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!
Green Beret Cody Halfpop: From the Battlefield to Healing Veterans
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In this powerful episode of Security Halt!, host Deny Caballero sits down with Green Beret Cody Halfpop to share his incredible journey through military service, Special Forces selection, and life after the uniform. Cody opens up about the grit it takes to earn the Green Beret, his experiences on deployment, and how mentorship shaped his career.
The conversation takes a deep dive into the challenges of military transition, addressing the mental health struggles many veterans face, including substance abuse and the silent battle of suicide within the community. Cody emphasizes the importance of physical fitness, resilience, and strong connections to overcome adversity.
Together, Deny and Cody highlight the life-saving work of the Special Forces Foundation, showing how community, mentorship, and purpose can change—and even save—lives. This is more than a story of service; it’s a call to action to support those who have sacrificed for our nation.
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Produced by Security Halt Media
Securepodcast is proudly sponsored by Titan's Arms. Head over to the episode description and check out Titan's Arms today. That before yeah, I had a full episode that like literally we talked for 40 minutes, then hit record. Then hit record, then hit fucking record, then I'm like you know you might run to get back, can?
Speaker 2:we revisit that last six, seven, eight conversations. We can skip the one in the middle.
Speaker 1:I just want to pause right now and kind of reflect on something you said 40 minutes ago. Just restart.
Speaker 2:Just say it verbatim one more time, because I really thought it was that important.
Speaker 1:It was so impactful. Restart. Cody Halfpop. Welcome to Security Hot Podcast. Thanks, man. Glad to be here. Absolutely. It is amazing to sit down with some of your friends and get some background information. I did my homework, so a lot of people from 10th Group had a lot of things to say, some favorable. We'll just go through the list. Cody Half Poop I don't care for this man. I was one of your prior teammates, sounds right? Cody Cody, you're interviewing that asshole. And the list goes on and on.
Speaker 2:I did find one person. You haven't found anything that surprised me yet.
Speaker 1:No man. Everybody I reached out to and talked to and it's evident when we opened up the morning threads for a lot of the initiatives that you're started for the Special Forces Foundation Everybody has great things to say about you and I have yet to meet a more welcoming or warmer individual in my time coming out of the military than you. Good sir, you are truly a friend of a friend, a Green Beret's Green Beret, and it's an honor to have you here to talk about the great work that you do with Special Forces Foundation. I know that praise and admiration is not something that any of us are used to, but truly what you're doing is saving lives and you're taking an individual, doing something that a lot of people are willing to do, which is one person at a time, one situation at a time, and getting involved from from the grassroots type of of movement.
Speaker 1:Everybody's waiting for a big, big overarching foundation to come in and just save everybody and and that's not happening, it's the human connection that's really. That's really what's saving all of us. We were talking earlier before we started reaching out to our friends. That's really stemming the tide and often enough, when we're struggling, we fail to even heed that warning, and we need to, we need to talk about that. So today, before we dive into all the great things that you're doing for the Special Forces Foundation, I want to dive into your story.
Speaker 2:Why did you start service and what led you to become a Green Beret man? It's a loaded question, I guess. I think, like a lot of us, we probably came from either mommy or daddy didn't love us enough or some sort of family. We come start broken right. So it's the draw Mostly good family family, but sure get like abandonment stuff. You know, parents, dad, um, it was a really good wrestler back in iowa, damn, you have to be, I guess.
Speaker 1:Um yeah, that's a big state for wrestlers man it is.
Speaker 2:It is I'm probably the worst in my family. My brother's a two-time national champ. He's coached several national titles. My brother, my cousin, is a three-time all--American and then he's a head coach at a college called Grandview and they've won 12, 13 national titles. They're just a crazy powerhouse. I was successful but not nearly talented enough and I, you know you look at getting ready to go to college and stuff like that and I I looked at some schools and probably could have got some scholarships to some degree whatever. But I realized I was going to be a really good wrestler after four or five years and I still didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up. Spoiler, I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up, but I fought the army four or five years and this is pre-9-11.
Speaker 2:So, I joined in 2000 2000, thought I would figure out after four or five years get some college money and then uh, and then know, what I wanted to be when I grew up.
Speaker 2:Obviously, 9-11 kicked off. I was a signal signals, intelligence linguist, crypto linguist. My first duty station was germany and we sat in a basement listening to headphones and it was the worst. I I'm an outside soldier. I need to play outside. A lot of people really enjoyed that job. It wasn't for me. We had a commander come out during our Monday formations regular Army stuff and hey, there's this program called Special Forces Assessment and Selection. We'll be here to talk to you guys. If you did get selected, you'd leave the unit and I raised my hand. I was like what's that? And they had me leave the unit. Nice, change your MOS.
Speaker 1:So when selection. You speak multiple languages right, Poorly.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, several Like a great green beret. Oh yeah, heck. Yeah, yeah, I can. I can upload with the best of them. Now I learned the linguist program taught me Korean and French. You know, I grew up I grew up in high school Spanish, and then I taught, became pretty solid by teaching English, and then when I was stationed in Germany, of course all the crowds thought I was one of them. So I was like I better learn this because they all keep talking to me.
Speaker 1:I mean, yeah, you wouldn't stick out in Germany.
Speaker 2:No More so in. Africa and Korea, though.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, We'll get to that later, but what was the selection like for you? I mean?
Speaker 2:I think we all after, like, reflecting on your career, selection was the easiest part. I mean, it was the easiest part of the q course. Q course was the easiest part of your career. Yeah, it was tough. Uh, land nav, you know, as a, as a linguist, uh, I didn't, hadn't done a lot of land now I had rocked my ass off getting ready for selection. I did that 100-miler, 9-migan in high, as my train up and we were a bunch of signals intelligence nerds. So we did it by the numbers, not just gridded it out. We went through the program of how you train for 100-miler and whatever. So the rucking was fine. Land nav, I didn't know how to do. I was a death star on the last day through a, you know, combined method of running the roads where I knew I could get away with it Allegedly Allegedly For legal reasons that's a joke. Prove it. I go the way of getting a tab revoked or something. For the most innocuous thing I would deserve to get my tab revoked for, you know, anti-hero podcast.
Speaker 1:I need you to pull this tab.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they, I uh. Then you know, like I think it happens a lot of guys suddenly the map became three-dimensional for me and I realized those little squiggly lines and circles meant, meant something, and figured it out. And then, you know, on the next phase I struggled was sgt. I wasn't an x-ray, so I didn't have sopsy, and that was before they did the uh, soft skill mos is like prep.
Speaker 2:So I was dumbfounded that all these guys just knew 7-8. They just knew the ranger handbook and I was on fire guard taking extra shifts reading and trying to learn like how you, how everybody just knows this stuff and I think I got so pink. I'm surprised you didn't hear anybody hear about that. We tried to kick that guy out and sut. They're like he doesn't know shit. That guy's an idiot. There's nothing about being an instrument or whatever. They were 100 right. I think we got a trajectory up throughout like he's not smart at this, but he works hard. So damn it, he works really, really hard. Yeah, yeah and q course off to 10th group was there from, I think, out there in 06, like summer fall 06, um just went right into the iraq.
Speaker 2:Groundhog day deployments oof um, and then we did like four or five of those, and then we we did that africa yeah, the swap pulled some of those yeah that was, I know, third group, didn't wasn't a super fan of those, I think.
Speaker 2:Uh, we loved them in 10th group. Yeah, it was fun, like we were completely talking about away from the flagpole, so it was like a largely choose your adventure. But we were building like those low cost, low altitude bundles like doctrine, like figuring it out like okay, well, that made that 55 gallon drum boil explode, so we won't do it with that next time, we'll do it the other way. We built base camps. You know, like Pappy Jones is like a legend in at least in the Charlie committee or Charlie community. I think he was a Bravo actually, but he had written the A camp manual.
Speaker 2:It can't possibly be in publication anymore Cause it's super racist. It's got like all the dead bodies have like Chinese hats with X's on their eyes and stuff like that. It's. Those are the illustrations. However, as you kind of remember the early days of appointments you would deploy with your books, like your, your Q course books, and that's what we did in Africa. It was like page one kill the gooks, like oh, okay, next, next, next, next, until we got to like building belts, bands and zones with with triple strand concertina and, uh, it's cool as a Charlie.
Speaker 1:It was super fun logistically and in base camp and stuff that's one part of the job that people don't talk about or really explain. Like you hear the 18 Bravo and you just like, ah, weapons, 18 Charlie, it's a demo explosions and it's like dude, it's out of all the MOSs, it's. It has so much more. Like your charge of so much shit. That is not sexy. Property book, logistics, supply like everything that nobody wants to do gets shuffled onto your plate for sure.
Speaker 2:And then we try to shove it onto the echoes. If it touches wires, it touches electricity, like that's echoes, man for sure I'm pretty sure this is your job, dude I would.
Speaker 2:I would tell a student because then I was an 18 char Charlie instructor after that for a few years and I would tell them no one is going to say you're a good Charlie because of demo ever. Yeah, sorry, man, they're going to say it because you're Jesus the carpenter building stuff or you procure things, you find a way to get stuff. And that's what people are going to say you're a good Charlie, for Demo is the easiest thing that we do, certainly the most fun, and you can get nerdy and good at it. But no one's going to be like dude, he built charges so good that dude stole an entire generator from a fob and got our honor. You know that's the stuff they're going to brag about.
Speaker 1:That's absolutely the truth. It is a job that has a lot of responsibility that nobody wants to take on, that nobody wants to master. But if you master all those things, your detachment will flourish, the team will look really good. But again, you'll never get any of the praise Like Hazmat. Nobody wants to do that shit. But I'm going to get your equipment to country.
Speaker 2:It's the worst Hazdex. And building that pallet, getting yelled at for putting the wrong thing on the going to that. What do they call it? Not JMPI?
Speaker 1:Oh man, this is obviously yeah, JI.
Speaker 2:JI obviously not a good Charlie. You probably heard a lot of that if you did your back check. But you go into JI and you're trying to bribe, coerce these customs like to just get your stuff in the isu or on the pallet and get out of the country dude, that's.
Speaker 1:That's the non-sexy stuff that nobody talks about.
Speaker 1:Like a large, large. Your career is going to be filled with these moments of complete misery, just trying to coerce somebody to let you put something in the back of a truck, a plane, so you could go on about your business like it's an all-day event. Like I remember for one of our missions, our 18 bravo decided that he was going to argue with the ji inspector and it got to a point of like a back and forth, a back and forth, and he thought he was going to outregulate this guy and show him on his book like where the batteries didn't have to be there and I'm as the warrant on the team. I'm just like. You know what. You're going to have to learn this the hard way. Like, rather than like trying to like appease this guy, you're going to fight him on regulations.
Speaker 1:This is a DOD, he's going to dick you down. This is a DOD, he's gonna dick you down. And sure enough, he sat there trying to prove a point, couldn't prove it, and then the guy just looks at him and is like, okay, I'll come back when I get done with everybody else, and it's like fuck that's brutal.
Speaker 2:I had a buddy, ryan, who used to say adults only learn one way the hard way. Good, 100% true.
Speaker 1:Did you do your entire time in the same company, in the same battalion, or where did you move around through? I grew up.
Speaker 2:B210, second time Bravo company, just shy of maybe 8 years, that's solid, maybe seven, some change. Uh, oh, six to to early, to beginning of 14 is when I went to uh to swick and then, uh, I came back from swick at I would have been at 17 years, um, and we went to third battalion. If you don't know, 10th group made a war battalion and a jset battalion for a number of years which was really unhealthy. I mean, you know, j-sets are harder than combat, j-sets produce like the better MOS, like stuff. So I mean, and then you got guys that are you know cuckold, they're watching their buddies go to war and they like, oh, I'm doing another J-Set, just sitting there in the parking lot and then you know it's like dark, we'll probably start dark soon. But they both killed themselves at alarming rates.
Speaker 2:The j set guys did it in a lot nicer cars because they were making that j set money. I mean, this is the reality of it. But, um, yeah, so I came back to third battalion. I was like hell, yeah, I'm getting in on that j set money. I mean, you know I'm not, I don't know this stuff very well, but whatever, we did one like episodic engagement to Eastern Europe, and then we went to Afghanistan for the rest of the. So I was like, oh hell, that's Lisa, that's what I know. Whatever, damn it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, go ahead. Sorry, yeah, it did it to me. It doesn't make sense. I don't know how it made sense to our senior leaders, but yeah, there's guys want to go to combat and jay sets do prepare you to know your job. Everybody gets a chance like get reps. Like it makes no fucking sense. It makes no sense.
Speaker 2:This is, this is gonna piss off some a lot Bravos. But having done almost exclusively combat until I came back from SWCC and I had a Bravo on my team, I had never in my career been like dude. That guy's a really good Bravo. It's just not something I thought about, it's just like whatever. Until I did that J set and I watched this poor bastard.
Speaker 2:The partner force shows up with the wrong weapons. Their ammo count is not accurate, so he's on the fly coming up with a new POI for training, like with a round count, with the drills, and he had you know all this infrastructure book. And I saw that that whole company who had been just doing J sets over and over all kind of had that infrastructure in place. I was super impressed. They had the ammo stuff figured out to move across all these Eastern European countries through the different regs. It was like that's what really brought into focus how easy combat is Like. The worst case scenario is you have to drive to your SOTIF and go unload a Connex and then come back. It wasn't like well, this one has to go to Romania but it has to get through Czech Republic, so you'll have to do this for that. And these Bravos like had that dialed in and then just the range stuff, everything.
Speaker 1:So yeah, super impressed, and that's something that our guys are trying to. I guess they're navigating this right now. I mean, there's, you know, afghanistan is over, guys are having to fight for J-sets again and understand the importance of their primary skill sets, like I think the GWAT did us a great disservice into thinking that the only thing that we were built for was to go kick in doors and engage enemy on the battlefield just a hundred percent all the time and you forget that you're supposed to be the unconventional fucking masters, like by with and through, especially for the guys that had those really awesome sexy missions early on where you're operating with the katahas very elite force and you're you're. You don't have to do the whole training part of it. You're getting these guys straight from the task force scorpion ready to go spun up, trained, and it's like, oh all, all right, cool, we can just go hit targets all day.
Speaker 1:There's something to be said about what the guys are doing now, like they're getting back to what it means to be a Green Beret. At least I hope so. I envision the force developing and strengthening those skill sets that were not necessarily lost but maybe relegated to, like the you know, the backside training time At least I hope, man. I think that Look at like the fourth the whole fourth battalion construct.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, it's like that used to be an ODA. An ODA used to be good enough, but yeah, we got so wrapped in. We had to create an additional whole system to do the things that every oda would mission plan and do before you know, yeah, oh, that that team's on the softly or they're on the mle rotation, whatever. Now it's like we have we created a whole battalion to to do those things again, it's wild yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 1:And everything and everything's changing again too, man. Everything's changing again too, man. Everything's. You know, the force is getting smaller, leaner, so they're having to adapt and shutter teams. But that's not unusual. That's happened before.
Speaker 1:Like shit, we used to have fucking a whole bunch of different groups and then those got shut down. So it's like people are always wondering and you always hear like the rumor mill of, like you know, I heard it all the time when I was still in like oh, they're going to shut down teams, and it's like no, that'll never happen. And then, lo and behold, a few years later, I'm already out and they're like they did it, crazy sons of bitches. They actually did it and I'm like not bad. I mean, you got to prioritize where you can put people. I think he's rolling. Yeah, exactly, man, when you were going through your career, did you ever pause and reflect and say like man, maybe, maybe, I'm not going to do this forever? Like did you always know you're going to do it all the way through the retirement, or would you always find yourself having a little bit of conflicted emotions about that?
Speaker 2:Uh, well, like I told you when I first came in, I was gonna do it for five years, get that gi bill and then bounce uh. And then I think, uh, uh, war started. I was like, well, when this, this war thing ends, I'll, I'll get out. Uh, we came back from rotation in 2010, I think, or I was right, maybe it was before we did the. It was like on OND, operation New Dawn in.
Speaker 2:Iraq, where we were going to shut it down the first time and, uh, I came back, I think before that rotation or yeah that was going to 10 years. That's your decision point. Everybody tells you if you, if you go by beyond 10, you got to do 20. Uh, at least was the the wisdom that I didn't question. So I and I had, we didn't didn't love the leadership. Obviously, like you know, didn't love the mission anymore it was cool, kicking doors and all that stuff.
Speaker 2:uh, and I had a mentor, a guy by the name matt mcguffin, tell me like, hey, man, leadership changes. We value this leadership thing less and less. The company sergeant, major and commander are gone in a moment you'll see. You know, like, uh, in the mission, change, just give it, give it a pause and think about that. I did and I stuck it out and, um, then at that point I was kind of committed, at least in my mind, and SWCC was, uh, what 13, 14 years was? Uh, don't, not a fan of brag, no offense to you know folks that love that place. But um, the mission, that like teaching future Charlie's, like when you know, like you get MOS phase, you're, you're probably going to make it Right, you're probably going to make it Right. And so I had a touch point of every 18 Charlie. It gave me like, and I thought I was, I had a good grasp on what it meant to be that after eight years of team time and I really liked that idea of getting a touch point with every single 18 Charlie in the regiment for that three years.
Speaker 2:I just got some feedback the other day from someone who said he hated me as an instructor, I think. I think he thought I was trying to fail him. He make it hard for him. He didn't realize I was actually giving him another chance at time. Fuse, he's like he's making me do another mission or whatever. I guess he told me his buddy was like dude, you know, he hooked you up Like he didn't have to give you a third mission and you passed. Like it was myself and another guy was teaching with their Chuck Longson fifth group guy. But he just told me that yesterday on the phone and I was like, oh, no doubt that most of the students thought I was an asshole. I have no doubt that's a that's the case.
Speaker 1:but yeah, it's crazy, man, like I want to dive into this for a little bit. Mentorship like a lot of times when we're doing something to develop somebody or help somebody, see the problem set from a different angle, it can come across like fuck, that guy's picking on me, like, and certainly when you have to do like, make hard calls of like hey, maybe you have what it takes, but maybe I, I want you to restart this phase. You know those hard calls like they seem when you're on the other side as a student. You're like fuck that guy. But they don't see if somebody does see value and worth in that individual In that moment I think every young man I certainly had that situation as a young 18 Bravo with a cadre.
Speaker 1:It wasn't until years later that I realized, oh shit, that guy gave me a pass, like he helped me, he hooked me, the fuck up to get back in like good graces. I was like, oh shit, like it's uh, it's something that it, it, it's almost missed on us until we get older. We realized like, fuck man, like that person was mentoring us, like in your career, like tell us, like dive into that, like what was it like going back and being a mentor and developing the next generation of great 18 charlies I love that.
Speaker 2:I think what you said spot on. Mentor, you know, I think being a green beret is teacher. Uh, like, a lot of my family are educators. Maybe that's a cultural thing, but I I love that aspect was the teaching aspect, the men in. I say teaching, I think you're probably more accurate mentorship, and so you know he's a charlie cadre, especially like um. First I started teaching like the logistics, construction portion. This was like the first six weeks. You get a lot of time, these guys like study halls, like all day in the classroom you go out and build um and then, during like the last weeks of build you, you build some project out at camel call or whatever, but it's, it's long days, you know, probably six in the morning till a lot of times like 10 at night and that's what you're doing is mentoring. Like, yeah, well, we don't, we didn't bring whatever, whatever. Guess what? You didn't do it on the loadout. Figure it the fuck out.
Speaker 2:Man like the building's got to be built like well, if we go back, like you're gonna go two and a half hours there and back, go get that stuff. And then, nope, like figure it out, man, you missed it on loadout, it wasn't on the pallet. Like that's on, you don't do that again. Um, and then you know, like the end you finish the build. And then we would, if they finished early, I'd call them team sergeant projects Like all right, hey, you're going to build a movie room, like get something, a projector, we can hit on the ceiling. You're going to build the whatever, add more outlets, add more. You know, hey, we want to upgrade from the piss tubes to like an actual pisser with a drain. You know it's like that.
Speaker 2:And then I moved on to the FTX at the end, which is missions, mission, it's like that. But yeah, and then I moved on to the ftx at the end, which is missions, mission, mission, mission, and that was super rewarding. So out there at uh, camp snyder, the bravos and charlies you, I remember this. Q course, bravos and charlies were like the most contentious, always fighting, and then it turns out you're the two always in the arm room together. You're like bfs on the team. It's so fucking true, man, I had completely forgotten about that until I got back there as an instructor and the Bravos and Charlies would be arguing and bitching about shit. I was like, oh yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:Believe it or not believe it or not, you two are going to be like bros, and it's going to be.
Speaker 1:This episode is brought to you by Titan Sarms. Head on over to titansarmscom and buy a stack today. Use my code CDENNY10 to get your first stack. I recommend the lean stack too. Start living your best life Titan's Arms. No junk, no bullshit, just results.
Speaker 2:You against the entire rest of the team, fucking with your stuff, fucking up the inventory, the mall. They're going to be screwing it up. You're going to get over it now. But trust me too, you got, it's gonna be. You're gonna be okay on the other side that's so fucking true, man.
Speaker 1:It becomes a dynamic duel for good and bad. Um, yeah, a lot of fond memories, but to your point, the mentorship man.
Speaker 2:That's. That's what I the charlie teaching charlie course was extremely rewarding. One of the more rewarding parts I ended up doing 24 years and one of the more rewarding parts was that and I worked with awesome dudes.
Speaker 2:I always try to be the hardest working guy on a team, something your research might contest no, that actually came through that guy's really good at coming up with ideas for other people to do, but I think I have a plaque that says that somewhere. Most of you are like that guy's really good at coming up with ideas for other people to do, but I think I have a plaque that says that somewhere. But I worked with guys that a dude named Aaron Huntington goes by Moose because he's the size of a moose, but he, the guy, could outwork. I couldn't outwork the guy. I would show up an hour early to work on some random project on a weekend to improve our team house that we had out work. I could not work the guy.
Speaker 2:I would show up an hour early to work on some like random project on a weekend to like improve our team house that we had out there, and he'd show up two hours early and already have like the cabinets built and done. I'm like I cannot outwork this dude. Like I think I'd set up all the packets for the students and then I'd find out that he'd already done the other half like before. Yeah. So the other half like before, yeah. So it's cool to work with dudes that like that that you're trying to outwork guys. You know, because I mean you get on, and when you're on a team like that, it's also super rewarding. But that was like a place where I was, where there was so many dudes that I was just struggling to try to even just keep up and feel like I was pulling my weight that's a that's the truth about this profession.
Speaker 1:It's it's like the theme of this week. Everybody I talked to that's a green beret. Like the good, genuine people always say that exact same or share that sentiment, like I was always trying to like, fit in and and keep up with the rest of the guys to be just as good as they were is, by and by and large, like we've we served with some amazing individuals like or we had brushes with with guys at schools we went to, you know, go to free fall, go to Sephardic. Wherever you go sniper school, you meet individuals are larger than life and it's it reminds you like to humble yourself to being just being there in that, you know, in that team room, in that company area, with people that are just absolute quiet professionals, always looking for work. I don't think it ever hit me like really the importance of that phrase and every, every instructor or every you know team sergeant or senior on your team at some point has said that like always be looking for work, no matter whether it's in the shoot house or in the fucking team room. Always be looking for work, no matter whether it's in the shoot house or in the fucking team room, always be looking for work, but at the same time, that same message can lead us into some really, really bad mental health spaces. For sure we can work ourselves to death.
Speaker 1:And 24 years, man, that's not. You lasted longer than GWAT. Yeah, don't, I know it. I want to. I'm sorry to I and that's not you.
Speaker 2:You lasted longer than GWAT. Yeah, don't, I know it. I want to. I'm sorry to. I want to. I'll just go to that. But I wanted to say like something I've been reminding guys as they get out um, just talk about the dudes you worked with and whatever I. I started saying, um, we were in a saturated market of heroes. Oh, that's perfect, yeah, in that timeframe. And so it gets lost, especially when you just get yelled at by these old black ladies on your last day in the army, just just berating you like you're the biggest piece of shit in the world. And, uh, it's the same ones from the camp we'll call chow hall, same ones from your you know SRP. Every time they just yell at you, just feel bad about yourself, uh, and then they hand you a flag and you're like, well, if you go, and a sticker. Now you get the sticker too, right?
Speaker 2:And a pin for your uh, iraq war. I served at and and you just feel like it. I don't know. For me it was demoralizing that last day where they just hand you the flag and you're like off, you go, like next, and but I've been reminding people like if, uh, saturated market heroes, if, if you told 10 year old denny like who denny would be, or you just explain to him denny today's career, life and whatever denny, little denny would be jacked to the tits. Dude, can you imagine like what that who? He looks at that guy as an absolute fucking hero.
Speaker 1:He did what. I actually went back in time and I explained to my 10-year-old self that now I'm a 41-year-old podcast host for a D-list podcast, and he immediately tried to kill himself. No, don't do it.
Speaker 2:No, you gotta go back to the other stuff too.
Speaker 1:man, you gotta like god this is what we've become apache bearded fuck.
Speaker 2:No you're making me face my own shit now. Thanks, danny geez. So hi, thinking about the the high times now. Now I gotta look at where I'm at right now.
Speaker 1:It's discouraging oh, man, yeah, I immediately started fading away like in a uh, back to the future. It's a obscure time travel reference, no, but you're right, dude, that, uh, that's something I do. I don't take that lightly because you know, young man kids you're always. I spent a lot of time in my troubled youth like wondering, like fuck, will I ever get out of this situation where I'm at? What am I going to frigging have in life? And like, just the fact that I got to serve with some of these individuals that you know some aren't even here anymore, some, some are.
Speaker 1:You know I got an 18 Delta. It's a PA who is phenomenal. I've got friends that you know probably weren't the best team sergeants but on the backside, now that I'm older and we can reconnect and talk, you realize that I owe my entire career to some of the mentorship that I received from him, some of the first, like you know, things that he put into motion so I could go learn what it really meant to be a Green Beret Like we truly have, like some of the greatest veterans and people in our Green Beret community, which is something that like makes it so easy to want to partner up with. You know the great organization that we're now going to you know spend some time highlighting, which is Special Forces Foundation. Man Like, how did you find yourself serving our community, green Berets, with this foundation, our community at Green Berets with this foundation? So?
Speaker 2:2020, which I tried to get out in 2020, I had an ass cancer scare so they made me stay in. And then, because of COVID, I couldn't get my butthole probed to find out that I was a false alarm and, just like a lot of dudes who've gone to Africa and Afghanistan, you just, you know you shit blood and sometimes you can't trust a sneeze or a fart. You know you shit blood and sometimes you can't trust a sneeze or a fart. You know. Let's just you know. But the VA is going to give me tens of dollars a year for the rest of my life, so we're pretty much even, but I had that scare and so I stayed in. I ended up taking the blood money, had another good mentor tell me hey, dude, you're going to fight cancer till you die, or you don't have cancer, but either way're probably gonna med board. So take that blood money until you get through.
Speaker 2:Whatever this is going on and I did and whatever ended up in there for like three, four more years. But in that, so in that 2020 time space, I was, my retirement had fallen through um, I had moved over to our advanced skills company to teach um some human stuff and we had eight suicides in six months from from from just our community there in 10th group, uh. And when uh, joey Pfister killed himself, I had been from my company and I knew a lot of guys who were not totally connected anymore. I hadn't heard from in a while. From that, from it was uh from two four rival company, and so I, from that from it was uh from two four rival company. And so I, I just called, started calling dudes from that team in that company to let them know.
Speaker 2:You know, at that point we'd already seen a lot of suicides. But I thought, man, I'd, I'd like them to hear it from from me or from one of us, instead of like on facebook two-thirds of the way through a bottle, yeah. And so I, I called a lot of those guys and that's where it started. Some guys, whether they were doing really well, really poorly or more likely somewhere in the middle, a lot of the common theme was hey, man, good to hear from you. I haven't heard from anybody since I got out and I was like shit that was eight years ago, that was 10 years ago, and I thought, man, we are really.
Speaker 2:We say where the brotherhood begins, but, man, we really turn it off when a guy leaves. And I've, I've come to a point to give us, us as a regiment, some grace, because you know it, we know it's devastating when you come off the team thread. You know it's time, but it's, it hurts, man, but the team thread goes on. They go on to the next mission, the next appointment, whatever. I don't think they intend to forget or leave you, it's just it's busy, op tempo is high and I think what happens is, you know, and I think, from my own reflections, like it's been five years, it's been six years. I think of danny, I think of whoever, and I'm like, oh man, if I call him now, I think and maybe I think of him because I need a place to stay for a job interview or I need like something or whatever, but I'm like, well, I don't, can't call him now. He's going to think I want something and and the reality is like, like I think both of us would, are like dying to hear somebody needs something from us, like in, like if you could tell yourself like, go ahead, need and be needed right, like so need things, guys are dying to help. We leave the end of our career where we're kind of problem solvers more than actions on, but we're figuring out like if you can't get ammo there, go here, go this way. If you can't get through that, talk to these folks, you're going to go parallel chain for procurement. Whatever you solve problems and you connect people with folks. And whatever you solve problems and you connect people with folks and you're less of the less of the you know lead on FID, you're less of the lead on on mission. You know you're, you're the problem solver and so you're dying to help dudes out and so and you lose that overnight kind of when you, when you get out and so, um, you know that's my first kind of things like need go ahead and reach out and need those people. But so that kind of thing is like need go ahead and reach out and need those people, but so that kind of struck a chord of like I'm going to just going to start calling dudes as they come up, like even if I'm talking shit, which is like anytime your name comes up I'm usually talking shit. So you know, I'm going to give Danny a call after I talk shit about him for 20 minutes so I'm going to. But uh, but yeah, I'll call somebody and like, hey, dude, I was just talking shit about you today with so-and-so or redacted, you know, and then just call and see how you're doing, see what you're up to. Man, I saw on LinkedIn you're in California now, I see whatever. So I started calling guys.
Speaker 2:And when I started calling guys I did run into guys that were in crisis or that needed something who won't share that it doesn't come up, and whatever crisis or that needed something who won't share, that they just it doesn't come up and whatever. And so our warrior care program care coalition stuff. I had a good friend, old teammate, company mate, scott Kaluska. He works there, phenomenal guy. But I was reaching out to him hey, this guy's in trouble, what can I do? It's not kind of what you guys do. And then through that he connected me with Paul Watson, with the Special Forces Foundation, and so between those two I kept asking I got a guy in crisis, I got a guy who needs some behavioral health, I need some whatever. And then Paul talked to Ignacio, the founder of the foundation, and they're like hey, man, how about this? Stop asking. Just say yes, we'll figure out how to pay for it and we'll get you a business card. We'll slap you on the website, we'll give you some credibility to it. But just say yes and we'll figure it out. If you need a credit card from, we'll do that, but do it.
Speaker 2:And so that, um, that's kind of where, where it started, and like I appreciate the praise you you stacked on me at the beginning, I really don't but the uh, I say it a lot and and I know most guys who do this stuff will will echo it Like um, I'm glad it has a good optic, I'm glad it looks good, better than smoking meth or man in the glory holes down here at the truck stop Another big hobby of mine, obviously.
Speaker 2:But uh, I do entirely like this calling dudes and checking on guys trying to stay connected Like it's, it's for me right, it's what makes me feel like I'm still in the fight, man, you know, because it is demoralizing when you get that flag and that sticker and that in and, you know, you just feel like unneeded anymore. So it's, it feeds me so and that's why I didn't call guys. I said it before we started recording. But uh, if we all just called two dudes a week, just pick two dudes, doesn Doesn't matter. Someone you haven't talked to in a while, it doesn't have to be someone you're worried in crisis, like whatever. Just call two dudes a week and bullshit. Talk about you know, talk shit. Talk about the near miss DUI.
Speaker 2:Talk about the you know whatever Condone it, we don't condone it Absolutely not Like, talk about, like that chick that you know, whatever, whatever that thing is, um, cause you'll find guys that aren't doing well, or you'll find guys what they need, or you'll figure it out Like you were talking about your buddy. You'll sort it out together Like man, we're both struggling, we're both burned out, we're both whatever Um, and it's as much for that person that you're calling it as it is for you to get that connection. I think if we all just called too it's like a pyramid scheme or whatever, but it expands we all called two dudes a week, we would change the trajectory of this suicide epidemic and the other stuff. That's not there, but it's going that way through a slow burn like the alcoholism.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dude.
Speaker 2:Terrible relationship with alcohol.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's been the one that's really really fucking just killed me, really fucking hurts. I've lost two friends to alcohol now and I didn't. I was ignorant I think a lot of us are of how dangerous it is. I certainly grew up in the team room culture of having drinks and I dealt with my own issues with alcohol when I was struggling, used it and depended on it really heavily. I'm lucky that I was able to identify it and walk away from it. But some people it has a death grip on us.
Speaker 1:And, man, if you're listening right now, if I could just get you to do one thing and that's just just look at your relationship with alcohol, just how often you're drinking it, what you're, why you're drinking it, if it leads to worse feelings of depression and anxiety in your life, maybe take a break, maybe walk away from it for a little bit. You don't have to do it forever. I'm just saying like explore, be willing to walk away just for 30 days and explore. Is it the best thing for you? I'm more vocal about it now. Like I said, haven't lost more friends to it, and it's just. I don't want any of you any of you listening to struggle with that or have to get that news of your friend drank themselves to death in an empty house, just surrounded by empty frigging bottles of vodka. Like that's horrible. That's how.
Speaker 2:None of us should ever go out to this this way None of us, so yeah it is like a I mean a lot of reasons to give it, but I'll, you know, if nothing else, like only and I've, unfortunately, you know, through this work, and so like they're, fortunately, whatever. I've encountered a lot of suicides. I've seen the stats, I've seen the numbers and I've met a lot of these guys personally. There's only two examples and two instances that I know, of all the suicides that were not a guy that was drunk at the time, only two, and that's over, anecdotally, or my like call it caseload or or touch points. I mean that's over probably a couple hundred Um and so only two man.
Speaker 2:That's pretty, pretty powerful. And so you know I'm not a teetotaler. I'll have, you know, drink here and there, uh, maybe even turn in and turn up at a gala or ball to some degree. But but I had to certainly change my relationship with alcohol to your point. You know I watched that was the common thread with a lot of guys and then I found myself doing it right, like uh yeah drinking to feel emotion, drinking to go to sleep?
Speaker 2:yeah, drinking because it was a rough day, a frustrated day. And then you, the threshold for that lowers. The ride home was traffic Like now that's my reason to like whatever it's. Just it was that like dude alcohol, they say it's an unhealthy coping mechanism. Right, it's a coping mechanism. It works, man. It's like damn near a hundred percent effective. It'll deaden the emotions, it'll get you through, it'll help you fall asleep, for sure yeah but it works, man, it works.
Speaker 2:It causes so many other worse things. It's it's poisoning your brain. It's ruining your relationship with your wife and kids, whether you know it or not. Uh, because it's it's. You're dependent on that thing, uh, and it's just deadening you. Put in the work, man, do something, do something better. I love that Like, if nothing else, do it for 30 days, first off. You can't cut it out Anything out for 30 days. Yeah, it's probably a good indicator that like, oh man, this thing has a grip on me. Um, but I said, and I had to 100% change my relationship with alcohol and and, uh, I don't know a lot. I feel like a lot of people don't get out on skates in the retirement phase. Yeah, they say it's like the hardest thing you did in your career and and I I'm inclined to believe it like it is more and more through, like time shows that, um, yeah, it's, that's what it's turned to and it's uh yeah that's a big one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's, it's. The transition is not easy. No one gets through it on their own. So if you're looking for resources, assistance, head on over to special forces, foundationorg, connect. Be willing to reach out. It is for green berets by green berets. You're not going to get half truths. You're going to get people like cody that are willing to connect with you. So please reach out. There are so many avenues we can help.
Speaker 1:The one thing we won't do is we won't pay for your xbox life membership. We'll pay for your steam account, so just know that up front. No, we're not going to pay for your gym membership, although if you have a whoop strap and want to get involved with a community of individuals that want to work out in our community on whoop, uh, the code is right here and I am proud to be pushing this initiative, because one of the things that we can do to start feeling better, it's just getting out there and moving. Be willing to work out, be willing to go out for a walk, a run, a jog, a light rock move to work out. We want to go out for a walk, a run, a jog, a light rock move. When we get out, that's usually the first thing that we put on pause working out. I know I certainly did, because you know the VA is going to tell you like oh, you can't do that, you're too broken, and a lot of us listen to that. But I will tell you one of the greatest things you can do to improve and enhance your well-being is physical fitness. No, you don't have to be a CrossFit guru. No, you don't have to go back to the gym and Eagle lift, but you can do something. Just move a little bit, be willing to go out there.
Speaker 1:And as an added bonus for the entire time we're doing this, I want to be doing some free giveaways. Some are small, some are going to be big. I'm going to give it away at Concept Row Machine. That's going to be the first big one through August. Join us and you'll be in the running for that. I'll throw in some swag from companies like I don't know Softly, maybe Born Primitive. No official sponsorship. I just like what they do and I like what they create. I'm willing to buy it and send it to you. Why, you ask? Because I'm selfless. That's why.
Speaker 2:It's honestly, go outside, get outside, touch grass and back to working out that two-year like retirement window or whatever it is. Now is a year, 18 months, whatever, whatever. A lot of guys get sucked into that trap of not a lot of guys get sucked into that trap of not so like and that's another like. That's what. At least for me, it was like I don't have a reason to get up in the morning, so like I'll stay up a little later and I'll have a couple more and a couple more.
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Speaker 2:Enroll and become a patient today and uh, and then you don't have, like, you're not going to the gym because you're not trying to outwork your teammates, because you don't have teammates anymore, you're off the team. You know, uh, yeah, yeah, like, just go outside, let sun touch your eyeballs and and and get your fat ass back in the like dude, you tell me those people you talked about softly, you know, doug keysweater amazing dude yeah, never much cared for, but we worked together in the Charlie Committee.
Speaker 2:He was affectionately known as the student hugger, so you probably won't hear students talk bad about him. Every Joe is a go for Doug. I'll just lay and talk shit about Doug. I'm going to tag him on this reel, please do. I talked to Doug quite a bit. Doug's been awesome. Doug helped me out with the Survivor like family from a guy that was that passed not too long ago, the guy that used to say adults only learn one way of the hard way. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Got to get Ryan Groh. His son was getting ready to go to selection and Doug was like ship we'll, I'll cover it, we'll get it in there fuck yeah which was super good for him. I think he threw in one for me as well, so I was messing with it, not enough. But I bring him up because doug's probably coming up on 50 and probably the fittest he's ever been in his life. Um, and that's a flex man like I'd like to. My wife is a fit stud. You met Jess.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she's amazing.
Speaker 2:She's a freak Like at this point that's who I should probably be trying to compete with to get fit, strong, healthy. But you know she she pushes big on. Like you can live a long time. If you lift weights and move your body, you can live a long time. And one of the like for me anyway.
Speaker 2:Like my, um, my kids. We had them as geriatrics, so you know I retired last year. I'm coming up on a year. They're six and nine. They won't remember I was in the army yeah, nor will I because of the TBI's. So that's helpful. Jess will be the guardian of the secrets, but like I'd like to.
Speaker 2:That's one of my favorite things about this. I get to do stuff with them. I'm at their sporting events. You know my son had some like stuff going on at school last year. Year before I guess I could be in the classroom almost every day to like right the ship and whatever, and so like wanting to live longer and do stuff with them. That's a hell of a motivator. And so like, get fit, get outside, like live. Like you know, even if your kids are now in their 20s, like a lot of dudes when they retire, right, cool, now you can go party with them, you can go on vacations with them, but not if you're going downhill circle and drain and becoming like that that 60s, 50s and 60s where you're like well, I'm 50 and 60.
Speaker 1:I hurt him in pain, well move get out of pain, do the work. Yeah, yeah, it's important to prioritize this. And the other thing is like mental health and physical fitness go hand in hand. You wake up and you look in the mirror and you don't see that young Green Beret that you once were. Look, you're not going to get the body of a fit 25-year-old green beret by sitting on the couch. And getting fit for your age group doesn't have to be going back to what you used to look like or what you used to lift like in your 20s.
Speaker 1:Be fit and be competent in the gym, moving your body, doing things that normal, everyday Americans should be able to do. You should be able to run a couple miles and feel good afterwards Americans should be able to do. You should be able to run a couple of miles and feel good afterwards. You should be able to go to the gym and work out and not have your whoop strap or Apple device going Call 911. 911. And heart disease, diabetes these are all things that can get mitigated by just being more active. So if we start looking better, feeling better, because our fitness is getting better, then we're not we're less likely to experience big bouts of depression. It's a no brainer.
Speaker 1:Man Like there's. And the one thing that I will say man, like it's a community environment, going to the gym CrossFit gym or conventional gym you're getting around other people Like I. I didn't know it at the time, but when I started working out here like I, I was like man, like I feel better because now I'm interacting with other people. I'm not sitting in this virtual space and then walking into an empty you know living room after I'm done recording. Like I have an environment of other human beings, other green berets I don't even know that there was a a few green berets in the areas and you connect, you. It's like we are prone to finding each other in this space, man.
Speaker 2:So challenge yourself. The community is like that's what we lose right overnight when we get out. Um, there's another parallel I want to draw between that physical health and mental health. But first, uh, you lose community. So you got to find something. We had a guy, uh, um, go down to having trouble. Alcohol, alcohol, super depression moved for one of those where the wife gives him an ultimatum. Yeah, personal opinion on that. If your wife's giving you an ultimatum it's probably too late. So he moved down to Texas, out of here, out of Colorado, and no community, new job. She ended up leaving him anyway. So he's no community. He's going through that divorce, you know, custody stuff I think was mostly pleasant. But he turned to the bottle drinking a lot and it's became just compounding right Start affecting work relationship with his son, you know. And so we sent him to Warrior's Heart down there, which is phenomenal program.
Speaker 2:I would say the gold standard for, in my limited knowledge, but the gold standard for substance abuse and PTSD. It's really operator-centric. They do first responders, military, whatever. But now I feel bad. The guy's name is a stud, tom Spooner. Tom Spooner, there you go. Tom does that. He's a former CAG dude. Tom Spooner, there you go. Um, tom does that. He's a former CAG dude. Uh, it is.
Speaker 2:Guys get down there and first two weeks is a rough like, or the first week maybe, like this dude, like this is stupid. And then we're batting. Damn near a thousand guys who lean into it are coming out. Life's changed, chinships rebuilt, and I could give you some awesome anecdotes of guys who completely turned life around. Who it was, their relationship was over, their kids wanted nothing to do with them and now they are like super dad. That is the most impressive thing about them right now is how much of a family man the wife was like. You can go to this thing, but when you get back, we're getting a divorce, no matter what, and they come back and they are that. They are crushing life. They are super couple, super dad like.
Speaker 2:And it's not just that one, I mean, I could probably name you four or five. Yeah. So that place is incredible. But this guy got out of that and he he joined. He's like I need to work out. That's it like I started working out when I was down there. I need to work out. He joined a uh, it's called f3. It's like a christian men's like faith, fellowship, fitness, I think, is what the three f's are for. And he joined it and he was like embarrassed telling me about it. He's like I don't know, let's just like. He's like there's some regular army guys, some cops, he's like.
Speaker 2:But, dude, I really like it like it's cheesy to some degree yeah, and so like finding that community in the gyms a pretty easy way to do it well, like no, but yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 1:I need to take my own advice because I've been putting on the uh retirement 15, jess is already telling me that it's about time well, uh, lucky for you, have a friend that loves you and cares for you deeply. Because, cody, Half Pop, or Half Poop, as your friends affectionately know you, you're going to get a Whoop membership for free. That's what we do here on Security Hot Podcast. Give me your address and I'll send you a Whoop and a membership so I'll pay for your year and your device. Oh, big deal. That's what we do here in security.
Speaker 2:I don't care what go ahead. I don't care what everyone else says about you. I think you're a good dude man. I appreciate you. I don't care what every guy who's ever served with you, met you, worked with you, says about you. I think they're all wrong and I think you're a good guy they're always in the comment section.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the only. No, I can't.
Speaker 2:I think the only other green brands hated more man, I wondered if it was gonna come up and shit on that guy for a while. That's it that's it.
Speaker 1:that's the only one. Oh man, gosh, guys again, please join our whoop community. Cody is going to get our first free strap of membership because it's how we roll in the Special Forces Foundation and you know, I'm just a selfless guy and I have tons of cash because of OnlyFans. So I will continue making OnlyFans content unless you start supporting the show and please consider sponsoring, or I will continue making content. The last thing you want is to walk in and see my content on a family member's phone. I'm just saying it could be there. It could happen, your feet finder stuff's pretty good Premium subscriber.
Speaker 1:You can find me on there. It's Petite Feet, petite Feet, 76. Cody, thank you so much for joining us today. Man, it's been a blast. You're a remarkable human being and great Green Beret, and you can't find anybody in the community that has anything negative to say about you. Man, I'm honored to work with you in this endeavor and continue fighting the great fight which is to stop veteran suicides, specifically within our Green Beret community, because for the last 20 years, we have sent some of our nation's greatest to go do some insane tasks and we need them around.
Speaker 1:You should never be losing your friends or more friends after combat. So if you're a Green Beret and you're looking for help and assistance, please reach out to the Special Forces Foundation. You can go to specialforcesfoundationorg or click the link in the bio, click the link in my podcast bio or the Special Forces Foundation bio and we can get you connected to somebody like Cody or Lowell Copper and they will point you in the right direction, because the brotherhood doesn't end when you get out. The team room is far bigger and greater on the outside. So we're all here for you and I'm telling you if you're struggling with your transition right now, just know that this next chapter is going to be just as good, if not better, as there's so many great things to be excited about. Thank you all for tuning in. We'll see you all next time. Until then, take care. Securepodcast is proudly sponsored by Titan's Arms. Head over to the episode description and check out Titan's Arms today.
