The Explosion That Almost Killed Me ft. Braxton McCoy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 227

Braxton McCoy is an author, public speaker & decorated U. S. Army veteran who survived catastrophic wounds during the 2006 battle for Ramadi, earning the Purple Heart and the Army Commendation Medal with “V” Device for Valor. Grab his book! https://braxtonmccoy.com LIVE TOUR TICKETS ON SALE NOW! https://unsubcrew.com/liveshows Watch this episode ad-free and uncensored on Pepperbox! https://www.pepperbox.tv/ WATCH THE AFTERSHOW & BTS ON PATREON! https://www.patreon.com/UnsubscribePodcast MERCH: https://www.bunkerbranding.com/collections/unsubscribe-podcast ------------------------------ THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS! BOOKING. COM https://booking.com PONCHO OUTDOORS Go to https://ponchooutdoors.com/unsub for $10 off your first order GHOSTBED Get an extra 25% off when you use code UNSUBSCRIBE at checkout. Go to http://GhostBed.com/unsubscribe to get started! THE PERFECT JEAN F*%k your khakis and get The Perfect Jean. 15% off with the code UNSUB15 at http://theperfectjean.nyc/UNSUB15 #theperfectjeanpod ------------------------------ UNSUB MERCH: https://www.bunkerbranding.com/pages/unsubscribe-podcast ------------------------------ FOLLOW OUR SOCIALS! Unsubscribe Podcast https://www.instagram.com/unsubscribepodcast https://www.tiktok.com/@unsubscribepodcast https://x.com/unsubscribecast Eli Doubletap https://www.instagram.com/eli_doubletap/ https://x.com/Eli_Doubletap https://www.youtube.com/c/EliDoubletap Brandon Herrera https://www.youtube.com/@BrandonHerrera https://x.com/TheAKGuy https://www.instagram.com/realbrandonherrera Donut Operator https://www.youtube.com/@DonutOperator https://x.com/DonutOperator https://www.instagram.com/donutoperator The Fat Electrician https://www.youtube.com/@the_fat_electrician https://thefatelectrician.com/ https://www.instagram.com/the_fat_electrician https://www.tiktok.com/@the_fat_electrician ------------------------------ unsubscribe pod podcast episode ep unsub funny comedy military army comedian texas podcasts #podcast #comedy #funnypodcast Chapters 0:00 Welcome To Unsub! 2:54 Meet Our Guest 5:18 Protecting Public Lands 25:45 Braxton’s Military Experience 32:26 We Made A Slur? 34:55 Braxton’s Deployment 56:41 Zach Bryan 59:48 The Glass Factory & Braxton’s Injuries 1:28:46 Braxton’s Book 1:30:55 Braxton’s Recovery 1:41:16 Braxton’s Fight For Public Lands Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 01

  We get in the truck and I was like, alright, let's go get [BLEEP] blown up. Hello, George, do you like my cowboy? His name is Sam.

• 0:35Speaker 02

  That was your boot camp experience. Don't bring that on him. Anything sounds like a slur when you put "you [BLEEP]" behind it. You know, one of the biggest things we say is bully journalists.

• 0:44Speaker 01

  I was just waiting to see where that was going.

• 0:46Speaker 02

  Oh, you know where it was going.

• 0:47Speaker 03

  We're gonna have a good time today, my friend.

• 0:51Speaker 01

  Say hi to Eli. He's racially ambiguous and random. His hair is fucking fabulous. And Donut, a dark oak disposition. And there's a fat electrician. Welcome to unsubscribe.

• 1:11Speaker 03

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• 1:17Speaker 03

  It's in the read.

• 1:18Speaker 02

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• 1:30Speaker 02

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• 1:30Speaker 03

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• 1:33Speaker 02

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• 1:35Speaker 03

  You can find exactly what you're booking for at booking.com. You gotta bounce and make his face look really pretty. Oh, that's [BLEEP]. You're gonna need more than a piece of paper. That's why they're drinking at home.

• 1:48Speaker 03

  Everyone ready? You're gonna have to do the pop. So on the count of three, we're gonna pop this next to the microphone. Ready, everyone? Three, two, one.

• 2:01Speaker 01

  Welcome to the Enabler Podcast.

• 2:06Speaker 03

  That was a cool coin you showed us, though. It's 10 days.

• 2:14Speaker 04

  The best part is 10, 11 days from now, you get another one.

• 2:21The Fat Electrician?

  Jesus Christ.

• 2:22Speaker 02

  Oh, that's.

• 2:23Speaker 03

  The health journey, everyone's like, what the hey, we were, we have been very healthy. Like everyone's doing very good. I will pat everyone's back on that one.

• 2:32Speaker 02

  To be fair, it's, it's Sunday. We're just kind of chilling this weekend. We're having a couple of drinky doodles.

• 2:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:38Speaker 02

  Don't worry about it.

• 2:39Speaker 03

  Eating really good, too.

• 2:40Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah. Hold on, I'll introduce, we'll get in real quick. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the unsubscribe podcast. I'm joined today by Eli Double Tap, Braxton McCoy, Brandon Herrera, myself, Dawn and Operator. Thank you so much for being here. We've been on the fitness journey for quite a bit now. I've gained 15 pounds. Brandon, you've lost how much?

• 3:00Speaker 04

  Uh, I am half a pound under 20.

• 3:03Speaker 02

  Woo, girl.

• 3:04Speaker 04

  Working on that.

• 3:05Speaker 03

  Good.

• 3:06Speaker 04

  I try.

• 3:07Speaker 02

  Tomorrow, we're doing legs, gonna suck.

• 3:09Speaker 04

  Oh, we're doing legs tomorrow? No, you're doing legs tomorrow. I'm gonna be sick.

• 3:15Speaker 03

  You sent me a picture tonight. I'm vomiting.

• 3:17Speaker 02

  What? Go to the fucking gym, Brandon.

• 3:20Speaker 04

  You're like, I'm friends with you on Steam. I see you're playing the Battlefield six beta.

• 3:27Speaker 03

  Side note, Braxton McCoy is one of the most cowboy.

• 3:31Speaker 02

  Oh, boy.

• 3:33Speaker 03

  You got lucky on that one.

• 3:35Speaker 02

  On the what now? Oh, the name?

• 3:36Speaker 03

  The name.

• 3:37Speaker 02

  Like, who named the kid Braxton? I don't know. It was a shitty general. My mom figured, you know.

• 3:42Speaker 04

  Rag. No, you sound cool as.

• 3:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, dude, that's all I hear.

• 3:45Speaker 04

  If I was in a bar fight, I would want to have Braxton McCoy next to me in a fucking bar fight.

• 3:50Speaker 02

  I don't know about anymore. I'm getting old, man.

• 3:52Speaker 04

  So like growing up, like on Fort Bragg, uh, my parents were both army brats. That was the, the running joke is that Braxton Bragg was the best general the Union ever had.

• 4:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's kind of true. So they named me after him, I guess.

• 4:06Speaker 03

  I still think it's a dope ass fucking name.

• 4:08Speaker 02

  It's dope as shit.

• 4:09Speaker 03

  Yeah. It's a very strong cowboy name. Very strong. Hi, welcome to the unsub.

• 4:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, thanks for having me, man.

• 4:14Speaker 03

  You're thrown into the mix on this one. Did you get to watch a single episode?

• 4:18Speaker 02

  He was hard armed like two minutes ago.

• 4:19Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, totally.

• 4:21Speaker 02

  That was me, actually.

• 4:23The Fat Electrician?

  Easily confusable.

• 4:25Speaker 04

  I was like, man, I don't feel like Tony has enough ammunition. Let's just throw some more out there. Let's just.

• 4:30Speaker 01

  Feed into it.

• 4:32Speaker 02

  Where are you coming from?

• 4:34Speaker 01

  Idaho. Yep. Eastern Idaho. I grew up in Southern Utah, but now I live in Eastern Idaho. I've been there about eight or 10 years or so.

• 4:41Speaker 02

  Oh, wow. Okay.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  So, yep. Pulling up my stopwatch in my show notes.

• 4:45Speaker 02

  What the fuck are you doing, Eli?

• 4:47Speaker 01

  Getting my show notes ready.

• 4:47Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 4:49Speaker 01

  Just interrupting, I'm texting people. Go on, cool story, bro. Yeah, dude.

• 4:54Speaker 02

  That's the, again, Braxton. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 4:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, babe. I mean, yeah.

• 5:00Speaker 02

  Sorry, course of habit.

• 5:03Speaker 02

  Wow, and how does that make you feel? She's such a bitch.

• 5:10Speaker 04

  Dude, you have, we were talking on a little before the podcast, but you've been on a lot of big podcasts, which how was that? And when was the fir- what was the very first big podcast you were on?

• 5:22Speaker 01

  The first big one was probably Jaco. I did Tim Poole before that, I think. It's hard to remember, but Jaco was probably the biggest, for sure. And then, he's a stud, man. I love that guy. He's on our Board of Advisors now at Sagebrush, too.

• 5:35Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 5:35Speaker 01

  He's a stud.

• 5:36Speaker 02

  Board of Advisors for what?

• 5:38Speaker 01

  Uh, we started up a not-for-profit to defend, protect public land and wildlife and stuff, from the right-wing perspective, because all the rest of them are a little bit gay.

• 5:49Speaker 02

  I like this guy.

• 5:50Speaker 04

  Right. I think we made a friend.

• 5:53Speaker 02

  Quick friend.

• 5:54Speaker 04

  It's not the like, oh, like the tree hugging, oh, you have to protect all the wildlife, don't hu- uh, don't harm a woodland creature. It's like, no, no, like, you can, you can hunt and like, do outdoorsy man shit on it, but like, we want to protect it for future generations.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. And it's like, protect the cool trees with AR-10s, you know what I mean? Instead of chaining yourself to them. It's like, oh, put a fucking APC over there.

• 6:17Speaker 02

  Oh, you're like, we'll chain you to them.

• 6:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, we believe in like, consumptive use and all of that, for sure. You know, it's TR's principle, it's multiple use. I didn't even mean to drag us into this, but just you said Jaco.

• 6:31Speaker 02

  No, go for it.

• 6:32Speaker 01

  Or I said Jaco. You made me say Jaco.

• 6:35Speaker 04

  Like, it's invoking his name. You made me say Jaco.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  Well, he like, haunts Philip's dreams over there. He's like, that watch shows up in my nightmares.

• 6:44Speaker 04

  What happened?

• 6:45Speaker 01

  He just feels like a

• 6:47Speaker 02

  You better get up at 4:00 AM and do CrossFit, buddy.

• 6:54Speaker 04

  Anyway, sorry.

• 6:55Speaker 01

  No, you're good, man. So, yeah, we, a multiple use mandate, right? That's how it was set up. That's how it should be. Uh, you've got extraction, grazing, hunting, fishing, recreating, and also just for looking at. And we believe in that kind of stuff. And I don't want to see a bunch of all them solar panels and all that bullshit. I want to look at my trees as trees, not like solar panel trees made by some gay South African or something.

• 7:25Speaker 01

  Bro, you're not gonna, I don't know if I should.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  We just got a harem of 14 test tube chicks. What are we talking about here?

• 7:37Speaker 01

  Not speaking, this is not speaking for the, the campaign. I'm on my own over here. Now, I was thinking, I was like, well, endorse Brandon.

• 7:45Speaker 03

  It's like, this, this feels a little pointed somehow.

• 7:50Speaker 03

  No, it may, it was, a lot of people, uh, hmm, rewind. I didn't know what to level. Brandon, this morning, you were talking about the different ways they show it or get it across to try to manipulate, hey, look what they're doing. They're just giving it all away versus, oh, actually, it is actually researched before, hey, this plot of land we actually can get rid of versus this one, not so much, right?

• 8:14Speaker 04

  And so before I, I say what I'm about to say, let me, let me make it abundantly clear. Like, I was against, uh, Mike Lee's amendment to the big, beautiful bill that would sell out public land. That was, I was not in favor of that. But there were a lot of people that were manipulating it. And I just, I don't like, whether it's left, right, agree, disagree, I don't like the manipulation of data, um, to try to convince people of things. And like, there were a lot of maps that were being shared around, like, this is the public land avail, that like, could be sold off in the new bill, and it would look like a third of all public land in the country. But in reality, it was like, that was just the stuff that was available. In reality, I think it was like 1% total.

• 8:54Speaker 04

  It was, it was something along those lines, like 1.3. I don't remember the exact number, but there were, I was just, I was annoyed by the amount of maps that I was seeing on social media that made it look like, oh, my God, we're selling all of fucking Utah.

• 9:06Speaker 03

  You know.

• 9:08Speaker 01

  Cause they were.

• 9:09Speaker 03

  Well, how much were they selling?

• 9:11Speaker 01

  Uh, what he had done is set a floor and no ceiling. So it was like, these must be sold off and then the rest to be evaluated. And there's already a process in place for this called FLIPMA, the Federal Land and uh,

• 9:24Speaker 01

  the beer is getting to me already, Federal Land Management and Policy Act, uh, 72. Uh, and what it it does, you can evaluate evaluate a piece of property and say, hey, we've got to expand our city here, or maybe we need a landfill or or whatever. And then it goes through this process and then it can be divested to that incorporation, incorporated city or whatever. So that process exists and they were just pretending like it didn't exist because they were trying to bypass that procedure so that Elon could pave the West with solar panels.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  And e-girls.

• 9:58Speaker 03

  E-girls that you can now apparently marry on uh, on on X.

• 10:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I'm not saying you're wrong. I I understand. I actually think you're coming from the right place, but he was manipulating the whole conversation intentionally.

• 10:14Speaker 03

  See, that's for sure. Well, I like it. Just those are the conversations, especially with your side. Cause that is that, how was that? Conversation. I think that's a really difficult one because you'd figured a lot of people would be looking at that on the right or left on the right side. You're like, oh, they'll understand this. And then was there actually a wave of pushback? And you're like, yo, what the fuck?

• 10:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, well.

• 10:35Speaker 03

  Because data manipulation, maybe as you were saying, it's like, oh, well, they're manipulating the data or how they're saying it.

• 10:41Speaker 04

  I mean, I just want everybody to have the right conversation, you know, like, let's look at the facts as they are instead of, because you'll have groups in the left, groups on the right, that'll just try to make the conversation, change the overt and window to what they want the conversation to be. I'm like, no, let's, let's talk about the real thing being proposed. But I was on your side through the whole thing. Like, I thought it was very well, very well structured the way you did it.

• 11:00Speaker 01

  Well, I appreciate that. And you're not, you're right. The the left is particularly bad at this, though. They'll take a piece of data and then spin it in a direction that just makes it virtually useless, like almost not true. Well, it is mostly not true. And that's made the the right wing just kind of reaction like they're reactionary now towards any information that comes from the left and rightly so because they get lied to all the time. So it's it makes it difficult to have the conversation like actually, hey, man, this is what it this is what they're aiming at. And plus, you got to be a goddamn nerd to even know all this stuff. There's so many acts involved. They go back to eighteen seventy two, eighteen ninety, eighteen sixty, like, you got to get way in the weeds. And no one wants to do that. Unless you're a nerd.

• 11:43Speaker 04

  Even the people in power don't do it.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh.

• 11:46Speaker 04

  They're they're some of the most clueless people you'll ever talk to.

• 11:49Speaker 01

  Like, there's like four state politicians in my state that have ever read our constitution. Like, I'm talking about a state constitution. It's like, dude, do homework, man. Also, I loved you in nineteen twenty three.

• 12:07Speaker 01

  Well, if it keeps going, we're gonna be like, there will be blood levels.

• 12:11Speaker 01

  Be like the Bill the Butcher or some shit. I'm just kidding, Feds. Jesus Christ.

• 12:16Speaker 04

  No, he's not.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  You can't even joke anymore. One of us. Mighty hit squads to show up in Idaho. Fucking black helicopters and round pen.

• 12:27Speaker 04

  You're like, I can't even joke about the things I really believe anymore.

• 12:31Speaker 01

  Then, speaking of the border.

• 12:32Speaker 03

  Now, it's just, who was the president that did the most for like conservation would have been Roosevelt, right?

• 12:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, the most was TR for sure. Yeah.

• 12:41Speaker 03

  Yeah. And he really fought for that. He actually introduced a lot of the like, hey, forget what was happening at that time. We're like, hey, just ripping up forests, ripping up woods. And then he was the one that put a stop. Wasn't it Yellowstone was like the starting point for everything, correct?

• 12:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Yellowstone. Well. Yes, in a broad spectrum, I would say yes. Uh, the cool, the other cool guy that never gets credited is, uh, Pincho. His dad, so you're talking about the robber baron era and some right wing.

• 13:12Speaker 03

  Yes, go on. Act like we're retards because we are and explain it to all of us, audience included.

• 13:19Speaker 04

  Like, I understand the robber baron era, but I've never heard of, you said Pincho?

• 13:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 13:23Speaker 04

  I have no clue who this is.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  So his dad was a timber baron and, you know, they had stripped, his company had stripped the shit out of forests all across America. And instead of saying, you know what, you go continue this legacy and get rich and move this company forward and all that. He said, you know what, you're gonna fix what I screwed up. So he sent him to Germany and France and to get an education in forestry and before you get all uppity fucking Europeans, they went over there because they'd already [BLEEP] their, is that, can I use that word?

• 13:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, sure.

• 13:58Speaker 01

  They'd already [BLEEP] their forests. And so it was like, hey, we're doing reconstruction on a forest over here. Maybe you should protect the stuff you have.

• 14:06Speaker 03

  What was the forest wearing?

• 14:08Speaker 01

  Oh my God. It was probably, the tree brought it on itself, I think. Jogging after midnight in a miniskirt.

• 14:14Speaker 03

  Sad giving you the eyeball, right?

• 14:17Speaker 01

  Like, wasn't wearing enough conifer leaves.

• 14:22Speaker 04

  The tree was blowing that whistle pretty hard.

• 14:25Speaker 03

  Okay, now go on. I had to ruin your story.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  No, no, you didn't. Uh, so he goes over and gets educated and then comes back and he's, he's part of the Boone and Crockett Club with TR and, and these guys that had kind of like already decided they had this ethos, so they were gonna conserve this stuff. Uh, and actually, one step back, before I get back to Pincho, TR, he was, you know, he's born like this very wealthy guy in New York and, you know, Harvard, Yale, all this kind of stuff. Then he goes out west to Nebraska. The line moves. Nebraska, I don't know, you guys keep trying to claim west, but you're like Midwest now. But it was west then. So he comes out and he goes on this buffalo hunt and he kills this buffalo.

• 15:09Speaker 01

  It's like this big, long, arduous thing. I'll, you know, spare you, but he finally kills this buffalo.

• 15:15Speaker 03

  We like this part. One thing the podcast loves is fucking history lessons. Okay. And right now you're telling him very well. So I am fully involved into this.

• 15:25Speaker 01

  So he finally whacks this buffalo after he's like sleeping outside in the rain and the guides were all really impressed because they thought he was like this blind, you know, nerd from rich nerd from New York. And he kind of was blind and rich, but he wasn't this nerd. He was tough and he wanted to like get this stuff done. Anything he put his mind to, he wanted to accomplish.

• 15:44Speaker 03

  Cause wasn't the, the visual impairment, was that based on boxing?

• 15:48Speaker 01

  Uh, he was kind of blind anyway, but he was asthmatic as a kid. And then he always said, when he started boxing at Harvard, that that cured, you know, his asthma. I don't know if it, I'm a doctor, so I think that's true.

• 16:01Speaker 03

  And then he did take one really hard hit in the military.

• 16:04Speaker 01

  It made it worse for sure.

• 16:05Speaker 03

  Yep. And that's when he's like, ah, that, that's the one that fucked me up. And that's when he got into judo, if I do remember right.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  Really? I think that's correct. Uh, I can't remember for sure, but I'm just going to go with it. I'm vibing, I'm concluding over here. I think that's right.

• 16:20Speaker 01

  Uh, so he's, he's out there and he was kind of famously a bad shot because he couldn't see worth of shit. And he finally whacks a buffalo and then he comes back and he's talking to the guides and they're impressed that he was just tough enough to sleep outside and all that kind of thing. Uh, and then the, the guide is explaining to him like, there's almost no buffalo left, man, you know? And he has this moment where he realizes like, holy shit, I might've killed the last buffalo, you know? Cause he only saw one damn buffalo the whole time.

• 16:49Speaker 03

  No shit.

• 16:50Speaker 01

  So I, for me, I think that's the start of his realization. Like his conservation ethos begins there and then he ends up going back to New York and, uh, you know, going on with life and then his wife and mother die on the same day. So he goes back out west, buys this cattle ranch. And starts like learning how to be a cowboy and there's a whole bunch of crap in there like gunfights and all sorts of shit, but we'd be here for five hours if I did that. Yeah.

• 17:18Speaker 03

  That wall of Buffalo schools is wild because to your story, they wiped out ninety-eight percent of all but it was.

• 17:28Speaker 04

  If the editor could put that up on the screen too, like that's an incredible visual representation of.

• 17:34Speaker 01

  And it wasn't just buffalo, it was elk, antelope, mule deer, they were, they were killing it, uh, bighorns, mountain goats, they were just whacking everything. But buffalo are the most famous.

• 17:44Speaker 03

  Brandon, what kind of shirt is that?

• 17:46Speaker 04

  I'm glad you asked, Eli. This is a poncho.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  Brandon and I actually wear ponchos so much, we constantly end up wearing the same nice poncho shirt.

• 17:54Speaker 04

  Good thing nobody's ever pointed that out before.

• 17:58Speaker 01

  Now, if you guys have ever seen one of our live shows or this podcast in general, you'll see Brandon and I wearing these incredibly comfortable, great looking shirts all the time.

• 18:05Speaker 03

  Finn, pull it up with pictures. They're literally always wearing the same shirt.

• 18:10Speaker 04

  I got turned on a poncho like a year ago, been wearing them ever since. Uh, personally prefer, I think this is the western because it's got the pearl snaps, uh, because it's hot in Texas and I like something breathable.

• 18:20Speaker 03

  Here's the thing I find really cool. Brandon, do the glasses trick.

• 18:23Speaker 04

  So ponchos have this neat little thing in the pocket where you just take your glasses.

• 18:27Speaker 03

  Nope, that's the other one.

• 18:29Speaker 04

  Be more specific.

• 18:30Speaker 03

  Who gives a shit about that?

• 18:32Speaker 04

  All right.

• 18:32Speaker 03

  Watch everyone.

• 18:33Speaker 04

  So if you got fat fingers and you smudge your glasses all the time, the bottom of the shirt actually acts, it has like a microfiber so you can clean your glasses.

• 18:42Speaker 03

  I make him clean my phones.

• 18:43Speaker 04

  He does.

• 18:44Speaker 01

  I like the hidden little pocket on the breast.

• 18:47Speaker 03

  Wait, what?

• 18:47Speaker 04

  Right over here.

• 18:50Speaker 04

  Got a little zipper pocket.

• 18:51Speaker 03

  I didn't even know about that one. Is that where you hold Cody's heart?

• 18:53Speaker 04

  And his drugs.

• 18:55Speaker 03

  Things you might need to know. Poncho has put a lot of thought and detail into each one of their shirts.

• 19:01Speaker 04

  Oh, holy shit. They're soft. They're really soft.

• 19:04Speaker 03

  Yo, what?

• 19:05Speaker 04

  That's my one like thing is fucking fabric sensitivity. I don't wear uncomfortable shirts. This is comfy as.

• 19:12Speaker 01

  That's why we wear them all the time.

• 19:13Speaker 03

  So Poncho's got a bunch of great styles, the original, western, denim and ultra light.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  If you're looking for the perfect shirt, something breathable and stands out in a good way, give Poncho a try.

• 19:24Speaker 03

  Go to ponchooutdoors.com/ unsub and get $10 off your first order.

• 19:29Speaker 04

  That's P O N C H O outdoors.com/ unsub.

• 19:33Speaker 01

  While we're talking about elk, do you know what this asshole carried up a mountain?

• 19:38Speaker 04

  To hunt a elk.

• 19:40Speaker 01

  If it's too heavy, if it's too heavy of a rifle, don't say that on air.

• 19:44Speaker 04

  Brandon, what did you take up a mountain to hunt an elk with? Look.

• 19:50Speaker 04

  I didn't want to go like they had like all these super lightweight and they're like, oh, do you want to borrow my like a four pound six, five Creed more? I'm like, like, no, I'll just, I'll carry something I actually want to use like as. So I had a Scar 20S.

• 20:05Speaker 04

  The, the heavier DMR version of the Scar and six, five that I was just like, man, you know what? This is an actual rifle that I will use for other stuff. And like, I just want to, if I'm going to take something with it. Or if I want, if I want to take like an elk or something like I want to take it with something that I actually will use like one of the five guns I use for real world shit.

• 20:23Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 20:24Speaker 04

  And I started regretting that about eight hours into the first day.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  We're going over mountains for days and you're like, this is heavy.

• 20:34Speaker 04

  Like, yeah, I know asshole. In a place, in a place that we're like, we're used to like sea level elevation.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:41Speaker 04

  And we're up in Deseret. Yeah, Deseret, Utah.

• 20:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's about the, I think you started about five right there and then you're just climbing from there.

• 20:51Speaker 04

  Dying, just dying. I was like, why the fuck did you bring that home? With a Scar. And what's funny is that like I, cause I was expecting to have to take it like a two, three, 400 yard shot eventually. And the shot that ended up taking him, cause I brought two guns. I brought the, the Scar 20S and then I brought my lever 4570 if it was within, you know, closer range. And

• 21:15Speaker 04

  ended up the, the day that we actually, that I took mine.

• 21:19Speaker 04

  I was, the shot was within 50 yards. So I absolutely did not need six, five.

• 21:25Speaker 01

  That guy had a 20 pound gun though.

• 21:28Speaker 04

  And loved it. Yeah. The gun plus the optic, plus the ammo. It was fun. That was a good time. That was a fucking great time.

• 21:34Speaker 01

  10 round mag, so we carried?

• 21:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think I had a 10.

• 21:39Speaker 01

  I'll just strip that bitch down and I wanted to brought. I was like, this is heavy. Get rid of it all together.

• 21:46Speaker 04

  I, I clearly, it was not a weight saving loadout.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  No.

• 21:50Speaker 04

  So you had, um, so FDR or, yeah, he went, not FDR, but Roosevelt went on.

• 21:56Speaker 01

  FDR was not doing much hiking.

• 21:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  It's fun on the way down, sucks on the way up.

• 22:06Speaker 04

  Editor, can we get some sort of ChatGPT Grok image of FDR in the wilderness doing hiking?

• 22:16Speaker 00

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• 22:46Speaker 01

  He'll be wheelchair with the the tracks on the side of it.

• 22:49Speaker 04

  Tank treads.

• 22:50Speaker 03

  It's still handheld, it's manual at that time. Oh, fuck. But so he had this come to Jesus moment with, oh, I have maybe killed the last buffalo. Now I want to actually get into conservation.

• 23:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's what started it. So it kind of came years later where he really started pushing on it. But I think that's where it began, at least the thinking about it in the correct way started there. There was this, you know, the Americans came over here from Britain and and other places in Europe. And they had, they had like stripped everything like we talked about earlier. They'd stripped that entire continent over generations and generations. And then they got here and there was just trees everywhere and animals and game and all that just. And they felt like there was such an, I feel like they thought there was such an abundance that they would never exhaust it. So I don't, I don't like to look back at history and be like, these were terrible people that were, didn't call us and too cavalier about what they had.

• 23:48Speaker 01

  They just didn't understand. And at the time, the continent looked so vast, you know, they, I don't think they thought they could destroy it, but they were getting damn close to it. And Pincho gets back.

• 24:01Speaker 01

  Uh, TR, you know, president now and Pincho is teaching it. I think it was Yale. He was running like a forestry class. If you don't mind me, uh, derailing, who, who is? Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. So Pincho is the guy whose dad was a timber baron and then got sent back to Germany and France to learn how to like not do it. Um, so he was like a rich, rich guy and his dad was like, you're gonna know, you're gonna be the Lorax bitch. Like that's what you're gonna be. So. God, that dad. Hey, I know I fucked up. So you're unfucking it for me. Good job, champ. Exactly. Yeah. And he was, he was a stud too. Like, so he's teaching the, these classes at either Yale, Yale or Harvard. I can't remember which one right now.

• 24:43Speaker 01

  And he would be like looking at his students and say, okay, let's figure out what, cause now TR is president. Let's figure out what force we can preserve. And the reason they knew they needed to do it, one reason they knew they needed to do it was there was also like grass barrens going on. So they, the 400 million sheep or something like that. And they were just over grazing and then stripping everything out like in terms of trees. So these big banks on mountains were not holding up and mudslides were destroying towns and all this. And kind of ironically, some of the first push for like, hey, help us came out of mountain towns in Utah. They were like, dude, something's up. You guys gotta help us. Like we've had like 35 people die in mudslides, you know, help us out.

• 25:26Speaker 01

  So they start breaking up these barrens and that's sort of how Pincho entered, enters the picture with TR. And he's teaching it Yale or Harvard again. I can't remember which. And he would go to his students and say, figure out which force they, they were kind of trying to prioritize. And look at this map, which force are most important? And then it would like pick two or three. And then you bring them up to TR and TR like, you put them on TR's desk and TR would look at them and be like, let's go downstairs and box. So they would go downstairs and then box for a while and then come back up and he was, they're fucking awesome. Real quick too, what was causing the mudslides? It was killing all those people? Uh, in ecological terms, like the, the roots are help, the roots of the trees are helping hold the dirt

• 26:10Speaker 01

  onto the mountain and then the roots of the grass are helping as well. So when you kill both, it just becomes like a mudslide hell. There's nothing to keep the bank from eroding or the slide or the mountainside from eroding. There's no structure to it. Yeah. Exactly. All this stuff kind of works together. And so they they started preserving. I think they between the those two while TR was in office. I think it was over a hundred national force. They put protections on just like 190 million acres. I think he did, or no, maybe he did 100 and 120 million acres while he was in and now we're at about like 193. I think.

• 26:47Speaker 02

  It's why I entered with that story. Uh, TR was beating the fuck out of people in the basement.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, him and Pinchot.

• 26:53Speaker 04

  Imagine boxing the president.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  He was doing that shit all the time.

• 26:57Speaker 04

  Just you like, oh yeah, Teddy Roosevelt wants to see you. Ah, come on, let's spar a little bit.

• 27:01Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 27:02Speaker 03

  Well, especially when you're just a Yale or Harvard kid and you're like, I got these papers for you. I'm what?

• 27:09Speaker 03

  You can't say no to the president. So he's just getting punched in the face. Still really smart on their side with going like, hey, I'll just bring this up to my students. Have them break down and then deduce what the problem is and actually come.

• 27:26Speaker 03

  Find out the problem because at that time, no one's gonna think about, oh, hey, the roots and the grass are holding all this together. And once you start removing this, then you have landslides or mudslides as repercussions because of it all.

• 27:42Speaker 02

  I love also that he's using just like college students. It's like free labor. Figure this shit out.

• 27:51Speaker 03

  Figure out why people are dying. Thank you. Okay.

• 27:54Speaker 01

  Also, I'm gonna punch you in the face when you come back.

• 27:58Speaker 04

  That would be funny. You could tell which staffers Teddy probably liked and didn't like.

• 28:02Speaker 01

  By whether it was.

• 28:03Speaker 04

  Get in the ring. Yeah. Whether it was light sparring or I just come back to me with another bad fucking idea.

• 28:12Speaker 03

  One eye, one black eye, two black eyes. Oh, he really don't like you, dog.

• 28:16Speaker 04

  Yeah. Oh, we need to present another, uh, another quarterly financial report to TR.

• 28:21Speaker 01

  I don't wanna.

• 28:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, that would've been crazy. I know when they discovered Yellowstone, that was like, oh, this is a bunch of this can't run out. Look at all this beautiful land waterfall. They had everything there and they're like, this dope. Use, use, use, use, use. And then it was like, mm, pause.

• 28:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, they had to station the fucking army to guard Yellowstone when they made it a park. So there was like a, a company out there shooting poachers and shit.

• 28:49Speaker 03

  No shit.

• 28:50Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. Yep.

• 28:51Speaker 03

  What year was that? Try to get in. Yeah, like.

• 28:53Speaker 01

  Um, boy.

• 28:55Speaker 03

  Bro, imagine if.

• 28:56Speaker 01

  Nineteen, no, uh, I can't remember exactly. I don't want to sound retarded.

• 29:01Speaker 03

  Unsub community, real quick, if they were like, hey, you have to guard this like property and you, and the government or whoever's like, yeah, you guys just shoot anyone that's trying to cut down trees. You have a lot of people volunteering for that job for a very reduced rate.

• 29:17Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 29:18Speaker 03

  What, you get paid?

• 29:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're getting paid?

• 29:23Speaker 02

  A lot of GW veterans look at the jobs right now.

• 29:26Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. This is great. Just shoot anyone that fucks with the land.

• 29:30Speaker 02

  I, I am the Lorax and I aim for the Thorax.

• 29:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, so.

• 29:42Speaker 03

  You were in the military. What year did you join? When did that whole journey begin before we get to the, the fun part of your military career?

• 29:54Speaker 01

  Uh, it was, I enlisted, I think in two thousand and three.

• 29:58Speaker 02

  You was in the military?

• 30:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:00Speaker 02

  Oh, God.

• 30:02Speaker 01

  Fucking veterans. I know. They're the worst. We hate them.

• 30:06Speaker 02

  Apparently.

• 30:07Speaker 03

  Brandon's one of the biggest veterans we know.

• 30:10Speaker 02

  God damn it.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  It's like Charlie.

• 30:13Speaker 02

  I was fucking about earlier. I walked up to him and was like, heard you had a surgery or something.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  Sorry, what happened?

• 30:21Speaker 03

  So two thousand and three, you joined?

• 30:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:23Speaker 03

  Army?

• 30:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, Army Guard, Utah Guard.

• 30:27Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  I didn't, I didn't understand what I was doing at the time, but I kind of, growing up, I was like, you know, a little sort of a horse ranch kid, riding bulls and shit and chasing girls and doing what? Too much Copenhagen, that kind of thing. Uh, and Bush lights. And, uh, and so I kind of did, I didn't really, I thought I would just keep riding bulls and Colts forever. I didn't underst- I, I kind of wanted to be in the military, but I, if there was no war, I didn't understand the purpose of it. And then nine eleven happened. I was junior in high school and I was like sloughing school like I always did, sitting at my cousins. And they're like, hey, school's canceled. I'm like, fucking sweet. I'm not going to get an absent for this one.

• 31:10Speaker 01

  And then we turn on the TV and it's like, oh, maybe not so sweet. And from that moment, I was like, all right, I'm going now. So I, I like did the, it wasn't fully delayed entry. It was like early enlistment or something. So like, well, I was still in, or in school. Uh, I just enlisted and then I left right after high school, went and got trained up and I went to Benning and then came back.

• 31:33Speaker 03

  Infantry?

• 31:34Speaker 01

  No, I wasn't, but I went to Benning. I know, dude, oh, you have no idea. My recruiter, this fucking guy.

• 31:43Speaker 03

  Dude, when you have to go to Benning and you're not infantry, you go.

• 31:47Speaker 02

  Oh, all right. Like every, every single military person we brought on here has been fucked by their recruiter. Oh, I just love, even, even after twenty plus years, you're like, this guy.

• 32:00Speaker 01

  Twenty years and a divorce and I'm like, that motherfucker.

• 32:03Speaker 02

  Didn't even get a Dodge Challenger.

• 32:07Speaker 01

  He shows me like this high speed recruiting video, you know?

• 32:10Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 32:10Speaker 01

  Not fucking Halo and shit.

• 32:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, the Rangers just.

• 32:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

• 32:15Speaker 03

  SF everything.

• 32:16Speaker 01

  I'm like, bro, this looks badass, you know? And he's like, you think you're pretty tough, you know? I was like, yeah, all right. He's like, you think you'd carry an extra like ten pounds? I'm like, yeah, man, who can? What are these guys? Or something? He's like, all right, if you can carry a radio, you can get this enlistment bonus. It was like six thousand bucks or something. Yeah, he was not great. Oh, he went as far as this motherfucker went as far.

• 32:41Speaker 03

  Six thousand dollar bonus dude during time of war. You could have done infantry and got like 12 to 20 for a three year contract.

• 32:49Speaker 01

  I was so mad. Freaking like he went as far, I went to Meps. He made me do like, or he had me get, get an airborne physical. I was like, oh, sweet, man, you know, like I'm gonna be able to jump out of planes and shit. And then at Benning, like two weeks before you graduate, they're like, hey, if you're airborne, you gotta come and you know, you go talk to the drill sergeant. I get in there and he's like, what the fuck are you doing in here? I mean, I'm going airborne. He's like, the fuck you are? You ain't got no airborne in your shit, man. Get the fuck out of here. So.

• 33:20Speaker 03

  Oh, wow. You're a recruiter, Jess.

• 33:21Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. He got an award, though. I bet.

• 33:27Speaker 01

  That's like, got this plaque, enlisted the most guys, you know? I'm still mad at you, Matt.

• 33:34Speaker 03

  On a first name basis with this mother. You don't know, like Benning is if you're infantry, like 99% of the time, that's the only time you go to Benning. A lot of times if you're any other MOS, you'll go to Jackson or Sill. A whole bunch of different areas you can go instead of Benning. Benning, especially early 2000s era before it was, that's infantry. Training. That is not the fun drill sergeant. It's the not fun, basic training. And then when it's like, hey bud, you're gonna radio.

• 34:05Speaker 01

  Well, it gets even worse. I, you're waking up every morning screaming infantry, running around and shit. I thought I was going.

• 34:13Speaker 03

  They made you do infantryman's creed too?

• 34:15Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 34:17Speaker 03

  Like, man, I'm not.

• 34:18Speaker 01

  That's what I wanted. I thought I was gonna be infantry. And then I get, get done and graduate and they're like, hey, you gotta go to Fort Gordon.

• 34:25Speaker 03

  I don't even know what that is.

• 34:26Speaker 01

  It's like calm shit.

• 34:27Speaker 03

  Where is that at?

• 34:28Speaker 01

  Augusta.

• 34:30Speaker 03

  No shit. And they were like, were your drill sergeants really confused too?

• 34:35Speaker 01

  No, they just saw I was retarded. They're like, bro, you didn't read this shit? Like, hell no, I didn't read this shit, man.

• 34:46Speaker 03

  Oh, I love this story so much. This is like your nightmare scenario of everything going wrong and it just happened to you. Thankfully, your military career went really stellar.

• 34:56Speaker 01

  That's for sure. Yeah, it got a lot better.

• 34:58Speaker 02

  You had to go to like double Meps. They had to finger your butthole twice as hard.

• 35:05Speaker 02

  What the fuck, man?

• 35:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was dumb.

• 35:07Speaker 02

  Not even infantry.

• 35:08Speaker 01

  What's with Warren? That's what pissed me off.

• 35:11Speaker 03

  So you did your training?

• 35:11Speaker 02

  You're not even a doctor.

• 35:13Speaker 03

  Today's unsubscribe episode is brought to you by booking.com.

• 35:17Speaker 04

  Booking dot yeah. Cody, how much do we have to travel?

• 35:19Speaker 03

  We travel a lot. Actually, with the live tours, we use booking.com to set up everything as we go on this next journey of life.

• 35:28Speaker 04

  Cause God knows it's a lot of travel and anything to make it easier is much appreciated.

• 35:32Speaker 03

  Brandon, so when you have to book for your partner, but they only want 800 thread count sheets?

• 35:38Speaker 04

  Well, that's easy, Eli. Get a new partner.

• 35:42Speaker 03

  No, go to booking.com.

• 35:43Speaker 04

  Oh. Before we had any sort of relationship with booking.com, I have used the service before. Genuinely, because sometimes they have really good deals.

• 35:51Speaker 03

  One of the great things about booking.com is it provides really accurate reviews, like really detailed reviews. It saved me once. Cody, did you use booking.com when we stayed at that sweet vacation home? Heck, yeah. What else would I use other than booking.com? Find exactly what you're booking for.

• 36:08Speaker 04

  Booking.com.

• 36:09Speaker 03

  Booking dot yeah. Book today on the site or the app.

• 36:12Speaker 01

  Dude, there's one time at Meps, or not at Meps, she got me on Meps now, at Gordon. We were like soldering shit together. You know, I grew up welding and all this stuff. I don't need to teach me how to solder. So I'm like sitting in the back of this stupid classroom and goddamn computers everywhere and shit. And I took a bunch of wire and I soldered up this little cowboy guy that was like drinking a beer with a hat on. While they're like teaching class.

• 36:39Speaker 03

  Doing arson crafts? I just imagine your military drill sergeant's like, the fuck is this retard doing?

• 36:47Speaker 02

  And he just sees that he's like, this guy's gonna be somebody one day.

• 36:51Speaker 01

  Like, I'm starting an Etsy shop. Hello, drill soldiers. Do you like my cowboy? His name is Sam.

• 36:56Speaker 02

  Why is he Asian now?

• 36:57Speaker 03

  What the fuck? That was your boot camp experience. Don't bring that on him.

• 37:03Speaker 01

  Minority.

• 37:05Speaker 03

  Why does that sound worse when you call somebody a minority like that?

• 37:10Speaker 02

  I'm probably gonna white guy on the podcast, come on, man.

• 37:12Speaker 04

  Anything sounds worse, anything sounds like a slur when you put you fucking behind it.

• 37:18Speaker 04

  A dirty plop. That's the, that's my favorite one. We invented, I didn't even, I wasn't even a part of it. That's all the kind of consensual guys, right?

• 37:28Speaker 03

  Apparently, I forgot.

• 37:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 37:31Speaker 02

  Pepperbacks too.

• 37:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, they're just like, well, let's invent a slur that like has literally no racial connotation of any kind. And then just now it's banned by YouTube. So we might actually have to censor that.

• 37:41Speaker 03

  Plops?

• 37:42Speaker 04

  Yeah. P L O P.

• 37:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:45Speaker 04

  It means nothing. It literally means fucking nothing.

• 37:48Speaker 03

  We'll have to limit the usage. Actually, we're just gonna have to figure out what if this gets demonetized from that word.

• 37:55Speaker 04

  We'll have to, we'll have to figure out like ask our YouTube rep, like, did we accidentally just make a new fucking word that YouTube doesn't allow?

• 38:03Speaker 01

  What's a pepperback? Is that an Italian?

• 38:07Speaker 04

  Should be a Mexican, probably.

• 38:10Speaker 03

  That's a pepper belly. Pepperback, I don't know. That is our pepper box. Shout out to pepper box. Go get your two week for subscription free right now. We do a pretty much an ad free app or streaming service. And it's so we can do non censored content. There's no censorship. So everyone can do, have fun, say what you want. But also you have like Cody shooting videos completely different.

• 38:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's YouTube, but it's not fucking gay.

• 38:35Speaker 04

  No censorship.

• 38:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, we just started on streaming service. And so the people, it's called pepper box. So we say, hey, pepperbacks. So the people.

• 38:43Speaker 03

  Oh, I see.

• 38:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:45Speaker 03

  Pepperback.

• 38:45Speaker 02

  Dirty little pepperbacks. But I can show people getting shot. So it's awesome.

• 38:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, literally.

• 38:52Speaker 02

  Cause on YouTube, when I break down police videos, like they don't like when you see someone get murdered crazy. But on pepperbox, you can see someone get shot in the face.

• 39:03Speaker 03

  It is strikingly different. Like you are looking at pixelation. Cody can't even have the gun sound. So he just makes quacks.

• 39:10Speaker 01

  No, I've seen some of those videos. I thought you were just like goofing around.

• 39:14Speaker 04

  The quacks of justice?

• 39:15Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 39:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, the quacks of justice now.

• 39:17Speaker 03

  That is the only way you can stay monetized to make any money is to do all of that. And then you still get hit sometimes, right?

• 39:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, I still get hit on that, man.

• 39:26Speaker 03

  So pepper box. Now you just watch none of that and you're like, oh, this is a different kind of video now. Ha ha.

• 39:34Speaker 04

  It really does hit different.

• 39:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:36Speaker 03

  Takes away the humor. Kinda.

• 39:39Speaker 04

  The uncensored video. I'm like, oh, I just watched a guy die.

• 39:42Speaker 03

  Like.

• 39:43Speaker 04

  All right.

• 39:43Speaker 03

  Comment below.

• 39:46Speaker 04

  But thumbs up.

• 39:48Speaker 03

  So you had your, how many times did you have to end up deploying with? Your unit or your? No shit.

• 39:56Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Well, I kind of worked out, right? Uh, oh, five or six.

• 40:00Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 40:00Speaker 01

  No.

• 40:01Speaker 03

  Fifteen.

• 40:02Speaker 01

  Uh, no, it was supposed to be fourteen, I think.

• 40:05Speaker 02

  So you, you thought you were like, you were with the infantry guys and you got deployed as like, what was your job going out there when you got deployed?

• 40:13Speaker 01

  Uh, PSD stuff, personal security detail stuff.

• 40:16Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 40:17Speaker 01

  It, it kind of worked out because I got back to my unit and I absolutely hated my MOS. It was the absolute gayish ever, dude. It's like all these nerds talking about numbers and putting fucking antennas up.

• 40:28Speaker 03

  Numbers. Especially coming from you like, I'm a cowboy shit, riding bulls and. And then you thinking, this is what I'm going to do. This is why I went to war. And then they just robbed that. They're like, you're a radio guy now.

• 40:41Speaker 01

  Dude, I didn't go to war to like, listen to people talking on radio. I'm like, I'm here to shoot people, man.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  So it kind of worked out.

• 40:56Speaker 01

  They're gonna be like a sociopath.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  So I, well, so I get back to my unit and it was gay. Uh, but I had a cool, like my section chief was cool. And this deployment with this other unit was coming up and they needed like a PSD team. So he's like, you got decent PT scores and all this stuff. You shoot all right. See if you can get on that. So I went and put a packet in or whatever for, and they, they put me on the PSD team. I was like, so I got to at least do something.

• 41:23Speaker 03

  You're attached to, so PSD, if you're in the military, every battalion is going to have that. Usually it's for sergeant major, major, colonel, lieutenant colonel. You will have a team with you, just a squad that rolls with you. So if you're doing dismounted patrols, whatever, they're your.

• 41:40Speaker 02

  What's PSD stand for?

• 41:41Speaker 04

  Private security detail.

• 41:42Speaker 02

  Oh, okay. Cool.

• 41:43Speaker 04

  Is there anybody that you were on that team for that like your, your job was to protect? That was actually like, just like neat? Like any, anybody, anybody of note that stands out?

• 41:55Speaker 03

  It's gonna be a random sergeant major.

• 41:57Speaker 01

  Uh, we worked with McChrystal's team once, um, but we were just like augment.

• 42:03Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 42:03Speaker 01

  And he's kind of a douche. Uh, but all of his guys had Pearl handled 19 elevens.

• 42:08Speaker 04

  Ah, that's cool as fuck.

• 42:11Speaker 03

  Really?

• 42:11Speaker 04

  The soldiers did?

• 42:13Speaker 01

  He bought them for him, I think.

• 42:14Speaker 04

  Oh, that's neat.

• 42:17Speaker 06

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• 42:46Speaker 03

  That'd been weird to run into that over there. I'd be like.

• 42:50Speaker 01

  Well, he was only like, he would only get on the ground for like four minutes at a time.

• 42:53Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. I just want that metal.

• 42:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:57Speaker 04

  There's a friend that we have that did some of that in Iraq that I'm not sure we can talk about, but was private security for, uh, Mitt Romney.

• 43:05Speaker 03

  No shit?

• 43:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 43:06Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 43:08Speaker 04

  Ended up punching him in the face.

• 43:11Speaker 03

  Punch Romney?

• 43:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 43:13Speaker 03

  Oh, cool. Oh, yeah.

• 43:15Speaker 04

  As a Utah boy, you're like.

• 43:17Speaker 03

  Yeah. I remember that.

• 43:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, I don't, they were going through, uh, hard part of territory and Romney tried to get out of a Hummer. And they just.

• 43:31Speaker 04

  It's like your job, my job is to make sure you stay in this vehicle. So you're going to stay in this fucking vehicle. Like that sort of. Yeah. And he got popped in the mouth.

• 43:38Speaker 01

  I'm gonna need a mailing address and this guy some beer and whiskey or something.

• 43:42Speaker 04

  Depending on.

• 43:43Speaker 01

  For what you did. Thank you for your service.

• 43:44Speaker 03

  I swear, did he tell that on the podcast?

• 43:47Speaker 04

  He's never been on the podcast.

• 43:48Speaker 03

  Why did he?

• 43:49Speaker 04

  But.

• 43:49Speaker 03

  No, he was, wait, how do I know that story so well?

• 43:53Speaker 04

  Cause we'll tell you.

• 43:54Speaker 03

  All together? No, I've heard that.

• 43:55Speaker 04

  We were, we were all together.

• 43:57Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 43:57Speaker 04

  Depending on how much time you got tomorrow, we'll introduce you to the guy.

• 44:00Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 44:00Speaker 04

  You wanna give your, you know, CVS flowers?

• 44:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, DM like. Get Philip to like buy him something nice.

• 44:07Speaker 03

  Thank you, sir. You're an American hero.

• 44:09Speaker 04

  Cool story. I didn't want to give too many details, you know, on this, that or the other, but like, yeah, it's very, very funny story.

• 44:15Speaker 02

  It was, yeah, it was, it was a, you know, like a highfalutin congressman type person.

• 44:21Speaker 04

  Senator.

• 44:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, Senator, sorry. He wanted to get out the, the Humvee during an incident. They're like, no, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it.

• 44:30Speaker 04

  Our boy made sure that that didn't happen.

• 44:34Speaker 04

  What you imagine like receiving contact and thinking like, oh, I want to jump out of the bulletproof vehicle.

• 44:39Speaker 01

  Bro.

• 44:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, weird. I've never done that.

• 44:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:46Speaker 03

  Dismount left, action right.

• 44:48Speaker 04

  Imagine you have no gun and your only job is don't get killed.

• 44:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, that is the one I'd be like, I'm gonna stay inside this. Ding ding ding. Nah, we're not going out there. These soldiers got it. Let them do their job.

• 45:00Speaker 01

  The work, the dumbest ones are journalists every time. In keeping with tradition.

• 45:05Speaker 04

  Journalists being dumb?

• 45:07Speaker 01

  Fuck.

• 45:08Speaker 04

  Oh, my God.

• 45:09Speaker 01

  You got like one tagging along and then something happens and they're like trying to get out, take a picture or something. You're like, are you fucking retarded? Their vest is like open and their helmet's not even on. You're like, yeah, man.

• 45:19Speaker 02

  You know, one of the biggest things we say is bully journalists.

• 45:23Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 45:23Speaker 02

  Like always bully journalists.

• 45:25Speaker 01

  I actually have that tattooed on me.

• 45:26Speaker 02

  People.

• 45:27Speaker 03

  You have that tattooed on you?

• 45:29Speaker 02

  No, I don't.

• 45:30Speaker 03

  That's dope as shit. He is one of us.

• 45:33Speaker 01

  I do hate on.

• 45:34Speaker 04

  There's, there's like, there's a couple of journalists that are like actually shockingly, refreshingly good at their field, right? Like the, the real guys that want to tell the, the, the real story and actually have morals and guidelines. I would guess less than 10%.

• 45:48Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure. I'm talking like 1%.

• 45:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, 90 plus percent are just some of the worst people you'll ever spend time around.

• 45:57Speaker 02

  I just keep thinking of Civil War, the 24 movie that's, you know, that came out last year. You remember the journalists are like trying to, they were like, let's do this, let's do this. And the Delta like slash so guys are like, no, no, no, no, just reeling them back.

• 46:12Speaker 04

  The thing I took away from that movie is that not even Hollywood can write a likable journalist.

• 46:18Speaker 04

  We all hate them, bully them, bully them. So he even tried to make him the hero and it didn't fucking work.

• 46:25Speaker 03

  So you did your, you got attached as a PSD unit and then, uh, were you just for your battalion?

• 46:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, battalion. Yeah. Well, it was, so we got over, it was supposed to be for the Colonel, the LTC.

• 46:39Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 46:39Speaker 01

  Uh, and then we got there and Ramadi was pretty hot.

• 46:44Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 46:44Speaker 01

  At the time.

• 46:45Speaker 03

  That's a surge.

• 46:46Speaker 01

  It wasn't.

• 46:47Speaker 03

  It's a warm period of Iraq.

• 46:50Speaker 01

  So they, we kinda, they stopped going out, uh, higher ups stopped going out very often. Uh, not even calling them names. It's just, you know, it's like, do you want to go drive through South Chicago right now? Cause that's basically what it is on a Friday. And so they took our PSD team and they kind of broke it up and just made us into whatever came down the pipe sort of deal. It was just like the retards, like, you know, we're like the mules. Like, hey, go get those idiots and see if they'll go do this, you know?

• 47:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, they're up for it.

• 47:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. It was.

• 47:26Speaker 03

  Really? I mean, great.

• 47:29Speaker 01

  So we just did anything, uh, like sometimes it'd be like a log pack, sometime patrols and just whatever. One time it was, uh, supposedly gonna hit Zarqawi, like they found a cell phone or whatever. Turned out to be just some poor guy's fucking chicken farm. So like landing helicopters and kicking chicken coop doors in and shit.

• 47:52Speaker 03

  I bet they were so hyped leading up to that mission. You had everyone on base and then it's like, hey, it's going down tonight. We got the cell phone. We hear on the map.

• 48:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was retarded. We get there and then everyone's like, like the, you know, people want to be a hero. So the, uh, sevens and above are like really trying to take it serious. And everyone else is like, bro, this is a chicken farm. Like Zarqawi is not chilling at this chicken farm, dude.

• 48:20Speaker 01

  That was, that was a dumb one. Uh, so a few like air assaults here and there and stuff like that. And actually one, we were, we're supposed to be going to this island in the river. There's like weapons caches, you know?

• 48:34Speaker 03

  I understand.

• 48:34Speaker 01

  And they'd found, and we're like, okay, we're gonna go hit this. And they were hitting, they already hit it for like 24 hours before we went. We tried to talk them out of it. We're like, why are you doing this? This is insane. We're now just gonna go land on a pile of UXO? Like this sounds like a terrible idea. But we, so on route, we're in, uh, so in Ramadi, they wouldn't let us like use good helicopters. So we had CH46s, you know, it's like Blackhawks are expensive.

• 49:01Speaker 03

  They would literally make.

• 49:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, we had 46s for shit like this.

• 49:05Speaker 03

  National Guard, baby.

• 49:07Speaker 01

  Dude. And it was Marine pilots. So we were working for two more dip. Yeah, it was, it was, yeah.

• 49:13Speaker 03

  This is so Marines, it was crazy going over there and we had, this is M4s and not M16 A4s. And when we got there, seeing the Marines at the same, this was Liberty and they had M16 A4s and M16 A2s. And then they didn't even have optic, like some had Ironsides. It was like. I had a boy who deployed with 16 A2s with irons. Yeah. And that's just what he used his entire deployment. Wild to see when you're the, the good, like an army is still not Air Force, it's not Navy. You still have the shit equipment, but also for like reserves, National Guard, you guys will get fucked a lot of the time too. No training or training like once a year for range.

• 49:59Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, that they would, I don't know. I didn't make it a year, but it is, I think it is that, uh, once a year.

• 50:04Speaker 03

  This is during war and you still had to deploy.

• 50:07Speaker 01

  Well, I wanted him. I was like, get me over there, dude.

• 50:11Speaker 03

  I'll learn on the field. So you wanna borrow my ghost bed pillow? Does it smell like you?

• 50:17Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 50:21The Fat Electrician?

  Do you feel that cooling technology?

• 50:22Speaker 04

  It's definitely not a hot pillow. I gotta get out of here.

• 50:26The Fat Electrician?

  Give me my pillow. I'm the one that has to sleep here. You guys have your own houses and your own pillows. Quit touching it.

• 50:32Speaker 04

  All right, real question. Can the gang do a pillow fight?

• 50:35The Fat Electrician?

  Not with these.

• 50:36Speaker 04

  A slow motion pillow fight?

• 50:38The Fat Electrician?

  No, they're heavy. It'll hurt.

• 50:40Speaker 04

  Are they really?

• 50:41The Fat Electrician?

  Yes, they're premium. Dude, that would actually suck.

• 50:43Speaker 04

  That actually, I don't think I'd want to get smacked with that.

• 50:46The Fat Electrician?

  I'm swinging it hard, okay? Your son, you walk up and just tee off on your kid? If I smack you with this, you're gonna be a ghost. And, get this, they're built to last with a 20-year warranty and they have a three-month free trial period. What do they do with all the used mattresses that get returned? Not black lights.

• 51:04Speaker 02

  They have a complete sleep setup.

• 51:05The Fat Electrician?

  For spooky sex. Boo.

• 51:08Speaker 02

  Ghostbed has it all. Adjustable bases, sheets, pillows, and full bundles to upgrade your whole bed.

• 51:15The Fat Electrician?

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• 51:18Speaker 04

  Which is really amateur hour. I've been sleeping for at least 30 years.

• 51:21The Fat Electrician?

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• 51:34Speaker 04

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• 51:35The Fat Electrician?

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• 51:44The Fat Electrician?

  Head over to ghostbed.com/ unsubscribe to get started. That's ghostbed.com/ unsubscribe.

• 51:50Speaker 02

  Use the code unsubscribe to sleep better and stay cooler.

• 51:54Speaker 01

  We, we actually had a pretty good spin-up. At Camp Shelby, the, and then NTC. And at that time, like Rangers were doing almost all of the actual like EP shit in other places. So they ran, they were our OCs. So the lanes were pretty good. Oh shit, okay. Uh, but we were still retarded and ill-equipped. But we had [BLEEP] take that shit Marines.

• 52:20Speaker 03

  So you, what was the big, running all these missions, how many months were you out there before the big accident happened?

• 52:28Speaker 01

  Um, so June, it was either May or June to January, the very beginning of January, January 5th, so pretty early on. I barely made it into oh six.

• 52:41Speaker 03

  No shit?

• 52:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 52:43Speaker 04

  I actually, I know nothing of the, the, any sort of incident. Like I know it's been alluded to, like when we've been talking here, like off camera and whatnot, but I, I actually know nothing about this, if you don't mind getting into that just a little bit.

• 52:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. Uh, so my Iraqi decided to strap plastic explosive to himself and some ball bearings and blew it like, turned himself into a human claymore and I happened to be in like the wrong place. So we were actually just a brief rundown on it, cause I've, you know, like talked about it, but, um, we were doing, we were recruiting for IPs and at this time we were, our team was living in a little compound at the southwestern edge of the base.

• 53:25Speaker 03

  Iraqi police.

• 53:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm sorry. Yep.

• 53:28Speaker 04

  I was just about to ask, so thank you for that.

• 53:30Speaker 03

  IA is Iraqi army IP Iraqi police, uh, during the surge and then oh four to oh eight, we would be getting IA IPs and I forget the other one we did, it was like militia essentially, cause we started bringing them in just to cover down on your story, if anyone has any like, oh, what are they talking about? Go on with yours now.

• 53:53Speaker 01

  I appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah. So we were like living with these Iraqi police guys in this little compound, talking to them every day. And one of the things the army was doing, or actually it was like Paul Bremer.

• 54:04Speaker 03

  I'm sorry.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, no shit.

• 54:06Speaker 03

  Do you live down a cob with them?

• 54:07Speaker 01

  Well, it wasn't actually, it wasn't actually a true cob.

• 54:11Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 54:12Speaker 01

  Or a cop, either one, it was, it was like basically on the base, but it was just down on the edge of the base. We were like covering that sector. Uh, and I think they just didn't want us around. They were like, go live with those Iraqis, we fucking hate you.

• 54:25Speaker 03

  I cast brown.

• 54:35Speaker 01

  All these stupid farm kids.

• 54:37Speaker 03

  Why the fuck is their shit on the porta shitters? Why are they squatting on the porta shitters?

• 54:43Speaker 04

  I haven't seen a proper jumping jack in weeks.

• 54:47Speaker 01

  Oh, I got videos of that, too. That shit is amazing. The first time I was like, they gotta be doing this on purpose. This has got, they're trolling us. They're not.

• 54:58Speaker 03

  The biggest troll as ever.

• 55:00Speaker 01

  And the pushups are worse almost.

• 55:02Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 55:03Speaker 01

  It's like a damn accordion.

• 55:06Speaker 01

  Painter is hitting the ground.

• 55:09Speaker 03

  The dirt.

• 55:12Speaker 01

  It was terrible. When we first got in there, the, their like lieutenant was, he was, he was like, hey, I was told I got to keep my pistol. When we go, when we go to bed, because we take their guns from them, you know?

• 55:23Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 55:24Speaker 01

  And we're like, I don't give a fuck who told you you're keeping pistol. You're not keeping a pistol, dude. And he's like, I can't keep control of my guys without it. We're like, take it up with somebody else. Give me your fucking gun. And, you know, we don't trust your ass. That was kind of, there was one IP that I really loved, uh, but the rest of them, I didn't trust at all.

• 55:44Speaker 01

  So the idea that, of the mission was we were recruiting new IPs, Iraqi police. And we had like 330 slots or something to go to a different Middle Eastern country. Not the one you guys are thinking, a different one.

• 56:02Speaker 01

  And they would get trained up there and then come back. So, you know, Paul Bremer was doing all kind of dumb shit. And we had like Shia police and Sunni and Sunni police and shit. It was just bad. So we were recruiting people from Ramadi. Hey, come clean up your own town. You know, this is this feel good story. Well, it was supposed to be a three day mission. And I, I think it was the end of the first day, we had already filled every slot. For, you know, to go get trained and they're like, no, you gotta keep doing the mission because hearts and minds are some shit.

• 56:37Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 56:38Speaker 01

  And so we get to the third day and there's so many Iraqis coming through and this is a glass factory. I should probably tell that part. So it makes sense. We, there was a glass factory that's almost attached to, we ended up annexing it later on, but it was almost attached to the fob that we lived on, but it had been a functional glass factory.

• 56:59Speaker 02

  So maybe your book, right?

• 57:00Speaker 01

  It is. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for the plug, sir. Uh, braxmancore.com.

• 57:06Speaker 02

  And Amazon?

• 57:08Speaker 01

  No, I hate that.

• 57:09Speaker 02

  Amazon.

• 57:09Speaker 01

  Anyone who has a private rocket company is not my friend right now.

• 57:14Speaker 02

  It almost seems like you've had some resentment.

• 57:18Speaker 02

  I actually looked you up. I know. Yeah. Well, yeah, I know the name of your book is Glass Factory, correct?

• 57:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 57:25Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 57:25Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 57:26Speaker 02

  For real though, where, where can we find that?

• 57:28Speaker 01

  On my website, braxmancore.com.

• 57:30Speaker 02

  Gotcha.

• 57:30Speaker 01

  Please buy it. Boom. It go into a lot more and it's, it's not a war book. I would say since we're talking about this, it's more about healing after getting wounded. And I think it's related. I tried to write something that was relatable to people and was reflective of what I was actually seeing happen to my friends when they got home. Cause I didn't feel like that book was out there. Everything was just, this is how I won this medal and you know, and no one was talking about, yeah, I got 14 DUIs and you know, I didn't get 14.

• 57:59Speaker 02

  My war. Yeah, only 13.

• 58:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, just one.

• 58:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:03Speaker 01

  Billings, Montana.

• 58:04Speaker 02

  What happened in the last factory, buddy? Have a DUI badge or DUI medal with a fucking oak cluster.

• 58:12Speaker 02

  Four oaks.

• 58:14Speaker 01

  We should make that actually.

• 58:16Speaker 02

  Goddamn American hero right there. That was, that was a thing in the Navy where like you, in order to be chief, you had to have fucking your DUI badge.

• 58:29Speaker 01

  And a divorce, right?

• 58:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, divorce and a DUI.

• 58:32Speaker 01

  You're not a real G Y veteran.

• 58:35Speaker 03

  So Glass Factory.

• 58:37Speaker 01

  Oh, okay. So this glass factory, think of like an American factory. It's basically like that. Uh, just.

• 58:44Speaker 03

  Less safety regulations.

• 58:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, hodgrel looking and.

• 58:47Speaker 03

  Without OSHA.

• 58:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, no OSHA. But it had like a wall around it and we were using that wall. That wall had like a man gate, like a man sized gate and then a vehicle gate. And so we blocked the vehicle gate and then use the man gate to let people in and then we'd wand them and, you know, TSAM and shit. And then send them to the marine element. I think it was P3 that was doing the actual recruitment and all that stuff. So we were just the idiot security.

• 59:16Speaker 03

  Dude, I again, hats off to you because that is one thing. It was like my biggest fear when

• 59:24Speaker 03

  seeing that idea of like checkpoints for vehicles or wanding or any of that. I was like, I hope I don't have to do a single minute of that. I would just kick down doors, do patrols. I want to be out there. I don't want to be a target where well, I hope you're not going to clack off today and then you have to just want because dude, they're just walking up and then you have to want them. Okay, you're good. Okay. So you are a soft heart like they don't have to worry about anything because they can get right up to you and then so that's why I was always terrified of that. Same for vehicle, uh, checkpoints.

• 1:00:01Speaker 03

  Vehicle rolls up and you're just hoping it's not a V bed. So they can clack off and they started making where the IAs IPs would have to do them instead of soldiers because

• 1:00:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:00:10Speaker 03

  running into issues of, hey, these guys are just going to pull up to an American soldier checkpoint, clack off and then good to go.

• 1:00:18Speaker 04

  Which they did that really well in Warfare, the movie.

• 1:00:21Speaker 03

  Yeah. Oh dude Warfare, they fucking crushed that movie.

• 1:00:23Speaker 04

  Showing like they're sending Iraqis out.

• 1:00:25Speaker 03

  Yep. Yeah, exactly. If you haven't seen Warfare.

• 1:00:28Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:00:28Speaker 03

  You'll have so much PTSD from it.

• 1:00:33Speaker 02

  Brandon, who was telling us they were sitting there and like people, you could tell they walked out from it because they were GWAT veterans?

• 1:00:42Speaker 04

  Uh, Ethan and, uh, Tecky.

• 1:00:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, Ethan and Tecky were sitting there watching the Warfare movie and they saw like other people walk out during the hardcore parts of the movie because it kind of nails home.

• 1:00:54Speaker 03

  Did they?

• 1:00:55Speaker 02

  How gnarly it is.

• 1:00:56Speaker 03

  Fucking like nailed it, nailed it to a T. It was mind blowing on how well they did it. Eight twenty-four, next level, but how they captured every part of that, especially that GWAT era and war actually combat. I tipped my hat to him, I was like, holy fuck, this is wild.

• 1:01:15Speaker 01

  Dude, I don't know if I want to watch it now. I'm gonna do it over here.

• 1:01:20Speaker 03

  I'm in a happy spot.

• 1:01:22Speaker 02

  Dude, I still want to figure out if it was Jaco on that one part, though.

• 1:01:25Speaker 03

  I know he was part of that mission. I don't know if he was, if that was him in it, but I do think that was his unit at the time.

• 1:01:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:32Speaker 03

  Like a hundred percent want to say that was his.

• 1:01:35Speaker 02

  Brandon, the one seal that comes up, he's like, we're frogmen, we're frogmen, we gotta go, we gotta go. You don't feel pain frogman?

• 1:01:43Speaker 01

  Come on, fucking Hula, come on, Hula.

• 1:01:47Speaker 04

  I don't, I wouldn't think so, but I honestly, I have no clue.

• 1:01:50Speaker 03

  So good though, so good. Okay, so you were.

• 1:01:52Speaker 01

  Was he like shoving his watch in their face?

• 1:01:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:56Speaker 01

  You see the time right now? I was up at four thirty. You're bleeding out. Move so. It's leg day, bitch.

• 1:02:05Speaker 03

  Dude's disoriented from it.

• 1:02:11Speaker 02

  Leg day's really funny.

• 1:02:12Speaker 01

  Better see you at three AM. Your legs on that rooftop, good.

• 1:02:19Speaker 02

  My favorite.

• 1:02:22Speaker 02

  Before I like started hitting Twitter hardcore, I think my favorite tweet was to Jaco, like, this is like seven, eight years ago, I texted him, like I showed a picture of my watch, it was two in the afternoon. And I just, I'd like poured some water like on my gym mask. And I was like, I'm up doing the thing. And he, he just, he just replied on my tweet with, no.

• 1:02:49Speaker 03

  If we actually asked our audience to go just like one week, we just, everyone tagged Jaco with times late in the day. You know, everyone would start doing it immediately. He's like, why are tens of thousands of people doing this?

• 1:03:04Speaker 04

  A watch photo at three in the afternoon with like pee on the floor, like.

• 1:03:08Speaker 02

  That's exactly what I did. He said, no.

• 1:03:10Speaker 03

  Crush my workout, pee on the floor.

• 1:03:14Speaker 04

  Do the hard thing.

• 1:03:15Speaker 03

  Doing the hard thing. That's all you say. Doing the hard thing. Cause it's open for everything.

• 1:03:21Speaker 02

  Come on the floor.

• 1:03:23Speaker 04

  Oh, God.

• 1:03:24Speaker 03

  Jaco's like, what the fuck did I do?

• 1:03:29Speaker 04

  Well, it's just like Zach Bryan, like we're, you don't have to do anything. Sometimes we'll just accidentally bully and we, we like, we all like Zach Bryan.

• 1:03:39Speaker 02

  We have a dope Braxton about the Zach Bryan thing.

• 1:03:41Speaker 04

  Oh God, I'll let you lead this.

• 1:03:44Speaker 02

  All right. We, we did a live show up in Austin, Texas. We, you know, we sat around, we did this bullshit. We just did our live show. We're coming back. Uh, Jake, uh, our, what would you call him? Our manager?

• 1:03:58Speaker 04

  Our lawyer.

• 1:03:59Speaker 02

  Our lawyer. He's like, hey, play Leaving, Leaving Austin by Zach Bryan. Is that what the song's called? Leaving Austin? It's something like that.

• 1:04:07Speaker 04

  Well, I think one of us put that on and he was trying to play like Dolly Parton and shit like that.

• 1:04:12Speaker 02

  Yeah. So.

• 1:04:13Speaker 04

  He's, we put on like Leaving Austin by Zach Bryan. Great song.

• 1:04:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. And then we tried to, I think we tried to turn off Zach Bryan.

• 1:04:21Speaker 04

  No, no, we, we put it on and he was like, oh, Zach Bryan's gay. Never listened to Zach Bryan.

• 1:04:26Speaker 02

  Oh yeah. He says Zach Bryan's gay. So we're like, all right, play like, I don't know. Five dudes coming in my mouth by Zach Bryan, Jake.

• 1:04:34Speaker 04

  Alexa, play here.

• 1:04:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. Alexa, play like six bodybuilders pissing on my foreskin by Zach Bryan. Could you just play that Jake? And he got so mad. He got so mad.

• 1:04:45Speaker 03

  This was an entire hour and in our defense, we were absolutely shocked. This is after a live show.

• 1:04:51Speaker 04

  We're like on a party bus on the way home.

• 1:04:54Speaker 03

  And he is getting really mad about this.

• 1:04:58Speaker 00

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• 1:05:29Speaker 04

  Oh, sorry. I accidentally triggered... I triggered the Alexa. I just realized that.

• 1:05:34Speaker 03

  Playing "Ten Black Dudes Pissing on Me" by Zach Bryan.

• 1:05:38Speaker 01

  That's why we got Phillip around, man. He's like on it.

• 1:05:41Speaker 02

  We started talking about it on Twitter one day. We started throwing out the Zach Bryan quotes like the, you know, just like "Come in my mouth" by Zach Bryan.

• 1:05:49Speaker 04

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:05:50Speaker 02

  They played docking like Interstellar. Yeah. By Zach Bryan. "Could you dock right in my cock like Zach Bryan?" And, uh, this motherfucker... Dude.

• 1:06:01Speaker 03

  He got off Twitter.

• 1:06:02Speaker 02

  He deleted his Twitter.

• 1:06:05Speaker 03

  He did. So, we talked about, we made, we talked about it. It was also in a BTS. And then, on Twitter, that man made a post about a song and then his replies were just like, "Hey, Alexa, play this." And it's hundreds, hundreds of comments of that, just those really bad...

• 1:06:26Speaker 02

  And we just did it again.

• 1:06:27Speaker 03

  Oh, shit.

• 1:06:29Speaker 04

  Thanks, Phillip.

• 1:06:32Speaker 01

  Twitter, uh, "Mike Lee is a really big Zach Bryan fan."

• 1:06:38Speaker 03

  So, uh, yeah.

• 1:06:39Speaker 02

  "Zin your foreskin" by Zach Bryan.

• 1:06:41Speaker 03

  Seen the replies and he probably had no idea at first of why he did a tweet.

• 1:06:46Speaker 04

  Why do these people hate me?

• 1:06:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, he's like, "What the fuck did I do?" I don't write any of these songs.

• 1:06:51Speaker 04

  Probably one of my favorite country artists. Like, there's no malice there, but, uh, sorry. Shit's just funny.

• 1:06:58Speaker 01

  It is funny.

• 1:06:58Speaker 03

  Ah, there we go.

• 1:07:01The Fat Electrician?

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• 1:07:04Speaker 02

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• 1:07:07The Fat Electrician?

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• 1:07:08Speaker 02

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• 1:07:09The Fat Electrician?

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• 1:07:13Speaker 02

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• 1:07:15The Fat Electrician?

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• 1:07:22Speaker 04

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• 1:07:25The Fat Electrician?

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• 1:07:30Speaker 04

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• 1:07:32Speaker 03

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• 1:07:36The Fat Electrician?

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• 1:07:41Speaker 04

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• 1:07:44The Fat Electrician?

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• 1:07:45Speaker 03

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• 1:07:51Speaker 04

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• 1:07:52The Fat Electrician?

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• 1:07:54Speaker 04

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• 1:08:01The Fat Electrician?

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• 1:08:07Speaker 04

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• 1:08:33The Fat Electrician?

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• 1:08:36Speaker 04

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• 1:08:45Speaker 03

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• 1:08:48The Fat Electrician?

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• 1:08:52Speaker 03

  All pants?

• 1:08:56Speaker 01

  Talk to my priest now. So many friends. I think I sinned just by like being there.

• 1:09:02Speaker 04

  But anyway, we've derailed way too much from last week. I'm so sorry.

• 1:09:06The Fat Electrician?

  So wanting people.

• 1:09:08Speaker 01

  Oh yeah. So that was kind of like the three day. There was some other shit in there, but. And then on the third day. Uh, this is a weird segue, right? Hey, black dude's pissing on somebody.

• 1:09:21The Fat Electrician?

  Yeah. So this time it's called healing.

• 1:09:27Speaker 01

  This is how I dealt with my PTSD.

• 1:09:31Speaker 03

  It's called the healing.

• 1:09:34Speaker 03

  That's a great shirt, too.

• 1:09:35Speaker 01

  It's called, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I buy that one. We're making it. You got it in like a brush popper?

• 1:09:43Speaker 03

  Whatever you want.

• 1:09:46Speaker 01

  Poncho.

• 1:09:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, Poncho. Let's let's get together on this.

• 1:09:51Speaker 01

  Okay, Wanda. Okay, Wanda. All right. So day three, like you say, some other bullshit has happened, but nothing like no big deal. Everything you kind of and we had been promised three peaceful days by the the sheikhs, you know?

• 1:10:03Speaker 03

  Always.

• 1:10:05Speaker 01

  And they kind of gave it to us. There was some shit, but nothing big.

• 1:10:09Speaker 03

  So by the sheikhs?

• 1:10:11Speaker 01

  So I'm gonna have in the morning.

• 1:10:13Speaker 03

  So the sheikhs. So it's the sheikhs. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:16Speaker 01

  They're like, oh, yeah.

• 1:10:17Speaker 03

  Yeah. It's the people you'll meet up with the different Sunnis or she is and they're like, oh, hey, like, it'll be good. Like, nothing bad's gonna happen, right?

• 1:10:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like clergy, right?

• 1:10:27Speaker 03

  Yep. About the dark magic?

• 1:10:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, please tell me how you get your woman to cut your grass for you.

• 1:10:38Speaker 01

  Since we're here.

• 1:10:39Speaker 03

  Live in a desert.

• 1:10:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, they got like ladies out there with a sigh. I'm not kidding. In a little burrow and they're like piling grass on. He's in there smoking hookah and drinking tea.

• 1:10:48Speaker 03

  They do all the manual labor. That's why they hit a wall at like 20.

• 1:10:54Speaker 03

  Asian women are like 60. Over there, it's like, man, that's an attractive. And then it's like 20 to 21. It's like, because they are doing every bit of manual labor. They are carrying the heaviest shit you will ever seen. You're like, god damn. And all the kids on top of it.

• 1:11:10Speaker 01

  They hit a wall of what?

• 1:11:13Speaker 01

  Which, what age?

• 1:11:14Speaker 03

  20 to 21.

• 1:11:15Speaker 01

  Oh, that's what? Never mind. Keep going.

• 1:11:20Speaker 01

  So, end of day three. This story is never getting finished. Your story.

• 1:11:31Speaker 01

  I was just waiting to see where that was going. Oh, you know where it was going.

• 1:11:36Speaker 01

  You don't seem to, you know where that was going.

• 1:11:42Speaker 01

  So, end of day three, it's like midnight and there's still a bunch of people out there. And my first line leader, John, so at this point, I've been, I was now Bravo team leader. And he, you know, obviously still, you have a boss. And my first line leader is Alpha Team Leader, John. And John, we're radioing up and we're like, hey, man, it is fucking midnight. Like, we need to call it. Uh, we gotta go to bed, we can't be wanting people in the dark, this is retarded. And, and Command was like, no, no, get a few more through. So he just took it upon himself, I don't know if I've ever told this publicly before, but he just took it upon himself and he goes out there, he's like, you guys get the out of here, dude, we're done, you know, and sent them off.

• 1:12:27Speaker 01

  And then we left and then told them what we had done, like, yeah, we told these guys to go home. So then, they say, hey, well, you've got to do another day, you know, because these people, they feel like they didn't get their opportunity. We're like, bro, they don't have an opportunity, that opportunity is already gone. Well, they don't know that, you know, we didn't tell them who got picked, blah, blah, blah. So, hearts and minds bullshit. So they go, we gotta do one more day. Uh, so, fourth day now of what was supposed to be a three, three day mission. And we'd only been promised three peaceful days. So we go to S2 in the morning, uh, the intel guys in the morning for a brief. And intel guys say, hey, be on the lookout for a V bed, we've got intel you're gonna get hit with a V bed.

• 1:13:10Speaker 01

  You know, and we're just like, what the are we doing? It's a white pickup truck.

• 1:13:16Speaker 03

  Which one? Make Toyota.

• 1:13:20Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, dude.

• 1:13:24Speaker 03

  They do say that kind of shit. Yeah. And what's crazy is- Driver profile, brown. Dope. Dude, he's got a pointy chin. I can't believe still, like, they were wandering until after, at night. They're making you wand at night is wild. I was wondering, like, because there was a certain part in that story where you're just like, taking it back. Like, anything after night, I don't know, like, they were on lockdown. It's like, oh, it's getting nighttime. They would just go in. That's why I'm like, what the fuck?

• 1:13:51Speaker 01

  We also had that, but they were, I think the theory was, these people were already there. They'd been under Overwatch for a while, I guess. Anyway. So, fourth day, we, we get told we're gonna get hit with a V-bed. And we're like, alright, we get in the truck, dude. And I was like, alright, let's go get fucking blown up, because we know how this is gonna go. And we ride the truck through the base, whatever, and get there. And we get to the man gate, and there's like a thousand Iraqis lined up already at the gate. And these are not punctual people. So, we know, like, we know already. Something is, uh...

• 1:14:31Speaker 01

  Something's wrong, you know? So, we radio up and we're like, hey, this is bad. These people, they shouldn't be here like this, whatever. And they're like, Roger, continue mission. That's not a verbatim quote, but that's essentially what we got told. And so, John and I go up to the gate, and we're like, looking. We already set up our security positions and blocking positions and stuff. And then we go up to the gate and we're looking. And I was like, dude, I don't want to put my guys out there. This is insane. This is just a terrible idea. And he feels exactly the same. And he's the boss, obviously. And he says, alright, yeah, we'll go out there. I said, alright, works for me. And so, we get our interpreter, who we called Carlos, because he looked like he was from Juarez. You know, he was from, like, southern Iraq.

• 1:15:18Speaker 03

  Mexican looking motherfucker.

• 1:15:21Speaker 01

  I got it. I'll find a picture and show you. I don't want it to be on the internet in case he's still alive.

• 1:15:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:15:27Speaker 01

  We're like, hey, Carlos, we're going out here and we're going to start asking questions and see what's up. So we go out, start asking questions, you know, try to keep this fast. And, you know, it's like, why are you here right now, you know? And the answers are, oh, either my cleric told me to be here or I just wanted the best chance of the job, basically. I mean, neither one of these are actually good answers, you know? I don't believe you. And then this dude comes up and he starts tapping on my shoulder. He's like pretty frantic. And I don't know what he's saying. Like I knew some words, but they were not friendly words. So I have no idea what he's hollering at me in Arabic, you know? And I'm like, Carlos, translate this, like, tell me what's up.

• 1:16:09Speaker 01

  And he's like, he says he sees a grenade with wires. And I'm like, oh, fuck. So we got a tripwire out here somewhere. I mean, that's where my brain went. And so we had, at that time, we had like the prick radios for, you know, comms. And then our team had an internal system. So you could like push the button here and just talk only to your team. So you could like play those games that you're not supposed to play.

• 1:16:37Speaker 01

  And you're like, uh, Hillary Clinton.

• 1:16:41Speaker 01

  And that's not a fed thing. We want to know if you would marry Hillary Clinton. Is that a game?

• 1:16:51Speaker 01

  So like internal comms, we were, we were like, hey, don't come out here. We don't know what's, we think there's tripwire or so on. And then this semi truck crashes through our concertina wire on the eastern perimeter we'd set up. And of course, everyone's thinking, holy shit, that's a big ass V bed.

• 1:17:09Speaker 03

  Massive V bed. Did it get lit up instantly?

• 1:17:12Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. So everyone, including in Abrams, but not with the main gun. Yeah, yeah. Which would have been badass, but it didn't.

• 1:17:21Speaker 03

  Fucking dope.

• 1:17:22Speaker 01

  We're like, send it, dude.

• 1:17:25Speaker 01

  So everyone's, you know, now we've got that situation to deal with.

• 1:17:30Speaker 01

  And Iraqis are running around all over the place. And John's like, do you want to take the truck or the crowd? And I was like, I'll take the crowd. You go get the truck. And then we got some help from Colonel Mac and his PSD team came out trying to like round these Iraqis back up. And then a couple of dog handlers, Sergeant Can and Jesse was his first name, I think. He came out and we had their dogs, you know, trying to get this crowd under control. And we, we were putting them in lines and we needed that, like, do you have a government issued ID? Do you not have a government issued ID? Do you have a government issued ID and you are a former Baathist? Cause if you are, then we can't, we'll just fake it, you know?

• 1:18:13Speaker 01

  So we were doing that and then I hear, my medic was a former 82nd guy on the infantry side. And he's, you know, sitting in the gun. He's like, let me out there, you know, he's getting pissed. So I'm talking to him and I'm like, no, stay in there. We're good. And then I hear like, looking over the brim of my K pot. I see this dog growling and it's got this dude's arm in his mouth. And all of a sudden it's just like two white flashes. And I, I thought we got hit with IDF, with like rockets or mortars or missiles or something.

• 1:18:48Speaker 03

  Is it indirect fire?

• 1:18:49Speaker 01

  Yep. Yeah, not that country that everyone likes to talk about.

• 1:18:55Speaker 01

  Just making jokes.

• 1:18:57Speaker 03

  Also the K pot is definitely, you're getting on equipment too. You're like, I had a K pot. Like no Mitch's even, they just really screwed you over on all equipment at that point.

• 1:19:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, we were, what was that?

• 1:19:09Speaker 03

  Mitch was like, that's the thing you wanted at the time? Oh yeah. Mitch was the night, like he had to have a K pot.

• 1:19:15Speaker 01

  Sucked.

• 1:19:16Speaker 03

  And then did you have like the M82 old jungle?

• 1:19:19Speaker 01

  We were the first brigade to field the fucking pajamas, the ACUs.

• 1:19:24Speaker 03

  Oh no.

• 1:19:25Speaker 01

  And it was dog shit. Everyone hated them, but we did have, so we had DCU like pouches and all that shit. But then our.

• 1:19:34Speaker 03

  IFAC.

• 1:19:35Speaker 01

  IFAC. Or IFAC was, uh, or not IFAC.

• 1:19:38Speaker 03

  No, what is it called? The fucking? IBA. IBAs. Yeah. IBAs?

• 1:19:43Speaker 01

  I think it is.

• 1:19:44Speaker 03

  It's like the Black Fest, IBA, right?

• 1:19:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, we had like plates or whatever, but yes.

• 1:19:48Speaker 03

  Sappy plates and all that shit.

• 1:19:50Speaker 01

  Yep, and so it goes off and I thought we got hit with rockets or mortars or something because there was like two, at least in my head, two distinct explosions. And I woke up on the ground, fucked up. And I thought I was dead, man. I could just see, so my, like, all the bones in my right hand were broken. And my right radius and ulna are broken, but my right humerus wasn't. And then my left humerus was broken and then this hand's like functional. So I got myself propped up on my elbow and I was looking down and I could just see like guts. And I thought I was blown, for sure, I was like, ah, you're blown in half, you're fucked dude, like you're dead. And I was like rubbing this organ in my fingers, trying to figure out if it was mine, you know?

• 1:20:35Speaker 01

  I'm like, I didn't pass anatomy, so I didn't even know if you could like feel these things, you know? So I'm like.

• 1:20:41Speaker 03

  I love your brain. It's like, shit, is this mine?

• 1:20:46Speaker 03

  I don't feel it. Should I feel this? I don't know. Exactly.

• 1:20:51Speaker 03

  How far was, uh, the guy?

• 1:20:53Speaker 01

  Like fifteen meters or so.

• 1:20:54Speaker 03

  Jesus.

• 1:20:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was pretty close. And at that time, I can hear John yelling, you know, like every Mick kid, right? You go by Mac, everyone calls you Mac, it's not even optional, it's just like tradition or something. So I can hear him yelling, Mac, Mac, Mac. And I'm like, I have no idea what's going on. One thing movies get right is it's almost, it does almost sound like you're drowning, you know, that.

• 1:21:20Speaker 03

  Underwater distortion.

• 1:21:21Speaker 01

  Yep. And so I was like trying to get oriented. And then I start feeling like some weight go off my body a little bit. And then pretty soon those guts got like pulled away and then I could see like my hips and shit. Uh, and then they rolled me over. So now I'm thinking like, at least I'm not blown in half. And then they rolled me over and then I could see my legs and my legs are just absolutely like I've got bilateral femur fractures. Uh, and bilateral hip fractures and I had like something like thirty holes in my, between my knees and hips on each side.

• 1:22:00Speaker 03

  Dear God.

• 1:22:01Speaker 01

  Like my tibia was fucked up. Yeah. When they rolled me over, it was like a bag of wrenches, you know?

• 1:22:05Speaker 03

  No shit.

• 1:22:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was bad.

• 1:22:07Speaker 03

  And then holy fuck. Damn.

• 1:22:10Speaker 04

  I'm just, I'm blown away just because like the fact that you're clearly mobile and like you look great, like just walking around like you. I would never have expected something that bad.

• 1:22:22Speaker 01

  Well, I appreciate that. Thank you.

• 1:22:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's wild. Cause he was like, yeah, as Brandon is saying, you would never tell just by your mobility, motion standing like, but thirty. Holes and then how many, your arteries, did it fuck miss everything on your arteries? Okay. I'm like, what the?

• 1:22:40Speaker 01

  I, when your femurs break, your glutes and your quads are so strong that they contract.

• 1:22:47Speaker 04

  They're shunting.

• 1:22:48Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:22:49Speaker 03

  And then it's terrifying part. Go on.

• 1:22:51Speaker 01

  Yep. So then you, the compartment syndrome started right then and it kind of worked out because it acted like an internal tourniquet. So when they started cutting my uniform off and my medic was out there at this point and he was cutting my uniform off. Uh, and he gets like to my thighs. Now I can start to see like holes. And then I was thinking, ah, you're still probably fucked. You know, cause like, that's bad. Um, and then he gets up like a little higher and he's like, you're not wearing underwear. I'm like, fuck you dude. It's cold out here.

• 1:23:24Speaker 01

  I love the mindset, still the joke.

• 1:23:29Speaker 04

  Is that one of the things you thought was like, is my dick good?

• 1:23:32Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, because I didn't wear underwear. So he could just like see it. And as soon as he said that, I was like, I'm good, man. I just got out of the pool.

• 1:23:44Speaker 01

  So I'll speed it up here. Uh, no, I'd like, by all means, like this is unless you you're not comfortable talking about, but I think that is a lot of people just don't understand that kind of trauma or that how fast everything happens, but then how slow everything happens at the same time. Mm hmm. Yeah, it feels like an eternity. And when I could see all the holes, like some of them, not every one of them, uh, every time my heart would beat, you could see just blood like run out. But it because of that compartment syndrome, it wasn't like squirting or anything. It was all pretty deep. I always say it looks like if you took like a water bottle and took the lid off and just like squoze it rhythmically.

• 1:24:28Speaker 01

  That's what it looked like. And so then they're trying to figure out what the fuck to do. Tourniquets were not exactly a great option because there were so many problems. So they just banished it. And they're like, we got to get you the out of here, man. Uh, and they put me on a five ton to medevac. Which they, I don't even know, do they even have suspension on those things? Cause it didn't feel like it.

• 1:24:51Speaker 03

  No. Yeah, horse and carriage is pretty much what they put you on.

• 1:24:56Speaker 01

  Exactly. Go get my old man's wagon, dude.

• 1:24:59Speaker 03

  Showed up.

• 1:25:02Speaker 01

  You're just like.

• 1:25:04Speaker 04

  It's like wooden wheels on the rocks.

• 1:25:08Speaker 04

  It's like the the fucking the prank videos they do where they try to like get the thieves in the back of a box truck. And then as soon as they get it, they roll the door down and they just drive them around. Flop into one side or the other.

• 1:25:21Speaker 01

  Pretty much how it was, except for strapped to a litter.

• 1:25:24Speaker 03

  Well, thank God they have at least nice roads out there.

• 1:25:26Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:25:28Speaker 03

  Fairness. Soft.

• 1:25:30Speaker 04

  The Iraq roads. They're they're known world over.

• 1:25:37Speaker 01

  The Navajo res, actually, if anyone's drove through like four corners, it's basically like that. This is how the Iraq roads are. No fault of the Navajos, I guess. That's what I'm told.

• 1:25:50Speaker 01

  No offense to Navajos.

• 1:25:53Speaker 01

  My grandfather had a feather from the Navajo tribe, so I feel like I get a.

• 1:25:57Speaker 02

  Is that like, you're like, I have a black friend?

• 1:25:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:26:02Speaker 01

  No, I really do love Indians. I grew up with them. I'm joking. Well, not the ones I purchase very much, but.

• 1:26:12Speaker 01

  I don't know if beers was a good idea.

• 1:26:15Speaker 02

  By all means.

• 1:26:19Speaker 01

  So you, man. Phillip's gonna have a heart attack over there. I know. He's like, fuck. Oh, he thumbs up.

• 1:26:27Speaker 03

  The compartment.

• 1:26:28Speaker 02

  That saved your life, too.

• 1:26:30Speaker 01

  Oh, totally did. Oh, and it gets better the roads. We get to Ogden Gate, which is like the rear gate of the FOB, FOB Ramadi at the time. And the troop medical clinic is like right down that, the hospital for the base was right down that road. Some sergeant major had put speed bumps down there because people were speeding or whatever. Yeah. So it was like speed bump, boom, boom, like this is.

• 1:26:56Speaker 03

  You can't get to the fucking, oh my God, that's such a sergeant major thing to do, too.

• 1:27:01Speaker 01

  Bro. And you, you know, I'm not gonna, you know, it's like some logistics guy that was just bored or some shit, too. He's like, the only soldier I lost rolled his truck.

• 1:27:11Speaker 03

  We gotta slow down in here unless there is emergency and now I can't get to the fucking.

• 1:27:15Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:27:16Speaker 03

  Med bay's fast.

• 1:27:17Speaker 04

  I got a commendation because I put in.

• 1:27:21Speaker 01

  He like ran some risk assessment. It was like, hey, you know, gets his nerd quant glasses off.

• 1:27:25Speaker 02

  Have you seen, you know, Generation Kill?

• 1:27:28Speaker 01

  Love it.

• 1:27:28Speaker 02

  Back in the day. It was like, you gotta police that mustache.

• 1:27:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:32Speaker 02

  That's, that's who makes me think about, put the speed bumps there.

• 1:27:37Speaker 03

  Police that mustache. Didn't even think about the downsides to, hey, why you might need to get around quickly on the fucking base, especially.

• 1:27:45Speaker 01

  Especially to the medical clinic.

• 1:27:46Speaker 03

  Yeah. Kind of fucking important.

• 1:27:49Speaker 02

  Why would you ever need to get people there fast?

• 1:27:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:27:54Speaker 06

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• 1:28:23Speaker 01

  Especially with a black fly zone, so getting a aerial medevac is almost impossible anyway.

• 1:28:29Speaker 03

  Holy shit.

• 1:28:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was bad.

• 1:28:31Speaker 03

  So you got speed bumps, you're just bouncing your way.

• 1:28:36Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:28:37Speaker 03

  Morphine yet?

• 1:28:38Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:28:39Speaker 03

  Jesus.

• 1:28:40Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, probably lucky on that one.

• 1:28:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:28:44Speaker 01

  And we get to the medical clinic and then, you know, he started doing the blood pressure and all that shit, which we didn't have that capability in our aid bags at that time. I'm sure they do now, but we get to the aid station and, you know, they start working on you or whatever, and they kind of immediately realize you gotta get somewhere like a trauma hospital. This is not good. So they put lines in, start pumping blood into my body, but they wouldn't give me any morphine because my blood pressure was so low, it would just kill you. So they do that and then they put me on a bird and the idea was go to Balad, the Air Force base.

• 1:29:22Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:29:23Speaker 01

  And that's where you want to go. That's where like the smart people are with like, they have TVs and shit.

• 1:29:29Speaker 03

  Two movie theaters. Well, they have a swimming pool, outdoor and indoor pool. Trust me, that's where if you were good, you gotta go to Balad. I know Balad. I grew up in the public education system of Alabama. Where's Balada? Balada is an Air Force base in Iraq. It was near, is more Mokta Dya.

• 1:29:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, wasn't it closer to Urbil?

• 1:29:51Speaker 03

  Yeah. It's like in between, you had Baghdad and then Mokta Dya and I think it's like. But that's where like the good doctors were there. Yes. Yeah, the Air Force, the people that. The Air Force. Okay, I understand now. Air Force lived there, it was dope as shit.

• 1:30:06Speaker 01

  Dude, yeah. So we get up in the air and there was a couple of us on there, including the dog. Uh, his name is Bruno and he was on there. He lives, the dog did. Uh, Sergeant Cannon, unfortunately, passed away and Colonel Mack, uh, died as well, which sucked.

• 1:30:22Speaker 03

  Uh, was he a full bird or just a lieutenant?

• 1:30:25Speaker 01

  Lieutenant Colonel.

• 1:30:26Speaker 03

  That's wild to lose a lieutenant Colonel.

• 1:30:28Speaker 01

  The balls that guy had.

• 1:30:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, to be out there too.

• 1:30:30Speaker 01

  Dude, he's out there with a bunch of five, sixes, fours. I think the next highest ranking guy was a six. That was actually out there.

• 1:30:39Speaker 02

  Oh, so same blast got them as well.

• 1:30:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, Colonel Mack, it sucked, man. Like, I liked, we all liked him because he was just like that. You know, he was a true leader. He just came up to me right, right before I got wounded and he's like, I know you got some fucking Copenhagen. I'm like, yeah, dude. So I can like give him a dip, you know? And he's like, this shit's fucked. I'm like, I know, sir.

• 1:31:01Speaker 01

  He was awesome, man. So, and he was a great guy, dude. I don't want to get depressed about it. But, so he passed away and then, uh, Dog Hammer, Sergeant Cannon, also a great guy. Uh, he, Sergeant Cannon had been at FOB Hit on the Syrian border, way over there. And he was bored to shit. He's like, you, you guys gotta get me to Ramadi's. That's where everyone's doing shit. So he had volunteered to get over to Ramadi too. So it's just a bunch of, uh, the best dudes in the world, you know? Uh, great guy. Uh, he passed away. Bruno made it and then actually deployed again to Afghanistan.

• 1:31:37Speaker 03

  No shit.

• 1:31:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:38Speaker 03

  A hard ass dog right there.

• 1:31:39Speaker 01

  Hard ass dog, man. That dog was badass. And right before he got wounded, one of the things I had said to, uh, Can over the radio was, I was like, he, or no, actually it was face to face. He's like, you want us to come out and help? And I was like, yeah, I'm glad you got that dog off my truck. Cause he was just out there sleeping, you know, on my hood. Just joking because we loved him, you know? Yeah, he's a stud. So we get to the aid station, get in the bird. And I get him like barely coherent at this point. And we take off and we're trying to get to blood and they ended up stopping in Taqadum, TQ, because I was losing too much blood. And so they started like more blood, more saline or whatever it is in those IV bags.

• 1:32:24Speaker 03

  How much blood have they put in at this point? It had to be leaders.

• 1:32:29Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, it was definitely a lot. And then we tried, do we take off from there? But I still just had him in my arms, like the, the lines. I think, it's hard to remember exactly. And then.

• 1:32:40Speaker 03

  I don't think that's your fault.

• 1:32:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. What the fuck? Give me the details, bro. You only had a thirty holes in you.

• 1:32:47Speaker 04

  Kind of a lot going on.

• 1:32:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:49Speaker 04

  Like, were you, were you conscious for all of this?

• 1:32:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:51Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:32:52Speaker 03

  That's fucking.

• 1:32:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you start to go in and out from pain a little bit, but. And then we take off from TQ. And we end up stopping in Fallujah for emergency surgery. They're like, this guy, Fallujah had a better trauma hospital than Ramadi. They're like, this guy's not gonna make it. So stopped in Fallujah and they put a pick line in my jugular. And I think that one either had two or four bags going in. And they put me in traction splints and they, dude, they split my quads from like knee to hip on both sides to try to relieve the compartment syndrome. And.

• 1:33:28Speaker 04

  What is compartment syndrome?

• 1:33:30Speaker 01

  It's like your body starts swelling from the inside out essentially. So like all of your fluids are like, I don't know, I'm not a doctor, but your fluids start pressing both directions, I guess. It's just creating pressure inside.

• 1:33:44Speaker 03

  It essentially saved you and also very bad at the same.

• 1:33:47Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:33:49Speaker 03

  Cause you're like, cause how many minutes is this is like minutes in your femoral, especially if both were cut. If you're from more, if you're hitting the femoral and compartment syndrome didn't happen, you have two to four minutes left, max.

• 1:34:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:34:01Speaker 03

  Fucking max.

• 1:34:02Speaker 04

  You're leaking blood everywhere.

• 1:34:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, like, and it's not leaking, it is squirting across the goddamn room. Like where he was saying, oh, it's this little pump. You that every time your heart beats for arteries, it shoots across the goddamn room. So.

• 1:34:17Speaker 01

  The high pressure side.

• 1:34:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:34:18Speaker 01

  If you're into trucks or whatever.

• 1:34:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, but yours is like, oh, hey, compartment, that, that syndrome is just crushing everything. Wild, fucking wild, especially with that many holes too.

• 1:34:29Speaker 01

  Oh, dude, it sucked. Yeah. And I would say to add to his point, if you're like a truck guy, it'd be like putting a, a channel or not a channel, a vice grip on a line or something, you know, to like slow it down. So we get to Fallujah, they get me in traction splints and then they split that knee to hip on each side and that fucking really sucked. Because you know, you're like virtually no pain, no pain medication at all at this point. And you know, you're like, your brain's barely there, but you could, you can hear it when the scalpel goes. You can like hear it in your ears. It's weird. I always say it's, it sounds like a muddy zipper.

• 1:35:13Speaker 01

  So that sucked. And then, once they got me stabilized ish there, then they hit me with morphine. Or maybe it was at Bilad that they did that, but they finally got me to Bilad. And then it was morphine hell and all that until they got, finally got me to Landstuhl. And then from Landstuhl to Walter Reed. So that was.

• 1:35:33Speaker 03

  Damn, so how many minutes was from explosion to actual morphine then? Did they say if they ever?

• 1:35:40Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't know for sure. It was a while though. It wasn't, well, I don't know. I guess I don't really know for sure. When I wrote the book, I went back to my medical records and then talked to my friends. Cause obviously I'm not going to have a clear memory of stuff. So I remember things one way and then I would talk to my buddies and be like, does that sound right? You know, so I'd try to get as right as possible. So whatever I've got in there is probably going to be closer. But I don't think you could, like they don't write it down. What, what they do though, is the minute you're off the field, they scan your ID card, your CAC card. And you stop getting combat pay.

• 1:36:17Speaker 03

  They made sure of that real quick.

• 1:36:20Speaker 04

  That is the most government shit I've ever heard.

• 1:36:22Speaker 03

  They're like, bro, where's his ID card? We need that, we gotta stop it, okay? And he's taxed again.

• 1:36:31Speaker 03

  Holy shit.

• 1:36:32Speaker 02

  That was heavy. What's your favorite Zach Bryan song?

• 1:36:38Speaker 01

  I'm like a spiritual boomer man. I listen to old cowboy shit mostly and then I really like Bach, so I listen to like a lot of Bach, but.

• 1:36:47Speaker 02

  All right, lighter note. That's, that's what you're listening to these days.

• 1:36:52Speaker 01

  My daughter likes to listen to Zach Bryan, so if I make her drive, I'm tortured with new music and his is not torturous. I will say that.

• 1:37:01Speaker 04

  Have you heard, speaking like, speaking of like old country, have you heard that new, new thing that's going around? It's Johnny Cash's grandson.

• 1:37:11Speaker 04

  Did Folsom Prison Blues. He sounds just like his grandfather. It is like spitting image. Yeah. You know, he's kind of older guy. Like obviously Johnny Cash was, you know, not a spring chick, chicken or anything like that, but like he sounds just like his grandfather. It's weird.

• 1:37:30Speaker 01

  I did hear about that.

• 1:37:32Speaker 03

  I don't know music, so I am.

• 1:37:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't, I feel bad. I'm not trying to be offensive. I don't listen to a lot of music is what I'm driving in.

• 1:37:40Speaker 04

  Don't worry. You don't have to worry about being offensive to Zach Bryan on this podcast. We've got some lore apparently.

• 1:37:47Speaker 03

  Put the backstory. I'm like, dude, so how was the, the response from your book though, or the individual seeing how far you've came from that? Cause that is, dude, no morphine's fucking wild for at minimum 30 minutes. There's no, nothing at minimum 30 minutes, I'm guessing.

• 1:38:04Speaker 04

  Probably.

• 1:38:05Speaker 03

  Yeah. Oh yeah. Well, thankfully military was pretty good at like, they tried to speed it up, but then speed bumps and.

• 1:38:14Speaker 04

  But you went to multiple places apparently before there was morphine, right?

• 1:38:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Three, I think. Or two, yeah, three.

• 1:38:22Speaker 03

  Yeah. Thankfully Iraq, when you're in a helicopter is pretty, it's not that big of a place. Like you're looking at an hour drive. A lot of times. So helicopter, then you're back down. They're cooking too.

• 1:38:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, they all ask.

• 1:38:34Speaker 03

  But you had that response though from that had to been like super motivating or inspirational to a lot of veterans and helping them too. Cause they're like, holy shit. Okay. Homeboy went through way worse shit. And this is his story on how to overcome that. Okay. I want to read this book or this is how this helped me. You had to have some messages about that, right?

• 1:38:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. The best parts were, I, it's really cool and helpful when civilians reach out to him and be like, hey, this helped me. And so I don't want to. You know, poo poo any of that because I really enjoy getting those messages as well. But you know, when you've got bros that were there and they're like, dude, I read that. That helped me with some shit I was going through in my life, you know? That's, yeah, that's the best part. The, when I, I wrote it, I had like no social media presence. I was like riding colts and guiding hunts and shit. So I didn't like have a profit motive, which I think helped. I knew it wasn't going to sell for many copies. So I just tried to be as clear and honest and upfront about shit as I could.

• 1:39:40Speaker 01

  So like for the first five years, the book was out, sold like 500 or something. And then I get on and start talking shit like AOC. And then all of a sudden people are like, I gotta read this guy's book.

• 1:39:53Speaker 01

  So it's been really just like the last three or four years and it's been great.

• 1:39:57Speaker 04

  When did you write it?

• 1:39:57Speaker 01

  Uh, I think I started it in 2015. I think it published in 2017, I think was the, the year that it came out.

• 1:40:04Speaker 04

  Where, where can we buy it now?

• 1:40:06Speaker 01

  Uh, braxmccoy.com.

• 1:40:08Speaker 03

  Great. Where to get it? You're gonna have a lot of people, especially these fuckheads out there. Yeah.

• 1:40:13Speaker 04

  You got a lot.

• 1:40:14Speaker 03

  You shitters out there.

• 1:40:17Speaker 03

  Very supportive.

• 1:40:18Speaker 04

  This is now the second time we've mentioned where you can buy your book. And I promise you, we will have comments that ask where to buy it.

• 1:40:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:26Speaker 01

  Well, I'll tell you some stuff off air about that because I don't want to be mean to anybody. But yes.

• 1:40:30Speaker 03

  Be me.

• 1:40:32Speaker 01

  You can like write something out in bold letters, like, hey, man, it's going to take this long for it to ship. And they're like, hey, two days later, where the fuck is my book? It's like, dude.

• 1:40:41Speaker 03

  Bro, I told you.

• 1:40:44Speaker 04

  I, I mean, honestly, I find that like incredibly, I don't know what the word is inspirational, I guess. Because I knew nothing about, you know, the, the incident that happened or any of your recovery or anything on that. And what you just described is incredible that like you just walked in here like a normal ass guy. Like the fact that you're walking in itself is a miracle, but.

• 1:41:07Speaker 04

  Being as mobile as you are and everything is that's gotta be fucking awesome, man. That's I'm really happy for you.

• 1:41:12Speaker 01

  Thank you. It's great, man. It's blessings. Like I just got lucky and blessed, man.

• 1:41:19Speaker 03

  And you didn't use that as an excuse. I guarantee. How much therapy did you do for like your physical therapy was not an easy journey? And you're like, no, I'm doing it, right?

• 1:41:28Speaker 01

  There were days where I didn't want to for sure.

• 1:41:30Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:41:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was like six or eight years or something like that.

• 1:41:36Speaker 03

  Jesus Christ. But you would never fuck like, again, we cannot stress. You would never be able to tell that was the level.

• 1:41:44Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:41:45Speaker 03

  You went through and that's what's awesome. At the end of it, it fucking sucks, but it's like, holy shit. Look, hey, you just nutted up and then did the hard work.

• 1:41:57Speaker 02

  He improvised, adapted and came.

• 1:41:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:42:04Speaker 01

  And now you're like, here I am. You do, uh, do you do any athleticism too? Like running? I, once I finally got to where I could run, I did some for a while. Been a cold starter for my whole life, minus that brief period, really almost my whole life, I guess. So that kind of keeps me pretty busy, but this last year and a half, it's been, or maybe about a year and a half. It's been a lot of talking shit and writing and less horse training than normal. Uh, in fact, it's roughly 18 months ago or something like that. I busted my hip and my back again.

• 1:42:40Speaker 02

  What are you doing?

• 1:42:41Speaker 01

  But man, I got bucked off this half draft call and I thought she stepped on me. It hurt. I was like, oof, that was a good one. Uh, but luckily I have.

• 1:42:53Speaker 02

  Hold on. You're like, oh, I got blown up. Better step on a fucking horse again and get fucked up.

• 1:42:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, I love them. I can't get it. I just can't get it out. It's like in my soul. I can't, I just can't stop, but this fucking horse. It was kind of, it was totally my fault. Well, she's a bitch too, but.

• 1:43:14Speaker 01

  We, it was like, I was ready to.

• 1:43:16Speaker 04

  It's like friends of mine talking about their last marriage.

• 1:43:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's totally my fault.

• 1:43:28Speaker 01

  So we, I was a terminology wise, inside horse is like a horse you own and the outside horse is a client horse that's been brought there for you to ride for him. This is an outside mare, Philly, and she was half draft, she was half Persia on half quarter horse. And I liked her fine, she, everything had been going good. And this was, I was about to go move cattle for the guy that owned her and show her, show him like, hey, here she's doing good, take her, you know, she's yours. So I'm warming her up in the round pen and she was just fighting me on the bit a bunch. And I was like, no, you're gonna fucking listen to me, you know? And she decided, no, I'm actually not gonna listen to you. And she just blew up.

• 1:44:11Speaker 01

  And I was in a slick fork saddle and like not a colt saddle and she tossed me pretty good. And I hit, like she, she sent me like straight up. And I hit my hip on the saddle on the way down and kind of did like a cartwheel into the ground. And I was like, wow, that hurt. Uh, so I got up, walked around for a minute. I have rods in my, in my legs and my left hip, which is the one that broke. So it's luckily like it can't move, like I'm not Superman or something. I have like mo, uh, help.

• 1:44:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, mobility issues do happen from thirty holes.

• 1:44:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you know, if the rod hadn't have been there, I wouldn't have been able to walk. It's cause it was there.

• 1:44:53Speaker 04

  Extra structure.

• 1:44:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, it pinned the rod, which is not great.

• 1:44:56Speaker 04

  Oh shit.

• 1:44:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:57Speaker 04

  Did you have to have that replaced or?

• 1:44:59Speaker 01

  Well.

• 1:45:00Speaker 03

  No, you didn't go to the doctor, did you?

• 1:45:02Speaker 04

  There's no well. Well, well is not an answer.

• 1:45:05Speaker 01

  Well, once you bend the rod, then it's like, it's a big deal to get it out. Cause like, think of like a bent wood screw trying to pull out where it's in your bone, you know, so it's, I just. So I get up, I'm like walking around, I'm like, oof, that's pretty sore. And I walk around for a minute and then like, well, we gotta move these cows. So I loaded her up and drove over.

• 1:45:28Speaker 03

  Braxton, just Braxton McCoy. I gotta move this cattle now. I just bit a fucking rod in my body.

• 1:45:36Speaker 01

  Well, I didn't know that. I thought I was just bruised, you know, I thought I was just being.

• 1:45:42Speaker 01

  So we go move cast for a few hours and I told him, I was like, hey, she bucked me off right before this. Let me keep her for a couple of extra weeks. I'm not gonna charge any money. Just let me make sure she doesn't do that again. And I get home and I like, it's late and I take my shaps off and my pant, my wife like throws a fit if I walk out of the laundry room with like horse shit. You know, on me. Uh, I can't imagine why. And so I'm like taking them off in there and my leg is like black and blue. She's like, what happened? I bucked off and like, no big deal. Then finish the season out and then it's winter. And I sat on the couch for like two days, but like pretty much didn't get off the couch, like just resting, like watching TV and shit.

• 1:46:25Speaker 01

  And then Monday came around and I'm like, all right, I gotta be productive. And I tried to stand up and I could not move my leg. I'm like, oh, fuck, something's wrong. And she's like, you're going to hospital. I got a doctor I like. His name's Mike. I'm like, ah, I'm good. She's like, you're going. So I go and he's, I go there and he's like, what's going on? I tell him my hips kind of screwed up, not moving very good. He takes x-rays and he goes, have you seen your back? I was like, well, how am I gonna see my back, Mike? He's like, come look at this. And he's like, you fucking idiot. Broke your back, dude. So like the, the transverse process, like the little wings off of your vertebrae. It just snapped the one off on. Uh, yeah, I think it was my left, so it might be the right. I can't remember.

• 1:47:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just broke it off. So it's just like floating there. I was like, can we fix that? And he's like, no, you retard.

• 1:47:18Speaker 01

  It's all healed now, you idiot. So yeah, I didn't get any smarter over the years is the thing.

• 1:47:23Speaker 03

  Damn dude.

• 1:47:25Speaker 04

  How do you fix that? If you bend the rod in your leg, I'm still stuck on that. Like, do they just?

• 1:47:30Speaker 03

  You can't. I mean, you'd have to remove the whole fucking rod, right?

• 1:47:34Speaker 04

  Which apparently you can't, cause like, like you said, like the bent wood screw analogy, like that, that was actually very, very good as far as explaining that.

• 1:47:41Speaker 01

  I think they'd have to do a total hip replacement for what the reason that you're hitting on. I think they'd have to cut the, the ball off of the head of the hip and then pull it out. And that rod goes. So that one was a, I can't remember, not retrograde, it was like gamma or something. So it went through the top of the hip down and then screws into the end of your femur, like your, the ball of your femur.

• 1:48:07Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:48:07Speaker 01

  And then the hip rod, there's like an eyelet in there and the hip rod goes through that. So they would have to be able to get that out in order to get the femur rod out to start over. It would just be a huge process. It sounds cumbersome and annoying.

• 1:48:22Speaker 03

  And they'd be, I mean, if you have never watched a hip replacement video.

• 1:48:26Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 1:48:27Speaker 03

  It is the most fucking, they use a goddamn sludge hammer to knock it out and knock it back in place. It is not a delicate process, not at all. And that's essentially what they would.

• 1:48:38Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Yeah. And when they put those rods in, I didn't know this shit until later, like watching Instagram or whatever. There's like an impact and they're like, get an impact gun, they're like screwing it in. I'm like.

• 1:48:52Speaker 04

  Looking at those videos, watching those videos, I feel like that's how like our grandparents are gonna, or, or excuse me, our grandchildren are gonna come back and watch that shit like, God, these guys are basically bloodletting.

• 1:49:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:49:04Speaker 01

  Like, it's like a little leeches.

• 1:49:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:49:07Speaker 03

  Well, gotta get that bad blood out. God.

• 1:49:11Speaker 01

  Put some silverfish in there with that.

• 1:49:14Speaker 03

  Holy. He got ghosts in his blood. Do cocaine about it. Give the baby heroin. Yeah. Your baby shooting too much? Give him heroin. The laxatives.

• 1:49:28Speaker 04

  It's like, this was like four generations ago. Like, we shouldn't be laughing. It's, yeah, modern medicine's pretty rad, all things considered, but we're not there yet.

• 1:49:36Speaker 03

  Holy shit. God damn, bro. You're just going through the wringer and you're like, no, I wanna do this more.

• 1:49:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, thanks for coming to our dumb podcast.

• 1:49:46Speaker 01

  No, this is awesome, man. This is fun as hell.

• 1:49:49Speaker 04

  Took a pleasure. You're having a good time, man. We're having a blast.

• 1:49:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, this is fucking great. What was it like? Did you watch anything or did any research before this or were you like, no, let's go in cold?

• 1:49:57Speaker 01

  I've seen like some of your guys' stuff on YouTube and then, uh, Philip and I watched. So like I see your individual gun content and your breakdown stuff and. And then we watched a little bit while we were driving like good Americans. Uh, down the freeway. And I was like, I didn't know if I wanted to be overly prepped and nervous about it. And I watched a little bit. I'm like, oh, this is gonna be fun.

• 1:50:24Speaker 04

  Well, plus you sat down with three Bush lights in the beginning before we even started out. We're like, yeah, all right. This is gonna be a time.

• 1:50:31Speaker 01

  We're gonna have a good time today, my friend.

• 1:50:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. The one, the one thing we want to do on this podcast is like, you know, every, why do with a beard has a podcast now? But we just want to hang out and drink a couple of beers.

• 1:50:43Speaker 01

  It's awesome. Beer cast.

• 1:50:45Speaker 03

  Have fun, listen to stories. Like that's why even the history segments you did at the beginning, leading into like, hey, this is my thought process and that.

• 1:50:54Speaker 03

  Community, but they eat that shit up.

• 1:50:57Speaker 04

  Every time he says the word community, we have to drink.

• 1:50:59Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 1:51:01Speaker 03

  It's a rule.

• 1:51:02Speaker 04

  But that's, that's one thing I wanted to kind of bring back around. Um, so you had obviously all of those experiences that were, you know, clearly very formative, very impactful. Where did that transition over to now? Like one of your big, um, I guess missions in life is protecting public lands. Where did that, where was the bridge there?

• 1:51:26Speaker 01

  About 10 years ago, something like that, uh, Rob Bishop and some other politicians from Utah had put together this public lands initiative and it sounded really good to a guy like me. It was like, hey, more local control. It was the movement was, the idea was to transfer, uh, ownership of the land from the, the federal government to the state government. And I was like, shit, man, local ownership sounds way better. You know, so it sounded good. And then a buddy of mine started talking to me about, hey, there's some hiccups here. It might not be as clean cut as you think it would be. And I started researching it and I joined like this organization with a friend of mine.

• 1:52:10Speaker 01

  Uh, well, it was an established organization. I just joined it. And started learning more. And it doesn't take very long. Once you start to get in the weeds to go, hey, this is bullshit. The like, the whole intent of transfer is to sell it off, the entire intent. Well, I, to me, the most practical argument here is right now, those lands are being held in trust for the American citizen and they're resting on a tax base of 330 million people. Well, if you transfer them to say Idaho, where I live, that's a 1.8 million person tax base. How do you move that on to them without causing like huge problems?

• 1:52:53Speaker 01

  You either have to increase property taxes to, you know, you're going to have to tax it shit out of them in order for them to take care of it, or you're going to have to sell it.

• 1:53:02Speaker 04

  Oh, you're using the maintenance burden of that.

• 1:53:04Speaker 01

  Maintenance burden, uh, there's actually a program called Pill Payment in Lieu of Taxes that is designed to take care of rural communities like the one that I live in. Uh, so there's a ton of public land where I'm at, a shitload. And the property taxes are not being collected on that. Well, property taxes help pay for schools, roads, you know, firefighters, sheriff's departments, so on. Well, they can't collect tax on the public land. So the federal government says, well, we'll put together this program and we'll pay you money to your rural communities in order to take care of this. So if you transfer it to the state, well, now that rural community doesn't get that money. So how are they going to pay for all this shit?

• 1:53:48Speaker 01

  They have to sell it. The state will have to sell it. There's no way around it. And that's without even getting into road, bridge, fire, all this, these other, like fire mitigation, all these other costs, they just can't afford it. There's no way.

• 1:54:02Speaker 04

  They get sold off to either China or BlackRock or whoever comes in and buys up all this fucking land.

• 1:54:09Speaker 01

  Saudis, yeah.

• 1:54:12Speaker 04

  People that notoriously, you know, by and large, the, the people that are buying this land, not big fans of us or our culture or anything that we, we cultivate this land for.

• 1:54:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:24Speaker 01

  And coming from a ranch community, ranching community, a lot of small ranches, like the people that I care about, they're running a lot of times 90, 10 percentage wise, deeded to undeeded acres. So they own like 10% of what they're running their cattle on. The other 90% is public land.

• 1:54:44Speaker 04

  Like BLM stuff?

• 1:54:45Speaker 01

  BLM, Forcer's.

• 1:54:46Speaker 04

  Kind of like the Bundy Ranch kind of stuff, or I know that's its own separate issue.

• 1:54:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, that would be its own podcast, but yes.

• 1:54:54Speaker 02

  Who else does it, Brandon?

• 1:54:57Speaker 01

  Those guys, they already hate me and I'm like actually on their side with a lot of it, but yeah. So if you, if you were to do that, their ranch is just absolutely cooked. There's no way they can buy. So you, one, one common argument you'll get is we'll just let the rancher buy that land. There's other reasons not to, to want this, but well, he can't. I'm telling you right now, he absolutely can't. There's no, there's no way in hell. If you've got a stocking rate of 35 acres to a pair, so you make maybe 500 bucks a year per 35 acres, something like that, after inputs are done, how are you going to use

• 1:55:40Speaker 01

  that to buy something that's going to sell at probably a minimum right now, because the land prices are where they're at, 3,500 an acre. How's it going to, it'd take five generations. No one's going to, first of all, no one's going to loan to him on that, but even if they would, there's no way. He can't do it. And then there's another reason not to, there's many reasons not to, but another important reason not to is out west, a lot of our species are migratory because of the mountains. So and they'll summer up on the mountain and then winter down in the flats. When you start fencing all of that stuff off, you're just going to destroy the mule deer population, which is already struggling in virtually every state but Wyoming.

• 1:56:23Speaker 01

  So you just kill off Keystone species for no reason and not just Keystone.

• 1:56:27Speaker 04

  Is the reason why it doesn't, uh, they're not particularly affected in Wyoming is because it's more flat?

• 1:56:32Speaker 01

  No, what happened in Wyoming, they finally reached stasis. They lost a bunch too. They used to be at about a million. Their herd used to be about a million animals. I think they're at 400,000 right now. Uh, but they were able to hit stasis because, uh, Eastmans and some biologists there. And then I think some money came in from another group. I wish I could credit them, but can't remember. Uh, they identified this one ridgeline that was private and it wasn't a big chunk. Uh, that was a corridor. And they were able to purchase it and remove the fences. So then those deer could migrate again from summer range to winter range without being interrupted. And then the herd reached stasis.

• 1:57:16Speaker 01

  And some migration is like, it can be 150 miles.

• 1:57:21Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 1:57:21Speaker 01

  It's not like 12 acres or something, right? Like whitetail.

• 1:57:26Speaker 04

  The choke point.

• 1:57:27Speaker 01

  It was a choke point. Exactly. Like whitetail, from what I understand out here, uh, they'll, a lot of times they'll establish like a five mile radius or something. They're not, they don't migrate in the same way. But mildew.

• 1:57:40Speaker 02

  If you had total control over everything, what would you do to solve all this?

• 1:57:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, like getting total control, like.

• 1:57:48Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:57:49Speaker 04

  Well, he might get a little scary on that part, but. That's what, that's what I want to hear. He's so passionate.

• 1:57:55Speaker 01

  Do I have the nuclear codes?

• 1:57:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, like you're so passionate about this. Let's, let's say you had all the control in your hand right now. Like what would you do?

• 1:58:03Speaker 01

  If, I don't think this is, I think it's possible, but I don't think it's probable, at least in the short term. The answer is federal ownership. So it's still held in public trust and you have that money, you know, the, the large tax base to take care of it. And then more localized input with oversight from, you know, scientists that are actually, and I don't mean like gay scientists that are trying to like stick shit in your arm. I mean, like, like people that are out there trying to save trout and stuff.

• 1:58:33Speaker 04

  You mean professionals and knowledgeable of what they do?

• 1:58:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:37Speaker 04

  Crazy that that's not a normal, a normal.

• 1:58:41Speaker 04

  I fucking, trust me.

• 1:58:42Speaker 02

  People that know what they're doing.

• 1:58:44Speaker 04

  Why would you ever do that? I hate that.

• 1:58:47Speaker 01

  We don't do that here.

• 1:58:49Speaker 04

  I mean, like, that's, I don't think that's super off the table by any means, because we already have federal ownership.

• 1:58:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's doable, they just won't.

• 1:58:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's just like, give relinquish, I'm always a big fan of like relinquishing when it makes sense, you know, relinquishing federal control to like local.

• 1:59:06Speaker 01

  I understand that.

• 1:59:07Speaker 04

  The, the best form of government, like, as it, I don't know, soapbox back over here. Keep going, Brandon.

• 1:59:13Speaker 01

  No, you're right.

• 1:59:14Speaker 04

  The, the best form of government is always the most local. So for things that can't be controlled, like, obviously, like, you, you, for a federal government, there are certain duties that make sense. And then for whatever you can distill down to the state, for whatever you can from there, distill down to the county, to the city, to whatever. And ideally, the most perfect form of government is the self, the person, the individual. It's almost like you're a good politician, Brandon. No, no, no, no, politician's a fucking slur. Don't ever call me that again. That hurt. I just, I just took poison damage by you calling me politician.

• 1:59:50Speaker 01

  Bleep out what Cody said to make it racist.

• 1:59:55Speaker 04

  Ben, I know where you live. Don't do that either. But, but no, like, I feel like, you know, nobody knows what the local communities need more than the local communities.

• 2:00:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I agree with some of that. Um. I don't trust humans. That's my problem with them. Like, eh, eh, you put a lot of trust in people at the local level, then you're like, mm, they'll be like, I got an idea. Can be cheaper to buy too, but, but I understand theoretically, the, but one thing to add to that, that I think is true, like, if you're, you find some kid that is passionate about it, that lives in the area, and you just, he's maybe not credentialed, he, he doesn't have his masters in, uh, crested wheat, or whatever. But he knows how to.

• 2:00:44Speaker 04

  Talking about a kid that, like, grew up there. Still better, better than gender studies.

• 2:00:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a It's another podcast. Have opinions.

• 2:00:57Speaker 01

  Oh, I bet we can get some.

• 2:01:01Speaker 01

  They tried to do that shit to our fish out there. They're like queering the streams of the west. That's a real science paper. I'm like, you know what? Give me that nuclear. I just want that merch. That's a great queering the fish. Queering the streams. Queering the streams. That's a real, that was a real scientific paper, a real one. How much did they? Alex Jones, Alex Jones is tweaking like they didn't stop at the frogs. Wait, there's queers in the streams?

• 2:01:30Speaker 01

  Bro. So you have. How close to California are you? I don't know.

• 2:01:37Speaker 03

  Here's what we're trying for, as Cody said, you're like, just.

• 2:01:41Speaker 01

  So you. Some kid in the holler. Yeah, you find that kid that's actually been working in it and he's still doing it. And you pay him some money to say, hey, what would you do to improve this? And then you give him the opportunity to kind of manage all of this shit around him. And then you have some oversight on there because maybe he, you know, maybe he goes a little too hard, but he probably won't. Uh, some things people, we did used to overgraze and all that, and you will still see occasionally some dickhead overgraze something. Usually leased property. It's not his, uh, like private lease. Uh, you'll see some of that, but most people have kind of figured out, hey, maybe I could put a couple of extra pounds on my beef this year.

• 2:02:22Speaker 01

  But I'm not going to have as much forage next year. So it doesn't make sense. We like, we need some kind of balance here. You find a kid like that and you say, Kay, you're in charge of this range. It's a job. If you fuck it up, we're firing you and finding someone else. And you just have it on a yearly, like annualized, show me your performance review. And I don't mean like, uh, how many trees were you able to rip out of here? It's like, how healthy is this ecosystem? How well did you manage it? You, what projects did you, that kind of stuff. Genius.

• 2:02:54Speaker 04

  It needs to be a little bit more, yeah, for sure nuanced because you always have any, like, for example, a company that goes public. Now, now you're, you're not, you're no longer. Running your company for the future for like, for example, like with a founder, like a founder's idea of where the company needs to go five, 10, 15 years in the future, like Steve Jobs or somebody like that. Now you're going for performance review for the quarter. And that's how you end up with things like social security, things that we knew that would never work. But everybody involved that was getting the pats on the back when it, you know, did well in the beginning, things that they will all be long dead by the time it fell apart. It's like, I'll never see a dime of social security.

• 2:03:37Speaker 03

  Doing it like that and hiring an individual, a kid, and then a team based around performance is literally how we hire anyone for Unso Pepperbox. It is based off of, hey, let's see what you can do with, I don't give a shit about your piece of paper, your college education. This is you unprompted doing this and learning this by yourself. When you present a good deck or a good reel, you're like, holy shit, you edited this. So you're all self taught. It's like, yeah, you love this. This is why you do this. It's for the love of the fucking game. That's the same thing. It's like that kid would be for the love of the game is why he's learning that ecosystem and how to develop the best way.

• 2:04:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, I love what he's saying, dude.

• 2:04:21Speaker 03

  That's like, that's how it should be across everything.

• 2:04:24Speaker 02

  Brax is like, hey, kid, you grew up here? All right, figure it out. If you up, sorry, you're gone.

• 2:04:30Speaker 03

  And that's the incentive too. It's like, oh shit, I have to do the best. I don't, it's not about the paper or any like, it is, I have to do the best job I can right now and lead this team. And then if I do really good, I get to do this next year.

• 2:04:43Speaker 02

  Exactly. Yeah. Unless you have a septum, then you're just out.

• 2:04:48Speaker 04

  But then there's the Eli, the Eli problem that you brought up earlier, which is, you know, humans typically tend to suck.

• 2:04:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:04:55Speaker 04

  So how do you, how do you hedge against that?

• 2:04:58Speaker 03

  I think that is where if you're self motivated and you are self taught.

• 2:05:05Speaker 03

  A lot of the times you're doing it not because it's like, oh, look at my money like, aha, I'm getting paid to do this. I like, they're doing it because they want to do the best they can in that field. Editors, even for I like me at the end of the day, I do not care about the I, I love the idea of business or the marketing campaigns or the podcast and getting those analytics up. Don't paychecks are nice, but at the end of the day, do not give a shit about that. It is, how do we structure this for the most success? Okay, this works really good. Let's implement that. Oh, that's fucking dope. Okay, that worked really, really, really good. Okay, let's continue to do that and then train up the team to follow suit. And that's hopefully, then hopefully the team also is good people at the end of the day.

• 2:05:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, we we've shot so many editors.

• 2:05:56Speaker 03

  But editor, leave that in. Finn, show your face scared.

• 2:06:04Speaker 03

  But I think it is. Like you mean it.

• 2:06:08Speaker 03

  It is being, and people do suck a lot of the times that is,

• 2:06:13Speaker 03

  it's what sucks. People suck. I'm like, I'll get lazy. I'll get complacent. But if you can replace them every year and it's not, here's a four year cycle. You get this for four years. That's as dope. Shoot.

• 2:06:28Speaker 03

  You suck. You know what you're going to? I'll kill you. I don't think many people are. After that job. Wait, if I fuck this up, I die? In Los Angeles. In Los Angeles.

• 2:06:41Speaker 03

  But I think. Oh, you know.

• 2:06:45Speaker 03

  I love that. Oh, and I think on that note. In real life. Sorry. Oh, you're good.

• 2:06:55Speaker 04

  That had nothing to do with anything. We're just like, oh.

• 2:06:58Speaker 03

  Oh, oh. You would have moved to the after show? 10 minutes, 10 minutes on the after show?

• 2:07:04Speaker 04

  Brother, I gotta say, it's been a genuine pleasure. This has been awesome, man. Seriously. Thank you for coming on, man.

• 2:07:09Speaker 03

  Thank you for having me, man.

• 2:07:10Speaker 04

  Sir.

• 2:07:11Speaker 03

  Fucking amazing, dude.

• 2:07:13Speaker 02

  Guys, thank you for joining Unsubscribe today. We were here with Eli Double Tap, Braxton McCoy, Brandon Herrera, myself, Don and Operator. Please join us on the after show on Patreon. And Braxton, where can we find you on the social medias?

• 2:07:29Speaker 01

  BraxtonMcCoy.com, that's probably the easiest. I'm not hard to find on Twitter. I talk a lot of shit on there. Is that also where we can find your book? Yeah, thank you for the plug. Yeah, that's my link tree. Go to my website, I guess. Is that where we can find your naughty links? Yeah, that's where I take my clothes off. Riding them colts. It's my only thing. The only cowboys. OnlyCowboys.com.

• 2:08:03Speaker 01

  See you guys on the after show. Love you. Love you guys.

• 2:08:40Speaker 06

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