Overcoming War, PTSD & Elective Amputation | BT Urruela

BT Urruela is a US Army Combat Wounded Veteran, Elective Amputee, Author, Cover Model and Co-Founder of VETSports. BT's life sounds like a movie script. From childhood abuse, to joining the US Army Infantry, being hit with 5 IEDs on his first tour in Iraq, going through rehab, electing to lose a limb, dealing with the horrors of PTSD, reintegration, ART Therapy, finding a purpose starting a sports league for combat wounded veterans and now becoming a best selling author & cover model. His crazy, emotional and compelling tale sounds like a story from one of his books, but it’s actually his real life. I always knew that if I had a broadcasting platform I wanted to get this story out there, and 2 years later I’ve finally recorded a podcast with him so here we go... Enjoy the most powerful episode so far. - Follow BT Online: http://www.bturruela.com/ https://twitter.com/BTUArmy http://instagram.com/bturruela http://www.vetsports.org/ - Listen to all episodes online. Search "Modern Wisdom" on any Podcast App or click here: iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/modern-wisdom/id1347973549 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0XrOqvxlqQI6bmdYHuIVnr?si=iUpczE97SJqe1kNdYBipnw Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/modern-wisdom - I want to hear from you!! Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Email: [email protected]

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

• 0:00Chris Williamson?

  Hi friends. I'm currently in Virginia, Norfolk, the northeast of the United States. And I'm at an author's event. Two years ago, I came to the same event here and I got to hear a speech from a guy called BT Urruela. Now BT is a wounded army vet. He's an author and he's the founder of Vet Sports, which is an organisation for wounded veterans to play a variety of different sports and also a community and support for them. And I got to hear this speech that he gave about his life. When I was completely unprepared, I didn't know who he was.

• 0:42Chris Williamson?

  And I was blown away that I still to this day, it moves me to think about what he said on that evening. And he only got 15 minutes of time at the beginning of this dinner. Anyway, I kept in touch with him over the next year and then we got to see each other at an event the year after and now two years hence we are here again back in Virginia, at the same hotel where we first met actually. And I knew two years ago, I thought if I ever have the opportunity to broadcast something, I want to get this story out there. And low and behold, two years later, I've got a podcast and I now have the opportunity to have one of my best mates in the US with this insane compelling story come on and talk.

• 1:27Chris Williamson?

  So today, here we are. It's absolutely insane BT's life from a messed up childhood to being hit with five IEDs in the space of a year while he was on tour in Iraq to coming back to the US, losing a limb, starting a sports league, dealing with PTSD and now becoming an author and cover model that's very, very well regarded in the USA. This story sounds like something that he's written in one of his books, but it's not. It's his actual life. So sit back and enjoy. BT Urruela.

• 2:22Chris Williamson?

  BT, man.

• 2:23Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:24Chris Williamson?

  Thank you very much for coming on. I really appreciate it.

• 2:26Speaker 01

  My pleasure, Chris. Absolutely.

• 2:29Chris Williamson?

  It's probably been two years since I've wanted to get you to sit down and have a discussion, so...

• 2:36Speaker 01

  And here we are.

• 2:37Chris Williamson?

  Here we are, in the same hotel, on the same week.

• 2:39Speaker 01

  I know, right?

• 2:41Chris Williamson?

  Bit of poetic justice there, is. So, yeah, I got to hear you... I turned up late, my luggage arrived a day late, I had to run upstairs and come downstairs to this black tie ball thing that we had two years ago here. And then kind of burst into the room and sat down as this guy got up and stood up and it was you and you were about to give this big speech and I was like totally unprepared, like wholly unprepared. And I guess like, because that was just after you'd done your TV thing as well, right? And so your note to write, he was probably riding moderately high and then being in this community of authors, everyone would have had an idea of what was going to be said.

• 3:22Chris Williamson?

  And then you just unloaded this story and I was like totally, you know, like someone racks a bar with weights that you don't know what it is, you step underneath it and you're like, "Oh my god, this is really fucking heavy." Yeah. "No, no, no, too much, too much." And, uh, yeah, man, I got, I got blown away by that.

• 3:38Speaker 01

  Well, and the weird part was that at that part, two years ago, you know, I had told my story with Vet Sports, I co-founded in 2012, so telling my story had become a thing over the years. But by that point, within the community, it hadn't been a thing yet. You know, people knew the basis of my story, they knew I was a combat wounded veteran, stuff like that, but they never knew the eccentricities of my entire life. And so that's what I wanted to do with that speech, was just kind of lay it all out there. And then kind of just give them the whole narrative.

• 4:06Chris Williamson?

  How, how different does it feel giving the speech to the industry that you're in now, which is authors, versus the industry that you were in or that you're associated with, which is veterans?

• 4:19Speaker 01

  Well, so that's actually... Different than what I usually do. I don't talk to a lot of veterans, unfortunately. I talk to veterans, but it's more conversationally. Good. It's not giving them, you know, a speech or whatever. Yeah. So the differences where I'm at is that speech was for my peers in the romance community, right? And usually my other speeches are for businesses or clubs or groups or whatever. So for me, it meant a lot more because obviously being a creative type, you are, you're used to and you're, you make emotions your business. Yes. Emotions are your business. You understand that. You understand pain and love and all these beautiful things.

• 4:58Speaker 01

  And so they, for me, being able to share my story in that room, the response I got back was so much better and greater than what I ever had before. You think people have got that depth of understanding? They have that depth, that exact perfect word for it, depth, that, that compassion. They're just different people. We're wired differently as authors, as creative types. I agree. I agree. I mean, it sounds like, hearing your story, sounds like a work of fiction. Yeah. Like, for want of a better term? It feels like it, bro. It feels like it. You've lived it. Serious. Um, so, you know, can you take us from, where do we start with your story? Where do we begin? I, I honestly don't even know. That's the weird part, because I touched on everything with that speech. Um, I had a real fucked up childhood, real bad childhood, and a lot of abuse of, of every variety.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  And so when I hit about fifteen, it was that point where I was like, I need to do something. I need to get the fuck out of here. I have to get out of here. Where I was growing up? St. Louis, Missouri is where I was born and raised. Okay. And so I had a lot of, uh, members of my family in the military. Um, I, and I also attributed to this as well, Saving Private Ryan. Uh, when I watched that movie at fourteen and I saw what those men did on a D-Day, I was so profoundly moved by, by their strength, that, that was that point where I was like, I need to do that. You know, I, I felt I owed it to them. So at eighteen, I ended up joining the army, army infantry, shipped off to Fort Benning, Georgia. Uh, went through basic training, graduated, went to Germany, trained up for a year, and then ended up in Iraq.

• 6:29Speaker 01

  What year's, what year's this? What are we talking now? So two thousand and four was basic training, two thousand and five was Germany, training up for Iraq, and then two thousand and six was Iraq. So you're right in the middle of it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So, yeah, two thousand and six was, uh, the worst year in Iraq, actually. Uh, in terms of death? By what metric? Okay. Yes. In terms of, uh, KIA and then also wounded. Um, it was non-stop. Why? So what happened with Iraq was we it's kind of complicated, complicated, but General, um, hold on. Colin Powell. Yep. Said at the beginning of the Iraq war that we need to close off the borders. We need to close off the borders because what we're gonna do is have a free for all. We're invading Iraq and if we do not protect these borders, you're gonna have every swinging dick. Yep.

• 7:14Speaker 01

  From the Middle East coming in to fight us. Reinforcements. Yep. Guess what happened? Almost everyone we killed or captured was not Iraqi, but from some other Middle Eastern country. That was a roundabout. That came in. They're, they're like, hell yeah, they're bringing the fight to us. Let's go. It's like fucking Red Dawn, Middle Eastern style. Yeah. And so, yeah, I mean, they came in and it was just hell. I mean, it was absolute hell. And then you had Iran backing them with weaponry. What I got hit with was called a EFP explosively formed projectile. Mm-hmm. And it was developed by Iran, very basic mechanically, but very, very like. Incredibly effective. Incredibly. So let's roll it back. So you've gone through your basic training. Okay. How did you feel? How, how were you, were you excited to go out there? Were you nervous? Were you? Yeah. You were ready to go?

• 7:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I joined, I mean, I literally, when I went in, MEPS is where you go to like a sign up and you do your paperwork and you get your physical and all that stuff. So I went in there and you came time to pick your job. And so you take an ASVAB test, which it kind of dictates what jobs you can get. So as long as you score a one-ten on your GT. Is that like an aptitude? Pretty much aptitude test. And as long as you score one-ten on the main part of it, you can have any job. And I scored one-ten. So I had all these job options and we're going through them all. And I look at the lady and I'm like, who are the guys that go in and like kick in the doors and shit and raid houses? And she's like, oh, that's infantry. I'm like, yeah, I want to do that. Yeah. And she's like, are you sure? She's like, there's like a lot of other jobs here. It's intelligent. I'm like, yes. Would you, would you have been able to be infantry at like a, a one of five or a, a hundred? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 8:41Speaker 01

  Okay. So infantry is the one where if you score a fricking eighty-five, you're going infantry. You're infantry or cook. So it's like the, it's like the lowest. The lowest. The lowest. Right, okay. Which is why she was like, uh, you sure? You've pitched yourself here super high, but you're actually. That's what I wanted to fucking do. I wanted to fight. That's, that's the only thing I wanted to do. So, yeah, I was, I was amped, absolutely amped. Basic training for me was life-changing. Um. I went in a boy, came out a man. Like, there's no better, like, better way to say that than that. That's fantastic. Cliche as it is, it's true as fuck. I went in and just this little fucking punk, disrespectful little punk, and I came out just completely changed. You'd said that you'd had a difficult childhood and a difficult youth. Did you start to find a little bit more of a sense of purpose there as well?

• 9:24Speaker 01

  Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, so, and a family. So it was the first kind of family I felt in my life. The family up until then had maybe not shown loyalty. Yeah, the definition of family was very off. And so, yeah, it was just this bond, this love that I hadn't felt before, this brotherhood. And it, yeah, it energized me. And, and then obviously going to my new unit, I talk to my buddies about it all the time, but you know, that feeling of youth, right? Where the whole world is out in front of you and it's just, it's there. And it's beautiful, man. And I'll never forget getting to Germany, flying there. And I was actually crying in Baltimore when I was heading out to Germany because I was scared, you know, scared of leaving my family and leaving everything behind. Change is a scary thing. Yeah.

• 10:05Speaker 01

  And, um, but when I got to Germany, bro, my God, I'm telling you, I was on the bus going from the airport to, to my new base and I'm just, just the feelings, I'll never forget. An absolute rush. So, yeah, I was ready, I was prepared. It was, it was a fantastic time period of my life. And then, of course, you know, you get into the unit and you're, it's, it's a whole different lifestyle change. You're waking up, well, you do it on your own free will now, which is crazy, but you wake up five every morning and you, you do P T and then you have chow at seven and then you go to work day at eight and you're off at five. It's like, it's just, and except you're in a uniform and you're doing military shit. It's just weird. It was just, it was a really cool point in my life. That's awesome. So then you got deployed?

• 10:47Speaker 01

  So then, yeah, lots of training in there and that, that, that side of it was not fun. Obviously it comes with the territory, but, uh, yeah, months and months of training, um. How did you, how did you find that physically?

• 10:58Speaker 01

  Tougher mentally, but definitely tough physically as well. I mean, you're, you're, they're trying to get you with that training. You're out at a month at a time, right? And you're staying intense and it's pretty much just like Iraq's gonna be because they want you to feel it. They want you to.

• 11:09Chris Williamson?

  It's pointless, it's pointless having you the sensation of 50%. You need to have felt 110% and then.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  If you're playing for the NFL, you're gonna go straight from college into your first game? Are you gonna fucking practice?

• 11:21Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, okay.

• 11:21Speaker 01

  So we practiced our asses off and that meant, you know, months at a time, staying intense, fucking no entertainment, working 12 hour days. It was rough, but it also, obviously, when you get to combat, you're like, oh, okay, I get it.

• 11:34Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I needed, I needed this.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  Yep. So, uh, so we ended up deploying. I got to Iraq again scared for sure. You know, anybody who goes to a combat zone is nervous, scared, but excited, man, excited. I'll never forget driving up from Kuwait. We did a mid, middle of the night convoy from Kuwait to Baghdad.

• 11:52Chris Williamson?

  Is this in like big Humvees?

• 11:54Speaker 01

  Uh huh. And a long row of Humvees and I'm in the gunner's turret just looking around just like, and I didn't know, bro, like there was, they weren't bad areas we were driving through, but I didn't know. So I'm up there like, yeah, come on, come on, come on. G I fucking Joe.

• 12:07Chris Williamson?

  Man, I think definitely for me, like the, as a, as a Brit, our stereotype of a American infantry guy would be exactly that, like, yeah, get some.

• 12:19Speaker 01

  Hard on, straight up, yeah.

• 12:20Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, just.

• 12:21Speaker 01

  You should see us in firefight, literally in a, in a, during, middle of a firefight when no, normal, everyday people would be like freaking out. You're like, yeah, get that motherfucker. It's weird, bro. It's weird, man. It's weird. You don't, it's, you don't view death normally when you're over there. You don't see it as something that can actually happen. It's weird. You know it is. You know, it's like every day it's, it's, it could happen, but you don't think about it. It's like.

• 12:46Chris Williamson?

  I think that's one of the, um, that's one of the things from having done a lot of reading on PTSD and stuff like that, which we'll get on to later. One of the things that I think I've realised is that people, especially people that do, that are in the army, until they're out there, they don't appreciate their capacity for malevolence and for aggression. And it's that reflection period where everything slows down afterwards. And you're totally right, like in the heat of the moment, like, look at, look at what happens when someone sees red and they get in a fight, just a normal, like a bar fight. Like, would you have punched this person and like gone outside onto the street and been shouting and screaming and kicking and going hysterical? Would you have done that under normal circumstances? No.

• 13:28Chris Williamson?

  But then you put someone into a very specific situation with a very specific set of emotions. And they have the, this capacity that is far and away from what you'd have thought originally.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  It's just funny you say that too, and I know we're gonna hit on it later, but that is part of the problem with PTSD is that you spend this time in combat where you turn all those emotions off that are necessary to be human. And the only ones you really focus on are aggression and anger, because that's what you need over there. You need to have that. Because if you're on

• 13:59Chris Williamson?

  You'd be very, very dead if you had to, if you had to make every decision. Yeah. If every decision was mediated by compassion, you, you're not gonna last very long, right?

• 14:07Speaker 01

  Not at all.

• 14:08Chris Williamson?

  So you've driven up, you've arrived?

• 14:10Speaker 01

  We've arrived, and that's actually the funny part of my story is that three weeks in, I got hit by my first IED. So we had been on a bunch of missions and stuff like that, um, up to that point.

• 14:21Chris Williamson?

  What's a mission?

• 14:22Speaker 01

  So going out, uh, at that point, it was route, route clearance. So what we would do is literally just drive five miles for an hour up and down the roads looking for IEDs.

• 14:30Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 14:31Speaker 01

  And then if we found something that was a potential IED, we'd call EOD. EOD comes out, checks it out. It's

• 14:37Chris Williamson?

  What's the vehicle that you're in?

• 14:38Speaker 01

  That was a Humvee.

• 14:39Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 14:39Speaker 01

  I was always in a Humvee and then I had three, uh, missions in a, driving a Bradley, which was cool. Tank.

• 14:45Chris Williamson?

  Okay, nice.

• 14:48Speaker 01

  So yeah, we're coming in from one of those missions. Things had been calm to that point. Had you seen any action by this? Nope, no action yet at all. Three weeks in and then we uh, we take the road, turn on to the road to go in onto the base and then blew up. It hit my vehicle. It was a, it was a bottom mid-range one. So it didn't, it didn't breach the vehicle. But the windshield completely shattered. It did breach the side uh, my uh, TC who's the passenger side. It came through his window and went into his helmet like right at the top. He actually kept his helmet and the goggles he had because they are lined with shrapnel and he didn't get hurt at all. No way. But that was. Where were you? I was driving. Okay, and it was on the?

• 15:30Speaker 01

  It was on the, yeah, opposite side. So yeah, that was eye opener. That was, hey, welcome to Iraq, buddy. How, how did the, the heart rate go? I, I, it was, it was insane. It was unlike anything I've ever felt, obviously until the other IED, but it, things slowed down. It was, everything was slow motion. You know how they, you know, see it in movies and you hear people say it, but it's the absolute truth. It slows completely down. I saw the windshield crack like in slow motion as it happened. It was, it's just, it was weird. Fascinating. Things slowed down completely. And then of course it stopped and you're just like, oh my God, I'm alive. Yeah, yeah. And you're just in like a Humvee is just a big car, basically like. Very armored car, but yeah. Okay, so. Very, very armored. Heavily reinforced. Yeah. Okay, so I mean, that's, that saved your life.

• 16:15Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Oh, five times over there. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my God. We got hit five times. That, that one was the second worst. Obviously the one that did me in was the, the worst. And then the other ones were kind of smaller AA homemade explosive types. But yeah, they, they weren't super destructive. Like professionally produced. Still, you get, you hear next to your vehicle. That's all you really need. Yeah. Okay, so you've had your first one and then? We had our first one and that was that. And then, you know, we spent another year there and lots of firefights, lots of uh, uh, you know, again, some smaller IEDs. We lost some guys unfortunately. Um, we, we ended up losing our first two guys. Uh, April Fool's Day, actually. No way. April Fool's Day. It was um, a couple of weeks after I got hit.

• 16:59Speaker 01

  And they were dismounted and got hit by an IED and uh.

• 17:03Chris Williamson?

  Dismounted as in.

• 17:04Speaker 01

  Out of the Humvee.

• 17:05Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  And then, uh, yeah, so that that's another one that was kind of like, it's weird because it's like stages in combat. You know, you you got your first introduction to combat and then you you lose your first guy and you have to process that and then you have to process having to go back to work the next day and pretend it never happens. You know what I mean? Again, which is where PTSD manifests itself because you can't properly mourn them.

• 17:27Chris Williamson?

  You haven't had time to do the reflection.

• 17:28Speaker 01

  You can't because if you're thinking about them the next day when you're on mission, you may end up putting yourself or others in danger um because of it, so.

• 17:37Chris Williamson?

  Well, we discussed this briefly yesterday when we was when we were sat down talking that the period of reflection for everything is so important. And that's why practicing gratitude and trying to have a lot of people in the normal world will confuse busyness with success. And that staying busy constantly just moving in one direction is somehow a marker for getting things right. But that's not necessarily the way that you should look at it because this period of reflection allows you to

• 18:10Chris Williamson?

  realize what's going on. It allows you to internalize the the um situation that you've been through. And then out the other side of it, you have some learning and okay, I'm now ready for the next one. Whereas what you happen when you're deployed is you just have a batch of experience for however many months or however many years. And then you get home and you're like, okay, there is a fucking Amazon truck full of shit that I now need to try and go through. And we all know that memory is one of the least accurate ways of actually recalling something. Like by the time that you're two years deep and you've been through all of this stuff, the first thing that you did, like, can you actually accurately properly reflect on that? Probably not. Like it's become confused and conflated and

• 18:53Chris Williamson?

  and manipulated by all the other things that you've been through. And then by the time you get home, you gotta go back through it again. So um, okay, so we're now one year deep.

• 19:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, well, not one year deep. Again, it's the whole process. Um, lost our first two guys. Um, we ended up losing eight total. And and then we got to October twenty second, two thousand six, we're nearing the end of the tour. How much longer is left? Two days. So we have two days left. And we're doing what's called a right seat ride. We're taking the new guys around the area of operations and showing them, you know, showing them around. Getting them ready to take over. And yeah, we were just routine mission, got hit. And next thing you know, I'm I'm waking up and smoke is completely filling the the Humvee. There's flesh everywhere, just charred flesh all over the windshield. I had no idea. I didn't feel anything at that time. I'm just like, I woke up.

• 19:47Speaker 01

  I saw all this. So did you hear the bang or was it? So no, it was like, it was like, I heard the bang. So it was like, bang, blacked out, right? Yeah. And so I woke up, vehicle's still moving. And I'm just like, I have no idea what. Where are you sat? Driving again. Okay. So the vehicle's still moving. I go to try to brake the vehicle and my right leg's not working. Like, what the fuck? And I look down and I see there's like shit hanging out of my thigh. So I know I'm injured there. I still don't feel it, though. Use my left foot to brake. That's when my uh, my gunner, I look back, I'm like, are you all right? He's seated on the ground and both his legs are gone. One of his legs is sitting right next to me. So that's when the guy in the back, I also noticed the other, we have five people in the vehicle total.

• 20:31Speaker 01

  Three are passed out, two are passed out, I'm sorry, and then us three, me, the gunner and the guy behind me were awake. Guy behind me goes, hey, can you please, please open my door? Please open my door. I can't take the smell anymore. Unless you, until you smell human flesh, you just don't understand it, but it's very distinct and it's it's you'll you'd never forget it. Okay. So I leaned back, I opened the door for him because his arms were all jacked up. And I turned back around and that's when I felt it. That's when everything kind of came to. Slowed a little bit. Yep. And the um, um. Fuck, help me out here. Yeah, it's the adrenaline, but the shock, the shock kind of started wearing off and that's when it was just like the most excruciating thing I've ever felt in my life. What had ended up happening was the the metal that had gone in my leg was so hot that it was cooking my

• 21:15Speaker 01

  leg from the inside. Oh, my God. And so. Was that from the IED or is that from the Humvee? So we're actually coming back around to the EFPs, explosively formed projectiles is what I got hit with. We got hit with two of them. Now, what these are is there's a canister like that, right? Metal canister, circular. They stuff explosives inside and on the end they put this copper contact lens shape, this contact lens shaped piece of copper. Okay. It's right on the end. When the explosive goes off, that copper turns molten and shoots. Yep. And so it hits the side of the Humvee and eats right through it. Breaks through. Eats right through and once it hits the AC on the inside and hardens. So it's like a cannonball. Yeah. So I caught, I caught one of the EFPs that broke up into four pieces. So one was

• 21:58Speaker 01

  a baseball size, one was like quarter size, golf ball size from that then on. And then I also was full of plastic and the shit from the door that had come in too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the stuff that was cooking my leg was the pieces of copper because that's what it does. It's. It's designed to do. But you said there was two? Two. On either side of the road? No, on both sides. Yeah, okay. So one stayed full and the other one broke up. If the other one didn't break up, I'd be dead. I wouldn't be here today. Really? Yes, because it didn't do the damage that it should have. The other one didn't break up and it killed my buddy. It went like right through his torso. And was that the gunner? That was no, that was my passenger, the TC. And that's the side it came through on, right? Okay. Wow.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, so pretty much that's the point where the pain kicked in and that's the point also where I looked over at him and knew that he wasn't gonna make it. Yeah. So I'm fucking yelling. The gunner's yelling. We're like, fuck, fuck, fuck. I mean, lots of pain going through this vehicle. Yeah. Our guys come up from the other vehicles and pull us out. That's about. How big's the convoy? Only four vehicles at that point. Okay. So they pull us out. And you were, you were, is it point or taking? Yes, we were point. Yep. We were the first in line, which is that's Major David Taylor's the man who died that day. And that's, that was his thing. He wanted to lead. He always said. Lead from the front? If we're gonna get hit, yeah, it's gonna be us. And. And so we're pulled out.

• 23:23Speaker 01

  And this is kind of the fascinating thing about this and and my story kind of revolves around I I'm a very big believer in God and I have a lot of faith and these are the my God moments, I feel like those are the moments that they should not have happened and they did. So. When we got hit, there was a CIA chopper flying overhead. They saw us get hit, they came back around and they medevaced us out. Had we not had that, it would have taken up to twenty, thirty, maybe forty minutes, maybe longer to get a medevac there. My femoral artery was fucking knit. So I easily like one of us easily could have died there that day had that CIA chopper not been overhead. So the chances of that happening are. Slim to like. Negative, might as well have not existed. Pretty much, yeah.

• 24:07Speaker 01

  So you're thinking act of God, right? Act of God, absolutely, yeah. Um, because they were, it was, it was so weird, man, I'm telling you, it's at that point, I had shock set in hardcore, I didn't feel the pain anymore. I'm in the chopper, right, my buddy's head's laying in my lap. How do you, what happens, how do they get you out of the vehicle? That well, they pulled, they pretty much carried us. Really? Yeah, yeah, so you got my guys there, right, so we have got three other vehicles behind us, we've got a shit ton of guys, so they're helping drag us out, the guys on the chopper are getting us in. Um, so me and my buddy Al, who was a dismount, he was behind Major Taylor. Yep. He was passed out, he had lost his leg above the knee. Okay. Um, he's, his head's in my lap, I'm sitting in the back of the chopper, I'm smacking his fucking face, trying to wake him up, and this is one of those um

• 24:50Speaker 01

  little tiny choppers, the CIA uh uh Delta Force, they use the little uh baby Hueys, they're super small. Is there like a a flat area? There's like just a seat in the back, so me and Al were in the back. Okay. The guy, they're so badass, bro, this is like just like a movie. But the guy, there was two of them CIA guys. Yeah. And one of the CIA guys couldn't sit in the back because we were back there, so he's hanging off the side of the motherfucking helicopter, all drat like oh, fucking GI Joeed out dude, and he's just like. Just riding, man, just riding. Oh, my God. And so I'm seeing this when I'm in shock, I'm just like.

• 25:24Speaker 01

  So then, this is the funniest part, it's only a short flight away, but you know, it felt like forever. I'm looking down over the city of Baghdad as we're flying in absolute shock and I feel like I can fly. Like I legitimately at that time thought I could fly and I almost jumped out of the helicopter. And right before I was gonna jump out of the helicopter to start flying, I passed out.

• 25:44Chris Williamson?

  Probably just as well.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, pretty good.

• 25:46Chris Williamson?

  Probably just as well.

• 25:47Speaker 01

  So I passed out and then next thing you know, I woke up at the cache, which is a little combat support hospital in Baghdad. Every major base has them, little support hospital for when shit like this happens.

• 25:58Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  So we get in there, surgeries and that's pretty much, I mean, that period of time, that five days from going from Baghdad to Balad to Landstuhl.

• 26:07Chris Williamson?

  Is this, is this, is this you being rated up through better and better equipped medical?

• 26:14Speaker 01

  So it's that and then also stabilizing you. So it's like the, you have the initial surgery, right? So you go to the cache, they're cleaning you out.

• 26:21Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 26:22Speaker 01

  They do anything they may need to do, like right then and there.

• 26:25Chris Williamson?

  Fix the femoral artery.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  So that, they, they hesitated on that because they didn't know, it was nicked, but they didn't know what to do yet. They didn't, because obviously you don't want to fuck with a femoral artery in a little combat support hospital.

• 26:36Chris Williamson?

  So this is, so we talking like a, basically a glorified tent in the middle of the desert?

• 26:40Speaker 01

  Pretty much.

• 26:40Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 26:41Speaker 01

  So I was actually very lucky because I didn't cut my femoral artery, but because the shrapnel was so hot, it cauterized it immediately.

• 26:49Chris Williamson?

  Ah, so the shrapnel both injured and saved you?

• 26:51Speaker 01

  Both injured and saved my life.

• 26:53Chris Williamson?

  How poetically weird is that? So much justice in that. That's unbelievable.

• 26:58Speaker 01

  So, yeah, you go, you go from Baghdad Combat Support Hospital to Balad, which is again, a big tent hospital, but it's legit hospital in a tent.

• 27:07Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 27:07Speaker 01

  Huge.

• 27:08Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 27:08Speaker 01

  Go from Balad, they stabilize you there, you go to Landstuhl where they finally like settle you.

• 27:13Chris Williamson?

  Are you still, is this still in Iraq?

• 27:15Speaker 01

  Oh, Germany.

• 27:16Chris Williamson?

  Germany? Right, okay. So how'd you get from Iraq to Germany?

• 27:20Speaker 01

  That was just C130.

• 27:22Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 27:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, they have hospitals, like.

• 27:24Chris Williamson?

  Just load you in the back on a stretcher?

• 27:26Speaker 01

  Stretcher, yep.

• 27:27Chris Williamson?

  So what would, what are those journeys like?

• 27:30Speaker 01

  Horrible. That that that whole time in my life was horrible. So, cause it was surgery every single day. So I didn't get water. I couldn't drink water, obviously, because you have to have surgery. You can't drink water before surgery. You have IVs. So you're getting hydrated.

• 27:46Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 27:46Speaker 01

  But it doesn't change the fact that you're dying.

• 27:48Chris Williamson?

  Thirsty.

• 27:49Speaker 01

  So I'd be like sucking on little sponges with water and shit.

• 27:52Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 27:52Speaker 01

  In and out of surgery. Um, and then the flights, you know, the flights, I don't really remember the ones um, from Baghdad and Balad, but the one from Germany to DC. Was.

• 28:03Chris Williamson?

  That's like what, probably fourteen hours?

• 28:04Speaker 01

  It was, it was about on a C one thirty about, um, yeah, about thirteen. And no entertainment.

• 28:11Chris Williamson?

  Thirteen hours on a plane is difficult on an A three eighty with like.

• 28:15Speaker 01

  Comfortable.

• 28:16Chris Williamson?

  Flight service and.

• 28:17Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 28:18Chris Williamson?

  Unlimited gin and all the rest of it.

• 28:19Speaker 01

  And you got your movies and all that. We didn't have anything. And then again, you're you're in a significant amount of pain too. And there's only three nurses on the whole plane. Serving. I'm telling you, you should have, that's. You would be at two thousand six, I was one of about a hundred and fifty on that flight. And you're talking about this entire, this entire flight is stretcher, stretcher, stretcher, stretcher, stretcher, rows of stretchers.

• 28:42Chris Williamson?

  Like a.

• 28:42Speaker 01

  And they're three high.

• 28:44Chris Williamson?

  Oh, my God. So they're tiered.

• 28:45Speaker 01

  They're tiered.

• 28:46Chris Williamson?

  So it's like a good football game.

• 28:48Speaker 01

  Yep. That's how many people were injured back then. And so the nurses, like, they're trying to do their best, but they can't hit everybody when you need, like, when you need pain meds.

• 28:55Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 28:56Speaker 01

  They can't get you to you in a, in a, in a reasonable amount of time. So it's, it was, it's was the worst flight of my life.

• 29:01Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 29:03Chris Williamson?

  So now if you need to fly somewhere, do you just feel like this?

• 29:06Speaker 01

  Oh, it's fantastic, right?

• 29:07Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 29:08Speaker 01

  Flown in New Zealand a couple of times. I'm like, this ain't too bad.

• 29:10Chris Williamson?

  This is absolutely fine. Yeah, exactly. So what are the, what's the medication that the guys are giving you to suppress the pain immediately?

• 29:18Speaker 01

  Oh, shit. I I couldn't even tell you what the ones were back then. I can tell you in DC, I was getting Dilaudid and morphine and like the highest shit you can imagine. I. I imagine back then I was, I mean, probably, or those days, something just ridiculous. Cause I was in and out of it, like legitimately just in and out of it. I was, I was.

• 29:35Chris Williamson?

  Semi-conscious.

• 29:36Speaker 01

  Not living, yeah.

• 29:36Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 29:37Speaker 01

  Not, not so much semi-conscious, cause I knew what was going on, but I would just go in and out.

• 29:41Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 29:42Speaker 01

  So we get to DC. Why DC? Uh Walter Reed Arm, um Walter Reed Military Medical Center. Is that because of where you were deployed from or is that because that was the best facility for dealing with your injuries? Military medical facility, so they have, the Army has two. Okay. Um, it's, one's in San Antonio. Yeah. And then one's in DC. So I guess you. If you're a burn victim, you go to Texas. If you're anything else, you usually go to DC. Okay, and the kind of opposite ends of the country as well to a degree, I guess. Yeah. Right. So, yeah, so ended up going to DC and at that point I still had my leg, so, but it was just trashed, obviously. And the familiarity was still kind of in limbo.

• 30:22Speaker 01

  And it was October 31st, 2006, so we're talking, what's nine, nine days later? Nine days later, it's Halloween and I, I hadn't been sleeping, man. I mean, lots and lots of pain, as you can imagine, lots of pain meds and so. Just real bad insomnia. Mm-hmm. And then obviously you're, you're starting to realize what's happened to you. Yeah. Which, again, you, you actually, you know, you do, as I said, you don't think about death over there, but you know it's a, it's a possibility. Mm-hmm. You really don't think, nor do you really consider it a possibility of losing a limb or getting injured like that, you know? It's just not a thing you really think about. You know it's there, but it's just like. You just never really put yourself in that position. So I'm just sitting here like, wow, what now, you know? Yeah.

• 31:04Speaker 01

  October 31st comes around and it's four o'clock in the morning, I'm five o'clock in the morning, I'm watching Home Improvement on TV, cause I can't sleep. And all of a sudden, you know, I have all these machines hooked up to my leg and shit, and one of them pumps, uh, the harmful fluid out, right? Okay. Starts pumping out blood, like real deep burgundy blood. I'm like, no, that's not good. So I call the nurse, nurse comes in, like, oh, no big. Balls up some, uh, um, towels and puts it under my leg to put pressure on it. And about. Two seconds later, the, the bandaging rips off and blood starts fucking spurting, dude. Like fucking three feet into the air and I'm just like tripping. He's tripping now too, like he was all calm before and he just starts freaking out. There it is again.

• 31:49Speaker 01

  And that next thing you know, within seconds, my room is full of medical personnel frantically working, blood's covered my sheets.

• 31:59Chris Williamson?

  So what's happened?

• 32:00Speaker 01

  My femoral blue.

• 32:01Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 32:02Speaker 01

  Femoral artery blue.

• 32:03Chris Williamson?

  So it had been nicked?

• 32:04Speaker 01

  It was nicked and I had been in house surgery, then cleaning shit out and it was just, it was, it finally went.

• 32:08Chris Williamson?

  Couldn't take the pressure anymore?

• 32:09Speaker 01

  Couldn't take it anymore.

• 32:10Chris Williamson?

  So this in the same way as a, like a slow puncture in a tire then at high speeds turns into a.

• 32:15Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 32:16Chris Williamson?

  Oh, okay.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  So I can't explain the feeling, but it's almost like theatrical, right? It's like you're in a fucking movie, like, is this my life right now? Am I bleeding to death right now? And like, you know, you're getting woozy and the TV starts like 3D now because you're just so fucked. And I remember begging them not to let me die, you know, I'm just like, don't let me die, don't let me die, don't let me die. It's all I could say. And I call him mystery doctor, but he was a, he was an African American doctor, very handsome man and he, uh, right here, he pushed down and where my femoral meets my organ so hard that it was sore for about a month after and he saved my life. Had he not done that from my room to the OR, I would have died, absolutely died.

• 33:00Chris Williamson?

  So he'd stemmed the flow.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  He stopped the flow until I could get through the OR where they could get a tourniquet on me.

• 33:05Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  And, uh, and absolutely saved my life. So I get to the OR.

• 33:08Chris Williamson?

  How long was that?

• 33:09Speaker 01

  It was actually quite a bit. So you're, I went from, I think the ORs were on the fourth floor and I was on the sixth floor. So we literally, he had to take me from my ward all the way to the main elevators, down the elevator to the fourth floor and then to the OR. And he the whole time steady pressured, the whole fucking time walking along the, the tourniquet.

• 33:27Chris Williamson?

  Which is difficult as you're moving as well.

• 33:28Speaker 01

  Crazy hard.

• 33:29Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 33:30Speaker 01

  And so I got to the OR and I remember them freaking out and getting me on the table and I'm still like woozy, but still with it. And you know, they're just up here and they're putting the tourniquet on and the next thing you know, just, and I'm out. And then I wake up and I'm in the ICU and there's staples all down this side. I've got a scar running the length of my leg and there's, looks like fucking Frankenstein.

• 33:52Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 33:53Speaker 01

  And then this side, um, it's just new, new bandages and shit like that. And I'm like, what the fuck happened? Doctors in there, my parents are in there, the doctor's like. Wow. It's like you gave us a really, really good scare there. They ended up telling me that they uh my femur already blew. Obviously, I lost two thirds of the blood in my body.

• 34:11Chris Williamson?

  Two thirds of the blood in your body. So what are we talking now? Eight pints probably?

• 34:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. So what was it? Five point five liters in the human body. So I know. Well, in a hundred and eighty pound human body is what they.

• 34:21Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  Um, so I don't know. A lot of blood.

• 34:24Chris Williamson?

  How, how, what's the level at which you die?

• 34:27Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 34:28Chris Williamson?

  It must be around about two thirds.

• 34:30Speaker 01

  So what they, what they did immediately was.

• 34:32Chris Williamson?

  People faint after they give a pint of blood, which is half of a liter.

• 34:36Speaker 01

  So if had that, again, if that had happened and I've been Baghdad, I would have been dead. Yeah. So thank God I was in the hospital. They could get blood up. I mean, they started pumping blood through me right then and there.

• 34:45Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 34:45Speaker 01

  Um, once I got to the OR. So anyway, yeah, woke up and said, gave us quite a scare there. We ended up having to take the vein out of your left leg and put it in your right to create a new femoral artery.

• 34:57Chris Williamson?

  So your left leg's.

• 34:59Speaker 01

  Vein is in my right leg.

• 35:00Chris Williamson?

  Right leg's femoral artery.

• 35:01Speaker 01

  And they, they pretty much just flip it around. So they take it out of here, flip it and turn it into an artery.

• 35:06Chris Williamson?

  No way.

• 35:07Speaker 01

  I swear to God, man. It's crazy.

• 35:09Chris Williamson?

  Medicines.

• 35:10Speaker 01

  It's fascinating.

• 35:11Chris Williamson?

  Incredible.

• 35:12Speaker 01

  So that's another beautiful thing about it is I lost six inches of my femur, right? So when it went in, went in right here, blew out this side. I lost above that much of my femur.

• 35:23Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 35:24Speaker 01

  They had to take it out. There's just little pieces left. They grew my femur back using bone grafts and stuff. I had four different bone grafts and they, they grew all of that back. And it looks fucking crazy and weird and wicked, but it's a bone. I run on it and all that. It's like, it's just blows my mind uh what they can do.

• 35:40Chris Williamson?

  For nothing else, like I, I've given blood once, but never that much. But you know, hearing a situation like that where someone's life gets saved by the fact that they need probably circa five, eight, 10 pints of blood, whatever it might be. Like, if people aren't donating blood, you're dead.

• 35:59Speaker 01

  And then that's, I'm one person and I got blood more times than I can even count. Cause most surgeries, you know, you go, I was, I have, I've had thirty seven surgeries and most of those surgeries you come out of, you, if you bleed a lot, you need blood. Dude, I, I got blood probably about a quarter of those surgeries. And then obviously with the femur artery, I got blood. I mean, those first two days. Yeah.

• 36:20Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 36:21Speaker 01

  So yeah, so I mean, I woke up and my life was changed, man. I mean, I just, I was so fearful after that because I was like, what if I was sleeping when that blew? You know what I mean? What if it blows again?

• 36:31Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 36:32Speaker 01

  What the fuck am I gonna do? So I didn't sleep. If I thought I couldn't sleep before that, I didn't sleep at all after, not at all.

• 36:37Chris Williamson?

  Wow.

• 36:38Speaker 01

  Um, and so that ended up, that's the femur artery blowing is why I lost my lower limb.

• 36:43Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 36:44Speaker 01

  Um, I initially was, you know, they thought I was gonna lose my leg up here because of where I got hit. I didn't have damage to my lower limb.

• 36:50Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 36:50Speaker 01

  But because of the femur artery, it was about a fourteen hour surgery. And they had the tourniquet on for so long that when they took the tourniquet off to rush the blood back down the new vein.

• 36:59Chris Williamson?

  Yes.

• 36:59Speaker 01

  It's called compartment syndrome.

• 37:01Chris Williamson?

  I know what it is.

• 37:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I got that real bad and they had to do fasciotomies on both sides.

• 37:06Chris Williamson?

  Can you briefly explain what compartment syndrome is for people who don't know?

• 37:08Speaker 01

  So pretty much they, the doctors explained to me in layman's term as a hot dog that's in the microwave too long. So it's too much pressure.

• 37:14Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 37:15Speaker 01

  Because of the blood, the blood flow, it hadn't been flowing for a long time. Then all of a sudden that pressure, um, it, it, it like blows the fricking leg up and you have to slit it to, to relieve that pressure. Um, what happened with mine was that led to necrosis of my muscle in my lower limb because of the pressure.

• 37:32Chris Williamson?

  You only need thirteen hours without blood flow for that to occur.

• 37:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:36Chris Williamson?

  So.

• 37:37Speaker 01

  I mean, and less than that too.

• 37:38Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. So it could have, you know, the, the tolerance that you'd have needed probably maybe six hours, eight hours, ten hours or whatever, and you could have had the same.

• 37:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. So they ended up having to take a big flap of my muscle out, uh, due to necrosis and that flap of muscle was what was used to lift my foot up.

• 37:53Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  So after that, um, you know, obviously it took about a year to walk again and all that shit. But by the time I had come to that point, you know, fast forward two years, my leg was worthless, man. Like my, my thigh was getting good and all that and I was getting stronger. But my lower leg, it just, I drug it around with me.

• 38:08Chris Williamson?

  There's no dorsiflexion, right? So you can't lift the toes off the ground, the reverse of a calf raise.

• 38:14Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 38:14Chris Williamson?

  Could you do calf raises?

• 38:15Speaker 01

  Yes. Uh, no, no. Yeah, calf raises. Yes, yes, yes.

• 38:18Chris Williamson?

  So you could go up on your toes?

• 38:20Speaker 01

  I could go up on my toes.

• 38:21Chris Williamson?

  Couldn't walk on your heel?

• 38:21Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 38:22Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 38:22Speaker 01

  And, uh, so I had surgery to try to fix that. Didn't work.

• 38:26Chris Williamson?

  So hang on, we've, we've, you've had the, um, the artery and the vein switch over. The next year or two years is is that heavy rehab?

• 38:35Speaker 01

  Rehab.

• 38:36Chris Williamson?

  Rehab.

• 38:36Speaker 01

  Rehab. So I dislocated my knee in the incident too. So a good six months was just working that knee back out.

• 38:42Chris Williamson?

  Oh my god.

• 38:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. So my knee and they never fixed it. So it just healed itself down.

• 38:46Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 38:46Speaker 01

  It's all scar tissue and stuff. So I had this little Vietnamese physical therapist and she used to just get up there and crank it, man. And it was horrible. But yeah, so that was a good six months just to get the knee.

• 38:57Chris Williamson?

  You know, for for me, watching my my only experience of um seeing army rehab is like what what you have seen on Black Hawk Down and like, you know, like sort of super American movies. But is it like that? Is it the parallets? Like with the hands and the Zimmer frame like and the person helping you walk?

• 39:16Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Yeah.

• 39:17Chris Williamson?

  The sweating and the shaking.

• 39:18Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Absolutely. And and then, you know, you have to work hard in there. If you don't work hard in there, you see the drastic difference in people when they don't do what they need to do in rehab. But if you're working hard in there, yeah, you're you're killing yourself. I mean, it sucks. It really, really sucks. But did that for two years. Um, had a tendon transfer to try to get my dorsiflexion back and it didn't didn't really work. And um and also I was getting um hammer toe. So because I didn't have the ability to raise my my foot up or my toes, my toes were slowly but surely going like this.

• 39:48Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 39:48Speaker 01

  And the older I got, the more they would do that.

• 39:50Chris Williamson?

  Tethering down.

• 39:51Speaker 01

  Extremely painful.

• 39:52Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 39:52Speaker 01

  Lot of pain in my ankle as well. Lot of pain in my foot arch.

• 39:56Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 39:57Speaker 01

  So it got to the point where I said, I can't fucking do this. I'm twenty two years old. Like, I'm young. I'm in physical therapy, just dying. And I'm looking at these guys with prosthetics just doing this crazy shit. And I'm like.

• 40:07Chris Williamson?

  How many hours a week are you doing rehab for that year or two years?

• 40:11Speaker 01

  About four hours a week. I'm sorry, four hours a day, five days a week.

• 40:14Chris Williamson?

  Five days a week.

• 40:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:15Chris Williamson?

  So it's a full time job, just trying to get your body back to work?

• 40:18Speaker 01

  Because you have to do you have stretching for thirty minutes and you have weight training for an hour and then.

• 40:23Chris Williamson?

  So it's like you're being a professional athlete to just become a human.

• 40:26Speaker 01

  Pretty much, yeah. Yeah. Which is what it takes. I mean, you have to.

• 40:29Chris Williamson?

  That's mind blowing.

• 40:30Speaker 01

  So, um, yeah, it was really, I'm thankful, so, so, so thankful to have been in the rehab facility I was in with other combat wounded veterans. Because I got to see those young guys with their prosthetics doing this crazy shit. Yeah. And I'm like, that should be me, like, I shouldn't be fucking, I'm twenty- What crazy shit would they do? With box jumps and running and, you know, like, just things, I would have never ran again, you know, I would have, it just, the things that I wanted to do as a twenty-two year old athlete. Yeah. And, uh, so I went in, I said, is there anything we can do, you know, and they, they mentioned elective amputation. And I, I, I said, you know, they said, you gotta think about it, if you wanna do it, we're, we're willing to do it, you know, we've done it before, and we just can't promise that it'll work out. So, it, uh, it, it took me about a week.

• 41:15Speaker 01

  How, I was gonna say, cause that decision to lose a limb. Yeah. It's like, I actually read up on shit on online, obviously, in that week. During, during the period? During that week, yeah, and, um, and one of them likened it to losing a family member, and it really much is, you know, because it's a part of you. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, but after that week, when I made my, my decision, it was done, you know, I didn't, and then you have to wait six months, they, they have to make sure that you're, you're mentally sound, right? You're not just like, I'm gonna have off a limb, yeah. Yeah, like, I'm gonna dye my hair. Yeah. And I'll get, I'll get- Maybe lose a limb, whatever. Exactly, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I, I went through the six months, which is good for me too, because I shouldn't- You need to do the- Process it. Yeah. Six months, bro, I'm like, let's get this bitch off, man. Was it, during that period, was it getting worse? Yeah, absolutely.

• 42:00Speaker 01

  And, and I was seeing, I was feeling the limitations of my body, so, two years of rehab, right, and I'm, I'm like, every other part of my body, my, my thighs getting stronger, my bones getting stronger, like, the veins- Femurs back. The femurs back, like, everything was coming together but that. Yeah. And so, I was at my, I was at the ceiling. Let's get this motherfucker off. I had no, let's get that motherfucker off, and my, my dad, to this day, it's the only surgery I came out of with a smile on my face, man. It's the only one, my, my, came out, and I'm just like, I knew, it was new life, it was like, this is my opportunity. I had reached my max here, and now I knew that- The ceilings just got raised. Fucking tenfold. And, um-

• 42:39Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, so the funny thing about that is I have to throw this out there. It's some of my favorite pictures, but we actually had a going away party for my foot the night before. And all my buddies signed my foot. My dad was there. He signed my foot. My sister was there. And they put a little coupon cut line on there. Don't cut above this line.

• 42:59Speaker 01

  I went in for the surgery. They're like, oh my god. Yeah, who's this guy? Yeah. So, yeah, got it hacked off. How did they do it? Uh, I mean, just they pretty much so go through, because mine is different. The beautiful part about having your leg and doing an elective amputation is they have a lot of shit to work with. They've got, they can choose exactly where. Exactly how they want to do it, what they want to use. So have they, have the, wherever it is that the cut has been made, is that the optimal? Optimal. Absolutely. Yeah. Optimal for in terms of legs. So is, what's the specific kind of amputation that it was? Is there a? Just BK. It's called baloney amputation. Okay. Yeah, there's no like specific. They're all the same. Yep.

• 43:40Speaker 01

  Um, where the fuck was I? Oh, so they, they cut it, but they cut it right to the back of the muscle, right? And then they take it off. So that big muscle flap's right here, right? Yep. Then they take a little piece of your tibia and they sew it into your. I guess you've got shitloads of spare. Shit, some of the spare parts. That's what I'm saying. It's like Frankenstein shit. Yep. So they take a little piece.

• 44:00Speaker 01

  I want another ear. I really always wanted a six finger. Can we throw a rib on my forehead maybe to see how it looks? Um, so they take a little piece of tibia and they connect your tibia and fibula at the bottom to make a good little support. Yeah, because I guess there's a lot, there's a lot of pressure that's gonna now be going to the bottom. And if it's only two bones sticking straight down, you can imagine that it may, may end up hurting. So they put the urdle on the end to act as kind of like a nice little. Okay. And then they bring that flap up. Yep. And sew it. Okay. Pretty much it. And, uh, yeah, so got out and then it's back to rehab. You know, another year rehab. It took me about a year to learn how to walk right and about another year to run right. And then by that.

• 44:38Speaker 01

  So it's four years of rehab. Four years of total rehab. Two years for the earlier two years.

• 44:44Chris Williamson?

  Six months to make the decision, another two years off the back of it.

• 44:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:47Chris Williamson?

  Wow.

• 44:48Speaker 01

  And so then I got done with that and I mean, it was the best fucking decision I ever could have made. I mean, absolutely. The things I've done since then with my leg not only blew my mind, but it's just. It it it it proves to me that I made the right decision. I'm happy with that, you know, I've never regretted it, not once. And to be able to look back now and be like, man, look at all the things I've done.

• 45:09Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 45:10Speaker 01

  That I never could have done.

• 45:10Chris Williamson?

  You it sounds so crazy. It's such a reverse um reversely logical decision. For a normal person hearing that to go, I chose to lose a limb. And it's the best decision I could have made.

• 45:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:26Chris Williamson?

  Like for most people, that would be the, you know, it's. Heart sinking, one of the scariest things that you could do, and yet for you, it's what's giving you life.

• 45:35Speaker 01

  But see, I had to live through two years of the of the.

• 45:37Chris Williamson?

  You knew what it's like on the other side.

• 45:38Speaker 01

  And the other side was not fucking fun.

• 45:40Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 45:40Speaker 01

  And.

• 45:41Chris Williamson?

  So what's it, what's it like learning to walk?

• 45:44Speaker 01

  It's not much. Honestly, it's not much different. You don't it. I mean, you're learning to walk again as an adult, so it's it's kind of different, but the feeling wise, it's kind of one foot in front of the other, you know what I mean? But it it's, it takes a lot, man, a lot. And a lot of that has to do with not the nub or the lower limb, but your the rest of the body, because it all has to adapt.

• 46:03Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 46:03Speaker 01

  You don't realize how much you use your foot and your calf for pushing off for everything.

• 46:08Chris Williamson?

  So do you feel like your core is like just rock solid?

• 46:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, rock solid.

• 46:12Chris Williamson?

  Cause you've got to, you'll have to balance through your midline as opposed to using dorsiflexion to restabilize, right? So you stabilize your whole lower leg.

• 46:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:22Chris Williamson?

  Mostly through your core.

• 46:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:23Chris Williamson?

  As opposed to with your toes and with your ankle. So, yeah, that must have been a real, a real change of biomechanics for you to start to relearn that.

• 46:32Speaker 01

  And it does. It takes a long time. I actually had. Real bad foot drop, or I'm sorry, real bad hip drop when I was walking after I got amputated.

• 46:41Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 46:41Speaker 01

  Because you you require a lot more, as you said, hip and core movement and and act activity than normally.

• 46:47Chris Williamson?

  So were you?

• 46:48Speaker 01

  So it's real bad hit, yeah, so like that. So what she, I did this for six months, man, an hour every single day. She had me walk toward a mirror, walk back, walk toward a mirror.

• 46:57Chris Williamson?

  So that you could see what you were.

• 46:57Speaker 01

  Walk back so that I could see what I was doing and.

• 47:00Chris Williamson?

  So talk me through the rehabilitation. Is it, are we back on four hours a day?

• 47:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 47:04Chris Williamson?

  Five days.

• 47:05Speaker 01

  Absolutely. So and then once you get your leg, but that's the cool part is, so like I told you, I was kind of like, I'd reached my point about a year into my first little stint.

• 47:14Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 47:15Speaker 01

  And I was just kind of going through the motions after that. With the leg, every, it's every day, better, better, better, more, more and more.

• 47:23Chris Williamson?

  You feel like you're getting after it?

• 47:24Speaker 01

  By the time I was out, I ended my rehab there and met up here retired, dude, I was the guy in there that other people were looking at like, oh, God, I can do that one day. Which to me was really fucking cool.

• 47:34Chris Williamson?

  That's amazing.

• 47:34Speaker 01

  I was the one doing box jumps in there. I was the one doing sprints. I was like, it was, it's one.

• 47:38Chris Williamson?

  That's fantastic.

• 47:39Speaker 01

  It it was, it's like full circle.

• 47:41Chris Williamson?

  Circle of life.

• 47:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it was really fucking cool. I was in a really good place then, man, really, really, really good place. Um, and then I met up here retired and I'm like, man, the whole world's out. It was like that new feeling again, all that. And then, yeah, the world shit all over me, but it's civilian life, man. You you, it's funny how that shit works. You're just like.

• 48:00Chris Williamson?

  So talk me through reintegration.

• 48:02Speaker 01

  So that's, you know, like I said, there's this excitement, right? Like, I'm gonna go to college, I'm gonna be a college kid and I'm gonna do all this stuff.

• 48:08Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 48:09Speaker 01

  You don't fucking realize how much support you have at that medical, med, military medical, uh, community. You don't realize how much to rely on there, from the doctors to the rehabs, to the friends you've made there, to the other combat wounded veterans who understand what you're going through without even having to say a word. To the nonprofits that are there to help you. You have literally an army of people there to support you. And you don't realize what it does for you until you leave it.

• 48:34Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 48:34Speaker 01

  And so I ended up going to college in West Virginia because I wanted just a fresh start, you know, I wanted something new, didn't know anybody there and it ended up being my downfall at that time because I got there and there was, I mean, I.

• 48:46Speaker 01

  I didn't know who I was, man. I didn't know who the fuck I was, because my my life, four years of it was rehab. That was that was my life. It's getting better.

• 48:52Chris Williamson?

  At twenty two, most people don't know who they are.

• 48:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:54Chris Williamson?

  Let alone someone who's been in this strangely insulated, isolated, very unique, very difficult to um compare with anyone else's experience situation.

• 49:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:08Chris Williamson?

  And then you come out and then you've got to try and reintegrate.

• 49:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you have to imagine this too, you know, you have a purpose, military, you have a purpose, deployed, you have a purpose, even injury, you have a purpose. I'm getting better.

• 49:21Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 49:22Speaker 01

  When you lose all of those purposes and you're on to the next one, that's when you're like, oh, fuck, what am I, what do I do now?

• 49:28Chris Williamson?

  I've got to go to this lecture, I've got to like.

• 49:31Speaker 01

  And I tell you what, I just didn't know who I was. I didn't know where I was going. I didn't know who I was gonna become.

• 49:36Chris Williamson?

  So how old, how old are we now?

• 49:37Speaker 01

  At that point, what was I, I got hit at twenty one, actually two weeks before my twenty first birthday, and four years, so about twenty five, mid twenties.

• 49:45Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 49:47Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, so I had planned on doing twenty years in the military, so I had no idea, dude, I had no idea what I wanted to do, who I was gonna be.

• 49:53Chris Williamson?

  Gonna try and find a life now.

• 49:54Speaker 01

  Started going to school for finance, and I ended up rushing a fraternity, because I spent two weeks there so unhappy, so miserably unhappy and alone, uh, and dealing with this new onset PTSD, that I was either about to go home, or just like, I didn't, I didn't know, I was out of options. And so I ended up rushing a fraternity, uh, which was both good and bad, obviously, you know, I made friends and it gave me that social aspect, but it's not a good environment for a veteran dealing with PTSD, to be around alcohol and drugs and partying nonstop.

• 50:25Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 50:25Speaker 01

  And so my life kind of unraveled at that point a little bit, um, and and I got to a point, I had spent a year there, and I said, I gotta, I gotta get out of here, I'm regressing, like, I'm not doing, I'm not, I'm not becoming a better human being.

• 50:38Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 50:39Speaker 01

  And so I actually had decided to move to Florida, and again, one of the worst years of my life, the first year there, just because I knew no one.

• 50:45Chris Williamson?

  What were you doing then?

• 50:46Speaker 01

  Um, in Florida?

• 50:47Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 50:48Speaker 01

  Uh, well, I started school back down there, too.

• 50:50Chris Williamson?

  Oh, okay.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  Um, but then I also, at that time, I was traveling about two to three weekends a month for this nonprofit. Um, it's a group of amputee, combat amputees who play softball.

• 51:00Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 51:00Speaker 01

  So that that was really big for me, and that's actually the foundation of that sports, right?

• 51:04Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 51:04Speaker 01

  So.

• 51:06Speaker 01

  I was on that team, played ball for a year, really enjoyed it, gave me some purpose and I was with those guys, which meant a lot, but the guy that led it was a rat fuck. And he like stole money from the organization, shit like that. And he was using the guy, so I got out of that. And how Vet Sports started from that was because I was like, I want to do this the right way. Um, so yeah, the first year in Florida, you know, I was traveling with that team and going to school, but knew no one and you know, no resources in the community. There was just nothing.

• 51:33Chris Williamson?

  Support structure is just not there.

• 51:35Speaker 01

  And I think for me, the main thing I needed was just veterans, man, like other, other military people, just people that could understand me. And um, so Vet Sports was started in 2012. That was my second year in Florida.

• 51:47Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 51:47Speaker 01

  I lucked out, um, had a mutual friend of another combat wounded veteran and had a combat wounded buddy of mine and all three of us had really bad transitions. And realized that, yeah, while the military medical center, uh, community has all this support, once you get to the normal civilian community, there's none.

• 52:04Chris Williamson?

  Is it a little bit black and white?

• 52:05Speaker 01

  Absolutely. It's fucking night and day.

• 52:07Chris Williamson?

  As opposed to this gentle ramp that sort of slows you back in. So what does? If you can try and define what PTSD feels like, can you try and define it? Can you verbalize it?

• 52:20Speaker 01

  The only thing I can say, I, I did this pretty extensive therapy called art therapy.

• 52:26Chris Williamson?

  Art therapy?

• 52:27Speaker 01

  Art therapy. So it's not art, art. Um, it's, uh, it's, it's accelerated resolution therapy or something.

• 52:34Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 52:34Speaker 01

  It's pretty much based on eye movement. So a lot of it is internal. You think about a lot of stuff and you follow their hand with your eyes because it allows you to kind of process the thoughts better. Brilliant fucking surgery, uh, brilliant therapy.

• 52:47Speaker 01

  And what they, what they said was when we go through traumatic events, we don't even mean to do this, but every event thereafter runs through this filter. A filter of that event. So you view and experience things through that filter because it's there. It's this block in your head. And so you can't enjoy things like normal. You can't, you, you don't feel compassion and the normal feelings that other people have. You're just kind of void of it all because everything is being viewed through those filters. And that therapy, they pretty much, their whole thing is they break down those filters.

• 53:18Chris Williamson?

  Try to remove the lens.

• 53:19Speaker 01

  So that you can view everything with a fresh perspective.

• 53:22Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 53:25Speaker 01

  But it's tough. So it's PTSD is just, it's all encompassing, man. It's, it's always there.

• 53:30Chris Williamson?

  And it's just so. Is it like if someone's had anxiety, does it feel like anxiety?

• 53:34Speaker 01

  A lot. So that's the thing about PTSD too, is it manifests itself differently for everybody. Some people have nightmares. You know, I have nightmares all the time too. That's, that's part of PTSD. Some people can't do crowds. I, I'm all right with crowds. It makes me uncomfortable. It was worse back in the day. You do some exposure therapy and you get over it. But it, there's a lot of different, that's why it's hard to explain exactly what it is.

• 53:54Chris Williamson?

  And it's just such a, it's such a ruthless affliction. That the fact that it's almost bringing back your, your first weaknesses. So there's a, a really interesting story from King Arthur, the knight to the round table, and they've got to go off. Got to look for the dragon, right? You've got to go slay the dragon. And each of the knights has to enter the forest at the point which looks darkest to him. So each of them, they don't go in on one path. Each of them has to walk around the forest. Until they find the point at which looks darkest to him. And that's what that feels like to me. That's, that feels like someone who

• 54:35Chris Williamson?

  it, it, it brings up like it find, it's capable of manifesting your weakness. Like it's the kryptonite, what your kryptonite, but it's not everyone else's. So it's, yeah, I mean.

• 54:46Speaker 01

  So they, you're, that's a brilliant way to put it. Actually, I love that because um it's true. So my, some of my flaws, my whole life has been self hatred and anxiety. And the PTSD takes both of those and fucking ramps them up, jacks them up.

• 54:58Chris Williamson?

  Turns it up to eleven, yeah.

• 55:01Speaker 01

  And um so I, I, you know, alcoholism, drugs, I mean, I was in it all. Um, I just needed to, I had to cope somehow. I had to just erase it and numb the feelings. A lot of that goes back to what we were talking about earlier where um you have to turn these emotions off for so fricking long and utilize only the, the really bad ones that you really shouldn't. That when you come back, you don't, it's not a switch. You can't just switch them back on. So I, I had to learn over years and years.

• 55:28Chris Williamson?

  Did you ever find yourself like uh feeling aggressive again?

• 55:32Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, dude, I, my, uh, uh, West Virginia was big on this, but my fighting during my early twenties, like mid to uh like even later twenties was ridiculous.

• 55:43Chris Williamson?

  Really? Just didn't have that red, red, red filter at all. Okay.

• 55:48Speaker 01

  Nope.

• 55:48Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 55:49Speaker 01

  I uh, I would get drunk, fight all the time.

• 55:51Chris Williamson?

  Just flip out.

• 55:53Speaker 01

  Um.

• 55:55Speaker 01

  And so the art therapy, as I was saying, I did that about four years ago and it changed me. It allowed me to feel those feelings again. It really brought all the emotions to the forefront.

• 56:04Chris Williamson?

  So you're following the hand and you're being talked through?

• 56:07Speaker 01

  You're being talked through, you're kind of prompted, but a lot of it is thought prompts. So I actually, in one of my books, Thirty Days, I discuss it a lot because it did mean a lot to me and I wanted people to know about it. But um, so if anyone's interested, but yeah, it's, it's very much you're in your own head and you're thinking about it. And one of the things I do at the end of everyone is, so my childhood stuff was a very big basis of that. And I'd say it, it really helped me a lot with my childhood stuff, about 10 times more than my military stuff. My military stuff has very much been like this year, year, year long, years long battle.

• 56:38Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 56:38Speaker 01

  Where, and the child stuff too, but that was like life changing.

• 56:43Chris Williamson?

  So do you think, do you think that mentally you're in a better position now, having gone through the art therapy? And started to move through the PTSD with dealing with what happened before you were deployed as well?

• 56:57Speaker 01

  So I think, I think the art therapy getting me through that childhood shit allowed me to then go and battle the PTSD. I was like, I was stuck.

• 57:06Chris Williamson?

  So was it kind of like you had to get, okay, I've got to get through the first 16 years of life?

• 57:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:11Chris Williamson?

  And deal with that stuff before I can actually, so you've got PTSD on PTSD.

• 57:14Speaker 01

  I do, yeah. At the end of the day, that's what it is.

• 57:17Chris Williamson?

  PTSD squared.

• 57:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, pretty much. And it's a really tricky thing to fucking figure out.

• 57:22Chris Williamson?

  Where do we start?

• 57:23Speaker 01

  Where do you fucking start? So I, I ended up luckily, uh, I was getting long ass way there. The end of every art therapy session, you envision yourself as a child, you know, if, if you have childhood issues.

• 57:33Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 57:33Speaker 01

  And you're holding your child, you by the hand and you're walking him across the bridge. The negativity is on this side, the positivity is on this side. And you walk him across this bridge and you see a fire, a big bonfire. And you stand next to that bonfire and you start throwing all that negative shit in, right? And then you look down at your younger self and they actually ask you, what would you tell your younger you? And I think I said, um, believe in yourself and don't let other people dictate how you feel. And she said, okay, good, say that to yourself in your head and then let younger you start throwing stuff in the fire too. And it sounds fucking weird and hokey, man. And the first time I did, I felt weird, but I gotta fucking tell you, dude, dude, just existing in that. It changed me, man. It changed me. It was a very powerful thing. And I think obviously it had to do with

• 58:15Speaker 01

  the whole session, the session as a whole and then ending it with that. But yeah, there was something significant about that.

• 58:21Chris Williamson?

  Did you find it so for some of the listeners will be practicing meditation at the moment and some of the practices that you go through on that can be they can be difficult in the same way that picking up a heavy weight is difficult, but it's mental, right? And did you find it testing to

• 58:39Chris Williamson?

  be able to start visualizing that sort of stuff? Cause it's a very specific way of thinking, right? It's a in incredibly unique skill in the same way as being able to do a snatch is a very specific mental, physical skill. You're being asked to do something which is very, very fine and discreet mentally.

• 58:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:58Chris Williamson?

  Did you find, did you have to cultivate it over time? Did you have a?

• 59:01Speaker 01

  Definitely. But the thing about art therapy too is that it's very quick. It's accelerated resolution therapy. You call that for a reason. It's very, it works quickly. So yeah, the first session, first few sessions, you're like, okay, it takes some time, but yeah, but you also, in order for that to work, you have to be open to it. You have to. If you're going there thinking, oh, this is fucking hokey bullshit.

• 59:22Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 59:22Speaker 01

  It's not gonna work. So even though I, in my head, I'm like, okay, whatever. And when I went in there, I said every time, I said, you're gonna fucking do this and you're gonna be open minded and you're gonna.

• 59:30Chris Williamson?

  I mean, look at, you know, to go back to the decision to lose the limb. Like, you know, you had done your research, you'd read through and then you go, I'm gonna go for this. Like, this is all or nothing.

• 59:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:42Chris Williamson?

  And, you know, a hundred percent commitment, I think is, there must be a lot of people who have maybe gone to do art therapy and have had that doubt in the back of their mind and then they haven't elicited that same result that you did.

• 59:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. Absolutely. Which was unfortunate because it really, it was, it was fantastic. It was incredible.

• 1:00:01Chris Williamson?

  So is that the basis of your recovery?

• 1:00:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, because like I said, I think it knocked out that childhood PTSD, you know, it allowed me to move past that.

• 1:00:09Chris Williamson?

  Okay. And then did you, so did you find kind of like, um, eating layers of a cake? Did you find different sensations and different tastes as you moved through the layers?

• 1:00:21Speaker 01

  So I talk.

• 1:00:23Speaker 01

  It's like a floodgates had been opened, right? So where I never felt love or happiness or joy or anything like that in the years prior, I felt them like on an infinite level afterward. It was weird. So like. Was it overwhelming? Yes, but in a kind of a beautiful way, um, cause I was feeling again. And so like, one of the things is it's so ridiculous, but like I'll watch a YouTube episode of um, uh, The Voice or something and you'll have somebody who's like, maybe they're meek or they had some terrible childhood and they go in there fucking just kill it. Yeah. I cry on that shit now. I weep like a fucking baby. That would have never happened back in the day, ever. Yeah. And that was one of the big things. I just feel more. You can find meaning in things. Yeah. Okay.

• 1:01:07Speaker 01

  And so, yeah, it was huge. It was, it was significant. So you've gone through the art therapy. Um, what's next after that? Well, so the art therapy and Vet Sports started about the same time. So I also found my purpose again at that point. So tell me, tell me about Vet Sports. It's what I want to get onto. So Vet Sports, again, the bad shit, the shit transition, right? You know, we, and then that bad organization, I was like, you know, I know that this works, bringing veterans together. I know this works and having some sort of a- active activity. Yep. But what if we did it the right way? Not only that, what if we provided it within the communities where people are returning to? I mean, they're transitioning to these communities. How cool would it be to have a little club there? So like I said, the three of us came up with the idea of having the community-based clubs that revolve around

• 1:01:52Speaker 01

  sports, athletic events, um, community involvement. We, we, we help other charities as well through donating our time. Mm-hmm. And then, um, you know, get-togethers, events, just bringing them together, social events. And so we started Vet Sports. Our first club was in DC and then I started one down in Tampa, which is funny, you know, like I didn't have any friends at there at that time, right? Yeah. I made all my friends in Florida from Vet Sports. So, uh, yeah, that was growing and really becoming something. And so I had that new purpose. You know, I was still battling, absolutely. I still battle to this day. That shit never goes away, but it. You know, it's just progress.

• 1:02:26Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 1:02:26Speaker 01

  It's progress. Even little progress is huge when you go through that kind of life. And uh.

• 1:02:32Chris Williamson?

  So what's the, what's the process of starting a sporting organization for veterans? Like what do you, how do you find them?

• 1:02:38Speaker 01

  Well, lots of recruiting, a lot of recruiting methods, VA, uh, student veteran organizations. Um, yeah, I had to learn all this. That's, that was kind of the funny thing, you know? It was a lot of pressure and it definitely, um, in their, those early years.

• 1:02:50Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:51Speaker 01

  Because I have a lot of self hatred and self doubt, stuff like that. Um, it was tough because I would.

• 1:02:55Chris Williamson?

  It's a big old task, right?

• 1:02:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, because you really, you know, can I do this, you know? Is it worthy? Is it worth it?

• 1:03:01Chris Williamson?

  Should it be me? Should it be someone else? Yeah.

• 1:03:03Speaker 01

  So yeah, you, you end up, I had to learn it all and, uh, and, but we, we did it. I mean, we have, we've recruited through colleges and VAs and other nonprofits and, uh, it's just, it's been cool, man.

• 1:03:16Chris Williamson?

  What are the sports that you guys?

• 1:03:18Speaker 01

  Anything. So we, we really, we, at the end of the day, we want to know what they want to do. So if you have a club, say we have a club in East Texas and you want to do some skeet shooting, then they do skeet shooting.

• 1:03:26Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:26Speaker 01

  Whereas in California, if your crew wants to do surfing, then we do surfing. You know, it's all dependent on the, the area and what the need is.

• 1:03:33Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 1:03:33Speaker 01

  But we like to keep it mixed, you know, we do softballs, you know, kickball, skeet shooting.

• 1:03:38Chris Williamson?

  There it is again.

• 1:03:40Speaker 01

  Um, everything. We do everything.

• 1:03:42Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:42Speaker 01

  We, we definitely focus more on team sports aspect of it. There's a lot of nonprofits out there that are helping and doing good stuff. We believe in the team sports aspect of it because it, it kind of gives you that new goal. Yeah. Brings you together. It allows you to work together again. Part of a team is big military thing, obviously, so it gives you that feeling again.

• 1:03:58Chris Williamson?

  Does it feel a little bit like a brotherhood again?

• 1:04:00Speaker 01

  It is a brotherhood, absolutely. Any guy in Vetsports will tell you that Vetsports is, is a brother. And I hate saying brotherhood because it's a sisterhood as well, but it's a family. It is an absolute family and that's what we wanted it to be. We didn't start out, uh, wanting to be a, a big, or, you know, an organization where you can't reach out to the founder and say. Hey, tell me about Vet Sports.

• 1:04:19Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, so how many locations even?

• 1:04:22Speaker 01

  So shit, that's I'm like, I took a step back this year, right? So like all this shit's happening now. It's like I've sent my kid off to college, right? You know, I did all the things I needed to do.

• 1:04:31Chris Williamson?

  Does it feel like it's its own monster now?

• 1:04:32Speaker 01

  It is. No, I'm not. Yeah, I'm like.

• 1:04:34Chris Williamson?

  It just runs, it's its own animal.

• 1:04:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, it does its own thing. Randy Tharp is our president and he's a fantastic. He's another combat wounded veteran who co-founded it with me and an incredible human being. And he is absolutely the reason Vet Sports is where it is today. You know, I, I've done my part and I've done everything that I can to bring it to where it is. But Randy, especially with this new growth, it goes to him. I mean, we're, we're in a lot of places. So just to try to name them all, Michigan, Colleen, Texas, Jacksonville, the Panhandle, Tampa. Uh, we just did one in Norfolk, Fort, uh, hold on.

• 1:05:15Speaker 01

  Can't even fucking remember it. Two up in Michigan, DC, Westchester, New York. Uh, they're everywhere, man. New Mexico.

• 1:05:22Chris Williamson?

  You're talking hundreds of people.

• 1:05:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, oh, thousands.

• 1:05:24Chris Williamson?

  Thousands of veterans.

• 1:05:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. It, it blows my mind to see.

• 1:05:27Chris Williamson?

  Do you have any, do you have any idea how many people have been a, like, from start to finish, have been a member of Vet Sports? Like if you were to put it.

• 1:05:34Speaker 01

  I don't have a specific number, but thousands, absolutely thousands, yeah.

• 1:05:38Chris Williamson?

  And the effect that it's had on reintegration and all the rest of it is probably going to be pretty profound.

• 1:05:43Speaker 01

  I, I think so, yeah. I mean, I, I think the proof is in the pudding for sure, but from what I've seen, um, yeah. I mean, we've, it's been beautiful, man. We've seen a lot of people who were in the exact state I was in, who just come out slowly but surely. It's funny, it's a process. One of my best friends now is actually one of these guys who just showed up one day. And it's like this timid, like he watches first, you know, doesn't really talk to anybody and just checks it out. And then the next week they come and maybe they talk to a few people. And the next week they're like, hey, can I get a uniform? You know, it's like they build to this point. And then like, like my best friend now.

• 1:06:16Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:18Speaker 01

  I see it in him, the change, and I don't know where some of those guys would be now if it weren't for it, which is a good feeling to have.

• 1:06:24Chris Williamson?

  It must be incredibly empowering.

• 1:06:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:26Chris Williamson?

  You know, to take your experience and then also your passion, which was sports, and somehow create something that's meaning and puts people on a different trajectory and.

• 1:06:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:37Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:37Speaker 01

  At the end of the day, that's what, that's our ultimate goal.

• 1:06:39Chris Williamson?

  Have you guys still got the, it's kind of like the baseball logo, but it's with the artificial like sports leg? Is that, do you know like the silhouette?

• 1:06:50Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:06:51Chris Williamson?

  Is that still your emblem?

• 1:06:52Speaker 01

  That's mine, yeah.

• 1:06:53Chris Williamson?

  I'll make sure it's in the show notes if anyone who's just listening needs to check this out because it is so fucking cool.

• 1:06:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love that thing.

• 1:06:59Chris Williamson?

  It's so cool. Is that, who is that?

• 1:07:00Speaker 01

  That's me.

• 1:07:01Chris Williamson?

  Is that you?

• 1:07:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:07:02Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, so you're like halfway through the swing of the baseball bat, but you can see the.

• 1:07:06Speaker 01

  That the back leg is a prosthetic, yeah, yeah.

• 1:07:08Chris Williamson?

  It's cool, the kangaroo kind of.

• 1:07:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:07:11Chris Williamson?

  Arched foot, man, that's, it's just sick. I think I, when I first, first ever saw that, I was like, that, I love it. I just love the branding. I thought, I thought it was really, really good. Um, so Vet Sports now is purely US-based? Are you aware of any, um, organizations which are similar elsewhere in the world?

• 1:07:30Speaker 01

  We aren't, no. Um, and, and international, obviously, I'm, I have taken a step back, so I'm not gonna make these decisions so much anymore. I'll probably put them out there and see what, but I, I would love to go international at one point, like a UK Vet Sports Club for me to have. They fought beside us, man. They, they fought, you guys fought behind, beside us, Canada, Italy, there's so many people that I saw there that contributed and a lot of them don't get the same benefits that we do. A lot of them don't get the same treatment we do.

• 1:07:57Chris Williamson?

  So if you were, if you were to look at, you've said that reintegrating into normal society, there's maybe some work to be done there, but you sung the praises of the immediate reintegration and of.

• 1:08:08Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:08:09Chris Williamson?

  What are your impressions of that in other countries? Do you think America leads the way with that?

• 1:08:14Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:08:15Chris Williamson?

  By, by a big margin?

• 1:08:17Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:08:17Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 1:08:18Speaker 01

  I'm no, I know some UK guys who lost limbs overseas, who are not taken care of in the way they should be. Germany is terrible.

• 1:08:25Chris Williamson?

  Really?

• 1:08:25Speaker 01

  Well, unfortunately, due to their past, they view their military with distaste, disgust.

• 1:08:29Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:30Speaker 01

  And when they get injured, they're just, they're left. Man, that's terrible. Defenseless, pretty much. That's terrible. So, yeah, I mean, international for me, obviously, we have a long way to go. We're a very small organization, completely grassroots. Um, but yeah, I mean, twenty years from now, if there's Best Sports UK, Best Sports Canada, I'd be the happiest motherfucker on earth. I bet. Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. So you found some meaning with that and then you started writing? So that's another side of the fucking story, man. Um, and it's so weird. Hold on real quick. Uh, can you tell him that? What time is it now?

• 1:09:02Speaker 02

  It's five to one.

• 1:09:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, can you tell? I mean, it's probably gonna be another twenty.

• 1:09:06Speaker 02

  I sent Rock down to me.

• 1:09:07Speaker 01

  Okay. Um, ask again? Oh, yes, so. The writing. Tell me about the writing. So here's the thing. I've always been a writer. I've always loved it. I've always loved reading. Which is surprising, you know, like army guy, you know, like hyper masculine, all that stuff. But then you you've got this other side. See, but I grew up writing. Weirdly creative. I know. It's it's I grew up writing lyrics, dude. Fifth grade, fourth grade, I was writing lyrics and I was I was playing music and shit, you know, horrible music, but like that it was I was always the creative type. I'd always felt empowered by utilizing the written word to feel something. Yeah. And I've always been a reader. Arl Stein, Stephen King, I grew up on that shit and I would devour those books. Yeah.

• 1:09:47Speaker 01

  And so I always loved it. I didn't write when I was in the military. I lost I lost my passion for writing when I was in the military and when I was healing up. Yeah. And, uh, I had to kind of discover that passion again. So I'm in I'm taking finance in school. PTSD is fucking shit. I'm down in Florida, first year in Florida this time. Yeah. PTSD is rough. I'm miserable, man, and I hate my classes. I'm going to classes every day and I'm I hate it. Yeah. And I'm like. It's not it's not, uh, stimulating, you know, intellectually. So I'm like, bro, what are you doing? You're medically retired. You have an organization that, you know, you founded and you you care about that's giving you purpose. Why are you not chasing it? Why are you not doing what makes you happy? Yeah. And so I switched my major right then and there to creative writing. Okay. And just with the hopes that someday I'd maybe get an opportunity.

• 1:10:32Speaker 01

  At that time, I thought maybe I'd try to do some like strip writing contests, screenplay contests and see where it took me. A year into my creative writing after I'd switched it, um, I got reached out to by Michael Stokes. Michael Stokes is a pretty renowned photographer who, one of his campaigns or one of his, uh, passion projects was shooting combat winning amputees. But male form, so very like, um, masculine sexy photos, but with prosthetics in them.

• 1:10:58Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:58Speaker 01

  It was, it was kind of to take away from the process. It was, they're beautiful photos. And when I first saw, two guys did it before I did. And I saw those about a year before Michael reached out to me and I was just like, just moved.

• 1:11:08Chris Williamson?

  That's cool.

• 1:11:08Speaker 01

  Yes. And, and I, I was like, man, I'd love to do that, but never thought I could.

• 1:11:12Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:13Speaker 01

  Next thing you know, fast forward a year and I, I go into my Facebook Messenger and it says, Michael Stokes. And I'm like,

• 1:11:18Chris Williamson?

  Shit.

• 1:11:19Speaker 01

  I opened the message, man, and he, he invited me to come shoot and I was just dancing around the hotel room. Yeah. I said, fuck.

• 1:11:25Chris Williamson?

  You prepped for quite a while for that, right?

• 1:11:27Speaker 01

  So he hit me up, I think it was July and, uh, I shot in December and we were supposed to, I think I was supposed to shoot in, in October. This is the first and only time in my life where I was like, I ate everything I was supposed to. I trained.

• 1:11:40Chris Williamson?

  Tracked the macro.

• 1:11:41Speaker 01

  My ass off. Yep. And I looked fucking fantastic.

• 1:11:43Chris Williamson?

  The photos are unbelievable. They'll be in the show notes.

• 1:11:45Speaker 01

  But yeah, it was five, it was five months of that and, uh, I hated my, I hated everything about my life. I, I fucking hated.

• 1:11:52Chris Williamson?

  Well, man, do you know what it is? It doesn't matter whether you've been to war or not. No one likes dying.

• 1:11:56Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:11:56Chris Williamson?

  It doesn't matter who you are. No one wants to be on a die.

• 1:11:59Speaker 01

  Terrible. So, um, yeah. So I ended up, uh, doing that shoot and then, uh, he's real big in the romance community. A lot of fans and that. So I started getting traction in the romance community and had no, like you were talking about it last night about like, you had no idea this world existed. I just got thrown into it, man.

• 1:12:15Chris Williamson?

  You opened Pandora's box, man, with this, with the romance.

• 1:12:17Speaker 01

  It was beautiful. It's, it's a fantastic community that you just, nobody really, not a lot of people know about. So yeah, I, I,

• 1:12:25Chris Williamson?

  Tumbled down the rabbit hole.

• 1:12:26Speaker 01

  Tumbled down that rabbit hole, got my first couple of covers and then I had a website at that time. Um, and I had some of my short stories on there and, uh, an author who had published two books, read my short stories, really liked them and had a military romance. Storyline that she didn't think she could give just, do justice to.

• 1:12:41Chris Williamson?

  Okay.

• 1:12:42Speaker 01

  Reached out to me, asked me if I'd like to co-write it with her.

• 1:12:44Chris Williamson?

  How, how daunting was that?

• 1:12:46Speaker 01

  Fucking terribly daunting.

• 1:12:47Chris Williamson?

  Was that, is that up there with like, forget vet sports, forget having to lose a leg? Like, I gotta write a book. Like, fuck, this is scary.

• 1:12:54Speaker 01

  Toughest mental task I've ever done in my life. Even tougher than war. Um, yes, it was definitely afraid and I will say this, i- i- it's if I didn't have a co-writer or co-author that kind of walked me through. I don't know how long it would have been before I tried even to write a book, even being in the romance community as a model. I don't know how long it would have taken me because it's daunting.

• 1:13:13Chris Williamson?

  I don't think there's very many guys that make that transition, right? It must be difficult to be both a cover model and an author.

• 1:13:19Speaker 01

  Well, unfortunately, a lot of guys have been and but it's.

• 1:13:23Chris Williamson?

  Successful.

• 1:13:24Speaker 01

  Well, no, I'm eh, for me, I, I, I was a writer before I was a model, man. I, I am a writer through and fucking.

• 1:13:31Chris Williamson?

  I just happened to model as well.

• 1:13:32Speaker 01

  I just happened to model as well, whereas there are some that go from cover model to writer for money's sake, because they see that.

• 1:13:37Chris Williamson?

  Oh, I've got followers on this side.

• 1:13:39Speaker 01

  And that disgusts me. And so I, I actually for years, well, like pretty much my whole career until about a year ago, I had to fight that battle that.

• 1:13:50Speaker 01

  Kind of that label. I was labeled the model turned writer and I'm like, guys.

• 1:13:54Chris Williamson?

  Oh, it's the other way around.

• 1:13:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was going to school for writing before I ever took a photo.

• 1:13:58Chris Williamson?

  Stood in front of a camera.

• 1:13:58Speaker 01

  And so, yeah, I finally now I'm at the point where I think people see me or see my name or hear about me and it's writer. It's not. It's writer, model, writer slash model, not model slash writer.

• 1:14:08Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:08Speaker 01

  Which is cool.

• 1:14:09Chris Williamson?

  That's an important distinction, I guess, when you want.

• 1:14:10Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:14:11Chris Williamson?

  When you want your work to be viewed with artistic integrity.

• 1:14:13Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:14:13Chris Williamson?

  You need to make sure that that's um, that that's the way that it's done. So you, how many books have you published now?

• 1:14:20Speaker 01

  So I've got two co-written books out. Uh, I'm working on my third co-written one now and then I've got, uh, one, two, four, four solo books.

• 1:14:29Chris Williamson?

  Wow. And then you've got your super secret one.

• 1:14:32Speaker 01

  That, that's the co-written one.

• 1:14:33Chris Williamson?

  The co-written one that's super secret and no one's gonna get to find out what that is.

• 1:14:36Speaker 01

  It's gonna be last minute. Yeah, I'm hoping to come out with that one about September-ish, August and or now about September and um, yeah, pretty much I'm just gonna drop it.

• 1:14:44Chris Williamson?

  You pumped for that?

• 1:14:44Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm so pumped, dude. And it's not only that, but the story itself has been very, writing's so difficult, man. It really is. Writer's block's a very real thing. So there's times I'll sit there and nothing will come out or it'll be really clunky and just.

• 1:14:56Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:56Speaker 01

  But this one, it's just like straight from my brain to my fingertips. So I'm really excited to get it out there. Yeah.

• 1:15:03Chris Williamson?

  That's fantastic. So I mean, i- it's.

• 1:15:07Chris Williamson?

  It's such a, an interesting story and this is one of the reasons that I wanted to get you on to just hear the arc of so many different things, but I think, you know, if you were to try and uh, if you were to try and work out a consistent narrative of what's happened throughout what you've been doing, it's been a commitment to decisions, it seems. It's that I'm going to do something and it's a full dick and balls, like the full length.

• 1:15:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:34Chris Williamson?

  And I'm, I'm gonna go for it.

• 1:15:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:35Chris Williamson?

  And you know, like, I'm gonna decide to lose a leg, I'm gonna decide to move out and go to school. I'm also gonna decide to go to a different one. You know, for me, certainly I, I can pontificate about a decision like which fucking yogurt to have for five minutes in the, in the supermarket, right? And like, you know, that that ability to, that foresight and that ability to choose, I think is, is really, really important because there, there must be so many people, so many veterans and, and other people in life that they just waver but in this sort of gray area between two things and that's where nothing gets done, right?

• 1:16:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's actually pretty interesting, man, because, you know, I, like I said, self doubt, self hatred are things that I battle significantly, or yeah, self doubt. But said self doubt is in terms of my work. So like doubting my abilities and doubting my storylines and doubting that. But when it comes to decision making, man, my whole life, it's been, I make that decision and there's no fucking looking back.

• 1:16:32Chris Williamson?

  Would you be prepared to outsource decision making? Like if I need some decisions doing?

• 1:16:36Speaker 01

  Absolutely, bro. Yeah.

• 1:16:37Chris Williamson?

  I can just send it over to you. No, no, no, no. You wanna get, you wanna get the blackberry yogurt and you wanna go for the, yeah, the smoothie.

• 1:16:44Speaker 01

  I'll be a professional decision maker.

• 1:16:46Chris Williamson?

  I think that you could be.

• 1:16:47Speaker 01

  Um, but yeah, I, I don't like living in that world of like what if, right? Well, what if sucks, man, because you can't, you can't, it doesn't like me, I, I desperately wanted to play college ball, man. I even tried out for, uh, University of Tampa after losing my leg and did well, but not good enough.

• 1:17:04Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 1:17:05Speaker 01

  Always been a dream of mine and it's something that I do. You know, I think about, I'm like, man, it would have been nice to have that life, but what what the fuck can I do about it now, man?

• 1:17:12Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:12Speaker 01

  I can't go back in time. I can't do anything about it. So I, I hate living in that world of what if, it, it just does me no good and, and really my anxiety, it drives it through the roof. So I've learned, yeah, when it comes to big decision, life decision making, it's like for one, put a lot of time and research into it. Make sure you make a solid decision. Two, when you make that fucking decision, stick with it.

• 1:17:32Chris Williamson?

  Commit to it.

• 1:17:32Speaker 01

  Commit to it fully.

• 1:17:34Chris Williamson?

  Man, I think that's it's such a lovely um such a lovely sentiment to have. And when you think, you know, hopefully some of the people that are listening, it's I think it's very easy. It's the rhetoric of look at how hard someone else's life is, look at how much someone's been through. But their life's completely different to mine. But when it comes to stuff like decision making and committing to your values and and moving forward and doing what it is that you want to do. Because I think a lot of the time, people, people know what it is that they want, they just don't have the bravery to pursue it.

• 1:18:03Speaker 01

  Or they're so worried about all the possible outcomes, right? Like it's it's that that's where people get caught, I think, is because they're just, they know what they want to do. But they're so like stuck in the future what ifs that they can't make that decision because they're like, well, what if that happens? What if it happened or this could happen or this could happen? It's like, well, yeah, okay.

• 1:18:22Chris Williamson?

  It might do.

• 1:18:23Speaker 01

  But that's it's the leg and maybe honestly, that leg probably that probably that leg decision was what led me to where I am now. Because that was one where, I mean, the what ifs for that are significant. I mean, you can get an infection and die.

• 1:18:35Chris Williamson?

  How many, how many things can go wrong?

• 1:18:36Speaker 01

  A lot of things can go wrong, you know, I could have ended up worse, very much so. But the thing is, I did enough research, I put enough time in, talked to enough other amputees where I said, I think I have a great chance of being fine here. I know in my heart of hearts that I have the work ethic to to get there. So fuck, let's fucking do this. Whereas, you know, if that in that decision, if I was like, kind of wish, wishy washy.

• 1:19:00Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:01Speaker 01

  I mean, what do you do?

• 1:19:02Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:03Speaker 01

  I would probably have been in limbo for another two years until I finally decided to cut it off, you know?

• 1:19:07Chris Williamson?

  Hmm.

• 1:19:08Speaker 01

  So, yeah, that probably was the first decision that that was the.

• 1:19:10Chris Williamson?

  And that's the sort of the deck of cards just starts to fall from there, right?

• 1:19:14Speaker 01

  Once you have, once you make the decision to cut off your own leg, like every decision after that's pretty basic.

• 1:19:21Chris Williamson?

  Man, on that note, let's finish it there. Can you tell the listeners where they can find you online and where they can get after your books and stuff?

• 1:19:28Speaker 01

  Absolutely, yeah, so BTurilla.com is where you.

• 1:19:31Chris Williamson?

  BT.

• 1:19:32Speaker 01

  U R R U E L A dot com.

• 1:19:35Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:35Speaker 01

  Uh, you can find all my covers on there, uh, some of my short stories, everything's kind of there. Bet sports.org for anything that's sports related, we have everything up on there, uh, ways to help, uh, more about who we are and what we do. Uh, and then Facebook, obviously BTurilla on Facebook, uh, BT's Book Battalion, uh, is where we talk all things book, book related. And, uh, yeah. Twitter, at BTU Army. I mean, they're all out there. Amazing. I appreciate your time. Hey, thank you so much, Chris. Appreciate you, bro. Bye bye.