugh about things and joke about it, and it just became just kind of jokes. But we definitely, definitely talked about it.

What happens after eighth grade?

Yeah. So, you know, along this way, I realized, like, my house wasn't safe, Right. Lived in a small trailer, and oftentimes there wasn't even heat in the trailer, so it would just be very cold in there a lot of times, not a lot of food. So I would find my own way, man. I would. I was out in the streets as much as I could be, especially once my stepdad passed and he couldn't rule, like, kind of reign me in anymore. I would just had different friends, and I would pick different friends, houses to go stay with. And one of these friends that I became best friends with in fourth grade was my best friend Brandon. So he became like my proxy, ride or die. And Brandon's mom had horses, and they, you know, stayed really busy, so I would just go spend time with him. We'd go work at the farm and feed the horses, and I just got to learn about those different things. And I became best friends with him. They owned a company called Dial a Pony, where they would bring these horses to these kids birthday parties in the middle of the ghetto.

It's kind of crazy. We're in the middle of the hood, right? And I'm walking, like, putting kids on the horses, and we're walking around, and it's just like. It was surreal, man.

Just right on.

Yeah. Walking on broken glass and things like that. And that just became my thing, and that became my escape. I really love this guy. He's my best friend, and his mom, he. He didn't have a dad either. So Sandy kind of proxy raised me, would take care of me and get me food. But going into my 10th grade year, he was going to the farm And I was supposed to be with him, but it was raining and I told him I wasn't going to go. And a tree ended up falling on his truck and killing him. So. Yeah. And then I had to kind of go through that, man.

Like, holy. That hawk, Steve. Yeah.

That one. That's where things changed for me, man. I think that's when whatever was. Whatever little heart of any sensitivities I had at that point, it was. It was fully scarred over. And I started building a. A wall around my heart that was not going to be penetrable for a long, long time.

How so?

Just I remember, like, even from the beginning, like, I wouldn't even cry. There was no more tears. I remember I stopped crying pretty early. Remember I made a conscious choice to stop crying. It's like, I'm not crying no more. Remember this rock would just develop in my throat. I couldn't even swallow. And this pain in my heart where I thought it was just going to break, like it was just going to explode. And I just would start burying stuff really deep, man, really deep. I would just eat it. And it was. Just became my life. And I just kind of knew nothing good was going to ever happen for me. Right. And that the suffering was just going to be it for me and that that's all I was going to have. And it's just. I kind of just. That's. That's the way I felt about it.

Damn, man. We've had a lot of childhood trauma talks in here. Yeah. And. Holy. That. That is rough, dude.

Yeah, it was tough, man. Wasn't fine. I'll tell you that. It wasn't fun at all. But I think I started, like, learning how to disassociate really early. Right. I found that little special spot that no one could touch me. Right. Which served me really well, you know, throughout later parts of my life where I would be in situations where I just need to bury stuff and I knew exactly where to bury it. I had my little special spot inside that no one could touch me. And is your mom still alive? Yeah, she is.

Are you guys close?

Yeah. Yeah. She's.

Yeah. How's she doing, Dude?

She's doing good. She's doing good. Yeah. We end up having a little sister. Along the way, my mom really just leaned into her and really taking care, you know, taking care of her and showing up for them in a big way. And it's been a part of my healing journey to being able to see your parents, even just as human beings. Right. As being a parent and Me misstepping and I haven't been perfect. Like being able to look back and see her as a human and seeing all the variables that she was trying to overcome. I've given her a lot of grace and a lot of forgiveness. And yeah, I love her tremendously.

That makes me happy to hear her. Dude.

What.

I mean, growing up like that, one thing I always do is I ask, you know, there's a lot of just. I didn't grow up like that and I had a really good childhood. And. And so for me, like, starting the show and hearing all this childhood trauma come up unexpectedly and realizing how common it actually is. I mean, one thing that I like to do is I. You know, because we have a lot of kids that watch the show and right now they're all pissed off at me because we just. Which we. We brought up Roblox. I don't know if you know about how that's going, but we brought up Roblox with a really good friend of mine, Ryan Montgomery, about all the sexual exploitation that's going on. So anyways, all the kids, all the eight, nine year old kids throughout the country hate me right now because none of them are allowed to play Roblox. And we took a 6 billion. Roblox. Took a $6 billion cut.

Yeah.

So in one day because of that show. But what I want to ask is a lot of kids are going through childhood trauma, sexual trauma, abuse. You know, what do you. And a lot of these kids. And we got not, not three and four years old, but eight and nine teenagers. A lot of kids watch this.

Yeah.

What advice do you have for a kid that's going through something like that?

Yeah. One thing is there's zero tolerance for that. No one's allowed to touch you. No one's allowed to do anything to you. Right. Your body is sacred. It's your body. And no one's allowed to touch you or make you do anything that you don't want to do. Right. And you always have that right. And you should always have the courage to speak up immediately and tell somebody. Don't keep it a secret. The second thing is that it's not your fault. It's not your fault. You're a victim. Like these adults, they're predators. They're evil people. Right. And it's not your fault. You know, part of my. My journey was like, I held a lot of shame about that, dude. We'd go to church and I remember they would tell us about like, you know, homosexuality is a sin and that you were Going to go to hell. And I remember me and my brother looking at each other confused because this happened to us. We didn't get a vote, but a guy did stuff to us that classified as the things they were teaching in church. And me and him would be like, dude, we're going to hell.

Right?

You serious?

Yeah, man.

You thought you were going to hell because somebody had sexually abused you?

Yeah, man, because there's zero tolerance there, right? It's, like, very. It's Pentecostal, hard South. It's black and white. There's no wiggle room. And it caused me a lot of distress, man. I would pray every night before I went to bed begging for forgiveness because I thought, like, I was going to burn in hell because of what happened to me. And I, you know, beat myself up. It caused a lot of issues for me. A lot of insecurities affecting my relationships. That's what I want to say. Like, if anyone's experienced this or they're experiencing it, it's not your fault. Right? It's not your fault at all. It doesn't have. Say who you are, like, doesn't have any. Any bearing on that. It's not your fault, man.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you. You want to take a break?

Sure.

Let's take a break.

Yeah.

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That's the quickest. I think I've ever taken a break.

Yeah, dude, I appreciated it.

Yeah, I bet.

I mean.

You had mentioned that. Dude, where do you go as a kid? I mean, is it.

Where do you go?

I mean, you go to. You'd mention that he got a lot out of going to church, but then at the end there, you tell me, you go to church. Do you think you're going to hell because of homosexuality? That you had no choice? Yeah, I mean, you go home, you get abused, you go to school, you get your. You get jumped on the way, like, what. Do you have any peace in your life as a child?

No, man, it was all chaos. It was chaos and instability.

Did you have suicidal thoughts as a child?

Never, man. Never. Well, that. That too. Like, I credit that to my religious upbringing, that I. I thought that would damn you to hell. Right. And to be.

What kept you going.

Yeah, just. I'm. I'm telling you, man, it was just my life, Sean. It was just my life. Right. You didn't even have anything to look forward to.

It didn't sound.

No, I didn't. I did not, but no one else did either. I felt like, you know, that was one of the blessings of the trailer park, too, is that we were all kind of there together, you know, it was. I didn't feel special in that. Right. Everywhere I look, someone's parent was on crank or someone's mom's an alcoholic or someone's dad's beating the crap out of the, you know, the landlord. It just felt like that was just. It. It just became the baseline for me, that it was. It was just chaos.

And how many kids were you friends with in the trailer park?

Oh, there's tons. Yeah. There's so many kids.

And all you guys are going through this.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. But in that. We're all angry kids, too. We're all angry kids, Hyperviolent kids. Are you guys venting?

Do. I mean, is this like a good camaraderie or the kids all hate each other or.

Yeah, I was maladaptive, man. It was dark. You know, we. We did. I did have A couple friends that I was. I was close with, but primarily it was, like, Brandon, who I ended up losing, and then maybe one other person. But the rest of us, we used to joke we'd, like. We show up to the. The street fights in a basketball game would break out, right? Because no matter what, we. Oh, my God. Yeah. Because no matter what, when we would get gathered in that trailer park, whether we were playing football or basketball, it was just a matter time till fists started getting swung. And. And it was just. Everyone was angry, man. Was a lot of fighting. Yeah. Wow. And once we got older, the drugs got introduced, right? So we're all young, angry kids. And then at a certain point, you know, the drugs started. You know, people started ransacking their mom's pills and things like that, and it started. Everything started shifting again. It was like a new chapter in the trailer park. Once that group of. Core group grew up to teenage years, it just became pretty dark.

This is, like, textbook generational trauma.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Did you take part in that? Did you get addicted to drugs as a kid and.

Yeah.

Fall down that rabbit hole, too.

So after. So my stepdad died from brain cancer first, Right. And I remember afterwards, I went and I hung out with Brandon, and we had another friend, Kevin, and remember, we're kind of sitting there talking, and they didn't know what to do, right? But I remember I was. I was very sad. I was still grieving. No matter how much little bit of relief I had in there, it was just. It was a rough time to watch it. Watch someone that was a caretaker die and just go through that whole process. It was very heavy. And I remember they were whispering off to the side, and I was like, what are y' all whispering about? And Brennan's. Brandon's telling him. He's like, no, don't tell him. And Kevin's like, hey, dude, like, last weekend, me and Brandon smoked weed, and we think he would really help you out. And I'm like, what? And at first, I look at Brandon, I was like, dude, like, he betrayed me, right? You're my best friend. It's like you're smoking weed, and then second, you're smoking weed without me. It's like I felt like that was something we were supposed to do together, man.

Yeah, right. But I'm, like, looking at him, and he's like, yeah, I did. I'm sorry. I didn't know, you know, if you were. How you're gonna feel about it.

So.

I didn't drink. I didn't do drugs or Anything at this point. And I remember we made a, a small bong out of a socket and a jump rope for heart bottle. And I smoked weed for the first time. And I remember once it finally hit me and I felt it, I was like, oh man, there might be something to this. There might be something like it gave me just the amount of relief and a little bit of that escape. And I caught myself giggling and laughing. I'm not trying to glorify any type of drug use here, but in that Steve, that was hurting so deeply, I found something in that. I found some comfort in marijuana. And that became kind of my go to thing throughout high school until I joined the military.

How did you get any interest in the military growing up like that?

Yeah, there wasn't much.

How did he even pop up on your radar?

Yeah, well I'll credit it to two things, right? 9 11. So when I was, I think it was my ninth grade year, we're sitting in class when 911 happened and I'm sitting in class. I wasn't a good student either. I was like, you know, obviously I had attention issues and didn't really understand why I needed to sit in a desk all day and listen to these people talk about stuff that had nothing that wasn't going to fix what I was going through. But I was sitting in class and I remember the teacher grabs the remote and turns on the TV in the corner of the room. One of Those old crusty TVs just kind of bolted to the side and I got to watch the second twin tower come down. And I was like, dude, what the heck is that all about? Remember having that feeling like I was angry actually. And I remember that's, that's one of the fond things I remember that time is that there was like people were patriotic then. You know, I kind of miss it. I would never want another disaster. But like we cared. Like the American flag meant something.

And it was like there's a little bit in me that gave me some hope that I could be a part of something that was more than just my stuff. But you know, still early on in high school and I'm still just trying to make it through that process. The second thing that kind of motivated me there was my brother. So as I graduated he, some marines came to the school and he did some pull ups and got a T shirt. And I remember he called me and he's like, because at this point we're living with my grandparents at this point. And he's like dude, the marines came. I got a T shirt. I'm gonna be a Marine. I was like, oh, man. Like, Mitch, come on. He's like, I'm doing it, dog. Like, are you coming with me? And I was like, yeah, man. If you go, I'll go. I'll go with you, homie. You're my ride or die. So those two things were, like, big catalysts for me to even think about going to the military.

No. So your little brother is what drove you to. I mean, along with. With the. The 911 travesty.

Yeah.

Drove you to join?

Yeah. I mean, definitely him. If he would have bailed out, then I probably would have created some excuse to not join. He was a huge catalyst.

No. Yeah.

Wow.

Wow, man. So you made the decision in ninth grade?

Yeah. Started like, how old was your.

How much younger was your brother?

Yeah, he's like, it's like two years by 18 months.

So right behind me, so seventh grade, he gets a T shirt. He's like, I'm in.

Yeah. Fucking going. He's ready to go.

No kidding.

Yeah, he was sold out. I was proud of him too, man. Started running, like, that little bit of him that I saw like, that I've been trying to fight out of him all these years. He started to come into his own. I started lifting weights, started getting stronger, started getting a little attitude about him, and I was like, okay, dude. Yes. Like, all right. You're going to be all right. You're going to make it. Yeah. For him to pick the Marines, like, is just classic, right? To go through the life he went through to be a Marine, it's like, I think they do a great job recruiting Mitch Buntings. They found one with him. They knew exactly what they were looking at, and they got it.

So when did you. When did you enlist? When did you actually show up and enlist?

Yeah, So I ended up enlisting in 2006. So June 2006.

And you were how old that.

Yeah, I think I was. I was. I graduated. I was like, 19.

19, yep. Did you know what you wanted to do?

Man, I didn't. You know, I had. I had a guy in the trailer park who's actually the manager of the trailer park kind of told me one time because, you know, I was obviously interested in the seals, right? They do such a great job of publicity and just kind of recruitment, and that was something in the back of my head. But I remember a guy pulled me to the side, and he was like, hey, have you ever heard of Force Recon? And I was like, no, man. He's like, no, One talks about them, but they're badass. And I kind of mental noted that, too. I was like, huh, I wonder what's up with those Force Recon guys? But when I started joining. When I was joined the military, I was actually going to join the Marine Corps with my brother. But that didn't end up working out because, like I said, I was working already. So I was already out of high school, and I was working, and he's still in high school. And we'd have to go to these, like, depth meetings. So before you get in, you know, you have to go to these meetings and kind of.

They end up start indoctrinating you there. You start running with the group and, like, you know, they're getting you ready for boot camp. And all the time, they'd be having these depth meetings. But I had to work because I had my own apartment. And I was like, I had bills to pay. So I tell the recruiter, I'm like, hey, bro. Like, I can't make it to this thing, right? I can't. I have to work. And he's like, you have to come if you want to be a Marine. You're going to get your priorities straight, and you're going to be here. I'm like, hey, dog, I got to pay bills. Yeah, I hear what you're saying. It's cute that you're doing this with the high school kids, but I'm not in high school, and, like, I can't just take off work. So one of the days he called me, and I was frustrated. I said, hey, how about this? You don't call me, I'll call you. And I hung up the phone. Totally forget about it. So Mitch hits me up. He's like, hey, we're doing a run on Saturday. Are you down? I was like, yeah, I'm down.

Yeah, I'm good. Saturday. So I show up to this recruiting office, and the guy, as soon as he sees me, Sean, he flips his desk. This huge Marine flips his desk, tries to fight me. It's like, you never disrespect a sass sergeant like that. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm thinking we're about to fight for real in this office. And I'm like, dude, you're a psychopath. And I'm like, I'm out of here. So I end up walking out of there, and I end up going into the Navy recruiting office right next door. And I was like, hey, what's the closest thing you got to a Marine? And, like, we Got Navy corpsman. I said, all right. What's that? Like, you're going to be the medic for the Marine Corps? I was like, okay, I'll do that. Like, yeah, you don't get to just do that, dude. You got to take a test. There's, like, a process, and we have to see if there's spots for you. But then I was like, okay, I'll do that. I remember my brother's like, dude, what the heck, man? What's up, Judas? You're just going to bell on me?

And I'm like. I'm like, hey, homie, you could go dig foxholes with those psychopaths if you want, but I'm not dealing. Like, if I have to deal with that, I'm not going to make it. I'm going to fucking fight, right? It's like, I don't know. Like, I can't deal with this. And it's like, I got to figure something else out. Then also, I told him, I was like, think about this, bro. I can come into the Navy, and I can get assigned to your team or your. Your unit, and I can be your medic, and we could still be together. He said, you think that could happen? I was like, it could happen, probably. He's like, okay, it's like, but you could just come with me. He's like, hell, no, dude. I'm gonna be a Marine. I was like, all right, dude, get after it.

Yeah.

But I had to let him, like, it's something about that was like a differentiation allowing him. He'd always been kind of under my wing our whole life, and for him to join the Marine Corps on his own, it was like. I was proud of him. Dude, that's cool, man.

Yeah, bro.

Good for you.

So you go in the. You go in the Navy to become a Marine Corps corpsman?

Yep. Yep. So I got hospital corpsman, like, was my nec. And then as soon as you get in there, they start kind of. They. It was in 2006, and they needed a greenside corpsman, right? They were like, hey, if you think you're going to come and just sit on a ship, you're kind of crazy. Like, we need dudes with the Marine Corps. And they started kind of pushing everybody that direction.

I mean, that's interesting. You know, you just mentioned, too, you're not a great student. That's not an easy school to get through.

Yeah.

And then even once you get through that school, I mean, do you guys go through the. You guys go through the 18 delta and everything, right? So, I mean, it just gets more and more and more challenging as time goes on.

Oh, yeah.

Did you. How. How did. How did you handle the academics?

Yeah, well, I remember, like, I grew up, we didn't really have cable, but on TV. I remember that show Rescue 911 would come on. Do you remember that show?

I do, yeah.

Yeah. So I watch Rescue 91 1. I remember just like these. Those little medical shows, like ER and stuff. Whenever I would see them, I was, like, very fascinated by it. You know, I was very fascinated about cars too, growing up. So for me, when it came to the medical stuff, one, I already had a fascination for it. And then I. I can hyper focus. So if there's something I'm interested in, I can. I'll learn everything about it. Right. And if it's stuff I don't care about, obviously it's like, dude, I'm, you know, my ears shut off. But I related everything to a car, so I was like, learning the path of the blood through the heart. I'm thinking of the oil management system in an engine.

No, right?

Yeah. And I'm thinking of the electrical work being like our nervous system. So I started quickly, like, tying these two together, and it. Dude, it got me by. I started. Kidding. Yeah. It was like. It was almost a direct translation of like the human body is its components of a car. And I was like, it got me by. Until I started really learning enough to be fascinated with it and obsessed with it.

So you picked. So you picked it up right off the bat?

Yeah, I was very. Yeah. Interested by it.

Nice. Now, did you and your brother leave at the same time to. To. To go to boot camp?

Oh, yeah, Yeah. I think it was within a few days. No, she went to Parris island and I went to Great Lakes. And I'm writing letters under the red light and he's writing me letters back. It's like, kind of surreal.

What does your mom think about you guys joining the military?

Yeah, I think in the. In the beginning she was apprehensive. Right. It's the height of the war. You know, Fallujah's on tv, Ramadi's on tv. It's like, we'd all seen it. They were. It's like probably the first time war was televised the way that it was. And I think she was very concerned. She was scared, but she was proud. Yeah, she came to both of our graduations and she was. She's very proud, but I think she was scared a little bit.

How was it leaving her?

It's good.

It Was, yeah, you're ready.

Yeah. We ended up moving out of her house, probably in. I think I was 10th grade. Things had just gotten too bad, and my grandparents had moved to Alabama. My grandpa moved back. We ended up. They. They raised us the last couple years. You know, me and my brother slept in the same bed in their guest bedroom, and so I'd already kind of separated from my mom a little bit.

Was that a. Was that a completely different environment?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. My grandma would cook us breakfast. Right. Cook us dinner. It was just very loving. They had. They had resources that my mom didn't. So we were like, for the first time, we're getting. We didn't have to just eat free lunch. I wasn't just eating a square pizza and, you know, milk every day. Like, my grandpa would give me five bucks heading out the door. Oftentimes, they'd probably stockpilot and buy weed with it, to be honest with you. But it was. It was. It was different, man. Yeah, it was different. You know, just started to get a little bit of pride. Remember, I started ironing my clothes there, and, like, it was just. It was more stable, for sure.

Did you say sorry to go back to childhood? Did you say that you reconnected with your dad around 18, 19 years old?

No, I connected with him later once I joined.

Once you joined?

Yeah.

Okay, we'll get to that point then.

Yeah.

So you join the. You join the Navy. You're in Great Lakes. Your brother's in Parris Island. Where do we go from there?

Yeah. So really quickly, in the Navy, they start kind of isolating the dudes. And I remember, like, even in boot camp, they pulled us aside and they started showing us frogman videos, right? In EOD videos and stuff. And I'm like, like, who wants to do this stuff? I'm like, dude, I do. I raised my hand, and, you know, I was, like, looking around, thinking everyone, like, asking all of us dudes, and I'm like, yeah, I want to do it. And I'm looking around like, everyone's just kind of sitting there. I'm like, so at first, I'm like, is that the wrong answer? I'm thinking, I'm gonna get yelled at. And they're like, no, it's not the wrong answer. They're, like, kind of wrote it down. And they start giving you opportunity in bootcamp to do the dive motivator prep, right? So start sending you to the pool every day and things like that. And I remember once I started walking that path, I asked him, I was like, hey, if I don't make it through this process, do I still get to be a corpsman? And they're like, no, you're not. And I was like, okay.

I was like, so maybe I should wait. Maybe I shouldn't sign the dotted line right now. Maybe I should wait till I get through core school and then figure it out from there. I was really scared that if, you know, I didn't make it through buds, then I was going to be, you know, a deck semen or something. I didn't know what it was going to be at the time, but I.

Knew it probably wasn't going to be interesting.

Did not sound like in the risk wasn't worth the reward because my trailer park barely had a six foot pool and it was, it was half filled half the time. So I knew I was like, something about that water is gonna, gonna eat me up. So I, you know, I kind of waited off, but they still kind of pull you out and then once you get to core school, the main battle for them is to get people to go greenside. And while I was there, I had a mentor who was a recon corpsman named Dave. Sean. When he walked through the halls, man, with his huge stack, his jump and dive, his long hair and just the way he carried himself, like, everyone moved out of the way and Dave was the man. And I remember I was like, dude, I want to be that guy. So at core school they start isolating us again. So everyone that's a medic that wants to go special operations, like whether it be buds, you know, swick, sarc, dmt, those types of things, we do dive mode there. So we're getting up early in the morning, four in the morning, we're going to swim, go swim a 5k in the morning, we're running a few miles, doing pull ups and push ups and they're just getting you ready, doing the SOCOM screener prep, just bobbing and doing all the basics, the underwater crossover, all that stuff.

And so we're all there together, working together. And as you get towards the end of core school, they ask you, hey, do you want a BUDS contract? You want recon or what do you want? And everyone in my class there went, went to buds, except for me and my buddy Rodney.

No.

Oh, yeah. Yep. They say the hardest part of the SARC pipeline is the first three weeks of buds. I love you guys, but yeah. So me and Rodney were the only ones that were like, nah, we want to, we want to do what Dave does.

Right? What was it was it your brother. Why did you, why did you pick that?

Yeah.

I mean, you actually, you just mentioned it because you didn't want to not make it and wind up somewhere else. But I mean, I'm sure your brother had something to do with that as well.

Yeah. There was still a fleeting idea that that was going to be a possibility, but also it was just a water competence competency.

Yeah.

Yeah. It was the first time I'm having to do a 50 meter underwater crossover and it's like, that's not something you pick up overnight. Some people are freaks like that and they can. But I wasn't. And that was something like deep down inside I was like, dude, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to do this. Yeah. And I felt like somewhere in there I was gonna have more time because BUDS is the real deal. That's something I really am impressed about, is that they'll pull someone right off the street and within a year you're in buds and you have to perform at that level. And it's like they do a good job prep now, but back then it was like that was right around the corner. I would have taken Bud's contract. I'm going to be there potentially like in a month.

Yeah.

And there's no way I'm making it. And I just knew that I was going to need some more time. And I felt like the recon pipeline was going to take me longer to get to dive school, which it did. And it gave me plenty of the time I needed to be successful. So can you, before we get into.

All of your career, you know, as a recon corpsman, can you, can you, can you just describe what that is?

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, since the beginning of the Marine Corps. Right. In Tun Tavern, you know, when they were created, the Marine Corps is a component of the Navy. They don't like to talk about it. Right. But it's their department of the Navy. And wherever ships were going, there would be Marines on board. And wherever Marines were at, there'd be a medic from the Navy. Right. Very early that relationship began where for every group of platoon of Marines, there'd be a medic there, a Navy corpsman alongside of them. You know, the Navy corpsman rate is a very like, honorable one. I believe it's the most decorated nec in the entire military. Right. So even at Corps school, walking down the halls, you just see Medal of Honor recipients as you're going down to seeing all the, the pharmacist mates, the loblolly Boys like all these people, the lineage of Navy corpsmen that have been on the front lines of the Marines since the beginning of time. Every conflict as like World War II happened, they created the Raiders and they created this specialized unit in the Marine Corps. They would do the light boat entry, deep reconnaissance type stuff for like the, the Japanese island campaigns, et cetera.

And that's where the Marine Corps started specializing towards like a special operations component. But after World War II, it kind of got disbanded and they re upped it for Korea and then re upped it for, for Vietnam. But all along the way, you know, as they specialized into reconnaissance teams for that amphibious reconnaissance capability and deep reconnaissance capability, there's a corpsman there along the way. So I think it was somewhere in the mid-90s, they realized that they needed to make it a real rape in the Navy and make it established. And they couldn't just keep bringing people in if they actually need to build what became the modern Recon Corps man or so idc. So as part of that process, you know, we've been attached to teams, so we started cutting our teeth in the recon community. Force Recon community. And then 2006, when MARSOC stood up, then everything shifted. They took the majority of first Force Recon started standing up. First dim sob and then every. All those sarcs went with it. So when you, when you decide to.

Do that, I mean, do they. Is there a path? I mean, do they. Do you know you're going to go to a special operations unit? Or do you. Or do you know you are going to the Marine Corps? I mean, how, how granular does it get?

Yeah, it is pretty granular. But the, the difficult thing is, is that if you fail any part of that pipeline, you're going to the grunts.

Gotcha.

Yep. So you have to make it through everything where it's jump dive, 18 delta dive, med tech, you know, all those different courses that are through that process, if you don't complete one of them. Yep. You'll end up going to the grunts. Now do you go to.

Do you go to br? Do they call BRC still? Yeah. Do you go to that?

Yeah.

So you do everything that a, that a recon opera, a MARSOC operator goes through, plus some.

Right? Yeah. So the, the main differences I think between then and the MARSOC component now is that they have itc, they have their own selection process. What I went through was the Force Recon pipeline.

Okay.

Yep. So BRC, jump dive dive, medtech, and then 18 delta. And then you come back you go to seer once you get to your unit. And then if you're, you know, if you're at Force company, they'll send you to free fall, etc.

Yeah, let's, let's continue down the journey. So where do we go? You get done with a school, you get the opportunity to go green. Then what happens?

Yep. So then you just keep selecting, right? You keep selecting to start going to the recon pipeline. And very quickly I was, dude, I could run like the wind blows. It's very quick. I was a lot lighter than I am now and became very successful in there. And then, you know, getting started working on the amphibious stuff and the water and things started to come pretty quickly once I graduated field med, which is actually. So after you go to a school, you have to go to the Marine Corps side of the house. So you essentially go through Marine Corps boot camp. So you go to boot camp, go to a school, and now you go to field med, where it's like Marine Corps indoctrination, which is essentially like Marine Corps boot camp.

Okay?

So, yep. So here I am again. They're banging on trash cans, yanking us up. We're in squad bays and I'm like, what? And we're marching around yelling and acting crazy, doing the pugil sticks and O course and all that stuff and getting your little Marine Corps indoctrination. They do a really good job of that. And then from there you select your last time to go recon. So they'll give you one more shot there if you haven't made it or.

Now is this a tryout or is this. They ask you if you want to do it.

Oh, they'll ask you. Yeah. So it's all voluntary, but you gotta, you gotta try out.

Okay.

You gotta do the NSW screener the same as the BUDS one, same run, swim, pull ups, push ups, sit ups, etc, so you do the same bud screener. And then if you make the times, then they'll award you a contract.

Okay.

Yeah.

And yours was for recon.

Yep. For recon, yep.

And then what?

Then you get assigned to your first unit. Right. So oftentimes, just based on the school and where you are in time, they'll send you probably to like first, second, third recon first to kind of cut your teeth till you wait till orders to brc. So BRC is like the gold standard there. The Basic Reconnaissance Course. I ended up checking into first recon, January of 2007.

Okay.

So I check in there as this fresh boot corpsman at the bas and Things started getting real really quick, right?

Yeah. So how. So you. So you actually. Okay, I'm sorry, I have no knowledge of this, so I'm trying to understand it all and break it down for the audience as well. So you get done with corpsman school. You. You go, you check into. Did you say first recon? You check into first recon, then you start, then they, then they take you as a. Is a basic corpsman medic, and that's when they kind of turn you into special operator.

Yep.

Okay. What's it like checking in?

Dude, it's crazy.

How do you. How are you treated?

Yeah, it's crazy.

It gets such a weird dynamic. I mean, you're a Navy guy, a medic who's going to save these motherfuckers, and they're probably going to treat you like complete shit when you show up.

Oh, in the beginning, they do. A roper's a roper, whether you're a wannabe recon Marine or you're a wannabe Sark. And you get treated as such. Yeah. As soon as you check in, you're on your face doing push ups, pushing them out, and they start laying the groundwork pretty quickly. Right. Which is something I always have so much respect for. The culture that recon. The recon community has is that they don't sway in it. So very quickly I come in and it's. You're doing everything. You're running sick call in the morning, you're working out at lunch, you're working out prior to lunch. We had this kind of recon indoctrination program that we had to do. So we're running, we're rook running, we're hitting the hills, we're carrying logs, we're doing all that stuff. And we're having to run sick hall. So we're learning the basics of medicine, learning how to give immunizations, draw blood, remove moles, like removing grown toenails, like, the basics of, like, of being a Navy corpsman. So you're learning those skills and you're just looking at that calendar, waiting for your date, and they'll tell you, hey, your BRC dates this date, and you're just trying to survive to make it while you're having to do PSTs every week to make sure you're still in shape.

And then once you, once you leave there, you head off to the pipeline.

How was, how was BRC for you?

Yeah, it was. I mean, it was pretty tough. It was tough. I was in very good cardio shape, which is good for me. And by this point, I'd swam a lot. Right. I've gotten a lot. Got really good at the combat sidestroke, which I never even knew was a thing before this, but got really good at it. Became very proficient in the water, and I felt very comfortable. It was just. Still, it was a kick in the ass. Yep. Showing up and. And just getting. Getting your legs run off and carrying a heavy rock and trying to figure out some of the, you know, the things that. With a corpsman, you're a little bit behind the power curve because you don't get some of those basic infantry skills. Right? Where the Marines went through ITC or. Sorry, they went to, you know, their infantry training, and so they kind of already know some of the basics. And as a corpsman, you have a lot to overcome, Right. You have to learn the basics of patrolling. You have to learn a lot of things that you just didn't get prior. And it can be a little bit of a learning curve, but it was.

It's a pretty good time.

Gotcha. Yeah. I mean, I'm. I'm curious. I mean, I would imagine BRC is very similar to buds. I mean, what, from a guy that comes from a childhood like you, and then you get in with, you know, you. You're in brc, which is, you know, supposedly some of the toughest military training in the world. What do you compare that to your childhood? Or is. Are you constantly thinking, like, I've been through worse than this. This is a joke. These people don't know what I've been through. You think you can hurt me? Is that going. Is that. I mean, is that the mindset?

Yeah, man. It was home. I was home. I was home. Something about that chaos I loved I did when everyone else. Something about me, too, like, when everyone else was breaking it, like, empowered me, which sounds crazy, but I would see other people, like, breaking, crying, quitting, and I'm like. Like, let's go. I'm. I got. I got another gear. Like, I haven't even gotten to my safe space yet. Right. I got a spot that no one can touch me. And I would catch myself in a lot of that process. When things would get rough, people would always tell me, you know, from my peer group, they'd be like, steve, I know when it sucks for you because you finally shut up. Because if I wasn't talking to you, then they knew Steve was finally hurting, right? And they would. But it was. Yeah, I would just go to that little spot in the back of my mind, and it was just. It Was easy day in a lot of the ways. It still sucked. But dude, they were feeding me. I had access to a gym. Like, I mean, it was like, dude, life was good.

I had a warm place to sleep at night and it was just like, I took to it really well.

It's interesting the perspectives, the different perspectives from everybody that. So that's the beautiful thing about the military is just all walks of life and everybody's perspective from their background is it's a completely different experience, but it's the same experience.

Yeah.

You know what? It does. I don't know if that make makes any sense.

Yeah, it is crazy, all the different perspectives you can have in this life. You have the same thing. 2. I didn't really have a dad growing up, right. So I just considered it camping. I was like, we're just camping. Like, I thought it was fun. It's kind of cool to me, I was like on a field trip.

Yeah. Oh. So what. How. How is BRC breaking? Broken down?

Yeah. So it's. I mean, I'm sure it's light years different now, but initially you start out kind of learning the basics of like comms. You do a lot of comms classes. You do a lot of classes on like land navigation. So just learning how to hit points. You're up there in the hills of Camp Pendleton and those hills alone will break you off. But you start learning the basic fundamentals of patrolling in the reconnaissance trade craft. Right. So a lot of the front half is all about that. It's conditioning, doing all the different qualities you need to, from the swim quals, etc, the pool work, which is where they get a lot of their attrition. As you know, it's like the water will break the. The strongest men you know, and that. That usually thins the herd pretty quickly. Then they'll go into things like land nav. So now it's like you're tested. Got to hit these points. You got to make it in time. If you think you're walking this land now, of course you're crazy. And you're doing it with a rock on, right? So you make it through land navigation and then you start working into.

As you make it through that land phase, you go into kind of our. Our buds. Sorry, not buds. Our hells Hell week is like. It's called patrol phase. Right. So it's a week long of you just no sleep, tear gas, having a patrol. And you're just setting up patrol bases and just the fundamentals of being a reconnaissance marine, setting up a harbor site you know, building a sand, a sand table, building out the next stop. Whether you got to do a reconnaissance on an empty field or a bridge or whatever it may be, and you're just doing that non stop or you're getting tear gassed, taking contact, taking casualties, and it's just a suck fest through that whole week. Once you get done with that, you kind of go into our next phase of training, which is amphib. So we end up going down to Coronado. We start working through all the amphib stuff, getting the zodiacs out, learning how to build the amp Zodiacs learn how to do Surf Passage. A lot of surface thinning too. Just doing the 2Ks every day, just breaking off those hip flexors, running around like a maniac and just doing a lot of the small boat tactics, doing things like collecting bottles, bottom samples, doing surf reps, all the basics of like kind of reconnaissance from there.

And once you make it through amphib phase, like you're done, you graduate after that.

How long is this course?

I think it's around three months.

What's the attrition rate?

It's pretty high. I don't know what the number is, but yeah, it's, it's pretty high.

Did it ever get, did it ever get tough for you? Were you ever riding the line where you're like, I don't know if this is for me, I think I'm going to quit.

Yeah, I never thought I was going to quit, but patrol face, like, I remember being so sleep depth that I remember them trying to ask me what I was going to do and I remember being like, oh, like my brain's not working and I very well could screw this up right now. That was the only point. All the testing and stuff like that was pretty easy. Like land now was easy for me, but yeah, in there I was so tired by like day four and I remember them asking me and I felt like I should know the answers, but I don't know how I made it through, but I did. But yeah, that was the only point in that whole process where I was like, dude, I might not make it through this because like, if I go one more day without sleep, I'm gonna be worthless. And yeah, but everything else seemed to work out.

So what happens at the completion of brc? Yep.

So at the completion of brc, for the recon side of the house, you're technically you get awarded the recon NEC or MOS, but for us SARCs, we don't get anything. It's just another school and you don't get awarded yours to the end. So what oftentimes happens if you got follow on orders. So, say, luck of the draw that all the schools matched up. Maybe you'll go to Basic Airborne first, right? So me, I had already gone to Basic Airborne because when I checked into First Recon, we had a competition where the HM one that was there told the Marines. He said, hey, I'm not signing any more Basic Airborne nominations to go to school unless you let some of my corpsmen go. And the Marine said, okay, fair enough. Doc said, how about this? If they show up on Friday at 04 in the morning and they beat my Marines for their spots, I'll give it to them. So he told me. He told me and Rodney and another dude, he's like, hey, guys, be there 04 on Friday. Don't be late. And we ended up beating the Marines. So, no. So you got to go to Basic Basic Airborne before we even went to brc.

Nice. Nice.

Yep. So I had a gap there. So I ended up going back to First Recon and kind of working as a. As a BRC grad. You got a little bit more clout now. You're not around with a rope on. You're not getting bullied anymore. You know, you kind of wait for your next schools, which my next school was going to be 18 Delta and Fort Bragg.

What is graduation like BRC? I mean, is it. Is it ceremonial? Is it. Or are they like, here you go. Get back to work?

Yeah, they. They do it in the School of Infantry kind of auditorium. So it's like, you're at the School of Infantry. Like, you. All you want to do is get away from there as fast as possible. They bring in some motivator to talk, but I couldn't tell you who they were. What I will share is, like, one of the most memorable parts of that is I reconnected with my dad through this process, and I had invited him to the graduation. I hit him up and I said, hey, man. Like, I know we barely know each other. It's like. But this is kind of a big deal for me. It's a probably my lifetime accomplishment to this point, and I would. I got a ticket for you if you want to show up. And needless to say, he didn't show up.

He didn't.

No, I didn't show up.

How did you find him?

Yeah, well. So all through the chaos of my childhood, I had this. Two prized possessions. Three prized possessions. One was a pound puppy that I had from, like, my grandma gave it to me. Do you remember the pound puppy?

Yeah, man.

Dude, I had a brown pound puppy and I held that thing. Who knows where it is? I wish I had it. But, yeah, it got lost along the way. And then next was a little blanket that had a duck embroidery on it for my mom, my mom's mom. We ended up moving to Alabama. And the third one was a letter from my grandma, my dad's mom. It was a pencil written letter that I kept with me everywhere we went. It's like I grab our clothes, throw it in the trash bags. And I'd had that letter and I kept it my whole time. So when I joined the military and I got to Camp Pendleton, I checked in the first recon. I remember I had that letter. I pulled it out and I wrote a letter to that address. And I said, hey, I don't know if this. If you're still my grandma, right, or my grandpa, but like, I'm your grandson and I'm in the military now, and I'm in California and I'd love to meet you. And this is back. I think I just got one of those Nokia 5590 brick phones. And I was like, hey, here's my phone number if you want to call me.

So it was probably like two weeks. And I get a phone call on that phone, and she's like, hi. She called me by my middle name. She's like, hi, you know, I'm your grandma. I was like, oh, hi, Grandma. She's like, I'm so excited to hear you. Me and your grandpa are looking forward to seeing you. And I'm like, oh, that's awesome. I'm like, well, I'm at Camp Pendleton. I don't have a car or anything. She's like, well, you know, we're down in Ocotillo, down near El Centro. She's like, you know, we're down here. I'm like, okay, well, can you. I don't have a car. She's like, well, any grandson of mine, I'll figure it out. And I was like, huh? I'm like, okay. She's like, okay. I'm like, all right, well, I guess I'll try and figure it out. So they gave me the address, and I told my roommate. I was like, hey, he had a car. I was like, will you drive me down to El Centro? And he's like, like, no, bro. He's like, that's like four hours from here. I'm like, jesus. I'm like, all right, well, what am I gonna do?

He's like, I'll take you to the bus stop in Oceanside. And I was like, okay, all right. So he takes me to the bus stop in Oceanside and I end up riding that bus all the way to El Centro. It was like a 12 hour ride, dude. It was ridiculous. But I wrote it all the way down to San Diego and all the way out there and they end up picking me up at 2am at the El Centro bus station. I remember my grandpa showed up up at that. It was like, you know, there's crackheads outside of there. And so it's a real sketchy situation. I get in and he's like, hey, boy. I was like, hey, Grandpa. And he starts yelling at me. He's like, you'll have to speak up if you're going to talk to me. I'm like, okay, all right, let's go. Ends up driving me to the house. We get to their desert house and I come in and Sean, as soon as I came in, man, it just like melted my heart. Like I said, the pictures of me as a young boy was still up on their mantle. Like of me as a three year old boy, pictures of my brother, you know, on the wall inscribed with markings was our, our heights.

And I came in and dude, it was like a huge hole in my heart because I didn't know any of this side of the family at all was starting to heal. I come in and my grandma was like, I never missed any, like, never missed a day. It was like I'd been coming there every, every weekend for the last 20 years and sat down and had dinner and started building a relationship with them. And you know, as I was kind of touring their little house. They have a quaint little house there in the desert. I saw my grandpa had a shadow box, right? He was a sailor in the Navy. And in that shadow box I saw he had a combat action ribbon. And I was just now learning about what these things mean. And he was a whole technician. So I was like, hey, Grandpa. I was like, how'd you get. How'd you get a combat action ribbon as a plumber? And he didn't appreciate that too much. He's like, listen here, Dick Smith, when you finally go to combat, you rate and I'll tell you. And I was like, oh, dang. Okay, grandpa.

But we became the bestest of friends, man. No one else in the family understood my grandpa, but he did two tours in Vietnam. He's a river ring guy, man. Two dual 50 cows on the Danae and whooped it On, I never told anybody, right? And I would sit out in that garage with him and just talk to him, right? And he was so proud of me. And my brother, he ended up passing from a kind of Agent Orange related kidney cancer. But, man, it was some good years there for a while. But as I started, like, kind of coming, that was my new favorite thing now. So every weekend I'm like, I'm going to grandma's house. Like, I got to figure out a car. They're like, we'll get you a car. They got me a car real cheap. And next thing you know, I'm going down to the desert and spending time with my grandma and grandpa. And very quickly, they start calling the family, calling my aunts, my uncles. I have a couple sisters from my dad's side, and they start bringing them over. And I'd come. Every time I'd come, there'd be a new surprise.

Hey, I'm your Uncle Jim. Hey, I'm your Aunt Connie, right? And I'm like, dude, my heart just started healing, dude. I was like, oh, my God, this. This kind of void that I had and. But my dad never came. My dad never came. He lived further north up in California, I guess he worked at cvs, didn't have a lot of money. But I started just kind of thinking about it. I was like, okay, like, everyone else is making it. Like, I took note of it. And, you know, I remember one of these times I was doing some work with Force Recon in Hawaii, and I was starting to kind of figure things out, and I remember I had his phone number and I gave him a call and I told him, I said, you know what, man? Like, I just want to thank you for never being a part of my life. You know, if you would have been a part of my life, maybe I'd have been screwed up like you. And I'm just glad that. That you never even had an influence on me because I'm actually making something in my life. And Shawnee got so mad at me, like, he was yelling at me over the phone.

He's like, I loved you so much. Like, I didn't want your mom to take you from us, right? I loved you. And that's not true. And I was just like, dude, whatever, man. Like, whatever. Actions speak louder than words. So I hung up the phone. So as I was getting close to my first deployment, right? I was getting ready to go on my first deployment. We're going to do a counter piracy mission off the Horn of Africa. I was pretty excited about it. My Aunt Connie, she hosted a party at her house and invited me down. It was a going away party. And I'm there and this, this car shows up, and next thing I know, it's my dad. So he steps out of the car, he's there with his girlfriend. And at this time, me and my wife were married. We had had a son. And he comes in the house and I remember I came up and I shook his hand. But, dude, between you and me, I always thought like, if I saw him, I was going to fight him on site. Like, I had so much. I was so angry at him.

Not a single birthday card, not a single call. Like, all that stuff I went through in my life, I was like, dude, if I just had you here, this wouldn't have happened to me, right? So I had a lot of resentment. When he comes in, I end up shaking his hand. And I made a pact with myself. I said, you know what? How about this? If he can be a good granddad to my son, then I'll open up a door for him one day, but not today. So shook his hand, kind of introduced him to my wife, let him kind of hang out with my son. He's, you know, patting him on the knee and like, you know, bouncing him on his knee and just being okay. I was real cold with him. And then after that, I shook his hand when I got done with the party and I said, hey, man, like, I'm going on deployment, but if you can keep in touch, we can work on this when I get back. So I said, okay. It's like, all right, well, that's kind of interesting, right? So I go on that first deployment and how long have it been?

How old are you? Right here?

Yeah, I'm probably. I'm 20, 21 years old, so almost.

Almost 20 years.

Yeah. Yep. Since I'd seen him. Had any communication with him outside of those phone calls I called. That's mainly after he. No. Showed me for my, my BRC graduation. I was pretty. I was angry. At that point, everything shifted from hope to just like, screw this guy.

Did you talk to him about all this?

Yeah. So on this first deployment, right, we're going. We're doing a counter piracy mission off the Horn of Africa, just cutting squares there. And it's us in the Force Recon Platoon. And I get a Red Cross message. About four months in, I get a Red Cross message. My platoon commander pulls me aside and he's like, hey, man. Hey, Doc, this isn't good. You know, usually these things only happen if it's a suicide or a murder. They won't tell us what happened, but your dad's dead. And I remember just being so bummed, man. So bummed. I was like, guys just barely starting to work my way around to, like, reconnecting with him and opening up this door to us, being able to repair this relationship. And now I'm flying back to the United States, and because I was the oldest boy, now I'm the person that has to, you know, sign for all his stuff. I have to handle all his death stuff. And, yeah, somewhere along that way, man, he ended up committing suicide. Yeah, I guess the gravity of everything kind of hit him. He had a falling out with my sister's mom, have a half sister with him, and he wasn't gonna be able to see her, and he ended up committing suicide.

So I had to fly back and handle all of that. Like, as the oldest born, I had to figure out how to bury him, figure out how to, you know, call all his creditors and all this different stuff, and. And that was kind of the end of the chapter there for that one. Yeah.

How do you feel about that?

Yeah, it's a bummer, man. It's a bummer. I just wanted him to be proud of me. I think there's something about me that just wanted a dad to be proud of me. I think I wanted to show him that I made it. And, dude, he was, like, a cool guy. Like, he really was. He was conflicted. He had his stuff. But, like, everyone I know, like, from my aunt, my grandparents, they always spoke highly of him. He had childhood trauma, too. Something bad happened to him when he was a little boy. And, you know, I just. I would have. I would have loved to meet him. I can spend time with him and just kind of get to know him better. And it sucked, dude. It ended that way. I waited my whole life for it, and then it was just like, dude, it's just gone. Like, it's another one of those things where I was like, this is just the way life is, man. I wasn't even surprised. I'm like, of course. Of course. Just kept moving forward.

What would you say to him? If he could say anything to him.

Right now, I would tell him I forgive him. Yeah. I'm sorry for being so mad at him. Like, I know it wasn't his fault, dude. And, like, when my mom left him, there was not Internet, right? It was like, dude, if. If my wife took my kid and moved halfway across the United States, and I didn't know. It's like, Obviously, he could have found his way. I would just tell him I forgive him. I forgive him. And, you know, I wish he would have found some healing. I wish I could have talked to him. Now, knowing what I know now, I wish I could have showed him some ways to find relief, which I could have modeled it for him and helped him find the peace that he needed. But, yeah, he never found it, man. I know. Yeah, that's what I would say.

I'm sorry, man.

Yeah.

What was the communication like with your mother after you completed brc?

Yeah, just hit her up. Hey, mom, I made it. She's like, cool. Are you a Navy SEAL now? Every time I turn around, she's like, you're a Navy seal? I'm like, no, mom. Okay. Okay. You probably can't tell me.

Yeah, she's proud.

Yeah. Oh, she's so proud. Yeah, she's so proud. Yep.

How about your brother? What did he have to say when he completed it?

Yeah, so I kept trying to hit him up and I'm like, mitch, you need to go recon, man. Like, if we're. Our plan's gonna work. You gotta go recon. I think once he got through boot camp and got through his infantry training, he's like, no, man. He's like, you can do it. Yeah. He was like, no, I'm good. I'm not dealing with that. He was a. A grunt in the infantry battalion. And he was like, dude, his idea of, like, asking for more of that was like psychotic to him, which he's. He's a smarter man than me right at this time. He's like, but I'm like, dude, you gotta go or we're not gonna make it together. Like, I'm never gonna be assigned to your team if you don't go to recon. He's like, you can do that high speed stuff if you want, bro. He's like, I'm good where I'm at. And then he ended up going to war right after that.

Wow.

Yeah.

Wow. How did it feel for you? I mean, getting through brc? I mean, it didn't sound like it had. You had a lot going for you.

Yeah.

Not a good student growing up in a trailer park, surrounded with substance abuse and, And. And. And sexual abuse and regular abuse. I mean, and now you're. You've just graduated one of the. One of the premier, toughest military training programs in the world. Yeah, that's pretty cool.

I would like to say that I was proud, but I wasn't, man.

Really?

Yeah. For me, it was just Another thing, and for me, always back then, I had this fear that the other foot was going to drop, right? I had like severe imposter syndrome. Just really insecure. Like, I was like, dude, like, okay, cool, that's. I made it past this one. But what's the next thing that's going to get me? Like, when's this gravy train going to be over? When's everyone, everyone going to realize I'm just a trailer park kid? When's everyone going to realize, like, I don't even belong here? Like, I'm not elite. I'm not what these people talk about. I can never be. These legends that they tell me about, right? Any minute now, they're going to sniff me out. And I almost just kind of expected it, just not to work out, to be honest with you. And I think because of that, it robbed me of the joy. It was just like, well, that's cool. It doesn't matter if I make it through this whole thing. So I. I'll celebrate later. I'll celebrate at the end.

Geez, man.

Yeah.

So where do we go, where do we go from here? Graduate BRC? You've already been to. You're going to 18 Delta. You've reconnected with the other side of your family.

Yeah.

You went on deployment.

Yeah.

How was 18? How was 18 Delta?

18 Delta is the real deal, man. It's the real deal. Yeah. I mean, for everything else that's physical, it's one thing, but the one thing I found one. Intimidating, impressed by the army is they. There's a million people that want to be an 18 delta in the army. Right. There's a small amount of marines. There's a small amount of recon Marines. Right. But they're like, hey, they had the 18x Ray series going. So they're pulling dudes off the streets and stuff to go through this process. And it's like they were cutting people left and right. Right. If you failed the test, it was like so sad. Back to the needs of the army and it's just happening all around you where you're like, oh, man, like, this is the real deal. And it was, it was a real deal too, because you couldn't bull crap your way through it, man. Like, the standard was real. They make the best medics on the face of the earth.

Right.

Other, you know, other military. Where.

Where all do 18 deltas go from school.

From school, yeah.

What, what units do they go to?

Yeah, so they all soft components, majorly, you know, rangers. So go to Ranger Bat SF guys, there are still seals going through our program, so they go back to the teams. Sarks could go anywhere between Recon Battalion, Force Recon and marsoc. And then they also have the special operations aviation guys there too. Oh, no, the 160th guys are going through there. And then they'll squeak in some civil affairs people and. And things like that. PSYOP people in there as well. But that's. It's majority, all the soft components.

Pretty badass, man. Dude, pretty badass. So you get done with that, then you go on deployment?

Yeah, I actually did dive school after 18 Delta.

Then you do dive school?

Yeah, I went to Marine Combatant Dive down in Panama City, then followed up with dive med Tech. So you go to dmmp, the dive medtech course. So you learned to do the recompression therapy and all that type of stuff.

So you completed pretty much everything by the time you went on your first deployment.

Yep, for sure.

What's it like checking into your team?

Yeah, it was one, I was like, I made it. So there. I was a little bit happy about that. But then, two, the Marine Corps has a magical way of just crushing you.

Right.

Which I know it's probably very similar to on the teams, too. It's like you're a new guy and you ain't shit. Yeah. Yep. And it was very much that too. Luckily for me, which I'm very grateful for, is I went to Recon Battalion first, so we did have some guys going straight to marsoc. You know, I had other guys that if you were a fleet returnee and you had a combat deployment or two under your belt, they'd send you straight to force Recon. So luckily for me, I got paired up on a team that had junior guys in it, so I had. It wasn't just me, the new guy, but there's a lot of junior Recon Marines as well, so we're all cutting our teeth at the same rate and same pace. But, dude, I had a tremendous platoon sergeant, was well decorated. Just war fighter. Took it seriously. Really embodied what. What it was to be a reconnaissance Marine. And he. He did right by us. We trained our faces off, man.

Nice.

We trained her. There was war on the white space. There's no vacation. You're not going home if there's free time. You're gonna go sleep on the bush and report on an empty field, send up comm shots, you know, practice e plans, breakout drills. Like he. Yeah, he made. He made men out of us.

Badass, man. So what were you guys doing in Africa?

Yeah. So right now it was kind of. They have what was called the Maritime Raid Force. I'm still. They have that. So it'd be three different ships. It was like the amphibious ready group, which was actually nostalgic because Jocko was talking about a lot of this on the few podcasts ago, but talking about just that. That life on the ship and essentially the ships just being Marine carrying vessels, essentially. And we were doing a lot of that Somalian counter piracy stuff.

Oh, okay.

Yep.

Oh, shit. Did you guys get any?

Yeah. So we didn't get to board any ships, but we did get to isolate one. Right. We were right next to Indian waters. So instead of us doing bbss, we actually called in the Indian, the Indian Navy, and they lit that thing up. It was pretty, pretty crazy. They did it in a different manner than we would have. We would have taken people. And they didn't. They just doused it in fuel and lit it on fire and. That's awesome. It was crazy. Yeah. We had a colonel named Colonel Kaufman who was in charge of the battalion for one. One badass dude was a pilot in Iraq. Got shot through and into his jaw and completed the mission. Like, the dude was a legend. But he pulled us all out onto the deck of the ships and he gave us like a. Like a Braveheart speech, right? He's like, you are now in centcom. This is the Super Bowl. He's like. And we're watching this. This Somali ship mothership and skiffs just burning in the background right as we're sitting there at attention, and he's just giving his motivational, like, Marine Corps speech, like, only they can.

It was like, yeah, that's pretty cool.

That's awesome, man.

Yeah.

So you come home from that deployment and then what happens?

Yeah, so when I came back from that deployment, it was. It was MARSOC time. So I came back, kind of cut my teeth there. Got to do some, you know, FID work too. We didn't just stay on the ship there, but got to see a little bit of the world, which I was happy about, which was cool to me, you know, being a little trailer park kid from Alabama going to Thailand and all this. You go.

You immediately redeploy with marsoc.

Yeah, well, I went there and I got assigned to a team at marsoc.

Okay.

Yep. So I went up the hill. They're still on the same camp now in Camp Pendleton. And. Yep. Went over there and I check into my first team there.

So how. How was it checking into a MARSOC Element from, From reconnaissance.

Yeah. It was a different ball game. It was a different feel. It's just.

Do you have a. Do they have any respect for you showing up? Oh, yeah, they do.

Oh, yeah.

So you're not the new guy?

Yeah, they. Yeah. I mean, MARSOC was stood up off of First Force Recon first. So if you come over as a recondo, it's like there's tremendous respect.

Okay.

Yep. If you're a recon guy there. Yeah, it's so much respect there. And then me coming in already had a deployment under my belt, so it's like that counts for something. Right. And kind of coming in, but then it's, it's, it's game time there too. Right. Where it's like, you better. You know, at recon, it was a jogging pace for what we're doing. Reconnaissance and stuff's like hard work, but, you know, it's a little bit different than training for a DA mission, training for Afghanistan and the things that we were ramping up for, you know, you.

Were going to Afghanistan?

Yeah, for sure.

They told you that right off the bat.

Yeah, that's. That was, that was where the show was. And that's. Yeah, everyone's kind of doing back to backs there.

How big is the team?

Yeah, so at recon, it's like a 30 man platoon and there's just one corpsman. At Marsoca, teams probably around 6, 6, 7 people, 13 people in an element and then there's two sarks there.

Oh, really?

Yeah, yeah. So I went from having to manage 30 people to just managing half that with two guys. It was like, it was nice.

Who is the other. Who was the other Navy corpsman?

Yeah, he was a dude named Chris. Yeah, I think he just got out, but yeah, it was a dude that came from third Recombatime Squared Away. Such a really, really gifted with medicine and I wasn't, I was good at medicine, but I didn't like the sick hall type stuff where Chris was really good at that.

Right.

If your tummy ached, he would be able to fix you. Like, he's really good. So we were a good balance where all I wanted to do is operational stuff. I just wanted to run and gun. Chris was very good at that, but he was actually. He was much better at the medical, like just being a better medic than me.

Right on. Yeah, right on. So what's the culture like? What would you say the culture is like at a MARSOC unit?

Yeah, well, it's just a very, very high standard. Very, very high standard. Like at this time, people are very serious about what it was. You know, many of these guys were at debt one at First Force and stood this up and all they knew was just back to back deployments right between Iraq and Afghanistan. And it was just. It was a level of professionalism that I appreciated, but it was a very high standard. Right. And yeah, it was. You were going to work hard and it was just what you're going to do. There's a lot of honor there.

Is this where you meet Prime? Yeah, yeah, I think you meet him.

I met prime probably on my, I think my third deployment with marsoc.

Oh, okay.

Yeah. But we all had mutual friends, so it's like I had. We all had mutual friends and we knew each other from like a degree of separation. But once I went to Delta Company, that's where prime was kind of coming back from that last trip with his. And he was just kind of trying to sort through things, and his medic that he had went on to some smu and he was like, hey, like, Kevin said that you're the guy to come to if to help me. And I was like, I am, dude. So he came to me and I just. We became really good friends and I just helped him work through that process. It was a really tricky one with what they tried to do to him. Yeah, that's how I met Prime.

Right on, right on. So, I mean, now you're in a unit that I would guess has a lot of experience throughout the gwad. By the. Up to this point. What, what kind of questions do you have? I mean, what, what is your impression of these guys? With everything they've seen, been through, everything you think you want to do. How is it?

Yeah, these guys were tacticians, man, tacticians. They eat, slept and breathe this job. And I think one thing I struggled with in the beginning was that imposter syndrome stuff. So I always kind of kept one foot out, even subconsciously, because I felt like any minute they were gonna. It was just. It wasn't gonna work for me. And I'm starting here and I'm working with these guys that, like, are true professionals. And I couldn't continue going that direction with it. I was like, dude, I gotta be all in if I'm gonna be able to keep up.

Right?

And these guys knew because there had been so many friends, so many people at that battalion that had passed at war, and if it wasn't at war, it was the green on blue type situation that you've heard of so much. We had a lot of people getting chewed up the seasons prior to that, and it was like, dude, there you had to lock in. You had to lock in. You had to be a professional. And that's when I really started to see that. Whereas, like, even me, deep down inside, I'm like, I got to take this seriously or whatever I've been doing to get by, like, this is not going to be sustainable and I need to lock in and really become a professional with this stuff because the consequences are so great now. Right.

On. Well, let's take a, let's take a quick break and when we come back, we'll get into your first deployment.

Okay?

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Yeah, I was relieved.

Relieved?

Yeah. Relieved, man. Because, you know, you come in. The thing about the military, especially if you come in wanting to go into Special Operations, is you want to deploy, you want to go to war, and it feels like every day in the military that you're not deploying, it's slipping between your fingers.

Right.

So I came to Recon Battalion off the backs of, like, the Fallujah guys and all this stuff, and I'm, like, wanting so bad. And they're like, well, you're doing a VBSS mission off of Africa. So you're like, I missed it all. The war is over. Yeah, right. And it's just like, it's something we do.

Right.

It's, like, really common. But I was like. Just kept feeling like I'm chasing the dragon, and if I don't ever get to go there, then. Then it was all for nothing. So I finally land, you know, they're in Bastion, and I'm like, I made it. You know, at least I'm here at the show. Right. I got a chance. Who knows what's going to happen? It's the fighting season. Chances harm. Chances are I'm gonna get to shoot my. My weapon in anger. Right. But I'm there. So a little bit of that was like a check in the box for the first time. Right. Where I actually could take a breath and say, okay, I made it here now. Yep. And then we start kind of learning about what that mission is going to be. You know, once you get there, you get divvied up amongst the Hellman River Valley, and you get your assignment on where. Which VSP site you're going to go to.

Where were you at?

Yeah, so we were in the Helman, but I was at the northern most part of the Hellman near last, near the Kajaki Dam, where the Kajaki Lake is. So it's like kind of the forward line of troops there for the Hellman River Valley.

Gotcha. What year is this?

It's 2013.

Was that when the big push was.

Happening down there with the Marine corps? That was 2010. That was 20. 2010 was the. The height of that push where they're kind of reclaiming it where the Brits had been managing. And I'm sure they did a good job, but there's a lot of work to be done. And. Yeah, so that big push between Marja Sangin 2010 was a lot of casualties. But that's the pretty iconic one, the one they'll probably have in history books.

Okay.

Yeah.

Right on. So you're down in Helmand.

Yeah. Not a.

A great place to be, if that's what you want.

Oh, yeah.

That's what you want to do.

No better place for the Marine Corps than Hellman River Valley, I'll tell you that.

How was. What was the mission?

So we were doing kind of as a quasi SF model.

Okay.

Which I was a little bit irritated about initially. Right. Because people are. There's not much about the heart, you know, by, with, and through in the hearts and minds thing that resonated with Marine Corps mentality and just, you know, with. With doing the work. But. But that's what we were doing. So we're doing village stability ops, where essentially there'd be a contested area and a team of commandos, right. Partnered with, you know, a coalition force, would go in, and they'd fight anywhere between 72 and 96 hours to create a bubble. And then once they create that bubble, they'll start creating Afghan local police, start building up the militia, start putting outposts. And then your job, like, after that, a team would come in and manage that post, and their job would be to keep pushing that bubble out over the course of that deployment. So we fell into a region in the north that was kind of a pretty tricky situation because that was the rat lines from the other provinces into the Helmand River Valley. Right. So there's a pretty nasty place called Zimindowar there, which was. Had a bazaar. I think it's called the Gander Marie's Bazaar, where that's where they would do buy all their RPGs, buy all their stuff, and then push deep down into Lashkarga Singh and Marja and start whooping it on.

And our job was to hold that region down.

Right on. Yeah, right on. How fast did you guys get into it?

Yeah, very quickly, we became the target of a pretty proficient mortar team. So very quickly, you know, as we're doing our left and right seat, actually, I did my left and right seat with Cody Alford.

What? Yeah, you know Cody, too?

Cody.

Well, yeah, dude, I love that. I love that, dude. Yeah, I love that.

I ripped out with him. No, his team was holding that area down. And I showed up, and I'm like, what up, Cody? And then he's like, here's the deal, dog.

It's a good to be at war with.

That's for damn sure, homie. There's. Yeah, he is everything he says he is. He's the man dude. Yep.

That's awesome. I love that dude.

Me too.

And prime too.

Yeah.

But man, you were with some good people.

Oh, yeah.

What was Cody like back then?

He's a maniac.

Was he.

He's. Dude, everything he says he was, he was. He's not. I mean he's obviously, he's. He's an integrated warrior now and God bless, thank God. But when he was in, he was. He was a fighting machine. He eats, slept and breathed this stuff. He was a consummate professional. But he would tell people what he thought. He didn't bite his tongue. He was who he was. He was good at what he did because he, he stayed true to it and he stood on it. Yeah, but it didn't matter if you're an officer. It didn't matter who you were. Like if Cody Offer was there and he had opinion about what it was, nine times out of 10 he was right. And two, he made sure that everybody knew it. He's a gangster dude.

Yeah.

Did you.

Would you was. So he was.

He.

He was like a senior guy when you showed up?

Yeah, he's already. I think if he wasn't, he might have been a master sergeant already. He might have been a gunny. I don't remember if he wasn't a gunny yet. He was a. I'm a master sergeant. He was a master sergeant right after that.

Damn.

Yeah. But it was him and a captain running that team and it was. Yeah, it was kind of crazy.

What a badass. Yeah, what a badass. Oh, yeah. What was the living conditions like?

Yeah, so we, we were sandwiched in between. So there was a Marine Corps company that was up there, like a conventional force company, but they were locked down. So the ROES right now is like a very. It's kind of weird. It was really tricky. But they were risk adverse at this time, so they weren't letting the Marines do pretty much anything. So we had like a company of Marines north of us, but they bordered our camp. And then in between them was our camp. So we had a MSOT 8123. And then we had an ANSOFT team with us too. An ASF team of commandos with us. And then next to us we had an Afghan national army camp, which was kind of terrifying, man. Be honest with you. I was more worried about what was on the other side of Hesco than. Than the Taliban because it was just another. It was probably a company of Afghan national army. And they were always squirrely, always just doing weird Stuff and it was just, you know, and plus, with all the green on blue type stuff happening, and we had so many MARSOC guys die from their partneration forces turning on them.

It was. There's high anxiety, man. There's high anxiety. Like you just had to keep your head on a swivel and you knew that no matter what, it wasn't safe.

Yeah, yeah. So what was the. What was the. What was the op tempo?

Yeah, the op tempo was a little bit slower. Right. Because, you know, the CJ soda and the soda was like really risk adverse at this time. I think there was kind of thoughts that we're going to start d mailing and pulling out and the idea of like stacking a bunch of, you know, casualties probably wasn't high on their priority list. But luckily for us, the Taliban didn't care what the soda thought. Right. So, you know, a lot of times we were prepping for ops, and then for whatever reason they would, they would try to decline it. So we'd have to get very creative on how we were able to accomplish the mission, which was cool for me to get to see, you know, kind of working some of the special activity stuff. It started opening up a whole nother realm of how to get. Get the job done that I wasn't aware of, which actually served me greater as I moved forward. Forward in my experience.

Find another way.

Oh, yeah. And we did. Yep. And I was very impressed that about how well it worked. Yeah.

Let's talk about your very first real world operation. What was it?

Yeah.

So a lot of Afghanistan.

Yeah. A lot of what we're doing was a lot of key leader engagement stuff. Right. So if it wasn't the soda kind of pulling the brakes on us, it was. It was just the locals not doing what we asked them to do. So we had a. We had a town next to us called Machukel, and it was like a little hot town, and that's where the mortar teams were coming from. So our main goal that deployment was to push in there and kind of rid that area of Taliban activity. And one of our first missions was to push in there and kind of do a probing mission. Luckily for me, I was on overwatch this mission. But as we started pushing in, we realized one, there's IDs everywhere, and two, they were ready. So just like we had been watching them for the first is probably about a month, month and a half before we start kind of doing our own thing. They were watching us very quickly. As the other element starts bounding in, they start taking RPGs. Right. And we start realizing that if we push in any further, it's going to be problematic.

And then as we're reporting up, they're pretty much calling us, telling us to stop, and we kind of had to back off of that. Right. So that was the first time we started pushing in, started noticing that things were real. Right. Started taking fire and then taking RPG blast, things like that.

You were. Or your.

Your partner. Our team was.

Your team was.

Yep. So we're partnered up. We had a. We had a. A team of an ASF that were posthum as well. Right. So posthumes are real heavy in the Helmand River Valley, which became a challenge for us as well, realizing that we had a partner nation force that had no intentions of killing their people at all. Right. Which became very tricky.

Right.

Where we would try to get them to kind of push forward and do things, and they just wouldn't do it. They're very rebellious, pretty much, you know, putting their foot down, and they were going to do what they wanted to do, and they wouldn't listen at all. Which started kind of raising the hair on the back of our necks. We're like, this isn't good.

Right? Yeah. No, kid.

It's a very bad situation. And it just ended up getting so bad that we ended up kicking them off of our camp.

Holy. Okay, so right off the bat, you're getting real world ops. You're getting lit up by machine gun fire and RPGs. You can't get to them, your partner forces, and doing what you're wanting them to do. You're worried about them turning on you. And there's a. Not a great dynamic.

Yeah.

Here.

Yeah. It got tricky and it got complex. Right. And each time, every time we leave the wire, we'd come back and we'd have to circle up because they started getting sketchier and sketchier, man. They started getting sketchier and sketchier. We started arguing with them on ops and stuff because they wouldn't do what we're asking them to do. They would shoot people that didn't need to be shot. Essentially. There's a situation within our area where they ended up shooting a disabled person. And that ended up being kind of the line in the sand where we're like, hey, dude, you guys are. You're out of control. You don't listen. We start rogering up to their can DAC and letting them know, like, hey, you got to get these guys off our camp. And the next thing I know, Sean, they start carrying their guns to the chow hall, the posture changed on the camp to the point where we're like, they're going tomorrow. Right. Don't let them know. But we're like, we're sending a bird in and they're. They're getting off our camp tomorrow because it just got so sketchy.

Holy shit. How fast did this happen?

This was in probably the first two months we were there.

Was there any. I mean, was there any talk about this during the turnover?

Not really. They. They got along well with Cody's team commander, but his team commander was a unique guy. And I'm not, obviously wouldn't say anything about him, but let's just say him and Cody didn't see eye to eye. And that was pretty much once we showed up and we weren't willing to do the same things that he was willing to do, which has essentially been the knee to those guys. It became. There was conflict immediately. Did they get him out of there, the team commander?

Yeah. I mean, when you. When you called in a bird.

Oh, sorry. For the anasf. Yeah, they did.

Yeah.

Thankfully, they took. They took it seriously. Yep. And very quickly, they were out the next day.

So hold on. So what the. What happens to the mission when the partner force is gone?

Yeah, you gotta wait. Yep. You gotta wait. Everything's put on hold because especially the rules at this time is that you weren't doing any solo ops. Right. You had to do everything by, with and through, technically and without that component or that, you know, capability. Yeah, all ops are off outside of key leader engagements. The basics that you have to do in and out. But yeah, any operational type, things are going to be stopped until you get another partner nation force.

And they just left?

Oh, yeah.

They wanted to leave.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. It was going to be problematic.

Well, I think we've established that.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, how long are your guys's deployments?

Six months.

Usually six. And this happens right at the very beginning?

Yeah, I mean, how.

How many. How many people are in this partner force?

Yeah, so it's probably. It's probably around like 15 to 20 people at least, maybe.

Well, that's actually a lot smaller. I thought we were talking hundreds, to be honest.

No, no, no, not this. On the other side of the fence, there was. There was hundreds. Kids.

Right.

But for our organic team, it was like a. It mirrors a nimsot.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah. I was actually. I don't know if I should share this story, but we're here. Right, But I was in charge of the interpreters, so I was kind of the TERP manager. And, you know, I wasn't too sure right now. Like, things got really bad where people, like, pretty much drawing down guns on each other between us and the A N. ASF and they told me. They said, steve, you got to vet the interpreters. I was like, okay, because they live on our camp, too. So I circled them up, and I was like, this is. This is kind of crazy. But I set them down, and I was like, hey, I need to know that you're not on their side. And they're like, no, sir, we're not. We're not. We're not on their side. I was like, well, I really need to trust you, and I don't trust you. Right. Because you guys just let this get weird. Right. You knew that these guys. You hear what they're talking about, and you didn't come to us. Right. And I can't say that I trust you. Right. And I don't trust. Like, we don't have any room for no trust on this camp.

Yeah. They're the only in between. They're the only communication in between the two units. And if they didn't articulate, they. They let the situation develop to that.

Oh, yeah, they knew. And they're going there, and they're smoking hash with them every night. They're. They're good old buddies. Right.

So what did that do to operations, then for the rest of the deployment?

Yeah. So we got another team. Yep. So very quickly, they knew there's no point in us being up there, and they got us a team pretty quick. The new team that we got were Tajiks, so they're from Tajikistan, so they had, like, Mongolian blood in them. And these guys wanted war, and the Tajiks at the time hated the Pashtuns, so they were happy to be in the helmet, and they were ready. They had no qualms about whooping it on. So then from there, it became us, like. Like, things are starting to get out of control in a better way. Oh, yeah. So now we're like. Like, having to pull the reins back on them because we. We try to write something up to go outside the wire, and the soda's like, no. And they're like, we're going. And they would go. And we're like, oh. We're like, go play. And they. Dude, they started whooping it on. They were there within a week. They were already over in Machica whooping it on. Like, we had to sit back on that one and watch because the soda wasn't going to let Us push with them, but, like, it started shaping things in a big way, and they'd come back and they were happy as can be.

Yep. And the whole game started changing. Right.

Let'S talk about the first operation that you went on with the new. With the new force that got kinetic.

Yeah. Well, that was going to be back pushing back into Machu Kill. Right. So pushing back into that region where last time we kind of got stopped short with RPGs and things like that. We pushed up to a very similar spot to where we were before as the four line of troops, but they actually pushed in. So as they pushed in, they start shaping the battlefield and pushing everybody else out to the side. They were kind of on containment on the backside, and just dudes were squirting out the back trying to get back to the gain of Marie's Bazaar and some men Noir and all those areas, and they just went in and just started death blossoming and just really whooping it on. But that was the first time when we pushed out with them where we realized, like, oh, this team's different. Like, this is going to be a different. A totally different six months from here on out.

How did that feel for you guys?

It was good. It was very good, and we're happy. But also it raised red flags at the soda. So now they're like, oh, now we got to watch that team. Right. This team's thinking they're going to be out there fighting this war, trying to win this war. Like, how dare them, like, try to go out there and do what we brought them here to do. So it kind of tightened things up a little bit more on us, which is why we had to get more strategic with how we, like, kind of. Yeah.

So what were you guys doing? How did you get strategic to get the ops?

Yeah, was just small things, like the special activity side of the house. Right. Really building alliances within the community, really figuring out who is on our side, not on our side, and employing people outside of maybe our organic team to get things done.

Nice.

Right. There were people out there like they were tired of it. Right. The Taliban had been ravaging that area for quite some time, and it didn't take long for us to start finding some key players in the area, and they were willing to do some really cool stuff for us.

I mean, what kind of key players are you talking about? Are you talking about key players within the special operations community? You're talking about key players within the Afghan community that are. That are going to allow operations to happen in their backyard?

Yeah. Within the local nation populace. Yep. People where you wouldn't. We would do little things like, like a humanitarian aid thing where we'd go and hand out backpacks. There's a little area called the Garmob curve that was very, very dangerous. Right. It was just kind of a choke point in, in the road heading south towards Hellman. And anyone that kind of got, you know, all these big trucks, supply trucks would have to do multi turn maneuvers to get through there and they would just get lit up all the time. So we go down and hand out backpacks in the area, right. To just to do present patrols. We want to whoop it on. So we're just being a bit provocative as well. We're like, hey, we're here. Hang out backpacks, like what's up now?

Right.

You want to pick on the army and the route clearance teams, like what you got? Right. But while we were down there, we'd start engaging with the population. And me as a corpsman, which also had some extra training, you know, the special activities training that I got to do when I was there, I'd pull people aside and start talking to them. You know, they'd come up with a rash or something and I'd started interviewing them. I'm like, what do you do? And they're like, well, I'm the secretary for the, the district governor. It's like, oh, that's interesting. Right? It's like, I'm more than happy to give you whatever you need. But we would start finding people that way, right. And within that, we'd start finding people that were, you know, sympathizers for what we were doing. They were kind of tired of it. Maybe their brother in law or somebody rolled over an IED and they were pissed off about it. And we'd start finding people that were. They were hungry and they wanted to help. So even though we couldn't be as kinetic as we wanted to be at times, we maximize that time to find sympathizers and start kind of working them towards getting some of the stuff done that we needed from them.

So you guys are probably also gathering quite a bit of intelligence. Yeah, do this too.

Yeah, that. That actually became a big shift. So as. As like the leadership in the region started to tighten down things for us, we just shifted focus towards more of an intelligence type side of the house.

Right on, man.

Yep.

How hairy did it get on this deployment?

Yeah, it. I mean, honestly, I felt fine the majority of the time. Like the scariest parts I had was just, you know, having to deal With a partner. Partner nation, force. But I never really felt too scared. Right. A lot of the work that we were doing was at distance. Right. So I never really felt like, you know, I wasn't, you know, engaging people five feet away or anything like that. It felt pretty predictable and pretty controllable for most of the time.

What was it like coming home from that deployment? You're married now.

Yeah.

With a. With a. With a kid.

Yeah. So I'm married with a kid. And I came back, and I was. You know, I was. I was different, man. I was different.

What changed you?

I think it was just. It was. I think it was the high stress, to be honest with you. You know, I say it kind of like it was fine, but day in and day out, I think that was the biggest part was the stress. It was the. Just the stress and not being able to sleep well at night. Right. Just dealing with the bureaucracy. Right. Added another level of stress where it's like, we know exactly what we need to do, and if you just let us do it, things will work. But then they're. They're just making. You know how it is. They're making policies from higher that don't make sense of the ground force, and it just puts a lot of pressure on you. And I think just kind of coming back from that, that's where like, the insomnia stuff started to happen. You know, having the warrior dreams that we like to say.

Right.

And things like that. And then that's when I think I probably just started hitting the bottle more than I ever had at that point.

Did you take any losses on this deployment?

Yeah, we did not. So our team did not.

So this is kind of. If. Let me. If. If you don't mind what I'm receiving from you. Good deployment. Not terribly kinetic. Most of the kinetic stuff was with the partner force. A lot of paranoia from the previous partner force. So you got to see some shit, but not a. Not a whole lot.

Yeah.

And just enough to give you a taste.

Yeah.

Okay.

Enough to kind of see what it is. I felt like I checked the box. In a lot of ways, it was good enough. It's always hard to kind of ride the coattails of the Fallujah guys and all this stuff, but, you know, I felt like I was there. Yeah. We got to whoop it on a few good times. And, you know, I got to do some. Got to check the medical box, too. I got to do a crike.

You did. Okay. So you did. You were in combat.

Yeah.

You were in combat or you were? Yeah, for sure.

Yeah. So one of the trips down to the Garmoff curve that I was telling you about, we received some fire and a guy ended up getting shot in the head on one of the partner Nation force guys. So we had to evacuate him off that the X essentially there we bring him back up to our site where we had a battalion aid station. And I went in there and we had to patch him up so we could get a bird in. And in that I got to do a cricothyroidotomy on him, which for this sounds kind of morbid and crazy, but for a medic that's like hard to come by, right?

You guys are always up.

Yeah.

Establish that right now.

Well, it's like, yeah, like you come from 18 Delta and you learn all these things and it's like, like you kind of want to do them. Right. So I was, I was very fortunate. Right. He's. He's had an uptunded airway and he was an obstructed airway and he was not able to breathe. So I was able to do a crike, work that whole process with him and get him evacuated. Then we had some other casualties as well. And I think probably to answer your question of what you just asked, the parts that changed me were these things, right? Wasn't the kinetic stuff, it was the medical stuff.

Okay.

You know, we were doing a mission one day we were pushing down to the district governor and we're kind of had our guns facing Machakel that area and I see these guys out there digging and we already know what that means, right? They're digging in ied they're putting it on the route going in and you know, with anticipation that we're going to move from this, this meat site to push in. And I see it and I end up pulling out my binoculars and I'm on the roof of the guy. Actually on this deployment too, I carried a Mark 48. So I carried the Mark 48 machine gun in a med bag, which is a little non conventional. But I'm up on the roof and I see him and actually Jake was there too, from singing. And I look through and I see these guys digging and I realize it's some kids. So I'm like, all right, we're not going to engage these kids. We're just not going to go that direction. If we do, we're just not going to go right there where I see it. So just marked it. All right, cool. That's where the ID is.

But after the meeting we Said, now we're going to head back to camp. So we ended up pushing back from that meat site back to the camp. And it's probably like, probably 45 minutes to an hour later, we hear an explosion. So I'm actually working out and I hear this explosion and I'm like, huh, that's interesting. And next thing I know, we start getting calls, right? A few minutes later after that, they bring that kid. So what happened was the Taliban said, okay, they didn't go that direction. Go get our IED now. So he sent that same kid, it was like a 10 year old and maybe like a 7 year old back out there to dig up the IED. And when they did, it turned the older kid to spaghetti sauce. And the other kid that was next to him, his little brother, took a lot of. A lot of shrapnel, was injured. So they end up bringing both of them to us, once in a wheelbarrow, and the other one's still alive. So we end up getting to take the kid in. So as we take the kid in, we start patching them up.

He had some sucking chest wounds and things like that. Me and Chris, my a slasher, just rocking and rolling on it, business as usual and. But the kid's suffering pretty badly. So this was actually the first time I got to use ketamine as an anesthetic to start working with him and give him the ketamine, start patching him up. He's really mangled and he starts kind of snoring. He's like in a decent spot. So I was like, wow, that worked better than I imagined, right? My first time pushing ketamine. But then what? Next thing I know, I hear my team captain talking to the dad, right? And the dad was yelling at us, demanding money from us, right? Demanding money that we pay him because his son got injured. And I remember I lost it, Sean. I lost it. I walked away from his son. I went out there and grabbed the dude and sent him. I was like, this is your fault. Like, you did this to him, right? Because a little bit of memes like, here's these adults put. Another kid got hurt because of some piece of crap adult, right? And you want to talk about money and you.

That's what you're thinking. You want to try and get money off of this, right? So I end up screaming at this guy. The team captain's like grabbing me, and I'm like, get him out of here. Get your son and get out of here, right? We ended up calling in a bird for the Kid, it wasn't his fault. But that's like a little bit of that, dude, where it's just started to kill me a little bit inside. Started to get a little bit numb about what we were doing and just the consequences of war, to be honest with you. Where I was like, dude, what are we doing here? Like, this is crazy.

Yeah. What was it that made you think, what are we doing here?

Just seeing the civilian impact, right. That would become a theme as I made, you know, more trips back to Afghanistan. It's like just. It was hard to ignore that part, right? It's hard to ignore the. Just seeing the suffering, man, seeing the little kids, seeing the, the, you know, tough living conditions. And I'm not saying they're better now that we're gone, but I knew it was hard for me to not that acknowledge that I was participating in something that was hurting a lot of people. No matter how good we tried to spin it, there's a lot of people that suffered because of it.

Yeah, I'm with him. I'm with you. Did you have to take any life on that deployment?

Yeah, I was, it wasn't. I, I didn't until we started moving south. So I was, I was in the lucky, but I would call it unlucky group that my element seemed to be the, the, the white cloud and the other element was the dark cloud. So everywhere they went, they started, you know, they always drew fire and always to just be the guy doing overwatch or whatever it may be for the majority of it. But as we were pushing south, so we started this initiative at the end where they said, you know what, we're actually just going to start demilling the Helman River Valley. And we were at the very north part. So our job was to start d milling the site, right, Getting accountability of everything and start tearing things down. And we're going to turn it over to the Afghans. So as part of that process, we had to kind of push our way down and we were like this, providing the security bubble. As we demoed down and we'd hit each VSP site, they email their stuff and they'd hop in. We just started this slow multi day caravan through the Helmand River Valley, hitting all these different sites, picking them up.

And as we started reaching, heading down south, we got past that garmob curb down in Upper Singing. They started noticing, they started rogering up, letting the Taliban know we were on the move. This is. We're growing a bigger caravan by the day. So it was like a great target for Them. And along that journey. Yeah, we started getting ambushed and that's when I first got to, to, you know, engage some guys and take them out.

Do you want to describe that?

Yeah. I mean, it's not the craziest sexy stuff. Right. But it was just, you know, it's the first one. Yeah. And we're kind of pushing through and, you know, the IED threat's huge. So that's our biggest fear, is that we're trying to move through and we're doing at a Snell's pace because none of that stuff moves fast as you know, and it's like you're kind of just sitting and waiting and everywhere you looks like potential boogeyman. Right. You're an Indian country and it's like everyone's around you and we're just kind of creeping through. And I remember we're kind of sitting there. I'm trying to stay. Stay awake. Right. I'm on the. The mark 19, which is a grenade launcher. And I'm kind of sitting there and next thing I know, the vehicle in front of us, which was actually an a, A vehicle starts getting lit up. And at first I was a little bit confused about what's going on. I'm like, are they test firing their guns? Like, why would they test fire their guns right here in the city? Right. It was like actually a built up area. And then I realized I'm like, oh, that's incoming.

That's not outgoing. So I swivel the mark 19 off to the side and I see the guys there, right. They're probably about 20 yards away and they're aiming their guns at us. Now they have rockets and I just light them up with a mark 19. And just immediately they were just neutralized, I was say. And it was. That was kind of the end of that right there.

How did that feel?

I mean, exciting. Yeah. To be honest with you, it was exciting, Accomplished. Yeah. As morbid as it sounds. Yeah, it did. It's like, okay, like I got. I checked that box and then it was back to business. We didn't even stick around for probably even a minute after that. Just like the wheels start moving, vehicles are still up and running. A lot of the bulletproof glass and stuff was shattered and but we just worked around it and it was like we just kept pushing, right?

Yeah.

Yep. We didn't know if that there was going to be many more after that or, or none. So I just kept. Stayed locked in and kept pushing south.

Right on, man.

Yeah.

Was the crike your first call As a medic.

No, it wasn't. But it was the first real, like. Yeah, real gunshot wound victim in country. Yeah, there's all smaller things like, you know, every. Everyone or everyone's always acting weird. Falling downstairs is like just the basic life on a camp with a team. Every time you turn around, someone kicked a. Stuck their hand in a fan and got their finger cut or whatever, you know. So we stayed pretty busy with the routine day in and day out stuff. Then also the. The grunts would call us up, so whenever they'd have casualties, they'd hit up me and Chris and we'd go up there and help them out. And then the A A were always pulling in casualties too, so any reps I could get, I try to stay busy with that stuff.

Damn. Yeah. How did the.

How do.

I mean, for the first big one, for the first combat casualty, I mean, how do you. What was the pressure like on you?

It was business, man. It was business. It was all into his. Every bit of the training, man. I'm telling you, 18 Delta does such a good job. Such a good job that it was almost like I was on autopilot. Right. The things that we needed to do. And I'm telling you, I can't say enough great things about Chris. Like my A slash medic, was it? Probably the best medic I've ever worked with. I was. I was at HM1 by then. I was at E6 and he was like an E5. But, dude, I leaned heavy on him and he was. He was locked in, dude. Very, very gifted in this space.

Right on.

Yep. So I never felt like it was. We could have done anything. We could have done total IV anesthesia and chop someone's leg off. I mean, do you. Do you.

Did you feel that, you know, after your. After your. Your first. Your first call as a medic in combat, your first kill in combat? I mean, did. Do you feel. Especially the medic part, I mean, and cranking somebody, I mean, do you feel that? Did you feel accepted? Did you feel that you had proven yourself, you belong there? That. Does that make any sense?

Yeah, it does. Yeah. And I did. I did. And I knew how hard. It's hard to come by. Right. And it's even harder these days. Right. So I felt grateful for that. So I say it sounds a little bit morbid, but I was, man. I did. I did feel accomplished. I was grateful for the opportunities to actually do what I went to school for. I think that's something that maybe people that haven't joined the military Special operations might not understand is that there is a lot of that if you, you can be in for 20 years and never get to go to the show. Right. And I think I know some of my friends that just had bad timing. It's like it, it's some stuff to overcome. Yeah.

Were you ever in country with your brother at the same time?

No, I wasn't. Yeah, he ended up doing that one deployment in 2008 where he got blown up really bad. And because of that, they ended up med discharging them from the Marine Corps.

Okay.

Yeah. When I was at 18 Delta, actually, I started getting the phone calls from Mitch where he would call me and he was like, hey, dude, I'm forgetting everything. I'm getting nosebleeds non stop in the Marine Corps. Stuck me in the, in the post office. So they're calling me a turd. They're telling me I suck and they don't know what to do with me, and they're, they're sticking me in the post office and I'm losing my mind because I don't know what's wrong with me and they don't care and they're telling me I suck. And I remember talking to him, I was actually telling my buddy Leo and One of the 18 Delta instructors, Old cat guy, old salty cat guy, he's like, hey, hey, come here. I was like, yes, sir. He's like, you get that boy some help. He's like, because my son was a ranger and he experienced everything I just told, I heard you say, and he ended up killing himself. He's like, so you get that boy some help? I was like, yes, sir. So then I started kind of coaching Mitch through that. In between, I was like, hey, this is what you got to do.

Do you have a cool doc? Like, who's your cool document? He's like, so? And so I'm like, go meet up with him. This is what you need to tell him.

Right?

You need to start documenting this stuff, Mitch. It's not going to get better for you. Because this is 2008. Like, they knew I, like, they're starting to understand TBI, but they didn't know what to do about it. And Marine Corps does what they do and they just ostracized them instead of like trying to help them. So I walked him through that med board process and he ended up getting med retired and, you know, kind of becoming a civilian after that. Yeah.

How did you meet your wife?

Yeah. The quintessential young military story, man. I, I tender. No, no, there's no Tinder back then, but better than Tinder. Core school. Right on.

Yeah.

Very similar to Tinder, but it was core school. Yeah, dude. We were in a class. We were in class together, and I remember she's a little Latina girl, and I was a. I was a trailer park kid from Alabama, and I was like, I'm interested about these Latina things. What's going on here? We don't have too many of you where I come from. Yeah.

This is an interesting creature.

Oh, yeah. Yep. She would always harass me because everyone else is kind of studying and stuff, and I'm like, reading Navy. I was reading Rogue Warrior by Dick Marcinko and, like, just not paying attention. And she would give me hell about it. She's like, are you gonna study or, like, what are you gonna do? I'm like. And the next day, I know she start giving me gifts. Like, she's like, here's a banana. You look hungry. I'm like, oh, thanks. So she's like, feed me. And she would even go take the test before us, before me, and come back and start highlighting things in my book. And I was like, no. Yeah, man. So nice. Yep. We didn't even really start dating then in core school, but we became. We grow fond of each other. We'd find reasons to go to the. The PX or whatever, go grocery shopping or whatever it may be, and, like, we just started to build a little bit of a relationship. Then she ended up becoming. She was a dental tech, and she got stationed out in San Diego. And then she hit me up. I was out at first recon, and then it was.

It was all she wrote from there. I think we were married six months after that, man.

No.

Yeah. We started looking at the money we're making. Nothing. You know, it is like, you're not making anyone live off base. Yep.

That's cool, man.

Yeah.

Are you still married?

18 years, man.

Congratulations.

Best friend. The love of my life, dude. I owe my life to her. Yeah.

What is. How many kids do you have?

We have two kids now. Yeah.

Two kids. Yeah. What's the secret to a successful marriage, dude?

Just not quitting. It's like anything hard. If you just don't quit, you can make it right, no matter what it is. She's had to endure a lot with me, but she just won't quit because she's first generation Mexican. Hard as they come. So loyal, and just really has a capacity to endure. And, you know, I think if you just don't quit, you can work through it if you want to. Right. No matter what it is.

Good for you, man. Yeah, good for you. Thanks for sharing that. So you said when you got home from your first deployment, that's kind of when the drinking started. Sounds like some PTSD stuff was happening. What. What was going on specifically?

Yeah, man. I just started to kind of, like, lose myself in that process right where I started to, like. It started to become my identity. Like, this. What I'm doing wasn't just a job. It wasn't just me, like, trying to, like, show that I'm good enough, but I'd already done it, and now it's just, like. It almost started to consume me a little bit, man, to be honest with you. Started to lose my mind in it and just becoming less present at home, more numb. Just really started to realize that I was more comfortable with my team and, like, doing workups and going on deployment than I was at home, and I really started to just stop putting a lot of effort into that.

How old's your son at this time?

Yeah, he's probably at marsoc. He was probably three.

Three years old?

Yeah. Even I started to notice that, man. I'd come home, and he'd be like, why is daddy here again? And I'm like, whoa, little homie. And then I hear him saying stuff to my mom, my wife. He's like, when's dad gonna leave? Because, you know, it's better when it's just us. You heard that? Yeah, I heard that. And I would just get angry at. Back then. I would get angry. I'm like, dude, what the hell? I'm like, what are you telling him? She's like, he just misses you. She's like, we were at a wishing well the other day, and he threw a coin in, and he wished that you didn't have to deploy anymore, right? That you could be home. She's like, this is taking a toll on him, Steve. And it wasn't just, like, the deployments. It was just the dad that he had to deal with, man. I was just, like, numb. Numb than ever, man. Number than ever. Colder than ever. And I just, like, leaned in to the. That Marine Corps way of life. Like, that was easier for me, and the anger was there, and it was just like. Yeah, it was.

It was tough on everybody around me, I'm sure.

Damn. Steve.

Yeah?

Were you having thoughts about your relationship with your own dad when this is happening?

Yeah, man.

Simultaneously.

Yeah, dude. Because deep down inside, I was like, I don't even know how to be a dad, dude. I Never had a dad. The only guys that ever tried to play that role just beat me. And it's like deep down inside, I was the greatest insecurity. I had insecurity about being an operator, but my greatest insecurities like, how am I gonna be a dad? How am I going to show up for this little boy knowing that I was broke and knowing that I had a skeleton of closets that was falling out by the day, and that was almost more overwhelming than anything was that fear that I was going to mess him up too and that I was turning into my dad.

Damn.

Yeah, dude.

And I would imagine it just gets worse after each deployment.

Yeah. Just each time just coming back a shell of myself.

Were you and the wife good at the time?

No, man, no.

After. After the second deployment to Afghanistan.

Yeah. No. She's like, we're having issues, dude. We're having issues. Right. I'm just.

Is she still in?

No, she got out right after my son, so she didn't. I don't think she knew what she was signing up for in the Navy. They're like, you have to do watch. She's like, what? Like, you have to do watch. It's like a basic function. And she's like, I didn't sign up to do watch. Like, I don't get to just go home every day. So that was one of the first things, dude. And then second was, you know, she'd have to get up at 4 in the morning and bring my son to the on base care, and she'd have to drop this baby off at the daycare with strangers to go in and do her job cleaning teeth for the recruits. And she's like, steve, I'm not going to do this. Right. Like, I'm not leaving my baby no more. She's like, we'll figure it out. It's like all the eggs are in your basket. But I'm gonna raise our kid. Especially if you're gonna be deploying the way you are, like not letting some strangers on base.

Yeah.

You know, take care of our son while I'm doing standing in a square for no reason.

It's a good mom.

Yeah, yeah. She's a good woman.

We're second deployment.

Yeah, second deployment. So I come back from there and I end up going to a freefall team. Right. Which I think probably wouldn't have been the case, but I almost died in a free fall jump. Yeah. So I come from back from that deployment and we had a scheduled jump on base and it was from a Huey and I was like, oh, I never jumped out of a Huey. I'm like, let's go. Yeah, I want it. So I jumped on that manifest, and I remember my buddy whose old team chief was the jump master. So I asked him, I was like, hey, Kaz, I'm like, how do. How can we exit this bird? He's like, exit smartly, Steve. He's like, I'm not gonna. I was like, all right, roger that, cat. You don't have to say nothing else. I was like, he's like, just exit smartly. I was like, okay. So in my head, I'm like, I'm doing 10 front flip side of this Huey. Yep. So we were, we're there on Camp Pendleton at this pretty iconic DZ called DZ Bazalone. And we go up and we get up to the top. I was one of the last ones out.

He was following me out and he slaps me on the back and I jump out and I do my flips. And then as I'm flying down, it's probably not too high, you know, it's probably less than 10 grand. So there's not a lot of free fall time. Right? It's like a hop and pop, essentially. As I go into my opening sequence, Sean, I go to throw, because we do hand employed pilot shoot with a Marine Corps rig. I go to throw it out and I feel something hit me on the back. So as I throw out the pilot chute, something hits me on the back and I go into a side with sideways spin. As I kind of get my bearing, I look up and I see that my parachute won't snivel, so it's just like a squid at the top. And the slider won't come down. And I see something's like wrapped around the right set of main risers, which I thought was the pilot chute. So instead of cutting away, I start climbing the risers. So I'm seeing the ground rushes that's coming. I'm climbing these risers and I'm shaking on it with all my life.

I'm like, oh, like, trying to get it to come loose. And finally, on my last few tugs, the slider slides down and it pops. And I got two turns before I smash into the side of the peak. So there's a pretty high peak there, the margarita peak. And I'm on the backside, thank God. And I just kind of burn in, come sliding down this thing. And as I finally come to a stop one, I'm like shaking. I'm like, oh, that was a rush. Right. And two, as I start pulling in my shoot, I realized that there's a bag locked parachute there wrapped around the right set of main risers. And I was like, oh. And right about that moment where I saw that the DZ crews running out, like, don't touch anything. You know how they are. There's an investigation. Don't touch anything. Like, stop. So they come up, and I realized what had happened, that my cypress had fired, and it shot my reserve into my deploying main, and it had bag locked up in there. So if I would have cut away from my parachute, I would have died, right? Yep. So they do the investigation, and I write down.

So I have to write down. And me being the dummy that I am, I wrote that I did flip side of the helicopter. So they keyed in on that. On my statement. Like, you jumped out of that helicopter and did flips? I'm like, yeah, it's a Huey, bro. Like, who wouldn't, you know? And they're like, well, you're reckless, and we believe that you lost altitude awareness and that's why you had a dual deployment. I was like, hey, well, fair enough. Like, I did do flips, but I was watching my altimeter and all. Like, if I was that honest about me jumping out of the bird the way I did, then you have to trust me that something weird happened. And I said, you know what? Like, we're going to send this Cyprus off, but the chances that it was a Cypress malfunction is almost impossible. And, you know, if it comes back that you. You were a late pull, there's going to be disciplinary action. Right. They're going to NJP me. It could be anything. Right? So we wait the time, and it comes back that they. They said one of two things happened. They said either the cypress malfunctioned or the barometric pressure settings they gave us were incorrect.

So I'm standing there with my chief, and I'm standing there with a parallel off. I was like, which one was it, guys? Like, it was a Cypress misfire. It's like, roger that. But as part of that, they're like, you're going on a freefall team for remediation. So I went on a free fall.

Yeah. Damn, dude.

Yeah, yeah. Which is actually more stressful than the combat deployment, Dude. Hey, ho jumps were just. They stressed me out, man.

I've never done one.

I hated every minute of it.

Damn. Damn. So how long were you on the free fall team?

Yeah, it's probably a year and a half there. We ended up going and Doing some work in New Zealand, kind of south Philippines. Went down there and worked in the south Philippines with a Filipino national. Special action forces, like their FBI kind of working. There's some Islamic terrorist groups down in southeast Philippines that we're kind of trying to help support.

Right on.

Yeah.

Third deployment. Did you do three?

This was four.

Excuse.

The third? Yeah. Another one after that, the fourth one. So across after that, I ended up picking up chief petty officer. So I picked up chief petty officer. I was moved from a team to the company level now. So this is my first time kind of getting pulled away from the team. And now I'm sitting there at the, you know, almost the executive level now, and I'm sitting in meetings all day long, and we're just dealing with the bureaucracy, getting ready to push guys out to paycom. We're doing a task force in Guam. And this is when I started, like, some of the other mental health stuff started to come up. Right. The first time. I'm not part of the homies, and they're going out and doing stuff, and I'm stuck back with the. The command element, you know, trying to manage everybody where they're at their different sites. But it's just like. That's when alcohol started becoming a big issue for me. Yep. You start not to be able to trust the people. You're used to being with your boys, and now you're with, you know, a lot of officers and things like that that you can't quite trust.

And it just started to wear me out really bad.

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It's. It's falling apart.

Getting worse. Still still one or you got two now?

Two kids? Yeah, no, still one. Kid at this point. Yeah. I mean, Sean, I was begging her to divorce me, man. I was begging her. I was. I just burned it at both ends so hard.

All right, let's.

Let's.

Let's dive into the family life, then.

Okay?

So you got. You got three deployments. One's rough. One sounds really rough. In Afghanistan. Free fall. So what's. What is going on at home? Like, just describe the home life.

Yeah, It's. It's me showing up to a house that I just felt like I didn't even belong in. Right? Into a house that I didn't even feel like I was welcome in, which was my stuff. Because it wasn't true, Right. It's like, my wife ran a beautiful household. She has an amazing family, and all they did was shower me with love, but I resisted every bit of it. Right? The more they leaned in on me and loved on me, the more I hated it. It. Right. The more I couldn't deal with it. Right? I'm just becoming even more just distant from her and numb. Right? Where we're not talking about anything outside of, like, the things we need to do. My son was in baseball, so it's like everything revolved around T ball and things like that. But inside, I was dead, man. Inside, I was dead. Every night, I'm drinking to go to bed.

How much?

At least six beers. Like, at least, if not more. Right? But it's like, to drink six in the night was nothing, right? That was an easy day, you know? And that started to create issues, too, you know? Vivi be like, hey, dude, like, no one drinks six Cokes. Would you drink six Cokes? I'm like, no. She's like, why would you drink six IPAs? And I'm like, just leave me alone. Right? And it's all those little things like that. It's like, she's absolutely right. She's like that. I would wake up, you know, I'd be. I'd be aggressive in my sleep, too. I'd have dreams. And next, you know, I'm a grabbing on her. Not intentionally. I'm waking up to her terrified screaming, and she's like, what's wrong with you? And I just. I didn't know. I'm just like. I don't know. It wasn't one particular thing. It was just like my body was just worn out. And then even. Just the things like birthday parties, dude, I'd go to it, and I'd feel really sad because I couldn't feel happy. I'd see my son do something I'm supposed to be proud, but I feel dead inside.

And it just started to weigh on me. I started to isolate. I didn't do anything outside of just work. Didn't really have any real friends outside of work. I was just dying inside, man. And I wanted it to end. I didn't want my life to end. But, like, I felt like if. If my wife would just divorce me, then they could go live a happy life. Like, I truly believe they would have been better off without me.

Did you articulate that?

Yeah. I would beg her. I tried to paint the picture. She's like, nah, I'm gonna love you. We're gonna figure it out. She wouldn't give up, dude. I beg her. Yeah. I gave her every excuse in the world, and she just would not. Just would not stop loving me.

How long were you trying to convince her to divorce you?

Probably over half the time that we were married there, right? It's like years.

Years?

Yeah, Years of me just trying to paint this picture why I'm not. Why she's not happy with me. She was so confused, man. She's like, why are you doing this? And I didn't even know why a little bit of me felt like maybe I would be happier on my own. Right. But then there's my dad's stuff coming up.

Up.

It's like, oh, Steve, remember this? Your dad probably felt the same way here, right? And I beat myself up for that as well.

Man.

Yeah.

Why did you leave the Marine Corps? Why'd you get out? You hate being home.

Yeah, well, I had a bad.

Being with the guys. You're pissed off because you can't be with them anymore because you. It advanced.

Yeah. So as I went into that last deployment, like, the majority of my friends were moving up and on, so a lot of them went to Damneck. And Damn Neck at the time, was taking on a lot of Sarks as their. As their primary medics for their teams. The PJs had held that billet for a long time. And now we had a few of the. Of the crushers from our community go over there and like, hey, we got Navy component guys. Like, let's start using them too.

Oh, I did not realize that.

Oh, yeah. So they started pulling over some of the hitters for Sarks, and then next, you know, there's a mass exodus was if you're in that group and you're in that peer group, like, you were going to Damn Neck. So, you know, I told my wife, you know, the way that I mitigated Our issues without taking responsibility, because I never did. Between me and my wife was I blamed the military. I would just blame the Marine Corps. I'd blame that. And just. That became my scapegoat. That it was. It was work, and I hated it, and I have to do it. And it's. It's. It's whatever. Was kind of a weak position, but that's what I did. But I finally came to her and I said, hey, I want to go to Damn Neck. That's where all my homies are. My best man's over there. Everything's there. It's like, I'm going to go there, and if I don't make it, then I'm getting out. She's like, okay. So I end up going to Damn Neck.

For everybody that's listening, is. Is SEAL Team 6.

Yeah. Yep. And I was applying for a direct support medic role. Right. Not as an operator, just to be clear. So I ended up going there to selection for that because they have their own selection process. And Sean, I ended up selling the psych. Crushed it physically. Did everything I needed to do. All my homies are there, and I end up failing psych. Right. And that one kind of hit me pretty heavy.

I was like, dang, man.

It's like, well, and there's no recourse on that one.

Right.

If you fell psych, it's not like you get to. If you run slow, you run slow. Right. You can run faster.

Right.

If you mess something up on a medical call, like, you can. You can do better next time. But if you feel psych, they don't tolerate that.

That.

Right. So that was, like, kind of the first little glimpse behind the curtain that I was like, oh, this stuff's bubbling out. And it just cost me probably the opportunity of my lifetime here. But in it a little bit, I was relieved because finally I was like, it's over.

You were relieved?

Yeah. I was relieved, too. It's like, now I can quit. Now I can stop trying to hold all this stuff up. I can stop this facade, and I can just quit. And also, I believe that the military is the reason for all my problems. So I was like, now I get to leave, and everything's going to get better. As a civilian, everything's gonna be magically better.

It is funny how you think that. Yeah, I thought that, too. Yep. What did you do as a civilian? Did you have any. Any plan at all?

Yeah. So at 18 Delta, they make relationships with a lot of different schools. Right. And what they encourage you to do is to start working on your education. So one of the schools they have an agreement with is George Washington University, so they'll honor all the work you did at 18 Delta and actually let it go towards a bachelor's degree. So on that last deployment, I signed up. Actually, Chris, the prior medic, was like, steve, let's. Let's go to school. And I'm like, okay, if you do it, I'll do it. And so we signed up for school, and we started chipping away at that bachelor's degree. So as I transitioned out, I was thinking. I was like, dude, I'm gonna go into the medical world. Like, this is what I do. I know it. I love it. And this should be an easy transition. So I set my eyes on wanting to be a trauma surgeon, right? So I was like. I remember being so proud about it, telling everybody, and I just couldn't tell enough people. I'm telling random people at the store, right? I was so proud of this new idea. And then I started looking at it, dude, and I was like, oh, my God.

There's no way it's gonna take me, like, 10 years. This is insanity. It was horrible. So I started chipping away at that bachelor's degree. I'm sitting in a library all day long, and needless to say, I hadn't resolved any of my personal stuff, hadn't taken care of myself a single bit, and it started bubbling over. Starting to have a lot of anxiety. I remember I had my first anxiety. A panic attack ever. Never had anything like this.

Where was that at?

Say again?

What happened there? Where were you?

I was actually at home. And I remember me and. Me and Vivi were going through a tough time, right? Me and my wife were going through a tough time. And I. I remember I was sitting there, and I was typing on a computer, trying to do my work, and I couldn't read anymore. Like, the words didn't make sense, right? And then I remember I couldn't use my hands, and I'm trying to talk, and nothing's making sense. And my heart's beating so hard, I feel like I'm dying. And I thought that my. I thought my wife poisoned me. Actually, somehow I get the phone on, and I call her, even though I can't read it, and I tell her. I was like, I know that you poisoned me, and I'm dying. Like, you need to call 91 1. She's like, what are you talking about, dude? She's like, oh, my God, Steve.

Holy.

Dude just lost his mind. She's a She's a therapist at this point, Right. She became a therapist, and she comes back and she's like, I think you're having a panic attack. And I'm like, shut up. No, I'm not. Like, I don't have panic attacks. What are you talking about? And they take me to the hospital, and sure, as. As soon as I get in that waiting room, everything starts going away. And I remembered some of those calls I would go on a rotations where it's like, like, oh, man. I went in there, they did the cardiogram, they did everything to test me, and they're like, hey, dude, I think it was anxiety. Do you have anxiety? And I'm like, no, man, I don't have anxiety. Like, okay. So that was, like, the first time when I had that panic attack. Started realizing things were kind of bubbling over there. Yeah. But I'm still plugging away at school, right. Still trying to figure this out, Just chipping away at it. The online way of doing stuff is really difficult. You know, I was never the best student when it came to discipline and things like that.

So I was just chipping away at it. Knew that's what I needed to do, but started realizing that maybe the surgeon route's not going to be tenable. Right. That I need to start working at things and kind of set my sights on being a pa but as I'm going through this process, Sean, like I said, I haven't repaired anything at my house. Things were a little bit better now that I was out and I was ever present, but still having anger outbursts, throwing bowls of salad across the room, just acting really uncharacteristic and just unstable. And I got an opportunity where one of my good buddies went to the GRS program and he hit me up. One of these days, I'm at the library, and I just feel like I'm gonna lose my mind. He's like, how you doing, bro? That's my boy, Jesse. And I was like, dude, I'm not. Not okay, dude. Like, I'm holding it together, but I'm not okay. Like, I don't know what's going on with me. I don't. I feel lost. You know, I lost all my money from the military. I don't have any money. My family's, like, stressing.

I'm like, I need to make money. Me. He's like, okay. So he ends up hooking me up and telling me where to send my resume. He puts in a good word for me, and I end up, you know.

Going to GRS So GRS for the audience. That's the global response staff. Contracting for CIA, at least. Contracting or.

Yeah, contracting.

Okay.

Yep. So here I am again, back in the chute. Right.

Are you excited?

I am excited coming back. Yeah, I'm excited. I am. I remember being excited, and I remember, like, not really knowing. I never heard of it before. Right. So I had no clue. I knew who they supported. Right. I knew that a lot of my friends got out and went that direction, but I had no clue about it. I just didn't pay attention to that type of stuff. And, yeah, I ended up going to tdc, and it got real, real quick. Like, I realized really fast. Like, one, I should have prepared, but better. Right. And two, the gravity of what I was signing up for was about to get real.

What year is this?

This was 2017.

Okay, 2017.

Yeah.

What'd you think of the vetting? Vetting? TDC. Yeah, TDC. What'd you think of it?

Very good. Very good. Yeah, very good. We started with 13 or 14. We graduated four. Yep. The only first time. Go, guys. There was me and another dude from marsoc.

Right. On that.

Yeah. Everyone else, like, dude, it was crazy. I'd overcome a lot there, too. That was the first time I felt like I was gonna fail.

Yep.

That's the first time where I was like, dude, I don't think I'm cut out for this. Like, I came up grossly under prepared, and I'm not in a good space.

What were you under prepared for?

Just the. The pace of it. Just similar to 18 Delta. It's like, here's the standard. Here's the time. You either shoot it or you don't. And we're not going to be angry about it. No one's yelling at you. It's a. It's a gentleman's course. And the standard is the standard. And you're either going to pick it up or you already got it or you don't. And that was a lot of pressure. Whereas everywhere in the military outside of those first few years, like, I knew people there. I went to a school. I had a homeboy there. Right. It's like, there was no confusion about what the standards were. It was like, I knew enough people that it was, like, different. And that's where I'm showing up. And I'm like, they don't know me from Adam. I have a call sign now. They don't even know who Steve Bunting is. They don't care. And you're either gonna make it or you're Not. And it was a lot of pressure, man.

Doesn't sound like much has changed.

Yeah.

Where was your first deployment with the agency?

Cobble.

Cobble?

Yeah.

Anything significant?

Yeah, not much, but because I was a 18 Delta grad, I got to do some cooler stuff there. So anytime there was an opportunity to push out to Nazari Sharif or push out to anywhere in the country, I got to see the whole country. So anywhere there was a site or a team there, I was. I was flying around and got to kind of do that type of stuff. So my eyes were open to that, which was pretty interesting.

Cool. What did you. What did you think about the culture at CIA versus the culture within a MARSAD platoon?

Yeah.

I'll bet that was a staunch difference for you.

Well, dude. Yeah. When it came to the GRS teams themselves, like, there's just a lot of disgruntled people, man. Yep. A lot of disgruntled people. People really angry. Right. And I don't blame them, but you could see. You could see it on their eyes. You could hear it in their story where it's like they're on their fifth divorce. Right. They. They don't know what to do outside of that type of work, and it's almost like they're very good. What they did, I know they took pride in, but it almost, for me, looking in, look like they were prisoners to this process now. And that was in the very beginning. I realized I was like, oh, dang. Like, you can become a slave to the money, you can become a slave to this lifestyle, and it's almost hard to do both to work at that op tempo and have a family and anything else. Right. And then when it came to the agency themselves, I learned a lot there as well. Right. Just how deeply political things are. Right. It was different than the Marine Corps. There's only one game in the Marine Corps, and that's to seek and kill the enemy.

Right. And here there was very much a political thing to everything that we did, and it. That became revealed to me pretty quickly as well.

Yeah. Yeah. How many tours did you do with.

I did three with them.

Three?

Yeah.

You want to go into it?

Yeah. That first one really was just, you know how it is, driving around a lot, just giving people rides and things like that. The second trip, because I was a 18 Delta, they gave me the opportunity to go out to coast, and I was asking dudes around, I'm like, what's up with that? And they're like, yeah, it's the real deal out there. All right. It ain't the city life. You're not doing the, you know, taxi cab driving out there. You're out there figuring out some stuff. So I jumped on it. I was like, okay, cool. I didn't really like, you know, cobble so much anyways. It was just too dynamic. You know how it is. So I get out the coast, and it's a smaller team. Right. And the things that you're doing have greater consequences. And then there's other aspects of the people that are on that camp that make it a little bit different of an experience. So I get out there that first trip with them, and it was in the winter, and it was kind of dead, but I start getting to know some of the directs, start to build a relationship with some of the other guys that are working there that I'm working intimately with and start becoming friends with them.

It was like kind of a cool little camp there also, you know, for the ground guys that were out there. I had friends from the Marine Corps that were in there. So I was like, oh, man, I got homies here. Like, everyone's not as miserable here. It seems like everyone's out here, like, wants to be out here. And it was kind of good. So that trip was, like, a little unremarkable. But then the third trip I went was, like, kind of where things changed for me. Yeah, it was in the summer. It was in the summer of 2019. Right. And the. Afghanistan's kind of falling apart at this point. Right. Just due to the politics, some of the policies that are pushing in there. It was. It was the secret rumblings of what we saw happen with the fall of Afghanistan is I found myself at the very edge of that. I was kind of watching that happen and seeing it being facilitated around me. And, you know, for me, as a Delta on the. On their team, some of the other guys that were leaving the wire and doing more kinetic stuff, I had friends there, so they'd hit me up and they'd be like, hey, Slylock, will you go on.

Will you go on QRF with us? So I'm like, yeah, okay. Yep. So I caught myself kind of going on QRF a few times, trying to help them out, and things just kind of shifted there. Their partner nation force was getting chewed up. Dude. And I just kept finding myself, like, jumping on some of those ops and running out there next. You know, I'm elbows deep in. In blood and just doing the medical stuff and being in that environment again that I wanted to be and so much, but it was just hitting different this time.

What was different?

It was just, I, I think it was, to be honest, I think it was just my body was just worn out, dude. I think the nervous system was gone. You know, in the beginning you get that rush and it's like the adrenaline hits and all this stuff. And now even at that level, it's just the numbness was becoming greater than anything. Right. Where I catch myself doing situations that used to light me on fire and have me fired up and I'm just like kind of numb to it.

Did you realize that immediately?

I didn't, but it started to, started to raise its head pretty quickly. Right.

What did you notice?

Well, for me it was. The insomnia started happening really bad where I couldn't sleep at all. Like I was struggling every single night to go to sleep and it was just again, severe insomnia where I couldn't stop my mind from racing. It's like no matter what I was doing, I couldn't, couldn't get any peace from that. And that's when I started kind of meditating at this point to try and figure out how to get to sleep. But it's worn pretty thin at this point.

Still on the bottle heavy?

Yeah.

Anything else?

No. At this point I think was having severe back pain and this stuff called Kratom, have you heard of that? Yeah, that was kind of a hot thing back then. It was an uncontrolled substance and you know, it was supposed to be good for pain. It's better than, you know, opioids. I remember that's. I started kind of dipping in on that Kratom stuff, started consuming that and yeah, it's not helping anything. It's actually making everything worse.

Well, kudos to you for being a medic. That's not self medicating from the supply. Maybe the first time I've ever seen that, to be honest with you.

It's very common, man. It's very common. It's hard not to when it's right there.

Yeah, yeah.

Between the tramadol and Newbane and all that, you know, we had a few people die along the way from that that were medics. So I, I knew better than to mess with that stuff. But the booze and the, the Kratom was something I was probably hitting pretty heavy back then. Yeah, yeah. But there was this one situation that happened there that kind of turned it, like, turned me away from the whole process. Is at this time they were starting to use drones to do reconnaissance on the camp right there where we were at. And they'd run drones over and find out where all the utvs and stuff are parked. And then that night, they would either mortar or shoot rockets in. So part of this. The static guys, like, part of their job was shooting the drones out of the sky. I was also a Crip. I was a radio guy, a comm guy, because I'm a newer guy, right? So, like, slide lock. You're on all the calm. I'm like, great, thanks. So I'm in charge of rolling all that stuff every other day. So as part of my routine, I would grab all the radios, and I would go into the static side of the house.

They're always happier. They seem like they had a better life. The GRS guys were disgruntled, angry. I could barely have conversations with them. And those guys were always having a party. Party? Oh, yeah. I mean, there's some good dudes. They're not all bad, but, you know, it's different energy. And then guys didn't want to sit in the team how in the team room there, whereas the static guys were always hanging out, having a party in there. Yeah. So I grab all my stuff, and I bring it in there to their room, and I'm just coking and joking with them, talking, watching all the cameras. And they had, like, this little game that they would play that a barrel of shotguns, right? And whenever a drone would come over, whoever got to the shotgun first could run out there, and they could. They could take the drone out, right? So I'm sitting here at this little. It's their little comm desk, and I got all my damn, you know, radios and the truck radios. I'm sitting there just jamming radios. And, like, we got. We got some drone guys, like, okay. So everyone stops. They kind of zoom in, the G boss or whatever when we see them, and they're crept down outside of one of the barriers outside the camp, and they're sitting there, and it looks like they're setting the drones up.

So we're waiting. We're waiting for that drone to take off, right? Because then someone can grab a shotgun, and whoever gets out there can do it. That's before they were using exploding drones and stuff. Thank God. So we're all sitting there waiting, and the guy that's on the sticks is like, okay, I'm gonna zoom in. No one gets to go yet. Like, I'm gonna zoom in. We're like, all right. So he zooms in a little bit further. And Sean, when he zoomed in, what I saw, I was like, oh, my God, dude. It was a mom and her child, and they were squat, squatting down and they were fishing food out of our gray water. Yep. And I saw it and I was like, oh, man. I was like, what am I doing? What am I doing here? Like, I don't want any of this anymore, you know? I was like, I don't want to be a part of this no more. I don't want to hurt no more people. Like, there's no way I could justify for myself anymore that us being there was doing any good. And it killed me, bro. It killed me.

I was so sad. And I got back from that trip. We had pretty rocky trip after that. A lot of attacks on the camp and things like that. And I resigned. Yep, I resigned. I called, called the company and said, hey, I made up an excuse that it was over some afam pay or something. They shorted me like 200 bucks. So I used that as my reason to, you know, resign, and I resigned.

Why didn't you just tell them?

I don't know. I didn't want to feel weak. Like, I didn't want to feel like a coward. Like, for me to come to terms with that. I didn't know how to sit with that either, man. But that's absolutely what it was where it just. It killed the warrior in me. Like, I couldn't justify that behavior anymore. Then I didn't even want to explain it. So I knew if arguing about money was. Was an easy argument, they're used to having that argument. So I use that as my scapegoat to just say, it ain't gonna work out for me no more.

Damn.

Yeah.

Did you chatted with your wife before about leaving or was that like an instantaneous. I'm done, I'm done.

Yeah. I don't remember if I discussed that with her or not.

Was she happy?

Oh, yeah. She hated it.

How old was your son when you quit?

Yeah, he was probably. He's 15 now, probably 8 or 9 then. I had a daughter too.

How old was your daughter?

Yeah, she was a baby. We had her on my second trip.

Did you had you worked on your relationship with your son since you had heard when his dad leaving again?

Yeah. So at the time of the military, I didn't. I just put it on the back burner and didn't pay attention to it. But once I got out, like, I went all in on coaching.

Out of the agency or out of the military?

Out of the military. So in that gap there, I was like, all in on coaching. So I was Coaching them in baseball, coaching them on football. And I felt like every. If I could just spend that time, even though it was very structured and we're doing it in that manner, I felt like I was getting some time back. So I just became as dedicated to that as possible. Right. Which I think if he's here today, he'd say probably it's not good enough. But, you know, that was my. My thinking.

Right.

It's like, I can make some of this time back and spend time with him, coaching him.

He would. He would have said it was not good enough.

Well, I don't think that's what he wanted. Like, I don't think that's what he needed. Right. He just needed his dad just to be approachable, like, be sensitive, to allow him. No, he's never told me that. Yeah, I think he would, though. Probably needed a dad that would let him be sensitive, too. I didn't have a lot of room for that. I was too busy thinking I had to build this man and build this, like, warrior and not let a little boy be a little boy.

Yeah, I think a lot of guys from our background do that.

Yeah, man. We got a lot of work ahead of us.

How are you guys today?

Good, man, good. We're working on it, but there's still more work. I want him to know that I know that whenever he's ready, I'm ready. I'm gonna do my best to keep working on myself so that when he's ready, that I'm gonna have open ears. I'm not gonna let any of my get in the way of that. He has a right to feel the way he feels. He does. Whenever he's ready, we can. We can talk about it.

Do you think he's gonna watch this?

Yeah, for sure.

Are you gonna watch it together?

Yeah, watch it. I'm very proud of this. So I think he's very proud of me too.

What are you gonna say to him when you get to this part?

Just tell him I love him and I mean it. I know it hasn't been easy for him, and I'm sorry I wasn't. Well, I was trying to figure it out too. I didn't have any examples. There's no excuse. But I didn't know what I was doing, and I do now. He did deserve better. And, yeah, like, everything he experienced is valid. Any feelings that he has is valid. I'll never tell him he's wrong. I'll never try and silence him about it. And that I love him tremendously. And for the Rest of my life, I promise to do it better.

How are you and your wife today?

So good, man. Yeah, so good, dude.

Yeah.

Once I started healing, dude, I didn't even realize what I had. I think deep downside. I realized I thought I didn't deserve it once I started kind of working through it. I'm so grateful to have her on the other side. It's like, oh, my God, like, I don't know how I got to marry such a saint Point. Right? And I got to marry someone that was so hard. Just as hard as me in so many ways when it comes to not quitting and that would have the patience for us to get where we are today. Like, at 18 years of marriage, I'm like, dude, who. I would have never believed it could be as good as it is.

I saw you did some psychedelic therapy. How fast did you get into that after you left the agency, man.

It was not long after that.

Months. Year. Yeah.

Yeah. It was within it was It. So I got done 2019, then the whole world shut down for Covid in 2020. So in between my agency gigs, I was doing high threat personal security for another company. So even when I was back, I'm still going down to Mexico, going down to Panama, things like that.

And so you had, like, zero time at home?

Yeah, I was.

You're just gone.

Spent the least amount of time all the time. Yep. Just had a North Face bag that I switched out Choney's here and there, and was off to the races to the next thing. So I felt like at least if I could provide for my family, I'm good enough. Maybe I can't be there emotionally. Maybe I'm no leader to lead this family, but at least if I can keep money in the bank, then I can look in the mirror, at least. Or try to look in the mirror. Yeah. So 2020 hit. It was just kind of rough, man, watching the whole world flipped upside down. You know, throughout my time in the military, we game planned very similar scenarios. And it was hard for me to not think there was some malicious intent going on. And then to see the way people acted. And it's not their fault, but it just got crazy overnight. And, you know, we ended up losing my. My wife's dad to it. We had to watch him pass away on. On Skype. And I was mad, man. I was mad. I was so angry. I felt like it was like crimes against humanity that we would.

We would not allow people to be with their loved ones as they're transitioning from this world. You know, also the calls started coming, dude. Once I got out of the military, Sean, like, I was getting calls, like, almost every other day, it felt like, of people committing suicide. When I first got out of the military, like, part of my game plan was so my. My brother and his wife dissolved their marriage and they had a son. And then my brother just started to spiral, you know, when he got out, he had a TBI related diagnosis because he had a significant traumatic brain injury from those two 155s that he stepped on. And they put him on the cop. They put him on the psych cocktail, right? Where he's on everything from Vyvanse to the antidepressants to the Xanax. And I remember he would call me and he's like, dude, my life's falling apart. I feel like a zombie. He's like, I need to get off these meds. His relationship with his wife dissolved. And I just got out of the military, so I was like, I'm gonna get my ride or die back, dude. So I hit up Mitch.

I'm like, come on me to California. Come on me. We'll get you out here. We'll find a new purpose. We'll find you a little Latina too, and you'll be good to go. She'll take care of you, she'll get you squared away, and we can be together again, man. Because I'm gonna need help. I don't know what I'm gonna do. And I was a little bit afraid, too. So he's like, okay. So we start working through that process, right? And as he starts trying to wean himself off his medication, he ends up having a seizure from the Xanax withdrawal. And he was driving. So he ends up getting a neurology restraint on him that they have to monitor him for six months before he can leave and get his license back. He's trying to tell him. He's like, hey, it's from the Xanax. I don't have, you know, epilepsy. But he gets tied up in that, so that delays our process. So he kept wanting to come to California. And I was like, mitch, just wait. Go to that last neurology appointment. Get your license back, because you're going to need it in California. You're not walking nowhere out here.

Everyone that you want to see, all our grandparents and stuff, you got to drive to. He's like, okay. But as he started to kind of work his way through that process, he started to spiral, right? Started doing some of the cliche things that like, we all know we started giving away all this stuff. Dude started giving away his uniform head, gave away his medals, his Purple Heart to, like, strangers, and he whittled his way, all the way down to a backpack. He ended up losing his house, ended up losing his car, and he ends up going and staying with my grandparents, which I was a little bit relieved about. I was like, yeah, he can make it there. They'll feed him, take care of him. Then we can get him out to California. But he was supposed to come out, and he ended up going and getting his tonsils taken out. He's like, hey, I'm go get my tonsils taken out. They give me a lot of issues when they did. They gave him a lot of narcotics, right? And he came home one day while he was in that healing process. He was supposed to come out, like, a week later.

He just went in the bedroom and took all his pills, took everything, drank all the codeine, took all his Ambien, all this stuff, and laid down and passed away that night.

Damn, man.

Yeah.

I'm sorry.

That one sucked, man. If I would have just, like, brought him sooner, like, maybe we could have mitigated that. And then. Dude's just like, his whole life, bro. His whole life, like, just sucked, dude. He never got a easy shake a day in his life. Like, from the beginning to the end, it was just tragedy. That poor kid suffered so much. Like, he suffered so much. And even he was so proud to be a Marine, right? So proud to get that. And even in that, it, like, it took it all from him, dude. Like, when we lost Mitch, it's like, yeah, just another. That pit of darkness for me just grew a little bit deeper. And that's when I kind of went into contracting, too. It was like, after Mitch died, I was like, I don't really care anymore, right? There's, like, deep down inside Sean, I just kind of wished I would have died in combat. That. To be honest with you, I was a bit reckless, too. Like, I pushed the envelope. I didn't need to, like, volunteer to go on the qrs. I was going on. There was something deeper inside of me.

I wasn't suicidal, man, but I was like, at least if I can die a hero, at least my son can be. Like, my dad was a badass, right? Maybe people would, like, speak highly of me. But I felt so dark, dude. I, like, hated myself deep down inside. So that was, like, one part of it, right? Another part is, like, once I got out, I got out with, like, almost a max exodus of Friends. So the ones that didn't go to damn Neck, they got out too. They're like, we can't. Peacetime Marine Corps is not the place to be. And they're like, we got to get out. And I got really close with one of my friends. Dan was my best friend, went to Corps school together. We're at recon. Cut our teeth at Recon together, was at MARSOC together, and he got out. He sustained a pretty significant traumatic brain injury as well in Afghanistan on the trip before mine, you know, got bed discharged. So me and. Me and Dan became besties, right? Even closer. And we made a pact because we're getting phone calls of friends that had passed, right? They were committing suicide.

It was happening all the time. And I remember calling Dan and I was like, dude, we're not doing this. He's like, we're not doing this, brother. It's like, I don't care what's going on anywhere in this world. I'll come get you. I'll come get you. Like, I'm here for you. We're not doing this. He's like, we're not doing this. So we made that pact that we wouldn't commit suicide and we'd be there for each other and start working through this process. And as I get done with contracting, you know, going into 2020, you know, I start kind of working into that. That plant medicine space, right? Start working in a plant medicine space.

What did you hear about it?

Well, first off, there was some. Remember, there's some guy on the east coast. I can't think of his name right now, but he was setting up a non profit to help veterans get into that space, right? And I was like, huh? What's up with all that? Like, that's kind of. Kind of odd. And deep down inside I knew that, like, I wasn't well, but I didn't know. Like, I didn't. I was like, you're just gonna eat mushrooms and be better? It didn't make sense to me, right? But then I started kind of doing the research and started learning about, like, the Heroic Hearts project with Jesse Gould and seeing what they're doing and like the mission within. And I was like, okay, there's something to this, right? So I reached out to that guy and he was like, yeah, do you. Do you want to have an experience? I'm like, well, yeah, I think so. I think so. It sounds like maybe it would help. Maybe I'm like a good candidate when I start going through their process and they're like, yeah, you are. You are a good candidate. Right. And they ended up getting me funding and, you know, Martine took care of me.

That's how I got my first kind of trip to. To Mexico.

Did you did mushrooms?

No, it was the Ibogaine and 5 Meo DMT with the mission within. Yeah.

Do you want to talk about that experience?

Yeah, I think so. Yeah, man. I came into that experience not really knowing, right. Didn't have a clue. You know, I'd heard, you know, you hear the cliche things about psychedelics, right? You see, see sounds and hear colors and all that stuff. And I'm thinking, like, maybe that's going to be the case. I really had no reference point for what this was going to be like, like rise. So I come down there and it's you. You hadn't talked to.

You haven't really talked to anybody that had done it.

No.

You're just.

Wow. Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

So you, you're just like, whatever, I'm desperate, let's do it. Yeah.

People are placking themselves off all around me. I knew I wasn't in a good spot and had an opportunity to go, so I went, yeah, up. So I get down there and, you know, I'm there with a bunch of dudes that are like high level operators, right. Guys from all the different units that they write books about and stuff. And I'm sitting there and I'm amongst giants here in this group and we're all kind of telling the same story, right? And as we kind of go into the experience, I didn't really have a reference for it, but they give you like two little pills, right, of the ibogaine from the ibogo tabernacle plant from Gabon, right. I guess they scrape the root bark off of there and get the alkaloids and create the take this medicine. So as I take the medicine, I remember I go up and we, we have these mats and they hook you up to some cardio monitoring devices and stuff so they can check your heart rate and everything through it. And I go in and I kind of lay down and I just start waiting. I remember I had a little bit of anxiety because I'm like, I don't know what this is going to be like.

But as I'm laying there, I start to hear what sounds like tornado sirens, right? And being from Alabama, there was a lot of nights that I said at prayer and laid in that. That trailer park bed and just was like, if this tornado gets us, it gets us. Like, I, I survived a couple tornadoes in Alabama. So I was like, it's. It was all familiar sound. So I started hearing that whirring. The next thing I know, I. I see some, like, almost like pink smoke. And these words come out of it. And the word was compassion. And the next day, I know the ion just falls and it lands. And I look down, and there's sand and there's a compass there. I see the compass, and I look up, and it says compass. So it's compassion. Ion falls off, turns to a compass. And I look up, and it's like, compassion is going to be your way. It's going to be your compass. And I'm like, oh, like, what's going on? Things start shifting. I'm totally being removed, essentially, from this experience. And next thing I know, I come into what looks like almost like a movie of my life.

And Sean, as it starts to become clear, I'm standing in that living room as a young boy, right, that. That HUD housing apartment complex. And I see myself laying in the floor in the corner, and my brother and I see this guy over the top of us. I see the coffee stains on the floor. I see the closet that won't close because the vacuum cleaner handle that would always pushing it open. I smell the smoke. I hear the TV playing, and I'm like, oh, no. Oh, no. Like, what am I doing here? Essentially, the medicine's kind of like, are you okay? And I'm like, I guess so, right? But what am I doing here? So I start kind of exploring the space, and I walk around, and what I notice is I kind of stop there, and I look and I see the guy's face is all pixelated, right? I can't see his face. And then I start having these memories of the nightmares I had as a kid, these nightmares that I had repressed of this guy molesting me and my brother, right? And I remember, like, in my dreams, I could never see his face.

So it was at the medicine was kind of asking me. I was like, hey, what. What do you want? What do you need in this? And I told her. I was like, I want to see his face. So nesting. I know I'm sitting there and I can see the guy over. Over me, and his face comes into clarity. And I could see it, man. And I remembered it. I remembered it all of a sudden. And my initial thought when I first saw him was like, oh, man, Sean, when I looked into his eyes, I saw that same pain, right? I saw him not as someone that, like, hurt me and as a predator, but I could See the little boy in him, that someone had hurt him. I remember I was sitting there in the medicine. I told him, I was like, dude, I forgive you. Like, I forgive you. Like, you didn't mean to do this to me. You didn't mean to hurt my brother, right? Something. This happened to you, right? And I wished him well. I said, I hope you figure it out. I hope you find the peace that I'm finding, like, and I really wish you well, and I forgive you.

And something happened there in that process where, like, there was, like, a part of me that was allowed to heal by seeing his face and by able to give him that compassion. But also what happened after that is it showed me every area of my life where that. That situation that happened to me impacted my ability to be intimate with my wife, my ability to be compassionate for others, right? The insecurities that had welled up inside of me throughout my life, right? All these different spots that. That. That situation that happened to me had created, and it allowed me to see it and almost put all those things back into place, right? Something about spending time with that little Steve in that situation and finding some resolution there, dude. Changed everything for me, man.

Wow.

Yeah.

Anything with the five meo?

Yeah, well, dude, the five, like, the ibogaine, just. I feel like it just dredges everything up. Like, it dredges everything to the top. Like, stuff he didn't even realize that was playing a role in your life. It highlights it and brings it to the surface. And when you. The 5 Meo is like baptism for me. If I, like anything that was stuck to me after that process just was washed, cleaned. Yeah. Just a overwhelming amount of gratitude. I remember when I came out of that experience, it wasn't the most comfortable experience for me, but I just sat there and I ate this bowl of fruit and I cried and I laughed at the same time. And I was just so grateful, dude. So grateful. It felt like I could feel my heart again. That heart that I spent my entire life building this, like, brick layer around. Felt like it was open again. Felt like there was fresh air hitting it, and I didn't know how to take it. I just laughed and cried for 30 minutes, man, just eating strawberries, and I was like, oh, my God. And I was so grateful because I thought I was never going to feel that way again, man.

I thought that part of me was gone forever. And, man, I'm so grateful for Martin and what they do down there like that. That experience undeniably changed my life.

It's done a Lot of good for a lot of people. You still feel like that?

Yeah, man. Yeah. Nothing's perfect. There's no shortcuts. It's all work. That's one of the things that I really got to learn about the. Like, I started working with heroic hearts not long after that. But the integration is everything, man. You know, people are thinking you're just going down to have a psychedelic experience. Like, that's this much of it, right? It's the prep work and the work after. And if you do the work after and you really dedicate it to a practice of taking care of yourself, really fall in love with yourself again, it can be for the rest of your life. Life ain't perfect. Stuff's still gonna happen. The universe is masters at throwing curveballs. They're endless. But how you hold, like, how much you love yourself plays a big role in how that affects you, right? And it definitely helped me do that.

What was it like coming home from that, man?

Well, one. There's two urges, right? One is to try and tell everybody I know, right? So the first one's like, everybody needs this, right? So you come back and you're like, guys, look what I found. And that. That can be difficult in its own right, because you're trying to bring something that's hard to convey in words to people that don't have a reference for it. And you can't force people to heal. They have to choose, right? So that's one lesson I had to learn there. And two, man, I came back. I remember I sat down on the carpet in front of my wife, and I just cried. Probably for the first time in her entire life, seen me cry. And I just cried. And I told her how sorry I was. I told her, I'm so sorry for all the shit I put you through, like, all the suffering. I didn't mean to, right? But I did. And it was all very apparent for me. And I shared with her this revelation of, like, I never talked to her about being molested as a kid. That was my dark secret, right? And I told her about all this stuff, and I helped her see that it was having an impact on every part of my life.

And she was a victim to some of that as well. And, dude, she just cried with me, and she just kind of sat there and she's like, okay. And then I also shared with her, I said, hey, you know what? Like, I haven't been the best husband, but I think that you just do deserve this experience as the spouse of me, as a spouse of a Special operator as a spouse of anyone that kind of has to go along this. They're not. Sometimes they get forgotten, right? As the spouses that every bit of Steve's chaos. There was a woman back there equally confused, equally insecure about things, equally desperate for love and connection, right? And I told her, I said, hey, like, I need, I want. I think it would be a good idea for you to go have an experience as well. Like, you deserve the healing. And even if that means you go down there and you see things that you can't turn a blind eye to anymore about me, I'm willing to risk that. That because you deserve to heal. And it took her a little while, but she did.

She did do it.

She did, man.

Yeah. How did that turn out?

So beautiful, man. So beautiful. She went down with a women's group of veteran women. She's a veteran too. But spouses, they went down there and just loved on each other, man. I think they did. They did a psilocybin retreat and a 5 Meo retreat. They do it a little bit different for the women. And she came back and she had a very similar experience. She said, steve, a lot of the issues that I had with you that I thought were you was actually my stuff stuff. I have childhood stuff too, that I never told you about. Like, she. She's been suffering by herself too, man. Should. Eating all that stuff too. Because in her culture too, they don't talk about that stuff. It happens so much to them little, little girls in their culture. It's like, dude, the uncles and stuff predate on them and it's very common and they try to expose it and they get slapped down, they get ostracized, right? And she, that poor woman had to feel dirty too. She had to carry all of that. She never told a soul. She just ate it. And when she went down there was able to reconcile with that and see it, dude, it opened up.

It brought down those barriers in her heart and allowed us to finally connect, man. For the first time in my life and the first time in our relationship, we had no clue, man. Had no clue.

Good for you guys, man.

Yeah.

And that was the beginning.

Oh, man, once I. Once I saw that, I was like, oh, there's something to this. There's something to this self love thing. There's something to like taking care of yourself. There's something to being connected to God, right? I had a very spiritual experience, right, where it's like I felt reconnected to God, which I didn't feel connected for a long time. Coming from my upbringing in the church and seeing what I saw in war and kind of losing myself to that process, I felt very distant and I didn't realize how important that spiritual component was to this. Right. We don't always talk about that part either, but it's just as important as sleeping, right? It's like having anywhere there's a void will try to fill it. And there's a big void for me at this point with my religion and like spirituality. And when I was able to feel that redemption, right, I was able to feel that connection again. It's like that out of everything really healed, healed me in a lot of ways.

Good for you, dude.

Yeah. Thank you.

Let's take a quick break and then when we come back, we'll get into sharp performance. Want more from the Sean Ryan Show? Join our Patreon today for more clips and exclusive content. You'll get an exclusive look behind the scenes where you can watch the guests, interact with the team and explore the studio before every episode. Plus unlock bonus content like our extra intel segments where we ask our guests additional questions. Our new SRS on site specials and access to an entire tactical training library you will not find anywhere else. And the best part, Patreon members can ask our guests questions directly. Your insights can help shape the show. Join us on Patreon now. Support the mission and become part of the Sean Ryan Show's story. A lot of dark stuff going on in the world right now, and it's to the point where I don't even believe my own eyes anymore because I cannot verify what people are saying about all the political violence. The division I partner with this production.

Company called Iron Ironclad, and we're doing.

An eight part audio series on Psyops on why foreign countries, governments, maybe even our own government would conduct a psyop on its own people. And I just think that, that this series is going to be extremely important because it's going to open the eyes of people on why these things happen. You can head over to psyopshow.com order it today.

I think you're going to get a.

Lot out of this. Who's pulling the strings?

Who's pulling them?

All right, Steve, we're back from the break. We just got done wrapping up your. Your psychedelic therapy session. I'm just curious. I didn't ask you this before the break, but how are you on the booze?

It's not an issue. Yeah, my relationship changed with a lot of things. I realized that although I was kind of a slave to some of these things and these substances. I think once I repaired my relationship with myself, then those voids that I was trying to fill, like materialistic things like booze and that need to numb disappeared. So I'll have a. I'll have a good hazy IPA with friends, but my, my relationship with. It's never been the same.

Yeah. Yeah. I haven't had a drop in almost four years before yours is February.

That's awesome.

Since. Since my initial and only ibogaine therapy session. But it's powerful stuff, man. Yeah.

Good for you for doing that.

Thank you.

Yeah. It's such a great way to give yourself some self love and not. Not pour poison into your brain, dude.

It's like when I did that, it was like, it just revealed to me everything that I was poison or toxic or it. Relationships, drugs, alcohol, substances, all that. It just, it like surfaced it all and put it right in front of my face without actually putting it right in front of my. It was like an into. It was like an A6. Sense was just acquired after doing that. But, but I know you have some concerns. It doesn't work for everybody. So I wanted to just dive into that with you as well.

Yeah, well, it's just a word of caution, I think, right. In the west we have a bad habit of just overdoing everything, right. It's just like the western consumerized world and the way we do, we think more is better and we just have a tendency to take even the best things and almost bastardize them. So what I want to say is like, you know, something that I hit on earlier, just the importance of integration, right. Just knowing that there's no shortcuts in this process of life, right? There's no shortcuts, right. You got to do the work. And just like you just shared like there's almost a knowing that comes to you, but the onus is on you to follow through with it. Just like you said, I'm not going to drink another drop because it's been revealed to me now I have a responsibility, but there's no shortcuts. The other part too is I want to highlight this. Like, you know, sometimes if you have other mental health conditions, it's important to be aware of that, right? Certain, you know, different mental health conditions, whether it be schizophrenia, things like that, right. If you go into this space, you know, unintentionally, you can sometimes do more harm.

You know, one thing that I've noticed and it's not with anybody, and I'm not talking about anybody in Particular, but I've had friends, acquaintances. One thing I've noticed with the psychedelic stuff is that, you know, you get. Just like you were saying, in the west, especially with special ops guys, we have attendance to overindulge just about anything we get into. Oh, yeah. And, and what I've noticed is there, you know, with. With some. With some folks, they just keep going back. They keep going back, and it's like they're going back every month, they're going back every couple weeks. They're exploring all the. All the other psychedelics, which I'm not saying exploring all the psychedelics is a bad thing. I'm not saying it's a good thing. I've tried a lot of them myself, but I always try to learn from the experience and implement that into my life. And what I've noticed is with, with, with. With some of us, it's. They just want to live in that realm.

Yeah.

You know, and it's almost like. It's almost like that they give that realm more credit than the one that we actually live in. And it's like, hey, man, like, this is where we all live. This is where your family is. This is where your friends are. This is where you need to be. So let's come back to reality.

Absolutely.

You know, and, and, and they, and just like you were saying with the reintegration, you know, the reintegration is the therapy sessions and reflecting on what you just experienced, and that. That should go on for weeks, you know, and, and, and people don't take it seriously, and they just want to get back into it. And, and so, you know, if you want to heal yourself, then it is a lot more work than just eating psychedelics and hoping that everything miraculously changes right after that. So I think that's important to put out. Yeah. Because I see that trend.

Yeah. We're not being good stewards of the medicine either. Like, I believe that God created this world perfect, and everything that we need is here. And luckily for us, there's been some indigenous people that have been holding on to this stuff for a long time. Right. We're actually finding a lot of value. And many of them that I've worked with and spoke with, they've been told to bring this to the west because we need it. Right. The guys that I've worked with down in the Amazon, they're like, the, the jungle told us that if we didn't bring this to you guys, that we were going to lose the jungle and everything else.

You went down to the Amazon?

Yeah. Did this shit out in the woods, I have not done it in the Amazon, but I have worked with some Titus from the Amazon, right. Pretty intimately. And that's what they share is like, hey, it was a. It was a calling that God essentially told us that we got to heal the west. And if we don't start figuring this stuff out, then everyone's going to lose everything. Everything. Yeah, yeah. But that grounded piece is so important. You're right. We're exactly where we're supposed to be, right here. To think that you need to be anywhere else is avoidant, Right? And we end up. They end up becoming avoidant in that they use this as a scapegoat from this reality. But we're. The work we're supposed to do is here.

Yeah, Right.

And you got to do integration and it's going to be for the rest of your life too.

Yeah, Right.

There's no checks in the box here. Yeah. Someone shared with me one time, it said, be wary of unearned wisdom. Right? And I caught myself, even myself guilty, trying to chase in that space something else.

Be wary of unarmed wisdom.

Of unearned wisdom.

Unearned wisdom, yeah. What does that mean to you?

That means like trying to. To seek out the answers, right? Trying to seek out things that. Because in that space, like, you get connected to some stuff, right? And maybe some wisdom comes through or maybe thinking that there's something else or that you need to have all the answers, right? And not just trusting that you're exactly where you're supposed to be. Maybe if you're religious, trusting that there's a God's plan. When you start trying to dig deep, especially in psychedelics, to figure out all the answers, like you want to know the answers of God, right. I think you can really find yourself ungrounded as you referenced, and you can find yourself really struggling to be back in this world. Can be very difficult to re. Assimilate here. And I've seen a lot of people suffer over the time, right. To include suicides where they were there. They probably figured out everything they needed to hear and learn in the first one or two sessions, right? But they kept going back, kept going back. And then you watch them just kind of fade, fading.

Do you think there's a spiritual aspect to psychedelics?

I do, I do. And I believe that. Right. It's really easy with the medicine space to look at the science, right? Just look at the science and the neuroplasticity and all that. But the reason why I feel so strongly about it, because it was so important to me. So I'll just disclaim that. Like me being able to be reconnected to God in this process, like it's hard for me to deny that. And then that connection that I have and continue to foster each day is what keeps me on the path.

Do you believe you are in a spiritual realm when you're under the medicine?

I think so. Yeah. I do believe so. There's something there that we can't quite explain. There's something to it. But you hear so many stories, man. And they say the same thing. Right. How could you fabricate a psychedelic hallucination for everybody? Right. It's like wherever you go is very predictable. Like you've been there before and it's just something I can't really explain without sounding too woo woo or crazy.

Yeah.

But I do believe there's something like it's a real, real space. Whatever it is.

I think there's a dark component as well. You need to be very careful.

Goes both ways. Right.

What you're playing with inside of those experiences.

Yeah. You're opening yourself up to a lot of stuff. That's why it's like have an intention of going in there. Not just doing this stuff recreationally. Yeah. It's not a game. You know, the. The titans that I've worked with in tradition, the person that was dealing with the ailment or the distress or the grief didn't take the medicine. The shaman, the tita took it.

It.

And in that space they would work on where they need to heal and help the person.

Really?

Yeah. And then over time it started integrating where like especially it was a western thing where the actual person that was there seeking the help would take it. But this might happen. You might take. Do this once in your lifetime. Right. Maybe two times max. Once a year. Now we got people in the space and they're doing psychedelic retreats every weekend. It's. Our body wasn't built like this. The medicine wasn't designed for that. That. And it's kind of that western ideology around it where we're like just doing too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing. And you know, I just wanted to kind of raise people's awareness of that, that none of this is a game. It's very powerful medicine, but it must be respected. And the real work is you. You're the magic. There's no magic there. It's just a catalyst to get you to reconnect and do the work. That's your choice.

Well, thank you for sharing that.

Yeah. Thank you, brother.

Where do we go from here?

Yeah, I think, you know, as I had that experience, I started to reveal, like, realize some things here. Right. And that's, that's this mind body connection which started leading me towards kind of going into this space of being a therapist and a coach.

Yeah.

One of the other things too that kind of led me down that path was there's a couple things. And I referenced Dan Brown prior being my best friend and my ride or die. And I talked about us making that pact together that we would not commit suicide. Dan sustained a very bad traumatic brain injury. Right. He's right next to him. He took a full like point blank RPG back blast from one of the ANASF right there that threw him off a HESCO barrier and onto his head. And then received multiple TBIs after that in that gunfight. And when Dan came back from that deployment, he wasn't the same. Right. He was having a lot of anger outbursts, was just being really combative with leadership and they didn't know what to do with him and they were going to discipline him. But ultimately he got discharged for full medical retirement, which. Which he deserved. But over the course of that time of us being friends and transitioning out, me contracting, even finding plant medicine, Dan was just having some difficulty, man. He was having some difficulty. He went to the NICO clinic, he went to all these things.

Like if there was any stone left to turn, he had turned it from breath work to meditation to just really modeling what it looks like to take care of themselves. But over the course of that time, he, he started to unravel a little bit. And I think whatever was damaged in his brain from that tbi, you know, ultimately led to him taking his life.

Damn, man.

Yeah. And I remember, man, I was, you know, he had had some bouts, some tough bouts of mental health. You know, I had to fly out to Montana one time to get him because he wasn't doing well. And it was just really tough, dude, to show up for him and to really take that, that time with him. And I knew, like from Mitch, my brother, I messed up so many things, man. Like, I had so many regrets from not just like going and getting him initially, from not being as compassionate about what he was going through, because I didn't understand it at the time either. But I was trying to do that tough love thing that I'd done with him so many times to keep him safe. He didn't, he didn't, you know, that he just needed me to be present and he. Everything was a cry for help in hindsight. So when Dan started going through this process, like, I really took it on. I said I got to do it right this time, I got to try my best. But as, as time went, he just started to just not do very good at all.

Right up to the point where I received that phone call from his wife and I knew. And dude, I was laying in my bed and I remember she called me. And I hadn't talked to Dan in probably a month because he just kind of went radio silent. He'd moved from his house in Idaho. We got him hanging out with his brother in Reno after that. And then he ended up moving out to his family's house in Arkansas. And they were out in a, you know, 40 acre ranch, beautiful Amish country. His parents are salt of the earth, just tremendous. And I felt like deep down inside that's exactly where he needed to be, right? He's going to get out in nature and he was just going to be able to clear his head and things are going to be okay. But it just didn't end up being that way. You know, it had some bouts of psychosis and succame to some of that process. But when I got that phone call first, his brother Sam called me. And I didn't get that call. But I woke up to his wife calling me Christina. And I knew as soon as I picked up my phone, I saw the missed call from Sam and I saw Christina.

I knew deep down inside. So I ended up taking that call. And like, he did it. Yeah, he did it. And I was faced with the dilemma here, man, I wanted to be mad, I wanted to be angry, want to jump up and grab the bottle, want to go to the gym and hit the punching bag. But I said, you know what, Steve? I have a choice to do it different now. This time, it's like this time, for the first time in my life, I'm going to give myself permission not to run away from this. And I'm going to lay right here and I'm going to fill every bit of it. And dude, I laid in that bed and I cried, bro. I cried. Just deep, guttural, just crying, just sobbing and just cried. And when I felt like I couldn't cry no more, I cried more. And I probably laid in that bed for four hours and just laid there and cried. And see, when I finally got up out of that bed, it felt like something was different. Like I felt like I was lighter and I just started kind of laughing and crying.

And I was talking to Dan. I was like, dude, even in your last act, you taught me something else, right? He helped me see the importance of the grieving process and why it's so important that we don't hold that type of stuff in and we grieve well. And that's something I don't think we do in the west very well either. It's a very sterile process when someone passes, right? We don't get to sit there with them and go through it as a community or anything. It's just very sterile. Or you do this, do this, you're at the funeral, now they're in the ground and it's like kind of people just do what they do. And I had a huge revelation of what grief looks like and how it could look like and how you can move through that process and heal and it'll actually heal other things, right? It's like it can be a catalyst that just draws out all this unresolved grief. And as you keep working through it, it's like you can actually heal in such a tremendous way. So I just kind of looked up at the heavens and I told Dan, thank you.

I was like, thank you, brother, for this last lesson, right? To really understand this, I might have carried this grief for the rest of my life until this opportunity to just cry like I just did. And that's been a big part of me kind of moving into the being a therapist, man, really understanding, building my practice and my code about what I believe this is supposed to look like. And grief work's just been a huge part of it with so much loss that I've experienced.

Damn, man. How did you get into coaching, therapy, stuff like that? I mean, it sounds like Dan put you there. Yeah, but what was the process?

Yeah, so at this point, I was still. I was almost done. I was actually applying to PA school. Yale had a pretty good program, so I'd already submitted my letters of recommendation. I was still kind of hell bent on going and being a PA and one of these days my wife's gonna kill me for telling the story. But it's okay. She, me and my wife decided that we were going to eat some mushrooms together, right? The kids are at my in laws and we were going to spend some time and we had never done this before, right? So we decided to take just a very small dose of psilocybin. Mushrooms, right? We were going to spend time on the couch and just reconnect and watch maybe the wizard of Oz or something. Cute, right? We had this cute little plan, but very quickly into it, things started not really going our way. Maybe I didn't do a good job of dosing or whatever it may be, but very quickly I realized I'm like, oh, I don't know if this is going to be something sustainable. And two, like, my wife started kind of acting a little bit different.

She stopped. She stopped me and she said, you know what? She. Steve, I got to tell you this. All right, Miha, like, what is it? She's like, I feel like you're selling yourself short. I feel like you want to go and be a pa because that's what you've always done, and that's the easy path for you, right? You want to do that because that's what you're good at, and you don't even have to try. She's like, but you're missing a gift. Gift. She's like, steve, when you talk to people, they listen. She's a therapist at this point. She's like, you're always on the phone with everybody that needs something. They always call you, and you spend hours and hours talking to these people. And she's like, you have a gift. She's like, and I have to tell you, like, if you go be a pa, you're selling yourself short. You're doing the world a disservice, and everyone and people need you. And I got so mad at her, dude. So mad.

Really?

Yeah. Because I'm in this space and I'm extra open, right? And she's just dissolving my reality. I did have this game plan. I had been working through this process, through contracting. Like, the parts of the story is like, I'm coming back from these trips contracting, and I'm on the contract and I'm typing papers till three in the morning, right? So in between doing all that, I'm saying I'm still doing homework. I never stopped doing all the work. And I'm like, dude, she's sitting here telling me that everything I did was for nothing. And I was so frustrated. I'm like, why would you do that? Why would you say that? Like, you know, this is what I want to do. And I didn't talk to her for three days, man. I was so just disrupted by it. And then I finally sat with it, and I was like, dude, I think she's right. I think she's right. And because of her, I chose to, like, come into this space. I was like, you know what? Maybe it is time for me to come into this space also. I'd had so many encounters with therapists and stuff that just Didn't.

I felt like they. They didn't understand who I was. Like, I didn't jive. They just wanted to give me pills. And I was like, maybe it's my time to step into this space. Maybe she's right. I can't keep blaming everybody else about this. I need to be the person to take it up. And I started working on being a therapist. So I enrolled in a marriage and family therapy program and started just really becoming obsessed with this stuff, this mind body connection.

What have you learned?

Oh, man, so much, dude. So much. You know, what I've learned is just a deeper form of compassion for everybody. Just understanding. We're all humans just trying to figure this out, right? We're all just humans trying to figure this out, and none of us really know what we're doing. And we're trying our best. You know, sometimes we can hold people in a higher regard or we. We expect it. Like, even, like, say, my mom, for example, right? Me thinking that she's supposed to. Was supposed to just have it all figured out when I was a kid, and it was an illusion. But really what I've gotten to see working in this space is like, dude, everybody's dealing with something and everyone is just doing their best. And it's. We're all on our journey. And being able to see people on their journey and just have compassion for it just really, I think we need more of that.

How did you start? Yeah, who was your first person? Yeah, you were coaching therapy. Who was it?

Yeah. So when I started working on this process to become a therapist, right? I just come through this psychedelic experience. So for me, an easy segue was to get in with them and start working as an integration coach, like, with heroic hearts. Started working with the mission within, going down to Mexico. So I'm learning these things in school, right? And then I'm seeing these things happen in real time by way of the medicine. And I'm starting to. It's all starting to come together just like how I combined, like, my. My love for cars in the human body. I started to see what was happening in real time. What I got to witness was validating what I was learning at school. So it became very easy for me, right? So I started working initially down in Mexico. I started working with veterans that were coming through the process, started helping them, like, coach them through it, right? I got to witness a little bit more. I got to see a little bit more and learn a little bit more, right? Learning some of the basic stuff, like just the fundamentals of Meditation. Have you heard of the wisdom dojo?

No.

Yeah. So wait a minute.

Yes. Yeah, I've done it.

Yeah.

Yes, I've done it. That's the meditation course, correct?

Yeah. For veterans. For soft veterans. Yep. So I get introduced to people like them, and I start learning how to meditate and teach people how to meditate, and I see another level of healing happen. Right? Just little things like that, doing breath work stuff. I ultimately started from there. I transitioned because I'm impatient, right. But I end up transitioning to working on a research team for Kadema Neuropsychiatry down in La Jolla. They're working on the LSD truck trials for general anxiety. So next thing I know, I'm sitting in a room for 12 hours working with patients that are on research medicines, which is lsd, and I'm seeing them shift. I'm seeing them change. I'm listening to what's coming up with them. I'm hearing them talking to their. Their younger self, the children, like the. The child self of them. And it's revalidating more stuff that I'm learning. So it's just compounding and reiterating, and I'm becoming even more obsessed with it. Right. And it just. It made school even easier. So I'm working through that process because the master's program is two years, so it takes a little bit of time. And then as I kind of near the end of that, I get introduced to a dude named Miles, right.

Who's a good friend of mine who introduces me to a guy named Tom Sauer. Have you met Tom Sauer before? No. He's an EOD officer that started a clinic, veteran owned, veteran operated, for dual diagnosis, so for people suffering from substance abuse and then mental health disorders. And Tom's model was that we would go Anywhere in Region 4 of the United States and bring veterans to care. Right. So I end up getting hired. Miles introduced me to Tom, Tom hires me, and I get this job where I'm flying around the west coast of the United States for veterans in need, where their family or someone would call, and as long as they were connected, I would hop on a flight, fly to North Montana and get them, and escort them back to treatment.

Holy. That's awesome, man.

Yeah. No more were the days that we're just gonna say, the VA is just gonna handle it, and, you know, people dying in the parking lots or whatever. Right. As soon as we could get that authorization, me or my buddy Brennan were on a flight and we were escorting veterans to treatment. And, dude, I Was like falling even more in love with it. Right. Learning more about the, the substance abuse space. Right. Just the, the demons that that brings to the table.

Right.

And getting people to come into their house and just seeing how they're living and getting to see them graduate and have that, that, that zest of life again and that sparkle in their eye. I was just like learning more and more in that process. But on one of these trips, we were working up into Montana. So we're working in the, with the Blackfeet nation up in Browning, Montana. Have you ever heard of that?

No.

The tribe, yeah, it's as far north as you can get in. Montana is beautiful. But we're working with a tribe up there. That tribe has the most veterans of any tribe in the United States. And they were having issues getting support from the va, right. They would try to go to the other town vas and they just treated them like second rate citizens. Right. And just pretty much left them up there to that reservation to their own devices with no support. So as we went up there to work with a couple veterans that were bringing a treatment, me and Brennan and Tom started to see the inadequacy of what they deserved up there. We started becoming advocates. So we'd fly up there every time they'd have a town meeting with the VA there and we just started becoming representatives and helping support them. Tremendous people up there. Salt of the earth. One of the times I got a consult or an authorization to come pick up one of the Blackfeet nation, he was a prior Marine. I was flying up there and it's hours from Missoula up to Browning. So I'd get up there, I drive all the way north and I get there and the guy's gone.

And they had a small, kind of like small treatment center up there. It wasn't designed for long term. And I show up and I meet my liaison. I'm like, hey, where's the app? He's like, he disappeared, man. He hit the bottle with his cousins the other day and we haven't seen him since. Like, what am I supposed to do? Like, we'll hang out for a couple days and see if he comes back. So I stay there overnight. I realize old buddy's gone. We ended up getting him into treatment later, but this was kind of a dry hole for me. So I have to start my journey back south. So as I'm driving south, that's many hours back, I'm going to go down, hit Missoula or Kalispell and then come back down to the airport. I'm driving and I see this river coming off the mountain, right? And one thing about Dan Brown that I shared about was he was a madman. He couldn't resist a cold body of water. He was obsessed. He was a cold plunger before it was cool. And I'm driving down and I see this Flathead river and it's all snow melt.

And I'm like, oh, I bet it's freezing. I just pull over and I strip down in my chonies and I run and I jump in that river. Lashana laid there, jackhammer shivering, and it was like almost like a baptism. And I sit up from that water and I look and I see all these bear signs where it's like, do not get in the river, the bears will eat you. And I'm like, well, I didn't think that one through, but here I am. And I sat there and I had this epiphany and it was almost like something came over me and it was like, hey dude, you gotta get out of California. Gotta get out of California, right? It's like there's too much chaos here and like we need you to, to do something else. And I was like, oh God, like I don't even know what that means. So I get home from that trip, it was a long trip and I come in and I tell my wife, I'm like, hey Mihai, I think we need to leave California. And she's like, I'm feeling it too. Like Covid was rough on all of us just from the loss and just seeing the chaos and everything being locked down.

Our kids having to be on virtual classes and just seeing them falling apart, not being able to understand why they have to do class on computers. And we ended up buying a house in my hometown in Alabama. So we pack everything up on a whim, pack all our bags and move to Alabama from California, Drive across country and we start setting up there. I had a game plan that I was actually going to go work at a research facility or research department at UAB Birmingham. And I've been liaisoning with him. They were going to be working with 5 Meo DMT to work with veterans and things like that. So I was like, hey, I'm your guy. I did the MDMA assisted therapy course, the 5MEO assisted therapy course. And I was like really coming into this and I had experience working on the research team and working with the mission within and heroic heart. So it seemed like a no brainer. But I get there and dude, it just starts falling apart, Starts Falling apart. I'm realizing they had some DEI restrictions there and they weren't going to pay me any money. I don't know.

I didn't even know what DEI meant, dude. I was like, what's that mean? But either way, it was just not working out. Luckily for me, the guy I worked with at Miramar going and picking up the veterans, his name was Brennan. He knew Max, who's the head of sales for Sharp Performance. And Max's good friends would Ben and Andrew, who started Sharp Performance. And he told Brendan about it and Brendan kept telling me so he'd be on these trips to go pick up veterans. He's like, hey, have you heard of Sharp Performance? It's like it's this veteran company that's helping first responders. He's like, they sound really cool. And I'd always be like, brendan, I don't have time for all this stuff. Right? It's like, what are you talking about? You know, I have plenty of work here. So prior to moving to Alabama, I reached out to Andrew Sacmar at Sharp Performance and told him, hey, you know, I heard you're kind of building this company. I like what you're doing. It makes sense. It resonates with me and I would like to come on as a coach. And he's like, absolutely, dude. So I came on as a coach.

Luckily for me, as I came to Alabama and things started kind of falling apart there, I was able to kind of dedicate some more time to joining that team and really just working on building Sharp Performance.

Right on.

Yeah.

Can you go into Sharp Performance exactly what you guys are doing?

Yeah. So Sharp Performance is a company that was started by Andrew Sackmar and Ben Curley. Andrew is a 14 year Green Beret officer who sustained some injuries over his time which ultimately led to him being non deployable. And as he was realizing like he's not going to be able to be a Green Beret anymore, he had to figure out a new path. Just like we had to like, what's this new purpose going to look like? What am I going to do to give back? Even though knowing that his identity is being stripped from him. So long story short, as he goes to business school to try and figure out what that next chapter is going to be, you know, he's reaching out to veterans, guys that he worked with and a lot of them went into law enforcement and firefighting, so first responders. And he started checking in with them and started hearing their stories and he had like some revelations and one of them was just the fact that the time between a cop or a firefighter's worst day on the job and them having to reintegrate with their families or wear a different hat or whatever that looks like is like minutes to hours.

Whereas no matter how bad our days were in theater is weeks to months before we have to come back and reintegrate. And he was like, dude, that's got to be insane. Like, that's got to be some insane mental gymnastics to be able to keep it over a course of 30 years of going from your worst call on earth to maybe a call that's just a benign call, or going from that worst call on earth to like showing up to mama and the kids hours later.

Been a T ball game.

Yeah, at a T ball game. Exactly.

And he was like, dude, one minute you're scraping somebody's head off the pavement and the next you're cheering for your kid at a T ball game.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Every day. This is happening every day. The news doesn't always do the best job about highlighting that type of stuff, but while he was in Special Forces.

One minute you're talking to a poor girl that just got gang raped by 25 dudes and the next minute you're trying to go on a date with your wife.

Yeah.

Like it's, it's like that. Yeah.

Or you get into a complex situation where you need to use your weapon and now you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. Now it's hitting every broadcast, mainstream media outlet on the world showing that you're one of those guys killing a poor person. Right.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's not to disclaim bad behavior. Right. But oftentimes it's like that's in the back of their head too, where they can't even feel confident defending themselves.

People don't even, they just, they can't put this together in their head. They don't realize, like, that guy just had to kill somebody 25 minutes ago.

Yeah.

Now he said doing school counseling for his kid.

Yeah.

You know what? Whatever it is, you know, it's, it's, it's that it is. That's how it is.

Yeah. And Andrew, once he realized that, he was like, dude, this is crazy. Right? This is not, not cool. It's not fair. And then seeing the bureaucracy, the politics around it. You know, oftentimes, dude, I think about, like, our police officers are almost like our Vietnam veterans, where they don't get a vote in a lot of the stuff that's going on and people Just want to blame them as the bad guys always. And it's just tough to see it socially. While Andrew was in sf, he got introduced to, like, some training. So as he was in, he was in a little bit later. They were teaching operators how to, like, down regulate their nervous system, teaching them how to do, like, visualization exercises and things like that to kind of make the mind sharper and more resilient. And he said, you know what, like, we need to bring that to our, our first responders. It's like it helped him out being an operator. It helped him get through his, like, kind of medical challenges and stuff that he had to deal with. And he had this real, like, calling to bring that stuff to them.

So they created an app that had all this training from special operations on there, all these different exercises. And that started in the beginning, right. And I was bringing that to them, like, hoping that he can make a difference and try and help out this group of people.

How was that going?

How is it going? Yeah, it's going great, man. Going really good. Yeah. We started off like, kind of with that idea with the app. Then what we also realized and what, what they realized early on was that there was kind of a missing component when it comes to the coaching part. So it's, it's one thing to have a app and have these exercises, but what. What they realized was there's a gap of, like, on the mental health side as well, of having someone there that, that kind of understands what's going on. So they started incorporating the coaching portion and hiring coaches. And that's where I kind of came on, where not only would they have access to this app that helps them do these exercises, but now they got a person that looks just like them, has this.

Go ahead.

Has the same look in their eye, that they don't need to explain themselves. Right. That we're not diagnosing them or assessing them for fit for duty, but almost can hold a sacred space for them to start processing this stuff. Stuff. Yeah.

So how does, how exactly does it work? I mean, look, I, I kind of, I kind of talked about it at the beginning. At the beginning, but. So you guys are in 10 different states and over 75 different part departments or, or, or military units. And so the way I understand it.

Is.

A coach goes into the fire department, the police department, the sheriff's office, the military unit, the. So whatever it is. Right. Am I correct? And. But the coach, the coaches aren't your typical therapist. They're not somebody that graduated high school when got their degree became a therapist and bam, now they're talking to you, who we just went through your story, you know, and, and so these are, these are people. Every. All the coaches, to my understanding, are. Are military fire. Leo, first respond. It's people that have been through. They've lived it, they've seen the. They've lived it, they did the job. They understand what's going on. This isn't like some therapist that's just going through the motions that never had any trauma in their lives. They can relate. Am I right?

Yes, sir. Yeah. Which I think is so key is one of the biggest gaps is, is that part, like they call it cultural competency, right, where the therapist actually understands what they do for a living. And when you, if you get a therapist, no matter how well intentioned they are, if they don't understand, right, they don't understand the dark humor, right, that we all have, right. They don't understand the unique coping skills that we have to do to survive this type of work, to do the mental gymnastics. We have to. They're real quick to want to just diagnose you and label you, right? Heaven forbid they just label you with PTSD and slap that button. And now that has repercussions, right? Can you carry a weapon now, right? Do they have to sideline you on the team? Which creates barriers to that, man. Because if you don't trust that process, why would you use it? And that's what a lot of people are in this space are coming up against, right? They're afraid, start talking about this stuff. So we bring coaches that have a similar walk of life. They're not diagnosing them, they're not assessing them for duty and they can sit there and hold a sacred space, right?

We hold confidentiality really high too, right, where they can come in and start offloading this stuff and have a spot where they can start working on themselves.

Does this information, does this stay with you and the. In the individual or does this get. Does anything get reported to their leadership? How does it work? Yeah, Is the leadership involved?

Yeah, well, the leadership is involved, right, In a lot of ways. But, you know, we do hold confidentiality in the highest regard. So what that means is, you know, outside of the preservation of life, right, if someone's got a plan and means to, to take their own lives, we're going to breach confidentiality and reach out to their wellness and support system there because we got to preserve the life. But outside of that, what we report back to their departments is only utilization reports, right? So we'll let them know. This number of people in your department are working on the app. This number are working with a coach.

Right.

But we won't release any PII to them. No personal information. And we sure as heck would never tell them what we're talking about in sessions. Right. Because if we're a spy tool for the department, no one's going to use it. Right.

How does.

I mean, how does it work?

Are you in there with them every day? Are you just always available? What is, what is. What does the day to day look like in a department that hires sharp performance?

Yeah. So something that's really cool and I credit Andrew for building. This is like as a part of that app on there, they have the whole roster of coaches. Right. So one, we're meeting the needs of this demographic, these first responders that need it. Absolutely. But what we're also doing is creating a marketplace for coaches like us, people that get out of the military, that don't know what to do with their hands in this upside down world and want to find a new purpose of serving. Right. So we'll hire them on and they become a part of our coaching marketplace and roster. So once a department signs with us, they get access to that app that has all the training. It actually has all their resources from their organic department as well. And then they have access to a whole list of coaches. Coaches. So anyone in that department can go on the app and look through there and find Steve Bunting and say, I want to work with Steve. Click on me. They see all my availability and my time and book a session with me with them. They get unlimited sessions. Right. They get unlimited access to all the coaches.

So if they want to work with me for five weeks and they want to work with another coach on leadership, they want to work with a coach that's from fire, a fire department and they're a firefighter. Like they can do that as well. No.

So this is, this is a marketplace of coaching with. With your resume attached.

Yeah.

So they can, they can read your bio and say, this is who I relate with.

Yeah.

How many coaches do you guys have?

Yeah, we have around 50 right now, but we're hiring by the day. Right. As we continue to grow, that's going to be a continual process. It's probably the majority of what I do right now is the head of coaching is finding the right people.

How many people do you have applying?

There's lots. Yeah. I think we have probably already 25 on standby that we're not even going to get to till January 1st.

That's awesome.

Yep.

How many.

How many.

How many departments and military units are showing interest in this? Are you. Are you guys getting a wave of that?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. In places you wouldn't even expect.

I brought you guys up to the secretary Army.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.

It's like, hey, you guys need to be. Look, seriously, brought you up to my local sheriff, too. I don't know if you ever reached out, but, I mean, I love what you guys are doing. I think it's long overdue.

Yeah.

Long overdue.

Thank you, man.

So are you guys. Is there ever a point in time where you're actually in the department meeting, Meeting the. The. The workforce face to face?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. A big part of, like, what we're doing is we don't want to be just another resource that we just drop on their desk and expect them to manage. Like, every relationship that we have with each department, it's like, it's a. It's a real relationship. So oftentimes, even some examples, we've had some, you know, officers that were on our platform, that were lost in the line of duty. You know, it's important for us to show up. Right. We create all kinds of different things. Whether we go up and we teach a class on just operator syndrome, right? Which actually, we haven't even talked about that. But things about operator syndrome, we'll go into a class on that. We'll go up and do a class on just resiliency. There's so many different ways, but we try to be an intimate part of a collaborator in their department, not just a resource for them.

How are you guys received when you show up face to face? I mean, is this. Is it. Is it standoffish? Are they immediately interested in what you guys are doing? How is. How is. How's. How is it building their trust?

Yeah, I think in the beginning, they're not too sure who we are. You know, we might just be another. A group that's trying to, you know, harvest the resources of the first responder community. But when we get in, we tell part of our rollout and our presentation is we tell our story, we share a little bit about what we've been through. And then once we do that, man, there's so much mutual respect between our communities. Like, we're so grateful for what our first responders do, and they're grateful for what we did in the military. It's a very unique combination that works out really well.

Damn, that's awesome, man. So what's Operator Syndrome. I've been hearing a lot about this, and I've heard of Chris. Chris Free, right? Yes. Could I say it?

Yes, sir.

I've heard a lot about this guy.

Yeah, man. So when I first came onto the team and we're trying to build out this program, it was like. It was a. It was a big task. Like, how did. What does this look like? You know, we're not doing therapy, we're doing coaching. How is this different? And, like, it was a lot of pressure to try and figure out what that looks like, and we were learning it by the day. But prior to me working with sharp performance, I'd met Chris Free. Chris Free was a PTSD researcher for the VA for quite some time, for a long time. So he really understood the proclivity for them to want to slap that PTSD button. But as he was doing that work, he's starting to think. He's like, dude, we're missing some things here, right? It's like, it's easy to slap this button, but I think we're overlooking some stuff. And he hit immediate resistance, right? These guys are like, this is what we do. It's ptsd. Like, either get in and toe the line or you're out. And he said, adios. So he stopped working with them, and he started reaching out. And through some mutual acquaintances, he started to meet some operators, right?

Some guys are like, hey, I think you know, some. This guy might be interesting for you to talk to. So he started working with some guys from Damn Neck, started working with some guys out of Fort Bragg, and he started listening to them, started hearing their stories. And from the research that he did working with the va, then he also had some research grants, he started realizing that there's, like, some physiological things that were being overlooked. Looked and had some suspicions about things like your endocrinology, right? So he'd start working with him. He's like, hey, you should go get your testosterone checked. And they would come back and they'd bring the data back, and all their testosterone was low, right? He'd say, you need to get metabolic cardio, metabolic paneling, and check out how your heart's doing, check out your gut health and these things, and you come back and get more data. And as he started to learn more and hear more interviews, he worked with around 300 operators. He was like, oh, man. He started to see this framework, and he started to see the gap between our physiological needs and PTSD and where that gap is.

And he's like, dude, if we don't start Addressing these physiological things and raising awareness about it. We're never going to get ahead of this PTSD or suicide issue. So he started going all in on that. He ended up publishing his paper in 2020, and that's when his name started getting out. Then he also, once he stopped working with the veterans, so it was operator syndrome, because that was the first group he worked with. He went and he worked with law enforcement, fire, and he started doing research with them, and he started seeing the same thing, man. Oh, yep. That same framework and what essentially operator syndrome is. It's easy to get wrapped around the term operator, but it's what's called high allostatic load. So high stress on the body over a long duration of time and how it manifests, like, mentally, physically, and socially. Right. So if you work in a job that's high stress, high demand, you're not sleeping, you're not eating well, over 30 years, you can start to see where, like, in this framework, these things will start coming up. And Sean, when we share this with firefighters and cops, they're like, oh, my God, you just told me.

My whole life, I just scored a 100 on that operator syndrome framework checklist. Right. So early on in that, I was friends with Chris Free Prior, and we end up reaching out to him. We said, hey, you know, Chris, this is what we're doing. And your book's been great, and that paper you put out's amazing. And it really resonates with what we're doing, and we think it resonates with. With. With who we're working with, law enforcement and fire. You know, would you mind if we use your framework and would you mind joining the team? And, dude, he didn't even think twice. He was like, absolutely. So we brought him on, and we kind of built our program around that framework of operator syndrome. And it's just been a seamless integration that just makes so much sense. Like, I couldn't be more grateful for him joining our team and just helping us, because it's all science back, too, Right. The data is there for everybody. That. That's important to. We're not just doing some wazoo stuff. Stuff. And at the end of the day, it's really basic when you look at it, it just makes sense.

Damn.

Yeah.

I should bring him on, huh?

He's awesome, man. One of the most humble human beings I've ever met.

I know. I got a lot of mutual friends that. That know him. I've never heard anything bad about him.

Yeah.

Other than from the va, they don't like it very much.

Yeah, well, he's just disrupting some things for them.

Yeah.

In honor of us, though.

Sounds like a great dude.

Yeah, he is. Yeah. We've become good friends over time.

Good, man. Good. So 50 did. I'm sorry, did you say 50 of 50 coaches at Sharp? Yeah, in 10 different states. Where do you. I mean, where else do you guys want to go?

Yeah, man, we want to work with everybody. You know, for us, it's kind of multifaceted. Like one is meeting the demand and the needs of these high risk professions. Right. But it's not just law enforcement and fire. Like, when we think about the framework, like high stress, it's like, dude, look at what the air traffic controllers just had to go through, right? Where they weren't getting funding and they have one of the, like, undeniably the highest stress jobs out there and now they're not getting paid. Right. There's a lot of injustices across our country with so many different people, whether it even just be the hospital staff, staff, like nurses, the things they have to carry every day, right. It's like, even though our hearts here in this space, working with law enforcement, fire. But it's like, I see this as a human condition, how much stress we're put through every day. Just pick up your phone. It's designed to stress you out. Go on any, you know, mainstream media, they're. They're just stressing everybody out all day. And I think every, every bit of what we're teaching people and we're showing up for is like, helpful to anybody in this experience.

The other thing, dude, is like, is having something like an opportunity for purpose for a lot of people, especially like our veterans, like, they get out of the military and it's like, what do you do? You can go contract, like, you can do some of these other things, but for a lot of people, they feel lost here, man. They feel lost. They feel betrayed. You know, us pulling out of Afghanistan was really tough for everybody. And there's a lot of people out there looking at the system, looking at the bureaucracy, and they don't know where they fit and in. That can be a little bit of despair. What we want to do is provide a spot for them of hope, a place where they can come and practice what they preach, where they can show up for others, use that wisdom that they earn, share their story, right? And help. Help their fellow person. Because people like us don't get to stop serving. We're servants. And the idea that we're not is like kind of Ridiculous to me. And I think that's a part of the problem. Whereas guys think they're just going to go fish for the rest of their life.

It's like, dude, you're a servant, right? You're the cassetria class. You're a warrior, right? And it's time for us warriors to show up for each other, right? We can't keep yelling at the academics or the politicians to save us. It's time for us to step up and be there for each other. And I think that's the way it was always supposed to be. So we're trying to build that up as well, like hitting it from both sides.

Damn. You guys got a lot of work to do.

Yeah.

How's your schedule? How busy are you? You as a coach?

Dude, I. I say this almost every day. I'm busier than I've ever been.

Oh.

It's the first time in my life I'm not miserable about it.

Well, that's. That's. That's. That's positive. Yeah, man, that's awesome. That, that. That's what you're doing, I mean, for a living and that there's 49 other guys and women, you know, doing it, too. How do you vet who. How do you vet your coaches?

Yeah. In the beginning, you know, there's such a deep network of transformational coaches working with the mission within heroic hearts. And, you know, those. Those guys and girls really get it. So we started with our first test pot, kind of leveraging them, reaching out to them, sharing what we're doing outside of the medicine space because we're not affiliated with medicine work. Right. We're not affiliated with psychedelics or anything like that, that just to the sensitivities of the United States. Right. And we respect those limitations. But we brought a lot of those transformational coaches over and the conversations they were how was just exactly what those firefighters and cops needed. So we were very successful in that space. But as we continue to grow, it's important for us to have good coaches, but the right coaches. So some of the vetting process one is like, usually it comes through referral. So we already have our tremendous coaches, and if they know someone's a good coach, then we'll start talking to them and usually bring them on. We'll leverage some of these veteran nonprofit groups and then also for open source, like, kind of applications. It's really important for us right now, where we are in growth, for them to have some coaching experience, right.

Some form of certification, some experience. Just because we don't have time to teach people right now how to be coaches. The other part is that I need to hear your story. Right. You need to have a story. Like, you need to be affiliated. You need to have been a prior first responder. Right. Prior military. Prior spouse of military or first responder. Because that's a huge gap that we're so, so heart led Nats to support the women of first responders, too.

You guys are supporting the women, too?

The spouses, yeah.

Spouses, yeah.

Probably shouldn't be just like women, but yeah, the spouse of them. Yep. And because that's huge for us, we learned that all firsthand, where we finally came through our healing, and we looked at our wives and said, oh, man, like, we drug you through a lot and you deserve it too. And they oftentimes get overlooked that. That. That cop's wife is going through a lot, too. Every day he. He signs up for a shift and he leaves. Right. Coming back changed after every shift. It's a lot there. So it's important for us to show up for them, too.

I mean, this is so new that at least I've never experienced anything. Like, I've never experienced somebody like this coming into a unit that I was in. What, you know, how are you guys approached? What is. What are, like, the first questions that people have for you? Is it this? I mean, do you see a lot of commonalities? I mean, you know, I would imagine it takes a. A minute for somebody to reach, or maybe it doesn't, you know, but what. How. How is that experience?

No, it is. It is something new. The biggest question we get is like, what's the difference between this and therapy? Which is, like, a fair question, right? It's like, what is what? So you're doing the same thing as our therapist. It's like, we're not. Right. Coaching is very much different. You know, we're not. We're not diagnosing you or assessing you. Right. And that. That's one of the bigger things is like, what is this replacing therapy? Like, are we just supposed to do coaching instead? But we're not doing that. We're collaborators. Right. We believe, like, if they're working with a therapist and they're working with a coach, it can absolutely. It's like a force multiplier. Right. With coaching, we like to work on the basic stuff, like getting your sleep dialed in, getting you down, regulating your nervous system, getting your diet in check, moving your body again, and a lot of times on the therapy side of the house. Those are the things that are missed. Right. They might do a mental exercise or whatever, it may be based on their ideology and what their practice is, but. But all those smaller things get overlooked.

So where we come in is almost like collaborative with that process. Right. And allowing them a space to just kind of feel safe talking about this type of stuff.

Do they ask you about your background?

Oh, yeah, yeah, very, you know, not as much as you would think, though, to be honest with you. Yeah. Now that we've kind of got a reputation, I do a lot of the rollouts when we present to the department. So a lot of people get to hear my story. But oftentimes, you know, we're in six, seven sessions and they're like, oh, Steve, you were in the military, right? It's like, yeah, once upon a time. Right. But they have enough trust in our process right now that they'll, they'll show up. And that's not as important for me to share my story all the time.

Now, do you, do you see, do you see a community within the community that it needs more help than everybody else? I mean, is it firefighters, is it police, is it military, is it first responders, is it nurses in the er? I mean, or is it all. Everybody just needs it?

Yeah. I think one thing I didn't notice before doing this work is how much the firefighters and cops are hand in hand, right? How much, like 90% of the calls, they're both there together. Right. And the chances that in California there's a lot of firework, right? So that, you know, firefighters in California do more firework, more, you know, but oftentimes, like, they're on the same calls, right? The same calls. If someone's shot, they need medics there, right? So it's like, it's very much integrated in a way that I wasn't quite aware of prior to doing this work. So they equally share that stress and that burden. And I think, you know, between you and me, like, I really feel, I do feel for the cops, man. I do feel for them. You know, we live right next to la. I'm just seeing some of the things that they have to deal with every day. It's like, I don't understand how you could do it.

It.

Right. But they still do. Yeah, they still believe in it. They still show up and they're willing to risk their lives for strangers knowing that no one's going to thank them and that everyone's going to criticize them. And they're just some very special human beings, man. To be able to do that, we need them so much.

Yeah. What do you guys need? What do you need at sharp? Yeah.

Dude.

Are you guys getting the name out?

Yeah. Think about this. Yeah. We started our own little podcast to help people try to share their stories, give, you know, first responders an opportunity to share their story. Very much modeled off of what you're doing. It's just so beautiful to allow people this space. I'm grateful for it, so thank you. But, you know, we're working really hard, and I think just kind of getting the word out is just so important right now to help people know that they're not alone, that there's hope, there's people out here that really want to serve them, that we've dedicated our entire lives to doing this for the rest of our lives to. To show up for them the best way possible. I think that's. That's all we could ask right now, right?

Oh, man. Well, ever since I connected with Ben, I've been. I've been cheering you guys on. Everybody I talk to that. I think that. That I think could use this, and I hope it's helping. And if it's not yet, I know it will, so. Because I'll just get louder.

Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you, man.

And we're so grateful for that.

Seriously. It was an honor, man. Like, this. This. Your story and everything that you've come through is. Wow. Wow. And, you know, and we. We.

We.

We. We also talk a lot about generational trauma on. You know, I talked about with Prime. I've talked about it with a lot of. A lot of the people that have been on here that have been through this, and. And, you know, it's just. There's people on my team, they're here today that. That have had horrific childhoods and. Congratulations, man. I'm being serious. It's just.

Just.

I just love seeing people that have been through that. Their parents have been through that, their grandparents have been through that. And when I. When I see somebody that breaks that cycle, it just makes me so happy and. And proud. Like, it's just. You're a good person, man, and you've come through a lot, and you're pouring a lot of good into this world. So it's an honor to know you and to meet you and to interview you, man.

Yeah. Thank you, Sean. I'm very grateful for every bit of it. I'm very grateful to be on this path and have this purpose. So. Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity, brother.

My pleasure. God bless.

Thank you.

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