Security Halt!
Welcome to Security Halt! Podcast, the show dedicated to Veterans, Active Duty Service Members, and First Responders. Hosted by retired Green Beret Deny Caballero, this podcast dives deep into the stories of resilience, triumph, and the unique challenges faced by those who serve.
Through powerful interviews and candid discussions, Security Halt! Podcast highlights vital resources, celebrates success stories, and offers actionable tools to navigate mental health, career transitions, and personal growth.
Join us as we stand shoulder-to-shoulder, proving that even after the mission changes, the call to serve and thrive never ends.
Security Halt!
Finding Purpose After War: Kevin Garrad on Wildlife Conservation and Healing
In this captivating episode of Security Halt!, host Deny Caballero sits down with Kevin Garrad, a former Green Beret, to explore his extraordinary journey from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan to the vast wilderness of Africa as a wildlife conservationist. Kevin shares the highs and lows of military service, his struggles after service, and the mental toll of hypervigilance experienced by veterans.
The conversation dives into Kevin’s transition to civilian life and how reconnecting with nature through adventure travel and wildlife conservation gave him a renewed sense of purpose. Kevin also reflects on the broader implications of modern technology, social media, and AI on mental health, offering insights into the importance of community, resilience, and shared experiences.
This episode is a powerful exploration of healing, self-discovery, and the transformative power of nature. Don’t miss it! Follow, share, like, and subscribe on Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Podcasts to hear Kevin’s remarkable story.
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Chapters
00:00 Embracing the Unknown: Kevin's Journey Begins
03:05 From Soldier to Special Forces: The Path of a Warrior
05:54 The Reality of War: Highs and Lows of Military Life
08:59 Mental Health and Resilience: Lessons from the Battlefield
12:10 The Struggles with Addiction: A Soldier's Perspective
14:50 Reflections on War: Understanding the Cost of Conflict
17:56 Transitioning Out: Finding Purpose Beyond the Military
20:59 The Future of Warfare: A Soldier's Insight
22:55 The Gypsy Soul: A Life of Adventure
23:42 The Modern Explorer's Urge
25:08 Traveling for Culture and Nature
26:49 Adventure Beyond the Military
27:48 Staying Young at Heart
29:00 The Connection Between Health and Lifestyle
30:35 Understanding Life's Cycle in Nature
32:25 Transitioning to Africa: A New Purpose
35:28 From Military to Wildlife Conservation
39:28 Reconnecting with Nature and Survival Skills
40:36 COVID-19 in Africa: A Unique Perspective
42:39 Building a New Life in Wildlife Conservation
46:46 Creating WildWorks: A New Mission for Veterans
48:54 Understanding Hypervigilance and Its Impact
52:06 The Primal Connection to Nature
55:20 The Importance of Shared Experiences
01:00:01 The Dangers of Technology and Social Media
01:05:51 Exploring the Future of AI and Human Connection
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LinkedIn: Deny Caballero
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Produced by Security Halt Media
Security Odd Podcast. Let's go the only podcast that's purpose-built from the ground up to support you Not just you, but the wider audience, everybody. Authentic, impactful and insightful conversations that serve a purpose to help you. And the quality has gone up. It's decent and it's hosted by me, danny Caballero. All right, kevin, welcome man. How you doing? Doing great man. Thanks for having me Absolutely dude.
Speaker 1:I love finding guys that are taking that next chapter in our life and they're taking a wide and adventurous left turn into the unknown dude, and your journey is remarkable man. Adventurous left turn into the unknown dude, and your journey is remarkable man, like we talked a little bit earlier, a couple of days ago, and it's just, it's inspiring man. And then these are the stories that I like to highlight guys from our community, cut from our cloth, that have gone through that transition, have found themselves in that moment of facing the unknown like, oh fuck, who am I now? What do I do? And instead of going into that fear, instead of going inward and following the cookie cutter path for the rest of their lives, you know they're willing to go into that fear, they're willing to embrace it and, like we shared, they're willing to drown a little bit before they frigging find that right, swim, stroke and get a little bit of a better waters and then friggin go off in the deep end again and sail again and continue going. They find where they're ultimately meant to be.
Speaker 1:So today, man, this is your episode. Brother, tell us about your life and yeah, yeah all right, awesome.
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, I'm kevin garrett. Um, I go by kevin pip those my nicknames. A lot of people know me as Pip, my online identity, so you can't find me. But yeah, kevin Pip is who I am. I'm British, if you can't tell. So I was born and raised in London. Yeah, it gets better, spoiler alert.
Speaker 2:And then I moved to America with my family when I was just turning about to be turning 17. I got there 10th of september 2001, so we checked into america, saw the, saw the trade centers. I've just left school next day we go to get our id cards and the trade centers come down. We're in a government building. They walk out and say america has now gone to war. The buildings close, go home. So my family's just moved to america, sold everything in england.
Speaker 2:I'm just a young man turning into military age. I'm like I grew up reading sas books and afghanistan and distant battles, like it was meant to be. So, uh, I literally been in america two months, signed up, went off to basic at lenaward, um, tried to get to afghanistan because it was kicking off with sappers blowing stuff up. So I became a combat engineer to do, uh, cave missions before I joined the army form and then they told me, no, um, I told my drill sergeant, basic, I wanted to be in war and I wanted to do a sapper mission, and he's like. So at the end of my basic training he sent me to third id at stewart and I was like what the f? He's? Like, I got you man, like just a war, just a war is coming. Um, and then, yeah, we trained up and a year later, uh, we invaded Iraq. Um, the, literally the, the spear of that Well, not the spit, I'll get to that later. So we were the guys that blew the berm into Iraq. So I was one of the engineers guys.
Speaker 2:After we blew the berm and bulldozed it, nothing happened, two, three in the morning and then, like, sounds come and buggies, man buggies, motorbikes, seal teams, sf, all going for the breach into the desert. And I remember being there like who the f? Of these guys? And like what? Yes, like that's what I want to be. So, uh, that was it, man, that's who I wanted to be. So I did um, the rest of the war rotation, and then we're doing like a year off, year on. So I did the initial invasion, that I went back for the surge, which is when, like the insurgency kicked off. We're like what insurgents? There's nothing in the book about this, um. So yeah.
Speaker 2:Then after that I did another rotation. It was like getting more into like these big mega fobs and ieds and car bombs, um. And after that I felt that I was ready to go sf because I was in your time, we were the old school guys. You had to be a combat mls with deployments and usually like an e6 to go over. Um. Late on in my career I was a recruiter and we'd take you as an e4. No combat rotations. We needed you to go past the course. So back then I was like I'm not ready to go to the q course and be judged by warriors, so I knew I had to wait. So when I was finally around like 25 26 I was like, okay, I know who I am done my combat tours. So I went on the selection. Um selection wasn't too hard for me. It was uh, it's miserable guys. It sucks to show up. You're fed in the showers and you don't die.
Speaker 1:Like there's worse it's nine to like 8 pm. Abuse then some light hazing.
Speaker 2:You can just deal with like insane amounts of hazing and abuse and just being like what's worse about it is you don't know how good your life's gonna be. You have an idea that sf is better than the regular army. But if you actually knew and if they could give you a taste of it when you were there, you'd be like what, I'll stop this three weeks after that. At the time you don't know, you just hope. And you've read books and literature so you hope the golden goose is the golden goose. But I'd been in the army for a while so I'd done a lot of bullshit so I could deal with like being hazed all day, like yeah, welcome to my world. So that wasn't too bad. I could have been in better shape when I went. I just kind of grunted out and I saw a lot of really fit people, just that mental. They're not there, like some people. Some people quit and I was at the end of my career so I went through selection, went off. Another weird hookup I wanted to be third group station of brag and I told my uh head of the charlie program what I was into, what I wanted to be third group station at brag and I told my uh head of the charlie program what I was into. I wanted you for rotations. He's like I got you. So when they called out the rotations like third group, on the third group, they're like 110. Like what is a 110? That's meant to be a third group. I didn't even know we had a 110. So I ended up with first battalion, 10th special forces group out of stuttgart, germany, which absolutely amazing, because the rest of your SF rotations suck. If you're in America You're in a whole other time zone. So us and the Oki guys out of Oki now have a pretty good kind of lifestyle. You know, no matter how bad the trouble is at group, it's a whole other day before they wake up and get to us. So like things simmer down, you down, um, you're definitely the bastard children of your groups because people forget that you have one one, one ten overseas.
Speaker 2:But um, of all the, the vast majority sf dudes just dealing with other sf dudes in america, I was unique. I'm dealing with nato softs. I work with sas, sbs. I set up the romanians, the hungarians, like we saw that stood the whole nato mission up. So like that was at the time I did it it it sucked. But looking back now as an adult, I'm like, actually it was a really cool non-traditional mission we got to be a part of.
Speaker 2:Also, like I said at the beginning, I'm British, so imagine being a British citizen that moves from America, joins Special Forces and they station you back in Germany, a one-hour flight from where you grew up. So I had a great time in Germany. We were also doing the six on six off rotations. So, yeah, I hit the ground running straight to the box for six months and then we'd come back a month for leave, four months of training and back in, came back out. I did that. So I think three tours back to back to back like that, and then, um, basically moved on off to swick and did my swick tour before retiring from service.
Speaker 1:Fuck yeah, dude, getting it Back to back to back, dude, it's like whirlwind. Dude, you have no time to sleep or breathe.
Speaker 2:Looking back on it, it was hectic and that's why we're on your podcast now. I talk about mental health resiliency. At the time Me and you spoke about it the other day too when I was in special forces sure it'll sound weird to a lot of young men that look up to us as like operators I didn't feel like a man. I'm doing sf things and wearing a beret and like looking in my mirror some days like who the fuck am I? I didn't feel like I knew who I was. And I think you said too if we were to go back to sf now, we might be a little slower, but operationally we'd be freaking outstanding operators. I can do with stress much better. I don't collapse under the same. I won't be going home and binge drinking because of a bad day. I have better coping mechanisms now. So at the time, there's these huge highs and successes, like we explained. There's these huge lows as well and there's some of the worst moments of my life were also experienced in the army oh yeah, dude.
Speaker 1:I wish we could develop a mentorship program to give this resilience to guys who are still in. It's really, honestly, one of the greatest things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a wrong time, Me and you sitting there once again, we're busy. Sf dudes just dealt with a bad commander for the morning. We're not in the mood to hear a briefing on a Friday. And now you had some old guys telling us like resilience, when you get out, we're like, dude, I've got a range to work. My wife old guys telling us like resilience, when you get out, we're like dude, I've got a range tomorrow. My wife hates me. I haven't seen my kids in a month, like so, if we just weren't receptive to hearing what we needed. But look at this amazing platform you've built, man, like other people out there like yourself that have this platform now. So hopefully we can't save them all. We might save one or two, right? So I'm right here.
Speaker 1:That's it yeah, you gotta be willing to put the stuff out there and hope that the right person hears it at the right time when they're ready to receive it. And that's, that's just the truth. Man, like you, we want everybody to heal and everybody come to the the watering hole and soak up this knowledge. But the truth is like they have a buy. They have to have a buy-in too. They have to be, they have to want it, and I'm willing to create it and make space for it for the right time when they're ready. It's like there's nothing more chaotic than trying to bring something like mindfulness and meditation to somebody that's not ready to hear it.
Speaker 2:I've already seen that I had to find it in thailand with the help of mushrooms therapeutic therapeutic, literally, a mushroom that grows on the ground, which in america is illegal. But when I was getting out and I had TBI and PTSD and I'd been blown up multiple times, I was on God knows how many meds for headaches, not sleeping, not waking up. It was ridiculous. So even all the chemicals I was putting into my body. Then that was like yeah, good, no, no issue, dod approved it. So then there was like the idea of getting out and then kind of being around hippies talking about their therapeutic and healing. That I kind of I got into the whole uh, mckenna with the mushrooms and kind of like, wow, maybe there's something to be founding this if you go into it the right way.
Speaker 2:So, yes, it allows you to. It's the best way. I can put it to people who haven't tried mushrooms. If you're ready for it. It's like having a really messy desktop everything's out of order, you don't even know where to start. Sometimes with the mushrooms it allows you to like go through the files, back rooms and doors without the stress. It feels like being inside, who you are, what's going on your head kind of an unusual way to get in that kind of feeling that's.
Speaker 1:That's something that it's. It's. So it's crazy when we take a step back and look at everything that they give us and they say like this is healthy for you and it's insane pharmaceuticals, like powerful, potent things that make us addicts, like within weeks of being on it. I used to think Adderall was a safe thing. This is a super drug. This is a wonderful thing. It's literally meth. It's literally. Methall was a safe thing. Oh, this is super drunk. This is a wonderful thing. It's literally meth.
Speaker 1:It's literally meth, it's the same thing. Yeah, here I am on the back end of my career and as I'm going out, they're like oh, we're going to have to prescribe you something for your ADHD and for the way you're dealing with processing issues and concentration issues and focus issues. It's called provisional. I'm like I know, provisional that's the shit they give us downrange to stay awake. I don't know Nowadays, because your brain's fucked up, this will help you go to sleep, it'll help you focus.
Speaker 1:And then you take it because you listen to doctors and you think, well, these people know what they're talking about. And then you don't realize and you don't do the research and you find out that, just like anything else you take over and over and over, you're going to build a dependency on it and your body's just going to say, well, I don't have to work as hard or I don't have to create the things that naturally occur in your body to help you focus and help you stay alert. And then there's a medical shortage and that really there was a shortage of provisional and within like one day of not having my medication, I was like, holy fuck, I am worthless and I was like, okay, like this is just the worst feeling on earth. Why would they prescribe this stuff?
Speaker 2:How much stuff was going out. I remember at this not the height of the wars and the war started. So we'd gone from 1980 or the early 90s with the gulf, no war. And then we had the meat grinder iraq. We kicked off when I came back at the end of that rotation with the first kind of mass wounded from our battalions. So percocets were going off the shelves like yeah I remember my friends have brown paper bags.
Speaker 2:You could go to the tmc and they were brown paper baggy. I got blown up. My back hurts brown paper bag. You'd have flex walls, percocets. It was the wild west for a while and that was at the height of like the opiate surge in america. I saw wrecked soldiers and guys are coming back, guys and girls are coming from rotations and literally had access to a way to numb the fact that we had to go back. We had to go back to that hell where we just come from. Like we were going back, like there was this constant stress, um. So yeah, with the whole like addiction thing, I kind of touched in it a little bit myself and one of the biggest hooks I learned like you start taking them for physical pain. Right, you're taking, except because I had physical pain. I got blown up, broke a leg as well on the ankles like physical pain. Taking them, taking them, physical pain eventually will stop. And then you start using them for the mental pain because you're doing physical pain and they make you feel better at night. Mental pain, the physical pain will stop, but you keep taking for the mental pain and that's how you get that hook.
Speaker 2:I've seen so many of our vets be in. That situation happened to me one day. I went to tmc like you're good, now off. I'm like all right, that's fine. Oh my god, I had cold turkey withdrawals. No one cared trying to do pt about shitting myself like there was no post-withdrawal plan for military for the amount of drugs they gave us. I saw so many people cold turkey of stuff and then transition to something else or a homey would hook them up like it was horrible. We were a big experiment for a while with that. Now I think that's carried over to a lot of our vets. That's why I hear the sf guys whining now they're not getting rotations and walls like, yeah, carefully, wishful boys and girls 100.
Speaker 1:That that's. That's a crazy thing. That's a we have to understand as warriors too, like I remember, as I was leaving, having to discuss that and bring that to the table with guys who are just getting there, as Afghanistan was closed off and it was done. Like I understand your passion for wanting to go prove yourself in battle, but understand your worth is not rooted in this conflict.
Speaker 1:Your conflict will come. Your time to test yourself in battle will come. Maybe it's not Afghanistan or some far off country. Maybe it's getting back to your roots in your AOR. You could be the next great SAR major that develops a new way of training partner for it, or developing a better, enabling and equipping our partner force in South America. Maybe that's your higher calling for your time and service. Don't look at what we did as the highest calling, like your. Your next endeavor?
Speaker 2:endeavor. We had a weird run. We had the with the glory days kind of well, not like glory days or not the glory days. Right, it was a meat grinder in a freaking hot desert place where a lot of time you can see he was killing us, which was really frustrating dude it became a pop culture phenomenon, guys.
Speaker 1:I remember guys looked to afghanistan and iraq like that, that movie, that surf movie, the endless summer. People really idolized this idea of like. That's the epitome of life. We, we just got to go and like I was there, I'm just as guilty. That's a young man's mentality.
Speaker 1:Like war, war's ultimate calling in reality, no, it's not's not. It's being a good person, being part of a community, becoming a father, becoming a husband, giving to others, being of service to others. Yes, if you're part of the warrior tribe, if you're part of this great brotherhood, that's one of the things you may encounter and you have to be ready for it. But it shouldn't be the one thing that you look upon and say like that's my of the things you may encounter and you have to be ready for it. But it shouldn't be the one thing that you look upon and say like that's my greatest achievement. No, no, if you're called to do it, you're called to serve in the time of war. That is amazing and wonderful for you to experience, and and, and I'm glad we were a part of it. But it doesn't make me a better man because I went to war.
Speaker 2:It doesn't make me a suicide rate because of the war suicide rate because all our family friends to me and you have that divorce suicides were lost, people that just hit rock bottom bottle and didn't come back, people that it broke so much that went on. And then look at the end yeah, you were there, you were there and I was there. How many times do we know that was coming? And we said, like why are we going on this patrol with these assets when we know that was coming? And we said, like why are we going on this patrol with these ass heads when we know that this is going to happen? Like why risk our lives when, like it was so sure, I was very shocked when it happened.
Speaker 2:I saw it in high digital quality on youtube. Like in my face, real tim kennedy there rescuing people, jumping over walls and stuff. Like it was amazing man, but no, it was. It was very shocking. Like them poor kids that went in at the end and they hadn't done the wars, and what is in afghanistan? And like what is the taliban? Like? Suddenly they're a bag room, it's all falling apart. Like I saw the stress on their faces in the videos. Like that would be a lot for us to like handle, but at least we've done yeah in the end, thrown into the.
Speaker 2:You guys play professional football.
Speaker 1:No catch this, take the field dude, it was one of the most shocking things and and and you just said it it was looking at the, the faces online of and not to take anything away from these service members, they were called upon to do something that was nearly impossible and they rose to the challenge. But when you're an older service member yourself, you know myself at the time I was a cw2 and I'm looking at these videos of these young service members and I'm looking at their faces. I'm old enough to have been a father at that point to any one of those young service members, right?
Speaker 2:now yeah, they're not partners are mixed in there like guys. We said I would never leave you. There was so much stuff going on in videos so it was very heavy. I tried to not take it personal because we knew it was coming. It's part of that conversation.
Speaker 2:Me and you had reminiscing on the good old days and people like, oh, I miss the army, I do you really I mean, you were recounting a lot of the crap that goes on with it and that is just the final like leg of a long, multi-year war of crap that we kind of were like after a while we knew we shouldn't be there and went on and yeah well, we got out eventually, so it's not all bad, and you know the one thing like did you?
Speaker 1:did you find it easier to leave with the war coming to an end officially in both Iraq and Afghanistan?
Speaker 2:Because that's something that.
Speaker 1:I often think about and ask a lot of people iraq.
Speaker 2:So I started in iraq and iraq went on forever and we both places we trained up the partner forces like we saw mega bases. I was there like I helped build a few of the original bases. I went back years later. There are mega bases now.
Speaker 2:I remember bagram was a strip, um, I think the whole time during it we knew it wasn't going to work. That we should have kept in afghanistan, we should have kept the warlords in place, because that's how the country runs. That's why the Taliban now are running amok. And in Iraq we shouldn't have just gone there. We had no beef with them. I guess that's the biggest thing now I think about it, all these repressed memories. Right, the biggest thing that hurt or not hurt because we just learned to not care about it with Iraq was the whole. They lied to us. Not only they lied to us.
Speaker 2:We went to fight this good war and by the end of it we knew, like they lied to us, we shouldn't have been here. And then you get into like a lot of us died, a lot of my friends died. I lost my whole 20s and my being a kid and going to school and girlfriends. Like we spent it in a worthless war. But that's what america does. We're a war country, so don't cry. When you join the warriorhood of america, you're like, oh no, we got sent to a war, you joined America. That's why you joined.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's in Sweden. Yeah, turns out, we're not the Rebel Alliance, we're the Empire.
Speaker 2:You are on the death star, okay.
Speaker 1:That's a saddest part about this whole thing. I've got a Rebel Alliance tattoo and I quickly understood that no, we are.
Speaker 2:We are very much the Empire, but hey excuse me.
Speaker 2:I've had this conversation many a times, especially overseas, in Thailand, where I deal with lots of different foreign nationals, brits and the hippies with their opinions, especially when I hear Americans on the liberal side bitch about the American war footing. I get to travel the world like that same war field is why you live such a good life in america, why you have all the all the niceties you have and no one's invading. There's no bombs going off like downtown israel or syria. Like nothing happens in america. We kill ourselves in mass shootings. Other than that, like life is good because no one messes with the big dogs. So like there is also why we need war. Also like why get the value of you need to?
Speaker 2:America's world superpower needs to flex its muscles. Like every 20 years Norm, then the Gulf War, then this one. Now we're getting ready for Russia again, and even that I can see the news cycles. It went from like no war to now like suddenly they're justifying it and trying to like it and trying like next assault fan in the young, get ready for the war. Like oh, it's good to be a soldier, great benefits, we need you. Like it's the next. Like it's the ebb and flow of being a a massive military. The death star needs souls we gotta get more stormtroopers.
Speaker 2:We gotta right now right now we're seeing more blood we're seeing the.
Speaker 1:You know we were talking about it. It's that great wave analogy where it's like, hey man, like when that that wave is coming in and you're, you're riding that surf. It feels great when it finally crashes. Things suck, the budget sucks, there's command issues, funding's getting cut, but then just wait, just hold on a little bit, keep paddling, keep paddling back out. You're gonna catch another great wave. And you're right, I feel it. I feel it. Just talking to everybody hearing how bad things are, I'm like you know things are going to rebound when things are really really bad. Just let it get really bad, make it through the bad times and it'll get really bad when I joined the army I got to the third id.
Speaker 2:They hadn't been deployed since the 80s and I got there to shine your boots, pressure uniform, inspect your rooms every day. I did a year of hard score old school regular army in two thousands and that is when they had no other purpose. And you do army life. There's no war Like welcome to the army. You march in cadence but it changes very quickly. And I watched safe but um, it changes very quickly and I watched it go from that to suddenly it america turns, turns the key on for this war machine real quick and then we're heroes again like arby's loves us, applebee's gives us discounts, but the fact of the day it was good man.
Speaker 2:It's gonna disney world norlander, like once a year yeah what I'd give for them days.
Speaker 1:Take your tape parade. Yeah, soon they'll dry up. That's when you don't, when you don't have the chilies and applebees discounts.
Speaker 2:That's when you know things are tough yeah, it's good for the economy, right, everyone needs some jobs. Right now it's a boom.
Speaker 1:Get some school money oh, man, dude, and why did you decide I mean with with everything being good in america, as we tend to think before we travel abroad what made you decide to finally, uh, punch out and travel the world?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think being british is a big part of that. I'm already not home, right, america is a second home for me anyway. So anywhere, and then I went to germany anywhere else, it's just another adventure for me. I'm already. I have a gypsy soul, my granddad's irish and old gypsies like I literally have a gypsy soul. I can, I don't like being in place very long, I I just have a wondrous soul like I might physically get like an angst and I want to go to the next place. We all have africa, all over asia. Um, yeah, I like it. I, like you said I was talking to the other day.
Speaker 2:I read a lot of books on these amazing places. I want to see them. I've been to my mar and cambodia and thailand, all over africa. Like it's amazing to see these places and I guess a really big push for me to go and see them is the human world is modernizing at a extreme rate. Even for when I was like 20 years ago there was way more woods in savannah, georgia, like more open areas, and now it's all industrial. So a lot of these places I want to go see, as I still imagine them from reading in the books, won't exist for that much longer and I want to go see them.
Speaker 2:I feel like I've already missed the age of great explorers. I wasn't able to come to africa, explore asia or like work my way into the amazon before anyone else, so that part of me is kind of it yearns for that and I feel like I missed out, maybe bought a little too late, but, like I said to you the other day, at the same time I can get anywhere in the world within 24 hours, swiping a piece of plastic, and that's unheard of in the world of human travel, which is like right now. The someone said the other day to me the world is flat. I was kind of like what? And he's like, hear me out.
Speaker 2:On the old day the world was round. You had to sail around it. It might as well be flat now, but you can take off here and land anywhere in the world. Everything is digital, like there's no the other side of the world anymore, it's from here to here, real time. I'm in africa right now, talking to you streamlessly, like that. When we started the war back in the old days, we used to write on the old mre postcards yeah, yeah, it literally came with a no car or postcard now, here you are, all dudes real-time streaming so like um.
Speaker 2:So the world is flat in the sense that it's not this other side of the world anymore. Now it's literally less. One day you can get to most places, so in a weekend you can go anywhere, get back, or a week you can really go. So that really encouraged me to get out and explore. Um, there's still so many more places I want to go to and check out. The more you travel and kind of get exposed to other, um, kind of ways of doing things or other cultures, kind of, I take away the bits that I'm like that's a good part I can incorporate into who I am, why I'm the way I am. So, yeah, I like to travel, I like food, I really like seeing nature in other countries, like wilderness fascinates me, and then the cultures as well, everyone's different dude.
Speaker 1:It reminds me I always say that within every green beret is like a less addicted anthony bourdain everywhere I've been everywhere I've traveled you.
Speaker 1:Whenever there's downtime, everybody has this idea that everybody is a binge drinker and has loose morals and just wants to, you know, get with women and party all night.
Speaker 1:But more often than not, when we travel and go abroad, like the main thing guys are looking for is adventure. Yeah, checking out restaurants they saw on a TV show. Oh, dude, like I remember going to Peru and that was one of the things. Like I was there with a couple of guys are like dude, like we we got to check out, like where Anthony Bourdain, like all the places he went around here, like try to figure out like the best place for ceviche, the best place for like seeing, like things, like going to the Nazca lines, like those types of adventures like they stick with you. You for for the rest of your life, man, and I think that that's something that we, for a lot of us, we forget when we get out. Like even our brothers in conventional military, like you have this drive for adventure, but you get out of the military, it almost just goes, falls to the wayside that's most people.
Speaker 2:They turn into adults. They lose their childhood passions. I'm still a big kid at heart, so I just kind of I'm basically like eight-year-old kevin and a man's body. Right now you're running around playing with wildlife. I got to do my sf dream. I live in africa right now. I was with gorillas last year so like, yeah, it's just keeping that kind of childhood dream alive and just getting out and doing things when you get old.
Speaker 2:I've also got to encounter some really cool old people on my journeys who are me in 20 years, you know, like they're in their 50s, 60s, 70s and they're stood out, they're getting it surfing. So I meet some old people. Often I'm like who are you? How old are you? What are you doing? They'll tell me their story. I'm like dude, age is a number. I'm in really great shape right now and I always have been my military career because when I was a 17 year old super fast kid in the unit everyone used to tell me wait until you're my age, you'll be a broken piece of fat shit, like you heard, your old. Yeah, exactly. So I remember being young kid and like at that age it's sealed in my mind like I will not be that I will not be 30 and broke or 40, in fact, like so. Yeah, it's very much like how you perceive yourself. You want to be 70 and fit. You can be like you, you can be so it.
Speaker 1:I remember the same thing. I remember guys in in the 82nd that were like well, just wait till you're 35, then then you'll, then you'll see what it's really like to like 35.
Speaker 1:I remember when I hit my 30s I'm like this is like what people were complaining about, like this idea like I'm 40 now and I remember guys in their 40s in the conventional army seeing the same thing. Yeah, fucking, just wait till you're 40 and you can't like dude, like physical fitness, your mental health, your spiritual health it's all linked together, man. Like if you take care of yourself, you take care of yourself it's all.
Speaker 2:That's your mental health, the spiritual health, your physical, even including what you eat several hours. How do you stay fit? I live in africa, which was a choice. Um, my local shop is 2k away. I buy most of my groceries every other day. So I chicken, beef, fresh veg, rice, oatmeal, I drink wine, but nothing's really processed and that's why I cut out as much as possible if it's processed with a bunch of chemicals, you don't know like we as humans are not going to eat that crap if you cut all that out.
Speaker 2:Work I have to work out the hard. I do like 45 minutes five days a week, like in the army, and I walk my dogs two miles. It's just like staying active, eating healthy, effectual mental capacity. In this day and age, especially what's going on in america right now with all the preservatives they put into our stuff. I sound like I've got a tim for hat as I'm getting older, but like it's a real thing.
Speaker 2:I've seen the huge differences and like what's making our kids so unhappy? And I think american veterans, like a lot of them, are smoking, dipping, energy drinks, all these like yeah, it's a chemical, you don't need it, but what happens when you put too much in, or you mix it with the other ones, like no one knows, like they're just figuring it out right now and going along with it. 10 years from now they'll tell us it's bad. So, like, cut it out, keep it simple, take care. It's same in spiritual health. Like I I'm not overly religious, but I am spiritual in where I live, the wilderness, so I'm connected to the wildlife I get to appreciate um kind of what's the word for it my mortality or immortality. I see lots of dead things dying, living, so it's very much like. This is what happened to me too, no different.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it's actually an important thing in life that that right there, the understanding of you're only here for a certain amount of time, understanding that and we are so disconnected from that Like we don't know people, normal Americans, average Americans they don't hunt for sustainment, they don't, they're not connected with the food they're putting in their body. They don't understand life cycle being out in the bush you see it every single day the actual full cycle of life young animals, interactions, all the little bugs interacting with mammals and birds and things growing.
Speaker 2:Like it's amazing. It just really makes me appreciate where I am in the world, like our place in the universe, and how like insignificant we are. Right we pray to a bigger god like we're, like we're the only ones he's gonna help, to help that person there. Don't mind the elephant that's also struggling. It's that one guy. Everything else is also suffering along with us.
Speaker 1:James lost a lot of crypto coin. Please help him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so like humans as a whole, like we try to put understanding on our struggle, and living in this environment where everything struggles kind of puts you back into that like primitive, like everything dies, I can walk out at night and the lion could get me here like it's that's. I'll fight it, but it's my time. It's my time, you know, I'll take over a car crash in america any day of the week.
Speaker 1:I went out fighting a lion tiny little lion.
Speaker 2:It was sick, but don't tell them that it's just like we were talking about the ghost in the darkness.
Speaker 1:That's a. That's a way better way to go out in life than uh yeah, hypertension and diabetes yeah, my biggest threats are probably riding the motorbike.
Speaker 2:Crocodiles I like they'll, they'll get you. They're out there everywhere. They're massive. We got some huge to a thousand pound kind of 20 footers. I've seen them grab elephants by the trunk and try and drown elephants. They don't need much to be in water and if they get you like that's only time I'm near water. I'm like this could be the one hippos might get me, because they come out of the water and they're big and fast. And then, uh, yeah, the motorbike. I I love to ride in africa and I got a big beam bmw 1200. But it's rural africa, nice tarmac roads like you can get in there. No traffic, come around to Ben. There'll be 50 cows in the road.
Speaker 2:That kind of thing.
Speaker 1:How did how did the journey to Africa begin? When did that like? How did you find yourself from transition and then get into Africa?
Speaker 2:I had a terrible transition out, man, which is why I got into kind of like helping veterans in Africa and dealing with the moral injury thing. We'll into kind of like helping veterans in africa and dealing with the moral injury thing. We'll get to that. So I I'd been blown up in the army, I'd been a breacher all for my sf career. Um got injured, jumping as well, broken, got addicted, all kinds of just the regular like being pounded during the, the g, what rotations. So I went to swick to take my break and take it easy. They sent me back to my original home station of Fort Stewart, georgia, where everything's named after my dead friends and I'm in an office which is next to the memorial way which is also named after my dead friends and I'm recruiting soldiers to go and fight in a war I don't believe in, while telling them how great I am as an SF dude and why they should go. I was looked at as kind of like this hero back in my old community again and what finally did it for me is one of the kids I recruited and really liked went off, did great for selection, got deployed and died, and that really was like a breaking point for me, man, like at the end of the war. I don't believe in. Here I am back at fort stuart, georgia, with soldiers that look up to me, with all the memorials and streets staying off my dead friends, while I'm sending kids out now. So I was like, and that really like fucked up my head. Um, I tried to tell recruiting command, which is like it's in swick, but slightly different. You're closer to the recruiters, so the recruiters are like do your fucking job, like just suck it up. It was horrible. I was kind of like I'm a goddamn sf dude man. Like where is my group? Like where is my commander? Like where is the emergency button? I pushed to be like help, like kev's. Not, there was none of it. It's like it didn't come. So I had, uh, definitely the, uh, the moral injury where I left. I just kind of got spit out of recruiting come on by the recruiting command itself like bye, we'll get another one of you. I just kind of left, not as like a long-term serving army dude that did all the rotations, all the things I needed to do, like with a plaque, and I just kind of got kicked out the door like bye.
Speaker 2:So, um, I hit rock bottom in savannah, back in my hometown. It was the worst place to be ever man, like old memories, old exes, but I hit rock bottom really quick. So I went down, hit it and I remember being like drunk on the motorbike one night, kind of what's the point, and I was like, no, what the hell is like, what is my way of thinking like? This can't go on so that I'm done. Um, my biggest passion was to do wildlife conservation. I wanted to be a zookeeper or a ranger. My parents told me I was for dirty dreadlocked hippies though. So here I am.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man. So I headed off to Seoul, all my stuff, head off to South Africa, got ready for ranger training, joined a ranger unit in the bush doing rhino protection and kind of took on like a senior training advisor role in that position, kind of got involved heavily in that, which was also terrible, amazing to be in the bush.
Speaker 2:Amazing to be in the bush. Amazing to be in the bush. But I'd gone from military life and sf stress to like in africa, underfunded, understaffed, undermanned, under equipped, under weaponized, against heavily armed grangs killing this thing that we love the most and protect every day we hang out with, like these big rhinos like that's, that's the objective, right, like you come out in the morning it's dead, cut its face off, like it's not dead, it's limping around and dying. Like and you're constantly getting texts and messages like this unit was attacked, this rhino died and then, like it started to become like a rotation again when it's like id went off so and so day.
Speaker 2:I didn't realize at the time but I was still running in that sf mode of like high success, I gotta get off it and it was burning me out and, uh, I actually had some old sf guys come out and help me train rangers and like I remember one day seeing them kind of break and I was like what are we doing? Like this isn't so. Um came back to america for a while, became a professional fisherman up in massachusetts. I was doing offshore tuna fishing like a thousand pound tuna with the tuna crew and stuff.
Speaker 2:Nice, saved up money, again, went back to africa, became an instructor at a facility for like two months training rangers and seeing like gone from being on the ground now to seeing the mechanism of like how do we train rangers for wildlife conservation as a whole across the continent? Um, I got in more involved with like the legal wildlife trafficking side and all the undercover, basically like the sf mission aso. Like I used to do, I was up in the intel side like. So once again I'm engaging an old passion in the new way which is meaningful to me on my terms. I want to do this, um, and then I went off to thailand to head there and see what's going on with the tiger poaching situation, because africa is saturated with rangers and non-profits and money galore.
Speaker 2:Asia has even worse poaching but no one's there and you never hear about it. So I was like I'm gonna go to asia and find out like what the ranger situation is there. So I moved out to asia with my wife, got involved in a jungle restoration with the royal thai, with the royal thai army, planting trees, doing tiger protection stuff, living in a hippie town with the hippies that grew the dreadlocks started to like. That's when I started to be around hippies instead of like hardcore ex-former special operations killers, and it changed my perspective. I just it brought me down, like I not down negatively down, like just more chill, like more like regulated yeah yeah, regulated man.
Speaker 2:Like the stress was in there, I started to play. So in this town, the hippies they're doing all kinds of funny hippie things and like I would go take part in these events and originally I didn't like a lot of it. It's stupid, but it's just play. It's just play. There's no objective other than just have fun, be goofy with your friends. And I forgot to how to play. When I was in sf, all we did was drink, go out, like work. There was no play. Like I played playstation. That's not the same as like laughing and giggling and like being drunk with your friends, like doing mushrooms and running around. That's play. And that's why I was kind of like this is what I missed in my military career. I was like this play part of my life. I remembered that. I was like, okay, I need to incorporate this more into who I am. Like, remember to play, no matter the age where I am like play. Um, yes, that was great.
Speaker 2:I love thailand and asia, but I really miss the wilderness. Um, they've eaten and killed a lot of their wildlife. It's not as abundant as here in the same way. So I love the food, love the culture, love the jungle. Like motorbikes there is amazing, but it's. There's nothing there like. You'll never bump into an elephant or a lion or a tiger. Here where I live, in the kruger, I got stuff 24 7 else on my window. So that's what I really needed for balance, for kev um, and I found out now for more and more research. It's mentally good for me because that's how humans are meant to be. I'm back in the wild and there's threats.
Speaker 2:My life system yeah, I appreciate I get to see the system. I I get to teach the system now as well as share it with other people that come and visit. So I'm also taking my guide courses and stuff. So I'm passionate about this. I'm like it's brought me closer to the wild, which has made me more connected to myself, which is what I was saying to you the other day. With the, the human extinction of experience in the last few hundred years, we've disconnected from the nature. Now it's like a hobby you look at on youtube, like survival skills on youtube. Like that used to be a dude that should be a hardcore. Tomorrow a nuclear bomb goes off and there's no internet, no power, and it's never going to come back on again. Like, okay, can you purify water? Can you catch a fish? Can you make a fire? Like sounds simple but most people really can't.
Speaker 1:And I get to do this. That's such a fascinating like thing that the pause on. Like dude, you're so right. Like we don't live, we we're consuming that inner. Call it entertainment.
Speaker 2:Now we're consuming these channels that literally are teaching you how to just live in the environment like right now we're talking nuclear war and these big things come in like maybe a super volcano goes off and blocks out the sun and we have a six-year winter. No plants grow, the economy crashes like it doesn't take much. Russia launched the nuke and it shoots down one satellite and they all crash, like all connection gone, like we live during covid and we see like connectivity and that shut down everything. Imagine the next big thing without connectivity. Yeah, trying to just cut the world. Uh, cables recently, last week or so, we're finding out it doesn't take much to sever our stuff. It's not like this big building, it's underground. You just cut the sins. And don't get me started on aliens.
Speaker 1:We'll get to that. We'll get to that.
Speaker 2:Before the aliens announce themselves officially. Like some basic survival skills, stock up on some seeds.
Speaker 1:Dude. What was COVID like in africa?
Speaker 2:man like I have to imagine it changed at the same time. Yeah, so I was living in the kruger park region so we got locked into the parks, which was great. So, surrounded by the wildlife, I could walk around my massive five square mile parks. I'm still biking. The wildlife came out like never before because the road traffic wasn't there, uh, there were no planes, so there were more birds and insects. A lot of the nocturnal animals became more diurnal, like early mornings, late afternoons, so it was amazing to see um. But there was a fear that we had no vaccine and if we caught covid we thought we were going to die. My wife has asthma so she didn't come out the house. I was going to the store in masks and like having to sanitize when I came home and we basically stuck here until October. Then we went back to America to get shots and stuff. So it was a little stressful, but at the same time, like once again reiterated why I live here.
Speaker 2:If the world did go to crap like I can cut down my fence right now, make some white snares we would eat like kings for the rest of the week. Lizard snakes they got veg, all the wild tumors and roots. You could possibly want Endless water. I've got a river of damn fish crocodiles. I really could survive here. I don't have Alaskan winters so I don't have to worry about the snow. I'm in a place where, if a nuclear war did happen look on the map no one's bombing south africa. We're so insignificant. But as far as like um, what the country has in wealth, of what you can take from the land wildlife, food, fish, water it's abundant. So I moved here for a bit of like a security reason. It's kind of like my plan b if it goes to shit.
Speaker 1:It's a good place to be every goomba ray is also a prepper. You always have you always have to plan this is my plan.
Speaker 2:I'm in the right place. Abundant food, the animals trust me, we fatten them up, just in case. Hey, buddy, oh you're so cute.
Speaker 2:I'm doing this because I love you yes, that's how I ended up in wildlife conservation. So I've been a professional wildlife conservationist since about 2016, 2017, now, um, I bounced around the world working for lots of other organizations. I formed my own one in 2019 in thailand uh called wild response. We've been doing ranger training um, eight countries around the world. I shut it down this year. I trained over 1500 rangers. Eight countries put out thousands of dollars of medical kits. It was great. It was just emotionally draining.
Speaker 2:Man, as a founder and ceo of a non-profit, your job is to raise money and you're not going to an investor like, hey, give me a million dollars, I'll give you a cutback because I give a million dollars for my mission. Like hell, it's just a really hard ask. And what was the most emotional, like drain of all of that is you put your. You have to. Every time I go to meet a donor good day, bad day you gotta put the face on like, hey, you sell your soul because you're selling your mission. I'm not giving you a return on investment. You're buying into my mission, so you're nodding your head. I'm like my asos. I'm like I'm getting that, I'm nailing it. They'll be like yeah, yeah, we'll get you in a week from now they won't contact you back, or they won't, or they'll send you half the money or a fraction of the money, like then. Once again, the mission keeps going. You just failed the team fundraise again. Like it it becomes.
Speaker 2:It was soul crushing for me. Um, that took a drain on by the end of it just become unfun to do the things which I really loved doing, which was the range of training. So I shut down the company, um, I was like in march, and then I started a military contracting company. This is funny because I was like I should do the contracting thing, make money right, went for the things, got it all started up, built the website, um learned how to do it and I flew back to america in may, to orlando, and I went to like the biggest contracting conference and when I was there it killed my soul. I sat there and I heard the soft coalition conference.
Speaker 1:I almost cried.
Speaker 2:I was 100% like Kev. We don't belong here. Man like this isn't living in Africa and Asia doing adventures and now you're in a room full of people trying to make millions and hustling and I felt dirty. So I appreciate what it does it like great job. Just me personally, like I instantly was like I don't want to be here. I paid for the conference for five days. I left after two. I flew home.
Speaker 1:I was like I'm out, yeah um, it was the best decision ever. I completely agree.
Speaker 2:I completely go back to africa, did a SWOT. What have I been doing with Wild Response and non-profit? And then my personal travel. What was making money out of all of that? And that was being a safari tour guide and bringing people to Africa and Asia. And I showed my experiences. People love that. So I started the same name company, wildworks W-E-R-X like softworks but W-E Wildworks. And now I do adventure travel and african tour, african safari tours all across africa for the american audience dude, how has that been?
Speaker 2:uh, finally figuring that out, putting it together and having your first you know actual book to tour, and you're manning it yourself it was amazing because when I was doing the non-profit I was like I'm going to raise enough money that eventually we can make mission and I can pay myself ceo salary. That's the goal. Otherwise it's just a grind. I never got there but I set the goal like I need to have a paycheck before I'm 40. So I just turned 40 in october. Wild response didn't work. Shut it down.
Speaker 2:In march I went to the conference in orlando and I felt like a complete failure and I had a little rock bottom moment like shut down my non-profit, didn't pay myself, don't want to be a contractor. I spent thousands of dollars to set this up, fly to america and I remember kind of having a little mobe, a low point for a second, but I pulled myself out of it and I looked back on it all like it's all been an amazing experience. It's why I can so confidently run wild works, because I was in Wild Response. It brought me to where I am now. So we were talking about this the other day like the failure thing, like that failure rate. Some people are just afraid to fail. I failed, things didn't work out, but now I'm getting to see all the failures of experience which got me to Wild Works. So I made Wild Works.
Speaker 2:It's going great. They sell what people want. People want to come to Africa and do safari and travel, so it's been going good. The business is rolling forward. I'm happy Got a paycheck. My biggest one is I've been working with SOCOM Warrior Care now since around 2021. I've taken two programs to South Africa the Veterans Expedition I think I sent you the video. So now I've actually moved over to Wildworks. I just got permission last two weeks or so to basically like I still hold that. So right now I'm one of the only companies that has a special operations veterans program in Africa. So that's me, kevin of Wildworks.
Speaker 2:I specialize in ballistic mental health and therapy in the African wilderness.
Speaker 1:Which is important, which we need to talk about the. I think we touched it onto it a little bit and I shared a lot.
Speaker 1:Uh, we talk about awe and the importance of that emotion it's not well understood, but every time you get with your friends and you have a drink and you talk about the greatest things you've done, for a lot of us, these idea the idea of the greatest things we've done.
Speaker 1:For a lot of us, these idea that the idea of the greatest things we've seen and done always links back to something in combat, always links back to a far off mountain in Afghanistan or a mission in Iraq. The reality is that's connecting you to combat, that's connecting you to a place where you've lost a friend, that's connecting you to a place where you had some heartache. We have to be willing to go somewhere else to experience awe. Go to Africa, go to the bush, go on these trips that are readily available for you. I'm telling you as a veteran, as a soft guy or gal, as a conventional soldier, as a veteran, you have options to go experience some amazing things. If you need help finding them, hit us up. You're not alone. You're not in this fight by yourself. Like you need to experience awe in a healthy, grand, freaking place, and what better place to do it than africa?
Speaker 2:you nailed on the head. So actually I made a little list here to go through. So after being so, I really sat down well, kind of how. Nobody spoke about wild works. What wild works does. I'll kind of explain a little more.
Speaker 2:So one of my business strategies is to really focus on it was going to be the veteran market, but now I will take veterans groups. Still like weird warrior, call me, like, hey, I've got a group of 10, I will. I will still tell you get. I really specialize in our special operations veterans groups. I don't like to mix us. I'm not being like half marines, like green berets want to be with other soft guys and girls, like and when I, when I perfected that out, it made it really special and I got to interview the groups that came out and the biggest takeaways I've had from all of these things, um, so first, one is hyper vigilance.
Speaker 2:A lot of us come away from the walls. One is hypervigilance. A lot of us come away from the wars without hypervigilance. That's a survival mechanism. It's designed to keep us alive. It doesn't sound good when you're sitting at Fayetteville on the sofa with your wife with anxiety, the kids screaming in the kitchen.
Speaker 2:Hypervigilance, then, is stressful to us. It's too much, it's overwhelming. I get it quite often in public settings. When I get back to America for the first time cause I come from Bush, right, I even have pubs in the Bush Like we drink out signs under the stars, and I suddenly feel very claustrophobic. When I go back to America I end up in a club and there's lots of people.
Speaker 2:It's like it's it's too much, because I live in hypervigilance, I live for the sound of a, and now it's not a curse you have, it's something that, when turned on in the right setting and right moments, can be useful. Also, there's something very like endorphin mean about hypervigilance. Hypervigilance all the time for no reason is dumb. But when it turns on, when that sixth sense, sixth sense happens and you know, like I don't know why, but your brain's like yo, oh, lord, yeah, I don't know if I smelled it, heard it, sensed it, and then like that adrenaline kind of goosebumps, that thing comes. It's like before the contact, before the shooting, before the leopard, before the lion, like we're no longer in war.
Speaker 2:I can't replicate a combat before the ambush, before the id, but I can replicate the before the elephant ball or before, like this is fresh lion, like oh shit, like it might be so like that all comes rushing back and like that makes me feel alive and that's what I can give our soft people. And then you touched on the aura effect or a10 warthog shooting over your head like jumping out of that plane and're screaming over an airfield, like blowing up whatever you're blowing up that day in the hundreds of pounds, like I blow up thousands. I blow up tons tonnage. I blew up all the windows before on a camp and almost lost a career. I feel like you'll be fine on this thing. I was like.
Speaker 2:I was instantly like ah, shit, I'm fucked like I'm in trouble or no civilian will ever get to see that much tonnage of explosion go off like 200 meters. Like that it's almost safe, unsafe. Same thing like you're an open vehicle, I've driven you out and here comes a six ton elephant and he's about to walk right by the vehicle like he's gonna rub down the side of it and his eyes are going to come by. Everyone's just sitting there like do I look? Or if you're in a situation right now where your body's in fight or flight and you're kind of like wow, I can repeat that almost every day when you're here in situations like that's a huge thing we miss is like the awe part and then the dopamine. With that too, there's dopamine that follows that part, and then the uh, the dopamine. With that, too, there's dopamine that follows that.
Speaker 2:I like working outside my office downstairs because there's a natural dopamine drip from hearing the birds and the crickets and the wind on my face and the breeze blows through, like I'm outside in a healthy environment. That's why, like we do, outdoor classrooms, like it's also what we miss about being in the army. We hate being in the field. It sucks, but now as adults you find out like when was the last time you went slept in the field for seven days with no sleeping bag. It sucks, but when you're doing it there's something really primal about it. You're under the stars. You can, especially in SF, when we're like this SUT phase, we're just out there, like I remember some nights on guard there was flies and like the birds were singing at night like the night jars. I've ever been like this is beautiful, like the situation sucked. But little moments like that where you just I remember, like the star course too, I was crashing around lost. One night I was waiting for, like a swamp, the sun was like the moon was shining, the frogs are singing, and I stopped in the swamp, kind of looked around like this is just a gorgeous night to be out on, just in the middle of nowhere, no one else. So, like a lot of that we miss. So we get that here. Uh, circadian rhythm is a big one, I swear.
Speaker 2:By now I see a lot of the sf guys or military in general. We have terrible sleep habits here. I wake up early with the sun and at the end of the day I get tired. There's no like tv and play on your phone. I try and read a book and go to bed. It's like a natural cycle to get my health. Health. Like what health? Um, sleep health is good. Sleep health is out of balance too. It messes up everything like the army. How many, how many guys we know? I had three hours of sleep last night. I could run on coffee like you can't efficiently. You, you can, but you're an asshole and you're missing a bunch of stuff you'd be better if you step eight hours, hydrate and cut the coffee out.
Speaker 1:You'd be like an a1 person we treat sleep like it's a reward and it fucks us for the rest of our lives after the service. I love my sleep it's eight hours a night.
Speaker 2:It's the one thing I do not compromise on. Like my sleep is absolute, like I'm, once it's dark I'm like I'm. I'm going to bed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, did I tell people my eight, eight, eight, 30, sometimes seven? Screw it, dude, I got nothing.
Speaker 2:I'll wake up early.
Speaker 1:Waking up early is the best man Waking up at four four, 30.
Speaker 2:I was done with my day yesterday. I was bored. I was getting ready Like I. My wife was like are you going to bed now? Like I had a plan, I got up at four. I sat outside this morning, had a smoke, drank coffee. I heard the lions. I went from like dark to light.
Speaker 2:All the crickets started, then the birds started, then the lions started and then the bats came home and landed in the roof and I was just sitting out there like grounded in the in the present right, so I make sure I don't have my phone out there in the morning and I doing like a conscious effort to listen to the birds feel the breeze like very aware of it's, like seals I still do. Seals, stop, look, listen, smell, it's I. When veterans come out here, I make them do it whenever we stop. Like what?
Speaker 2:a little security hall can you smell like? Learn to be more grounded in the environment, not just like I'm a human the sand and the dog like can you? Is it blowing your face? Can you smell the dog like? So these little like present moments I get from being in the bush where I actually get to flex my presentness and kind of it's great man. So some of the many benefits me being out here.
Speaker 2:Then the whole like the tribal thing is one we miss and be in the military. So I like being a ranger again in conservation. You're back with a group of people who are passionate about wildlife conservation. They'll die for wildlife conservation. So you're back around people with that same mentality. They're passionate, everyone's the same same. You're having drinks by the fire and wild parties in the bush. But like it's what I missed is what I found a new way to replace it. Uh, we already went over nutrition and exercise being so important. Shared experience let's talk, touch on that one right. Like that's why a lot of you a military and the war as a whole I feel like messes so many of us up as veterans. Like we have this shared experience that comes from hardship and just being miserable. And then we get out and, like you never get shared experience with anyone else again civilian world, unless you go to war with them or like an apocalypse happens and you fight side by side killing zombies for a month. You know. You know what. You're pretty good yeah.
Speaker 1:A lot of guys, when they get out there they're looking for other groups to go do hard things, to go do ultra marathons, to go do endurance sports, like that's what's fueling that, like it's. I've seen guys that absolutely hate running, absolutely hate running, or they hate crossfit, but they go to the crossfit community, they go to the endurance and you know uh, venture racing groups. Because that, that discomfort, that shared struggle, gives them that community again. It's like, dude, I don't have nothing in common with jim he's a banker and stephanie owns a bakery but we're out here doing this insane run and now I have tribe again, like we're constantly tribe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the biggest, yeah, basically the biggest. Come around from everything. Like, if people don't understand, there's some really great books out there in tribalism like we, it's not up for debate. Like a few thousand years ago we were hunters and caverns. Like we were mobile and then we started If people don't understand, there's some really great books out there on tribalism, it's not up for debate. A few thousand years ago we were hunters and gatherers, we were mobile and then we started cultivating corn and grain, which now we have to sustain and protect, basically corn in a way, cultivating us, or grain we didn't cultivate grain. In a way, grain won, grain gets cultivated and protected. So really, who won that one? So that's when I started to lose the hunting, the hunter gatherer band and then every hunter and gatherer band. You had tribes. Like we were part of a tribe and being the strongest and the best in your tribe.
Speaker 2:Like it's very alpha male and very few people will ever get to experience what it is to be in a freaking wolf pack, yeah, and like an nfl team or maybe professional sports, like ufc, kind of like you stop before the point of like everything on the line, you beat each other up but you don't like take it to the edge of death, like that's what the military does for us in war and combat, like we share that nice edge of a really unique thing and it bonds us hard. I've got friends I've made post-military. I'm kind of meh. I've got some military friends I haven't seen in years but I serve with them. I could rock up in their house now and we would pick up like it was just yesterday, like we were still on the team, haven't missed a beat. We have shared trauma and shared experience. So I really like bringing vets out to our veteran program here because I can do that Like shared experience from being in the bush.
Speaker 2:It's hot, we walk lots, there's lions, there's danger, there's a fire talk and like by the end of it, all these little things on your checklist are being ticked off without you knowing and that's when everyone leaves. They're like, oh my god, this was amazing. Like there's all these steps which kind of helped articulate you through and you got to experience real time once. If I tell you it be like you can't conceptualize it. I tell you we get to get out in the bush. I'm like, are you doing this thing right now? You're like, oh here. I am like now, when you're back home, you can do the same thing when you get stressed out. Just take a second to ground, be like just shut out from this. Imagine I'm somewhere dangerous. Like how many things can I smell, can I see, can I feel like? So back in the present is big. So like also the tech reduction. When you're here in the bush with us. You have wi-fi, we have white. Like the texting is killing us, me and you.
Speaker 2:Around the same age. I turned 40 this year. We're lucky. We were the generation before phones. We were the generation that was kicked out and you'd come home and the lights were on. There was no. We had parenting, but not like this. Your parents didn't know where the hell you were. If you didn't come home, they'd get the phone book and start calling the other kids and then you'd show up an hour later like I went too far. It took me too long to walk home. I lived before the age of me. I lived in the we. Actually we were in the army before the age of it, like it used to be. You could disappear to the barracks of the day and just ghost out. They'd be like you're released for the day, like yeah, that means you can't find me until tomorrow. Now they release you for the day and then they'll message you to come back, and if you don't answer the phone it used to be you could be like did you say release?
Speaker 1:They'll follow you on social media. Where's this?
Speaker 2:Get on his IG. You're seeing yourself, cause I I ran the social media for my nonprofit. I saw like how much of a drain it was on me. And then you're doing the same thing, like it's very important in this day and age but it comes at a cost to us. It's like death by a thousand cuts. If you aren't careful, like you're doing it right, you cut yourself. Then hit, put some neosporin on here that never let too many cuts happen.
Speaker 2:I feel some people get into it too much. Before you know it. It's like every day you're going to cut yourself, cut yourself before you know it. You're just like it's a shed of what you were and like you went down this hole kind of thing. It's. Yeah, it's because of all the hooks, it's dopamine, it's. It attracts us. It's a when I get you out here you have your phone, but when we're in the bush there's no phones. It's that's just all turned off. When we're out walking for three or four hours like there's no phones, which is a really nice disconnect. Usually the first one or two nights people will come back and check their phones as soon as they get back for the crack and by the end of it I know it's people quite happy come back to camp, go to the swimming pool, go to the fire. They want to talk like they're already getting away from the. So like, yeah, there's huge benefits that we have to, yeah, get there's.
Speaker 1:There's nothing worse than social media. Uh, for kids, for adults, I don't read comments.
Speaker 2:Terrible, we. I can't imagine being a kid and having to live through that, people judging you or you haven't even become a child yet and experience the world, to know what the world is. But you're taking in the whole world for this portal, 24 7, and it's telling you you're not hot enough, you're not fast enough. You've got all them alpha male types talking about motivation like it would be effing up my little head trying to figure out who I was with. That it's a lot, it's heavy power it's a lot right now.
Speaker 1:It's damaging and hurting so many kids. I didn't understand the the prevalence of like what real cyber bullying is like uh, growing up, I believe bullying for us was necessary.
Speaker 2:You needed to figure out exactly exactly someone's weak, someone's strong. Everyone knows needs to know where you're on that scale, otherwise, like anarchy, we're a tribal species.
Speaker 1:There's a pecking order, but yeah, but the cyberbullying thing that's killing kids and hurting so many families. It's one of the most disgusting things ever now. Anybody can get, can follow, anybody can hurt, anybody can reach out. And I'm just like fuck, dude, like we had it easy, you get in a fist fight at school. You figured it out, you, you, you figured out how to work with each other.
Speaker 1:But this is exactly dude and for adults yeah, for for us, as adults, we're constantly looking at it for either validation or measuring yourself against somebody else. Oh, he's doing better than me, I can't do anything.
Speaker 2:I try not to. There's no one right now. I look at and I'm like, oh, you're doing better. I kind of see through the veil of it. I enjoy it. But even I some days go down the hole and I'm like whoa, whoa, how did I get? Like what? What I know about the hole and I warn people about it. Imagine, if you want savvy, like that thing will take you down. Yeah, it's, it's, it's a drug, it's an addiction. So as I travel the world now, especially back to america, everyone is just like you could murder someone. I don't even notice people have. People do not even look up. I quite often I like to not have my phone. I read a book so I can look around and watch people, but everybody now Hands down.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hands down Pretty soon. It's just going to be a chip, it's just going to be in your head and you're going to see the glazed over look.
Speaker 2:And then the Israelis will hack that and blow it up. What do you mean? The Israelis will hack that with a chip and a brain chip don't fuck with the israelis, they will come after your tech dude.
Speaker 1:That, oh my god, the texting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the texting has definitely taken over our lives for the good and I'm just watching that rapidly like I use ai a lot. I've been using ai for writing for a couple of years now for the website post, so I've seen that evolve and, yeah, if you haven't so there's about to be an ai extinction those that aren't keeping up with the trends that my parents. They can't tell the difference between ai photos right now so I was back.
Speaker 2:Parents and grandparents oh, look at this. I'm like that's fake and like, wait, it's not fake. I'm like I can tell it's fake just because of like I've been following ai evolution, I can. There's things in there that my brain says like I know the average person can't tell and I'm watching the videos right now. They're amazing, the new, so that would it used to be. See it, believe it. If it's on video, it was made, it must be real or it was produced. Now it can be. Like we've seen isn't believing humans can't be trusted. Like it unravels the whole social apparatus of being an upright storytelling ape. If I can't trust other ape stories it's scary times.
Speaker 1:It's scary, freaking times. I've seen the same thing critical thing I used to blame like you're not, you're not a critical thinker, you're not really seen through. But now you're right. Like the video tech is so much better and it's just advancing at such a fast rate it's going to be at the end of the day like I'm not even here. This is all, ai.
Speaker 2:This is this isn't really. You can literally do that right now. You can mean you could take our pictures and we could upload it to the ai and we could tell it to have a conversation based on this, tell it to refer to another podcast for ideas and topics like and let it run like it would just do it, it's yeah doing that right now, people probably are doing that.
Speaker 1:That quota right, yeah, yeah, podcast, yeah podcast ai right now offers a podcast ai tool where you upload your your voice, you record your voice, uh, and it will clone it and you give it a topic, give the script and oh, I'm using it right now.
Speaker 2:This isn't even really, denny have you seen that video of the movie uh, or the idiocracy? Yeah, yeah, we're getting closer and closer to that the more and more we give up what it is to be human and to make decisions for ourselves and think and be like that will never happen. Like wow, last decade have we made some big ass jumps?
Speaker 1:you're like, okay, like 20 or 30 years.
Speaker 2:It's like that idiocracy thing isn't so. When everyone takes most of the news from the internet nowadays, which people 100 do, it's like that was the whole premise of idiocy.
Speaker 1:People stop questioning things like yeah, mondo it's good, it's got what it's got electrolytes yeah, like we all fall off from that point we're not we really are, dude, kevin. It's been an absolute blast, man. If uh people want to get involved or they want to uh take you up on the offer and come down to the bush, how do they get a hold of you, man? Yep, so I run the company, wild works.
Speaker 2:You can find us online. That's wild w-i-l-d. Dash works, w-e-r-xcom. So wildworks, wild dash workscom. Uh, we're on instagram. Um, online you can book for the portal. I'm doing safari and adventure trips all across af and we're about to open Asia next year. So I've got my first group going to Thailand in February. Yes, my other home.
Speaker 2:Although in Africa or America, you'll find me in Thailand. I, as a veteran soft guy that's traveled the world, I'm doing it for American civilians. It's my job. But for the veteran space, I really would love to get you to these places. So I do 15% discounts for veterans. I'll quite happily get you to anywhere you need to be If you're a veteran charity or group. Like I said, I'm approved by SoCal Warrior Care so I can do charitable donations for my trips. So if someone's like I've got 20 grand to donate right now, I will link you up with one of our nonprofit partners who will then arrange a SoCal warrior care to provide the money, and then I will provide the services of Safari. So I work those ways there.
Speaker 2:So yeah, you got to come out with your family, come see me. Or if you're a veterans group or you support veterans, please reach out to me and I can find a way to make it a charitable donation to get veterans out here to experience what me and Denny just spoke about.
Speaker 1:Heck, yeah, man, if you guys pause right now, go to the episode description and you see all that information right there. Follow us on Instagram. Follow Kev on Instagram. Go to all these clips that I put out there. All the information for his organization will be on there and please, like. We talked about how horrible social media is, but it's also a great marketing tool. So please follow Kev. Give him your support, your likes, your shares and subscriptions, because we need to make this program big.
Speaker 1:It's up to us to change what healing modalities are offered to our veterans as they get out. The past 20 years has wrecked all of us. We need to do better and right now, one of the greatest things we can do is stop leaning on medication and start leaning on nature. Start being willing to explore the great outdoors and get out and really experience all again. So please take Kev up on his offer and get down the bush and see what life's really like, man, because it's not about you know these experiences in urban society. It's about getting outside and exploring again, because you were an explorer once. You went and you traveled the world and saw amazing things. So just be willing to do it again.
Speaker 2:It's still out there. Yeah, the world is amazing. It's like Africa, asia. I still haven't been to all of it and it's still. I go to places like Thailand, like golden monks and like temples as big as you can imagine three-story gold buddhist monks. You just like how do they build this? It's just like, yeah, or or is out there. I would love to help you find it. I'd love to get denny out to africa to do a podcast in person.
Speaker 1:Make that happen let's make that happen. I need to travel to africa. It's on my bucket list and I have a mobile kit, mobile kit.
Speaker 2:So yeah, half podcast will travel, find a way there, it's fine a veterans group special operations veterans out and you can do a podcast in the african bush with our veteran special operations.
Speaker 1:I know some people. I actually know some people will. Uh, we'll get offline. I gotta connect you with some folks. Yeah, next episode. Yeah, yeah, guys, thank you all for tuning in. Please take care of each other and until then, we'll see you all. Until next time, see you, take care. Thanks for tuning in and don't forget to like, follow, share, subscribe and review us on your favorite podcast platform. If you want to support us, head on over to buymeacoffeecom. Forward slash set call podcast, buy us a coffee, connect with us on Instagram X or TikTok and share your thoughts or questions about today's episode. You can also visit securityhawkcom for exclusive content, resources and updates. And remember, we get through this together. If you're still listening the episode's over. Yeah, there's no more Tune in tomorrow or next week. Thank you.
