Staff Sgt. David Bellavia: The Only Living Medal of Honor Recipient from the Iraq War

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
So now it's like Happy Veterans Day. I'm like, well, yeah,
but it's not directed to me. It's directed at the
other guy that wears camouflage and low crawls to the
coffee of you sheet. You're that guy. He wants everyone
to know he's a vet. He's got his you know,
airborne wings on his car, and he's a happy I'm
I'm staying low. Then this phone call comes and it's

(00:27):
like this is all happening, And I'm thinking, well, maybe
it's not really happening. Maybe there's a way to do
this on the download. Maybe you can say no, maybe
you can say I don't need it, I'm good, thanks,
give it to someone else. And when that news broke
and I had like a guy at work that was like,
you're not gonna believe this.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
There's a guy with your name get the Metal of.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
GN But he was like, you can't be you. You're
the You're the guy that is on my fantasy football league.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
You're not that guy.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,
I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach in
Inner City Memphis, and the last part it unintentionally led
to an oscar for the film about our team, it's
called Undefeated. I believe our country's problems will never be

(01:29):
solved by a bunch of fancy people in nice suits
talking big words that nobody uses on CNN and Fox,
but rather by an army of normal folks US just
you and me deciding, hey, I can help. That's what
Staff Sergeant David Bellavia the voice we just heard is done. Now,
David isn't exactly normal. This guy. He's a Medal of

(01:53):
Honor recipient, but we're featuring him as part of our
special series called Supporting Greatness, where we interview those who
have achieved public greatness about the unsung heroes and normal
folks who supported them and shaped their lives. However, David
still kin of is a normal dude. He wasn't some

(02:15):
big wig general in an office, but he literally went
house to house in a rock clearing each of those
houses of insurgents alongside his men, often fighting literally in
hand to hand combat. And it's not like he asked
for the Medal of Honor or campaigned for it. That's

(02:36):
why I call this episode A betweener, a little bit
normal folks, and a little bit of supporting greatness. I
cannot wait for you to meet David. Right after these
brief messages from our general sponsors, David Belle Via, what's up, bro?

Speaker 2 (03:14):
How you doing?

Speaker 3 (03:15):
You know how you're doing? I'm good? How you doing?

Speaker 1 (03:19):
I'm fantastic. I'm learning so much. Life is an education,
and I've got a master's degree on football college Mississippi.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Everything.

Speaker 3 (03:30):
Bringing New Yorker to Memphis, anything could happen.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
That's right.

Speaker 3 (03:33):
It's a beautiful town, though I appreciate it. Welcome to
an army of normal folks. So occasionally inside our little
podcast of an army of normal folks, we do special
segments called supporting Greatness. And what that's about is people
who've reached what we would call great heights and briefly

(03:59):
talking about what they've done, but more importantly talking about
who helped the normal people, the army of normal people
that supported them to reach their greatness. But you're kind
of a you're kind of a tweener because not only
have you reached greatness, you're also just a normal folk.

(04:19):
And and so we're gonna unpack all of that today
if you will allow me to unpack that with you
and start kind of with who you are, where you
came from, why you ended up, where you ended up,
what you did, and what you've done afterwards. But we're

(04:41):
gonna reverse engineer this, so I'm gonna I'm gonna start
at part of toward the end game of your story,
and then we'll back into it. But I don't think
anything would explain to our listeners any better than a
VID you at the Hall of Heroes right at the Pentagon,

(05:06):
I think, is am I saying that? Right?

Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yes, sir?

Speaker 3 (05:08):
And this is the day after you received the Medal
of Honor, which is the highest military honor that our
country gives. And there's only what sixty three or four
current living Medal of Honor winners in the world, right, right,
and there's only one from Iraq, that's right, and that's you.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
That's living, living, living. Yeah, you're one of one, bro.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
Yeah, it's yeah, yeah, crazy, that's weird to think about.

Speaker 3 (05:41):
But well you are. You're a set of one. Yeah,
And we're going to unpack that. And I know you
have a lot of humility about it, but you have
a deep story about it too. But first, for our
listeners and viewers. I want to play the clip of
you at the Hall here. There are things that you
say in this that I've watched it fifteen times and

(06:06):
people have watched Undefeated and heard speeches and read my
book and stuff and said, you know, coach, I'm so inspirational.
All I got to do is listen to you for
three minutes. I'm ready to run through a wall. Well, dude,
I hear this, and I'm ready to I'm ready to
defend every person inside our borders. It just absolutely shakes

(06:27):
me every time I hear it. So here we are
your brief acceptance speech at the Hall of Heroes and
the Pentagon.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
Our military should not be mistaken for a cable news
gab fest show. We don't care what you look like.
We don't care who you voted for, who you worship,
what you worship, who you love. It doesn't matter if
your dad left you millions when he died, or if
he knew who your father was. We have been honed

(06:56):
into a machine of lethal moving parts that you would
be one to avoid. If you know what's good for you,
we will not be intimidated. We will not back down.
We've seen war We don't want war, but if you
want war with the United States of America, there's one
thing I could promise you. So help me, God, someone

(07:17):
else will raise your sons and daughters. We fight. We
fight so our children never have to. We fight for
one day when our children and our enemies children can

(07:37):
discuss their differences without fear or loathing. We fight so
that anyone out there thinking about raising arms against our
citizens or allies realize the futility of attrition against a discipline,
professional and lethal force. Build to a stand anything you
can dream of throwing at us. Americans want this kind

(07:58):
of country, want this kind of world, and we stand
ready to defend it, to protect us. So help us God.
May God bless this beautiful army. May God bless our
Marine Corps, our Navy, our Air Force and Coast Guard.
May God bless our allies. And we already know that

(08:18):
God blessed America because he gave us the greatest fighting
force this world has ever seen. Two to two infantry
at the first Infantry Division, Thank you, Ramrods Duty First Dukes,
thank you very much.

Speaker 3 (08:51):
I do not know how any American cannot hear that
and bristle with humility and pride for men like you
who served our country. When you hear yourself say that,
what do you feel?

Speaker 2 (09:12):
You know, it's so weird.

Speaker 1 (09:14):
First of all, there's not supposed to be like applause
line in those speeches. You're supposed to get the medal
of honor, eat big shrimp, and like go work at raytheon.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
You know, that's what you're supposed to do.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
You get there, have a wait, you're supposed to That
speech has traditionally been a speech where you're like, you know,
the country has bestowed this upon one person. Let me
tell you why that was the best decision you've ever made,
you know, And then you do like an Audie Murphy
and do a Christmas cookbook. It releaves the country album

(09:46):
or something. I didn't know. There's no guidebook as to
what to do with this thing. And all I thought
about the entire time is that I sat at for
betting Georgia, polishing my boots and cleaning my weapon every
single day. Read these citations and I thought they were
like the Marvel Adventures to me. You know, I'm reading

(10:06):
about Gary Latrell from Vietnam, Gary Biker Drew dis you know,
all these legends Hershey Maya Mora from the Korean War
whose family was interned as Japanese Americans and a camp.
No reason to service country, no reason to defend America.
His country put him in a prison camp just because

(10:28):
of who he was. That guy joins in the Korean
War and piles up Communist Chinese like Lincoln Logs and
taking prisoner war gets the is told he comes home
as a prisoner of war after the war ends, and
has told the President wants to meet him. He's like,
I'm good, just let.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
Me go home.

Speaker 1 (10:48):
They're like, no, you get the medal of other budd
He's like, I don't care. I just want to go home.
These these stories are legendary. You meet these guys and
you're like, you know, I would. I just want to
meet you. I just want to be in your presence.
I just want to you never consider yourself. So what
I decided to do was be the first. You know, well,

(11:12):
I wanted to reinvent the way the Medal of Honor
is given because I'm not naive enough to think that
we're not going to have wars in the future and
we're gonna have other recipients. I want them to realize
that everything we've done is because someone you know, like
that old country, you Southerners tell these stories. If you
ever see a turtle on a fence post, it's because

(11:34):
someone put them there.

Speaker 2 (11:35):
Yeah, live up right.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
Everything we've got is because someone put us there. They
put us in a position. And so I want this
to be about the team. I want this to be
about what we truly say we are. This is who
we are. No one wants to be a machine gunner.
They want to be a machine gunner and a squad
with a leader that cares just enough about them as

(11:59):
they do them. And that that was important to me,
and I wanted I wanted people to know who my
team was, why they were important, and most importantly, we
fought with the tenacity we fought with because we lost
our friends and we defended an avenge.

Speaker 3 (12:15):
Then I want to again, I prefaced the conversation we're
having with that, because to me, what you're talking about
now is the end game. But let's get there first.
What you grow up, tell me about you as a kid.
Tell me you weren't the guy standing up there, the

(12:39):
guy we just saw and heard. That wasn't That wasn't
David the kid. Tell me, yeah, tell me about that.
Tell me tell me about the normal guy David and
the kid and who he grew up and what he
did and all that.

Speaker 2 (12:56):
I'm the youngest of four boys, got it. My dad
was a dentist.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
Success in my family in right outside of an hour
north of Buffalo, but right between Buffalo and Rochester, New York,
right off Lake Ontario, farmtown, population eight hundred. You played sports,
you were in the science club. We needed the bodies,
and you were also playing travone. You know, we didn't

(13:20):
have a very large school. It was New York in
name only. You know, more cows and apples than you
know population or visitors.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
No traffic light, No traffic light in my hometown.

Speaker 1 (13:33):
So we grew up in this town called Lenville, New York,
and my dad put everything. Everything was about education. You
went and got a degree and became a professional. If
you wanted to make Bellevius proud, you were a professional.

Speaker 2 (13:47):
That's what you had to do. So oldest brother.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
Went out, two brothers went to seminary. One became a
I got three professors in my family, all with masters.
I think we got a PhD and double masters. Like
they weren't just set with one. They were all extremely intelligent,
extremely at the top. You know, they're they're successful at

(14:10):
the top of what they did. And I was like
my and then my granddad would come around all the time,
and he was a World War Two vet, and for
some reason, because I was the youngest, I just found
myself going on walks with him and he would just
start rattling off these stories at like a six year
old Oh.

Speaker 2 (14:29):
Yeah, but like graphic.

Speaker 3 (14:30):
But I didn't think those guys often told war stories.

Speaker 1 (14:34):
I don't know what was wrong with him because he didn't.
He didn't do it to anyone else.

Speaker 2 (14:39):
It was just me.

Speaker 1 (14:40):
But it was like wait at an age where I
was like, so the femeral artery is the bleeder, Grandpa, you.

Speaker 2 (14:46):
Know, Like he would tell me stuff that I was.

Speaker 1 (14:48):
Like, you know, but there was nobility. He was talking
about stuff not to shock me. He was talking about
like true nobility, like this is when you can get
together in a world that you don't understand. You don't
understand adults, you don't understand people that are different than you.
You got all these people, all the reasons why we're

(15:09):
tribal and separated. If there's one thing that could just
put you together as a unit. It's the greatest experience.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
In your life.

Speaker 1 (15:18):
And and you will never have experienced life until you've
gone through that.

Speaker 3 (15:21):
Where did your grandfather start?

Speaker 1 (15:23):
When?

Speaker 3 (15:23):
Where?

Speaker 2 (15:24):
Where?

Speaker 1 (15:24):
Oh? So he is a Normandy vet. Wow, he did
D day plus twenty nine. He got the hedge, your.

Speaker 3 (15:29):
Own day plus twenty nine.

Speaker 1 (15:31):
So so D day everyone thinks it the Normandy beach landing, right, right,
So that's D day h hour. That's the first day
d D plus one means the day after that.

Speaker 2 (15:40):
Beach land so he's days there.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
He was twenty nine days after the beach landing is
when he got there. So he came in with patent.
And really, when you think of.

Speaker 3 (15:48):
Your your grandfather served under patent.

Speaker 1 (15:51):
Yeah, he was a patent's army and he did sicily
North Africa.

Speaker 2 (15:55):
He did the Battle of the Bulge.

Speaker 3 (15:56):
He did pretty much Battle of the Bulge.

Speaker 2 (15:58):
Yeah, he got it all.

Speaker 1 (15:59):
He got the Tour of Italy.

Speaker 3 (16:01):
So looking back on it, did those walks and the
stories about grouping shots at the fival artery, do you
think subconsciously that might have just planted a seed for
you later in life.

Speaker 1 (16:13):
I just know I wanted to do it. From that day,
I was just afraid to tell my parents that I.

Speaker 3 (16:17):
Wanted to because they wanted to.

Speaker 2 (16:19):
I was a dentist.

Speaker 3 (16:20):
You're supposed to be a dinner store, a theologian or soundlasters,
not a meat head.

Speaker 1 (16:24):
My dad would say that life is about taking people
out of pain, and it took me until I was
like twenty two to realize, I think I want to
focus on the pain part. I want to be the
deliverance of that. How do I break that down? Look,
you're religious, you're Christian. You don't hit people, you you
turn the other cheek, you pray for people, you.

Speaker 2 (16:44):
Talk about love.

Speaker 1 (16:46):
I understood all these things growing up, but I also
could not stand injustice. I could not stand you know this,
this fight between this is wrong and we're not going
to do anything about it. That is what kept me
up at night, and I got far too into when
Saddan got assassinated in Egypt. I wanted to you know.

(17:08):
I remember telling like, we can't you can't go to work, dad,
Saddad has been assassinated. It was like, no one cares
about Saddad. What's wrong with you?

Speaker 2 (17:18):
You know?

Speaker 1 (17:19):
But these were the things that that I was I
was focused on because I thought it was noble. I
thought it was an adventure. But I also realized that
I don't want to be that person. That everything is
hyperbole in every sport I played, and we weren't good
at any of them. You know, we were so small,

(17:40):
we were just getting But I remember sitting on the
bench down forty points and a guy goes for a
three point shot, and I thought, no one's gonna say this.
I've got to be the one to say this. I
don't care how big you are, I don't care how
strong you are. If you shoot another three point shot
and you're up by forty points, I'm gonna break your arm.

(18:02):
I'm gonna break your arm. I'm gonna do it for
the team, you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (18:05):
I just it was an injustice.

Speaker 1 (18:09):
He was absolutely unnecessary, and I will stand up and
say it. Stop it. But losing as a crew, that
was something that I found. We're in this together, no
matter what, We're in this together. The rich kid, the
poor kid, the white kid, the black kid, were doing
this together. It's us against them. I loved that, and

(18:30):
the army, you know, presented that for me.

Speaker 3 (18:34):
I I'm going to invoke the Rich Middle Miss So
Rich was the producer for Undefeated. And if it wasn't
for Rich, I wouldn't be sitting here interviewing you because
nobody would have ever made a movie. It wouldn't win
the Academy Award, nobody would care about anything I have

(18:55):
to say. Through meeting Rich, I thought he was this
Hollywood weirdo because he and Dan and TJ, the directors,
you know, they were at twenty nine thirty showed up
to Memphis and skinny legged jeans and goofy shirts wearing
scarves in September in Memphis. I mean, first of all,
you just don't Let's just don't do that, right, right,

(19:18):
that's a get a lot of yeah. Well, so anyway,
I found out Rich was actually a East Coast guy
from went to the University Tennessee, and Dan and TJ
and Rich are now three of my best friends, and
so obviously I've stayed I mean I talked to Rich
and Dan and TJ, you know, at least bi weekly

(19:41):
and have for ten years, and saw him always asking,
you know, what are you guys working on. I remember
when Dan and TJ did the Tina movie in LA
ninety two and they won an Emmy, and after winning
the Oscar and celebrating with him that and of course
all the things Rich has done after. And I remember
sitting at home one night. I said, what's new and
he said, man, I've just got an option to this book.

(20:06):
And I said what is it? And he said, well,
have you ever heard of David Bellavia? And I said,
believe it or not, I think I have. I heard
an interview and he said, yeah, man, he's this awesome guy.
Medal of Honor, dude. And he wrote this book about
how they went house to house in Fallujah, and he said,
and I want to try to do something with that project.

(20:30):
And so that's how I was introduced to you, was
through Rich. And he sent me the book on my
cell phone and I it was like nine point thirty
at night, and so I just opened the book on this,
you know. He sent an attachment on a text really
and I opened it and at four in the morning,

(20:50):
I'd finished your book five straight hours. I read your
book on my cell phone. I did not wear glasses
prior to this moment, but you ruined my eyes. I
was absolutely there. I would I woke Lisa up in
the middle of the night twice to say listen to this.

(21:11):
It yeah, it affected me. And we're going to talk
about some of those stories. But first, the most important
story is you were I think a theater arts major.

Speaker 1 (21:26):
You know, I get so much hell for this and it.
I want to preface by saying I was a pre
med major okay, and I was a minor in theater.

Speaker 3 (21:35):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (21:36):
But but but with.

Speaker 1 (21:37):
The Army, No, no, but with the Army, they're just like, oh,
this is too good, you know, and this guy's wearing
tights and Pippin we got to get that photos.

Speaker 3 (21:45):
I don't want to sensationalize. So I was, I was
a student.

Speaker 1 (21:50):
I love theater because again I went to a school
where you could play sports, do theater, do the band.

Speaker 2 (21:55):
It was one of those things.

Speaker 3 (21:57):
And you got the Robert DeNiro look going now, I
got the Robbert.

Speaker 1 (22:00):
So don't get me wrong. I'm still doing my headshots
and going to auditions. I'm still working on my one
act play. But no theater for me, though. Was it
was interesting to just meet again. I was so I
was blown away by these kids like the Warlert, like
you know, Mascara and and Berets with the scars, the

(22:21):
middle Mast and they walk around, and I wanted to
be a part of just understand these guys where they're from,
because ultimately, I believe in my life and I see
this with young people today.

Speaker 2 (22:32):
When I was young and I'm reading.

Speaker 1 (22:35):
History, it's we are searching for that drama in our life.
And what really, what the combat experience is is everything
that we talk about. And I'd die for you. I'd
kill for that, I would do anything. Now you're in
a situation where everything is real. That is real drama there,
there's I don't need to I don't need to perform

(22:58):
grapes of wrath being shot at with a physical I'm good,
I'm set.

Speaker 3 (23:03):
Now.

Speaker 1 (23:04):
I need to focus on being the best person I
could be, treated people with dignity, respect and making America better.
But everything else is like the audition to that moment.

Speaker 2 (23:14):
Well, I think people are in search for it.

Speaker 3 (23:16):
I was as a young kid too, and along those lines,
and you know, I'm drawing an odd parallel here, but
it's something I've thought about since You and I when
you graciously agreed to join me, was interestingly to me,
A big part of your story started with things going

(23:39):
on in your house and ended with things going on
in a house in Felujah. Tell us about the story
in your house.

Speaker 1 (23:47):
So you know, I had this idea of who I
was because I told myself that every day, this is
the man I was going to be, this is the
man I want to be. And when I was confronted
with the opportunity to be that man and I realized,
I'm none.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
Of those things.

Speaker 3 (24:03):
Tell us about that story.

Speaker 1 (24:04):
I'm home from school and I'm just I'm doing some
yard work. My mom had had next surgery, so my
dad was taking care of her, and I had my
dog out back and I heard a car door close.
Figured they had guests, but thought it was weird because
parents weren't taking guess. My mom was in bed and

(24:26):
she was pretty recovering from major next surgery, and all
of a sudden, I just I see people walking through
the house in the back window, and one of them
doesn't have a shirt on, and I'm thinking, now, that's
that's definitely not a guess.

Speaker 3 (24:40):
That's no one.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
You know you better you might take your shoes off
out of respect that you're not taking that shirt off.
That's some crazy stuff. So I kind of approach him.
I could front one of them and have a conversation.
I could just see that his eyes are just glassy
and he's not there, and know my dog is trying
to go at him. I got a Rottwile about one

(25:02):
hundred and twenty pound rodi and I thought to myself,
I don't want a lawsuit. You know, if that dog
rips into shreds, you know, they might ensue us or something.
We there's a way to get these boys out. It's
a misunderstanding. Maybe they're fishermen lost from the water and
just came.

Speaker 3 (25:18):
Up lost, shirtless fishermen in your house.

Speaker 1 (25:22):
I'm telling you it doesn't make any sense, but I'm
trying to rationalize what's going on when I see what's
what's a parent where they've taken you know, garbage cans
and they're just cutting cords and throwing you know VCRs.

Speaker 2 (25:36):
And this was in the late.

Speaker 1 (25:37):
Night US, right, so it's a home invasion. So I
immediately use the basement door and head down and grab
that remuton eight seventy And I'm thinking, for the rest
of my life, I'm going to be the guy who
just blasted someone's head off. How are you going to

(26:00):
be treated? Are you doing it for you know, are
you giving them a right to in New York State?
They better have AK forty seven in their hand. I mean,
the laws of New York about defending your home are
pretty embarrassing.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
I say that to a.

Speaker 1 (26:14):
Man from you know, who's used to the way to
properly defend your So I'm going through all this stuff
in my head and I realize I don't even have
the guts to do this. I'm reading that script in
my head that I want to be this person, but
I'm not. And I get upstairs and these guys just

(26:35):
walk by me and no fear, and they're just like
with all your stuff, with all of the stuff loaded
in the car, loading the vehicle.

Speaker 3 (26:46):
And you're just sitting there, and I just, you know.

Speaker 1 (26:50):
I just I don't know if it was the flesh
that was weak or the heart that was weak, or
what was weak, but something was weak. But I could
deal with that because that was just me and them.
Know that, no one's gonna tell that story. You were high,
you were, you know you were, That's not true at all.
I'm put of a fight. But when my dad came

(27:10):
out and saw everything, and his first reaction was to
get in his car, with a forty four and head
out after him.

Speaker 2 (27:19):
That's what the father does.

Speaker 1 (27:21):
Right as soon as he was aware of what the
problem was, he took it upon himself to go give chase.

Speaker 2 (27:27):
Now, these guys end up.

Speaker 1 (27:29):
Arrested, they do seven years, you know, they they got
they punished, They were punished for their crimes. But the
look my father gave me was worse than what those
guys did, because that that is what comes at me
at two o'clock in the morning, was.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
Embarrassment.

Speaker 1 (27:48):
You're not what I hoped you'd be at this age.

Speaker 2 (27:52):
You're not ready.

Speaker 1 (27:54):
You obviously don't have this thing handled. I'm going to
handle it, and I just was like, I gotta get it.
I got to get to a place where I can
do something that I'm uncomfortable doing.

Speaker 3 (28:06):
Does it not the irony to me that it started
for you with guns and perpetrators in a house and
it came to you, which we'll get to in a
little bit, in a house. Does the irony of that
strike you?

Speaker 1 (28:26):
After the after rich Mendal Moss explained that to me,
which a Hollywood guy with a scarf and in Tennessee
to know it would would to me was far more
that I just never wanted to disappoint someone I loved
so much. And I looked and disappointed my dad.

Speaker 3 (28:46):
You mean, you're just a normal kid. That's normal, folks.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
That's it.

Speaker 2 (28:50):
I just my dad meant every he was Superman.

Speaker 3 (28:53):
People can talk big and bad all they want, but
I'm you know, I've played football and sports against much
bigger people. I've been in a few fistfights in my life.
I've been shot at down a hallway inside of home before,
and I know what the I know a bullet sounds

(29:14):
like this when it goes past you goes It's got
that sound to it because I remember it. But having
said all that, if a guy's got a VC, aren't
a bag and he's probably on meth even if I'm
holding a gun. People can talk all they want to,
but the ability to level off and take that life

(29:38):
gives more than nine percent of the people in the
world paws. And But that just makes you normal to me,
I mean absolutely and now.

Speaker 1 (29:47):
But the craziest thing is that just understanding that you
have to do that inventory to know where you're at,
because if you're building your life on just delusion and
you're like, you know, well, these opportunities. Have it happened
because you know the stars aren't aligned. You don't even
have the skill set, you don't even have the emotional

(30:07):
temperament to deal with it if it comes your way.
There's so much more about you know, understanding that violence
is what everyone.

Speaker 2 (30:17):
No one wants it in their life.

Speaker 1 (30:18):
No one wants to be the one that has to
perform anything in a violent act. I live my entire
life to be away from violence and to never be
in a situation where I have to be around it.
But controlling fear was something I had know idea. Fear
was always get away from it. It's your instinct, your body, right,

(30:41):
and once you realize that, your brain is just there
to protect us, and the brain is going to put
crazy messages and you've got to just put barricades in
your brain to say you're not in charge. My heart's
going to take over.

Speaker 2 (30:54):
Now.

Speaker 3 (30:55):
Would you say at that moment in Tom, this is
my word, would you say that you were a coward?

Speaker 1 (31:07):
Absolutely? Yeah, I would. I used the other words.

Speaker 3 (31:14):
That sounds like Mississippi right, a little bit, a little bit,
but that's what I would say.

Speaker 2 (31:21):
Absolutely, It's what I said.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
It's why I mean listen, I I my whole trajectory
was planned. Uh, I know what school I was going to.
I was taking the m CAT. I was on that trajectory.
This was that life fork in the road where I said,
no matter what comes out of this, I'm not going
to be that person.

Speaker 3 (31:42):
And so then you said I'm going to boot camp.

Speaker 1 (31:46):
I'm joined the army, I'm joining the infantry. I'm not
going to I don't want to be a combat campra Yeah,
exactly right. But it was more important that I wanted
the whole experience. I wanted to punch the ticket I'm not.
I don't want to get a skill. My skill has
to be me.

Speaker 3 (32:03):
Was this I never want my father to look at
me this way again.

Speaker 1 (32:07):
No, this was I don't ever want to be in
a position where I ever can't handle it. I want
to handle every situation. I want to know when to
use my brain. I want to know when to put
my foot in their face. I want to know when
the proper time is. I want to know how to
how to be way over my head and be able
to say I don't even have any idea of how

(32:28):
to handle this, So now I'm going to use what
I have in front of me and the people around
me to get myself out of it.

Speaker 3 (32:34):
So it's safe to say you grew up the youngest
of four with a very small town, almost like a
he Haw salute town, right, And you grew up with
expectations of school with a father as a dentist, probably
not wealthy, but just good white collar family, and had

(32:56):
full expectations are going off to school, and this significant
incident happened, and when you looked in the mirror, you
saw yourself to be, as you describe, a coward, and
you wanted to rise above that. And your answer was,
I'm going to go to the army and I'm going
to grow up and grow myself into more strength.

Speaker 1 (33:20):
I knew I had it in me. I knew that
I was. I knew that it was important enough to
me that I wasn't afraid to get my act kicked.
I wasn't afraid to stand up to a kid that
was eighteen when I was twelve. I wasn't afraid to
say something that no one wanted to say.

Speaker 3 (33:37):
But you weren't tapped into it yet, but I was not.

Speaker 1 (33:39):
I did not have the ability to know really how
to You don't believe it or not. Everyone talks about
the military as you know, the thinking that's involved. This
is where you go when you can't go to college
or you get so impregnant. All I was surrounded by
were intellects in the army.

Speaker 3 (33:57):
I got it.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
I'm really and sometimes you know you don't have a degree.
You know you're not going out there for the Rhodes
Scholar program. But it's the smartest person I've ever met
my life is a person that just says, take a
step back to explain something difficult to a layman is
actually the definition of intelligence. Take something really super difficult

(34:21):
and explain it to someone who doesn't know anything about it,
and they walk away with saying, I get something complicated.
That's the person I want to be around now. It's
you're a coach. That's all my life mentors where people
that cared enough about me to tell me the things
Mom and dad loved me too much.

Speaker 3 (34:39):
To tell me.

Speaker 1 (34:40):
You know, it was always the coach that was you
suck and you're not working hard, and you're telling me
that you're in the gym. You're in the gym, but
what are you doing in the gym? You know you're
not doing the things. I'm going to hold you accountable.
That accountability. All these drill sergeants, all these noncommissioned officers,
all they did was give me the tough love no

(35:02):
one in my world had ever given me.

Speaker 3 (35:05):
And you were looking for it.

Speaker 1 (35:06):
I needed it.

Speaker 3 (35:10):
And now a few messages from our general sponsors. But first,
I hope you'll consider following an Army of normal Folks
on all of our social media channels for more powerful content,
which is also great for sharing, to help grow the army.
Our handle is at Army of Normal Folks on all

(35:31):
of them except Twitter, which I guess is X these days,
which is interesting because everybody says X formally called Twitter,
so we might as well just call it Twitter whatever.
At Army normal Folks, we'll be right back. So we're

(36:02):
gonna skip ahead, and then we're gonna we're gonna skip
ahead in your world, and then we're gonna go back,
because again I think we've established you just grew up
a normal kid, but you're by definition not normal. You
are one of one in this country, and we want

(36:25):
to understand all of the people that supported that. But first,
it's really important that all our listeners hear the story
that got you there, and I want to ask first
how comfortable you are going through the day you walk
through that front door of that house in Felujah. Okay, good,

(36:46):
So we're going to get how that happened. But again
we're jumping forward. Everything I've read is that you guys
were literally clearing houses and Flujah door to door, and
it was the most intense urban warfare since Vietnam. And

(37:10):
there were American soldiers getting wounded and some dying daily
in this requirement for you guys to literally go house
to house, door to door, clearing out buildings of people
whose soul desire on earth was to eliminate you. And

(37:32):
you happen on one of these houses, and I'm just
gonna let you take it from there, because at the
end of it, you lived, and five bad guys were dead,
and I think some of it even included hand to
hand combat. And I really want you in your own words.
I've read all about it. I want to hear from you,
and I want our listeners to hear what that was

(37:56):
that day.

Speaker 1 (37:57):
So just for people to understand that American fight in history,
if you look at our military in our wars, the
urban fights that we trained to fight. Our standard operating
procedure is the Battle of Verdun, which Americans weren't involved in.
That was the French and the Germans of World War One.
We talk about the Battle of Grosny in modern day Georgia.

(38:20):
That's the Soviet Union and the Nazis, and the Battle
of Berlin. Another three epic fights that we trained for
that we've never participated in. So America's got the Battle
of Soul, Korea in fifty one, We've got Way City
in Vietnam. If you look at those engagements, just like
Somalia in Blackhawk Down, ninety seven percent of our casualties

(38:42):
are outside of the building. The danger in an urban
fight is getting to the objective. That's where you're getting
hit right.

Speaker 3 (38:49):
Well, because they've got covered of building and you're in
a street.

Speaker 1 (38:51):
And you're in the street in the middle of a city,
and you've got you know, everything's built up, so you're
getting popped from all sides, doors, windows, everything, alleyway. Getting
to the objective is where traditionally casualties come from. In
the first you know, two and a half three years
of the war in Iraq, we are literally writing the
book on urban close quarter combat. To the point where

(39:14):
we're changing basic training in real time. I mean, think
about by the year two thousand and five, a kid
is coming through basic training, they're going in a shootouse.
In basic training, you're on a range, you learn how
to salute, you figure out how to get your sideburns.
Even in basic training you don't go you don't go
in a shootouse. I mean, this is we're totally changing

(39:36):
the way we fight because of that urban fight. That's
how absolutely of a dice roll it is. So now
you got Seal Team six and all these high speed guys.
I don't care if your Seal Team six, your Delta
Force or your thor you walk through a door there's
a machine gun on the other end of that building.
You're getting shot. It's the way it is. So you

(39:59):
take a all the training and all the skill, and
then you realize, I'm not in control of any of this.
None of this I'm in control of. So what I
have to do is not only physically train you for
the fight, but I've got to psychologically train that nineteen
twenty year old kid for what's gonna happen in the fight.
Because it's not enough about killing you or injuring you.

(40:22):
It's leaving you to psychologically destroy the people coming in
after you. That's what the enemy's trying to do. They're
trying to fix you. There's no way they're gonna make
it out. Bomb drops on their building, there's no way
they're gonna make it out. They know they're dead the
moment they fight us. Their job is to hurt you,

(40:42):
kill you, and mess with your brain so you can't
fight tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (40:47):
So I got to.

Speaker 1 (40:47):
Take these guys and put them through something I've never
experienced myself and get them in a way where they're
able to hopefully get my rank and be able to
educate that next time nineteen year old kid coming along,
because I think you're gonna die, no doubt that we're
all gonna die. I mean, it was Fitzy, you know,
my best friend.

Speaker 3 (41:07):
So you're you're given orders to go clear. So so
many movies and so much is written that we get
desensitized to the reality of nineteen and twenty year old
kids waking up and saying, this is my job. I'm

(41:28):
going to do it for the guy next to me,
but I'm probably gonna die today.

Speaker 1 (41:33):
So the key is that there's two parts of your brain.
There's everyone is Look, you put on your best suit
and you go to the dance, but you know full
well what you look like, right, you know what you
look like, and you know the type of yah average
doesn't date the prom queen dude. The point is you

(41:54):
know the truth and then you have what you have
to tell yourself to be able to get through the
prom without a date. Right, you know that this is real,
and you know that people are coming home and boxes
every single day, but you also know it's not going
to happen to you or anyone around you. So you
are constantly living in the world of your subordinates. You

(42:17):
love them like they're your children. You know them like
they're your children. You know how to motivate them. You
know what pisses them off, you know what they appreciate,
you know what they hate, you know what they're allergic to,
you know who they like at home, every aspect of
my subordinates. I have to if I'm going to lead people,
I gotta know who they are. I gotta know what

(42:38):
motivates them, where they come from. So now I want
to tell them. All you have to do is the
easiest job of the world. Just do what I tell
you to do right, and if something happens to me,
your job is to think about what I would do
and leave me behind and move forward. The biggest mistake
you can make in a fight is the failure to

(42:58):
make a decision. That's the sin that's unforgivable. You screw up.
I can fix it. You make the right decision, we
all copy you and we do the right thing. But
if you can't make a decision and you nut up,
and that's what happens. When bullets are flying, you want
to stop and take your shot. You want to stop,
and when you stop, that train stops. And now we

(43:19):
get what's called that funnel of death. Right that that breach,
that doorway becomes a kill sack because everyone is stopped.
So the job is, if I'm screaming for Jesus and
for my mom, your job is to not render aid.
You leave me there screaming, You move forward, You take

(43:41):
out that threat, or we're all dead.

Speaker 3 (43:43):
Everyone hopefully hopefully they remember that part now, just continuing
to move on.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
But you're right though, then after it's secure, that's when
we come back.

Speaker 2 (43:55):
So you're taking.

Speaker 1 (43:57):
Away all of the thought process of a subbortive to say,
if I'm not worried, you're not worried. If I don't stop,
you don't stop. Now that's great for them because now
they have to be like, my sergeant is in charge,
he's rock, he's running this thing.

Speaker 2 (44:12):
Now you've got to be that guy.

Speaker 1 (44:14):
Right, So now you can say all you want, but
you better not go back to when you were in
that house and you nutted up because you got scared.

Speaker 3 (44:21):
That's a long way from a dude who watched two
guys carry his dad's VCR out of his house.

Speaker 1 (44:28):
Well, you know, combat has a way to fix them out. Well,
but you can't. You can't lie, you can't, but you can't.
There's no performance art in the world. I mean, you
know these guys that you.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
Can't.

Speaker 1 (44:43):
Tom Hanks might convince the d m V you know
that his registration's got overdue. You can't when it when
it's real, and you're either going to be that person
or you're not going to be that person. House we
get into a building, uh you know, tend to eight
to ten bad guys, block of houses. We got a

(45:03):
reporter with us from Time magazine and uh, every by
the way, Fallujah's you know, everyone's embedded. Everyone wants to
know what's going on back home. You've got everyone's covering
the story in real time. Just press everywhere, everywhere. So
now you're all worried about you know. So so is.

Speaker 3 (45:19):
It your drive to protect him too?

Speaker 1 (45:21):
It's our yeah, it would be well the army. Yeah,
the story's got to get filed. But the fact is
is that he's our responsibility. He's one of us. You know,
he's got to be safe. We walk into uh, we
know it's a We got guys, We trapped them, We
locked them into a section, and that is such a gift.
In Iraq, we're fighting ghosts. They clack off a bomb.

(45:44):
You never saw the enemy. You never made when you've
got a chance to see the enemy, you had to
fix them.

Speaker 2 (45:49):
You had to. They're not moving where.

Speaker 1 (45:51):
If I know you're in a house, I want to
run in there because you're not gonna hurt someone tomorrow.
You're not gonna hurt me tomorrow. I'm gonna I'm gonna
take you out right now. We got these guys locked
in and now it's just this methodic door to door
to house to you know, it's you know, twenty thirty
buildings and each building.

Speaker 3 (46:10):
So was am I imagining right to think like a
small apartment complex.

Speaker 1 (46:14):
No, No, it's like a city block, and it's an
upscale section. It would be like the night the rich
section of Fallujah.

Speaker 3 (46:20):
Are you kidding? Oh no, So it's houses inside of.

Speaker 1 (46:24):
Buildings, concrete, three story structures. Each building probably had fifteen rooms.

Speaker 3 (46:31):
So we're talking like three or four thousand square foot houses, some.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
Of them larger than that.

Speaker 1 (46:35):
But you gotta understand that that the Iraqi people are
very insecure people, so they build their homes to be invaded.
They're protecting themselves from the Saddam regime.

Speaker 3 (46:45):
Okay, so this is a neighborhood.

Speaker 1 (46:47):
Actually a neighborhood of high walled, thick structure. The stall
houses all multi upscale mansion houses with literally gun slits
in the roof uh protection areas.

Speaker 3 (47:02):
I don't think I ever, It's my own prejudice, but
I just thought Fallujah a rock armpit. Oh yeah, just
a bunch of slumps like you see in some all
or something. They got their share of slumps, but this
is this is just a nice neighborhood with big houses.

Speaker 1 (47:25):
There's sections of Fallujah that were just like you said,
and we'd bombed them. And there's rubble everywhere, and that's
rough too, because when you got the rubble, you can
hide in that rubble and you got to be careful.
But this area was untouched and it was the scary district,
like nice beautiful.

Speaker 3 (47:42):
Oh no, listen, are you rolling through Beverly Hills of Fallujah. Yeah,
it's like houses.

Speaker 1 (47:49):
It was like the home and gardens cartel versions.

Speaker 2 (47:53):
Like you should.

Speaker 1 (47:57):
You've got the ascari district, literally in Arabic means soldiers district.
So all the retired generals, if they serve Todam with
honor and distinction, they.

Speaker 2 (48:07):
Got a big, old, beautiful house.

Speaker 1 (48:09):
But those generals also knew they might find something out
and so I want to make sure no one else comes.

Speaker 2 (48:16):
So my wall.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
Each of these houses are little forts all for at
walled compounds, wire on the top, broken glass, embedded in
the concrete. It was it sucked. And the other thing
is that they're dense and they're thick, and so you
can't hear did that was at a gunshot and the
whole city is blown up. Got marines over here, you
got army. The whole city is you know, a city

(48:41):
inside of Tampa Bay, Florida is invaded every Missiles and
rockets are going everywhere. So what we realized with a
five five six with our M fours, if you shoot
through drywall, that's going through drywall, right, They'll tell you
that an.

Speaker 2 (48:58):
Ar is not a home defense weapon.

Speaker 1 (49:00):
You're gonna reach out and touchstone with an ail in
concrete that bullet for the five five six, the two
two three, it's like tic tac toe's we don't ricochet everywhere.

Speaker 3 (49:12):
So it so you got to shoot.

Speaker 1 (49:15):
So now I am the King, Fitzie and I when
we were rolling out, whether we were on the Iranian border,
north south, no matter where we were, we were the
win in doubt. Shoot about crew, you know what I mean.
We were not afraid to overpower you with gunfire. That's
how we got through as many fights as we got through.

(49:36):
But in a confined space that is absolutely dangerous because
now you're gonna hit your own, You're gonna shoot your own,
and what's the point. Frags are great in the movies,
in the video games. Throw a grenade and let the
good people, the defense contractor that made that fuse worry
about the aftermath. In a confined space with no ventilation.

Speaker 2 (49:58):
It's smoke.

Speaker 1 (50:00):
It's a frag It shot little pieces everywhere.

Speaker 2 (50:03):
But now it just filled the room with smile. You
can't see.

Speaker 1 (50:06):
But guess what they're in that house. They know where
the door is. You've never been in that house. I
mean the bin laden rate is. Seal Team six are studs.
They spent three months going through what they thought that
house looked like. These kids from National Guard active duty
nineteen year old, twenty year old, forty year olds. Every

(50:28):
adventure is you know, what's the door look like?

Speaker 2 (50:32):
Where?

Speaker 1 (50:33):
What does a house look like? No one has any
idea of what's going on. But in Felujah, they were
knocking stairwells out, they were knocking floors out. We like
to go from roof to roof instead of going roof
all the way down, go through the front door, get
shot at. We'd like to surprise them. Maybe go on
the roof, maybe jump through a window. You would jump
onto a rooftop and there was no floor, wow, and

(50:57):
you would drop to the next story that out. You
would go from the roof all the way down to
the bottom floor of that home. And they had, you know,
metal spikes put up and you know, everything was a trap,
and you know the trip wires. The building contained, the

(51:17):
b SID building contained and improvised explosive device. A b
SID building bomb was our biggest fear because you walk
in a building bomb, it's done.

Speaker 2 (51:28):
You're done.

Speaker 1 (51:30):
When we got in that house, as soon as we
get into the area, it just opens up. And I'm
on one side of the building and my entire platoon
is on the other side. And so because of the
fact that we got complacent and we were just going
building after building, we're seeing blood, we see a little
bit of this. A tanker got one guy, we're looking

(51:52):
at him. We knew three, maybe four, one or two.
Maybe they're separated. There's just one per house for the
rest of the way. When we get in there and
these machine guns open up. The machine gun fire was
so overwhelming, belt fed machine guns and it's just coming
through a door that my first reaction was cease fire.

(52:17):
I thought it was our guys shooting because they saw
something squirrely and they're conditioned and trained to shoot. So
I'm yelling ceasefire, and my team leader yells to me,
tell thee tell the bad.

Speaker 2 (52:28):
Guys to stop firing. Confessor's doing it.

Speaker 1 (52:32):
So we had no opportunity to do anything from the kitchen.

Speaker 2 (52:37):
We're in one little living room.

Speaker 1 (52:39):
Fires coming in from the kitchen, our rest of our
platoon coming through. Our machine gunners they open up on them.
So now my machine gunners, you know, you see Rambo
with the six on one, that two forty Bravos not
meant to be. You're gonna be at a aircraft fire
if you shoot it with one arm. This kid, these
two Swanny and mcdaniald McDaniel, they were shoulder fire into

(53:02):
two forty, which is something I haven't seen on a range.
You do that, but not in a fight. And so
now they're shooting two American two forty Bravo machine guns
into the kitchen. Those rounds are going right through our wall.
So our bad guys heads down in the kitchen, but
our good guys are shooting this way. Bad guys are

(53:22):
shooting that way. And I noticed that when anyone they're
all on the prone, but when they'd get their head up,
that kevlar would get ticked and someone would get hit
with a piece of shrapnel or a piece of whatever.
And I'm the only guy that's totally protected because I'm
against a wall that's not a firewall. Not no one's
shooting in me. And so I knew that I just

(53:44):
had to get into that fusilade of tracers. That part
was going to be the worst part. But if we
stayed where we were at, those walls were going to
collapse on us. And that's but there were there were
things in the house that I smell. Again, you can't
really trust your vision because you're so tired and you're

(54:05):
hearing your hearing shot. But you could smell a man.
You could smell his breath, you can smell his body odor,
you can smell if you use the bathroom in there.
But you can also smell fuel and gas. And I
was just like there was so much cordite and so
much powder cordite, there was so much gunpowder in that
room that it was just all I could see was

(54:27):
the tracer fire coming through and our good guy's coming through.
And I was the only one that could make a decision.
So my thought was Australian peel. I'm gonna stand in front,
I'm gonna empty an automatic machine gun as many rounds
as I can and under that fire, everyone's gonna peel

(54:47):
off on me. And I just need to know who
the last man is and then I'm gonna run with him.
But we're gonna break contact and drop the bomb. That's
the plan. But man, now that's a plan that makes sense.
Let's go do You're the guy that's gonna do it.
So now you're like, oh, I need some time, you know.
Like my legs were concrete, I mean, could not move them,

(55:10):
and these I'm like, give me a machine gun, and
they're and I'm thinking that's gonna take at least a minute.

Speaker 2 (55:15):
You know what I mean. And all of a sudden,
machine got like slides over.

Speaker 1 (55:20):
Hush. You know.

Speaker 2 (55:21):
That was rather.

Speaker 1 (55:25):
So I'm like, how many are in the We got
like a little pouch of machine got a drum? How
many are in there? They're like, you know, there's two hundred.
I'm like, are we positive? They're like yes. I'm like
you double checked, you know, doing everything to eat waste time.
I get that thing in my hand, I could my
rifle got hit. I took a round and the rifles
and my rifle was dead. The magazine was all shot up,

(55:48):
and I thought, okay, all right, I'm gonna get as
low as possible and if they're gonna kill me they're
gonna shoot me in the face, but they're not. I'm
gonna absorb anything with my sappy plate, but try to
get as uncomfortably low as I can. But I'm gonna hook.
So we we trained just a little finger. I just
want to butterfly kiss that that trigger. Never gonna hook

(56:10):
a trigger, right, because I want to get as many
rounds off in a stable position. So I just want
to kiss my trigger right. And and a machine gun,
I want to burst it. I want to, but I
don't want to. So I'm hooking second knuckle on this trigger.
So if you do get shot, I'm gonna fall and
I'm gonna go forward. And that bolt, I'm still gonna

(56:32):
fire that thing even when I'm dead. That's what I'm thinking, right,
And so they're like are you ready, And I'm like, yes,
you know, I'm ready. Here we go, and I look
into the room. I get one angle and I see
these guys and they're just so cocky, They're so happy,
They're so cocky and over you know, and I just

(56:55):
now it's like, okay, I needed that. Now I'm pissed
to get the fear is good. I can harness that,
but get me a little pissy in there. Piss and
fear is the perfect cocktail for something this stupid. And
I look over it at Fitzie, who's you know, the commas,
the coolest, the most. He's been in the army longer,

(57:17):
done more, been shot three times.

Speaker 2 (57:20):
That guy.

Speaker 1 (57:21):
Anything I asked him to do, he'd do, and he's
never asked me to do anything. And he's all about
your number, pulling your number, you go do it, And
I was like, that's that's fits telling me, like that's
my So I'm like, all right, here's the deal. I
walk in there and there's a stairwell that goes right
up to the second story and there's a Jersey barrier

(57:43):
underneath that stairwell.

Speaker 2 (57:44):
These guys built a bunker in this house, so.

Speaker 1 (57:48):
They got the Jersey barrier concrete like you see at
the airport, and then the stairwell that goes up and
they're just right over the top of it. And I
was like, did not have that. That was out of
the plan at all. These shots have to be perfect.
And I'm going there with like a lass of of bullets,
you know, like just spray it everywhere. I get up

(58:09):
there and I just find myself moving up the stairs
and I'm thinking, I'm gonna bend that saw machine gun
into that bunker and try to just you know, stitch them.
And as I'm doing that, I'm seeing these boys run out.
I hear gunfire from the kitchen. I'm trying to mix
it a little bit, give them something to think about.

(58:30):
And I just hear that that machine gun.

Speaker 2 (58:34):
Empty, and I.

Speaker 1 (58:36):
Was like, wow, that was very fast, not at all
what I was thinking. So we you know, the saw
has a little feed for the M four magazines and
we did that in basic like one time, and I'm
like it didn't work.

Speaker 2 (58:53):
Then see if they fixed it, you know.

Speaker 1 (58:56):
Nothing, I couldn't it just it was so now I
had a magazine and I was like, I could hear
him talking. I knew no no screams, no pains. Yeah,
it was a small window anyway, but I was hoping
that leap. But they're they're not shooting anymore, right, That's
what I'm hoping that they're not going to shoot. So

(59:18):
now it's got I got to get out of there
and get a new weapon system or get a bomb
or something.

Speaker 2 (59:22):
I got to get out of there.

Speaker 1 (59:24):
And I see that there's a door right next to
them on the other side of their bunker, and I'm thinking,
all right, do I I can't run in front of it.
I can't go through the kitchen, you know, I got
to get the way I came in. So I just
took my my magazine and chucked it. And they reacted
to that, and I just, I mean, I mean, I ran.

(59:45):
If there was a four, if there was a forty time,
I would have I would have been up there. It
was quick, and I just remember feeling the heat of
those rounds, like, I mean, they were just there was
they were all over on the way out, and then
in the courtyard the ground getting hit, you know, just

(01:00:06):
there was gunfire as I was running out and I
got out of the gate, and then I was right
back to that dad. Look that look my father gave
me of like that was your shot. That was it?

Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
Like you had all of.

Speaker 1 (01:00:21):
This garbage for that moment that you screamed about forever,
and you had that moment and you had the initiative,
and you nutted up again.

Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
You didn't finish the job.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
And now I got kids getting shot at in the road.

Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
It's chaos.

Speaker 1 (01:00:39):
There's people on the roof and I'm like how many.
I'm trying to do the math, like, is that the
same guy? Did I see one guy that I see
two guys? I think I saw two, But there's a
guy in the kitchen who's shooting from the roof.

Speaker 2 (01:00:52):
Is it just one guy running around?

Speaker 1 (01:00:53):
What's the deal? And then we asked for a bomb.
At that point, a bomb in Fallujah was like you
know the Butcher with twenty, you know the DMV. Everyone
wants a bomb. We got like forty two. Gonna wait
for forty two by it's not gonna happen, right, And
then when you get a bomb, the battle's over. There's
no more artillery and mortars coming in, no helicopters. They

(01:01:17):
clear that airspace for one bomb. You better be worth
that one bomb, right. You know, someone could be losing
their life and you're taking their bomb. You better need it.
So I was like, we're not getting a bomb. It's
gonna be an hour for a bomb. These guys are
gonna run away and they're gonna kill someone. We'd already
lost oursar Major. This neighborhood was a bad neighborhood. In

(01:01:39):
the morning, we'd end up losing Lieutenant Iwan and Madison.
So we lose two more guys in that same block
of neighborhood. This was our chance to give them a
knockout blow and our bradleys. The streets were too narrow
and you can't really traverse the gates are high. So
guess what if you can't maneuver, you just you can

(01:02:01):
only shoot on the plane that you have. It was
enough to tear up some of the building, some of
the rooms, but not effective fire. There was only one
way to do, and that was to smoke them out
and go in there and go after them. So I
figured this was mine, it was my mission. I didn't
get it done. I'm gonna get it done the second time.

(01:02:21):
I'm just gonna make sure I'm not gonna bring all
the guys because it's not worth it to lose, because
I don't know what's in there. I'm thinking hopefully two,
maybe three. Never would have thought, you know, six or seven.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
That wasn't. That wasn't in my head, but that might.
I was getting them out and so got a new rifle.

Speaker 1 (01:02:45):
And as soon as I walk in, the bradley had
ruptured all the water reserves and the different third world
nation you know, bladders that were in there. So now
we got standing water in this water smelled like all
my fish just I want to vomit, But it was

(01:03:05):
I was got my mind off of death just to
be like these people they're dealing with this too. But
the problem with the water is that now every time
I walk through the water, that ripple, So now they
know I'm in and I'm looking at like broken mirrors everywhere,
and I'm like, this is how they tracked us.

Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
It's like a seven to eleven they know.

Speaker 1 (01:03:29):
Yeah, And there's plastic explosives everywhere everywhere and propane hooked
up to it. And I'm like, well that's great. You know,
Like now I gotta be careful where I'm shooting because
if I had a C four block, I'm going to
lose a whole house. You know what's going on? Lost
in is U My buddy, he's got a nine mill

(01:03:49):
that's all he had because he had a M fourteen
that didn't have night vision. And my night vision's acting squirrely,
so it's on, it's off, it's it's just it's too much.
Were So we just got to take the initiative and
just go. And I I look in the mirror and
I see him putting a few. This one guy was
putting a fuse on an RPG five. You're adding a

(01:04:09):
fuse to a rocket. You stick the rocket in the launcher,
then you fire it. And I was like, that's gonna go.
That's going to go to the one of these bombs.
You know, he's gonna shoot up rocket inside of a
I put guys around the house. My initial goal was
just to act like an idiot, chase him outside and
get shot up by the boys waiting, you know, outside.

(01:04:33):
As soon as I turned the corner, I engaged the
rocket guy and I just caught him. He was standing.
He was just there's no moving for him. He's just unlucky.

Speaker 2 (01:04:42):
Where he was. The other guy ran into the kitchen
and I tagged.

Speaker 3 (01:04:47):
These guys that were on the machine gun.

Speaker 2 (01:04:49):
There on the Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:04:50):
Yeah, But I tagged the other guy in the back
pretty good. And I could see, you know, you can't
you know, the blood is now in the water and
it's you could see that it's murky, and you're like, okay,
that's good. But I'm not seeing that he's in the water.
You know, Hollywood, you drop, I shoot you, you fall
in real life, you know, you're a and and I

(01:05:13):
got I got a needle and a spoon, and these
boys are shooting up. The one guy that we hit
with a rocket had a tourniquet on, so I mean
he they were hitting heroin right there. And but honestly,
if I was fighting Americans are probably with two, I'd
probably get a good buzz on too, because that's not
ending well. You know, you might want to go, you know,

(01:05:33):
comfortably numb while you're fighting.

Speaker 2 (01:05:36):
One guy is down, the other guy's hurt.

Speaker 1 (01:05:39):
And now I'm on the other side of that stairwell
and I'm like, I'm in this big dark room and
I've just got my eyes on the on the kitchen,
and I'm like, I haven't even cleared this room behind me,
so I might as well do that. And so as
I'm clearing this big it's a big master bedroom with
a wardrobe, foot locker, big wardrobe, and all of a sudden,

(01:06:02):
I just start hearing not only footsteps upstairs, but I
start hearing guys charging into that door. And so now I'm,
you know, fighting these guys in the doorway, and I
got one, I hit a second guy, and I'm like,
is this the same guy?

Speaker 2 (01:06:20):
Is this?

Speaker 1 (01:06:21):
You know how many times am I hitting him? How
many people are coming through the door. But in the
middle of that firefight, like a bullet went sideways across
and I was thinking, I know my zero's off, but
it can't be. I mean, I can't be shooting to
a ninety degree angle. But it just confused me that
I could hear like wood was like like disintegrating, and

(01:06:46):
there were tracers hitting the wall as I was shooting,
and I just I just got like a pucker factor one,
just you know what that there's something someone's in this
room and I cleared it, and that wardrobe just bursts open. Yeah,
and this dude just he just jumps out of it.

(01:07:07):
But like you talk about these little luck things, right,
little little things, that wardrobe falls on its doors, doesn't
fall flat, it falls on its doors. And that elevation
gave me just enough. He put his ak under his
arm and he was running this way and shooting behind him,
so he had the trigger and he was shooting out

(01:07:28):
of the armpit as he was running.

Speaker 3 (01:07:29):
Shooting backwards behind him.

Speaker 1 (01:07:31):
Yeah, just to get out of there, right, And he
steps over this mushy bed, and the mushy bed he
loses his foot. It's dark can't see. He loses his
focus and he falls. But when he does that, those
rounds just hit that wardrobe and it's high enough because
it's on its doors that it's just absorbing rounds. I

(01:07:52):
was literally standing right there. If that door, if that
wardrobe would have gone flush, that would have been it.
That would have been my first know that would have
been I would have been out. But he goes up
those stairs and I got him when he fell against
that door after falling off the bed. I really I
hit him good, and I hit him lower back, and

(01:08:15):
then I got him on the hip. As he turned
and I saw what he was wearing. I saw his
beard and older guy, he was the leader, gray in
his beard, but that that look on his face as
he ran up and I could just see the blood.
I was like, Oh this, this guy's hurt. You know
this that guy I'm going after. I like my odds

(01:08:38):
with a dude I've shot repeatedly, and it's scared out
of his mind. You know, I don't want him. I
don't know what's upstairs. I've never been up there, but
it was the water is now only on the first floor.

Speaker 2 (01:08:50):
But I'm following him.

Speaker 1 (01:08:51):
Blood, But that slick water and that blood my foot.
I put my foot on a stair and it just
wiped out from like the slick and that guy was
right at the landing, and so I wiped out, and
right at the landing I just heard the loudest. My
ears were shot. I had little hearing, but after that

(01:09:13):
I was done. That AK was right here and as
I wiped out, that round just hit the I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:09:19):
Once again, had you not slipped, it might have killed you.

Speaker 1 (01:09:21):
Hey, what I'm telling you, a seven six two, an
AK forty seven round against concrete does mushrooms anyway. Fitz's
body will show you the mushroom of a seven six
two will do. But when it's at a concrete wall,
that proximity, that is like a thunder punch. I mean
that literally was. And that's intimidating as hell because you're

(01:09:41):
like that was me. My round would have gone bean
bong boom, you know, it would have tick tacted around.
This one just punched that wall right by your head,
right by my head. And so he's making again my
hearing a shot and the bill is huge, and now

(01:10:01):
I can't hear what's happened on the ground floor, but
I'm focused on him, and that panting, that moaning, that's
that's a guy who's hurt. I mean, he's he's really
going through a lot of pain. And so as I turned,
the only thing I could get through the night vision
and through the pop was just one shot of his face.

(01:10:22):
And that fear on his face was like all I
needed to motivate me to close in on him. And
I cooked a grenade off and I threw it in
that room, and I did. The room was an l shape,
but that grenade went long, and I just the fires
just started roaring from that grenade. It was a bunch

(01:10:43):
of mattresses in there, and it was quite apparent that
the smoke was thick, black, oily smoke. But that room,
as soon as I walked in on my shin bone.
I ripped my shin bone on just a bunch of
clanging propane tanks. I'm the whole room was full of propane.

Speaker 3 (01:11:01):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:11:02):
And so now I'm like, I'm not shooting anymore, you know.
So I use my rifle to kind of wave the
smoke around, but really to find him where is he?
I'm gonna hit him with the butt of this rifle
and just put him down. And he was.

Speaker 2 (01:11:19):
There was a whole lot of fight left in him.

Speaker 1 (01:11:21):
You know, I learned a valuable lesson that if someone
you know they're gonna fight for their life, they're gonna
fight for their life, They're gonna do whatever they have
to do.

Speaker 3 (01:11:29):
And so now you're literally fighting this guy with your hands.

Speaker 1 (01:11:32):
In a way that was really surreal because while this
is happening, there's a guy screaming. I knew enough Arabic,
but I wasn't picking up This wasn't Arabic. It was
it was either Urdu or it was it wasn't what
we had been hearing. And uh, I'm so so I

(01:11:56):
just I know he's yelling to a guy and that
guy's responding to him, and I can hear multiple voices,
and I'm thinking, this is just gotta I gotta gotta
shut him up. So I can just hear how many
are left and where they are. I don't I can't,
for life for me understand how I'm on the top
floor of a building, but there's something above me, Like

(01:12:16):
who's talking above me? Is that the roof is at
another you know this he there's a giant patio outside
of this big room that we were in, and I'm thinking,
is he on that patio?

Speaker 2 (01:12:28):
Is he above the patio?

Speaker 1 (01:12:30):
And as you're trying to do that inventory, this guy's biting,
he's paunching.

Speaker 3 (01:12:36):
Uh, you're literally fighting the guy.

Speaker 1 (01:12:39):
Because I'm I'm what, I'm okay. My My biggest fear is,
you know, I'm gonna get killed, right, That's number one,
And then number two is my guys are coming in
and they're just gonna shoot. I trained him.

Speaker 3 (01:12:51):
I know, I know they don't want them shooting the propane.

Speaker 1 (01:12:54):
I don't want them shooting me and the propane. I
don't want him, you know, blowing the house up.

Speaker 2 (01:12:59):
I don't know. I got to at least get hold
of what's happening.

Speaker 1 (01:13:02):
I don't know what's happening, and I'm getting my act
kick simultaneously. So the goal was that every time he
would resist, where I hit him was clear that when
I put my fingers in those areas that he just
totally gave up like that hurt. You know, that pain.
Being able to control him with pain was enough for

(01:13:24):
me to get the upper hand, and you know, it
just kind of went down and then I just forty
five went off and I didn't even know he had
a handgun on him, but that was a big Soviet
forty five, like that was.

Speaker 2 (01:13:39):
Right next to my head, or at least it felt
that way.

Speaker 1 (01:13:44):
I mean, I wasn't in danger of being shot by it,
but I was in danger of him knowing where I
was for the second shot. So now we're fighting over that,
and I just remembered I had a gerber and my helmet.
I used my helmet. I used a gerber and you know, NiFe. Yeah,
and it was it. That was it, And then I

(01:14:06):
was no helmet. My rifle is on the ground somewhere.
I kicked it a few times, so I knew it
was near the door, but I needed to get in
that air, that patio and just kind of like take
a wall, keep my profile low. I'm an infantryman, so
I know how to smoke a cigarette at night, and
so I just kind of cut my hand and took

(01:14:28):
a few drags of a cigarette just to calm myself down.
But also I didn't have my night vision. My helmet
was gone. I needed that cherry to kind of look
around a little bit, you know, use it as a
little guide. And now I don't have my vest is open,
my helmet's gone, no rifle, and I could hear the

(01:14:48):
guys outside coming up with a plan. I can't yell
to him because I know that there's someone else here.
But I'm just thinking I'm dead. If I don't hang
on this wall, I'm done. And then and I just
hear a guy land and I heard the pop of
his leg or his knee or whatever he broke. But
he jump He jumped on and the patio again. Was

(01:15:12):
he trying to jump on me if he didn't know
where I was, If he smelled the cigarette, I don't
know what his intention was to help his buddy out.
There was no I wasn't making any sound. I don't
know if he smelled me.

Speaker 2 (01:15:24):
He couldn't see me. But he landed.

Speaker 1 (01:15:26):
And the way he landed, that scream was you know
he was in trouble. That ak that he was holding
fell and the magazine metallic sound. I just grabbed that
and when I when I chambered the round, it was
on fully automatic, and it was no butt It was
a snub, no buttstock.

Speaker 2 (01:15:48):
It went everywhere. I didn't. I didn't hit him there.
I got my rifle.

Speaker 1 (01:15:52):
I put rounds on him, but he ended up either
jumping down, falling down. He came, he went off that
patio and the sawgunners opened up right after that, so,
you know, we figured that was that was done. But
it was a you know, and and I still there
was another guy that one of the other boys took

(01:16:13):
care of that was in a closet. They don't put
him in the total, but he was there. And then
the bomb came. The bomb came, and they were like
the bombs in coming and we were like, oh no,
I gotta find my helmet, you know, so we grabbed everything.
That bomb was a dud. Next bomb wasn't a dud,

(01:16:37):
but it blew up that the building. And the bomb
that was a dud. That was a pretty big boom.
But I didn't No one said medal of honor, no
one said this is awesome. They just said, you know,
it was a day, good work, let's go, let's go
get him.

Speaker 3 (01:16:59):
So wow, And I've read it, but nothing's like listen
to you say it.

Speaker 2 (01:17:09):
It was crazy. It was a crazy day.

Speaker 1 (01:17:10):
But honestly, it was a fight that taught me so
much about there's luck. Luck isn't supposed to be involved.
We're supposed to train, we're supposed to be ready, but
it's dumb luck.

Speaker 3 (01:17:22):
So but David, you had your fingers and a guy's
wound who you created, fighting for your life, hitting each
other with helmets and stuff, and you end up killing
him with a knife. What does that feel like?

Speaker 1 (01:17:45):
What was most disturbing to me is that it didn't
feel like anything. It didn't feel just it didn't feel
I felt I was trying to show mercy. I was
trying to rationalize him, which ioually. He didn't speak the
language I was trying to speak, which I was in Arabic.
I was saying it constantly. He spoke English to me,

(01:18:09):
I spoke broken Arabic.

Speaker 3 (01:18:10):
I mean you spoke to one another.

Speaker 1 (01:18:13):
There was a time, there was a time that they
were screaming at me when I was in that little room.
They called me a jew. They said they were gonna
cut my head off and my dog tags something sending
my dog tags home or and I was all I
knew was the basic Arabic, which was, you know, I'm

(01:18:33):
the first infantry, stop shoot, you know, like surrender, first infantry?

Speaker 2 (01:18:39):
Why had to move shot?

Speaker 1 (01:18:41):
You know, all the stuff that they were trained, But
they weren't speaking Arabic. But they were speaking a British
They had a British accent in their English, which was
even weirder. It was like being assaulted by the you know,
the BBC so for you know, like the Downtown Abbey
cast was joined l Kainda.

Speaker 2 (01:19:01):
It was weird.

Speaker 1 (01:19:02):
And then but upstairs I was just telling him to
basically stop. And you know what I could see from
that guy was that he was just like, you know,
you're not gonna stop.

Speaker 2 (01:19:16):
I'm not gonna stop.

Speaker 1 (01:19:17):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:19:18):
It was weird. It was weird.

Speaker 1 (01:19:21):
I didn't but I really thought that there'd be an
inventory where I'd be like, do you know what you
just did? And does that mean anything? And it was like,
if you think about it, you're not in the fight.

Speaker 2 (01:19:32):
And then you're you're.

Speaker 1 (01:19:34):
My executive officer got killed an hour two hours later,
and then we lost Madison, jac Madison, who's from Buffalo,
good awesome kid, and he you know, basically gave his
life for his you know, scouts, and and all of
this is happening and and and then more guys are
getting hit more and it's like, all right, look, you're

(01:19:55):
gonna have time to sit by a fire and talk
to a shrink. Work it out, you know, but not now.
But it's not the time. Now, now is the time
that are you sound?

Speaker 2 (01:20:06):
Are you good?

Speaker 1 (01:20:08):
Let's let's, you know, keep going at it.

Speaker 3 (01:20:13):
We'll be right back. So the world is this story
gets told because you happen to have this media guy

(01:20:36):
with you. And there's one living Medal of Honor recipient
from that war and it's you. And now we go
to the supporting greatness because what you just told me
is phenomenal. It's it's disturbing that human beings are ever

(01:21:05):
put in a position to have to do that. Yeah, it's.

Speaker 1 (01:21:12):
So so now I think about this though it because
this is the other piece of it is the other
piece of it is nobody knows this right, And I
don't necessarily want to tell anyone this because now I'm
in a position where I'm telling my guys, by the way,
this is, there's some horrible stuff. They don't need. They
need to focus on what's in front of them. What's

(01:21:35):
in front of them is actually getting more progressively chaotic
for them, So they don't need to be burdened with
my two am thoughts. They're tired, they're hungry. These guys
are throwing themselves in front of wounded guys protecting their
own dudes, you know, snipers and bombs, and everyone is

(01:21:55):
doing exactly what I didn't have the capable of doing.
By the way, I'm their age when I'm in my
house being afraid of a guy who and these guys
are saving the world. So they've already exceeded me as
far as where they're at. They've proven all they need
to prove. I need to focus on them. And then

(01:22:18):
this reporter who filmed it, and now it's it's a
story and it's in a Time magazine front page story
and everyone's reading this and so like this world is
happening outside of your bubble.

Speaker 2 (01:22:32):
No one said anything other than who wants it?

Speaker 1 (01:22:37):
This is the worst. I mean, no one wants to
be that. That's not something. Maybe some people love it.
This has been hell. Really it's not fun at all.
But everyone they're they're talking about good job. But it's
an at a boy, you caught a ball, you know whatever.
Now this video in this world live amongst itself. And

(01:22:59):
then you find out that you're nominated for something but
you don't get it. And in the Army, if you're
nominated for Medal of honor. You don't get like a
you know, you don't end up with a trip to
Jamaica if you don't.

Speaker 2 (01:23:11):
Get the consolation.

Speaker 3 (01:23:14):
Yeah, you don't get like you know, that's he didn't
he gets Johnny Fers there was a wonderful air fryer.

Speaker 1 (01:23:21):
You know, like, there's no there's no secondary. So they
say you're nominated, and now the Army wants to make
a big deal. Commanders love you know, that's one of theirs,
that you're their kid, and it just doesn't happen. So
now there's this thought process of, well, maybe that's a
BS story, Maybe you made that crap up.

Speaker 2 (01:23:45):
Maybe it didn't happen the way you said.

Speaker 3 (01:23:47):
It happened, because you know, now you're dealing with that.

Speaker 1 (01:23:50):
So now it's like, wait a second, you know, now
I got to prove what. So there's a tape out there.
Everything was just a written narrative, but Michael ware had
a camera, so Michael wears camera, which I don't even
know existed until years after. But there's a bit of
scar tissue that builds where you're just like, you know,

(01:24:12):
what's screws? Okay, fine, I didn't get the award. I'm
fine with it. I'm sure you know at some point
it would have been awesome. I'm totally changing by I've
got kids, I've got a job, I'm doing my thing.
I'm at the point where no one knows about my
army life. No one's Veterans Day comes along and you're happy,

(01:24:36):
loving it. No one's it used to be Veterans Day.
Let's go to the guy nominated for the Medal of Honor.
Let's go to the guy with the silver star. Let's
go to the guy with the bron Let's go to
the guy we know about in Time magazine. Those days
are done fifteen years going on. So now it's like
happy Veterans Day. I'm like, well, yeah, but it's not

(01:24:57):
directed to me. It's directed at the other guy that
where camouflage and low crawls to the coffee sheet.

Speaker 2 (01:25:02):
You're that guy.

Speaker 1 (01:25:03):
He wants everyone to know he's a Vet. He's got
his you know, Airborne wings on his car, and he's
not appy. I'm not I'm staying low. If you know
about it, you know about the book, that's it. That's it.
And at that point the book was fifteen years old too,
so everything's cool. Then this phone call comes and it's like,
this is all happening, and I'm thinking, well, maybe it's

(01:25:27):
not really happening. Maybe there's a way to do this
on the download. Maybe you can say no, maybe you
can say I don't need it, I'm good, thanks, give
it to someone else. And when that news broke and
I had like a guy at work that was like,
you're not gonna believe this. There's a guy with your
name get the Metal of gn But he was like,

(01:25:48):
you can't be you. You're the you're the guy that
is on my fantasy football league. You're not that guy.
You're not ever talking about. You don't have any tattoos,
you can't be that guy. You don't dip anymore, you know,
you know, you don't spin in a cup, and you're
not that guy. And so I was like, that's over.

(01:26:09):
That's let's do other things, you know, And it became
a parent that not only is it not over, but
now being the only living guy now it's like, was
a wrack the right war, let's discuss here to join it.

Speaker 3 (01:26:23):
But all the Iraq guys I've talked to, they didn't
even care if it was the right war or not.
It was they were there. They were there because they
were asked to go or they were ordered to go there,
and they were fighting alongside the men that they loved.
And the politics of it when you're I imagine, when

(01:26:46):
you're in a stinky, water filled house full of pro
paane tanks and blood's going everywhere, and you're shoving your
fingers in wounds of a man who's trying to kill
you and you're having to literally fight him hand to hand,
you're not thinking or do you care at all about
the politics.

Speaker 1 (01:27:04):
I didn't care about the politics to begin with, That's
what I mean. But it's like this, you know, Afghan
I'm pro army, I'm pro America, and I want to
win our wars. If you don't want to, if you
don't want us to fight your war, don't vote to
send us to fight. I mean, it's that simple. Don't
send us to wards you don't expect us to win. Yeah,
and you've got to win a war.

Speaker 2 (01:27:25):
It's going to get ugly.

Speaker 1 (01:27:26):
So make sure that your va is ready, make sure
your home front's ready, make sure you have enough bullets,
and make sure that it's not a political soccer ball.
But I talk to people all the time. They get
all pussy with me. But I say, you know, if
draft Kings had a probability right now of who's more
likely to host the Summer Olympic Games, Baghdad or Kabul.

Speaker 2 (01:27:44):
It's Baghdad.

Speaker 1 (01:27:46):
So I mean, you can say all you want about
you know, Iraq was the bad war, and those veterans
got news for you. Iraq's on lockdown. Iraq doesn't have
Iranian puppets anymore. Iraq isn't you know, they're dinar is
strong and their oil is being sold and they don't
have suicide bombs going off. The Taliban still lopping heads

(01:28:07):
off and you know, treating women like garbage. So I mean,
let's be honest. The good war got screwed up by
politicians that screw up wars. Our military. You let us
hooking jab and break that chain and let us go
at them. We're gonna keep America safe and we're gonna
stack bad guys up. But you get your politics in there,
and it's what everything else is. It's the story of Vietnam.

(01:28:28):
We haven't learned any talk to Vietnam vet What battle
was lost in Vietnam? Zero, not a single.

Speaker 2 (01:28:36):
Firefight when you ever actually were able to go fight,
a fire in a.

Speaker 1 (01:28:41):
Serious incident report, In an engagement where Americans were firing
against North Korean or North or viet Cong, not a
single battle was lost. IA drag outnumbered by four divisions
to our two battalions won that fight, outnumbered out gunn SF,
special warfare, you name it. We won every battle in

(01:29:04):
the Vietna. You go to my kid is in history
class and he's learned about the test Tet defensive and
you know, my kid, He'll be like, well, we lost
the Tet offensive. I'm like, who's your teacher, who's your teacher?
What are you talking about? We did not lose the
Tet offensive. They did a surprise attack. Did we lose
the Battle of the Bulge? Is that the argument that we.

Speaker 2 (01:29:25):
Lost the battle?

Speaker 1 (01:29:26):
What are you talking about? I mean, these are not accurate.
We're totally insane. So yeah, the narrative is going to
get twisted. History and politics are going to get in
the way. But those are Iraq war veterans. Every time
you see a guy with a hat on, you have
no idea what they've been through, you have no idea
what they've done, and you know what you want those
veterans in your community you want them coaching your kids

(01:29:49):
sports teams.

Speaker 2 (01:29:50):
You want them teaching, you want them as your next
door neighbor.

Speaker 1 (01:29:53):
They're not broken, they're not discarded, they're not you know,
putting shotguns in their mouth every day. They're dominating the
world because unfortunately, we don't even have beta males anymore.
We've gone Charlie to Delta. You know, we're far beyond
beta males. We need men and women that can handle adversity,

(01:30:15):
handle stress. And those men and women that are coming
home from our military are those men and women who
are going to be leaders in our society. And it
annoys me when we victimize veterans like, oh, I'm so
sorry you had to endure that, so am I, but
it happened. How many people cor accidents, disease, they've been

(01:30:37):
abused when their kids they had no choice this this happened.
Are we victimized by that for life? Or do we
use that and say, look, this is what happened, this
is what I'm capable of. Now I'm gonna flank this
issue and be better for it, stronger for it, ready
for it never happened again, and proactive so it doesn't
happen to other people. That's the lesson of that trauma.

(01:31:00):
You're supposed to empower, be empowered by it.

Speaker 2 (01:31:03):
I hope.

Speaker 3 (01:31:06):
We'll be right back. So now we transition to the
supporting greatness part of this, Yeah, which is I mean

(01:31:29):
almost nobody listening to this. I guess there's veterans listen
to this that can probably identify with the story, but
the vast majority of people can identify with it. And
the reason I wanted to tell you to tell it
is because you are the only living Medal of Honor
recipient and it's I mean, I don't know the difference

(01:31:49):
in deserving or not deserving, but I would say that's
very deserving. It's certainly inspirational. But what I want to
hear is what's that you have you ever seen one? Yeah,
that's pretty phenomenal that people, how many folks, how many
folks would never put this in front of mine because

(01:32:14):
I didn't earn that, but that is unbelievable.

Speaker 2 (01:32:19):
It's funny.

Speaker 1 (01:32:19):
You wear that some places and they're like, that's the
Medal of Honor and then you go to l A
and they're like, what's that of? Like I bowled a
three hundred, I sold so more magazines than anyone in
my youth group.

Speaker 3 (01:32:37):
And I got that says it says I wish people
could see. It says Valor under the Eagle. And there's
an inscription around the medallion. It says United States of America.
And I assume that is that Lady Liberty.

Speaker 1 (01:32:56):
No, No, that's that's our little Angel of a Fight.
That's a Lincoln version that he designed in eighteen sixty
three for the Civil War. That's the first time that
that's the Army's medal of honor. The Navy's is different,
the Air Force is different. But on the back of
it is the legitimate one that's got all the writing
on it the recipients have. So that's your name, the

(01:33:19):
date it happened, the area it happened, and the unit
that you were with.

Speaker 2 (01:33:23):
Back it all up.

Speaker 1 (01:33:24):
But but the Army has their version, the Navy's got theirs,
you got the Air Force, and I'm sure Space Force
is going to have one.

Speaker 2 (01:33:32):
You know it's going to happen.

Speaker 3 (01:33:35):
I want the next person to interview is the person
in the Space Force Coast House house, because at that
point we've discovered it's a bad days. You're fighting folks
with tentacles.

Speaker 1 (01:33:48):
Space force. Space force is like Bigfoot. I hear story
that they're out there.

Speaker 2 (01:33:53):
I've never met a person in it.

Speaker 3 (01:33:55):
But all right, So here's the deal in supporting yours David,
certainly your grandfather absolutely to you. Yeah, your father supported
your greatness by basically your shame.

Speaker 2 (01:34:15):
Well that's I think.

Speaker 1 (01:34:17):
No, No, I'm not at all the person I am
Without my dad.

Speaker 2 (01:34:21):
He was every example of.

Speaker 1 (01:34:25):
So I lost him in twenty seventeen to cancer and
one of the well, hey, listen, the world is uh,
you know, they lost a wonderful man.

Speaker 2 (01:34:34):
The thing about my dad, I saw valor.

Speaker 1 (01:34:37):
If you were to talk to me about valor, it's
you know, it's a fireman, it's a cop, it's a
teacher in a school shooting, it's a soldier, you know,
kinetically going against danger and fear.

Speaker 2 (01:34:48):
I saw, you know, when you fight disease at the end.

Speaker 1 (01:34:52):
That's the one of the bravest things I've ever seen
in my life, with my dad accepting reality and saying
I have nothing but faith and I'm not afraid. I
never looked for valor and anything other than fireman, cops,
soldiers and people you know that deal with violence.

Speaker 2 (01:35:15):
Violence is what where we get valor.

Speaker 1 (01:35:17):
That's what I thought. And then I met people at
hospice and people fighting disease and all the different problems
in the world, divorce, heartache, you name it. People show
that every single day.

Speaker 2 (01:35:31):
It's uh.

Speaker 1 (01:35:32):
It really taught me a lot of lessons. But my
dad was definitely there. My grandfather is still alive. He's
one hundred and three, which is insane, insane. The Nazis
couldn't kill him, and neither could you know the people
at Olive Garden because he's definitely.

Speaker 2 (01:35:48):
There's a weight.

Speaker 3 (01:35:49):
And if you had breadsticks, if you had one word, yeah,
and you're only allowed one, even if it's hyphenated. We'll
let you allow that. What do you take from your grandfather?

Speaker 1 (01:36:03):
Steady dad, unflappable.

Speaker 3 (01:36:10):
Okay, So I've read where you are more than humble
when talking about this thing, and you're always trying to
talk about how countless other people that served with you
and around you had as much bravery, if not more
than you, and would have done the same thing. And

(01:36:31):
you you talk with such honor and respecting your voice
when you talk about the Ramrods. Tell me some other
names you've met, You've you've you've evoked Fitch. Uh Fitch
fits fits fits fits right, who is also in the book.

(01:36:56):
So give me, uh, give me the story of a
few of these Ramrods. First, who are the Ramrods? And
then give me the story of some other people that
you feel like your greatness would have never happened had
it not been for them.

Speaker 1 (01:37:16):
I mean that's yeah. So two two Infantry is the
Rambros Second regiment.

Speaker 4 (01:37:20):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:37:20):
In fact, I just you know, went to the the
Civil Rights Museum and they've got a class here in Memphis.
Here in Memphis, there's a class A jacket in there
from a Vietnam stud and he's a two to two
infantry ram Rod. First idea. Yeah, it's pretty cool, Broadstar
of Valor. So our unit is the first infantan division
obviously was the first for a reason. We're started off

(01:37:41):
by Alexander hamp Is that the Big Red One, Big
Red One?

Speaker 2 (01:37:45):
Yeah, that's the movie.

Speaker 1 (01:37:47):
Well, the movie has Luke Skywalker in it, a young
Mark Hamill is in it, and a very old squad leader.

Speaker 2 (01:37:56):
The Big Red One. Oh yeah I know that class.

Speaker 3 (01:37:59):
No, I just the big Red One is the big
red one that's on your uniform?

Speaker 1 (01:38:04):
Yeah, no, no, it's the Yeah, the Big Red One
is a unit that really cut its teeth in World
War One.

Speaker 2 (01:38:10):
Got Big Red One?

Speaker 3 (01:38:11):
Got it?

Speaker 1 (01:38:11):
So are those de ramrods or no ram rods are
so the ram rods were just attached to the Big
Red One?

Speaker 3 (01:38:17):
Got it?

Speaker 1 (01:38:18):
And we went through Vietnam together. Vietnam is where two
to infantry in the first id really really showed a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:38:25):
There's the Big Red One. Yeah, to explain what's going
on here, guys, we're looking at a picture together and
commenting on it. This episode was a little bit out
of the ordinary because David was such a special guest
to us. We we actually filmed it at the Memphis
Grizzly studio at the Fedeck's Forum, and while we were filming,

(01:38:46):
we got to look at some visuals on a screen there.
Make sure to check out our social media at the
handle at Army of Normal Folks to see some of
the cool video clips from this episode.

Speaker 1 (01:38:57):
You know, that's funny that guy walking away from us.
He's not a part of our unit. He's just in
the division. We don't know him, but he was an
engineer who we found. This building next to that building
is full of I'm not gonna exaggerate and say two
hundred thousand land mines. And this guy was wiring it
with a radio and he was like, they're gonna detonate it,

(01:39:20):
and right as that photo was taken a second afterwards,
he just was like five four and just started running
out of the building. And I'm like, dude, your whole
job was to tell us when was this gonna have
And so that look of me that's nap on the
right and fits over there is We're standing there waiting
for this to detonate. And when they blew it that

(01:39:44):
all those walls came down, the ones around. I mean,
it was that that entire building was just subsumed with smoke.
And that guy literally was just like he was like
he started counting down and he ran and everyone he
was like, what is it? What's going on here? And
he just slowly walked out. We were all in that
room and boom. But that's a funny show. I'll never

(01:40:06):
forget that Nap on the right was my team leader,
and he was he was that stud in sports.

Speaker 2 (01:40:14):
In high school.

Speaker 1 (01:40:15):
He was so I'm out of college and these guys
are all right out of high school. So there's a
good age Gap, I'm their sergeant. But it's it's definitely plus.
It's ten years, ten plus years in time. Normally your
squad leader is about five years older than you. So
I was like doubling that. But Nap was the guy

(01:40:36):
that was so cocky and he was such a stud
and he was so good that they always put him
in the other squads because they were making him, getting
him ready to be a squad leader. So I always
I loved him and I respected him, but I was
always annoyed by just the swagger of this kid. But
when we were going to Fallujah, They're like, I'm like,

(01:40:58):
can I pick who I'm if I'm going, I want
my guys. Can I pick my guys? They're like, you
can have whoever you want. I'm like, just give me Nap.

Speaker 2 (01:41:06):
I could.

Speaker 1 (01:41:07):
I'll clear that city with him. If you let me
have Nap for one fight, I'm gonna will turn him
into Automurphy. Trust me. And Nap was everything is advertising.
He is working, it's got a great job, awesome families
out in Missouri. He's got a daughter with cisteric fibrosis,

(01:41:30):
and what he showed me a daughter of three girls.
I mean everything he's done in the army. I could
write two books on Nap of what he's done for America.
But what he showed me as a dad and as
a man in that hospital room. All the work doesn't
give you sickly for your kid. He takes vacation, He

(01:41:53):
goes when there's a hurricane and puts those power lines
back up.

Speaker 2 (01:41:57):
That's I'm telling you.

Speaker 1 (01:42:00):
You want to judge a soldier by his awards, That's
not what you judge me by what my subordinates are doing.
Because if you're not eclipsed, you're not a leader.

Speaker 3 (01:42:10):
That's funny. One of my biggest sayings is the greatest
measure of the success of the leaders the actions of
the followers.

Speaker 1 (01:42:17):
Amen, a leader is replaced. And I'm telling you, I
got a soldier, John Ruiz. John Ruiz is a guy
who if you were to tell me so, John Ruiz
was the soldier I had from Kosovo and we were
stationed in Germany. That was our home was in Germany,
and Kosovo was our first deployment. We did a rack

(01:42:39):
from Kosovo. I've had the guy had the longest. I
got him straight off the bus. My job in my
battalion was I would hang out with my Alpha company,
and I was I was a scout and I'd see
these guys walking off the bus and I'd see like
a broad, just a yoked out kid from like Oklahoma,
drinks like goat milk.

Speaker 3 (01:43:00):
You want him?

Speaker 1 (01:43:01):
I want that.

Speaker 2 (01:43:01):
I want that kid right there.

Speaker 1 (01:43:03):
Some dudes like, yeah, I'm from south central Los Angeles
and he's like field dressed at ak. I'm like, I
want that dude. I want that guy, you know what
I mean. I could tell the guys that were like,
why do you join the army like I don't know.
I beat my principal with a tire iron. I'm like,
I can work with him, you know, I whatever. Whatever
they come off the bus. But occasionally the big strong

(01:43:26):
stud would go a wall. The big tough kid from
South Central would be like, I don't want to go
to war. And then you're like that one hundred and
twenty pound nerd from Kansas. I remember this kid from Kansas.
We had this kid, Herman, amazing soldier, good kid. But
every time we go on a road march, he's like,
we don't have hills in Kansas. I can't walk up hills.

(01:43:50):
I have no ability. And I'll tell you what. Once
he learned how to walk up a hill, that kid
was right. I mean, he was his soldier. That's the
guy I want. I want herman, I want this guy.
But they'd always these little issues that all the other
scouts from the other platoons would be like, I don't
want him, I don't want them. I'm like, I know
what to look for. I know what to look for

(01:44:11):
if you if you're carrying a book in the infantry.
I want that guy. He's got a book, but it's
not a paperweight.

Speaker 2 (01:44:18):
He reads, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:44:20):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:44:21):
I was impressed. I could I could judge him pretty good.

Speaker 1 (01:44:24):
Nap. Obviously, I didn't get to pick I didn't pick him,
but he was chosen for Uce. But I picked John Ruiz,
and I could just tell John Ruise. You asked John
Ruiz what he is. He doesn't know what he is.
I love that. He's like I could be Cherokee or
Mexican or scotch Irish. I'm not really, I'm like, you
know what, that's my dude. Right. He was a wiry
and could run for days. His endurance was like unbelievable.

Speaker 2 (01:44:49):
He was a stud.

Speaker 1 (01:44:51):
But man, he just had a way of looking at
every situation, always with never too excited, never too depressed,
bring it on. And now he's working for like the
Space program. And if you would have told me that
we're gonna land on Mars because of John Ruiz, I
would have lost my house. I would have lost my

(01:45:11):
four oh one k. That kid is a brainiac and
he's got incredible discipline and he's such an incredible man,
and he's a father and he's a husband and I'm
but he's also a guy who shot like twelve eighty
four millimeters rockets when you're only supposed to do two
in a lifetime. He shot them reflectively.

Speaker 2 (01:45:32):
He can.

Speaker 1 (01:45:33):
They would shoot RPGs at us, and they were loud.
Because they're so loud they rattle your brain and and
and and they're like, look, they just shot a rocket
us to scare us. It's loud and it has no
sense of direction. I'll tell you what. We've got our
own rocket. It's also loud and there's no sense of direction.
Shoot that flaming pencil. And then, dude, if we got

(01:45:55):
hit with contact, I'd be like Ruiz and he'd be like,
you're like, yeah, it would break contact. No one would
want to fight with the eighty four was fired, So
we fired him all that. Every time we got shot
at there was Rui's with an eighty four millimeter and
he was accurate and he was killing people with it.
But it was just he shot too many of them

(01:46:16):
blasted his hearing. But man, he is in science now
working with lasers. He just did that fusion project where
we replicated like my start. He's a part of a
project that created fusion. And I'm like, this guy couldn't
get a Cydeburns even like you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:46:36):
But I have nothing to do with that.

Speaker 1 (01:46:37):
That's not me, that's him, that's him, and that's that's
what my guys were about. I got him to a
part where I played my role and they took that
and they added seven pieces to it. And now they
are who they are because of who they are, and
I just had the fortunate to uh spend time with them.

Speaker 3 (01:47:02):
We'll be right back. We now returned to David on
another Ramrod who supported him. Fits Fitz is just I mean,

(01:47:25):
I tell tell us who Fits was. Fitz was.

Speaker 2 (01:47:28):
He was a stab. He was the same.

Speaker 1 (01:47:30):
Fitz's thing was, this is a guy who's one hundred
if he's one hundred and forty pounds, that might be
given him extra weight. Maybe he got up to one
forty five, five foot nine five from no one knows
Mississippi right, and literally would just won't talk. He just

(01:47:51):
he would spit his tobacco juice. And all he wanted
to do was he was army life. He was tactically.
He would study his field manuals. He knew everything, but
his whole thing was his kids were his kids. N
c o s were n c o's. If you were
an officer and you tried to correct starn Fitch, you
better know what you were talking about, because if you didn't,

(01:48:13):
he would emasculate you. That he was the king of emasculation.
And if anyone started anything his own soldier, an officer,
a person from another unit, he would knock. He would
fight anyone at any given time. So this guy would
go from six to E four five six eve seven

(01:48:33):
E five His D two FOURT is you're going through
O many ranks. He's bounced everywhere, always gets his rank back.
But he's just basically he suffers no fool, no fool.
And there was this giant dude that came into our
tent once we're training in Germany and this guy had

(01:48:54):
like tattoos everywhere, just yoked out, you know, you probably
might want to check his urine and uh. And he
comes into the tent and he just starts talking and
Fitz is like, hey man, but that he had like
a ross parrot. John Wayne fused the accent and be like,
hey man, I want to I'm gonna tell you one time.

Speaker 2 (01:49:13):
Shut your face. I'm gonna tell you show you.

Speaker 1 (01:49:16):
And this guy was like. This guy's like, who, what
are you gonna do by He's like, I'm gonna take
that E tool. I'm gonna assemble a shovel.

Speaker 2 (01:49:23):
The little fold ofle shovels, the excavation tool.

Speaker 1 (01:49:27):
He's like, I'm gonna assemble that E tool in front
of you and then I'm gonna lop an ear off
your head. And like everyone was like, is this a joke?
And it's like, no, it's not a joke. Fitz will
hit you in the hand with an E tool. He will,
and he has no fear and and is it's one
thing to act that way, it's another thing when you're

(01:49:47):
in a fight.

Speaker 2 (01:49:47):
Are you that way?

Speaker 1 (01:49:49):
That man is like that every day of his life.
He will and does anyone like him. You know, that's
a tough personality. It's a tough personality.

Speaker 3 (01:50:01):
It's an acquired taste.

Speaker 1 (01:50:02):
It's an acquired taste. But I'll tell you what.

Speaker 2 (01:50:04):
That's loyalty driven.

Speaker 1 (01:50:06):
And that guy will literally and and when he got
shot three times a month into a rack that is,
you're supposed to sit on your farm and collect a
tax free paycheck for the rest of your life. And
he came back from Walter Reed, he did whatever he
had to do to pass a PT test. That guy
wasn't walking right. He was in pain every single day

(01:50:29):
every time those bullets got fired. He knew what it
felt like when it impacted his bones and his flesh.
And he was there every step of the way. I
I mean, I don't know what they are doing out
there in Mississippi if they're all like that. But that's
one that's a that's an American patriot, that's a stud.
He's a bravest guy ever I met. And and he's

(01:50:49):
he's fine. He's still pissy and he's still you know,
I mean, he drinks, he has his beer.

Speaker 2 (01:50:55):
He likes his beer.

Speaker 1 (01:50:56):
He's got a beautiful family, a wonderful wife. He's live
in his life and you're not going to change it.
You're not going to change any of it.

Speaker 3 (01:51:04):
And and we should sleep better at night. No one
fits the.

Speaker 1 (01:51:08):
Wall unless he's you're on his property, you're not sleeping
at all, or you might be asleeping forever.

Speaker 2 (01:51:15):
No, he's he's awesome. Yes we are. We're a better
country for having men like him.

Speaker 3 (01:51:19):
Tell me, tell me about the uh, the other gentleman
North Mississippi.

Speaker 2 (01:51:25):
Who do we got North?

Speaker 1 (01:51:27):
The beer guy? Okay, so he just he showed up
to so he doesn't leave Mississippi. He's comfortable, he's happy,
and so now this whole thing is happening, and he's like,
I don't want to go back there. I don't want
to go to a raq. I don't want to I
don't want to put my mind back there. I was
asking a lot of these guys. I was going on

(01:51:49):
this little trip. You're supposed to bring two guests to
the Medal of Honor. I want to bring them all.
I want to put them all on the stage. But
I also realized that I was asking him to go
back to said maybe they didn't want to go, and
that was that was very selfless of them to want
to do that.

Speaker 3 (01:52:07):
Memories and thoughts and friends having died, and pain that
they somehow figured out a way to move on from
and live the life of. And so even though this
award for you and their support, Without their support, this
ward would have never happened.

Speaker 2 (01:52:26):
Absolutely, that is their award.

Speaker 3 (01:52:29):
But asking them to come back means maybe scratching open
some old scars.

Speaker 1 (01:52:34):
And so now the baby of the fallen soldier that
gutted you and ripped your heart out because you lost them,
And you think, well, if I zigged and zagged, would
that have changed?

Speaker 2 (01:52:46):
Well, yeah, it would have.

Speaker 1 (01:52:47):
I mean you could everyone said, oh you can't, say
no you can and a fire for you can. I'm
you make a decision and you go on the wrong
side of the fight, and and this guy went on
the other side, and you're like, that was not my plan.

Speaker 2 (01:53:02):
I screwed that up.

Speaker 1 (01:53:02):
And those three guys are dead because I screwed You
could literally say that's what happened. That baby and that widow.
You're not ever gonna see him again anyway in the army.
You're gonna PCs go to a different station, get deployed again.
Death isn't real. You die, we put you in a bag.
We lie and say that they're fine. You don't get

(01:53:24):
any call from home to tell you otherwise. But we're
all telling stories of Oh, he's great, he's just got
a surgery, it's gonna be all right, everything's gonna be fine.

Speaker 2 (01:53:33):
Let's focus on this.

Speaker 1 (01:53:34):
And you don't go to the memorial, you don't go
to the cemetery, you don't see the taps played, you.

Speaker 2 (01:53:40):
Don't do any of that.

Speaker 1 (01:53:41):
You're fighting, and you're fighting until it's over. When it's over,
you have a choice to make. Do I just keep
living in this Oh that guy's still there. I'm just
not gonna call him because I don't call anyone. I'm
living my life. Or do I have to face the
reality that he's gone. Those men that chowse to make
that decision of I'm just gonna live my life and

(01:54:01):
put this behind me, they were all forced to see
that that little baby is now seventeen.

Speaker 2 (01:54:08):
Without a dad.

Speaker 1 (01:54:09):
Now now you have to do the inventory you didn't
do with my life, that this guy gave his life
for mine. Did I live up to the expectations of
what I would want someone that I gave my life
for them.

Speaker 2 (01:54:25):
Am I the man I should be?

Speaker 1 (01:54:27):
As I look at this kid, I'm now telling him
about his dad for the first time, knowing full well,
we all promised ourselves we were going to visit the families.
We're gonna sit those babies down, We're gonna go to
their football game, We're gonna go to their prom We
didn't do it. We didn't do it because we had
our own kids, had our own life, and it sucked,
it hurt, and we didn't want to face it. So

(01:54:48):
now you're forcing these men to go right back there
and address all the things we all promised, all to celebrate,
all to celebrate something no one wants to celebrate. And so,
and you know, Fitch shows up to the Pentagon and
I dragged him out there. He didn't want to do it,
and so he's like, listen, I'm not changing anything about me.

(01:55:09):
I'm not changing anything about me. You can't change me.
You're not going to change me. I said, put a
suit on. He looked like, you know, he had the beard,
and he looked like an attorney, which was fighting. But
he carried around this cooler and I'm like, is that
are you doing an organ delivery? Like, what do you
got it? Why are you walking around with a cooler
of ice?

Speaker 2 (01:55:28):
What's in it?

Speaker 1 (01:55:29):
And he this is, you know, before the uh he
was a bud light guy before the controversy, and he
loved his beer and he drank his beard.

Speaker 2 (01:55:36):
He was going to carry his beer everywhere. And so
we we go through the.

Speaker 1 (01:55:40):
Pedagon security and the alarm goes off and they're like,
what do you have in your pockets?

Speaker 2 (01:55:46):
He's like, just beer, and they're like you can't. You
can't bring beer to the Pentagon. But this guy was
so smart that.

Speaker 1 (01:55:53):
He knew that he had like throwaway beers. He gave
them the throwaway beers while the other beers were in
his pocket, right, and he's like, I'm with the Medal
of Honor recipient. I got the Chief of Staff of
the Army, General Million Trump is gonna be here in
a second, like shut up and sit down. And so
they they're like, dude, like he literally he gave them

(01:56:14):
the throwaway beers where they're like, don't do that again.
And then he had like like two others in his
back pocket and just kind of weasel his way out
and he's like, yeah, I kept the beer and and
He also he also was like, I'm now back where
I never thought i'd ever be. I'm in this uniform
I never wore my lifetime that. They're just like and
they cardboard that uniform, like they stick cardboard behind it

(01:56:36):
so it just looks perfect. And they're like, go throw
out the first pitch against the Yankees and Mets.

Speaker 2 (01:56:40):
And I'm like, I'm like the tid man.

Speaker 1 (01:56:42):
I can't even I can't even move. I'm gonna look
like Obama up here.

Speaker 2 (01:56:47):
They're like, I can't throw this like a normal So uh.

Speaker 1 (01:56:51):
They we get out there and and fits is like, listen,
we're right back to where we wanted to be. Uh.
No one asked for this, but we're here. So what
did you need in the day? You need Copenhagen. I
got Copenhagen shortcut just for you, and I want you
to put this in your lip, and we're gonna do
it together. So I put a chaw in there, and

(01:57:12):
I'm like, I mean it, Yeah, I'm done. But I
I got like, you know, anyone who dips for a
long time, you got that little crater and it's a
lonely little crater when you quit, but it's.

Speaker 2 (01:57:22):
Still a hole.

Speaker 1 (01:57:23):
In your face, and and that Copenhagen goes back into
its little sleep area and I'm just like, oh, it's
just a life is so much better. And I'm like,
what's going on? And that that taste and it's like
you want And then I'm like, oh, I gotta spit.
You know, I'm in the White House. I gotta find it.
And so everyone gets ushered out and the President shows

(01:57:44):
up and he's like, what do you What do you.

Speaker 2 (01:57:46):
Have in your mouth?

Speaker 1 (01:57:47):
And I was like, oh, I got a I got
a tobacco product in there, and I don't even know
what to tell you, but I am. He's like, well,
it's too late. They're playing Hail and the Chief. We're
gonna go out and do this thing. And so every
time I look at a photo, I'll do an interview
with someone and they'll be like, you know, I look
at that and I just see so much emotion. You
look like you look like there it is right there.

(01:58:10):
That is a guy that has a small kittens worth
of tobacco juice trickling down a esophagus and he's trying
not to vomit because I'm swallowing bits and bits and bits,
and they're like, you know, you're not only the first
and only living Medal of Honor recipient from Iraq, you're
also the first idiot to do that with a full
shaw in his mouth trying to displace it. And it

(01:58:34):
was the word yeah right there there it is under
the look I'm sick. I look at my face. I
looked with jaundice. I love a just crawled. I am
so sick from all of that.

Speaker 5 (01:58:44):
That's uh.

Speaker 1 (01:58:44):
Ed Bayer's Navy Seal. By the way, you see the
difference in the Metal of Honor. He's got the Navy one. Yeah,
that's like the Cowboys logo. They made it, you know,
the Navy insecure. They made it big and bold. He's
a Navy Seal. His story is incredible. Uh, you know,
just took out a bunch of ices guys that were
kidnapping Americans. But Ed Buyer's I'll look at him and

(01:59:07):
let me tell you another thing. That photo right, So
he's got his cook whites. Navy Seals. Navy Seals are
they're like the uh they're the division one quarterback going
first round. They are. Yeah, I mean even but they're
told it's like it's like you see you watch top
gun and you're like, Tom Cruise is like five foot

(01:59:29):
two and he's got his little aviators. That's exactly what
pilots are. They're like jockeys. They're five foot two, little butts.
They got little butts, they got little pants on, giant aviators,
and they're just the cockiest dudes. Would they play volleyball shirtless?
They do? And they are right now somewhere in America.
There's a shirtless group of pilots playing volleyball. That's what

(01:59:50):
they do, right. They're very confident, and God, we want
confident pilots. We want our Navy Seals are the most
confident boys in the universe.

Speaker 2 (01:59:59):
And they know it. They and so they're cook whites,
their uniform perfect.

Speaker 1 (02:00:04):
Right. I'm in a jilt. We're doing this thing for
the in July and it's a down pour in Washington, DC,
and I got my brand new uniform I've never worn
and it's just soaking up rainwater and ed Byers has
got his cook whites and he looks over and he's like,
I still look better than you and these cook whites,
and I'm like, you're right, you do. You look amazing.
But my dress blues because they're new are just oozing

(02:00:27):
out blue Die Die, and it sucks onto his cook whites.
It starts to spread all throughout his brand new uniform,
destroyed his cook whites. And I was like, you know,
at the end of the day, I've destroyed your uniform.
That's what I feel good about. Ed byers a great guy.
Those seals are awesome. But yeah, that's him, and he's

(02:00:49):
a stud and it's it's an honor to be associated
with guys like that.

Speaker 3 (02:00:54):
All right, So supporting greatness God, I mean all those
guys that served under you are are part of it.
Tell me about Doug Walter.

Speaker 1 (02:01:08):
Oh, man, I that's if I was going to put
a non If there's a man in my life that
has impacted me just in humanity and just the decency,
Doug Walter is that guy. So Doug Walter is my
commander in or in Germany and we go to Kosovo

(02:01:30):
and he gets like this alternative colitis. You ever heard
of this?

Speaker 3 (02:01:34):
No, it's like the word.

Speaker 1 (02:01:36):
It's just like your body rejects food and you start
getting super sick. And he's going through all this stuff
and it's got to change his diet. But he literally
goes from like he's a West Point Ranger Baseball team
Division one second baseman PTI stud I mean, and the
bald head. You know, they got like the little Jesse

(02:01:57):
Ventura bunch, you know what I mean. Like those guys
just like built in a garage, you know, like testosterone
two hundred parts.

Speaker 2 (02:02:05):
You know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (02:02:06):
Like they made him, they made him to be like
an alpha dude. And he now is like one hundred
and eighty pounds and the stud to like one hundred
and twenty loses everything and just looks like he's got
he's dying. And we get ready to leave that day
for a rack and a formation in the winner of

(02:02:26):
you know, Bavaria in Germany, and he's like, I can't go.
I'm not healthy enough. But my best friend is gonna
go in my place. Sean Simms. He's our commander. Sean
Simms is killed in Fallujah about two days after a
day after my fight. Sean Simms, same thing I'm doing.

(02:02:47):
He wants to lead from the front. He goes into
a house and the house wins and he loses. He's
a captain's he knows what he's doing. He got unlucky
where I got lucky.

Speaker 2 (02:03:00):
Same story.

Speaker 1 (02:03:01):
He dies, He's got a wife and a little boy
at home. Captain Walter is our commander that gave up
that command for his best friend. His best friends killed.
Walter comes in that day that that photo of nap
and fits in some random guy. That was the day
Walter came back to us. And Walter, they flew him

(02:03:25):
into Fallujah and he took over the company that he
led with absolutely yeah, he did it because I can't
say enough about him and and and this and his fight,
his he was these officers, the West Point guys, cerebral
and Connecticut at the same time, but the decency and

(02:03:46):
Captain Walter, he loved us like we were.

Speaker 2 (02:03:52):
You know, his family.

Speaker 1 (02:03:53):
And and I never as a as a young guy,
I don't I couldn't say that to another man. I
couldn't say that I loved a guy. It was always weird.
You're in the army, You're not like by the way,
you might want to be warned of the people that
look gloggle your eyes and tell you I love you.

Speaker 2 (02:04:11):
It was weird.

Speaker 1 (02:04:12):
Today as a middle aged man, I could I could tell.
I could say that because I mean it and I
care about them. And now we're old and We're being
honest with our feelings and how we feel, and we do.
We care about each other a lot. I think that's
the building block of valor is love. I don't think

(02:04:32):
you can do something for someone else unless that's the
ultimate way to love someone.

Speaker 3 (02:04:38):
So I'm gonna group all of these guys collectively as
the Ramrods. So if your grandfather is study and your
dad is unflappable, what are the ram Rods in supporting you?

Speaker 1 (02:04:53):
What?

Speaker 3 (02:04:53):
What tenant from them supported you?

Speaker 1 (02:05:00):
I mean they I always think of that relationship of
just the accountability. They force you every day to be accountable.
You can't words. Anything that comes out of your mouth
has to automatically that check is automatically withdrawn from that

(02:05:25):
account the minute you say it. Every aspect of who
you are and what you do, that trust is earned
and it means something. And that honor, that integrity, that character,
that all is what keeps me going. And there's been
a lot of things. You know, this award, everyone talks
about the good. There's a lot of crazy that comes

(02:05:47):
with it, they believe it or not. We're a divided
country today.

Speaker 3 (02:05:50):
Did you know how that you know I was slightly
aware of it. And that's only one of the reasons
why I'm sitting here talking to you about an army
and normal FI.

Speaker 1 (02:06:00):
There's a very re litigious faction of people in this
world that, for whatever reason, they see you as a mascot,
not as a veteran and a mascot.

Speaker 3 (02:06:11):
A mascot, you're You're a mascot of the machine.

Speaker 1 (02:06:15):
You're a mascot of whatever political party they want to
put you in. You're a mascot of the president who
gave you the award. Even though Obama approved this award,
Trump put it on me, and so naturally I'm a
I'm now a spokesperson for the Trump administration, and all
that vitriol that goes towards him is you know, comes
at you and because you're it's not fair, it's it's

(02:06:37):
i would say, it's criminal into some of the actions
that have that have occurred where you know that video
that you're talking just.

Speaker 3 (02:06:44):
About to say it went. In the video you say,
I don't care how you vote, I don't care how
you worship, I don't care, I don't care who you love,
how you I don't care any of it.

Speaker 1 (02:06:55):
I'm like, they're like, I'm a gay soldier. Awesome, be
super gay. We're fighting the communists Chinese tomorrow and you
and your Gloria astevon iPod are gonna come with us
and we're going to fight China together.

Speaker 2 (02:07:08):
It doesn't matter.

Speaker 1 (02:07:10):
I don't care where you are a soldier. You're a professional.
And by the way, all of the distractions of heterosexuals, homosexuals,
you name it, they are superseded by professionalism.

Speaker 2 (02:07:23):
We don't. You're not if you're in an office.

Speaker 3 (02:07:26):
And by the way, this comes from a Christian man.

Speaker 1 (02:07:29):
Exactly, I'm not even it's not even to me.

Speaker 2 (02:07:33):
My whole point is is that.

Speaker 3 (02:07:34):
But it's not even about that.

Speaker 1 (02:07:35):
It's not even about that. If you're a headosexual that
cannot separate what you're attracted to in the middle of
the confines of a of a work day, I got
problems with that too, all right. If I walk into
a conference room and you're slapping fannies when we're trying
to get work, you're a distraction. You need to go.

Speaker 2 (02:07:55):
I don't want that.

Speaker 1 (02:07:56):
I don't want that in my unit. I don't want
that on my team. I want a profession at all.
And if you happen to be born a woman, and
you're here as a female. You are not a woman.
You're not a female. You are a soldier and you're
gonna do the job. But if you can't do the job,
I'm sorry. You're on the cutting line too, and I

(02:08:17):
watch you there.

Speaker 2 (02:08:17):
Let's do it.

Speaker 1 (02:08:18):
We're here to win, and winning means saving lives. That's
what it means. It's not about feeling good. There's a
lot of people that want to be like I feel
good about the direction the military.

Speaker 2 (02:08:29):
Is going, and you're not. You don't have skin in
the game.

Speaker 1 (02:08:32):
You could, you know, the best way to feel good
is watching him a bunch of veterans and a parade
at the end of the war, walking in a formation
that makes you feel good. But your policies of whatever,
you're trying to turn this thing into a peatri dish
of horrible idea. I mean, this is a it doesn't
work at Harvard. Let's try in the United States. Paratupers.

(02:08:54):
But what are we doing? You're you're just you're gutting
all of the things that make you know there was
a time America, whether it's board versus you know, of education,
or brown versus Board of Education, or plusy versus ferguson
all of the issues that we had with integration in America.
The military led the way the military was integrated before

(02:09:17):
our government was integrated, and all of the promises from
Andrew Jackson to George Washington, if you black men have
died along white men since this nation's inception, from the
Boston massacre to you know, our first battles of the revolution,
African Americans have bled along with white people. This our

(02:09:37):
failure is man and leadership. Leadership has failed America. It's
never defined our Declaration or our Constitution the way it
was written to be. But that's man, and that's leadership.
The institution is what needs to be preserved. The institution
made the steps when our society couldn't make the steps.

(02:09:57):
We don't need to tinker with that. You're not a
black man in the military and you're not a white man.
My old sar major who died in Felujah said, you're green.
That's your color. You're green, and we're all green. And
we're all gonna go two days without food, we're all
gonna go three days without sleep, and at the end,
you're gonna be there for each other. And that's what

(02:10:20):
we did from all parts of this contrary, all backgrounds,
all suspective sexualities. I never was like, I need four
machine gunning Democrats, and I need them at a four hundred.
I need some people that are a four partil birth abortion,
and we need them on this chalk at zero seven.

(02:10:40):
No one gives a damn. Do your job, do it
to the best of your ability. I know we cancel
each other's vote out. I don't care. I don't care.
I don't care what your team is, what college. With
all these rivalries Oklahoma, Texas, we got a huge you're
you're an American and that's beautiful. And to play with
that now, at this time in our country shows that

(02:11:02):
we just we just have petulant children. We don't have
mature adults, and we need more emotionally stable adults running
our government. And we have a lot of of and
they're on both sides, but it's it's really gutting. Our
West Point is a joke. They're just they are going
to war with our military academies, the Air Force Academy.

(02:11:26):
The graduation this year was famous because Biden fell over
a sandbag and and we talked about him falling, but
the real story of the what the Air Force graduation
had nothing to do with the President of United States.
It had to do with the two designated huggers. What
I'm gonna say that again, designated huggers. What is that
when you got your diploma, these two air men and

(02:11:46):
women hugged you because you were a graduate. The Air
Force Academy put hugging designators at the end of that ceremony.
To me, far far outweighs any president and his inability
to keep his equilibrium. That is, this is the way.

(02:12:07):
You can't say mom and dad at the Air Force
Academy anymore because it offends people. Do a mom and dad.
Get all this crap out. That's the that's universities. You
want to do that in your public school systems. Elections
have consequences, you know, Go ahead, go go do all that,
but don't touch our military. Our military has had proud

(02:12:30):
men and women serving, dying and sat Arlington Cemetery has
gay soldiers buried in it. So not a single one
of them would have would have wanted to be identified
as anything other than American patriot. We are cheapening that sacrifice.
He got four hundred thousand men and women who gave

(02:12:51):
their lives to this country, and we're gonna put their
entire life's worth into what they're attracted to and who
they love. No one gives a dim about that, no cares.
You're not reading Audie Murphy. You know what takeaway from
Autie Murphy? He was attracted to women? Did you know that?

Speaker 2 (02:13:05):
Does anyone give it?

Speaker 1 (02:13:07):
Does anyone care? Do I need to know in your designation?
He killed forty seven Germans, beat them with a hatchet,
and he loved men, like who cares?

Speaker 2 (02:13:19):
That's the takeaway.

Speaker 1 (02:13:20):
If that's the takeaway, you're just in the wrong job.
I'm sure there's a Silicon Valley job that puts that
as they're hiring. You know, none of that is. I
don't care what you love or who you vote for,
if you're willing to say, worship how you worship, if
you're willing to I got Muslims all over this army
that are serving, that are dying and said we don't

(02:13:41):
do anything in Iraq without a Rakis that are willing
to sacrifice for Americans. Those turps and those soldiers, interpreters,
they died ten to one over Americans over the contractors.

Speaker 3 (02:13:57):
Look, how about this I bet people would be surprised
to find out that about five percent of the people
serving the United States military are not American citizens.

Speaker 2 (02:14:06):
Hey, listen, that's a great pathway to citizenship.

Speaker 1 (02:14:10):
That's that's joint serve. All I need you to know
is that America is more worthy and important than we are.

Speaker 2 (02:14:19):
That's what it takes.

Speaker 1 (02:14:21):
Is this country going to just implode on our differences
or are we willing to say the great part about
America is we acknowledge our faults. We achieve to be
better than yesterday. And most importantly, there are bad people
in this world. There are evil people in this world,
and they want to take, they want to rape, they

(02:14:42):
want to kill, and they want to dominate. We have
to stand as the greatest force of good. And if
you are willing to say that, America is emblematic of that,
and my life is going to be dedicated to the
service of the greatest force of good in this world.
I want you here and all that other stuff. I'm
sure we'll talk about it eventually when it comes to

(02:15:04):
when we have a banquet and you know you have
a different partner than I have, we'll talk. It's not
going to at all diminish my professionalism. It cheapens my
professionalism to assume that your difference is going to take
me off my stride. And it's disrespectful to you to
believe that your difference is going to impact your job.

(02:15:25):
This is a problem. It's a problem, and if we
don't fix this problem, we're going to lose the only
aspect of our federal government that had ninety percent approval rating,
which is our military. People love our military, and they're
trying to turn it into you know, Stanford University, and
I'm going to go out swinging to make sure that

(02:15:47):
never happens.

Speaker 3 (02:15:51):
Oh my goodness, it is so good to hear the
truth of that perspective.

Speaker 2 (02:16:02):
But that brings me to the lawsuits.

Speaker 1 (02:16:04):
That's what the problem tends to be. Sometimes there's a
little fear of litigation here and there.

Speaker 3 (02:16:14):
We'll be right back. Tell me about marily Carlson.

Speaker 2 (02:16:27):
So she is a gold star mother.

Speaker 1 (02:16:30):
She's the mother, Yes, gold stars, blue star parents have
a son or daughter that serves in the military. A
gold star parent is someone who loses someone in the military.
Uh a son or daughter, son or daughter, son or
daughter who loses someone in the military. And she was
a gold Star Mom that I had met in Washington,
d C. At a gold Star Mom event, and she

(02:16:52):
started talking about her son, and you know, she's from Minnesota.
I didn't think anything of it. And then she had
mentioned that her son's nickname was Shrek, and that just
kind of dropped me because immediately he's that guy. He
went to school in Minnesota with the stud first Basement

(02:17:16):
for the twins. They went to high school together. He
was just a great football player. This kid was about
two hundred and sixty five pounds in the military, carried
a machine gun like it was a toothpick. I mean,
just a big, big Minnesota bread Viking kid. But he
was one of my dearest friends. And he was in
second Platoon in Alpha Company, and he died at the

(02:17:37):
very end of the deployment with five other guys in
a really horrible situation. But her, she was constantly trying
to get me to see Michael Carlson at Arlington, and
I just I knew what that meant. It knew that
the little game I'd been playing since I came home

(02:18:00):
of it's not real. Michael's just off somewhere. I'll never
talk to him again. People get, you know, how many
people from your high school class do you talk to? Well,
what if I told you they're all dead? You could
rationalize not talking to them Again, life takes you separate ways.
We don't begrudge the people that we don't talk to
every Arlington and now it's real, real, Now it's real,

(02:18:22):
it's in. Granted, it's in. He's right there. And I
didn't want to do that, and so she was constantly
trying to get me to do it in a way
that I didn't want to do it. And then I
saw her doing this for so many other parents that
have gone with lost soldiers, that her entire life is

(02:18:44):
living for other people and trying to bring them through
this horrific journey of getting that notification, making sense of it,
trying to love and be a part of all the
people who survived, but also be there for whether their
friend who happens to be her boy. I can't. I

(02:19:07):
I was very stubborn. And then finally she just broke
me down and and we did it, and I realized
that I was It was unnatural to hold that those
feelings back. It was unnatural to not be able to grieve.
It was it was occupying space in my life that

(02:19:29):
wasn't needed to be there, and I didn't. I didn't
have anything to be ashamed of, because honestly, I couldn't
support and love and be kind to her unless I
showed her that her son actually meant enough to me,
enough to me where I could honor him in a

(02:19:52):
way that.

Speaker 3 (02:19:54):
Had I had to. You had to succumb to your
own vulnerability to be able to do that.

Speaker 1 (02:20:07):
I didn't exactly do it, And that's the part that
I had a hard time with because it would always
be like there would always be steps that we would
go and I would find a reason not to and
it wasn't a matter of you know, the vulnerability thing. True,
I'm not good with that emotions. I'm probably not the
best person to do a Dear Abby column, you know

(02:20:29):
what I mean. Everything's going to end with their losers
leave them, you know what I mean? Like, you know
what I'm saying, no matter what the situation. But but
I do find I do find that when a mother
is grieving her son, that there are things that you
owe it. It's an obligation. If I had to make

(02:20:49):
the choice to do this for me, it never would
have happened because I don't want to feel that way,
and I don't want to be put in that position,
but being obligated to do it for someone who gave
us their son. Now it's not about me, it's about her.
And she kind of used that reverse psychology to get
me away to mourn.

Speaker 3 (02:21:11):
And I mean, how honorable of her.

Speaker 1 (02:21:20):
She's incredible. She's again I I she's a she was,
you know, obviously respected in our she's like the adopted mom.

Speaker 2 (02:21:31):
And our and our group.

Speaker 1 (02:21:32):
Uh and in a sense, that's her own vour Listen,
that's everywhere again, that's that's the now you're talking about
my mission statement. Everyone has it. Everyone has it, everyone
displays it, everyone goes through it bad. You know, we
we we talk about the different things that we want
to Well this is more impressive than that.

Speaker 2 (02:21:53):
Can you imagine?

Speaker 1 (02:21:55):
That's human nature and everyone's gonna but at the end
of the day, those stories are going to go away.
And the people we don't talk about eighteen ninety eight,
we don't talk about nineteen ten. We talk about our
real world in our lifetime. Our lifetimes are going to go.
But as a society and as a culture, we have
to be the group. There's something uniquely in our pedigree

(02:22:17):
as American citizens that Europeans don't have.

Speaker 2 (02:22:20):
I've seen it for myself.

Speaker 1 (02:22:22):
Maybe you have. There's certain parts of the world where
you don't stand up and speak your mind.

Speaker 2 (02:22:28):
It's not worth it.

Speaker 1 (02:22:30):
You know, there's no ambition to do anything outside your
comfort zone because there is a force, or there's a government,
or there's something out there that will kinetically put you down. Americans,
this city is built on standing up when everyone else
tells you not to stand up, to represent things that
you're not supposed to represent. And how that changes everything,

(02:22:52):
and how one little town that's not even the town
you think of when you think of the state, you
think of Nashville, of that Memphis changed America and America
changed the world. So, I mean, there's so much to
be said about encouraging That's who we are as a people.

(02:23:13):
And we can never forget the group that literally said life,
whether it's a cop, a fireman, or a soldier that
literally gives their life for the greater good in the community.

Speaker 2 (02:23:26):
That's something you've got.

Speaker 1 (02:23:27):
To Mourning it is one thing if it's personal, but
celebrating it. I tell people that the memorial days should
be celebrated with turkey and gravy and mashed potatoes. That
should be Thanksgiving.

Speaker 2 (02:23:41):
Our Thanksgiving should be a memorial day.

Speaker 1 (02:23:43):
We should be grateful that our nation exists where people
are willing to say and all this crazy chaos, this
country's worth it.

Speaker 2 (02:23:52):
You're worth it.

Speaker 1 (02:23:53):
I had a Vietnam vet. Everyone thanks me for my
service everywhere I go, and they're like, thank you for
your service, and you don't know what to say, Like, hey,
college wasn't working out, you know, a pretty good shot,
I figured, you know, like, what what do you say
where they say thank you for your service?

Speaker 2 (02:24:08):
Like you're welcome.

Speaker 1 (02:24:09):
So it's pretentious, this Vietnam vet told me Gary Biker.
He said, next time someone does that, look him in
the eye and say you're worth it.

Speaker 3 (02:24:18):
Oh wow.

Speaker 2 (02:24:19):
And that, by the way, do that in La. They'll
think you're saying you know.

Speaker 1 (02:24:23):
It's like it's like I tell people, it's like substituting
God bless you with someone sneezes and you say, Jesus
loves you.

Speaker 2 (02:24:30):
You know what I mean? Like this totally freaking their freak.
They're not accustomce to it.

Speaker 1 (02:24:35):
But but the fact is, when someone thanks you for
your service, you say you know what, you're worth it,
and it totally changes the dynamic. It does ultimately, that's
exactly why everyone does something for the community, because you're
worth it.

Speaker 3 (02:24:50):
What you gained from your experience with her, she.

Speaker 1 (02:24:55):
Taught me that she didn't Those weren't her words, but
those were her actions, and that's the love she showed me.
And I'm a fever grateful Marrily Carlson is a.

Speaker 2 (02:25:05):
Yeah. I love her and I appreciate her.

Speaker 3 (02:25:08):
Since it's talking about a metal celebrating valor and her
valor and the Rambrod's valor, there's another little piece of
valor that has inspired you, and it oddly was at
the end of your father's life. Yeah, tell us about that.

Speaker 1 (02:25:23):
Everyone that I had seen, everyone fought for their life,
and it was usually in a very small window, and
whether they won the fight or they lost the fight,
no one gave into it. And I had the perception
through seeing people was that death is horrible and death

(02:25:48):
is the worst thing in the world, and we avoided
at all costs, and when we die, we failed and
we lost.

Speaker 2 (02:25:54):
You lose the battle, you lose the fight, you pass away.

Speaker 1 (02:25:59):
My dad was first time I saw death and I
saw strength in it, and I saw a person that
the way they went into death was so fearless.

Speaker 2 (02:26:12):
It was just I have faith, and I believe this.

Speaker 1 (02:26:16):
And you know a lot of people have faith until
they see their own blood on the ground, or they
realized that the end is near, and then there's a panic.
This is a guy who just absolutely had no panic
to him. He had no panic, he had no fear.
He was, you know, almost like he was looking at

(02:26:38):
an almanac of so Saint Peter, I'm gonna take a
rite at that accent.

Speaker 5 (02:26:42):
You know, like it was.

Speaker 1 (02:26:43):
But he was so confident of what was going to
happen when he died, that he had a trip take
you know, the whole thing. It was so I never
seen anything like it before, and I was forever changed
by it. And so do I think of you know,
we all think of our parents at an age. I
think of my dad thirty or I was twelve, or
I was whatever. Every image I have with my dad

(02:27:06):
is of that image, because as though I lionized him
and thought he was Superman when I was nine, I
never saw him stronger, tougher, or more worthy of the
title of being, you know, my hero than.

Speaker 3 (02:27:22):
When he died, which is incredible that the strongest you
see him was at his dad.

Speaker 1 (02:27:27):
Yeah. Yeah, because he just went in it with there
was this. He didn't lose. He didn't lose. He didn't
he didn't quit. He was just like, it's gonna this
is happening and I have no control over it. But
I'll tell you what, I'd love to have another twenty
years with you. I love to have another twenty years
with my grandkids, but I'm not going to have that.

Speaker 2 (02:27:49):
So I'm I'm I know where I'm going, I know
what I'm what I was promised.

Speaker 1 (02:27:53):
I know who I am, But more importantly, I know
who you are, and I know that this was the
perfect amount of time time to get you out there
to do what you have to do. And just know that,
you know, I'll be with you, and You're You're loved,
You'll always be loved, You'll I'll always be proud of you.
But I'm just not going to be here for it.

Speaker 3 (02:28:14):
What I'm awesome? What what I'm awesome? Into a story
that started with the sickening feeling you got from the
look from your father.

Speaker 1 (02:28:28):
Yeah, shame, Yeah, absolutely shame.

Speaker 4 (02:28:31):
Two completing other pride, Yeah, yeah, no, he returned that
to me and and uh and that that's that's cool.

Speaker 2 (02:28:43):
I I won't.

Speaker 1 (02:28:44):
I can't.

Speaker 2 (02:28:45):
That's you.

Speaker 1 (02:28:46):
Those are experiences that you have and you're just like,
I can't be the same person, you know what I mean,
it's too profound.

Speaker 3 (02:28:52):
And clearly that helps support your greatness.

Speaker 2 (02:28:54):
Well, I know it's weird to be called great normal folk.

Speaker 3 (02:28:59):
That's no, you're right.

Speaker 1 (02:29:01):
I listen, this has been a everything that you're talking
about now. It plays so perfectly into you know, are
there veterans out there and listening to this program. Maybe
there are, maybe there aren't. But I can tell you
that whatever separates us and what we decide to do
to serve that element of service is identical why we
do the things we do to make the group better,

(02:29:22):
to make the team better. I know, a quality team
is going to have individuals that will remember these life
lessons when they're out.

Speaker 3 (02:29:31):
Of work, and in your experience and in what we're
talking about, that team, as our country and the army,
is each of us. Yes, absolutely, we'll be right back

(02:29:55):
so as you as listeners and viewers can see David's
far from just a meathead soldier. After service, you wrote
the first book that I read, which by and large

(02:30:16):
is the account of what you've just shared with us. Right,
what year did you write it?

Speaker 2 (02:30:22):
That was two thousand and six.

Speaker 1 (02:30:23):
It came out in seven, two thousand and six.

Speaker 3 (02:30:26):
Came out in two thousand and seven. And was it
with the help of the I actually don't know this.

Speaker 2 (02:30:34):
The John Bruney.

Speaker 1 (02:30:36):
Yeah, yeah, John Bruney has awesome one of my dearest friends.
I've known him since then.

Speaker 2 (02:30:40):
I love him.

Speaker 1 (02:30:41):
John Bruney is I think one of the most talented
writers today. And Rayporter, who did the reporter who did
that is the Harry Potter guy. He did the voice.
He does all the great books. If there's a bestseller
out there, Rayporter does the voices.

Speaker 2 (02:30:56):
He's amazing.

Speaker 3 (02:30:57):
So House to House I read it in five hours
on my cell phone one night, and that's when I,
I guess I gained a man crush on you.

Speaker 1 (02:31:06):
Well, I appreciate the House to House is a guy
coming home from war that's just really doesn't know what's
going on. And and you know, I when they read
did they did a new version of House to House?
And and I just started deleting, you know, a lot
of cuss words that I don't you know. I wasn't
particularly proud at one point. I think there was like
one hundred and seventy seven on one page, and I

(02:31:29):
was like, you know, maybe they get the point after
the first Well, well we'll change that. But it was
a guy coming up from war that was sick of,
you know, writing what I thought was like war pornography
and it and it didn't war. Yeah, the sense that
people want to just read about killing people and shooting

(02:31:50):
peopleship rather than.

Speaker 3 (02:31:52):
What what this is?

Speaker 1 (02:31:53):
That was a themoir, you know, it was about my
team and my unit. And then when The Metal Honor
comes out, there like please write a book. It has
it could be about anything, and I'm like, well I
want that to be a middle aged man looking back,
which is which is remember Them, and it's a more
mature Twenty two came out in twenty twenty.

Speaker 3 (02:32:16):
Two Remember the Rods, which is your homage to many
of the names and others that we've done.

Speaker 1 (02:32:24):
By the way, if you if you zoom in on
the you don't know if you can't do that. But
that Metal of Honor is the Air Force Medal of
Honor there, and that really bothers men and uh, I
wish I would have caught that, But anyway, neither here
to there. It's a book that it's a more mature book.
I'm I'm just trying to look back and make sense
of kinds.

Speaker 3 (02:32:42):
It really is not about a plug to sell books.

Speaker 2 (02:32:45):
It's no, let's turn into it if you know.

Speaker 3 (02:32:48):
For me, it's about the greater the greater story of
an army in normal folks exactly, and the greater story
of supporting greatness. Which is a normal kid that grew
up in New York with in a town without a stoplight,
who doesn't even have the temerity or the courage to

(02:33:13):
confront shirtless methaddicts while they walk around stealing VCRs from
your family home. Who is mortified by the look of
shame in his father's eyes. Who joins the army to
find something inside him so that he can better himself.
Who ends up clearing a house of insurgents I guess

(02:33:36):
they're called insurgents of the enemy in Felujah literally hand
to hand. And who leaves all that behind and has
a story written about him that leads to the Medal
of honor, where you're one of one in the world,
Which is the only guy with that thing that's living
today from those battles. Who writes a book about not

(02:34:02):
only that experience, but then a second book celebrating the
very people that did support his greatness and obviously has
an enormous passion for the vitality of our diverse military.
And it's just this, this story wrought with love and

(02:34:27):
honor and valor and irony, and you're the tip of
a spear that's entire shaft is held together about all
of these people, your father, your grandfather, the Ramrods, the
media that was around you, And I just got to

(02:34:48):
ask you, you know, does the does the weight bear
down on your shoulders? I?

Speaker 1 (02:34:57):
You know, I so hearing you tell them whole story.
I really should have been tipped off that they were shirtless.

Speaker 5 (02:35:03):
That I think about it really was to take away
away say that I was like, what the hell was
I think? Shirtless David? But you could tell that really
sunk into his head because he was like, they were shirtless?

Speaker 2 (02:35:18):
Well, what were you thinking? Like telling the.

Speaker 3 (02:35:22):
Shirts?

Speaker 1 (02:35:25):
Watched I watched your your documentary, and I gotta tell
you that there's it started a cottage industry of things
that are all trying to be what undefeated was and
uh I, I was obviously taken by what you were
trying to do with that program, the kids that you
were working with, the intent in which you conducted yourself,

(02:35:47):
and then of course everything you've done since then. It's
in a way one of the things that I was.
I wanted to meet you, but I also wanted to
do this podcast because I believe in my heart that
our biggest problem is that we take you know, military people, police,
fire all the folks out there that are doing the jobs, education, hospitals,

(02:36:08):
all the people we need in our world, and we
put them on pedestals that say, I can never do that.
I'll never be that guy, right, And in a way,
that inoculates a lot of people whom never trying to
be that person in their world. Now, I hope you
never ever get into a situation we have to kick

(02:36:28):
down a door, because I mean, honestly, people always ask me, David,
if you could do it over again, would you And
I tell them no, not.

Speaker 2 (02:36:35):
A change to drop the bomb, And you mean, why
would I want to go through that again?

Speaker 1 (02:36:40):
No, not a chance of that. I would have waited
for the a ten I would have waited. I would
have put a ten out waiting for that eight ten.
I never would have done that again. So they're like, well,
but what is it about you that's different? My entire
life's mission is to remind people that there is no difference,
and there should be no difference. There is a moment

(02:37:00):
in your life that you're going to have a Medal
of honor moment. It might not come with a reporter,
and hopefully not with machine guns and rockets, but you're
going to see a kid who's going to get who's bullied.
You're going to see a person who's overweight and everyone's
making fun of them. There's going to be a you know,
someone with mental difficulties that everyone's trying to take advantage of.

(02:37:21):
That's the moment that you stand up and say not
a chance. I'm not going to tolerate that. I'm going
to stand up for weak people. I'm going to stand
up for people who can't defend themselves. I'm gonna take
a kid that doesn't have a mom or dad at
home and tell that kid that they're loved, they have value,
and change their direction. That's a metal of Honor moment
in our lives, and the more people that we can

(02:37:43):
look at and say, Wow, this kid, when no mom
and dad worked hard, went Division one, is now a
multi millionaire. He's so lucky. That's when I think we
just add to the corrosion in our world. They're not lucky, right.
You could have done that too. You chose not to
go and you don't have the gifts to play football.
You have the gifts to be an intellect. You can

(02:38:06):
go to school, you can get a degree. You could
work the extra hours no one wants to work to
get promoted. You can decide not to put people in
your lives that get you pregnant and run away from you.
You can make all of these decisions that better you.
Do you find value in yourself and do you have
the greatness in yourself to realize that needs to be protected.

(02:38:28):
Everyone has individual greatness. You have to protect it. You
have to keep it from the outside world. And when
there are the thugs and the idiots that are out
there that want to try to steal from your great
because that's the thing about idiots, they're attracted to greatness.
They barnacle to the uss greatness. When you're out there
doing your thing, you ever notice in your life everything

(02:38:49):
you're doing wrong, and man, you are just getting through.
Everything's great. You're lying, you're being an idiot, you're misrepresenting,
You're not doing the things you're supposed to do. You
wake up at a lot and a clock. You don't
brush your teeth anymore, you smoke menthols. You've mixed it
up right. You're living your life and you're just a

(02:39:09):
complete loser. And there is no obstacle in your world.
Everything is just moving alone. The moment you decide no,
I'm gonna discipline myself, I'm gonna show integrity when people
aren't looking. I'm gonna do the right things, say the
right things, be the right person. That's when everything comes
your way. Everything comes your way to tell you you sure,

(02:39:29):
you sure you don't want to just not go to
the gym. You sure you just want to eat whatever
you want to eat. You're sure you just want to
You know, no one's gonna know, no one's gonna know
who you're talking to or who you're hanging out with.

Speaker 3 (02:39:39):
Do it.

Speaker 1 (02:39:40):
Those are the times that everything comes crashing down, and
that's when you realize that if a moron can get
you to get in their car when they're drunk, they're
not a moron, because they got you. And if a
moron can get you to cheat on a test, guess what,
they're not so stupid.

Speaker 2 (02:39:58):
They got you to do it.

Speaker 1 (02:40:00):
You've got to realize that once you're living a life
and you have identified your greatness, you've got to protect it.

Speaker 2 (02:40:07):
We got to protect it.

Speaker 1 (02:40:09):
I get so upset when I hear adults asking young
people what do you want to be when you grow up?
Right now, that's a slippery slope. At some point, you
want to have the world to know this is what
I want to do. At the other point, you want
to protect that dream because you know that once you
tell the world I want to play Division one football,

(02:40:30):
everyone of the right mind is going to invite you
to a party on Friday night. Everyone in the right
mind is going to want you to hang out with
a crowd that's going to be around drugs and alcohol
and guns and all this other crap. They know that
because you have a destiny and a path, and idiots
are going to want to get on that path and
take you off it. And so not only do we

(02:40:51):
have to remind people that there is no separation between
people who achieve and people who don't. The separation is
the discip and the will and the ability to say
the one word I learned in my forties, and that
is no. And then I learned another word that goes
with it, which is hell. No.

Speaker 4 (02:41:11):
No.

Speaker 1 (02:41:11):
I don't want this. I don't want you. I don't
want to be associated with you. I don't want to say.
I don't want to be in that group. I don't
want to be in this crowd. I don't want to
hang out with you people. I have no obligation. My
obligation is to my family and to my own honor
and my own sense of spirit, and that is I'm
not betraying that. Not because it looks good on a

(02:41:33):
Wiki entry, not because I get a beer with my
face on it. I do it because it's my obligation
to do.

Speaker 2 (02:41:40):
It's me.

Speaker 1 (02:41:41):
I'm more important than you and some of these generation
you know, we look at Generation ZE and say they're
narcissistic and they're selfish.

Speaker 2 (02:41:49):
I'd like some of that.

Speaker 1 (02:41:51):
I know a lot of people that sacrifice so much
they have no sense of self. Why are you doing?
Why are you standing out constructing a knit piece of
your anatomy and wearing it on your head and punching
police horses. You're doing it for the cause. The cause
doesn't get a damn about you. You're an idiot and
you're following the herd. Maybe these young kids that are

(02:42:13):
all about them, we need to empower them to truly
be about them and realize, if you want a great community,
we got great individuals that make a great community. Be
a strong individual, protect the people that can't protect themselves,
Be a mentor to as many people as possible, and
be a part of the most dynamic community in the
greatest country in the world. You mean an army of

(02:42:35):
an army of normal I thought we weren't plugging. Now
we are, well plug the book, but we'll.

Speaker 3 (02:42:44):
That's what you are in a New York accent and
a different layout, but exactly what I believe.

Speaker 1 (02:42:49):
Well, I really I know a person that has come
from all the ups and downs, all the things that
you've endured, and why you do it.

Speaker 2 (02:42:59):
I mean, are great.

Speaker 1 (02:43:01):
You know, coaching at that level is awesome. That the
the attention is fun. But if you're if you're on
your deathbed and you're like, you know, if I only
had three more days to play that app, you know
what I feel like who on their deathbed is like, man,
if I would have got that extra Coach of the year,
you know, I could have one more plaque and I

(02:43:24):
could just suck up the slag and meet the hereafter.
No one gives a damn about it. But I'm telling you,
what if if to be able to look at yourself
and realize that that there is a young person out
there that's that's going to do something that makes them
uncomfortable and grow and be their own person. That's what

(02:43:49):
the inner city needs, That's what our country rural area needs,
That's what the suburbs need. You know, they want to
separate us by music, skin, color, socioeconomic backround, sexual preference, religion, politics.
There is so much more that we have in common, right,
and the toxicity that's out there are people who need

(02:44:12):
it to be toxic. They're the ones that are profiting
off this toxicity. And all I'm saying is they're scumbags.
They're no different than the people in the garage on
a Friday night going to the Division one athlete. Let's
get high and drunk and shoot guns in the air.
It's the same type of person. They've just graduated at astrays.

Speaker 3 (02:44:34):
So David, you have served this country and lost friends,
I guess brothers in arms. You've reached the host honor
there is for any military man in the United States.

(02:44:57):
And now after all of that, you are clearly you
clearly have a message to tell in your books and
and the things you speak about and in supporting greatness.
You know, we talk about your grandfather teaching how to

(02:45:17):
be studying, your father teaching how to be unflappable, and
the Ramrod's giving you accountability. What's the most important tenant
that God's your life today?

Speaker 2 (02:45:33):
Accountability?

Speaker 3 (02:45:34):
Accountability more than anything, More.

Speaker 2 (02:45:36):
Than anything I I.

Speaker 1 (02:45:39):
You know, I'm going to make mistakes, I'm going to
be imperfect, I'm going to be loud, I'm going to
want to, you know, do things that I'm that frustrate me.
But at the end of the day, you know, I
have to be accountable. And that's a proactive thing too.
Right when you're accountable, you could be proactive to not

(02:46:01):
do the things that you know are are not things
that you should be doing.

Speaker 3 (02:46:05):
My football coach always said, the true measure of accountability
is what you do when you're alone, and nobody will
to absolutely. In other words, it's easy to be accountable
when you know that if you do something, your parents,
your coach or teacher going to find out. But when
when you have the opportunity to do something you shouldn't
be doing that nobody would ever know, and you don't

(02:46:27):
do it anyway because it's the right thing to do,
that's when you become truly accountable.

Speaker 1 (02:46:35):
Do you know What's funny? Though? Like, Okay, so you're
right now as a coach, you're far better than you
were when you were in your late twenties.

Speaker 3 (02:46:42):
Or gosh right, I was Listen, I loved kids just
as much back then as I do now. But I'm
gonna tell you something I sucked from that X as
an O standpoint.

Speaker 1 (02:46:53):
Okay, so there's no reason that Paul McCartney is not
a better musician today than he was when he was
twenty two.

Speaker 3 (02:47:04):
And this is a I think with reguard to that,
doesn't don't you think age has something to do?

Speaker 1 (02:47:08):
I don't. I think it has to do with suffering. Really,
suffering is what there's a moment of everything that you
get in life. You know, they say the ancient saying
is that everything you want is on the other side
of fear, right, but the artist will tell you you
have to suffer for your art.

Speaker 2 (02:47:26):
The professional will.

Speaker 1 (02:47:27):
Tell you you have to be in that windowless room
and do your ten thousand hours before you can get
a business card. And then you get your office and
your staff, and then you hit your stride and then
you work hard. But at some point everyone says this
is enough. And it's okay to say that, but you
can say this is enough.

Speaker 3 (02:47:45):
I've had enough.

Speaker 2 (02:47:46):
I've had enough.

Speaker 1 (02:47:47):
I don't need it, I don't want it. There's other
things that are important. Paul McCartney doesn't need to go
on the road when he's eighty, right, Mick Jagger evidently
does right. It's a totally different but it just shows
you it's it's.

Speaker 2 (02:48:00):
Not what he wants.

Speaker 1 (02:48:01):
Right. But somehow we have taken out that suffering part
along the journey, that it really sucks to get up
at five am every day and do exercises. No one
wants that. Do you have to do it at five am?
Some people have to because they have to suffer. They
have to put themselves through something to say I worked
for it and it was needed and and what I

(02:48:24):
think we we've done in the era of helicopter parents
to the parents that are the bulldozer parents. We used
to want to be there when you made a decision.
Now we want to eliminate the obstacle completely so you
have a perfect life.

Speaker 3 (02:48:37):
So you're stripping the opportunity for your children to suffer.

Speaker 1 (02:48:41):
To suffer us because ultimately, what it is is it.

Speaker 3 (02:48:48):
You take away their ability to learn how to be accountable.

Speaker 2 (02:48:52):
That's what it all.

Speaker 1 (02:48:53):
That's that's what we're getting back to everything. If there's
one thing I could tell the young people we do
it all over the high schools and the colleges, every
where we go, is we tell them the one thing
that's different about you than any other generation is adults
have failed you in reminding you that that it's it's
negative and bad to fail. That's how we failed you.

(02:49:15):
We failed you because of failure. You are afraid to
make a mistake and you're afraid to make to screw up.
And that is the essence of everything we do. We
don't practice. At the end of practice, guys, I don't
know why we're gonna do this tomorrow. That was brilliant,
that was awesome. We're good, right, what are you doing? No,
there's always there's always a correction. There's always going to

(02:49:38):
be a mistake.

Speaker 3 (02:49:39):
Iron That metal wouldn't be sitting on the stable if
you hadn't failed in your parents' house one night.

Speaker 1 (02:49:44):
Or if I hadn't failed in that house. Let's be honest,
you're gonna fail throughout everything. There's mistakes that you make
that you realize. I don't want to be in a
house full of six people. That's not a by plan.
You know, you got through it, whatever lessons you learned,
you got through it. But a Valor award is based
on really bad intelligence and really bad situation. Little where

(02:50:05):
it is. You know.

Speaker 2 (02:50:07):
That's why we have these things. They're not supposed to happen.

Speaker 1 (02:50:10):
Otherwise we go to base of training and the first
day would be like we're gonna send twelve guys at you.

Speaker 3 (02:50:15):
I wouldn't require you to be in the house. If
everything worked out perfectly.

Speaker 1 (02:50:19):
It has to be a mistake. Everything is about mistake.
Those failures others more successes and you. All we have
to do is remind young people you're gonna screw up.
We want controlled failure, controlled failure where we know, at
the end of the day, you're gonna learn how to
drive a car.

Speaker 2 (02:50:37):
But just in case. I'm putting a brake pedal on
this side too. I'm just saying you're allowed to screw up, but.

Speaker 1 (02:50:43):
I do have access to the breaking system because I
don't exactly try. I want controlled failure. Give a kid
a left limit and a right limit, discipline them, give
them that controlled failure, and you're gonna have the best
adult we have in our society. We're gonna be better
than World War to, better than Vietnam, better than my generation.
If we continue down this path, no accountability failure doesn't exist.

(02:51:08):
Go be perfect and go create an R and B
album that's gonna get five hundred million downloads. We're gonna fail,
and we're gonna unfortunately, that's gonna be a failure that
you can't get out of.

Speaker 3 (02:51:20):
So as we before, we rout, what are you doing now?
I do this.

Speaker 1 (02:51:27):
This is what I do now. I did a radio
show before I was, you know, given the Medal of Honor,
and it was just something I love in my hometown.
Buffalo is such a great town and we're just Buffalo
is a place where you could be like, yeah, I
was on the Tonight Show yesterday and they're like, yeah,
but you weren't on the couch, you were standing. I

(02:51:48):
mean technically I was on the Tonight Show and I
wasn't even there. You know, like they have a way
to just humble you, and they're brilliantly exquisitely rough about it.
But it's just that blue collar don't ever think you're
better than got But really, yeah, but what is it?

Speaker 2 (02:52:09):
Really?

Speaker 1 (02:52:10):
I didn't even know what it is to be. Do
you have a daytime emmy, then shut up in sinnati. No,
Like there's a great way to masculate, he would give you.
But the people are assault of the earth. And we
had a horrific event where we had a white guy
walk into an all black neighborhood shoot up a bunch

(02:52:30):
of people in a grocery store every reason, and many
people tried to hijack that and make that about you know,
we have a problem, everyone hates everyone. How to We're
never going to fix it. Let's just exacerbate it and
throw gas on the fire. But we had clergy, We
had people in the inner city, people in the suburbs,
people come together and just say, look, we've got to

(02:52:53):
stop this from happening again. But more importantly, remind people
who we are. You know, it's the only everywhere there's
a mass It was the only time I've seen a
press conference for a mass shooting that opened with a
word of prayer and ended with a word of prayer,
with a sheriff and a mayor and a you name it.
It started with a prayer and it ended with a prayer.

(02:53:14):
And I'm very proud of my hometown and and that's
who we are. And being able to you know, talk
to them and you know, keep them going is something
I take a lot of a lot of pride in.

Speaker 3 (02:53:28):
David. I am, I am. I am so honored you
joined us. And you know, ironically, you this is kind
of a crossover show. You are just a normal guy
who's done amazing things for the service of so many
all of our country. The people you served with, the

(02:53:51):
young kids as a staff sergeant, she led, and then
which led to you being in a great position. And
talk about who supported your greatness, the Ramrods, your father,
your grandfather, the men you served with, and your stories
are so inspirational and the things you've had to say

(02:54:11):
or are so thought provoking, especially about let's not screw
up the one thing that ninety percent of us all
can agree on which is our military's good and the
people who serve in it are the best of us
and brother, I cannot thank you enough for joining us.

Speaker 2 (02:54:27):
Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (02:54:28):
I really appreciate this is a lot of fun, and
I hope this is the first of many conversations now
with cameras, but the first of many conversations we had
down the road. I look forward to having you and
being able to talk to you about everything else that's
happened in the world.

Speaker 3 (02:54:41):
Me too, Buke. I enjoyed it.

Speaker 2 (02:54:43):
It was good.

Speaker 3 (02:54:43):
Thank you, Thank you, and thank you for joining us
this week. If David or another guest has inspired you
in general, or better yet, to take action, please let
me know. I'd love to hear about it. You can
write me anytime at Bill at normalfolks dot us, and

(02:55:05):
I promise you I will respond. And if you enjoyed
this episode, please share it with friends and on social
subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it, become a
premium member at normalfolks dot us. All these things that
will help grow an army of normal folks For our
premium members. We'll have bonus content from this episode, and

(02:55:28):
it's David and I talking about post traumatic stress disorder
PTSD among his fellow soldiers, and he even corrects me
a little bit on this, and rightfully. So if you
don't want to miss it, become a Premium member today
and you'll see it. I'd also like to at the
end really tell you how much I appreciate our sponsor,

(02:55:50):
Iron Light Laps. I'm Bill Courtney. I'll see you next week.

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