Speaker 1: Special Operations.
Speaker 2: Cobert SB and I.
Speaker 3: The Teamhouse with your hosts Jack Murphy and David bark.
Speaker 2: Hey.
Speaker 3: Folks, this is episode three hundred and fifty nine of
Speaker 3: The Team House. I'm Jack here with Dave and our
Speaker 3: guest on tonight's show is Clayton Smith. He served as
Speaker 3: a recon platoon leader in Afghanistan, recipient of the Purple Heart.
Speaker 3: A whole bunch of different experiences over in Afghanistan that
Speaker 3: we'll get into. But he also works with an organization
Speaker 3: called Beyond EBO Gain that is b E O N
Speaker 3: D I b O G A I n E dot
Speaker 3: com that's helping veterans and part of this movement of
Speaker 3: psychedelics being used to treat veterans that are dealing with
Speaker 3: PTSD and other ailments. And so we got a lot
Speaker 3: to talk about. Clayton, thank you for joining us tonight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you guys for having me. I really appreciate
Speaker 1: being here on behalf of the Beyond team, the Beyond
Speaker 1: Service Team and Beyond team down in Mexico. Super appreciate
Speaker 1: the ability to talk about the program that we're building
Speaker 1: uh and and what we're you know, what we're doing
Speaker 1: for veteran mental health first responders and their family members.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's something I try to lead with
Speaker 1: is you know, we hear about twenty two a day,
Speaker 1: and it's time to do something about it rather than
Speaker 1: just do and.
Speaker 2: Push ups on Facebook.
Speaker 1: You know, it's time to actually end or make a
Speaker 1: significant difference in this veteran suicide.
Speaker 2: And you know, we'll talk about the family side of it.
Speaker 1: But oh, by the way, everything that the families carry.
Speaker 1: So yeah, IM super grateful to be here. Thank you
Speaker 1: to your viewers and your audience as well. Uh, and
Speaker 1: I'm really excited to share what we're doing and share
Speaker 1: a little bit about about this medicine and and the
Speaker 1: process that that we do.
Speaker 3: So Clayton, I'm going to store off asking you about
Speaker 3: personal story and how that leads into all this other
Speaker 3: work that you're doing today. Can you tell us a
Speaker 3: little bit about you know, your origin story and what
Speaker 3: took you towards military service as a young man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: So I I didn't really grow up in a military family.
Speaker 1: I grew up very rural, small town Maine, you know,
Speaker 1: a town of seven hundred people. I think I had
Speaker 1: eleven kids in my elementary school class and you know,
Speaker 1: I blue collar, blue collar entrepreneur parents and who you know,
Speaker 1: worked real hard, gave gave us, you know, a good life.
Speaker 1: Growing up one of one of six brothers and sisters,
Speaker 1: and I was the runt of the litter.
Speaker 2: I was the sixth of six.
Speaker 4: And you know, I I I ended up going to
Speaker 4: a military college after after high school, found out that
Speaker 4: a RTC and and you know, play an army and
Speaker 4: doing RTC was something I was pretty good at.
Speaker 1: Signed a contract my second year, and then in two
Speaker 1: thousand and nine, I commissioned missions and second lieutenant. And
Speaker 1: you know, for me, it was just it was for me,
Speaker 1: it was about getting out of getting out of Maine,
Speaker 1: doing something different, trying to trying to do something different
Speaker 1: than the folks that I grew up with and and
Speaker 1: didn't have, you know, didn't have the best high school
Speaker 1: experience and wanted to do something different with my time.
Speaker 1: And I'm also an idealist, so I thought that, you know,
Speaker 1: that was that was a way to make the better
Speaker 1: the world a better place, you know, keep the nine
Speaker 1: to eleven generation veteran and and you know, I watched
Speaker 1: nine to eleven when when I was in middle school,
Speaker 1: and you know, I thought that you know, doing this
Speaker 1: and raising my hand was the way to keep you know,
Speaker 1: America safe and and made me make a positive impact
Speaker 1: in the world. So so that's where that's where we
Speaker 1: ended up putting gold bars on in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 3: And answered the higher calling of serving in the airborne Infantry.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, so I I say this is you know,
Speaker 1: kind of to my mother's chagrin. I graduated with a
Speaker 1: mechanical engineering degree and decided to go be an army ranger.
Speaker 1: And she, you know, really wanted me to be you know,
Speaker 1: in the Navy or at the Air Force and you know,
Speaker 1: do something employable after and you know, I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: girls might like it if I was an army ranger.
Speaker 1: So that was that was the extent of the decision
Speaker 1: making as pretty much you know, ninety five percent of
Speaker 1: the guys that go that route.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a tale as old as time. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 3: So you commission as a infantry lieutenant, what's the next
Speaker 3: phase of your journey? I mean, they send you to
Speaker 3: ranger school right away, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So you know I didn't. I wasn't. I wasn't
Speaker 1: a West Point guy. So all the West Pointers get
Speaker 1: to go first, So I got to got to hang
Speaker 1: out in limbo there at Fort Benning. So I spent
Speaker 1: about a year and a half at Fort Benning between
Speaker 1: you know, the Infantry school and different officer leader courses
Speaker 1: and then finally going to ranger. All real rangers recycle,
Speaker 1: so I got to take the extended day. I got
Speaker 1: to do Darby twice as a result of my own
Speaker 1: ego and action, So I'll own that. And then you know,
Speaker 1: eventually after eventually I made it through and headed up
Speaker 1: to Alaska. So my my duty station was was it
Speaker 1: Fort Richardson up and up in Alaska with the four
Speaker 1: two five?
Speaker 3: And correct I correct me if I'm wrong, But that
Speaker 3: unit was like relatively new as an airborne unit, wasn't it.
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think they stood up in six or seven,
Speaker 1: and it was they they had an seven deployment to
Speaker 1: Iraq and a twenty ten deployment to Afghanistan. And I
Speaker 1: got up there followed twenty ten right after they pretty
Speaker 1: soon after they got back from their first Afghanistan deployment.
Speaker 3: You know, just I'm gonna probe a little bit more
Speaker 3: about this, you know, do you know what the rationale
Speaker 3: was of putting placing an airborne unit in Alaska.
Speaker 2: Was was there like a strategic purpose for that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, I mean I certainly wasn't making decisions. My
Speaker 1: understanding is it was the you know, we were the
Speaker 1: only airborne unit in user Pak, so in the in
Speaker 1: the Pacific theater, we were the only you know, because
Speaker 1: you add one hundred and seventy third in Sentcom and
Speaker 1: Europe and of course the eighty second, but we were,
Speaker 1: uh so there was like we were on a two
Speaker 1: hour QRF even for like humanitarian missions.
Speaker 2: So I don't know if you.
Speaker 1: Guys remember there was the tsunami and I think it
Speaker 1: was the Fukushima nuclear plant probably you know, disaster in Japan.
Speaker 1: We were on a two hour recall to go to
Speaker 1: Japan on humanitarian because we were the closest you know,
Speaker 1: we were the closest airborne unit that could get into
Speaker 1: the Pacific theater. So that's that's why they had us there.
Speaker 2: That's interesting.
Speaker 3: So tell us about kind of getting into your platoon,
Speaker 3: meeting the guys, what that experience is like being a
Speaker 3: new pl.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I definitely had you know, so I had
Speaker 1: two different platoons that I had the privilege to lead.
Speaker 1: The first one I went to a like a standard
Speaker 1: line unit and let A let A platoon had a
Speaker 1: great group of n c os, you know, and and
Speaker 1: I certainly, you know, tried to do my best to
Speaker 1: listen to the n c os in all the officer
Speaker 1: courses and just shut up, you know, just just shut
Speaker 1: up and listen. Don't go in there and try to
Speaker 1: put your stamp on anything. You know, what the the
Speaker 1: guys are doing that, they've been doing it for a reason.
Speaker 1: And I had a really just solid, you know, really
Speaker 1: my group of n c os that I came to
Speaker 1: it for my first platoon was if you could have
Speaker 1: you couldn't have a better group to mentor a lieutenant
Speaker 1: who was you know. And and after about a month
Speaker 1: of just showing up and saying teach me, they they
Speaker 1: did and they schooled me up. And you know, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been as successful in my career if it
Speaker 1: wasn't for them. And then nine months later we did
Speaker 1: our e I BS. I was one of the lieutenants
Speaker 1: to get their e I B Expert Infantry Badge and
Speaker 1: I was moved over to the Scout Reconnisance Platoon. So
Speaker 1: there's one reconnaissance platoon in a in a I guess
Speaker 1: in an airborne infantry battalion, and I had the privilege
Speaker 1: to lead that. Woh, that was a different situation, man.
Speaker 1: Like those those guys were those n c os. They
Speaker 1: were not They didn't want to build you up. They
Speaker 1: wanted to chew you, chew you up, and you know
Speaker 1: you had to. It took it probably took six months
Speaker 1: of proving myself day in day out. You know.
Speaker 2: It was, uh, can you know you.
Speaker 1: Go for a rock march and you got to put
Speaker 1: a forty five pound plate in your pack because got
Speaker 1: you know, there is no way that that sergeant Fenton
Speaker 1: is going to have a lighter ruck than I am.
Speaker 1: And oh man, you know that was a crucible of
Speaker 1: those guys. But they they were fiercely passionate about their soldiers,
Speaker 1: like incredible NCOs and and once you were in their trust,
Speaker 1: it was it was a team that I I I
Speaker 1: can't believe still that I had the privilege to be
Speaker 1: a part of. We did eighteen months of train up together,
Speaker 1: which is abnormal for or for a lieutenant and uh,
Speaker 1: you know in a at least a line platoon or
Speaker 1: conventional military to have the eighteen months to train up
Speaker 1: together and then go down range together like it was.
Speaker 1: It was a it was a dream come true, and
Speaker 1: I was exposed to so much more than I would
Speaker 1: have normally.
Speaker 3: I imagine you guys doing a lot of like snowshoe
Speaker 3: training up there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, snowshoe a lot of You know, when you when
Speaker 1: you jump in the winter in Alaska, you know it's
Speaker 1: you have, especially a night jump, you have a fifty
Speaker 1: to fifty chance you're either going to hit a snow
Speaker 1: drift and it's going to be the softest landing of
Speaker 1: your life, or you're going to hit the sheet of
Speaker 1: ice that snow blew off of and it's going to
Speaker 1: you know, it's going to hit you like a truck.
Speaker 1: So a lot of that and then a lot of
Speaker 1: cold walk back from.
Speaker 3: The d Z.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 1: The the way we trained our our platoon and the
Speaker 1: way we did it was, you know, even if the
Speaker 1: rest of the Italian was getting picked up on buses,
Speaker 1: we were walking our happy asses home and an you know,
Speaker 1: that paid off downrange, and and it did because the
Speaker 1: guys we really we really took the mentality of you know,
Speaker 1: practice should be harder than the game, and and it
Speaker 1: paid off. You know when we when we went down range,
Speaker 1: because it was honestly, it was nothing. If we had
Speaker 1: to if we had to get out and walk for
Speaker 1: eight miles, that was it was. It was what we
Speaker 1: were used to doing.
Speaker 3: So and you know, as you're going through this extensive
Speaker 3: train up, I mean, what is the mission that you're
Speaker 3: training for? What what are you guys being brief at
Speaker 3: that time that you're going to go into.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we were we were kind of our our
Speaker 1: platoon was on paper supposed to we're a reconnaissance element,
Speaker 1: but we were also supposed to be a bit of
Speaker 1: a kinetic element at the battalion commander's discretion. Uh So
Speaker 1: we were you know, we knew we were going to
Speaker 1: be centrally located within the battalion's AO, and we were.
Speaker 1: They were kind of two. We had a sister battalion
Speaker 1: within the brigade, and we knew that, you know, our
Speaker 1: reconnaissance platoon and and our sister one and the other battalion,
Speaker 1: we're going to be a mix of kinetic and a
Speaker 1: mix of reconnaissance work, which I mean in in twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: you know, and even more so now reconnaissance work is
Speaker 1: kind of more just like train denial, using sniper teams
Speaker 1: to do to do train denial. It wasn't you know,
Speaker 1: we had as you guys know so much ir that
Speaker 1: that it wasn't like we were going and just sitting
Speaker 1: on a ridge line to see if there were trucks.
Speaker 2: You know, we knew there were trucks, right.
Speaker 6: It's also a very difficult area to do recky in
Speaker 6: just because you know those little villages, everybody knows the train.
Speaker 6: They're all out there walking around all the time, and
Speaker 6: it's very hard to remain you know, you know, to
Speaker 6: not get your not get blown.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's not like there, you know, as
Speaker 1: soon as those American trucks leave the gate or you know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of hard to hide a chinook in a
Speaker 1: in a high altitude desert when it when it's landing
Speaker 1: on a rich line. Yeah, I get there. There is
Speaker 1: really no such thing as a as an infiltration in
Speaker 1: the in the classic WRECKI sense so. But a lot
Speaker 1: of train denial, a little bit of kinetic work, that's
Speaker 1: what we're that's what we were training up to do.
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Speaker 6: So, in your was there also a sniper element or
Speaker 6: were you guys the sniper element?
Speaker 1: So my breakup, we had three sniper teams, so spottershoot
Speaker 1: and a security security guy. Uh. So I had three
Speaker 1: sniper teams. I had two rekie teams which were kind
Speaker 1: of like six man.
Speaker 2: Strong fire teams.
Speaker 1: Light squads that were that were our kinetic element. Those
Speaker 1: guys were they were they they did eighty percent kinetic,
Speaker 1: were twenty percent reconnaissance work. And then we actually we
Speaker 1: this was this wasn't in the MTOE. This is something
Speaker 1: that we wanted to do and we brought in was
Speaker 1: we had a kind of a heavy weapons team and
Speaker 1: it wasn't a traditional infantry heavy weapons squad.
Speaker 2: It was five guys, so.
Speaker 1: Kind of a team leader, squad leader, and then to
Speaker 1: two forties and you know, they carried, they were they
Speaker 1: they were the boys with strong backs, and it gave
Speaker 1: us gave us a lot more tactical flexibility when we
Speaker 1: could drop in, you know, whether we had our own
Speaker 1: mortars with us. We had heavy guns. You know, it
Speaker 1: just gave us a lot more flexibility. We had long guns,
Speaker 1: we had two forties, we had orders, and then we
Speaker 1: had two kinetic teams that that could go do their things.
Speaker 1: So it was fun. Like as as an as a
Speaker 1: platoon leader, it was what you dreamed of, like you
Speaker 1: had all the resources and you had hard charging n
Speaker 1: c O s and then a bunch of E one
Speaker 1: to E fours that were really strong and vollied orders
Speaker 1: like it was. It was the ideal situation as a
Speaker 1: as a platoon leader.
Speaker 3: And so tell us about getting through Afghanistan, and I
Speaker 3: believe you said earlier the mission changed.
Speaker 2: A little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so about two months before we before we hopped
Speaker 1: on planes, we are AO shifted and we covered down.
Speaker 1: There was a we went. We ended up going to
Speaker 1: the Paktia province and there was a National Guard unit
Speaker 1: that was there before us, and they were having some struggles.
Speaker 1: It was like two or three years of.
Speaker 2: National Guard.
Speaker 1: AO management and they were they're having some struggles. So
Speaker 1: we were repurposed and Big Army sent us into Paktia.
Speaker 1: And yeah, so we we kind of had to learn
Speaker 1: the area. We had to learn the hot spots mostly
Speaker 1: on the fly. And then we also what we were
Speaker 1: not prepared for at all was we.
Speaker 2: Were the because of the because of the.
Speaker 1: Unit getting pulled out was infantry and MP, and we
Speaker 1: were getting like an MP or excuse me, an infantry
Speaker 1: and airborne infantry and a replacing We actually I had
Speaker 1: to I was the only or my platoon, our reconnaissance
Speaker 1: platoon was the only conventional element in our FOB because
Speaker 1: everyone else was spread out. So we had to own
Speaker 1: a partnership with the Afghan police, the AUP, and the
Speaker 1: Afghan Army and the Afghan commandos that were across the
Speaker 1: street with the s F guys. So about six weeks
Speaker 1: before we went down range, we figured out where we
Speaker 1: learned we were going to be training police officers and
Speaker 1: we had to get you know, that was not at
Speaker 1: all in the train ups. So we had to to
Speaker 1: get smart on r OE and and you know the
Speaker 1: things that that you when you have to train a
Speaker 1: foreign national force and also police and arm So.
Speaker 3: Uh, tell us about your first night in combat and
Speaker 3: what happened.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so first night, we truly truly first day ended
Speaker 1: up getting off the helicopters. Half foot platoon is there.
Speaker 1: We're starting our left seat, right seat with the so
Speaker 1: that the unit that we're replacing where we're start starting
Speaker 1: the process. So you know, we're we're laying out inventory
Speaker 1: and looking at serial numbers. And then there was a
Speaker 1: QRF response, so we were the quick Reaction Force assigned
Speaker 1: to our FOB for that time. And there was a
Speaker 1: predator drone, an armed predator had crashed in Rao and
Speaker 1: we had to go secure it, and so hoping trucks
Speaker 1: and I mean, look, I did a lot of train up.
Speaker 1: I was still a cherry lieutenant, so like, how do
Speaker 1: you how do you get your headphone connected to the truck,
Speaker 1: where's the combat lock? How do you? Like? Look, I was,
Speaker 1: I was a soup sandwich leaving the gate and and
Speaker 1: I was like, holy cow, this is real. This is
Speaker 1: this is getting getting real. Roll out the gate and
Speaker 1: we you know, I mean, the first part of the
Speaker 1: day was very boring, and as as you guys know
Speaker 1: and probably a lot of your listeners know, it's it's
Speaker 1: ninety boredom with with ten percent moments of chaos.
Speaker 2: So we went out, we.
Speaker 1: Secured this drone. The Air Force flew in their guys
Speaker 1: and and also a couple other units came out to
Speaker 1: help secure the site. Air Force flew in their people.
Speaker 1: They cut out all the sensitive equipment. We recovered the
Speaker 1: the missiles. Found the missiles, EO D went to go
Speaker 1: dispose of them.
Speaker 2: And.
Speaker 1: Right before EO D set off the charge to destroy
Speaker 1: the missiles that that were recovered, there was a like
Speaker 1: a ground shaking explosion and as it turns out, one
Speaker 1: of our one of the units that was out there
Speaker 1: there to recover this predator, they left early. And so
Speaker 1: we had a whole route clearance package. We had EOD
Speaker 1: and then you had us as a as the dismounted
Speaker 1: security like we had a full convoy package that made
Speaker 1: it out there. I mean, we were all sprinting to
Speaker 1: get out there. We had we had our legit. We
Speaker 1: had a logistics convoy that had to recover the drone
Speaker 1: like we were. We were probably twenty twenty five trucks
Speaker 1: at that point, and we were going to convoy home
Speaker 1: and do a route clearance. Well a you know, this
Speaker 1: other unit for whatever reason, they decided to leave early
Speaker 1: and they went home the same way they came in,
Speaker 1: and there was a three hundred and fifty pound id
Speaker 1: UH under the road and it was the same road
Speaker 1: that we drove in on, same road we drove in on.
Speaker 1: But you know, and at least in that time, in
Speaker 1: the area we were in, we could defeat the remote
Speaker 1: detonated IDs. We had a way to defeat those, and
Speaker 1: then pressure plate IDs. You could defeat those because we
Speaker 1: had mine rollers on the front of all of our trucks.
Speaker 1: But there was there was no way to defeat a
Speaker 1: command wire. And so they, as we found out, they
Speaker 1: ran a command wire three hundred yards away, you know,
Speaker 1: and there was I'm sure a dude on a motorcycle
Speaker 1: just waiting waiting for the trucks to come by, and
Speaker 1: he knew where his culvert was, he knew his aiming points,
Speaker 1: and the trucks were lit up with their marker lights.
Speaker 1: And the blast crater was about six feet deep ten
Speaker 1: feet wide. It flipped a max bro on its roof.
Speaker 1: It actually flipped it twenty feet in the air. It
Speaker 1: bounced off a kalot wall and then dropped down to
Speaker 1: the bottom of the clot And you know, we instantly
Speaker 1: responded to that because i mean, you had the like
Speaker 1: the blue force tracker display and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: the radio blows up and one of the icons goes
Speaker 1: gray like you kind of know, even without knowing, you
Speaker 1: kind of know what's going on. And at that point
Speaker 1: I ended up being the the facto ground force commander,
Speaker 1: so we had to secure the crash site. Unfortunately, there
Speaker 1: were three American k as, there were two or three
Speaker 1: wounded that survived, so we were having to secure secure
Speaker 1: an LZ callin medovax. We were uh NAFCAN and police
Speaker 1: are out there, so we could kick doors down and
Speaker 1: go into buildings and try to find if we could
Speaker 1: find the triggerman.
Speaker 2: It was a it was a rough night.
Speaker 1: It was a it was a rough night, and it
Speaker 1: was definitely a baptism. I mean this was I was
Speaker 1: twelve hours into sixteen hours into being on the ground
Speaker 1: at our FOB and hooking a change to a bumper
Speaker 1: of a of a Ford Ranger and uh going into
Speaker 1: a Collot nods down rifle up with three of my
Speaker 1: n c o's. So that was a hell of a
Speaker 1: hell of a start to to a deployment and it
Speaker 1: and it really it was unfortunate that it happened. It
Speaker 1: was preventable, and it really reinforced me just how quickly
Speaker 1: things can go wrong if you're sloppy.
Speaker 3: And that turned into a pretty busy deployment for you
Speaker 3: guys after that, didn't it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we were we were outside the wire. I
Speaker 1: didn't as events happened later, I didn't. I didn't stay
Speaker 1: as a stune leader the whole time, But our first
Speaker 1: hundred days in country, I think we were outside the wire.
Speaker 1: Ninety of those hundred days in some way, whether it
Speaker 1: was multi day, single day, you know, convoys, logistical support,
Speaker 1: we were. We were outside the wire. Yeah, ninety of
Speaker 1: one hundred days.
Speaker 3: And you said that you had to respond to pretty
Speaker 3: much every mascal situation in your sector that year.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Personally, it just it just shook out. And I
Speaker 1: don't know for sure, but I'm pretty sure that I
Speaker 1: ended up being the ground force commander for the three
Speaker 1: major mass casualties in RC East in twenty twelve. One
Speaker 1: was that first night with the ied, The other was
Speaker 1: the day that myself and five others were awarded purple hearts,
Speaker 1: and then the third was there was a suicide vehicle
Speaker 1: ID in a marketplace that killed two or three Americans,
Speaker 1: an interpreter, and about twenty local national afgcans in the market.
Speaker 1: And I wasn't even supposed to be there. I was
Speaker 1: on a convoy returning three vehicles. At that point, I
Speaker 1: was an exo. I wasn't even leaving the wire.
Speaker 2: I was an exo.
Speaker 1: And we had to put nine guys together to go
Speaker 1: return some trucks to a depot on the other side
Speaker 1: of a pass. And I was gonna drive there in
Speaker 1: a twenty vehicle thirty vehicle logistics convoy, drop off the trucks,
Speaker 1: take a helicopter home that next day, and ended up, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, getting ambushed in the past and destroying a truck,
Speaker 1: having to fight our way out of the past and
Speaker 1: then respond to the suicide vehicle.
Speaker 3: So yeah, so the so the close, the close ambush
Speaker 3: and the s V B I E.
Speaker 2: D thing, it's like all connected. Yeah yeah we should Yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: can you.
Speaker 3: Tell us so if you're okay, tell us a little
Speaker 3: bit more like detail about you know, running into that
Speaker 3: ambush and the rest of the events that day.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, I mean that's that day separate from when
Speaker 1: when the purple heart. Yeah. Yeah, those those were a
Speaker 1: couple of months apart. So after after I got my
Speaker 1: purple heart, and because it was you know, it was
Speaker 1: it was a result of concussion TB I. I was
Speaker 1: moved out of my platoon leager position like I couldn't.
Speaker 1: I could. I was medically cleared to go on patrol.
Speaker 1: But it was like a month or two and I was.
Speaker 2: I was rotated out. So so yeah.
Speaker 1: Those are those are two separate incidents.
Speaker 3: But yeah, take us, Why don't you take us through
Speaker 3: the SVB I D first.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So that day that was the the SVB I
Speaker 1: D was the was the logistics convoy where we were
Speaker 1: turning trucks in and uh, you know, we had a
Speaker 1: route clearance package. We had a I don't know, fuel
Speaker 1: had to get moved by local national trucks. So we
Speaker 1: had a we had like a twenty truck fuel convoy
Speaker 1: with extra containers and food was moving and we just
Speaker 1: jumped in that with our trucks that had to go
Speaker 1: get turned in to the supply depot Salerno. And so
Speaker 1: I just I grabbed. At this point, I was the
Speaker 1: company executive officer. So I grabbed a handful of my
Speaker 1: scouts who were they They were going on on midtor
Speaker 1: leave and they were flying out of Salerno and I
Speaker 1: and I went and sold them, well, boys, sorry, you
Speaker 1: don't get to take a helicopter there, you got to
Speaker 1: take an eight hour convoy. Uh glad I did. And
Speaker 1: then a couple of a couple of the other headquarters guys.
Speaker 1: So we we did minimal manning, minimal radios, minimal you know,
Speaker 1: load out because everything we took there we had to
Speaker 1: fly home with. And so we took this minimal load out.
Speaker 1: And then going through the KG pass the coast Guard
Speaker 1: does pass super windy mountain pass, get hit with an
Speaker 1: RPG ambush our trail truck. It's like, why did they
Speaker 1: have to pick us? Man? There is a bunch of
Speaker 1: other ones trail trail truck RPG straight through the radiator
Speaker 1: disabled pass. This the driver this might have been his
Speaker 1: first time outside the wire driving. He was a supply
Speaker 1: clerk and managed to get the truck kind of half
Speaker 1: into the ditch instead of going off the cliff.
Speaker 2: So that was helpful.
Speaker 1: And then you know, I mean, dude, we were like,
Speaker 1: it's not like we weren't prepared, but like we had
Speaker 1: weapon systems on these trucks.
Speaker 2: That we had.
Speaker 1: There are the weapon systems that you use day and
Speaker 1: day out, and then there's the ones that you don't.
Speaker 1: And we were in the case that you don't. So,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes we had like the remote weapons system
Speaker 1: where you stay inside the truck and use like the
Speaker 1: video camera to aim while that went down. So I've
Speaker 1: got one of my NCOs is on the roof of
Speaker 1: a truck, and I mean, this is a knockdown, drag
Speaker 1: out gunfight in the past, and he's on the roof,
Speaker 1: standing on top of the turret trying to manually aim
Speaker 1: the two forty while the guy inside squeezing the trigger.
Speaker 2: It was. It was chaos.
Speaker 1: We could only communicate with air support using theft because
Speaker 1: we were in a hole with no radios. Satellites went down.
Speaker 1: It was just it was just one of those things
Speaker 1: where you just get out of there. So we hooked up,
Speaker 1: you know, another truck came back, We laid down covering fire,
Speaker 1: hooked up a tow rope, and then just dragged everyone
Speaker 1: out of the pass and regroup a couple of miles
Speaker 1: down the road.
Speaker 2: And then and then you had to get to the market. Right.
Speaker 1: Well that was so now we're we're dragging you know,
Speaker 1: a destroyed truck into into town.
Speaker 2: We've got one destroyed truck.
Speaker 1: We've got you know, my truck is gon ricochets and
Speaker 1: holes in it. And you know they the like water
Speaker 1: drug was had a bullet hole. Like. It was just
Speaker 1: it was a firefighter, right like, So we're just limping
Speaker 1: our asses into town.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: And then you know when something's wrong when you get
Speaker 1: into town and all the doors are shut and there's
Speaker 1: no one in the street.
Speaker 2: It was that, you really something's wrong.
Speaker 1: And and a mile later, the route clearance half mile
Speaker 1: later the route clearance uh stopped and it was like,
Speaker 1: you know, they called for all medics and the convoy
Speaker 1: to come up, and it was it was, it was bad.
Speaker 1: It was it was.
Speaker 2: Really bad again like the the.
Speaker 1: It was a it was I think an MP unit
Speaker 1: that was hit. They were totally combat and effective. You know,
Speaker 1: we had to they they lost enough of their leadership
Speaker 1: that they were completely combat and effective. So we had
Speaker 1: to triage and get there. Fortunately, we were only five
Speaker 1: miles from the actual FOB, so we were able to
Speaker 1: get the wounded loaded and out. It would be quicker,
Speaker 1: you know, we did a vehicle e back instead of
Speaker 1: a helicopter. We got the wounded in the trucks and
Speaker 1: and got them out of there and uh, then we
Speaker 1: stayed and picked up the pieces, and it was it was.
Speaker 2: It was messy, man, it was.
Speaker 1: It was one of those days that you don't forget,
Speaker 1: and you know, when you're I'll never forget.
Speaker 2: Having to climb in. We were in matt vs.
Speaker 1: So they were like.
Speaker 2: Souped up humbies. So two seats in the two seats.
Speaker 1: In the back, and a gunner in the middle, and
Speaker 1: you know, I had to go in and and we
Speaker 1: ran out of room to put the casual, you know,
Speaker 1: the the k I A the deceased, and so I
Speaker 1: had to climb in and tell my gunner and was like, hey, man,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but you have to you know, we had
Speaker 1: to fill these seats and you got to lift them
Speaker 1: in there.
Speaker 2: And that was a that.
Speaker 1: Was a day you never forget. Just the complete, the
Speaker 1: the complete, indiscriminate loss of life.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And just to contextualize this a little bit, you're a
Speaker 3: how old XO at this point in time?
Speaker 1: Twenty six, yeah, twenty six years old, and.
Speaker 2: Your boys were like eighteen nineteen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, I am in the in the yeah nine
Speaker 1: eighteen nineteen, twenty twenty one ish.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep, yeah.
Speaker 1: You know the kid, the kid that the guy that
Speaker 1: you know had to lift those two deceased bodies into
Speaker 1: the back of our truck. Might have been twenty one
Speaker 1: years old, twenty two years old.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yep, YEA.
Speaker 1: Our first night, we had a that that first night
Speaker 1: that I e that we were talking about and this
Speaker 1: is this is why I'm so passionate about the work
Speaker 1: that I'm doing as well. That that first night we
Speaker 1: were pulling wounded and kia out of the out of
Speaker 1: the truck that was hit with the IE, and we
Speaker 1: got a call that we think we found were the building.
Speaker 1: The trigger man we you know, ISR says, we think
Speaker 1: we've got something. So I had to to take my
Speaker 1: rt o my radio. My radio guy is kind of
Speaker 1: supposed to be attached at the hip with me, and
Speaker 1: this was his first deployment, first twelve hours being down range,
Speaker 1: and I had to look him in the eye and say,
Speaker 1: hey man, you got to pull these bodies out because
Speaker 1: I have to go. And you know, I had to
Speaker 1: go lead the kinetic part of it, and to leave
Speaker 1: this guy who, you know, his only crime in life
Speaker 1: was being really good at running a radio, and now
Speaker 1: he's he's exposed to what what has to be an
Speaker 1: incredibly traumatic event and the fortunately, you know that night
Speaker 1: and I tried to whenever possible put my NCOs in
Speaker 1: the shittiest spots, and and there was a lot of
Speaker 1: respect for that, you know, mutual respect, Like they knew
Speaker 1: I was going to take the shitty job, and I
Speaker 1: was gonna give them the shitty job. And the guys
Speaker 1: that were you know, privates and specialists were going to
Speaker 1: pull security instead of pull pulled out of trucks. But
Speaker 1: there's just sometimes there's no walking back from that, you know,
Speaker 1: when you're twenty years old.
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Speaker 3: Then the the urban ambush where you were awarded the
Speaker 3: Purple Heart and so were many of your soldiers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was it was tax day. Well, I'll never
Speaker 1: forget it is April fifteenth, so you always remember his
Speaker 1: tax day and so you know we were we were
Speaker 1: at a point at least in twenty twelve in the
Speaker 1: AO that we were in. You know, we we would
Speaker 1: say that kind of all the dumb ones were dead,
Speaker 1: the dumb terrorists were dead. You know, these guys knew
Speaker 1: that we outgunned them, they knew that we could hear them,
Speaker 1: they knew that we could see them, they knew we
Speaker 1: could reach out and touch them. And so we were
Speaker 1: mostly fighting, you know, an insurgency, a an i D insurgency,
Speaker 1: and there was kind of a cadence to things, and
Speaker 1: you know, we found several i DS by getting out
Speaker 1: of the trucks and walking.
Speaker 2: They were waiting to blow us up.
Speaker 1: And that was that was really if they could, if
Speaker 1: they could blow you up, then they'd engage. But there
Speaker 1: there were no ambushes in the region that were not
Speaker 1: just like i D induced. And then a firefight after
Speaker 1: so we were again q r F and this a
Speaker 1: neighboring cop or FOB was getting some like harassing fire.
Speaker 1: So there was a PKM so like a light machine
Speaker 1: gun was shooting at the SPOB from a building, and
Speaker 1: so we got spun up on QRF and at that
Speaker 1: point I was so.
Speaker 2: That the long version of this story.
Speaker 1: At that point, I was already starting to do my
Speaker 1: replacement as EXO from platoon leader to XO, and the
Speaker 1: guys were getting called out. Half the platoon was out
Speaker 1: on mission and they needed to have sixteen sixteen bodies
Speaker 1: in four trucks to be able to roll outside the
Speaker 1: wire or twenty I forget what it was, but it
Speaker 1: was something like that, and we had to fill the trucks.
Speaker 2: And so.
Speaker 1: I was in flip flops, ranger panties and a T
Speaker 1: shirt strapping a fifty cal onto the roof of the
Speaker 1: truck because we didn't have enough bodies and I could
Speaker 1: at least help the boys get outside the wire and
Speaker 1: get out on time. So I was just on the
Speaker 1: roof and flip flops of a Max road getting the
Speaker 1: weapons systems hooked up and running and the guy that
Speaker 1: was replacing me comes running up and he's like, hey,
Speaker 1: we need like we need more, go grab your ship.
Speaker 1: So I ran up to my room, threw my kid on,
Speaker 1: and and met the trucks. You know, I was running
Speaker 1: out the gate basically of the fob while the ramp
Speaker 1: was down, and they you know, hop in the back
Speaker 1: and off we go, and like we didn't have a medic,
Speaker 1: so we grabbed the the medic platoon leader who was
Speaker 1: an E eight Ranger or E seven at the time
Speaker 1: Region Ranger Regiment guy who then you know, went medical.
Speaker 1: So like our the back of my truck was just
Speaker 1: like a hobbled fire team of our senior sniper team
Speaker 1: leader are the senior Battalion fo Ford observer, myself and
Speaker 1: then an East seven Ranger medic and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we're all just riding the truck like.
Speaker 2: Shit.
Speaker 1: Man, I was supposed to go to the gym in
Speaker 1: an hour, like you know, because we knew how it worked.
Speaker 2: They they they get us.
Speaker 1: To come out and then we're going to drive to
Speaker 1: where it's happening. And by the time we get there,
Speaker 1: everyone's gonna be gone, and We're gonna get out of trucks.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna hear it, and we're gonna, you know, do
Speaker 1: bats and hides, and we're gonna look at all the
Speaker 1: military age males and then everyone's gonna be gone because
Speaker 1: as soon as those trucks leave the gate, they're they're
Speaker 1: gonna have someone on the phone telling them they're gone.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's not like we were complacent, like
Speaker 1: we were all kidded up. We were ready to go.
Speaker 2: But we had seen this movie before.
Speaker 1: And so it wasn't like this super adrenaline like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go get in a firefight. It was a
Speaker 1: like those sons of bitches. I was just gonna work
Speaker 1: out in an hour. And we get to the building
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, like you know, the
Speaker 1: popcorn starts going off on the sides of the truck.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh shit, like shoot back. So we
Speaker 1: you know, we the convoy goes up drives by fools
Speaker 1: of ui and now we know, okay, we're we're in
Speaker 1: a firefight. We're gonna something's going on. So we're gonna
Speaker 1: we're gonna get out of here a dismount and you know,
Speaker 1: see what's going on. And so and it was just
Speaker 1: a string of really bad luck. When we turned around,
Speaker 1: our mine roller hit us feedbump and like fell apart.
Speaker 1: So like our lead truck is just kind of like
Speaker 1: pushing the metal carcass of a mine roller down the
Speaker 1: road and it stopped a little short, so like they
Speaker 1: had to leave spacing for all four trucks to get
Speaker 1: past the building. And it just so happened where the
Speaker 1: lead truck stopped. The trail truck. The fourth truck, which
Speaker 1: I was in, was in the kill zone and straight
Speaker 1: in front of this building. And it was a three
Speaker 1: story concrete structure, probably three It was three stories high,
Speaker 1: probably one hundred and twenty one hundred and fifty feet long,
Speaker 1: so a fairly large like kind of what would be
Speaker 1: an apartment building. And we were square in the killson,
Speaker 1: like we were dead center in the killson. Ricochet start
Speaker 1: popping off the truck, and you know, we're in the back,
Speaker 1: just like, let us out, let us out because this
Speaker 1: goes nowhere good, like, you know, and the four of
Speaker 1: us in the back we were, you know, we're light infantry.
Speaker 1: Where we wanted to get in the fight, like there
Speaker 1: was no there was. The only argument in the back
Speaker 1: of the truck was who got to be the first
Speaker 1: one out the door? Not who had to be the
Speaker 1: first one out the door. And we get out, and
Speaker 1: I just remember, man, like you know, those trucks are dark,
Speaker 1: they got little little porthole windows, and it was super
Speaker 1: bright and and I'm I'm running the ramp, so I
Speaker 1: couldn't be the first one out. I had to be
Speaker 1: the second one out. My fingers on the little button
Speaker 1: to drop the ramp down, and the world just goes
Speaker 1: super bright because the sun. And then as I'm running
Speaker 1: down the ramp, I see the asphalt just splintering all
Speaker 1: around me, and there's like little chunks of asphalt just
Speaker 1: flying up around my feet. And uh, I remember, like
Speaker 1: it's like oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, Like I
Speaker 1: got to get behind cover because this is this is
Speaker 1: way worse than what we thought. We dove in a ditch.
Speaker 1: There was a little back hoe digging a utility ditch
Speaker 1: next to the road and it was piling up dirt.
Speaker 1: So we had a little like three foot ditch that
Speaker 1: we could get into and our we had a gunner.
Speaker 1: The gunner on my truck. He was he was the
Speaker 1: newest private to the platoon. So this is you know
Speaker 1: something he said before, like, you know, these are eighteen
Speaker 1: nineteen year old guys. Yeah, this is the nineteen year
Speaker 1: old guy. He was the newest member of the platoon.
Speaker 1: This is the first time he had been in a firefight,
Speaker 1: first time he had been in anything like this, And
Speaker 1: he had the only fifty calm in the fight. Because
Speaker 1: all the other trucks were parked outside and they couldn't
Speaker 1: really engage.
Speaker 2: One of the trucks could.
Speaker 1: And so you had four of us in a ditch,
Speaker 1: realizing we are way outgunned like these guys. You know,
Speaker 1: as soon as we're in the get the ditch, like
Speaker 1: RPGs are flying over our heads. RPG hits the truck
Speaker 1: and it hit the hit the driver's door, the passenger door,
Speaker 1: the TC's door. So our TC has shrapnel all.
Speaker 2: Heat because he stayed in the truck.
Speaker 1: TC's got shrapnel all through his kit, you know, under
Speaker 1: his kid. He's bleeding. So the medic runs out of
Speaker 1: the ditch. He runs out of the ditch, goes back
Speaker 1: to the truck to plug holes. And now there's three
Speaker 1: of us in the ditch. Thank god we had the
Speaker 1: FO because now we had Apache's coming on stations, and
Speaker 1: you know, so he's calling in apaches and there's you know,
Speaker 1: there's two of us trying to get a suppressing fire.
Speaker 1: Myself and my the Stiper team leader. We're trying to
Speaker 1: suppress We've got a Pachies coming on station and who
Speaker 1: fortunately we're in the AO because of the QRF call
Speaker 1: and we had you know, I was like we're laying
Speaker 1: in the ditch watching, you know, so you lay on
Speaker 1: your back as the apaches coming. You watch these apaches
Speaker 1: come come over, you know, twenty feet off the ground.
Speaker 1: They peel off. Then you jump up and then the
Speaker 1: RPGs just start raining back down on you. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: at one point everything went brown, dirts and rocks and
Speaker 1: shit went everywhere.
Speaker 4: It was.
Speaker 1: It was the time that our medic was coming back
Speaker 1: into the ditch and I watched him fall over and
Speaker 1: I remember like, you stupid bastard, you can't even run,
Speaker 1: and uh, an RPG hit so close is what happened.
Speaker 1: I mean, there was an RPG that hit about five
Speaker 1: feet and it hit the dirt berm in front of
Speaker 1: us where the backo was piling the dirt for the
Speaker 1: utility trench. And you know, that was the one that
Speaker 1: that got us all pretty good as far as concussions
Speaker 1: and shrapnel. And you know, whether it's rocks or or everyone,
Speaker 1: everyone left that day with the tv I that was
Speaker 1: in the ditch at that point. So uh, you know,
Speaker 1: and I will you know, there's there's so many parts
Speaker 1: of this. Uh. One one that needs to be mentioned
Speaker 1: is that they're one of the guy that was in
Speaker 1: the in the truck in the turret. So when that
Speaker 1: the turret, when the truck got hit with the RPG,
Speaker 1: the whole smoke fire suppression system goes off, and our
Speaker 1: turret gunner fell down all the way from the you know,
Speaker 1: he was standing up in the turret. He fell down
Speaker 1: into the bottom of the truck. And again this said nineteen
Speaker 1: year old kid who's in his first firefight. And it
Speaker 1: was the it was the only it was a fifty
Speaker 1: cow and it was the only thing that was giving
Speaker 1: the four of us in the ditch any suppression and
Speaker 1: in any way to engage or maneuver. And you know,
Speaker 1: this kid could have laid in the in the bottom
Speaker 1: of the truck. He just fell eight feet onto his
Speaker 1: back and all the fire suppressions going off. He could
Speaker 1: have absolutely done that. And the only thing he did
Speaker 1: was he grabbed his pocket knife and he slashed all
Speaker 1: the ratchet straps on the AMMO cans and threw four
Speaker 1: ammo cans up on the roof, then crawled, you know,
Speaker 1: climb back up and re engaged.
Speaker 2: And you know, that's that's valor, that's.
Speaker 1: Bravery, and and your rank should have nothing to do
Speaker 1: with a with a valorous Award. You know, there's four
Speaker 1: of us that are alive because of Ian mcinty and
Speaker 1: and his actions that day. And you know, at by
Speaker 1: the end of it, after maybe I don't know, twenty minutes,
Speaker 1: we had two flights of apaches went full Winchester. They
Speaker 1: shot everything they had, rockets and rockets and and bullets,
Speaker 1: and then we eventually were able to get out of
Speaker 1: the ditch. And then it was a three hour firefight
Speaker 1: we had. There was a Romanian special forces team with
Speaker 1: a with an Afghan attachment that was trying to get
Speaker 1: at the building. There was you know, us on our
Speaker 1: own trying to get at the building from another direction.
Speaker 1: We had two A tens come on station and went
Speaker 1: full Winchester with everything they had UH and the and
Speaker 1: these guys were like they were there to die that day.
Speaker 1: They were they were in the building to die. And
Speaker 1: they reinforced both sides of the building so they could
Speaker 1: engage from either side. They had to have had hundreds
Speaker 1: of sandbags and stuff in there. So you know, two apaches,
Speaker 1: two or four apaches, two A tens UH, we did
Speaker 1: our best to get in the building. The Romanians tried
Speaker 1: to get in and then after a couple hours the
Speaker 1: decision was made. You know, we we requested authorization to
Speaker 1: drop a five hundred pound bomb, and it was it
Speaker 1: was danger close or sure that one the first one
Speaker 1: that dropped the detonation. Something happened with the detonation and
Speaker 1: it went through the building and never detonated. And then
Speaker 1: we dropped another from an F sixteen, another five hundred
Speaker 1: pound bomb, and the fin broke when it released, and
Speaker 1: it like dolphined on its way in and it missed.
Speaker 1: You know, we were so close. It's like the Romanians
Speaker 1: were here and we were here, and it you know.
Speaker 2: The bomb hits here. We were we were so lucky.
Speaker 1: And then finally they the I think the brigade commander
Speaker 1: it might have added to have been like a general
Speaker 1: authorized me to release a two thousand pound bomb from
Speaker 1: a B two, and we were like, from a concussion
Speaker 1: risk perspective, we were we were danger danger, danger close,
Speaker 1: you know whatever the one percent PI is like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we were. We were way.
Speaker 2: Inside of it.
Speaker 1: So but it was effective and it certainly ended the firefight,
Speaker 1: and it certainly ended the structural integrity of that building.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that was you know, it was it was
Speaker 1: one of the fondest days because we won, like we
Speaker 1: were we were infantry men that were trained to go
Speaker 1: do that, and it wasn't That was not the traumatic
Speaker 1: day of my deployment or and I can speak for
Speaker 1: most of the guys that were there, like that was
Speaker 1: what we trained to do and we got to go
Speaker 1: do it.
Speaker 2: You know, the other two.
Speaker 1: Events I told you guys about, we're certainly the much
Speaker 1: more traumatic than that day. But the part for me
Speaker 1: that that I didn't you know that that goes into
Speaker 1: kind of part two of this story is on the
Speaker 1: way home, my head hurts so bad that you know,
Speaker 1: I took my helmet off, I took my headphones off,
Speaker 1: and I just rode in the back of this truck
Speaker 1: with my hands cradling my ears because I had such
Speaker 1: bad headache, and I thought it was just adrenaline. Like
Speaker 1: I justified it to myself as like, oh, I mean,
Speaker 1: you had so much adrenaline. Now it's leaving your body
Speaker 1: and you just have a headache. And then three days
Speaker 1: later I was trying to do Yeah, we took the
Speaker 1: concussion test. I cheated, I listened to someone else's answers
Speaker 1: and gave them as my own. And then three days later,
Speaker 1: we're doing inventory I'm back to my job as an
Speaker 1: XO and we're doing we're doing inventory checks and I
Speaker 1: can't read.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: A PFC is like, hey, Sar, do you want me
Speaker 1: to read those numbers for you? Because because you can't read?
Speaker 1: And that was like, oh man, I actually can't read,
Speaker 1: like letters and numbers were confusing, and then I had
Speaker 1: to go self report.
Speaker 3: Wow, I guess this involves you know, you're coming back
Speaker 3: home from Afghanistan and you know, getting out of the military.
Speaker 3: But I'd also like to ask you about you know
Speaker 3: that you got a purple heart for having a TV
Speaker 3: and I mean, was that kind of like a hard
Speaker 3: flat thing for you and the guys, because I mean,
Speaker 3: like the one soldier you mentioned who had shrapnel wounds,
Speaker 3: of course he's going to get a purple heart, but guys,
Speaker 3: who have you know this this invisible wound? You know
Speaker 3: that that is not readily apparent. Was that kind of
Speaker 3: a struggle for you guys?
Speaker 1: We had a.
Speaker 2: I don't know how other like how it would go
Speaker 2: for other people.
Speaker 5: We had a a paho Is captain and he did
Speaker 5: a concussion analysis, like so three of the guys were
Speaker 5: clearly marked a concussions.
Speaker 1: Also a lot of the three of us also had
Speaker 1: lung damage as well, So like we all had lung
Speaker 1: damage from the overpressure and the chemicals, like we had
Speaker 1: to we had to sit down. I would bring myself
Speaker 1: and one other guy, like we would bring stools with
Speaker 1: us for the for the four hundred meter walk to
Speaker 1: the chow hall, because we would get winded about halfway there.
Speaker 1: H So, like you know, the battalion Star Majors walking
Speaker 1: by and your in a stool just trying to get
Speaker 1: to the toow hall, like there's like something something's wrong there,
Speaker 1: and and we had the like everything was documented fortunately,
Speaker 1: and and everything was documented very clearly. So like the
Speaker 1: administrative part of the Purple Heart process was I wouldn't
Speaker 1: say any more difficult because it was it was combined
Speaker 1: with you know, there were there were two of the
Speaker 1: guys had shrapnel, five people had tv I s, like
Speaker 1: three of us had lung damage. Like it was, it
Speaker 1: kind of all just got looped into a well. They
Speaker 1: they dropped a two thousand pounds bond that day and
Speaker 1: watched it.
Speaker 2: So good good. What was was it difficult for you to.
Speaker 3: Go and self report because I know you guys as
Speaker 3: young army officers are like thoroughly indoctrinated.
Speaker 2: And but it's true of all soldiers.
Speaker 3: I think like no one wants to say, like, hey,
Speaker 3: I have a problem.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's that's a part of the culture.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say it's it's just the the officer or
Speaker 1: or you know, and and certainly there's a part of
Speaker 1: it that is encouraged, exacerbated whatever you want to call
Speaker 1: by the ranger culture. You know, my my platoon sergeant
Speaker 1: who now is actually coaching, would beyond service as well.
Speaker 1: My platoon sergeant when with the reconnaissance platoon he broke
Speaker 1: his ankle on an insertion. We ran out of the
Speaker 1: back of THEGE forty seven's He broke his ankle running
Speaker 1: out of the back and I think we had a
Speaker 1: twelve click something like that, twelve click X pill. It
Speaker 1: was a three day mission with a twelve click X
Speaker 1: fill to get to trucks to drive home. And no
Speaker 1: one knew that he broke his ankle. He tied his
Speaker 1: boot tighter, he just like cranked his boot.
Speaker 2: Down and spent.
Speaker 1: He knew that was you know, he was a senior,
Speaker 1: he seven, He knew it was probably his last patrol.
Speaker 1: He knew he broke his ankle. It was his last
Speaker 1: patrol with the boys. And so he's not coming out
Speaker 1: of the game. He's not getting a metavac called for mean,
Speaker 1: he's certainly not going back on that helicopter. And so
Speaker 1: he tied his boot tight and he walked twelve clicks
Speaker 1: and full kid on a broken ankle across the desert. Now,
Speaker 1: like that mindset is how you are in your tab
Speaker 1: It's how you you lead soldiers.
Speaker 2: It's how you you like.
Speaker 1: There is there is no.
Speaker 2: It's how you survive in combat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, like you can put your body through physically, mentally, anything. Right, So,
Speaker 1: like you take that mindset, and and the mission is
Speaker 1: more important, like how like you are taught, the mission
Speaker 1: is more important. It's something you believe in. It's a
Speaker 1: part of the culture. And you know, whether my mission
Speaker 1: at that point was leading soldiers or whether it was
Speaker 1: doing serial numbers for a change of command inventory, the
Speaker 1: mission was the mission, and and the mission was more
Speaker 1: important than me and and and it has nothing to
Speaker 1: do with worthiness, It has nothing to do with self esteem,
Speaker 1: Like there's there's just a cultural part that the mission
Speaker 1: is more important than the man. The team is more
Speaker 1: important than the man, and you just execute and do
Speaker 1: your job. So yeah, it's it's hard to self report.
Speaker 1: And also, you know, I had a path that I
Speaker 1: was pursuing of, you know, going the Green Beret route,
Speaker 1: and like you don't you don't self report anything. You
Speaker 1: need to make sure your medical is clear and you're
Speaker 1: good to go. So you know, the only reason I
Speaker 1: self reported was because I couldn't read and I and
Speaker 1: I knew there was a bigger problem that I had
Speaker 1: to I had to say something right.
Speaker 3: And after you did that, you know, what did the
Speaker 3: out of the command respond and what kind of treatment
Speaker 3: did you start to get?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was I mean we were we were in
Speaker 1: a very remote part of Afghanistan. We didn't have like
Speaker 1: level one or two right medical facilities. But I was
Speaker 1: put on myself and and the other guys as well.
Speaker 1: We were all put on like a cognitive rest, like
Speaker 1: a ninety six hour hold for cognitive rest to assess.
Speaker 1: And I, I swear to God, man, I think I
Speaker 1: slept twenty hours a day and and I I would
Speaker 1: wake up to go to the bathroom and to go
Speaker 1: to the chow hall once or twice a day, and
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, because you can't read, you can't
Speaker 1: be on your computer, you can't you can't do anything.
Speaker 1: And I thought, like what the hell am I going
Speaker 1: to do with myself? And all I did was sleep,
Speaker 1: you know, my my brain was trying to heal. And
Speaker 1: then you know, and then after that, like I I
Speaker 1: went back to work. I wasn't supposed to go outside
Speaker 1: the wire except for you know, taking taking three trucks
Speaker 1: to Sealerno to turn them in because I was just
Speaker 1: going to be a day trip. And yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it was. Yeah. I would say, like command was generally supportive,
Speaker 1: like there was no there was no like good command,
Speaker 1: good command, like took care of the guys.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it was good. Oh that's great.
Speaker 3: And then talk to us about rotating back home after
Speaker 3: that deployment and kind of what happened next.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I you know, I made the decision.
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 1: I was at a timeline in my career that I
Speaker 1: had to make a decision. I had to either accept
Speaker 1: my position into the q CORUS s FAS and the
Speaker 1: Green Beret route or I had to get out. And
Speaker 1: and I I was kind of long in the tooth
Speaker 1: in the in the four or five year officer initial commitment,
Speaker 1: and so I quickly made the decision that I had done.
Speaker 2: It was a hard decision.
Speaker 1: It was a hard decision because because earning a green
Speaker 1: floppy hat was the one thing that I hadn't done yet,
Speaker 1: and I was it was that was the one thing
Speaker 1: in my military career that I hadn't done. But I
Speaker 1: had worked with green bereay teams. I led Afghan commandos
Speaker 1: on you know, kinetic patrols in in coordination with green berets.
Speaker 1: I trained local National soldiers. I'd been in firefights. I pulled,
Speaker 1: you know, picked up pieces of people, wrote on a
Speaker 1: lot of helicopters, jumped out of a lot of aeroplanes.
Speaker 2: Like I felt like I had.
Speaker 1: I had ninety eight percent from my personal journey, ninety
Speaker 1: eight percent of my journey, and the things that I
Speaker 1: wanted to do were complete. I knew I wasn't going
Speaker 1: to be a lifer, and I made the decision to
Speaker 1: pull my packet and get out, and that I that
Speaker 1: I was married to my wife and not the military,
Speaker 1: and and honestly, at that point, so I like I
Speaker 1: have a view of leadership where it's a sacred privilege
Speaker 1: and you know, sometimes sometimes we fail, but leadership is
Speaker 1: a sacred privilege and I couldn't, in clear conscience step
Speaker 1: in front of twelve other guys on a team and
Speaker 1: I have one hundred percent of my heart and one
Speaker 1: hundred percent of my brain there, you know, I felt
Speaker 1: like I had checked the box. And if you're not
Speaker 1: bringing one hundred percent as a lead, then you shouldn't
Speaker 1: be there, not not in that way, not in you know,
Speaker 1: taking guys down range into harm's way. So so yeah,
Speaker 1: I got out, and my wife and I traveled. We
Speaker 1: you know, in this whole process, I'm going to a
Speaker 1: tv I clinic on on Fort Richardson, and you know
Speaker 1: there's there's a whole tv I component there where I
Speaker 1: basically had the what I would say is kind of
Speaker 1: the vocabulary of a seventh seventh grader, seventh or eighth grader,
Speaker 1: short term memory of a of a goldfish, irritability like
Speaker 1: emotional instability and irritability. My hearing was affected, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't just hearing damage from you know, from from like uh,
Speaker 1: ear drum damage. It was it was my ability to
Speaker 1: decipher noises that were coming in. My brain would get
Speaker 1: confused with background noises, So you know, I had a
Speaker 1: whole collection of tv I related response. I never self
Speaker 1: reported with PTSD, and I never I never you know,
Speaker 1: despite having gone through a lot of experiences that one
Speaker 1: would consider traumatic, I never self reported or thought that
Speaker 1: I had PTSD. But I went through a lot of
Speaker 1: tv I work, and then summer fallow twenty thirteen, I
Speaker 1: was a civilian, gave my last salute and walked out
Speaker 1: the door.
Speaker 2: And what did you do in the civilian world.
Speaker 1: I worked as much as I had to to travel
Speaker 1: as much as I could. So my wife and I
Speaker 1: we took an eighteen month we through hike the Appalachian Trail.
Speaker 1: We lived in New Zealand. We took a long road trip,
Speaker 1: and then we ran out of money and had to
Speaker 1: get jobs. So I've spent most of my career in entrepreneurship, startups,
Speaker 1: went back to grad school, got my MBA, worked a
Speaker 1: lot of really cool projects, worked in tech, traveled again.
Speaker 1: In twenty eighteen, we quit our job, sold literally everything
Speaker 1: we owned except for two lamps because we couldn't sell
Speaker 1: them on Facebook Marketplace, and moved into a Toyota Tacoma
Speaker 1: and drove from Maine to the Arctic Ocean in the
Speaker 1: Northwest Territories to Peru and a Toyota Tacoma over eighteen months.
Speaker 1: Like I was, it was cool, man, it was it
Speaker 1: was bucketless. But holy cow, did it bring up some
Speaker 1: unresolved trauma around planning and security and your loved ones
Speaker 1: being in harm's way in third world countries?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I mean, I think like something I'd like to ask
Speaker 3: you about is that you know, on paper, from what
Speaker 3: you're describing on paper, you're doing great, like you're kicking ass,
Speaker 3: You're you're exploring the world, you're getting an advanced degree,
Speaker 3: you're working these tech jobs. But there's something else going
Speaker 3: on beneath the surface that is kind of eating away
Speaker 3: at you.
Speaker 2: It sounds like, one.
Speaker 1: Hundred percent you could have had a better segue. Everything
Speaker 1: on LinkedIn and Instagram was dialed. I was living a
Speaker 1: life that I should have been fulfilled. I should have
Speaker 1: been thrilled. I had an an incredibly loving wife who
Speaker 1: told me and showed me that she loved me. I
Speaker 1: had supportive friends and hobbies and everything. I should have
Speaker 1: been happy. I should have been fulfilled. I should have
Speaker 1: been happy, which then starts the cycle of why aren't
Speaker 1: I have, How How damaged must I be? How broken
Speaker 1: must I be? So this this inner monologue starts, and
Speaker 1: I had been searching for purpose since I left the military.
Speaker 1: I had been searching for healing. I had doing therapy
Speaker 1: and self help. I mean, I walked six months on
Speaker 1: the Appalachian Trail thinking I would discover who I am
Speaker 1: and find myself and at the end I just had
Speaker 1: some blisters and some clothes that smelled offul and and
Speaker 1: and a ponytail, so like didn't find myself there. So
Speaker 1: constantly doing things on paper that are supposed to be fulfilling,
Speaker 1: things that you should be proud of, and just every
Speaker 1: time I did something that I was supposed to be
Speaker 1: proud of, I felt more and more hollow and more
Speaker 1: and more empty. And then self medicated. That was you know,
Speaker 1: that was that was where that was a portion of
Speaker 1: where the alcoholism came in, of self medicating to not
Speaker 1: feel that way.
Speaker 3: And when did that sort of like reach a breaking
Speaker 3: point for you that you had to go and get
Speaker 3: some additional help.
Speaker 1: Breaking point Memorial Day weekend of twenty twenty four, So
Speaker 1: you know, it was a it was a situation where
Speaker 1: it was kind of like a frog and a boiling
Speaker 1: pot of water. And you know, as you guys know,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure many of your listeners know, alcohol is
Speaker 1: a celebrated part of military culture. Sure, it's how we celebrate,
Speaker 1: it's how we grieve, it's how we fill boredom, and
Speaker 1: it's how we bond. You know, it's it's pretty much
Speaker 1: every powerful emotion can be associated with alcohol. And I
Speaker 1: already had an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. So whether it
Speaker 1: was familial or just me in general, I already had
Speaker 1: an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. And then over the course
Speaker 1: of about ten years, it started being used more to
Speaker 1: instead of feel good, it started being used as a
Speaker 1: tool to not feel bad. And then really the last
Speaker 1: two years of my addiction really like the slope started
Speaker 1: getting steeper, and then the last six months was a
Speaker 1: true fallof And so Memorial Day weekend of twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: I came clean to my wife about everything, everything. And
Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of lying, in deceit and betrayal
Speaker 1: that goes with being married to an alcoholic, and I
Speaker 1: came clean about about all of it, all of it
Speaker 1: that I that I could, that I knew, And so
Speaker 1: that was on a Sunday, and on Monday, I moved
Speaker 1: into an airbnb as a result of my own actions,
Speaker 1: You're right, So, like I was no longer welcome back
Speaker 1: at the house, So my dog and I went to
Speaker 1: an airbnb. I had had the pleasure of detoxing from
Speaker 1: an alcoholism there. Scheduled my first call with Beyond on a Tuesday,
Speaker 1: and I went to my first AA meeting on a Thursday.
Speaker 2: Wow, talk about cold turkey, Jesus. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So as far as you know, beginning the process
Speaker 3: of your recovery, tell us about you know, AA beyond
Speaker 3: anything else that you know helped you, you know, start
Speaker 3: to take those steps forward.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, you know, the the first thing that I
Speaker 1: had to do was.
Speaker 2: I had to want to change.
Speaker 1: Like. It wasn't because my wife wanted me to change
Speaker 1: it that point, you know, I I didn't. I didn't know,
Speaker 1: but I had come to terms that I destroyed a
Speaker 1: thirteen year marriage to the love of my life. My
Speaker 1: actions were the cause of that. And you know, but
Speaker 1: getting sober was for me. It wasn't just for her.
Speaker 1: You know, I wanted to show up better, but I was.
Speaker 1: It was finally, you know, it was time to change,
Speaker 1: and I decided to change it, and it was it
Speaker 1: could have gone the other way. I at that point
Speaker 1: in my life, you know, I had daily suicidal ideations,
Speaker 1: and I daily suicidal ideations, and I would have gladly
Speaker 1: have drank myself to death like that was a that
Speaker 1: was a happy path for me. The only thing that
Speaker 1: kept me from doing that is I promised my wife Lindsay,
Speaker 1: that I wouldn't kill myself, that that I would never
Speaker 1: kill myself. And I promised her. And there were times
Speaker 1: where I was damn close. There were times where I
Speaker 1: was on my motorcycle, and this was a Memorial Day weekend,
Speaker 1: which are typically harder for me. I was on the motorcycle,
Speaker 1: my helmet was unbuckled, and I premeditated all this. When
Speaker 1: I stopped to get gas. It was raining, and we
Speaker 1: lived in Oregon and it was rainy Zorini Spring roads
Speaker 1: were wet, and the plan was to lay the bike
Speaker 1: down in a tight corner with the guardrail, pop my
Speaker 1: helmet off as I slid, and then the rest would
Speaker 1: be history and it would look like I forgot to
Speaker 1: buckle my helmet. But I knew. I knew that Lindsay
Speaker 1: would know, and I knew that she knew me well
Speaker 1: enough to she would know. So I couldn't do it.
Speaker 1: And I was riding helmet unbuckled into the corner, like
Speaker 1: I identified the corner that I was going to lay
Speaker 1: it down. So, going back to the recovery side of it,
Speaker 1: I couldn't kill myself, even though you know, if the
Speaker 1: relationship was over, the relationship was over. But I couldn't
Speaker 1: kill myself and at least not yet. And I wanted
Speaker 1: to give her answers. So I went to AA as
Speaker 1: A as a triage. My brother, My brother, I joke,
Speaker 1: he taught me how to be an alcoholic, and he
Speaker 1: taught me how to get sober. So he's a couple
Speaker 1: of years ahead of me and his sobriety. And you know,
Speaker 1: I talked to him in the parking lot of my
Speaker 1: first meeting and and I just went, I went all in.
Speaker 2: And you know, detox sucks.
Speaker 1: Detox is not fun, and you know, owning those truths
Speaker 1: aren't fun. But that first meeting that I went to,
Speaker 1: there was an old timer with a lot of sobriety.
Speaker 1: There were three of usk new guys there and there
Speaker 1: was an old timer with a lot of sobriety, and
Speaker 1: he got up for his share, and he looked at
Speaker 1: us and he said, listen, no one comes here on
Speaker 1: a winning streak, Like no one comes to AA on
Speaker 1: a winning streak. You're all here as a result of
Speaker 1: your own actions. And if you keep making the same choices,
Speaker 1: you're not going to go anywhere else, and you're going
Speaker 1: to constantly be showing up for your first meeting. And
Speaker 1: you know, I really took that to heart, and honestly,
Speaker 1: like that guy doesn't know that, he changed my life
Speaker 1: forever because it took the mindset of that you keep
Speaker 1: doing what you're doing, you're always going to be here.
Speaker 1: So I was like, I can't keep doing what I
Speaker 1: was doing. And then that brings in beyond. So a
Speaker 1: good friend of mine went to this IBA gain clinic
Speaker 1: in Mexico. This civilian guy went for a cocaine addiction,
Speaker 1: met some veterans, I think some Navy seal guys there,
Speaker 1: and was talking about all the benefits of iv A
Speaker 1: gain for veterans. And he came home and he told
Speaker 1: me you need to go, You need to go, and
Speaker 1: I I said, oh, that sounds great. Not now, in reality,
Speaker 1: I was terrified. I was terrified of what I was
Speaker 1: going to find I didn't feel worthy. My problems aren't
Speaker 1: that bad. I can get on top of this alcohol.
Speaker 1: I knew I was alco I knew I was an
Speaker 1: alcoholic for the two years before I got sober. I
Speaker 1: can get on top of it myself. I can control this.
Speaker 1: Quintin didn't. And then eventually, at rock bottom, I said, well,
Speaker 1: screw it.
Speaker 2: I've got nothing else to lose.
Speaker 1: I've already lost my wife. I've got nothing else to lose.
Speaker 1: And she told me she would wait to see who
Speaker 1: came back from Mexico. And so thirty days after coming clean,
Speaker 1: thirty days after getting sober, I got on airplane to
Speaker 1: go to Mexico, and I knew almost nothing about Ivagain,
Speaker 1: I knew almost nothing about psychedelic medicine. I didn't look
Speaker 1: at any other clinics in the United States or in
Speaker 1: the world other than this one that came referred to.
Speaker 2: Me, and I just said, let's you know, let's go.
Speaker 1: And you know, I'd like to say that I was
Speaker 1: doing this for healing, that I was doing it to
Speaker 1: grow and become a better person. In reality, I wanted
Speaker 1: to come home with answers for my wife for why
Speaker 1: things happened? Why did I destroy our marriage? What happened
Speaker 1: to me? And then, you know, I knew that I
Speaker 1: was incurable because I had been trying to solve this
Speaker 1: with VA meds and VA therapies, and I was trying
Speaker 1: to solve this for ten years, and I knew I
Speaker 1: was uncurable. But at least if I could give her
Speaker 1: the answer so she could have closure, I could then
Speaker 1: finally go kill myself.
Speaker 2: And that was the plan.
Speaker 1: I was going down there to get her the answers
Speaker 1: so I could go kill myself. We were okay, financially
Speaker 1: should be fine. Everything would be okay, and finally I
Speaker 1: would stop burdening being a burden on the people around me.
Speaker 1: They loved me because their life would be better with
Speaker 1: me gone.
Speaker 2: Person. And what was the process?
Speaker 3: Says when you got down to this clinic, If you
Speaker 3: can like walk us through what that you know what
Speaker 3: that entails, because I know it's more than just you know,
Speaker 3: taking you know, plant medicine and what that experience was like.
Speaker 2: For you when you got there. Yeah, so thank you. Well.
Speaker 1: So as a part of that commitment to killing myself,
Speaker 1: I knew I couldn't do it without with it. I
Speaker 1: had to have a clear conscience, and that clear conscience
Speaker 1: meant I had to do all of everything in front
Speaker 1: of me at this clinic one so like that same
Speaker 1: that same willpower and drive that you know recycled Ranger
Speaker 1: school and painted the curb with a one inch yellow
Speaker 1: you know, paintbrush was the same. That's the same person,
Speaker 1: That same person was in there. So if I was
Speaker 1: going to to kill myself with a clear conscience and
Speaker 1: know that nothing worked on me, I had to lean
Speaker 1: into the process one hundred percent. I didn't know that
Speaker 1: this didn't work for me, and I couldn't just finger
Speaker 1: drill it.
Speaker 2: So on the flame.
Speaker 1: Down I read, you know, I buttoned up my work
Speaker 1: because I was still working as a tech executive. So
Speaker 1: my my my co founders and my company gave me
Speaker 1: the space to go do this and supported me, which
Speaker 1: was incredibly important. I'm grateful for. You know. The only
Speaker 1: It's funny, the only thing that didn't suffer was my work.
Speaker 1: I let my family suffer, but I didn't let my
Speaker 1: work suffer. What the hell is that about a lot
Speaker 1: of alcoholics? Will we'll do that? And so I read
Speaker 1: everything that they gave me. I went no contact with
Speaker 1: everyone on the outside. Basically turned my phone off on
Speaker 1: the when I arrived. And Beyond so Beyond iv A
Speaker 1: GAIN is an iv A GAIN treatment clinic in Cancun, Mexico.
Speaker 1: You typically go for seven to fourteen days, depending on
Speaker 1: your treatment protocol. And Beyond is a is a mix
Speaker 1: of Western clinical medicine and the Eastern, a more Eastern
Speaker 1: holistic approach, and it's really like a fifty to fifty mix.
Speaker 1: So I begain, will I again needs to be monitored,
Speaker 1: so you do EKGs. There are effects on the heart
Speaker 1: from my beginning, the effects that could happen from I
Speaker 1: begin So you do EKGs.
Speaker 2: For your heart health.
Speaker 1: You'll do a lot of like blood urine tests or
Speaker 1: urine drug tests and blood tests. You do all of
Speaker 1: these clinical procedures. But at the same time, you're doing
Speaker 1: daily meditations, and you're doing chakra work, and you're doing
Speaker 1: sound healings, and you're doing you know, creative expressions, and
Speaker 1: there's like every day there's a workshop just like a
Speaker 1: group work workshop, and you're given a workbook. And it's
Speaker 1: basically the way that I went down. It was a
Speaker 1: it was a kind of a choose your own adventure
Speaker 1: and lean into it. As hard as you want. Like,
Speaker 1: if you want to talk to a coach, you can
Speaker 1: talk to a coach. If you want to hide in
Speaker 1: your room and play video games, you can hide in
Speaker 1: your room and play video games. And and I now know,
Speaker 1: you know it's for a reason, and you know I
Speaker 1: self selected and I leaned in, and I went to
Speaker 1: every therapeutic event. I went to every workshop. And you
Speaker 1: know when I when I went to sit with this medicine.
Speaker 1: The day that I that I went to sit with
Speaker 1: this medicine, I was terrified. I was terrified. I wrote
Speaker 1: a letter to my wife because I have I have
Speaker 1: a totally normal heart, congenital heart defect that has nothing
Speaker 1: to do with I have again and nothing to do
Speaker 1: with how I beganin would affect a heart. But I
Speaker 1: again ego. I was convinced that I was so special.
Speaker 1: I was going to die. Uh So I wrote a letter,
Speaker 1: left it on my pillow, and I walked in that
Speaker 1: room ready to die, totally ready to die.
Speaker 2: But I was also going to give it my all.
Speaker 1: And so there's some some things with I begain. First
Speaker 1: of all, I have again. It's a psychedelic, psychedelic experience.
Speaker 1: It is not a recreation drug. So we think of
Speaker 1: psychedelics and in our common colloquial am I going on
Speaker 1: a tanta?
Speaker 2: No, you're good? Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: So in our common like colloquial understanding of psychedelics, we
Speaker 1: think of psilocybin or LSD, and typically in a recreational sense.
Speaker 1: So it's the grateful dead, concert burning man, whatever, you know,
Speaker 1: whatever recreational context you want to put to it, shiny colors, unicorns,
Speaker 1: you know, woo, and it's all happy and good. It's
Speaker 1: supposed to be all happy and good, right, So, like
Speaker 1: that's the framing that ninety nine percent of the United
Speaker 1: States has around the word psychedelic. So I will tell
Speaker 1: you I've again is not a recreational experience. It is
Speaker 1: a therapeutic experience. And it was hands down the most
Speaker 1: profoundly positive experience in my life.
Speaker 2: But it wasn't recreation.
Speaker 1: Like you don't, no one is going to leave.
Speaker 2: I mean I can't say no one.
Speaker 1: Ninety nine point nine percent of the people aren't gonna
Speaker 1: leave an IV again journey and be like let's do
Speaker 1: another one tomorrow, Like hell yeah, I'm hooked, Like let's
Speaker 1: trade one addiction for another. It's just it's just not
Speaker 1: how it works.
Speaker 3: I've remember someone saying that I've never tried it, but
Speaker 3: that when you do eyebo GAIN, that like you have
Speaker 3: this journey of like confronting every failure in life. And
Speaker 3: it sounds like maybe not a very fun experience, which
Speaker 3: maybe that's why you're saying no one would want to
Speaker 3: do it again.
Speaker 1: So everyone's journey is different, and everyone's journey is different.
Speaker 1: There are some themes so and and since standing up
Speaker 1: this program, you know, I've had the enormous privilege to
Speaker 1: be associated with fifty people that have gone through and
Speaker 1: done an iv A GAIN journey as a veteran first
Speaker 1: responder or a spouse at no cost to them as
Speaker 1: a as a non off it and we've been able
Speaker 1: to open these doors for fifty people now to get
Speaker 1: access to healing. There are some common themes. First of all,
Speaker 1: the experience. So some people will ask, like, how long
Speaker 1: does it last for My answer to that is twelve
Speaker 1: hours to twelve years. And that depends on you, all right,
Speaker 1: So there's an acute clinical observation window that lasts for
Speaker 1: twelve hours.
Speaker 2: In that twelve hours.
Speaker 1: Because that's the effect on the heart that needs to
Speaker 1: be monitored by a clinical team. So you're in a
Speaker 1: bed on the side of a gain journey and you
Speaker 1: have you're hooked up to an EKG and a pulse
Speaker 1: ox cimeter and you have an electrolyte IV drip and
Speaker 1: it's again it's not what you would think of like
Speaker 1: doing psilocybin or LSD, and so you're going through this experience.
Speaker 1: The first four hours are typically maybe the more visual
Speaker 1: some people have visuals. For me, it was it was
Speaker 1: like watching scene of my life through like a four
Speaker 1: K ultra HD drone footage where I wasn't having flashbacks,
Speaker 1: but I was I was reliving impactful moments in my life.
Speaker 1: And then typically the next eight to twenty four hours
Speaker 1: are like a deep introspective meditative You're really malleable and
Speaker 1: gaining understanding for things, and a lot of times like
Speaker 1: we can process trauma through acceptance and understanding, So it's
Speaker 1: a really helpful way if you want to dig into
Speaker 1: those discomforts. So like for me, the first hour of
Speaker 1: my journey, I had to come to terms with a
Speaker 1: childhood sexual assault that I never told anyone about, and
Speaker 1: I had to accept that and I accept the person
Speaker 1: that perpetrated me right, and I had to accept emotional
Speaker 1: abandonment and emotion unfilled emotional needs from like childhood and family,
Speaker 1: and I had to accept those very painful learnings. But
Speaker 1: the journey was done with love. So like this journey
Speaker 1: and the story, you know, I expected it to be
Speaker 1: twelve hours. If you guys have ever seen the like
Speaker 1: Netflix show Stranger Things. I expected to be trapped into
Speaker 1: the upside down for twelve hours and all of the demons,
Speaker 1: all of the things I hated about myself, all like
Speaker 1: it was.
Speaker 2: Just gonna be. I had to pay a penance, I
Speaker 2: had to get.
Speaker 1: Nailed to a cross to pay for my sins. Like
Speaker 1: that's what I was taught. And what happened was I
Speaker 1: was hugged and I was loved, and that little five
Speaker 1: year old boy or nine year old boy was hugged
Speaker 1: and loved and he was told that he's enough and
Speaker 1: he was told that he's okay. And I was able
Speaker 1: to love myself for the first time in my life.
Speaker 2: I was able to.
Speaker 1: Process anxiety for the first time in my life, like
Speaker 1: first time in my adult life. I spent my entire
Speaker 1: life looking at how things were gonna hurt me made
Speaker 1: me a great infantry officer. Like most dangerous course of action,
Speaker 1: most likely course of action, contingencies for contingencies man like
Speaker 1: made me a great infantry officer, always looking at where
Speaker 1: things can go wrong. It makes me a great corporate
Speaker 1: leader in the role that I have of contingency planning.
Speaker 1: Doesn't make you a great partner, doesn't make you a
Speaker 1: great scuff And so this anxiety of where is where
Speaker 1: am I going to get hurt? I was able to
Speaker 1: release that and it wasn't comfortable, like and that's really like,
Speaker 1: it's not recreation, Like this shit is not comfortable. But
Speaker 1: one of the things that we coach our participants is like,
Speaker 1: you know, using a physical train, Like you go to
Speaker 1: a heavy squat day, it's probably gonna hurt to go
Speaker 1: to the bathsand the next day, or it's gonna hurt
Speaker 1: to walk up and down a flight of stairs. But
Speaker 1: you know that discomfort is gross. So why can't we
Speaker 1: apply I like veterans and you know I can only
Speaker 1: speak for veterans, but veterans first responders, Like there's a
Speaker 1: mindset elite acids, same idea, like you can push your
Speaker 1: mind and your body through any sort of discomfort like
Speaker 1: I will walk until I pass out, but like emotional discomfort,
Speaker 1: no way, give me a bottle of bourbon. Give me
Speaker 1: a bottle of bourbon before I feel emotional discomfort. So
Speaker 1: we try to coach. What we try to coach with
Speaker 1: the eye begain is like, you will encounter some discomfort.
Speaker 1: I hope you do, embrace it, go through it, because
Speaker 1: like on the other side of that is where the
Speaker 1: healing happens.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's unreal.
Speaker 3: And so tell us about coming home from the clinic
Speaker 3: then and being reunited with your wife and what was like,
Speaker 3: what was the next steps like in your life, because
Speaker 3: I mean you don't you don't get cured overnight.
Speaker 2: Right, It's a it's a process, right.
Speaker 1: No, So you know, I begain is not a magic pill,
Speaker 1: and I've said it, I'll say that till I'm blue
Speaker 1: in the face. It's a tool, and that tool is
Speaker 1: incredibly transformative.
Speaker 2: But it's not a magic pill. And like you said,
Speaker 2: you don't get cured. You don't get cured.
Speaker 1: What I realized is that by using this tool, I
Speaker 1: could become the person I've always wanted to be.
Speaker 2: Not go back.
Speaker 1: It wasn't going to help me become the person I was.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be the person I was. I
Speaker 1: wanted to be the person I wanted to be, and
Speaker 1: I could use this tool to try to get there.
Speaker 1: So on my last couple of days, I really started thinking.
Speaker 1: So I was down there for ten days, my last
Speaker 1: couple of days, after you stay with the medicine three times,
Speaker 1: and after the last time, I really started feeling this
Speaker 1: call to paying it forward because I knew that there were,
Speaker 1: you know, soldiers of mine, and really I just wanted
Speaker 1: to pay it forward to a couple of guys who
Speaker 1: I knew had had some troubles from the same deployment
Speaker 1: I went on. And so I sat down with the
Speaker 1: CEO and co founder of Beyond, Tom Fiegel, and I said, Tom,
Speaker 1: you know, if I were to put together, you know,
Speaker 1: if I were to use some of my network and
Speaker 1: venture capital and if I could raise some money, could
Speaker 1: I bring a group of five guys down here and
Speaker 1: I have it at a discount? And he like, straight face,
Speaker 1: just stonefaced me. He's like no, Like all right, man,
Speaker 1: Like you're running a business. I totally get it. And
Speaker 1: then he was like, no, I want to treat two
Speaker 1: hundred people a year for three but I don't know
Speaker 1: how because I'm not a veteran and so you know
Speaker 1: there and I wasn't the first person to think of
Speaker 1: doing this, God though, I just fortunately have an operations
Speaker 1: project management start up building background professionally and volunteered to
Speaker 1: do it. So I volunteered to Tom and said, look,
Speaker 1: can I can I help? Like, I'll work for free.
Speaker 1: I just want to build this And my goal was
Speaker 1: to treat to get one person access tiving. If we
Speaker 1: could get one person access cybagain that couldn't have it.
Speaker 1: It was called to it and couldn't have it. That
Speaker 1: was that was enough. So I return home with this idea.
Speaker 1: Now my wife and I were no contract, no contact,
Speaker 1: and I texted her that I was, you know, coming
Speaker 1: home when I was going to land and then I
Speaker 1: was going to go to the house and I was
Speaker 1: going to get the RV and I was going to
Speaker 1: be gone like just so you know, like I'll be
Speaker 1: home in town the sem She's like, well, i'll pick
Speaker 1: you up at the airport.
Speaker 2: That's surprising.
Speaker 1: And she picks me up at the airport and five
Speaker 1: minutes into their drive home, she's like, can you stop,
Speaker 1: Like can you just can you just stop talking? I
Speaker 1: thought I was toning it down, like I well, I
Speaker 1: was toning it down. That was even very prompt, like
Speaker 1: I was toning it down. But the person that left
Speaker 1: was a alcoholic, anxiety filled, depressed, suicidal ideation asshole needed himself.
Speaker 1: The most important part is I hated myself, and the
Speaker 1: person that came home loved myself, loved who I am,
Speaker 1: and like even told her, I was like, look, if
Speaker 1: we don't if we don't end up together, that's totally fine.
Speaker 1: Can we just be friends? Like you're my best friend?
Speaker 1: Can we just be friends? Like it's okay if you
Speaker 1: want to be with someone else, I just want to
Speaker 1: be your friend. And she's like, who the hell is
Speaker 1: this person? And uh, six weeks later she went to
Speaker 1: Beyond for her own oh wow. And she comes home
Speaker 1: six weeks later and she knew that I was working
Speaker 1: on this idea with the tree veterans and first responders,
Speaker 1: and before we even discussed anything that has to do
Speaker 1: with our personal relationship, she's like, I'll sensor most of it.
Speaker 1: She's like, screw you, guys. This isn't just for veterans,
Speaker 1: this is for spouses too. We deal with your bullshit.
Speaker 1: We deal with your trauma, We deal with hiding the gun,
Speaker 1: We deal with thinking about are we going to come
Speaker 1: home and find you dead in the bathtub? Are we
Speaker 1: going to find you dead in the car. And we
Speaker 1: deal with this shit day in day out when you're
Speaker 1: having a bad time. And this isn't just this healing
Speaker 1: is not reserved for veterans. The families deserve it too.
Speaker 1: And that's amazing. Are we still together? Like are we
Speaker 1: going to be in a relationship? He's like, yeah, we'll
Speaker 1: figure that out. So we are. And I'll tell you
Speaker 1: that it's been an incredible journey. And if it wasn't
Speaker 1: for Lindsay, there wouldn't be a spouse's program, and she
Speaker 1: really championed that.
Speaker 2: And you know a big.
Speaker 1: Part of Beyond Service is offering equal and equitable care
Speaker 1: for spouses and family members. And we've had five husband
Speaker 1: and wife go through on their own time, like we
Speaker 1: do cohort genders gender cohorts, so like a group of
Speaker 1: guys goes down, group of women goes down, but we've
Speaker 1: had five couples now go through this process and then
Speaker 1: it's incredible, like the healing that is needed and the
Speaker 1: weight that is carried by the family is unimaginable and
Speaker 1: I don't know how to explain it because I've never
Speaker 1: felt it. But you combine that with the complete lack
Speaker 1: of resources, so like all of these programs are for
Speaker 1: veterans and there's not enough, and how many of them
Speaker 1: for spouses and family?
Speaker 6: Right, And you know that that goes back to here's
Speaker 6: something we've talked about. Something that I recognized my relationships
Speaker 6: was that what we did in the military. You know,
Speaker 6: we didn't have a draft. We all volunteered, and you know,
Speaker 6: and what we did it was kind of selfish. It
Speaker 6: was it was what we wanted to do. It was
Speaker 6: a calling that we answered. It was for a life
Speaker 6: we envisioned, and we left our spouses behind, you know,
Speaker 6: and we were out there going through the stuff but
Speaker 6: living every day.
Speaker 2: You know, it was what we wanted to do.
Speaker 6: And meanwhile they're at home and worrying, you know, not
Speaker 6: knowing what's happening to us, you know, not knowing what's
Speaker 6: going on from day to day, dealing with our bullshit
Speaker 6: when we come back. Like it's not just the post
Speaker 6: service life that that they have to wrestle with, but
Speaker 6: a lot of times it's it's it's that continuum.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it started.
Speaker 1: You know, it started for Lindsay when I went down revenge,
Speaker 1: you know, or even before, you know, pressure from her
Speaker 1: family to you know, should you not get married to
Speaker 1: this guy because what happens if he doesn't come home?
Speaker 1: Like it's you know, the families carry so much, and
Speaker 1: I like, I don't I don't want to compare traumas
Speaker 1: and I don't want to compare. But I think there's
Speaker 1: a fair argument that could be made that the families
Speaker 1: that the adult children who grew up with dad or
Speaker 1: mom going to war and wondering if dad or Mom's
Speaker 1: ever going to come home, and the spouses who had
Speaker 1: to hold the fork down at home and then how
Speaker 1: much worse can it get when we get home, they
Speaker 1: might need access to this and to heal more than
Speaker 1: the veterans. Like, there's an argument that could be made.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's fascinating.
Speaker 3: And so the veteran component of Beyond Iba game that
Speaker 3: you've helped set up is Beyond service. And you said
Speaker 3: you've sent like fifty people down there so far.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So we started our first group in January and we'll
Speaker 1: have actually this week will be our fiftieth, so our
Speaker 1: tenth cohort, and we go in groups of five. So
Speaker 1: you know, by the time your listeners and viewers see this, well,
Speaker 1: we'll have put fifty people through the program. Our goal
Speaker 1: is to do as close to one hundred as we
Speaker 1: can this year. You know, funding, funding is certainly a
Speaker 1: part of that to go to beyond and to sit
Speaker 1: with this treatment as a civilian as about a fifteen
Speaker 1: thousand dollars investment, I would say, hands down the best
Speaker 1: investment I've ever made, bar none. But it's not cheap,
Speaker 1: and it's because of the clinical safety.
Speaker 2: It's because of all the components.
Speaker 1: That go outside of the capsules and the clinical observation.
Speaker 1: It's the coaching, it's the mentoring. Like there's a whole
Speaker 1: ecosystem that goes with being successful long term integration. So
Speaker 1: like we we are the probably the most structured program,
Speaker 1: and our participants go through So our participants go through
Speaker 1: a program, and you know, I think there's two things
Speaker 1: that people are often missing most when they get out
Speaker 1: of the military, and it's teamwork and structure, and we
Speaker 1: try to offer.
Speaker 2: Both of those.
Speaker 1: So instead of going on this big experience by yourself,
Speaker 1: you go with a team, you know, it's it's a
Speaker 1: lot easier to run out the door of the airplane
Speaker 1: when there's someone behind you who's going to push you out.
Speaker 1: And then also the structures, so you have a peer
Speaker 1: facilitator who is not a We're not therapist, and we're
Speaker 1: not social workers, and we're not psychologists.
Speaker 2: It's a peer.
Speaker 1: It's someone like me who has sat with this medicine
Speaker 1: who can say, hey, this was my experience. It's normaliz
Speaker 1: things a little bit. So it's pure guided, but they
Speaker 1: also give you homework. You have writing assignments, you have
Speaker 1: reading assignments, you have video assignments. Like it's not a
Speaker 1: free ride, you know, just because it doesn't cost you
Speaker 1: anything financially besides the plane ticket. You do four weeks
Speaker 1: of pretty intensive preparation to get ready for this experience.
Speaker 1: You do eight days on site, and you do four
Speaker 1: weeks of guided integration afterwards. And that's the most robust
Speaker 1: preparation and integration program that I know of in the
Speaker 1: in the ibanking space.
Speaker 3: You already mentioned a handful of takeaways from the Eyebo
Speaker 3: Gain experience. Are there any others that you want to
Speaker 3: touch upon? Uh with this topic?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's look, it's it's everyone's you know,
Speaker 1: there's there's a couple here. Everyone has a unique experience.
Speaker 2: But it's effective.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we see, you know, let's look at statistics.
Speaker 2: We see, you.
Speaker 1: Know, what's the problem. Well, the age adjusted suicide rate
Speaker 1: for veterans is over twice the national average for non
Speaker 1: veteran adults. We see almost two times the divorce rate
Speaker 1: in military and veteran couples as we do in the
Speaker 1: US standard. Twenty twenty four Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment
Speaker 1: says that substance abuse among veterans is twenty to thirty
Speaker 1: percent higher than the ag justin national average. Like there
Speaker 1: is a problem, and this is it can work. It
Speaker 1: does work for those who want to do this. So
Speaker 1: like there's there's a couple parts here is like I
Speaker 1: begain is not for everyone, but the fact that one's
Speaker 1: clinically proven to work. So look up doctor Nolan Williams.
Speaker 1: The Stanford University research that shows eighty percent, eighty percent
Speaker 1: eliminate I believe it's elimination of moderate or severe PTSD.
Speaker 1: Six months after sitting with ibagain, eighty percent of their
Speaker 1: participants did not qualify for PTSD. On the p OF
Speaker 1: I think it's PSQ nine. We do neurotransmitter testing. It's anecdotal,
Speaker 1: but it's still data, and so it's not like brainscan.
Speaker 1: It's it's qualitative, not anctdotal. It's qualitative research. This shows
Speaker 1: a seventy percent increase in dopamine and serotonin reuptake a
Speaker 1: month after sitting with this medicine. And that is that's
Speaker 1: now across an average of about forty people who have
Speaker 1: gone through and have been a month out of their
Speaker 1: their treatment. Like this really works, but it's not a
Speaker 1: magic pill. And so as we you know, right now,
Speaker 1: I estimated of the post nine to eleven veteran community
Speaker 1: point zero zero four percent have had access to IV.
Speaker 2: It's never going to.
Speaker 1: Be one hundred, and it doesn't have to be one hundred,
Speaker 1: but we need to democratize access to this medicine. We've
Speaker 1: partnered with a company Born Primitive, which is an apparel company,
Speaker 1: and we did a fundraiser and we're trying to change
Speaker 1: the paradigm and say to companies commercial ventures for profit
Speaker 1: commercial ventures that instead of be a part of the movement,
Speaker 1: be a part of the change. We don't want to
Speaker 1: rely on philanthropic donations. We want to take companies like
Speaker 1: Born Primitive who say, hey, we want to end veteran
Speaker 1: suicide and do a corporate partnership to sponsor people. And
Speaker 1: there's a cohort that's going down as a result of
Speaker 1: their partnership. It's incredibly beneficial work. And yet it doesn't,
Speaker 1: you know, it doesn't, it doesn't just happen overnight, like
Speaker 1: we have to build to this. But one hundred people
Speaker 1: this year is an incredible start, and it's it's a
Speaker 1: drop in the bucket, and we know what we're trying
Speaker 1: to do is get to a point where we can
Speaker 1: you know, me having this conversation whoever listens hopefully destigmatizes
Speaker 1: it destigmatizes psychedelics in some way.
Speaker 2: You know, we don't.
Speaker 1: We didn't talk about my experience because like my visuals
Speaker 1: were unique to me, my learnings were unique to me.
Speaker 1: If it come to be on service, I'll tell you
Speaker 1: all about it. But like it's more of the theme
Speaker 1: of like this healing does work and and wanting to
Speaker 1: get that out there. But also it's not a magic pill, right,
Speaker 1: So when we look at things like the Texas Ibagain Commission,
Speaker 1: who you know, thank god, has committed fifty million dollars
Speaker 1: to a private public partnership to research and hopefully get
Speaker 1: FDA approval for I have again as a therapy. That's amazing,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't happen in a sterile va hospital bed.
Speaker 2: It's not a magic pill.
Speaker 1: So we need to change the paradigm of how and
Speaker 1: that's what we're trying to do with Beyond Service. We're
Speaker 1: trying to set the gold standard of how this care
Speaker 1: is given. And oh, by the way, in five years,
Speaker 1: when the FDA does their clinical study and in collaboration
Speaker 1: with Texas, they'll probably put twenty people through. Well at
Speaker 1: the same time, why can't we put two thousand people
Speaker 1: through by then? And you know, if we we have
Speaker 1: a goal and it's it's it's a north star, but
Speaker 1: we're like, I want to get there. Is if twenty
Speaker 1: two veterans a day are dying from suicide, why don't
Speaker 1: we treat twenty two people a day? Why don't we
Speaker 1: treat six hundred and sixty people a month? Why not?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 6: Did you I know that you before you didn't do
Speaker 6: a lot of research and it you know, it was
Speaker 6: your friend who had who had done the IBA gain.
Speaker 6: But can you at all, can you speak at all
Speaker 6: to like a perish into like, uh, people are doing
Speaker 6: similar things with ayahuasca or psilocybin, you know, the like.
Speaker 6: There are clinics popping up everywhere trying to help and
Speaker 6: tackle this problem.
Speaker 1: So there's there's no wrong way. I mean they're they're
Speaker 1: wrong way, that's sure. They all have their place. So
Speaker 1: so I am you know, I'll never say, oh, psilocybin
Speaker 1: doesn't work. Still seven absolutely works and ayahuasca can you know,
Speaker 1: does too? And five at B O d M T.
Speaker 1: One of the benefits of ibogaine which you know, we
Speaker 1: talked to some of the spirituality part of it, but
Speaker 1: also there's the there's like the neurochemical part of it.
Speaker 1: So I begains the longest period of neuroplasticity of any
Speaker 1: of the plant medicines. Okay, So when we look at
Speaker 1: so IV again, when you take the capsule, it metabolizes
Speaker 1: and is stored in the body as nor ivgain as
Speaker 1: the metabolite. Nor I gain is stored in the liver
Speaker 1: and it's slowly released over sixty to ninety days. If
Speaker 1: you take care of yourself and you get some sleep
Speaker 1: and you you know, you don't drink. That's a huge
Speaker 1: part of storing nor I begain in the liver and
Speaker 1: it's slowly released. Nor I'VE again increases the production of
Speaker 1: BDNF and GDNF in the brain and it is that
Speaker 1: is one of the key parts of neuroplasticity. So people
Speaker 1: leave I'VE again with about a sixty to day, sixty
Speaker 1: to ninety day window of being able to learn like
Speaker 1: you were a seven year old. Again, like your brain
Speaker 1: becomes a sponge and if you nurture that, so like
Speaker 1: you can whether you want to learn German start a
Speaker 1: meditative practice. What if we want to rework trauma responses
Speaker 1: and go through like your brain can literally learn faster
Speaker 1: and retain learning more. So that is a unique difference
Speaker 1: of iv A GAIN and other plant medicines. And what
Speaker 1: we try to do is we try to like we
Speaker 1: try to do everything we can, so we do this
Speaker 1: preparation work so people can maximize their spiritual healing, but
Speaker 1: then and their trauma healing and like the emotional side
Speaker 1: of it. But then our integration work is based on
Speaker 1: the neuroplasticity, like how do we change and the thought
Speaker 1: process And we've got this ninety day window and how
Speaker 1: do we make the most of it. So like there
Speaker 1: are you know, many of these medicines are complementary, and
Speaker 1: people will be called to different medicines at a different time.
Speaker 1: But you know, one of the things for me that
Speaker 1: made IV again so special is in a that ninety
Speaker 1: day window to really like our military experience has hard
Speaker 1: coded so many things in our brain and then to
Speaker 1: have a ninety day window to recode our brains is
Speaker 1: I think incredibly important to the longevity because we're trying
Speaker 1: to build something that doesn't require a re up. We're
Speaker 1: trying to build something that doesn't require a prescription. Like
Speaker 1: one of our coaches sat with this medicine three years ago.
Speaker 1: He hasn't relapsed, He hasn't gone back and sat with
Speaker 1: it again. Like he took those learnings, made changes to
Speaker 1: his life and is now running with it and doesn't
Speaker 1: have to have a sustainment.
Speaker 2: He is his sustainment. That's what we're trying to build.
Speaker 2: And then how does it work with.
Speaker 6: You know, so many other things, Like we had doctor
Speaker 6: Chris free on last week talking about operator syndrome, and
Speaker 6: it's such a compilation, right, It's not just the post
Speaker 6: amount of stress or the blast injuries, you know, the
Speaker 6: sleep deprivation or sleep apnea.
Speaker 2: You know, all these different things that line up.
Speaker 6: So how do you ensure that, like in those posts
Speaker 6: ninety days, that there aren't other factors that may not
Speaker 6: be you know, the sort of psychological factors or the
Speaker 6: spiritual factors, but that they don't you know, sort of
Speaker 6: put somebody in this neuroplasticity or you know, this kind
Speaker 6: of phase where they don't sort of compound and you know,
Speaker 6: uh revert people.
Speaker 2: Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: Absolutely? And they may, you know, and that's where where
Speaker 1: they're you know, we're not we're not your parents, right,
Speaker 1: and we're not therapists, right, So we can we can
Speaker 1: show you a roadmap and then it's up to you
Speaker 1: whether or not you want to you want to stick
Speaker 1: to that roadmap. So those things do come up. Four
Speaker 1: days after coming home, I was a dumpster fire and
Speaker 1: I'm like, where did all these good things go? I'm
Speaker 1: falling apart and in my coach and I want all
Speaker 1: so we have access to one on one coaching, and
Speaker 1: my coach is like, dude, you're doing exactly what you
Speaker 1: were doing before you went down there. You have to
Speaker 1: do something different and that like reset the learnings from
Speaker 1: my first AA meeting, and I was like, wait, I
Speaker 1: can't fall back into old habits if I want to change,
Speaker 1: So that coaching is now brought into our into our
Speaker 1: like the stickiness, the integration, the stickiness.
Speaker 2: Do a lot of work with needs.
Speaker 1: So you know, unknown needs are unmet needs. And I
Speaker 1: can tell you as a thirty six year old man
Speaker 1: or thirty seven when I went down there, I didn't
Speaker 1: know what my needs were, right, I thought I did.
Speaker 1: I thought it was shelter, food, security, you know whatever.
Speaker 1: But I didn't understand my needs of community and my
Speaker 1: needs of nature and like for needs. So we try
Speaker 1: to do a lot of work with our participants if
Speaker 1: they want to and if they choose to do the
Speaker 1: work to identify needs. So that like when and it's
Speaker 1: all and that's a tool, right, So it's a tool
Speaker 1: to understand yourself a little bit better. So inevitably, when
Speaker 1: all of those things you mentioned that are in the
Speaker 1: very complex realm of operator syndrome, within the first seven days,
Speaker 1: when you're home and you're by yourself and those things
Speaker 1: are going to come in, do you have the tools
Speaker 1: and a community to fall back on to navigate it.
Speaker 1: If yes, then we might be successful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's fantastic, interesting Clayton, Where can people go to
Speaker 3: find beyond eyebo gain and beyond service People who want
Speaker 3: to get involved or or want to get the treatment themselves,
Speaker 3: where should they look?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so beyond ivagain dot com is the website. Beyond
Speaker 1: iv A, gain, B E O, n D. Beyond ivagain
Speaker 1: dot com slash Beyond Service is our portion right now.
Speaker 1: We are fully booked for twenty twenty six and we
Speaker 1: are doing everything we can to grow the program to
Speaker 1: double our capacity for next year. So there's a there's
Speaker 1: just a component where you have to do a medical
Speaker 1: screening within a certain amount of time. So admissions is
Speaker 1: closed because we have a backlog that.
Speaker 2: Extends three months.
Speaker 1: But if someone goes there, you can put your information in,
Speaker 1: submit your information, It goes to a real person, It
Speaker 1: goes to me and other people on our team. And
Speaker 1: as soon as we can open admissions again and we're
Speaker 1: in that window to do the clinical questionnaires and the
Speaker 1: clinical screenings.
Speaker 2: To get people seated with the medicine.
Speaker 1: We're going to reach out and we're going to do
Speaker 1: another round of admissions. So look, we're growing this as
Speaker 1: fast as we can. The need greatly outstrips the demand,
Speaker 1: and the need greatly outstrips the resources. But we've got
Speaker 1: a team of volunteers and the team of people that
Speaker 1: are dedicating it sounds like hyperbole, we're dedicating our lives
Speaker 1: to doing this to open one more seat.
Speaker 2: Like that's it's still the mission.
Speaker 1: If we can get one more person in a bed
Speaker 1: that needs this treatment, we're going to do it right.
Speaker 3: Clayton, thank you for sharing your story with us and
Speaker 3: informing people about some of these, you know, kind of
Speaker 3: cutting edge treatments that are coming about.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's you know one thing that I I really
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it. And I know we went you
Speaker 1: know this is this is long form. It was fun.
Speaker 1: We didn't have to keep everything to dense to twenty
Speaker 1: minutes the top talking point. And I appreciate you guys
Speaker 1: letting me ramble. You know, there's there's one thing to
Speaker 1: kind of leave you on.
Speaker 2: And you know, our generation.
Speaker 1: That we share as a generation at war and you know,
Speaker 1: not not everyone went to war, but a lot of
Speaker 1: us did and for twenty years, and this can't be
Speaker 1: solved with just VA prescriptions and talk therapy. We've got
Speaker 1: to do everything. We've got to do everything for our community.
Speaker 1: We have an entire generation of men and women who
Speaker 1: matured their brain, fully formed their frontal cortex. We were
Speaker 1: talking about the eighteen to twenty two year olds that
Speaker 1: were in firefights. You know, as men, we fully form
Speaker 1: our brains between the ages of eighteen to twenty five.
Speaker 1: Women mature a little sooner. We have an entire generation
Speaker 1: that fully formed their executive function, their ability to understand
Speaker 1: emotions at war or preparing to go to war, taking
Speaker 1: life or fearing that their life.
Speaker 2: Would be taken.
Speaker 1: You think we have a problem of people that don't
Speaker 1: know how to feel love, who don't know how to
Speaker 1: feel forgiveness. It's an epidemic and this is a tool.
Speaker 1: It's not for everyone, but it's a tool, and there's
Speaker 1: an entire generation of men and women who can heal
Speaker 1: and their kids don't have to take this trauma forward.
Speaker 1: And that's what we're trying to do, is like, if
Speaker 1: we can teach these men and women to love and
Speaker 1: forgive and grow me included, Like I'm patient zero, Like
Speaker 1: I am on the same journey as everyone else, and
Speaker 1: I am certainly not a guru. I am just paid
Speaker 1: zero and I was there a couple of months.
Speaker 2: Before the rest.
Speaker 1: And if we can continue this work, maybe kids won't
Speaker 1: tell the story that our generation told of our Vietnam
Speaker 1: alcoholic dads. I didn't have one of those, but certainly
Speaker 1: there's a lot of those stories of oh my dad
Speaker 1: didn't talk about it. He just got drunk and yelled
Speaker 1: at my mom. We can stop that, and this is
Speaker 1: a tool. So thank you guys for having me on
Speaker 1: to raise awareness and to continue this mission and hopefully
Speaker 1: share this with a few folks who wouldn't have considered
Speaker 1: it because it's too fringe, it's too hippie. Look, I'm
Speaker 1: a I'm a tech executive, uh with a with a
Speaker 1: clean haircut. Like the ship's for everyone. It's not just
Speaker 1: it's not just hippi stock.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks Clayton. We really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we we.
Speaker 6: Appreciate you coming on and sharing your story, your journey
Speaker 6: and and you know in this kind of information.
Speaker 3: And we'll see all of you guys later in the week.
Speaker 3: So thank you again, Clayton, and we'll see you then. Hey, guys,
Speaker 3: it's Jack. I just want to talk to you for
Speaker 3: a moment about how you can support the show. If
Speaker 3: you've been watching it, enjoying it, but you'd like to
Speaker 3: get a little bit more involved and help us continue
Speaker 3: to do this, you can check out our Patreon It
Speaker 3: is patreon dot com slash the Teamhouse, and for five
Speaker 3: dollars a month, you can get access to all of
Speaker 3: these episodes of The Teamhouse ad free. The same goes
Speaker 3: with our affiliated podcast eyes On with Andy Milburn, Jason
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Speaker 3: the show, and we really appreciate it. The Patreon members
Speaker 3: are literally what has helped this company, this small business survive,
Speaker 3: especially during our early years, and you are what continues
Speaker 3: to help this thing going even as we navigate the
Speaker 3: turbulent world of YouTube advertising.
Speaker 2: So we really appreciate all of you guys.
Speaker 3: There's going to be a link down the description to
Speaker 3: that Patreon page, and there is also going to be
Speaker 3: a link to our new merch shop, so if you
Speaker 3: guys want to go and get some Team House merchandise,
Speaker 3: we got stickers and we also have patches, and I
Speaker 3: should mention if you sign up for Patreon at ten
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Speaker 2: So we really appreciate that.
Speaker 3: But they're also for sale on the merch Shop and
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Speaker 2: We really appreciate it, guys. Thank you,