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!
The Truth About Health, Politics, and Tactical Training with Special Forces Veteran Tony Cowden
In this explosive episode of Security Halt!, Tony Cowden, a former Special Forces Green Beret, gets real about health, fitness, and the hard truths behind military life, government regulation, and political corruption. From tackling the dangers of processed foods and sugar addiction to exposing the flaws in Big Pharma and traditional medicine, Tony and host Deny Caballero uncover the shocking realities affecting veterans and everyday Americans.
🚨 Inside the episode:
✅ How plant medicine and holistic health are revolutionizing recovery for veterans.
✅ Why TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) is a silent crisis in the military.
✅ The hidden dangers of processed foods, testosterone imbalances, and corporate influence over our health.
✅ Tactical fitness and the misuse of the word "tactical" in shooting and training.
✅ What it’s REALLY like to run for public office as a veteran—insider insights on political corruption, government overreach, and accountability.
✅ How corporate interests control American politics—and what we can do about it.
✅ Tony's nonprofit initiatives to support veterans and create real change.
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✅ Like & Share this episode to spread the truth!
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Chapters
00:00 Tony Cowden's Journey: From SF to New Ventures
06:14 Exploring Plant Medicine and Personal Growth
12:07 The Importance of Health and Nutrition
19:47 Challenging the Medical System and Big Pharma
26:12 Addressing TBI and Health Risks in the Military
30:00 The Impact of Processed Foods on Health
32:56 Tactical Approaches to Health and Fitness
36:03 Understanding Tactical Shooting and Training
50:03 Political Insights and the State of Governance
57:57 The Nature of Public Office
58:34 Corporate Influence in Politics
59:25 Foreign Ownership of American Resources
01:01:10 The Evolution of Government Power
01:02:58 The Role of Federal Government
01:03:29 The Cycle of Republics
01:04:46 The State of American Freedom
01:05:43 Challenges for Veterans in Politics
01:11:54 Emerging Leaders in Politics
01:15:34 The Role of Government Agencies
01:18:29 Accountability in Government Spending
01:20:17 Nonprofit Initiatives and Community Support
Instagram: @securityhalt
Tik Tok: @security.halt.pod
LinkedIn: Deny Caballero
Follow Tony on social media today!
Instagram: tony_cowden_
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.
Speaker 2:I think I'm just going to have to do it. That's perfect, dude.
Speaker 1:That's perfect.
Speaker 2:Of all my tripods right, like I've got one fancy-ass Really Right Stuff one. The rest of them are two vets and I use the Really Right Stuff one right, so it's like a $1,500 freaking top-of-the-line Really.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Stuff and it has an aluminum freaking clamp for my phone, because it's the only thing I found that I can't break so it's kind of hilarious I've got, like you know, my fanciest, most badass fucking tripod yeah just for my phone, yeah, well anyway, that's the way life happens, man, tony counter.
Speaker 1:Well, welcome to security out podcast man. How you, how you, doing Great brother Freaking great Dude.
Speaker 2:Well, it's different.
Speaker 1:Some technical difficulties hey, it's all right, we're not 18 Echos here and we don't have the 18 Echo support. Dude, you've done everything and you continue to defy the odds and continue to do everything. And you continue to defy the odds and continue to do everything. Um, but dude, from being sf, being a contractor helping run non-profits wanting to run for government office, like what is it? What's left for tony to do and what will he not do?
Speaker 2:jesus man. Um, like I said, I'm sorry, sorry to everyone. I'm freaking fighting with uh, the phone staying stable, man, you know, it's funny. I was just talking to melissa, my wife, about this. It's like, as I've hopefully matured, um, and if you guys can't hear, I'm now surrounded by every kind of farm animal. Um, you can probably hear that damn rooster on the uh, on the front porch we got this new baby rooster who thinks he's one of the puppies. Like I leave the door open most of the most of the day, you know, for fresh air and stuff, and I'm working. I turn around. This chicken is freaking sitting on one of the dog beds in the living room.
Speaker 2:I'm like a rooster, so anyway, that dude hangs out on the front porch now and makes racket all day. But, yeah, man, I, you know, for me, as I I've figured it out like I'm just an accomplishment based person, right, yeah, what I did yesterday was yesterday, and now it's like what am I going to do next? What am I going to do next? What am I going to do next? And so, like, even early on in my career, after a couple of deployments in SF, it was like what's next? Yeah, what's next? I went to West Virginia selection and I also dropped the flight packet, since I had to get a flight physical, right, pace plan, right, pace plan, right, pace plan. Whichever one of these works. Yeah, you know, because in my mind I had already done the SF mission, you know.
Speaker 2:I had already done. You know, sorry guys, I'm going to fix this freaking. Clearly I was out running around doing dumb shit right before this podcast.
Speaker 1:It's the way to do it, man. It's the way to do it, man. It's the way to do it. We're good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, that's the thing. Right, build a range, shoot all the time, right. No, build a range, maintain a range all the time, yeah. So anyway, it was kind of like what else is there to do in SF? Did the unconventional mission in both Afghanistan, afghanistan the initial push, and then iraq and got to do you know cool da stuff, got to do you know regular sut field stuff. It was like, well, what's left? Well, you know.
Speaker 2:So I started obviously looking at the other units out there. Um, I had to do another deployment, basically because, like, I was committed, right, and you can't abandon your team to go, you know, to somewhere else, and I broke my back. I thought my career was over. I didn't think I'd be able to fly freaking, I didn't think I'd ever be in good enough shape to, you know, meet the requirements of the SMU and all that stuff. So I started looking elsewhere, contracting land, all that stuff, um. So I started looking elsewhere, contracting land, and so, with that route, and I always kind of had the intent, you know, to go back in and fly. That didn't really work out. I did go back in into, you know, to the guard ss side, uh, in the, with the idea of, you know, giving back to the next generation, um, and which I did.
Speaker 2:I wound up teaching down at 20th groups. Uh, asd, 20th group has an asd and so asc, um, advanced skills, detachment, and you know teaching, you know the well, sodic back then, sipsic now, uh, safao, master, breacher, any of those courses, man, you know, to help help that the new guys learn the lessons that you know that we learned, hopefully, and learned in the schoolhouse instead of downrange, and I really enjoyed that, can't say I really enjoyed being in the National Guard per se. Good Lord, man, freaking it's, I don't know, man, hopefully Elon Musk can freaking, they can shift his focus to the National Guard at some point, you know, even if it's last, but you know the National Guard is a nightmare and because 20th group and 19th group belong to the different states, they're not immune. You know their money gets taken by the state, spend on other stuff. It's the guard man. Um, so as far as that part, that was cool. But yeah, you know, it's just always just been what's the next thing? What am I doing next? Which is kind of funny because I'm kind of at a little impasse right now um, I don't know what's next. I mean that's the first time for tony I'm in a conversation with my cousin last week about potentially opening, uh, starting, a construction business like a site preparation, land clearing business.
Speaker 2:Um, I was just talking to a fellow yesterday about potentially looking into opening a ketamine clinic. I have in the last three, four years become intimate, or at least involved in the plant medicine scene. My introduction to that was Ibogaine with Ambio Life and Trevor Millar and all those guys down at tijuana. That that you know everybody talks about the most profound thing I've ever done in my life. Um, you know, for most guys, many guys, that stuff is life-saving. Um, I don't, I wasn't in that kind of space. I went for, for you know, degenerative brain issues from BTBI and but saw experience what that stuff does for PTSD as well.
Speaker 1:I probably had a little more PTSD that I was floating around and I was aware of. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it showed me, so I'm. I can't help it. You know, since I was one of the earliest, you know especially Army side guys, you know a lot of the SEALs were already going and doing the BOGA. And of course you know psilocybin has been a thing for a while now. Rogan and all those guys talking about it, I just you know that wasn't a space. I was in man freaking and then I was having a really rough time with headaches. I was getting dumber by the day, like I thought maybe I had early onset of alzheimer's.
Speaker 2:But you know, obviously it was linked to my tbi operator syndrome is real man, absolutely, you know and I think I've been able to keep my symptoms suppressed out of just super healthy living, staying fit, eating religiously healthy. I quit drinking almost 15 years ago. Yeah, man.
Speaker 1:And that was more of a. That's one thing we don't talk about enough. We don't talk about. If we want to be absolute machines and performance and be focused on performance enhancement in every avenue, you take an 18 bravo and you show them the latest tech and triggers and barrels and what to how to make your weapon system run smooth as fuck. And he'll do everything he can to buy everything and outfit everybody's rifles and pistols the best I've seen it.
Speaker 1:But you talk about performance in the gym and guys are almost like, okay, well, I'll take this, I'll do that, but I'm not going to give up drinking.
Speaker 2:Why? Why, man, I'll tell you, I have a little disdain for some of the older guys that a lot of guys look up to with their whiskey and their you know the poster pictures. They like romanticizing, consuming that poison. I personally think it's irresponsible as a mentor type person, as a senior, to somehow portray that poisoning ourselves is a good thing. And we know, man, that stuff is a depressant. It definitely, you know, is a factor in suicides, maybe not all of them.
Speaker 2:I'm not speaking in absolutes, but I can. I try really hard to speak to my experiences. Right, I really I try desperately hard to to not tell you what you should do, but share with you what I've experienced and let you, let you take that information and do what you want with it. I quit drinking because, like a lot of, I make bad decisions when I'm drunk. As a contractor, I was gone three to four months, come home two to four weeks, drink like a maniac party my ass off and then joke that I got to get back overseas to sober up Because I didn't drink overseas. That wasn't a thing. I did it once and paid for it greatly.
Speaker 1:I drank like a fifth Allegedly yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I was a contractor so it wasn't violating general order one and stuff. But yeah, I drank like a fifth of Kentucky bourbon made in Turkey and I paid for it. I mean just horribly paid for it. Our plane got canceled so I sat on the tarmac in Mosul like in the middle of the afternoon in July, freaking, wound up having to take an IV, freaking like dude, and that was, I think, 0, six probably, oh, five or six, and I didn't drink overseas since, lesson learned. But you know, come home, party my ass off, freaking, you know.
Speaker 2:And then, luckily for me, melissa came along and Melissa is a complete nerd, straight, a student, you know, scholarships, all that stuff, big brain, all that shit. That's never stand a chance with that girl. And when I met her man, I I did right, like that chick had it and still does have has this effect on me. And so I made a very mature decision to quit drinking and she was part of it. She and I went out a couple of times, um, and then we just started doing cool stuff like climbing 14ers and hiking wildernesses and that, and obviously that didn't really support drinking, uh. So so I quit that and you know I'm glad I did because I, I've reaped the benefits. You know, um, I, I, I mean I just turned 49. Um, I'm always very clear with guys I, I am on TRT. Part of my brain injury means I am, have and always will be. So that's, you know, that's a good thing, right, I'm a huge advocate for all of our guys, right? Like, hey, man, go get tested.
Speaker 1:You have to, you absolutely have to. I mean the mean the doctor free everything that he published. And if you guys, if you're still not reading it, if you haven't picked up the book, if you haven't gotten the white paper study, just send me an email. I'll send you the white paper study. I will break it down to you or tune into one of the other. Shows that I produce broken brains.
Speaker 1:We talk about that ad nauseum, but your endocrine system and your brain are connected and a vast majority of us were already at lower levels of testosterone while we were in. Because, guess what, coming out of selection, coming out of those hard schools, we should have been tested. We should have been tested for our levels. We should have had a baseline understanding of where our testosterone levels was. Because, let me tell you, if you look in your team room and you start feeling like, oh man, like that guy's better than me, he's got more, more fuel left in the tank, uh, everybody else is like really able to keep burning. Like you might want to check your endocrine system, you might want to check out your testosterone levels. And we have to kill this myth that it's like, oh, you're on, you're on, you're on a performance enhancing drug Like no. You're literally giving your body what it needs.
Speaker 2:Right and let's face it, we started to see, at the end of the GY, support for it and now it's like it's that pendulum starting to swing back and so, you know, you got captains that you know that were captains that were just as much part of whatever pharmacy runs that the team was making 10 years ago. Now he's a lieutenant colonel or a colonel and he's not going to stand for his guys. It's just like hey man, like I said, you were doing the pharmacy runs and buying gravel. We remember you there, colonel. Hey man, let the pharmacy runs and buying gravel. You know, we remember you there, colonel.
Speaker 2:Like hey man, let's get rid of this stigma that it's used in steroids and let's start looking at it exactly what it is. It's. You know, if you've got guys that are deficient and low and that's another problem right, is the levels. Normal levels in the United States are completely wrong. Right, you can be, you know, low, normal at 250, well, that's also the same levels of, like a 14 year old girl, you know, I mean not that bad. But you see what I'm saying like optimal is, you know, 700 to 900, and there's no reason for us not to be there. Right, because it is available and we know it's safe.
Speaker 2:You know, a lot of guys, a lot of people, americans don't realize that the whole demonizing of PEDs testosterone steroids, whatever you want to call it started back in the 80s as part of the Cold War propaganda, really as part of the cold war propaganda, really, yeah, and I kind of learned this through um, you know, owning a gym and olympic weightlifting, right, like the sport of olympic weightlifting and how it's tested, and talking to those athletes at the training center and all that kind of stuff, and it went both ways, right. So cold war, we demonized the russians, right? Remember rocky, rocky, yeah, yeah, man, if you know, if he dies, he dies and dolph london was you know they're using all the steroids yeah, all the
Speaker 2:well, and I'll tell you, you know, one of the the biggest purveyors of this was john mccain, right, and wada and usada right, those organizations for testing. So they demonized this stuff, made Russia look like this, you know, added to the evil empire of Russia, right, while Russia had a performance-enhancing program, performance-enhancing drug program right, we had anti. So we were really only screwing ourselves, but it was. That's where it finds its root On the other side. It's kind of entertaining.
Speaker 2:Have you ever heard of like Bulgarian split complexes and Bulgarian training? So the Russians, the Bulgarians, you know, were just crushing at the Olympics, right? So the part of the propaganda was they put out the Bulgarian split training programs. It's bullshit. They were absolute horseshit. It's not what they were doing. Those guys were lifting like three times a week. Instead, they released this program where I had you training three times a day. So americans started training that way and you'll still hear it in the training world today. I'm doing a Bulgarian split training program and I'm like, oh, you mean, you're over training, it was by design. It's so cool to kind of go back and look at the history of all that. But yeah, they purposefully released this program. So now you've got Americans doing this three-a-day program and they're not in there because USADA won't let them. So they can't recover. So they got weaker and performed worse.
Speaker 2:Motherfuckers, you know we've got to get past that and you know whether it's the plant medicine stuff or trt, hrt. You know, and I think it's happening, right, actually, I know it's happening. I talked to a lot of MDs out there, just like yourself, right, and the doctors are now starting to get on board. My older sister is a pediatric endocrinologist and she's been in biotech research for the last 25 years right, you can Google her name and you'll just get pages. And even she's fed up with Western medicine, right. She's just like we're going about it all wrong. And now she's curious about the plant medicines and all that kind of stuff and the realization that US and Western medicine has become big pharma's prescribing medicines drugs.
Speaker 1:They're in bed together, and that's the thing that's really harmful. When we get out, when you do that handshake with the VA, you agree that we're going to take care of you, we're going to be your provider for your healthcare, we're going to be your provider for your wellbeing, and then you realize, within those first few appointments, it just becomes nothing but a running list of medications. Right, they're not. They're not looking at you to enhance and improve your injuries and what you're dealing with. They're looking to get you to be comfortable, sedated and not complain. Exactly, and and you you probably seem to see you probably have the same issue you get your, your monthly shipment of for me, you still get boxes of all these different things. But let me tell you, the hardest fight to get is testosterone. The hardest fight to get and here's the thing about it If you're low and you're at a deficit, you're going to experience things like weight gain.
Speaker 1:You're going to experience things like insomnia. You're going to experience things like insomnia. You're going to experience things like feeling depressed. Hmm, these are all things that they're going to prescribe you to and put you on SSRIs for. These are all things that are going to put you on different medications that will affect you in horrible ways. You'll feel like life's on mute, that your world, your experience is muted. You'll feel like life's on mute, that your world, your experience is muted. You'll feel a little bit better. Maybe you're dealing with some depression, maybe that'll go away for a little bit. But then you realize you give people the TRT, you get them into a gym, you get them around people, you get them into an ability to communicate with others. Now you're not depressed anymore.
Speaker 1:It's like, oh shit, like you address the endocrinology, endocrinology, endocrinology of the patient and you address the issue first, rather than try to mute it with a bunch of shit, and they get better.
Speaker 2:you know I take it one step further, right? So, you know, test estrogen, progesterone, those are all secondary hormones we need to. You have to look at the primaries, you know, cortisol, thyroid, and, because that's a cascade effect and, like you said earlier, everything's connected right. Um, linking back to alcohol, the gut, yeah, I can bring a lot most people out. You ask them like hey, where's serotonin? Uh, where's you know where? The, where the neurotransmitters produce? Where's dopamine producer? Like, well, the brain? And I'm like, no, those are producing the small intestines.
Speaker 2:So you're taking alcohol, you're eating all this nasty poison that's American food and you're destroying the gut. Well, that's directly linked to the brain and there are thousands of neurotransmitters. They don't even know what they are, right, we always hear epinephrine, norepinephrine those are exciting Adrenalines. And then, of course, dopamine and serotonin. Those are the ones people like to talk about. They're actually thousands of them, but they're all made in the gut. So if we're damaging our gut with all these nasty poisons and that's what they are I think we need to start calling that poison, because I'll ask people like you want to take a sip of antifreeze every morning? And they're like what? No, I was like well, you might as well be, you know, uh, because many of the things that we slowly poison ourselves with in american processed food are just as lethal as your old school antifreeze. So yeah, man, I, I'm hopeful, and I use that word very, very reluctantly because you know hope is it's not a course of action Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I see the changes. It just sucks. You know, like Congress just the other day, know, rfk, they're all fighting rfk, right, like, oh my god, we got this dude. You know it's really a bit higher to try to make our, you know, food and drugs better, uh, healthier, and they're fussing. But something he was talking about was um with nova and ozempic. Right, ozempic's, the new magic drug you take, lose all the way oh my god man, but it's poison.
Speaker 2:It's. You know my. They put my uncle on that shit. Dude was 81 years old. Within two weeks his health just deteriorated. All the hell stopped it. The dude's right back. Right, he's a farmer man. Dude's a hard working old son. It was like hard dude son but Ozempic almost killed him. Why are they putting an 80-year-old on something like that? Who, literally man? He just needed to lose like 20 pounds, but he's also diabetic. He's got other things going on. He's a southerner.
Speaker 2:So you know, typically most southerners don't get past 65 without diabetes, which is reversible. You know you don't want to hear the medical community don't want to talk about that, but my point was with ozempic. Apparently, over 100 sitting congresspersons have received direct donations from nova. Well, nova, no, is not even a us company, right? So they have to have a us conglomerate so they can buy our politicians. Yep, 60 plus of them are republicans.
Speaker 1:Get the fuck out of here right. So right now everybody's all like.
Speaker 2:Y'all the republicans like, yeah, and all your republican congresspersons are like, oh yeah, I love trump. I Republican Congresspersons are like oh yeah, I love Trump, I'm on Trump, I'm doing what Trump wants. But just a few weeks ago they were taking money, right, and I can use my Congressman, um, as a good example. He's an MD, right, greg Murphy, and he loves to tell people he's an MD, right, worse than a CrossFitter. Um, he's like, well, as a physician. Like get it, greg. We heard you like the last thousand times. You're supposed to be a representative and an advocate for north carolina district three, so stop being a doctor, um, and besides, you're a urologist dude, right. Um, big pharma after big pharma, after big pharma contributions, man, right, that dude doesn't know and doesn't care about making people healthier. You know what I mean? Because most doctors and that's the funny thing about americans is they actually think their doctors know anything about nutrition.
Speaker 1:Yeah, then that's not what they're taught, that's it. It we, we assume, all of us assume that a general practitioner is just going to have all the information. And that's why I tell guys, you have to have the ability to sit down and do the research yourself, advocate for yourself. And I know, dude, nobody wants to sit through peer to peer reports and journals and read and try to digest what's real, what's not. But you have to when it comes to your health. You have to be willing to sit down and look at the journals, be able to discern what's garbage, what's true, what's valid, and then show up to your appointment, like that's what I did when I went through my VA appointments.
Speaker 1:I brought the white paper study from Dr Free on operator syndrome. Why are you giving me this test? To try to determine if I have TBI, when it's at best utilized for a concussion that just may have occurred on a practice football field within the within the last three to four hours, like. And then they, they look at you like, oh shit, you. You actually read something like yeah, you're, you're gonna try to give me. And that's why they give guys a higher ptsd rating. Fun fact because they're not going to sit there and take the time to actually pay you for tbi, even though now we know that it's a signature injury of the fucking g-wag. Because how many? How many carl gustav did you shoot tony? How many breaching charges did you eat? How many times are you around explosions?
Speaker 2:or, or you know, as we're finding out, the 10-inch car beams are producing as much psi at one meter off the muzzle. Then the door charges were setting off. Yep, all right. So you know, like at 37 and 19, you will run suppressors. Yeah, that should be policy across dod. Right, if you're shooting inside a structure, you should have to have a suppressor on your weapon. Um, of course it's not that way. Uh, you know. And what the catwalk?
Speaker 1:you know flashbacks, dude flashbacks, are producing, you know, four psi and stuff at two meters, like you know yeah, the people we have to look out for are our e7s, e8s, our cadre at the charlie course, our cadre at range 37. These are individuals whose exposures are through the roof but nobody's talking to them. We talked about lead exposure. We have, we have the soaps at the at the schools and.
Speaker 1:But on the backside, when these guys are doing their handover and going back to their you know, quote unquote regular jobs on an ODA. How are you following these guys? How are you following your track? And they're not. That's criminal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, and let's face it, man, we're our own worst enemies.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, when you're young, right, you want to ride that charge.
Speaker 2:What's the minimum safe distance? Nine feet, let's call it five. You know, let's ride that charge, luckily. You know, with the techniques changing of, of clearing from outside, you know we, we lost that. You know tactical reason for rushing a charge, so, but, but we can't say that. You know we made a, a mature decision to stop. You know, charging ourselves freaking and eating tbis on the daily.
Speaker 2:You know my very first shooting package, man, we were riding charges, riding charges, riding charges, and it was hot out. We were up in ohio at an old um, uh gas fuel refinery like ashland ohio, ashland fuel and, uh, you know, just old office buildings like world war ii barracks type office building door after door after door, um, fun, and after about three days both the odas were so exhausted I mean like sick and we're like, oh, it's because it's hot out. Looking back, man, it was charges, it was charge after charge after charge, I mean, and we were bragging about how many we had done. You know, and you know so we can be our own worst enemies. Right, we need the sensors, we need all that stuff and you know, as you trickle down away from the tier one units, all that goes away. I mean, dude, if you saw the shoe house, one of the shoe houses we use at 20th group or they still use at 20th group. I have recently left 20th group. Um, dude, how it's even legal for them to still use that place, I don't know. Uh, I mean, I mean lead, it's just. I mean it's horrible. It's an old piece of shit and anybody listening to this as 20s group guys know what I'm talking about. Um, they finally put like poured some concrete in it a couple of years ago. I mean it was dirt floors and I mean just horrible. You set a charge off, man, even from the M4s dust was kicking up and I was like man, why are we using this when we have a nice shoe house right up there on the hill? Well, it was just logistics. It was easier to use. Again, going back to us being our own worst enemies, hopefully one day they'll I used to joke that maybe lightning will strike that old shoe house and we'll get rid of it, but it's not safe. Man, you know I'm a huge advocate.
Speaker 2:I talk to guys like hey, man, get your blood work done. I get my blood work done no less than twice a year and typically every quarter, and the only reason I'm smart is because if I'm gone or something like that, um, in the absence of all of that, look around and find a good example. Yeah, I was on the phone with my, my cousin, and I grew up very, very old, north carolina, right redneck, borderline, white trash um, luckily my cousins have, you know, improved over the years. They they're doing pretty good.
Speaker 2:But she went to the doctor she's 39 years old and her doctor said, oh, you're pre-diabetic, it might be time to start you on whatever that, what is it? Forman or whatever that that pre-diabetes drug is? And I told her I was like, please, don't, please, just stop eating junk food. And she's like, yeah, I know, like people know, but they just can't stop. That's how addictive these processed foods really are. And while I am very anti-government, right, anti-government influence, I think the government should provide protection, pave roads and that's about it, you know, like the stuff it says or is authorized in the constitution, yeah, you know it's old-fashioned and I know most of our politicians have never read the damn thing, but it's only about up.
Speaker 1:It says or is authorized in the constitution.
Speaker 2:Yeah, call us old-fashioned, right. You know what I mean, and I know most of our politicians have never read the damn thing, but it's only about a 30-minute read. Um, there's. At this point we do need the government to step in, like other governments have done right. Like you know, google American foods banned in Europe, and you'll scroll and scroll and scroll. You know like, literally, gatorade, american made or Gatorade, cannot be sold in the EU. And the list goes on and on and on, from Pop-Tarts to mac and cheese.
Speaker 2:And then the exact same company is making a variation that can be sold in that country. Absolutely so at this point I actually think the government needs to to step in. As much as I hate saying that right government regulation man is is, I detest it, right, I detest the thought of it. I'm like get out of our lives. But in this case, man, if we continue down this path, we're only going to get more and more unhealthy, and that's that's scary wellness of our american public and it's shit.
Speaker 1:It's absolutely shit, like we shouldn't have to watch our parents or uncles or our cousins slowly die and and it's dude, it's a drug.
Speaker 2:Sugar and all these additives are a fucking drug you know, I I stopped eating processed carbs in the late 90s, not because I, like, really knew much better, I just knew to stay lean. I didn't need all these extra carbs. Right it was. I went through phases of doing triathlons and ultra marathons. Yeah, I ate more carbs, but I, at that point, I had learned that that clean food is better. So I was eating paleo before paleo became like a catchphrase for eating healthy. I have recently well, almost a year now, I'm at 11 months of eating carnivore, but my point on that is is like, in the absence of blood work, in the absence of, you know, knowing anything, look around and find someone that is healthy and just copy what they're doing, dude it could right, going right back to being a green beret.
Speaker 1:What does success look like on a team? Right, it's like hey, yeah, just copy and paste what that the 18 fox is doing, and then, when it comes time, you'll get a shot at the school. Just do exactly as your senior did. Follow those guidelines, and I don't know if people are taking that approach, but I think too. You know, they're all screwed up, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I think that it adds an extra layer of complexity. When we're we're online and you talked about this the other day on a post, just talking about tactics Everybody wants to, like, put their spin on things and they look like a professional, they look that they got they, they they polish what they're delivering and then people are falling to the wayside by following that, whether it's shooting, whether it's health and fitness, like it's getting harder and harder to discern what's the right thing to do when it comes to whether it's shooting and training or health and fitness. And you have to really look at shooting and training or health and fitness, and you have to really look at somebody and find out, like, okay, like, is this guy really selling something that's sustainable and good for me, that can help me improve in my shooting, can help me improve in my uh, my fitness, or is he just full of absolute fucking dog shit? Right?
Speaker 2:well, and you know, when it comes to fitness it's usually easy to figure out. Is it going to be difficult? Is it strenuous? Oh, okay, well, there's probably pretty legit, right? If it's a 1995, you know, corrupt your all pill or this awesome new program or this awesome new diet, like there's nothing new under the sun here, guys. Uh, and With the tactics and techniques tactical guys love to assume.
Speaker 2:I always say I'll ask guys, hey, give me the definition of the word tactical. They just look at me. I'm like you don't even know it, do you Tactical shooting? Like what are you talking about? Shooting? Shooting, it's put your sights on a target, don't disturb your gun as you press the trigger. It doesn't matter if you're shooting a competition or you're shooting in you know hunting, or if you're shooting two-legged creatures and doing CQB right, the shooting part is the shooting part and cqb right. So shooting part is the shooting part.
Speaker 2:Tactics are all the moving and moving and parts that go into interdicting a target right or not getting interdicted. Sometimes the bad guys have good days too, you know. So you know, when I I asked, guys like oh, so you were doing tactical shooting, describe it to me. And they're like yeah, I was shooting from the 3, 5, 7, 10, 15 and 25 meter line at a paper target and I was like, so you were standing, still shooting a still target.
Speaker 2:So what's tactical about that, right? No, that's skill development. That's skill development. It's just like we're going to go do a bunch of halo jumps. I mean, is it tactical? Or, if it's just slick, we're working on some skills, you know what I mean that one day could be applied to a true infield that will have tactical considerations. So I'm like, hey man, pump the brakes on all the tactical stuff a little bit. And it's kind of comedy to me and I think sometimes on my social media posts my humor is lost. Uh, my sarcasm can get lost because you know you're not listening to me and I was being so kind of sarcastic like, hey man, so you know you're in the ranger regiment from 06 to 2010. You did six pumps. You got out as an e5 team leader, cool. Now you're going to talk to me about planning considerations as if you were ever a ground force commander, like, come on, bro, or you were the junior e6 um, you know the junior, bravo.
Speaker 2:Or maybe you're the junior junior bravo on an oda for a couple of trips, you know the junior Bravo. Or maybe with a junior junior Bravo on an ODA for a couple of trips, you know, and got out Okay, cool man. That that's you know. You know some stuff, but let's be realistic. You know, um, you know the magic. You know I mean heck man. You know everybody wants we can do. It's dangerous, freaking. It's how we get screwed up. There's a reason we have dogs and gas and all this other stuff so we don't have to go in there, set off the trip wires and all that stuff. You know we can't help it. We want to do it because it, you know, it's probably kind of fun, um, but it's dangerous as hell.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, I tell guys all the time when working as the small teams, as a contractor man, you know, as a four, six or even eight man team, hey, but so big a targets we could do anyway. Exactly, we're a lot more. We operated way more like like narcotics, like strike teams, not like a SWAT team. So we had to snatch dudes out of their cars and stuff like that, hit them in those spaces where they couldn't be as easily defendable, and that's just being smarter. I used to tell guys all the time the best operations are ones that there were no shots fired. You're not going to get any medals for it, but those are the good operations, right, where nobody gets hurt. Freaking you capture who you need to capture. You get the intel you need to get, because if I'm going on target smoke every single dude on target, I'm not getting any intel, absolutely.
Speaker 1:There's that F3AD.
Speaker 2:So I get it, man, I'm not a very good marketing guy, right? I'm not trying to sell the latest kit. As a contractor, man, I get what I get. It's not like we're rolling in with all our fancy stuff, you know, within a dip pouch, you know, on a plane. No, man, we're, we're buying stuff off the economy, you know, I mean, heck, I have literally taken freaking zip ties and take them to plates to make a plate carrier duct tape, you know, and freaking zip ties. I've seen dudes cut leather belts to make straps and duct tape it to our plates, you know, because that's all we had because we couldn't fly in with a multi-cam plate carrier. Um, so, you know, heck, I did a trip one time where I wound up with like a freaking five shot Rossi revolver as my sidearm and I'm like, and it gave it to me.
Speaker 1:You're playing this video game on legendary mode it had 338 rounds in it.
Speaker 2:It didn't even have five shots and I was like what am I supposed to do with this? This is cute.
Speaker 1:How the fuck did I get myself in this situation, right you?
Speaker 2:know and it's like you know, here's your you know wherever made carbine. I'm like does it work? I think so. Well, I guess we'll find out. I guess part of me. I don't get wrapped up around kit and stuff like a lot of guys in the marketplace the topical cool guy marketplace so I realize that a lot of it's marketing, it's capitalism, it's consumerism and guys want cool stuff. I just don't value it the same as a lot of guys do and I also don't have a retail sales side of my business. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:If I did, then I would probably sell the baddest freaking battle belt ever. Yeah, I'm going to put my name on it too. You know, freaking, it'll be the Tony Calvin super Batman belt, you know, with all the latest and greatest shit on it that will make you all the operators are using this look really cool yeah, everybody has their latest.
Speaker 1:Uh, they're selling their latest goods out there, man, yeah. Yeah, I was always a big fan of kyle lamb stuff. Uh, just shit works.
Speaker 2:If it works, if it's reliable, don't fucking touch it, you know I just shot an nrl match and uh, you know kyle shooting those and uh, you know, I still call him sergeant major lamb man because I respect that dude greatly. I met him in 04 in iraq. My boss and him had been in ranger regiment together and then unit together. Um and and as a young dumb tro man, I knew that dude was legit. Oh yeah, you know what I mean. Everything about that dude was legit. And still to this day, man, that dude, is a stud.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he puts his name on something as an 18. Bravo, I was going to fucking buy it.
Speaker 2:And you know what's funny? I remember when you know like all of a sudden the VTAC sling hit the marker and I'm looking at my alice pack strap that I have attached to my rifle and I was like son of a bitch, damn it. The dude literally made yeah, I don't know how much money selling an alice pack strap and we had been using them. It fucking works you just throw it or swing. Yeah, now it's a v-tach. Swing it's like damn it, that's the smartest shit I tell you.
Speaker 1:I've spent more fucking gpc money on his slings because I'm like every weapon system in this attachment will have this, and then, as a warrant officer, same thing like we're gonna buy all these fucking slings because I know they fucking work and let's face it, man freaking, every sling that's come out after that has tried to better it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I don't know that any really have, and it literally is just an Alice.
Speaker 1:Pack freaking buckle Right now in my gun, safe every one of my rifles VTACs.
Speaker 2:And I have a box full of every other kind, because dudes are like, hey, you know, try my sling. And I'm like, okay, yeah, it's cool, but I'm just going to go back to the regular one, like my swing. And I'm like, okay, yeah, it's cool, but I'm just gonna go back to the regular one, like I don't even like the ones with the paddle, I like the slick ones, because the pad gets home of stuff it does.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you don't have to you don't have to go to the version two. And, and you know, same, uh, dan brokos, uh, same with his gear. It was like if you have, if he has dan's name on it, probably gonna fucking buy it.
Speaker 2:Right, you know I have a pretty good reputation for just being rough on gear. All my buds know, you know I'm just rough on gear, man, and you can see it. Even like the way I handle my precision rifles, man, I just smash stuff. So if I've got something and it's older than a couple years, man, it's reliable, it's durable. Um, and I don't mean like at home, state, stateside, I'm just crazy ruffle stuff because I don't care right overseas. Yeah, I take care of my stuff way better. I clean my rifles and all that stuff at home, man, the threat level here in harold's north carolina is less than zero, right we don't have crime here, and if we do, we don't call the cops, uh, and so I'm not the.
Speaker 2:I'm not the same as far as the way I treat my gear here as I as I am, you know, on any trip or whatever. So yeah, I'm a little rough on stuff. If it's break, breakable, I'm going to know it real soon and I mean that's why, like, if something works, I have a hard time getting away from. I recently bought my first not Harris bipod. Really, yeah.
Speaker 1:Damn. You were holding out for a long time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I finally went completely gay and bought an mdt, um, yeah, and it is admittedly pretty badass, um, but at the same time, I've never had a harris film period, you know, not operationally, not in competition, not at the range, um. So, you know, once something works, man, I'm just gonna kind of stick with it. It's like, hey, you know there's a lot of better guns out there than glocks as far as, like, how fast you can shoot them. You know, once something works, man, I'm just going to kind of stick with it. It's like, hey, you know there's a lot of better guns out there than Glocks, as far as, like, how fast you can shoot them. You know, 2011s are great. I love shooting. You know, I'm old enough to you know, remember what 1911s feel like. And now with the 2011s, cool. But you know what, given the choice, I'm still taking a Glock into the freaking workspace.
Speaker 1:You know they work. They make loud noises when you you press a little button. Um, yeah, that that's uh. You know that I feel the same way. It's still, that's still the carry, it's still the daily carry and right, uh, prove it. Yeah, it's, you know, fucking work if a bunch of.
Speaker 2:If a bunch of 18 series dudes can't break it, man, it's probably pretty good. I would say the. The only people who are better at testing equipment than us, um, probably the rangers. They're rough on stuff. But marines you know what's that old saying? You give marines two ball bearings, three can come back in 20 minutes. One's broken, the other one's pregnant, um, and that's why they have, you know, a cops. You can't give marines a Marines, a freaking one to 10 or a magnified object. You know they'll get it pregnant at lunch and they'll be broken when they pull it out of the arms room. Like, how'd you break it while it was in the freaking safe dude? Um, no, I love my Marines man. I'm down here close to Lejeune these days. I worked at Marsoc for a little bit and um had recon bubbles and and marsat guys on my teams over the years and I have nothing but respect for those dude.
Speaker 1:They make the greatest teammates, dude. One of my greatest friends is a mark marsat guy um, and it's really a stepbrother's relationship. They're they're being when they were built their foundations built off of freaking oda. So it's like we work well together and it makes perfect sense why, when you're out like there will be some of your best friends if you can have the pleasure of meeting them. Man, it's just so many similarities.
Speaker 2:I opened my gym there in Wilmington, north Carolina, and you know, wilmington, north Carolina is kind of like Southern Pines for for the bride. Yeah, in relationship to Lejeune and the Marsauk guys in Stone Bay, they all want to live down there because it's away from the military, there's prettier girls, it's the same. It's the same pine hearth southern pine has. So you know, I got I was lucky man like one of the first marines to ever walk through my gym doors uh, was aaron torian, legendary marsauk dude, kia, I don't know, probably 10 years ago now, um, super stud, right off the bat, I got to meet one of the baddest former force guys, now marshock dude, and it really set my mind, you know my mind, like oh okay, these guys are on the right track and they've done nothing but prove that over the years.
Speaker 2:And you know, let's face it, the worst thing that ever happened to force was Marsa. Yeah, yeah, cause the force guys are studs, man and and hard, you know they're. They're. You know a lot like Rangers. But in the Marine Corps and I have always said what an underutilized asset in the United States military and that's, that's the force platoons man. Those dudes are studs too, but Mama Marine Corps keeps them lashed to that boat.
Speaker 1:Not fair. Those guys are studs. They truly make some of the best Green Berets. They really do. Earl Plumlee, hey man he came from that world the best 18 Delta I ever had came from that world.
Speaker 2:The dude couldn't function outside of being deployed. It was just like I just want to be gone. Eats its own. Uh, you know that after going through a selection and itc, those guys are willing to leave and then go through sfas almost the same selection just to go through the q course, which is arguably in some ways not as hard as itc. Right, they have a shooting package in itc that's pass fail. Nobody shoots in the q course.
Speaker 1:Yep, you know we should 25 years of war to get a shooting package in the q course. And the one thing I don't understand like why, why we don't do that?
Speaker 2:I had, uh, I had a guy. He's now over in 20th group. He was a uh, a marine corps major with a Ranger tab and airborne. Right, you're talking about a dude who probably will get a star one day in the Marine Corps, definitely a current on his way man. A stud, resigned his commission, took an E-5 spot in 20th group and went to selection and he is now two years later and he sits in the national guard. I mean, does that not say how effed up the marine corps is, that guys are willing to do that kind of stuff just just to just get on that greener grass? Yeah, of course then they get there and they find out it ain't much greener. But yeah, I would say eight. But seven out of ten dudes that contact me about joining sf are marines. You know, and of course that's because of my proximity and and knowing them and all that, but for my cross-section of guys that I give the recruiters number two, it's fucking marines you know, yeah, the great fucking dudes.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, tony, and then, lord knows, they will do a lot with very little.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, you know, I mean, you still do so much and you've got your, Like you said, you've got your hands in so many different pots. Do you think you'll ever find running for office ever again?
Speaker 2:I would run again if I had a Trump endorsement and $1.5 million in the bank account. That's what it would take, oh yeah, to challenge an incumbent rhino like greg murphy. Um, greg murphy's a political opportunist, right. Um, he will get on his knees for whoever will keep him funded or getting reelected right he. He's not a trump supporter, but he is now right, he's a. Now. If you look at his vote, he is the most liberal Republican of the 14. So we have 14 congressmen and women in North Carolina and of those, the Republicans, he is rated the most liberal. A couple of the Democrats are rated more conservative on the voting record than him. Ideologies right, because they say a lot of stuff, but americans we don't look at their. What they're actually voting yeah, right, we see their posts on facebook and we're like yeah, yeah, but when they go in yeah, but you don't actually look at their vote.
Speaker 2:So when you do that, you find out like oh wait a minute, this dude actually votes with democrats more than you than he does conservatives. And I will tell you, man, if there's one thing that running for Congress did, it showed me the Republicans are fucking dirtbags all the way down to the county level, craven County, north Carolina, onslaught County, north Carolina. Man, it was just disgusting how they treated me and how greg murphy treated me, freaking, instead of just saying, hey, man, may, may the best man win, let's sit down, let's do a debate. He would not debate me, right, he wouldn't get in the same place as me. Wow, I mean, dude. I mean just a spineless coward, right, but any political consultant will tell you that an incumbent should never debate because they won't win, they won't get reelected on a debate, but they could lose a reelection because of a debate. And you know he wouldn't debate me. He would tell people, you know, obviously I'm a meathead, a knuckle dryer, all those things, right, but he wouldn't actually sit down and match wits with me, right, and his excuse was I'm the, I'm a Congressman and a doctor, I'm busy, right? No, you're a coward and you're scared to actually have a conversation with a real, real, real person, real man, whatever. Um, so yeah, to challenge him again.
Speaker 2:Because after after that man, I just walked away. I deleted almost every political anything to include friends that post a bunch of political stuff. It was just disgusting, bro, disgusting. I felt like I just needed a shower. It was disgusting to learn how absolutely despicable Republicans are. They're just another wing on the same bird as the Democrats are. Right. They play the exact same game to get what they want right. It just happens to be. They want something different than Dems, ideologically, right. But the way they play the game, exactly the same. The way they take lobby money, the way they. You know trade in, um, you know campaign finance, right. When you get elected to Congress and I know some newly elected guys, I knew some guys that got elected last time right. The first thing they ask is like, hey, you know committee seats, right. And basically they're like well, if you want to be on that committee, we'll see how much money you can raise for the Republican party in the next quarter.
Speaker 2:And maybe we'll consider you for that. That committee or like and I'll use Greg as an example Greg is on the Ways and Means Committee. Ways and Means is a very powerful committee, right. It deals with budgets and funding and that sort of thing. If you look at Greg's campaign finance expenditures right, what he spent money on out of his campaign funds, it was max contributions to every single voting member of that committee Jeez, he had to pay. Voting member of that committee Jeez, he had to pay to get on that committee. Right, and that's how that game works. So, just because you get elected to Congress, right, if you remember um Eli Crane, right, navy SEAL, he stood against voting for McCarthy, you know, two years ago or about a year and a half ago for speaker. Speaker.
Speaker 2:He said I promised my constituents I would not cave, and he was the only one who did not ultimately cave. Right, and he made a joke. He's like well, I guess my committee seat because he's a freshman, he's got no Wasta at all, no influence whatsoever, whatsoever. Right, he was like well, I guess you know my committee is going to be in the janitorial closet. So of course they did put him on military affairs and, I think, homeland.
Speaker 2:But in the case of another new soft guy I know, who was just put up there um, watch what I say because I don't want to dime him out I don't have his permission to talk this way. Long story short new congressman, little background similar to ours. He has a degree that would make sense for him to be on a certain committee. So he said I'd like to be on that committee. And Johnson, the speaker, was like yeah, well, we'll see how much money you can raise in the next couple of quarters and maybe, maybe we'll get a spot. They don't care, man, they do not work for us anymore and that's not a conspiracy theory, it's just how it is.
Speaker 2:And if you want to know who your representative worked for because, lord knows, americans love to fuss and whine on instagram and I'm like you can go to the fec website, but it's a government website so it is hard to navigate. I think they do it on purpose because because if you go to the Federal Electoral Commission website, you can find every cent that goes in and out of any money that's associated with your congressperson or senator. But it's not easy. It's a horrible website. However, there's another website. That's where the corporate money's at Right Just typed it in right now. Yeah, it's a rabbit hole. Every time I post about this, I get a million DMs like holy shit, I looked up my congressperson and they're receiving funds from all these things.
Speaker 1:Dan Crenshaw.
Speaker 2:So it wasn't long ago, my awesome representative so-called representative greg murphy, started posting about chinese money and buyout of of land by chinese firms.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm gonna make a post about dan right now after after we get done with this. I just talked about this a little bit ago.
Speaker 2:I wish I had recorded my two phone conversations with Dan Crenshaw. I wish I had, man, I was amazed at some of the stuff he said to me. I was like you don't know me well enough to say these things and I was like you've got to be kidding me. Like I want to get elected to maybe improve the country and you're talking about how cool the ski resort is in in park city. Yeah, anyway, and the perks of being a congressman like get the fuck out of here, dude.
Speaker 1:Um, that's not what it's about, it's about public service and we've forgotten about this. We've forgotten about the fact that it's a public office. You're not supposed to go there to become a multimillionaire, so that is where we're missing what's really going on.
Speaker 2:The average American thinks it's a public office. It is not. It's a corporate office. That's who they work for. Individual contributions into the average congressperson's campaign funds are less than 20%. It's all corporate Gosh. So and I was I was talking about the Chinese firms, right? So in Eastern North Carolina we have a lot of cog farms, right? You probably remember some of those? Yeah, smithfields, one of the largest hog producing or pork producing. If not, I think it's the largest in the United States. It is owned by a Chinese firm. Now, since Greg Murphy took office, over 50,000 acres in his district has been sold to the Chinese pork farms and he has taken donations from those firms and he has taken donations from those firms.
Speaker 2:But then he gets on Facebook and talks about how we need to limit the sale of US properties, especially around government installations Camp Lejeune, dew River Air Station, cherry Point, all right here in his district. So he's saying one thing but doing the exact opposite. And if you don't look you'd never know. But it's right there. On Open Secrets, you can Google who owns Smithfield Farms. You can find. That's all public information. All that stuff is out there.
Speaker 2:But let's face it, man, you know the average american that has, you know soccer practice to take the kid to. You know freaking ballet, you know whatever their kids are into every night of the week and all day, saturday and most of sunday and they don't have time to do this stuff. You know they don't have time to to do that research. And so november comes around every other year for Congress and then every four years for the big elections and they vote Republican or they vote Democrat. And that's where we're at.
Speaker 2:And until Americans realize and come to the conclusion that this government is doing the things it's doing and has been doing for well over 200 years, right, because people think, like this government just got corrupt.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, the, you know, like the freaking, like the Supreme Court, its power grab within three years of the founding of our nation. The Supreme Court was never supposed to have the power that it does today and it took that power early on in this republic. Yeah, man, you know, until I hear a politician saying things like I want to return the federal government to its constitutional limits, like when have you ever heard like you're not even hearing Trump or any of his people say that no, because that would be so extreme. Like we have gone so far away from what the founding fathers wanted our federal government to look. Like Like nowhere in the Constitution does it authorize federal law enforcement except to patrol the post roads. So the only law enforcement agency out there that we should have that's federal would be an arm of the Postal Service. To guarantee letters and mail correspondences delivered. Would be kind of out of date today.
Speaker 1:Right and and to to, I don't know if I want the post office enforcement. I've seen some of their candidates.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like all the law enforcement guys would just get lost on the way to the calls right. Um, like, dude call ups, man, call their guys in. No, the uh, you know. And so post roads in any interstate commerce. That's what the constitution authorizes, that's it. Yeah, and congress shall make no laws, and I'm paraphrasing that would supersede state laws. We've had this inverse flip where the average American, especially the more middle and liberal leaning, they want the government to do things for them. They want universal health care, they want support from the government.
Speaker 1:Now it's normal.
Speaker 2:People truly believe the federal government is supposed to be above the state government and above county, right? That was not the way it was supposed to be set up ever, and will it ever get back that way. No, I don't think so, right, I think that ship has sailed. Republics do what republics do they get more and more powerful and then they fall apart.
Speaker 2:Yeah, eventually it will and then they fall apart. Yeah, initially. Yeah, eventually it will. Yeah, every, every republic, or democratic republic, democracy, if you want to call it that fails, it commits its own suicide and and you know, I don't know when ours is going to happen. I was a little worried a few months ago. Now I'm. You said it, you said I thought.
Speaker 2:I thought for sure, surely I started packing the go bags for the family, like surely it's it's imploding and you know that's the thing man like, unless you've left america and traveled extensively, not just to the hot spots that we spent most of our lives in. You know, there's this idea that america is the greatest place on earth, with the freest place on earth, and that's just not true. Not true. Yeah, you know, we are still the beacon of hope and all the things that you know. We're just infected. You know, we've got rotten pieces that need to be cut out, but I mean, there are plenty of places that do freedom Education. Obviously we're not number one anymore and haven't been in decades. Yeah, you know, the reality is we're not the best at anything, except for military spending. You know, and until we, you know, because patriots, especially conservative patriots, you know america, america, right, okay, cool, you can love america while conducting an assessment and an analysis and reach the conclusion that we have a lot of room for improvement, a lot. Until the american people stand up and demand it, we're not going to get it. No, it's so true that is a very long-winded uh answer that I don't foresee running for any offices anytime soon.
Speaker 2:Um, and the reason being is politicians like Greg Murphy and I would only run in my district where I live, which is kind of cool, because I live in the district that I grew up in. I was running for Congress in no shit in the place I was raised, which was kind of cool. Very, very, very few congressmen do that, right, like our congressman is not even from north carolina, right? Um, and we saw it like. You know, clinton. You know she ran for senate in new york, so people will shop for districts, you know, and that's how the game's played. I didn't want to be part of that. I was like I will run in the district in which I live, which happened to also cover where I grew up, which I thought was cool. I would have loved the opportunity to advocate for and represent the fishermen, the farmers and all the military folks and blue collar, because that's all we got in Eastern North Carolina. I would have loved to have been able to go to DC and advocated for my people, my people.
Speaker 1:They truly are.
Speaker 2:But, you know, even at the end of the campaign, because we didn't have very long, because the district changed and stuff, I couldn't get local media to say my name and if they did, it was in a negative way. Why? Because his campaign was able to pay those media outlets tens of thousands of dollars for ads. Well, I didn't have that kind of funding. I mean, we raised, you know, $300,000 in four months for a nobody politician, never been in politics, you know, and that was their thing, that they, they posted my record right, which I actually posted it preemptively because I knew they went.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I got a call from the sheriff's department, uh, where I grew up. Hey, someone from greg murphy's campaign came in here today looking for a mug shot or something. And I was like, do I have a mug shot from when I got arrested? And they're like, no, you don't, and this is a. You know, this is a boy I grew up with, yeah, who's now like, not the sheriff, but second, like our, our sheriff up there. I remember when he was born, his dad was my college or my high school coach, um town. Uh, long story short. So, preemptively, I posted my record. If you look at my record you'll see, uh, that I speed a lot, as we all do hurry most of my life.
Speaker 2:Um, and when I speed I don't give highway patrolman an option to cut me a break, right. So I'm getting that 82 in a 55, right, I'm getting that to that 82nd private saturday night. And, dude, they were like he's a criminal. Um, like many of us, I have an assault charge. I also have a domestic right. Well, so they tried to paint me as violent. And I'm like, dude, I'm an SF guy, I'm familiar with it, I was, and they tried to paint me as a, as a woman. What they didn't put out and I had to is my wife and I ex-wife freaking got in an argument in the driveway. In the driveway I left.
Speaker 2:Nine hours later, after only talking to the neighbors who heard us arguing, the sheriff's deputy swore out a warrant for both of our arrests Because he couldn't find either one of us, because she was off partying wherever and I was over at my buddy's house asleep. And so I get arrested and so does she. We hired the same attorney, never went to court, it got dropped, dismissed, right. I had the affidavit that I wrote, had the affidavit that she wrote. You know there was no physical violence whatsoever, but you know I've got a sitting Congressman trying to run.
Speaker 2:You know, I guess you could.
Speaker 2:You know?
Speaker 2:I mean, I've served our country, man, you know, mostly honorably, um, at least at least diligently and consistently right, I've given up a lot to do what we do, um, and I don't want to say it like that, like because it's been nothing but a good thing, but the reality is I could have taken a different route and not spent my adult life in the middle East and Africa, um, maybe not spent my adult life freaking, you know, burying all my good friends Right and to the disrespect that that dude and his supporters put on me because of that man.
Speaker 2:It was disgusting and that was a lot of it. I was like, wow, um, at one point greg murphy referred to myself and two marine corps buddies of mine as thugs, thugs, and I was like one of those dudes has a silver star, both of them have purple hearts, freaking, and the other one has a bronze star with V and you're calling them a thug. They both had TVIs, they're both 100% disabled veterans who served our country with honor, which you've never done. You know what I mean. But that's how politicians play man. Most of them are, let's face it, lip-wristed little beta males, and the only game they know how to play is slander people in the back right.
Speaker 2:They, like the dude, won't even get on the same stage as me and have a debate right.
Speaker 1:That's all it tells you all you need to know about people like that, and that's that's sad. No, that's probably what a lot of our veterans getting in the public space trying to become leaders in our government. They are both brilliant human beings.
Speaker 2:I mean dude you have a conversation with Pat and you're like super intelligent. So maybe one day, if he doesn't get infected by whatever it is they infect new members of Congress with up there, maybe he'll make make some differences. Um, you know, um, I was really happy to see like Stuart show, uh, getting tapped as heads. As heads was, you know right hand man.
Speaker 2:I was talking to Stu the other day and I'm like, dude, go get them, yeah, go get them, yeah, they they they tried to fuck him and you know there's a lot of people that are like, and so if your viewers don't don't know who Stuart is, sue, and you know there's a lot of people that are like, and so if your viewers don't know who Stewart is, sue, sherlock was the Marine Corps colonel who spoke out in uniform on social media about the withdrawal and he named commanders and he named the negligence in which that happened during the withdrawal. So they put him in the brig. They put that dude, a colonel, in the the brig. And kind of funny how he and I met.
Speaker 2:I heard through the grapevine that he was considering running and I got his phone number from another marine that I knew and I texted him. I was like, hey, bro, what's up? My name's tony calvin. Um, you know, we may need to just chat. And he's like, yeah, about what I'm like you running for Congress or not and he goes okay, let's meet. I was like when. He's like today, you know.
Speaker 2:I was like tomorrow morning I walk into a little coffee shop and he's just looking at me. He's like I've told my mother and one other person that I'm even thinking about it, how do you know? And I was like, I don't know man, I run networks and, uh, you know, and of course there was some, you know, playing on my part, like you know, freaking, you know, like aso source ops guy or whatever you know. Um, honestly, I don't know exactly where it came from, but it came through my little political network and we sat down and chatted. He's like you know, man, I can't do it, he's like, but I will fucking support you. Um, and he did, and we became friends. I'm logged out. What was? I think it was your a post you made the other day, right?
Speaker 2:yeah I've locked myself out of every computer in the team room. Yep, we just did that shit.
Speaker 1:So calm help desk, Dear God please help me yeah.
Speaker 2:But, for sure, man. I was talking to him the other day and I was like, yeah, man, go get him, Because, let's face it, man, the DOD is just eat up with freaking politicians, you know, generals, colonels and all that I don't know. Man, I was really skeptical, to be right, honest with you, about all the stuff that has happened in the last, you know almost month now. They were coming out of the gate, man, the gate dropped, and the Trump administration. I'm surprised, man, pleasantly Like holy crap.
Speaker 1:They hit it hard.
Speaker 2:People are mad about USAID. I mean, you've been around USAID. The one thing I know about USAID is that they throw the best parties and they provide us all kinds of cool cover. And you know, if I play my money right, I can get them to buy me gravel what you know. But people are mad, you know, and I'm like, I play my money right, I can get them to buy me gravel, but people are mad and I'm like, how is cutting our government bad? And then, of course, oh no, they're going to get rid of the Department of Education. Have you not seen the stats? It's a failure in every single way.
Speaker 2:And I'll ask people name one thing the United States federal government has been successful at in the last decade. The Department of Interior's conservation model is successful, and that is it. And it's being tested all over by the liberal agenda. Right, they were an introduction of wolves, when you know the. The wildlife, you know, in Colorado is a good example where they're like don't do it, don't do it, but the wolves are cute, you know. So let's put them back in. But otherwise, man, you know the U? S conservation model and the department of interior is arguably the only successful part of the united states federal government so I don't know, yeah, um, I'm excited, I think we got a lot of great things in the in the horizon.
Speaker 1:I I heard yesterday that elon's gonna start looking at government officials that make over a certain amount of money. So uh, I I heard that too I'm excited for that.
Speaker 1:Okay, do republicans do you know, let's, let's do the republicans from two people that I really want to see targeted nancy pelosi and dan crenshaw I mean, there's only 250, some of them. It shouldn't take that long? They shouldn't, it shouldn't every last some of them. It shouldn't take that long? It shouldn't. It shouldn't Every last one of them, every last one of them, let's Elizabeth Warren, every all, all of them, let's take a look at it and take all that money and then put it into our, our, our government.
Speaker 1:Give it back to actual offices that are doing the right thing. Like you, you know those budgets. Pump them up. If there's an office that's working, if there's programs that are working, put money towards that. That's right. Find the places where the money needs to go. The day of wasting resources has come to an end, hopefully, and we shall see some accountability.
Speaker 2:Government is always going to be wasteful, just by its own nature, right. Government is always going to be wasteful, just by its own nature, right, you know I would. I would even argue that even dictatorships, as efficient as they are, still have a lot of fraud, waste and abuse, right, why? Because people are involved, right, like the lowest common denominator of every problem on this planet is people. Well, I don't know about you, but I'm not willing to really solve that problem you know, that would mean we all go away.
Speaker 2:I think Mother Nature, one of these days, is going to get tired of our shit and be like you know what? Those dinosaurs were really cool. I'm bringing them back and I'm going to let them deal with you.
Speaker 1:I'm going to go full Drexel Park, that's it. When we see scientists actually create and clone dinosaurs, that's when you really need to start packing your bug out bag and start heading for the mountains.
Speaker 2:That's how Mother Nature gets us back.
Speaker 1:That's my theory. We're going to be fighting dinosaurs and I'm telling you just follow Tony and see where he's going to go and that's where you need to go, take and, and you know, pack up the family, pack up the trailer.
Speaker 2:And if that?
Speaker 1:man's heading up to the mountains. I'm calling my buddy T-Dubs Travis.
Speaker 2:Wilson man. He's down in like Palm beach, florida. He was a guanus like all day long, every day. That's what that dude does is murder a guanus iguanas. So oh I'm gonna be like dude. He's gotta know how to kill freaking dinosaurs. It's the closest thing I'm calling that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, tony, I can't thank you enough for being here today. Man, uh, dude it. We gotta run it back because we didn't get a chance to talk about your non-profit. But uh, uh, people want to follow you and uh get in touch with you. Where can they go?
Speaker 2:yeah, man, you know. So my, my company is capable, incorporatedatedcom. I'm like every other soft guy, formerly what do they call it? Former action guy. I try to stay current. That's where I do all my shooting training and that sort of thing. We do pistol carbine my passion is long range but we do it all.
Speaker 2:The nonprofit man. That was my reaction to politics. You know, it is in my nature to help my passion for hunting. I was like, hey man, me and this force recon guy and a coast guard guy, three hunting buddies. We said, hey, man, we're gonna start this non-profit called louise and outdoorsorg and the only thing that really sets us a whole lot different than anybody else in that space because you know there's plenty of uh, non-profits that take guys hunting is that we, we want to teach guys to hunt right. We're not just going to take you to texas, put you, you know, on a high fence on dial that scope and you shoot it, you're done. No, man, I'm, from start to finish, packing list, training, program you, and then, when we do, put that animal on the ground if you've never butchered and processed it. I do one side, you do the other.
Speaker 2:So, that's what we're doing, that, man, and that's the reason, the reason outdoorsorg. So yeah, those are the two things, man. Of course you know. Instagrams and all that stuff Tony underscore, calvin underscore. Instagrams and all that stuff Tony underscore, calvin underscore. And yeah, man, I try to put good information out there for the young bucks and the old bucks. My lessons learned what good am I as a senior or a Zulu, if I'm not giving back?
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:I sadly, all this whole dude's really learned a lot of lessons the hard way, um, and so, if I can talk to the young guys or even help fix the water, guys, that's where I'm at in life, man. You know, um, you know, I, I just I don't see me getting in doing the politics and saving the world. I think that that's probably done for me, man. Like I said, it was not a good experience. It made me feel sick and disgusting. Uh, since you know, from the aboga journey to the non-profit man, I can honestly say that I'm happy. Hell, yeah, right, five ago I would have said I'm content Now that I've tasted what happiness feels like like truly man, like joy in here, like I don't get in Instagram fights and bickering anymore. It's all about helping dudes, right, I mean, I spend 80% of my day doing things that help other people, and not just soft guys, man, I mean regular everybody neighbors man and that that that helps, that helps me be happy.
Speaker 2:Um, and so that's where I'm at in life, man, freaking, and it's cool. I like sharing that shit with people, man. I like to see my brothers, who you know are borderline miserable because of all of the operator syndrome stuff. I love showing them the pathway to happiness. Hell yeah, or at least sharing mine with them so they can figure out theirs.
Speaker 1:That's the best thing in life, man Dude. Thank you so much for being here, brother. You guys want to get a hold of Tony, get in the description of this episode, go on instagram, follow him and hit him up and, uh, thank you all for tuning in and we'll see you all next time. Till then, take care, oh, and go to opensecretscom and check out dan crenshaw yeah, thanks again, brother.
Speaker 2:I enjoyed it. Man, I'll talk to you soon absolutely, man.
Speaker 1:We'll see you. 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.
