Jocko Podcast 314: Making Your Part Of The World Better. W/ Carlos Mendez, Navy SEAL (Ret.)

this is jocko podcast number 314 with echo charles and me jocko willink good evening gecko good evening the machine rolls on [Music] that's what happens when your time is up and you leave the machine is going to roll on and that can be can be hard on your brain it can be hard on your ego it can also just be hard because you love the teams you care about the boys and when you leave you worry about the void that is there and you think who's going to fill that void and and you wonder if you did a good enough job passing on what you learned and that's rough it was that was one of the hardest things for me when i left when i got out of the navy because my whole life my whole adult life had been in the seal teams i was full on institutionalized by the seal teams i didn't know didn't know anything else in the world and i couldn't help but feel that i was leaving them hanging leaving my friends hanging that i was letting them down but the reality is that the machine rolls on and there are guys that are ready to step up and take your place and take things to the next level and do a better job and carry the torch and take the fight to the enemy and uphold the traditions and uphold the reputation of the teams and elevate it and so because this next generation of frogmen step up the machine rolls on and i am lucky enough to have one of those frogmen here with me tonight carlos mendez los who i figured out checked into seal team one about a decade or so after i did i think but who upheld and uplifted the reputation of the teams while he was in carlos thanks for joining us man pleasure to be here pretty what year did you checking a team one 2005 january 35 okay so it was like i checked into team one in 1991. no fun once it was still no fun when i got there there you go uh well we'll get there let's go back let's go back to where you came from because damn i mean it's a weird ride right it's a it's you gotta you got an interesting background story so you're you're not even you're not born in america no i was born in guatemala so um you know it you know i'll even start before that um so my father passed away when my mom was pregnant with me oh damn so yeah actually she got the news on the day of her baby shower where'd he die from a car accident yeah um so uh i was born in guatemala to a single mom obviously and um you know my grandparents my dad was their favorite son so when my mom had me i was the favorite grandchild and um they had they had a lot of they wanted a lot of control over the way she raised me and it was this conflict back and forth and you know when i talked to my mom she said ultimately that's what uh drove her to the decision to to immigrate to the u.s she's like i need to get you away from here because i was i was spoiled rot from what i hear i was an absolute terror and i can get away with it because grandma was there to protect me and uh yeah she used to babysit me my mom would drop me off in the mornings and it was funny because the things that you remember just so weird i remember we would go get gas and in guatemala you know people don't have a lot of money so if you filled up a full gas tank you got a baby chick okay yeah so my mom you know filled the gas tank up and we'd get a baby chick so i remember i would drive back to my grandma's house and i would have that baby chick and we had all kinds of them you know from all times we filled up the gas tank so it was me chasing chasing a bunch of chickens and chicks in the backyard it's interesting that your mom she's got to be a pretty uh interesting human because you would figure here she is single mom and she actually has the this kid you that is getting swooned over by the grandparents it seems like a single mom would be like thank god these grandparents are here to help me through this and i'm totally i'm kind of sad now right i got like backup as opposed to no backup which you know your dad was dead i mean that's but she but she just thought oh he's being spoiled we're out of here oh yeah my mom's a gangster she is a very old school hispanic um just very you know disciplined uh screw your feelings kind of thing it's always your fault kind of thing like i remember any time i got in trouble she said what'd you do it was your fault i'm like everybody else's parents stand up for them not my mom my mom's like what'd you do i know i know it was your fault some way or another it was your fault so that's why i was kind of joking around with jp that i had extreme ownership at birth yeah basically but yeah that's what drove her decision to to leave guatemala and come to the us so how old were you when you came to the u.s do you remember i guess you must remember because you remember yeah i mean there's you know things here and there that you remember i i was like four or five but i do remember i was in school uh and i remember showing up to school not being able to speak english um and my mom set me up for total success and i say that sarcastically because she would dress me up in like a collared shirt everything was had to be like a cause you know guatemala you dress nice to go to school you have uniform and now we were in in uh san francisco not a nice area either you know um and so i'm wearing this you know button-up shirt with some some docker-type pants that we got at the goodwill shirt had to be tucked in and like these alligator skin shoes because in guatemala they're they're cheap you know like alligators can choose so that was like the thing and she's like you know guatemala these are like a luxury i'm like over here it's getting my ass kicked wearing these alligator shoes and dockers and tucked in shirts so yeah uh i needless to say i ran into a lot of issues when i first showed up didn't speak english i'm dressing like a complete dork and you know the kids that i'm with are a little rough around the edges what'd your mom do for work when she got here so i remember she worked at she worked at the school that i was at so she can keep an eye on me as a teacher's assistant and then after school i remember she worked as um she would clean houses and i remember going after school we would go to you know whoever's house and she would clean it and i would do my homework while she cleaned and if i didn't have homework like i would help her out and um and then i think like twice a week or so she would go to english school to learn how to speak english and i'll go with her there and are you but you're you're getting uh what's immersion training at school because you're just showing up and they're speaking all english oh yeah yeah yeah and uh it's kind of funny because when so my mom's side of the family was already in san francisco oakland bay area so that's why we moved there she had her side of the family there my dad's side of the family was the one that stayed in guatemala because they're actually pretty well off there um so she had that support system and i thought it was it was interesting how my family was like oh the kids need to learn how to speak english so the kids won't make fun of them and my mom was like i don't care about his feelings like okay they make fun of him so what he's not allowed to speak english at home because he's gonna forget spanish he's gonna learn english regardless but i want him to to remember how to speak spanish so at home i wasn't allowed to speak any english your mom is a gangster huh oh dude she's she's heartless and then uh so then you ended up she ended up meeting someone else or getting married to someone else right like uh step dad showed up basically yep so she actually met my stepdad in san francisco in uh english school so he was from czechoslovakia when it was still czechoslovakia yeah and his story is is pretty amazing um you know when he was in high school so he was there when it was still under communist rule so when he tells a story uh you know he was in high school and he drew a cartoon criticizing communism and i guess like a week later some some men showed up they dragged him out of school they beat him up and then they told him hey when you graduate we're going to send you to the mines and you're going to die there you're going to work there for the rest of your life till you die so he was just like nope not happening he started planning his escape and um didn't tell anybody not a soul packed his stuff in like this green bag that he actually still had when i met him packed everything he had in there and and ran away and um he just recently told me this story too like maybe two three months ago like the actual details of how he crawled for days across the border and somehow made it into yugoslavia and yeah it's a pretty crazy story yeah the the when you're in those communist countries the amount of in government inform like it's some crazy number like 50 of people are government informants it's a crazy number it's a crazy number so your stepdad couldn't have told anybody because if you tell one person you might as well just tell everybody and you're gonna get ratted out and he's already got the threats of being in the mines for the rest of his life and dying there good lord yeah freaking savages um so they end up getting married i mean is that that the next phase yeah they they started dating and um in my head i'm thinking like oh sweet i'm finally gonna have a dad you know little did i know he was meaner than my mom you know i mean he's a hard hard man i mean he's you know communist bloc they grew up very very hard up there life is hard um so he was hard on me so what were you doing growing up what was uh what was what was a day day in the life of carlos um let's say age 11. oh age 11. oh by that time we had i'm not sure i don't remember if we had already moved out to sacramento at one point you know they were like hey you know the bay area is just too expensive it's not a great place to raise a family and we moved out to sacramento and i remember we started renting this house out that had this huge yard well for me it was huge because i hadn't seen a backyard you know in san francisco or oakland and um and and he just gave me a ton of chores like that's what my life so my life was i come home from school i do chores i do homework and then after we eat dinner you know i wash all the dishes i take everything off the counter wipe them all down sweep mop like that was something that i did every single day and then in the backyard i always had all kinds of chores that he had for me and um i think a lot of it too had to do with he he worked a ton like he is probably the hardest working man i've ever met in my life like yeah he was mean and probably growing up i i wasn't you know i hated him growing up but now that i i'm i'm all grown up and i look back like man that guy worked his ass off like he did anything and everything he could do like i remember he used to sell like uh vacuums for electrolux uh he used to deliver pizzas for dominoes pizza he finally got into itt tech to become a drafter so he became a drafter eventually uh designing like elevators or something like that and then i remember he would do that all day he would come home he would take a nap and then he would go back and deliver pizzas all night long get maybe like two three hours of sleep and do it all over again so you know looking back now i'm like okay that's why i had to do so much stuff around the house because he just he wasn't around he was providing for the family and when you get to like what kind of kids are you hanging out with uh you playing any sports or anything no my mom and like i said my mom and dad were both really strict on me and the only two things that i was really allowed to do growing up i remember with legos and reading so i would devour any book i can get my hands on because we weren't allowed to watch like tv actually i don't think we owned a tv for a big portion and then finally when we did we weren't allowed to watch a whole lot of it um they had a subscription to reader's digest so i would read reader's digest cover to cover as soon as they came in i was actually the one that would rip the wrapper open and i would just start reading and it's funny because it was actually the first time that i was exposed to the teams even though i didn't know it there was an article in uh reader's digest when i was a kid it was something like the hardest school you know i don't remember exactly what the title but it talked about this gentleman who was in the army saw some team guys and went to buzz and he talked about his experience going through buds but at the time i didn't know what it was i was just like oh cool story but yeah legos reading i wasn't allowed to really play with other kids because my life was like chores and homework and my parents were both perfectionist so you know i would turn in my homework and if the handwriting was sloppy then i'd do it over or like the dishes like if i do the dishes and like one of them was wrong myself i'd be like do them all over dang it so um that's kind of how i remember my childhood was a lot of chores um homework and then kind of just reading a lot and playing with legos a lot yes sir all right um did you end up yeah i think you've mentioned you had some kind of like little farm or something at some point yeah like at least some little animals running around the house yeah so at one point you know we got accepted for this program that was like for for low-income families where they allowed you to build your house and it would offset some of the cost but it would a lot you know it was like a path to ownership yeah that's legit and so my parents both applied for it we got accepted so for a long time that was that was actually a big part of my childhood too for a long time i remember like going to school and then going to help at the construction site my weekends same thing they were they were spent at the construction site helping build our house and when it was completed you know my stepdad had all kinds of stuff in the backyard like we had this little farm so we he built like when i say he built i mean mostly i built because my weekends were like i remember my weekends like oh i'm gonna get to sleep in and i would just hear a bang on my window like at 5 30 in the morning and it's him like hey get up it's time to work dang you know so i go out there and we we built a greenhouse we we had all kinds of fruits and vegetables uh we had a compost pile so i remember digging that hole he made he wanted it so big and i spent forever i did all our irrigation so i dug all the holes for that and then he got this idea for so we had all our fruits and vegetables he's like now we need our meat so he's like we're gonna you know in check we used to rabbits so i remember going to the state farm like looking at all these different rabbits and then he's like oh these are the kind that you can eat so we bought like a male rabbit and like two or three females and we started breeding rabbits little did i know that was gonna be that's so that's another chore now that i had like taking care of these rabbits feeding them you know cleaning up their poop and then when i got the poop i put it in the compost pile and everything like all the clippings from the grass and and everything we grew with throwing the compost pile now i'd have to go in there and like mix it up and it was miserable but then the the baby rabbits got to the to age and uh he's like hey your chore from now on another chore is going to be like hey you're going to kill the rabbits you're going to skin them and you're going to put them in the freezer and i'm like well i don't know how to kill rabbit he's like you're gonna learn today and he's like well let me know he's like let me know when you kill that first rabbit let me know and i'll show you how to skin it so i i remember being a kid because i'm looking at i'm like how old are you at this point i'm going to say junior high okay so what's that like 12 12 or 13 something like this around 11 or 12. okay because i remember being young because i remember so the first one i'm like okay i think i think i'm gonna drown the rabbit right so i grab a bucket i fill it up with water and i gotta grab this rabbit and i put it in the bucket and it freaking won't die and i'm and now i'm crying i remember crying because i'm like oh my god please die just die damn it and i'm just holding it and just like finally you know the rabbit dies and i'm just like oh my god that was the most miserable experience ever i'm like i'm literally i'm crying i'm a kid and so finally i go back and i'm like okay i killed the rabbit you know he's like he's like stop crying fifina that was his nickname for me which fifa is freaking czechoslovakian for what it's czechoslovakian for [ __ ] so um so you know he shows me how to skin the rabbit and i'm like okay and i'm not really paying attention because i'm still traumatized broken and then he's freaking raised rabbits so now he's like okay it's time to kill the second one and now i'm like i'm gonna do it a different way so i i'm like i grab a two by four i'm like all right i'm gonna hit this rabbit on the on the head so i grabbed the rabbit i'm like petting it you know and then i i hit it but i kind of half-ass hit it so now he's just like twirling in my hands and now again i got snot running down my nose tears and i'm just like eating this rabbit again like please damn it just die and finally after whacking it like a million times died same thing comes out teaches me how to how to skin it and then on the third rabbit something happened you know something already happened twice but something happened that actually stuck with me for for today actually all right so i remember i got this rabbit and i'm petting it and i'm now i'm talking to myself and i'm like all right [ __ ] by the way this is how serial killers get created yourself so when i told my wife the story she's like i get it but i'm i'm looking at this rabbit and i'm like you know talking myself up i'm like pumping myself up and i'm like you know what i got to commit like 100 commit so i remember i grabbed that rabbit i grabbed that 2x4 and i hit it as hard as i could and it was out and from that point on it's crazy because even in the teams when i did something that i was a little bit scared of or even you know anything i'm like commit that thought has always come in my head like if you're scared of doing something you got to 100 commit or it's not going to work and and in that moment i had that epiphany that's an 11 12 year old kid so yeah that's my rapid story so i you know a lot of times people ask me questions about because i got kids and parenting and all that stuff and one thing i warned warned parents of you know if you push hard against your kids oh yeah they're going to push back and by the way this isn't just with kids this is with a seal platoon this is with a company that's with a business you start imposing stuff on people they're going to start to push back because they're humans and humans don't like to have things imposed on them and you can by the way you can impose things on people permanently but you have to like crush them and you have to continuously crush them forever and you have to be willing to go to that distance where you crush them which is not going to produce the type of humans that you want so was there any pushback and well let me rephrase that at what age did you start to say i'm pushing back against this stuff uh i'm gonna say around my sophomore year um you know i'm 15 and um you know like like i said my stepdad ruled with an iron fist and at that point i'm like you know what i'm not scared of you anymore because his punishments were so extreme like his punishments were like oh you're grounded for the weekend it was like you're grounded for the next two months and if i messed up it was like another month and i'm like dude there's like no light at the end of this tunnel two months when you're a kid might as well be like yeah yeah yeah so um and you know they didn't let me play sports so i wasn't hanging around the jock so guess who i hung out with i hang out with thugs hung out with uh people that you know weren't the best influence on me and um i got into some trouble you know um and i got i got i got locked away in juvenile hall and and so how old are you uh 15 16 years old and i remember when that happened because my stepdad at this point he had actually just graduated the chp academy so now he's law enforcement damn yeah he's law enforcement and i'm running around you know little little mini gang banger yeah breaking the law and at one point i got caught i got arrested and i remember the cop bringing me in and interviewing me and i'm just like i don't want to talk because you know i got that stupid mentality i'm not i'm no snitch i'm a gangster so i don't snitch i don't say anything and he's like hey it's not going to go little did i know everybody else was singing like a bird so um so it's crazy because i i remember going to court so they put me away they called my parents and my parents like leave them there like you don't want to come get your kids like nope leave them there and i knew and i even told the cop i'm like don't bother calling my parents they're gonna leave me here he's like you were right so anyways i'm in court and you know the judge is like hey do you want an attorney and i was like no i don't and he's like are you sure do you know what you're doing i'm like yep i don't need an attorney i was like 15 years older to represent myself for the court well i was like hey i'm guilty i did it okay and then he's like so you plead i was like i plead guilty like i'm not even gonna fight it and um he's like check and he gave me my sentence and i remember seeing my parents and no expression on their face but i i could tell like my mom was was disappointed in me yeah as they they took me away in cuffs and and uh had to do my time in juvenile how how long were you in juvie for i think i think a couple months and that's because they were full and and honestly i like i was a good respectful i was over someone saying i made but i was a respectful kid because of the way i was raised so when i was in juvie like you know the correctional officers were like you're like the politest criminal i've ever met did you did you start to see the path that you were going down at that point and and realize like maybe this is the way it's going to end up yeah so you know having different roommates in juvenile hall kind of opened my eyes and i'm like man i don't belong here like some of the kids that were in there like one of my roommates was in there because you know he tried to murder this girl with his friends and they were so high off drugs that when they tried to dig like dig the hole to bury the body they were so high that they they buried the whole like not even a foot deep and they put her in there and just put some dirt didn't realize she was still alive you know i mean those are the kind of roommates that i had i think at one point they put me in with like a kid who was in there for a hate crime like a skinhead and then there for hate crime and you know just being there i'm like dang i don't belong here and i felt terrible that my parents because i knew my parents had raised me the right way and i'm like man i really let them down here um so that's when i knew i was like this is this is not what i want to do so so was that a lot of times you people think that but then you know as soon as they get out and they get back around their friends you know was that a good enough like scared straight situation that you actually were scared straight uh i wouldn't say scared straight because now i'm like okay i did it it was fine um in my head i'm like i'm i'm hard you know like i go back into juvie now i'm on probation and any any little thing is like an automatic 10 days you go back so when i got out same thing it was actually even worse now you know and it got to the point where i'm like hey you know what i'm going to do whatever i want whenever i want whatever i want whenever i want and i would wait for my parents to go to bed and i would just sneak out of the house so you kind of got emboldened oh because you went in there you because it wasn't really a scared straight thing it was more like you got emboldened because now you think hey dude i could juvie wasn't that bad you know no factor i'll get out and yes so you actually got you actually got worse so i stopped committing crimes but i was going out i just wanted to hang out with my friends honestly because it was just so strict and where i made my mistake is this this is around the time where cell phones started coming out so i would you know my parents went to bed early too and they would put me to bed like at eight o'clock i'm a teenager put me in a bed at eight o'clock but at the time i'm like cool yeah put me to bed early you know because the earlier you put me in the earlier i'm leaving yeah yeah so i would wait for them to go to bed i would go to the to the living room i'll grab my dad's cell phone and then i would roll out and now i'm the only kid like rolling around like with a cell phone i'm like yeah let's call so and so it's also and so like you know until the cell phone bill came out i didn't know that because i didn't know how cell phones worked yeah because back then this is in the 90s oh yeah so yeah so target charge per minute per call oh yeah it wasn't cheap either no it was like this is like a dollar a minute yeah or something something crazy like that yeah so my dad blew a casket when he saw that bill and long story short it was just this constant back and forth between him and i and it got to the point where i told him i'm like hey i'm not scared of you i'm gonna do whatever i want whenever i want like what do you do beat me you know ground me i'm already grounded for a life and so at this time i'm still getting in trouble for smaller things and my probation officer was like hey listen you're like at the point where we're just going to put you away to your 18. i was just like oh dang and i had a teacher at the time that i had built a great relationship with um he was like my it was like a life skills class way to teach how like write checks pay your bills you know stuff like that and him and i had built a good relationship and and i don't know how he got wind of it but he he knew the judge or whatever and he was like hey you know he's a good kid he just he's got a situation at home where he doesn't get along with his stepdad and and the judge is like well if you think he's such a good kid then you adopt him and he said okay and he adopted me and um and at that point like i think my stepdad was like at the end of his you know his way he's just like i can't i can't handle this kid he's like go and he signed he signed away and so are you 16 17 at this point 17 yeah 17. so you're going to be my senior year your senior year of high school you're go gonna go live with your teacher yeah so i lived with him and it was uh what was the deal with this teacher dude this is like the coolest teacher ever i don't know so he was very religious like him and his wife were very religious they had five kids they had raised them all to be very like successful people like they were just good people but in my head i'm like what is this guy thinking because i wouldn't let some little thug move in with me but honestly when i moved in with him i was so grateful that i told him i'm like hey this is your house your rules and i'll follow them and i didn't give him like a peep of trouble because i was so grateful for what he had done and he treated me he treated me like an adult for the first time you know he was just like hey if you're going to go out just let me know who you're with what time you'll be back and for me that was like what you know let me go out with my friend like it was something that i wasn't allowed to do before so i was so grateful for that i'm like dude this is a great thing i don't want to mess it up and you didn't hear a peep from me for the rest of the year like i was on my best behavior with him are you getting good grades in school yeah so actually that's the funny thing is i actually did really well in school eve this whole time and it was funny because i had my probation officer required like a progress report i think so that's how he got a wind of it because the teachers would look at me and be like dude you're a good kid you get good grades uh what are you filling this out for and i'm like my probation officer yeah they would look at you yeah um and so there were a couple teachers actually during that time that had a big influence on i mean one of them's names bobby pryor he's prior navy vet and he talked about navy seals too and he had a big influence on me as well and i remember him like telling stories about you know when he was in the navy and he told me this story that stuck with me for a long time about these two seals they were on the beach and they got in a fight with some biker dudes and they just got back to back and got after and he's like these bikers were laid out and he just talked about how badass navy seals were but i still didn't make that connection you know what i mean the connection being that this is something you could actually do with your life correct yeah i was just like oh that's cool you know um so between him and and and the other teacher that i lived with uh they were a big influence on me in a different way like i might you know my stepdad taught me a lot of things that i'm super grateful how to be tough how to be you know work ethic but they they had like a softer more empathetic uh mentoring i think that's a better word they were more mentoring me yeah i know the um well here's your your dad saying hey you can't go out with your friends or sorry your stepdad saying you can't go out with your friends etc your mom's super strict and it makes you want to not do what they're telling you to do when they impose things on you makes you not want to do it this other dude says hey you do what you want just you know just let me know what you're doing and you all of a sudden want to follow the rules it's like so such simple psychology on human beings when you impose things on people they don't like it when you give them freedom they're going to take advantage of it in a positive way i don't here's something interesting like i have grown kids now i have one that's not grown but my other kids are you know uh how old 22 20 and 18. they didn't have curfews like i'd just be like oh yep cool oh you know go out this is when they were 13 years old 15 years old i'd say okay you know let me know where you're going sometimes hey you know what when are you gonna be back are you coming back tonight and i just let them do what they want to do and they all turned out they they all are fine you know which what i mean like you're like stuttering you then they all well you know they're fine i mean they're all good kids i mean they're all they are actually they're all good kids they all like you know are on really good paths in life and i i never now if you were to step there was some incidents that took place along the way some some things that need some corrective measures need to be imposed from time to time if things got a little bit too far out of line and that happened a few times but then it was like oh they'd get back in line and realize and then i would just give them kind of give them their freedom back but you know what one of the key things is that you said is and i tell this to people all the time treat them like adults especially when they're in that age this is this is a trick too there's a little trick to this there's an age where oh you're 14 years old oh you think you can you want to be you want to be an adult okay cool guess what adults have jobs guess what adults do pay bills they pay rent they pay for their cell phone they pay for their food so you want to be treated like an adult you wanna do whatever you want cool i can treat you like an adult you owe rent or oh you know you need to pay for food and all that stuff and they realize really quick that's a real good appreciation tool they you want to make somebody appreciate what they've got make treat them like an adult and they kind of they're thinking they want to get treated like an adult and then when they start getting treated like adult they go hey i'm cool with being a kid for a little bit longer uh so what'd you do when you graduated from high school then was it straight to the navy no no i actually had no intentions of joining the military so after high school i started working construction full-time um and then on the weekends i worked at long's drugs on saturdays and sundays and this was the summer after i graduated i really didn't know what i wanted to do and and then you know those two teachers i talked about they're like oh so you know you got to start college i was like no one had ever talked to me about college and i was like i don't you know i wasn't excited about it so they signed me up for college they helped me out and i started going to community college and uh i didn't like it i was there and i'm just like i feel like this is high school all over again because you know you're taking the prereqs you're taking the same stuff so in my head i'm like i'm not learning anything right now that's gonna help me in life so i dropped out very quickly i think i was there for like two minutes and i went back to work in construction because i was making you know for an 18. actually i was still 17 because i graduated on 17. i was making good money for you know 17 18 year old sure and i would work seven days a week because i loved the fact that the more i worked the more money i would make um so i'm like dude you mean i can work seven days a week so i did it um and it was around that time at long's drugs they used to have uh vhs you know still have vhs and and then we had we rented out movies and so every friday night i would go and pick a movie out for myself and that would be my friday night and one day i picked up the movie navy seals and i went home and i watched it and i was just like whoa this is badass and then that's when i this is these are the guys that mr pryor talked to me about and that's where i made that connection and i'm like i'm gonna go be a navy seal and i didn't even know how to swim that well damn yeah i went into the recruiter's office i think the next day and you know i told him i was like hey i'm here sign up for the navy i wanna be a navy seal and of course they all laugh god he was stoked that recruiter goes oh yeah that was a recruiter's dream it's outstanding yeah you look like you'd make a great navy seal exactly oh yeah this guy totally set me up for failure like yeah so he you know he i went through the process very quickly because i'm like hey i'm committed let's do it you know um and so i you know i take the asvab whatever and then he gives me the corpsman rating he's like what do you think about being a corpsman i was like what's that he's like oh it's like a medic when you get out you're like a registered nurse and you can have a job i was like okay cool so when i get out i'll have a skill so i'll be the medic on the team so i'm like yeah let's do it so um were you in the doc we did you get some kind of a seal contract like how they didn't have that back then but here's the thing i didn't know anything right so this recruiter told me screwed me over one i wasn't a citizen so you can't be in the teams without being but you know this this part of it will come into play yeah so you know i go off to boot camp um he ships me off under a corman contract so i go to boot camp yeah so you're so just so everyone knows you joined the navy as a regular navy dude as a corpsman and that that gives you no leverage whatsoever to try and get to buds i mean very little leverage what year is this 1999 and by the way i i barely got into the navy because i had had felonies on my record so i had to get like multiple waivers and back then you know being the military wasn't cool so they were like all right you know because i told my son now i'm like listen he knows i got in trouble with this kid i'm like listen you can't do that nowadays no i mean you got to have secret clearances you got to do this i mean you do yeah yeah they're way more selective now oh yeah in every branch and for seals for sure it's easy because there's so many kids that want to go into it yeah they can pick and choose exactly yeah so so i go to boot camp and um they have the video you know with all the cool stuff and then i'm like this is it and like who wants to try out and i raised my hand i'm like heck yeah this is it but the problem is i didn't know how to swim so we take the screener dude we take the screen and i can get from one end of the pool to the other but i am not what you would call a good swim like i never took you know swimming classes like i could do this right like kind of doggy my way over and i wasn't scared of the water it just i just wasn't good and i failed it the first time around i was like dang dude what am i gonna do you know now i'm really stressing because now i'm like damn gonna go to the regular navy and i was really really scared of the regular i was like i don't want to get stuck on a ship and so they're like um my rdc really really liked me you know i was her yeoman so i had i had a lot of freedom you know the yeoman cat like takes all the paperwork so you have actually a lot of freedom in boot camp to walk around because i would deliver all all the stuff where'd you go to boot camp great lakes yeah so she was like hey i'll let you try out one more time i was like oh no so i go and by the way everyone and their mother's trying out there's like 50 people in the pool so i'm swimming and i'm listening to the times and i'm like oh my god i'm not gonna make it again so i just stood up at one point i was like i'm done and they're like okay get out and get ready for push-ups and pull-ups i was like oh [ __ ] that worked so i got out so you just cut a lap off your time like two or two i'm going to say it was like at least two i was nowhere near finishing and but there's so many kids in the pool did you do any work did you like uh had you worked out at all go so i was very athletic yeah growing up but you didn't play sports so i played sports in high school oh okay yeah we didn't cover that oh yeah oh yeah we're coaching high school so i played you know at pe i would play football basketball anything and i would catch on to it very quickly like coaches were always hitting my mom up did you play any sports before the school no i wasn't allowed to so it was just pe yeah and that's why the coaches because the coaches are usually the pe teachers so they call my mom and they're like hey like your son really needs to play football i really need to do that because i was really athletic i was fast and i was functionally strong because i did so many chores that i was i was a very pretty strong kid you know for my age so so i was athletic i could do push-ups all day pull-ups all day you know i could run i just couldn't swim so when i got out you know i crushed the pull-ups and push-ups and everything else and so i'm going through the process and then um the dive motivators like hey just so you know corman are not it's not a seal rating it was the only year that they did it where for whatever reason they were like if you want to be a corpsman with the teams you got to go to the marines first so i was like i don't want to do that so i went to the office and i changed my rating to like a boatsman's mate damn and then i go back and i'm like hey you know i'm a seal rating now he's like cool now we can get you in and then as he's doing my paperwork he's like you're not a citizen you can't go i'm like dang it so i go back i change it back to a corpsman because i know what a boatswain's mate is so i go back i change it back to a corpsman and you know they're like hey sorry man we really liked you but you got to get your citizenship first so from there i went to core school and then from core school where would you end up with the marines right yeah yeah so about the majority of the corpsmen especially if you're male you're going to go to the marines so they sent me to school called fmss where they basically teach you how to be a marine you know they teach you like marine corps uh like ranks etiquette whatever and then at one point they they ask you if you want to go marine corps regs which is basically you got to cut your hair like them and if you do you get like to wear their their green uniform i forget what they're called and they're and like everybody was like super moto and they're like yeah i want to be marine corps regs and then they're like what about you mendes do you want to be marine corps regs and i was like no and like but you get a uniform you get to wear the marine corps uniform i'm like i got enough uniforms because before you had to always carry them around in your sea bag and you had inspections all the time i'm like i don't want another uniform and it was right around that time where i met the recon corpsman that was there um i mean you just looked at him he just looked like a stud so i immediately gravitated towards him and and then he's like hey just so you know we're going to have tryouts if you want to be a recon corpsman at the time they were like 40 man they're like we're really hurting we could really use people so i go and i try out and i feel the swim again but you know he's like hey man get out do the rest of it and and that screener was actually legit like it was tough like it was a ruck run it was like pull-ups push-ups it was like the marine corps pft and then it was like all these different calisthenics with with no number you just did it for time and they had a number that they wouldn't tell you so like hey you got to do this amount of mountain climbers and they wouldn't tell you what it is it was like a day-long screener and i passed everything else like i crushed everything else and he was like hey i'll tell you what he's like you have until the end of fmss to pass a swim he's like you're obviously you know athletic you have the physical abilities to do just can't swim so i'm like okay perfect and at one point i remember going in his office and and doing like the dive physical and getting my chest extra and whatnot somehow through conversation i was like yeah i want to go to buds he's like you want to do what he's like i was like i want to go i want to go to buds eventually like i'm just kind of doing this you know my time with the marines and until i could get the buds and he grabs my paperwork he like crumbles it up he's like you will never be a recon corpsman and he chucked my stuff in the garbage bro he's like yeah i'm office that was it and i was like oh snap yeah so then i got orders to uh 2-4 which is a grunt grunt battalion there in camp pendleton and as soon as i get there i'm like really regretting it i'm like dang what did i do you know maybe i should have just kept my mouth shut and just gone with it and as soon as i get there that's usually good advice yeah yeah yeah right and so as soon as i get to 2-4 they're already like hey we're getting ready to deploy so i basically i didn't do a work-up or anything i basically just i think i was home from maybe a month and then we deployed to japan my first deployment and what are you doing what'd you do on deployment would you exercises and stuff um so i was like the the coverage corpsman and you know my chief knew that i wanted to go to bud so he he would attach me to like the amphibious assault platoon or whatever like where they did all the boat stuff and otb stuff so i did that uh it was like they're corman basically if anybody got hurt i was the corpsman coverage for that but during that deployment that's where i like got really serious about learning how to swim and i was in the pool every chance i could get like if if i had the time i would go in the mornings i would go to lunch and that's why oh because there was a guy that i met that dropped out of buds and i told him i was like do you know how to do the combat side stroke and he's like yeah i was like teach me [Music] so he taught me and and that's where i i got proficient at swimming was during that deployment this is still pre-911 so it's just all kind of training yeah just going on training missions and big exercises and so that's a normal six-month deployment you go on with the marines yeah pretty uneventful get done with that and what happens you come home from that so i come home and then uh we get a new chief and we start talking and then he's like hey have you ever thought about going recon i was like uh i was like yeah i've thought about it you know but i want to go to buds or whatever he's like hey won't you have the conversation with this this recon chief and so the the recon chief and i start talking and then he's like um he's like hey we have a guy here who's not really working out and we we want to see if you want to come over here and i told him i'm like hey i want to be honest with you like my goal is to go to buds he's like hey listen no problem he's like why don't you come over here see if you like it if you like it stay if not i'll send you to buds and i was like okay and then he's like um he's like if you come over here i'll give you b.a.h which has an e bam what's the ph basic allowance for housing but it's legit legit money no it could be like 1200 bucks a month yeah and when you're what were you for yo you're an e4 you're sort of like maybe almost doubling your paycheck not quite maybe like 50 of your pay you're gonna you're gonna make extra it's a big deal getting that bah that's why dudes get married by the way dudes that's why you see 18 year old marines are like yup get married why are you getting married oh you met the woman your dreams no but i'm going to get b8 bh son they want that yeah bah it's a big deal especially in the marines because in the marines the the barracks had to be like 95 man and you had to be like an e5 or above and so i'm an e4 and he's like bh and some magic words i'm like let's do it so i headed over there and uh and i see the guy that i'm supposed to replace and the guy looks like superman i mean he's super tall just jacked and i'm like i'm replacing this guy and then you know i kind of like i could tell that the lpo there kind of saw i was like oh dang you know i see this guy and he's like his yeah he looks like superman right and i was like yeah he does he's like you know what's his kryptonite water oh i mean i guess he he would freak out during the water evolution because they had him like tread water with like they'd do a lot of stuff over there with water and i guess he would just like freak out so i'm like okay cool so that's how i ended up there um they put me right into my first introduction to them what was it was an sr so they were like hey you're going to do an otbsr yeah pendleton sure i had just been there i had just gotten there and there was a corman there who had at the recombination who had orders to go to buds so they're they're like hey can you take you know carlos under your wing kind of show them how to pack out for an otb sr and by the way i've never swam in the ocean before so now i'm about to you know at night get dropped off swim through the surf zone yeah with uh with a round loadout oh yeah which is no enormous so he's like teaching me how to like load my stuff out and then i'm like hey what about like warm weather stuff he's like this is recon bro and then by the way this is winter time and and then um he's like this is recon bro like we don't take that stuff and i'm like okay you know it's like check he's like we take batteries and this and then he's like i'm like okay got it and then i'm like hey question how am i getting this brook through the surf because it's heavy he's like oh you can put floatation on it i put a ton of floatation on my because i'm like i'm gonna drown so we go and we do the sr i make it through the surf zone just cheer will but i mean i must have swallowed like a gallon of water going through the service that was my first time ever but you know i'm trying not to be the weak link i'm trying not to be a fifina so we make it through and you know we change out and we start uh patrolling and then we get to to the to the place where we're gonna set up camp and then everybody starts busting out their warming oh yeah they were and i look around i'm like damn it and they're like hey what's up doc like where's your stuff i'm like where are we going i was like i thought that we didn't bring warmies out and they're like no way bro like we bring a ton of warmies out and i'm just like oh yeah i'm just and and i'm freezing cold because it's winter time out in camp pendleton we just went through the surf so i'm so wet and finally i'm just like you know what i i'm gonna volunteer to just watch the radio all night i was like there's no way i'm sleeping tonight and so i did i just jack jackhammered all night long watch the radio and would get up and walk around just try to keep myself warm and the marines loved it you know because i volunteered to do watch all night long for for the rest of this are but that was my introduction i was i when i got to the teams i was a new guy didn't have my bird yet and i got sent to a comm school out on the east coast that was run by uh by the teams and i was a new guy and my but my swim buddy was a new guy two of us and we there was a like a six day five or six day ftx that you went on at the end of this consequence a two-month com school was freaking legit it was a great course and the chief that was running it you know i was like asking him questions because i was wanting to know you know what would be a good thing to bring when we're in the field and i said hey you know a guy you know should i bring like a sleeping bag should i and he goes if you're hardcore willing because you know i was always trying to be hardcore he's like if you're hardcore willing he was bringing a poncho on a poncho liner and i was like well check i am [ __ ] hardcore yeah and i'm just bringing i'm punching a poncho liner and i did and that's what i went out in the field with and as we inserted the first night it was raining as we inserted it turned to sleet like as the vehicles pulled up to drop us off and then it turned into snow it was balls balls cold and on this course you had like a comms window every every two to four hours you'd have to make calms to some different part of the country and most guys would like miss calm windows and that would be you're getting graded the whole time and if you had the best grade at the end then you get extracted early and so we me my swim buddy same thing like we were we were trying to be hardcore so we didn't have warmies for [ __ ] we're freezing and we never missed a calm window and the reason we never missed a calm window was because we couldn't sleep we're just just like freezing but yeah that's um always bring a ground pad and always bring a bivy sack because that's what i learned eventually the bivvy sack is the deal if you've got a bivy sack you can climb in there and you can pretty much just gut through some serious [ __ ] yeah yeah but um yeah that's good that's the way that's what that's what happens to the new guys yeah don't believe when your chief says we don't bring warmies he's full of [ __ ] yeah well actually the the recon corpsmen that were there they were cool about it because they were like hey we heard what happened like dude i'm not gonna say the guy's name he's like he totally hooked you up i'm like yeah he did so at that point they put me into rip which is the recon doctrination platoon so basically it's you competing for a slot at their at brc which is like their selection process and that's a little bonus is it still in coronado it's in camp pendleton okay so rip is in camp pendleton what's the one that used there used to be something corny that's brc so in rip they put everybody in there who just showed up to the talent and you're because there's only 30 slots so you're competing so the top 30 guys go to brc if you didn't make that cut you go through rip again and hopefully you make it through the you know you're in the top 30 how long is rip um so there's no like real timeline to it i think it was just like hey you're just doing it until the next class of brc shows up and then they start ranking you and then you get your your slot and so you know the corman were like hey just so you know like you know marines are always harder on the corpsmen don't let us down and so i i go to rip and i'm doing well on everything except for land nav i can't freaking land nap to save my life dude i was just getting lost and i was really getting down on myself and and then one day it just clicked like i looked at the map and i'm just like it came to life i get it yeah i don't know it was just like this moment like a light bulb moment and from that point on like i was like land i've got it so i was able to secure a spot to brc so i go to brc which is in coronado and that's where i start seeing like the buds guys and i'm like dang you know i wish i was here but i'm here now and um you know i did pretty well in brc there was a guy there named mendoza and he was not good at all and the instructors would get us confused and so i would be running by and like hey you drop and i was like okay and like where's you i heard you lost your map and this and that i was like that wasn't me that was mendoza and they're like oh like we'll push them out anyways you know and then finally this guy i i don't remember if he quit or if he got dropped but thank goodness because then once he got dropped i'm just like cool because he was just messing up left and right they would get us confused mendes and mendoza so i i had to pay the man a few times for his yeah and then sometimes we're like you know what both of you just paid the man how long is brc if i remember correctly back then i think it was like two months long and so you obviously you finished it i did not i actually got a stress fracture about two weeks from graduating and um you know they they sent me back to the to the bas with the corpsman i got x-ray and everything like yeah and at the time you know they were like hey how is he doing and like actually he's ranked number one in the class before he got dropped so he's like he's welcome to come back um and then at that point they're like hey do you want to go back and i said no i was like i want to go to buds i made my decision that i was like hey i want to do this like because here's the thing like if you finish um now you owe them time because after that they sent you a receipt yeah if you finish then you send you to jump school dive school and now you belong to them because they've invested money into you um it was kind of funny too because when i went they were like somehow it came up that i wasn't a citizen and they were like oh [ __ ] you're not a citizen like you actually weren't supposed to go to brc if you weren't so they were like let's get you some citizenship so they they kind of fast-tracked me and i was able to get my citizenship and so they're like hey for the rest of the time here you know we're just going to attach you to a platoon uh and so they approved you going to buds they were like all right that's what you want to do yeah they were really yeah they were awesome about it they i had great leadership there they were great great like super professional guys um i still keep in touch with some of them so hey i'll tell you what we're going to do till you get orders and you go we're just going to put you in a platoon and you're gonna do a work-up deployment and you just be the corpsman and then when you get your orders to go to buds you go so that's what i did so i got orders to go to bonds were you worried about this stress fracture scenario because like that's all kinds of people get stressed fractures and buds um i wasn't because i i i never you know i was like oh i'll heal up i'm young no factor yeah so i got orders to go to buds in november of 2003 right or 2002 sorry 2002 november of 2002. so where were you when uh 911 happened i was at the recon battalion but they were like hey i i don't think we got deployed or anybody from that battalion got deployed um to to afghanistan at that time but that was still there but you know at that time i already had my path so they were like hey even if you go there you're not gonna go with the platoon so then would you when did you get the buds finally november of 2002. what you expected i mean you must have been pretty freaking kind of ready for it at this point oh yeah i had i had run with a rook i had done otbs countless otbs i was really good at land nav i mean like i got attached to platoon to work up deployment with them so i was i was ready um and so when i showed like oh here's the thing too they they sent me to like a a like a combat engineer battalion they're like hey we're going to send you like you can't be in the platoon anymore because they're about to deploy and you know obviously it's going to overlap you're going to start buds before we're not going to bring you home halfway through deployment so they're like go to this combat engineer in battalion and you can work out all day and that's where i met this guy named captain gwyn who had like a master's degree in kinesiology and was all about in the fitness and when he learned that i was going to buds he's like let me train you i was like are you serious he's like yeah so he got me even more prepared like we worked out three times a day in the morning at lunch and afterwards and then he started teaching me how to eat properly so when i got to buds i was i was ready like i could do 30 or more pull-ups 120 push-ups 120 like i was i was a machine when i got there um and your water had obviously improved oh yeah yeah at that point i've done countless otbs and yeah it was good to go and then did you get what you expected there in buzz any any issues or anything so when i got there i'm like you know everybody tells you oh you got to be the gray man so i'm like okay cool i'm going to be the gray man but by gray man people that don't know this is just a term to to explain if you can go to buds and you can kind of not stand out that's a good thing because there's very few people that stand there's only might be one or two maybe three people in the class that stand out because they're good but the people that stand out because they're bad and then once you've got someone watching you oh yeah then everything you're they're gonna start seeing all kinds of things that you're doing that are jacked up so one of the strategies of going to buds is to try to be the quote gray man meaning just be in the middle finish the stuff don't stand out don't draw any attention to yourself and that's a good strategy for getting through and you would heard i don't think we had that i don't think that was a term when i went through uh but i kind of instinctively well everyone instinctively knew you didn't want the freaking instructors to know your name or your face or you just wanted them to ignore you as much as possible so you know you're just trying to do what you're told and try and you know yeah try not to stand out and that was the plan i'm like all right i'm not gonna shine you know i'm just gonna stay in like the top 25 percent but that was not possible because when i first got to buds you know you're standing watch when you're waiting to class up and um you know a buddy of mine there and buzz is like hey let's go out one night you know let's before we go out so we go out we party and how old are you i'm okay yeah 2002 i'm 22. yeah i was like i was young so i couldn't it was going out wasn't a thing i could go with the the bar the the e-club on base you could drink when you're 18. but i wouldn't even want to do that i just want to make it through bud so it's weird to me it would have been it's weird to me like having a guy like hey let's go out to a bar cause i can't fathom what it would be like to go to a bar when i was in buds yeah so we go out and he starts talking to this girl and then he's like hey bro like i need you to you know her friend really likes you like i need i need you to to entertain her while i'm with this girl and blah blah and i'm like dude i got a girlfriend he's like come on man we're going to be in the teams like you're supposed to have my back you don't want to be known as that guy and i'm like really like you're going to play that card with me so i'm like dude i'm not digging you know i'll talk to her i'll keep her busy for you but i could tell she she's into me like she wants she she wants more and he's like dude we're going to go back to their place and i'm like dude i really don't want to he's like bro come on you got to do this for me i'm like listen i think she wants more than what i'm willing to give because one i wasn't attracted or two you know i had a girlfriend at the time and then um so i'm like all right dude like i'll go i'll go back to their house with you and when we get there i i see her car and it has a first recon battalion sticker on it and i recognize that sticker because it's a sticker for different parking lots you had different stickers and that was like an operator sticker like if you got to park in the operator parking lot and so i was like hey where'd you get that sticker from she's like oh i could tell she's getting flustered she's like my my husband and in my head this is my out and i'm like bro we cannot do this we gotta go i was like i am not doing it now i have a legit reason to not go through with this so we take off we go back to buds and uh now i'm standing watch on on monday morning and i get a phone call i'm i'm standing watch at the quarter deck with another guy and i get a phone call from the 618 quarter deck so 618 is where the barracks are at so you have the buds quarter deck and you have the barracks quarter deck and it's it's one of the guys in my class and he's like hey lois there's there's some marine here to see you and it didn't even cross honestly dude it didn't even cross my mind because you were in the one marines my buddies is coming here to visit me i was like that's awesome i was like cool man what's his name and he's like hey bro what's your name he's like he doesn't need to know my name he slept with my wife and i was like what i was like i didn't sleep with his wife and i'm like bro tell him i could i could explain like nothing happened like i didn't know she was married blah blah so i'm trying to explain and all i hear is this guy in the background saying like i'm gonna i'm gonna kill this guy like i want to talk to him right now and i'm like dude i'm on watch tell him i'm on watch and when i get off at noon i can talk to him he's like no i want to talk to him right now and then i'm like fine tell him to come up to the to the buds quarter deck and i can talk to him here and i guess tell them nothing happened like dude i don't know what's going on in your marriage but nothing happened so then my buddy's like dude he's headed over there and he's he's big he's a huge dude i'm like oh my god so i'm sitting there and then the other guy that i'm with he's like bro you have to tell the instructor you have to tell the od he's like there's no way you get in a fight here on the quarter you're done and the od happens to be a first phase instructor that day so i'm just like oh my goodness so i'm like all right all right so i go to the first phase office you know i ring the bell i'm like you know hm3 mendes here to see him structure so-and-so and the whole first face staff is in there because this is in the daytime yeah it's in the daytime yeah this is morning so i go in there and at that time all the instructors at buds were like enormous they're all like six two and up just jacked out of their minds like i i swear they do it on purpose for intimidation factor but at the time they were all enormous so i go in there and they're like drop turd so i'm in the push-up position and my dress blues you know and they're like what do you want i'm just like submarines coming over to kick my ass [Music] and they're like would you screw his old lady or something i was like no but he thinks i did and they're like like who's this marine coming over here to start some [ __ ] like let's go over there and beat his ass so the entire first face staff's like yeah let's go over there so they all head over there to the quarter deck and at the time there's like some guys from like team five that were waiting there to to screen for another team and some of them knew each other so like hey you know what's up what's up like oh you know some brain coming over here start some [ __ ] like hell yeah beat his ass so now i'm like yeah come on over here you know and uh and so we're waiting and nothing happens and i'm like dude where is this guy and then the phone rings and it's my buddy from 618 he's like hey bro i heard what happened i was totally messing with you and i could literally oh my god the blood just like drained from my face and then the instructor's like is it him and i was just like i just i i didn't even i couldn't speak so i just handed him the phone and then he's like this instructor so and so who is this he's like oh this is airman so-and-so like where's the marine he's like it was a joke he's like oh you got jokes i got jokes too he's like you and mendez in your wetsuits two canteens on the grinder get some oh yeah we got beat he ended up quitting shortly thereafter um but there was no being the gray man they all knew my name you were the man oh yeah and it was just like from that point on i'd be like where's mendez it doesn't matter it's a server oh you passed your uniform detection that's great hit surf so yeah so i was like all right well if i'm not gonna be the great manager to go balls out i guess might as well freaking legit so you're not the gray man anymore and you're going just going hard is there was there any did you have any issues in buds yeah i did um no no buzz yeah you know during one of the surf passage um evolutions i had one of the paddles come across and like break across my shin so i had this huge bruise on my shin for a while and i was like you know whatever and i just kept going through training and at one point i realized that when i would press down on my muscle it would just stay and my knee got really swollen i could barely move it and i'm a corpsman so i know i'm like dude these are like um symptoms of compartment syndrome but i didn't want to say anything so i made it to the weekend and i went back up to the recon battalion and i'm like hey guys like is this what i think it is and like i think it is like do you need to go to the hospital so i was like well i don't want to go to buds because i don't want to get dropped or rolled or whatever so i check myself into camp pendleton hospital and then they're like dude you got to get this drain do you either have to have surgery you have to get this drained and i was like well can we try draining it first and then like yeah sure so they got this enormous needle i mean it was thick too and they just started like draining the blood from there and they're like dude you're not gonna be able to to finish buds and whatever i was like no i'll be fine i go back to buds and then the the instructors got word that i had checked into to medical up there and they're like dude we have a medical here they were cool about it like i thought they were gonna be pissed but they were like hey you know um they they liked me at that point uh what phase was that first phase this was before hell week damn yeah before hell so it was like the week before hell week and then they were like hey no big deal we'll just roll you to the next class and i was like you know it was extremely disappointing um so i got rolled and then i got rolled into 245 and then the run before like the the last day before we started hell week on a run i stepped in a pothole or i stepped in like a you know hole in the sand and i twisted my ankle really bad like that thing was enormously swollen and then uh i was like no it's fine like i'll go through hell week and you know i'll be fine and they're like dude you're not gonna be able to go through that and in my head i'm like this is twice now there's no way they're keeping me and um the the proctor at the time he you know he's looking through my record he's like dude you haven't failed a single evolution here like not a uniform inspection not a room inspection and you know how they are over there he's like not one i was like no so you know i had attention detail from a my childhood and b you know my time with the marines like i had attention to detail and i could follow directions i was like that was the one thing i could really do so they were like you know you haven't failed anything at all they're like you know what we're gonna roll you one last time and then you know last time i made it all the way through no issues and then where'd you end up going from there uh so you know you got uh jump school sqt uh alaska and then i was a corpsman so they sent me to uh 18 delta to to go through the special operations medic course which is freaking long too yeah it's a little over six months if you go through the full course it's like a year long did you go through the short course or the long course yeah so i went through the short course they asked me if i want to do the long course and i said no i didn't want to do that um but before i headed out there uh you know i'd been dating the girl i was telling about buds and we actually ended up getting married before i went out there and i did it because when i was going so i had just bought a house too so i bought a house around that time in san diego or not in san diego i was in temecula because i'm an idiot you know and i was like oh look at this big ass house i could buy out here for cheap you know back then it was really cheap out there and i didn't realize like how long that drive was so um so i i got married because i'm like hey i really need the san diego bh because i spoke to the admin lady at buds and she's like yeah if you have a house and you're married and you have you're here you're gonna get san diego bah and not north carolina bh which is like it's pennies yeah compared to san diego so once again why'd you get married want that bah uh but yeah so the reason i bring that up is because that was actually a sticking point when i when i was there it was an issue because as i was going through the training i wasn't getting paid at all i was getting zero like no money no no b.a nobody okay which is a big deal because now i got a mortgage and so i'm digging into my savings and i had been going you know you know to the um to the cadre that were there they have some seal cadre there as well it's not like all army guys obviously they have the liaisons for for nsw and um you know i kept going up to them telling like hey i still haven't gotten paid still haven't gotten paid and they're just like oh don't worry about it like it'll happen like they i just felt like they weren't concerned about it at all um and for being honest i wasn't a fan of theirs like i just i just didn't get a good feeling from them and i'm really digging into my savings and now i'm running out of money and i don't know if you know captain smithers is so he was the ceo at buds when we were there and obviously like they knew who i was because of what happened so you know him and i had chatted every now and then and he actually came out and did some jumps with us and at one point during one of the jumps like he was sitting next to me and he was like hey you know just so you know if you ever need anything reach out you see where this is going so i call bud's quarter deck and i'm like like you know bud's quarter deck and i'm like yeah can you please transfer me to captain smithers office [Laughter] so i told him the story i'm like hey i haven't gotten paid like these guys have totally blown me off they haven't been helpful at all blah blah and he's pissed he's like check so he has commander zinke call me and commander zinke calls me and he's like that's that's unsat that you've gone that long without getting paid so he calls over to the school i get paid like two weeks later but i get brought in and just chewed out by this senior chief and chief that are over there and they're like you know do you not understand how the chain of command works and blah blah i mean they were furious and they're like you know we're gonna take you to a trident review board we're gonna drive you down to virginia beach uh and and have a trident review board and i'm like dude are these guys serious so i go back home and i start calling like my recon buddies i'm like hey is it cool if i come back like i think they're gonna pull my trident and then they're like dude heck yeah if you if you get dropped come on back so you know i go in there and then during one of the the the ash chewings that i'm getting i'm like you know what i'm like if you guys really take me to a trying review board this is like what what you know what consumed you called cam smithers i was like we're friends and i was like if you take me this giant review board i'll call them again and they were like now they like lost their minds and then they're like you'll be hearing from us when it's time for your trident review board and i just never heard from them they left it alone and i got paid like two weeks later check uh anything else from 18 delta well that's where i met neil i met johnny kim right on that little genius uh yeah so he was in the class behind me i met johnny kim i was also uh roommates with uh with the dauber oh right on he was my roommate at 18 delta so it's pretty cool going through with him um yeah and then you those guys ended up coming to team three and you ended up coming to go into team one yeah so i actually was initially supposed to go to team three and then the corpsman that went to team one for for whatever reason he couldn't get a security clearance so they're like hey you're gonna go to team one now who's already started their work up and then you know dauber was the first one to get orders to team three um so yeah that's how i showed up team one i think 2005. are you just fully amped to be uh just like beyond and the war is going on these guys are going on deployment yeah you get thrown right into a platoon yeah so i get thrown into the platoon we start uh they're they've they've already started their work up um and it was everything that i thought it was gonna be it was awesome the best best job ever i mean it really was i mean we would go to you know mississippi for training and do cqc and then we would go to kentucky for sock and then we you know around that time the psd mission was going on so hey we gotta go to driving schools so we would go to driving schools and it was just awesome like i loved being around the guys like it was it was everything i thought it would be it was it was pretty cool um we had some we had some issues in the platoon though um we went through three different chiefs dang yeah so the leadership was a little bit of a dang of a problem and then i think the last chief that they brought in there like i don't think he was really into it he was just like yeah i'll do it you know the crazy thing one of the crazy things i learned to trade at when i was working at tradet was look you're gonna you're gonna have some weak chiefs you're gonna have some weak officers but if you have some good dudes in there yeah you'll just overcome all that you just overcome all of it and you'll fee you guys are the guys are going to figure out oftentimes the seal team succeeds because of the lower because because the leadership from somewhere in the platoon doesn't have to come from the oic it doesn't have to come from the chief now those guys can be bad enough that they actually squash the junior leadership and that's when you have a platoon that just falls apart completely but if the you know i've seen oics that were just completely getting carried by some two e5s in the platoon the oic and the chief getting carried by two or three good e5's i've seen that all day long i'm sure you did too yeah um but occasionally you'll get a chief or a oic that look when they're great that's great we're all good but occasionally they'll squash the junior leadership because their ego gets involved and they don't want the you know someone else making calls and it just turns into a total disaster um the oic wasn't very well liked either um yeah so you guys are getting do you guys know where you're going on deployment no because we're competing for where we're going at the time um and you know like i said unfortunately the leadership didn't build good relationships up the chain of command so even though the platoon was awesome like we had some really talented people in that platoon really really talented people in that platoon and um you know it is what it is this bill really we were not the favorite platoon and it was around that time when their you know the lpos came up to me it's like hey you know we're short snipers do you i know you were a marine you're good at land now blah blah do you want to go do you want to go to sniper school and i said uh yeah um he's like two caveats he's like one it's army sniper school and two you gotta go to uav school afterwards and i'm like yeah fine whatever just send me yeah it's so it's so weird how your mentality can be so unaligned with other people and they're giving you these quote caveats yeah bro when when we ended up going to ramadi we were supposed to go to baghdad and task in a bruiser and my uh commanding officer calls me in and he's like he's presenting this thing to me like it's the worst deal ever and i'm like so happy and i'm trying i'm just poker face you know like hey roger that storm should we can make some adjustments and then i was like oh i can negotiate and i said well we're gonna need this i'm gonna need some more people and some more like support and he was like yeah we can take care of that totally hooked me up bro but yeah i was like oh are you serious you're gonna send us to ramadi instead let's do this yeah he was throwing caveats at me i'm like no problems in school you know we're gonna send you basically i'm like okay you know i'm trying to hold my excitement yeah let's do it so yeah so i ended up going to army sniper school and that was uh that was cool going to army school and you know it's pretty funny dealing with the army guys so at one point so they sent another guy with me so they sent two of us to sniper school we go out to a bar one night and we see some of the guys from our class and that you know at that point they were kind of standoffish because we were being quiet too you know we ain't really talking to people they see us at the bar and they're like hey you guys are you guys are the seals in our class right and we're like yeah like you guys is my if we buy you a shot i was like yeah let's do it so i'm like cool so they buy us a shot and um i take this shot and it's the most disgusting thing i've ever tasted in my life like i want to throw up and it's it's funny because i so i take the shot and they're like looking at us and i'm like thanks guys even though inside i'm like what the hell was this so i set it down i'm like thanks fellas and they're like looking like dang that's why they're navy seals so i guess they gave us like some gag shot that's supposed to like make you throw up yeah you just both and both of us were just like normal face all day yeah no expression like thanks fellas but inside i'm like what the [ __ ] was that um it was disgusting and then they're just like dang that's why they're navy did you see that they didn't even flinch they didn't even flinch and then um yeah and then we had another you know we were back in back in training and they were like oh you guys didn't load up in the truck fast enough or something like that and they're like oh this one guy was like freaking out like guys if we don't do this fast enough we're gonna get beat i'm like so what if we get beat like okay and one of the instructors heard me but he didn't know who i was so he was just like oh we got we got a tough guy in the group he's like all right he's like come on out so he's like push-ups you know i'm doing push-ups i do push-ups and he's like okay flutter kicks and by the way like i used to do so many flutter kicks that i got tired of counting and i would literally set my timer for 10 minutes straight and would just do flutter kicks for 10 minutes straight because i didn't want to count anymore so he's having me do these flutter kicks and i can tell one of the other instructors like giggling behind him because the guy doesn't know who i am he's like oh you're kind of good at these and then the instructor's like bro you know he's a seal right he's like dude why didn't you tell me i'm over here like an idiot trying to break this guy he's not gonna break and then afterwards like he's like you won't you want to dip i'm just like no i don't do it but thank you yeah yeah um so you you end up going on deployment you go to you go to a pacif yeah paycom deployment that's where you guys went right yeah so uh the majority of the platoon got sent to guam and then they were like hey if you're a uav pilot a sniper or a corpsman you're gonna go to the pi and that was all three three for three three for three so that deployment was kind of weird for me because i wasn't with my platoon for the majority of time like i was literally getting farmed out to whoever needed me so i went to tow italia holo zamboanga there was times where i got attached to like an oda unit because they didn't have their 18 delta with them and um you know i got attached to them and there was a point there on the deployment where i got uh i got sent on a ship you know because that's how the i was getting transported from one place to another and at the time i had another oi the way you said that you're like i got sent on a ship yeah well that was like the one thing that i dreaded yeah you know i was going on a ship so this was like my first ship experience and i'm there with my my j.o who is a prior force recon gunny dad you probably know who he is very tall dude he looks mean just tatted up yeah and so we're on this ship together and we we go to chow and he i was like hey sir you know this is where you and i part ways i got to go eat with the enlisted you got to go to officers he's like i'm not eating by myself he's like you're coming with me and we're wearing sterile camis so no name tapes no rank nothing so we go into the chow hall with the officers and i'm just like oh no so i'm sitting there and you can tell like there's this this surface warfare officer he's looking at us because he sees he sees my j.o i mean he's tatted up yeah we both don't look like officers so he he's he's looking at us and finally he gets he gets the courage to come and sit next to he's like so uh who are you guys and then he's like oh i'm lieutenant so-and-so and this is lieutenant mendes i was like oh dang i just got promoted from e5 to lieutenant so for like the rest of the deployment or sorry the the rest of the time on the ship he's like calling me sir and whatnot and at one point you know i'm getting off the helo with my with my sniper rifle because we were doing like some sniper stuff i'm getting off the helo with my sniper rifle and the ceo knows who we are we're on his ship and he was standing next to ceo and the ceo was like hey hm to do you might have done can you mind if i check out your your sniper rifle and you just see this guy's look he's just you see he's steaming inside that he had been calling me sir for like two weeks and he's like turns out i'm an hm2 hm2 man spot promoted that's like andy stumpf spot promotes himself to whatever rank is required uh and then come back from that just roll into another platoon yeah and how's that one go uh it was awesome um i had a new oic new chief new lpo um and the this oic was was pretty awesome he i remember when he first got there he set a meeting with me and i'm thinking oh man i'm in trouble like what's you know cause up to that point i had very little interaction with my my oic like very minimal and i'm thinking dude i'm in trouble so i go in there and it kind of shocked me like he asked me like hey so what you know what's your family situation like like how are you doing is there anything you need where do you want to go with your career it was like the first time anybody had really asked me i was like i don't know i was just having a great time being in a platoon you know and he's like you know i noticed you don't have a college degree there's this program you know where you can get commission we send you away to school for three years you come back as an officer is that something you'd be interested in i was like oh actually you know i actually had never heard of that but yeah it's interesting i'll keep it in mind and you know i always say that this guy built a better relationship in the first two weeks with us than the prior oic had built like in two years um so it's pretty cool he we tactically speaking he probably wasn't the best um but strategically he was he was great because he knew who his subject matter experts were he's a very humble guy leaned on them a lot and you know the same group was was together again and it was an awesome awesome workup for me like i had an even better time in the first time because i'll be honest like i was i was disappointed the first time around with leadership because i had been exposed to really good leadership with the marines right i mean they were like just absolute professionals and then when i got to that first platoon i was a little disappointed so i'm like okay cool so i that's when i started realizing like okay leadership is you know ebbs and flows sometimes you get a good one sometimes you get bad ones and anything in between it's a bell curve just like anything else when you go was that when i was running trade it when you're going through that workup i don't i don't think you were there yet yeah i don't think you were there yet yeah um yeah you know one thing i've always said is the the marines have like a tighter shock group or like a tighter standard so like if you have like the best you know the best seal platoon they're gonna be freaking off the charts awesome yeah and but the worst seal platoon is going to be off the charts shitty and the marine corps has like a tighter more standardized group of like hey this is what this is where they're going to be they're going to fit in there better which is nice because you don't end up with those low points of leadership um and then where'd you end up going on on deployment so um so before deployment actually they sent me to to central america for a while because they had they had us you know a mission going on down there jset type mission they're like hey does anybody speak fluent spanish i was like i speak fluent spanish so they sent me down there so i was there for for a while let's say it was long because they switched other people out like so they were there's like other guys would go there for two weeks or so but i was there the entire time just because i was teaching all the classes and going out with them and stuff so i did that first and then um we ended up getting uh ramadi mm-hmm so we're like okay cool we're going back to we're going to ramadi for friday and so far i'm like finally this is it and when did you show up there october let's see my son was born in july so yeah september october time frame okay so i was home for like a couple months after my son was born but it had mellowed out a lot by that time oh yeah a lot a lot yeah yeah yeah so what was the deployment like so it started off fantastic uh like when we got there um we hadn't been in country that long and i remember we got our first mission and uh it was pretty cool because they're like hey it's it's a little bit outside of ramadi so where you guys are gonna take hilos there so i'm the point man you know i'm planning out the routes and stuff and i remember getting in the helo and and looking around being like whoa this is legit like this is finally here like i've got my you know i look around everybody's got their their nods on everybody's got their weapons we're in the helo and you know it was a da mission like it's basically everything that you want to do and so you know we get dropped off a few clicks away patrolling to the target and um i see some guards out there with with aks and and it's the first time like like literally first mission and i get to shoot someone right off the bat and i'm like this is awesome um so i'm thinking that's the way things are you know because i go back to the base and i'm like i gotta you know i gotta reload my mags so i'm thinking this is gonna be like a normal thing i better go get some more ammo because you know if it's gonna be like this all deployment and then we actually don't do anything for like a month and i'm just like uh we suck again um but then they're like hey listen there's work to be done but if you want to do it you got to go to the outskirts so we actually ended up packing all our humvees and going out to tharthar and then from from there we were at some small base and we're like living out of our humvees but but we were working which is what team guys want to do so for sure i thought it was a great deployment you know when i hear you talk about your first one that's kind of how i see this one you're doing da's all the time you know no one really got hurt it you know it was great so and you get some good experience good to do those reps man oh yeah like you just the whole cycle from the planning to the to the transit to the execution and things aren't going quite right but you get them sorted out like you just get good reps man yeah yeah yep and and as a point man like it was it was a really good experience for me and it's funny because like around that time you know my my oic at one point we something changed in the plan and then he's like hey uh he's like hey we need we switched course or whatever i'm like checks i was like let me let me get into my poncho my red red lens he's like what are you doing i was like i need to look at my map he's like how have you been navigating this whole time i was like mapping compass because in the marines that's how we did it he's like you don't have a gps and i'm like no he's like if you're gonna be my appointment you need to know how to use a gps because i'm like you know under with my poncho my redlands like looking at my map and trying to figure it all out and then and so i go back to camp and i'm i bust out my gps it's still in the wrapper it's still in the wrapper so i'm reading the directions and when i i'm reading the directions to this thing and uh then i'm like where's this thing been my whole life yeah this is awesome damn that's crazy that was in 2007 yeah yeah yeah because that's the way i had always done it in the marines we did a ton of land nav and that's actually how i became the point man because one of the more experienced guys was like hey bro i don't know how to land nav he's like you know atlanta and this was like my first first uh uh platoon so he's like hey you're really good at landing right you're with the marines i'm like yeah i'm pretty good at it he's like you wanna be a point man i was like heck yeah so that's how i became appointment but no one knew that i was just going off my campus my compass in mountain until then and then when i discovered that gps man it was a game changer yeah especially by that time because by that time in 2007 it was dude like one of the you had them on your wrist yeah put them on your wrist so that's what i had i had the little garmin one i was like man it even goes on your wrist i'm like this is amazing it's freaking ridiculous and then i started carrying two of them around like one in here and one in my pocket just in case that one broke down because now i really liked it so i'm like i don't want this thing breaking down on me hey what up that story with the s vest so um there's a couple actually so the one um that you know we always talk about with complacency we had there was like a drone that had watched some guys like planting some ieds in the road and followed them back to their house and they're like hey you guys are going to go hit this house like cool so our platoon was tasked with hitting that house and when our you know my platoon gets there they're like oh it's kind of odd because there's like an old man some women and children like it's kind of odd and you know as we're on target or whatever um we start finding some like propaganda we started finding like some small stuff but nothing huge um and we'd been on target for i'm going to say at least like three four hours so we were there for a while like we got pictures of guys like sitting on a couch and and by the way it's like a painful story to tell afterwards because you know you like to think that you're professionals and it was definitely a slap in the face like whoa it's really not over because because leading up to this like how many ops did you run at this point we'd been there for a while so you so you were kind of we were in a good rhythm you were getting the reps but the reps start becoming routine yep and we were on the outskirts too so like this this house was out in the middle of nowhere it's not like in ramadi where it's like a very dynamic environment where everybody starts coming out and and they know you're there um so anyways so we're doing ssc in one of our guys so wait so you hit this target it's in the middle of vehicles yeah yeah so you drive vehicles up you hit the target now you've done this a bunch of times you get the target cleared no contact when you hit the target the people that you find on target is sort of the typical sort of people that you're gonna find old man a couple women some kids the houses looks like all the other houses look like so in your mind you're probably thinking this is probably probably nothing here yeah absolutely and we had to have targets like that as well and you're there for three hours doing ssc yeah because we started finding stuff so like guys actually had their helmet and they were like picks and shovels and stuff okay so like we were actually like breaking down some walls okay we found some false walls and stuff and okay so so suspects so as you're searching it you're like oh this is some propaganda we need to go a little harder yeah now we're going a little bit harder we find more stuff and so but at the same time there's been no no bad guys no so you're just really just doing an intel recovery at this point yeah yeah which means your guys are kind of chilling out a little bit very much so they're sitting on couches yeah i actually have a picture of that but so anyway so one of our guys goes into one of the rooms and lifts a rug up and there's this um there's something on the floor that that's a little different color than the rest and you could tell it's kind of like a door or something so he calls the eod guy over he said hey come check this out you know make sure it's not booby-trapped and he's like no we're good and i think we're good let's open it up so we open it up and there's there's a bunch of dudes down there i think it was like 13 to 15 dudes down there and the first couple had like suicide vests on guy chucks a grenade up it hits our eod guy in the chest they dive like behind some furniture the the grenade went low odor so you want to talk about someone looking out for you it was old you know um so it didn't blow up to its full potential and um the avalanche call came out because they saw they saw the s vessel on the dude so avalanche everybody runs out of the house and as the last dude runs out you know our humvees are already ready to go and as soon as the last dude last man out it was like 50 cals like boom boom boom and we don't know if like a 50 cal hit someone's vest or if the dude clacked himself off but the house blew up the house blew up and some of the guys were were still alive i guess that were still under even that even after that explosion so guys are coming up some guys left their helmets and nods inside the house so some guys got no nons i think a couple weapons were left in there as well um yeah as a matter of fact i'll tell you the some of the stuff we recovered afterwards but anyway so yeah we're laying down fire and um at one point a rocket is shot and it hits like five feet from our humvee so we're like hey we need to back out we need to drop air on this thing so we we'd back out we dropped air on it actually dropped a couple bombs on it and then uh you know afterwards when we go and recover stuff you could tell that these these guys that that were there they weren't they were they were foreign fighters they were different than some of the other guys that we had come across but we recovered some of the nods that we left in there we recovered um one of the weapons that we had left in there and it's crazy because i guess one of them must have picked the weapon up like our rm4 and started shooting with that m4 and when we picked up that m4 uh at the front of the barrel you can tell that the 50 cal round had gone through the front of the barrel damn out the back blew this guy's head off and then we found this guy's head like 50 yards down down the road but it was crazy so i mean you know we have a picture of the gun like with a 50 cal so doing that uh report on all the lost stuff that stings were you the lpo of the splatoon oh no no i was just uh just the door kicker yeah oh that's right you said you were the point man yeah yeah i love being a point man so that gets your uh that that snaps you back into reality yep yep so um yeah it's completely yeah you said there was a couple as fast stories yeah so the the other one was i guess they were uh they were smuggling some s-vests in i forget from where it was you know when you're young you don't pay attention to some of the details that that are passed on but they were they were importing some s-vests um and at one point the the iraqi police pulled this guy over who they thought could be one of those guys that was smuggling as fest so we take the vehicle and we we rip it apart completely and behind the glove compartment we find an s vest and so our eod guys take it out and then they're like hey um let's make it inert and let's put it back and let's see where he goes and then we'll catch him and his friends so they do that they make you know they they make the vest inert we put it back we give the car back to the to iraqi police and at that point you don't know who's you know who's who they're all corrupt you know there's people that have infiltrated all forms of government police so we didn't tell them what we found we're just like hey we're good so they're like okay cool so they let the guy go and of course he goes back to his house and at this point now we're being mandated to bring you know the iraqis with us because for a while from what i could remember we were by ourselves like just us at this point like okay so anyway so we end up hitting this house and old boy has his vest on and he's like trying to clack himself off but it's inert that's awesome and he had actually two switches like he had a primary and a secondary so you know he's yelling out you know he's like click and he's like oh crap and he's like click click trying to do the other one and how's that working out for you homie well he's got no head now you know good stuff man and no one got hurt on that freaking though where the uh spider hole was huh no damn it's like i said that's about as good a deployment as you could do a lot of work and no one got hurt you get done with that and then is that when you come to trade it yeah so i come back and they're like hey you're going to have to go to trade it and i'm like i don't want to go to trade it you know are you an e6 now i'm an e6 yeah yeah i just made e6 on that deployment actually so um you know i come back home i'm i'm having some personal issues um you know with with my wife at the time and um you know instead of trying to work things out and be a good husband which you know i look back on i could have done a much much better job of you know i look back at that marriage i'm like hey you know that's 100 my fault i wasn't a very empathetic person um marriage is tough thing and it's even tougher when you're young and that you know it's even tougher when you married a teen guy who's gone all the time and i didn't think about that you know i'm just like you know she moved right from her parents house to me and i'm just like i don't understand what you're complaining about anyways there's a lot of tension between her and i and she served me divorce papers and um instead of you know trying to take a knee and work things out what do i do they're like hey uh there's corman needed for this afghanistan deployment and i'm like i'll go so i end up volunteering for for a very short augment before i go to trade it and they knew that i didn't want to go to trade so they were like hey you've got some time here team one before you check in to trade it cool that was kind of like you know my gimme so they're like cool go do that and so i come back from that deployment and then that's when i check in to trade it and um that's where i meet jp danielle and did you go straight into uh straight into salk straight into cqc yeah so back then the the the senior enlisted of the assault cell he would like interview guys to go to assault because he was like hey if you're going to come to assaults like we're screening you and so i remember him coming up to talk to me well i was still at team when i just got back from deployment so like yeah you're going you're going to assaults so i ended up going to salk but you know being the team guy i was i was like can i go to cqc too and like yeah sure you would yeah so i was doing cqc trips south trips and it was it was pretty cool and uh you were there that's when you were there and then jp was the lpo at the time yep yep yeah what did you learn in uh sitting there teaching you know so now looking back i always tell people that trade it was actually the biggest learning experience that i ever had because it's like the ultimate leadership lab because you get to watch two different styles of leadership go through and you're you're completely detached you have zero emotion and invested into that whatsoever so you can armchair quarterback that stuff all day long um and it was where you know i started realizing the the difference in leadership because if you think about it the talent is for the most part spread out pretty evenly you're gonna have some good some good guys you can have a handful of new guys you're gonna have some e5 pipe hitters you're gonna have some couple slugs like the boys are gonna be pretty consistent most of the time yep you're gonna get that so yeah it all it all boils down to just how is the leadership how good is the leadership and if leadership's good platoon's gonna rock and if the leadership sucks we could have some problems yep so that's when i started seeing that you know um yeah training is the same and i was like okay it really depends on that leadership how they're gonna do and it was really cool to see like the leadership that did well it was simply because they were humble like you could just tell their attitude right off the bat like they're like you know when you give them you know criticism or critiques or whatever they're like got it got it whereas the platoons that did terrible they were just like you could just tell they had attitudes about hearing anything any feedback that you had to give them and it was very blatant like the difference between the the platoons that had humble leadership and the platoons that just did not i would like take this to the nth degree in my own head because i always wanted to make sure that hey what am i doing am i doing a good job of getting through to this individual leader right and if it seems like this leader like maybe they have a big ego and they think they're a badass you know what i don't care i i always wanted to make sure that it wasn't me that it wasn't my end i was like okay you know what the guy's got a big eagle it's okay we want guys with big eagles like hey you got to have a big ego let me rephrase that there's nothing you can't expect seals to not have some kind of ego like hey i know how to do this some level of confidence right you like so it's okay i get it you know you you think you're a badass cool i don't want to work for someone that doesn't think they're a badass right cool i'm good with it okay let's move forward that but man you'd get these guys that occasionally again most most of the most of the leaders are like cool like we're down occasionally i remember i remember one time we had this one leader coming through salk and i talked to our civilian that worked there who was a prior you know seal he was actually my my tu sea when i was between commander and i said hey bro man just can you do me a favor just check me on this like just look at this guy's face when i'm putting out word and just give me i go because it seems to me like he doesn't want to hear anything from anybody i just want to make sure i'm not totally off base but can you just check him out and so sure enough like as i as i'm talking you know the guy be sitting there with his arms crossed and and and again i'm just saying i'm not even like saying dude you're totally jacked up i'm not saying anything like that i'd say something like hey man do you ever think about maybe you know putting some vehicles over here on this target and you can see the guys like arms crawl i'm not i'm just offering a suggestion you know and the dude arm cross and yeah we get done with that debrief and that civilian comes up to me and he's like bro this guy's freaking crazy and i said okay i just wanted to make sure because it just i guess the reason i'm saying this is because the guys in trade the guys in trade at the attitude of our guys in trade was just to try and help out our friends that are in the teams like that are in a platoon that was the attitude the attitude there's no like hey i know how to do this you don't there was no matter of fact i wouldn't allow that kind of [ __ ] if we had instructors like that i would freaking pull them aside because our instructors realized like oh we're these guys are our friends they're our teammates they're getting ready to deploy we need to do our best to help them out yeah and and and a lot of those guys know as much as what we know right so you got a guy that's got a bunch of experience bunch of deployments they know as much as we know so cool we're not attacking them we're not talking down to them so my point is if you have your friends that are trying to help you and you reject them it's really really bad it's really really bad it's it's horrible actually it'd be such a bummer to see it'd be it'd be such a bummer to see because literally like every guy at tradet was just hey these are my friends that i'm trying to help and if why aren't you open to us helping you please like we don't want you to get hurt man so ah yeah good times this is freaking um great place to learn yeah and i was like i did that luckily when i was at seal team one as a e5 i worked in our training cell which is when the the teams used to train themselves and so i got to do the same thing when i was young and that's where i learned the most of my stuff was doing that again sitting back detached watching guys go through platoons we used to run the sqt classes in at the team yeah so that was really eye-opening too because now you had the young officers and you'd watch them and think this guy can't make any decisions why can't he make any decisions oh it's because he's shooting his weapon right now and he shouldn't be give him a two by four give him a stick let him get off his gun and he'll figure it out and then you actually learn how to do that for yourself so yeah if you really want to learn something it's really advantageous to have an opportunity to teach it as well yeah that was also where i learned how to like brief and not not i wouldn't say public speak but you know like when you're talking to team guys yeah you better be squared away yeah because they are chomping at the bit oh yeah to like sense any weakness or anything that you say that's maybe not tactically correct so i it's where i learned to be very deliberate about the way i spoke in public and debriefed yeah and if you don't if you don't have anything that's smart to say don't say anything and if you have a thought that you haven't thought through either think through it or present it in such a way that it's not like an aggressive attack that's absolutely true you know you're no seal platoon you don't have to be traded you're in a seal platoon and you disagree with someone else what are the chances that you're 100 right the chance that you're 100 right are almost zero so eventually probably two weeks into my first platoon i realized oh i'm very seldom going to be 100 right why don't i present ideas as if they're an idea not some perfectly formulated perfectly constructed notion that is 100 true because there's so few things that are like that yeah even the mo like i talk about in leadership strategy and tactics uh the the oic that i had that was awesome he knew more than all of us combined and he would present ideas as if they were suggestions and ideas and he was always open to changing those ideas if somebody said something smarter so you get to see that stuff over and over again that's what that's what's crazy though you when you're working at trade as you see a platoon tonight do three four five runs another platoon do three four five runs and then a few weeks later you're gonna see two other platoons with a bunch of different leadership do the same runs basically the same runs with the same people and the variable as the leadership and then a few weeks after that you get to do it again and again and again and again and you just start to see what works and what doesn't work and it's real obvious after a certain point yeah my learning curve was very steep there how long did you trade at so let's see i got there in 2008 um and i think around what 2010 or so it was it was like my time to rotate out but we had gotten a new chief in and um so it's time for me to go do my lpo but the new chief that came in i really liked him a lot just just an awesome awesome guy and then he was just like hey can you stay at trade it a little bit longer and then be my opio when it's my time to go because i'm not going to be here very long he's like i want you to be my opio i'm just like dude i want to deploy man like that's a long time he's like okay how about i send you on another augment i'm like i want the full one this time so we're like bargaining here i was like i want a full deployment he's like okay you got it so i went uh back to afghanistan for for another augment uh it's part of the deal nice and you're getting some good operational experience on your augments oh yeah going over there yeah absolutely living the dream yeah it was it was really cool um just to see you know watch a different team do do different things and um yeah i learned a lot i learned a lot from it was the first time too where i kind of heard the tl like during a gun fight like just how calm and collected they were it was just like as if nothing was happening and then i remember that thinking about that in my head like i want to be like that you know like okay cool that's how i'm supposed to be you know so yeah it was a really good experience again um and because you know my skin tone i was able to to help them out in ways that you know maybe some of the other guys couldn't so some of the targets had to be done like during the daytime so we had to like drive around and like milk trucks or something and because you know i could fit in with the popular side just get in like the passenger seat and be the navigation guy so you're back to being a point man yeah but yeah like a local populace and you're able to pull that off yeah and that's also because yeah so halfway through the deployment like hey we need we need lows back like get assaults and then i was like hey they want me back and then the team leader there was like let me call them it's like actually we really need him over here so they let me stay the rest of the time freaking beautiful yeah uh but you end up did you end up did you end up then going with your chief in trade to be his lpo no so around that time they sent johnny kim over to assaults like just very temporarily because he was on his way to um go to school so he got picked up for this this program where the navy picks like two people out of the entire navy mm-hmm and they sent him to go get something somehow johnny kim slid through the cracks yeah right so he's like explaining this this program to me um where basically you know the navy pays for you to go to med school afterwards and it sounded like a good deal and at the time you know i was feeling really guilty i'm like dude i'm just been gone a lot and i was like feeling like i wasn't like the best father to my son even though i tried to spend as much time with him as possible i always had that guilt and then there's a part of me was like you know what maybe i should get like a normal job and be there for my son so on a complete whim like i put in my package for that exact same program i'm like dude if johnny kim is getting accepted to this thing the chances of me getting accepted are like slim to none and so i'm getting ready to go back to a team with with that chief to go be his lpo and then i'm i'm flying back from an assault trip and then he's like hey did you see the result and i'm like for what like i literally completely just i applied and just forgot about it like dude you got picked up for that program i'm like are you serious he's like yeah so i was like well i guess i guess i'm going to school freaking crazy go try to be a doctor there was a time period and it was this this was the time period where i'm not kidding seals had a really good reputation in the world you know and certainly in the navy and i mean guys we're getting picked up left right and center for this kind of stuff yeah so i mean that's freaking crazy and awesome yeah so what's funny is you know like i said they picked two people a year out of the entire navy and the other guy was a team guy too yeah that's my east coast that's my point like that's crazy right yeah but at that time man we like the seals were just doing a lot of good work and i mean i'm sure that when they looked at your record like seriously they looked at your record and compare that to the other applicants i i bet it wasn't even really that close just because of the nature of what the seals were doing at the time yeah so but did you have any intention of like going to medical school for however long that is so i thought i did you know so are you a year behind johnny yeah okay so you're you're behind johnny and johnny went to usd so i went to you went to usd just because i'm like hey i'm just gonna do what johnny did so um so for we had to go to like that that officer school in up in rhode island so in january of 2012 that's when i left trade it and we went to rhode island and that's where you learn how to be an officer do you get commissioned up there no you just go you don't school yeah you just go to school you don't get commissioned until you graduate from school but that's actually where like you know they're like oh you gotta have blue cammies i'm like i don't own any blue candies yeah and what's funny about that so i didn't know so they have the you know the big blue jackets and those things are expensive they're like 350 bucks and i'm already buying all these uniforms that i didn't have right because i don't have any blue stuff and either because you're gonna have to go to rotc yeah is that what you're gonna have to do yeah afterwards but you don't have to wear blue but you had to get those blue candies for the knife and fork school up in rhode island correct got it so my but the other team guy that's there with me you know we go there and he's he's cheap too so he's like dude i won't buy this jacket i was like i don't buy it either i was like screw it let's not buy it you know i don't need no jacket you know even though it's rhode island in january so we form up yeah we form up and i'm in my blue champions and he's not blue cammies and and you know the chief the chief who's like the rdc or whatever it's called you know he's like oh how come you guys don't have jackets i was like well you know we didn't want to buy them because we're literally going to have them here we're never going to use them again and they're really expensive he's like well we're all uniformed around here so they make everybody take their jackets off and it's it's freezing cold and then um he's like we'll keep doing this until you guys buy jackets and i told my buddy don't you dare buy a jacket and he's like okay cool and we were freezing cold yeah but we would just sit there and be like we're not cold but we were we were dying sometimes and got to the point where they're like you know people started crying in the class like literally like oh you know we're freezing cold so they're like all right change into your khakis i was like okay i'll buy the jacket for the khakis i might use that later on so you get done with that and then you go to you go to usb usd university of san diego you're going to be doing the same um whatever the same thing johnny did yeah trying to get your pre-med knocked out yeah how'd that go for you not well i'm not johnny kim um i'm i'm miserable you know i'm taking like 18 to 21 units a semester um i really didn't enjoy the classes i was taking it's like chemistry biology just stuff that was so boring to me and then to top it all off i'm doing parking services because you know usd is a private school and the navy only pays like i think it was like i don't i shouldn't say only they pay 10k and the tuition at usu is like 40k a year like 40 something k a year so they're like hey if you do parking services it'll pay you off the rest of your tuition so it's a good deal like if you really break it down the amount of hours that you work it's a really good deal so i'm driving around this this car giving people tickets at usd and bad karma dude yeah well i almost you know almost got into this big altercation at one point so you know that so this other team guys you're the worst ticket guy to mess with imagine that you think you're getting a figure to argue with some random ticket dude and it's freaking loves bro well it's you know it's funny it's like if i have to hear you know do you know who my dad is one more time i'm just like bro i don't know who your dad is i'm really sorry but you know you're parking in the handicap spot yeah but at one point um so the parking so it's me and another team guy so that the the other parking services kids you know they actually their normal kids they won't go into school and they're like oh if you guys want to get a lot of tickets you got to go down to this area right here and it was like where the football field or the base the uh baseball field was you know by the gym you went to usd right yeah so you know what i'm talking about so my buddy i didn't do ticket parking i used to i used to put my bike in my station wagon and just i would park off campus and just bike wherever i needed to bike home like back to my car and drive home yeah so at one point you know i we go down there and it's like it's like the jackpot of all like violations like we got because we were having trouble meeting our quota so this other team guy and i you know the other parking service kids are like oh if you go down to this area you get lots of tickets so we go down there and we're like oh heck yeah dude there's all kinds of violations down here we met our quota super quick and at one point i come up to this car and i you know you gotta punch in the license plate to give him the ticket and it was like do not let like call the office immediately if you see if you get this license plate no kidding yeah so i call and i'm like hey this thing came up on my little gadget and they're like do not let that person leave they have like nine unpaid tickets or something like that it was an insane amount i'm like what do you want me to do like we'll park your cart behind his car until the tow truck gets there and do not let them leave i'm like is that legal are we allowed to do that and uh and they're like yeah so i'm like okay so i parked my i parked my car behind this car the other team guy i don't know where he took off to like he's gone he must have been finding like lots of tickets and so i'm sitting there i'm waiting for the tow truck and now i see everybody getting out of football practice and the guy's car the the car who's you know i'm parked behind the owner comes and it's a really big dude you know he's a football player pretty jack dude big dude he's like hey you need to move your cart and i was like hey bro there seems to be a problem like you know with your ticket stuff i'm like they called the tow truck but i think if you call them you know and work something out he's like he's like move your [ __ ] car i was like i can't you know they told me this and and now it's starting to become and i'm really like trying to be like hey bro like listen i'm like the low man on the totem pole and now the rest of the football team is coming out and now they're getting fired up and now i'm sitting there and i'm like where the hell is this other team guy at it doesn't matter how good of a fighter you are there's a bunch of them you're gonna get your ass kicked so and then the guy's like move your cart now i'm gonna beat your ass i'm like listen bro i really don't want that but listen if you put your hands on me i'm telling you right now i'm gonna defend myself and at that point i'm thinking dang it man this is really gonna happen and some guy comes running through them all and then he's like hey do you know who this guy is and i'm like who is this guy yeah who am i like what does this guy think i am you know and then he's like he's a freaking navy seal and then you just see their attitude completely like oh i'm really sorry sir like i didn't know you know i and i was like hey bro it's totally cool like you know i'm pretty sure if you just call you can work something out turns out this guy was the running back with a prior team guy oh no [ __ ] and he knew that the parking services guys were other team guys that were trying to you know pay for the rest of their tuition so he saved me that day because i probably wasn't going to go down very pretty for me and then you eventually just change to you change your major and you get out of the medical program yeah so at some point i'm just like i took a finance class as one of my electives and i'm like man i really like this and i really miss the teams i don't think i want to do this medical thing so i changed my major without telling anybody and then when they're like oh so where are you going to go to med school and i was like oh about that uh i'm actually i want to go back to the teams if that's okay so i want to finish my degree and go back to the teams and they were livid damn they're just like teams they're like no you're you're going slow you're going to go be a surface warfare oh my god so now i'm just like i don't know what to do so you know i make some phone calls and they're like that's stupid you're not going to go be a slow you're coming back here the only the only problem is you're going to have to go through the process just like everyone else so i have to take the screener do an interview i'm like yeah that's totally fine so i do the screener i go do the interview and one of the interviewers is one my old co from team one and he knows who i am you know um so i'm thinking oh this is gonna go great you know and at one point he asks me he's like hey so what are you gonna do if you don't get picked up for for special warfare and then um as an officer you know and i said i was like well i am just gonna give up my commission and go back to being enlisted and you just see everyone's head just go and at that moment just seeing the expression on their faces i was like oh man i said something i wasn't supposed to and you know because you're supposed to say hey i want to be an officer no matter what yeah and and he was really cool about it he's like listen lois he knows who i am he's like i'm gonna give you one more chance at this okay i'm gonna give you another crack at it that wasn't the best answer and then i sat there and i'm like dang it i might have messed this up so i sat there for a minute and just thought about it and i'm like you know what sir i know that the the correct answer that you want to hear is like uh if i don't get picked up for this i'm going to go be the best swoe or the best submariner officer on the planet and then i'm gonna make my way back but i'll be honest with you i don't wanna do that i was like i just wanna be in the teams and whether that's as an lpo a chief or as an officer i was like that's why i'm doing this i miss the teams i want to go back and he's like that's the answer you want to go with i'm like yes sir because it's the truth and then he's like it's a bold move don't know if it's going to work out for you i was like but yeah eventually i got picked up so um back to the teams so where'd you go what team so i was originally supposed to go to team five and that old uh chief that i was telling about the one wanted me to be his lpo and then the master chief who was the sca at assaults they're they're like hey because they came to my commission like were you going i was like oh i'm going team five they're like no you're not you're coming to team three boom and i was like whoa you know and they're like trust me we'll make it work so some trades were made like they gave up a couple of their jo's send them to five and whoever the j.o one of the jails was in the platoon because they had already started workup damn they sent this poor kid away he already started his work so now i go in there and i'm there with all my buddies like i knew the lpo i was at assaults with the lpl the chief this is your platoon that you get put into you're the aoic the aoic yeah and you just they're all your boys all my friends from lpo on up i didn't know everybody else you know down but and then cool good it was awesome yeah the oic um so they put me in that platoon because they were like hey the oic you know he's a really good dude he's just a little um they use the word timid he's just kind of shy he wasn't a very outspoken guy and then when i heard him brief and i heard him on the radio i'm like no i see whereas like i have no problem getting on the radio i have no problem briefing so we actually complimented each other very well because he was a good officer like he knew officer things that i did not right so he showed me how to be you know like ground force commander he showed me like all the checklists all the procedures and and um yeah it was it was a good experience and i got a lot of reps you know being the oic because i was i was good on the radio so i got a lot of reps and our chief was a complete stud who i went to buds with um so i learned a ton from him too he's a jtac so he taught me a lot about being a ground force commander where did you guys go on deployment we ended up going to uh altacatum yeah so we were there for the double a just advise and assist so there was no um a company at that time so we were just behind the floor just calling in helping them the iraqis call in air to try to retake uh al-anbar which had been retaken by by isil or you know whatever the name of the week was for them yeah and that's uh how's the platoon what is the platoon doing as you're doing that i mean so really the only ones that are working are the j2x yeah they're really the only ones that are working um but i mean at least you're freaking killing badges yeah absolutely but we're also eating mortars a lot because we can't go forward so we're just sitting back there eating mortars and at one point uh the mortars got really really close to us blew one of our humvees up um uh as i was running towards it this home v gets hit and just just blows me on my ass um so it's definitely a tbi so they put me on tbi protocol for a little bit but um right around that time i get an email telling me like hey from this chief of mine now he's the sca now he's se at this point he's like hey lois you know we're going to actually send you to baghdad and you're going to replace this jo as the strike cell commander and i'm thinking like why like i don't know anything about jtac stuff and the jail that was there he'd actually gone to like a jtac school really really intelligent guy like super intelligent way smarter than me and i'm like what am i going to do over there i don't know anything about you know man he's like and so it's funny because as i'm getting on the helo to leave he's getting there and we're crossing paths and i'm like bro why am i getting sent there like i don't know what i'm doing he's like don't worry about it dude people like you i'm just like okay he's like you're gonna be fine so you know i get to baghdad and and i i'm getting the turnover from this jo and i could immediately see that these gen the general there is just not a fan of ours and then through conversation um we had we had we had burned some relationships there um and backtracking though when i checked into team three guess who my ceo is it's my first oic right on man and you want to talk about like a lack of relationship building um when i show up he was just like hey you're that guy that got in trouble for such and such thing right on and i'm like freaking awesome no i'm like that wasn't me that was someone else who doesn't even look like me like he's a white dude like looks nothing like me so i'm like way to go man we spent two years together you don't even know who i am like that's crazy yeah anyway so back to the story the the relationship had definitely been strained i could just tell by the way this this general was talking as j.o and just like he did not like us and you know like i said this jail was very brilliant really knew his jtac stuff and so now i'm left there and i'm thinking like man we got to repair this relationship so that's actually the first thing i started doing the general was a marine corps general and so i was just chatting him up he's like hey you know where were you stationed where are you stationed at he's like oh cam pendleton i'm like oh that was my first duty station he's like what are you doing there i was like i used to be an fmf corpsman yeah his eyes just light up and from that point on you know him and i just start chatting and then i you know start asking him like hey you know what is it that you guys are looking for when you're looking for these for these strikes to be approved what can we do to help out what you guys are doing things like as a matter of fact you know we need this this and that and i'm like check let me see what we can do about it and so what my job was was i would get all these air strikes for the next day that my platoon wanted to carry out strategically strategic airstrikes and i had to brief them to to him and another general to one and a two star general get them approved in a room full of kernels that were all jags and super risk adverse like they were denying a lot of the airstrikes that's the reason why i said over there like hey a lot of our stuff get denied go see if maybe you can change that up so so i go in there and and i grab one of my jtacs you know this was actually where i had like what another epiphany where i'm like you know what as a leader i don't have to know everything i'm like i have someone who went to jtac school so i'm just going to lean on them because at the time i'm like i don't know what i'm doing i was really like insecure about it like i'm gonna go in there and just not know what to brief so i told them i'm like hey listen i'm in a brief strategic picture like why we're doing these airstrikes anything technical you can answer them and i was like check so that's how i would do my briefs and like i said i built that relationship with that general so every time i briefed you know and they went around the corner taking taking the vote he would always take my side and once he was in the two-star was gonna be in as well no matter what the jags said so from that point on from what i could remember we got all our airstrikes approved from that point on it was just a simple relationship building what had the j.o the smart jo was it something he did or was it just he was not it was something our ceo did yeah so had a bad relationship out of the gate yeah yeah and then he had a bad taste in his mouth i think team guys on that particular deployment he made some some comments here and there that i caught on very quickly like check god freaking horrible uh and you're did are you married again at this point yeah so um so yeah so when i was in trade i actually met my wife she was uh my waitress a very uh classy establishment jack called hooters but uh i went in there with a team guy and i remember seeing her and i'm thinking like oh my god she's gorgeous like there's absolutely no way someone like that would you know go for someone like me and it turns out that i had gone on a couple dates with one of her friends so she had told so she told her friends she's like oh you know i saw that that guy he sat at my table that you were dating she's like oh we're not dating anymore she was like do you care if i get his number and she's like no absolutely yeah so that's how he ended up uh a meeting and so at this point you know we've been together for a while since trade and now i was already you know at my oic and she was just like hey you need to marry me if you don't marry me before this deployment i'm not going to be here when you get back so ultimatum delivered check and and you know it was a hard decision for me because i was like man i love this woman but we you know we fought a lot and during that deployment that one to iraq our relationship was very very stressed and you had just gotten married before you went on the plane yeah yeah yeah and i'm thinking to myself like you know i'm gonna fail at this marriage thing again like what am i what what am i doing wrong here and what's crazy is like when i was at trade you know you talked about the four laws of combat a lot and we talked about like find what your red flags are and in the teams my red flag when i got overwhelmed was uh you know when that thought came in my head like i don't know what to do right now that was my cue to detach prioritize and execute and for the longest time i thought that these four laws of combat this the social was only combat related and it was the first time in my life where i realized that it's for your personal life too because at that point you know i got back from deployment we're still fighting a lot but i'm like man i love this woman i don't want i don't want to fail at this marriage thing again and in my head i thought i don't know what to do right now and that's when it clicked for me like wait a minute i've had this thought like literally hundreds of times when i'm on training missions where i'm like oh i'm a little overwhelmed i don't know what to do right now detach prioritize execute and so at that point i'm like i need to detach prioritize and execute in my personal life and it was at that point in my life where i decided to start taking ownership of of my mistakes and realize that you know what i'm an imperfect human being too and i stopped concentrating on everything that i thought was a flaw on her part and just started concentrating on how i could become a better husband so i'm like hey you know what this is what i do wrong and this is how i can fix it i have no control over her attitude i have no the things that i don't have control over i stopped worrying about them and i started concentrating on the things that i could control and at first it was a little bit of a campaign because you could tell she was like what are you doing and then and then it got to the point where she started doing the same thing like we just started taking ownership of our parts of the marriage and i stopped worrying about what she did wrong and only worried about what i was doing wrong and eventually she started to do the same and and her marriage is completely turned around since then and you know all marriage you got peaks and valleys but it's it's been just amazing when you're in a platoon like where everybody's taking ownership of stuff no one's blaming anybody else we're just trying to solve problems and that's how that environment finally was in my marriage so yeah it's it's funny when you talk about like when you're in a platoon and everyone starts taking ownership stuff you know problems get solved what's crazy is the opposite of that it's not one level of badness when people are taking ownership because when they're not taking ownership they're blaming each other so it's not just oh we're going to blame each other and that's that's not good that's not good but guess what else is coming now we're fighting we're yelling at each other like it causes exponential problems beyond just it's not just oh if i take ownership the problems get solved if i don't take ownership the problems don't get solved if it was that simple it'd be like you'd probably deal with it but if now we actually are fighting we're undermining each other we're yelling at each other we we turn into freaking idiots and so yeah and that can happen in people's personal lives too you know it's not just that oh well we've got this problem in our marriage and it's not my fault it's your fault if that's where it stopped you might be able to muddle your way through it but that's not where it stops it stops me saying it's your fault what do you mean it's my fault actually here's some nine things that are your fault but all of a sudden we have not just one little problem that's not getting solved you have exponential problems across the board it's a freaking disaster yeah it's a game changer um now you came back from that deployment and you actually did a couple years where you were doing some uh some classified stuff um overseas and obviously we can't talk about things that are classified um but maybe some unclassified lessons learned from what you were doing yeah um i think the biggest thing that i learned while i was over there is is how to build relationships and honestly i got i got really into it and i started trying to perfect that craft by reading books so i started reading books like um how to win friends and influence people the like switch like anything i could help get my hands on because i knew that when i was over there it was just going to be me and one other operator that's it we didn't have like a support system we didn't have a platoon that was that was us so we had to build a good relationship with like the local populace in a very short amount of time um we had to build a good relationship with our interpreter and that's really honestly when it boils down to it our lives depended on these relationships because at times you're asking some of these people to risk their lives for you and so that's why i really started delving into how do i get people to trust and like me to the point where i can influence them in the shortest amount of time that's really the biggest lesson i got out of those two years from doing that that mission set yeah well that's and that's something that applies across the board you know it's funny when you're talking about the switch going off in your head of like oh i can use this that's the same thing that happened that's what started all this stuff i went and talked to these freaking executives about leadership they started asking me questions and i was just applying the principles the four laws of combat take ownership like that's what i started and it was 36 it was the first question i got asked i was like oh oh you have this problem okay here's how you solve it just based on the principles that we already know it's like a freaking such a nice moment in my life where i was like oh because i didn't again i didn't i was totally institutionalized i didn't understand i didn't know anything about civilian companies i didn't know anything at all about them and all of a sudden i realized in an instant that oh all this stuff applies to all these leadership situations man and that's the same thing going back to building relationships it's like oh yeah guess what have you ever had a moment in your life where having an antagonistic relationship with someone you got to work with helps it's like that that has never happened to anybody ever it's never happened where oh i don't get along with this person and i have to work with and it's beneficial to me it doesn't happen so why are you not focused on getting to build relationships with people it's freaking crazy but good lessons um you come back from that and you go back to trade it again right yep i go back to trade it as the xo this time damn exo trade it yeah what are you are you a lieutenant now i'm a j.o still or jg yeah yeah yeah yeah because i did my so i because i didn't have to go through buds and everything else i did my first deployment as an ensign yeah and so you know i'm a jg now and um because i'm prior enlisted and i knew the ceo there at the time who's also a prior enlisted guy because actually him and i had done a deployment we'd done that iraq deployment together okay at team one and he was like yeah come on over i was like you know i i need to do a disassociated tour because they were like you need to do because i was like hey can i go back and do my platoon commander yeah and they're like no they're like you need to get away from it for a little bit because you know they have like a limit on how much time you could be deployed and they're like dude you're like right there you need to you need to go somewhere and take a knee so i'm like trade it sounds good i really like i really enjoyed my time there and so i decided to go back and then you're doing the xo billet which is not quite as fun as doing that it's not definitely not as flooded as being it's not what i thought it was gonna be so the ceo actually gets the funner job for sure because he's actually going to the training trips and debriefing as the exo you're dealing with everything else the admin stuff the disciplinary problems getting all the the meetings at group yeah yeah you were i'm man my my career was such a freaking i was just so lucky and everything like when i went there i was just just the oic you know so just getting just going out and training trips and freaking awesomeness um at what point so how many years do you have it at this point this is like 2018 so you're coming up on 20. yeah is this when you start thinking about maybe doing something else yeah so i mean um i figured i had the time so i'm like hey i'm gonna go knock out my mba i always really enjoyed business and then through conversations they were like hey after this they're like you can't do your your um oh i see until like 2024 or something like that i'm like what am i gonna do until then like you do more disassociated tours and i'm like you know what that doesn't sound interesting to me so i think i'm just gonna retire i mean at that point i was going to hit 20. um so i'm like you know what i'm going to go get my mba and um and punch out retire so that's at that point where i started looking into mba programs and and trying to see where i was going to go then you end up going back to usd no is that right no i went to ucla oh you went to ucla yeah yeah it was funny about that is i was really set on like getting an m7 school you know like the magnificent seven so i'm like i'm only gonna go to like wharton or booth or mit or one of those and so those are the only ones i applied to and i realized that the gi bill doesn't cover those because they're private schools even though like some of them actually had lower tuition than ucla and at that point i had a really good friend of mine one of my best friends if you look at his resume it looks almost exactly like mine like fmf corpsman uh you know teams usd finance degree and then he's like hey bro i'm actually going to go to ucla and i'm like why is that and then he's like dude your gi bill pays for it because it's a public school and i struggled with that for a little bill doesn't cover private schools it only covers like a small portion i was still gonna have to take out like a six-figure a six-figure student loan and i've always been pretty frugal about my money i'm like dang i don't want to take out this huge loan and then i kind of went into thought i'm like why do i want to go to one of these schools like why do i really want to go and at some point i realized i just want people to think i'm smart i mean really we're really like you know boiling it down on this most simple form i just want people to think i'm smart and i'm like you know what i think i have enough to get to where i want to go if i go to ucla so i would drive up to la every weekend to go to school there and knock out my mba and then from there you you went into investment banking right yeah yeah i so i knew that i i you know like wait what do you do after an mba like oh everybody does investment banking or um or consulting and i always really liked finance and then my my buddy i was talking about kyle roy when i tell you we got exact same resume she's like dude i'm going to go be an investment banker i'm like cool i'm going to go be an investment banker too so is he like a year ahead of you or something we're in the same class but he actually knew how to do it so he actually got in so there's a cycle to it and i didn't know that so when you first get to your mba program literally the second you step on campus you're already recruiting for it you're already recruiting for the the internship for that summer and then you go to your second year and after you graduate second you start full time however by the time i figured it all out i was already on my second year so i was a year behind and so nobody really wanted to deal with me because it wasn't the traditional path so i just started reaching out to people on linkedin like sending them my resume and i would put in like whatever bank us uh like i would put uh air force veteran marine corps veteran i'm like dude if anybody's gonna answer me it's gonna be a veteran and that's how i started getting in was like a veteran from these banks they would start reaching out you know they saw my resume and like i think they were intrigued obviously the navy seal part kind of stands out i'm not gonna lie that's definitely what got my foot in the door because some of these other people it's an extremely competitive job and some of these people a way smarter than me and b had like a legitimate pedigree in the finance world and so meanwhile you were ex-overstraight yeah so i told my wife you're a good point man yeah i told my wife i'm like dude when i go to these meet and greets because it's like a million meet and greets because it's extremely competitive i'm telling you it's so competitive um and especially in la because in la there's a lot less slot like if you go to new york there's a ton of slots in new york but everybody wants to be a warm weather so everybody's like trying to apply to go to la and i told my wife i'm like when i go to these meet and greets like all these people they're just ridiculously smart i was like it's pretty intimidating and then we had this one interview process where they actually take you in with your other competitors so it's like you and two other people that you're competing with and then you go and you interview with these bankers and these these interviews were like three hours long like you would do half an hour with this banker and then half an hour with this banker and that's when i realized that i belong there that i could that i had a shot because the very first that that interview process wasn't technical at all it was all about leadership so when they start coming up with these questions like tell me about a time where this happened i'm like cool i have a story for that i have a story for everything and um it was cool because i would tell my story and then the guy next to me would tell his story and it literally got to the point where i'm not kidding you in in the interview the guy next to me was like i really hate going after him what am i supposed to say after that so that's when i'm like oh i got a shot and you ended up getting hired yeah i ended up getting the internship so the internship's like you know nine weeks long it's basically like a nine week interview it was legit like you're you're working your ass off grind yeah it's a grind and then you had another year of school to complete no because i had actually started my second year i got it so i so you got so your internship went right into the job yeah and that was actually one of the the the things where i used did you finish school when you're in did you finish school when you were still in yeah uh-huh and then when did you do that nine-week internship did you leave damn yeah i was already on my way out yeah it was like um so like getting close to terminal lever or whatever exactly i you i said saved all my leaves specifically for for for you know me getting out got it and so i used it all up then and i got hired and they let me start right away because you know i didn't have another year of school so and then i retired and then how did you like how do you like the uh investment banking world uh i liked i liked a lot of it and i didn't like other parts of it um i really liked the mergers and acquisitions so that's what we did we did mergers acquisitions and then leverage buyouts and we were dealing with big because i got hired with a big bulge bracket bank so we're working on like some big deals and it was exciting it was cool it was interesting it just wasn't cool for 18 to 20 hours a day like i worked long days it was like an early night was midnight but most of the times i'm you know i'm building powerpoints and xl models till 3 4 in the morning those times where i didn't sleep at all like our presentation was due at like 5 a.m and i turned it in at 5 00 a.m where were you working out of so home because it was crazy yeah so i didn't have to move up to la which is good because my wife didn't want to move up there um but we were set on moving up there and but it was every time we drove up there to look at places the drive home would be very quiet because we could just tell that neither of us wanted to move up there but it worked out for me because like i said it was covid so they're like hey we're going to be virtual you know for the time being and um and i think when i realized like i don't want to do this long term is when i saw the managing directors i've been there for a while like i would finish a presentation you know and it's like four in the morning like hey you need to call them i'm like it's four in the morning like you need to call managing director to me he has to look over that powerpoint before we turn it in and i'm like dang so i guess this never stops and you know it was a and i had had a couple tbis throughout my career so my migraine because i wasn't there was literally nice where i won't go to sleep at all i'd roll right into the next day and then my migraines were starting to get more uh frequent and staring at a screen like all day long and i'm like this isn't gonna be a long-term play for me but i'm gonna tough it out um you know for the two or three years or whatever you gotta be to make vp and then move on something else and i didn't realize that the job offers were gonna start rolling in so quickly so like once the job offers like recruiters started reaching out to me i'm like i'm gonna start looking elsewhere and around that time as you know jp had been talking to me about echelon front now for for about a year like even when i was in trade he's like hey you thought about coming over here and i was i was interested but i i just never materialized you know and i just went down my path and i told him hey jp this is actually what i'm i'm doing now and i'm kind of all in on it and so it's around that time i'm i'm already looking at moving to different firms i've already got a couple that i'm pretty close to to signing with and and then jp calls me one day and he's like hey bro uh we have a client who you know about 50 of his employees speak spanish and i i told him we could deliver i was like you did he's like well yeah i got you because he knew i was fluent in spanish right and i was like bro you ever seen office space i was like that's my life i have seven bosses bob you know so you're i'm on seven different deals and for each deal i have to get approved and granted some of them are you know have some spillover so there's i'm working with you know managing director for two or three different deals so i'm like dude it's gonna be so hard for me to get a day off like it's gonna be near impossible and he's like bro i really need this and i'm like all right you know you know jp is one of my brothers like i love jp to death so i'm like let me see what i can do so i put in the time for two personal days and by the way a personal day if it's funny when you get the email that says this is what a personal date looks like you will check your email you know like six times during that day and if you need something you will answer it so it's really like a personal day you're so freaking working so i'm like i took two personal days to come out and help them out with this ftx and um so i would literally you know teach all day long and then i pulled an all-nighter trying to catch up on all the work that i missed throughout the day so i didn't sleep for like those three days that i was there um but it was cool because i i showed up and it was this construction company and when i showed up i could tell that that some of the guys weren't happy to be there and not because they're you know lazy or anything they just wanted to go to work they're hard-working people you know so they're like they want to be working instead of being in this leadership course and so let's see i think i think it was a thursday yeah it was a thursday where the first day of class started and we split the the class and two because they had so many people that we were going to teach one class one day and then the other group that's next day and on saturday we did like a debrief tying it all back into their business so day one i'm teaching i could see it that you know they'd rather be working than be there one of their foreman who you know it's like one of their rock star foreman shows up late like same thing he's like man i'd rather be working right now he won't be there and then at the end of the day i i noticed the switch like they i could tell that they were enjoying themselves and they were learning stuff and it was clicking the light bulbs were coming on and at the end of the day this foreman he comes up to me he's like hey man i'm really sorry that i showed up late can i come back tomorrow and do it all over again i was like it's fine with us as long as your your boss is cool with it and he's like okay so he comes back the next day you know and does the full day of training with echelon front and on the third day when i heard their debrief points and the impact that it made i mean some of these debris point there it was like emotional like it was like legit and i was like wow like you guys are doing something really great here um and i felt good about it you know their ceo was just just cared so much he's super super intelligent guy very caring very humble and it was just a pleasure talking to him and seeing how much he cared about his team and his people and then seeing how these other people appreciated now really started to appreciate the fact that he did this for them like was trying to develop them as leaders because he cared about them he cared about the company and i told jp i'm like man that felt good i haven't felt good about what i was doing for work for for a while since i left the teams and that's when i was like okay let's have a serious conversation of what this could possibly look like for me joining ef so so here you are you know that that little um the little obstacle that you get over with and then obviously i've been doing this for a long time now but there's a little obstacle with some people when they show up for training and the obstacle is well there's there can be several of them but one of the biggest obstacles is they don't yet understand that leadership is a skill and that it's something that they use and it's something that they can actually learn and get good at and it doesn't take very long in those sessions where people go oh wait that's me oh wait i could use that and all of a sudden they realize this is gonna make my life so much better and it's gonna make my team's life so much better and that that is so gratifying to see that and what's really awesome is when you look up in three months six months or a year and now you see where that company is and they their trajectory that that changes for a company and how they elevate and move forward man it's freaking it's very very rewarding to say the least yeah every time i do another job i'm just just solidifies that decision for sure it's weird uh were you thinking because because the first gigs that you did was teaching ftx which is like our field training exercise which is [Music] you know i'm jp and i've talked about this where i'm like hey jp people don't they don't need to really like know how to clear a room yeah it's just it's funny almost the human instincts that you have of how you would clear a room are good enough to do the ftx's it's not about teaching people how to you know the tactics of combat it's just it's about teaching them leadership but it's funny like even the plans they come up with like we give them a target their plans are like perfectly fine they're perfectly fine yeah no sometimes they're not that great sometimes they make mistakes but a lot of times it's like yeah you know what that's that would work that would work on this target for real and these are people that are civilians cause let's face it hitting a target of bad guys there's it's not rocket science it's not rocket science to figure out what you're going to do and we give them enough basics that they can figure it out but for me you know the the leadership laboratory that we got to work in when we were actually in and actually a trade at and actually seeing platoons go through that is such a powerful thing because man when you are in those situations you feel it and when you like you think oh i'm good at detaching and then you go on a run where you're freaking yelling and screaming and you you know and you say oh how was that detachment on the last run as you were yelling and screaming at everybody and shooting your weapon a bunch and not and no one took charge of anything so obvious when you actually experience it and you learn that lesson so much more thoroughly when you actually experience it's freaking awesome to watch yeah absolutely i've had messages like on on instagram or linkedin where people have gone through our training it's like hey i had this situation at work and i thought about that time when you took the gun away from me and told me to lead you know because when they're not detached and they're just getting after it with their gun but they're actually in charge like every now and then i'll take their gun away and i'm like hey lead now you can lead because you don't have a gun and and so you know the right back like i remember the time you did this to me or you said this to me and and i say that at ftx's i'm like hey you know going through that pain actually solidifies that lesson way more it's like bruce lee says the pain will leave you when it's done teaching you it's one of my favorite quotes um and i tell people that too like in my brief in the morning i'm like hey we're not here to teach you leadership i mean we're not here to teach you tactics we're here to teach you leadership and in the absence of knowledge because you don't have any you know knowledge doing this what do you have to lean back on your leadership which is simply you trying to influence another 25 people towards a common goal so you're going to have to use all those tools that we've you know talked about and the groups that do the best are the ones that are able to apply it immediately like they make that connection and the ones that struggle are the ones that you know can't seem to do that you know what's interesting i was just thinking about this um from a jiu jitsu perspective how long have you been training jiu jitsu for since 2012 so what's interesting is you know people like you take a normal dude yeah and you say hey what did that doesn't train and you think hey if you get in a fight what would you do they kind of like they kind of think what is it that the hey i just see red bro you know i'll go off bro like that's kind of what they think they think that that is how they're gonna fight and that's how they would win in a fight like hey i'll just freaking make it happen and that's totally ignorant that's one of the most ignorant things you could say and if you go against someone that's trained then you're absolutely going to lose but there's also a really good chance you'll lose anyways imagine this there's people that that are in leadership positions that their mentality is that exact same thing hey oh if i'm in charge i'll tell people i'll handle it and and they could literally learn jujitsu for leadership we have jiu jitsu for leadership it's like an amazing untapped knowledge that like the gracies the gracies brought jiu-jitsu to the world and all of a sudden people like oh i can choke people i don't i can defeat someone that's bigger than me i can avoid getting hit like there's all these amazing things that we literally did not know as humans we did not know and if you would have gotten a fight in if i would have gotten no fight in 1990 or 1991 i would do what my instincts are throw hay makers whatever like whatever it is a human is gonna do is what i would do and then all of a sudden as soon as i learned oh the joke like all of a sudden you know what to do and now you can handle all these situations and it's the same thing with what we teach it's like oh this isn't some this isn't some mysterious thing like here's oh this is an arm lock it's called cover and move here's uh taking the back this is keeping things simple you can actually learn maneuvers for leadership and that's what hits people when they're going through our programs you can see it in their face they're like oh oh i remember when a guy was doing this to me and all i had to do back was was diminish you know dimit reflect and diminish i could have taken that angry person and reflected some of those emotions but diminished them and then i could reflect in such a way that they would realize that i'm on their side and then we'd be able to have a real conversation and move this thing forward that's one move there's all these moves you can learn and man it's just like this you know what it's actually the same look when somebody does jiu jitsu in whatever moment because different people get it at a different time that moment where they go oh this is amazing like oh it all makes sense i think it's sometimes when people realize that you know oh and then you sweep them and you're in the mount and they go oh it all is connected you see that look in their eyes and i see that looking like that's what you're talking about like the guy that you're talking about that came back at the end of the day like hey can i come tomorrow because he realized that it's all connected that leadership is a skill that he could actually utilize these tools to go out there and lead his team with with skills and with techniques and with procedures moves man it's freaking empowering legit um and that's where you're at right now yeah we just went through your whole damn life bro yep that that's pretty impressive we'll have to uh i know there's i know you had some uh some stuff that you wrote down for me that we didn't cover today that we'll probably cover on cover on the next time as did you know get a little bit more granular on some of these things that you experienced for sure um but probably a pretty good place to wrap it up of course echo probably has some questions at this point well i'll keep getting questions i'll keep it simple oh have you ever heard that you look like oscar de la hoya every day of my life since i was 16. i understand completely as a matter of fact in my platoons they already knew it was coming and so when we would go out like you know people would be like hey is that and they were like yo there it is yep where is security yeah that's what they would say and uh just just not not too long ago i was in new york and i was with my wife and this guy comes up to me he's like hey man i still think pound for pound you're the best and then she's like are you gonna correct him and i'm like i'm tired of correcting people but then it's like more people started coming like hey guys i'm not oscar the buff version of oscar de la hoya the jacked version the jack version i've gotten that forever yeah that is an uncanny resemblance i uh yeah who do you look like echo charles jade too easy though you've been asked that one before that was too easy got that twin brother uh yeah man like i said we'll dig into some more of the stuff in the future probably a good place to wrap it today um sounds good echo charles yes sir sounds like it kind of seems like carlos has gotten a lot done yes he has i'm thinking maybe we should all uh do more what do you think we should do where do we start well you mentioned jiu jitsu what a good place to start yes sir um yeah we wanted to do a purple belt yeah purple belt 2012 it's 21 it's nine year when did you eat a purple bell just recently yeah but off and on that's yeah i was on deployment a lot and and then i would i bounced around a couple schools and um i'm training actually with your buddy aaron hernandez oh right on dude he's awesome freaking awesome yeah he's he's awesome you you know like i started he started training that when we were at fabio santos he was like 10 years old pictures i want to see those pictures bro that's freaking rad what yeah he's awesome man his dad like would just come i i his a lot of times nowadays you see like the dad's all into jiu-jitsu and that's why the kids are there yeah almost against their will it didn't seem like aaron's dad was into it but he's like oh this is what my kid wants to cool i'm gonna sit here every day you know for two hours on the bench waiting for my kid to get done with this whatever this weird stuff is that he's doing yeah freaking legit so what's that 2012 so you're almost 10 years deep yeah yeah got that purple underachieving purple it happened yeah so yeah even life was like that too right dude life was a white belt bro i started training those guys in 2005 but actually he had trained before that leif had trained at fabios before 2005. yeah so leif was like white belt for i mean long time yeah a long time as we used to say in hawaii around a long time yes sir long time i was perfectly happy at blue belt yeah and aaron was like bro okay he got it he got to do it yeah blue belt is the only blue belt is the last chance you have to be under the radar yeah because once you're a purple belt right people expect you there's a there's yeah you you can get tapped you can literally get tapped by a white belt as a blue belt and it's not that big of a deal right you're kind of like well you know i'm just a blue belt just a blue belt it covers a lot of ground i was a blue belt for a long time too i was a blue belt because i was a blue belt i got my blue belt in san diego but then i moved to virginia beach and i mean dude and i was training when i was in san diego training all the time and then when i got to virginia beach i did a couple deployments so i wasn't training as much but even when i was on the phone and i would train with the boys but i was still a blue belt so it was years i think i was a blue belt for like i wanna and then when i got back to san diego fabio you know i had to like re-earn my risk it was like i it was like when i wasn't at fabio's he's i wasn't training he was like whatever i don't know where you were you might have gotten better but it doesn't count we're starting where you left off yeah we started where i left off with him so it took me another another probably i think i was a blue belt for like five years yeah blue belt and i i never buy my wife anything like hardly ever a poor woman but when i got my purple belt when i got my purple belt i got up i went to a flower store it got a purple flower of some kind or like five purple flowers and brought them up that's i was so stoked that i wanted my wife to be kind of stoked too to get that purple belt but and and i was ready for it too like i mean when i got my purple viles ready for that purple bow i had somebody so i got their black belt the other day a friend of mine got a black belt the other day he's like i'm not ready for it i was like no one feels like they're ready for their black belt no almost no one right maybe you just won worlds or whatever yeah but you're not just like oh yeah i forget who it was i think it might have been clark gracie i think i could be wrong so whatever um but it was the kind where he he was weaning everything as a brown belt everything and and i think he was like i don't know if it was the coach or whatever someone was kind of like oh wait is he doing that just so he can win a bunch and someone was like bro like he he can't compete as a brown belt anymore it's like someone has to give him his black belt like that's that's the only exception i could ever think of yeah well dean list won adcc is a brown belt yeah oh yeah yeah but via submission by the way absolute by the way so uh so we're thinking jiu jitsu is good yes jiu-jitsu is good fitness is good carlos is in great shape you know mm-hmm and always good to see you so we got some healthy uh how should i say healthy we want to go in a healthy direction mentally physically i'm saying so i'm gonna talk about energy drinks first because that's you know kind of what we do from time to time so we got jocko discipline go energy drink healthy energy drink by the way if you didn't know carlos i did those things power the ftx's i know it was like a softball what do you call rhetorical kind of question right because i know i know you know but the the the discipline go scenarios um so yes so yeah we will drink energy drinks now as long as it's this kind yeah yeah for sure because the other kind bad it's bad literally it's it's a dichotomy well this kind completely bad for you legitimately bad for you and this isn't like oh well jocko's trying to sell his energy drink no i'm telling you those other energies are factually bad for you we have one that is factually good for you yes sir factually you know that there's a uh i don't know the service but you can do it online i was gonna do it for a video it's gonna make a long time ago before all this where you can make your own energy drink like if you want oh you know carlos extra thunder energy drink or whatever and you can kind of pick a flavor and then like they'll design the thing or you can design the thing and then you just get it but it's all like the similar like if you want cherry blast or whatever i don't know what you'd call it but if you get like a cherry flavored one it's like the same cherry flavored as like you know jocko cherry blast what i'm saying i would do lemon lime lows you know what's interesting is you might you might think yourself this is good because you did the investment banking thing for a while and did you guys take any companies public so actually during my internship i worked on an ipo it's interesting because we work with a bunch of public companies obviously but you might think to yourself like hey well why doesn't everyone just make you know an energy drink that's good for you do you think that right like hey well that just seems like that seems like a good idea yeah and here's the deal it's more expensive it's more expensive and it's going to cut into your profit and as soon as you get into a point in a company where you're like oh we we want to do the right thing and make the best product and we are not going to make as much money there's like armies of people that tear you apart and say no just freaking make more money it's the same it's the same thing with you know with our hard goods with our clothing the as soon as you get to a point where you can make jeans oh we're making jeans as soon as someone goes hey we could shave 48 cents off the price per pair of those jeans there's an army of people that say do it they sell they say sell your soul that's what they say and it works of course i mean it works think about it too especially the more you sell right where okay i'm gonna do this oh we're gonna shave 48 cents when you're selling like 10 pair or 10 whatever it's like 40 cents it's like what four dollars i'd rather keep my integrity yeah but once the numbers start going way up there and 48 cents means like another like i don't know half a million dollars for you or whatever you're like oh i think that 48 cents yeah you know so it's a literal selling of the soul literal selling of the soul man because like this is pasteurized right which means we have to put chemicals in it which by the way this is chemicals that everybody uses they all throw them in there hey there's not that bad right right it's not that bad yeah yeah sell yourself we'll say industry standard yeah you know it's the industry standards you can kind of shrug your shoulders and be like well you know that's the way everyone's doing it well there's certain like toxins right where like the fda is like well you just keep them below this level and technically it's like it's legal or whatever it's like considered not harmful or whatever if we pound like three of those every day you know it's crazy big trouble big trouble now the last not with these obviously it's good so yeah get on some of that that'll help you that'll help us you know move you in the right direction yes sir staying fit and mentally because the the cognitive stuff in there as well also keep your joints in uh in the game as well you know if you still if you want to work out as you get older mm-hmm you joined you left that pain no not did you lift today i did yeah what time you lift what time do you usually work out it's not 4 30 it's i saw today i got up at 6. okay what'd you do uh just like don't not do but like roughly what'd you do do pull ups do you what did you do today's leg day me too let me just happen to be this is a sunday yeah but here's what's cool i got done i was ju my my son opened the door to my garage and i could you know feel his presence there and normally he's wanting to jack steal himself and i've racked the weight squats racked away turn around and he goes how many more you got and i go i'm done because i was literally done and he goes waves are good at the pier and i go let's hit it is it cold right now kind of cold it's california it's california meaning it's not going to freeze but it's not going to be warm either are we using a wetsuit right now i use the wetsuit today there you go weakness weakness no no no efficiency look do you want to enjoy surfing you don't want to enjoy surfing you know what the weird thing is frankly if you go surfing without a wetsuit it's only cold for the first most days i mean if sure if it's freezing but most days it's only cold for three minutes and then it's just normal and you feel fine those for three minutes though that's what puts people that's what has people squeezing in that damn wetsuit yeah and also when you're in the cold water they like you'll handle and maybe for like an i mean it depends who you are obviously but after like an hour it's almost like the coldness like you get hit with that initial coldness and your body's like ah it's not that cold actually so we're cool plus you're generating heat from all the stuff but then the coldness kind of on a strategic level starts to just seep in yeah and it kind of hits you like i'm kind of this it's kind of weird here's a big factor do you surf carlos no i don't here's a big factor if you're gonna be catching a lot of waves and there's good waves coming in you're gonna be fine but if it's one of those days we're gonna be waiting and there's a little brisk breeze at your back yeah you're gonna get chilly whoo oh yeah two factors with that because one you're not having fun you know like oh you endure like you actually don't even notice a lot of stuff when you're having like fun you don't notice how tired you're getting you don't know notice a lot of stuff cole's probably one of those when you're you know hitting and then uh you're moving way less yeah and then you're just sitting there just being cold just sitting there being cold man now there's a let's face it that's kind of legit you know when i when i see someone scanning it like props you get ins i'm giving you props if you're skinny you're getting problems maybe if it's the dead of summer but any other time if it's not if it's not august and you're skinning it i give you a little bit of a little bit of and sometimes myself too yeah i'll be like you know what we're gonna do it yeah yeah yeah a little skinned because when you go through buds did you have wetsuits that had like legs connected to them when you went through buds no i don't think so we just had shorties oh no i had like beaver tail oh so that's what we had at first recon battalion okay for tails so when i got the buds i'm like dang they give these students better wetsuits what's beaver tail it's like uh you're the back of the wetsuit has like a long tail on it and it comes up underneath your crotch and like snaps into position in front of you it does nothing to hold in any water at all it's the dumbest invention ever whoever invented the beaver tail is an idiot you would never come up with that plan right yes so because but now they have where the the shirt of the wetsuit is connected to the trunks which is a whole different ball game this is a whole different ball game this is a totally different situation and they get that in buds by the way you got that in buds i don't think i've ever worn a wetsuit ever i can't remember one single time interesting that's the way it doesn't know why it rises above every down here shredding anyway back to our joints we don't we don't want to have joint problems that's another thing cold water is good for you yeah that is by the way that's where you got to get in that bath yeah in the ice bath but if you're not going to jump in the ice bath as often as maybe you could you just keep the what's called joint warfare super krill oil supplement just take the supplement so you know easy way so you don't got to freeze yourself vitamin d take vitamin d 100 take that every day yeah like cold war keep the immunity strong uh you can get all this stuff from jackalful.com get some mulk too yeah cause let's face it man let's face it that's a tough one it's a tough one to not bro did you see that did you i posted some steaks i had the other day yes i saw that it was amazing yeah people people sent me steaks which is like the only like yeah people send mistakes those were from they were you know jack arnold jack yeah uh he's he's a barbecue yeah yeah he sent those is that the ones that he he always cooks i think it's maybe i don't know they're cow k-o-w but damn they were good they were good yeah they looked so good even when i got done eating those even when i got done eating a freaking full-on tomahawk steak i was like cool guess what i wanted a little bit of sweetness a little bit of goodness a little bit what's that other word uh it's like savory savory is like steak right yeah like salty or whatever right and then sweet what's milk it's got both well if you think about it the real good desserts the flavors have like a little bit of like savor like a little bit of a little bit yeah and then if you think about it like the good like savory has a little bit of sweet too and you think about it so we're talking about milk basically it's hot season by the way it's like there's having a hot mulk in the morning oh man i'm not talking early morning like pre-workout i'm talking nine o'clock in the morning starting to feel a little bit of hunger it's a little bit cool outside hot milk coming at you live yeah that's uh do i throw whipped cream on top of that i do that's still paleo well yeah actually a lot of whipped cream well i don't know but a lot but the one that my wife buys it's actually not that bad for you yeah it's actually pretty solid i'm surprised by that keeping it real with that keto very happy with it jack did you sell some mold too that's clean protein though by the way we don't really mention that because like sometimes remember back in the day or whenever you didn't take milk you take protein shake you got the let's face it like you get some secondary effects yeah you know from that not the kind this effects you want negative yes sir yes sir but no it's not like that anymore but yeah there's that and then also jacqueline tea the old school if you like tea hot tea now obviously yep and if you like dead lifting by the way yes sir you're gonna want that jogger to go on but yeah yeah get it all at jocklefield.com also uh the energy drinks you already said right vitamin chocolate by the way i don't know if i'm supposed to talk about this or not yet but we got we got some ready to drink mulk coming oh yeah yeah and um that's nice let's just say i i'm not saying that the creators the the the creators deserve a nobel prize i'm not saying that it's definite but they should be in the contention they should be mentioned there should be a mention okay when you try these things yeah yeah so you're gonna be able to in the future go into a wawa boom go restraint and just get mulk on tap bro like and actually that makes sense when you think about it because it's not like when you think about what if you spend any time thinking about it maybe i do maybe i don't i don't know but either way it's like you can't just because milk is the powder right and then you have your mix like you know we'll put in the banana we'll put in the whatever right and it's like there's variations of mixes and variations of results and it makes sense so it's like hey if you're going to drink the ready to drink one you got to commit to a very specific mix across the board per flavor you see i'm saying so now you got to rely on whoever expert i know they're an expert i'll tell you that you ever had something come into your life that you just you just came out of nowhere like you couldn't have predicted it uh yeah let me tell you something salted caramel i didn't even know what this this was not in my world never in my world this idea salted caramel what is this like what is this so we have a salted caramel version i'm actually familiar with the salted caramel so that one to me that makes sense that sounds delicious all right so there we go also get it also origin usa this is american-made stuff not just any stuff it's like for real american-made like products jeans boots some wallets on there the accessories i've been going kind of deep on the accessories recently on that website pretty impressive just getting in there oh yeah so yes everything from the material all the way to the product all made in america quality stuff too if you care about the people and the process if you care about humanity yes sir how's that yes sir if you care about humanity go to originusa.com because you know what you were talking about you know what you were talking about earlier carlos um you know seeing people these people are hard workers and the first time you worked with an echelon front client you're like man these people are working hard they want to do a good job and that's awesome that's that's so awesome that we get to experience all these people across the country but then there's industries and there's corporations that say you know what to hell with those people to hell with those hard-working people we're gonna offshore this stuff we're gonna put it in the slave labor camps we're gonna give money to communists that's what we're doing that's what we're doing that's that's what we're doing we're gonna we're gonna have slave people build this stuff and we're gonna give money to communist regimes that's what we'll do how's that sound and that kind of goes along with that 48 cents like don't let that don't let that happen go to orange and usa get to your boots get your jeans your ghee get your key for sure you have jingya you don't rudolph well actually in a way that's 100 my fault yeah yeah it's 100 my fault i feel like it's 100 your fault too but i actually feel bad too because like what we were just what i was just talking about something coming into your life when you put on an origin for real when you put on an origin geek it is for real you got some other thing coming in your life that you did not expect was that thing yeah there's that i i will take you as soon as we get done recording i'll take you you can you can touch one of mine they're too big for you what is this what sort of uh uh unicorn fur is this that's been used to create this thing because it's a different level man yeah it's a different level yeah that's what's gonna say i was gonna say that's kind of good news in a way for me so like you know i can kind of like you know someone's about to do something really like whether it be fun or cool or it's gonna be real beneficial and then you get to like experience it with them you know it's like you get to share that experience you get to see that's what's kind of good news can't wait for you yeah you know you've got origin rash guards those are awesome yeah i do use those yeah made in america yeah just imagine that made in america it's true beautiful thing go also chocolate store it's called jacqueline store that's where you can get your discipline equals freedom shirts the jiu-jitsu shirt and i noticed that you are representing hardcore by the way oh yeah so there's it there's a kind of a jiu-jitsu section yes how many shirts are in the jiu-jitsu section right now just that one limited section but nonetheless does it have its own breakout area yeah when dean's shirt comes out it will and this is going to say foot right just like yours is good says foot actually that's his technically that's his design right i just saw this sticker someone put a sticker on the gym out here and it's got it's got like an old nom picture of a dude with like a a steel pot helmet on in nom american but it's dean lister's face and it says foot soldier see we might have to have a d mister sex and that whole thing that's true so there you go but yeah good spot to get this stuff chocolate store where uh the like i said just finished freedom jiu-jitsu stuff uh good that's a good one you watch the army navy game yeah let's face it good goes deep we'll say that we we did uh we did appreciate that and it kind of worked for navy or was this yes apparently in the assessment fully yes sir seemed like it worked out good speak for themselves but yeah um also we have the shirt locker which is the new shirt every month um they're separate from the regular store but it's a new shirt they're a little bit more creative would say some good good feedback on that one got things squared away too by the way we got one coming out too right there should be a new one coming out pretty soon yeah so if i'm not sure what so right now like now if you join you'll get that shirt for that month you know before it was like okay i joined in the next month your shirt kind of comes but it's all squared and right away all that kind of stuff it's good squared so yeah we got december still going and then yeah january there's another one that's how it works you know that's what that's what monthly shirt means subscribe to that if you also subscribe to this podcast we got this podcast we got taco unraveling we got the grounded podcast we got the warrior kid pocket podcast we also have choco underground jocko underground.com we're on there answering questions life advice life advice alternative topics that apply to everything if you know if you if you know the way broadway broadly you see it on all things that it also protects us because listen we don't know what's going to happen in the world but we do know that sometimes people want to control what you say they want to control what we say we haven't read any major issues yet a couple we brushed up against a couple we'd have a couple scenarios unfold and just in case just to protect us from that we gotta have a contingency plan that's shock underground.com go there if you wanna support uh costs eight dollars and eighteen cents a month and we give you this extra podcast but look if you can't afford that it's okay email assistance at dockowunderground.com we just got to have somewhere as an alternative place to be in case so that's where we're at youtube channel yep we have a youtube channel you want to see uh oscar de la hoya carlos mendez how are you you know he's handsome you're more jacked though thank you so that's what that would be the telltale sign i think if the if someone runs into you in the street you're gonna be like dang that's oscar de la hoya he's like yeah i've been lifting yeah yeah this it's true but yes if you want to see what you know what he looks like youtube channel video version of this podcast and excerpts yeah which is important yeah also uh check out origin's youtube channel yeah it's good to know what's happening for instance covet outbreak in maine you know about that i did not know yeah see so if you you would you would know about that uh covet outbreak in maine we had like 40 people oh yeah i did yeah okay yeah i watched them but which is a bummer yeah we got people coming back in now but black friday do you know what that is yes sir after thanksgiving people go shopping yeah i heard yeah yeah and we sold a bunch of stuff which is awesome and then everyone got sick with covet or a bunch of people got sick with kovid so now we're trying to play catch up and uh pete making moves trying to make it happen amanda that's a big like learning channel too when you think about it because you can see like um like of course how the inner workings of american business is but like how that just like this just like and they they've done it many times before where it's like an issue will come up and you can see like how they'll solve the issue and it's unique to that specific thing so it's like okay you can kind of it's like a demonstration yep um psychological warfare if you got any moments of weakness you can overcome them press play on your phone hit play got an mp3 out there yep how many tracks do you remember it's i think it's seven or nine i forget nine track something yeah so nine nine give or take moments or types of moments of weakness you got coverage for that check also dakota meyer has a company called flipside canvas flipsidecanvas.com go there get cool stuff to hang on your wall if you don't have a if you don't have a elk head to hang on your wall yeah then you can get one of these things as an alternate alternate thing to hang on your wall books we got some books um final spin that just came out getting freaking awesome reviews which is crazy it's crazy to think of something weird and then write it and then people give you cool reviews right very very cool it's not what you expect i have to say that that's a lot of people said i wasn't expecting this in fact some people go i wasn't expecting the story to go this way again we're not very we're less predictable possibly than you know some people might think leadership strategy and tactics field manual the code the evaluations protocol this link was freedom field manual way the warrior kid one two three and four this is the book to get for all the kids that you know and by the way sometimes people are like well does is it appropriate for girls yes girls boys kids get these freaking books for the kids this is the christmas season get there's no better gift you can get a kid than these books that's a that's a bold statement carlos do you think that's a bold statement no better no better gift i would have to agree i grew up with books and loved books i don't think they don't read enough these days i don't think there's a better gift you can give a kid than the way the warrior kid books and i got many many many kids and parents that will back that up that aren't me mike and the dragons you can also get that for the little kids warning little warning when you read that to your kids you might start crying it's happened before echo charles no that was way the word kid won oh really uncle jacob oh no okay when i was making the video yeah a little bit for mikey and the dragons yeah getting a little teared up over there well that was you guys where the word kid when uncle jake's spoiler alert by the way when uncle jake had to went home yeah that was kind of sad dude i was laughing when when i read that one story and you were crying like really hard on the podcast i wasn't crying that's the thing i was crying so hard he edited it down people do it at the podcast so i'm like no we never had it he edited it down i didn't realize it until later because he was crying and couldn't put a sentence together and then i started laughing so hard and i'm like bro you can't break down like this he's talking about he's talking about a hawaii 5-0 and he's breaking down it was a sad scene is what i was saying or a happy scene sorry so warning mikey and the dragons might catch you off guard if you're feeling emotionally vulnerable yeah then it might catch you a little bit so just you know stay strong stay strong stay focused don't let yourself break down about faced by hackworth extreme ownership and the dichotomy of leadership that actually helped your marriage that attitude taking ownership of this that's true i went back and read the book again but in a different way because the first time i read it i was like okay i want to be a better leader in combat so that's kind of like the vision i had when i was reading it and then the second time i'm like wait a minute i'm going to read it from my life my personal life yeah yeah yeah that's a good stupid lens it's such a useful switch we're like because that's a big thing right where it's like oh yeah these big bad navy skills they're going to tell me how to run my daycare center like no way like in real life no way but it's like just like yes yes exactly right where it's like the navy sea like all the combat stuff that's just the example essentially it's just an example of these principles like being used in these like situations or whatever but and since they they are useful in everything if you look at it in the in the sense of word this is they're talking to me for my specific situation and using the the battlefield as a metaphor for sure but they're talking to me for me for my specific situation it's like oh shoot everything checks out yeah and as you read things from different perspectives like yeah you can read it from a professional perspective like you did the first time carlos then you read it from a personal perspective the next time but then guess what happens you get promoted read it again you see it from another perspective again then you have a problem where you get moved to a new team and everything's the dynamics are different read it again it's a you will have a different perspective and you will pick up more things from those books also we have a leadership consultancy we were just talking about echelon front salonfront.com if you want to do any of the things that we talk about on this podcast if you want to learn the information go to echelonfront.com it's what we do we do look we do the ftx that's one part of it we also do leadership training that's not experiential so you're going to sit down learn with us but we'll still make it dynamic through role playing and other other methodologies that we have so if you want to check some of that out go to ashlandfront.com you having fun there carlos oh yeah it's awesome i mean the people that you meet are just amazing as well because i mean people that call for extreme ownership are not lazy people they're people who just want to take it to the next level so i honestly haven't met a client yet that i just didn't really like and i and it's awesome because you keep in touch with them like they hit you up every now and then and they kind of become your friends oh for sure for sure i get texts all the time i get texts from that are like hey we just did this it's awesome i'll also get texts like hey can i talk to you and they'll have some situation going on it's like all right what do you got what do you got let's work through this hey we also have an online training academy and there's a bunch of reasons why we started that the biggest reason why we started it is because like i was saying earlier about jiu jitsu and actually having a skill and getting good at this thing called leadership well just like jiu jitsu you can't go to one class and be like okay cool i'm good now i know it no it takes repetition it takes understanding the various angles it takes expanded knowledge it takes confronting different scenarios multiple times so you understand how to understand them you learn to understand how to understand them imagine that you're looking at a situation you don't know what to do you can actually understand how to understand that so this doesn't happen overnight that's why we that's the why we made extreme ownership.com and the online training academy um we're on there all the time there's courses that you can take you can go live sessions i'm on there two or three times a week answering questions face to face like on the zoom call it's a zoom call you wanna ask me a question come on there extreme ownership.com if you wanna check that out if you want to help service members active and retired you want to help their families you want to help gold star families check out mark lee's mom mama lee she's got a charity organization does a ton of incredible stuff for our veterans if you want to donate or you want to get involved go to america's mightywarriors.org actually i just heard joe rogan talking about hyperbaric chambers so that's one of the big things that mama lee does is she takes service members and gets them hyperbaric chamber treatments for like 30 straight days so good for you so helpful so check that out if you want and if you want more of my just continued droning talking or you need more of echoes just just unknown randomness um yeah you can find us on the interwebs on twitter on instagram on facebook i'm at echo charles eck and i am at jacqueline echoes at echo charles carlos was was is now on the gram i am carlos underscore mendez underscore 246. that's correct that was your entry into the social media world right yeah i didn't have one in the teams and uh when i came onto echelon front jp told me open one up and new world out there i could watch so many jiu jitsu videos yeah it's funny how they know what you like it's like how am i already getting this yeah the whole algorithm thing like the algorithm thing i wrote the other day fight the algorithm but the problem is when the jiu jitsu video start rolling and it's hard to fight that out but yeah wait a second let me watch that again bro and kind of embrace the algorithm in a way in a way and linkedin you're on linkedin yeah i am on linkedin yeah is that do you do you like participate in linkedin because you mentioned it a few times today uh so i had it when i when i was uh getting ready to transition out of the navy because that's how i started reaching out to people so yeah i have one of those too yeah i have liked it too yeah me too so we're on there uh echo you got any final questions that's it oh actually um so do you think and i i think this may seem like an obvious answer but more so okay so when you were growing up you know you had it so many chores like it was like hard right like so you got used to hard work really quickly yeah thoroughly essentially could you feel that like as you know you go through like you know hard things and combat buds like all these hard things or whatever and because you said you said something kind of interesting where you're like okay on the third time after you got rolled or whatever the third time you passed with no no issues you said a lot of people like buds is like real hard for them did you feel that your work ethic that was established like was the factor that made it like a non-issue like could you feel that at the time yeah absolutely um it was crazy i thought about my my stepdad a lot during whole week because i thought about how hard he worked i mean i mean the man worked non-stop seven days a week two jobs and i was going through hell week i thought about him i was like you know what if he can do that i can do this right so that's how i'm gonna provide for my myself and my family like yeah yeah that's what i was thinking when you're saying that also it kind of makes you reflect like you reflect on like someone like your childhood then i think man i should give my kids more chores you know what's so weird about buds is you just never know who's gonna make it through you really don't and there's some silver spoon people that go through there and crush it and there's some silver spoon people that wash out day two and there's some freaking kids that grew up wherever in a shitty situation working their ass off and they quit yeah and there's some kids like that that are awesome it's so bizarre it's very bizarre it's very hard to predict there is some like some oh if the guy like they say if someone wrestled it's a really good thing because you have to work really hard in wrestling that's a that's like an indicator but it's by no means oh he wrestled he's gonna make it not at all not at all not even close yes one of the many factors one of the many factors might be a little nudge in the direction of but it's no guarantee crazy that's it no good good to see you again yeah likewise thank you for having me any closing thoughts carlos no not really just uh super grateful to be here grateful to be part of the the ef team it's awesome being around team guys again always good man yeah awesome all right well hey man thanks for thanks for coming out today um obviously thanks for your service and the teams and thanks for what you're doing right now to continue to share the lessons that we learned uh to help people which is what we're doing just doing our best to help people i i you have a great way of imparting the messages um obviously it's great that you can open up us to open up the the tactics and the strategies and the principles to a whole new audience because you're a fluent spanish speaker which is awesome it's been awesome to i love watching those videos i'm like because i i can understand a little bit of spanish you know and because i took three semesters of it when i was at university of san diego and so i can understand it i kind of get the vibe you know but man it's freaking cool to watch so um yeah man it's great i appreciate it and [Music] thanks for holding down the tradition of the teams and thanks to all the other frogmen out there still in the teams still keeping the machine rolling on and upholding the standard set by our forefathers and thanks to all the military personnel out there in every service for protecting freedom around the world and to our police law enforcement firefighters paramedics emts dispatchers correctional officers border patrol secret service all other first responders including your wife carlos thanks for protecting us here at home and everybody else out there the machine will roll on the world's going to carry on without us that's the reality it would be arrogant to think otherwise but at the same time we can make a difference you can help someone you can teach someone you can inspire someone you can make your part of the world a little bit better and you do that by going out there every day and getting after it and until next time this is carlos and echo and jocko out

Channel: Jocko Podcast

Views: 129,006

Keywords: jocko willink, podcast, discipline, defcor, fredom, leadership, extreme ownership, author, navy seal, usa, military, echelon front, dichotomy of leadership, jiu jitsu, bjj, mma, jocko, victory, echo charles, flixpoint

Id: pIFmKjsNy7M

Length: 199min 46sec (11986 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 06 2022