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Episode 197: Healing the Warrior's Heart: Christopher Rocha’s journey of resilience, combat, and healing
Imagine navigating the chaos of a gang-ridden neighborhood while battling dyslexia. This is where Christopher's story begins. Growing up in San Antonio, Texas, he faced daunting challenges that molded his indomitable spirit and resilience, ultimately steering him towards a distinguished military career. In this episode, Christopher sheds light on the rigorous training and profound camaraderie within the 75th Ranger Regiment, offering a raw and unfiltered glimpse into the life of an elite soldier. Far from the glamorous portrayals in Hollywood, he opens up about the vulnerabilities and the emotional toll of service, revealing a side of warriors often left in the shadows.
We walk through Christopher’s transformative journey, from the turbulent years of his youth to the pivotal moment of enlisting in the Army. Hear gripping tales of survival, including a life-threatening encounter at a high school party, and the relentless trials of Ranger School. As he recounts the impact of September 11th on his regiment, the conversation takes us through the intense bonds formed in combat and the reality of multiple deployments. Christopher candidly discusses the trauma and leadership challenges, unpacking the art of survival and the emotional fallout from years on the battlefield.
Beyond the battlefield, the episode delves into Christopher's struggle with transitioning back to civilian life, where he faced new challenges of self-discovery and healing. He speaks passionately about the therapeutic potential of psychedelics and plant medicine, sharing personal anecdotes of recovery and growth. This episode is not just a tale of resilience and grit but also a profound exploration of accountability, self-acceptance, and the quest for inner peace. Join us for an inspiring and deeply moving conversation that offers valuable insights for veterans and anyone committed to understanding the true cost of service.
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Produced by Security Halt Media
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Speaker 2:let's go, You're dealing with an expert in guerrilla warfare With a man who's the best. With guns, with knives, with his bare hands, a man who's been trained to ignore people, ignore weather, to live off the land. A job with disposed and enemy personnel To kill.
Speaker 1:Period. Win by attrition. Dispose of enemy personnel to kill period. Right, christopher, welcome security on podcast man. Uh, thank you so much for being here. Coming across your video was nothing short of a godsend. I'm always looking for individuals that are from our warrior background, that have made it through the other side and have that calm, cool perspective of being able to look back, reflect and share with complete vulnerability what that journey is like. People always see the movies, they see the TV shows, they play us on video games and they think that character goes into that lobby, takes everything off and it's just normal human being. But the truth is we are from inception, we're very different and we struggle and we go through some insane things that serve as the catalyst for these amazing careers in soft. So today, my man, this is your episode.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me, and it's great that you point that out, right? Because, again, the service teaches us so much. We get institutionalized to fight and win the nation's wars. However, the US Army and all departments of defense don't teach you how to survive combat. So, to your point, those kids and those lay people see our jobs, they look at them and they forget the fact that we're human beings. Yes, right, they forget that we have to put on that armor, that we have to put on that mask so we can go do a job in which no human being should ever have to have the misfortune to go do which is close with and destroy the enemy, which is another human being. And there's a backside to that, which we do a terrible job as a service to look at and talk to. And it's great that you have me on because we get to shed some light on that today. We get to show people that, hey, we're human beings, we're just like you, right, we grew up just like everybody else.
Speaker 2:In most cases, most soft soldiers experience more than the average trauma, which is why we tend to gravitate towards this profession, because we are broken toys, in a way, into this institutional environment that uses us and I don't use that phrase lightly that uses us to do a job that that isn't meant. For most, it's less than 1% of the army and department of defense, and then we got to come back on the outside and we have to figure out. What do we do with this now? So I'm happy to be here, I'm glad to jump on for everybody that's listening. Please get on this imaginary dragon with us and let's take this journey together.
Speaker 1:Hell yeah, man, let's kick it off, because one thing that I love exploring is the various backgrounds where we come from and to anybody that's been on this journey with me and I'm seeing all the guests we have a solid understanding that Green Berets, rangers, seals, marsoc, tacps, ccts, a lot of our special operations professionals come from very, very traumatic backgrounds. It's not John Wayne anymore, it's not Christopher McDingleberry with the beautiful, with the beautiful, high and tight.
Speaker 2:Blonde hair, blue eyes like these aren't the dudes anymore not everybody's running around on a farm right, being taught how to shoot, how to be the perfect citizen, all these characteristics not to steal, not to do this I mean it's different. We come from everywhere, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So tell us, man, tell us about your origin story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so for me, I grew up as a poor kid in San Antonio, texas. I actually grew up on the west side of San Antonio and so, for those that are familiar, I lived right across the street from Lanier High School, and so while I was little, I grew up between, you know, hanging out with my parents at our home on Trinity Street versus staying with my grandmother. You know, on the weekends that lived in the projects, or what we refer to them as the courts. And so inside of that, for the first like 10 years of my life, I struggled between hanging out with my friends from the projects and then hanging out with my friends that lived in the neighborhood Not that these were suburbs of very nice houses, it was very inner city but moving through those items and then struggling with the fact that, as I grew up, one I had a learning disability, so I was dyslexic, and back then, in the early 80s, they didn't know what that was. So they thought I was special, they thought I was a special kid and they put me in special ed Right away. I realized I was like this isn't for me, this isn't where I need to be, it's not my vibe at all, it's like I got to figure out something different and I realized at a young age that nobody's going to do it for me. Either I figure out how to learn how to get around these systems that aren't working for me, or I figure out a way to get in with these systems and do enough so I can get into the environments that I wanted to be.
Speaker 2:So as I grew up, I went to Tafoya Middle School, which is a very rough area Overall. In the 90s, gangs were coming up and so the neighborhoods, being that we're all just, we're all the same, we're all Mexican kids just trying to survive. Most people in that area grew up in single-parent homes. Not many fathers were around, and those that were around were always working, like my dad was, consistently working, just so that we can have a better living than what they had. And obviously my parents' generation was a little bit different than ours, and while we're still rough, theirs is way rougher, and so, living in this environment in which we mix those different neighborhoods into that high school system, it was just a breeding ground for kids that were victims of trauma and abuse, looking to either be predators or figure out how not to fall into that state. To fall into that state and we turned into a bunch of kids that were looking for something to do, and sports kind of unified us.
Speaker 2:I remember playing every sport in middle school and then after that it was like you'd have to be back in the neighborhood and I was never a big kid. I'm not a big guy now, I'm about 5'8 now and about 200 pounds. However, back then I was about maybe 5'4" and maybe 120 pounds soaking wet, and so my wife always laughs because I walk so fast and I was like this is a product of the neighborhood. I got to move quick because the faster I move, the less interaction I have with people. The other thing is I learned right away that I was a little bit smarter than average, and so in my summers I'd go to the prep program they had in San Antonio for basically what STEM is now, and so in the summers I'd come up with my little project, trying to hide them in my backpack so I don't run into certain people that were my buddies or people that were from a different neighborhood and then have to break my project either running or trying to fight. And so I grew up in a neighborhood where every day, man, it was a struggle just to get by and I never liked fighting. You know my wife will laugh and say, no, that's not you, because again, different mask, right, and we'll go into that more as we go along, but I never liked it.
Speaker 2:My dad was dude. He looked like a biker, right, 5'9", you know, light skin, skin, green eyes and just a huge man. And and everywhere he walked he commanded respect, whereas me I was always in the shadow, like how can I not, you know, get into a fight? How can I not, you know, run into these people? I would try to go my way to walk around, like I got real good at walking, which came in service of me later because I would. I would avoid certain neighborhoods if I could, because I was always frightened man. I didn't like hurting people.
Speaker 2:I'm kind of like my son in which if you told me, hey, what do you want to do, I'd be like I just want to hang out with the book. You know, do some things. I don't want to go out and be physical, but I learned right away that I needed to. And then, more importantly, to get my dad's attention, because every time he'd play with me in the football field at Lanier, all the kids would come out because they didn't receive that attention, and I found out that, hey look, if you catch a pass, if you run quick, that's what turns my dad on. He would cheer on all these other kids and then I'd score a touchdown and kind of be like you can do this better.
Speaker 2:I didn't understand at the time what he was doing, nor did I understand, until I became a father, the blocks that we face as men, in which sometimes we lose the ability to have the tools to be compassionate for those people that we care about, like. As we talk about this story, I'll tell you how. I mentored people and in the beginning of my career I was a terror. I didn't understand the leadership. I understood how to mimic leadership and what I saw, because I didn't understand the science behind it. But you know, he would give this love to these kids and I'd be there running my ass off, you know, doing everything I could do to get his attention, and it just never seemed good enough.
Speaker 2:And so at that time I learned I was like hey, my dad was like you're going to go learn how to fight, because nobody takes advantage of you. You know, you're a Rocha, you represent something and I want to ensure that you can take care of yourself. What message stuck with me was hey, you know you, being you, is a vulnerability. You can't be sensitive, you can't be smart. You have to be strong and you have to be willing to exact violence at a moment's notice. So I got into boxing.
Speaker 2:I'd come home, my dad was like, show me what you learned. And I was like Dad, what can I show you? So we box a bit. And he'd like really go at it. And if I got lucky enough to hit him, then I'd get an onslaught, a bunch of punches, cause my dad was a strong dude, but he was trying to toughen me up, right, just trying to toughen me up to the environment. And, like I said, at the time I didn't realize that. I thought, you know I'm, I'm darker, like my mom, I'm not enough. I had a cousin of mine who was a mirror image of my dad. You know, light skin, bigger than me. When we were little, my dad would get with his sister and they would make us fight, right, you know, common Mexican household. And then my dad walked around.
Speaker 2:Standard operating procedures, my dad walked around and be like, yeah, because me and my sister would beat him up, right, and I remember feeling bad about it, but I remember my dad being happy and I was like you know, that's where I kind of started to get into the area where I was like this is confusing. You know, I didn't really understand what morals were to say, because parents back then didn't say, hey, look, these are the morals. They turned around and said this is the way we'd like you to be, we want going to give you the tools. And they didn't say it this cleanly, but they did an everyday experience and through expression. And so then, as we got older, they started beating us up, because it grew up in harder environments than we did, which is hard to imagine and then I would see the disappointment and then I understood.
Speaker 2:And then, as I grew up, through middle school and then eventually going to high school, I just seemed like the guy that everybody wanted to test with or pick on, because I was a smaller one. If I was with a group of friends and somebody wanted to fight and we didn't want to fight as a whole group, it was like, all right, pick one person. And it was always me and I was like, why, like, why me, right, just got that face. Yeah, and just got that face Right. And I learned right away and I said in the video. My dad was like look man, you know you're going to get into some fights, but don't ever let anybody take advantage of you. If you do, when you come home I'm going to beat you worse than them, right, and a lot of people will hear that and say, oh my God, but you have to understand the times, right, and you also have to understand now that I'm 44, I realized what my dad was trying to say. He was like hey, if fear is going to be the motivator and that's what it is in this neighborhood I want you to understand, through all the love that he could muster, that, hey, I want you to understand that Don't be afraid when you're out there. Know that you can do this, and if I have to leverage fear to do it, then so be it, which is a lesson that I didn't learn until later. And so, again, I got pretty decent at it. Hated every time, I hated it every time, but I got decent at it. And so, as we grew up, I was getting ready to go to high school, and I remember specifically they take kids from middle school and they take you to tour the high school before you go there.
Speaker 2:And again, lanier High School originally started out as a vocational school in the west side of San Antonio, and so it brings together kids from different I separated by projects, with different neighborhoods in the west side of San Antonio. You get kids from the Alazon Apache courts, you get kids from the Casiano homes, you get kids from that general area, and none of them like each other. Even the kids that live next general area None of them like each other. Even the kids that live next door to each other don't like each other. And all of them have one issue they're looking to be good at something to be accepted, and I would tell you quite honestly, I thought about this when I retired. If the Army really wanted to have a breeding ground for special operations and special operators, they should set up a program inside of these neighborhoods and you'll get some of the finest professionals you will ever get across the world, because they have the right amount of trauma. They want to be accepted and all they want to do is be told that they're good enough and, as you know, in the community you work and you show that you're good enough and you get that praise. That's why we do so well.
Speaker 2:And so we went on this tour and, I swear to God, within 30 minutes of being there, there was a huge gang fight inside the courtyard because 15, right, 15, I think 14 year old kids were touring to go there next year and it was one of those items that I've.
Speaker 2:This is my first experience of being part of a mob where we came in and there there's different groups of neighborhoods inside of that, but we all, like, agreed that we're going to hold together. And then kids came out from a different neighborhood that were in that school and it turned into a fight but nobody knew who was fighting who, because nobody knew who was with each other. And as we're fighting in there, you know we're throwing blows in the middle of the school and I'm just like I can't do this. For four years, you know, like I've never gone to like prison, because I was always terrified of being trapped in a cage, having to choose between my authentic self and the sensitive guy that I want to be, that didn't know how to be that until now, and doing what I realized my dad did once I grew up is kill everything good inside me so I can be hard and exact violence so I can survive.
Speaker 1:Man, that's something that I've heard from so many guys.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I had to make that decision. I was like I can't do this. I was like I cannot do this. So, luckily, I applied to a magnet school. I got denied and then, for whatever reason, the school had just started in 1994 when I started high school, and they did not have enough people coming in to accept the invitations given. So I got a reclama, I got invited back and so I ended up going to school on the north side of town at Robert E Lee High School for the International School of the Americas.
Speaker 2:The problem was is my parents didn't have a lot of money, so they didn't have a car at the time, and so literally from my house, if you go to my neighborhood today, I can go to my front yard and I can see the backside of the high school. I could have woke up every day at 810, been ready by 820, been in class by 830, and still had time to eat breakfast and hang around with my friends. Versus, what I ended up doing is waking up every day at five in the morning. There's the indoctrination of waking up early and being able to handle that in the army To take two buses so that if I made it on time I'd get there 40 minutes early, around 740. Or if I missed one bus, I'd get there 20 minutes late, at 850. And I did that for three years until my parents got me a car and so inside of that, like downtown, I'd be in downtown San Antonio by the riverwalk trying to catch a different bus and I'd run into the same type of kids from different neighborhoods trying to steal my backpack or just hassling me and give me a hard time because why not? There's four of them, there's one of me. So I got used to working in crowds, so to speak.
Speaker 2:And then I realized that I went to this school and I had a different set of teachers than the San Antonio Independent School District. It was a Northeast Independent School District. I had Caucasian teachers that really wanted to invest in me and I was confused. Have you ever seen those videos of those cats or animals that have been abused and you try to love them and they cry and they push away? I was that kid that was so confused because I was like how is it in one city that I can come from a neighborhood that has nothing, to come to a place with abundance, and why is it separated? Like I was never educated enough to understand, like, why can't we have this everywhere? Until I was an adult and you figure out right away why it doesn't spread around.
Speaker 2:And so these teachers took time to invest in me, um, even when I didn't want to invest in myself, right, I remember a couple of teachers. They would just sit down and be like you have so much potential, and I was like I don't Right. And they would be like, no, you have so much potential, and why can't you just sit down and why can't you just learn, and why can't you just, you know, be a part of the group? And I couldn't. And every time I'd get upset. And this was the first time I was around kids, um, you know where the majority of kids were were not like me, like in this school.
Speaker 2:International school of America is, I think maybe 40% of us were Mexican American, the rest were Caucasian, um, or African American, and you didn't see that in my neighborhood, right? You maybe had like maybe 5% to 10% African-American, maybe 5% Caucasian, and so I was just like in a new world, literally. And so, as I went through that, I did well enough, because I kind of slacked through a little bit, because, again, you know, most intelligent people will just get bored right away, and I was always trying to figure out something else, because I was always afraid if I gave a hundred percent and failed, what did that say about me? Right, that means I gave it my all and I failed. I didn't understand at the time that failure is where the magic happens. Failure is where you find out who you are.
Speaker 2:I didn't realize that until Ranger School which we'll get into a little bit later, but fast forward got a scholarship to go to a college in Michigan, wanted to be a lawyer when I was 16, I'd end up going to the wrong party at the wrong time and the wrong place, literally two blocks away from my house and some kid that I got into a fight with when I was in seventh grade because I remember this vividly he was walking home and if I ever run into the dude, you know, the first thing I would tell him is is I'm sorry for whatever I did to hurt you, but you know, this just so happened that a group of our guys from our neighborhood caught this guy when, a week earlier, a group of their guys had jumped one of the guys there and because he was by himself. They said, hey, you go, you go fight him, cause I was the smallest one and I was like, man, I don't want to do this. And they're like, hey, kick his ass, we're going to kick your ass. And I was like trying I getting next to him and then finally I ripped his chain off and I hit him and I saw the look on his face, dude, and it broke my heart and so he ended up taking off and that was. I did the bare minimum in order to get these guys from beating the hell out of them.
Speaker 2:And so fast forward and I go to this high school party. We're hanging out. I'm like no-transcript, nowhere. I feel like like sensations in my head. I look over and it's some guy pistol whipping me.
Speaker 2:And then I realized right away I was like I need to get the hell out of here, I'm going to get killed. So I knock him off of me when I go to run, the guy on the floor of it I had gotten into a fight with that I had just talked about, grabbed me by my hood and stabbed me in the back of my shoulder. I was able to knock him away and I ran as fast as I could you know? And when you're in the army you're always like, oh, if I ever have to do something, I'm going to have this energy forever. I remember making it a block and a half and I was like I stopped and I was like man, this is a day I'm going to die Cause I can't run anymore. Looking back, I was like man. Cardio, I was so little, I should have had more cardio, but I remember just like work on cardio and for all those kids out there right, you look at these video games.
Speaker 2:Cardio is key. You can't be a special operations soldier without having cardio right. So I make it to my house. You know my dad sees it turns it to the dick to do for a couple years. You know, looking for those guys. They live a block away. Really not much you know SAPD could do I end up getting. So the point of the story is I ended up getting an internship my junior year of high school with the criminal justice center in San Antonio. It's only open to college students and it's very hard to get. You know, 10% of people that apply get it.
Speaker 2:I got it, um, cause I was interviewed and, just like the video that you discovered me from, I had something to say and I said it in a way that kind of turned people on that said, hey, we need to look at this problem. And so I worked there and we'd get together and all the kids were like how did you get in? How'd you get in? I told him I was a high school student. Everybody was like, how is this? This is so hard to get, and so it turned me on to that place and I wanted to be a lawyer. I got this scholarship, told my dad about it. My dad was excited because finally one of our own was going to do something with themselves and maybe get out of this place. But I would tell you I was terrified because I knew my parents didn't have money and it wasn't a full ride scholarship. I slacked a bit. Towards the end I met who later became my first wife, and I really didn't pay attention to school that much, and so I was like I can't go, because how do you go to a different state when you've never left your own city and then try to earn a job where you're going through school and then have to go to law school later? I was terrified. I ended up making a decision that my son made, which we'll talk about later, and so I told my dad no, I'm not going to go to college.
Speaker 2:My dad was a mechanic for the city for years, my mom was a cleaning lady at various hotels and then she was a an employee at the San Antonio library. So they're very, very hardworking people. And when I told my dad, no, he was like you're going to go, and I was like dad, I'm not going, I'm going to go work, just like you. And he was like dad, I'm not going, I'm going to go work just like you. And he was like, okay, and so I went home. There was. I remember it vividly. There was four trash bags in the lawn and I was like what's this? I couldn't get into the house. My dad was there and he was like it's all your stuff you know he said it differently, but it's all your stuff. He's like go life the way you think you're going to do it have a nice day, and so I left.
Speaker 2:So I ended up being a mechanic. I was working at Firestone as a general service technician, changing oil and stuff like that. I realized right away. I was like now I know why my dad is so salty, because mechanical work is seasonal. Nobody comes in, you don't get the hours and it sucks. When it's cold, it's cold. When it's hot, it's hot. And, unlike the service, you don't have that camaraderie where, hey, we just knocked out this whole slew of customers. Let's hang out. We did something together. It's like you're taking away from me. Everybody's fighting to get those customers to their bays because some of the mechanics are getting paid by commission and then by commission, and then the other the other techs don't want to get their hours cut.
Speaker 2:And then I realized that all these people in charge of me were just a couple of years older than me. I was like 18 at the time and there were maybe 22, 23. And I was like I can't do this. So I ended up enlisting in the army when I was 19 or 18. And I ended up leaving when I was 19 or 18. And I ended up leaving when I was 19. The problem was is I was a little bit of a pain in the ass. I had like $5,000 worth of tickets. Uh, drinking underage, you know, speeding no insurance not just a few, right.
Speaker 2:And again, I was on my own just trying to survive, yeah. And so I tried going to the Navy. You know, I knew I wanted to do something special. I had saw the movie Green Beret and I was like I want to be a Green Beret. My dad's uncle, my great uncle, was a Green Beret in Vietnam who was MIA. But I had no clue what the army was. I had no clue what Ranger was. I had no clue what Green Beret was.
Speaker 2:My dad was in the army. It was mechanized, but he didn't last longer than basic because he wanted to drink and party with his friends. So he was trying to school me on his life, like don't do this, don't do this. I wasn't smart enough to go to college, this is where you need to go, but he didn't have the tools to tell me in a way that would have been efficient and effective for me to understand. All he knew was the hurt from the pain of his traumas, of his life and growing up. And so, as kids, when you tell us, when you tell child, no, what's the first thing we're going to say, yeah, okay, I'm going to do it Right, and I'm going to do it better than you because I'm better than you. Okay, we don't have the luxury of experience. And so finally, the army recruiter got ahold of me and he saw me coming from a mile away. Man, he was a Sergeant, first class Puerto Rican guy. He saw me, you know, he kind of heard my spiel.
Speaker 2:I was working with the Air Force, the Air Force, I went with them. They took me to take that test you take after basic training for CCT or PJ. I couldn't hold my breath on the water to save my life, right. So I failed the underwater swim. I did well at everything else and they were like hey, go learn how to swim, go pay off your tickets, come back and see us. And I was like I can work on the swimming part, I can't get $5,000.
Speaker 2:So I went over to the Army recruiter and the Army recruiter, right when I walked in, I mean, he did it in the way, the best way possible. He stood up after he talked to me. He, he did it in the way the best way possible. He stood up after he talked to me. He announced to the whole recruiting office he's like here's Christopher Rocha, he wants to be a blackberry. And he started clapping, you know, and I was like and I felt important, but it was a whole. Still they did, cause other guys were kind of looking like yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:And so he was like I got the job for you. He's like I hear what you want to do. You don't need to be a Navy SEAL, you don't need to go to the Air Force, you want to jump out of planes. I was like, yeah, he's like you want to blow stuff up. I was like, yeah, he's like you want to be special. I was like hell, yeah. He's like do you know what a ranger is? I was like I have no clue. He's like you're going to do that too. I was like hell, yeah. He's like rangers are black berets. You're going to have a black beret. You're going to jump out of planes. You're going to blow stuff up.
Speaker 2:I was like yes, where do I sign? He's like real quick, do you know what infantry is? I was like absolutely not. He's like all right, I just need you to sign up for six years, but we'll give you a $20,000 signing bonus. I was like $20,000. I was like wait a minute, I have tickets. He's like don't worry about it, we'll take care of it tomorrow. I was like sign me up.
Speaker 2:Signed up, took me to the courthouse, talked to the judge. Judge gave me this spiel about how much of a terrible human being I was Wrote off all my items, dismissed them, was getting ready to go Signed up with my best friend, who we're still friends after 36 years. Getting ready to go. Go to go pick up my best friend so he can go to basic, to get on the buddy program, because I get an additional rank. Got him Right. No, he got me.
Speaker 2:So his dad, so his dad. His dad was a vietnam vet. His dad, when I told him I joined the army, kind of gave me a look like like similar to my dad, where his heart looked like it broke. Yeah, and this guy wasn't an emotional dude at all and he just kind of like turned and walked away and I thought I'd disappoint him. I understood why later, and so when I went to go pick up my buddy, he didn't come out. I was outside for like 45 minutes and that's when I felt like for the rest of your life you're going to be alone.
Speaker 2:And so I went to basic training, went through those items Every day. I hated it. I was like I don't know what I'm doing here. You know, back then in the 90s, all they wanted to do because we were in a peacetime army, we were talking about going to the show Maybe we'll go to combat Desert Storm and Somalia had passed. You know, I joined in 99.
Speaker 2:So everybody was chomping at the bit and all they knew how to do in the infantry training at that time is smoke the shit out of you to see if you can make it. And so I was like I can do the exercises. I was like, but I don't like this. And, more importantly, they didn't teach. They threw blocks of instruction at you so I didn't understand what the hell they were teaching me. Like I couldn't tell an ambush line from a hole in the ground, like I just knew hey, if you tell me to go and you point me in the direction where I need to shoot, I'll take care of everything else in that linear fashion.
Speaker 2:So got sick, caught the measles inside of basic, ended up going home for two weeks, which was the worst thing ever. Right, because went home. You know, my future wife was there, or wife at the time, cause we got married. Before I left, cause again. I made a promise to her. You know she, she was there for me and my dad threw me out. I was like I can't leave this girl. I'm big on promises.
Speaker 2:And so I was like I don't want to go back. I was like I don't want to do it and my dad I remember my dad being like look, you already threw everything else away. Don't fail at this like I did. You're going to take your ass, you're gonna go back. And I was like I remember and I'll be very vulnerable here I was, I was crying. I was a 19 year old adult and I was like like a child right, because I was scared. And again, fear is a big item in my story because it kept me from doing so many things that I wanted to do. It stunted me as a human being. It took me the the better part of 42 years to understand that fear is just a feeling. So I get to go, I go back. I finally muster it to go back because I'm like look, this woman's dependent on me, don't want to put her through the lifestyle that I know that we'll stay in living in this neighborhood, staying here, or do I want to do something different?
Speaker 2:And I remember what my recruiter told me because he was very slick too, outside of the whole clapping and everything else, because I'm giving you the high level stuff. He took me to his place on post. He showed me he had a hobby for for fixing up Volkswagen bugs. He showed me and I love cars, so he showed me his whole garage. He's like I make all this money. He's like you can do a simple job if you want, because he forgot how he sold the army to me. Yeah, he's like I take a pt test once a year. You can have it very easy. And then he remembered you were signing me up for a quota that he needed to fill. And then that's when he changed the story, because he would go back and forth from being real with me to selling me on where I wanted to go.
Speaker 2:And so I made it through basic, went to airborne school. You know, I remember basic training. I had a group of buddies because there's not many Mexican-Americans that end up getting into the service all joined together. There was a group of six of us. They were all mechanized. They talked me into going mechanized. I recycled into a new company where all the drill sergeants were mechanized.
Speaker 2:I remember going up to the drill sergeant and saying hey, I don't want to be a ranger, I want to go mechanized. And he looked at me and he was a mechanized dude that was proud as hell to be 11 Mike. And he was like not for you, he goes. I get it, I understand he goes, but if I do this, you will regret it. He goes, yeah, and he's like you have the potential. I don't say this to many people, but you have the potential to make it. You need to get away from these guys and you need to go on with your contract and do what you came here to do, because if these guys are going to do is drink, you're not going to be where you need to be. And so I was all upset. I was like, damn, I want to see my wife, I want to hurry up and go.
Speaker 2:So I went to Airborne school, got in with some guys from 101st, the Lerch team team, who showed me what it was like to be in the army. It took me to Panama Beach uh, panama City Beach on the weekends, because we're a summer class, you know. They were telling about the army. They were trying to get me to go to 101st. Like you don't need to be a ranger. We're rangers, you know, we've been to ranger school. Come with us.
Speaker 2:So I made it through to not going with them and then, sure enough, graduate, have my airborne wings super stoked, super proud, and then this deuce and a half shows up. I'm like what's this for? And I have my bags there. And there it is. It's the ranger cadre from rip and I'm expecting like congratulations and yeah, you know you're one of the few that make it. It's like, all right, we're getting ready to go, hurry up and load your bags. We're leaving in X amount of time and if you're not loaded, you're running with them. So I remember helping you know everybody that was there there's like five or six of us trying to throw bags in and they took off and because I was helping, I had one bag. So I had to run with one of my bags, chasing after this truck the mile down the road to get to the 75th range regiment. And that's where I was introduced to the future of what I would become.
Speaker 2:And then I realized right away that it was a very different world. Yeah, like a very different world. The funny thing is is, back then, no matter how much I shaved, I always had a five o'clock shadow, oh shit. So every day I was a rip. It was like hey, cause I was a holdover for a week. Before the next class started I was like go shave your face. We don't do mustaches here. What the hell? Who do you think you are? Where are you coming from? I've shaved my face, sergeant. They're like go shave it again and I'd shave and I'd come back down. They're like didn't I tell you to shave? I was like, sergeant, for the love of everything, I've shaved my face and so finally I made it through RIP.
Speaker 2:I remember being one of the only people that wanted to go to 3rd Ranger Battalion. I actually asked for it. I traded a slot to 175. And anybody listening to this would be like you're the dumbest person I've ever met. You deserve everything that happened to you, because I remember this kid was like we're like where are you going? Some guy was like 275. I was like I don't even know what a 275 is, sure. And he was like it's in Washington. I was like DC state, I don't know man, you know. In Washington. I was like DC state, I don't know man, you know. And then this kid was like yeah, I got three, seven, five and I was like where's that at? He's like it's right across the street. And I was like I was doing the math in my head. I was like I'm familiar with this area, I don't have to leave, I can, I can get my wife over here quick. I was like hasn't been bad so far, was like I'll trade you. And he was like where are you going? Yeah, he's like where are you going? I was like 175 and he kind of looked at me and everybody kind of looked.
Speaker 2:It's like when you're in ranger school and you're like, hey, I want to trade. You know peanut butter for something and some kid will come by. I was like I'll give you a pound cake for it. And everybody's like something ain't right. So I traded with him. He took. He was like, was like are you sure? And I was like yeah, I'm positive man, I want it.
Speaker 2:And so I remember the cadre coming up and saying hey, I understand you want to trade. We look at your files. You listed your bills. You don't make enough money to be in the army versus what you say you're responsible for. And so again I'm in that position where I have to either learn how the system works or I got to be honest and right away I was like I was like Sergeant, I was confused, I'm dumb, I don't know how to add right, all a lie. I was like this isn't right. And he looked at me and he was like you're going to 375. And I was like, yeah, I guess I had a quota at the time to get people there. And he was like, all right, cool, we got it. Boom, go over there. Luckily enough, I was through this whole lottery system that they have.
Speaker 2:I got picked up for Bravo Company, which is a very historic and in my personal opinion because I'm biased is the most combat decorated company in the 75th Ranger Regiment. From everything we did in previous to me for Somalia to all the things we did during GWAT, I got lucky enough to get picked up there and I knew that because when I went there, my welcome into Bravo Company 375 was have a beer, sit down and hang out, versus the kids that went to ACO getting screamed at because I could hear from their building in the old World War II barracks of them getting just tormented. And then the SECO kids cleaning the company area like they were sweeping the swept sidewalk every day until 2300 hours Versus me that was given a beer and was told to hang out. And, being the good kid that I was, I was like I got, I got to iron my my uniform right and so got into a good group there and then, you know, learned what it was like to be a ranger. And then at that time, as I said in the video, I remember every day saying I want to go to the show because that's what, that's what they called it. You know, every day, you know, plato, we'd get bored, we'd do our train-ups and then we'd go fight each other.
Speaker 2:Because back then in the old army we would stay in these World War II barracks where half the floor was one platoon, half the floor was the other platoon, and that was where you worked out of your barracks for the duty day. I hadn't been released to go home yet, so I got to stay there for a month doing that before I got to take block leave and go pick up my wife and all my stuff, and so we clean weapons after, after going to a range, then we'd go over to the first platoon area and try to take one of their people and then we get into a huge fight. So I was like I'm back in my same neighborhood. The only difference is is nobody here is doing it out of fear. We're working together to go show that we're the best ones on the floor. And that attracted me.
Speaker 2:And I had this squad leader man. This guy was amazing, like smart dude, funny, had an ass the size of a dump truck. And I say this because every time we'd go on a run on fort benning, people used to wear those little ranger pants and people would make fun, like they would look at them and make comments and it would just make them run faster.
Speaker 1:You think, boy, you think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Like they would make comments and he would just run faster and I was like Jesus. But it helped me be the person that I was. Yeah, and then I just knew right away. I was like I found my family. So I had a spec four who was like Bobby Hill, looked just like him from King of the Hill and it would become my team leader. This dude, I love him to death. Right, I've shared some time with this guy. He's one of my great friends, but he would torment the hell out of me. Then we had another guy and I don't mention any names on purpose, but we had another guy that all he did was run whenever we're in the field. If it would rain he put perc plus in his hair to wash his hair. Right, he couldn't be dirty at all. But come to find out when went to ranger school he was the dirtiest kid ever. Um, you know whole deal.
Speaker 2:It was a platoon of so many different personalities, but one of the greatest platoons had ever been a part of. That company went out of their way to teach everybody how to be adults. The command team, first sergeant and commander, ended up teaching the spouses to their spouses what a military family should be like. As a matter of fact, my former commander, my very first commander, is a three-star general now and the first sergeant's deceased. But he was a grenade raider. He went to Desert Storm with 175. You know he had the old combat scroll. He had two jump stars. It was an amazing company. And then we'll get into the port where GWAT happened.
Speaker 2:And so I remember that morning we're sitting there coming in from breakfast and the guy who runs all the time comes running in. He's like hey, turn on the TVs. And so we see the towers fall and I remember at that time I was like, oh shit, we get to go to the show. And I remember everybody in the company was terrified, Like you can see that they're all scared. And then you can see like the beginnings of those kids start to put on that mask, Because you go from wanting it, because it's never going to happen. The most combat we're going to see is when we beat the hell out of each other trying to steal people from the floors. And then you see reality kick in and then you realize that you were part of a lineage in a company that has a great responsibility to hold up that reputation of combat. I mean we're in a company and my squad leader was Rippy, that showed up after Somalia, after Black Hawk down, and so he knew how you get treated when you come back. And so we're like now it's our turn. And then you're like now it's our turn. And then you see the kids like like start changing, yeah Right, you see those kids that are go happy to focus, and now it's like everybody's focused and everybody's kind of irritated, Like I saw at a very micro level the the future of what being exposed to trauma and combat would be where the symptoms of PTSD being exposed to trauma and combat would be were the symptoms of PTSD. Because now people were irritated, People were hyper-focused, People were worried about their space, didn't have patience or anything, because they were so hyper-focused on what's going to happen to me, what's going to go on. And then we got deployed and so in the course of eight deployments with Bravo Company, Third Ranger Battalion, I deployed eight times.
Speaker 2:I was on both invasions. When the towers came down, within two weeks we were in country, operating out of a foreign country, conducting some combat operations in Afghanistan. I didn't really see a lot of action in Afghanistan, so to speak, Did a bunch of missions, but Afghanistan really wasn't my thing at that time. And then we invaded Iraq and again I'm giving the high level stuff so we can cover more of the items on the back end. But, uh, invaded Iraq. I was part of the ranger invasion force. The C's held and defended the Haditha dam. Originally we're supposed to jump and my platoon jumped. Talk about a lot of broken hearts and some stories, so to speak, and my story is my platoon jumped into Afghanistan. During the initial invasion, However, because it was a platoon size drop on a dirt landing strip, we had to cut one squad for the company CCP Guess whose squad that was. Oh, man.
Speaker 2:It was my squad. On top of that, because my squad leader, the Bobby Hill looking guy that I told you about, we had almost a God squad. All of us were tab minus one person, which was my private, because they would issue you private right um, minus the one kid, and because he was a sergeant and not a staff sergeant, our squad got cut. And then my buddy, who is a senior gunner because the weapon squad leader in the combat jump becomes the deco. He doesn't jump. So he took all his senior dudes off and had the new guys jump the guns. And so, before they went out, I remember my buddy being the RTO and getting to go. You know our platoons aren't like, hey, you know it'll be all right, I get it, I understand. Oh, by the way, I need y'all to clean the shooters. So then, fast forward, fast forward through that right, right, put a pin in that, you know. So now I've told the story of growing up, seeing some trauma, told the story of being excited, being part of a group, being accepted. Then I realized right away inside of that the politics and bureaucracy inside of those organizations, because everybody's in a click. I was so ignorant because I thought we're all the same and we're all together that I didn't realize the internal politics when it came from the personalities of the leaders, against the platoon chain of command, against the company chain of command. Right, because I'm an ignorant kid who just wanted to be accepted and I come to an institution where it says if you run hard, if you fight, if you can shoot, if you listen, if you're disciplined, if you do all these right things, these morals and characters that we're giving you because, again, like I said, the company chain of command we're teaching the young married personnel this is what you need to do to be a ranger, a good, successful ranger. I got lost in the hype and didn't understand all the other items, which is key because as I grew in the army, through the combat trauma, those were put under a microscope and I used that to make every decision moving forward, because I will never get caught twice in the same situation. Right, yeah. And so, again, during that time where I fast forward is is I had my son. Prior to that deployment, I went to ranger school.
Speaker 2:I got shot on live fire prior to going through and I'll cover that really quick. So we're doing some maneuvers, no fault of our own, just the way the range was set up. This range was throwing back a lot of ricochets as we're moving forward. I'm the far left guy. I saw gunners within, you know, men's safe distance Minimum's 15 degrees. He was at least 20 degrees, if I remember correctly.
Speaker 2:What happened was it was around, hit the tree and ricocheted back on our position. I remember seeing the flash and again, you know, call it whatever you want, want. Maybe my higher self was talking to me. Maybe for that split second I was able to channel something greater than myself and I was like I remember walking and I was like I need to fucking jump and I just dove forward and covered my face and I got hit in the back of my arm and so, because I'm used to trauma, because I'm used to not letting people down, because I'm used to swallowing the pain, I took it like a champ and I laid there and after that, like, like, my chain of command was like you're, you're awesome, you got shot.
Speaker 2:And prior to me joining in Germany, they they had an negligent discharge at a shoot range where they lost a ranger. So it was a very big deal for the company. And so, because I took it the way I did and I didn't complain. I didn't say anything. I was a ranger. They were like you're it, we have our eyes on you, we're going to make sure you do everything you need to do to succeed. And then I wrote a CQ desk for literally a month and a half, mopping with one arm. And then I said you know what, enough's enough, I'm going to go do it.
Speaker 2:So I was a guy doing PT in a sling, went to ranger school prematurely, got there, realized right away that this place isn't for me. Right, because I can get smoked, because my squad leader, luckily, would smoke the shit out of me every day. I can fight, so I didn't worry about anybody else. What I couldn't do is process the mental trauma of being alone with no help. And so, as you know, when the mind quits, the body quits.
Speaker 2:And so my first outing to ranger school, I had a bad day. All of a sudden my shoulder went limp. I couldn't feel it for like two hours. I got thrown out. Came home to mama but my heart was broken. Black Hawk Down was getting ready to be made and be filmed, so our platoon and our company was chosen to do the stunts for it. I was given a pass not to go back to ranger school to go film on that movie. And then I had a team leader interject and say hey, you know you can go and you can go be Hollywood or you can go to ranger school. And I was like cool, toon Sarn said I can go to film the movie, I'm going to film the movie he's like. I hear you he's like I hear you.
Speaker 2:And I understand he goes. But I'm going to tell you again you can go to ranger school, which will affect the rest of your career, or you can go film this movie. And I was like, thanks a lot, sergeant, going to film the movie, right? So he pulled me aside. He's like look, because I'm a hard-headed guy man, even when I ask the university stuff, like it has to come down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it has to be really clear because I won't listen. He was like look, dude, if you don't go to ranger school, I'm going to physically, emotionally and mentally hurt you worse than any joy you ever get out of this movie. And I was like then it kicked in right, I can't let this this guy down, because I care about him and I respect him. And I was like I'll go to ranger school. So I went and again, um, being a ranger instructor later, I I got better at at tactics and those items, but at that time I couldn't tell an ambush line or security from anything else. All I knew is that I can take pain, I can, I can fight, you know and you know. And, and if you tell me how to assault something, I'll assault the shit out of it. But if you tell me to go find an ambush line, I'm sorry, it ain't gonna happen. I'll be on the actual road and I'll bet oh shit, here's the road but nowadays you could do that with your eyes closed, correct, but I mentioned all these things.
Speaker 2:Again, it goes with the story of taking this kid that's raw, that's been through trauma, that if you tell them, hey, man, go attack that place, everything inside of me is going to tell you, hey, you know, because your brain works to survive, don't go do it, you're going to die. But because I don't want to let others down, because I want to be accepted, I'm going to go, as much as I don't want to do it and I'm going to put myself at risk to do it because I don't want to let you down on a part of the team which is very important in the story. So, again, that's the environment that we get caught up in. Because, again, if we came from a perfect environment, most of us would never go to the community Hands down Full stop. Most of us would never go to the community Hands down full stop. Most special operations, soldiers, whether it be Delta Force, green Beret, whether it be Night Stalkers, whether it be Rangers, whether it be anybody else in the community, seals, anything else, they wouldn't go. Everybody's trying to prove something to somebody and ultimately they're willing to die in order to show that they were worthy of that approval. And so, as you fast forward and we go into the invasion, now I get a chance at a ranger mission that you can literally retire off of and never do anything again and say I was a Hadif-A-Dam ranger, right. And so we get there, my squad's having to go in, and I won't go into the full details. So we can, we can keep it within the time, but but luckily we had a PL who I love to death now very senior leader, got lost and bypassed 10 miles with the enemy Cause.
Speaker 2:We were supposed to come down the highway and hit every checkpoint going into the dam. It's supposed to be a hellacious firefight just to get in. But we kind of made a wrong turn and we went in on the back end and when we popped into the road we started hauling ass. Guns came out in the middle of the night and we're like, all right, we're ready to get some. And then, literally half a mile, we're at the dam and we're like what's going on? We didn't even know that but it was a dam, because we're like 10 miles hard fighting, we're in the wrong place. And then we figured out that it was a dam.
Speaker 2:Then we started getting to work, because I'm little and this, this is a continuation of everything else. You know we had some guys from from CAG come in to breach. Their tools failed hydraulic breach, you know, their items failed. It was real cold outside. The hydraulics gave way. No-transcript slide in there, get inside the dam, terrified, out of my mind, can't see because there's no light, so nods don't work. I managed to finger my way up and open up the door and I'm like this is what it must be. So we go through that whole process right.
Speaker 2:I won't bore you with the details but basically inside of that seven days we received at the time the bda was, was the battle damage assessment? Was we received more combat at that time since vietnam or as much combat as vietnam? Um, seven days of direct lay from tanks, artillery mortar teams that were were like those moles on that game that keep popping up everywhere that we couldn't have on those fires on. We got ambushed. Rbp took it every day.
Speaker 2:Luckily, we had one of the greatest sergeants major to ever lace up a pair of boots, and I'll mention his name, greg Birch, who's referred to as Ironhead from the unit. If you ever read the book Killing Ben Laden, they mention him specifically, who was our SART major, running around with a sniper rifle and an AK-47. And this dude was amazing, come to find out later because he's a personal buddy of mine now is he broke his legs, fractured both his shins, and every day, rain, sun incoming, fire, didn't matter troop in line from one bp, from the center all the way to the other and back. Two miles round trip each day, two times a day, every day, the entire time we're there. Not to mention that the first day, while I was like a mole person, going through 10 sub floors and 12 stories, not knowing that there was an actual war going on on the top, this guy was assassinating and I say assassinating because the way he, as lethal as he was, these guys never knew that it was coming just like doing work, and so that deployment kind of set me up to understand hey, here's why you're special. And I say this because there was kids that came to the organization that were bigger than me, that were stronger than me. It was rare that a lot of people were smarter than me.
Speaker 2:However, there was a few, one or two that I can remember, but not all of them are in the same squad or the same platoon Right. And so inside of that, when we're getting bounced out of our VPs and we're getting blown out of position hourly, I would see those guys break Because, again, when you're taking artillery and you have to pull from a position, nobody knows where it's going to fall. You hear those whistles come in and I say the whistles because it's a whistle of the round. There's nobody warning you and it's like training says get as low as possible when it blows up and out, but you don't know if that place that you're getting low is going to be where the impact hits, because it's indiscriminate.
Speaker 2:And so I remember going through that trauma every day for seven days and all the percussions and everything else and seeing guys break like just fall into a ball and crying, and I was still able to go. And I remember getting blown out of the position and the fact that they were like hey, you know we got to go back. And I was like I'll go. And all my guys were like, cause I was a team leader at the time and they were like, are you fucking insane? Like two of my guys and they were smaller than me. So we're all the little dudes, which is why I kept. Every time I think back, I was like why did I go forward? But I was a leader at the time so I needed to go. I shouldn't have went in to open the door. It was my job and so I would volunteer.
Speaker 2:And for me, at that time, trauma was so comfortable to me that I was able to be comfortable in chaos versus being able to enjoy peace and quiet, because I didn didn't know how, because it was foreign to me, exactly Like that animal that I talked about, that you pet when you love it. I was like no, because this will be taken away. Fear, fear. And so I realized that I had a knack for getting into this. I say this because throughout the remainder of my combat deployments the next three deployments in Iraq were the ones that really affected me, because we were conducting combat operations two to three targets a night, every night, every day, the entire deployment and I remember seeing myself and, as I mentioned earlier, talking about my dad destroying everything that was good inside him to survive in that place I started seeing myself change and I started seeing myself harder. And I would tell you, when I love, I love hard, and back then it was probably pretty toxic because I wasn't shown the right way. But I love my first wife to death, like I love that woman more than life itself. And I remember from the first deployment being that guy that was like hugging and like I don't want to let you go to. After that first deployment it was hug, kiss, yeah, you can come and see me go. And then after that second deployment, don't come to the unit anymore. I got work to do. I will tell you goodbye here, because here's where I need to leave my soul, because I'm going to get on this bus and I'm going to go forward. And it's back to more of the same.
Speaker 2:And inside of that, in the video, I talk about our second deployment in which we came back from Hadifa. We had two weeks back, we had a surge back and then the first day we get into an IED strike, which I think was the first at the time, and we lose two Rangers. We lose Chris and that morning he had just come back, he wasn't on the dam and, like I said, the dam was just like Blackhawk down. It was a legacy mission. It's one of those missions that if you, if you call up Ranger missions, that's one of the ones that you wanted to be on because you know, like a Grenaderator, I'm a Hadifah dam guy, you know, and no matter what, no matter what Ranger I was Right, and I like to say that I was. I was a good Ranger, like average at best, right. Um, if I said I was on the dam, nobody can say anything because they're busy. I go, okay, got it. And so we go there. We get Chris in and he's just fresh from ranger school, missing the dam, and so everybody's giving him a hard time. And I remember that morning saying hey man, you're not going to make it. And I told everybody around there it's great you got ranger tab, but everybody can stay away from this guy because he ain't going to make it.
Speaker 2:I don't know what made me say that back then I was an asshole and for anybody listening that used to know me back then I apologize. It's like I tell my son whenever we go back to Fort Benning. I was like half the people you run into are going to hate your dad. I was like it's not your job to defend me. If I have to get physical, just don't worry about it. Men or men will work it out. And then the other half love me, but it's never in the middle, like the opinion of Christopher Rocha is either I wouldn't piss on his face if his body's on fire or I love him to death. But they'll also say he's an asshole. And I say this and I mentioned it now because I was.
Speaker 2:I was so lost in trauma, I was so yearning for that acceptance that what I used to do is I used to mimic behaviors without the education or understanding or the emotional EQ on why it was being done. And if you talk to and it's funny when I say it, talk to any of my wives, because I've been married three times, divorced twice, is I love harder than anybody. I just until recently, I'd never had the tools to express in a clean and loving way that love. And so my love, like my father's, was hard. My love, like the environment I grew up in, was always with a backhanded item, like if I ever got a comment when I was growing up, it was always like hey, you did good and then some some demeaning name. As a matter of fact, identity is important for me and that's why I identify with christopher now versus chris when I was growing up, because I never went by my first name when I was growing up. It was a nickname, and the nickname I used to have was bon son, because I was chubby when I was a baby right, and no matter how skinny I was, it was always something about my hair, because my hair was real thick, something about my skin color, because I was dark. In the summer I get extremely dark and so, again, that fear of acceptance was always there.
Speaker 2:And once I got into a position of authority, like every human being, I became perverted in the fact that I wanted that authority and I wanted to use it to do better. But I also wanted to exact some sort of status so that I wouldn't be vulnerable again. And what I did is I became a predator, preying on those that couldn't through my position. And I say that because, not that I was doing anything inappropriate, but I wasn't treating them the way I wanted to be treated. And there's a bunch of guys that served me in the regiment that will say, hey, you know what you did, help me, but it's a begrudging compliment. They'll say it in a way like I fucking hate you, but you were right.
Speaker 1:Hurt people, hurt people. That's the truest frigging saying there is man. So many of us we brought that in in our leadership style as young leaders.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the problem is, is the Army's great? Because it teaches you through muscle memory how to get around your brain, forcing you to avoid danger, to survive. What people don't understand is fear is a chemical reaction that is bred into you to teach you that, hey, that area is dark, don't go there because you may get hurt. Right, if you go back to our caveman cells. Fear helped us stay alive. It helped give us situational awareness. What the Army never did until recently I'm sure they've gotten better at it is give you the science and the understanding behind it, because most people, once you educate them that's what makes special operations so great is it's older people get into these positions, you know, late 20s In some cases. Some get lucky and go in in their mid-20s and the Ranger Regiment's a little different because they go in straight as kids. But as you grow you start piecing these items together through experience and then you learn that there's a science to it. And the great thing about a special operations soldier is, once you learn why the why you get educated and you become the expert. That's why guys in their early 20s or early 30s on a team they use words that normally you wouldn't hear from the average person to the lay. They come in and they're masters of communication when nobody taught them how to communicate. They pick it up through briefing. They pick it up through briefing. They pick it up through the importance of the mission, through critical task analysis, through their decision-making processes and what that decision output equals of loss of you know, critical loss of life. And then they get together to a point where now they understand it and they can grow and work off of it.
Speaker 2:But it comes with the education and I never had the emotional education to understand that, hey, man, when you're in that position, you just wanted somebody to see for who you were and love you, because that's what I wanted. I wanted somebody to love me. That's why I jumped from the relationships I was in, because I was looking for love. And, like the great song, I was looking for love in all the wrong places, because at the time what I didn't understand is because I didn't love myself, nobody could love me the way I wanted to be loved. It's like filling up a bucket with a hole in it. Nothing that my first wife or my second wife did, and both of them are great women. We each had our own items in the relationship that we failed at, but I can't say anything bad about them. I could only be accountable for myself, and that's what I learned through psychedel. Can't say anything bad about them. I could only be accountable for myself and that's what I learned through psychedelics is self-accountability and the fact that I couldn't be loved. I just couldn't because I didn't love myself.
Speaker 2:And so, as I talk about that and I mentioned it before is we learn to put these masks on right. So, as we go to the service we come in, it was Sergeant Rocha, and Sergeant Rocha was a ranger who had a combat scroll, who was on the Haditha Dam, who survived the item that I talked about in the video where I lost Conway and Chris, that hellacious event where I lost one of my team leaders later as a weapon squad leader. And so when I was in the regiment, the excuse they used to make for my behavior was I get it, but in my organization that I control in my world, I've lost zero soldiers, and while I'm harder on most people because I was that guy, when we get back from an operation, everybody was playing video games, watching movies. My guys were in the sand drilling and I was drilling with them If we didn't do something perfect, just like I talked about when my dad would throw a pass and I'd catch a pass and I'd run my ass off and I'd score a touchdown. He was like, nope, you didn't slap this way, you were short on the call, you didn't move fast enough. I was giving that same love to them and they hated it. And every time my guys got into an issue, instead of getting rid of them unless I had to, I would work the piss out of them because I was giving that tough love to be like, no, you're going to learn through pain that you don't do this because of what we represent.
Speaker 2:And I went through you know seven deployments like that and I stood tall about it and I was like, yeah, you go anywhere you want and any of the regiment, but with me you get experienced, you get, you get the comfort to know that you're going to make it back because I don't fail until I lost one of my guys Right. And then that that that sent my entire world, it broke it apart. And then it went into 15 years, or a total of 15 years, of me trying to destroy myself, and so my last deployment at the end of five I had a gunner named Tim Shea, and so anybody who's been in the regiment and I'll keep it very high level, but I'm sure most of this is common knowledge is we work with certain organizations and certain organizations have older guys and they're a little bit more relaxed because they're so disciplined in what they do. There's a common understanding and so for me, as a weapon squad leader, I'm basically the 2IC of that organization and back then we're very decompartmentalized because the stress of the GWAT, as I'm sure you know, put special operations units in a position where we didn't have enough resources to meet the needs of every battlefield area and so we're operating at platoon size. Elements are smaller.
Speaker 2:I remember being a squad leader in charge for the Ranger Regiment for my organization in Missoula right, because we're broken down into those small areas. I remember growing a beard out blending in and being the Ranger Commander for lack of a beard out blending in and being the ranger commander for lack of a better term because no officers are around for that area and I remember being every inch of a dick in that position that I can muster. But we're doing ops and so fast forward inside of this for anybody who gets to work with. It's like a regular army guy working with the Green Beret. It's like a ranger private getting to work with. It's like a regular army guy working with the green beret. It's like, um, you know, a ranger private getting to work with a senior ranger leader.
Speaker 2:We would get to gun for for operators and so normally me being in my late 20s, I'd go down there, they'd talk to me, they, they try to recruit me, and I'd throw in a packet and I'd go over there and then I'd become those guys. It's tradition. But what I did as a weapon squad leader is because I'm a hard dude. I was like if you work hard and you do what you need to do as a leader that means lead by example then instead of me going to gun, you get to go. In every other mission I'd swap out and my boys loved it, right, because they get to go hang out with Danny, they go hang out with Chris and they get to go hang out with Danny, they go hang out with Chris and they get to, you know, shoot the shit and see what the future can look like if you hit that goal, and so on this last mission my guy went with them. Um, tim did ran over a pleasure parade ID and lost two operators and my gunner and after that, you know, my squad didn't want to go out anymore. Nobody wanted to do anything Like we're shocked.
Speaker 2:Like this was a kid and I'll take this thing to mention him who, when he died like he didn't have an SGLI. I had to make this kid put it together and when I did, he was like can I leave all the money to the platoon? I was like absolutely not. I was like no, you can't leave all the money up too. He's like can I leave it to a bar for the platoon? I was like no, dude, you have a family right and an 18 delta.
Speaker 2:That was the same way. Yeah, all he wanted, like all, this kid. And this kid came from a good family, which is why he rubbed some people the wrong way, because when I looked at him at first, I was like you're not like us. You had everything. What are you doing here? Like, like platoon. When you look at the movie and look at the character of Chris, it's like you shouldn't be here with us, right? But he needed something. He had to prove something to himself and when he passed, he left the platoon. You know, after all, the things that I told him not to do, I up finding out later. He left between 10 grand to go party with, which was great, um, because it says something about him, yeah, and the bar that we went to had his picture in the front because he was one of their best customers, um, and it was great for the platoon. But again, like that guilt, you failed, right, you were so hard and you stood on this one principle and you failed. You're not worthy. And then, finally, my squad didn't want to go out.
Speaker 2:We went on this operation. We're constantly making contact and on one of the hits that we did, each one of my BPs got hit did. Each one of my BPs got hit, and so I'm just getting these kids to come out, right, I'm just getting these kids to come out and do their mission and I'm going to the BPs and, like a good leader, I'm not the one leading. You know the charge to get some, because it's not my job anymore. I will shoot and I will attack if I need to, but it's not my job to do so, because I have to instill in these kids that they can run their items and I direct it because that's how you win fights in the infantry squad formation. If I'm constantly leading, then the fallout, one drill fails and then they have to learn through fear, which is the way I learned, which is something that I knew better than to do.
Speaker 2:And so BP one takes hits. Sit there with my gun team leader, I'm right there. So, like a father, the moment they get hit, they look up. I'm like you got it when your sector is at. Give them some encouragement. They start doing what they need to do. I'm like I love you. That's fucking awesome, because there I was, getting close to opening up and being who I was, through a lot of trials and tribulation. Right, go to the next BP. Same thing.
Speaker 2:Then, finally, I look over and one of my BPs gets hit by an RPG team. In that second I was like I just lost five dudes, right, my three-man gun team and the two attachments that I had with them and my heart sank. I was like I barely made it through Shea, right. I almost went crazy on the ground. Ground. I was so upset and scared. When he passed I was like that's it, I'm done. I was like I might as well just run in there and just get taken out. Then I'll just be a great memory and nobody will ever know the failure that I am. Every day that they look at me, they'll look at a ranger who died for his country. For the rest of existence I'll be remembered as a great guy because I'm a piece of shit.
Speaker 2:I remember thinking that I go running over there. Luckily enough, one of my guys and like every good, good ranger private was looking at the action to figure out what was going on, either through fear or wanting to get in in the game. But he, I remember him telling me after this. He was like I was doing that and then I heard your voice screamed so loud in my head that where your eyes go is where your weapon goes, and if your eyes aren't facing what your weapon's facing, you're not pulling security like I remember you screaming that to me at the shoot house.
Speaker 2:I remember screaming that to everybody every time we did training and he goes. I heard that that and as I heard, I looked and sure enough, there was that RPG team and he winged the RPG gunner that caused that rocket propelled grenade to miss the BP by, I think, at least five feet, which concussed them instead of killing them, and so we had them pinned up in the building and I would tell you my deployments. I fired my weapon twice, um, as hellacious as it got. I didn't need to because I wasn't in a direct position where I needed to all the targets that we hit. Lucky there wasn't direct threats and if there was about time I would get into the room because I was more of a senior leader back then. I wasn't the guy that was like everybody stay here, I'm gonna run in.
Speaker 1:Not your job.
Speaker 2:No, not my job. And as much as Eagle wants to kick in right now and the old me would be telling you all sorts of war stories, there's a reason why I'm only telling certain ones. It's because I want to strip myself down the show of it that. Hey look, you know, it wasn't about that. It's about leading and teaching them how to survive. About that it's about leading and teaching them how to survive. I didn't know what I was doing at the time, but I figured it out later in life that I was working through myself and my issues and trying to impart survival into these kids, because nobody did it for us Nobody did it for us, and the way that you knew how to love someone was exactly how you went about training these guys.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's how you knew to show them love. They may not understand that, but you were finally expressing love in the greatest and grandest way possible, correct?
Speaker 2:And so when people so in the back end of my career, when people ask me about leadership, people will say leadership is contagious, absolutely agree. People will say leadership is a science. I believe it's an art, because when you get like, if you look at Sergeant Rocha in that moment, thinking that he's a failure, trying as hard as he can to impart knowledge into people that he fucking loved more than himself Cause he didn't know how to love himself, it turns into an art, because that passion, that emotion in there you can feel it. If, if, if I can, during any of my psychedelic trips, if I can go sit in that moment, I think I would feel the most love ever, because that's what I was trying to impart and to help them survive and the only way I knew how, just like I think that my dad was doing that because he didn't have the vocabulary, he didn't have the vulnerability to sit down and say you know what, son, I grew up hard. And because I grew up hard, I'm afraid for you. Yeah, and because I'm afraid for you, I'm going to put you through different tasks and tests so that you never get taken advantage of, because when I was you name the age I was taken advantage of and that pain left me in a way that I could never recover from. I didn't have the ability to do that, but I was doing it in my own way. Long story short is we capture, we pin those dudes down, chucked a grenade in there, eliminate all three, walked away from that deal and then I hung that RPG tube in our hooch and my guys were brand new again. They were back to it, hung his uniform down there. They were there and I redeemed myself. I became my own redeemer, which stuck with me because you hear it all the time Nowadays is you have to be an active participant in your own rescue.
Speaker 2:Nobody's coming to save you, right. And for those who don't understand when we say that, that doesn't mean that you give up on society, right, it doesn't mean you give up on your support group. Means is, if you're not driving to save yourself, to heal yourself, nobody's going to call you one day and be like hey, I want to heal you. You need to do A, b, c and D and your life will be good and I'm going to carry you every step of the way. The reason why guys like you, guys like me, anybody in the community, were as good as they were is they were able to call upon something inside themselves to be an active participant in their own rescue.
Speaker 2:And whatever endeavor they're going through, whether it's the Q course, whether it's selection, whether it's a combat operation to say no brain, I know you want to survive and I know you're terrified. I'm going to push through because nobody's going to do it for me and then everybody else, like they said in World War II, would feel the claw. Like the Germans used to say you see somebody and it's contagious and you start working together. Because again, I'll say it for everybody listening when you go to combat, as much as you said before, I'm doing it for my country, I'm doing it for my organization None of that is in your mind. When rounds are flying, yes, sir, country, you would be part of any country if you could to get out of that hellacious moment.
Speaker 2:As much as you say, you want medals. And I will tell you, when I was on the dam I was like I'm going to go get me a medal of honor, I will go back to that BP and I will go risk my life, but what I was really doing is saying I'm too afraid to live that I'd rather die a legend because I'm too afraid to live, then I'd rather die a legend because I'm too much of a coward to face the issues that are breaking me up. And so when combat happens, when you're in the thick of it, it's I'm doing it for Denny, because if I die, so be it, nobody's going to touch him. And then you feel it and you're like I'm doing it for Rich, and then everybody's doing it for each other. But nobody cares about medals and trinkets, nobody cares about what country they're fighting for. They care about surviving absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's. It's the family that you're there with. That's what fucking matters to guys that when that ramp drops, that's the family you're fighting for and you're going out there into the dark. It's the 12 guys or the platoon, and you're coming back and you're bringing them back with you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and even those guys on the team that you can't stand, even the guys on the platoon that you're like man, that dude don't belong here. The moment it starts going, you're like I love you. Yeah, you don't say it because you can't say it right, or you could, but you just don't have the vocabulary. But you're there and you're like I will climb these mountains and I will die in this snow to ensure that you make it home. I will do anything and everything, I will sell the rest of my existence to ensure you survive, and that's what makes us who we are. And so, once you go through that trauma, what I started finding out after that is I finished that deployment, I came back home and at that point I was burned out. Before combat, I'd be like this at a deployment straight, no issues. I can see the most salacious things families being separated from their fathers Just because somebody had plaques, like I do, hanging back there. When we were in Iraq, we'd hit a target dude get taken from his family, dudes losing limbs, dudes dying. It just didn't faze me anymore. And I realized that I was burnt out because I got sent home early, um, like a week before my guns, because my house got broken into on my last deployment and I brought back that rpg tube because it meant so much to my guys. And I remember when I brought it back they were like, hey, do you need to turn it in? I was like, fuck them, what are they gonna do? Fire me. I was like I'm, I'm christopher motherfucking rocha, right. That's when I realized I had an issue, because I stopped believing in the principles that I learned and I started thinking that standards didn't apply to me. I became bigger than the organization and that's when I knew that I had a problem. Because, again, you've seen, those are on the edge, that don't care, and then they start becoming dangerous, that high, risky, that risky behavior, correct, correct and that, just like leadership, is contagious.
Speaker 2:And so come back from that deployment. I didn't try to hide it. I came back with two Afghani rugs, and you know how expensive those are. I hid those at the bottom of my weapons pallet but I put put it right on top because, again, I'm Christopher motherfucking Rocha, I've done so much for this organization. Nobody will even think twice about questioning me.
Speaker 2:Found it before we left the country. Commander held me accountable for it, rightfully so and then I was made to be held accountable. Luckily, through everything that I did I wasn't punished as severe as I could have, but I was, and it it takes me a lot to say this um before, because before I couldn't ever say it because again, there was agreements made for me to leave and come back. But at the end of the day I was released from the 75th ranger regiment, from bravo company, third range, baton standards because nobody is above standards and I learned really quick that I was without a home. But, more importantly, I didn't realize until now that it was because of my own actions. But back then I was turned away by the only thing that I loved.
Speaker 1:It's one of the hardest things that I have been able to come to understand from the friends that I have that served within Ranger Regiment. Being sent away is one of the hardest things, especially when you get those orders and it's oh, fort Hood, fort Bliss.
Speaker 2:Fort Bliss. Holy shit, it's life-ending. It's worse than your wife leaving you. It's worse than your parents abandoning you. And, mind you, my parents abandoned me right For whatever lesson they were teaching me. My bags were out on the street, right.
Speaker 2:I've been through two divorces and the second one broke me like nothing else. Getting asked to leave the ranger regiment or getting told that you have to go is the hardest thing that I've ever been through emotionally, because I tied this armor and this mask that I developed into that personality that revolved around that. The reason why I bring this up and the reason why I'm being so vulnerable and transparent and the reason why I said I was released for standards, is for two reasons. One, the professional in me is like nobody's above a standard. Everybody needs to be held accountable. And then everybody needs to know that there's growth and accountability because you can always come back, however emotionally you can't, because the way that organization works is, once you do that, brown fence me and you could have been thick as thieves, like play cousins. You won't talk to me anymore. Yeah, because my behavior, my actions, me being away is a cancer and in order for you to be Superman and go into that building every day and to close with and destroy the enemy. You cannot have any distractions. We used to have a saying in my platoon that when people leave, my platoon sergeant my very first platoon sergeant was, or my second platoon sergeant was very adamant about this. He's like the moment you leave this gate and this is why it also hurt me so much, because men that I respected, that I looked at as kind of like father figures, had all the same view through fear is, once you leave that Brown fence, they should strip you of your license plates. They should strip you of any connection that you have for the regiment. You're not allowed to talk about it. You shouldn't even be referred to as a Ranger until you make up for it and come back.
Speaker 2:And so when that happened, man, I was broke and so, unlike the stories, I would have been better served by going to another unit. I should have ego-wise and then looking back from the Army perspective, they had a honed soldier who was experienced at combat and seen more combat than 95% of the Army at the time, because, as thick as the Special Operations community was into the global war on terror, I would have benefited the service and the force by going out to a regular infantry unit. However, because they realized that I was broken and because they realized that they couldn't fix me, they said, hey, you're going to go with the former 375 SART major to the Ranger Training Brigade, stay there for a year and come back, yeah, and so I went over to rtb but again my mind could not recover. Yeah, I could not recover. Nobody talked to me and and it took me. It took me until I was 41 to go back to a ranger event. Like after I left in 06.
Speaker 2:I didn't go back to the regiment like if I went, I went to go see a buddy, but it was like I would sneak in and sneak out right away. You know people would see me and see who's this guy with this crow and like hanging out sometimes in the regiment you'll see guys leave and then when they become a platoon sergeant, they want to platoon. All of a sudden you see them around the battalion area. Right, they'll leave. When they want to be a first sergeant, you'll see them kind of come around and talk to their buddies Because again, it's everywhere. You can't help it. You're in charge, you got a buddy, you got a boy that you're looking out for You'll put them in there. The regiment's real great about picking their leaders, but a lot of times that still has a little bit to do with it and you'll see these guys pop up, especially with the Abrams Charter enforcement. That happened a couple years after I left.
Speaker 2:But long story short is I couldn't go back there. It wasn't until I was 41 that I went to a rendezvous and when I was there I was kind of like suspect, looking around, like oh man, you know, do I belong here? Um, but again lost. That deal went to RTB, had all that significant emotional event events and I took it out on the students because I was like you guys don't understand. And so I was an Arslan constructor and I was called Brown Death because I was so hard on these kids, because my emotions came out in the field. This is how you survive, this is how you do business.
Speaker 2:I didn't understand the hierarchy of the Lurse community. They didn't want anything to do with me. All those instructors were like fuck this dude, we're going to break them in every way. And, true to form, I was like nobody can break me but me. And I fit in and I became one of the boys and that's where I learned how to be a brigand and a hooligan, which further sent me into a spiral. I learned how to drink, on different trips, all the items in the regiment. If you did right away, you're gone. The Chinook would come in and take you away. I started cheating, I started drinking. I was everything that I didn't want to be, because what I was trying to do is I was trying to destroy myself because I felt so guilty for losing one of my people and because I felt that I needed to be punished. And at the time, because I had both my children at the time, I didn't have the courage to kill myself. So I was like I'm gonna do everything I can to basically do that or take everything away. So my wife and my kids leave me, so the army leaves me and then I can just suffer. And so 15 years of talk therapy, taking SSRIs where I couldn't see the color. That's the point that I was at until finally, I ended up retiring.
Speaker 2:Prior to that, I was a company first sergeant in the regular army with third ID id. I mentioned that because I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that company, because the company actually gave me a new lease on life. Um asked that company 128 when I was their first sergeant. I was, I was hard as hell on these kids but I was doing it because I understood in a more mature way how to show love for those that in the regular army many leaders don't care about. Yeah, and and every day that I used to go to work as a first sergeant, you know, with all my accomplishments, um, and I was a standard in the picture of what the army showed in the infantry because I made sure of it. I was an arty murphy guy, you know ranger, tab, free fall, jump master, master, parachutist, pathfinder.
Speaker 2:I wanted to play the part because I was building that armor for my insecurities and the. The reason why I mentioned these, because before we beat through ego, it's to show how insecure I was. So anybody that knows me, that knows all my accomplishments. That's because I was an insecure person, because I was compensating, because if I have all these badges and all these accomplishments, then nobody can really understand how broken and fucked up I am. This will speak before I have to, because inside I'm a scared child and so every day that I go to that company man, I used to pull over on the side of the road coming in from my apartment and I would cry my fucking eyes out.
Speaker 2:I was through two, two divorces. My second marriage failed. You know cause? I wasn't able to do my part? Because I failed miserably at loving myself, because I didn't know how. I thought that another person can fix me. So I sold it wholesale to my second spouse, saying it's your responsibility, right, you fix me. And I was broken and I would cry every day, man, going to that job, because emotionally it took so much to hold it together and then to cause again you.
Speaker 2:New armor was working and we're getting ready to go on a deployment. At that time I knew the environment was as such that there's no way I can keep a whole company in peace. The only thing I can hope for is to minimize those items because it's going to happen. And all our trainups that we did. We'd have casualties and I did my best to train them in a way where we reduced those to the bare minimum amount and produce leaders who could survive. But every day I was marching to that fear that I'm going to lose more because you're a fucking failure, because you're not enough. And so finally, I was in a place where I fell behind my peers and I was busting my ass to do the right thing. I had the best company in the entire battalion. You know, I was a no-fail guy.
Speaker 2:And then one day I realized that my daughter was going to start high school and my son was going to be a junior and I was like, if I make sergeant major, I'm going to do another 10 years. I'll be one of those 30-year soldiers and dad will be coming home. Then I only get to see him maybe for a week in the summer. Dad will be coming home when they're in their mid-20s trying to be dad. And so I asked the universe and I said, like I said in the beginning, because I'm hard-headed. I was like, look, I'm hard-headed as fuck. I was like I need you to be very clear. And then I need you to remind me, show me where my priorities at I go. I think I know the answer Because I'll tell everybody listening the answers that you're seeking are inside you. They're there, you have them. You just don't trust them.
Speaker 2:I knew that I should have retired. I knew that my body wasn't going to hold up but I could have made it work. I knew that I needed to invest in the people that would be there for me after my service. Because once you're done with the army, the army doesn't think twice about you, right? Any service, any company. Nowadays, once you're gone, nobody's like, hey, let's go check, no, they're too big, they keep moving. Phone ain't ringing dog, nope. The only people that are going to care about you are the people that you never made a priority. So I knew what the answer was, but I said hey, you know, universe, I'm hardheaded. Show me, and it showed me, you know, during the training mission, that that the army don't give two shits about you. No matter what you do, it doesn't matter. It all depends on who you know. And eventually you're not going to know the right people. And so I was.
Speaker 2:I made Sergeant Major. I was put in a position where I was removed from the list, right. Then I had to make a decision. Could I stay in? And I would have made it again, cause, cause again. I built my career in such a way that I was undeniable. But the fact of the matter is, is the army wasn't in a point where it realized what it did to soldiers and it was a zero defect army. And so I retired, and I was happy about the retirement. I put in my packet and once I did, everybody stopped talking to me Like my command, where I was at just every day from hey, what's up, don't come into work, don't worry about it, go focus on you, you're done.
Speaker 2:And so I tell you this story because nowadays we have a problem where people get out and we have a high suicide rate.
Speaker 2:We have people that are coming out and marriages that look great and now they're falling apart, dudes that are having to go through that trauma of being alone, because a lot of guys aren't ready to get out and when they get out, they get out out of frustration and they don't take the time to realize it.
Speaker 2:Hey, I need to take this mask off and there's going to be some ego of all and I can put you down and do it in a way that's very respectful, where I'm not putting you out to pasture and not praising you and thanking you for all the work that you did. When I took off my mask, I was like I love you. I was like I truly love you and I was like thank you for everything that you did to get me through this, but I don't need you anymore. I don't need you to carry the rest of my life. I need you there because there's still going to be some hard things. I'm not retiring, but I don't need you to carry the weight for all of us. But I couldn't get to that until I discovered plant medicine.
Speaker 1:Take us into that journey, man, because right now, like there's so much noise out there and there's so many misconceptions that people think it's a magic wand that it will take care of all the work, you just have to get to that place. They'll do all the work for you yeah.
Speaker 2:So I would tell you that they're not wrong in that and most people that will hear this about. Oh, wait a minute. The great thing about the video that short that I released to reconsider, um is they kept the portion in there. It's 11 minutes. Nowadays people won't watch more than 90 seconds, right? But they kept the portion where I said hey, it's not a magic pill.
Speaker 2:You will feel everything wrong because, quite honestly, everything you need in psychedelics is there to fix everything that is going on, because it teaches you and it shows you what's inside you. All the answers to the universe, all the answers to your problems, all the answers to everything that's going wrong with you is inside you. And so, to a point, psychedelics turns it in, where it allows you to get away from your mind only, or your heart only, and see very clearly what's inside you, depending on the medicine that you're taking and depending on where you're at and if you're ready. So, by that point, yes, it is magic, because it gives you all the answers. The problem is is we as human beings gives you all the answers? The problem is is we as human beings don't have the ability to filter through it and take action right away unless we've hit a rock bottom and we're so broken that we're ready that enough's. Enough it's. For instance I'll give you a good analogy there's so many people that you will hear because nowadays religion is a real big deal that gets tossed back and forth that say if only God came down from the mountain and sat by me and showed me he was real, I would believe we say that, but I guarantee you somebody can come by, put their arm around you and say I am the one infinite creator and I can show you through touch and feel everything that's true and walk away and you'll be affected by that for probably a week, maybe two weeks, week three, you'll start going back to your old asshole self if you're broken, like I was, and then all of a sudden it just goes away like a dream.
Speaker 2:Psychedelics is the same way. Depending on the medicine, it stays with you for a certain amount of time so that you can make the new views, the new breakthroughs that you have into habits that will carry you throughout the rest of your cycle Right. Because again, like in the service, we're the best that we were, because we had habits, we had structure, because we made things habitual. That's why we're able to do the things that were near superhuman in feats, to do the things that were near superhuman and feats that now that we can't do post-retirement and now that we're flabby and have our dad bods and we're not the guys that we used to be, it's because of that emotional trauma that's there. So for me, for psychedelics, I retired and I left the military completely.
Speaker 2:I put down that mask. I had my own little private ceremony for myself because, again, I still didn't have the tools and understanding. But I knew I always had that feeling that I knew that I needed to do something different and I sat down with myself and, as best as I could, I told myself I love you and we're ready to do something different. It's scary because I remember being terrified. I was like how am I going to earn a living? How am I going to make it? I don't know what I'm going to do. You know, how am I going to make it? I don't know what I'm going to do.
Speaker 2:You know, I applied for jobs in san antonio, back home, and I'm a hometown hero. My ego was like you're a hometown hero, you'll be good. And then I realized right away nobody cares what you did in the service. Nobody cares that you served and you're from your, your city. They say that because it briefs well, but nobody gives a shit. Right, the moment you meet a civilian and I can tell them the stories that I'm telling you now, they'll look at you like, oh my God. Some will be like, oh man, this is awesome. And then reality kicks in where, like, oh, you've done things that I haven't done. And then next thing you know it's like all right, cool, can you go take out the trash or whatever your job is to do. And then nobody wants to hear it again. Yeah Right, it becomes a discriminator more than anything else. It doesn't bring people together.
Speaker 2:And so I worked for a civilian organization in a position that nobody would ever understand. I was a human resources professional and most of my buddies, or anybody who worked with me, would say how are you that person? How did you make it for five years doing that? How did you not get escorted out of the building because of the person that I used to be? And I made sure that I got away from the military because I wanted to put that mask to bed and I wanted to discover who. Christopher Rocha was not first sergeant, not roach, not sergeant, not on so on, not any of those people that people labeled me as for their version of me, but who I am, yeah, and so I moved to dallas and I tried to figure it out. Covet hit six months after I got here.
Speaker 2:So now back in isolation, you know, um, my dad and I were kind of coming around, you know, to talk, and then all of a sudden my grandmother was getting ready to pass his mother. For the first time in my life I saw this man feeling like I saw him sad and I was like, holy shit, it's like what do you do if you see Superman cry? Yeah, you know what I mean. So I would go see him and and like, again, I've been through my own journey. I was very upset too that my dad was able to hold one marriage together and, granted, him and my mom were very toxic. I mean, their love is stronger than anything that I've ever seen in this world or any other. But what they did is, instead of turning back to back and fighting the world, they fought each other and, inside of that, the casualties of their war. To fight to hold on to the love that they had. Were their children, right. And so growing up through that and seeing my dad finally, you know, show some feelings.
Speaker 2:I decided, you know, I'm going to invest more, but I wasn't ready to let go of that anger, so I would do it at an arm's distance. I didn't seem as much as I needed to, but I saw him enough where I'd go there that that I realized that this isn't the same dad that I have. He was still quick, right, and he was still functional. But I remember going, going one day and I was like he's lost a step. And I remember like, oh man, like I never thought I'd live to the day that I'd be in my forties, let alone seeing the old man you know where I referred him as an old man Like he's on, he's on the decline, where he's going to be. Like when you're growing up, your grandfather nobody's grandfather unless, unless they had grandkids very young and they had kids very young it's like this big dude that could save the world. That's what your father is right. Your grandfather is like that older dude that probably used to be that warrior, yeah, right. And so my dad was aging out and I was like like my world was upside down. I was like I'm my dad now he is hitting that point and so when I'd go talk to him I'd be like I don't agree with what you did. But I understand.
Speaker 2:And when I was talking about my son, my son decided not to go to college. My son is a very smart young man but wanted to go into the service, just like his father. I realized through talk therapy and through my work with psychedelics that I joined the service as a big fuck you to my dad and did what I did to show him that I can do things he couldn't do. And my son wanted to do the same thing, which broke my heart. Then my father passed. I got lucky enough to have a conversation with him where we buried the hatch and I said I'm going to invest, because I saw how broken up he was about his mom and I told him you'll never have to worry about that, dad. I know me and my sister. Don't talk, I go, but I will ensure that I take care of you and mom. All I want to do is invest with you and if you're willing to do it, let's get to know each other as adults and let's start spending time together.
Speaker 2:Two weeks later he passed with my son getting ready to join the service and telling me dad, I want to, I want to go to the army, knowing better that I couldn't tell him no because he would do it. Then him deciding to go to the Air Force and dragging his feet for a year to go in because some recruiter was telling him stories about no go, air Force Special Operations. But that pipeline doesn't start to a year out. And you know what happens, with complacency and him laying on the couch and hanging out and then realizing that he's going to do the same thing that I did and relive that same cycle. Right, generational trauma, in a different way, but the same story.
Speaker 2:My heart broke and I started having little episodes come out and I was, I was broken because my dad died. And when my dad passed, you know, I went home and I couldn't. And when my dad passed, you know, I went home and I couldn't. I couldn't cry, I couldn't. I couldn't mourn him because the moment I showed up at home it was like all right now you just down these sites. The generation before is shitty or generation after shitty. Nobody's as good as us. It's because they're identifying with that identity and they need that identity to continue to move and he would see me on these sites and he served with me in three, seven, five and I seem to be rational enough where I was pushing the great army message, cause I'm still a soldier, right, I still believe in the army as an institution, even though I wouldn't allow my son to join, yeah, but I still believe in it because I know that the goodness that it has inside of it outweighs the bad. Like I said in the beginning, if, if, in the west side of san antonio, the army would fund me and allow me to set up a site, I can. I can produce a number of special operation potential soldiers that'll revolutionize the army right, and use that as a model to scale it to do across every inner city. Right, because there's some good in there, there's some things that will allow you to do. It allowed me to do a lot of things for my family.
Speaker 2:However, right, I was at that point where I lost my dad, you know, and I started looking at time that I looked in the mirror and I was like you became your dad, like I look just like my dad now, um, and then my son going off, just the way I went off and the fear that I imagined my dad had for me. And then this guy called and he had been calling. He's like hey, man, there's some program, any do take a look. And I was like get the hell out of here. And so I started experimenting with cannabis.
Speaker 2:When I got out Because again, that's what we grew up in the neighborhood I would tell people. They're like, do you do drugs? I'm like I don't do drugs. You know, I smoke a little cannabis. That's not drugs, right? So I started with that. I tried some mushrooms and again, through my own hubris, I was like I read a book here. I think I've got it figured out. I don't need to go to this retreat, I can do it on my own. I took four grams of psilocybin and put on Blackhawk down so that I can work through my deployment trauma. Oh no, I was lost for hours.
Speaker 2:And so I tell people that are listening psychedelics. What you really got to look at is nowadays there's synthetics that are out there that you can, that you can probably get, that. You can be like me and fly too close to the sun and think that you have it all figured out, or you can go to these retreats and actually use the plant medicine. I say plant medicine because it has a spirit involved and it deserves respect and that is the best way that you can utilize these functionalities and these medicines to help heal. But just like I've said in the video and just like I'll say now is it's not a magic pill. All the work that you need to do is inside you, the answers are inside you. But you need to do that work and you shouldn't do it in a way that you abuse it. And most of the medicines that I've used, there's no way you're going to want to use it anyway because they're so horrible in taste and the effects that you go through. You have to be in the right mind state that there's no way you're going to recreationally be like I want to do some 5-MEL. Let me go ahead and hit this, this vape pen, and get lost in a pure consciousness. That's not the way it works.
Speaker 2:But ultimately this this buddy of mine called me and finally I was. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired, right, like you. Look at Alcoholics Anonymous, the 12 step program. It derived from people in the psychedelic space. From my understanding, it's the same process, right? I went through 15 years of talk therapy, 15 years of SSRIs, you know, took Zoloft for 10 years straight. Couldn't see color in my life. What psychedelics did for me is they took the longest journey that any person will ever have to make, which is from here to here, from your mind to your heart, and they bridged that gap. They allowed me to sit with myself and to understand the blockers that I was facing, and each of the medicines that I've taken allowed me to see which are great.
Speaker 2:But I didn't do it in the right setting, with the right education was an aboga. Have discovered the aboga tree and the aboga root and I went through a retreat for seven days there. That was my pilgrimage to myself. That's the first time that I invested in myself by putting together a packet through VETS Organization for Special Operations Soldiers, so that I can get a grant to go there. It was hard for me to take the week off because again, everything comes before me. That's the mindset and mentality with veterans Everything's before us. We'll suffer in silence, we'll be angry about it and talk shit, but but we'll suffer.
Speaker 2:So I took that time, I went on that that retreat and the medicine was gentle. It wasn't going to do the work for me. It wasn't going to force me into the work, because a boga is different than some of these other psychedelic plant medicines that are out there, but I was ready and it helped me understand that I'm the captain of my own ship, that I get to make a choice and if I want my ego to be in control, I can sublet it out and contract it out to my ego to run my life. I can push everything into my brain and shut off my heart and contract it out to logic. I can live in my heart and all the pearls there and contract it right now for love.
Speaker 2:It's my choice and it helped me remember a lot of things in my deployment that were blocking me from seeing myself as a human being that deserves love. That is good enough, that isn't a bad person, I've made some mistakes and that I just need to be accountable for those mistakes and not pretend like they never happened, like most people in religion will do. Oh, I was never that person. You remember wrong? No, it made me hold myself accountable so that I can put together the foundation to start setting my life on a path to be the person I wanted to be. And, as I said before is when you do that, it gives you insight, but it's what you do with it afterward.
Speaker 2:And again, one session may not be enough for you to hit all your traumas, and it shouldn't be something where, at first, I had said, hey, I'm going to come back, and so the practitioner of this space I was like I had said it out loud when I was writing my journal. I was like I'm going to come back every year for my birthday. He pulled me aside, great dude, and he was like I don't want to see you here again. I don't want to see you here again. I don't want to see you here every year. I don't want to see you here for anniversaries or special occasions. I get it that we make money and we're a business, but your job isn't to heal for the rest of your life. Your job is to see what we've shown you and take that and move forward. He goes. I like you. I think you're a great person, but don't come back.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. That's the way mental health care should be. It should never be a leash in a car.
Speaker 2:To your point. What people should understand is and I tell this to my wife all the time because she's a nurse, I was like a hospital is a business, mental health is a business, right? If you, like I said in the beginning, if you become a slave to a system or a practice, then don't be surprised when you're a slave and you get put in a position where you constantly have to go back and suck off the tit of that organization to survive, because that's what they're there for. If you use it that way, or you can understand the system and use it to your benefit and get what you need out of it, give back where you need to and grow. And the thing is is nowadays is psychedelics. So in the sixties we had the psychedelic revolution, right, I wasn't born in the sixties, but I like to think that that was a world that needed at that time.
Speaker 2:I have the benefit of living a mile away from where JFK got assassinated, where I used to work. It's two blocks away and during meetings I'd walk there just to reflect, because in my opinion, that's where the world changed. It was a revolution in which the people, for everything they were trying to do, were pushing back on authority and systems and they kind of pissed away that opportunity and allowed a system to criminalize items that were here to help us. And there's some people from that culture that will be very upset with what I say and again, I'm not saying anything bad about them, but I'm saying that they got wrapped up in that hype and weren't responsible. I think that's a fair statement Absolutely hype and weren't responsible. I think that's a fair statement. And then that's that's where Nixon, you know, went ahead with with the laws and push forward, due to the fact that we weren't getting enough people that wanted to fight. The war was unpopular and the peanut butter solution was you know what it's these plants let's just go ahead and outlaw them altogether.
Speaker 2:Yeah, now we're in the psychedelic Renaissance. It's making a comeback and now, like the organizations that I've worked with, like Reconsider, they're trying to do it responsibly and that's the key, and the key to my story is responsibility and taking ownership for your healing and working on yourself. So what does that mean? That means I'm not going to go find some random shaman on this random retreat and pay thousands of dollars to invest in a business that's just worried about making money, bringing you in, hitting you up with medicine on day one, giving you the bare minimum amount of rest, to hit you up on day two, to hit you up on day three and make sure that their mixes are more psychedelic where you see, so that you get your money's worth and shoot you back out. That means you're going to understand and you should do the research, like you would before you go to a mechanic to work on your car, to understand what you're investing in, to ensure that they're not stealing and raping from a people that have cultivated this plant medicine, whatever choice that you make and whatever plant that you decide to use, and that they're being responsible so that you get the best experience, so that you're not being made to feel like we want you back every year so we can continue to make money off of you and exploit you for your healing and exploit the tribes or those native people, um, for the medicines that they work with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then understanding, by doing that work, that, hey, I'm going to get shown a lot of things that conceptually I couldn't handle or maybe my brain wasn't able to get around, but that I have to own the playbook and I have to own the way moving forward. So if I'm in a toxic relationship, then I should be aware that my partner is going to be terrified that I'm going to get fixed, because if I get fixed, what does that say to them? Right? And so everybody going through that should look at their partner that they've been with and a lot of people will say, hey, you know, throw everything out that doesn't serve anymore. I agree, but I'm also in agreement in the fact that when you make a promise or a commitment to somebody which I can tell you right now I've been poor at this before that you should honor that commitment in the best way possible.
Speaker 2:And so when you get on your journey to psychedelics for any veterans that are listening if you were married, understand that your spouse is going to have certain objections and fears that they're not going to vocalize directly and it's going to come out in behaviors. And it would serve you best to sit down with them and say, hey, be very honest and transparent, like you would expect them to be. Nobody wants their loved one to just say I'm done, I can't do this anymore. You're the problem.
Speaker 2:I know that to get cleaner, to get better, to get better in my life, I need to get away from everything that's pulling me down. You're it and split. What I would tell every veteran that's listening because I know this for a fact, especially with my recent retreat is you sit down with your family and say, hey, I want to hold myself accountable for these items. I haven't been the best person that I could be. I want to be the best father, mother person that I could be, or the person you used to remember, and I'm going to take a trip to work on myself so that I can come back and show you and lead by example through those tenants and characteristics I developed in my service, so that we can put this family back together, so we can put this marriage back together, so I can put myself back together.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, brother, absolutely. We got to heal not just ourselves but our families after a career in service to our nation. That don't just focus on the internal work that you got to do for yourself. The entire family unit serves and everybody needs help you can't be selfish.
Speaker 2:You have to understand that. That's, of course, like I would tell you, my current wife and my first wife are best friends and every time I see her I'm not ready to go through those discussions because I know I've heard her deeply, but every time I see her I take the opportunity to sit down and say, hey, you know what, I love you and thank you. Like my kids, they're great kids. My daughter's so amazing to me. I mean, she looks just like me. I'm a little biased by it. My son's awesome and I'll sit there and I won't take the credit for it because I wasn't around and I did help, but I'll turn around and I'll tell her hey, you know what, you did an amazing job and thank you.
Speaker 2:And so a lot of guys will sit here and a lot of veterans will sit here and they'll get frustrated to a point They'll go do the work, but then they'll turn around and come back and say I need to cut this out. Cut this out. You have to think about your ecosystem and if you're the main reason to poison that ecosystem, is it fair that you leave that environment broken and tattered and jump to a new environment in hopes that you'll grow better plants. Like they say, the grass is not greener. If you don't get it right, you're going to turn it the same way. I would tell you that plant medicine is a doorway to the insides of yourself and it'll have the ability to help you heal and, just like I said with my story, it'll give you the tools so that, if I can go back in time and be Sergeant Rocha again, no-transcript.
Speaker 2:And we chalked up a lot of our traumas to well, my parents didn't like me when what we're missing is our parents are raising us as children and we're watching our parents grow up, what we were growing up, and they didn't have the right answers. And every day when they woke up for those that are listening they didn't wake up saying, hey, today I want to screw over So-and-so, today I want to screw up So-and-so. For the most part, right. There's some parents that were broken and they did want to hurt that person, but the large majority were hard, like in my case with my dad and my mom. You know I was a punch bag for both. I'll be very honest, and it's probably something hard, um, if my mom listens to this, for her to to acknowledge and recognize. But I would tell you that I know she didn't do it every day because I want to hurt Christopher. Yeah, right, it's the byproduct of things that happen and there's there's work that needs to be done there, but for the most part we're just people being people Right, and until we understand, it's just like hurt people, hurt people, heal people, heal people.
Speaker 2:And what plant medicine will do for you is it'll give you a shortcut into yourself where your brain and your heart can't reconcile together and it'll give you the answers that you already have. But you have to be able to do the work and part of that work is understanding, like I said, where you're having these retreats, from what medicines you're using. Because, again, in my experience, I've done psilocybin, I've done cannabis, I've gone on a retreat for a boga, I've done five MEO, dmt or Bufo retreats and I've also done ayahuasca recently. And I would tell you that any one of those items, while they're great, if I would have started with one or the other in the beginning, I don't know how well it would have went for me, based on my headspace and where I was at Right. Me, based on my headspace and where I was at Right, I think, in my for my path. A boga worked because it allowed me to be in charge of myself and to understand that I'm not the person that I thought I was, and to understand that I made mistakes through my experiences and I can make amends for them and I'm not a terrible person.
Speaker 2:5-meo helped me dig into the greater consciousness. It was like I'm a drop of water and it threw me back in the ocean. I knew what it's like to feel that energy that is love, and understand it to be unconditional. And when I thought I was sitting with God, what I was really sitting with is my higher self. And then I started realizing that the brain and the way we perceive items it can't tell the difference from one or the other.
Speaker 2:That the experience that I go through was based on that medicine to help me know that if a medicine can do that, then every day I can help to work to rewire my neural pathways. And with the medicines making my brains pliable, it's like snow falling over tracks. I can set the new track. And every time I want to sit down and have a beer because things are hard, I can ask myself is it really that you want to have a beer or is it because you're trying to escape and I can develop different habits and different behaviors to help myself? Every time I want to smoke a joint, am I doing it to run away, because I'm stressed from work, or am I doing it to really enjoy it? Because, again, one of the big items that I had was if I go to this retreat, am I going to be wearing 10 bracelets and wearing nothing but linen, where I never hurt a soul? And I have to be perfect, because that was a big blocker for me.
Speaker 2:I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to live up to the medicine, and then I realized, after my first experience our purpose here isn't to spend the rest of our life healing. It's to learn right when you teach, you learn. When you learn, you teach. And it's to experience this place and this existence and and everything inside of it good, bad, right, wrong or indifferent, but everything in moderation. And so the way I live my life now is I hold myself accountable for everything that I do, in my behavior and everything else. If, if, something goes wrong, I give myself grace, which I never realized what that meant until recently, which means I tell myself hey, I'm not perfect, I'm going to make mistakes.
Speaker 2:Did you understand what you did? Like again, I talked about Sergeant Major Birch earlier. Like again, I talked about Sergeant Major Birch earlier we got blown out of a position. We left all our kit and our vehicle back and stayed yelling at us in the middle of a hellacious you know firefight and chastising us and telling us that we're going to be thrown out of the regiment, which is what other leaders in the regiment would have done. He said hey, did you guys learn something? Yeah, roger, sergeant Major, we did.
Speaker 2:All right, you realize that you left equipment out there, that if the enemy advances now, they have that equipment to use against us. Roger, that Sergeant Major, do you know what you need to do? We need to go get it. Do you know we're taking in rounds? Yeah, can we afford to leave it out there? Based on the risk assessment, we can Go clean up your mess, roger, that Now I get to look at that and be when I take grace is be easy on myself and say, hey, did you learn? I don't need to kick you while you're down. You understand? All right, let's go make it happen. I'm here to help you and then turn around and and own the rest of my life.
Speaker 1:Exactly. That's the beauty of it being able to look at the reality that we all have a second chapter. We have another part of our life, after service and after healing. It's not just sitting here suffering and surviving. You've got to overcome this and move on from it and, whether it's conventional treatment, whether it's talk therapy, whatever it is, be willing to see that the resources are out there, take the active measures to get better, be vulnerable and self-advocate. That's like the greatest three things I can tell you be vulnerable, be willing to self-advocate and find that self-compassion, because you're not going to get there if you can't look yourself in the mirror, if you can't look yourself in the mirror and say I fucking love myself, and you're going to be one of those miserable fucks on the internet, on social media, that just shits on everything, on everything.
Speaker 2:To include yourself. Yeah, because you don't love yourself and I would tell you, for all the veterans that are listening. I'm going to speak directly to you right now. Feelings are cool. They're only hard because we don't talk about them. Don't share your feelings with everybody. That's not what I'm saying. Find your support system, those people you trust, those buddies that you have, and, instead of going and getting plastered on beers, tell them that you love them. Say everything that you wanted to say, be vulnerable, right. Let them know that you're a human being and talk about those items in an appropriate place that's safe. Get those feelings out there and then start doing that work.
Speaker 2:It doesn't matter what you use. Plant medicine is great, don't get me wrong, but that's not the end. All be all, anything that you pick, any modality, just as Denny said, you have to be ready to do the work right. You're not going to wake up and be a Green Beret. You're not going to wake up and be a ranger. You're not going to wake up and be an operator. There's a lot of work that goes into that, but don't be afraid to do it and then understand that what we did in service is a part of us and just like we don't want the service to put us aside and out to pasture. Don't do that to yourself. Pull that mask off, appreciate it for what it is, thank it for everything that it did to include the ego and say, hey, man, I'm not going to kill you. That's the one item that gets to me with every psychedelic place that you normally see. It's like death for ego. If we didn't need ego, we wouldn't have it, and ego is just another way that we use to get through items.
Speaker 2:And what I said for me during every retreat is like I'm not here to kill you, I'm here to lighten your load, I'm here to help you, help me so we can help each other. And then sit with those feelings and emotions and learn to let them go. And then sit with those feelings and emotions and learn to let them go. I would tell you, no matter how much healing that I do, no matter how awesome that I may become, no matter how clean I may be, no matter what medicines I may do, there's still somebody on this planet where I'm going to be the worst person in their story, I'm going to be their enemy, and that is perfectly okay, as long as I realize and remember who I am to myself and allow that to let go.
Speaker 2:And if, given the opportunity, if the universal blessed me to do so, then whoever I'm that enemy for, maybe they'll give me an opportunity where I get to set that wrong right. And if I don't, so be it. And I'm going to make mistakes and you will make mistakes. You will go through a retreat or whatever you're using to get better and you're going to revert back to your old self. Stop all actions, give yourself some grace, dust yourself off and then move forward, always moving forward, absolutely. Man, welcome to the human race always moving forward.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, man, welcome to the human race, welcome to the human experience. Like that's uh, that's a, that's a perfect place to friggin, uh, put a pin in it. Man, that was perfect. I can't uh, I can't top that, christopher.
Speaker 1:Thank you for being here today, brother, thank you for being on this journey of healing and allowing all of us to be there to see you go through it and to be able to sit down and ask your questions, because when we see other people overcome these things that we think are impossible, we realize how doable it really is. It just takes action and, after all, if you're somebody that's served, you're already a man or woman of action. After all, if you're somebody that's served, you're already a man or woman of action. So, get to work. Stop avoiding work. You've always been somebody that's been in there, going into the unknown and getting yourself dirty, being willing to be part of that working party, being willing to stand up and go to the motor pool and work, and getting better is no different. You just have to show up and do the work, chris. One last thing If people would like to know more about your story and get in touch with you, what's your social media or ways we can connect.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so so not very big on those items, but I would tell you I'm an open book. You can. You can look me up on IG at roach0201 is my handle there, like anybody who knows me, that's out there. If you're having a hard time or want to talk more about the psychedelic space or just anything in general, those that know me can always give me a call. You can drop me a message. If I happen to be, or you happen to be, one of those people that I offended in life, give me an opportunity, man, let's have a talk right and let's get you straight. Overall love is the answer. And, and again on ig, it's roach0201. I'm on facebook as well, under the same item. That's where you can get ahold of me and please see the video right vets heroic hearts project and reconsider um great places, awesome.
Speaker 1:When this episode drops, just pause, go to this description and you'll see those links right there to all of you listening. Thank you for being here, thank you for tuning in, and we'll see you all next time. So then, if you like what we're doing and you enjoying the show, don't forget to share us, like us, subscribe and head on over to our Patreon, where you can be part of our community and get access to all of our episodes as soon as they drop. And remember we get through this together, take care.
