From Special Forces to the 160th SOAR | Nick O'Kelly | Ep. 362

This episode features Nick O'Kelly, a former Green Beret and 160th SOAR pilot, discussing his diverse military career and personal struggles with mental health. He shares candid experiences from Special Forces selection, deployments, flight school, and his journey to finding effective treatment and breaking the stigma around mental well-being in the military. Subscribe to our new newsletter!!!! https://teamhousepodcast.kit.com/join Today's Sponsors: GhostBed⬇️ https://www.ghostbed.com/house FOR 10% off! Mando ⬇️ https://shopmando.com Promo code "TEAMHOUSE" for 40% off your starter pack. For ad free video and audio and access to live streams and Eyes On Geopolitics... JOIN OUR PATREON! https://www.patreon.com/c/TheTeamHouse To help support the show and for all bonus content including: -live shows and asking guest questions -ad free audio and video -early access to shows -Access to ALL bonus segments with our guests Subscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse New merch, patches, and stickers! ⬇️ https://theteamhouse-shop.fourthwall.com Support the show here:⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse ___________________________________________________ Subscribe to the new EYES ON podcast here:⬇️ https://www.youtube.com/@EyesOnGeopoliticsPod/featured __________________________________ Jack Murphy's new book "We Defy: The Lost Chapters of Special Forces History" ⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/We-Defy-Chapters-Special-History-ebook/dp/B0DCGC1N1N/ —————————————————————— Or make a one time donation at: ⬇️ https://ko-fi.com/theteamhouse Social Media: ⬇️ The Team House Instagram: https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_link The Team House Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePod Jack’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_link Jack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21 Dave’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/dave_parke?s=21 Team House Discord: ⬇️ https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6 SubReddit: ⬇️ https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/ Jack Murphy's memoir "Murphy's Law" can be found here:⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Journey-Investigative-Journalist/dp/1501191241 The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links):⬇️ https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/ Intro music by https://www.youtube.com/user/RemixSample "Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio" 00:00 - START 3:07 - The 18X-Ray Special Forces Pipeline Experience 13:10 - Stationed in Okinawa & Early Experiences with 1st SFG 27:24 - Decision to Pursue Army Aviation (Flight School) 30:09 - Flight School Challenges & Mental Health Struggles 53:19 - Pursuing the 160th SOAR (Night Stalkers) 1:00:09 - Green Platoon & Advanced 160th Training 1:11:06 - Seeking Help for Anxiety & Misdiagnosis of Narcolepsy 1:29:58 - Writing the Book "Stigma" and its Mission Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss.

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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• 1:52Jack Murphy?

  Hey guys, welcome to episode 362 of the podcast. Ah, sorry, I just had to mute something. Episode 362 of the Team House. I'm Jack here with Dave and our guest on tonight's show is Nick O'Kelly. Nick served in Special Forces in First Group in Okinawa, deployed to the Philippines, went to flight school, served in 3rd Combat Aviation Brigade, deployed to Afghanistan, went and assessed for 160th Special Operations Aviation. You were a Black Hawk guy, did direct deployment, and then got medically retired and now run a financial planning firm. And you have a book called

• 2:33Jack Murphy?

  Stigma, coming out October 21st. So, that's the thumbnail sketch.

• 2:38Speaker 04

  That's our show.

• 2:39Speaker 05

  Yeah, nailed it.

• 2:40Speaker 04

  No.

• 2:41Jack Murphy?

  Thanks for coming in.

• 2:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, thanks for having me.

• 2:43Speaker 04

  Thanks for coming up too. It's always, it's always fun to have people in the studio.

• 2:46Speaker 05

  I agree. It's a lot better environment. It's a lot more fun. Yeah, for sure.

• 2:50Jack Murphy?

  So, yeah, Nick, I mean, the question we typically ask our guests first is their origin story. If you want to tell us a little bit about, kind of like your upbringing and how that took you towards the military?

• 3:01Speaker 05

  Yeah, so grew up in Western Washington, Seattle area-ish. Pretty traditional family, right? Like, nothing crazy. I didn't have like a traumatic childhood or anything. Family is six, so four siblings, living in the suburbs of Seattle. And then I did the traditional, like, went to college because that was the right thing to do route. But found myself drinking my way out of college very quickly, after about a year.

• 3:28Jack Murphy?

  I had a good time.

• 3:30Speaker 05

  Yeah. So, I like got the freedom out of high school and just went hard in college. And like, it was one of those things where like, I wouldn't go to class for a week and then I'm like, eh, I don't think it's worth going now. I think I missed too much. So, long story short, I dropped out of college after a year and a half. Went back home, worked for my dad for a year. He owned like a car magazine. And really was just partying and doing nothing with my life. So fortunately in college I did ROTC. So I had like some exposure to the army and kind of what it was. So that's what led me to be like, okay, I should probably do something. Let's look at the military. I initially went to the Marines and

• 4:11Speaker 05

  they told me, uh, basically we can't guarantee your job, can't guarantee your MOS. So if you enlist, that's fine, but we don't, you don't know what you're gonna do. So I was like, no, I don't want to do that. So went over to the army recruiter and he showed me the SF recruiting video and I was like, hell yeah, that's the most badass thing I've ever seen. So let's go. What do I need to do? And yeah, signed the dotted line, 18 x-ray and then shipped off for basic in July 2010.

• 4:40Speaker 04

  So did you know anything about special forces or special operations at all prior to that?

• 4:44Speaker 05

  Not really. I mean, other than like the movies, you know, nothing like, I wasn't the kid that was like, I want to go do this. You know, I didn't have that like, I want to go be a Green Beret or go be a Navy SEAL. No, I just was like, that sounds really cool. Sounds really hard. So let's try it.

• 4:58Speaker 04

  I think, I think that for like athletic guys, it's like they, they, you know, the air force shows the PJ or CCT, the Navy shows the SEALs, the Army shows the Ranger SF, and they know that a lot of those guys are going to wash out. Like they're going to go, you know, be the, you know, the deck cans, you know, the boats and mates or the, you know, the grunts or whatever else. Yeah. You know, but yeah, that's, that's great. So what did you, uh, did you do any training prior to going to SFAS or prior to going to basic and everything?

• 5:30Speaker 05

  Yeah. So I was, because of ROTC, I knew kind of the standards, right? Like the PT tests and stuff. So I knew what I needed to work on. Um, so I was already a pretty good runner. That obviously goes so far when you enlist. So I had the running background and that was the biggest thing that I think like made me succeed and do well throughout the whole entire pipeline was just the running background. But, um, yeah, so training, but not like, I didn't follow like a specific program. It was more just like, all right, let's. Go sweat my ass off every day and yeah, get in, get in good shape.

• 6:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's, it's always interesting to me too, because like there's such a, a culture and we've had like, uh, Doc Guru on, you know, TF Guru, like there's such a culture around, you know, kids like psyching themselves up for, for whatever selection is they're going to. And then there are guys who are just like, okay, I'll, I'm gonna go try this and they just do it, you know, and um, you know, I, I think, obviously fitness and, and shape and condition are a part of it, but there's also just like the, the intent of, I'm just gonna do this.

• 6:38Speaker 05

  Yeah. And I also, I didn't mention, but during my childhood, like my mom was, she was hard. Like she was a drill sergeant at home, basically. I was the kid, if I got like a B plus, it was like, what happened? What'd you do wrong? Not like good job, you know? So I always had those high standards that were just ingrained with me and I think that like helped a lot throughout the whole thing.

• 7:00Speaker 04

  So 2010, you're coming into the military. Uh, tell us a little bit about like the 18 x-ray experience.

• 7:07Speaker 05

  Oh yeah. All right. So it had, I will say like it had more from like the early 2000 days. Because I heard horror stories from back then where it was just miserable, right? And I think by now, by the time I was going through, there were enough cadre that were 18 x-rays, that they had a little more sympathy, right? Yeah, it wasn't like, it wasn't like, what are we doing with this 18 x-ray program, right? They were like, okay, now I'm an 18 x-rays. I kind of, you know, mutual respect a little bit. But I will say like, x-rays have such a leg up compared to, somebody just coming from the regular army as far as like selection, right? Because you go to SOPSE right before, so you have three weeks where you're basically,

• 7:49Speaker 05

  working out twice a day, sleeping like 10 hours a day and just eating protein and getting ready for selection, you know? They teach you land nav, so you already have kind of a pre-selection course built in.

• 7:59Speaker 04

  And big army doesn't get that, right? They go straight into S and M.

• 8:02Speaker 05

  Exactly. So, so we have, so we show up to selection kind of already and you hear all the G2 through the pipeline, right? Through the guys that are ahead of you. So you already kind of have an idea of like what you need to do to be successful. So I, I do think the X-ray program like is good in that regard. Now, I will say like, when you get later in the course, like S U T and stuff like that, that's when being an X-ray sucks because leadership experience and stuff like that was not, was not something that we had ever done before.

• 8:32Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 8:33Speaker 05

  So I was just like, how am I supposed to tell this E6 Ranger, you know, what to do when I'm a E3? You know what I mean? With no combat, no, no experience or anything. So, so it was good and bad, I guess.

• 8:43Jack Murphy?

  What, what was that like working with, you know, a bunch of salty characters from the big army like come in there?

• 8:49Speaker 05

  There was, there was hit and miss. Some of them were really cool. Like some of them were really down to earth. And I also think it like depended on what type of X-ray you were, you know? Cause there were some X-rays that just kind of had it coming and didn't, you know, they were cocky. They shouldn't have been, you know? So I do think that played a factor. Um, I tried to stay humble throughout it, so I never got too much.

• 9:09Jack Murphy?

  Don't draw attention.

• 9:10Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah. I was kind of trying to be the gray man. So I didn't get too much shit from the, the hardened war vets, you know?

• 9:17Speaker 04

  Yeah. 2010. So there, there were probably quite a few combat vets.

• 9:20Speaker 05

  For sure.

• 9:20Speaker 04

  Going through that.

• 9:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, for sure. Yep.

• 9:23Jack Murphy?

  And what MOS did you get assigned?

• 9:25Speaker 05

  Charlie.

• 9:26Jack Murphy?

  Okay.

• 9:26Speaker 05

  So I, I was originally going to be a Bravo and then there was another guy going to Oki. And fortunately he wanted Charlie, or excuse me, he wanted Bravo and I wanted Charlie. So we were able to do a hot swap in the.

• 9:37Jack Murphy?

  So he, he already knew he was going to Oki?

• 9:40Speaker 05

  Yee, or no. Good, good point. He, we had our languageers already because language was first.

• 9:46Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 9:46Speaker 05

  That's what it was. So we both had Asian languages. That's what it was.

• 9:49Jack Murphy?

  Okay.

• 9:49Speaker 05

  Good point. No, good point. Cause we didn't find out till, yeah, till Sage, after Sage, actually.

• 9:54Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 9:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 9:55Jack Murphy?

  Uh, that's, that's cool.

• 9:57Speaker 04

  What, what was the, um, like what was the language? So they give you guys like the D lab or whatever it is? And then how long is the language course for? Cause it's a shorter course.

• 10:08Speaker 05

  So it was six months when I went through. So yeah, I did Korean.

• 10:11Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 10:12Speaker 05

  It was six months.

• 10:12Speaker 04

  Is the goal like one one or?

• 10:14Speaker 05

  Yeah, gold's one one.

• 10:15Speaker 04

  One one.

• 10:15Speaker 05

  Um, which yeah, I feel like after six months, one one's not hard to.

• 10:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:20Speaker 05

  You know, it's plenty of time.

• 10:22Jack Murphy?

  I disagree.

• 10:24Speaker 05

  Maybe it depends on the language. I don't know.

• 10:25Jack Murphy?

  It might depend on the person too. Uh, I was a hard head. Um. So Charlie, any fun stories you want to tell about going through the Charlie course or Robin Sage or anything before we move on?

• 10:38Speaker 05

  So I got two stories that I'll tell.

• 10:41Jack Murphy?

  Okay.

• 10:42Speaker 05

  One of them was me being a dumbass and almost getting kicked out of the Q course. So, so here I am, this, I think I was 22. Yeah, I was 22 at the time. So 22 years old, we're going through the Q course, crushing it, crushing it, you know, as well as you can. And we were going out on weeknights, right? Like, and just showing up at 5, 6 a.m.

• 11:06Jack Murphy?

  Hell, yeah.

• 11:06Speaker 05

  No worries, right? Everything's fine. One night, we go out and we were out till like 3 a.m. And I think we had to catch a 5 a.m. bus for the Charlie course. And my alarm goes off, or no, not even my alarm. I get, like, my phone's just going crazy. And a buddy's calling me like, dude, where the hell are you? And I literally just woke up and I'm like, shit. He's like, the bus is here. Like, you probably have like two minutes, dude. And so throw my stuff on real quick, haul ass down to the bus. And I kid you not, like, the bus doors were closing when I was running up to it. And I knocked on the door and luckily, the bus driver was a civilian, so it's not like cat ringer there. But I barely made it. And you know, they read, like, I would have probably been kicked out of the course

• 11:50Speaker 05

  or at least recycled at a minimum. So like, yeah, the just shoestring, you know, metric for that was.

• 11:59Jack Murphy?

  Meeting, meeting the standard out there at the Q course. You know, the worst thing they, I think they did for us was when we started having night classes in language school. Because you're in class from like 1 or 2 in the afternoon to like 6 or 7 o'clock at night. And then you can go out drinking all night. You don't have to be in till 1 in the afternoon.

• 12:20Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 12:21Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, we were hitting it pretty hard.

• 12:22Speaker 05

  That's brutal. That's like the pilot life.

• 12:24Jack Murphy?

  That was, that was not a good idea of them to do that.

• 12:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 12:27Jack Murphy?

  Not a good idea at all.

• 12:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 12:28Jack Murphy?

  Hence why I did not.

• 12:30Speaker 04

  Selection.

• 12:31Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, why, why I maybe didn't do so good on the language proficiency test?

• 12:36Speaker 05

  Yeah, don't let a bunch of young twenty year olds hard charge and sleep in every day. That's not, not a recipe for success.

• 12:42Jack Murphy?

  Uh, and what's the second?

• 12:43Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. Second story. So this one was actually in Robin Sage. So I met my wife at the Q course.

• 12:48Jack Murphy?

  Really?

• 12:49Speaker 05

  We could, that's a funny story too, but met my wife at the Q course and I got engaged before Sage. And we were literally getting married the day after I graduated the Q course. So in Sage, our G chief and the locals or whatever, um, set up a scenario where we went and played poker with the locals. And there was this young chick there that her job was to seduce one of us, try to seduce one of us. And of course I had to be the freaking sacrificial lamb and you know, she was going at me hard. And I was just like, what do I do? Like, I'm literally engaged in the real world, you know? And like, but I, it's, you know, it's Sage. So you're supposed to play the part. And I'm just like, how do I navigate this situation?

• 13:32Speaker 05

  And I ended up kind of like lightly stiff arming, you know, enough to be like respectful, but like, be like, guys, help me out here. Like I need some help. I need a curve. I need somebody to step in and help out. And fortunately, like, I don't know if they just sensed that I was like extremely uncomfortable with it or something, but it did back off. But man, that could have been like, that was one of those moral dilemmas.

• 13:57Jack Murphy?

  She was like twirling her garter belt.

• 14:00Speaker 05

  Like literally like leaning over my shoulder, you know, and like putting her stuff on me and I'm just like, all right, I just got engaged, you know, this is not good.

• 14:08Jack Murphy?

  You went through a fun Robin Sage lane.

• 14:10Speaker 05

  Yeah. I mean, that was one day, so.

• 14:13Speaker 04

  I mean, are you sure that was not on Liberty? I know I've been to one of those bars.

• 14:18Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, right.

• 14:23Speaker 04

  The story about your wife, though, can we save that for a bonus segment? Uh, for our Patreon viewers?

• 14:28Jack Murphy?

  Okay.

• 14:28Speaker 04

  Yeah. Okay, great. Our Patreon subscribers. Hey, if you're not subscribing to our Patreon, you should.

• 14:33Jack Murphy?

  Links down the description.

• 14:34Speaker 04

  It's gonna be salacious.

• 14:36Jack Murphy?

  That's right. And so by the grace of God, graduate the Q course, get married the day after.

• 14:43Speaker 05

  Yup.

• 14:44Jack Murphy?

  And now you guys are bags and baggage going to Okinawa, Japan.

• 14:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, and my wife was in ROTC at East Carolina University. So I was marrying up, she was, I was, yeah, got a BSA E5 when I graduated. But she was commissioning like six months after I graduated. So it was one of those things that we were like, we gotta get married before you're in the army, you know, just to avoid that conflict and everything. But the other curveball was like, there was no position for her to go to Okinawa. She was a signal officer. So it's like, shit, are we gonna be like separated by, you know, worlds right when we get married for a while? Fortunately, and you know how the army works, if you know somebody, it helps.

• 15:27Speaker 05

  So her dad was a forward colonel at West Point and he was able to literally call HRC and get her orders like the next day. Like, we tried all the avenues first, right?

• 15:38Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 15:39Speaker 05

  And nothing, just crickets. And then literally she's like, Dad, I don't know what else to do. Can you make a phone call? And next day she had orders. I was like, are you kidding me? But the crazy thing is like, they had a slot for her out there.

• 15:50Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 15:50Speaker 05

  She slipped, stepped in and was a platoon leader and it was actual like an MTO slot.

• 15:54Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 15:54Speaker 05

  So it's like, why are you guys, you know, whatever bureaucracy, but, but yeah.

• 15:59Speaker 04

  I mean, it's, it's the military.

• 16:00Speaker 05

  Right.

• 16:01Speaker 04

  It's how, it's how the military works.

• 16:02Speaker 05

  It's just how it works, yeah.

• 16:04Jack Murphy?

  And how'd you like Okinawa?

• 16:06Speaker 05

  I loved it. For the short period that I was there, I mean, we were honestly like, I was probably TDY more than I was on island. But, um, no, it was really cool. We, I showed up to my team at a, or my company at an interesting point though, cause they were, they were in Afghanistan when I got there. So I was basically showed up with like six other X-rays and we were rear D. You remember Dave Fielding?

• 16:31Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 16:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, so me, me and Dave showed up at the same time.

• 16:33Jack Murphy?

  Okay.

• 16:34Speaker 05

  So we were rear D, um, and then the company lost a guy while we were literally like right when we got there. And so when they came back, man, we were just these X-rays, no experience. And I think the Majority of us were X-rays, if not all of us. So no experience or anything, you know, very green. And we were not treated well, like we were not accepted right away. It was very much like the, we got our clique, you guys stay in your lane, shut up, you know, do what you're told, which is expected to some extent, right? But I, I feel like it was definitely like magnified by all that.

• 17:08Speaker 04

  Was this like the 2011, 12?

• 17:10Speaker 05

  Yeah. So it would've been 2012.

• 17:12Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 17:12Speaker 05

  Yep. Yeah. So, so yeah, a guy in a company, I mean, they, yeah, they had a pretty brutal deployment. So, so we just had a lot of, I would say imposter syndrome, you know, cause we didn't know anything, you know? We thought we were cool and then we got there and we got humbled real quick.

• 17:27Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 17:28Speaker 05

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• 18:13Speaker 05

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• 18:59Speaker 05

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• 19:07Speaker 06

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• 19:22Speaker 04

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 19:33Speaker 06

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• 20:35Speaker 05

  But after, I would say, two trips with the team, that's when it finally started to integrate and feel a little more.

• 20:41Speaker 04

  Where were those trips to?

• 20:43Speaker 05

  The first one was to Nepal, and second was Philippines. So they were, those were just JSATs, though, so those weren't like...

• 20:50Speaker 04

  That's cool. What's a JSAT for people who...

• 20:52Speaker 05

  Joint Combined Exercise Training, so basically, okay. So it's basically where you're training with a, another country's military. They're training you, you're training them.

• 21:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's not necessarily a combat deployment.

• 21:04Speaker 05

  Right, exactly, yeah, it's more, there's like a POI.

• 21:07Speaker 04

  It's more like their foreign, foreign internal defense.

• 21:09Speaker 05

  Exactly.

• 21:10Speaker 04

  Stuff, yeah.

• 21:11Jack Murphy?

  Was your team, were they Merman or Sky Kings, or, you know, what, what kind of team was it?

• 21:17Speaker 05

  You were a mountain team.

• 21:18Jack Murphy?

  You're a mountain team.

• 21:18Speaker 05

  That transitioned.

• 21:19Jack Murphy?

  Hence Nepal.

• 21:20Speaker 05

  That transitioned to a mobility team, which I don't know what that means. That just means.

• 21:24Jack Murphy?

  You have trumps.

• 21:25Speaker 04

  Drive, yeah.

• 21:25Speaker 05

  But you know what?

• 21:26Speaker 04

  But everybody.

• 21:26Speaker 05

  You know what was cool, though, was at Nepal, we got to do Everest Base Camp because we had a two-week, I think, period, white space on the front end of the trip. And we were like, yeah, let's go do it. Like, and got per diem and everything, you know, it was high altitude training.

• 21:42Jack Murphy?

  That's awesome.

• 21:43Speaker 04

  Do you what? Can you, uh, the, a base camp for, uh, can you kind of explain that?

• 21:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, so, um, so Everest Base Camp, you, you fly out of, excuse me, Kathmandu, which is like the big city in Nepal. Um, and then you fly to a town called Lukla, which is, if you look it up on YouTube, it's actually like the most dangerous airport in the world. It's insane landing there. It's like a super short runway and it's slanted up so that the aircraft have time to decelerate, like before they hit the wall. So it's, it's pretty nuts if you watch the videos.

• 22:17Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 22:18Speaker 05

  So flew into there and I think that's at around nine thousand feet. So you start at Lukla and then it's 10 days up to Everest Base Camp. You end up, I think base camp is around 18,000.

• 22:30Jack Murphy?

  Uh huh.

• 22:30Speaker 05

  So, um, you make stops along the way and you have, we had two Sherpas with us. So it was two ODAs that did it. So it was about 20 guys and two Sherpas. And it was a blast. Like it was, it was one of those things that once in a lifetime opportunity for sure.

• 22:48Jack Murphy?

  That's fantastic.

• 22:49Speaker 05

  And the, I think the most amazing thing is the, the Nepalese people that live there, like just incredible, man. You'll be at, you'll be at like 16,000 feet at like the second stop before base camp. And there's pool tables and like full bars and like, somebody carried that stuff up.

• 23:05Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 23:05Speaker 05

  Like on their back, you know? It's just nuts.

• 23:08Jack Murphy?

  I remember, I went to the Annapurna Base Camp.

• 23:10Speaker 04

  We did that too.

• 23:11Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 23:11Speaker 04

  That's awesome.

• 23:12Jack Murphy?

  So you know that, you know, that exact walk through that valley?

• 23:14Speaker 05

  Yup.

• 23:15Jack Murphy?

  Did it in the summer. And one thing I'll never forget is the porters, like you said, they, someone has to carry that stuff up there. And the porters carrying the things on their back with, you know, it goes from their head.

• 23:24Speaker 05

  Yup.

• 23:25Jack Murphy?

  The band, and then they're carrying it on their back the way they did a thousand years ago, I'm sure.

• 23:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 23:29Jack Murphy?

  But now they're on the trail playing Candy Crush on their smartphone. As, I, I'll never forget that.

• 23:34Speaker 05

  No, that's a good point. I literally Skype my wife from like the stop before every space camp. I was like, how's their internet up here? You know, like somebody put in the infrastructure. It's pretty wild.

• 23:42Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, it is.

• 23:43Speaker 05

  Today's world.

• 23:43Jack Murphy?

  Absolutely.

• 23:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 23:44Jack Murphy?

  I think they use a lot of hydroelectric in some of those villages now.

• 23:48Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 23:48Jack Murphy?

  And they've connected the villages with the suspension bridges, the foot bridges.

• 23:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's right, which are crazy, by the way.

• 23:54Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, yes, they are.

• 23:54Speaker 05

  Especially when you run into like, I think they're ox, maybe? I don't know, but you run into like packs of like oxen or whatever they are. I'm probably butchering that, but yeah. They'll be, they'll, we'll be like on the bridge and then you see them coming on the other side and you're like, we have to get off this bridge.

• 24:11Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 24:11Speaker 05

  We're about to get trampled.

• 24:12Jack Murphy?

  You're getting me, you're getting me nostalgic. I love Nepal.

• 24:14Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was really cool.

• 24:15Jack Murphy?

  I had a really good time over there.

• 24:16Speaker 05

  Really cool experience.

• 24:18Jack Murphy?

  Um, did, uh, was there any force protection issues? Like I remember one, another funny thing was, um, driving around over there. They always wanted to put me in the front seat because we want the Maoists to see that we're driving a white guy around. The reason being is that they do care about tourism and they don't want to scare away tourists. So they, they figure we'll put a white guy in the front seat and they won't put rocks through the windshield.

• 24:41Speaker 05

  Oh, interesting. That's interesting. I never even thought about that. I don't remember that specifically. But that you bring up the driving, the driving over there is insane. Like some of those mountain rivers.

• 24:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, where they're doing like forty-two point turns.

• 24:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, and you got like half a wheel hanging off and like that's death right there.

• 24:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, dude back there chalking it like at the last minute. It's like.

• 25:00Speaker 05

  And they just do it every day. It's like, man, what's wrong with you guys?

• 25:03Jack Murphy?

  And, and so that the, presumably somewhere along this J set, you guys had actual work to do.

• 25:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 25:10Jack Murphy?

  Were you working with the Gurkhas or the Rangers?

• 25:12Speaker 05

  We worked with the Nepalese Rangers.

• 25:13Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 25:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, so it was, it was cool. And that was my first J set. So it's an awesome experience. Just.

• 25:18Jack Murphy?

  What was it like working with those guys?

• 25:20Speaker 05

  They were, um, the language barrier was vast. Like there was no English speaking and unlike the Philippines and stuff like that where they're, you know, pretty prominent. So the language barrier is definitely there. So we had to rely on our interpreter a lot. Um, but it was good. I, I definitely.

• 25:37Speaker 04

  You can say Terp. It's not a bad word.

• 25:39Speaker 05

  Terp, thanks.

• 25:39Speaker 04

  No matter who, no matter who says it.

• 25:41Speaker 05

  I know, interpreter is hard to say.

• 25:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, Terp is fine.

• 25:44Speaker 05

  But no, it was a, it was a really good experience. They were, they were definitely, um.

• 25:50Speaker 05

  I don't want to like bastardize this, but they weren't as competent as I would have expected, I guess, for like a special operations unit, right? Um, I'd say it was, but at the same time, that was good for us, especially on a first JSIT, because it allowed us to really like learn how to teach, right? And really learn how to be that SF guy instead of working with a more competent. Like the Jordanians. Right, exactly, where it's almost like peer to peer, you know, so it allowed us to be, to get into that role, really. That's cool. Yeah. Um, anything else you want to tell us about Nepal? I think that's it. What about the PI? So the PI, um, that first trip, I'm trying to remember the first trip, nothing significant

• 26:34Speaker 05

  happened. We worked with, um, the Rangers actually on that trip too. Scout Rangers. Yep, Scout Rangers, yep. Um, they were awesome. Yeah. Man, the Filipino army, they were like our little brothers. Those guys like to fight. They are amazing people. Yeah. And they like the NBA, like no one else's business. It is bizarre. But, um, no, that trip was really good. Um, we kind of had a, that was kind of a cush trip to some extent, like we stayed in hotels. Meg Seisei? That, no, our O E F P was Meg Seisei. Yeah. So the six month there was, um, Meg Seisei. But, um, that one was actually, I don't even remember the location to be honest, but, um, no, that one was good. Actually, I do have one story from that that I can remember. Um,

• 27:18Speaker 05

  so I'm in 18 Charlie and I'm teaching time fuse and we're just doing like single blocks of C4 with time fuse hooked up to it. I don't remember whatever, two minute time fuse, three minute time fuse, something. And we had like six blocks, um, laid out, like spread up, spread apart in this open field, right? And we get our safe distance and we put off the time fuse and we go back to the safe distance and. Everything's going fine for the first four blocks. So it's like five, four, three, two, one, bang, you know, we're all good. And then the fifth block, nothing happens. And I'm like, shit, what is happening? And at the same time, we see like a little brush fire on the side.

• 27:59Speaker 05

  So it was like a open field with like big brush on the side of it. So we see a brush fire starting on the side and we still have two live blocks. So we can't do anything, right? And this fire starts spreading like pretty, pretty rapidly. And I'm like, shit, like this is, you know, this is my second trip as a Charlie. I'm just like, oh God, like, what do we do? I wanted to go out there, but I can't because there's live C4 out there. So the sixth block actually went off. So the sixth block went off. So now there's a fifth block that's still just out there. And I was like, all right, I talked to my team sergeant and I'm like, dude, we gotta do something like this. This is about to burn down the jungle in the Philippines. So we gave it a couple of minutes. I think it was like three minutes or something, which felt like

• 28:44Speaker 05

  an eternity. And then at that three minute mark, me and him went down there, kind of got like a distance look, you know, very like, very cautiously approaching it. But we saw that the time fuse had gotten cut from that fourth charge. So it projected and cut that fourth time fuse before it could have hit the C4. So went out there, cut the time fuse really close to the C4, grabbed, you know, obviously the block was fine. And then literally like 30 or 40 Philippine Scout Rangers and us rushed down and just start taking pig branches and throwing down and trying to get take this fire out. And it was a good, probably 15 minute process.

• 29:25Jack Murphy?

  Next time have them tie into a ring main.

• 29:27Speaker 05

  Right?

• 29:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, right.

• 29:29Speaker 05

  I know. So lessons learned, right?

• 29:32Speaker 04

  And how, I want to ask you a question because you know, you did this trip to Nepal, you did this trip to the Philippines while the GWAT is still, you know, active or Afghanistan particularly.

• 29:44Speaker 04

  How did you, like, was there any sort of stigma about that?

• 29:50Speaker 04

  How did you feel about?

• 29:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, good question. There was, for sure. Especially when I had buddies who went to fifth group and third group and were already deployed, you know? And I'm just like, man, like, I, don't get me wrong, I enjoyed everything I did in OKI and I loved it. But we definitely, or at least I felt that 1-1 had that, like, you know, the, the party group and the, you guys don't do real stuff group. You know, because we were doing J-SITS and, so yes, absolutely. I definitely felt that.

• 30:17Speaker 04

  And for you personally, even though you were having a great time and you were doing, you were doing the SF job, for sure. Did you feel like you were missing out?

• 30:28Speaker 05

  Yes, um, yeah, I did for sure. And because you do all this training, right? You're just like, ready to go and you want to use it. Yeah, you want to do the job. So yeah, I did, especially because we, our company just deployed to Afghanistan. We just missed it. You know, so it was like, and OKI in 1-1, you don't, it's not like a normal rotation like other groups where you're, you know, in a year or a year and a half, you're gonna go. So it was like, damn.

• 30:55Speaker 04

  Just kind of a one-off type of thing.

• 30:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, like every couple of years or whatever. So, so yeah, for sure. I definitely felt that.

• 31:03Jack Murphy?

  Tell us about the second pump to the Philippines then.

• 31:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, so the second one was a, um, it was a, we were working with the law enforcement there, so the Filipino DEA.

• 31:16Speaker 04

  Oh, okay.

• 31:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, so it wasn't, it wasn't necessarily military.

• 31:18Speaker 04

  It wasn't the SAF?

• 31:20Speaker 05

  So, is that the police force?

• 31:22Speaker 04

  Special Action Force?

• 31:23Speaker 05

  So they were involved, but the, our primary was the DEA. It was the PDA.

• 31:29Speaker 04

  Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 31:30Speaker 05

  PDA, PDA or something like that. So we actually worked at their schoolhouse and we, but it, it was treated pretty much like a normal J-SIT. Like, we did the same shooting POIs and demo POIs and medical POIs. So it wasn't, it wasn't too out of the ordinary, other than who we were working with. But that was a, I mean, I don't remember anything dramatic or crazy happening in that one, to be honest. It was just, it was a good trip, though. I do remember that.

• 31:58Jack Murphy?

  And so when did the idea start to occur to you that you were interested in putting in your flight packet?

• 32:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, good question. So when my, so O E F P was our, we did a six month rotation to the Philippines after all those Philippines trips. So I spent a lot of time there. And my son was actually born right before that trip. So I literally like said, good luck and I'm out. And it was like, I think three weeks after he was born, I was off to the Philippines. So the nexus of it, and I didn't mention this before, was I looked into a program called high school to flight school before I even went 18 x-ray. And that's essentially where you can, if you have credentials, right? If you're like a pilot already or something, you can go straight into the army and become a warrant and go fly.

• 32:48Speaker 05

  So I already had that in the back of my mind that I kind of had the aviation bug that I wanted to do it. And with that deployment and with kind of, I don't want to talk, I, I hope this comes out right. Like my wife did not deal well with me being gone all the time.

• 33:05Jack Murphy?

  Sure.

• 33:06Speaker 05

  Right? So she got really stressed out.

• 33:08Jack Murphy?

  People don't get married to be single.

• 33:09Speaker 05

  True. Yeah, touche. So, and she was active duty. She had a baby at home, colic baby, right? So there was a lot of just stress that was weighing on her. So I kind of, I kind of saw the writing on the wall that like, if I stay in this job and I'm constantly gone all the time, like I'm kind of putting her through hell to some extent, you know?

• 33:26Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 33:27Speaker 05

  So, so I'd looked at other options and I, aviation was the thing that I was like, okay, this is going to not only accelerate my career pay wise, right? But it's also going to give me a tangible skill that if I want to get out, I can fly, you know? So those are the biggest factors that went into it. And then during that O E F P deployment was when I dropped my flight packet.

• 33:50Jack Murphy?

  And tell us then a little bit about that process of, you know, presumably your packet gets approved and now you're going to flight school.

• 33:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, so it's a pretty comprehensive packet. You do resume, you do letters of recommendation, the whole kind of traditional military packet, I guess, if you will. And then it goes in front of a selection board. So there's a selection board at Fort Rucker that basically goes through all the candidates and says yes or no, we're going to give you the chance to come to flight school or not. Fortunately, I was obviously selected and got the opportunity. I do think a lot of it was because of the letters of recommendation, well, and probably being an SF guy, I'm sure helped a lot.

• 34:34Speaker 05

  But yeah, that's, that's kind of how it works. So, and then, once you find out you're selected, then you just play the waiting game and wait for orders to Rucker.

• 34:43Jack Murphy?

  Fort Rucker.

• 34:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, good old Fort Rucker.

• 34:45Jack Murphy?

  Alabama.

• 34:47Jack Murphy?

  And how did flight school go for you? I think we've talked to a couple 160th pilots about flight school and you're like going through conventional military training, right?

• 34:56Speaker 05

  Yeah, so dude, it was a culture shock to the core for me. So I was expecting this. I had this like opinion that in aviation, everybody's on a first name basis, you know, you can grow out your hair.

• 35:10Jack Murphy?

  Maverick.

• 35:11Speaker 05

  Super chill, yeah. So I had that false expectation going into it. I get to Fort Rucker and you take off your staff sergeant rank and you put on this stupid like snowbird rank is what they call it. It's like a W O C, whatever.

• 35:26Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, the W.

• 35:27Speaker 05

  Basically signaling to everybody that you're, you're a newbie.

• 35:30Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 35:31Speaker 05

  You're the FNG. So, so first though, before even flight school, you go to warrant officer candidate school, which is, in my opinion, the stupidest army course. It's changed now, thank God, but it was not a gentleman's course. It was like a mini basic training where you, you have no phones or anything for like five weeks and dude, I'm telling you, they basically are trying to do basic training over again in a five week period.

• 35:56Jack Murphy?

  Which is really weird because like it's not basic training and it's not like officer candidate school.

• 36:02Speaker 05

  Right.

• 36:02Jack Murphy?

  Right? Like you're taking people who have already been in.

• 36:06Speaker 04

  Who are now, you know, in this really unique world and you're

• 36:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:13Speaker 04

  treating them like they're boots.

• 36:15Speaker 05

  Right, exactly. And it was, it was like one of those things where you had to have your clothes perfectly dressed right, dress and like label them and like all these just stupid things that you had to do to get through. It was, it was honestly like one of those.

• 36:27Speaker 04

  Like how many pots of coffee can you chug?

• 36:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, I know.

• 36:31Speaker 04

  Warrants, right?

• 36:32Speaker 05

  How many Coors Lights can you chug?

• 36:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly.

• 36:34Speaker 05

  Exactly. How late can you be for this four minutes?

• 36:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah. How many cigarettes can you put out in, you know, five seconds?

• 36:40Speaker 05

  Yeah. So that was like, uh, so that was just dumb. It was one of those things you just had to get through. I ended up being like the cadet commander or whatever you call it for that, which was actually cool because the last two weeks of it, um, I got my own office with my sergeant major and he was a former one sixtieth, um, guy, not a pilot, but he was going to flight school. Um, so we got a TV to ourselves. We got a coffee maker and we got to go to like Walmart and stuff off base.

• 37:10Speaker 04

  So you got the real, you got the real war experience.

• 37:12Speaker 05

  So we got the real, yeah, I think that's where it was, right? If you excel, then you can get the taste of it. So, so, yeah, that was, but honestly, that course was just a check in the block. Um, and then getting into flight school. So I was the second flight school class that flew the new Lakotas, the LUHs. So, um, that also came with some stigmas of like, you're not a real pilot if you're training this, right? Cause, cause it's not the way we did it in the old days.

• 37:40Speaker 04

  You went through the first easy course, the second easy course.

• 37:42Speaker 05

  Exactly. Didn't have to go up both ways anymore. So, um, but that was a really cool experience. The, the Lakota is for anybody that doesn't know, it's just a little more advanced than the old trainer. So it has a glass cockpit, which means like digital and autopilot systems, um, has a full hydraulics and everything like that. So it's almost, in my opinion, it's a better training aircraft for where army aviators are going, right? Because we're going into these advanced airframes that have these systems. So it allowed us to, to learn how to use the systems. Still learning how to fly, right? We still like, they were, they turned off the system. So you learn how to fly, but, um, but yeah, it was a good, it was an easier transition because of that to the Black Hawk.

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• 41:10Speaker 07

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• 41:21Speaker 06

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• 41:55Speaker 05

  But in flight school, so since I had the improper expectations, right? And I was expecting to be treated with respect and all this stuff.

• 42:07Speaker 05

  That's when I started down the mental health route. So my, my daughter was born when I was in flight school, and I did not want to take paternity leave, because if you get recycled, who knows how long you could be just sitting on hold to go into the next class? So I didn't take paternity leave. And I was just going, going, going. And my wife is just, God bless her, but she's just dealing with everything, right? While I'm just trying to succeed in flight school. And looking back on it now, I can see like why it happened, right? Because I was just stressing myself out to the max. But one day in class, we were just learning about the Blackhawk engine,

• 42:49Speaker 05

  nothing crazy, and I just got hit with this random suicidal thought and came out of nowhere, and it was... The problem for me was that I wasn't able to just be like, huh, that's weird, right? And let it go. I like obsessed over it.

• 43:04Speaker 04

  Right.

• 43:05Speaker 05

  Like, I was like, why the hell did this happen?

• 43:07Speaker 04

  Right.

• 43:07Speaker 05

  I've never been through this. I don't know how to react to it. And how the hell do I fix this, right? And that just reinforced this like endless thought loop, you know? And obviously I didn't know it at the time.

• 43:17Speaker 04

  And probably you like you doubled down on how hard you're working.

• 43:20Speaker 05

  Exactly, yeah. So I, and that's, that's a good point because it lasted for a long time. Like it lasted for a good five years and I kept trying to just succeed my way out of it.

• 43:32Speaker 04

  Right.

• 43:32Speaker 05

  You know, which I think is a blessing, you know, because I

• 43:36Speaker 04

  To a point.

• 43:36Speaker 05

  Because I didn't, you know, I didn't take my life and I didn't get to that point.

• 43:40Speaker 04

  Right.

• 43:41Speaker 05

  Because I did have a purpose, but at the same time, like I also didn't give myself the space to like

• 43:47Speaker 04

  Right.

• 43:48Speaker 05

  Figure out what was going on, so.

• 43:49Speaker 04

  So you weren't seeking out any like formal uh mental health treatment at this time?

• 43:54Speaker 05

  So I did one time. So there was one day where I was leaving, leaving class from flight school and driving home. And I was, I was scared to go home because of the, you know, I was just scared it was gonna happen that night.

• 44:10Speaker 04

  Was it like an ideation?

• 44:11Speaker 05

  It was, a hundred percent. It was almost, it was like a vision, right? Like, I literally like visualize it and I was like, shit.

• 44:17Speaker 04

  Wait, did it, I wanted to revivify this.

• 44:20Speaker 05

  No, no, you're fine. I'm, I'm good.

• 44:22Speaker 04

  Okay, so was this sort of like, I like, this would, like, I just want this to be over. Like, like this would be, just be, it'd just be like so ea- like so easy to just like

• 44:36Speaker 05

  So.

• 44:36Speaker 04

  End this, whatever I'm feeling.

• 44:38Speaker 05

  Yes, that and um I literally saw myself, so it was always worse when I was laying in bed, which is pretty universal, but I had my pistol in my fingerprint safe next to my bed. And I literally saw myself like do it. Obviously, like you don't see yourself die, but like I saw myself do it. And it was, that vision kept coming up in my head. And it was to the point where it was like, I can't escape this thought.

• 45:08Speaker 04

  Right.

• 45:08Speaker 05

  Right, like, so yeah, to your point, it was like. Like, it's just not gonna go away.

• 45:13Speaker 04

  Right.

• 45:14Speaker 05

  It's, it's gonna be like this forever.

• 45:15Speaker 04

  And, and, and, you know, it's one of those things, I think, like, any sort of like, uh, those recursive thoughts, once you sink into it, you know, if you can't just like, let it go.

• 45:25Speaker 05

  Right.

• 45:26Speaker 04

  Like, once you sink into it, that it just, yeah.

• 45:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, and it started, it started, um, becoming like, every situation too.

• 45:34Speaker 04

  Right.

• 45:34Speaker 05

  Like, if I was driving, even with my family, it was terrifying, because it was like, we're driving over a bridge.

• 45:39Speaker 04

  Right.

• 45:39Speaker 05

  And I'm just like, I, I could do it right here. You know, and it was just, they would just keep attacking me, so, um, but I went to the chaplain that day, because I was like, I can't go home, like, I have to go talk to somebody. So I went to the chaplain, told him what was going on, kind of poured my heart out to him. And he took me to behavioral health, while I'm in flight school at Fort Rucker.

• 46:00Speaker 04

  Oof.

• 46:00Speaker 05

  So, yeah.

• 46:01Speaker 04

  You were scared, right?

• 46:02Speaker 05

  I was terrified.

• 46:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:03Speaker 05

  I didn't wanna go to behavioral.

• 46:04Speaker 04

  Right.

• 46:05Speaker 05

  That's why I went to the chaplain, right?

• 46:06Speaker 04

  Because isn't there like, the, a myth, that if you go to the chaplain, he's not gonna tell anybody else?

• 46:10Speaker 05

  That's what I thought.

• 46:11Speaker 04

  Right.

• 46:11Speaker 05

  And I, that's a myth. I didn't like, look into it before, but I just thought so.

• 46:14Speaker 04

  Right.

• 46:14Speaker 05

  And apparently, because he told me, um, that he's like obligated if I say, like, I have self-harmed thoughts or whatever, he's obligated to take me.

• 46:22Speaker 04

  Right.

• 46:23Speaker 05

  So literally, I had to get in his car and go to behavioral health with him.

• 46:26Speaker 04

  That must've been terrifying.

• 46:27Speaker 05

  It was so scary, and filled out this stupid suicide questionnaire, right? It was like, it was basically assessing like, your seriousness, how serious you are.

• 46:36Speaker 04

  Did you lie on it, or did you tell the truth?

• 46:38Speaker 05

  So I didn't have to, fortunately, um, because the questionnaire was like, there's a couple of questions. It was like, do you have thoughts of suicide? Yes. Like, do you have thoughts of harming others? No. Do you have a plan to do it? No. Because I didn't really, right?

• 46:52Speaker 04

  Right.

• 46:52Speaker 05

  But I didn't, wasn't like, I'm gonna go do this, you know?

• 46:55Speaker 04

  Right, right.

• 46:55Speaker 05

  Um, and then, do you want to do it, was another example of the question. And I was like, no, you know, I don't want this, it's just happening to me.

• 47:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, I wouldn't be talking to you if I wanna do this.

• 47:03Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly.

• 47:04Speaker 04

  Right.

• 47:04Speaker 05

  So, um, so I filled that out, and then the lady takes me back in the room, and I kid you not, she just has a clipboard that I filled out, and she just reads it to me. Just reads my answers, and at the end of it, her synopsis was, well, I think this is something temporary that you're going through, so I'm gonna let you continue training. Um, basically kind of the comeback if you need us, right?

• 47:24Jack Murphy?

  Check the block.

• 47:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 47:26Speaker 04

  Well, but thank God, but thank God though, too, right?

• 47:28Speaker 05

  True. It's a blessing in disguise. But at the time I was like, are you freaking kidding me? Like, this was a cry for help.

• 47:34Speaker 04

  Right.

• 47:34Speaker 05

  Like, and you're just gonna throw me out to the wolves?

• 47:36Speaker 04

  Right.

• 47:36Speaker 05

  So that kind of like solidified that like, alright, I'm not going to behavioral health. Like, I am freaking fixing this.

• 47:43Speaker 04

  And I'm not going to chaplain.

• 47:44Speaker 05

  And I'm definitely not going to chaplain.

• 47:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:46Speaker 05

  So that solidified, yeah, right? I know, dude, like, that was supposed to be a safe space.

• 47:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly.

• 47:51Speaker 05

  So.

• 47:51Speaker 04

  Between me and God, right?

• 47:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly.

• 47:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:54Speaker 05

  Honestly, I was hoping the chaplain would just be like, come see me once a week.

• 47:57Jack Murphy?

  It's, it's the same with a licensed psychologist. If you say I'm gonna like.

• 48:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, but chaplains are supposed to be like, that's supposed to be like sacred.

• 48:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, and I think they even like advertise that to some extent, right? Like, hey, I have an open door, come talk to me.

• 48:12Speaker 04

  I think they allow it to, so I kind of self perpetuate, you know? They may like push it along, but you're not safe.

• 48:21Speaker 05

  Right.

• 48:22Speaker 04

  And when I say you're not safe, like, obviously chaplain should report it. Obviously, if they think that somebody is, is in duress or, you know, a threat to themselves. But, but the thing is that like, whether it's a veteran who's worried about red flag laws or somebody on active duty.

• 48:40Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 48:40Speaker 04

  Who is worried about getting pulled from their unit or, you know, whatever, flight school or whatever.

• 48:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 48:47Speaker 04

  Like, there have, and there have to be ways for people to address these things, like sound off, um, right? There have to be ways for people to address these things that, where they feel safe that, that they're not gonna be punished for it.

• 49:03Speaker 05

  Exactly, and that's, that's kind of my whole like stigma thing, right? And that's what my book's about. It's, yeah, like, we have to break that because so many dudes, and you guys probably see it more than I do, but so many guys are still making that decision, right? And still ending it all because, in my opinion, because they don't feel safe or don't feel like they can go get the help.

• 49:26Speaker 04

  And I think the military has proven itself even to, until today. And Jack probably knows more about this than I do, that they can't be trusted. Like if you go for help, many times that will, that will end you.

• 49:40Jack Murphy?

  There are protections, but there's a very specific way. And I, I think it's actually the behavior health clinic at the hospital, like the TMC on post. If you go in there and say, I'm having a mental health crisis, there are some protections in place for you. But if you go to anywhere else, if you go to your first sergeant, you go to the company commander, you go to the chaplain, they can, not always. But they can totally fuck you.

• 50:03Speaker 04

  Which is crazy, right?

• 50:04Jack Murphy?

  Which I'm not saying they're all out to get you.

• 50:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 50:07Jack Murphy?

  A lot of them will do the right thing and, and get you the help you need. Um, but historically, yeah, there are guys that have gotten totally screwed.

• 50:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, if, if like, if they want to get somebody off their books because they don't, you know, want it to be a black market.

• 50:21Jack Murphy?

  I mean, I don't know, I don't know if they still had it when you were around. I mean, but when I was in the army, I mean, there was like a strong social shaming aspect of it. That somebody who, somebody who said, I'm having suicidal thoughts, had to wear a road guard vest. And be escorted around by two soldiers at all times.

• 50:37Speaker 05

  Yes. And one thing that that reminds me of is 30th AG, like.

• 50:43Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 50:43Speaker 05

  So 30th AG for the audience is like your first day in the army. Like when you're in processing to go to basic training, you go to 30th AG.

• 50:52Jack Murphy?

  The worst place in Northern America.

• 50:53Speaker 05

  The worst place ever, just purgatory. But I just remember distinctly remember there being this like, there was like a quad, right? Like an open quad and then there was a balcony or whatever you want to call it, a railing. And there were soldiers up there that were pulled from training and had their shoelaces taken away because they were suicidal. And the drill sergeants talk shit about them, right? Like if you fuck up, you're going to end up like them. And that's, that's the day that everybody learned like, all right, if you have mental health problems, you don't talk about it. Like you keep your mouth shut and you just freaking drive on.

• 51:26Speaker 04

  So, so you go to behavior health, she gives you kind of the, you know, clean bill of health. Do you tell your wife about this?

• 51:33Speaker 05

  Yeah. So that, yeah. So my wife picked me up actually, because I didn't want the chaplain to drive me back. Um, and my wife.

• 51:40Speaker 04

  That bastard.

• 51:41Speaker 05

  My wife was pissed, like.

• 51:42Speaker 04

  She was mad at you?

• 51:43Speaker 05

  She was mad at me because I went there instead of talking to her first. More pissed that like.

• 51:50Speaker 05

  She didn't know, right? And then this came out of nowhere.

• 51:53Speaker 04

  That's fair, right?

• 51:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. Um, so that's how she found out. Um, well, actually, I I misspoke. So she found out before this, okay? But she thought it was a one time thing. And how she found out, which is is also messed up. I told her, hey babe, I need you to go in our safe, take apart my gun and hide the components from me. That's how she found out because I was just, I couldn't go to bed with my gun right there.

• 52:24Speaker 04

  Right.

• 52:24Speaker 05

  Available. Um, so that's how she initially found out. And then I think this was a couple of weeks later when I went to the chaplain. That's when um, she came and she was pissed because we hadn't talked about it since then. It was just kind of one of those things that I don't think she knew how to deal with it, right? And then obviously I didn't know how to deal with it. So, um, yeah, she was mad. She was mad, one, because she knew the repercussions. She knew what could happen. Um, and she was also mad that I even had to go to behavioral health. Because she, like, she knew that I went to the chaplain first. So she was mad about that aspect, too, that I got forced to go there. So, so it's twofold.

• 53:03Speaker 04

  Yeah. So what what happened the next day at work, at school?

• 53:08Speaker 05

  I can't even remember, to be honest. It was a blur.

• 53:10Speaker 04

  But but did they, did anybody say anything to you?

• 53:12Speaker 05

  No, no.

• 53:13Speaker 04

  Nothing happened?

• 53:14Speaker 05

  You know what's interesting is I didn't hear a squeak about that. And I didn't even know it was in my medical records until I was getting out of the army. And I like reviewed everything and I was like, huh? There actually is a note in there about that. Because I was, in my mind, I was like, man, did that really happen?

• 53:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 53:33Jack Murphy?

  Well, it it sounds like the chaplain did maintain his confidentiality.

• 53:35Speaker 05

  So I think that's probably what happened.

• 53:37Speaker 04

  Did he ever check on you, though?

• 53:38Speaker 05

  No.

• 53:39Speaker 04

  The chaplain never came out and gave you like a starburst and said, hey, Drew, how are you doing?

• 53:45Speaker 05

  No. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, this is kind of crazy.

• 53:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, pocket bible?

• 53:48Speaker 05

  No, I think he just, I think he just took the clinician's word for it, maybe, you know? And trusted me to come back if I needed to. I don't know. So I'm trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, but

• 53:59Speaker 04

  That's kind of bizarre because generally chaplains are really like they're like Ned Flanders.

• 54:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, for sure.

• 54:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, like a lot of chaplains are like that. Hey, you know.

• 54:09Speaker 05

  I remember you had this two years ago.

• 54:13Jack Murphy?

  I remember a few chaplains that were like fire and brimstone, like Ranger, Jesus wants you to kill America's enemies.

• 54:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, but they were also, I mean, we had one of those, but he was also like, you know, he would come and check on.

• 54:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 54:27Speaker 04

  Like he cares.

• 54:28Speaker 05

  Sure. Yeah, I wonder if it was like one of those things that Rutgers is just such a big trade off case.

• 54:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, it could be.

• 54:32Speaker 05

  You know, that he was just like.

• 54:34Jack Murphy?

  So you're dealing with some pretty significant stressors in life. And at the same time, you get assigned to third combat aviation brigade. Uh, what was that experience like when you hit the ground there?

• 54:46Speaker 05

  Yeah. So I actually, um, yeah. So third combat aviation brigade was cool because I wanted to go there. Like I wanted Savannah. It was my first choice, um, because they were deploying soon. So they were going to Afghanistan because as a new pilot, like flight hours is everything. So the faster you can get progressed and get to pilot in command, which is when you're like in charge of the aircraft, the better for your career. Um, so it was good, but it was very much not big boy rules like I expected. Kind of like I said, um, the warrant officers in aviation end up being kind of the, the people that do all the details and stuff. Because the crew chiefs, the enlisted guys are busy, like maintaining the aircraft.

• 55:31Speaker 05

  So that all falls on the warrant officers.

• 55:32Speaker 04

  Cause your officers aren't going to do it.

• 55:33Speaker 05

  Right. Yeah. Or they're doing flight schedules. You know what I mean?

• 55:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:36Speaker 05

  So it was like, so the warrant officers, um, one dude will be in charge of like, I was the goggle custodian. So I was in charge of inventorying, maintaining all the MVGs. One guy will be the supply sergeant for the company, like as a warrant officer and still having to fly. So there's a lot of like extra duties that you have to do. Um, so I think the. The short answer is I wasn't happy with my choice to go aviation initially. And even through Afghanistan, like I just wasn't happy with it. The long answer was like, at the same time, it was cool. It was still cool, like flying helicopters and progressing through that and stuff like that, so.

• 56:12Speaker 04

  You know, one of the things that up to this point that I appreciate about your story is like, a lot of times, people associate like a lot of the mental health stuff and whatnot with like this really severe post-traumatic stress. It's really traumatizing event and all this stuff. But it doesn't like, it doesn't have to be connected to that. Like it can just, it can be stressors, you know, you know, the way we perceive ourselves, the way, you know, what the standards we're holding ourselves to, whatever it is. But it can come from anywhere at any time.

• 56:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, for sure. And it's a testament to that. And this is not to brag by any means, okay? But you see all these high performing guys like end up taking their lives, right? And everybody's like, what happened? Like, how could that happen to him? I thought he had his life all together, right? And he did on the outside and that's kind of what I was, right? Like I ended up graduating as the distinguished honor graduate in my flight school class through all of that, you know, even when dealing with all that, like, so that just shows like that you can mask it. And it's fairly easy to mask it, to be honest. Like you just kind of stuff it down and keep going and deal with it on your own. That's kind of why I want to say that is because like, there's a lot of people out there that are very high performing

• 57:26Speaker 05

  and they fall into this trap.

• 57:28Jack Murphy?

  Real common with the soft guys, you know, like, like one friend of mine used to say, you know, it's being functionally fucked up. You know, that you're high performing, but your internal world is just total turmoil.

• 57:39Speaker 04

  And, and I think, I think that for a lot of, especially like soft guys, I think that there is a lot of miscorrelation with post-traumatic stress and that, that stuff. I think that, I think there is post-traumatic stress, but I don't necessarily think that the post-traumatic stress is what leads to it. It's, it is so many other things.

• 58:00Speaker 05

  I agree, especially with the guys transitioning, right?

• 58:02Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 58:03Speaker 05

  Cause they're going so hard and then the noise stops and they're like, what do I do? Like, who am I, you know?

• 58:08Speaker 04

  With, with, with your process of going through it, do you, do you know, did you ever, were you able to put the finger on sort of what? The the trigger aspect or the balance aspect of it was for you?

• 58:19Speaker 05

  Um, kind of. So I just looked at, looking back, I can look at like the stressors that were leading up to it, right? So like my transition from SF, me not being happy with my aviation decision, um, the grind to flight school, and then my daughter being born, her not sleeping, you know, so sleep was all jacked up.

• 58:38Speaker 04

  Right.

• 58:39Speaker 05

  My wife was also stressed out. So there was a lot of like compounding factors that just kind of landed at the same time and

• 58:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:45Speaker 05

  and led to it. But the weird thing is there was no like slow lead up, right? Like it wasn't like I was just like, ah, life sucks, you know, it was just like boom dude.

• 58:54Jack Murphy?

  Dave Fielding told the same story.

• 58:56Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So that was the most bizarre thing because I did not, I'd never dealt with anything before, you know, like that. So I had no idea.

• 59:04Speaker 04

  Well, you know, and I think, you know, like, you know, they talk about the twenty two a day and twenty three a day, but also if you look at men at a certain age or whatever, that they're, you know, that their statistics are not checked. So it's not just the veteran, it's not just the combat veteran, it's not just the soft, but it's definitely a um, a very male oriented, like, uh, you know, whether it's we feel like we're not living up, or we feel disillusioned, whatever it is, whatever combination.

• 59:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, I feel like we just take on so much, right? And we feel like we just, we have to, and we just have to push through no matter what. Yeah, I think so too.

• 59:43Speaker 04

  It's very interesting.

• 59:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 59:45Jack Murphy?

  So your missus must have been thrilled when you got deployed to Afghanistan.

• 59:48Speaker 05

  Yeah. Fortunately, by this time she was out of the army.

• 59:52Jack Murphy?

  Okay.

• 59:53Speaker 05

  So it was better.

• 59:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 59:54Speaker 05

  She was out of the army, we were stable in Savannah, like, she didn't have the stress, she, she was a signal officer and she hated the army. She hated her job. Like, it was just one of those things that she was just like, get me out of here, I can't wait to get out. So stress was mitigated by that a lot. And the kids weren't babies anymore. So they were, it was a little better, you know, like. So yeah, it was it was more tolerable for her. Honestly, I probably had a worse time than she did during that nine months because I was still dealing with that crap.

• 1:00:23Jack Murphy?

  So you were a Blackhawk guy, Blackhawk pilot. What was the Afghanistan deployment like?

• 1:00:31Speaker 05

  Very frustrating.

• 1:00:32Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, because.

• 1:00:33Jack Murphy?

  Two thousand.

• 1:00:34Speaker 05

  Two thousand seventeen, eighteen. Yeah, so flight school was two thousand fifteen to two thousand seventeen. And then Afghan was seventeen, eighteen. Very frustrating because as a like former SF dude, I wanted to do the cool stuff.

• 1:00:49Jack Murphy?

  Get after it.

• 1:00:50Speaker 05

  I wanted to bring people to the X. I wanted to, you know, be doing the missions. And ninety-five percent of our flying was ass and trash, just moving people from airfield to airfield. Yeah, just ring routes.

• 1:01:02Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:02Speaker 05

  Whether it was day or night, it didn't matter.

• 1:01:05Speaker 05

  It was, and when we did get a mission that was supporting like an SF team or something, the senior guys would take it and none of the junior guys got to go on it. So it was one of those things where I was like, cool, like, how am I going to learn if I don't get the chance?

• 1:01:18Jack Murphy?

  Right, right.

• 1:01:19Speaker 05

  So by the end of that deployment, apparently I have a thing with end of deployments and changing careers, but I dropped my one sixtieth packet. Because I was like, I am getting out of the army or I'm going to the one sixtieth. Like, I didn't sign up to be a pilot to go fly and land. Yeah.

• 1:01:36Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:37Speaker 05

  Like, that's not what I wanted to do. So at the end of that deployment, I finally, that was the blessing of the deployment, though, is I got a lot of hours. So I got, I went far ahead of my peers, like, so in the matter, a matter of a year, I was able to drop my one sixtieth packet, which they do have minimum requirements for hours. So it's five hundred hours, five hundred hours in pilot in command. So you have to be a pilot in command and have five hundred flight hours, at least when I assess, that's what it was. So I hit that at probably the month seven mark of my deployment and I was, I dropped it right away. Got my letters rec and everything and then by the end of that deployment, I had an invitation to go assess. So I got back in June twenty eighteen and then August I assessed.

• 1:02:22Speaker 05

  So it was like, it was perfect because I was in nine month deployment shape, you know, going into assessment, so.

• 1:02:27Jack Murphy?

  And what was assessment like for you?

• 1:02:30Speaker 05

  It was definitely hard, mostly because I was still dealing with this crap. So I was, at this point, it was, I was having these like physical dizzy spells. So the depression had morphed into these dizzy spells, which I didn't know what they were at the time, but they're panic attacks, which I didn't know. But um, so I was dealing with that. So that part was tough.

• 1:02:53Speaker 05

  And then assessment is one of those things where it's meant for you to feel like you're failing the whole time. So you, you don't, I don't think anybody goes to it and is like, yeah, crush that.

• 1:03:00Jack Murphy?

  Right, right.

• 1:03:03Speaker 05

  So, but it was, it was also at the same time, as hard as it was, it was a good insight into the regiment and into how professional and next level they are. Because I, to be honest, I was feeling pretty confident in like my ability to fly and my ability to brief and plan because I had just come off the deployment and a lot of like repetition. And I get to the assessment and I, you have to put together a brief and stuff. And I got torn apart in that brief, like just annihilated. And so many questions that they asked me, I just had no answer for. I didn't even know what they were talking about some of the times. And that was just kind of like, okay, this is the big leagues. You know, like, like this is where I want to be type of thing.

• 1:03:48Speaker 05

  So, so yeah, assessment was definitely hard, more mentally and just lack of, you're just sleep deprived and having to do a bunch of things. So more mentally challenging than physically. The physical stuff was, it wasn't bad. It was like PT tests and stuff like that. So I feel like you should.

• 1:04:06Jack Murphy?

  Were you surprised to learn that, yeah, you survived that panel, that board?

• 1:04:10Speaker 05

  Have you heard about that? Oh, man.

• 1:04:11Jack Murphy?

  The one you told me.

• 1:04:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, so, um, so the 160th, you're talking about the end of assessment?

• 1:04:18Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, so the 160th board at the end of assessment. This is, uh, I can't give too much away, but, um, what I've heard and what I know now is that if you crush assessment, they're going to be dicks to you, like they're.

• 1:04:34Speaker 06

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people. People like Daniel.

• 1:04:48Speaker 07

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant. So I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:04:59Speaker 06

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:05:04Speaker 02

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• 1:05:10Speaker 06

  So join us and hear their stories and more because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At The Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At The Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 1:05:30Speaker 05

  Just gonna tear you apart and see how you react, right? It's kind of their last view.

• 1:05:34Speaker 07

  Yeah, right.

• 1:05:35Speaker 05

  It's kind of their last view of like, all right, let's tear him down and let's see, see what he does.

• 1:05:39Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:05:40Speaker 05

  And so I get through with my board and I was shaking the whole time. Actually, an interesting point is you have to talk to the psych during one point in the assessment. And I was still hiding everything. And during my assessment, I was like shaking and he called me out on my board and he said, you look extremely anxious right now. And I played it off and I was like, I mean, I am, sir. This is a lot of pressure, you know what I mean? Like I played it off, but like at the same time, I was like, shit, he sees right through me, you know? So I leave the board. It's like, I think it was an hour long board. I leave it, I go in this waiting room. It seems like forever they, you know, it's where they, you know, get their council together and say whether you made it or not. And I come back, report back to the room.

• 1:06:25Speaker 05

  And when I walk in, there's a paper sign handwritten that said, no go. I was like, fuck, you know, like all this fricking work. So I walk in and stand at attention. And the president of the board, I think it was the DCO, so it's not the regimental commander with the guy below him. And he was like, Mr. O'Kelly, like, I appreciate you coming, you know, you, you put your good foot, good foot forward. We want you to go back to your unit and then come back here in Green Platoon in January. And I was like, wait a second, does that mean I passed? You know, and like, then everybody started clapping and stuff, so. Yeah, I know, I was like.

• 1:07:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:07:05Speaker 05

  Right?

• 1:07:05Speaker 04

  Just fucking with you?

• 1:07:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, a hundred percent, a hundred percent.

• 1:07:08Speaker 04

  Can you imagine somebody?

• 1:07:09Speaker 05

  Roller coaster.

• 1:07:10Speaker 04

  Can you imagine somebody who like spazzes out at that moment?

• 1:07:13Speaker 05

  God. What would they do, right?

• 1:07:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:07:17Jack Murphy?

  I heard a story about a gentleman at the board for Delta Force Selection, who picked up the folding chair and lunged it at the board members.

• 1:07:25Speaker 05

  Whoa.

• 1:07:27Jack Murphy?

  Because he's just like fucking with them, fucking with them. Fuck, they're SF guys.

• 1:07:31Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:07:31Jack Murphy?

  At a certain point, like, I can't take this shit anymore.

• 1:07:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, I get it.

• 1:07:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, right.

• 1:07:37Speaker 05

  Dang, that's crazy.

• 1:07:38Speaker 04

  It's like Thunderdome.

• 1:07:39Speaker 05

  Yeah, right? Yeah, so that was my, that was my assessment.

• 1:07:42Speaker 04

  So how did that feel for you?

• 1:07:44Speaker 05

  Amazing, amazing. And I will say that the, the suicidal stuff did kind of get better. Like, it was now wasn't like over consuming. It wasn't like every day I was dealing with it and I was like every once in a while, but the anxiety was still there. Like, the dizzy spells were still there, but the suicidal ideations did get better as my situation improved.

• 1:08:06Speaker 04

  Did, did you at all, you know, cause you know, you were in SF, but you didn't go to Afghanistan. Then you went aviation and you were doing the ring routes. Did you at all feel as though you kept missing it?

• 1:08:17Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:08:18Speaker 04

  Like, like this, like this world just wasn't what it was supposed to be for you?

• 1:08:22Speaker 05

  A hundred percent because, um, and then cherry on top is my brother has kind of followed my footsteps. So he went SF and everything. And when I got back from Afghanistan, he goes to Afghanistan with 10th Group and sees all this shit, right? And does all this awesome stuff. And I'm just like, dude, come on, I've been in the army for, you know, this long and you, this is your first trip.

• 1:08:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:08:45Speaker 05

  So, yeah, I definitely had that. I definitely had that, like.

• 1:08:49Speaker 04

  I can see that.

• 1:08:49Speaker 05

  Stain of like, you know, I'm two deployments, I don't even have a CIB or a C, or a cab for that matter. Like, you know, like, so, yeah, I definitely had that. It was like, cause it was one of those things where. You always wonder, right? Like

• 1:09:02Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 1:09:03Speaker 05

  Like, even though I know I would have done the job and I would have, it's not like I would have ran away.

• 1:09:07Speaker 04

  But it's always a question.

• 1:09:09Speaker 05

  It's always a question.

• 1:09:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:09:10Speaker 05

  It's still that thing of like.

• 1:09:12Jack Murphy?

  And how was, uh, Green Platoon when you got there?

• 1:09:16Speaker 05

  Green Platoon was, um, it was great. So I, I, when I got, when I found out I was going to the 160th, I was told I was gonna go to First Battalion and, uh, fly DAPs. So I was told I was gonna go be a DAP pilot. Um, yeah, so I was pumped about it. And I made the fatal mistake and bought a house in Fort Campbell and found out about, I think, a month prior to reporting that I was going to Third Battalion and not flying DAPs. So I was going to Savannah.

• 1:09:43Jack Murphy?

  Savannah, back to Savannah.

• 1:09:44Speaker 05

  So, um, we had to make the kind of decision of like, alright, we'll just rent out the house if it, you know, if it doesn't appreciate in value or whatever. Um, so I show up to Green Platoon and the first part of Green Platoon is, uh, Officer Green Platoon. So that's when you're doing like the, the kind of soft version of basic training, if you will, right? Like, they're, they're teaching you, which is actually good. Like, it was actually, even being a former SF guy, it was still good because I got a lot of reinforcement.

• 1:10:14Speaker 04

  Was this finally, though, the warrant world that you thought there was?

• 1:10:18Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:10:18Speaker 04

  The gentleman's?

• 1:10:19Speaker 05

  Very professional, um, very much so.

• 1:10:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:10:23Speaker 05

  Yeah. And the enlisted guys, it's a different story. The enlisted Green Platoon, that's, they're getting smoked and they're getting kind of indoctrinated. But that's also, a lot of them are like straight from basic training AIT to there, so.

• 1:10:34Jack Murphy?

  Rightly so.

• 1:10:35Speaker 05

  Yeah. But it did feel good to be on the other side for once, right?

• 1:10:39Speaker 04

  For sure.

• 1:10:39Speaker 05

  So, yeah, we got the big boy rule, as we got to do, um, it was a lot of, uh, like, medical training, shooting, um, some land nav, things like that, nothing crazy. Uh, but then you move into your B nav, which is basic navigation, and that's where you learn to navigate in there without any instruments, literally a map, um, a map and a stopwatch, and you're flying off waypoints. Yeah.

• 1:11:07Jack Murphy?

  Plus or minus 30 seconds.

• 1:11:08Speaker 05

  Plus or minus 30 seconds. It was so hard.

• 1:11:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:11:11Speaker 05

  You, but the cool thing is you do, I think you do nine missions total. And it's, this is a three-week period where you're, you're ingrained in it, like you're 16-hour days every single day. But missions, I'd say one through three, like, nobody finds their target and nobody's on time, you know, but then by mission four and five, like, you start finding it and you start getting on time. And it's pretty awesome to see, like, what you can do, right, with that training, because you have to adjust for winds and all this stuff, and it's all on a little bird. So you're flying a little bird and literally just using a finger light on your map and like, alright, I hope that's that intersection, you know, and like, yeah, it's, it's pretty cool. It's pretty cool to, to see it all come together. And then by mission nine, like, yeah, everybody's hitting their target.

• 1:11:55Speaker 04

  Do you feel that your timing SF, you know, having done, you know, start course and all that stuff, do you feel that that helped you there?

• 1:12:00Speaker 05

  Hundred percent. Hundred percent. Um, yeah, I think just honestly, like, the basic land navigation concepts, right, where I, because I did start out.

• 1:12:10Speaker 04

  Handrails, backstops.

• 1:12:12Speaker 05

  Right. Yeah. And I started out that course. I do feel like I had a leg up on everybody already because of that. Yeah. Especially in, especially in the green team part, but definitely in BNAV, I think, I think that helped a lot. Yeah. And just understanding how it works. Back to assessment. So we have to do that in assessment, too. And I actually, humble brag, I was one of the rare people that found my target. I wasn't on time, but I found it. And I was so proud of myself. And then, of course, the cadre or the, my assessment pilot was like, you suck. You didn't, you know, you were out of time, out of standard, you know. And I'm just like, oh, come on, man. I've heard, I've heard nobody finds their target.

• 1:12:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, even if you would have been on time.

• 1:12:51Speaker 05

  I know.

• 1:12:51Speaker 04

  He would have found something, right?

• 1:12:52Speaker 05

  There would have been something, for sure. But, but yeah, so that's BNAV. And then after that, you go into your airframe. So you're going to, I went into the 60 course. And that was incredible, man. That is where you learn to fly, like, like the 160th. Like, that's where you're going to Colorado, going to Virginia Beach and doing overwater mountains and learning to put one wheel on a pinnacle. And it's, it's really cool. It's really cool. And one of the cooler parts of that course, too, is you're being taught by, like, 160th legends. Like, these guys are, they're just contractors now, you know, and they're insanely, like, relaxed, but also insanely just competent, good at what they do. Like, like, those guys are just, yeah, phenomenal pilots.

• 1:13:35Speaker 04

  So I guess, I, I think for people who may not be familiar with, like, how the 160th i- i- is different than, you know, like, conventional army, especially with, like, Blackhawks and stuff, is. I, I, you know, you think of like, uh, like maybe a BMX rider, right? Uh, you know, a guy doing jumps, blah, blah, blah. And then you think of the guys who like hop up on rails and ride down rails and bunny hop on, you know, like between like pillars and stuff like that. And it's like, what, what the one sixtieth pilots are capable of doing on any airframe?

• 1:14:11Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:14:11Speaker 04

  But are capable of doing is insane.

• 1:14:14Speaker 05

  It's incredible.

• 1:14:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:14:15Speaker 05

  It's incredible. There's even, uh, and some of the pilots in the one sixtieth are a lot like, I would, I would consider myself like a decent pilot, right? And there's some pilots that are just insanely phenomenal.

• 1:14:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:14:28Speaker 05

  I fly with one guy, one guy in my unit that I can distinctly remember like, he was so good that I was nervous in the cockpit with him flying, but it wasn't like, cause he was dangerous. He was just that good and that like, all right, yeah, let's do this. And I'm just like, dang dude, I wouldn't do that, you know?

• 1:14:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:14:45Speaker 05

  So it's pretty cool to see though, and it's cool to be a part of.

• 1:14:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:14:48Speaker 05

  Really cool to be a part of.

• 1:14:50Speaker 04

  A, and then you get deployed to Iraq.

• 1:14:53Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:14:53Speaker 04

  With the unit.

• 1:14:54Speaker 05

  Yeah. So this was the, uh, infamous COVID deployment. So we went out there and it was supposed to be a 60 day deployment and then the world shut down. And we got to enjoy it for another 60 days. So it ended up doubling, which doesn't seem long, but when you're in the one sixtieth, the op tempo is insane. Like it's every day, 12 hour days, you know? So you're not like, it's not like a nine month deployment where you're like five days on, one day off or whatever it is, you know, it's, it's balls to the wall every single day and you're going hard. So yeah, it ended up being a, yeah, a four month deployment. Um, I don't know how much I can get into about that, like the specifics of that, but, um,

• 1:15:35Speaker 04

  Did you finally feel like this is it?

• 1:15:38Speaker 05

  That's what I was gonna say. That's what I was gonna say. Yes.

• 1:15:40Speaker 04

  SF, airframe, like this is, I'm finally doing.

• 1:15:43Speaker 05

  That's where I got it in.

• 1:15:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:15:45Speaker 05

  And that's where I was, yes, that's where I was finally like, finally.

• 1:15:49Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:15:49Speaker 05

  I've done something that I signed up to do, you know? Which was the coolest part about regiment is that I know Lindsay mentioned it, but like, we truly train as we fight and like on deployments, we do the job that we're supposed to do. You know what I mean? Like we do the mission that we're designed to do. We're not just like, oh yeah, maybe we'll do that once in a, once in a while.

• 1:16:11Speaker 04

  Is there any that you can kind of like even around about sort of way?

• 1:16:15Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah. So I can talk about one, um, Where I'm not gonna like say locations or anything, but um. No, no eight digits. This is, this is kind of a funny story in a way, because I don't have like, I don't have any like crazy like, you know. Storm of a tracer fire. Yeah, like I don't have any like valor worthy stories, you know, but um, one funny story is so we were the dirty bird. Since it was COVID, so we had to figure out like, all right, if we take someone off target, like. What are we doing with them, you know, so what we figured out or what we decided, I didn't decide, but the higher ups decided. That was we're gonna have one aircraft dedicated to um, any detainees or anybody we take off target.

• 1:16:58Speaker 05

  And they're gonna be the dirty bird, so we take someone off target and this poor guy had to be like wrapped in a body bag. COVID swabbed and all this stuff and fly back like three hours, I think, two and two and a half hours, maybe in a Blackhawk, just pitch black. Right, just on the ground in a body bag, literally like no idea what's going on um. And then when we landed, we had to, our decontamination plan was literally like go in a Conex. That they put heat lamps in, stripped down and rinse off and then uh, throw on whatever, just normal clothes. And leave our uniform in there for 24 hours. That was like our decon plan and voila, everything was good, but like.

• 1:17:41Speaker 05

  That's, that's like the most um. It's just dumb. Yeah. It's just dumb, like looking back on it, I'm like, why the fuck did we do any of that, you know, but like, nobody knew what to do, so that was just like the answer for it. But other than that, man, I don't have any like crazy stories, like we did our job and nothing, fortunately, nothing really went. Um, went sideways, yeah, except there was one mission that this is another missing out opportunity, so.

• 1:18:11Speaker 05

  There were valor awards on this mission and um our aircraft was broken, so we didn't go.

• 1:18:17Speaker 04

  Oh shit.

• 1:18:17Speaker 05

  So four other aircraft go on this mission and it was like a QRF um in the mountains and.

• 1:18:23Speaker 04

  Like right on the X or?

• 1:18:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was actually, um, I don't remember the specifics, but it was like on a mountainside.

• 1:18:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:18:30Speaker 05

  Um, and they had to go do some high hovers and fast rope people and and actually I think repel people out was what it was.

• 1:18:36Speaker 04

  Fuck.

• 1:18:37Speaker 05

  Yeah, so it was pretty intense, like hovering at like a high hover, you know, getting shot at.

• 1:18:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:18:42Speaker 05

  Repelling people out.

• 1:18:44Speaker 04

  I mean, that that's just, I mean, that's Vietnam air is the right.

• 1:18:47Speaker 05

  Right, it really is.

• 1:18:48Speaker 04

  Balls of steel to just keep a bird in place when everybody has a bead on you.

• 1:18:53Speaker 05

  You're helpless.

• 1:18:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, because you gotta like, the troops gotta get down.

• 1:18:56Speaker 05

  Exactly, yeah.

• 1:18:57Speaker 04

  You pull off and they're taken, that that's a long ass fast rope.

• 1:19:01Speaker 05

  Yeah, hundred percent.

• 1:19:02Speaker 04

  Exit, yeah.

• 1:19:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, so.

• 1:19:05Jack Murphy?

  So getting back to the United States from that deployment, like what's going on with you personally and professionally at that juncture?

• 1:19:12Speaker 05

  So I didn't, um, at this point I was still progressing, so um in the one sixtieth, when you first get there, you're BMQ, so basic mission qualified. So that's like the entry level, whatever. Um, your goal is to make FMQ, so fully mission qualified. So that's when you, it's the same as a pilot in command in the regular army. So that's when you have control of your aircraft and you're like in charge of your crew, sorry. So that was like, I was progressing towards that um during the deployment in Iraq. The the good part about the COVID problem was that we did have like, it got shut down for a little bit, so we weren't doing anything for a little bit.

• 1:19:52Speaker 05

  So there were some training opportunities, so I got to actually like lead some missions, training missions, right? But um I got to plan, brief and execute all those and get those done, which were, helped me kind of progress towards that FMQ. But then in January of the next year, so Iraq was um twenty twenty and January the next year, I was had my FMQ ride scheduled for April of that year, but I was having a lot of knee issues, like to the point where I couldn't run more than half a mile without having to stop. So I got an MRI on it and they found that I had like a defect in my

• 1:20:35Speaker 05

  knee, like there was literally like a hole missing in my knee that it was just bone on bone, just grinding.

• 1:20:41Speaker 04

  Congenital?

• 1:20:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think it was just like wear and tear over time, but I also think that there had to have been some genetics, because it doesn't happen to everybody. Um, so I ended up having to get knee surgery that January and that was a nine month like recovery time. So blessing and a curse, like I was pissed off, obviously, because I wanted to like continue progressing. But during that nine month period, that allowed me to accept the fact that I was already grounded and tell somebody about these dizzy spells. So that gave me, that gave myself the permission to be like, all right, let's try to figure this out. Now that I, now that the consequence that I was scared of is gone, because I'm not flying, let's

• 1:21:20Speaker 05

  try to figure this out. So what that leads to though, this is a really long story, so interrupt me if it like.

• 1:21:28Speaker 04

  Actually, before you start that, I want to ask you one thing. I want to, uh, before you start the story.

• 1:21:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:21:34Speaker 04

  When you were, you know, like just hopping, popping like uh in Iraq, did one, the ideation and two, the anxiety, was this still there or did it seem to go away with the adrenaline and stuff like that?

• 1:21:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's a great question. So the suicidal ideation was pretty much gone um by that point. I was still having the dizzy spells and the anxiety, but the ironic thing is it never happened in the aircraft.

• 1:22:01Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:22:01Speaker 05

  It was, I think it was the adrenaline though. I think it was the adrenaline and the focus required, right? Because like.

• 1:22:07Jack Murphy?

  You're in the zone.

• 1:22:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, like, so I really, I mean, I don't know, but that's what I attribute it to. Because like, that would have been a different story if I was having.

• 1:22:16Jack Murphy?

  Also just a total focus on what you're doing.

• 1:22:18Speaker 05

  Exactly. And you're like task saturated, so your mind's just.

• 1:22:21Speaker 04

  But it's so pure, right? Like those moments of like that, you know, whether it's an athletic flow state or whatever, the combat is just so pure that.

• 1:22:31Speaker 04

  It's hard for anything else to be there.

• 1:22:34Speaker 05

  No, that's a really good point.

• 1:22:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:22:36Speaker 05

  Because that would have, that would have definitely been like a safety hazard.

• 1:22:39Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 1:22:39Speaker 05

  Like, I would have been like, okay, I should probably do something. So, no, it never did, thank God. But then, so during, after the knee surgery, I, I told my flight surgeon that I have these dizzy spells. And I was like, I don't, I didn't tell her my history of mental health because I was not ready to open that can of worms yet. So I was basically sugar coating it, if you will, you know? I was like, hey, I don't know what's going on, I'm just.

• 1:23:03Speaker 04

  Maybe my ears.

• 1:23:03Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm just having these dizzy spells, I don't really know how to explain it. So that's exactly what they did, they sent me to ENT, got my ears checked out. They, that was all fine, so then, to spare you the long details, we do head to toe tests, right? To rule out physiological things.

• 1:23:21Speaker 05

  But one of those tests was a sleep study. So I go for a sleep study with a civilian doctor in Savannah that I got referred to. And after that sleep study, I got diagnosed with narcolepsy as a pilot, right?

• 1:23:34Speaker 04

  Oh, wow.

• 1:23:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, so I, I was like, okay, like, one, that might answer these dizzy spells? Maybe I'm like falling asleep, having micro naps, right? And causing my body to be like.

• 1:23:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:23:47Speaker 05

  You know, you were, you were falling over, I don't know? So there was a sense of relief in a weird way because of that, right? Like, I was like, finally I have a answer for what's going on.

• 1:23:59Speaker 05

  But then, the army, so my flight doc is like, okay dude, like, you can either reclass or you get out of the army. Like, you can't fly with narcolepsy.

• 1:24:07Speaker 04

  But where did, but this has never been like, you never, like, you never nodded at the, at the stick or anything like that.

• 1:24:12Speaker 05

  Never happened. I will say, I will say that like, during that anxiety period, like, when I would drive home at like 3:00 PM, 4:00 PM, I was exhausted and having like a lot of daytime sleepiness, but I, that's also because I was so anxious all the time. And I was like, my body was working overdrive, right? So, um, so in my mind, the diagnosis was like, okay, like, it kind of makes sense. And I kind of talked myself into it making sense.

• 1:24:38Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:24:38Speaker 05

  Um, so my flight doc puts in a med board and they decline it because the sleep study wasn't done by the army.

• 1:24:46Speaker 04

  Of course.

• 1:24:46Speaker 05

  So I'm like, all right, sweet. So, so now I'm just grounded still. And by this time, so this was the end of that year. By this time, my knee was recovered. So I wasn't like, so I kind of felt like a badass because I was like, you know, I'm grounded, but I could fly if I needed to. So do the Army sleep study. I have to go to Fort Gordon and do all that. And the results came back and they say you have no diagnosable criteria for narcolepsy. Are you freaking kidding me?

• 1:25:11Speaker 04

  So you're back on flight status?

• 1:25:12Speaker 05

  No, because they permanently grounded me when I got diagnosed with narcolepsy the first time.

• 1:25:18Speaker 06

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• 1:25:49Speaker 02

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• 1:25:55Speaker 06

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• 1:26:15Speaker 04

  Holy shit.

• 1:26:15Speaker 05

  By the civilians. By Fort Rucker. So Fort Rucker is like, okay, we'll accept this diagnosis.

• 1:26:19Speaker 04

  Right, right.

• 1:26:19Speaker 05

  Permanently grounded you. But the Army won't let you get out.

• 1:26:22Speaker 04

  The Army doesn't, yeah, they don't want to let that money go.

• 1:26:25Speaker 05

  Exactly. So now I'm in this like even worse purgatory of like, I don't have a diagnosis, but I can't fly.

• 1:26:32Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:26:32Speaker 05

  Cause you're still in the unit.

• 1:26:33Speaker 04

  Cause you have a diagnosis.

• 1:26:34Speaker 05

  Yeah. And I'm still in the unit. So I am very grateful that I was in the 160th because my command was incredible throughout all this. Like they were, they had my back, right? And they actually sent me to the safety course at Rucker, the aviation safety course. So that I could continue contributing to the unit. So even though I wasn't flying, I ended up being basically the company safety officer, which is like, it's honestly pretty cool. Cause you get to like, you get to be pretty autonomous and you, I still got to go on like TDY trips with the company. So I was actively participating without flying, which was like a halfway point, I guess.

• 1:27:10Speaker 05

  But then this leads to me eventually, the flight doc eventually saying, all right, let's have you talk to the psychologist, you know, and just see like, see if there's anything there, right? Because we've ruled everything else out. We don't really have an answer. And after probably two months of talking to her, she's like, all right, we're going to get you to the psychiatrist and we're going to try to treat you for anxiety and kind of see what happens. And at this point, I didn't care because I had no, there was no consequences at that point. So I do that and I get on, I don't remember the first one, whatever, Lexapro or something like that, get on pills and the symptoms started

• 1:27:49Speaker 05

  to improve. Like, not dramatically at first, but enough to be like, okay, like, I think there's something here, right? And it didn't, there, we went through maybe six different cocktails and drugs.

• 1:28:04Speaker 04

  Had anybody looked at your medical file to see like that you had had the ideations before? Had anybody done that?

• 1:28:10Speaker 05

  Nobody even brought that up, ever. Nobody brought that up, ever.

• 1:28:13Speaker 04

  Interesting.

• 1:28:14Speaker 05

  Because I was honestly like, kind of scared that they would, right? Like, but no, nobody ever brought that up, which I don't know if it's because it was too far back or what, but, so yeah, so I get to that point and it's working and we finally get through a bunch of different medications because everyone has side effects, of course, that I hated. And we got to Effexor and literally, I'm not kidding, like 95% of the symptoms went away. Like, it was like night and day and it became, it became to the point where they were still happening, but they were so situational that I could pinpoint exactly what was happening and when they were happening. And I, once I told the psychologist that, like, hey, it's happening when I'm in formation, right? Or it's happening when I have to give

• 1:28:55Speaker 05

  a brief, or it's happening like when I go to church or when I'm in like a big stadium. She read the symptoms of panic disorder and I was like, fricking nailed it. You know, like, I didn't want to accept it, right? But then I did and I'm not going to lie, as cheesy as it is, like, that's when I started actually healing and getting better was when I was like, okay, this is it. You know, like, this is actually what's happening to me. Because I did not want that. Diagnosis.

• 1:29:21Speaker 04

  What was the process of the healing for it? Was it just the realization or were there other steps you started taking with that?

• 1:29:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, so contrary to most people's opinion, I will say the medication was the thing that gave me the space to heal. I know there's a lot of like hate on it medication for some reason, but it did give me the space to heal. Like, so it allowed me to, like I said, like identify the problem and actually pinpoint what was happening instead of this, it just being like this all day. You know, kind of crazy anxiety life, I guess. So.

• 1:29:54Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I, I, I tell guys that and try to remind them like, because there is a stigma against prescription drugs for some good reasons.

• 1:30:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, I agree. I agree.

• 1:30:04Jack Murphy?

  Some realistic reasons and you know, the way they affect people and guys really don't like how it makes them feel.

• 1:30:09Speaker 04

  And also, and also like I think the, like a lot of like VA, like their reliance on it that they're just gonna pump you full of it. And that's gonna be, that's what you do.

• 1:30:19Jack Murphy?

  But, but the thing is some, some of these guys, some of these veterans in this case are hurting so bad, they need those prescription drugs. Just so they can get to their VA appointments or whatever else it is. And so like I try to frame it for them, like use it as a stepping stone to get to the place you want to go, which I think is.

• 1:30:35Speaker 05

  That's a great, that's exactly what I would say too, is like, it, like I said, it gave me the space, right? It gave me the clarity to be like, oh shit, okay, like that's what's happening. And then now I can figure out like what I need to work on externally so that, because now I'm off the medication and I don't have those dizzy spells, right? So it's one of those things that like, it was necessary at the time and it was helpful at the time, but I don't see it as a long-term like. Don't just accept you're gonna be on it for the next ten years, right? Like, take it if it helps, you know? And then get yourself out of that situation by doing other things other than just relying on the meds.

• 1:31:12Speaker 04

  So when you, when that space was created for you and you could sort of see it. Uh, were you given guidance uh in in terms of how to manage it? Did you do your own research? How how did that happen?

• 1:31:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, so I I will attest for and praise my psychologist at the one sixtieth. So regiment has specific psychologist, um and she was phenomenal. Like she very much was the no BS type of psychologist that wasn't just trying to, you know, like, say, I'll just float with the world, right? Like she was very like.

• 1:31:45Speaker 04

  Happy thoughts.

• 1:31:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, she was very practical.

• 1:31:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:31:47Speaker 05

  And very much like, hey dude, like, why did this happen? How do we avoid this happening in the future? And how can we like make sure, you know, you're you have the tools? So that if it does happen again, or you start to see signs that you can get yourself out of it.

• 1:32:02Speaker 04

  Right, right.

• 1:32:03Speaker 05

  So yeah, she was phenomenal. Um, I I know not everybody can say that about every psychologist out there, but she was, I will give her like mad props for that. She was phenomenal through that process.

• 1:32:14Speaker 04

  So what was that process like for you? Was like CBT or?

• 1:32:18Speaker 05

  A lot of it was CBT. Um, actually, most of it was CBT.

• 1:32:21Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:32:22Speaker 05

  I I will say that like prior to getting on the meds, we tried those things and they didn't work.

• 1:32:29Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:32:29Speaker 05

  So that's where I say like the meds were important because when you're so deep in it, like if you just go meditate and think that's gonna fix everything, like, good luck. You know, at least in my situation, it was not.

• 1:32:41Speaker 04

  It'd give you a panic attack.

• 1:32:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And when I tried the breathing exercises, that's what it did.

• 1:32:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:32:46Speaker 05

  Like, I would try like the box breathing and all that stuff, right? And everybody's like, I watch YouTube videos, you know, and everybody's like, this is how you cure anxiety, right? If you're having a panic attack, just do this. And I I would do it. And I'm like, that's bullshit. Like, that didn't do anything. That just made me think about my anxiety more and be more pissed off. So. So, yeah, I mean, but the the irony is of that is like now those tools work. Like now that I'm out of that and now that I'm off meds, like now those tools work because I have a clear enough mind that I can actually use them, you know, so.

• 1:33:19Speaker 04

  So what was that? So you take the meds, you start the CBT, you start these things. What was that sort of process like for you?

• 1:33:27Speaker 05

  So it was a good, it was about a year, actually, process from.

• 1:33:34Speaker 04

  Were you still inactive the whole time?

• 1:33:35Speaker 05

  Yes. So I got medically retired in May of twenty twenty three.

• 1:33:38Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:33:39Speaker 05

  So, once I got, and I got the panic disorder diagnosis, I think in May of twenty two. So I think it was a full, almost a full year of me, um, basically trying to get back on my feet and get, fi- figure out what's happening and whether I'm gonna get medically retired or not, right? Cause I was trying to get back in the cockpit still. Um, but it did get to the point where she was like, well, really me. I made the decision to get medically retired. So, um, I got to the point where I was like, these, I need to be on these meds and I couldn't fly while I was on the meds. So, well, you can, but it's a pain in the ass. And I was, I was just at the point where I was like, I'm freaking done.

• 1:34:23Speaker 05

  Like, I've gone, I've put myself through so much shit. Like, I just need to be done and get out. Um, so that last year was me basically try, getting medically retired. So it was about a year. Um, but the process, to your question, was, it was a lot of CBT. It was a lot of, um, it was a lot of digging into like, the why of like, everything, kind of, which like.

• 1:34:51Speaker 04

  It's a big knot, right?

• 1:34:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. Like, why are you like, what do you wanna do as a dad? What do you wanna do as a husband? Like, it was a lot more like, purpose finding, which was weird, cause I wasn't expecting that. But now that I look back on it, that's kinda what it was, was like, why are you doing all of this? Why are you doing anything, you know? And like, and that was good, because I never really stopped to think about that before. You know, I was just kinda going.

• 1:35:13Speaker 04

  Uh, so real quick, for people who might not know, CBT is cognitive behavioral therapy. Just, just throw that out there. What, did you ever tell her about like, the ideations that you had had?

• 1:35:23Speaker 05

  Yeah. Once I, um, once I got permanently grounded, so once I had that narcolepsy diagnosis, the gloves were off. I said, screw it. Like, I'm, I'm telling her everything and. That also attributes to her actually being able to diagnose me something and like actually be like, okay, like that, everything kind of makes sense now that you're talking about, you know? The irony or one crazy thing, though, is when I like talked about those dizzy spells, nobody even brought up anxiety being an option, you know?

• 1:35:54Jack Murphy?

  Right, right. Seems kind of.

• 1:35:56Speaker 05

  We literally did head to toe tests of everything else.

• 1:36:00Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:36:00Speaker 05

  And anxiety never came up and it didn't, it wasn't to the point where we ruled everything out. So that was an interesting thing because I've talked to multiple people since I've like actually spoken about this. Who are like, dude, I've had the same dizzy spells and I'm just like, how is this not like a common knowledge from doctors?

• 1:36:16Speaker 04

  Well, I also think though, that, you know, when you, when you talk about panic or anxiety, that unfortunately, that there is a certain image of a person who suffers from panic or anxiety that comes to mind.

• 1:36:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:36:30Speaker 04

  And it's not some guy flying, you know, Blackhawks through Iraq.

• 1:36:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's a good point. No, that's a good point. You think of, yeah, you think of like some, some victim, right?

• 1:36:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, right.

• 1:36:40Speaker 05

  That's not, that's scared to leave their room or something.

• 1:36:42Speaker 04

  Vapors, right? It's, it's, you know?

• 1:36:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:36:45Speaker 04

  So, yeah.

• 1:36:47Speaker 05

  And to be honest, I didn't want it to be.

• 1:36:49Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 1:36:50Speaker 05

  You know, like I wanted it to be like, my ears are jacked up or something. That way I could justify.

• 1:36:54Speaker 04

  Because panic or anxiety, that, that sounds like weakness. It's not.

• 1:36:59Speaker 05

  Exactly.

• 1:36:59Speaker 04

  But it sounds like.

• 1:37:00Speaker 05

  Right, exactly. And that's the, yeah, that's one of those stigmas, right?

• 1:37:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, 100%.

• 1:37:05Speaker 05

  Yeah. Good point.

• 1:37:07Jack Murphy?

  And so what was the next step for you and your family after being medically retired?

• 1:37:12Speaker 05

  So I've, I'm fortunate that I had this nerd side to me that always liked financial stuff. So I like grew up listening to Dave Ramsey and all that stuff. And I just had this like, I don't know, I was one of those guys that just like, that would be my podcast that I listened to, you know, or like personal finance stuff. So when I found out I was getting medically retired, this is about, I had about a year actual runway before I got out, which was a blessing. That's when I was like, all right, I'm going to go be a financial planner. And I started doing all my coursework and getting all my certifications. So that literally when I got out of the army, I had my certified financial planner exam done and I was just ready to kind of hit the ground running.

• 1:37:53Speaker 05

  And I networked my way through LinkedIn. So people transitioning out there. One of the best things that I ever did was actually like reach out to people on LinkedIn, which went against everything I believed as a soft guy, right?

• 1:38:06Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:38:06Speaker 05

  No social media, but I got the balls to like actually message people that were on LinkedIn, doing what I wanted to do in, and we were looking at Charlotte. Yeah. And fortunately, one of the guys that I messaged was like, hey, I started a firm and we need advisors. Do you want to come work for us? And I was like, hell yeah, that's amazing. So right off the bat, I was able to land a job in Charlotte and kind of, it wasn't like a salary job though. So it was.

• 1:38:35Speaker 04

  Commission.

• 1:38:36Speaker 05

  It was you what you kill. Yeah. It was basically like you start with nothing. You don't have clients, so you gotta build it.

• 1:38:41Speaker 04

  It's kind of big with, when you've got a family.

• 1:38:43Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:38:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:38:44Speaker 05

  Luckily I did have like the military benefits. They weren't like full paycheck, right? They wouldn't like cover all my expenses, but I did have like the disability paycheck and stuff like that to kind of bridge the gap and then some savings built up. Um, but yeah, and then after about a year working for that firm, um, I met another guy in Charlotte who was starting his own firm. And he said, Hey, do you want to come partner with me at this firm? And that's where I am now.

• 1:39:13Speaker 04

  Cool.

• 1:39:13Speaker 05

  And it's called Cadence Wealth Partners and.

• 1:39:15Speaker 04

  What is it for anybody who needs a financial advisor in North Carolina?

• 1:39:21Speaker 05

  We're in Charlotte, but we work, we're virtual now.

• 1:39:23Speaker 04

  Oh, virtual? Anybody, anywhere. What's the name again?

• 1:39:26Speaker 05

  Cadence Wealth Partners.

• 1:39:28Speaker 04

  Cadence Wealth Partners.

• 1:39:30Speaker 05

  Yeah. And I, it's cool because I, I work with veterans. Like that's my like niche. Like I just love it. You know, like I tried to go like the ultra high net worth and all the cliche advisor, you know, routes. And then most of my, most of the people that were coming to me were from my network, like naturally, right? First. And I was like, I love this. Like I love working with them, you know? So, so yeah, that's what I'm used to. It's fun.

• 1:39:56Speaker 04

  And how did this book project come about stigma, which is going to be out in October 21st?

• 1:40:01Speaker 05

  Good question. So when I was getting out, um, I, I, none of my peers knew why I was getting out. They all, I stuck with the narcolepsy diagnosis the entire time because that was the easy button. Right. That was the non stigma button, right?

• 1:40:19Speaker 04

  And you were grounded for it.

• 1:40:21Speaker 05

  And I was grounded for it. So I did get diagnosed with it, you know? And that's what I felt. I was like, okay, like I can tell people this because that doesn't mean there's something wrong with my head.

• 1:40:30Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:40:31Speaker 05

  So all of that happened to me, all of these freaking five plus years of just grunting it out. Right. And dealing with this and suffering through that, once I finally got out and told, I think I told my brother about it first. And he was still in and he started crying and he was like, and he's not like, he's a tough dude, you know? Like he could kick my ass to be honest, and he's my little brother. So that's saying a lot for me to admit that. But, um, he started crying and I was like, the hell, you know? And he's like, dude, why didn't you tell me, you know? I'm like, I couldn't, man. How am I like, I couldn't tell anybody this, right? And he's like, that's a problem. And I'm like, yeah, it is, dude. I know.

• 1:41:13Speaker 05

  But I just didn't feel like I could. So like, I couldn't even tell my own brother, you know? Who I'm like closest with more than anybody in the world. I was like, this is, this is a cultural problem that like, needs to be talked about. So that's kind of where I was like, screw it. I'm going to talk about it. And I'm going to just lay it all out there and see what happens. Like it was terrifying initially. The first time I talked about it, I was like, dude, I have no idea how people are going to react to this, you know? Like, cause the stigmas were still there. Like, is my reputation going to be gone if I

• 1:41:46Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:41:46Speaker 05

  Mention this, you know? But this surprisingly, man, it's been the opposite. Like, and I, yeah.

• 1:41:52Speaker 04

  It's so weird too, isn't it? Because like the civilian world has gotten to a point, I think, where talking about, whether it's panic or anxiety, or whatever you're talking, whatever things you have going on with your shrink. Like they're almost, um, badges of honor in civilian conversations now, right? Um, where with military or veterans or stuff like that, or maybe men in general, I don't know.

• 1:42:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:42:16Speaker 04

  But it's still a very like.

• 1:42:19Speaker 05

  Yeah. Because it's like, I don't know, I feel like it's like, you feel like you're exposing weakness. You know what I mean?

• 1:42:25Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:42:26Speaker 05

  Even though you, you're not.

• 1:42:27Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:42:28Speaker 05

  To be honest, the most courageous thing I did was talk about it.

• 1:42:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:42:32Speaker 05

  As ironic as that is, you know, and as scary as it was, like, it, it took balls to speak up about it. And like, it's been super rewarding, you know? And my hope is that more people will come to that realization, you know, that like, dude, I was a zombie for six years of my life, you know, like, I was not a present dad or husband, like,

• 1:42:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:42:55Speaker 05

  Just sucks, you know?

• 1:42:56Speaker 04

  And, and so what's the book going to be about? It's your story and?

• 1:42:58Speaker 05

  So it's, it's going to be my story, but it's also going to be deconstructing some of those stigmas. And saying, showing why there, why some of them do have validity, right? Because there are, at least in my situation as a pilot, there were repercussions for going on medication or doing that, right? So there are some that have validity, but the primary objective with it is one, to deconstruct the stigma. And then two, to show people that you can be a freaking stud and deal with this stuff and it's okay, right? It doesn't make you like less of a man or anything like that. So those are the big objectives.

• 1:43:37Speaker 05

  And then hopefully my, my big overarching mission is to, and this is a really big mission, but to ultimately lower the suicide rate. Because like, I, you've, I'm sure you guys have both lost friends to it and I have too. And they were studs, the people that I can think of literally off the top of my head. And I know they were dealing with some of this and I know they were dealing with just the fear of what if I expose this, right? And they got to the point where it was like, it was easier for them to do it than to tell somebody about it.

• 1:44:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:44:09Speaker 05

  You know, which sucks, but that's the reality. So, so that's my overall, like, million, you know, mile mission is to

• 1:44:17Speaker 04

  Good.

• 1:44:18Speaker 05

  Lower those stats.

• 1:44:18Speaker 04

  And so when is stigma going to be out again?

• 1:44:21Speaker 05

  October 21st.

• 1:44:22Speaker 04

  So, so please, if you are listening to this, um, you know, there's not a, there's not a preorder link out yet or?

• 1:44:27Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:44:28Speaker 06

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At The Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel. People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation. To I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood. And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone. One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies. So join us and hear their stories and more because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat.

• 1:45:10Speaker 06

  It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At The Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At The Table and start listening on the free iHeart radio app today.

• 1:45:25Speaker 04

  So if you are listening to this, please put that in your phone as a reminder, October 21st. For stigma, you know, you this, yeah, these are things that, you know, and even if it's not something for you. If it gives you awareness and you don't even have to be a veteran or know veterans. This is, these are, these are issues and it'll give you, you know, a place to start.

• 1:45:50Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:45:51Speaker 04

  Whether for yourself or for somebody who you know.

• 1:45:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, thanks. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's something that should just be talked about, you know?

• 1:46:01Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 1:46:01Speaker 05

  And not be like, dude, you're a pussy for saying that.

• 1:46:04Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 1:46:05Speaker 05

  I just think that's dumb and that's literally killing people.

• 1:46:07Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 1:46:07Speaker 05

  It pisses me off.

• 1:46:08Speaker 04

  Yeah. Well, you know, and it's unfortunate because ever since Vietnam, you know, every portrayal of military post-traumatic stress or military mental health has been post-traumatic stress of, you know, somebody having flashbacks. Yeah. Charlie in the wire or whether it's the Punisher, like it's, it's always this really horrible representation of what veteran mental health looks like.

• 1:46:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, that's true. I mean, even in my situation, I got diagnosed with anxiety, PTSD, depression and panic disorder. Like they just lumped it all together. Cause they're like, I don't know what to do with this guy.

• 1:46:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:46:42Speaker 05

  You know?

• 1:46:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:46:43Speaker 05

  So it's like, yeah, it's to your point, right? Like everybody just thinks PTSD, but there's so much more.

• 1:46:48Speaker 04

  And even though the, even PTSD is not represented in modern culture, the way it actually really is.

• 1:46:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:46:56Speaker 04

  You know, like we're a danger to everybody around us. No, you're just a danger to yourself.

• 1:47:00Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:47:01Speaker 04

  For sure. So, um, yeah. So stigma, October 21st. Will it be released like on Amazon and all the?

• 1:47:07Speaker 05

  It'll be everywhere. Yep. Everywhere you can buy a book.

• 1:47:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, is there anything that we've left out or anything that?

• 1:47:14Speaker 05

  Um.

• 1:47:14Speaker 04

  Where can people find you?

• 1:47:15Speaker 05

  So, good, good point. TheNickOKelly.com is my website. Um, I got Instagram and YouTube links on there too. So I've got a YouTube channel where I'm talking about this stuff. Um, and then I do want to do a nonprofit plug if you guys are cool with that.

• 1:47:29Speaker 04

  Sure, absolutely.

• 1:47:29Speaker 05

  Um, so a former 160th pilot started a nonprofit in Nashville called the Ark Health Foundation. And I'm on the board of it. And essentially, the, the goal of it is to get around these stigmas while they still exist. So it's a human performance optimization center geared towards brain health, right? So geared towards non-medical ways to treat mental health. So think like all those modalities that like Andrew Huberman talks about.

• 1:47:57Speaker 04

  Uh huh.

• 1:47:58Speaker 05

  That's what it's focused on. It's going to be absolutely free to veterans, um, and active duty.

• 1:48:03Speaker 04

  It's Ark?

• 1:48:04Speaker 05

  Ark Health Foundation.

• 1:48:05Speaker 04

  A R K or A R C?

• 1:48:07Speaker 05

  A R K. Good, good question. Yeah.

• 1:48:08Speaker 04

  A R K Health Foundation.

• 1:48:09Speaker 05

  Yeah. So, um, it's going to be a completely stigma-free place, right? Like, somebody can just show up there and say, hey, like, I want to go do this modality, right? And they don't have to say like, because I'm depressed or because I'm dealing with this, right? It can just be like, hey, I want to get better at this or whatever, you know? So it's taking all that brain science and brain health that Huberman's been spearheading and really putting the awareness out and putting them all together in one facility for active duty and veterans.

• 1:48:38Speaker 04

  That's great.

• 1:48:39Speaker 05

  It'll be really cool. Yeah. It's still in the, uh, startup phase, so we don't act the facilities. We need 300K for facilities to actually be fully funded and the first one's going to be rolled out at Fort Campbell. So, yeah.

• 1:48:51Speaker 04

  That's awesome.

• 1:48:51Speaker 05

  Pumped about it. And, and it's a-

• 1:48:53Speaker 04

  Should we start with a GoFundMe for you guys or?

• 1:48:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:48:56Speaker 04

  Um, so for our more affluent, uh, viewers and listeners, Ark Health is looking for 300K of endowments, right? Or whatever they call it.

• 1:49:06Speaker 05

  Donations, yeah.

• 1:49:07Speaker 04

  Donations, yeah.

• 1:49:08Speaker 05

  Yeah. Thank you. Tax deductible donation.

• 1:49:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly, right? So it's The Nick O'Kelly?

• 1:49:14Speaker 05

  TheNickOKelly.com.

• 1:49:15Speaker 04

  Okay, great.

• 1:49:16Speaker 05

  And my, all my handles are at TheNickOKelly.

• 1:49:18Speaker 04

  Uh, and they're all, they're all in, in the description.

• 1:49:22Jack Murphy?

  Yes, so thank you Nick for sharing your story with us. Yeah, I know some of these stories aren't pleasant to like kind of relive, but for the reasons you're well aware of, it's important to get that stuff out there to. God only knows who's watching these things. I mean, all types of people watch it. People who I hear from sometimes were like, man, this podcast got me through like a hard time in my life. And it's like, I never thought that people engage with it in that way. But I'm glad if it helps somebody.

• 1:49:49Speaker 04

  I hope so too.

• 1:49:50Jack Murphy?

  You know, this message gets out there to folks. So yeah, thank you again. And we'll make an announcement on the show when the book comes out. Let folks know. And for everyone else, we'll see you guys next week. Take care out there.

• 1:50:02Speaker 04

  And if you are not a member of our Patreon, you might want to join to hear this really salacious story about how he met his wife.

• 1:50:10Jack Murphy?

  Spicy.

• 1:50:10Speaker 04

  Spicy.

• 1:50:15Jack Murphy?

  Hey guys, it's Jack. I just want to talk to you for a moment about how you can support the show. If you've been watching it, enjoying it, but you'd like to get a little bit more involved and help us continue to do this, you can check out our Patreon. It is patreon.com/the team house. And for $5 a month, you can get access to all of these episodes of the team house ad free. The same goes with our affiliated podcast Eyes On with Andy Milburn, Jason Lyons, Mick Mulroy. That one, you will also get all of those episodes ad free. And you support the channel and the show and we really appreciate it. The Patreon members are literally what has helped this company, this small business survive, especially during our

• 1:50:59Jack Murphy?

  early years. And you are what continues to help this thing going even as we navigate the turbulent world of YouTube advertising. So we really appreciate all of you guys. There's going to be a link down in the description to that Patreon page. And there is also going to be a link to our new merch shop. So if you guys want to go and get some Team House merchandise, we got stickers and we also have patches. And I should mention, if you sign up for Patreon at $10 a month, we will mail you this patch as well. So we really appreciate that. But they're also for sale on the merch shop. And additionally, they got T-shirts up there, water bottles, a tote bag, coffee mugs, all that good stuff.

• 1:51:45Jack Murphy?

  So please go and check them out and support the show. We really appreciate it, guys. Thank you.

• 1:51:50Speaker 06

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:52:04Speaker 07

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant. So I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:52:15Speaker 06

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone. One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies. So join us and hear their stories and more because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 1:52:54Speaker 06

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:53:09Speaker 07

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant. So I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:53:20Speaker 06

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone. One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies. So join us and hear their stories and more because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 1:53:58Speaker 06

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:54:13Speaker 07

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:54:24Speaker 06

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone. One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies. So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 1:55:07Speaker 06

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:55:22Speaker 07

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:55:33Speaker 06

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone. One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies. So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 1:56:04Speaker 00

  She's been thinking about this sleepover all week, but I think about her food allergies all the time. Fortunately, her doctor prescribed Zolair, omalizumab. It's proven to significantly reduce allergic reactions if a food allergy accident happens.

• 1:56:17Speaker 01

  Zolair 150mg is a prescription medication used to treat food allergy in people one year of age and older to reduce allergic reactions due to accidental exposure to one or more foods. While taking Zolair, you should continue to avoid all foods to which you are allergic. Don't use if you are allergic to Zolair. Zolair may cause a severe, life-threatening allergic reaction called anaphylaxis. Tell your doctor if you ever had anaphylaxis. Get help right away if you have trouble breathing or if you have swelling of your throat or tongue. Zolair should not be used for the emergency treatment of allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis. Zolair is for maintenance use to reduce allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis, while avoiding food allergens. Serious side effects such as cancer, fever, muscle aches and rash, parasitic infection, or heart and circulation problems have been reported. Please see zolair.com for full prescribing information. Ask an allergist about Zolair. This is an advertisement for Zolair,

• 1:57:02Speaker 01

  paid for by Genentech and Novartis.

• 1:57:05Speaker 00

  Relax and get ready for bed with Dr. Teal's magnesium spray. Made from a proprietary blend of topical minerals powered by pure Epsom salt and natural Dead Sea salt. Dr. Teal's magnesium spray is designed to help you unwind and get in a nighttime state of mind. Dr. Teal's magnesium spray is wellness you can feel, and you can find it in your local bath aisle. Dr. Teal's. Yep, you needed that.

• 1:57:33Speaker 07

  Monday night brings one more big matchup to settle into. And when every play matters, the last thing you want to do is step away to figure out dinner. That's where DiGiorno comes in. Get a DiGiorno pizza ready before kickoff, then enjoy restaurant-quality taste fresh from your own oven while you stay locked into every play. Stock up on DiGiorno over the weekend so when Monday night rolls around, the only thing you sweat is the game. Shop now at the link in the episode description. It's not delivery, it's DiGiorno.