#61 Tyler Grey - Intense Combat / Injury That Ended His Career | Part 2

Former Delta Force Operator Tyler Grey is back in part two of this two part series. This episode covers the invasion of Fallujah and the horrors of conventional warfare. Grey even discusses his role in supporting the Marines and former SRS guest Cody Alford. Grey takes us back to the night he and his unit went on the hunt for an HVT and how he sustained a life changing injury in Sadr City, Iraq. We cover his multi-year recovery and show never before seen video footage he created as a roadmap to move forward. Shawn & Tyler wrestle with the tough questions like "where do emotions come from?" Part two is a perfect end to Tyler's incredible story. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://1stphorm.com/srs https://expressvpn.com/shawn https://blackbuffalo.com - USE CODE "SRS" https://moinkbox.com/srs https://mudwtr.com/shawn - USE CODE "SHAWNMUD" https://learshawn.com - Best Way to Invest in Gold Lear Capital Call them today at 800-741-0551 or go to https://LearShawn.com Get your FREE Gold and Silver investor guides from Lear Capital Receive up to $15,000 in FREE bonus metals with a qualified purchase Information contained within Lear Capital’s website is for general educational purposes and is not investment, tax, or legal advice. Past performance may not be indicative of future results. Consult with your tax attorney or financial professional before making an investment decision. Tyler Grey Links: SEAL Team Series - https://www.cbs.com/shows/seal-team/ Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/tyleragrey Please leave us a review on Apple & Spotify Podcasts. Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website | Patreon | TikTok | Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC dot com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 0:29Speaker 01

  Mr. President? My company tore me of the explosion on our rig.

• 0:32Speaker 02

  On October 2nd.

• 0:34Speaker 01

  Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

• 0:38Speaker 02

  Tom Cruise is.

• 0:40Speaker 03

  Digger got us into this mess, and Digger's gonna dig us up.

• 0:43Speaker 02

  From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 0:46Speaker 04

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You stall, you freeze to death, that's what.

• 0:50Speaker 02

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 0:53Speaker 04

  I'm not the first then.

• 0:54Speaker 02

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a minute without parent.

• 1:00Shawn Ryan?

  Hey, everybody. Part two of the series. Tyler Gray, former Ranger, Delta operator, producer, director, and actor of the show Seal Team. Acted on several other movies as well. If you guys haven't checked out part one, I'd highly recommend it. He really opens up on this one. This is gonna help a lot of people. Patreon. Oh, you guys, a huge thank you for supporting the show. Wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you guys. I love you. I love you, everybody. If you haven't, please head over to Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Leave us a review. Tell us how we're doing. Tell us who you want to see on the show.

• 1:44Shawn Ryan?

  But, um, hey. Thank you, everybody, for being here, no matter how much support you've given us. If you're new, share this with a friend. And ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, please welcome Tyler Gray for part two of the series. See you soon.

• 2:03Speaker 00

  Previously on The Sean Ryan Show.

• 2:07Shawn Ryan?

  How many people depend on you? You have any idea? You're the producer of SEAL Team.

• 2:12Speaker 06

  Oh, well, no, I mean... Well, that's work, I mean...

• 2:17Shawn Ryan?

  That's your life.

• 2:18Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:19Shawn Ryan?

  How many people depend on you?

• 2:20Speaker 06

  Bunch of dudes got shot, like, I don't know, like, thirteen or fourteen dudes. Just to note it, I mean, these guys were real pieces. All of them suicide bombers. All, everyone. About to blow themselves up. One guy was in the kitchen, and he had dragged himself from the living room. And, uh, I don't know how many times he was shot, but I, I saw him, you know, he's gonna die, like, pretty quickly. Just gonna, I'm just gonna watch him. I don't know, it was probably a foot from his face. Like, if you think what the military used to be, which is a bunch of morons online, marching on an open field to face each other. It's the same mentality.

• 3:05Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Come back, we'll finalize your, your Iraq deployment.

• 3:11Shawn Ryan?

  Alright Tyler, we're back from the break. Let's, let's wrap that deployment up.

• 3:15Speaker 06

  Um... Damn, trying to think what happened at the end, uh... Yeah, so, flujia, I mean, it was just, uh...

• 3:26Speaker 06

  You know, for me, that was like, alright, like, that's war. You know, like, freaking all-out, you know, Cobra helicopters coming in, freaking airplanes, tanks, you know, it was like, wow. So, again, I, I'm, I'm, I'm glad I got to see that, you know? Um... Uh, and then, uh...

• 3:50Shawn Ryan?

  Did that amount of violence affect you?

• 3:55Speaker 06

  No, I mean, I, I'm not a, I'm not a violent person at all. Like, well, again, let's fuck with kids, you know? Um... But other than that, like, I, you know, I, it's like fighting, like...

• 4:11Speaker 06

  Dude, I've, I've, I mean, I've been punched in the face, but I've never...

• 4:18Speaker 06

  Like, I mean, I've not been in a lot of fights, you know, because

• 4:26Speaker 06

  what's the point? Like, are you gonna kill me? Am I gonna kill you? No? What the fuck's the point of fighting? Ego?

• 4:41Speaker 06

  You know what I mean? Like, it doesn't, like, just know, if you're not

• 4:50Speaker 06

  violence doesn't make sense unless you're gonna kill a person.

• 4:54Speaker 06

  I mean, to me, you know?

• 5:01Speaker 06

  And so it's, uh,

• 5:05Speaker 06

  no, I mean, it didn't, it didn't, didn't bother me.

• 5:13Speaker 06

  You know, I was lucky in the sense that

• 5:19Speaker 06

  again, the only thing that

• 5:23Speaker 06

  the only thing that affected me was, was definitely seeing kids hurt. That, that affects me. Did you see a lot of that? Not a lot. I saw it. And but again, I was super lucky in the sense that, I mean, I'm in, or I was in a unit that, you know, is a scalpel. So, I mean, you know, no one's shooting noncombatants. You know, the amount of effort we're taking to not hurt civilians was, I mean, we were doing basically hostage rescue style tactics to not hurt combatants, especially at the time. So, no, I didn't see a lot of hurt noncombatants.

• 6:11Speaker 06

  I mean, you definitely, you know, it hap- it happens, you know, shit happens and I saw, you know,

• 6:20Speaker 06

  kid stuff, which again, it's, it's sad. What kind of kid stuff? What did you see? Uh, girl got like her arm, I can't remember if it was blown off or,

• 6:34Speaker 06

  I don't remember. I mean, quite honestly, in hindsight, it was probably about what happened to my arm in hindsight. Um, and it was total accident. Um, I won't get into details on how it happened, but no, no one's fault. You know, it's fucking war. But, um,

• 6:51Speaker 06

  yeah, that was, that was, you know, it's just, you just can't.

• 7:00Speaker 06

  You know, it's like cops and EMT and you just, if you get emotionally attached, you just couldn't do the job. You know?

• 7:13Speaker 06

  But it's worth noting, actually, that, you know, when I kind of made up that fake person, I shut off all emotion.

• 7:23Speaker 06

  That sensitive kid I had to kill. So I just shut it off. I mean, to the point, and I'm not exaggerating, to the point where when I was in that treatment, you know, they asked me, what was it about? It was about feelings?

• 7:44Speaker 06

  They asked me a question, or it was, I think it was written, it was about feelings. And I was like,

• 7:51Speaker 06

  can you give me a list of feelings?

• 7:55Speaker 06

  To like pick for, cause I was like, I was so unused to like,

• 8:01Speaker 06

  like, how do I feel about something? I mean, I was stumped. I was like, uh, I really didn't know how to answer. And I was like, can you, do you guys have like examples? So I can like figure out how I feel about it. Um, and actually, that was one of the exercises I did was I would have to like,

• 8:22Speaker 06

  Try and feel like, okay, what do I feel? Like, what is it? How can I feel? How in my body can I tell I feel a certain way in my mind? Or emotionally, I should say. Cause pure emotionally, I'm like, I don't feel anything.

• 8:43Shawn Ryan?

  Have you ever thought about where emotions even fucking come from?

• 8:48Speaker 06

  The devil?

• 8:52Shawn Ryan?

  You might be right.

• 8:56Speaker 06

  I, you know, again, on a.

• 9:02Shawn Ryan?

  Isn't it fucking weird? Where do they come from?

• 9:07Speaker 06

  The only thing I can come up with is I'm a fan of evolutionary psychology and, you know, emotions make sense to reinforce

• 9:18Speaker 06

  certain behaviors.

• 9:23Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, how was it created?

• 9:26Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean.

• 9:27Shawn Ryan?

  You know, I mean, it's just, it's just,

• 9:31Shawn Ryan?

  it's a fascinating topic. I mean,

• 9:33Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah.

• 9:33Shawn Ryan?

  A lot of people are hearing this like, oh, where did it come from your brain? No, I mean, where the fuck do they come from?

• 9:39Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 9:39Shawn Ryan?

  If I dissect your brain and I cut out a little fucking chunk, am I gonna see sadness? Am I gonna see happiness? Am I gonna see anger? You're not gonna see any of that shit. Where the fuck do they come from?

• 9:59Speaker 06

  This is where a hippie would say.

• 10:00Speaker 04

  From the heart.

• 10:03Speaker 04

  All emotions are from the heart, man.

• 10:07Speaker 06

  Yeah, no, I mean, brain, brain science is, you know, it's interesting to me because, you know, you're trying to understand a system from within that system.

• 10:19Speaker 06

  It's not gonna go well. Think you're gonna miss a lot of stuff, you know. But, yeah, I mean, I just, I had no emotions. And again, I make no mistake, I'm still not good at it at all. Like, I'm, you know, like, I say things and I don't realize, like, like with my girlfriend, you know? Like, I'm saying emotional things, but not emotionally. I mean them, but there's no emotion in them. Because I don't have emotion. So I'm trying to, honestly, trying to learn how to feel, you know? And going back to, why am I hesitant?

• 11:04Speaker 06

  Because that's where all the freaking risk is. Soon as you start having feelings, you know, you open yourself up for hurt feelings, negative feelings, you know? Like, it's...

• 11:20Shawn Ryan?

  If that's the case, why do you wanna feel again?

• 11:26Speaker 06

  Because that's what being human is.

• 11:34Speaker 06

  Everything else is just a shell.

• 11:38Speaker 06

  And I've been one for a long time.

• 11:44Speaker 06

  On that note,

• 11:47Speaker 06

  the reason I have always liked movies is

• 11:54Speaker 06

  it is the only, well, and music, but

• 12:01Speaker 06

  I will absolutely, my whole life, really, I've shut down, oh, I mean, after, you know, whatever age, but shut down emotion, with one exception. Movies and music. It's like a safe place where I can watch a movie and cry. I can listen to a sad song and release emotion because it's not, it's not reflective of me. It has nothing to do with me.

• 12:29Speaker 06

  You know what I mean? It doesn't make me, it doesn't, it's not about me. It's like, I can, I can watch this movie and I can be sad, fucking cry in extreme cases.

• 12:44Speaker 06

  Like The Notebook.

• 12:46Speaker 06

  Um, which I think I actually did cry. I was fucking sad. I don't give a fuck what anybody says.

• 12:55Speaker 06

  And it, it doesn't.

• 12:59Speaker 06

  It's not reflective of my own life. It's not reflective of my own past. It's not, you know, it's separate. It's, it's safe.

• 13:07Speaker 06

  And again, I know that's wrong. I, you know, trying to get better than that, but um, during my, you know, up until recently,

• 13:19Speaker 06

  it was my, uh, it was my only emotional release really of any kind.

• 13:27Speaker 06

  And I mean, even now, again, dude, I'll, I don't mind saying it. Kind of talked about earlier, but

• 13:36Speaker 06

  you know,

• 13:39Speaker 06

  as I was saying earlier, people are like, oh, you know, when you talk, you talk very raw about, you know, you're really open.

• 13:46Speaker 06

  Yeah. But

• 13:51Speaker 06

  the reason I can do that is because I have no emotion towards it.

• 13:56Speaker 06

  I can be matter of fact, because I don't feel anything.

• 14:01Speaker 06

  Tell you about the worst day of my life. I was a fucking kid. I shit my pants at camp, literally.

• 14:09Speaker 06

  I'm detached from that. If I really thought about it, if I really focused on it and let the actual emotion happen, dude, I'd fucking cry. Cause it was sad as fuck.

• 14:22Speaker 06

  But it's so hard to get to that place because I'm so shut off. So.

• 14:30Speaker 06

  I think a lot of guys can relate to that. I hope so. I hope so. Um. But that's the irony is I kind of want to get, like, my goal is to get to a place where I can't talk this candid without it affecting me. Cause it, it doesn't, and that's not healthy. Yeah. Like, eh, you know, um.

• 14:54Speaker 06

  But going back to um.

• 14:59Speaker 06

  Yeah, that deployment ended. We did some other stuff too in other places. What kind of stuff? Well, it's a fucking nightmare because the rest, everyone else was in Baghdad.

• 15:17Speaker 06

  This is one of the most dangerous things I've ever done. So. Everyone else was in Baghdad, we were in Fallujah. So if they were doing a mission and they needed us. They would have us drive.

• 15:31Speaker 06

  In civilian unarmed vehicles.

• 15:39Speaker 06

  Dressed in a certain way.

• 15:42Speaker 06

  From Fallujah to Baghdad.

• 15:45Speaker 06

  Unarmed, like that drove an Alfa Romeo. Like.

• 15:54Speaker 06

  Some of those drives were. Level ten fucking sketchy like like.

• 16:04Speaker 06

  It got to a point, I forget how many times we did it, but finally one was so bad that my team was like, fuck you. Like you want us send a fucking heli, we're not doing it again. It's like, I don't know, forty five minute drive, something like that. Um, but yeah, one, we almost, we got, long story short, we got fucking stuck in traffic. Uh, I mean, literally couldn't move, boxed in and fucking. All the fighters were leaving Fallujah and they were fucking walking through the trap. I mean, dude. Oh shit. Done, done. Um, I mean, do we got lucky, but. That was probably the only time that I was like. Oh shit, you know, like, oh, fuck, like. If.

• 16:48Speaker 06

  Anything goes wrong, we're done. There's no way out, we're fucked. No, you can't even fight back. Nothing you could do.

• 16:57Speaker 06

  Yeah, so that deployment ended, um, went back, you know, fucking standard cycle training, blah, blah, blah.

• 17:09Speaker 06

  Next trip to, uh, was straight Baghdad.

• 17:16Speaker 06

  Straight Baghdad and, uh, that one, that was when oh five, like every target was

• 17:29Speaker 06

  legit, you know, like, like fucking serious, you know, riser, you know, it was fucking bad guy, you know, every target was bad guy, like legit fucking bad guys.

• 17:43Speaker 06

  And, uh,

• 17:48Speaker 06

  I mean, it was, it was a great deployment. The, I mean, dude, we do some nights, we do, I forget what the record that trip was. Either three or four, can't remember, follow-ons. Damn. Like did a hit. Four or nine? I was at three or four, can't remember. But yeah, did a hit, cause I remember one particularly, which had to be this one, that

• 18:16Speaker 06

  we hit a place, got the guy, had him tell us where the other place was.

• 18:24Speaker 06

  I can't remember if it was three or four, but anyways, we ended up, we were there, we, we ended because the sun was coming up and the little birds wouldn't stay. They, they wouldn't fly in the day, for obvious reasons, so we, we were done, but, um, yeah, we were out all night long.

• 18:40Speaker 06

  I mean, I was, it was a great deployment. You know, obviously the, the mission I got blown up on.

• 18:49Speaker 06

  Was that that deployment? Yeah, so what happened was, uh, this was solder city and, uh, we were doing a, um,

• 18:59Speaker 06

  BDO vehicle drop, you know, basically dropping off and then walking to target, cause, um, for noise and, uh, did, did you go through solder city?

• 19:12Speaker 06

  I mean, it's like a shit, it's like shithole, you know, like dirt roads and it, and the houses don't, you know, like most parts of Baghdad, shit's like fucking rows of, you know, the compound type, you know what I mean? Like perfect blocks, you know, fucking solder city, um, you know, shit's just not organized. Um, anyways, we're walking and um, I was like, ah, this is the target. And so we hit it as a breacher at the time. We hit it, we went in, I was like, no, this ain't the place. I, I could just tell, you know, just by the people, kids, I was like, mm, something's wrong.

• 19:54Speaker 06

  And uh, I mean, I think we were there for like thirty or forty-five minutes, you know, the interpreter trying to figure shit out.

• 20:02Speaker 06

  And then um, we get called outside and it was my team and another team. Uh, the other team was a dev group team. And uh, then they were like, oh, no, no, no, it's this house, which was distance wise.

• 20:24Speaker 06

  Hmm, maybe a hundred meters ish. Um, I don't, I'd probably see it today and go, oh, well, I was way off, but in my head, about a hundred meters. So the dev group team went around or was going around the front and we were heading towards the back. And dude, next thing you know, fucking fourth of July, like, I wanna say from memory, there were eight dudes in the front room. And when the team came around, dude, they all opened up uh, out the windows on those guys. Damn. Think three of them got hit, uh, like, I mean, right away and, you know, they had just come around.

• 21:07Speaker 06

  So basically what happened was when we hit the house next door, obviously those fuckers woke up and started, you know, kitting up and, I mean, it was an ambush. Um, as soon as the shooting went off in the, on the front side, um. So I was the breacher for my team. So um, you know, I had to get us in. So I ran. I think I jumped the wall. I don't remember how fuck we didn't have a ladder. But anyways, got over the wall and I can't even remember how I breached the door. Anyways, went in the door.

• 21:43Speaker 06

  And just, you know, started clearing. And I mean, they were still firing.

• 21:49Speaker 06

  And then we cleared one room, cleared another room. There's a guy with an AK in there.

• 21:58Speaker 06

  And then came out, me and another guy ended up being side by side going down the hallway. And then they.

• 22:08Speaker 06

  I I don't know.

• 22:11Speaker 06

  Can't fully explain how I was aware of it, but like, I was aware that.

• 22:18Speaker 06

  They were shooting. They started shooting. They basically sensed us coming down their hallway wall and then just started shooting through the wall. And so all these bullets came through the wall. And I don't remember looking at the holes, but I remember feeling the like, the shit frag, you know, whatever. And I remember the pressure, the sound. And then the guy next to me got hit. I remember him saying he was hit. I think he was hit three or four times. I can't remember.

• 22:45Speaker 06

  And so.

• 22:49Speaker 06

  Not DFQ, we're like, maybe there's a better way. So we went back. If we would have kept going, and dead as fuck. No, no question. No way fucking two guys could go. I don't, I don't care what your fucking CQB tactics are. Not going in against eight AKs, even a four man team ain't happening. And so we we pulled back. And then he, I assume he went outside to get medical aid. And then it was me and another guy. Basically, it was a tactical.

• 23:24Speaker 06

  Conundrum, which is at the end of a long hallway, you have a door.

• 23:30Speaker 06

  How do you throw a grenade?

• 23:33Speaker 06

  You can't, you can't fucking curb it like wanted. It's not the Matrix. So the only option we had, which we were figuring out was I'm gonna fucking shoot the door. I'm gonna fucking keep dumping rounds at the door. As we move up to where he gets close enough to hook it in. And then they will run back again. And that was the plan. I can't remember if he grabbed a grenade. I don't fucking remember. But next thing I know, fucking. Everything exploded. And I. Who grabbed the grenade? No, no, he, he was gonna, he was about to prep the grenade. It wasn't the grenade. But, but like that was the plan.

• 24:20Speaker 06

  To throw the grenade and then, and then just everything exploded. It wasn't his grenade. Fucking house dropped? No, just the whole hallway exploded.

• 24:32Speaker 06

  Just the whole hallway, fucking.

• 24:36Speaker 06

  It's hard to describe. The best way I can describe it is I felt like the Hulk grabbed me and just did his fucking. Like I felt small. Insignificant to the power.

• 24:51Speaker 06

  And I felt like.

• 24:57Speaker 06

  Or not like. In my head immediately, I remember being on the ground. I remember looking up and like dust was fucking weird. And I remember feeling like my arm was blown off. It was a feeling. It sounds weird, but like it felt not there.

• 25:18Speaker 06

  Oh, and it was night and it blew my nods off my face.

• 25:25Speaker 06

  Probably would have blinded me except for my glasses. But yeah, blew my nods straight off my face. Blew, but my gun was fucked up, couldn't use it.

• 25:36Speaker 00

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the HouseMajorityPac.com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 26:05Speaker 01

  Mr. President, my company told me of the explosion on our rig.

• 26:09Speaker 02

  On October 2nd.

• 26:10Speaker 01

  Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

• 26:14Speaker 02

  Tom Cruise is.

• 26:16Speaker 03

  Digger got us into this mess, and Digger's gonna dig us out.

• 26:19Speaker 02

  From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 26:22Speaker 04

  What would happen if I stopped going? You stall, you freeze to death, that's what.

• 26:26Speaker 02

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 26:29Speaker 04

  I'm not the first daddy.

• 26:30Speaker 02

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a middle without parent.

• 26:38Speaker 06

  And so I... Maybe it's just because I watch too many movies, I don't know. But in my head, I reverted to Saving Private Ryan and tried to look for my arm on the ground. I remember thinking of that scene when it happened.

• 26:59Speaker 06

  And then I didn't find anything, but I asked to see anything. And then I abandoned that idea. I got up.

• 27:09Speaker 06

  I walked outside, and there was like a porch light. And I looked at my arm, and it was just fucking...

• 27:17Speaker 06

  It was, I mean, from here to here. You know, and this was flayed out that way, and this was flayed out that way. I mean, and it was broken in like eight places, so. Damn. It was, it was literally holding on, if you can see it by that. Holy shit. I mean, dude, it... When I looked at it, there was zero question in my mind. It was gone. Zero. It wasn't even a thought that it was savable. So I looked at my arm like, well, that's fucked. Like, no question, gone. And then I also was like, you know, I had an arterial bleed. And then I was like, ah, fuck, I lost my arm. Like, fuck, I'm gonna fucking be that dude with...

• 28:01Speaker 06

  I mean, literally, I'm thinking this, I'm gonna be that guy without an arm.

• 28:06Speaker 06

  And then I remember thinking, fuck, I'm like, like I have an arterial bleed. And I'm like, well, shit, if I don't fix that, I'll die. And that'll be fucking stupid. Yeah, again, I just, I remember these words very clearly. That'd be stupid. So, and then the wall that I had got over to get in was there. I looked at that, I'm like, well, that ain't happening. So I just fucking plopped my back against the wall and tried to get out my tourniquet.

• 28:39Speaker 06

  How do they teach you to put on a tourniquet?

• 28:43Speaker 06

  I put mine on rubber bands on the outside. On, on your arm, let's say, whenever you do the training, how do they usually do it? Oh, yeah.

• 28:53Speaker 06

  Dude, my arm was fucking.

• 28:57Speaker 06

  Like. Shit. If your arm needs a tourniquet, you can't do this. You know what I mean? Like, I was like, fuck, you know, like, you know, like, I don't know how to do this. Here's the crazy part of the story.

• 29:11Speaker 06

  Guess who the guy is that gets to me and puts the tourniquet on me?

• 29:16Speaker 06

  I've mentioned him once.

• 29:19Speaker 06

  Who is it? The team leader of the unit team in Afghanistan that I worked with.

• 29:26Speaker 06

  Coincidence? Probably not. Crazy, right? Yeah. He's the one that put the tourniquet on me. He's also, I believe, I'm not a hundred percent sure, I'd have to ask him. But I believe he's the one that gave me the, um, cause it blew off my auto injectors. Morphine, cause it was in my pocket. Um, he gave me one, like five minutes later, he's like, how you feeling? I'm like, still pretty shitty. And then, so he gave me the other one. Another five minutes go by. How you feeling? Not good. Long story short, it came out in the hospital like a month later that I was morphine intolerant. They didn't test for it at the time, didn't do anything. Like, my body doesn't process it.

• 30:10Speaker 06

  Cause, cause I was like, I'm like thinking of these Vietnam movies of being like, oh, man. Yeah. And I'm like, I don't feel any better. I'll tell you what hurt like a motherfucker was the tourniquet.

• 30:26Speaker 06

  Because it's where you feel like that thing hurt again in my head. I was like, God, things so tight. Can you just, oh, no, that's, that's the point.

• 30:40Speaker 06

  But, um, but yeah, I got, I was lucky, you know, again, fucking spoiled, you know, had one of the best, you know, medics probably in the entire military, you know, worked on me for 20 minutes. And then I was very lucky. We had a, we had little birds circling. Uh, I think for CAS, I can't remember. And they called one in and put me on it. So I evac within 20 minutes to the cache in Baghdad.

• 31:08Speaker 06

  But if it wasn't for that, I mean, I, you know, had I not had the level of care I did, I would have probably died.

• 31:16Shawn Ryan?

  What was the explosion?

• 31:17Speaker 06

  What's that?

• 31:18Shawn Ryan?

  What was the explosion?

• 31:25Speaker 06

  It was a charge.

• 31:29Shawn Ryan?

  Was it your charge?

• 31:31Speaker 06

  No.

• 31:33Shawn Ryan?

  Fuck, man.

• 31:35Speaker 06

  Yeah, I'll leave it at that. But no.

• 31:39Speaker 06

  But again.

• 31:42Speaker 06

  Yeah. What are you gonna do? It's fucking war. Like, it really doesn't bother me. It doesn't make a difference what it is, you know?

• 31:50Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 31:51Speaker 06

  Um, and found that out until two months later.

• 31:55Speaker 06

  In the hospital.

• 31:58Speaker 06

  And like, everything I thought, like, was.

• 32:02Speaker 06

  And they sat me down, started explaining it. And I was just like.

• 32:07Speaker 06

  But again.

• 32:08Shawn Ryan?

  How did you process that at the time?

• 32:11Speaker 06

  I don't remember. I don't remember.

• 32:15Shawn Ryan?

  You're fucking good at compartmentalizing.

• 32:18Speaker 06

  Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of things I legitimately don't remember. I mean. But I do know I have a good memory. So when I don't remember something, there's probably a reason.

• 32:30Speaker 06

  But, yeah, um, and, you know, again, it's just.

• 32:36Speaker 06

  Everyone, everyone loves to. Or not loves, I shouldn't say it that way, but like. You know, you hear the word why, why, why, why, why?

• 32:48Shawn Ryan?

  You said you grew up a, you said this off camera. You said you grew up a, an atheist.

• 32:59Shawn Ryan?

  Did you think you were gonna die there?

• 33:00Speaker 06

  Oh, I'm glad you asked that. I'm glad you asked that, actually.

• 33:06Speaker 06

  So, I'm so glad you asked that. And actually, I didn't tell you, but I'll, I'll tell you the. So, at the, um, I went to Christian camp, I think I was eight, I don't exactly remember. But, uh, it was the camp that I shit my pants at. And, um.

• 33:26Speaker 06

  Uh, cause I wet my bed for like, till I was like fifteen. Like a shit you not.

• 33:31Shawn Ryan?

  No kidding?

• 33:32Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's, um. It's pretty common with like alcoholic parents. It's just, it's just, uh.

• 33:43Speaker 06

  Uh, what is it?

• 33:48Speaker 06

  It's like stress, you know? Yeah, like, I fucking.

• 33:55Speaker 06

  I would probably pee my bed most nights. Like, and I would go on sleepovers and I would be fucking terrified.

• 34:04Speaker 06

  Terrified.

• 34:08Speaker 06

  Anyway, so I go to this camp. And, you know, me being the one to one up myself, I don't pee my pants. I shit my pants in the cabin with everyone.

• 34:22Speaker 06

  And I remember being in the bathroom, cleaning shit up out of my pajamas, I don't know.

• 34:30Speaker 06

  And I just remember being like so angry at like, it was a religious camp and I just was like.

• 34:38Speaker 06

  There's no God.

• 34:40Speaker 06

  You know? And it was either the day before or the day after, I honestly don't know. And the guy was saying something.

• 34:53Speaker 06

  I listened to it and I'm like, nope, bullshit. You know, no, doesn't make sense. I don't agree. And after that, I just, I tuned out, like I, my.

• 35:10Speaker 06

  There was also another thing where like, we all got in trouble because some other and couldn't go ride horses because some other kids did something. You know, group punishment. And I was like, fuck that. I don't agree with that. It's not what God would do, you know? And so, yeah, that, that kinda was the end of organized religion for me. So then when I got blown up,

• 35:34Speaker 06

  it was when I,

• 35:37Speaker 06

  I never lost consciousness, except when they got me over the wall, which I have no idea how they did it. I need to ask someone because I have no idea. I lost consciousness, I'm sure from pain there, because I don't, I don't remember that at all. It's only a five minute period. I don't remember. And then they got me like into the open area and then,

• 35:58Speaker 06

  and it was before, because the medic was treating the guys that were shot on the front side. And when he finally got, before he got to me, it occurred to me that I might die. Like,

• 36:12Speaker 06

  and so then I was like, quite honestly, a little excited about like, oh shit, this, this, this is when religion hits you. And I was like,

• 36:26Speaker 06

  still bullshit.

• 36:30Speaker 06

  There was nothing. For me.

• 36:33Shawn Ryan?

  Do you keep in touch with these guys that you were on that op with?

• 36:37Speaker 06

  No.

• 36:37Shawn Ryan?

  I didn't think so.

• 36:38Speaker 06

  I'll tell you this, one of them was Andy Stump. Andy Stump was one of the guys that got shot on the front side of the house.

• 36:45Speaker 06

  I haven't been on Andy's podcast, but Andy, I mean, it's, we put it out, you know, mentioned on Instagram, but Andy was one of the guys, that's when Andy got shot.

• 36:58Speaker 06

  Damn.

• 37:00Speaker 06

  What are the odds? Damn.

• 37:03Speaker 06

  But uh.

• 37:06Speaker 06

  I, I, to be perfectly honest with you, I'm probably avoiding it. There's probably a reason I haven't.

• 37:13Speaker 06

  Asked Andy to do this podcast. There's probably a reason that I don't keep in contact really with any of them, you know?

• 37:21Speaker 06

  Not that I have. I mean.

• 37:26Speaker 06

  So long ago, I mean, I, I quite honestly, I can't imagine my arm normal now, you know? And I wouldn't trade it for anything like the shit I learned about myself. I wouldn't. I wouldn't give that up for anything. I'd do the same thing over again.

• 37:46Speaker 06

  But yeah, I.

• 37:48Speaker 06

  There was nothing there. And again, it doesn't mean anything if you're a religious person, just for me. I just. It didn't. It didn't change me. It didn't change my mind, you know?

• 38:05Speaker 06

  My thinking was, you know? With all the shit in this world, again.

• 38:12Speaker 06

  With all the shit in this world, like.

• 38:15Speaker 06

  And it's what I used to say, with all the shit in this world, if God.

• 38:20Speaker 06

  Has a problem with me not believing in him with all the bad shit. And I'm going to hell for that. Well, then fuck you. I'll burn in hell as protest, you know? I mean, that's kind of my, my, you know, joking, uh, just like, no, like that's. That's irrational, you know? But yeah, in that moment, I was just like, no, I still don't. I just don't, I don't feel it. Which again, I'll be perfectly honest, was disappointing for me. And I was looking for something bigger than myself and. I didn't. Feel it, you know?

• 38:59Speaker 06

  And then I got flown to the, the cache and I went in there.

• 39:05Speaker 06

  And very quickly they stuck something up my ass.

• 39:10Speaker 06

  Yeah, which was odd. They check for internal fragmentation, but they like take my clothes off and the next thing you know, they stick some like, what the fuck are you guys doing? It's right here, right here. You can see it.

• 39:28Speaker 06

  I make jokes when I'm uncomfortable, so I made a lot. Actually, quite honestly, I made some solid, there was some solid material.

• 39:40Speaker 06

  A solid material before surgery, like when they took off my pants, I was like, you, you girls know, because it was January or February, I'm like, you girls know it's cold outside. You guys, you guys know about shrinkage, right?

• 39:56Speaker 06

  I mean, I was dropping these, these were, these were golden fucking eggs and nothing, nothing. So disappointed, so disappointed. And they were also freaking out because they were trying to take my vest off and I had charges, fucking frags, you know, they're in the hospitals, they're like, oh my God, live ordinance.

• 40:19Speaker 06

  They were like freaking out and I'm like, I'm like, you know, I've been fucking carrying that shit with me all like, it's okay, it's not gonna explode on its own. But um, yeah, and then they grabbed me for surgery and they were willing me in and they're like, we're gonna cut your arm off. And I was like, but they just hit me with fucking drugs. So I was like, do you fucking, fucking cut both my legs off too? I don't give a fuck right now. And then I woke up the next morning and it was there.

• 40:49Speaker 06

  And uh, um, I'll give a little shout out to, then I went to, I got flown very quickly to Balad and

• 41:03Speaker 06

  I think it was, I think it was McChrystal came and visited J Stock Commander at the time.

• 41:11Speaker 06

  Damn, man. Came and visited me personally and was like, and I was just kinda like, the fuck, I mean, again, I was on a lot of drugs. I was like, what the fuck are you doing here? And he's like, I heard one of our guys was here. I was like, I mean, there's a reason they call him Stan the Man, you know, but I'll never forget that. That was very, very solid of him. It was just me, you know?

• 41:35Speaker 06

  And then he asked me what my opinion was again, another joke.

• 41:43Speaker 06

  And I said, I think that we should leave and nuke it from space. It's the only way to be sure. Do you know what that's from? I don't. It's from aliens.

• 41:58Speaker 06

  And when they're, and he's like, I think we should leave and nuke it to, uh, nuke it to be safe. It's the only way to be sure. It's Michael Bean's line to, but he's supporting Sigourney Weaver. But yeah, I make these like, and, and he was just like, I was like, uh, I'm on drugs. Leave me alone.

• 42:18Speaker 06

  And then, uh, I'll tell you what suck fucking balls. You know, when you're watching a movie, the character gets hurt, maybe gets evacuated, cut to him in the US.

• 42:32Speaker 06

  Dude, the medevac flight to Germany was something out of a nightmare. Really? Dude, again, one of those things I'll never forget. So at the time it was a 141, they didn't have a C-17 medevac yet. And dude, so I had our doctor unit with me, like he was assigned to me.

• 42:57Speaker 06

  And he was there all like the whole, that team was there. But then everyone else was like, you know, conventional forces. There was a bunch of Marines that got blown up. I forget in what. And I mean, dude, my doc, like he's, dude, if I wanted a fucking glass of water, you give me a glass of water. I mean, there's one nurse working the whole plane.

• 43:22Speaker 06

  And it was just watching these Marines that had gotten blown up that needed like pain. I did it again, fucking disgusted me. And finally, like,

• 43:33Speaker 06

  I think it was hit, I can't remember, but doctor just saw it and was like, hey, are you good? I'm like, fuck, yes, I'm good. Go, go help them, you know, but that was, that was sad.

• 43:45Speaker 06

  And then when we got to Germany.

• 43:48Speaker 06

  And again, I am fucked up on drugs and literally fucked up.

• 43:54Speaker 06

  I just shit on every yet. So they unloaded you from the plane and then they put you in this like, more of a van than a truck. And it's like, they had to, they had, I think, three levels of the stretchers, right? And it's like you had to go up and then tilt onto this like holder thing because it held you like this. And I am laying there and I'm watching and again,

• 44:26Speaker 06

  it was four women.

• 44:34Speaker 06

  And I mean, dude, my girlfriends, fitness person, ex-girlfriends, fitness person, there are a lot of strong women. Nothing sexist here.

• 44:46Speaker 06

  These women weren't those. And I'm watching and I'm like,

• 44:52Speaker 06

  they're gonna drop that guy. There's no fucking way like they're gonna drop and they weren't super tall. Sure shit, fucking drop, dropped a guy. And I was like, they're not loading me on there. But I was just like,

• 45:07Speaker 06

  damn, not a good idea.

• 45:11Speaker 06

  I just shit, I remember like, and then anyways, I went to, was in, had a bunch of surgeries in Germany and then, uh, got to the US and,

• 45:23Speaker 06

  I only did like a day at Walter Reed and then they put me in our hospitals so the unit could be close and monitor me with our doctors. And then, you know, fucking shitload of surgeries and then, um, I mean, I had surgeries for, three or four years. Just until she had to fix one piece at a time. So it took three or four years. Damn.

• 45:52Shawn Ryan?

  When did you get out?

• 45:54Speaker 06

  So I was actually telling you this earlier. So when I got out in oh seven, I

• 46:01Speaker 06

  I chose to medically retire because at the time they told me that it would take five years and I forget the percentage, but it was it was lower than 50%. Again, what their advice was lower than a 50% chance that I would be able to return to a team after five years.

• 46:24Speaker 06

  And I was like, nope.

• 46:27Speaker 06

  That's, you know, it's not worth five years of my life for 50/50, but I don't even think it was 50/50. I think it was like 40 or 30%. And I knew for those five years, I'd be watching everyone else deploy, doing what I wanted to do and not be

• 46:43Speaker 06

  I mean, I think even said it on my app, dude, I'd kill myself. You know, like I'm not strong enough to do that. I know what I'm strong at and I know what I'm weak at and I can't do that. So, you know, you're offering me, I want to be a surgeon and you're, I can't be a surgeon anymore and you're offering me every other job in the hospital. And if I can't be a surgeon, I just don't want to work in the hospital anymore. And so I chose to get out.

• 47:11Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 47:15Shawn Ryan?

  How long did that fuck with you for?

• 47:16Speaker 06

  A while. Because later,

• 47:22Speaker 06

  you know,

• 47:25Speaker 06

  later became obvious that I definitely would have been able to go to a team. Definitely.

• 47:33Speaker 06

  They were right about the timeframe, you know, about five years. But at the time, I thought five years, Afghanistan was pretty much done. I mean, at that time, Iraq, you know, I knew it had only three, four years left. So my thinking was even if I was that 30, 40% and I go to a team, it's gonna be nothing going on. So, you know, after I pulled the plug on myself and then, you know, freaking Afghanistan kicks up again and then, you know, ISIS and it just, you know, yeah, it's, it's,

• 48:12Speaker 06

  it's.

• 48:17Speaker 06

  It's hard and easy. And what I mean by that is, the hard part is, I,

• 48:25Speaker 06

  it was my decision. The easy part is, it was my decision. I'm not a victim of it. It was my decision. And my reasoning at the time, my logical basis for why I chose to do what I did, made sense. It was based on all the available information that did end up happening, but I didn't know that. Um, no way I could have known that. So, yeah. I came to terms with it. Like, um, I actually, I shouldn't say I came to terms with it. Like, I'm pretty confident I stayed in, I would have died.

• 49:00Speaker 06

  Yeah. Um,

• 49:03Speaker 06

  highly confident. Why do you think that? Because I was stupid as fuck.

• 49:09Speaker 06

  Just dumb. Just,

• 49:12Speaker 06

  just, just like my dad. Like, just very self-destructive.

• 49:17Speaker 06

  Like, I did a lot of risky things that were dumb.

• 49:24Speaker 06

  You know, looking back now, it's been, what? Fifteen years ago? Mm-hmm. Do you think we ever should have been in Iraq? Hmm.

• 49:35Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 49:46Speaker 06

  So at this point,

• 49:55Speaker 06

  you know, with any of them,

• 50:01Speaker 06

  I just no longer look at everything like.

• 50:07Speaker 06

  To me, the way I feel now is it's it's it's almost irrelevant. Because Afghanistan. So people could say, well, Afghanistan is definitely justified because

• 50:24Speaker 06

  Osama bin Laden, you know, planted and then he was in Afghanistan and they wouldn't give him up. So so, you know, that war is justified, but but Iraq, you know, that wouldn't should we have been there?

• 50:35Speaker 06

  And

• 50:38Speaker 06

  okay, well, fuck, we went and sent, you know, very small unit to just go get him in Pakistan. Couldn't we have done that in Afghanistan? Did we have to invade the whole? You know, it's just like,

• 50:54Speaker 06

  now, dude, I just look at the politics of everything and the politicians and the whole that whole machine. And I don't trust anything it says. Like, nothing.

• 51:07Shawn Ryan?

  It's a fucking shame, man. I don't I don't think any of us do anymore.

• 51:11Speaker 06

  Yeah, I don't. I literally don't have any belief in that system anymore. None.

• 51:16Shawn Ryan?

  I don't either.

• 51:18Speaker 06

  So.

• 51:18Shawn Ryan?

  That's fucking sad.

• 51:21Speaker 06

  It is, but it's because we've seen it firsthand.

• 51:27Speaker 06

  You know?

• 51:29Speaker 06

  And it's just,

• 51:33Speaker 06

  it's a mechanism. Like war is a mechanism. It's a it's a tactic.

• 51:47Shawn Ryan?

  It's a lot of things.

• 51:48Speaker 06

  Yeah, but it's not what we think it is, you know?

• 51:53Speaker 06

  Now, I'm sure it was different at some points, but

• 51:59Speaker 06

  you know, look at Ukraine.

• 52:02Speaker 06

  Like, fucking, you're a Russian soldier conscript in Ukraine, getting blown up by a javelin that you never even fucking saw. Now, are the Ukrainians right in blowing up the tank? Fuck, yes. But does this Russian soldier probably want to be there? Probably not, you know, and it's.

• 52:26Speaker 06

  Are they there because, you know, because Ukraine, you know, Ukraine's gonna attack Russia? Really? Like, seriously? That that's your reasoning? You're you're you're going with that, you know? That's like Taiwan attacking and taking over China. I mean, come on, dude. Yeah.

• 52:43Speaker 06

  Or your justification for attacking the Ukraine is you're worried about the military buildup in NATO. So you attack a country

• 52:55Speaker 06

  because you're worried that they're building up like good, but you there, you realize that probably is gonna make like the exact opposite is gonna happen. They're gonna build up more because you literally declared war on what used to be a part of the union. I I just, I don't, you know, people like, oh, I'm gonna go fight in Ukraine. I'm like, dude, have fun.

• 53:19Speaker 06

  It's just not my. It's not my game anymore. Yeah. And it's a game.

• 53:26Speaker 06

  It's absolutely a game.

• 53:29Speaker 06

  Yeah. Yeah, that's what I, that's how I try and explain it. It's absolutely game.

• 53:34Speaker 06

  But that's not scary thing. What's the scary thing? So scary thing is

• 53:41Speaker 06

  for that game to be played, you have to have players. And we were the players. Yeah. And we played. Why did we play? Well, I could tell you why I played because I fucking wanted to. Dude, I would watch Rambo and I wanted PTSD. Like, I wanted to be fucked up like Rambo.

• 54:00Speaker 06

  Yes, I know it says I was a fucked up kid. Get that. But I wanted to go to war. Like, when we got orders to Afghanistan, I enlisted for six years.

• 54:13Speaker 06

  So you've had to have the people to agree to go. And we are fast approaching a point in human society where a person will be able to wage war without people.

• 54:30Speaker 06

  And that's fucking scary. Yeah. And it's. I mean, it's coming. It's happening. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's happening on a smaller scale, but. I mean, I'm telling you right now, freaking Elon Musk could probably buy.

• 54:48Speaker 06

  Nah, Elon Musk is apparently a pretty solid dude, but like, you know, someone could buy a autonomous army and wage war without, yeah, no approval from anyone. No. Fucking programming, go. That's, that's crazy. It's absolutely crazy to me.

• 55:09Speaker 06

  And um. That's what scares me about the future is the ability to. The further you are away from the destruction, the easier it is to do.

• 55:25Speaker 06

  You know, the difference between me shooting you at 200 yards and me shooting you at two yards. It's a fundamental difference in my perspective of violence. Yeah. And my perspective of killing.

• 55:39Speaker 06

  And the further we get away from the effect, the further the cause gets away from the effect.

• 55:47Speaker 06

  There's just a lot of risk in that. The easier it is to do. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. No emotional attachment, nothing? Nope.

• 55:58Speaker 06

  And, you know.

• 56:02Speaker 06

  What if you didn't even, I mean, this is like, I like sci-fi. I think of movie stories, but. What if you? What if you didn't even know what you're doing was real?

• 56:17Speaker 06

  I mean, dude, they can make it app. It's a game. It's a drone game. You drop a bomb on somebody and it could be controlling a real drone. Like, you don't even.

• 56:26Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 56:26Speaker 06

  I, uh, it's extreme, but I'm just saying, like.

• 56:29Shawn Ryan?

  It's not that extreme.

• 56:31Speaker 06

  It's crazy.

• 56:32Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, if it's not up close and personal, then there's no emotional attachment. And it really, you know,

• 56:40Shawn Ryan?

  you don't see it.

• 56:41Speaker 06

  Yeah. Yep.

• 56:43Shawn Ryan?

  You know, and, and, and,

• 56:46Shawn Ryan?

  you know, I think that's something, there's no connection either to, to, to, to friendlies.

• 56:53Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 56:54Shawn Ryan?

  You know, so when we started making the switch from Spectre, Apaches, fast movers, A10s, you know, to drones.

• 57:07Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 57:07Shawn Ryan?

  I don't know about you guys, but we used to go meet all the pilots. Everything. Every, sounds weird, but is one big happy family, right? Or one big family. And now that, you don't meet them. At least we didn't, you know, when, when that started happening, we didn't, it's not like you go meet the drone pilots who are flying out of who knows where, Nevada or wherever.

• 57:32Speaker 06

  It used to be Vegas, yeah.

• 57:33Shawn Ryan?

  You know, now,

• 57:36Shawn Ryan?

  which means if you're in some shit on the ground, they don't know who the fuck you are. There's no emotional attachment.

• 57:43Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 57:43Shawn Ryan?

  It's not, shit, I just, rolled bread with those gents right before this operation. I gotta get in there and fucking save them.

• 57:49Speaker 06

  Or even a, a person in an A10 that can see the ground, you know, or, or whatever, uh, uh, CAS or, you know, but can like see the people on the ground, you know? Um, yeah, I mean, it's, you know, it's, it's, everything's heading in a direction that is unprecedented, you know?

• 58:09Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Well, let's take a quick break and then when we come back, we'll get into civilian.

• 58:16Speaker 06

  Alright.

• 58:16Shawn Ryan?

  Transition.

• 58:17Speaker 06

  Sounds good.

• 58:18Shawn Ryan?

  Perfect.

• 58:22Speaker 01

  Mr. President, my company told me of the explosion on our rig.

• 58:25Speaker 02

  On October 2nd.

• 58:26Speaker 01

  Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

• 58:31Speaker 02

  Tom Cruise is.

• 58:32Speaker 03

  Digger got us into this mess. And Digger's gonna dig us up.

• 58:36Speaker 02

  From the director of Birdman and The Ravenette.

• 58:38Speaker 04

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You're stalled, you're freezing there, that's what.

• 58:43Speaker 02

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 58:46Speaker 04

  I'm not the first then.

• 58:47Speaker 02

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a middle without parent.

• 59:01Speaker 00

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, theHouseMajorityPac.com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 59:36Shawn Ryan?

  All right, Tyler, we're back from the break. We're gonna get into civilian transition and all the glorious shit that happens during that time.

• 59:46Speaker 06

  During the break, what did we sell? Toothpaste?

• 59:49Shawn Ryan?

  What's that?

• 59:50Speaker 06

  What did we sell during the break?

• 59:51Shawn Ryan?

  Toothpaste. I don't know what we're selling now. Probably gum.

• 59:53Speaker 06

  Probably pharmaceuticals, more than likely.

• 59:55Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, no kidding.

• 59:56Speaker 06

  Have you ever tried Restrepo? Ask your doctor now. Side effects of Restrepo are...

• 1:00:06Speaker 06

  Crazy.

• 1:00:09Speaker 06

  Yeah, all right, let's do it.

• 1:00:13Shawn Ryan?

  So we left off, you're medically retired.

• 1:00:16Speaker 06

  Yep, yep, yep, yep. Yeah, so medically retired.

• 1:00:23Speaker 06

  So the, I mean, just to.

• 1:00:26Shawn Ryan?

  Where's home for you? Where are you going?

• 1:00:28Speaker 06

  I, so this, I gotta go a little bit back to, I was about to say, but I gotta go a little bit back for context.

• 1:00:37Speaker 06

  So.

• 1:00:40Speaker 06

  Uh, six inch, six inch, six inches, but it's thick.

• 1:00:49Speaker 06

  Six months before I got hurt, I started dating this girl. Okay, that girl.

• 1:00:58Speaker 06

  Uh, would be the one that when I mentioned the two girls, two exes that cheated on me. Uh, she was the first of that. You know, to tie them together.

• 1:01:11Speaker 06

  That the one that I just recently had dinner with, you know, a couple, I don't know, six months ago, whatever.

• 1:01:20Speaker 06

  So I, uh.

• 1:01:24Speaker 06

  So her and I were together, um, I got blown up. And she was living in Portland and I was living in, uh, well, obviously North Carolina. And.

• 1:01:37Speaker 06

  I didn't know where I like, I mean, I was from California. I, looking back, this is funny because of how California is now, but even then I was like, I, I don't know. I'm not going back to California. Government's crazy there. Shit. Little did I know.

• 1:01:56Speaker 06

  Little did I know what would happen. Um, so. You know, we just, I forget how we came up with it, to be honest with you, but.

• 1:02:08Speaker 06

  We ended up just choosing Vegas.

• 1:02:13Speaker 06

  Um, she got a job there doing. Entertaining and um. Well, I mean, I was still going through surgeries and stuff like that uh for for a couple of years. And um and then when I I stopped, I tried to do the training thing there and then I did also the bodyguarding thing. Based out of there.

• 1:02:38Speaker 06

  So yeah, I lived in Vegas and and now looking back at it, you know, why did I? Why did I choose Vegas? A bunch of reasons.

• 1:02:50Speaker 06

  One, I think, you know, it's a place where no one's from. Most people move there from somewhere else. Do their thing and then leave. You know, it's a very transient city for people that are kind of unsure, maybe of their direction. And I think that was me. Or I don't think I know.

• 1:03:13Speaker 06

  But yeah, yeah, so we we moved together to Vegas and um.

• 1:03:20Speaker 06

  You know.

• 1:03:24Speaker 06

  Three.

• 1:03:28Speaker 06

  Maybe two years more of surgery at that point ish.

• 1:03:35Speaker 06

  And then, once the surgeries were over.

• 1:03:40Speaker 06

  You know, I had.

• 1:03:43Speaker 06

  That that was about when, you know, like when the surgeries were happening, I kind of had a.

• 1:03:50Speaker 06

  You know, it sucks, but.

• 1:03:55Speaker 06

  You're in a transition. You know, you're not like, okay, what's the next step? Like, you know, you got another surgery in four months, you know, so it's it's easy to kind of like. Stay in that mode. When the surgeries were done, my last surgery was at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale. I'm actually the first active duty military person ever to get surgery at the Mayo Clinic. Randomly.

• 1:04:19Speaker 06

  And which is amazing, amazing hospital.

• 1:04:25Speaker 06

  And so, you know, they, which actually I'll say what they told me when I went there. This was awesome. So I go to Mayo Clinic, which for those in the audience that don't know, the Mayo Clinic is like the tier one of hospitals. They're the hospital that does stuff that then the other hospitals learn from. Like they are the top hospital. So I go to the hospital or go to Mayo, this is, I didn't even know the number of surgery this was. And they evaluate me. So once the military was done with me, I was sent to Mayo

• 1:05:00Speaker 06

  to see if there's anything they could do. So I go there, Mayo looks at me and goes,

• 1:05:07Speaker 06

  oh, I did.

• 1:05:10Speaker 06

  I don't understand.

• 1:05:14Speaker 06

  Um, yeah, yeah, we can, you know, we can do this surgery. I mean, if you would have came here, you'd have like first, you'd have like 40% more function.

• 1:05:28Speaker 06

  Damn. I'm like, awesome. Thanks for telling me, you son of a bitch. Like, not exactly shocked. But, um, so anyways, they, um, when that was over with, you know, it was like two years, you know, post.

• 1:05:51Speaker 06

  That's when the, that's when the identity crisis stuff I spoke about earlier really started. You know, being in the transition phase of the surgeries wasn't really, you know, it was, it was when everything was over with and it's not going to get any better. This is it. Like, you're here.

• 1:06:14Speaker 06

  And also dude, you know, no one told me, like, I'd never done a street drug in my life. I'd never done any drugs in my life. I had never even smoked pot when I joined the military.

• 1:06:29Speaker 06

  And no one told me that the pain medication was basically heroin.

• 1:06:35Speaker 06

  No one mentioned that little nugget. I didn't know.

• 1:06:43Speaker 06

  So it was a nice bonus.

• 1:06:49Speaker 06

  But, I mean,

• 1:06:53Speaker 06

  I, I was absolutely, absolutely without question, I didn't officially, but I was definitely clinically depressed. No doubt, no doubt in my mind.

• 1:07:05Speaker 06

  The question I kept asking myself over and over and over and over again was,

• 1:07:10Speaker 06

  why can't I get over this? What's wrong with me? Why can't I overcome this? Like, you know, like, I've always been able to overcome this. Why can't I, you know, it's like, and to me, in hindsight, that's all, I just, chemically, I was, I was myself.

• 1:07:34Speaker 06

  And I was definitely clinically depressed, no doubt about it. And also taking opiates at the time for, you know, every surgery, I would be on, you know, medication in the hospital, get out of the hospital, be on opiates, get off opiates, maybe have a month off them, another surgery, and that cycle repeated for a couple of years.

• 1:07:59Speaker 06

  Without really knowing that, what they were. Yeah.

• 1:08:05Speaker 06

  You know, so I was still using them at this time, you know, like, for pain, but again, and they come with a, a big downside that I wasn't really aware of.

• 1:08:18Speaker 06

  Because they definitely affect your mood, no question about it. So,

• 1:08:23Speaker 06

  I was clinically depressed, and actually, again, I don't mind saying this because I talked to her about it not too long ago.

• 1:08:30Speaker 06

  But, you know,

• 1:08:35Speaker 06

  I probably was clinically depressed for two, three years.

• 1:08:40Speaker 06

  Just, nah, maybe not three, probably two. It's just.

• 1:08:48Speaker 06

  I was never suicidal, like I was, that's just not me.

• 1:08:54Speaker 06

  But I was definitely avoiding life. You know, um, when I went out with my girlfriend and her girlfriends. Like,

• 1:09:08Speaker 06

  dude, I'd get fucking hammered like.

• 1:09:14Speaker 06

  True story on New Year's in Vegas, I threw up at Paris Hilton's table. True story.

• 1:09:25Speaker 06

  That'll get you an extra bag of gummy bears.

• 1:09:29Speaker 06

  I was also there bodyguarding. And another ranger told Paris to shut her fucking sea mouth.

• 1:09:44Speaker 06

  It's one of my better days.

• 1:09:47Speaker 06

  No, it was.

• 1:09:50Speaker 06

  I got some stories from bodyguarding.

• 1:09:55Speaker 06

  Oh, there's only one reason he got away with it, but um. He got away with it? Yes.

• 1:10:03Speaker 06

  For one reason.

• 1:10:05Speaker 06

  Well, I'll tell you, it's not, I mean.

• 1:10:08Speaker 06

  The owner, we were guarding the owner of the nightclub. Who was a multi billionaire.

• 1:10:15Speaker 06

  We were in his nightclub. She was a guest of his. He had too much to drink and was about to faint. And we're like, can you please get up? Cause we gotta sit him down. And she's like, you can't, you know.

• 1:10:34Speaker 06

  Basically, we're like, move or we're moving you. Like, I don't give a fuck who you are. Like, this is the client. He paid you to be here and he's about to pass out. We're gonna, you know what I mean? And, and then she started melting off to him and he said that. But because of the situation and who he was and, you know, like, he got away with it, but.

• 1:10:54Speaker 06

  Somebody probably got fired over it, but, but it wasn't him.

• 1:10:59Speaker 06

  Anyways, I got some crazy.

• 1:11:06Speaker 06

  Yeah, clinically depressed. So, um, yeah, I got and get just fucking drunk as shit. I mean, go get a, you know, dad partied pretty much eh, meh, for during that time during the clinical depression. I was probably going out with my girlfriend and her friends, her entertainer friends for probably four, four to five nights a week.

• 1:11:30Shawn Ryan?

  How long? What time you coming home?

• 1:11:32Speaker 06

  I would bring my sunglasses to the club.

• 1:11:36Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 1:11:37Speaker 06

  It's the way to go in Vegas. And I mean, dude, we would, you know, get a table and I mean, dude, I would, I would drink till I passed out, you know, um.

• 1:11:53Speaker 06

  I've never been a heavy, you know, I didn't have my first drink until I got back from Afghanistan. Cause my dad was an alcoholic. I hated alcohol, but they talked me into it. So I was like, all right. Then, once that can of worms was opened, like, I don't have the ability to not be an alcoholic.

• 1:12:09Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:12:10Speaker 06

  Cause what I'm searching for is not, I mean, this is logical to me too, though, like, why would you drink unless the intent was to get drunk? It's literally poison.

• 1:12:25Speaker 06

  Would taste good? No, if I'm gonna drink, I want to get fucked up. So, uh,

• 1:12:33Speaker 06

  you know, I would, I was,

• 1:12:38Speaker 06

  I was always searching for oblivion, you know, just the nothingness.

• 1:12:44Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:12:45Speaker 06

  You know, and, um, yeah, so I, I drank, you know, like in hindsight, it was absolutely an alcoholic at that time.

• 1:12:54Speaker 06

  But because it was social, I'd been, it's not like I was drinking at home, you know? But when we went out and got a table and bottles, yeah, dude, I was drinking till I was couldn't drink anymore.

• 1:13:07Speaker 06

  But it also, when everyone else is kind of doing, I mean, not as extreme as being, I, I went big. But everyone's drinking, you know, you, you just don't see it for what it is. Wasn't until years later that I figured out, oh shit, I was an alcoholic during that time and I was taking pain meds with it.

• 1:13:24Speaker 06

  Um.

• 1:13:27Speaker 06

  So that's when I started figuring out like, all right, like.

• 1:13:32Speaker 06

  You know, I'm not.

• 1:13:35Speaker 06

  I'm having issues, you know, something's not right. And. It was at the time where. Only time actually in my life that I went to the VA. And. I was like, hey, I'm having some. Mental health, you know, concerns, you know, whatever I said. Um. And they gave me, I don't remember, but it was at least five prescriptions. At least. One of them made me pretty much incapable of doing anything. Seracil. It's like a nuclear bomb. Um. And then I went and saw their therapist.

• 1:14:19Speaker 06

  And then I got annoyed with their therapist and then I heard my own therapist and. Everyone kept saying the same thing. You have PTSD, you have PTSD.

• 1:14:30Speaker 06

  And. I'm like, okay, like, so I read books and then after reading the books, I would. You know, ask them what I already knew, but you know, what's, what's PTSD? Okay, that's, that's not what I'm talking about. Like, I'm talking about this. You guys are talking about this. But you keep saying, I'm saying this, you're saying PTSD is this, but you're saying this is PTSD too. It's not.

• 1:14:59Speaker 06

  No, I mean, it's part of PTSD. My God.

• 1:15:03Speaker 06

  Why do I have PTSD? Like, well, you know, you know, your, your experience is in combat, but I'm like, oh, okay. Uh, so PTSD is a combat thing. No. Oh, well, that, I thought that's where you were going. Okay, so PTSD is like a military veteran thing. Uh, no.

• 1:15:27Speaker 06

  Again, I'm kind of confused. So it's not a combat thing. It's not a veteran military thing. Well, who can have PTSD? Oh, anyone?

• 1:15:39Speaker 06

  Anyone? For what? Ah, pretty much anything.

• 1:15:48Speaker 06

  Um.

• 1:15:51Speaker 06

  I didn't go to college, so excuse me. Um, but.

• 1:15:55Shawn Ryan?

  Another outstanding VA doctor.

• 1:15:59Speaker 06

  No, this is actually a civilian one.

• 1:16:01Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, really?

• 1:16:01Speaker 06

  Yeah, but I'm like, I didn't go to college. I don't have a masters or definitely have a doctorate.

• 1:16:08Speaker 06

  And not English lit major or an English major, but aren't words supposed to mean something specific? Call me crazy, but a chair doesn't mean forty things. It means fucking chair. You can have forty different, you know, a million types of chairs, but they're all chairs. Like, one phrase can't mean everything. Can't mean everything and it can't mean everyone.

• 1:16:33Speaker 06

  And that's when I started searching for my own answers. Cause.

• 1:16:39Speaker 06

  If something means everything to everyone, then it means fucking nothing. It's catch all phrase. Now I know what it really is.

• 1:16:49Speaker 06

  Do you know what it really is?

• 1:16:53Shawn Ryan?

  PTSD?

• 1:16:55Speaker 06

  In the, in, in the. Healthcare sense.

• 1:17:00Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, I think it's a blanket diagnosis.

• 1:17:04Speaker 06

  It's a billing code. It's a blanket diagnosis for a specific mental health. It's in the DSM so they can put something that they don't know where else to put it under that. What it is.

• 1:17:20Speaker 06

  I'm saying that because if anyone's out there and keeps hearing PTSD and it. Doesn't fit you. Or it's, you know, people keep telling you it's.

• 1:17:32Speaker 06

  At the end of the day, if you want to fix yourself. You have to fix yourself. I don't give a fuck who it is. VA civilian. You are your own specialist. You are your own expert. And. I started getting better. Once I started doing my own research and.

• 1:17:57Speaker 06

  Researching shit myself and looking things up and learning and understanding I had become an expert to fix myself. Not that I still don't have a million things to learn.

• 1:18:09Speaker 06

  But I learned enough to realize that, you know, PTSD as an example, let's say you have it, write down the checklist.

• 1:18:20Speaker 06

  Is that it?

• 1:18:23Speaker 06

  Is that the only problem with you?

• 1:18:26Speaker 06

  I can answer that right now. Fuck, no, it isn't. And I'll say that to anyone to their face. No, it isn't.

• 1:18:36Speaker 06

  And the reason I know that is there's no fucking way that you don't have issues from your childhood

• 1:18:43Speaker 06

  that are unresolved,

• 1:18:46Speaker 06

  that contribute to issues in adult. Okay, on top of that, like every time,

• 1:18:56Speaker 06

  here's a good question. How do veterans who don't serve combat have PTSD?

• 1:19:05Shawn Ryan?

  Well, we kind of talked about this earlier. It's all relative.

• 1:19:10Speaker 06

  It's all relative, but, but it well, it goes back to it's because they're putting what they don't know where to put it under PTSD.

• 1:19:21Speaker 06

  What I personally think every vet suffers from, actually, I don't think, I know it's, it's not debatable. It's a fact. What do we all suffer from? Loss.

• 1:19:33Speaker 06

  You suffer loss the day you get out. The day you go from active to veteran, that day, you suffer loss. Loss of job, literally. Loss of friends. It's not gonna be the same. Loss of, hmm, identity?

• 1:19:58Speaker 06

  You have all these losses. And if you look at the symptoms of the seven steps of grieving,

• 1:20:09Speaker 06

  for most people, that's more accurate than PTSD.

• 1:20:14Speaker 06

  It's loss. Now, another one, a term that I hate. Alright, you guys need to reintegrate, so let's talk about reintegration.

• 1:20:26Speaker 06

  I don't need to fucking reintegrate.

• 1:20:29Speaker 06

  For two reasons.

• 1:20:31Speaker 06

  One. Would you say at eighteen, you're integrated in society?

• 1:20:38Shawn Ryan?

  No.

• 1:20:39Speaker 06

  No. So are you reintegrating if you joined at eighteen? Or are you integrating?

• 1:20:47Shawn Ryan?

  It's a damn good point.

• 1:20:48Speaker 06

  You've never been in society. I mean, real society, never been in the real world. You're in school.

• 1:20:55Speaker 06

  So everyone's talking about reintegration as if we know what it was like to be integrated and we just gotta remember, it's like riding a bike. Fuck you.

• 1:21:08Speaker 06

  Never been there. I don't know what it's like. Not only that, but yeah, you need to, you know, reintegrate or integrate. Well,

• 1:21:21Speaker 06

  in a way, like,

• 1:21:26Speaker 06

  how many people

• 1:21:29Speaker 06

  are reintegrating, integrating, whatever,

• 1:21:33Speaker 06

  and miserable?

• 1:21:36Shawn Ryan?

  Pretty much everybody.

• 1:21:37Speaker 06

  And the reason some people are miserable, if you really look at it, is because of that integration. And what I mean by that is

• 1:21:48Speaker 06

  if, if you are you and I say, you need to go into this environment where everyone is different than you and you need to be like them.

• 1:22:01Speaker 06

  But you're not.

• 1:22:06Speaker 06

  You're gonna be fucking miserable. Because you're trying to pretend to be something you're not.

• 1:22:11Shawn Ryan?

  You think this is military wide? Or do you think this is soft, specific? Or combat, MLS specific?

• 1:22:19Speaker 06

  I think it's military wide.

• 1:22:21Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I mean, I do, I

• 1:22:24Speaker 06

  here's why, though.

• 1:22:28Speaker 06

  Reason is, I believe that

• 1:22:34Speaker 06

  I believe that many

• 1:22:39Speaker 06

  people join.

• 1:22:45Speaker 06

  I believe that many people join to

• 1:22:51Speaker 06

  like in hindsight.

• 1:22:56Speaker 06

  I joined because I

• 1:23:01Speaker 06

  wanted to be self-destructive for a cause.

• 1:23:07Speaker 06

  Because that gave me worth.

• 1:23:11Speaker 06

  I'm not worth anything on my own, but if I join this cause and I sacrifice myself for a greater good, then I have worth and not redemption. That's why I join.

• 1:23:30Speaker 06

  I mean, it took me a long time to figure that out, but I think it's more common than people think they really thought about it. And where I'm going with that is the identity thing, the reason that the identity thing I think is military wide is

• 1:23:48Speaker 06

  I would argue most people.

• 1:23:53Speaker 06

  Most people, like I said, I think you know who you are as a kid and then shit gets in your way.

• 1:23:58Speaker 06

  So then around that time, I mean, think about how you were or how most people are at 18.

• 1:24:05Speaker 06

  Pretty unsure of who you are in the world.

• 1:24:08Speaker 06

  So whether you're unsure, I would argue that most people don't really have a solid identity at 18. On top of that, let's just say you did solid identity. In either case, you join the military and their entire process is to strip it and give you a new one.

• 1:24:28Speaker 06

  So if you had one, it's going to get taken away and a new one's going to be given to you. And if you didn't have one, great, we got one for you.

• 1:24:37Speaker 06

  And what is your identity in the military? Your job.

• 1:24:41Speaker 06

  Your identity and your job are the same thing.

• 1:24:45Speaker 06

  So when you get out, when you lose the job,

• 1:24:51Speaker 06

  that's the identity. Why do you think people identify as veterans?

• 1:24:58Shawn Ryan?

  I think there's multiple reasons.

• 1:24:59Speaker 06

  I mean, there's multiple reasons, but a lot of people like if you're now doing this job, but you know, but you're saying you're a veteran. It's to me, you you you're still in that identity of being in.

• 1:25:18Speaker 06

  You may be out, but you're still in in your head. You haven't really gotten out. Any, you know, that that's not a blanket statement, exceptions to everything, but.

• 1:25:32Speaker 06

  You know, that veteran is a a term representing something done in the past. By definition, and.

• 1:25:42Speaker 06

  But when you're your job.

• 1:25:46Speaker 06

  You're and look, I'm not saying I don't think you could do the job without it being your identity. I think that's what it has to be, but you're automatically or not you, but that system is absolutely setting up. Um, it's giving you an identity and then stripping it.

• 1:26:05Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, I I'd I'd agree with you. I also, I mean, it's different. I think I don't think.

• 1:26:15Shawn Ryan?

  I'm not looking to debate here, you know, and I'm but, you know, if you take a guy. Like you or I. It was they ripped you out of society. You're with. I can't speak for your experience. From my experience, I'm I'm I'm with what 16 people in a in a SEAL platoon. You know, at that at that timeframe that I was in. My whole fucking year is with those 16.

• 1:26:45Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:26:46Shawn Ryan?

  Not my whole year, my whole site, my whole two year cycle. And then if I do another cycle.

• 1:26:52Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:26:52Shawn Ryan?

  That's four years.

• 1:26:53Speaker 06

  Yeah, the whole.

• 1:26:53Shawn Ryan?

  You know, and so your identity is shooting, blowing shit up, going to war, getting in fucking bar fights. I mean, it's that's you're a warrior. That that doesn't that is not military wide. A lot of military people come home to their families. They have regular jobs. They're in the medical field. They have camaraderie. They. You know, they never deploy. They have, you know, and and so.

• 1:27:18Speaker 06

  I I should I should have been specific.

• 1:27:22Speaker 06

  When I said military wide, what I actually what I what I heard or what I was saying in my head was service wide. I I agree. It's not every job, every MOS, but but I would say there's groups in every service that you know what I mean?

• 1:27:41Shawn Ryan?

  Yes, they when you're in a soft unit, you're ripped from everything you know, willing, you know, willingly.

• 1:27:47Speaker 06

  I I would say probably a blanket statement could be definitely all combat arms. Definitely all combat arms and others that, you know, I mean, we won't have to talk about every job, but definitely all combat arms.

• 1:28:02Shawn Ryan?

  That's I'm not. That's not a hit on.

• 1:28:04Speaker 06

  Oh, no, no, no, no, I know.

• 1:28:05Shawn Ryan?

  I just want to make that clear.

• 1:28:06Speaker 06

  If you joined, like, I know somebody that joined, uh, joined for four years. Um, joined for four years, wanted to be an X-ray tech, joined for four years, uh, went to radar tech military school, then worked in a hospital for the remaining, you know, two and a half, three years, whatever it was, then got a shitload of money for college.

• 1:28:30Speaker 06

  Now she's a radar tech or a X-ray tech and has been because she came out with the schooling and experience and then she got more college like.

• 1:28:42Speaker 06

  We didn't use the system, right? But you can and the people that do freaking hats off to you because, um, you know, it it definitely.

• 1:28:57Speaker 06

  You know, I think, you know, good on them, the people that that don't freaking commit to that level of, well, again, destruction, you know, the people that are using it, you know, computer skills, you know, I mean, we're the ones that, you know, got jobs that translate to nothing.

• 1:29:17Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:18Speaker 06

  I remember the the ACAP thing when I was in there and they're like.

• 1:29:21Shawn Ryan?

  We're the ones that got jobs that translate to nothing.

• 1:29:24Speaker 06

  No, I do. I remember literally.

• 1:29:26Shawn Ryan?

  It's the truth.

• 1:29:26Speaker 06

  It is the truth. I remember being in the in the ACAP thing and and trying to do the resume, that whole thing and.

• 1:29:34Speaker 06

  And I was trying to, and I was, so when I A-CAP from the unit even, you still have to go to the big army for like the A-CAP.

• 1:29:41Shawn Ryan?

  What is A-CAP?

• 1:29:43Speaker 06

  Fuck, I don't even know what it stands for. It is like, basically it means like it's a little month-long school or whatever before you get out to prepare you for the real world.

• 1:29:51Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:29:52Speaker 06

  It doesn't, but they make you make a resume and I'm like, I was talking to the guy and like, uh, did this, I did this and he's just like.

• 1:29:59Shawn Ryan?

  You're like, who the fuck am I gonna turn this into?

• 1:30:01Speaker 06

  Yeah, he, well, he's like, no, you just have to take, well, this is what he tells me. No, you just have to take your military skills and then just reword them into something civilian.

• 1:30:10Speaker 06

  And I was like, all right, uh, demo.

• 1:30:14Speaker 06

  And he's like,

• 1:30:17Speaker 06

  uh, let me come over there and help you, you know? And I think everything on my resume just turned into like leadership, you know, there was no, that was it.

• 1:30:28Speaker 06

  But yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, definitely not. I think every service has, you know, components of that.

• 1:30:35Speaker 06

  Except Space Force.

• 1:30:38Speaker 06

  They're too young to have any, uh, yeah, identity issues.

• 1:30:44Speaker 06

  But, you know, it's one of those things where it just, it took me, it took me years to figure out what my, even what my problems were, you know? And, and I think-

• 1:30:57Shawn Ryan?

  This is all self-research?

• 1:31:00Speaker 06

  Um, I, i- if there's anything that I

• 1:31:05Speaker 06

  am good at or have a skill at, it's, you know,

• 1:31:13Speaker 06

  I can, I'm pretty self-aware.

• 1:31:18Speaker 06

  Probably, I don't know why, I don't know what that's based on, but I've always been pretty self-aware.

• 1:31:27Speaker 06

  And so I would just constantly, you know, that, so that you saw the documentary or do you know about it?

• 1:31:34Shawn Ryan?

  I know about it.

• 1:31:34Speaker 06

  You know about it. Okay. So in the documentary, um, there is, uh, video diary footage that I filmed.

• 1:31:42Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, really?

• 1:31:43Speaker 06

  And, and what I was doing, I, there was a reason for it and the reason was,

• 1:31:52Speaker 06

  I so after that last experience with the therapist, I was like, fuck therapist like they suck like and also at this time, by the way, I thought having a college degree meant you were smart. What did I know, you know, like

• 1:32:10Speaker 06

  and that they knew more than me, just like you have a degree in in in this, so you know more than me. Not necessarily. And so I was like, I'm done with therapist.

• 1:32:23Speaker 06

  All they do is listen to what I say.

• 1:32:26Speaker 06

  And tell me shit. And then I come to my own conclusions. And I'm paying for it. Fuck that. So what I started doing was I would film myself every day.

• 1:32:39Speaker 06

  I would do a video diary. And I would talk about how I was feeling, issues, whatever. And then I would go back later.

• 1:32:53Speaker 06

  Watch it and then try and self assess. And detached from that immediate moment and then try and watch it like I was a therapist watching someone else. And then that's that's how I would figure out patterns and stuff that I felt were, oh, I'm seeing this is this is reoccurring.

• 1:33:12Shawn Ryan?

  I've actually thought about doing that, believe it or not. How would you start it?

• 1:33:18Speaker 06

  Hey Tyler, it's you again. No, I'm sorry.

• 1:33:25Speaker 06

  I joke.

• 1:33:25Shawn Ryan?

  Seriously, though, cuz

• 1:33:28Speaker 06

  I will actually

• 1:33:28Shawn Ryan?

  I'll procrastinate it. I I I haven't done it, but I've wanted to do it.

• 1:33:33Speaker 06

  No format, turn on one of these things and just I'm I'm not joking, actually, when I say, hey, Tyler, it's you again, but you already know that, like, I would start with a joke. That's just me. And then when I watch it later, obviously, I thought I was hilarious, but

• 1:33:47Shawn Ryan?

  How long would these be?

• 1:33:50Speaker 06

  Depends on how long I felt like talking, you know, till I just, it could be two minutes. If it was something small, it could be 20 minutes. I don't know what the longest one was, but it was just as long as I felt like I had something to say.

• 1:34:04Shawn Ryan?

  Would you think about what you're gonna say before you turn the camera on? You would literally just set the camera down and talk into the camera?

• 1:34:10Speaker 06

  Yep.

• 1:34:11Shawn Ryan?

  For X amount of time?

• 1:34:13Speaker 06

  Yep.

• 1:34:13Shawn Ryan?

  What would wrap it up?

• 1:34:15Speaker 06

  Just when I felt like.

• 1:34:18Shawn Ryan?

  You got it out?

• 1:34:18Speaker 06

  I felt like, when I felt like I had nothing more to contribute. Yeah, I'd shut it off. Or, I mean, not contribute, but just get out, I guess, like you said, like. Okay, like, it's out. Then, then I'd stop it, yeah. Uh, I'm sure the longest one was probably a fucking hour, but.

• 1:34:38Speaker 06

  But it's, um. It's just like anything, you know? Those videos, dude, when they.

• 1:34:48Speaker 06

  You know, we filmed the documentary for a year and a half. And the director was like, man, because he was editing, he's like.

• 1:35:00Speaker 06

  You know, I'm happy with what we're, you know, the message and everything, I just, there's so many things you say, I wish we could go back to you during that time. Post-injury. And I was like.

• 1:35:14Speaker 06

  Ah, we can. And he's like, what? I didn't tell him. I mean, I filmed it for me, I.

• 1:35:20Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit, they didn't even know you were doing this?

• 1:35:23Speaker 06

  No idea. I literally, like, no idea.

• 1:35:26Shawn Ryan?

  How long have you been doing this?

• 1:35:27Speaker 06

  Uh, well, I, now I do it much less frequently, but at the time I was doing it every day.

• 1:35:32Shawn Ryan?

  How many, how many?

• 1:35:35Speaker 06

  I was, I mean, there's like a thousand-ish.

• 1:35:39Shawn Ryan?

  Do you? How do you store them?

• 1:35:42Speaker 06

  Uh, on, on external hard drive.

• 1:35:45Shawn Ryan?

  Do you date them?

• 1:35:46Speaker 06

  Uh, yeah, yeah, the.

• 1:35:51Speaker 06

  When I had to go through them all to give to the documentary, I did it much better. There was no organization before that, and it took a fucking long time to go through, but, um.

• 1:36:04Speaker 06

  I mean, there's some stuff on there that I wouldn't even watch now, you know? Just fucking, just broken. Just fundamentally broken.

• 1:36:18Speaker 06

  And

• 1:36:22Speaker 06

  it's just sad. It's like watching it's you, but it's not you, you know? But yeah, I was like, oh, I got these videos that I was doing and they're like, are you serious? I'm like, yeah, like,

• 1:36:39Speaker 06

  would you give them to us? It's like, sure. And you know what the crazy thing is? This is crazy. When I had to watch them all before I gave them, because I had to make sure there's nothing like that I shouldn't put out on there. And

• 1:36:53Speaker 06

  You watched all those? Yeah. Over again? Yeah. Yeah, it was. Yeah, it was not a fun process. Um, at that time and

• 1:37:05Speaker 06

  I mean, I remembered a lot of shit that I I mean, completely forgot about, but um,

• 1:37:14Speaker 06

  but I would be watching and I'd be like, oh, man. This piece, this is important.

• 1:37:22Speaker 06

  And I like logged all the important stuff, basically. Anything that was, you know, it had to have a certain, it had to have like me transitioning, you know, it couldn't be about, you know, me getting in an argument with my brother, you know, as an example, not that that happened, but you know what I mean? It had to be relative. So I had to go through and make like timestamps of all the relevant shit. And then pull the footage and then I sent it. Um, but

• 1:37:50Speaker 06

  the stuff that I was like, this is by far gonna be in it. This is really important. This is good shit.

• 1:37:59Speaker 06

  Not in the movie. Why not?

• 1:38:03Speaker 06

  So stuff that I was like, this is not important at all, but you know, it's, it is relative to the documentary. So I'll include it, but it's not gonna make it. That's all in the movie. And it taught me something.

• 1:38:21Speaker 06

  What you think is interesting about your story is not what other people will think is interesting. What you think is uninteresting about your personal story is what others will be interested in.

• 1:38:36Speaker 06

  Dude, there's moments, there's like a moment in the documentary that's nothing to me. I shouldn't say nothing, but it just, it wasn't meaningful. Dude, I've had hundreds of people tell me that that really fucking affected them.

• 1:38:51Shawn Ryan?

  What was it?

• 1:38:54Speaker 06

  So I'm, I'm on the computer, I'm filming, oh, that's what happened, okay. I'm, I'm doing, I'm doing a diary and I, I don't, I don't remember what I'm talking about, but I'm talking about how fucked up I am.

• 1:39:13Speaker 01

  Mr. President, my company informed me of the explosion on our rig on October 2nd. Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all keep the blame on me. Tom Cruise is.

• 1:39:24Speaker 03

  Digger got us into this mess and Digger's gonna dig us out.

• 1:39:28Speaker 02

  From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 1:39:30Speaker 04

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You're stalled, you're freezing there, that's what.

• 1:39:34Speaker 02

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 1:39:37Speaker 04

  I'm not the first then.

• 1:39:39Speaker 02

  Digger, see the trailer online, only in theaters October 2nd, rated R, under 17, not a minute without parent.

• 1:39:46Speaker 07

  The arm, still got the,

• 1:39:51Speaker 07

  the lobster claw, that's the extent of it.

• 1:39:58Speaker 07

  Arm's looking decent.

• 1:40:04Speaker 07

  Want to see the guns?

• 1:40:07Speaker 07

  That's what I'm talking about, baby.

• 1:40:11Speaker 07

  So, um, anyways,

• 1:40:17Speaker 07

  you know, fuck those people, seriously, fuck them. Cause here's the thing I realized in LA, nobody gives a fuck what you did in the military in LA. Nobody gives a fuck where you were at, what you did, nobody fucking cares. You know, so I'm just not gonna mention it. I don't wanna fucking talk about it anyways. You know, and I just, I don't wanna fucking talk about it. And nobody gives a shit, doesn't get you anywhere. What you did in the military means fucking nothing in civilian life, nobody gives a fuck.

• 1:40:50Speaker 06

  While I'm filming, my dad calls.

• 1:40:54Speaker 06

  On the phone and I. And I answer, I didn't stop filming, so I answer it. And you don't hear his side, but. You you get what he's saying from me, which is. You know, he's like, oh, and I'm like, no, no, I'm good. I'm I'm fine. No, I'm doing good. You know, it's. Total fucking. I'm I'm fucking just talking about how fucked up I am. And my dad calls me, I'm like, yeah, no, I'm good, Dad. Great. No issues.

• 1:41:23Shawn Ryan?

  Hmm. Yeah, I could definitely see that.

• 1:41:26Speaker 06

  That moment didn't register. I think when I watched it, it just was like. You know, I didn't really.

• 1:41:34Shawn Ryan?

  Is there? Is there anything specific that you wish was in the movie that? Didn't make it?

• 1:41:40Speaker 06

  I mean, I'd have to, I mean, there's several. Diary things that. That, I mean, I don't remember exactly what they were, but it was at least. Twenty things that I were like, that I thought were very important.

• 1:41:52Shawn Ryan?

  Would you want to put it in this episode?

• 1:41:55Speaker 06

  Oh, fuck, I have, um. I'd have to go through and see. If I can find them, sure. I don't care. I'll do it. I just have to see if I can.

• 1:42:09Speaker 06

  If I labeled them well enough to find those things. Does that make sense?

• 1:42:13Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I'll tell you what, if you have one. I'll put it in right now.

• 1:42:19Speaker 06

  What you have one with?

• 1:42:20Shawn Ryan?

  I'll splice it into this episode right now.

• 1:42:22Speaker 06

  Yeah, no, no, I'll, when I get home, I'll, I'll look and see if.

• 1:42:27Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, fire.

• 1:42:27Speaker 06

  I'm pretty sure I have.

• 1:42:31Shawn Ryan?

  I would love to see that.

• 1:42:32Speaker 06

  Because I'm pretty sure I have just the isolated clips of what I pulled for the. So I'll just have to look, or I can get it from Rick, who did the documentary. So. Yeah, dude, watch them all. I like, again.

• 1:42:45Shawn Ryan?

  Whatever you think's relevant, one little.

• 1:42:49Speaker 06

  Yeah. Whatever clip. I mean, but again, quite honestly, I'd rather send you the whole, it's not, I didn't send them that many clips. Dude, I'd send them to you freaking, I don't know what's relevant. I know that. Okay. I don't know what's relevant. Cause again, what I think is like, oh, I just, none of them, none of them I thought were important.

• 1:43:10Speaker 06

  But I'll, I'll see, I'll see what I have. Um, or if I group them well enough by disc, then I might be able to isolate even more. I'm gonna do that now too. I do, it's, it's, um, so I guess where I got the, where I got the idea from is pretty interesting.

• 1:43:27Speaker 06

  There was, I read this story or watched it. I don't remember. Well, I didn't watch it. Uh, it was streaming then it wasn't like a documentary. I read it somewhere, but there was a dude that had multiple personality disorder.

• 1:43:42Speaker 06

  And he'd been diagnosed.

• 1:43:46Speaker 06

  And so he started recording himself. And then watching it later to see, to learn the personalities.

• 1:43:59Speaker 06

  Because they're not aware of each other. So he was trying to learn more about himself. No shit. That's where I got the idea from. Damn. I mean. How the hell did you run into that? I don't have multiple personality disorder, but, um, but I, uh,

• 1:44:19Speaker 06

  well. I don't remember multiple personality disorder plot, to be perfectly frank, I felt like I did.

• 1:44:29Speaker 06

  I felt like I was so different from day to day that that's what, it wasn't just being my own therapist. It was.

• 1:44:39Speaker 06

  Like.

• 1:44:43Speaker 06

  I wanted to see the difference in mood and the difference in temperament and everything.

• 1:44:50Speaker 06

  And dude, when I, when I watched him, I actually forgot why I had done it. Until I had to rewatch him for the documentary. Um, and in the first one, when I rewatched it, I said, like, so I'm sick of fucking therapist. So I'm going to be my own therapist. Like I've straight like say it all out. I'm like, oh, I can thank God I did that. Cause now I, you know, I, I had forgotten.

• 1:45:14Speaker 06

  It's just weird, man. It's weird. But again, it goes back to.

• 1:45:20Speaker 06

  Nothing's easy. Like if you want something done to your standard, not done right to your standard. You gotta do it yourself.

• 1:45:31Speaker 06

  Like with my arm, you know, with anything medical I learned. Dude, you are your own patient advocate. Like no one is going to take better care of you than you. And you just have to accept that and accept that. Everyone has their own lives and they may have jobs to help other people, but ultimately if you want to solve your problem. You're gonna have to do it yourself. I mean, you can get help, but you're the project manager.

• 1:46:01Shawn Ryan?

  Damn dude.

• 1:46:06Shawn Ryan?

  That's a fucking damn good message.

• 1:46:08Speaker 06

  I think that's the problem though, if you think about it.

• 1:46:12Speaker 06

  You know, like.

• 1:46:16Speaker 06

  The VA, it's like.

• 1:46:20Speaker 06

  I mean, you can get help a lot of places.

• 1:46:24Speaker 06

  But you can't, there's, there's no project manager overall. You know what I mean? Like hu- uh, hospitals, if you go see a doctor for whatever, and then you go to another hospital, that doctor doesn't call the other, other doctor and go. Uh, hey, when we did surgery last year, I know, no, no, no, they don't talk.

• 1:46:44Speaker 06

  You need to convey it. Yeah. You know, um, I mean, it's obvious when you say it, but you, you just don't, you don't think about it, you know, when, when you go see a therapist and then you go see another therapist. Okay, maybe they get a page of notes. Yeah. That means nothing. Plus a therapist, all therapist knows is what you tell them. That's it. By definition. Maybe some other notes from a therapist, but that's the other problem is. Let's say you told a therapist and, and nothing against therapist. I have a therapist who's awesome. I love her. She's great.

• 1:47:28Speaker 06

  Um, and I see her, well, I should see her every week. I see her about every two weeks. Um, but she's great. So I'm not against therapy. Um, but so let's just say you had an issue and let's say, you know, let's say it's a battle, just as an example. If there was a video and not like a drone feed, I'm talking like a movie version of your story. Of, of, of a battle. Told in depth in real time. Not in cuts, in real time.

• 1:48:10Speaker 06

  Let's say the battle was seven hours, movie's fucking seven hours. If a therapist watched that. Would they, would, would they know what it was like to be there? No, not even close. Not even close. But they don't see a movie. They get a five minute conversation. Like, they'll never know. And you have to accept that they'll never know. And it's not their fault. They're not capable of knowing. You know? And you're the only person who knows.

• 1:48:54Speaker 06

  You're the only person who will ever know. Except that the people that were there with you and those people's perspective is different. It's not the same.

• 1:49:08Speaker 06

  You know, for me, a big part of

• 1:49:13Speaker 06

  a big part of everything was just

• 1:49:22Speaker 06

  just letting go of control.

• 1:49:27Speaker 06

  I don't control anything, literally anything.

• 1:49:33Speaker 06

  Plus, sometimes therapists love to say, oh, you do control your way and you film toward something. No, you don't.

• 1:49:42Speaker 06

  No, you don't. And I can prove that.

• 1:49:46Speaker 06

  You're with a girl for 20 years, married. And then one day you walk in and I said some things about women. You're a girl, a really hot one. And you're married to this dude for 20 years. And one day you walk in and he's having sex with another girl.

• 1:50:09Speaker 06

  Don't get upset. Control yourself. You can control your mind.

• 1:50:18Speaker 06

  Yeah, we have some control, but to say we have total control is just not true. We don't control our emotions to the degree that people would like to think we do. So all we have a little bit of control over is how we feel about something, how we think about something, how we react to something. It's the only thing we have a little bit of control over. And we don't even have full control over that. So

• 1:50:50Speaker 06

  fuck it, like, what does anything really matter? I mean, honestly, and I'm not saying that in a nihilistic, negative sense. It's just let go, Luke. Quote, Star Wars, one of my favorite movies of all time. It's just the quicker you just let go of trying to control things, the faster you'll be happy because you control nothing, nothing. Everything I tried to control caused misery because it was impossible. And then

• 1:51:25Speaker 06

  Then I was upset that I couldn't control it, didn't turn out the way I wanted. How many plans in your life have you made and then they don't turn out the way you want? Then you get upset as if you ever had control of that in the first place. So for me, you know,

• 1:51:41Speaker 06

  I just have to accept that

• 1:51:46Speaker 06

  with everything, like

• 1:51:50Speaker 06

  I'll never be fixed. And that's okay.

• 1:51:55Speaker 06

  I think searching to be fixed is by definition, uh, you can't go back, you know? Once Pandora is out of the box, it's out.

• 1:52:06Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:06Speaker 06

  It'll never go back in. How many guys, I've heard this so many times and don't get me wrong, I said it too.

• 1:52:14Speaker 06

  If I could just get back to who I used to be.

• 1:52:19Speaker 06

  It's impossible.

• 1:52:21Speaker 06

  Because you've experienced, you will never get back. You cannot go back to ignorance.

• 1:52:27Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:27Speaker 06

  Can't. You know it. You experienced it happen, whatever it is, you'll never go back. The only way forward is to go, you know what?

• 1:52:38Speaker 06

  I'm here now and I'll be comfortable.

• 1:52:41Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:41Speaker 06

  With that.

• 1:52:42Shawn Ryan?

  You cannot relive experiences in life and expect the same type of experience. It just doesn't work like that.

• 1:52:52Speaker 06

  No, and, and that's a critical point that actually when I really

• 1:53:00Speaker 06

  one of the first steps towards me getting better. And don't get me wrong, I'm still a nutcase, no question. Like I have a ton of issues. I like to put that out because like everyone's like, oh, you seem to be doing well. Yeah, cuz I like.

• 1:53:21Speaker 06

  You know, I'm good at juggling chaos, but there's a lot of chaos. But the, one of the first things that really was a big step forward was me

• 1:53:35Speaker 06

  just realizing that I couldn't go back to the old me.

• 1:53:40Speaker 06

  Just letting go of that, the old me. Once I did that, it was like, I'm, I'm not going to try and get back there. I'm just, all right, let's, let's start over. That's when I started to build a new identity and a new, and not build a new identity, but who am I really? Yeah, let's figure it out. Instead of trying to get back to the old one, let's, let's figure out the new one. And you're a hundred people in your lifetime.

• 1:54:10Speaker 06

  You're never the same day to day.

• 1:54:12Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:13Speaker 06

  Every day you're different than the day before.

• 1:54:21Speaker 06

  And again,

• 1:54:25Speaker 06

  I mean, I've been working at this for a decade. I'm at the point where I can talk about it and I can talk about what I've found that worked for me personally. And I can say it and hopefully it can help get people on the same or a track that works for them.

• 1:54:47Speaker 06

  But again, I don't want anyone to like, I'm not fixed and I don't think fixed. And what does it even mean? But I think it's always, it's just like life in general. It's work every day. That's what it is.

• 1:55:05Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:06Speaker 06

  You know, but we like to think that there's an end state where you're done. No, it's.

• 1:55:11Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I think the end state is happiness, right? That would be the, that would be the goal.

• 1:55:26Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:55:34Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's definitely the goal. I think that.

• 1:55:44Speaker 06

  Think I'm still like.

• 1:55:47Speaker 06

  The longer I go, the more I realize. You know, how backed up my browser history is. You know what I mean? Fuck, man. I gotta clear more shit, you know?

• 1:56:04Speaker 06

  Well, it's just, you know, it's fine.

• 1:56:08Speaker 06

  But it goes back to, too, you talk about happiness and happiness can only be ever felt in one moment.

• 1:56:17Speaker 06

  Present. That's it.

• 1:56:20Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:21Speaker 06

  And, you know, for me.

• 1:56:26Speaker 06

  You know?

• 1:56:28Speaker 06

  And I think for a lot of people, especially in the community, like. I know personally that I'm happier climbing the mountain than I am at the top.

• 1:56:41Speaker 06

  It's the journey that's interesting.

• 1:56:42Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:43Speaker 06

  You know?

• 1:56:46Speaker 06

  Once you're up there, there's only one thing to do. Let's go back down. Venture's over.

• 1:56:53Speaker 06

  You've already been that way.

• 1:56:56Shawn Ryan?

  Very true.

• 1:57:00Speaker 06

  The reason I say that is when you said the in-state being happy, I was thinking about it and I'm like.

• 1:57:08Speaker 06

  That's the mountaintop for me.

• 1:57:12Speaker 06

  You know?

• 1:57:14Speaker 06

  I think I like. Working towards it more than. You know, just being zen and being like, I'm happy.

• 1:57:24Shawn Ryan?

  I agree with you. I think that goes back to when we were talking about. Looking for the next best thing.

• 1:57:31Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:57:32Shawn Ryan?

  You know?

• 1:57:32Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:57:33Shawn Ryan?

  Some people do get to the top. And.

• 1:57:37Speaker 06

  Are happy.

• 1:57:37Shawn Ryan?

  They're able to.

• 1:57:39Speaker 06

  Enjoy it.

• 1:57:40Shawn Ryan?

  To stop and, and, and enjoy it and.

• 1:57:47Shawn Ryan?

  Then then there's the other breed where it's what's the next best thing. All right, I get. And you know, I see that with guys in our community. I see that with high successful, highly successful entrepreneurs. You know, when's, when's the last time you celebrated any of your successes?

• 1:58:06Shawn Ryan?

  Ever?

• 1:58:07Speaker 06

  Are you, you're, you're saying I've had some?

• 1:58:11Shawn Ryan?

  Absolutely.

• 1:58:13Speaker 06

  Again, super dry. Sorry. I was a, I was a joke of, no, I haven't celebrated. I didn't know I've had some. Um, no, I, yeah, never, I've never celebrated anything.

• 1:58:26Shawn Ryan?

  Um, yeah.

• 1:58:28Speaker 06

  I remember one moment, one moment.

• 1:58:33Speaker 06

  It was quick, uh, but I remember when I joined the directors guild, cause I used to drive by it. It's on Sunset in LA. I used to drive by it and I'd always be like, one day, one day I'm going to go inside there and I'm going to be a member. And I remember after I signed the paperwork and well, I was there in person and then I left, you know, like sign my official membership and everything. I was riding my motorcycle through the canyon and it just, I was like,

• 1:59:00Speaker 06

  it happened.

• 1:59:03Speaker 06

  You know, and it was, it was a great three to five seconds. It was amazing.

• 1:59:13Speaker 06

  But on that note, I'll, I'll mention this cause

• 1:59:17Speaker 06

  I mean, it's related and that is,

• 1:59:21Speaker 06

  it's crazy how many things too that

• 1:59:26Speaker 06

  there were like dreams as a kid and, and, and

• 1:59:34Speaker 06

  I'll give you, oh, I'll say it as an example, like dreams you want to do as a kid that you, you couldn't do or whatever. And you're like, one day. And then like one day being now you realize like, I could do that. You could do that right now, but you haven't because it just hasn't occurred to you. You know what I mean? Like for me, like as a kid, you know, the rich people, when they went to Disneyland, stayed at the Disneyland hotel.

• 2:00:02Speaker 06

  Obviously that was not my family. I don't even know how they afforded to go to Disneyland, probably.

• 2:00:09Speaker 06

  Sold blood plasma. I don't know. But um, you know, my ex and I were going to Disneyland. Just I'm like.

• 2:00:21Speaker 06

  I'm at Disneyland hotel, like, you know, you know, I was just like, and then I was there and I'm like, fuck, how many other things have I always wanted and I just, I can do, but I and where it comes from now, no, it's just, I never felt worthy of those things. So even though I can do it now,

• 2:00:46Speaker 06

  I just don't feel like I deserve. So again, it's been a process to work towards to to go.

• 2:00:56Speaker 06

  Like I bought a sports car.

• 2:00:59Speaker 06

  What'd you get? Uh BMW I eight. Nice. Dude, it's pretty sick.

• 2:01:09Speaker 06

  I bought it.

• 2:01:11Speaker 06

  I don't know why. It's kinda, I just kinda was like, fuck. And I've always wanted a sports car, but I was like, oh no, it's a waste of money. It's frivolous. Whatever. And then I bought it. And now, every day when I drive it, I love it. Every second I'm driving that car.

• 2:01:34Speaker 06

  I don't want to say it makes me happy, but I enjoy it.

• 2:01:38Speaker 06

  That's on one level. The other level that I've realized is the better I treat myself,

• 2:01:47Speaker 06

  the more I feel that I deserve it. Really? And that is a trick that generally goes against what most people say. If they don't have that fundamental issue, it'd be like, dude, you know, don't waste your money on X, Y, and Z. But now, the better I treat myself, the you know, like a hotel, like.

• 2:02:13Speaker 06

  Where did you learn that? Did you just come up with that? I I accidentally stumbled upon it just recently too. I mean, dude, like. What was it? What was the epiphany? Uh, it wasn't the car. I don't know. It was like.

• 2:02:29Speaker 06

  What was it?

• 2:02:33Speaker 06

  It was either staying somewhere, you know, it was something expensive and then I felt guilty about it. And then, but I was also like, no, I've worked hard. I deserve this. And then that kind of turned into regardless of how hard I've worked, I deserve it regardless. Like, I mean, if I can afford it, which obviously does come from hard work, but you know what I'm saying? It's like, like dude, I, I got, I would get a gift. This is my ex. My ex got me a Gucci wallet.

• 2:03:08Speaker 06

  The entertainer ex got me a Gucci wallet. I hope she doesn't listen to this.

• 2:03:15Speaker 06

  She's like, you couldn't come up with any other name? She might be busy entertaining. Well, she is busy entertaining her two kids.

• 2:03:27Speaker 06

  And, but she brought me a Gucci wallet. That Gucci wallet sat in my closet

• 2:03:37Speaker 06

  for years, for like years. Because, like, I mean, at the time, I was like, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna carry, I don't know, it was like a $300 wallet. That's ridiculous. It was like on the surface. Subsurface was, that's too nice for me. I'm not that way. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not the kind of person to have a designer wallet. And I'm not saying I am now, like I, you know, wearing jeans and Solomons.

• 2:04:09Speaker 06

  I'm not wearing it now, but I, you know, I bought a really nice watch. You know what I mean? So it's like, still be you, but you know,

• 2:04:20Speaker 06

  you have to treat yourself well in order, subconsciously, to feel that you deserve to be treated well. If you don't treat yourself well, who else will? Or well, if you don't treat yourself well, who else will?

• 2:04:36Speaker 06

  And yeah, that was just accidental.

• 2:04:44Speaker 06

  And that's counter to.

• 2:04:48Speaker 06

  You know, I used to, and I know you heard the podcast I did with John, but that's counter to the self-destructive behavior of, you know, I will grow by destroying myself.

• 2:05:01Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:03Speaker 06

  And it's just, you know, we talked about earlier, but I want to say it on camera, which is,

• 2:05:12Speaker 06

  when I first was aware that I had like some issues,

• 2:05:18Speaker 06

  you know, I was like, I went to therapy and they're like, okay, this is the issue PTSD. And then I didn't agree with that. And so then I, you know, did other things and then I was like, and then I actually found issues like this is an actual issue. This is an actual issue. Okay. And kept researching and then I'd be like, oh, that has another one.

• 2:05:50Speaker 06

  And then dig some more.

• 2:05:54Speaker 06

  Now here's another one. The problem is when you've, you know, when you're a quote unquote, man, I'm all fucked up.

• 2:06:04Speaker 06

  I've got problems.

• 2:06:07Speaker 06

  Like shit, I bet I had at my worst a hundred problems. And they're a hundred project problems. They're not a to-do list like turn out the lights, open the can. No, they're projects, complex problems.

• 2:06:24Speaker 06

  On that note, I'll say this.

• 2:06:28Speaker 06

  You see therapist, what are they dealing with? They are dealing with you talking. That is not the brain. That is you giving them information, them taking that information, processing it, going through their schooling and then regurgitating it to try and, you know, generally change your perspective and heal your conscious thinking on a certain subject.

• 2:06:59Speaker 06

  But again,

• 2:07:01Speaker 06

  that's not physical. So you've got therapy, which is talking.

• 2:07:09Speaker 06

  But isn't the brain an electrochemical machine? Yeah. Anyone, by the way, anyone who doesn't believe it, take acid.

• 2:07:22Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, you'll know real quick that that the brain is, that chemicals can fundamentally change reality. All right, anyone who disagrees with that, take acid, let me know how it goes.

• 2:07:36Speaker 06

  So now you've got chemicals. We've got a chemical balance or an imbalance. What's your baseline chemicals? Fuck, I don't know.

• 2:07:46Speaker 06

  Well, does a therapist test those?

• 2:07:51Speaker 06

  No, who does?

• 2:08:01Speaker 06

  Yeah, you'd have to find somebody. You're the project manager. But that's my point. What about your hormones?

• 2:08:08Speaker 06

  That's separate than brain chemistry. That's hormones, endocrine system.

• 2:08:14Speaker 06

  Well, I don't, I don't think your hormones, you know, I had a guy tell me like, well, I don't know how much your hormones regulate your like, you know, brain. And I go, I go, I go, are you married? He's like, yeah, I'm like,

• 2:08:33Speaker 06

  keep thinking about that. See if anything pops into your head. And he's like, what do you mean? You know, and I'm like, Never mind. I'm like, every month, anything change? And he was like, oh shit. I'm like, yeah, dude, like, it's pretty fucking important. Do therapists or the brain people test for that? No, no, and they're all related. It's like having a car and saying that the steering wheel works completely independent from every other part of the car. Yeah. Just, we're, we're, we're so,

• 2:09:13Speaker 06

  we're just so basic in our.

• 2:09:18Speaker 06

  Mental health care, it's, I'm gonna use the word and I'm fine with it. It's fucking pathetic. It's fucking pathetic. It's really pathetic and, and that's not by accident. You know, not to be a big, you know, but it's not by accident. You know, the, our healthcare system, I'm not shocking anyone when I say this. It treats symptoms, not diseases. There's no money in treating diseases. There's money in treating symptoms.

• 2:09:47Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. I'm a hundred percent with you on that.

• 2:09:50Speaker 06

  And so therefore, you know, you've got so many symptoms and you've got a hundred diseases and you have to, you have to figure out what they all are and you have to cure them in, in two ways. You have to cure them partly at the same time and partly, it's like you have to be aware of everything, but focus on one at a time. But you have to be aware of everything because they're all related. They're all, they're all happening in real time in the same system, your body.

• 2:10:26Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:28Speaker 06

  And again, I'm not a scientist, I'm not a doctor. But that's not exactly, I don't, pretty logical. It's how the body works.

• 2:10:38Shawn Ryan?

  You're making a whole lot of sense.

• 2:10:40Speaker 06

  It's, and where did I learn this from? Dude, myself, I've fucked up everything. Like, dude, I went to a hormone doctor after I got, you know, years of surgeries. I was like, man, I just don't feel like myself. So what makes myself, what makes my mood? Read some books. They're like hormones. I'm like, hmm, I'll go get my hormones tested. I go in there, the doctor goes, goes, uh, and this was before it was like more common. The doctor's like, uh, yeah, you, uh,

• 2:11:17Speaker 06

  Yeah, your hormones came out interesting. Dude, I kid you not, my testosterone was like seven. Oh, man. Dude, it was like almost nothing. Why? Well, dude, I was, I went from freaking working out twice a day, you know, to doing nothing for, you know, three, four years, you know, couldn't work out. You know, all these different things, all these different reasons. Also, you know, the, there's the whole field of research, which I'm not well versed on, but I hear from many people, Marcus Capone being one of them, you know, dude, blast wave effect on your,

• 2:12:00Speaker 06

  what is it? The hormone, the gland, thyroid, and you know, all these different things, you know, about reducing the, the ability, you know, of your body to produce certain hormones and all these things. All I know is I did the test and that's the number. And he goes, yeah, we should definitely fix that. And then I start to balance my hormones, night and day different, night and day different. And I was just like, dude, like, this should be, everyone should know this. Yeah. You know?

• 2:12:35Speaker 06

  It's like that with everything, you know? Your brain chemistry, your, it's all related and to a degree, you don't have to know it in depth. You don't need to be an expert on it.

• 2:12:52Speaker 06

  But it's like, you know, if your body's a car,

• 2:12:58Speaker 06

  you should fucking read the owner's manual. You know, like, I'm not saying you need to be a mechanic and know how to replace your freaking, you know, your engine, but you should understand how a car works and you should know your car.

• 2:13:15Speaker 06

  Because it all works in unison and, you know, it's,

• 2:13:21Speaker 06

  it just, it's just a long, been a long process of, and again, like I said, the more I dig, the more, I'll give another example. I go to that Warrior's Heart and, you know, I'm listening to, you know, all these different classes and stuff and.

• 2:13:42Speaker 06

  You know, I was like, one of them was without question, they started talking about codependency.

• 2:13:50Speaker 06

  And I was like, uh, shit.

• 2:13:58Speaker 06

  If you are a veteran, read what codependency is, because I think a lot of veterans are codependent.

• 2:14:09Speaker 06

  Grew up in a codependent household, one or both parents being codependent. And you become codependent and

• 2:14:19Speaker 06

  nothing is more, there's no more of a codependent system than the military.

• 2:14:25Speaker 06

  Have you read anything on codependency?

• 2:14:27Shawn Ryan?

  A little, I, that got brought up a lot in my therapy sessions. I know exactly what you're talking about.

• 2:14:34Speaker 06

  I, there's a book called Codependent No More. It's like the bible of codependency. Fucking blew my mind apart, made me sad, quite honestly.

• 2:14:42Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting. What's the name of that?

• 2:14:44Speaker 06

  Codependent No More.

• 2:14:46Shawn Ryan?

  I'll need to get that.

• 2:14:46Speaker 06

  I mean, it's like the first text really written about it. And the woman, if you get a new copy, she kind of like does an update of, you know, when she created it. How, because I think she made the term, but it's interesting, but dude, it's like, it's just so much shit that I'm like, dude, how did I not know this until now?

• 2:15:11Shawn Ryan?

  I think the biggest takeaways from talking to you are

• 2:15:18Shawn Ryan?

  if you want to get fixed, you need to do the research and figure out how to fix yourself.

• 2:15:23Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:15:23Shawn Ryan?

  I think that is probably the biggest takeaway.

• 2:15:27Speaker 06

  Yes, and, and you're right, and I'm going to

• 2:15:33Speaker 06

  dovetail that onto something we talked about earlier, which I don't think we talked about on camera, which is

• 2:15:43Speaker 06

  A key piece of doing that is taking responsibility for your own mental and physical care.

• 2:15:55Speaker 06

  And not being a victim.

• 2:15:57Shawn Ryan?

  That was gonna be my next one is turn inward, you know, do some self-reflection and figure out why these things keep happening, which, you know, goes right along with the do it yourself.

• 2:16:10Speaker 06

  You, you cannot, you know, the responsibility to fix you is not up to the VA. It really isn't.

• 2:16:20Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:20Speaker 06

  Um, I mean, they can, you know, they have mechanisms to assist, but you gotta lead the charge, you know, and

• 2:16:33Speaker 06

  the other thing too is like, once you take that responsibility for your own,

• 2:16:40Speaker 06

  your own mental health, like

• 2:16:44Speaker 06

  that in itself, just that piece is mentally empowering. Cause you're in charge, you're in control.

• 2:16:52Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:52Speaker 06

  You know?

• 2:16:55Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, again, now,

• 2:17:00Speaker 06

  not fixed, but I know I'm in charge.

• 2:17:07Speaker 06

  And I know that I'm gonna learn more things that are problems. And I know that there's a process to research and then take action and it'll be okay.

• 2:17:18Shawn Ryan?

  And don't forget to treat yourself.

• 2:17:20Speaker 06

  Treat yourself.

• 2:17:21Shawn Ryan?

  Nobody says that.

• 2:17:23Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:17:23Shawn Ryan?

  Nobody says that.

• 2:17:25Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:17:25Shawn Ryan?

  And I know it's true. I started doing it too. And that's a big one. I've never heard anybody actually vocalize that. So thank you for doing that.

• 2:17:34Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah, no, absolutely. It's, um, yeah, I think it's super critical. You know who definitely doesn't treat themselves or you? The military.

• 2:17:45Speaker 06

  So you deserve it. Treat yourself and, you know, don't justify bad behavior, you know, like, you know, whatever, but, um, but within reason, absolutely. And the better you treat yourself, the better, um,

• 2:18:01Speaker 06

  You know, it's

• 2:18:02Shawn Ryan?

  Better you're gonna feel.

• 2:18:03Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's just the better you feel and

• 2:18:04Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, it makes perfect sense. If you're not gonna, if you're not gonna treat yourself and you don't think you're you're worth it, you know, to treat yourself, then you sure as fuck aren't gonna accept it from anybody else.

• 2:18:16Speaker 06

  People, people always say this, you know, it's like, you know, you know, people don't get what they deserve, or people get what they deserve, or good people who get what they deserve, you know, all these different sayings, and none of it's true. There's a fact and and or my saying, which is a fact, and you'll see why it's kind of not debatable is

• 2:18:38Speaker 06

  people will only ever get one thing, ever. And that's what they feel they deserve.

• 2:18:47Speaker 06

  You you can never get more or less than that. Because it's not external, like what you get is not, you know, it it's always based on what you feel you deserve. That's what you'll get. Because if you don't feel you deserve something, it won't come. And and that, by the way, is why bad people get good things. It's because they feel they deserve it. So they get it. And then a good person's going,

• 2:19:22Speaker 06

  not realizing that the difference between them is that they don't feel they deserve.

• 2:19:28Shawn Ryan?

  Damn, that's a good point.

• 2:19:33Shawn Ryan?

  Well, brother,

• 2:19:36Shawn Ryan?

  I really appreciate you coming on.

• 2:19:37Speaker 06

  Dude, I'm, um, it's been awesome.

• 2:19:40Shawn Ryan?

  It's been an honor.

• 2:19:41Speaker 06

  Yeah, same, man. I think, uh, I hope, um, I hope everyone got something out of it and, uh,

• 2:19:51Speaker 06

  yeah, I'll be back.

• 2:19:53Shawn Ryan?

  Anyone who's paying attention got something out of this, there's no doubt.

• 2:19:57Speaker 06

  A lot of people probably listen to podcasts while they're, you know, like, you know, somebody's probably putting this on, like, like, ooh, Tyler Gray, that guy talks a lot, I'll put him on, you know, that's better than any sleeping meds I have, so.

• 2:20:12Speaker 06

  No, thanks for having me on and, uh, yeah, appreciate it, man. It's been awesome.

• 2:20:16Shawn Ryan?

  My pleasure.

• 2:20:16Speaker 06

  Glad I finally made it out.

• 2:20:18Shawn Ryan?

  You got anything coming up?

• 2:20:21Speaker 06

  Um, nothing, no, not really, pretty chill the rest of this year, which is, you know, I, I, well, I'll be last thing I say to you, man, is I am guilty as fuck of overworking myself, no question. Um, that's my, still my self-destructive

• 2:20:46Speaker 06

  behavior that I still justify.

• 2:20:52Speaker 06

  But I, I really need to, to take a real break and, um, so I'm not going to do anything for the rest of the year. Again, I'm trying to get better, but.

• 2:21:00Shawn Ryan?

  Good for you, man.

• 2:21:01Speaker 06

  It's just so easy to be like, no, I can't turn down any, you know, you know, it's like, you know, you're weak if you like, cause you gotta put yourself out there for stuff to happen. Doesn't happen in a room, if you've been watching TV, you know?

• 2:21:20Speaker 06

  Yeah, but, yeah, so I'm actively trying to, to take a break, so nothing for the rest of the year.

• 2:21:29Shawn Ryan?

  Right on, man. I'm happy to hear that.

• 2:21:32Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:21:33Shawn Ryan?

  Anybody that wants to find you, all your links will be below, we'll link that documentary as well and, and.

• 2:21:38Speaker 06

  Yeah, actually I have, I, yeah, we, we have a link for it, uh, now, so, yeah, awesome. And, um, hey, also, I always say this, well, actually, I don't think I always say it, but I'm gonna start saying it. You know, if anyone's,

• 2:21:54Speaker 06

  I, I love when people hit me up on Instagram and, you know,

• 2:22:00Speaker 06

  you know, if anyone's got like,

• 2:22:04Speaker 06

  you know, a real like, hey, I, I need advice on this, dude, hit me up and I will definitely not get back to you that day, but at some point, um, I'll, you know, hopefully see the message and, you know, uh, I, you know, I'll put my money where my mouth is in that, you know, I like trying to help people, um.

• 2:22:30Speaker 06

  Just trying, any way for me to help somebody circumvent and shorten the timing of how long it took me to figure all this shit out, like, hey, like, it's the least I can do.

• 2:22:43Shawn Ryan?

  Well, thank you, man.

• 2:22:44Speaker 06

  Hey.

• 2:22:45Shawn Ryan?

  There are a lot of gems to pick up from this one, and I seriously thank you. This is gonna help a lot of people.

• 2:22:50Speaker 06

  Awesome.

• 2:22:50Shawn Ryan?

  So.

• 2:22:51Speaker 06

  All right, man. Well, thanks.