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Security Halt!
From Green Beret to Community Hero: Jeremiah Wilbur's Inspiring Journey
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Join us on this riveting episode of the Security Halt! Podcast as we delve into the extraordinary life of Jeremiah Wilbur. From a tough upbringing in Montana to the elite ranks of a Green Beret and drill sergeant, Jeremiah's story is one of resilience and transformation. Discover how street smarts shaped his military career and how mentorship became his guiding principle. Now, as a civilian, Jeremiah leads War Party Ranch, empowering women and honoring the legacy of Native American warriors. Dive into his mission to combat human trafficking and foster community support. This episode is a powerful testament to leadership, empowerment, and the warrior spirit.
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Securenet podcast is proudly sponsored by Titans Arms. Head on to the episode description and check out Titans Arms today. Jeremiah Wilber welcome to Securenet podcast. Brother, how you doing Good man, how you doing brother Doing good. Dude, you, uh, dude, a lot of us have these amazing stories, but yours is incredible in so many different ways the way you grew up, the path you took to becoming a Green Beret, and your mission today, dude, you're part of Americana, the dying breed. We don't have cowboys anymore around everywhere. But when you dialed into your page, you could check out what you're doing. There. You are in full display, living the American life, being a true representation of our great American culture. And, dude, you're uniquely, 100%, authentically you at every aspect, at every time. We crossed paths early on in the pipeline and you've been the same person through and through your entire time. But today, man, before we dive into everything you're doing today, I want to go through your entire journey, man. How did Jeremiah become Jeremiah?
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, man, I really appreciate those words, you know, definitely humbling for me, and it'll come from you, I know you too, so it's like man, that's super cool. Yeah, man, I'm just blessed, to be honest, you know all those things you said. I'm just living Honestly. You know all those things you said. I'm just just living, just had the ability, you know, from my parents, and definitely blessed to grow up in an environment where, um, we just lived as hard as we could and just always chase adventures and just like live very passionately.
Speaker 2:I think it's when I kind of relate other people's childhoods, I don't think they have quite the same experience, it's just based off of. You know just how my parents raised us as kids. Yeah, so I was raised in Montana for about half my life. My dad was just like a blue collar guy, did a lot of cowboy work, worked in the talc mine, guided elk hunts, those kind of things for a long time. He was also in the National Guard at the time, so he was in the army before I was born and got out. And my mom was just she was doing a lot of like modeling. There's a lot of famous Western artists. One of the names is I can remember is Val Miller. So there's a lot of like postcards and stuff with native ladies. A lot of those are my mother. So she did that and then also kind of day work, work, um, and they did that till I was about four or five, maybe a little older, and then my dad put himself through college. He wanted to be a flight nurse. He was a I think he was a tanker at first and then he became a medic. So once he became a medic he kind of got like turned on to you know like how, um, what he could do in the community. He always liked to serve people and wanted to do something. So I think think that was his way of like wow, this is a really cool job where I can still make money, support my family, but I can also give back to the community. So he put himself through college and then we moved to Great Falls and he was working in the ER for a few years there and then we moved from there to Las Vegas and my dad got a job on a flight for life in Las Vegas at the time.
Speaker 2:So that whole time period of Montana was really cool because everyone I was around was like very gritty, like manly men you know these like outdoor rugged kind of mountain men or the same like outdoor rugged, you know cowboys. And at the same time I grew up pretty. I was a pretty like mean, spirited, like hateful little kid man because I'm a half-breed Indian, my mother's Apache. I lived in Montana Growing up in the 80s and the 90s.
Speaker 2:A lot of people don't realize how much the racism was there and it was both sides right. It was like I wasn't Indian enough for the Indians, I wasn't white enough for the white kids, kids. So you know, my earliest memories as a kid is like I was always fighting, you know just kind of this angry little kid. And even when I go back home, you know, call my hometown Ennis Montana. I'll go there and visit and people who knew me from a long time of these knew they're like dude, that kid was wild and they're like of course you're the Green Beret. You know they just remember from being this like angry kid that would fight anybody and get I'd, from being this like angry kid that would fight anybody and get beat up so much but I just didn't care.
Speaker 2:So moving to Vegas was like a really cool experience for me because I went to high school in Las Vegas. I tell a lot of people it was so many similarities between the neighborhood we lived in, which wasn't it's really ghetto now. It wasn't that ghetto when we first moved there East Las Vegas, but there was a lot of like what I don't see nowadays. You know we call them OGs. So like those OGs back in the day was like they would see potential in some of the young guys and would like try to keep you away from trouble, try to steer you away from doing those things, and they even had a code, even though they might be up to criminal things or might have a shady past. It was like they respected women. They just had these like kind of similar codes and it was more of a street code. That was very similar to like growing up, like the cowboy code. You know how they honor women and respected like a handshake, met something, and you know so it was.
Speaker 2:It was weird similarities but it really set me up for the army and what I would deal with later on in my life through the rest of my career, because I was such an angry kid but I didn't have any street smarts. You know, like in Montana you can get away with. Just you know. Oh, you ran your mouth Like I'll fight anybody. You know what do you? They beat me up. Okay, you know, in in the inner city where I was in Las Vegas, it was like kids were getting shot, kids were getting stabbed. You know, it was pretty crazy. So it really helped me understand that as it progressed into a young man. Eventually, you know, join an army. Um, you know, and just just you know, everyone who's been stationed in the army knows they're always not in the best of places and it's pretty easy to find yourself in the wood real quick.
Speaker 2:Um. So I think that that, like if I wouldn't have that experience, if I'd just been this stupid country kid from montana, I thought he was tough, you know, probably gonna end it wrong in some situations, but um dude that was smart, so that that shit's important.
Speaker 1:There's um, a lot of people discount it and when you get in the military, you you brush up against the wrong NCO. That doesn't come from that walk of life and they just they don't value that and they think that you're someone to be tough dude and they don't mentor you, they don't guide you, they just see you as a problem. But you, they don't guide you, they just see you as a problem. But some of the best green berets, some of the best soldiers I ever met, had a lot of fucking street smart.
Speaker 2:They came from those grimy fucking backgrounds and, yeah, gold teeth and lots of slang, but the best fucking dudes yeah, yeah, you know, I think, if you can, you know, tamp into that, that warrior spirit, that that that's the reason why they had that. You know they had that. You, that's the reason why they have that. You know they have that. You know, now that the kids go, they got that dog in them, right, like if you can get them to bring it out in that positive way, whether that's through athletics, through martial arts, through the military or whatever. I think that you know it's really cool when leaders can kind of tap into that. And you know, just not going crazy off subject.
Speaker 2:That was my favorite thing about the army man, regardless where I served, you know, conventional army or special forces, it was like all walks of life, every single color, race, creed, religion, everything you can think of. Just like you know, best friends, brothers with each other. Like you know, some kid from Alabama, his roommates, with this kid from Brooklyn and their best friends, and it's like you know they both have never interacted with another race like that before, this white kid and this black kid or whatever. And they, you know, now they bond over like Wu-Tang Clan and they go fishing because the black kid liked the fish now, or whatever you know, and it's these really cool relationships that I think that a lot of veterans take for granted.
Speaker 2:You know, while we were in, I would take soldiers or sailors, marines. We take that for granted while we're in, know why we're in, I would say soldiers or sailors, marines, we take that for granted while we're in. And then when you get out, when you're a veteran, it's like it's weird kind of navigating society that doesn't always have that same point of view, that that does kind of have this um weird, um judge in the book by its cover, if you will, or people from a certain place, um, and we just see it. So it's just such an integral part of who we are, like you don't care, they're like oh, dude made it, made all the standards, he's squared away, he's a good dude, okay, you know, whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is so fucking true, man. It's sad that we get more. We're in a society right now where it's like DEI pushing for like representation everywhere. But I'm like dude, we really have it in the military. I felt it the same way, man Felt it the same way, especially like as a young guy in the 80s. You really saw that everybody was the same. One of the best friendships, like look, special forces is awesome. I'll do anything for previous teammates, but my old fucking paratrooper company, my infantry dogs, like did such a wide range of individuals and the love is still there, like it could be. It has been decades and you connect over the phone. It's. It's just like you were talking the other day Like and it's, everybody came from such wild backgrounds country kids that you could hardly understand, and inner city kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, for sure, for sure. Um, I mean. So, uh, kind of continue on. Joined um. Joined the Army right out of high school, um joined the Army and then, um, I was actually an MP when I first came in. Um, I was stationed in Fort Hood, Texas. I got there January or something like that, 2000,. Fort Hood Texas. It was an open post at the time and I was very, you know, like people are like why MP?
Speaker 2:I didn't get in a ton of trouble as a kid. In high school I got into some stuff. I ran with the wrong crowd for a little bit. My brothers and sister and I we competed heavily in martial arts and I was ranked like top 10 in the world for a long time. I mean competed at a very, very high level and that really helped me with my attitude, adjustment and kind of understanding. I'm sparring every day. I'm physically fighting almost four or five nights a week. It's like I don't need to be fighting in the streets and acting silly or anything. But I was kind of saying all that just because leading into, you know, being at Fort Hood, martial arts kind of have really helped me out. But if I didn't have that, I think I would have gotten more in trouble. I got into some trouble.
Speaker 2:This cop was like what do you know? Basically like, what are you doing? Like kind of was like took to all of us and this is in East Las Vegas in the 90s. A lot of everybody slam you on the car, take pictures of you, affiliate you with whatever they want to in their book.
Speaker 2:Whatever street you live on, whoever you got in a fight with or whatever your last name was, you were basically gang affiliated for that area that you lived in and for us we were affiliated with 28th Street. It just so happened we would get into fights with like white fence and their rival gangs and we played football with guys and wrestled with guys. But it wasn't, we weren't in the gang. One of the police officers was from that neighborhood and he would come around and basically just like, hey, you know, denny, what's up, man, what you got going on, jeremiah, you know same thing. It was basically like he would hear our plans out and there was a couple of us on our street who had good plans and he would always like try to talk guys through those plans, whether it was through college, you know, move, got a buddy to play football, you know, v things like that. So anyway, he really kind of got a hold of me and I was like man, maybe this is my way to pay it forward.
Speaker 1:Anybody thinks that? I know that was my. That was also my first mos yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So you know. So, like I, I get to fort hood as the mp. I really I loved going to the field and training and doing everything we did and absolutely hated being on the road. I had really good leadership who kind of took me under their wing and saw that like okay, this kid can run, he can shoot, he can do all these things well, which really pushed me to just do extra things, whether it was like you know, go get my EIB with the infantry guys or go do this or go do the Bataan Death March and compete in this competition. Like I was always pushed to that.
Speaker 2:In hindsight I don't know if it's because it made them look good as well, but at the sense I'm very grateful for, you know, because it was like, yeah, there I was always just kind of like long, told, like hey, wilbur, there's a race, you know, in a month. You want to do it, you're gonna do it, and I'm like, yeah, roger, that. But I really I love the army so much man, like when I was in basic training, like low, crawling in the in the mud and like cam on my face or anything like that I mean that was my entire childhood, like all I did was play outside like I thought I was either a mountain man or a soldier or like some mac v sog dude or something. Man, like that's all I ever did. I had this crazy imagination. So for me, growing up, wanting to be that my whole life, it was like just so cool to really be in the uniform and training and playing this is before, you know, 9-11, so it was like all just war games.
Speaker 2:You know, it's like that's all you could do to be a good soldier was like competing events, you know, do everything. That's above and beyond extra um, and that was it. You know, just day-to-day, day-to-day life. And then, um, I uh tried out to do srt, which is like the SWAT team on fort hood it was. It was a really cool experience, man. I definitely I opened it to law enforcement. We did a lot of high-risk warrants. We did a lot of really gangster shit.
Speaker 2:Um, especially, before it had been an open post and then September 11th happened, you know, shut everything down, totally changed that side of it. From there I went on up to I'm kind of bounced around doing whether they call it the acronym like TACOM or PACOM, doing PSD for different dignitaries and generals out of FORSCOM and SOCOM, just anybody who needed. There's this big pot of like PSD and we help facilitate that. So I did that for a couple of years. And then I knew like at this point I deployed out of Fort Hood in October of 2001, right after September 11th happened, and just doing like some counterterrorism measures, force pro stuff for Operation Bright Star that was going on in Egypt. So we did get to do some real world things, some kind of cool stuff.
Speaker 2:But I was by no means. You know, I'm watching all these guys go to war now, you know, from Afghanistan and then going into 2003, you're seeing all these guys going into Iraq. So I was like man, I got to get out of this job. I'm never going to deploy to combat in this job. So I re-enlisted to go back to Fort Hood Because I knew if I went back to Fort Hood it was kind of familiar but I knew I would deploy for sure. The MP companies out of there were nonstop rotating to Afghanistan and Iraq, so I went there and took a squad to Iraq 05 to 06. Had a really cool deployment, learned a lot about leadership, learned a lot about myself. Not a crazy tough deployment, but I would say that it was very hard compared to, like some of my SF deployments. It was a year and I think you know the simplicity of it made it a year.
Speaker 2:You know a year and it's hard to keep your boys, you know, from being complacent when you're doing something over and over and nothing happens and then all of a sudden something happens and just the nonstop. Like those kind of leadership. You know ups and downs and ebbs and flows of being there for a year and try to stay motivated and even when you're having a bad day or it's not going right for you, it's like you know you're the dad to you know these like 15 other people, the dad to you know these like 15 other people. So that I think that was what, what made, you know, help, make me start to really understand leadership. I'm not saying I was a good leader to those guys by any means. I mean I still talk to them. You know, to this day, a lot of them that are still my buddies and really amazing folks.
Speaker 2:But we did, we lost some people. We lost a couple, couple people in our company, one of the or another squad, our platoon got hit really bad. So it was a pretty tough deployment. You know it was my first time. I wasn't. I was, you know, 25 years old and, um, I have like 18 year old kids that I have to like try to motivate them to get in the gun to ride into the exact same mission their, their roommate, just got his head blown off doing you know that same day or the day before, or you know whatever. And you know rolling up, rolling up and seeing guys you know 82nd kids all blown up or whatever, and and that to me, I think, was really hard and I, I weighed heavy on me in a way where in a good way, because my next job from there and I wanted to do it I wanted to be a drill sergeant.
Speaker 2:My drill sergeant was one of the most impactful men that I've ever been around in my life. Yes, my father was amazing. I was very blessed to be around. You know, you're brand new. Like everyone's an uncle, I was, uh, everybody has T's and uncles and T's right, I had that extended family, you know, and I did grow up with a lot of really cool male influences from from my karate coach to, you know, my father. But, um, it was just the first mentor in the military that gave me, like, what is a soldier, you know, and I really wanted to like pay that forward again, kind of that other feeling of like. Yeah, this made me. How can I help make somebody else? You know?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's one of the most important jobs that we don't give enough recognition for and give enough like respect. Especially when guys in SF or in combat units get tapped to become drill sergeants, it's always met with a negative connotation. It's always met with that dread of because the hours are insane, the demand is insane and you have arguably one of the most important jobs, because that is the first impression of a young man coming into combat arms. And I had the same thing. I had the same thing. I still remember those drill sergeants Like I remember the ones in basic training when I was a young kid becoming an MP. But when I reclassed over to infantry, same thing. It was same professionalism, a little bit different because I'm older now, but still the same professionalism. And man like, take us through that because, dude, like that is a hard fucking job. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It was my favorite time in the army two years, yeah, I um, and this is what. So about halfway through that deployment to iraq I knew I wanted to be a drill sergeant. I was kind of looking at what was going to be next for me, for my career. And when I was a squad that I started, I kind of did half the year the e5 and half the years east, so I had a really good ncr, like I was kind of ahead of the power curve when it was coming. So if I was a squad that I started, I kind of did half the years at E5 and half the years at East, so I had a really good NCOER, like I was kind of ahead of the power curve when it was coming. So if I was to go to drill sergeant school and be a drill sergeant, as far as just looking at, like you know, remember those old days when you get counseled, when your NCOs counsel you, they were supposed to show you the career maps.
Speaker 1:I think I've only seen it like once in sf, but on the regular army they're usually pretty good about the shit school you're like.
Speaker 2:So master school you're like, bro, what you're like? Are you stacked like job master? No, there you go exactly like what the fuck? Okay, so we'll get. I'm sure we'll get to some of that here later on, but anyway, I looked at that and that was one of my options, so it laid out well. I submitted a packet, um ended up being da select for that and all those things that happened in the deployment. I really took that into consideration, being a drill sergeant. So a couple of things that happened to me that were, I think, were pretty significant events during either training training events. The first one was at drill sergeant school.
Speaker 2:So when you, when you go to drill sergeant school, you basically go through BCT the first nine weeks of basic training all over again red phase, white phase and gold phase and each one of those phases is the same thing. You don't call cadence in red phase and you're getting yelled at and everything's all the drill sergeant. What most people don't know is the regulation behind the scenes of that that the drill sergeants are learning. So during red phase, every single drill sergeant on duty and there is no CQ on, there's only CQ off has to be there 30 minutes prior to lights on and 30 minutes prior to lights out for those entire four week period. So at drill sergeant school, all the drill sergeant leaders are there treating you that way and you march around to class and the child and stuff. But then what you do is when you go to class you're in a small group, just like you are in you know whatever they call nowadays PLDC, anog, bnog, warrior Leaders Course or whatever those small leaders groups. So there's probably seven to eight people in your squad and you basically learn. How do you teach civilians to be soldiers? So you're going over every single regulation. You have to teach these kids how to like brush their teeth, how to you know everything you can think of you know to how you put your uniform on and why it's this way and what's the meaning of this flag here, and so you're learning all these things in class and then you go through the progression of basic training. A lot of it's trying to make you a better instructor. So when you're going through BRM and stuff, you do shoot it like a soldier, but you also take turns leading it as you are going to with the privates and being a drill sergeant. So that's kind of in a nutshell what drill sergeant school was like. And then, after red phase I think, you get like Saturdays and Sundays off and it's kind of a big boyish, more of an NCO school.
Speaker 2:At that point, at drill sergeant school they had a guest speaker and this was in. I was a drill sergeant from September 07 to September 09. So this is before social media, I mean, I think you know, even before the iPhone. And he said he gets up on stage and I can't remember what his rank was. He was a sergeant major or what it was, but he's remember what he's talking about.
Speaker 2:He said that you know, none of you are rock stars, none of you are athletes, none of you are going to be able to influence that millions of people, thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people. And he said this is your one chance in your lifetime to influence hundreds of people, of Americans. And you know the two years you're going to spend being a drill sergeant. It's going to be you're going to spend being a drill sergeant. It's going to be. You're going to be the first impression and the last impressions of a soldier when they leave here and go to their unit, and what they're going to represent, going forward to their unit based off of what you presented them, and he didn't talk about combat or anything like that. I don't even know if he had combat experience.
Speaker 2:You know, this is this is very early in, you know, 2007. I mean, we're still talking a lot of senior NCOs. You know, if you're a sergeant major at a CIB in 07, I was like, oh, you're sure you got one bud. You know what I mean. You're like, okay, sorry, you know 03, 05,. You're like, okay, sorry, I really took that into focus and then also added that like combat application of it. Because the other thing I would see and everyone knows just how small the Army is and you went through being an MP at first it's very small.
Speaker 2:So, like these kids, when I'm done being a drill sergeant, they could be, you know, one of my team leaders, one of my drivers. They're going to go to my friends, all the units I've ever served in, they're going to go serve with these people and they're going to go to my friends, all the all the units I've ever served in. They're going to go serve with these people and they're going to go to combat. So what I wanted to do was try to make them, you know, give them everything. I could, give them a hundred percent of what I could to make them prepared to be warriors, to be able to survive, to be an asset to their team when they arrive at their new unit.
Speaker 2:And what was really cool is I had some of the coolest teammates. You know other drill sergeants with me that everyone is fresh from deployments, from combat deployments. Every single one of us lost friends and soldiers and was directly affected by combat. I think that sentiment weighed heavy, that kind of you know how I am, my attitude and kind of my how I act. I think really like kind of rubbed off on a lot of the guys and it was really cool. We had a really cool group of drill sergeants, so I really enjoyed that time. It's really cool now on social media, you know private, tip me up or see me and you know see what rank they are Some are still in the army or what they're doing. And but yeah, it was, it was my favorite time in the yard.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you got that perspective, man. There's so many guys that maybe they have a rough time and they poison that career field to everybody else. They take their lived experience and without thinking to themselves well, was I negative? Was I just not a good? Did I not put my best foot forward, was it? You know? Is it worth me complaining ad nauseum to everybody I meet about this experience? Maybe I should just reflect like was it always that bad? What? What good came of it? But it's.
Speaker 1:I'm glad that there are more green berets that have taken on that challenge. I know within within our, our group, our peer group of guys that got in there, there's been a few that went and by and large those guys always talked about the positive impact they had on the next generation, especially going back there as a Green Beret, having that ability to be like hey, you can do this too. You can have that impact. And you know, when you went back to the force, were you energized or were you? Did you need some time to like take a knee before you started running again and getting back into it?
Speaker 2:I was. I was kind of lost, to be honest, when I was a drill sergeant. It went by so fast and it was just rocking and rolling. Something really clicked for me about when I was talking about leadership that I had developed as a squad leader and then in Afghanistan and this would play into fruition through the rest of my career. But I noticed something and that you know that statement everybody says like nobody cares what you've done in the past, it's about what you're doing right now. And sometimes it takes so long for people to see that like years and years for people to see this type of that and their leadership right. And basically what that means is like yeah, you could have been the best squad leader ever, but if you're a shitty first sergeant right now, you're just a shitty first sergeant. No one cares. So we know that.
Speaker 2:That saying, we've kind of seen that, and guys would just go out for reputation like well, it used to be this or whatever. Well, when I was a drill sergeant, you see that because every single cycle you rinse and repeat the exact same thing. You just did so if me and you are, let's say, we're at the obstacle course, and me and you get all camoed up and we're and it's pouring rain, it's cold as shit at poor leonard wood but we're low, crawling in the mud and just having a blast, like let's go private. It's like being motivated and leading those soldiers right, versus the guy who's standing in a gore-tex jacket, with this drill sergeant hat on, all bundled up, just standing there he's just yelling. Well, what do you think those privates see? Maybe this guy. Maybe it's his last cycle. You know what I mean. You know they don't know, but he can't go off of what he did in the past and the other cycles because those privates aren't here anymore. They've never seen you. Now all they know is they see this guy wearing a jacket they've never seen before, yelling at him while the other drill sergeants are rolling in the mud and doing everything else. So what they're going to do is that's kind of their first impression.
Speaker 2:As, as soldiers, our first impressions are those shitty drill sergeants, those early ait instructors that didn't show up like the rest of them did and didn't do all the other things, and that also helps kind of mold who you are as a leader. But unfortunately, I think nowadays with society and just kind of, you know how weak minded we all are in, the children especially, um, it sends them in a. It sends them in a downward spiral of negativity versus using that negative fuel. I feel like I'm 40 or 45 and I feel like a lot of people in my generation. We use negative fuel in a way different way. Uh, and now it's like anything negative. It's like, oh my God, like you know, they kind of know that is the perfect description, oh god, no so.
Speaker 2:So I think that that, like negative impact and leadership, you know not to sidebar there, but is is a downfall on a lot of what what's going on in our military, because, because you see more negative people's attitudes towards things than positive, and and what I mean by that is the marine corps, I think does it right when they the way they pick instructors is they pick the top guys to go be instructors at things. The Army, even in special operations, we pick who's available and who we don't want to lose or who will make us look good. It's not the right fit always, you know. And so, and that being said, what ends up happening is you get guys that are forced to go do jobs they don't want to do.
Speaker 2:I've been there multiple times but at the end of the day, it's like when you're in the army and you're remember those old I just remember those old commercial or those old cartoons of Donald Duck. He'd get like stamped like US government on his ass and it's like you belong to Uncle Sam, you know, and it's like you bitch about it internally for a little bit. You have your homosexual male down, drink some beers, whatever you got to do, and then you just go, execute the job, add to the highest standard you possibly can, because your name tag is still on your right hand side, you're still the person representing your name, you're still representing the US Army and oftentimes I've seen people really thrive and not even hold jobs you know that they didn't want or were undeserving of for very long before they got promoted into the next thing or got an opportunity to be a team sergeant or got an opportunity to do this or whatever the case is. So I always just try to tell guys to you know, the military is one of those things where you know you do got to kind of suck it up a little bit, um and and just execute. So I think that guys um, like you were talking about Green Berets that we know and people that have been drill sergeants, even if they didn't want to do it at first you understand that and then you also understand the future of the next.
Speaker 2:This is the next generation of warriors that are going to be fighting our nation's wars and if you can inspire them and give them just a little piece of your warrior energy and who you are as a man and as a soldier, they can take that forward. I think that that's huge, because they don't. They probably never had examples unless they wrestled or did MMA or jujitsu or or something. How many people play these really aggressive sports and have these coaches that kind of hone in that it's okay to be a warrior and to be violent in certain times, and how to control that violence and when I need to suppress that violence? So I think it's really important for these badass dudes, these infantry guys that are all tabbed out and have deployments, and these drill sergeants, that the young Green Berets that it's going to match their career, yes, go teach that force you know. Impart that those warrior skills on the, on the next generation that's fucking so.
Speaker 1:Well said, brother. It's a shame that we haven't figured that out how to properly get guys excited about mentorship and building the next great generation. As a green beret, as a warfighter, as a combat arms guy, like your ability to actually do the job it's a small window. It's a very small window of you being able to actually do that kick-ass fucking job that you want to do, whether it's a paratrooper, you know, ranger, greenanger, green beret, sapper, whatever it is. Whatever kick-ass fucking job you're doing, there's a very small window of it. On the backside of doing the job, you have this long fucking window an opportunity to mentor and coach and create the next generation of great leaders and great soldiers. You should be excited about that of great leaders and great soldiers. You should be excited about that and I it's so hard like some guys get it.
Speaker 1:Some guys are fucking just so good at that, but by and large, so many of us don't realize how important that job is, or or that that ability to give back to the force until we're fucking way older absolutely, but what I think it is and just you know from.
Speaker 2:You know I did this before. I was a team guy as well, and the regular army. I think you could probably catch those squad leaders where it kind of lines out career-wise where, like you know, there's this badass squad leader in 101st, you know, 82nd, whatever that, not ready to be a platoon sergeant yet maybe, maybe rank wise or maybe maturity level, but this is, this is a guy, right, he's, he's a motherfucker, yeah, that you can catch those guys and send them to be drill sergeants and could could feed that force in that way. The team guys is hard because, just like every team guy, you know and I was a team starting how to manage, you know who's going where and who wants what and, um, no one wants to leave the team, no one, no one, no one doesn't want to not be a team guy and and it and it's we.
Speaker 2:We've done this thing in special forces especially I don't know how it is and you know with the seals or or with marsauk or anybody else, but you know it's like if you're not on a team there's something wrong.
Speaker 2:Why did you go and let, unless you're an e8 or an e7, taking an e8 position, unless you go be, you know, hac first sergeant or the dive first sergeant at the dive locker or down in Key West, or take the free fall, you know it's got to be something that's like way bigger that usually leads guys into the sergeant major jobs Other than that, like if anybody leaves the team for whatever reason, it's like that dude's a derp, you're like send all the der bags to swick and you're like bro, it's not, you know. I think like we kind of created that in a way. Um, you know, and then at swick too, you can. They kind of have their little, their hierarchies, right of like the dudes on range 37, or like they're the elite dudes, right that's a good crop right there, man, right yeah and the poor, the poor fucking dudes like for me, like if I was going to go to swick, I'd want to go teach sut.
Speaker 2:You know, like patrolling was my favorite thing to do. I feel like I don't want to sound like tim kennedy. I feel like I am a subject matter expert and being patrolling.
Speaker 1:I'm so glad it's become a meme. What's my job? Kind of hard to say. That's not that hard.
Speaker 2:I say that with a respect to the tabs and the tabs I earned in the schools that I went to and what they mean when you earn those tabs.
Speaker 2:So you know, being a sapper, being a ranger, being a green beret, just when I take all those patrolling schools, going to arts, going to all these different patrolling things that I've done, whether it was foreign or an American, just that training time alone, just in the courses, I would say that on paper people would expect a lot out of me in patrolling. So if you see me in my tabs and I show up and I don't know how to patrol, you'd be like what the fuck is wrong with this guy? Are you kidding me? Like, is that even on those tabs? Did you really get those? So for me, if I was to go to SWCC, I would love to go to SUT and teach patrolling and SUT and do that. But I know that a lot of times when the guys get there and there's this weird thing of like oh, he's over at SUT and you're like what you know, we know guys, we're like sounds like that dude's in a little squirt of 18, got into a little bet.
Speaker 1:Like glad he's at SUT. 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 best life. Titan's arms. No junk, no bullshit, just results.
Speaker 2:So whatever reason that's that we put this weird spin on going to be an instructor, you know, which I think is it's kind of a downside. In my opinion, it should be your best, guys.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent dude. That's. That's the absolute truth. I just I hope the culture changes. I think it will, because obviously Afghanistan's gone Now there's going to be a lot of return to understanding like hey, peacetime even.
Speaker 1:That's something that I recognize, even though I came from the 82nd. I wasn't a senior NCO, I was professional. I knew that I was going to achieve the dream and now I had to earn it, continue earning it. But when you're a professional soldier in your NCO you bring a lot more to the table. You bring years of dedication, commitment and soldier skills Like you've led at the squad leader, platoon sergeant level. That's valuable. That's out of it and I hope more guys like that are willing to come over to SF because it feeds the force.
Speaker 1:The professionalism that you're going to slaughter me, you're going to. You're going to hate it, but it's true we're missing some of those professional NCOs. We build great, great green berets we do. But the professionalism we get when guys like my buddy, flo, came over from 82nd, he's bringing in years of professional soldier skills that are going to be a benefit to the regiment and I think it's needed. It helps offset and bring things like the basics. One of the biggest things we just had was a big display of a bunch of Green Berets that didn't know how to fucking march. And yes, it's that important? Not really. But at the same time, drilling ceremony is part of being a fucking soldier. So maybe we shouldn't laugh, maybe we shouldn't, maybe we should understand that. Okay, maybe we do need to go back and have that, that spirit of the core, where our guys can still do that. We still have changing command ceremonies.
Speaker 1:Those are important too, so it's looking at your career, looking at where you everything that you achieved. Any other NCO, any other soldier would have been like, hey man, like this is some great shit. I'm going to go ahead and continue this. Take on a company, fucking ride this into retirement town. You decided, this fuck that I haven't earned enough. How?
Speaker 1:was it when you made that decision, to like okay, man, like I'm still young enough, I've got plenty more time to serve, but you've already you've mastered a skill set of one MOS, one job, going into special forces. That's a whole different thing. As an older man, like, how did you approach that decision?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so when I was in, while I was a drill sergeant, we were at leonard wood and the sappers were there. Sapper school was there and it wasn't. It was only open to um 11 bravos and 12 bravos at the time. And then when ranger school did that basically ranger school I want to say it was like 08, 2007 or 2008 they were like, okay, we're open to everybody. Sapper school did the same thing. They're like all right, you know, all MOSs can come to these courses Because basically what they are, they're just, you know, the premier leaders, ranger school is their premier leadership course in the world.
Speaker 2:And then Saber school, you know, is basically it's a lot like Ranger school, but it's all engineer and demolition, sabotage focus, how to school, but it's all engineer and demolition, sabotage focused, how to be an asset to an infantry unit, you know, as a sapper basically. So, because they're there, I saw them and I was like man, I'll go to the fight house and all the guys. The fight house was at the sapper school and then all the sapper instructors were all the guys who rolled and wrestled and boxed with and everything, and they were like, dude, you should come to Sabbath school. And I'm like I can't, you know I can't yet and uh, it opened up and my drill sergeant told me if, um, he's basically, you know, kind of like or I'm assuming my first sergeant, he was like, yeah, you put a year on the trail and you got you work hard, like we'll try to reward you.
Speaker 2:It was my very first time Any leadership has ever stuck to race. I've ever done every marathon or anything I've ever done. It was always just like oh you'll, you know, we'll send you airborne school, we'll send you this or do whatever you know. And uh, I never really got anything. It was just kind of like, and it wasn't that I did it for the reward, it was just, you know, at this point I've been in the army for, you know, eight years and it was like the rap had smoked one of my ass for eight years.
Speaker 2:You know like, okay, roger, I know that, um, you, know, like okay, roger, I know that, um, you know a lot of people don't know this about the military and it takes them a while, but it's like you're in charge, you're in control of your own destiny. You know like you are the only one that's in control of your career, regardless of your private or your sergeant major, and there's things that you can do to help guide that Right. So basically, yeah, my, my, my sergeant, my first sergeant was like yeah, man, do well, you know what you got. So I ended up earning a spot to go to SAVR school. I was on the standby list. So all the guys told me they're like all you got to do, show up with your gear. If somebody fails one of the events or fails something on the test day, then you're up and you can get in.
Speaker 2:And then SAVR school is really cool. It's on a thousand point system. You have to have 700 points to graduate and 50% goes on all your patrols. Out of a thousand points possible For points. There's everything from every time you do PT you wear like a chem light around your neck, like if they crack your chem light, you lose points. We just constantly losing points or earning points, depending on what the evaluation is Cyber school was really cool. It was the funnest thing I've ever done in the Army, the best course I've ever been to in my life. The first two weeks, I mean, it's from, you know, like 3.30 in the morning to like 1 o'clock at night, you're up studying and tying knots and doing stuff.
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Speaker 2:And it's nonstop. They just crush you, crush you, crush you, pt wise, constant smoke session and then string it from a fire hose. You know you learn something and you test on it. That's points for that next day or whatever. And then the coolest thing that I really liked, that was Ranger School tries to do a little bit of it, but I think because Sabra School is smaller they're only running 40 students they can do a better job of it.
Speaker 2:But everything you do in general subjects, they call it. So all your demo ranges, all the mountaineering stuff, they incorporate that into all your missions. So when you go out on an opera and they, you receive the mission, um and they, they give you you know your drop the order on you. You might have like aircraft available with with um you're going to push, you know you're going to push the boats out of the back and do a BLS and over the horizon deal Like you make it plan out it's really cool, so they give you all these assets. Or you're going to do live demo, so like you're going to hump in fake demo till you get here and then you'll basically sign in on the range you know, execute your task, come back Like it was really cool the way they did it. It was every single skill that you learned. You might get that on a patrol, you know. So you might have to Jumar up a cliff, you know, like 40 dudes up this cliff with all their gear and all their shit after you learn how to do it the one time, you know two weeks ago. So that was really cool, really great experience and kind of my intro to to a school like that. To put really patrolling up into this point I've been MP, yeah, I've been SRTrt, but you know that was nothing and I underestimated myself for so long, man, like I'd always just been the pt stud. You know, shot well, done things. But if you know, the e5 version of myself could saw the e7 version myself and be like there's no fucking way, that's me bro.
Speaker 2:So I went to sabbath school. I went, actually went. There was a first group guy there and a couple dudes from ranger battalion and uh, they were in my class with me and they were like bro, what are you doing here? We were like you're an MP. They're like get the fuck out, like you need to go somewhere, bro. Like get out of the Army, get out of the Army. So I get right back. I get back from Saber school. I had a short break between right after Sab I went to SLC and then I went home for Christmas Exodus at Christmas break and then I came back and I went straight to ranger school after that. So I actually reenlisted indefinite to go to ranger school. That's the most who fucking army thing you've ever heard, bro.
Speaker 1:Very glad for punishment man. Yes, I want to get my dick kicked in for the next three months.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Pretty much All right, here's a pen. Yeah, that's exactly. They're like okay, cool bro. So so I go to ranger school, graduate ranger school and then basically the same experience. You know, I was around a bunch of dudes in my class and they were just like you know, what are you doing here, didn't? A lot of guys thought I was messing with them. A line about being an mp? You know that I was just messing around. But again, at the same time I was also fresh office after school and then going right into slc where I'm all I'm doing is writing up orders and planning and doing all the you know this just the operational, strategic level tasks that you're learning as a senior nco. So I looked at it like I should be an asset to these other students here. You know I should be able to help out. So great, great experience at Ranger School. It fucking sucks, it's cold, it's all the things everybody talks about. Everybody's a shitbag at Ranger School, if anybody says you know, some of the funnest experiences of my life were definitely at Ranger School, some of the funniest moments of my life were at Ranger School.
Speaker 2:And then when I got done with that, I was basically just like man, there's no way I can go to the regular Army and I basically just started a process on trying to figure out how I was going to get somewhere. I thought I kind of had secured down a job, possibly in JSOC as a master breacher. You know, some follow-on training Didn't work out like I thought it was going to work out. So then I went to selection and then got selected and I had to get away every go to selection because I was in E7 already. And then from then on, you know I was in. I was in the special special operations pipeline, you know special forces pipeline for that. And then, uh, when I graduated, uh I went to third special forces group. I stayed there for um, about five years. I I don, how was it that? I can't remember, I'm so bad now. I went to third group I served on. My first ODA was 3313. I did almost a full year in Afghanistan, my very first trip. So I graduated.
Speaker 2:I graduated like February, the day before Valentine's Day or something, and then, like March 2nd, I was in Afghanistan and I was in first battalion, third group, third special forces group. I got sent over. I was in first battalion, third group, third special forces group. I got sent over there to meet the battalion that was already forward. But on the plane the group sergeant major and everybody was over there and he had talked to me a little bit and knew my background about psd, um, and I had some combat deployments.
Speaker 2:So they had fired a guy that did all their psd and I was 18 echo as well. So they fired a guy that was like the RTO and the PSD, general Thomas, everyone's going around. So they were literally like. He was like okay, and he didn't tell me all this. I knew this later. So they get off the tarmac, some guys yelling my name while I look and it's just this big dude, big star, major. I'm like, hey, what's going on? Sorry, maybe the S3, sorry major, uh, the C de Soto. And he's like, hey, man, you're not going the first time, you're you'reoto. And he's like, hey, man, you're not going to first time, you're, you're working for me. He was like, yeah, so I made her. I just sent you an email. I said you're the new PSD guy and I was like, oh, you gotta be fucking kidding me, dude. All I want to do is go to ODA, bro.
Speaker 1:It's funny that we say 33 is old I know, I know In the Army it's fucking old.
Speaker 2:In the Army you're 33. You're a fucking basset hound.
Speaker 1:Dude, especially like in the line company. Yeah, that's what I mean. You're a dad, you're a fucking dad to all these myth-fitting kids and it's like now on the outside you're like 33, is not that? Fucking old these kids look up to you like you just know everything.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yes, you're. You are the same as their 55 year old dad. To them, if you're a 33 year old squad leader, 33 year old platoon sergeant, you are a 55 year old dad, bro, a fucking social worker. Welcome to the 82nd fuck. So so one of the greatest experience I had as special forces and really set me up for, I think, you know, would never have been able to be an asset to my team in the same way I was, um, you know, kind of rewind. I say the same thing. You know I almost got kicked out of the q course for fighting. Uh, got kicked out of the bravo course.
Speaker 2:Apparently aggression isn't wanted there, you know I somebody once told me, you know, always to be, the key to being a good green beret is always understand your operational environment. Sometimes your operational environment is to roll your sleeves up to your elbows and look like a cool guy. Sometimes it's to wear a suit. Sometimes it's to wear a uniform and AR 670, you know dash one standards, and I took it as like a operational thing, not necessarily a mindset thing, and going, and in the Bravo course I just did that. I was like dude, what do you want from me? I'm being as tough as I can. I'm doing, I'm going as hard as I can and you're telling me that like this is too much. You know you, someone does something to me I'm not allowed. To what grade are we in here, like what is going? You know, that was how my mindset was working. So it was a good kind of reset. So that was a piece that kind of took me into this next chapter, going through Echo Course and getting to this place.
Speaker 2:It was phenomenal, man, because the only other guys that were there were all Sergeant Majors and I was around a bunch of old B-2-3 Sergeant Majors, ex-sergeant Majors, taking me to the range three days a week and then all the thing I did was go out with the boss. I went on all the ops with the boss. I got to see every single special operations unit in Afghanistan. I went to every single briefing, from ODA level to battalion level. You know, from the AOB, you name it. I've seen everyone's brief SEALs, marsoc, cag, rangers, and that really opened my eyes to the Green Beret to understand of like.
Speaker 2:I heard a warrant officer in the Q course tell us one time that he said that what makes a real Green Beret is when you know you're a real senior guy, a real team guy when you're. He said any Green Beret E7 can replace any S3 in the Army and he's like I'm not talking about the Sergeant Major, he's like I'm talking about you can replace the S3 Major in any battalion in the Army, whatever. I don't care if it's JSOC, I don't care if it's in the fucking 82nd, you can physically replace that Major. Because that's how much knowledge you know about the battle space, about the military in general and the capabilities and how to bring those all, how to kind of control those, bring those to the table. And that's the key thing about understanding how to operate. You know affect all three levels of the battlefield and what I really saw during those briefings was I saw you know whether it was a SEAL team, oda, whatever operating you know affecting. You know the tactical level, the operational level and the strategic level. You level all within, whether it's in a six-month deployment or maybe one operation, whatever it is.
Speaker 2:So I was able to see that and then at the same time, because of where I was located on Camp Alpha, I was able to take a lot of training tools and TTPs that were going on. And then how could I use those? How could I be an asset? Isr was this basic kind of like it was a thing, but I was able to kind of the first guys to get my hands on a grip kit and really start messing with you know the ATAC and how to utilize those things and how to bring ISR like directly I can see it and talk to them on the ground to my GFC. So that point was really cool. I spent half the year doing that and then the other half of the year my sergeant major made a deal with me. I said I wanted to be, I want to stay here, I want to go to combat. So he sent me to an oda in third, in a third battalion so I finished out the year, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I finished out the year in third battalion uh running commandos. It was one of the coolest missions we did and I did that for the rest of the year, got back and immediately went to started training and did best ranger uh in 2014 and that was the hardest competition. The hardest thing I've ever done in my life was the best Ranger competition. Finished out. I did a third group. I did some Iraq. We did an Iraq deployment, which was really cool.
Speaker 2:Another, you know kind of a really green beret mission there, by with and through some of the we were kind of talking about. We were laughing about Tim Kenny stuff. One of the we were kind of talking about. We were laughing about Tim Kenny stuff. One of the things I like I want people to know and to understand is that a lot of these and I'm not talking about awards or anything I'm talking about A lot of people have this thing misconstrued, especially when it comes to green berets and I'm not talking about anybody else, but I will say this the seals, marsauk if they wanted a piece of the pie in the war, they had to do what we did, which was by, with and through, have a partner force, basically do the special forces mission and everybody did it right.
Speaker 2:We are supposed to be the best at it at unconventional warfare. When we oftentimes we know when you go out, let's say, you're running commandos and there's 12 gringos in the middle of 150 commandos and you're out on a clearing operation, how many times do we have dry holes? How many times is there a gunfight that you don't have anything to do with because your commandos do it? Or you're doing command and control. You're doing what you't supposed to have to maneuver with the 240 and take out something and do all this crazy stuff. Because he is orchestrating SE-1, se-2 at the same time, while this junior Bravo is manipulating the heavy weapons section and they're doing their thing and all we're doing is executing the tasks that we trained on and the things that we did.
Speaker 2:And most Green Berets, when they do those successful missions, it's like what happened? Nothing. It went exactly how we spent all this time preparing and planning and executing and doing. Now are there times that that doesn't happen and something goes wrong. It's war, right? Yes, absolutely, but I just, you know, I think it's. There's not enough talk about some of those success stories, of some of the. You know those. Everyone wants to hear these crazy war stories and with the exaggeration of things that have happened with a lot of people, I think it downplays, you know, the real war stories that are out there that need to be told and the cool gunfight stuff. But the reality is real Green Berets and that real mission and how successful we are. Oftentimes these guys are going out and executing these tasks with their partner force. Their partner force is doing it. If the Green Berets have to do everything for the partner force, then we're not doing our job of training our partner force to execute those tasks and, to you know, basically fight for their own country.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, man, and we have to kill this myth that every combat mission is a hollywood story, a hollywood movie. I've done so many missions that you walk away from that and you highlight the audacity of just the dumbest shit that's happened. You highlight the dry holes you dry. You highlight the fact that, like fuck dude, like this is so fucking cold and there was nobody on the objective Fucking they got, they got word, something happened. It's not like the movies. Every single fucking time and when figures like Tim Kennedy get up national platform for years, decades now, and they've constantly created wild stories about guys that drove around throwing acid at little girls and how they murdered them. That's not reality.
Speaker 1:No that's not true.
Speaker 2:And the sad thing, the sad thing about that too, and kind of you know, carrying on to what I'm doing now, but like I think and what I saw when I was in the regular army, you didn't work and live with the indigenous people of the country you were deployed to. You had third world nationals that might've looked a lot like them but they did not. They were not those people that were. You know, I say that I mean cooking or in and out of the latrines, cleaning and those kinds of things. But Green Berets like we, like we blood, sweat and tears with like commandos and and and their guys, they ran, their partner forces, whatever their name was, whoever they are right, like, whatever unit you were with there's so many good relationships with. I went to the q course with guys that were commandos that I served with. You know and like and when, when you, when you look at that, it's just like how, how are we not like showcasing those like that, if it makes sense of that like cultural thing that we're doing? You know how we're living with these people. You know, afghanistan, I think, was very, very heavy on any green beret especially, and I'm not, you know, not getting any other guys, but like and you know the seals that ran commandos in the same, I'm not, you know, not getting any other guys, but like and you know the seals that ran commandos in the same way, I mean, you know they got. We live with these people like we're in the middle of these villages and we're when you're in the regular army. It's easier to have this like us versus them mentality. Yeah, because it is all bad guys. It is all you know. You know it's hard to decipher who's good and who's bad. The thing thing that's not told.
Speaker 2:And what I really liked I listened to I think his name is Pete Blaber, but he was one of the OG guys from Orange who was in Afghanistan and the way he described how they would use their target network and gave a little bit of kind of how things that we do, which I thought was really cool, kind of give a civilian insight of how we gather an intelligence, how are we all putting this all together? And just what you said. You know you go to an objective. It's a dry hole. You're freezing your dick off, blah, blah, blah. The reality is if you're just the team guy or you're just the gunner, the you know, rifleman number two and you don't understand the big picture. Rifleman number two, yeah, and you don't understand the big picture, you don't understand the intel that came off that you just don't give a fuck, then you're never gonna understand it. The reality is, those missions that we go on. Now we found out you know what that, that little fucking turp that we know was we're texting, we know, we know we got it. Him we targeted.
Speaker 2:So there's, it's like war when you look at it through like a movie. You got two hours to watch this action movie. If there's no action in it within the first you know 10 minutes, you're like, oh, I'm not watching this thing, right, or or they builds up to these battles, but war and the way we fight war unconventionally, it's they were playing chess. So we're moving things around the battlefield, we're we really trying to layer things? And, yes, just because we hit a dry hole doesn't mean it was a dry hole, meaning who we wanted to do wasn't there, but it doesn't mean we didn't gather intelligence, we didn't force the enemy to displace and do something different they didn't want to do. And now that kind of connected us to another, our next move that we already have planned. So I think those things that was really cool that I thought that Pete Blaber described in the podcast about what was going on when they first went into Afghanistan. He did a pretty good job of kind of showing civilians some of that on the battlefield yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's the most of a deployment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely dude. And it's like you brought up a great point, like just because there were no explosions and bad guys didn't get fucking canoed or shot in the face, like you're still pulling shit off the objective and fucking the warrant, the team starting to captain Well, maybe not the captain, he'll, he'll stay up for a little bit, everybody else goes back and you start the F3 EAD cycle all over again. You start your fucking storyboards Yep, fucking, start working on the next fucking cut ups, cause you pull something else, you pull something else and it leads you down the next rabbit hole of.
Speaker 2:Uh, I wish they would show like you know obviously some op sec and you know they could, but I wish people could see like what an op san looks like with like every wall is just like shower curtains or just whiteboards or and it's just not like. It looks like. It looks like a scene out of like a you know, like they go into like a murderer's house and it's like just writing everywhere charts and maps is right, like there's not a space that can't be written on.
Speaker 2:You're like what the fuck is? Like, this is how we plan, but it's nuts, which I think that those you know. I want people to want to be gunfighters and be warriors and all that, but at the same time, like you know your brain and what you bring to the table, and and there's so many layers of being a good, a green beret again, not speaking for the other special operations guys, but for being a good green beret, you know you have to have layers and layers and layers, yes, of being warrior. And when you look at, when I say warrior, I mean not just the guy swinging the sword, I mean the guy who's gone past that and you know studying history or studying wars, or studying some of these guys and and you understand strategy, without getting too fucking. I've been watching this Netflix series about how they took over Constantinople, so I've been on dude, I dude. I love weird shit like that, so I didn't mean to throw in some big words there, because I've been listening to historians talk.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's part of being a Green Beret studying and always diving into history because it repeats itself. We're going to always be at war and, dude, like, we have rich history within our Special forces legacy and I'm always, I'm always finding new guys that are that. You know, our cold war era, Green Berets have written books and break down what that that fight was all like, what it was like being one of the Berlin detachments, Like the shit's fascinated. It's part of being a Green Beret. At some point you're going to be older and you're going to appreciate the history and I know what you're thinking. If you're a younger Green Beret, you're saying fuck that, I'm not that guy. I'm telling you give it a few years, dude, it's going to be cool again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's dive into what you're doing now, man, because I think there's nothing more badass than going and continuing that spirit of fucking'll press the leave air of being a force for good man Like you're. You're doing something that connects all of us, like that ability to fight and champion for somebody else that may not be able to fight for themselves. Dude.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I appreciate that. So basically, um, I did what a lot of guys do. When I retired, I jumped on a contract. I thought it was going to be, you know, uh, fucking spy or something.
Speaker 2:No, I, uh, I um knew that I wanted to do some kind of mission in life. I knew that, um, you know it was up to me. You know, with without kids family I would have. I would have been in the army for 35 years, you know, until they told me how to get out. Um, I loved the army, but I knew that that physical sacrifice that my family had gone through, especially my older kids, you know, the average special operations guy has gone 280 days a month. I mean a year. So I mean you're, you're like dude, you're never home. You know how it is, it's so stressful. I was like man, you know, 20 years. I gave the army 22 years, man and um, that was enough. You know, like, so I retired, um, but I wanted to do something. Um, I guess, just kind of stay relevant, chase adventures, make a little bit of money, kind of what. How do I want to make money? Um, I'm blessed I have, you know, retirement and disability, um, so it wasn't like super urgent, but I was just filling some things out and got into human trafficking, uh, was supposed to do a bunch of stuff in Africa and COVID happened. So I, I um retired January 2020, and then sitting around COVID, and I was like man, you know those missions that were like the most rewarding thing I've done. I could see the effects from these people and these young, these, these children. So I basically just saw on social media. At the same time, all these native families were like looking for all these missing women and I was like, dang, what the heck's going on? And I was kind of disconnected from the native community for a while.
Speaker 2:While I was in the army I grew up, you know, powwow season. My mother, you know, just heavily involved in a community, both of my parents. My mother was, um, always, you know, advocating for native women and helping, um, little girls and families out. You know my both, both my parents. So I was like, well, I just want to help. You know, this is a mission my mother was about. My dad was on board with, you know, my both, both my parents. So I was like, well, I just want to help. You know, this is a mission my, my mother was about. My dad was on board with you know, and this was us, this is my people. So I just started helping families come to like investigations. I was like, if anything else, I'm good at walking around the woods looking for shit with a big backpack on like around my horse or whatever. So that's how it started and I just kind of needed a way to pay for it. So I was like, well, I guess I'll just start a t-shirt company and try to get like, have like an action behind it. You know, I saw a lot of veteran t-shirt company. I was like, yeah, but what are they doing? Like, what do you guys do? Um, I started the t-shirt company and was just using the funds to help the community any way I could. The veteran community has been amazing as far as, like, volunteer support, whether it's from buying apparel supporting us to assisting on operations.
Speaker 2:And when I say operations, I mean let's say out where you live, I know there's a lady in need. She reaches out. Or somebody says, hey, I've got a lady, she's in an abusive relationship, she's just trying to move out of there. It's say you know out where you live. I know there's a lady in need, she reaches out. Or somebody says, hey, got a lady, she's in an abusive relationship, she's just trying to move out of there. It's like, okay, so let's say me and you will drive over to her house while her boyfriend's at work. We'll help her get moved out If he shows up you know what was the muscle if you will and help her get out of that situation, you know, get her U-Haul, whatever.
Speaker 2:So we're just using the money in all kinds of ways and did that for about two years and I was kind of spread so thin really trying to figure out what direction I would go in. I wouldn't have a lot of money to help, you know. It's like you know, 500 bucks goes a long ways though, you know, in certain directions or for certain people in certain situations. So we're just just working. And then I just saw, like man, we need there's, we need more. Like, how do we really break the cycle of abuse?
Speaker 2:A lot of these women that we were actually help, we thought we were rescuing, they just go right back into that same cycle, that same circumstance. You know whether it was addiction, the same type of people. They go right back to what they know. How can we like hit a reset button or give them some skills or like confidence to build on themselves and kind of reinvent themselves, or give them the confidence to like be themselves again? You know women who were, you know, domestic violence or assaulted or something. You know how do I be my old self, this confident, bubbly person who wasn't scared of anything, and now I'm I. You know, I'm just a shell of myself. We're seeing a lot of those kinds of things.
Speaker 2:So we started a war party ranch which is a 501c3 nonprofit and it's based in Western skills and what we do is we basically just teach warrior skills to ladies in a clinic model. So we have self-defense, which includes firearms and unarmed self-defense, horsemanship and ranching as well as hunting. So those are kind of the in our mission statement, if you will. All the clinics that we teach are following that mission statement. So we do things like you know two-day pistol courses. We just did a branding clinic.
Speaker 2:We had a two-day colt starting and branding clinic up in Montana. What's really unique about that is we're able to bring these ladies in and basically kind of let them do jobs that they might've never got a chance to do on a ranch or they just weren't handy enough and no one gave them the opportunity to. So we show them the right way and then just be patient and just let them get after it and let them make mistakes and there's no pressure. Oftentimes it's really hard to teach some of these ranching skills because when you're learning you're drinking from a fire hose because you're doing it to get the job done. So you know, if we have 500 calves of brand in a day and there's only, you know, 12 of us like we don't have time for me to be in there missing a bunch of roping shots and sucking.
Speaker 2:It's like Jared like you're out but next guy get in there and start snagging them. You know it's, it's a really cool environment for that. So we do things like that and we have this clinic model. We're really trying to impact all over the country. Our target demographic. Yes, we, we want to influence the Native community as much as we can and help work with Native women, but we work with all women.
Speaker 2:When I started a war party movement, the logo that's on there is actually the Alamo Scouts patch and what I did is and a lot of people don't know the Alamo Scouts. They were special reconnaissance in the South Pacific during World War II and that unit was primarily comprised out of Natives and what they did was they took a lot of Indians and they took a bunch of country boys. They were like who knows how to live in the woods and, you know, survive. So they were like let's make this unit and that's who did that special reconnaissance. They never lost a man. They're the most elite, you know as far as numbers go and the missions they ran and what they did, the SR unit that we've ever had. I believe it was Bill Clinton who recognized them as part of Special Forces, officially honored them as part of Special Forces and when I was in third group we, basically when I was on 3311, the hallway everybody in the hallway had to have skulls. So we took the Alamo Scouts logo, we just made it a skull, we added three stripes of war paint on it and then we just added an extra feather to add to all four colors of third special forces. It just so happens that those colors are also the colors of the medicine wheel, um, which they do represent a lot of things, you know, but the most important thing my mother told me to represent is all the colors of the people of the world. That, um, you know, in the property prophecy of the seven generation is that, you know, we all come together. There is no color, that we're all the same.
Speaker 2:So I use the Alamo Scouts logo as a way to pay tribute to my background of special forces, but also to honor just the warrior legacy of my people. Um, native Americans serve at the highest rate of any other race in the United States and a lot of people don't know that either, you know, and it's just this calling to be the protectors of Turtle Island. I do believe that you can love your country and hate your government. I think that a lot of retired special forces guys are the spitting image of just that. If you ask me, some of the best guys on social media about it. You know, cause we've seen, you know we've seen both sides of it, right. So and then we added the stripes, you know, just kind of signify you know that you're getting ready for battle, you know that your heart is pure, your mind's pure, you're ready to go. And then those four colors representing the medicine wheel, so that's kind of where we get our logo from and just kind of want to tie it all into history and honoring my heritage, honoring the warriors that came before me, and then and all that you know, I keep running my mouth.
Speaker 2:All that being said, now what both of those entities are is War Party. Ranch has an amazing ladies facilitating that board. They do a lot of sponsorships for rodeos and different events. We just sponsored a young lady, I believe she's 12. Her name is Rose. She's an amazing jujitsu martial artist, so we sponsored her to compete in jujitsu.
Speaker 2:The hardest thing that we do in War Party is try to tell the story. It's not our story to tell. I have to give instances or happenstances of some of the stories and people we work with. We've been very blessed. We've had ladies want to tell their story and thank us and put that out there. But now we're growing into the point which is really cool with these sponsorships where we get young ladies like Rose or like Haley Stokovich she's ac rider they get to be the face for so many ladies who, you know, don't have the courage yet to speak, or maybe they haven't spoke up, or maybe they don't know they're in an abusive situation yet they know something's wrong or they just haven't. You know, whatever, it is where we're able to put these, you know, these warrior faces and these ladies in front of people, to show them that, like, anything's possible Every lady on our board is just has this incredible story of her own and to see them teach and facilitate these clinics for these ladies. It's so cool because a lot of these ladies have been through just as much or even more than the students they're teaching, more than the students they're teaching. And when they share a little bit of that, to see these ladies open up and be like holy cow, that happened to you and now this is the human you are in front of me and then, kind of full circle. We'll go back to the cowboy thing and the veteran thing, a lot of Green Berets.
Speaker 2:I use a lot of guys to help teach A lot of girl dads, which is really cool, and the reason for that is because I want these ladies to know what right looks like. I didn't understand it kind of took me a few times to realize that, like working with these ladies and like helping facilitate some of these recipes that I was like the first, like male, uh, like role model, big brother figure, you know, dad, figure that was like you know treated them right and like how they're supposed to, and it was. They almost didn't know how to act or like what, what is that? So when we have clinics, we do have a um, a healthy uh mix of uh, some male instructors or male influence in there, and uh could be an example of like.
Speaker 2:We had a bunch of uh GBs come out in Texas and all they did was cook it is barbecued for all the ladies and then when the ladies, you know they would one of the ladies like why do the guys get out of the way and like put their head down. You know, like ask natasha, our president, who was one of the instructors and she's just because they respect you, like they're just you're getting your food, they're gonna make sure everybody eats and you get seconds, and they're serving you and doing their thing and when you guys are like, this is what they do. This is why they came here and it was like what do you mean? Like they didn't, couldn't understand, like this, you know, six foot four, like jack tatted dude, like taking his hat off, stepping back and being like oh, go ahead, man, like would you like more? Whatever, they're just like kind of blown away by it and uh. And then what was cool, is you know, then they ladies would go off any day and then the boys like go shoot, go just bang, still for like an hour, you know, non-stop or whatever, but it was. It was so cool for them to interact and see that and then for guys like us to get that.
Speaker 2:For me it's a bigger reward for the student or, excuse me, the instructors than it is the students. Some of my buddies that have came and taught these ladies. I think they walk away with the bigger sense of that. Do Do you press the lead bear, like I'm actually working with somebody who matters, who wants to learn to defend themselves or really wants to learn how to like rope and ride this well, and they're like passionate about it and and uh, and it's also changing their life. Because I think that trauma is trauma, you know, and we we have so much of this really heavy kind of guilt, llaced, weird trauma that like, yes, when you write it on a paper, like there's nothing I should feel guilty about, I wasn't responsible for those things, but it doesn't mean that's not how you feel. And then, in the same time, for them, they had that right, so it's easy for us to, whatever, look back and be like was I a fucking good guy?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Especially if you look at the government. So you're like, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we were definitely not the rebels, we were the empire. Fuck, we're stormtroopers, but we were at least elite stormtroopers.
Speaker 2:So I think that that kind of inner battle is cool to see that the guys get to get that reward as well. So my intent to this when I've started everything and I realized what I could make War Party movement and what War Party Ranch is becoming as well. It's kind of this double edged sword of we're helping people on one side, no-transcript, and brings a lot to the table and healing these ladies and just making them more confident in who they are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dude, it is such a noble and amazing mission to see you on, and who better to do it? Man? It's so freaking awesome to see this. I want more guys to get involved and help out. If you pause right now, go to the episode description. There's links there. Please donate, hit up Jeremiah, figure out how you can help and get involved with this, because it's not only helping other people, but I think it'll help you.
Speaker 1:If you're struggling to help and give back to somebody, and who better to help? There's something to be said about when you're at your worst, when you're down and out. Lean into the skill sets that you spent an entire career developing and put them towards something good. Be of use for somebody else, and you'll see that, holy shit, being of service to others helps you. It might help you get to the point where you're like all right, maybe I can go get help now. Oftentimes, we are the worst individuals to accept help, but when we're able to at least get back into a place where we're helping other people, it helps us realize how much more we need to pour into ourselves.
Speaker 2:Jeremiah, I can't thank you enough for being here, brother, and for what you're doing. If people want to reach out with you and connect, where can they go? Yeah, no, I appreciate you too, man. So social media check out War Party Movement and War Party Ranch on Instagram, and then my Instagram is Jeremiah underscore Blackbeard. Yeah, man, no, I appreciate you, man. It's super cool to catch up and I'm definitely proud of you, man, and it's always really cool to see guys that you knew, you know, you've known for I don't know 15 years or less you know.
Speaker 2:You know seeing guys just crushing life and getting after it. And this podcast is really cool, man, I love. You know one of your memes. You've always been the meme king. I don't know how much people know about your meme history. You've been crushing for a long time, man. But also just you know the guests you bring on and things you talk about. I think it's so cool, man. Keep crushing it, dude.
Speaker 1:Yeah it's awesome good to see what you're doing in the community thank you so much, man. I say that it's it's the easiest and greatest thing we can do is get find a way that you can align your passion and your purpose into something that you really enjoy, man. So that's 100% why I do this. So it'll continue. Oh my gosh, it's been a fucking blast man. I am so glad to see where you're at.
Speaker 1:And everybody tune in. Thank you so much. 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.
