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!
CIA Secrets & Mental Health: Andrew Coussens’ Journey to Resilience
In this powerful episode of the Security Halt! podcast, host Deny Caballero sits down with Andrew Coussens, a former CIA contractor, to explore the untold challenges faced by those in the intelligence and military communities. Andrew shares his personal journey through trauma, resilience, and recovery, shedding light on the mental health struggles that accompany high-stakes careers in federal law enforcement and special operations.
The conversation dives into the impact of sleep deprivation on mental health, the healing power of vulnerability, and the role of alternative therapies in recovery. Andrew opens up about navigating grief, balancing parenting responsibilities, and the challenges of transitioning to civilian life after years in high-pressure environments.
They also discuss the misconceptions surrounding intelligence work, the importance of building community, and Andrew's venture into Hollywood as a platform for advocacy and storytelling. This episode is a must-listen for veterans, active-duty personnel, and anyone passionate about mental health and resilience.
🎙️ Tune in now to hear Andrew’s inspirational story and actionable insights. Don’t forget to follow, share, like, and subscribe on Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Podcasts to support the conversation about veteran mental health!
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Chapters
00:00 Drew's Journey to the CIA
02:54 The Reality of Intelligence Work
05:46 Trauma and Resilience in Special Operations
12:02 Mental Health Challenges in the Military
18:01 Understanding the Crisis: A Case Study
24:01 The Importance of Connection and Communication
27:46 The Impact of Sleep Deprivation on Mental Health
28:45 Vulnerability and Mental Health Awareness
30:41 The Importance of Reaching Out
32:32 Breaking the Stigma of Mental Health Treatment
34:18 Finding Healing Through Alternative Therapies
36:24 Navigating Grief and Finding Faith
39:33 The Struggles of Transitioning to Civilian Life
42:10 The Real Fight: Parenting and Family Life
44:06 Finding Community and Connection
46:01 Exploring New Opportunities in Hollywood
49:17 Legacy vs. Living in the Moment
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Grab your copy of “A Failed State” today!
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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. It's hosted by me, danny Caballero. It's decent, it's hosted by me, denny Caballero. Throw some hate at us, since I'm talking to a CIA spook.
Speaker 2:Right there you go. There you go, man.
Speaker 1:We started 25 off in the worst possible way 100%. Oh, man, drew Cousins, thank you for being here. Man, it's a pleasure to have you Dude. Two books all based on your experience working with the CIA. Man, failed State and then Relapse. Both have very powerful titles and bring about current imagery that relates to what we're going through in today's world. So today, man, I want to talk about your journey into writing these books. But first, where did you find, how did you find yourself in the CIA?
Speaker 2:Take us through that path. Interesting story for sure. Uh, I was uh not much better in the uh popularity department, but I was fed uh prior to that I was actually working for cbp doing uh boar star of work.
Speaker 2:So, uh, search and rescue work with oh no shit with customer control under dhs, um, and did that for a while. Prior to that I did a lot of medical fire medical stuff. I did stuff with. I did wildland fire stuff with both agencies, forest Service and BLM. So I did hotshot hell attack work and then kind of made my way over to the federal, uh, law enforcement side but decided to stick more with. I did narcotics addiction for a while.
Speaker 2:Um and uh usually work alongside borscht for attack, which is their highly you know tactical side, and then ended up, uh, much prefer in the medical, the medical end of it and the search and rescue end of it. So had plenty of experience with aircraft rescue, um, all kinds of stuff in that vein. And, uh, we ended up doing a security detail for the 2002 winter olympics. Uh, on the heels of 9-11. And every agency wanted to play, thinking that you know the Olympics were going to get hit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we, like seven or eight federal agencies, squeezed into a 16,000-square-foot hangar on the mountain green side of the Wasatch Front, which is where Snow Basin was, and they were doing their Super G downhill event. So we spent a good part of that working for a task force called the NSSE, which is National Security Special Events Task Force, which only usually comes together when there's like a dignitary visiting the US or there's something special going on. They bring all these elements together. The Department of Homeland Security was just getting its legs under itself after the 9-11 Commission recommended it. You know, have a kind of a singularity run of the show and then we ended up flying guys to dig hide sites for Sniper Overwatch for that, and then ended up grabbing two guys that I thought were State Department. They said they were State Department and they wanted routine flights up to the comms tower to hang all their SIGINT shit on the tower and do all kinds of electronics work right.
Speaker 2:Um, kind of a friend of these guys. Um, they, uh, they took a liking to me and they said, hey, man, uh, there's a program we think you'd be interested in if you could, if you could procure a uh, top secret fci clearance. And I said, ah, I don't know about that man.
Speaker 1:Now we've got to figure out what was in the background, what did? You do in your youth.
Speaker 2:I was doing that, I was thinking about all the bad stuff I did as a kid. They gave me a phone number to call. It didn't take long to figure out they weren't State Department. I gave it a shot and figured I didn't have much to lose and applied. And it took a year, almost a year, to get my TSSCI. And then one day I got a phone. I was on the toilet and I got a phone call and this lady said hey, can you be in Virginia two weeks? And I said, I guess guess so. And she said well, your clearance came through and we need to run you through uh weapons and some other training and and uh or some other uh evaluations and, um, here's the date, here's a ticket, um, and then some paperwork is going to show up in the mail and my wife's freaking out because I got a diplomatic passport and some consulate paperwork to some foreign governments and we're exactly vacation destinations.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, yeah, what the fuck is this? Yeah?
Speaker 2:right. Yeah, it kind of crystallized at that point.
Speaker 1:But you know what are you gonna do yeah, our families really don't get a lot of um buy-in, at least our, our, our generation. I'm hearing a lot of guys are going into these career fields that are already married or even fiancés or serious girlfriends, and they're they're taking a a better approach of bringing them into the fold and at least letting them know like, hey, this is something I'm passionate about, whereas for our generation of guys is very much like, yeah, this is something I'm doing yeah, yeah, I, I think I was, I think I was in that slot for sure man, so, but uh, yeah, so that's how it started.
Speaker 2:And uh, you know. Next thing, I know I got whisked off to pakistan and, um, you know, doing a bunch of stuff with guys. That man you only read about I think I was talking about this on another podcast. I think one of the guys I met right out the gate was um had done, uh, red cell work with dick marchenko. You know, wow, holy shit, yeah, and I was like dude, I cannot believe I'm I'm working with you. You know I just um, yeah, these guys that were, you know, kind of heroes to me and, um, older guys, you know it just was 2008, so it was the beginning, you know, beginning years of the war.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean billy wall, uh you know. Rest in peace. Prolific green beret, uh turned uh caa guy he was.
Speaker 2:He was in the hunt for uh ben laden well into the 70s so I actually ended up working with billy was one of billy was counterparts, uh, just as old as billy. Um, he was a chief, he was acting chief of base for a while. His call sign was Wolf and this guy he had seen I mean not as much as Billy, but he had seen some shit and I was like, holy cow, yeah, interesting time for sure.
Speaker 1:It's crazy the people that gravitate towards that path. You get a mix of everybody Because it's easy. When you're a younger guy like myself, you always thought that it was just a revolving door of military dudes. It's like no dude they. They attract a wide, like wide variety of individuals yes, they do.
Speaker 2:we had a logistics chief when we were in, so I spent four or five deployments in one AO and then switched to Afghanistan where I kind of really found a really solid team and I like the country and the history of it and stuff and we were based on the western afghanistan border with iran and one of the cows there she smoked like a chimney. She looked like she was 20 years older than she was. She was recruited as a logistics uh for the agency at 18, right out of high school and I was like holy, and she had been doing that ever since so she was in her late 30s.
Speaker 2:She looked like she was in her 50s, which you know dear god woman yeah, but she let me tell you something and I never asked. I never asked any details, man, but you can imagine, you know what they saw and heard and pulled her out of high school.
Speaker 1:That's insane. That's some shit that you see in movies and you discount it as fiction 100% 100%.
Speaker 2:But one secret I did get from and I'm friends with a lot of guys that are case officers and I can name them here because they're pretty public with it Mike Baker, doug Patterson and Andrew Bustamante, I think it was yeah good guy. Doug actually talked about how he believed the agency recruits people based on a very traumatic experience they had and how they recovered from it. You know personally, at a very young age, post-traumatic growth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. In this podcast we focus a lot on the things that made us who we are and why we went into this career field, made us who we are and why we went into this career field. And all of it stemmed from my own, trying to understand why did I get here? But then also, why did I have such a catastrophic breakdown towards the end of my career, realizing that, like shit man, I survived through absolute nightmarish scenarios as a kid. That gave me this drive to like, achieve this, whatever the fuck I wanted to do, like I had to get as high as I could and and and find this, this mountain, find this ridgeline, and get to it so I could feel some sense of accomplishment.
Speaker 1:And every, nearly every single person I talked to had the same thing traumatic childhood, horrible life and they're like you know what? I didn't want to be down there and I was like, holy shit, did they? Did they develop an algorithm? Did they figure out the? What makes really good green berets or really good seals or rangers are the, the dudes that just get the shit knocked out of them as kids and then refuse to quit, and it's like, well, you know, there's, there's a case for it, there's you know I would imagine um, it there's.
Speaker 2:You know I would imagine um, I think a lot of the guys that go through uh, you know, sfas, or uh, or you know geez man, uh, you know range of italians got, uh, I forget what it's called it's uh, raspasp, rasp and RIP or you know selection, for you know Air Force, pj or DCC. I mean, I think a lot of those guys have to dig pretty deep to get to where they are and that makes sense, and I think the agency looks at the same thing, but I think Doug was talking about can't remember if it was Doug or which which one, but Doug was talking about how they really look for like kids that were in their like early teens, that had like maybe both parents died like a car wreck and just continue on. You know, instead of going down the road of like drugs you know what I mean they dig deep within themselves and find something that just keeps them focused on that fight. You know getting better who they are and really, you know, prevailing in life, I guess.
Speaker 1:No, it's absolutely true. It's absolutely true. Man, being able to, that's how you make, that's, that's part of building that resilience. You've got to be tested If you're going to have that knockout like survive, grit and resilience, you've got to be tested. It doesn't just develop when you're growing up in a perfect vacuum. 100% man, 100%. So what was life? We see the Afghan rotations on our end, just being like it's always Friday night lights. I always equate it to that. We want the deployments, we want to be on those constant rotations, but I have to imagine that it's got to be the same for guys in the agency. You want to stay gone.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, the agency's got 27,000 employees or 29,000, I think now A lot of those people never see deployments but they encourage it, uh, especially if you want to move up and out. Um, but you know, working the operations side, you know we were kind of considered um, unmentionables. You know, we, I, we, I'd show up in Langley like long hair and a beard, I didn't care, I looked like I walked off the set of. You know of what's that motorcycle show? Oh, sons of Anarchy.
Speaker 1:Sons of Anarchy, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's what I looked like and, man, the useful looks I would get from people. You know it's a very prim and proper agency, just like most of them are. At that point I stopped caring and we'd show up, for, you know pre-deployment briefings and what have you. And I just walked in. You know they're like, wear something nice. And I wore like a golf shirt, you know, a pair of jeans. It just was not.
Speaker 1:Sounds oddly familiar. Yeah, Operator casual as they say. No 100% the 511 pants.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, operator casual as they say it was not appreciated. Man, it was not appreciated so. But I mean, the good thing about it is is, you know, it's highly compartmentalized, right? So just because you know, I've walked through the front doors and see I, it's like I, somebody said, hey man, do you ever find out who killed kennedy? I'm like, oh bro, it's not like that, you have to clear it's. It's like somebody let me into the you know empire state building and you've got a key to like three rooms, yeah, and the rest are locked. You know it's just need to know. And, uh, you know a lot about your program but you don't. You know you're here some rumblings about some others but you never hear full details.
Speaker 1:You don't know what's true and what's yeah yeah, that's, that's the common misconception and it kind of the podcast is all about segues and moving in and out of sequences, but, um, I feel like we got to touch into this man I'd be a waste opportunity if not but to like sort of like clear the air about how the reality of the intelligence realm, the world of the spooks and spies dude, it's not like the movies, it's not like you walk in you have this, all these scans and everybody has a black tie and suit and you walk in. It's like no dude, like literally, like what you just said, like you're read on to specific programs, what you need to know. You don't go down that hallway and you don't go to that building. This is, this is the only place you go to.
Speaker 1:But everybody hears that, like I worked for the cia or or I was a green brain, they immediately think like, well, fuck, what's north korea? What are they doing right now? It's like, dude, I don't have a fucking red site terminal in my house. I've been out of the military since 2023. Man, I don't care zipper messages, but there's this, this great now. Uh, unrest and with this idea that if, if you have a guest on the show that they were a former cia operative. They gotta know everything they're in. No, they're part of the evil empire.
Speaker 2:It's like fuck dude, it's a sign off.
Speaker 1:I like hearing that you're probably like I've been accused of that before you're part of the sign off, dude I'm sure you know everything that's going on with um, the green beret, the cyber truck bombing 100 and uh, you know, sam shoemate loved the dude. I actually grew up with him. Fucking. He's done great things with terminal cwo. But the moment he goes there and gives up that email, then it's like, oh, he's fucking spooked. He never left the CIA. I'm like, first of all, he was never in the CIA guys. Like he was fucking Intel warrant. Like before that it was Intel NCO. Like the dude's just a passionate about helping and he was doing the right thing bringing stuff out to the American public. But even if you do the right thing, you public.
Speaker 2:But even if you do the right thing, you're fucking hammered. So let me ask you, man, I mean, obviously, on both sides of that right, no one's in. And being part of the, you know, the, uh, the special force community, I mean what, what do you? What's your take on that?
Speaker 2:because I made a few phone calls and myself, yeah, just out of curiosity, and because I had spent so much time in afghanistan and you know, know, people that were part of task force Pineapple and you name it dude, and we're friends with you know guys that I eventually lost contact with that were Afghan nationals as part of the NDS, which is their version of CIA and Afghan special operations, and I debunked Sam, most of Sam's contentions from the letter, at least right out the gate. So how do you feel about?
Speaker 1:I will tell you right now, because the number one thing that I talk about is killing the myths about mental health and the struggles that we're facing as a community in the military, and the number one most impacted community when it comes to RHI and TBI is our soft community. We eat charges, we eat breaches, we are constantly exposing ourselves and I didn't know.
Speaker 1:I did not know the impact until I was sitting inside a fucking. The first, the first treatment center was a mental health treatment center that I went to Lower Ridge, shout out to them, saved my life. The very next one the star program for TBI. The very next one, the STAR program for TBI. I didn't have a unique story of falling down mountainsides and being blown up left and right. No, I didn't have that. So what the fuck happened to my left eye not focused? And what happened to my ability to rationally think? And why was I rattled with anxiety and depression? And why couldn't I remember shit? If I got too up elevated, I couldn't talk to my wife and none of that shit was being talked about. Nobody fucking talked about it. Yep, until I went, I got help and it was one nurse practitioner that said we gotta, we gotta get you to start program.
Speaker 1:You're a candidate, you go there and sit down with all these fucking providers and they're like yeah, dude, like this is what blast impact does to your body and it's like, immediately, they like you, only think about combat. That's the first thing I mean. Obviously I didn't get blown up. I wasn't part of a fucking. Uh, you know, I, I didn't get shot out of the sky. I didn't tumble down a mountain fucking side and have to be rescued no, but none of that has to happen. You have an entire career where you were a fucking paratrooper before you went into free fall team and you had an entire career as a fucking Green Beret. That's enough exposure and that's why I didn't understand.
Speaker 1:And when I look at this individual who's going through a crisis, who's under a complete the the same band of stress that every green beret is under, I understand what a snapping point is. Now I can't say why he would write and fucking email all this crazy shit. But I can't say this at my worst, I was fucking completely irrational. You're gonna ask my wife yeah, you can ask anybody that I divulged to when I was in my treatment center, all the things that were going on in my head. I can't place myself in a match shoes and say that I know everything he went through. But I will tell you this that man had a long career and a long list of exposures and one thing that we do really fucking well is we put a mask and we don't tell anybody and we don't share Inside that team room. Never fucking broke my mask, never had a breakdown to my team room. I got my dude's help. I got two guys to go to treatment centers before I was fucking in my downward spiral nearly about to do something stupid, and even then I didn't break that mask and get vulnerable. First person I got vulnerable with was one of my old friends who was then the ops and CO fucking, joy Palladino. When I made my decision to go to treatment center, that's the first person I was like dude, I'm fucking having a really rough time and I need to go somewhere.
Speaker 1:And that's the reality of it. We don't want to look at the truth. We don't want the mundane, not sexy, completely boring truth that sometimes we expose ourselves to something that we don't even pay attention to because we're not educated on it. And nobody wanted to give us white paper studies and nobody wanted to hand every soldier in the rank and file the operator syndrome book. We don't know what's going on until we break down.
Speaker 1:And the thing that's super telling of this whole situation is the need to connect with somebody and this paranoid idea that he had to share something. That's the one thing I'm like dude, like that's that's telling to me, like if, if, anybody could at least gotten that guy to sit down and be like, hey man, take a knee, breathe, relax. All this stuff aside, all this weird stuff, everything you're talking about, I got it. What's going on? Like what's really going on, dude?
Speaker 1:Because if somebody would have been able to reach them through those emails, through those social media texts and messaging, they would have been able to talk to him face to face and get him to sit down and just have a talk, wouldn't be able to peel that onion and get all the way down to the layers and maybe get to the point where he's like dude, I'm struggling, I'm fucked. There's all this stuff. Maybe it was financial trouble, maybe it was, we know, there might've been some strained relationships. All that stuff would have finally gotten out. We could have been like, hey man, maybe these drones, maybe all this stuff we'll talk about it later, but right now, let's just go to Laurel Ridge, let's just go there, let's just talk to a provider. I could have been stopped and it's not the craziest thing I've seen. I've seen. I've seen other green berets have major fucking insane breakdowns and they said some really crazy shit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, danny, I mean just to break it down a little bit. I mean you believe that obviously, matt was in the vehicle at the time and self inflicted, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I do.
Speaker 2:What do you think Sam's take on it is, then?
Speaker 1:I mean, that's, that's, I don't know man I think, yeah, uh, I watched a little bit of the live they did on twitter, um, and there's so many like weird ideas of like he was dead in there. Somebody killed him, put his body in there, it self drove. All that information you get found out. I mean, all that information is free, like it. To me, the only logical thing is that he had a psychotic break. He drove that truck there to make a grand gesture, to bring attention to something that he thought was really pressing, something that he was struggling with. Um, there's a lot of there. There's a lot of things that we struggle with, that sometimes, if we're in the right headspace, we want attention for something, and now it's left to everybody all of us to dig through the fucking layers of crazy shit to say, okay, maybe this is what it was.
Speaker 1:Some people say that he wanted to draw bigger attention to something. I don't think that we'll ever truly know why he actually did that, because the man was in duress, in the throes of a mental health crisis. I don't think. I think people are looking into the military operations. He was talking about the CivCas. I think all that's been flushed out. I think he was desperate for some sort of attention, somebody that's talked to him and he put together this plan. Like I said, it doesn't make sense because I'm not in that, that space where I would consider and be like, yeah, like I would do that. No, because I'm past. I'm in my journey where I'm rationally thinking and I can say, like this is fucking crazy, this is somebody in crisis and I don't. I. There's nothing that can make me say like this is a well thought out and a flushed out idea. No, the dude was hurting, the dude was going through something and nobody in his corner and nobody that he was in talks with was willing to say hey, man, great info, but let's just talk, dude.
Speaker 1:I've seen tons of guys that get drunk and they call you and they start talking about combat. There's no difference. It's like, dude, let's not talk about the deployment, let's talk about what you're going through right now. Why are you getting drunk? Talking to me A little bit different in accusing foreign governments of sending drones over, but still in the same lane. Still in the same fucking lane. That tells the first thing that I would have done if that individual had sent me a message on Instagram. I would have said, hey, let's take a knee. This sounds crazy. Let's just talk about where you're at, how you're doing. Are you safe? Nobody fucking did that. That's the thing that blows me away.
Speaker 2:We had one of the craziest stories ever. We had a battle captain at my first AO. That was uh sergeant major from 10th group and his resume looked like I mean, he looked like he was captain america. Yeah, uh, turns out the guy you know had problems playing well with others, um, ended up being kind of on loan. The air force didn't spend time with the A-te off a lot of combat and had been retained by the agency from, you know, places like afghanistan and iraq.
Speaker 2:Um, and then one day we were on an alpha training on the hk69 firing judo rounds out in the desert trying to hit stationary targets, and one of the maintenance guys was walking the flight line behind us that he was friends with and they had hung out. They were kind of buddies, you know, kind of a mentor. Uh, you know big big buddy, little buddy set up and uh, he, he waved and said hi. Um, I'm not going to mention names, but this, you know, this, uh long tab returned and had a round cheetah round loaded in the hk and fired it right towards the guy and missed him. You know, thank god missed him. But even they sent him back and after that and everybody was like a stupid son of a you know, nobody knows what he'd been through, nobody knows why he snapped and did that. Nobody bothered, like you said, nobody bothered to ask. Yeah, so, um, we were all pretty hard on the guy, um, you know. But you know, thinking about what you just said, uh, there could have been a different approach 100, I think.
Speaker 1:As a young green beret, I had just gotten to my first company and I heard there was a guy that had gotten sent back from the Level 3 course. Lots of sleep deprivation, lots of working through the night, lots of stress and that dude got sent back home because he had lost it. He had lost his ability to like, relate himself to space and time and like what day it was. Because he was so sleep deprived. And that's just a normal baseline human being in a intel, in an ungodly, unimaginable, really demanding course. If you don't go without sleep for a long time you're going to say some goofy shit. And that's pretty much why he got sent back. Now, if that's a normal human being under super stressful conditions, think about what happens to an individual dealing with mental health issues under stress, maybe not eating right, not sleeping right. Like I said, you're're gonna say and do some crazy fucking shit. And like I, I just wish that the people that he was texting because I guess he was talking to an ex-girlfriend I wish people would have been like hey, man, how you doing, let's talk, let's, let's fucking meet in person and talk, let's chat, because I've seen it enough in this community to say that, like dude, when we break down, we break down and really fucked up waste. I've seen lots of uh, lots of guys just almost to the point where you're like this feels like schizophrenia. Yeah, this person's really, really struggling, really dealing with a lot of shit, but nobody wants to bring that up. Nobody wants to bring that up. Everybody wants to say the same thing. I know this man for 20, 30 years. He's the best operator, yeah, and we're very good at wearing a mask. We've grown up in this culture where we cannot say I'm fucked up, I'm struggling, I didn't want to.
Speaker 1:But one of the greatest things that I've developed in the last two, three years of doing this whole project is understanding the power of vulnerability. There's nothing wrong. Going to mental health treatment center Saved my life. I was really going to do something stupid, I had it fully planned out, had it completely done, and it took one moment of vulnerability sitting in front of one therapist that saved my life and she was like we're going to get you on a plane, we're going to get you to lower Ridge, you got to go, and going there like dude, like I'm not saying I would have done something completely insane had it not had just stuck to my you know routine of bullshitting my therapist. But who's to say I wouldn't? Who's to say that I wouldn't have fallen through and done something dumb while my wife was on her own deployment? Because that's the reality. That's where I was headed.
Speaker 1:And now, seeing where I'm at in this point in my life, I'm like holy shit. All it takes is having those vulnerable moments to talk with people Digging into your friends. If you got a friend that doesn't call you, if you're having constant contact and then he goes dark, doesn't check in on text message or post something really weird, fucking reach out. These past 20 years have put stress on our service members and individuals like yourself that work in agencies. It's only human that we fall apart, so we have to take that the action, take the initiative and reach out to each other well, ts clearance doesn't even account for any of that stuff, man.
Speaker 2:Um yeah. So there were guys I was working with, guys that had seen one guy who's third that um rager, that had seen some serious, serious oh fuck yeah, province at the beginning of the war and uh, it really it, I mean on an outpost with a guy you know doing some stuff.
Speaker 2:I could tell he had some serious screws loose, bro, and manifested later. Um, I just, I just recently told this story. The guy you know got back stateside after he had been, um you know, dnr'd and and, uh, he had problems with the law, um, you know, lost custody of his daughter, I mean you name it and I lost track of the guy for a couple years and I reached out, got a hold of him and turns out the guy's working for the VA as a therapist and I said, john, what the hell's going on? I haven't talked to you and he's like man. I went through four cycles of ketamine therapy and it just opened doors and turned on lights that I didn't even think I had.
Speaker 1:So awesome story, but rare didn't even think I had so awesome story. But but rare, yeah, rare. They're becoming more. They're becoming more the norm. Now more guys are talking, more people are open and I see matt's story as, yeah, I see it as a failure amongst us. I see it as a failure within our own community for not being willing to chip away at that armor. We all all carry that armor.
Speaker 1:There are things that Drew doesn't share with anybody, except maybe one or two friends. There's tons of things that I didn't share. But now I do. I talk about it openly. I tell my wife fucking everything and my close friends. They know every single time I'm truly struggling. Why? Because when I open up and I'm a little bit vulnerable with somebody that I trust, that's a key.
Speaker 1:You can't be vulnerable with every Tom, dick and Jane. That's just fucking weird. You can't just go up to the guy on the bus stop like man, I'm really fucking struggling today. Mind if I vent to you, that doesn't fucking work. But the best friends you have, the people you trust, when you have a fucking hard day like, hey, man, I fucked up, lost a fucking client, man Just need a vent, that's normal. You can't let that shit eat at you. You can't let those things here doing the military today Fuck, I fucked up the con op. We're not getting the mission. Oh man, that sucks, but you know what Better things are in store for you tomorrow. It's that simple. It's that fucking simple, man. It's just.
Speaker 1:But now that we have more access to this information and now that more guys are going into doing ketamine therapy, doing SGB, doing plant therapy, like that shit will change your life and it makes you more susceptible, makes you like be open to actually doing the conventional talk therapy, because I think that there is some valid resources that we're not willing to accept until maybe we have that journey through ayahuasca or 5-MeO DMT, and then maybe we're like okay, maybe I'm willing to talk now, maybe I'm willing to get through this. And that's what I'm seeing a lot of the older guys that's a beautiful thing, man, the dudes that were really struggling, the E8s that were fucking horrible. They're finding health. They're finding that journey through plant medicine. And they're finding health. They're finding that that journey through plant medicine and they're finally willing to get help and say like, hey, it's not for me to take a knee and like go through this. No, have you found yourself, uh, going through those?
Speaker 2:um, I, I, you, I took a page right out of a couple of guys, this playbook, um I, I don't know how, you, how you, if you realize how I ended up. Um, separating from the agency was because I lost my wife in 2016. And um it, it, it forced me to do a couple of things. One is to, like, become a father, which is what I've always wanted to be to my kids, you know. Become a father, which is what I've always wanted to be to my kids, you know. And number two, you know, develop a stronger relationship with God. And number three, it forced me to realize I needed treatment in some capacity, or I wasn't going to be a good father, a good Christian, a good man, a good neighbor, all those things you know. So I got on it right away and I, that's how I came about. My book is. I wrote an autobiography and shot it off to the publications review board at the agency, and they sent it back so fully redacted that you couldn't even read half of it, man.
Speaker 1:Drew, we appreciate the hard work.
Speaker 2:Enjoy. So I was crushed. And a buddy from the he was a Navy commander said hey man, just write fiction, see what happens. And I did. And a buddy from the he was a Navy commander said hey man, just write fiction.
Speaker 1:Yeah, see what happens.
Speaker 2:And I did, and I think they redacted maybe three words out of the manuscript and I had changed enough to make it look good and obviously didn't reveal you know anything. That was, you know, gonna like reveal operations or you know, um, so I, you know, I, I got once I got that published. That was the first step, and you know. Next was EMDR and after EMDR I did my own ketamine and I microdosed and did all those things on a regular basis. But I started quick because I was like throwing stuff across the room and my kids would spill a glass of milk and I can't, you can't be like that. Some don't get that advantage because they don't get that immediate feedback. Yeah, you know what I mean, um, but I, I got those horrified looks, especially them realizing, oh my gosh, this is the only parent we have left and you know he's a bastard, you know what I mean. So didn't want to be that guy man, um, so I did what it took pretty quick.
Speaker 1:Grief is um is a bitch. Yeah, it is an absolute fucking nightmare, and kudos to you, I mean. A lot of people will say, well, obviously he had to because he's the only parent left, but a lot of people don't make that choice. A lot of people don't make that choice and they let it burn them for the rest of their lives and it takes away everything. Did you rely on faith or did you have to find your faith through that process?
Speaker 2:uh, I think little column, a little column b, bro, um, yeah, I mean, I had always had a Christian upbringing and I always felt that I had my faith, but I was forced to rely on it a lot more. And in doing so, once you have a closer relationship with God, you really find your pace and you just unload, put stuff at His feet, do you think you just can't handle? And it really it was the deciding factor for me, um, in recovery and getting re-centered, uh, you know, becoming a valuable, valuable member of society. You know, one of the characters in my book, um, is a real guy, call sign loki in the book and he's really um, he's really got that call sign.
Speaker 2:His name is austin and he's a war junkie man like we hear about. Those guys all the time break glass in case of war belt. He cannot quit, he does not function. Nor does he want to back here, stay side when he does. He's on a ranch dealing with animals all the time, which you know is good therapy, yeah, but when I bring him out of that realm into society, he does not. He does no patience with people. He almost blows up and goes to blows all the time. If he was not deployed um, he would be a powder keg, probably just like matt.
Speaker 1:Matt.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and he does good downrange man. That's his element. Now, is that going to have health issues? Is he going to have health issues because of that? Probably, but he does not care. He's a grown man and he does not care. He's not married. He's got a daughter and a wife. He's estranged from. He knows those risks of being in that status and he just wants to. He's in Ukraine. He's been with a couple different contracts. He was with OGA with me. He was with the NSA Scorpion contract for a while. They're guys like that. I talk to them every six to eight months how you doing man? What's new? Oh, I'm doing this man looking at doing this and stuff. He's been engaged like four times you know sounds so fucking familiar.
Speaker 2:Yeah right oh gee, but at the end of the day, man, I, I give people grace to, to, you know, to the path they're on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you know, but do you find yourself looking back at your time and missing it? Or you feel like you're you're now 100, solidified in your new path, like because that's something that I see a lot of guys struggle with. They especially with this high octane, high adrenaline life where you're tip of the spear, you're the best of the best, you walk away, you re-establish your life. You're an author, you found success, have family. Do you still find like that little bit of an itch?
Speaker 2:I think it comes in waves, brother, yeah, um, I I do think. I do think you have to find a new mission, new fight, yes, and that fight is not going to look anything like the previous one. Um, you know, being a father was a lot of fun. You know, nine years ago, when my kids were single digits, or you know, early teens now that they're 1917 and 15, you know I could strangle a bitch. You know what I mean I could have done, because you know, you know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1:Man, you got kids day no, I'm my first one's on the way. January 30 like any day now.
Speaker 2:Any day now, yeah enjoy it, because I would take a toddler with you know stuff coming out of both ends in my household than a teenager any day. Man, um, and I have good kids. They're not like bad kids, but they're inherently lazy. They know it all. They don't listen to you, um, they don't care. The apathy runs deep, yeah, especially in this generation, man, very, and I'm afraid the next one is probably going to be worse and it's a shame. Man, I wish it was different, but it is what it is. So a lot of challenges there for me, a lot of challenges.
Speaker 2:And that's a fight, man. I've never been so deep in the thick of it like I have with this, trying to get those. The boys are the oldest, 1917 year olds. Um, trying to give them purpose, trying to give them a mission, trying to make them understand that, hey, you gotta, you know, show initiative.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're not having to do that, man, not right now yeah, it's the hardest thing that that, um, we have as men is being a father, like ensuring that you prepare your little ones into being big ones and be able to go into this world and be successful. I, I didn't value it. I was a fucking idiot.
Speaker 1:I was a complete fucking idiot for the longest time I remember being so proud of like not not having kids, not being married, and even then, when I went through a divorce, having that badge of honor of like yeah, you're, you've got, you got your harley, you got a divorce, you're one of the boys now like, yeah, fuck, yeah, never gonna have kids, never gonna be married like fucking selfish life. Then your career doesn't pan out the way you thought it would. Then then things happen. Then you realize that, oh shit, like who the fuck's gonna take care of me? Who's the fuck's gonna be there for me when things go south? Oh wait, all this shit.
Speaker 1:You didn't prioritize your entire life. Now you're like so many of us are in that single fucking one-bedroom apartment with ta50 stack up in the corner, hot pocket wrappers everywhere, empty beer cans. Like fuck, like that sucks, like that's not what we should be promoting and idolizing instead. Like like the, the real fight, just like you said, like the real thing that we should be suiting up and going into their arena every day is like raising your kids, being there for your family, and I'm I'm grateful that god gave me that opportunity after being a complete idiot and fearing it, because that's what it comes down to. You're scared, you're hella scared. You don't think you're gonna make good enough, father, you don't think you're gonna do it right? Well, come to find out. I've talked to so many people, I've read a lot of fucking books and there was not one single friend was like I gotta figure it out. This is the perfect way to do it Nope.
Speaker 1:They're all saying you're fucked, we're all in it.
Speaker 2:We're all in this shit. Let me tell you, man, like probably a lot like you, I still have my touchstones, man. I mean I touch grass all the time with. For the first couple of years it was going to shop show and hanging with guys from like CAG and the SEC and a couple of buddies of mine that you know run a rescue 22 foundation and um coastline canine and stuff and I just I felt community.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then over time, you know it kind of I was like yeah, but I stay in touch with guys, man, I still do Like I, I still have a network here that I reach out to and guys that understand it when I'm like having a fucking day. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:Yep, guys that understand it when I'm like having a fucking day. Yes, like you know. Yeah, so what are you looking at these days? Boise, idaho, oh man, that's the state that's the place to be.
Speaker 2:Well, all the californians want to be, apparently, but well they do right now. Sorry, not sorry yeah, I mean it's. It's beautiful here, man and you. There's like 1.3 million people in the entire state, which is amazing, and some of the best vestiges you know, some of the best mountain views, are just half an hour drive from my home, and I'm not trying to advertise it Cause, like I said, I want I want to shut the door behind me when I got here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I really feel like it's just a gorgeous untapped uh resource of a of a state and uh really really enjoying the yeah dude, it's amazing, the places that I had never traveled to until, or wanted to travel to until I got out and I started seeing, like my group of friends strategically like place themselves, like idaho is one of the places, and it's like, yeah, dude, so don't tell anybody, but it's fucking nice up here. Yeah, same with utah. I had no idea how wonderful utah was, so I went there. I was like you gatekeeping motherfuckers, this is beautiful it is now.
Speaker 2:You got a battle of mormons there a little bit harder.
Speaker 1:Turns out, they're fucking great and they're amazing at off-roading.
Speaker 2:They're amazing. I mean, their family is the center besides God. It's the center to them and I respect them a lot for that. They do an amazing job with their family and raising their kids and stuff like that, for sure. But utah's man, they spent some good time in utah there when I was fed and um been back a few times since to recreate to do some work with uh. I think I was doing some consulting with uh. I've been swat and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:So it's nice, yeah, it's good, good time, dude, but yeah, you're working on another book yet no man, I uh, I started dipping my toes into the Hollywood environment a little bit.
Speaker 2:You know, I had known that's not his real name, but I had known Jack Carr prior to the Amazon deals that they ate.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And we, you know we were friendly with one another and uh, you know, once Amazon took his uh, took his idea and ran with it. You know he's too busy to to engage most of his his friend group, which is fine, I get it. You know a lot of guys like Matt Best and stuff like that big overnight and, and you know, probably shrink their friend group, their network, quite a bit. Uh, for you know various reasons, but another buddy of mine, who was a former army pathfinder and actually ended up doing a lot of uh intelligence contract work in iraq, ended up becoming a customer a military customer for hollywood and like just hit it really big with productions like oppenheimer and um, lioness and uh, you know what I mean and just really being in demand.
Speaker 2:So he invited me down last time. They were doing the spinoff from terminalist, uh called, uh, terminalist dark wolf, and I got some time on target there and realized that hollywood's not what, at least on those productions, what we think it is. Yeah, tons of veterans, um, lots of guys that you know have a lot of faith, um, and I was just really surprised to see that that community and that level of vibration uh, down there and I was there for two weeks, thoroughly enjoyed my time on set with those guys got to be, you know, do a little background acting and stuff, uh, you know, being in some scenes where we're loading 50 cows and I'm doing some other stuff. You know I had to play a seal, so you pray for me so he's a fucking seals, but uh, but I, I'd like, I'd like to do more of that.
Speaker 2:I realized, you know, I ended up getting an agent, uh, and oh, nice, going sag, got got to go sag, um.
Speaker 2:But I realized I have to slow crawl, um, so I'm working with a lot of guys right, I'm trying to keep myself out of hostile aos by working with a lot of guys, um, uh, in that were former uh special operations selling military hardware to, you know, foreign governments and stuff like that that want us stuff. So, and god's been really good man I'm, I'm really blessed to have, um, make a living out of this and still see my kids full time, you know, go to every soccer football practice, go to every ballet recital, go to all my kids' graduations and stuff like that. As a single parent, that's really important and, um, and that's that's. That's a bigger blessing than if, you know, I were to wake up and there'd be two million on the door front, doorstep. Man, I think having time with your family, um, and then having lots of free time to enjoy them is is you're wealthy yeah, that's what truly matters, man, like being able to be rooted in family and faith, like never, never valued it.
Speaker 1:But I'm damn glad and proud to have found it in, uh, this chapter of my life. And that's another common thread I'm seeing with our generation of guys Like we come full circle and we find our faith and we find what really matters is being able to have those moments with the unruly young adults that are quickly eating you out of house and home you out of house and home.
Speaker 2:I heard uh, I don't know if you heard um, mike tyson say this, but he was being interviewed before the fight. They said what's your legacy? He's like oh fuck the legacy he goes. Ain't no such thing as legacy. He goes I'm dead, I'm gone. You know what I mean? Yeah, and that really hit me, man, because I realized that's a hundred percent true and nobody's ever said it out loud.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, and at the end of the day, I don't care about my legacy. All I want to do is set my kids up for success. Um, they don't understand why I'm not a friend, and more of a dad or a di than a friend, right, but I'm not going to be around for much longer, so I want them to aid and be able to turn to prayer and god when they need, you know, solace or or self-reflection, um, and I need them to like, realize that they're gonna have no one, like the whole adage, right, no one's coming the same yep, right, I? Just I live by that, because that that breeds resilience and it, you know a lot, allows you to rely on yourself and and man.
Speaker 1:That's just rare these days yeah, it's so fucking true, man, it's. It's becoming a uh, something that's harder and harder to find amongst people, people that fall apart the moment things go south. It's like okay, like like you gotta get out of this. Like no'm, like no, I'm just going to sit here. I'm like okay, that's your choice, that is a choice, that is an option, or you could get the fuck up.
Speaker 2:And I'll be like that until the day I die. You know, get into fights with my son. On occasion He'll say something like well, don't expect me to take care of you when you're too old to get up. And I said I'll get up. Might not be real fast, but I'll get up. Man, I'm never gonna you know what I mean. I'm gonna, you know, be clawing just like you. Man, I'll be clawing myself to get stuff done to my dying breath. Yeah, when it's time to go, it's time to go. Man, I don't, I don't fear probably a lot like you do. I don't fear dying on any level. I, you know I've had a full life. I've experienced amazing things and raised three, you know, beautiful kids that hopefully figured out at some point, um, and that's, that's what you can expect really that's it.
Speaker 1:You live a good life, do good, help people, be of service to others and then, ultimately, when your time's up, your time's up, there's this, um, this weird idea. There's uh, forget the guy's name, but he's trying to figure out how to live the longest. Like it's a fucking game. Like I, I can do all these supplements, I can do all this, all these tricks and this perfect diet. And I was watching the netflix show the other day with my wife. I'm like fuck you. Like this guy's life fucking sucks. Like what's life if all you're doing is eating fucking dozens of pills every hour, fucking taking blood from your own kid, and then UV light therapy and then fucking CrossFit workout? I'm like fuck that dude. Like where's life? Are you going hunting? Are you going hiking? Are you meeting with friends? Nope, can't drink coffee. Fucking, can't do this. Like fuck that. At some point it's over, it's gonna come to an end. Make sure you go out knowing that you were rooted in something that was valuable. Man like yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm guilty of doing both, man, I am you know what I mean. I mean I just I, you know I cold plungeunge and hot song, those are different those are different those are things that make us better.
Speaker 1:This motherfucker was like eating this pure, like just puree of vegan shit, just because it was like gonna make him live longer. And 75 pills in the morning with 80 in the afternoon. I'm like dude, cold plunge, working out, going for walks, being active. Fucking shout out to our whoop team if you got a whoop strap, join us. In this year we're going to be doing nothing but a fitness challenge all year long. Shameless plug for that. But uh, doing those things are great for us. Man. Like the idea of growing old, weak and feeble like that's not attractive. I want to go out fucking in great shape so that the dude that's cutting me up and looking at my organs says this dude worked out. Nice dude. Yeah, man, life lived well. Have some battle scars Be aged there you go, Dude.
Speaker 1:I can't thank you enough for being here today.
Speaker 2:Drew, it's an absolute pleasure man.
Speaker 1:Got to have you back on when you get back from Hollywood. Hit me up, dude. We'll dive back in both books and actually explore those more. Both books. Share them with us again one more time, drew.
Speaker 2:First book is the one that got mostly optics. It's A Failed State Mentioned on Joe Rogan. One more time drew uh first book is uh the one that got most of the uh optics. It's a failed state. Uh mentioned on joe rogan, I think back in the day by mike baker. Um, and then kind of uh hit the bestseller list briefly on amazon hell yeah follow-up to that is, uh, relapse the cost of war, and that gets into the meat of PTSD at home. And how?
Speaker 2:it affects marriages, custody battles. So that's a little bit more up here, but there's still some good action in it. And then I was going to write a third but I hit COVID. Covid put a huge damper on that because of all the stuff going on with that. But yeah, they're both available on amazon and ebook. Uh, afl state's out of print right now because it's sold out, um, but it's also available on audible, which a lot of people are for too.
Speaker 1:So oh yeah pause right now.
Speaker 1:go to episode description link to both. Those books will be there. Do us a favor, go there, click it, enjoy it, consume it, like you always do with everything, you greedy bastards. Then head back on over to apple or spotify and leave us a review, give us a little five star, high five. And if you're looking for a retirement gift or some woodwork, check out my man at house gigging house uh woodworks on instagram and you'll see his uh information on episode description as well.
Speaker 1:He makes amazing. Look at that that. Look at that thing. That thing's amazing. Look at that. Don't get your husband or loved one a shitty plaque that's in a glass case. Get him an epic piece of woodwork like that. Do it Cost nothing. Give him the special code which is reach around. He'll know what I'm talking about. Just say reach around in Instagram DM you send them and he'll know what to do. Guys, thank you for tuning in, drew. Thank you for being here, man Absolute pleasure and we'll see you all next time. Until then, 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 SecHawk podcast and 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.
