Special Forces Doctor Tells The Craziest Combat Medical Stories | Unsubscribe Podcast 263

This week we are joined by Army Special Forces medic Tyr Symank! Watch this episode ad-free and uncensored on Pepperbox! https://www.pepperbox.tv/joinunsubscribe WATCH THE AFTERSHOW & BTS ON PATREON! https://www.patreon.com/UnsubscribePodcast 👕 Merch & Shoes https://bunkerbranding.com/pages/unsubscribe-podcast 🔋 Energy Drinks https://drinkechelon.com P. O BOX: Unsubscribe Podcast 17503 La Cantera Pkwy Ste 104 Box 624 San Antonio TX 78257 ------------------------------ THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS! PONCHO OUTDOORS Go to https://ponchoutdoors.com/unsub and enter your email for $10 off your first order and free shipping. SHOPIFY Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at https://shopify.com/unsubpod FABLETICS Shop now at https://fabletics.com/unsub to get 70-80% off everything when you sign up as a new VIP—take the style quiz and select unsub to unlock this limited-time offer. ULTRA POUCHES New customers get 15% off Ultra Pouches with code UNSUB at https://takeultra.com! #UltraPouches #ad CASH APP Download Cash App Today: https://capl.onelink.me/vFut/5u7gm6rr #CashAppPod. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App’s bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. See terms and conditions at https://cash.app/legal/us/en-us/card-agreement. Cash App Green, overdraft coverage, borrow, cash back offers and promotions provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Visit http://cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures. ------------------------------ FOLLOW OUR SOCIALS! Unsubscribe Podcast https://www.instagram.com/unsubscribepodcast https://www.tiktok.com/@unsubscribepodcast https://x.com/unsubscribecast Eli Doubletap https://www.instagram.com/eli_doubletap/ https://x.com/Eli_Doubletap https://www.youtube.com/c/EliDoubletap Brandon Herrera https://www.youtube.com/@BrandonHerrera https://x.com/TheAKGuy https://www.instagram.com/realbrandonherrera Donut Operator https://www.youtube.com/@DonutOperator https://x.com/DonutOperator https://www.instagram.com/donutoperator The Fat Electrician https://www.youtube.com/@the_fat_electrician https://thefatelectrician.com/ https://www.instagram.com/the_fat_electrician https://www.tiktok.com/@the_fat_electrician ------------------------------ unsubscribe pod podcast episode ep unsub funny comedy military army comedian texas podcasts #podcast #comedy #funnypodcast Chapters: 0:00 Welcome To Unsub! 2:53 Weird Afghanistan Stories 20:11 How Tyr Got Into Special Forces 43:47 Amputating A Leg In Afghanistan 1:20:26 Drunken Debrief & Weird Alcohol Laws 1:23:45 Tyr’s Military Promotions 1:30:18 Dubai Poop Girls 1:34:05 VA Claim Fraud Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Born from the intensity of a night in the eternal city. Introducing Born in Roma fragrances by Valentino. Feminine perfume Donna Born in Roma features juicy black currant, central jasmine, soft cashmerin and warm vanilla. Masculine leaning but unisex Womo has notes of fresh violet leaf, aromatic sage, green vetiver and mineral salt. Shop holiday gifts at Macy's.com.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  I dated a Marine Corps boxer.

• 0:31Speaker 02

  What was his name?

• 0:32Speaker 01

  And they looked at me like, you're gonna cut his leg off with a sawzall? I'm like, yeah.

• 0:35Speaker 03

  Blood squirting everywhere.

• 0:38Speaker 02

  I cast sexual trauma. One time I threw a crippled Afghani elder into a K-hole. K-holes and sex nightmares. The Tear Story.

• 0:47Speaker 01

  It's not too far from the title of my memoir, actually.

• 1:10Speaker 02

  A soldier on the go.

• 1:13Speaker 04

  Brandon hates veterans.

• 1:15Speaker 03

  All Army guys are gay.

• 1:19Speaker 01

  I saw your uniform out front. It's fairly decorated.

• 1:21Speaker 02

  It's pretty dope, right? The amount of shit that was given to us on the live, live tour was absurd. I still get, like, people still get, just walk up and give me, like, their family medals. And I have to tell them, like, no, please, for the love of God, that's an heirloom. Hold on to that.

• 1:34Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:35Speaker 03

  He is more decorated.

• 1:36Speaker 01

  Like John Kerry? Like, he just walked up and gave you medals?

• 1:39Speaker 02

  I don't know the story.

• 1:41Speaker 03

  Polly kick is off.

• 1:43Speaker 02

  Oh, well. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Unsubscribe Podcast. I'm joined today by Eli Double Tap, Tear Simak, Brandon Herrera, myself, Donut Operator. Thank you so much for being here.

• 1:52Speaker 03

  What's up, bitches? We're going in hot. Tear's supposed to have been on many times, and then the scheduling never worked.

• 1:58Speaker 01

  Many times. We're both very busy, busy individuals.

• 2:00Speaker 02

  I've known Tear for, uh, eight years?

• 2:03Speaker 01

  It's been longer than that, man. We had a, a reel go wild on my channel.

• 2:08Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  Like 1.2 mil.

• 2:11Speaker 03

  How long was that?

• 2:12Speaker 01

  Views. That was back in Unicorn Ranch, Salt Lake City days. So, like, 2014, 15?

• 2:18Speaker 02

  I mean, we For like five years, the the adaptive archery.

• 2:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm glad your limbs grew back. That's that's good.

• 2:25Speaker 02

  That's super neat. Those guys can it's not even close. Those guys can shoot better than me. And I've got everything and there's no excuse.

• 2:33Speaker 03

  We're teaching Brandon how to.

• 2:34Speaker 01

  My buddy Caleb out in Arizona has no legs and can do like 10 times as many box jumps as I as I can. I don't know.

• 2:43Speaker 02

  How does that work?

• 2:44Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 2:45Speaker 03

  Lighter, no arms.

• 2:46Speaker 01

  Apparently, yeah. Product placement on Stick Sniper Archery Shop out in Arizona. If you're interested in archery, go out there, support a veteran with no legs who does box jumps. Do it. He's a green bra.

• 2:57Speaker 02

  Go just to just to see him do a that's what I'm saying. How does that?

• 3:01Speaker 03

  I was thinking no arms. Now I'm like.

• 3:02Speaker 02

  That's called a pull up.

• 3:03Speaker 03

  The torso jump.

• 3:04Speaker 01

  Well, it's define gravity is is what it is. That's what he's doing. Define gravity for reps. That's.

• 3:11Speaker 03

  It's a jumping bean.

• 3:12Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 3:12Speaker 02

  Oh, geez.

• 3:14Speaker 01

  There's the other guy.

• 3:15Speaker 02

  What's this guy's name?

• 3:16Speaker 01

  Caleb Caleb Brewer.

• 3:17Speaker 02

  No shit.

• 3:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, great.

• 3:19Speaker 03

  Here, where now you have a colorful military background. You did cool guy stuff.

• 3:25Speaker 01

  Did some cool guy stuff. Yep. Yep.

• 3:27Speaker 03

  I know a little bit about your background, which I want you to tell like, hey, explain what you did.

• 3:33Speaker 01

  I told all the cool stories at lunch, so this is just gonna be us just chatting.

• 3:37Speaker 02

  Should have been there.

• 3:37Speaker 01

  Should have been there. Yeah. Where were you?

• 3:39Speaker 02

  I had a meeting for four hours.

• 3:42Speaker 01

  Hmm, two, two hours, two hour meeting.

• 3:44Speaker 02

  Huh?

• 3:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. Okay.

• 3:46Speaker 03

  You want to go on my phone?

• 3:47Speaker 01

  It's my back.

• 3:48Speaker 03

  I was like, these tightnesses run.

• 3:51Speaker 02

  There's a lot of things I don't want to go through and your phone is one of them. I'm good, brother.

• 3:56Speaker 03

  Surprising docile now.

• 3:57Speaker 01

  I'll give you some wave tops and then if you want to dive deep into those waves, we can do it because there's a lot, man. Thirty one years of service in the army. I enlisted in nineteen ninety five, which is before some of the people in this room were born and I recognize.

• 4:13Speaker 02

  The year I was born.

• 4:14Speaker 01

  There he is. Yeah, yeah.

• 4:16Speaker 03

  Wait, what? Nineteen ninety five?

• 4:17Speaker 01

  Ninety five. I enlisted in ninety five, May fourth. May the fourth be with you.

• 4:22Speaker 02

  You've been in the army longer than I've been alive.

• 4:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, and Savannah, my future wife, you're.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, so that is my back hurts like right now. My back hurts. Um, twenty five of that was in special operations. And previous to that, I was in the first Cav, but uh, on paper, I I had a Abrams driver's license as a nineteen kilo, but I actually rode horses for the army.

• 4:49Speaker 03

  No shit.

• 4:49Speaker 01

  Fort Hood, Texas. Yeah.

• 4:50Speaker 03

  So that's what I didn't know or wasn't sure is what made you, how long did it take for you to go, oh, I want to do the special forces route like?

• 4:58Speaker 01

  Well, see what happened was, uh, I reenlisted to go to Oklahoma Ferry College. Ferrier is ferryer. It's multiple syllables, not two. That's a people that put the horseshoes on, shape the shoes, do all that stuff. They're foot doctors for horses.

• 5:14Speaker 03

  That's what that, okay. I thought it was sparkling water.

• 5:17Speaker 01

  Sparkling, that's sparkling pony.

• 5:20Speaker 03

  Ah.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. So.

• 5:21Speaker 03

  Eli got.

• 5:22Speaker 01

  I was going to go to Oklahoma Ferry College. Uh, that didn't happen. And so I got upset and I threw a tantrum and I went back to an armor unit.

• 5:30Speaker 03

  You have to go to college to put on horseshoes?

• 5:33Speaker 01

  You need, it's a good idea to get certified to do that.

• 5:35Speaker 02

  You gotta like dig the abscesses and shit out of their feet too and learn how to bandage them.

• 5:40Speaker 01

  So I think.

• 5:41Speaker 02

  It has a whole lot to it.

• 5:42Speaker 03

  Isn't like Oompa Ville, like Caleb's dad's a farrier.

• 5:44Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 5:44Speaker 03

  I believe.

• 5:45Speaker 02

  Really?

• 5:45Speaker 03

  So, yeah. I mean, that makes sense.

• 5:47Speaker 01

  It's a, it's a very difficult job and it's very, it's, that is one of those.

• 5:53Speaker 03

  AI proof careers. Actually going to pull up because it it hits my cycles now. The algorithm's like, oh, Eli stops and watches this.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  Just make sure you spell it right, because farrier, it's with an A.

• 6:06Speaker 03

  A.

• 6:06Speaker 01

  F A R R.

• 6:07Speaker 03

  Dude, what the fuck?

• 6:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was gonna go to that and uh, didn't happen. So I went to back to two eight Cav. And I realized that the regular army was not quite like what I'd been doing from E one to E five on horseback. Cause everybody there was volunteer. And if you didn't want to be there, if you didn't want the hard work.

• 6:25Speaker 02

  Dude, that's, that's

• 6:26Speaker 01

  They'd send you back.

• 6:26Speaker 02

  Honestly, man, that's kind of my guilty pleasure is to watch the farriers scrape.

• 6:30Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, dude.

• 6:30Speaker 02

  And then get the, get the abscesses out of them.

• 6:33Speaker 03

  Are you a pimple, pimple popper watcher?

• 6:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, dude.

• 6:36Speaker 01

  It's always one more. It's always one more.

• 6:39Speaker 03

  Dude, have you checked out the hoof GP? It just, it just popped up on my Facebook algorithm, but yeah.

• 6:46Speaker 02

  Dude, it's just satisfying watching them with that razor, just scrape the layers of the hoof off.

• 6:50Speaker 03

  I'm weird. That does nothing for me.

• 6:52Speaker 02

  Dude, it's, yeah, I don't know.

• 6:54Speaker 01

  I don't think that's weird.

• 6:55Speaker 02

  It fucking scratches an itch somewhere in my brain.

• 6:58Speaker 03

  Apparently smells like shit.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  It does.

• 6:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you get done to some thrush, if they've been standing in like, like, uh, just shitty mud for a few weeks. Thrush, yeah, it's basically athlete's foot for horses, but it's got to be cut out. Literally cut out with a, with a paring knife. Sometimes burned. That doesn't smell good either, by the way.

• 7:19Speaker 03

  So I didn't even know about, well, and now that makes more sense of your journey into special forces. Cause you chose the not that easy route.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  Uh, I didn't. Well, nothing about special forces is all that easy, but, um, I was playing rugby for the Fort Hood rugby team. My teammate was going to SF selection and said, hey, you should come along too. And so I did, but, um, I chose a different route in that way. My entire military career has been kind of, uh, like choose your own adventure type deal. It even, it has been unconventional the whole way.

• 7:57Speaker 03

  I would like to think you just stayed as a farrier and they just need like special forces, like needed to drop you in. Fucking hell divers drop pod style. Like we need a farrier now.

• 8:05Speaker 01

  So as a footnote there, or whatever it's called in the book.

• 8:10Speaker 03

  A footnote, is that a pun?

• 8:12Speaker 01

  Ooh, that, that is good. That's a stinky footnote. There you go. So.

• 8:16Speaker 03

  I'm done. I promise. I'm gonna have my quota for shitty jokes already.

• 8:19Speaker 01

  One of my teammates actually was a licensed farrier between his time in Ranger Battalion and, and special forces. He went to Farrier College and was shoeing horses, uh, like before he went to the Q course. When he deployed to Afghanistan, they found about that. He was actually taking care of, uh, a small. herd of horses at Asadabad that the teams were using to go out and patrol with. So it is a thing. He wasn't airdropped there, but yeah, it was a thing. It was definitely a military duty.

• 8:50Speaker 03

  Also crazy. You guys used to actually do like there's groups that went out on horseback and there's that story. It's like the famous story.

• 8:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, the horse soldiers.

• 8:57Speaker 05

  Thirteen strong.

• 8:58Speaker 03

  Five.

• 8:59Speaker 05

  Was it?

• 9:00Speaker 01

  Twelve strong.

• 9:01Speaker 05

  Twelve strong, sorry.

• 9:03Speaker 03

  So that movie's not real?

• 9:06Speaker 05

  But Chris Hemsworth told me so.

• 9:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. So the thing is, which camera we need to zoom. This is important, kids. A special forces team does not revolve around the officer.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  It's the team sergeant who was notably absent from that movie plotline. And it doesn't matter if he looks like Thor or not. It's the team sergeant that keeps that team running. That's my PSA about special forces. That's very important. It's very important.

• 9:33Speaker 03

  That you got pissed.

• 9:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's good whiskey, good dudes on that team. The thing with that movie is Hollywood said, hey, guys, we're going to make this movie with or without you. Do you want to be part of it? And that's, that's kind of what happened with that.

• 9:48Speaker 05

  I have one of those and this is, if you're watching this, I'm sorry.

• 9:53Speaker 05

  I had one of those bottles that was signed by all the guys and everything. It was just really cool. Like to me, like that's, that's really special. It's kind of neat.

• 9:59Speaker 03

  I didn't even know about that.

• 10:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, the, the horse, horse soldier.

• 10:02Speaker 01

  Soldier bourbon. Yeah.

• 10:03Speaker 05

  Yeah, they.

• 10:04Speaker 01

  It's SF owned.

• 10:06Speaker 05

  Oh shit. Yeah. It's like a bunch of the dudes that were there in that, that operation and whatnot, but they, I had the, the bottle that was signed by a bunch of the dudes that was on the team. And I let somebody house sit for me while I was away.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  Oh no.

• 10:18Speaker 03

  Connor.

• 10:18Speaker 05

  And the person that.

• 10:21Speaker 03

  Well.

• 10:26Speaker 05

  And Connor, no, it was like the, the girl I was seeing at the time was like one of her friends or whatever, house, house sit for me. And basically like, oh yeah, no, anything like me casa su casa, take anything you want, like shit off the bar. I don't, I don't care. And I didn't think that that would extend to an unopened, signed bottle of horse soldier, but they drank most of it.

• 10:45Speaker 03

  That's wild to open some. Well, he did say.

• 10:48Speaker 05

  I did. I did not clarify, but that I was.

• 10:52Speaker 02

  Why is there marker on this?

• 10:55Speaker 05

  Well, clearly this is the tainted one. It's got scribbles all over it.

• 10:59Speaker 03

  He doesn't want this.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  Made a bunch of notes like.

• 11:02Speaker 05

  So to this day, on my bar, there's, there's a quarter full bottle of Horse Soldier that's signed by the guys.

• 11:08Speaker 01

  Uh, Horse Soldiers, if you could get a bottle out from Tampa to the house in San Antonio, that'd be great. Thank you.

• 11:14Speaker 03

  Sign it.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  Sign it. Yeah. Yeah.

• 11:16Speaker 05

  And throw that up in the background.

• 11:17Speaker 03

  And then get one for Brandon.

• 11:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. Two, two to five bottles, maybe a case.

• 11:23Speaker 05

  Why stop there?

• 11:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:24Speaker 03

  You owe us money now. We'll invoice you for this ad.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  So I did ride horses in Afghanistan though.

• 11:30Speaker 05

  No shit.

• 11:31Speaker 03

  Metal Gear Solid 5.

• 11:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. I, but it was not tactical.

• 11:35Speaker 05

  Yes, Eli. It's just like Metal Gear Solid 5.

• 11:38Speaker 03

  I get it.

• 11:38Speaker 02

  He had the box and everything.

• 11:39Speaker 05

  Yes, Jimmy. Just like your Game of Thrones.

• 11:41Speaker 01

  Just like it. I was up in, uh, my team was up in Mazar Sharif and we were doing split team ops. So half the team was on, uh, one side of the city that wasn't the other. I mean, we're out in the country, but we're on either sides of the city. And this is in oh, three. So still pretty early.

• 11:59Speaker 03

  Yeah. Super early.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  And still before some of you were born. So, you know, whatever. But, um, we, uh, the guys on the, on the east side had made friends with this local warlord named Kamgar. And, uh, I'm really shitty with names, but his is easy to remember because it's also uh, one of the, one of the two airlines in Afghanistan. So he was a local warlord and he owned one of the airlines. So Comair is named after Kamgar.

• 12:27Speaker 03

  Oh, he's a warlord and he owned the airline?

• 12:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 12:30Speaker 05

  He's doing good.

• 12:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, it's Afghanistan. It's kinda.

• 12:32Speaker 05

  John C. American Airlines.

• 12:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:35Speaker 05

  My favorite.

• 12:36Speaker 03

  John C. Delta?

• 12:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. Those are only stealth planes though.

• 12:40Speaker 05

  Well.

• 12:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:42Speaker 01

  So, um, so they make friends with this, this warlord and every Friday, Juma, the only day off in the Islamic world. They were playing this game called Buskashi, which literally translates to goat dragging in, in Farsi.

• 13:00Speaker 00

  Born from the intensity of a night in the eternal city. Introducing Born in Roma Fragrances by Valentino. Feminine perfume Donna Born in Roma features juicy black currant, central jasmine, soft cashmerin, and warm vanilla. Masculine leaning but unisex Womo has notes of fresh violet leaf, aromatic sage, green vetiver, and mineral salt. Shop holiday gifts at Macy's.com.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  And so it's this ancient game that goes back to like the 1200s. It's super barbaric. It's it's full contact. It's like playing rugby and polo at the same time.

• 13:39Speaker 02

  It's the second worst thing that could happen to a goat in Afghanistan.

• 13:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. I got nothing for that. Yeah. I've seen some thermals. Yeah.

• 13:53Speaker 02

  So. Everybody's got a story.

• 13:57Speaker 01

  It is a fucking story. That's for sure. So we come out there and and we show up and, you know, we grip and grin with our with our teammates that we haven't seen in a week. And and a couple of our dudes are on horseback and like, well, what are they doing? Like, oh, they're just hanging out. Like, I used to ride horses for the army. So obviously, I have to be on a horse. So they get me a horse. It's all saddled up. I get on there. I'm wearing I'm wearing like zip off fishing pants and some hiking boots and the black fleece that you guys used to get yelled at for wearing.

• 14:33Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 14:33Speaker 01

  Because for some reason, it's underwear. Yeah. So and a U of O ball cap that's all torn up because that's the school I dropped out of to join the army. And and I'm just sitting there and I don't know how exactly I got wrapped up into the game because there's not a firm outer border to this thing. But I got I ended up being a player in the game. And how this how this game works is there's a there's a headless goat and it's it's got the feet cut off, it's got the head cut off. And it's it's that's the ball. That is the ball. So it is sitting in a circle. Yeah, it's a torso.

• 15:11Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 15:13Speaker 01

  It's sitting in the circle in the middle of the pitch. And the rugby part of this is like, there's a scrum, everybody's fighting to get to the center and pick this thing up while you're mounted. So you gotta like hook your boot, boot over the candle, the, the saddle and lean over and grab this thing. Meanwhile, people are kicking, punching, pulling, bop it, twist it, pull it, all this stuff. And you're, you're trying to pick this thing up. It's funny, I just recently learned there's actually teams.

• 15:40Speaker 03

  How does this get made?

• 15:41Speaker 01

  Like a one for all.

• 15:43Speaker 03

  How do you come up with a game where it's like, okay, and we grab something. What, do we have anything?

• 15:48Speaker 05

  To be fair, a decapitated goat is easier to come across in Afghanistan than a soccer ball. So.

• 15:57Speaker 01

  There are a lot of soccer balls, too.

• 15:59Speaker 03

  There's a lot of soccer balls.

• 16:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. We did that.

• 16:02Speaker 05

  Well, yeah, you saw what happened to the goat.

• 16:03Speaker 01

  That was with the soccer ball diplomacy. Yeah. It's like, oh, you don't drinking water or security. How about a soccer ball?

• 16:11Speaker 03

  All right. I hate how true that is.

• 16:14Speaker 03

  Brandon, what shirt are you wearing?

• 16:16Speaker 05

  Well, I'm glad you asked, Eli. I'm wearing my Poncho shirt.

• 16:19Speaker 03

  That's not what a Poncho looks like.

• 16:23Speaker 03

  It looks lightweight and breathable.

• 16:24Speaker 05

  It is lightweight and breathable. It's also fantastic for summer because like said, it does breathe. It's very lightweight and it's also offers SPF protection.

• 16:32Speaker 03

  You mean UPF?

• 16:33Speaker 05

  That's what I said.

• 16:35Speaker 03

  Oh, okay. Bad hearing.

• 16:36Speaker 05

  Legitimately, on the campaign trail, these ponchos were basically my everyday attire. It's just the perfect mix between looking professional, feeling good, and just being fairly casual.

• 16:45Speaker 03

  Is that the, the Western style? I'm just guessing because the pearls.

• 16:48Speaker 05

  It is. Once you go pearl snap, you never go back.

• 16:51Speaker 03

  The best promo for this, they weren't our sponsor. The guys and all of us wore them before.

• 16:55Speaker 05

  Oh, we sought them out as a sponsor. We were already in love with the shirts and we were asking them, um, money, please.

• 17:01Speaker 03

  That's the best sell pitch.

• 17:02Speaker 05

  It's the best endorsement I can give.

• 17:03Speaker 03

  So if you're looking for a lightweight, comfortable shirt for the spring or summer, look no further than Poncho.

• 17:09Speaker 05

  Go to ponchoutdoors.com/ unsub for $10 off your first order.

• 17:13Speaker 03

  ponchoutdoors.com/ unsub. Go check it out.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  So, um, I get in there and like the horses are rearing up like Hayley Silver style and that, and they're trained to do that. Like they're, they're a part of the contact of this, of this game. I fought my way in there on horseback. I lean over. I get this thing and I

• 17:33Speaker 05

  Where'd you grab it from?

• 17:35Speaker 01

  So I grabbed one of the legs and I just muscled it up like

• 17:39Speaker 05

  I thought there were no legs, right? No, they cut off the feet. Oh, the feet. Okay, got it.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's got legs, no feet. So I haul it up.

• 17:46Speaker 05

  Exactly. Same interesting distinction. And the head.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  I don't know why the feet are cut off. Honestly, I really don't. Maybe.

• 17:53Speaker 05

  Might run away.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, why not?

• 17:57Speaker 05

  Does that hurt the goat? Yeah. How does the goat feel about this? Did he died?

• 18:05Speaker 01

  So I wrapped my leg around this thing. So it's so it's nice and secure ish. And I've got like one leg across the the saddle horn. And the next step is you've got to ride around a certain point.

• 18:20Speaker 01

  In this case, it was you had to do basically a lap around the pitch. So I'm riding this this loop around the pitch and people are pulling on my horse and like whipping it on the ass with the crops, the crops.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  Pulling on the reins and then but there's also a couple dudes like in old Russian tanker helmets that are and wearing like cars eye jackets that are that are blocking for me.

• 18:45Speaker 05

  So you got like goalie suit?

• 18:47Speaker 01

  Again, I didn't know that. I thought it was like everybody against everybody when I got in there, but it turns out it's like teams. So.

• 18:54Speaker 05

  The old Russian teammates. The old Russian tanker helmets and shit that remind that that that sounds like like old like Native American warriors wearing like conquistador.

• 19:04Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly.

• 19:05Speaker 05

  Like it's kind of cool.

• 19:06Speaker 01

  Exactly. And dude, I was just, I'm writing an article about this right now for National Cutting Horse Association magazine. So I had to do, I had to go back and do a bunch of research.

• 19:15Speaker 05

  I subscribed to that, actually. Yeah.

• 19:17Speaker 01

  Oh, do you?

• 19:18Speaker 05

  Yeah. I'm looking forward to reading the article. Yeah, same.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  Next week, right?

• 19:22Speaker 05

  No, no, I'm completely bullshitting you, but.

• 19:25Speaker 01

  Well, I'll send you. And how about that?

• 19:27Speaker 05

  I would read it.

• 19:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:28Speaker 05

  You throw it away.

• 19:31Speaker 05

  Aw. Tiar did send it to me.

• 19:38Speaker 01

  So where was I riding? I'm doing a loop. I'm riding the the loop Russian tanker helmets, Carzai jackets are blocking for me. And then you've got to drop it back in the circle. So I managed to do that entire lap and I get it in the circle. And this is where the awkward moment came up because I didn't know they were playing for cash. And at the time, oh, three, like, three bucks a day was the average Afghan daily wage. So there's, it's like the warlord's representative in a megaphone and he's just walking around like, la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la. I'm like, he puts it to me, la la la la la la la. And then he hands me this wad of cash. I'm like, oh, well, that's awkward. So in special forces school, you know,

• 20:21Speaker 01

  the culminating exercise is Robin Sage, and it's all about linking up with your guerrilla force, building rapport, maintaining rapport, getting the trust of the local government, everything else. And there's moments exactly like this built into the scenarios. Mine, I had to marry a local guerrilla medic. That's an entirely different story we can get into. So five? Five, yeah. Oh, sorry, Rebecca, I forgot about the, forgot to tell you about the, the one in training. I'm sure she'll love finding it out here.

• 20:57Speaker 01

  So I might want to jump ahead of that on text. We gotta talk. We'll just cut that one out. So I just looked at the, I just found the nearest dude in a Carzai jacket with a tanker helmet that I knew blocked for me. And was very obviously a direct descendant of Genghis Khan. Like, he had those features. And I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, wicked Asian. And I just like, and you know, I kind of expected some back and forth, like, no, no, please. Oh, please. He was just like, he just grabbed it like, tucked it in his Carzai jacket. My man.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  He's gonna love this. I'm gonna get a giant.

• 21:33Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 21:36Speaker 05

  Peace out.

• 21:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:38Speaker 05

  That's a weird sport.

• 21:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it was outlawed by the Taliban.

• 21:43Speaker 05

  I'm progressive.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  Right. Well, then, I mean, they're they're literally the fun police, right? So they're like, what is this fun? No.

• 21:51Speaker 05

  Banning everything.

• 21:52Speaker 01

  Ban it. Kites? No.

• 21:56Speaker 05

  What? Kites.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  Kites.

• 21:58Speaker 05

  Oh, okay.

• 21:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:59Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 22:02Speaker 01

  Also, yes.

• 22:07Speaker 05

  Funny story.

• 22:10Speaker 01

  Not super popular.

• 22:13Speaker 05

  Not sure if you know anything about the history of the Middle East.

• 22:21Speaker 05

  What do you mean they're not friends?

• 22:32Speaker 01

  How's that campaign going?

• 22:35Speaker 05

  Great. And a fucking hour ago.

• 22:39Speaker 05

  Well, I'll see you in the headline.

• 22:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, holy shit.

• 22:43Speaker 03

  I like to see this is unsub to a T. It is. So why'd you go to the medic route? This is me taking.

• 22:50Speaker 05

  Decapitated goat.

• 22:52Speaker 03

  No feet. When I thought it had legs.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I didn't know what I was getting myself into when I went to selection. I just knew that my buddy was going and I kind of had this feeling that if I didn't go, I'd always wonder if I could have made it. And my whole family was in construction. So I just kind of like fast forwarded this vision of 10 years. Construction.

• 23:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 23:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:12Speaker 05

  Mud people.

• 23:15Speaker 01

  Is he drywallers? Is that what you're talking about?

• 23:17Speaker 05

  Legitimately, yeah.

• 23:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:21Speaker 03

  That's what I'm talking about.

• 23:23Speaker 05

  Yeah. That's what I was talking about, but.

• 23:25Speaker 01

  I grew up on job sites. I get it. Yeah. So I just pictured myself being, you know, on a job site like a decade later, talking about what could have been, you know, if I oh, yeah, I've thought about going special forces, but you know, whatever. And keep in mind, nothing's really going on at this time. This is pre nine 11. I went to selection in 99.

• 23:44Speaker 05

  I didn't think about that. Yeah.

• 23:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was different. The only thing was really going on that anybody knew about was was Bosnia.

• 23:52Speaker 03

  You're probably more picky during that time too than since it was like no war.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I didn't join for patriotic reasons either. I joined for college money and TRICARE. And I just kept reenlisting. So I thought I was gonna be out in two years. And then, you know, every, your reenlistment window opens up really fast if you only have a two-year contract. And that just kept happening.

• 24:16Speaker 05

  What was your vibe kind of after nine eleven? Like, I'm sure that was a radical shift for the entire military at the time.

• 24:22Speaker 01

  It, it definitely was, so.

• 24:25Speaker 03

  You have a whole story for that.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  I do.

• 24:27Speaker 03

  So we'll go really quick, just what route did you go in the eighteen series?

• 24:32Speaker 01

  Cause that's. So when I finished selection, it was the hardest thing I'd ever done up to that point. And I'm riding this post-runner high with endorphins. I'm like, oh, that was hard. So let's pick the hardest MOS, eighteen delta, special forces medic. Why not? It wasn't really an interest in medicine. I just knew it was the hardest one from talking to dudes there. So that's what I chose.

• 24:52Speaker 03

  This adds an extra year essentially, right?

• 24:54Speaker 01

  At least. That's if you pass the first time and most people don't. Yeah.

• 24:58Speaker 03

  Is that like, oh, this is gonna take a norm, it's two years, it's like.

• 25:02Speaker 01

  Two years is, yeah, basically the, the fast route, yeah.

• 25:06Speaker 02

  Don't you have to do basically a residency in a hospital and all sorts?

• 25:09Speaker 01

  So you do, you do, you do two road, two civilian residencies. You do one for your paramedic, or I don't know what it's like right now, to be honest. But when I went through, it was a month for month-long residency to get your national registry paramedic, which is normally a two-year program. We're six months into a medic course. Like, six months ago, we were nothing. Within a week, we were EMTBs.

• 25:32Speaker 05

  So were you here at like Sam Houston, like a BAMC or?

• 25:35Speaker 01

  No, they stopped doing that because we kept ruining all the medic students here.

• 25:40Speaker 05

  All right, explain.

• 25:42Speaker 01

  Well, if you've got no special operations at a training base and all of a sudden, you insert a bunch of meat-eating special operations dudes in a training base, you, you kind of think, it's kind of the same reason we don't go to DLI in Monterey.

• 25:57Speaker 05

  I've heard.

• 26:00Speaker 03

  Me horned you.

• 26:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's introducing too many alphas into the herd. So, um, yeah, so I chose medic. And then, uh, so August, September of 2001, uh, I'm doing my paramedic internship with FDNY. And then, uh, this weird thing happened, uh, like a few days after we came back to Fort Bragg, where some dudes got on a couple of planes and threw them into buildings.

• 26:30Speaker 03

  What was that?

• 26:30Speaker 01

  Changed everything. What was it? I don't know. It might've been remote control. Who knows?

• 26:36Speaker 05

  We're specifically told not to forget it.

• 26:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I can't remember. I don't know. I will tell you this.

• 26:41Speaker 05

  You said FD, like FDNY is in like, yeah, no shit.

• 26:45Speaker 01

  Fire Department, New York. Yeah.

• 26:46Speaker 05

  So like that was.

• 26:47Speaker 03

  Holy shit.

• 26:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:48Speaker 03

  You hadn't even clicked that till you just said it.

• 26:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, I used to say FIDME all the time, but I was on this other job with a guy that used to be NYPD. And he's like, FIDME, what's that? I'm like, aren't you FDNY? The fire department, the guys you get, that guy was a douchebag. Doesn't matter.

• 27:07Speaker 05

  So it just like ships passing in the night and you barely.

• 27:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, we'd been back for a few days and, um, we had this section called Milmed Military Medicine. Basically it was just throwing us into a three day field problem to remind us that we were not street paramedics. We were, we were army medics and it was just a beat down where I got this full thickness, third degree burn. So we'll put a pin in that one. That's funny.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  And, uh, we came out of the field. We went and did PT and, uh, that first plane hit while we were in PT, showered, came into the classroom and they had, they had a live feed going up on the, the big screen and you could see the, the first tower smoking and nobody really knew what was going on at that point. But we were in our seats when, and watching live when the second plane hit and we sat alphabetically and I remember turning my left and the guy next to me was Kane Smith. And I remember turning to Kane and going, we're going to war. And yeah, everything was different from that day on. Um, because prior to that, you know, I was, I'd gone to selection.

• 28:14Speaker 01

  Basically just to see if I could. And then I went to the Q course to see if I could. And my plan after that was to just go do missions, you know, training missions in Southeast Asia, maybe do some remains recovery, like, because that's a cool job. There's, there's still people missing from World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

• 28:34Speaker 03

  No shit.

• 28:34Speaker 01

  They always have an SF medic attached to them.

• 28:36Speaker 03

  I did not know that.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:38Speaker 03

  So you, I knew, I knew they were probably missing, but I didn't know that we were still like actively sending dudes out.

• 28:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's an office out of, out of Hawaii that, that specializes in remains recovery. It's not all military. There's, they've got like anthropologists and archaeologists with them and whatnot.

• 28:51Speaker 03

  That's still really cool to go above and beyond just to do that. It's like, hey, even if they died in World War II, we want to bring them home.

• 28:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:00Speaker 03

  That's dope. I didn't know about that.

• 29:01Speaker 05

  Not to bring it to like, you know, modern day geopolitics, but that was like a lot of the shit that, uh, like when we did that rescue operation for that, uh, that pilot in Iran, uh, where you had all these Europeans like this is such a waste of resources. Why go after one guy? It's like, dude, I don't know what to tell you. Americans are built different.

• 29:17Speaker 01

  That's, that's what we do, man. That's a big thing that sets, I've worked with a lot of militaries, a lot of militaries. And, uh, that's one thing that sets us apart from, not all of them, but many of them is that we know when we leave the wire, hell or high water will be returned to our families.

• 29:38Speaker 00

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• 30:06Speaker 01

  There, we, we don't leave anybody behind at all.

• 30:10Speaker 05

  That's the tweet that I saw in that regard was, you know, it was just retweeting like all the Europeans that were just saying like, oh, I can't believe they do this. You know, it's a terrible idea. The amount of equipment lost and this, this, whatever. It just said, yeah, this is why you can't become an American from just a piece of paper. Like, we're just, we're different.

• 30:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. I will say this about immigrants, though. They're some of the best Americans I've ever met.

• 30:34Speaker 05

  Especially like a lot of times the first gen. Like, the people that are escaping somewhere where they know how bad it was. Like, they have a, they have a regard for it that...

• 30:42Speaker 01

  I, I'm a big fan of, I mean, it's not that I don't, we won the lottery. I don't, were you born here? Were you born here? You've got questionable last names.

• 30:53Speaker 05

  I was. On the record, I was. C.

• 30:57Speaker 01

  C. C. And what is it in Korean?

• 31:00Speaker 05

  Question Cody, though.

• 31:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, Garrett. Where is Garrett now?

• 31:05Speaker 05

  Where could he go?

• 31:06Speaker 01

  My first name's Nordic and my last name's Czech-German, so...

• 31:09Speaker 05

  He's like a Russian sleeper agent.

• 31:12Speaker 01

  Hello, this is me, John Smith. Howdy, howdy. How about USA?

• 31:16Speaker 05

  November whiskey, 14.

• 31:23Speaker 05

  Kill John Lennon.

• 31:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's just, I was in an Uber in Nashville a couple of years back. And the, when I, when I booked the Uber, it said, um, driver's hard of hearing. I was like, okay, cool. Well, my stepdad was a pastor at a deaf church. So I kind of grew up around that community. So I'm like, oh, this is interesting. I mean, I don't speak sign language other than, you know.

• 31:54Speaker 05

  Baseline.

• 31:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. And bullshit, like, this is bullshit. That's my favorite one. Yeah. But I was like, oh, this will be interesting. But we get in and he's obviously of, in my experience, a fighting age male of Middle Eastern descent. And, but he has his radio on.

• 32:11Speaker 05

  Is that what it said on the report?

• 32:13Speaker 01

  That's what most reports say. Fighting age male of Middle Eastern descent.

• 32:17Speaker 05

  Weird last name.

• 32:18Speaker 01

  So he's got his radio on and I'm like, why would he have his radio on if he couldn't hear? So I'd started making conversation with him and you know, like, where are you from? And he's like, ah, you know, and he's being real cagey about it, which kind of piqued my, my, my intel background, especially with the fighting age male of Middle Eastern descent. Turns out the dude was a, uh, he was a naturalized citizen, born in Afghanistan, had been an interpreter for the Marines and, uh, we, we bro it out, completely bro it out by the end of that, that 15 minute Uber ride. He was a good dude, fine American, but he didn't like to say, uh, where he was from or anything

• 33:00Speaker 01

  like that because he'd had some, he'd had some good old boys give him the good news a couple of times. Yeah. It was unfortunate.

• 33:08Speaker 05

  You said it was in Nashville?

• 33:09Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 33:10Speaker 05

  I found that there's a huge Burmese population in Nashville.

• 33:13Speaker 01

  Burmese?

• 33:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 33:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:14Speaker 05

  It's massive. Like there were the one time, I think it was for my fight, uh, me and Eli were Ubering around all over that city. We had like, I don't know, over eight different Ubers and like seven of eight were all Burmese.

• 33:25Speaker 01

  Huh.

• 33:26Speaker 05

  And I, I do not know why, but I think it's like, a lot of it, I imagine is like church groups and things like that. They would bring in refugees.

• 33:32Speaker 01

  That's how my family got to Texas.

• 33:34Speaker 05

  No shit?

• 33:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:35Speaker 05

  What's the background there?

• 33:36Speaker 01

  Late 1800s, there was a huge German immigration to, to Texas. All immigrated. They, they came in through, uh, Port of Galveston.

• 33:44Speaker 05

  I watched 1877.

• 33:46Speaker 01

  And, yeah, there you go. Yeah.

• 33:48Speaker 05

  1883.

• 33:49Speaker 01

  Come from Germany.

• 33:50Speaker 05

  Close.

• 33:50Speaker 03

  I don't even remember which one it's called.

• 33:52Speaker 05

  Eight years on, you're fine.

• 33:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:55Speaker 05

  Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of German towns, like Fredericksburg, Bernie. Like there's a lot of German influence here.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. So my family is from, uh, from, from Corial County and, and Bell County. So when I rode horses for the army at Fort Hood, we did, we did demonstrations and parades and rodeos and whatnot in every little town in like a hundred mile radius of, of Fort Hood. And there would always be another Si Mack coming up. Are you Robert Lewis's boy? I said, I'm his grandson. Oh, that's so good to meet you. We're your cousins of blah, blah, blah. And yeah, so there was a, there was a big old immigration in the late 1000s.

• 34:33Speaker 02

  I think through all of our years in business on the internet, we've all used Shopify. I've used it for merch and my skate shop and a couple of other businesses.

• 34:41Speaker 03

  Actually agree 100% on that. Everything we do is run through Shopify.

• 34:46Speaker 05

  Even bunkers run through Shopify.

• 34:48Speaker 03

  Our shoes, which is a separate company, is run through Shopify and they talk together because of Shopify.

• 34:54Speaker 05

  Shopify runs the world.

• 34:56Speaker 03

  Did you know Shopify will actually help you design a website also, Cody?

• 34:59Speaker 02

  I know I didn't know about starting an online store. When I started my career online and Shopify just made it super, super easy for my dumb.

• 35:08Speaker 03

  Brenda, what happens if people haven't heard about my brand though?

• 35:11Speaker 05

  That's actually easy, Eli. Shopify helps you find your customers with easy to use email and social media campaigns.

• 35:17Speaker 03

  Step Cody, what happens if I get stuck?

• 35:19Speaker 02

  Shopify is always around to share advice with their award winning 24/7 customer service.

• 35:23Speaker 03

  Step support, bro. You got my back.

• 35:25Speaker 05

  And your front.

• 35:26Speaker 03

  Shopify helps millions of businesses around the world and.

• 35:29Speaker 02

  10% of all e-commerce in the US.

• 35:32Speaker 05

  From household names like Mattel or Jimm Shark to new brands just getting started.

• 35:36Speaker 03

  On some shoes, on some merch, bunker.

• 35:39Speaker 02

  No, we've all been doing this for over a decade and Shopify is the easiest e-commerce platform we've ever used.

• 35:44Speaker 05

  I think every single one of us has used Shopify at one point.

• 35:47Speaker 03

  I think all our businesses right now are using Shopify.

• 35:50Speaker 05

  No, except mine, but that's because it's guns. Can't do that.

• 35:54Speaker 03

  Just one of them can't. Turn those dreams into SFX cha-ching Shopify new sell sounds.

• 36:01Speaker 05

  And give them the best shot at success with Shopify.

• 36:03Speaker 02

  Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at Shopify.com/UnsubPod.

• 36:09Speaker 03

  Shopify.com/UnsubPod. It's wild to see all those different jobs, like riding horses for the army or something. I mean, I, I thought being a boxer for the army, I was like, cool. You just box.

• 36:21Speaker 05

  You box for the army?

• 36:22Speaker 03

  No, I didn't. Oh, I wish.

• 36:25Speaker 05

  Those weird jobs, right?

• 36:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, like horse riding. I would, I'd never in a million years of like, oh, you can get that as a job.

• 36:31Speaker 05

  Cause I know we've got that still at Sam Houston. Uh, we've got, um, but it's mostly like for ceremonial shit, right? Like we've got like an actual, like, I don't know what you'd call it, like a horse corps essentially.

• 36:41Speaker 01

  Color guard probably.

• 36:42Speaker 05

  Yeah. I think that is what it is, but they, they, they have like horse stables and everything on base, like specifically for that. And there's just a bunch of little odd jobs that you wouldn't think of, but you're like, oh yeah. Well, I guess the, the army doesn't. Need that.

• 36:52Speaker 01

  Some of the oldest stables in the army are at Fort Sam Houston. We'd come down to Fort Sam for Fiesta every year. That was, that was the trip to get on. That's why you fought to get on the road crew. And the horse attached was so you could get to Fiesta for two weeks TDY every year. Yeah, that was, that was a good time.

• 37:10Speaker 05

  Cody, what's the weirdest job you think you know of in the, in the Navy?

• 37:13Speaker 02

  Um, not weird, but I know the band was a very unique one. We did have Navy boxers also.

• 37:22Speaker 02

  I don't know. I think it's about the weirdest thing I could think of.

• 37:25Speaker 05

  I feel like it's time we bring back not just the football game, but let's do, I don't know. This might be a thing, Army versus Navy boxing.

• 37:33Speaker 01

  Well, boxing would be good too.

• 37:34Speaker 05

  Go Army beat the shit out of Navy like that, that, come on, that would be cool.

• 37:37Speaker 03

  They have to still, I don't even know who the Army boxes, like, is it? Who boxes?

• 37:43Speaker 01

  I dated a Marine Corps boxer.

• 37:44Speaker 05

  What was his name?

• 37:46Speaker 03

  He got the.

• 37:47Speaker 01

  I just, I just said it right there. There's a ball right there.

• 37:51Speaker 03

  Oh, they still do that, like 2022. Army versus Navy boxing. So they still beat the shit out of each other.

• 37:58Speaker 05

  Don't we know about that?

• 37:59Speaker 03

  That's the stuff I just don't think they understand, like.

• 38:02Speaker 05

  I would watch the shit out of that.

• 38:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would too.

• 38:05Speaker 03

  Like, did you have to do the goat? Take care, keep a goat alive?

• 38:09Speaker 01

  Uh, can we talk about that? Okay, I'm, I'm retired, sure.

• 38:13Speaker 03

  What are they gonna do? Fire you? Hard cut next week, he's a job. Oh.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  It really depends on when this airs, because I'm retiring in like the next few days.

• 38:22Speaker 05

  Who got black bagged? Oh.

• 38:25Speaker 03

  Do you, do you guys know taking care of the goat?

• 38:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 38:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, we probably shouldn't talk about that for PETA reasons, but.

• 38:32Speaker 03

  Oh, really? See, I, I always wondered what.

• 38:35Speaker 05

  Jurassic Park? What's gonna happen to the goat?

• 38:37Speaker 01

  Like, well, it's a very contentious issue and it always has been, but mostly through Congress.

• 38:44Speaker 05

  Don't look at me, I'm not there.

• 38:45Speaker 01

  I'm just like, you know.

• 38:47Speaker 05

  Well, because I, to my understanding, that was something that from stories that I've heard from people. That's something that we said that we stopped doing.

• 38:57Speaker 01

  I've officially I can honestly tell you that has been so long since I've recertified as an 18 Delta that I really don't know. I do know that there are companies out there with these like robotic patient models that are supposed to, you know, it would make a Japanese dude jealous how how lifelike these things are. I know that. So you read into that how you will.

• 39:25Speaker 05

  Honestly, it's probably the other way around. We probably learned from their technology.

• 39:29Speaker 01

  Probably did. There's a book out there called Book Bombs Burgers and and it's all about technological advances that that came from essentially vices.

• 39:42Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's true. Like, I mean, the the industry was really the the leader behind what was it? I think it was VHS.

• 39:50Speaker 03

  Literally internet, VHS, VR, all those that robotics now, surprisingly enough, is like, hey, we got money to make. Let's fucking speedrun this and then.

• 40:03Speaker 05

  It's like Fallout. Never changes.

• 40:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, Metal Gear.

• 40:10Speaker 03

  That's the ghost stuff always made sense to me. I understand. It's like, well, it's bad, but it's also that's how you're you're if you're dealing with humans during war and especially batty buddies, that makes sense. It's like, hey, keep said goat alive.

• 40:23Speaker 01

  I am, I definitely used it. So 18 Deltas are trained in in they're trained in basic radiology, dentistry, veterinary medicine, family medicine, tropical medicine, combat trauma, surgery, anesthesia.

• 40:47Speaker 03

  You do anesthesia too?

• 40:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:49Speaker 03

  That's so it was pretty much anything on the battlefield other than open, like, what was the one thing you couldn't do essentially? Because this is what's crazy to me.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  I don't think there was something I couldn't do. I mean, there's doing it and doing it well, to quote the song, but I was the best doctor within a four hour donkey ride around me in in in the Ray, never Afghanistan. And so.

• 41:20Speaker 01

  Like I would, I didn't have a full operating room suite. I didn't have a clinic or anything else. So, uh, FOB Bostic, which is famous for being the space where, uh, like Clint Remesche and his crew was evac two. My team opened up that base.

• 41:36Speaker 03

  No shit.

• 41:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. And at that time it was just a colot in a poppy field. Like it was so new that when Chinooks would come in, it would blow over our Hescos because they weren't filled up yet. We were, we were out there flapping. So my, my, my clinic was just, it was just like our, our patio. Like I gave our weapons guy PTSD because like, I know I gave it to him. Sorry. Sorry, Barry. I know I gave it to him because I'd be doing some medevac or CASVAC and he'd be over there. We live in off the local economy. And I would see him over there just with this like thousand yard stare, eating dinner, like

• 42:16Speaker 01

  just like eyes ahead, trying not to pay attention to whatever it was I was doing like

• 42:23Speaker 01

  I, and I was so busy out there with emergency medicine that other medics were asking for permission to come in, like fly in and help me out from other FOBs and, and bases and whatnot.

• 42:35Speaker 03

  No shit. So it was because, uh, did you tell them the cutting a leg off?

• 42:40Speaker 01

  I did not. That's what this was leading into. Yeah.

• 42:42Speaker 03

  Oh, okay. Like this is the stuff where

• 42:46Speaker 03

  I didn't realize people would fly out to train with you, which makes sense when you hear these stories. They're like, homie is saving lives out there. He's doing it like this.

• 42:54Speaker 01

  So it was my team, eight, eight SF dudes, uh, one platoon of Marines from, from two eight. And then one platoon of our Afghan security forces. So if you go to the special operations museum at Fort Bragg, back in the corner, there's, there's like a statue of one of these Afghan dudes in a weird helmet, which they never wore. I told the curator about that. But in the background, you'll see a picture of me with them.

• 43:16Speaker 03

  No shit.

• 43:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's the famous one that circulates around every once in a while. There's like four dudes on a ridge line. We're in UDTs and and uh one's carrying an M24, another's got an M21. I'm the guy with the M24 in that photo.

• 43:31Speaker 03

  No shit.

• 43:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:32Speaker 03

  Actually, they don't wear those helmets?

• 43:34Speaker 05

  We probably pulled that picture up. It's out there.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, about about once a year I have to go into comment sections like, no, that wasn't built to force. No, that wasn't the agency. That was actually 19th Special Forces Group from the Washington National Guard.

• 43:48Speaker 05

  I was just gonna ask who you were who you were attached to.

• 43:50Speaker 01

  It was ODA 931. It was a composite team that fell under the Utah National Guard, but it was all made up of Washington dudes.

• 43:58Speaker 05

  Interesting.

• 43:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, some of them were uh some were fresh out of the Iraq invasion. Uh and then a couple of us were in language school during the invasion and missed it. So we jumped on the first thing we could.

• 44:10Speaker 03

  Which is even that, it's language while learning to be a doctor at the same time, and then it's all condensed into a year and a half?

• 44:19Speaker 01

  I was there like two and a half, but I also.

• 44:21Speaker 05

  Still.

• 44:22Speaker 01

  I needed a little extra training on uh land nav and I broke my leg playing rugby. So I added about six months to my my tenure. But the 18 Delta course, there's very few people that go through it all the way through without recycling. So I didn't have any academic recycles in the medic course. So that was that was cool.

• 44:41Speaker 05

  No academic recycles?

• 44:43Speaker 01

  Well, I broke my leg.

• 44:44Speaker 05

  Well, that'll do it. Yeah.

• 44:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, they we were in a pretty academic heavy portion when I broke my leg. I actually broke my leg at the Citadel in a rugby tournament down there.

• 44:53Speaker 05

  No shit?

• 44:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:54Speaker 05

  We were just there?

• 44:55Speaker 01

  Walked around on it for like six hours, did the bar crawl, went back to brag and my girlfriend like, you should go get an X-ray.

• 45:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, then I was in a boot. Actually, I was in a cast. Some cool pictures that that surgery, every surgery I've had done on me, I've scrubbed in and performed that surgery on on someone else. And I'm, I'm glad I did that after the fact because man, especially like the deviated septum, that is a brutal surgery.

• 45:22Speaker 03

  Really?

• 45:22Speaker 01

  Oh, bro.

• 45:24Speaker 03

  You do even like that level of surgery?

• 45:26Speaker 01

  With an ENT surgery.

• 45:28Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 45:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I didn't do that myself.

• 45:30Speaker 05

  He did it on a bu- on a buddy. Drunk one night. He's like, hey, I could fix that for you.

• 45:35Speaker 01

  The marine PL that was at in array with us offered me, I forget what he offered me, but he was trying to get me to do a vasectomy on him while we were out there.

• 45:42Speaker 03

  No.

• 45:42Speaker 01

  That's a super simple procedure.

• 45:44Speaker 05

  I'm sure.

• 45:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, we do right here. It's been about 20 years since I've done one.

• 45:47Speaker 05

  I'm good, personally.

• 45:50Speaker 03

  Volunteers? Weird. The girls are raising.

• 45:53Speaker 01

  You might have a vasectomy.

• 45:57Speaker 05

  Scalpel.

• 45:58Speaker 01

  Super scalpel.

• 46:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm pretty sure I could do it, but it, it seems pretty.

• 46:03Speaker 01

  I could talk you through it.

• 46:04Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 46:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:05Speaker 05

  It's, it's what's at stake there, I think, is the.

• 46:07Speaker 03

  Beanie babies, dude.

• 46:08Speaker 01

  Toss them balls up on the table.

• 46:11Speaker 05

  Brandon, get up in there.

• 46:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, did you get an ice pack and a couple, couple motrin? We can make it happen. Why not? Some duct tape? I mean.

• 46:21Speaker 05

  Rub the whole rubber band and twist method.

• 46:24Speaker 01

  That's for just taking your nuts off. Yeah, that's a whole different procedure. That's, yeah, that works on, that works on calves.

• 46:30Speaker 03

  It's still wild to be able to do that level of just fucking, that's crazy to me. Like going in the military, doing that. I learned how to put in an IV and then apply tourniquets. That's about it.

• 46:43Speaker 01

  Which honestly, we don't even do that much, that IVs that much anymore.

• 46:46Speaker 03

  Really?

• 46:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, so it used to be, you'll appreciate this. I mean, in every armed conflict, there is a rapid advancement in trauma medicine. Everyone throughout history.

• 47:01Speaker 01

  And tourniquets actually go back to like Roman days, you know, like mechanical tourniquets. So it's weird that we had to.

• 47:10Speaker 01

  Being the GWOT for civilian medicine to actually start accepting that again. But um, the, what was the question? Forget it.

• 47:19Speaker 05

  Uh, TBI. No worries. Turn um. IVs.

• 47:24Speaker 01

  IVs, oh yeah, yeah.

• 47:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, I fucking lost it too.

• 47:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, so hypovolemic shock, meaning you got low volume, so we need to increase the volume. It was believed and it was protocol when I first started the medic course that uh, every trauma patient got uh, two large bore IVs as soon as you can get them on, so you could increase their blood pressure. What we learned uh, through uh, through, through war is that, that those fluids, they don't carry oxygen, so it doesn't really matter. So unless you're getting something that carries oxygen, like cold blood, then you're not, you're not doing that much for them.

• 48:03Speaker 05

  Basically, you just need more blood.

• 48:04Speaker 01

  You need more blood. You need the ability to, everything we do in, in emergency medicine is trying to preserve oxygen circulation throughout the body. After that, it's all mechanics of how you do it. And if you can remember that, honestly, pre-hospital medicine is not that hard, as long as you don't throw up.

• 48:26Speaker 05

  It's helpful, I'm sure.

• 48:27Speaker 03

  Yeah. Super easy stuff.

• 48:32Speaker 03

  So you, you went through all this and then uh.

• 48:36Speaker 05

  I still want to hear the legs.

• 48:37Speaker 03

  I know, that's where I was going back, like it's, it's tying in the legs.

• 48:40Speaker 01

  Alright, so Nurey, Afghanistan, my team, this is like our third location uh, on this deployment. So we opened up, we, when I say we opened up this base, I mean like, we signed the lease agreement. Like, we had a civilian government contractor with us when we initially signed this agreement. And when I was, we were riding back to the side of it with this dude, I was like, so, what do you, are you a, what do you, what do you normally do? He's like, this is the first time I've ever been in anything like this. I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, I sign lease agreements in strip malls for recruiting stations. I'm like, oh, this is different.

• 49:17Speaker 01

  So uh, so this was brand new to like.

• 49:23Speaker 01

  There was one US outpost that that the that another government agency had had prior to us about 13 clicks north of us and they had abandoned it for whatever reason. We tried to get that same spot. The landowners were like, no, blah, blah, blah. And there was also this weird geopolitical thing where unless we were actively chasing a bad dude, we could not be within five kilometers of Pakistan. But you've got these mountains and this giant river that kind of limit what you can do there. So we found this one geographical anomaly like Dapper Dan. Geographical anomaly. Geographical oddity.

• 50:05Speaker 01

  Where this it was like this triangle of land across the river that jutted in and in this valley between these peaks of these mountains. And that was exactly the the space we needed because otherwise we were going to have to radio back to Bagram just to step outside our own perimeter, which was ridiculous. The whole thing was ridiculous.

• 50:26Speaker 00

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• 50:55Speaker 01

  So we leased this land. So now we're the northernmost outpost on the eastern front. And this is very early 04 because we had we had left Mez in our Buskashi game just after Christmas. So we get up there, we we open up this base, we've got empty Hescos, everything is we're doing like three day foot patrols and doing base construction. We were really busy up there. The good thing is we were so busy that between hiring every middle age, every military age male and handling handing them a shovel to fill our Hescos and being out on three day patrols constantly, the the bad dudes never really

• 51:39Speaker 01

  had a chance to put their pop their head up.

• 51:42Speaker 03

  Three day patrols?

• 51:43Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, three day patrols. Yeah.

• 51:44Speaker 03

  That's crazy.

• 51:45Speaker 01

  Dude, we were, we were modeling it. So our Afghan security force model was modeled after like the Montagnards and the CIDG program in Vietnam.

• 51:53Speaker 03

  No shit.

• 51:54Speaker 01

  So we just took the Somali tactics that they were doing. We're like, let's apply it to this.

• 51:58Speaker 03

  So you, how big were your backpacks? Like walking out on a three day mission?

• 52:01Speaker 01

  Full ruck dude.

• 52:02Speaker 03

  Jesus.

• 52:03Speaker 01

  Full ruck, especially if you're carrying medical gear or commo gear.

• 52:06Speaker 03

  I think about like, so you're walking out at minimum forty pounds, ruck?

• 52:11Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 52:11Speaker 03

  At minimum?

• 52:12Speaker 01

  At minimum.

• 52:12Speaker 03

  And then you're going out for three days. So you have to bring food, water, everything for those three days and you're sleeping wherever the fuck?

• 52:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, sleeping beautiful stars, no light pollution out there.

• 52:24Speaker 03

  It's silver linings.

• 52:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. It's my favorite thing about NASA is staring up at the sky.

• 52:28Speaker 03

  Oh, seriously? It's beautiful.

• 52:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, yeah, so we're, we're out there flapping, man. And sometimes ring flights would come in, sometimes they wouldn't. So the ring flight being like the, the resupply bird. And you'd know if it was coming, it was supposed to come every Saturday. It didn't always happen. If they got shot at on the way up the valley, they usually turn around and go back.

• 52:51Speaker 06

  Now that it's finally spring, I've been outside so much more than you have, walking around, going for hikes, getting my exercise in.

• 52:59Speaker 05

  He does it for smoke breaks.

• 53:00Speaker 06

  What were you wearing? Funny you should ask, Nick. I was wearing fabletics. Does it smell like smoke? It smells like something. You take a whiff. Smells fabulous. Thank you. Turns out he loves the smell of my

• 53:13Speaker 02

  They're soft breathable and built to last.

• 53:15Speaker 05

  I think I did actually use fabletics shorts during my boxing match.

• 53:18Speaker 06

  Did you win?

• 53:19Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 53:20Speaker 06

  Good. That's all that matters.

• 53:21Speaker 05

  It's because of fabletics.

• 53:22Speaker 06

  I want clothes that actually keep up with my heavily active lifestyle on my smoke breaks. And that's why I signed up as a fabletics VIP. Does that do? Funny you should ask, Nick.

• 53:32Speaker 05

  It means you actually can get eighty percent off everything.

• 53:35Speaker 06

  Doctor gave me that when I was born. May not be long, but at least it's thin. New VIPs unlock major savings on their first purchase. So trying new pieces feels even more doable.

• 53:45Speaker 05

  Which you can do right now if you go to fabletics.com, use the code unsub and sign up as a VIP. They're gonna do a quick quiz for you and try to figure out your sense of style. If you're one of our audience members, you're gonna need help with that. But be sure to select unsub as the option when you're signing up for your VIP.

• 54:01Speaker 06

  It's gonna get you 80% off.

• 54:03Speaker 05

  And it's a limited time offer, so don't wait. Go to fabletics.com/ unsub for 80% off. Again, that's fabletics.com/ unsub to get 80% off as a new VIP member.

• 54:16Speaker 03

  I think my balls would feel nice in these.

• 54:18Speaker 05

  I just, I love the idea where you're talking about, there's this like civilian side, I guess, real estate specialist. That's when you sign the lease.

• 54:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:25Speaker 05

  I'm, I'm picturing, I know I made the joke earlier about like the Helldiver style deployment of a farrier.

• 54:31Speaker 03

  Same thing.

• 54:31Speaker 05

  It's literally just, it's Peter from Deadpool 2. He's the normal dude in the suit. It's like, we need a real estate agent.

• 54:38Speaker 01

  If you put big square glasses on that guy, it would have been the spitting image of Peter on Deadpool.

• 54:44Speaker 05

  No shit.

• 54:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:45Speaker 05

  Oh, God. That's just a very funny.

• 54:47Speaker 01

  Triangle US, that US rank on his DCUs.

• 54:49Speaker 05

  Airdropped out of a C-130.

• 54:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:52Speaker 05

  Chris now.

• 54:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's fucking cool. So when I got up there and, um, you know, obviously all the locals know, know that we're there. Um, even the ones on the other side of the mountain who were nice enough to bring us a puppy and ask us to stop putting mortars into their village. We were just trying to sight in. One went a little too long. They brought us a puppy. Please stop bombing us.

• 55:19Speaker 05

  Accepted.

• 55:20Speaker 01

  Sorry.

• 55:21Speaker 03

  The fuck's this dog for?

• 55:22Speaker 01

  Sorry.

• 55:23Speaker 03

  Can you stop the, the boom booms?

• 55:27Speaker 05

  Did you, did you guys keep the puppy?

• 55:28Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Yeah. He didn't, he didn't come back to the States with this. Uh, we named him Buckley after the town that our company was in. A119 SF is in Buckley, Washington at the base of Mount Rainier. Which its only other claim to fame is, um, Black Sheep. I don't know how you do things up in Buckley town, but here we go. The speed limit is like Buckley PD.

• 55:50Speaker 05

  Where was that from?

• 55:51Speaker 01

  Black Sheep, Chris Farley.

• 55:53Speaker 05

  Oh, man, it has been a long, yeah, holy shit. I, Brandon's probably never.

• 55:57Speaker 01

  Remember, I enlisted in 95.

• 55:59Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 55:59Speaker 01

  So.

• 55:59Speaker 05

  But Chris Farley, like, that is definitely in. Cody's watched it.

• 56:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, Black Sheep. Boy, that old.

• 56:06Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah, yeah, cut that in. So.

• 56:13Speaker 03

  I don't know anyone else as much.

• 56:17Speaker 01

  The graybeards in the room.

• 56:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, so this guy, he comes up, he's a Afghans don't know their birthdays traditionally. They've they just don't keep track of it. So.

• 56:30Speaker 03

  It is a weird holiday if you think about it.

• 56:32Speaker 01

  It kind of is.

• 56:32Speaker 03

  Just very foreign. It's like today you're born.

• 56:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:36Speaker 03

  That.

• 56:36Speaker 01

  And then you've got the. Is your birthday the day you were born or is it the first year?

• 56:43Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, they do that. I forgot about that.

• 56:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, yes, your people, right? Yes, your people do.

• 56:47Speaker 03

  Like they know their they know their age, though.

• 56:49Speaker 01

  No, no, no. They don't know their age. Like I had some dude that was clearly in his fifties plus he qualified for an AARP card, which is Afghan Associated Retired Peoples, I guess. I don't know what ARP is, but he was clearly elderly and he told me he was sixteen. I was like, I said, leap years? And then my interpreter looked at me like.

• 57:13Speaker 03

  Chris Hansen, let's take a seat.

• 57:17Speaker 01

  I was just trying to.

• 57:18Speaker 03

  You're saying online that you were sixteen years old.

• 57:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, you know.

• 57:22Speaker 03

  He's trying to pick up other sixteen year olds. It's that one.

• 57:26Speaker 01

  They actually like them a little younger than that there, unfortunately.

• 57:29Speaker 03

  How do you do fellow kids?

• 57:32Speaker 01

  Steve Buscemi.

• 57:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:35Speaker 01

  So this dude comes in, he's on his nephew's back and he is old, like he's an old man. And his foot, one foot was pointed one hundred and eighty degrees the wrong direction, just just kind of hanging there. And I didn't really need to ask what the problem was there because it was pretty evident that he had foot in the wrong directionitis. So I brought him in and I'm talking to interpreter and it turns out, so sometimes you get family members and it's always like an uncle that's bringing them like, where's dad like?

• 58:09Speaker 03

  Imagine being a cop and tracking through the snow.

• 58:19Speaker 05

  I'm imagining it's the spot on the ground where it looks like somebody rolled around a bunch.

• 58:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, and for some reason it goes in a circle.

• 58:30Speaker 01

  Who's tracking who?

• 58:34Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 58:38Speaker 05

  So this dude, imagine it's where the screaming guy's laying on the ground.

• 58:42Speaker 01

  He had been in a car accident on the one road that's there. He'd been in a car accident like six months earlier. Broken his leg in this car accident. And the thing was just hanging. And I told the dude through interpreter, I was like, I can't help you here. I don't have my radiology equipment. I don't have any of my ortho tools. You know, because we're trained to like do X fixes, external fixation, like put drill screws into bones and basically doing like an erector set to splint. Didn't have any of that, you know, like you do. So I was like, you gotta go to Pakistan, man. I can't help you. And he had the patient, the old man actually hadn't said anything up to this point. It had just been all his nephew.

• 59:24Speaker 01

  And he speaks up and he's talking to this real hoarse raspy voice. And I was like, what'd he say? He's like, and the interpreter goes, he says, can't you just cut it off? I was like,

• 59:35Speaker 01

  yeah, I can do that. Come back next Saturday. So I set it up, you know, my, my medical hire, there was an MD that was SF qualified in the Sada bad, like three hours south of us. And so I, I sent him up the, the case and he fires back. He's like, I agree with your prognosis and your care plan, doc. No pressure, but the record for a blown knee amputation in the Civil War is three minutes. But again, no pressure. I was like, got it. So dude comes back next Saturday, again, piggyback. I've requested the medical supplies to do this, you know, extra antibiotics, extra ketamine, extra Versed. Cause when, when I do that anesthesia on this guy, I'm gonna pump it all through, through a, I'm gonna do it intravenous.

• 1:00:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:00:20Speaker 01

  No, no Passover, no gas, nothing like that. I'm also the only special forces medic at this camp. So I had three Navy corpsmen that were with two eight of varying degrees of capability.

• 1:00:34Speaker 01

  You were in the Navy, you get that. So, um, and then I had my 18 Charlie, who was another guy in that famous photo. His name's Mig. He was a corpsman for force before he went SF.

• 1:00:48Speaker 01

  And he was, man, he was great to have in the camp with these medevacs and everything medical I was doing. And man, he could stitch. That dude could do sutures. It was beautiful.

• 1:00:58Speaker 05

  What's going through your head like in the day, at this point in your career, in the days leading up to a leg amputation, you've already scheduled for Saturday.

• 1:01:07Speaker 01

  Got it in my calendar, had to cancel golf. Yeah.

• 1:01:10Speaker 05

  Are you just like, well, this is another fucking day? Or are you just like, oh shit, I gotta amputate somebody's?

• 1:01:16Speaker 01

  I will tell you in hindsight that I had, uh, I had a massive amount of confidence in myself that I probably shouldn't have had. And that applies to a lot of situations and a lot of things I did, especially in that first trip to Afghanistan and in the subsequent years in Iraq. Just like, you gotta fake it till you make it, I guess. But I truly believed I could do a lot of these things and I did. And I did, Brandon. Well, I mean, as long as you did.

• 1:01:45Speaker 05

  So.

• 1:01:46Speaker 03

  It's like Christmas Day, you're just counting down to cut this dude's leg off.

• 1:01:49Speaker 01

  So, yeah.

• 1:01:49Speaker 05

  You're breaking off the little paper daisy chains or whatever.

• 1:01:54Speaker 01

  It's an amputee advent calendar, like, oh, it's a leg.

• 1:01:59Speaker 01

  So, the guy comes back on Saturday and the ring flight hadn't come in and I wasn't sure if it was going to because it was already late. So I pointed to these two conventional medics that had come out to get their hands bloody.

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  What did they call them back there? It was, it was 63 whiskey or 91 whiskey. This is, we need,

• 1:02:21Speaker 01

  we need the electrician here for this. It was old, his old M W S. Whatever the conventional medic was. So, um.

• 1:02:28Speaker 03

  Nick was born before. Nick's younger than you, right?

• 1:02:32Speaker 05

  He's slightly older.

• 1:02:33Speaker 03

  Okay, I was like.

• 1:02:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, but he was a medic in the army, right?

• 1:02:35Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:02:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:36Speaker 03

  He was a combat medic.

• 1:02:37Speaker 05

  Sixty-three whiskey?

• 1:02:38Speaker 01

  It changed.

• 1:02:39Speaker 03

  Sixty-three sounds right.

• 1:02:40Speaker 05

  I think that's it.

• 1:02:41Speaker 01

  It started off as ninety-one, yeah, because it was ninety-one.

• 1:02:43Speaker 03

  Sixty-eight whiskey.

• 1:02:44Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:02:45Speaker 03

  Thank you, Trump.

• 1:02:46Speaker 01

  I forget. If it's nineteen eighteen, I don't know it. So that's which is designation for special forces. So, uh, I pointed these two, these two regular medics and I said, go get the sawzall kit from, uh, Meg's eighteen Charlie kit. Eighteen Charlie's an engineer. We have these DeWalt, like all in one, like five-in-one toolkits. I said, go get the sawzall and get the blades and put them in my, uh, autoclave. My autoclave, which is a thing to sterilize tools, was a plastic potato chip can filled with Betadine. So, you know, with nothing but high tech out here. And they looked at me like, you're gonna cut his leg off with a sawzall? I'm like, yeah, why, why wouldn't I?

• 1:03:30Speaker 03

  Duh.

• 1:03:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:03:31Speaker 03

  Stupid question.

• 1:03:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. So.

• 1:03:33Speaker 05

  No, I just brought it in here for no reason.

• 1:03:35Speaker 01

  Hmm. So while they're going to do that.

• 1:03:38Speaker 03

  It's gonna love this commercial.

• 1:03:39Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 1:03:40Speaker 05

  That's the power of the whole.

• 1:03:45Speaker 03

  Well, it's great everywhere.

• 1:03:49Speaker 01

  So while they went to do that, I heard the bird come in and it landed and it brought like six months of mail that caught up to me and a big old box of medical supplies that I'd ordered.

• 1:04:02Speaker 01

  I, one of the things I ordered was, uh, I ordered this bone saw that's specifically, I mean, it, it looked like a, like a survival saw. It's like a wire saw, but it's made for bone. I learned something about medical logistics that day. You can't just order the saw, you have to order the handles with it. You think that'd be an implied thing, but it's not. Nothing is implied in the military or the government.

• 1:04:24Speaker 03

  God, how much do they?

• 1:04:25Speaker 01

  Specific about that. So I had.

• 1:04:27Speaker 03

  So sawzall it was.

• 1:04:29Speaker 01

  I had the saw, but I had no handles. But what I did have was like these thermobaric grenades that had big rings on them. So I grabbed the Marine PL and I told all security, I'm like, hey, there's gonna be a couple of big booms. Don't go shooting off into the sky about this like we will radio. So I grabbed the this marine PL and we went to the edge of the HESCO. I said, all right, listen, we're going to throw these over the the wall on three, but we were keeping the rings. He's like, got it. I was like, sir, what are we keeping? The rings. He's like, show me like this part. I'm like, okay, good. Three, two, and then, you know, it's wait, wait, wait. I'm three after. No, we didn't do it. So

• 1:05:11Speaker 01

  we toss them over boom, boom. And our guard force did not go wild and shooting into the mountains of the air. So called that success. I said, show me the ring. He's like, okay, good. So he gets us back and I'm trying to my, my team of medics are like doing patient prep at this point while I'm doing this. And I'm busting the sod. I'm like, I'm trying to get it on there. Like a key ring did not work. Fuck it.

• 1:05:36Speaker 05

  You you like setting off thermobaric grenades to keep the ring. I just think of like a kid, like he gets an expensive Christmas present and just plays with the box.

• 1:05:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:05:45Speaker 05

  It's the same shit.

• 1:05:46Speaker 01

  It's exactly like that. Yeah.

• 1:05:49Speaker 03

  Like, that's what you went to that first, though.

• 1:05:52Speaker 01

  I mean, it's

• 1:05:54Speaker 05

  Like, not, does anybody have a keychain?

• 1:05:57Speaker 03

  Literally anything else.

• 1:06:00Speaker 05

  I just, as soon as you said that, like, it didn't have the handles, the little, like, jingle from Home Depot started playing in my head. I'm like, and we're back to the sawzall.

• 1:06:09Speaker 01

  Dude, it was a lot of MacGyvering. So we've got this guy on the table. And at this point, I had done so many medevacs that I was just kind of like pointing to people like, okay, like an attending doc, like you do the IV, you do that bandage, you you start the nine line. And I'm standing at the head of this patient and everybody has tried to get an IV on this guy. Keep in mind, this is how I'm going to not only replace his fluids, it's how I'm going to keep him in a surgical plane of anesthesia. And nobody can get an IV on this dude because he's old, he's dehydrated, his veins are collapsed.

• 1:06:43Speaker 05

  Is, was the was the goal to keep him unconscious the entire time?

• 1:06:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:06:47Speaker 05

  Okay, so like, well, I figured like they were pumping them.

• 1:06:52Speaker 05

  They were pumping them full of drugs. I just didn't know if they were going to knock them out.

• 1:06:55Speaker 01

  I was taking my leather belt off. I'm like, I'm gonna bite on this.

• 1:06:59Speaker 03

  I mean, you would have done it.

• 1:07:03Speaker 01

  Ah, at that point, maybe. I don't know. I mean,

• 1:07:07Speaker 03

  he wouldn't have known. He doesn't.

• 1:07:08Speaker 01

  He asked for it. So it's not like I was like, we're gonna cut your leg off. He's like, please cut my leg off. So.

• 1:07:12Speaker 03

  Your honor.

• 1:07:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:14Speaker 03

  He probably was surprised there was anesthesia or anything.

• 1:07:17Speaker 01

  Maybe. I mean,

• 1:07:18Speaker 03

  if you think about it, they're not gonna know about that, living on the boondocks. You're just like, oh.

• 1:07:22Speaker 01

  This dude's pain threshold had to be through the roof at this point. Anyway, just walking around like six months with a bone grinding on just.

• 1:07:31Speaker 03

  Did he ever say how his fucking leg got put backwards?

• 1:07:36Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, it was a car accident.

• 1:07:38Speaker 03

  Oh, and it just?

• 1:07:39Speaker 01

  It was complete. So we call it a non-union, right? So the bone, it's, it's not like the, it was partially fractured. It was completely fractured. So it was hanging. And then I think from the hanging, just the way feet are weighted, it just started turning backwards. But it'd been that way so long that you had like a crease in his skin from being turned the wrong direction for six months.

• 1:08:05Speaker 01

  So I don't know.

• 1:08:07Speaker 03

  Anything but the doctor.

• 1:08:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. So this guy's on the table and everybody's trying to get an IV. We can't get an IV. So um, I, I decided we're gonna do I O intraosseous, which we just got, this was new tech. Like I just got initiated these two things called uh, fast ones. Well, yeah, the thing in the sternum. And yeah, there's plenty of video of this out there. You can cut this in. So it's this, it's this big red handle. And then when you take the cap off, it's got just a series of pressure sensitive needles. Yes, it looks like the ball from Phantasm. Like, yeah, yeah. And then one spring loaded in the middle.

• 1:08:48Speaker 01

  And so I've got this, this Navy corpsman reading the instructions over my shoulder while I'm like, okay, line it up at the sternal notch. Yep.

• 1:08:56Speaker 03

  Oh, this is your first time using it too?

• 1:08:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, it just been issued to me. Yeah. So, yeah.

• 1:09:03Speaker 03

  This is about who?

• 1:09:03Speaker 01

  Development.

• 1:09:04Speaker 03

  Wow, that looks angry.

• 1:09:07Speaker 01

  Some of this was like rules of the range like don't put your finger on the trigger till you're ready to shoot, you know, that kind of thing. Now you're backstop and beyond. So he's like, apply firm even pressure until you hear an audible thunk. I'm like, mm, thunk. I'm like, ooh, that was audible.

• 1:09:22Speaker 03

  How many needles is this? Because I don't like.

• 1:09:24Speaker 05

  Isn't it like nine?

• 1:09:26Speaker 01

  I don't know how many. It's a lot.

• 1:09:27Speaker 03

  And they're not, these aren't like.

• 1:09:29Speaker 01

  It's huge gauge. Yeah, it's, it's one needle that actually goes into the bone. I don't know how many of the pressure needles there are.

• 1:09:35Speaker 03

  And the reason it goes into the bone is because?

• 1:09:37Speaker 01

  Because that's where you're going to deliver whatever it is, your fluids, your medication, whatever.

• 1:09:42Speaker 06

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• 1:09:49Speaker 01

  I can't talk. It says no Nick on the can.

• 1:09:51Speaker 06

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• 1:09:52Speaker 05

  Big on. How many pouches, cups of coffee, or energy drinks do you need throughout the day to stop from crashing?

• 1:09:57Speaker 06

  Too many.

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• 1:10:00Speaker 06

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  Well, if they don't have nicotine, what's in them?

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• 1:10:21Speaker 02

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• 1:10:45Speaker 06

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• 1:10:57Speaker 06

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• 1:11:00Speaker 01

  So that is the one line we had going on for this patient. So, and at this point, I'd already juiced him up with some ketamine.

• 1:11:08Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:11:09Speaker 01

  I am, like, because he was a pincushion at this point. So he's already, he's, he's, he's down for the count already. When I did this. We move him into the marine PL's room. I'd kick the marine pill out of, out of his room in the clot.

• 1:11:23Speaker 05

  You, you've got to have the most interesting, you know, they play those stupid party games, like the two truths and a lie.

• 1:11:28Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, dude.

• 1:11:29Speaker 05

  It's like, yeah, one time I threw a crippled Afghani elder into a K-hole.

• 1:11:32Speaker 01

  Bro, yeah, it's, we gotta line drinks up if we're, if we're doing, never have I ever, I'm like, ah. It's kind of like, like, I nick the paper, does that count? Like, yeah, yeah, I've got, yeah, we could do 10 of these podcasts. Yeah. So that dude is, he's, he's in a, he's on.

• 1:11:51Speaker 03

  Title of this episode.

• 1:11:54Speaker 03

  Such a good title.

• 1:11:58Speaker 01

  Dude, he was gored out. So.

• 1:12:01Speaker 03

  It's gored out.

• 1:12:02Speaker 05

  He's got the rainbow road eye, like dilated pupils.

• 1:12:07Speaker 01

  There's just medics around with chem lights.

• 1:12:09Speaker 05

  You're holding the leg.

• 1:12:12Speaker 01

  That actually did happen. So.

• 1:12:15Speaker 05

  I know exactly what video you're talking about too.

• 1:12:17Speaker 01

  Yep. So we get in there, he's on a litter. Uh, I've got my, my, my surgical team with me. They're wearing, there's pictures of this on Instagram, by the way. There's, there's like dudes wearing rain ponchos and plastic trash bags. Instead of scrubs, I'm wearing mechanic coveralls and a bandana over my beard and a headlamp. And, uh, we go to, he, he's down, right? So I go to, uh, I'd taken a surgical marker, like a Sharpie. And traced where my cut line was. I handed this to my, my assistant surgeon and he did, traced his. And then I cut first and I cut in and he immediately screams out, whoa.

• 1:12:58Speaker 01

  I'm like, that's, that's not good. Like he shouldn't be feeling any pain. So.

• 1:13:03Speaker 05

  Oh, you cut it in and he screamed?

• 1:13:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, but he wasn't like jumping off the table or anything. So ketamine's a dissociative. It's not necessarily a. Painkiller. It's a disassociative amnesic. So

• 1:13:15Speaker 05

  Worse?

• 1:13:16Speaker 01

  So his body is, his body is not registering, like his mind isn't registering pain, but there's still some pain there. So I had my warrant officer who was running my anesthesia, hand me a syringe full of lidocaine. I juiced him up and that made things better. I had been told, and I've never actually gone and followed up on this, but I have been told that one of the side effects of ketamine in the elderly is sex nightmares. So, so I'm kind of wondering like, what's going through his mind?

• 1:13:44Speaker 05

  I cast sexual trauma.

• 1:13:51Speaker 05

  Kay holes and sex nightmares.

• 1:13:55Speaker 03

  The tear story.

• 1:13:56Speaker 05

  The tear story.

• 1:13:58Speaker 03

  Afghani kay hole.

• 1:14:00Speaker 01

  It's not too far from the title of my memoir, actually.

• 1:14:05Speaker 01

  So

• 1:14:06Speaker 05

  How did they find that out?

• 1:14:10Speaker 01

  I don't know. How did, how did they do any medical research? I don't know. Maybe through

• 1:14:15Speaker 05

  They just went through a nursing home with ketamine, like, well.

• 1:14:20Speaker 01

  I mean, somebody had

• 1:14:21Speaker 05

  We're about to do science.

• 1:14:23Speaker 01

  Surprise. We're gonna do science. And it's Ben Stiller and

• 1:14:30Speaker 01

  So I hand the scalpel to, to my a-surge, my assistant surgeon, and I cut like this. It's called a shark bite technique. The reason we cut like that is so you have something to close the wound with. Like wrap it around. The bones here, muscle, skin here. He cut straight down and I went, no. He couldn't see that though. I'm wearing a cravat over my face and it's slow motion anyway. So it's like, no. So we just got to roll with it.

• 1:15:03Speaker 01

  So we get back, we get through all the tissue, we're, we're cauterizing things. It's another thing, new thing we had was an electric disposable cauterize tool, some frying vessels and it smells exactly like barbecue chicken and which is really disturbing.

• 1:15:19Speaker 05

  It smells super good and it's really fucked up. I D dude, like when asbestos goes off.

• 1:15:24Speaker 01

  You just get hungry. Yeah. You haven't eaten in a while. You're like, ah, it's disturbing. So.

• 1:15:30Speaker 05

  So you're just like, any like, anything that looks bleedy, you're, you're.

• 1:15:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, arteries, veins, all that. Yeah. Yeah. We tried tying it off at first, but we hadn't done this previously together. So the ligature kept slipping off. So fortunately I had these electric cauterize tools that we'd never used before.

• 1:15:46Speaker 05

  There's probably like 200 people watching this episode that are very sensitive, this sort of shit that are like trying not to puke in their car.

• 1:15:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, go to my Instagram, go on the way back feed. You can see video of this. For whatever reason, IG has not taken this down. It's been up there for like.

• 1:16:02Speaker 05

  You gotta go find that later.

• 1:16:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:03Speaker 05

  Wild.

• 1:16:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. And this whole thing was used in the schoolhouse later, partially as a, hey, this happened and partially as a, hey, don't do it like this, but it's up there. So. Uh, we get, we get through all the vessels and we get to the bone and I've got that wire saw. I'm just like, and on the video you, I had a, a surgery mix from the schoolhouse, like a surgery mixtape.

• 1:16:25Speaker 05

  Did you cut baloney above me?

• 1:16:27Speaker 01

  Okay. Yeah. It would've been a lot easier if it done AKA.

• 1:16:30Speaker 05

  Dibs on the indie band named Surgery Mixtape.

• 1:16:32Speaker 01

  Surgery Mixtape.

• 1:16:34Speaker 05

  Pretty dope.

• 1:16:34Speaker 01

  It was good, man. It was a good mixtape, but social distortion is playing in the background while I'm going on the video, I'm going through this guy's bones like, it's like children.

• 1:16:44Speaker 01

  Going through the bone, you see smoke coming up, be calling for water, corpsman just squirting with IV fluid, trying to cool things down. I'm lucky I didn't break the saw. I know that now from a little more advanced training, but I did not break the saw. We get through the leg. Now I've got leg here. Dude's stump here and, and a new set of problems. Like what, what am I going to do with this? Cause I don't have enough tissue to cover up the, the stump. So while I'm sitting there trying to problem solve this in my head and not stress the fuck out because it's another thing. I'm, I'm the, again, I'm the closest thing to any kind of doctor, like for a four hour donkey ride. And everybody in this camp trusts me and my abilities to save

• 1:17:28Speaker 01

  their lives. Like this is a morale issue as well. I, it's very important I keep their confidence.

• 1:17:35Speaker 01

  So I'm looking at this stump, wondering what the I'm gonna do now. And Meg, my a surgeon goes, what about that? And I said, what? He's, and he points at the end of the litter. And there's that leg laying there. And I was like, hmm, let's try it out. So

• 1:17:53Speaker 01

  surgical sharpie drew out a cut line.

• 1:17:57Speaker 01

  Took that scalpel, cut around it. And now I've got this flap of skin from, from the dude's amputated limb. So we're just gonna tack that on there, you know, no big deal. Like you do. I'm bringing it over and I'm like, don't fucking drop this. Do not drop this skin. And I'm holding it super tight. Well, the thing about skin is it's got a fatty layer on the bottom. And if you hold it too tight,

• 1:18:20Speaker 01

  you, you get what happened to me. I'm bringing it over to size it up and I'm pulling it too tight and that fat on the underside was slippery in my surgical gloves. And he went,

• 1:18:31Speaker 01

  boom, on the ground. And everybody's like, oh.

• 1:18:35Speaker 05

  Pizza toss in the skin flap.

• 1:18:37Speaker 03

  Five second rule.

• 1:18:38Speaker 01

  That's exactly what happened.

• 1:18:39Speaker 05

  Oh, no.

• 1:18:41Speaker 01

  And I said it.

• 1:18:42Speaker 03

  I just blow it off.

• 1:18:44Speaker 01

  I said that.

• 1:18:45Speaker 05

  Germs don't have time to get on it.

• 1:18:47Speaker 01

  So there was a SMU medic, a couple of years, like two years later, I saw him in clothing and sales. We knew each other from schoolhouse. And he goes, he just looked at me and he goes, hey, three second rule. I said, it was five.

• 1:19:02Speaker 00

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• 1:19:29Speaker 01

  The story had circulated, so I said audibly to everybody in the room, "Five-second rule." And I picked it up and we washed it off.

• 1:19:37Speaker 05

  Oh, God.

• 1:19:38Speaker 01

  In some IV solution and then some Betadine. And I announced, because I was already hungry, I was like, "Hey, this looks like teriyaki chicken."

• 1:19:45Speaker 05

  He's gonna be so mad when he watches this episode.

• 1:19:49Speaker 01

  Put that up on the stump, attacked a corner, I threw a Penrose drain in there, and I let everybody that was in there throw like a signature, two or three signature stitches in there.

• 1:19:59Speaker 05

  Well, you had everyone just come up and just do a stitch?

• 1:20:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like signing their name on something.

• 1:20:05Speaker 05

  Here's the real question, what was your time?

• 1:20:07Speaker 01

  It wasn't three minutes.

• 1:20:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:20:10Speaker 01

  I don't know. So, here's the other thing about those Fast One kits, is there was a lot of them, especially in the early days, that the removal tool was stripped. So it comes with this threaded removal tool, you just screw it in, and then you pull it out of the sternum. Again, I wasn't school trained on this thing, so I've got this, I've only had two of them. And so, I'm trying to remove this needle from the dude's chest, and I keep giving him little ketamine bumps. This is after, everybody else is out and slapping hands and eating barbecue, cooked on Hesco wire for some reason, it's probably not good for you. So, and I'm up there like, and I'm trying to remove this, and Paul, my team leader,

• 1:20:51Speaker 01

  who's now a general, he goes, "Tier, you have to get him out of here." Like, it is, dark is approaching, like, because we're, we are out in Indian country, we were not allowed to have, it was just like camp rule, if they're not our, if they're not our indige, they are not in the camp after, after dark.

• 1:21:08Speaker 05

  You said you keep giving them ketamine hits?

• 1:21:10Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:21:11Speaker 05

  So you're just like, sex nightmare, sex nightmare.

• 1:21:12Speaker 01

  Two little bumps. Ah! Uncle Rick, no!

• 1:21:20Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:21:22Speaker 03

  Is he on the train?

• 1:21:24Speaker 05

  No, probably worse, frankly.

• 1:21:28Speaker 05

  Send him to the dimension.

• 1:21:33Speaker 03

  The dimension.

• 1:21:41Speaker 01

  There it is. That's me.

• 1:21:43Speaker 03

  Oh, fuck.

• 1:21:44Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:21:45Speaker 03

  Send me to the dimension.

• 1:21:46Speaker 01

  I opened up this, I finally opened up the second pack and there's another removal tool in there and it popped in and I screwed it in, popped it right out, sent it on its way. Oh yeah, there you go.

• 1:21:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's my surgical team. Rain ponchos.

• 1:22:02Speaker 05

  Oh yeah, his foot is totally the wrong.

• 1:22:04Speaker 01

  Oh yeah.

• 1:22:04Speaker 05

  That is gnarly. That looks like a fucking potato.

• 1:22:08Speaker 03

  Chase the friend put this up and then blur everything. Can't see any of what we're showing you.

• 1:22:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:22:16Speaker 01

  Burst sausage.

• 1:22:17Speaker 05

  Well, that's pretty close.

• 1:22:20Speaker 01

  That's that, that's that cautery tool. Cool.

• 1:22:23Speaker 05

  No shit.

• 1:22:24Speaker 01

  You can see my glint tape on the top of my hat there. It's real common in surgical suites.

• 1:22:28Speaker 05

  That's gnarly.

• 1:22:28Speaker 03

  They look super sanitary.

• 1:22:32Speaker 03

  Just exposed two by four in the background, literally.

• 1:22:37Speaker 01

  Okay, so.

• 1:22:37Speaker 05

  What's he gonna do? Leave a negative Yelp review?

• 1:22:40Speaker 03

  He could.

• 1:22:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, in the form of an IED from his nephew, I guess.

• 1:22:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, he got some fucking homies to go to a, get a petty.

• 1:22:50Speaker 01

  Okay, so where he's sitting right there in that litter, that's our front porch. That's where I would do all the medevacs.

• 1:22:55Speaker 05

  His, his fucked up foot looks like a potato.

• 1:22:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:59Speaker 03

  Yeah. Oh, yeah.

• 1:23:00Speaker 05

  I just love the Yelp review things like, mm, three of, three of 10, didn't even leave a chocolate on the pillow.

• 1:23:07Speaker 03

  And that's.

• 1:23:09Speaker 05

  The dimension.

• 1:23:12Speaker 01

  No, he's still, that's, that's, that's Afghan dimension. He wasn't down yet then. That's, that's Afghan. That's how it came in. He's just

• 1:23:21Speaker 05

  That's all natural.

• 1:23:23Speaker 01

  Standard pain right there.

• 1:23:26Speaker 01

  Okay, so those, the windows you saw in the background, so the, where the pictures where he's laid out right there, that was like pre-surgery. That's, that's where I did all my medevacs. I wasn't in the room.

• 1:23:37Speaker 01

  All the Marines from two eight were crowding around the windows right there and like moved the litter stands out of the way and they're just staring in and, and the reason there's photos is because now General Sellers had a presence of mind to take some photo and video of this whole thing happening. Uh, which, thank you, Paul. So, uh, but the, those Marines, they're all infantry. They're, they're crowded around and they're, they're just watching and then I can't see him because they're behind me and in the window, but I heard one of them say, this is after I cut the dude's leg off. I heard one of them say, dude, we should take that leg and feed it to the dog. Remember cute little Buckley?

• 1:24:15Speaker 05

  Oh, no.

• 1:24:16Speaker 01

  He grew into a monster. So.

• 1:24:18Speaker 05

  He has a taste for flesh.

• 1:24:20Speaker 01

  And so I didn't acknowledge that, but I, I grabbed one of, one of the surgery team. After this is over, I said, hey, grab that leg, go out under the cover of darkness into the LZ, dig a hole that is a bi-regulation cat hole at least three feet deep and bury it. I do not want to see our dog walking around camp with a human leg in its mouth, just gnawing away.

• 1:24:43Speaker 05

  That'll make it to New York Times?

• 1:24:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm sure.

• 1:24:46Speaker 05

  I'm surprised you didn't give it back.

• 1:24:48Speaker 01

  Bro. So he came back, like, he came back the next day after.

• 1:24:53Speaker 05

  Well, how did you, so you finally got the needle out?

• 1:24:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Yep. And then once that was out, you know, and he was also loaded up with enough antibiotics to kill anything.

• 1:25:04Speaker 05

  Cure anything?

• 1:25:05Speaker 01

  Cure, yeah. Yeah. It was probably antibiotics that had never even been introduced to that country. So he could have been like.

• 1:25:12Speaker 05

  He cross dresses now, though. That's a, that's a development.

• 1:25:18Speaker 01

  Doesn't anymore. He's Afghanistan's number one advocate for autism, you know.

• 1:25:26Speaker 05

  Oh, gout is disgusting now.

• 1:25:28Speaker 01

  So he came back the next day and I could took his drain out and came back every, every few days. So I could check on it and then two weeks, nothing. But the last time I'd seen him, there's pictures of this too. That flap that I'd thrown on there had turned completely black. It wasn't stinky. It was not stinky meat. There's nothing rotting, but the, the, that flap that I'd sewn on there with that baseball stitch was completely black. And then I never saw him again. So fast forward several months, we rip out with a team from third group. I go back to Bagram, Siege Sodaf, and I'm talking to the Siege Sodaf surgeon. And I, I'm, I give him the whole case study and I'm worried about this and I tell him I'm concerned about this and he goes,

• 1:26:13Speaker 01

  was he alive when you left, when you last saw him? I said, well, yeah. And he goes, good job, doc. And I was in it. That was, that was the whole thing. No idea what happened to him.

• 1:26:22Speaker 05

  Oh, wow.

• 1:26:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. He's, now he's probably 17 years old and just doing the thing in Afghanistan.

• 1:26:32Speaker 05

  Applying lipstick in the mirror.

• 1:26:35Speaker 01

  Listening to Goodbye Horses.

• 1:26:37Speaker 05

  Meat flap.

• 1:26:40Speaker 01

  I, oh my. On one foot, though.

• 1:26:45Speaker 06

  Nick, tell us about your Cash App experiences, but keep it clean.

• 1:26:49Speaker 01

  I use it to send my sister money sometimes.

• 1:26:51Speaker 05

  That's pretty clean. Yeah.

• 1:26:52Speaker 06

  Kind of hoping you have a more interesting story, but no, that's cool. That's fine.

• 1:26:54Speaker 05

  I use Cash App all the time, you know, genuinely, whether it's.

• 1:26:57Speaker 06

  Sometimes me and Brandon go out for dinner and drinks to have a great time. He doesn't consider it a date. He calls it friends hanging out. I consider it a date and I take that a little bit personally. So when we leave, I bill him on Cash App.

• 1:27:09Speaker 05

  Which is weird because I paid for the bill anyway.

• 1:27:11Speaker 01

  Think of it like a fishing license.

• 1:27:14Speaker 05

  What?

• 1:27:15Speaker 01

  King trout.

• 1:27:15Speaker 06

  Boy, am I the catch.

• 1:27:17Speaker 05

  Anyway, all of this is possible through Cash App.

• 1:27:20Speaker 06

  How interesting you bring up Cash App, Brandon. I have so many things to say about it. Cash App just released a new status program to follow the way people spend money called Cash App Green.

• 1:27:30Speaker 01

  It unlocks new ways for you to pay, get rewarded and easily grow or manage your money on your terms.

• 1:27:36Speaker 05

  Now, when you spend at least $500 a month on Cash App Pay or the Cash App Card, you unlock Cash App Green.

• 1:27:43Speaker 06

  That unlocks benefits, including up to two. $200 in free overdraft coverage.

• 1:27:47The Fat Electrician?

  Higher borrow limits and custom personalized cash back offers every Friday at places you love to shop.

• 1:27:52Speaker 06

  Turn everyday shopping into status with Cash App Green.

• 1:27:56Speaker 05

  Download Cash App today or visit cash.app/new.

• 1:28:00Speaker 06

  There you'll learn more about this and other great features which are launching now.

• 1:28:03The Fat Electrician?

  For a limited time, new Cash App customers can unlock $10 by using the discount code CASHAPP10 in their profile at signup. And send $5 to a friend within 14 days.

• 1:28:12Speaker 05

  Just put that in your profile at signup and send $5 to a friend within 14 days.

• 1:28:16Speaker 02

  Terms apply. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App Bank Partners. Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. Cash App Green overdraft coverage, borrow cash back offers and promotions provided by Cash App. A Block Inc. brand. Visit cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures.

• 1:28:29Speaker 03

  How did he get down to get drained and shit? Just like hobble? No, okay.

• 1:28:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, his nephew brought him back.

• 1:28:34Speaker 03

  God, that nephew.

• 1:28:34Speaker 01

  Piggyback.

• 1:28:35Speaker 03

  Gangster.

• 1:28:36Speaker 05

  The walk home was way easier.

• 1:28:40Speaker 01

  So that guy's last words to me were, "When do I get my wooden leg?" And that's how I knew I was successful, because he was asking for things again.

• 1:28:50Speaker 01

  I said, I started the same way I started that case, like, "You gotta go to Pakistan, buddy. That's, we don't deal in wooden legs here."

• 1:28:57Speaker 03

  He was probably super disappointed, because he'll definitely give me a prosthetic when I leave here.

• 1:29:04Speaker 01

  He was pain free. I mean, that thing wasn't turned the wrong way anymore.

• 1:29:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, we suck at doing that for our own guys. Fuck you.

• 1:29:11Speaker 01

  We should ask Clint Romesche if there was ever a ghost of a single leg just drifting by the LZ when he was in Fobostic.

• 1:29:20Speaker 01

  Clint, are you gonna text him?

• 1:29:23Speaker 05

  Just imagine he was rolling over in the middle of the night.

• 1:29:25Speaker 01

  What the fuck?

• 1:29:29Speaker 01

  It's just those fucked up toes like tickling his ear.

• 1:29:33Speaker 03

  You just, so, and you just-

• 1:29:34Speaker 05

  A visit from the [bleep] dimension.

• 1:29:38Speaker 01

  Says, "I am sex nightmare."

• 1:29:44Speaker 03

  Whoa. I am sex nightmares, the new shirt.

• 1:29:53Speaker 01

  Time for a visit from Uncle Touchy.

• 1:29:57Speaker 03

  Uncle Touchy.

• 1:30:03Speaker 01

  What if it just like came up and like, just like grabbed your toes with its toes like.

• 1:30:08Speaker 05

  Oh, I don't like that. I just love like a pocket full of a fucking ketamine. Pocket trauma.

• 1:30:15Speaker 03

  Whoa.

• 1:30:19Speaker 03

  Whoa.

• 1:30:21Speaker 01

  Chem lights and sex nightmares.

• 1:30:24Speaker 03

  Such a good title.

• 1:30:25Speaker 05

  The tier story.

• 1:30:26Speaker 01

  It's a tier story. So my, I'm, I'm writing a memoir right now. I've been writing memoir, but I figured it'd be easier to publish once I was out, out. Instead of like gradually, you know, the whole SF Sergeant Major thing versus author. Plus I'm not a SEAL. So. You know, it kind of break a new ground here.

• 1:30:44Speaker 03

  Although, yeah, you made it. I even that is a crazy story. I remember when we did like drunken debrief and. Hey, Sergeant Major of Special Forces wants to be on. I was like, huh? I just started that shit. And I'm like, why the does a Green Beret Sergeant Major want to be on this show?

• 1:31:01Speaker 01

  I remember some of that.

• 1:31:02Speaker 03

  Yeah. We still probably have.

• 1:31:04Speaker 01

  What I really remember was, uh, because it was Utah, we had to, it was a, there was a time crunch to get to like the state run liquor store. So that we could load up on booze.

• 1:31:16Speaker 05

  You know, the 2% alcohol beers.

• 1:31:18Speaker 01

  Cause I think we were going to film on a Sunday.

• 1:31:21Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:31:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:22Speaker 03

  Forget man, all those stupid rules.

• 1:31:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:25Speaker 05

  Dude, yeah. Salt Lake is wild with that.

• 1:31:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:27Speaker 03

  One beer, no shot. You have to do like one or the other, right?

• 1:31:31Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well, not only that, but they've got, they legitimately, uh, watered down their booze. Like their, their beer, I think is like, isn't it specially made for like Utah?

• 1:31:40Speaker 03

  Take a 2.5.

• 1:31:42Speaker 01

  That's a good question. I didn't drink a lot of beer in Utah.

• 1:31:45Speaker 02

  The one night we sat around, uh, my first time up there, we were sitting around with best. I think we each drank like 20 beers and then we're still sitting there like, you guys. You guys doing anything? Yeah. Like everyone's good, right?

• 1:31:57Speaker 01

  There's one Mormon that walks by. He's like, bro, I'm so buzzed.

• 1:32:01Speaker 05

  Like, I feel hydrated. Like, what are we doing here?

• 1:32:04Speaker 03

  Even the shot machines are measured.

• 1:32:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:32:06Speaker 03

  They've got the little uh

• 1:32:09Speaker 01

  It used to be, you probably remember this, it used to be they, in the, in the bars and restaurants, they had to have like, a, a cabinet or a curtain that went over, that, that hid the booze in case any children could see it. Cause it would, it would ruin them.

• 1:32:26Speaker 03

  I remember that.

• 1:32:27Speaker 01

  Vision of alcohol bottles.

• 1:32:30Speaker 01

  That's gone now.

• 1:32:32Speaker 01

  That's a weird thing. I just remember being like, down there like on State Street at closing time and the bartender's like putting up, cabinets, over the booze, like, are you trying to tell us something? Like, no, no, you've still got some time, I'm just getting at it.

• 1:32:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, apparently anything over uh 5% ABV or 4% alcohol by weight, uh is, uh can only be sold in state controlled liquor stores.

• 1:32:56Speaker 03

  Oh yeah, that's it. You can't have beer anyway. So you can't buy beer at gas stations unless like the 2.5, cool, right?

• 1:33:03Speaker 05

  It has to be under, under 4% alcohol by weight.

• 1:33:07Speaker 03

  So you can buy shitty beer at gas stations, everything else has to be bought at?

• 1:33:12Speaker 05

  Oh, well, uh, Utah beer is a maximum of 3.2 by weight, excuse me.

• 1:33:15Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:33:16Speaker 05

  Yeah. There it is, that's what I was talking about.

• 1:33:18Speaker 03

  Cars.

• 1:33:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:33:20Speaker 01

  Are there rules? And like, I wonder if there's ways around that, cause I thought Polygamy Porter was more than that.

• 1:33:24Speaker 05

  Like, a Coors Light, is, is too much.

• 1:33:27Speaker 01

  It's like Coors Ultra Light.

• 1:33:30Speaker 01

  The can just floats by.

• 1:33:31Speaker 03

  I forgot, like,

• 1:33:32Speaker 01

  With the ghost of a foot behind it.

• 1:33:34Speaker 03

  No caffeine, there's a whole bunch of rules there. But also, you like, still, like, going back to, you paid Sartre major, which is wild to me.

• 1:33:41Speaker 01

  That is wild. It's wild to a lot of people.

• 1:33:43Speaker 03

  I was like, what the fuck? Why would you want? You stayed in that long?

• 1:33:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I made it fast, too. Um, yeah, I, I pinned nine in 2014. And uh, yeah, so.

• 1:33:55Speaker 03

  You did under 20?

• 1:33:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. Way under 20. So I think I did, uh, seven took me a minute. I think I made seven in nine years and then, eight. I was only in E8 for, I think, two years and then I pinned nine. But I was an E7 team sergeant, so I was already, you know, kind of running things above, above my pay grade.

• 1:34:18Speaker 05

  Doing all that, fuck off.

• 1:34:20Speaker 03

  Well, thank you.

• 1:34:21Speaker 01

  Bro, looking in hindsight, I probably got promoted too fast, but it's also law of attrition. Like if, if there's nobody else, you're going to get promoted and, and guys were, you know, it's either the GWY guys are getting out.

• 1:34:38Speaker 05

  So you sabotaged your superiors?

• 1:34:41Speaker 01

  My team, dude, my team was full of rock stars. Half of them either went to SMUs or the

• 1:34:55Speaker 01

  And I left. Now I just

• 1:34:57Speaker 05

  Nay like a good boy.

• 1:35:00Speaker 01

  We had a rock solid team there. We really did. I would have stacked him up against any team in the regiment. And it because, and a lot of that was because even though it was the guard, like half my dudes, over half my dudes were doing special operations in the civilian world. And just coming back. Like that's how Evan and I know each other is because we were in the same guard SF unit. And Evan did a lot of shit before he started the company and it was some pretty cool shit. And yeah, so we were just, we were, we'd come back from Iraq or Afghanistan or wherever it was we were to meet up, have a couple beers, do some training together.

• 1:35:40Speaker 05

  Top of any governments lately?

• 1:35:41Speaker 01

  Exactly. Right? Yeah. It was, uh, 19th and 20th are probably the best kept secrets in the army's arsenal.

• 1:35:52Speaker 01

  They really are. It's, I mean, top, just chock full of talent. It starts getting a little weird. Easy. It starts getting a little weird when you get like battalion level and higher because then it's just admin stuff. But at the company level and lower, dude, there's, there's a lot of talent on those teams. A lot of talent. Yeah.

• 1:36:12Speaker 03

  That's, yeah. At that level, it's always wild because we were just in DC.

• 1:36:20Speaker 03

  And I mean, you, how many generals did you interact with and even at your level, because you're still, commands aren't major, but you probably didn't interact with generals on the daily.

• 1:36:31Speaker 01

  So, truth by, not omission, I never pinned CSM. I turned it down a couple of times, but I never pinned CSM.

• 1:36:38Speaker 03

  You should.

• 1:36:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, just, just keeping that out there. I'm just, just a regular old special forces sergeant major.

• 1:36:44Speaker 03

  Commands aren't major says, we'll force this on you. Just screw.

• 1:36:49Speaker 01

  I was in a command position because in a, I was a company.

• 1:36:53Speaker 03

  So you're not a command sergeant major, you were a commanding sergeant major.

• 1:36:57Speaker 01

  Actually, that's a great way to put that. Yeah. So in, in special forces, uh, the company, the senior listed leader in the company is, uh, is an E9, but it's not a CSM position. It's a, it's, it's a non-CSM position. It's an operations position, even though it's a command billet. So I had that position for five years and I was really, really fucking busy as a company sergeant major. So I had a task force deployment in that time. Uh, we had teams in, in UCOM, doing the UCOM thing. We had teams in Southeast Asia. I took the company in the middle of a Thailand mission with Thai special forces. So I was concurrently a directorate sergeant major.

• 1:37:38Speaker 03

  Reference to lunch that.

• 1:37:41Speaker 01

  Well, yeah.

• 1:37:42Speaker 03

  Oh, I, yeah, I just heard Thailand. I was laughing at that joke. I can guess where that goes.

• 1:37:47Speaker 05

  It, you don't have to get very inventive.

• 1:37:52Speaker 01

  Thai was my, my first trained language. I only speak it if I'm drunk and in Thailand.

• 1:37:59Speaker 01

  It's a, it's a difficult language to speak sober. For me.

• 1:38:04Speaker 05

  Ooh.

• 1:38:06Speaker 05

  All the Thai you need to know.

• 1:38:09Speaker 01

  So I'll put this out there. This is important for anybody working in the Pacific Theater.

• 1:38:16Speaker 01

  They're very, very good at gender reassignment and plastic surgery in Southeast Asia. Thailand specifically, very, very good at that. That is not something I was trained to do as an 18 Delta, but I was impressed with, with their skill. And one thing I would tell new guys that came over to Southeast Asia, especially if they came from CENTCOM originally.

• 1:38:38Speaker 03

  That's why you know how to do vasectomy.

• 1:38:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. Was.

• 1:38:42Speaker 05

  It's just a vasectomy plus.

• 1:38:44Speaker 01

  There's, there's a, there's a, there's a thing called JMPI, Primary Jump Master Inspection. So part of the JMPI is checking, you know, you check buckles, you check the pack strap, pack tray, all that stuff. But one of the important things you want to check is make sure that they're not going to fall out of the parachute harness. And you do that by checking these two buckles, these two buckles and the leg straps. And that is an important part of the safety brief for anybody going to Southeast Asia for the first time is check those leg straps before you take anybody anywhere. Just make sure there's no hanging Chad, no, nothing, nothing else.

• 1:39:24Speaker 03

  Hanging Chad is never that one before.

• 1:39:27Speaker 01

  That's a, that's a, that's an old election reference.

• 1:39:30Speaker 05

  Political joke there.

• 1:39:31Speaker 01

  A little plug, little political joke. Yeah. Make sure there's nothing.

• 1:39:34Speaker 05

  It's a dick.

• 1:39:35Speaker 01

  No bullshit. Yeah.

• 1:39:36Speaker 05

  Look out for a dick.

• 1:39:37Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Yeah. The, the other thing I would tell people is if it looks too good to be true, if, what do we say? If, if she looks too good to be true.

• 1:39:47Speaker 05

  He is.

• 1:39:47Speaker 01

  He is.

• 1:39:48Speaker 03

  Oh, that's actually real.

• 1:39:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. There's some, there's some really attractive dudes over there. They will bamboozled, hoodwinked.

• 1:39:56Speaker 05

  That's the thing with Silicon Valley. It's like if you're a four and she's an eight, come on.

• 1:40:02Speaker 01

  Ooh, I ran into that in Dubai.

• 1:40:05Speaker 05

  We were talking a little bit about Dubai earlier.

• 1:40:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:08Speaker 05

  It's one of the areas that Allah cannot see.

• 1:40:10Speaker 01

  Cannot see you in Dubai.

• 1:40:12Speaker 05

  And they act accordingly.

• 1:40:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:13Speaker 05

  Apparently.

• 1:40:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like the Vegas of the Arab world.

• 1:40:18Speaker 03

  I did not know this.

• 1:40:19Speaker 05

  That's, I mean, you know.

• 1:40:23Speaker 05

  Poop girls? Yeah.

• 1:40:24Speaker 03

  Oh, that, oh, yeah, I forgot.

• 1:40:26Speaker 05

  Those stories.

• 1:40:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, Dubai.

• 1:40:30Speaker 05

  That needs a little bit of explanation.

• 1:40:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know.

• 1:40:32Speaker 05

  From Cody.

• 1:40:34Speaker 02

  Um, yeah, me and Brandon, we went with Heather one time down to Florida.

• 1:40:38Speaker 01

  That story starts off.

• 1:40:40Speaker 02

  To do, uh, me and Brandon one time.

• 1:40:42Speaker 05

  That sounds bad.

• 1:40:43Speaker 02

  We went to.

• 1:40:44Speaker 05

  He was for Black Rifle.

• 1:40:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, for Black Rifle. She was doing a Mother's Day skit with, uh, what was her name? Corey, Corey Chase?

• 1:40:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think so.

• 1:40:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, that, you know, I'm stuck in the dryer step, bro. Come me out or whatever they do. So we got to talking to her husband.

• 1:41:00Speaker 02

  We got to talk.

• 1:41:09Speaker 02

  We got to talking to her husband who's, who's been making adult films with her for twenty something years since they met in the Air Force. And he was telling us.

• 1:41:15Speaker 05

  How long? Jesus.

• 1:41:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, he said it was like twenty years.

• 1:41:17Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:41:18Speaker 02

  And he was telling us about how a bunch of the girls in that industry, the industry, it's just whores. They would, um, they would go to Dubai. And he was like, he was like, yeah, well, they, sorry. They would, uh, they would pay them to on them. And we're like, what do you, what do you mean by that? Like the, like, the girls would poop on like these, these princes, these Saudi princes. And they're like, no, no, no, no. They, the Saudi dudes, the oil barons and all those dudes loved to on the pretty little white girls. And so they throw them like twenty, thirty, forty grand and they would fly to Dubai, get done and then come back and they called them the poo girls.

• 1:41:57Speaker 01

  I'm just, as soon as you said that, I was picturing.

• 1:42:01Speaker 01

  Military aged males of Middle Eastern descent, again, just in that squatting position because they don't use toilets. They stand, they do.

• 1:42:12Speaker 05

  If you got money, you use something else.

• 1:42:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, they don't use toilets or they use Russian girls apparently, but just like the rooster tails. I remember from being in Afghanistan, you know, we'd like, we burned down latrines instead of cleaning them a couple of times. Just like scorched earth, start over, put padlocks on them. This is a US only toilet. I picture that, like, just like, just like squatting over, just.

• 1:42:40Speaker 03

  Also, shout out to Cody, just when was it last month, two months ago on Twitter? I see a girl commented something and your reply, shut up whore.

• 1:42:51Speaker 05

  It was, it was, the opinions of prostitutes don't matter.

• 1:42:56Speaker 01

  That is more refined when you put it that way.

• 1:42:58Speaker 03

  He is, um. And I just see like a million likes on that and everyone's just making fun of said whore. I was like, dear God, Cody.

• 1:43:08Speaker 05

  A man of few words.

• 1:43:10Speaker 01

  And then I threw ketamine at her.

• 1:43:13Speaker 01

  Sex nightmare.

• 1:43:16Speaker 03

  And now, so now you're doing VA stuff, you're trying to help veterans.

• 1:43:19Speaker 01

  Correct. Yeah, that's a great segue.

• 1:43:21Speaker 05

  This is a great segue.

• 1:43:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, great segue into my new corporate job.

• 1:43:31Speaker 01

  So there I was, uh, thinking I was just gonna be retired. I just got my hundred percent P and T. My retirement's approved and I'm looking for new property.

• 1:43:42Speaker 05

  Hundred percent what?

• 1:43:44Speaker 01

  Permanent in total. So your VA claim, so P and T means you're not being reevaluated. Unless you choose to reopen your claim for something, you're not gonna be reevaluated.

• 1:43:54Speaker 05

  Which had a hundred percent P and T, you would never do that.

• 1:43:56Speaker 01

  No, that'd be dumb.

• 1:43:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:43:58Speaker 01

  Be real dumb.

• 1:43:58Speaker 05

  So he's off the hook forever.

• 1:43:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:00Speaker 03

  Gotcha.

• 1:44:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of scrutiny with it. Like, I mean, I've got a lot of time down range and the VA will actually match up like your claims to, um, to your service records and it's not just your military medical records. They're matching it's like, oh, you got a Bronze Star for service in Afghanistan here and you're claiming that right here. That, yeah, that makes sense. Oh, you've got a combat medic badge. Oh, and you say you've got PTSD because you've seen a bunch of dead kids. We brought, yeah, that makes sense. You know, there's a, there's that nexus, right? There's that service connection. So it, they, the VA does a very diligent,

• 1:44:42Speaker 01

  multi-level, multi eyeballs job of looking at each claim that comes in. So when I'm watching all these things like come through, like, oh, there's so much fraud in the system. And then I see other vets comment. I'm like, when, and it's always the same comments like, guys, we all know somebody that has a hundred percent that shouldn't have a percent and that shouldn't happen. And then I kind of come back and I'm like, what's your percentage? And like, oh, well, I actually have a couple of years left. Like, that's what I thought.

• 1:45:10Speaker 03

  Well, I'm, I will, I have to say, like, I am that guy that does say that. So I can't be, because I want because I've watched myself, like, I'm on the side, I've seen that happen, like, many times when I'm like, man, I struggled to get to

• 1:45:27Speaker 03

  which is like, whatever, we'll delete the percentage, but I struggled to get there.

• 1:45:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:32Speaker 03

  Like, and mine is document, document, like, April, blah, blah, blah.

• 1:45:37Speaker 01

  You got shot.

• 1:45:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, but even then I got blown up three times. I got fucking like that. And then

• 1:45:43Speaker 01

  That's what I mean is like, you have, you have a very clear, like, yes, I was blown up, shot, whatever. I did combat deployments. And then I go, and then I hear it's like, oh, I'm at a hundred. I'm like, how? What? What the fuck? Because I went through three times. And that's nuts, man. Honestly, for, for the fact that you've got a purple heart, I mean, that's, that elevates things right there. Zach and I, Zach Bell and I were talking about this a couple of weeks ago, and he said, he goes, he said, your special forces privilege is showing. And I was like, what do you? And I thought about it. I'm like, okay, that kind of makes sense. Because I did, like, when I went into the CNP exams, the exams that the VA orders for you. So you, you put

• 1:46:26Speaker 01

  in, you file your claim and you list everything that you say is wrong with you. And then they order exams to decide whether it actually is through a medical opinion. And, and those are called CNP exams. I can't remember what CNP stands for. So when I'm going through these exams, when I, when I, and it's all contracted doctors. So I'd go in and I would see as soon as they, like I'd sit down and we'd talk for half a second. But as soon as they realized or read that I was a Green Beret, it was like the demeanor completely changed. Because they, at that point, assumed that I was not faking whatever it is that I was claiming.

• 1:47:10Speaker 01

  That I actually had been to combat and, and I actually did see all the, the bad shit that I saw. And which is great for me, but I feel bad for guys like you who are just little infantry dudes. Uh, you know, just got blown up and got a Purple Heart and got shot.

• 1:47:30Speaker 03

  I think, dude, General George, when we went and had dinner with General George, right? He knew, he's like, oh, you were with the Strikers, you guys got fucked up like immediately at dinner. He's like, oh yeah, you're okay, you remember?

• 1:47:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. A lot of my career passed, you know, like the, the blood and guts of the medic stuff. A lot of my career was avoiding conflict. Not like, oh, that's dangerous. I'm not going there, but like I was more on the intel side of things. So if I was actively engaging the enemy, something had gone terribly wrong.

• 1:48:00Speaker 03

  So I, I, I do think one thing that did switch was I did this in 2008, nine, 10 ish area. And even when we were getting out, it was, hey, make sure you game the system. When you go talk to your doctor, they're going to try to pull it and hide it. They're gonna drop a pin and you're, they'll ask you to bend down and pick it up. Don't pick it up because that's them looking for ways to get out of paying you. That was our, that's what we were told getting out in like 2008. So, oh, okay.

• 1:48:31Speaker 01

  That's why it was that early. That's, that's still a thing. That's not entirely untrue. So nobody tried to trick me in anything, but I was told beforehand.

• 1:48:41Speaker 01

  That so range of motion is how they estimate how how fucked up you are in terms of ortho injuries or musculoskeletal.

• 1:48:52Speaker 03

  I got hurt on my right shoulder. They didn't write what shoulder got hurt over in Iraq. Guess what? They didn't document that. They said, well, it says a shoulder got injured.

• 1:49:01Speaker 01

  Right. So part of the problem is what you just did right there, slap my shoulder. I have way too much movement. Obviously, you can use it. There's no problem.

• 1:49:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:49:09Speaker 01

  Right. But I'm sure your shoulder hurts. You have shoulder pain. So the the the coaching piece of this, which some people call fraud, absolutely is not fraud. It's just the way the VA system works. What I had to be told was you've been pushing through pain for years, which is true, like over a decade. What they're looking for in that range of motion is not how far you can bend. It's how far you can bend before you meet any kind of resistance, whether that's from from the way your body moves or whether it's from pain. And you have to you have to have you have to swallow your pride and not push

• 1:49:52Speaker 01

  through that. Or you you and not only you, but your family is going to be penalized for it.

• 1:49:56Speaker 03

  Which is hard, because what is the one thing they teach you in?

• 1:49:59Speaker 01

  Push through.

• 1:50:01Speaker 03

  Don't go to the don't go to the aid station. Don't do any of this. That's the one thing I've said, hey, we need to switch that.

• 1:50:07Speaker 05

  Who says that?

• 1:50:09Speaker 03

  Our dude, if you go to the aid station.

• 1:50:12Speaker 01

  I'll call my arms.

• 1:50:13Speaker 03

  If you go to the aid station.

• 1:50:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:14Speaker 05

  Is that like institutional or is that just like peers?

• 1:50:18Speaker 01

  It's cultural.

• 1:50:19Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:50:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's cultural.

• 1:50:20Speaker 03

  I had fucking tonsillitis. I didn't go to the aid station because I'm getting

• 1:50:24Speaker 01

  When I became a company sergeant major and we were getting ready to head out the door, one thing I told everyone in the room, and I did it with their families in the room, so their wives would know as well, is like, if you stub your toe, you make sure your medic writes that up. Because.

• 1:50:43Speaker 01

  If it's not on paper, it did not happen. And I promise you that it none of anything, none of what you're gonna do on this trip is going to disqualify you from further service or, or keep you from going to an SMU or, or, or anything else. You need to get that documented. And even if you just have a paper copy of it and it never gets put it input digitally, have that paper copy. You've got to have that record because it's got to be connected. And especially in the garden reserves, those claims are nightmare because what the VA does is when they, when you get your list of contentions, when you file your claim, they look at everything you claimed and then they have to, a VSR has a veteran service representative,

• 1:51:27Speaker 01

  or service rep, whatever it's called. I don't know. VSR, that's what it's called. They have to go in and they have to look at everything you claimed and try to match it up to when you were on orders. So if they, if you can't prove that it happened while you were on orders, it's not service connected.

• 1:51:45Speaker 01

  Unless it's presumptive. So my initial sleep apnea claim, anybody that's been in the woods with me knows that there's either a bear attack or, or I'm sleeping in a tent next to me, right? I've got sleep apnea like a motherfucker. It, and it is service connected, but when I had it diagnosed, it was on the back end of a jump injury. So it was actually a civilian doctor that looked in, she just looked at my eyes, she said, how long you got sleep apnea? I said, according to my three ex-girlfriends, a while. So, but because it was, it was done by a civilian doctor and it wasn't on orders when it was diagnosed. The VA, the VA medical opinion was not service connected. You don't just go to drill and get sleep apnea all of a sudden, right?

• 1:52:30Speaker 01

  It's, it's, it's connected now. It doesn't matter because I've got like 400% disability, but.

• 1:52:35Speaker 03

  I will be the, the other guy on the side because I, I stand on that side where I see your side, but also that's where I'm like, yeah, I get.

• 1:52:44Speaker 05

  What I feel, what I feel like we don't want to do is allow this room for negative press to impact the people that really need it, like for, like combat veterans who have issues, who have been injured, who have debilitating conditions.

• 1:53:00Speaker 05

  Them getting their percentages cut, them getting their benefits cut, that's absolutely not what we want. And so I don't know, I'm working on some stuff with Zach is one of the people I'm working with. I'm working with a lot of the veterans group to work on legislation to prevent that. And I think the only way to do it is to do it where it's non-retroactive, like everybody who's got a rating right now is perfectly safe. But like moving forward in the future, like, how do we make sure we prioritize people who have actually like, for example, either had combat deployments, like are actual combat veterans who have been wounded in the line of duty, or people who are subject to like gross negligence on behalf of the military. Like people who, you know, you don't necessarily need to have been in combat to have something that the military should compensate.

• 1:53:41Speaker 01

  That's very important, because there's a lot of injuries in training.

• 1:53:44Speaker 05

  Right, exactly.

• 1:53:45Speaker 01

  Like my team sergeant that went to Delta, at the time of his passing, he was the most decorated operator in the unit. But he burned in on a free fall accident. And, you know, that's obviously service connected.

• 1:53:58Speaker 05

  Right, right.

• 1:53:59Speaker 01

  So, if you want the opinion of a 31-year soft sergeant major, I think it actually goes back before it gets to the VA. The problem is really at the DOD level, or DOW, whatever you want to call it. Because the, I think the claims that come under the most scrutiny under public eye with, with our community and with guys like Caleb Hammer and everything else, is when you've got somebody that washed out of basic, or something like that, and now they've got a VA rating. Now, if they blew out a knee, I like, I know, I had a, I had a kid in college when I taught ROTC, he's got 60%, but he blew out a knee, and he was a semi-pro football player before he joined the guard. That makes sense, right?

• 1:54:44Speaker 01

  But if you got people that were just failure to adapt, it'd be fun to have Rich on for this.

• 1:54:52Speaker 05

  Oh dude.

• 1:54:53Speaker 01

  Because I'm sure he would be like.

• 1:54:56Speaker 01

  There the easy button for for the services is to kick them out early. But because they've got a DD to 14, they're now eligible for veteran benefits and that comes with VA disability. And if they're if they couldn't find an administrative reason to get rid of them, they're going to find a medical reason to get rid of them. And that pushes the problem down the road to the VA. And that whoever that commander is or that doctor is or whoever it is that has to sign off on that doesn't have to deal with that. Outside of, you know, the financial burden of being a taxpayer. So that's, that's really where a lot of that starts.

• 1:55:31Speaker 05

  Off off camera, I've got some ideas I like to pitch you just to like, figure out your, your take on it. Cause I, I think it is something that definitely needs some, some movement, some motion, some would say. Um, but, cause I mean it.

• 1:55:44Speaker 03

  Can we've talked about this at the gym and it is the one thing. Cause it is that it's a difficult situation. You have me where I'm like, okay, I've went through all this and I'm still like struggling.

• 1:55:58Speaker 03

  And then it's like, well, it makes it easier as you're saying, well, people that have been to combat, why are they struggling? Well, others, you do see some of the people on Caleb Pemishon, you're like, how the fuck that guy get 100%? And then vice versa, you get it. So it's like, if they ease it up, okay, then those guys get through. And then I'm still like, because I went through at a harder time, well, you didn't get past, you have to do it again. So it, it is a hard situation. There is no easy way to solve.

• 1:56:24Speaker 01

  I mean, there's that, there's that initial entry part and that the problem child part. There's also the way that the ratings are done. Like I'm medically retired from, from the military.

• 1:56:34Speaker 03

  Thank you for your service.

• 1:56:35Speaker 01

  You're welcome.

• 1:56:41Speaker 01

  It even with everything I've done, it wasn't open and shut. Like dude, I can't run anymore. I've, you know, I've got joints in my feet that don't work. I've got my back, my lumbar looks like a spider web under an MRI, right?

• 1:56:57Speaker 01

  But claiming those things, army doctors looked at them like, nah, you can still serve. But I, but I was hospitalized for PTSD and that's what was actually proved.

• 1:57:06Speaker 05

  No shit.

• 1:57:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. So the army gave me 70% for PTSD. You need a minimum of 30 to medically retire.

• 1:57:12Speaker 05

  What, what blows my mind, like the, the thing that, and this is like where I very first started to, um, to conceptualize like some of the issues with the, the VA disability rating system was, I think I was 17. Cause like in, in North Carolina, I was living in Fort Bragg at the time. Uh, so yeah, sorry. I spent some time there too, but it's a shit, total shithole. No, I, I joke, I'm like, I never served, but I did 25 year tour in Vietnam. Don't do, don't do that.

• 1:57:37Speaker 01

  I'm like, don't do that.

• 1:57:40Speaker 05

  Don't do that. But when I, so in that state, in North Carolina, fuck you dude.

• 1:57:47Speaker 05

  In, in North Carolina, I think in order to get a motorcycle endorsement before you turn 18, you need to take like the, you know, DMV motorcycle safety course or whatever the, and the, the dude I became friends with. At that course, like it was just another young guy that was there. Uh, it was a army guy.

• 1:58:03Speaker 05

  We would like, just like, you know, fucking around. Like I'm 17. He's like 21, whatever. Like we're, we would race to where we would do like the actual like, uh, parking lot, you know, motorcycle course, part of it. And, uh, you know, we started like bullshit and a couple of days later and like, uh, so what do you do? He's like, wow. Well, I'm like medically retired from the army. Yeah. I got like a, I rolled an ankle on a combat jump. And now I've got like 90% disability or whatever the fuck it was.

• 1:58:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:58:27Speaker 05

  And like, this is a guy that we're literally like still winded from having sprinted 700 yards to, um, like that, in, in my head at the time, like that doesn't make sense.

• 1:58:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:58:38Speaker 05

  Like I, I feel like there's, there's something wrong with, with that system a little bit. And it sucks cause like, there's a lot of people that do deserve it. And like, I would say more often than those cases where people get something they're not owed. There's people that are owed a lot that aren't getting it.

• 1:58:53Speaker 01

  There are that, in fact, there are a lot of, and there are combat vets out there that have never filed.

• 1:58:57Speaker 05

  No, there's so, dude, so many.

• 1:58:59Speaker 01

  I was just on, I was teaching at the air force academy, uh, last week. It was like 84 mostly Green Beret vets and this one ranger, uh, bro, he's been all over the world. He was in Panama and he hadn't filed a claim. It's crazy. It was here. I'm working with him now. So.

• 1:59:22Speaker 03

  Most people and it they do not set you up on how to do it.

• 1:59:25Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:59:26Speaker 03

  That's the hardest. That's why I went with, hey, the paid route like.

• 1:59:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:30Speaker 03

  So they are going to take it out of my hands and figure that shit out and I am a hundred percent fine with.

• 1:59:37Speaker 01

  I was very fortunate in the medical retirement process. I was assigned a VA case officer. So I actually had two, two claims. The Green Beret Foundation initiated my claim. And then there was actually a VA caseworker that looked at that and said, why didn't you claim your left hip? I'm like, cause my right hip is the one that hurts. And she said, Sergeant Major, are you telling me that your left hip never gets worn out after compensating for your right hip? I'm like, well, sometimes she goes, sometimes it's not an answer. It's a yes or a no. I said, well, it kinda, she's like, yes or no. I said, yes. She's like, good answer, Sergeant Major.

• 2:00:18Speaker 03

  Who'll be.

• 2:00:19Speaker 01

  She goes, you guys are the worst. She was helping me, but that's how the claim system works.

• 2:00:24Speaker 03

  And you're also doing what you were trained the entire time, which is do not be a bitch.

• 2:00:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00:30Speaker 03

  Entire time is I'm going to get in trouble if I go to the.

• 2:00:33Speaker 01

  So that's kind of what Zach's talking about. Like, oh, your special forces privilege is showing, but that with the guys that have never filed a claim that just got out or, or didn't know, like I've got a buddy, he was, he was in Afghanistan in 2002 with special forces. One of my favorite photos of the entire GWAT is this guy. I won't say his name because I HIPAA and whatnot, but it's this guy standing on the roof of a mud hut in, in Nangahar somewhere and he's whacking a golf ball off into the distance off this rooftop in the, in the mountains. Such a great shot. Needs to be a poster. Anyway, he never filed and I said, why? And he said, I just don't have the money to hire a lawyer right now. I'm like, you don't need a lawyer, bro. You don't need a lawyer. No, it's better than that.

• 2:01:17Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:01:19Speaker 01

  Crazy. The funny thing is he's also bald like everywhere and he hasn't had a haircut or a shave at all. So he's got like this wild like.

• 2:01:26Speaker 03

  The Jack Mandeville cut?

• 2:01:27Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Except he's like a triathlete. So. Yeah. Imagine Jack.

• 2:01:36Speaker 03

  You, Jack.

• 2:01:40Speaker 01

  So, um, what I tell everybody when I find out they haven't filed a claim at all is go on va.gov that day. You don't need a lawyer. You don't need a VSO. You don't need anybody. You need to create an ID me account if you don't have a CAT card anymore so you can access the government websites and then you hit intent to file because once you do intent to file, when you eventually get your claim in, everything you've claimed backs date, backdates to the date you file, which for me ended up being like two years of back pay.

• 2:02:15Speaker 03

  Congratulations. This was a good bonus.

• 2:02:17Speaker 01

  It was nice and it's tax free. Yeah. But I earned that shit.

• 2:02:21Speaker 03

  It's tax free, but you put into that.

• 2:02:23Speaker 01

  I did. Yeah. I sure did. I paid.

• 2:02:26Speaker 03

  Multiple different ways.

• 2:02:27Speaker 01

  Paid into that.

• 2:02:28Speaker 05

  Flashback to throwing an Afghani elder into a K-hole. It's like, sex crimes. There was, there was some background here.

• 2:02:37Speaker 01

  After that, once you do your intent to file, that's when you go hunting for the, the help. And there's, there's tax free options. Like I had lunch with a dude out in Bandera, uh, who's the, is it Bandera County out there? What county is that? I don't know. Wherever Bandera is.

• 2:02:54Speaker 05

  Like the town of Bandera.

• 2:02:55Speaker 01

  The town of Bandera. Yeah. He was wearing a Warrior's Heart shirt. So I just went up and started talking.

• 2:02:59Speaker 05

  It's a nice little town. It's like a fun little cowboy town.

• 2:03:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. I might, I may end up living there. Who knows? You know, I'm wearing my Bandera shirt. So, uh, he is the county.

• 2:03:08Speaker 03

  I just realized it's Raptors.

• 2:03:11Speaker 05

  Same as for Raptors.

• 2:03:15Speaker 01

  It's a funny video of that too. So, yeah, uh, different counties, but in Texas, definitely. There are, there are publicly funded veteran service reps that will help you with all of your, your VA stuff. You don't have to hire a claim shark. You don't have to hire a lawyer. And there is big business in claims and that's, that's what I get paid to do now. I'm the Director of Strategic Partnerships for a company called Xterra Health. That's X-T-E-R-R-A, Health. What I like about this company.

• 2:03:45Speaker 03

  Finn, cut that.

• 2:03:51Speaker 05

  Let's cut that unless the check clears.

• 2:03:57Speaker 01

  So this company, we just do, we do Nexus letters and DBQ letters. DBQ is disability qualifying letter. So it's a, it's a, remember I was talking about the CNP exams? You go in, this is your, what you say is wrong with you. The VA says, well, let's, let's see. And they order an exam for you. So

• 2:04:17Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 2:04:18Speaker 01

  A DBQ is a letter from a medical professional that says, yes, I've done an exam and this is fucked up. There is still some fraud involved in that piece worldwide. So Rebecca was a VSR at the VA and she would get claims and she would see, at the VA, she would see like, okay, this vet is filing his claim. He lives in Illinois. The doctor he saw is in Arizona. She would flag that and it would go for further review. Right? So there's still some of that going on. That doesn't happen here. There's, there is telehealth and it can be explained, you know?

• 2:05:00Speaker 01

  But what this company does is they've got a network of providers. The doctor that's in charge of it was Marty Scoville Jr.'s medic in Ranger Battalion. He became an MD and he, he's, he's called me up and brought me into this. That's how we ended up here. But first and foremost, they're veteran centric. If a vet can't pay, they will still take the case. Like they are so anti-claim shark.

• 2:05:27Speaker 03

  That's, I will say, the claim shark thing, I hate if it's like pay out of pocket right up front. It's like, how the ones I've seen or talked to, it's, hey, if we get the claim, we'll just take this right out the gate. It's a grand, two grand. I'm like, I don't care. You did all the work. But and that's me personally, but if I see them, they did the work, they got me set up. I'm like, and it's two grand. Cool. I understand. Good. Order, military order, the Purple Hearts who got me the original.

• 2:05:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:56Speaker 03

  And then I went with another one, two other ones to get to where I am now, but it's still not a hundred.

• 2:06:02Speaker 01

  There's some weird pricing models out there and some of them are like, they look on the up and up and then you. Look further, like if you actually know something about claims, you're like, ah, maybe not.

• 2:06:12Speaker 05

  Do you think it's because the field is so new?

• 2:06:14Speaker 01

  No, because claims have been around for forever.

• 2:06:17Speaker 05

  I just, well, I feel like, and maybe this is just a blind spot for me, but I feel like the, the industry of claims is, is like the last, I don't know, maybe five years.

• 2:06:27Speaker 01

  Some of it's blown up because,

• 2:06:29Speaker 05

  Internet, dude.

• 2:06:30Speaker 01

  Because internet and because of AI has reduced the barrier to legal language. I mean, that's a lot of it.

• 2:06:39Speaker 03

  Holy shit, you are, I never thought about that. You could do everything just with chat GTP.

• 2:06:44Speaker 01

  Mostly, but again, like,

• 2:06:48Speaker 01

  AI, it hallucinates, like the VAs own AI right now that they're replacing VSRs with.

• 2:06:54Speaker 03

  That's a bad idea.

• 2:06:55Speaker 01

  It is terrible idea because it hallucinates a lot, like it is connect, it is making up conditions for veterans that they didn't claim and, and humans are having to come back and scrub all this. It's actually making more work on the VA's side.

• 2:07:06Speaker 03

  You could, I, dude, actually, think about it. It would actually, I guarantee you could get like a pass.

• 2:07:15Speaker 05

  I'm not gonna.

• 2:07:16Speaker 03

  No, no, I know, but like jokingly, it's still, look how, for a year.

• 2:07:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, that's actually, I didn't even think about that.

• 2:07:23Speaker 03

  It thought you were in two branches and you had multiple, like, this is the.

• 2:07:28Speaker 01

  But you do on AI.

• 2:07:29Speaker 05

  From out there. Apparently, yeah.

• 2:07:31Speaker 03

  No, that.

• 2:07:31Speaker 05

  God damn it.

• 2:07:33Speaker 03

  But you, you think of it like that, it would be like brands at a hundred percent, where it's like, I didn't even serve. What the?

• 2:07:39Speaker 05

  And that's, that's where again, like, lack of oversight lends itself to fraud. Cause I, well, the, I, not to, I know that it's kind of become a little spicy lately because of a couple of other things in the military industrial complex, but like the Palantir.

• 2:07:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:07:51Speaker 05

  Uh, one of the things that I think they did exceptionally well in the beginning was integrating like AI and algorithms and things like that with human oversight.

• 2:07:59Speaker 01

  That's exactly, that's the key words. It has to have human oversight.

• 2:08:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:08:02Speaker 01

  It has to have human oversight. Yeah.

• 2:08:04Speaker 05

  We're not there yet.

• 2:08:04Speaker 01

  No, we're not. We're, we're not. Yeah. So on the, the Claim Shark pricing model, like the, the most overt one is a company that takes a percentage of your claim.

• 2:08:18Speaker 03

  Every month.

• 2:08:19Speaker 01

  That seems on the up and up if it's like, and I've had friends that have had great results with this. The problem with that is the incentives. So you think about this. Remember I said your intent to file, your payment is backdated to your intent to file. So if you hire a company that is doing your claim and they take what should have been a three month process and it turned it to a six month process, they're now getting a percentage of six months of back pay versus three months of back pay.

• 2:08:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think about that.

• 2:08:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I didn't either. Somebody pointed that to me and I was like, oh, that makes a lot of sense. There's although also companies that if your claim is elevated, like if it's rejected initially, maybe you paid a flat fee upfront, but you, you, your claim's rejected and it gets escalated. Now you're paying again for an appeal process.

• 2:09:15Speaker 03

  So if you want to submit your intent to, uh, to file a claim, where would they do that again?

• 2:09:19Speaker 01

  VA.gov. That's you. You don't need anybody to do that. You don't need anybody to do that.

• 2:09:25Speaker 03

  How many services are out there to do it for free, by the way?

• 2:09:30Speaker 01

  How many counties are there?

• 2:09:32Speaker 03

  It is not joke. Like you have so many free ways to do this. I just didn't have the best of luck with it.

• 2:09:39Speaker 01

  The VFW does it. The American Legion does it. Uh, DAV does it. So there are, there's an accreditation process and I don't know what goes into that. But there's, it's, it's very specific on, on who the VA will, uh, give accreditation to. And if it's an accredited VSO, that means they can file the claim on your behalf. Like you can give them power of attorney and they can file on your behalf. And that's what the Green Beret Foundation did for me. They're the only accredited special forces nonprofit. But there's, that's great. Still not perfect. So the company that I'm working for doing the nexus letters, which

• 2:10:20Speaker 01

  means they're connecting the service to the injury with the DBQ, they're charging 500 bucks a pop for a medical letter. You're getting a medical exam.

• 2:10:33Speaker 01

  The doctor gets a cut of that, the business gets a cut of that and it goes forward. And that's, that's per letter. So they're not getting a percentage of a claim. They're not getting any future revenue off of it, anything else like that. And again, today, they, to date, they haven't turned anybody down, even if they needed. If they, they have rough times and they couldn't, they couldn't do it.

• 2:10:53Speaker 03

  They, then they'll take it if it goes through or it's just, eh, the $500 though, it's like.

• 2:10:59Speaker 01

  It's, it's such a nominal fee.

• 2:11:01Speaker 03

  Well, for some people, I will say, like, we get a seat. I, that's the one thing I'm big on is 500 for, depending on who you are. It can be a fucking hurdle. That's why I always, $20 can be a hurdle. That's why it's always like, hey, be as respectful on where they're coming from because 500 for you.

• 2:11:19Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 2:11:19Speaker 03

  You're like, hey.

• 2:11:20Speaker 01

  No, that's true. I mean, like a couple of years ago, that would have been, that would have been a tough thing for me. So, yeah, I get it. But now they'll, they'll work with people. It's a small company. And it's soft owned and it's, it's veteran first.

• 2:11:33Speaker 03

  Do you have to be green berated to go through that?

• 2:11:35Speaker 01

  Absolutely not. Anybody with DD 214.

• 2:11:38Speaker 03

  See, that's okay. And then where is, what's that one called again?

• 2:11:41Speaker 01

  Exterra Health. E X T E R R A. Like the, you know, SUV that predated the Tacoma that everybody drove around for a while. Exterra.

• 2:11:52Speaker 03

  Like I said, Chase, wait till the check clears. Yeah, Chase, just blur everything he is saying.

• 2:11:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:12:00Speaker 01

  It's funny that I'm throwing this out there because I haven't officially started there yet, but.

• 2:12:04Speaker 03

  Well, then. The check hasn't cleared for you either. Yeah, blur it out until you get the job.

• 2:12:09Speaker 01

  I, I mean, again, you know, I wasn't looking for a job and they called me and hearing about the company, I was excited about it because I've worked. I work a lot in the veteran space. I help out nonprofits when I can with the marketing and branding piece. And I'm always throwing shit up on my, my IG and knowing that this was a, a soft owned company and.

• 2:12:30Speaker 01

  I have enough experience in the healthcare industry to know that $500 is not how a doctor is making his bank. So I was like, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. So what I'm hoping is I can, through my position there, I can connect them with other VSOs and whatnot, because there's a lot of companies out there that don't do the DBQ service. Like, if my claim through the Greenberry Foundation had had that DBQ service, it would have avoided a lot of C and P exams and shortened the timeframe of my claim, my VA claim, which ended up being like 18 months.

• 2:13:10Speaker 03

  I mean, good check, though.

• 2:13:12Speaker 01

  It was a good check. Yeah. Thank God, nobody got a percentage of that one.

• 2:13:17Speaker 03

  That's what I'm like, it was still, it's a long ass time.

• 2:13:20Speaker 05

  18 months of backpack?

• 2:13:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:13:22Speaker 05

  At whatever your monthly, they have to pay every month to that.

• 2:13:25Speaker 03

  What color's your Camaro?

• 2:13:28Speaker 01

  In the APR?

• 2:13:28Speaker 05

  That's Echelon.

• 2:13:32Speaker 03

  Dear, where can the, where can the amazing people on the internet find you?

• 2:13:36Speaker 01

  I am most active on Instagram at Red Leader underscore standing by. Make sure that it's the guy with my face and the blue check mark because man, I am really, really popular in Nigeria.

• 2:13:51Speaker 05

  I think I saw a profile, this fat little black kid, the same name as you. I was like, that's not Dear?

• 2:14:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, if there's only like five or six photos up and it says Dear Slavak, I love America and the Army. It's, that's not me.

• 2:14:07Speaker 05

  He's gonna go there to Nigeria and fucking give them the sex nightmare dust?

• 2:14:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. How many legs, how many legs do you need to do this? Yeah. And the same with the dating services. I'm not on any dating platforms. I've actually had people hit me up on my dot mail email, say, excuse me Sergeant Major, but I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this, but can you please confirm that you're not dating my stepmom or my mother-in-law? And like, nope.

• 2:14:36Speaker 05

  Wouldn't you like to know, fat boy?

• 2:14:45Speaker 05

  Oh God, I don't know if we've discouraged or encouraged people to do ketamine at this point.

• 2:14:50Speaker 01

  Great in therapy, great in therapy, great in surgery. Bad for the elderly. Allegedly, we'll see.

• 2:14:59Speaker 05

  What was the noise again?

• 2:15:00Speaker 01

  Whoa.

• 2:15:01Speaker 03

  And Kerry on that hill closes that.

• 2:15:06Speaker 05

  Thank you guys for joining the Unsubscribe Podcast. I was joined today by Eli Doubletap, tear sign man, Brandon Herrera, myself, Donut Operator. Thank you so much for being here.

• 2:15:14Speaker 03

  Sex dust.

• 2:15:16Speaker 05

  Sex dust.

• 2:15:17Speaker 06

  Coca-Cola. For the big, for the small, the short, and the tall. Peacemakers, risk takers.

• 2:16:01Speaker 06

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