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The Hidden Struggles of Remote Pilots with Tanner Yackley
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In this episode of Security Halt!, remote pilot Tanner Yackley reveals the overlooked mental health challenges faced by drone operators and the emotional toll of witnessing combat from afar. He discusses the hidden burden of remote warfare, the need for recognition and proper support, and his advocacy through the Remote Warrior initiative. Tanner explains the coping strategies—including “panic packs”—that help manage anxiety, and emphasizes the importance of community, open conversations, and improved resources for veterans dealing with PTSD and trauma.
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Produced by Security Halt Media
Security Help Podcast is proudly sponsored by Titan Stars, Petition Wellness Group, and Pure Liberty Lab. All right, Tanner Yackley, welcome to Security Hell Podcast. How's it going, brother? Good, man. How are you doing? Doing well. I'm excited to have you on here, man. Uh, you represent a community of um individuals that are just now starting to get recognition for the toll that their job has on their mental health and physical well-being, especially with everything that's going on overseas in Ukraine. We're now starting to understand the impact that being the guy stateside, watching chaos and actually being the one that's responsible for unleashing that chaos puts a toll on somebody, man. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. No, it's it's really, you know, uh incredible to see, you know, where we've come with this, and and there's a lot of things that can tie into it. So I'm really looking forward to this discussion.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, man. Let's dive into it. Let's get to it, man. Um let's just start, let's let's start this off with exploring your service, your life. And um, dude, how did you become a a remote pilot? How did you how did that story begin? Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:Uh so I was like any, you know, young snot-nosed kid, um, uh, you know, a skinny little 18-year-old graduating high school in rural Minnesota. Um, you know, just not nothing going on really, and uh, you know, definitely unmotivated through school and things like that with it. And so, you know, when I got done with it, it was like, well, go to more school or join the military. And I'm like, ah, all right, well, I don't want to do school anymore, which is ironic now. Um, but I was like, well, uh, you know, let me let me get into this, uh, you know, get in the military thing. So this was 2010. Um, I I joined up and with that, I um, you know, I was looking looking at the different jobs, and my recruiter was like, hey, there's a sensor operator gig, right? And like back then, nobody knew what this was, right? The and the the the history lesson with this, right, is that uh the MQ1 Predator, the the smaller one, um how you can tell is it's got the tail that points down um with it. Uh, and that one came on the scene in about 2000, is when they were starting to utilize that. Uh, and then the MQ9, the bigger one up there, um, was was brought in in 2008. Uh there, and then really, you know, 2011, uh, which is exactly when I went through training, is when they went, ooh, we need a ton of these. Uh, you know, and we need them now because it gave everybody that ability, it gave every joint terminal air controller and different things like that, that ability to see what's over that next ridge, what's behind that wall, right? And especially with how brutal, you know, the the 2000s were for you know dealing with uh you know the the different wars there. Like it was it was a no-brainer to have one up. So of course everybody wanted it uh with it. So, you know, and and how it was portrayed to me back then was very different. Uh right, it was just like, eh, you're controlling a camera on a plane for me, because my my job was this the sensor operator side, right? Uh of it, because you've got the pilot that controls the plane. Um, we'd always joke and call him the bus driver, right? Um, because it was always it was always, hey, you know, what's the what's the objective? What's your intent, right? Well, we're trying to see something. Well, that's that's my wheelhouse, right? Uh, I need I need the bus driver to put the put the bus in the right spot so I can see that little look angle there and and you know collect that intel uh there. So, but yeah, it's always a two-person crew predator operated the same way. Just MK9 brings a lot more hate that it can rain. Yeah, uh, especially now that they've they've gone up from uh four missiles to a marine years ago. They were they're playing around with eight missiles uh on there. Granted, then you get trade-offs uh with fuel efficiency and fuel burn and everything else.
SPEAKER_01:All the different munitions, uh all the capabilities, uh you're you're quick to understand when you're the guy on the ground, uh that what that asset brings. Got some hellfires. All right, fuck yeah, let's let's get that on the but what gets left out of the discussion and what even Hollywood gets it gets it wrong is always portrayed as one person. One man in a in a um connects in a really nice chair, flying around doing you know everything, doing ever all parts of it. And we only hear about the missions that go wrong, uh the the situations that aren't that then you know if it went right, you never hear about it. And I think that um for you guys we're just now starting to really understand because things are finally coming to light. Individuals are finally screaming and saying we deserve recognition as far as help. You know, you know these guys aren't and gals aren't reaching out and saying for asking for recognition as far as like medal of honor stories and movies and book deals. They're asking for fucking help.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, 100%. And and that's and that's the thing, right? Um, because we we've you know that there's uh this is the wild thing, right? We were called the redheaded stepchild of the Air Force, right? When you have that label going into it, you know you're going into something. And at the time, I was freaking 19 years old flying my first combat mission. I didn't know shit about you know about any of it. So it was it took a long time, right? And I always tell people this like when you step out of that connex box right at that ground control station, you you don't ever realize what how much it affected you. I mean, it took me 10 years to start actually realizing, and I was working for a contract company at the time doing the same thing, just swapping a flight suit for a polo, and you know, and and then all of a sudden I woke up one day and went, huh, I think this is affecting me a hell of a lot more than I might think, uh, you know, with it, because like you said, it's you always hear about it in the news, right? You hear about them getting shot down, right? And things like that with it. And so there's always faceless, right, within it. There's no, you know, reality to it. And the insane part is is just like you said, one for one aircraft peep up, I mean, you're working with Intel behind the scenes, you're working with weather, you're coordinating with whatever supporting unit you're working for, right? If I was being controlled by a J attack, if I was being controlled by somebody else, um, right, just collecting intelligence. And the wild thing is, is is for us and how we operated, because they're like anything, right? Iraq, Afghanistan, you know, Ukraine, it doesn't matter where the war is, there's going to be different mission sets and different tactics, right? So everybody did things a little bit differently. Even, you know, I was stationed in Las Vegas and I we had another squadron right across the street uh at the time because there was a ton of them there. Uh and you know, we had we were like looked at as like the different squadron, right, uh with it because we we we all we were doing was high value stuff, right? Uh with it. And well, as great as that sounds, it was one boring as shit, um, because 99% of the time you're staring and watching somebody's day-to-day, right, uh, with the entire thing. And that is the piece that gets completely left out, right? Uh we get, you know, like I said at the beginning of this discussion, we get called the red-headed stepchild. People tell us it's just a video game. People tell us that, well, you get to go home every night, so what's the big deal? That is the problem. You can't put somebody into war, have them go home every night, and then go back the next day and do it again. I did that for four years and did a thousand combat missions and twenty, nine hundred combat hours in those four years. To say that we were ground to the bone and spit out is you can't get in any more of an understatement than that. So you're exactly right. Because we're not sitting here going, hey, you know, I I need a medal of honor, I need a bronze star, I need no, I don't give a shit about any of that, right? The only reason I keep stuff like that over me is so that other people look at it, recognize it, and say, hey, that guy's a veteran and he understands it, right? Same reason why I throw this hat on top of my head. I ain't doing it for recognition. I don't give a hoot, right, about anybody and freaking coming up and thanking me for anything I did. I do it so that somebody else out there can look at me from across the room and go, that guy gets it. And and that's that's all it's said, right? And I feel like a lot of people fall that way. While I don't go on a complete tangent on that.
SPEAKER_01:Um please do, please do. It's it's uh it's the right place for it, man. It's it's um we gotta explore. It's it's a it's um you have to understand too for the audience out there. We we a lot of people listening, you know, may not have served during the time of of uh drone warfare. Yeah. And uh or or may not have maybe even served at all. But you have to understand, like yes, we're talking about the complex impacts of you know what happens when you let loose ammunition off the rails and you're watching it strike. But on the other hand, you're talking to a controller on the other side. More often than not, that is not a situation where that guy's in a safe place. You're talking to somebody and you know intimately, they're in contact. Maybe that maybe you have the the the G2 that there are people that are losing their lives, and your actions you have to be quick. And when they call for intervention, when they call for assistance, you have to you're dealing with a complex situation, just like a fighter pilot in the in the air that's actually you know you know, supporting flying real time, you're dealing with the same complex situation, and you can't separate the two. How do you go home knowing that oh shit, that that ODA lost two guys? Hey, I was able to go there, I was able to provide ammunition that ultimately killed those uh those individuals, but fuck man, like Americans died on that mission. Yeah, guys got hurt. Nobody talks about that. Nobody talks about what happens when you're driving home from your base to your house. In your experience, talk us through that. What was it like in those early years? And we I understand that it it's not something that for some people, yeah, maybe it's that first time, but in those years building up, doing the job, how did you de-escalate or or put that in the background, put that in the bottom of the ruck and keep moving forward?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and and that's the thing is, you know, to be frank with it, I didn't. Um, you know, I I coped freaking horribly, like everybody else did. Because and, you know, it's it's it's like it's like uh you know grabbing an electric fence and seeing how long you can hold on, right? I I I that I you know, I just I that literally just hit me in the head. Um that's the perfect example of this, right? Is literally just grab the electric fence and see how long you can hold on. That that it that is perfectly encapsulating of the RPA community because at some point it's gonna get its pound of flesh from you, you know, one way or the other. There's nothing you can do. I mean, I estimate, because I don't know this number, but I estimate I s and I keep it fairly broad, but somewhere between five and ten thousand deaths that I've watched through a camera. And then and and it wasn't, you know, because it wasn't always live, you know, strikes. Our shit was recorded, right? Like any good foot, what does a football player do after the game, right? What do you see them at every game? They're sitting there staring at tablets, right? Watching that previous play. Well, guess what? We video debriefed everything. We were held down to we were held to perfection in every way, in the way we briefed, in the way we trained, in the way we executed. We could never afford to miss. Ever. And the wild thing was is you didn't know at any time any you know decision maker or higher authority or that could be looking at your feed from anywhere in the world, right? Uh with it, and that's the beauty of rover and all these other all these other systems, you know, we had to be able to push this stuff out. Um, is not only could we use it to talk to the ground party and be like, hey dude, right there on your screen is what I'm looking at, uh, right, but you could also, you know, push it to decision makers and things like that. So it it added a layer of complexity to it, because think about it, if you were, you know, a guy on the ground kicking in doors, you know, and things like that, and you had a body cam that somebody's chirping in your freaking ear about every damn thing you're doing. Hey, why aren't you doing that? Hey, why don't you, hey, this, you know, and now it wasn't that extreme, but it could happen. And so you had this level of scrutiny that you're now dealing with with the entire thing. And then, like you said, how do you how do you cope with it? You you don't. You, you know, I I drank a lot um with it. Um, and I mean that was the and you know, I think they've I think they've gotten rid of them now, but dear God, you want to talk about you know, fighter pilots? Man, our entire career field is built off of fighter pilots' backs. Yeah um because that's who they pulled in the early days, right? You don't you don't take a brand new career field and just throw a bunch of people that are you know wet behind the ears still and chuck them into it. You want experience, you want you know, people with combat experience. So they took a lot of fighter pilots, ripped them out of their fast nose, you know, pointy jet, threw them in a plane with a lawnmower strapped to its ass, and said, Hey, go fly this thing, right? And it's like, so I dealt with the most just cynical, pissed off, angry motherfuckers, and I'm 19 just trying to figure out who the hell I even am, you know, and sitting there trying to throw into this high pressure scenario, you know, everything else with it. And like I said, you're just grab that fence and ride it out. Yeah. Um, because eventually, I, you know, I feel whether people recognize it or not, it changes you and it takes from you a lot, uh, you know, with it. And so that was the biggest thing for me, was just there was no coping, right? It was go home, uh, you know, hit the bottle and hopefully get some sleep with it because they I have said this before, but it was uh, you know, especially back then, and this is no fault of anybody's, right? But it was a melting pot of bad decisions with that career field, especially in the teens. Um, because they had us on shift work. Uh so I was on I was on seven-week rotations, seven weeks for four years. That shit sucked. Um, and especially after about year three to three and a half, my body was just giving me the finger every day. Yeah, you know, it was just like, nah, we're not doing this. I would start auto-rotating onto other shifts because my circadian rhythm was so jacked up uh, you know, with it. And we were trying everything.
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SPEAKER_00:Um with the whole thing. And and the last thing we're sitting there talking about is like, hey man, how's your mental health? Um, right with all this. It's those conversations aren't happening. It was, hey, you know, somebody had a strike on the team, cool, let's go to the bar and and you know, celebrate. Yeah, kind of thing. And that was it. Uh, you know, so while I think we've gotten we've gotten better there, right? Um, with it, and and you know, I talked to a lot of base commanders and different things like that um within this community because well, I flew with a whole lot of them now that now that they're now getting their stars and things like that and their birds and everything else, right? Uh so talk with a lot of them nowadays and you know, see, you know, checking on that, you know, health and see, all right, where are the lines that we can do better, right? Where where are areas that we can do better because it's it's just not sustainable to be able to throw it out there. And unfortunately, it's looked at as such a disposable uh position, which is just wild because, like you alluded to, right? We were mission planning, we were sitting there and watching the missions that we plan for unfold in front of us, having to make split-second decisions. I mean, at arguably at any given time, I was 60 seconds away from a missile coming off the rail. By, you know, all I needed was the right radio call to come across and boom. I hear troops in contact, let's get there, get eyes on, and start slinging lead, right? Uh, with it. And and you know, I think I was on day three in my first training at an act, my first combat unit. I was on my third training event and I got pulled out of the seat, which was normal because I was in training um because they got a troops in contact call. Yeah. Um, you know, I'm like, this is my third mission. And guess what? We didn't have dedicated training time, right? We didn't have so all these things that you know the military does well, they were just like, I don't know, Lego conglomerate like a three-year-old and shove this shit together and we'll see what happens, right? And I can tell you, I don't know how the fuck we pulled it off because we made it from the outside look great, right? Uh, you know, we we we I mean we created the tactics for the entire damn thing on the fly, literally stealing from freaking, you know, running pubs like the 3093 and 3972 and all and all those, right? And and we're sitting there just taking them in, taking them in, taking them in because we trained on almost every single mission set, too. Because, well, now that I look back on it, they didn't know what the fuck they were doing. You know, they were just like, I don't know, let's put them into strike coordination reconnaissance. I'm like, what the what I'm not gonna be, you know, uh an air commander here, probably. Like that was never really used. Now, granted, I think there were some areas like Libya and stuff like that that that that was that did become a factor, but that just shows, especially early on, how much of a just eh, let's just run them through this laundry list of mission sets and details and things like that, uh, you know, um with no real direction uh right for the entire thing. So it made it very complicated uh to cope with and deal with because you know they were they were throwing different schedules at us, like trying to do because we were also on a five-day on three-day off schedule. So you're which you're like, oh man, you got an extra day off. Like, what's the big deal? It's like, yeah, my fucking week moves every week to the right one day. Like, and I'm in Las Vegas. You know how much it sucks when your fucking weekend is on a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday in Las Vegas? Like, yeah, it's a city that doesn't sleep to 2.0, but shit, there's still like I can't be like, oh man, I'm gonna go to that concert this weekend. Now I'm like, nah, my fucking Friday's Wednesday. Fuck. You know, it's like, what the hell? So like I said, it just all across the board. I like I just I just want to talk to the person that made all those decisions back then and go, what in the fuck were you thinking? Um, because it's just all over the board, right? With the and it was just so you know, you throw all these stigmas in there, right? And you throw everything else into it, and so it makes it exactly like you said, at this point, and all we want is recognition, right? All we need is is people to understand, wow, were we in harm's way? Fuck no, right? Never ever ever. And will I ever sit there and compare myself to a snake eater or anything like that? Not in a million years, right? But what we went through was not freaking child's play, and you know, sitting there having to watch it because it wasn't always about what the missiles that you were yeah you were employing were doing to the people. A lot of the stuff that still sticks with me 10 years later, um, is what the people were doing to each other. Oh, yeah. Because that's the stuff you see, because I watched that dude that I'm tasked to watch for 12 hours that day or eight hours that day, whatever it is, and I watch him have a normal life, right? Ever I'm sure anybody can think of their neighbor, right? Think if you sat up and just watched your fucking neighbor all day, day in and day out, and then one day they're poof gone. You're gonna feel some type of way because you're invested in that person, right? Even if you don't ever talk to them, even if you know, and and they're and it's not saying that you're, you know, uh being empathetic or any wild shit like that, right? It's just understanding, hey, there's a human being on the other side of this camera right here. And so when I watch him all of a sudden hug his wife, kiss his kids go by, walk across to a different building in a courtyard and start building a bomb, it's kind of fucking weird to, you know, and then and then I go home and sit down, and you know, if I'm married with kids, the time I wasn't, but if if I am, then I gotta answer the question, how was work? The hell are you supposed to say about that? You know, so that that's that's really the the whole push with this, and and why, you know, um why I decided to kind of just say enough is enough because I I just can't sit here and watch some of these insanely talented aviators, right? I mean, literally some of the best ever Grace's career field, and now they're just shells of themselves, you know, living in some rural isolation because they try to go to the VA and every damn time they're like, Well, you didn't deploy, so how can you have trauma? And you're like, Are you serious? Like, I've watched 7,000 people die. Uh how are we even having this conversation? But that but that's still the you know level in the conversation that we have to have, which is unfortunate and also shows how disjointed this discussion is, you know, with organizations like you know, the Department of Veterans Affairs. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It it's crazy to to think that um this wasn't something that was developed and understood and implemented long ago. Um I mean, they they have a hard enough time dealing with uh combat veterans as it is. You would think that in the rush and push to better understand the demographic, it would put this at the forefront as one of the things. I mean, we're we're we've gotten the the discussion of moral injury to be prominent or at least start to be more more prominent within the VA. There's been enough advocacy, there's been enough books, official reports and and things written out. But um you're right, it it shouldn't it shouldn't take you having to advocate to do this. It should be part of the system, it should have been developed way before today in your current initiative. This is a rat, man. This is the the sad part. And um but I wanna I wanna veer off and start diving into this part of it, the advocacy part. When was enough when when did you figure out that enough was enough and you had to walk away from the service?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean with with that, uh, you know, I was I was struggling a lot towards the end of my time in my career. Uh, you know, I made I made a handful of mistakes and things like that. And and because I was I was a shell of myself. Yeah. Right? I I was I was living every day in fight or flight without realizing it. Because again, we sat through that entire career field thinking that we what we did didn't matter because we were told it every damn day by anyone else around us, right? Uh with it. So, you know, you talk about that moral injury piece, you talk about that stuff, you know, that plays into it. And there's also, you know, another thing I'll throw out there is identity crisis um with it, because that starts playing a role into this, and that's something that you know I've been studying uh for for a handful of years now with this. So for me, uh, you know, I I did my four years of combat. After that, I went and did the traditional route, which was hey, go to the schoolhouse and now teach, right? Uh so I was I ended up in the lead instructor role there, um, taught there, overseeing instruction for the squadron, uh, you know, on the enlisted side, um, which was great. But again, you had a there was a couple month window where you had a 20-hour window that you could work your know your eight to 10 hours in any day, right? Um, with it. The problem was, is again, because things like you know, there's certain times where our ground control stations would look like offices. So I swear to God, people take this and go, oh, well, they're just in an office. Let's just rip them out of that, make them go to sleep for eight hours and immediately come back in and and jump right back into the box. So we'd sit there and and ping pong back and forth on that 20-hour window, either slowly moving to the right two hours every day, which when you start off on Monday at two in the morning and then end it and then end it by Friday that you're walking out of the building at 10 p.m., it's a little fucked up. Uh it's it it was that being you know, being difficult with trying to just frickin' live. Live right and then exactly, and then you're gonna tell me is because you know I was a young E5 at the time, uh with it, and so well, I'm a staff sergeant in the Air Force. What does that mean? I'm going right back to the line. Uh, and you know, that's what we called it flying the line, right? So sitting there doing the day in, day out. You don't get the cushy, hey, I gotta go to an office, maybe I'll pop into a ground control station for an hour or two, make sure I'm still good to go, you know, and then go back to my office duties. No, you were the one that went in and hacked a mission, you know, six, seven, eight, twelve hours in the seat. And so you're gonna tell me after doing four years of shift work, three and a half years of this god-awful schedule of bouncing all around all over the place, that what I have to look forward to is more of the of the four years of shift work? Like, hell no. No, no, thank you. Yeah, I was like, I'm out. So so that was the big move for me. Um, you know, and then like I said, I ended up with a contract company up in North Dakota, um, which is where I'm at now. And and you know, that's kind of landing me there. But it took me, and and I'll I'm gonna expand upon a little bit of what you asked there with I didn't hit my breaking point and really truly understanding that, like, oh my god, like one, I have PTSD. If you would have looked at me six years ago and been like, you have PTSD, I'd have been like, ah, that's funny. Like, we can't get that. Because that's that's what we believe, right? Uh, you know, with it. And so, you know, it took me a long time to really recognize that. And it wasn't until, you know, even a couple years later, I think I was like year 10 or 11, of doing this job, you know, as a civilian then, but I was still doing some of the exact same stuff I was doing in the military. And to go, ooh, I I I need to do something different um with this uh here, you know, and then it was a lot of just trying to navigate, you know, the VA and all these other, you know, there's some fantastic programs and things like that out there, right? A lot of good people doing good work, but there's a lot of things that can be damaging too to someone with not just PTSD, but I I I always throw the term around of complex PTSD. Um, because that's it's it's actually in um the World Health Organization recognizes it, the American Psychiatry Association doesn't. I don't know. Um, gets into a whole insurance thing that I don't really care to talk about. But the issue with it is when you don't put a label on something and you just go, no, you're fine, no, you're fine, it's gonna be like a toddler, you know, that you tell he can't have that candy bar, and then you don't answer why. They're gonna keep asking why. Right? Uh similar thing here, right? If you go in and somebody walks out of that box and goes, hey, I have an issue, I've got these problems, right? Or I think I I think I have an issue, and you go, Well, you didn't deploy, so how can you have trauma? That's a frickin' massive, you know, and then that spirals uh in, you know, into the moral injury piece, into the identity crisis piece, into the CPTSD piece of it all. So it's again a a process that after just years and years of frustration and just feeling like I'm just beating my head against a brick wall every time I walk into any mental health appointment or anything like that. Yeah. Um, and it was a good buddy of mine that was getting med uh med-boarded uh for PTSD after 17 years in the community. Uh and they had a flight doc that that uh looked at him and said, looked at his record and said, Well, you you never left the country, so what's the issue uh with it? And that I snapped. I just I I I I I shot up in bed that night and I looked at my wife and I was like, I'm gonna fix this because this is just horribly wrong. That we're we they expected so much out of us, you know, and and just this high level, but I can't even get like right now, right? I've been trying to get a Stella Ganglion block for my PTSD through the VA for almost nine months.
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SPEAKER_00:Wow. And I still can't get any fucking movement on the dang thing. I so much so that I had to pay for one out of pocket six months ago by myself, but then it wore off.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, it's um it's a good good place to to interject. And so the it's not um ganglion block, it's a it's a great tool, it's a great resource. It doesn't last forever. It it's it's it's um it's I like to say it's the first place to go to help you get back down to a normal baseline to understand and get you out of the fight or flight response, and then hopefully you're willing to talk, you're willing to engage. Yeah. Um you should you should not be paying for it. Um remind me after this, I I gotta connect you with some people. Yeah. Because um as a veteran, as a service member, like guys, please. Huge, huge shout out to Operator Relief Fund. Um they will get you connected to the Stella Foundation to get your Stella Ganglion block. Special Forces Foundation will do it. Uh tons of resources out there. Don't wait, reach out, get help. You served, you went through hell. You deserve peace of mind. You deserve to be able to feel a true baseline of zero from you know being stuck in fight or flight. That's a real thing. Um I I absolutely benefited from it. I always advocate for it. And dude, I am I'm so sorry you had to go pay out of pocket, man. The VA should have helped you out with that, but we're we're gonna we're gonna connect you with some resources, man. Um I appreciate that.
SPEAKER_00:And and I and I will I will go on and echo your sentence sentence with everything you said there, right? Because even though this thing wore off, I mean, and I get I almost just said you don't understand because I'm so used to talking to people that don't understand, but you do. Uh it's it's incredible when your brain is so heightened and you're just analyzing every noise, every sound, every movement around you, and then it goes quiet. And even, you know, for me it lasted about two and a half, three months. Um, and I was just, I mean, I was completely different, you know, and and being able to just sit back and be like, oh my God, I can just sit here and not feel like I'm internally screaming. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Well, it gives you that time and space to work on the tools so that you can develop the habits and develop the the the techniques to help you better manage and understand it. Because at it at it at the absolute basis of it, you're just numbing a part of your your human anatomy and telling it, like, hey, hey guy, calm down. We're not in threat, we're not in danger, we're just chilling. But for a lot of veterans that are constantly in that high elistatic load where they're performing, and especially in shift work is one of the things that makes it worse. Actually, it's been proven if shift work exacerbates your mental health issues, full stop, that's one of the worst things you can do for sleep, for your brain health. Um constantly talk about brain health and sleep, and I'm horrible at sleep right now. I'm fucking dog shit tired. But I'm telling you, if you're in a shift work, uh if you're working those late nights, understand that I know what you got to do to put food on the table. I get it, I understand it, but just know on the back side, you gotta take care of yourself, man. You you can't do it forever. You can't. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I will say too, uh, you know, I think uh, you know, one thing through this and and through really having to learn from my own trauma, right? And and learn the gaps and the areas that are we're missing, and that's really what rolls into my advocacy work now of trying to identify these areas across industry, VA, clinicians, it doesn't matter, and say, listen, like I appreciate and respect what you're doing, but you're missing the mark, uh, you know, with it. And so, but with that, there was a point, you know, especially when I was really struggling and I had just learned about the SGB. And I was like, you know what? I was like, I had the crazy thought, right? Because of course you deal when you're sitting in that that heightened fight or flight all the time, you you just deal with these insane thoughts that come through your head, and you're like, what the fuck was that? You know, like half the time, and it's like, I don't are you kidding me? Um, but one of those thoughts was, what if I get this block and I lose a piece of what still makes me me? Right? And what what if it because you know I I've been on the medications and things like that, and you know, you think of those stupid commercials they used to do with those little like popsicle faces that they put in front, you know, and it's like, oh, this is depression. And I'm like, well, that's actually pretty damn accurate. Um, I'll say they did get that right, right? Because, you know, when I was sitting there and leaning heavy on trying to go the medication route and see if anything was gonna help me, you know, there was a handful that I was on that was really making me feel like that, you know, feeling like that popsicle stick face in front of me. But and so I had a I think I had an underlying fear with a stellar ganglion block that I was gonna then, you know, oh shit, what if this mutes my fight or flight completely? Right? What it what if I don't even recognize threats anymore? You know, what if I don't even and that wasn't the case. All right, it was it was exactly said it softened it, it quieted, you know, a lot of loud noise, and it made room for when it needed to be turned on. It was turned on, but at a much lower level, and I would argue a much more reasonable level of response to fight or flight situations. You know, it could be something as simple as a loud noise or whatever it is, right? And usually I lock up, and you know, half the time it's like you're just you're so tired from your muscles just tensing constantly to everything around you. Um, you know, and for me, like I get muscle twitching um because I've got so much pent-up energy in my body that I'll lay there and I I mean I had times, especially when it was really bad, I had times I'd come six inches off the mattress um because I would twitch so hard in the middle of the night. You know how weird it is to wake up and be six inches in the fucking air. My my wife's going, You're okay, you're okay, because I'm just like, what the heck is going on, you know, uh with it. And so even even you know that, you know, it kind of started softening that more um with it. But that is one thing that I I've recognized recently with it, um, you know, even reflecting back on when it was working, um, that it didn't kill my fight or flight completely, right? It just made it made it a hell of a lot more manageable. So I'll echo your sentiments with that. Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, man, it's it's a great tool to get you to understand what a what a true zero really is, and then um you know it's up to you to continue working and utilizing the tools that you will get. Because one thing that works really well with SGB is a lot of guys are hesitant to try any other modality to get to SGB, and now they're open to talking, now they're open to do EMTR, now they're open to try all these separate other modalities that are proven to help, but you have to be willing to do it. That's the thing. Like nobody else can make that decision for you. You have to be willing to say, I'm going to get help. I feel at ease, I feel like I can breathe again now. Let's sit down in front of this provider and get this stuff out. Because whether it's talking to a licensed mental health care professional, going to an outdoor recreational uh retreat or program, doing art therapy, music therapy, um, exposure therapy, whatever it is, you need to be willing to do something. All that experience, all that trauma, everything, and trauma gets you know, it's like a treated like a bad word. Like, dude. Fucking you you went to war. You went to fucking war. You experienced something fucking awful. It's called trauma. You don't have to hold on to it. Yeah. You have to deal with it. And you can deal with it like a fucking man. Sometimes a man's gotta go do something like go paint or go work with a horse on an outdoor retreat program. Whatever you gotta do, whatever you want to do, figure it out. Talk to somebody, listen to people that are out there echoing and championing the idea of getting help. Because the reality is, yes, you might have to admit that you're vulnerable, that you're not Superman, but there's there's help, there's ways to get better. And now more than ever, there are tons of resources. The only way that you're gonna start to feel better is by taking that bold step forward. That's that's a reality, man. That's a reality. Absolutely. You you gotta be willing to go do the hard work, but I promise you this. I promise you, the moment you walk in to whatever program, whatever provider, the moment you make that that fucking definitive step, you're gonna move, you've got to be moving towards the right direction and moving towards healing. And your worst days are gonna start to start, you know, fading into black. You're not gonna be reliving those days as much. I won't say it's perfect, I won't say it's a magic wand, but you're gonna be feeling a whole lot better for a lot longer than you have been for a long time, and that's the truth. It's a journey, man. It's a journey. It it's not gonna it's not about perfect days. Hey, full spoiler alert, you're still gonna have shitty days. But they're gonna be a lot shorter, and you're gonna be able to smile and you're gonna be able to put things in in perspective. So one thing we didn't have for a long time is perspective. You deal with struggle for so long and you begin to be jaded and think that every day is a shitty fucking day. It's not. No. And that's a and I think you can you can uh you can make you know attest to this, Tanner, that well, you're if you reflect back to your darkest days to the when it was really bad, you didn't always feel like there was gonna be a positive light. You probably didn't think that God this is gonna get better. But now reflecting back on your journey, looking where you're at today, man, like let us know. Like, how how is Tanner dealing with life today?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Um, you know, and and you you hit on a lot of really good points there, right? And I'm dealing it with exactly like you said, right? I deal with it by recognizing every day isn't gonna be perfect, right? Um, even with the recent setback for me, right? You take that SGB and and I think a lot of times, especially with the military, um, you know, and I'm curious your thoughts on this, but the you know, one one thing that happens is we always feel like if you start something, you've got to end it in a certain way, right? Yeah, it's it's you know, yeah, I think about all those briefs and stuff I sat through and I wrote up these you know briefing boards and you know, stand up there talking about them and different things, and all right, this is what's gonna happen. But you know what we did at the end of every brief? We talked about the contingencies, we talked about when shit went wrong, we talked about all right, when this whole plan goes freaking tits up and we've got to now deal with This episode is brought to you by Titan SARMs.
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SPEAKER_00:XYZ, here's how we're gonna plan that out and we know at least a step in the right direction, right? Those contingency plans were never you'd have to spend another hour, right? Talking to talking about, you know, every little piece of it, but it was at least to put in your mind to go, hey, it's gonna be, you know, okay, because at least we have a vector, at least we have a direction that we can go with this, you know, and for me now, that's something that the Stella ha hasn't taken away from me, right? It is my mindset shift because I noticed immensely just more positive outlooks on things. And even right now, right, I wouldn't say I'm in the best place at the moment, you know, having to feel like my chest is ripping apart every day, uh, especially going from three months of relief to then I woke up one morning and was like, oh crap, it's back. Uh, you know, and it was just like, no. Uh so you know, it's been it's been it's been riding the wave up and down of that, going like, oh god, you know, is because then the whole self-incriminating self-doubt rolls in and everything else with it. And you go, am I broken? Am I, you know, is this is this me? You know, all that stuff. And it's like, no, it just, you know, you you've got to find another path forward, um, you know, with it. And you've got to plan for that contingency, and now that plan is in place. So now it's trying to find that step forward. And so that really rolls into you know what I'm doing with Remote Warrior now is trying to at least cut those paths for people that they don't have to go through the god-awful just kicked around every system modality and you know, everything else around that I have been in the last seven years. Um, I'm at least trying to write that playbook again uh and and now do it for if people are struggling.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Well, that's like uh let's um let's dive into that. How did the remote warrior come to be?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Um, well, you know, like I said, with it it was the biggest thing was just I I was tired of losing friends to suicide, right? With it, I was tired of getting those calls and saying we lost, we you know, we lost so and so um there, you know, I was I was we lost a member of my team, you know, and I was standing in the root in his room where he did it 24 hours prior um with it. And and you know, and then it got blamed on a bunch of other other things that just weren't were external factors and just didn't make sense. And then I just kept hearing it, kept hearing it, right? And we we lost an instructor pilot at the schoolhouse uh this spring to suicide um for for the RPA schoolhouse for the Air Force, and it was that coupled with my buddy having that exam uh and the doc going, well, you didn't leave the country, so how can you have trauma? That I went, you know what, enough is enough um with this entire thing. And so, you know, I've always been teaching in in in different ways. I I taught at the University of North Dakota for a couple years and assistant professor there. Um, you know, I've been teaching in combat roles and everything else with it. So I I finally sat down one night and went, well, what if I can put this all on paper and make it make sense, right? Or at least make some thoughts make sense tied to this, is really what it started with. Uh, and then it kind of blew up. So now we've got an entire website. Um, and I'll be sure to get you, you know, links and stuff like that for it. Um, but it's we've got an entire website that has a bunch of uh mental health resources, right? And it's not it's not going out there and saying, like, hey, I'm a clinician, you know, that like, oh, this you gotta do XYZ. It's just putting plain language into thoughts that are sometimes scary shit to deal with, uh, you know, with the entire thing. And and, you know, get people, especially what I refer to as like the remote combat warriors, um, being those people that sat there and just watched all this horrendous crap happen and try to understand it a little bit better. Um, you know, so we have we've got our staple fog of war guide that puts a lot of these things and maybe some of the things that are happening in their head, um, you know, and a lot, and it's built on my trauma, uh, you know, when it comes down to it and then things that I've dealt with and you know, thought processes and stuff like that that I realized while, yeah, they were terrifying as heck at the time, they were completely a normal biological response to what I was going through, uh, you know, with it. And so it's trying to bring normalcy to it all uh there. So we've got that. We've got our Discord uh for anybody, Intel, Cyber, RPA, doesn't matter, right? Anybody that sat in it was a decision maker and a kill chain behind the screen. Um, and you know, it we we've got support for them uh there with it. And then we've gone all the way to even grab one here. Uh we've got these things, right? You're like, okay, it's a plain O ammo can, right? Um, but with this, is we created uh our panic packs uh with this. And what it is, and I feel like you'll appreciate this, is all grounding tools. Nice uh for it. So it's just it's just a nice condensed way to put all this stuff in here. So that way when you're in one, right? Because I got that's what I got sick of, is just getting hammered with a panic attack. And what do you do? You grab onto that electric fence again, right? And ride it out and go, all right, let me wait for this to pass. And I got really sick of that. So I came up with this idea. It's different things like these little in you know, instant ice packs to pop on your chest, pop on the back of your neck, get that cold reset for you with different things there, all the way down to like peppermint sticks. Um with the that you can hit. So it it hits, it's got two things per sense, right? Touch, feel, taste, all of it, um, all the way down to these little visual timers that you just sit there and in the moment, you know, and half the stuff looks like kids' toys. You're like, what are we doing here, right? And it's like, but then you realize when you sit down, open this box in the middle of one, you realize, okay, no, this this is silly as hell, but this can work, right? Um with this. So now it's something that you know, I keep one beneath my bed underneath my nightstand there. Um, and we went as far as even creating little cue cards for it that walk you through, regardless of what even if you built your own with nothing of what we put in them, this still works. And that was the intent behind it. Um, and then all the way down to even like a Spotify playlist with a QR code on the back that I use music theory to build, um, so that it doesn't have like loud crescendos or things like that that could be triggering during a panic attack, so that way people can scan it, throw it, throw some earbuds in their ears, and be like, all right, because in my experience, that's been the biggest thing, right? It's not these grand gestures, it's not these, you know, I need to call, you know, 988. That's a perfect example of this, right? And I'm no way discrediting this at all, right? They the work they do is incredibly important. But what do you do when you hang up the phone? Yeah. And this fills that gap, right? Uh, with it. This this identifies, hey, when you're still sitting there with your head between your fucking knees after that call on the floor, balling your fucking eyes out, going, what the hell is going on? That you can reach for that box and go, we're we're gonna be okay, uh, kind of thing there. So it's a lot of those those things. And then, like I said, we I do a lot of different um speaking opportunities um throughout. I've talked about this on with Business Insider uh in New York. Um and so, and that that video is approaching, I think, 400,000 uh on it. So we're getting there. Uh, you know, and so a lot of it is just education and advocacy, and and you know, doing exactly like we're doing right now. It's just sitting here and talking about it and talking about why it's an issue and why is it gonna affect everybody? Hell no, right? Um, but for the ones that do, we we need recognition and we need care. We don't we don't we don't need any of the other flashy crap, right, uh, with it, but we need recognition and we need care. And and you know, and and like like I said, you need you need 21st uh century health care for the 21st century veteran. And that's something that I think we're missing because unfortunately we're still treating shell shock uh instead of you know other other avenues are looking at what the impacts are being made um too. And that's the last thing I'll say on that is is I I'm still and I'm working this right now actually with the VA to get an official study um done on the veteran population for my career field. Because while the research Air Force Research Lab has done a lot with the active duty populations, like I said before, this stuff doesn't hit until you take off the freaking flight suit. So if we're not looking at the and the other side of this, we're kind of missing the mark, right? It's like doing it's it's like doing therapy and then not doing any follow-up, right? Or not doing, you know, not having any continuing, you know, therapies or continuing sessions, things like that, right? It's that one bandit, all right, hey, we're good, look, it's fine. Uh, and then three months later they're in the gutter again. Uh kind of. Absolutely. So yeah, man.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's it's um it's oftentimes the the most frustrating situation is is trying to get the A system or the veteran administration to actually do something to start moving. It's such a big organization. But it it uh it needs to start changing and addressing these issues. I mean, it it's it's deeply rooted in future war and the entirety G Watt experience. Yeah. Yeah, I'd be hard pressed to find any veteran that was boots on the ground taking a fight to the enemy that wasn't supported by this uh by by an MQ9, any sort of um any drone. Like it's so easy to forget. It's so easy to forget that there is a human element to it. I know I didn't. It's it's you have AWT, you know there's pilots in there, they're coming to you. You've got fast movers, you know there's pilots are in there. You hear MQ9, and it's just you immediately think of this friggin' robot, this automaton that is at best Transformer. It's come into the to fucking drop some hate. Yeah. There's there's human lives there and early on, and and even I I would say that even still today, um it's become a laughing uh a point of humor to look at what these guys and gals do. Oh, you just get in a conics and you're in a a freaking ergonomic chair, whatever. Yeah, dude, 100% they're in a conic and they clock in and clock out and they're in Vegas. But that's a human being watching destruction and chaos, just like you said. And it's it's time we recognize that our brothers and sisters are hurting. They're dying. They're they're committing suicide, they're dealing with the same stressors that are our human uh other counterparts in other MOS's experience from fighting on the ground. Yeah, the danger element wasn't there. But the impact of watching this stuff nonstop over and over there, and like I said, we're just now seeing it too from Ukraine, from what's happening there. I think the culture's shifting. I I think we're starting to understand that holy shit, watching Kill Cam over and over and over again for how many years that's got an effect on you. That's gonna impact you. If you wouldn't let your fucking kids watch it because you know that it's impactful, because it's it's dangerous, then have some compassion and have some fucking empathy for the people that are signing up to do it. Absolutely. To do it, to help save lives on the ground. Like because at the end of the day, there's a human being in that context, or a human being in that chair on the controls, watching that and having eyes on, whether it's just watching a friggin' uh a high value target or watching American lives as they're fighting on the ground, it impacts it, man. Absolutely. Tanner, I I can't thank you enough for being here, but more importantly, I can't thank you for the mission you're on now. If people want to support you, where can they go?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. Uh they can definitely check out our remote warrior LC.com. Uh, and we are on every social media platform out there. Uh, I do a lot with LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, uh, all those different things there. So um, we're always looking for you know people to help support, uh, help sponsor, right? Because things like those, you know, we send uh those panic packs out, we send those to anybody that's struggling in our career field at no cost to them uh for it there. So we're always looking for way people to help you know sponsor those uh for a veteran in need. And also, you know, if anyone needs something like that, right? You don't want to sit there and have to do the research and you'd rather just get something, just reach out. Um, I you know I can I can get you one shipped, um, no issue uh there either. So um yeah, it's that that'd be that'd be the biggest way is the socials and the and the website.
SPEAKER_01:Well, there you go, folks. Tanner, thank you so much for being here. Everybody listening, do me a favor, just pause, go to the episode description, click those click those links just to support, connect with Tanner, um, send him out some uh some support virtually, or just reach out and then have a discussion. The more we talk about it, the more we normalize it, the more we can advocate for these individuals, the faster, hopefully we can get more resources and more recognition, most importantly, what they're dealing with because um they're part of our warrior tribe, they're part of the community, and um, they're not asking for combat badges, they're not asking for valor awards, simply asking for people to understand that they're struggling too. Um, again, brother, thank you for being here. Thank you for what you're doing. And to everybody listening, thank you for tuning in. We'll see y'all next time. Till then, take care. SecureDob Podcast is proudly sponsored by Titan's Arms. Head up to the episode description and check out Titan's Arms today.
