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!
Resilience and Purpose: Dr. David Walton on Pain Management and Mental Health
In this episode, Dr. David Walton joins host Deny Caballero to discuss resilience, personal growth, and the journey from military service to civilian life. As a seasoned expert in coaching and mentorship, Dr. Walton shares invaluable insights into the challenges faced by veterans, particularly within the realm of special operations. From the power of storytelling and shared experiences to the transformative practice of rucking, this episode dives into the tools and strategies veterans can use to build endurance—both mentally and physically.
The conversation takes a powerful turn as Dr. Walton addresses pain management and its often-overlooked complexities within the veteran community. He highlights the prevalent reliance on opiates and advocates for alternative approaches, emphasizing self-leadership, lifestyle changes, and the critical role of journaling in achieving mental clarity and emotional stability. Dr. Walton shares his personal journey of overcoming pain and finding purpose, shedding light on the importance of self-awareness and the pursuit of satisfaction over fleeting happiness.
Whether you're a veteran, a service member considering the special forces, or someone seeking motivation to take control of your health and mindset, this episode is packed with actionable advice and inspiring stories.
🎧 Tune in now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube to discover how you can lead a more resilient, purpose-driven life. Don’t forget to follow, like, share, and subscribe for more life-changing conversations!
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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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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, it's decent, it's hosted by me.
Speaker 2:Danny.
Speaker 1:Caballero, I'm the worst.
Speaker 2:I'm like an 18-acre. Worst nightmare. You know, Damn it, Captain. Quit fucking with the stuff.
Speaker 1:Dude, that's the running joke on here when I first started this, because you know echoes, get so much shit. We shit on our communicators and when I first started doing this and I just wires fucking everywhere, fucking road podcaster camera wires, something would get disconnected and I wouldn't have audio and I couldn't hear, couldn't see anybody. But what the fuck I should have? I should have paid more attention to echoes, I should have that's. That's the way the kamo gods finally punish us that's right.
Speaker 2:Get out. There's your sunspots, motherfucker exactly.
Speaker 1:Oh man, doc, welcome to security out podcast. It's um, it's awesome to have you here. When we talk about mentorship and coaching, once we get out, it's important to have individuals such as yourself doing this. This. This right here, feeds the regimen, it feeds special operations, and, even though my show doesn't specifically focus on talking about preparing for going to selection, I have gotten lots of guys to have reached out and asked me hey, what do I need to do? How do I get ready for selection? And that blows my mind that even I'm able to have that impact to have guys that are are going to pass lectures. Always tell them it's like, why don't you commit to this? You know that we can only talk about it as being like you're going to go do this, you're going to pass election. I mean, it's a humbling experience to know that our impact matters and the lessons that we learned can be put into a book so that others don't have to suffer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's the truth, man. I'll tell you it's a real problem now, too. There are so many kids out there that I mean I'm talking kids, legit young kids that just have no fatherly figure, no mayor role model. They are just awash in an information environment that is designed to deceive and misinform, and that's actually how that started in this business. So I'm a retired Greenbrier officer, retired 10 years ago, and was happy and content being a retired guy.
Speaker 2:I was in academia, I was teaching classes and I was like I'm living the good life, man, I'm, you know, I'm like a Harry Potter at Hogwarts, like we're in a robe and teaching, teaching the classes, and uh, and I wandered onto Reddit one one, uh, one one weekend and um, and, and I stumbled across the Green Beret and the Special Forces subreddits, which are just, you know, guys don't get information and it was full of horrible advice, bad stories and junk science and I was like God, this is really disappointing. And I was an expert in special forces assessment, selection. You have these young kids saying coaching and mentoring, not just young guys, but like just people all over that are looking for this to get into this lifestyle that we're doing. And I say I can't remember why I picked this up. I heard it somewhere. I stole it as my own quote, but it goes like we make good green. We make good green berets from good soldiers. We make good soldiers from good citizens. We make good green berets from good soldiers. We make good soldiers from good citizens. We make good citizens from good men. So learn to be a good man. And that's kind of. If you can learn to be a good man and that's what I kind of think most of us are then you're kind of well on your way to doing that. And being a good man continues after you leave the service.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, I had no intention of doing this mentorship thing, but I just kind of fell into it and I was like well, I mean, I'm an okay dude, I can help these guys out. I know what I'm talking about, and uh. And then here we are, and then it's turned into a couple of books and a and a, you know, and a and a following of of, uh, of like-minded guys that want to go do bad-ass commando stuff like we did. You know what I mean. So it's like okay, I did it and I'm part of Nike. Like I don't think I'm anything special, I don't have any uniqueness about my story inside the community. I'm just another team guy.
Speaker 2:You know I did my time, I went on the deployments. I was asked to go on and I chased as many schools as I could and tried to do always do the right thing. And, and you know, at the end of that that career you're sitting at the end, you're going, man, I've learned a ton of stuff and uh, and and and it's all good, and I don't want people to make the same mistakes that I made, like, like what, what can I do with it? And that. And that's where it started doing. It was actually during COVID. You know we were, I'm, you were probably all like, put us in a bar together. We're all doing the same thing.
Speaker 2:We're telling war stories, right, and and our war stories are, are ways of, of staying connected with our, with our, our past and our and our true self. And it's a great way to sort of remember our comrades and and and and the, the good war stories sticking through their ear. When stories stick in your ear, one, they stick in your brain and you never forget those war stories. And that's the way I communicate is I tell war stories. I like to just shoot the shit and talk trash. And special operators in every service, but particularly Green Berets, are world-class shit talkers and you've got to learn how to bust balls and have your balls busted. So my war stories were just that. They were sort of a way of absorbing that ball busting and I'd go out with the fellas and have drinks and all that and we'd tell war stories and it was fun. That's kind of the way you got that out of you.
Speaker 2:And then COVID hit and we're in lockdown and it's like no one's leaving the house. And and we're in lockdown and it's like no one's leaving the house. And uh, I got to wear a mask everywhere. I'm still not going out with the boys telling war stories. So I started writing them down. I just started, you know, making keeping notes and journaling on my uh, I like to journal because it's a, it's a performance hack that I picked up years ago, uh, when I was training up for dive school.
Speaker 2:And uh, and I started writing down these war stories and my wife saw them and was like these are really good. And my wife is a very refined critic of my war stories. As a matter of fact, we have a rule in my house that all I said you're not allowed to tell war stories when we have guests over because nobody wants to hear any of your bullshit. And I was like, okay. So then I had these memoirs of war stories. And then of course they're war stories. They're not all mine, but I've made them mine at 10%. Sure, at least 10% of the time. That's the requirement.
Speaker 2:And so I created this little tome of war stories and my wife saw them and said these are really good. And I said, man, if my wife thinks these are good, brother, I got to do something with them and my expertise was in SFAS and I thought, well, let me take these war stories they're. They'd be really good for these younger guys, you know, that kind of want to find their way in this world and it'll help me make sense of of how I'm dealing with my. Now. You know my, my former self has agreed. I think we all do that identity crisis when we retire, right, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I used to be a badass and now I'm a 100% disabled veteran and I had trouble getting out of my car right. So it's sort of a way to stay connected with that, and writing helps us organize our thinking. So when I was writing them down, it sort of helped me organize the way I thought about my former self. And then I had this expertise in SFRS and I put that all together and that's the book, right, that's that's rock up or shut up, and and there it is, and uh, and it's been incredibly popular. I get, I mean just uh, we sold more copies since it's been out about, uh, about a year and a half. We've sold twice as many copies as the number of guys that have gone to selection in that time. So clearly, yeah, so clearly there's an audience and I also, you know, here's the other interesting too is that you know, the natural audience for my work is young guys going to selection.
Speaker 2:I get tons of messages from old guys, guys, always I mean that old right Guys always saying, hey, man, I really appreciate the.
Speaker 2:You know your, your, your authenticity, your ability to cut through the bullshit, your ability to tell guys to knock it off, and and just, you know the sort of the way you approach this thing.
Speaker 2:You know I never served or I did serve and I never, never threw my hat in the ring or whatever. And they still connect with that because I think it's sort of a primal part of who we are as dudes is to have that connection in that community with like-minded guys. It all has to be, you know, green Berets, but like-minded guys that are, you know, in their self-improvement and self-awareness and human dynamics, and just you know, being back to my earlier point, that guys want to be good people and and you know, and the world is against you in that regards, right Like the world conspires to make you not a good person. Uh, everything is, you know, door dash to your door and social media delivered right to your hand. You don't have to leave your sofa to survive, but you're certainly not going to thrive. So I like to think that my work is sort of where helping guys thrive a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's. I think that and rucking serves more than just preparing you for the ultimate challenge of SFAS. When I think about what got me through so many of those difficult schools whether it was academically difficult or both academically and physical is that discipline of pushing through the pain barrier which you don't really understand until you're pushing the limits in mileage carrying a ruck. I remember when I went through the Q course it was just always known if there was a four-day, if there was some sort of holiday, the cadre were going to put you in a 12-miler and it was a pain in the ass because you knew like they're just doing it so that you are broken off and you don't go off and do anything stupid. And I knew that.
Speaker 1:I was a CEO, I was already an NCO from the 82nd going through the acute course, and a bunch of young studs and I'm like this is preventative medicine. They're trying to smoke, trying to get you to frigging, just be thrashed. So you spend the next three days licking your wounds. But because we did it so often over and over again, you build that ability, that layer of scar tissue, of callus in your mind that says like whatever, 15 more minutes, 10 more minutes, 20 more minutes can continue, going on. And my civilian counterparts and you've probably seen it yourself too that don't have that framework for endurance, for enduring something painful, difficult, like it, is an art form. It is something that will help you years down the road. Down the road, if you don't go back into doing something physical. Whatever you choose to do, in your second chapter you have the framework already developed for enduring going through something difficult.
Speaker 2:Yeah, rucking is sort of the great equalizer, isn't it? Like, no matter how strong, how fast you are, rucking sucks. And in the military, rucking is seen as a punishment. Like, oh man, I got to go do this rucking. We could have never already prepare for it like you, like now, at least I think it's part of the whole health and holistic fitness. Uh, the a lot of units are like so I'm, I'm at fort bragg, I'm, uh, I work on bragg and I live here in fayetteville and um, so I'm on post every day and you, I, you see units doing it much more regular, uh, than they used to back in the day. But it's still like rucking was a thing that you got to sort of. You have to build to it, right, it's like any physical activity. You got to build to it and most guys don't. So who are in the military, we see rucking as a punishment. Well, you're right, man, it's a.
Speaker 2:So I was, I described walking through ways. There's there, there's the fitness component to it, like you have to have the cardiovascular and the muscular endurance and all that stuff. That's exercise science. There's the technique component to it, like learning how to shuffle, like try, try to trying to describe. I was like, like, or I say in my mind how about you? You do the shuffle, you do the little trot and you're like you, like, you, really like, I know exactly, clench my ass cheeks and I tuck my hips and that's how I move, that's how you do it. You try and describe that to a chemically pure sedan who's just trying to figure out rucking and it's like dark magic. It's like what? Like a shuffle? I had no idea. Was that like a run? It's not running, but it's not walking either. It's this sort of halfway in between thing.
Speaker 1:The airborne shuffle.
Speaker 2:That's technique. And then the third thing is it's misery management. Rocking sucks, man. The way their straps press into your, into your traps and and dig into your back and like, like everything just hurts and your, your instructors, were complete assholes and wise, wise men, because it will break you off right Like you do. A luck, and you're down for the weekend. So it is the great equalizer, and we also know so now let's take this back to SFRS is that rucking is the number one performance predicting event in selection. It is where rucking performance is six times more predictive than the next event. So it is 100%. The data, the literature is very, very clear. So if you can't ruck, you will not get selected. So in order to get selected, you must be able to ruck. But it is so much more beyond that. So that's what my work focuses on. But you'd be surprised.
Speaker 2:There's a large civilian community of people that are into rucking. Obviously you know. Look at GoRuck, the GoWalk challenges, rock the go walk challenges. If you ever do a go walk challenge, it's two-thirds civilian, like chemically pure civilian. They're no interest in military at all. And um, and I and I, I get uh, reached out to by a lot of those, those guys, hey, I'm interested in that and um, and and they're, you know, they, they sort of they view it the same way that you and I do. Now we have a little distance from the suck and we're like man.
Speaker 2:Ruck is cool, but but about one third of that community is guys that are retired veterans. Um, not necessarily soft. Actually, most of them are not soft. They're just, uh, you know, they were supply guy or a fairly up to limit or something, and they want to sort of reconnect with that former self there, their old identity of man. Back in the day I was a badass, right. And so they're getting back into rucking again and they're like man. This can be something like it's almost therapeutic, right.
Speaker 2:I do this thing, I put this ruck on. I do it on my terms, I get a decent ruck, I can use the hit bell, the waist strap, I could have all the rickies and chews I want. And they had this very different relationship with it now, whereas before it sort of tormented and tortured them but it connected them to their former self. And now they're reconnecting with that former badass and they're like but I'm doing that on my terms, I'm like, I'm feeling good about it, and I don't have to do 12 miles. I can only do four if I want to, and so walking is this sort of you know, it's a therapy session, and that's the way it is for me too. I walk very often, a couple times a week at least. I enjoy it. It's fun. I understand where they're coming from. I'm right there myself.
Speaker 1:It's important for us to tap into that discomfort. We leave the military Initially. I call it the couch phase. Everybody gets into this and some don't, but more often than not, guys get out, they get into this couch phase where it's like, ah, I'm done, I can relax, I don't need PT, and you just start Netflix and chill, and Netflix and chill becomes your go-to thing. Or the video games, and you forget about the fitness and you forget about all these things and the pounds slowly creep up, the pain, inflammation comes and you forget all the lessons learned.
Speaker 1:You got to stay in that state of discomfort. It's okay to have a cheat day, it's okay to be able to be like I'm going to take the gym off, maybe I'll do something light, do a walk, do a jog, but you have to stay in that mode of being able to touch that discomfort on a daily basis. You did it with the team all the time and that's what kept you healthy or kept you within the fight. Maybe not healthy, there was a lot of issues that we neglected for a long time but it kept you mobile, kept you active. So we can't forget that and I've recently understood the importance of putting on that weight, maybe not starting out the way we started in the Q course or going on a mission, but being able to put a little bit of weight and be under that stress, under that load and get after for a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I saw a study years ago. I wish I could still find it. I'll find it eventually and I'll put it out there. But there was a study a couple years ago. It saw right when I retired in 13. And it said that this study demonstrated that military retirees had the fastest and largest weight gain of any documented population, including pregnant women. So former badasses would retire and get the hat overnight and we weren't producing another human being in our body, so we were out gaining pregnant women. So that's a real thing and it was documented. I'll have to find that and send that out. So it's real.
Speaker 2:My, the way I sort of approach it. I went to the same thing you probably did, right, you, you retired, so you know creeps on before you know, you're like 40 pounds heavy. You're like wait a minute, man, I'm trouble tying my shoes now, what's going on here? And and so so I I changed my paradigm, so I told you um, I like to journal. I journal every day, even because it helps me organize writing and writing helps me organize my thinking. So, uh, one of the things that that I started, you know. So when you journal, you get, get all this data, and the data doesn't lie. You can track the data. It tells you what you were thinking and how you're, how you were dealing with your life at the time.
Speaker 2:And I started noticing that on the days that I sought um, uh, happiness or uh, you know, I just wanted to feel good I didn't do well. And on the days that I sought satisfaction so that's different than happiness, right, satisfaction is different than happiness the days that I sought satisfaction were days that I was much better as a husband, as a father, as a colleague, as a, as a dude, and, and I thought it was like, okay, what's the difference there? So like, like you know to your point, I can sit down and play Xbox all day and I'll be happy. Now I had the you know code red Mountain Dew and the flaming hot Cheetos and I'll be happy as a pig and shit all day. But that night I will not be satisfied. The next day I'll be feeling it and I'll be rumble-gutted and pasty-faced and sallow-eyed and so, okay, I was happy, but to what end Am I satisfied, whereas if there's a day where I go rucking, or even if I just go mow the lawn and edge my garden beds and plant my flowers and all that business, I am much more satisfied.
Speaker 2:So I started sort of doing this experiment with myself, like, okay, what are the things that make me happy? One list, column A, column B what are the things that make me satisfied? And is there any crossover? And then, how do I now optimize my daily routine to do the things that satisfy me? Like I'm in control, I'm a hundred percent in control. I'm a retiree now. Like you can't tell me what to do, I'll quit.
Speaker 2:Uh, so, so I'm in charge of myself. Why can't I be in charge of yourself? The end it like like you're, you're, you know, a barrel chested, flat bell with freedom fighter. Be in charge of yourself, be a goddamn leader for yourself. So I said, okay, how am I going to lead myself? I can't, suddenly can't, leave my family if I can't leave myself. So I would like start. Like you know and I'm not perfect, I still still screw up I make give myself a one, one, one mistake every, every quarter, and, and so I now I've, I've found that I've developed a sort of optimized like what, what are the things that that I can do to to make myself satisfied, and that are that that position me as a, as a leader of my family, as a leader of my community, uh, and as a leader of of.
Speaker 2:How can I help other guys get there? And that circles me all the way back to the, the. The best things about me are represented in my service. As a Green Beret, the, the regiment, has given me far more than I could ever give it back. So I'm like I so and I have deep, real satisfaction when I think back on my career. You know, it's not, it wasn't just cool guy stuff. It brought me real satisfaction and it was a very good thing, the things that I did. And so I thought, well, okay, so now I'm putting this all together. My service in the regiment meant the world to me. It created who I am today.
Speaker 2:I get great satisfaction out of leading myself and helping lead others, and I had this expertise in special forces assessment selection man somewhere. In that synergy I can create a product, a thing, and I can help dudes get to where I am right now. And I was like damn, and you know, now here I am. So, so I, I have a, an immense amount of satisfaction in that process, but I also probably a lot like you.
Speaker 2:You know, once you get a voice, you. You also realize that, like, things that you say matter and you feel a um, a pressure to get it right, like you can't just say what you want. You can say what you want, but you also then have to explain it and sort of like here's why this is what I think, and this is why I think you have to sort of feel the reckoning with that and um, and and what. I've found that in that reckoning that's incredibly satisfying. So now it's like, man, that's a crude, this self-licking ice cream cone where, yeah, you can talk a bunch of trash, we can talk all the shit you want, but you got to back it up, you got to demonstrate his value and you have to be able to provide that in an actionable way to other dudes so that they can get some of that good satisfaction that you've got. And so it's like put it on my shoulders, man, I faction that you've got. And so it's like put it on my shoulders, man, I've fucking loved that.
Speaker 2:That's what I wanted to do as a Green Beret. I joined the Army to do hard shit. I got to do that as a Green Beret and now I know, because I spent a whole career doing the hardest stuff imaginable. Now I know how to do hard stuff and that's like how we build grit. That is the definition of resilience, and I think a lot of guys, a lot of special operators, in particular Green Berets we don't give ourselves enough credit in that, in that we are specially assessed and selected to have incredibly high resilience. That's the definition of resilience, right.
Speaker 2:So you know and and I think most of us actually we thrive in that environment. We are as malcolm gladwell called, we are anti-chaotic, like like we, we, we do best when, when the shit is the craziest, like that's when we really shine. And show me a time when things are are crazier than when you are retiring. Your body's finally starting to break down, you're losing your identity, you are losing a source of income, you're moving off into a different peer group and doing probably different tasks, and so in that moment of chaos, you have to sort of recognize like, oh man, you do this, you know how to do this, you were built for this moment. You, all my peers, guys like you, you know we, once we realized we, we had this other purpose, we, we really start to start, start to hit our stride, and it's incredibly satisfying.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. That's the one thing that we have to be able to give back to the community when we make that second chapter reality be willing to show the example of what it means to have that purpose, that mission and that newfound like optimism, because it's very dark in that transition. It's very dark for a lot of us. There's a lot of unknown and for a split second we forget that we operate in the unknown. We are literally would dread to go into. Yeah, exactly, but when we go through that, that pivot guys like I know I certainly did I forgot that, wow, like I've always been somebody that went to the unknown and certainly understood it in every part of our, of our job, and it's just for that split second you forget. Like, oh my god, nothing is clearly paved out. I'm like, well, when, when have you ever gone on a mission and had everything answered for you and had every do out completed, and that PDSS was just, wow, perfect.
Speaker 2:Never I try to describe that to guys. So this is really interesting in that what you are describing is the exact thing that young aspiring candidates wrestle with. They want to come to. So I'm an expert in special forces assessment selection. You want to go to SFRS. I'm an expert in special forces assessment selection. You want to go to SFRS. So you go to the expert and you ask these questions and what they're expecting is these definitive answers and it's like so I'm going to describe to you this is not rehearsed. Right here we go. I'm going to ask you a question and you're going to tell me what the CADRE selection told you. The CADRE will give you task and condition, no standards. And then you'll be like oh, I have no idea what I'm supposed to do, and you'll ask a bunch of questions in the cadre and the cadre will say what back to you.
Speaker 1:They'll say the same thing Do your best, get it.
Speaker 2:Figure it out, do your best. And you're like do my best. Now you say you're like like a lot of guys, that blows your mind. Hey, take the instructions off the whiteboard. We already told you what to do. Go do it. So okay.
Speaker 2:So very early on in your life, as a young Green Beret tadpole, you learn that there are no good answers, there are only bad answers, and your job is to pick the least bad answer. And it's like man, you better be real comfortable with being uncomfortable, because that's your entire life as a Green Beret. Now, smash, cut fast forward five years. You're in a valley and you pick a stand, you know wherever it is, and the commander, you know, stands on top of the mountainside with his map case and and waves his arm across the valley and turns to you and says figure it out. And you're like figure what out? He's like, yes, figure it out. You're like okay, and you just like make it happen. You're just like, oh, yeah, let's go, let's be in the board. We're gonna go figure it out. Like you, don't you? You'd be lucky. If you have commanders intent right, you'll have an op fund and you'll have. You have, uh, you all love the boys. And you're like we're gonna go figure it out, we're just gonna, we're gonna go and figure it out, we're just gonna, we, we're going to go do it and like, and, and we now at that man, but like dudes, like like you know you'll, you'll often see that, particularly as guys get to that senior, seven, junior, eight row, uh uh mode, where they're like, don't tell me too much, like, like quit giving me guidance, like like you're giving me way too much boss. So that's, you know, as a young captain on an ODA, that's one of the things that my team sergeants mentored me about was like like you don't necessarily need to rebest, you just need to harness our energy. And it was like, oh man, like, because that's a powerful team and you get a 12-man ODA and those dudes will do anything. So you just got to kind of point that missile in the right direction and hope it doesn't hit anything. But that's what green braids are very good at.
Speaker 2:So then when we go into that retirement phase and we're like I'm no longer a green braider, so I guess I can't do that anymore and I don't know what I'm going to do and my back hurts and I'm gaining 10 pounds, so you kind of almost got to snap guys out of it and say, hey, get your shit together, man, you're in charge of yourself, let's go. We got some shit to do, it doesn't? I'm like? I'm like probably like you. I have a bunch of friends that you know. Probably a third of us go into defense contracting. I mean kind of do the same thing, but you know the calorie light version of it. About a third of us go do just flat retire and they're like I'm just going to go sit on the sofa and chill. And then another third of us do something completely different.
Speaker 2:I got a buddy that went to dental school.
Speaker 2:He became a dentist and he wasn't an adult, he was an 18 alpha and he went to dental school and now he runs a dental practice. I got buddies that became authors and guys that went off and became professors, and you know, you name it, and so it's like there is no limit to what we can do. Nothing but says that because you're an 18 Delta, now you got to go to PA school. You got to go become a nurse or a paramedic. Because you went to 18 Acro, now you got to go get your cybersecurity certifications. Like you can do literally anything you want and once you sort of realize that you give yourself permission to do that, it's like sky's the limit, sky's the limit. But I think that we also do ourselves a big disservice in that the entire VA system you could agree or not. You tell me, I'll give you my theory and then you tell me whether or not you agree. I think that the VA system is designed to make us fail because it incentivizes you to be broken.
Speaker 2:The only way that you're going to receive any compensation is if you are broken and require fixing. So it's like this is human nature one-on-one. You will get the behavior that you incentivize. So if I am incentivized to only be broken, then I shall be broken and as a Green Beret, you do a career as a Green Beret. You are going to be broken. You're certainly going to be really, really bent right. You're going to have a bunch of stuff messed up. So I think that's the way the VA system sets us up for failure in that way.
Speaker 2:What if here's my theory here what if we reconjured the VA system to say that we're going to pay you to not be broken If you retire. We're going to give you $5,000 a month if you can demonstrate that you are fit and ready to go and be like oh okay, yeah, I can do that, I can toughen up. Now, if you have a legitimate or real injury, like you physically can't do something, we'll provide you the medical. But the system was designed such that I have to. I have to to to make the most of my injuries and and if and because of that, now the va have to have an entire system to treat my injuries, even if my injuries maybe aren't quite uh, you know don't necessarily require treatment per se. We got to spend a ton of money to have these va hospital assistants to take care of that.
Speaker 2:I think most of us would be like give me five grand and I'll go take yoga which I don't do yoga because I'm a dude but I'll start doing yoga, I'll get on a diet and I'll do some exercise. I think we could change the paradigm a little bit. I think there's some truth in there. What do you think that I?
Speaker 1:think we could change the paradigm a little bit. I think there's some truth in it. What do you think? I think that the VA system doesn't actually want to treat or heal any of the ailments that we have. They just want to make you comfortable pharmaceutically and I've experienced that myself, that we have great care while we're in. You have access to amazing healers, providers that will do amazing things to keep you in the fight the moment you get out. There's no going in for PRP. There's no going in for acupuncture therapy all those things that you get used to going to Thor 3. They just want to keep you drugged up, and every single thing that I brought up, everything that I wanted to get addressed, always went back to the loop of pain management. How can we manage that pain with some pills?
Speaker 2:baby.
Speaker 1:And for me, that was a big fucking no. By that point, I already started working on mindfulness. I already had an understanding of how it can help me connect with the present moment, how to really understand how to manage pain and understand that pain is a part of fucking life. There's no such thing as life without pain, and if you're listening to this and you want to push back on that, please find somebody, anybody out there that doesn't have any sort of pain on daily life. It's just a part of life. Now, how much pain you have, what you're willing to do to overcome it, that's all up to you, and there's so many modalities out there, but the VA doesn't want to fucking push them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, pain is proof that you arrive right If I'm still hurting, I'm still breathing. So it's like you just got to recognize that. But I think there's more to it than that. We also have to recognize that that veterans aren't the only ones that experience pain. Okay, so we also. You know, you and I, we, we sort of transitioned out of the military at a time in our, in our medical systems history that they made pain another vital factor. You know, and it's like so, it's like're like in you, so you can't, no one can have pain if you have pain, though smiley face versus the frowny face, like, like, yeah, rendered pain become a vital vital like hey, pain is, it just is man, you just got to figure it out and so so.
Speaker 2:So we were in that sort of unique shit storm of uh, you know, pain is a, is a, is a vital function, and and you and so and no one can have pain. So we're just going to do it. I think it was the last study I saw was like 2015. And in 2015, something like 75% of the active duty soldiers on Fort Bragg had been prescribed opiates in the last 12 months. Can you imagine that Twenty five or seventy five percent had been prescribed opiates in the last 12 months? And, mike, you hear that you're like, holy shit, we don't have, we don't have a medical system. We have a drug system that's all it's designed to do is push, push opiates and then we end out OK. So now let's look. But as the evidence cells, the evidence is also very, very clear. We know a ton about pain management. Opiates only work for about two weeks. After that, there is no reduction in pain. So now, if you have a system that says pain is a vital and you can't be in pain, and and opiates is your, is your choice, is your, uh is your, is your modality, you're going to address that. You're you have, you're on, you're on the clock, you got two weeks after that. You better figure it out.
Speaker 2:So, guys like you and I, we went and figured it out Like we went and started doing yoga and dry needling and and and acupuncture and acupressure and meditation and all that stuff, and we started to realize like there are other ways I can control my pain. Pain is inevitable. Pain is good in a certain sense, right. But you know, pain is just a signal, it's just information, it's just data. Pain is telling me there is something wrong. We have to address it. You can address it for about two weeks with meds and after that you've got to do something else. What's the other stuff? Okay, maybe surgery. Surgery has mixed results, particularly for us.
Speaker 1:I think you'd be hard pressed to find a green beret, a retired green beret who doesn't have advanced degenerative disc disease. We've all got bad backs right, so then you go into literature, brother, and every adult male has degenerative disc disease.
Speaker 2:Most Americans get it at about 60, 60 to 65 years old. We get it at about 40 to 45 years old. Why? Because we live with rocks on our backs and body armor and jumping and all this. Okay. So now let's start addressing that. What are some things we can do to deal with that back pain? So, strength and conditioning exercises. We can keep the weight off. That would be a huge benefit for us. We can eat healthy, we can stretch, we can do yoga, we can stay active. There's a ton of stuff we can do. And once you get away from those pain beds.
Speaker 2:So I had a really bad free fall accident in 2008. Jacked my back up really, really badly and my legs tore both my MCLs. I was on a dead man's profile for a year and it was brutal. And I struggled with my back for years and years and years and when I retired. So, like you, I retired and packed on the weight and I, the way I dealt with my pain was I would drink beer Uh, cause I'm not a heavy drinker, um, but every night, in order to sleep well, that evening, I'd have a six pack of Coors Light, you know, and it was like I that's just kind of how I dealt with the pain and I wasn't an alcoholic, I wasn't, I don't, I wasn't chemically dependent on it, at least I don't think I was and it wasn't until I really got into my journaling that I was like brother, you're fat and lazy and you drink too much. Let's address those three things and then we'll talk about your pain. So I sort of put myself on a clock. I said hey, greenbrae, you've got 90 days to get your shit together and you're going to quit drinking, you're going to, you're going to fix your diet and you're going to start exercising. And I started doing those things and, holy shit, what do you know? The rate started coming off, the pain started going away, and it was about 2015. One day I just I woke up one morning and the pain was gone and I was like what do you know? Holy shit? No, the pain was gone. And I was like what do you know, holy shit? No surgery, no drugs, no, nothing.
Speaker 2:Because I gave myself permission to be in control of myself, to be in charge of myself. The way I described it to guys is you need to treat yourself like you are your own client. So if I was coaching someone, what would I tell them to do? And if I had a client for whatever my business is, whether I was a strength and conditioning coach or a marathon coach or a life coach or a tennis coach and I had a client that was drinking a six pack every night, I'd tell him to stop, no matter what, right? So why can't I tell myself to stop? I tell him to, you know, to fix his diet, because food is medicine. What do you know? I fixed my diet and I got better, and so so treat yourself like a client and start looking at yourself that way.
Speaker 2:And one of the and and like like any good coach, like any doctor, you're taking medical notes, right? So that's what journaling is. You're taking notes on. What are you doing?
Speaker 2:What are the inputs that are, that are that are manifesting in your life, in your body, in your relationships, and what output is that producing? That's the black box theory, right? Input goes into the black box creates an output. If I don't like the outputs, if I don't like the pain that I'm in, if I don't like the rate that I'm getting, if I don't like the relationship I have with my family, then I don't have to understand. I don't have to be a brain scientist, I don't have to be a surgeon, I don't have to be a certified strength and conditioning specialist, because that's the system, but I can certainly understand the inputs that are creating these outputs that I don't like. So now let me start manipulating these inputs. That's human dynamics 101, knowledge of self, and so, like who knows me better than me, let me start writing down the things that I'm inputting into my black boxes and so I can start manipulating these outputs.
Speaker 2:And once you start doing more like, you get control back, you have agency over your problems. You, you start to, you start to feel satisfied that you, because and it's especially with us, because we're we're dudes we like to, like, get our hands on stuff, we're very tactile in that way. Yeah, journaling is a way of creating tactileness out of that esoteric uh, you know emotions and and and uncomfortable things like write it. I did that on paper. Now it's a thing, it's a physical thing you have to deal with, like, it becomes much, much more manageable. So journaling is probably the, the, the hidden performance hack. I, I, I didn't realize how powerful journaling was. Are you? Are you a big journaler?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, absolutely I, I. I started with just a simple gratitude journal. Um, that got me into it was the Daily Stoic, the ability to sit down and start with one thing. And then that morning ritual spans now into gratitude journaling, reading my Daily Stoic, doing my prayers, doing my rosary in the morning, and then, because you're immediately focusing on what you're grateful for and you're putting it back and you're connecting it with your faith, you're connecting it with your, your physical pillar, your mind pillar because the first thing I do, this rosary has saved me more heartache than anything.
Speaker 2:It goes with me everywhere I go, brother and so. So I discovered I approached it from a much less faithfulness component. So I risked. Somebody sat me down as a young lieutenant, a young private, and said hey, man, let me show you the power of journaling. So I stumbled into it. When I was training up for dive school, my team's I showed up to seventh group I went to, got sent to a dive team. It's like purgatory man, it's like holy shit.
Speaker 2:Like nobody wants, nobody wants, everyone wants a free fall team. Like I'm a sky guy, let me do free fall stuff. I got sent to a dive team and my team son had just come from Key West as an instructor, so it was like no slack.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of parallels there. I I ended my career as a warrant on a dive team and, uh, shout out to micah. He showed up from dive school and it was like your ass is going to dive school. I was like, look man, I'm a free fall guy. I I was. I was an eagle soaring in disguise. They sent me here. You're not gonna drown me or try to get me to breathe a water and that team saturday was like.
Speaker 2:He was like there ain't no way I'm sending my captain down to key west and he's gonna fail, so he so. So when all the boys go home within a day, pack your fucking bad captain, you're going to the pool, let's go. So like I spent months in the pool learning the technique, like there was, like there was good, there was no excuses for me. So so I showed up and I was really struggling. I was struggling with um knot time, um.
Speaker 2:So for those who don't know, they they suspend nine foot depth. They suspend a rope across the bottom of the pool and you have to from the surface you have. You have either one length or two lengths of rope, depending on the knot. We have to go subsurface, swim down, tie these knots and come back up. And I could not get the knots down for sign I was a great swimmer. I could. I could nail everything you know drown proofing and weight belts. None of it was. None of it challenged me really. But knot tying I could not do knot tying and I was like I got to crack this code. My team's going to kill me and I'm going to end up in a rolled-up carpet by the dumpster.
Speaker 2:So I started journaling and I had figured this out. We're going to go way around here. I kept track. I started keeping track of my diet because I had always had a workout journal. Right, that's totally cool. That's a very manly thing to do. What's my workout, how much? What's my workout? How much did I lift? What were my weights? How many sets? How long did I rest? All that business, that's totally acceptable. I was doing that. So I started tracking my. I really started tracking my diet, because I'm getting the boots put to me out on the runs as well.
Speaker 2:And I had had sussed out from my going through my notes that on the days that I ate jalapeno, pickled jalapenos on my eggs in the morning, right. So my, my team room was right behind the dining facility, so my teeth. The normal mode of business for my ODR was we could scuff ourselves for an hour and a half, two hours PT, we'd shower up and then we'd all go to the defect together and so I was eating breakfast in the defect every day and on the, on the days that I would have my, my, my Fridays, with those pick of jalapenos on them, those days I would struggle in the pool. Now let's be very, very clear. There is zero correlation and or causation between pickled jalapenos and tying knots subsurface. But for me, I there and tying knots subsurface. But for me there was at least a correlation. It wasn't causation, it was correlation. I thought, okay, I tried everything else, nothing else works. Let me do this.
Speaker 2:I stopped eating pickled jalapenos. Within a week I could do all the Dan knots and I was like, okay, there's something to this performance. It's more than just writing down my squat numbers. There's something to this. There's something about keeping track of this data so that I can then do something with it. I can be more mindful, and I carried that with me for years. And then, when I was on my Sunset Tour in SWCC or when I got really involved with SFLS, I was given my doctorate. And I'm not academically gifted at all. I barely got out of my undergraduate school. I did my undergraduate at Slippery Rock University, which is a real school, but I barely graduated my freshman year. I had a GPA of 1.6. So I am not academically gifted. And so now you know, 20 years later, You're an honorary 18 Bravo.
Speaker 2:So 20 years later the SWCCG says you're in charge of our soft education programs. So I was like, hey boss, I'm the dive guy. Like I'd have to flutter kick, I can't study. So I went off and started earning my doctorate. So not academically gifted, earning my doctorate, it's the you know academic at the highest level. And I was.
Speaker 2:I was struggling so I said let me get back into my journaling. Well, it's like I I I cracked this code tying knots underwater. I can crack it for this. So I started journaling like like, are there what physical conditions do I perform the best academically? And I charted it out and I now know that I read best in the morning and I write best in the afternoon. I assimilate information best when I'm sitting down and I write best when I'm standing up.
Speaker 2:So I started adapting my personal learning environment to mimic those conditions. I would not if I had homework due. I would not write homework assignments in the morning because I knew that was going to suck and I would not do it sitting down. So I got a stand-up desk. Lo and behold, turns out there's a ton of evidence for the efficacy of stand-up desks. So I got a stand-up desk. I did my writing. Standing up, I figured out what music that I can play that helps me write creatively versus write technically. So I know that up-tempo classical music helps me write creatively, whereas down-tempo, like Tchaikovsky classical music helps you write academically. So I cracked my own system and figured out what are the inputs and what are the outputs. Why can't I do that for anything?
Speaker 1:You were finding all the metrics for your flow. You were tapping into flow Yep.
Speaker 2:At the time I was like I just got to get this homework done At the time, back on my ODR. At the time I was like I just got to tie these damn math, like I don't care how I do it, but I got to figure it out, so I just do it out. And so then, through the in my research, I started me and my academic research. I started looking at human performance. Like what are these performance hacks across every domain that I have to perform at? And, by the way, as a Green Buet, I have to perform in every domain. I have to be physical, I have to have strong interpersonal skills, I have to have high emotional intelligence. I have to be able to exhibit all of those personality traits while under physical duress. So it's like it's all interconnected and I am the very definition of cross-functional. Like it's all interconnected and I am the very definition of cross-functional. So like what? Why? Why can't I apply the same methodology, this mindfulness, this, the? The data doesn't lie. Why can't I apply that to everything that I do? And the answer is you can, you have absolutely can and um, and so what is a? I think my project for this year is I'm gonna create a.
Speaker 2:So I get asked this question a lot. So it always comes back to Dr Jolene what journal do you like, what's your favorite journal? And you talked about the DA Stoic and I actually asked I asked Ryan Holiday this question and what's your? I was at a conference with him and I asked him hey man, what's your favorite journal? And he was like it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what mine is, it matters what yours is. And I was like, oh, that's actually pretty stoic of you. I like that, it's pretty good. So I've been working the last couple of years to like really refine what I think the perfect journals and I think I'm going to produce that and like just make it a book on Amazon that if guys want it, there it is, it'll be dirt cheap, it'll be as cheap as a notebook. But, like you know, just give a little bit of structure to it.
Speaker 2:Because once you realize the power of journaling okay, so because I got OCD and ADD and ADHD like you, I'm on that spectrum right I'm like how do I get the most out of this journaling thing? You start researching journaling and you find out all the different journaling methodologies that are out there. You look at analog versus digital. You look at mindfulness versus task-oriented, do all that stuff. And so I have now created the journal that I find personally helpful. But I've also realized that while it's customized to me, it's customized more to my personality type, and my personality type is the typical personality type for a successful special operator.
Speaker 2:Lo and behold, like there's a, there's a psychological profile for that. We all took the psyche valve, the new york pir. It's that we're all within that band excellence. Like why can't I start getting that, like I wish I had before? I was in the pool struggling with the knots and help guys tap into that sort of you know, align their chakras and get their chi flow. And like why can't we start doing that younger so they don't have to make those same mistakes that you and I struggled with all those years? So I think that may be a project that I'm going to put out there this year.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, man. I know that's needed, especially for these young individuals that want to test their metal and find out if they got what it takes to go to SFAS. It's needed. We need to be able to, Because that's the one thing that guys always ask is about the physical things. The first thing I tell them is like look, you can teach and coach anybody to rock and run and to do the physical. Where's your mind at what do you? Why do you want to achieve this? If it's because it looks sexy, you'll quit. You'll quit and you'll walk away and you'll be angry and bitter. What is your mission? What is your purpose? And if you can identify that as ultimately being within the regiment, ultimately serving within special operations, then yeah, you're going to be successful. But it takes. You got to have the legs, you got to have the feet, but this, you got to have this and you got to have it in here.
Speaker 2:You can't coach that. There's a whole chapter in Rock Up or Shut Up. It's the last chapter. It's called the why. I start the book with describing just that. What is your why? You got to have a why for me. My why was my family. It was I wanted to. I wanted to be the leader of my family, that my family needed me to be. So that was my one Um, but you have to understand your why.
Speaker 2:And, and shockingly, when I face published the book, I had a lot of guys reach out to me and say this book was awesome and I'm never going to become a Green Beret. Like it was a, it was a wake up call and it was like and I was like, oh that's, I'm not certain that was the intended purpose here. Like I I did, I kind of wanted. But now I realize that my why does not align with the special forces regiments. Why the regiments? Like what? Like what is it? And so for a lot of guys, they, they want to get into special forces because, um, they want to do direct action right, they want to kick indoors and shoot people in the face and all that stuff. And it's like yes, we do that. We absolutely do that We'll do it better most.
Speaker 2:But that's really not what Green Berets are about. Green Berets are about unconventional warfare. They're teachers, they're advisors. You can send them alone and unafraid to that valley in Yuppikistan and figure it out, and there is almost nothing about figuring it out. That is direct action. Only, none of that looks good on Instagram, doesn't matter what filter you use. And I, I love all that Instagram stuff. I love all the, all, the, the speed metal and the and the and the, the, the, the night vision footage. Man, everybody doesn't love that stuff. That stuff is bad-ass. But that ain't really what we do. What we do is the, the slog, the teach, coach and mentor, the PLIs and curriculum and learning foreign languages and connecting with other humans and understanding interpersonal relationships, and none of that stuff looks good on Instagram. So it's like, okay, so I wrote about this that I spent several chapters in the book sort of describing the legend, the culture and the lore of green berets.
Speaker 2:And while the, while the direct action stuff, the kill capture, is a part of what we do, the GWAT has given us this outsized understanding that people think that's all we do and it's like hey man, if you're, if you're going to come now to come a green beret. You're not going to be doing a lot of that man. The GWAT was an anomaly. That stuff was really cool. It also really tears up your back.
Speaker 2:So you got to be thinking about what is the real purpose of Green Berets in its unconfessional warfare. It's this long, slow burn stuff and that takes a very different mentality. You got to be a different kind of a person. You got to be a little bit weird to be into that. So a lot of guys realized like hey, I had this image of what being special forces was going to be and I thought it was all the sexy stuff and that's all I wanted. And so I realized Green Beret is not for me and I am appreciative of having had the opportunity to read that in this book. Now there's still a niche. You know you could still go be in a CRIF or the Riffle. The Criffs have gone away Now they're hard target to feed and critical threat advisory companies. So we still have a mission set and every Green Beret, even if you're just in UW, has to be able to flip that switch. You might go into E&E mode or you might get called on for a crisis response. You've got to be ready for that. But that's not where our bread and butter, and so I'd spend some time like make sure your why is good enough for that. And oh, by the way, particularly for SFNS, historically we only have about a 36% success rate.
Speaker 2:One-third of guys will make it through selection on their first shot. One-third. So two-thirds of you are going to be disappointed. So two thirds of you are going to be disappointed. So if you don't, if your why isn't isn't authentically intrinsic, if it's not like this is what my why is, this is who I am, this is my being, this is all I want, like you will suffer a moral injury on day 21 when they say pack, pack a shit. You didn't make it. Like, oh, you will be lost in the woods. You'll be like I'm, I'm a horrible, worthless human being. I didn't do anything right, I, I have no value in this world. It's like hey, man, you can't approach it that way. It's, guy, your why has got to be a deeper than that, and so, and and the takeaway to that for selection is that if you make it awesome, you will be in the minority. One-third, two-thirds of you will go home. I want you to come back. I want you to hold on to that. Why like if there's a lifeline and get your ass back to Camp McCall? Because this life is worth it.
Speaker 2:Man, becoming a Green Beret is a life of immense and deep purpose. You will never feel purposed like you do on an ODA, which is why guys struggle so much when they retire, because they're like my purpose is gone. It's like no man, you have another purpose. You just got to figure out what that thing is. I can help you do that. If you go back in your journal and you write about the things that satisfy you, you're like we'll find that purpose. So that's all intercollective, right? So if we can build that awareness in a guy before he gets to the regiment, imagine how much more powerful he'll be when he leaves the regiment. Right, he won't have that sputter and that stall. He'll be ready to jump into.
Speaker 2:Whatever that next thing is. If it's laying on the sofa eating edibles all day, cool. If it's starting a podcast, even better. If it's writing books and mentoring young guys to get through selection, man, there's a world out there. May God help you. Maybe it's going to dental school, but you can have a purpose beyond just being a Green Beret. Being a Green Beret is just the way it manifested itself in that first 20 years, the middle 20 years of your life. You've got so much more in the tank, man. Let's find out what's in your tank.
Speaker 1:That is so true. It's just a stepping stone. It's a beautiful chapter, but as soon as you turn that page you start working on the next Doc. Where can we go to find out more about your books and your work?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you can go. So I have a website, tfvoodoocom. I've got tons of articles on there. It's sort of all my musings when I'm thinking about these predicated topics. Links to my books. The books are sold on Amazon. If you go through the website, you can read the first chapter of each book for free, so see if it meets your vibe. I've got a new book coming out. It's actually going to the printers today. It's a book on land navigation and it a greenways guide to land navigation and it's, of course, it's designed for sfas, but it's uh, it's got tons of, it's got tons of war stories in it. You know little little fables to uh to keep you entertained. Uh, I'm on instagram, tf, uh, tf voodoo, um and uh and uh. We've got about four or five more books playing. They're already out, like literally I have. I have manuscripts right here, man, here's. Here's the next several books.
Speaker 1:And we got to stay in touch because I need some help developing a concept, because you know it's it's important to get stories out there, but it's more important to get concepts that can help others. Yeah, and, and I got to get you back on the show because we didn't even get a chance to talk about land nav, which is it's something that I I think it it's coming back into my life after I watched a show where, like it was, it showed me just how therapeutic and how important it is to be able to walk and navigate, and it's like fuck, I haven't been under, you know, horrible conditions and haven't been under stress navigating in the woods for years now.
Speaker 2:You're very, very expected of you. You got them to get lost or ruin the whole brand.
Speaker 1:That's actually what came to my mind because I was watching I forget the name of the survival show, I think it's Outlast, it's on Netflix. But the last two teams to make it in this competition, their last thing was doing a long, uh, overland trip, you know, with map and compass. And the team that was like the hard chargers. They open up their, their navigation bag and they're like I don't know how to use a compass and like like I don't know how to read a map. And I'm like fools and I'm like dude. I'm like, and the entire time they're, they're navigating. I'm like dude, just just, you're left and right limits, what are you using as your guide marks? And I'm like what's your backstop? Where's?
Speaker 2:your come on, you fools, so we dead reckoning. What are we doing here, man?
Speaker 1:you know like. And then immediately you go to that, that moment in your head I'm like, could I do this right now? I'm like sure as hell I could do do this in the wilderness of Alaska. I know I could do this and then.
Speaker 1:that part of me is like but the thing is it's like in my closet I have like, how many Ranger Joe's protractors do you have? And map markers, and I remember, like setting aside the equipment, I'm like I still got it, I still have all the equipment. I can do this equipment, I can do this. Yeah, yeah, now more than ever, we got to be able to find ourselves, put ourselves in discomfort, be able to do a couple hundred percent.
Speaker 2:I go, I go out every month.
Speaker 2:I host there, I host a monthly land nav muster I saw that on my website and I I bring green, bring guys out and I I teach them how to land, navigate, just like, just like it was when you went through. We go on a train walk, we tell some war stories and and we connect it and and you'd be surprised, I'd get a lot of guys there. Of course, I get mostly young guys that I want to go to selection, I get. I get retirees, though I just want to come back out and touch the magic man.
Speaker 1:So yeah, rory's welcome anytime you're a brother, come see me dude, what I wouldn't give to go back through scuba road. Except this time I'm not going to be naked because, damn right, I I took off all my clothes because that's where I started in selection I tell a war story about a guy naked in school road.
Speaker 1:It's in the book I wasn't an original, damn it, dog. Thank you so much for being here and thank you for what you're doing. Uh, again, go get your copy of ruck up or shut up, or Shut Up and Ruck, because now more than ever, it's not just about sucking, it's about just tapping into the memories and the fun atmosphere of being able to go do hard things with friends.
Speaker 1:So go out there, get the book. And if you're listening to the show and you're liking what we're doing, please give us a like, follow, share, subscribe, share us with your friends and go to the episode description. Buy us a coffee and help us continue producing great quality content To all y'all tuning in. Thank you for being here and we'll see you all next time. Till 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. Thank you.
