Steve Bunting – How a MARSOC Medic & CIA Contractor Survived His Horrific Childhood | SRS #263

Steve Bunting, welcome to the show, man. >> Yeah, thanks, brother. It's an honor to be here. >> It's an honor to have you. >> So, we got connected we got connected with Sharp, the company that um that you're involved with through through Katherine Bole. >> Oh, yeah. uh who's on the show earlier this year and uh you know A16C and um so she kind of told Me a little bit about what you guys are doing and it's sharp and I I just think this is like really important and uh I mean as you know we

talk about you know military careers uh special operations in in particular more than anything else and you know we talk about, you know, the the the we do whole life story, you know, but we talk about the effects of war trauma, all the stress that comes with it, traumatic brain injury, all that [ __ ] The downward spiral, what it takes to get out of it, recovery methods, addiction, infidelity, all the [ __ ] up stuff that we go through. And um and you know I did that because I I want to show I I

think it's important for people to see what that downward spiral looks like and how ugly it gets after service. And you know the people that I bring on they they have all these different avenues of you know what got them out of that. You know whether that's entrepreneurship or Or therapy or psychedelics or starting a nonprofit find a new purpose all these different things. and um and many of them have started different nonprofits. But what I think is really unique about Sharp is you guys are forprofit. And I'll be honest, when I first I was

like, it's kind of like forprofit. But then thinking about it, I'm like, they don't have to [ __ ] worry about fundraising. They don't have to worry about all that [ __ ] And so many nonprofits, especially In the military space, start off with a great mission and a great mindset, and then greed, greed gets in the way. and it goes array and then the entire the entire focus is how do we get bigger and raise more money. >> Absolutely. >> And um but you guys don't have to deal with that because you're starting off

with forprofit right off the bat. And and uh >> I think that's I think that's really Cool, man. And so I didn't even talk about what you guys are doing, but you guys are you're sending in counselors counselors or therapists? >> Well, they're coaches by trade. Some are providers, but that we're not working under any licensing, >> which is kind of a unique space to be in the coaching space. Opens up more when it comes to self-disclosure. And I feel like we really get to show up in a in a different way. So, we're not

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

Mars medic on this show yet. So this you're a first. >> Yeah. >> So this is pretty [ __ ] cool. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> But um everybody starts off with an introduction here. So Steve Bunting, a former Navy chief, Petty Officer, Special operations independent duty corman assigned to Mars during the global war on terrorism. left the Navy and then worked as a CIA contractor GRS in the world's most dangerous hot spots like Coast Afghanistan. You then became a marriage and family therapist with deep expertise in addiction treatment, community mental health, neurossychiatric research, and

psychedelic assisted therapy. Now you're the head of coaching at Sharp Performance leading a nationwide team that empowers first responders, military personnel, and high-risk professionals. And I also found out that you are uh really good buddies with my friend Prime Hall and uh saw a quote or or something that he had written that credits you with him finding basically getting clean. >> So Prime's an awesome dude, >> dude, I love that guy. So, were you on deployment with him? >> Yeah, we were actually in Delta Company together and um I helped him during his transition out

which is really difficult for him. Been a lot of push back. You heard the story and it was it was really messed up. But um I had the opportunity to show up for him in a powerful way during that process and dude, I love him so much. So, it was my all the honor was all mine. >> Yeah. >> Yeah, >> man. What a that guy's just an awesome human being. >> He is, dude. But he is a he is a one-of-a-kind person and I just [ __ ] love that guy. >> Yeah. Oh yeah.

Me too. >> But uh couple things to get through here before we start. Everybody gets a gift. >> Thank you, man. The iconic gummy bears. >> Vigilance League. Gummy bears. Legal in all 50 states. Made in the USA. And then we have a Patreon account. It's a Community. It's a subscription service. and um we've turned it into quite the community and they're they're the reason that I get to sit here with you today and um so one of the one of the things we do is we offer them the opportunity to ask every guest a

question. So this is from anonymous. What's the biggest gap you've seen between the military's existing mental health support and what veterans actually need post service? >> Yeah. Well, I think the biggest thing is Going to be that PTSD easy button, man. and we've been slapping it for 30 plus years now and it seems like it's been the go-to or if there's been any significant event in your life and you're having any of this list of things and it has to be PTSD and that's a psychology related thing. It's a psychological issue. But what I'm seeing

and what I've noticed in my own journey and others experiences that there's so much more physiological stuff that's not Being addressed, right? Things like our testosterone levels, like our sleep, like there's a lot of basics there that we got to get in check. And I think when we slap a psychological diagnosis on something that has a lot of physiological implications, we miss the we miss the mark there. And I think that's a big reason why we're not seeing a lot of success solving this PTSD thing, cuz there's so many physiological things that we're just not

addressing at All. Something as simple as trying to get TRT from the VA when you have testosterone levels in the hundreds, right? Like 100, 200, and they don't want to address it, but they want to give you psychotropic meds for your PTSD. There's a big issue there, man. And I think it's undeniable that that line's there. And as long as we continue to ignore those things, I think we're not going to get any headway on this PTSD stuff, no matter what cool stuff we Bring to the table. >> Jeez, they're still not doing testosterone TRT

therapy at the VA. >> I mean, it's it's every [ __ ] major doctor out there is talking about the loss like >> declining testosterone. >> I don't even go to the I still don't go to the I even had the secretary of the VA on early this year. I still I still don't [ __ ] go. >> But you go there. No, I'm guilty as Well. Right. I would like to say that the last time I tried was in probably 20 probably 2018 I tried and I finally did get a prescription but they wanted

to give you one shot every 3 weeks and it was just going to be an endocrine system roller coaster that I wasn't willing to participate in. So they weren't willing to manage it. They wouldn't give me a consultation to an endocrinologist, a specialist who could actually like build it out and knew what they were talking About. unfortunately was like a nurse practitioner at the VA and I didn't want to risk it, right? Trying to play that game even if it meant that I didn't have to pay out of pocket. I was willing to work with

a professional and pay out of pocket, >> man. Man. Well, let's move in. So, what I'd like to do is I would like to do a life story on you just like every other military guy that comes in here. I think that's I think that's the most important Part. >> I don't want to interrupt you before you start. I got a couple gifts for you. >> Love gifts. >> So, yeah. First, I want to give you a gift here from my boy Jig Svantes who got out. He's a Mars Raider and he started a watch

company called Singing. They call it the Raider Rolex. It's a beautiful piece. >> He's my element leader in Afghanistan and um he's actually local to this area. >> I just met this guy. >> I literally just met this guy at the gun shop, >> dude. Salt of the earth. Such a good human being. The green bezel on there is only for soft operators, so you have to present certificates and things like that. So, you can't just buy that. Um Yeah, >> dude. Thank you. This is awesome. >> Yes, it's sapphire crystal, all the good Stuff.

Antimagnetic. I mean, a quick research is send me an instrument. You'll see it's he didn't he didn't pull any stops out on that thing. It's a really nice piece. >> Damn. Thank you, man. >> Here is a gift from your boy Beto. It's a half blade. >> Um, and he was uh when he heard I was coming on here, one of Sydney, he said he wasn't sure if he had a crow scout yet, so he wanted to make sure he hooked You up with that. >> Oh, damn, dude. Yeah, Beto's the man. Does a lot

of work with the Recon Foundation and things like that. So, >> look at that. It's got your guys' It's got sharp performance, dude. Thank you. >> Yes, sir. >> This is awesome, too. >> Yeah, man. >> [ __ ] >> Yeah. Sorry to interrupt you. I just didn't want to forget, >> dude. Thank you. >> Yes, sir. >> All right. You ready? >> I'm ready. Where'd you grow up? >> Yeah. So, the beginning is a little bit shifty, right? and it's going to show you kind of a life of chaos from the beginning. Um, but

I was actually born in Oceanside, California, right? Born Oceanside, had a beautiful family, right? Lots of loving grandparents and Parents. My mom and dad, you know, love me very much. But, um, not long after I was born, probably around I was 3 years old, they separated, right? So, they ended up separating and, uh, my brother and I and my mom um, moved to Alabama. So my mom uh my mom's dad had a prior marriage and she had a halfsister and her sister was from Alabama. So every summer she'd come out and visit. And I guess

once my mom and my dad dissolve, she said, "You know what? Maybe if I Take the boys and we go to Alabama, it'll be an easier life, right? Maybe it'll be an easier way. She can kind of find her own new way." And uh she loaded me and my brother Mitch up. We got on a Greyhound bus with a bag of sour cream and onion chips and we rode across the United States. >> [ __ ] >> Yeah. To Birmingham, Alabama. >> Younger. >> Say again. older older sibling or not? >> My brother's younger than

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

Nice. How do you know that you came from a loving family if you were only three? >> Yeah. Well, you know, I was able to reconnect with them once I joined the military. And then little things like going to my grandparents house for the first time and seeing my my heights still etched on the wall, right, of when I was there and visiting. >> They still had my same original pictures Of when I was a young boy on their mantle. >> Wow. >> Right. And just the amount of love I felt when I reconnected with

this side of the family out in California was just like it was undeniable. Plus, there's pictures. There are pictures where I got to see it's like everyone was happy and you know it seemed like I was surrounded by love. >> Do you know why your parents split? >> Yeah, it was uh infidelity. You know, my dad is uh the bunting curse, I guess, and just, you know, couldn't couldn't keep it to himself, you know, was out there in the streets just trying to find his way. And unfortunately, yeah, my mom wasn't going to stand for

it. And good for her. She's a saint and a good woman, deserved better. And she wasn't there was just no negotiation. She wasn't going to tolerate it and raise her kids in a house like that. Yeah. Yeah. >> So, how was it growing up in Alabama? >> It was rough, man. It was rough. Um, you know, I'm very grateful for everything that I went through. You know, it made me who I am, but it was very tough. You know, initially when we first got to Alabama, we went to stay with my aunt, and I guess

the promises that were made just weren't going to be fulfillable. You know, um, her and her husband weren't doing well. We showed up to a really like unstable situation, and my Mom realized that she was going to have to figure it out on her own. So, in the beginning, we lived in like government housing. I think we finally we got like some HUD housing, apartment complexes that had just opened up. It was it was decent enough. And that's where we our first place that we lived. >> Do you remember this stuff? >> Yeah, I do.

Obviously, it's like it was more of a of a bad dream um at this age. But yeah, when we were there probably, You know, 3 to four age, you know, I remember living in that apartment complex and some pretty crazy things happened to me while I lived there. So, it made it even more memorable what happened. >> Yeah. So, uh, you know, we're kind of there. We're new to the situation. I remember being pretty confused about where my dad is. I remember being very young and not understanding why we're going on such a road trip

and why we Would even go to a place like Alabama. You know, I remember like kind of missing my family and and just wondering what was up. But as we got there, my mom, she didn't really have any higher education, right? She tried to be a airline uh p stewardist prior and I think things just kind of washed out. So she showed up there with real no real skills and kind of had to do what she needed to do in the service jobs. Once she got there she started working at Denny's and you know they

gave her the grave graveyard shifts. She had to kind of pull her weight being the new person and somewhere along that case um she had met some guy right her boyfriend and um had invited him into our home and along the course of that like you know uh we were abused in that process. >> How were you abused? >> Yeah. Well, you know, the main situation that comes to mind was a particular night where, you know, He sexually sexually abused me and my brother. Yeah. He had been probably doing some drugs. I remember the smell

of smoke and in the apartment and um you know, I remember being very confused that night and really sad. Um but yeah, he he definitely um he sexually abused my brother and I. >> How old were you? >> Yeah, probably three 3 four years old. Yeah, probably four years old by this point. Yeah. And you remember this [ __ ] Did you remember it vividly? >> Yeah. So, you know, for the majority of my childhood, it was it was kind of like a bad dream, right? It was a little bit blurry for me and um

you know, which I learned later is like probably it's a condition of trauma, like that disassociation and a little bit of that amnesia. But I do remember, you know, uh the situation I ended up having to go to the hospital due to the injuries I sustained from that night. >> Are you serious? >> Yeah. Yeah. So he after he did what he did to me and my brother, right, which included like putting cigarettes out on our genitalia and things like that, we he sent >> Are you [ __ ] serious? >> Yeah. Real real evil

[ __ ] man. Real evil stuff, you know. And I remember he sent me and my brother to bed and um you know, I was happy that it was just over. So me and my brother go upstairs and we Go to bed. My mom came home from her shift and um she came upstairs to check on us. You know, we're young, so she didn't want us to wet the bed. and she did kind of her routine where she woke us up to take us to the bathroom to go potty so we didn't, you know, pee

in the sheets. And I remember when we went into the bathroom and she pulled my pants down and she started crying and um I was real confused, Sean. I didn't know what was going on. And um she started crying And she got very mad. She pulled my brother in there and she looked at him too and she started crying again. And um I didn't know what was going on, man. So next thing I know, she goes downstairs and she's she starts assaulting this guy. Starts assaulting this guy. She tries to get the cordless phone. That's

back when the cordless phones were like huge in the metal antenna. And she starts trying to fight with him over it. And she starts trying to fight with the Phone. And she's screaming. And she tells us to go get our babysitter. We had a babysitter during the daytime. Lived up this hill. And I remember being a kid. And I remember that hill being like 1,000 miles long trying to run up it in the middle of the night, beating on the door till they wake up. And finally they woke up and called the cops. The cops

came and they arrested the guy. But unfortunately they end up having to take me and my brother. Right. So, first they took us to the hospital, right? And I went there and I remember them checking me out. And the things I remember about that is they had to strap me to a spine board cuz I wouldn't let them touch me down there. So, I end up having to strap my arms down and my feet down. And um a lot of that those memories are foggy cuz I just don't I don't know, right? It was a

lot of bright lights, a lot of confusion, me crying. But I do know that once they Were done doing whatever they were doing, um I ended up having to go to kind of foster care for a little while, me and my brother. Holy [ __ ] Yeah. >> I don't know what to say to that, man. >> Yeah. Stuff, man. Cuz you hear this story a lot on this show. >> I do. >> Yeah. I hear a lot with the people I work with, man, which is really sad. It's very, very, very common. >> [

__ ] man. I'm sorry, dude. >> Yeah. Thank you. How long were you in foster care? >> Probably around 6 months. No, it wasn't >> 6 months. >> Yeah, it was my mom had to petition to the state and show that she's a good mom and there was a lot to be questioned on that one, right? It's like, you know, from the outside looking in, it's like, dude, that who would leave their kids With a stranger, right? Who would put their kids in this type of position? And, you know, all I can say is that

my mom's a very good woman, right? I love her tremendously. And I think she was just doing her best and obviously she would have never voted for any of this to happen to us. But she got put under question. I think rightfully so and she had to show that she was, you know, fit to be a mom and it took a little bit of time. Do you remember foster care? >> Yeah, I do. I do. I remember. And they were very nice to us. I do remember. They had a nice house with some property and

it was like I remember a little bit, man. Like kind of not feeling too satisfied to stay there. Yeah. They treated me and Mitch really well and I was like it was it was actually nice dude because when my mom even though she tried her best it was really unstable man. It was really unstable and um there it felt real stable felt loving. Felt Like you know something that I would want want to have as a young boy. What was it like going home? I was happy. I do remember to be back with my mom.

like there's, you know, no matter what the situation is, I think a kid really wants there's something there's like so much compassion in a kid's heart and forgiveness that they're capable of even in some of the darkest evil things that they can experience. And I was very happy to be back with my mom. I was but You know, unfortunately things didn't get better for for a long time. They didn't get better. Yeah. It was just real chaotic where she just didn't have a stable job. I think she ended up becoming a cashier at a gas

station and it was just really living check to check, a lot of poverty, just, you know, we really had no money and then a lot of instability when it came to where we lived. We're always kind of jumping around places trying to find the next Place to live, the next place to kind of harbor up and it was just a lot of chaos in that in that regard. Just not knowing where the next meal is going to come from, not knowing like, you know, how long we're going to be staying somewhere. You know, you never

know when mom's going to come home and tell you that we got to shove all our stuff in a trash bag and get out of there, which seemed to be a routine for for a long time. >> Yeah. >> How long how long was that your entire childhood? >> Yeah, up until fourth grade, you know, fourth grade, we we gained some stability. So, from kind of kindergarten through fourth grade, I was in the inner city Birmingham area, which is kind of a rough place to kind of grow up. Um, a lot of fighting, just a

lot of violence, just a lot of instability. And then you're growing up around people that are Very in the very similar situations. So I was kind of exposed to a lot of that type of stuff early on. But in fourth grade, my mom's boss decided that he needed her to be stable as well to kind of be he wanted to make her a manager. And he ended up buying us a trailer in a trailer park that was right on the edge of Birmingham City next to a nice town. So that kind of changed my life

there by us getting to go into that trailer park. It was still a trailer park. It wasn't Perfect, but we were zoned for a different school. not had to say like that shifted everything for us. Damn, dude. I I uh I just can't get over that. Um Wow. Do you know what happened to that guy? Yeah. He uh ended up going to prison. But I remember, you know, when me and my brother, we'd always ask my mom like, "Hey, when when's he getting out?" Cuz We knew it was like something like 10 years. I think

he got 10 years in prison and there was like a little timer in our heads where we were always scared. You know, I'd always ask my mom was like, "Hey, is he going to come hurt us when he gets out? Like, are we safe?" And, you know, it's kind of slowly became the dirty secret of our family where we just didn't talk about it too much. My mom would be like, "What are you talking about? Like, why are we talking about This again?" She's like, "Just stop. It's okay. Like, he's not going to hurt us.

You're okay." But for a long time, me and my brother were scared that he was going to get out of prison and and come and you know, you know, um yeah, try to pay us back for throwing him in jail. >> How's your brother doing today? >> Yeah, he didn't make it. Yeah, he was a a Marine Corps veteran, you know, and um he got blown up and uh One there was two5s buried in the ground and he he got blown up, but then he came back and um he actually survived that by the grace

of God, but uh got a traumatic brain injury and ended up taking his life in uh 2017. Damn. His whole life was rough, man. He never he never shook it from that day. I don't think his whole life he was trying to make it back. He just poor kid, man. Poor kid. He tried his hardest And I just don't think he ever came back from that situation. Caused a lot of issues for me cuz I really wanted him to be strong. You know, our relationship growing up was rough. I was abusive to him, man. I

was. And I had a lot of shame about that. But deep down inside, I didn't want anybody to ever hurt him again. But he was such a sweet person, such a sweet guy. And um just everything in me wanted to see a fight in him. Like I wanted him. Like Dude, you got to fight. Like you can't even when we were out in just going to school, he would get jumped. People would steal his Walkman and stuff. And I'm like, Mitch, you can't let them do this stuff. But he was just such a sweet human,

dude. Such a pure human that he just became the victim of a lot of stuff. And we had some abusive stepdads along the way as well. And it always seemed like they went towards him. I don't know why. He was always the Whipping boy, man. Always the whipping boy where it's like I would get my fair share of uh whippings, but he would always drew more fire and it wasn't fair. And it was just something about his life where he suffered greatly, man. Jeez, dude. Yeah. So, we haven't even I mean, we haven't even gotten

into your military career or your career at CIA, and I feel uncomfortable saying this, but you're like the [ __ ] perfect guy for What you're doing. >> Yeah. I'm very grateful to be here. Jeez. Very grateful, I'll tell you that. >> Holy [ __ ] >> So, so you find some stability in fourth grade. >> Yeah. And then more abuse, more abusive male figures in your life. >> Yeah. >> They all male. >> All male. Yeah. My mom just kind of, you know, there'd be the the guy at the gas station that would be

like kind of the new the new guy. And I say this with all respect to my mom. I want to keep saying I love her so much. She's such a good woman. But she was just trying to make it, right? We could barely make it. And it makes sense that you would do things to try and double income, right? And get some type of support. But these guys that she'd bring in were just just had Their own stuff. They were toxic human beings, right? And um you know, we uh this one guy that she ended

up marrying that was a fellow cashier was just he was raised in a Christian boy's home and it was you know uh spare the rod, spoil the child type mentality and we would we would be beat for any, you know, infraction in the house. You know, one thing I am grateful about that is it gave us deep roots in church, right? So, I grew up in the South and we were at at Church every Wednesday and Sunday. To be honest with you, that got me through a lot of stuff. Just having that stability. The church

supported us a lot and giving us food and helping us get clothes. A lot of the clothes that I wore for the majority of my childhood was from either donations or the thrift store. But once this guy came into the house, we could actually shop at Walmart. So, I remembered even though he was abusive, I was like, "Dude, at least Like we're kind of upgrading a little bit and I have I have Walmart clothes on and not used clothes." And um but it was just very abusive. Any infraction had to be, you know, disciplined. He

made a paddle out of like a pallet. He worked at this place after he worked at Chevron and he pull a piece of wood off the pallet and he grinded out hand a handle in it and wrapped it in duct tape and that's what he would hit us with. And um like I said, my brother just got he got The majority of the beatings. Like >> [ __ ] Steve. >> Yeah, it was tough, man. It was tough. It was hard cuz I wanted to be grateful, right? But it was just still like the abuse

was too much. And you know, I just did not like this guy very much at all. The crazy thing is is um when I was in eighth grade um my brother, we were having dinner and my stepdad was sitting in the living room and I guess my brother had drumed on the back of his Chair with some butter knives when they were gone. I didn't know about this. My stepdad came in, he ran his hand across the back of the chair and he was like, "What is this?" And my brother looked at me and I'm

like, "Ah, Mitch." Like, "Dude, like I knew I wasn't going to rat on my brother and say it was him." So, I knew we're about to both get it. And he just kind of gave me that look. And I gave him that look back like, "Bro, come on." And I'm like, "I don't know." And He asked my brother and he's like, "I don't know." He's like, "Stand up. Go to the living room." And we go in there and he make us bend over and touch our toes and we'd have to stay there until he got

the paddle. We'll come in and and and you know, hit us with the paddle. But, um, so I go in there that day and I remember I leaned over. I was just kind of looking at him waiting, but I was there's no way I was going to rat on him. There's no way he was my ride or Die. We'd been through so much and we I just ate it. I took my lashings and he sent me back to the table and I sat there with my ass on fire trying to eat my hamburger helper or

whatever we had to eat that night and then he fired Mitch up and he fired him up worse than me. Mitch came back and sat down and he's crying and I just looked at him. I was mad at him but I wasn't going to rat on him. And right about that time, dude, I'm sitting over and I look over and my Stepdad starts flopping like a fish on the floor and me and Mitch were like, "What's going on?" Like, we thought he was messing with us or making fun of us or something and we realized

that he was having a seizure. So, he screamed for my mom. She was in the back room. This a single wide trailer, right? It's not a lot of room. I ran back and got her and ended up calling 911. And he ends up going to the hospital and he found out he had brain cancer. So over the course Of that next probably it was about a year and a half, we watched this guy just slowly die from brain cancer and um yeah, he ended up dying, you know, the end of my my eighth grade year,

nth grade year. >> You watched that whole process? >> Yeah, I watched the whole process. Yep. From the seizure to him being pretty much normal after surgery to not being able to walk and just watching him go into hospice and he he died right there In that trailer. >> Holy [ __ ] dude. Yeah. >> Did you have any feelings when he died? I mean, what what is that what is that like to see your mom's abusive partner? Was she Was he beating on your mom, too? >> No. No, I didn't. >> Just you guys?

>> Yep. My >> Did he show any love to you guys or was it all just >> Yeah. >> to beat you? >> I think, you know, he was abandoned by his family and raised in a boy's home and I think he struggled. He didn't have that either. And uh I think he would try to love on us his best way. I think him like providing what he could was his love, but there was no love there, man. There's no love there. I was relieved when he passed. And I hate, you know, I hate to

say it, but it's the truth. I was relieved. I was tired of that chaos Or I was tired of the beatings. And um yeah, I was I was relieved. >> Would you and your brother talk about this type >> Oh, yeah. stuff. What would you talk about? >> Yeah, we just talk about like we I mean, obviously we joked around about it. Humor was our thing. Like Mitch was hilarious and we would we would just talk crap about everything, right? We just talk smack and we just we made Light of everything. Even no matter how

dark it was, we we developed a dark sense of humor really early. We we found our ability to laugh about things and joke about it and it just became just kind of jokes, but we definitely we definitely talked about it. >> What happens after 8th grade? >> Yeah. So, you know, along this way, um I realized like my house wasn't safe, right? lived in the small trailer and um oftentimes there wasn't even heat in the Trailer so it would just be very cold in there a lot of times not a lot of food so I

would find my own way man I would I was out in the streets as much as I could be especially once my stepdad passed and he couldn't rule like kind of reign me in anymore I would just had different friends and I would pick different friends houses to go stay with and one of these friends that I became best friends with in fourth grade was my best friend Brandon so he became like my Proxy ride or die and uh Brandon's mom had hors es and they, you know, stayed really busy. So, I would just go

spend time with him and we'd go work at the the farm and feed the horses and I just got to learn about those different things and I became best friends with him. Um, they owned a company called Dial Pony where they would bring these horses to these kids birthday parties in the middle of the ghetto. It's kind of crazy. We're in the middle of the hood, right? And I'm walk like putting kids on the horses and we're walking around and it's just like it it was surreal, man. Just >> Right on. >> Yeah. walking on

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

So yeah. And then I had to kind of go through that, man. like >> holy fat hawk Steve. >> Yeah, that when that's where things changed for me, man. I think that's when like Whatever was whatever little heart of any sensitivities I had at that point, it was it was fully scarred over and I started building a a wall around my heart that was not going to be penetrable for a long long time. Oh, so just I remember like even from the beginning like I wouldn't even cry. Like there was no more tears. I remember

I stopped crying pretty early. Remember I made a conscious choice to stop crying. It's like I'm not crying no More. Remember this rock would just develop in my throat. I couldn't even swallow. And this pain in my heart where I thought it was just going to break like it was just going to explode and I just would start burying stuff really deep, man. Really deep. I would just eat it and it was just became my life. And I just kind of knew nothing good was going to ever happen for me, right? And that this suffering

was just going to be it for me and that that's all I was going To have. And it's just I kind of just that's that's the way I felt about it. Damn, man. We've had a lot of childhood trauma talks in here and uh Holy [ __ ] That is [ __ ] rough, dude. Yeah, it was it was tough, man. Wasn't fun. I'll tell you that. It wasn't fun at all. But I think I started like learning how to disassociate really early, >> right? I found that little special spot and no one could touch

me, right? Which served me really well, you know, throughout later parts of my life where I would be in situations where I just needed to bury stuff and I knew exactly where to bury it. I had my little special spot inside that no one could touch me. And um >> Is your mom still alive? Yeah, she is. >> Are you guys close? >> Yeah. Yeah, she's Yeah. >> How's she doing, >> dude? She's doing good. She's doing good. Yeah, we end up having a a little sister along the way. My mom really has leaned into

her and really taking care, you know, taking care of her and showing up for them in a big way. And um it's been a part of my healing journey, too. Being able to see your parents even just as human beings, right? as being a parent and me misststepping and I haven't been perfect like being able to Look back and see her as a human and seeing all the variables that she was trying to overcome and I've given her a lot of grace and a lot of forgiveness and yeah I love her tremendously that makes me

happy to hear her dude what I mean growing up like that one thing I always do is I ask you know there's a lot of just I didn't grow up like that and I had a really good childhood and And so for me, like starting the show and Hearing all this childhood trauma come up unexpectedly and realizing how [ __ ] common it actually is. I mean, one thing that I like to do is I, you know, cuz we have a lot of kids that watch the show and um right now they're all pissed off

at me cuz we just uh we we uh we brought up Roblox. I don't know if you know about how that's going, but uh we brought up roadblocks with uh a really good friend of mine, Ryan Montgomery, about all the sexual exploitation that's going on. So anyways, all the kid all the 8 nyear-old kids throughout the country hate me right now because uh none of them are allowed to play Roblox and we took a six billion Roblox took a $6 billion cut >> uh in one day >> because of that show. But what I want

to ask is um a lot of kids are going through childhood trauma, sexual trauma, abuse, you know, what do you and a lot Of these kids and not not three and four years old but eight and nine, teenagers, a lot of kids watch this. >> Yeah. >> What advice do you have for a kid that's going through something like that? >> Yeah. One thing is there's zero tolerance for that. No one's allowed to touch you. No one's allowed to do anything to you. Right? Your body is sacred. It's your body and no one's allowed to

touch you or make you do Anything that you don't want to do. Right? And you always have that right. And you should always have the courage to speak up immediately and tell somebody. Don't keep it a secret. The second thing is that it's not your fault. It's not your fault. You're a victim. Like these adults, they're predators. They're evil people, right? And um it's not your fault. You know, part of my my journey was like I held a lot of shame about that, dude. We'd go To church and I remember they would tell us about

like, you know, homosexuality is a sin and that you were going to go to hell. And I remember me and my brother looking at each other confused cuz this happened to us. We didn't get a vote, but a guy did stuff to us that classified as the things they were teaching in in church. And me and him would be like, "Dude, we're going to hell." Right? Are you serious? Yeah, man. You thought you were going to hell Because somebody had sexually abused you. >> Yeah, man. Because there's zero tolerance there, right? It's like very it's

Pentecostal hard south. It's black and white. There's no wiggle room. And it caused me a lot of distress, man. I would pray every night before I went to bed begging for forgiveness cuz I thought like I was going to burn in hell because of what happened to me. And I, you know, beat myself up. It caused a Lot of issues for me. A lot of insecurities affected my relationships. That's what I want to say. Like if anyone's experienced this or they're experiencing it, it's not your fault, right? It's not your fault at all. It doesn't

have say who you are. Like doesn't have any any bearing on that. It's not your fault. >> [ __ ] man. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. You want to take a break? >> Sure. >> Let's take a break. >> Yeah. >> If you're like me, health and wellness is extremely important to you. But how do you know who to trust when it comes to the supplement industry? We have all these companies. They pop up every other day. They're all selling snake oil. How do you know who to trust? Well, here's the most important question. Who

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upgrade your life? Visit bubsnaturals.com today and use promo code shan for 20% off your order. bubsnaturals.com/shan That's the quickest I think I've ever taken a break. >> Yeah, >> dude. I appreciated it. >> Yeah, I'll bet. Um I mean you just You had mentioned that, dude, where do you go as a kid? I mean, is it Where do you go? I mean, you go to You'd mentioned that you got allowed out of going to church. >> Mhm. >> But then at the end there, you tell me you go to church, you think you're going to

hell because Of homosexuality that you had no choice. >> Yeah. >> I mean, you go home, you get abused. You go to school, you get your you get [ __ ] jumped on the way. Like what? Do you have any peace in your life as a child? No, man. It was all chaos. It was chaos and instability. Did you have suicidal thoughts as a child? >> Never, man. Never. Well, that that too, like I I credit that to my religious Upbringing that I I thought that would damn you me to hell, right? And to be

honest, >> what kept you going? >> Yeah. I just I'm I'm telling you, man. It was just my life, Sean. It was just my life, right? >> You didn't even have anything to look forward to. It didn't sound like >> No, I didn't. I did not. But it No one else did either. I felt like, you know, that was one of the blessings of the Trailer park, too, is that we were all kind of there together. You know, it was uh I didn't feel special in that, right? Everywhere I looked, someone's parent was on crank

or someone's mom's an alcoholic or someone's dad's beating the crap out of the, you know, the landlord. It just felt like that was just it. It just became the baseline for me that it was, it was just chaos. And um >> How many kids were you friends with in the trailer park? >> Oh, there it was tons. Yeah, there was so many kids. >> And all you guys are going through this [ __ ] >> Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. But in that, we're all angry kids, too. We're all angry kids. Hyperviolent kids. >> Are you

guys venting? Do I mean is this like a good camaraderie or do the kids all hate each other or? >> Yeah, it was maladaptive, man. It was dark. You know, we we did I did have a Couple friends that I was I was close with, but primarily it was like Brandon who I ended up losing and then maybe one other person, but the rest of us we used to joke we'd be like we show up to the the street fights and a basketball game would break out, right? Cuz no matter what we >> Oh my

god. >> Yeah. cuz no matter what when we would get gathered in that trailer park whether we were playing football or Basketball it was just a matter of time till fist started getting swung and and it was just everyone was angry man it was a lot of fighting you know >> wow and once we got older the drugs got introduced right so we're all young angry kids and then at a certain point you know the drugs started you know people started ransacking their mom's pills and and things like that and it started everything started shifting

Again it was like a new chapter in the trailer park once that group of core group grew up to teenage years. It just became pretty dark. >> This is like textbook generational trauma. >> Oh yeah. Oh yeah. >> Did you take part in that in that? Did you get addicted to drugs as a kid and >> Yeah. >> fall down that rabbit hole too? >> So after um so my stepdad died from Brain cancer first, right? And I remember afterwards I went and I hung out with Brandon and we had another friend Kevin and uh

remember we were kind of sitting there talking and they didn't know what to do, right? But I remember I was I was very sad. I was still grieving no matter how much little bit of relief I had in there. It was just it was a rough time to watch it watch someone that was a caretaker die and just go through that whole process. It was very uh heavy. And I remember uh they were whispering off to the side and I was like, "What what are y'all whispering about?" And uh Brandon's Brandon's telling him, he's like,

"No, don't tell him." And Kevin's like, "Hey, dude. Like last weekend me and Brandon smoked weed and we think it would really help you out." And I'm like, "What?" And at first I look at Brandon, I was like, "Dude, like you betrayed me, right? you're my best friend. It's like you're Smoking weed. >> And then second, you're smoking weed without me. >> It's like I felt like that was something we were supposed to do together, man. >> Right. But I'm like looking at him and he's like, "Yeah, I did. I'm sorry. I didn't know you

know if you were how you're going to feel about it." So I didn't drink. I didn't do drugs or anything at this point. >> And I remember we made a a small bong Out of a socket and a jump rope for a heart bottle. And I smoked weed for the first time. And I remember once it it finally hit me and I felt it, I was like, "Oh man, there might be something to this. There might be something." Like it gave me just the amount of relief and a little bit of that escape and I

caught myself giggling and laughing. I'm not trying to glorify any type of drug use here, >> but in that Steve that was hurting so Deeply. I found something in that. I found some comfort in marijuana >> and that became kind of my go-to thing throughout high school till I joined the military. How did you get any interest in the military growing up like that? >> Yeah, there wasn't much. And >> how did he even pop up on your radar? >> Yeah. Well, I'll credit it to two things, right? 9/11. So, when I was I think

it was my 9th Grade year, um we're sitting in class when 9/11 happened. And um I'm sitting in class. I wasn't a good student either. I was like, you know, obviously I had attention issues and didn't really understand why I needed to sit in a desk all day and listen to these people talk about stuff that had nothing to wasn't going to fix what I was going through. >> Um, but I was sitting in class and I remember uh the teacher grabs the remote and turns on the TV in the corner of the Room, one

of those old crusty TVs just kind of bolted to the side and I got to watch the second Twin Tower come down and I was like, "Dude, what the heck is that all about?" remember having that feeling like I was angry actually and I remember that's that's one of the fond things I remember that time is that there was like people were patriotic then you know I kind of miss it I would never want another disaster but like we cared like the American flag meant Something and it was like there's a little bit in me

that gave me some hope that I could be a part of something that was more than just my stuff but you know I was still early on in high school and I'm still just trying to make it through that process uh the second thing that kind of motivated me there was my brother so as I graduated he uh submarine Marines came to the school and he did some pull-ups and got a t-shirt. And I remember he called me and he's Like um cuz at this point we're living with my grandparents at this point. And uh

he's like dude the Marines came. I got a t-shirt. I'm going to be a Marine. I was like a man like Mitch come on. He's like I'm doing it dog. Like you coming with me? And I was like yeah man if you go I'll go. I'll go with you homie. You're my ride or die. So those two things were like big catalyst for me to even think about going to the military. >> No [ __ ] So your little brother is what drove you to I mean along with with the the 9/11 travesty is what

drove you to join? >> Yeah. I mean definitely him. If he would have bled out then I probably would have created some excuse to not join. He was a huge catalyst. >> No [ __ ] >> Y >> Wow. Wow. Man. So you made the decision in ninth Grade? >> Yeah. Started like >> How old was your How how much younger was your brother? >> Yeah. It's like uh it's like 2 years like 18 months. It's like right behind me. >> So se seventh grade he gets a t-shirt and he's like I'm in [ __

] going. >> He's ready to go. >> No kidding. >> Yeah, he was sold out. I was proud of Him too, man. Started running like that little bit of him that I saw like that I've been trying to fight out of him all these years. He started to come into his own. I started lifting weights, started getting stronger, started getting a little attitude about him and I was like, "Okay, dude. Yes." Like, "All right, you're going to be all right. You're going to make it." Yeah. for him to pick the Marines like is just classic,

right? >> To go through the life he went through to be a Marine. It's like I think they do a great job recruiting Mitch Buntings. >> Got no kidding. >> They found one with him. They knew exactly what they were looking at and they got it. >> So when did you when did you enlist? When did you actually show up and enlist? >> Yeah. So I ended up enlisting in 2006. So June 2006. >> And you were how old then? >> Yeah. I think I was I was uh I graduated as like 19. >> 19.

>> Yep. >> Did you know what you wanted to do, >> man? And I didn't, you know, I had uh I had a guy in the trailer park who's actually the manager of the trailer park kind of told me one time cuz you know I was obviously interested in the seals, Right? They do such a great job of publicity and just kind of recruitment. And that was something in the back of my head. But I remember a guy pulled me to the side and he was like, "Hey, have you ever heard of Force Recon?" And

I was like, "No, man." He's like, "No one talks about them, but they're badass." And I I kind of mental noted that, too. I was like, "Huh, I wonder what's up with those Force Recon guys." But when I started join when I was joining the Military. I was actually going to join the Marine Corps with my brother. But uh that didn't end up working out cuz uh you like I said I was working already. So I was already out of high school and I was working and um he's still in high school and we'd have

to go to these like depth meetings. So before you get in, you know, you have to go to these meetings and and kind of they start indoctrinating you there. You start running with the group and like you know They're getting you ready for boot camp. And uh all the time they'd be having these debt meetings, but I had to work. Because I had my own apartment and I was like I had bills to pay. So I tell the recruiter, I'm like, "Hey, bro, like I can't make it to this thing, right? I can't. I have

to work." And he's like, "You have to come. If you want to be a Marine, you're going to get your priorities straight and you're going to be here." I'm like, "Hey dog, I got to Pay bills. I hear what you're saying. It's cute that you're doing this with the high school kids, but I'm not in high school and like I I can't just take off work." So one of the days he called me and I was frustrated. I said, "Hey, how about this? You don't call me, I'll call you." And I hung up the phone.

Totally forget about it. So Mitch hits me up. He's like, "Hey, we're doing a run on Saturday. Are you down?" I was like, "Yeah, I'm down." "Yeah, I'm good. Saturday." So I show up to this recruiting office and uh the guy as soon as he sees me, Sean, he flips his desk. This huge marine flips his desk, tries to fight me. He's like, "You never disrespect a staff sergeant like that." And I was like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa." I'm thinking we're about to fight for real in this office. And I'm like, "Dude, you're a psychopath." And

I'm like, "I'm out of here." So I end up walking out of there. And I end up going into the Navy Recruiting office right next door. And I was like, "Hey, what's the closest thing you got to a Marine?" And like we got Navy Corman. I was like, "All right, what's that? Like you're going to be the medic for the Marine Corps." I was like, "Okay, I'll do that." Like, "Yeah, you don't get to just do that, dude. You got to take a test. There's like a process and we have to see if there's spots

for you." But then I was like, "Okay, I'll do that." And I remember my brother's Like, "Dude, what the heck, man? What's up, Judas? You're just going to bell on me?" And I'm like I'm like, "Hey homie, you can go dig fox holes with those psychopaths if you want, but I'm not deal like if I have to deal with that, I'm not going to make it. I'm going to fight, right?" It's like, "I don't know. Like, I can't deal with this." And it's like, "I got to figure something else out." Then also, I told him,

I was like, "Think about this, bro. I can come into The Navy and I can get assigned to your team or your your unit and I can be your medic and we could still be together." He's like, "You think that could happen?" I was like, "It could happen probably." He's like, "Okay." I like, "But you could just come with me." He's like, "Hell no, dude. I'm going to be a Marine." I was like, "All right, dude. get after it. Yep. And I had to let him like it's something about that was like a differentiation allowing

him. He'd Always been kind of under my wing our whole life and for him to join the Marine Corps on his own. It was like I was proud of him, dude. >> That's cool, man. >> Yeah, bro. Good for you. >> Y >> So you go in the you go in the Navy to become a Marine Corps corman. >> Yep. Yep. So I got hospital corman like was my NEC and then as soon as you get in there they start kind of they it was In 2006 and they needed green side corman, right? They were

like, "Hey, if you think you're going to come and just sit on a ship, you're kind of crazy. Like, we need dudes with the Marine Corps." And they started kind of pushing everybody that direction. >> I mean, that's interesting. You just mentioned, too, you're not a great student. That's not an easy school to get through. >> And then even once you get through that School, I mean, do you guys go through the You guys go through the 18 Delta and everything, right? So, I mean, it just gets more and more and more challenging as time

goes on. >> Oh, yeah. >> Did how how did how did you handle the academics? >> Yeah. Well, I remember like I grew up, we didn't really have cable, but on TV I remember that show Rescue 911 would come on. Do you remember that show? >> I do. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, I'd watch Rescue 911. I remember just like these those little medical shows like ER and stuff whenever I would see them. I was like very fascinated by it, >> you know? I was very fascinated about cars too growing up. So, for me, when it

came to the medical stuff, one, I already had a fascination for it. And then I I can hyperfocus. So if there's something I'm interested in, I can I'll Learn everything about it, right? And if it's stuff I don't care about, obviously it's like, dude, I'm, you know, my ears shut off. >> But I related everything to a car. So I was like learning the path of the blood through the heart. I'm thinking of the oil management system in an engine. No kidding. >> Right. Yeah. And I'm thinking of the electrical work being like our nervous

system. So I started quickly like tying These two together and it dude it got me by. >> I started Yeah. I was like it was almost a direct translation of like the human body is components of a car and I was like it got me by until I started really learning enough to be fascinated with it and obsessed with it. >> So you picked So you picked it up right off the bat. >> Yeah, I was very Yeah. interested by it. >> Nice. Now did you and your brother leave At the same time to to

to go to boot camp? >> Oh yeah. Yeah. I think it was within a few days. >> He went to Paris Island and I went to uh Great Lakes and I'm writing letters under the red light and he's writing me letters back. >> It's like kind of surreal. What does your mom think about you guys joining the military? >> Yeah, I think in the in the beginning She was apprehensive, right? It's the height of the war. You know, Fallujah is on TV. Romani's on TV. It's like we had all seen it. They were It's like

probably the first time war was televised the way that it was. And I think she's she's very concerned. She was scared, but she was proud. Yeah. She came to both of our graduations and she was she's very proud. But I I think she was scared a little bit. How was it leaving her? It's good. >> It was. Yeah. You were ready. >> Yeah. We ended up moving out of her house probably in I think I was 10th grade. Things had just gotten too bad and my grandparents had moved to Alabama. My grandpa moved back. We

ended up they they raised us the last couple years. You know, me and my brother slept in the same bed in their guest bedroom. And so I'd already kind of separated from my mom a little bit. >> Was that a was that a completely different environment? >> Oh yeah. Yeah. My grandma would cook us breakfast, right? cook us dinner was just very loving. They had they had resources that my mom didn't. So we were like for the first time we're getting we didn't have to just eat free lunch. I wasn't just eating a square pizza

and you know milk every day like my grandpa would give me five bucks heading out the door. Often times they probably Stockpile it and buy weed with it to be honest with you. But it was it was it was different man. Yeah it was different you know just started to get a little bit of pride. I remember I started ironing my clothes there and like it was just it was it was more stable for sure. Did did you say sorry to go back to childhood. Did you say that you reconnected with your dad around 18

19 years old? >> No, I connected with him later once I Joined. >> Once you joined? >> Yeah. >> Okay. We'll get to that point then. >> Yeah. >> So, you join the you join the Navy. >> You're in Great Lakes. Your brother's in Paris Island. Where do we go from there? >> Yeah. So, really quickly in the Navy, they start kind of isolating the dudes. And I remember like even in boot camp They pulled us aside and they started showing us Frogman videos, right? EOD videos and stuff and I'm like like who wants to

do this stuff? I'm like dude I do. I raised my hand and uh you know I was like looking around thinking everyone like asking all of us dudes and I'm like yeah I want to do it and I'm looking around like everyone's just kind of sitting there. I'm like so at first I'm like is that the wrong answer? I'm thinking I'm going to get yelled at and They're like no it's not the wrong answer. They're like kind of wrote it down. And um they start giving you opportunity in boot camp to do the dive motivator

prep, right? to start sending you to the the pool every day and things like that. And I remember once I started walking that path, I asked them, I was like, "Hey, if I don't make it through this process, do I still get to be a corman?" And they're like, "No, you're not." And I was like, "Okay." I was Like, "So maybe I should wait. Maybe I shouldn't sign the dotted line right now. Maybe I should wait till I get through core school and then figure it out from there." >> I was really scared that if

you know I didn't make it through buds, then I was going to be, you know, a deck seaman or something. I didn't know what it was going to be at the time, but I knew it probably going to be >> sound interesting. did not sound like in The risk wasn't worth the reward cuz my trailer park barely had a 6ft pool pull and it was it was half filled half the time. So I I knew I was like something about that water is going to going to eat me up. Um so I you know I

kind of waited off but they still kind of pull you out. And then once you get to core school the main battle for them is to get people to go greenside. And while I was there, I had a mentor who was a recon corman named Dave. And Sean, when He would walk through the halls, man, with his huge stack, his jump and dive, his long hair, and just the way he carried himself, like everyone moved out of the way. And uh Dave was the man. And I remember I was like, "Dude, I want to be

that guy." So at core school, they start isolating us again. So everyone that's a medic that wants to go special operations, like whether it be BUDS, you know, Swick, uh SARC, DMT, those types of things, we do dive mode there. So, We're getting up early in the morning, 4 in the morning. We're going to swim, go swim a 5K in the morning. We're running a few miles, doing pull-ups and push-ups in there, just getting you ready, doing the SOCOM screener prep, just bobbing and doing all the basics, the underwater crossover, all that stuff. And um

so we're all there together, working together. And as you get towards the end of um core school, they ask you, "Hey, do you want a BUDS contract? Do you want Recon or what do you want?" And everyone in my class there went went to Buds except for me and my buddy Rodney. >> No [ __ ] Oh >> yeah. Yep. They say the hardest part of the SARC pipeline is the first three weeks of buds. >> Right on. >> I love you guys. But yeah, so me and Rodney were the only ones that were like,

"Nah, we want to we want to do what Dave does, right?" >> What was it? Was it your brother? Why did you Why did you pick that? >> Yeah. >> I mean, you you actually you just mentioned it because you didn't want to not make it and wind up somewhere else, but I mean, I'm sure your brother had a something to do with that as well. >> Yeah. There was still a fleeting idea that that was going to be a possibility, but also was just a water compet competence, you know. Yeah. It was the First

time I'm having to do a 50 meter underwater crossover and it's like that's not something you pick up overnight. Some people are freaks like that and they can, but I wasn't. And that was something like deep down inside I was like, dude, I don't know if I'm going to be able to do this. >> Yeah. >> And I felt like somewhere in there I was going to have more time cuz Buds is the real deal. That's something I really am Impressed about is that they'll pull someone right off the street and within a year you're

in Buds and you have to perform at that level and it's like they they do a good job prep now, but back then it was like that was right around the corner. If I would have taken Buds contract, I'm I'm going to be there potentially like in a month. >> Yeah. >> And there's no way I'm making it. And I just knew that I was going to need some More time and I felt like the recon pipeline was going to take me longer to get to dive school, which it did. And it gave me plenty

of the time I needed to be successful. So, can you before we get into all of your career, you know, as a recon corman, can you can you can you just describe what that is? Yeah. Yeah. So, uh you know, since the beginning of the Marine Corps, right, and ton tavern, you know, when they were created, they're The Marine Corps is a component of the Navy. They don't like to talk about it, right? But it's they're a department of the Navy. And um wherever ships were going, there would be Marines on board. And wherever Marines

were at, there'd be a a medic from the Navy. And very early that relationship began where for every group of platoon of Marines, there'd be a medic there, a Navy corman alongside of them. You know, the Navy Corman uh rate is a very like honorable one. I Believe it's it's the most decorated NEC in the entire military, right? So even at core school walking down the halls you just see Medal of Honor recipients as you're going down just seeing all the the pharmacist mates the lobaly boys like all these people the lineage of of Navy

corman that have been on the front lines with the Marines since the beginning of time every conflict >> as like World War II happened they created the raiders and they created This specialized unit in the Marine Corps that would do the lightboat entry deep reconnaissance type stuff for like the the Japanese island campaigns etc. And um that's where the Marine Corps started specializing towards like a special operations component. But after World War II, it kind of got disbanded and they reuped it for Korea and then re-uped it for um for Vietnam. But all along the

way, you know, as they specialized into reconnaissance teams For that amphibious reconnaissance capability and deep reconnaissance capability, there was a corman there along the way. So I think it was somewhere in the mid '90s they realized that they needed to make it a real rate in the Navy and make it established and they couldn't just keep bringing people in that they actually need to to build what was what became the modern recon corman or SOIDC. So as part of that process, you know, we've been attached To teams. So we started cutting our teeth in the

recon community, force recon community. And then 2006 when Marsock stood up, then everything shifted. They took a the majority of First Force recon started standing up for a stim. And then every all those sharks went with it. So when you when you decide to do that, I mean, do they is there a path? I mean, do they do you know you're going to go to a special operations unit or do you Or do you know you are going to the Marine Corps? I mean, how how granular does it get? >> Yeah, it it is pretty

granular, but the the difficult thing is is that if you fail any part of that pipeline, you're going to the grunts. >> Gotcha. >> Yep. So, you have to make it through everything, whether it's jump dive, 18 delta, dive, medtech, you know, um all those different courses that are through That process. If you if you don't complete one of them, yeah, you'll end up going to the grunts. Now, do you go to do you go to BR do they call BRC still? >> Yeah. >> Do you go to that? >> Yeah. So you do everything

that a that a recon oper a Mars operator goes through plus some. >> Right. Yeah. So the the main differences I think between then and the Mars Component now is that they have ITC. They have their own selection process. What I went through was the force recon pipeline. >> Okay. >> Yep. So BRC jump dive dive medtech and then 18 delta and then you come back you go to sear once you get to your uh unit. And then if you're um you know if you're at a force company they'll send you to freef fall etc.

>> [ __ ] >> Yeah. >> Let's let's continue down the journey. So where do we go? You you get done with the with a school. You get the opportunity to go green. Then what happens? >> Yeah. So then you you just keep selecting, right? You keep selecting to uh start going to the the recon pipeline. And um very quickly I was dude I could run like the wind blows. It's very quick. I was a lot lighter than I Am now. and um was became very successful in there and then you know getting started working

on the amphibious stuff and the water and things started to come pretty quickly once I graduated uh field med which is actually so after you go to a school you have to go to the Marine Corps side of the house so you essentially go through Marine Corps boot camp so you go to boot camp go to a school and now you go to field med where it's like >> Marine Corps indoctrination which is essentially like Marine Corps boot camp >> okay >> so yep so here I am again they're banging on trash cans yanking us

up we're in squad bays and I'm like what and we're maring ing around yelling and acting crazy, doing the pugle sticks and Oak course and all that stuff and um getting your little Marine Corps indoctrination. They do a really good job of that. >> And then um from there you select your last time to go recon. So they'll give you one more shot there if you haven't made it or um >> Now is this a try out or is this a they ask you if you want to do it? >> Oh, they'll ask you. Yeah.

So it's all voluntary, but you got to you got to try out. Okay. So you got to do the NSW screener the same as the BUDS one. same run, swim, uh pull-ups, push-ups, um sit-ups, etc. So, you do the same Bud Screener and then if you make the times, then they'll award you a contract. >> Okay. >> Yep. >> And yours was for recon. >> Yep. For recon. Yep. >> And then what? >> Then you get assigned to your first unit, right? So often times just based on the school and where you are in time,

they they'll send you probably to like first, second, third recon first to kind Of cut your teeth till you wait till orders to BRC. So BRC is like the gold standard there, the basic reconnaissance course. I ended up checking into first recon January of 2007. >> Okay. >> So I check in there as this fresh boot corman at the BAS and and things started getting real really quick. Right. The >> Yeah. So how So you so you actually Okay. I'm sorry. I have no knowledge of this, so I'm trying to understand it all And and

break it down for the audience as well. So, you get done with with Corman School, you you go you check into Did you say First Recon? >> Mhm. >> You check into First Recon, then you start then they then they take you as a as a basic corman medic and that's when they kind of turn you into special operator. >> Yep. >> Okay. What's it like checking in? >> Dude, it's crazy. >> How do How are you treated? >> Yeah, it it's crazy. It's such a weird dynamic. I mean, you're a Navy guy, a medic

who's going to save these [ __ ] and they're probably going to treat you like complete [ __ ] when you show up. >> Oh, in the beginning they do, right? A roper is a roper. Whether you're a wannabe recon marine or you're a wannabe s and you get treated as such. Yeah. As Soon as you check in, you're on your face doing push-ups, pushing them out, and they they start laying the groundwork pretty quickly, right? which is something I always have so much respect for the culture that that recon the recon community has is

that they don't sway in it. So very quickly I come in and it's it's you're doing everything. Um you're running sick hall in the morning, you're working out at lunch, you're working out prior to Lunch. We had this uh kind of recon indoctrination program that we had to do. So we're running, we're ruck running, we're hitting the hills, we're carrying logs, we're doing all that stuff and we're having to run sick. So, we're learning the basics of medicine, learning how to give immunizations, draw blood, remove moles, like removing room toenails, like the basics of like

of of being a Navy corman. So, you're learning those skills and you're just looking at That calendar, waiting for your date, right? And they'll tell you, hey, your BRC dates this date and you're just trying to survive to make it while you're having to do PSTs every week to make sure you're still in shape. And then once you once you leave there, you head off to the pipeline. >> How was how was uh BRC for you? Yeah, it was um I mean it was pretty tough. It was tough. I was in very good cardio shape,

which is good for me. And by this Point, I'd swam a lot, right? I gotten a lot of got really good at the combat side stroke, which I never even knew was a thing before this, but got really good at it. Became very proficient in the water and I felt very comfortable. It was just still it was a kick in the ass. Yep. showing up and and just getting getting your legs run off and carrying a heavy ruck and and trying to figure out some of the you know the things that with a corman you're

a little bit behind The power curve because you don't get some of those basic infantry skills right where the Marines went through ITC or sorry they went to u you know their infantry training um and so they kind of already know some of the basics and as a corman you have a lot to overcome >> right you have to learn the basics of patrolling you have to learn a lot of things that you just didn't get prior and um it can be a little bit of a learning curve but it was it's a pretty Good

time >> yeah I And I'm I'm I'm curious. I mean, I would imagine BRC is very similar to Buds. I mean, what from a guy that comes from a childhood like you and then you get in with, you know, you you're in BRC, which is, you know, supposedly some of the toughest military training in the world. What do you compare that to your childhood? Are is are you constantly thinking like I've been Through worse [ __ ] than this? This is a [ __ ] joke. >> These people don't know what I've been through. You

think you can [ __ ] hurt me? >> Is that going is that I mean is that the mindset? >> Yeah, man. It was home. I was home. I was home. Something about that chaos. I loved I did. When everyone else something about me, too. like when everyone else was breaking, it like Empowered me, which sounds crazy, but I would see other people like breaking, crying, quitting, and I'm like like, "Let's go. I got I got another gear." Like, "I haven't even gotten to my safe space yet, right? I got a spot that no one

can touch me." And I would catch myself in a lot of that process when things would get rough. People would always tell me, you know, from my peer group, they'd be like, "Steve, I know when it sucks for you because you Finally shut up." Because if I wasn't talking [ __ ] to you, then they knew Steve was finally hurting, right? And they would uh but it was yeah I would just go to that little spot in the back of my mind and it was just it was easy day in a lot of the ways.

It still suck but dude they were feeding me. I had access to a gym like I mean it was like dude life was good. I had a I had a warm place to sleep at night and it was just like I I took to It really well. >> It's interesting the perspectives the different perspectives from everybody. that. So that's the beautiful thing about the military is just >> all walks of life and everybody's perspective from their background is it's completely different experience, but it's the same experience. >> You know what it is? I don't know

if that make makes any sense. >> Yeah, it is crazy all the different Perspectives you can have in this life. You have the same thing too. I didn't really have a dad growing up, right? So I just considered it camping. I was like, we're just camping. Like I thought it was fun. It's kind of cool to me. I was like on a field trip. >> [ __ ] Yeah. Oh [ __ ] So what how how is BRC breaking broken down? >> Yeah. So it's up I mean I'm sure it's light years different now but

initially You start out kind of learning the basics of like comms. You do a lot of comm's classes. You do a lot of classes on like land navigation. >> So just learning how to hit points. You're up there in the hills of Camp Pendleton and they those hills alone will break you off. But you start learning the basic fundamentals of patrolling and the reconnaissance tradecraftraft. Right. So a lot of the front half is all about that. It's Conditioning, doing all the different qualities you need to from the swim qual etc. the pool work, which is

where they get a lot of their attrition as you know. It's like the water will break the the strongest men, >> you know, and that that usually thins the herd pretty quickly. Then they'll go into things like land nav. >> So now it's like you're tested, got to hit these points. You got to make it in time. If you think you're walking this Land nav, course you're crazy and you're doing it with a rock on, right? So you make it through land nav and then you start working into um as you make it through that

land phase, you go into kind of our our buds. Sorry, not buds. Our hell hell week is like it's called patrol phase, right? So, it's a week long of you just no sleep, tear gas, having a patrol and you're just setting up patrol bases and just the fundamentals of being a reconnaissance Marine. Setting up a harbor site, you know, building a sand uh a sand table, building out the next stop, whether you got to do a reconnaissance on an empty field or a bridge or whatever it may be. And you're just doing that non-stop while

you're getting teargassed, taking contact, taking casualties, and it's just a suckfest >> through that whole week. Once you get done with that, you kind of go into our next phase of training, which is Amphib. So, we end up going down to Coronado. We start working through all the AIB stuff, getting the Zodiacs out, learning how to build the AM uh zodiacs, learning how to do surf passage, a lot of surface finning, too. Just doing the 2Ks every day, just breaking off those hip flexors, running around like a maniac, and and just doing a lot of

the small boat tactics, doing things like collecting bottles bottom samples, doing surf reps, all the basics of like kind Of reconnaissance from there. Mh. >> And once you make it through Amphib phase, like you're done. You graduate after that. >> How long is this course? I >> think it's around 3 months. >> What's the attrition rate? >> It's it's pretty high. I don't know what the number is, but um yeah, it's it's pretty high. >> Did it ever get did it ever get tough for you? Were you ever riding the line Where you were like,

I don't know if this is for me. I think I want to quit. >> Yeah. I never thought I was going to quit, but um patrol phase like I remember being so sleepd depth >> that I remember them trying to ask me what I was going to do and I remember being like uh oh like my brain's not working and I very well could screw this up right now. >> That was the only point. All the testing and stuff like that was pretty easy. Like land now was easy for me. But yeah, in there I

was so tired by like day four and I remember them asking me and I felt like I should know the answers but I don't know how I made it through but I did. But yeah, that was the only point in that whole process where I was like, "Dude, I might not make it through this cuz like if I go one more day without sleep, I'm I'm going to be worthless." And um yeah, but everything else seemed to work out. >> So what happens at the completion of BRC? >> Yep. So at the completion of BRC

for the recon side of the house, you're technically you get awarded the recon um NEC or MOS, but for us Sarkcs, we don't get anything. It's just another school and you don't get awarded yours to the end. So what often times happens if you got follow on orders. So say luck of the draw that all the schools matched up maybe you'll go to basic uh airborne First right. So me I had already gone to basic airborne cuz when I checked into first recon we had a competition where the uh HM1 that was there told the

Marines he said hey I'm not signing any more basic airborne nominations to go to school unless you let some of my corman go. And the marine said okay fair enough doc said how about this? if they show up on Friday at 04 in the morning and they beat my Marines for their spots, I'll give it to them. So he told me, he told Me and Rodney and another dude, he's like, "Hey guys, be there 04 on Friday. Don't be late." And we ended up beating the Marines. So [ __ ] >> So he got to

go to basic basic airborne before we even went to BRC. >> Nice. Nice. >> Yep. So I had a gap there. So I ended up going back to First Recon and kind of working as a uh as a BRC grad. You got a little bit more clout now. You're not running around with a rope on. you're Not getting bullied anymore and um you kind of wait for your next schools, which my next school was going to be 18 Delta in Fort Bragg. >> What What is graduation like BRC? I mean, is it is it ceremonial?

Is it or are they like here you go, get back to work? >> Yeah, they um they do it in the school of infantry kind of um auditorium. So, it's like you're at the school of infantry like you all you want to do is Get away from there as fast as possible. They bring in some motivator to talk, but I couldn't tell you who they were. What I will share is like one of the most memorable parts of that is uh I had reconnected with my dad through this process and um I had invited him

to the graduation. >> I hit him up and I said, "Hey man, like I know we barely know each other." It's like, "But this is kind of a big deal for me. It's a probably my lifetime Accomplishment to this point and I I got a ticket for you if you want to show up." And uh needless to say, he didn't show up. >> He didn't? >> No, I didn't show up. >> How did you find him? >> Yeah. Well, so all through the chaos of my childhood, I had this two prized possessions, three prized possessions.

One was a pound puppy that I had from like my grandma gave it to me. Do you Remember the pound puppy? Man, >> dude, I had a brown pound puppy and I held that thing. Who knows where it is? I wish I had it, but yeah, it got lost along the way. And then uh next was a little blanket that had a duck embroidery on it from my mom uh my mom's mom who ended up moving to Alabama. And the third one was a letter from my grandma, my dad's mom. It was a pencil written

letter that I kept with me everywhere we went. It's like I grab our Clothes, throw it in the trash bags, and I'd had that letter and I kept it my whole time. So when I joined the military and I got to Camp Pendleton, I checked in the first recon. I remember I I had that letter. I pulled it out and I wrote a letter to that address and I said, "Hey, I don't know if this if you're still my grandma, right? Or my grandpa, but like I'm your grandson and I'm in the military now and

I'm in California and I'd love to meet you." And this is back I think I had just gotten one of those Nokia 5590 brick phones and I was like, "Hey, here's my phone number if you want to call me." >> So, it was probably like two weeks and I get a phone call on that phone. >> And she's like, "Hi." She called me by my middle name. She's like, "Hi, you know, I'm your grandma." I was like, "Oh, hi grandma." She's like, "I'm so excited to hear you. Me and your grandpa are looking forward to

seeing you." I'm Like, "Oh, that's awesome." I'm like, "Well, I'm at Camp Pendleton. I don't have a car or anything." And she's like, "Well, you know, we're down in uh Aato down near El Centro." She's like, "Um, you know, we're down here." I'm like, "Okay, well, can you I don't have a car." She's like, "Well, any grandson of mine will figure it out." And I was like, "Huh?" I'm like, "Okay." She's like, "Okay." I'm like, "All right, well, I guess I'll I'll try and figure it out." So, they gave me the address and I told

my roommate. I was like, "Hey," he had a car. I was like, "Will you drive me down to El Centro?" And he's like, "No, bro." He's like, "That's like 4 hours from here." I'm like, "Jesus." I'm like, "All right. Well, what am I going to do?" He's like, "I'll take you to the bus stop in Oceanside." And I was like, "Okay, all right." So, he takes me to the bus stop in Oceanside. And I end up Riding that bus all the way to El Centro. It was like a 12-h hour ride, dude. It was ridiculous.

But I rode it all the way down to San Diego and all the way out there, and they end up picking me up at 2:00 a.m. at the El Centro bus station. I remember my grandpa um showed up at that. It was like, you know, there's crackheads outside of there and stuff. It's a real sketchy situation. I get in and uh he's like, "Hey, boy." I was like, "Hey, Grandpa." And he starts yelling at me. He's like, "You have to speak up if you're going to talk to me." I'm like, "Okay, all right. Let's go."

Ends up driving me to the house. We get to their desert house and I come in and Sean, as soon as I came in, man, it just like melted my heart. Like I said, the pictures of me as a young boy was still up on their mantle like of me as a three-year-old boy. Pictures of my brother, you know, on the wall inscribed With markings was our our heights. And I came in and dude it was like a huge hole in my heart cuz I didn't know any of this side of the family at all

was starting to heal. I come in and my grandma is like I never missed any like never missed a day. It was like I'd been coming there every every weekend for the last 20 years and I sat down and had dinner and started building a relationship with them. And um you know as I was kind of touring their little House, they have a quaint little house there in the desert. I saw my grandpa had a shadow box, right? He was a sailor in the Navy. And in that shadow box, I saw he had a combat

action ribbon. And I was just now learning about what these things mean. And he was a whole technician. So I was like, "Hey, grandpa." I was like, "How'd you get uh how'd you get a combat action ribbon as a plumber?" And he didn't appreciate that too much. He was like, "Listen here, Dicksmith. When you finally go to combat, you rate and I'll tell you." And I was like, "Oh, dick. Okay, grandpa." But we became the bestest of friends, man. No one else in the family understood my grandpa, but he did two tours in Vietnam. He's

a river ring guy, man. Two uh dual 50 cows on the dang and whooped it on and never told anybody, right? And I would sit out in that garage with him and just talk to him, >> right? And he was so proud of me and my brother. Um he ended up passing from a kind of agent orange related kidney dis cancer. Um but man, it was some good years there for a while. But as I started like kind of coming that that was my new favorite thing now. So every weekend I'm like I'm going to

grandma's house. Like I got to figure out a car. They're like we'll get you a car. They got me a car real cheap and next thing you know I'm going down to the desert And spending time with my grandma and grandpa and very quickly they start calling the family, calling my aunts, my uncles. I have a couple sisters from my dad's side and they start bringing them over and I'd come every time I'd come there'd be a new surprise. Hey, I'm your uncle Jim. Hey, I'm your aunt Connie, right? And I'm like, dude, my heart

just started healing, dude. I was like, oh my god, this this kind of void that I had. And um but my dad never came. My dad Never came. He lived further north up in California. Guess he worked at CVS. didn't have a lot of money. But I started just kind of thinking about it. I was like, "Okay, like everyone else is making it." Like I took note of it and um you know, I remember one of these times I was doing some work with Force Recon in Hawaii and I was starting to kind of figure

things out and I remember I had his phone number and I gave him a call and I told him I said, "You know What, man? Like I just want to thank you for never being a part of my life. You know, if you would have been a part of my life, maybe I'd have been screwed up like you and I'm just glad that that you never even had an influence on me cuz I'm actually making something in my life." And Shaunie got so mad at me. Like he was yelling at me over the phone. He's

like, "I loved you so much. Like I didn't want your mom to take you from us, right? I I loved you and that's Not true." And I was just like, "Dude, whatever, man. Like whatever. Actions speak louder than words." So I hung up the phone. Um so as I was getting close to my first deployment, right, was getting ready to go on my first deployment. We're going to do a counter piracy mission off the the Horn of Africa. I was pretty excited about it. My aunt Connie, she hosted a party at her house and invited

me down. It was a going away party and um I'm there and uh This this car shows up and next thing I know it's my dad. So he steps out of the car. He's there with his girlfriend. And at this time me and my wife were married. We had had a son and um he comes in the house and I remember I came up and I shook his hand. But dude, between you and me I always thought like if I saw him I was going to fight him on site. Like I had so much I

was so angry at him. Not a single birthday card, not a single call. Like all that stuff I Went through in my life, I was like, "Dude, if I just had you here, this wouldn't have happened to me, right?" So, I had a lot of resentment. He comes in, I end up shaking his hand. And I made a pack with myself. I said, "You know what? How about this? If he can be a good granddad to my son, then I'll open up a door for him one day, but not today." So, I shook his hand,

kind of introduced him to my wife, let him kind of hang out with my son. He's, you know, Patting him on the knee and like um, you know, bouncing him on his knee and and just being okay. I was real cold with him. And then after that, I shook his hand when I got done with the party and I said, "Hey, man. Like, I'm going on deployment, but if you can keep in touch, we can work on this when I get back." So, I said, "Okay." Like, "All right, well, that's kind of interesting, right?" So,

I go on that first deployment and um >> How long had it been? How old are you right here? >> Yeah, I'm probably I'm 20 21 years old. >> So, almost almost 20 years. >> Yeah. Yep. since I'd seen him had any communication with him outside of those phone calls I called. That was mainly after he no showed me for my my BRC graduation. I was pretty I was angry at that point. Everything shifted from hope to just like screw this guy. >> Did you talk to him about all this? >> Yeah. So on this

first deployment, right, we're going we're doing a counter piracy mission off the Horn of Africa just cutting squares there and um it's us and the force recon platoon and uh I get a red cross message. You know, about four months in, I get a Red Cross message. My platoon commander pulls me aside and he's like, "Hey, man. Hey, doc. This isn't good. You know, usually these things only happen if if it's a suicide or a murder. They won't tell us What happened, but your dad's dead." And I remember just being so bummed, man. So bummed.

I was like, I was just barely starting to work my way around to like reconnecting with him and opening up this door to of us being able to repair this relationship. And now I'm flying back to the United States. And because I was the oldest boy, now I'm the person that has to, you know, sign for all his stuff. I have to handle all his death stuff. And um yeah, somewhere along that Way, man, he uh ended up committing suicide. Yeah. I guess the gravity of everything kind of hit him. Um he had a falling

out with my sister's mom. Um I have a half sister with him and he wasn't going to be able to see her and he ended up um committing suicide. So I had to fly back and handle all of that. like as the oldest born, I had to figure out how to bury him, figure out how to, you know, call all his creditors and all this different stuff. And and that was Kind of the the end of the chapter there for that one. >> [ __ ] Yeah. How do you feel about that? >> Yeah, it's

a bummer, man. It's a bummer. I just wanted him to be proud of me. I think there's something about me that just wanted a dad to be proud of me. I think I wanted to show him that I made it. And dude, he was like a cool guy. Like he really was. He was conflicted. He had his stuff, but like everyone I Know, like from my aunt, my grandparents, they always spoke highly of him. He had childhood trauma, too. Something bad happened to him when he was a little boy. And um you know, I just

I would have I would have loved to meet him like and spend time with him. And just kind of get to know him better. And it sucked, dude. It ended that way. I waited my whole life for it. And then it was just like, dude, it's just gone. Like it's another one of those things Where I was like this is just the way life is man. I wasn't even surprised. I'm like of course of course just kept moving forward. >> What would you say to him if you could say anything to him right now? >>

I would tell him I forgive him. Yeah. I'm sorry for being so mad at him. Like I know it wasn't his fault, dude. And like when my mom left him, there was not internet, right? It was like, dude, if if my wife took my kid and moved halfway Across the United States and I didn't know, it's like obviously he could have found his way, I would just tell him I forgive him. I forgive him. And you know, I wish he would have found some healing. I wish I could have talked to him now, you know

what I know now. I wish I could have showed him some ways to find relief. Wish I could have modeled it for him and helped him find the peace that he needed. But yeah, he never found it, man. I know. Yeah, That's what I would say. I'm sorry, man. >> Yeah. >> What was the communication like with your mother after you completed BRC? >> Yeah, just hit her up. Hey, mom. I I made it. She's like, cool. Are you a Navy Seal now? Every time I turn around, she's like, "You're a Navy Seal." I'm like,

"No, mom." Okay. Okay. You probably can't tell me. >> Yeah. >> So, she's proud. >> Yeah. Oh, she's so proud. Yeah. She's so proud. Yep. How about your brother? >> What did he have to say when he completed it? >> Yeah. So, I kept trying to hit him up and I'm like, "Mitch, you need to go recon, man. Like, if we're our plan's going to work, you got to go recon." I think once he got through boot camp and got through his infantry training, he's Like, "No, man." He's like, "You can do it." Yeah. He

was like, "No, I'm good. I'm not dealing with that." >> He was a a grunt in the infantry battalion. And he was like, "Dude, his idea of like asking for more of that was like psychotic to him, which he's he's a smarter man than me right at this time." He's like, "But I'm like, dude, you got to go or we're not going to make it together. Like, I'm never going to be assigned to your team if you don't go to Recon." He's like, "You can do that high-speed stuff if you want, bro." He's like, "I'm

good where I'm at." And then he ended up going to war um right after that. >> Wow. >> Yeah. >> Wow. How did it feel for you? I mean, getting through BRC, I mean, it didn't sound like it had you had a lot going for you. >> Yeah. >> Not a good student, growing up in a trailer park, surrounded with substance abuse and and and and sexual abuse and regular abuse. I mean, and now you're you've just graduated one of the one of the premier toughest military training programs in the [ __ ] world. >>

Yeah. That's pretty cool. >> I would like to say that I was proud, but I wasn't, man. >> Really? >> Yeah. For me, it was just another thing. And for me, I always back then, I had this fear that the other foot was going to drop, right? I had like severe imposttor syndrome. Just really insecure. Like I was like, dude, like, okay, cool. That's I I made it past this one, but what's the next thing that's going to get me? Like, when's this gravy train going to be over? When's everyone everyone going to realize I'm

just a trailer park kid? When's everyone going To realize like I don't even belong here? Like, I'm not elite. I'm not what these people talk about. I can never be these legends that they tell me about, right? Any minute now, they're going to sniff me out. And I almost just kind of expected it just not to work out to be honest with you. And I think because of that, it robbed me of the joy. It was just like, well, that's cool. It doesn't matter if I make it through this whole thing. So, I I'll celebrate

later. I'll Celebrate at the end. Jeez, man. So, where do we go? Where do we go from here? graduate BRCE. You've already been to You're going to 18 Delta, reconnected with the other side of your family. >> Yeah. >> You went on deployment. >> Yep. >> How was 18 How was 18 Delta for you? >> 18 Delta is the real deal, man. It's the real deal. Yeah. I mean, for everything else that's physical, it's one thing, But the one thing I found one intimidating and pressed by the Army is they there's a million people that

want to be an 18 Delta in the Army, right? There's a small amount of Marines. There's a small amount of recon marines, right? But they're like, "Hey, they had the 18 x-ray series going, so they're pulling dudes off the streets and stuff to go through this process." And it's like they were cutting people left and right, right? If you failed the test, it Was like so sad. Back to the needs of the army. And it's just happening all around you where you're like, "Oh, man." Like, "This is the real deal." And it was uh it

was the real deal, too, cuz you couldn't bull crap your way through it, man. Like the standard was real. They make the best medics on the face of the earth, >> right? other uh you know um other military. >> Where where all do 18 Deltas go from School? >> From school. >> Yeah. What what units do they go to? >> Yeah. So they all soft components majorly. Uh you know Rangers still go to Rangerbat. SF guys. There's still SEALs going through our program. So they go back to the teams. Sarkcs could go anywhere between recon

battalion force recon and Mars. And then they also have um the special operations aviation guys there too. So guys are going through there and then they'll squeak in some civil affairs people and and things like that. SC out people uh in there as well, but that's it's majority all the soft components. >> Pretty badass, man. >> Dude, >> pretty badass. >> So you get done with that, then you go on deployment. >> Yeah. I actually did dive school after 18 Delta. >> Then you do dive school. >> Yeah. Went to Marine Combat and dive down

in uh Panama City. Then followed up with uh dive medte tech. to go to DMMP, the diametite techch course. So, you learned to do the recompression therapy and all that type of stuff. >> So, you completed pretty much everything by the time you went on your first deployment. >> Yep. For sure. >> What's it like checking into your team? >> Yeah, it was uh one I was like, I made it. So, there I was a little bit happy about that, but then two, the Marine Corps has a magical way of just crushing you, right? Which

I know it's probably very similar to on the teams, too. It's like you're a new guy and you ain't [ __ ] yet. >> Yep. And it was very much that, too. Luckily for me, which I'm very grateful for, is I went to recon battalion first. So, we did have some guys going straight To Mars. You know, I had other guys that if you were a fleet returnee and you had a combat deployment or two under your belt, they'd send you straight to Force Recon. So, luckily for me, I got paired up on a team

that had junior guys in it. So, I had it wasn't just me, the new guy, but there's a lot of junior recon marines as well. So, we're all cutting our teeth at the same rate and same pace. But, dude, I had a tremendous uh platoon sergeant was uh well decorated, Just war fighter. took it seriously, really embodied what what it was to be a reconnaissance marine. And he he did right by us. We trained our faces off, man. >> Nice. >> We trained there was war on the white space. There's no vacation. You're not going

home. If there's free time, you're going to go sleep on a bush and report on a empty field, send up calm shots, you know, practice E& plans, breakout Drills. Like he Yeah, he made he made men out of us. >> Badass man. So, what were you guys doing in Africa? Yeah. So, right now it was kind of uh they had what was called the maritime raid force. I'm still sure they had that. So, it' be three different ships. It was like the amphibious ready group, which was actually nostalgic cuz Jaco was talking about a lot

of this on the a few podcasts ago, but talking about just that that life on the ship And essentially the ships just being marine carrying vessels essentially. And uh we were doing a lot of that Somalian uh counter piracy stuff. So, Okay. Yep. And uh >> Oh, [ __ ] Did you guys get any? >> Yeah. So, we didn't get to board any ships, but we did get to isolate one, right? We were ne right next to Indian waters. So, instead of us doing BBSS, um we actually called in the Indian uh the Indian uh

Navy and they they lit that Thing up. It was pretty pretty crazy. They did it in a different manner than we would have. We would have taken people and they didn't they just dowsed it in fuel and lit it on fire. And >> that's awesome, >> dude. It was crazy. Yeah. We had uh uh a colonel named Colonel Kaufman who was in charge of the battalion for 111. Badass dude was a pilot in Iraq. Got shot through and into his jaw and completed the mission. Like the dude was a legend. But he pulled us all

out onto the deck of the ships and he gave us a like a like a Braveheart speech, right? He's like, "You are now in sincom. This is the Super Bowl." He's like, and we're watching this this uh Somali ship, mother ship and skiffs just burning in the background, right? as we're sitting there at attention and he's just giving this motivational like Marine Corps speech like only they can. It was like yeah that's pretty cool. >> That's awesome man. >> Yeah. >> So you come home from that deployment and then what happens? >> Yeah. So when

I came back from that deployment it was uh it was Marock time. So I came back kind of cut my teeth there. Got to do some you know fid work too. We didn't just stay on the ship there but um got to see a little bit of the world which I was happy about which was cool to me you know being a little Trailer park kid from Alabama going to Thailand and all this You go you immediately redeploy with Mars. >> Yeah. Well, I I went there and I got assigned to a team at Mars.

>> Okay. >> Yep. So, I went up the hill. Um they're still on the same camp now in Camp Pendleton and um Yep. went over there and I checked into my first team there. >> So, how how was it checking into a Mars element from from reconnaissance? >> Yeah. It it was a different ball game. It was a different feel. It was just um >> Do you have a uh do they have a any respect for you showing up? >> Oh, yeah. >> They do. >> Oh, yeah. >> So, you're not the new guy? Yeah,

they um >> Yeah, I mean Mars was stood up off of First Force Recon. So if you come over as a recondo, it's like there's Tremendous respect. >> Okay. >> Yep. If you're a recon guy, they're Yeah, it's so much respect there. And then me coming in already had a a deployment under my belt. So it's like that counts for something, right? And kind of coming in, but then it's it's it's game time there, too, right? Where it's like you better um you know, at recon it was a jogging pace for what we're doing. Reconnaissance

and stuff's Like hard work, but you know, it's a little bit different than training for a DA mission, training for Afghanistan and the things that we're ramping up for. >> You know, you were going to Afghanistan. >> Yeah, for sure. >> They told you that right off the bat. >> Yeah, that's that was that was where the show was and that's Yeah, everyone's kind of doing backtobacks there. >> How big is a team? >> Yeah, so at recon it's like a 30man Platoon and there's just one coreman. Um at Mars a team's probably um around

six six seven people 13 people in an element and then there's two Sarkcs there. >> Oh really? >> Yeah. Yeah. So I went from more having to manage 30 people to just managing half that with two guys. It was like it was it was nice. >> Who was the other who was the other Navy Corman? >> Yeah, he was uh a dude named Chris. Yeah, I think he just got out. But um yeah, I was a dude that came from third recent time squared away. Such a really really gifted with medicine. And I wasn't I

I was good at medicine, but I didn't like the sick call type stuff. >> Mhm. >> Where Chris was really good at that, right? If your tummy achd, he would be able to fix you. Like he he was really good. So we were a good balance where all I wanted to do is operational stuff. I just wanted to run and gun. Chris was very good at that. But he was actually he was much better at the medical like just being a better medic than me. >> Right on. Yeah. Right on. So what's the culture like?

What would you say the culture is like at a Mars unit? >> Yeah. Well, it's just a very very high standard. Very very high standard. Like um at this time people were very serious about what it was. You know, many of these guys were at debt one at first Force and stood this up and all they knew was just backtoback deployments, right, between Iraq and Afghanistan. And it was just um it was a level of professionalism that I I appreciated, but it was a very high standard, right? And um yeah, it was you were going

to work hard and it was just uh what you're going to do. There's a lot of honor there. >> Is this where you meet Prime? >> Yeah. Yeah. I think you meet him. >> I met Prime probably on my I think my third deployment with Mars. >> Oh, okay. >> Yeah. But we all had mutual friends. So, it's like I had we all had mutual friends and we knew each other from like a degree of separation. But once I went to Delta Company, that's where Prime was kind of coming back from that last trip with

his and he was just kind of trying to sort through things. And um his medic that he had went on to some SMU and he Was like, "Hey, like Kevin said that you're the guy to come to if to help me." And I was like, "I am, dude." So he came to me and I just we became really good friends and I just helped him work through that process. It was a really tricky one with what they tried to do to him. Um but yeah, that's how I met Prime. >> Right on. Right on. So,

I mean, now you're in a unit that I would guess has a lot of Experience uh throughout the GWAT by the up to this point. What What kind of questions do you have? I mean, what what is your impression of these guys with everything they've seen, been through, everything you think you want to do? How is it? >> Yeah, these guys were tacticians, man. Tacticians. they eat, slept, and breathe this job. And I think one thing I struggled with in the beginning was that Imposttor syndrome stuff. So, I always kind of kept one foot out

even subconsciously because I felt like any minute they were going to it was just it wasn't going to work for me. And I'm starting here and I'm working with these guys that like are true professionals. And I I couldn't continue going that direction with it. I was like, dude, I got to be all in if I'm going to be able to keep up, right? And these guys knew cuz there had been so many friends, so Many people at that battalion that had passed at war. And if it wasn't at war, it was the green on

blueue type situation that you've heard of so much. We had a lot of people getting chewed up the seasons prior to that. And it was like, dude, there you had to lock in. You had to lock in. You had to be a professional. And that's when I really started to see that where I was like, even me deep down inside, I'm like, I got to take this seriously. whatever I've been doing to get by, like this is not going to be sustainable and I need to lock in and really become a professional with this stuff

because the consequences are so great now, right? Right on. Well, let's take a let's take a quick break and when we come back, we'll get into your first deployment. >> Yeah. >> Every now and then we're reminded how important it is to protect the everyday freedoms we all rely on. It's easy to Overlook them, but they matter. And Patriot Mobile has made that their focus for over 12 years. While other carriers talk about what they stand for, Patriot Mobile puts action behind it. And they've become a serious competitor in the wireless space. They're one of

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merch drops and limited edition items that will never be sold again, plus exclusive offers from our partners you won't find anywhere else. So, subscribe to the Vigilance Elite newsletter right now. All right, Steve, we're back from the break getting ready to dive into your first Mars deployment in Afghanistan. So, let's let's just talk about, you know, what it's like first time in country. What are you feeling? >> Yeah, I was uh relieved. >> Relieved. >> Yeah, relieved, man. cuz you know you come in the thing about the military especially if you come in wanting to

go into special operations is you want to deploy you want to go to war and it feels like every day in the military that you're not deploying it's slipping Between your fingers right so I came to recon battalion off the backs of like the Fallujah guys and all this stuff and I'm like wanting so bad and they're like well you're doing a a VBSS mission off of Africa so you're like I missed it all the war's over right and it's just like it's something we do like it's like really common but I was like just

kept feeling like I'm chasing and the dragon. And if I don't ever get to go there, then then it was all for nothing. So, I Finally land, you know, they're in Bastion, >> and I'm like, I made it. You know, at least I'm here at the show, right? I got a chance. Who knows what's going to happen? It's the fighting season. Chances are chances are I'm going to get to shoot my my weapon in anger, right? But, um, I'm there. So, a little bit of that was like a check in the box for the first

time, right? Where I actually could take a breath and say, "Okay, I Made it here now." Yep. And then we start kind of learning about what that mission's going to be. You know, once you get there, you get divvied up amongst the Helman River Valley and you get your assignment on where which VSSP site you're going to go to. Where were you at? Yeah. So, we were in the Helman, but I was at the northern most part of the Helman near last uh near uh the Kajaki Dam where the Kajjaki Lake is. So, it's like

kind of the Forward line of troops there for the Helman River Valley. >> Gotcha. What year is this? >> It's uh 2013. Was that when the big push was happening down there with the Marine Corps? >> That was 2010. >> That was 2010. >> 2010 was the the height of that push where they were kind of reclaiming it where the Brits had been >> managing it. I'm sure they did a good job, but there's a lot of work to be done. >> And um yeah, so that big push between Mara singing >> um 2010 was

a lot of casualties, but that's the pretty iconic one. The one they'll probably have in history books. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Right on. So you're down in Helmond. >> Yeah. not a A great place to be if that's what you want if that's what you want to do. So, >> no better place for the Marine Corps than Helman River Valley, I'll tell you that. >> How was uh what was the mission? >> So, we were doing um kind of as a quasi SF model. >> Okay. >> Which I was a little bit irritated about

initially, right? are >> there's not much about the heart, you Know, by with and through and the hearts and minds thing that resonated with Marine Corps mentality and just, you know, with with doing the work. But, um, but that's what we were doing. So, we're doing village stability ops where essentially there'd be a contested area and a team of commandos, right, partnered with, you know, a coalition force would go in and they'd fight anywhere between 72 and 96 hours to create a bubble. And then once they Create that bubble, they'll start creating Afghan local police,

start building up the militia, start putting outpost, and then your job, like after that, a team would come in and manage that post. And their job would be to keep pushing that bubble out over the course of that deployment. So we fell into a region in the north that was kind of a pretty tricky situation because that was the rat lines from the other provinces into the Helman River Valley, Right? So there's a pretty nasty place called Zamindawir there which was had a bizaar I think it's called the Gandam Marie Bazaar where that's where they

would do buy all their RPGs buy all their stuff and then push deep down into Lash Cargo singing Mara and start whooping it on and our job was to hold that region down. >> Right on. Yeah. >> Right on. How fast did you guys get into it? >> Yeah it um very quickly we became the uh the target of a pretty proficient mortar team. M. >> So, very quickly, you know, as we're doing our left and right seat, actually, uh, I did my left and right seat with Cody Alfred. >> What? You know, Cody, too.

>> Cody well. Yeah, >> dude. I [ __ ] love that. >> I love that dude. >> I love that guy. >> I I ripped out with him. So, his team was holding that area down and I showed up and I'm like, "What up, Cody?" And then he's like, "Here's the deal, dog." >> He's a good [ __ ] to be at war with. That's for damn sure. >> That's my homie. There's Yeah, he he is everything he says he is. He's the man, >> dude. Yep. That's awesome. I love that dude. >> Me, too.

>> And Prime, too. >> Yeah. >> But man, you were with some good people. >> Oh, yeah. >> What was Cody like? >> A maniac. He's a maniac. >> Was he? >> He's Dude, everything he says he was, he was. He's not I mean, he's obviously he's he's an integrated warrior now. And God bless. Thank God. But when he was in, he was he was a fighting machine. >> He eat, slept, and breathed this stuff. He was a consmate professional. But he would tell people what he thought. He didn't bite his tongue. He was who

he was. He was good at what he did because he he stayed true to it and he stood on it. Yeah. But it didn't matter if you were an officer. It didn't matter who you were. Like if Cody Offer was there and he had opinion about what it was, nine times out of 10 he was right. And two, he made sure that everybody knew it. >> Right on. >> He's a gangster, dude. Yeah. >> Did you would you was So he was he he was like a senior guy when you showed up. >> Yeah. He's

already I think uh if he wasn't he might have been a master sergeant already. He might have been a Gunny. I don't remember if he wasn't a gun yet. He was a I'm a master sergeant. He was a master sergeant right after that. >> Damn. >> Yeah, but it was him and a captain running that team and it was um Yeah, it was kind of crazy. >> What a badass about that. Yeah. >> What a badass. >> Oh, yeah. >> What was the living conditions like? >> Yeah. So, we um we were sandwiched in between.

So, there was a Marine Corps company that was up there, like a conventional force company, but they Were locked down. So, the ROE's right now is like a very It's kind of weird. It was really tricky, but they were riskadverse at this time. So, they weren't letting the Marines do pretty much anything. So, we had like a company of Marines uh north of us, but they bordered our camp. And then in between them was our camp. So, we had a MSOT um 8123. And then we had an Ansoft team with us, too. An ANASF team

of commandos with us. And then next to us, we had an Afghan National Army camp, which was kind of terrifying, man. >> Be honest with you. But I was more worried about what was on the other side of the Hesco than than the Taliban because it was just another it was probably a company of Afghan National Army and they were always squirly >> always just doing weird stuff and it was just you know and plus with all the green on blue type stuff happening you know we had so many Mars guys die >> from their

partner nation forces turning on them it was there was high anxiety man there was high anxiety like you just had to keep your head on a swivel and you knew that no matter what it wasn't safe. >> Yeah. Yeah. So what was the what was the what was the op tempo? >> Yeah, the op tempo was a little bit slower, right? Because you know the CJ Sodaf and the sodaf was like really risk adverse at this time. I think there was kind of um thoughts that we're going to start demilling and pulling out and the

idea of like stacking a bunch of you know casualties probably wasn't high on their priority list but luckily for us the Taliban didn't care what the soda thought right. So, you know, a lot of times we were prepping for ops and then for whatever reason they would they would try to decline it. So, we'd have To get very creative on how we were able to accomplish the mission, which was cool for me to get to see, you know, kind of working some of the special activity stuff. It it started opening up a whole another realm

of how to get get the job done um that I wasn't aware of, which actually served me greater as I moved for forward in my experience. >> Find another way. >> Oh, yeah. And we did. Yep. And I was very impressed about how well it worked. Yeah. Let's talk about your very first real world operation. What was it? >> Yeah. So, a lot of >> in Afghanistan. >> Yeah. A lot of what we're doing was a lot of key leader engagement stuff, right? So, if it wasn't the sodiff kind of pull pulling the brakes on

us, it was it was just the locals not doing what we asked them to do. So, we had uh we had a a town next to us called Machel and it was like a little hot town and that's Where the mortar teams were coming from. So, our main goal that deployment was to push in there and kind of rid that area of Taliban activity. And, uh, one of our first missions was to push in there and kind of do a probing mission. Um, luckily for me, I was on overwatch this mission, but as we started

pushing in, we realized one, there's IEDs everywhere, and two, they were ready. So, just like we had been watching them for the first is probably about a month, Month and a half before we start uh kind of doing our own thing, they're watching us very quickly as the other element starts bounding in, they start taking RPGs, right? And we start realizing that if we push in any further, it's going to be problematic. And then as we're reporting up, they're pretty much calling us, telling us to stop. And we kind of had to back off of

that, right? So, that was the first time we started pushing in, started noticing that things Were real, right? Started taking fire and then taking RPG blast, things like that. you were or your your partner? >> Our team was >> your team was. >> Yep. So, we're partnered up. We had a we had a uh a team of ANASF that were um poshune as well. Right. So, poshun are are real heavy in the Helman River Valley, which became a challenge for us as well. Realizing that we had a partner nation force that had no intentions of

Killing their people at all, right? Which became very tricky, right? We would try to get them to kind of push forward and do things and they just wouldn't do it. They're very rebellious. Pretty much, you know, putting their foot down and they were going to do what they wanted to do and they wouldn't listen at all, which started kind of raising the hair on the back of our necks. We're like, "This isn't good, right?" No kidding. >> It's a very bad situation and it just ended up getting so bad that we ended up kicking them

off of our camp. >> Holy [ __ ] Okay, so right off the bat, you're getting real world ops. You're getting lit up by machine gun fire and RPGs. You can't get to them. Your partner force isn't [ __ ] doing what you're wanting them to do. You're worried about them turning on you. >> And there's a not a great dynamic. >> Yeah. >> Here. >> Yeah. It got tricky and it got complex, right? And each time every time we'd leave the wire, we'd come back and we'd have to circle up cuz they started getting

sketchier and sketchier, man. They started getting sketchier and sketchier. We started arguing with them on ops and stuff cuz they wouldn't do what we're asking them to do. They would shoot people that didn't need to be Shot. Essentially, there was a situation within our area where they ended up shooting a disabled person. And that ended up being kind of the line in the sand where we're like, "Hey, dude. You guys are you're out of control. You don't listen." We start rogering up to their Kandak and letting them know like, "Hey, you got to get these

guys off our camp." And then next thing I know, Sean, they start carrying their guns to the chow. They the posture changed on the Camp to the point where we're like, "They're going tomorrow, right? Don't let them know, but we we're like, we're sending a bird in and they're they're getting off our camp tomorrow because it just got so sketchy. >> Holy [ __ ] How fast did this happened? >> This was in probably the first two months we were there. >> Was there any I mean, was there any talk about this during the turnover?

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

when you called in a bird, did they >> for the uh ANASF? Yeah, they did. Yeah. Thankfully, they took they took it seriously. Yep. And and very quickly they're out the next day. >> So hold on. So what the what happens to the mission when the partner force is gone. >> Yeah. You got to wait. Yep. You got to wait. Everything's put on hold because Especially the rules at this time is that you weren't doing any solo ops. >> Mhm. >> Right. You had to do everything by with and through technically. And without that component

or that, you know, capability, yeah, all ops are off outside of key leader engagements. The basics that you have to do in and out. But yeah, any uh operational type things are going to be stopped until you get another partner nation force. >> And they just left. >> Oh yeah, >> they wanted to leave. >> Oh yeah. >> Yeah, it was going to be problematic. >> Well, I think we've established that. >> Oh, yeah. Uh I mean, how long are your guys' deployments? >> 6 months usually. >> Six. And this happens right at the very

beginning. >> Yeah. >> I mean, h how many how many people are in this partner force? >> Yeah. So it's probably it's probably around like 15 to 20 people at least. Maybe a little >> that's actually a lot smaller. I thought we were talking hundreds to be honest. >> No, no, no. Not this. On the other side of the fence there was there was hundreds, right? But for our organic team, it was like a it mirrors a NIMOT. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Yeah. I was actually I don't know if I should share

this story, but we're here, right? But I was in charge of uh the interpreters. So, I was kind of the TP manager >> and um you know, I I wasn't too sure right now like things got really bad where people like pretty much drawing down guns on each other um between us and the ANASF and they told me they Said, "Steve, you got to vet the interpreters." And I was like, "Okay." Cuz they live on our camp, too. So, I circled them up and I was like, "This is this is kind of crazy." Um, but

I sat him down and I was like, "Hey, I need to know that you're not on their side." And they're like, "No, sir. We're not. We're not. We're not on their side." I was like, "Well, I really need to trust you and I don't trust you, right? Because you guys just let this get weird, right? You knew that these guys, you hear what they're talking about and you didn't come to us, right? And I can't say that I trust you, right? And I don't trust pe like we don't have any room for no trust on

this camp." >> Yeah. They're the only in between. They're the only communication in between the two units. And if they didn't articulate, they they let the situation develop to that point. >> Oh, yeah. They knew. And they're going There and they're smoking hash with them every night. They're they're good old buddies, right? >> So, what did that do to operations then for the rest of the deployment? >> Yeah. So, we got another team. Yep. So, very quickly, um they knew there's no point in us being up there. And they got us a team pretty quick.

The new team that we got were Tajix. So, they're from Tajjikhstan. So, they had like Mongolian blood in them. And these guys wanted war And the Tajix at the time hated the postunes. So they were happy to be in the helman and they were ready. They had no qualms about whooping it on. So then from there it became us like like things are starting to get out of control in a better way. Oh yeah. So now we're like like having to pull the reinss back on them cuz we we try to write something up to

go outside the wire and the soda's like no. And they're like we're going and they would go and we're like oh [ __ ] were like go play and they dude they started whooping it on. They were there within a week they were already over and watch whooping it on like we had to sit back on that one and watch cuz the sodaf wasn't going to let us push with them but like it started shaping things in a big way and they'd come back and they were happy as can be. Yep. And the whole game

started changing. Right. >> Let's talk about the first operation That you went on with the new with the new force that got kinetic. >> Yeah. Well, that was going to be back pushing back into Macha Kill, right? So, pushing back into that region where last time we kind of got stopped short with RPGs and things like that. Um, we pushed up to a very similar spot to where we were before as the four line of troops, but they actually pushed in. So, as they pushed in, they start shaping the battlefield and pushing everybody else Out

to the side. They were kind of on containment on the backside and just dudes were squirting out the back trying to get back to the G Murice Bazaar and some Mindawir and all those areas and they just went in and just started death blossoming and just really whooping it on. But that was the first time when we push out with them where we realize like oh this team's different like this is going to be a different a totally different 6 months from here on out. How Did that feel for you guys? >> It was good.

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

you guys doing? How did you get strategic to get the ops? >> Yeah. Was just small things like the special activities side of the house, right? really building alliances within the community, really figuring out who is on our side, not on our side, and employing people outside of maybe our organic team to get things done. >> Nice. >> Right. There there were people out there like they were tired of it. Right. The Taliban had been uh ravaging that area for quite some time and it didn't take long for us to start finding some key players

in the area and they were willing to do some really cool stuff for us. >> I mean, what kind of key players are you talking about? Are you talking about key players within the special operations community? You're talking about key Players within the Afghan community that are that are going to allow operations to happen in their backyard. >> Yeah. Within the local nation populace. Yep. People where you wouldn't we would do little things like uh like a humanitarian aid thing >> where we'd go and hand out backpacks. >> Mhm. >> Right. There was a little

area called the Garmob curb that was very very dangerous. Right. And it was just kind Of a uh a choke point in in in the road heading south towards Helman. And anyone that kind of got, you know, all these big trucks, supply trucks would have to do multi-turn maneuvers to get through there and they would just get lit up all the time. So we'd go down and hand out backpacks in the area, right, to just to do present patrols. We want to whoop it on. So we're just being a bit provocative as well. We're like,

"Hey, we're here handing out backpacks. Like What's up now?" Right? You want to pick on the army and the route clearance teams? Like what what you got? Right? But while we were down there, we'd start engaging with the population. And me as a corman, um, which also had some extra training, you know, the special activities training that I got to do when I was there. Um, I'd pull people aside and start talking to them. You know, they'd come up with a rash or something and I'd start interviewing Them. I'd be like, "What do you do?"

And they're like, "Well, I'm the secretary for the the district governor." It's like, "Oh, that's interesting." Right? It's like, "I'm more than happy to give you whatever you need." But we would start finding people that way, right? And within that, we'd start finding people that were, you know, sympathizers for what we were doing. They were kind of tired of it. Maybe their brother-in-law or somebody rolled over An IED and they were pissed off about it. And we'd start finding people that were they were hungry and they wanted to help. So even though we couldn't be

as kinetically as we wanted to be at times, we maximized that time to find sympathizers and start kind of working them towards getting some of the stuff done that we needed from them. >> So you guys are probably also gathering quite a bit of intelligence through this, too. >> Yeah. that that actually became a big shift. So, as as like the leadership in the region started to tighten down things for us, um we just shifted focus towards more of an intelligence type side of the house. >> Right on, man. >> Yep. >> How hairy did

it get on this deployment? >> Yeah, it I mean, honestly, I felt fine the majority of the time. Like the scariest parts I had was just, you know, Having to deal with a part partner nation force, but I never really felt too scared, right? A lot of the work that we were doing was at distance, >> right? So, I never really felt like, you know, I wasn't, you know, engaging people 5t away or anything like that. It felt pretty predictable and pretty controllable for most of the time. >> What was it like coming home from

that deployment? Um, >> you're married now. Yeah. With a with a with a kid. >> Yeah. So, I'm married with a kid and um I came back and I was, you know, I was um I was different, man. I was different. >> What changed you? >> I think it was just it was I think it was the high stress to be honest with you. You know, I say it kind of like it was fine, but day in and day out, I think that was the biggest part was the Stress. It was the just the stress

and not being able to sleep well at night, right? Just dealing with the bureaucracy, right? Added another level of stress where it's like, we know exactly what we need to do and if you just let us do it, things will work. But then they're they're just making, you know, how it is, they're making policies from higher that don't make sense with the ground force and it just puts a lot of pressure on you. And um I think just Kind of coming back from that, that's where like the insomnia stuff started to happen, you know, having

the warrior dreams that we like to say, right? And things like that. And then um that's when I think I probably just started hitting the bottle more than I ever had at that point. >> Did you take any losses on this deployment? >> Yeah, we did not. So our team did not. >> So this is kind of if Let me if if you Don't mind what I'm receiving from you. >> Good deployment, not terribly kinetic. Yep. >> Most of the kinetic stuff was with the partner force. A lot of paranoia from the previous partner force.

>> Uh so you got to see some [ __ ] but not a not a whole lot. >> Yeah. >> And just enough to give you a taste. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Just enough to kind of see what it is. I felt like I checked the box in a lot of ways. It was good enough. >> You It's always hard to kind of ride the coattails of >> the Fallujah guys and all this stuff, but you know, I felt like I was there. >> Yeah. We got to whoop it on a few good times

and you know I got to do some uh got to check the medical box too. I got to do a kri. >> You did? Okay. So you did you were in Combat? You were in combat or you were >> Yeah, for sure. >> Yeah. So one of the trips down to the Garmov curb that I was telling you about um we received some fire and a guy ended up getting shot in the head on one of the partner nation force guys. So we had to evacuate him off that the X essentially there. We bring them

back up to our site where we had a battalion aid station and I went in there and um we had to patch them up so we could get a Bird in and in that I got to do a crycoyroidtomy on them which for this sounds kind of morbid and crazy but for a medic that's like hard to come by, right? >> You guys are always [ __ ] up. >> Yeah right now. >> Well, it's like yeah like you come from 18 Delta and you learn all these things and it's like you kind of want

to do them, right? So I was I was very Fortunate, right? He's he's uh had an upunded airway and he was an obstructed airway and he was uh not able to breathe. So I was able to do a cri work that whole process with him and get him evacuated. Then we had some other casualties as well. And I think probably to answer your question of what you just asked, the parts that changed me were these things, right? Wasn't the kinetic stuff, it was the medical stuff. >> Okay. >> You know, we were um doing a

mission one day where we're pushing down to the district governor. We're kind of had our guns facing Machel, that area. And I see these guys out there digging >> and we already know what that means, right? They're digging an IED. They're putting it on the route going in and um you know with anticipation that we're going to move from this this meat site to push in. And I see it and I end up pulling out my binoculars and I'm on the Roof with a guy. Actually on this deployment too I carried a Mark 48. So

I carried the Mark 48 machine gun in a med bag which is a little non-conventional but um I'm up on the roof and I see him and um actually Jake was there too from singing. And I look through and I see these guys digging and I realize it's some kids. So I'm like, "All right, we're not going to engage these kids. We're just not going to go that direction. If we do, we're just not Going to go right there where I see it." So just marked it. All right, cool. That's where the idea is. But

after the meeting, we said, "No, we're going to head back to camp." So we end up pushing back from that meat site back to the camp and it's probably like probably 45 minutes to an hour later, we hear an explosion. So I'm actually working out and I hear this explosion and I'm like, "Huh, that's interesting." And next thing I know, we start getting calls, Right? A few minutes later after that, they bring that kid. So what happened was the Taliban said, "Okay, they didn't go that direction. Go get our ID now." So he sent that

same kid, it was like a 10-year-old and maybe like a seven-year-old back out there to dig up the ID. And when they did, they turned the older kid to spaghetti sauce. And the other kid that was next to him, his little brother took a lot of lot of shrapnel, was injured. So they end up Bringing both of them to us once in a wheelbarrow, and the other one's still alive. So, we end up getting to take the kid in. So, as we take the kid in, we start patching him up. Um, he had some sucking

chest wounds and things like that. Me and Chris, my a slasher just rocking and rolling on it, business as usual. And but the kid's suffering pretty badly. So, this was actually the first time I got to use ketamine as an anesthetic to start working with him and Um give him the ketamine, start patching him up. He's really mangled and um he starts kind of snoring. He's like in in a decent spot. So, I was like, "Wow, that worked better than I imagined, right? My first time pushing ketamine." But then what? Next thing I know, I

hear my team captain talking to the dad, right? And the dad was yelling at us, demanding money from us, right? Demanding money that we pay him because his son got injured. And I remember I Lost it, Sean. I lost it. I walked away from his son. I went out there and grabbed the dude and signed him. I was like, "This is your fault. Like, you did this to him." Right? Cuz a little bit of me was like, "Here's these adults put another kid got hurt cuz it's some piece of crap adult, right? and and you

want to talk about money and you that's what you're thinking. You want to try and get money off of this, right? So, I end up screaming at this guy. The team Captain's like grabbing me and I'm like, "Get him out of here. Get your son and get out of here." >> Right? We ended up calling in a bird for the kid. It wasn't his fault, but that's like a little bit of that, dude. >> Where just started to kill me a little bit inside. Started to get a little bit numb about what we were doing

and just the consequences of war to be honest with you where I was like, "Dude, what are we doing here?" Like, this is crazy. >> Yeah. >> What was it that made you think, what are we doing here? just seeing the civilian impact, >> right? That would become a theme as I made, you know, more trips back to Afghanistan. It's like just it was hard to ignore that part, right? It's hard to ignore the just seeing the suffering, man. Seeing the little kids, seeing the the, you know, tough living conditions. And I'm not saying they're

better now That we're gone, but I knew it was hard for me to not acknowledge that I was participating in something that was hurting a lot of people. No matter how good we tried to spin it, there was a lot of people that suffered because of it. >> Yeah, I'm with you. I'm with you. >> Did you have to take any life on that deployment? >> Yeah, I was uh it wasn't I I didn't until we started moving south. So, I was I was in the lucky, but I would call it unlucky group that my

element seemed to be the the the white cloud and the other element was the dark cloud. So, everywhere they went, they started, you know, they always drew fire and I always happened to just be the guy doing overwatch or whatever it may be for the majority of it. But as we were pushing south, so we started this initiative at the end where they said, "You know what? We're actually just going to start Demilling the Helman River Valley and we were at the very north part. So our job was to start demilling the site, right? Getting

accountability of everything and start tearing things down and we were going to turn it over to the Afghans." So as part of that process, we had to kind of push our way down. We were like this providing the security bubble as we demile down and we'd hit each VSSP site. They'd email their stuff and they'd hop in. We just started this slow multi-day Caravan through the Helman River Valley hitting all these different sides picking them up and as we started reaching heading down south we got past that Garmob curb down and upper singing um they

started noticing they started rogering up letting the Taliban know we were on the move this is we were growing a bigger caravan by the day so it was like a great target for them and along that journey yeah we started um getting ambushed and that's when I first got to You know engage some guys and take them out. Do you want to describe that? Yeah. Um I mean it's it's not the craziest sexy stuff, right? But it was just, you know, >> it's the first one. >> Yeah. And we're kind of pushing through and you

know the IED threats huge. So that's our biggest fear is that we're trying to move through and um we're doing at a snail's pace cuz none of that stuff moves fast as you know and it's Like you're kind of just sitting and waiting and everywhere you looks like potential boogeymen, right? You're in Indian country and it's like everyone's around you and we're just kind of creeping through and I remember we're kind of sitting there. I'm trying to stay stay awake, right? And I'm on the uh the Mark1 19, which is a grenade launcher. And um

I'm kind of sitting there and next thing I know, the the vehicle in front of us, which was Actually an ANA vehicle, starts getting lit up. And at first I was a little bit confused about what's going on. I'm like, are they test firing their guns? Like why would they test fire guns right here in the city, right? It's like actually a builtup area. And then I realized I'm like, oh, that's incoming. That's not outgoing. So I swivel the Mark uh 19 off to the side and I see the guys there, right? They're probably about

20 yards away. and they're aiming Their guns at us now. They have rockets and I just light them up with a Mark1 19 and just immediately they were just uh neutralized I would say say and um it was that was kind of the end of that right there. >> How did that feel? >> Um I mean exciting. Yeah, to be honest with you, it was it was exciting. Accomplished. >> Yeah, as as morbid as it sounds. Yeah, It did. It's like okay. Like I got I checked that box and um then it was back to

business. We didn't even stick around for probably even a minute after that. Just like the wheels start moving, vehicles are still up and running. A lot of the bulletproof glass and stuff was shattered and but we just worked around it and it was like we just kept pushing. Right. >> Yeah. >> Yep. We didn't know if that there was Going to be many more after that or or none. So we just kept uh stayed locked in and kept pushing south. >> Right on, man. >> Yeah. >> Was the Kri your first call as a medic?

No, it wasn't. But it was the first real like Yeah. real gunshot wound victim in country. Yeah. There's all smaller things like, you know, every pe everyone are uh everyone's always acting weird, falling downstairs. It's like just the Basic life on a camp with a team. Every time you turn around, someone kicked a stuck their hand in a a fan and got their finger cut or whatever, you know. So, we stayed pretty busy with the routine day in and day out stuff. >> Then also the the grunts would call us up. So whenever they'd have

casualties, they they hit up me and Chris and we'd go up there and help them out. And then the ANA were always pulling in casualties, too. So any reps I could Get, I tried to stay busy with that stuff. >> Damn. >> Yeah. >> How did the How I mean, for the first big one, for the first combat casualty, I mean, how do you >> What was the pressure like on you? >> It was business, man. It was business. It was just fall into every bit of the training, man. I'm telling you, 18 Delta does

such a good job. such a good job That it was almost like I was on autopilot, right? The things that we needed to do. And I'm telling you, I can't say enough great things about Chris. Like my A/Med medic was it probably the best medic I've ever worked with. I was I was a HM1 by then. I was at E6 and he was like a E5. But dude, I leaned heavy on him and he was he was locked in, dude. Very very gifted in this space. >> Right on. >> Yep. So I never felt like

he was we could have done anything. We could have done total IV anesthesia and chopped someone's leg off. I mean, do you do you did you feel that, you know, after your after your your first um your first call as a medic in combat, your first kill in combat? I mean, did do you feel especially the medic part, I mean, cranking somebody, I mean, do do you feel that did you feel accepted? Did you feel that you had proven yourself you Belong there? That does that make any sense? >> Yeah, it does. Yeah. And and

I did. I did. Um, and I knew how hard it's hard to come by, right? And it's even harder these days, right? So, I felt grateful for that. So, I say it sounds a little bit morbid, but I was, man, I did I did feel accomplished. I was grateful for the opportunities to actually do what I went to school for. >> I think that's something that maybe People that haven't joined the military, special operations, might not understand is that there is a lot of that if you you can be in for 20 years and never

get to go to the show, >> right? And I think I know some of my friends that just had bad timing. It's like it it's some stuff to overcome. >> Mhm. Yeah. Were you ever in country with your brother at the same time? >> No, I wasn't. Yeah. He ended up doing that one deployment in 2008 where he got Blown up really bad and um because of that they ended up med discharging him from the Marine Corps. >> Okay. >> Yeah. When I was at 18 Delta actually, I started getting the phone calls from Mitch

where he would call me and he was like, "Hey dude, I'm forgetting everything. I'm getting nosebleleeds non-stop and the Marine Corps stuck me in the um in the post office. So, they're calling me a turd. They're Telling me I suck and they don't know what to do with me and they're they're sticking me in the post office and I'm losing my mind cuz I don't know what's wrong with me and they don't care and they're telling me I suck. And I remember talking to him. I was actually telling my buddy Leo and one of the

18 Delta instructors, the old CAG guy, old salty CAD guy. He's like, "Hey, hey, come here." I was like, "Yes, sir." He's like, "You get that boy some help." He's Like, "Cuz my son was a ranger and he experienced everything I just told I heard you say." And he ended up killing himself. He's like, "So you get that boy some help." I was like, "Yes, sir." So then I started kind of coaching Mitch through that in between. I was like, "Hey, this is what you got to do. Do you have a cool doc? Like who's

your cool doc?" He's like, "So and so." I'm like, "Go meet up with him. This is what you need to tell him, right? You need to Start documenting this stuff, Mitch. It's not going to get better for you because this is 2008." Like they knew I like they were starting to understand TBI, but they didn't know what to do about it. and Marine Corps does what they do and they just ostracized him instead of like trying to help him. So I walked him through that med board process and he ended up getting med retired and

um you know kind of becoming a civilian after that. >> [ __ ] Yeah. >> How did you meet your wife? >> Yeah. The quintessential uh young military story, man. I uh I met >> Tinder. >> No, no, there was no Tinder back then. Well, better than Tinder core school. >> Right on. >> Yeah. very similar to Tinder, but it was core school. Yeah, dude. We were in a class. We were in class together and I remember She's little Latina girl and I was a I was a trailer park kid from Alabama and I was

like, I'm interested about these Latina things. What's what's going on here? We don't have too many of you where I come from. >> Yeah, this is an interesting creature. >> Oh, yeah. Yep. She would always harass me because everyone else is kind of studying and stuff and I'm like reading maybe I was reading Rogue Warrior by Dick Marso and like just not paying Attention and she would give me hell about it. She's like, "Are you going to study or like what are you going to do?" I'm like and then next thing I know she start

giving me gifts like she's like here's a banana you look hungry. I'm like oh thanks. So she's like feed me and she would even go take the test before us before me and come back and start highlighting things in my book and I was like >> no [ __ ] >> Yeah, man. So >> nice. >> Yep. We didn't even really start dating then in course school. Well, we we became we grow fond of each other. We'd find reasons to go to the uh the PX or whatever, go grocery shopping or whatever it may be.

And like we just started to build a little bit of a relationship and she ended up becoming she was a dental tech and um she got stationed out in San Diego and then she Hit me up. I was out of First Recon and then it was it was all she wrote from there. I think we were married 6 months after that, man. >> Oh [ __ ] >> Yeah. We started looking at the money. >> We're making nothing. You know how it is. Like you're not making anything. You want to live off base? >> Yep.

>> Um, >> that's cool, man. Yeah. >> Are you still married? >> 18 years, man. >> Congratulations. >> My best friend, the love of my life, dude. I I owe my life to her. Yeah. >> What is How many kids do you have? >> We have two kids now. Yeah. >> Two kids. >> Yeah. >> What's the secret to a successful marriage, >> dude? Just not quitting. It's like Anything hard. If you just don't quit, you can make it, right? No matter what it is. She's had to endure a lot with me, but she just

won't quit. Dude, she's first generation Mexican. hard as they come, so loyal, and um just really has a capacity to endure. And you know, I think if you just don't quit, you can work through it if you want to, right? No matter what it is. >> Good for you, man. >> Yeah, good for you. Thanks for sharing That. >> So, you said when you got home from your first deployment, that's kind of when the drinking started. Uh sounds like some PTSD stuff was happening. What What was going on specifically? >> Yeah, man. And I just

started to kind of like lose myself in that process, right? Where I started to like um it it started to become my identity. Like this what I'm doing wasn't just a job. It wasn't just me like trying to like show that I'm good enough, but I'd already done it and now it's just like it almost started to consume me a little bit, man. To be honest with you, started to lose my mind in it. And um just becoming less present at home, more numb. just really started to realize that I was more comfortable with my

team and like doing workups and going on deployment than I was at home and I really started to just stop putting a lot of effort into that. >> How old your son at this time? >> Yeah, he's uh probably at Mars he was probably three years old. >> Yeah. >> Even I started to notice that, man. I'd come home and he'd be like, "Why is daddy here again?" And I'm like, "Whoa, little homie." And then I hear him saying stuff to my mom, my wife, he's like, "When's dad going to leave?" Because you know it's

better when it's just us. >> You heard that? >> Yeah, I heard that. And I would just get angry at back then. I would get angry. I'm like, "Dude, what the hell?" I'm like, "What are you telling him?" She's like, "He just misses you." She's like, "We were at a wishing well the other day and he threw a a coin in and he wished that you didn't have to deploy anymore, right? That you could be home." She's like, "This is taking a toll on him, Steve." And it wasn't just like the deployments. It was just

the dad that he Had to deal with, man. I was just like numb. Number man, number than ever. colder than ever and I just like leaned in to the that Marine Corps way of life. Like that was easier for me and the anger was there and it was just like >> Yeah, it was but it was tough on everybody around me, I'm sure. >> Damn, Steve. >> Yeah. >> Were you having thoughts about your relationship with your own dad when this Is happening? >> Yeah, man. >> Simultaneously. >> Yeah, dude. Cuz deep down inside I

was like, I don't even know how to be a dad, dude. I never had a dad. The only guys that ever tried to play that role just beat me. And it's like deep down inside that was the greatest insecurity. I had insecurity about being an operator. But my greatest insecurity is like, how am I going to be a dad? How am I going to Show up for this little boy? Knowing that I was broken, knowing that I had a skeleton of closets that was falling out by the day. And that was almost more overwhelming than

anything was that fear that I was going to mess him up too. And that I was turning into my dad. >> Damn, man. >> Yeah, dude. >> And I would imagine it just gets worse after each deployment. Yeah, just each time was coming back a shell of myself. >> Were you and the wife good at the time? >> No, man. No. >> After after the second deployment to Afghanistan? >> Yeah. No, she's like, "We're having issues, dude. We're having issues, right? I'm just >> Is she still in?" >> No, she got out right after my

son. So, she didn't I don't think she knew what she was signing up for. In the Navy, they're like, "You have to do watch." She's like, "What?" Like, "You have to do watch." It's like a basic function. And she's like, "I didn't sign up to do watch." like I don't get to just go home every day. So that was one of the first things, dude. And then second was, you know, she'd have to get up at 4 in the morning and bring my son to the on base care and she'd have to drop this baby

off at the daycare with strangers to go in and do her job cleaning teeth for the recruits. And she's like, "Steve, I'm not going to do this, right? Like, I'm not leaving my baby no more." She's like, "We'll figure it out." It's like all the eggs are in your basket, but I'm going to raise our kid. Especially if you're going to be deploying the way you are, like not letting some strangers on base. >> Yeah. >> You know, take care of our son while I'm doing standing in a square for no reason. >> It's a

good mom. >> Yeah. Yeah. She's a good woman. >> We're second deployment. >> Yeah. Second deployment. So, I come back from there and I end up going to a freef fall team, right? which I think probably wouldn't have been the case, but I almost died in a freef fall jump. Yeah. So, I I come from back from that deployment and um we had a scheduled jump on base and it was from a Huey and I was like, "Oh, I never jumped out of a Huey." I'm like, "Let's go." Yeah, I want it. So, I jumped

on that manifest and I remember my buddy was old team chief was the uh uh jump master. So, I asked him, I was like, "Hey, Cass," I'm like, "How do how can we exit this bird?" He's like, "Exit smartly, Steve." He's like, "I'm not going to." I was like, "All right, roger that, guys. You don't say to say nothing else." I was like, he's like, "Just exit smartly." I was like, "Okay." So, in my head, I'm Like, "I'm doing 10 front flips out of this, Huey." Yep. So, we were uh we're there on Camp Pendleton

at this uh pretty iconic DZ called DZ Basilone. Um and uh we go up and we get up to the top. I was one of the last ones out. He was following me out and he slaps me on the back and I jump out and I do my flips. And then as I'm flying down, oh, it's probably not too high. You know, it's probably less than 10 grand. There's not a lot of freef fall time, Right? It's like the hop and pop. Essentially, as I go into my opening sequence, Sean, I go to throw cuz

we do handed pilot shoot with a Marine Corps rig. I go to throw it out and I feel something hit me on the back. So, as I throw out the pilot shoot, something hits me on the back and I go into a sideways spin. As I kind of get my bearing, I look up and I see that my parachute won't snive. So, it's just like a squid at the top and the slider Won't come down. And I see something's like wrapped around the right set of main risers, which I thought was the pilot shoot. So

instead of cutting away, I start climbing the risers. So I'm seeing the ground rushes is coming. I'm climbing these risers and I'm shaking on it with all my life. I'm like like trying to get it to come loose. And finally on my last few tugs, the slider slides down and it pops and I got two turns before I smash into the side of The peak. So there's a pretty high peak there, the Margarita Peak, and I'm on the backside, thank God, and I just kind of burn in, come sliding down this thing. And as I

finally come to a stop, one, I'm like shaking. I'm like, "Oh, that was a rush, right?" And two, as I start pulling in my shoot, I realize that there's a bag locked parachute there wrapped around the right set of main risers. And I was like, "Uh-oh." And right about that moment where I saw That, the DZ crew is running out like, "Don't touch anything." You know how they are. There's an investigation. Don't touch anything. Like, stop. So, they come up and I I realized what had happened. that my cypress had fired and it shot my

reserve into my deploying main and it had bag locked up in there. So if I would have cut away from my parachute, I would have died, right? Yep. So they do the investigation and I write down. So I have to write down and Me being the dummy that I am, I wrote that I did flips out of the helicopter. So they keyed in on that on my statement. They're like, "You jumped out of that helicopter and did flips?" I'm like, "Yeah, it's a Huey, bro." Like who wouldn't, you know? And they're like, "Well, you're reckless

and we believe that you lost altitude awareness and that's why you had a dual deployment." I was like, "Hey, well, fair enough. Like, I did do flips, but I was watching my Altimeter and all." Like, if I was that honest about me jumping out of the bird the way I did, then you have to trust me that something weird happened. And I said, "You know what? Like, we're going to send this cypress off, but the chances that it was a cypress malfunction is almost impossible. And um you know if it if it comes back that

you you were a late pull, there's gonna be disciplinary action, right? They're gonna NJP me. It could be anything, Right? Um so we wait the time and it comes back that they uh they said one of two things happened. They said either the cypress malfunctioned or the barometric pressure settings they gave us were incorrect. So I'm standing there with my chief and I'm standing there with a paraloft. I was like which one was it guys? Like it was a cypress misfire. I like roger that. But as part of that, they're like, "You're going on a

freef fall team for remediation." So, I went on a free fall team. >> Damn, dude. >> Yeah. >> [ __ ] >> Yep. Which is actually more stressful than the combat deployment. Dude, ho jumps were just They stressed me out, man. >> I've never done one. >> I hated every minute of it. >> Damn. Damn. >> So, how long were you on the freef fall Team? >> Yeah, it was probably a year and a half there. Um, we ended up going and doing some work in New Zealand, kind of South Philippines. Went down there and

worked in in the South Philippines with a Filipino National Special Action Force, like their FBI >> kind of working. There's some uh uh Islamic terrorist groups down in Southeast Philippines that were kind of trying to help support. >> Right on. >> Yeah. >> Third deployment. Did you do the three? >> Yeah, this was four, the third. Yeah. Did >> you do another one after that? >> Yeah, the fourth one. So across after that I ended up picking up chief petty officer. So I picked up chief petty officer. I was uh moved from a team to

the company level now. So this was my first time kind of getting pulled away From the team and now I'm sitting there at the uh you know almost the executive level now and I'm sitting in meetings all day long and we're just dealing with the bureaucracy getting ready to push guys out to pay. We're doing a task force uh in Guam and this is when I started like some of the other mental health stuff started to come up, right? The first time I'm not part of the homies and they're going out and doing stuff and

I'm stuck back with the the Command element, you know, trying to manage everybody where they're at, their different sites, but it's just like that's when alcohol started becoming a big issue for me. Yep. You start not to be able to trust the people. You're used to being with your boys and now you're with, you know, a lot of officers and things like that that you can't quite trust and it just it just started to wear me out really bad. Yeah. >> Listen, with everything going on in the World right now, this is the perfect time

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are moving into precious metals. Call 855936 gold or visit shaunlikesold.com today. That's 855936 gold or shanlikes.com today. How's the family life? It's >> It's falling apart. >> It's getting worse. Still Still one or You got two now? >> Two kids? Yeah. No, still one kid at this point. >> Yeah. I mean, Sean, I was begging her to divorce me, man. I was begging her. I was I just burned it at both ends so hard. >> All right, let's let's let's dive into the family life then. So, you got >> you got three deployments. >> One's

rough. One sounds really rough >> in Afghanistan. free to foam. So, what's What is going on at home? Like, just describe the home life. Yeah. It's it's me showing up to a house that I just felt like I didn't even belong in, right? Into a house that I didn't even feel like I was welcome in, which was my stuff cuz it wasn't true, right? It's like my wife ran a beautiful household. She has a amazing family and all they did was shower me with love, but I resisted every bit of it. Right? The more they

leaned in on me and loved on Me, the more I hated it, right? the more I couldn't deal with it, right? I'm just becoming even more just distant from her and numb, right? Where we're not talking about anything outside of like the things we need to do. My son was in baseball, so it's like everything revolved around te-ball and things like that, but inside I was dead, man. Inside I was dead. Every night I'm drinking to go to bed. >> How much? >> At least six beers. Like at least, if not more, right? But it's

like to drink six in a night was nothing, right? That was an easy day. >> You know, and that started to create issues too. you know, VV be like, "Hey, dude, like no one drinks six Cokes. Would you drink six Cokes?" I'm like, "No." She's like, "Why would you drink six IPAs?" And I'm like, "Just leave me alone, right?" And it's all those little things like that. It's like, she's Absolutely right. She's like that I would wake up, you know, I'd be I'd be aggressive in my sleep, too. I'd have dreams and next you know,

I'm grabbing on her, not intentionally. She I'm waking up to her terrified, screaming, and she's like, "What's wrong with you?" And I just I didn't know. I'm just like, "I don't know." It wasn't one particular thing. It was just like my body was just worn out. And then even just the things like birthday parties, dude, I'd go to It and I'd feel really sad cuz I couldn't feel happy. I'd see my son do something I'm supposed to be proud, but I feel dead inside. And it just started to weigh on me. I started to isolate.

I didn't do anything outside of just work. Didn't really have any real friends outside of work. And I was just dying inside, man. And I wanted it to end. I didn't want my life to end, but like I felt like if if my wife would just divorce me, then they could go live a Happy life. Like I truly believe they would have been better off without me. >> Did you articulate that? >> Yeah. I would beg her. I tried to paint the picture. She's like, "No, I'm going to love you. We're going to figure it

out. She wouldn't give up, dude. I beg her." Yeah. I gave her every excuse in the world and she just would not just would not stop loving me. >> How long were you trying to convince her to divorce you? >> Probably over half the time that we were married there. Right. It's like years >> years. >> Yeah. Years of me just trying to paint this picture of why I'm not why she's not happy with me. And she was so confused, man. She like, "Why are you doing this?" And I didn't even know why. A little

bit of me felt like maybe I would be happier on my own, right? But then there's my dad's stuff coming up. It's like, "Oh, Steve, remember this? Your dad probably felt the same way here, right? And I beat myself up for that as well." >> [ __ ] man. Yeah. Why did you leave the Marine Corps? Why'd you get out? You hate being home. >> Yeah. >> Well, I had a bad >> being with the guys. You're pissed off cuz you can't [ __ ] be with them anymore cuz you it advanced. >> Yeah. So,

as I went into that last deployment, like the majority of my friends um were moving up and on. So, a lot of them went to Dam Neck and um Dam Neck at the time was taking on a lot of Sarkcs as their as their primary medics for their teams. The PJs that held that billet for a long time and now we had a few of the the crushers from our community go over there and like, "Hey, we got Navy component guys. Like, let's start using them, too." >> Oh [ __ ] I did not realize

that. >> Oh yeah. So, they started pulling over some of the hitters for Sarks. And then next thing you know, there's a mass exodus was if you were in that group and you're in that peer group, like you were going to damn neck. So, you know, I told my wife, you know, the way that I mitigated our issues without taking responsibility, because I never did between me and my wife was I blamed the military. I would just blame the Marine Corps. I'd blame that and just it that became my scapegoat that it was it was

work and I hated it and I have to do it and it's it's whatever. It was kind of a weak position, but that's what I did. But I finally came to her and I said, "Hey, I want to go to Damn Neck. That's where all my homies are. My best man's over there. Everything's there. It's like I'm going to go there and if I don't make it, then I'm getting out." She's like, "Okay." So, I end up going To uh >> Damn Neck, for everybody that's listening, is is Seal Team Six. >> Yeah. Yep. And

I was applying for a direct support medic role, right? Not as an operator, just to be clear. So, I end up going there um to selection for that cuz they have their own selection process. And Sean, I ended up failing the uh psych. Crushed it physically, did everything I needed to do. All my homies are there and I end up failing psych, Right? And that one kind of hit me pretty heavy. I was like, "Dang, man. It's like, well, and there's no recourse on that one, right? If you fell psych, it's not like you get

to if you run slow, you run slow, right? You can run faster, right? If you mess something up on a medical call, like you can you can do better next time. But if you fell psych, they don't tolerate that, right? So, that was like kind of the first little glimpse behind the curtain there. I was like, "Oh, this stuff's bubbling out." And it just cost me probably the opportunity of my lifetime here. But in it a little bit, I was relieved because finally I was like, "It's over." You were relieved? >> Yeah, I was relieved,

too. I was like, "Now I can quit. I can stop trying to hold all this stuff up. I can stop this facade and I can just quit." And also, I believe that the military is the reason for all my problems. So, I was like, "Now I get to leave and everything's going to get better." As a civilian, everything's going to be magically better. >> It is funny how you think that. >> Yeah. >> I thought that, too. >> Yep. >> What did you do as a civilian? Did you have any any plan at all? >>

Yeah. So, um, at 18 Delta, they make relationships With a lot of different schools, right? And what they encourage you to do is to start working on your education. So, one of the schools they have an agreement with is George Washington University. So, they'll honor all the work you did at 18 Delta and actually let it go towards a bachelor's degree. So, on that last deployment, I signed up. Actually, Chris, the prior medic, was like, "Steve, let's let's go to school." And I'm like, "Okay, if you do it, I'll do It." And um so we

signed up for school and we started chipping away at that bachelor's degree. So as I transitioned out, I was thinking I was like, "Dude, I'm going to go into the medical world. Like this is what I do. I know it. I love it. And this should be an easy transition." So I set my eyes on wanting to be a trauma surgeon, right? So I was like, I remember being so proud about it, telling everybody, and I just I couldn't tell enough people. I'm telling Random people at the store, right? I was so proud of this

new idea. And then I started looking at it, dude. And I was like, "Oh my god, there's no way. It's going to take me like 10 years. This is insanity. It was horrible. >> So, I start chipping away at that bachelor degree and I'm sitting in a library all day long and needless to say, I hadn't resolved any of my personal stuff. Hadn't taken care of myself a single bit. And um it started Bubbling over. Starting to have a lot of anxiety. I remember I had my first anx panic attack ever. Never had anything like

this. At >> say again, >> what happened there? Where were you going? I was actually at home and I remember me and me and Vivie were going through a tough time, right? Me and my wife were going through a tough time and um I I I remember I was sitting there and I was typing on a computer trying to Do my work and I couldn't read anymore. Like the words didn't make sense, right? And then I remember I couldn't use my hands and I'm trying to talk and nothing's making sense and my heart's beating so

hard I feel like I'm dying and I thought that my I thought my wife poisoned me actually. Somehow I get the phone on and I call her even though I can't read it. And I tell her I was like, "I know that you poisoned me and I'm dying. Like, you need to call 911." She's like, "What are you talking about, dude?" She's like, "Oh my god, Steve." >> Holy [ __ ] >> Just lost his mind. She's a She's a therapist at this point, right? She became a therapist and she comes back and she's like,

"I think you're having a panic attack." And I'm like, "Shut up. No, I'm not." Like, "I don't have panic attacks. What are you talking about?" And they take me to the hospital and sure as [ __ ] as soon as I get in that Waiting room, everything starts going away. And I remembered some of those calls I would go on a rotations where it's like like, "Oh man, I went in there, they did the cardiogram, they did everything to test me and they're like, "Hey dude, I think it was anxiety. Do you have anxiety?" And

I'm like, "No, man. I don't have anxiety." Like, "Okay." So that was like the first time when I had that panic attack, started realizing things were kind of bubbling Over there. Yep. But I'm still plugging away at school, right? still trying to figure this out, just chipping away at it. The online way of doing stuff is really difficult. You know, I was never the best student when it came to discipline and things like that. So, I was just chipping away at it. Knew that's what I needed to do, but started realizing that maybe the surgeon

route's not going to be tinnable, right? That I need to start working at things and kind of set my sights on being a PA. But as I'm going through this process, Sean, like I said, I haven't repaired anything at my house. Things were a little bit better now that I was out and I was ever present. um but still have an anger outburst throwing bowls of seal uh salad across the room just acting really uncharacteristic and just unstable and um I got an opportunity where one of my good buddies went to the GRS program and

He hit me up one of these days I'm at the library and I just feel like I'm going to lose my mind and he's like what how you doing bro that's my boy Jesse and I was like dude I'm not not okay dude like I'm I'm holding it together but I'm not okay like I don't know what's going on with me I don't I feel lost you know I lost all my money from the military. I don't have any money. My family's like stressing and I'm like, I need to make money. He's like, okay. So,

He ends up hooking me up and telling me where to send my resume. He puts in a good word for me and I end up, you know, going to GRS. >> So, GRS for the audience, uh, this the global response staff contracting for CIA. At least I have contracting or >> Yeah, contracting. >> Okay. >> Yep. So, here I am again back in the shoot, right? Um, >> are you excited? >> I am excited. >> Are you coming back? >> Yeah, I'm excited. I am. I remember being excited and I remember like not really knowing.

I never heard of it before, right? So, I had no clue. I knew who they supported, right? I knew that a lot of my friends got out and went that direction, but I had no clue about it. I just didn't pay attention to that type of stuff. And um, yeah, I end up going to TDC and it got real real quick. Like I realized really fast like one, I should have prepared better, right? And two, um, the gravity of what I was signing up for was about to get real. >> What year is this? >>

This was 2017. >> Okay. 2017. >> Yeah. >> What' you think of the vetting? >> Very good. >> Vetting TDC. Yeah. TDC. What' you think of it? >> Very good. Very good. Yeah. Very good. We started with 13 or 14. We graduated four. >> Yep. The only first time go guys there was me and another dude from Mars. >> Right on. Nice. Yeah. Everyone else like, dude, it was crazy. Uh, I'd overcome a lot there, too. That was the first time I felt like, um, I was going to fail. Yep. That's the first time where

I was like, dude, I don't think I'm cut out For this. Like, I came grossly underprepared and I'm not in a good space. >> What were you underprepared for? >> Just the the pace of it. Just similar to 18 Delta. It's like, here's the standard, here's the time, you either shoot it or you don't, and we're not going to be angry about it, right? No one's yelling at you. It's a it's a gentleman's course and the standard's the standard and you're either going to Pick it up or you already got it or you don't. And

that was a lot of pressure. Whereas everywhere in the military outside of those first two years like I knew people there. If I went to a school I had a homeboy there, right? It's like there was no confusion about what the standards were. It was like I I knew enough people that it was like different and that's where I'm showing up and I'm like they don't know me from Adam. I have a call sign now. They don't even Know who Steve Bunting is. They don't care. And you're either going to make it or you're not.

I mean, >> it was a lot of pressure, man. >> Doesn't sound like much has changed. >> Yeah. >> Where was your first deployment with the agency? >> Uh, Cobble >> Cobble. >> Yep. >> Anything significant? >> Yeah. Um, not much, but because I was a 18 Delta grad, I got to do some cooler stuff there. So anytime there was an opportunity to push out to Missouri Sharief or push out to uh uh anywhere in the country, I got to see the whole country. So anywhere there was a site or a team there, I was

I was flying around and got to kind of do that type of stuff. So my eyes were open to that was pretty interesting. >> Cool. What did you what did you think About the culture at CIA versus the culture within a a Mars platoon? >> Yeah, I'll bet that was a staunch difference for you. >> Well, dude, yeah. when it came to the GRS teams themselves, like there's just a lot of disgruntled people, man. Yep. A lot of disgruntled people. People really angry, right? And I I don't blame them, but you could see you could

see it on their eyes. You could hear it in their story where it's like they're on their Fifth divorce, right? They they don't know what to do outside of that type of work. And it's almost like they're very good what they did. And I know they took pride in, but it almost for me looking in looked like they were prisoners to this process now. And that was in the very beginning, I realized I was like, "Oh, dang." like you can become a slave to the money, you can become a slave to this lifestyle. And it's

almost hard to do both to >> to work at that uptempo and have a family and anything else, right? >> And then when it came to the agency themselves, I learned a lot there as well, >> right? Just how deeply political things are, >> right? It was different than the Marine Corps side. There's only one game in the Marine Corps and that's to seek and kill the enemy, right? Mhm. >> And here there was very much a political Thing to everything that we did and it that became revealed to me pretty quickly as well. >>

Yeah. Yeah. How many tours did you do with uh >> I did three with him. >> Three? >> Yeah. >> You want to go into it? >> Yeah. Um that first one really was just, you know how it is, driving around a lot, just giving people rides and things Like that. Um the second trip because I was a 18 Delta, they gave me the opportunity to go out to coast. >> Mhm. >> And I I was asking dudes around. I'm like, "What's up with that?" And they're like, "Yeah, it's the real deal out there." All

right. It ain't the city life. You're not doing the, you know, taxi cab driving out there. You're out there figuring out some stuff. So, I jumped on it. I was like, "Okay, cool." I didn't really like, you know, cobble so much anyways. It was just too dynamic. You know how it is. >> So, I get out to coast and it's a smaller team, right? And the things that you're doing have greater consequences. And then there's other aspects of the people that are on that camp that make it a little bit different of an experience. So,

I get out there that first trip with them and it was in the winter and it was kind of dead, but I Start getting to know some of the directs, start to build a relationship with some of the the other guys that are working there that I'm working intimately with and um start becoming friends with them. It was like kind of a cool little camp there. Also, you know, for the ground guys that were out there, I had friends from the Marine Corps that were in there. So, I was like, "Oh man, I got homies

here." Like, everyone's not as miserable >> here. It seems like everyone's out here like wants to be out here. And it it was kind of good. And so that trip was like a little uh unremarkable. But then the third trip I went was like kind of where things changed for me. Yeah. It was it was in the summer. It was in um the summer of 2019, right? And the Afghanistan's kind of falling apart at this point, right? Just due to the politics, some of the policies that are pushing in there. It Was it was this

the secret rumblings of what we saw happen with the fall of Afghanistan is I found myself at the very edge of that. I was kind of watching that happen and you know seeing it being facilitated around me and uh you know for me as a Delta on the on their team some of the other guys that were leaving the wire and doing more kinetic stuff I had friends there so they'd hit me up and they'd be like hey slide lock will you go on will you go on Um QRF with us so I'm like yeah

okay y so I caught myself kind of going on QRF a few times trying to help them out and things just kind of shifted there uh their partner Nation Forest was getting chewed up, dude. And um I just kept finding myself like jumping on some of those ops and and running out there. Next, you know, I'm elbows deep in in blood and just doing the medical stuff and being in that environment again that I I wanted to be in so much, but it was Just hitting different this time. >> What was different? >> It's just

I I think it was to be honest, I think it was just my body was just worn out, dude. I think the nervous system was gone. You know, in the beginning you get that rush and it it it's like the adrenaline hits and all this stuff. And now even at that level, it's just the numbness was becoming greater than anything, right? Where I catch myself doing situations that used To light me on fire and have me fired up and I'm just like kind of numb to it. >> Did you realize that immediately? >> I didn't,

but it it started to started to raise its head pretty quickly. Right. And >> what did you notice? >> Well, for me it was the insomnia started happening really bad, right? Where I couldn't sleep at all. like I was struggling every single night to go to sleep and it was just uh again severe Insomnia where I couldn't stop my mind from racing. It's like no matter what I was doing, I couldn't couldn't get any peace from that. And um that's when I started kind of meditating at this point to try and figure out how to

get to sleep. But um was worn pretty thin um at this point. >> Still on the bottle heavy? >> Yeah. >> Anything else? No, at this point I think um I was having severe back pain and This stuff calledratom. Have you heard of that? >> Mhm. >> Yeah, that was kind of a hot thing back then was an uncontrolled substance and you know it was supposed to be good for pain. It was better than you know opioids and I remember that's I started kind of dipping in on that stuff. Started consuming that and um yeah

was not helping anything. It's actually making everything worse. Well, kudos to you for being a medic that's not self-medicating from the uh supply. Maybe the first time I've ever seen that to be honest with you. >> It's very common, man. It's very common. It's hard not to when it's right there. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Between the tramodol and new bane and all that. >> Mhm. >> You know, we had a few people die along the way from that that were medics. Um So I I knew better than to mess with that stuff, but the booze

and the the cratom was something I was probably hitting pretty heavy back then. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. But there was this one situation that happened there that kind of turned it like turned me away from the whole process is um at this time they were starting to use drones to do reconnaissance on the camp right there Where we were at and they run drones over and find out where all the UTVs and stuff are parked and then that night they would either mortar or shoot rockets in. So part of this the static guys like part

of their job was shooting the the uh drones out of the sky. Um, I was also a cryp I was the uh a radio guy, a comm guy because I'm a newer guy, right? So, like slide lock, you're on all the comm. I'm like, great, thanks. So, I'm in charge of rolling all that Stuff every other day. So, as part of my routine, I would grab all the radios and I would go into the the uh the static side of the house. They're always happier. They seem like they had a better life. The GRS guys

were disgruntled, angry. I could barely have conversations with them. And those guys were always having a party. >> No [ __ ] >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's some good dudes. They're not all bad, but, you Know, it was different energy. And then guys didn't want to sit in the team house in the team room there. Whereas the static guys were always hanging out, having a party in there. Yeah. So I grab all my stuff and I bring it in there to their room and I'm just coking and joking with them talking [ __ ]

watching all the cameras. And um they had like this little game that they would play. They had a barrel of shotguns, right? And whenever a drone would come over, Whoever got to the shotgun first could run out there and they could they could take the drone out, right? So, I'm sitting here at this little it's their little comm desk and I got all my damn, you know, radios and the truck radios and I'm sitting there just jamming radios and um they're like, "We got we got some drone guys." I'm like, "Okay." So, everyone stops. They

kind of zoom in the G boss or whatever and we see them and they're crept down outside of one of The barriers outside the camp and they're sitting there and it looks like they're setting the drones up. So, we're waiting. We're waiting for that drone to take off, right? Because then someone can grab a shotgun and whoever gets out there can do it. This is before they were using exploding drones and stuff. Thank God. So, we're all sitting there waiting and the guy that's on the sticks is like, "Okay, I'm going to zoom in. No

one gets to go yet. Like, I'm going to Zoom in." All right. So, he zooms in a little bit further and Sean when he zoomed in. What I saw I was like, "Oh my god, dude." It was a mom and her child and they were squat squatting down and they were fishing food out of our gray water. >> Yep. >> [ __ ] >> And I saw it and I was like, "Oh, man." I was like, "What am I doing? What am I doing here?" like I don't want any of This anymore, you know? It's

like I don't want to be a part of this no more. I don't want to hurt no more people. Like there's no way I could justify for myself anymore that us being there was doing any good. And it killed me, bro. It killed me. I was so sad. And um I got back from that trip, pretty rocky trip after that. A lot of tax on the camp and things like that. And um I resigned. Yep. I resigned. And I called called the Company said, "Hey, I made up an excuse that it was over some AFAM

pay or something. They had shorted me like 200 bucks." So, I used that as my reason to to, you know, resign. And I resigned. >> Why didn't you just tell them? >> I don't know. I didn't want to feel weak. Like, I didn't want to feel like a coward. Like, for me to come to terms with that, I I didn't know how to sit with that either, man. But that's absolutely what it was where it just it Killed the warrior in me. Like, I couldn't justify that behavior anymore. And I didn't even want to explain

it. So, I knew if arguing about money was was an easy argument. They're used to having that argument. So, I used that as my scapegoat to just say it ain't going to work out for me no more. >> Damn. Yeah. Had you chatted with your wife before about leaving or was that like an instantaneous I'm done. I'm done. >> Yeah. I don't remember if I discussed that with her or not. >> Was she happy? >> I'm Oh, yeah. She hated it. >> How old was your son when you quit? >> Yeah. He was probably he's

15 now. Probably eight or nine. Then I had a daughter, too. >> How old was your daughter? >> Yeah, she was a baby. I had we had her on my second trip. >> Had you had you worked on your Relationship with your son since you had heard when his dad leaving again? >> Yeah. So, at the time of the military, I didn't I just put it on the back burner and didn't pay attention to it. But once I got out, like I went all in on coaching. out of the agency or out of the military?

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

I can make some of this time back and spend time with him coaching him. He would have he would have said it was not good Enough. >> Well, I don't think that's what he wanted. Like I don't think that's what he needed, right? He just need his dad just to be approachable like be sensitive to allow him >> tell you that. >> No, he's never told me that. Yeah, I think he would though. Probably needed a dad that would let him be sensitive too. I didn't have a lot of room for that. was too busy

thinking I Had to build this man and build this like warrior and not let a little boy be a little boy. >> I think a lot of guys from our background do that. >> Yeah, man. We got a lot of work ahead of us. >> How are you guys today? >> Good, man. Good. We're working on it, but um there's still more work. I want him to know that I know that whenever he's ready, I'm ready. I'm Going to do my best to keep working on myself so that when he's ready that I'm going to

have open ears. I'm not going to let any of my [ __ ] get in the way of that and that he has a right to feel the way he feels. He does. Whenever he's ready, we can we can talk about it. >> Do you think he's going to watch this? >> Yeah, for sure. >> Are you going to watch it together? >> Yeah, watch it. I'm very proud of this. So, I think he's very proud of me, too. What are you going to say to him when you get to this part? Just tell him

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

promise to do it better. How are you and your wife today? >> So good, man. >> Yeah. So good, dude. Yeah. Once I started healing, dude, I didn't even realize what I had. I think deep down inside I realiz I thought I didn't deserve it. Once I started kind Of working through it, I was so grateful to have her on the other side. It's like, "Oh my god." Like, I don't know how I got to marry such a saint, right? And I got to marry someone that was so hard, just as hard as me in

so many ways when it comes to not quitting and that would have the patience for us to get where we are today. Like at 18 years of marriage, I'm like, "Dude, how who I would have never believed it could be as good as it is." I saw you did um some psychedelic therapy. >> How fast did you get into that? When after you left the agency, >> man, it was not long after that. >> Months, year. >> Yeah. Yeah. It was within it was it so I got done 2019 then the whole world shut down

for COVID in 2020. So in between my agency gigs, I was doing high threat Personal security for another company. So even when I was back, I'm still going down to Mexico, going down to Panama, things like that. And um so you had like zero time at home. >> Yeah. I was just gone. >> Spent the least amount of time. >> All the time. >> Yep. Just had a North Face bag that I switched out chonies here and there and was off to the races to the next thing. So I felt like at least if I

could Provide for my family, I'm good enough. Maybe I can't be there emotionally. Maybe I'm no leader to lead this family, but at least if I can keep money in the bank, then I can look in the mirror at least or try to look in the mirror. Yeah. So 2020 hit. It was just kind of rough, man. Watching the whole world flipped upside down. You know, throughout my time in the military, I we game plan very similar scenarios and it was hard for me to not think there was Some malicious intent going on. And then

to see the way people acted and it's not their fault, but it just got crazy overnight. And um you know, we ended up losing my my wife's dad to it. We had to watch him pass away on on Skype. And I was mad, man. I was mad. I was so angry. I felt like it was like crimes against humanity that we would we would not allow people to be with their loved ones as they're transitioning from this world, You know? Also, the calls started coming, dude. Once I got out of the military, Sean, like I

was getting calls like almost every other day. It felt like of people committing suicide. When I first got out of the military, like part of my game plan was so my my brother and his wife dissolved their marriage and they had a son and then my brother just started to spiral and when he got out he had a TBI related Diagnosis cuz he had a significant traumatic brain injury from those 2155s that he stepped on and um they put him on the co they put him on the psych cocktail right where he's on everything from

vivance to to the anti-depressants to the Xanax and I remember he would call me And he's like, "Dude, my life's falling apart. I feel like a zombie." And he's like, "I need to get off these meds." His relationship with his wife dissolved, and I I just got out of the Military. So, I was like, "I'm going to get my ride or die back, dude." So, I hit up Mitch. I'm like, "Come with me to California. Come with me. We'll get you out here. We'll find a new purpose. We'll find you a little Latina, too, and

you'll be good to go. She'll take care of you. She'll get you squared away, and we can be together again, man, cuz I'm going to need help. I don't know what I'm going to do." And I I was a little bit afraid, too. So, he's like, "Okay." So we start working through that process, right? And as he starts trying to wean himself off his medication, he ends up having a seizure from the Xanax withdrawal and he was driving. So he ends up getting a neurology um restraint on him that they have to monitor him for

6 months before he can leave and get his license back. He's trying to tell him he's like, "Hey, it's from the Xanax. I don't have, you know, epilepsy." But he gets tied up in that. So that delays our Process. So he kept wanting to come to California and I was like, "Mitch, just wait. go to that last neurology appointment, get your license back because you're going to need it in California. You're not walking nowhere out here. Everyone that you want to see, all our grandparents and stuff, you got to drive to. And he's like, "Okay."

But as he started to kind of work his way through that process, he started to spiral, right? Started doing some of the Cliche things that like we all know. He started giving away all his stuff, dude. Started giving away his uniform, had gave away his medals, his purple heart to like strangers, and he whittleled his way all the way down to a backpack. He ended up losing his house, ended up losing his car, and he ends up going and staying with my grandparents, which I was a little bit relieved about. I was like, "Yeah, he

can make it there. They'll feed him, take care of him, then We can get him out to California." But he was uh supposed to come out and he ended up going and getting his tonsils taken out. Said, "Hey, I'm going to go get my tonsils taken out. They give me a lot of issues." When they did, they gave him a lot of narcotics, right? And he came home one day while he was in that healing process. He was supposed to come out like a week later. He just went in the bedroom and took all his

pills, took everything, drank all the codine, took All his ambient, all his stuff, and laid down and and passed away that night. >> Yeah, man. >> Yeah. I'm sorry. >> That one sucked, man. If I would have just like brought him sooner, like maybe we could have mitigated that. And then dude, just like his whole life, bro. his whole life like just [ __ ] sucked, dude. He never got a easy shake a day in his life. Like from the beginning to the End, it was just tragedy. That poor kid suffered so much. Like he

suffered so much. And even he was so proud to be a Marine, right? So proud to get that. And even in that, it like it took it all from him, dude. Like when we lost Mitch was like yeah just another that pit of darkness for me just grew a little bit deeper and that's when I kind of went into contracting too. It was like after Mitch died I was like I don't really care Anymore. Right. There's like deep down inside Sean I just kind of wished I would have died in combat to be honest with

you. I was a bit reckless too. Like I pushed the envelope. I didn't need to like volunteer to go on the QRS I was going on. There was something deeper inside of me. I wasn't suicidal man, but I was like, at least if I can die a hero, at least my son can be like, "My dad was a badass, right? Maybe people would like speak highly of me." But I Felt so dark, dude. I like hated myself deep down inside. So that was like one part of it, right? Another part is like once I got

out, I got out with like almost a max exodus of friends. So the ones that didn't go to Damneck, they got out too. They're like, "We can't peaceime Marine Corps is not the place to be." and they're like, "We we got to get out." And um I got really close with one of my friends. Dan was my best friend. Went to core school Together. We're at recon. Cut our teeth at Recon together. Was at Mars together. And um he got out. He uh sustained a pretty significant traumatic brain injury as well in Afghanistan on the

trip before mine and um got bed, discharged. So me and me and uh Dan became besties, right? Even closer. And we made a pack cuz we're getting phone calls of friends that had passed, right? They were committing suicide. It was happening all the time. And I remember Calling Dan and I was like, "Dude, we're not doing this." He's like, "We're not doing this, brother." He's like, "I don't care what's going on anywhere in this world. I'll come get you. I'll come get you. Like, I'm here for you. We're not doing this." He's like, "We're not

doing this." So, we made that pack that we wouldn't commit suicide and we'd be there for each other and start working through this process. And um as I get done with contracting, you know, going Into 2020, um you know, I start kind of working into that that plant medicine space, right? Start working into that plant medicine space. >> Where did you hear about it? >> Um well, first off, there was some remember there's some guy on the East Coast, I can't think of his name right now, but he was setting up a nonprofit to help

veterans get into that space, right? And I was like, "Huh, what's up with all that?" Like that's kind of kind Of odd. And deep down inside I knew that like I wasn't well, but I didn't know like I didn't I was like you're just going to eat mushrooms and be better. It didn't make sense to me, right? Um but then I started kind of doing the research and started learning about like uh the Royal Hearts project with Jesse Golden, seeing what they're doing and like the mission within. I was like, "Okay, there's something to this,

right?" So I reached out to that guy and Uh he was like, "Yeah, do you do you want to have an experience?" I'm like, "Well, yeah, I think so. I think so. It sounds like maybe it would help. maybe I'm like a good candidate and I start going through their process and they're like, "Yeah, you you are a good candidate, right?" And they ended up getting me funding and you know, Martin took care of me. That's how I got my first kind of trip to uh to Mexico. >> And you did mushrooms? >> No, it

was the IO gain and five Mio DMT with the Mission Within. >> Yeah. >> Do you want to talk about that experience? >> Yeah, I think so. Yeah, man. I I came into that experience not really knowing, right? didn't have a clue. You know, I'd heard, you know, you hear the cliche things about psychedelics, right? You see see sounds and hear colors and all that Stuff. And I'm thinking like maybe that's going to be the case. And I really had no reference point for what this was going to be like, right? Um so I come

down there and it's uh >> you you hadn't talked to you haven't really talked to anybody that had done it. >> No. >> You're just Wow. Okay. >> Yeah. So you you're just like whatever, I'm [ __ ] desperate. Let's do it. >> Yeah. People are clacking themselves off all around me. I knew I wasn't in a good spot and um had an opportunity to go so I went. Yep. So I get down there and you know I'm there with a bunch of dudes that are like highle operators, right? Guys from all the different units

that they write books about and stuff. And I'm sitting there and I'm amongst giants here in this group and um we're all kind of telling the same story, right? And um As we're kind of going into the experience, you know, I didn't really have a reference for it, but they give you like two little pills, right, of the ibo gain from the uh ibogga tabernath plant from Gabon, right? I guess they scrape the root bark off of there and get the alkaloids and and create this medicine. Um so as I take the medicine, I remember

I go up and we we have these mats and they hook you up to some uh cardio monitoring devices and stuff so They can check your heart rate and everything through it. And I go in and I kind of lay down and I just start waiting. I remember I had a little bit of anxiety because I'm like, I don't know what this is going to be like. But as I'm laying there, I start to hear what sounds like tornado sirens, right? And being from Alabama, there was a lot of nights that I said a prayer

and laid in that that trailer park bed and just was like, if the tornado gets us, it Gets us. Like I I I survived a couple tornadoes in Alabama. So I was like, it's it was all familiar sound. So I started hearing that worrying and next thing I know I I see some like almost like pink smoke and these words come out of it and the word was compassion and then next thing I know the io n just falls and it lands and I look down and there's sand and there's a compass there. I see

the compass and I look up and it says compass. So it's compassion N falls off turns to a compass and I look up and it's like compassion's going to be your way. It's going to be your compass. And I'm like, uhoh. Like, what's going on? Things start shifting. I'm I'm totally being removed essentially from this experience. And next thing I know, I come into what looks like almost like a movie of my life. And Sean, as it starts to become clear, I'm standing in that living room as a Young boy, right? That that HUD housing

apartment complex, and I see myself laying in the floor in the corner and my brother, and I see this guy over the top of us. I see the coffee stains on the floor. I see the closet that won't close cuz the vacuum cleaner handle that would always pushing it open. I smell the smoke. I hear the TV playing. And I'm like, "Oh no. Oh no." Like, "What am I doing here?" And essentially the medicine's kind of Like, "Are you okay?" And I'm like, "I guess so, right? But what am I doing here?" So, I start

kind of exploring the space and I walk around and what I notice is I kind of stop there and I look and I see the guy's face is all pixelated, right? I can't see his face. And then I start having these memories of the nightmares I had as a kid. These nightmares that I had repressed of this guy molesting me and my brother, right? And I remember Like in my dreams, I could never see his face. So, it was at the medicine was kind of asking me. I was like, "Hey, what what do you want?

What do you need in this?" And I told her I was like, I want to see his face. So next thing I know, I'm sitting there and I can see the guy over over me and his face comes into clarity. And I could see it, man. And I remembered it. I remembered it all of a Sudden. And my initial thought when I first saw him was like, "Oh man, Sean, when I looked into his eyes, I saw that same that same pain, right? I saw him not as someone that like hurt me and as a

predator, but I could see the little boy in him that someone had hurt him. I remember I was sitting there in the medicine. I told him, I was like, "Dude, I forgive you. Like, I forgive you. Like, you didn't mean to do this to me. You didn't mean to hurt my brother, right? Something this happened to you, right? And I wished him well." I said, "I hope you figure it out. I hope you find the peace that I'm finding like and I really wish you well and I forgive you." And something happened there in that

process where like there was like a part of me that was allowed to heal by seeing his face and by able to give him that compassion. But also what happened after That is it showed me every area of my life where that situation that happened to me impacted my ability to be intimate with my wife, my ability to be compassionate for others, right? The insecurities that had welled up inside of me throughout my life, right? all these different spots that that that situation that happened to me had created and it allowed me to see it

and almost put all those things back into place, right? Something about spending Time with that little Steve in that situation and and finding some resolution there, dude changed everything for me, man. >> Wow. >> Yeah. >> Anything with the 5 MO. >> Yeah. Well, dude, the five like the I gain just I feel like it just dredges everything up. like it dredges everything to the top. Like stuff you didn't even realize that Was playing a role in your life, it highlights it and brings it to the surface. And when you the five MO is like

baptism for me. It felt like anything that was stuck to me after that process just was washed clean. Yeah. Just a overwhelming amount of gratitude. I remember when I came out of that experience. Um it wasn't the most comfortable experience for me, but I just sat there and I ate this bowl of fruit and I cried and I laughed at the Same time and I was just so grateful, dude. so grateful. It felt like I could feel my heart again. That heart that I spent my entire life building this like brick layer around felt like

it was open again. Felt like there was fresh air hitting it and I didn't know how to take it. I just laughed and cried for 30 minutes, man. Just eating strawberries and I was like, "Oh my god." And I was so grateful cuz I thought I was never going to feel that way again, man. I Thought that c that part of me was gone forever. And um man, yeah, I'm so grateful for Martine and what they do down there. Like that that experience undeniably changed my life. >> It's done a lot of good for a

lot of people. >> You still feel like that? >> Yeah, man. Yeah. Nothing's perfect. There's no shortcuts. It's all work. That's one of the things that I really got to learn about the like I started Working with Heroic Karts not long after that but the integration is everything man you know people are thinking you're just going down to have a psychedelic experience like that's this much of it right it's the prep work and the work after and if you do the work after and you really dedicate it to a practice of taking care of yourself

really fall in love with yourself again it can be for the rest of your life ain't perfect stuff's still going to happen the Universe is masters at throwing curve balls they're endless but how you whole like how much you love yourself plays a big role in how that affects you, right? And um it definitely helped me do that. >> What was it like coming home from that, >> man? Well, one there's two urges, right? One is to try and tell everybody I know, right? So the first one's like everybody needs this, right? So you come

back and you're like, "Guys, look what I found." And that that can be difficult in its own, right? Because you're trying to bring something that's hard to convey in words to people that don't have a reference for it. And you can't force people to heal. They have to choose. Right? So that's one lesson I had to learn there. And two, man, I came back. I remember I sat down on the carpet in front of my wife and I just cried. Probably for the first time in her entire life seeing me cry. And I just Cried

and I told her how sorry I was. I told her I'm so sorry for all the [ __ ] I put you through. Like all the suffering. I didn't mean to, right? But I did. And it was all very apparent for me. And I shared with her this revelation of like just I never talked to her about being molested as a kid. That was my dark secret, right? And I told her about all this stuff and I helped her see that it was having an impact on every part of my life and she was a

victim to some of That as well. And dude, she just cried with me and she just kind of sat there and she's like, "Okay." And then I also shared with her, I said, "Hey, you know what? Like I haven't been the best husband, but I think that you do deserve this experience as the spouse of me, as a spouse of a special operator, as a spouse of anyone that kind of has to go along this. They're not they sometimes they get forgotten, right? as the spouses that every bit of Steve's chaos, There was a woman

back there, equally confused, equally insecure about things, equally desperate for love and connection, right? And I told her, I said, "Hey, like I need I want I think it would be a good idea for you to go have an experience as well. Like, you deserve the healing. And even if that means you go down there and you see things that you can't turn a blind eye to anymore about me, I'm willing to risk that because you deserve to heal." And Um it took her a little while, but she did. >> She did do it. >>

She did, man. Yeah. >> How did that turn out? >> So beautiful, man. So beautiful. She went down with a women's group of veteran women. She's a veteran, too, but uh spouses. They went down there and just loved on each other, man. I think they did a they did a psilocybin retreat and a five MO retreat. They do it a Little bit different for the women. And um she came back and she had a very similar experience. She said, "Steve, a lot of the issues that I had with you that I thought were you was

actually my stuff. I have childhood stuff too that I never told you about. Like she she'd been suffering by herself too, man. She had eaten all that stuff too cuz in her culture too, they don't talk about that stuff. It happens so much to them. Little little girls in Their culture, it's like, dude, the the uncles and stuff predate on them and it's very common and they try to expose it and they get slapped down. They get ostracized, right? And she, that poor woman had to feel dirty, too. She had to carry all of that.

She never told a soul. She just ate it. And when she went down there and was able to reconcile with that and see it, dude, it opened up. It It broke down those barriers in her heart and allowed us to finally Connect, man, for the first time in my life and the first time in our relationship. We had no clue, man. I had no clue. >> Good for you guys, man. >> Yeah, man. Yeah. Yep. And that was the beginning. >> Oh man, once I we once I saw that, I was like, "Oh, there's something

to this. There's something to this self-love thing. There's something to like taking care of yourself. There's something to Being connected to God, right? I had a very spiritual experience, right, where it's like I felt reconnected to God, which I didn't feel connected for a long time. coming from my upbringing in the church and seeing what I saw in war and kind of losing myself to that process. I felt very distant and I didn't realize how important that spiritual component was to this, right? We don't always talk about that part either, but it's just as important

as sleeping, right? It's like Having anywhere there's a void, we'll try to fill it. And there's a big void for me at this point with my religion and like spirituality. And when I was able to feel that redemption, right? I was able to feel that connection again. It's like that out of everything really healed healed me in a lot of ways. >> Good for you, dude. >> Yeah. Thank you. Let's take a quick break and then when we come back, we'll get into Sharp performance. Want more from the Shawn Ryan Show? Join our Patreon today

for more clips and exclusive content. You'll get an exclusive look behind the scenes where you can watch the guests interact with the team and explore the studio before every episode, plus unlock bonus content like our extra intel segments where we ask our guests additional questions, our new SRS on-site specials, and access to an entire tactical training library you Will not find anywhere else. And the best part, Patreon members can ask our guests questions directly. Your insights can help shape the show. Join us on Patreon now. Support the mission and become part of the Shawn Ryan

Show's story. Lot of dark stuff going on in the world right now. And it's to the point where I don't even believe my own eyes anymore because I cannot verify what people are saying about all the political violence, The division. I partner with this production company called Ironclad and we're doing an eightpart audio series on SCOPS on why foreign countries, governments, maybe even our own government would conduct a SCOP on its own people. And I just think that that this series is going to be extremely important because it's going to open the eyes of people

on why these things happen. You can head over to scopshow.com, Order it today. I think you're going to get a lot out of this. Who's pulling the strings? Who's pulling them? All right, Steve, we're back from the break. We just got done wrapping up uh your your psychedelic therapy session. I'm just curious. We I didn't ask you this before the break, but how are you on the booze? >> It's not an issue. Yeah, my relationship changed with a lot of things. I realized that although I was kind of a Slave to some of these things

and these substances, I think once I repaired my relationship with myself, then those voids that I was trying to fill like materialistic things like booze >> and that need to numb disappeared. So, I'll have a I'll have a good hazy IPA with friends, but my my relationship with it has never been the same. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> I haven't had a drop in almost four years. It'll be four years this February. >> That's awesome. since uh since my initial and only Ibegan uh therapy session, but it's powerful stuff, man. >> Yeah, good for you for

doing that. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, it's such a great way to give yourself some self- loveve to not not pour poison into your brain. Dude, it's like when I did that, it was like it just revealed to me everything that was poison or toxic or it it relationships, Drugs, alcohol, substances, all that. It just it like [ __ ] surfaced it all and put it right in front of my face without actually putting it right in front of my It was like an into it was like an a a six sense >> was just

acquired after doing that. But um but I know you have some concerns. It doesn't work for everybody. So I wanted to just dive into that with you as well. >> Yeah. Well, it's just a a word of caution, I think. Right. In the west, we have a bad habit of just overdoing everything, right? It's just like the western con consumerized world and the way we do, we think more is better and we just have a a tendency to take even the best things and almost bastardize them. So what I want to say is like you

know something that I hit on earlier just the importance of integration right just Knowing that there's no shortcuts in this process of life right there's no shortcuts right you got to do the work and just like you just shared like there's almost a knowing that comes to you but the onus is on you to follow through with it just like you said I'm not going to drink another drop because it's been revealed to me now I have a responsibility but there's no shortcuts the other part too is I want to highlight that it's like you

Well, Sometimes if you have other mental health conditions, it's important to be aware of that, >> right? Certain, you know, different mental health conditions, whether it be schizophrenia, things like that, right? If you go into this space, you know, unintentionally can sometimes do more harm. You know, one thing that I've noticed, and uh it's not with anybody, and I'm not talking about anybody in particular, but I've had friends, acquaintances. One thing I've noticed with the psychedelic stuff is that, you know, you get just like you were saying in the West, especially with special ops guys,

we have a tendency we get into. Oh, yeah. And um and what I've noticed is there, you know, with with some with some folks, they just keep [ __ ] going back. They keep going back. And it's like they're going back every month. They're going back every Couple weeks. They're exploring all the all the other psychedelics, which I'm not saying exploring all the psychedelics is a bad thing. I'm not saying it's a good thing. I've tried a lot of them myself, but I always try to learn from the experience and implement that into my life.

And what I've noticed is with with with some of us, it's they just want to live in that realm. Yeah. You know, and it and it's almost Like it's almost like that they give that realm more credit than the one that we actually [ __ ] live in. And it's like, hey, man, like this is where we all live. This is where your family is. This is where your friends are. This is where you need to [ __ ] be. >> Mhm. >> So, it's come back to reality. >> Absolutely. M you know and and

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

Yeah. >> Cuz I I see that trend >> happening. We're not being good stewards of the medicine either. Like I believe that God created this world perfect and everything that we need is here. And luckily for us, there's been some indigenous people that have been holding on to this stuff for a long time, right? We're actually finding a lot of value. And many of them that I've worked with And spoke with, they've been told to bring this to the West cuz we need it. Right? the guys that I've worked with down in the Amazon, they're

like the the jungle told us that if we didn't bring this to you guys that we were going to lose the jungle and everything else. >> You went down to the Amazon did this [ __ ] out in the woods. >> I have not done it in the Amazon, but I have worked with some Titus from the Amazon, right? Pretty intimately. And That's what they share is like, hey, it was a it was a calling that God essentially told us that we got to heal the West. And if we don't start figuring this stuff out,

then everyone's going to lose everything. >> Yeah. But that grounded piece is so important. You're right. We're exactly where we're supposed to be right here. To think that you need to be anywhere else is avoidant. Right. And we end up they end up becoming avoidant in that. They use this as a scapegoat from this reality. But we're the work we're supposed to do is here. >> Yeah. >> Right. And you got to do integration and it's going to be for the rest of your life, too. >> Yeah. >> Right. There's no checks in the box

here. Yeah. Someone shared with me one time, it said, "Be wary of uneared wisdom." Right. And I caught myself, Even myself, guilty trying to chase in that space something else. Be wary of unarmed wisdom. >> Of unearned wisdom. >> Unearned wisdom. Yeah. >> What does that mean to you? >> That means like uh trying to to seek out the answers, right? Trying to seek out things that like cuz in that space like you get connected to some stuff, right? And maybe some wisdom comes through or maybe thinking that there's something Else or that you need

to have all the answers, right? And not just trusting that you're exactly where you're supposed to be. Maybe if you're religious trusting that there's a God's plan and when you start trying to dig deep especially in psychedelics to figure out all the answers like you want to know the answers of God right I think you can really find yourself ungrounded as you referenced and you can find yourself really struggling to be back in This world can be very difficult to reassimulate here and I've seen a lot of people suffer over the time right to include

suicides where they were there they probably figured out everything they needed to hear and learn in the first one or two sessions, right? But they kept going back. Kept going back and then you watch them just kind of fade fading from. >> Do you think there's a spiritual aspect to psychedelics? >> I do. I do. And I believe that, right? It's really easy with the medicine space to look at the science, right? Just look at the science and the neuroplasticity and all that. But the reason why I feel so strongly about it because it was

so important to me. So, I'll just disclaim that. Like me being able to be reconnected to God in this process, like it's hard for me to deny that. And then that connection that I have and continue to foster each day is what keeps me on The path. >> Do you believe you are in a spiritual realm when you're under the medicine? >> I think so. Yeah, I do believe so. There's something there that we can't quite explain. There's something to it. But you hear so many stories, man, and they say the same thing, >> right?

How could you fabricate a psychedelic hallucination for everybody, right? It's like wherever you go is very predictable. Like you've been there Before and it's just something I can't really explain without sounding too woo woo or crazy. But I do believe there's something like it's a real real space. Whatever it is, >> I think there's a dark component as well and you need to be very [ __ ] careful. >> Goes both ways, right? >> What you're playing with inside of those experiences. >> Yeah. You're opening yourself up to a lot of stuff. >> Mhm. That's

why it's like have an intention of going in there, not just doing this stuff recreationally. >> It's not a game. >> You know, the the Titas that I've worked with in tradition, the person that was dealing with the ailment or the distress or the grief didn't take the medicine. The shaman, the tit took it. And in that space, they would work on where they need to heal and help the person. >> Really? >> Yeah. And then over time it started integrating where like especially it was a western thing where the actual person that was there

seeking the help would take it but this might hap you might take do this once in your lifetime right maybe two times max once a year and now we got people in the space and they're doing psychedelic retreats every weekend it's our body wasn't built like this the medicine wasn't designed for that and it's kind of that western ideology Around it where we're like just doing too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing and you know I just wanted to kind of raise people's awareness of that that none of this is a game.

It's very powerful medicine, but it must be respected and the real work is you. You're the magic. There's no magic there. >> It's just a catalyst to get you to reconnect and do the work and that's your choice. >> Well, thank you for sharing that. >> Yeah. Thank you, brother. >> Where do we go from here? >> Yeah, I think uh you know, as I had that experience, I started to reveal like realize some things here, right? And that's that's this mindbody connection which started to lead me towards kind of going into the space of

being a therapist and a coach. Yeah. One of the other things too that kind of led me down that path was There's a couple things and I I referenced Dan Brown prior being my best friend and my ride or die and I talked about us making that pack together that we would not commit suicide. Well, Dan um sustained a very bad traumatic brain injury, right? He was right next to an he took a full like point blank RPG back blast from one of the ANASF right there that threw him off a Hesco barrier and onto

his head and then received multiple TBI after that in that gunfight. And When Dan came back from that deployment, he wasn't the same, right? He was having a lot of anger outburst, was just being really combative with leadership and and they didn't know what to do with him and they were going to discipline him, but ultimately he he got discharged for full uh medical retirement which which he deserved. But over the course of that time of us being friends and transitioning out, me contracting, even finding plant medicine, um Dan was just Having some difficulty, man.

He was having some difficulty. Um he went to the Nikico Clinic, he went to all these things. Like if there was any stone left to turn, he had turned it from breath work to meditation to just really modeling what it looks like to take care of themselves. But over the course of that time, he he started to unravel a little bit. And um I think whatever was damaged in his brain from that TBI, you know, ultimately led to him taking his Life. >> Damn, man. >> Yeah. And I I remember, man, I was, you know,

he had had some bouts, some tough bouts of mental health. You know, I had to fly out to Montana one time to get him cuz he wasn't doing well. And um it was just really tough, dude, to show up for him and to really take that that time with him. And I knew like for Mitch, my brother, I messed up so many things, man. Like I had so many regrets From not just like going and getting him initially from not being as compassionate about what he was going through because I didn't understand it at the

time either. I was trying to do that tough love thing that I'd done with him so many times to keep him safe. He didn't need any of that. He just needed me to be present and he everything was a cry for help in hindsight. So when Dan started going through this process like I really took it on. I said I got to do It right this time. I got to try my best. But as as time went, he just started to just not do very good at all. Right up to the point where I received

that phone call from his wife and I knew. And dude, I was laying in my bed and I remember she called me and I hadn't talked to Dan in probably a month cuz he just kind of went radio silent. He had moved from his house in Idaho. Um we got him stage like hanging out with his Brother in Reno after that. And then he ended up moving out to his family's house in Arkansas and um they were out in you know 40 acre ranch, beautiful Amish country. His parents are salt of the earth, just tremendous.

And I felt like deep down inside that's exactly where he needed to be, right? He's going to get out in nature and he was just going to be able to clear his head and and things were going to be okay. But it just didn't end up being that way. You Know, he had some bouts of psychosis and and succained to some of that process. But when I got that phone call, first his brother Sam called me and um I didn't get that call, but I woke up to his wife calling me, Christina. And I knew

as soon as I picked up my phone, I saw the missed call from Sam and I saw Christina. I knew deep down inside. So I end up taking that call and um like he did it. Yeah, he did it. And I was faced with the dilemma here, man. I wanted to Be mad. I wanted to be angry. Want to jump up and grab the bottle. want to go to the gym and hit the punching bag. But I said, you know what, Steve? I have a choice to do it different now. This time, it's like this

time, for the first time in my life, I'm going to give myself permission not to run away from this. And I'm going to lay right here and I'm going to fill every bit of it. And dude, I laid in that bed and I cried, bro. I cried. Just deep guttural Just crying, just sobbing and just cried. And when I felt like I couldn't cry no more, I cried more. And I probably laid in that bed for four hours and just laid there and cried. And see, when I finally got up out of that bed, it

felt like something was different. Like I felt like I was lighter. And I just started kind of laughing and crying. And I was talking to Dan. I was like, "Dude, even in your last act, you taught me something else." Right? And he Helped me see the the importance of the grieving process and why it's so important that we don't hold that type of stuff in and we grieve well. And that's something I don't think we do in the West very well either, right? It's a very sterile process when someone passes, right? We don't get to

sit there with them and go through it as a community or anything. It's just very sterile where you do this, do this, you're at the funeral, now they're in The ground and it's like kind of people just do what they do. And um I had a huge revelation of what grief looks like and how it could look like and how you can move through that process and heal and it'll actually heal other things, right? It's like it can be a catalyst that just draws out all this unresolved grief. And as you keep working through it,

it's like you can actually heal in such a tremendous way. So I just kind of looked up at the heavens and I told Dan, "Thank you." I was like, "Thank you, brother, for this last lesson, right? To really understand this. I might have carried this grief for the rest of my life until this opportunity to just cry like I just did." And um it's been a big part of me kind of moving into the being a therapist, man. Really understanding building my practice and my code about what I believe this is supposed to look like.

And grief work's just been a huge part of it with so much loss that I've Experienced. >> Damn, man. How did you get into coaching, therapy, stuff like that? I mean, sounds like Dan put you there. >> Yeah. >> But what was the process? >> Yeah. So, at this point, I was still I was almost done. I was actually applying to PA school. Yell had a pretty good program. So, I' had already submitted my letters of recommendation. And I was Still kind of hellbent on going and being a PA. And uh one of these days,

my wife's going to kill me for telling the story, but it's okay. She uh me and my wife decided that we were going to eat some mushrooms together, right? The kids are at my in-laws and we were going to spend some time and we had never done this before, right? So, we decided to take just a very small dose of of of psilocybin mushrooms, right? and we were going to spend time on the couch and Just reconnect and watch maybe the Wizard of Oz or something cute, right? We had this cute little plan, but very

quickly into it, things started not really going our way. Maybe I didn't do a good job of dosing or whatever it may be. But very quickly, I realized I'm like, uhoh, like I don't know if this is going to be sustainable. And two, like my wife started kind of acting a little bit different. And she stopped she stopped me and she said, "You know What?" She goes, "Steve, I got to tell you this." I'm like, "All right, Mihi, like what is it?" She's like, "I feel like you're selling yourself short. I feel like you want

to go and be a PA because that's what you've always done and that's the easy path for you, right? You want to do that cuz that's what you're good at and you don't even have to try." She's like, "But you're missing a gift." She's like, "Steve, when you talk to people, they listen." She's a Therapist at this point. She's like, "You're always on the phone with everybody that needs something. They always call you and you spend hours and hours talking to these people." And she's like, "You have a gift." She's like, "And I have to

tell you like if you go be a PA, you're selling yourself short. You're doing the world a disservice and everyone and people need you." And I got so mad at her, dude. So mad. >> Really? >> Yeah. Cuz I'm in this space and I'm extra open, right? And she's just dissolving my reality. I did have this game plan. I'd been working through this process through contracting. like the parts of the stories like I'm coming back from these trips contracting and I'm on the the contract and I'm typing papers till 3:00 in the morning, right? So,

in between doing all that I'm saying, I'm still doing homework. I Never stopped doing all the work. And I'm like, dude, she's sitting here telling me that everything I did was for nothing. And I was so frustrated. I'm like, why would you do that? Why would you say that? Like, you know, this is what I want to do. And I didn't talk to her for 3 days, man. I was so just disrupted by it. And then I finally sat with it and I was like, "Dude, I think she's right. I think she's right." And because

of her, I chose to like come Into this space. I was like, "You know what? Maybe it is time for me to come into this space." Also, I'd had so many encounters with therapists and stuff that just didn't I felt like they they didn't understand who I was. Like I didn't jive. They just wanted to give me pills. And I was like, "Maybe it's my time to step into this space. Maybe she's right. I can't keep blaming everybody else about this. I need to be The person to take it up. And I I started um

working on being a therapist. So, I enrolled in a marriage and family therapy program and started just really becoming obsessed with this stuff, this mindbody connection. >> What have you learned? >> Oh, man. So much, dude. So much. Um, you know what I've learned is just a deeper form of compassion for everybody. Just understanding we're all humans just trying to figure this out. Like we're all just humans trying to figure this out and none of us really know what we're doing and we're trying our best. You know, sometimes we can hold people in a higher

regard or we we we expect like even like say my mom for example, right? and me thinking that she's supposed to was supposed to just have it all figured out when I was a kid and it was an illusion. But really, what I've gotten to see working in this space is like, dude, everybody's dealing with Something and everyone is just doing their best and it's um we're all on our journey and being able to see people on their journey and just have compassion for it just really think we need more of that. How did you

start? >> Yeah. Who was your first person? >> Yeah. If you were coaching, therapy, who was it? >> Yeah. So, when I started working on this process to become a therapist, right, I Had just come through the psychedelic experience. So, for me, an easy segue was to get in with them and start working as an integration coach like with heroic hearts, started working with the mission within going down to Mexico. So, I'm learning these things in school, right? Right. And then I'm seeing these things happen in real time by way of the medicine. And I'm

starting to it's all starting to come together. Just like how I combined like my my love for cars and The human body, I started to see what was happening in real time. What I got to witness was validating what I was learning at school. So it became very easy for me. Right. So I started working initially down in Mexico and started working with veterans that were coming through the process. started helping them like coach them through it, right? I got to witness a little bit more. I got to see a little bit more and learn

a little bit more, right? Learning some of The basic stuff like just the fundamentals of meditation. Have you heard of the wisdom dojo? >> No. >> Yeah. So, >> wait a minute. Yes. >> Yeah, >> I've done it. >> Yeah. >> Yes, I've done it. >> Awesome. >> That's the meditation course, correct? >> Yeah. For veterans, for soft veterans. Yep. So I get introduced to people like them and I start learning how to meditate and teach people how to meditate and I see another level of healing happen right just little things like that doing breath

work stuff. I ultimately started um from there I transitioned cuz I'm impatient right but I end up transitioning to working on a research team for Kadema Neurosychiatry down in La Hoya. We they're working on The LSD trials for general anxiety. So, next thing I know, I'm sitting in a room for 12 hours working with patients that are on research medicines, which is LSD, and I'm seeing them shift. I'm seeing them change. I'm listening to what's coming up with them. I'm hearing them talking to their their younger self, the children, like the the child self of

them, and it's revalidating more stuff that I'm learning. So, it's just compounding and reiterating, and I'm Becoming even more obsessed with it, right? And it just it made school even easier. So, I'm working through that process because the the uh master's program is two years. So, it takes a little bit of time. And then as I kind of near the end of that, I get introduced to uh a dude named Miles, right? Who's a good friend of mine who introduces me to a guy named Tom Sauer. Have you met Tom Sauer before? No. He's a

EOD officer that started a a clinic Veteran owned, veteran operated for um dual diagnosis. So for people suffering from substance abuse and then mental health disorders and Tom's model was that we would go anywhere in region 4 of the United States and bring veterans to care. Right? So I end up getting hired. Miles introduced me to Tom. Tom hires me and I get this job where I'm flying around the west coast of the United States for veterans in need where their family or someone would call and as long As they were connected, I would hop

on a flight, fly to North Montana and get them and escort them back to treatment. Holy [ __ ] that's awesome, man. >> Yeah. No more were the days that we were just going to say the VA is just going to handle it and, you know, people dying in the parking lots or whatever, right? As soon as we could get that authorization, me or my buddy Brennan were on a flight and we were escorting veterans to treatment and dude, I was Like falling even more in love with it, right? Learning more about the the substance

abuse space, right? Just the the demons that that brings to the table, right? and getting people to come into their house and just seeing how they were living and getting to see them graduate and have that that zest of life again and that sparkle in their eye. I was just like learning more and more in that process. But on one of these trips um we were Working up into Montana. So we're working in the with the Black Feet Nation up in uh Browning, Montana. Have you ever heard of that? No. The tribe. Yeah. It's as

far north as you can get. And in Montana is beautiful. But we're working with a tribe up there. that tribe has the most veterans of any tribe in the United States and they were having issues getting support from the VA, right? They would try to go to the other town VAS and they just treated Them like second rate citizens, right? And just pretty much left them up there to that reservation to their own devices with no support. So, as we went up there to work with a couple veterans that were bringing a treatment, me and

Brennan and Tom started to see the inadequacy of what they deserved up there. We started becoming advocates. So we'd fly up there every time they'd have a a a town meeting with the VA there and we just started becoming representatives and Helping support them. Um tremendous people up there, salt to the earth. One of the times I got uh a consult or an authorization to come pick up a uh one of the Black Feet Nation. He was a prior Marine. I was flying up there and it's hours from Missoula up to Browning. So I get

up there. I drive all the way north and I get there and the guy's gone and they had a small kind of like uh small treatment center up there. It wasn't designed for longterm. And I I show up And I I meet my liazison. I'm like, "Hey, where's he at?" He's like, "He disappeared, man. He hit the bottle with his cousins the other day and we haven't seen him since." Like, "Well, what am I supposed to do?" Like, "Well, we'll hang out for a couple days and see if he comes back." So, I stayed there

overnight. I realized old buddy's gone. We ended up getting him into treatment later, but this was kind of a dry hole for me. So, I have to start my journey Back south. So, as I'm drive driving south, it's many hours back. I'm going to go down, hit Missoula or Callispel and then come back down to the airport. I'm driving and um I see this river coming off the mountain, right? And one thing about Dan Brown that I shared about was he he was a mad man. He couldn't resist a cold body of water. He was

obsessed. He was a cold plunger before it was cool. And I'm driving down and I see this Flathead River and it's All snow melt and I'm like, I bet it's freezing. I just pull over and I strip down in my chonies and I run and I jump in that river and Sean I laid there jackhammer shivering and it was like almost like a baptism and I sit up from that water and I look and I see all these bear signs where it's like do not get in the river the bears will eat you and I'm

like well I didn't think that one through but here I am and I sit there and I had this epiphany and it was Almost like something came over me and it was like hey dude you got to get out of California. You got to get out of California, right? right? It's like there's too much chaos here and like we need you to to do something else. And I was like, "Oh god, like I don't even know what that means." So I get home from that trip. It was a long trip. And I come in and

I tell my wife, I'm like, "Hey, Miha, I think we need to leave California." And she's like, "I'm Feeling it, too." Like CO was rough on all of us just from the loss and just seeing the chaos and everything being locked down, our kids having to be on virtual classes and just seeing them falling apart, not being able to understand why they have to do class on computers. And we end up um buying a house in my hometown in Alabama. So we pack everything up on a whim, pack all our bags, and move to Alabama

from California, drive across country, and we Start setting up there. Um, I had a game plan that I was actually going to go work at a research um, facility or research department at UAB Birmingham and I had been liaisoning with him. They were going to be working with 5 MO DMT to work with veterans and things like that. So, I was like, "Hey, I'm your guy." I did the MDMA assisted therapy course, the 5 MO assisted therapy course, and I was like really coming into this and I had experience working On the research team and

working with the Mission Within and Heroic. So, it seemed like a no-brainer, but I get there and dude, it just starts falling apart. starts falling apart. I'm realizing they had some DEI restrictions there and they weren't going to pay me any money. Um I don't know. I didn't even know what DEI meant, dude. I was like, "What's that mean?" Um but either way, it was just not working out. Luckily for me, um the guy I worked with At at Myiramar going and picking up the veterans was name was Brennan. He knew Max who's the head

of sales for Sharp Performance. And Max's good friends would been and Andrew who started Sharp Performance. And he told Brendan about it. And Brennon kept telling me, so he'd be on these trips to go pick up veterans. He's like, "Hey, have you heard of Sharp Performance?" It's like, "It's this veteran company that's helping first responders." He's like, "They sound really cool." And I'd always be like, "Bren, I don't have time for all that stuff." Right? It's like, "What are you talking about?" You know, I have plenty of work here. So, prior to moving to Alabama,

I reached out to Andrew Sackmar at Sharp Performance and told him, "Hey, you know, I heard you're kind of building this company. Um, I like what you're doing. It makes sense. It resonates with me and I would like to come on as a coach." and he's like, "Absolutely, dude." So, I came on as a coach. Luckily for me, as I came to Alabama and things started kind of falling apart there, um I was able to kind of dedicate some more time to joining that team. Um and and really just working on building Sharp Performance. >>

Right on. Yeah. Can you go into Sharp Performance exactly what you guys are doing? >> Yeah. So, Sharp Performance is a company That was started by Andrew Sackmar and Bing Curley. Um, Andrew is a a 14-year Green Beret officer who sustained some injuries over his time, which ultimately led to him being non-deployable. And as he was realizing like he's not going to be able to be a Green Beret anymore, um, he had to figure out a new path just like we had to. Like what's this new purpose going to look like? What am I going

to do? Um, to give back even though knowing that his identity is Being stripped from him. So, long story short, as he goes to business school to try and figure out what that next chapter is going to be, you know, he's reaching out to veterans, uh, guys that he worked with, and a lot of them went into law enforcement and firefighting, so first responders, and he started checking in with them and started hearing their stories, and he had like some revelations. And one of them was just the fact that the time between a Cop or

a firefighter's worst day on the job and them having to reintegrate with their families or wear a different hat or whatever that looks like is like minutes to hours. whereas no matter how work bad our days were in theater, it's weeks to months before we have to come back and reintegrate. And he was like, "Dude, that's got to be insane." Like, that's got to be some insane mental gymnastics to be able to keep it over a course of 30 years of going from your Worst call on earth to maybe a call that's just a benign

call or going from that worst call on earth to like showing up to mama and the kids hours later. >> At a te-ball game. >> Yeah. At a te-ball game. Exactly. And he was like, "Dude, >> one minute you're scraping somebody's head off the pavement and the next you're cheering for your kid at a [ __ ] T-ball game." >> Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Every day. This is Happening every day. The news doesn't always do the best job about highlighting that type of stuff, but um while he was in special forces, >> one minute you're

talking to a poor girl that just got gang raped by 25 dudes and the next minute you're trying to [ __ ] go on a date with your wife. >> Yeah. >> Like it's it's like that. >> Yeah. or you get into a complex situation where you need to use your weapon and now you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. Now it's in every broadcast mainstream media outlet on the world showing that you're one of those guys killing a poor person, right? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. That's not to disclaim bad behavior, right?

But often times it's like that's in the back of their head Too where they can't even feel confident defending themselves. >> People don't even they just they can't put this [ __ ] together in their head. They don't realize like that guy just had to kill somebody 25 [ __ ] minutes ago. >> Yeah. >> Now he's a doing school counseling for his kid. Yeah. >> You know what? Whatever it is, you know, It's it's it's that >> it is. That's how it is. >> Yeah. And Andrew once he realized that, he was like, "Dude,

this is crazy, right? This is not not cool. It's not fair." and then seeing the bureaucracy, the politics around it. You know, often times, dude, I think about like our police officers are almost like our Vietnam veterans where they don't get a vote in a lot of the stuff that's going on and and people just want to blame Them as the bad guys always. And it's just tough to see it socially. Um, while Andrew was in SF, he got introduced to like some training. So, as he was in, he was in a little bit later.

um they were teaching operators how to like downregulate their nervous system, teaching them how to do like visualization exercises and things like that to kind of make the mind sharper and more resilient. And he said, "You know what? Like we need to bring that to Our our first responders." It's like it helped him out being an operator. It helped him get through his like kind of medical challenges and stuff that he had to deal with and he had this real like calling to bring that stuff to them. So they created an app that had all

this training from special operations on there, all these different exercises and that started in the beginning, right? And I was bringing that to them like hoping that he can make a difference and Try and help out this group of people. >> How was that going? >> How is it going? >> Yeah, >> it's going great, man. >> Going really good. Yeah, we started off like kind of with that idea with the app, but then what we also realized and what what they realized early on was that there was kind of a missing component when it

comes to the coaching part. So, it's it's one thing to have a App and have these exercises, but what what they realized was there's a gap of like on the mental health side as well of having someone there that kind of understands what's going on. So they started incorporating the coaching portion and hiring coaches and that's where I kind of came on where not only would they have access to this app that helps them do these exercises but now they got a person that looks just like them has this go ahead has the same look

In their eye that they don't need to explain themselves right that we're not diagnosing them or assessing them for fifer duty but almost can hold a sacred space for them to start processing this stuff. >> Yep. >> So how does how exactly does it work? I mean, look, I I I kind of I kind of talked about at the beginning at the beginning, but so you guys are in 10 different states and over 75 different Part departments or or or military units. And so the way I understand it is a coach goes into the fire

department, the police department, the sheriff's office, the military unit, the whatever it is, right? Am I correct? And but the coach, the coaches aren't your typical therapist. They're not somebody that graduated high school, went and got their degree, became a therapist, and bam, now they're talking To you who we just went through your story, you know, and and so these are these are people every all the coaches to my understanding are are military, fire, LEO, first respond. It's people that have been through. They've lived it. They've seen the [ __ ] They've lived it. They

did the job. They [ __ ] understand what's going on. This isn't like some therapist that's just going through The motions that never had any trauma in their lives. They can relate. Am I right? >> Yes, sir. Yeah. Which I think is so key is one of the biggest gaps is is that part like they call it cultural competency, right? where the therapist actually understands what they do for a living. >> And when you if you get a therapist, no matter how well-intentioned they are, if they don't understand, right, if they Don't understand the dark

humor, right, that we all have, right, they don't understand the unique coping skills that we have to do to survive this type of work to do the mental gymnastics we have to. They're real quick to want to just diagnose you and label you, >> right? Heaven forbid they just label you with PTSD and slap that button and now that has repercussions, >> right? Can you carry a weapon now? >> Right? Do they have to sideline you on The team? >> Mhm. which creates barriers to that, man. Because if you don't trust that process, why would

you use it? >> And that's what a lot of people in this space are coming up against, right? They're afraid >> to start talking about this stuff. >> So, we bring coaches that have a similar walk of life. They're not diagnosing them. They're not assessing them for duty >> and they can sit there and hold a sacred space, right? We hold confidentiality really high, too, >> right? Where they can come in and start offloading this stuff and have a spot where they can start working on themselves. Does this information does this stay with you and

the in the individual or does this get does anything get reported to their leadership? How does it work? >> Yeah. >> Is the leadership involved? >> Yeah. Well, the leadership is involved, right? In a lot of ways, but you know, we do hold confidentiality in the highest regard. So, what that means is, you know, outside of the preservation of life, right? If someone's got a a plan and means to to take their own lives, we're going to breach confidentiality and reach out to their wellness and and support system there because we got to preserve the

life. But outside of that, What we report back to their departments is only utilization reports, right? So, we'll let them know this number of people in your department are working on the app. This number are working with a coach, right? But we won't release any PII to them, no personal information, and we sure as heck would never tell them what we're talking about in sessions, right? Because if we're a spy tool for the department, no one's going to use it, right? >> Mhm. Mhm. >> How does I mean, how does it work? Are you in

there with them every day? Are you just always available? What is what is what does the dayto-day look like >> at a department that hires Sharp Performance? >> Yeah. So, something that's really cool, and I credit Andrew for building this, is like as a part of that app on there, they have the whole roster of coaches, Right? So, one, we're meeting the needs of this demographic, these first responders that need it. Absolutely. But what we're also doing is creating a marketplace for coaches like us, people that get out of the military that don't know what

to do with their hands in this upside down world and want to find a new purpose of serving, right? So, we'll hire them on and they become a part of our coaching marketplace and roster. So, once a department signs with us, they Get access to that app that has all the training. It actually has all their resources from their organic department as well. And then they have access to a whole list of coaches. So anyone in that department can go on the app and look through there and find Steve Bunting and say I want to

work with Steve. Click on me. They see all my availability and my time and book a session with me. With them they get unlimited sessions, right? They get unlimited access to all the Coaches. So if they want to work with me for five weeks and they want to work with another coach on leadership or they want to work with a coach that's from fire a fire department and they're a firefighter, like they can do that as well. >> No [ __ ] So this is this is a marketplace of coaches >> with with your resume

attached. >> Yep. >> So they can they can read your bio and Say this is who I relate with. >> Yeah. >> How many coaches do you guys have? >> Yeah, we have around 50 right now, but we're hiring by the day, right? As we continue to grow, that's going to be a continual process is probably the majority of what I do right now as the head of coaching is finding the right people. >> How many people do you have applying? >> There's lots. Yeah, I think we have Probably already 25 on standby that we're

not even going to get to till January 1st. >> Holy [ __ ] that's awesome. >> Yep. >> How many how many uh how many departments and military units are showing interest in this? Are are you guys getting a wave of that? >> Oh yeah. Oh yeah. In places you wouldn't even expect. >> I brought you guys up to the Secretary Of Army. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> It's like, hey, you guys need to be look seriously brought you up to my local sheriff, too. I don't know if you ever reached out, but I mean I

love what you guys are doing. I think it's long overdue. >> Yeah. >> Long overdue. Yeah. Thank you, man. So, are you guys um is there ever a point in time where You're actually in the department meeting meeting the the the workforce face to face? >> Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, big part of like what we're doing is we don't want to be just another resource that we just drop on their desk and expect them to manage like every relationship that we have with each department. It's like it's a it's a real relationship. So oftent times

even some examples we've had some you know officers that were on Our platform that were lost in the line of duty. You know it's important for us to show up right we create all kinds of different things whether we go up and we teach a class on just operator syndrome right which actually we haven't even talked about that but things about operator syndrome. We'll go and do a class on that. We'll go up and do a class on just um resiliency. There's so many different ways, but we we try to be an intimate part of

a collaborator in Their department, not just a resource for them. How are you guys received when you show up face to face? Is I mean, is this is it is it standoffish? Are they immediately interested in what you guys are doing? How is how is how is how is it building their trust? >> Yeah, I think in the beginning they're not too sure who we are. M >> you know we might just be another a group that's trying to you know >> harvest the resources of the first Responder community but when we get in we

tell part of our roll out and our presentation is we tell our story. We share a little bit about what we've been through and then once we do that man there's so much mutual respect between our communities. Like we're so grateful for what our first responders do and they're grateful for what we did in the military and it's a very unique combination that works out really well. >> Damn. That's awesome, man. So, what's operator syndrome? I've been hearing a lot about this >> and I've heard of Chris Chris Free, right? Is that how you say

it? >> Yes, sir. >> I've heard a lot about this guy. >> Yeah, man. So, when I first came onto the team and we're trying to build out this program, it was like it was a it was a big task. Like, how do what what does this look like? You know, we're not doing therapy, we're doing coaching. How Is this different? And like it was it was a lot of pressure to try and figure out what that looks like. And we were learning it by the day. But prior to me working with Sharp Performance, I'd

met Chris Free. Chris Free was a a PTSD researcher for the VA for quite some time, for a long time. So, he really understood the proclivity for them to want to slap that PTSD button. But as he was doing that work, he's starting to think, he's like, "Dude, we're missing Some things here, right?" It's like, "It's easy to slap this button, but I think we're overlooking some stuff." And he hit hit immediate resistance, right? These guys are like, "This is what we do. It's PTSD. Like, either get in and tell the line or or you're

out." and he said, "Adios." So he stopped working with him and he started reaching out and through some mutual acquaintances he started to meet some operators, right? Some guys are like, "Hey, I think you Know some this guy might be interesting for you to talk to." So he started working with some guys from Damn Neck, started working with some guys out of Fort Bragg. And he started listening to them, started hearing their stories and from the research that he did um working with the VA. Then he also had some research grants. He started realizing that

there's like some physiological things that were being overlooked. They had some suspicions about things like Your endocrinology, right? So he'd start working with them. He's like, "Hey, you should go get your testosterone checked." And they would come back and they bring the data back and all their testosterone was low, right? He'd say, "You need to get metabolic cardioabolic paneling and check out how your heart's doing. Check out your gut health and these things." And he come back and get more data. And as he started to learn more and hear More interviews, he worked with around

300 operators. He was like, "Oh man." He started to see this framework. And he started to see the gap between our physiological needs and PTSD and where that gap is. And he's like, "Dude, if we don't start addressing these physiological things and raising awareness about it, we're never going to get ahead of this PTSD or suicide issue." So, he started going all in on that. He ended up publishing his paper In 2020, and that's when his name started getting out. Then he also once he stopped working with the veterans, so it was operator syndrome because

that was the first group he worked with. He went and he worked with law enforcement and fire and he started doing research with them and he started seeing the same thing, man. >> No [ __ ] >> Yeah. That same framework and what essentially operator syndrome is, it's Easy to get wrapped around the term operator, but it's what's called high allstatic load. So high stress on the body over a long duration of time and how it manifests like mentally, physically, and socially, right? So if you work in a job that's high stress, high demand, you're

not sleeping, you're not eating well over 30 years, you can start to see where like in this framework, these things will start coming up. And Sean, when we share this With firefighters and cops, they're like, "Oh my god, you just told me my whole life. I just scored a 100 on that operator syndrome framework checklist." Right? So early on in that, I was friends with Chris Free Prior and we end up reaching out to him. We said, "Hey, you know, Chris, this is what we're doing." and your book's been great and that paper you put

out's amazing and it really resonates with what we're doing and we think it resonates with with who We're working with with law enforcement and fire. You know, would you mind if we use your framework and would you mind join the team? And dude, he didn't even think twice. He was like, absolutely. So, we brought him on and we kind of built our pro program around that framework of operator syndrome and it's just been a seamless integration that just makes so much sense. Like I couldn't be more grateful for him joining our team and just helping

us Because it's all science back to, right? The data is there for everybody that that's important to. We're not just doing some wazoo stuff. And at the end of the day, it's really basic when you look at it. It just makes sense. >> Damn. >> Yeah. I should bring him on, huh? >> He's awesome, man. One of the most humble human beings I've ever met. >> I know. I got a lot of mutual friends that uh that know him. I've never heard Anything bad about him. >> Yeah. other than from the VA. They don't like

him very much. >> Yeah. Well, he's disrupting some things for them. >> Yeah. >> In honor of us, though. >> Sounds like a great dude. >> Yeah, he is. Yeah. We've become good friends over time. >> Good, man. Good. So, 50 Did I'm sorry. Did you say 50? You have 50 coaches at Sharp. >> Yeah. >> In 10 different states. >> Where do you I mean, >> where else do you guys want to go? Yeah, man. We want to work with everybody. You know, for us there, it's kind of multifaceted. Like one is meeting the

demand and the needs of these high-risisk professions, right? But it's not just law enforcement and fire. Like When we think about the framework like high stress, it's like dude, look at what the air traffic controllers just had to go through, >> right? Where they weren't getting funding and they have one of the like undeniably the highest stress jobs out there and now they're not getting paid, right? There's a lot of injustices across our country with so many different people whether it even just be the hospital staff like nurses the Things they have to carry every

day, right? It's like even though our hearts here in this space working with law enforcement, fire, but it's like I see this as a human condition how much stress we're put through every day. Just pick up your phone. It's designed to stress you out. Go on any, you know, mainstream media. They're they're just stressing everybody out all day. And I think every every bit of what we're teaching people and we're showing up for Is like helpful to anybody in this experience. The other thing, dude, is like is having something like an opportunity for purpose for

a lot of people, you know, especially like our veterans. Like they get out of the military and it's like what do you do? You can go contract. Like you can do some of these other things, but for a lot of people they feel lost here, man. They feel lost. They feel betrayed. You know, us pulling out of Afghanistan was Really tough. Yeah. >> For everybody and there's a lot of people out there looking at the system, looking at the bureaucracy, and they don't know where they fit. And in that can be a little bit of

despair. What we want to do is provide a spot for them of hope, a place where they can come and practice what they preach, where they can show up for others, use that wisdom that they earn, share their story, right, and help help their fellow Person. Cuz people like us don't get to stop serving. We're servants. >> And the idea that we're not is like kind of ridiculous to me. I mean, I think that's a part of the problem. Whereas guys think they're just going to go fish for the rest of their life. It's like,

dude, you're a servant, right? You're the cassette class. You're a warrior, right? And it's time for us warriors to show up for each other, right? We can't keep yelling at the academics or the the Politicians to save us. It's time for us to step up and be there for each other. And I think that's the way it was always supposed to be. So, we're trying to build that up as well, like hitting it from both sides. >> Damn, you guys got a lot of work to do. >> Yeah. How's your schedule? How busy are you

as a coach? >> Dude, I I say this almost every day. I'm busier than I've ever been. And it's the First time in my life I'm not miserable about it. >> Well, that's that's that's a positive. >> Yeah, man. >> Um that's [ __ ] awesome that that that's what you're doing. I mean, for a living and that there's 49 other guys and women >> um you know, >> doing it, too. How do you vet who? How do you vet your coaches? >> Yeah, in the beginning, you know, there's such a deep network of transformational

coaches working with the mission within heroic hearts and you know, those those guys and girls really get it. So, we started with our first test pot, kind of leveraging them, reaching out to them, sharing what we're doing outside of the medicine space because we're not affiliated with medicine work, right? We're not affiliated with psychedelics or anything Like that, just to the sensitivities of the United States, right? and we respect those limitations, but we brought a lot of those transformational coaches over and the conversations they were have was just exactly what those firefighters and cops needed.

So, we were very successful in that space. But as we continue to grow, it's important for us to to have good coaches, but the right coaches. So, some of the vetting process, one is like usually it comes through referral. So, We already have our tremendous coaches and if they know someone's a good coach, then we'll start talking to them and usually bring them on. We'll leverage some of these veteran nonprofit groups and then also for open- source like kind of applications. It's really important for us right now where we are in growth for them to

have some coaching experience, right? Some form of certification, some experience just because we don't have time to teach People right now how to be coaches. The other part is that I need to hear your story, right? You need to have a story like you need to be affiliated. You need to have been a prior first responder, right? Prior military, prior spouse of military or first responder because that's a huge gap that we're so heartled in. And that's to support the women of first responders, too. >> You guys are supporting the women, too. >> The spouses.

Yeah. >> Spouses. >> Yeah. Probably shouldn't be just the women, but yeah. The spouse of them. >> Yep. And um cuz that's huge for us. We learned that all firsthand. But we finally came through our healing and we looked at our wives and said, "Oh man, like we drug you through a lot and you deserve it, too." And they often times get overlooked that that that cop's wife is going through a lot too. Every day he he signs up for a shift and he leaves, Right? coming back changed after every shift. It's a lot there.

So, it's important for us to show up for them, too. >> I mean, this is so new you that that at least I've never experienced anything like I've never experienced somebody like this coming into a unit that I was in. What What you know, how are you guys approached? What is what are like the first questions that people have for you? Is it this I mean, do you see a lot of commonalities? I mean, you know what? I I would imagine it takes a minute for somebody to reach it. Or maybe it doesn't, you know,

but how how is that experience? >> No, it is. It is something new. The biggest question we get is like what's the difference between this and therapy, which is like a fair question, right? It's like what is what? So, you're doing the same thing as our therapist. It's Like we're not all right. Coaching is very much different. You know, we're not we're not diagnosing you or assessing you, right? And that that's one of the bigger things is like what is this replacing therapy? like are we just supposed to do coaching instead? But we're not doing

that. We're collaborators, right? We believe like if they're working with a therapist and they're working with a coach, it can absolutely it's like a a force Multiplier. >> Mhm. >> Right. With coaching, we like to work on the basic stuff like getting your sleep dialed in, getting you downregulating your nervous system, getting your diet in check, moving your body again. And a lot of times on the therapy side of the house, those are the things that are missed, right? right? They might do a mental exercise or whatever it may be based on their ideology and

what their Practice is, but all those smaller things get overlooked. So, where we come in is almost like collaborative with that process, right? And allowing them a space to just kind of feel safe talking about this type of stuff. >> Do they ask you about your background? >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Very, you know, not as much as you would think, though, to be honest with you. Yeah. Now that we've kind of got a reputation, I do a lot of the rollouts when we present to the Department. So, a lot of people get to hear my

story, >> but oftent times, you know, we're in six, seven sessions and they're like, "Oh, Steve, you were in the military, right?" And it's like, "Yeah, once upon a time, >> right?" But they have enough trust in our process right now that they'll they'll show up and it's not as important for me to share my story all the time now. Mhm. Mhm. Do you do you See do you see a community within the community that that needs more help than everybody else? I mean, is it firefighters? Is it police? Is it military? Is it first

responders? Is it nurses in the ER? I mean, or is it all everybody just needs it? >> Yeah. I think one thing I didn't notice before um doing this work is how much the firefighters and cops are handinand, right? how much like 90% of the calls They're both there together, right? And the chances that in California there's a lot of firework, right? So that you know firefighters in California do more firework, you know, um but oftent times like they're on the same calls, right? The same calls. If someone's shot, they need medics there, right? So

it's like it's very much uh integrated in a way that I wasn't quite aware of prior to doing this work. So they equally share that stress and that burden. And I Think, you know, between you and me, like I really feel I do feel for the cops, man. I do feel for them. You know, we live right next to LA and just seeing some of the things that they have to deal with every day. It's like I don't understand how you could do it, right? But they still do. Yeah. >> They still believe in it.

They still show up and they're willing to risk their lives for strangers knowing that no one's going to thank them and that Everyone's going to criticize them and they're just some very special human beings, man. To be able to do that. We need them so much. >> Yeah. Mhm. What do you guys need? What do you need at Sharp? >> Yeah, dude. We're so >> How are you guys getting the name out? >> Yeah, things like this. Yeah, we started our own little podcast to help people try to share their stories, give, you Know, first

responders an opportunity to share their story. Very much modeled off of what you're doing. >> It's just so beautiful to allow people this space. I'm grateful for it. So, thank you. But, you know, we're working really hard. And I think just kind of getting the word out is just so important right now to help people know that they're not alone, that there's hope. There's people out here that really want to serve them, that we've Dedicated our entire lives to doing this for the rest of our lives, to show up for them the best way possible.

I think that's that's all we could ask right now. Right. Oh, man. Well, ever since uh I connected with Ben, I've been uh I've been cheering you guys on. everybody I talk to that I think that that I think could use this and um I hope it's helping and if it's not yet, I know it will. So, cuz I'll just get louder. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> Thank you, man. >> And we're so grateful for that. >> Seriously. Um it was an honor, man. like this this your story and everything that you've come through is

uh wow. Wow. And um you know and we we we we we also talk a lot about generational trauma on you know talked about with Prime talked About it with a lot of a lot of the people that have been on here that have been through this and and you know it's just there's people on my team uh they're here today that that have had [ __ ] horrific childhoods and uh >> congratulations man. >> Mhm. I'm being serious. Um, it's just I just love seeing people that that have been through that, their parents have

been through that, their grandparents have been through that. And When I when I see somebody that breaks that [ __ ] cycle, it just makes me so happy and and uh and proud. Like, it's just [ __ ] You're a good person, man. and you've come through a lot and you're pouring a lot of good into this world. So, it's an honor to know you and to meet you and to interview you, man. >> Yeah. Thank you, Sean. I'm very grateful for every bit of it. I'm very grateful To be on this path and have

this purpose. It's uh Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity, brother. >> My pleasure. God bless. Thank you. No matter where you're watching Shawn Ryan Show from, if you get anything out of this, please like, comment, subscribe, and most importantly, share this everywhere you possibly can. And if you're feeling extra generous, please leave us a review on Apple and Spotify podcasts.