Cody Alford - Marine Raider/MARSOC Sniper Who Became a Nomad | SRS #034

Hey everybody I hope you had a fantastic weekend I'm down here in Austin Texas getting ready to jump on somebody else's podcast which I'm super stoked about I don't get to do that very often and I can't tell you who it is cuz I don't know when they're going to release it yet but hey next up we've got Cody Alfred this man becomes the best in anything he puts his mind to he was the honor man of his boot camp class he was The honor man of his marock training class he was the fastest man

and the youngest man to ever put on E8 in the United States Marine Corps that's a huge deal I'm a huge fan of Cody I love what this man's all about he's living his life to the fullest which is something we all should be doing ladies and gentlemen welcome Cody Alford head over to iTunes or Spotify leave us a review sign up for patreon I love you all enjoy this show take Something from it and apply that to your life one last thing everybody I want to give a huge shout out to my friend Jake

Tran Jake made an entire fulllength documentary off of our markp episode the CIA operative that got hit with a microwave Weapon It's also known as Havana syndrome Jake thank you for the exposure and well done that documentary is awesome thank you links in the description check out Jake Tran I remember going back behind the Window I reload another magazine and as soon as I pop out to shoot it all goes black the brutality of it all and really what we were up against I had no left or right lateral liit to even comprehend that the

body mutilations the beheadings the dismember me the the human Shields all that but the night prior my plon commander comes in and he's like everyone's going to write a their Death Letter Jesus Christ and then you hear stories of your friends that you went to boot camp with the school of infantry with that are in ratti that are fighting for their life at the same time that you're fighting for your life in fuia just to find out half those Duds are dead I don't remember remember the exact numbers but I remember the feeling and I

have never been able to shake it ever since that's when I had this out of- Body experience at the time I had no idea what happened I thought I was dead I saw this top down view what was going on I can see my body I can see my pointman still shooting I can see my other teammates on the ground we were stacking So Many Bodies that we had to send patrols out to move the bodies because there was interrupting our fields of fire holy [ __ ] there were so many bodies being Stacked that

the locals were driving up their ambulances and picking up bodies [Music] also I don't know much but what I do know is my audience and I know a lot of you are similar to me and you probably Chew Tobacco I used to chew tobacco too I chewed it in Afghanistan I chewed it in Iraq I chewed it in the sniper hide I chewed it out of the sniper hide I chewed it before the op I chewed it after the op I chewed it on night vision I chewed it while I was shooting I chewed it

pretty much all the time and then I realized it was becoming a problem my blood pressure started Rising what I really noticed was I started getting Li headed when I would do strenuous activities now I've come a long way since those days and I've quit chewing tobacco but it wasn't easy you see I totally get it the ritual that goes behind putting that beautiful tasty dip in your mouth when you're doing Whatever it is you like doing when you're chewing tobacco now there's an easier way to do it than doing at Cold Turkey you see

there's this company out there called black Buffalo it's a chewing tobacco alternative they have cans with nicotine without nicotine long cut and pouches and they have all of our favorite flavors that we is chewers love like black Buffalo winter green black Buffalo straight black Buffalo mint and for you Fufu types they have those Flavors too blood orange and even Peach black Buffalo is also a proud supporter of active duty military personnel US veterans law enforcement and First Responders black Buffalo is also made 100% right here in the US OFA black Buffalo is not recommended for

anybody under 21 or if you do not chew tobacco it's not recommended for you either black Buffalo products do not contain tobacco leaf or stem go to Black buffalo.com use the code SRS to save 15% That's black buffalo.com use the promo code SRS to save 15% Cody Alfred welcome to the show man thanks for having me I'm glad you made it me too I've been watching your Instagram for couple years now and uh what really got me your military service I'm sure is impeccable I've heard I've reached out to some buddies of mine that are

marock and asked around about you and everybody just had phenomenal things to say but what really caught me was Kind of your philosophy on life and how you I mean you live free free of all the [ __ ] at least it appears that way and so I thought you'd make a great guest and I can't wait to dive into that we're going to hit your childhood we're going to hit your military career really heavy and what you're doing now and uh in your journey after the military which I I personally think is very inspiring

so thank you for making it yeah thanks for having me I'm really excited big fan My pleasure but uh everybody starts with a gift there you go awesome any guesses it's going to be hard let's see nobody ever guesses it I never guess and I should have not guessed cuz I would have got it wrong this is sick [Applause] Bro I have deployment stories of Gummy Bears I love them those are legal in all 50 states I'm all about that right on Dude bet merch I love it you're an XL I yes I am all

right cool thank you yeah man you're welcome thanks for making it D I'm super St but um you know we generally start the show with a question from Patron from patreon so patrons that's what enables this whole thing to happen they support the show they support my team me it's why you're sitting here it's why I'm sitting Here and so I try to get them a question at least one question and they actually man when I told them you were coming they were all fired up we got more questions from you coming on than than

most guests so I would like to do another segment if that's possible that's only on patreon ask answering all their questions they they got a lot of good questions but this one is from kemell Williams I thought this was a good question cuz it uh directly is Related to kind of your your Mantra or your philosophy on life your company and he's basically asking in a world full of fantasies which we see on social media all the time people pretending to be what they're not or hiding certain aspects of their life or you know all

you know what I'm talking about what what is defying the norm that is a really good question what is normal normal is what you accept as Truth normal is what makes you stay in the haze and days of Life wondering and dreaming of some something else a different different Venture you can be on but still doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results Norm is listening to the society uh Norm is knowing that you have a call inside for more in your life whatever that may or may not be and not listening

to it Norm is going through The motions and buying into the whole go to go to education go into debt get a job get married get the white picket fence save some money get buy your dream stuff when you're 65 just to remember just to be reminded that you don't have enough money to live and then to die old age full of regret and I told myself I wasn't going to live that life so in a world full of fake and fou IES and not so much Authenticity out there def find the norm is finding

your voice finding you and literally Paving a path on however you want to and whatever that means to you so if if this is the path you want to be on do it but believe in it if that's not the path you want to do do something different and believe in it to me that's what defying the norm is that's a good answer well I got my own question too okay so we at Dunner last night we had we're both new parents We had some good new parent advice so but I didn't ask you this

question on purpose cuz this is what I texted myself in the middle of dinner but I don't know about you but when my son came it changed everything and uh way more than I thought it would actually change my life and I have a few rules that I've made myself and those rules continue to there continue to be more rules as time goes on but do you have a number one rule that you follow As a new father doesn't have to be like a whole philosophy could be one just specific rule like my my number

one rule to keep myself in check for my son is I when he is in my arms I do not get on my phone no social media no texts no checking things no checking email nothing no phone while my son's in my arms and I think that's going to go into no no phone when he's looking at me maybe even no phone when he's in the room I Don't want my son to wind up living on his phone like I see everybody else you know you go to a restaurant you see married couples they don't

even [ __ ] look at each other they're looking at their phone the whole time or you go to a family dinner and you see half the family you know on their phone in the middle of dinner and I I never want that to happen so that's my number one rule do you have one I think I have a view which transpires Into rules um and that that Ru that that view is this I'm the way you know that dude looks at me and you know when he was first born I was scared um you

know I have a seven-year-old son that lives overseas with his mother that I don't get as much contact as I want to uh and that makes it difficult and so for seven years I've beat myself up for like not being a good Dad you know not being a good man and being in my son's life now my six-month year-old his first two months I was still waiting for permission to be a dad I was holding myself back because of all these insecurities and fears and just stories I've told myself uh for seven years feeling inadequate

always thinking about my son but not being able to do anything about it um and so when I when I stopped feeling sorry and waiting For permission I just started to engage myself with him everything changed because I found myself not being really interactive with him I found myself easily distracted I found myself needed to do or wanting to do things and having to watch him or hold him was keeping me from those things I was very selfish and I realized that no matter how I want to shake a stick at it I'm the way

this dude is gonna model me and if I don't show up as my best self even With my hurdles my hardships my truth you know that kid is going to grow up in a lie and one thing that I've struggled really hard in the past four years is being present and I think that's kind of what you're saying too about being on your phone I can now pick up my son and like he's there I'm smiling he if he goes to sleep my wife's like get him up I'm like no this dude is sleeping and

I want to I want to take advantage of this I we really want to Enjoy it because people say like oh you watch your kid be born it'll change your life and my life didn't magically change when he popped out but my life did change I just didn't know it because I was still battling things and knowing that I am the way that I'm the vessel for him to watch and observe I'm the lighthouse for him to see when times are tough T tough and times are dark putting that Responsibility on life in itself and

that my role as a father and as a mentor and as a leader of the family it helped shift me into gear that I wasn't already in I had the capability of being in that gear but I just needed to like make it happen um so I'd say my rule is a over everchanging but realizing that I am the lighthouse for him and if I can't be that for myself if I can't be present for myself if I can't be working on myself I can't be bettering myself or Pushing myself forward how can I ever

lead him to do the same for himself and uh being present has really helped that and when I looked in that dude's eyes I'm just like I [ __ ] love you and I mean it and it's helped shift my perspective on I hear stories oh I do anything for my kids I'm like but you won't even do anything for yourself I would do anything from my kids I'm like you hate your [ __ ] job You make no money and you Pawn off your insecurities on your children and I had that as like this

this like guiding principles going into being a father and actually being able to be here and be involved and to me it just didn't make sense and so I like stop putting the blame or stop projecting what needs to happen and start being what must happen and through changing myself and giving myself permission to be like yo bro Step Up be a dad be a man be present stop Doing this [ __ ] that you know is not enhancing your quality of life and you know that really changed it all and when I look at

him and I see him and or I'm running late but I'm spending time with him I'm with him and so now my whole view of life has completely changed even more I'm doing whatever I got to do to maximize my time with my son and my family because that is what matters to me before all these other goals and dreams Mattered to me the distractions mattered to me uh but those those were because I had no rules uh so when I meet men like you and dads like you and we share these conversations and I

hear what's important to you I add that to my Rolodex because I want to be the best dad you know and I want my kid to be around strong men I want other men to help raise my son I want a tribe to help raise my son and the only way I'm going to do that I might be able to do it in The physical space but I can take these other key points and key Rules from these other great men that I admire and look up to and bring that into my life it's challenging

to me but it's going to benefit him because he's only going to see what right looks like through my own actions and so if I can't get my shits together how can I expect to say I'm setting him up for success and that I love him if I don't love myself enough to put the work in to do the hard [ __ ] To put down the phone which is hard to do you know guys like you and I our businesses are from this phone um and at least for me it can be very overwhelming

at times I definitely fall down those rabbit holes and miss out on what's right in front of me and uh that's really been the season of just stopping all the noise and focusing on what matters and being present cuz I definitely was not like that before so it's yeah so it's almost the Same it's the same same same rule be present same rule just 15 minutes of explanation yeah right right that's a you got any other ones off the top of your head what do you want your son if you it's not your choice but

what do you want your son to be involved in what's one thing that you want to teach him that you want to relate with him on is it maybe it's Jiu-Jitsu maybe it's business maybe it's shooting maybe it's building Forts what are you looking forward to I'm looking for him I'm looking forward to him becoming an individual yeah you know I don't I'm not gonna there's nothing in my life that I enjoy so much that I ever want to put on anybody else because it's taking me long to even find interest in those things and

knowing what I think I know about the mind and how we evolve and how we grow and how we expand and how we heal And how we do all these things there's a version of him that I want him to be able to have that space where he can find that version uninterrupted by outside influence especially by us I just want him to see Mom and Dad crushing their goals and dreams because you can't say hey son I believe in you go out and do big things but if you don't do that for yourself so

it's like a commitment to life um so that's I have no expectations for him other than to Set him up for success and what does that mean by showing him yeah that's the only thing I can do if I if I try to I will never get into the sports I will never make him do anything MH uh but I will encourage him to do more and as he grows and as he evolves and as a leader and as a mentor for him I will utilize my experience to see those gaps and and offer guidance

because if he doesn't have a buyin he's going to be resentful and whatever he's Doing at such a young age and that's that's only going to push him potentially further away from his true path and calling um so I'm kind of open and it's all new and it's absolutely scary and I have really no [ __ ] clue what I'm doing so it's exciting yeah I don't think anybody does I want to introduce my son to as many things as as possible and and one thing that I worry about a little bit is and I

don't know maybe you worry about it too But you've got 15 years as a marine Raider and Special Operations that's a lot to live up to for a son you know in your entire career was in Wartime environment I don't want my son to I I'm hoping he doesn't try to do what I did to live up to whatever he thinks that I've accomplished you know and what I want to do is introduce him to as many things as possible and hope that he finds what interests him not what he thinks I want Him to

be interested in if that makesense that makes a lot of sense you know I think I had a I believe my dad was a good man uh but I didn't get a lot of like guidance and praise growing up as a kid and so I think that was a lot of like I was always trying to like crush it to like win dad's approval mhm um and so reverse engineering that whole phase of my life you know and applying that to how I view my son and how I at least right now feel Like I'm

going to go into that season of evolution is I'm going to treat him like a teammate teammate I'm going to treat him like a team member going hold him accountable you know I'm going to give him rules and expectations task condition and standards and like you said interact I want him to meet these other great amazing men that they might have been superheroes back in the day but right now they're super men they're doing real things they they find passion In what they do they're educated they have their own two cents they they think for

themselves and you know not a lot of people see that side of especially veterans especially our tribe of veterans our group of people that we worked with and obviously not everyone's the same uh but there's so much more to life and I think we we learned so much more about life after all the suffering and the pain and the [ __ ] misery and hardships we've gone through willingly Or not uh that can help expand the way you view things and work on things and if I can introduce my son to that circle of people

that are just living growing evolving that might be all he needs and if he wants to go do that other thing then that's fine but you know my job is to give him a well-rounded foundation so he can build any Empire he wants to not a single track I'll never raise my kid military I'll never do any of that type of stuff I didn't grow up that way uh I was given the opportunity but the end of the day that flame inside you can't tame that you know you can't you can only nurture it you

can only encourage it and you can only hope that you did good enough right you set the example enough so no matter what decision they make they're going to go with their own philosophy into that that unknown into that fry because the military is not a bad place place the military is just as Dangerous place as a as a 9 to-5 job it's the compacity of the mindset it's what you're willing to do what you're willing to accept what truths do you have going into it what vulnerability are you going to show yourself what openness

and willingness are you going to have you know that's those are the things that I want my kid to understand and be open to these words these terms these feelings these emotions to weaponize his mind so he can literally Do anything he wants to and have enough courage to be like I'm done and have enough respect for himself to be like I need help that's that's my main focus for him that's awesome well said but uh well let's move into you okay so let's start where'd you grow up I grew up uh in Duncanville Texas

it's uh just south of Dallas Texas right smack dab in the center and uh yeah I did that for 18 years till before I moved out uh moved out and went to the military well what Were you into as a kid hold on hold on let's go back yeah let's go back what were you into as a kid I was into I was into art I love to draw I was painting and drawing as a little kid drawing spaceships Spacemen uh I was in a lot of art competitions um I think a lot of kids

are but I really enjoyed it and then the computer came out and then I got into like uh you remember paint I used to draw on paint all the time I used to Draw like James Bond like video game characters and very pixelated art back in the day and I had this like talent for like blowing up like small stamps my my parents collected stamps and I would like blow up these stamps into like big drawings and paintings um I could just like that's what I was really good at enhancing the size of something and

kind of bringing it to life and that's what I was into was in then I got into playing video games like computer games mainly War [ __ ] um because I saw this uh I saw this Ranger poster once and it kickstarted everything for me my this whole like fantasy of like this supreme Commando Premiere operating you know disciplined lifestyle I'm like oh my God this is awesome and so then I got into like kind of fantasizing about like well what would that life look like um then I saw the movie sniper with Tom Binger

and that just [ __ ] solidified everything for me uh so then what I got into was Paintball I got into I was like making my ghillie suit at like 8 years old crawling around my backyard you know there was no YouTube back then but there was VHS tape and I recorded every like seal documentary that was on the Discovery Channel every Special Forces sniper thing that I could see dude I'd wake up I would you remember back in the day there was like the TV Guide pamplets yeah I would like flip through there and

be like oh this movie this movie's Playing at 3:00 in the morning so I get up and like record over like our Christmas [ __ ] VHS taped you know because I needed some space to like get this documentary so I can watch it like I just started to nerd out on those things because it looked hard and I was really I was really turned on by the aspect of like not everyone passes and you know there's a 60% failure rate and I'm just like those things were interesting to me um so I was really

Into like that mindset of like that's where I'm going to go you know so you really wanted to test yourself that it a very young age yeah I was into it I knew my dad was in the military he was he was a marine also never talked about it um every now and then stories that come up we was around friends but it was very few and far between I was never I was never influenced by mouth Word of Mouth to ever seek that stuff I think my parents just kind of Knew that's what I

wanted to do I was always playing GI Joe I mean [ __ ] I would I have one of those like toy Rambo knives those plastic ones with the compass in the in the handle oh nice and I would uh I grew up in a kind of small home and I would low crawl from my bedroom into the kitchen area I remember like my mom would like um she' like put the the comforters and laundry in the kitchen she's like washing the clothes in the garage and I would like low crawl Underneath like the pile

of like clothes and I would like hide out there sometimes it' be for hours waiting for my mom to like lift it up and like ah surpriser I'd sneak up behind my cats I'm like dude if I could sneak up behind a cat I can sneak up behind anybody and I think my cats just felt sorry for me probably they're just like this [ __ ] guy so but I felt cool you know it was like that was it I was into it I was always trying to think like if we Got attacked in my

house I'm going to hide behind my dresser drawers and I have like my rubber band guns and you know I always I just had that mindset of like I don't really know what it was it was just in me and I wasn't like possessed with it it was just like and it was my vision board I had a vision board ever since I was a child really yeah never even heard about a vision board until my 30s and my vision board I actually Posted on my Instagram I had this like corkboard and on there I

had like one shot one kill I was always drawing like sniper stuff in high school like I was always dueling dude teachers talking I'm Cody's drawing you know I'm fantasizing I'm drawing a sniper rifle I'm drawing a skull with a boonie cover on it I'm drawing like all sorts of [ __ ] like just I I didn't know at the time what I was actually doing until now later in life I Started to research and read more books and educate myself on these anomalies that have happened in my life but they all started from a

belief system and a mindset as a child and my vision board had a classic truck it had my scout sniper it had like a marine patch on there it basically had military and classic vehicles that was it and I grew up with with classic vehicles that's what I wanted that was my dream uh join the military you know I Get all these I'm creating all these things but little did I Know It All Started From a vision board being a kid flipping through a TV channel you know I didn't my parents never talked about what

do you want to do when you grow up that wasn't even a thing I was still worried about the next birthday the next Christmas you know I couldn't wait for like when I was in high school and like there's a high school party like I wasn't thinking too far down the Lifeline not being present or not enjoying the childhood that I was having but for some Reon I was really into that stuff dude I was going to go be a Commando and nothing was going to stop me um and I kind of took that mindset

with everything else I wasn't really good at much things I played soccer every kid plays soccer I I think I kind of sucked I'm not even sure but I played for a few years and I enjoyed it cuz it was fun I like the whole team aspect Then I played football and I was I grew up in a 5A very large football team like Texas football that's it yeah it's what you do and I was so good at football I made Varsity my senior year you know like I was not good I was a small

skinny white guy but my dreams were huge I was the best player you know my dreams are huge you couldn't stop me my dreams are huge I was going to go make that play and I don't really know how all that was Instilled into me um but cuz I got knocked down a lot I got put on the sideline a lot I didn't really suck but I couldn't match up to 300 lb defensive lineman and offensive lineman I when you're when you're building your intimidation stack because a football team is nothing but intimidation Stacks skill

and intimidation you're not going to put the spring being on there that's not going to intimidate anybody that's not get psychological in someone's head Even though I could break through the system so at the time the high school the football team they they had this view on what their what their starting line looked like but I had that fighting spirit and what that showed me at a young age was just like a lot of things you know I got beat up a lot I ran from gangs a lot I lived in a very um lot

of projects and apartments like around the area that I lived in and a lot of lot of stream Gangs and I was that skinny white kid I didn't know I grew up very I grew up independent I could do anything I wanted to do my parents didn't really restrict me on much they also didn't get me free rain I had some like guiding principles to like come home eat your dinner you know do these things spend time with your mom um but I kind of had free reign to explore any of Venture that I wanted

to do within Reason but I realized that life is life is hard at a young age my parents worked all the time my dad was a cop sh my dad was a cop for 42 years uh not in an easy town he worked in Dallas Texas which or the Dallas County which is just insane there so much crime out there and a lot of his fears from the and a lot of the youth that he saw that he's either you know dealing with their dead bodies not knocking on doors to family members you know I

think that really put some fear Into him to like kind of put me in a box when it comes to like hey you're going to [ __ ] around and find out you know the world is not gumdrops and lollipops like the world is very dangerous out there and but he also told me like dude you got to stand up for yourself you know because it's it's very violent it's dangerous uh and so those subliminal messages which maybe he didn't know what he was really doing at the time but it it like ingrained into me

to to Persevere to push forward I got beat up by this game today well I'm just going to ride my bike faster tomorrow I'm going to go a different route tomorrow I'm going to REM remove myself from that environment you know oh I sucked today at this play well I'm going to go find the players that are good and ask them like hey how could I do better for this you know or what how are you doing that cuz I need to do that oh you also Run Track too well that looks hard and scary

Well let me go try to run track you know let me go try to do these things because I realized I thrived in a team environment I I thrived even more when it was bigger than myself and then I found a way to you know not manipulate my environment but to adapt to my environment I got tired of getting beat up so I find new ways I started rolling with a crew you know now I got Five Guys rolling on their little huffies to to school vice me riding solo you know I Don't go through

in this time because this time is the the loitering lingering time and I'm bound to get hemmed up this way you know and I didn't look at it I didn't know what fear was I wasn't scared of things back in the day to how I understand they're very severe nowadays but it just I was just kind of set up for this like weird success where I had to figure it out and my parents both worked and so I spent my Summers or I spent my time off you know at home I Um Jerry Springer was

my um what do you call it uh like home schooler at times you know these sitcoms and I'm like well these are boring this sucks so I so I draw I soothe my self a drawing or I go outside and shoot my BB gone at like my little GI Joe guys and I just kept busy and somehow it all kind of worked out cuz at that point in time in my life I was really just buying time cuz once I decided that I wanted to go into the military at a very young age I was

just Waiting my turn so everything up to that point the football the track the chicks the cars uh the the the parties all these things as an evolution of growing from a young kid making it to high school where you're figuring out who you are learning what you believe in at a very entry level stuff um I was just waiting waiting my turn because I couldn't speed it up but I was also trying to maximize it My dad was really big on like hey you're about to be gone you better like start spending time with

your mom you know I'm like oh I got to these parties I want to go do these things and there's like you need to start worrying about your mother and I did not like that I did not like to hear that as a kid I wanted to go party I wanted to go do what these other kids did where their parents may or may not have cared and um you know my dad told me one time he's like you might not Come back one day he's like so spend time with your mother cuz you mean

a lot to her and I'm like oh [ __ ] okay and I was always like a mama's boy growing up I love my mom you know my mom she was a fighter she uh had breast cancer at a very young age for me and I lived with another family uh for quite some time when my mom was going through the whole process and I remember uh we went to the Mall one day my mom she's bald you know she's wearing a wig and she's walking she's holding my hand and this mall is like extremely

[ __ ] ghetto very ghetto and they're like look at this look at this ugly [ __ ] with no hair and I'm a kid at the time I didn't even know what to do this is this is a new interaction for me and my mom she [ __ ] gripped my hand she [ __ ] lifted her [ __ ] chin and she kept on walking I'm like holy [ __ ] you know that Lesson didn't hit me back then but that determination that perseverance to [ __ ] keep on pushing to like yo

bro we're going to let words break us in this family we're not going to let some [ __ ] chump [ __ ] bring us down because they hate themselves you know she said all this without ever saying a word she led by example my dad my dad was the type of guy who he worked his ass off that dude did not have an easy childhood my dad was really big into Like family lineage and uh you know able to trace alfreds all the way back to the Revolutionary War like this dude was like deep

into like the family tree stuff and when I found out a little bit about his childhood I mean both my parents were born they were like six and seven around World War II uh my dad lived a completely opposite life of my mother very hard life very abusive dad and seeing how what my dad did he was an Rur then he like full-time police officer work his ass off all the time he would get shot my dad was on Cops you know he like it was so bad where his area was they made it on

the TV show and my dad's you know drugged behind cars he's got shot in his vest shot in his leg and this dude never complained once he would come home he would eat food and he's like hey we got to go do this and I [ __ ] hated that cuz this dude was a machine I just wanted to sit And just like imagine stuff dragons in my mind and sit on the couch and like be a kid yeah because I knew a hard life was coming my way so I really wanted to maximize not

living a hard life when I could and that just didn't really fly um but yeah I was I was shown from a very young age of maybe not what right looks like but hey this is the best that I know and this is what R looks like based on that information those facts and both my parents were strong and my Mom is still strong she's a trooper um I mean just no stop and that just trickled on to me uh then my dad being hard you I wanted to impress my dad I wanted to like

I wanted to do things that make him proud you know I didn't want to be a wuss I remember this one particular time uh I was in high school and there was someone accusing me of something at a party that I wasn't even at they thought it would be funny if so and so's older Brother would like call me out and like try to fight me and I wasn't a big Scrapper back in the day there was a point where I was but I didn't seek it a lot of my friends did so luckily I

was Guilty By Association so that kept me out a lot of stuff I learned that on early early on in life too if you if you can't do it yourself or you're not into that stuff have a bubble have a bubble that people don't want to mess with and that Could probably keep you a lot of [ __ ] and you can you can infiltrate that bubble with a different View and perspective and now you're truly powerful and forceful Vice like violent all the time and this dude comes up to me one day in in

the commentary in the high school and he's like hey I heard you're talking [ __ ] about my brother I'm like what the [ __ ] do you say like it just reacted reacted I just like stood up for myself and he's like Okay okay he's like Friday and it just like they said at this like time and day to like whoop my ass and this dude was like a straight Scrapper this dude was like The Real McCoy and I remember telling my d dad this and I'm like I don't want to fight this guy

man like I don't want to do that I don't even believe in this stupid confrontation and I think I took my dad by surprise I don't know if he thought I was like a [ __ ] or what it was cuz I'm Like sharing emotion and like like thought process at a young age and I reflect back on that a lot because I still have that same vision today like without belief why am I doing it and at a young age I'm not trying to just go fight to get fight it's not about getting beat

up it's about the principle of like why am I even showing up to this you know and at a young age I didn't know what that was helping me shape in my life you know 20 years down the road How that discernment of like I don't believe in this so why would I do that you know this doesn't make sense to me so why would I [ __ ] risk my life for it you know and I valued me at a very young age because no one else is going to do it but me uh

my parents kind of taught me tough love you know they didn't disrespect me they love me the best they could but in all that process I had to like find me at a very young age to like yo bro you got to start [ __ ] fighting for yourself picking your own battles fighting on your terms and stop just being a [ __ ] victim because someone somebody wants to make an example out of you and I got tired being an example so instead of me just like duking it out try to use my mind

long story short and and I and I share that because it it was so uncomfortable as a kid to say that to your dad who is this like mainly man um this dude that everyone knew in His industry his Niche his environment this Brave guy this tough guy to tell my dad like I don't want to fight this guy you know like what do I do and him not really having the advice to give me that was hard um and I don't blame him for it but conversations like that I couldn't imagine were really prevalent

back in the day this is like 2001 2002 time frame emotions depression anxiety PTSD these things weren't conversation things yeah you know Standing up for yourself investing in yourself using your using your mind these weren't mainstream things these weren't Family Table you know dinner conversations and I think I kind of took him by surpris a bit but in doing so being extremely uncomfortable telling him I took that uncomfortableness and I like applied it more to my life I'm like okay well this is uncomfortable because he's not sure how to answer me um and he like

I don't even remember the advice it Was very basic um but I applied that to the rest of my life I'm like dude clearly no one knows the answers to everything so you're going to have to [ __ ] figure it out and so I sucked to my guns like I didn't want to [ __ ] fight this guy ended up resolving it all we figured it out I mean dude we're friends now this is years later uh but at the time it was really hard for me Challenging as a kid growing up with these

big dreams dreams to be a Commando but I wasn't willing just to go [ __ ] duke it out with this guy you know whether I'm going to get risk you know risk getting an ass beating or not it was just that I didn't have belief in it it wasn't even my fight now if it was my fight if it was my doing it would have been different but it wasn't and that like implanted into my DNA into my mind like how I would live The rest of my life I didn't know it at the

time but I would live my life and I would make decisions even you know as a senior in high school as a new person in the military I I'd utilize that same concept like this doesn't make sense so I'd ask questions and that that set me on a completely different path that little did I know that standing up for myself in a time where I could have buckled just went with the flow did the norm oh this guy wants to fight me I'll Fight him this guy is mad I'll just show up cuz I don't

want to like lose see any street cred I didn't care about that [ __ ] cuz where I was going this basic level street cred means nothing but the lessons that I can learn from this Foundation that I'm building this Foundation that I'm experiencing and the complete unknown and discomfort that I'm going through is going to set me up for success I just didn't know it at the time but I did those things at the time I didn't know what I was doing was actually going to help me out so yeah growing up was fun

but at a certain time in my life I was just waiting my turn cuz all I wanted to do was joining the military that's it all I wanted to do was become a scout sniper that was it you know nothing else I got my Ranger dream got replaced because I saw that stupid Marine Corps slaying drag Dragon commercial and then I got introduced to Tom Behringer that's what did it huh the dragon commercial yeah I don't know why that was a damn good commercial you know actually that guy he was actually in my platoon later

on down the life in my military career this crazy are you serious dead serious the Dragon Slayer the dragon slayer himself did he get an award for that I don't know but he got a lot of he got a lot of smack talk and when we found out cuz he wasn't he was an enabler in our in my job And when people found out he was a dragon slayer I thought it was sick I'm like bro you should own that thing bro like you're the dragon slayer like we're all here because you killed the dragon

you killed the dragon you're the dragon slayer you are the dragon slayer everybody in the Marine Corps passed what year yeah that like 95 is here because you killed the dragon because of you I'm here I'm just kidding but but it was it's crazy I mean that's what it was Cuz it was different yeah it wasn't the same same and then sniper with Tom Binger I'm like oh [ __ ] you could be a scout sniper cuz Army you couldn't be a scout sniper yeah in the Navy you couldn't be a scout sniper you could

be a sniper but that Scout that Scout was Premiere that Scout was what set that sniper environment different from all the other branches of service and uh I remember one day cuz I was really into I wanted all the Military [ __ ] dude I had like I would sew mil Marine Corps patches on my shirt dude I was like straight nerd about it like there was no denying what my vision was in life absolutely undeniable and I remember there was this Army commercial very basic very generic but like hey if you call you'll get

this like VHS like information tape and you'll get this camouflag Boon cover and I'm like dude I want the Boon cover this is sick and all I got do is call this Number done so one day my mom's like you got some explaining to do mister I'm like what's going on I'm like probably in 10th Grade and she's like 11th grade actually and she's like what is this package and it was like from the United States Army and I'm like she's like what are you going to tell your dad I'm like uh I I just

did it for the Boon cover man like cuz I told I'm going to be a marine and they never encouraged me but they were like oh yeah we didn't expect Anything different like they knew it no kidding it was weird they knew it I mean ever since I was a kid I want like at a very young age I wanted to do that and like I said I wanted to be a scout sniper ever since a little kid and all these synchronicities I've packing groceries that's what kids do right well back in my day we

worked at grocery stores and I remember this one kind of weird fella but it was now when I look back at my life all the weird things or All the weird coincidences just helped reinforce the path that I was on I remember this one guy in particular he's like you have really deep set eyes I bet you're a great shot weird as [ __ ] I'm like 16 years old like it's this dude is creeping me out a little bit but I'm like I do want to go in the Marine Corps be a sniper like

you know I'm just like it's just the path is being lit little did I know just like bit by bit piece by piece vision board by vision Board like I'm I'm building the reality I'm building the life that I want uh and that was it dude you couldn't sway me otherwise I remember being like my counselor she's talking about cuz I guess in your senior year you could take like classes to help you get ready for college classes and I didn't have the grades for that stuff stuff uh but they're like you could like take

some college classes while you're in high school and she's like so Cody what do You wanted to do uh when you graduate I'm like I'm going to brein and she's like she throws her packet behind her like my stack of [ __ ] she's like okay so what do you want to talk about we have 15 minutes and we just started rapping you just like rambling about stuff because that was it I didn't want to I want to be a doctor kind of like there was no plan B for me it was that was it

and I remember being in Spanish class and I don't know if you remember but you Remember those box TVs they used to have in the corner like in the it was in Spanish class screwing off flirting with chicks and that's when we all saw it the Twin Towers fall you know and I was like [ __ ] so now my vision of wanting to join the military I didn't want to go kill people I didn't I wasn't joining for like a America you know my vision was because I felt called to do it and I

wanted to do it ever since a [ __ ] kid And then I see this [ __ ] on TV and I'm like this is real without a doubt I know whatever the path and CER that I'm going to is going to lead me to Harm's Way like there is no if answer buts about it at this time I had a bunch of friends that were in the reservice that was like what people did they said I'm going to go to the military then they join the reserves and they come back and do the same

high School [ __ ] they were doing I keep getting older but they still stay the same age that's that's exactly what was happening yeah and I'm like well [ __ ] I'm going active duty and I'm going to be this I'm going to be a scout sniper like that's that's it I'm definitely going to have to answer for what I just saw on TV I'm going to have to pay that price like that's going to come my way like I know it and Um and obviously it did so my my my childhood growing up

was was cut and dry it was just waiting my time so could did you go right in you were able to go right into being a scout sniper no um I went to boot camp um how did you pick the Marine Corps I know it was you know you said you saw Tom Beringer but yeah there are a lot of programs out there like bres yeah um I had this Vision I wanted to go Worked for the agency at a very young age too I wanted to be the James Bond spy super ninja mercenary I

was into all that stuff cuz I was into the French Foreign Legion I was into everything that people were most likely not to pass and I just had this like Warrior calling those guys are risking it on a daily basis you know disregard their belief system their actions you have to be aligned to that job to that environment to even show your face and I was just I Thought it was cool to to have a different name and to have a passport that wasn't from your own home country and to live this off-grid life where

you can literally be a ghost and do anything I was into that I was just very attracted to it the Marine Corps I don't know like I said it was the scout sniper aspect that was it for me if there was a scout sniper in the Navy I might have considered it so it it was just the you Had the you had the potential to become a scout sniper there was no contract no contract at all it was a gamble it was a gamble uh the only way you can do that is at the time

there was definitely no shortage of infantry men slots I mean at this point in time I signed up at 17 so it was 2012 um signed up I signed my name yeah I listed at 17 and um I'm like I want to be a Scott sniper they're like well you have to go To the Infantry I'm like okay 0311 so that's what I did get to boot camp go through that whole and I'm smiling and I'm enjoying every moment of it cuz I'm building I'm now now it's my time I've watched all the movies I

fantasized all the fantasies I [ __ ] GI joed all the GI Jo's and now I'm getting to live it out so I'm like cheesing in boot camp the entire time it sucked it was very hard very challenging but like I wanted to embrace that suck I Wanted to be there so it made it completely different cuz my mindset and my belief systems were aligned to the path that I wanted to walk even though it sucked and it was miserable the entire time I graduate boot camp I do the school of infantry which in the

Marine Corps you go to the school of infantry if you're an infantry man or you go to MCT Marine combat training so if you're a non-infantry person or uh You go learn like basic infantry [ __ ] and then you learn your career field School of infantry you learn if you're a Rifleman machine gun mortar man assaultman you know all these things you learn those C fields and then you bring it all together and um I made my intentions known I went to one of the sergeants you know I I graduated boot camp as a

lance corpal I was Honor Graduate so I was like the number one graduating recruit there so I Left boot camp three ranks higher than 99% of my peers and that caught the eyes of my instructors for the school of infantry which were in retrospect only two ranks higher than me at the time um so I found myself in leadership position I found myself with a lot more mentorship from these corporals and or these e4s and these e5s because I was now being tasked with the word to go spread it to the men I found myself

in these leadership positions at an early Very young age and in doing so we had do mro conversation times I get to ask questions like Hey how do I become a good leader how do I manage this how do I do this how do I become a scout sniper you know what do I do after this and one of them found interest in me and he's like hey the Battalion you're going to which is second Battalion first Marines he's like the Battalion you're going to I have a buddy there and they're running a sniper indoctrination

in two months He's like so when you get there sign up for it and this dude believed in me I'm a nobody I'm a student like everyone else you know I'm going through the phase the funnel system of like but where I was was going was someplace where these other men have not gone before even in boot camp boot camp was all my drill instructors knew that we were going to war M it was inevitable and none of them experienced What we were about to face um and back in the day I didn't know anything

about ribbons if I saw a dude that had like two ribbons that meant nothing to me I didn't know what that was even as a recruit even you know in boot camp even at a young Marine age like like I didn't really know until I started to learn and and then know and a lot of these guys are peacocking cuz they're drill instructors they're tough Guys you know they're they're trained to get inside your head they're trained to build you in capaces that you never even thought were capable but they also knew that we were

going to go to war and they made it very clear he's like you guys want to [ __ ] around he's like you guys are going to war all the ones going to the Infantry infantry battalions after this or the School of infantry you're going to war and I don't think any of us really knew what the the the magnitude of those words CU you don't you can you can only fantasize so much until you get punched to the face you can only fantasize what it's like to get punched the face until you realize you

get punched the face you're like [ __ ] I was not expecting that and my school of infantry class everyone there is an infantry man of some you know shape or size And we went to 24 second Balan fourth Marines and then we went to 21 second Balan first Marines which is the Battalion that I went to and both those units were very uh in the in the mix in O2 and rad and fujia and literally half my SOI class didn't [ __ ] make it out of their first deployment uh cuz they're [ __

] killed and we didn't know that at that age you Know even our instructors didn't know no one knew my first appointment was fujia no one knew what fujia was about and but they did their best to like give us that mindset butter butter jam you know push the fight do these things don't suck don't quit on yourself don't quit on your teammate you know what I'm saying it's not about you you know that's true suffer and Silence and looking back back I'm just grateful cuz they did the best they could with what they had

and what they knew and obviously training has significant changed a lot since then uh cuz there's a lot more experience now there's a lot more wisdom uh and those people are now in these positions where they're able to instruct you know but these instructors did a phenomenal job and this dude that believed in me really kind of set me up for Success I'm like Damn cuz this it was not normal to like find people to like believe in you when you're just a boot boot being a nobody um and so I I smoke s SOI

they were thinking about promoting me to corpal but they said that the colonel there said I was too young what's SOI a school of infantry okay so it's the first like three-month course you go to after Marine Corps boot camp and uh and it's only for infantry men um so combat arms and so I didn't get promoted to corpal But they're like hey we're going to give you this other leadership award and it's going to set you up for Success when you go to the Infantry so I'm I left boot camp stacked I left my

school of infantry stacked and more importantly with documents that said hey this guy's not too bad I was stacked with knowledge this dude gave me this whole like uh rine cor planning leadership book you know these like these T manuals these like things that no one had access to no None of my peers had access to so I was given knowledge I was given like true tangible things to like help me be successful at the time I didn't really see all the value in it but I was also told like hey do this [ __

] that nobody wants to do and you'll always [ __ ] win I'm like okay so this whole time in school of evry I'm doing like all my online they call it MCI is ring combat Institute it's like all these like online education you needed those to get Promoted back in the day or to be eligible for promotion uh cuz it was like a scoring system up to like a certain rank um and you needed meet that score so you need to have like all these like check in the box to be eligible for the

next promotion I'm like well [ __ ] I didn't come here to play small bro this is on my vision board I'm here to win I don't know what winning means but I just didn't want to suck and I remember saying being told do what other people Aren't doing and you'll [ __ ] win I'm like okay well none of my friends they're all getting drunk out in oide California I'm staying on base doing these stupid little mcis because when I got to the fleet when I got to my first unit I didn't want to

do this [ __ ] because I was going to be focused on my next chapter my next checkpoint which is to become a scout sniper so I was doing the work that needed to happen to get me to where I wanted to be at at an early Age I took advantage of that um because I had goals and I knew where we were going I didn't know I I didn't know I was going to Iraq in like [ __ ] eight months but I knew I was going to go overseas soon enough and my goal

was to be a sniper so that needed to be my main focus so I check into my Battalion and I remember getting off the bus and like they're like they're telling us all these these fearmongering fear porn Stories like oh they're going they called it a seabag drag because my Battalion that I was checking into was just a couple miles down the road from the school of infantry and they they were telling us oh they're going to make you walk run down there in your Alphas which is our green suit and dragging your seabag I'm

like are you serious cuz I'm in California I'm looking at Camp penalty I'm looking at all these big mountains I'm like I got To go up those things like all these new hurdles in life I've never seen a mountain my first plane was flying to boot camp you know and so getting at so I see this big ass Mountain the first thing I do in reception is I I my buddy and I we go up to the top of that mountain cuz it was scary as [ __ ] we're like let's just get this out

of the way cuz if I can go up that [ __ ] Mountain I can go up 100 times and not bother me like that was the caliber of men that I Was around at a very young age and just looking back on that life man how fortunate to be around winners that weren't losers and um I check into my unit bus pulls up in the quarter decks the big parade field this big you know concrete slab outside all the headquarters buildings all these things and there was a few of these senior guys they receiving

all of us boots they're like hey if you're a golf company so and so so and so so and so Get off the bus and they're like yelling at them I'm like oh my God this thing is real this thing is real and uh they uh I was I knew I was checking into headquarters company I don't know what the [ __ ] that was I was supposed to go to trailer platoon I'm like what is a trailer platoon I literally thought I was going to be in a trailer like I had no clue what

this was and I'm in headquarters all my friends are in you know an alpha numeric thing I'm there in Golf I'm in Fox I'm in eeko I'm in kilo I'm all these things and I'm like I'm an hhq I'm a headquarters guy okay and I just see all my boot friends just getting thrashed just pushing up getting yelled at just first sergeant smoking cigarettes and these dudes are doing 8 count bodybuilders I'm like dude this thing is real because we are straight fresh meat and these guys are all o-1 veterans and they know that war

we're Going to war and uh I mean this is 2003 now I mean war is already happening but they know that we are the fresh meat going with them into Harm's Way and so they're taking it very seriously so they're they're kind of bringing that boot camp School of infantry Vibe and mind mindset cuz you're a boot you only know the [ __ ] you were taught you know nothing else and so now you're about to learn your trade in these splatoons well I was one of the first few boot camps to Have the desert

digit or the digital camouflage yeah where everyone in the fleet all the senior guys had the Woodland cammies in black boots so I quickly looked around and realized that I did not want to get my ass beat or have to do like random eight counts for no reason so I quickly did what I do best I Blended in and I made it my priority I found some camouflage I like shoe goed my like name tape on there I traded digies cuz you had like So many from boot camp I traded digies with like my roommate

who was a motorpool guy and and I blended in and I was an E3 so it looked like I was a senior guy I'm like bro I'm setting myself up for Success I'm not going to be like a Target dude cuz all my friends were targets yeah and targets get hit you know targets get the shitty detail targets get the crap in the stick and I didn't want that and I'm in headquarters and my whole uh I'm in headquarters and I I really contemplated to go UA uh my dream come true and I [ __

] hated it really yep um my Battalion was at uh in 29 Palms doing like a big training exercise uh called cxs combined arm exercise big big training event back in the day and so there was a very Skeleton Crew back at home well the fella in charge of the headquarters guys being me he was in charge of like the suicide crazy watch people also they had like they were Wearing like white t-shirts underneath their wooding cies they had like white lace dude it was like a [ __ ] show and they were just they

were goofy I'm like dude I don't want to emulate you and I'm like 18 years old at this point I'm like you're not inspiring to me like this is this is the Marine Corps I was painting rocks I was putting nonskid on steps I'm like what the hell am I getting into with no signs of a brighter future and it was like that for two Weeks and I literally was contemplating like I got to get out of here this is not for me this is not what I sign up for this is stupid uh Stupid

without a purpose stupid with a purpose is different stupid without a purpose is just plain stupid Y and so I'm back in our very our very condemned flat top buildings had rats the size of my feet rolling around in them this is before nice Barracks happened and AC was a thing and uh this one guy this one Sergeant comes in there and I swear he smoked probably like five cigarettes the whole time he was talking to us he's like hey uh my name is Tommy I'm from uh sniper platoon we're doing this indoc in h

a week so and so so and so so and so you're in the platoon if you don't pass the Indo you're out if anybody else want to sign up for the Indo uh here's the list sign up and here's a date and time to be there I'm like and all my friends Is in headquarters with they all made it cuz they're all expert Shooters in boot camp I left as a sharpshooter so one step down um it's a true story doesn't sound real but it is I shot on another dude's Target so he could pass

uh cuz he was a pizza box he was like not even going to pass the qualification course and I shot on his Target so he get his like one score that he needed to pass that took me from my one shot that I needed to be marks or an expert and so I Go to I go to infantry as a sharpshooter whatever it is what it was but that's also why my name wasn't on this like pick list but I was able to sign up for it so I sign up for this indoc and I'm

like just excited I'm super excited it's it's coming true and then I realized oh my God I did not know the things I was going to have to do to to do this and I remember us showing up and U one of the first events we did was the Pool and I'm going back into my my repository and on my mind I'm like none of the videos that I watched were these [ __ ] in pools so you're in indoc now I'm in Indo like I sign my name up uh so what is indoc is

indo a try out yep it's a it's a tryy out to get into sniper school it's a indoc to get it's indoctrination to get into the platoon and then from the platoon you're under observation and then once you're in the platoon you're basically earning Your keep and then you're earning your keep to get a chance to go to sniper school cuz not everyone got a chance to go how long is this pipeline uh from indoc to sniper school that's a big time Gap difference indox anywhere between like two to 3 weeks uh but then you

realize and you learn very at a very young age you're constantly always under observation so just because you made you passed the indoctrination you you did all the hard Things you you met the requirements that okay this guy can do he can shoot move communicate he won't quit he can do Land Navigation he's a canidate you know and we can teach him everything else he needs to know because back in the day the purpose of a sniper platoon was to train you how to be a scout sniper um because then you go to sniper school

to get your certification to fine-tune your adjustments but in the sniper platoon you're learning Everything that they learned in Sniper school and 90% of it has nothing to do with shooting mhm it's knowledge it's verbatim it's attention to dis attention to detail you know Miss a period or a comma in a sentence when you're reciting a what the definition of a Marine Corp scout sniper is what does reconnaissance mean what is surveillance mean what does Target acquisition mean what does a hid sight mean and and if you miss a comma or a period you're Paying

for that you you miss you miss an item on your on your k your on your observation game you're paying for that and so they're they're you're basically in a school the entire time um so for me that was like a year and a half before I got to go to sniper school because I deployed in between this time period but I I get to the sniper platoon and hold on oh yeah bring me back let's go back let's go back so Indo Indo yeah let's go back to indoc yeah so indoc I find myself

in this pool and I'm like sweating bullets cuz I wasn't a good swimmer BR Corp boot camp you're either a swimmer or you're not a swimmer They Don't Really teach you how to swim it's like hey here's this Vietnam era Flack vest and this big old brain bucket that surely not to save your life and I want you to [ __ ] jump in the water from this tall tower and I haven't showed you how to do any of These side Strokes how to do anything figure it out you're like what the [ __ ]

and you're just like go and that's how it was and I just made them bare minimum to like pass the swim call cuz it was a meat grinder because when I was in school of infantry uh there was an opportunity to go to Recon and you could sign up for Recon back in the day you could not you could not sign up to be a scout sniper okay so in a school of infantry you would come And you would confirm that you can do the Recon screening right which consisted of you know some swims treading

water underwater crossover and physical fitness tests well I signed up for that and they told me to go pound sand because I had like the lowest swim qualification you could possibly have and still be a marine and so I'm like okay so thank God that happened cuz I would have deviated from this great life that I have and the opportunities that I Have have and uh so I get to the OC and the first thing we do is swimming and I learn from that age and that very young point that the water is the equalizer

for all men you find out who wants to be there in the water and you might not and I learned also you might not pass everything but you can't you can't fake heart you can't fake determination you can't fake [ __ ] discipline you you have it or you don't and I was a the Poor swimmer at the indog the poorest one but you cannot get me to stop and so the chief instructor for the platoon he took me to side and he started to teach me things he's like dude you have no idea what

you're doing but you clearly aren't quitting anytime soon so let me show you how to do this so he actually taught me how to swim and I realized that that was just a way to shred the fat instantly before we got to the fun Stuff and that really wasn't fun to me neither was the things that are coming my way but it was like the entry level because the water's scary they tell you to hold your breath in the water and swim wearing your full camouflag utilities that's not easy to do they tell you to

wear your full camouflage utilities after you've been swimming for 30 minutes and they tell you tread water for 30 minutes you're like you want me to tread water for 30 minutes are you Serious and I was never exposed to these things because you don't do any of that in boot camp you do none of that in school of infantry so these are all new phases and experiences of life that none of us have experienced and uh to be honest we're just crushing it um I suffered swimming was and they were like okay well I can

either give up on you or you're a lance cpal from boot camp you left school of infantry with this leadership award you there's Clearly something about you you clearly just need to be trained on things you don't know and that is exactly how this this staff sergeant took me in and I'm very grateful for that opportunity because that has been a role in my life nothing the great a lot of things but I don't know what I don't know and when I get put in those situations people see that like bro I Am The Real

McCoy but I just I just need the opportunity I just need that shot you Know CU I want it and I'm willing to do anything for it uh even drown you know even suffer even know that I can't do that [ __ ] but I'll still jump in the pool when I don't want to when I want to [ __ ] quit but I'm not going to when he told me not to touch the B and I want to I wanted to step up and breathe but I'm not going to cuz you told me [

__ ] not to and this means more to me than my comfort or the discomfort that I'm in and this dude saw That and he took me in at a young age and and mentored me mainly how to swim and then after that we did uh a lot of Ruck running uh there was this thing called Recon Ridge outside of Camp horno which is secondment time first Marines on Camp Pendleton that's our base at the camp at the time and there's this thing called Recon Ridge and this it starts off very basic you're like I

can I can walk run up that like 20 ft into that thing your Calves and angles are done you're just smoked and it just keeps on going up and up and up and up and up until you hear the hit the ridg line and then you find yourself traversing all these mountains and ridges they call the alpha shelf it's the first layer of mountains in Camp Pendleton very distinct full you can see them from the highway they're very massive large terrain features and we're just up and down these things every day for like two weeks

doing Land Navigation all over Camp Pendleton with like hard timelines and your timelines where if you don't come back if you don't come back with your points you're out of the platoon those odds I I loved cuz none of us had a hand out there even my friends that were on the list to go to the platoon they had to earn their keep just like me and a few other guys that weren't on the list to go you know there was no handouts there And these guys were already used to working in like two man

sniper teams but we had we had four man teams and that's what we were working towards but they didn't care they had to go back to two-man teams cuz there was the standard so it was like it was so fun cuz all my friends are cleaning guns the Armory they're marching doing dumb [ __ ] and like I got my collar popped to avoid getting shaed by my Ru sack my [ __ ] pants are un bloused I have a heavy ass Pack on I got like drippy mascara paint you know just like ah like

running down my face and I was a king of the world cuz we were we had we were told you will run everywhere you go you will not walk anywhere I'm like okay and instantly you're already being you're already standing out from the pack so all of us in the sniper platoon all they called pigs professionally instructed gunmen so a professionally instructed gunman or a pig you're the boot in the Sniper platoon you're not a school trained sniper you can do the job but that's not your main thing you're a point man you're a radio

man you're an assistant team leader potentially Maybe uh but you're not the sniper and a hog is a hunter sorry to interrupt yeah we'll we'll pick back up at hog but so in the sniper platoon everybody is in the Marine Corps everybody's there to support the sniper is that correct in a sniper Platoon yeah uh yeah this the the sniper is the main focus but the team is main focus because you're not doing sniper missions you can't do sniper Mission without the team mhm and so the main thing is like everyone working as a fourman

team a small element uh that's the main thing so out of the four-man team how many snipers are there one it varies my first sniper team had two snipers my team leader and my assistant team leader were Scout snipers School trained snipers and the radio operator and myself as a point man we were not we but you're a candidate I am in the sniper platoon I've earned my keep to be in the platoon I'm a platoon member uh and now I'm just waiting my time to go to sniper school okay so you know cuz back

in the day hey we got one seat well there's eight guys uh we got two seats but there's 12 guys you know it's just different how How to work to like get your chance to go to school but every one of us were instructed on the sniper rifle we all knew how to do observation we all we we all knew how to do everything because it was their job and their invested interest to make sure we knew how to do it all mhm because we're going to war and team I got to know what happens

to them if they don't make it you know so being in the Splatoon and these guys were like Somalia vets o-1 vets and I'm Like what they're like I was walking around Mogadishu with my sniper rifle I'm like what like just these crazy stories I've never even heard of before and unreal that I'm even in the platoon in the first place to look back at my vision board where I have this like skull with two cross sniper rifles you know now I'm actually in the Splatoon and our our uh te shirt was uh it had

the dead man's hand but it had the uh it had a skull with two crossed Rifles on it that was like our sniper platoon logo it's crazy yeah and um so your your skull train snipers called hogs Hunter of gunman and that's the title that's the certification you get once you complete scout sniper School scout sniper basic course ssbc so the whole time I'm in this Splatoon we're we're just learning skills Land Navigation dude land nav land nav land nav observation surveillance techniques patrolling you Know all the things to like make you a weapon but

at the same time we're training for this upcoming deployment we all hear about we're going to Iraq we're going to this place called fujia not a big deal no one's bells are ringing no one's butts were tight we're going to Iraq so all the oaf1 guys all the Invasion guys were like oh you guys better get ready but here in their stories you know i1 was different it was it was different it's a different type Of violence no one knew what we were getting into yeah nobody uh to the point where the training that a

my Battalion was doing in preparation was called Sasso have you ever heard of Sasso I haven't I forget the exact acronym I'll try my best is basically stability operations so we're doing this stability op stability operations stability you're going to fuia oh yeah interesting and so all these scenarios We're doing checkpoints we're doing sergeant of the guards we're basically doing this like uh martial law that's basically what we're practicing it's really what it was martial law we're practicing martial law show shout shove shoot these are the things that we must say these are the things

that we must do hugs and kisses we're the professionals Open Hearts open minds yeah I remember that well there was a lot of that but Just not in the same context and but we did what we did best we trained and the cool thing about the sniper platoon was that we were part of a headquarters company back in the day uh and what that what that means is that headquarters is like your motorpool people your Cooks your supply people your radio people all these things then from there they get dispatched to the the companies the

line companies the infantry Companies well infantry shoots a lot of ammunition headquarters does not shoot a lot of ammunition so we had a lot of ammunition but we did not have a lot of sniper ammo which is weird we're shooting like 10 20 rounds at a time and that was a training Evolution so we're making every one of these shots count oh yeah it was very sparse um but we did get a lot of 50 cal and we got a lot of 5.56 so break contact drills small unit tactics Uh you know all the things

that you would imagine being a four-man team uh that's what we were doing well on top of that we would run missions for Border Patrol on Camp Pendleton we would uh basically do a bunch of bolo missions and so we would pack up our gear and we would navigate The Valleys and the crests inside Camp Pendleton working our way towards like the Border Patrol checkpoints and we're like they get a bolo like Hey we're looking for a white Van so we're like looking for white Vans all night you know we're just reporting back and it's

like it's like drill you know we're just drilling we're not we're not GNA do anything crazy but uh we're utilizing a real world scenario to provide us real world mission training um and so we found ourselves doing that a lot just that's smart I think that's smart yeah and cuz money money was money was an extreme thing back then Meaning that it didn't exist but I mean it's still it's a real Mission it's a real Mission yeah real Mission we are planning we're briefing uh I mean hell we would even set up hi sights vehicle

hide sights in the officer neighborhood because there was there was thieves taking place there was people breaking into [ __ ] well guess what we'll just put we'll do a training Mission out there so you guys are sniping thieves on Bas with observations I'm just kidding I I remember being in the back of one of those Chevy Avalanches sweating my balls off you know I got like I got the vehicle High drape I'm wearing the mock you know the mackup up the reaper hood and I'm like just leaning back and like this dude didn't even

empty out his car all the way and I'm like breaker breaker One n you know I'm passing reports and but it was fun yeah cuz when everyone else is sleeping or playing Xbox or getting Drunk or I mean and Marines are crazy dude like Barracks parties and like Barracks brawls are a real thing like it's straight Gangland there like no rules people flying off a second story balconies taped mattresses like the horrible stories you hear like there's no way those real those were really real and those were really real back then like those were a

real thing well we were doing a real thing too we were fine-tuning our Craft um we were Learning how to do vehicle surveillance Trojan Horse operations we were learning how to do all these things that weren't done at the time especially in the conventional side of things uh but we had a commander who had a belief we had a commander who was very outside the box and pushed us to to train in that capacity also because it was really easy cuz the standard for marine back in the day was go to the Armory clean your

guns hurry up and Wait well if we were we didn't do that one cleaning your guns for hours on in you're just destroying them two the training is not in the Armory the training is out in the bush and I don't even need a gun for that I just need a map a compass and an objective and that's what we did so we would just do star courses all the time Land Navigation courses all the time so it was like a continuous indoctrination m cuz none of it got easier and it only Got harder um

but that definitely that's what set us up for Success you know that was a hard training that nobody wanted to do but you took pride in it because there's only 12 of you I think yeah 12 of us at the time and you know when you're doing observations as you know it's 3:00 in the morning and you're just looking at an area that's got no movement that takes discipline mhm you know it takes discipline not to go to sleep it takes discipline not to drift Your mind it takes discipline not to screw your buddy over

it and it takes discipline to be like hey dude I'm really tired I need you to covered down 10 minutes for me you know all these things take discipline and so we're learning at a very young age something that we never got exposed to from the military uh in that capacity the war fighting capacity what it's truly going to take to to make it happen so we're doing all this cool Training uh for the sniper platoon we're integrating with the Infantry uh companies you know we're doing sniper OverWatch Guardian Angel missions basically were like they're

conducting their martial law stuff and we are you know doing observation running Recon and surveillance for them sitting back cuz back in the day snipers were actually employed as snipers you the eyes and ears of the Battalion you were directly reporting to the commander information Of all things pertinent to surveillance and observation of the battlefield and because you were the first line of defense because there was no Recon elements in an infantry battalion there's sniper elements and back in the day before we call sniper platoon we were called stap platoons surveillance Target acquisition and that

sums up exactly what we did we were a stap plun and that's how I grew up in the Community and that's what we did we did this great training for saso and we're like hey guys we're going to Iraq in a couple months and we're like all right meant nothing because it was so vanilla down we did combat drills we did combat scenarios in the saso training but the main thing was martial law you're just policing up spreading love and joy that [ __ ] changed very quickly Um a different type of love and joy

and so I found myself going on leave uh pre predeployment leave I go home to Texas and see my family and I tell my parents I'm going to Iraq and my mom was super sad and my dad was my dad was proud but not because I'm going to war my dad was proud of who I become uh and I wanted to selfishly just go party Chase chicks cuz in my head I'm like I'm going to [ __ ] War bro I Don't I'm not I wasn't a tough guy but I didn't know what was going

to happen so I wanted to go be an 18-year-old kid I wanted to go do 18-year-old kid things and that's when my dad's like hey better spend time with your mother and I'm like all right I'll spend time with my mom I'll spend time with you I'll stay at home I'll do these things um so I did and then I come back to uh Pendleton and we flew commercial uh air To Iraq my first deployment and I was a lance corporal so I'm still on the working Party Committee you know doing all this shitty job

still and even our platoon we had to give up bodies to go support these things we got out a lot of things but we still needed to support and be team players so I find myself loading these uh seabags you know that's where we learned the whole like conveyor belt system where you're just Like just a fine oil machine you know and um we're loading this this civilian aircraft seags in the bottom none of us know what the [ __ ] going to happen none of us have a clue we going into none of us

at least I did not I knew it was going to be War I knew it was Iraq that was it but my mindset was stability operations my mindset was the information that I was told and trained upon that that's what I was going to execute and perform mhm and that didn't Mean complacent that just means that my mindset was on what my tasks were assigned to me I mean what else would it be on exactly you know that's what you just however long training to do that's what they told you you were going to do

why would you think anything else yeah exactly did you want to go to Iraq or did you want to go to Afghanistan uh or did you care I didn't care by the time Afghanistan wasn't on even on my radar Iraq was uh I think Afghanistan might have been for like other like the East Coast Marines but it wasn't for the West Coast we were all Iraq to my knowledge at this time of life in Afghanistan wasn't even a thing you know cuz you hear Iraq they did it weapons of mass destruction that's not in Afghanistan

that's in Iraq right and so I really only saw that as like the potential the Potential reality that I would face you know in in this phase of phase of life in my career yeah I guess at that time Afghanistan was a strictly very speci operations Very Special Operations now we have Marine units doing it you know our Detachment one which is our very first Marine Special Operations asset uh they were operating in Afghanistan around this time um they were doing a lot of Missions at the time But big general purpose Marine Corps no okay

Iraq so we uh we fly to Kuwait and we're drinking beer oh you know we're on this plane I'm excited I'm like this is crazy dude I'm flying this comfy plane civilian plane these stewardess are like super kind and we got our guns in there and we're just like they're like feeding us beer and I'm I'm I'm 18 years old bro I'm living it up this is fun this is awesome this Is the real mcoy we get to Kuwait and I'm just like what is this and as my eyes open up to the scene it's

just like this crazy massive monstrosity of things happening you know there's troops moving here there's vehicles moving here there it's just like whoa oh it's like those you see those Old World War II films where it's like a staging area and you're like oh my God this is it and we did some training there we did A lot of shooting there we had obviously way more ammunition uh we started to link up with other assets like uh human human exploitation teams EOD teams cuz these things weren't um they were not organic to an infantry battalion

and so now we're getting introduced to them we're doing collective training with them and since we were snipers we were like the tier guys of our Battalion you know we're we're getting because their Information their their sole purpose is based off actual intelligence and gaining information ours is the same thing we provide information and intelligence is formed off that information that's our main focus uh shooting is 10% of the job so they say and you know a lot of lessons still there it was very airy fun people are excited we're getting ready to go do

our job why else would you join you know why Else you're G to go put all those hard things to to test and still no one knew what was coming our way uh no one was complacent with like oh this going to be a k the walk there not mindset that never existed but the true brutality of what fuia brought I think if someone told you you would have been like no way telling stories of fuia still to this day for me it it sounds fake it sounds made up um Well before we get into

fua cuz that's where we're going that's where we're going let's take a quick break let's do it serious question who wants to take the best [ __ ] of their entire life right here I do how do you do that you go with bubs Naturals collagen protein you rip the thing open you put in your coffee you Stir It Up and you're on your way now I've taken the best [ __ ] of your entire life doesn't interest you calogen will also give you beautiful Hair great skin and nails to die for so and you'll

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entire War the bloodiest we'll just leave it at that it Was Indescribable and you were there I was there um the first one was inherent resolve that was the that was the operation leading up to Phantom Fury which most people hear about that was the concluding of flua that was like the last battle we were there for inherent resolve so we arrive um we we Convoy from Kuwait to Iraq um we go to our fire base uh it's called bajaria it was one of saddam's Old Resorts he had like some little go-kart places he had

a place where he had cage Lions little Lake in the center uh right next to this uh place called the mech this big facility that housed aircraft medical uh reconnaissance and various other entities in our base we replaced the 101st Airborne and the Air Force and these guys are battered they didn't have much and so we showed up into what you Would think as a pretty auster environment we had hard structures that were team houses uh because it was just like this big resort area so there's multiple houses our our kitchen was a big general

purpose tent and operations were getting pretty feisty there we haven't gone out at this point a couple leadership are doing left and rights um with the outgoing entities uh the wrecky guys with the 101st their Snipers and you know day one not even day one into the city but day one on the uh left SE right seat two of our guys from our platoon come back with grenade wounds on day one day one and essentially what happened there was always there was this like weekly Tribal Council essentially that happened at this District Center and the

sniper wrecky guys from the 1001st was set up OverWatch relay stuff and provide OverWatch we had a few Members of our sniper platoon go out there and I was kind of but hurt I wanted to go but it was a senior guys which at the time I'm still new to this whole thing but it makes sense they're doing leaders reconnaissance I just wanted to go out and do stuff I'm here I'm here to work well they come back eating eating grenades uh the 101st as they were leaving they did not leave with their heads held

high they were still getting Killed and wounded all the way up to the point they left um our kitchen our our dining area which is a tent took a Dre mortar around uh mortar rounds were really happening a lot impacting all over the fire base constantly just harassing fire and once again we didn't really know what we're getting into we did not have armor on our vehicles all of our Humvees were soft skin uh we still using the Mercedes IAB Vehicles you remember those Jeeps with the roll cages we were using those uh which are

cool until they're not not in fuia not in [ __ ] fujia and so we started to really pillage with the Air Force had and what the Army had we started to take all their blast Bank blankets the Air Force had armor on their Humvees we're taking their armor ghetto rigging its our rigs uh and we had no Optics you had no Optics we had we had iron sights and uh aogs were not a real thing back then AOG were in the Fielding process they were not AOG is the I think 3 by magnified optic

uh they were in the Fielding process they were not in our hands not in possessions night vision good luck um radios personal radios good luck uh in the sniper platoon is completely different sniper platoon we all had you know 148s we all had team communication We all had seven Bravos uh so we were pretty stacked um we had some pretty outdated at the time very dated thermals uh but the Infantry maybe three guys had Squad systems Squad communication systems maybe eight guys out of 30 had night vision you know and we're conducting would be conducting

full spectrum operations uh through all hours of the day and night but the time no one knew It was coming um so when our guys came back with with holes in their bodies and already out of the fight they didn't go home they stayed there um it was it was pretty crazy cuz we're just day one on our fire base on this camp and two of our guys are already out of commission two guys damn two leaders two leaders and we're 12-man team we're 12-man platoon and uh well four my math is Wrong 16 we

had four teams of four and then we had a residual headquarters aspect element that could fill and go still pretty small a lot of responsibility very small outfit and they're like oh it's crazy and you're just hearing stories and then you start hearing the booms and then you're like oh [ __ ] then you see the booms you know the mortars that are coming in and like all this now Becoming very real to me like it was always real to me but it wasn't I never had the perspective of something I never experienced you know

hearing men [ __ ] cry like cry out for help never heard that [ __ ] before you know hearing fear has of a sound and hearing that sound I've never heard that before and it was it was a culture shock a bit and by the time we still had no Mission we had no plan we Were doing uh some of this guys from our from our sniper platoon were doing Trojan Horse missions so L his operations uh but because you're a marine they won't let you grow out your beard cuz of discipline mm and

so they're like caming paining their face you know wearing local Garb as much as they can uh making themselves look like they have a 5:00 shadow and doing the best they can with what they had back in the day well those Mission started to quickly sh shut down that's around the whole time the whole the Blackwater thing happened uh a lot of people are dying and it started to stir up a H's nest because I don't think the command ERS knew exactly what their subordinate commands were actually getting into and so which Blackwater thing are

you talking about are you talking about when the contractors hung upside down on the bridge burned alive and so you hear All these tals and stories of things going on and you're like [ __ ] shit's real this is when like the orange jumpsuit guy remember that it was like an 18-wheeler driver getting beheaded yeah you remember that video was going around everywhere and there's a lot of these things they like the what is this dude it's like this is I couldn't comprehend yeah war is war sure you can probably comprehend that a bit but

the the brutality of it all and Really what we were up against I had no I had no left or right lateral limit to even comprehend that the the the the body mutilations the beheadings the dismemberment the the human Shields all that uh it was crazy and remember one day the uh we stopped getting uh stuff delivered to our fire base what is a Firebase is a base camp and all the workers we had coming to help us local Nationals they their Heads arrived in a bag outside of her gate and so getting people to

come help the Americans was extremely difficult they sent all the heads of your local workers to your front gate holy [ __ ] how many hits did you know these guys did not I'm just a dude I'm still like living in la la land cuz we're waiting for the mission I'm just wondering why we're not getting a water supply I'm wondering why you know this thing hasn't been delivered I'm just a Dude you know I'm waiting with my scratch off phone card waiting in line for an hour and a half to use the [ __

] morale phone because I'm still living in a in a in a in a reality that I don't even know where I'm in and where I'm at MH I'm just waiting for tasking but all these big things are happening and at the time I was lowlevel guy I wasn't really involved you just hear the stories then you start what the [ __ ] does that brief Look like hey if you guys are wondering where our local workers are their heads have all been chopped off and they're in packages at the front door well back then

dissemination of information wasn't really a thing and that's my perspective that's my view on things and I say that because when we finally got the green light to go in it was March 26 2004 and we are we are tasked with we Are pushing through the city of Fallujah and we're clearing it with how many people our entire Battalion so four companies my Marine math is not that great when it comes to the breakdown of all those outfits 100 hundreds M multiple battalions so there's other mult there's other units cuz I believe fua was a

4x4 grid square or 2x two something of that nature and there was my Battalion was The main effort so other adjacent battalions were doing other combat missions to support our push through the city so they were more in the outskirts kind of like funneling people towards us so the plan was and so we stage at like 02 03 in the morning on our camp um but the night prior my platoon Commander comes in and he's like everyone's going to write their Death Letter Jesus Christ and I'm like are you [ __ ] kidding me like

I got goosebumps even thinking about that cuz at the time I didn't know I saw some guys get strael wounds I heard the stories of the heads I seen and hear the explosions but then I'm told to write my own death letter and I'm like what do you say what do I do and I had a girlfriend at the time so I wrote a letter to Her my parents for in my life I wrote a letter to my parents and we all turn our letters over to our T commander and that's when I knew [

__ ] was [ __ ] real do you still have those letters I don't what did you write I really don't remember I wrote what an 18-year-old kid probably would I was motivated at the time so I probably wrote some [ __ ] like I'm dying from you know I fought for my country fought for my team I love you guys I miss you you Think your parents love that letter no my parents got my parents got more than a letter uh later okay um well we'll wait for that yeah it's coming up right on

um I mean that's [ __ ] demoralizing yeah it was pretty demoralizing but at the same time I we didn't I didn't know any different none of us knew no one knew and I get it some people might be thinking oh dude it's War what did you expect but no that's I've been to war This this was hell this was this was something that shaped my life for the rest of my life as long as I live I will never forget that I I won't remember all the details I still don't remember all the details

I don't remember all the phas lines I don't remember the exact numbers but I remember the feeling and I have never been able to shake it ever since um so we load up in these trucks I'm in a seven ton those big you know very clunky non- quiet diesel 18 military tactical vehicles and we're all smoking cigarettes light discipline we're still on base cuz the drive is only like 10 minutes the drive from your DVD player your shitty [ __ ] food and the thing you call a bed you're 10 minutes away from hell and

it's just outside your gate and the drive was that 10 minutes 10 Minutes of [ __ ] silence in pure [ __ ] darkness and I just remember feeling like the rumbles of the truck I smell the the the jpa the fuel you know you just you can feel you can feel that energy for all those [ __ ] Souls that are there these [ __ ] dudes you know like you can feel it the silence that bonding that speaks no words that mindset that has no it has no category it just is what it

Is and only situations can bring that about and we stopped right outside the city it's the Clover Leaf it was like this highway there's a highway right outside of it and there's this Clover Leaf of a highway like entrance points on ramps off ramps and we we we park outside of that and we unload and it's just dead quiet it's pitch black but there's these these street lights we're like what's going on you know what are we doing Here like what's the next phase what's the next step and you hear gunshots and a few of

us to include myself we like Duck well it's our guys shooting out these street lights which it's not as easy as movies make especially with 556 and it it took a little couple shots to like to make these things happen and then it got super quiet and then uh my uh team leader comes up and he's like hey we're task to Do OverWatch and push forward I'm like okay I was a point man that was my [ __ ] job I was good at it um so not only am I navigating to a destination which

we didn't have one uh my head's on the swivel I have to see everything and relay that back because it's our mission to provide information to our Battalion to our commanders our subordinate commanders so they can create and determine what's intelligence and what needs to be action what what needs to Happen and right on the outskirts of the city was this unconstructed building and I remember making my way up there and it's beautiful the sun's peaking there's that smell of unknown a new country and it was so peaceful and quiet it was insane sell nobody

we slowly start to push up we're Still remaining in an OverWatch position and the iabs come up these small Mercedes Jeeps and our weapons guys our weapons company guys the guys with the mark 19s the 50 cal the 240s were mounting on these little things and I remember they push up in L shape uh to provide support so the Infantry men can continue to push up and bound as they were trained to do bound from one place to the next place and we're going to clear this Village this This city and then like that an

IAB just disappears and uh it blew up like literally like right in front of us and I was like holy [ __ ] this is real like I always knew it was real I heard the stories I saw the explosions I [ __ ] saw the holes in the bodies but now I'm there in the thick of it there's no child time there's no break there's no PE break this this is it and it's like maybe 7 in the morning 8: in the Morning the day has just begun and that doesn't stop anybody we pushed

the fight we continue to push now sporadic gunshot start happening now we have we have ground elements that are maneuvering you know now we're in this hustle and bustle there was no Marshall Law there was no stability operations this is a fight now and uh still not to the full Capac py of what was awaiting Us in fujia and at the time to me as a point man on a sniper team I don't I didn't Think there was a lot of planning uh I'm not saying I was a master planner back in the day but

there I learned about phase lines later in life and there was no phase lines during this there was no limits of Advance there was no no real plan it was hey go here move forward um it was kind of like throwing spaghetti at the wall see what's stuck and so we get tasked again we're like hey you guys push forward establish OverWatch you guys push forward relay Back to us and the grunts will push for it also we're like okay so that's what we did and now we're getting targeted uh I find myself on another

rooftop and as a point man I'm holding rear security baby I'm watching that door leading up to the stairwell not a fun job my friends are shooting they're engaging they're seeing people with guns you know they're doing their job and I'm like watching this door and then I realized watching this door became very Interesting because I started to get shots all around my head you know hit in the wall so I'm like ducking I'm like [ __ ] so now I put that in perspective like yo bro you might be holding Security in the rear

dude but like you can't just hold Security in the rear you got to hold security all over the place you have to be observant is your head past that that you know ledge you know what is your guys doing have you look back to see what they're doing and like I'm learning all these things that I never learned in training damn and uh not like I was not trained properly but there's only one way to learn certain things and you have to collectively put it together that's why you know investing in training is extremely important

well back in the day we trained the best we could with the funds we had and the knowledge and experience that we had well you know I can't tell you how many ttps tactics techniques and Procedures came out of and sop standard operating procedures came out of fujia alone yeah because tactics that you thought you were going to do we were still doing this Cold War era tactics well that [ __ ] does not work in an urban environment like that where that has been waiting for you waiting to dominate your soul um literally waiting

to kill you there was kill houses set up all over the place there was tunnel systems there was um rat lines there were Loopholes there were Channel like walls knocked down to basically shoot in one house and they could run through all these other walls so no overhead uh aerial platform was going to see them you know you weren't going to see these guys you were going to hear sh shots and they're going to disperse because you're fighting a gorilla Warfare you're fighting a true adversary and these people knew we were coming they knew that

the war was coming They saw it with the 101st they saw it with the Air Force they knew that it was about to get thick so these dudes made their last stand and they prepared that Battlefield as such because at this point they weren't really going they were going the aspects of fuia no one said hey we're clearing fujia we're going to own it this didn't happen up to this point till we got there and that's what this mission was that's what our overarching mission was inherent Resolved uh was to do to take fuia and

we find ourselves maneuvering to another building and it's probably like lunchtime and there's this two-story building it's kind of under construction uh kind of in pretty incomplete and you I go in there see the two-story building we clear the bottom deck I work my way up the stairwell go into the room we secure it we set up our our our hide sight and a hide sight back Then being very mobile and agile as we were our hide sight really just meant depth we needed depth we' stand off depth in the room we weren't setting up

blinds we weren't doing any of that these windows were unconstructed um some of them were like massive so we did the best we could with what we had and so we got two M16s two bras and then two sniper rifles that was all the weapons we we had two M16s two pistols and two sniper rifles wow the snipers had sniper rifle and a pistol and uh the radio operator and myself we had the M16s and around this time it's still early in the day you know you hear some pop shots here and there you hear

some radio traffic but nothing's really crazy I mean we saw some [ __ ] get blown up that's crazy but it wasn't this constant flow of craziness it was a con before The storm afternoon prayer happens once afternoon prayer happens I'm by the window that's where we had a radio set up at and I see movement across um across the street on the rooftop it was I call it like the the it was like a muffler it was like a car place there was a bunch of like car bodies up top and like mufflers and

they were obviously doing like oil and [ __ ] at there the bottom you had the big cutouts it was it was Like a like a Pet Boys type of place what I called it I see these guys run across armed dudes and I get the heads up to my crew next thing you know I find myself in a gunfight and I'm on the left side of this window and I'm engaging these two dudes with guns they're shooting at us and then we're just getting [ __ ] up with machine gun fire like it's just

spraying Down like to the point where like we're not even engaging the window anymore we're just going to eat it so we're backed off in the window waiting to hear gas Ms and LS in their fire so we can pop back out and engage and how we started doing it was um the raadar oper he would go shoot and when he would go drive that's when I would come in we were playing that whole tag urit game meanwhile the two snipers in my team they're in the prone position on the Ground because when we're not

actively engaging very accurate spaic fire is coming through our window and it's like literally just like mowing on top of us so if you if you stick your head up you're done and these guys are just like oh [ __ ] did you guys get them like they're they're kind of like laughing they're like [ __ ] they've been here done that they've been to the invasion of Iraq they were in Som one of them was in Somalia but it was real it was a real Deal it was really happening and we were not participating

we were it we were it and I remember going back behind the window I reload another magazine and as soon as I pop out to shoot it all goes black and I remember this this like profound xhel that came out of me and I ended up on the ground and that's when I had this out of- body experience at the time I had no idea What happened I thought I was dead um I could see if you ever play a game or if you ever seen a game where there's like a glitch where you can

kind of see like the top down View I I I saw this top down view what was going on I can see the the the fighters across the street I could see my body I can see my pointman still shooting I can see my other teammates on the ground like what the [ __ ] going on I just you had a [ __ ] outof body experience in the Middle of combat yeah holy [ __ ] I've never heard of that yeah and uh what happened was I see this [ __ ] light I see

all these things going on I'm like dude I'm [ __ ] dead and I just get sucked back into this life and then I I snap and I'm in this fetal position my body went to this fetal position and I start to move and I didn't know if I was convulsing or if it Was for my friend kicking me he's kicking me with his foot he's in the prone position just hey wake up they're like dude we thought you were dead we didn't see any blood I'm like what happened I'm like crying and laughing at

the same time I have no idea what's going on uh I got shot right in the helmet and I didn't know this and I'm completely out of it well my body was down fell at the radio near the radio they're like get on the radio And call in support and I'm like what the [ __ ] I'm like what's going on you know I'm trying to figure out where I'm at and they're like get on the [ __ ] radio and call for support I'm like okay I'm like I pick up this [ __ ]

handset and I give like the worst radio Transmissions Ever every other word was break Warhammer break this is break Grim Reaper break we need break I'm [ __ ] out of It and I get it out I muster it out I calling like hey here's our [ __ ] location this is what's going on I'm getting broken calm and we're still under [ __ ] fire under attack and so my team's like we got to get out of here so we pack up the radio and we work our way downstairs and I find myself with

a radio operator holding basically being a shield for him so he can set up the antenna get communication and we can get [ __ ] contact cuz we're like dude shit's about to get real and my team leader and my assistant team leader they're cring their sniper rifle and they got their pistol out and and I I can see kind of the doorway of the building we're in and then I see this window right in front of me as I'm like peeking out of this bathroom and it's a very tall window and I see this

head the top of this head walk by I see this turban and everything Walk by I'm like am I I'm like [ __ ] cuz this is the real [ __ ] thing so I'm like [ __ ] tell everyone shut the [ __ ] up there's people coming so my my guy stops on the radio communication cuz it's loud as [ __ ] we didn't have the best radios antennas back there and we're in a concrete building it's not we're not in a favorable position to achieve communication superiority and we're and we're somewhat Locked

down so we're not even in in a defensive true defensive posture we're almost just waiting for it and I see this Shadow get bigger and bigger into this into this room I I couldn't see anym CU I wasn't peeking out anymore but I just saw the shadow figure get bigger and bigger and bigger until this [ __ ] man's face this adult face Crest the corner and I just Jam my [ __ ] gun into his face he's got no weapon I [ __ ] hit Him I'm looking at him and I'm like what the

[ __ ] do we do and they're like oh he's trying to come in [ __ ] look at body counts you know he's a [ __ ] spy he's on the lookout and I'm like I'm still like semi throwing up I'm dizzy I don't know what the [ __ ] going on still I'm semiconscious to this but like I'm trying to process a whole bunch of th stuff and there's a whole bunch of stuff that I need to give that my priority than my own feelings and Concerns and thoughts and emotions one person ends

up turning into seven people people started to come to our house no weapons and we did not know what to do and I'm like I'm not going to [ __ ] kill these people that have no guns like at that point in time I I made that decision like I'm not just anyone can kill and at a [ __ ] young age before I really learned what that life was about It didn't not they weren't a threat to me and you can't just I don't know at the time I didn't do it so it is

what it was but we didn't have any stuff to Haw time him we didn't have anything to secure them all we had was [ __ ] our weapons drawn at them and we're like dude we are so [ __ ] we got to get the [ __ ] out of here cuz they make a jump on us we're done yeah we're we'll we'll take care of few but dude we out we're outnumbered almost to one at this point Just mels and it was so Random instead of them walking by I'm like ushering them in I'm

grabbing them forcely bringing them in cuz the last thing I wanted them to do is run away and tell people that these four Gringos are inside this house and they have no idea what's going on and my team was like dude we got to we got to make a bell for it we got to we got to make a run for this thing and our only option was to hit the road Skirt the [ __ ] town and just run until we made contact with friendlies cuz we're still getting [ __ ] shot at it's

not as violent now it's sporadic at this point but now we have these guys coming in to do quality checks and we have no idea what they are what they're about what they represent who they work for it's just a lot of weird things are happening all at once and so we make ourselves work ourselves out of this house and we just Started to bound and we just kept on bounding until we ran into an infantry Squad and we tell them what's going on we're like Yo dude we're in this building over here we got

in contact from across the street and they're like oh yeah we heard that [ __ ] so we showed up and we just started [ __ ] blasting both buildings we didn't know anything I'm like not really putting two and two Together and uh I'm like oh y'all are blasting that [ __ ] building too like oh yeah we're [ __ ] blasting that building we're blasting that building and and this is new you know they didn't know [ __ ] we didn't know [ __ ] until we started to like pecem these stories together

and the time while that's taking place I'm throwing up I'm like oh my God what's going on I get a moin and a cigarette and uh the doc looks me over Does that little eye sensory check and he's like okay TBI wasn't a thing back then yeah no one knew what that [ __ ] was and as we're basically teaming up sharing stories they're telling us oh yeah so and so got shoot got shot through and through the ass well little did we know his o-1 deployment he got shot through and through the ass again

so this is now the ass guy so there's some funny there's some laughter going on in this like very chaotic place which Is still kindergarten compared to the varsity that fujia was truly about we're like 67 hours into the first day in this thing it's nothing it's all a cakewalk and we get tasked that we're like hey uh Delta is doing a mission down the road we need to go provide sniper support for for them we're providing basically Cordon for them outer support and uh I tell my S te I'm like dude I'm [ __

] done bro he's like suck The [ __ ] up like Roger that so we go on this like baton death march to link up uh to set up this outer court on and I am walking left and right I'm dragging my [ __ ] gun he's like pick up your [ __ ] rifle I'm like dude I am [ __ ] trying I am I'm I'm toasted this point I'm hitting all the dopamine the adrenaline's wearing off and like I just got shot in the helmet hell I don't even know who I got shot

in the helmet by this point and I don't feel good this I'm getting to the point where I'm physically incapable of actually performing my job um we set up the railroad tracks and they're like all right you're good we're here and the next thing you know I just I passed out passed out these rooad tracks I remember uh I remember Delta doing their mission they're like he we're good we appreciate it they do their [ __ ] obviously super fast very calculated very inspiring and we're there on you know squirt of Control fighting P his

life we're there for a little bit waiting for the next tasking order cuz now we're probably 7:00 in the evening we haven't accomplished [ __ ] we haven't cleared through anything we've reacted stuff and we come back to where we started at the very beginning of the phas line and my commander is like hey you're going to I'm going to send you back I'm like I don't want to [ __ ] go he's like no you're going to go back and Get checked out I'm like no I want to stay here with a team he's

like listen all we're doing is setting up mortars for the night and then we're all pulling out in the morning you have my word I'm like okay so I go back I get checked out eyes around the camper like this cuz now we're like wait a second we heard the stories we saw the wounds we hear the [ __ ] explosions now we experienced it all and you know half this unit is full of new guys and even The old guys were like [ __ ] this is intense you know even for this entry level

stuff that happened this was nothing nothing this was a drop in the bucket compared to the [ __ ] storm that was coming and so we're back in the rear uh I get checked out uh basically I was like we had two and a half weeks before we went back in the city and this time the plan was to go back in the city and establish a stronghold so my team was to Support two team sniper teams are support Echo company and Echo company was going to be the Anvil of the main element the main

effort basically meaning we were going to take over these few buildings and the other companies other other companies in their Battalion were going to start pushing Fighters towards us and so the thought process and the objective was we'll go firm we'll use all these adjacent units to basically Just like push the Hornets Nest into one vector them into one area to One Kill Zone and then we'll do what must be done and leading up to this I'm like no idea what to think so we load up again and this is uh this is when I

see my first Dead Guy like right in front of me I pull up in a hve and I'm eating uh strawberry applesauce and I'm just like I'm like bro I love to eat and I'm definitely going to get my food in before I got to Go do what who go not God knows what I got to do and so I'm pulling up because the grunts came in because at the Point we've established OverWatch across this bridge the grunts go in they clear the strongholds they get in a fight uh and they basically secure these objectives

the main element of this whole operation and what we're doing is we're just eating Rockets we're eating mortars I'm dealing with you know human Shields I'm dealing with calling in air strikes I'm Doing all these things fighting from an am tr basically um why all this is taken place so this is it's a very quick Evolution but it is it seems forever we uh link up and I'm shoving strawberry applesauce in my mouth and then I see Frank the Fusian laying outside bloated as [ __ ] guts and glory and he was a fighter as

the Marines pushed in uh to clear these strongholds and I'm just like Looking at this [ __ ] dude's brains I'm like I finished my food I'll leave him the [ __ ] truck I grab my pack and I go inside and it is just like a bunch of ants moving around grunts are good at three things cleaning weapons filling sandbags and killing [ __ ] and they are cleaning weapons and filling sandbags that's the phase of life we're all in luckily for me my sniper team we make our way up to the rooftop and

I'm on OverWatch and that's basically how I found myself into this next phase of of of fighting and combat was this OverWatch aspect and uh it changed everything [ __ ] changed after that um March 20 uh April 26th so exactly 30 days after I got dinged in the helmet um for weeks now we're taking we're taking sniper fire from this one Building and uh at this point we made so much noise We There were we were stacking so many bodies that we had to send patrols out to move the [ __ ] bodies because

there was interrupting our fields of fire holy [ __ ] and there was so many bodies being stacked that the you know the locals were driving up their ambulances and picking up bodies also and our main fight was the sniper alley And we would see Fighters and black man jamas you know running left to right and um they were pushing our Max ranges for our and our Max velocity for our sniper rifles our our our 308s were not fast enough to like see them on the right side to hit them on the left side you

know we weren't we' had no time to lead them in a very small window uh so we were getting our our paydays closer so we basically stopped shooting at Them and or we would shoot and purposely harass and we would miss we would just let you know we're there because what we wanted to do is draw them in more we wanted them to get comfortable and complacent and so then we found out they were leaving telltale signs they were leaving markings they would leave rocks they would have a runner that would come leave a rock

by an edge and says don't cross here this is only for Lookout and they leave a can over here and this is Where you run you know cuz Fighters they're not they're not on icons they at the day time they're not iPhones chatting everybody they're they're getting a very small brief and they're going to fight how' you guys figure that that out observation how long did that take 3 days 3 days to figure out a rock is yeah because a no go and a can is go because up to that point we just looked at

it as at this point we're looking at weeks right couple weeks of what's Happening and then we're like wait a second they have a system in place that we're not seeing so then we focus all of our efforts on SP like specific observation and it just kind of worked out that way but that's a good [ __ ] pi pick up especially if you're talking you're far enough away to where you can't kill these guys because the rounds aren't fast enough they're too far away and you're picking up cans and rocks as a go no

go because when you're Complacent your enemy your enemy is complacent you're a product of your environment and the more harsh we were the more [ __ ] harsh these guys were the more gray space we gave them the more gray space they took advantage of and so we just stopped we changed it up a little bit and we like hey don't shoot we let them [ __ ] get some wins cuz I got mean I got an infantry infantry platoon over here they're going to smoke these guys but we don't want to we don't Want

to keep on smoking them right here we want to figure out the [ __ ] going on and uh so now we bringing our Mark 19s to our rooftops and we just dial this [ __ ] in so real quick for the audience mark 19 is a grenade launcher and a basically fully automatic grenade launch grade launcher very heavy looks like a [ __ ] turtle with a big old unicorn spout and little eggs come out of it and those eggs go boom and the Machine Gunners got super smart machine Gunners are like oh bro

we're doing this so we're bringing Mark 19's up there we're roring our machine guns on there and we're just dealing death and it was crazy it was in it was literally fish in the Barrel almost um because one guy would poke out here and three guys would run that way one guy would poke here and then two guys run this way so we're so now we're like Okay you take the left side this this phase line you take the right side this phase line and we're basically that's how we're picking up so now instead of

trying to like lead them we're holding on these places so as soon as we hear an audible or we see it in the peripheral then that that is our trigger to engage cuz now we have someone on observation that's seen the whole thing a little further zoomed out we have guys on these 10 power fixed Johnny nerle Scopes from Vietnam with silk webbing right uh old school fixed power you know in an urban environment is not ideal very very scary uh at least I thought it was cuz you're instantly tunnel vision and when you're tunnel

vision down a tunnel vision Channel that's even scarier because there's a bunch of doors and windows and moving things and all sorts of things happening and like you have to have your head and swivel that's why we worked really well as a team it sucked to not Be on the sniper ride but being an observation was just important CU it was a team thing right the only way we're going to win the only way we're going to come out this thing alive is we work together and that's what I really enjoyed a lot about all

that hell that we experienced so we basically wrapped this up we replaced our sniper rifles with machine guns and the Machine Gunners Just they took care of the rust we had a new uh point of friction was this house across this the Jolan cemetery and this is a really big Cemetery very ancient looking looking and across the cemetery was a mosque and right to the right of the mosque was this building with a blue satellite dish on top this blue satellite dish house we were always receiving pretty effective sniper fire from and our commander and

at this time We're we're we're in so much [ __ ] we're calling in air strikes on a nightly basis to the point where our whole house spooky was really big back in the day spooky the C130 gunship just uh our house was yawing so much danger close [ __ ] fire missions happening 105s 40 Mike Mike [ __ ] you name it it was happening if it could calm out of the sky and out of a plane and kills [ __ ] it was coming and that's how I ATT tribute I can sleep Through

anything right now because you had to like you couldn't always fight every time there was a fight going on you could run up grab your [ __ ] run to the rooftop but you have to be smarter because the fight's going to continue tomorrow and that's where that discipline of the warrior comes in where you know it's if I if I'm needed they will call me you know and that's hard to do cuz you want to be involved you want to participate but [ __ ] man you can't You can't run yourself ragged you're in

a deployment for 6 months we've been here four weeks there's a lot of [ __ ] if this is four weeks into this thing I couldn't imagine what more many more months is going to be like and so we dra so much attention uh like making headlines Delta shows up to our position and they're like hey we heard you guys were in the [ __ ] and we're like every [ __ ] day and they're like well hopefully we can help they brought a Bunch of experimental [ __ ] out there uh they they were

a sniper element and so it was super cool to like be around these guys and see a completely new version of professionalism it's different aspect different mindset of everything and uh working alongside them we're sharing highights together we're sharing bunkers together they're [ __ ] teaching us how to shoot their 300 wind mag teaching us how to use their [ __ ] they had the horse Vision back the day You know like all these retical options and Optics and just learning so much information and these dudes were down to earth and we're kids these are

[ __ ] men these are old that was an older breed back then we're like 18 19 year old [ __ ] googly eyes like oh my God look at their gear their gear is so cool and listen to their stories well now that we had them with us our commander is like uh you ever heard named Doug zimbeck no I Haven't major zimbeck is a he was a man man amongst men right he was called The Lion of fuia before we went into the city he stood up upon a tank and he said the

dogs of fuia will go fat off of feasting up the dead bodies We Lay to waste and that's exactly what happened uh I actually have a dog with a hand in its mouth on my kneecap from that deployment there were so many bodies that they weren't whole after a Couple days uh legs limbs chunks were missing you just see dogs running with [ __ ] arms in their mouth and you're desensitized and you're like you can't even make this [ __ ] up and then we stop dropping bodies now there's bodies coming up from the

[ __ ] Graves and you're just like this is this is hell and around this time we started getting filled at aogs so now everyone is pretty outfitted With AOG at this point in time there's a lot of casualties that are taking place so now even are Corman have M16s cuz before the Corman had pistols in [ __ ] fuia holy [ __ ] um I still have the same helmet that's got a [ __ ] hole in it and uh you know what's what's his name Maddox General Maddox before we went to the city

again I was holding Security on this [ __ ] bridge and he called he's like where I was a big deal I was like one of the very F cases I got shot in the helmet and lived um and uh he had me come over there he's like let me see this [ __ ] helmet and I show him as I'm I'm [ __ ] little kid wearing this helmet still that's completely useless now it's has zero stoppage capability but I'm wearing it that's all I got um and he's like he says something witty and

told me get back to my fighting position and uh so I got this [ __ ] Helmet I got all these doubts these fears these unknowns these these things cuz my whole life has changed in a matter of months my experience is is the my outlooks my perspective the realities I mean [ __ ] I just got shot in the helmet on day one in the city and I'm dodging bullets every day so I'm constantly battling that fear of don't be a [ __ ] you know I'm I was to the point where like dude

you you have to just keep on moving you can't you can't Stop and worry about you're going to get shot in the [ __ ] head again so I started to expose a little bit more of my body here and there to give myself an option give myself a chance uh because I was still dealing with that that [ __ ] and uh the our Doug zimb back he's like hey I want to do a sniper Mission sniper kill Mission we have Delta here I want you guys to go there and [ __ ] stack

bodies that was his main mission that Was it it was the simplest [ __ ] mission I've ever given him in my life and uh so obviously with the grunt's help we roll out super early the saltman launch a rocket through this fence and we take over this [ __ ] house no conflict back in the day you had seven braavos which were not that great you know it's a two into one big old PEC 15s big ass laser and these big old muskets these Civil War muskets that are weren't very conducive for a CQB

environment um and Pitch Black and you're just making all the Ruckus there is no sound discipline cuz you can't even see where you're walking so you know those they had those metal doors that were really flimsy yeah we were hitting those and they had them on steps they had early War warning devices everywhere and we're like bro this house was set up for Success so when they're upstairs shooting you have to make a Ruckus to go get them but granted this house was empty by the time we're there but what we found there in this

house confirmed all our suspicions a big spider hole big loophole done extremely well very professional uh you know small to big done like textbook uh gave them all the angles they needed and the window they were burning was exactly to her house and we can see the rooftop line we can See Marine's head Bobble here and there we had to use some planks and lighs to cross to get to other rooftops on our strongholds and you can just see them move and how we didn't take more casualties I'm [ __ ] grateful but like they

had a great [ __ ] Vantage spot on this chest rigs weapon cache everything was in this house basically you show up there you fight you move on you go back to your family for [ __ ] tea time and so we set up on the rooftop uh One of the one the Delta guys like hey I kind of got a weird feeling from this one I'm going to go back to I'm going to go back support from the stronghold cuz we had two other sniper teams back there with the other grum platoon and so

we go up to the rooftop I make my loophole I set my my team lead up for success I build him a [ __ ] stand for his [ __ ] you know some mattresses and pillows I chisel out his loophole I get observation up and it's It's hot as [ __ ] we got machine Gunners up there we got grenade grenadiers up there grenade launcher guys grenade launchers uh all of our snip sniper ammunition is up there um all my crypto is up there in my day pack and my night vision everything and my

team's like hey it's really hot how about you and the radio oper how about you guys go down and take a [ __ ] hour if we need you we'll come get you if not Come back in an hour replace us we're like okay so I'm like hey do you want my rifle and he's like no you might need that the radar operator gave his rifle to my ATL CU he's like [ __ ] yeah I'll take this we go downstairs with this big like a mattress room you remember those like big family rooms or

just mattresses up to the wall yeah we're in this room my rifle's next to the door the grunts have the same Secured uh delt is kind of like in and out uh different floors and they have other half their element at our stronghold position they're communicating they're observ you know doing observation they're participating silence and I light up this [ __ ] cigarette and I'm just smoking and joking with my friend we're talking about some dumb [ __ ] I don't even [ __ ] know what it Was and then the [ __ ] house

starts to [ __ ] shake and we started to get a volley of RPGs and grenades and machine gun fire [ __ ] all simultaneous the room that I was in I was sitting next to this window and across from this window was another [ __ ] building with the window there and machine gun fire just Blaster [ __ ] window and I find myself again in the prone position saying what the [ __ ] and and it's Loud it's dusty and it's [ __ ] scary because then the scream started coming and then the

yelling started to happen and then the [ __ ] fire inside started to [ __ ] occur like machine gun fire picking up the grenade like everything was happening all at once um at the same time we had this complex Ambush basically they they set us up the Jason house wasn't [ __ ] clear as it was thought to be cleared and have You ever seen that footage um where there's like a [ __ ] bunch of people coming on ISR feed and there's like this pilot that drops a bomb remember that footage from back

in the day yeah that was us no [ __ ] that was this day and so we are low crawling I get to the [ __ ] door I grab my [ __ ] rifle and I just I I I I see fear I see people freeze I see people [ __ ] Shake I see [ __ ] blood and I See straight like but no cowardness I just see what [ __ ] brutality brings and you hear we need a stretcher Corman medic we hear all these things we're taking [ __ ] calches upon

calches doors are going to knock down uh to provide gurns for people but here's a kicker we can't get out we're pinned the [ __ ] down we got guys jumping on a rooftop we got guys [ __ ] running to her front door we got dudes trying to Drop into our [ __ ] Windows pistols were running dry killing people that day and we were literally going Winchester on ammunition we're running out of ammunition on the rooftop as my friend and I make it out of this room and we kind of see what's going

on we see them just [ __ ] bloody and mangled my friend his machine Gunter comes down his [ __ ] arm is gone another dude his leg comes down he's [ __ ] goddamn swiss cheese my team leader my ATL they're [ __ ] up they ate all sorts of grenades and you just hear screaming and you hear support you hear help and you just hear the volleys continue continue continue and it is it was it's [ __ ] traumatizing you're like you can't even imagine what something like that is you can't even comprehend

what something like that is and here in the story it doesn't even seem real um And it just was never never ending and the only way we were staying alive was what was happening on the rooftop and at this point in time so many grenades and Rockets hit our rooftop our ammunition is gone our [ __ ] 240 is destroyed our [ __ ] grenades are [ __ ] exploding up there cuz there's a mass [ __ ] fire um and it's just a fight for your life up top we got guys just getting [

__ ] blasted getting [ __ ] wounded killed It's just happening and it's happening right right now and they're like we need support up there and I remember hearing uh one of my good friends he befriended me he was a machine gunner his name was Aaron Austin he uh they're like Aaron's hit we need to get him down and so I run up there and um I see my [ __ ] friend white as [ __ ] and he's fading very fast and everything stops And it's just that Sav and Private Ryan scene where just

hell is breaking loose but you hear no sounds you're just looking the [ __ ] around we're taking fire from the minet so they got the they got the elevation on us we're taking fire from ajason builds buildings we're taking [ __ ] grenades from various Flo floors like we are we're tossing grenades back we're literally surviving we're not even fight we're surviving and we can't make a [ __ ] Run for it because we're [ __ ] pinned down up front so we're calling in air strikes we're calling in [ __ ] support we're

calling in MedEx and we're told that our metex aren't coming cuz at the time we're in the [ __ ] we're in the OK Corral so our Command is doing Battlefield circulations so they're going around and see what's going on they're taking assets that we [ __ ] need and here I'm On this rooftop and I see my [ __ ] friend shot multiple times and we fight we do what we got to do the the fella downstairs that I saw freezed up I saw him on the [ __ ] rooftop fighting next to me

moments later um and then I see my friend and we carry him down and one of the Medics from from Delta uh he like jams him an IV my radio operator and I we're at this [ __ ] Point now where the abrs pulled up the tanks pulled up and um they're outside of our house just getting [ __ ] up they're just providing a shield so we can make a the madish shimal run back home Cobra's in the overhead by this time the minet's [ __ ] toast you know those things had like no

the mosque were off limits uh but it was [ __ ] gone um Rockets were exploding everywhere and all we're just getting told is we got to Get the [ __ ] out of here and we just start [ __ ] exfilling bodies now that the tanks are here and so the Delta Medic myself and my radio operator were based like Iron Crossing my friend Aaron like doing this [ __ ] mile this this run for our [ __ ] lives back to our stronghold and everyone's bounding my commander [ __ ] shot one the

the Delta guys his [ __ ] car beam was shot so he's got a [ __ ] pistol his he was Shot in the [ __ ] ear my uh my company Commander he was [ __ ] shot in the dick protector like dudes are bloody dudes are [ __ ] dead and we get back and the Fight Continues it doesn't end it doesn't end till it does to the point we ran out of sniper ammo and uh one of the guys from the Infantry cuz now myON Commander my my teamm is [ __ ]

out of commission my ATL both my snipers are out of Commission and um so I took his rifle and I went to the rooftop and I started getting to work well I ran out of ammo very quickly cuz all I had was was in his gun and he didn't fire any shots I mean you're not going to fire shots in a in a in a in a fight like that not from a sniper rifle not from a bolt gun at least and uh the grunts that weren't supporting the fight they're dinking 762 rounds to feed

me so I can [ __ ] put Them inside and every now and then I get a [ __ ] Tracer that I could see so I know I'm not shooting match great ammo I'm shooting [ __ ] machine gun ammo which is designed to graze and I'm just working with what I got and I'm [ __ ] crying and I'm sad and I'm still fighting every 's [ __ ] fighting and it ends that night and these Delta guys say like dude we have never and I was on a team these guys one of

them was on the team that got Saddam You know one of them was on the team that killed UD he was the one that killed UD and these [ __ ] guys are telling me dude I've never ever been in anything like this and my mind is [ __ ] blown I'm like how do you Titans have never experienced the [ __ ] before they were doing different missions very violent very dangerous different and um that night they fly out cuz they're still conducting combat operations little their little birds are Coming in and uh the

medic he gives me his [ __ ] patch cuz Aaron I found out died like just outside the mech like five minutes outside the mech because we're waiting on the resupply to happen we're waiting on the the vehicles to show up but my Battalion commander and my sergeant major wanted to go get in the mix they're hold holding up assets and to hear my [ __ ] friend dies five [ __ ] minutes from like a roll one Unit where there's a real medical facility there it [ __ ] sucked yeah and uh then I

started get introduced to the chaplain and then they would come they' say some prayer [ __ ] we do like a little ceremony for our brothers in arms and that became a constant [ __ ] thing that was like a repeating cycle that never ended that deployment I'm always seeing the [ __ ] chaplain the chaplain's always coming Someone's always dying you know IEDs weren't a really big thing back then but vehicle born IEDs were um suicide suicide vest and suicid Le vehicle born iids were a really big thing uh at that time Squad gone

this [ __ ] fire team gone and then you hear stories of your friends that you went to boot camp with and school of infantry with that are in ratti that are fighting for their life At the same time that you're fighting for your life in fuia just to find out half those [ __ ] dudes are dead all my friends that most of my friends that I had in boot camp and school of infantry [ __ ] gone dead as [ __ ] and uh I just was I became empty um and this was

it this this is what no one knew you know you could train for the fight but you're never no one trains to [ __ ] [ __ ] lose your Soul no one trains to [ __ ] feel empty no one trains to like you can't train for what must be done you only must execute when the opportunity and the situation presents itself and I have never seen so much heroism come from a group of men in my entire life these dudes were dads they were fathers and brothers they were young men they were they

were leaders these dudes had dreams these dudes were on their last deployment getting ready to roll out Half those dudes didn't [ __ ] make it and I get it it's War what do you expect but what the [ __ ] do you expect and you know this deployment went on these conflicts went on I mean to the point where we are getting combat Replacements to the point where our cooks are on missions our fire bases are [ __ ] empty uh because we're sitting everyone out there And I remember one particular day I'm still

out there in the stronghold position and our first sergeant comes up and he's like hey when's the last time he called home I'm like I [ __ ] know and he's like here call home you have 5 minutes I'm like okay so I pick up the sa phone and I call home and I'm like hey Mom she's like hey who who's this well I found Out why wasn't getting [ __ ] letters why I wasn't getting [ __ ] mail cuz somehow I got put on the Kia list when I got shot in the helmet

a month prior and that phone call made it to my family so my parents thought it was [ __ ] dead but they never got a follow-up phone call with where's your ceremony you know what's the next [ __ ] step my parents thought I was [ __ ] dead for a month for a month and I was like [ __ ] dude I put These [ __ ] through that [ __ ] too are you serious and I'm like waving it off you know I'm emotional now cuz I'm grateful to be a liive but

at the time I was just surviving so I was just happy that I had a cigarette that day and had a cold coffee that I made you know my little M package I was happy with the simple [ __ ] the beef jerky that my friend shared that he got sent from home cuz his family is AVID Hunters um and then I hear that they thought it was [ __ ] dead I'm just like you can't make this up but it happened and that just introduced me to war that was the standard for the rest

of my life um I ended up um that deployment was pretty hectic we switched from staying in the city to to Rolling missions on the outside doing remain behind missions Doing a lot more [ __ ] seeing a lot of bad leadership a lot of bad tactics lot of [ __ ] egos costing men their [ __ ] lives um and I saw a lot of standards of what I wasn't going to accept or allow even from my team I had a very my team leader was a Was A Turd he sucked he was horrible

so I learned a lot from all this hell I learned a lot of what right looks like what bad looks like what's good what's not good and I was able to Form what kind of what kind of leader and Marine do I want to be cuz I saw it all there I saw some in the rear but you never see someone's true colors like you do when they're faced with adversity this adversity was costing [ __ ] their lives and so I'd say that's the best kind of adversity that you can pick and pull tangible

things from and so all the younger guys in that platoon uh to include myself we ended up uh leaving 30 days early from that Deployment uh to all go to sniper school and missions were dying down and to be honest I was so [ __ ] stoked I'm like dude I might make it out this [ __ ] alive and um that's what I did I made it out that [ __ ] and uh so did the rest of my team um missions definitely slowed down that's how we're AF afforded to to start sending guys

back home cuz we took so many combat Replacements that were just Dying on the regular it was a scene straight from like banded Brothers where like I don't even want to know your name you're not going to be here long Jesus these [ __ ] would be at these Patrol bases minding their own business eating at M telling us what the civilian life is like cuz they got reactivated Mort rounds Ling in their [ __ ] lap taking his [ __ ] [ __ ] dead sitting outside smoking a cigarette dead telling us about his

[ __ ] kid And it was just non-stop death and it was non-stop [ __ ] Chaplin it was nonstop Memorial Services it was non-stop helmets on rifles it was non-stop it was the same [ __ ] on repeat and I asked myself like what the [ __ ] is this for we didn't clear that [ __ ] City we had strongholds that we pulled out of I remember being on these [ __ ] rooftops that we [ __ ] bled and sweat On and they're telling us that we're pulling out and it was a

glorious moment to hear those words cuz you're like I might [ __ ] survive but then it was like what the [ __ ] was all this worth they're like hey we're we're we're leaving this position we're pulling back to base and we're going to start doing these other things it was very vague it wasn't as in detailed as that but that was the main gist so we're slashing Sandbags what we called home for months we're slashing sandbags we're emptying out we're breaking everything that could be used against us anything that we use to fortify

position for us we're [ __ ] destroying it just be told hey the trucks aren't coming 72 more hours and we're like we're like [ __ ] you we have no morale we have no nothing we have nothing and so we stayed there and we F fought for 17 more hours not as bad not as crazy as it was previously uh cuz after that day of being ambushed and after a lot of bombs were dropped it it changed a little bit they learned that they're going to get [ __ ] up if they fight in

the cities and their best tactic is to go back to Guerilla style tactics hit and run [ __ ] and not fighting the bull headon uh which obviously makes complete sense so they started to [ __ ] up Surrounding Villages they started to [ __ ] up surrounding civil you know citizens civilians they started to terrorize do exactly what they were there to do and uh so I get this call you know hey you guys are going back home to go to sniper school and I was like stoked cuz I'm like dude I'm I'm getting

to like in this chapter of my life I'm getting to live and I'm getting to go do something that I came here to do in the First place and that's what closed out that chapter but not before more deaths you know more [ __ ] vehicle IEDs comicazi just ripping apart a 7 ton killing seven [ __ ] people and you're just like and it was calmer but it it was just so natural to [ __ ] happen there it was just disgusting it was you're over it I I wanted to go home I was

[ __ ] Done so I find myself home on base I just get back I feel [ __ ] empty there signs at the airport thank y'all you know insert typical support [ __ ] and I had no pulse for any of it no one was there to meet me no family no girlfriend no nobody um me and my buddies would get bust back to her command we get sent back to the same shitty flat tops that we left from The Condemned building rats size your feet water that's toxic and Poisonous and um that night

was a night that the surrounding the nearby Camp the artillery Camp does their fire missions their week their their quarterly monthly whatever fire missions where they're doing alom missions for training and I remember being grateful that I'm back at home and then I just hear these [ __ ] 105s go off and I roll underneath my rack and I just like Ponder what I just Went through and I had to remind myself that I'm home and that this [ __ ] was just this is what it was this is normal you know they shoot [

__ ] artillery that's what they do but I forgot because when that [ __ ] happened there you [ __ ] you take cover cuz you think you're smoking a cigarette in your food but really what's happening is you're a [ __ ] Target about to get vaporized you don't even know it and so I kind of started looking At things completely different you know I looked at things completely different I got shot in the helmet I'm like holy [ __ ] I just died or at least I felt like I died and I came

back I had the second chance and then I I kept on pushing that that cat of Nine Lives this whole deployment just to come back to hide underneath the bed when I hear this this explosion happen um but that's the price you pay I think you Know that's that's what's required you know sacrifices are required for things that you want I didn't ask for those sacrifices but those were those were the cards that I was dealt and um you know I found myself going to sniper School [ __ ] crushed it uh I was trained

my PL tomb trained me extremely well um and we went there with this like we were those guys people knew all about us people knew that we stacked bodies they knew that and half of the sniper Instructors were came from my sniper platoon they were senior guys doing their school time time and so we had a [ __ ] ton of sniper we had so much experience so we went to sniper School humble and eager but fine-tuning things you know it wasn't something new I lived that life and to professionally learn it all to learn

the things I didn't know it was really just I found myself checking the boxes because I got got firsthand experience On how to do all this hard [ __ ] so I went to sniper school to suffer I went to there to suffer and to graduate I got educated on some things mission planning was a big one um we did a lot of big more in-depth Mission planning than I did five paragraph orders were really big back in the day where you're handwriting 50 [ __ ] plus Pages for a mission I'm carrying one tube

of green Cami paint you know like Nats ass Detail I learned a lot of that but sniper school was just fun cuz I was s i was alive and I was getting to do the cool [ __ ] that I didn't get to do I was s stalking ghilly suit breaking I was doing all the things that I really didn't get to do overseas uh so I got educated and I got to participate in things that were challenging overwhelming and help Forge me into even better sniper I had a lot of experience I had a

lot of training Informal training and the experience now now I had the formal aspect that just [ __ ] propelled me um cuz I realized that anyone can shoot [ __ ] good but now it's about getting missions now it's about are you the best team are you the best sniper right because like I said anyone can shoot you can train a monkey to shoot you can't train a monkey to use his mind Mission plan brief of confidence know what the [ __ ] going on tell your people what's Going on EX inspect what you

expect you know all these aspects that I was gaining and I was taking all these invaluable lessons and turning them into wisdom so all that hell that I [ __ ] went through and all my home homies went through cuz we all were there together we're now taking those aspects and like this is who we want to be and we're molding ourselves as we go along so the mindset from the high school the mindset from getting my ass kicked the mindset From you know boot camp and school of infantry and then my deployments all these

things it's just all stacking up and it's all kind of coming together now and that's kind of what I realized you know life or at least the military is just a series of events it's up to you to determine what's wisdom what's log it's up to you to determine if it's good or bad it's up to you to really put thought and effort into the life that you're experiencing or you can just Exist in it and be in pain be in hell not change your life change your situation and you know being in that sniper

platoon that's that's all about that um so I go to sniper platoon I go to sniper school I graduate great I take out another comp now I'm back with the same Battalion now I'm going to operation Steel Curtain you heard of that one no I haven't this is a 2005 time frame still current was where we went through like I swear it was like Five or six cities big [ __ ] pushes big missions this was like a big big [ __ ] ordeal didn't know at the time did not know it and but this

time I'm going to Mew so now I'm I'm training with Force reconnaissance guys I'm a sniper team for them I'm super excited because that's just my natural progression I want to go to force reconnaissance after this like that it's just all these Different tiers these different elevations of things to change and to get uncomfortable with so we we're on this view on on these boats this M Marine Expeditionary Unit so I'm on this uh lh1 don't even ask me what the [ __ ] that means it was a big deck had it had like a

carriers it wasn't a carrier but it had like a top for like planes and [ __ ] to fly off it wasn't like the big carrier uh boat maybe a midsize they're all Massive and we're floating over we hit like Hawaii we hit Australia do some training we hit to Singapore all these things Hong Kong all these great things get back to Kuwait Convoy to Iraq now I'm in Iraq I'm like I'm telling my younger guys I'm like bro I'm like I got the fusion mindset everything is a [ __ ] threat everything's dangerous and

it was completely different it was all different and our mission was kind of different we I realized what a true the true force and power of a mobilization unit can do when you're not pigeon hole to one place you say I'm going to clear this [ __ ] City going to clear it and that's what you put your mind behind oh you clear [ __ ] and um our Mew our 13th me was the main effort again the main effort switched companies switched roles so so last rotation it was this company this rotation is this

company but you know I found myself Doing different missions that I wasn't doing before I was clearing landmines or landfills by myself with my team because we had no EOD guys I'm [ __ ] throwing day packs with water bottles and rocks with 550 cord attached to them and slowly pulling them um because I had to Mark a route for the Battalion to come through that was our job push ahead gain eyes on the objective area report back while as I'm pushing back we had all these reports That you know all these different cities had

different [ __ ] minefields landmines all these things are around and there's like two EOD guys two bomb guys for like a regiment so like thousands of people there's only two dudes so like back in the day if you found an unexploded ordinance or an IED you stopped and you were on a knee for a very long time sometimes days cuz you never knew what one bomb was going to do and it was never that one that you that Gets you it's the [ __ ] daisy chain that you have no idea about that's three

stacks back and three stacks in front of you you saw what they wanted you to see and so clearly we held a lot of operations well for this particular operation we had a timeline associated with it and I think our first city we go through was this place called USA uh it was right outside the 440 District near maybe it was kbal I don't even know they All the same to me but I just told like hey Cody come in here my patoon Commander talks to me and he gives me this like [ __ ]

dad talk he's like like I need you to clear this Minefield I'm like what do you mean clear a Minefield he's like I need your team to Mark a route so the Battalion can push through it I'm like how the [ __ ] do you want me to do that I have nothing and um they were talking about Using like the grappling hook you shoot like the 22 cartridge out your six M16 I'm like you want me to shoot a grappling hook at nighttime in bad guys territory to scrape it you think that's the best

idea my team's going to get [ __ ] murdered and so the next back's option was let's be as quiet as possible and we'll just use a bag so that's what we did I took my Eagle day pack shoved water bottles and rocks in that [ __ ] where it was manageable tow a [ __ ] line to it toss it out and I pull it back and we run lanes that way we create a wide birth and we would Mark IR Kim lights and we start marking [ __ ] to the release point and

I remember linking up I was supposed to link up with the reconnaissance platoon uh that was out there to get a data dump from them what's going on in the battlefield and We were supposed to move up to find hide sites observation sites so when the Battalion comes in we can provide accurate Precision sniper fire and Reporting at the same time I'm also tasked with finding routes and Lanes to send tanks and [ __ ] packs through there's a lot of respons I'm 19 years old at this point I had a [ __ ] ton

of responsibility all of us have a [ __ ] ton of responsibility and I remember my team All night we were in and out of a ditch reporting back setting up coms reporting back what we saw setting the stage and multiple times at Night My Team walked through this one path that we thought would be a good route we walked it multiple times the Recon platoon walked it multiple times we deemed it safe we [ __ ] Mark it the next morning the Battalion Landing team The BLT comes in Abrams [ __ ] cobras L

um troops and my company Commander that I'm supporting his name is Raymond Doza huge just D1 football player whatever that is called and Collegiate football that was that guy dude he was the M dude was a Titan and the company rotation before that he was my headquarters company commander and still a Savage and now he's in the Infantry he's An infantry company commander and he's the main effort this dude had to be like 360 lbs with kid on dude was massive he was big I'm in my OverWatch position I have my my smok on I'm

like blending into my background I'm in my glass and I see the tanks and the troops come in and there's raay leading the pack leading from the front like a real [ __ ] leader Ray [ __ ] disappeared moments Later he hit a [ __ ] anti-tank mine and the only thing through a route that we were on and the only thing that we think of is that we weren't heavy enough to set it off damn and I questioned everything up to that point I'm like did I [ __ ] can not do my

job and that just reminded me like no matter what you [ __ ] do when you play with fire someone is going to get burned I can't tell you how many times on that Deployment multiple cities I'm watching I'm watching intersections all night thermals my teams recombo tun we're all watching it just to see IEDs blow up on it the next day I was almost convinced that insurgents were turning into [ __ ] dogs and crawling around on on fours to plant [ __ ] iids cuz I could not figure out how it was happening

and the only thing that really was there they were probably just already already Laid I mean it's apparent a big military force is going to come and sweep in so let's just backstack everything and [ __ ] these dudes up and I was psychologically getting [ __ ] up because I was just seeing no matter how hard you try to preserve life you can't control [ __ ] and you don't control off [ __ ] thing you can have all the guns you can have All the security you don't control anything you think you do

you want to believe you do but you don't control any of it and that's a hard pill to swallow yeah especially when you when you when you're doing your job and you take pride in your job to the point where you're risking your [ __ ] life and to see something like that happen boggles my mind and so this whole deployment we're just clearing city after City to the Point where when we're done with one city we're we're getting back in our humies and we're driving back to this big base we we're staged out of

miles away hours away just want to eat food we're dirty as [ __ ] we're battered just to come find out we're getting yelled at we can't eat in the [ __ ] cha Hall cuz there's some douchebag telling us that we don't have our cover on our hat or our uniform is dirty so we can't go into his CH Hall to eat And the [ __ ] that can come from War I should write a book just on that cuz it's it's unbelievable and you know this you can't even make it up there was

a different there was multiple Wars going on out there and not everyone was in the same War I was in yeah um and so just another layer of perspective another layer of just like you got to be kidding me I just scooped my [ __ ] friends teeth teeth up off the [ __ ] ground I Can't eat in this child are you serious I got yelled at because I was [ __ ] bloody my sleeves were rolled up I was carrying I was covered in a head to toe and [ __ ] blood my

rifle was [ __ ] stained red from enemies blood my friend's blood um and my cammies were going over my [ __ ] hands cuz I'm just wet I'm sweating and I'm just [ __ ] all wet in Blood and I roll my [ __ ] up my boots are on Bloss my pant my [ __ ] my boots are Bloody everything about me is bloody and I get [ __ ] corrected because my sle I was told to unroll my sleeves and to blast my pants and to be told that my friend I'm like

is he going to get put in for an award well it won't be this because that's reserved for staff and cosos and higher and I'm trying to make reason of the hell I just experienced and all my friends just experienc and most of them died and some of them Lived and then there's this other War this other reality that's happening right now now that I'm clearly not tuned into cuz it is not the one that I'm currently located at and so I learned early on in my military career that there is endless perspectives and realities

out there and war is only [ __ ] War to those who [ __ ] claim it and not everyone claimed that [ __ ] they want to be part of it they wanted the Accolades but they weren't about war they weren't about what the [ __ ] true cause and the toll was the fee to even show up for that place place was they weren't about that life they lived in another La La Land and that's hard on morale when uh when you have you try to put perspective into your life you're like what

am I doing here I have [ __ ] go I want to be a doctor one day I want to read a book I want to do this I want to Do that and I'm I'm I'm you're thinking you're not even going to make it to the next [ __ ] Mill and if you do make it the next meal the chance of you doing that with ease is probably going to be likely because there's someone out there that lives in a different alternative perspective in reality than you do and um you know we we

finish that that that rotation just backto back cities back to Back cities back to back [ __ ] cities it was never ending uh but it was a part of History you know there will never be I'm sure of it there will never be another or at least in the in the global war terrorism there was never a a of fuia Battle of fujia there was never another operation still curtain that took place these things were iconic at best you know and to survive those things but more importantly to survive because I have a Lot

of friends that survived that that took their lives later down the road so they didn't really survive it they suffered through it and they struggled through it but to survive and extract that wisdom from those pain points that's what I started to see in all the hell I was living that's not how I Justified loss of life but that's what I started to I can I can say [ __ ] this [ __ ] them I'm a victim or I can be like what can I take Away from this what what lesson do I have

from all this hardship what lesson do I have from this stupidity how can I apply that to be a better person how can I apply that to be a better [ __ ] leader how can I treat my men when I have a chance to be up top how can I be better for them how can I make sure that I know they know that I give a [ __ ] about them that I'm here to support them and it's not the the way around that I will lie Che and still to get them the

Words and recognitions they need not bend over backwards and crumble because I'm looking out for my own neck I learned so much that this generation probably doesn't have that opportunity to do so yeah they do um and you know that deployment [ __ ] me up too I was uh me and a bunch of guys we were you know what a mlet is no mlet if I'm saying this correctly my memory serves me correctly it's it's a it's a pod it's a backpack pod and you Use it for clearing operations so you take off this

backpack this mlet pod and it shoots this uh it shoots this like rocket out this projectile out and it's a string of dead cord essentially and it's you're just clearing routes you're clearing lanes for tracks for troops for [ __ ] everything and they are a apods I think that's what they were called apods and they're loud and They if you're 50 meters 100 meters behind them they'll make you [ __ ] throw up and so I found myself in the last city that we would hit during this whole entire campaign it was uh carala

and it was right next to Euphrates and there was this Palm Grove that we needed to clear through and it was laced with IES so the reporting happened so so the reporting was said and this is when I started to Understand very little about TB gu cuz I didn't really have the residual effects from my you know a year not even a year prior to deployment experience but this time I'm like getting really rocked we're like just we're just getting the wavelengths we're just seeing the the Whiplash the um the shock waves of all these

Rockets happening and we're [ __ ] dumb we don't know any different we're standing behind it ready to push the fight these Things go off we run forward and then we do do this we do this more and more and more we do this this is a continuous thing and we're just eating it for hours and that's that's when something shifted in me I didn't know it at the time but that's when it really started to this toll of like War fighting started to [ __ ] me up and we we we finished this this

Mission we finished this deployment I Get back home and I'm like I'm on the boat heading back home and I could not wait to get back on the ship cuz if I got back on the ship I was going to [ __ ] live my my guy my team was going to live we were safe and uh I'm like I got to get the [ __ ] out of this platoon I wanted more I wanted a different mindset some of my newer guys I wasn't driving with the mindset and of the Battalion of the vision

of the Sniper platoon the sniper Community all these things were happening at once I'm like I got to change my life bro I can't stay here and what was it what what was it was it change yeah what why did you want out the command you're a sniper now the command sucked the command did not the leadership did not value you yeah and my sniper platoon that I worked my ass off to get into it was going down the drain almost mindsets at the time they were saying hazing was a big deal People weren't getting

hazed people were getting trained people were learning what discipline and respect is unvi now there was some violent [ __ ] happening before you know this time um but at the time like I said there was a pig and a hog you know as a hog you were you're [ __ ] sniper you're your your 550 cord loop with your necklace with your sniper round a pig doesn't have that [ __ ] and I remember in training up even for this deployment our platoon Sergeant was real Stickler about like segregation I'm like dude if we

make these [ __ ] feel I mean they're part of the team but if we if we give them everything they they won't want to go to sniper School they'll just want to stay here and they want to stay here they're not an asset they're a liability now because they're there's no evolution in their their willhouse their spectrum of of growth in this platoon because I grew up in a cyber platoon or stap plon with honor And discipline I was told exactly how it's going to [ __ ] be and this is why and then

I started to see phones started coming out you know like internet was popping hot or not was popping Myspace was a thing and it was I just saw this new generation of of guys join my ranks and I that plus the leadership I'm like dude this isn't for me and it cost so many lives cuz there's so many egos at tied to it I remember this one particular time I'm at this Training event and my platoon Sergeant wanted us all to take off our sniper necklaces and he's like [ __ ] take them off and

I see them again you're out of the [ __ ] platoon and we're getting ready to deploy for this deployment I just talked about and my guys are like [ __ ] you and he's like take them off when I come back there better be off you're gone he was that guy one of her own he Was a sky he was a train sniper but he was a drill instructor also he was he forgot who he was in this concept and really led by fear and intimidation instead of compassion and Leadership and um I remember

telling my guys like dude this guy's obviously a tool let's just [ __ ] take it off for him to come back in 20 minutes money Le will put it back on and I couldn't not get my friends in my Pon to look at it that way they're Like [ __ ] that and I get it I get it but there's there's a time and place and some of my friends they were so willing to die on their [ __ ] sword right there that battle was that was it they weren't crossing the line that

was it I'm just like guys that's so small that's so small and four of them didn't [ __ ] do it soon as this [ __ ] left I put my [ __ ] back on exactly what I said I was going to do I knew this guy was a Tool bag he little man syndrome and I knew that's what I needed to do to a to get over on this thing cuz I had a goal I had a mission I had a vision how can I be the best sniper if I'm not a sniper

how can I take care of my team if I'm not here cuz I allow my ego to get in the [ __ ] way my necklace means something to me too it means so much to me I'm going to preserve it not [ __ ] relinquish what it all stands for so four my guys get kicked out of my [ __ ] plon that day and on that deployment I just talking about I'm on a rooftop mind my own [ __ ] business you know I'm engaging and fighting stops and this this same dude comes

over to me and he's like hey I want to let you know that John's dead and I just said [ __ ] you [ __ ] this is your [ __ ] fault and I was so pissed I was hurt cuz John refused to take off his necklace a [ __ ] necklace that meant everything to him and this [ __ ] dude's like this tall his name is John M gorer little [ __ ] homie he was rolling around fujia with a [ __ ] saster twice his [ __ ] size it was funny

as [ __ ] we put him in a backpack troll with them at times just [ __ ] around and they were clearing this house Right adjacent to me and John was one of the first ones to go in well the insurgents had a machine gun position uh for fight in there and so when the fire team went in there because John got kicked out of the sniper plon got sent to the line company John rushes in there he gets [ __ ] zipped in half rest of half his [ __ ] team and I'm

just holding grudges and I had to get out of that [ __ ] environment and I'm holding on to that for the rest of this deployment I [ __ ] hate this guy I hate that my friends are dead I hate even getting to [ __ ] KN new people cuz it's just it seems to never end and at that point even one death is a [ __ ] ton when you did everything I did every boot camp soy my first deployment now my second deployment with the same guy with multiple of those same guys

and they're just they're Gone and they had dreams they had hopes they had all this [ __ ] because a [ __ ] necklace and poor leadership this [ __ ] dude's dead I mean he could have died probably any other way maybe but that's what I was holding I'm like I got to get out of the space so I you know we're fast forwarding to the conclusion of that deployment I'm on boat we're floating out and I find out there's a Recon a Force reconnaissance indoctrination Happening soon and at this point I still not

a good swimmer I needed to unfuck myself so I go home I bring my C memes I'm swimming at the YMCA I'm making [ __ ] happen they're like don't put your head under water I'm like [ __ ] you I got goals and dreams you know I'm wait till they look away and I go do it and then that led me to showing up one morning at 5:00 at a pool deck with nervous shits 30 minutes prior because I don't want to eat too much so I ate a banana to make Sure I didn't

cramp up but I was nervous as [ __ ] cuz now all my friends that I worked with and employed with that were forc reconnaissance guys now I'm saying Hey I want to be one of you I'm shifting Lanes I had homies in the Recon Community I got homies in the force conness Community but now I'm saying I want to earn what you have earned so now it's time for me to pay so now we're not now we're not friends now I'm a [ __ ] student I'm a Roper I'm a nobody all over again

and I loved it because I learned that a lot of dudes talked a lot of [ __ ] in the military a lot of [ __ ] I'm going to do this I'm going do that but when push comes to shove the ones that say they're going to do stuff if they show up then you know those dudes are The Real McCoys because it's so hard to show up it's so hard to sign your name on a list and be like Okay I'll be there tomorrow at least it was for me none of this [

__ ] was easy I was [ __ ] mind [ __ ] myself never doubting myself but questioning myself like dude are we doing this is this really happening how exciting you have no idea what you're getting into good luck [ __ ] hope you can swim and that's when I started the next phase of my life my next phase of my military career the force reconnaissance You know Marine Raider career and that's where it all that's where it changed I put myself in a group of guys that gave a [ __ ] about each

other the leadership cared about them the the the training cared about them the communication cared about them the support system cared about not only them but their families I was like dude I'm where I'm supposed to be at it's completely different more money different Mission different mindset more hard gates to get through To get there so you're earning your keep everyone there earns their keep there's no handouts there there's no poor leadership like that or you're gone this thing doesn't sit well so I find myself doing this screening guess what I sucked I sucked at

swimming I sucked at swimming they're like bro get your chin up above water I'm like okay you know but I'm not I'm like not quitting I'm suffering and I am grateful of the suffer cuz I've I've dreamt about this Moment for a long time I dreamt about it the whole way on this [ __ ] boat and now I'm getting to do it but just like the sniper sh I'm suffering I'm sucking I'm not even good at it I have all the reasons to to say [ __ ] it this is not for me but

I didn't quit and however it happened I passed everything else but I I didn't pass that portion but I still got a phone call to show up they're like hey we think this Guy has something we think he's trainable and so we want him to come here and so my platoon Commander calls me in my cyber platoon Commander calls me in he's like hey they called you I felt like I let everyone down uh they're like hey they saw something in you they said you can't swim for [ __ ] um but they they think

that you're trainable so you're going to go be a Roper over Force reconnaissance and you're going to Go try out I'm like get the [ __ ] out of here so I checked out of my inventry unit I checked in temporary and I start the suffer process well before we go into that let's take a quick break okay many of you probably know by now earlier this year I did a psychedelic healing journey and that changed many aspects of my life for the better two of them being I haven't had any alcohol or coffee in

over 6 months another aspect That changed of mine is my morning ritual and I want to tell you guys about my new addition to my morning ritual mudat it's a coffee replacement in my opinion the best thing about mudat is every single ingredient was added for a very specific purpose cacao and chai for mood in a micro do of caffeine Lion's man for alertness cordyceps to help support physical performance chaga and RI to support your immune system turmeric for soreness and cinnamon for Antioxidants not only is mud water good for you it also tastes incredible

my favorite ingredient is the lion's man because keeps my brain alert all hours of the day some people like to mix their mud water with milk some people like to put some honey in it personally myself I just dump it in a glass of water Stir It Up and throw it down the hatch mudwater is Whole 30 approved 100% USDA organic non-GMO gluten-free vegan and kosher certified mudwater also donates Monthly to the Berkeley center for the science of psychedelics as mudwater believes the country is in a mental health epidemic and so do I go to

mudwater docomond to support the show and use code sha for 15% off that's mudwater docomond use code sha for 15% off all right we're back from the break you're going to force Recon going to force Recon yep and at this point I I passed the screening to get in there uh Because we're swimming every day I'm learning getting educated uh a lot of the same stuff that I was learning and doing in the sniper Community a lot of Land Navigation a lot of uh Ruck running all the time and there was a it was like

never ending and all the older guys at Forest were getting ready they're trying out for Delta so they're doing nothing but pack runs so as a new guy I am just doing pack runs every [ __ ] day it seems like so are you in Force at this Point or are you training to go I'm training to go to school I am a nobody I'm a Roper you made the tryy out I made the tryy out so I'm there and I'm earning my keep but the next phase of your keep is um you have to

go to rip which is called the Recon indoctrination program and then once you pass that there is a force uh at the time there was a force selection so I had to go do that and uh so there was like a screening to get in Earn your keep got a chance to go to rip you have to pass that that means okay now you're basically prepared to go to BRC the Recon school um whether you're Force reconnaissant or Balian reconnaissance you both go you all go to rip and you all go to the same Recon

School the Baseline Fundamental school and then so that's what I did I went to rip uh that sucked that was like it was way different than my sniper Experience I was used to The Ruck running I was used to Land Navigation but they had the pool every [ __ ] day it seemed like and I hated the pool this pool in particular they had no keys for the gate so we always found ourselves jumping the fence to go swim in the pool that told me that this wasn't planned that told me that there was like

no one there to come save me uh when I was feeling weak and wanted to quit inside and every day of rip I wanted to quit Every day every day I'm like dude I'm going to quit today why why' you want to quit cuz it was hard and I told myself it always made like a joke like if I can make fun of it now before I actually have to go out there and do it I'll just laugh about when I'm doing it and then you wanted to quit cuz it was hard dude it was

so [ __ ] hard this swim I'm like I don't know how I'm going to make this pool I'm not going to make it in the pool today they're like oh we're Going to do all this [ __ ] swimming and crossover like [ __ ] dude I want to quit I can't do this [ __ ] after all the [ __ ] that you'd been through on your previous two [ __ ] deployments in Iraq which by the way I don't think I've ever heard any [ __ ] [ __ ] like that you're

worried about the pool dude the pool was The Equalizer of my soul Jesus Christ yeah dude uh the pull was unforgiving I remember being on the pull deck they split up to A and B I was a b Group cuz I was not a great swimmer uh I'm passing things I'm doing I'm holding my own weight but I'm muscle not a fish and so I am uh I'm doing push-ups we're doing push-ups and mountain climbers and they're like go and they're just doing Crossovers and it's a 25 meter pull so you're just underwater to the

next Edge uper breath underwater to the next Edge uper breath and you're just repeating this Non-Stop and you do not bring your head above the surface Until you get to the edge you just don't do it and I remember doing push-ups you're like pushup and we're like counting off and I hear help help and I look to my side I'm like oh [ __ ] this dude popped up to catch breath midp and he just got swarmed and they took his ass to the [ __ ] bottom and he disappeared and they're like [ __

] push and we're pushing up I'm like dude what the [ __ ] and then I Just hear this large Ruckus help help help and you're like who my God this is crazy and you hear help I quit I quit just always taking him down he's panicking Panic is cancer right and it took me years to realize why you do all these hard things in the military at least my own interpretation of them but the Panic like that is straight [ __ ] cancer and it spreads super fast in humans and um this dude was

[ __ ] done and and he just wanted to [ __ ] quit They're like oh [ __ ] you and this dude end up quitting later on that day but uh this is now it's my turn to get into the pool I'm just like oh my God bro this is going to be intense well I learned from a very young age even in boot camp that if you ain't cheating you ain't trying I was very hungry I was a hungry recruit so I would like figure out ways to find food in boot camp well

I wasn't a good swimmer so I found ways to swim how I needed to Swim and breathe when I needed to breathe so I would like see these dudes were like not like looking and I try to come up for error because I learned that if I'm not trying to get over on the system now and training then I'm never going to push the envelope in combat and I understand what discipline is I understand what doing a hard thing is but there's something about pushing the envelope to me that I've always enjoyed and that's what

I've enjoyed about my Entire career is I love making [ __ ] happen and sometimes there's very unconventional ways to make [ __ ] happen and so I can either get choked out or I can get over if I need to come up for air and so I'm like okay that's my thing if I have to come up for air I'm just going to wait till they're not looking I'm going to come up breathe real quick and go back down well then it kind of made it like a game so now instead of me looking

at This opportunity as like straight hell I'm like how can I survive today cuz I'm not going to quit I'm really not going to quit I I say it jokingly I said it with my friends with smiles on her faces because it was like coping mechanism there's no difference in seeing your friends get [ __ ] blown and be like holy [ __ ] dude this [ __ ] is like I get the [ __ ] out of here well I'm not really leaving anywhere I'm just saying what needs to Be said doing what needs

to be [ __ ] done so I can push the fight and continue on because I'm human I have feelings I have emotions I have doubts I have insecurities I have [ __ ] fears real I'm a real person and the pool has a way of bringing that out of you and you've ever heard of the ball of [ __ ] or the Beehive I've heard a lot of balls of [ __ ] so they would take us and we all had ropes we're called Ropers because we're always th doing tying knots under Water you

know everything's getting ready for dive School tying notes all this [ __ ] notes nuts not notes and they took this water hose and we're in the bot we're in the middle of the pool so [ __ ] deep and they're like get closer and you're doing the ball as [ __ ] so you're like kind of like nut to butt kind of treading water just flailing you're just trying to keep the main lungs air in your lungs so you kind of stay afloat but you're getting kicked You're getting scratched and they just take this

water hose and they just wrap it around you and they get closer and closer and [ __ ] closer to the point where you're literally struggling to stay afloat and they're trying to see who quits they're trying to see who panics they're trying to see who can't make it [ __ ] survive this thing and if you would dive down to like come to the back of the ballish [ __ ] they'd see they'd be Like [ __ ] you get in the center and you're like [ __ ] you and you kind of like

wait a second till they call your name again cuz you're like man they're going to have to jump in this [ __ ] pool to grab me but like wait a second they will actually do that so I'll go in the middle I'll make make it happen and you just play these games of survivability cuz everyone there is trying to survive because no one's just like oh this is easy nothing's easy when You reach that point that phas line of like now we're trying to kill you now we're trying to see what you're really made

of now we're trying to teach you what [ __ ] training can't teach you and what combat won't teach you we're trying to teach you what you and only you can teach yourself and that's your determination to [ __ ] persevere and push through it and they didn't say it with their words but hindsight being 2020 looking back at this whole Evolution of life I'm like that got to be it or at least that's the [ __ ] that I'm telling myself uh because those times were tough a lot of running a lot of swimming

a lot of things that I was uncomfortable with but would you know I got really [ __ ] good at them cuz I sucked at them so much it was so hard but I was getting better I was getting stronger I was getting faster uh to the point by the time I went to Recon school I [ __ ] smoked it was Honor Graduate Was easy even the swimming you were the [ __ ] Honor Graduate of Recon school too yeah Jesus dude and dive school and dive school and I sucked at swimming and boot

camp and boot camp and not sniper school not sniper school what about infantry School uh yes I was undergraduate there impressive it worked out uh there's a lot of flak that comes with titles like that uh a lot of [ __ ] talking and so I finished rip and me and My friends we we had a guaranteed slot to go to BRC Recon school but before we could go we had to go past the force uh indoc so we were doing the screening to get in there then we did the force OC which was like

another you know 15 plus mile Ruck run uh double obstacle course more swimming more in-depth swimming you know all sorts of unfund things physical fitness test um is a real gut check I think we started at like 6:00 in the morning and I finished at like maybe 11: or 12 in the afternoon maybe 1 I don't even know but we're told to go home afterwards then i' laid on the floor my pinkies my pinkies cramped you know it was like you're done you're depleted uh but everything leading up to the point trained us and prepared

us for that and I was just so pumped to even be there because these were these were my friends and my mentors and my leaders that I worked with before in combat and in Training and now I'm one step closer to being their tribe you know one step closer to being part of this organization and so I get my seat to go to uh BRC reconnaissance course that was down in cornado and I remember checking in and I'm driving across the bridge dude I watched all the Navy SEAL documentaries as a kid growing up all

the discovery [ __ ] Channel they had to offer I watched it and to find myself on That obstacle course doing that that se O course as a Roper it was like a [ __ ] dream come true a that [ __ ] is not easy that little spider wall [ __ ] up my forearms uh you know the little bitty yeah uh but just to be there and trying to and seeing all these visualizations that I've had ever since I was a high schooler kind of come to fruition you know I I yearn to

be wet and Sandy I enjoyed that [ __ ] it sucked but I really Found this like fulfillment in like doing [ __ ] that was [ __ ] hard doing [ __ ] that I wanted to quit but not quitting [ __ ] motivated me I loved it um being around dudes who wanted to quit but didn't quit I [ __ ] loved it it motivated me and that's what I found myself in I found myself in a newer caliber of challenges newer caliber of individuals different [ __ ] things and you know a

lot of similarities to the Recon Community like you know School Recon school was super easy for me all you had to do is put out not [ __ ] anyone over don't quit and pass your test that's it those are pretty simple the requirements to do all the simple things were not so simple but I knew how to patrol I knew how to land out to do everything minus uh the amphibious stuff Finning was new to me minus rip when I learned in rip learning how to become a reconnaissance marine and or training to be

a reconnaissance marine and then uh Nautical navigation that was all new information to me that was new Uncharted territories uh small boats all new [ __ ] to me but other than that everything else I kind of knew and I was a pretty senior guy with a couple other senior guys there so we were mentors to the younger classmates the 18 19 year old guys uh how old were you at this point at this time I just turned 21 um and I spent many nights drinking on town because I I was just turned 21 And

I could bounce back I was super resilient I would go study down in Pacific Beach study my little flash cards for my test getting hammered at happy hour um coming back to do a 4:30 beach run you know like Unstoppable I wasn't the greatest in the runs but I never fell fell out never quit never fa the time anything but like I was like this new journey of life I'm like bro I am crushing it this is this is so hard it's not even hard This is where I belong you know it was like this

I I was I was so prideful to carry that rope I was prideful to eat at the same child Hall the buds guys were going to it gave me so much just I felt so good about myself because I had so many friends like I'm going to be Recon I'm going to do this I'm going to do that and they never made the moves and here I am coming from a platoon which I would have been in charge the next go around I would have been in charge of That platoon and I left that [

__ ] for a new for a new tomorrow A Better Tomorrow bigger better tomorrow a new tribe a new community A new challenge in life a new continuation of the of the progression that I determined I was going to go do in life you know just my entry point was the sniper that got me in the door that's what I wanted to do and that's LED and involved to everything else that I've done in Life so I go to BRC uh BRC was great a lot of lot of great lessons they're very fun very challenging

at times too but like I said I've already experienced it so they weren't new challenges to me they were just repeat challenges so I found myself having to repeat the same Indo the same screenings I'm like [ __ ] another hard gate they just kept on coming and I'm like all right well this is what's required to get to where I want to in Life so I graduate BRC uh I check into my company to to force reconnaissance and I'm just feeling like a king just new newbie there new guy and uh just so many

new opportunities ahead of me then I quickly realized that I'm just a boot all over again you know everything I've done in the past none of that [ __ ] mattered no one gave a [ __ ] people knew of me I had those friends cuz some of my sniper buddies were now forcer conance guys it was like kind of A natural progression uh at this time Detachment one the marine Special Operations organization was still kind of around but more of a training capacity but they were quickly being dissolved they were coming to the force

reconnaissance cuz unbeknown to the time there was this grand scheme to create a special operations in the Marine Corps to call it marso and this is all happening in the in in the background which we weren't really privy to at Least I wasn't and I was a new guy so it makes sense so one day I check up and and it was great you know in being in the unit being a force reconnaissance guy was great you show up team huddle you PT and there's no work to do you go home and if you're in

a training phase you you do training but if you're not in a training phase you're in a downtime or a buildup uh it was Big Boy rules I'm like dude this is great I felt like an adult I Wasn't micromanaged I was giving a task condition standard told to execute and that was it I'm like this is brilliant everyone here is a senior Guy this is exactly where I need to be at then one day our commander comes in and he's like hey uh it's a huddle so our company Commander tells us that you know

tomorrow basically they gave this big spill like we're going become Special Operations and they're like everyone's on relaxed screaming Standards we have more funding coming in expect new weapon systems expect a very you know intense training regiment and we're just like bro this is it this [ __ ] escalated quickly well we're still Marines [ __ ] still wasn't hashed out by headquarters so that lasted about a week dudes are wearing civilian clothes growing out their [ __ ] facial hair getting ready for various training missions downrange missions um and it felt [ __ ]

awesome It Feltes awesome to to be treated like an adult y uh and it wasn't about the hair it wasn't about the [ __ ] facial hair it was just about the the the trust and confidence in us to you you're big boys do what you need to do for the [ __ ] mission we're still Marines we're going to stay within like Common Sense parameters but go do what you're here to do and I was like holy [ __ ] this is awesome that lasted like a week then they just stop at us again

they put us Right back into our little bubble our box and they said nope cut your hair shave your face this is training is happening this is happening and you're just like what's going on and there's a lot of confusion going on at this time and I found myself at Fort binning doing jump school during this whole during like the last part of this part of this and jump school is three weeks long interesting place to be and for people out there that don't Know jump school is 3 weeks long you're there for 3 weeks

for it's like 5 days of jumping four days of jumping maybe 3 days of jumping it's crazy and you're doing only five jumps there and you're there with a bunch of privates from the Army and you're just treated like a [ __ ] nobody you're marching everywhere you're singing these silly songs and you're a recruit for 3 weeks it was very difficult to do but you do it Because that's what it takes now things have changed uh but anyways I find myself there when I come back from jump School uh that's when we officially lowered

our first Force reconnaissance guideon flag and we hosted or ho hoisted the first Marine Special Operations Battalion flag are guide on so that's when we're called IMA back in the day before Marine Raider was the thing imsa we are Marine Special Operations battalions uh our umbrella was called Marso marine Special Operations Command so we were called marsach but our units were called mobs where now they're called Marine Raider battalions so mrb so we've gone through some weird name changes throughout the years um because with the history and the lineage of the Marine Corps Raiders Marine

Corp Raider or the Marine Raiders World War II uh small BuildCraft small unit guys that really made a name for these specialized Insertions that were taking place uh small boat crafts small reconnaissance hit and run Ambush style tactics gorilla Warfare uh other reconnaissance surveillance aspects of their mission well that transpired into the Big Marine Corps that's why there's boat companies in the Marine Corps infantry units where they're doing raid missions on on Zodiacs inflatable boats they're doing you know uh hit and run missions they're doing all these different type of things But on Infantry scale

because the Raiders got disbanded well reconnaissance Community was the tip of the spear because that's all that existed at this point force reconnaissance was the premier one Italian reconnaissance was still freaking premere just force reconnaissance was your direct action and special reconnaissance realm where Battalion reconnaissance is focused on uh supporting general purpose force uh They they support the battalions the Infantry battalions they are um your greenside uh surveillance um they're the long range reconnaissance patrolling were and they also do CQB but the real mission for CQB and vbss was F fell under the force reconnaissance

mission um and I'm new to all this at the time and they're like hey we're now marock I'm like okay dope you know we kind of heard these things well all These Detachment one guys started sh showing up in our units they're now our leaders cuz they all went through their own series of selection process to even get to their unit I think you had to like you had to be a ranger you had to have all these schools PR Rex to even be considered for detachment one before you even got to try out for

it like they had this whole like slew of like superhero [ __ ] you had to be dual insert jump and Di free fall all these things uh basic Insert [ __ ] and basic like leadership stuff like and from the Army side and so we formed up and we found ourselves quickly deploying to Afghanistan that was our main area of operation but at the time Iraq was our Focus that was our what we were planning for and I was the part of the second company to roll out of the West Coast to deploy overseas

well we didn't have our own special operations insertion platforms we're still using the bring Marine Corps In the Navy to do our inserts you know whether that's to fly us or to transport us the a boat so since Force reconnaissance went away there was no one to cover down on that mission on the Muse this the Marine Expeditionary Unit so you had this normally a seal platoon on every Mew and then they were either on the submarine or the small frig doing the vbss doing the commanders hey I have a special operations team with me

um and now marso took over there was no Force Guys so now we're seeing reconnaissance Battalion getting a little bit more meat on their plate to like hey you need to go do these things uh but we still had the requirement so I'm still training vbss I'm still training on how to like you know take over a Helm you know scale scale boat I was still a sniper I was on a wcky team so I'm learning you know I'm doing aerial sniping platforms you know all this type of [ __ ] and uh all fun

Stuff I mean I'm doing training I've never done before I'm shooting sniper rifles I never had access to in the Infantry I'm using Optics you know not night vision I have all these things I never had before and it was super awesome the golden conx box showed up the golden conx box showed up and the and the the you know car blanch you know budget came with it also where we were doing great things and at the time we're so infant Socom put so much money into US Special Operations Command as a whole they're coming

down to evaluate our training coming down to like ominous Dominus clear us off can you meet these M essential task lists are you meeting the Special Operation standard you know can you shoot move communicate do direct action do special reconnaissance can you do forign internal defense can you do conventional Warfare can you do all these things and can you do it to a standard and so it was super cool to Have all these experts come down from Delta all these other organizations and evaluate us provide input and then hold us accountable it was it was

super awesome to like experience all this [ __ ] we're operating now we're flying with 160th you know the uh Uso Aviation aspect uh not Marine air you know I love some Marine pilots mainly are Cobra Pilots but like there's a big difference between the sore and Marine airwing how they fly how they do Everything and we were actually being treated like [ __ ] adults and it was amazing and so our first company rotates out to Afghanistan and my company is on Deck I was a Bravo Company uh first Battalion or first morning Special

Operation Battalion and we were told we were going to Iraq so we're playing planning for a very Iraq scenario what does that mean I don't [ __ ] know [ __ ] move communicate more to the same [ __ ] I'm doing it all and Um we get on a boat to Flo float over and they're like hey we're going to Afghanistan and we're like it kind of felt really cool to be redirected to have this Mission you think you're going to Iraq but now we're getting [ __ ] diverted to go to Afghanistan and

our main area of operation was the Helman Province and at this time we had second uh second Force Recon which is now Second Marine Special Operations Battalion which is on the east Coast we Have first marine Special Operations Battalion which is on the west coast and we are both operating either in the San area Helman area second mainly the sangan area first mainly Helman area and Afghanistan was our main focus we never sent any guys to Iraq to later on the war and uh it was awesome so now I've been to Iraq two times at

this point I'm going to Afghanistan pretty excited it's a new area and uh completely different battle space Completely different everything the ttps were different the mindsets were different how we were inserting were different our missions were different I had more Authority on these missions you know I wasn't operating under a general purpose Force Mission now I'm operating under Special Operations Command I have a joint Special Operation task force I have a combined joint Special Operation task you I have all these different new tiers of leadership and layers of red Tape I never even heard of

before and now I'm exposed to them and with all that came different roles of respons posibilities that we got to execute and so I found myself as a special reconnaissance uh I was Sr team and we're rolling around gmv gun trucks I I think I had like three sniper rifles on me this is my first deployment to ever being a truck so I'm like sleeping bag check this this nice Comfort item check But as was a trunk monkey so I sat in the back of the gun truck just eating powder you know eating all that

nasty sand gunking up my guns all the time so like everything's in trash bags but ready to get ripped off to engage and uh it was a super interesting experience very kinetic um very different type of kinetic engagement I did a lot more sniping in Afghanistan that I did in Iraq um distance was definitely the advantage of the Taliban Fighters um some CQB but a lot there was we weren't doing raids like was taking place in Iraq we were doing more um under the scale of humanitarian assistance you know l-shape watch pattern of Life execute

the task at hand right do your mission and it was it was awesome you know learning around a bunch of different enablers and support Personnel that we never had access to before so now our Ability to influence the battle space has just like texed itself I'm like dude we're targeting people left and right we're targeting things that I'm like dude we can do this this is awesome and at this point I did a bunch of specialized training before that I went overseas worked with people across the pond I'm exposed to all sorts of stuff and

the the low viz High Vis special reconnaissance realm and now being able to apply it overseas is pretty freaking Awesome right anytime you can like utilize all that hard time that you're away from home and training and sacrifice and hardships and go actually execute it you're like bro this is what's up and that was just the beginning that was just a tip you know that was a very kinetic Helman Helman uh Afghanistan Helman Valley operation uh but it was just different like I said a lot of longdistance type Of stuff a lot of uh a

lot of new valuable learning lessons that I got to add to my toolbox to help prepare me for the future deployments that were to come and I was still a young guy I was a newb Noob uh in this organization noob in this Splatoon in uh this company and so we finished this rotation I come back home and there is an opportunity to go they were looking for volunteers to go to our Schoolhouse cuz now I mean we're deploying we now Deployed four companies to Afghanistan well dude we're taking casualties we are we do not

have the Manpower and so we're cycling guys from like our sister platoons sister companies into our deploying companies so like you're not on this like rotation where you have nine months to recoup you might get like four or five months we were Breaking All the Rules all the waivers were going in for us because we were so young and the demand for us was So high soc's like okay you want to come play in this battle space well this is what I need so now while we're focusing on Afghanistan we have a Third Battalion that

was our our FID our foreign internal defense Battalion at the time uh they were a group of uh various Marine infantry Personnel that did like some type of selection uh some type of specialized training and they were the ones covering down all over FID missions across the Globe we still because we have those responsibilities because you can't just play in the gwatt you got to play in all aspects of the gwatt sometimes the ones that aren't kinetic sometimes the ones that aren't the mainstream thing and this Battalion was covering down all those tasks and so

they're like hey we had to create the schoolhouse because we have no way to increase new people uh cuz not every Force reconnaissance guy got to stay in marso they went down this Checklist and you either met this checklist or you didn't meet this checklist if you were a turd they sent you gone you know you were a badass Force for con guy but not every Force Recon guy stayed just like not every reconnaissance Battalion guy stayed in Recon Battalion they're like hey we want that guy we want that Squad we want that platoon we

bring them over and so we were filling from the ranks we had from the most specialized units that we had And they we're going to execute the task well now we're tasked with creating the foundation to make this reliable and repeatable uh so I was part of the schoolhouse to do that and we basically set up the whole uh our selection process we had guys come down from special Mission units help us set that up we were running our own indoctrination program based like our own OTC before the instructors to get us all qualified get

us all in the same Sheet of music so now we can go teach exactly what we expect and so we we call it IDC instructor development course and it was a bunch of more guess what hard Gates it never ended time constraints timelines heart you know left to right lateral limits like which is good because now we're all earning our keep here to be part of this big new machine that's moving through forward and so for the next I was actually at the schoolhouse 4 and A2 Years and you know I I put through uh

the first three classes I taught special reconnaissance I taught uh observation I was a marock advanced sniper instructor so I taught that stuff I taught uh surveillance and reconnaissance um you know close you know close Target recognisance I did all those things that's that's what I taught and then I had this opportunity to deploy from from the schoolhouse so I'm like yes let's do this so I found myself At our selection I was a Cadre at our selection process and I get a phone call like hey dude you want to deploy it's like not a

cold gig you can be working at the coda The combin Joint Special Operations task force and um sh bam and uh it's a six-month rotation I'm like yes sign me up CU I knew if I could get over seas with my guns I could go to work cuz I make [ __ ] happen cuz I find a way to get what I want I find a way to go find work and because I never Believed in face value stuff right and so my whole Vision was like bro I'm going to take all my guns that

I can get cuz they're like most these guys that give them like a pistol mhm cuz you your personal protection I'm like bro I need my sniper rifle I need my carbine I need my pistol I need my nods I need a radio and so I made all these connections while I was in you know in my outfit in my unit by treating people nicely and being [ __ ] not a douchebag and so my Armor hooked it up I find myself overseas in Afghanistan and I find myself at this desk job and like I'm

like this sucks so many depressed people seeing all the red tape I'm like how the [ __ ] do operations even happen on the battlefield when this is the [ __ ] that takes place these idiots are worried about what awards they're getting they're pissed off that the ice cream is out in the in the in the CH Hall these losers are like woring about TPS reports when these dudes are trying to get on the battle space they're trying to get funding you know to build build something they're trying to get resupplies they're trying to

get you know Mission critical Mission essential stuff and they're getting red taped and I'm seeing behind the scenes I'm like and I was a young guy I was an E6 at this point I was a young E6 and now I was actually a pretty senior E6 but I'm seeing all this red Tape I'm like dude this is just full of inefficiencies but that's how the system works doesn't mean it works the best way it just works well a [ __ ] Broken Clock Works too twice a day and that's what I found out that this

is how this whole system was working up so I got some like shitty task I had a like my I was in charge of um nothing I was above nothing I was against it was just kind of a not fun task I was in charge of all of our Afghan uh Army Special Forces I Had to do a bunch of numbers and our Commandos and basically all of our partner forces I was just responsible for figuring out where they're all at putting them on the map talking to all my L on officers from the different

firebases and different teams and gaining a big picture so that could get briefed to the commander um so very important stuff very crucial it just was a different experience than I was used to uh and then I found my Gap I found the [ __ ] needle in the haste deck and I'm reading reports and I find out that there's this one team uh in the Helman Raider team Maro team that is just getting [ __ ] up they are like constantly dealing with just anyy sniper they're constantly dealing with [ __ ] like just

Insider threat stuff all sorts of issues and so every day I went to I made friends with uh the C of Commander cuz I brief like I talk very interactive I have a pulse and this dude Noticed it and I was like in his back pocket he loved me um and I asked him every day for like three weeks I'm like dude here's the Gap I can I have experience in counter sniping let me go do this and he's like oh no you can't do it every day until end like probably two weeks two and

a half weeks into it every day I'm asking him I'm talking to the the command sergeant major I'm like hey dude I can do this I have a gap oh by the way I already replaced myself with this guy oh and these other tasks and responsibilities I get are back filled by this person like I created all this stuff and at the same time I'm doing PSD um with working with the B do there I'm doing a PSD runs to the capital runs to uh you know runs to Kabul runs to the Embassy um getting

that that Driving Experience that personal security experience I'm like I'm maximizing my time here because a lot of people are There kind of just for the ribbon yeah you know and that's just not who I am and so they're like all right check it out no I keep on telling no I'm like okay well I get on an airplane I get on a C130 to fly to one of my firebases one of my firebases that I was managing ing you know through email I'm not like in charge of it by any means yeah uh I'm

just talking to a point of contact on the phone and I'm going there to like I Want to see what's up me my friends see my friends meet these people that I'm talking to on the radio and on the computer and put a face to the name it was a Sil buddy in mine Sil buddy and me because we worked in the same jock we go over there we do our business and we take this trash flight back basically like you know late night Redeye C130 flight back to Bam it's just him me and a

palet of in the center of the C130 and the crew and We're over we're over the air base and this [ __ ] explosion happens and essentially what happened the hydraulic pressure the hydraulic pump machine that does flaps landing gear controls the [ __ ] aircraft exploded in the [ __ ] Bay and now there's all this hot steamy [ __ ] fluid just being sprayed everywhere dude we're [ __ ] drenched in it it's all the [ __ ] floor and the pilot comes on the Comm he's like dude I can't lower [ __

] flaps I can't get my Gears down and we're over we're right outside the city and we're like in like get shot the [ __ ] down space I instantly start [ __ ] taking parachutes and throwing them toward the [ __ ] ramp cuz the parachutes that were close to us were already getting drenched I'm like [ __ ] this dude I ain't dying in a [ __ ] airplane start throwing parachutes for the ramp get them away so we got to [ __ ] baell out we have parachutes that aren't [ __ ]

Completely saturated and then my my S buddy and I we just take our Gerbers and our knives and we're start cranking open cuz they had like a container full of hydraulic fluid and we're just cranking cans and throwing them into this like broken spewing [ __ ] hot misting choking yourself machine to get enough pressure in there and the the flight crew guys are throwing to us this planes jumping up and down in the sky we're like dude We're going to [ __ ] die and uh D sure as [ __ ] he gets his

flaps going he gets the wheels going and we land and the UL is there to meet us it was a big deal and they're like they Rush us right to the hospital and they're like oh we got to get you guys checked out like no we're okay like ralphing all this [ __ ] we're literally drenched in all this fluid and it's so hot and steamy it's like burning your esophagus and uh I get into this Hospital and uh I'm like I don't belong here there's like wound real like combat wounded guys here and I'm

like getting rushed to I'm like Oh my lungs kind of [ __ ] hurt and I'm getting rushed to x-rays I'm going to rush to this I'm just like there's a [ __ ] dude screaming over here there's this guy missing a [ __ ] leg I'm like like maybe this isn't that bad and um but I don't know about you but we have a good way of playing things Off they not a big deal well word got around very quickly and the next day uh my still buddy and I we were presented Awards uh

for helping and saving the crew and that's when he told me yes you can go and so he told me I had 30 days to make a difference or I'm coming back I was out there for four [ __ ] months and that was the rest of my deployment and I get out there uh their sniper for the team um he broke his arm back in the States great [ __ ] guy solid [ __ ] friend solid American he wasn't coming back on employment and so I I just seamlessly entered this [ __ ]

team I knew half the guys I put the officer through school and I was [ __ ] humbled cuz my mentors that I looked up to as a young scout sniper Force reconnaissance guy they were the leaders of this Special Operations team and in a matter of two years of being out of the loop and Training guys so much has changed on a team how they're broken down what they're doing the missions they're doing the [ __ ] you know everything has changed so you got welcomed but everyone everyone knew me there and I was

super welcome I was given specific task and I had a role to do and it was simple go do your [ __ ] job I'm like Roger that but I'm finding out these guys are doing everything different inserting with 160th you know we're Doing nighttime raids [ __ ] ATV Side by you know all these things which I wasn't exposed to my previous deployment uh my previous deployment was still special but it was more conventional in the execution of things but missions were the specialized missions um how we did it was I would say a

little bit more advanced than was kind of previously used to this was completely different now I'm flying around doing aerrow reconnaissance now I'm now I'm doing big wig [ __ ] that I'm trained to do just never got a chance to do it now I'm doing it on this team when I was really just going to supposed to fill a just desk job well by this time marso finds out that they have a guy who was supposed to be a des guy on a [ __ ] team a very violent area that gets all the

[ __ ] press where at fod Robinson near Helman Valley okay yeah so we're right off the uh uh right near this this city called Panay or this Village called Panay and the Helman river is right there and I think it's like Highway one that leads all the way up and it's like all your little fire bases are right there and it was super [ __ ] kinetic uh a few weeks before I got there half an OD Oda got [ __ ] Zapped um because there were a there was a pressure plate inside one

of the towers on our base and the Taliban attacked that Tower sop you flood to the tower do your [ __ ] job well they Walked up there hit this pressure plate and they [ __ ] got toast uh we had iner threats all the time um it was definitely a sniper H Haven uh in that area and right outside of our base we had this uh this hill called the ant hill and it was brilliant I would just grab some some food grab [ __ ] ammo hop in a [ __ ] four-wheeler and

take off to this base an of this anill I climb up there and I would just get to work and At this time when I first starting up I was building Target packages so now I'm like I'm observing figuring out what the space is about I'm taking pictures I'm building a pattern of Life uh because I learned from previous deployments you can shoot one person today or 10 tomorrow and I knew I was going to get more fish with more [ __ ] bait than I would by just yanking or stabbing the first thing at

a soul and so because we were still sitting out patrols but most Importantly then just killing these guys are our partner force is always getting jacked up they're always getting hemmed up outside of our camp and so I needed to see how they were actually coming there how they setting up these iads who was a Defector that was part of our crew you know like what are all these things were happening and what was our limit advance that I could see uh where did I think the Taliban didn't think that we could see and that's

where I was at That's what I was trying to see that was the that was my main focus cuz it's not what you can see that's going to bite you it's what you can't see that's going to [ __ ] kill you and so you know we're building all these Target packs and we're like all these bolo list and we're just we're creating a lot of momentum down there to the point where you know I got to stay out there past my 30-day limit I'm doing my [ __ ] job find myself going on these

missions I'm Like this is epic you know nothing I mean you know the deal there's something about flying on a [ __ ] bird into No Man's Land [ __ ] taking off your [ __ ] bungee and walking out to complete silence there is not a [ __ ] high out there like that not to me and I enjoyed every aspect of it I was being taught things that I never saw before I mean dude everything dude their charges were different because the ttps changed everything was different and I'm just Like who like the

wealth of knowledge is Happ I'm just being blown away with how we're executing and how professional these guys are cuz I'm producing the end result but my friends my homies that didn't go to the schoolhouse they were still doing the mission just to see their evolution and their professionalism change just for the better in a matter of a year year and a half that's insane it was crazy and it was so impressive and it made me so Proud to like be part of that unit obvious reasons they're [ __ ] hitters man that's what they

did it's what we do and yeah that deployment was awesome it was really fun it was very en enjoyable but I learned a lot too I learned a new aspect of like working these joint gigs and this is where expansion mental expansion happened now I learned something new that I thought was stupid but now I realized that that's just Another game that you have to play you can play it how they tell you to or you can reinvent it and make it better which is what I did I made it so much better I found

my way on a team then I get on a team I find a gap and I you know and I'm learning from these guys that have learned more than me and that have more experience to me and I'm just it's just this Vortex of knowledge and I just realized like this is what's really fun about this job no matter how much sucky Stuff is out there stupid Marine Corp [ __ ] I had to deal with the evolution of the mind and the experience of like your skillcraft and your trade craft is that is a

rush you're literally becoming a fine-tuned specimen you're weaponizing everything in every aspect of your life and that's the [ __ ] that kept on driving me for more and more and more and more and um you know I learn a lot that rotation you know more [ __ ] crazy combat Stories crazy things happening I was like how are we surviving this but you know guess what it worked out and I survived him um I come back from that rotation well let's here what were you guys doing down there uh so what what we were

doing our main mission was we were running disruption operations so what that means and what that meant for us was that we would fly into No Man's Land enemy held occupied territory where the Taliban leaders live where the fighter Leaders live we fly into the backyard because we limited our chances of you know iads we we really our main focus concern was you know [ __ ] that was set off inside as like a o ship plan that was our main thing um and what we would do we would come in under Darkness you know

Patrol our 3K 4K into our Target site prach our wall establish our [ __ ] and we set up an ambush and the main thing was as we were to disrupt this area of operation for the next 3 days That was our mission you will pick a fight for three [ __ ] days cuz after three days we'll have all every do with a gun that doesn't like us on our position therefore our Commandos our Afghan Commandos and our other Special Operations teams can come in and insert these guys into the villages to create a

new Firebase you know to do all these types of things CU we were doing Village stability operations was just now becoming a thing where you go inside These Villages and you establish a exactly Firebase you work with the Villagers and you create your militia force and you rinse rash repeat the textbook [ __ ] that works right we're we're creating an army we're creating militia we're we're we're blending in the the Afghan Commandos the Afghan Army the Afghan Special Forces with their local populace which they think they're sold out you know so we're we're combining

the whole gyro the government Of of I forget what the the so you guys were essentially a diversion to get the get the fighters to come to us face in yeah because what they were doing before when the Commandos would go in to take over these villages to clear through declared any Fighters and to bring a special operations team in there plus an Afghan Special Operations team there was so much hate and discontent cuz they it was just [ __ ] chaos and violence they don't give a [ __ ] about Your well or your

your school that you want to build at that point you just [ __ ] up everything so they had this great idea like well let's come up with these different missions where we can take a lot of the heat off the main effort put these dudes to work but now we're building up these Afghan Commandos these Afghan Special Forces we're making them the good guys not the the not the Pounders The Ground Pounders where the locals hate them cuz the locals hate you They're not going to tell you any information Afghan or not yeah and

um that's what this team's mission that I I was a part of that's what their mission was I'm like dude this is epic you literally just set up you you set Ambush positions hoist your flag dude and then you just Dill death that was it and I had a team Commander he's passed away now his name is Matt manukian um he died from from an insid threat a falling deployment and Um dude this [ __ ] dude got it he gave a [ __ ] about his dudes he cared about the mission he was that

he wasn't your standard Marine Corp officer he wasn't trying to win the war and Terror in six months he was trying to keep his guys alive and keep his guys employed you know he he had their best interest he had our best interest he was a force multiplier he was like everyone everything you asked for and to see that as a student cuz I put him through School to see him in that Evolution and to hear these great things before I even get to the team get to the team and get to witness of myself

you know what you're doing is working and that's pretty good especially when you're battling the bureaucracy of the Marine Corps the bureaucracy of all the red tape you have to do for the military to put all your energy and effort towards training you know someone in the Special Operations field and instilling that [ __ ] mindset of like this is this is what's required of us and so that was it that was was our main focus was these disruption operations and that continued on the rest of the deployment and to the point where my marock

my headquarters command got pretty upset that I was out there doing these missions because I think their up thing was that if they lost a number a roster number in combat when you were assigned To this Des job that was going to raise a lot of questions so I started to get benched and I was told if I go out again I'm going to get [ __ ] back and so I had to stop going on these these raid missions and I just stayed around the fire base oh man do my antill [ __ ]

you know do my sniping stuff as I could support the team as best I could uh but I'm definitely not going to jeopardize their flow because I'm selfish and I rather be With this qual these quality of men helping them move ammo than being back in that [ __ ] place listen to another [ __ ] tell me about ice cream that's not there and um so I I finished my deployment there on this team uh I got probably like two two and a half three weeks of that life and it sucked but I was

there to support and we did a lot of missions around the base this Captain was great man he like shifted missions so he could maximize his team To include myself and I just felt so loved and appreciated and valued and maybe want to work harder so I used all the point of context that I knew back in the rear to help these guys get what they needed because they didn't know those point of contacts because the people they're reaching out to they're getting red tape I'm like bro I know that I I've hugged that guy

I know this person this dude loves me and they're like what so now I changed my role to Still be an asset in the team but I was just using my [ __ ] I was using this phone now I was using my phone to do my bidding and it worked out great man these guys got exactly what they needed dude resupply of all the Comfort [ __ ] the good stuff they needed the ammunition they needed the weap they needed support they needed I was having guys come out do training with them did you

get them some ice cream dude there was there was no ice cream just kidding Oh there no ice cream but I did bring them my thing was cookies those uh what were those cookies called those big soft gooey uh Lord no doesn't matter there was these cookies out there in Afghanistan I for Oda spunk mire oh yeah remember those things oh yeah dude pallets I was hoping you took the ice cream machine from the headquarters no I just had like seven pallets of riets protein and Oda spunk Myers air dropped In nice yeah like we

had a typical aird drop resupply because that's how we got resupplied air drops go out there on our ATVs grab all our shoots burn them so they're not used against us grab their [ __ ] secure the area load them up and trucks bring it back to the base well on this particular airdrop I'm waiting because I am like I have a surprise for these guys I have like literally seven pallets to Cody Alfred unincluded cuz we're getting diesel we're getting fuel We're getting ammo we're getting basic boring [ __ ] I'm like that's peasant

stuff I'm bringing the good stuff the [ __ ] that makes you fat [ __ ] that makes you feel good inside the drinks the sauces the [ __ ] the cookies all of it Comfort items that was my role and this airdrop comes in dude and I'm just that see their team get super stoked I'm like and I'm a dud just like them but I made a friend in that relationship brought seven palets out of the sky into these Dude's bellies into their [ __ ] rooms you know those fed cuz one thing I

loved about marock and was that a we always left places better than we got there and we always took care of our [ __ ] own we always took care of the Marines Marines got treated like [ __ ] general purpose Marines treat like [ __ ] all the time and we would every time we go to their bases to do coordination missions or to give them Intel briefs and granted we're rolling up in full multicam you Know everyone's got beards not me baby face but all the other adults have beards we're all multi-cam completely

foreign when they find out where Marines they're like what the [ __ ] just happened and we were like hey we brought you some ham we brought you [ __ ] a pallet of lobster for your [ __ ] men and dude to see those those young Marine faces that were getting treat like [ __ ] you know they're Marines they're just they They're enjoying the the fruits of what they have and they didn't have much um so to be able to always get back in those capacities I was like dude this is what it's

about this is [ __ ] good good so we always took care of our own we always took care of people but you had to watch out cuz there's a thin line cuz Marines are like locusts we had some Engineers come onto our base once to help us move our ammo supply point and to build some new positions in bunkers And we invited them into our CH Hall a very small CH Hall and that was a mistake the the slurpie machine that no one drank from cuz we weren't unsure what's in there gone mayonnaise packets

gone ketchup packets gone like Locust bro it took us weeks to like restocker our k and restock our like the things that had like cobwebs on it gone cuz we were scared like d we don't know what that is how long has it been here you know Jesus this [ __ ] was when Jesus was Around you know this shit's old and ancient and uh these dudes did not care they were like this is not an M this is a roof over my head they're happy they're treated with respect I could use your gym we're

like no you guys can't use our gym we learned our [ __ ] lesson um but yeah we always took care of them and that's that was that was the amazing aspect of combat that I really enjoyed because you can do so much more overseas you can't at home and you can Give so much more overseas than you can't at home cuz you have so much more there than you do here and to be able to spread that love and to spread that gratitude and that appreciation and to maybe Inspire one of those people to

like do better at their job you know that's what it's all about you know I've been in gunfights with more women than most dudes have ever even comprehended in their life because you know when you see someone that's not part of your crew You can keep them as an outcast or you can bring them into the fold and [ __ ] lift them up and so dude I was using this engineer because I had to stay on base so I'm using these guys as like my [ __ ] Squad I'm like yo my dudes are

out here doing this this is what we're going to do you needed you to do this Lieutenant I need you to take your truck over here you people over here and there's like dudes and Chicks part of the engineer and like dude just it's Amazing what people can do when they're respected and they're giving a task a condition and a standard and uh that's what I learned from that deployment I learned this whole new level of empowerment cuz before I got there my this team that I was part of now they're doing it so I'm

learning from them and now I'm getting to participate in it I'm like this makes this hell a little bit more manageable this makes all this other previous hell all these other Previous stories all these other previous hardships and just what the [ __ ] it makes a little bit more manageable now because I'm seeing this evolution of growth and [ __ ] the higher I move up the more I can impact the better unit I go to the more cool [ __ ] I can do and the more cool [ __ ] I can help

people with so it's like there's a lot of connecting dots in this deployment and so that deployment ended I rolled back Home and uh that was kind of that I finished my time in the schoolhouse um I ended up rolling to I took over team uh at our Third Battalion I was a team Chief now I got I got called like hey do you want to be a team Chief I'm like [ __ ] yeah and that was the number one guy in a team I'm like that was a big responsibility for me I was

a I was a new E7 um I was assigned to go to Africa that was my area of operation and I'm like Africa I'm like Let's do this never thought I'd go to Africa now I'm getting ready to go to Africa I'm like dude this is a whole new field I'm doing I'm learning Embassy stuff I'm learning about money I'm learning about different pots of money I'm learning about all sorts of things that I never was exposed to but there's all these other guys have been exposed to this whole time so I'm just learning more

and more and more CU this is all new and um because educ the the Education funnel is very quick in marock when we first stood up even the first like four or five years cuz what happened yesterday wasn't going to happen today and maybe everyone else is smart but I wasn't and I only learned and knew what I was exposed to what I could find information out about and uh the Battalion that I checked into at the time our Third Battalion was kind like a bastard Battalion I was like the seventh you know prior reconnaissance

Guy to ever be there uh so we were we were always instantly shipped out and we were conducting missions all around the world um what were you doing in where did you go in Africa I was actually in snagle our main thing was uh human trafficking and uh counter Narco very human trafficking yeah very it was it was a very lucrative type Mission very vanilla executed Mission what hold tell me about The human trafficking and you said Narco trafficking drugs counter yeah yep so apparently uh Intel reporting was that there was uh this jungle this

kmon they were um the uh the fighters there were transporting drugs and weapons and they're also uh you know using prostitution bringing people out there everything was for ransom everything was about money there everything was about drugs and guns and these Fighters these syal Special Forces Guys were like getting [ __ ] ass pounded they were completely unequipped for the training and the the knowledge how to operate in their environment they're seeing receiving a lot of the ttps that we were fighting in Afghanistan so a lot of bomb type of stuff al-shabab aqim all these

other terrorist organizations streamers organizations were all kind of spreading knowledge and love across the battle space and sagol was pretty vanilla it's Pretty basic um so we really had this cool mission on paper but you have the embassy is like not players this ain't for you this just got you out here your focus is to train these guys up and at the time I'm like [ __ ] I'm going to live my team's going to live in the supplyment and I'm wearing civilian clothes and I'm driving around a dope ass Land Rover like okay oopsie

I'm not going to enjoy this and so I got to maximize this completely new Venue of deployment that I never experienced before I'm learning I'm dealing with you know agency guys I'm dealing with [ __ ] State Department people I'm dealing with you know operation funds I'm dealing with just learning this whole new aspect of being a special operator and I'm also learning what a non-kinetic deployment is about it could still go south at any time but my mission was different now I'm training my partner Force to go out and Do the work Vice Migo

with them so this is when advis assistant and Company was coming this big thing this this AA missions the VIS and assist the VIS assistant accompany triaa all these new catch phrases and catch words that were coming out but essentially we train our partner Force up and they go do the work and they come back report to us we debrief and we you know set up the next training venue how can we prepare them what did you run into what the iids like So then my Engineers would come up and recreate the scenario recreate the

training venue and then we just kind of cycle through their guys through this pipeline uh a lot of it was checks in the boxes cuz you kind of learn it's about money at this point and you learn that some of these host Nations don't really care about their training they care about the funding and so we're getting guys that weren't even part of the Special Forces crew it was really Weird but very educational at the same time um completely out of my comfort zone just it was weird I was always in the red navigating that

that battle space uh but it helped shape me it helped shape me for like future things and you know that knowledge and experience of doing not necessarily I wasn't doing the kinetic stuff I was empowering the kinetic operations I was training the kinetic operations that that part was cool but I was really Stoked that my team was going to live that was really that was the first deployment i' ever been on that I felt pretty confident that all my dudes were going to come home and I don't give a [ __ ] what anyone says

that I cared more about that than shooting a [ __ ] gun and I had a lot of young eager guys in my team a lot of them put through school myself and I'm like very grateful that that was an our mission set well we're in af Africa for a couple months and to Ra a deployment ribbon uh you have to be there for 90 days I'm there like 65 70 days and I get this a secure call and um I get told to check my email so I log into my laptop I check my

email and it says my my team is getting retasked and uh I'm like it's told that I'm being redeployed within the next like 72 [ __ ] hours so my team leader and I my officer the team we devise a plan um we brief Our team and we start breaking down shop we fly back to the States and I come back to the States and I get told like hey you're flying uh you're you're flying overseas right now and you're going to go conduct a pdss and you're going to Afghanistan I'm like I just got

back from Africa like well now you're going to [ __ ] Afghanistan I'm like okay so at this time marock was taking significant casualties uh as well as just our Manpower management wasn't on point we were breaking all sorts of Redline dates for like having our head to pillow I believe is what they call it where you have to be home so long from training and combat to meet a Readiness requirement before you can [ __ ] go out again um and go ahead but you just come home from Africa I just come home from

Africa but I didn't hit my whole dwell I didn't hit my Max time frame oh so it's Like it never happened yeah okay so I come back and I find myself I'm flying to California with my team leader fly to California I link up with our first Battalion and I was to be the first Third Battalion to deploy with the first Battalion to Afghanistan and my team was chose because myself and a couple other guys had Afghanistan experience and we were the most senior ones of the Battalion and my team was the most capable So

I get the mission I'm being told like Hey we're deploying in like four months I'm like Roger that come back to North Carolina I brief my Battalion hey this is what's going on this is my evolution of what I'm doing outside in the in the west coast and basically I got this green light to [ __ ] do whatever I wanted to do dude it was great I built my whole training plan off a [ __ ] calendar I didn't do any of these stupid reports I needed to do if I said I Needed some

gear all I had to do was set up a [ __ ] meeting and I didn't always get the gear that I needed but there was so much High viz on my team Beyond High Vis we were like the fifth course of action that marock as a whole chose and to even be be a by name in that course of action I I felt pretty [ __ ] badass yeah and um you know so I had all the support to do the training dude my guys are just like we're doing all sorts of badass [

__ ] and We're doing it all ourselves no one's helping us we're super self-sufficient we're we deployed ourselves to Africa we redeployed ourselves to the states we deployed ourselves to California we [ __ ] did everything all of our training everything ourselves and now I'm getting new qualifications because now I have different requirements I didn't take my whole team out to Africa because I didn't need I had a cap capacity I could only take so many People to Africa cuz I can only have so many soft people there Afghanistan is a different story now my

team [ __ ] doubled so now I'm rolling with a 24-man team almost I got 14 operators I have Engineers I got [ __ ] dogs I got bomb guys I got jtx I got the whole Kaboodle like I did on the previous Afghan teams but now I'm getting it here and we're ready we're setting the presidence of what what right looks like for this Mission set well being a Third Battalion Guy for a Third Battalion team we got hate so much hate and I came from this first Battalion that's where I started my career

and they were like [ __ ] you guys you guys are just here for sympathy cuz we were deploying four teams now cuz we were only deploying three teams at a time well now we're deploying four teams at a time and my team was creating that fourth team my team crushed everybody all of our training venues my team [ __ ] crushed it I was not going to let my [ __ ] guys go embarrass themselves I was not going to let them be [ __ ] bastardized because my Battalion wasn't running a tight ship

prior to all this um there was not a lot of standards that were being set there that's why they're the bastards at the time it's completely different now but at this time this very early stages it was very volatile and you're getting all the hate like maro's getting hate who The [ __ ] are you guys why are you getting missions well we're [ __ ] doing good so we're getting missions but then you have that tribalism inside the companies the battalions [ __ ] those guys those guys are from third like dude my guys

would whoop your dude's ass why you tripping why are we hating each other why we doing this and that was another lesson of learning stuff it's just never ending learning I was like holy [ __ ] there's you're never good enough one it Seems like and there's always room to learn and grow and that's what we're experiencing and you know my team just did amazing they crushed everything we find ourselves in Afghanistan you know a few months later doing amazing things I got sergeants that are you know E5 dealing millions of Dollar Deals you know

talking to generals running missions it was a not as kinetic deployment as I was used to I was very far north I was uh near this place Called kajaki the dam it was very very far north and uh we were at this point of time where it was still a kinetic battlefield but we were really transitioning into the downsizing this is 2011 maybe 12 we were downsizing not only our soft presence we're downsizing our involvement so everything turned into like train the Afghan Special Forces guys and make them go do missions and that was a

tough one to swallow cuz we're in the same helmet area we're in The same stomping grounds that all of our homies got killed at or all this [ __ ] that takes place at and telling my younger guys in the team like Hey cuz I was not about to just go on some random ass missions just to go on a combat Patrol to get contact that's how you die there's no just how could I justify your death there's I have no Mission walking around aimlessly is absolutely stupid and I did a lot of that battle

I had a lot of those battles Um one of my my leadership counterpart in particular he really wanted to do these things and uh it was just a constant battle I found myself this deployment wasn't about combat for me this deployment was about conflict and I found myself spinning my entire workup my entire [ __ ] deployment protecting my guys from what I thought at the time was poor leadership decision-making and poor employment Opportunities uh because it's really easy to allow cracks to happen in your mission planning it's really easy to greenl a mission that

you don't truly believe in and those missions you don't have true confidence inh and you never really have you have as much confidence as you can in any Mission planning but if your team is not collectively visualizing themselves winning and coming home that's not a good Plan and if it makes the youngest guy question [ __ ] that's not a good plan um and I found this this operation was a lot of those questionable plans and I spent a lot of time in the phone putting up resistance I put a lot of time in conversations

and meetings putting up resistance it was just a lot of strange [ __ ] that was happening and what did your team want what did my team want yeah they wanted to [ __ ] it fight how was that it's Difficult luckily for me I had very strong element leaders that were [ __ ] true leaders that were combat vets that saw bigger than their eego and made sure their [ __ ] dudes were employed and empowered you know like there was no easy task on my team you know my guys called in plenty of

drone missions but I tried to tell them and my leaders helped try to instill them like Yo dude there's a different way to fight this war man this war is downsizing you Know this is not being scared this is it doesn't make [ __ ] sense you know we don't I can't only send out so many soft guys per Afghan partner forces so my odds aren't even in my [ __ ] favor so why am I going to put myself in that gunfight and at this time the Taliban realized like wait a second if I

just act like a mob like a mafia treat this [ __ ] like Street crime I don't get [ __ ] with when they treat the environment like a [ __ ] terrorist Playground they get [ __ ] with so now they're running their guns they're running their drugs they're moving their things do shoot move communicating doing their Hustle but on the [ __ ] Mafia side I felt like you know they're doing completely different different of how now it's tied to the government it's tied to the [ __ ] city council it's tied to

the Village Elders like it's a completely different Dynamic now because they realize that money is more Important to them than conflict and we're out there so as long as they can be good boys and girls and not stir up the [ __ ] hornet nest we're going to be out of there in time we're going to be out of their [ __ ] way out of their poppy fields and they can go run a [ __ ] mck like they do they focus I'd imagine on their government contracts their [ __ ] their drugs and

the things that made them hell a bank cuz it cost money to run [ __ ] Wars And once my guys started to see that they started to empower that belief system and make sure that our our partner forces were good to go you know we supported them numerous combat you know mortar Mission operations drone operations so we're supporting them I just try to teach the guys like hey man we don't have to be the ones doing that that's that's the purpose of being soft is that we use our [ __ ] minds to fight

a [ __ ] War because we're not in This like foot foot to ground environment anymore we're more like let's use our minds to create the [ __ ] battle space that we want to not walk into something that we don't and it was just that new era of Life uh but it all worked out it all worked out pretty well um all those guys were studs I think they all appreciated what's going on but at the time I realized that there was a big there was a big conflict and it was with me and

the team leader and It caused a lot of Riff in the Dynamics of the team a lot of sides were being chose yeah and that polarizing it's very and it's sucked cuz I was part of that I was contributing to that and at the time I thought I was just and mighty and whether that's true or not which I believe is still true to this day how I handle it wasn't the best but that would be years later till I figured that [ __ ] out I did what I best I could in a combat

situation well standing up for What I believe in and standing up for my men caused me to be in two investigations on deployment um so now my team is getting all this visibility so now we're the we're this team from this one Battalion attached to this Battalion in Afghanistan and there's investigations going on there's a bunch of witch hunting operations happening what I mean by that people were looking for reasons to get me out of there because I put at Resistance because I used my mind and I trained my dudes to do the same thing

so when you weigh the numbers of like who's on what side it was very apparent that something was fishy there was not a clear-cut past thing and I hated that for my guys to the point where I'm like yo you can take me out of country right now but take this guy with me and let my team be safe but if you take me out of here they're [ __ ] danger this is not going to be good there's going to be bad Decisions that to be made and that was the word that I was

willing to fight for that was my that was my necklace story this is where I said you know what this is where I [ __ ] stand and I still stand behind it because at the time if you've been over once you will always [ __ ] fold you'll be known as a person that folds and I did everything in my educated [ __ ] powers to adapt and and to evolve to the environment that I was handed to the situations that I was Dealt with um but it still caused friction so now this deployment

now I'm trying to keep my guys alive try to use them to use their brains to do other [ __ ] things and make sure they're still maximized and being fulfilled and contributing how the best they can now I'm dealing with this whole administrative Fiasco and now little do I know my name is just being smeared all back home because I'm the guy that's in Conflict with an officer and we wrap this deployment I come home my team crushed it my team crushed so many things they did so many amazing things and all I was

told was you're under investigation again I'm like what about my team they [ __ ] Crush things dude they where's their credit where's their like out of boys and no one cared damn and I allowed that to victimize me for a long time I was really pissed off and hurt but um One thing I learned cuz I learned from that deployment too one thing I learned is that we're here to adapt and evolve and even in Conflict you can adapt and evolve and it took me years later to get over this hatred years later to

make mens with this individual but this dude is like my friend now I learned from this guy he learned from me we learned together but at the time you know that wasn't the case at the time that's not What came out and so looking back and looking back back at all the career I just think about like you know we always have an opportunity to do something different than what we're currently doing we might not feel it we might feel like this is the direction that we must go but there's probably another way that we

can do it but no matter how just you feel and those perspectives took me a long time to figure out a lot of healing a lot of forgiveness to occur to do that I mean he's really your friend he is my friend now we are not still homies on the phone but he actually was my uh retiring officer uh because I have respect for him uh because during this whole Evolution dude marock smeared my name for like 4 years I was like blacklisted it seemed like I so you were the honor man of four different

things I called around a couple of buddies about you I think you're the fastest guy to ever Make E8 I was I picked up E8 in 11 and a half years which hasn't been done before a Marsa correct in the Marine Corps in the Marine Corp correct and and now they're smearing your name yep interesting because I was in conflict with an officer and that does not go well and so I finish this rotation I go back to the team I finish my investigation I get acquitted of everything but I'm I'm getting I'm case Studies

are being said about me and this officer we all these horrible things and you can definitely know that the case study is about me even though it's supposed to be anonymous and I'm attending these Safety Stand Downs these mandatory training events and it's about [ __ ] me and this officer and it was [ __ ] embarrassing and demoralizing and watching this was this was [ __ ] big this was a [ __ ] very big deal it was four years Total 2 and half years total four investigations quitted of everything uh but they were

substantial to the point where I literally got [ __ ] put on the sideline I had to go to our operation shop to wait my timeout why these investigation were going on so I got pulled from my team when I came back and I was just [ __ ] the world I was pissed off and I was pissed off not because I was in this timeout position I was Pissed off because these other officer friends that I put through school that I've known through my Marine Court career turned their [ __ ] back on me

some of my senior listed friends turned their [ __ ] back on me because all these allegations I was under you know accused of and all this like Flack and then it all goes away I get acquitted I get a sheet of paper that says if you ever do something Like this again you're in trouble and the commander that gave it to me is like you can throw this away after we're done talking if you want to I'm like Roger that that's what I [ __ ] did and I went back to work I went

back to work I kind of had a chip in my shoulder but my chip was like I am not going to [ __ ] stop I'm going to go even [ __ ] further I had Visions to take over Marsh like that was my goal I wanted to be the top I wanted to be the Boss I wanted to be the leader there um I wasn't I had a lot of great mentors that were leaders above me a rank above me then I also had some that weren't very good but that's everywhere so I'm learning

from all the things I liked what I didn't like and all these amazing men that helped me get to where I was at that looked out for me that covered for me you know that have my best interest even through these darkest times like I'm forever grateful for them and these Were all lessons I was able to learn and bring into when I was in power when I had that level of influence where I got to pay it forward and anyone can screw anyone over but not everyone can take care of somebody you can but

that's a choice not everyone's willing to make at times because it's hard and you will segregate yourself from the [ __ ] pack well that's what these leaders did for me and that's what helped me become who I was so I'm in charge of a team again Everything is [ __ ] done um I I deploy to Germany I I work a desk job there they're like hey go do this and you come back to your team so it was like an additional punishment uh I'm like okay so I go to Germany and I [

__ ] own that thing it was easy I learned a completely different thing and by the same time it's helped me out I'm building my resume not even knowing it cuz I'm open-minded I'm there learning all sorts Of new aspects and I'm just I'm afforded an opportunity to grow and expand you know I wasn't a one-trick pony all these opportunities that didn't really look like opportunities at times transform my life I just didn't see it cuz because I was holding on to grudges I didn't see it because it wasn't the cool thing at the time

but it was really setting me up for True success as a leader sometimes a leader you do [ __ ] you don't want to do you do the boring [ __ ] you do the [ __ ] that you don't want to do you you don't get to hang out with the boys you don't get to go fight with them you got to do this other [ __ ] and I was really picking up this pace and I was like [ __ ] it was kind of uncomfortable so I go to Germany I work out

there I think I was there for like 2 months uh our fol was to uh operate for Africa so I'm managing teams uh in missions in Africa reporting back I'm another liaison guy just at a high tier Now and uh that's when I meet my son's mother my eldest son he's 7 years old and I start this relationship uh all this type of stuff that's what happens that was basically that whole thing I come back home I start this uh company again this team again and I get a phone call I get a lot of

phone calls yeah and it was like do you want to take over a company and I said [ __ ] yes and I hung up the phone And I went up to my boss's office because I've been asking now I'm a master sergeant I've I was already selected I waited my it took me a year to pin on cuz I was so Junior I was at freef fall school I was I found out that I got selected for Master Sergeant but I was so Junior down the list it took me almost a full year before

I even saw the rink cuz now I'm waiting through all the numbers waiting for my number to be called well I'm like Bush League number Like baby back [ __ ] number and I pin Pinn like weeks before this and I and I actually did it for a freef fall I made a big [ __ ] deal my other buddy of mine he picked the mass Sergeant so we're [ __ ] doing uh HALO jump and we like do our [ __ ] thing we we [ __ ] velcro these big ass Chevrons to our

our our our PE kit you know our um actually I was wearing my my combat cry uniform so it's got velcro I slap this big ass Chevron on it and we [ __ ] jump and I'm like I landed and I'm just like bro king of the world bro cuz it all changed then cuz now now you can't hold me to yesterday's standards cuz the proof is in the pudding and thing is I was told when I got selected Cody don't [ __ ] up keep your mouth shut I was told that specifically from a

lot of my senior leaders because they knew that people were still out witch hunting me cuz dude I'm a very verbal guy And I'm like okay I can [ __ ] do that and when I pinned on it was game over and uh I get this phone call like hey you want to take over company I'm like [ __ ] yes and I wanted a company but I was never looked at it because I was told I was too young and I was told told that how I interacted with officers wasn't of their liking and

I'm like that is the most immature [ __ ] unprofessional thing I've ever heard in my life you Know and that's that's the thumb the man tries to put on you and I've dealt with that my entire life you're too young in charge with a sniper team you're too [ __ ] young I'm running combat missions by my [ __ ] self you're too young you're doing this like all these things it's like that was the most uncomfortable aspect of being in the military at least in my career field cuz I'm like what is good

enough do I need to get [ __ ] blown up more do I need To bleed more do I need to see more horrible things do I need to brief more what I need to do and now I get this shot and this shot wasn't the first pick the guy who actually had the seat put in his retirement package cuz he was like [ __ ] that I'm not taking out of company and I'm like [ __ ] yeah I will cuz I was the alternate for it and I get all these spills and all

these briefs of like you better not [ __ ] up I'm just like bro where's the belief in me but my OG Leaders that above me these are the e9s that valued me that respected to me that looked out for me they were like go [ __ ] crush it dude so I check into our second Battalion so now I'm the one of the only few guys at this point that's I've deployed and been part of every Raider Battalion I've been part of the [ __ ] Schoolhouse and now I'm checking in to the second

Battalion Second Marine Raider Battalion and I'm taking over uh Fox company and this Company was Savage straight Warf Fighters dude like they have like a lineage of straight like even gwatt lineage of like straight gungho make [ __ ] happen and I'm that's the company I'm checking into these dudes are [ __ ] Savage like they have the stare that they earned you know they have that H because they earned that H discernment and I show up as the [ __ ] new guy here and they're like who is this tattooed guy and bro it

was a game Changer now I'm in charge of four Special Operations teams I'm in charge of like a 100 [ __ ] enabler support Personnel I'm managing all these op officers I have an amazing company Commander I have an amazing operations officer dude I have amazing the perfect situation you could ever ask for dude and we dominated we [ __ ] crushed it everything all of our training crushed all this Flack oh he's too young crushed do my guys were the best Equipped well-trained outfit in all marog and you could not sway me otherwise was

undeniable and my team's making headlines they're doing amazing training I mean it's amazing what happens when you Empower people when you tell people I respect you I know what you're here to do and here's your left and right L limits go execute that is empowering to people and they make [ __ ] happen these dudes bend over backwards My support people they bend over backwards to support the team guys like I'm talking about 3 hours one way in a on a in a van empty by themselves in case one of the birds went down you

know uh cuz they were having some uh prop malfunctions in case the birds went down we had to insert our guys you know via van 3 hours one way 3 hours the next way like these dudes working 24/7 working their ass off for [ __ ] and we get all we're getting all this Limelight well We're going down rage cuz we're using a new technique to how to Target people that was not done yet it was a very big deal we're uh this new form of information operations that we're running completely new way that we

gain Target acquisition on the battle space and acquired our targets like building true Target packs um and so it got a lot of high visibility well my my sergeant major comes to my office and he's like Cody uh I know the com out the ring cor Is coming down to see your team see your company but I'm going to need you to sit out on this one we're going to repl we're going to have him go act as the company operations Chief and have you sit here I'm like what the [ __ ] what because

a common wasn't a big fan of tattoos and I'm just like you got to be [ __ ] kidding me dude and the whole my whole Marine Corps career Cody you should get your tattoos removed no one's going to take you Seriously Cody you should remove some your tattoos or how can you be a leader looking like that this whole time I'm like bro you know the Marine Corps was found it in a bar drunk ass [ __ ] dudes and you're worried about my [ __ ] tattoos I'm good for war I'm good for

[ __ ] death I'm good for my [ __ ] soulless [ __ ] trauma but my tattoos that's the one thing to your mind I'm the youngest EA in the Marine Corps and you're going to Hide me you're going to hide me from this I'm not going to go speak on behalf of my men who I give a [ __ ] about who no one's going to talk about them like I'm going to talk about them because this guy would be the main guy speaking on behalf of all these dudes and I was so

pissed I was like I was so hurt I'm like dude this is this is [ __ ] jacked so that happens we move over my guys [ __ ] crush it that was the main Focus then we deploy to Iraq that was our main mission I I sent a team to Jordan I had a team in Lebanon that I'm managing both and then I have a team two teams in Iraq well I'm also in charge of all the Special Operations team in Iraq because now I am the Special Operations task force operation Chief so now

I'm managing odas seal platoons Raider teams various assets various ladies on [ __ ] and it's getting real like it's a Whole new level of responsibility and this is during the mosul push so 2016 I believe 2015 2016 and so much responsibility so much red tape and so much [ __ ] and it broke me the [ __ ] off I'm standing behind $70,000 screens watching kill TV watching drone operators not get their [ __ ] together being denied strikes as my team is getting [ __ ] assaulted with Mad Max you know armored vbit

Vehicle born IEDs you know to the point where the non armed drones that we see are watching these guys getting [ __ ] welded in so they can't escape so the only thing they can do is bit themselves blow themselves up and I'm watching this [ __ ] and you know we had limited err assets Syria was a big thing at the time Syria had a lot of assets but we could only have so many Assets in Syria and Iraq at the same time and so to get an air strike to call Troops in contact

at this point of the war was a big no no cuz we were in this whole advise and assist not a company we were fighting the entire time to get that last a that accompany aspect because what we were finding out is like we have to do command and control you cannot command and control a battle space by not being on the [ __ ] battle space you just can't do it not not a partner force not people that don't speak your Language have your same communication have your same desired instates have your same why

and even why you're showing up soft guys are Force multipliers it's what we do that's who we are we have to be out there and so my guys were just crushing it on all fields on our targeting aspect I mean we have tier one units coming down to get targets from us cuz we're the only ones producing and execu shooting we were such a big Deal and it was amazing it was amazing and because of all that all that hard ass work we finally get that a mission we finally get that ACC company Mission and

so my guys get to work on a whole new Gambit of things and my role is a support role I'm watching screens I'm texting them I'm calling them on the radio I'm I'm calling back at home I'm yelling at generals I'm I'm yelling at Colonels I'm yelling at people I'm Trying to get support I'm I'm bartering I'm trying to do anything I can to support my guys that are for deployed cuz they are literally In Harm's Way they're deploying in soft skinn Ford pickup trucks with gum Ms in the back they're doing all these different

various things and it's a different battle space and uh then we started to take more casualties this way too as the connects Environments picks up um we started to take more casualties and watching that [ __ ] on the phone on on the screen it it hit me hard I was working 18-hour days stress eating Oreos and frosting cuz I was so [ __ ] stressed out watching war on TV yelling at people on the phone to get assets and being told to [ __ ] off why my guys are out there just in the

[ __ ] suck duking it out and they're worried about assets They're worried about waking up the general to get permission to clear to launch something damn dude um around this time we have a Iraqi helicopter because we first started partnering with the Kurds Northern Iraq then we hit the phase line where they reach their biblical Birthright so they say and then we transition from the Kurds to the Iraqis that was a very Dynamic thing in the first place some of the [ __ ] that we're fighting Back in the day we're fighting alongside now

because now we're fighting uh you know Isis and you're just trying to make sense of it all but it is what it is an Iraqi helicopter goes down like a little news helicopter pilot lived they got shot he was able to put on the ground but it was still a big deal and so they had this big nfly area where they weren't going to allow medac kazac into the airspace to pull guys out well One day uh my S my Sil platoon they get in they get in a tick they call it they declare a

tick and I still was getting denied assets because at this time they rolled into basically an IID buildt and the E Tech as he's trying to problem solve the situation he got [ __ ] smoked and the seals are [ __ ] pinned down and they're in this whole IID belt and they're like we're [ __ ] making a move I'm like Roger that and They [ __ ] start beating feet out of the area I'm on the phone trying to get a kazac to come pick this guy up and they're like the team needs

to meet us at like [ __ ] all like all these clicks away I'm like unacceptable non-negotiable get them [ __ ] here now here's the [ __ ] grid go and dude it was this whole Fiasco a bunch of [ __ ] talking a bunch of yelling unacceptable having to do that to get support for a Bird to come in and pick up a [ __ ] Kia damn and you add years of violence before this you add years of traumatic brain injury before this and then you watch years of [ __ ] being

smeared before this all the sacrifice what all these men go through to [ __ ] be out there in the battle space and you're getting [ __ ] denied basic stuff basic stuff and being the person that's Watching it all unfold you're just like [ __ ] it [ __ ] me up and those 18-hour days of watching the the the the craziness happen stress eating Myself Away taking Ranger naps I wasn't realizing but I was taking Ranger naps like every second I could little [ __ ] oh I got 5 Seconds okay I'm ready

to go and what I didn't realize at the time was my body started to shut down my body was playing catchup to me and and I learned during my workup that I was really playing catchup my body started to shut down before I even deployed I was just really tired I thought I was stressed and this employment brought it out of me you know not seeing the sunlight eating [ __ ] food always constantly staring at a screen constantly being stressed out that if I'm not in here my guys aren't going to support if you

know if we're not in here fighting for our [ __ ] guys you're not Going to get with they need just [ __ ] unnecessary stress cuz we're stressful enough and this war concludes we get to the point now where we're doing a battle space turn over and my company crushed it the seals crushed it the green brace crushed it everyone crushed it they did so well um and we come home and we do this thing called uh home location decompression and they ask you you have To talk to the chaplain you have to talk

to like physical therapists you have to talk to your administrative person make sure all your pace squared away and all this type of stuff and it's my turn to go talk to the chaplain and he's like how was it I said [ __ ] that deployment and he's like really I'm like I dealt with so many people looking out for awards for themselves that's the [ __ ] that broke me so many [ __ ] times told no on a [ __ ] phone because it was [ __ ] dinner night that [ __ ]

[ __ ] broke me being told no that I couldn't get a [ __ ] helicopter to exract my [ __ ] dude that [ __ ] [ __ ] broke me um giving blood to I I went on a mission with one of my teams one of my Raider teams and um my dude got one of my dog Famers got shot in the [ __ ] head feeding him blood from my [ __ ] body Hearing him [ __ ] scream for his [ __ ] mom [ __ ] broke me being so exhausted

but still showing up broke me it all just started to add up and I was [ __ ] done with every aspect of the [ __ ] military every [ __ ] thing it broke me I was done I wanted to play no more and to the point where now I'm talking to the psych and this home location decompression supposed to be happy stressfree and he's Like so Cody tell me what's going on I'm like [ __ ] you and he's like excuse me I'm like listen bro I've talked to plenty of you before I've

asked for the same [ __ ] nothing's ever happened I'm like you get me help and I'll [ __ ] tell you whatever I I'll I'll talk to you he's like well what do you want I'm like I want Aderall and I want my [ __ ] sleeps fixed I want my sleep fixed he's like okay so he helps me get this packet going I determined I needed An Aderall because I was a space cadet I could not hold the [ __ ] conversation hold the sentence my brain was all over the place and I

was so [ __ ] drained so tired I needed uppers in my life um I couldn't remember [ __ ] I couldn't focus on anything I was just done cnly I was just [ __ ] crashing down I needed my sleep fixed because I wasn't getting quality of sleep I wasn't I felt that I wasn't ever I could sleep 12 hours and Still be [ __ ] tired I could drink 12 coffees and 12 [ __ ] monsters and still pass out my body was shutting down and at this point I was beyond desperate um

and so he's this this dude and he's a [ __ ] phenomenal man he starts getting me these point of contacts and I find myself now I'm done with this deployment and I was asked overseas he's like hey do you want to do another company operations Chief deployment I'm like no and he's like it' Be reallyy easier if you did I wouldn't have to find someone else like find some [ __ ] else I'm done and uh I'm like I can't [ __ ] do this dude and uh I come home that story happens and

then I checking into the school house now so now I'm back at the schoolhouse my second time I'm a senior s I'm an E8 now for three and a half years um a lot of experience on a deployment now I'm fitting a role that Was a madeup job for an officer Billet because what we were lacking in marock was these these key officer billets that made them um competitive to their special operation officer counterparts because you know we have marlock we have officers enlisted in every role that you can be in the Special Operations joint

environment and I found myself in this madeup [ __ ] job to support a madeup Position to make it look like it's something bigger than it is and I went from 100 miles an hour to zero and it was [ __ ] difficult I wasn't above anything I wasn't Above cleaning [ __ ] doing [ __ ] I wasn't above that this wasn't an ego thing this was I need simulation or I'm going to [ __ ] explode cuz I just had 6 months of straight 18 hour days at a minimum 18 hour days days

I wouldn't see the [ __ ] sun right not a wo as me thing But just how it was Sun is very crucial for us sleep is very crucial for us and once you up past a certain limit you don't get that time back you know you don't oh sleep for 6 hours you rejuvenate this isn't how it works you're cognitively you're depleting your brain you're you're literally [ __ ] up your process the longer you stay up for the longer than a threshold that you actually have and I blew this threshold uh I found

myself blowing up a lot I Was very aggressive um I was very stressed out about the dumbest [ __ ] like the stupid the stupidity that I encountered I would just lose it and just [ __ ] go ballistic if you were a civilian working in my job trying to tell me what to do I [ __ ] lost it if you were a douchebag trying to tell me what to do or not want to do your job I [ __ ] lost it I was like dude what's going on with me I went to

the point I'm finally getting Aderall Now cuz they're like oh yeah you have ADHD like a [ __ ] I'm like no no [ __ ] we all do this is not normal and when we going to start when we going to start connecting dots you can't we can't just mistreat ourselves and abuse oursel all these years and expect us to be [ __ ] chippy and cheery forever yeah and I think there's this phase line around that 11 to 13 year mark in the military where at least for me I started to shift pretty

hard it really started To all my tbis all my stress all my [ __ ] whatever started to catch up with me I remember busting into my uh Naval Commander's office he was our medical officer and I'm like give me something that's going to keep me up or I'm going to go [ __ ] do meth I was desperate I would pass out on the [ __ ] floor I would pass out of my car I would be late to work because I drive down the street and not even know how the [ __ ]

where I was I would just wake Up and I would just like start crying cuz I didn't know how I got in the middle of the road I didn't know where I was going um everything was just like just system overload and so I'm able to f this packet to go to uh we call it Intrepid Spirits most people call it a TBI clinic and you know they were grade A stuff I list all my issues and how they work is you have to go get evaluated before you're even able to be seen by Them

so you have to have all your ducks in a row before you can be seen by them they make it super simple for you and so my main thing was attention and sleep cuz dealing with other things in life I wasn't really privy to those words to even how to describe them I thought I was just being an [ __ ] cuz I was [ __ ] super tired I thought I was you know running behind schedule because I was tired I wasn't connecting any Dots I ended up doing like nine sleep studies three different

places and all three of them came back with or all three places said that uh I was a narcoleptic and I was praying that I would be labeled narcoleptic because there was a drug there was a medicine for narcolepsy and I'm like I'm not making this [ __ ] up I'm tired as [ __ ] I can literally take I was on like 40 milligrams of various Uppers uh there was some that were like 100 milligrams I'm on dexadrin I'm on Aderall I'm on provisual [ __ ] that they give guys to go on 3day

patrols mhm highrisk training type of medicine I'm on all these at the same time and I wasn't hitting that third and last Rim cycle to be considered narcoleptic and um I could sleep for 24 hours I still wake up tired of [ __ ] and at this point now I'm confused I'm like dude am I making this up am I Lying to myself what's going on I went from this hero machine Superman 100 mph to Dragon ass I rode motorcycles at this point in time I'm falling off my my motorcycles I'm getting off them with

them running and the kickstands not down I'm falling over at gas stations um speed I couldn't handle speed so I'm riding really slow which is even more dangerous um I was getting lost everywhere I went and just constant explosions of [ __ ] Anger uncontrolled and I was having un uncontrollable adrenaline spikes to the point where I stopped my freef fall pay cuz I couldn't maintain jumping out of an airplane because jumping out of airplane already [ __ ] gave me dope me and adrenaline by the time I landed and that I was you ever

do jumps you're tired afterwards at least for me that's how I was well now that I'm having complete I could just be sitting Here and just like get amped up and then my my my crash was just blow it was hard-hitting and my fear was I'm going to [ __ ] up a dude in the in the sky yeah I'm not going to be able to deploy my [ __ ] shoot lower my kid I'm going to [ __ ] kill myself [ __ ] that and Diving I was still doing diving at the time

cuz that was in a controlled environment I had a dive buddy and most my Dives were just for recoil so I'm doing it in a pool very simple Um but everything about my life was [ __ ] changing I didn't know what it was and I just started getting more and more pissed off I got more and more uned and even showing up every day and I got tired of playing games I got tired of being someone else's puppet I got tired of being you know dog and pony look the part to make to to

make this madeup position look like it's something and granted a lot of those observations were how I felt at the Time but at the same time too I wasn't training I was taking naps whenever I [ __ ] could I was looking out for my dudes but I had Master sergeants that I was in charge of and they were taking care of their guys and so luckily I had this strong network of like leaders because my position really wasn't necessary it was a fictitious position maybe now hopefully it's something but I go to my boss

I'm like Dude I need no responsibility and he's like what I'm like I need no responsibility and I [ __ ] said it sternly he's like what are you talking like dude I can't [ __ ] do this job anymore dude I need no stress I need absolutely no stress in my [ __ ] life he's like what are you talking about I'm like I'm getting hounded on how many more medical appointments did I have I'm like my command this command signed the Document saying that I'm going to be gone for weeks and I'm getting

harped on the phone why did so and so get a dii I'm like I don't [ __ ] know did you ask him where's that TPS report I don't [ __ ] know did you ask that leader in charge of that section like why are we this stupid you clearly see that I'm here trying to save my [ __ ] life and I'm just being just constantly bombarded with dumb [ __ ] I'm like and I told him I Can't handle this dude I need no responsibility the smallest thing is stressed me the [ __

] out and I'm yelling at civilians I'm huffing and puffing down the hallway of our Schoolhouse being disrespectful and throwing away everything I [ __ ] bled and [ __ ] fought for I'm just I'm I'm [ __ ] going out of control and my friends are turning their Backs on me they're like it's not really that bad Cody you know I wake up on the floor on a Friday night at my headquarters building and my friends was still challenged like Cody are you really are you really that bad I'm like it's 7 o'clock at

night time you think I want to stay here at 7 o'clock at night time on a Friday or any day and so my my boss he he looked out for me and he's like okay we'll move you so I found a position that was in our human performance section for marlock uh they didn't have a rep there and they're like well [ __ ] this guy gives a [ __ ] about mental health type of stuff so we'll use him I'm like okay so I leave the schoolhouse I check into our headquarters uh our headquarters

uh unit and I do this job and I find about all these different medical practices that we have neuro feedback uh breath Work cognitive function therapy mer all I found about all these things I'm like why the [ __ ] don't people know about this [ __ ] they're like well we try to tell people but they're not interested I'm like that makes sense I remember getting those PowerPoint Bru that I'm like yeah whatever well when you when you Foster an organization that does nothing but Checks In The Box you're going to get whatevers they

make you fill out these Predeployment site surveys before you deploy how many green bean how many cans of vegetables do you eat a day God forbid you drink more than one [ __ ] beer or you're an alcoholic well no one's going to say they're an alcoholic on these forums these guys are putting away cases a night mhm you're not going to say you eat a can of beans you're going to say eat six cans of beans because you're [ __ ] you're not going to get hit for like some poor Nutrition you're going do

whatever it takes to get the job the job done and so those are when those those Lies start becoming truths I got this I'm good I'm good well at this point I wasn't good and I was very vocal about it and um throughout this whole time I'm on I I get told by this doctor he's like hey he's my neurosurgeon he's like what if I Told you you couldn't be a marine anymore I'm like [ __ ] you that was my ego then I'm like what he's like what if I told you you couldn't be

in Marine anymore I'm like why do you say that he's like I mean you meet all these requirements that says you should not be here and at the time I didn't I had no idea what he's talking about I'm like hey man I'm going to I'm going to school in Florida for a military education for My my soft equivalent Rank and I'm like can we have this conversation when I get back and he's like absolutely so I go there uh and I'm there with a bunch of like special Mission Unit guys and we're we're learning

leadership [ __ ] basic big check check box stuff that everyone's got to do in the soft community at this rank very impactful very educational very great Rand course and I find myself uh super Motivated by these caliber of dudes that I want to be around cuz those dudes weren't [ __ ] their friends over those they just hearing their stories I'm like man your command treats you like that that's dope damn if you say you have a family problem something something [ __ ] happens something actually happens like this [ __ ] dope it

was this whole New Perspective cuz now I'm I'm not asking questions about their gear or guns or Mission I'm talking about like real [ __ ] and they're like giving me feedback I'm like [ __ ] this is crazy I'm like we don't have that we should have that for sure and I come back from this opportunity with this whole new wealth of knowledge and I'm really inspired by these guys and at the same time I still have my childhood dream I want to go to Delta and I've spend my package multiple times the Marine

Corps was told to eat a Dick uh through marock you've been uh you're too senior you can't go dumb [ __ ] White Lies truth doesn't matter but I get this email was sent all hands saying no rank restriction no restrictions at all if you meet the requirement and you get invited and you get selected bomb voyage I'm like this is it and so I call my commander my I call my boss back at home and I uh make because I've spend my packet before I'm Like hey is my my packet still good he's like

you to come back and you got to rerun your your PFT I'm like okay so I come back from Florida I run this PFT [ __ ] smoke it I'm in the best shape of my life before this I just did a bodybuilding show cuz I was so [ __ ] depressed I came back from that deployment when I'm doing that how you feeling story and my wife took me to a bodybuilding show and I saw her friends up there and I'm like this is weird but At the same time you had to have like

discipline to be up there you had to have like you couldn't have social anxiety and be up there and I had all sorts of [ __ ] I couldn't go bar Walmart out in town driving was stressful enough like everything was too stressful for me and I'm like damn even the worst shaped person up there had a face a [ __ ] ton of demons to get up there I'm like I need to do that and so I went to go do that and then That ended I'm like I'm [ __ ] depressed again so

I'm trying to do all these things I'm trying to F all this I'm like basically taking this bucket I'm trying all these new categories of life these new challenges to like find Value and respect for myself cuz I'm just tanking my relationship's tanking everything my work life is [ __ ] tanking my views on everything is tanking and I'm hurting inside I just have this bucket and I'm Just pouring water you know scooping water out of my boat it seems like I come back from this uh Florida trip and I I I go to my

neurosurgeon I'm like hey I have an opportunity to go to this selection and I've been wanting to do this forever um and he's like okay well do you think you would be a liability there and so I [ __ ] paused and I'm Like yeah I [ __ ] would you know and I'm flashing back to Florida where I'm with these guys we're having dinner um I'm like hey can you guys drive at night time it's really hard for me to see now hey I'm not going to go to I'm not going to go to

that musement park with you guys I'm G to I'm going to go [ __ ] take a nap back at home before I went to this Human Performance section I had Opportunities to shoot in the shoot house every day had opportunities to [ __ ] do all this training go all these different events and I didn't want anything to do with it and so when this doctor asked me do I think I would been a liability it [Music] all just came to me I'm like yeah I [ __ ] would and that's when I [

__ ] said [ __ ] it I'm all in I'm getting Better um because I was realizing I was just lying to myself and I repeated that same thing seven years prior had a chance to go to selection I didn't get to go but I was also had a chance to go to this TBI Clinic seven years earlier and the doctor at the time like hey if you go to this Clinic they find anything about it is it could [ __ ] your chances over from going I'm like okay [ __ ] that I'm not

going to go Then and I'm like Cody when are you going to stop lying to yourself and when are you going to start facing reality so seven years ago I was having these Telltale [ __ ] signs that I was avoiding cuz I was a [ __ ] robot cuz I was I was trying to fill a [ __ ] void I was chasing my ego I was fulfilling what I thought was my destiny I'm I'm making my vision board at a [ __ ] young kid come to life and I'm doing all these things

and now I'm being [ __ ] Told by my own body I can't do this anymore and these words of like I need help they're coming out of my mouth I never said them before and I'm asking and I'm begging and I'm [ __ ] crying and I'm pleading and I'm doing anything I can to get assistance and this is all new for me and coming from the Special Operations community at this time of life it was not normal a lot of people thought I was full of [ __ ] A lot of people started

Talking [ __ ] friends units I'm just like [ __ ] you man like I'm trying to [ __ ] live yeah and what are they talking [ __ ] about it's not that bad Cody everyone [ __ ] goes through some hard [ __ ] bro I'm like shut the [ __ ] up cuz I knew cuz I was really being challenged at this point I had an opportunity to like challenge myself as an allow someone else to tell me what my truth is or to remind myself my [ __ ] Truth is I

knew what kind of leader I was I knew what sacrifices I made I knew what my belief system was I knew what mission I did and nobody was going to take that away from me and so when I'm in the fight for my life to survive cuz I'm [ __ ] going downhill I couldn't boil water I'm [ __ ] lost in a two-bedroom Empty Apartment I couldn't navigate with the [ __ ] GPS like it was gradually just plummeting um until I would just cry all day and like [ __ ] Question why I

mean like what am I doing um and through this nonprofit uh called uh operation healing forces I signed up for why I was active duty and essentially what that was is my wife and I got to go uh to Veil Colorado and this like skiing all-inclusive healing retreat with three other soft couples and through that event uh cuz I had no confidence I had dude I didn't believe in myself I was a [ __ ] grenade I was destroying everything that I loved I was swearing to my mother um I was just being a real

shitty sad victim person cuz this is all new territory for me and through this I met a colonel a greenre colonel and he told me about this amazing training treatment that he had in Tampa called mer cuz I made this guy [ __ ] cry telling him my story CU he's like man I I went through a lot of these same things I feel for you and this dude Really cared about the troops and so I get my command to pay uh to to Green Light me to go to Florida to to go to Tampa

to do this experimental treatment called mert I don't remember the exact acronym uh but it's m t and it was only for special operators because it was a trial so why not [ __ ] these guys up or see if it works before he unleash it to the forces I'm like POS this is a hope sign me up because if you sign up for the trial you were guaranteed an active Treatment you were guaranteed a I think it was like 20 active treatment sessions so I had the potential of getting like 40 sessions because you're

going down there to do it's experiment and so you have a placebo case you have your control and you have your Placebo and they didn't tell us which one we were but I had a chance to get 40 [ __ ] zaps to my brain to restimulate my neuro highways to reconnect my Pathways and to have a [ __ ] chance to like be normal it seemed like and I was desperate as [ __ ] I'm like I got to go do this so I did and it was this magnetic machine that sends these zaps

and how I was explained to it it depletes your glucose in your brain so it's always even more tired afterwards but it stimulates they do this brain scans they figure out what part of your brain is not functioning what slowly firing what's not stimulating you what's Stimulating you and they hone in on those qu those areas of your brain those frequencies of your brain and they send these tick tick tick tick tick tick TI tick tick TI tick tick tick these big Mickey ass Mickey Mouse ear magnets just zapping the front of my head the

back of my head the top of my head different sides Can you feel it yes uh doesn't hurt but cuz they all hooked us up to electroids too so now we're getting a t unit to our Forehead because the real machine you can feel it it's like a MAG like a electricity so everyone's getting a TENS unit so whether you're getting the actual treatment or not you're getting the same effect because they didn't want you to cuz Placebo is a real thing right yeah you can really cure yourself from a [ __ ] Placebo medicine

well for this case study this trial they wanted to make sure it was as like bottled up as possible Right take out as Much you know gaps and security as you possibly can keep it even playing field and so uh I found out while I was out there you know they couldn't tell you information because you weren't there to heal you were there to be part of a trial but they highly encouraged you to look around and they highly encouraged you to read things that may or may not be on the wall and there was

I I got one of these uh these uh posters on the wall that was like walk out in the sunlight Between 71 no glasses no hat [ __ ] drink this water do these things reset your archaic Rhythm I'm just like [ __ ] this is real and I did it every [ __ ] day I was there and I went from panicking I I was staying at a buddy's house in Tampa and I had literally a straight shot to to mcdill Air Force Base straight shot you couldn't even make it up you couldn't you

couldn't mess it up I messed it up I Was two hours late because I got lost and all I had to do is drive straight down the road damn and I call my psych and I'm crying I'm like get me the [ __ ] out of here I I can't stay here I need to leave now and he's like hody he's doing an amazing job he's like Cody I come out there in 2 days see how you're doing I'm like well bring some [ __ ] drugs bring you know like bring bring something for this

[ __ ] dude and I wasn't taking anything for Anxiety I didn't want to take a bunch of medicine because at this point I'm already I was so [ __ ] up from all these uppers that I was on and uh and they just wanted to give me more I'm like I'm still passing on this [ __ ] it's clearly not helping me but I was desperate I'm like I'll do anything and so he comes down talks me off the edge and I show up and I start in this program and dude within a month

I'm using my phone within a month I'm Like not cooking meals I'm heating up Meals uh I'm still aggressive I'm still an [ __ ] I'm still wanting to change and grow but not really knowing how to do it but I'm seeing some change in my life happen I'm getting a little bit of me back not fast not much but it was anything was better than what I was going through uh cuz I was a completely different person um my wife and I were married six months prior to this and when I came back from

this that last Employment she's like I thought I [ __ ] up she's like you look and act like a completely different person she's like I thought I made a mistake and so I was really scared cuz I came back and I was so different and um you know I lost I lost the last bit of me that I was holding on to on that rotation um so now I find myself in Florida doing this treatment And I'm still doing online college because I lived in fear because as a special operator you're supposed to make

six figures when you get out of the military at a minimum you have to that's your Norm you have to have it agree because I had goals I wanted to work for the agency and I'm musling through all this online college because I knew once I get out I'm not gonna [ __ ] do this [ __ ] because it was easy and dumb and it was Just [ __ ] stupid but I lived in fear I was trying to check some boxes and do what I felt and was always instructed to do you know

you're a soft guy you got to get out six figures have your bachelor's degree and go Crush life Roger that and that was the things I was holding on to and then got to the point where my wife she um she asked me cuz I realized that the agency was going to happen um my buddy works over there at the time he called Me and he's like hey I'd love to FastTrack your pack to the top of the stack to get you an interview to get you a seat to try out what did you want

to do at the agency I wanted to go work for ground Branch I wanted to go [ __ ] fight with my friends I wanted the freedom responsibility to [ __ ] actually be Unleashed and not be [ __ ] prisoned he gives me this phone call he's like hey brother I hear you're Retiring soon are you [ __ ] interested I'm like I can't tell you how much this phone call means to me I never thought I always dream that I would be called that somebody would want me or have an invested interest in

me to help me get to some place and it happened and as I'm talking on the phone I'm wiping drool off my face because I just passed out of my truck outside my headquarters building and I'm like I I'm going to Have to say no he's like are you sure I'm like yes and I felt like a [ __ ] because I wanted to do this one thing and everything about my life is [ __ ] changing and I have no idea I have no idea who I am and my wife asked me when I'm

in Florida doing this treatment she's like if you had four weeks left to live what would you want to do cuz I was Panicking what are we going to do when I get out of the Marine Corps how are we going to make money how are we going to live what are we going to [ __ ] do and she asked me that question and that set us on a path that we are here today for I said I I want to take P pictures and travel around and she's like let's [ __ ] do

it so I'm in Florida with the little bandwidth that I do have I'm researching trailers Vans we were thinking about buying like an old school G wagon and like making like an Overland rig and putting a tin on top and doing all these things and then I caught win of this this van life and I sented this link Vans were pricey back then but they weren't what they are now they were half the price they were back in the day fully kitted out a bed kitchenet all this type of [ __ ] in a in

a Dodge proas cargo Van and she's like let's [ __ ] do it and so that's exactly what happened I finished my treatment in Florida I come back home and while I was gone my wife picked up the van she drove the maryn picked it up drove it back to North Carolina and we just started downsizing her life at this point we sold our hold on we've covered a lot before we get into this new phase of your life let's take a quick break let's do It I love to talk about my meat and so

what I'd like to do right now is show everybody what I'm packing don't get too excited ladies because I'm talking about Good ranchers you see good ranchers has premium meat cuts so how many of you are tired of going to the grocery store and you look at the meat aisle and it's empty or it just looks like garbage because that's what it is it's garbage that's why you get good ranchers it gets mailed you get meat premium meat mailed Right to your front door so ladies you can get excited about that who doesn't want meat

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goodranchers.com Shan and get your meat shipped to your front door today hey guys let me tell you about this subscription service that I've been working real hard on called vigilance Elite patreon basically on patreon we have it broken up into three different tiers we got tier one tier 2 and tier three let's dive in our tier one patrons get all the behind thes scenes footage of the Shawn Ryan show that could include behind thes scenes photos that could be side conversations that we have in between breaks that could be specific questions that our patrons give

us for the guest on the Sha Ryan Show and a ton of bonus content that doesn't really fit Into any specific category for our tier 2 patrons they get access to our tactical training Library which consists of well over 100 videos we've broken those videos up into separate categories and those categories are rifle fundamentals pistol fundamentals drills tactics driving gear and weapon setups and everybody's favorite mindset also on tier 2 you will get a live update from me on the 1st and the 15th of every month where we talk about the upcoming guests on the

Shan Ryan Show plus all the benefits of tier one our top tier which is tier three gets full access to all the other tiers plus they get full access to me where we do video teleconferencing VTC once a month we discuss anything from tactics to current events to who's coming on the show I take suggestions and it's very interactive no Matter what tier you choose the support is greatly appreciated and it is the only thing that makes this show drive on so thank you for all the support see you on patreon all right here we

are now we're getting to the stuff that I really want to hear the van the van three years right three years the van Yeah so basically she's like hey if you had a short amount of time to live what would you want to do I said travel take Pictures so we started to lean towards that create that reality um I found a van in Maryland it was made by a van company uh we figure out how to get the funds because our main thing was like how can we go do this off my disability that

was our main focus what can I do to live a [ __ ] life as simplistic as possible possible to figure some [ __ ] out and that was our main goal so at this time I sold like my dream Truck my classic dream truck I sold that cuz it was the only liquid cach we had at the time we sold our big very large house that I was into that life you know from retirement I wanted a panai watch and a Land Rover that's all I wanted very obtainable goals meant something to me um

and my wife she really worked all these budget to help me try to get those but I knew inside that that was just these attachments to a life that I was stepping out of um and that didn't Define me but it was really hard to like kind of like struggle these things even these materialistic things but we sold our house mov to a good friend of ours his named Jr he took us in dealt with all my BS and if he's watching this right now he is probably saying yes I dealt with so much dude

I was a grenade such a grenade who's this guy uh he was one of my old teammates and we were his roommate when we sold our big house he let us move in with him Um so we're live we're Runing one of his spare bedrooms um and then I found myself living in an apartment shortly after this and we're working on this downsizing thing we're selling all of our stuff my wife went on all this list and things and um to try to like you know three free bins you put the things you want to

keep the things you want to sell the things you want to donate and dude she coated everything cuz I was not A team player I wanted to I did the best that I could with what I had but I wasn't I wasn't making it a reality as much as she was really helping us push towards that way she was packing everything she's a [ __ ] trooper and around the same time she is looking at how pathetic I was and she's like researching what all these pills are that I'm on and she's like you're literally

killing yourself we used to eat we used to go to the grocery store And buy whatever we wanted that's before we learned how to go to the grocery store and you stay away from the center and you only buy from the outside you know um these pills I quit cold turkey I was straight addicted to these uppers I could not function without them and I was still passing out on them to the point where the doctors would and give me more I'm just like you don't care about Me so I said [ __ ] that

and I quit all these pills cold turkey and I just I just dealt with it for few weeks as I detoxed from a very not fun withdrawal yeah um and then she started looking at like heavy metals and she started doing all these research so now we're downsizing her life transitioning to a van but we're my wife is researching hundreds of freaking man hours and heavy metal detoxing why heavy metal detoxing well Because I was a brilliant guy that packed so many dips in my mouth while throwing flashbangs and loading ammunition and cleaning my weapon

system without wearing proper rubber gloves you know a lot of things that we are exposed to that all added up uh from the food that we're eating uh the hormones and the meat I was so inflamed so not only are we downsizing our life we're changing everything about us we went vegan for a bit we stopped eating meat If we don't know where the meat came from we didn't eat it because we started to learn about energy we started to learn about all this literally opened up a whole new slew of like parallel for me

that I didn't even know existed energy healing selflove this is who cracked that who cracked into that you or your wife my wife cracked into the the holistic aspect I cracked into the self-love and energy aspect um she felt both of those but she Really led the the charge with the holistic aspect and detoxing and I had this yearning to want to find Healing um I'd hear about you know things like mushrooms I'm like oh there's a possibility to change I learned about cannabis I'm like [ __ ] I can do cannabis and not have

to do all these pills and have a similar effect you know I learned about cold showers and meditating things that I've been exposed to before but I Didn't have the mindset or the belce system to follow through with any of them and so we get to the point now where we're Downs our Liv so we and and we like not helping I'm not participating and I'm just observing cuz I'm like pretty [ __ ] useless my wife made it happen for us to do it planned everything out we never had a plan on where we're

going to go in the van uh we just had a plan like we have to be out of this apartment by this time that's it That was it we had no plan weren't you guys talking about where you wanted to go what you wanted nothing that's stress man we got to be out of this [ __ ] apartment in uh 30 days that was our only guiding principal holy [ __ ] and we were all about it because I knew that if I don't [ __ ] change my life I'm going to end up overseas

carrying a [ __ ] gun for money and that will surely lead me to my death I felt it inside I had a friend tell me Years before I was active duty he's like bro I I really hate for you to see over there he's telling me stories about his friends that amazing military career amazing [ __ ] dad first rotation gets [ __ ] Smoked by a [ __ ] artillery round and I'm like yeah that doesn't sound fun but I wanted it but I also knew I had to do the extreme opposite to

combat this yearning desire to go do this one thing that I had my mindset on at a very young Age and so we find ourselves in this van and we're eating different we're doing different [ __ ] now and I'm like I [ __ ] hated it wait so you left so you're you're we left where are you going you just driving around first we decided to we wanted to head out west we wanted to head to the Utah area so you you didn't have a [ __ ] destination you're just like just get in

the car and [ __ ] go west yeah that's It that's it we just made it happen um what are you guys talking about while we're driving yeah where you where are you leaving from we're leaving from North Carolina we uh drop off some stuff in storage cuz we have like some family heirloom stuff that we didn't get rid of but everything else we damn near downsized packed out a rig I loaded like a tactical vehicle two two is one one is none of everything tomahawks flash lights Kim Lights medkits like dude I went Berserker

and we talked about going into Canada before I'm like well [ __ ] I'm not going to bring my guns cuz I don't how do I deal with that while I'm on the road and so I'm like okayy what other weapon systems security platform perform do I have with me and I'm thinking all these combat tactical scenarios worst case scenario stuff which is over complicating the process so we head to our in-laws house That lived in Wilmington North Carolina said a and then we took off we headed west and our our mission was to go

on a small maen V Voyage to work at The Kinks cuz at the time our van had a shower and a composting toilet it was fully decked out but we weren't really sure how we wanted it all set up up it was just a kind of a a shanty on wheels at this point just a hot mess and we get to we get to Utah I got a few friends out there and Uh I found myself just wanting to like be in their home and use internet and I wanted to be on the [ __

] phone and I was addicted to technology and I needed dope mean and I needed attention and this is the phase of life that I was in I was so empty and lonely inside you even though I had an amazing wife I was trying to fill voids mhm I was trying to [ __ ] just Escape The Suffering that I was going through because at the time I didn't see the value of suffering Because I forgot all that hardship of suffering that I went through in the military cuz I literally was a different person I

went from not being able to or functioning to not boiling water that was a real psychological you know mental [ __ ] to me and I'm just trying to survive so we get to Utah and I'm not happy I'm kind of miserable inside the van cuz I want I want I want I don't want to be nature I've rejected nature I I'm like I spent all these years in Nature in the military getting rain Dawn being cold I don't want to do that victim pouty pants I well [ __ ] you can stay in the

van if you want to but the dogs and not are going to walk away I'm like fine so i' stay in the van I get high I'd make music on my computer if I had service I'd [ __ ] disappear into the Matrix um I just really played a big victim game then we link with my friends in Utah Salt Lake City and one of them he's like you thought about mushrooms I'm like I I have but I wasn't ready at the time he's like I can hook you up I'm like okay what do I

do and he like he's like measuring and he's like okay take these but this would be like one Journey so split that up throughout this pile that I give you I'm like Okay and so that was all the information I got I'm like Roger that and my wife knew that I wanted to do this and it came about I see it I felt it I wanted it I visualized it and it appeared oddly enough and we find ourselves in this uh BLM land and I told her like hey I'm going to go do this and

she's like okay so I bundled up I grabbed my journal um I wrote down intentions not expectations intentions all basically I Just wrote down all the things that were weighing me down in life everything who told you to do that me your buddy or you just did it I just did it no [ __ ] I was I got into Journal a little bit before this and journaling helped transform my life it helped me communicate with myself and it helped me find a place to be honest because I wasn't very honest at this point in

my life I was very internal so I said a lot of I'm fines I Don't care but actually I wasn't fine and in fact I cared a lot I just didn't really know how to articulate these things because I was I was so hurtful I felt Unworthy of love um I felt Unworthy of an opportunity to live I felt Unworthy of a lot of [ __ ] and so I wrote these things down and then I [ __ ] blasted off to the abyss and this experience transformed my life Forever um I did about 3

G three four G maybe nothing crazy but for me being a being a newbie at this it was pretty significant it was enough to take me over the edge where I have a break through and I have these epiphanies and these aha moments and where were you I was in the middle of the woods looking at the full moon tripping mad balls what are you saying at first I saw what I would consider the universe I'm like blasting Through space you got eyes open My Eyes Are Open I'm just like all this is playing in

my mind I'm not moving anywhere but the interpretation from my mind my Consciousness to what I think I'm observing I'm blasting through space star jumping just mock speed I'm being showed what's possible I'm being showed No Boundaries at least my interpretation and then it just hits me And I have all these self- internal reflections of um things that I wanted different in my life and what it showed me from this very first journey was that I could change my life if I wanted to and before this time I didn't know if I was strong enough

to do that I didn't know if I could change my life I thought this was it I thought I was just going to be a piece of [ __ ] the rest of my life I thought I was going to be a sad Person the rest of my life I thought I was going to be a hateful person the rest of my life I thought I was going to be a victim the rest of my life I thought I was going to be ungrateful the rest of my life I didn't want to be any of

those things but that's that's the the soul trap the Mind Trap I felt myself in and then I reintegrated back with my wife and you know and I Journal this whole process I journal every experience I have um and I come up with this sentence that I'm living a life without me and I reflected on that for a little bit didn't really know what that meant I looked at a picture we had hanging in our van it was a picture of me and her my wife and I'm like I don't [ __ ] like that

guy and I'm still kind of like on the up I'm coming down but I'm like Still pretty fluffy and feeling light very stressfree very communicative you know I'm talking making eye contact my wife's just sitting there she's just there for the show but you're still you're still on feeling the effects of the yeah but I'm on the I'm on the calm down I'm not I'm not peeking I'm not blasting off I'm not having all these introspected things anymore outside I felt that it was coming to an end and I come back in the Van cuz

I'm hungry and um like I think we had like a [ __ ] pork chop or something and I like ate it looked like a buffalo and made a really big deal about it looked at a picture of me on the wall I'm like I don't like that guy I don't like him and she's like what are you talking about that's you I'm like I don't [ __ ] like that guy and she's like okay and then I went back to journaling and the next day I wake up and I'm just I could fly I

had no stress I had no anxiety I felt happy for the first time in a very long time I felt like I had a [ __ ] chance well since healing was all new to me I rode that wave but what I didn't do was reinvest into myself I didn't take I didn't take the money earned the energy earned and redeposit into me I broke the cardinal rule I only took but I didn't Give and what I learned through all my other experiences that I have to give that back you know what I gain I

have to put back into me and what that momentum I get I have to put that momentum back into me I have to take advantage of the space that I've created where in this situation I just rode the wave after 30 45 days I got depressed as [ __ ] again super anxious again very limited on what I wanted to do in life at this time I didn't know what I wanted To do before we go into that who's who's the guy that gave you the that suggested that you try soloc side and uh he's

a Marine buddy of mine he's a civilian dog handler uh that's all I mean yeah so it worked for him it worked for him he had his demons still but he's like hey man these help and I was desperate where if you would have said eat your own poop it might help you I would have tried it I how how long did the sil cyon trip last uh this Particular one was about 5 6 hours okay um and I'm just I'm journaling the whole time I'm like staring at the moon the whole time I'm like

I'm just coming up with all these aha moments and epiphanies and holy [ __ ] that makes sense and at the same time I'm come up with this this logo and I didn't know what it was I just drew it Out and so I I leave this opportunity I leave this journey and I feel just refreshed I feel [ __ ] reincarnated I feel like I have a chance and I'm looking at my journal and I have this logo drawn down and I have this idea to start a company out of nowhere and um company

is the company I own today is wed ify the norm and the logo I drew was my symbol for my brand and what I learned from that experience in that symbol my symbol Repres represents the Trinity the mind body and spirit but in the center I have a Time glass an hourglass and what I learned was that if we align ourselves we can maximize our time if we are unlined our time maximizes us and what I mean by that is if I align myself if I invest into my mind body and spirit and I actually

put honest effort energy towards that evolution of self I Can now utilize my time if not my time utilizes me without me [ __ ] knowing it see there was a point in my life where I thought tomorrow would come there was a point in my life up to this point that time will heal this and then I realized after this exper this experience that that was all a [ __ ] lie we are not owed anything time is not guaranteed tomorrow is not guaranteed and if anything time is short and we don't have much

of it and that Our time is our true power and our true energy and with our time we can change our lives or we can be a [ __ ] victim and it just propelled me on this new course of life where I wanted to [ __ ] heal and I wanted to share everything about it because it was so profound and I just looked at my entire life completely different from that moment forward that I was like I have to do this this is my calling this is it and I Didn't know it precisely

at the time but that epiphany of realizing that time time is so [ __ ] short and that I'm going to die one day really put it in perspective and I and I told myself like Cody you can go through all this [ __ ] that you've gone through and [ __ ] just give up and live a mediocre [ __ ] life where you you have you can be a victim you can feel sorry for yourself you can do nothing different with your Life or you can go face the [ __ ] unknown you

can do this [ __ ] that's hard as [ __ ] you can do the things that make you uncomfortable you can put yourself in positions and situations you never once imagined for a chance or you can have the [ __ ] Norm you could have an acceptance of what you currently have and I realized that that really sucked and I didn't want that life and I realized that everything leading up this Point was all by Grand Design you know everything retiring early from the military being able to do this brain treatment being able to

get this van being able to live live on a very very very small paycheck having a supportive wife and a partner to help navigate this for us and I felt empowered more than I ever have before at this point but I was Still struggling I was still hurting but I had this little flicker of light that said okay you can say you want to quit all day but you know you're really not going to so say what you got to say do what you got to [ __ ] do and let's go and that's when

I started diving into like finding me cuz I didn't know who I was and it made me ask questions of who are you and what do you even want in life and I didn't have the answers for that and so we're traveling around we Leave this we leave this beautiful place this beautiful campsite and I'm just I'm [ __ ] high on life dude I love the [ __ ] out of life but I didn't I I I disobeyed the [ __ ] Golden Rule the unsaid rule at the time I didn't know this I

don't even know it's a real thing this how I'm interpreting it cuz now I do it completely different because it wore off after like 30 days this High went away I was noticing that my cognitive my brain Treatment that I did was going away I was resorting back to what happened where am I at what's going on and I was kind of deteriorating and then that set me back off into a victim mindset I was feeling s for myself feeling sad and so we start traveling around around we're just traveling around we have no purpose

in place we spend much time as we came in BLM land I'm connecting more to Nature now I'm not Rejecting it my wife is finally getting me out of my comfort zone cuz I wanted to stay in my little bubble and now I'm doing more nature activities I'm walking outside the dogs we're jumping in streams and creeks and chasing waterfalls chasing [ __ ] rainbows living on edge of cliffs until we run out of water like we're [ __ ] doing it and all this happened about like 2 months and we're like you know what

Let's change the van up we've been in this [ __ ] long enough let's change it up let's make it ours so we haul ass back to the east coast we do a bunch of modifications we head up to Maryland do some more modifications head up to Canada get some custom uh bug screens made like we're set now for success and through this process I run into more plant medicine um I do more Psych I do more Psilocybin and is it all soloc cybin all of it is at this point and the messages are becoming

more profound I'm expecting to blast off and look at this beautiful Universe this this Limitless infinite abundant place and I'm just being told [ __ ] you bro you're going in and I'm being repeated these repeating patterns you're living a life without you I'm not me I'm soulless all these weird things I'm like [ __ ] dude Cuz I was still feeling empty no matter how much I wanted to save myself I was still being destructive no matter how many aha moments I had I was still falling on my own sword I was still being

disrespectful I was still being selfish and rude but I was making this two steps forward one step back process so it was very confusing I'm like [ __ ] dude we're going to heal or we're not going to heal and I didn't know I was navigating all this by myself none my Friends were into this stuff I wasn't really into books reading books outside of like the Alchemist at this point I wasn't diving too much into anything I was still pretty entry-level into energy I was still pretty entry level into nutrition and detoxing and the

whole aspect of like the water you drink you know purified water I thought all that stuff was for yuppies you know I never really saw how it benefited me until I stayed consistent with and then I Started to see my life change more and I find myself in Tennessee and I was there probably four or five months earlier at a friend's house and we're talking about I'm telling about all these great epiphanies I mean I'm kind of having this like semi God complex where I'm like I feel like I know all the answers to the

universe and what life is all about and it was a really conflicting Time in my life it was a lot of New Perspectives gained and I was having a hard time applying discernment how sorry to cut you off but did you have like a schedule I mean what what was the determinating factor of you to do more taking more cocy and how long was there any schedule was it all right I'm going to do it every 30 days just whenever you felt like it whenever I felt like it did you feel like it all the

Time no not with mushrooms okay uh with mushrooms those was those were kind of a violent ride for me very profound very helpful very opening but they I was probably doing them I was probably doing 3 to five grand Journeys maybe every two or 3 months at this point okay um I was curious I wanted to know more yeah I was absolutely [ __ ] curious of what of a new world that I had no idea existed were you learning new things every I was learning Meditation I was learning chakras I was learning um energy

I was learning about words I was learning about yourself I mean oh yeah all these things I was learning that you know how deceptive I was to myself and how I was the root cause of everything in my life and how the power to change is all me not anyone else and because I was always asking for help and I was always reaching out but I really needed to reach in and the more I did the more I told and the more it told The more I explored uh because I would take that momentum and

put it right back into me I'm like I'm feeling really good feeling really chippery so let me do more of these practices because it gave me the space to to find different modalities which then helped me write down different words in my journal which led me to different Avenues in life which led me to different opportunities and experiences and it was all interconnected and I find myself uh Talking with a friend once we're talking about iasa comes up and I'm like I'm ready for that he's like oh bro you should go do iOS I'm like

D I ain't ready for that [ __ ] and I was scared cuz I was I was tasting what change could be like but I wasn't ready for change H because it was called the commitment and I was not willing to commit why why weren't I was scared I mean it sounded like it was all positive things that are Happening but I was scared you were scared of what what's in front of you or scared to leave everything behind I wasn't worried about leaving anything behind I was scared to have to create change I was

scared of what I could become I was scared that I could be happy and I was struggling with a lot of self-inflicting wounds where I felt unworthy to even have this opportunity um so I was struggling with a lot of self-sabotage and limiting Beliefs like I'm not good enough um and I was struggling inside you know I have all these these epiphanies or these messages saying like I'm living a life without me I like I have no soul and I started to believe that cuz I felt it for a long time in my life I

felt I I was soulless for a very long time and I kind of attributed that to these open contracts that I put out in combat oh [ __ ] get me the [ __ ] out of Here you know these silent things these verbal things dude I was just putting that [ __ ] out to the universe I don't know who the [ __ ] I was talking to Y I was saying [ __ ] anything to survive I was [ __ ] thinking anything to survive and so I don't know what kind of contracts

I [ __ ] dealt with back in the day and at this time in my life I believe in ghost I believe in energy I believe in this [ __ ] and now I'm like damn bro it's time to pay pay the piper You [ __ ] dat some contracts now it's time to pay up bro and I'm realizing well [ __ ] well how do I Rectify this how do I change this so I find myself in my friend's house this is a few months later we're traveling around in the van I mean I'm

loving the van it's great it's fun but I'm still being a jerk I'm still being poopy pants but the van the great thing about the van was we weren't tied to anything so hold on just backtracking so You're saying that you believe whatever you threw out in the moment into the universe you know got combat now because whatever you threw out happened I want to get the [ __ ] out of here I want to live you're out of there you did live you think I don't know I'm open you owe for that I was

open to it all you know I had a lot of life and death situations that I've walked away from cutway shot in the helmet planes [ __ ] having explosions aside like a lot of unexplainable things very explainable but a lot of weird [ __ ] and at this point in my life I was stepping into a new Evolution of self I was asking much harder questions that I've ever I never even contemplated them so I found myself in my friend's house month later and I get a hold I show up and bl behold my

friend asked me he's like hey are you interested in any any Mushrooms my friend has some I'm like yes cuz I learned this one thing about coincidences a long time ago they're not a real thing they're opportunities so you can say their coincidences and doubt them and judge them or you can have faith and and believe in it and so I chose to have faith in this aspect especially when it came to plant medicine cuz I was desperate and I do another Journey at his house my Friend's house and it's all inside same some of

the same things on repeat but at the end of it it said I'm ready and I didn't know what the [ __ ] that meant I came to the campire this is like 5 hours later 6 hours later people like how was it I'm like I told them what's going on what I saw what I felt and obviously makes sense to me to them they're like dude this [ __ ] psychotic but I'm like dude it's tell me I was ready for the next level and they're like okay whatever I thought the same thing well

the next [ __ ] day I get a phone call at 10:00 from a buddy of mine who said hey are you interested to go to Peru to do iasa and I said yes he's like well here it is here's the deal he tells me this deal at the time I have this opportunity to go take this job in La uh to make Handover fist money Work in the Cannabis industry and this all worked out before I was going to go do this and at first I told my wife I can't do it she's like

why can't you I'm like cuz I'm [ __ ] I'm scared how am I going to afford that she's like we'll find a way cuz I was trying to I wanted to but I was scared I was scared to invest especially financially invest cuz I had luckily a nonprofit uh heroic heart Projects uh took care of me uh they're they've specialized in soft veteran Community um I just had to pay for my ticket and so two weeks later I find myself in Peru I [ __ ] terrified I'm [ __ ] traveling cross country by

myself I am [ __ ] terrified I'm having to like do these things and speak up and raise my hand and get a ticket and do this and I'm going to a country I didn't speak their language I'm terrified my Confidence is zero you know my my operator skills are [ __ ] diminished and I'm still a hot mess and so I find myself in Peru I link up to this treat uh it was a very wellknown one his name is Dennis McKenna him and his brother ter parents McKenna who's deceased they're huge in the

Psychedelic uh world the fathers of it almost a lot of the aspects a lot of the research and studies and the papers and the the laws And policies push for him and he was hosting this event and I go there and I link with a shaman we do this whole thing and we're getting ready for our first ceremony the following day this first iasa ceremony and I'm like [ __ ] I don't know what to expect I was just hoping I didn't [ __ ] myself cuz I heard these horror stories like oh you can

you purge one way or another I'm like oh my God worst case scenario that's who I was worst case Scenario guy at the time and so I go to my first ceremony and I'm like I drink my Brew it's my time and as I'm waiting my turn to get my my cup people are already flopping on the ground making all sorts of weird ass noises I'm like holy [ __ ] this is The Real McCoy I get my Brew I meet my Ranger buddy there he gets his brew and I'm like sitting there I'm open-minded

I'm waiting nothing not a [ __ ] thing not A [ __ ] thing some rumble guts couple of purges I don't see anything I hear nothing I feel nothing I go to the shaman I tell him what's going on and he feeds me like two more brw like two more cups nothing and I went to him the next day and I asked him am I not worthy for this and he's like what do you you talking about I'm like I told him the story of I felt like I was living a life Without me

that I was soulless he looks at me he grabs my hand and he's like tonight meet me upstairs the yoga room at like 600 p.m. whatever after dinner so I go up there my inter the interpreter's there and she's like what's going to happen is you're going uh the Shaman's going to perform a soul retrieval ceremony on you I'm like what she's like he's going to perform a Soul retrieval ceremony on me on you I'm like okay so I strip down my underwear I [ __ ] lay on the ground I lay in this like

pentagram my body and he puts these cups around me puts these these glasses of water he's like measures them up my head each point of my hands each point of my feet and he starts at my left leg and she's like stay absolutely still whatever you do don't move I'm like okay I'm not a medicine I'm not a any narcotics I'm not drunk I'm nothing and this dude starts singing his Aad starts doing his chants he starts at my left side and works this is be clockwise he works clockwise around me by the time he

got to my right arm I'm [ __ ] profusely shaking I'm doing some like Poltergeist [ __ ] my eyes are in the back of my [ __ ] head and I'm crying and I'm like what is [ __ ] going on and she's like Cody don't move don't move if you move you're going to break the circle I'm like and my back is [ __ ] Killing me it's this I got this pinch in my back and it is [ __ ] I wanted to move so but I knew I came to Peru to

surrender I came there to [ __ ] go all in and if I knew if I [ __ ] moved my foot wiggled my butt if I did anything but my best I'd have thrown away this opportunity of a [ __ ] lifetime so I was committed to the [ __ ] death and I'm like breathing all Heavy I'm doing a bunch of weird funky chicken stuff and I'm like crying I'm like What's the [ __ ] going on I'm conscious at the time my eyes are the back of my [ __ ] head she's

like Cody don't move and he he gets to my left my left hand and he finishes he finishes his singing and he puts his hand on my chest and I I have this big release this big exhale and I just feel so at peace and he says this prayer over me and I'm like what the [ __ ] just happened she's like well he entered through your back Your pain point and that's how he accessed you and he said that your soul was buried very deep down inside you by a bunch of dark entities and

so he had to fight them off and he brought it back to you so when he placed his hand on your chest he brought your soul back to you and I'm like Blown Away dude I'm like this is some like magic [ __ ] yeah almost a disbeliever and I'm like but it worked I'm like what do I do now did it work well the next ceremony it was I felt it I have the same experiences but what AA showed me from this experience how it was all Collective was it showed me to reconnect to

me to find me it showed me how to clear up the heads space the Carousel of movies and thoughts that were playing non-stop in my head that I was always holding against me not allowing myself to heal and grow and move forward it Showed me how to address that it showed me how to feel myself and how to connect to energy so my second ceremony it showed me how to clear the space up my third ceremony it showed me how to connect to energy and how to charge myself so now when when the shaman was

singing his a aut uh cuz he's on Brew too at this point he's tapped into all of us and he's singing and I just I just I'm just getting charged and I'm just feeling all this just life just come to Me and I'm feeling everything I've never felt before I'm just like I feel this dude singing I feel his energy I [ __ ] feel it and we finish and they're like okay no red meat no drugs for like 3 weeks I'm like that's it I still felt like I was missing something and so one

my Ranger buddy there he had access to chonga which is my understanding it's like a Flower-based DMT like you smoke it like it looks like flour right like cannabis but it's a longer lasting than DMT DMT 5 to 10 minutes chonga is like 20 to 30 minutes depending on how much you hit and he's like bro this is a cherry on top I'm like what new to all this I just did a soul retrieval just in iasa I don't know dude I'm I'm Junior boot as [ __ ] this is all new to me but

I'm I'm like I came here to find self- Lov and I don't feel like I found That I I smoked this chonga and he's I'm like what do I do he's like ask it what you want to see and experience I'm like I don't [ __ ] know he's like ask to show you the coolest thing that you've ever seen I'm like okay so I rip this bong and I'm [ __ ] gone dude I'm I'm [ __ ] gone visual I'm in a different dimension mhm I come out of this thing like 30 minutes

later I'm like whoa he's like right I'm like Dude he's like you want to do it again I'm like yes cuz like I went there and I asked it show me the coolest thing guess what it show me the coolest thing but it's not why I was there what was it what was I there what was the coolest thing the coolest thing dude I I [ __ ] saw a different dimension that I can't see with my own eyes I saw happiness I saw freedom I saw feeling I saw emotion I saw [ __ ]

Chance I saw opportunity I saw Limitless [ __ ] abundance I saw the mountains [ __ ] smile at me they waved at me I saw the [ __ ] sky like it was the first time I've ever opened my eyes did you actually see oh yes yes or were you seeing everything that you saw before you smoked it in but it was just another perspective now was like exact same thing same thing in a different Perspective the same people that were there I saw them they're like [ __ ] plant people they're all tall

Giants I'm like what the [ __ ] it was weird to look at people in the face looking at the [ __ ] The Smiling waving Mountain was trippy I was like oh [ __ ] so let me go look at these people oh [ __ ] oh you actually okay my eyes are open I'm seeing this all no and then I'm spinning in my own head at the same time so I rip it again and this time I Asked I wanted to find love for me and I lived my whole entire life everything about

my life I lived it all over again and how everything in my life was leading me to that point right now where I was at right now all these people that I met here all these different faces were all part of my life and how everything was connected to one and how everyone's just mirror of us and how everything that we encounter in life is a is something that we must see to move On to the next phase or we can see it as normal just a person just an opportunity just a coincidence and it

dissolved all that delusion that I had and then I ended up spinning in this [ __ ] abyss of hell this Darkness falling and as I'm falling I'm I'm I'm seeing words and I'm trying to speak them into existence and the words are I love me but they're coming out very broken like my very first radio transmission when I got shot In the helmet it was I love me and I'm like that's not good enough that's not a [ __ ] sentence those are three separate words and as I'm spinning further and further and further

into this endless bottomless pit just falling I'm fighting so hard to say the words I love me as soon as I say the words I love me and I open my eyes and trips over I knocked over a chair in the process I'm sitting In this beautiful garden in Peru I knocked over a chair as I was flocking around on the ground and I got in the chair and I just started to cry and I [ __ ] cried about everything I I released I had I literally had this love for me that I never

experienced before and I realized that all this other love that I thought I was giving and thought I had I had none of it cuz I had none of it for myself and I realized that if without me none of that is [ __ ] possible I can't give what I don't have that's why I wasn't growing that's why I wasn't evolving that's why I wasn't healing because I didn't even know what I was growing and evolving from I was an incomplete puzzle [ __ ] piece piece and I was just brought back together and

shown that you are here for more and my life changed I went home and I was happy but my environment was the Same my environment was a product of my existence previously and so then I spent the next years changing and rewriting my story so I can grow and heal because now I now I [ __ ] truly I felt connected I had my soul back I fell in love for myself and I'm willing to [ __ ] fight for that can we go back for just a second you mentioned the environment that you have

created is that how you worded it before Mhm what does that mean well I think I know what it means because I felt it after my I beain 5o experience so just going to share but um what I noticed is how PE how what I noticed the first thing I noticed was how my wife was acting when I got back from that and my wife is a very positive person I'm a very negative person and Uh and when I got back from my iig G 5mo DMT trip when we would be out in town I

I've noticed how my wife was and I wasn't like that anymore and I and I realized that that was I mean essential that was me rubbing off on my wife all that [ __ ] negativity and I as happy as I was after that experience I it made sad cuz I knew I [ __ ] did that I was like [ __ ] man She's judging those people because I [ __ ] judge everybody and all that kind of stuff you know she was being negative because I was so [ __ ] negative and so

many things that I observed that I saw Katie doing that I was I felt guilty because I knew I was like if it if she never would have met me she wouldn't be [ __ ] acting like that and I didn't realize how much I had how much of an Effect that had on her until I got home from that and it was basic you know you're [ __ ] cleansed of that [ __ ] after an experience like that and and uh so I had to recreate my environment yeah is that what you're talking

about oh yeah you know I I I put my wife through the ringer for years and as I was healing she was holding space for me allowing me to do what I needed to do supporting me in every aspect but just Taking it to the face every time you know just being hurt being let down being disappointed being mistreated being disrespected and here I am happy here I am actively pursuing starting a business actively pursuing healing and She's suffering and that sucks that sucks to watch and but she's still with me it is what It

was I cann't change the past and I realized I couldn't heal either until I started forgive myself you know I I couldn't stop I couldn't keep on being mad at myself for [ __ ] doing this [ __ ] to my wife for all these months and all these years cuz if I did I was never going to let go of that past I'm never going to let go of that version of me that story and then I was always going to repeat the same [ __ ] and so I had to forgive that Version

of me so I could become who I am today and you know it was tough on her cuz it didn't stop with iasa I learned about DMT then I learned about acid LSD then I learned about 5 Meo then I learned about all these other things and I'm like I felt so called to them I felt so called to put myself out there because I realized that self-healing mental health is a weird Space and people don't like it because I realized that I have the opportunity to hold a mirror up for people anyone can point

a finger but I hold a mirror up for people and I can show you your true self and that is not a comfortable thing for people to see it's also not a comfortable thing for people to see what they can be because it must cost you your old life for the new life And I realize that these experiences with psychedelics and these these self- Explorations and these pondering sessions and these these amazing cannabis evenings where I'm filling up Journal upon Journal of [ __ ] information I call downloads and these things that I feel called

and compelled to say I'm like I have to do something with this and I know that everyone's into plant Medicine I know that everyone's not into cannabis I know that everyone's aren't into these modalities and even healing so this whole time I start sharing my story online what I'm going through my pain points and I realize that I have this ability to help people see that you know what the medicine has showed me was that I'm the medicine and so for someone out there who's not courageous or they don't want to or it's against their

belief system Or they're just not about that life because it's very taboo you know if you have a society that is only fed red apples their entire life and then you come out of nowhere and say I have a green apple are you interested in they're like what the [ __ ] is that that is a hard pill to swallow yeah because some people are like me when they don't feel like they're worthy to change they feel like they must pay Their [ __ ] karmic debt stay in the hell loop system and cycle that

they're in and never [ __ ] evolve and that's all they're worthy of and that's simply not true if that was the case why are we even exist why are we alive why do we have a thing called time why do we age why do we evolve why are those things there if that was the case if you [ __ ] up once why why would we have a opport to continue on when we Feel So Unworthy of being happy and and be and to be Loved and to share that love why would we just

stop you know and so that's what I really respect and love about the plant medicine is that it might not be for everybody but healing is for everybody Y and they might not go through the experience that I go through but if I can share my story if I can share that glimpse of Hope and belief like yo bro just because you suck today doesn't mean You got to suck tomorrow just because you want to quit doesn't mean you have to quit you know just because times are hard just because you're suffering now doesn't mean

it's not worth it we rise through the suffering my whole life has been [ __ ] suffering I've smiled a lot I've enjoyed a lot I've had fun a lot but there's been a lot of suffering along the way even now I can still suffer I'm human but that is what separates us from Who we were yesterday to who we can become today is that suffering process and through all these different psychedelic experiences modalities and I haven't tried them all but I've definitely tried a lot it's always shown me that I am limitless I can

create anything I want to and I am the [ __ ] power I am that energy I am that light I am all these things that I seek in life I just have to give my myself permission To [ __ ] accept them acknowledge them I had to have that give myself permission to be courageous for myself and be like I need help I need to take a knee I I need your assistance you know and that's not easy for dudes to do especially dudes dudes are the worst veterans are the worst and getting out

and sharing these stories and going through all these experiences and people thinking I'm [ __ ] crazy Cuz I'm like posting I I I speak differently I I love philosophy I I speak and live philosophy because that gives my life purpose CU if I'm not expanding I'm [ __ ] dying and if I'm dying why am I trying well I'm constantly dying so how can I flip the script on that I'm dying the day I was born my time is [ __ ] short so am I going to suffer in silence how I was taught

how I was raised in the system of Indoctrination and you're indoctrinated through fear through shock and awe and through discipline how can I create recreate that same pattern but opposite so I started diving into conspiracies I started diving into [ __ ] the universe the energy what is God I started to seek out in this belief like what is belief I had no belief the stories don't really make sense to me I never really bought off on them but I knew that I had no Belief in anything and I knew that was a huge hindrance

in my evolution of growth and self because if I didn't [ __ ] believe in anything why would I even try and now I actually want to [ __ ] try cuz I'm seeing Traction in my life I'm like okay Cody you can't stop so I kept down this [ __ ] path of like trying to explore my own life and I realized that through especially DMT especially LSD there was a different Reality taking place right now right in front of us and it's the same perspective of you go outside and it's raining and you're

like oh [ __ ] it's raining my day is ruined within 30 seconds the rain clears Sun comes out you're like oh [ __ ] yeah the rain's out what and so I take realities and perspectives like that and apply it to the psychedelics and I see the cross Reference I see everything is perspective I can be a Vicor I can be a victim I can say I'm happy or I can choose to be unhappy I can take these gifts of opportunity these gifts of wisdom these gifts of chance and time and I can apply

them to something bigger than myself or I could be selfish and do nothing with it and ride the wave and wondering why I keep on going back the same place that I [ __ ] started at and I lived that Cycle for for a couple years learning exploring educating myself had no one to talk to lost a lot of friends my circle was extremely small not by choice and as I'm navigating these system of these Loops I'm like wait a second one no one knows anything two I only have is my truth and three I

can only control my thoughts and my actions and if I know I can control my thoughts my Actions I can forgive myself my wrongdoings and [ __ ] grow and evolve if I control my thoughts my actions I can choose to rewrite my [ __ ] story and then change who I am through that story and how I tell that story because at the time I was a very victim wondering why am I not changing my life why is my life not growing and evolving but I was telling the same old Story doing different [

__ ] expecting different results same old Story doing different [ __ ] expecting different results always ending up back back where I started from cuz my story was never changing and then I started diving into [ __ ] cognitive and Quantum field and Joe despensa and the subconscious mind and realizing that we are programmed from a [ __ ] childhood state to live in fear to be suppressed to forget our power yeah and if you can look at that you can look at well what happened what went Wrong when did we stop believing in ourselves

all my trips almost I feel like play more be a kid more have more of this feminine energy feminine energy to like the Instagram Commando like what wuss no player I have too much masculine energy I'm task oriented I got to do these things I have these goals these tasks I wasn't setting time to play and to be and to exist I wasn't letting go of control and just going outside with no Intention other than to be outside going on a [ __ ] walk without my phone walking my dogs and actually talking to my

dogs Vice [ __ ] getting lost in my mind you know having no true purpose not being present now I hold my kid I look at that [ __ ] dude in the eyes I'm connected to that kid I don't [ __ ] with my phone with my kid I don't get distracted with my kid he's my kid I'm with him and then I struggle and I fight for space to be present with my wife I Fight struggle for space to be present with a task at hand with my goals and my dreams my visions

and my clarity you know and now I take all those years of suffering and I apply it to the suffering that I'm doing now the suffering of you know limiting beliefs doubts Evolution growth what is healing are you even [ __ ] healed is that even a thing can you even be healed and I've come to this conclusion that it's not a It's not I'm Healed I've learned that it's about the destination it's not sorry it's not the destination it's the journey I've learned it's about the journey and the journey that I've committed to is

this [ __ ] path of [ __ ] unknown it's the I'm never going to be I'm never going to stop growing I'm never going to stop evolving I'm never going to stop my belie Bel system in what I believe in that's unwavering that is my why to Exist but my belief system of how I feel that's always up for debate cuz how I feel could be an emotional state of where my ego is controlling my day viice my heart my love and I realize that I'm never Above This expansion of self and I realize

that the more I work on me the more I rewrite my stories the more the stories that I have have lived and impacted other people can change also you know me working on myself has given my wife that Space to work on herself in the ways that she finds fitting and needs to and now our rol is are reversed where I'm [ __ ] being there for her and it sucks it's uncomfortable it's not fun but that's the price because through the suffering is what you seek and I see that now suffering is like I

want it fixed I want Amazon Prime I want happiness I want now I want dope mean I want insta Gratification there is is no I did this one thing and I'm cured for life and I never have to ever invest in myself again no because your wave just might be bigger than mine that you're writing we always have to invest in ourselves continuously we're constantly under attack our minds are constantly under attack we're constantly being poisoned with the things that we eat consume we view we listen to everything is out There literally to get us

because when you are it when you are that thing and you're suppressed you're a slave when you don't think that you have the power to change your [ __ ] life you'll never change your view system on how you see the world if you're too weak to stand up for yourself you'll always be a [ __ ] slave to someone else who's more powerful than you it's all by Grand Design and I realize that I'm extremely [ __ ] powerful and so is everyone else And the main thing my business we defy the norm my

coaching group defi tribe all these things that I do is to help people find their true power back and claim it and do anything with it because you're [ __ ] Limitless I'm [ __ ] Limitless there is no price tag to the mental capacity that I possess inside I might not know the answers I don't know a lot and I learn a lot and I fail a lot and I [ __ ] up a lot I still do to This day I tell today I didn't want to go to the gym I wanted to

sleep in cuz I stayed up writing last night but I still went I still struggle with real [ __ ] but the thing is I know the difference with SE mer me from what I want to be tomorrow is what I do today and it in my years of trying to get into the healing space and evolve I was missing the action part because cuz the action came with Commitment and commitment is [ __ ] scary when you commit to your life the fact like you I'm going to [ __ ] die one day and

I'm not going to go out like a [ __ ] I'm not going to [ __ ] give away this [ __ ] I'm not going to survive a [ __ ] gunshot to the helmet a [ __ ] cut away I'm going to freef fall [ __ ] jump a [ __ ] airplane that almost [ __ ] crash I'm not going to survive all these things put people through all this hell to [ __ ] live a Mediocre very basic average life where I have this calling inside I'm saying [ __ ] you

suppressing you and putting the thumb on you why would I do that because now I become a product of my environment cuz if you allow your environment to control you which I allowed the environment until I stood up for myself to control me for so long I I just relinquish my power and you know to me healing is reclaiming your power it's saying who do You want to be today create that vision board as young Cody did and go build and [ __ ] live that life if I did that as a kid un even

knowing it why can't I do it now as an adult why can't I do it now with my business weed defy the norm why can't I do it now with my coaching group Divi tribe where I'm literally helping people by showing them a [ __ ] mirror and if we can if we can heal ourselves and give ourselves permission To [ __ ] grow and evolved D we'll change the world and through all these psychedelic experiences and all the books that I read and all the belief system I have formed and the the AHA epiphanies

and all the things I do in life that's what it's led me to and that's what I do and why I do what I do today um I'm still figuring out as I go but I'm not stopping because I know that the keys to the universe is through Suffering cuz if it was easy everyone would have it if self- love was [ __ ] easy there wouldn't be depression there wouldn't be kids on [ __ ] pills there wouldn't be all this sad drama [ __ ] people would turn off the [ __ ] TV

would live a better life but people live in fear they want to be controlled they want a daddy they want to be governed they want to be told what to do you have to go to a doctor to be told that you're sick what ludicrous is that That is a powerless person and at some point in our evolution of self we lost our [ __ ] power and at some point in evolution of self people [ __ ] forgot that they have a say in this life and that's the message that I share it's your

life live it on your [ __ ] terms defy the norm if the norm to you is doing nothing different with your life and it sucks and you're unhappy with it and it's hard and you want to quit if the norm is you [ __ ] bowing down to That Master then [ __ ] defy it defy that Conformity defy the fact that that is your go-to thing and the only person that's going to [ __ ] make a change in your life is you medicine will only show you the wave you got to do

the work the medicine will give you the [ __ ] wave but you have to [ __ ] write it and you have to keep on paddling to find the next wave and the next wave because every [ __ ] day is an opportunity to Invest in yourself and the more this world requires of you the more tokens you have to [ __ ] give it what happens when you're depleted you end up back where you started from and that's where depression anxiety stress [ __ ] self living belief self-sabotaging all this [ __ ]

comes about and so if you can look at your life as a fact that you have an opportunity to live and to to go all in do the scariest [ __ ] you've ever Imagined in your absolute entire life to do things to think bigger than you've ever thought before to [ __ ] plan some really big objectives in life that you don't think are [ __ ] attainable but you're doing it in the first place that is going all in on life and you can't do that you can't have that thought process if you

think you're [ __ ] weak if you're not think you're good enough if you don't believe in yourself because if you don't believe In yourself how can you put and still belief in anyone else and even in my lowest time in the military I [ __ ] believed but at some point I forgot when I chose to be a victim I forgot when my life turned upside down I [ __ ] forgot when I felt sorry for myself became a [ __ ] pill attic I forgot and then I [ __ ] started to remember

and I and I I come to this conclusion that life is literally about we've Already lived this before and our life's purpose is about remembering remembering our worth remembering our power remembering that all that hardship that we went through all the [ __ ] tears we shed the blood we [ __ ] spewed the bodies we [ __ ] carried that wasn't for nothing it was for who we are today and who we're going to [ __ ] become and we can either be [ __ ] victims and feel Sorry for ourselves and and blame

the world or we can take extreme ownership and we're like oh [ __ ] this dude I don't give a [ __ ] how dark and scary this [ __ ] road is I don't care if I never see a [ __ ] light I'm walking that way cuz I've been walking this way and this way sucks this way leads to dopamine rushes and a lot of crashes this way however I haven't gone down that way and if I apply logic to my life and I give that a [ __ ] Shot there's Limitless possibilities

over there and that's been my involvement with with psychedelics that's been my involvement with reading that's been my involvement with journaling because there's so many Limitless possibilities and the only person that really puts limits on it is us your pain points is you your suffering is you your struggle is you it's not your job it's not your Environment it's your mindset it's your belief system they're not aligned you have none and being able to share that with people now through my brand people like Cody you're another vet company selling [ __ ] t-shirts I'm like

no bro I ain't selling T-shirts I'm sharing a [ __ ] message people just buy my shirts because they believe in the message my shit's not telling you to [ __ ] kill bodies stack bodies do cool Guut Alpha Mill things my shit's telling you to believe in yourself it's telling you to [ __ ] live now die later oh I'm I'm waiting to the right time to start that business [ __ ] there is no right time you're not even guaranteed tomorrow our [ __ ] friends on the battlefield they they [ __ ]

thought they were G to come home they really [ __ ] believed it guess what it didn't happen so am I going to disrespect that lesson that wisdom by disrespecting my Own [ __ ] life now when I saw truth or am I going to do something about it and as I started to take my power back I started to [ __ ] believe all these things like bro I don't mourn for my [ __ ] dead I live for my [ __ ] dead good for you because to [ __ ] mourn to feel

sad I just you just gave her power and so I I changed my own story man I struggle I'm not a perfect being I [ __ ] up sometimes I listen to gangster rap 90s music sometimes I listen to rof is the soul I am a [ __ ] mixture I wear leopard print [ __ ] shoes that say they're embroidered that said my life my terms because I decided that I can live my life that everybody else wants me to [ __ ] live or I can [ __ ] around and find out I

can see what I'm made of I can see what I'm truly here for I get a question Cody how do I find my purpose by [ __ ] putting one foot in front of the Other you can't stay in the same Ambush spot expect not to get hit again and so I take these lessons and these wisdoms from the ultimate prices that were paid through those hardships and those hurdles and and now redefine My Life by looking at them not as the suffering but looking them as opportunities to [ __ ] evolve and to me

that's the ultimate honor that I could ever do for my friends that are no longer here for all My friends that [ __ ] kill themselves because they were too afraid to ask for [ __ ] help they felt too weak to [ __ ] go get assistance and they're [ __ ] dead because they chose the only opportunity they thought that was real they chose the only Escape they thought was [ __ ] available and it's [ __ ] old I hate the [ __ ] phone calls I hate seeing the Post so how

do you change that if I can only control my thoughts and my actions well I [ __ ] change myself and hopefully that's enough for someone else to change their [ __ ] selves and that person changes themselves and that person inspires someone through their actions to change themselves the fact that someone else is defying Conformity and investing in themselves taking the [ __ ] hard dark dark long road that has no guiding Factors no guiding principle there is no [ __ ] Lighthouse for you to see it's just a [ __ ] dark abyss

but people are afraid of the dark I AF the dark before but I realized that it is the light path that takes you to Salvation it's that [ __ ] dark unknown space that you are [ __ ] too scared to go into that is your mirror and I jump into that thing all the time when I'm feeling like a [ __ ] when I'm Doubting myself I find the nearest mirror and I remind myself who I am when I'm [ __ ] sluggish I hop in a cold shower and I [ __ ] freeze

my [ __ ] nuts off I snap out of it because I know that I will always be challenged I always be tested and I will always have the opportunity to be a victim I will always have that opportunity if I have the opportunity to be happy today I have an instant opportunity to be very sad the same [ __ ] second later yeah and um that's what I share with people that's that's what I believe in that's my philosophy on life and that's how I not justify but that's how I honor all these past

lives you know these these brave men and women that we'll never have a [ __ ] chance to go all in but I [ __ ] do and I'm not going to [ __ ] be a disrespectful [ __ ] slug of a person by playing an Old version of me that doesn't exist that doesn't serve me that doesn't enhance my life that doesn't want to win big that doesn't want to go all in that doesn't want to [ __ ] help change this world to put belief back into people well that's a that's a

hell of a message dude that's [ __ ] incredible how many psychedelic Journeys do you think you've done um 30 30 yeah 30ish 30 uh various civil cbin LSD DMT iasa um you can even have experience with the cannabis breath work I do it with breath work meditation we've come a long [ __ ] ways obviously yep and I don't it's not a destination this part of the process and when I forget to invest in myself all I have to do is look back at my own logo And be like bro are you aligned are

you investing in your mind body and your spirit today oh you haven't done it for the past 5 days and you wonder why you're this where you're at to me that's ownership that's my mirror my logo is my mirror my company my brand is my mirror my coaching group is my mirror my voice my mouth my ears my eyes and my mirror and I just create all these things to hold myself accountable to Remind myself because if I can if I can if there's a chance then there's a chance I can forget and if if

life to me is all about remembering then I must do what it takes to to to remember yeah I can only do that by making deposits daily and not all days are wins not all days of my greatest successes some days I'll just do [ __ ] 20 push-ups bro and I and I I kind of feel bad about it but I'll go move my Body some days I won't eat right on my [ __ ] my meal plan my diet and instead of talking [ __ ] to myself I'm like all right dude let's

button the [ __ ] up you know had to change the way because there's a lot of rules and there's a lot of different you need to live like this you need to live so hardcore po if you're a dude or you're a vet you got to be this if you're a chick you got to do this if you're [ __ ] lost in life you got to Do there's so many subscriptions out there to do and I tried to do all of them and I never felt they were all like religions religious titles to

me I never really felt connected to any one of them sprinkles of them made sense but as a whole complete unit I'm just like it's like a [ __ ] title that's why I give myself a [ __ ] madeup name I'm a mindset belief Builder one I believe in it but two I don't need to [ __ ] be a I don't need to have a title like anyone else I'm me how can I ever encourage you to be you if I say hey you have to be this label you have to subscribe to

this one thing so I kind of take this approach of like oh yeah I'm into breath work hell yeah I'm into I'm into breathing I'm into hugging I'm into energy bro if I can't Vibe with you we can't hang out this is simple what it is I work too hard to even have the feeling of what energy is to jeopardize it you Know like all these different things and I just have this toolbox instead of saying I only do this this is what I do every day cuz I tried that life too and I failed

a lot and when I failed a lot I beat myself up a lot so now I just pick I I I pick and pull I have this toolbox maybe today or this season of life doing cold showers doesn't work I took cold showers my entire winter off of well water in [ __ ] the woods very cold not one hot Shower but I've taken hot showers in the summertime weird but I now I spend time in the creek Vice or the lake Vice my shower so instead of holding a gun to you have to do

this Cody this is investing in yourself I'm like yo what how's another way to skin this cat how's another way to do this oh this is really hard so I can psych myself I'm be like okay man I kind of want to quit this but I know I'm not going to but I'll say whatever I got To do to like make it happen I'll [ __ ] I'll play tricks of my mind cuz I will not be defeated because it's me that has to execute that to say that and I know from experience cuz I'm

just I'm remembering that I don't have to be a victim I don't have to [ __ ] quit I just cuz it's hard or scary or you want to stop so I said [ __ ] it and I'm just going to rewrite life how I [ __ ] view it and I'm going to share that if it Resonates with people then right on if they can find a snippet of it and change their life then right on that's that's what I'm here for and I'm and I'm not even throwing spaghetti at the wall anymore to

see what sticks I said you know what [ __ ] it throwing spaghetti in the wall see what sticks that's for approval for other people I'm like I really only need approval for myself and if I can believe in what I say believe in what I do and hold myself accountable And realize that I am human I'm not perfect but I can adapt and overcome and evolve from that state and to learn and expand my Consciousness and to reprogram my subconscious Consciousness and to to find belief in things that I've only [ __ ] fathomed

if I can do that [ __ ] does it really matter if anyone cares my spaghetti stucks sticks to the wall yeah so and to me that's being EMP powered and through all that amazing life story that I have a lot of doubts and Insecurities and unknowns through that suffering this how I got here and here is just the beginning here is just the next evolution of self and life and I have no idea what tomorrow brings but I know that I'm going to give today my best as much as I can even when I

don't want to I'm going to give myself some Grace and some love and I'm going to apply that the love language from the medicine into Myself and I make those deposits now I can [ __ ] I can share that deposit with you I can invest in you now I can invest into this that and that person but I'm making sure my cup is being filled by self-investment so now I can give and give truth and not give insecurity doubt fear scarcity um and my whole life has [ __ ] changed because I changed my

story Tony Robin says if you want to change your life you got to change your Story it's absolutely true if you want to change your life you got to change your story I went from [ __ ] being an ultimate victim couldn't be self-sufficient to I'm Limitless dude I'm [ __ ] Limitless no if I can't do something I find somebody if I want something I find a way I don't have these hurdles like oh that's too hard I find a way cuz that's what we're taught we find A way so if I can remember

that b yeah what's next for you uh what's next is I'm finally working on my book uh I want to help people I don't want to tell them cool War Stories I want to tell them how they can transform their lives um so I'm working on this book I have uh I'm revamping my my coaching group I have I run this Mentor group called thei Tribe and it is straight up about empowering people some motivation but more real tangible things to to to evolve your life people people want more money people want better communication they

want better relationships they want to look better they want to feel better they want to love they want all these things so I showed them how they can have it and starting this community that defi Tribe Community my online mentorship program that's just a drop in the bucket that's just that's just the next phase you know it's and I'm grateful and these people are changing their life and they're believing themselves and they have their fair share of suffering ahead of them there is no I did it I fixed it everything's perfect but they realize that

they can overcome it they realize that they can remember What work before and apply it to their life now with the knowledge they have they're Master creators and that's what I show people and so that's that's what next for me is like how do I now taking that group to the next level dude like Tony Robbins watch out bro you know like we're going to share a stage together I a in competition with you but I got a message to change the world also and out of all the things that I really want to do

or Thought I wanted to do that is the most that it keeps me getting pulled towards it I got out thought about wanting to make money how do I make money how do I survive how do I feed my family let me go let me go shoot some guns and teach people that shit's [ __ ] weak it ain't for me CU I I do it and I'm good at it but it's not doesn't fill my cup it doesn't challenge my belief system it doesn't cause me to Evolve and I'm impacting on a very small

level compared to how I how I feel I'm impacting now and and so what's next for me is the unknown man and I'm okay with that and all I know is that the only way to navigate that unknown is just like put one foot in front of the other and all I know is I'm not stopping so that's what the unknown has for me I'm going to [ __ ] I do the things that I say I'm going to do it might take me time but I do them and I'm going to continue that Momentum

I'm going to continue putting myself out there I'm going to continue being a staple of what a special operator could be to what you can be and I realize that as long as I carry that proverbial cross around and I say this is mine bro this is me this is how I live my life I'm not above you I'm not better than you I'm just better than myself yesterday and if I can walk around with that truth and share that message then [ __ ] man that might change Someone's life it will and so that's

what's next to me I want to get in front of as many people as I possibly can and share that one message they need to he to transform their life to realize they're powerful and to bring their power back to themselves and these are all taboo names that's why I give myself a fake title because I can do anything but I realize that all I need to do is get around them all they need to do is connect tap into their Source apply their mindset to their belief system and they're [ __ ] Unstoppable but

it's also that reprogramming of that hey suffering is part of the process we are here to suffer because through suffering we find appreciation and value and self- resect and self-worth we're born into this Earth effortlessly we didn't earn it we didn't fight for it maybe in the universe maybe as a soul finding a Contract to come into the Earth to the count birth canal and to be born but we were given life and we're giving opportunity and when you live with that mindset you're you're let down a lot and so if we can help help

people reprogram like hey suffering isn't a bad thing suffering doesn't doesn't have to be what it used to be suffering can just be part of the process be part of the journey discomfort that's part of Suffering walking in the rain that's suffering nobody wants to do that but that's how you keep commitments to yourself you said you're going to go walk today it's raining who cares you go walk I don't give a [ __ ] it's 10 minutes go do what you said you were going to do cuz you continue to let yourself down all

the meditation all the bread work all the plant medicine you're doing you're just saying [ __ ] you I don't care about you cuz you're saying you're Saying I don't care about me to [ __ ] do what I say I'm going to do and these are all these things that I've learned that are very true to my life and if I can hold myself accountable if I can speak my truth and live my truth like I said I'm not perfect I'm not a Supreme Being dude I I I had a porn addiction before I

had a [ __ ] pill addiction before I used to [ __ ] do all sorts of dumb horrible things I'm still capable of those things if I allow myself to but I do my best to not do those things I realize those things make my life worse than they make my life better so instead of beating myself up I just give myself power to [ __ ] Embrace a suffering oh [ __ ] I don't want to get up I want to just stay in bed I'm so tired okay and then be pissy all

day because you told yourself you wanted to work out and you didn't work out really you really want to live all [ __ ] day Doing that [ __ ] see how well you're going to be present in your life These are conversations I have with myself these are realities and tests and trials and experiments that i r with myself and I don't like those days so now I'm like okay how can I keep my word to myself today how can I do what I said I was going to do for my wife how can

I maximize my time how can I not be lazy today how can I push myself towards the more unknown the SC scary Dark abyss y so well how do people find you uh uh social media mainly uh social media uh and my website weed defy the norm well those will be linked below yeah those are those are my main ones I I'm working on a website right now uh Cody alfred.com basically to consolidate all my stuff but we defy the norm and my Instagram the Cody Alfred that's really how people get a hold of me

and I do my Best to get back to people and my my coaching program is link through all those programs also and I invest in people who want to invest in themselves you know my time is limited my energy is limit my energy is is Limitless but my time is limited so I have to find a good maximizing capability to to provide and to serve and that's why I focus on people who want to believe in themselves who want to invest in themselves and it's changed everything for me CU now I Attract the energy that

I want I'm empowering people through their own [ __ ] power and we're growing collectively as a team and dude that's been a game changer for my life how for my soul well man that is one hell of a [ __ ] Journey that you've been on and um I just want to thank you for coming it's been a real honor to interview you and and get that firsthand account of your life and I just wish you the best Man you're are a solid [ __ ] human being and I'm just proud as hell to

know yeah likewise I'm very grateful and humble to be here and have this opportunity to do this well it's been my pleasure but uh best luck man thank you cheers hey what's up everybody I hope you enjoyed the episode if you did There's behind the scenes exclusive content with me and Cody on Vigilant sleep patreon go check that Out also if you haven't seen our episode with Eric Prince everybody in this country should watch that so previews to follow links in the description love you guys I hope you enjoyed the show I know you did

see you in a couple weeks promise to uh solemnly swear that the testim am fresh report of Reckless Behavior by Blackwater in Iraq Blackwater CEO Eric Prince made no apologies to a congressional investigating committee I disagree with The assertion that they acted like cowboys and it says three Senators Joe Biden Chuck Hegel and John KY the future vice president secretary of defense and Secretary of State respectively POS while waiting for Blackwater rescue their US Army helicopter got lost in a blinding snowstorm and sat down in Taliban territory on the side of Mountain do not ever

discount the Iranian influence on the Biden Obama administration then as there is Now he said Mr President give us the authorities and a billion dollars and in 3 weeks the Flies to be walking on the eyeballs of our enemies Prince said his employees act with restraint and professionalism he boasted that none of the US diplomats he has paid to protect have been killed or wounded it was a great honor that they turned to us because it was a very important mission right cuz the CIA is the ones who made that Victory possible For the United

States we've had a better response from Blackwater than we have from the state department we fought back on all fronts the one place that they had us over a barrel was with the state department Witnesses say the two SUVs were ambushed as they drove through town another Convoy of guys that got ambushed and shot up on the Baghdad Highway the contractors worked for Blackwater security a company that protects Coalition Personnel knowing that the Clowns at the state department and the Obama Administration did everything they could to block a program like that cuz it's not something

they directly controlled it is such a mess it is such a FedEd swamp Trump is right to call it a swamp it is [Music] hey everybody I'm Shawn Ryan click here to subscribe to the Sha Ryan Show YouTube channel for the hottest and most compelling interviews that you will not See anywhere else I've also made a playlist of all the previous SRS episodes so they're easy to find you can find that right here