Speaker 1: The Team House with your hosts Jack Murphy and David Bark. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: I'm Jack Murphy here with David Park. This is the
Speaker 1: Team House. This is episode one eighty something for eighty
Speaker 1: four Good Call. We're here with our guest tonight, Patrick McNamara.
Speaker 1: Pat served in Special Forces and in an Army Special
Speaker 1: Mission unit, and today he does some coaching through the
Speaker 1: Pat Mac Keep the Blaze Alive program. We'll talk about
Speaker 1: that in a little bit.
Speaker 2: Pat.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us on
Speaker 1: a Tuesday evening.
Speaker 2: Man, thanks for having me, guys. Appreciate you allowing me
Speaker 2: to grace your company and your podcast.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 1: So hey, we're gonna jump right into it. Man, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna ask you, what's your origin story? If you're a
Speaker 1: superhero comic book guy, you know where you bit by
Speaker 1: a radioactive spider? Was there some cosmic rays that you
Speaker 1: got hit with? I mean, what was what was your
Speaker 1: origin story? Like growing up and the sort of pathway
Speaker 1: that took you towards military service.
Speaker 2: That's a funny, That's that's what I like that. I
Speaker 2: like the way you you you approached that. It's cool. Uh,
Speaker 2: I think it was kind of a slow transition because
Speaker 2: I was an oddball kid. I was, I'm gonna say,
Speaker 2: a gentle kid. You know, I did all a lot
Speaker 2: of oddball hobbies. I'm an art I still am artist.
Speaker 2: Uh Uh. I'm an avid bird watcher and so was
Speaker 2: I back then, which you know, didn't gain me a
Speaker 2: lot of popularity of the tough kid.
Speaker 3: Crowd that the bird watchers didn't have groupies that would show, well.
Speaker 1: You didn't get mad girls birdwatching.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it was. It's funny how that works. Apparently
Speaker 2: chicks don't really dig bird watch. It's funny how that works.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean just a lot of odd ball stuff.
Speaker 2: I had a metamorphosis, which you know, so I guess
Speaker 2: my my superpower what do you call it? What you
Speaker 2: superhero origins? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was a it was
Speaker 2: a metamorphosis of sorts, uh having you know, just being
Speaker 2: a real gentle kid, getting my ass kicked by everybody,
Speaker 2: bullied by everybody, uh and one of them was the
Speaker 2: older brother. My older brother bullied the ship out of
Speaker 2: me and pretty much tormented me. And I was uh,
Speaker 2: I didn't even like being in the under the same
Speaker 2: roof as him and my parents were. They were sword
Speaker 2: of wise to it, but they didn't know the extent
Speaker 2: because I wasn't gonna rat them out. Plus there was
Speaker 2: threats to me that, you know, if I ratted them
Speaker 2: outches getting stitches. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. But he
Speaker 2: went to prison when I was fourth. The first time
Speaker 2: he went to prison, I was about fourteen years old,
Speaker 2: and that's when I had like a second chance. That
Speaker 2: was my first second lease on life, first one. I'll
Speaker 2: talk about my second one later. But I had a
Speaker 2: second lease on life and I joined a wrestling team
Speaker 2: at my high school. I sucked bad, I got beat
Speaker 2: by everybody. I started lifting weights, and you know, when
Speaker 2: you're fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, you're growing. Had a couple of
Speaker 2: really cool mentors that would also teach me to fight
Speaker 2: and encourage me because they were the ones who said, dude,
Speaker 2: you got a year and a half, just under two
Speaker 2: years before your brother gets out of prison. What are
Speaker 2: you gonna do? What's your recourse? How are you going
Speaker 2: to face that freaking monsoon? Because they all knew, everybody
Speaker 2: knew my parents were in denial, so they helped me
Speaker 2: out a lot. Then I got good at wrestling, and
Speaker 2: I started getting good grades and I loved the you know,
Speaker 2: the camaraderie, the team, the team conraaderie, and and the
Speaker 2: physical turmoil, you know, and the personal gain, you know,
Speaker 2: the feeling of winning. I loved it. I loved that. Uh. So,
Speaker 2: I think that was one of one of my driving
Speaker 2: forces is whence I graduated high school, I wanted to
Speaker 2: feel that feeling again. Oh, by the way, when my
Speaker 2: brother get back from prison, I kicked his assne in
Speaker 2: front of my parents. Nice yep, And so I set
Speaker 2: up a.
Speaker 3: New relationship between you two just out of curiosity, Like,
Speaker 3: didn't set a boundary.
Speaker 2: Did you guys have a Kumbaya moment after that? No?
Speaker 2: Well no, I hated his guts till the day he died. Ye.
Speaker 1: Well, that's that's definitely probably the best superhero origin we've
Speaker 1: heard on the show so far. About like hit the gym,
Speaker 1: warning to wrestle, and kicking your tormentor's ass. That's pretty good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yep, yeah, uh but it really I mean, I
Speaker 2: do owe him, right, so I do have to credit
Speaker 2: him to some degree for being just a total douchebag.
Speaker 2: Uh But yep, No, we'd never bury the hatchet. No,
Speaker 2: and that wasn't gonna happen. He never changed, never changed.
Speaker 2: He was one of those you know, leeches on society,
Speaker 2: never worked, just that got handed free ship. Yeah, responsibility,
Speaker 2: yeah yeah yeah, in and out of the prison system
Speaker 2: forever thought. He was a tough guy, covered with jailhouse tasks.
Speaker 2: Just a real work of you know, just a real
Speaker 2: peace just a real mixed bag of loose spare parts.
Speaker 2: But uh yeah, so I knew I needed that again,
Speaker 2: you know that that uh, that camaraderie, that team cohesion,
Speaker 2: that physical turmoil winning, uh, winning and losing, to know
Speaker 2: all that stuff. Uh. And my dad was into it
Speaker 2: that I wanted to join the military. He was into
Speaker 2: a big time, so he helped me out. I did
Speaker 2: go to the recruiter the recruiters, because I went to all
Speaker 2: of them. I did go on my own without him knowing.
Speaker 2: When I was seventy, and the Army at the time
Speaker 2: had the best answer because there was like immediate action
Speaker 2: I could go into, become an airborne ranger or the
Speaker 2: s A baby program was a thing at that time
Speaker 2: here in nineteen eighty three. And I came back and
Speaker 2: told my dad and he said, did you sign anything?
Speaker 2: I said, not yet. I want to talk to you say,
Speaker 2: we're going we're going down with the lawyer. Wow, well,
Speaker 2: I mean he knows, he knows, you know that recruiters
Speaker 2: can't do some slimy sh Yeah, no, it's it's great. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And so he adjusted the paperwork, the recruiter did. He
Speaker 2: adjusted it, he made some he made some kind of
Speaker 2: he erased something and penciled something in.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: And I signed up for basically that the Brand eighteen
Speaker 2: X ray program, which man I had to go to
Speaker 2: infantry basic training, so at thirteen weeks what twelve thirteen
Speaker 2: weeks there and then to airborne school and then to
Speaker 2: the s F course. If I made all that stuff,
Speaker 2: and then I get jacked up in airborne school, I
Speaker 2: was distinguished on a graduate in basic training. I go
Speaker 2: to airborne school and my second jump, I'm a freaking
Speaker 2: toad jumper. Oh my god, all the way across fire
Speaker 2: drops one on the second, one out, the last one
Speaker 2: to land thankfully. Yeah, all the way across what's that?
Speaker 2: A minute and a half drops? Then?
Speaker 1: Oh my god?
Speaker 3: That For those for people who don't know what a
Speaker 3: toad jumper is, can you please tell them and describe
Speaker 3: your experience as a toad jumper experience.
Speaker 2: Man. Well, so when you first learn how to jump,
Speaker 2: you're jumping static line, so it's static line hooks to
Speaker 2: it inboard cable and or to a cable that runs
Speaker 2: the length of the aircraft, and once you jump out
Speaker 2: and reach the end of the static line, it deploys
Speaker 2: your shoot for you. Well, in this particular case, that
Speaker 2: static line got wrapped under my reserve and around my arm.
Speaker 2: So I was just outside the door thankfully, see when
Speaker 2: I guess, I think thankfully, See when thirty versus see
Speaker 2: one forty one. I'm not sure if that's a good
Speaker 2: thing or not. But it was bad immediately because this
Speaker 2: was also tearing my body apart right because I felt it.
Speaker 2: I felt it around my body, and I was hitting
Speaker 2: the plane boom boom, boom, boom boom, and I visibly
Speaker 2: saw people going over me, right over the top of me,
Speaker 2: and I was just spinning in circles, and all I
Speaker 2: could vaguely remember, you know, the jump master briefing about
Speaker 2: you know, putting a hand on a helmet and one
Speaker 2: on the reserve. Vaguely remember that, But there was no
Speaker 2: freaking way that was happening. I was. I was in
Speaker 2: all three state of mind that was irrepairable at that point. Uh,
Speaker 2: thankfully it came loose. I hit a few times and
Speaker 2: it came loose. Now under canopy. That's when I realized
Speaker 2: I am jacked up. I am jacked I'm jacked up.
Speaker 2: I'm jacked up. There was nothing but mones and groans
Speaker 2: coming from my body, just moans and groans. I was
Speaker 2: just a limp sack of shit underneath a T ten parachute,
Speaker 2: Just just a limp, limp sack of shit. I hit
Speaker 2: the I hit the deck. I land on my same
Speaker 2: injured side, and at the time I didn't know, but
Speaker 2: I had a lot of injuries, including broken ribs and concussion, uh,
Speaker 2: disocated shoulder, and I fall on that side, so there
Speaker 2: was no PLF, you know, parachute landing fall right, I
Speaker 2: had two points of contact feet and that my injured side.
Speaker 2: And then to add insult to injury, a gust of
Speaker 2: wind comes and now I'm getting drug across Ryer drop
Speaker 2: zone and I'm all bashed up. And then I can
Speaker 2: hear one of the black cats, one of the instructors,
Speaker 2: yelling at me, saying, good up, Leeric, you over there
Speaker 2: getting drug released. One of your cable looket canopy release
Speaker 2: assemblies now leg and I'm like mother fucker, except without
Speaker 2: that level of enthusiasm. But I did hear him and
Speaker 2: I knew he was yelling at me, and I popped
Speaker 2: a cable boom. The shoote collapsed and then I'm laying
Speaker 2: there and I'm going, what and what in the fuck
Speaker 2: just happened? This jumping thing sucks? But I did pack
Speaker 2: up my parachute in the kit bag, went back to
Speaker 2: the assembly area. Now I still had no idea how
Speaker 2: bad I was. When I got there, I saw the
Speaker 2: black cats. They were looking. They were looking for people
Speaker 2: because apparently I didn't know this. They saw that somebody
Speaker 2: was told right, So now they're all looking. They're like,
Speaker 2: where is this dude? Well, I saw buddy mine and
Speaker 2: he goes, dude, you okay, you look you Because I
Speaker 2: know I was ashen. I was shocky still and I
Speaker 2: had blood, you know, coming down on this side of
Speaker 2: my brain bucket, and I said, bro, I am I
Speaker 2: am hurt. Something's really bad with my arm and he goes,
Speaker 2: Holy Countain on my bads. I had rope burns and
Speaker 2: he's going, what down And he says take it off.
Speaker 2: I says I can't. I can't move this arm. I
Speaker 2: cannot there's no signal from here to there, there's none.
Speaker 2: So he helped me unbuckled my button my blouse and
Speaker 2: pulled it down. And then when I saw that bicep
Speaker 2: and I saw that it had been pulled down my
Speaker 2: forearm all yeah, and like the skin was almost translucent.
Speaker 2: That's when I immediately heaved he because now I knew
Speaker 2: why why I was hurting so bad. And then the
Speaker 2: ribs everything. But then the black cats saw they came over. Hey,
Speaker 2: you the guy, yes, and they were dude like velvet gloves,
Speaker 2: you know, velvet gloves. They were like, bro sit down
Speaker 2: over here. The uh, the heat just left with a
Speaker 2: guy who broke his leg. We got to bus you
Speaker 2: to Martin Army Hospital. So I had to bust there.
Speaker 2: And it was a bumpy rhymes right, jiggling me all
Speaker 2: over the place, broken ribs and jacked up bicep, and
Speaker 2: then there's more. Then there's more. The hospital's nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 2: The hospital's filled with grenade events who had real injuries
Speaker 2: from you know, airfield seizures. Anyway, That's that was how
Speaker 2: I started.
Speaker 3: So did you so, I mean, I know that having
Speaker 3: the the bicep detached is a common injury with with
Speaker 3: that when you get towed. Did they did that do
Speaker 3: a surgery to reattach it then?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah you could see that star there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: And this bicep is still a lot smaller than my
Speaker 2: other one, but yeah, yeah, they had to dig it
Speaker 2: out of my form and put it back together. And
Speaker 2: the way he explain it to me says, this is
Speaker 2: the size of your bicep right now, this is what
Speaker 2: we could salvage. Wow. Insurgent's name was perlic I remember
Speaker 2: his name, Perlick, redheaded dude.
Speaker 1: So that's funny. Cool then, I mean, at least they
Speaker 1: didn't chapter you out of the military, no, or med
Speaker 1: board you out of the military.
Speaker 2: Nope, nope, nope, nope. I was in the hospital for
Speaker 2: a minute. Yeah, and I was there, and then I
Speaker 2: was I had to work at the Airborn and commit dude,
Speaker 2: it just sucked. You had to at the Yeah, I
Speaker 2: had to work there. I was on profile. I had
Speaker 2: to work at like forty fifth Company Airborne whatever the
Speaker 2: hell it's called training thingy, And yeah, I had to
Speaker 2: work there for a few months. And you see September, October, November, December,
Speaker 2: so through Christmas break January. I think I jumped again
Speaker 2: in February, so you had to continue the course. They didn't.
Speaker 2: They didn't just like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 2: had to continue now I've already been through all the
Speaker 2: other stuff, right, So they put me right on a plane,
Speaker 2: I mean ground. That's good. And dude, they were. They
Speaker 2: were cool as hell. The instructors put me first in
Speaker 2: the door, and I remember this one jump master, you know,
Speaker 2: telling me stand in the door. I hand it in
Speaker 2: my static line and he grabbed it from me and
Speaker 2: he looked me right in the face. You know, it's
Speaker 2: like I got this thing. Yeah he's not getting ejacuar there.
Speaker 2: Cool as hell. They were cool as hell. They were
Speaker 2: cool as hell. So I did two firsts in the
Speaker 2: door because I had to get three more there, So
Speaker 2: two first in the doors and then one in the
Speaker 2: middle of the stick. Yeah, and then from there did
Speaker 2: you go from there right to the SF course, which
Speaker 2: was I mean, I'm not in peak shape now when
Speaker 2: I'm doing the Army. I was in peak shape, right,
Speaker 2: you know. I was a state champion wrestlerans and weightlifter
Speaker 2: and I was badass, but uh now I'm in shape
Speaker 2: and I got to start the s F course. I
Speaker 2: started on my birthday in nineteen eighty four, yep, on
Speaker 2: my ninth birthday. And it wasn't like today where they
Speaker 2: have like SFAs they had pre phase, which was nothing
Speaker 2: more than just an absolute smoke fest for a couple
Speaker 2: of weeks and just trim the fat. Let's see who
Speaker 2: could put up with this shit? You know. They were
Speaker 2: just making it up as they went For the rest
Speaker 2: of that. The rest of the SF course was similar
Speaker 2: to what is today, but that was filled with several
Speaker 2: different roadbumps too, I mean, one after the other. Even
Speaker 2: out of Camra Call, I couldn't get hot shot like
Speaker 2: I think like twice or three times a week, they
Speaker 2: would bring in hot a's, you know, and instead of
Speaker 2: c rations because mrs weren't out just yet, they were
Speaker 2: almost there. And in order to get hot a's you
Speaker 2: had to do ten pull ups with your kid on
Speaker 2: and climb the rope. And I'd had no biceps still,
Speaker 2: I was still building this thing back, but you know,
Speaker 2: I was young, and it didn't take long before I
Speaker 2: was able to knock them out again, which sucked because
Speaker 2: you know before that I was one of these, like
Speaker 2: I was a pull up. I had to pull up
Speaker 2: record in basic training. Right now I couldn't Now, I
Speaker 2: couldn't do any to feed myself. But now you know,
Speaker 2: little there was just tons of speed bumps like that.
Speaker 2: S of course sucked. I failed out of first phase. Uh.
Speaker 2: And it was for bullshit reason, bullshit reason. I think
Speaker 2: it was the Cadre at the time, they weren't too
Speaker 2: keen of us eighteen X rays. You know, it's that
Speaker 2: babes right and man. And back then they still had
Speaker 2: the survival program. You know, six days out in you
Speaker 2: worry and you're issued one ration a live chicken or
Speaker 2: a live rabbit for those six days and then you
Speaker 2: got like twenty one task to complete in this in
Speaker 2: this amount of time. But I did good on survival.
Speaker 2: I did good. And one of the instructors was he
Speaker 2: was just jealous. They would come out every night and
Speaker 2: check on you, and he wrote me up for some bullshit.
Speaker 2: And you know, I already had a couple red tick
Speaker 2: marks and that was that that put me over the edge.
Speaker 2: So I had to do first phase all over again,
Speaker 2: the whole thing.
Speaker 3: So they were really gatekeeping with the beginning of that
Speaker 3: eight to X ray program.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, oh yeah, yep, absolutely, But I
Speaker 2: made it through and then I went to a first group,
Speaker 2: and then I learned pretty quick that I'm not I'm
Speaker 2: not so special afterwards, because what the hell does a
Speaker 2: you know, nineteen year old private h private first class.
Speaker 2: No not, you know, freaking asset to an eighteen. But
Speaker 2: I did get assigned to an eighteen H. And you know,
Speaker 2: these guys were all either eighty second Airborne or first
Speaker 2: or second Range of Battalion. You know, they were badass
Speaker 2: infantry men. You know, they all had all this infantry experience.
Speaker 2: I had nothing, zero goose egg, but but it went well.
Speaker 2: I was fast track and I had by the time
Speaker 2: I was I think I was a buck start. No
Speaker 2: maybe steps, But if I was twenty two years old,
Speaker 2: I had two s fm OS's eighteen Bravo eighteen Echo
Speaker 2: and I was a Whiskey nine so combat Dive and
Speaker 2: Halo right by the time I was twenty two. So
Speaker 2: I was fast tracking, fast tracking, you know, I was
Speaker 2: high speed load drag at a early age. And first
Speaker 2: group was fun, you know, but it was all FID stuff.
Speaker 2: It's peacetime Army. You know, you're not do anything.
Speaker 1: Really, it was a lot of a lot of Thailand, Philippines,
Speaker 1: Korea at that.
Speaker 2: Thailand, Philippines yep, Bingo, yep, yep, yep. And I love
Speaker 2: those trips. It was great, you know, I immersed myself
Speaker 2: in the culture. But uh, out of the blue man,
Speaker 2: a bunch of us got pulled to this recruiting meeting,
Speaker 2: you know, like, hey, you meet the requirements, go see
Speaker 2: this recruiting building number, you know, Hotel one oh four
Speaker 2: whatever something like that. Uh. And I went there and
Speaker 2: here's some dude in civilian clothes and long hair, he's
Speaker 2: in a suit, and he was so freaking vague. Okay,
Speaker 2: I mean the amount of ambiguity was ridiculous. I I
Speaker 2: I equate it to will Smith and Men in Black
Speaker 2: when he's in that room with the with the half
Speaker 2: dome chairs and he's asking torn, now, what are we
Speaker 2: doing here again?
Speaker 4: Here's because you're the best of the best of the best.
Speaker 4: They're not on some inner galactic tugger here. But you know,
Speaker 4: so it was like it was like what what what O?
Speaker 4: It's very bague bage. I don't even think he said.
Speaker 4: I think he said, work in the European theater, you
Speaker 4: know that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: Uh, and you're gonna, you know, learn a language it Uh,
Speaker 2: you gotta grow your hair out. You can have a
Speaker 2: civilian clothing allowance in this kind of crap. And I'm like, well, damn,
Speaker 2: that sounds a hell of a lot better than foreign
Speaker 2: internal defense. I mean that sounds like you know, it's
Speaker 2: it was interesting. I said, hell yeah, because that's the thing,
Speaker 2: you know, with with the military, right, it's all about up,
Speaker 2: getting righting the next thing right. The opportunity presents itself
Speaker 2: to say, yep, I want that I want that course,
Speaker 2: I want that course, I want that school. Yep, I
Speaker 2: want to level up, level up, level up. I want
Speaker 2: to go to that battalion now or that unit. You know,
Speaker 2: especially if you're spending a career at it, you want
Speaker 2: to level up, right, I mean that's the objective, and
Speaker 2: that should be That's a good metaphor for life too.
Speaker 2: We should want to always continue to level up. It
Speaker 2: doesn't end, you know, that cycle. So yeah, they sent
Speaker 2: me to dl I, you know, Defense Language Institute, Monterey, California,
Speaker 2: which is an eye opener, and then learn learn German.
Speaker 2: You think you do you know, and you test out well,
Speaker 2: you know, yeah three three in freaking German, and then
Speaker 2: you get there on the ground you realize you don't
Speaker 2: know shit. Once again, here we go again, you don't
Speaker 2: know shit because you know, actually speaking to people is
Speaker 2: a whole lot different than being in the classroom environment
Speaker 2: and just check and talking to the teacher in nice
Speaker 2: comfort zone. But yeah, I immersed myself in that too.
Speaker 2: I mean I would I would talk to small like
Speaker 2: merchants and uh I joined a uh oh, back to that,
Speaker 2: back to the job. So that was P. S. S. E.
Speaker 2: And which was it was? It was cool in that
Speaker 2: it was it was it was. It was cloak and
Speaker 2: dagger ship right, so it's it's peacetime army. But we're
Speaker 2: in the heat of Cold War, right, So I had
Speaker 2: no idea that these things existed. Most people didn't and
Speaker 2: most people didn't, but but they do and and they
Speaker 2: still do. Ship like this still exists. Uh So we
Speaker 2: were kind of, you know, we we were the backup
Speaker 2: plan in case the balloon went up in Soviets invaded,
Speaker 2: so now we'd have a a stay behind for us
Speaker 2: in Berlin because that was kind of the epicenter for
Speaker 2: everything spy right. It was in the middle of all
Speaker 2: the ship plus Berlin sat in the middle of Soviet
Speaker 2: East Germany too, you know, so uh and it was cool.
Speaker 2: It was cloaking dagger ship. You're doing a lot. You
Speaker 2: walk in the streets, you're pounding the pavement a lot,
Speaker 2: you know, and you're working. You're working routes in case
Speaker 2: you have to pick up that double agent. You're working routes,
Speaker 2: your your your your uh uh uh, monitoring signal sites,
Speaker 2: you're loading dead drop sites. It was all that street
Speaker 2: craft trade craft stuff. I think they changed the name
Speaker 2: tradecraft to street craft. But uh, anyway, Pat.
Speaker 1: I just want to point out for viewers out there.
Speaker 1: P s SC was the unit that preceded or came
Speaker 1: after Special Forces Detachment A in Berlin. They had to
Speaker 1: they had to kind of change the cover because it
Speaker 1: got exposed after Desert one and Go and p s
Speaker 1: S it. Correct me if I'm wrong. Physical Sensitive Security
Speaker 1: Element was the name.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, there you go.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Pat, was there was there a reason. I mean
Speaker 3: when you think of that, when you think of that
Speaker 3: unit often you think of tenth Group. But they were
Speaker 3: pulling people from everywhere.
Speaker 2: There was no so that. I think that was another change, right.
Speaker 2: There was no affiliation with tent group, with PSSC. There
Speaker 2: was with that a right, no affiliation yep. But it
Speaker 2: was it was it was. It was fun. It was fun.
Speaker 2: It was a fun job. You know. It really wasn't that.
Speaker 2: I wasn't as deep into the Cold War as I
Speaker 2: thought I was until my next job there. But uh,
Speaker 2: it was great, man. You you really learned you know,
Speaker 2: the streets, the subway systems, the s bahns, uh, the merchants,
Speaker 2: the businesses, the bars, the alleys, you know everything. The
Speaker 2: shithole hold ship, shithole hotels. Uh. You knew it inside
Speaker 2: and out. You really got to know that place well. Uh.
Speaker 2: And it was just like one exercise after the other,
Speaker 2: you know, with with picking up uh agents and you know,
Speaker 2: fall off of uh fought agents. But out of the blue,
Speaker 2: my sergeant major at that unit, uh, he policed me
Speaker 2: up one day and says, hey, man, there's a there's
Speaker 2: a guy here. I want you to talk to you.
Speaker 2: Because the writing was on the wall that pss HE
Speaker 2: was going to close. The writing was on the wall, right,
Speaker 2: so that that was that it was going to be
Speaker 2: short lived. He says, there's a guy here I want
Speaker 2: you to meet. So I went down. Now, here's his
Speaker 2: master's sargeant. He's in b t US. I got a
Speaker 2: freaking mullet in a stupid foud manchew mustache and big fat,
Speaker 2: stupid German brown boots and a pleather jacket. And he said, hey, uh,
Speaker 2: I work in another unit here. I'm like, come on,
Speaker 2: that one sounded This one sounded way cool. So this
Speaker 2: was u s MLM, the United States Military Liaison Mission
Speaker 2: and uh he said, basically, what we do is we
Speaker 2: spy on the Soviet army in Soviet East Germany. And
Speaker 2: I was like, you gotta be shipped, bro, Yes, where
Speaker 2: do I sign? And so I went through the interview
Speaker 2: process and it was all in German, the inniver process,
Speaker 2: And the first thing he asked me in German was
Speaker 2: can you explain to me in detail how a thirty
Speaker 2: five millimeter camera? Uh? I almost said function her operates.
Speaker 2: I was like yeah, because I yeah, I could do that.
Speaker 2: But that job was cool as hell. So we had
Speaker 2: this uh uh it was it was kind of like
Speaker 2: overt you know, spy your had to do in uniform
Speaker 2: in a military vehicle, no weapons, no, no, sign no comms. Man,
Speaker 2: it was so stupid. I had I argued with him
Speaker 2: about that, about the no comms thing, you know, after
Speaker 2: I'd been there a while. But uh, yeah, we had
Speaker 2: a soft cover for action, cover for status, and that
Speaker 2: was we were liaison unit to the Soviet Army and
Speaker 2: we actually did some of that, but that would get
Speaker 2: us into sovieties Germany. And we were issued maps by
Speaker 2: the Soviet Army. Uh and these maps had big yellow
Speaker 2: blobs on them, and these blobs were called pras permanently
Speaker 2: restricted area. That's where all the good shit is. Though,
Speaker 2: you know, that's all KGB km's and nuke SS twenty
Speaker 2: four's and you know what, I'm trying to think of
Speaker 2: the other nuke ones. So not frogs, but you know
Speaker 2: the new the nukes were s S twenty four's and
Speaker 2: maybe SS twenty ones. Shit, I forget, it's been a minute,
Speaker 2: but I used to know every piece of Soviet kit,
Speaker 2: every single one, because they sent you to a school
Speaker 2: in Kent in the UK, a British military intelligence school,
Speaker 2: and you learn, oh my god, man, you dream about
Speaker 2: Soviet kit in that school. You dream about it, and
Speaker 2: they have so much of it. I knew everything from
Speaker 2: flatfish radar to ZILL one three one, to every variant
Speaker 2: of BTR, to every variant of b MP, every variant
Speaker 2: of TH eight, you know, to to the aircraft you know,
Speaker 2: for every MiG, every helo, halo hip, you know, just
Speaker 2: all of the helicopters. And we were issued passes and
Speaker 2: that would get us over the Gleinika Bruka into Puttsdam,
Speaker 2: East Germany. Uh, And we were basically given like a
Speaker 2: you know, some the missions came from higher up, you know,
Speaker 2: satellite imagery, that kind of thing. At the time too.
Speaker 2: East Germany was split into three quarters and we rotated
Speaker 2: through the quaters because the Brits were doing it and
Speaker 2: the French were doing it too, and we try to collaborate,
Speaker 2: you know, change exchange information stuff like that. But a
Speaker 2: lot of times, uh, the inner agency shit just like
Speaker 2: anywhere else. You know, it's like knowledge is power. I
Speaker 2: don't want to give it up, yea, which is freaking bullshit. Bro,
Speaker 2: we're freaking fighting commies, you know, give me some info here.
Speaker 2: But that was a very very very exciting and fulfilling job.
Speaker 3: Extremely pat I don't know, if I don't know if
Speaker 3: you can speak to this and if not. You know,
Speaker 3: that's fine, totally understand. But you have your cover for status,
Speaker 3: your cover for action. As these military liaisons, you have
Speaker 3: these sites that are offully, you know, obviously off limits.
Speaker 3: You're also under observation. I assume all the time. How
Speaker 3: do you manage to to like do your job recon
Speaker 3: you know?
Speaker 2: Ye? Well, fortunately see we also went to military driving
Speaker 2: school was right hosted by the Bundesnach. I think I
Speaker 2: got there. I haven't said that word in like twenty years.
Speaker 2: But uh uh, most of our driving was on like
Speaker 2: ten trails and such. We were navin. We were navin.
Speaker 2: This was before GPS. Uh huh. We were naving on
Speaker 2: one over twenty four thousand topographical maps. That's how we
Speaker 2: were navit and trip meet around the dashboard, you know,
Speaker 2: so you're nabbing down tank trails and shit like this,
Speaker 2: and they then they went forever forever. Then you hit
Speaker 2: a hardball. When you hit a hard ball, I remember
Speaker 2: this too. Anytime you hit a hardball off a dirt road,
Speaker 2: you go the opposite direction for a few hundremeters and
Speaker 2: then turn around. Because our tire tracks were very distinguishable,
Speaker 2: and the Stazi was out there looking for us, you know,
Speaker 2: the East German secret police, but they didn't have people
Speaker 2: actively looking for us. Okay, but the Soviets knew what
Speaker 2: we were doing, so and we would we would actively
Speaker 2: go to training sites and a lot of times we
Speaker 2: would try to uh elicit information from lower level dudes.
Speaker 2: You know that weren't hardline commies. I mean you you
Speaker 2: tempt a freaking private with a Penthouse magazine and some
Speaker 2: Marblo cigarettes. You're getting some information right right now. And
Speaker 2: then you sit down with them and you and you
Speaker 2: share lunch. I remember sharing lunch with these two privates
Speaker 2: one day. They were caretakers for a training uh uh
Speaker 2: training training training site, training ground, training area, and they
Speaker 2: were living in a fox heart when we said uh
Speaker 2: in which travel in pairs, and one of us speaks
Speaker 2: fluent Russian and I'm the German speaker, and the guy
Speaker 2: was asking, how long have you been out here? Yes,
Speaker 2: this is our third week living in this foxhole. Just
Speaker 2: garden the training area. And they would get like rations
Speaker 2: delivered and I called it brown cabbage and cardboard flavored bread.
Speaker 2: It was so commy. It was so typically calmy, you know.
Speaker 2: So we made a fire and I'm busting out like
Speaker 2: you know, crackling oat Brand and Denny Moore beef stew.
Speaker 2: These guys nearly ship themselves evil temptations of the West. Dude,
Speaker 2: I come from the Big seven eleven in the sky.
Speaker 2: Bro That's where I come from, you know, that conscript
Speaker 2: army ship man. You know, we were so freaking spoiled.
Speaker 2: We're so spoiled. We're so spoiled. We have no idea,
Speaker 2: you know, we have such first world problems. I've seen
Speaker 2: sobs get freaking hammered, hammered on ana freeze hammered. I've seen.
Speaker 2: I went into a barracks once all the troops were
Speaker 2: out to the field SA eleven SA eleven compound, and
Speaker 2: we we we've watched them leave on buses and a
Speaker 2: lot of them were in formation. We we snuck up,
Speaker 2: we observed for a minute. We made a little racket too,
Speaker 2: to see if anybody was in there, you know, and nobody.
Speaker 2: So we went in to this barracks and there was
Speaker 2: bulletin boards and we were snapping the ship taking pictures
Speaker 2: and everything, and and and the smell and there was
Speaker 2: putric in this barracks and ammonia was killing my eyes
Speaker 2: in my nose my science. It's like, what the what
Speaker 2: is this? What is this? And there was a stairwell
Speaker 2: went downstairs to a basement and there was some windows.
Speaker 2: You know. Uh. We we walked down the stairs and
Speaker 2: realized the plumbing of this barracks shipped the bed. No, man,
Speaker 2: I can't believe I used that term with this story.
Speaker 2: So they just they just drained all of the ship
Speaker 2: and piss right into the basement, right into the basement.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. Uh you know. So it's funny the
Speaker 2: ship we pissed the moan about. But that was yeah,
Speaker 2: it was a it was a cool, cool uh time
Speaker 2: in history for me.
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Speaker 3: At the time, like you know, you're a young Joe
Speaker 3: and like enjoying the high speed life. Do you realize
Speaker 3: how much a part of history you are.
Speaker 2: At that point in time? Man? No, hell no, does
Speaker 2: anybody when they're when they're when they're there? I mean
Speaker 2: when the when the Berlin Wall came down, I was
Speaker 2: right there, ANDREI Reunification. I had no idea the gravity
Speaker 2: of that, no idea.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us a little bit about that? Like
Speaker 1: you look like man, dude listening to like front two
Speaker 1: four two and I'm trensende Neubotin out there the like
Speaker 1: industrial music as the wall comes down, where your leather
Speaker 1: jacket and the mustache and the glass it's badass.
Speaker 2: Well, what was I.
Speaker 1: Mean, what was that like being there when when this
Speaker 1: historic event happened.
Speaker 2: It, you know, it kind of snuck up on us, right,
Speaker 2: It was like all of a sudden one right, right,
Speaker 2: this reunification is gonna happen. What's first step? First step
Speaker 2: is wall comes down? Right, you know, because because walking
Speaker 2: down a reunification didn't happen till ninety one. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: I can't even imagine the logistics there. What went on
Speaker 2: you know in between there? Right, But it was both.
Speaker 2: I was I was partying at both. The wall coming
Speaker 2: down not much of a party, tell you the truth, really,
Speaker 2: not like reunification, bro. Reunification is when everybody start, you know,
Speaker 2: when the gates open. Yeah. Uh, families are getting together
Speaker 2: that haven't yet. I mean yeah, I don't think anybody
Speaker 2: realized that they partied all the way through the night
Speaker 2: until the sun came up, because nobody was We weren't
Speaker 2: in nobody's in bars and stuff. People were just bringing
Speaker 2: booze from every corner and crevice and glove box and trunk.
Speaker 2: You know. So right there under the uh uh the
Speaker 2: uh not the condectness, Kirsha, but the uh uh ship
Speaker 2: Brandon Burtour fuck ship right by the Brandon burg Touri.
Speaker 2: You know. So that's what a big party was and
Speaker 2: just thousands and thous and some people and fires and
Speaker 2: fireworks and bands just setting up. And I think David
Speaker 2: Hasselhoff was there too. I think he was responsible for
Speaker 2: us probably probably.
Speaker 1: And with PSSC. I mean, were you there looking to
Speaker 1: scoop up some documents or maybe find defectors? I mean,
Speaker 1: what what were you guys looking at?
Speaker 2: No? Not at that point. At that point like reunification,
Speaker 2: I was looking for another job. Because the wall comes
Speaker 2: down and we're reunified. Well huh so, and that was
Speaker 2: the end of it. You know, now I have to
Speaker 2: I have to find a job. Yeah. So that's when
Speaker 2: I went to selection for the unit. Okay, gotcha, yep,
Speaker 2: because once again, level up? What's what do I do now?
Speaker 2: After this ship? Because this was cool as hell? Right?
Speaker 2: What is there? There was only one thing, only one
Speaker 2: thing right, And to me, there was so much mystique there.
Speaker 2: I knew, I knew guys there. I had some buds
Speaker 2: that went. I knew nothing about the unit or nothing
Speaker 2: at all. Went to selection and I failed. I was like, well,
Speaker 2: damn bro, I had to go back to Germany. And
Speaker 2: then I volunteered to go to Swick. You know, Special
Speaker 2: Warfare Center to be an instructor because I want because
Speaker 2: they gave me a second chance. The unit said you
Speaker 2: could come back to selection. I had broken ankle. Uh,
Speaker 2: so they said make it a full year, make sure
Speaker 2: you're ready, that you're strong. And I was like, hell yeah, bro.
Speaker 2: Not only that, but it was a risk and a
Speaker 2: half volunteering for Swick because it was a four year
Speaker 2: commitment and nobody wants to be in swear. That's a
Speaker 2: that's a that's a that's up nailing a coffin, you know,
Speaker 2: that's a that's a bad place to be. I mean,
Speaker 2: there are good places in Swick, but I was on
Speaker 2: like the Commo committee terminating traffic. Yeah. Uh. And then
Speaker 2: when again a year later and I did well, I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, hell yeah, man, who uh? And then
Speaker 2: planted planned my ass there for thirteen years. And then
Speaker 2: it was you know, continuously trying to level up once again,
Speaker 2: level up, level up, level up, and not only in
Speaker 2: like team positioning or unit, even against individuals because I
Speaker 2: had a bit of an ego right about me because
Speaker 2: I was I was a top performer most places where
Speaker 2: that I went, top performer. I get to the unit
Speaker 2: and I realized I'm mediocre. I'm mediocre now maybe at
Speaker 2: the like top tier mediocre, right, but still mediocre, and
Speaker 2: I continue to be that way for years, just mediocre
Speaker 2: because it was there's a it was amazing. It was
Speaker 2: the best best place, uh you could ever work out ever.
Speaker 2: But it comes with a price, you know, long work hours, uh,
Speaker 2: a lot of uh, a lot of st us, a
Speaker 2: lot of risk, a lot of injury. And the stress
Speaker 2: was because you're always on the bubble. They reserved the
Speaker 2: right to fire your stinking assid any given second, and
Speaker 2: it was easy to get fired from there, So you
Speaker 2: were always on the bubble, always short string, no, I
Speaker 2: say short string. They gave you a lot of slack,
Speaker 2: you know, they pulled, they tons of slack, but at
Speaker 2: the end of that slack, it's an abrupt.
Speaker 3: Pull when you when you say it was easy to
Speaker 3: get fired there, like, what were some of the reasons
Speaker 3: that you saw guys fired that they might not get
Speaker 3: fired in other units?
Speaker 2: Tons of them?
Speaker 4: Uh u U.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you A wake up call for me was
Speaker 2: my first squadron training exercise, right, first squadron hit. I
Speaker 2: don't know if I shared this with with many people,
Speaker 2: this one here first squadron hit I see a fly
Speaker 2: stand by. Oh yeah, baby, so squadron hit multiple breach points.
Speaker 2: We all, I'm on that. I'm on like the best
Speaker 2: team in the unit. These guys were just top dogs
Speaker 2: and everything, physical, shooting, tactics, all that shit. Multiple breach points,
Speaker 2: simultaneous boom teams enter multiple breach points. I go into
Speaker 2: the first room and I go click instead of bang.
Speaker 2: I didn't think. I mean, my immediate action was fast, right,
Speaker 2: because I knew what happened, So slaprack, you know, instead
Speaker 2: of transitioning, I just slap rack. Slap racking got to work.
Speaker 2: And I was like, I hope nobody saw that my
Speaker 2: troops are major seat. I mean, dude, dudes' are omnipotant.
Speaker 2: You know, when you get to that level, they're they're omniptant.
Speaker 2: They're gonna see every freaking thing. And my troops at
Speaker 2: major saw and he docked me my my proficiency pay
Speaker 2: for the month. Wow, So hit me right in the
Speaker 2: pocket book. And that was a big race. It was
Speaker 2: like two hundred dollars or something like that. I forget
Speaker 2: it was substantial, right, you know, on a g I
Speaker 2: S right paycheck, But that fast and he and he
Speaker 2: also said, he goes, hey, uh uh, you're on a
Speaker 2: shorter you know, shorter string. Now, right, something like this
Speaker 2: happens again, we're gonna have to let you go. So
Speaker 2: it wasn't because I was like being negligent or doing
Speaker 2: something idiotic or moral and ethical. But they're going to
Speaker 2: fire you. And there's a difference, right, So when dudes
Speaker 2: do that ship or like nds, they happened, they happen, right,
Speaker 2: especially when you're when you're when you're training that much.
Speaker 2: Depending on the circumstance, a lot of times they'll fire
Speaker 2: you for a year and uh bring you back as
Speaker 2: a relook and allow you to come back again. But
Speaker 2: anything moral or ethical dilemma anything like that, you're gone. Easy.
Speaker 2: You're done so compared to other units. Yeah, that's easy,
Speaker 2: you're out of here. Fire anything any kind of moral
Speaker 2: ethical you know, so lying, uh, d u y, cheating,
Speaker 2: you know, any of that stuff, you are freaking absolutely gone. Also,
Speaker 2: if you wane or if you're falling behind in performance. Now,
Speaker 2: if you're a good dude and you're falling behind the performance,
Speaker 2: they might find a job for you in a different
Speaker 2: part of the building. You're not going to be a
Speaker 2: door kicker, you're not going to be an operator. But yep,
Speaker 2: very easy to get fired. And I love that. I
Speaker 2: love the accountability portion, you know, I loved it. I
Speaker 2: loved it. I mean it was heartbreaking sometimes having buds,
Speaker 2: like because I knew guys, who would I knew three
Speaker 2: people similar story. This one though, was kind of extreme.
Speaker 2: The guy was in on the weekend because dudes winning
Speaker 2: all the time, and trained, went out to train, came back,
Speaker 2: went into his vault. Nobody's there. It's like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: seven or eight in the morning. I think he was
Speaker 2: doing night fire, you know, and Sunday comes back. He's
Speaker 2: putting his guns away and he freaking he sends one
Speaker 2: right into the floor. A d you know, he could
Speaker 2: have put some freaking putty on that thing. He turned
Speaker 2: himself in. You know, nobody was there. I know three
Speaker 2: dudes have turned themselves in for ND's three of them.
Speaker 2: Three guys turned themselves in. Nobody was there. They turned
Speaker 2: One guy was a semunitions round. He turned himself in.
Speaker 2: Wow wow, Yeah, yep, but uh, I mean it's it
Speaker 2: was nice working in that type of environment, very nice.
Speaker 2: It was so cool, so freaking cool.
Speaker 1: Pat what else?
Speaker 2: What? What? What?
Speaker 1: Just sorry? What what year did you get to the unit?
Speaker 1: And to the extent that you can talk about, like
Speaker 1: what was what was sort of the atmosphere in the
Speaker 1: unit at that time as far as like what was
Speaker 1: happening in the world. You mentioned the wall, Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: like what what was the mission set that you were
Speaker 1: kind of training for and looking at?
Speaker 2: So I got there ninety two and immediately so a
Speaker 2: year later, I'm on this hot ship team. In May
Speaker 2: of ninety three, I get ones on my page or
Speaker 2: because we're going to get id'd, you know, we're going
Speaker 2: to get id'd and Somalia going to snatch him up
Speaker 2: or kill. I think it was didn't matter kill. I
Speaker 2: didn't think he needed to be captured. Is that the
Speaker 2: capture kill?
Speaker 4: Right? Right?
Speaker 2: Right? I mean, oh, you give me an option there, right,
Speaker 2: capturing somebody's hard man?
Speaker 3: Yeah, capture kill briefs fine, even if you you know, well,
Speaker 3: he got he killed, he resisted, but it was a
Speaker 3: capture killed out.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So we trained our asses off man. We went
Speaker 2: you know strictly uh priority for all unit assets three
Speaker 2: weeks and then and then it got passed to another squadron. Uh.
Speaker 2: And then it got passed to another one, and you know,
Speaker 2: we were just passing down Hey, this is just some
Speaker 2: of the stuff we learned and doing this and that,
Speaker 2: and we just pass on the info and so Sea
Speaker 2: Squadron went So after that a big focus. This was
Speaker 2: kind of cool. Wait, let me think about this, let
Speaker 2: me think about this. Nope, I'm not going to talk
Speaker 2: directly about that. I will say the next boogeyman that
Speaker 2: we were going after was Kadafi. Yeah, so he was
Speaker 2: on the radar, so cool stories associated with that, but uh,
Speaker 2: not super comfortable talking about the deets on that one.
Speaker 2: So Kadafi, and then there was we were doing some
Speaker 2: and I'll be kind of vague on this one. We
Speaker 2: were doing some undercover stuff which put us into parts
Speaker 2: of the world that we didn't have complete autonomy, right,
Speaker 2: but uh, but the next thing that emerged was, you know,
Speaker 2: Bosnia and this new thing called Pipwick's right persons incited
Speaker 2: for war crimes. So that the the that war had
Speaker 2: finished ninety five ninety six ish, you know, I think
Speaker 2: ninety six that was it. That was it done done?
Speaker 2: Not even sniper fire. Uh, you know, I was on
Speaker 2: Hillary Clinton's detail. Yeah, when she was under sniper fire
Speaker 2: so you can confirm snipers. It was Tusla, like one
Speaker 2: of the safest places in the world.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Ship. And on that trip to Cheryl Crow hit on
Speaker 2: me really yeah yeah. Yeah, that's back when she was
Speaker 2: hot too, Yeah, when all she wanted to do was
Speaker 2: have some fun boom yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: Well was that like a U s O tour like
Speaker 1: some yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: They came over with like I think it was Sindbad
Speaker 2: Chryl Crow, and then Hillary came over with Chelsea. But yeah,
Speaker 2: there was I made a bunch of like goofy uber
Speaker 2: lib politicians in the mid nineties over there, Mike uh,
Speaker 2: Geraldine Ferraro, Madeline Albright. She was kind of cool even
Speaker 2: though she was an uber lib but she was kind
Speaker 2: of cool still. But anyway, so the so later nineties,
Speaker 2: you know, the Pifwicks come to play Person's indicted for
Speaker 2: war crimes. These guys are badass, man, you know. So
Speaker 2: now we're back to oh we have to actually scarf
Speaker 2: these guys up, and they got to go to the Hague.
Speaker 2: You know, we can't just send out a drone or
Speaker 2: put a sniper in a in a up the uh
Speaker 2: you know, a hide sight. This ship's got to be
Speaker 2: surgical as hell.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: And I got a few of those guys. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: got the first one. His name is Christick, uh, General Christick,
Speaker 2: and then a couple other big names. Uh. But real
Speaker 2: freaking neat ship. I wish I could talk explicit about that,
Speaker 2: but eh, yeah, no need to need to.
Speaker 3: This is something that was really right up your rally,
Speaker 3: just from your previous missions in Germany, right yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 2: Yeah it was cool, you know, because it was all
Speaker 2: playing clothes. It was cloaking dagger ship, right yep. But
Speaker 2: it was it was kind of like, you know what
Speaker 2: the unit was made to do, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: this kind of stuff. Uh. And that was that was man,
Speaker 2: it was just bad. It was bad, badass yeah uh uh.
Speaker 2: And that that fizzled out because we got them, We
Speaker 2: got them are uh. And then I was an S
Speaker 2: and T selection and training for for a couple of years.
Speaker 2: The bomber of that story is, while it was an
Speaker 2: S and T nine eleven, nine eleven, which means everybody's deploying,
Speaker 2: but Schmuck's an we're not doing it anywhere nowhere. By
Speaker 2: the time I got over there, dudes had one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty combat hits you know, in country or more. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and here I am. I was a oh and I
Speaker 2: was I made a nine by that point. So here
Speaker 2: I am E nine taking orders from a staff sergeant,
Speaker 2: which I didn't mind at all. Bro E nine a
Speaker 2: private E nine? Hell yeah. The unit was probably one
Speaker 2: of the only places where you could be a private
Speaker 2: E nine. You know, to make me a door kicker
Speaker 2: is E nine? Hell yeah?
Speaker 3: Pat, I mean you're actually a great authority then on
Speaker 3: this because being an S and T, how were those
Speaker 3: guys that were going over and then coming back, how
Speaker 3: were tactics and training involving?
Speaker 2: Were they getting fed directly? You guys?
Speaker 3: Were was were was the training course evolving? Like on
Speaker 3: the spot sort of?
Speaker 2: In that pretty much stayed it was. It's it's so
Speaker 2: perfectly designed. It pretty much stayed exactly the way it is. Okay,
Speaker 2: pretty much exactly the way it is, yep, because it
Speaker 2: was it was designed for that in mind, that kind
Speaker 2: of ship counter terrorism stuff. So it did not change
Speaker 2: one freaking bit. What did change was influx and people
Speaker 2: wanting to get to the unit because we were getting
Speaker 2: some man, right, I mean, people were you know, there
Speaker 2: were there were a lot of like special Forces teams
Speaker 2: and stuff getting some and other special opportunity. But we
Speaker 2: were like it was non stop, non stop, so guys
Speaker 2: really wanted to get there because a lot of a
Speaker 2: lot of people weren't doing ship you know. But yeah,
Speaker 2: the the OTC, the operator traders course stayed, stayed pretty
Speaker 2: much exactly the same.
Speaker 1: And so what what was it like by the time
Speaker 1: you got over to Afghanistan.
Speaker 2: I didn't go to Afghanistan. I'm sorry, toy sto Iraq.
Speaker 2: Real short trips. Uh it was it was still uh
Speaker 2: target rich, you know, because it was four and five.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh four. I didn't do ship man because man,
Speaker 2: this is kind it's kind of cool though too. The
Speaker 2: unit sent me over because I was at the man
Speaker 2: this was this is a ship detail. But but I
Speaker 2: did it. Uh. It was at the end of my
Speaker 2: s and T I had no team, I had no squadron,
Speaker 2: I had no body. Uh, and they set me over
Speaker 2: to Iraq to to check out what the support element
Speaker 2: was doing, the mechanics, the engineers, the logist loge, uh
Speaker 2: logistics guys, the cooks, all that, you know, to check
Speaker 2: them out to see how their security was and man,
Speaker 2: it was bad. It was bad, bad, bad bad, bye
Speaker 2: bad bad.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: So I did a lot of O j T on
Speaker 2: the ground with them because they were doing hiris ship man,
Speaker 2: they were getting shot at more than we were. Uh.
Speaker 2: And then they uh, the unit brought me back and
Speaker 2: I built a course for the support element. I built
Speaker 2: a course what like, I'm mini OTC dude. It was
Speaker 2: two weeks, very very intensive. Yeah, all all the basic
Speaker 2: tactics stuff shooting right, so right from BRM to multiple
Speaker 2: target engagements, to to pistol work and then to the
Speaker 2: uh all of the crucive weapons. Damn it, man, I
Speaker 2: had I don't use these terms often anymore, but so
Speaker 2: all the crucive weapons, so anything that was belt fed
Speaker 2: or shoulder carried. We train them all on that. A
Speaker 2: lot of driving, a lot of vehicle based scenarios, a
Speaker 2: lot of first aid. So now these guys are going
Speaker 2: back over. When I went back over with my former squadron,
Speaker 2: we were taking them out with us and they were
Speaker 2: like on street corners, cooks, bro Yeah, a man in
Speaker 2: a MAG fifty eight. It was cool as hell. Yeah,
Speaker 2: cool as hell. But uh, and I really like that time.
Speaker 2: I'm working with them because dude, talk about appreciation because
Speaker 2: they idolized us, you know, the support Element idolized US operators,
Speaker 2: and now you're chummy chummy with them and you're teaching
Speaker 2: them all this cool freaking commando shit and they're like,
Speaker 2: what the fuck, This is the best thing ever. And
Speaker 2: then they're doing shit with freaking operators on the ground. Yeah, man,
Speaker 2: and it's manning. It's manning freaking security positions. But that's
Speaker 2: a big freaking nickel for an engineer, for a cook
Speaker 2: or a mechanic. Yeah, you know, you're on a freaking
Speaker 2: a mod deuce fifty cow and some of these guys
Speaker 2: like got into firefights like waw, you know, ripping rounds
Speaker 2: down down alleyways.
Speaker 1: The mechanics can be so salty because you know, we
Speaker 1: just break all their ship and then get great by
Speaker 1: now they're getting to.
Speaker 2: Go out on the operation.
Speaker 3: And cooks are the hardest working people in the military.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, so to get some love is
Speaker 3: like yeah, brilliant, yeah, so good, so good.
Speaker 2: But that's what makes the unit so freaking just absolute
Speaker 2: badass man. You know, I spent a lot of time
Speaker 2: training my element over there. I would shoot with him.
Speaker 2: Every week I would have an open range day and
Speaker 2: they where they could come out and run like scenarios
Speaker 2: form and yeah, but yeah, So I stayed till two
Speaker 2: thousand and five. I retired in two thousand and five.
Speaker 2: Two thousand and five, who and then life started. Right,
Speaker 2: It's like, what do I do now after I since
Speaker 2: I've grown up? What the hell? You know? In that
Speaker 2: transition could be spooky. Yeah, I did have some groundwork
Speaker 2: set already. I picked a little hanging fruit and took
Speaker 2: a job. Even before I retired. I got offered a
Speaker 2: job corporation to a military contract stuff pay me more,
Speaker 2: and I was like, you know, in familiar territory. I
Speaker 2: was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, good good. And it sucked man,
Speaker 2: now that you know, since I'm out on my own.
Speaker 2: Even when I was on my so I worked for
Speaker 2: that corporation for about four or four and a half
Speaker 2: years and they made me off. Best thing that could
Speaker 2: ever happened to me. Scary, one of the scariest moments
Speaker 2: in my life too, because I have family, little kids,
Speaker 2: all this shit, but probably one of the best things
Speaker 2: that could have happened for growth. Right, right, we need
Speaker 2: to be very uncomfortable in order to grow, right, because
Speaker 2: we need to, we get uncomfortable, we need to we
Speaker 2: need to ship that exoskeleton and put on another exoskeleton
Speaker 2: that's a little bit bigger, right. Uh. But when I
Speaker 2: got laid off, I was like, dude, what in them?
Speaker 2: I mean? I I uh. I confided in a bunch
Speaker 2: of buddies of mine that had their own businesses, and
Speaker 2: they all said that they could get me work. But
Speaker 2: they all said the same thing, just do it on
Speaker 2: your own, Just do it on your own. And man,
Speaker 2: I did, and it worked out. It worked out. Now,
Speaker 2: Ebbs and flows right when you run your own I
Speaker 2: mean deep dark holes, highs, just one freaking thing after
Speaker 2: the other. It never stopped ebbs and flows. I mean,
Speaker 2: but I was doing well. But I knew I was
Speaker 2: working a lot this.
Speaker 1: We're doing tactical marksmanship courses and things like that.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep, yep yep. And I had a full uh
Speaker 2: you know, slate man. Everybody wanted it. I was doing.
Speaker 2: I was doing something that nobody else had. I was
Speaker 2: doing what I call performance based training. So I was
Speaker 2: training dudes kind of like a a sports psychologist would
Speaker 2: train a professional athlete. I mean, that's like what's the difference, man,
Speaker 2: That's what I would tell you. You know, what's the difference.
Speaker 2: You're you're basically a professional athlete when you're at that level,
Speaker 2: So let's train like professional athletes. But so twenty ten
Speaker 2: is when I generated tam Max my company, and I
Speaker 2: was working my ass off the same time going through it.
Speaker 2: Just an absolute bludgeon fest of marriage, a tail end
Speaker 2: tail end. It was real bad, real bad. I'd married something.
Speaker 2: You know, at the beginning of this, it was six
Speaker 2: in your relationship at the beginning of it is cool.
Speaker 2: She just lovested me that she had some healthy ish
Speaker 2: mental issues, but she was taking meds and everything. But
Speaker 2: pretty soon, you know, bipolar. So but pretty soon she
Speaker 2: started abusing the meds right and drinking on them. Now,
Speaker 2: that fucks up the neural receptors in your head real bad.
Speaker 2: You know, when you're abusing prescription meds, which are absolute poison.
Speaker 2: If you're on prescription meds, try to get off of them.
Speaker 2: There's plenty of alternatives out there. Mother nature knews how
Speaker 2: to take care of us. Oh man, that shit drives
Speaker 2: me crazy. So she became a rave, absolute, raving lunatic,
Speaker 2: just delusional and paranoid. It was bad, bad, bad, bad, bad,
Speaker 2: bad bad bad. For years. I lived in a bonus
Speaker 2: room above my garage for five years, but I finally
Speaker 2: that one came to then, thanks to the police in
Speaker 2: my town. Long story. I'd go on for freaking two
Speaker 2: hours on that one. And that was two thousand thirteen.
Speaker 2: Twenty thirteen was my worst year and my best year,
Speaker 2: all wrapped in one, all wrapped in one. See those
Speaker 2: of you out there listening who did any kind of
Speaker 2: government contract stuff in twenty thirteen, you remember this thing
Speaker 2: called sequestration. Sequestration, bro, My calendar was full twenty thirteen.
Speaker 2: You know, Secret Service Border Patrol eighty second they're born,
Speaker 2: just one after the other. Sequestration happened in January twenty thirteen.
Speaker 2: Light switch click, no work, Wow, you got no work?
Speaker 2: And I mean, you know, And I'm at the tail
Speaker 2: end of a doors, right that's January March. I move out,
Speaker 2: and I'm assuming this debt because we already been through
Speaker 2: a few mediations and I've been through tons of mediations already, right,
Speaker 2: tons of I am spending so much on lawyers and
Speaker 2: trying to clear this debt. It was after it was
Speaker 2: an absorbited in him out. I'm not even gonna mention
Speaker 2: the number. It was ridiculous because I didn't even know
Speaker 2: that you could run like a debit card as a
Speaker 2: credit card, you know, because my ex was doing all
Speaker 2: this shit. I had no idea, and I had to
Speaker 2: assume all this shit. Oh my god, because I thought
Speaker 2: it was just a debit card. You know, it's debit,
Speaker 2: it's that card. But some of them come with, you know,
Speaker 2: thirty thousand dollars worth of credit. Surprise, it was a
Speaker 2: lot of them. But so thirteen that all that shit happened,
Speaker 2: I move out. I'm close to my kids. I'm five
Speaker 2: hundred yards away in a condo. Uh. Sequestration, not getting paid.
Speaker 2: Just one freaking shit storm after the other.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: September twenty thirteen, when I met, when I meet, my
Speaker 2: current life, which was which has been? It's been, It's
Speaker 2: been a it's been a dream come true. Remember earlier
Speaker 2: I said second chance on life. That was the first
Speaker 2: time I got a second lease on life. I will
Speaker 2: tell you about the second time later. This is the
Speaker 2: second time. Not many of us get that, you know,
Speaker 2: second lease on life. So in order to get a
Speaker 2: second lease on life, shit's got to be pretty bad, right,
Speaker 2: you know, you gotta be down and out, you got
Speaker 2: to be a maybe a junkie, or or go completely
Speaker 2: bankrupt or you know, shit's got to be bad. You
Speaker 2: know you've suffered major loss.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: So that's when I meet Rebecca too. And man, I
Speaker 2: just started life all but at the time that was
Speaker 2: two and I was forty eight years I'm forty eight
Speaker 2: years old. I had to start life all over again
Speaker 2: at forty eight years old. But it's been great. And
Speaker 2: you know what pains me. I've said this on podcasts before.
Speaker 2: I said this, and this, this is this is a
Speaker 2: scary thought. This gives me. This makes me cringe knowing
Speaker 2: what I have right now, knowing you know what I
Speaker 2: have right now, Yeah, and being as happy and content
Speaker 2: and satisfied and busy as I am right now. I
Speaker 2: would do all that ship over again. I would do
Speaker 2: all that I would do. I would I would one
Speaker 2: do all that bullshit. I would live in that bonus
Speaker 2: room for five years. I would be accused of being
Speaker 2: of of of cheating six seven, eight times a day,
Speaker 2: having the cops come over showing them how I'm bugging
Speaker 2: the house, how the TV's bugged. How I'm operating the
Speaker 2: TV from Il Passo through my cell phone? How you know?
Speaker 2: Uh uh I The accusations were just freaking stupid. It
Speaker 2: was so there was so many of them. But I would,
Speaker 2: I would change it. I would. I wouldn't change any
Speaker 2: of that because of what I have.
Speaker 3: You know, a lot of guys, especially a lot of
Speaker 3: a lot of guys coming from those high performing units,
Speaker 3: you know, have a difficult time transitioning into the civilian
Speaker 3: to begin with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, you go from from six.
Speaker 3: Steta zero as they say. You know, not only did
Speaker 3: you have that going on, but you had these, you know,
Speaker 3: really challenging issues at home where probably your own reality
Speaker 3: was being challenged on a daily basis, right, Like, you're
Speaker 3: trying to deal with this transition to begin with, and
Speaker 3: then you have somebody who's like trying to impose this
Speaker 3: sort of psychotic frame over over your world. How how
Speaker 3: did you manage all that at the same time?
Speaker 2: Were you dealing with it?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 2: No, no, no, Now I'll tell you how you manage it.
Speaker 2: You got to stay busy, right, So you said sixty
Speaker 2: to zero. You can't go to zero. You've got to
Speaker 2: stay around sixty you've got to stay. I don't give
Speaker 2: a shit if that's working, if that's you know, becoming
Speaker 2: an entrepreneur or plowing a field. You've got to be
Speaker 2: mission focused. There's got to be meaning in your life. Fulfillment.
Speaker 2: You've got to have it because you've had it for
Speaker 2: so long. Especially career military guys. You know, career military,
Speaker 2: they've got they need that. They need that camaraderie, that teamwork,
Speaker 2: that fulfillment, that work with meaning. I I didn't. I
Speaker 2: was dealing with it well initially. But when I when
Speaker 2: I was going through the last five years of that marriage,
Speaker 2: it was it was bad. It was real bad. I
Speaker 2: was I found myself in a very very deep, dark hole.
Speaker 2: It was like the pit of despair. I like to
Speaker 2: say that I could joke about any portion of my life,
Speaker 2: any injury, any mishap, the want. This one, though, is
Speaker 2: hard for me to joke about, but it's important to
Speaker 2: talk about. I ran into a massive three to four
Speaker 2: year long spell of depression. I had no idea what
Speaker 2: depression is. But I was almost quitting. I was quitting
Speaker 2: on me. I was quitting. I was quitting. I was quitting.
Speaker 2: I was accepting mediocrity. Did you know you were sorry.
Speaker 2: Did you know you were quitting or was it? Nope,
Speaker 2: there was I had no idea. I was so tired
Speaker 2: of hearing and having to you know, you know, hearing
Speaker 2: I'm going to take a fall down the stairs, call
Speaker 2: the cops and tell them you pushed me. You know.
Speaker 2: It was just non stop or having the cops come
Speaker 2: and say, hey, we found your wife in the village
Speaker 2: and she's drunken on drugs. I was so tired. I
Speaker 2: was just tired, tired, tired. It was non stop. There
Speaker 2: was not a day break. There wasn't a day not
Speaker 2: a daybreak. I doubt that there were a couple hours
Speaker 2: of break in there, because even when I would go
Speaker 2: on trips, I'm I'm in, like I mentioned, like l
Speaker 2: Pass or training the border patrol, and my phone would
Speaker 2: ring non fucking stop, NonStop. Yeah.
Speaker 1: How after after a while, your your nerves are shot,
Speaker 1: you know, Yeah, your your NEU receptors are shot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, there I was. I was almost done. But
Speaker 2: then I had an epiphany moment. And I mentioned this
Speaker 2: before in a couple of podcasts, but I think it's
Speaker 2: worth re mentioning. I had an epiphany moment U and
Speaker 2: it was mainly because I was talking to my my
Speaker 2: my son. He was a sweet, little cute as hell
Speaker 2: boy at the time, and I was ship faced, drunk
Speaker 2: out of my mind because I was drinking all day
Speaker 2: long every day. And I realized I told him, I said, James,
Speaker 2: I don't just I don't just love you. I am
Speaker 2: in love with you. And he started crying. I don't
Speaker 2: know how old he was, I forget. I could do
Speaker 2: the math. I'n to figure out. Probably eight or something
Speaker 2: like that, but maybe younger sid six. Uh. And I realized, man,
Speaker 2: and I put him in bed. I realized, this kid
Speaker 2: needs me. Man, he needs me. I have to be around.
Speaker 2: And I said, well, I don't know where this came from.
Speaker 2: But I put up my running shoes, set an alarm clock,
Speaker 2: put out my iPod, got up early. It was a
Speaker 2: Saturday or so, it was a weekend day, and I
Speaker 2: just started. I just started running. You know. It was
Speaker 2: like a forest gump thing. What do I do? And
Speaker 2: let me just go for a run. And dude, I
Speaker 2: ran for like an hour and a half. I mean
Speaker 2: it was a long time. I didn't run across Greenbelt County,
Speaker 2: but you know, I ran for I ran for a
Speaker 2: long time. And then I came back and I did
Speaker 2: not want to go inside. I had to go inside
Speaker 2: to get food before I go up to my bonus room,
Speaker 2: but I didn't want to go in there. Uh. And
Speaker 2: then I realized, well, I'm going to work out more
Speaker 2: here in the driveway. And as I'm working out, a
Speaker 2: couple things came to mind. One is I felt relief,
Speaker 2: you know, after that run. Relief, I mean good like
Speaker 2: I was remembering who the fuck I was. I was
Speaker 2: remembering this, and I said to myself, I will not.
Speaker 2: You will not defeat me. I will not be defeated.
Speaker 2: There's no freak away, there was no way. And and
Speaker 2: that's what I made up that mind, right, did I
Speaker 2: just got I just gave myself goosebumps. Yeah, I will not.
Speaker 2: And then and another part of me was saying, yeah,
Speaker 2: but bro, you're You're buried. You're buried, And I said nope.
Speaker 2: I counter argued, I said, nope, I have been planted.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna grow out of this ship. I'm gonna fucking
Speaker 2: grow out of it, and I'm gonna get better. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna get stronger. So worse than best year, worst and
Speaker 2: best year, but that was one of the highlights right
Speaker 2: there that changed that that old school mindset, you know,
Speaker 2: just a uh, you know, good sanity check. But it's back.
Speaker 2: It's back to your origin story, right. It's that is
Speaker 2: that you're not gonna break me.
Speaker 1: Nope, it's so it's so like, I mean, I'm really
Speaker 1: glad that you're able to share that story. It's just
Speaker 1: so strange to think of like a depressed Pat McNamara.
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm used to taking high energy
Speaker 2: faking my ass off.
Speaker 1: The dude, the dude who's in better shape than guys
Speaker 1: half his age. I mean, that's just Pat McNamara. Yep,
Speaker 1: that is true.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I think one of the things that's hard with that's
Speaker 3: what other situation and not even people who aren't vets,
Speaker 3: you know, even our civilian friends, is people who are
Speaker 3: really deep in it. They're often faking, right. A lot
Speaker 3: of the people who are crying out for help like
Speaker 3: like they're not quite there yet. But it's when a
Speaker 3: when a dude or when a person is faking it
Speaker 3: that that we have no idea where they're at, but
Speaker 3: they're they're spiral and hard.
Speaker 2: A lot of times, you know, if a guy is
Speaker 2: suffering from that, like depression of alcoholism. They're not going
Speaker 2: to You're not going to notice a call for help.
Speaker 2: You need to either really know him, know him really well,
Speaker 2: or or assume yeah, because I've talked to guys. I've
Speaker 2: talked to guys out you know who got out after
Speaker 2: I recovered from all this and got my shit together,
Speaker 2: and I just saw something. You know, they were bitter,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, better, And a couple guys
Speaker 2: looked at me like I had a dick grown out
Speaker 2: of my forehead. But they so appreciated it where I
Speaker 2: pulled him aside and say, hey, man, come out sometime,
Speaker 2: get out. I know you said you don't come out.
Speaker 2: Come out, come out and get a pint. Here's my number,
Speaker 2: give me a shot sometime. So I'm not saying that,
Speaker 2: I know, you know what I mean. I'm not putting
Speaker 2: them in a bad position, right, but I am opening
Speaker 2: the door, and so many of them have taken it,
Speaker 2: and afterwards they've gone, dude. I cannot fucking tell you
Speaker 2: how much I appreciate because the guys are crying for help.
Speaker 2: I don't think they have a real breaking issue.
Speaker 1: I really don't.
Speaker 2: The guys who are seriously fucked up. You're not gonna
Speaker 2: know it unless you know them, or assume, or you assume.
Speaker 2: You assume. Dude, you've been through a lot of shit,
Speaker 2: you know. I will assume to the point where my
Speaker 2: guy's happy and he's out, because I just did this recently.
Speaker 2: I was chatting with the guy my local pub. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm retiring. I say, hey, bro, do do yourself a favor.
Speaker 2: Stay connected, Stay connected with your old buds. Just stay connected.
Speaker 2: Just do that, because I didn't. And the connection is
Speaker 2: the cure. I stole that U line from Josh Collins,
Speaker 2: buddy mine, but that connection is definitely the cure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, did you find yourself isolating a lot during that
Speaker 3: period of time?
Speaker 2: Hell yeah, dude, I wasn't. I knew nobody I knew. Yeah,
Speaker 2: But anytime I was out and about or you know,
Speaker 2: on a training gig, I faked the hell out of it,
Speaker 2: right right, fake you freaking hell out of it. Who
Speaker 2: get you some blaze off baby? You know all the
Speaker 2: freaking pat mac shit. So just bloviating. I was all
Speaker 2: freaking theater, all of it. So tell us about the
Speaker 2: second Lisa Life. What were are the second second Lease
Speaker 2: On Life? What was what was that next lifetime life
Speaker 2: period that you went on to live. Dude, it's the
Speaker 2: one I'm living right now now. It's I'll give you
Speaker 2: the reader's digest version. So meeting Rebecca changed changed change
Speaker 2: my life, right. So now I had meaning again, but
Speaker 2: I was working. I was busy again. So in twenty thirteen,
Speaker 2: I found work, I found more. I was able to regenerate.
Speaker 2: But I felt good. I had this renewed enthusiasm, you know.
Speaker 2: And and I just felt good. I was motivated, and
Speaker 2: I had the discipline to to to kind of nurture
Speaker 2: the motivation. Uh And and when when I met Rebecca,
Speaker 2: I was, Dude, there's so many corny lines I'm gonna say,
Speaker 2: but one of them is I never I never knew
Speaker 2: what it meant in my adult lifetime until I met
Speaker 2: Rebecca to truly fall in love with somebody. I never
Speaker 2: knew until I'm her, never knew it. And now that
Speaker 2: I have it, I like it. And it's We've been
Speaker 2: together almost ten years. We haven't had a crossword. She's
Speaker 2: my best friend. I miss She's at school right now.
Speaker 2: She's going to school full time, uh, for to be
Speaker 2: a psychologist. And I'm like dude, I can't wait for
Speaker 2: you to come home. So we figure a glass of
Speaker 2: wine together and watch some TV. But worked, we were
Speaker 2: we both we worked our asses off, man. But uh
Speaker 2: uh uh sweat equity, you know, with with freedom through discipline. Yeah,
Speaker 2: with discipline comes freedom. So we both worked and worked
Speaker 2: and worked. So for ten years, ten years, I did
Speaker 2: four courses a month, traveling on a plane for most
Speaker 2: of them. Ten years. Brutal. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah,
Speaker 2: with two with two big publican cases, shitty flight, shitty
Speaker 2: rental car, shitty hotel, shitty range, get back on a Monday,
Speaker 2: Tuesday and Wednesday, maintenance Thursday, you plan your trip Friday,
Speaker 2: your back on a play. Ten years, ten years, and
Speaker 2: then what happens the virus from China, China kinda virus,
Speaker 2: So the lockdown happened. I refused to call it a pandemic.
Speaker 2: The lockdown happened.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: And that was man, that was a gift. That was
Speaker 2: such a freaking absolute gift for me, because.
Speaker 3: That allowed me to adjust my life right in your
Speaker 3: business plant, yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah. So I don't travel anymore to do work.
Speaker 2: It's all local generated a couple of new businesses like
Speaker 2: you mentioned at the beginning. I have a online coaching
Speaker 2: squad that pat Matt keep the Blaze Live Coaching squad
Speaker 2: on Patreon, about over four hundred members on that it's
Speaker 2: really that talk about fulfillment, you know, job satisfaction, because
Speaker 2: it's not it's it's not like a job. The folks.
Speaker 2: I have developed a relationship of, you know, with four
Speaker 2: hundred some new people, several of uh of whom I've
Speaker 2: met in person because we'll do bi annual meetups. So
Speaker 2: extremely eclectic group. The skill sets are all over the map.
Speaker 2: Uh So I have that I you know, I had
Speaker 2: the fitness program and the combat strength training and I
Speaker 2: sell those resistance bands. And after you know, Coronication, everybody
Speaker 2: was doing home gym. So I was like, dude, I
Speaker 2: could I could just be the rubber band man. I
Speaker 2: was making a living selling rubber bands. I was like, damn,
Speaker 2: this ship people want because because I developed these bands
Speaker 2: that are tubular instead of the flat ones, you know,
Speaker 2: so they just last long, they're so versatile.
Speaker 3: Where where if people wanted to buy some of those bands,
Speaker 3: where would they find them?
Speaker 2: I just thought, I don't have any in stock right now.
Speaker 2: But they're they're off of my like link tree on
Speaker 2: my tax Inc. Insta, Instagram or off my website tmax Inc.
Speaker 2: But yeah, and then my buddy c J and I
Speaker 2: have this podcast, University of bad Assory. Uh. We do
Speaker 2: a bunch of mini vlogging and uh on my YouTube channel,
Speaker 2: which is a lot of fun, you know. So I'm
Speaker 2: I'm very busy because you gotta stay busy, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: you got to. I'm writing, I'm I'm I'm writing a
Speaker 2: kid's book. I am doing more drawings. I've opened my
Speaker 2: calendar up to doing private uh one on one classes.
Speaker 2: I'm still doing the fitness uh training, you know, online
Speaker 2: training and programming and uh and trying to stay fit
Speaker 2: as ship in the process, which you know who it
Speaker 2: gets tougher, it gets tougher to no doubt. If this
Speaker 2: shit don't get easier, you know now you know, don't
Speaker 2: get easier. But you know what, you know what I have,
Speaker 2: You have this advantage. I have a and I always
Speaker 2: want to tell them my so my fan base, my
Speaker 2: my my audience. Right, so like half million on Instace
Speaker 2: shizzle and fifty thousand on LinkedIn, and uh, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't know that millions and millions of views on
Speaker 2: YouTube channel. They motivate me because they always ask how
Speaker 2: do you stay motivated? It's like, bro, you motivate me.
Speaker 2: I'm doing this shit for you because I know you're
Speaker 2: looking forward to it. You're counting on me. I have
Speaker 2: to post this workout because you're counting on me. So
Speaker 2: I always have to thank my my fan base because
Speaker 2: I got it. It would be real hard to do
Speaker 2: it without them, real hard. You know that.
Speaker 3: I think that anybody that came from, you know, the
Speaker 3: spec ops community would have something to teach people that
Speaker 3: that hadn't been through that.
Speaker 2: But you really have.
Speaker 3: Outside of that, right, outside of that Special Operations experience,
Speaker 3: you have some real life experience, some real times of
Speaker 3: overcoming adversity and what that means and continually doing it
Speaker 3: and like being there like we can, Like you said,
Speaker 3: we all fake it at some point in time, right,
Speaker 3: we all fake it. But you've been about as deeply
Speaker 3: down as a human can be.
Speaker 2: And that close, that close to capitulation, and and and
Speaker 2: and you know, and.
Speaker 3: And you say, you know, you say two leases on life,
Speaker 3: and it's it feels like you've had at least three,
Speaker 3: because the one with your son sounds like another one where.
Speaker 2: Well, that was part of it, that was part of
Speaker 2: that was that was part of the second one, because
Speaker 2: that was all that was a lead in, you know.
Speaker 3: And and it's to me, it's just such an inspiring,
Speaker 3: an amazing story. And somebody doesn't have to be a
Speaker 3: you know, special operations want to be uh in order
Speaker 3: to find you know, inspiration from you because it's a
Speaker 3: very human story.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, and you know what, you you've probably seen
Speaker 2: this about me. I don't pound my chest and talk
Speaker 2: special special ops in Delta Park in use of sab
Speaker 2: blah blah. I don't. I don't. I'm not one of these.
Speaker 2: Rest on your laurels, Mamma jamas. I was a bad
Speaker 2: ass yesterday, but I'm a bad ass tomorrow. So I'm
Speaker 2: not gonna talk a lot about that, right you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean, you know, if guys are interested,
Speaker 2: hell yeah, but that doesn't define me, right. What defines
Speaker 2: me is me right now, right here, and what I'm
Speaker 2: going to do tomorrow, which is get drunk.
Speaker 3: Can we talk about your pontalism a little bit?
Speaker 2: Sorry, you have several they're all most most of what
Speaker 2: I do. Or I have a Bird of Prey series,
Speaker 2: so I'm bird you know, bird guy. I don't have
Speaker 2: any right here? Who I got one on the wall there.
Speaker 2: It's got a glass frame. But this is an example.
Speaker 2: This is one I did a few years back. So
Speaker 2: this is a military one, so not bird of prey
Speaker 2: uh s f one like before and after. You know
Speaker 2: we're then and now. But if I were able to
Speaker 2: get it close enough, you can see that this is
Speaker 2: all comprised of dots. I don't think the y yep. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so the whole thing is dots. You know, it's all
Speaker 2: it's all for your dots. That's amazing. So with a
Speaker 2: you know, with a point uh to any point two
Speaker 2: five rapidiograph drafting pen. Yeah, but yeah, it's fun. Is that?
Speaker 1: Is that sort of like a meditative thing? Pat that
Speaker 1: like you're in the zone.
Speaker 2: It is very I have a bunch of I am
Speaker 2: hobby heavy, hobby heavy, hobby heavy, and they're all therapeutic. Yeah,
Speaker 2: bird watching, the gardening, the fishing, the drawing, the photography.
Speaker 2: Uh oh shit was on. There's more. I do everything
Speaker 2: or and if I don't, I aspire. I want to
Speaker 2: do everything. I don't aspire to do everything. I want
Speaker 2: to do as much as much as possible. I want
Speaker 2: to learn, you know, or learn to do things. I
Speaker 2: think it's good to be interesting. You don't want your
Speaker 2: brain to become stagnant. You know, when you see something
Speaker 2: that's interesting and you say that'd be cool to learn that,
Speaker 2: well go fucking learn it, man, you know, put one
Speaker 2: just one foot, just one foot in front of the other,
Speaker 2: and see what happens. You know, because a lot of
Speaker 2: times we'll say that ship, but we won't start ran
Speaker 2: is a start point. You don't have to commit. But
Speaker 2: if you if you start right, that'd be cool. That'd
Speaker 2: be cool. I would like to learn how to do that.
Speaker 2: What's the next step? Let me watch a YouTube video
Speaker 2: on this, but just easy as that. It's as easy
Speaker 2: as you know. And then and then you could take
Speaker 2: it one step further, you know, if it appeals. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I like to do shit. I like to do things.
Speaker 2: I like to do that. I have to say this one,
Speaker 2: you know, the basic dude stuff.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, what what do you what were? Where would you
Speaker 3: like to be? I mean you're a young guy. Still
Speaker 3: where would you like to be in five or ten years?
Speaker 2: You know? I think I would like to be like, uh, retired, retired,
Speaker 2: But busy. But what I mean by busy is doing
Speaker 2: something with my hands, plowing a field, building a dam,
Speaker 2: you know, doing something grandiose. I always thought it would
Speaker 2: be cool to build a castle, you know, to live
Speaker 2: by a river and use the river rock to build
Speaker 2: a castle. I want to be I wanted. I want
Speaker 2: to defy age. I want to be as fit as
Speaker 2: hell for as long as possible, too, because I know
Speaker 2: what it's like to not be fit. I know what
Speaker 2: it's like to hurt. Yeah, And and I think we
Speaker 2: take for granted what feeling good feels like. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: how about this. I think we take for granted what
Speaker 2: not feeling like shit feels like. Yeah, because a lot
Speaker 2: of people don't know what feeling good feels like, because
Speaker 2: they've never felt like shit, you know, they've through it
Speaker 2: for an extended period of time. But I think, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm an outdoorsman. I want to spend more time just
Speaker 2: walking around looking at stuff, taking photos, fishing in streams
Speaker 2: that no white man is fished out of, you know,
Speaker 2: getting way up into the mountains, and just ripping freaking
Speaker 2: lips with the smallest you know, twenty two size twenty
Speaker 2: two fly. And yeah, I just that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: But I still want to be busy. You know. People say, yeah,
Speaker 2: when I retire, it's going to be a sandy beach
Speaker 2: and cigar.
Speaker 3: I think through that, bro, I call that a two
Speaker 3: day vacation, right, and.
Speaker 2: Then after that, I'm like, dude, I have to do something.
Speaker 2: I gotta I gotta stay busy, you know I could.
Speaker 2: I've thrown a lot around a lot of ideas when
Speaker 2: I retire, I might go back to work, I might
Speaker 2: go back to school. I thought it'd be cool to
Speaker 2: get a teaching degree. Mhm that I don't need to
Speaker 2: teach full time. Just put me on as a substitute teach. Yeah,
Speaker 2: make some sh interesting. I gotta make a boring subject interest,
Speaker 2: Like I would take geography from you. I can see
Speaker 2: Pat mac us history teacher. I think I think that well.
Speaker 2: I think that's one of the things I want to do.
Speaker 2: So I have a target demographic with a lot of
Speaker 2: the stuff that I'm doing, and it's younger people. I
Speaker 2: want to have a positive influence on younger people, you know,
Speaker 2: kids to teenagers, because yeah, they need it. They need
Speaker 2: it right now. Yeah they need That's cool, man. Do
Speaker 2: we have any questions for Pat we've got to so oh.
Speaker 1: Questions from the viewers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, I'm gonna pour a little.
Speaker 2: Bit myself so in the face. Thank you very much.
Speaker 3: When are Pat Maclarry Vickers, Paul Howe, and Kyle Lamb
Speaker 3: gonna do the most epic podcast ever together?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that'd be a hard one to coordinate. Hun. All
Speaker 2: those guys are busy as shit, man, I mean, and
Speaker 2: you know what, they're all great. I know those guys
Speaker 2: and man, they're all really really. People don't pay them
Speaker 2: enough credit. I don't think or no, let me back up,
Speaker 2: people in my industry, my community don't pay them enough credit.
Speaker 2: I mean, they have paved the way, you know, Larry
Speaker 2: and Paul and Kyle, they have paved the way for
Speaker 2: so much shit in the gun industry and the kid industry.
Speaker 2: They paved the way for me because they started before
Speaker 2: me doing this. I owe them a debt of gratitude,
Speaker 2: not for what they've done in the military, but how
Speaker 2: they've succeeded outside the military. These guys are bad ass, bro. Uh.
Speaker 2: Paul Harper, thank you very much. Uh.
Speaker 3: What lessons for future urban conflicts should Taiwan be learning
Speaker 3: from the attachment A in Berlin.
Speaker 1: Interesting question.
Speaker 2: Yeah, whoa, this is thought provoking. Say it again because
Speaker 2: you were a little bit muffled, Sorry about that. What
Speaker 2: lessons for future urban conflict? Should Taiwan be learning from
Speaker 2: dead a in Berlin? Yeah? Well, should who be learning Taiwan?
Speaker 2: Right right? Right? Well? The one of this, this one
Speaker 2: always gets my goat, is you can't rely on technology.
Speaker 2: It's gonna ship the bed. That's a big one. It's
Speaker 2: even for urban ops all that shit. You can't rely
Speaker 2: on technology. You gotta go old school. You gotta know
Speaker 2: cardinal directions. You gotta know how to freaking read shit.
Speaker 2: You gotta know shadows, you gotta know street craft, you
Speaker 2: gotta know all that craft you know. You gotta know
Speaker 2: old school communication. You gotta know dead drop sites, signal sites,
Speaker 2: how to do a PM because we suck at that
Speaker 2: now too, personal meat, you know, we suck at communication skills,
Speaker 2: inter face to face communication skills. Get back to the
Speaker 2: old school ship. I'm right on this.
Speaker 3: By the way, I guarantee you we'll tee happy yep.
Speaker 3: Any thanks again, Apat, I have oh this is something
Speaker 3: we could talk about. Also, I've I've got rheumatoried arthritis
Speaker 3: and got med boarded. I'm trying to stay fit, but
Speaker 3: it's a challenge. How would you adapt if you were me?
Speaker 2: And you know you can kind of dude, I've got
Speaker 2: something way worse than fucking rheumatoried arthritis. Man, I got
Speaker 2: this stupid gay disease called polymaus a rheumatica. So I'm
Speaker 2: almost at two years right now. Bro, I I empathize
Speaker 2: who is this? What's his name? And your fat and
Speaker 2: your face and you and I empathize with you, so
Speaker 2: I mean, uh wait, what was that name? Was that
Speaker 2: a pseudonym? I think? So? Yeah? And your face? All right? Right, yeah,
Speaker 2: all right? Anyway, I wish I could really address them
Speaker 2: because it would be more personal, but I empathize because
Speaker 2: chronic pain, uh sucks. Bat and I had to get
Speaker 2: to a point, oh man, this was bad. It was
Speaker 2: really bad where I could no longer rely on motivation
Speaker 2: because I have no no enthusiasm, no motivation. So I
Speaker 2: had to rely on discipline, on discipline. I had to lie,
Speaker 2: rely on my routine, my daily planner. I live off
Speaker 2: of white white ports. I got a year there, and
Speaker 2: my laundry room I have the next couple weeks and refrigerator.
Speaker 2: I have what's going on tomorrow every night, every night.
Speaker 2: Right now, when I get off of this, I'm going
Speaker 2: to go down and write my workout on that board,
Speaker 2: so that first thing in the morning that I see.
Speaker 2: Because motion is lotion, mobility is survivability. So your body's
Speaker 2: telling you don't work out. Your brain, I mean, your
Speaker 2: brain is telling your body, don't work out, don't do it.
Speaker 2: Sit on that reclinent because that shit hurts. It hurts, man.
Speaker 2: I had no you know, you see these commercials and
Speaker 2: shit record art writers. I'm like, whatever, a bunch of pussies. Dude,
Speaker 2: that shit hurts so bad. You're you're constantly fiddling with
Speaker 2: hands and wrists, your shoulders, well with the PMR. It shoulders, hips, joints, muscles,
Speaker 2: it's jaw lining. It's back of the head, it's arches
Speaker 2: of the feet, it's everything. It's everything. You deal with
Speaker 2: it the best you freaking can. Here's the thing, though,
Speaker 2: I wish I had his name because I want to
Speaker 2: talk to him, is give it a name and give
Speaker 2: it a bad place to live. Give it let it
Speaker 2: live in a shithole. Work out, you know, when it
Speaker 2: tells you not to eat healthy when it tells you
Speaker 2: because you have you probably have a lack of appetite
Speaker 2: because you might be taking like prednizone or something. Nope,
Speaker 2: fuck that, eat healthy. It's telling you not to. It's
Speaker 2: telling you, you know, eat stuff, crussed pizza. Yeah, tell it.
Speaker 2: Fuck you. Give it a name. I called mine the demon.
Speaker 2: I'm at almost to you now. I'm beating this thing.
Speaker 2: I'm beating it. Oh and that's the other thing. I
Speaker 2: went out all prescription mets. Oh. Here's another thing, dude,
Speaker 2: I wish I had his name once again. Infrared sona
Speaker 2: magic for this shit. Magic infrared sauna. I bought one
Speaker 2: from my garage. Guarantee you, dude, in your town somewhere
Speaker 2: there's a salt spot with infrared sauna. Go sit in one.
Speaker 2: Make it hot as shit because infrared sauna doesn't heat
Speaker 2: the air around you, eat your body. Are those they say,
Speaker 2: one hundred and thirty Those are the personal ones that
Speaker 2: you sit in like that are around you right there
Speaker 2: like a big room, right okay, yep, yep. So that
Speaker 2: that that's my advice right now on that. God.
Speaker 3: Can you you know you said motivation for you know,
Speaker 3: you don't use motivation, use discipline. Can you really quickly
Speaker 3: kind of tell us what the difference is for you.
Speaker 3: I'm getting back to being motivated now because I'm beating
Speaker 3: this thing. So look out world, because in the past
Speaker 3: year and a half, two years once again faking it.
Speaker 3: Any post that you've seen to me doing workouts and
Speaker 3: stuff totally fake.
Speaker 2: Those were my best reps. If you look, if you
Speaker 2: go back in my archives and you see the workouts
Speaker 2: I'm doing, you'll think, oh, yeah, Pat maxim shape. I mean,
Speaker 2: he's not a shit. You're good as shape he was
Speaker 2: two years ago. That's because of this ship and what
Speaker 2: you were because I still had the post freaking workouts
Speaker 2: for my fan base, and they were getting me motivated.
Speaker 2: Uh but they were seeing my best freaking reps, and
Speaker 2: those reps and for the most part, sucked. They sucked.
Speaker 2: But now you're gonna see it. You're seeing a difference
Speaker 2: already past couple of weeks, the people who really have notes.
Speaker 2: But but yeah, I had to rely on discipline, so
Speaker 2: my whiteboard, planning, ah, soul searching, just you know, I
Speaker 2: because so many times I'm drawn to the recliner, and
Speaker 2: so many times I say, let me just sleep for
Speaker 2: half an hour, and so many times I would say nope,
Speaker 2: I'm not so then I would start the process because
Speaker 2: I know I have to work out. I have to
Speaker 2: if I want to move for the rest of the day.
Speaker 2: And every every ounce of my being is saying, don't
Speaker 2: do it, don't do it. So you have to dress
Speaker 2: the part number one. So I have to put my
Speaker 2: Batman outfit on. And for me, it was like a
Speaker 2: headband and you know, just whatever, put the headband on,
Speaker 2: put the watch cap on. Then you show up. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 2: yeah yeah, and then you show up. You got to
Speaker 2: show up. It would take me half an hour to
Speaker 2: an hour to warm up.
Speaker 3: And then that's it's incredible sporming Clint, thank you very much.
Speaker 3: A friend and former guest of ours. Uh Pat Mac
Speaker 3: looking forward to this one, Jack and Dave.
Speaker 2: You guys have been killing it. Keep it up well, Thanksint.
Speaker 3: We were killing it because of people like that, Like
Speaker 3: if we're.
Speaker 2: Just Jack and I, nobody.
Speaker 3: Getting drunk every Friday, Jamison Price, Thank you very much.
Speaker 2: Pat.
Speaker 3: Let's take off the gloves and tell all do unit
Speaker 3: badass dudes operate within the connell Us and drive uh
Speaker 3: lead into and drive lead into.
Speaker 2: A whole terrorists. Do they well, yeah they do. No,
Speaker 2: you know, before you say yeah they do all it,
Speaker 2: make sure you get the whole question.
Speaker 3: Do they operate within the continental US and drive lead
Speaker 3: into a whole terrorists?
Speaker 2: Oh? Oh in the continental US? No? No, no, uh steph,
Speaker 2: Sergeant Omen, Thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Where did you think where do you think you received
Speaker 3: the best trade craft training while you were prepping for assignment?
Speaker 2: In Berlin or during OTC or somewhere else. I would say, yeah, Berlin.
Speaker 2: They were the masters at it, you know, so I
Speaker 2: learned from those guys. And I remember there was the
Speaker 2: one guy I won't say his full name, but Art.
Speaker 2: Art carried me around in the city for a few
Speaker 2: days and he would even tell me how to walk,
Speaker 2: you know, yeah, and he brought me to second hand stores.
Speaker 2: He says, you can't wear all that madic and ship bro.
Speaker 2: You need to wear his stupid German clothes, really tight pants. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: just you know, i'd like twenty years behind and the
Speaker 2: pack yeah, fanny pack. Yeah, and now when we died. No, definitely,
Speaker 2: definitely in Berlin.
Speaker 3: Jackson, thank you very much. Is there a cultural difference
Speaker 3: between squadrons?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny there there is, but I don't think
Speaker 2: it's as pronounced as the guys there think it is.
Speaker 2: I always tell yeah, because there still is, and it's
Speaker 2: still it's it's still the same banter because I know
Speaker 2: current unit guys now and they'll talk about it and
Speaker 2: I go, guys, that's all fake news, man, it's freaking fake.
Speaker 2: It's too And I know how this materialized. I was
Speaker 2: there when it materialized, and it's fake. But yeah, they're there,
Speaker 2: there is, but I think it's more up here, right,
Speaker 2: it's not.
Speaker 3: It's more like an image thing than an actual functional thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I know dudes right now who are in
Speaker 2: abc D squadron and they're all the same dudes, right,
Speaker 2: They're all the same.
Speaker 3: Joe's got youa thank you very much. Was free flow
Speaker 3: CQB a thing when you got to the unit? Was
Speaker 3: that something the British sas created and.
Speaker 2: The unit improved upon.
Speaker 3: Yep, Yes and yes, Jackson, thank you very much. What
Speaker 3: was the hardest part of selection for you and what
Speaker 3: would you have done differently if you had to do
Speaker 3: it again?
Speaker 2: Woo, Well, this is free this is gonna sound weird.
Speaker 2: The hardest part for me was at the end, after
Speaker 2: stress was the board. That was the hardest part for me.
Speaker 2: I wish it would just went away. I remember sitting
Speaker 2: on the board thinking, man, I'd rather do a forty
Speaker 2: mile or at night right now than this. That was
Speaker 2: the hardest part. What would I do differently? I wouldn't
Speaker 2: dig my I dig myself into a hole, you know.
Speaker 2: And And it was because I was I was telling
Speaker 2: the truth, but I was using There was a there
Speaker 2: was a question guys for answer asking me, And it's
Speaker 2: just it was so fucking stupid.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 2: I was using some military cover to answer a question
Speaker 2: about a previous unit. And they know the truth, right,
Speaker 2: They're not. I mean they they were there probably, but
Speaker 2: I was kind of naive and I thought to myself, well,
Speaker 2: maybe I shouldn't talk about it, even to these dudes, right,
Speaker 2: And I stuck with it. They pressed me and pressed me,
Speaker 2: and so now they depressed me. I think they just
Speaker 2: want to see, Am I gonna stick with the Am
Speaker 2: I gonna stand in my circle right in your circle? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I can stand in my circle right right? Because they
Speaker 2: pressed me and pressed me and pressed me on and
Speaker 2: I stuck in my circle. Yeah, they I should I
Speaker 2: just should have came out so oh yeah, yeah, that's
Speaker 2: what I was doing. You guys know all about that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then it would have been a twenty minute board
Speaker 2: instead of an hour and twenty.
Speaker 1: Right, So they they the board asked you about like
Speaker 1: ps SE and you gave them the cover story of like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're an MP unit that does training for the legs
Speaker 1: and bingo.
Speaker 3: And then once you had that out there, then you can't.
Speaker 3: You can't let your circle go.
Speaker 2: You can't.
Speaker 1: It was right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, you gotta stick to
Speaker 1: your guns. Yeah, stick to your guns.
Speaker 3: They're like they're probably like like rubbing their hands like,
Speaker 3: oh really dude, Well at least you know Pat's not
Speaker 3: KNOPSEC violator. Yeah, turned it into a serious session.
Speaker 2: Yeah, damn. So that that was easy one. That was easy. Yep, Jackson,
Speaker 2: thanks again.
Speaker 3: Oh a little bit of a little bit of salt maybe?
Speaker 3: Uh how did the unit do you? Dev grew an.
Speaker 1: HRT spicy little spicy?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well the unit viewed him very well. There you go.
Speaker 2: How about that. I just stayed out of that one.
Speaker 2: That was really positive. I like that positive.
Speaker 3: See you're you're good at these board questions.
Speaker 2: Now, dude, I've got some real I got some real
Speaker 2: good berdies that dev grew. Uh and even you know
Speaker 2: out here, you know, out in this world, some retired
Speaker 2: guys that I that I really love. Same cut of
Speaker 2: the claw dudes bro Hrt had. I don't know many
Speaker 2: of them. I don't know many of them. Yep, but
Speaker 2: that was good. That was a good question, and I'm
Speaker 2: sticking with my answer. That's a good answer too.
Speaker 3: Definitely learned from that board, Alejandro. Thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Pat When you were there, did you grab a chunk
Speaker 3: of the wall. My folks still have picks of My
Speaker 3: sister and I chiseling off pieces. We were living in Romstein,
Speaker 3: Romstein in West Germany and happened to be visiting Berlin,
Speaker 3: staying at Tempelhof Air Force Base.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I chosen up tons of it. And I
Speaker 2: would make people these little plaques with UH and I would,
Speaker 2: you know, like epoxyem on. Yeah, I can and clearcoat
Speaker 2: them on. And within that too, I had some of
Speaker 2: the original there's a fun German word to say, some
Speaker 2: of the original stockel grad which is barbed wire, so
Speaker 2: it's all.
Speaker 3: Rusty, you know, but it's clear code. It's cool a ship.
Speaker 3: But yes, absolutely, that's very cool. And I every time
Speaker 3: I see Romstein, I think dou haas ye once again
Speaker 3: from uh Anya? Uh thanks?
Speaker 2: Uh hey, Pat?
Speaker 3: What do we have to get to do to get
Speaker 3: a video of you working out with Rudy Reyes.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: I don't know that that aint gonna happen. I should
Speaker 2: see Rudy here next month. I'm going to an event
Speaker 2: and he should be there. I think I think he'll
Speaker 2: be there, but now then again happened. We're two different
Speaker 2: styles of stuff, you know.
Speaker 3: I'm mad octab Thank you very much, Thank you for
Speaker 3: their service.
Speaker 2: Brother.
Speaker 3: Can you please comment on some contemporary issues, recruitment problems,
Speaker 3: counter terrorism in the future, the festering domestic anti americanism.
Speaker 2: Keep on.
Speaker 1: That's that's a lot. That's a lot there, buddy, that's
Speaker 1: a lot.
Speaker 2: That's a lot.
Speaker 1: It's supposed to solve America and Internet.
Speaker 3: What am I reading? I read for office here you
Speaker 3: know what it was. But right now you can announce
Speaker 3: right now if you've got a if you've got.
Speaker 1: You've got a platform.
Speaker 2: I don't have the stomach for it. I hate politics
Speaker 2: and I hate politicians. I despise them on both sides. Yep,
Speaker 2: but yeah, I didn't most of those questions. You know,
Speaker 2: well we can talk.
Speaker 3: Maybe not general recruitment problems. How how do you see
Speaker 3: like recruitment in like the special ops community right now
Speaker 3: for your friends that are in there, is it still healthy?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 3: Are they having issues? It's still healthy? Still healthy there?
Speaker 2: Yep. The military though, Yeah, their numbers are down. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean what seventy five percent of today's youth is
Speaker 2: unfit to be in the military. Seventy five percent. There
Speaker 2: you go, recruitment.
Speaker 3: Kenneth Jones, thank you very much for the donation. Steve Court, right,
Speaker 3: thank you. I found pat out a vital ross road
Speaker 3: in my life.
Speaker 2: I will fort.
Speaker 3: I will forever be grateful for his advice and what
Speaker 3: it has done to recourse my life right on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's a good dude. I've been fishing with Steve. Well,
Speaker 2: he's a part. He's a part of that Keep the
Speaker 2: Blaze Live coaching squad. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So for people who might be like looking for something
Speaker 3: outside like a normal like you know, from somebody who's
Speaker 3: really been there and I don't mean there by specialists've
Speaker 3: been there and and like has faked it till they
Speaker 3: made it.
Speaker 2: Can you tell us again where your coat is on?
Speaker 2: Patreon yep, and the name it's called the pat Mac.
Speaker 2: Keep the Blaze alive, guys, squad, check that out. Alejandro,
Speaker 2: thank you being a fellow metal head. What bands are
Speaker 2: you really digging right now? Are there any up and
Speaker 2: coming ones that you think people should give a listen to.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, let me think about this. Oh great, dude,
Speaker 2: thank you for that. So I just started because they're
Speaker 2: coming out with new album, Born of Osiris. I'm gonna
Speaker 2: go obscure here. I'm not gonna go. You know. Another
Speaker 2: one that I dig is Plague Years. I hope they
Speaker 2: do so. I hope they hope they do so. I
Speaker 2: hope they get some traction. Man. I just they're really
Speaker 2: really dark and sludgie, you know, sludgie and dark because
Speaker 2: I don't like it. I don't like it super fast
Speaker 2: and just NonStop double bass. I like, you know, sludgy
Speaker 2: and dark and you know, like cobblestone streets and and
Speaker 2: rusty metal and like a gong. If I had a
Speaker 2: metal band, I'd have a big freak. I'd have an
Speaker 2: anvil and.
Speaker 1: Bats on the belfry.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, let me see Plague Years said, Uh uh hmmm, dude,
Speaker 2: you put I wish I could have studied that one,
Speaker 2: you know, because I would have had a laundry list.
Speaker 3: But well, I'll tell you when you get a chance
Speaker 3: if you want, like the comments below the video, you know,
Speaker 3: sometime in the next couple of days, if you want
Speaker 3: to leave that list, I'm sure.
Speaker 2: I'm sure we have a lot of people love that.
Speaker 2: Can you share?
Speaker 3: Thank you, Leon Jones? Can you share your workout playlist?
Speaker 3: Basic dude stuff?
Speaker 2: That's motherfucker next time somebody asked me that, I swear
Speaker 2: to God. Yeah, I put it on every one in
Speaker 2: my posts in the past. You know what, I built
Speaker 2: that playlist during coronacasion. I built that because everybody wanted
Speaker 2: me to build a playlist. So you know what I
Speaker 2: do every post, every single post, I put it in there.
Speaker 2: You know why people don't see it because they don't
Speaker 2: tap on dot dot dot more so, you Instagrammers, not
Speaker 2: dot dot more That's where the notes are dot dot
Speaker 2: dot more so. No, I'm not gonna share it right here.
Speaker 2: You do know, I get about one hundred more requests
Speaker 2: for this now, like throughout that's right, yeah, because now
Speaker 2: they're getting to go the don't want to poke the bear. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: People have found that I'm gonna tell them that. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna tell them. So it's Metal Mac Attack Spotify playlist
Speaker 2: Metal Macmac Attack. Uh.
Speaker 3: And last question, I believe unless we have anything new.
Speaker 3: Oh we do have one more? Okay, so two more Jackson,
Speaker 3: thank you. Top five high Speed l e Oh guys
Speaker 3: or units you've trained with?
Speaker 2: Whoa uh, let me see. Let me think about this.
Speaker 2: I think, wow, that damn man h ship. You put
Speaker 2: me on the spot because see a lot of them.
Speaker 2: I don't even remember the county. So I work with
Speaker 2: these guys in Wisconsin, and I believe it's Dane County.
Speaker 2: You know, Shafes Department. Dude. They were always freaking badass,
Speaker 2: really good shooters and fit dudes and just fun as hell.
Speaker 2: Oh my favorite my favorite ls are fed are the
Speaker 2: Bortach Bor Tachu Border Patrol guys. Yeah yeah, it's my favorite.
Speaker 2: Yeah dig the up Secret Service Cat Team. I know
Speaker 2: that's they're still Leo's, but it's federal, right because I
Speaker 2: worked with them a bunch. Oh, I see here, man,
Speaker 2: there's so many of them in Texas. You know, let's
Speaker 2: just say Texas in general because there's so many whether
Speaker 2: you're going to Houston, Austin, Dallas, I mean, uh, wherever
Speaker 2: it is. There's just tons of them, tons of teams.
Speaker 2: You know. North Carolina's got a bunch. I work with
Speaker 2: them here. Not yeah, that one there, I would need
Speaker 2: to I would need time for that one too. Sorry,
Speaker 2: but I but I did mentioned a couple. Yeah, wasn't it.
Speaker 3: The Bordta guys who who got out in Uvalde?
Speaker 5: Maybe eventually eventually, yes, yeah, yeah, yep, yeah, the ones
Speaker 5: who actually yeah, and then I think last question here
Speaker 5: is from Jamison Price.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. Pat.
Speaker 3: Is it true that the unit I'm not gonna is
Speaker 3: organized in a way where operators can be redesigned, for instance,
Speaker 3: for instance, as a contractor GS, federal employee, military civilian,
Speaker 3: or as mission ductates. Are you able to elaborate? That's
Speaker 3: probably like more into.
Speaker 2: The weeds of Yeah, that that's that is definitely in
Speaker 2: the weeds, right yeah, yep, yeah, yeah, I appreciate the question,
Speaker 2: but yeah, it's in the weeds. And man, yeah that
Speaker 2: that how about how about this? How about this? To
Speaker 2: some degree? How about that fair enough? Yeah? And I
Speaker 2: apologize the dude for that, but yeah, yeah, and and
Speaker 2: that's that's it. Do we have any questions from Patreon?
Speaker 2: I don't think.
Speaker 1: I don't think we did.
Speaker 2: Did we have one? We have one?
Speaker 1: D keep pull it up real quick, so, uh, I
Speaker 1: don't have it on mind either. Sorry, pat We're not prepared.
Speaker 2: Alright, no worries.
Speaker 1: So one more time the the website or the Patreon
Speaker 1: to find it. It's pat mac keep the Blaze alive.
Speaker 1: They find your coaching service there, yep, coaching squad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: coaching squad. I thinks we'll be down in the description.
Speaker 1: Can you get on the on the Patreon Yeah, on
Speaker 1: the question.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I don't have it up here.
Speaker 2: And it's off of my link tree on my instagram.
Speaker 2: Do you everything's on you know, on my instagram, my
Speaker 2: my t max oh T M A C yes, I
Speaker 2: n C D M A C y s I n
Speaker 2: C cool man And uh this Friday, we're gonna have
Speaker 2: regular episode.
Speaker 1: We'll be back. We have ten coming up who was
Speaker 1: a psychologist that worked for the US government, including some
Speaker 1: of the Three Letter agencies, doing profiles on like foreign
Speaker 1: world leaders and stuff like that. So he's going to
Speaker 1: be a fun interview coming up Friday.
Speaker 2: I'm on I don't know how to find it though. Man,
Speaker 2: I don't get on that.
Speaker 1: We have a catastrophe going on here.
Speaker 2: Yeah we uh a couple of gus. Uh.
Speaker 1: Okay, I don't see any questions here.
Speaker 2: Who yeah, yeah, did you find a d all right?
Speaker 1: Oh wait, there're one guy saying Okay, I think I
Speaker 1: see it. Despite the unit being and other Tier one
Speaker 1: units being flushed with money and support, mental health specifically
Speaker 1: suicides continues to be a problem.
Speaker 2: Why.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think we kind of mentioned a lot
Speaker 1: of this, like throughout the entire interview, but any closing
Speaker 1: thoughts on like perhaps why suicide is an issue even
Speaker 1: in like well supported special ops units.
Speaker 2: Remember when I said that you guys who are having issues,
Speaker 2: if they're if they're if they're crying for help, they
Speaker 2: probably don't they're hiding it, and you have to assume.
Speaker 2: I think we have to assume more, you know, because
Speaker 2: I just in the past, in the past two months,
Speaker 2: I've lost two.
Speaker 1: Oh man, I'm sorry, two buds.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and and and and and and and and it's mine.
Speaker 2: It's like, no, no, no, not this guy. There's no way.
Speaker 2: There's no way, you know, there's no way, there's no way. Uh,
Speaker 2: so yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't know,
Speaker 2: but I think we have to assume and not everybody. Man,
Speaker 2: you know what it's it's overdone. A lot of it's overdone, man. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I got mental issues, are PTSD. A lot of that's
Speaker 2: overfreaking done. A lot of it is doesn't exist. Hell yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a real thing. But more more so, it's not.
Speaker 2: It's not that. It's that separation, you know, it's that.
Speaker 1: Uh separated from leaving.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, it's leaving something where you that where you
Speaker 2: had true passion, true love. You know, you had a
Speaker 2: relationship with people that is intimate on so many different levels.
Speaker 2: And I'm not talking freaking you know, sex, I'm talking
Speaker 2: just very intimate relationship with other human beings. And then
Speaker 2: you lose that and then you know, yeah, you start spiraling, spiraling.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Pat, thank you so much for taking some time
Speaker 1: of you Tuesday evening. I mean, I think you told
Speaker 1: us that you said earlier. This is the second podcast
Speaker 1: you did today, So man, I appreciate yeah, I appreciate
Speaker 1: you going, uh, you know, tuning in and doing this
Speaker 1: with us tonight. And you know, we'd wanted to have
Speaker 1: you on for a long time, so I mean, it's
Speaker 1: awesome to finally do it. If there's anything we can do,
Speaker 1: hit us up anytime, please, final thoughts, anything I failed
Speaker 1: to cover at all, that you that you want to
Speaker 1: throw out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I want to thank you guys, because I do
Speaker 2: a lot of podcasts. He's a great hosts and just
Speaker 2: you made me feel very welcome and your questions were
Speaker 2: great too, So yeah, great because it takes you because
Speaker 2: some guys don't know how to do this shit and we.
Speaker 1: Want it to be fun too. We want you to
Speaker 1: have your time. Yep, thank you everybody who tuned in
Speaker 1: watch this again. Thanks Pat, and we will see all
Speaker 1: you guys on Friday.