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1:58

Who, who, who? All right everybody, welcome

2:00

back to the T&U Podcast. I'm

2:09

your host Marcus LaTrell. Every

2:11

week it's my job to fire you up, to

2:13

ignite the legend inside of you, and to push

2:16

you to use greatness. Join me every week as

2:18

I tend to in my briefing room with some of the most

2:20

hard-charged people on the planet. They're

2:22

going to show you how to embrace and prop the light,

2:25

teach you the values of working your ass off, and

2:27

charge through whatever life throws at you. This

2:29

is the Team Never Quit Podcast.

2:31

So

2:33

buckle up, buttercup. What's

2:42

going on ladies and gentlemen? Welcome back

2:44

to another great episode of the Team

2:47

Never Quit Podcast. As always, thank you

2:49

guys for listening and watching, and please go

2:51

hit that like and subscribe button wherever

2:54

you get your show. So today before

2:56

we get to our very special guest, let's

2:58

kick it off with our usual Patreon

3:00

question of the day.

3:03

So,

3:04

if you were going to have a DJ

3:07

name, what would you name yourself? Well,

3:09

I feel like this one has to have some thought into it

3:11

as opposed to just throw it out right now. You

3:14

know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. DJ

3:17

name. Yeah, or like a good nickname that

3:19

you have that you

3:20

always kind of liked. I've

3:23

never had a nickname that would be considered

3:26

a DJ name ever in my life.

3:29

I'm the opposite of anything

3:32

DJ.

3:33

That's how I feel about

3:35

myself. So that resonates. I'm like

3:37

a chill. Yeah, what do you got? You got anything?

3:40

DJ Halti. DJ Halti

3:42

and the teams for so long. I can't even get rid

3:44

of the nickname, so I just got to embrace it now.

3:46

Right? Okay.

3:48

Well, that's a good one. That actually flows

3:50

and sounds like it would be a real DJ name. How

3:53

about moving violations? Oh my gosh, I have

3:55

one for you. Tell me about it. DJ

3:58

Marky Mark.

3:59

Well, you know, actually I probably

4:02

could get away with that now you could that should be

4:04

my handle I wish that on the door He's

4:07

going the door. I feel if anybody's

4:09

well He's got others that can probably attach

4:12

themselves to that label but because he's

4:14

done a couple of movies that the guy Yeah

4:18

That's

4:18

what I was going with that. I feel like I could really

4:20

pull it off with no complaints. Yeah.

4:22

Yeah, I think so

4:25

Okay, so the theme music right when we

4:27

talk about this you need to start playing good vibrations,

4:29

right? Oh

4:31

my gosh And we need I probably need

4:33

to put some posters of him up back in the day right in the

4:35

Calvin Klein and all right Yeah, when he's flexing all

4:38

the time. What's up? Look at Jack I hadn't see

4:40

when you get out away from the teams in the community you

4:42

start to forget funny stuff like that, right? Yeah,

4:46

cuz you know, you gotta get married and he is you

4:48

gotta act right? It'll get that

4:50

kind of humor. Right? Yeah

4:53

Hunter what's your DJ name since you probably

4:55

do have it. Oh,

4:56

man. Here we go Well,

4:59

I

5:00

I'd probably go with Jay bird Why

5:03

a bird Jay bird? Because

5:06

Juno yeah, and then

5:08

you just gotta throw a little Animal

5:11

at the end and it was your tiger. Yeah,

5:14

but you can't do Jay tiger. I

5:17

Know I think you just did

5:19

I guess what could be like Jay you

5:21

any a you and that like you tiger

5:24

No, that didn't work

5:27

Think about that one. All right. Thank you both

5:29

for this opportunity So

5:31

yeah, I grew up on the Central Coast of California on a

5:34

small town called Los Dosos grew

5:37

up skateboarding playing soccer And

5:40

kind of living in the streets a little bit Even

5:42

though it was a small town there wasn't a lot of trouble to get into

5:44

like it's a good place to live though Up there it

5:46

is it absolutely is but as a kid who

5:49

wants to get out an adventure. It's too

5:51

small It's too slow and

5:53

you want it you want to go out and see the world

5:55

or at least I did right? So most people think California

5:58

they think LA. Yes, or San Diego or

6:00

San Francisco. Never those

6:02

in-betweens, but there's a lot of land in between

6:05

all of those cities. Most people don't

6:07

realize that. And I mean, I learned

6:09

that only when, not even when I went into the

6:11

military, but until we started traveling. Because

6:15

you think that all blends together. Like when you hear Orange County,

6:17

or you hear San Francisco, it's like, LLE's

6:19

not in San Francisco. I mean, I've heard people say that,

6:22

they don't know. And where

6:24

you lived is probably one of the most beautiful

6:26

places. It is still quiet, it

6:28

is still little, SLO,

6:31

slow, and easy going. It

6:33

hasn't filled up yet. So

6:35

hopefully, hopefully it hasn't filled up yet. But

6:38

yeah, I grew up, you know, waving

6:40

the red, white, and blue, and it's different,

6:43

as you just said, it's very different than LA. It's

6:45

very different than San Francisco. It's on the coast,

6:47

like halfway in between. It's smaller towns,

6:51

hardworking blue collar folks. And

6:53

so that's where I grew up. And man,

6:55

I wanted to get out on an adventure. I was

6:58

young, and knew that if

7:00

I was gonna stay in that small town, there weren't a lot

7:02

of options for me. And so

7:04

a couple of things happened. I had a

7:06

couple of buddies who had already joined the Marine Corps, and I

7:08

thought, these guys look like they're having a great

7:10

time. They're seeing the world, they're doing fun stuff.

7:13

I can do that. Anybody in the family,

7:15

in the military? I had an uncle

7:18

that was in the military. He was army,

7:22

like drove those M113s, background

7:24

like desert storms. Not as far back

7:27

as you checked, because we've been there. I haven't gone all

7:29

the way back. Oh, you haven't looked yet? Yeah,

7:31

I know there's more though. You can't believe

7:33

it. If you got one in there, they

7:36

just, she checked our background and started pulling

7:38

the ancestry up. That was a lot of

7:40

fun, man.

7:41

I feel like if you have the natural just

7:43

urge and want to go into the military,

7:45

it's in your DNA. And even

7:48

if you don't know it and you just go back and

7:50

dig, you'll find that they're

7:52

in there. For Marcus and Morgan,

7:56

they didn't really know a whole

7:58

lot past grandparents. and

8:00

I went on a deep dive on ancestry.

8:03

Yeah. And I was able to go

8:05

back to the American Revolution and

8:08

every single generation,

8:11

starting back then, they

8:14

have

8:15

someone who fought. Wow.

8:17

Like a direct,

8:20

direct ancestor. Yeah. So

8:23

it was really, really cool to see that. Not

8:26

in my family, we're like farmers, which totally

8:28

fits me. That's my

8:30

personality. So to me,

8:32

it's like if you have that natural fire

8:35

in the gut kind of thing, it's probably

8:37

in your DNA.

8:38

Yeah. Well, growing up in the 80s, guns

8:41

weren't like pink and purple and like,

8:43

color. How great was growing up in

8:45

the 80s and 90s? Yeah, and so I was the kid running around

8:47

with like tricolor camo on

8:50

and realistic looking guns, playing guns

8:52

with my friends in the empty lots and

8:56

in the tree lines and all of those things all

8:58

the time. That's awesome.

8:59

Yeah. What year did you enlist?

9:01

So 1998, it was actually September, 1998. Oh,

9:06

yeah. Bro, I mean, you couldn't time that any better.

9:08

I know it, right? I came in right after you.

9:11

Like I did the delayed entry program, I was March 98. Same,

9:13

no kidding.

9:15

No kidding.

9:16

That's amazing. Right. Yeah,

9:18

it was kind of the perfect place to be because we had already

9:20

finished most of the training and then we were kind

9:23

of in the middle part, still young. Right

9:25

on, so when you joined, where'd

9:28

you go? So, go to boot

9:31

camp in San Diego. First experience

9:33

with all of that, obviously. Loved

9:36

it, went to School of Infantry after

9:38

that. Also, on Camp Pendleton, so

9:40

same kind of location. And then

9:42

they sent me to North Carolina. That's

9:45

what I was gonna ask you next, man. So did they even get

9:47

you out of California? They did. Immediately. Yeah,

9:49

as quick as they could. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

9:53

Right on. All right, how long were you there? About

9:56

my first five and a half years in the

9:58

Marine Corps. I was there as an infantryman. Tell me about it.

10:01

Yeah, it was great. It was exactly what I needed.

10:04

I was an idiot. I

10:06

thought I was tougher than I actually was and

10:09

I got to learn about life, people

10:12

from other cultures because you really

10:14

don't know nothing growing up in a small town and

10:16

then you're thrown into a platoon or a team

10:18

with guys from New York, guys

10:21

from the South, guys from Texas

10:24

and all the different places and you learn

10:26

how to work it all out together and become

10:28

a team. How we suffer. And how to

10:30

suffer well sometimes, sometimes

10:32

not but yeah, it was really good. I feel like

10:35

we should write this down for the youth like

10:37

when you're looking for the guys like us. Because

10:40

when we're young and we're still growing, you

10:44

really don't want to look at us, right? Because

10:46

we're getting into the mischief and just

10:48

cutting up and trying to get somewhere we don't even

10:50

have any idea. I

10:53

think about that a lot now. I was

10:55

like, thank God they didn't throw us away.

10:57

Seriously.

10:58

And as soon as I got into the military,

11:00

I was boom. I mean. And

11:02

it's over half the guys you know in the teams

11:05

too that were, they kind of

11:07

grew up in the streets. Same thing. They

11:09

were getting in trouble. How the heck did you make it through

11:11

high school? But you're still a really smart

11:13

dude. Extremely smart.

11:16

As a matter of fact, when they get out, they're the ones who become doctors

11:18

and accountants or go run walls or all that. I mean,

11:20

we've got enough of us out now and you

11:22

can just hearing what our guys get into

11:24

is amazing to me. Yeah.

11:28

Where'd you go 9-11? Did you jump straight in?

11:30

I was in Kosovo on patrol

11:33

when that happened. We

11:35

were doing interdiction patrols on the Macedonian

11:38

border. And it was like

11:40

our first real world thing. We

11:42

were on a six month deployment. It was toward the back end

11:44

of it. So we kind of ran out

11:46

of time, right? Because we were at the end of the

11:48

six months, we were coming off the mew

11:50

and the next mew was already spun

11:53

up. They had gone through their entire workup and they were coming

11:55

out. So we ended up

11:57

steaming home essentially. And

12:00

so we didn't go anywhere right away. Yeah.

12:03

They release ya'll, keep you locked down. They did release

12:05

us. Yeah. But there was a lot

12:07

of, and so like I'm an E5. Yeah,

12:10

I was gonna say. You're not getting a lot of information. Right, right. And

12:13

there was all these murmurs of like, boys

12:15

be ready. Yeah. Like, you know, be ready.

12:17

They were screaming that. Yeah. I remember

12:19

that. Oh, and, cause everyone wanted to go. Absolutely.

12:24

That was a crazy, that was talking about a dynamic shift.

12:26

Cause it was the Vietnam guys were still around, or

12:28

the storms and the shields. And they had been trained

12:31

by the NAM guys. Yeah. And

12:33

then they were, they had their war, which was a war

12:35

never, but not like this one. Sure. I

12:38

remember when we, when that jumped up, boy, it was a

12:40

free for all. Yeah.

12:42

Well, when you were in Kosovo, you were still

12:44

in infantry or

12:44

by that point? Yeah, I was still in the

12:46

infantry.

12:47

When did you decide to move

12:49

on to special

12:50

forces? So skipping ahead a little

12:52

bit. So we, it ties

12:54

in. Oh, okay. Get

12:56

back from that. And I turn around to the cure sergeant,

12:59

I'm like, ha, I never got to get back on, you know, on

13:01

you again. I flip it off, right? A year

13:03

later, I'm getting right back on the cure sarge

13:06

and it's steaming us to Kuwait, show up in

13:08

Kuwait. We're all wondering, is this thing really going to happen?

13:11

And sure enough, we go over, go over the berm

13:13

and we go into Iraq during the invasion in 2003. Oh,

13:16

wow. And so. How's

13:18

that really? Yeah. Yeah,

13:20

we had to quit landing in Kuwait. I'll

13:23

saw the whole thing convoy down, they

13:25

did the Kuwaiti Navy base, man. Before

13:27

there was the apartments I think it's big now.

13:30

I have no idea. I haven't been back since. Yeah, I haven't been back since.

13:32

But I remember being wide

13:34

eyed there too. Yeah.

13:36

Brand new.

13:37

Oh yeah? Yeah, so we get in this

13:39

long conga line and just all

13:42

the way up through the desert, the southern desert to Nazaria.

13:46

I remember that. And we pulled

13:48

into southern Nazaria and we got stuck kind

13:50

of south of the city. And

13:53

we're basically trading artillery rounds back and

13:55

forth. Their artillery units there. Is this what you're trying

13:57

to do, Staun? It was just before

13:59

it. It was just before it and we

14:02

got held up another unit caught up to us and

14:04

was able to push through cuz they were in Tracks and we were in

14:06

trucks they pushed into the

14:08

city and

14:10

they got

14:12

They took they took a rough one. Yeah on it But

14:14

it would have been us in trucks and

14:16

it would have been way worse and it was like one

14:18

of those moments We're like How

14:21

does this stuff work out like this? Like Howard

14:23

do these little moments? Work

14:26

out like this, right and

14:28

the first thing I remember pulling into southern Azaria Was

14:31

the first time I had seen American vehicles

14:34

with bullet holes in them on fire American

14:38

military uniforms blood on them You

14:41

know helmets tipped over with

14:43

you know, and and I and

14:46

what it that ended up being was Jessica

14:48

Lynch's Vehicles and all

14:50

that. Yeah So

14:56

a couple weeks later, it's been long enough I don't remember

14:58

the exact timeline now, but it was a couple weeks

15:00

later. So been in a couple gun my first gun

15:02

fights And I was like,

15:05

yes, I'm gonna do this for the rest of my life This

15:07

is the coolest stuff ever like this is I'm

15:10

I'm exercising every piece of training.

15:12

I've ever gotten We're proofing

15:15

these old TMS and FM's

15:18

From Vietnam that okay, it's time to update.

15:20

Oh, I learned that That

15:22

is exactly when that happened. Yeah, we have

15:24

learned some new stuff. That's right. Yep. And

15:27

so I'm standing on a rooftop I'm

15:30

I'm doing fire watch like legit fire

15:32

watch right for the first time. It's not just on

15:34

a training thing and I'm

15:36

thinking this is fantastic. This is I'm

15:39

gonna do this as long as they'll let me and

15:41

I hear Would now

15:43

looking back on it. I hear a c-130

15:45

pull into orbit Hmm over

15:48

a set of compounds like Northwest

15:51

of me and I'm in you know the old You

15:54

know monocles and I can't really make out a

15:56

whole lot but you can see kind of generally.

15:58

All right I got this thing wisdom I'm losing around, okay,

16:00

I've been here three weeks, I've seen

16:02

some stuff but I've never seen that before. And

16:04

then I hear the thump of 47s and

16:07

then little birds and then it just

16:09

lights off, right? And

16:11

I basically watch and I had to figure this out

16:13

afterwards the raid to get Jessica

16:16

Lynch back. Oh my gosh. And I thought,

16:18

I love my job and I already told myself I'm

16:21

doing this forever but whatever that was, I've

16:23

got to go do that. I don't know who they are, I

16:25

don't know what that was but

16:28

I've got to go do that and that just set me on

16:30

a very different path at that point. Yeah.

16:34

Yeah, that's one of those moments where

16:36

you're like,

16:37

I don't know, for a girl, like looking at another

16:39

girl and you're like, oh, I can totally

16:42

see that too.

16:43

Whatever that emotion

16:45

is, it happens to both sides. Yeah,

16:48

being enamored with someone and

16:49

just wanting to achieve that. It is and

16:51

they look good doing it. That's

16:53

the coolest part really, like, that's what got me. I

16:56

don't know.

16:56

You know, because

16:59

it captures you. Yeah. You

17:01

can't get away from it after that. No.

17:04

No. At that point, like how do you find out

17:06

who that was or what they were doing

17:09

and how do you know how to actually

17:11

transition into

17:12

that? Great question, yeah, it was a lot of work. So this

17:14

is pre-Google, this is pre,

17:17

a lot of things. So figuring all of that out once

17:19

I got back was really hard to do, honestly.

17:23

And you become very

17:25

unpopular when you start saying things like, I

17:27

think I wanna do an interservice transfer because

17:29

you find out very quickly that you're not going to get

17:31

there in the Marine Corps because Marsoc

17:34

didn't exist yet. It's hard, yeah. And so you

17:36

start saying things like interservice transfer because I

17:38

wanna go be a SEAL, be a Korean Beret or take

17:40

one of these other paths and you can imagine

17:42

how an E9 creates you. Do you really know anything back then?

17:45

No one knew anything about any special forces

17:47

program. They kept that stuff undercover.

17:49

I mean, they were just movies, right? Just movies. They

17:53

were the best movies ever in the 80s, but they were just movies. The

17:55

best recruiting poster movie

17:57

ever. Yeah, yeah.

17:59

And so.

17:59

So I started to figure it out. I got

18:02

told no a whole lot. And

18:04

I started working, and I'm still continuing

18:06

to work on my career. I got an opportunity to go be a school

18:08

of infantry, to go back and be an instructor, which

18:11

I felt very passionate about. Because now I was

18:13

giving back relevant. I'd been in the

18:15

invasion. I could give back. And

18:17

I figured I could use that as time to figure

18:20

out what was next for me. So I took those orders that put

18:22

me back on the West Coast, which was great. And

18:25

I'm still on this path. So now, because

18:28

I'm on this path, I'm rucking more. I'm

18:30

in the pool more, because I'm really not a good swimmer.

18:33

I've got to figure out fins. And the first time you figure out fins,

18:35

you figure out how painful it is. And all the

18:37

hip flexor problems, and ankles, and all the things, you

18:39

got to work that stuff out, right? And just figure out how

18:41

to suffer well. That's it. Right? And

18:44

so I started working on all that. And

18:46

right when I get done with three years of being an instructor,

18:49

Marsoc starts to stand up. And

18:51

I'm just right time, right place. I'm not really

18:54

good at much, except for just being in the right time,

18:56

in the right place. I mean, it just kind of worked

18:58

out. Those guys like that.

19:00

It just worked out. How the hell? I don't know, man. I'm

19:03

standing in line for chow. And now, here

19:05

I am. I thought I was just getting chow. It's

19:10

amazing. So I showed up at Marsoc.

19:12

And it was the early days,

19:14

in really early 2007. I

19:18

watched the guide on between Force

19:20

Recon, get taken away, fold

19:23

it up. Hearing about all that. What are you guys doing

19:25

there? First Marine Special Operations Battalion,

19:28

First Marine Special Operations Battalion get handed over.

19:32

And the other thing that happened in that formation

19:34

was there was, I want

19:36

to say, like three silver stars, four

19:39

bronze stars, and just

19:41

all of these awards. And I thought,

19:44

oh, I'm in a very different

19:46

place now. This is a different

19:48

group of people. And I need to,

19:51

I'm here, and I need to be here. We're

19:53

probably somewhere up there. And

19:56

so then the real work begins. It's

19:58

not getting. getting on the team

20:02

That's not it. I think it is that's

20:04

why there's levels Yeah, because if you understood

20:07

how high you I mean how I have had how

20:09

it actually goes and it's kind of demoralizing Mm-hmm,

20:12

right. That's a good point. You know I mean yes.

20:14

Yeah, cuz once you start taking that ass whipping

20:16

in the beginning Those

20:19

little rewards like why you're into like just

20:22

a t-shirt change of the color and the t-shirt

20:24

was like oh, yeah Right good

20:26

point little rewards. Yeah So

20:28

what was training like for that since it

20:30

was something

20:30

it sucks for them because it's brand

20:35

Brand-new so did they

20:37

I was pre selection and

20:39

it was literally just

20:41

Okay, you

20:42

all of these guys were forced recon you are now

20:44

operator you were already operators by our

20:46

standard You're some of the toughest hardest dudes

20:48

here already always thought on our side to get after

20:51

it And what they so the original

20:53

model was they were trying to model it With

20:56

trailer platoons because that worked that was the model

20:58

they were using before so I got pulled over to

21:00

be a trailer platoon sergeant So

21:03

I hadn't made it on to being an operator yet I

21:05

was there to be a trailer platoon sergeant so I'd have

21:07

machine gunners and mortar men to

21:09

lock down the X Let

21:11

the operators go in and we you know obviously

21:13

take care of the cordon And

21:16

they found out through the first probably

21:19

two or three deployments from like alpha company and Bravo

21:21

company And I was in Charlie that that was not

21:23

gonna work so they changed the model

21:26

and they got rid of most of the Non

21:29

reconnaissance folks, and I was just

21:31

again right time right place I got

21:33

lucky and was one of the few chosen who got okay

21:35

You're gonna get if you fail anything you're

21:38

done all right in your school you

21:40

come back. Okay next school Go

21:42

to the training package and as long as you didn't fail

21:44

you got to stay and people were just Disappearing

21:47

in the middle of the night you know and

21:49

they were just gone you

22:00

This

22:03

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equal housing lender.

23:32

So with it being a brand new,

23:34

I mean... Who's teaching y'all? Everything, yeah. Was

23:37

that, were you going to schools at the

23:39

Navy or...

23:40

So we were using all the same schools

23:42

that, you know, because those are all paid

23:44

for and done with billet spaces

23:47

and all those things. So Army Jump School,

23:49

Navy Sears School, all the

23:52

usual suspects. Civilians have

23:54

no idea about all this, yeah. How

23:56

that works and how we get jammed up for schools

23:58

and if you're coming in, if you... These are essentially contracts

24:01

that are written with time.

24:03

Always good. You gotta execute

24:05

those contracts now, whether you want them or not.

24:08

And then you get to change them after a time period and

24:10

then you can write new contracts.

24:12

So when they were forming

24:15

all of this and you getting to be on

24:18

this brand new team, what was the actual

24:20

mission statement of Marsoc? Because

24:24

with the SEALs, they're more recon rescue

24:27

with Army, they've got their own, everybody

24:29

has their own thing. What was the Marines

24:32

kind of mission statement?

24:33

Don't screw it up. That

24:35

was literally it internally.

24:37

Was like, we just made it. Dude,

24:40

we all couldn't. We just made it on to the

24:42

team. Brand new. Right. There's

24:44

no way they could have screwed that up. You're

24:46

the new guy. New guys, right? As a command, you're the

24:48

new guy. You can't even plan for it. You don't even think

24:50

about it. Because if you do, that would drive

24:52

you crazy. Be professional

24:55

in everything you do. Everybody

24:57

watched them when they, because they were, and

24:59

I don't, correct me if I'm wrong, but the reason when SOCOM

25:02

spun up and y'all didn't get into it is because the head

25:05

general was like, hey, all Marines are special forces. I'm like,

25:07

okay, Roger that, you guys got your own deal. And

25:09

then when we kept going and getting more

25:12

advanced, advanced, advanced,

25:14

we just had to show up. Yeah. Yeah.

25:17

Is that correct? Literally. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

25:19

Okay, that's what I thought. Yeah, it was that simple. That's what we

25:22

heard. Because the Marine Corps is different. I wanna make that

25:24

perfectly clear. It is very different. Every civilian

25:26

doesn't know this. There's Army,

25:28

the Navy, the Air Force, the Coast Guard, and then there's the Marine

25:30

Corps. They're completely different than everybody

25:33

else. Everyone knows that. Right,

25:35

so when- Once a Marine, always a Marine. Always. I

25:37

even know that. Dude, I mean, you can tell by the way

25:39

they walk, the way they look, the way they carry themselves,

25:42

it's a mentality. Once they become one, you graduate

25:44

out of a Marine Corps, you're completely changed for the rest of your life. Can't

25:46

get out of it. Yeah. Period. Yeah,

25:48

all true. Yeah, that's a fact.

25:51

Yeah, yeah. And so we had

25:54

lots of green braids coming on at the compound. We had seals

25:56

coming up from Coronado coming on at the compound.

25:59

Showing.

25:59

and how to do certain things, helping us with different

26:02

things. So we were like, okay, let's

26:04

take the best of both of those models and

26:06

the Ranger model and what makes the

26:08

most sense for us. And so I

26:10

would say it was very entrepreneurial. I

26:13

mean, we were figuring out what it means to

26:15

be an operator while flying the airplane,

26:18

while deploying, while going to schools and

26:21

defining all of it while doing

26:23

it. Hey, if you're asking why they just didn't copy us, I

26:25

just explained that. That's

26:28

a marine thing. Y'all were going

26:30

through your growing pains. There was great debate internally

26:32

though. Should we just, the models right here,

26:34

it's right down on the strand, just copy.

26:36

It obviously works. It has a lineage in history

26:39

at this point. It's proven. It's like you guys, it's

26:41

proven. Yeah, and then there was, well, the

26:44

Green Beret has a compelling model as well. The

26:46

Rangers have a compelling model as well.

26:49

So I would say they, because

26:51

I haven't been on the compound and I don't

26:53

have all the badges and all the funny things anymore, that

26:56

is probably just now getting solidified at

26:58

this point, I would imagine. Oh

27:01

yeah, it's low on ground already. Well now, if an 18 year

27:03

old coming out of

27:04

high school wants

27:07

to go into the marine special forces,

27:11

if they were doing that with the SEAL teams, they would try to get a

27:13

contract. Is that available

27:15

or do you have to go into the Corps first,

27:18

complete a certain amount of time and then

27:20

go in? Last I heard, and

27:23

I'm helping a fellow E8 SEAL

27:25

who I was

27:26

gonna go on deployment

27:28

with. We

27:30

didn't get to go on deployment together, but that's another story

27:32

for another time. His son is right

27:35

now a marine infantryman and he's put

27:37

in that bare minimum amount of time. So you cannot

27:39

get a contract off the street currently, best

27:41

of my knowledge today as we're

27:43

recording this. You have to put

27:45

in a minimum amount of time. You've got

27:47

to get to E3, E4, and

27:50

then you can start looking at taking assessment

27:53

selection and going through the process. And

27:55

then you have to do it, you have an expiration

27:57

date on you as well. So you've got to thread

27:59

this. needle and get through

28:02

that eye of the needle, you know,

28:04

before those two dates. And it seems to be somewhere

28:07

between E4 and before E6. Yeah.

28:11

You know what that does? That creates a

28:14

self-contract. A

28:16

moral contract to yourself. It would be a paper

28:18

work. You know what I mean? Yeah. When

28:20

they do that to us, because as you progress

28:22

through these levels, there's a confidence that comes with

28:24

it. Yeah. That's what I call living in the

28:26

void. Right, when you're in the void, there's

28:29

that stuff you don't know about, but you learn about. It's

28:31

kinda like when you lift weights, you get strong, but then you

28:33

get confident. And there's a bunch of stuff that comes

28:35

with it. As we progress through the ranks, it's

28:38

kind of an unspoken rule, and you

28:41

can feel it. And when guys

28:43

get through the programs, man, it's so,

28:46

so motivating. When you see somebody

28:48

get into a program, you're like,

28:50

oh, okay, I can do that. I mean,

28:52

it is, right? Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

28:55

Yeah.

28:56

So you were brand new in this. You were

28:58

one of the pioneers with this. Were

29:01

y'all augmenting with the SEAL

29:03

teams and with Green Berets, or were

29:05

you doing your own mission sets?

29:07

We were absolutely being

29:09

fully integrated into SOCOM. And I got to be

29:11

there during the mommy daddy fights of

29:14

SOCOM saying, you're gonna deploy here. And the

29:16

Marine Corps saying, no, no, no, we need you here. And

29:19

getting to watch all of those things happen. So

29:21

my team, which is like SEAL

29:23

platoon size, was on the boat.

29:26

And SOCOM came up over the top of

29:28

the Marine Corps and said, why are you on the boat? We told

29:30

you to be in Afghanistan, get all your

29:32

stuff and all your people off the boat. You're

29:35

gonna do it here. We logistically planned the first

29:37

part. You need to do the second part and get the

29:39

entire team to Afghanistan. That was my first deployment.

29:42

Oh my gosh. It was a mess. Yeah,

29:44

it was an absolute mess. Oh my gosh.

29:47

We fell under an Army soda,

29:49

if I'm pretty sure, at the time. And

29:51

we were, they kinda didn't know what to do

29:53

with us. We showed up late, right? We have a...

29:56

Oh yeah, a big green machine. They run everything. Yeah,

29:59

that's our... Yeah. We have all these different weird

30:01

trucks and different things that they haven't had to deal

30:03

with yet, right? We didn't have the kind of standard

30:05

loadout of green berets or seals So

30:08

I think they kind of just told us go out to deliram

30:11

and disrupt Yeah

30:12

disrupt the enemy which is just a blanket

30:14

statement to figure it out Yeah,

30:17

it's gonna be wild. Yeah, we had a trouble

30:24

It is I mean

30:27

remember in the beginning you show up with everything And

30:30

then you realize as you're going through it like okay, it's

30:32

not you don't need it You just don't have to use it right now,

30:34

right and then everything you can

30:36

always tell a guy About

30:39

slender his gear his loadout is ready. You got those

30:41

that's what I was just gonna bring out. It works

30:43

Oh, yeah, I really needed this this pouch was

30:45

so cool. It's so cool. It's so

30:47

cool click by I'm

30:50

gonna go right there right there. So good I mean

30:52

my pal can't even get to this one But you know my

30:54

buddy can so it'll look cool for the bags

30:56

on the door when you go through pouch off me Yeah,

31:00

so being part of that Beginning

31:02

phase. Did you get to help pick out stuff

31:05

like actually? declare

31:07

what the gear would be and

31:09

There was it I would say like the big muscle

31:11

movements in terms of what we're wearing

31:14

and what we're calling ourselves And like

31:16

the big what we call internally the

31:18

big blue arrows. Those are those are done

31:20

those come from top down but

31:23

in terms of Clearing a room

31:25

in terms of how we do all the tactical level

31:28

things It was there was a lot of bottom-up

31:30

input And it was it was and

31:33

there was some mid-level input of you know

31:35

We need to be called Raiders this this other thing that

31:37

you're trying to call us or these other names

31:39

like that's we're Missing the

31:42

opportunity to have the lineage

31:44

tied all the way back to the yeah I'm gonna ask you all what y'all

31:46

did about that Yeah, and I was also wondering

31:48

what it was like now when you're when you're next to the flagpole

31:51

Mmm. All right, cuz in it when

31:53

we're on regular Navy bases, they know we're the bastards

31:57

Right, you know and so I'm imagine because

31:59

in the core there Y'all are real strict about that.

32:02

Like the sideburns, your uniforms,

32:04

y'all. None of that. Okay, so I thought. So

32:07

y'all are cool, clean cut, like a marine.

32:10

Yeah, I don't remember the exact quote,

32:12

but it's essentially, we

32:14

are Marines and we happen to do special operations.

32:16

Thank you, okay. So

32:18

go get a haircut. I preach that about y'all. When

32:21

those guys are in uniform, and they're haircut,

32:23

even when they're out, I ran across a 96 year

32:26

old and 101 year old marine. Two

32:29

colonels. You could shave with

32:31

the crease in that dude's pants. It was so

32:33

tight. I mean, he was cackied up with

32:35

his gold on. The old breed. Sharp,

32:39

when I stepped out and saw him, I was like, yeah.

32:43

I just felt like a badass when he was sitting next

32:45

to me. Those guys are great. Yeah,

32:47

yeah. So

32:50

where does the name raider come from?

32:52

So originally all the way back to World War

32:54

II, trying to press

32:56

in the Pacific, and then we pressed back on the Japanese

32:59

who were literally just gobbling up island

33:01

after island after island, Navy, Army,

33:03

and Marine Corps. We knew we needed

33:06

commando units. I think was probably the

33:08

term used back then, and everybody was trying

33:10

to figure it out. I think jointly, we tried to figure

33:12

it out for a while with the scouts and

33:14

raiders. And then everybody just like,

33:17

nah, we're doing our own thing. And then that's

33:19

where it all grew. Spring up,

33:21

yeah. Just think in the beginning, Marines started out scouts

33:23

and raiders when it was real world, because it is small.

33:26

Then that's what their job was. They're the ones that took

33:29

care of the problems. But it just kept, it was so cool, it

33:31

kept getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger, and bigger. And

33:33

then you had to.

33:34

Marcus and I had, he died

33:36

a few years ago, but we had a good friend,

33:39

R.V. Bergen, that was a Marine, died

33:42

at like 98 or something like that. He

33:44

was really old. That kind

33:47

of Marine that still could wear, put

33:49

his uniform on.

33:50

Yeah, so wore his buckle and everything.

33:52

Shirt tucked in.

33:54

Yeah, we were able to go

33:56

with him to the Battle of Pelalu.

33:58

Like where are the.

33:59

He was there while over that. Oh, hell it

34:01

was. And Marcus carried

34:03

him out of the boat, I mean, he's old, carried

34:05

him out of the boat and

34:07

propped him up on the beach.

34:08

Dude, we went out over the water and came back in.

34:10

I mean, I'm talking, it's on the other side of the earth and

34:13

it was all grown up in the jungle and

34:15

all the artillery and everything, it's frozen in time.

34:17

The throw boxes

34:18

are still there, like all

34:20

of the stuff.

34:21

Rifles leaning against, swords leaning

34:23

against the trees and stuff like that. And I was like, hey, well, man,

34:25

was this like this? He goes, no, we had scorched it.

34:27

Yeah, right.

34:28

And he goes, I don't

34:30

wanna mess the numbers up but I thought it was 275,

34:32

I've been 250. He's

34:35

like 250 Marines went in over on the knoll, 250 Marines

34:38

came in right here and 250 went in over there. And

34:40

I'm screwing these numbers up but it was something like none

34:42

of them came out. Yeah. Seven

34:45

of us made it. Yeah. And something

34:47

like 12 of them did. Right. It was on orange

34:49

beach. And we won, by the way. And we won. Yeah. Yeah.

34:52

And then, dude, because what happened when they scored,

34:55

they let the Marines get all the way in there, they were underground.

34:58

Oh, wow. And they were tall.

35:00

Yeah. And they had poisoned all the water

35:02

and all the water sources and killed everything, man.

35:05

And then they came up behind them and around

35:07

and he would sit there and tell me these stories about

35:10

the hand-to-hand combat. Yeah. I

35:12

mean, just, you can, I don't care how well trained you are.

35:14

If you don't have them, there's an attitude that goes with being a good

35:16

fighter as well. That is a whole different place. And a Marine

35:18

has a certain, yeah, takes to a certain level. Yeah.

35:21

And y'all get that. And

35:24

I saw it, it never was, he was nine years old man

35:26

and the sharpest thing on him. It was his fricking eyes. Man.

35:29

You know, you could tell. Yeah. And here's the

35:31

cool part I love about the World War II guys and

35:33

the Korea guys is the way they built. Right,

35:36

spark plugs. Man. Yeah. Like

35:38

us, we look like our action figures. T-Man and

35:41

just muscled out, you can't even touch your hands

35:43

together. These guys just

35:45

muscled and boned. Yeah, yeah, that's it.

35:47

That was it. And can you imagine, like

35:49

we were talking about, you know, pouches

35:51

or whatever, you imagine doing all of that in like

35:54

wool pants, leather boots. And

35:57

like a cotton shirt. How about all that? Our

36:00

comfort level with our uniforms is something but them

36:02

guys was just... That's a whole

36:04

nother level of art. A whole nother

36:07

level of art. Just short. Somebody said this, I was at a buddy of mine's

36:09

house today. Before this. And he

36:11

was telling me his dad just passed. Yesterday

36:13

and he was talking about... He goes, my

36:15

dad told me this the other day. He goes, you know you come from

36:17

a long line of winners. Champions

36:20

and warriors because you wouldn't be here right now from

36:22

everything we had to go through in the past. Yeah. Everything

36:25

to get here. So we're not a line of wimps.

36:29

Everyone down here is strong. You

36:31

just have to be told, you have to be reminded. Yeah. And

36:35

those guys are a stern reminder of how badass you can get. Absolutely.

36:38

Well, Marines have some of the coolest

36:40

history for military

36:43

history buffs and being able

36:45

to go back in time still to

36:47

this day like going to Pelalu, that

36:49

is... It's a really cool thing. If anybody

36:52

has the opportunity to fly across the earth, lots

36:55

of connections, connect in Hawaii,

36:57

connecting Hawaii. Way down there. Worth it though.

37:00

Yeah.

37:01

But there are commercial flights down there and

37:04

it's real cheap once you get there. But

37:06

it is... It's

37:07

the best vacation we ever had.

37:08

It is the coolest thing to be able to see

37:11

living history. And it's all

37:13

like... All the memorials

37:15

and everything are about Marines. It's

37:18

just, it's really neat. So yeah,

37:20

I love that.

37:22

The fact... So nothing

37:24

to take away from it. The fact that we had to go all the way

37:26

down there to fight, to whip somebody's ass

37:29

is unbelievable. Yeah. To find a little dot

37:31

in the ocean. And they just didn't fly down there like we did.

37:34

No. At all. They

37:36

probably had no O2. It took some time

37:38

to get down there on those buttons. Dude, you went

37:40

and pissed off. They had to be pissed off by the time

37:42

they were... That's probably why they made you all right on the boat.

37:45

Yeah. You get your good and pissed

37:47

off by the time you got in there. Yeah, you got to get that energy

37:49

out. Oh my gosh.

37:51

Well, that's cool that the name

37:53

Raiders came from that

37:55

lineage because... So you're still carrying that then, right? Yeah. We

37:58

are. Yeah. It was a fight to get it back. It was

38:00

a fight to get a device, it was a fight to, every

38:02

step of it's been a fight, but, but the

38:05

best things in life come through struggle. And

38:07

so I feel like it's just another, it was its own

38:10

selection, right? So it was worth it. So

38:12

now that we're out, and I don't talk smack

38:14

about the family, but then sometimes when you feel like,

38:16

now that we're out, you see the rank kind of

38:18

transfers over to like family members. Some

38:22

of the stuff that we would argue over, like why

38:24

is that a problem? Yeah. Why

38:26

the hell is that a problem? Yeah, yeah, yeah, why did that exist?

38:29

Why was that even a discussion? Discussion, I mean it should

38:31

have been, sure absolutely, yeah. So

38:33

what's the difference, this is a really stupid

38:35

question I know for y'all, but someone

38:37

like me and other listeners that don't know military

38:41

names, the difference

38:43

between Marsoc and Marsoff?

38:45

Yeah, great question. Marsoc

38:47

is just Marine Special Operations forces to

38:49

talk about the entire

38:51

structure, and Marsoc

38:53

is Marine Special Operations command. So it's the command

38:56

inside of, yeah. It's like

38:58

so-con to SEAL teams. Okay, got

39:00

it. Or Navy Special Warfare, right?

39:03

And then each team. Each team,

39:05

yeah. Okay, yeah,

39:06

I've always been, but I've never known anyone.

39:08

Did

39:08

y'all stream, I'm sorry,

39:10

go ahead. I'm just saying, you're my first, first

39:13

Marine

39:13

Special Force. First Raider to ruin the room. Yeah, first Raider

39:15

to enter here, so. Gotta

39:17

leave something on the wall. You gotta sign the wall. Okay.

39:20

It's just the stuff to keep up with y'all, because your

39:22

fourth battalion, fifth Marine division, this

39:24

is how it made it. Yeah, a bunch of funny numbers. And

39:26

when you get in, it's tough enough to

39:28

learn the language anyways. Absolutely, yeah. And then the young

39:30

ones, they don't speak multiple

39:33

languages like we do. You actually had to send us to war

39:35

to figure that out. And then it made

39:37

sense when we were in there. But other than that, I don't

39:39

know anybody who crosses the streams like that. Are

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41:16

One of Marcus's best friends from college,

41:20

they would train to go into

41:22

the military together, and

41:24

he went Marines, and Marcus

41:27

went into the SEAL teams, and

41:29

when Red Wing happened, he

41:31

saw the brotherhood and

41:35

just the camaraderie, and

41:37

that was 2005, so it would've been before

41:39

y'all's time, but

41:43

he was like, nope, I wanna

41:45

be that. Like how you said, I wanna be

41:47

one of those guys. He was the same thing, and

41:49

he did transfer over. He

41:52

went through buds at

41:54

however

41:55

old, 29 years old.

41:57

I think 29 or 28 when he went.

41:59

He went through. He got his ass handed to him.

42:02

Oh yeah. Yeah. His body

42:04

kept giving up. His body wouldn't

42:06

keep up. Yeah, he was good here. Good, oh

42:08

yeah. Yeah, yeah. He was real good there.

42:10

But he made it through and he's still

42:12

in the SEAL team.

42:13

That's cool. He's

42:15

as big as this.

42:17

They say he's a unique individual, there's

42:19

no one like Tommy. Yeah.

42:21

But if he would have stayed at the Marines, I guarantee

42:22

you he would have been with you. Yeah, oh he would

42:24

have been with you. Yeah, yeah. He sounds like it.

42:27

That's why he went over it. Yeah, it sounds like it. You

42:30

are right time, right place. There's

42:33

gotta be a name. Literally. Yeah, literally. Luck,

42:35

man. Have y'all named yourselves

42:38

as the pioneers kind of group

42:40

or

42:40

team, whatever you call that.

42:42

Do you have a

42:45

name for yourself? Yeah, like a plane

42:47

owner. Yeah, yeah. Loosely,

42:50

I can. How many other were you? I

42:54

don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I

42:57

was so worried about not screwing up my

42:59

job, quite honestly, and keeping

43:01

my place on the team. I was pretty

43:03

narrowly focused right here. You don't think about

43:06

that either. Yeah. I mean, even when

43:08

we talk about it, it's a mind, for whatever reason,

43:10

the rank holds a mindset too. Because

43:13

the minute you try to out mindset your rank, the

43:15

guy walks in with the more rank and is like, hey. Yeah,

43:18

settle down little fella. You said, well,

43:20

I'm a fella. I mean, that's the way it works. Age

43:23

and then that rank. And that's a powerful,

43:26

that's one, the discipline in the military,

43:29

not only what we do on the ground, but that you learn just

43:31

by sight, like sight discipline. One

43:33

of my buddies, his term is the IZ first. So

43:36

when something walks in the door, especially with military guys, we're trying

43:38

to see it. From a fighter

43:40

with cauliflower ears or big knuckles

43:43

or the way he carries himself to- What's on your waistline?

43:45

Period, yep, just like that.

43:47

Yeah. So

43:50

how long did you do before you-

43:52

So I did 10 years in the infantry and then I did 10

43:54

years at Marsoc. Wow. Yeah.

43:57

That's a good run. Yeah, it was fantastic.

44:00

Marines get out mostly at 20? Or

44:02

do you all do, or you got stragglers who are staying like... I

44:04

would say it's like every other branch.

44:07

You're gonna lose a bunch kind of like mid-term,

44:10

right? Like if they're gonna be an operator,

44:13

they've got to do a minimum of like four years

44:15

just to get the opportunity to go to selection. And

44:17

then they're gonna do like another four, so they're gonna be like

44:19

eight to 13 years. So you got that cohort

44:21

of guys getting out. And then you've

44:23

got the other ones who are like 20 and then 32 and all the others.

44:28

I don't think y'all should change that, firstly. What

44:30

do you mean? The standards, how long you have to

44:32

stay in before you can get in. Yeah.

44:35

Yeah, because it's kind of a maturity thing. It

44:38

really is. I know the SF tried it, the

44:40

SF babies, because that was my time too. And granted,

44:42

I came in on a contract. You know, here's a

44:44

piece of paper, I was like, there's nothing on it. They're like, don't worry, there

44:46

will be... Like

44:49

I didn't have a choice. I mean, I had to make it. And

44:53

the instructors are great about pointing that out. They're

44:55

like, hey, you guys can go anywhere else but here, we really don't want

44:57

you. And they would actually

44:59

say that, hey, someone, so

45:01

and so, there's a phone call for you. It's that ship out

45:03

there. They want you to get all... Crap like that, man. Our

45:06

guys are fantastic. The U.S.S. Peleliu.

45:09

That's it. Our

45:11

family can mess with you, man. They're

45:13

brilliant at it. But then you realize,

45:16

if you're not getting messed with, that's a problem. And

45:20

they solidified that with war with

45:22

us for 20 years. 20 friggin'

45:24

years, man.

45:26

So when you got out, what

45:29

was your idea? What were you gonna do?

45:31

I had no idea. Yeah, that's a great question. And

45:34

when did that start? Did you just plan on finishing out

45:36

and then doing whatever? I

45:39

was fully committed to 20 years. And

45:41

I found a lovely lady at some point during all of that.

45:44

And her and I had to make decisions, are we gonna take these

45:46

orders in North Carolina? I was pretty much guaranteed

45:49

the next rank. And

45:51

I was gonna get a lot of opportunities. But

45:54

North Carolina and a few other things were

45:56

a bit of a deal breaker for her and I. And it was just a

45:58

great opportunity for me to... get

46:00

to step away at a high point. And I

46:02

was starting to get to those sitting behind

46:05

a desk a lot and there weren't a lot

46:07

of good days anymore. It was a lot of shuffling

46:09

nonsense and having conversations like you said earlier, why

46:12

is this even a conversation? Let alone

46:14

a problem. So it was a good time to step away

46:16

at the 20 year mark. And

46:20

I had kind of, once her and I kind

46:23

of started making those decisions, I started

46:25

looking at my peers and the guys that I

46:27

looked up to and I'm like, okay, now I need to focus.

46:29

Instead of focusing on being the best breacher or sniper

46:31

possible, I need to focus on what does transition

46:34

look like? And so I started looking at those

46:36

guys, the guys I respect and see how their transition's

46:39

going and start asking the, hey, what are you

46:41

doing? What's this foundation I've heard about? What

46:43

is this? There's not a formula for that. We had to invent

46:45

that too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're just looking

46:47

at your peers, you're making it up as

46:50

you go. And so I started really kind

46:52

of at the 18 year mark. I knew I was pretty

46:54

much done, 20 was gonna be it. And so I gave

46:57

myself runway because I knew that was important. I

46:59

at least got that part right. And

47:02

so then I just started doing the little things that could fit

47:04

in of the little different foundations

47:07

and the things that are on base and all of that stuff to

47:09

just trying to start to figure it out, but I still had

47:12

no clue,

47:13

like none.

47:14

Because

47:16

how do you go from the only thing

47:18

that you know, you spent, at

47:20

that point I had spent as much of my

47:22

time, my literal life in

47:24

the military as I had on the planet.

47:28

So what do you do after that? So

47:32

there's a lot of great foundations out there. Read

47:35

with the Americans now, doing

47:37

really good work. And I'm very

47:40

thankful to every single one I went through.

47:42

And then I went through the Honor Foundation and I

47:44

was completely blown away and learned

47:46

very quickly, I still had no clue and

47:49

I had a lot of work to do.

47:51

What made you wanna go through the Honor

47:53

Foundation?

47:53

It was looking at my peers, the guys I respected,

47:56

one of my commanders was one of the first ones I got to go

47:58

through in San Diego. in one of

48:00

the very first where they opened it up to Raiders.

48:03

And he just said, look, it's hands down

48:05

the best experience you're going to have. And so

48:08

however you build your transition plan in

48:10

like the men force for your mission

48:12

of transition is going to be the Honor Foundation

48:15

period. If you have time for all the other

48:17

stuff, great. But if you don't, your men force

48:20

to make this infill to make this transition

48:22

is is the Honor Foundation. Yeah,

48:24

so I went. I thought it worked with us. Yeah, you

48:26

can advertise all you want man. And

48:28

then guys will say some stuff and then you'll see them. And

48:31

then as soon as something catches with us, it

48:34

wildfire. Yeah, and especially once the guy

48:36

you've gone down range with down range,

48:38

that makes a whole another level of like, oh, I'm

48:40

going to do that. That kind of tax at home. Yeah, when

48:42

you see that. Yeah.

48:44

So did you think I mean, in your

48:46

mind because I'm just thinking someone that's had

48:48

a career military since they were 18 years old.

48:52

When you get out, are you thinking, okay, I want

48:54

to go work in an office or I want to

48:56

start my own business or what was

48:58

your mindset on that?

49:00

Not a single guy I've met says

49:02

I want to go work in an office. They may

49:04

say I want to go to JPMorgan Chase and make baller

49:06

dollars. Yeah, corner office. Yeah,

49:09

American Psycho out, you know, all of it.

49:12

The whole bit. Yeah, yeah, and they're there.

49:14

They do. They're working on it, right? You got

49:16

anticipate that from our guys. Lot

49:20

of entrepreneurs a lot of a lot

49:23

of I have no clues a lot of guys

49:26

who are still passionate about being good Americans

49:28

and saying why do we have a border problem?

49:32

How can I get involved to solve that? Why do

49:34

we have you

49:36

know, why do we have children at risk?

49:39

How can I help solve that? Why are

49:41

there shootings in schools? How can I help solve

49:43

that? So a lot

49:45

of guys start to tend towards those things is

49:47

the natural transition of their skill sets. It's

49:49

a natural transition of who they

49:52

already are wanting to be good

49:54

citizens of these United States and

49:57

it's I would say that's where they kind of tend

49:59

towards.

50:00

So does the honor foundation help with

50:02

that?

50:03

Great question. It is fully

50:05

designed for you to explore all of those

50:07

opportunities and try on all those different

50:10

hats literally in a safe

50:12

space. It's kind of like being on the square bay in your

50:14

team and you're doing dry drills and

50:16

all you want to do is go live in the house. Nope,

50:18

you've got to, it's been a while. You need

50:21

to pull the weapon dry from the

50:23

holster. Nobody like to do that. Get it on

50:25

target. Yeah, but you got to go slow at first.

50:27

Get the reps, get the sets in. So essentially

50:30

we try and do the exact same thing. It's a crawl, walk,

50:32

run methodology. Let them explore

50:34

JP Morgan Chase opportunities. Let them explore

50:37

being at a tech company, whatever that looks like from

50:40

entrepreneur, you know, brand new

50:42

small startup companies to the

50:44

behemoth like Google or Apple or whatever

50:46

else. Because we have operators in there now. We

50:48

do. Everywhere. Yes. Yes.

50:52

I was talking about since when my brother became a congressman, I was like, hey, I think

50:55

that when you go into the Marine Corps and

50:57

then you get out of boot camp and you do four years, that's

50:59

a degree. And then the Navy

51:01

and the Air Force six years. Coast Guard

51:03

is 10, right? You can always pick on this.

51:06

But you're exactly right. In

51:09

the last, so at 16 years, if you

51:11

did your GI Bill, whatever, then you go to college. I

51:13

mean, I want you in freaking board shorts, flip

51:15

flops, and a Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned in class

51:18

at almost 40 years old. Absolutely.

51:21

If you don't have any other way to go, we're educate you, man.

51:23

And then enough guys now, it's

51:26

kind of like veteran or union. We don't have one,

51:28

but we do. Right. Yeah. You

51:32

understand? Very true. Very true. Very

51:34

true. something,

51:37

maybe one of them so we wouldn't suffer in silence. Sure.

51:40

We need to suffer together. Buddy team it. That's

51:42

absolutely right. That's my swim buddy. Here

51:45

we go. But after these guys have stabilized everything, then the guys

51:47

are coming in. I can't wait to see what happens

51:49

next. Yup.

51:50

Yup. So when you say it's a crawl

51:53

walk run, what are they doing? What is that process?

51:55

So let me back up just a little bit. So

51:58

it's an executive style.

51:59

education and it's three months long.

52:02

We recognize they have a really busy day job being

52:04

a SEAL, being a Green Beret, being a Marine Raider,

52:07

being a Air Force PJ,

52:09

CCT and we bring

52:11

them in in the evenings two nights a week so

52:13

usually like a Tuesday, Thursday because Monday

52:16

sucks so why do anything on Monday. Bring them in

52:18

on Tuesday or Thursday, right? We

52:20

open the doors on our physical

52:22

campuses. We have eight of them. We open

52:24

the doors around 4 p.m., 5 p.m.,

52:26

serve them dinner because they're coming straight from

52:28

work and they haven't had time to eat anything good

52:31

probably all day. They've just been dipping and eating

52:33

jerky or something all day, right? That's

52:36

supplements. And supplement. Which

52:38

that's part of the supplement.

52:40

It's part of the supplement package. The Copenhagen

52:43

and the jerky is a real thing. Back it all down with some protein. And

52:46

so we feed them a good dinner and

52:49

during dinner, breaking bread, what

52:51

they won't know maybe at

52:53

the beginning is they're breaking bread next to a CEO.

52:56

There's a tech entrepreneur

52:59

over here. There's someone from insurance

53:01

over here. There's a lawyer over here and they

53:03

get to have these natural conversations

53:06

and so now they can start to, you

53:08

know, what's it like being a lawyer? What's

53:10

it like being in tech and like what is

53:12

tech? That's just a big umbrella term.

53:14

There's a lot of space underneath that umbrella and

53:17

they get to have all these conversations and then from 6 p.m.

53:19

to 9 p.m. we pull them into the classroom

53:22

and we grind over material. And

53:24

the big differentiator of

53:26

who we are at the Honor Foundation and what we do

53:28

is that the entire

53:30

first phase has nothing

53:33

to do with LinkedIn resumes

53:35

or any of that. We make these

53:37

dudes figure out who they

53:40

are again. Who is Michael? Right?

53:43

Who is Marcus?

53:45

Who are you

53:46

when no one cares about rank anymore? No one cares

53:48

about sniper school anymore? No one cares that

53:50

you can freefall? They want to know who

53:52

you are and before you can tell them that you

53:55

have to know who you are and you have to be

53:57

able to articulate that well. car

54:00

salesman, you just have to be able to talk about

54:02

yourself

54:04

without saying F this and

54:06

you

54:06

know with the dip in and sunglasses

54:08

on the head. It took me forever to get over that. All those things,

54:11

right? It would be forever to get over that. I feel

54:13

like that would be really hard for the guys to

54:15

just be able to talk about themselves because they're used

54:17

to talking about their friends or

54:19

talk somebody else up. We

54:21

don't talk about ourselves. Yeah, you don't talk about yourself.

54:23

I'm talking about Copenhagen and sunglasses. Well, that's you. That's

54:25

you. It took me forever to get over that too.

54:28

Is that a struggle

54:30

that you see?

54:32

Absolutely, because they showed up

54:34

to get their resume and get

54:36

a network and then get going, right? Because

54:38

we go to schools, we get through them as quickly as possible.

54:41

We make them as short and quick as possible to get

54:43

back into the fight. But the ones we have to go through like

54:45

that, the earned ones, that's

54:47

a different kind of respect. It is.

54:50

It is. It's a qual. So

54:52

a full month. When you get out of there, guys know

54:54

when they put those long schools. Yeah. The

54:58

three month ones. They're a grind. They're a grind. Yeah.

55:01

And so that's why when the guys get out of them and we give them a tab or

55:03

they get something that when you recognize you, like how we

55:05

put work in, what do you respect? Yeah.

55:08

So when they go through,

55:10

they're going into your building

55:13

for a full month. Yep.

55:15

And then what's the second? So

55:16

three months, the whole first month

55:19

is just about them. Then figuring themselves

55:21

out. So we use Simon Sinek's Start With Why. We

55:24

use Gallup Strengths. We use Career

55:26

Builder. When you start to layer those things on

55:28

top of each other, they can't

55:31

use acronyms anymore. And

55:34

they have to start upping their vocabulary.

55:37

So phase, that's all phase one. Let's

55:39

help you figure yourself out again. When

55:42

no one cares about the quals and the rank and all of

55:44

those things, who are you again? And how

55:46

do you talk about yourself? So all of it's designed

55:48

to help them really dig through the hard shit.

55:51

Because none of that's easy. And we

55:53

make them talk about feelings. We make them

55:55

talk about the stuff that actually scares them and say

55:57

it out loud in front. of

56:00

a group of their peers of 30 plus

56:02

other dudes who are all going, yeah,

56:05

me too.

56:06

Like this scares the shit out of me. I'd

56:08

rather just go back on deployment. Like I don't

56:11

want to deal with any of this. But

56:13

when you help them work through it together and

56:16

you make them put in the work, the guys that really

56:18

do it and just dive in, man,

56:20

the difference on the other end. And then they go

56:22

into phase two which is also a full month. Then

56:25

we start doing LinkedIn. Then we start doing resumes.

56:28

And think about how much different a resume or LinkedIn

56:30

looks when you have a different way of talking

56:32

about yourself and not relying

56:35

on scuba call, free fall,

56:37

like all of these things. You can say I'm

56:39

good at coordinating and I know I'm good at

56:41

coordinating logistics

56:44

plans because even though I didn't work in logistics,

56:47

I moved men, equipment

56:49

and millions of dollars of material all over the

56:51

globe and synchronized

56:54

it so everything arrived on time to

56:56

get critical missions done. You know what that is? That's eval.

57:00

Yeah. Yeah. You know what I'm talking

57:02

about? Yeah, yeah. It's like because our leadership, they do that for us.

57:04

We don't even mess with that. And the only reason I know

57:06

this is because I made enough rank to get to this part. And

57:10

everything that you said, so if you said sniper

57:12

on his header right there and then everything that goes

57:14

into being a sniper, somebody's lined that out already. But

57:17

they shortened it to the word sniper and people

57:19

know what goes with that. But they don't know about

57:21

the patience, the discipline, the

57:25

ability to capture something, an image

57:27

in your mind. And I mean there's so much that goes into that.

57:29

Not only can I capture an image in my mind, I

57:31

can tell you about it when I'm not even looking at you. And

57:34

if you can understand, I can describe it a different way. And

57:37

then we correlate distances to certain things. Most

57:39

people can't pick up distance. Right. And that's 100 yards.

57:42

You know how far that is? No. I was like, that's a

57:44

football field. You know how far that is? Yes, I do. And

57:47

there's those intermoms that we don't think about.

57:49

Yeah. Yeah. They do that for

57:51

us. Yeah. Yeah. So

57:54

we get them to dive into the mission planning specifically.

57:56

That's where the gold is. Because that

57:59

absolutely.

57:59

Every company needs somebody to be able to do mission

58:02

planning because that's all the beans bullets

58:04

band-aids It's all moving this stuff around

58:06

and it's all the leadership stuff that we learned Yeah That

58:09

we don't realize because we just do it and

58:11

we've been around it all the time And we don't

58:13

realize the value that we've been learning

58:16

over all of it like some Miyagi training, right? A

58:19

little bit. Yeah. Yeah, got you doing my soft. Yeah,

58:21

got you doing this, but why am I doing this? Why

58:24

are you doing

58:24

this? So many people don't get

58:26

Marcus's

58:28

He does look I know I know yeah,

58:30

that's why I said that because People

58:32

are like what is Miyagi training?

58:34

Nothing

58:36

you need they're out there they hear me. Yeah,

58:38

exactly what I'm saying So

58:42

we get them to figure themselves out and we help

58:44

them right we don't we don't let them flounder

58:46

there We we help them

58:48

we provide, you know We put rules

58:51

in the road right to make sure that things are

58:53

going well. We also pair them with a coach So

58:55

they've got to check in with a civilian

58:58

coach once a week Who's a business

59:00

professional that been vetted through our system

59:03

to make sure that they're good humans good Americans

59:05

and all those things And then they can give them a civilian

59:08

like no bullshit. Like I don't know what you're telling

59:10

me right now Yeah I don't care what a sniper is

59:12

explain it to me Like I don't know because

59:14

you're gonna have to do that at company X or

59:17

if you're gonna start your own company You've

59:19

got to explain the value of it. So it

59:21

helps them all the way through that Figure

59:23

themselves out now You can get it all

59:25

essentially on paper and get

59:28

it linked in now You can start to broadcast

59:30

your message who you are who you're

59:32

trying to become and then in phase three

59:34

another Essentially full month we

59:36

expose them to opportunity Prepare for a holiday

59:38

season filled with the whoa, where'd you get that type of moments? courtesy

59:45

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ideas for my friends. It's kind

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of like the stuff that you didn't know that you need until

1:00:11

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the extraordinary. And

1:01:00

so if you know who you are and you

1:01:02

have the ability to kind of get in and through a hiring

1:01:04

funnel, and we expose you to opportunity,

1:01:07

now you can really start to try on

1:01:09

all these different hats. We're getting ready to do this right now with

1:01:11

the current cohorts. All eight are

1:01:14

gonna go to Dallas,

1:01:17

Charlotte. I'm

1:01:19

gonna be going up to Seattle

1:01:21

with JBLM Campus, and

1:01:24

we'll see about three companies a day. They invite

1:01:26

us in, and we spend about an hour, hour

1:01:28

and a half with them. Some of them, like the first one, we'll

1:01:30

do breakfast with. The middle one, we'll do lunch

1:01:32

with. And we usually end it with like a cocktail networking

1:01:35

thing at the end. And now they get to see

1:01:37

the inside of all these different companies. And

1:01:39

we're not going to just little companies you've never heard of. We

1:01:41

go to Googles, we go to SpaceXs, we

1:01:43

go to Ford Motor Companies and

1:01:46

Cargills and all kinds of stuff

1:01:48

that they've heard of, lots of things they

1:01:50

haven't heard of. So they can start

1:01:52

to go. That's the big thing, what you haven't

1:01:55

heard of. Yeah, that sounds interesting.

1:01:58

Like I think these are my. people

1:02:01

I could see myself working in this environment

1:02:03

and Then it

1:02:05

really starts to ramp up especially

1:02:07

for like I said the guys that really dig in and

1:02:09

just go all in on it Yeah, oh

1:02:11

your purpose shows up. It does and

1:02:14

that was the biggest thing. I couldn't capture when I got out

1:02:16

Yeah, the what you're

1:02:19

talking about the hook when we get it when I saw

1:02:21

that I Everything my mind

1:02:23

my body and my spirit lined up

1:02:25

and I'm like, that's what I'm supposed to do. Yep. Yep

1:02:29

And then when they transfer us out, it's like a holding

1:02:31

you think it's not but it is like there

1:02:33

is a hey Let me just relax for a second

1:02:36

I've heard someone say is that we went to the military is like

1:02:38

walking into the gym and then I had all 20 years

1:02:41

in There working out. Mmm. So

1:02:43

when you come out of there, man, you're gonna be sore Mind-body

1:02:46

and spirit for a few years. Yep. Absolutely

1:02:49

not four days. I'm like four or five years Yeah,

1:02:52

and if you don't have somebody telling you that Mm-hmm.

1:02:55

I mean guys wreck. Yeah Hey, if you're

1:02:57

if you're getting ready to transition for anybody listening

1:03:00

if you're getting ready to transition You cannot

1:03:02

do it overnight and it's not

1:03:04

gonna it's not gonna happen just because you've got a job Yeah,

1:03:06

you didn't get in there over actually the job actually

1:03:08

it has less to do with it than you actually think The

1:03:11

reality is you're gonna have to struggle

1:03:14

with who you are Who your community

1:03:16

is how to make sense of the world purpose

1:03:18

and meaning in life?

1:03:20

For a while.

1:03:21

So do you think it's better for guys?

1:03:23

But that's your mom that

1:03:25

need to like that's a

1:03:28

Brilliant statement. It's just

1:03:30

the truth. Yeah in fact, I've gotten I've

1:03:32

gotten to do this now for five years I've

1:03:34

had to do it myself and I'm just

1:03:36

now getting to the point where I'm fully comfortable

1:03:39

as Michael Yeah, right not Master Sergeant

1:03:41

whoever not my nickname Halty, but really

1:03:44

just me So it takes

1:03:46

time

1:03:46

but knowing that do you think it's

1:03:48

better for someone to wait? When

1:03:51

they get out to go to the honor foundation

1:03:53

and have some time like yeah I've

1:03:56

really figure out where they want to

1:03:58

be and all that kind of stuff

1:03:59

What we absolutely advocate

1:04:02

for, because we recognize the reality of

1:04:05

most of the guys coming out of special operations

1:04:07

have some pretty significant financial responsibilities,

1:04:10

mortgages, kids, that raptor

1:04:12

they bought with a bonus, still paying

1:04:15

for somehow, because they also bought a bunch of guns. Boom,

1:04:17

Jesse. So they need a job,

1:04:20

right? So what we advocate for, the best time to get a job

1:04:22

is when you have a job. So

1:04:24

come to the Honor Foundation about 18 months before

1:04:27

you're getting out. And if

1:04:29

you're before that, med boards happen,

1:04:32

all kinds of weird things happen, a deployment pops

1:04:34

up and we get it. But 18 months

1:04:36

is kind of a sweet spot. Come through

1:04:39

the Honor Foundation. And now you have

1:04:41

a skill set for making better decisions

1:04:44

about what's next for you and your family going

1:04:47

into this next phase of your life. So most

1:04:49

of them are coming through with families. So

1:04:51

we advocate for that. And then if you can fit anything

1:04:54

else in, do it. Do all of it. It's

1:04:58

like going to 31 flavors and getting one ice cream. Like

1:05:00

a lot of- Try

1:05:01

them all. Like

1:05:02

Morgan and a lot of

1:05:04

the seals that we know, especially

1:05:07

the officers have gone right after

1:05:11

to that Harvard program

1:05:15

that they have. Do you think it's better

1:05:17

to do something like that and then go

1:05:19

to Honor Foundation? Or do you help

1:05:21

them get into a school?

1:05:24

Great question. So ultimately

1:05:27

we want to see them 18 months. And

1:05:30

then by the time they get done with three months of us, they've

1:05:32

got 15 months left. And the decision

1:05:34

making skills we're giving them helps

1:05:37

them adapt to whatever they want to do next. They're

1:05:39

going to have a better ability to decide whether or

1:05:42

not they even want to go to Harvard. Or

1:05:44

if they want to be an entrepreneur. Or

1:05:46

if they have no clue at all, it

1:05:49

starts to help make sense of it so

1:05:51

that they can start going in some sort of direction

1:05:54

and not start floundering. Yeah, the mindset. You

1:05:57

gotta shift the mindset. Yep, that's what that

1:05:59

is. Once you get trained- and transitioned in,

1:06:02

even if you're trying to look at something else, you're still thinking about

1:06:04

it in that way. So that's

1:06:06

the biggest part about having someone over you that's

1:06:08

been through it. They look like, because we speak

1:06:10

the language. Yeah, yeah. You can just

1:06:12

sit there and tell somebody over and over again but then

1:06:15

for whatever reason, someone will walk in, he'll say it,

1:06:17

someone's like, oh, I can leave with that. Yeah,

1:06:19

yeah. Why don't you just start with that, man? We've been here for

1:06:21

an hour. Come on, what are you talking about? So do

1:06:23

you

1:06:23

have like a big, I mean,

1:06:25

the military is big on graduations

1:06:28

and tradition and all that kind of

1:06:30

stuff. Do y'all have a big graduation?

1:06:33

Those things are important. Absolutely, we

1:06:35

absolutely do.

1:06:38

It starts hard,

1:06:40

just like all the good things do. It

1:06:42

gets easier towards the middle as you start to

1:06:44

level up like you were saying earlier. And at

1:06:46

the end, you've earned something and that

1:06:48

should be meaningful to you. Yeah, and

1:06:51

so we'll graduate all eight

1:06:53

campuses here. Man,

1:06:55

we're getting really close. We're only like

1:06:57

probably a month or less away from all of them graduating.

1:07:00

And we have board members show up, we have CEOs

1:07:02

show up, we have really good speakers come

1:07:05

give a commencement speech, love to have

1:07:07

somebody in particular come and show up.

1:07:09

If you've got time, if you've got ability calendar, I get it.

1:07:13

And

1:07:14

deliver some words of meaning and then

1:07:16

come walk across stage, get a firm

1:07:19

handshake that you earn something and a plaque

1:07:21

that means something to you. That was cool. I thought

1:07:23

you'd know. No. It's not

1:07:25

the plaque, I mean, it is. But

1:07:28

ultimately what it is is someone's sitting across from you and

1:07:31

acknowledging the fact that you did something. And

1:07:33

it's hard work. It's hard work, in

1:07:35

the military it's a big thing. Yeah. Like

1:07:37

those little pins and everything, yeah, they

1:07:39

don't mean anything, but what that signifies

1:07:42

that human is, is a big deal. Mm-hmm.

1:07:45

And I don't care what branch you're in, there's some of those

1:07:47

signals we recognize immediately.

1:07:49

Yeah.

1:07:50

So one time when I went to go visit

1:07:53

Haley in San Diego, I got to go to

1:07:55

y'all's office. Nobody was there.

1:07:57

I know it, yep. She showed me around.

1:07:59

And it is awesome.

1:08:02

Thank you. It's really cool. It looks like

1:08:04

a modern team room,

1:08:06

really. It's a privilege

1:08:08

to work there. It's really,

1:08:09

really cool. Y'all have created

1:08:11

a really awesome space. Thank

1:08:14

you. Are all of your campuses like

1:08:16

that?

1:08:17

That is our flagship. That

1:08:19

is the headquarters campus. It was the

1:08:21

very first, it's the only

1:08:24

piece of property we own, we're

1:08:26

sub-lices, but

1:08:29

we're gonna be there for as long as possible. All

1:08:31

the others, so we are a nonprofit, so

1:08:33

we're kind of beg, borrow, and steal when we

1:08:35

have to. No, we don't steal. But

1:08:39

we have made some really good relationships

1:08:41

with some of our corporate partners. So

1:08:43

some of the amazing companies who have partnered with

1:08:45

us let us come in and use their training spaces. So

1:08:48

we have some beautiful spaces from Encino

1:08:51

and a couple of other big partners. And then

1:08:53

we've also partnered

1:08:55

with some community colleges. The

1:08:58

Tacoma campus is brand new, and we're still

1:09:00

trying to build support there. So we're actually

1:09:03

in a community college there, and

1:09:05

Virginia Beach, and a couple other places. That's

1:09:07

cool. So where are

1:09:08

your campuses? You said you have

1:09:09

eight. Yep, so San Diego was first. Then

1:09:12

we went to Virginia Beach. Then we went down.

1:09:15

So that was taking care of East Coast, West Coast, SEAL teams,

1:09:17

and SWCC teams. Make sure they were covered

1:09:20

first. The whole design of the program was

1:09:22

to always get to all special

1:09:24

operators. And the reason that happened that way is

1:09:26

because none of this would happen without Navy SEAL

1:09:28

Foundation. They've done a tremendous job in being a founding

1:09:31

partner for us. And after

1:09:34

that, Marine Rainer Foundation, we

1:09:36

got a really good relationship with them that

1:09:38

allowed us to open in Camp Lejeune,

1:09:40

North Carolina. And now all Marines have

1:09:42

moved there, all Marsoc Marines have moved

1:09:44

there, so that kind of just deals with

1:09:46

the deal there. Yeah, so that's like the one

1:09:48

campus. A big lawsuit going on

1:09:50

for Camp Lejeune. I get these texts

1:09:53

all the break

1:09:53

the water. The water thing, yeah.

1:09:56

Were you pregnant at Camp Lejeune?

1:09:57

I've never been to Camp Lejeune.

1:09:59

Yeah, that's why you are

1:10:02

the way you are I've

1:10:05

literally never been there and I get a text a

1:10:07

day on campus June That's

1:10:11

so funny. So you know,

1:10:12

yeah, and then we open the virtual campus because

1:10:14

we recognize we couldn't get everywhere right

1:10:16

away You've got guys, you

1:10:18

know on recruiting duty and all these weird different

1:10:21

spots So how do we kind of and you got guys

1:10:23

all the way on Hawaii and then all the way out in Europe

1:10:25

with tent groups So how do you kind of serves everybody

1:10:28

we went online in 2019? Which

1:10:30

was fortuitous like talk about

1:10:32

luck and timing yet again And

1:10:35

then in 2020 we just pivoted all four

1:10:37

campuses online and we already had a proof of concepts

1:10:40

We had what campus is already doing it So it's just

1:10:42

all right turn the lights on for everybody and let's go So

1:10:45

we actually served more people

1:10:47

in 2020 than we did in 2019 because

1:10:49

we just knew how to do it Yeah,

1:10:52

how about that 20?

1:10:54

Lockdown. Yeah

1:10:55

That

1:10:56

was crazy So how

1:10:58

many successes do you have out of

1:11:01

between the people that come and show

1:11:03

up day one? In a class how

1:11:05

many are actually

1:11:06

graduating? We are just over 2200 alumni

1:11:11

and growing rapidly We have about 300

1:11:14

in cohort right now. So we'll graduate

1:11:16

them and add them to the alumni pool of

1:11:19

that the high bar the high water

1:11:21

mark that we hold for ourselves internally is being

1:11:24

fulfilled And being fulfilled

1:11:26

is a couple different things. I'll explain that a minute being

1:11:29

fulfilled before you

1:11:31

hit 90 days end of service and

1:11:34

being fulfilled can be whatever that

1:11:37

Person decides they want to do next

1:11:39

now what they have to do But deciding

1:11:42

really what they want to do next for the next

1:11:44

opportunity So that could be going to school that

1:11:46

could be getting a job in corporate that could be being an entrepreneur

1:11:49

That could that might even be a guy going you know what?

1:11:52

I have not taken a knee in 20 years It's

1:11:54

time for me to take me and I have financial runway

1:11:57

and I'm gonna take a sabbatical. So

1:11:59

we have We have guys who do that and then anything

1:12:02

else you can think of, guys

1:12:04

are doing it because we open them up to the opportunities

1:12:06

and give them the tools to be able to go do it. At

1:12:09

no time do we tell them what to do. We empower

1:12:11

them to go do what they want to do.

1:12:14

So what are y'all's needs?

1:12:17

Timetown and treasure.

1:12:18

That is the need of every

1:12:20

nonprofit, right? So if you

1:12:22

can donate some of your time, if

1:12:24

you're a professional and

1:12:27

you've been doing something, regardless

1:12:29

of, it doesn't matter what industry you're in,

1:12:32

if you've been doing it for quite a while

1:12:34

and you're good at it and you're an American

1:12:36

who cares and want to help veterans, we

1:12:38

would love to get some of your time. We

1:12:41

have coaching opportunities. You

1:12:43

can be a mentor. We

1:12:45

do, we have opportunities

1:12:48

to come speak just about what it is to be

1:12:50

in tech or whatever else. We're

1:12:53

looking for talent. Talent's a little

1:12:55

bit bigger of an ask. We'd like you

1:12:58

to, coaching is a little bit of a commitment.

1:13:00

You're going to one-to-one pair with a transitioning

1:13:02

operator and we're going to ask you for

1:13:04

one hour a week to make yourself available so

1:13:06

the two of you can have a one-hour

1:13:09

conversation about how are things going? How

1:13:11

much does phase one suck? Because they made you talk about

1:13:14

your feelings. How's it going? And

1:13:16

work through all of those things. And

1:13:18

then if you have treasure, we would

1:13:20

really appreciate the treasure because none of this is. Do

1:13:23

not do nonprofit work well

1:13:26

at a high

1:13:28

level without money.

1:13:30

Could you, do you ever see yourself turning

1:13:33

into a for-profit and

1:13:35

partnering with like Google

1:13:38

and different places to actually sponsor y'all

1:13:40

like

1:13:41

where a certain amount of your graduates

1:13:43

go there or whatever. I don't know somehow

1:13:48

turning it from nonprofit to for-profit.

1:13:51

In the foreseeable future, I would say

1:13:53

absolutely not. I think we can

1:13:55

achieve everything that we need to through nonprofit

1:13:58

means. And look, A nonprofit,

1:14:01

a 501c3 is what we're designated

1:14:03

as, is a IRS tax filing

1:14:05

that simply states as

1:14:08

long as someone else is not enduring themselves,

1:14:12

we're not paying board members and someone's not

1:14:14

earning shares, you can make

1:14:16

money in nonprofit. It's what you do

1:14:18

with the money you make that really matters.

1:14:21

If you're driving it right back into the company to

1:14:24

then continue to help the transitioning individual,

1:14:27

that's doing the right thing. It's hard to raise

1:14:29

money. It's love, not pull, help too, if that thing grows. We've

1:14:31

been in the nonprofit world and it is so

1:14:34

hard to raise money, like constantly

1:14:36

hitting the ground.

1:14:37

If you catch the niche. Yeah.

1:14:40

I mean, because if people are looking to, because that'll

1:14:42

always be there. What they wanna put it

1:14:44

into is a little different. Sure. There's

1:14:46

something that produces, we talked about this earlier, like if

1:14:49

you know that works, people will

1:14:51

just, okay. Yeah. Okay, that

1:14:53

kinda works, that's like it works. Yeah,

1:14:56

so that's why I'm in Houston today. That's

1:14:58

why I came to Texas. We're

1:15:01

here hitting the pavement with the team, raising

1:15:04

dollars and thank you Houston. You're

1:15:08

good Americans. We raised some good money. Who

1:15:10

were the sponsors? Do you wanna plug any of the Houston

1:15:12

sponsors?

1:15:12

You know, off

1:15:14

the top of my head, I

1:15:17

just gotta thank Mr. Malcolm Stewart. Yes, he's

1:15:19

awesome. Malcolm Stewart is the chairman

1:15:21

of the board for everything

1:15:24

that happens in Houston, bringing

1:15:26

in his personal network and the amount

1:15:29

of work, great work that he's done for

1:15:31

us, bringing in other great Americans has been

1:15:33

tremendous and I can't thank him enough.

1:15:35

Malcolm Stewart is Camden.

1:15:38

Yes. And

1:15:41

we have known him since... Wow.

1:15:48

He got involved in one of

1:15:50

our golf tournaments and he is the nicest

1:15:52

guy. Can't say enough

1:15:55

nice things about him. Yeah,

1:15:58

great guy. And then Greg Vogel. He

1:16:00

was the MC last night tremendous just

1:16:02

great American General

1:16:05

Scott Miller was there with the keynote speaker

1:16:07

and was just yeah. Yeah, we're very

1:16:09

we're very fortunate and and Blessed

1:16:12

to have great Americans like that.

1:16:14

I have to say someone because Cotton

1:16:17

was there last night in attendance

1:16:19

and cotton in Houston They

1:16:22

do so much for the city and

1:16:24

they never ever advertise

1:16:26

the name

1:16:26

They're never looking so much for my family.

1:16:29

I mean you can't even believe it. Oh, yeah, they guys

1:16:31

started those guys Yeah, yeah,

1:16:33

they never look for a pat on the back

1:16:35

or anything But they do so much it

1:16:37

was actually hunters first job out of college.

1:16:39

Oh, wow with with cotton and People

1:16:43

don't even sponsor us man. I plug them.

1:16:44

I know they do not sponsor us at all But

1:16:47

they are just good

1:16:49

people if you're building

1:16:51

catches on fire or floods

1:16:53

freaking call Cotton industries,

1:16:55

they are awesome.

1:16:58

I got to see all them last night. Yeah.

1:17:00

Oh good. Yeah

1:17:01

They yeah,

1:17:02

I can't hang out with them anymore too much fun, dude

1:17:06

I Grew up with

1:17:08

a man. They're great. You like to have fun.

1:17:10

They do like to have they're a good time

1:17:12

we Unfortunately couldn't make

1:17:14

it last night. I really wanted to to see my family

1:17:16

but You had a

1:17:18

great group of people. Yes supporting y'all.

1:17:20

Yeah, so We're very

1:17:23

grateful for that and grateful for all those people who

1:17:25

donated and will continue to

1:17:27

donate to the honor foundation Yes,

1:17:29

do you want more big businesses

1:17:32

like the Texans or? Absolutely

1:17:35

NFL team.

1:17:36

Absolutely. Because look as the guys

1:17:38

are making decisions They're in you

1:17:40

know Usually the the question I get

1:17:42

asked is well, where do the guys end up? You know, where

1:17:45

what what are the what are the industries they

1:17:47

kind of hone in on? And we

1:17:49

kind of identified it earlier in the conversation. I mean we've

1:17:51

got one in Apple. We've got two at SpaceX.

1:17:54

We've got Dozens creating

1:17:56

their own companies. We've got silent

1:17:58

professionals creating podcasts Different and doing

1:18:01

it really well because they're talking about

1:18:03

being men of character and they're putting out a

1:18:05

positive message and

1:18:07

so they're doing and they're going to Yale

1:18:09

at Harvard and Really that

1:18:12

the schools are taking a step back going. Why

1:18:14

aren't we recruiting more of? These

1:18:16

students I couldn't understand what the companies either if

1:18:19

you had any idea what just a veteran was It's

1:18:21

a highly trained asset that not only that you

1:18:23

can train and it learns and knows how to learn

1:18:26

and it's disciplined You automatically know

1:18:28

that That's where you should recruit

1:18:30

from first. Yeah It's

1:18:32

almost it's another university in itself. Yeah,

1:18:34

we get some war fighters. Yep Yeah,

1:18:37

and they're culture carriers like if you're in

1:18:39

a company right now and you're having a hard time fixing

1:18:42

the culture of your company Bring in some

1:18:44

suckers in there put a special operations section

1:18:46

in there get some veterans in there and watch

1:18:48

the culture change all You have to do is be

1:18:51

willing to look at a resume. You don't understand

1:18:53

and take a chance You're doing that anyway

1:18:56

with the resumes you think you understand So

1:18:59

take a chance on a veteran and

1:19:01

watch what happens Sure, do you become a millionaire

1:19:04

put a group of them suckers and know each other together fit that

1:19:06

have worked together That's it and we know it works and

1:19:09

challenge them like Darrin and we know it works

1:19:11

You can do get that just and get out of their

1:19:13

way Yeah, and we know it works look what

1:19:15

happened at the end of World War two Look,

1:19:17

they're called the greatest generation and all

1:19:19

of us agree why they went they went

1:19:22

to war and they defeated pure evil

1:19:24

And liberated millions of people from oppression.

1:19:27

You know what? You know what? We always stop right there. That

1:19:29

was only half the story Yeah, they came home

1:19:32

and they got to work They created some

1:19:34

companies that are still around by the way who have

1:19:36

been helping other American families for decades

1:19:40

For coming up on a century here shortly.

1:19:43

And so we know this works Yeah

1:19:48

We are yeah last easy company guys

1:19:50

died. Yeah, I heard that I

1:19:53

know everybody felt that one man

1:19:55

Well, I think what y'all are doing is great. Do

1:19:57

you one more question? I know we've gone long

1:19:59

on this, but what

1:20:02

about the companies that do have

1:20:05

interests, but they don't know

1:20:07

how

1:20:08

to communicate or how to

1:20:10

translate the guys?

1:20:13

Do you have training for the HR on

1:20:15

how to

1:20:16

hire

1:20:19

guys? Absolutely. How to work

1:20:21

your service dog. Yeah. Right? Right?

1:20:24

Yeah. So I would say if you're a business

1:20:27

professional out there right now and you're hearing this and you're

1:20:29

wondering, okay, well, how do I get involved? Go

1:20:31

to honor.org, literally H-O-N-O-R.org,

1:20:35

honor.org. There's,

1:20:37

there's several spaces where all you got to do is put in your,

1:20:40

your email address and we'll contact you right

1:20:42

away. And we'll be more than happy to

1:20:44

talk you through one. It costs

1:20:46

you nothing. We do it completely for free. A

1:20:48

hundred percent for free. If

1:20:51

you're trying to figure out how to stand up your veteran

1:20:53

ERG or you're trying to get the first veterans

1:20:55

into your company, we are happy to talk you through

1:20:58

how to do all of that. And if you're looking

1:21:00

for a ready-made talent pool that

1:21:02

graduated, graduate somewhere between 600 people

1:21:05

a year who are ready to go to work

1:21:07

immediately, we want

1:21:09

to be the talent pool for you. And it's completely free

1:21:11

of charge. It tested too. Tested. You're

1:21:14

talking about like a road tested model. Absolutely. Not

1:21:16

you just buy off the lot and be like, I just got this

1:21:18

and out of college and see what I can do.

1:21:21

Hey, not only is it brand new and not

1:21:24

refurbished, it's just like, it's we

1:21:26

run a different process. I was like,

1:21:28

I always look at the military and the wars and everything

1:21:31

is that was just hammering. It was with defining

1:21:34

and molding you into what you are. And

1:21:36

then this part tells you about

1:21:38

it and then go do whatever

1:21:40

you're supposed to do. I mean, God's got

1:21:42

you, man. That's

1:21:44

awesome. Well, thank you so

1:21:46

much for coming all the way out here after a big

1:21:49

event last night. And I hope it

1:21:51

was successful.

1:21:51

It was very successful. Thank you, Houston.

1:21:54

Good. People are great.

1:21:56

Yeah. Yeah. We appreciate you coming down

1:21:58

and thank you guys. listening in we

1:22:01

will see you guys next selling

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